JHK’s Three-Act Play
As the sage Robert Crumb once remarked about our homeland: “You can’t make this shit up.”
Sarah Palin entered the race for president this week (without stating it in so many words) with a national bus tour, itself kicked off with a motorcycle parade through Washington.
By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press – Sun May 29, 5:57 pm ETWASHINGTON – Sarah Palin rumbled through Washington on the back of a Harley as she and her family began an East Coast tour Sunday, renewing speculation that the former Alaska governor would join the still unsettled Republican presidential contest.Wearing a black leather jacket and surrounded by a throng of cheering fans, Palin and family members jumped on bikes and joined thousands of other motorcyclists on the Memorial Day weekend ride from the Pentagon to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial….“How do you wear all this leather and stay cool?” she asked one woman. Palin asked others to show off their tattoos as she took off her own leather jacket and worked her way through a crush of fans, photographers and reporters.
Adolf Hitler liked leather and crypto-military costumes, too, and the build-up to the Third Reich was all about colorful pageantry. Make no mistake – to borrow a favored presidential locution, if I may – Sarah Palin’s campaign is all about shame, about being a nation of losers and feeling bad about it. Adolf Hitler’s career was all about him feeling like a loser at a peculiar moment in history when his whole country felt like a loser nation. His feelings resonated with the crowd’s. Germany had just lost the First World War. The victors (England, France, The USA) had imposed a harsh peace, including massive cash reparations. Germany was broke, demoralized, and humiliated. Hitler had fled to Germany from his own loser homeland, the fading empire of Austria, after a shiftless decade in Vienna of living in rented rooms and homeless men’s shelters, having failed twice to get into the national arts college.
Hitler loved the First World War. It energized him. The German army was the first club he was comfortable being in. When the war was over, he stayed on the army’s payroll as long as possible, even as he became active in Munich’s post-war extremist politics. The emergent Nazi party was the second club he felt good being a member of. And it was in the years 1920 to 1923 that he discovered his theme: playing on Germans’ feelings of humiliation and promising deliverance back to lost greatness.
This is exactly the theme of Sarah Palin’s campaign. A large segment of the American public has entered the dark wilderness of loserdom. They’ve lost jobs, incomes, and even their homes. They can’t support a family, can’t afford to gas up their God-given cars, can hardly even afford to buy food – though many of this group have been programmed, tragically, to get much of their food from hamburger and taco dispensaries that “free market” America has generously dotted the landscape with. They are ashamed, especially living in a nation where liberty is supposed to enable you to get a leg up in the world, to be self-reliant, to make something of yourself. Hence, they imagine themselves to have somehow been deprived of liberty (and honor!) which they must now get back.
They have even lost their racial standing now that the role of president is occupied by a half-African man (who, they suspect, is not even a legitimate citizen, but rather an alien opportunist!). This is very hard for them to articulate, because racism is also something to be ashamed of, and they are already overwhelmed with shame – but nonetheless the old tribal-ethnic feelings dog them. So they express it in a convoluted way as the hobgoblin of “socialism” – the government lavishing money on people who don’t deserve it.
But wait a minute. What money for whom?
Not people on Medicare (“keep your hands off my Medicare!”).
Not people on Social Security (“ditto Social Security”).
Not Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks (“ditto Free Market Capitalism”).
Not the futility of endless war (“Support our troops!”)
Not people on food stamps (over 40 million Americans)
Not people on extended unemployment (10 percent official unemployment; probably more like 16 percent in reality).
So, who’s left? (“Do we have to say?”)
So, the Sarah Palin campaign – and, make no mistake (I love that phrase!) it is a campaign – trafficks in code and buzzwords about the shame of being losers. Her bus tour rolls heavy under the rubric: “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Recognize those phrases? They are from the national oath that we are all trained to recite in the first grade. Most of Sarah Palin’s followers got through the first grade – and are proud of it. The phrase that really rings out, though, is “justice for all.” For a nation of tattooed, hopelessly fat, angry people without jobs or incomes, filled with shame, this phrase resonates. How come no justice for us?
Hitler was more direct. From his emergence out of obscurity in the early 1920s, he made no bones about how come there was no justice for his followers: because it was stolen by the Jews, along with their honor and their greatness. Sarah Palin may never get as explicit, at least not without igniting some kind of new Civil War in the USA. So the bad feelings her followers nourish about being swindled out of their livelihoods and their honor are liable to be expressed indirectly and perversely. One avenue is the idea of “American Exceptionalism” that Palin is retailing to her followers. It is not unlike Hitler’s idea that Germans were a “master race” who were different (exceptional) from other people (and ought to rule them).
I prefer to be direct. Sarah Palin represents a dangerous force in American culture that is startlingly similar to the grandiose hyper-patriotic militarism that Hitler brought to Germany during his rise to power. We have better things to do in this nation than go down some twisted path of vengeance-seeking in the name of lost glory. I hope that Sarah Palin’s competitors on the right will stand up to her American fascist themes and call her out for what she is: a half-educated TV performer unqualified for high political office. The true shame of this country is that we have to take a clown like Sarah Palin seriously.
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James – What else do we need on Memorial Day? Fighting on the West Bank, war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya, with Yemen on tap, tornados tearing through the heartland, the big banks are bigger and still cooking the books. Everything is trying to tell us something about our extreme efforts to secure an oil-laden future at all costs. But our leaders don’t care about the messages, either from the people or from the planet itself. Our heroic Christian leadership has burned through the Rapture with no hopes of salvation, so the end game is “let’s grab as much as we can before it really ends.” Enjoy my thoughts today, kulturCritic.
http://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/the-rapture-the-end-game-the-hail-mary/
sic vis pacem, para bellum…
Sarah Palin is very good at practicing brain stem politics. She represents a serious threat to political discourse and needs to be marginalized.
I suspect someone else will fill the void though.
It’s Memorial Day, and Jim waxes nostalgic over Hitler in the comparison to Sarah Palin. I had expected a nice rant about the perpetual wars of this dying empire, drowning in unfathomable debt, utterly delusional, and in complete denial about any long emergency. …”Get your motor runnin'”
I believe that JHK was most prescient in his early predictions of peak oil giving rise to corn pone fascism. “She whose name must not be spoken” is a manifestation of my worst fears, my hope that she will be ignored and marginalized by the decent people of this country. However, it is a very scary time to be alive right now IMO!
As I read this, school bands & bagpipes are outside my window, tuning up and getting ready to march through my town in the annual Memorial Day parade, which begins near my house.
When the kids were small (and because it was so close) we went, and watched the boy scouts and girl scouts, school bands, politicians, old muscle cars, fire trucks, and aging veterans go by. Once I even marched in it – with the local peace group. (A bystander was heard to remark “there go those peace ding-dongs again”).
But I don’t know what this parade means anymore. To celebrate the waste, tragedy, and perversity of young people chewed up by a relentless war machine? I’m staying inside this year, marking the cruelty of war in quiet contemplation.
The last surviving veteran of WWI died recently at the age of 110. It was noted that he refused to march in parades.
It’s hard to imagine Americans taking Sarah Palin seriously.
Then again, thoughtful Germans didn’t take Hitler seriously either, until it was too late.
Jim, the following paragraph may be one of the most significant yet chilling I have yet read, out of the maelstrom of commentary and discussion here and on the many discussion boards over the past several years: I prefer to be direct.
“Sarah Palin represents a dangerous force in American culture that is startlingly similar to the grandiose hyper-patriotic militarism that Hitler brought to Germany during his rise to power. We have better things to do in this nation than go down some twisted path of vengeance-seeking in the name of lost glory. I hope that Sarah Palin’s competitors on the right will stand up to her American fascist themes and call her out for what she is: a half-educated TV performer unqualified for high political office. The true shame of this country is that we have to take a clown like Sarah Palin seriously.”
When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross? I’m not so sure. Maybe it will be wrapped in the flag and riding on the back of a Harley!
I suppose there were many in Germany who considered Hitler to be a clown.
Sarah P. Superstar, who in the world do you think you are?…
Thanks for addressing the nightmare that is Sarah Palin–Oh and as a talking head said today, She looks so good in a helmet!
Yes she imposed herself on the Wheels of Thunder, she wasn’t invited. As I said last week she also writes her own letters of recommendation and has notable people sign them.
Last week it was said that she will bypass the usual campaigning to set up huge arenas where she will play rock superstar!! (shades of Hitler without the gravitas)
Well I can only hope someone has told her the paltry earnings of PODUS, so she doesn’t skip out in the middle of her term to go on a book tour!!
I’ve been waiting for you to write about the corn pone Fascists for months now and you have rewarded your readers in spades with an entire post about the corn pone Fascist in chief, complete with photos. Since you almost never illustrate your essays, that you chose to do so with this one really says something, if only to hammer home the similarities.
The one good thing about Mooseolini is that she’s too enamored of the gravy train that Fox News provides her and too narcissistic to actually want to do any real work. She’ll keep doing publicity stunts, but probably won’t actually run. Instead, the corn-pone Fascists you really have to worry about are Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain, especially Bachmann. She makes for a good Mooseolini substitute and she actually can work.
Enough about Caribou Barbie. We have our own corn pone Fascists here in Michigan. I’m glad, though, that I chose not to write about them today. Instead, I decided to cover something more hopeful at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News: a New York Times story about how Detroiters who are concerned about sustainability are reaching a consensus that food, particularly urban agriculture, is central to the future of the city. The future the foodies the author talked to reads like Detroit is already working on “A World Made by Hand.” I have a link to the N.Y. Times article in the blog article.
I also note that Hipsters have found Detroit an “inhabitable city.” The brewers of Pabst Blue Ribbon will be thrilled to have another market. Also the Nain Rouge, Detroit’s own Red Dwarf and local ill omen has hit the big time among devotees of the paranormal. Yes, even Detroit’s demons are becoming cool. Just hope you never see the Nain Rouge. He’s a harbinger of disaster.
i will take sarah palin over home grown city gangs any day of the week .
Well drafted as usual but in addition to the historical and political dimensions of Sarah’s Harley tryst, you can be sure that her “fellow travelers” or, in Eric Hoffer’s term, “true believers” were sportin’ wood in addition to their leathers.
When totalitarianism comes to America will it be from the left or right – or does it matter?
How sad it is that Sarah Palin is the best woman the US can produce to run for President. Apologies to Michell Bachman of course. But in the spirit of anarchy and entropy, I really hope she gets the nomination. It will comedy gold to watch her grow horns and a tail as she turns fiery red.
Aimlow Joe was here
http://www.aimlow.com
I think James’ post today is very significant and should be widely read.
We saw a half-educated, unfit for high office candidate elected in 1980, again in 1984, and yet another of that ilk in 2000 and 2004. It has happened before, and given the state of things today, I definitely see it happening again in 2012 with likely far more disastrous results than our last two experiences.
Follow the money, James.
Who is it that is funding Sarah Palin?
Who is it that was funding Adolf Hitler?
Who is it that set up WWI and WWII?
Who is it that swindled the tax paying US citizenry and the tax paying citizenry world out of TRILLIONS of dollars?
(If you haven’t a clue, read the works of historians such as Anthony Sutton, Carroll Quigley, and get educated!)
Nothing is a coincidence, James. Follow the money. You’ll find all your answers there, including why your obsession with the fake red/blue political kabuki theater is so idiotic.
Should read: tax paying world citizenry
“Make no mistake – to borrow a favored presidential locution, if I may – Sarah Palin’s campaign is all about shame, about being a nation of losers and feeling bad about it.” -JHK
Thanks so much JHK.
The entirety of this piece shines a lasers’-beam through all the fake bullshit of hyper-nationalism!
Just think: this country going down in roaring hydrogen flames, like the Hindenburg Zeppelin, with SARAH PALIN at the helm! The absurdity is just delicious; but I think guys like myself would be hunted like rabid dogs… oh well…
Okay, PoC,
Do you get an inkling now? Don’t “get” why shame could be a powerful social motivator? …For assimilation or purge? …For a commonality; in evil or commonweal? Don’t get it? Read the piece again; there’s absolutely no need for me to “have a discussion” about this; James Howard Kunstler just drew you a map.
The only reason for following Sarah Palin would be to check out her ass. That takes ten seconds, end of following Sarah Palin.
Relating to the Hitler theme: the USA has made all the classic mistakes committed by the British Empire, and in fact was codependent with the old British Empire bailing them out whenever they forgot that they were a maritime power and realistically had no business meddling in continental disputes. We are now the same, hence the sorry results of recent history. When the British went bankrupt in ’71 they were forced to pull back from east of Suez. We need to do the same.
Moondog,
I feel that’s kind of a “given subtext”, don’t you?
Stand Back.
Here’s how the Big Boys write:
“All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.”
Adolf Hitler
Sarah Palin = Goddess of Distress?
A. Yes
B. No
C. Pass the cheese doodles.
Boogity Boogity Boogity
Good post, Jim. I think she has peaked, at least I hope so. The New Yorker ran a story a few years back exploring how voters decide on who to vote for… it was truly sobering…. Freightening….alarming …. Choose your pleasure, so anything could happen
While Americans enjoy their free entertainment via the Palin circus coming to town, Germany has its bloomers in a twist. Seems that they once again will have to bail out poor Greece. So as Mother Germany gets down on her hands and knees to clean and scrub the Greecey mess, her citizens are becoming increasingly pissed off. Using history as a guide, a pissed off Germany is not good thing – to paraphrase Martha Stewart. So enjoy the corn dogs and the cotton candy while ye may, America. Sarah’s dog and pony show is just getting started. Couldn’t be that there is anything else serious going on in the world, is there?
I like Sarah Palin. She’s a good honest woman without pretensions.
James you have failed to link Sarah Palin to Hitler. No analysis of corresponding statements. It is rather trite to disparage Americans with poor prospects who may or may not actually support Sarah Palin. You have to directly compare Sarah Palin to Adolph Hitler.
It’s true that for this one occasion Sarah Palin wore leather but it was for a speciality event. She doesn’t go marching around in leather.
Palin is so much easier to spell than Torquemada, Robespierre and Radovan Karadzic. Let us us appoint her to rule the nation, expeditiously clean things up and set things right at every level and quickly, then replace her with a constitutional leader. What can go wrong?
Amerika for Amerikans! Put a wholly holy woman in charge. Under God! Yeah, that’s the ticket.
As 45north chimed in:
“I like Sarah Palin. She’s a good honest woman without pretensions.”
I realize that there is really no point in leaving a comment. Unfortunately, in the Human brain Intelligence and Stupidity live happily side by side. There really is no Hope.
How is Sarah Palin a “LOSER”.
Lets run down the checklist
1) She is smart
2) She does not look like an ugly dyke nor does she hate men
3) She has a large, happy and healthy family
4) She is successful
The fact is liberals hate her because she is a better women than the one the leftists championed. The women are bitter, the social engineers are pissed off that she might be the “NEW WOMEN”.
Um, I like corn pone. My wife can make a fine one (she’s from south of Baton Rouge) on any morning and we have it with onions from our garden and eggs from our chickens. A black iron skillet over an open fire is a fine easy way to cook a satisfying meal, and it propels us through our day of garden work and home building or whatever else we are doing to sustain ourselves. And strangely we are both educated and successful small business owners.
Jim, I dig your comments and politics and fire under the ass to get us moving, and yet I’ll always enjoy my corn pone.
And here in Texas we watch the Perry show. Now that’s scary.
Agreed that Palin and her followers pose a significant risk to society via their supersimplified conceptualizations of the world and its problems. To underestimate her is dangerous. Recall that many Jews in German laughed at Hitler who was initially viewed, at least by the educated, as a clown; sound familiar?
The real issue though is whether the economic collapse will become clear, and felt, to a significant enough minority and the debasement of the US Dollar yields something akin to Weimar hyperinflation. With energy supplies on a downhill slide and food commodity prices going asymptotic, the latter is very possible. The question is will it happen by the election. If so, then the Palin/Hitler analogy will be right on. And, at that point the shit will truly hit the fan.
The next question is who will be the scapegoats in that scenario. In post Weimar Germany, Hitler was able to target the Jews in large measure because many of them had suvived the hyperinflation by buying gold and silver (most of us historically have had little allegience to local currencies other than gold and silver due to the former’s fleeting value). Those Jews who used gold to purchase things of value did quite well (recall that by the end of 1923 one ounce of gold was worth more than 5 TRILLION Dmarks, and would buy a whole block of upscale apartments in Berlin, no joke, check it out). Their doing well while the average joe fell on his face (sound similar) later made them targets for Hitler. NOW, the question is, who will be targeted by the Palinistas if the above scenario unfolds?? It could be bankers and financial types but they are not particularly identifiable overtly. It could be the middle classes, esp. the upper middle class who tend to flaunt what pittance of wealth they think they have (think BMWs, nice clothes, etc). Such flaunting might become very dangerous in the future.
Wardoc
I don’t usually even come close to watching that Indy 500 abomination, but it was on the screen when I walked in the room. My curiosity trapped me all the way through the fascinating hour and a half preceding the start. I could not get over the military aura of the whole business, overflights and all. It felt to be just one or two steps shy of a N-burg rally.
“The true shame of this country is that we have to take a clown like Sarah Palin seriously.”
How true, JHK, how true! Celebrating ignorance by making a celebrity of a truly inappropriate candidate is demeaning in the extreme. The slide from the top of international standing since the last Bush managed to be re-elected is profound, the embarrassing VP candidacy of Palin was a shock to the rest of the world (down here in Australia we were stunned).
That Palin is actually still being considered as a candidate for anything more complicated than a dog-catcher is really a big worry. Obviously she’d be useless as a leader and would need to be carefully controlled by “handlers” were she actually elected, much the same as Reagan was during his final senile years – which would mean even more shady characters having their grubby mits on the levers of power.
Hello Mr. Kunstler,
Great post, but a bit hysterical. Sarah will only have a chance if the big banks and other power elite members support her – if they think she’s too strong-willed, they will ditch her for a more pliable “mainstream” republican puppet to support business as usual.
Sarah loves sprawl, junk-food, and other horrors of our culture.
Have a nice day!
What a pathetic, so off the mark article! Have a little intellectual honesty for once! There are “Hitler’s” out there and they are where all you lefties are so proud of…the Arab uprising! They are a bunch of savages who spew VIOLENT anti- Semetic, Anti- American rhetoric and whose goal is to eradicate all Jews from the planet, yet instead of writing about this REAL danger that’s growing, you make up partisan dogshit like this and try to relate Hitler to Sarah Palin. Seriously, you area fucking joke! Why don’t you write about the reporter Lara Logan, who was being raped in the Egypt ” Democracy uprising” where they were yelling “Jew, Jew” at her and she barely escaped but no…you make up a fantastical horseshit comparison like this!
This article just shows how far out of touch you are and are really just a dishonest partisan jack off, as what you state has ZERO basis in fact!!!
As LEFTMOBLIE said above…how is she a loser? She is FAR more accomplished and knowledgeable than a pseudo intellectual douchebag such as yourself Jimmy! And whether she runs or not, she had/has credentials that your messiah Obama will NEVER ever have, yet the left trashes her with unreasoned bias bullshit. If the left was ever honest about what they say they believe, then Sarah Palin should be your poster girl. Not the communist pigs from Code Pink!!
She is a successful business woman and politician, whose husband stayed home while she worked. She is attractive and not your run of the mill, typical ugly lib, ala Hillary, who is weak as can be, as her husband publicly humiliated her, yet she stayed because she’s power hungry, whose marriage is a farce, whereas Palin has a good marriage and she balances both family and work and didn’t abort her special needs child .
Seriously, I could go on and on because the left’s entire stance on her is nothing more than slanderous defamation of character with NO basis in fact. Whereas, the violence and the thuggery are from left, despite all your lies to the contrary. Remember asshole…the Nazi’s had true ties to the muslim brotherhood back then(but why print the truth) and their anti-Semetic movement and they were what you on the left love….SOCIALISTS!!!
Scary – I have been thinking about the exact same things of late. What bought this on was this article – Global Capitalism and 21st Century Fascism, which I recommend everyone take the time to read. The author points out that fully one third of humanity is now “surplus” -unneeded as either producers or consumers, and that governments are merging with transnational corporations and profiting from the military-and prison industrial complexes needed to warehouse these people. He speculates that this will lead to a fascist movement in the United States. From the article:
like Hitler, her campaign is not based on rationality, but rather it is all about totemic symbolism. To the working classes, the Harley is the symbol of american toughness and freedom – a reminder of when Americans actually built things. Where I live in Milwaukee, the Harley is a sacred object amoung the mass of undeducated blue-collar workers, whose leather costumes and weekends of bike riding are the only freedom they enjoy, as long as they back are on the job site by 7:00AM Monday morning. Incidentally, riding around on Harleys is a favorite of right-wing politicians; our own Tea-Party governor Scott Walker did the same thing during his (successful) campaign.
The gun and hunting are the other pieces of totemic symbolism Palin uses to appeal to her followers, and macho gun symbolism is part and parcel of her eliminationist rhetoric. American exceptionalism, accompanied with a hefty dose of messianic religion, is the final component to a witch’s brew designed to appeal to the same dark reaches of the American psyche occupied, in Germany’s case, by visions of Wagner, paganism and the Teutonic Knights, except in Palin’s case it is motorcyle leather, Lee Greenwood, and wild-west cowboys.
Palin’s supporters are essentially the undereducated white lower classes who have been getting stomped on by globalism. Palin’s policies would make them worse off, of course, but she understands the symbolism and rhetoric, and she is “one of them”. Gun-toting, rural, religious fundamentalists are told they are the only ‘real Americans,’ and everyone else, i.e. those who disagree with her reactionary politics, city-dwellers, college-educated professionals and monorities are enemies who must be eliminated by “locking and loading.’ the Tea Party has already frequently resorted to physical intimidation of their opponents, from the Brooks Brothers riots of Florida, to the curb-stomping of a female protestor by Rand Paul’s campaign lieutenant. They are every bit the heir to the Brown Shirts (many of whom were ex-military).
Of course she’s incompetent, but this is actually a bonus to her followers, who see her as one of them. Make no mistake, working-class white resentment that is going unadressed by the chattering classes in Versailles on the Potomac could lead to the final shove into the abyss that we’ve been heading for.
Disgusting hyperbole…comparing Palin to Hitler…I guess JHK is trying to justify his imbecilic support for Obama’s election three years ago by trying to say Palin is somehow worse and could never have been allowed within a heartbeat of the presidency. Or maybe JHK just never forgave Palin for the “Drill, baby, drill” comment. Or both. Obama’s hatred for America is beyond a doubt. If his words to this effect were notenough just look at his deeds before becoming president…his chosing a virulent racist hater of America as his spiritual adviser for twenty years. Or some of his recent deeds as president…wooing America-hating leaders in the Middle East while throwing all the ones somewhat friendly to us under the bus.
Like any good leftist, JHK hates Palin with all his heart and soul. His article here can leave no doubt about that.
Well, James. You are right about Palin. She is a mini-me of Hitler, at least in emotional appeal. But, Hitler knew how to put words together; Sister Sarah does not. Not that this matters much; because as another commentator stated, if the money is there she will be Queen. I do think you are missing the boat on this one though. I think Sarah is the perfect pick (with Ms. Bachmann by her side) as the one to lead the final collapse of Empire. Also, I think the banksters would like her there; she can be easily manipulated. And the American people deserve her. So, I say let’s not worry anymore about the good, bad and ugly. This thing is already way past maintenance, and it is going down with the rest of post-industrial civilization.
Great post this week, Jim!
I am comforted by the FACT that Palin took a solemn oath to do a job, to represent the people of Alaska as governor, then she broke that oath of office and she quit.
She is a quitter and cannot be trusted to do what she swears (on a Bible?) to do. She is not an oath keeper.
Besides that, she represents a minority population of losers. She won’t get that much support from the Muslim, Mexican, Black, Gay, etc. voter communities.
If she became a candidate, Palin’s shameful record of financial incompetence and unethical behavior, both as Mayor of Wasilla and Governor of Alaska, would be re-examined.
The country is not in the mood to play games or take stupid risks. Ask the Republicans of NY26.
That’s a rather rude comment. It is true, though, that the more left-leaning politicians do not understand the threat of radical Jihad and the violent, fascist, intolerant wahhabi adherents.
I say we withdraw from that entire region and let them destroy each other.
If we had a good public transit system, we wouldn’t need their filthy toxic oil.
Jim is right I think, to worry about the rise of fascism in America, but I would point out that much of it is already here. We fight one undeclared war after another, with borrowed money. The media functions mostly as a p.r. wing of the government. The war on drugs has put millions in prison, we already have a police state because of it. The overly patriotic clodhoppers have plastered the flag all over everything, major league baseball uniforms, college football uniforms etc. The Patriot Act, half assed Nazi/Commie hacks in both parties sit in Congress and vote on what rights they think they can take away from the American people, all in the name of ‘security’. The endless ‘War on Terror’, this looks like they copied it right out of Orwell.
And both political parties seem completely incompetent to do anything to stop it. The Democrats, elected to stop wars have done nothing, except to prolong and escalate them. In other words they don’t really need an unqualified nincompoop like Sarah Palin to have a fascist state, they pretty much already have it. However, I do agree with Jim up to a point, it could get much worse.
Hey Jim,
Thanks for the post today – Sarah P. scares the sh*t out of me.
By the way, a small point – when you say: Not people on food stamps (over 40 percent of Americans) … did you mean over 40 million
American instead? 40% of Americans (if there are about 300 million of us) would be 120 million on food stamps.
Thanks,
Grey
Way to go Jim! When you run out of intelligent arguments you bring up the Hitler card. Hey, next time bring up the race card! Isn’t that what intelligent, snobby, leftists do? I’ve been waiting for you to tell us what you do approve of, but I guess I just have to wait. How about another four years of Obama? And his thugs at TSA, Holder, Geitner, Bernanke, etc? And four more years of war too!
..the threat of radical Jihad and the violent, fascist, intolerant wahhabi adherents..
==
A thread that was created and subsidized by the anglo-american imperialists. And still is. A threat that is used in the service of their divide & conquer machinations to pit jews against arabs, arab against farsi, arab against arab, muslims against christians, etc.
Just as they created Hitlerism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc, they created Wahhabism. They grew these monsters and brought them out of obscurity, funded them, gave them material and political support, and made them world players. All part of their contrived Hegelian dialectic in pursuit of world conquest and domination.
“We have better things to do in this nation than go down some twisted path of vengeance-seeking in the name of lost glory.”
What the heck are you talking about Jim? I don’t hear any hatred and vengeance-seeking. Sometimes I think you have your head up your butt. I think you could also make a case that Obama is like Hitler and that the democratic party is the National Socialist American Workers Party. They believe in big government, like the progressives, the democrats, the communists. At least you are an honset progressive and realize that all of these systems are too big and will fail-especially under peak oil.
Great reply–just too much cursing. I too am tired of these leftwingers.
Palin, Hitler bad comparison.
Palin is too dumb to be Hitler.
But I guess that is where Amrica is at- even our Facists have poor skills.
Wahhabi?
http://bit.ly/jBqVRr
Saudi Arabia, right?
The amazing thing is that the people who did rip off these dimwitted Palinites (as well as the rest of the American people) are the ones that are heavily funding (front-running) people like Palin and groups like the Tea Party, and these people refuse to believe it.
They somehow believe that bringing the ultra-wealthy and Wall Street banksters to justice for the financial crimes they committed is somehow anti-American…but persecuting Mexicans, Muslims, and unions is as American as baseball and apple pie. It’s not Goldman Sachs and Moody’s fault they colluded to sell fraudulently securitized debt obligations to teachers unions…its the damned socialist unions fault for buying that misrepresented piece of dog shit CDO!
As long as corporations and banks buy off our government and own our media there will be no justice for Americans and we will continue on this downward spiral of fake debate, fake issues, fake political divisions. The simple fact is: the corporate class has captured our government, both political parties, our media, and our means of production. They have stolen our country without ever firing a single shot. And this wanton delusion by groups like the Tea Party (and Reganites before them) have contributed to the pillage.
My one hope is that these financial terrorists are one day charged and brought before a jury of American citizens to answer for their crimes. Unfortunately, I think that it will be a much more violent and vindictive affair and a lot of innocent blood will be spilled in the process…
Palin, Hitler bad comparison.
Palin is too dumb to be Hitler.
But I guess that is where America is at- even our Facists are unskilled.
You kinda prove the point.
The comparison to Hitler is not that Palin is an anti-Semite. I don’t know that she is, and Jim has not suggested it.
The whole Hitler comparison is more subtle than you seem to understand; the nationalism that propelled him into power is the point, not his anti-Semitism. There is a fair parallel in the appeal of the candidate-to-be to the disenchanted, yearning for a past glory that never was, except in the minds of the manipulated masses who get all their info from the TV.
You like Palin because she is successful, which she is, in the terms favored popularly these days: she exploited her biscuit-from-heaven nomination for VP by becoming rich and famous and getting her own reality show. Successful politician? Did not finish her term as Gov, and could not be elected today. Good eyesight though- she can see them Russkies from her porch.
Oh, and Palin is hotter than Hillary. Yeah, that should qualify her right there. Maybe our elections should include talent and swimsuit competitions. Mmmm… leather bikini…
Have you ever seen the video of her exorcism? It got me speaking in tongues. Where’s my serpent, man? Gonna drink the deadly thing.
And speaking only for myself, a lefty socialist who loves his country, and learned his values from the new testament but does not buy into the god thing at all- it is a beautiful day here in the Sonoran desert. I saw western tanagers this morning, on their way north to nest. Take a walk, take a deep breath or two, try to get past your emotions, and think about the direction you want your country to take. Jefferson or McCarthy? It still matters.
“I hope that Sarah Palin’s competitors on the right will stand up to her American fascist themes and call her out…”
Waiting for salvation to come from the right wing? Which one of those are going to be marginally better than Palin? When the choice is between crypto-fascist and fascist, the selection is meaningless.
Is Sarah going to be your neighbor in Arizona?
Will she increase her foreign policy experience by being able to see Mexico from her home?
Suddenly, Huntsman is looking pretty good.
(that is Jon Huntsman Jr.)
Always follow the money behind her, if you can find it, thanks to the courts. Palin speaks for a huge swath of the disaffected population in rural America. Every time a new set of numbers comes out from the Census Bureau telling us more about the real state of America, Palin’s followers swell. It is not longer good enough to be white, middle-aged and settled in your job or your retirement. The brown folks are coming for your job and your daughters. Soon to be followed by the yellow men from across the sea. We are so ripe for a cornpone upheaval that is not funny, not at all. Spot on, James, spot on!
Doubt I can afford her neighborhood. Snottsdale, from what I hear. Pretty, but pretty vacant. Good fit.
As I recall, you believe this is already Mexico… We shall see.
If you define fascism as the merger of corporatism and state, combined with manipulation of the population by nationalism and patriotism, we’re already there.
There don’t have to be concentration camps to have fascism.
Sarah Palin doesn’t have to be a good wordsmith. She just has to deliver the lines written for her, and she does that well. As Obama is said to do, but she does it better.
She has a gift for delivering the one-liners in an entertaining way.
Hitler would never make it in soundbite America today.
Long speeches delivered by a screaming frothing angry man?
We are so beyond that. The attention span of Americans is short and prefers snappy phrases, self-righteous rhetoric and entertaining one liners.
And who is this Nazi’s Politcal Guru/Handler? None other than Jewish Power Broker Bill Kristol. Kunstler may be right from the psychological and sociological angles, but he’s dead wrong at the level of actual present day political context. If elected, Palin would continue our Crusades in the Middle East and our mindless support of Israel.
I thought it was very appropriate that Sarah Palin was hanging around with those motorcycle jarheads.
I will say thing in favor of Mr Motorcycle stupid fuck, he is dependable. Once it’s above fifty degrees he can be counted on to be out there dutifully wasting gas and making a lot of damn fool noise.
To equate Sarah Palin with Hitler is nonsense.
An example: I’ve seen a film clip of Hitler speaking (in the 1930s I believe) to a roomful of fat, prosperous German businessmen. He started out quietly and politely. As the minutes passed he raised his voice bit by bit, became more animated and started shake his fist. Inside of five minutes Hitler was shouting at the crowd at the top of his lungs and that group of portly, cigar smoking, middle aged men took leave of their senses. They were on their feet wild eyed, shrieking “Seig Heil” (Hail Victory) and giving the straight arm Nazi salute. It was something to see. Hitler had them in the palm of his hand. Palin can only wish she has such ability.
I think Hitler’s credibility with his followers came by virtue of having risked his life in the trenches in WW1. It’s hard to believe that his guts out performances on the podium didn’t have as their origin the mud and misery of those years. Palin as a speaker is an exceedingly pale imitation. Plus I don’t think she has Hitler’s political shrewdness or ruthlessness. Step by step he outfoxed his opponents to seize power and kept it by force and intimidation.
But I wouldn’t dismiss the dangers ahead. Palin could be a placeholder for someone, maybe as yet unknown, who is far more dangerous and more capable than either her or the crop of nobodies contending for the presidency.
I wouldn’t be too disdainful of the gun toting reactionaries or too admiring of the college educated elite. The gun toting church goers need to eat and make mortgage payments like everyone else. And they are your fellow countrymen. And I would be wary of those guns. IMO your police and military would be more likely to identify with them, the so called white trash that is so reviled on this site. When the call comes to man the barricades I’ll bet your cops and soldier boys will be at the very front shoulder to shoulder with the tattooed Walmart shopper.
As far as who’s responsible for the fix the US is in now I would be inclined to point my finger at the degreed bullshit artists in academe, the civil service and the business world.
Whose hands were on the levers of power after all? Who was pulling the srings? They’ve ravaged your economy, debased your currency, debauched your schools. And on top of it they lord it over everybody with those megabuck educations. They are no good to anybody, neither the degree holders nor the degrees they hold. If you have to offshore anything offshore them, preferably to China where the Butchers of Beijing can pick their bones clean. Your country will be immeasurably better off.
Yup that is exactly what fascism is. America still adds a dash of denial in the form of a bogus two party democratic system where the corporations are allowed by law to bribe both candidates (denialism translation: “campaign contributions”).
It is true that we have more people than global capitalism needs.
That’s why it baffles me that they don’t support birth control. Wouldn’t it be easier to give people the means to control their fertility rather than allow the population to hit 7 billion and then have a huge die-off?
However, to imply that things are better under Obama than they would have been under McCain-Palin is seriously delusional.
The march toward corporate domination of the planet continues no matter who is elected Head Puppet of the USA.
Last week I posted a link to a post I wrote about how the hatred of Muslims and Mexicans will be used to further subjugate Americans. It seems relevant again.
http://wagelaborer.blogspot.com/2008/01/do-you-hate-muslims-and-mexicans-more.html
The Brown Men ARE coming for our jobs if not our daughters – followed by the yellow men from across the. Often a true word is spoken in jest. You Lefties only tell the Truth when you bring it up to mock it. And you think it Unpatriotic to resist or you just trash the whole idea of Patriotism to begin with. Lovely. Then in the next breath begin to expound on National Policy. Hilariously Pathetic.
They are not wise, just powerful. They will destroy themselves along with the rest of us.
Otherwise, yeah.
Sarah Palin as Hitler? Isn’t that a little lame, or desperate, for you, Jim?
If the seething, corn pone loving, masses are about to revolt, why is that? Do you ever wonder why or what living in their shoes might entail? Trashing the South, as you are so wont to do, doesn’t seem to explain the desperation we see in our area, all brought to you courtesy of the globe-trotting Obamas.
You denigrate Sarah Palin’s intellect, but I bet you could check out her GPA and activities, as you cannot either of the Obamas. Don’t know if Sarah has enough money to hide all of her past, as did both Obamas, so what you see is what you probably will get.
Why have you determined that all Southerners are stupid? Until the end of the Civil War, most of the intellectual strength was in the South, and quite a bit remains.
Yes, we want our social security, which we were brainwashed into believing would be there during our old age. When I was a very young, single mother (divorced), I didn’t receive child support, food stamps or welfare. First out of pride and a great desire to have my ex leave me the hell alone, but also because those things weren’t available. I made $1.00 an hour as a very good bookkeeper, which even in the sixties was below minimum wage (and, yes, it was in the South), and I could have used the small amount deducted for social security to buy food for myself and my child. We’ve contributed to that scam for all of our lives and, By God, I want it back! Medicare, I don’t mind, since we’re both in good health and if the Obama legacy still lives, maybe I will be ready to die and leave the cost of my care to profit the banksters. I don’t think Sarah Palin is stupid, even though I’m not a fan of hers, but how can you compare her to Obama? You can’t prove anything because everything he does is hidden. Would you have allowed George Bush to get away with that?
Jim, I think your column is the most well-written on the web, but your knee-jerk support of the Head Jerk is becoming wearisome. We are currently supporting several adult children (oxymoron as it may sound) and they’re all well-educated and very bright, even with half of their genes generated by a (GASP) Southerner.
IMO, Sarah could not possibly be worse than the Obama racket, although potentially bad in a much different way.
We’re in Ohio now, a pathetically mis-managed police state, and are headed to North Dakota. Does that meet your rather whimsical criteria for smart and savvy? North Dakota has no public transportation which is also lacking in Ohio. Do you propose that we all stay at our homestead 100% of the time, or mush through the terrible winters to get tacos? I don’t know where you live, but we have no access to any type of public transportation. I get the feeling you are two blocks from the subway. We’re not, as there is no such thing in the entire state, and don’t even have a senior citizen shuttle for the elderly in our very small village.
Our family does garden and we can the proceeds for use during the winter. (For 17 people.) We have an orchard and our own water. Thank God I was part of the Hippie Back-to-the-land movement and find it beneficial and interesting to provide for ourselves. It also deprives Ohio’s leech-like government of sales tax. Happy Motoring, of which you are so dismissive, is about our only form of entertainment as we also don’t have the opera or stage plays availabe in our village of 700. Ohio is a beautiful state and we’re going to look around some more before the end of oil.
Please, please reconsider your hatred of the South and of Sarah Palin. You’re in great danger of becoming another left-wing hack, and at that point, I’ll quite reading you, no matter how good a writer you may be. Irrespective of how bad Sarah might be, she could not be as destructive as Obama and the banks which control him and his avaricious wife.
Kudos to Desert Dawg. As I read comments from all the brain washed lefties, I come across his post which keeps me from pulling my hair out.
Palin is a Dominionist and has attended Assembly of God churches. Here is an excerpt from a speech she gave at a Pentecostal Church:
Palin also asked the audience to pray for another matter — a $30 billion national gas pipeline project that she wanted built in Alaska (before she up and quit her job there, under a cloud of ethics investigations).
I don’t think that kind of rhetoric plays well anymore. A majority of Americans want our troops to come home. Palin wants them to continue a Crusade, to carry out “God’s plan.”
If you define fascism as the merger of corporatism and state, combined with manipulation of the population by nationalism and patriotism, we’re already there. – Wage
I think you need to talk to people who’ve actually lived under or suffered under or seen the horrors inflicted by actual fascist regimes like Nazi Germany or militarist Japan.
Nobody knows the future so it could go that way. But right now IMO you’re not even close.
One of my co-workers is a Harley rider.
He quit hanging with his gang, though.
He couldn’t afford the rides for various charities.
It’s like when you sell stuff for your kid’s school, and then you have to buy everyone else’s kids stuff.
One gang holds a charity ride, and then they have to go to everyone else who comes rides.
It gets expensive.
I’m seeing lots of discussion about the people who are being “stomped” on by globalism and corporotocracy. Thus I’m feeling compelled to do something I almost never do here; I’m making a second comment; my apologies in advance.
85% of this year’s college grad class and 80% of last year’s class went home to mama’s basement with a degree in worthlessness and debt….and no job or prospect of a job, even at Burger King.
The real people who are being stomped are those who failed to actually learn something of value in college, i.e. chemistry, physics, engineering. They get out with some sort of degree and a lot of debt they will never pay back. Several recent surveys (inc. USNWR’s college ratings) show that 14% of all college grads are psychology majors; 12% are history or english majors; similar numbers for various other soft BS (that’s bullshit) fields like personell or social service management or, god forbid, homeland security management or whatever. None of these now useless majors require even first year calculus, much less anything serious and useful like differential equations. The only science required is first year biology for lib arts and watered down (non calculus) so called “college math.” (somehow there is the assumption that one can understand modern molecular biology without first understanding the “molecular”, i.e. chemistry, part, but, then, who cares about real understanding). POINT: kids are coming out of college with no useful skills whatsoever, beyond being able to bullshit their relatives with pseudo intellectual talk.
Most of the kids who get trained in math and science return to their home countries leaving us with a bunch of know nothing, no skill people hanging out in mother’s basement thinking they’re “educated.” Some of the lucky ones get jobs at call centers working on full commission (they’re the people calling you an dinner time).
Globalism has taken away many of the entry level jobs and ancillary “fluff” jobs that in the past gave english, history and psych majors (and other similars) something to do. Those jobs are gone; all that’s left or all that corporate industry wants to pay for are serious jobs that require real skills (the #1 major in terms of starting salaries and number of job offers in 2010 was chemistry, followed by physics then various engineering fields and technical health care e.g. nursing).
So, we have a growing number of people out there who had GREAT EXPECTATIONS for their future (i.e. were brainwashed by their misguided parents), spent a lot of money to get what they thought was an education and, in reality, got nothing but debt, have nothing to offer, and truly have no future. I predict that they will be increasingly pissed off in the future, moreso than the completely lost kids who never even finished high school. Perhaps these pissed off futureless
“college grads” will be the next brown shirts.
Wardoc
All good points Wagelaborer. Sarah is a one liner. But no more than one a day. Also, true we do have a fascist state already here in Amerika. I think Chris Hedges puts it best describing it as “inverted totalitarianism.’ But, we are fast approaching the point where the rhetoric is going to flip into hard-line and hard hat, police control. The Patriot Act is only the tip of the iceberg!!
Good definition but you left out that the merger must be for the good of the Nation. Our current merger of Goverment and Corporations are for the good of the Corporations – so it’s not Fascism but Plutocracy. Or Kleptocracy.
Japan either meets the definition or at least comes close to Fascism. Most people believe that Fascism must be without elections. Not true as Japan illustrates.
Socialism is a similar type merger but in the classical model the corporations would be taken over by the Goverment – a bad move on many levels. Also Socialism has no respect for the unique traditions of each Nation and is classicaly opposed to the whole idea of Nations. Surely this is throwing the baby out with the bath water.
In any case, big Business cannot be kept separate from Goverment since it wields too much power over the lives of ordinary people via the political process. The only decison is whether it will take over the Goverment for its own benefit or whether the Goverment will rule it for the benefit of all. On this Fascism and Socialism agree. After that, they diverge sharply.
Well, that’s Mussolini’s definition, not mine. At least the merger of state and corporation part is.
My Mom used to work with a German who lived through Nazism. She told my mom that Hitler was great, at first.
Unemployed people got jobs, food was available, life was better for them. The only thing she didn’t like about Hitler was the wars he started, leading to them being bombed.
As for talking to people who lived under the boot of fascism, what about the people of Iraq?
Lives destroyed, ethnic cleansing done, concrete barriers up between neighborhoods, checkpoints everywhere, infrastructure destroyed, 4,000,000 refugees living day to day.
Don’t they count?
I might be alone in this but I tend to think that Sarah Palin’s appeal will wear thin in the next month or so (if she ever does in fact get around to announcing a presidential run), just as that appeal was already wearing thin before. The other clowns(Trump & Gingrich notably) have used up their own oxygen already, Michelle Bachman has yet to really declare, and the rest are too pallid for any serious excitement to gin up. Sarah has stepped back in briefly to fill the void, but her real gig is to get attention, make lots of money, and avoid contact with the press. Running for and serving in office are too much for the lady and I think the media have largely ignored that fact. She is entertainment and nothing more. The real frighteners, Bush and Cheney, have already served and the damage done could not have been greater had it been part of a huge and deliberate diabolical plan.
The sad fact of American life right now is that there has been no basic political consensus for nearly two generations. We are constantly arguing over relatively trivial matters or trying to reinvent the wheel. We don’t seem capable of making big decisions anymore, about anything.
A new awakening is needed. I hope it’s the right one when it gets here.
“…I bet you could check out her GPA and activities…”
========
Can we be sure Palin was really born in America?
Has she shown her birth certificate? The long form? Was it fabricated? Are you sure?
Great post Jim.
I agree with all you said. And I can’t stand that Palin.
Two things though, the real unemployment rate is a little bit higher:
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts
And I have no problem with socialism. Though it cracks me up, that those who support our troops, don’t realize the military is socialism. Of course American’s don’t know much – hence Palin.
Nazi Germany and militarist Japan are outlier variants of fascism, as Stalinist Russia and Maoist China are of communism. Neither are representative, but are suggestive of the outcome of totalitarian usurpation of the fundamental idea.
We in the USA are clearly living through a trend toward fascism, as defined by Mussolini and validated by the Supreme Court. Corporate citizenship is the absurd realization of the fascist ideal.
Speaking as a socialist, this sucks. One citizen, one vote. NOT one dollar, one vote.
Mr. K–
You missed Palin’s money quote from the rally: “I love that smell of the emissions.” Pollution is another source of shame imposed on us by hippy environmentalists. Sarah makes it a point of pride, natch. She messed up, though. She should have said exhaust; emissions has to many politically correct associations.
Why do you only post once? Why do you apologize for posting twice? I forgive you.
It’s true that a college degree is a scam, designed to throw millions of people into debt, in the hopes that they will be able to earn a decent living in the future.
Why blame them? Or their parents? It’s constant propaganda in our society. It is assumed that uneducated people don’t deserve a decent wage, and from that unfounded assumption follows the belief that getting a college education is the only rational thing to do.
Also, nursing is no longer a good trade to get into. We are going through a massive attack on our wages and working conditions.
Teachers, firefighters and nurses will all have their wages lowered and their benefits slashed. It’s part of the plan, and if you have open eyes, it’s very obvious.
The Tea Party is so terrified of being called racist they may well support Herman Cain for just this reason. Now from what I’ve heard, he will not support the movement to abolish or even audit the Fed. So he’s just fluff – a Neo Con tool just like Palin.
There are two Tea Parties – the original, grass roots one of Ron Paul and the co-opted, big money one of Cain and Palin. The People are clueless and the latter will prevail. Thus a promising conservative movement will be subsumed back into the hopelessly corrupt Republican Party and nothing will change.
She was refering to the FACT that the Obama’s records are sealed. Don’t be such a dick.
Why doesn’t Palin just show her birth certificate?
What is she hiding?
Can we trust her?
Do we really know who she is?
What qualifications does she have?
What has she done?
She scares me.
I heard Palin might be a secret Muslim.
That’s tellin him Juletta. I’m no fan of Palin but aside from that I agree with every word of your post. The people whose interests you’re defending were led down the garden path and fucked right in the ear.
The very people that talk so much about “blowback” against the United States usually liberals, usually gleefully, are usually the same ones that don’t bother to hide their contempt for the South or for rural people in general. And yet these same people, who always tell us they’re so damn smart, can’t see that their insulting rhetoric, which corrodes the idea of a common American citizenship, could (but hopefully won’t) lead to what they cheer and revel in when it happens to the US ie blowback.
There’s a very slippery slope between shouting and shooting. So I would say to this much to those people with this overt and monumental superiorty complex, that denigrate southerners and rural folk: shut the fuck up, you’re in no way superior, you only think you are, you don’t know shit from shinola, you only think you do, your country is in the mess it’s in because of the actions of people like you. And as for the fancy degree? I wouldn’t wipe my ass with it.
If roller-derby was as popular as motorcycling, Joan Blondell-Palin would be skating around the roller rink, no doubt a baby in one arm, the other pumping a fist into the air. But this shameless political opportunism will not go unanswered for the ego-maniacal never like to share the spotlight – get ready for a Donald encore.
Somewhere, President Obama is smiling.
“And as for the fancy degree? I wouldn’t wipe my ass with it.”
=========
Cash, you and Chairman Mao would have gotten along well.
But the people who suffer most from blowback are the ones whose children die in wars to support the corporate imperialists, as their jobs are shipped overseas and their wages and pensions are diverted to offshore trust funds. Their ignorance has long been exploited in the name of nationalism, but I doubt it can go on forever.
Do I revel in being proved right, as people around the world lash back against the evil done in my name, by my government? Fuck no, but I understand it. If I were Iranian, Iraqi, Chilean, Panamanian, Haitian, or Palestinian, you would be prudent to fear me and kill me. Lucky for us both I am not.
Blue collar is increasingly a slave’s collar. Mine is starting to itch.
So what’s wrong with sharing your community with brown and yellow people? It is all one world, after all, and we all have roaming rights. That’s how we got to North America in the first place. As immigrants.
They’re not as dumb as they seem, Shecky.
My co-worker, who is a right wing Christian, loves the Left Behind books, and who has two sons who served in Iraq, was told by our “efficiency expert” last week that she should think in military terms.
She was highly insulted! And lately, she’s been talking union.
Overall I agree with you. But, Nursing still has jobs available, so getting an RN or BSN has been reasonable. The hospital where I teach residents still hires nurses, albeit at near slave waves, but its a job. However, you’re ultimately correct; one of my LPNs is getting an RN, and she tells me that the class is full of former construction workers and middle management types (mostly males)….truly amazing. Most are there not because of interests but because they’ve heard there are jobs in nursing; they’re buying another high ed scam about going back to school to get jobs. By the time these guys are out, they will be competing with many many others for the same few jobs. Also, over the next decade, medicare will have collapsed (“private” insurance will follow suit) and everyone in healthcare will be working for peanuts, MDs included, if they’re working at all. Over the past five years Medicare fees have dropped 40+%!!!!! They will need to drop another 30% for the system to survive in any form, and at that point no one will take on 6 figure med school debt for a five figure job. Eventually no one in their right mind will go into medicine, or healthcare, for that matter. Then you best not get sick or hurt!!!!!
“you don’t know shit from shinola”….Oh boy, Cash, haven’t heard that one in quite a while. For the youngins out there, Shinola was a shoe polish. Your comment made me laugh. Good rant!
Cash, an argument might be made in favor of a student’s pursuing an education that is less, rather than more, pragmatic.
Perhaps the purpose of a liberal-arts education is to produce well-rounded citizens rather than productive workers.
Maybe it is not all about money and material goods.
1) “After what I have seen in Spain I have come to the conclusion that it is futile to be ‘anti-Fascist’ while attempting to preserve capitalism. Fascism after all is only a development of capitalism, and the mildest democracy, so-called, is liable to turn into Fascism when the pinch comes. We like to think of England as a democratic country, but our rule in India, for instance, is just as bad as German Fascism, though outwardly it may be less irritating. I do not see how one can oppose Fascism except by working for the overthrow of capitalism, starting, of course, in one’s own country. If one collaborates with a capitalist-imperialist government in a struggle ‘against’ Fascism, i.e. against a rival imperialism, one is simply letting fascism in by the back door.”
– George Orwell
2) “Where I part company from him [Franz Borkenau] is where he says that for the western democracies the choice lies between Fascism and an orderly reconstruction through the cooperation of all classes. I do not believe in the second possibility, because I do not believe that a man with £50,000 a year and a man with fifteen shillings a week either can, or will, co-operate. The Nature of their relationship is quite simply, that the one is robbing the other, and there is no reason to think the robber will suddenly turn over a new leaf. It would seem, therefore, that if the problems of western capitalism are to be solved, it will have to be through a third alternative, a movement which is genuinely revolutionary, i.e. willing to make drastic changes and to use violence if necessary, but which does not lose touch, as Communism and Fascism have done, with the essential values of democracy. Such a thing is by no means unthinkable. The germs of such a movement exist in numerous countries, and they are capable of growing. At any rate, if they don’t, there is no real exit from the pigsty we are in.”
– George Orwell
—
it is–tragically but not surprisingly–impossible to convince the average amerikan that s/he is already a Good-Citizen-Consumer of a fascist empire (the most destructive in history, starting with the genocide and enslavement of Africans and American Indians).
“friendly” fascist or not, fascism is fascism.
and Sarah Palin would have to work very hard to “improve” on the fascist accomplishments of Barack Obama.
as George Carlin astutely pointed out, amerika went to war with Germany and The Axis because they were imposing on our imperial action and territory.
let us not forget, the amerikan empire was generally supportive of Nazi Germany until Germany declared war on amerika.
so be careful with the comparisons, as they do not reflect well in our capitalist, fascist, imperial mirror.
as for the pigsty we’re in, there are no positive signs either now or on the horizon.
and voting for Barack Obama was a brutal step in the wrong direction.
amerika’s fake-Left is just as fascist as the real-Right and non-existent-Middle.
enjoy our ritual day of memorializing, romanticizing and rationalizing our imperialism.
USA! USA! USA!
Wage,
I think that if there were any American interests to serve by the Iraqi invasion they would have been far better served by an Iraqi population that was peaceful, docile, polite, that said please and thankyou, that went to work the day after “Mission Accomplished”, that listened to their American governors, that formed political parties and turned out to vote.
Like good little doobies. Like Canadians. And then went to do some topless sunbathing on the banks of the Euphrates. Like Swedes. And then went to the cafes and smoked some pot. Like the Dutch.
But the thing is, and here was the American mistake, the Iraqis are not Canadians or Swedes or Dutch.
So the point is that as far as all the ethnic cleansing goes I seriously don’t think that this was the US intent. I think it was the result of age old animosities that came to the surface as a result of the removal of Sadam.
According to what I’ve read the party that Sadam headed was modelled on European fascist parties and their methods also. So Iraqis are/were well acquainted with the boot of fascism courtesy of Sadam and the Baath Party.
Thanks MM. I was wondering about you. Glad to see you’re back.
There is another reason Palin will not be elected President: she doesn’t have the support of Republican conservatives.
George Will, Charles Krauthammer, and other conservatives are saying essentially the same thing: Palin doesn’t have GOP support. She is toast. Poll after poll confirms what they say.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/60-of-voters-say-sarah-palin-is-unelectable/
Well, Cash, that was my reply to your comment that I should talk to the actual victims of fascism.
Maybe the US would have been better served by making nice with the people of Iraq. Maybe Germany and Japan would have been better served by making nice with the people of the USSR and China.
The point is, of course, that they didn’t.
They kick down doors, throw people into prison, fund death squads, terrorize the population, run over children, force farmers to buy Monsanto seeds, etc.
That’s not very nice.
I sunk a few thou into Excelsior’s medic-to-RN program before I actually looked at the faces of the nurses I work with. They are miserable. Most of them care about their patients, and take pride in their profession, but increasingly they are forced into the same turn-’em-and-burn-’em mode that I was in as a waiter, back in the day. How do you take care of 8-12 really sick people when the boss is focused on the bottom line?
So, at 56, I am looking at 13 more years of 911 bullshit, and if I survive it a pretty shitty pension might be waiting for me there. Meantime I work 80-100 hours a week. I am lucky, I tell myself- I have a job, seniority, and I love my work. I have a viable family, friends who are in worse shape than me but still stay in touch, and a couple of very nice recumbent bikes. Yeah, I got hurt last year, missed a few months’ work and lost my house, but what the fuck. At least my girlfriend left me.
It is hard for me to look my niece in the eye when she says she is applying for nursing school. She will be a credit to the profession. Will it we worthy of her?
I am gonna buy gold. Gonna trade my nuts for two nuggets and stash them in my sagging sac. That oughta do it. Clank…
Sarah Palin is a distraction. She’s the boogeyman for the Democrats, put out there to scare people Democrat. Talk of the 2012 election is a distraction, the Super Bowl started months earlier. Who the hell cares?
It isn’t right vs left. It’s top vs bottom.
I prefer when JHK focuses on our ruling overlords, rather than the Wizards in front of the curtain.
Jim, how ’bout if she was in blackface, with roots in radical Islam, American Communism, and the black nationalist movement, an intellectual Marxist bullshitter, would you like her better then?
Sarah Palin for President!
Campaign Slogan:
“Kick ass and launch nukes!
-Marlin
Wage- I have always thought that nurses had far more “on the ground” experience than doctors. Any time I’ve brushed up against the medical establishment, it was the nurses who provided the most valuable and accurate information.
People in the collapse community are always casting about for occupations of value to see them through the collapse. I think nurses will come through quit well. You might be taking chickens and produce in return for lancing a boil and sterilizing it, but your skills will put food on the table.
One of the drawbacks of the community I’m thinking of joining is that we’re a pretty aging group of people. 60s to 90s. A plus is, that one of our number is a nurse.
I’m sure you’ve contemplated a plan B or plan C. But, if not, you might start thinking about health care when the hospital and pharmacy are gone. Before their was aspirin, there was birch bark.
Today Obama said we owe a debt to fallen heroes that we can never repay.
Like we personally asked them to make a sacrifice.
Like they didn’t make the decision to volunteer due to the economic draft, or boredom, or family tradition, or simply being brainwashed.
Like the real reasons weren’t vain glory and promised benefits and respect.
Like they have made us “safer” instead of increasing the hatred of Americans due to their commission of military atrocities (think many and continuing Fallujahs, many and continuing Abu Ghraibs, or the 14 deaths in Afghanistan yesterday: 2 women and 12 children).
Like the military is not spending us into bankruptcy, with military benefits and military pensions promised into the future that we cannot afford.
Like the military is not wastefully and expensively using up finite fossil fuels at an unprecedented rate.
I remember them on Memorial Day. I wish they had never signed up. I wish they were still alive. I do not honor them and do not consider their actions a necessary sacrifice.
Comparing Palin and her ilk to Hitler & Co. really is a stretch. For starts, Hitler and his Nazi buddies were highly intelligent. Most of the Nazi hierarchy, unlike the current crop of Republican chicken-hawks, actually served in the military…Hitler was a WWI vet and was awarded his Iron Cross legitimately.
I was float nurse a couple of months ago. I was helping a nurse struggling with a heavy load.
EMS brought in an addicted patient they gave Narcan to. Thanks a lot! Now we had a 200 lb. pt thrashing around, screaming and trying to pull out her IV. Ativan did nothing.
In the meantime, they put a chest pain patient in another bed, so I went in to get her started. O2, monitor, IV, draw blood, assessment, and then the new stuff, started since the efficiency expert and the speed-up – computer charting (thanks Obama http://wagelaborer.blogspot.com/2008/12/health-care-in-america.html) and the new questions that all are asked (for their permanent record). Do you drink, smoke or take drugs? Do you have an advanced directive? Anyone beating you up at home?
I came out of that room, and there was a med ordered for the violent patient, so I went to the pharmacy to pick it up, handing the chart to the ward clerk to put in the orders in the meantime.
Oh. New rules. I’m supposed to put in my own orders. So my boss wrote me up for breaking those rules!
REALLY? The patient has to wait while I put in orders, while the ward clerk sits there?
This is the petty way they’re using to get rid of the nurses with seniority, so they can replace us with lower paid workers, who don’t realize how stupid the new system is.
While the conservatives scream about socialist health care, and the Obamabots insist that the Health Insurance Industry Giveaway is progressive, the truth is that the ruling class is cutting back on the expensive health care system in the US, not by switching to a government run system in which everyone would be covered, (like the rest of the world has), but by stopping the government money which has kept the thing running as well as it has so far.
Damn right, people are going to die. But it won’t be “death panels”. It’ll be the same as it is now, people not seeking care because they can’t afford it. Increasing insurance costs, increased co-pays, increased deductibles. Even people nominally insured won’t seek care.
Self-imposed death panels, due to an insane profit-driven system.
Yeah tell that to the Indians. How did such “free roaming” work out for them? And if we don’t watch out, the same thing is going to happen to us. Look Old Girl: Nationhood and a Universal Ethic don’t go together. The Hidden Communists and Globalists promoted this in the Colleges and the Media in order to undermine the West. It has. Europe is going down under the Crescent and we under the Enchildada. We are the new Indians – the real Native Americans.
Not only are you a dick, but a pussy too.
Well, thanks, LLB.
I have birch and willow trees, as far as that goes.
Did you know that we give aspirin to people having heart attacks?
It’s a basic standard of care.
So you should be against the Immigrants crashing the system – and bankrupting it as they have in dozens of hospitals in the deep Southwest. Or do you want the system to crash? Communists like chaos since it brings the Revolution on.
You don’t like enchiladas?
One of the benefits of diversity and multiculturalism — multicultural is America — is being able to sample various cuisines prepared by those who best know that cuisine.
Vlad, you do suffer so!
If only you could relax, celebrate living with people different from you, embrace diversity and understand that it makes us stronger as a nation.
“The only reason for following Sarah Palin would be to check out her ass. That takes ten seconds, end of following Sarah Palin.”
Bingo! Don’t know what kind of three ring circus the sheep-handlers have in store for us this time, but I’m sure it will involve lots of bubble-headed, what they want to hear speeches, kosher hotdogs, and low-brained schtick. How can anyone take American politics seriously these days? Hitler had a plan. Does Palin?
The handlers have a plan and it begins with taking all your money and then war, war, and more war. And then it gets really interesting…
P.S. (Sarah, you look GREAT in leather! Sieg Heil!)
Jim, what’s that guys tag say where the red arrow is pointing? Looks like “CFN FTW” to me.
Now you are anti-pussy? LOL!
“If elected, Palin would continue our Crusades in the Middle East and our mindless support of Israel.”
NO! You’re kidding me? You mean to tell me that you actually believe the handlers will appoint a Zionista to the office of the presidency?
John McCain said yesterday he thought Palin could beat Obama in 2012 and know what an excellent prognosticator of political trends he is! lol
http://alttransbikes.blogspot.com
Shecky just so we’re clear I’m faulting people for not seeing that blowback is something that can happen from within your own country.
If you keep on shitting on people by either insulting them or, as you say, taking away their livelihoods or making financial promises and then reneging, eventually there’s going to be unpleasantness. And on top of that the people getting crapped on are armed to the teeth.
The most serious blowback that I can remember was the Tim McVeigh incident that, from what I’ve read, happened as a result of armed govt action on the Koresh compound and Ruby Ridge. Nothing excuses the bombing of that building. But still, the lesson that ought to have been learned is that govts should tread lightly and be very parsimonious in their use of lethal force in their own country. Especially when, as in the case of Koresh, there appears to have been no reason that he couldn’t have been arrested during one of his many trips into town by himself.
I think that you and I don’t have a quarrel, we’re on the same side in this even if we live in different countries. Because a lot of what happens down there happens up here. In your country it’s the South and rural people that are denigrated by your arrogant urban liberal elite, up here it’s Westerners and rural people. Plus we have a rancourous French vs Englsh divide.
The people that think they’re so high and mighty ought to know better given that they’re so educated and well read. Or so they tell us all the bloody time. Because if they were so damned smart they’d know from history that there is no elite, no social class, no country, no empire that can’t be taken down. They all are sooner or later by either internal revolt or external aggression. And the elites in our respective countries that tell us they’re so much better than the rest of us will be too.
Nice week’s work JHK, thanks to you as always.
And WOW, did you bring out the Palin defenders. 150,000,000 women in this country and THAT’S the best we can do? Come on guys – the worst day’s work McCain ever did (other than getting shot down, perhaps) was to pick her for VP.
But the corporate control fascism crowd has it wrong as well, concerning Ms. Palin. Her main interest is self-promotion and helping Ms. Palin establish a “Palin Brand” that will endure and prosper, in profitable books and interviews – regardless of the words that fall out of her mouth.
And both groups should admit that Palin would have ZERO crowd appeal if McCain had not put her on the ticket. – – ClusterFucked we be, mateys!
To cases this week, here’s a great JHK example of the power of messages repeated over and over to diminish democracy, dialog, and common sense:
“Not Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks (“ditto Free Market Capitalism”).
Not the futility of endless war (“Support our troops!”)” -JHK-
We in the US are enjoined from even having a national level conversation about Banking Crime and War Policy – because of the power of these endlessly repeated messages.
No one called “First!” this week.
That’s too bad.
“One Hundred Twelfth!!
Obama gave 20 trillion dollars in transaction guarantees to the global bankers (which noble prize winner Stiglitz says we will be luck to get 4 trillion back) and you choose Palin as your example of fascist. LMAO. Follow the money.
I see Jim’s essay this week has flushed a new bunch of cockroachs out of the woodwork. Bravo! Lot’s of new posters with their undies in a twist because someone called Palin for what she is — a whining fascist.
BUT, what her critics and supporters don’t get is that she’s just the Distraction. She’s the Puppet bouncing around in front of you while the Powers-That-Be are behind you breaking out a new jar of vaseline for your next round of TARP cornholio.
When you look at the cast in this Circus Maximus, from Obama the Teleprompter-in-Chief on down to Bachman hawking bags of peanuts, you have to ask the question, is this the best we can come up with?
I think it was Orwell who thought the British ruling class was specially bred dumb to oversee the collapse of the British Empire.
We seem to have bred our own ruling class of dummies to oversee the fall of the American Empire.
I bought an extra hockey cup to put on backwards — hope that helps.
Homework well done, Jimbo and the pix add a nice touch to your sardonic humor. Sarah Palin is a menace for sure, but she’ll be challenged by even more moronic candidates like Minnesota’s own Michelle Bachmann…CAT FIGHT! My spouse and I planned to take a short walk to a peaceful nearby cemetery (where we have a plot for when we enter the Promised Land) to observe a Memorial Day service in honor of those who have given their lives to protect the good ol’ US of A, but severe thunderstorms (ya think global warming is for real and caused by the good ol’ human race?) put the kabosh on that. After the storm passed, we walked up there anyway and I was touched by the number of folks on the grounds milling around. Cars parked around included a black Mercedes CLK320 convertible with black interior and a rusted ’86 Olds Ciera with a roof mount US flag above one door and a MN Twins (go last place Twins w/ the worst record in baseball!) above the other. Ah America! Anyway, hope y’all have a great end to your MD weekend. Summer’s just begun…should be a winner!
“Do you get an inkling now? Don’t “get” why shame could be a powerful social motivator? …For assimilation or purge?”
-ozone-
Yeah, OK, ozone – I think I’m now getting some of your point, and JHK did a nice elaboration on the “power of shame.”
I’ve said many times that, for example, the southeastern US is the way it is (more militaristic, clannish, religious etc) is because they LOST in the Civil War and ongoing 140+ year occupation and conquest.
You suggest that it was not just losing, it was the SHAME of losing that was the worst/best motivator.
In the same way that the SHAME of being called racist motivates the whole country to try to “assimilate” huge increases in US population due to immigration, TODAY. When logically, this increase may destroy quality of life in the US before finally rendering most of the planet uninhabitable for humans, generally?
Maybe, O3 – I’ll have to think about that one a while. Thanks!
By the way congratulations on your name “shakazulu” which is certainly cooler than some. “Bubblehead” actually is slang for submariner, although I only did that for 4 years ending 30 years ago.
Some of the comments today are pretty ridiculous if you ask me, but that serves a purpose and I’m glad that there’s no gatekeeper to reject them as it doesn’t hurt to scroll past some of this shit.
I marvel at people who think that only technical degrees are worthwhile or that something is automically more valid just because it tends to pay better. I also think that there’s nothing wrong with having mulitple generations of a family living together. Let’s put it this way: living in your mom’s basement is a hell of a lot better than living with my last girlfriend, who suffered from religious mania and became a biter when drunk.
True, Hitler was an evil genius of sorts, although only politically and not militarily. From a military standpoint he was incompetent and it should surprise no one that the Prussian officer class did its damnedest to assassinate him.
If McCain had chosen Condoleeza Rice as his running mate he may well have gotten elected, and his ticket would’ve boasted twice the African content of Obama’s! Too late now.
Wardoc –
Don’t apologize! Please post more.
Apparently, nobody’s running a counter, either.
Your posts are worth reading.
One of your posts is worth 5 of Vlad’s – as he leads the thread into generally futile discussion of White Racism, week after week. (Vlad – whether that’s your intent or not is open to question. But that’s the effect your posts often have.)
One of your posts, Wardoc, is worth 100 of asoka’s – as he leads the thread into useless argumentative nothingness, week after week.
Someone earlier wrote: “I like Sarah Palin. She’s a good honest woman without pretensions.”
Is that “without pretensions” phrase a code for half-educated? She was unqualified even to be gov of Alaska, and she quit before her term was up. I suppose she’d be okay (even a “good honest woman without pretensions”) as a working mother, but she is most certainly unqualified for high office. She reflects America’s anti-intellectual bias supremely well, just when we need to be supremely wise and informed.
Shinola was a shoe polish”
-mm-
Dang, myrtle, I’ve been hearing that expression my whole life and never, until right now, knew that Shinola was a shoe polish.
Thanks!
And welcome back!
Hope your health continues to improve.
That was a total non sequitur, Vlad.
I say that I’m for a government run health system, and you say therefore I should be against health care for immigrants.
That is illogical.
One of the reasons that we have the pitiful government-run health care clinics that we have is because of those damn early 20th eastern European immigrants, with their TB and such, spreading it to the good northern European stock already here.
TB and VD, scourges fought by the government, through public health clinics.
I say we expand them.
I meant to say early 20th century immigrants.
Well Jim,
Since you brought up Hitler and the Nazis, perhaps it’s opportune to examine just how Germany went from the Wiemar hyperinflation and economic ruin to the world’s economic powerhouse in just a few years.
There are lessons for U.S. here…
Nazism and the German economic miracle
“From the Third Reich to the current regime of Gerhard Schroeder, Germany has shown remarkable ability to achieve economic prominence in the face of overwhelming odds – including those it imposed on itself through ultra-nationalism, militarism and racism….”
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GE24Dj01.html
Vlad, you seem to be responding to something I posed last November about Palin.
The selling of a low information president
What describes the country best, but who is being bought and sold as our next leader.
Ah, Sarah Palin is back and ready to rumble. Enter her new “reality” show for which she is handsomely paid $1 Million per episode. Is this campaign funds from the “Lame Stream Media”? —Oh and a new book, written by someone other than herself.
She is seen in the wilds of Alaska awkwardly shooting a gun and self-consciously climbing rocks. She claims, that she’d rather be outdoors here than working (as Gov. or Pres.?)
But that is largely ignored as our media sees her largely as a sellable product and you know they just see her as the raw material they can form in the public eye.
The plutocracy is making a statement that no seasoned statesman need apply. They will be running things directly through the White House from now on, using their low information president of the free world as puppet. Bill Kristol’s wet dream is to play Charles Bernard Shaw (as god) pulling the strings of his subjects from some lofty clouds as seen on the cover of the album of “My Fair Lady” to her puppet regime.
Reductio ad Hitlerum
Aspirin is good for the heart – but it might not stop a heart attack, Wage.
I would think that “without pretensions” would mean that she wouldn’t feel that she was qualified to be President. How pretentious is that!
Yup. that “without pretensions” resonated with me, too. I almost commented on it, but ya beat me to it! 🙂
It’s just all part and parcel of the (wide) streak of anti-intellectualism that runs through this country. And, I am not talking about people with advanced university experience. Anyone who reads (even popular fiction), uses words of more then a syllable or two and makes a stab at a grammatical sentence.
This wide streak is closely related to “who do you think you are?” and “do you think you’re better than us?”
I’m starting to question your reading comprehension skills, Vlad.
I agree. It all Hollywood for here on out. They probably enjoy manipulating us even more than they have too. Why George Bush as opposed to his brother Jeb – a much more serious and dignified man.
Very interesting link, West coast.
It explains what I said earlier, about my mother’s German co-worker, who said that things were great under Hitler, until the bombings.
lbendet would like this link. Here’s a quote-
“Any economic policy that does not lead to full employment is self-deceivingly counterproductive, and any policy that permits international wage arbitrage is treasonous.”
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GE24Dj01.html
Theortetically, I’d be for single payer insurance and alot of Goverment Health Care too. But having a welfare state and opening the borders are mutually exclusive. It’s simply an insane thing to do. So if we can’t have a rational state, I’m for as little goverment as possible. Thus my interest in traditional American Conservatism. Yes, I question if it fits the modern world completely too. But at least it will limit the damadge done by a State gone mad.
Western Europe was rational if not inspired for a few decades after WW2. Now they have gone insane and opened up their borders to Islam. Their future is as dark as Asoka. Fascism is their only chance now. It’s possible since that is their tradition as opposed to our’s.
I created you, put the bolts in your head. And now you stab me in the back. Frankenstein, you are doomed to walk the earth like Cain.
‘Sarah loves sprawl, junk-food, and other horrors of our culture.’
And the Obamas hate it?
Common at the Whitehouse! Gawd!!
No word about Common and his anti woman,gay etc
poetry….I just heard some on the radio…
hahahahah
The Obamas love money,power,rahmbo,common etc.
Heh, now a story surfaces where Rolling Thunder says Palin wasn’t even invited, they claim they didn’t know she was coming and she’s called a “distraction” by their spokespeople.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/05/27/6732550-rolling-thunder-sarah-palin-not-invited
Ellen Brown also talks about sovereign credit creation as a way to a prosperous society. She also points out that Hitler led Germany out of depression in this way.
http://www.webofdebt.com/
Obama is of mixed race and brought Zionists into the whitehouse….
So, I went to the Web of Debt website and noticed this.
For you and Prog, self-righteous defenders of the border. (And, no, I don’t support massive immigration. Every immigrant I’ve ever known came here for economic reasons, not “freedom”. If the US doesn’t want immigrants from Mexico, it should abolish NAFTA, quit taking all the water from the Colorado river, quit dumping corn, and quit using Mexican drug money to keep US banks solvent, and stop supporting certain drug cartels over others with death squads)
http://www.webofdebt.com/excerpts/chapter-22.php
Its the numbers wage…there were 10,000,000
[?] mexicans in 1900, 100m + 50 million latinos
here in 2000 wage..easy to put all the blame on the corporations.
So what telephone provider does she use. I’d like to know because she seems to have a direct line to the big man upstairs. I mean, how else could she know what God’s plan is?
Wagelabor,
Keep in mind that the German economics minister Dalmar Schacht, the guy that resurrected the German economy and took it from hyperinflation and ruin to a powerhouse–he got hanged after Nuremberg.
Our economics ministers, that took a powerhouse and have turned it into incipient garbage got billion dollar bonuses.
There’s just no justice in this world I tell ya.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GE24Dj01.html
Have you seen the John Perkins videos, the guy that wrote Confessions of an Economic Hitman?
They are available on Zerohedge.
i.e. “If the bankers and economic hitmen can’t extort what we want out of a government, then we send in the jackals. If that doesn’t work, we send in the military…”
Stalin wanted National Communism in Russia.
That’s why he wanted to kill Trotsky who was for International Communism.
The Neocons like Palin’s handler Kristol are the heirs and successors of Trotsky.
They are mostly former leftist International Trotskyites who have metamorphosed into ‘anticommunists’.
The American people get duped again.
Bonus points if you know who actually killed Trotsky in Mexico.
“I am gonna buy gold. Gonna trade my nuts for two nuggets and stash them in my sagging sac. That oughta do it. Clank…”
“There once was a man from Madras,
his balls were made of brass,
in stormy weather,
he’d clank them together
and lightening would shoot from his ass…”
That Masters in English came in handy after all!
It ain’t over til it’s over, West. We’ve got time, and they’re still around.
I’ve read Confessions of An Economic Hitman, but haven’t seen the videos. But if South American countries can overcome US imperialism, so can we.
Yes, we can! Yes, we can!
Ramon Mercador killed Trotsky, and this was confirmed by a Barcelona detective who once arrested him.
I will be very surprised if Palin actually tried to run seriously. Also I’m not buuying any of this nonsense that Kristol, Palin’s handler, was once a Trotskyite. Speak of incongruity.
Republican candidates are routinely compared to Hitler, its par for the course. I’m surprised Jim has stooped this low.
I’ve yet to see any Democrats compared with Bolsheviks. I probably shouldn’t be holding my breath on that one.
-Marlin
Well, we have “pragmatists” like Cash and Wardoc declaring that most anything other than math or science as bullshit. As if the Wall Street mathematicians, devoid on any moral consideration tempered by liberal art study, are anything other that tools for avarice and greed. English, History, Art, and Philosophy are declared worthless endeavors even if they might develop the sensibility and vision to guide the direction of the head-in-the- microscope automaton Nope, this mist and water which provides the flexibility to actually learn from history or consider social impact are declared worthless by these dry buffoons of the monochrome. And then Prog–he of “saving-one -American-at-a-time” CFN fame, asserts this trash is worth much more than the well-rounded insights of Asoka or even Vlad when he is in one of his rare non-racial moments of consideration. Prog, you’re fast proving to be an intellectual whore who will jump into any ol’ bed if it means screwing Asoka up the ass.
Fortunately, the true pragmatist is not so blind as these right-wing clowns of screed and blindness.
“Prog, self-righteous defenders of the border.”
-wage-
Self-righteous? That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think. Not to mention that there’s at least one oxymoron in that little phrase.
You are probably correct that US corporate/govt. policies are somewhat to blame for the massive migration from the South.
But I’m a linear thinker, and in a state (GA) and a region overflowing with immigrants, I seized upon the “secure the border” idea as the only possible solution.
Of course, mandatory e-verify would solve the problem with less hassle and “he’s a racist/no he’s not bullsh*t.” Georgia’s demonstrated that by passing a mandatory e-verify bill that ALREADY seems to have illegal aliens leaving the state in droves – to the extent that agricultural interests are raising PR hell about having to pay more money to get their work done.
And I realized, just a few weeks ago that the increase in population caused by LEGAL immigration poses a far worse threat to the US and the World than does a porous border to the south or north.
Join FAIR, btw and help work for “Replacement Rate” immigration – before it’s too late.
No, she is not. She is a media whore and a demagogue who appeals to some of the darkest and most deluded parts of the American psyche.
Sarah Palin is both a loser and a winner. Both incredibly ugly and beautiful. It all depends on your viewpoint – whether you are a member of her tribe or not. The same could be said of Nancy Pelosi.
As for IQ – I sense she has a good practical intelligence but very little book smarts. She or anyone like her certainly shouldn’t be running for President. Not until they’ve been in Congress for a few terms to see how the whole thing works.
I finished reading Joe Bageant’s “Deer Hunting with Jesus”, an excellent book.
I particularly enjoyed Bageant’s description of how “brain dead” U.S. rednecks live in a mental hologram created by the U.S. media.
“‘The People’ doing our hardest work and fighting our wars are not altruistic and probably never were. They don’t give a rat’s bunghole about the world’s poor or the planet or animals or anything else. Not really. ‘The People’ like cheap gas. They like chasing post-Thanksgiving Day Christmas sales. And if fascism comes, they will like that too if the cost of gas isn’t too high and Comcast comes through with a twenty-four-hour NFL channel. That is the American hologram.” (Deer Hunting with Jesus”, p. 91)
“Like most of conservative Winchester, Tom believes violence can solve foreign political problems. During political discussion around here, it is not uncommon to hear someone talk about the Middle East or some Asian or European country “getting out of line” and “needing to be put in its place.” Any day of the week I can easily show you a hundred people who believe we should bomb France (although I doubt many of them could readily find it on a map). For a certain kind of American, it seems, bombing anyone anywhere helps to purge some unarticulated inner rage—rage that the easy truisms that once seemed to lend nobility to the dullest of lives are no longer believable. So long as Americans agreed that they were brave and true and exceptional—people toward whom the entire world looked, for example—and so long as they wrapped themselves in the cloak of that self-appointed goodness, their lives had meaning. No insight required. Just add religious faith.” (“Deer Hunting with Jesus”, pp. 71-72)
“Prog, you’re fast proving to be an intellectual whore”
-buckstud-
Damn, buck and wage declare Memorial Day to be “attack ProgressorSomething Day”
Buck – I didn’t say I agreed with old WarDoc, I said his posts “were worth reading.” (my exact words!)
I don’t make a big secret that I despise the way Asoka twists words into lies. And that most of his posts contribute “heat but not light.” – While frequently sidetracking discussions that could lead to very worthwhile issues to explore. And he seems to post – far more – I’m guessing, any other CFN poster.
Meanwhile WarDoc is worried about posting twice.
Jeeze, buck!
Now, I know – “That which we find most annoying has the most to teach us.” orionoir, paraphrased
I’ve been checking old CFN archives to try to find a reason that asoka’s prevaracations are so annoying to me.
BUT –
“an intellectual whore” hardly
“i did not have sex with that poster, that Monica Wardoc…” -bill clinton – paraphrased.
The Neo-Cons, mostly Jews at least originally, took over the Republican Party a few decades ago. Many of them had been Communists and had come from Communist backgrounds. They realized that Republicanism would be a better vehicle for their ethnic interests than Communism here in America.
Of course not all of them are this frank – even to themselves. Read David Horowitz. In any case, they changed main stream Republicanism away from family values and Christianity towards Globalism and every kind of bigness. Completely in favor of mass immigration: they transform America in the most fundamental way even as they trumpet Americanism for the rest for the rest of world. They have been and are a disaser for America and the the Conservative Cause.
“And then Prog–he of “saving-one -American-at-a-time” CFN fame,”
-buck, misquoting-
You screwed up the quote, Buck.
I am trying to “change America, one mind at a time.”
Asoka keeps messing up my workspace on CFN.
Hard to change minds when asoka has some of those minds too angry to think straight.
=======
On a lighter note, Wage extracted the exact same quote that I found from WestCoasts weblink.
“Any economic policy that does not lead to full employment is self-deceivingly counterproductive, and any policy that permits international wage arbitrage is treasonous.”
But I didn’t post it because I didn’t want to post too much on such a lovely Monday.
Cheers, you all!
Irving Kristol (Bill’s Dad) was the founder of the movement known as neoconservative.
Wikipedia:
Kristol was born in Brooklyn, New York, … He received his B.A. from the City College of New York in 1940, where he majored in history and was part of a small but vocal Trotskyist group who eventually became the New York Intellectuals. During World War II, he served in Europe in the 12th Armored Division as a combat infantryman.[6]
you can read the rest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Kristol
Buck is a huge Asoka fan – evidently you didn’t notice. It shows his imbalance.
Please no bare backing even if he is as cute as a button.
Dennis Kucinich has been branded a pinko. I used to vote for him, because I am a pinko. When he caved in to Obama on this ridiculous health care reform bill I voted for the Libertarian candidate in the next [last] election. I was disappointed that he managed to get reelected, but then that’s Cuyahoga County for you. I dislike health care reform as the Democrats settled for it because it is decidedly not socialized medicine, which of course is what I wanted. I do not agree with forcing people to buy private health insurance and if my VA card is not acceptable to the IRS then I will pay the fucking fine, as that will be be far less than the price of private insurance. Kucinich caved on the bill because Obama gave him a ride on Air Force One! Not much of a Bolshevik if you ask me.
The most absurd feature of “reform” is the fine for remaining uninsured. The government is counting on lots of people ponying up those fines. So if they’re expecting this to be a revenue stream how is that possible if everyone was to be insured? Then of course fines are to be calculated as percentage of income, so in effect, the unemployed will owe the government nothing! This is just too much. It’s a miracle that half the population hasn’t already emigrated the way we’re being herded around to be sheared by various business interests. Bolshevik my ass. More like they all want to sit on the boards of insurance companies when they leave politics.
Jim:
Your comments about Our Dear Sarah ( veiled reference to Kim Il-Sung – intentional) reminded me of a lecture Naomi Klein gave, pointing out the dangers facing American democracy today. She compared the present-day US to the rise of the NSADAP in Germany and found some shocking similarities. Thus, I see merit in your comparison of Palin to the big H, and agree that she is in fact dangerous (Hitler was initially considered to be a harmless, but useful buffoon by the conservative leaders in the Weimar Republic (gee: that turned out well!) . Your remarks also reminded me of something I picked up while doing a War Studies MA at Royal Military College.
The homily goes like this: In the pre-1945 German officer training system, all officers were sorted into four groups. The first group was made up of smart and hard-working officers. The second group contained those who were smart and lazy. The third group was composed of the stupid and lazy. Finally the forth group was made up of the stupid and hard working.
Based on this system the German Army sent the smart & hard working officers to staff college – because they had the precision to manage the countless details of army logistics. The smart and lazy were ear-marked for command – because they know how to delegate. The stupid and lazy were given some sort of job – because they at least could do something useful. But the stupid and hardworking were kicked out of the army ASAP, because there’s nothing more dangerous than a hard working fool.
I believe our dear beloved Sarah belongs to the last group. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
How lucky to have a picture like that? Good eye.
“who suffered from religious mania and became a biter when drunk.”
Drunkenness and religious mania? Nice combo. I met a “bubblehead” when I was in the army. He was as crazy as anyone I ever met while in the service. I put it down to oxygen deprivation.
Sorry, perhaps it was harsh.
But to ignore the eonomic rape of Mexico by profiteers, and only focus on the victims driven by desperate need, is not only wrong, but futile.
People don’t just fade away when their lands are stolen or their jobs taken away.
Without justice, there is no peace.
Without survival south of the border, there will be no border security.
Speaking of which, he that gives up security for freedom deserves neither.
You’re willing to live in a police state to make sure some Mexican peasant doesn’t come pick your vegetables?
“Papers, please” is the hallmark of a totalitarian state.
Dennis Kucinich? Obama is called a socialist by Marlin. He’s being disingenuous.
I’ll probably get criticized for linking too much to my blog, but I disagree totally that the ride on Air Force One was what turned Dennis. No way. He’s more principled than that.
I watched it on Democracy Now, and I totally understand what made him cave.
http://wagelaborer.blogspot.com/2010/03/i-forgive-you-dennis.html
I do agree with you about equating education only with future income. There is more to life than money, and education should make for a more well-rounded human being.
Now that you’ve promised me the moon can you loan me some fiat money so I can buy some toxic hotdogs because the latest JIHAD event is being broadcast on the evening boob tube after all the car commercials.
“One of your posts is worth 5 of Vlad’s – as he leads the thread into generally futile discussion of White Racism, week after week. (Vlad – whether that’s your intent or not is open to question. But that’s the effect your posts often have.)
One of your posts, Wardoc, is worth 100 of asoka’s – as he leads the thread into useless argumentative nothingness, week after week.”
And there is rest of your post, Prog. So you perhaps don’t agree with WarDoc. Fine, whatever, I don’t care who you agree with or what beliefs you espouse. Or anyone else for that matter, But this is a give and take forum and so I respond to what you write – all of it.
Apparently Wardoc is just a tee Prog sets up in order to take a wack at Asoka. There’s an old saying, if you get into an opponents head you can play around with them any way you like. Putting this as gently as possible, Asoka is having a lot of fun.
But hey, “Krantz The Incessant Racist” seems to know a thing or two about imbalance. Perhaps he can share some advice on how to overcome obsession and compulsion.
Has anyone come up with an acronim name for Sarah Palin? Our current president is “BO”, the one before hi, was “Duhbya”, so Mrs. Biker needs one. How about SAP?
You ought to read the “Odd Lies of Sarah Palin” a running series on Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish blog. I don’t promote his site as a conservative in any sense, but it is interesting. I really sense there’s a lot of common ground between left and right… but the fringes, especially on the unhinged right, have stolen the conversation. JHK sums that up nicely.
When drunk on red wine she would literally think that she had been Mary Magdalene in a previous incarnation and that moreover, she’d literally been J.C.’s “bitch”. She did all her coursework for a Ph.D. in clinical psych. except for the dissertation. I also suspect that she flunked the required course of pschoanalysis. She’s the lady who sent me to barber college when I got medicaled out of the merchant marine. So she was a voc. rehab. counselor. After one year shacked up with her I’ll live in my mama’s basement and love every minute of it. Especially if mom is disabled and I’m what’s keeping her out of a nursing home. Submariners are nuts because their alcoholism rate is something like 75%, although they don’t go nuts on patrol, because U.S. submarines are dry, unlike the British, who pack their torpedo tubes with John Courage beer.
I think Mr. Kunstler is drawing too linear conclusions from the history. Germany after WWI was very different country than USA today.
It was full of harsh WWI veterans and folks used to hard work with their hands. WWI especially was very cruel, basically two huge armies sitting in ditches like rats, waiting for another useless attack or counterattack.
I think it must have been much more cruel and mentally devastating to the surviving soldiers than the WWII, which was a war of constantly moving frontal lines.
So German men were used to real hardship and were pissed off, violence always seen as an option. Then came the Weimar hyperinflation. It must have felt even more devastating for them and the lashing out was so much more stronger via fascism. Americans have not gone through nothing similar recently.
One another difference is that Germany was really homogenous white folks country and fascism was able to unify them using propaganda. USA is not and is also much bigger country.
If fascism really took over federal government in the USA, the consequences would be very different. Instead of unifying, it would break apart USA and all kinds of groups, mostly along racial lines, would start fighting against each other inside USA.
Maybe even second civil war would errupt and new borders of new countries would be eventually drawn. Something like after Roman Empire collapsed, it all got rather messy.
There’s no way in hell that Obama qualifies as any sort of real socialist. He is Wall Street’s lapdog, in fact, so anyone muttering that Obama is a socialist is probably as dumb as a box of rocks, which about covers 50% of the population.
Disingenuous is one of my favorite words. I’ll take your word about Marlin. It’s difficult to tell with some people. My usual best example of the meaning of “disingenuous” is these high church Episcopalians who think that they’re real catholics. It’s like the time when Tallulah Bankhead took Monsignor Ronald Knox to St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church off of Times Square to impress him with their faithful adherence to all the early catholic stuff they used to have before Elizabeth I put an end to it. After communion she asked the monsignor what he thought and he replied “I prefer the simplicity of the Roman Catholic Church”. This was nearly twenty years before Vatican II.
Hey,Shecky,do all your passports expire at the same time or is the Israeli one a non-expiring,lifetime Issue?
So what exactly does Obama have to offer to the American people beside economic misery and an ineffective foreign policy. He is the quintessential looser. He will be remembered as America’s biggest mistake – Jimmy Carter on steroids. I doubt Sarah Palin – no matter how ignorant she might be – could do any worse.
-economic rape of Mexico-
-wage-
I don’t disagree that a lot of Mexico’s problems are due to American Corporate/Political processes and overpopulation.
But, Wage, “nobody?” around here knows a thing about the “economic rape of Mexico.” They just know we’ve got problems – misshapen school budgets, overcrowded jails, overstressed ER’s – and that some considerable percentage of the high needs children, jail inmates, and uninsured ER patients are “illegal?” immigrants from south of the US border.
And that’s not racism, that’s just an objective observation of schools, jails, and hospitals. Little help here, Buck, because asoka is gonna call me a racist – again.
So, after a lot of citizen pressure – and a lot of snivelling and lobbying from the Chamber of Commerce and big ag – Georgia passed a E-verify bill. And it must be working, because big ag is already complaining that they are having to pay more to get workers.
“You’re willing to live in a police state to make sure some Mexican peasant doesn’t come pick your vegetables?”
-wage-
And “papers please,” Wage?? Come on? Do you not carry a driver’s license most everywhere? Can you cash a check, buy wine, without showing “papers?”
Have you ever – one single time in your life – gotten a job and a paycheck without showing ID and a VALID SSN? aka “papers?”
“Papers please” is a mirage, PR stunt to call up images of Nazi Germany. And that’s all it is.
Wage, Procon is urging you and everyone on CFN to join FAIR. He has been fairly obsessive about it, mentioning FAIR every week.
I have said that Procon is a racist and Procon’s promotion of FAIR is more proof he is racist.
FAIR has acknowledged and defended having received grants reportedly totaling around $600,000 from the Pioneer Fund, which has been described by The New York Times as having been established for the express purpose of promoting research into eugenics, and which has sponsored projects based on the notion that Blacks are genetically less intelligent than whites.
Every week Procon promotes FAIR, urging people to send money or join, is another week Procon is proving that he is racist.
It wouldn’t be that hard for a facist to arise. All you need are the right conditions, bad economy, no jobs, inflation, etc., and then what you need to do is find a scapegoat. In this case, once enough Mexicans to be a large minority are in this country, they will be pointed at and blamed for all of our problems. Whether they are or not. I’m against illegal immigration, but I’m not prepared to suffer under a dictatorship to do something about it. The scapegoat will be the Mexicans, which is just another reason to try & control the border, since I doubt the Mexicans will accept the role of scapegoat without a fight. They’re funny that way.
It is interesting to compare the early careers of Adolf Hitler and Sarah Palin. From the article:
So, where did Hitler get the financing that he needed to pull Germany out of the hole? Maybe these same backers will finance Sarah Palin’s “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” campaign and put her in the White House.
If this happens, what racial groups will Sarah Palin vilify? Will these persecuted people live in oil-rich nations? The presidential campaign of 2012 should prove to be very interesting.
“is another week Procon is proving that he is racist.”
-asoka-
You do see the problem here, right Buck.
Asoka uses the word “racist” like a blunt instrument – killing off any hope of dialog or understanding of a complex issue.
“Globalism has taken away many of the entry level jobs and ancillary “fluff” jobs that in the past gave english, history and psych majors (and other similars) something to do.”
-wardoc-
Nice post, as I already said Wardoc. At the risk of ticking of the (again?) missing qshtik, I’d say I concur 90%.
There’s nothing wrong with a genuinely rigorous lib arts degree, though. Apparently Mr. BuckS may have one. There’s an old saying that the engineers, chemists, etc will eventually wind up working for the lib arts graduate. There was some truth to that at one time, and there still is – but more for the elite Harvard/Yale/Emory lib arts grads. Which means that the contacts are as (more!) important than the knowledge the degree implies.
However, degree status of today’s graduates is one of those “deck chairs on the Titanic” things. To torture the metaphor – our Ship is listing heavily and down by the bow.
If the deckhands are only arranging the deck chairs it doesn’t matter where they went to school or what degree they have.
What matters is the knowledge of the guys working below decks to stop the sinking – and whether they care about the survival of the passengers on board.
The issue is your support of FAIR and its racism.
Good lord call Sigmund Freud I think we have a case of transsomething or another. I thought Jim was talking about the West Bank talmudic kooks, but then I found out I’m a SS officer in waiting (really folks the charade is over, you lefties will learn the meaning of the word “responsibility”)
Now I will expain Jim’s essay, and to be blunt it is racial in nature. His people get to play “good white people”, but Palin appeals to “bad white people.” JHK’s latest belongs on Daily Kos where they spew the latest anti-white hate thinly disguised as “anti-racism.”
Hey Prog, We don’t need no steenking papers! The man says I am good to be here so I am good to be here. Land of the free and home of the brave, Holmes! I was in the Memorial Day Parade today and people actually do still believe in this Country and what it stands for. Kids were waving flags and everyone was waving at me. I don’t follow the popular line on politics in this country. myself and family have all sacrificed. But it is what it is, a three day weekend and a hamburg and hotdog roast! I do believe that immigration should be shut down, NOW!!, we have plenty of people here already. And I am more than 1/2 in the bag so there!!!!!! Sheeet my fellow Irish fireman Buddies are still poundin’ them down at the VFW and I would trust them with my life any day over some piss pore college over edjumacated gradgiate. Sums of bitches don’t even know what end of a paper bag to put their damn lunch in!. Rant over!
Here is what procon supports in his promotion of FAIR:
FAIR has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) based on the writings and quotes of its founder and board member John Tanton.
The Anti-Defamation League, in a report on FAIR, said:
Unfortunately, however, there are today, as in the past, some individuals and organizations whose anti-immigration position is marked by mean-spirited distortions, nativist bias, anti-foreigner fear-mongering, and even overt racism. These groups foment an atmosphere chilling to the notion of an open, tolerant America that respects all persons, regardless of origin.
“but I’m not prepared to suffer under a dictatorship to do something about it. The scapegoat will be the Mexicans, which is just another reason to try & control the border, since I doubt the Mexicans will accept the role of scapegoat without a fight. They’re funny that way.”
-captainspaulding-
You are 100% correct about the above, Captain. But see my response to Wage – fears of dictatorship and police state are way overblown for someone’s PR purposes – notably our corporations who want a cheap, compliant, and illegal workforce.
Can ANYONE here honestly tell me they have traveled and especially WORKED in another country without carrying ID papers most or all of the time.
Seriously, you can’t even get back into the US – as a CITIZEN – without showing a valid US passport.
Papers please, my a**.
I do wonder what asoka thinks about E-verify.
Never mind, there’s got to be something racist about that, too. I won’t even bother to ask.
“But to ignore the eonomic rape of Mexico by profiteers, and only focus on the victims driven by desperate need, is not only wrong, but futile.”
What leads people to be so ignorant and feel guilty at the same time? I see statements like the above and I know the person is a pedant and not familiar with the harsh realities of the hacienda ruling elite of our neighbors to the south. Lets jump on the blame America bandwagon because that somehow relieves the angst built up while ignoring the failed policies of a century of agrarian ejido land reform in Mexico. Nothing has become more distasteful than liberal paper tigers.
Hey Wage, My local hospital, where I normally drop off, recently laid off all the LPN’s, nothing but Rn’s now . I think they laid off close to a couple dozen. My neighbor was there for 20 sumthin’ years.She could walk 200 yards from her house. Bye-Bye!, they also got rid of the security guys and went to a private company. I knew all the older guys, some had been there for 20-30 years. This is not a high crime area. They went with a new security outfit, 20 year olds at minimum wage and maybe a weeks vacation. Such is the new face of health care! I myself have been stockin’ up on suture kits and ER supplies. OH shit, now I am on the watch list again. The NSA should be at my house any day now with swat gear and shotguns. Fuck-Um!!
This was a truly offensive and misguided column. As an urban and regional planner, I usually look forward to reading your missives but this one was truly pathetic. If you want to make a comparison of someone or some movement to Hitler, you could look at the current adiministration and the sycophantic, left wing media and the negative affct it is having on free speech and factual information….and, oh, let’s not forget the Greek columns….really. This was a pathetic post and shows how blinded some are about the true state of this country. I personally have not voted in many years but I’m looking forward to Palin running and, hopefully, having an opportunity to debate Obama…one of the poorest speakers of recent memory (but touted by the same delusional leftist media as the greatest orator since Lincoln)…the need for a telprompter, the sybillant “s”, the stuttering, the inability to focus….Palin will rip him a new one in debates. I’m going golfing! This was also an interesting take on your article.
http://johnwsmart.wordpress.com/2011/05/30/is-corn-pone-fascism-worse-than-arugula-fascism/
Heil Titler!
Someone earlier said you had failed to make a connection between Hitler and Palin. Allow me to take a crack at it:
1. Attempts to make a defeated people feel strong again. For the Germans it was the loss of World War 1. For Palin, it is Vietman, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. The “humiliation” of these wars must be excoriated and retroactively seen as just.
2. Appeals to a mythical past – constant invocations to Romald Reagan and the glory days of the middle class (ironically caused by stong unions and social policies). Palin also seems to long for the pre-civil rights era when minorities knew their place and woman were able to stay home and raise babies while the men wnet off to work. America’s growth was the fastest in the world in the ninteenth century due to technical innovation, untapped markets and plentiful resources, Sarah and the Tea Party seem to think that can be replicated, if only the shackles of “burdensome regulations” were removed from America’s multinational corporations.
Also, as Jim noted, the use of Exceptionalism – America is right in whatever it does by vitue of the fact that America did it. Everything America does stands for Freedom, and opponents hate the country. The Germans believed they were the natural rulers of the European continent as descendants from the mythical Aryan race. They too, believed they were a special people. Their rule would never fade from the world stage – it would last for a thousand years.
3. Playing on the downward mobility of the middle class – The Germans of Hitler’s day were plagued by a stagnant economy and mass unemployment due to the Great Depression and excessive war reperations to Britain and France. Today, reperations to the bankers, deindustrialization, illegal immigration, the rise of China and India, automation, outsourcing, soaring education, gas and healthcare costs and the highest concentration of wealth in the developed world are gutting the formerly prosperous middle class and filling them with resentment.
White working class resentment has become such a powerful force that I think the downwardly mobile would be perfectly content to live in their cars and feed their children cat food for the pleasure of seeing sister Sarah stick it to those know-it-all Harvard elites.
4. Scapegoating – rather than multinational corporations shipping off jobs and keeping productivity gains, scapegoats such as liberalism, socialism, excessive regulation, high taxes, etc. are trotted out to explain declining standards of living and policy failures. Her rhetoric revolves around and us versus them arrangment – us, the white, rural, gun-totoing, blue-collar evangelical protestants, and them – citydwelling, educated, latte-sipping liberal intellectuals and useless-eater minorities looking for handouts from the white working class so they can have more babies.
Hitler’s scapegoats were Jews, bankers, communists and trade unions. Plain’s enemies are Muslims, bankers, socialists and trade unions. Sound familiar? Oh, and don’t worry about the bankers – she won’t prosecute them any more than Obama has. every politician need them to bankroll their campaign, since they control all the money. And it’s woth remebering – the Jews were not the only emenies of the Nazis – so were ethnic minorities (Gypsies, Poles, Slavs), homosexuals, the mentally ill,, unionists, liberals – all these were victimes of the death camps as well.
5. Use of propaganda and selective media manipulation – rather than the “lamestream media,” Sarah uses her own friendly and personally approved sources to construct her narrative. Rather than relying on statements that are factually true, the propaganda machine repeats what Goebbels called “The Big Lie” – repeat it often enough and it will be believed, even if factually untrue, e.g. Obama is a Muslim, Obama is a socialist, he was born outside the United States, taxes for most people have gone up under Obama. All of these are lies and easily refuted with objective facts, but to her followers, the objective truth does not matter, only what they believe to be true. Fox news is simply a propaganda outlet; the truth does not matter so long as you can “catapult the propaganda.” glenn Beck did eveything short of brandishing a copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion on the air to spin his elaborate fantasies of all-powerful liberal elites infiltrating the government and conspiring to institute global Communism on hard-working Americans.
I just fund out Sarah has hired a friendly director to make a feature-lenth film about her to recast her in a positive light. See here. My guess it will not be called “Triumph of Will 2,” but it just was well should be.
6. Elimination rhetoric and physical intimidation of opponents – Code words such as “Real Americans,” “Pull the trigger,” and “Lock and Load,” are used consistently. When something bad happens, a la Gabrielle Giffords, you can simply backpedal and claim you were ‘misinterpreted.” Then you can go right back to talking about “second amendment remedies” to the nation’s problems with immunity. Her proxies in media such as talk radio will fill in the blanks that she leaves empty.
Palin’s paints her opponents as not simply people with different opinions about how the country should be run, but as “traitors”. We know what happens to traitors. Tea-Party supporters already bring loaded weapons to town-hall meetings. Reports of physical intimidation of polititcal opponents by tea-party supporters are widespread.
7. Claiming a divine mandate – Hitler believed he was divinely annointed to lead the German people. Palin has frequently used similar language, and consistently asked her followers to pray for her victory and the victory of her cause.
8. Cult of personality – every politician uses this to some degree, including Obama, but Palin takes it to a new level. The commentor who said “I like Sara Palin, she sems down to earth” proves exactly the point. Can this person name even one of her actual policy positions? Hitler’s was protrayed as the ideal son every German wanted, and the ideal father for every German boy. Change the nationality and gender, and this type of rhetoric applies equally to Palin.
Someone mentioned she does not speak well. Obviously that is no longer a requirement as it was in the 30’s – campaigns are just televised spectacles, and Sara palin is very attractive and telegenic. Stick a flag behind her and Madison Avenue will craft whatever message is needed. complete with white picket-fence sets and sweeping orchestral score.
9. Appeals to emotion rather than reason – use of totemic symbols to rally people to her cause. This is where the use of Harley motorcyles come in. Harleys are terrible bikes; most their power is wasted in noise and vibration. Harley riders even tune their bikes to be as noisy as possible to make them feel “strong” and “macho” (I should know, the entire 3-month summer in Milwaukee sounds like one big jet engine taking off). Harley is all about marketing – they festoon flags all over their overpriced leather outfits (made in Chinese sweatshops, natch), and contantly equate riding a Harley with “freedom.” Palin’s campaign is marketed the exact same way – all images designed to appeal to American sensibilites.
Guns are especially used as replacements for lost male virilty, especially when undereducated white males can no longer obtain jobs that pay enough to support a family. Consider: since the tea-party take over of a number of states, none of these governors have addressed the job crisis or put forward a jobs bill. They have, however, instituted dozens of laws allowing guns in churches, schools, workplaces, public areas, etc. You may have to strap on an orange bib and grovel for customers all day, but when you strap on that Glock, you’re a man again!
For the Germans it was torchlit vigils , pressed uniforms and solemn ceremony. for Americans it is Harley leather, a NASCAR oval and country music. But make no mistake (see, I can do it too), it’s all about symbolism, ritual and belonging. It bypasses the intellect and appeals right to the tribal lizard brain.
10. Worship of military power and might – might makes right arguments. It’s no coincidence she chose to do here motorcycle stunt on Memorial Day – a day set aside for remebrance of military dead in war. Palin is often seen in the company of soldiers. Soldiers are lionized as “the heroes” simply for putting on a uniform, much as they were in Nazi Germany. While Palin did not serve, she has a son in the military. Aggressive saber-rattling about America’s enemies is part of the standard stump speech.
Again, this appeals to white males who feel strong vicariously through our military might. You might be a lowly second-shift fry cook, but dammit, “we” sure can kick those ragheads asses!
11. Disdain and distrust of elites. The Nazis were famously disdainful of educated elites. Georing once famously said, “when I hear the word culture, I reach for my pistol.” Intellectual thought was downplayed. Any criticism of nazi policies was part of the “Jewish intellctual elite” and dismissed by Nazi followers. Even people with an education kept the fact well hidden for fear of persecution. Professors who held liberal views were forced out of academia, and often, the country.
12. Complete lack of qualifications for office. Hitler was a failed art student who painted postcards and spent much of his life as a homeless bum. then, seemingly overnight, he was head of a major political party, and then a candidate for Chancellor. Plain similarly came from nowhere. She barely graduated from a third-tier university, was on on-air TV personality and weather girl, mayor of a fyspeck town, and then suddenly is a governor and vice-presidential candidate. Both mysteriously rose from absolute obscurity, bankrolled and managed by a shadowy cabal behind the scenes, who felt that the raw charisma of these individuals was their meal ticket. Both were dismissed as buffoons with no chance of winning by people who thought they knew better.
I guess you can tell I’m in total agreement with Jim on this one. Ishould note that I have studied Nazi Germany extensively, and I am also a card-carrying white male member of the lower-working class, just like Joe Bageant (except in the North), and not an idiot. Because of these things, I have a unique feel for this issue. Can she win? I’ve prattled enough already, but I’ll say I think it’s unlikely but certainly not impossible. ‘Night all and sorry for the typos.
Hey RippedThunder,
Thanks for the shout back, dude. I’m guessing you drove that tiller truck sober, though, right?
Just kidding – and yeah, I’d trust a drunken firefighter in front of a lot of sober people I’ve known. In fact I have trusted a few off-duty drunken FF’s in my day – and drunken cops, EMT’s, nurses, doctors, – and the occasional drunken teacher and real estate agent, as well. When’s your next shift? You’ll be sober then, I’ll bet.
Enjoy the rest of your holiday, man!
“I do believe that immigration should be shut down, NOW!!, we have plenty of people here already.”
-RT-
You’ve got that right, RT. What I’m trying to find is a way to do that without being called “RACIST.”
Here’s what FAIR had to say about the nasty charge of RACISM by the SPLC way back in 2007.
“Grasping for attention, and no doubt to expand its donor base, the SPLC’s recent report claims that the number of so-called “hate groups” has risen 4 percent since 2008 and over 50 percent since 2000.” -FAIR concerning SPLC.
http://www.splcreport.com/
That ended it with charges against FAIR, apparently. The charge of RACISM has not been renewed since by SPLC.
“I’m looking forward to Palin running and, hopefully, having an opportunity to debate Obama….”
==============
I also look forward to that. Obama was a very effective debater in the 2008 debates, and he did not have a teleprompter. By the way, he won the debates and became President.
Excellent!
I hope Desert Dawg et al. take the time to read your analysis.
Sheet yea Prog, I was straight as the proverbial arrow! I’ll tell ya’ the kids get a huge kick out of the ladder when I “crab” it down the street totally out of line from the tractor. Ever body points and says look at the guy in the back steering. The kids are awestruck. My buddy follows the yellow line and I just keep going back and forth from curb to curb! Even adults are not so familiar with the tiller job. It poured until 9:45 and the parade kicked off at 10:00, it could not have worked out better! I am off till Friday, people say we have it made at the FD But I am working Friday through Monday, 48 hours a week. The MC’s are out in full force now so I am sure we will be get sumthin’. Hopefully we won’t have to leave the barn! Plus the boaters are out and god knows what they will be up to!
Good point. I also explained to my local right wingers that the NFL accepts tax payer money for stadiums, and that Merchandise sold is shared by all teams. (Rush was complaining about that on his show) Many sport stadiums are Socialist projects, and churchs receive government money, thats Socialism. They stare and nod quietly then explode like some of the above right wing stuff above. Not to worry, the same group controls both right & left wing players. Sit back, plant a garden and await for the return of Zeus.
ProCon, SPLC has not removed FAIR from its list of hate groups. It’s a free country and you are free to support FAIR, but don’t act all surprised when someone calls you out for supporting a racist organization.
The millions of illegals already here aren’t going back to Mexico, and there will be more to come in the future. Many, many more.
Why don’t you use some of your mental horsepower (you are intelligent) to figure out how to incorporate immigrants into this society productively, instead of using it for bashing them.
I wonder how many of the Irish, Italian, Chinese, or German immigrants would have been able to stay here had they been subjected to the same invective as the Latinos have.
There were times in history where the arguments and baseless claims being levelled against Latinos were levelled against Eastern European and Catholic immigrants, as well as anyone whose skin colour failed to prove light enough.
Procon, these “illegals,” as you and FAIR call them, are human. Take the time to learn why they’re coming and you might have a harder time exercising your racism against them.
Sounds like my home town, NPT,
and sadly, I agree with your sentiment
There are parallels between the current depression and the last one. Between what happened in Nazi Germany and what is happening here. For one thing though there has been a population explosion since then in the undeveloped and developed worlds proportionately. There have been unprecedented environmental catastrophes caused by energy gluttony. There are no new frontiers for growth. All of our energy resources are petering out.
Real unemployment in most cities is 20 %. The safety nets are not holding-up very well. Many state governments have cut unemployment benefits. A lot of unfortunate people are being swept under the rug. I am talking about increased homelessness, no prospects for jobs, inadequate medical care for what were middle-classed people or their children. The working poor and the impoverished have to contend with inflation and competition for extra money in the form or a second job. They have to contend with increased demands from their primary employer because of the tenuous footing employers place their employees on in these awful times. They have to deal with shrinking benefits and increased demand in the safety net. Increased demand for food stamps or a need to get food at food pantries. Many poor and middle class families have to pay more for rent because of higher desire for rentals in this dismal foreclosure-based housing economy.
There are also environmental issues to deal with. The limits of resources, frontiers, and exploitation have been reached in most places in the developed world. The excess demand for energy in so-called first world countries that led to the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster was a run-up. The Fukushima disaster, where a first world economy on speed is responsible for the worst nuclear catastrophe in history, is a nail in the coffin for many of us. We are enduring the worst nuclear catastrophe ever. The radioactive clouds are coming directly to, and over much of the United States, via the Jet stream from Fukushima to the United States and Canada.
We live in one of the least free republics in the world. Even Russian and Ukrainian immigrants will tell you that. Immigration to me, is not a racial issue, or a liberal issue, or a conservative issue. All countries in the world were settled by migrations. Ed Abbey, the famous writer affiliated with Earth First !, was progressive. He was not considered a racist, yet he had serious reservations about open immigration policies. He was very concerned about the very real stretching of resources and destruction of the environment in energy addicted first world economies based on ever-expanding growth.
There are rabid gun nuts and criminal exploiters like joe-joe of Arizona on one side, and indoctrinated bleeding hearts on the other. But what about immigration? Seems like it is a wedge issue used by the repulicorps and democorps to keep everyone upset and distracted from the real issues.
The drooling lefty label and the rabid righty labels are
merely distractions,an artificial construct, to keep one’s independent
decision-making boxed up. They are boxed-up neatly in one of two
very-easy-to-manipulate boxes. Hartmann or Limbaugh for example, makes no difference. I do like Thom Hartmann and his coverage of Fukushima. Tom’s coverage of immigration issues seems quite partisan to a progressive like me. I am concerned about the wedge the immigration issue has created and the irrationality behind it on both sides. Both sides are playing lose-lose.
Since many people I know take up the lefty label, especially when it comes to headlines about immigration, I have to assume they are firmly locked
into yesterday’s right-left paradigm. This is sad to me. It keeps the fire going where partisans are unable to rethink reality, and end up being quite comfortable with the emergent corporate fascism. I sure wish more people would read Chris Hedges or Wolin’s articles about inverted totalitarianism. Maybe there would not be so much extreme partisanship then, and real issues could be addressed.
Procon is trying to get members of CFN to support a racist hate group called FAIR. If you remember the anti-immigration law in Arizona (SB1070), FAIR helped write the legislation SB 1070 is modeled after.
The SB 1070 law–which has been blocked by two courts since it passed last year–requires police officers to check the immigration status of people in some cases, and makes it a misdemeanor for immigrants not to carry proper I.D.
Since it looks like the courts are going to continue to rule against this FAIR-endorsed legislation, you would be wasting your money by donating to FAIR.
Frequently, asoka also demonstrates that he is so caught up in his own words, his own beliefs, and his own prejudices that he does not read and consider the actual words of others.
As I stated earlier in this thread, I am no longer as concerned illegal immigration, only. I am working to reduce US immigration, of all types. I am working for nationwide improvement of the E-verify database, prior to mandatory nationwide implementation of E-Verify.
FAIR (and other similar organizations that I am joining and/or researching for CFN) is concerned with total immigration rates – illegal immigration is only a small part of the 3,000,000 person/year growth in US population.
We in the US need to reduce TOTAL immigration rates to “replacement level,” to stabilize US population at its present level.
A growing US population is not good for the US, and it is certainly not good for the rest of the world.
FAIR also has a history of linking to Holocaust deniers and anti-semitic groups and neo-Nazi propaganda.
Anti-semitism is hardly new territory for FAIR; FAIR founder John Tanton has funded and promoted the work of white nationalist leader Jared Taylor. Taylor is both a member of the old White Citizens Council, and founder of the racist eugenicist publication, American Renaissance.
Another of Tanton’s D.C.-based anti-immigration groups, Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), promotes the white nationalist website VDARE (home to Paul Craig Roberts and Patrick J. Buchanan), which also publishes the works of numerous white nationalists, including Jared Taylor and the late Sam Francis. The website also features Kevin MacDonald, the anti-Semitic California State University-Long Beach Professor.
FAIR’s close associations with extreme bigotry are inexcusable.
If you are going to donate to FAIR, know you are supporting a racist agenda, directly or indirectly.
Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM)
http://standing-firm.com/who-we-are/
The Fair Immigration Reform Movement is a national coalition of grassroots organizations fighting for immigrant rights at the local, state and federal level.
We are led by the Immigrant Organizing Committee, a group of 30 organizations committed to immigrant rights from across the country.
Procon said: ” I am working to reduce US immigration, of all types.”
=======
This is un-American. America was founded by immigrants and has always welcomed immigrants.
What you should be concerned with is global population, not national immigration. And you should support FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT, instead of supporting racist, anti-semitic, anti-immigrant groups.
Illegally crossing an imaginary line on the globe, or legally passing through an immigration checkpoint, does not alter the global population one iota.
MYTH: Immigrants don’t pay taxes.
This is False.
All immigrants contribute to this country’s tax base. They pay income, property, sales, and other taxes. Contrary to popular belief, undocumented immigrants also pay income taxes, as evidenced by the SSA’s “earnings suspense file” (taxes that couldn’t be matched to workers’ names and social security numbers). This pot increased by $20 billion in the 1990’s.
(SOURCES: Cato Institute, Urban Institute, SSA)
MYTH: Recent immigrants, because they are generally low skilled and undereducated, harm the economic
opportunities of low skilled, undereducated US citizens.
This is False.
Most labor economists agree that immigrants tend to complement rather than compete with American workers, both at the high and low skill levels. US workers, if displaced, tend to find better jobs at comparable or higher wages. The American economy, expanded by the consumption of the immigrants themselves, creates as many jobs as there are workers willing to work so long as labor markets remain flexible and open to all workers on an equal basis.
(SOURCES: David Card, Gianmarco Ottaviano, Giovanni Peri, Open Letter to Congress by 500 US Economists)
MYTH: It is illegal for undocumented immigrants to work in this country.
This is False.
Although undocumented immigrants are not legally authorized to live here, they are not violating any law by working in this country. Since 1986, it has been illegal for employers to hire them.
MYTH: Lax border enforcement has led to high undocumented immigration.
This is False.
In the last 20 years, Border Patrol’s budget has increased ten fold and the number of uniformed officers patrolling the borders has grown to 10,000. Since, 1992, the cost of making an arrest along the border has increased from $300 to over $1,700. Despite the border enforcement buildup, there has been a decrease in the likelihood of migrant apprehension at the border and a significant increase in undocumented immigration.
(SOURCES: Cato Institute; Andreas, Peter. 2000 Border Games: Policing the US-Mexico Divide)
Oh, I get it; national sovereinty is for sale if the price is right,…..right? Yeah, sure; why bother with the cumbersomness of immigration laws crafted and enacted by democratically elected representatives honor bound to serve the will of the citzenry? Hell, just let national destiny default to however many foreign nationals choose to defy such laws. Ah, yes; simple!
MYTH: Immigrants are more likely to commit crimes and enter the criminal justice system.
This is False.
Despite prevalent myths and stereotypes about immigrants’ criminal conduct and their flooding of our jails, studies indicate that the rate of incarceration of foreign-born individuals is well below that of native-born ones (0.68% vs. 3.51%). Studies also show that incarceration rates increase in subsequent generations.
(SOURCE: Ruben Rumbaut-UCI).
MYTH: On the whole, immigrants utilize the public welfare and health care system at a much higher rate
than native-born US citizens.
This is False.
Use of public benefits by documented immigrant families is well below that of native-born citizens. Low-income native citizens use TANF and Medicaid at a much higher rate than immigrants.
Moreover, recent studies conclude that although immigrants pay Medicare, payroll and other taxes, they
receive less than half as much health care as native-born families.
(SOURCES: Urban Institute; Brookings Institute;
American Journal of Public Health)
“Ramon Mercador killed Trotsky, and this was confirmed by a Barcelona detective who once arrested him…
Bubblehead, you know that Mercador was George Orwell’s Spanish translator when Orwell was fighting for the anarchists in Spain?
The NKVD killed all the anarchists they could get their hands on in the Republic…
Politics makes strange bedfellows doesn’t it?
MYTH: International migration is primarily caused by the lack of economic development in migrants’
home countries and because of wage disparities.
This is False.
International migrants do not originate in the world’s poorest nations, but in those that are developing and growing. The initiation of economic development in migrants’ home countries and the structural changes it triggers causes increased migration to occur. Moreover, although wage disparities do constitute one factor in migrants’ decision to emigrate, households generally use international migration as a tool to overcome failed, missing or nascent markets for insurance, capital, and credit at home.
(SOURCE: Douglas S. Massey, 2002, Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of
Economic Integration)
Yes, you’ve got it. Amnesty for illegals was one of the good things Ronald Reagan did for this country. And Bush was also good on allowing immigrants into the country.
‘Frequently, asoka also demonstrates that he is so caught up in his own words, his own beliefs, and his own prejudices that he does not read and consider the actual words of others’…………..
PC, Narcissists ‘write scripts for others to live out’…He just posted 100s of lines since yr post
I am replying by…I call it ‘scroll over country’.
During another high liturgical functions, Miss Bankhead observed the robes, the incense burners … “the smells and bells.”
She observed to the Archbishop … “Love the dress, but your purse is on fire.”
Yup. Fascism is always a possibility. Every once in awhile I pick up Eric Hoffer’s “True Believer” and give it another quick read. It’s small.
We have a fellow on our city council. Gives me the willies. I’m sure that if he were taken in hand by the Powers That Be, he could travel a fair ways down the ol’ Fascist Road. But I don’t think he’ll be “the one.” But he’ll make a great little local functionary.
For the record, I don’t believe you’re a racist, Prog. I also don’t believe that Asoka really believes that every person dubious of the economy is automatically an Obama hating racist as Asoka implied – one of his more bizarre(stupid) posts as I previously mentioned. But it reads like Asoka has researched the organization that you espouse more than you have. Perhaps. Associations matter after all.
But never mind all that. What about the Supreme Court upholding the Arizona immigration law with a 6-3 vote? Have I missed something here on CFN;I don’t recall any mention made of this rather significant immigration development. Moreover, why haven’t you asked Asoka why the Obama administration is targeting the employers who hire illegal workers? In fact, the Obama administration has been far more vigilant on this front.
Far more vigilant against employers than the Bush administration ever was,
* A 5-3 vote.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2011/0526/Supreme-Court-upholds-Arizona-law-designed-to-thwart-illegal-workers
The Bush administration made some big crackdown shows which punished the worker. Conversely, the Obama administration is taking aim at employers, and just to put some real chill in ICE, some of the charges being leveled against employers includes Tax Fraud. Now which policy does anyone in their right mind think will have a more pronounced ripple effect?
“Last year, according to government figures, the enforcement agency started 2,746 workplace investigations in addition to the audits, more than double the number in 2008, the last full year of the Bush administration. Fines totaling about $43 million, also a record, were levied on companies in immigration cases.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/us/politics/30raid.html
Wrong Soak. Many European immigrants couldn’t make it here and had to go back. And others made it and went back of their own accord. In any case, there was no gigantic Federal System to support them and all the kids they could make.
In other words, the more alien, the more American. Thus Immigrants are the most American of all, the corollary being that Americans aren’t good Americans – unless they redeem themselves by supporting the real Americans, the immigrants.
Asoka always pushes false arguments to their ultimate absurd conclusions, in this case: it’s un-American to be American.
Political Correctness is a religion and those who are against religion should be against it too.
Blacks are less intelligent than Whites. Do you think the Pioneer Fund should be shut down by force? That White geniuses shouldn’t be allowed to donate their sperm to worthy White receipients?
What are you afraid of?
Papers? That’s Fascist! We’re all just People! Gay, Str8, “Black”, White – same struggle, same fight!
They think that illegals should be allowed to vote – just ask them. There is NO limit to the insanity. That’s why when the Strong Man arises it will be our highest duty and privledge to support him.
Accept your part in the downfall. Liberalism was too soft, too blase about human evil, except for the socially acceptable hate against White Males. Life was never as generous as Liberals made it out to be. And as for supporting other groups before our own, that goes beyond mere illusion – it was evil and insane.
Sarah Palin and Barack Obama and any other 2012 presidential candidate that you will ever see on the T.V. are going to stick to one theme…….
Who can blow the most feel-good smoke up the ass of the American people while things go further into the shitter.
Peak Oil, Climate Change, trade imbalances, fiat currency debt and all the other vultures are coming home to roost right now and guess who’s living without a tent under the vulture tree. That would be you and me whatever your political affiliation.
I’m not noticing that the floods, tornados and droughts are checking I.D.’s or taking note of anybody’s skin color before they toss their shit about. The pain at the gas pump may be proportionately less for the guys at the top of the heap but every time payday comes around and the cash goes into the gas bill instead of some local merchant some rich white guy’s business prospects sink a little farther into the mud.
Even here two thirds of the conversation is about whether we can blame it on somebody with a different skin color. Get over it already. Those politics aren’t going to fix shit.
Unless your political conversation is about installing solutions, trains, solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal HVAC, bicycle infrastructure, etc you are still in the business of blowing smoke up your own ass. You can burn each other’s fields and feel smug but that isn’t going to do you a damn bit of good when your belly is empty and there’s no bread to be found.
Man, I would LOVE to drop Vlad’s racist white ass out of a plane and into the wilds of the Congo or New Guinea and follow him around with a camera and a local interpreter who could explain to the local people his views on the color of their skin.
Just the film of him breaking down and starving to death or succumbing to some local toxin or disease would be a treasure. Or perhaps he would try to steal from the locals and get put down…..
Racism is a mental illness. Unreformed racists need to be put in mental hospitals where they aren’t a danger to the public and can’t infect children.
You know Jim, I’ve had it w/you. You must feel very threatened by Sarah Palin bashing her the way you do. You make her out to be some kind of idiot, she was the governor of alaska, which I know you think is a joke but what have you done w/ your pathetic self? Have you ever been a governor? All you do is sit at home on your computer writing stupid weekly articles. Everything w/ you is doom and gloom, you are a miserable little man and it must really suck to be you. Why can’t you write something positive once and a while? you can’t because in your world everything sucks and no one is as good as you. I think you’re an asshole.
Here’s the Palin “I love that smell of the emissions” quote from earlier in the thread.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHkL1rvckBk
This is truly Mike Judge’s “Idiocracy” coming true.
Let’s talk about HELL
Religions should only talk about hell, should only constantly hammer in and down on people how much they will suffer when they die, how bad it will be, they should create as much terrorism in the minds of people as possible, total psychological panic, fear, they should get people on the run big time. It will be really terrible, infinite pain forever, extreme pain, just imagine, just think about it, it should keep you terrorized for every living moment of your life. Because hell is really, but really bad, and that is where we are all going no matter what. But religions often just suggest it, just skim on it, just barely mention it, so the terror is subtly inserted in people’s minds, but they are immediately distracted with other things, but the concept has gone in the subconscious and is ready to haunt people forever. This is the power of religion, they are subtly manipulating people’s brains without them noticing it. But we are actually in heaven, or have been in heaven as just one picosecond of not hell is the greatest gift ever, so you have achieved everything possible, the greatest gift god can ever give you because he allowed you not to be in hell for one picosecond. You have won, you have won forever, even if you suffer an eternity, that one picosecond compensates all, you have achieved and are in heaven even though you are in hell, because god is not a mathematician, one picosecond of heaven (which essentially is the absence of hell) is more than enough, is infinitely more than an eternity of hell (god should go back to school and learn some arithmetic). By the way, when you go to church on Sunday, remember that your are actually going to a lesson in Philosophy and Metaphysics, as the object of discussion is imaginary metaphysical abstractions.
Bu this concept of hell is part of a more general system of thought as in the threat “you are accountable”, you must “behave”, if not you will be punished. This creates self guilt, self repression, self flagellation constantly in every moment of your life. It is based on you “are in control”, you are the “boss”, you can win, so if you didn’t win you deserve the punishment. But it is absurd, we don’t even control one electron of our mind or brain, let alone billions of moving parts life and an economy are made up of, all independent of you, all your enemies, all ready to contradict you and fight you as in the fight for imaginary “limited resources”. So we are set up for mourning, for always and ever regretting that past, we love to mourn, to be sad and angry or depressed about that one thing that went wrong (there is always and will always be one thing that went wrong, that contradicted us) the thing we did wrong, the thing that made us lose, only repenting and mourning that mistake we made, that loss we had, that thing we lost, or that promise that was broken, or that illusion that was revealed (there is and will always be a mistake, if I did G then I would have had S, but this is not guaranteed, ever, it is only a possibility, and maybe if you did G you would have gotten S, but after that N which you wouldn’t have wanted, so any path is a guess, any path can be “winning” or “losing”, but we only win temporarily, the game of chess against life will make us lose anyways in the end no matter what).
So this is what the ruling class wants, you must always be in self guilt, always trying to win, always putting the guilt on yourself, it is always your fault of your condition, self punishment always. They love these structures, these are the structures of the laws also, punishment and accountability and the rules you broke. But this structure of a law works well in small groups where the ritual that programs behavior is well known and where societies are simple: we live in ultra complex (or maybe really simple ?) societies where the rules are unknown, ambiguous, ever changing, and in the end you get laid off anyways.
Of course, I already see another infinite recursion of impossible problems coming up: if there is no accountability and punishment how can you force people to behave, since people behave badly because they are and like to contradict constraints and they suck, but the laws are necessary, but who chooses which laws ? and so on, an infinite recursion of intractable problems since we are pure contradiction always.
The real problem is that today there are really so few arenas economically to show off how better you are in comparison to others, also since the economic structure is hell bent on eliminating as much labor as possible, since a Technological Economy makes the system richer and richer by the moment and doesn’t need work anymore (so much for all of the “resource scarcity myths”), but this inequality between people must be forced, must be created when in all truth it is not justified, or justified only in very few cases: but the system wants everyone to compete “against” everyone else, to win the “competition” and “fight”, so that a person can feel “he deserves more”, he has won.
Kill religion and kill god. Believe in nothing, just say nothing exists, we are nothing, we are dead, the world is dead, meaningless, has no necessities, is nothing, is a void, is not pretty or ugly it is totally indifferent to all and everything. The truth is that there is nothing, no value, no universe, no necessities, nothing at all, everything is simply dead, no activity, no meaning, nothing further to achieve, a total void. Everything is independent from us, from our temporary state of life, there is no beauty or value, the world is your enemy BIG TIME, accept nothing at all as the truth. Just like the rocks on mars have nothing to say to us, they are “barren”, “boring” (boring is the best state of existence), so is the real nature of everything.
We should be dead, instead Matter decided to take a vacation from what it really is and what it really should be doing and what it really should be and that is indifferent, dead, nothing, no activity, no nothing, pure void, no values, no sensations, total oblivion. But it wants to take a small vacation from what it is and pretend to be alive, and pretend to exist and hence it comes alive and lives in the form of man with his self consciousness: but if you have to fake it, fake it BIG TIME, the transition from death to self consciousness and the process of living in this universe as decoded by our arbitrarily designed mind – brain can be substituted with a transition to another arbitrarily designed mind – brain that lives in another universe. And this other universe can be as wild and incredible as possible, they are both fake so who cares how you fake it, life is fake, just like our temporary decoding of this universe according to our temporary necessities imposed by the arbitrary design of man by what ? Natural evolution ? or god ? or the laws of physics ? well who cares, just change the stage, the reference system that imposes restrictions and interdictions, inhibitions and constraints, change them into something else and you can have a ball. It is all a lie anyways, who cares.
In that sense everything should be compared to the state of death, and since by comparing life, your life, or the universe o anything to the state of death you see that it is a lie, a temporary instability, Matter wanted to go out and play with itself for some time, but it must go back to bed, mommy will tuck it in bed again soon, then a modified mind playing a different game is just as good.
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175386
“A sequence of manipulations and causes and effects that we performed with our mind in our universe and with our Matter P that created contraption A, that is now experiencing a new universe.”
One interesting thing is that the Instant Singularity as defined by just wildly and randomly changing the neural circuits in minds as P creating A, and A being then totally independent means that since the nature of A is so far away from anything we can imagine, the relationship between P and A can be as far away as possible: hence even all of the symbols in the universe couldn’t describe some modified minds, and even those would be indirections for other symbols, trillions of indirections, of denotations, ever more vaguely implying some kinds of modified minds living in incredible universes, way past anything we can possibly relate to.
And those minds are just as real as any other mind: only because you have been so deeply programmed into believing and valuing other people’s minds, it is so hard to see how it is a simple indirection, a simple assignment, so you really believe in other minds, as deep as possible, but you don’t believe in these new modified minds, one is real the other is fake: nothing further from the truth, just invert the assignments, the real mind is fake and the fake mind can become just as real. You can’t touch other people’s judgment, it is a total abstraction, they give you clues, but don’t believe in the clues, just lie to yourself, lie to all, all is a lie, Matter likes to lie, if it didn’t like to lie it wouldn’t want to go out and play and pretend to be alive when it should be static, no activity and dead. But mommy will come back, and put Matter to bed, go on Matter, be a good little boy, the time to play is over, now go to sleep.
Now copy and paste all of this for your homework, show mommy and give it to the teacher, she will give you an A and maybe a star.
Watch it, Pan. Do you follow Vlad down with a parachute or go the easy way?
The local natives, seeing Vlad’s silk and your soul snatching camera, put Vlad on a throne of palm fronds and feathers along with bowls of kola nuts and jars of coconut juice, while you, well, you simply become long pig!
The finance-driven economy makes the most
odious dolts think they’re going to be the
next Donald Trump when they’re 99.9999%
more likely to be eating out of garbage cans.
And Donald Trump himself is a fraud who goes
around pedalling himself as a judge of
economic competence. He’s a failed casino
tycoon which is like a second-derivative
failure because we need casinos like we
need a second asshole. He’s often had a
huge negative net worth over the last two
decades because his Atlantic City casinos
are NEVER blockbusters.
The latest cultural euphemism is that public
education is “useless” or “worthless”. Yet
recent studies show that charter schools,
which cost an arm and a leg, deliver exactly
the same piss-poor results as America’s
current, and admittedly declining, public
schools. And I shudder to think of most
of the adults I see in public attempting
to HOME SCHOOL their kids since most of
them can hardly count or utter a single
sentence in pristine English.
The social aspects of our young polity are
even more alarming as they adopt the “BroWorld”
phony solidarity of ghetto-wear and ghetto-speak.
It’s amazing to see a bunch of Gen-Y kids try to
converse: The word “like” used every sentence
and the words “fuck” and “fuckin'” used, not as
profanity (which would show a soupcon of
creativity) but as FILLER because they simply
cannot think of another word while they’re
fishing for the right word. Their “attire”
uses the watchcap of the prison yard and the
slovenly underwear-showing/shirt-never-tucked-in
of the fat slob.
If Sarah Palin is “Third Reich v. 2.0” then
you must admit that it’s a comical sequel
because there really WERE a lot of bright
Germans in 1930s Germany. With our current
lot of innumerate and illiterate youth,
anything like Nazism will be farce because
stupidity of that depth can never be anything
but EFFETE and FECKLESS.
E.
P.S. Jim, according to you Sarah Palin is a glaring example of everything wrong w/ this country.. I think you’re a glaring example of stupidity! Why don’t you get the hell out of this country! You hate it here so much, go and try to find a better place! Good luck! You can add this to your hate mailbox.
“And those minds are just as real as any other mind: ”
Actually even more real, trillions of times more real than anything we can ever conceive, they have all kinds of sensations, all kinds of new causes and effects, ever new and changing, without end. Just like you believe in the sensations other people have, you must believe in the sensations abstract symbols have, even trillions of times more so, ever more, they are trillions of times realer (use big numbers to emphasize). Also the causes and effects creating the minds can be anything since P is anything now and even A is anything, so be careful, if you write a slightly wrong symbol for a mind you may create infinite pain (or pleasure, or anything else imaginable ?), any causes and effects can be assigned and associated, actually invent anything as far out as possible, the more impossible, the realer and truer, Lying is the only value our universe has, as truth was always just a make believe symbol.
your long winded diatribe was boring.. you need to get a life
Good Lord, another one of these “my country,
love it or leave it” morons. That’s like
saying “My mother, drunk or sober”. Duh,
I’ll take sober.
Samuel Johnson once said: “Patriotism is the
last refuge of a scoundrel” and it was YOUR
type of “patriotism” that he was pointing at
when he made his famous remark.
I guess it has never crossed your mind, what
there is of it, that a TRUE patriot wants his
country to “be all that it can be”. Do you
think America is what it WAS or SHOULD BE?
If so, you have pretty low standards or you’re
so young you don’t remember when we were the
world’s largest creditor, had the best schools
in the world, and we were the world’s
manufacturing GIANT … not a “boiler-room scam”
kind of country where the financial sector is
FORTY percent of the economy.
Sarah Palin was so embarrassing during the
debate with Joe Biden that I could not even
PARSE half her sentences because they were
spoken in “Bushian” English. Her campaign
spiel now, what with trying to get people
to glorify the cheesy vanity of their tattoos,
is so stupid that it’s more farce than tragedy.
You, Ms. Suling, ought to move to a website
where your lack of rhetorical gifts will
handicap you less. People like you who
simply ORDER people to “get a life” ruin
blogs because you don’t debate or reason …
you just SHOUT.
E.
We should really try to get you on TV, Debra,
so that Tina Fey can work up another hilarious
parody like her eerily accurate impersonations
of your soulmate, Sarah Palin.
Your intellectual gifts are nonexistent, Suling,
because people like you who believe that writings
should blow “blue sky” up people’s asses don’t
realize that satirizing and parodying STUPIDITY,
AVARICE, and other increasing national traits
AFFIRMS the values that made America a great
country before the “Reagan Revolution” started
to make it go bust.
Being negative about negative developments is
being affirming of old-fashioned virtues that
America once possessed but no longer does.
What’s Palin’s next gambit … to be in a
biopic about her favorite tattoo’ed biker chick??
E.
I fail to understand how an intelligent commenter like you cannot see what the real macro trend is worldwide and what the real problem is: and that is how a Technological Economy is eliminating jobs faster than any possible replacement, and at the same time creating ever greater real wealth, in terms of optimizations in real production processes, science applied to technology, “cutting costs” (which means less need for both people and natural resources) and concentrating a huge amount of all of these gains in the hands of those 6,000 or so worldwide super rich families. This issue is the major reason of the economic crisis, especially in the USA, EU and JAPAN, this is the backbone of huge amounts of money the rich and capitalists have been accumulating worldwide for decades, this huge free money provided by technology.
Now there is absolutely no possible solution to this unless you simply force a solution in the form of handouts, cheap rents and free salaries: there is no magic hand of the market economy, no “less taxes”, no “innovation”, no “more education”, that will change any of this, that will “create jobs” and indeed most of these “solutions” will just amplify even more this huge elimination of the need for real labor, as in more innovation simply means even more ways to “cut costs” which translate somewhere and somehow in a job that is either paid less or no longer needed, “more education” just burdens people with even more debt, hoping that the future will play out like the (imaginary ?) past, but more education, if even used for “innovation”, will either result in even more “costs cut” and hence “fewer jobs” or just more intellectuals unemployed or underemployed that can discharge their “EXCESS CAPACITY” through websites like this with their never ending blocks of texts (hint, hint, may that include me?).
The reason why this issue is never mentioned is because it implies a very simple logical, predetermined and only possible solution: and that is, if the system is eliminating jobs automatically and structurally, then either we give handouts to people or a government, or public – private entities will have to INVENT and create them by the millions with large scale public – private endeavors like Rockets to Mars, Skyscrapers and High Speed Trains, along with millions of fake jobs where, even if people do nothing at all, it doesn’t matter, the system no longer needs so much labor, so we simply distribute the free wealth that is generated.
But this implies a huge cultural and ideological change, something that people can’t wrap their heads around, they are so used to “fighting others”, calling others “lazy”, you have “to deserve it”; and so on, the “competition myth”; the “resource scarcities myth”, etc. that they are doomed to fight amongst each other and actually sustain ideological positions against themselves just for the pleasure of not giving out “free lunches”, just for the pleasure of hurting others. But this is a recipe for more and more economic contraction in the first world, while all the gains will be made in the third world, since their growth is mostly due of them going to poor to rich, buying their first car, their first TV, just like JAPAN went from 1960 to 1980.
And all of the trillions of dollars of profits gained by firing people will keep on flowing in the hands of the super rich forever. AMEN.
Spider,
I agree that money is continuing to flow
to the “bunkers” of the super-rich but I
think your argument about the “increase
in productivity” caused by high tech is
based upon statistical fictions.
First, in a non-manufacturing economy, the
statistics about “productivity” are laughably
jury-rigged. What is the “product” that is
being “produced”?? Indeed, even with the
jury-rigged stats, I believe that all the
“productivity gains” caused by tech are
about to end as nervous existing workers
are being coerced to be two people each
for fear of losing their jobs. You can’t
squeeze blood out of a turnip.
I do, however, support your idea that if
uber-plutocrats are going to put people
out of work they should damned well put a
roof over their head and food in their
stomachs. The “banana-republic-ization”
of the USA economy with obscene wealth
concentration is because of “Socialism
for the rich, capitalism for the poor”
i.e., CEOs don’t offshore their own jobs.
Yet, in the end, I don’t agree that all of
the third world “tigers” will ever reach the
standard of living in the USA in the 1960s
thru 1990s because it’s a “cornucopian”
idea that Planet Earth will have the resources
to allow Brazilians, Chinese, and Indians to
live the resource-profligate lifestyles of
Americans. That ship already sailed even
for us and it isn’t coming back for anyone
else.
Finally, the resource that’s really going to
kill the Chinese and Indian economic “miracles”
for good involve the increasing severity of
their WATER SHORTAGES. Though many of the
Jiminy Cricket when-you-wish-upon-a-star types
on this site think that Mother Earth has
infinite freshwater, base metals, oil, and
food, Mama seems to have different ideas.
E.
Mooselini and Caribou Barbie…very funny..
How about Wolverine Witch, Sable Slut and Beaver Bitch…..sorry but thats as much as she challenges my intellect.
But even considering it all from the point of view of the right wing and capitalists, they get a much larger bang for the buck using workers in Indonesia or Brazil: for those workers an increase of monthly salary from 300 to 400 dollars a month is a great incentive, they are young, they are going forward, they are optimistic. In the USA, EU and JAPAN, the only thing that workers see is less jobs, less pay, more expenses, etc. they are old, they are “has beens”, they are over.
So obviously, if there are jobs that are created and needed, you can be sure that most will continuously be created in the developing countries as opposed to the former rich countries where it is now everyone against everyone else, everyone out to stick it to everyone else.
Debra S., in his column next week Jim will feature photos of Obama with his friend Minister Farrakan, arrow pointed at crescent moon pinned to The Ministers collar. The will be photos of Obama with his neighbors, Weather Undergound founders and murderers, Ayers and Dohrn. Also in the column will be an account of the professed Maoists working in the Obama administration right now.
That’s right, next week Jim will have something for his fans who are NOT America Hating Libs, Atheists, Anarchists, or Sneering Academics. There are a few of us out here.
-Marlin
“Globalism has taken away many of the entry level jobs and ancillary “fluff” jobs that in the past gave english, history and psych majors (and other similars) something to do. Those jobs are gone; all that’s left or all that corporate industry wants to pay for are serious jobs that require real skills (the #1 major in terms of starting salaries and number of job offers in 2010 was chemistry, followed by physics then various engineering fields and technical health care e.g. nursing). ”
Don’t believe this. Companies don’t need tech types, they just make believe, it is all a dog and pony show. Do you know how many tech types there are in the world available, how many older engineers who were hosed ? And most of all they don’t use most of the tech skills, only very few corporations really need all the math or whatever, most is fluff anyways sales, public relations.
I already posted often on these topics, and asked often show me exactly all of the calculations, all the tech skills, all the equations that “need to be solved” for 8 hours a day, everyday, (for a year or two or three ?) in what areas of production, in what endeavors, etc. for supposedly thousands of “new graduates”, etc. No dice, they hire some, they make believe there is a shortage, it is all a sophisticated game to show that the kids “deserve to be paid less”, they didn’t “learn the hard math” supposedly needed. Nothing further from the truth, the hard math needed, also can be done anywhere in the world, and you got kids in South Korea, JAPAN and China that study really hard “for the hard math”, corporations just go anywhere they want for the few real endeavors they need to do with hard tech skills.
And then worldwide, all of these “high class skills” may employ IN REAL PRODUCTIVE AND NEEDED LABOR only a few million at most really (and that is an approximation by excess by a large order), as the very tech jobs are those the most easily outsourced and can be done through communications and the internet. And most of all the easiest to optimize, automate and get rid of altogether.
If you voted for Obama in 2008 to prove you are not a racist…
…then you’ll have to vote for somebody else in 2012 to prove that you’re not an idiot.
The caricature you identify is George Bernard Shaw, who wrote the play Pygmalian which is the basis for My Fair Lady.
Man It is “A Beautiful Day” out today. Not a cloud in the sky! Bird’s are out in full force. Quite a change-up from the weather lately. I was just sitting out on the deck with the dogs and a coffee. Me thinksto meself “It don’t get any better than this” this song came to mind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrFCwvlw0cs
Also, the tech arena is the arena of Inequality if there ever was one: the top notch techs, the ones that corporations really need occasionally are really much much better than the average joe tech, but those top notch ones are used either in very specialized areas and in companies doing research or cutting edge stuff. So not those many are needed anyways, only very – very good. But corporations know where and how to find them when they need them, they don’t have any dependency on “shortage of tech skills”, it is the other way around, the workers always have an absolute dependency on the corporations.
This is part of all of those lies that have brainwashed everyone for decades, the lies the ruling class can easily feed everyone since very few can challenge them when they say they have “a tech shortage”, who is going to stand up to the challenge ? Most are intimidated (math is always intimidating for most people), the ones working in these areas and know the truth usually never question it, remember tech types are not used to connecting the specific with the general, they concentrate on the specifics, so they couldn’t say, “why are you saying there is a tech shortage when you have laid off thousands upon thousands of tech types in the last few years ?”
They want to always convince you that there are “objective” structural reasons why you don’t have a job, or are paid less, or whatever, when in all truth there are only precise intentionalities behind most decisions, precise will powers to pay less, or just move an activity somewhere else, etc. There is no objective truth, only strong man crushing weak man, and putting the blame on the weak man. Don’t believe nothing of what the economists and most people say on these issues, it is all ideology.
Warren Peace from 10:22
Loved your post. I think you just about covered it to the point where I can’t add to it. A couple of things, though, and someone else said it. We are breaking down, not coming together, so that means the country will not be centralizing the way Germany did. The idea that we could be breaking up seems like it has some merit.
The media refused to cover that Todd Palin was part of an Alaskan separatist group. That should have been fair game since she said Obama was palling around with terrorists. When the media said nothing, I knew they were in her pocket. Now we have the Texas governor, Perry, also one who has brought up secession, as yet another Rep. Presidential hopeful. In 2009 there was a theory developed in Russia that we were going to be splitting up in several zones.
You can see the pattern.
Webster Tarpley has had made some amazing statements about where we are heading and it seems he too has seen some parallels to Germany. He thinks this might be our last democratic election and that we are heading down the path to real facism.
About Sarah Palin. You really don’t think the power eleite of this country is going to let her run the government, do you. Now she’ll be more like a paper weight in the oval office.
But especially the kids then feel guilty, they are a “failure”, the families, all a self guilt trip, all a victim that is to blame himself. He wasn’t good enough to do “the hard math” (that is blown way out of proportion to what companies really need, and do you know what they really need ? PROFITS and as few workers as possible, and they need more tech types LIKE A HOLE IN THE HEAD).
But this is so convenient for the ruling class (actually for everyone, since hating on everyone else is that which people love to do most), math is hard, you couldn’t do it, you are to blame for how worthless you are, the anger is not directed towards the capitalists and super rich drowning in trillions, but it is directed towards the self, self punishment, go on, you are to blame for your situation, go on, suffer ever more, you could have been Bill Gates too.
Beat yourself up, the system is “objectively” good, true and correct, you are a sinner (see how religion is tied up with it all).
She was a piece of work allright. I heard my Tallulah Bankhead stories from an eccentric Episcopalian monk who was hanging out at St. Gregory’s Abbey, Three Rivers, MI although he didn’t belong to the Anglican Benedictines there. She also liked to talk so much that she would invite whomever she was conversing with into the toilet to continue talking even as she took a dump, kind of like LBJ in fact. I liked her in the Hitchcock movie “Lifeboat” because an an AB in the merchant marine I was of course crossrated as a Lifeboatman, as are all rated deckhands and deck officers.
Also, another thing, corporations hire people mostly for what their ideology is, what they believe in, the most important trait is if those people that get hired are exactly the kinds they want: they believe in profits, pro capitalism, pro free market, workaholics, hate on the weak, career oriented, etc. They need future bosses more than anything else. The tech skills are worth close to zero for corporations, the political (be right wing conservative 12 hour a day workaholic hating on everyone else who is lazy) ideology of the worker is the most important thing. And they sense this immediately, if you are “one of us” or a lazy piece of crap.
The fact is that your ideology and political orientation, personality, how you behave (exactly like them) is the most important thing for them (but they hide this very carefully). They could care less about technical skills, these are a dime a dozen.
The most important thing they always love to talk about is “the need for long working hours”, you must not be “lazy”, always hitting on someone considered “lazy” (they love this concept), when this economic system has so little real labor left to do, go figure.
Mornin’ Asoka, I work in a town which has a very large population of immigrants from the former Soviet states. For the most part they are hard workers and industrious. The problem I see is that the whole extended family comes to the USA. Due to the lack of a decent health care system in the “Old Country” many of the elderly have all sorts of chronic health conditions. Many of these folks live in public housing, collect SS, and often receive hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of medical care, never having paid a penny into the system or worked a day in the USA. They actually receive preferential treatment over many of our native born citizens. Between my two jobs I probably average 80 hours a week, I say close the damn borders, we have enough people in this country already.
Jim – have you ever heard of Godwin’s Law? Once you start comparing those you disagree with to Hitler and the Nazis, you’ve already lost the argument. Sarah Palin may be many things, but the reincarnation of Adolph Hitler isn’t one of them.
I really like your more recent rants. Now for my mini-rant on education: it is our expectations that are unrealistic. As a teacher of 7 years experience, suburban parochial, inner city parochial, ghetto high school & Job Corps I wince every time I hear some ignoramus whining about how “LAZY” the kids are. Bullshit. Kids are not lazy. They are merely stupid most of them, which is why they’re never going anywhere academically. This didn’t used to bother us, because at one time we had something for them to do. No longer.
Also the brilliant kids don’t learn much in school either. But they do learn elsewhere. School is pedestrian, and not in the good sense of that word, or walking instead of driving everywhere. The teachers are more concerned that the dullards pass their graudation test so the bright kids get lost in the shuffle.
Public education is being trashed in the media so that people will give up on it and agree to privatize same which will be good for those investing in this venture to set up all these gimmicky motivational academies and so forth. This is no different than Governor Kasich of Ohio trying to sell the fucking turnpike to private operators.
Any large urban school district with its presumably intractable problems could be overhauled and made serviceable virtually overnight, but this is not going to happen because the various fixes would be politically unpalatable. And besides, if people actually became realistic about what is doable then the education entrepreneurs wouldn’t be able to move in and make money off this mess. And that’s what I call a Catch-22.
Educational fads which have hobbled the schools: [1] mainstreaming, or the absurd pretense that everyone is the same. Bullshit. Kids run the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous; [2] shutting down the bad-boy’s schools in the big city districts. Wonderful. Now all they’ve got is regular school on the one hand and the state reformatory on the other, and nothing in between; [3] forced busing for racial balance. Busing converts integrated districts segregated by building into overwhelmingly minority districts from which all the whites have fled, to achieve the phyrric victory of integrating the individual buildings; [4] absurdly small class sizes for everyone, including the normal kids who can do without that; [5] inclusion of chronic disruptors in the mainstream setting including teacher assaulters, often returned to the same building after a brief suspension;[6] presentation of academics as a grim chore rather the fun it could be at least for those who do have some aptitude.
The bottom line is that people seem not to appreciate that academic pursuits are not for everyone. Not by a long shot either. Mandatory academic instruction for 12 years for everyone makes about as much sense as requiring piano lessons for the tone deaf. Or tackle football for those suffering from chronic wasting syndrome. The real dumb-fucks are the administrators who dreamed up this vast quagmire.
nice comment Eleuthero, i’m very impressed.Sarah Palin is not my soulmate and I didn’t state whether I liked her or not, go back and read my comment. You and your soulmate Kunstler should get together so you can discuss how stupid everyone else is and how amazingly brilliant you are. Let me guess, you must be one of those bloviating academics of the highest order. I don’t want blue sky smoke blown up my ass as you say, I’m fully aware of the problems w/ this country and you write as if you know what I think. I may not be a sneering academic like you but I have something you don’t -a belief that you have to look for some good in this world. Kunstler and others (like you) don’t find much joy in being alive.Everything is negative, end of the world bullshit! Why don’t you stop living in the past. sorry to tell you we’re never going back to that “special time” where everything was just perfect!
I see some similarities with the positioning of Sarah Palin and the Aryan Pride movement in Germany of the 1920s, but I think JHK is reading in anti-Semeticism that is not on Sarah’s simple mind.
After all, she knows that Israel is not to be messed with, if one wants to be successful in U.S. politics. And, I don’t see her going after the many Jews in the Wall Street power block.
I do see her as crazy enough to give all the disgruntled the satisfaction of totally unleashing the one hole card our country has left — the high-tech U.S. military, with all the toys human decency wouldn’t let them use in Vietnam.
I have perceived an undercurrent of belief in the many career military personnel, in conversations over the many years since Nam, that “We could have won if we just nuked ’em.”
That is the one card we have left to play — to turn the Middle East (with the exception of Israel, of course) into a sheet of glass.
Playing to the many veterans’ unspoken belief that if we just killed or credibly threatened Ultimate War on our enemies, we could get the respect of the world back.
It would be too tedious and hard to explain our true situation and the wisdom of going back to the more agrarian, humane environment that I agree would be the intelligent course for this country.
So, yeah, Sarah’s got what it takes to give all the Diet-Coke-swilling, Cheez Doodle-eatin’ NASCAR lovers the ultimate emotional boost. I hope to God this country still has enough sane people to resist her will to power.
In that way, she is similar to Der Fuehrer.
I wrote a blog post about Memorial Day from a Conscientious Objector’s viewpoint, with more on how our toxic diet has mentally prepared us for accepting Sarah Palin as the logical answer to the Long Emergency: http://www.healthyplanetdiet.com
If you feel called to be a C.O. then that is your choice. Some military personnel file for C.O. status while on active duty.
I know of no professional officers who actually thought we couldn’ve won in Vietnam by going nuclear. One retired navy captain, a Dartmouth graduate, I stood watches with in the merchant marine used to actually let everyone go when he commanded a coastal patrol boat in Vietnam because he didn’t believe in the mission.
Nevertheless, punitive expeditions of brief duration are a more appropriate response to some outrages including even limited use of nuclear weapons in some extreme cases as for instance when one of your cities is bombed and thousands are killed. This is why I have expressed the belief that a nuclear weapon should have been used on Kandahar, after delivering a warning to evacuate.
Our current approach to terroristic provocations has only played into the hands of the perpetrators. By occupying these countries for extended periods we only make ourselves more hated. Besides, who really cares about them? If we’re going to rebuild a country shouldn’t it be our own?
I think ol’ Jimbo will want to get right in the middle of that photo shoot 🙂
The comparison between Hitler and Palin makes sense for more than the zeitgeist reasons you have cited.
As several legitimate researchers have shown (Edwin Black’s “Nazi Nexus” and “Antony Sutton’s “Wall Street and The Rise of Hitler” among the best for their footnotes, appendices, and primary source documentation), the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich was enabled largely through massive loans, investments, and technology transfers from American corporations–especially banks and financiers.
Big business loves both authoritarian leaders and continual warfare for the same reason–it enables them to make lots of money (in warfare off of both sides). The roster of conspiratorial traitors included Prescott Bush(former Connecticut
senator and father of two presidents) who pleaded nolo contendere to charges of “trading with the enemy” in 1942 and got off with paying a six figure fine.
For those who find reading well-researched books tedious, you can get the highlights of their content from these video links:
Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sCpsq55uic
Nazi Nexus:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/285699-1
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/285699-1
JHK is not just engaging in sarcastic hyperbole with his comparisons of Sarah Palin (and her bankrolling by big money) to Adolph Hitler.
“Any large urban school district with its presumably intractable problems could be overhauled and made serviceable virtually overnight, but this is not going to happen because the various fixes would be politically unpalatable. And besides, if people actually became realistic about what is doable then the education entrepreneurs wouldn’t be able to move in and make money off this mess. And that’s what I call a Catch-22.”
“Intractable Problem” may mean:
1) Problem due to conflicting will powers that will and can conflict forever, this is Metaphysical in nature, even if you don’t believe it, we are just a reflection of the fact that existence is always contradicting itself, it is always fighting itself, can’t stay still, if A then not A, and so on forever, it is existence trying to exist, but also denying itself, and this goes on forever. There is no solution, it is part of the strucutre of the universe. We are a reflecton of conflict, contradiction and fight, no matter what. A against B, if you say yes, I say no, end of story.
2) May mean we have no way to model somehting with our logic and language, so it will remain forever impossible to manipulate and achieve any result from any sequence of manipulations.
3) Also, most things will never have any solution, no matter what because the conflicting will powers cannot repress themselves, they will always pop out no matter what and most things have no logical solution no matter what. Man is “fight” and “contradiction” end of story.
4) Add to this, a huge amount of false imaginary causes and effects that have been brainwashing everyone as being true for decades and you can be sure that problems will remain forever intractable.
Check out all the posts of nameta9 on http://www.ilovephilosophy.com, that will clear things up a bit.
From:
http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/05/memorial-day-enter-hitler-release-20.html
“Any large urban school district with its presumably intractable problems could be overhauled and made serviceable virtually overnight, but this is not going to happen because the various fixes would be politically unpalatable. And besides, if people actually became realistic about what is doable then the education entrepreneurs wouldn’t be able to move in and make money off this mess. And that’s what I call a Catch-22.”
“Intractable Problem” may mean:
1) Problem due to conflicting will powers that will and can conflict forever, this is Metaphysical in nature, even if you don’t believe it, we are just a reflection of the fact that existence is always contradicting itself, it is always fighting itself, can’t stay still, if A then not A, and so on forever, it is existence trying to exist, but also denying itself, and this goes on forever. There is no solution, it is part of the structure of the universe. We are a reflection of conflict, contradiction and fight, no matter what. A against B, if you say yes, I say no, end of story.
2) May mean we have no way to model something with our logic and language, so it will remain forever impossible to manipulate and achieve any result from any sequence of manipulations.
3) Also, most things will never have any solution, no matter what because the conflicting will powers cannot repress themselves, they will always pop out no matter what and most things have no logical solution no matter what. Man is “fight” and “contradiction” end of story.
4) Add to this, a huge amount of false imaginary causes and effects that have been brainwashing everyone as being true for decades and you can be sure that problems will remain forever intractable.
Check out all the posts of nameta9 on http://www.ilovephilosophy.com, that will clear things up a bit.
I invoke Godwin’s.
I’m all for pointing at Sarah and yelling “Watch Out!” but this analogy is a bridge too far. You can string hitlarian analogies to pretty much anything.
If Sarah palin were elected and if she didn’t play golf or basket ball and if she did not sleep and instead spent all of her time trying, I repeat, trying to fuck this country up more than our current idiot-in-chief, she could do no worse.
And that Jack, is a fuckin’ fact.
“I
think your argument about the “increase
in productivity” caused by high tech is
based upon statistical fictions.”
Simple observation of what goes on in daily life provides compelling evidence that a lot of the productivity increases associated with technology are real.
As one obvious example: Travel planning. Who goes to a travel agency anymore? My 88 year old mom and not a whole lot of others. Nearly everyone books travel on the internet. You can do yourself much more easily what you used to have a travel agent do for you.
Of course, there are huge side-effects of this productivity in terms of all the jobs that have vanished because they no longer are needed.
But it seems like a person has to be blind not to recognize that this phenomenon is real.
You know, I think one of the worst things about Palin is that she creates undeserved self-esteem among progressives. Hey, she is such a buffoon, that means we must be intelligent and wise. (Plus, she steers independent thinkers like Kunstler into being chummy with progressives even though he knows full well they are just as far off the track in having a genuine understanding of the problems our society faces as someone like Palin does.
(Don’t forget, Paul Krugman is just as big a fool as Larry Kudlow, they’re just different kinds of fools.)
“85% of this year’s college grad class and 80% of last year’s class went home to mama’s basement with a degree in worthlessness and debt….and no job or prospect of a job, even at Burger King.”
Ah, when you reached up your ass to pull out these “facts” did you have to reach around Kuntsler’s head?
“Like we personally asked them to make a sacrifice.”
Hey asoka. Shut. Your. Fucking. Mouth. Think historically. In broader terms. Millions were drafted. They fought and died fighting the likes of Hitler and Mussolini. For once, try not to be such a CUNT.
” Also, I think the banksters would like her there; she can be easily manipulated.”
You mean like the oil companies manipulated her, douche? You don’t know what the fuck you are talking about. (big surprise!)
“(ya think global warming is for real and caused by the good ol’ human race?)”
No.
“…and she quit before her term was up.”
Yep. She was forced to burn through most of her family’s accumulated savings defending herself from spurious nuisance suits brought on by a bunch of pathetic losers. And as such the state’s business was not being attended to as it should have been because of the nuisance suits. So, she did the right and rational thing and stepped down.
And of course not a single accusation of merit has survived the judicial process. How fucking shocking!
Actually, Prog, I rarely carry ID with me. It’s a personal choice.
I’ve never had to show my SS card or my driver’s license to get a job.
What’s more, I got this last job before the days of peeing in a cup and being fingerprinted and background checked. As Merle Haggard once said, he was freer as a parolee in the 60s, then non-felons are now.
You used to be able to go to Canada and Mexico and the Caribbean without a passport.
See how quickly we forget the days of freedom, once the curtain of repression starts falling.
No. Showing your papers is a sign of a police state.
Maybe you’re fine with it, but I’m not.
Hello all,
Posting late this week as we just got back from a fishing trip. I thought what the hell I know that such trips will probably be impossible soon so better enjoy now. One interesting thing that happened, out of five boats in our group only 4 small fish were caught. The gov isn’t stocking the lake anymore, yet this same gov wants to buy nifty new F-35 fighter jets to the tune of 75 million each or more estimates vary. Yet another enormous boondoggle and example of where gov priorities are.
Anyway I am a little tired of Hitler comparisons, really. Palin is pea brained idiot with the mentality of a pissed off toddler, who if put into power could be a dangerous idiot. But comparing her to Hitler? Well let’s just say Amerika has a large supply of public figures who caused as much damage as old Adolf or more. Think Blankfein or Paulson. The economic crisis IMO is an act of warfare against those not in the millionare, billionare club. Just because the victims quietly starve in the back seat of their car, or just quietly die of the lack of medical care doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. So get a new villain Hitler is a bit shopworn.
Actually, Asoka, I really don’t agree that we can have open borders, as long as we have the current system that we live under.
I agree that borders are artificial, but Mexicans do indeed start to consume more once they come here, and the earth can’t support US style consumption.
It is economic desperation that drives them here. Most people don’t want to leave their homes and their families and come to a strange country. To accept the US attack on Mexico’s people and economy, and simply say, well, some of them can come here, is immoral.
My kids were going to a school which had mostly Mexican immigrants when Reagan legalized them. The school emptied out for weeks, while all the Mexicans went back home to visit family who they hadn’t see in years, because of the difficulty in crossing the border. You celebrate that?
I haven’t believed the ruling class propaganda since the day I was reading the San Jose Mercury News, and they were saying that immigrants did the jobs that no Americans wanted.
Then I got on the trolley to go downtown with my daughter. The trolley driver announced the stops with such a thick accent that I couldn’t understand him.
Then we went to City Hall, where an imperious woman with an accent gave us a very hard time about paperwork.
Jobs no American will do? Bullshit.
No. We need to solve the problems of unemployment, imperialism and environmental devastation before we open the borders to people.
Starting, of course, by closing the borders to capital and financial speculation.
For those of you who don’t know BigJimbo – he is the latest incarnation of a long line of screennames that keep getting banned for foul language. Despite occasionally good ideas, he is a troll – as the word is defined on discussion threads.
Now he is attacking asoka, who also has occasional good ideas. Yet asoka is also a troll – he will argue most good ideas down to the point of that they become meaningless.
When big jimbo gets upset and runs out of ideas he begins to call other posters “fucktard” and implies that they have the characteristics of female body parts.
When asoka gets upset and runs out of ideas he posts the same few ideas repeatedly. And he calls other posters “RACIST.” Asoka implies that the ACCUSATION of “RACISM” is so powerful that all debate should stop so that all may agree with asoka.
Two strange beings – asoka and bigjimbo.
Have at it, guys.
“Palin also seems to long for the pre-civil rights era when minorities knew their place and woman were able to stay home and raise babies while the men wnet off to work.”
Riiight. That’s why she works and her husband stayed home. (Idiot)
Racism is definitely an illness. In a way it is a form of mental masturbation. Apparently, some chemicals are produced while a racist exercises his/her hate. I think it is very addictive. A racist is always looking for a case to apply racism. His hate can be directed toward any group like Mexicans, Blacks or Jews or Indians, etc. I also suspect that without this hate a racist feels a physical pain of some sort – some sort of painful withdrawal. I think, however, that only lobotomy can help the suffering person.
I heard someone on Democracy Now say that Bush targeted employers more, with workplace raids, and Obama is targeting communities more, with nighttime home invasions by ICE.
Obama has deported more immigrants than Bush, and thrown more into prisons.
If you hate this blog so much, go find another place.
Duh!
There are a lot of racists participated and participating in this blog. Vlad is only one of them. His racism and antisemitism is very acute and is on a level of delusion at times. Pour guy.
Hitler was intelligent and had a credible -if ultimately suicidal- strategy for getting Germany out of the Great Depression: war mobilization, war, and plunder. If America is heading down a similar path, it is at an early uphill hairpin turn of a long winding descent on a steep slope.
Too bad there isn’t a like button on this. Funny comment!
If you voted for Obama in 2008 to prove you are not a racist…
…then you’ll have to vote for somebody else in 2012 to prove that you’re not an idiot.
Shut up, FUCKTARD!
In 1980 we elected a feel-good fool already showing some pretty explicit signs of alzheimer’s disease.
In Palin, we have the same formula. She’ll make the recently disenfranchised feel good about America and themselves, if only for a few minutes watching a speech. They don’t care that she’s not smart. They *like* it that she’s not smart. It makes her more like them.
While her obvious narcissistic personality disorder may make her unable to govern effectively, that didn’t stop Bush.
In short, don’t underestimate her drawing power. Yes, she’s dumb, jingoistic and can’t think ahead. It doesn’t matter. They’ll vote for her anyway.
Yes. Hitler was intelligent. Nobody can deny that. If his kind of intelligence can be called this way. But he did not have a strategic plan. What he had could be called a vision. A vision of the great Germany. He was a very good tactician. He has done what he has done step-by-step.
The only thing he had in his mind strategically was his virulent anti-Semitism. He wanted to get rid of Jews. This thing he had strategically. It was his strategic war. The war against women, children, young people, old people. He was totally obsessed with this idea. If he had any traces of normal intellect, it was negated by this strategic obsession.
“I’ve never had to show my SS card or my driver’s license to get a job.”
-wage-
You may not have had to show the SS card, Wage, but you had to give the number to get paid. That system (trust, then verify) broke down when criminals (not necessarily undocumented criminals) of various white collar persuasions realized that the SSN had become an easy way to scam people. Demanding that the card be shown before you get your NEXT job is a way to attempt to foil that – a not very effective way, in my opinion.
I’ve always carried “papers” since I turned 15 and got a learner’s permit. I can’t imagine NOT carrying ID.
In some books – that makes me a tool of the police state.
In my book – it means that if I keel over out away from the house, that someone will be able to call some of my family to claim my body so I won’t lie there stinking up the sidewalk.
I’m being a little facetious, BUT –
I think the huge majority of citizens in America always carry ID without question – and they don’t mind showing it willy-nilly to cash checks, buy beer, and get through driver license checkpoints.
So the whole “papers please” thing is the sort of “brainwashing” that we often discuss on CFN.
Except it *seems?* to come from the Left?
I’m not so sure about that – remember RW corporate America wants cheap illegal labor –
They want it as least as much as the ACLU and the LW don’t want anyone to ever have to show ID.
Which makes “papers please” a distraction that prevents rational discussion of E-verify and programs like it –
Poet, thanks for the post and the links. I was familiar with Anthony Sutton but not with Edwin Black. I’m about 1/4 way through Edwin Black’s talk, but I became so livid watching it that I just had to stop and cool off. I tell you, the more I learn about America the more my hate for it grows. I didn’t think it would be possible to hate it any more than I did, but there you are. Now I fully understand those who cry ‘God Damn America!’. Indeed! The fscking country needs to be killed and sent deep into oblivion, never to come out. And if it be GS that’s doing God’s work, then I say let them continue doing God’s work. It’s way overdue.
Cukes, Tomato plants and lettuce coming up nicely, but my God, the weeds! Weeds are my nemesis! I’m in a Nietzchean struggle against weeds!
-Marlin
El Toro Farm
“La Casa de la Dolce Tomantinos”
“They don’t care that she’s not smart.”
Not so. They care that she is NOT Obama. Because he is so fucking bad that by just not being him, that is enough, That is what is truly frightening.
So morons like Jimmy, can try and chalk it up to corn-pone Nazism. It’s not that sophisticated. It is merely a recognition that we have elected a disaster. A potted plant would suffice. But a chick with a nice ass? Please.
True, I did give the number. But my SS card doesn’t have my current name, and the imperious workers at the SS office wouldn’t let me change it. So it wouldn’t help anyone if I showed it.
And, yes, Americans, as a whole, don’t mind showing their cards, peeing in cups, spreading their legs, letting their children be fondled, etc.
That’s why it was so damn easy for this country to go fascist.
Can’t wait for the Palin/Trump ticket!
Seriously Jim, I haven’t seen any comments from you about the current wrangling over the federal debt limit. Have you considered how quickly we will arrive at a “world made by hand” if the US defaults on its debt obligations? We will fall into fascism faster than you can say “sovereign default.” I hope all your readers have land in the hills to which they can retreat.
The good news is that it will solve a lot of problems. Overpopulation will cease to be a concern after the wars and genocides. Global warming won’t be a problem when no one can afford oil. Industrial agriculture will disappear when the road and shipping infrastructure collapses. There’s a better world on the horizon. …If you survive long enough to see it.
Obama is not a disaster. Our economy is and, therefore, any one occupying the Oval Office would be in a bad shape. The Obama’s mistake was his desire to be a president. The first black president!
Nobody can fix the USA problems. They are not repairable. It is so obvious! Any normal person would not like to be our president. Unless it is for perks and glory. That is why we have had Obama and that is why we may have Palin there.
Interesting article equating oil energy to slave energy.
http://www.alternet.org/vision/150914/why_our_21st_century_slave_society_can't_last/?page=entire
I know of what I speak Buck, I have one of those degrees that I wouldn’t wipe my ass with, from a fine university here in Canada, mostly but not all taxpayer funded and a gigantic waste of money. In my humble opinion 90% of the people in university should never have been allowed to set foot anywhere near the place, myself included.
That degree opened doors for me but I have no earthly idea why. Believe me Buck I had no clue as to how utterly useless I was to myself or to anybody else until I hit the adult working world where most of us reside. And I look at the young university grads with the pointless degrees that I worked with over the years and I’m telling you they were/are just as useless as tits on a bull just like me. It’s not enough to be a good person, you have to be good for something.
The more recent grads have the added impediment of having been steeped in self esteem their whole lives and marinated in political correctness. Which would be fine if their self esteem had some glancing acquaintance with their actual abilities and their political correctness had some practical relationship to the world as it actually exists. But neither apply and these dysfunctional attitudes are like millstones around their necks.
If only modern liberal arts grads had had knowledge of some sort pounded into their heads. That would be something. But they can’t fucking read Buck, they can’t calculate percentages, they can’t fucking find Newfoundland on a map, they don’t know Europe is a continent. This is not good enough given the torrent of resources we expend as a society on education.
If only a liberal arts education make them “good people” but in fact most of the younger set that I’ve seen are monumentally entitled, amoral, irresponsible, careless, undisciplined, self centred weenies. Not that us Boomers are one whit better.
And it’s us damnable Boomers that are responsible for their sorry asses because we raised them and we created the society that they grew up in. And if these kids lived in a world where it’s just us and them festering in our incompetence and fecklessness it’s one thing but there’s a wider world out there where kids aren’t similarly hobbled. We’ve set our poor kids up for failure and our society too and barring some cosmic miracle that’s exactly what will happen.
“Can’t wait for the Palin/Trump ticket!”
You’ll be waiting quite a while as neither will be running. Palin is a straw dog. Jim (and others) have offered her up as some sort of salve for their having been sucked into the Obama ruse. If Jimmy and his ilk truly want to save us from Republican fascists maybe they should spend some time in trying to get a few Demotwats to oppose Obammy in a Demotwat primary. How bout that Jimmy?
The USA is becoming more and more irrelevant on the international arena, the USA President is becoming more and more irrelevant on our domestic scene. The Office of the President is a very boring place. And I would like to see Sarah/Tromp ticket. It would be such a circus! I would love it! Other candidates will talk like ‘… the Washington is broken… they do not level with American people…I know how to fix out Social Security and Medicare… I know how to win the wars..’. What a bull.. This kind of talk is a talk of dishonest and delusional people. I do not want it. What I want is circus! The honest stupid circus we all deserve. Therefore, run Sarah, run!
“Our economy is and, therefore, any one occupying the Oval Office would be in a bad shape.”
Uh, huh. And anyone with HALF a brain would not try to inflict national healthcare, bank bailouts, the take over of the auto industry, and genital fondling at airports (and soon to come, bus and train stations) on a nation that was ALREADY suffering from a shitty economy. So, sorry. Obama is, was and will always be a disaster.
CFNation is going to need a Navy, and its going to need somebody good to head up that Navy.
BubbleHeadMark, by the powers granted to me by Jim, Grand Poobah in Chief, I hereby Commission you Minister of the Naval Affairs, ClusterFuckNation, the World!
Congratulations.
-Marlin
Anti-racism is a code word for anti-white and nothing else, and thanks for proving that dimwit.
Needless to say, while a nice jewish man verbally gesticulates wildly over the next and newest Hitler president Obama is gathering a real militia meant to terrorize the populace of tax slaves.
Drudge has linked to about 10% of the stories about racial violence this weekend wholly meant to cow the urban libs into compliance with the shariah of PC.
Yeah – drug laws and they way they are enforced are the spawn of Bible Thumpers and Satan, no doubt whatsoever about that.
To paraphrase the old saw: “When Fascism arrives in America – It will be wrapped in a Flag, carrying a Bible, and peeing in a cup.”
-PoC-
But the other indignities you mention – groping at airports – could have been solved by a credible national ID card and targeted interrogations of potential terrorists at airports.
So again, we have the Corporate desire to make money off *Security?* coupled with the ACLU desire to treat terrorists and granny the same –
conspiring to produce a fouled up system that does nothing very well.
Jimmy Kunstler and Chris Hedges. Mondays pack quite a whollop: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_sky_really_is_falling_20110530/
Straight up, Mr. K.!
Damn, you are naive, prog, if you think that the indignities of oppression are about thwarting terrorism.
Then why buses and trains? Any real terrorist could target buses and trains without boarding them.
Actually, as many people have pointed out, real terrorists could load baggage onto planes with explosives in them.
It’s about making Americans submit to authority, and about a national ID card with biometric information that will be used for no good.
Real Americans have a right to privacy. We have a right to be left alone by our government. We have a right not to have our doors kicked down by goons. But those rights have been taken away, without a peep from people like you.
To give up freedom because of your manipulated fears of Muslims and Mexicans is pathetic.
Jim,
It interests me that you have such a strong dislike for “Sarah.” There is meaning in your missive this week – in that it says as much about you as it does about the sad state of what passes for national political coverage.
Certainly you must know that for whatever inspirational patriotic guise Sarah wishes to cavort in; it represents more of what is wrong with the American electorate than any willful strategy or pathos of Sarah.
Sarah is simply an invention. Part of an endless stream of distractions, a puppet, a media whore – who is to be used for whatever purposes seeming to favor those who control our national discourse.
You’ve done yourself and your BLOG readers a disservice in attaching Sarah to significance simply through you exposition.
This is one of the few times that choosing to say nothing, to DO nothing is far preferable.
Fascinating. Does this only apply to White Racists or Racists of all colors? What? You think only Whites can be Racists? And you call me delusional!
What other race of people would allow their own homelands to be colonized by people of other races? Whites aren’t the most racist group of people in the world, they are the least – stupidly so, to their own detriment.
let the revolution begin…
“It’s hard to imagine Americans taking Sarah Palin seriously.
Then again, thoughtful Germans didn’t take Hitler seriously either, until it was too late.”
If not Palin, some other Palin will arise from the masses. Ernst Rohm might have replaced Hitler but for “The Night of the Long Knives.”
Demagogues are, by definition, “of the people.” Palin is very canny in being able to play on fear of decline among the working class and working poor. Their parents and grandparents could earn a decent living making things or running small businesses. She does not talk down to these folks…she plays at being one of them.
This class knows it is screwed. Look at the Google advert for Express on this blog: thin, expensively attired supermodel is not America. But consumers who cannot afford groceries and gas and still pay their bills yearn for the return of limitless consumption. One meme out there is “$1.60 gas,” if only Obama leaves office and his “Green Agenda” is defeated.
If a revolution were to arise out of hand-stenciled “Taxed Enough Already” and “Restore America” signs I see by the highway, it would not be the Jews who were the scapegoats: the Hollywood liberal elite, the academics, the environmental and gay-rights activists would fill the camps. The nation’s Muslims would be forced into ghettos or out of the country.
But that’s a nightmare, not a reality (yet). What amazes me most is that the GOP can get voters in an economically declining social class to vote against their own best interests, all in service of large corporate sponsors who have wrecked small business and run down wages even as they provide unlimited and anonymous campaign cash.
That may be Palin’s doom: if she really acts populist and shows who is turning the screws, the Big Boys in the GOP will push her and her Harley-Davidson sideshow off the stage and pick a less photogenic loser to run in 2012. But what she represents will be back, as America’s decline continues.
Good God who gave this chimp a keyboard?
It’s folks like BigJimbo who will make excellent stormtroopers for Palin.
Remember, the Mexicans don’t feel borders are artificial. They rigorously hunt down and deport their illegal immigrants. And as far as our Southwest goes, they consider it their’s. They will take as much of our country as we are weak enough or stupid enough to give them.
We have let an Enemy into our gates. Both the Mexican and the United States Goverments have nursed their grievances against us. All part of the plan evidently.
Since you don’t believe in Nations, why are you against the Elite – they are doing exactly what Communism tried to do but failed. They want a One World State just as you people did. In fact, Communism was just one of their projects altho you are too proud to ever figure that out. Proof: did Communism ever REALLY attempt to be egalitarian? It was and is hierarchical – it could not have been otherwise. Reality is Hierarchical and any group or organization that isn’t are just a bunch of ass clowns.
The world is collapsing and you all fiddle about Sarah Palin. Presumably to help BO get reelected. and What’s up with that? I am pretty sure you did not get what you voted for in 2008. Sarah Palin will never be our President, not because she is Hitler but because who we are as country are willing to elect a Chicago crime boss to the Presidency. I HOPE you get it. Everything is going bad. This President will not stop it and if some other candidate is elected he will have been chosen for all the wrong reasons also.
If you have no money you are a goner. Sorry to say that. I could go into all the reasons (repressive economics, the Whore of Walls street, Banks…Oh god it is all too much)but you already know it, may not think about it much but you know it.
Their greatest trick was to create the 2 political party system giving the false sense that you have a choice.
Part of the problem: you set up a charter school for the gifted. Black parents notice that there are almost no Blacks in it. They complain and get affirmative action – and the whole point of the school is destroyed and it just becomes part of the jungle.
Black IQ is far below that of Whites. Is it cultural? Sure, because it’s genetic first. That’s why Africa was/is/will be so backwards and savage.
Herr Kunstler:
You have hit this one out of the Sportpalast, mein Kamaraden. Cornpone Nazism has arrived, and she’s got a hot bod, packed into a load of black leather, and a rumbling Harley in her crotch. Sieg Heil, Semper Fidelis, and Yee Ha, Here We Go!
But who will play the role of the Juden in our unfurling Passion Play? Since overt racism seems to be off the table, at least for now, perhaps it will be those of us derided with a sneer in the heart of the Homeland as “libruls” — which, helpfully, can be defined in a rather open-ended way.
Who will sign on as her Goebbels? Herr Limbaugh? Not sure he is sufficiently acolytic — recall that as Goebbels recorded in his diary when he first heard Adolf speak, “This is the man! Our savior!” Somehow I can’t see old fat-ass Rush getting quite that fawning, speshly over a girl.
Her Goering, the dashing ace fighter pilot? Where oh where is he, who could that man be? McChrystal might do nicely, and he has the golden credential of having been fired by the Muslim Socialist Usurper President.
Her Himmler, the meticulous executor and feared head of the Praetorian Guard? I just can’t come up with anyone — somebody help me here. The pince nez went out so long ago, but perhaps there’s someone on the Right today who fancies black leather equestrian attire and riding crops?
And likes to keep very good records…
I guess the bikers roughly fill the requirements of a budding Sturmabteilung, to keep order at the rallies, (is the man behind her in the photo her Ernst Rohm?) When she gets real power in her grasp and the military and corporate elite fall in behind her, will he have to be dispatched as an embarrassment in a repeat of the Night of the Long Knives?
Per Santayana’s dictum, those of who do remember the past will be watching in horrified fascination as those who don’t go about repeating it.
Achtung Baby!
Pango your hatred is showing. Yes the ADL wants to put millions of Whites into Camps – just as they did in the old Soviet Union. And for you, I hope you get a personal invitation to a bongo party where you are the main course.
No, it doesn’t matter. While the Supreme court destroys our right to file a complaint when the judge doesn’t like the subject matter, and corporations are given, finally, full legal ability to bribe our legislators, the national security state increases their ability spy on its citizens, while peace demonstrators and union organizers are followed and classified as terrorists. Our rights are no longer in the Constitution, but a matter of contract reviewable only by corporate funded arbitration panels. Our police have become militarized, and citizens are seen as Hajiis, targets. Therefore, the increase in police violence is escalating, while judicial redress is diminishing. Peaceful demonstrators are slammed to the ground and beaten, while government paid torturers are given immunity
The national security totalitarian state is here at a governmental level, and corporatism is here in the financial/legal sphere. The only question remains is which group will grab the reins of power. And how long elections will be allowed to change anything.
Black Bike meets this week in North Carolina – one week after regular Bike week. The difference is that merchants and restaurants in town welcome the regular bikers but often close down during the Black event. Evidently the money is just not worth the amound of theft, vandalism, and insults. The Blacks have noticed and are predictably outraged. Of course they don’t take responsibility for their own role in this. They almost never do. Their ethic is to get away with as much as they can. And since they have be enabled in this, why shouldn’t other groups do the same – including our own kids?
Got to admit, though, she’s in great physical shape. Mid-40’s, 5 kids, and still a MILF. I bet no one ever got a boner by looking at Hitler.
So, wouldn’t it be great if she would apply the skills she does have (for health and physical fitness) to help solve the obesity problem in the USA, and stay away from those subjects about which she is totally clueless?
“About Sarah Palin. You really don’t think the power eleite of this country is going to let her run the government, do you. Now she’ll be more like a paper weight in the oval office.”
Do you think Obama is “running” it? Nah, he just goes to the parties.
Funny you should mention that – I wrote a long article on exactly that topic – automation and what it means to the workforce. See what you think:
http://hipcrime.blogspot.com/2011/03/what-are-people-good-for.html
Vlad, then would you say that European IQs were far below those of people in the Middle East and Egypt a few thousand years ago? After all Europe was backward and savage compared to the civilized Egyptians and Mesopotamians. Or compared to the civilized Indians and Chinese. No comparison between the Pyramids and Stonehenge.
Palin/Bachmann in 2012…it’s a no brainer.
“Damn, you are naive, prog, if you think that the indignities of oppression are about thwarting terrorism.”
-wage-
Damn, you are paranoid, Wage. Our oppressive security apparatus at airports and – maybe, soon to be – bus stations and train depots is ALL, repeat ALL, about making keeping politicians in the limelight and making money for whoeverthehell is selling the equipment and doing the staffing.
“To give up freedom because of your manipulated fears of Muslims and Mexicans is pathetic.”
-wage-
To clarify, I don’t have a fear of Muslims and Mexicans – manipulated or otherwise.
I have a fear of ecosystem collapse and starvation caused by an overpopulated US.
But, to let ALL Americans be groped at airports over a desire to “treat everyone the same and keep the ACLU happy,” is beyond ludicrous.
Great conversation, though, Wage – we gotta try to do this in person someday. Remember my wife will sit on the porch and sip mint juleps – she hates talking politics.
wonder why – -?
Sarah Palin said, “I love the smell of emissions”. Diogenes stop your search. We have found an honest (wo)man.
You Tea Party people are so afraid of being called racists that you’ll support a fraud like Herman Cain. The Elite have you right where they want you.
I’d go with Wage on that one Prog. The Elite are getting us ready by increments for a Police State. That’s far a deeper cause than just selling hi tech security stuff. Notice how once they have something on the books, they never ever repeal it. They already have the special powers to take us away in the middle of the night or to shut down the internet. They can invoke these at any time. Of course prudence dictates that they will create or at least use an “incident” as a cause.
*burp*
Funniest comment so far, but I’m still working my way through…
The difference between Sarah Palin and Hitler….no mustache.
Seriously though, Palin is like a Carebear to the H man’s horned demon. He was a genius, alibi a twisted, insane one. Palin is just a celebrity milking her fame (infamy?) for speech fees.
You talked to me first ass wipe. Now admit it: your a Negro worshiper. You’d rather die than be accused of being a racist. And you’d sell your friends and comrades out to get out of such a charge. You weak teas are a liability.
How’s it going this week, bigjimbo?
Your reparte sounds familiar…
Well, yeah, I’ve been posting for years here under this user name, so that might be why you recognize my prose stylings.
What about you? Are you new here? Have you posted under any other user names recently?
Just wondering so I can get things straight…
You are welcome. I wondered if someone, anyone would even bother to check out th info links. that you did validates my placing the info on this blog.
Regarding your anger, let me point out that anger is like a fire–it can rage unchecked and consume all in its path, or it can be harnessed into the fine focus of a blow torch or laser to cut through all the smoke and mirror distractions of political, diplomatic, business, and military rhetoric.
“They” could not do what “they” do without the passive acceptance of things as they presently are by the the rest of us.
It took several hundred thousand determined people about ten years of focused and determined attention to turn around an indifferent America to its racist ways and pass the three civil rights acts of ’64. ’65, and ’66. The Vietnam War protesters took about nine years to make the MIC finally shut down that war. What they both had in common was the conviction that “business as usual” could not and would not continue.
Cool down, watch the rest of the video, get informed, talk to(don’t harangue)your circle of acquaintances and spread the word that big business, big finance, both major political parties, and especially the military-security establishment has this country by its neck and is choking the life out of it.
“I’d go with Wage on that one Prog. The Elite are getting us ready by increments for a Police State.”
-vlad-
Vlad, you and Wage may be right. But that puts most of us in the US so far into DOOMED that nothing we can do or say about it matters.
And while I’m posting to you, Vlad – all this black/brown genetic inferiority stuff that you keep talking is a dead end for discussion. Stay on the cultural stuff and more people may be willing to listen.
“why shouldn’t other groups do the same – including our own kids?”
-vlad-
– Culture can be addressed by logical and non-racist people.
– Genetics can not.
– Just stating a fact that you should accept.
No need for suppositions – it’s been tested. Science you know, old chap. Middle Easterners average around 90 compared to our 100. But because of the more favorable conditions (back then at least) they were able to develop large civilizations. And of course their Elite probably had many people with higher IQ’s. Also remember that we were there too. Whites once lived deep into Asia and certainly in the area north of today’s Iran.
We became the Elite in India so scratch that. As for the pre-Aryan Indus Valley civilization, same as the Middle East. And then we became the Elite there through conquest. So it’s a genetic jumble today. And as for China, I’ve always admitted their high IQ’s.
The Africans aren’t the new Europeans. Compare how the Germans took to the Roman Empire (which was White anyway) to how poorly Blacks have adapted to modern Western Life. My Dear Fellow, you are wrong.
The Lovers have found each other again. I’m tearing up.
While you were away, he listed one of Herman Cain’s qualifications as “Black”. Big Jimbo is a closet liberal – so don’t be afraid to go forward in the relationship.
It has just been brought to my attention that the Rolling Thunder group she rode with advocates the notion that there are thousands of Missing-in-Action vets still in the jungles of Vietnam, with long white beards feathering across the fetid earth as they go about their daily slave-labor-and-torture routine, now in its fifth decade, beneath the green canopy that no ultra-tech spy plane or soot-smeared Rambo commando can penetrate.
This of course shows her brilliant grasp of the politics of resentment, and so perfectly aligns with the thesis of Herr Kunstler’s column today — perhaps he was not aware of Rolling Thunder’s background and so made no note of the Dolchstoss resonance, (memory-refresher here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolschtosslegende).
It worked such powerful black magic in the minds of those defeated, resentful, unemployed Germans of the 20s and 30s, why not take advantage of the political gift that keeps on giving?
POW, You Will Never Be Forgotten, As Long As We Can Make Political Hay With You.
Lock ‘n Load ‘n Let’s Find Us A Librul!
That is the sad truth I’m afraid – we didn’t wake up in time to do anything about it. We could still save ourselves if we elected a good man like Ron Paul – but we wont. The idjiots will go for Cain or Palin on the far Right and Obama on the Left – even if the same people are funding both. The mainstream Republicans will vote for some non entity who is between those two “extremes”.
Of course, Obama has offended many ordinary Jews so the story may have changed. We’ll see if Goldman Sachs still supports him. Soros almost undoubtedly will.
Can you provide some details so I can find that New Yorker article? Year of publication? Author? Keywords that could be searched?
Thanks!
There are of course many unaccounted for soldiers. This breeds beliefs like this I guess. Maybe a few POW’s caved in to the propaganda and stayed in Vietnam and even married. I’ve heard of stories like that too. But camps with thousands – why would they do that?
SBPDL has predicted that BRA will go up in flames this year, and that it will start in Atlanta. Personally I think we will muddle along, though blacks might destroy our public places the psychopath liberals and their shouts of “racism” will keep the people in the cult compound with their heads down and toiling away the best they can.
Oh Sarah, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen… Oh wait, nevermind, you did that already. Good luck with the “Undefeated” tour, hope you Hoover up lots of money that would otherwise be spent on NASCAR and Taco Bell.
Middle East IQ’s – “….90 compared to our 100. But because of the more favorable conditions (back then at least) they were able to develop large civilizations.”
-vlad-
Vlad, IQ tends to be a dead end for discussion, too. There are cultural factors that bias IQ – and no amount of denial can make them all go away.
Then, think about “the more favorable conditions…”
What if those “favorable conditions” such as good nutrition and a century of social stability LED to higher IQ among the pyramid builders?
What if IQ jumps around all the time, irrespective of genetics. What if 30 years of privation and chaos could make your own children – or even you, if things got bad enough – have the IQ of a pine stump.
One year after her stint as Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin was found guilty of breaching the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. The breach was in regards to a legal defense fund called the Alaska Fund Trust (AFT). The fund was supposedly set up to help Palin with mounting legal bills. Timothy Petumenos was chosen as independent counsel for the State of Alaska and presented his findings this past week. Petumenos stated that even though the fund was set up by Meghan Stapleton and other legal counselors, “the Trust itself, as ultimately conceived, violates the Ethics Act.”
Palin must now repay more than $386,000 in past contributions to the fund. The trustee of the fund must also be replaced. Perhaps what is most shocking is that all contributors to the fund must be publicly disclosed. This will mean that the fund becomes immediately transparent, something Palin likely hoped would not happen.
“In light of the evidence that the governor expressly authorized the creation of the trust and the fact the trust website quite openly uses the governor’s position to solicit donations, there is probable cause to believe that Governor Palin used, or attempted to use, her official position for personal gain in violation of Alaska statute.” Said the Alaska Personnel Board.
As Krishnamurthi said, Truth is a Pathless Land. I have no choice but to follow where the cloud leads me. It has lead me into the desert and I thirst. But what can I say but what it tells me to say? I have bread but I don’t know which side it’s buttered on. Like a Charlie McCarthy, it makes me say Blacks are dumber. I am stuck dumb at what it makes me say. My defence – I have no choice.
Palin Presidency
Hank Jr. is the National Poet Laureate.
David Allan Coe: Chair of EEOC.
No Tax Holiday every Friday, May – Sept for Harley branded merchandise.
Louisiana’s Travis Tritt: Secretary of Energy.
No Tax Holiday every Friday, May – Sept for Harley branded merchandise.
Abe Lincoln’s statute replaced by a giant marble Vincent Black Lightning (preferably a 1952).
Speed Weeks at Daytona renamed Redneck High Holy Week.
Bike Week at Daytona becomes a National Holiday.
Lee Greenwoods “God Bless the USA” becomes the new National Anthem for the new America, “a nation of tattooed, hopelessly fat, angry people without jobs or incomes, filled with shame…”
Pass me the Collard Greens, please.
Sorry – not always good with acronyms. Please spell out – it sounds worth knowing.
No, you have the IQ of a pine stump. (let’s do the Turkel/Jimbo shuffle)
“Lifeboat” Gosh, some of those old movies were great!
Just out of curiosity, I visited Fenton Johnson’s website. Teaching in the SW, these days. He mentioned in passing that he’s working on a novel that has to do with solitaries of one sort or another. A convergence of a monk, woman Bengali doctor and a Viet Vet marijuana farmer. Moving in a hermit direction myself, I look forward to reading it. No release date. Hopefully, it will be out before TSHTF.
Cash said: “It’s not enough to be a good person, you have to be good for something.”
==========
Oy vey!
My. Lots of new names, this week. Dinging La Palin seems to have brought out the astroturfing lunatic fringe. Lots of folks have made in into scroll over country.
Well, that just proves my point, prog.
The US government doesn’t give a shit what the ACLU thinks.
They aren’t targeting grandma and Sissy because of the ACLU. That is absurd.
They know that there are no real terrorists carrying bombs onto planes. That is why they don’t have to target Arabs.
It’s all about teaching grandma and Sissy to submit.
Sure, you can come sip mint juleps on my porch. Just last night I looked at the big bunch of mint growing and told my husband that we needed to think of a way to eat it, and I don’t like mint juleps (his suggestion).
I hope your wife is a heavy drinker.
National healthcare? Good for small business.
Bank bailouts? The banks repaid TARP.
Take over of the auto industry? Record profits.
Genital fondling at airports? Blame Bush for TSA.
Wage said: “Real Americans have a right to privacy. We have a right to be left alone by our government.”
============
We (and Mexican immigrants) should have the right to walk freely across “borders” without being asked for papers and without fear of arrest.
But that would mean we have the right to privacy and the right to be left alone by our government.
So what? What’s the point? What difference does it make what someone’s IQ is?
If you’re saying that IQ should be used to deny people employment or housing, or throw them into prison, or treat them like second class humans, you need to explain why that is a valid criteria.
By the way, this article sheds some more light on our police state, and the lack of legal accountability for the ruling class.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/31
I already told you how I feel about that, Asoka.
I totally agree that people should be free to travel.
But until we change our social system, it won’t work out well for the planet or the US or Mexico.
The sun rises another day on the village idiots, erm, “elders” debating on which of the neighboring villages they should slaughter and burn in a sacred fire in order to bring back the health of their youth.
Meanwhile the crops whither in the fields, rats have overrun the granary and the children have run off to the caves with the tribes opium stash. But that’s all ok because we can blame it on the neighbor’s witchcraft if only we could agree on what village has all the witches.
Of course, said village elders could be composting their shit, pruning the food bearing trees, keeping the goats out of the grain fields and baking bricks for a new granary…….. but fuck, that takes work and more importantly, co-operation. There’s no way they’re going to share work and resources with their lazy fucktard neighbors.
Especially when they can steal his bread after he bakes it.
I.Q. my fucking ass.
“I hope your wife is a heavy drinker.”
What are you saying girlfrien’? Either you’ve got lots of mint OR you think my wife would have to be a heavy drinker to live with me??
Either idea could be on the mark.
Anyway: “They aren’t targeting grandma and Sissy because of the ACLU. That is absurd.” -wage-
Wage, sorry, but that’s the way that it looks from where I sit. Most of the bitchin’ that I hear about “Groping at Airports” comes from Fox News and the Rush/Hannity RW entertainers.
I hadn’t thought much about it – except to think it funny that Fox went 7 years of increasing groping under Bush and didn’t complain until Obama went in.
I still think it’s lobbyist money, growing *Security?* bureaucracy, and politicians hungry for the limelight that have given us our present nonfunctional airport security mess – and may extend it to buses and trains.
And I don’t disagree that the whole mess may someday be used by a “police state.”
I just don’t think that our Elites were smart enough to build it for that in the first place.
And I don’t think you need airport security to train citizens to “submit.” I think you could cut off the power and water for 48 hours and entire cities full of people would happily “submit,” without need for years of “training.”
I’d like to declare we’ve fought this issue to a draw for now, if I may. You want to pick a new topic?
==========
I have a julep recipe with two cups of water, two cups of sugar, lots of mint, and 32 OUNCES of bourbon.
That oughta’ do it, hey?!
bigjimbo, let’s watch what happens in Vermont when they implement single-payer, BIG GOVERNMENT, universal health care. Vermont is on its way to socialist health care.
I predict businesses will move to Vermont because it will be cheaper to do business without the hassle of managing records and contributing to private insurance plans for employees. Instead, the STATE will take care of that.
Vermont opted out of Obama’s plan, as they had the right to do under Obama’s plan. State’s rights, eh?
Slight problem. Its a new phenomenon.
=============
A problem which wouldn’t exist if Bush had not created the big government bureaucracy called TSA.
Got it. I live in a free country. As long as I don’t walk too far in any one direction.
Sarah Palin puts something hard and fast between her legs.
Quite a photo-op!
“Without enforceable borders you have no nation.”
============
And your point is?
What’s so great about nations? All they ever seem to do is fight over borders. Read some history.
“Fox went 7 years of increasing groping under Bush…”
-bigjimbo, catching error-
You’re right Jimbo. The groping apparently was offered as a wholesale alternative to the new whole body scanners. Because the first Fox News headline that I saw about it was “Porn or Molestation.” On Fox.
Somebody tell me why the idiots in charge of those scanners didn’t/don’t just blur the faces on those scanners and make the whole controversy go away?
And I saw one of my grown sons groped rather extensively back in 2007 at the Atlanta airport.
So, whole body pat downs – and worse – have been an option on the table for years.
Jimbo, you want to just agree Airport Security is pretty well FUBAR’ed – regardless of who the Pres. is?
BTW, BigJimbo – I’m responding to you because you challenged me and got me to correct an error without needless insult.
And because you do have good ideas, sometimes –
When you’re not firing the “Fucktard torpedoes.” (tm Cash)
I wouldn’t worry too much about Carabou Barbie… there’s this one thing that stands in her way…. the Bush family. Barbra doesn’t like her, and if she shows political promise then some Lee Harvy Oswald type will emerge and do the CIA’s thing…..
Hitler was Bankrolled by the nice folks at Brown Brothers Harriman, Union Bank, and the Amerikan Hamburg Line…. he was engineered to cause a war (Hitler had NO oil… Where DID he get the money to conduct the massive war? Hint… they own Banks)
Sarah will only become Hitler if the Bush Family wants her to…. the Bushes and their friends at Skull and Bonz have been firmly in charge since November 1963… Obama is the CIA’s inside guy… he aint going no where.
ProCon, I’m responding directly to you to request that you cease and desist your promotion of FAIR.
If you were not aware of the history of FAIR’s founder and his involvement in extreme bigotry, then I owe you an apology for calling you a racist.
If you continue promoting FAIR on CFN, even after becoming aware of its connections to anti-semitism, eugenics, Holocaust denial, etc. then
Post-overhaul, they’re increasing 5.8% faster. Annual premium hikes in the state have averaged 7.5% since 2000.
===============
7.5% !!!! My God! Really!
Bigjimbo, since 1999, the cost of coverage for a family of four has climbed 131 percent in the rest of the nation.
Compared to national increases RomneyCare has saved Massachusetts citizens a ton on tax monies.
SOURCE: EMPLOYER HEALTH BENEFITS http://ehbs.kff.org/pdf/2010/8085.pdf
I am a citizen of the world and a child of the universe. I am immune to your so-called “legal authority.”
(Is that the same “legal authority” that tried to draft me and send me to Vietnam? … and failed!)
Like our parents always warned us – never talk about religion or politics. So just talk chamber of commerce type stuff – price of sorghum and feed, how are the kids, how is the car, job, horse, lawn. Gradually, since nothing real is being said, people begin to covertly avoid each other while still keeping up the facade. Everybody? No just the middle people – the best already saw thru all that in their youth. The people on the bottom of being never stop – they have no depth to retreat to and the more introverted passtimes don’t mean anything to them.
Thus we begin to bowl alone. And in every home, the flickering blue campfire prevails.
“So, you are saying big government agencies are problematic? ”
===========
Not at all. Big government created by Bush set out to fondle people at airports and is doing so very successfully.
“got me to correct an error without needless insult.”
Like I give a fucking shit, FUCKTARD. Blow me.”
-bigjimbo/lingling/TooTsie, back in character-
Hey JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER
You want to go ahead and ban this jackass again?
I have lots of mint.
Does the ACLU have a TV channel that I don’t know about, which insists that the TSA grope grandma?
I’m thinking not.
And I repeat that the US government has no interest in what the ACLU thinks about privacy issues.
And NOW I’ll stop.
I will not respond directly – it leads to trouble
I will not respond directly – it leads to trouble
If there is a better organization than FAIR for promoting reduced legal immigration into the US, perhaps asoka will find it and present it to the thread.
Meanwhile charges of RACISM against FAIR are being used to stifle debate.
What does it matter? Are you kidding? You’re not thinking just doing the Liberal/Leftist regurgitation. Here goes: smart people make more money on average. Such people are envied by the have nots. If the people who have money look the same, they become a group. If the people who don’t have money look the same, they are a group. The second group will envy the first just as poor individuals envy rich ones. A few smart people (like you) organize the dummies to kill the rich. That’s communism in a nutshell.
Hernstein and Murray, the authors of the Bell Curve, thought we could all get along. They reasonably argued that as long as we focused on merit, what did skin color matter. In other words, so what if Whites do better than Blacks on average as long individual Blacks are given the freedom to go as far as they can. I have no problem with it per se. The problem is that Blacks and Browns have a problem with it and will never accept not doing as well as Whites as a group. They are not individualistic cultures in the same sense we are. They will not accept it. To pretend that they will, in the face of all evidence, is either ignorance or irrationality. At this late date, it’s mostly irrationality.
Jim, this time your words aren’t ignescent enough for any sparks to fly across a Hitler-Palin comparison gap so wide that Werner Von Braun wouldn’t try to jump it with a V2.
Oh sure, there are various odious vapors of oppression in the air, but right now they can’t find a place to settle, to coagulate. Currently, the confusion of the times isn’t chaotic enough and even if the anger were higher pitched, Sarah Palin doesn’t bring enough jackboot sangfroid to make it all coalesce.
It’s a colorful comparison though, provocative leathers and all, and certainly better than flatly calling her a fatuous, feeble-minded fell-monger.
You may have done better comparing her to, say, “Frenchy”(Marlene Dietrich), in “Destry Rides Again” or to Doris Day in “Calamity Jane”.
Or even to Annie Oakley(Betty Hutton), in “Annie Get Your Gun”.
Better yet, staying with the male comparison, how about “Lash Larue”? I can see her now, mercilessly snapping that whip in highboots and assless leather, snarling like an insane Billy Idol with smeared lipstick, cracking the air with a fascism sexy enough to force all to submit.
Whew, let me wipe my brow!
Now you morons are arguing over the benefits of different private insurance plans. It’s like arguing over which stick you’re going to get impaled on; the results are guaranteed to be the same.
The U.S. spends almost DOUBLE per capita on health care as compared to the next highest OECD country, and we don’t even cover dentistry in that cost which every other nation does.
Socialized health care is just fucking CHEAPER than what is provided for by our craptastic frankenstein of government enforced private monopolies and private insurance providers.
Actually, what we have in the U.S. is a socialist system as local, state and federal governments pick up the majority of the health care tab except they are forced to do it through tens of thousands of local contracts instead of one national contract. Allowing for profit; otherwise known as graft.
Waste: it’s what Capitalism does best.
“It is based on you “are in control”, you are the “boss”, you can win, so if you didn’t win you deserve the punishment.”
Punishment is man’s construct. This gives the lie to “unending punishment” theory. God’s purpose is restitution, so if any discipline is of God it will have an object of returning man to his prior state, not annihilation or non-existance, or an infinite duration of pain and/or humiliation.
We have all won. Jesus paid the debts of all. The sin { law – less – ness } of the whole world were in propititiation of His suffering. By His stripes we are healed.
Rejoice your redemption darws near.
I respect your decision, ProCon.
I just wanted to give you the opportunity in case I had misjudged you unfairly.
I just popped in to announce that I no longer hate women. I am getting laid regularly now.
So you are against the Veterans Administration health care system, even though it scores higher for quality of care and is cheaper and is socialist (government hospitals, government doctors, government-conscripted patients, etc.)?
Congratulations, Bustin.
So, you judge people on the color of their skin, their IQ and their income?
As I’ve always told you, I think that every person deserves a decent standard of living.
I don’t care if you’re as dumb as a rock, you should be able to afford food, clothes, housing and medical care.
You’re wrong about the envy problem, or Wall Street types wouldn’t be safe in stepping over the homeless.
Did you know that dirt poor Native Americans live on a reservation in sight of the rich in the Hamptons? And they never cruise over and murder them?
There is no one organizing the poor to kill the rich. That is your florid imagination at work.
Pango,
That’s just about a perfect distillation of the “high level” of ‘Murkin “thought” these fine days!
Good one.
bigjimbo, you are interfering with a meaningful conversation between Procon and me. If you persist in this behavior, you risk being called a “resident impediment”
You have been warned.
Yes, in other words, there is no social consensus anymore. Nevertheless, I have found the typical sort of urban parents in the big city districts to be believers in discipline per se, but this constructive attitude tends to get undermined by the social elites who created this mess, since they are big advocates of false gentility and do-nothingism, as I call it. In other words, the kids are looking for someone to follow, but there is no one taking a firm hand with them. All of which makes me sound like someone Nietchze warned us against when he said, “don’t trust those in whom the urge to punish is strong.”
At any rate, fully 50% of the kids in some areas require special education for learning disabilities, psyche. disorders, or developmental handicaps. Getting punitive with them is totally counter-productive.
A great video about Permaculture in the most water-scarce country, Jordan:
http://permaculture.org.au/2009/12/11/greening-the-desert-ii-final/
Marc,
If you’re middle-aged or older, do you
remember in the 1960s when parents would
say, if they had an average child, that
the child was not “college material”?
College was considered to be for the
academic/intellectual elite.
Unfortunately, after 22 years of working
at a community college, I’d have to say
that, despite many liberal rants to the
contrary, that we are NOT underfunding
education … at least at the college and
univeristy level.
We would be MUCH better off if we had a
system like the Germans where most kids
are funneled off to a vocational school
where they learn to be plumbers, electricians,
carpenters, and so on. As a result of our
foolish, utopian ideas, we’ve converted
our economy into an almost pure “service”
economy where a lot of people are unhappy
paper-pushers at financial companies or
call center folks at tech companies instead
of happier, more valuable skilled tradesmen.
I’d estimate that in the decade that just
passed by, around 75%, conservatively, have
no business in college and will never have
a SUSTAINABLE career in computer technology,
the area in which I taught.
There are too many colleges, too many college
students, too many college teachers, and too
many self-deluding people who have transcripts
full of “C”, “D”, and “F” grades, dropped
courses, and yet many of them appear in my
computer lab for seven, eight, nine years
thinking that more and more credit hours will
suddenly make their resume go from sow’s ear
to silk purse.
I am in full agreement with the contentions in
your reply to my post. Indeed, my disillusionment
with the “college-for-everyone” utopian ideal
is a major reason why I will be retiring …
in THREE WEEKS at age 59. It’s been bad for
years and I don’t want to contribute to the
delusions any more. I’d have to be a more
skilled actor than I am.
E.
First, I wish I were as stupid as some of the black people I’ve met. I knew an accounting major at Miami of Ohio who was so brilliant it was scary, and I’m sure that he was of entirely African ancestry. We also had African exchange students who were smart as hell.
If the schools were run properly there would be much to do other than straight academics. Abysmal school performance stems largely from a chaotic home life, living in the noisy projects, or even phsyical imtimidation in the hallways of some schools.
In my experience most persons of every race have virtually no academic aptitude whatever. This notion that everyone needs lots of academic training is not only a transparent scam but is actually wrong headed to the point of the grostesque. I myself although high scoring verbal am not the swiftest in mathematics. I don’t know what I’d do if someone had attempted to force me to become an engineer or an astronomer. I would’ve had to rebel to get out of it.
I think we’re laying our own fucked up head trips on the school kids. This is unfair to the kids. Kids who do not respond well to conventional academcs should be placed in alternative programs where they blow off some steam and discover themselves in other ways. Rich kids certainly don’t get treated like shit just because they’ve got problems. If we really expect everyone to do great in school then we’re truly fucked, because that’s just totally unrealistic.
I too am obsessed with becoming a do-it-yourself hermit. After all, if you really want to drop out of the rat race then you’re pretty much on your own as getting involved with others they will always want to compromise, such as Clevelanders I meet who actually think that rural Ohio is “remote”.
I’m a firm believer in ferro-cement quonset huts if you wish to disappear. That no one knows what ferro-cement is speaks well for ferro-cement. Let’s put it this way: if the lameasses knew what it was it wouldn’t be as good and as cool as it is. The other thing I believe in is composting toilets. In the meantime I will remain in my man-cave taking care of mom. If anyone has a problem with that they can kiss my ass.
True, Obama inherited a disaster. He didn’t
create it. However, as seems to be the case
in modern politics, his defense/coddling of
Wall Street banksters, his retention of
Defense Secretary Gates, his promotion of
Petraeus, his retention of Bernanke …
would have labelled the guy a Liberal
Republican back in the 1960s, not even a
Centrist Democrat.
His Libyan actions (which wasted billions
more we cannot afford) seem like they come
from the Neoconservative playbook. His
post-Libya speech, with all the jibber-jabber
about the “just aspirations of the Libyan
people” sounded like a Dubya speech.
Where are the progressives?? I’m not saying
I’d be one of them but where are the opposing
political forces so vital to the system of
checks and balances the Founding Fathers
had in mind. By actions, we appear to have
a slightly right-of-center party and a vastly
right-of-center party.
Personally, because of his close approach to a
balanced budget, I’d say Bill Clinton was the
best Republican we’ve had in thirty years. 🙂 🙂
E.
Sounds like you read the book ‘real education.’ I forgot the writer. Abilities vary is the main theme, along with too many people go to college.
“They” could not do what “they” do without the passive acceptance of things as they presently are by the the rest of us.
==
I agree with you 100%. The passivity and acceptance is absolutely stunning. And so shameful! So shameful! I really can’t understand it. My only explanation is that either the American public is made up of spineless wilful dupes, or they really are a bunch callous savage racist fascists. I can reach no other explanation.
James’ observations on Palin’s latest attention-whore antics this weekend makes me ponder the shallowness of the ‘biker’ meme that’s been building for 20 or 25 years.
This is mythology of the freedom of the road; independence, toughness, brother/sisterhood. For a great many people it’s a pretend world, a mask you put on to pretend you’re a badass for one day a week. When a pack of Harley riders roars by or plunks down at the bar next to me what screams in my head is not how tough they are, but how have been fooled – another demographic of sucker-consumers who have been fooled into believing in a made-up community. A corporate-branded community, not a real one.
Harley-Davidson has built itself a into a monumental marketing and “branding” machine. Making bikes has become almost secondary to peddling this mythology of freedom and badassedness. I think the very act of outfitting yourself with a Harley jacket, boots, bandanna and bike accessories has made you a corporate shill. I see people that have put a fortune into accessorizing themselves in Harley riding gear, jewelry, on top of whatever they spent on their bikes. And part of the image is not just the gear, it’s the loud: aftermarket pipes you can hear from miles around. It’s the same sociopathic drive in 16-year old boys in every neighborhood everywhere, with thumping car stereos and tuned glass-pack pipes bolted onto the back of their Honda Civics.
My biker friends say how nice their fellow bikers are. A lot of bikers are good people; perhaps even most of them. And they represent a comforting cross-section of America; there are bikers that live in trailers and bikers from gated suburban communities; there are true badasses and weekend pretenders. But hell, everyone’s fun when you’re engaged in a leisure activity. It’s only when you work with them every day, or suffer through something challenging or difficult (like life, or the Long Emergency) that you can tell a friend from an asshole. I contend that the biker image being peddled is not even uniquely American; biker gangs have roamed Russia, England, Japan and probably the south Americas too.
As always James, thanks for your wit and wisdom on current events…with Fukushima simmering and a Palin on the loose, wine alone isn’t enough to get me through these days 😀
“Should they, their haircut awaits.”
=========
Like in NY26?
Big 2010 mandate? Ha!
Eleuthero,
At my kid’s high school, they have sign-up day for all the jr. colleges–West Valley being the most popular. All the kids that haven’t been accepted to a four-year college, are basically herded into a room to register. Only one student listed “work” as her destination after high school. Of course getting a job–even at Petco or Target is harder than signing up for jr. college. What are kids supposed to do? And parents need them to be registered for college in order to keep them on their medical insurance policy.
Congratulations on your upcoming retirement.
SJmom
I’m not surprised that woman find your intelligence very attractive.
SJmom
E., I am glad you are finally going to retire.
I thought you had already retired in March for some reason. 22 years in the Calif. retirement system should give you a comfortable retirement income and that puts my mind at ease.
The book I read was called “Down And Out in Academia”. It was about the plight of college instructors with multiple part time lecturing gigs all over whatever region they lived in. The the most horror inspiring chapter was the account of the poor slob who was so deluded he actually tried to teach high school! As Colonel Kurtz said, “the horror, the horror”.
Speaking of imbalance, get your head out the clouds, Vlad. And I agree – you’re as dry as a bundle of Arizona twigs( notice I didn’t use that other word) in August. Put you’re feet back on the ground and on the higher ground while you’re at it.
I coudln’t agree more. After all, if these people were actually interested in academic pursuits you’d need a crowbar to separate them from their library books, yet curiously, YOU DON’T NEED A CROWBAR TO SEPARATE THEM FROM THEIR LIBRARY BOOKS because guess what? They don’t have a fucking library card! Why you ask? Because they don’t read, that’s why.
And more to the point: was Jimi Hendrix a spoiled little suburbanite like me who’s daddy bought him a guitar and paid for guitar lessons while he was growing up? No, actually he couldn’t afford a guitar. His first “guitar” was a broom he PRETENDED to be playing as a guitar. When he finally did manage to obtain a guitar he spent EVERY WAKING MOMENT PRACTICING THE GUITAR, SITTING IN THE FRONT ROW OF SEATTLE NIGHT CLUBS COPYING EVERY CHORD ON EVERY SONG. Pretty soon voila, he was a professional guitarist touring on the chitlin cirucuit.
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. The biggest reason teachers tell kids they must all go to college is because these same teachers have never done anything but [1] go to school; or [2] teach school. Yet curiously, these same people are not actually intellectuals and basicly don’t read anything other than text-books. Maybe if people want these kids to learn something they should get them to hand out with some of the misfits who actually frequent the library.
“Maybe if people want these kids to learn something they should get them to hand out with some of the misfits who actually frequent the library.”
================
Agreed. Tweeting and Facebooking is not the same as roaming the stacks and reading in all areas of the Dewey Decimal system, which is what I did as soon as I was old enough to read and get a library card.
The FREE public library is the people’s university. I know someone who reads hundreds of books a year, which would cost more to buy than the property taxes he pays to support roads, infrastructure, schools, and the FREE public library.
Re: Mom. You’re priorities are in the right place.
Concrete: Frank Lloyd Wright went through this interesting stage in the 20s, mostly in So. CA., where he used a lot of molded, patterned concrete block. Looked like Deco Mayan Temples. Would like to try something like that on a MUCH smaller scale. Just Google Hollyhock House or Charles Ennis house for some examples.
Have my “Humanure Handbook” (3rd. Ed.) close at hand 🙂
Was rummaging around Fenton Johnson’s website and noticed he’s working on a “Meditations on Solitaires.” Dropped him an e-mail to see if there’s a publication date on that, yet.
Everyone keeps asking what I’m going to do when I close down the store. “Be a hermit and grow potatoes.” No one takes me seriously. Which is one of the reasons the hermitage beckons. Might be a good thing.
“I can’t say I care much for Emily Dickinson’s poetry, but I surely admire her lifestyle.”
Jim, I have admired your spunk, confidence, intelligence, and eloquence ever since I discovered your website several years ago. Furthermore, I also have consistently agreed with your opinions. I too have always spoken my mind, but, as a result, I have been told that I am from a different planet, a different dimension, and from Never, Never Land. It takes one to know one, right? I think I could be as successful as you, and generate as much feedback as you do, however, it must be the words I choose to express myself that differentiates my results from yours. So, where am I going with this? Now really? Maybe it is simply a backhanded compliment.
Living in Massachusetts, my health care insurance with an HMO for myself and my wife, peaked at $19,000 per year, which I paid myself, as a small business owner. I was in a good, but not the best plan the HMO offered.
Now I’m in the Medicare program with supplemental insurance through the HMO (coverage D), and my wife and I pay about $5,700 per year. Do you see why seniors don’t want the politicians to eliminate Medicare? We’re better off than the typical senior because we’re still working. If we had no other income other than social security, we might be able to pay the $19k per year, but we’d be right on the poverty line. In a way, this is positive because we have to remain fit to work, so we exercise and work out.
Re: Too many college students, too many colleges…
A book: “Shop Class as Soul Craft” by Crawford. Well worth a read.
I am very happy for you (really). Now go out and make up for lost time.
Astonishingly good article, JHK! Had to read it twice, it was so good! Having talked about Palin over and over again with my “Country Club” Republican friends, I don’t see Palin getting the GOP nod. She is too dumb (can’t answer even simple questions/can’t debate) and a proven QUITTER. She won’t get the job done of leading because she is too busy trying to extract campaign money from dimwits who actually believe she is able and willing to lead. Palin is very willing to take those funds and spend them on silk drawers for Todd, her First Dude.
However, Palin’s ego is bigger than Alaska. If enough of her followers beseech her to run, she just might run as the TEA PARTY candidate. The GOP, who seems to despise her (even Roger Ailers according to a recent Times article despises her), will run their own candidate, probably a successful businessman (Mitt Romney?). So that would effectively split the Republicans between the Have Mores (the rich and powerful) and the Have Nothings (the loud and crazy fringe).
The only thing that could really propel Palin into the presidency would the total collapse of the economy. This is not likely to happen as the 2008 total world economic collapse was headed off by Henry Paulson/Ben Bernacke who made deals with the devils called Wall Street. Watch the commodity market, that will be the key to who runs and who wins the Presidency.
Got distracted and starting ranting. In point of fact our community colleges now ARE the trade schools to a very great extent. In other words, high school kids are no longer believed to be mature enough to learn anything useful. That’s why kids with I.Q.s of 95 are WASTING their time “learning” about nonsense such as ancient civilizations even though the teacher himself has never read an entire book on the subject. Plainly, if the teacher is someone they don’t look up to or want to emulate then they’re not going to learn anything, even if they had the aptitude, which they don’t.
The problem with training people for the service economy is that they’re going to spend their lives catering to the irrational whims of idiots. My favorite example of this in the barber trade was the guy who ordered a flat top even though he was entirely bald ON TOP. When I told him that would be impossible owing to his having NO HAIR on top his wife argued that his last barber gave him a flat top. I’d known him for some time so I asked her “was that ten years ago by chance?” She actually wanted to argue with me about this issue. I finally asked her, “was that barber’s name Jesus and did he miracle him a head of hair to cut?” If you’re working in someone else’s shop they will no doubt have a policy of amiably FAKING such imbecilic requests. Which reminds me of our entire educational system: AMIABLY FAKING THE IMBECILIC REQUESTS OF THE UNEDUCATED THEMSELVES PARENTS.
“For the record, I don’t believe you’re a racist, Prog.” -buckstud-
Thanks, buck – I don’t think I’m a racist either.
It’s too bad that any concern about population growth in the US is going to get one labeled RACIST by individuals and organizations with an agenda.
I was called RACIST numerous times by one poster, last night between 1:00 am and 3:00 am. I just now scrolled very rapidly through all that and found your post among the blather. Saying something numerous times does not make it true.
But it is a horrible CHARGE and it does tend to stay RESIDENT in one’s mind where it may IMPEDE important discussions. I won’t let that happen.
And I researched FAIR as best as I could and threw it out to the CFN thread for evaluation over one month ago. I also suggested that someone might find a better alternative to FAIR. Not a negative evaluation out of anyone, until last night – although one or two CFN posters have also reported that they have joined FAIR.
Replacement Level immigration is a reasonable and non-racist goal – for the good of the US and the rest of the Earth.
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On to other things – yeah – I’m not sure why that SCOTUS decision has not gotten bigger play. They haven’t yet addressed Arizona Bill # 1070 – but this does give an indication of how they will rule.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2011/0526/Supreme-Court-upholds-Arizona-law-designed-to-thwart-illegal-workers
And yeah, Obama is doing a better job of honest immigration enforcement against employers.
Bush and his Neocons became too pro-business to be pro-America – or something.
Someone pointed out up the thread that new immigrants – maybe especially legal ones – are more reliable as Conservative Voters. I sometimes wonder if that was a primary motivation for Reagan and Bush.
Opinions, anyone?
Also check out “PAPERCRETE” on line.
I am convinced that the key to happiness as a solitary do it yourselfer is to relocated to an unincorporated area where there are no builing codes or zoning. Then provided that the building is for personal use only you should be free to do as you wish and improvise. Another option is to build your own pontoons using foam core so that there are no voids to fill up with water. Ferro-cement is the most common boat building material in the third world, and is also big in New Zealand. It is far easier to get a boat license for a do-it-yourself houseboat than it is to build a real house in an incorporated area where the BUILDING DEPARTMENT GOONS will have an opportunity to fuck with you relentlessly.
I posted the last and I believe legal immigrants are conservative because they have a high rate of self-employment and believe in the much vaunted “American Dream” believing that they’re going to strike it rich selling groceries in the ‘hood at inflated prices and that the gang-bangers are going to recognize their inherent wonderfulness and refrain from shooting them down next time they need a pack of smokes but don’t have any money. I once worked for an Irish immigrant who watched FOX news all day. He was so stupid he joined the Republican Party because it sounds kind of like Irish Republican Army! He billed himself as “The Irish Barber” and would bore everyone by talking about nothing but Ireland. I busted him for having an Ulsterman accent and not an Irish accent. At my next shop the owner and I referred to him as “The British Beautician”. Do I have a right to despise immigrants because I’m 1/64 th Seneca Iroquois out of Rochester, NY? Yes, I think that’ll work just fine for me, thank you very much.
E.
Didn’t you know, colleges are a big business something like puppy mills at this point. And the banks just love those outstanding loans.
They keep this thing going by saying you have to compete in the global economy, only the competition doesn’t have huge loans to pay off and expensive housing. That’s where the rubber meets the road competition-wise.
There are plenty of good math students here, btw, who just cost the companies too much.
Congrats on your retirement.
My Birthday is in 3 weeks too. Age-wise I’m not far behind you.
immigrants are conservative because they “believe in the much vaunted “American Dream” believing that they’re going to strike it rich selling groceries in the ‘hood at inflated prices…”
The Resident Submariner
Thanks for explaining that “bubble head” reference, Marc. I hadn’t heard that term in that context in so many years – I guess I thought you were just being self-deprecating, or something. Cool handle, now that I understand what it means!
And yeah, on immigrants as hard core Republican entrepreneurs –
My wife and another grown son went to the “Thanksgiving Day After at 3:00 A.M. Sale” last year – or whatever the damn thing is called.
None of us had ever been to a thing like that before. I doubt one of us will ever go again.
They were shocked at the huge crowds. And there were lots of people (many Asian immigrants – a factual observation, not RACISM) in the crowd who had actually FLOWN INTO Atlanta, rented a car, driven the 80 miles from ATL to this mall – just to buy cheap Coach pocketbooks or whatever – to sell at a markup on the internet.
Of course all of that foolishness, buying, selling, flying, driving, and marking up stuff on the internet counts as Productive Labor by the maroons who calculate the GDP – and those who think a US with 666,000,000 souls resident is a Peachy Idea.
What a mess we are going to have.
In California, the Jr. College system is quite affordable….except for the textbooks. The system was established by Edmund G. Brown, Sr., and when they first opened they were FREE! Of course, it’s more expensive now, but really, these colleges are a bargain.
SJmom
I love reading your weekly column but frankly I’m a little outnumbered here. Tho’ I’m not exactly wild about Sarah myself, a lot of the diatribe in the comments and main article are a little over the top. A lot of comments about this president or that not being “qualified”. Hm. How would one get “experience” at “president”? Not to sound “corn pone” or anything but all things being equal Abraham Lincoln was nothin’ but a failure of a stump attorney in a wheat field of the midwest who knew nothing of war. Didn’t Palin go against the big oil companies of Alaska during her term at bat? She doesn’t live in a homeless shelter like Hitler despite whatever the conspiracy theorist may say. Has she actually DONE something deserving of all this venom? Peace Out.
“Thanks, buck – I don’t think I’m a racist either.”
========
Well, that does it procon. A consensus of two people, both of whom I respect, have concurred that you are not a racist.
And you should know if you are racist or not. Some racists do know. I recognize and admit my own racism, which comes out of my experiences of mistreatment during Jim Crow. It is deep inside, and though I try to not let it affect me, I admit it often comes out. I am calling myself a racist.
I apologize for calling you a racist, procon.
Your association with FAIR influenced my thinking on the subject. But you have researched FAIR as best as you could, and threw it out to CFN, and you are convinced that it is not a racist organization.
You apparently don’t care that the Southern Poverty Law Center has classified FAIR as a hate group. (Maybe that gives FAIR more status in your eyes?)
“…the Jr. College system is quite affordable…”
=========
Not only that, often there are top-notch instructors, especially in rural community college settings where someone has retired from a life of teaching and research at a university, but then wants to do some adjunct teaching in retirement. The community college students then get a PhD who may have written books or published extensively or have decades of university teaching experience.
In other words, just because it is inexpensive doesn’t mean the quality is lacking. My first computer programming class was taught by someone who had worked at Microsoft and the University of Washington. I took carpentry classes from master carpenters with decades of experience. Ditto adobe construction.
Community colleges are definitely a good (and inexpensive) choice, whether for academic transfer (first two years) or for learning a trade.
Delightfully creepy comments thanks for that. Never forget that the CIA ships chartered for the Bay of Pigs invasion were all named after female members of the Bush family.
With 450 or so comments in less than two full days since Jim’s Hitler-Palin comparison appeared and with everyone all in a lather, let me set some of y’all’s minds at ease. Here is what will happen between now and Nov 2012.
Palin won’t be the Republican nominee. The American people are dumb but not THAT dumb. Chances are she won’t even declare herself a candidate but if she does she will fizzle out for any one of several face-saving reasons (insufficient campaign funding, perhaps?) but will further solidify her “brand” (God knows I hate that term) and ability to make a buck as a professional celebrity — a person similar to Paris Hilton who is a household name worldwide yet doesn’t actually DO anything. She will remain a physically attractive woman well into old age when she will pass away with a significant bank balance. Though I wish no misfortune on anyone I can envision one of Palin’s kids dying before her, for whatever reason, in which case that offspring’s obituary would appear in the NYT with the only claim to fame being that he or she was the son or daughter of Sarah Palin.
Nor will Cain be the Republican nominee. From what little I’ve seen and heard of him on TV he appears to be a generically competent politician but, unlike Obama, is simply “too black” and speaks with a noticeable “black accent.” (Going forward, with Obama as their model, serious black polititians with an eye on higher office will realize the necessity of losing the black accent.) Cain will give it his best shot but will fizzle as well.
Ron Paul will again be a favorite of thinking conservatives but, of course, doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. He’s too wimpy and the average American can’t grasp issues like auditing the Fed much less eliminating it, why Big Govt and ever-growing mountains of fiat money are a bad thing, etc.
I have no idea who will be the republican nominee but it doesn’t matter. Obama will win a second term handily. (Sorry Vlad, sorry Tootsie but admit it, you already knew this.) Central casting back in ’06/’07 could not have come up with a more perfect combination of attributes in a candidate than the half-black, handsome and articulate Obama and no matter what his successes or failures the American public is not about to repudiate their choice after only four years.
I don’t know if I’ll vote in Nov 2012 but if I do it will be for utterly shallow reasons.
Lincoln was already a public figure when he ran for President or he wouldn’t have been able to run for president. Also, remember that Illinois was the frontier then and so the bar was lower for being a public figure. Lincoln did however serve in the Illinois militia during the Black Hawk War, probably as an officer although he didn’t see action if my memory serves me.
Common goes to the WhiteHouse and JHK says not a word!
Maybe you’re right. Maybe your vote or anyone else’s won’t count. But admittedly, you are an old, old man. The consequences of this election are unlikely to be visited upon your narcissitic old self. Why condemn the rest of us to a life filled with inconsequential irrelevance on your behalf? Perhaps there are a few of us who will live, perchance WANT to live beyond the next 20 or 30 years. What right have you to vote for “shallow reasons” (your words). Maybe it’s the same “right” your generation has always had in its attempt to protest and fight Vietnam both at the same time? Maybe you’re pissed off that your life may be ending at the same time Medicare is. (prep?…oops,sorry). Or maybe you’re just too filled with regret at all of the things you could have done or should have done in your life to make a difference in this world, other than suck on the tit which is the American government (can you say S-0-C-I-A-L S-E-C-U-R-I-I-T-Y)? And then you have the nerve to tell the rest of us off how we don’t know how to conjugate a verb, spell contractions, or finish sentences without using a preposition. AND you go after people such as Procon who has the balls to call you on the contemptible little lizard you are. Frankly, I don’t get it. By the way, how is your mother in law getting on? Does she get the little check in the mail from Social Security, or do you and the little Mrs. Q pay for her full upkeep? Miserable little worms such as yourself should stay inside your little cores as much as possible. Your little outbursts concerning grammar and self-serving diatribes leave the rest of us a little perturbed…I mean, you HAVE had more than your turn sucking on the government teat. Cheers! Digby
Not college material, yukyukyuyk!
Funniest thing you ever posted here!
College [like govt] employes the unemployable.
Also College ‘keeps students out of workforce’
[theoretically, with collapse of middle class students are working PT and as ‘interns’
Also with Loan programs and for profit schools….college is a scam, sadly.
but is Cost of Living in California affordable?
E.
The tragedy of education in the U.S. is that for many careers the only way to gain entrance is to sit in a chair, listen to lectures and spit back a verbatim or slightly modified version of same lectures at test time.
Short of a court reporter I can’t think of a single other job that requires that particular skill set.
Which is why we have houses, bridges, planes, cars, medical systems and an economy in general that doesn’t work. If Dr. Wonderful never had to treat bedsores as a student/apprentice he’s not going to prioritize their prevention. Likewise we would all be served better if building inspectors had to do repair and remodeling work for a few years before they approved roof plans that leak.
Education is a wonderful thing; but it’s fuck-all compared to experience.
The text books to which you refer have been run by years by the major publishing companies. When I first started in the field (early l980s) known as “Education”, Lippincott was chief among the little bastards who would “update” a paragraph or two in each and every chapter, requiring the professors to assign new ($75.00 – $l00.00 texts) to new classes. The entire educational system, top to bottom, K-12, and beyond has been usurped by these publishing houses, sucking up millions of state tax payer dollars. As has been said before on this blog, how many times do you have to update math and physics? It’s been the same since before Aristotle carved out equations on a stone tablet. The graft and corruption in the whole system is beyond ordinary human comprehension. I know. I taught this stuff. It amazes me that middle class people (by which I’m defining couples who earn between $100k and $200k per annum) willfully dish out the cash to send junior to a four year, diploma mill institution (name your favorite 4 year cleptocracy) for a degree that will get him, at best, a non-paid internship for a year and a half, and at worst, a part-time, assistant shift manager at McDonalds. Good luck with paying off the $100K loans at that rate, folks. And the housing market? Just who do you think is going to buy that $700K Mcmansion you and hubby invested in 20 years ago? Certainly not some lawyer, freshly minted from a “prestige” law school, working for $23K a year as a paralegal. Let’s get real….okay?
Digby_Wall of text is unreadable. Find the return key and familiarize yourself with it’s use.
Qshtick_ A shockingly realistic assessment. You forgot to mention that the current Republican leadership shot themselves in the heads by declaring publicly their intention of raising the age of Social Security retirement and destroying Medicare.
Most Americans of working age know that Social Security is their only hope of relief from wage-slavery. The GOP informing them that they are to work until they are dead or homeless (same thing) doesn’t endear them to anybody but total morons and foam-at-the-mouth racists.
Since we don’t have either a financially conservative party in the U.S. OR an actual Left party we’re stuck with iterations of the current neo-liberal insanity of which Obama is notably less insane than any other viable option.
Wonderful comments on the education industry. The phenomenon you describe has been called credentialism, I think, but it was the subject of a lengthy article in one of the literary magazines perhaps a decade ago, either Harpers or The Atlantic. The problem as discussed in that article was how the gatekeeping function for entrance into the professions was handed off from the practitioners themselves to the universities and that thereafter persons were no longer chosen because they could confidently be expected to excel at the profession in question but because they could be expected to do well at THE TRAINING for that occupation. This is why new lawyers for instance, don’t really know how to do the paperwork which is expected of them as active lawyers. The article also took a look at the issue of the MBA degree and how the business schools were attempting to convert what had been a practical pursuit, that is running a business, into a more academic profession including numerous negative comments on graduate business school products and whether or not they were worth what they expected to be paid.
MEDIA BLACKOUT..According to the AP,
“Allahu Akbar!” means
“I have to go to the toilet”
Another terrorist thwarted under Obama’s watch, and the liberal media tries to cover it up.
Almurisi is his name
You should have given yourself the name digbylemons, as you’re writing has a sour, negative tone.
If your life isn’t where you want it to be, don’t take it out on Q, who wrote a good post. Remember, what goes around comes around and so it will fall to you and your ageism.
Compared to national increases RomneyCare has saved Massachusetts citizens a ton on tax monies.
================
Assuming the percentages (7.5% and 131%) and time period (1999 to 2011) mentioned in your reply to Jimbo are accurate, your statement above (that
“RomneyCare has saved Massachusetts citizens a ton on tax monies” is wrong.
7.5% compounded annually for 12 years would result in an increase over that span of time = to about 138%. 7.23% compounded etc etc = an increase of 131%. The numbers are not vastly different but RomneyCare is more expensive, not less.
What’s an asshat anyways? Is that like a hat you wear on your ass or is it a hat made from an ass? Either way, it stinks.
Damn, Q, getting all mathy and shiz. Are you an accountant or something? 😉
What, pray tell, do you do for a living, lil assia? If you’re so intelligent and the college/government jobs are so cushy, why don’t you get off your duff and get one? With all the time spent moaning on here, you could have come up with a Grand Unified Theory by now.
Yeah, education is nothing but gatekeeping. I’m perfectly cool with my knee surgery being performed by a DIY surgeon. And when I go to court, I’ll have Biff Ferguson representing me, who got his law degree via mail order.
Is California affordable? The cost of housing is definately going down, down, down. Our taxes are crazy. Sales tax in San Jose is 8.65%. Energy costs here are high…but the weather is so nice, you don’t need air conditioning, and you could easily stay warm enough with blankets if you didn’t have heat (having someone to snuggle with, would help).
The idiots next door (I’ve mentioned previously that they don’t take good care of their dogs, and they don’t mow their lawn enough) bought their house back in 2006 for $806,000–not a McMansion by any stretch–a one-story house with 1800 square feet. They both work for non-profits and send their kids to private schools. I’m sure they’ve saved at least $3 bucks for retirement. Their house is now valued at $565,000 according to zillow. If they go bankrupt, I’ll throw a party after they’ve moved.
Two houses on our street have “bank owned” for sale signs.
California may not be a bargain, but I like living here.
SJmom
Q in intentionally compounding just to make the numbers come out right for his purposes. What is hidden behind that “compounding” we’ll never know. Lie, damned lies, and statistics.
A hundred years ago the world changed a lot slower than it does now. In those days an old person gathered a lifetime of experience that was still relevant 70 years later. The younger generation could appreciate the accumulated wisdom of oldsters (those who weren’t idiots and had some basic common sense), and the elderly were generally respected.
Today things change so rapidly that much of the experience gathered by old people is not applicable in today’s world. It’s no wonder the elderly aren’t listened to so much. That, and the fact the younger generations realize they aren’t going to get the entitlements the old people have been receiving for almost 80 years; and to add insult to injury, they are the ones paying for those entitlements.
I try to stay up with the modern world. I’ve always had a sort of futurist outlook and embrace change. I believe I’m much more “with it” than the average person my age, but even I have trouble keeping pace. No wonder young people are disdainful of us oldsters.
Re: education as gatekeeping: Don’t they teach knee surgery via home schooling or charter school vouchers?
PRIVATE MESSAGE FOR Q:
Bank of America hit a new 52-week low Tuesday
PRIVATE MESSAGE TO Q:
7 Simple Steps to Move Your Checking Account
moveyourmoneyproject.org/checklist
Once you institute taxes you get “tax creep”, that is, the total amount of taxes you pay in all categories as a percent of your income gradually goes up. When the income tax was instituted in 1913, the tax rate was 1%.
I know the government must take some money from its citizens, but I have a hair across my ass when it comes to taxes because I don’t approve of what they do with most of my money. Wouldn’t it be something if we had a real say in how government spent my taxes?
If they take $10,000 from me in taxes, it would be nice for me to be able to say, ok, I’ll pay $1,000 of that for defense, $2,000 for medical and science research, $2,000 for the homeless, etc. I despise the idea that my $10,000 might have purchased a 1,000 pound bomb, or 5 $2,000 toilets, or went to Goldman Sachs for part of some exec’s year-end bonus. That’s why I call taxes immoral and thievery.
“I believe I’m much more “with it” than the average person my age, but even I have trouble keeping pace.”
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My mother is 84 and she is still working.
Why are you still working? Necesity? Love of work? Born in the midwest?
History according to bigjimbo:
Slavery ended in 1865. Thank you massa Lincoln.
Jim Crow ended in 1965. Thank you massa Johnson.
“That’s why I call taxes immoral and thievery.”
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It may be some consolation that taxes have gone down with Obama and are now at historically low levels, the lowest tax rate since 1950, according to Reagan’s policy analyst.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/31/federal-tax-rate-bartlett_n_869330.html
Yeah, education is nothing but gatekeeping. I’m perfectly cool with my knee surgery being performed by a DIY surgeon. And when I go to court, I’ll have Biff Ferguson representing me, who got his law degree via mail order.
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Designed to keep the so-called “uninitiated” out of the club, all “professions” are juat that — clubs. They do not serve their clients, they only serve themselves. The law profession, the medical profession, all professions are self-serving frauds. But more than that, the fact that these “professions” are politically centralized, means that they are very susceptible to political manipulation. Which I suspect was the real motive behind forcing persons engaged in these activities to becoming professionalised.
And just to add to that, the reason we get all the absurdities that we do in the legal system, insurance, accounting, healthcare, education, etc., is precisely because all these activities are “professionalised”.
And, finally, my take on the American educational system:
About 900 years ago when I started the sixth grade, we got a 500 page social studies textbook for the school year. Well, to me it was very interesting. So in addition to my regular schoolwork, I took the book home and read the whole thing in about 2 weeks. Unfortunately, I had to spend the rest of the school year going over the book so other students could gradually catch up. BORING! For me, school was stifling and I felt trapped being chained to a desk for 6 hours every day.
I eventually came to the realization that school was designed as a “one size fits all” situation. It was mass production as applied to education. When I went to college, it became even more clear, that at that time, the system was designed ss an assembly line for industry, and the student was fodder for big business.
That system hasn’t changed and is still in place today, except there are no jobs for graduates, and colleges still crank out graduates, as the assembly line is still on. Back in the ’60’s I felt the average student wasn’t too smart, and apparently today, the situation is even worse.
I don’t buy into the idea that colleges are scraping the bottom of the barrel because they need their money to stay operating. Harvard and many other universities literally have billions in endowments. What do they use that money for?
Big stadiums and increased sports curricula with all its additional expenses, such as lavish recruitment. All for prestige, not educational quality.
Why shouldn’t the quality of students decrease when illiterate athletes are propelled through the system without having to learn very much? It doesn’t set a good example.
In my experience most persons of every race have virtually no academic aptitude whatever.
============
Your statement above is an exaggeration but not by much. It has taken me much of my lifetime to realize how totally unfit most people are for the rigors of “higher learning.” There are so many reasons.
A dear close relative of mine told me how he came out of high school and went to U of West Virginia for less than a full year and simply could not bear to listen to a marketing professor discuss the art of salesmanship as though it was a science. When this relative speaks it sounds like a malapropism-filled Norm Crosby routine (which, obsessed as I am about such things, drives me to near madness) yet he is a 100% people-person and could charm the balls off a brass monkey. As such he made a good living as a salesman and has run his own business for many years. The thought of him trying to write a term paper though is laughable.
About a year or two ago I was watching CNBC (the stock market from morning till night) and they used to have a talking head named James Altucher on fairly regularly … a guy with ridiculously mussed up hair but an obviously educated smart cookie. One day, off script and for no discernible reason, he launched into a rant explaining how and why he was advising his two daughters NOT to go to college. His rationale covered much of the same ground as you, Eluthero and others have covered today. In particular the tuition debt issue and the uselessness of much of the curriculum. It made a big impression on me.
I am currently in the middle of reading David Foster Wallace’s posthumous book, The Pale King. It is filled with wonderful insight into different personality types and their fitness for certain fields of learning and employment … in this instance employment as an examiner of tax returns for the IRS. The book is essentially about the ability to endure boredom. Wallace’s skill at observing and describing are unequaled and in my opinion he was a genius of the highest order. He committed suicide in Sept 2008.
Bubble, I think you would enjoy the chapter in which Wallace describes a Jesuit professor (if you can imagine) at DePaul U. summing up the semester prior to the final exam in a class titled Advanced Tax. It is inspiring.
Bank of America hit a new 52-week low Tuesday
================
That would be Tuesday a week ago. But it makes no difference to me. I don’t own B of A stock and never have. I have an account there and the stock price is irrelevant.
“That’s why I call taxes immoral and thievery.”
Welcome to this fun little gathering called civilization. Pick your poison…
Taxes are thievery. Education is gatekeeping. Blah blah blah. Talk to the hand.
“Submariners are nuts because their alcoholism rate is something like 75%”
The submariner I ran into arrived late to a kegger we were having at a lake in the California valley. He dropped a tire in the middle of the picnic table and started ramming his fist through the hole in the tire and frantically screaming how he barely survived a blowout going 90 mph on his way to the party. He was drunk of course. The party immediately livened up and he and I hit it off real well.
I think your ex girlfriend and my ex wife would really hit it off, too.
Q said: “That would be Tuesday a week ago. ”
==========
No, that would be today.
May 31, 2011. Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) hit a new 52-week low Tuesday as it is currently trading at $11.84, below its previous 52-week high of $24.33 with 6.2 million shares traded as of 9:36 a.m. ET.
Drives me crazy when someone does not pay attention to the details and gets their financial data and time periods wrong. These things matter in the world of finance.
Great post Pangolin. I will use it to springboard into some John Ruskin who indicates an architect would do well to be a sculptor as well:
I take this opportunity of repeating what I have several times before stated, for the sake of travellers, that St. Ouen, impressive as
it is, is entirely inferior to the transepts of Rouen Cathedral.] But with this very perfection of his work came the unhappy pride of the
builder in what he had done. As long as he had been merely raising clumsy walls and carving them like a child, in waywardness of fancy, his delight was in the things he thought of as he carved; but when he had once reached this pitch of constructive science, he began to think
only how cleverly he could put the stones together. The question was
not now with him, What can I represent? but, How high can I build–how wonderfully can I hang this arch in air, or weave this tracery across
the clouds? And the catastrophe was instant and irrevocable. Architecture became in France a mere web of waving lines,–in England a mere grating of perpendicular ones. Redundance was substituted for invention, and geometry for passion; tho Gothic art became a mere expression of wanton expenditure, and vulgar mathematics; and was swept
away, as it then deserved to be swept away, by the severer pride, and purer learning, of the schools founded on classical traditions.
You cannot now fail to see, how, throughout the history of this wonderful art–from its earliest dawn in Lombardy to its last catastrophe in France and England–sculpture, founded on love of
nature, was the talisman of its existence; wherever sculpture was practised, architecture arose–wherever that was neglected, architecture expired; and, believe me, all you students who love this mediaeval art, there is no hope of your ever doing any good with it, but on this everlasting principle. Your patriotic associations with it are of no use; your romantic associations with it–either of chivalry
or religion–are of no use; they are worse than useless, they are false. Gothic is not an art for knights and nobles; it is an art for
the people: it is not an art for churches or sanctuaries; it is an art for houses and homes: it is not an art for England only, but an art for
the world: above all, it is not an art of form or tradition only, but an art of vital practice and perpetual renewal. And whosoever pleads
for it as an ancient or a formal thing, and tries to teach it you as an ecclesiastical tradition or a geometrical science, knows nothing of its
essence, less than nothing of its power.
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=174513
[quote=”nameta9″]From:
http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/03/make-no-mistake.html
The reason no one talks about the real macro trends of Science and Technology eliminating labor automatically, structurally is because it implies a very specific solution, the only possible solution and namely free salaries to all, cheap rents, or less bluntly huge public – private projects. By finally exposing the truth about the effects of Science and Technology on all productive endeavors there would be no more deceptions, no more room to hide the fact that no jobs will be created anymore by more small businesses, new skill sets needed by “innovation”, more competition etc.
But the economists, politicians, you name it, try to hide this truth and this fact as much as possible to avoid exposing the only possible solution there is to the present worldwide needs of millions of unemployed and without homes or in sacrificed living conditions.
By the way, these myths the capitalists chant about all the time are exactly the same as the “grow your own food myth”: it is just another way to say “be your own boss” and is just another way to emphasize the small business myth the capitalist love to brainwash everyone with: this is done purposely to atomize people, to break down as much as possible any collective effort, any labor processes that add up, [b]THAT ACCUMULATE INTO SOMETHING GREATER THAN THE PARTS, [/b]that are serialized. Divide all the small slobs and then crush them.
This blog also shows how right wing the posters here are: they are all concentrated on overpopulation, too many people (if anything there are too many people who think that “there are too many people”). They think that by saying this they are saying something really interesting, some great discovery, some great truth that nobody else could imagine. By saying there are too many people, they are essentially saying, hate on others, there is not enough room for others, fight a war, kill them, get rid of them, I want to grow my own food and protect myself with my rifle against all those “other” slobs.
It also feeds into a justification to express as much violence and hate against others as possible because now you found the “logical connection”. But then who exactly is to decide who is too much ? For me, the people who think that there are too many people are the first ones that we should get rid of. Even because it is false, there is no over population, it is just a right wing brainwashing device to make people hate on others.
The other favorite of these posters is racism of all kinds, blacks vs whites, mexicans vs who knows who, who is bad who is good, and so on (but this is mostly USA centered). The subtext here also is, hate on others, kill them, fight them, war. Another favorite is protect the environment, even here the subtext is kill people and protect nature. Nothing more idiotic, because either you are fighting nature or you are fighting people, it has always been this way, but the greens and environmentalists want to fight people, get rid of them, there are “too many”, but nature must be protected. Kill people, protect nature.
And this blog and posters somehow are “liberal”, “left wing”. Wow, the truth is there is no longer any left, as in “progressive”, as in wanting progress. We only have 3 kinds of right wings: the real right wing in the US (which at this point is the most left, bush did give hand outs to people, the most left thing you could do today), the left of obama which is a hidden right wing, and the worst left which is this green, peak oil, overpopulation, resource scarcity left that essentially wants everyone to hate on everyone, and is therefore the most right wing.
Why do rich countries – societies kill themselves ? Think Germany during the 1930s was becoming an economic powerhouse, if they discharged all of their excess capacity, thanks to the application of Science and Technology to the production process, towards enriching themselves instead of going crazy and starting WW II, they could have become extremely rich even with that more primitive technology (after all, that primitive technology, tanks, planes, etc nearly wiped out half of Europe). They could have already reached the USA standard of living of 1965 by 1945 if they concentrated on building houses, cars, skyscrapers, train lines, all those things that benefit the collectivity.
After all the real reason why societies become rich is not because of the Free Market or Capitalism, it is because Science and Technology applied to the production process (along with its capability to harness energy also through oil) allows an unprecedented amount of wealth to be generated automatically, allows wealth to be generated and given to everyone with much less effort compared to 200 years ago. The market economy and competition helped the process by making the economy flexible and creating incentives to optimize and produce more efficiently, but I would say the ratio is 80 % Science and Technology, 20 % Competition.
Also JAPAN and Germany from 1945 to 1975 had spectacular growth anyways, again with that more primitive technology and they didn’t need all the flexibility, competition, start ups, entrepreneurs and “be your own bosses” and small businesses that the present economic theory thinks is so important: it is not at all, it is all just an excuse to not share the wealth with the lower classes.
Again, why do rich countries – societies kill themselves ?
It reminds me of the rich guy who has everything he wants but is bored and starts “fighting himself”, starts self destructing instead of constructing. The USA (and partially the EU and JAPAN) is in this phase, self destructing, everyone against everyone, full of hating on others, because they are blacks, asians, too many people, resource scarcities, you name it. There is no collective goal, no collective pride, something that South Korea has for example. They are “proud” of themselves, each subgroup in the USA hates any other subgroup within itself. If South Korea was as large as the USA with 300 million people, they would have gone to Mars and back again 100 times, and would have been wealthy beyond their wildest dreams, thanks to their emphasis on collective effort, labor that is serialized, that accumulates and that doesn’t dissipate in puny fights.[/quote]
I answer:
“because either you are fighting nature or you are fighting people”
And in fact we need MIND OVER MATTER, we must kill and defeat nature and not fight amongst ourselves, but against nature and create collective results. Manipulate nature, colonize the galaxy, trillions of skyscrapers all across the galaxy. Trillions of Will Powers of trillions of people that add up as one monolithic force that crushes nature and dominates the universe, as existence waking up and dominating itself, as one entity, one chunk of matter completely and totally manipulating and dominating another chunk of matter.
Instead we have small puny fights amongst each other, no collective action and goal, no pride, no feeling that you belong to something greater than your puny egotism and this puny capitalistic – individualists “I am better than you, I hate you, I must win” mentality that sets everyone against everyone else in a never ending fight demolishing society.
You can see this really clearly in technology: from the 1950s through maybe the 1980s, technology and tech workers were concentrated on fighting nature in a sense, on a collective action to improve technology, on designing better circuits, integrating electronics in chips, etc. A collective action that was adding up, it was real productive labor that accumulated results, that added up, that created a common good, in that everyone benefited from it.
We were fighting Matter and Manipulating Matter and Not Fighting Others.
But as technology killed more and more work, and since less and less real labor was necessary, slowly, people started to fight each other, as in an activity that doesn’t add up, but destroys. So, even in technology this happened in a sense, ever more contrasting standards, programming languages, ever more perverted and wrong software, ever more human interaction stuff as against objective clear cut direct manipulations of matter that represented hardware advances. Instead of fighting matter we fight other will powers, even though they are hidden behind laws, and software, and whatever.
The capitalists subtly created “A Matter to Will Power Evaporator Machine”, where we once had to fight matter, but now have to fight ever more contrasting will powers, the concentration of will powers as a sticky fluid blocking the gears of progress.
In fact, in hardware, we had people that “worked together” to overcome technical problems that were objective and clear cut, and that really created progress and productive results. Now, we have mostly people simply working against each other, to express their ego, to fight, to “compete”, to “win”, and all of this fighting creates less and less product and results as increasing home prices and rents and increasing health care prices, and so on.
But this is an ideological choice, this is by design, this is by intention and by the hidden will powers of the capitalists that need to atomize people and direct all of their efforts in fighting each other instead of directing all of their efforts on creating collective results that add up like Rockets to Mars, Skyscrapers, High Speed Trains, and you name it, there could be a never ending array of productive collective endeavors that could make societies richer beyond their wildest dreams.
But the ruling class has deeply and totally brainwashed everyone to hate against everyone else, to fight and conflict, and has invented a never ending array of excuses and imaginary causes and effects to justify everyone fighting each other as in all of the Resource Scarcity Myths (overpopulation, nothing further from the truth, the earth could carry thousands of trillions, but people are so totally brainwashed on this, and population may not even reach a puny, nearly invisible 20 billion, not even a grain of sand in the greater scheme of things), Peak Oil (nothing further from the truth, just solar energy could furnish equivalent of gas for thousands of trillions of cars, skyscrapers could house thousands of trillions, etc.), You Have to Compete (which means fight everyone else for market share, but this essentially means try your best to not create a collective result), innovation (which means find every possible way to distract and keep people from building something useful together, like the idiotic APPs of IPADS, etc.).
We need Cheap Rents and Free Salaries and huge Public – Private projects like Rockets to Mars, Skyscrapers, and all things that add up, paid by the governments worldwide and by the money that is being printed by the FED and others that is presently just being gifted to the ultra rich by the billions daily.
Also, get private actors out of the space programs, we need huge government programs, and BIG GOVERNMENT, that’s right, BIG GOVERNMENT, BIG ENTITIES REPRESENTING EVERYONE, THE COLLECTIVE, something to be proud of, not puny private thieves that just hog up all the money.
Now go on, hate on all of the “immigrants”, hate on everyone else “they are lazy”, go on, hate on all and everyone, fight everyone else, go on beat yourselves up, go on, go on, chant that there is not enough for everyone and the resources are running out, go on, this is what the capitalists want while they choke on ever more trillions everyday.
[quote=”nameta9″]From:
http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/03/make-no-mistake.html
The reason no one talks about the real macro trends of Science and Technology eliminating labor automatically, structurally is because it implies a very specific solution, the only possible solution and namely free salaries to all, cheap rents, or less bluntly huge public – private projects. By finally exposing the truth about the effects of Science and Technology on all productive endeavors there would be no more deceptions, no more room to hide the fact that no jobs will be created anymore by more small businesses, new skill sets needed by “innovation”, more competition etc.
But the economists, politicians, you name it, try to hide this truth and this fact as much as possible to avoid exposing the only possible solution there is to the present worldwide needs of millions of unemployed and without homes or in sacrificed living conditions.
By the way, these myths the capitalists chant about all the time are exactly the same as the “grow your own food myth”: it is just another way to say “be your own boss” and is just another way to emphasize the small business myth the capitalist love to brainwash everyone with: this is done purposely to atomize people, to break down as much as possible any collective effort, any labor processes that add up, [b]THAT ACCUMULATE INTO SOMETHING GREATER THAN THE PARTS, [/b]that are serialized. Divide all the small slobs and then crush them.
This blog also shows how right wing the posters here are: they are all concentrated on overpopulation, too many people (if anything there are too many people who think that “there are too many people”). They think that by saying this they are saying something really interesting, some great discovery, some great truth that nobody else could imagine. By saying there are too many people, they are essentially saying, hate on others, there is not enough room for others, fight a war, kill them, get rid of them, I want to grow my own food and protect myself with my rifle against all those “other” slobs.
It also feeds into a justification to express as much violence and hate against others as possible because now you found the “logical connection”. But then who exactly is to decide who is too much ? For me, the people who think that there are too many people are the first ones that we should get rid of. Even because it is false, there is no over population, it is just a right wing brainwashing device to make people hate on others.
The other favorite of these posters is racism of all kinds, blacks vs whites, mexicans vs who knows who, who is bad who is good, and so on (but this is mostly USA centered). The subtext here also is, hate on others, kill them, fight them, war. Another favorite is protect the environment, even here the subtext is kill people and protect nature. Nothing more idiotic, because either you are fighting nature or you are fighting people, it has always been this way, but the greens and environmentalists want to fight people, get rid of them, there are “too many”, but nature must be protected. Kill people, protect nature.
And this blog and posters somehow are “liberal”, “left wing”. Wow, the truth is there is no longer any left, as in “progressive”, as in wanting progress. We only have 3 kinds of right wings: the real right wing in the US (which at this point is the most left, bush did give hand outs to people, the most left thing you could do today), the left of obama which is a hidden right wing, and the worst left which is this green, peak oil, overpopulation, resource scarcity left that essentially wants everyone to hate on everyone, and is therefore the most right wing.
Why do rich countries – societies kill themselves ? Think Germany during the 1930s was becoming an economic powerhouse, if they discharged all of their excess capacity, thanks to the application of Science and Technology to the production process, towards enriching themselves instead of going crazy and starting WW II, they could have become extremely rich even with that more primitive technology (after all, that primitive technology, tanks, planes, etc nearly wiped out half of Europe). They could have already reached the USA standard of living of 1965 by 1945 if they concentrated on building houses, cars, skyscrapers, train lines, all those things that benefit the collectivity.
After all the real reason why societies become rich is not because of the Free Market or Capitalism, it is because Science and Technology applied to the production process (along with its capability to harness energy also through oil) allows an unprecedented amount of wealth to be generated automatically, allows wealth to be generated and given to everyone with much less effort compared to 200 years ago. The market economy and competition helped the process by making the economy flexible and creating incentives to optimize and produce more efficiently, but I would say the ratio is 80 % Science and Technology, 20 % Competition.
Also JAPAN and Germany from 1945 to 1975 had spectacular growth anyways, again with that more primitive technology and they didn’t need all the flexibility, competition, start ups, entrepreneurs and “be your own bosses” and small businesses that the present economic theory thinks is so important: it is not at all, it is all just an excuse to not share the wealth with the lower classes.
Again, why do rich countries – societies kill themselves ?
It reminds me of the rich guy who has everything he wants but is bored and starts “fighting himself”, starts self destructing instead of constructing. The USA (and partially the EU and JAPAN) is in this phase, self destructing, everyone against everyone, full of hating on others, because they are blacks, asians, too many people, resource scarcities, you name it. There is no collective goal, no collective pride, something that South Korea has for example. They are “proud” of themselves, each subgroup in the USA hates any other subgroup within itself. If South Korea was as large as the USA with 300 million people, they would have gone to Mars and back again 100 times, and would have been wealthy beyond their wildest dreams, thanks to their emphasis on collective effort, labor that is serialized, that accumulates and that doesn’t dissipate in puny fights.[/quote]
“because either you are fighting nature or you are fighting people”
And in fact we need [b]MIND OVER MATTER, [/b]we must kill and defeat nature and not fight amongst ourselves, but against nature and create collective results. Manipulate nature, colonize the galaxy, trillions of skyscrapers all across the galaxy. Trillions of Will Powers of trillions of people that add up as one monolithic force that crushes nature and dominates the universe, as existence waking up and dominating itself, as one entity, one chunk of matter completely and totally manipulating and dominating another chunk of matter.
Instead we have small puny fights amongst each other, no collective action and goal, no pride, no feeling that you belong to something greater than your puny egotism and this puny capitalistic – individualistic “I am better than you, I hate you, I must win” mentality that sets everyone against everyone else in a never ending fight demolishing society.
You can see this really clearly in technology: from the 1950s through maybe the 1980s, technology and tech workers were concentrated on fighting nature in a sense, on a collective action to improve technology, on designing better circuits, integrating electronics in chips, etc. A collective action that was adding up, it was real productive labor that accumulated results, that added up, that created a common good, in that everyone benefited from it.
We were fighting Matter and Manipulating Matter and Not Fighting Others.
But as technology killed more and more work, and since less and less real labor was necessary, slowly, people started to fight each other, as in an activity that doesn’t add up, but destroys. So, even in technology this happened in a sense, ever more contrasting standards, programming languages, ever more perverted and wrong software, ever more human interaction stuff as against objective clear cut direct manipulations of matter that represented hardware advances. Instead of fighting matter we fight other will powers, even though these contrasting Will Powers are subtly hidden behind laws, and software, and whatever.
The capitalists subtly created “A Matter to Will Power Evaporator Machine”, where we once had to fight matter, but now have to fight ever more contrasting will powers, the concentration of will powers as a sticky fluid blocking the gears of progress.
In fact, in hardware, we had people that “worked together” to overcome technical problems that were objective and clear cut, and that really created progress and productive results. Now, we have mostly people simply working against each other, to express their ego, to fight, to “compete”, to “win”, and all of this fighting creates less and less product and results as increasing home prices and rents and increasing health care prices, and so on.
But this is an ideological choice, this is by design, this is by intention and by the hidden will powers of the capitalists that need to atomize people and direct all of their efforts in fighting each other instead of directing all of their efforts on creating collective results that add up like Rockets to Mars, Skyscrapers, High Speed Trains, and you name it, there could be a never ending array of productive collective endeavors that could make societies richer beyond their wildest dreams.
But the ruling class has deeply and totally brainwashed everyone to hate against everyone else, to fight and conflict, and has invented a never ending array of excuses and imaginary causes and effects to justify everyone fighting each other as in all of the Resource Scarcity Myths (overpopulation, nothing further from the truth, the earth could carry thousands of trillions, but people are so totally brainwashed on this, and population may not even reach a puny, nearly invisible 20 billion, not even a grain of sand in the greater scheme of things), Peak Oil (nothing further from the truth, just solar energy could furnish equivalent of gas for thousands of trillions of cars, skyscrapers could house thousands of trillions, etc.), You Have to Compete (which means fight everyone else for market share, but this essentially means try your best to not create a collective result), innovation (which means find every possible way to distract and keep people from building something useful together, like the idiotic APPs of IPADS, etc.).
We need Cheap Rents and Free Salaries and huge Public – Private projects like Rockets to Mars, Skyscrapers, and all things that add up, paid by the governments worldwide and by the money that is being printed by the FED and others that is presently just being gifted to the ultra rich by the billions daily.
Also, get private actors out of the space programs, we need huge government programs, and BIG GOVERNMENT, that’s right, BIG GOVERNMENT, BIG ENTITIES REPRESENTING EVERYONE, THE COLLECTIVE, something to be proud of, not puny private thieves that just hog up all the money.
Now go on, hate on all of the “immigrants”, hate on everyone else “they are lazy”, go on, hate on all and everyone, fight everyone else, go on beat yourselves up, go on, go on, chant that there is not enough for everyone and the resources are running out, go on, this is what the capitalists want while they choke on ever more trillions everyday.
Bustin J says:
“I just popped in to announce that I no longer hate women. I am getting laid regularly now.”
I answer:
So, does that mean you won’t read all my posts anymore ? Does that mean you won’t study them inside out for hours on end ? and all of those I have been writing on http://www.ilovephilosophy.com as nameta9 and old6598 (before I was eight man or something like that) for years now ?
And why are you telling me ? So I can feel so envious ? I will now proceed to inflict infinite envy upon myself, self punishment, so you can rub it in, real hard, rub it in that I am not getting any, go on, do that, tell me that I am not getting any and don’t have an ice cube’s chance in hell to get any. I can’t even look at a lady a mile away without running away frightened, go figure…
But you can read my last post on HELL, and I am in paradise, the most extreme paradise ever because I didn’t experience the infinite pain of hell for a 30 seconds, but even experiencing very extreme pain for 30 seconds is still paradise achieved, since if you achieved paradise in the past even 10 years ago, then it is achieved forever for all time and all points in space.
But god will throw you in hell for eternity, but you will be in paradise anyways and for always because those 30 seconds of extreme pain you had, which was not the infinite pain of hell, was equivalent to paradise for all time and all space (god uses all kinds of different logics from us, time and space and quantities are all inverted and can be manipulated and assigned in all kinds of new ways) and compensates an eternity of hell and represents paradise achieved.
Aren’t you glad you are not me ?
I suggest you to leave the lady you found and tell her that for ten years you will have to study all my posts very carefully, and then maybe you could see her again.
Bustin J says:
“I just popped in to announce that I no longer hate women. I am getting laid regularly now.”
I answer:
So, does that mean you won’t read all my posts anymore ? Does that mean you won’t study them inside out for hours on end ? and all of those I have been writing on http://www.ilovephilosophy.com as nameta9 and old6598 (before I was eight man or something like that) for years now ?
And why are you telling me ? So I can feel so envious ? I will now proceed to inflict infinite envy upon myself, self punishment, so you can rub it in, real hard, rub it in that I am not getting any, go on, do that, tell me that I am not getting any and don’t have an ice cube’s chance in hell to get any. I can’t even look at a lady a mile away without running away frightened, go figure…
But you can read my last post on HELL, and I am in paradise, the most extreme paradise ever because I didn’t experience the infinite pain of hell for 30 seconds, but even experiencing very extreme pain for 30 seconds is still paradise achieved, since if you achieved paradise in the past, even 10 years ago, then it is achieved forever for all time and all points in space.
But god will throw you in hell for eternity, as he will throw everyone, no matter what, that is the big trick he played on all of us, when we die, he will say, you got all of the religions wrong, you all guessed the wrong god, I am the real god and I throw everyone in hell just for the fun of it, there are no conditions that can ever save anyone because I am the boss and decide, and decided that you all deserve to go to hell, but you will be in paradise anyways and for always because those 30 seconds of extreme pain you had, which was not the infinite pain of hell, was equivalent to paradise for all time and all space (god uses all kinds of different logics from us, time and space and quantities are all inverted and can be manipulated and assigned in all kinds of new ways) and compensates an eternity of hell and represents paradise achieved.
Aren’t you glad you are not me ?
I suggest you to leave the lady you found and tell her that for ten years you will have to study all my posts very carefully, and then maybe you could see her again.
I few posts above, I forgot the BOLD, so I had to correct this, here it is, say thank you, and you can copy it and use it for your homework, show mommy and teacher, they will give you an A and a blue star too.
“because either you are fighting nature or you are fighting people”
And in fact we need MIND OVER MATTER, we must kill and defeat nature and not fight amongst ourselves, but against nature and create collective results. Manipulate nature, colonize the galaxy, trillions of skyscrapers all across the galaxy. Trillions of Will Powers of trillions of people that add up as one monolithic force that crushes nature and dominates the universe, as existence waking up and dominating itself, as one entity, one chunk of matter completely and totally manipulating and dominating another chunk of matter.
Instead we have small puny fights amongst each other, no collective action and goal, no pride, no feeling that you belong to something greater than your puny egotism and this puny capitalistic – individualistic “I am better than you, I hate you, I must win” mentality that sets everyone against everyone else in a never ending fight demolishing society.
Ooops, forgot another BOLD, I am sorry, please forgive me: don’t forget to copy it and use it for your homework, show mommy and the teacher, they will give you an A and a blue star too.
“because either you are fighting nature or you are fighting people”
And in fact we need MIND OVER MATTER, we must kill and defeat nature and not fight amongst ourselves, but against nature and create collective results. Manipulate nature, colonize the galaxy, trillions of skyscrapers all across the galaxy. Trillions of Will Powers of trillions of people that add up as one monolithic force that crushes nature and dominates the universe, as existence waking up and dominating itself, as one entity, one chunk of matter completely and totally manipulating and dominating another chunk of matter.
Instead we have small puny fights amongst each other, no collective action and goal, no pride, no feeling that you belong to something greater than your puny egotism and this puny capitalistic – individualistic “I am better than you, I hate you, I must win” mentality that sets everyone against everyone else in a never ending fight demolishing society.
Ooops, forgot another BOLD again, where is FREUD when you need him ?
“because either you are fighting nature or you are fighting people”
And in fact we need MIND OVER MATTER, we must kill and defeat nature and not fight amongst ourselves, but against nature and create collective results. Manipulate nature, colonize the galaxy, trillions of skyscrapers all across the galaxy. Trillions of Will Powers of trillions of people that add up as one monolithic force that crushes nature and dominates the universe, as existence waking up and dominating itself, as one entity, one chunk of matter completely and totally manipulating and dominating another chunk of matter.
Instead we have small puny fights amongst each other, no collective action and goal, no pride, no feeling that you belong to something greater than your puny egotism and this puny capitalistic – individualistic “I am better than you, I hate you, I must win” mentality that sets everyone against everyone else in a never ending fight demolishing society.
From my point of view no, my comments were not hyperbole. To me if the only reason you’re engaged in a particular activity is because your parents enrolled you in it, and then on an ongoing basis you’re persisting in this activity solely owing to externally applied pressure from your teachers and family, and especially if you dislike the activity and constantly dream of doing something else while fidgeting uncomfortably or sneaking peaks at your cell phone looking for text messages, then you are entropy made manifest and plainly are going nowhere in that particular activity.
I am not saying that the majority of people I meet strike me as being “stupid”, whatever that means. I only mean that the majority strike me as having no interest in intellectual pursuits. Such people do strike me as being “dull” however. Whereas many persons with no aptitude for sports are nonetheless extremely interested in same and participate as spectators, the same orientation of the untalented to academics does not seem to obtain.
If society had everyone’s best interests at heart then I don’t think we would have dreamed up this pressure cooker approach to academics. I also think that the interpretation of academics as “work” and those who do not excel as “lazy” is also indicative of a complete lack of perception into what is really going on. But that most people appear to have no intellectual curiosity strikes me as beyond dispute.
The fact is it may be good to expose everyone to this understanding going in that some will excel and then hit the jackpot as a consequence of this exposure, but to a great extent this reminds me of the eccentric Austrian philosopher Wittgenstein’s experience as a crank school-master in a remote Tyrolean village where he attempted to cram advanced subjects down the throats of his peasant students including as well the girls. The villagers thought that he was crazy. He got to indulge his quirks because he was a member of the richest family in Austria. He would also get frustrated and yank on the kids’ hair and so forth, which at the time was not really such exceptional conduct admittedly.
Wittgenstein ended up living in England where he became a professor of philosophy at Cambridge University. His students worshipped the ground he walked on and aped his various mannerisms such as never wearing a tie, for instance. So not all Austrians were psychopathic monsters like Herr Hitler. Wittgenstein served in World War I as well and after enlisting was made an officer and volunteered for all the most dangerous missions as for instance a forward artillery observer. So the two Austrians had that in common perhaps, but apart from that they inhabited radically different universes. Then also Hitler admired the British while Wittgenstein actually became a British subject. Wittgenstein famously once managed to convince Bertrand Russell that there was a rhinoceros in the room even though none were visible!
Spider/Old;
Dude, you’re really outdoing yourself. You ought to try to get this stuff published (in book form). I’m sure it would be best seller.
According to BBC, the bombing campaign over Libya continues unabated. You don’t hear about it much anymore. Evidently the entire Libyan infrastructure, except for oil facilities, is being destroyed by high explosives.
Here’s my advice to Sarah Palin.
Get some charcoal, blacken up your face.
Adopt a Muslim name.
Get yourself some radical friends like Bill Ayers, Bernadette Dohrn and Louis Farrahkan.
Find a way to get an Ivy League school on your resume. Your state university in Idaho won’t cut it. The more left wing, the more homo oriented, the better. Columbia comes out on top.
Try to get your parents to say they were communists back in the 60s. This is important.
Trash the US as much as you can, specially when traveling overseas.
Make all kinds of impossible promises to the electorate, i.e. roll back the seas, end all wars, close Gitmo, green economy, college for all etc. In short, give them a utopian vision.
Do all this and the media will love you!
Thats about it, a recipe for a successful Presidential Campaign.
Good luck.
-Marlin
Marlin,
The media does love Sarah!
Right Wing Thug says:
“Dude, you’re really outdoing yourself. You ought to try to get this stuff published (in book form). I’m sure it would be best seller.”
I answer:
Jesus speaks to little children. I only write all of this stuff so little children can copy and paste it for their homework, as I am only 7 years old myself.
Maybe we can reprogram a new generation.
amazing
The reason the media loves Sarah Palin is because she’s photogenic. Ever notice how there are virtually no ugly female news anchors? That’s not accidental. The media also loves Sarah because she is polarizing and conflict sells.
I must amend my comments above in the sense that the reading public which consumes high level printed material but doesn’t produce or write its own original material could be compared to sports fans who admire athletics but either cannot or no longer does engage in such contests themselves. Then of course there is the wider public which can read but reads less and also reads more accessible materials such as Readers Digest let’s say, instead of Harpers or The Atlantic with their comparatively more long winded and elitist articles.
To me the role of public education is to try to turn everyone at least into a Readers Digest subscriber while also being trainable in the trades having learned basic skills in school such as reading a tape measure, for instance. To expect that everyone is going to become Joe College and at least trudge through a business curriculum seems unrealistic. Besides, who’s to say that we should all get stuck with the tab for such over-reach? This could be kind of like building codes creating homelessness because so many luxuries are now required in a rental unit that some or even many persons are priced out of the market when they might have made do with a simple old time cold water flat. The same sort of over-reach applied in the realm of schooling could be producing nitwits who not only are anti-intellectual but also worthless even as tradesmen thrown into the bargain.
Bustin J says:
“I just popped in to announce that I no longer hate women. I am getting laid regularly now.”
I answer:
We are Impotency achieved, in almost all endeavors of life, in the economy, in absolutely everything, we can’t change anything at all, we can’t even change an electron, we are incapable of really doing anything at all, of getting anywhere at all, 100 % total Impotency achieved in all possible senses, sexual, psychological, economical, spiritual, you name, total failure, total Impotency, total absolute defeat. In fact we must GIVE UP, BIG TIME, that’s right, just give up, give up real fast, throw in the towel, and get real angry depressed and rage against yourself and the world, go on, do it. The rich capitalists or the lucky will have everything always and you nothing. So suffer and feel pain and be defeated forever. How I love to defeat everyone, I am so envious of everyone, they must all suffer now.
But the dominating Economic Mythology always says don’t give up, try harder, it is your fault you don’t succeed. And then we have way Too Much Information, all of this information is useless anyways, it is used to confuse everyone even more, the spectacle of Free Will Powers conflicting against each other and fighting: what a depressing 1 bit universe, what a depressing 1 transistor circuit, a one line program, always repeated forever and ever, always fights, always me right you wrong, and so on and so forth.
That is why I am always conflicted in whether to write this crap or not, it is useless anyways, it won’t change an electron of anything, but maybe I can piss off some Right Wing Thugs real bad.
No go on, little Susy and John, copy and paste this for your homework tomorrow, show mommy, it is a nice block of text that will get you an A + and a nice Blue Star.
And go out in the backyard, pick up some new modified mental contraption that fell from some very far off star, and try to imagine what this one is doing, in what incredibly and impossible new universe this one is playing games in:
GDGGR%&&&&HHHH%&66666666666666ll7l77ll7777
A lot of numbers in there, who knows what 7 means…
Some spelling corrections.
Bustin J says:
“I just popped in to announce that I no longer hate women. I am getting laid regularly now.”
I answer:
We are Impotency achieved, in almost all endeavors of life, in the economy, in absolutely everything, we can’t change anything at all, we can’t even change an electron, we are incapable of really doing anything at all, of getting anywhere at all, 100 % total Impotency achieved in all possible senses, sexual, psychological, economical, spiritual, you name, total failure, total Impotency, total absolute defeat. In fact we must GIVE UP, BIG TIME, that’s right, just give up, give up real fast, throw in the towel, and get real angry depressed and rage against yourself and the world, go on, do it. The rich capitalists or the lucky will have everything always and you nothing. So suffer and feel pain and be defeated forever. How I love to defeat everyone, I am so envious of everyone, they must all suffer now. Actually everyone of trillions of people will have everything and you only you, one person infinite hell forever, that’s the way I like it. Now be envious.
But the dominating Economic Mythology always says don’t give up, try harder, it is your fault you don’t succeed. And then we have way Too Much Information, all of this information is useless anyways, it is used to confuse everyone even more, the spectacle of Free Will Powers conflicting against each other and fighting: what a depressing 1 bit universe, what a depressing 1 transistor circuit, a one line program, always repeated forever and ever, always fights, always me right you wrong, and so on and so forth.
That is why I am always conflicted in whether to write this crap or not, it is useless anyways, it won’t change an electron of anything, but maybe I can piss off some Right Wing Thugs real bad.
No go on, little Susy and John, copy and paste this for your homework tomorrow, show mommy, it is a nice block of text that will get you an A + and a nice Blue Star.
And go out in the backyard, pick up some new modified mental contraption that fell from some very far off star, and try to imagine what this one is doing, in what incredibly and impossible new universe this one is playing games in:
GDGGR%&&&&HHHH%&66666666666666ll7l77ll7777
A lot of numbers in there, who knows what 7 means…
ooops, another spelling error, it should have been “Now” instead of “No”. Let’s play a game, let’s see who can find where it was…
Bustin J says:
“I just popped in to announce that I no longer hate women. I am getting laid regularly now.”
I answer:
We are Impotency achieved, in almost all endeavors of life, in the economy, in absolutely everything, we can’t change anything at all, we can’t even change an electron, we are incapable of really doing anything at all, of getting anywhere at all, 100 % total Impotency achieved in all possible senses, sexual, psychological, economical, spiritual, you name, total failure, total Impotency, total absolute defeat. In fact we must GIVE UP, BIG TIME, that’s right, just give up, give up real fast, throw in the towel, and get real angry depressed and rage against yourself and the world, go on, do it. The rich capitalists or the lucky will have everything always and you nothing. So suffer and feel pain and be defeated forever. How I love to defeat everyone, I am so envious of everyone, they must all suffer now. Actually everyone of trillions of people will have everything and you only you, one person infinite hell forever, that’s the way I like it. Now be envious.
But the dominating Economic Mythology always says don’t give up, try harder, it is your fault you don’t succeed. And then we have way Too Much Information, all of this information is useless anyways, it is used to confuse everyone even more, the spectacle of Free Will Powers conflicting against each other and fighting: what a depressing 1 bit universe, what a depressing 1 transistor circuit, a one line program, always repeated forever and ever, always fights, always me right you wrong, and so on and so forth.
That is why I am always conflicted in whether to write this crap or not, it is useless anyways, it won’t change an electron of anything, but maybe I can piss off some Right Wing Thugs real bad.
Now go on, little Susy and John, copy and paste this for your homework tomorrow, show mommy, it is a nice block of text that will get you an A + and a nice Blue Star.
And go out in the backyard, pick up some new modified mental contraption that fell from some very far off star, and try to imagine what this one is doing, in what incredibly and impossible new universe this one is playing games in:
GDGGR%&&&&HHHH%&66666666666666ll7l77ll7777
A lot of numbers in there, who knows what 7 means…
ooops, I forgot the bold…
Bustin J says:
“I just popped in to announce that I no longer hate women. I am getting laid regularly now.”
I answer:
We are Impotency achieved, in almost all endeavors of life, in the economy, in absolutely everything, we can’t change anything at all, we can’t even change an electron, we are incapable of really doing anything at all, of getting anywhere at all, 100 % total Impotency achieved in all possible senses, sexual, psychological, economical, spiritual, you name, total failure, total Impotency, total absolute defeat. In fact we must GIVE UP BIG TIME, that’s right, just give up, give up real fast, throw in the towel, and get real angry depressed and rage against yourself and the world, go on, do it. The rich capitalists or the lucky will have everything always and you nothing. So suffer and feel pain and be defeated forever. How I love to defeat everyone, I am so envious of everyone, they must all suffer now. Actually everyone of trillions of people will have everything and you only you, one person infinite hell forever, that’s the way I like it. Now be envious.
But the dominating Economic Mythology always says don’t give up, try harder, it is your fault you don’t succeed. And then we have way Too Much Information, all of this information is useless anyways, it is used to confuse everyone even more, the spectacle of Free Will Powers conflicting against each other and fighting: what a depressing 1 bit universe, what a depressing 1 transistor circuit, a one line program, always repeated forever and ever, always fights, always me right you wrong, and so on and so forth.
That is why I am always conflicted in whether to write this crap or not, it is useless anyways, it won’t change an electron of anything, but maybe I can piss off some Right Wing Thugs real bad.
Now go on, little Susy and John, copy and paste this for your homework tomorrow, show mommy, it is a nice block of text that will get you an A + and a nice Blue Star.
And go out in the backyard, pick up some new modified mental contraption that fell from some very far off star, and try to imagine what this one is doing, in what incredibly and impossible new universe this one is playing games in:
GDGGR%&&&&HHHH%&66666666666666ll7l77ll7777
A lot of numbers in there, who knows what 7 means…
Oh yea, Sarah, when I say get yourself some radical friends, make sure they are America hating left wing radicals. If they are to the right, even a little bit, you will be accused of being a Nazi. What? Whats that you say? You already have been accused of being a Nazi? Alright then. Now you know how the game is played.
In a week I’ll be sending in my quarterly tax payment, money I could otherwise spend on summer camp for my grandson. I got a sick feeling it will be funneled right to Wall Street, so those c–ksucking grifters can have their own summer vacation … at the Hamptons, with helicopters to fly them out from rooftops in Manhattan, and Bentleys to drive around in when they arrive. Scumbags! Running their companies into the ground, and the whole American economy, then wanting public funds to make up the losses so they can keep the highlife going a bit longer into the future.
After all the grandiose promises made by Obama, promises never meant to be kept, that amounted to nothing more than campaign bullshit, you all are surprised that people are bitter and resentful, and back someone like Sarah Palin? These people that most of you hate, I’m one of them. We have no great love for you either.
-Marlin
Taxes are thievery. Education is gatekeeping. Blah blah blah. Talk to the hand.
==
You’re being farmed. And when they outgrow your usefulness, you and your family will be talking to the grave. You were brought to and you live on their plantation. You’re too emotionally blind and propagandized to see and comprehend that. But soon enough you will make acquaintance with reality.
One more question before I sign off.
Considering the story on BBC that I mentioned, about Libyan infrastructure being totally destroyed by high explosives dropped from Nato aircraft, where are all the anti war protesters, Code Pink, Democracy Now, Cindy Sheehan etc. that were so prominent up until a few years ago? Until November 2008, if I can remember correctly. They seem to have disappeared.
Its a real mystery as to why.
-Marlin
I know.
Senator Kyle is not seeking re-election in Arizona. If Palin was an Arizona resident, she could run there.
Palin’s disapproval ratings are so high that, if she were to run for Senator in Arizona, the democrats could win there.
CORRECTION
Senator Kyl is not seeking re-election in Arizona.
Steady Marlin –
I don’t like paying quarterly taxes either.
And BTBill wrote a nice post concerning the use of his specific tax dollars. It makes me feel a LITTLE better to think in percentage terms – but not a whole lot better. ‘Cause, for example, I would not have spent a penny bailing out the airlines and then creating DHS in it’s wasteful bloated glory.
And just think, for every dollar I pay in taxes – another 30 cents +/- is BORROWED in my name.
“….people are bitter and resentful, and back someone like Sarah Palin? These people that most of you hate, I’m one of them. We have no great love for you either.” -marlin54-
You’re going to have to be more specific with your hate, though. Targeted like a laser, hate might change things for the better.
Broadcast randomly, hate only generates heat before destroying itself.
I’m going back out to destroy nature. (tm spider)
Or at least bend nature to my will –
By irrigating vegetables –
And picking squash.
Wow
Long posts this week. Anyway I am tired of people claiming social security is an “entitlement”, as if it is free, it’s not. If you work you pay into it. As someone pointed out above, you pay as soon as you enter the workplace. So no today’s youth doesn’t have to pay for the retiring boomers, the boomers paid up front. If the political system is determined to end SS that is fine with me, just hand all the money back to those who have paid in all of their working lives. That would be a tidy sum for me I have been paying in since I was 14 years old. So no receiving SS isn’t sucking off the govs tit, it’s receiving benefits that have been paid for up front.
Same thing with Medicare, paid for out of every paycheck. Not an entitlement, a bought and paid for benefit. The repubs like to overlook that little fact. Well Ryan’s plan to gut Medicare and simultaneously cut taxes for the billionare/millionare club and their corporate companies wasn’t overlooked. Maybe America is at least waking up a little, that’s encouraging. Now that OBL got rubbed out people need to start really putting pressure on to end the Afghan fiasco and the Iraq quagmire, save quite a few bucks right there.
As for the educational system, I agree with an above poster, the system tries to accomplish too much and in the end fails miserably. The basic three RRR’s need to make a strong come back, along with spelling and other basic subjects that can and should be taught without a computer. Those who WANT more education and show aptitude should be given the opportunity to go as far as they can in useful curriculums. I mean this nonsense of giving kindergarteners IPADS–whaat?
Basic skills that can be built on, none of these fancy educational fads, just the basics with further learning available for those that want it. Trade schools can and should be promoted more, they provide skilled workers needed to keep society going.
And Soylent Green is made of PEOPLE. It’s PEOPLE.
You stuff is deep dude. You must have taken the red pill. I don’t know how I am going to get through my week now that I know I’m being “farmed.” I’ll muddle through somehow I guess.
Perhaps cable TV news got bored with them? Out of sight, out of mind.
Do you know what a logistical and financial nightmare that would be if everyone specified what percentages of their taxes should be spent on specific governmental functions? No country on the planet does it this way, and for very good reasons.
Asoka, the low on May 24 was $11.29, a 52 week low. The low yesterday was $11.62.
You should stick to the important stuff like enlightenment through meditation, vegetarian recipes and adobe construction.
“The basic three RRR”
Reading, Rest, and Relaxation?
Will do, captain.
Marlin, we have had anti-war protests weekly in our community for years now and they didn’t stop in 2008. People rally in the same place, same time, every Saturday.
No news coverage, so people like you assume the protests have ended.
Tripp, I was thinking of you this past Saturday. Our family toured around Lancaster, PA and the surrounding environs where the Amish maintain tidy farms, plow fields behind teams of horses and clippity clop along the byways in carriages with big orange yield triangles on the back.
Do you know anything about their farming methods? They all seem very prosperous and well-prepared for TLE.
When did paying taxes change from a patriotic duty based on shared obligation to thievery? Is this part of the New Tea Party platform?
Don’t pay your taxes! It just goes to pay for the Billion Dollar Planned Parenthood Abortionplex!
Let me ask you this.
Who do you expect to maintain the roads, sewage lines, and all the other infrastructure that you magically expect to be perfect without anyone being taxed to pay for it?
Please take your Tea Party and go jump off a dock.
Is our tax system perfect? Heck no. It’s a mess. It is too full of loopholes, exceptions, special cases, and other complications. I’d be down for vast simplifications myself. I heard that in Great Britain, you don’t even have to file anymore. I dig it. Eliminate the gigantic tome of special cases, including most tax credits, and then tax rates can go DOWN.
I also think that everyone with income should have to pay some amount of income tax, even if it is just $50 or some other basic minimum. This deal where half of the country gets to zero out their income taxes just seems wrong and unfair to those who do pay.
This week’s column is an excellent example of why working class rural people should beware of the intentions of the political/academic/media elite, and the visceral loathing they harbor for you. To borrow a phrase from the Nazis, you are “Der Untermensch” to them. JHK is merely stating plainly what far too many of them believe privately.
Their Icon, Barack Obama, is slated to become the first ONE BILLION DOLLAR presidential candidate. Think about that kind of financial and political power in the hands of an elite which despises you and all you value and believe in. Scary, no? All the hysteria over Sarah Palin –a telegenic celebrity promoting book sales and speaker’s fees by pretending to run for an office she will not win and most likely does not want– is a distraction from the inexorable acumulation and concentration of unprecedented political, legal, and economic power in the hands of an elite who considers you “white trash”.
Oh, and not for nothing, but what makes the Palin-Hitler connection drawn so ominously by JHK even more laughable is the fact that he supported the soon-to-be-indicted fraud and creep John Edwards for president in 2008 before Barack Obama won the primary, so let’s no take JHK’s political acumen too seriously….
Who do you expect to maintain the roads, sewage lines, and all the other infrastructure that you magically expect to be perfect without anyone being taxed to pay for it?
==
The people who use these things should pay for it, but only through an agreed consensus. But that’s not what’s happening. What is happening is the forced subsidization of the corporate mafia under fraudulent pretenses.
Also, what is happening is that what was already paid for ten times over by the general public is now being given away to private interests for less than pennies on the dollar. The general public subsidized the construction of these public works (at great profit to the corporate mafia, btw) and now the general public is being forced to subsidize the basic giveaway of these public works to the corporate mafia. The whole process is one big scam after another.
Jim, you have lost it on this one. Sarah Palin in the only viable candidate (woman) who has had children (actually given birth to)and has problems that regular families have, and is proud of her life, even becoming governor is unbelievable, and becoming candidate for presidency is wonderful. Something you couldn’t do, even with all your ideas, and complaining. She seems to have accomplished so much for the regular women (not gays, not divorced, not abortionist, not athiest) that I think she would make a GREAT president.So before you category me, think again. I am a woman with a family, not divorced, not gay, not an atheist, unemployed, degree (masters in education) with 30 years experience, not in debt,happy, but worried about the future, plant my vegetable, have my own egg producing chickens, workout, happy to help others in need, and I think I would vote for her in a heartbeat.
So to think she is a HITLER, is utterly ridiculous. You are living in another world from my reality, that is for sure. I am not sure I like you reality, or would vote for anyone you would like. Your theory is actually is MORE RIDICULOUS than the other side who sees Obama as Hitler. Are you competing with them? You left out the little fact about Hitler not being a citizen of Germany when he became chancellor of germany. The german govt, at that time had to pick a provence of germany and make him a “citizen” with the use of fake birth certificates. Sounds alot like what went on with Obama and the “birth certificate” controversy, which is still not resolved. Remember the old saying,”where there’s smoke there’s fire.” It applies to everything Obama does. Where is his diploma/ Where are the photos of the Dead Osama?etc. etc…. So if you have to say Hitler…..then Obama should be listed as one of the top named Hitlerite leaders. But of course you are toooooo smart to fall for the “conspiracy theory” people you always make fun of.
You are losing it JIM>
BARF
You really need to stop reading JHK! I don’t think you understand hyperbole. And to dredge up the old Obama “conspiracy” distractions shows who is “losing it”. Better stick to “Fair & Balanced” cable news for your info.
You should also ask yourself what qualities make a good leader. I don’t look for somebody I like or is like me in my decision.
Why all the talk about Hitler? Can’t we site Godwin’s Law so that every two-bit Tea Party dingbat doesn’t get compared to one of the worst people who ever walked the earth? I mean, I’m no Tea Partier myself, but until Repubs start rounding up Democrats and sending them to death camps, let’s just leave out the ridiculous hyperbole.
Also, 30 years experience and a Masters in Ed. & you still write “a lot” as one word.
Agreed! I just learned about Godwin’s Law this week on this site. Thanks CFN.
Worth the price of admission to torque the dawg.
your life may be ending at the same time Medicare is. (prep?…oops,sorry).
Is is a verb. However, on the advice of Wm Safire and David Foster Wallace I am largely unconcerned with prepositions at the end of sentences. My growing big peeve is the use by educated people on this blog of “a” preceding a word beginning with a vowel sound where “an” should be used. They might say, for example, that “Q has a enormous penis.” But more on that some other time.
I mean, you HAVE had more than your turn sucking on the government teat.
I have only been sucking on the govt (Social Security) teat for 5 yrs and 3 months. I paid into the system for 52 years beginning at age 14 when I set pins in a bowling alley 5 nights a week. My weekly check was $15.35.
Jonathanss…obviously you have put me into categories too, so join the crowd who puts everyone into a category and then sits back and makes judgements laughs and puffs up their chests in righteous indignation and sighing. I happen to hate the FAIR AND BALANCED garbage that ALL the networks put out nowadays. So maybe you should go back to that glistening mirror of yours, point that finger and re adjust your thinking.
Hyperbole…..???? does that make you one of the political elite…. Or just a “know it all” snob, who looks down his/her/gay?? nose at the people who have opinions other than yours?
I don’t think I’m wrong. I think you haven’t seen what I’ve seen.
You hit the nail right on the head: favourable conditions. I think it was ProCon that pointed out that White European soldiers posted to deepest darkest Africa during the colonial era had a life expectancy there of about 7 months.
There’s a lot that goes into IQ numbers Vladdy. I’m not a scientist but I’m a numbers guy in the business of compilation, summarization, presentation and interpretation of the little buggers. There’s a lot that they can tell and a lot they hide (like a bathing suit). So I wouldn’t read too much into IQ numbers.
I think it was Wage that pointed out that conditions in early life like nutrition, medical care, immunization has a big effect on later IQ scores. So do economic conditions, comparative socio economic status, quality of education. Many other factors also.
As I’ve said in other posts my parents and other relatives from the old country lived in conditions of severe deprivation. They could barely read IQ tests never mind score highly on them. But ONE generation later and all their kids on this continent are high scoring, university educated professionals in medicine, pharmacy, engineering, architecture and finance. ONE generation Vlad and our folk went from the woeful bottom of the pile to the top.
I’m seeing Blacks do the same thing as my folk. They get on track economically and start to move up the social pecking order and everything else follows. From my own eyes Vlad I’ve seen Black people become high achievers. They were a small, despised minority, not only in the US but also here in Canada. But that’s changing and their lot in life is changing too. They just needed a fair chance like everyone else.
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=175446
Jesus speaks to little children. Paradise achieved. Within the framework of the Matter to Will Power Evaporator, you can use the limits of functions (like in mathematical analysis) on these entities, so the limits of Matter tending to zero will create Free Willonium tending to infinity, as in lim M->0 W/M = infinity, so all matter is converter into Free Will Powers. But these free wills are now one monolithic slab of entities fighting, but also collaborating with each other, but always creating new aggregations, new subsets of particles fighting others, changing sets, as in “traitors”, you never know. And this also can be seen as a function such as E/D with D being the differences perceived in any clues the other mind is thinking generating any E as emotion. As in the limit of D tending to zero creates E tending to infinity. That small stain on that shirt changed everything, you will be the next fired.
So this is the game, the game people want to play, they don’t want to fight or manipulate Matter, that is boring, that is easy, that is too predictable, they want to play the clues game, friend or enemy, always changing sets of friends, as in all of the office politics meetings, you never know, this is also the easiest thing to manipulate but also the hardest thing (convincing the boss, or vice versa, etc.) so it tends to get closer and closer to contradiction as contradiction is the real essence of reality. They want fun, emotions, unknowns, that is why all else is useless, technical skills are no longer needed, now we just need to play games.
But also you can tend the time of paradise as going from 30 seconds of extreme pain (just one number different from infinity of pain) to infinite time, as opposed to infinite time of infinite pain, and you still are in the greatest paradise ever. But just make the time tend to infinity and paradise is almost equal to hell except for one number. Just hose the number, you are still in paradise, so extreme pleasure and paradise is equal to extreme pain and hell. See how logic isn’t reliable ? We are always, no matter what, in extreme paradise. Hose logic, god has better plans for us. Actually he wants us to be god, he is tired, he can’t pull it off anymore, so be your own boss, be god, hand yourself over to your own devices.
Hell is the most fascinating concept ever. It is a masterpiece of a concept, this should be the only thing brains should always and ever think about. I like HELL a lot.
We should only think about hell for all our lives, this is the most fascinating concept, trillions of people just studying hell, how bad it could be, the limits of pain, experiments in extreme pain to see how far it could go (and also extrme pleasure ?). Heavy stuff man, maybe this is why priests hit on little boys, to distract their minds.
Now, go on, tell me I will never get any, make me suffer, tell me I am wrong, contradict me, let me self inflict punishment and pain, let me kill myself out of rage. Go on. Total Failure achieved, Total Impotency achieved, but I like a lot of those nice ladies…
But I am Jesus, and Jesus speaks to little children.
Copy and paste this little Johnny and Suzy, the teacher will like this one, another A + and GOLD Star this time, wow you kids are going forward.
So you can finish your homework real fast and go out in the backyard and play with new mental contraptions that have fallen from far away stars. This one is new :
jsjsjeejr45rjffjr
Wow, that is different, incredible things happening there in that mind universe contraption.
Maybe this should go in the Psychology section of the forum…
Spelling error alert, guess where it was game!
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=175446
Jesus speaks to little children. Paradise achieved. Within the framework of the Matter to Will Power Evaporator, you can use the limits of functions (like in mathematical analysis) on these entities, so the limits of Matter tending to zero will create Free Willonium tending to infinity, as in lim M->0 W/M = infinity, so all matter is converter into Free Will Powers. But these free wills are now one monolithic slab of entities fighting, but also collaborating with each other, but always creating new aggregations, new subsets of particles fighting others, changing sets, as in “traitors”, you never know. And this also can be seen as a function such as E/D with D being the differences perceived in any clues the other mind is thinking generating any E as emotion. As in the limit of D tending to zero creates E tending to infinity. That small stain on that shirt changed everything, you will be the next fired.
So this is the game, the game people want to play, they don’t want to fight or manipulate Matter, that is boring, that is easy, that is too predictable, they want to play the clues game, friend or enemy, always changing sets of friends, as in all of the office politics meetings, you never know, this is also the easiest thing to manipulate but also the hardest thing (convincing the boss, or vice versa, etc.) so it tends to get closer and closer to contradiction as contradiction is the real essence of reality. They want fun, emotions, unknowns, that is why all else is useless, technical skills are no longer needed, now we just need to play games.
But also you can tend the time of paradise as going from 30 seconds of extreme pain (just one number different from infinity of pain) to infinite time, as opposed to infinite time of infinite pain, and you still are in the greatest paradise ever. But just make the time tend to infinity and paradise is almost equal to hell except for one number. Just hose the number, you are still in paradise, so extreme pleasure and paradise is equal to extreme pain and hell. See how logic isn’t reliable ? We are always, no matter what, in extreme paradise. Hose logic, god has better plans for us. Actually he wants us to be god, he is tired, he can’t pull it off anymore, so be your own boss, be god, hand yourself over to your own devices.
Hell is the most fascinating concept ever. It is a masterpiece of a concept, this should be the only thing brains should always and ever think about. I like HELL a lot.
We should only think about hell for all our lives, this is the most fascinating concept, trillions of people just studying hell, how bad it could be, the limits of pain, experiments in extreme pain to see how far it could go (and also extreme pleasure ?). Heavy stuff man, maybe this is why priests hit on little boys, to distract their minds.
Now, go on, tell me I will never get any, make me suffer, tell me I am wrong, contradict me, let me self inflict punishment and pain, let me kill myself out of rage. Go on. Total Failure achieved, Total Impotency achieved, but I like a lot of those nice ladies…
But I am Jesus, and Jesus speaks to little children.
Copy and paste this little Johnny and Suzy, the teacher will like this one, another A + and GOLD Star this time, wow you kids are going forward.
So you can finish your homework real fast and go out in the backyard and play with new mental contraptions that have fallen from far away stars. This one is new :
jsjsjeejr45rjffjr
Wow, that is different, incredible things happening there in that mind universe contraption.
Maybe this should go in the Psychology section of the forum…
Jonathnss….one more thing….passion in writing a lot of alots…..is truly my error. You would make a great proof reader.(do you do it for a living, or just do it to make yourself feel more superior, perfect???) I made other errors too, I guess too numerous for you to point out.
But I am glad you read my piece twice. I never saw your original nor do I think its worth looking for.
And for all the smucks who pontificate here with but don’t have the courage to say what you do for a living or how you live your daily life……..HA HA HA.HA….ALL LOSERS FOR SURE….
I think the fact that Vlad so vehemently believes in these bogus “IQ” tests speaks volumes as to Vlad’s intelligence. Anyway, from my viewpoint it is the white blue-eyed devil dogs that have the lowest intelligence. They’ve so throughly alienated the rest of the human race by their savage predatory eugenic machinations, that I don’t think they will be allowed to survive. They will be hunted down and eliminated, exactly because of their savage racist predatory nature, because they’ve proven themselves incompatible with the rest of the human race.
You said it better than I could. I see the same “visceral loathing” up here in Canada by our smarty pants elites.
Paranoia Agent – you are well named
You had me reaching for the rifle and calling up the boys to help man the barricades –
“This week’s column is an excellent example of why working class rural people should beware of the intentions of the political/academic/media elite,”
-P_A-
But then I came to my senses and realized that the conflict between the “Elite” and the “working class” is as old as America – and probably as old as the rise of Priests/Guilds 10,000 years ago.
Although, I’ve got to admit PA, that the US did have an immensely powerful middle/working class that reached its peak in the 70’s and began to be targeted for *elimination?* in January of 1980.
So now they are pissed off! They are not gonna take it anymore!! So you know what they are gonna do?? They are going to select the Republican Candidate that panders the best about Tax Cuts – even though very few of the “panderees” will actually benefit from said Tax Cuts.
Pandering about Gay Marriage and The Sacred Right to Life – will also be necessary – for the Republican Nomination.
Then this republican candidate – selected by the fringe that votes in the Primary System – will face off against Obama, who will position himself as a centrist.
The republican will lose.
Then we’ll have 4 years to find out if Mr. Obama is as bad as some seem to think he is.
Or maybe we’ll enter a new Golden Age for the American Middle Class, if Mr. Obama is a good as some seem to think he is.
Or maybe we’ll just blunder along on our present path until something big enough comes along and produces Change We Can Not Believe.
Personally, I’m going with that blundering along thing – as most likely in the near term.
Bravo – you make my points about “anti-semitism” for me. You are my beloved servant in whom I am well pleased.
You people put Whites into camps in the old Soviet Union and you’ll do it again if you can.
we also spend way more per head on education with crappy results. maybe we should have a formalized tiered system of health care based on the ability to pay. thats what we have now except that its disorganized and informal. those with ability to pay are going to be able to find a way around the system. thats basically what happens in the u. k.
No, Vlad, I don’t need to do anything. You’ve already done yourself in. I will just sit and watch.
You haven’t studied the subject and it shows. Do you really think that professionals like Arthur Jenson and Phillipe Rushton haven’t taken all you amorphous objections into account? You were an accountant? How would you have felt if a book keeper with a two year degree came to your company and started making simplistic criticisms of things that he or she had never studied since they never got that far? You are doing just that.
For the record and not for the first time: I have met Blacks who actually did deserve their postions. As smart or smarter than me and more dynamic than I’ll ever be. How did I treat them? With the respect they deserved. And this alters my argument not on jot. I speak of averages not individuals and with the inevitable sociological fallout of alien peoples living on top of each other. And those dynamic Blacks should stay in their own Communities and be leaders rather than coming into the Suburbs to enjoy the luxuries of middle class life.
Changing the subject, Met brought up an interesting point: our infrastucture down here is falling apart. The Elite are too busy building other nations to maintain this one. A bridge collapsed in Minnesota a few years ago and it caused endless delays for weeks. There are hundreds of such bridges that could go at any moment. This will be another link in the chain of our downfall. How is Canada faring in this regard?
good for you bustinj . imo thats all thats really important.
And for all the smucks who pontificate here
===========
It’s schmuck Insuff; Details below:
Word Origin & History
schmuck
“contemptible person,” 1892, from E.Yiddish shmok, lit. “penis,” from Old Pol. smok “grass snake, dragon.” Not the same word as Ger. schmuck “jewelry, adornments,” which is related to Low Ger. smuck “supple, tidy, trim, elegant,” and related to O.N. smjuga “slip, step through” (see smock). In Jewish homes, the word was “regarded as so vulgar as to be taboo” [Leo Rosten, “The Joys of Yiddish,” 1968] and Lenny Bruce wrote that saying it on stage got him arrested on the West Coast “by a Yiddish undercover agent who had been placed in the club several nights running to determine if my use of Yiddish terms was a cover for profanity.” Euphemized as schmoe , which was the source of Al Capp’s cartoon strip creature the schmoo .
Who are you to tell other people what they “should” be doing with their lives and where they should live?
You’re just another nobody, Vlad. Sorry!
Equitorial Africa was the White Man’s grave. The French found that Mediterranean types did better than Nordics down there and tried to post accordingly. But the English didn’t have enough – at least not of the proper standing! Too bad you weren’t born back then over there. You could have filled the gap and had a pith helmet. As it was, the red faced men could only become alcoholics – it was their medicine, their wife, their meat and drink.
You’d have to have one eye open to think that the righties aren’t far more concerned with displays of “visceral loathing” than lefties. Just tune in to Fox News for an hour or two or some right-wing radio to convince yourself of this.
Of course, we all know which side of your bread is buttered…
Sure, I post here a lot, but not by your standards. With all the time you spend posting here and making new typepad accounts after you get banned (a weekly occurence), you could have transcended space and time entirely.
You have the power to do this. Just save up for a prostitute. Save up some of the money from your weekly check by going to soup kitchens and/or eating spam at home. Maybe Marc can tell us what the going rate is to give you an idea of the amount you have to shoot for. Take a shower before you go (they hate men who don’t) and give us the blow by blow afterwards. We are rooting for you spider.
You are going to end up at a bongo party. You and Pango will be together in a boiling pot. You wont even notice – the proverbial frog. You’ll be too busy boogying to the music and enjoying the dieversity.
Another story from ” you just can’t make this shit up” This guy has always been a weiner. I actually ate a couple weiners on Memorial day. I usually try to avoid that kind of food.
http://gothamist.com/2011/06/01/weinergate_jon_stewart_says_weiners.php
Is that what your Magic Eightball says, Vladdie?
The same was true of the old ball turret gunners of WW2. Loneliness is unbearable to ordinary people. They rather be with assholes than be by themselves.
Yes Met, we are being farmed. Does not goyim mean cattle?
“the intentions of the political/academic/media elite”
==============
Since when did you stop feeling proud of our elite, of the best our society, our nation, can produce? Do you even know what “elite” means?
ELITE
1. A group of people considered to be the best in a particular society or category, esp. because of their power, talent, or wealth.
For example, the NAVY SEALS, are elite. Thank God for the elite, they are best we have.
Loveday, you’re forgetting one little thing: The feds already have used up most, if not all, of SS’s reserve fund to use for the US operating budget, a big no no. What’s left is mostly IOU’s in the form of government promises to pay back what they “borowed”. The thing that’s keeping SS afloat is the money coming in from those who are still working – therefore, although you’re technically correct, the younger generations are really paying some percentage of current recipients’ retirement benefits.
And do medicare costs equal medicare expenses? I don’t have figures, but I don’t think so. I am on medicare, and although I think I’m pretty healthy, I recently had a minor surgical procedure for which medicare was billed $4,000. My medicare payments are $110 per month or $1,320 per year. I’m one of the healthy seniors, and my medical procedure ate up about 3 years of premiums. Where does the extra money come from? From everybody else.
No, I think Medicare is an entitlement, since all Americans are paying for my health care.
One other thing about intelligence Vlad: do you have any musical ability? I don’t. I like listening to it but I have zero idea where it comes from. I could sit for a hundred years and I would never be able to compose anything. To me coming up with a tune is a task that takes intelligence orders of magnitude greater than mine. For the last hundred years our popular music is in large part of Black origin.
asoka watch a few episodes of jerry springer. you will find none of the races have too damn much to be proud of.
“CFN is not a dating site”
-BustinJ, angry at all women months ago-
Seriously, Bustin – Congratulations!
Now, if only you had found Ms. (I assume) Right on CFN we could all claim credit.
==============
Still on the subject of dating:
“You have the power to do this. Just save up for a prostitute.”
-vlad, to spider-
“Take a shower before you go (they hate men who don’t)”
-vlad, sharing hard won personal knowledge-
Man, I thought “one ejaculation was one book not written,” or something like that – just last week, Vlad?
Because I’d disagree with that, more or less. I might write more books if I ejaculated less often – But EVERY SINGLE ONE of them would be pornographic.
“Give all you can – there’s plenty for everyone!”
-best approach to consensual sexual activities-
End of human sexuality rant –
– Carry on –
The war began in earnest near Manassas, Virginia, on July 21, 1861, in a battle whose two names still betray divisions between North and South: After all this time, it’s called Bull Run in the North, First Manassas in the South. The Union forces lost, but a far more meaningful event took place here a half-century later, on July 21, 1911, when veterans of the battle met to shake hands in the Peace Jubilee. That’s what community leaders in Manassas’ Prince William County have chosen to re-enact this summer: On July 21, Manassas will re-create the 1911 Jubilee, and celebrate peace and reconciliation.
Beautiful, messi.
We should have a jubilee more often… maybe once every 50 years. All debts should be forgiven. Start fresh. Sound like a plan?
Tell me which side of my bread is buttered…
I don’t know where yours comes from but my bread comes from wheat fields and bakeries, my butter comes dairy farms and dairies. My father worked in a dairy most of his adult life. As I did (and a farm also) when I was a kid.
And I would say that our sneering urban elites that so despise rural folk haven’t got the foggiest fucking clue where either comes from or what it takes to grow any of it or make it.
The rich irony is that these arrogant fuckers depend on the people they loathe for their very survival. Just where DO these idiots think that food comes from?
Turkle, did you miss my point? I wasn’t suggesting that we do it that way, although why not? Given that the US tax code is thousands of pages, and completing tax forms is already so complicated that a multi-billion industry has sprung up to help people use and fill out forms properly, what’s the big deal to add a few more lines on the 1040? Any competent programmer could make the necessary changes in an hour or less.
My point is that much of the government’s spending is immoral, corrupt, wasteful and wrong-headed, and it’s my money they’re using. I don’t want my hard-earned money to finance long-range bombing of civilian, or to bail out extremely poorly run banks that have failed, among many examples.
For the last hundred years our popular music is in large part of Black origin.
============
and don’t even get me started about BASKETBALL!!
😉
I was talking about you people not “you”. Get a clue schmuck.
“…because they’ve proven themselves incompatible with the rest of the human race.”
Be careful there, Ahmed. Your propoganda certainly doesn’t qualify as proof of anything except your own agenda, which could itself serve as proof of incompatability with those you vilify. Then what?
I don’t know the origin of that word, Vlad. It’s not hebrew. It is an yiddish expression. As such, it probably has a germanic origin.
The hebrew for ‘cattle’ is ‘bakar’ or ‘behema’.
“I would say that our sneering urban elites that so despise rural folk…”
===========
Stop it, Cash!
Stop with the generalizations. Or provide evidence.
There are no “sneering urban elites” who despise rural folk. Show me a picture of a sneering urban elite. Provide a reference to the words of a sneering urban elite badmouthing rural folk.
They don’t exist. All you are doing is bitterly projecting the paranoid stuff in your head onto us.
“Sound like a plan?”
It is made so.
Quite true. I gladly admit that Blacks seem to have a great gift for certain styles of music. But that’s not “g” or general intelligence – the types that builds a civilization. Older theorists just called things like this “gifts”. Some new theorists like Howard Gardner put forward a theory of multiple intelligences. Either way is fine. But g is stil central. Blacks themselves recognize this by taking umbrage when people talk about their gifts of rhythm and their ability in sports. They know that all this is below g. Only liberals like you get confused about it. Don’t even try to argue. The Father of Liberalism, John Stuart Mill was far to the right of you and would have been amazed at the idea that all races were equal. The meaning of the word has changed you see.
I don’t know if you are referring to me or not, but I can tell you I’m no teapartier.
Paying taxes isn’t one’s patriotic duty, it’s supposed to be a requirement for living in one’s country. Going to war for a just cause is patriotic (if there can be any just cause for war).
Spending money for the reasons I stated in previous posts IS immoral, unjust and thievery.
Yeah and basketball.
No need to get personal, Vlad. I’m just stating obvious historic facts. Granted, your latest outrage costing you your lives is just my opinion, but I’m usually right.
That is very comforting, Messi. Thank you.
I’ve never seen Blacks take umbrage over such things. I think you can screw with concepts like “intelligence” and numbers like “IQ” until they prove what you want them to prove. Like I said, I’m a numbers guy so I have some idea of what I speak.
So you don’t want to argue? Fine. You’re entitled to believe what you want. But I have a mind of my own. People have agendas so “trust” doesn’t come easy snd as such I trust authority (be it scholarly, scientific, academic, political or otherwise) to a limited extent. Above all I trust my own judgement and reasoning ability and I believe more than anything the evidence of my own eyes.
How is Canada faring wrt infra-structure? We have many of the same problems as the US. We like to comfort ourselves by saying that we are financially more stable but in reality we’re just the healthier horse in the financial glue factory.
Our ability to maintain our infastructure is coming under pressure from health care costs which are severely squeezing govt budgets, the demographic problem of retiring and aging boomers and the problem of offshoring of our businesses. So there you have it. Our finances are made somewhat better by the fact that we have a wealth of resources ie uranium, potash, coal, oil, gas and farmland.
“In a Gallup poll Herman Cain registered the highest Positive Intensity Score among Republican voters of anyone either in or thinking of entering the GOP field.”
=============
Damn! We gonna have two Black presidents in a row, after more than 40 White presidents in a row?
” Designed to keep the so-called “uninitiated” out of the club, all “professions” are juat that — clubs. They do not serve their clients, they only serve themselves.”
A lot of truth to that statement. For example, Michelangelo himself could not get a job teaching sculpture in higher-education because he would be lacking in institutional credentials. A friend of mine who immigrated to the U.S. from the former Soviet Union on a ‘artist of special ability’ visa tried to get a job in a major university. In truth, he never had any chance, but still the faculty feigned interest all the while knowing he would never be hired because he lacked a M.F.A in the western university system. They just wanted to check him so to speak, and lord only knows why – they truly were artistic pygmies in comparison to an artist whose work was featured in major Russian museums. Anyway, he made the mistake of asking one of the faculty why she had a bar through a toilet, was she going to move it? Indignant, this creator of regurgitated Duchamp proclaimed it was her newest sculpture and summarily dismissed him on the spot.
Too bad my Russian friend wasn’t adroit in the ways of higher-ed pretense. He might have stated that Duchamp’s sculpture was a pretty good joke at the time, but it was a joke that only needed to be told once.
“Tell me which side of my bread is buttered…”
Your bread is buttered on the right side. 😉
Do you perform scientific polling to support these various assertions that you throw out there about what millions of people supposedly think?
Or are you just talking out your backside, like usual?
“That is very comforting…”
“Be thou warmed and filled”
“There are no jobs and they aren’t coming back. We don’t work here in America. When will everybody wake up and realize that we have been led into a pig pen of consumption and indolence? Debt is like a virus that infects the very core of our being. However, I’m not saying to fight it. Why not join the party? Eventually, no one will pay. Debt has created so much inflation that work alone no longer affords the bloated and revolting lifestyles our citizenry has become accustomed to. In fact, prices have gotten so onerous that debt is required just to pay for basic necessities. We’ve forgotten what value is in this country. What is work? What is our nature and what should we be working toward? People have gotten very confused.”
http://ancientamericanet.blogspot.com/2011/06/caligula-jobs-report-and-great.html
{i didn’t quote the best part – lol}
on a ‘artist of special ability’ visa tried to get a job in a major university. In truth, he never had any chance, but still the faculty feigned interest all the while knowing he would never be hired because he lacked a M.F.A in the western university system.
============
Now here in one paragraph are two perfect examples of something I wrote about earlier today.
Why, Buck, did you not write an artist?
And why not an M.F.A. since the reader is being lead to say in his head “emm eff ay” not “master of fine arts?”
Hay, Q-stick, pls Profered this poost Im havin truble wit grammers spelin letly k TY
WOW!! Dow going over Niagra Falls … down 286 with 10 mins to go. Maybe Jim’s 4000 number will prove right after all.
Does this mean you’re abandoning Brother Barack or are you just trying to be an instigator for conflict on this site?
Herman sure has some charisma compared to other GOP front runners and does a good job repeating conservative talking points: “Gov’t doesn’t create jobs, business does”.
He’s pretty much an across the board conservative on abortion, marriage, 2nd Amendment, lowering corp taxes & eliminating capital gains and estate taxes, the environment (drill now, drill here).
In other words, appealing to people by telling his base what they want to hear, like most politicians.
More “hall of mirrors” stuff:
http://www.eutimes.net/2011/05/russia-says-imf-chief-jailed-for-discovering-all-us-gold-is-gone/
And the reason is because the Republicans forced a vote in which the world was alerted that the USA may indeed default. It was expected that the DOW would not like the prospect of default.
We are just in the prelude stage of this circus.
August 2 is the drop dead date, or what we on CFN usually call TSHTF date. 4,000 will be looking good. And your gold and silver won’t help you, much less accounts in Bank of America.
The Republicans are provoking Armageddon, but there are still people who believe there is no difference between the parties.
Jonathan, I am trying to be an instigator to stir up conflict on this site. That is all I ever do. Ask Q. Ask ProCon. Et tu, Jona?
PS As 10% of the population Blacks are due at least three more Black presidents. And we ought to be getting some Hispanic presidents as well. And women. And gays. Let the whole population be represented, president by president.
I didn’t say I agreed with Cain. I was amazed we might have two (different) Black presidents in a row. How is expressing amazement being an “instigator”?
“And the reason is because the Republicans forced a vote in which the world was alerted that the USA may indeed default.”
Do you think it might be better to not alert them? Maybe it would be better to keep the charade going for another year or two? Make a case…
I thought so. That’s why your known as the R.I. and attract quite a bit of hate mail.
I have a negative, knee jerk response to people that praise the “don’t retreat, reload” & “he’s not one of us” lady. You can see evidence from my early posts today.
They want to solve Spain and Greece’s economic problems (and others) by liberalizing it, more free market, selling to private actors the goods and services, and others things that were public, or not in the circuit of “competition”. Now how on earth is that supposed to help them ? That simply means that if you had public operators robbing and creating inefficiencies, you now have private ones robbing and creating even more inefficiencies (10 times more) without even that minimum control you had when they were public. Insane, that just increases the price of everything and hoses the poor once again. Services and many system level items cannot be subject to competition because that just makes them much more expensive and gives free cash to private thieves, like health care in the USA.
Competition only works mostly in manufacturing which is real worldwide factories competing and lowering the prices of goods. Who on earth believes that system level items privatized and liberalized can do any good to any economy ? What thieves and liers! Look at the last decades and everyone will tell you that system level items cannot be privatized, else you pay more and hose the weak as usual.
MD, you won’t like my case, but here it is:
RAISE REVENUES TO PAY OFF THE DEBT BY RAISING TAXES ON THOSE BEST ABLE TO PAY: THE RICH.
DO NOT CUT ANY SPENDING PROGRAMS.
INCREASE SPENDING, BUT AT A RATE LESS THAN THE INCREASED REVENUES.
GO BACK TO REAGAN ERA TAX RATES.
“…there are still people who believe there is no difference between the parties.”
The Donner party was different from the Know Nothing party.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WWdonnerP.htm
http://history1800s.about.com/od/immigration/a/knownothing01.htm
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=175448
They want to solve Spain and Greece’s economic problems (and others) by liberalizing it, more free market, selling to private actors the goods and services (water, public housing, energy, etc.), and others things that were public, or not in the circuit of “competition”. Now how on earth is that supposed to help them ? That simply means that if you had public operators robbing and creating inefficiencies, you now have private ones robbing and creating even more inefficiencies (10 times more) without even that minimum control you had when they were public. Insane, that just increases the price of everything and hoses the poor once again. Services and many system level items cannot be subject to competition because that just makes them much more expensive and gives free cash to private thieves, like health care in the USA.
Competition only works mostly in manufacturing which is real worldwide factories competing and lowering the prices of goods. Who on earth believes that system level items privatized and liberalized can do any good to any economy ? What thieves and liers! Look at the last decades and everyone will tell you that system level items cannot be privatized, else you pay more and hose the weak as usual.
Jonathan I have always appreciated your support.
[sarcasm on]But now that you have discovered my sole purpose here is to “instigate,” you are getting inside my head and you are playing around and it is driving me bonkers. Now I know how others feel when I do that to them. Thank you for the lesson.[sacrcasm off]
Oh, btw, I did cite a Gallup Poll in reference to Herman Cain. It’s not like I’m making stuff up.
You jumped to the conclusion that I support Cain because he is Black, when I was just expressing amazement that we could have two Black presidents in a row. That is not “stirring things up.”
“Saying we need to get a grip on future sending…”
=========
And refusing to say anything at all about increasing revenue is irresponsible, also.
A good book on pretty much the same thing is “Thke Cliff Walk” by Don Snyder. It’s about his employment crisis after jumping form a tenured position at the Univ. of Maine to Colgate where he got pink-slipped. He didn’t know what to do with himself when he couldn’t find any comparable employment anywhere. He even worked maintenance at a golf course. Finally he became a carpenter. He came up with some extremely witty insights about the academic community once he’d left it. He did have the MFA degree, but in creative writing. Didn’t do him one bit of good when push came to shove. He finally decided that all the striving degreed people are basically just a bunch of ass-kissers looking for approval from others. He ended up developing a new respect for the sorts of kids who majored in shop at his public high school. His attitude was that at least they’re earning their own way in life without having to get by on what is really little more than ass-kissing. The funniest part was when he first got the construction job, was told to show up with “his own belt” and literally did just that when he appeared at the construction site with a brand new but empty tool belt! He hadn’t realized that bring his belt meant the belt was supposed to be filled with the proper tools.
Ozone, Ripthunder, we got tornado warnings!!! Coming your way SW Mass.
-Marlin
A good companion article in the National Review listed in Yahoo! – http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_exclusive/20110531/pl_yblog_exclusive/why-the-white-working-class-is-alienated-pessimistic
Poor old “Jimmy the K.” It is expected that the
classic Jewish neurosis of “a Hitler under every
rock” should surface from time to time; however,
indicting Palin as a Hitler-in-waiting based on
the dubious nexus of leather attire is bordering
on psychosis. In all likelihood, Kunstler would
be a fan of a powerful central government which
mounts massive public works and decrees that there
be a “people’s car.” The Volt?
When the first terrorist act is committed in a Palin adminstration, she’ll force an Enabling Act-style bill through Congress and replace the black mayor of Detroit with a white fascist crony before Michigan governor Rick Snyder can do it first . . . then the car factories will start producing armored vehicles for the national police force. And then she’ll become dangerous. Barbra Streisand, Alec Baldwin, and all other interested would-be defectors had better get out fast, because once President Palin is completely in charge, no one leaves Amerika.
bigjimbo, the federal tax rate is the lowest it has been in 60 years. Read the Reagan senior policy analyst:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/31/federal-tax-rate-bartlett_n_869330.html
Under Reagan the marginal tax rates were much higher and we could pay our bills and not rack up a deficit. To pay debt you need income. People making more than $1,000,000 a year should pay more.
Cash and Vlad,
Talk of black vs white IQs recalls for me the scene in early 1974 when I took the ATGSB (Admission Test for Graduate Studies in Business). It was given in a couple of different locations on different days. I chose the one nearest my home given at Princeton U in a huge theater type room. I was in the most remote nosebleed seat in the upper left corner as viewed from the professor’s perspective. Every second seat was left empty to prevent cheating. The ceiling light above me was burned out (like I needed THAT).
At 33 years of age I may have been the oldest person in the room and 12 years distant from my college graduation. The first individual, two seats away to my left was a disconcertingly calm black guy wearing one of those knit hat thingys that Jamaicans stuff 5 pounds of “dreads” into. I silently uttered “Oh Fuck!
The proctor running the show gave us verbal instructions. The test would run three hours and be broken into various precisely timed segments. When they said “Stop Writing” you stopped dead in your tracks. Time constraints were an important element of the whole process. The first section required one to read a two page essay and then answer a series of questions about that essay. I was never a particularly fast reader.
The proctor said “Begin” and you could hear the pages of 100+ test booklets being turned to page one of the essay. Summoning my frazzled powers of concentration I began to read. When I was roughly 40% down the page I heard the black guy turn to page two. I literally shit m … strike that … I figuratively shit my pants and broke into a sweat. If a black guy with 5 pounds of dreads was that far ahead of me I knew I was fucked.
“once President Palin is completely in charge, no one leaves Amerika.”
========
That’s funny, but you are forgetting the giant hole that is our southern border. Just as it is easy for people to get in, it will be just as easy for people to get out.
Q,
Have you ever hit the send button which starts the post a churning and then recognize the overlooked boo-boo? It’s kind of an oh, what the hell moment as the grammatical damage has been done. In my defense, however, I’m just dashing in and out and not really scrutinizing my posts before sending.
But that’s not what happened today. I just want to make sure you stay on your toes and not get too comfy in that rocking chair 🙂
Sorry I haven’t been around this week, but it’s too hot here to turn the computer on. No AC, 100 degrees in the garden, and my piece this week is about Mexicans, tractors, and the turning tide.
http://smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com/2011/06/im-sorry-mr-deere-but-were-going-to.html
Cheers, friends!
How come whatever the Republicans do, you agree with? Are you paid by the RNC to post here? I might as well just watch Fox News. It is far more entertaining.
“The average American now works until April 12 of each year to pay their taxes.”
Wait, wait, wait. You always like to say that half of Americans don’t pay any taxes, so how can these two statements possibly both be true?
Cash and Vlad,
cont below
cont below
cont below
F this, F that, F-tard.
Are you able to make a post or two without use of the F word, little man? Can you present a counter-argument to someone else’s ideas without calling them a name that ends in “tard”?
You’re simply fascinated with profanity and silly name calling, as if you never got past the maturity level of a 12 year-old boy.
Just a lil tip for peace and understanding…
Sprinkling naughty adjectives and derogatory names throughout your posts doesn’t help your arguments at all. It just makes you seem like a cretin.
Well, not “seem.” I think we’re all pretty clear on your actual level of intellectual sophistication by now.
Unfortunately, a lot of well-intentioned whites are being pushed into the Republican corner by the diversity and multicultural mob who view any and all criticism toward the Obama administration by whites tantamount to racism. There a lot of good reasons for intelligent, well-intentioned Americans of every creed and color to oppose the Obama crowd. After two-and-a-half years the administration still doesn’t have a realistic national energy policy, the crooks on Wall Street have too much influence in the Oval Office and the now the president wants Israel to turn over all the territory it gained after 1967 to the Palestinians, who are governed by Hamas. The old “values gap” the pushed many Democrats into the Republican fold back in the 70’s is alive and well only now the hot-button issues are not crime, welfare taxes but high energy prices, the Mid East and Wall Street.
Please someone point me to the Candyland country where taxes are low, government is small and limited, and the majority of people prosper under this system.
The only one I can think of is Singapore, which is more like a city-state than an actual country. It does have pretty low taxes, but the government is pretty strict there. I believe you can’t chew gum, unless things have changed recently.
Given counter-arguments, I will be happy to take a look and revise my thinking on taxation and the role of government in society.
But, from what I can tell, the countries with the highest standards of living, such as Germany and Sweden and Canada, have very high taxes.
Do you think there’s a correlation? Discuss.
What exactly do you want the Obama Administration to do about gasoline prices determined by the free market? What do you think he can do?
Congress refused to vote on the legality of the Libyan War. Thus Obama and the War Mongers get a free hand – again. This is how Nations die. Everytime the Constitution is ignored, it becomes that much easier to ignore it the next time.
When I reply to bigjimbo, I try to model politeness instead of sinking to his level of crude, tasteless, and foul language. Like grammar is Qshtik’s schtick, and containing multitudes is my schtick, foul language is bigjimbo’s schtick.
His language never affects me in the least, as it is comical, indicative of a poverty of vocabulary, and is completely lacking in provocative value.
You are correct that such language detracts from the argument he is making.
The Rasta was probably an alien. Watch “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai.
Also alot of poor students are amazingly fast in taking tests. They don’t know and they just guess or they think they know. Poor students probably have their own bullshit type of “speed reading” and as far as essays, just scribble nonsense. An example: students around the world were asked to rate their own mathematical prowess. The Chinese students said math was very challenging. The Palestinian Students said that math was easy and they were good at it. The Chinese scored the highest in actual mathematical ability. And the Palestinians among the lowest.
and decrees that there be a “people’s car.” The Volt?
===============
How ’bout the Voltwagen?
Republicans are against Obama no matter what he does, unless it involves cutting taxes. It is all one big Catch-22. Supposedly, they are for the free market (whatever that even means anymore). By the logic of that system, the government should take a hands-off approach to the economy and let it go through its own natural cycles.
Yet the Repubs are constantly chastizing Obama for not doing enough to create jobs (e.g. the asinine Republican refrain of “job killing”) and stimulate the economy. Essentially, they call for more meddling in the economy by the Executive Branch, which is something they are supposedly against. And conjuring up thousands of new jobs overnight, the Republican criteria for success, (hmm funny thing they never held Bush to this standard), would require massive government intervention in the economy, bordering on out-and-out social engineering.
So which is it, conservatives? Please make up your minds. Or someone enlighten me as to how all these contradictions fit together into a coherent policy position by your party.
My opinion is that almost nothing Obama does will be looked upon favorably by Republicans, who, by and large, want him to fail so they have a shot at winning the 2012 election. They say as much on their talk shows and radio programs. Even transparently conservative initiatives, such as the recent massive program to cut government red tape, are dismissed, ignored, or found wanting due to some technicality.
And, sure, Obama is completely in thrall to Wall Street. So what else is new? This has been the case going back a hundred years for all our presidents. So now, after all this time, we’re going to hold Obama personally accountable for the systemic failing of the Executive Branch in not separating itself from the financial interests? Shall we also consider him a failure for not eliminating world hunger and ushering in a new era of peace and harmony?
Once again I’d like to recommend “Shop Class as Soul Craft” by Crawford. Yeah, he did the whole degree thing, even landed a job with some brain trust / think tank, or another. And came very soon to realize that he’d go nuts, if he continued down that path.
Looking back on his life, he realized he was happiest during a stint with some gear-heads in his youth. Now, he runs a motorcycle repair shop.
A couple of my friends are always running the “you’re so smart and I’m so dumb..” riff on me. I always point out to them that my smarts (not so smart … I just know a little about a lot of things. And, remember the damndest bits of minutia.) and a buck and a quarter will get me a cup of coffee at the cafe next door. The stuff they know is useful stuff.
They’re the one’s I call for advice on any plumbing, electrical or carpentry problems I’m having.
Our courageous soldiers are still dying in Iraq.
Osama bin Laden wanted USA soldiers in the MENA theatre, so they would be easier to kill. And bin Laden got his wish and USA soldiers are continuing to be killed.
USA Army Sergeant Clifford E. Beattie, 37, of Medical Lake (Washington State) died May 22 of injuries sustained in Iraq when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
Let us not simply march in parades on Memorial Day. Let us remember these brave patriots every day of the year.
And work for peace, and work to bring those who have yet to be killed back home as soon as possible.
The power to declare war, in real terms rather than symbolic ones, was long ago taken from the Congress. Now it simply rubber stamps the proclamations from the imperial Executive. But if you think Obama is unique in that regard or that this is something new, you’re mistaken. When WAS the last time we really declared war using the proper Constitutional procedures, anyways?
And Yiddish is a Jewish language – a corruption of German as Ladino is a corruption of Spanish.
Tornado touchdown in Springfield, Mass. Moving along the Connecticut River.
It is so ironic that Republicans, after fielding one of the worst presidents of all time in GW Bush (by unanimous international consensus), expect the next guy from the other party to be able to keep gas prices low, magically solve all the military and political problems in the Middle East, conjure up millions of jobs out of nowhere without direct governmental intervention, balance the budget, implement comprehensive immigration reform, and cut taxes, among many other unachievables.
Where were these impossibly high standards during 2000 to 2008 when the Republican party was so full of bungle and failure? Is this simply another case of “do as I say, not as I do”? Whatever happened to “Deficits don’t matter”? (That’s a Dick Cheney chestnut.)
And then we have the argument over raising the debt ceiling. What another crock of invented Republican malarky. It has been raised every other year without a fuss, over 60 times. Why the political brinkmanship and crisis-making now, when the country is in the economic doldrums? If there is a time to have that discussion, it certainly isn’t now. Who would it really help if the government went tits up due to some artificially imposed debt limit? It would be a disaster for the average man in the street, but Republican politicians would lick their chops in gleeful schadenfreude to watch Obama squirm. Because they simply hate him and work tirelessly to his detriment.
Again, the Republican agenda is clear. They want Obama to fail, and if he won’t do it on his own, they’re glad to help.
So I posted recently about the lack of tornadoes in the NE. Well stike me down, we just had 5/8″ hail and a huge blow. The east side of town and the towns to the east got hammered. This has not happened in maybe 25 years. Is it the rapture?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/01/us-weather-northeast-idUSTRE7507KB20110601
I refer to Sarah Palin and her S&M black leather domination fetish. I also refer to the article below, particularly the following comment therein: “Others are sold into prostitution while a few are either killed or tortured in black magic rituals.”
Why is it that human beings seem to have a predilection for human sacrifice and black-leather domination rituals?
I wonder how much of this goes on in society generally, but is acknowledged as being something else, for example,”The Family”, “Employment”, “Family Planning”, “Education”, “Marriage”, “The Legal System”, “Psychiatric Treatment”, “Gentlemen’s Club”, etc.?
LAGOS (AFP) – Nigerian police have raided a home allegedly being used to force teenage girls to have babies that were then offered for sale for trafficking or other purposes, authorities said on Wednesday.
“We stormed the premises of the Cross Foundation in Aba three days ago following a report that pregnant girls aged between 15 and 17 are being made to make babies for the proprietor,” said Bala Hassan, police commissioner for Abia state in the country’s southeast.
“We rescued 32 pregnant girls and arrested the proprietor who is undergoing interrogation over allegations that he normally sells the babies to people who may use them for rituals or other purposes.”
Some of the girls told police they had been offered to sell their babies for between 25,000 and 30,000 naira (192 dollars) depending on the sex of the baby.
The babies would then be sold to buyers for anything from 300,000 naira to one million naira (1,920 and 6,400 dollars) each, according to a state agency fighting human trafficking in Nigeria, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).
The girls were expected to be transferred to the regional NAPTIP offices in Enugu on Wednesday, the regional head Ijeoma Okoronkwo told AFP.
Hassan said the owner of the “illegal baby factory” is likely to face child abuse and human trafficking charges. Buying or selling of babies is illegal in Nigeria and can carry a 14-year jail term.
“We have so many cases going on in court right now,” said Okoronkwo.
In 2008, police raids revealed an alleged network of such clinics, dubbed baby “farms” or “factories” in the local press.
Cases of child abuse and people trafficking are common in West Africa. Some children are bought from their families to for use as labour in plantations, mines, factories or as domestic help.
Others are sold into prostitution while a few are either killed or tortured in black magic rituals. NAPTIP says it has also seen a trend of illegal adoption.
“There is a problem of illict adoption and people not knowing the right way to adopt children,” said Okoronkwo.
Human trafficking is ranked the third most common crime after economic fraud and drug trafficking in the country, according to UNESCO.
“When WAS the last time we really declared war using the proper Constitutional procedures, anyways?”
Just {a guess} before the Korean Conflict?
A strawman corpsicle isn’t subject to the Constitution.
Messi, if you are interested in the Donner Party, have your local library get you these books (if your local library doesn’t already have them)
History of the Donner Party by C.F. McGlasham
Ordeal by Hunger by George Stewart
I own that one but haven’t read it in its entirety. I was impressed by how intricate motorcycle restoration is.
Yeah, people are funny. To those who are allergic to books anyone who likes to read is a “genius”, or a “brain cell”, or a “nerd”, or worse your sexual orientation may even be brought into question especially if you’re in the navy on a ship with an all hillbilly crew, which used to happen right after drug raids in which all of the cool people were sent to surface craft leaving a greatly increased percentage of atavistic throw-backs, juiceheads, squares, and lifer-dogs. My policy was simple: you can call me whatever you want, then when you’re done, if we’re in port, I get to throw your sorry redneck ass overboard into the harbor, which I gladly did once at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in 1980, which is how I earned the nickname from the shipyard workers of Aquaman, because the mo’fo’ dragged me in with him!
I had other nonconformist tricks as well. This was during the period when the old fashioned crackerjack sailor suits were being reintroduced, after being abolished in ’74 and replaced with an officer style dress blues uniform designed by Admiral Zumwalt’s wife, so if there was an inspection in the more modern uniforms I would show up in my crackerjacks then play dumb about being out of uniform. Payoff: getting to sit in the office manning the telephone while everyone else stood outdoors at attention for a half hour while the captain checked their haircuts and shoe-shines! Then when I wanted a transfer to the east coast I put in for OCS, got orders to Newport, RI from Pearl Harbor, of which I had grown weary, then dropped out of OCS after just two days. When they asked why I quit so soon I told them, “I didn’t know that officers had to pay for their own uniforms so I’m returning mine now while I can.”
My point with this tangent is that when you’re being treated like an asshole go one step beyond and transform yourself into an actual asshole. After all, they should be forced to deal with the genuine article if that’s how they’ve chosen to treat you. As the country continues to unravel I think we should all redouble our efforts to undermine the malfunctioning United States of Stupid.
“What do you think he can do?”
He could take a trip to Yumpin Yemini.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/01/us-yemen-arcadia-wiki-idUSTRE7506TC20110601
“when you’re being treated like an asshole go one step beyond and transform yourself into an actual asshole.”
That may be the best piece of advice I’ve ever heard on this discussion thread, Marc. Of course if everyone did it the US of A and most of the globe would rapidly shut down operations.
That fits in with a favorite acronym of mine – supposed to be on a wall over a bar somewhere.
WATSMMHATTAH?
Translation: Why Are There So Many More Horse’s Asses Than There Are Horses?
Yiddish is a dialect of german. It might even be more germen than what passes today as modern germen. Btw, I did a search on the word ‘goy’, and it seems I misspoke. Turns out it appears in the hebrew bible. But as a hebrew speaker I can tell it’s not an original hebrew word. Opinion varies as to where it originated but there seems to be an idea it might describe a place or a kingdom long gone. Hebrew words have a root lettering, this one does not. It also doesn’t sound like a hebrew word. Most likely it’s a transplanted word from another language. My guess thst it might have been yiddish is wrong.
Marlin54 and a couple of other posters make note and/or complain that Obama is getting a “free pass?” from the press in Libya.
Well, I think the attack on Libya was spun so successfully as a UN operation that hardly anyone in the US has any knowledge of who’s flying the planes, whose ordinance they are shooting, and who’s in charge. Which means the “press” today can’t make any money selling the story to the American people – they have no perceived dog in the fight.
SNAFU said months ago that ending the draft was the worst thing that Tricky Dick ever did for the country. I concur, now – though at the time it was the sweetest pardon I’d ever received in my young life.
I think 2 years of mandatory national service would have been the way to go. And it didn’t have to be military – could have been Peace Corps, Teach for America, picking vegetables legally in south Georgia – any work of genuine value.
Nice post. I’m disappointed in that knee-jerk racism call, also.
Presidents since Nixon have failed to give us a national energy policy. Probably because it requires sacrifice (e.g. conservation), taxation, subsidies or environmental rule relaxing, each of which you can find some population segment opposed to.
One more rant – just to get the feminists hacked off and stir things up a little more this week.
Was it “insufferable?” who posted that she was female and will vote for Palin because she is a “real woman with a real family” (paraphrased) or something like that?
I guess that’s the female equivalent of voting for W because he “looked like a fun guy to drink beer with.” (even though he was a self-treated alcoholic and apparently a real jerk as a young man – read Bush on the Couch)
————–
But I digress. When I was a kid, the “menfolks” had verbally violent political arguments. They did it away from the women – over drinks after dinner, usually. That sort of verbal jousting made for very informed voters.
Something made those great arguments stop, at least in my corner of the country.
As a suggestion, could it have been women’s lib and the presence of females at gatherings that were formerly all male.
“Don’t talk about religion or politics-” –
“It upsets the ladies.”
It’s just an idea. Wage, you’re an outlier – I know you’ve got to like a good verbal political brawl. But is that a rarity in females?
And do many men, even, enjoy a political argument anymore? Is this a generational thing, a cultural thing, a regional thing?
Anyone have any ideas to add.
to add?
BTW, I noticed Q experimenting with the plural possessive form of “you” in print on CFN.
“Are these the best of y’all’s ideas…” or something like that.
Paula Dean would be proud of you, Q.
Coming to this party very late, but I just had to thank Jim for such a concise and clear “comparative essay.” Yes, this is what it looks like when you are in the middle of it.
Not sure that the assembled masses of overweight losers have it in them to gather in the town square and salute….
I think … well, not just feminism. It was also the kids returning home, to these family gatherings, with a little edu-macation under their belts and a bit of rhetorical and debate tricks up their sleeves. No longer satisfied with being seen but not heard.
Old Dad was occasionally bested in these sparing bouts and choose to retreat to his man cave and lick his wounds. Sometimes, never to emerge.
So Prog, off topic here. My Ol’ man, a WWII and KoreanWar vet, used to help me out on my first rentals. He was in his 60’s but still would hump the 2x10x16’s up the ladder where I could grab them and pull them up. Today my 27 year old live at home man-boy wants me to pay him to mow the lawn! eats my food and does’nt do shit. Sleeps all day and watches TV with his girl. If he mows tje lawn he wants to get paid. I should kick his ass, which I could easilly do, But I guesss I am a pussy too!
{And, yes, Americans, as a whole, don’t mind showing their cards, peeing in cups, spreading their legs, letting their children be fondled, etc.}
Wage, personally I mind a WHOLE HELL OF A LOT . . . but it’s come down to a choice in the way society is set up . . . SUBMIT, or live under the damned overpass. You’re right, it started slowly but subtly . . . now it’s to the point where not only do you have to pee in the cup, and have the standard background check, but they want the fingerprints too, and soon they’ll be requiring DNA samples to add to whatever big X-Files database they have set up to track people (the same database where they store the gazillion points of iPhone tracking data and surveillance videos).
It seems to be only the really, truly oblivious people who AREN’T aware and a little paranoid, and I’m not a paranoid person at heart . . . I just pay attention to REALITY. Technology is a wonderful thing, but it’s rapidly become a very double-edged sword. The only answer is to truly groom your psyche not to give a fuck, I think. The choice is slavery or the underpass, these days, I think. That’s fucked, too, but it’s reality.
I think this Weiner guy should change his name, something very American sounding like Sumner Wellesley, or Grant Stockbridge, old New England stuff. That would at least end all these idiotic remarks like Weiner is ‘testy’ today, or he’s really a ‘cocky’ guy. The name change would at least end all these dumb ass double entendres.
Big Government Conservatives (those who say they want small government, like Rand Paul), want to use government to prohibit you from using contraception (Indiana); conservatives want to forcibly collect your urine, hair, and blood (Florida); and conservatives want to put you in prison or to deport you if they don’t like the speeches you attend (Rand Paul of Kentucky).
This Big Government Conservatism is happening all over the country, all the time now, using government to interfere in peoples’ private lives. This is what conservative governance is like this year.
{I just popped in to announce that I no longer hate women. I am getting laid regularly now.}
Right on, Bustin! Couldn’t have happened to a dude who desperately needed it more! 🙂 Congrats, and I mean that sincerely 🙂
That’s great news I’m happy for you.
I would like to second LLB’S recommendation of Matthew B. Crawford’s, “Shop Class As Soulcraft”.
It’s subtitle is, “An Inquiry Into The Value Of Work”.
Read it, enjoyed it, and Mr. Crawford deserves all the sales he can get!
Kucinich Attacks Obama. Boehner Defends Obama.
Republicans scrap vote on withdrawal from Libya.
Kucinich’s measure would invoke the 1973 War Powers Resolution to direct Obama to stop the U.S. participation in the war. Kucinich says Obama violated the part of the law that prohibits U.S. armed forces from being involved in military actions for more than 60 days without congressional authorization.
But Boehner told reporters that “technically” he did not think Obama had violated the War Powers Resolution. He declined to elaborate.
Bustin J, I hope you are not just “getting laid.”
“Getting laid” sounds one-dimensional and mechanical.
I hope that you are gently and lovingly providing sexual pleasure for a woman who is doing the same for you, and that, for both of you, all eight chakras are involved, not just the second.
In ancient societies, didn’t they glorify persons offered in human sacrifice to the gods in much the same way that we honor and glorify soldiers who fight and die in our imperial wars?
Human sacrifice….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture
Finally, according to the Aztec (and Mesoamerican) world-view, the circumstances in which people died determined the type of afterlife they enjoyed. The Aztecs had meticulously organised death into several types, which each led to specific “heavenly” and “underworld” levels. In the levels Sahagun records, passing away quietly at home was the lowest, as it required the unfortunate soul to undergo numerous torturous trials and journeys, only to culminate in a sombre underworld. By contrast, what the Aztecs termed “a good death” was sacrifice, war (which usually meant sacrifice) or — in the case of women — death whilst giving birth. This kind of end procured for the deceased the second-highest heaven (death in infancy being the highest). Persons who had died sacrificially or in war were called Teo-micqui (“the God-dead”) and were said to “go pure… live hard by, nigh unto the Sun… [who] always forever … rejoice … [since] the House of the Sun is … a place of joy.”[
Perhaps a Nation of Losers can redeem itself through HUMAN SACRIFICE…..
Pangolin said:
Education is a wonderful thing; but it’s fuck-all compared to experience.
**************************************************
That’s another reason I’m retiring … in academia
one works with too many “eggheads” who could not
possibly hold a job in industry. I wrote nearly
500,000 lines of code in industry before I ever
started teaching. If I’m proud of anything, it’s
that my students from the past tell me that I
actually focus on real CODING that resembles stuff
they actually use on a job.
I teach stuff like Unix Systems Programming and
TCP/IP Client/Server programming where one must
deal with vexing “rare event” types of problems
that destroy daemons/servers. Most of my
colleagues teach only courses where you never
have to wrestle with the grit and dirt of real
systems.
That’s why I love my college’s PARTTIME
instructors much more. These dudes are actually
plying their trade in industry instead of making
airy-fairy proclamations about algorithmic
purity. Programming is a “dirty” profession
where you constantly confront situations where
you have to violate the dogmas of basic
programming to get the job done.
I won’t miss academia very much.
E.
Thanks to you and SJ Mom for your best wishes
for my retirement. Thank God I’m with CalSTRS
and not CalPERS. It’s a little-known fact
that CalSTRS (the state teachers retirement
system) is a PRIVATE fund with a .com address.
It is NOT based upon California state government
funding like CalPERS. My retirement after 22
years of service won’t be as generous as 22 years
with CalPERS but it’ll be one helluva lot SAFER.
And it’s GOOD ENOUGH.
I’m just glad to be getting out of the education
biz because, as BubbleHeadMarc rightly says above,
our students, more and more, are functionally
illiterate so you have to teach-to-the-test and
you can’t ask for essay responses because you
get functional illiteracy as a response.
The book “The Dumbest Generation” is about the
virtual death of reading in the young. From
my recent experiences, I’d say that author
(Mark Bauerlein) has it right.
E.
With regards to Spain, Italy, Greece etc. they keep on chanting that they need less taxes, more competition and productivity, to grow their economy more, etc. No one on earth knows what competition and productivity means in economies that are 70 % service, which means they produce nothing, but it really means cut jobs and costs, fewer workers for the same services, less pay for those that still work, etc. so what they are saying is fire even more people to make the economy grow. What cocks, I can’t believe it!
Then those countries are compared to France and Germany where Germany manufactures 5 million luxury cars a year and France produces 60 % of their Energy with Atomic power plants. How can they possibly compare ? But this also shows that a Technological Economy creates a similar standard of living even between countries with very different production levels since Spain, Italy and Greece are not really that poorer than France or Germany, so this demonstrates the fact that a Technological Economy creates enough free wealth for eveyone anyways and needs less and less work anyways.
No one says that in those countries, the government must hire millions of young people in research, give them 800 dollars a month salary and give them a house for rent at 200 dollars a month. That would really make their economies grow, the kids can live on their own, start their life, live in their own house and start consuming, etc.
And then, from a salary of 800 dollars a month, less taxes just means maybe 30 dollars a month, wow, what a big deal! But the chant of less taxes serves only the purpose to give the rich and capitalists less taxes so they hog up even more billions. And less taxes always means somewhere along the line someone must be fired, someone must lose his job or be paid less, etc.
Why doesn’t anyone ever tell this idiot economists off ? Why does everybody believe the huge BS that they have been chanting for decades ? What total idiots and cocks all of these economists and politicians are!
But most of all, we must get rid of this idea that economies must “grow”, growth is over for developed economies, what must be done is distribute the wealth that is present in these economies, but this huge brainwashing of “growth” serves to distract and concentrate everyone’s mind on false problems, what they really mean by growth, is that profits must grow, as if they aren’t already drowning in trillions upon trillions of dollars.
BHM said:
I coudln’t agree more. After all, if these people were actually interested in academic pursuits you’d need a crowbar to separate them from their library books, yet curiously, YOU DON’T NEED A CROWBAR TO SEPARATE THEM FROM THEIR LIBRARY BOOKS because guess what? They don’t have a fucking library card! Why you ask? Because they don’t read, that’s why.
***************************************************
You’d love the book “The Dumbest Generation”,
Marc. You’re damned right and I see it even
in computer programming classes. If, on a
test, I ask for an explanation for something
that involves, say, ONE pristine English sentence,
even from my American students I get answers which
seem to indicate that these people can’t put one
subject together with one predicate.
Your later comments about the teachers are also
accurate. My union steward said that most of
the NEWER faculty (10 or less years in the
business) are ASTONISHINGLY poorly-read,
unrigorous (they’re the “easy ‘A'” teachers),
uninterested even in their own discipline, and
remarkably STUPID.
Of course, I believe we are now in a Second Dark
Age so I’m noticing an incredible increase in
stupefaction, even in professionals. One story
will suffice. I gashed my thumb and it didn’t
heal right. I went to a STANFORD DOCTOR. The
goofy woman wanted to refer me to an orthopedist!
I email’ed her and said: “Isn’t a skin lesion
more the province of dermatology”? Next day
she says: “You’ve got a point”!! In other words,
I’M BETTER AT REFERRING PATIENTS TO THE CORRECT
SPECIALIST THAN A STANFORD DOCTOR.
Believe me … it’s good to be OLD now because
the incompetency in nearly all disciplines is
going HYPERBOLIC.
E.
It’s easy to dismiss someone like Palin as
feckless. I’m not a Gallup Poll so I don’t
know just how popular she is/isn’t on a
national scale. However, she represents
something I’ve always found odious and
baseless i.e., the idea that being rather
stupid is “folksy” and that there’s a kind
of special “wisdom” possessed by people who
are suspicious of “intellectuals”.
Of course, no one ever bothers to define exactly
what they mean by an “intellectual” but, de facto,
the dumb-is-the-new-smart believers seem to imply
that it’s a person who actually believes, God
forbid, that a person can learn stuff by reading
BOOKS!!
The irony is that even these Palinites and their
ilk have houses FULL of gadgets and gizmos which
were invented by people who have read dozens and
dozens of VERY difficult books. The engineers
who’ve designed everything from cars to
playstations generally went through a very arduous
process (in, oh no (!!!) … SCHOOL!!!) to learn
basic mechanical, electrical, graphical,
algorithmic, and other physical/chemical
principles.
No sane person would deny that they couldn’t
just leave it at “book larnin'” but without
that “book larnin'” they wouldn’t have ever
developed the FOUNDATION to build upon.
Every critical innovation builds upon FIRST
PRINCIPLES which are almost invariably learned
in schools and from books.
Palin represents, to me, a fearsome alliance
with guys like the nutter in Jim’s photo with
the “dictator” patch on his leather jacket
which I gather the nutter thinks is “hip”.
I really, truly hope that Palin turns out
to be feckless but the “alliance of the
stupid worshippers” appears to be a rapidly
growing American cult.
E.
Correction: I should have phrased the end of
my post … “I really, truly hope that Palin
turns out to be feckless but the “alliance
of the worshippers of stupidity” appears to
be a rapidly growing American cult.
As I phrased it, it almost appears that I am
condemning “worshippers” as “stupid”. Well,
actually, I *do* think most religion is an
adult’s version of believing in Santa Claus
but that’s for another post and another time.
E.
Her pal in Jim’s photo with the “dictator” patch
clinched it for me. The woman loves to keep the
company of thugs or people who want to use
“fashion” to LOOK like thugs.
I’ve never understood the whole LEATHER outfit
thing, either. Leather is hot as hell, it
does not breathe, you get all clammy-skinned
underneath of it … I don’t get it.
Leather is ANIMAL HIDE which makes sense for
bikers so they don’t scrape away their whole
epidermis in an accident and maybe for a couple
of occupations which involve similar danger but
as a FASHION STATEMENT??? I’ve NEVER “gotten it”.
E.
Actually, “Big Government Conservativism”
really started with the Reagan Administration.
Ironically, from Reagan through Bush the Lesser,
only CLINTON brought government spending under
some semblance of control. But his huge gaffe
was repealing Glass-Steagall which set the
stage for bank speculation in securities
markets.
Reagan is the one who started with the $300
billion annual deficits. His Administration
fell for the dumbest Defense Department cost
overrun schemes and pie-in-the-sky pork like
“Star Wars” which was REFUTED by two physicists
in “Scientific American”.
Republicans are just as guilty as Democrats of
being “big spenders” but they aren’t interested
in spending which benefits ordinary citizens.
They want us to spend our money rescuing
plutocrats, subsidizing energy companies, and
continuing the graft and waste in the Defense
Industry.
E.
Asoka said:
Kucinich Attacks Obama. Boehner Defends Obama.
Republicans scrap vote on withdrawal from Libya.
Kucinich’s measure would invoke the 1973 War Powers Resolution to direct Obama to stop the U.S. participation in the war. Kucinich says Obama violated the part of the law that prohibits U.S. armed forces from being involved in military actions for more than 60 days without congressional authorization.
***************************************************
I’m very happy to see a member of CFN quote
Kucinich who strikes me as one of the last
truly principled, forthright politicians
left in Washington. I was appalled at Obama’s
Libya speech which sounded like a page out of
the Neoconservative imperialist playbook.
E.
E.
Reagan also pulled the plug on fusion research in favor of “star wars”. What was going on there was that Reagan, who’s claim to fame is that he won the cold war over the evil empire, decided to outspend the Russians. At that point, the technology being researched was benefiting the nation since it was being used in other practical ways in technology. As we’ve often discussed here, it seems over time with globalism that We the People actually lost the cold war and the plutocracy won.
You’ve covered many good topics in that the idea of vapid people who don’t value knowledge, live off the people who create the means for these people to flourish. (as in the case of Palin) the other galling aspect to the low info crowd is that Michelle Bachman, who has a law degree, can’t get her history straight, but will tell you she’s a great patriot, but if you don’t agree with her you’re not.
Speaking of engineers and such, I am working on site out of town with a design group who creates lighting fixtures of course in China. An industrial designer/engineer in his last 20’s told me he went to Columbia and Stamford and it still took him 3 years to get a job! I don’t have to tell you that our next class of math and science people are not being hired because they cost too much, now do I.
And finally, Kucinich and Sanders are about the only guys that aren’t speaking out of both sides of their mouths. I am pretty certain that the system we live in is one which cannot allow a person to live by their word.
The very nature of our political financing pretty much trumps any other outcome. The lobby system, the way people go in and out of the public sector and can even lobby for foreign countries, makes governing the nation state in a straight-forward way impossible by its very nature.
Obama and Clinton and everyone since Johnson have had the same foreign policy and are probably told when they win the election who they really work for.
What it comes down to is to watch what they do, not what they say. Clinton was just doing his part in smashing Roosevelt and the protections against monopolies. What took four terms to establish, is now over and with the debt ceiling on the line the Democrats are faced with having to decide whether they will help privatize Medicare or bring down the fiat currency.
The Republicans are so fanatical they really don’t care whether they bring this country down.
I recomment Robert Hughes brilliant 1993 book “The Culture Of Complaint” if you really want a balanced view of our nation’s problems, because Hughes goes after hard-care neo-conservatives with the same vigor he uses to attack the politically correct liberals. The Democrats lost the ball in the 70’s and 80’s when they dismissed voter anger over taxes, affirmative action, crime and welfare as white racism and racial entitlement politics. In fact, many of the voters who ended up voting Republican were well-intentioned individuals who were fed up with the high cost of living, the double standard that government applied to those living on welfare compared to working folks and being told affirmative action wasn’t reverse discrimination when it really was.
If you want to be a protestant, do it as a general strike that shuts down the Ponzi scheme economy, make less taxable income, grow or find your own food, participate in local, outlaw food economies, remove your money from the bank, stop buying with FRNs stuff you don’t need. Beat the rush.
Nice point, LLB –
not just feminism, but “….also the kids returning home, to these family gatherings, with a little edu-macation under their belts and a bit of rhetorical and debate tricks up their sleeves.”
-llb-
Kind of like Archie and the Meathead on “All in the Family,” right?
Whatever it was that ended them – I miss spirited and personal political arguments among friends and family.
Somebody said months ago that politics has become like sports to us in the States – we spectate, and cheer when the “conservative team” scores over the “liberals” – or whatever.
I think it was Vlad who made the point that politics and significant issues are verboten for discussion – therefore having nothing to say we bowl alone and “retreat to the flickering blue campfire” by ourselves – not a bad metaphor.
I tried to raise my sons like my uncles and my dad raised me – and they both argue pretty well.
But the older one usually (truly!) agrees with me – and that’s no fun for argument.
The other will debate for a while before saying, “I just can’t talk politics with you, Dad, it makes me too mad…”
When the three of us are together – there’s enough of a buffer – and we can have some rollicking good discussions, though.
I only wish my dad and his friends and relatives could be there to participate.
Thanks for your highly valuable input on this issue. Perhaps the most shocking factoid is the actual decline in literacy AFTER the founding of the public schools during the mid nineteenth century. Kids originally attended so called Dame’s schools where they mainly learned to read by souding out the King Jame’s version phonetically. This is a big clue to subsequent events. I think that the results must have better then because of the material being used and the reverence with which it was presumably handled. Although I am a skeptic now I was raised to venerate the old Anglican/Episcopal religion with the original Book of Common Prayer thrown in.
People need to realize that “public” education, by its very name, indicates charity schools for those who lack either the means or motivation to manage private instruction. As such, the taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook for providing these charity cases, as it were, with the finest of everything! And in point of fact, the atmosphere in a public school is typically so padded with social activity, class changing, warming up the class, winding down at the end, sports, special events, study halls, and just plain nonsense that it strains credulity to accept any notions that what is going on there is really all that focused or productive.
It should also be evident that the teachers by and large are viewing this as a social activity which they like to be involved in because they are EXTROVERTS. In other words, they are not really intellectually inclined nor do they typically have what could be called a scholarly temperament. They are certainly not going to be voluntarily exploring their content area on their own or without compensation or outside input of some sort, because as extroverts they are other oriented and not self contained or freely motivated.
With the technology now available we need to start devolving back towards home schooling and small learning groups which are freely associated for this purpose and led by volunteers. We can no longer afford the giant make believe world of public schooling for the overwhelmingly incurious and untalented masses.
Judgment Day
Why are we so obsessed with the judgment other minds have of us ? Why is judgment so important ? Why are we trapped in this 1 bit universe of any mind judging you badly and you suffering and “feeing bad” about it ? But most of all, why are we so obsessed of the judgment we have of ourselves ? Why can’t we just “suck” freely, and be a total piece of crap, wrong in everything, a total turd, with “no possible value whatsoever” ? Everything we do, even when we do it “for ourselves” is done in the background of some imaginary (or real, who knows ?) mind judging you and you feeling that you are achieving, that you are doing some good for a metaphysical imaginary world of minds and other minds constantly watching you and judging you, for some other minds judging you “good” (but those other minds can switch their judgment in a microsecond and even forget they judged you “good” before, but all minds suck hugely, I JUDGE ALL MINDS AS BEING A HUGE PIECE OF TURD, HOW’S THAT ?).
As if thought completely occupies all space and time and all metaphysical space, so thought is the only possible universe in itself, and thought is always judgment, but we can never really get out of thought, no matter how hard we try, but thought operates on constant measurement and judgment of other minds and any activity as being judgeable, and measurable by another (but it is always your own or no one’s mind, as the mind itself is just an abstract metaphysical construction that doesn’t exist and has no reality, except that of being a huge turd that I personally judge as a piece of crap).
It is as if only by being perceived by other minds we actually do exist, only by constantly being measured and compared do we exist. We compare ourselves to the past, what we did, how we were judged, by how we made a mistake and were judged badly, but the truth is we all suck hugely and made all of the mistakes possible, get over it, you will all go to hell, there is no hope whatsoever (refer to my talking about HELL analysis): we love and hate the dictatorship of judgments.
But kill judgments, hose them, tell them you are the boss and you judge everything, all else is non existent as you assign what exists and what doesn’t. As if there is some kind of metaphysical stage where all judgments are objective and reality is only one delimitation of space, where that judgment saturates all of reality like that monolithic slab that is thought. So who will dominate that space ? In all truth, everyone’s judgement is worth “zero”, is absolutely irrelevant in the greater scheme of things, which implies simply that everything is dead, a void, without meaning, judgments (and judgments necessary), or causes and effects, without any goals, pure nothingness, that is actually proud of itself since it doesn’t have anything to prove.
But we ourselves are judgments that subdivide into individual minds judging other minds all in our own mind (as in constantly judging ourselves and/or others, do we get confused ? is it one big cloud and blob ?). We are thought that then divides and multiplies itself in a never ending array of independent cross and reciprocal judgments of itself and others, maybe each mind representing some external minds judging, but then all minds are all in one metaphysical space that communicate with subtle clues between apparently independent minds, but are all one and the same. All searching for “affirmation”, all wanting to be “accepted” (or loved ?), but all of these minds suck hugely, they are all wrong, Metaphysics has judged them all as one huge turd and being completely dependent on a 1 bit universe of good and bad, when the real metaphysical universe is way past our puny minds, and our puny necessity for “affirmation”.
But maybe judgment is important only because a seperate free will can inflict physical pain on you, therefore be sure that it judges you “good”, otherwise pain (again the pain/pleasure circuit dominates ? so it is all upside down ? another infinite recursion of intractable – impossible problems?).
Now go on, judge me you ugly slobs, tell me I suck. Am I supposed “to feel bad” because of this ? Are you god ? or is the judgment of anyone an instance of god’s judgement, but especially you’re own judgment of yourself and others, the judgment and measuring and evaluation of you, yourself, or I or others or anything ? JUdgment being the constant prison guard against your freedom to completely and totally suck. How I love the idea that god will tell you all that “you suck” when you die, and then he punishes you, so that judgment was the last.
What is the relationship between Free Will and Judgment ? Another infinite recursion of intractable – impossible metaphysical problems, free will means we want to force our judgment and force others to judge us as “worthy”, but we want their judgment to be free, but it is never like we want it and so on and so forth forever.
The illusion of “progress”, where we are always back to the same starting point even after a trillion years, pain/plesure, judgment of others and yourself of yourself, constant simple fight against yourself and others, man as a constant fight and simple constant pure contradiction, and you thought all that effort of thought and experiences added up, aggregated: no, there is no serialization of effort or results, only fights, struggles and loses, failures, and more loses and failures forever, ever more, you will lose all and everything forever, that is how god likes it, he plays chess against you and then he crushes you and hoses you, what a huge satisfaction he gets: and infinite pain forever but that is actually paradise and infinite pleasure.
We are the Constantly Losing Machine.
So go on now, little Joey and Cindy, copy and paste this for your homework, show mommy and the teacher, oh what is that ? another GOLD star ? Wow, are you kids doing great in school.
Now go out in the backyard real fast, play together and find another new mental brain contraption that fell for some black holes far away, run around in the backyard together, seeing all kinds of new things, have fun, here is a new one:
rhhf664475hghtthtjjy7777l…
Wow, this must be really complicated, I can barely see a Free Will to Judgment converter, a progress to regress condensation machine, wow is that mind – universe contraption really doing interesting things (as a modified mind is all and one with its personal universe, such as Information Relationships Achieved).
CORRECTION: King James, not King Jame’s
A great book on the production of the King James Bible is called “God’s Secretaries”.
E.
Firstly, I appreciate your insightful posts.
Secondly, congrats on making it to retirement with sanity [more or less] intact! ;o)
Lastly, I am truly gobsmacked by the lack of reading skills in the general population these days. People seem to get by without reading ANYTHING but abbreviated tweets and texts on their phones. What do they hear in their heads, when the only input is teevee, bad pop music, and videos/movies? (Jesus, I would go a little buggy just hearing my own untempered thoughts banging back and forth in my skull all day and night. Perhaps this explains much of the rampant cognitive dissonance and febrile narcissism we’re seeing damn near everywhere.)
Reading gives us someone else’s specific p.o.v., whether it be technical, or strictly for entertainment value. I think that’s terribly important… most don’t seem to.
Reading was my entertainment growing up. We were “read to” from a very early age, and the magic of language for creating those “visuals” in imagination was a joyful thing to me. That is why the movie is NEVER as good as the book; one “sees” one’s version of the details with much more clarity and personal “precision”.
Anyhoo, thanks for yelling. ;o)
I’m now responding to your religion comments. Yes, if you believe in “revealed” religion then mentally you are perhaps one step beyond believers in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, who collectively have a mental age of perhaps five! Everybody should read “The Pagan Christ” by Tom Harpur. This issue is also closely linked to the overall stupidity issue you mentioned in one of your other posts. In a nutshell, it has been demonstrated at this point that all the pagan religions of the ancient Mediterranean region were strikingly similar yet curiously, it was only Christianity as it morphed into Orthodoxy which managed to calcify into a rididly exclusive belief system which its adherents accepted as factual historical reality. “The Laughing Jesus” by Freke & Gandy also makes excellent points about the other two monotheistic desert religions, namely Judaism and Islam.
To me these issues are not directly related to the recent spate of atheist tomes by the likes of Dawkins and Hitchens. Just because the various religious scriptures are bogus, and they are, does not mean that there is no God, or life is meaningless, or we are all going to become fornicating druggies if we lose our faith. A casual glance about the social landscape should be enough to glean that we already are fornicating druggies and therefore cannot “become” what we in fact already are.
***It’s easy to dismiss someone like Palin as
feckless. I’m not a Gallup Poll so I don’t
know just how popular she is/isn’t on a
national scale. However, she represents
something I’ve always found odious and
baseless i.e., the idea that being rather
stupid is “folksy” and that there’s a kind
of special “wisdom” possessed by people who
are suspicious of “intellectuals”.*** -E.
Good point.
Although it may not be “folksy” Sarah that leads the coalition of the incurious, I’m certain there are others [of a more canny and purposeful bent] waiting in the wings to take up the mantle of “Savior of The Volk”. (Sarah’s just in it for the $$ and the adulation; she’ll drop her act like a hot rock when nothing more can be milked from it. Doesn’t she now owe the State of I’llaskher something like 385 grand for a fraudulent “legal fund”?)
As I’ve said before, ignorance and stupidity are dangerous things, and most especially when wielded as “virtues”.
“Yew must be one-a them ‘reeeeaders’ we hear’d tell of…”
LLB, and other reviled “reeeeeaders” (we hear’d tell of), any suggestions one might scare up on Ee-lec’tris’tee that’s not dry as toast?
I have never “grokked” electricity, and was hoping there might be a tome on it that’s actually “readable” for a casual reader (admittedly, ashamedly). Most technical books escape me; I ‘look’ at the words, and don’t ‘read’/’internalize’ them. It’s quite the handicap, but I do like a bit of metaphor, clever adjective use, etc. to spice up dry subjects. (I understand it’s for the very sake of clarity that it’s “dry”, but my mind wanders!)
BTW, when I say “electricity”, I don’t mean: how to wire a house (that’s fairly straightforward), I mean flowing electrons; what induces them to flow in certain pathways; magnetic consequences; what constitutes “interference”, and many other questions I’m absolutely too ignorant to ask! ;o) I just know that electricity “likes me” a bit too much, and I’m curious as to how I might be wired that I get zapped so damn frequently. Is that why I gots the blues?
Marlin and RT,
Hope there’s not too much more of that kind of activity; but I wouldn’t make any bets.
Mommy Nature is making sure we don’t forget who’s REALLY in charge. (I’m just glad I’ve got a capacious cellar. I should find a specific spot and stock a few hand tools for self-rescue, as Wage pointed out.) Things is gettin’ unsteady in the land of steady habits!
BAD TEACHER SCAM:
First of all, the scam of claiming teachers are incompetent so let’s privatize reminds me to alert all lecherous heterosexual males to go see Cameron Diaz in the upcoming “Bad Teacher”, in which she is indeed bad based upon the online trailer, but morally, not scholastically.
Apologies to also smoking hot former chancellor of DC schools Michelle[?] Rhee but when someone says that large numbers of public school teachers are incompetent various obvious questions seem never to emerge from the miasma of the mainstram media such as: [1] how are the class score averages being adjusted for quality control? i.e.: does the teacher with the most knuckleheads in his classes get a handicap of some sort, like in Golf? and;[2] are you actually saying that there are teachers in whose classes virtually NO ONE learned anything? Because, if it is only one-third of the kids who learned nothing that’s perfectly normal BECAUSE: ONE THIRD OF THE POPULATION HAS SHIT FOR BRAINS. WHAT THE FUCK DID THEY EXPECT?
Now, if you can bring me a teacher who can’t teach anyone I’ll agree that they can’t teach. But, if the only kids not learning from this teacher are bottom third of the population mentally then what the fuck? Isn’t this entire thrust in “school reform” taking kind of an ethereal down the rabbit hole turn at this point when the teachers are now expected to telepathically beam information into the kids’ heads as a supreme mystical act of will, or at the very least, what the Soviets used to call “mental radio”.
“Just because the various religious scriptures are bogus, and they are, does not mean that there is no God…”
Right. Just because men have screwed things up beyond recognition {some on purpose} does not mean God ceased to exist and may not still communicate with man. God can use scripture to guide, but still reveals Himself and His purposes to {through} the apostles and prophets. Confirmation comes in coincidences, serendipities and the natural world. Behold, the stars speak of His great works, and the earth answers His commands. Pay attention to the louder voices and the screeching will not bother.
So how did it turn out in the end? I’ve written exams where for the first five minutes I couldn’t remember my middle name.
Have you ever hit the send button which starts the post a churning and then recognize the overlooked boo-boo?
===============
Yes…and I absolutely hate, detest and loathe when that happens.
Nearly all my posts contain at least one typo like “snd” instead of “and”. I’ve lost some of my youthful vigour and mental acuity but I’ve made up for it in sloth and indifference.
Our newly elected govt just announced that we will be embarking on a 20 year, 35 billion dollar shipbuilding program for the navy. And they said no lobbying allowed. Proposals from shipyards will be judged strictly on the merits. Yeah sure. If this doesn’t turn into a vote buying, money burning boondoggle I’ll eat my hat.
So how did it turn out in the end?
===============
I did quite well and entered Rutgers MBA program, went to night school for 4 years and graduated in ’78 as a Finance major. (I have always assumed the black guy went on to become the Jamaican Minister of Finance.)
Actually, I’m a nutrition/ early sensory stimulation fan.
But Southerners IQ improved once they got rid of the hookworms, I’ve heard.
Where does food come from, Cash?
Well, not from little yeoman farmers hand-milking cows. Not anymore.
It comes from a very few people wielding giant machines, powered by cheap fossil fuel.
The product is then processed through other giant machines and delivered to your supermarket via gas-guzzling trucks.
Except for the meat part, which comes from animals living in horrific conditions, stuffed with the cheap corn that the machines provided. They are then butchered in giant slaughter houses, using fossil fuel powered machinery and immigrant labor.
It is displayed in air conditioned open containers.
This is a problem, now that cheap oil is gone.
Throwing money down a hole in the ocean, eh? Another fine plan for “creating jobs”…
No worries, your hat will be quite safe! ;o)
Once again I’d like to point out that there is not necessarily a difference between the college educated and those who work with their hands.
This is the lie that gets people to go into debt to go to college, which we all recognize, but then don’t apply that knowledge any further.
I have pointed out that of the carpenters who have worked on my house, one had a master’s in philosophy, one a bachelor’s in liberal arts and one a bachelor’s in history.
My friend was working on a master’s in writing, never finished. I’ve read some of his work and it’s amazing. He works as a house painter.
My friend’s husband was a farmer, now a cement worker. He also has a degree, but I don’t know what.
Why does everyone (but especially Cash) assume that talented workers don’t have college degrees?
No, it’s global warming!
When you posted last week about all the rain, I was thinking that you were getting our weather.
We had 2 feet of rain in 10 days, with massive flooding. Then you got it a week later.
Now you’re getting our tornadoes.
Head’s up for next week’s weather. It’s damn hot here!
Hogwash.
I do like a good political brawl. But not many people do, male or female.
I will say that I get into more political arguments with men than women.
My favorite is my Syrian co-worker. He’s a third century Christian (his characterization) who can actually tell you how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
He’s also a Libertarian, but not ignorant, like so many Americans. Think of Marlin, who solemnly tells us that the new book he’s reading proves that the US is run by secret socialists (I wish) who are pretending to be capitalists, or whatever bullshit he comes up with.
Osama (yes, that’s his name) and I have had some doozies of arguments. Now, when we start, the rest of my co-workers groan and try to shut us up.
By the way, when we first started arguing 15 years ago, he was convinced that America was the land of the free. He finally admitted to me that it wasn’t. He went to Syria via Europe and Turkey, and said that the airports in the US were the most oppressive.
His wife still believes. He was running in a triathlon and she made T-shirts for the family with a “Run, Osama, run” on the front and a “The man from Syria will cause hysteria” on the back, which she thought was very funny. He told her that they could not wear those T-shirts in public and she said, (and this is the funny part to me), “Why not? This is a free country, isn’t it?”
For some reason, it bothers me more when idiotic women like Julietta and insufferable post their moronic, misspelled diatribes than when the idiotic men do. I guess it’s embarrassment for my gender.
That’s why I like lbendet so much, I guess.
Are we really gonna have this debate again about the invisible man in the sky who is watching you? Really? Why does this happen every week?
Religious idiots just don’t know when to quit or when they’ve been savagely beaten in an argument (it reminds me of the Black Knight in Monty Python’s Holy Grail).
Apparently their “faith” (e.g. brainwashing) is so strong that they are content to believe the patently absurd and ridiculous against all evidence, because it makes them feel better about themselves. Well, I could believe I’m the Queen of Egypt in order to feel real great about my place in the world, but it ain’t necessarily true. (I’m not even female.)
Jesus H. Christ, please go read some Richard Dawkins (God Delusion), digest it fully, and then get back to me. The God Theory is about as discredited as the Flat Earth Theory, the God Made Earth in Seven Days and It is 7000 Years Old Theory, and the Sun Revolving Around the Earth Theory. Get with the goddamn program. This isn’t 50 AD.
Yeah, like the bumper sticker says, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention”.
I agree, it’s hard to avoid the creeping oppression. I liken it to a net. At first it’s only the periphery, but slowly, the net tightens, and we’re all trapped.
As I said before, because I got this job 17 years ago, I’ve never had to show ID, pee in a cup, give my fingerprints, etc.
But now the new boss makes people take drug tests for workplace incidents. My co-workers were outraged when 47 of them had to take drug tests because they were exposed to a patient with TB! How stupid is that?
I take Amtrak to avoid the airports.
But it’s only a matter of time before someone comes in with meningitis and I have to pee in a cup.
And Amtrak is on the list for increased Homeland Oppression.
We just sacrificed 14 more women and children a couple of days ago, Pucker. To add to the millions we’ve sacrificed in the last 6 decades.
No wonder God loves America so much.
WageL;
When you got you RN license, did you need to have earned a BS degree at the same time? That’s how its been here in Conn. for awhile now. Before that an RN program was 3 years. Now its 4.
I have a few worthless degrees myself. At the time I had the GI Bill and figured, what the hell, I might as well use it. Then I applied to Wesleyan University for a graduate program they had for Vets in the state. I got accepted and got to go to a cool place like Wesleyan.
One thing, I’ve found is that having these degrees gave me a leg up when applying for jobs. Anytime I needed a job I’ve been able to find one pretty quick. Last winter when I wanted to to back to work I got hired the first day out. After looking at my application, before hiring me, the only thing the HR person said was, “So, you went to Wesleyan”.
-Marlin
Clinton also pushed through NAFTA, which caused unemployment to American workers, and threw Mexican farmers off their land, with results that Prog bemoans weekly.
Yes, they use milking machines and tractors nowadays. There’s a rural economy built around the farmer, there’s businesses devoted to not only farming but producing the goods and services that farmers need and to moving and processing the food that farmers produce.
How do I know? My father and I worked in such businesses. My uncles worked in flour mills. And they still exist. And when I go to visit my parents I see a multitude of farms and businesses that don’t fit the giant, corporate agri-business mould. There’s thousands of food and beverage companies in southern Ontario. It’s not all Archer Daniels Midland out there.
And no these rural people are not deserving of contempt. I’d like for them, out of pure spite, to stop what they do for a while. Then the hip urban sophisticates who think they know it all, who disparage flyover country, who heap scorn on those redneck hicks in the sticks, will learn to STFU. There’s nothing like the prospect of starvation to focus the mind.
Mao had a good idea by making the high falutin edumacated go to farms and shovel shit along side peasants. I think it would be a mind expanding experience for people that spend their lives dicking around on keyboards, shuffling paper, pissing away time in meeting rooms in air conditioned office towers, thinking it’s “work” to go to the countryside and spend a summer busting their asses picking fruit and vegetables and tending animals and doing the multitude of tasks, including wielding picks, shovels and pitchforks, that it takes to make a farm run. My bet is that the majority of soft, round shouldered, lungless, sedentary city dwellers wouldn’t make it through one single day. And I GUARANTEE that when they go to the grocery store they will never again take for granted the food that they buy there or the folk that produced it.
“This isn’t 50 AD.”
Pay attention to the things that don’t change, rather than the things that do. They aren’t dating the current era {error?} by Dawkins birth and death. His *puntifications* will be long forgotten after a few more short days. Meanwhile the things that do change are overtaking you naysayers faster than you can adapt.
“To survive the coming fiscal cataclysm, one must be vocal now. One must also put his money where his mouth is. And he had better keep more of his money than the competition.
Modern men know little history. Few people today know the central issue of World War II. The World War I settlement allowed Germany access to the free city of Danzig, a port city. Beck, the Polish Foreign Minister, refused to grant this access in 1939. Germany invaded Poland. So did the Soviet Union three weeks later. Jews caught in the west got trapped by the German Army. Those in the east were trapped by the Soviet Army. Germany’s invasion of the USSR in June 1941 sealed the fate of Jews in Poland.
Poles paid little attention to German politics in the 1930s. Jews in Poland were not concerned with these details until 1939. By then it was too late. They were victims who had no warning.
This is always the fate of those caught in a crossfire.
The average citizen has no real understanding of the underlying causes of booms and busts. He trusts the government. He thinks that those in charge know what they are doing. Yet the evidence indicates otherwise.
There will be victims. The Great Default will affect millions of people who do not understand that they are at risk or why.
I suggest that you mentally identify some trigger points as indicators. When they are set off, one by one, increase your commitment to finding and funding a port in the coming storm.”
http://lewrockwell.com/north/north985.html
Why does everyone (but especially Cash) assume that talented workers don’t have college degrees? – Wage
I assume no such thing.
OK, if you want to know the embarrassing truth, I’ve never been to a real college. Not even one day.
I barely made it through high school, then got married at 18 and had a kid.
Eventually, I went to a community college and got an ADN degree. It’s a two year degree.
So I get to be one of those people who sneers at pointy-headed intellectuals who have degrees but no common sense (as defined by me).
Damn smart people!
TrippTicket-
I just spent 5 minutes scrolling up and down this thread looking for Tripp’s ONE (ONE!) post for the week so far. It’s short and worth reading – but basically he’s saying it’s too hot in his house to do much computer work – so he might not post to CFN again this week.
And – I know freedom of expression, no shortage of electrons, and all that BLAH, BLAH – but some of you people need to post shorter posts and not overpost big blocks at once to create “scrollover country.” (tm asia)
– principally I’m talking to Spider and y’all know who-
But, anywho – I gave up finding Tripp’s post and looked up his latest blog entry.
http://smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com/2011/06/im-sorry-mr-deere-but-were-going-to.html
Like most all of his stuff – it’s well worth a read. And I know he’d appreciate it if some of us would post some comments. I will as soon as I pick a login ID to use.
Regarding this particular post of his, though. I get the feeling that Georgia agriculture is being “set up” by the National Chamber of Commerce and other groups because of the new e-verify law.
The e-verify law doesn’t go into effect until July 1 – but we’re already seeing local stories about it.
Basically instead of “oh, the humanity” these stories are written around “OH, The Vegetables!”
Rotting in the fields – and all that, for lack of labor. Even though the GA ag operators could have plenty of legal Mexican (and other) labor if they’d go through proper channels and cough up a little more money.
Hell, for $12/hour I’d get my sorry white butt out there if I needed the money.
And the growers could always convert to a “pick your own” operation. Or they could just give the produce away – to me that’s far better than letting it rot in the fields.
And rotting produce is NOT AT ALL uncommon in modern big ag, anyway – for various reasons.
Labor shortage is just a NEW reason that media, the COC, and advocacy groups are going to love to play with, I fear – to the detriment of honest immigrant rights and common sense.
Well, I live in Illinois, remember? It’s all Archer Daniels around here.
Jim wrote a provocative column this week, and it generated quite a reaction, which was probably the goal from the beginning.
I’ve been going over them. It looks like, even in CFNation, Sarah Palin has some support.
I remain hopeful.
Rthunder, Ozone, I see you guys made it thru
Well, Cash, you continually set up manual labor and education as mutually exclusive things. How can you say that you don’t?
You just posted that educated people should get out and do some farm labor. Which is the first time I’ve seen you say that the Cultural Revolution was in any way worthwhile, by the way.
Isn’t that implying that educated people don’t do manual labor?
“How stupid is that?”
Have you drawn a line in the sand yet? If you go along with stupid… you know the rest.
And speaking of horror stories that immigrants tell us-
I mentioned before that my sister-in-law’s Ukrainian mother told a different story to me than the one she told her daughter.’
My Syrian co-worker told me horrible stories about his family in Syria way back when I met him.
Then, years later, I was reading a book about the Middle East, and realized the significance of his family name. So, of course, I confronted him.
Then, he told me a totally different story.
Which, recently, he apparently forgot that he told me, cause he went back to his original story, the one that goes down so much better here in the good ol’ USA.
“Or they could just give the produce away – to me that’s far better than letting it rot in the fields.”
More ancient answers to modern problems. If only we believed {much less knew about} our own history.
“When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. Leave it for the poor and the foreigners living among you.”
Turk old bean I’ve seen religious people that are idiots and I’ve seen non religious that are just as idiotic. Personally I wouldn’t assume that the religious are all idiots.
In this place, Toronto, if you work in the corporate world as I did, you dare not whisper a WORD of religion if you happen to be religious. Not even if you work for an American company whose American HQ is pretty much Southern Baptist and whose employees freely talk about what they’re doing in their church groups. That part of corporate culture didn’t cross the border.
In this place the word “Christian” is synomymous with “hypocrite”. If you are “evangelical” then you are an idiot.
As an aside: no one dares say a word about Islam or Hinduism in public for fear of our ferocious Human Rights Tribunals which can and will destroy your life. But I digress.
So some people that I know privately professed religious faith. What some of them told me was that they have the sense that there has to be more to the world than meets the eye. I’m not religious myself but I’m not intolerant of such people, nor do I think they’re idiots. For all I know they could be right.
As far as “evidence” goes there’s all kinds of “evidence”. The type of evidence that passes muster in such fields as sociology would get laughed at in a physics lab.
The evidence that religious people that I know point to are the accounts given in religious texts. Accounts like the story of Moses at Mount Horeb or Saul on the road to Damascus. These two guys they they saw and heard some really unusual things and the stories in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testaments are purported to be a recounting of their experiences. Whether or not you accept such “evidence” is up to you. Not replicable in a lab you say? Neither is a lot of eyewitness testimony given in a court of law.
So We’ve got a Weiner and a Boner in the gubmint’. What’s next? How about we throw in a couple hundred assholes too. Oop’s gotta go. The NSA is out back again in the trees.Sum bitch’s be eyeballin’ me alot lately. After the tornadoes yesterday it is a No. 10 day today. cloud free blue sky, a cool breeze, and about 70 degrees. Time to man the shovel’s men!
Isn’t that implying that educated people don’t do manual labor? – Wage
Nope.
Many, not all, educated city dwellers don’t do manual labour and way too many educated city dwellers disparage people that do manual labour for a living especially country people. I’ve seen it and heard it over and over and I’m mighty sick of it.
I’m an equal opportunity religious skeptic. Hinduism and Islam are just as absurd as Christianity.
Ancient religious texts must pass my filter of reasonableness. I’ll believe Jesus existed and preached peace and love, but walking on water, bringing back the dead, and resurrection don’t pass my idea of what is possible in this universe.
You also appeal to evidence, but this is irrelevant. Faith, by its very nature, is not based on it.
You would start to see some whacky things too if you spent a couple weeks in the desert on top of a rock without any food. 😉
You are Canadian not you are? I don’t think that amount of money would go far for the “requirements” of the U.S. Navy. In point of fact that Royal Canadian Navy was the third largest navy in the world in 1945 at the conclusion of the second world war.
To my way of thinking most of still vast budget you mention, or $35 billion Canadian funds over a period of twenty years will largely be wasted for the simple reason that probably none of the proposed surface vessels will be able to launch fixed wing aircraft such as the Canadian forces Hornet, which is the Canuck version of the navy/marine FA-18 dual purpose jet.
In today’s world every surface combatant should, in addition to containing all the weapons systems of a conventional destroyer also have a full length flight deck so that at least that vessel could operate independently with some air support. To spend all that money on something which cannot launch fighter & attack jets is a waste of the quite expensive platform, and especially so in a navy which is no longer buying surplus carriers from the British, as the Canadians formerly did. The Australians have two aircraft carriers on order from the Spanish and both of those carriers will also be capable of launching amphibious assaults out of a wet well in the stern.
messy, with every reply to me, you solidify my skepticism of religion and religious people. In essence, what you say is irrelevant and makes no sense. So Dawkins is mortal and will die. BFD. So are you. What on God’s green earth does that have to do with the truth or falsity of his arguments? Absolutely nothing! Darwin is dead, too, and evolution is still a fact. I could go on and on about dead people whose ideas are still valid, but it would be beside the point. You’ll still reply with some string of pseudo-mystical inanities.
How come you think that paying no income tax is like the greatest travesty in America? These people still pay all the other payroll taxes, like SS, which are considerable.
Though I essentially agree with you. Zeroing out of income tax through deductions for around 50% of the population doesn’t seem very fair to those who do pay. It seems like there should be some bare minimum. But it isn’t like the exempt half isn’t paying all the other taxes, of which there are many. They still pay sales tax, for instance, and property tax (even if indirectly through their rent).
Also, what’s with the insults when I’m just asking for clarification? No wonder you’re always getting banned. You can’t even answer a simple question without name-calling. It’s pathetic.
I think your time and number of posts is roughly equivalent to mine, and that’s fine. This is a place where interesting discussions occur. But isn’t it kind of ironic that you’re calling me and other posters useless and lazy when you’ve posted here consistently and copiously for years during the work day? I mean, we’re all here messing around to avoid doing some work (aside from the retirees…personally I’d be out fishing).
Why do you think that you’re so special and everyone else is some kind of leech on society? It makes no sense. You’re right here along with the rest of us, and if you want to prove that you’re so productive and useful during the day, then STOP POSTING HERE from 9-5. Otherwise, shut your trap, because you’re in the same boat.
I think there’s some confusion in defining “faith”. I think that what people call “faith” they really mean “trust”. As in they “trust” that religious texts are not a total pile of crap.
And they have “faith” that despite what seems like a really shitty world where the worst of us too often come out on top, there will be justice not only in the next world but in this one too.
There’s a wide spectrum of interpretation. Some people see these texts as recounting historical fact, others, like myself, see them as partly tribal saga, partly stories to make points about human nature, the nature of the world we live in etc.
Personally I don’t think the writers gave the slightest shit about historical fact. I don’t think that was their shtik. Even if you don’t buy the water into wine hocus pocus it doesn’t mean there’s nothing for us to learn from the writings.
I think a book that gives the meaning of “faith” a pretty good work out is Lord of the Rings. Hardly a peep of religion in it but a really religious book nonetheless. At least it gives insight into the thinking of the writer. He said he just wanted to write a rip roaring yarn but I think he probably inadvertently made it into more than that.
“….T-shirts for the family with a “Run, Osama, run” on the front and a “The man from Syria will cause hysteria….”
-wage-
That is freakin’ hilarious, Wage!
I do think you and I – one of us, not sure which one just yet – would have to be more careful in person with our political arguments. We both seem Absolutely Certain that we Know Absolute Truth.
We’d have to have a “safe word” or something so we could politely disengage before you started choking me – just before my wife had to pile what was left of me in the truck and drive me back to Georgia.
I think Marlin is just as passionate about his Certain Truth, too. I wouldn’t use a word like “bullshit” to his face unless I was grinning like a Cheshire Cat – probably wouldn’t use it in print, either without extreme provocation – but that’s just me.
Changing the subject – damn it’s hot.
96 degrees in the north Georgia mountains.
I’ve been out mowing, weeding, and watering.
And applying a heavy layer of mulch to the grapes, blackberries, and blueberries – hoping to water them less often.
Without electricity to run the well pump – I’m not sure I could grow much of anything up on this mountain. There is NO WAY that Georgia (for example) could support its present population, even, without oil and electricity.
That’s my thing with immigration – the more folks in the US, the worse it’s going to be for us AND the world, someday – maybe fairly soon.
And I don’t think the global warming deniers are going to be able to keep it up if we have ANOTHER decade of newly set record high temps worldwide.
– That’s ridiculous – of course they can keep denying – until it is far too late.
“Better yet FUCKTARD, show me the nirvana where BIG government and confiscatory taxes reign?”
Um….Sweden? I hear it is pretty nice up there, a real socialist paradise, but kinda cold during the winter.
So if small government and low taxes are so GREAT, why don’t you move to a country where this is the case? Afghanistan comes to mind. Heck, the central government there doesn’t even control much territory past the borders of the capital city. That’s a truly LIMITED GOVERNMENT, a real FREE MARKET paradise!
Get moving…I’ll send the chopper. (Don’t forget your AK.)
How simple do you want it?
One man who died is still alive. He is so appreciated billions worship Him, after 20 centuries. You can remain ignorant of this, and go right on to perdition, despite all attempts to make you aware of the consequences. Repent {change your mind} at your own leisure.
Now I get it. The pissant is an incredibly valuable member of society, without which everything would fall apart. Apparently he paid like $500 billion in taxes last year. He personally floats the US government.
But anyone who disagrees with his pronouncements is a useless leech and freeloader. Because he says so.
Now that I’ve gotten that straight, I’m gonna sign off for today. Have fun. See ya on the flip side.
BTW we’re also buying about 65 billion worth of F35 fighters.
Essentially what we have here is a country divided by region. The East thinks it’s oh so hip and intellectual to disparage Canada, to sneer at any mention of a potent military capable of defending our turf. So we had a party in power for way too long, based in the East, that was actively hostile to the military and when they didn’t ignore it, they dismantled it.
The West, happily, isn’t quite as deluded simply because the 1960s counter cultural revolution didn’t sink as deep roots in the West as in the East. So, for example, (as an aside) while hating the USA is taken in the East with mothers’ milk, it is much less common in the West. Our govt owned national broadcaster did a story several years ago where they went to Alberta with the intent of seeing whether anti Americanism was as common out there. To their wide eyed astonishment it wasn’t.
So our newly elected govt is based in the West with an Albertan Prime Minister. He, like anyone with a stick of sense, understands that this is not a friendly world, where you have a resource rich country in a resource poor world you cannot hold your military defencelessness as a model of virtue. You might as well tattoo the word “lunch” on your forehead.
As far as not having carriers, I would say that given financial constraints, the best we can hope for is a navy that can defend port cities and coastlines. I would also say that if it’s fine for the UK and France to be nuclear armed then so can we. A lot of people here think we have no enemies. But, I think, given our small population (34 million) and our huge land area and quantity of resources we won’t have long to wait.
“Because when you have almost 50% who are not contributing they don’t care HOW income tax dollars are being spent.”
=================
I think the number of corporations not contributing their statutory share of taxation is much higher than 50%. Corporations specialize in not paying taxes. They hire special lawyers to get out of paying taxes. They put assets offshore to not pay taxes. Then they expect more loopholes, more subsidies, from the middle class who is paying taxes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/01/corporations-taxes-rate-report-_n_869922.html
Like Warren Buffet said: “My secretary pays a higher tax rate than billionaires like me do.”
“The report found General Electric Co, American Electric Power Co Inc, DuPont Co and nine other companies had a negative 1.5 percent tax rate on $171 billion in profits over the three years studied.”
=============
You know what “a negative tax rate” is?
It is theft.
Stealing from and bumming off the middle class taxpayer.
$171 BILLION IN PROFITS and a “negative” tax rate!
And pissant is concerned about “spending” because “Sammy” gets too much? The truth is that taxes are at a 60 year low. Sammy is being starved, which was Grover Norquist’s and the Republicans’ plan all along.
TAX THE RICH!
Instead of allowing rich corporations to steal from the legitimate taxpayers.
Oh, but they “create jobs” … really? Where are the jobs? Unemployment is at record level because tax rates are down. Go back to Reagan era tax rates.
End of rant.
Your comments are very fascinating. There traditionally was a Canadian sort of Tory which was naturally anti-American as a hangover from the War of 1812. It was suchlike that also willingly participated in the burden of Empire by sending Canadian troops to South Africa then also to France before Canada became truly independent. Once entirely independent Canada also supported the Commonwealth then later the UN by sending troops to both WWII and Korea.
And then also it is not widely known that French Canadians tended to be less anti-American and frequently went to the USA to work, many of which settled especially in New England.
In my opinion Canada could do quite a lot for its Navy by simply building expendable light aircraft carriers to commercial or merchant standards rather than going with the ultra fancy American and British approach to naval shipbuilding. The Australians have adopted this approach by strikingn a deal with the Spanish to copy their newest carrier. I think that light surface combatants without long flight decks are a waste of money as a consequence of being overspecialized. Most merchant ships are quite large now so the concept of confining your fleet to quite long yet lighter tonnage limited capacity carriers shouldn’t be a problem with the new planes in the pipeline such as the one you mention.
But most of all, the Canadian navy needs nuclear submarines. They were going to build a squadron of ten nuke boats to police the arctic towards the end of the cold war but then canceled the program once the Soviet Union collapsed. That was a foolish move. There are also incredibly advanced prolonged submergence boats with Sterling engines rather than nukes available from both the Scandinavian consortium and the Germans. But nuclear attack boats are the best.
I don’t think that Canada needs a very large army though, unless Sarah Palen gets elected and decides that Amerika needs liebensraum. Sieg Heil! FYI: I own a 3X5 nyglo Canadian flag and fly it off of the front of the house each and every Canada Day in honor of all my dead homies from canoe camp up in Northern Ontario.
You mentioned trying to find Trippticket’s one comment on this page. If you are using Internet Explorer to view this blog, just click “Edit” at the top left, then click “Find on this page” — a new toolbar will open under your other toolbars at the top. Enter “Tripp” (or any other word) and it will tell you how many times it occurs on this page. Then click “Next” to jump to each occurance. It took about 3 seconds to find Tripp’s post.
I don’t know about other internet browsers, but assume they have a similar ability.
Enjoy.
“As in they “trust” that religious texts are not a total pile of crap.”
Trust is a personal thing, meaning, it is placed, or should be placed in a person. A person who has proven themselves worthy of trust. Not an institution, not a text, not even an idea. Can you trust a person you have not met, on the word of another person, who you trust? How about two? How about a hundred? A thousand? Ten Thousand?
I have spent over forty years verifying that God has told me the truth about what He is doing in the earth, as it comes to pass; while listening to asshats complaining about every little silly thing you can imagine that doesn’t make a bit of difference in the real world of people’s lives.
Take my word for it, if you can’t trust any one else.
edit – find “trippticket” – next
Son of a Gun!
Worked like a champ in firefox, too, Puzzler.
Don’t know how I’d missed that for all these years.
Thanks dude, or dudette!
I’m going back out in the heat.
Wish me luck!
From:
http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/05/memorial-day-enter-hitler-release-20.html
“That’s another reason I’m retiring … in academia
one works with too many “eggheads” who could not
possibly hold a job in industry. I wrote nearly
500,000 lines of code in industry before I ever
started teaching. If I’m proud of anything, it’s
that my students from the past tell me that I
actually focus on real CODING that resembles stuff
they actually use on a job.”
When my mind is not processing my normal insanity: like for example I was thinking about how the Free Will to Chained Will converter operates, also how the symbol to frozen Free Wills creates Matter, or circuits where Free Wills contrast each other and create Matter and solids, but how the limit of these Free Will entities tending towards zero (I could never understand why on earth they didn’t think of using mathematical analysis applied to concepts and words, and symbols and denotations as these are just indirect numbers, and as all bring an indirection, all is a denotation and all is essentially a religion which means a reflection of Metaphysics, and so on), can create a fluid, and how a picture can reflect a Judgment or Impulse to activate a Target based on Success of a Free Will Winning the contradictory element that is the only one that exists, etc., I like to think about how wrong all of the economists really are.
Anyways, this stuff has been running in my mind for a few years now.
There is no way that a computer program can need 500,000 lines of code, that program is a huge pile of crap, is totally inefficient, is insanely unproductive. In fact software is the most unproductive endeavor ever, really efficient and really necessary programs only need a few hundred lines, all else is a huge inefficient contraption that reflects all the contrasting will powers, all the people stuff, and as people suck so much, are such huge total turds, they create horrible software. Software should have followed the model of hardware, well written, excellently documented, etc. But there is a political and ideological reason for this: if all of those man hours spent on software were serialized, accumulative, added up, aggregated up into real productive results, collective results adding up like Rockets to Mars and Skyscrapers, you would have to fire millions of software people worldwide as simply not needed, simply noise, simply not necessary.
In fact we have a huge increase in negative productivity as the system becomes optimized, a real contradiction, but only to keep people at work. They know that by really applying all of the technical results available as they should be you would have to fire literally tens of millions of people worldwide, but in order to not do this (the system is already killing so many jobs anyways), they have a desperate need to create huge inefficiencies to keep fake and unnecessary jobs. So all of this talk of increasing Productivity really means, be as inefficient and as contrasting as possible, create as many problems and confusion as possible, create as much negative productivity as possible to keep jobs that could dissappear by the millions in a minute if they really wanted to. Hence all the office meetings, contrasts, changing standards, horrible software, lawyers, you name it.
So this Technological Economy has a race condition going on within itself: how fast optimizations killing jobs are produced against how heavy negative productivity can protect fake and not needed jobs. But, in the end, the optimizations will win, corporations just have too much profit they can make by hosing people, that is why effectively just giving out free salaries would make the economy even way more richer, we have a relationship where less work creates way more wealth than all of the negative productivity work now operating.
So the lazy and free loaders and those getting handouts are actually the most productive “workers”, actually means that those people are contributing enormously more to the wealth of the economy by not messing up everything, so actually we have today a negative relationship: less work is equal to more wealth generated, not the other way around, but the economists still reason with 18th century factory models, go figure.
Let’s face it folks, Palin and Obama and most (if not all) of the rest of them in the political limelight are fabrications. If we are to be brutally honest, most of us are not “connected” in the DC circles where we might possibly know what these people are in reality. We see and react to the fictions that are arranged for us by the media’s bosses. I mention this not because I think that many JHK readers are not aware of this disheartening fact, but rather because I tire of the maunderings of the few who, despite the clear eveidence that the whole political landscape is a farce and a charade, still feel obligated to vigorously support what they think is their horse in this utterly rigged race. I hope those to whom I refer know who they are. One, for example, is a fatuous prig who regularly displays his abiding ignorance by feigning erudition – the one who has taken on the name of an ancient Hindu king. But he is only one of a larger coterie, so I am not suggesting that he is alone in his blind support of (what he this is) his guy on the scene.
I repeat, all the cast of characters on the political stage are fictions. If you disagree, please inform me of one who is demonstrably “real” and explain how you came by this assessment. I am quite willing to be wrong, in fact I would actually prefer to be wrong. My assessment of the situation is bleak, so being wrong could be a blessing.
Odd. Being an old blue collar (union guy, maintenance painter for Nabisco) my Dad had a lot in common with Archie Bunker. And, was a devoted fan. I don’t know if it was a product of aging, but he really started to mellow out during the Archie years.
Dad has never been very forthcoming (about anything) but I’d say he doesn’t have a prejudiced bone in his body. Kind of an anomaly, given his life. I don’t know where he got that from. Growing up not speaking English til he hit kindergarten? Being neighbors with a Mexican family who were also first and second generation Americans? Leaving home at 14 and riding the rails til he landed in the CCC? WWII and being at the liberation of Buchenwald?
When they opened the Nabisco plant in North Portland after WWII, they hired everybody. Whites, Blacks, Mexicans, Jews. And, everyone had to get along, or you were out on your ass. A Japanese trade delegation came through in the 1950s, and when they got home, sent Dad a case of Saki. What the hell was that all about? They were impressed with his brushwork?
There was a secret to getting a job at the Nabisco plant. The employment office opened at 8:30 a.m. They’d politely take applications all day, but any that came in after 9am were tossed in the trash.
Simply adding iodine to salt has made a big difference in IQ in remote Asian countries.
I think high stress in the womb, or during early childhood can have an effect on I.Q. Unstable family relationships has to be very stressful.
Teenage girls who have babies are just plain stupid to begin with. (Excepting those who used birth control, but it failed.)
SJmom
There’s a lot of things I don’t “Grokk” either. And, electricity is one of them. My secret advice? Kid’s books!
I needed to hook up a doorbell. Battery job. Found how to do it in a kids book. Clear, simple instructions WITH pictures.
Head for your local library or Goodwill Store. Some libraries keep their kid’s nonfiction as a separate collection, and some file it right in with the adult non-fiction. Usually, it’s a matter or space and layout.
If your library uses the Dewey numbering system (most do) it will be a 500 something. Just look for the 500s. It’s where most of the science is. Usually, the kid’s books will have a “J” on the spine.
There are a couple of books or at least one with titles like “Physics for Poets”.
Agreed Wage. There are working guys out there with degrees. I read books by them all the time. But none of the working guys in my world have degrees or write books. I consider myself lucky to call them friends.
Also alot of produce is missed as the harvesters are going fast. A second and slower work thru is well worth it. Used to be called gleaning.
Spiders given psyilocybin make more intricate beautiful webs. But if given too much this ceases and the webs built are sub par. Is this a judgement or simply a fact? And what does it say about the brain? If just physical, it therefore is subject to Darwinian Laws. Thus racial differences are not only possible, but to be expected. The strange thing would be if there weren’t any differences…
So everything you said was untrue? Or was it True then but not Now – as if your congress has the magical ability to change reality. Getting laid: makes one sound somewhat egg like.
Also now the powerful Homosexual Lobby is introducing their plans to “queer” as many as many children as possible. They’re introducing faggotry even into math problems. Two daddies + two mommies = how many mommies and daddies.
Good thing that whole thing is falling apart before these evil people could further corrupt Youth. As it is, during this interim period we should evolve new social mores – like seeing public school education as child abuse.
For those of us who dont know….
WHAT EVIL HAS MS. PALIN DONE?
Well, now. On paper, all I have is my high school diploma. Oh, I had enough college here and there. I have enough credits that I’m probably somewhere in my junior year. I once looked into pulling everything together and at least getting an AA. About all I’d have to do is satisfy the math requirements. But these days, they want Calculus. And, I have a math phobia. Oh, I’m good at all the stuff they used to call “arithmetic.” I can do percentages, and all that stuff. But at this late date, I’m just not much interested anymore.
Autodidactic, that’s me.
I did take some on-line classes from the University of Maine, 5 years ago, or so. They were offering an online BA degree in Library Science (now called, sometimes, Information Technology.) I just took the fun stuff that applied directly to my job at the time, like juvenile literature, young adult literature, reference training and I even took the cataloguing course.
But an interesting little side story. Way back in the dark ages, like the 1960s, I had originally set out to get my degree in Library Science. Which has been a Master’s program, for quit awhile. So, I was working on a BA in Art History, and then was going to go for the MA in Library Science. Ultimate goal: work in the library of an art museum or public library art department.
There were some library school prerequisites that I could take, so I did. One of the classes was taught by a young woman who pretty much laid it out for us. Librarianship became an MA program because librarians wanted to be considered professionals like doctors and lawyers. The whole set-up was basically a gate-keeping arrangement. There really isn’t much in the library racket that you can’t learn on the job.
More places are offering BAs in Library Science, or whatever you want to call it these days. You can even get an AA in Library Technology. All of this is much to the consternation of the MLSs. The Masters of Library Science. Heck, I think you can even get a PHD in Library Science, here and there.
But due to funding issues, I think more then anything else, you now have even branch heads with BAs in Librarianship or, in some systems, a BA in ANYTHING. So, a return to sanity is mainly due to financial considerations.
Having a low tolerance for hypocrisy and a finely tuned BS meter, I opted out of my plan. Besides, real life was calling. Would I follow the same path, knowing what I know now? Yup. And I place blame entirely on my 7th grade teacher, Mrs. McCabe, who spent the whole year nattering on about listening to a different drummer.
Howdy do Wage. I agree the weather is really acting up. However, this stuff does happen from time to time. Luckily we don’t get hit as hard as the folks in the midwest. The differance is we have BIG trees here and when they fall they fall hard. I had a 100 ft sugar maple come down on the garage in ’95. Wasn’t even a tornado. Somthing called a Bowfront? I heard it coming from miles away at about 7 am in the morning. F’ed up all my stuff.I have never seen a twister before, but after the hail storm my son and I saw several funnels dropping down from the sky. They hit big time about 3-4 miles east of here! I like the big weather, It awes me!I feel for the victims, I read a woman’s check book ledger got scooped in Monson and was found in Milton MA, That thing took a serious ride. Today the wind is ripping. Sky is clear and the air is dry. What more could a man ask for? Besides a good woman of course?
How about Ron Paul? Or Kucinick? Of course, you are almost completely right: George Wallace blocked the black kids from entering the school when the camera was on him. Once the phot op was completed, he meekly stepped aside.
Indeed the whole civil rights movement was a masterpiece of media social engineering. The Blacks and their hippy White supporters were never shown destoying property, urinating out on the street, or having sex on people’s lawns – all of which they did routinely.
“DEMOCRACY: A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic – negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard for consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.”
This was an official government definition of democracy in America in 1928 by 1952 it had magically changed to:
“Meaning of democracy: Because the United States is a democracy, the majority of the people decide how our government will be organized and run – and that includes the Army, Navy and Air Force. The people do this by electing representatives, and these men and women carry out the wishes of the people.”
Are your wishes being carried out? When did Democracy go from a bad thing to a good thing?
Where did the Republic go?
“If you establish a democracy, you must in due time reap the fruits of a democracy… with great increase of the public expenditure. You will in due season have wars entered into from passion and not from reason; and you will in due season submit to peace ignominiously sought and ignominiously obtained, which will diminish your authority and perhaps endanger your independence. You will in due season find your property is less valuable, and your freedom less complete.”
In the next few months your representatives will increase the debt for you, your children and your grandchildren. What can you do about it other than complain? Do you want to know what has worked in the past?
“And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts.” Psalms 119:45
She’s Conservative, White and Christian – isn’t that enough?
A reporter actually rented a house next to them in Wasila. Palin warned him to leave her family alone.
These uncircumcised ones (their hearts) are correct though – she’s not the brightest bulb on the tree. I don’t think she’s totally dumb – I think she has some good “life smarts”. But for high national office, you really should have both this and “book learning”. And even at the level of general smarts – she would need at least a term in Washington as a Senator or something to get the lay of the land, see how things are done, meet some of the people, etc. Two terms would be better.
A bit more on edu-macation. I weep that we’re loosing our cultural references so fast. The other day I was in an antique store and saw a nice blue and white plate with the old Pricilla and John Alden story on it. A scene from a Longfellow poem. “Speak for yourself, John Alden.” Who knows anymore what that’s all about.
My mother was the Valedictorian of her very small high school in a very small Minnesota town in the 1930s. From her I learned about Longfellow and Edna St. Vincent Millay (burning your candle at both ends.) She had a full scholarship to the U of Minn., but turned it down. Couldn’t bear to leave Mummy and Daddy, and WWII came along. I think life called her,too.
Even my old blue collar Dad, who left school at 14 could reel off great chunks of Robert Service, both the straight text and the balderized version (“…and there on the floor, with his ass-hole tore, lay Dangerous Dan McGrew…”)
But, I suppose every age casts off it’s cultural references. We just seem to be doing it at such a clip.
Vlad, take a chill pill man,
The backs and their hippy whitesupporters were never shown destoying property, urinating out on the street, or having sex on people’s lawns – all of which they did routinely as u say.
I know whites who are shit, piss in the streets, and have sex in their cars. F them, I think just about everybody here is sick of your BS! And as I side note, please come by the house and eviserate me. I will eat your fuckin’nliver with fava beans and wash it down with my home-made chianta. BITE ME!
Pardon me please. I am having a bad hair day! Vlad it is a luv hate thing. Today I am just generally pissed off. Sorry!
I wish I could correct some of this BS which I post. Push submit and then bow down and submit. No corrections allowed. My spelling and diction are atrocious! apologies to Quistk! hahahaha
“The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer was written by a long-shoreman.
Hmmm….but doesn’t it give you pause that Lady Gaga has issued an edict on this very same subject and has proclaimed once and for all that homosexuality is an innate condition and that consequently sexual orientation is not a matter of choice?
Indeed. I would even go further and say that most if not all of what we see on the international stage is staged theatre. It’s all scripted.
Lady Gaga comment was for Vlad Krandz
-still on fathers and sons-
“I’ve got a 27 year old living at home whose ass I could whip” RippedThunder, paraphrased
True story – I know my oldest boy was 18 at the time, because he was sitting in the back seat next to my wife. I was up front with my other son – 15, driving on a learner’s license. We had been out to eat, Mexican.
For some reason, my kid behind me shot a piece of paper out of a straw into my hair. My wife giggled at him – they know I hate that kind of stuff.
I told him he better not do that again. Before God (god), he did it again. When the car stopped in the driveway, he took off laughing and running. I took off running and laughing right after him. I caught him and tripped him with the intention of pinning him, but he got away.
The boys knew I played some Judo in college – I’d taught them some moves, but we’d never played “for real.”
-Understand we’re laughing this whole time, but we’re getting sort of serious, too. We’ve got this new bull/old bull thing going on in our middle class front yard. And that’s MY pasture.
Somehow the kid gets under me and is just about to flip me. I feel it coming and move into the flip.
It was a thing of beauty – my kid completed the flip and landed on me on the grass, but I had enough momentum to keep rolling right into a perfect pin on him.
“OK, OK, Dad, I can’t breath – I give.”
That night I felt a familiar soreness in my rib cage. By the next morning I was feeling a familiar pain.
Yep – a broken rib, added to my collection.
But it was so worth it.
We’re guys.
But, BTW, RT – that kid is 28 now and hard as nails from a whole bunch of firefighter training. Going forward, any judo with him will have to be on an official mat. (maybe an extra thick mat, even)
Words to the wise?
Jews don’t count as citizens, they never did. Don’t you know that!? They should all go to where they came from. Which according to the most revered White House correspondent and arab beauty extraordinaire Helen Thomas, is.. Poland! (But of-course).
I’m glad you recognize the reality of IQ – it is key in understanding the rise of Civilizations and their fall. The average IQ is by definiton 100 – based on the White average at the begining of the 20th century when this was developed. Now you know how dull the average person is – just contemplate the fact that by definition, half the people are duller still. Further contemplate that 85% of Black Americans are below this average. And as has already been noted – even fairly smart people often have no real intellectual interest; thus their abilities are quite focused and technical – all to make money typically.
From all this we can gather than Civilizations depend on a very small crop of geniuses. And as Whites mix with Blacks, this essential crop of geniuses will radically decrease in number – ultimately threatening the very existence of civilization itself.
Have one of your buddies take the fire hose and stick it up your ass. Turn it on and clean out your brains.
Almost all the rapes are by Muslim immigrants. The Swedish men have been softened by decades of nanny socialism and are too programmed to even notice. Any that do speak up about the genocide of their people are heavily fined the first time and jailed the second.
Luckily there is a growing nationalist movement but it’s pretty late in the day for them. Even without any more immigration, the Muslims will dominate demographically in a few generations. Only a Fascist party willing to expel the invaders can save Sweden – or Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, Britain, Italy ….
Vlad –
1. SJ’s comment and your response have almost no relationship with each other. We’ve got enough posters twisting people’s words into their own agenda around here – don’t you start to make it worse.
2. More importantly – what do you want to see happen in the US of A – as it exists today?
Do you really think all your IQ/race/crime palaver is helping your case?
Glad to help. I’ve had my share of duh moments when someone pointed out an easier way of doing something. Pass it forward and all that.
She wore a meat dress. That kind of kills her credibility as a sage in general.
Her post was about IQ as was my response. You need to check yourself. Palaver? Did you ever check the Black crime statistics as I asked? If not, by what right do you assume I am wrong? This last weekend was full of Black crime all over the South at large Black events. Merchants don’t even want to stay open when these Black events come to town.
You can’t have more than one culture in a Nation. Such conditions are not only unnatural, but unstable. We now have three major cultures and a number of large other groups – Asian, Native American, Muslim. What do I want to happen is irrelevant. The question is what do you think is going to happen given the craziness of all this? It can’t end well. Wishing that it will wont change anything.
I would point out to you that as far as I know, none of us on here actually knows anyone else, so, anybody can say anything, who knows how much of it is true? I personally thought Bustin was nuts when he started going on and on about atheism. But I feel almost all of these atheists are mediocre intolerant prigs with no imagination, that’s me.
asoka once said he was over 80 years old, then not too long ago mentioned dodging the draft in the Vietnam era ??
Anyway it’s Jimbo’s website, he’s the professional writer.
Your anger protects your ignorance and you ignorance props up your anger – a bad combination. I suggest you get the help you need.
Spider/old6699;
Dude, you’re really going off the deep end. I fear for your sanity.
PoC (Georgia), RThunder and Ozone (WMass), Luke (LLBooks, NW USA) … I can’t tell you guys how much I Iove reading your posts. I don’t put much stock in the news media anymore; I feel I get a feeling about whats really happening in different regions of the country by what you guys write. Also, think of the wide geographical distance between, say, PoC and Luke, thousands of miles, yet a common culture, language and outlook exist. That’s why I love the USA so much.
There are others here, too, SJMom and WestCoast among the best.
BBHeadMarc, I like to hear you assessment of the (decline of) the British Navy. Wall street Journal and Financial Time had a little bit about it recently. Apparently Harrier jets, Carriers and Submarines deCommissioned. Do you remember the Ark Royal comin’ round? Those sailors could fight and drink like anything. Now I guess GB doesn’t even have one Air Craft Carrier. We (USA) seem to be pretty much on our own now when it comes to keeping the sea lanes open.
-Marlin
Bustin is a superb writer and of no mean intellect. Thus it’s amusing to see him so casually reverse himself – unless his tongue was firmly in cheek as I suspect. My post was just poking gentle fun at one who was already doing the same to himself.
If I fall for a woman, I assume/pretend (even to myself) that she is one of the few glorious exceptions to the general mental/spiritual mediocrity of the Female Race.
Men produce far more idiots and criminals and more geniuses than Women. Since it’s easy to see what’s below you but not above, women know about the first truth but not the second. Women are by and large in the middle – mediocre. (also to be fair, there are FAR more idiots than there are geniuses.
Asoka said his mother was 84 years old. That would make him somewhere in his 60’s.
He sounds like the type who would have dodged the draft.
-Marlin
“asoka once said he was over 80 years old, then not too long ago mentioned dodging the draft in the Vietnam era ??”
==========
ctemple, I never said I was over 80 years old. If you go back and check my post, I said I have seen 8 decades and I listed them: 40s,50s,60s,70s,80s,90s,00s,10s. Count ’em. I have been alive during eight different decades. I am not over 80 years old.
Stop jumping to conclusions.
A Physical Therapist said that in the [80s] PT went from a ‘4 yr course’ [B.S.] to 5 or 6 years and
Nurses here in LA tell me ‘the RN is passe’..
aides and 2 yr [LVN?] are being hired, that Filipinos
have their own Nurses union or association and Nurses uniformly tell me the Filipinos in Medicine in LA have ‘ ruined the profession and make entering a hospital even more dangerous than it already was[which is very dangerous]..
That’s not a judgement but quotes from Nurses who have had to ‘put up with the lies, unprofessional-ism and cronyism of Filipino Nurses’
In other words the Whites and Latinos got stabbed in the back by them.
Far as college goes in the old days (80s)
you didn’t get a 4 yr degree before being a police officer or hotel worker!
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Good work Marlin!
“He sounds like the type who would have dodged the draft.
-Marlin”
=======
I did not dodge the draft.
I was drafted but since I had claimed conscientious objection, I worked two years in a hospital.
Did you ever read “the Best and the Brightest”?
The title says it all. Our continent-sized country has an extremely diverse population, the world’s mightiest military, with thousands of nuclear-tipped missiles, and is the reserve currency for the world.
I would expect that the base criteria for leading this country would be someone with above-average intelligence who has a firm grasp of what’s really happening in the world and knows enough about economics to at least insure that the counry’s and the world’s finances are being managed properly for the benefit of the most people possible.
Anyone who wishes to lead America and doesn’t have at least these characteristics would severely hurt much of the world’s population. Hurting billions to satisfy one’s ego is evil to me.
Let’s fight about something besides skin color, Vlad!
“homosexuality is an innate condition and that consequently sexual orientation is not a matter of choice?”
-bubbleheadMarc, quoting Lady Gaga-
I don’t know, Marc. And I posted this idea once before and didn’t get much response – so I’m taking another shot.
I think human sexuality is a continuum
I think gays who are “repulsed” at the thought of heterosexual sex are kidding themselves using pop psychology – and I think extreme “flaming?” homosexuality is part of the expansive, high growth, phase of human population growth.
I’m straight – but I think if I were isolated for months with one or two guys – and the psychology was otherwise OK – that we’d probably find some sort of human sexual outlet – – that would hopefully not involve my rear end. Consider guys who have homosexual relations in prison but are bi or straight on the outside, as an example. I suspect the ability to “bond?” with other males is programmed into our genes in an atavistic manner – even though western religions, at least, have spent most of the last 2000 years trying to deny it using guilt or shame.
I think most straights who are completely, totally, and violently “repulsed” at the thought of homosexual sex are also kidding themselves – and probably hiding some deep and unexamined recesses of their own psyches.
To end with humor –
I’ve always heard that “all women are only a bottle of wine away from being bi.”
I’m still researching that one.
PoC, about the dearth of people in Georgia unwilling to do farm work for $12 per hour … a guy I work with is from Portugal, goes back each summer. When I asked about the difficult circumstances that country finds itself in, he said in Portugal nobody wants to work on the land, they want to sit on their behinds in Cafes in Lisbon and drink port wine. To get the grapes and olives picked they have to bring in labor from Africa, or else it wouldn’t get done. Sounds like its a problem all thruout the whole western world.
-Marlin
If I choose to run for the Presidency on the Republican Ticket, can I count on your vote? Too short to do a scoll by – gotcha!
Asoka;
My apologies, sir.
-Marlin
Why not just use your own unclean left hand? Or would you be hoping to get in some one else’s butte?
I’ve encountered this kind of attitude before – very alienating. I’m sure you would be willing to take a gentle no for an answer – others with your attitude but more primitive, are not.
There are very good reasons for the military’s old ban on gays. This attitude for one – like if it’s coming from your CO? Good men will be driven out by this and other PC crap. It will be covered up just as the rapes of over a thousand idealistic young women in the Peace Corps has been covered up.
Now after the sucessful raid that got Afghanistan, the “ladies” in the brass want women in the Seals. Bring it on. America is done and the faster it goes down the better at this point.
“they have to bring in labor from Africa, or else it wouldn’t get done. Sounds like its a problem all thruout the whole western world.”
-marlin-
I agree, Marlin – but WHY?
Is it culture.
Is it media?
Is it air conditioning? (one of my favorite theories)
Whatever it is – isn’t it going to affect Portugal’s “labor from Africa” and the United State’s “labor from Mexico” so that we’ll be right back in the same place in one generation or less?
Sorry to flog a dead horse, Marlin.
I just like the way you bring a unique perspective to the table on CFN concerning this issue.
Marlin, no problem. I was in as much danger in my two years of alternative service as a stateside desk jockey in the military was.
It still doesn’t seem fair to me that I did two years of alternative service for my country, but I was not eligible for veteran’s preference (hiring, home loans, etc.), not eligible for GI Bill for education, not eligible for VA hospital care, not eligible for cheap housing on bases when I travel, not even recognized as a veteran in any way.
Quote of the week:
“…the reality based people really don’t stand a chance.”
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/
I thought you went to Canada. Or was that during the Korean War? Dude are you one of the Eternals, a Highlander?
I don’t know, PoC, but Vlad not withstanding, when I see what whitey looks like now, in his youth, the green hair, nose rings, tattoos, skin piercings, cell phone stuck to his ear, Che’ Guvera T shirt on, the future doesn’t look too bright.
-Marlin
I did go to Canada. On vacation. With a passport, showing all due respect to the “legal authorities” … LOL!
The youth of today know who Che’ Guvera is? I would be surprised.
-human sexuality on a continuum-
PoC
Vlad went immediately to DADT vs open gays in the military. I think either is fine – that’s it’s a management/chain of command thing to make it work.
I’m more interested in the idea that there are homosexual males who are so repulsed – REPULSED – by the idea of heterosexual sex that they could NOT do it – regardless of who the woman was, how she behaved, or how long they were isolated with her.
I think that’s ridiculous – a product of cultural conditioning, pop psychology, and an energy ascended culture.
This is pure opinion, obviously. It’s just one of those conversations that I’ve always wanted to have with gay males I’ve known – but haven’t been able to have because of Political Correctness.
Anyone can answer – just be honest with yourself –
deserted island, no hope of rescue, perfect partner, plenty of food, water, and time –
Just one problem – she’s a girl – what to do?
“when I see what whitey looks like now,…..the future doesn’t look to bright…”
-marlin-
So, Marlin, you are saying that “non-whitey?” won’t succumb to these same cultural pressures and become just as useless as “whitey” kids today?
That’s a stretch I can’t make, man.
The more information, the less possibility of knowledge – which is the integration of information. And the more knowledge, the less possibility of Wisdom – which is the integration of knowledge. Thus the modern era is a time of famine in the midst of plenty.
I love youze guyze … 🙂
But seriously, (frankly, Frank… 🙂 ) Other than the scroll-overs, I get a lot out of reading most of the posters, here. Even though sometimes, some of them say things I don’t agree with, or rub me the wrong way, I try and remember the whole person. The whole body of work.
Some of my friends here in town, maybe we don’t agree on some point or another. Those things we don’t talk about. Or, if it comes up, I just don’t respond. The friendship is more important then winning a point.
A couple of times, my best-bro-in-the-whole-world has really pissed me off to the point of considering cutting him out of my life. Then I remind myself that that’s the way I would have handled things in the past, but don’t anymore. Age and 22 years of sobriety tends to mellow one.
Now you rise to a new level of ridiculousness. I’m supposed to disgard all the contents of an entire well-argued book by Richard Dawkins, an internationally recognized and lauded evolutionary biologist, in favor of trusting the assertions of some self-described “messianic druid” posting anonymously on the internet about how he talks to God on a daily basis.
Hilarious! Thanks for the laugh, messy.
Some very interesting observations regarding education and lack of real world experience. John Ruskin asserted that architects should first be sculptors, but that won’t play in this modern architect-as-celebrity world. Still, what a sight to dream about, Michelangelo dropping a piece of marble through one of these celebrity architects “tumors”, as JHK terms them. Anyway, here’s Ruskin:
” I take this opportunity of repeating what I have several times before stated, for the sake of travellers, that St. Ouen, impressive as
it is, is entirely inferior to the transepts of Rouen Cathedral.] But with this very perfection of his work came the unhappy pride of the
builder in what he had done.”
LOL “…that would hopefully not involve my read end.”
Your ass has more nerve endings in it then your lips do. Sit quietly and think about that for a moment or two. 🙂
True story. About 10 years ago (back when I had insurance and a doctor) I had to have the dreaded colonoscopy. Wanting to drive myself home afterwards, and not put-upon any of my friends, when the doc and I were discussing “the procedure” I told him I didn’t really want to be put out. For the above reasons.
He was very hesitant. Said, once they started, they couldn’t stop, etc. etc. I told him that I had had one in college, and knew what to expect. Long pause… “And besides, I’m not touchy about my ass like most guys are.” The man laughed so hard he damn near fell out of his chair.
When I went back for the results, he proudly presented me with a handful of full color glossies of the inside of my nether regions. “What am I supposed to do with these?” I asked. “Take them home and paste them in my photo album?” Well, at least I lightened his day, a couple of times.
“he talks to God on a daily basis. ”
==========
Turk, lots of people talk to God on a daily basis. They are mostly harmless.
Some people hear God talking to them. Those are the ones you have to look out for.
Back when I was a kid, the 50s, even though I grew up in a city (Portland), summer’s weren’t the long idle some kids had.
Up at 4:30 or 5am and down to the school to catch the “berry bus” out to the “berry fields.” I forget the exact rotation of the crops, but we always started off with strawberries. Onto blueberries, raspberries and green beans. Paid by the flat. Even though back then I was the fattest little kid in whichever grade level I was in, I was there. So were most of the kids in my neighborhood.
Weekends it was out to my uncle’s little farm. Milk cows, shovel shit, collect eggs, weed the garden and harvest vegies. I suppose that part of it was work, but with a bunch of cousins around it seemed like fun.
When I was 10 or so, I graduated to the paper route. Picked up the route next to mine when it became available, so I had two. It just seemed like the thing to do.
“Why is it when we talk to God, it’s prayer. When God talks to us, it’s schizophrenia.” Thank you, Lilly Tomlin.
100% agree, Lewis –
“Other than the scroll-overs, I get a lot out of reading most of the posters, here. Even though sometimes, some of them say things I don’t agree with, or rub me the wrong way,…”
I do too, Lew. And I think that here is a place where we can take the disagreements to their ultimate conclusions. In some ways, on CFN as it is right now – the disagreement IS the reason for the postings – the basis for the relationships, as it were. So when I say something that “rubs you the wrong way…” flail away, Mr. Lucan, flail away!
“…it comes up, I just don’t respond. The friendship is more important than winning a point.” -LLB, in the real world with friends-
Point noted, and I may have just learned something. Living in the south – completely surrounded by “conservatives?” – And raised from the cradle to enjoy talking politics –
I think you just showed me part of the reason that I have a hard time getting people to engage over things. Very interesting…
Thanks!
“Hilarious! Thanks for the laugh, messy.”
-turk-
I always suspect that when you start to pervert another poster’s handle – that he has gotten to you in some way.
You need to go get laid some more, Turk. Are you sure y’all are hitting all those chakras every time?
You are not going to argue the religion out of MessianicDruid on here. You’re not going to do it in person. It can’t be done. All the king’s horses, all the king’s men, PLUS Richard Dawkins and a truckload of his books, are not going to be able to do it.
I’m not going to argue the atheism out of you, either. I (not speaking for MD, now, but for myself) acknowledge that you may be right. There is a possibility that you are wrong. I acknowledge this, as well.
I don’t see how this discussion goes a whole lot further. Although I’ll take a shot if you can figure out how to push the issue.
That is all.
Jim,
Please have some regard for your readers and those who have an open link to your site on Yahoo.com. When you post a picture it shows up on the Yahoo sidebar. And when you post a picture of that Palin woman, SHE shows up every time one goes to Yahoo.
And that is more than some of us can bear to look at, in leather or not.
Thanks.
I’ve been reading many internet postings on sea power in recent months because a buddy of mine forwards them to me since I was a sailor then a merchant seaman for a total of 12 years. The British have decided they need large carriers again and are currently building two, the HMS Queen Elizabeth and the HMS Prince of Wales. These carriers will be some 65,000 tons and will carry the new cheaper stealth fighter which has VSTOL capabilities. These carriers will unfortunately have the cheesy ski jumps on the bow which were invented for Harriers. In order to finance this they are scrapping much of the surface fleet. Their only operational carrier currently is the HMS Ocean which is really an amphibious assault ship with a full length flight deck for launching carriers. They are currently conducting raids in Libya using Apache helicopters from this ship.
They also have excellent nuclear submarines including the large Vanguard class missile subs. In order to keep these high value units they’ve drastically downsized the fleet since the Falklands war when they still have some 60 frigates and destroyers.
Their current naval philosophy is to have a small navy but a navy in which the individual units are of the highest quality so that they can operate jointly with the US Navy, since they seem to place the highest value on their special relationship with us. There has also been talk of the new large carriers hosting French air groups, since the French build large carriers as well. The French operate the only nuclear powered carrier outside of the US Navy, named the Charles DeGaulle.
Some interesting observations this week concerning academic pretense and pragmatic competence. John Ruskin was an extraordinarily competent man and yet I wonder how he would have ever been able to express such a glorious understanding pertaining to “of what use” if not for a marriage of academics and earthy experience. Ruskin himself provides a bit of a clue in asserting that sculpture is the progenitor of great architecture in his magnificent “ The Influence Of Imagination In Architecture“ :
http://www.readbookonline.net/read/2781/12000/
Well, maybe they value your friendship, more than winning a point.
What I see on the Net (and in life) is a bunch of folks in a pissing contest. One upsmanship. Life’s (especially from my point of view) too short.
Manners (an old fashioned concept) and custom have a lot to do with it. There’s a line from that old sit-com “Designing Women” (set in Atlanta) which always comes to my mind. It was from a small child. “Not having manners is worse than being poor.”
just click “Edit” at the top left, then click “Find on this page” … etc
=========
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! This is the most useful thing anyone has posted on this blog in a year or more. You have no idea how much time I have wasted scrolling to find stuff.
Refusal to raise the debt ceiling would be a catastrophe for the US.
http://thehill.com/homenews/news/155955-congress-has-little-choice-but-to-raise-debt-ceiling
I must side with the eminent sociologist Lady Gaga when she says that gay people are born not made. Just as straight people are born not made.
Some researchers believe that there are peculiarities to female brain structure as distinct from typical male brain structure and that moreover, gay males have feminized brains which could explain their sexual attraction to males rather than females.
I think that most people are unambiguously one way or the other, know what they like, and have always known what they like.
Like you I am straight. One peculiarity of heterosexuality however is that straight people appear to prefer the social company of members of their own sex, even if they only want to perform the nasty with members of the opposite sex.
Conversely, gay men appear to get along better socially with women than straight males do. I think this could also be explained by brain structure. I have also noticed that quite a few lesbians appear to think that they are “guys”. I had a funny experience with this when as a barber I used to tell women I coudln’t wait on them unless they told me they wanted a boy’s haircut. I ended up with at least ten to fifteen lesbians visiting me for these haircuts and boy did they want boy’s haircuts because one of these customers was actually getting a bald-faded flattop! Believe it or not. Another of the lesbians who ran a gas station enlisted in the Army and became a diesel tech. in the Third Infantry and participated in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. I used to tell the men I cut “there is only one real man coming to Marc’s Barbershop and that real man is a lesbian serving the army making mincemeat out of the Towel Heads.”
LLB and Vlad,
Thanks for the interesting suggestions; I’ll be poking around.
Oh, and that title, “Physics for Poets”? It might have made more sales as, “*A* Physic for Poets”. ;o)
(Seriously though, I read a review that said the “commoner” can understand it if he applies himself. That would be me…)
High School Student Takes on Michelle Bachman Over Creationism
Michelle Bachmann said:
Zack Kopplin said:
It is this kind of wishy washy thinking on religion that I can’t stand.
“Oh, you might be right. I don’t know. Santa Claus could exist. Maybe the Easter Bunny is just invisible. Who really knows? Maybe there is a God or maybe not.”
In all the nooks and crannies of the universe, from the microscopic to the outer reaches of space, which humanity has explored to a considerable degree, NO EVIDENCE has been found that there was some divine creator who authored the whole shebang and now watches us from on high, and when I say evidence, I mean physical, tangible proof that I can see or touch.
The burden of proof is on those making the assertion, not me. That’s how rational argumentation works. You provide evidence to support your claims. Why is religion somehow except from this? Because it doesn’t stand up to intellectual scrutiny and falls flat upon detailed examination. Notice how the druid’s argument boils down to, “Trust me.” And that’s really what it comes down to, in terms of arguments for religion: self-professed holy types claiming some secret knowledge that isn’t readily accessible to those of us who aren’t enlightened (or indoctrinated if you will). Just drink the Kool-Aid. Hmmmmm, it tastes good!
Judeo-Christians are atheists regarding every other deity that ever existed besides their own. They don’t believe in Thor, Wotan, or Osiris. I just go a step further and say that Christianity is complete bunk, also. Why is this so controversial? Because so many millions of people (sheep in Christian lingo) have bought into the lies. There are various reasons, but the primary one seems to be that it makes them feel better about themselves. Christianity arose at a time when life was pretty shitty for most people (Ye Olde Dark Ages), so the idea of being loved unconditionally by Jesus and welcomed into heaven after death was quite appealing. In other words, don’t worry if your life is complete shit. Heaven is gonna be GREAT!
At one time in history, it would have been equally controversial for me to say that the earth orbits the sun and not vice versa. It is perfectly possible for the majority of people to be completely wrong about something. Just because many people believe a certain thing means nothing to me.
As far as I can tell, no one changes their mind about anything on here, except BustinJ no longer hates women. But he didn’t arrive at that conclusion via the discussion on CFN. He found some nice lady offline.
So I’m going to go on discussing whatever the hell I want, as no one ever seems to concede an argument on here (that seems to be a quality of the internet in general).
Is that okay with you? If it isn’t, I really don’t care, but don’t take it personally.
And how much I do or don’t get laid has no bearing on the truth or falsity of religious beliefs. Richard Dawkins, who some call a “militant” atheist, is married to Jane Fonda, so you know he’s getting some good stuff. It would all still be a pack of lies even if I was Hugh Hefner. 😉
Hey, Vlad…drop me a line. I’d like you to meet my gay, black liberal friend. I’m sure you two would get along famously.
-brain structure and sexual orientation-
Could be, Marc. I don’t really have an ax to grind, here – I just want to know WHY. And I can bring it up on CFN to try to get help brainstorming, basically.
So why would the different brain structures develop?
Prenatal nutrition
Stress levels etc, etc.
And what purpose does this serve.
We’ve talked about “gayness” as a relief valve for overpopulation. That’s a maybe, maybe?
I’ve seen the idea as “gay uncles” as supporters of their mothers and/or extended family structures.
“I think that most people are unambiguously one way or the other, know what they like, and have always known what they like.” BHM-
See, this is what’s interesting. Logically – evolutionarily – most men should have a strong tendency to straight with some bi-ness mixed in. Most women should have a weaker tendency to straight with more “bi-ness” mixed in because of the greater importance of female bonding, perhaps – or camp/settlement living vs hunting, gathering, and roving as the males did.
But it seems as though modern culture and the APA forces individuals to skip over consideration of bisexuality – in favor of some strong lesbian or male homosexual CHOICE.
The reason would be that bisexuality implies simultaneous multiple partners. Whereas lesbian/male homosexuality implies serial monogamy – vastly preferred by western culture.
Don’t know – and it really doesn’t matter much in the scheme of things. Just wondering why, you know?
I’ve tried to look this stuff up – but there’s a strong bias to the true lesbian/true gay in the research – so it blocks other research.. Anyone have a good website they already know about?
And I’d still like to hear from a strongly homosexual male on the subject. I was about to ask envirofrigginmental, months ago – but he left CFN before I could get around to it.
Just musing along tonight.
Wife out of town, you know?
So someone explain to me why it was okay to raise the debt limit seven times under Bush but now we absolutely must not do it without drastic spending cuts?
What has changed, besides the political party and skin color of the guy in charge?
I think we can all agree it’s NOT ok. The current levels of all-around debt and monstrous widespread failure to save I mean.. I’m from Canada and I was always adverse to racking up personal. Now the hypocrisy, especially in the US financial ind..
BTW Cash good to see a fellow Canadian on this site. Gather you’re living in Alberta(?) I’m in Montreal myself and just started my first container garden on my condo building roof. Beets, sugar snap peas, cucumber, herbs, lettuce, carrots.
I just reread World Made by Hand. Seriously, most optimistic novel I’ve read in a long while. I’d frickin’ love it if my job was cancelled along with everything else. I’d much rather toil the day away in important, meaningful tasks. There’s a Canada Post strike starting tonight. Many major newssite commenters blustering about not needing regular mail etc. We’ll see.. Couriers? I’d make a kickass foot courier of light mailhaul. I run although D. Orlov would probably consider that activity a waste of energy.
“It is this kind of wishy washy thinking on religion that I can’t stand.”
-turkle-
So, you would prefer me to be definite, Turkle.
Lean just a little closer to your monitor.
Little closer –
Now BELIEVE in ATHEISM!
Dang, that worked! Didn’t it?
I’m just messing with you, turkle. You can certainly say whatever you want to on here. And your stuff is usually pretty interesting – to the point I’ll read it two or three times, sometimes.
I do believe – despite your denials – that atheism approaches Faith with you. You proselytize for it, for example. You think Atheism would benefit any new believer. You think the world would be better off if Everyone would embrace It.
And you, BeanTownBill, Wage, Ozone, SNAFU, and a couple of other atheists – collectively – have pushed me to reexamine my faith for the first time in years, take a look at what won’t stand scrutiny –
And take a look and what I’ll never give up – come hell, high water, peak oil, or global collapse.
I appreciate it, ladies and gentlemen.
As far as you getting laid – that was a joke; although you do seem a little tense tonight, compared to earlier in the week.
You make me think, Turk. I appreciate it.
I wish I could return the favor to you.
“I think we can all agree it’s NOT ok.”
The issue is far more complicated than picking an arbitrary upper limit to the debt. And doing so has the potential to cause massive havoc. I don’t see the point in doing so NOW. It seems to me that getting the financial house in order would need to precede any such ultimatum. If you read the article I posted, even John McCain states that it is really not possible for the US to simply stop borrowing. That’s a massive structural problem (obviously), and I didn’t mean to say that I thought it was “okay.” I am more concerned with the particular timing that was chosen, which seems to be based more upon the Republican tendency for brinksmanship and crisis-making than any really solid reason that we need to do this right now.
“So, you would prefer me to be definite, Turkle.”
It is hard to prove a negative. Some say it is impossible. Though we don’t really live our lives this way. I’m pretty certain that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, as well as the Easter Bunny, and I’ve been getting along fine under this assumption. Though I’m not 100% on this (99.9999% perhaps?). They could inhabit some alternate dimension along with the Tooth Fairy. But I’d put a low probability on it.
It is the same thing with me and God. I suppose some overarching entity could have birthed the universe, but I’m not putting my money on it. You’d think if he spent all that time and effort, he would have at least left a note for us like “Hey, this is God. Enjoy the oil, but remember it is finite!” Or he could have put a “Made by God.” stamp on a few of his better creations (marijuana for instance).
And if he’s really talking to a few people, like messianicdruid here, why isn’t he talking to me? Or my dog? Did I do something wrong? Am I missing the God Communication Chip in my noggin?
I’d like an Instant Messaging session with him, if that were possible. I have a few questions for him about particle physics.
The national Republicans have had the bit in their teeth on the economy and national defense since 1980. When Reagan was shot it got worse. Tip O’Neal was Democratic speaker of the house and he basically said, “We’re done for – we may as well give Reagan whatever he wants.” (paraphrased, but pretty close)
They got their comeuppance under Clinton when Gingrich was running the show for the house republicans.
Why, though? Damn good marketing, and increasing corporate control of the whole government.
Wish I had better news.
This is Rich!!!
Paulo Serodio, assaulted and harassed for his opinion, says he is a white Afro American!!!!
Born and raised in Mozambique and now a naturalized U.S. citizen, Serodio, 45, has filed a lawsuit against a New Jersey medical school, claiming he was harassed and ultimately suspended for identifying himself during a class cultural exercise as a “white African-American.”
“I wouldn’t wish this to my worst enemy,” he said.
“I’m not exaggerating. This has destroyed my life, my career.” (No kidding, look at our lives)
The lawsuit, which asks for Serodio’s reinstatement at the school and monetary damages, named the Newark-based University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and several doctors and university employees as defendants.
Filed Monday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, the lawsuit traces a series of events that Serodio maintains led to his 2007 suspension, starting with a March 2006 cultural exercise in a clinical skills course taught by Dr. Kathy Ann Duncan, where each student was asked to define themselves for a discussion on culture and medicine.
After Serodio labeled himself as a white African-American, another student said she was offended (Oh, so your right to not be offended usurps our right to freedom of speech?) by his comments and that, because of his white skin, was not an African-American.
According to the lawsuit, Serodio was summoned to Duncan’s office where he was instructed “never to define himself as African-American… because it was offensive to others and to people of color for him to do so.”
There is that element as well, and of course much of that sort of activity is furtive, so it is difficult for most people to get an accurate picture of what is going on. My former boss who was gay thought that one-third of married men were at least somewhat bi which is why they’d frequently show up at gay bathhouses. In college I took a class called Sexual Deviancy which was unofficially known as “Sluts, Nuts & Perverts” taught by Professor Troydon at Miami Univ., Oxford, OH.. Very entertaining. My dead boss also knew lots of drag queens and sometimes they’d stop by for haircuts. He would always warn me not to upset them in any way because he claimed that they can become violent when upset. He was an extremely cynical person who never attended high school because he was too busy stealing cars to bother. When he got caught raiding a junk yard one night the judge forced him to go to barber college. He would proudly show off the scars on his ass from the German Shepherd’s bite marks! No day was complete unless I told him with mock gravity that he “was a sick man.”
I think when your wife is out of town is when you should be checking out the sexual services section of Craig’s List to get some strange ladies at the local no-tell motel! Or give Charlie Sheen a call and ask him to recommend some professionals in the Escorts section of the local yellow pages. Just kidding.
‘TBnTB’..Halberstrom?
I didnt like the 1 or 2 books of his I read [or tried to].
Are you saying Palins an Imperialist/Warmonger?
“I think when your wife is out of town is when you should be checking out the sexual services section of Craig’s List to get some strange ladies…”
-bhm-
OK, it’s times like this I’m glad this is mostly anonymous. I thought after I hit SUBMIT that maybe it was a Freudian denial thing – that I had to mention having a wife since I was talking about gay stuff.
Now I’ve got to sign in to CFN and prove I’m still home instead of being in Craig’s List pursuit of “strange ladies”
PoC
sent from my Blackberry
(oops)
Turkle, I am enjoying your posts. I would like to respond to the atheism/God discussion, where you say: “That’s how rational argumentation works. You provide evidence to support your claims.”
It is my belief (and I may be wrong) that humans are body, mind, and spirit. I also believe that, at its essential, the scientific method can be applied to all three. Science consists of:
1) an instrumental injunction (do this experiment)
2) data collection (what did you learn from the experiment)
3) communal confirmation (is it just you hallucinating, or can others also get the same results)
In the phyical world we use our senses (or instruments that extend our senses) to experiment and collect data. If you want to challenge the findings of an experiment involving instrumentation, you first need to learn basic scientific principles, and also how to use it (e.g. mass spectrometry). Scientists usually spend years in that pursuit, especially if they go for a Ph.D. If you don’t spend the time and don’t know how to use mass spectrometry, don’t take the time to learn, and don’t repeat the experiment, then you really have no credibility in that scientific community of experimenters who have and do. Verdad? How can you dispute their data and their communal confirmation?
In the mental world we use our mind to experience and interpret data (hermeneutics). If you want to challenge an interpretation of a literary work, you first need to learn principles of literary analysis, and you need to read the work. If you don’t take the time to learn and to read the work, then you really have no credibility in that community of literary critics who have and do. Cierto? How can you dispute their reading and interpretation and their communal confirmation?
In the spiritual world we experience meditation (close observation of our inner world). If you want to challenge a claim regarding the spiritual world, you first need to do the experiment (e.g. meditate three hours a day for five years). If you don’t take the time to meditate, then you really have no credibility in that spiritual community of practitioners, wouldn’t you agree? How can you dispute their communal confirmation of data and results if you have not done the requisite spiritual experiment?
We need a multitude of epistemological methodologies (at least three: physical, rational, spiritual)
Anyone not willing to practice epistemological pluralism is limited in what they can know. Someone who only admits the physical world as “real” is missing out on the most important things in life.
Of course, as I say, I could be wrong. But so far, my life has been a blast, after I discovered and began using epistemological pluralism as a basis for experiencing life.
If you haven’t run across it yet … a novel about “A World Made by Hand” and a postal service…
Brin “The Postman.” Also made into a movie with …how soon we forget … Ah, ah …Keven Costner. I liked the movie, but loved the book, years before.
P.S., Q. once said I was messing with his head by saying I am an atheist and spiritual.
From my above post I hope my reasoning is evident.
For me there is ZERO contradiction between science and spirituality. (and spirituality has not to do with religion, or invisible supernatural beings).
Because in my view human beings are physical, mental, and spiritual, spirituality is simply an inquiry into myself. Nothing woo-woo or supernatural about it. And no God is needed, thank you.
Hey Vlad , I apologized at 4:26, please feel free to come to Western MA. you fuckin’ puke and I will personally give u a serious beat down! U sound to me like an internet tough-guy about 4’10” with a 2 inch dick. Blow-me dick-wad. I will give u a serious beat-down with a broken axe handle. I am sure you would learn something from it! Maybe I will just let my Yorkshire Terriors chew on your face for a while, They are raised to be rat killers so I am sure they would enjoy the grub!
Hey Vlad? Where the fuck do u live? expect me at your door Friday! I am just gonna ask the NSA guys to track you down. Zay have der ways! Oh, fuck! now I am on the watch list again! GODDAMMITT! :0)
P.P.S. In Western culture, going deep within has been neglected, even tabooed since about 1500 A.D. — downplayed in favor of exploring physics, biology, society, technology: the outer world of science, navigation, nation-building. Western brainwashing makes you say things like what Cash said: it isn’t enough to be good, you have to be good for something: productive. Going within is not productive, therefore it is taboo.
Traditionally the inner world has been seen as a treasure house of riches, love, freedom and divinity. Hindus, Sufis, Zen, Hassidic and Taoist sages see it as an inner gold mine of happiness. I can vouch for this … bliss, baby, bliss. Sexual orgasm falls way way short (and is temporary).
In the modern West, however, the inner world is often pictured as a snake pit of complexes, animal urges, incest, murder, cannabalism and repressed feelings. LOL! They don’t have a clue in the West.
Break with your Western conditioning. Break the taboos! Have some fun exploring your own inner world, the last unexplored continent on earth!
CORRECTION
For me there is ZERO contradiction between science and spirituality. (and spirituality has nothing to do with religious beliefs, or invisible supernatural beings).
spirituality has nothing to do with religious beliefs
============
I am not opposed to people making up their own definitions for words so long as they make it clear that that is what they are doing. Your definition of spiritual or spirituality certainly doesn’t agree with the primary definitions in dictionary.com. Check it out.
“I am not opposed to people making up their own definitions for words…”
=======
Good! Thank you, Q. I appreciate your being large.
And I felt the need to make it explicit just how I am using the word spirituality. Humans are body, mind and spirit (you should have learned that at St. Josephs, it’s a Jesuit thang!)
Spirituality is inquiry into self: looking deep within and getting to know your own human nature at its most essential and fundamental level: bliss, baby, bliss!
By the way, I did look up the word spiritual in dictionary.com and it appears I am not making up defintions for the word:
1. of, pertaining to, or consisting of spirit; incorporeal.
2. of or pertaining to the spirit or soul, as distinguished from the physical nature: a spiritual approach to life.
Nothing there contradicts my contention that human nature consists of mind, body, and spirit.
Nothing there at all about religious beliefs or God.
For those who don’t know, Qshtik went to Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, a Jesuit institution. From their mission statement:
The Jesuit tradition of cura personalis — care of the person — is reflected in the University’s rigorous academic experience; its energetic, compassionate and spiritual campus; and a pervasive focus on the common good. {emphasis added by Asoka}
In your case I guess you didn’t get the full experience of the campus, eh Q?
Right on, Wage. The blatant violation of my rights as a citizen and as an autonomous human being by my so-called elected representatives really does spin me off into a whole different galaxy of pissed off 🙂
The crazy thing is that when I was younger, I never used to care that much . . . I was kind of an “obliviot” 🙂 It was only as I got older and began giving deeper thought to the meaning of life, and my place in the world as an American citizen, and what I thought that meant, as opposed to what it actually appeared to be in reality, that the cognitive dissonance became overwhelming. What I learned in school about America (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, we hold this bullshit to be self-evident, “America, Fuck Yeah!” and all that, yada ya . . . )began banging up against the reality I was observing with my own eyes . . . that the few rich and powerful hold the many in powerless subjugation, through the chains of our own human natures. Love your kids? Want them to eat food and sleep in a dry spot? Do you in fact enjoy food and dry spots yourself? Well then, bitches, time for ya’ll to toe the line, right?
People in high places can get away with all kinds of shit that “little folks” can’t . . . for the few rich and powerful, the electronic records of their credit snafus, their misdemeanor (and felony 🙂 convictions, their penchant for raping the house help, get tidily washed away from the permanent record. And where they don’t, there’s that convenient bought-and-paid-for mass media to control the perception. But for the “little folks”, that DWI from 10 years ago can keep a person unemployed for years and years in an economy with double-digit unemployment . . . hell, I have a friend dealing with that same situation. Jesus H, the gal may as well have committed armed robbery or capital murder, for what good having done her restitution to society years and years ago has done her (and she barely blew a .08 and was actually initially pulled over for a taillight being out, by a cop looking to fill quota). Honest, hard-working good people who may have fucked up in a minor way, in the past, but who have since made restitution and put it behind them, never get to live it down. It’s a damned shame.
But gays reproduce by turning out the young.
Qshtik, I know I have told you this many times before, but it appears you have not yet absorbed the meaning: THE FUNDAMENTAL HERMENEUTICAL METHOD IS PHILOLOGICAL.
In other words, you want to know the meaning of a word, look to its etymology. OK, let’s go with the etymology of the word “spirit” …
Middle English spirit from Latin sp?ritus (“breath”)
Imagine that, Qshtik, breath! Breathing is something all humans do 24 hours a day. It a very human activity. It has nothing to do with God or religious beliefs.
I guess Buddha knew what he was doing in his meditation instructions: follow the breath. Easily accessible 24 hours a day.
I am not making up definitions as you claim. I am going to the heart of the word, to its essence. Breath. Beautiful. Blissful breath. Beatific. Bountiful breath. What could be simpler and more human, more spiritual than breathing? It is downright inspirational!
{One thing, I’ve found is that having these degrees gave me a leg up when applying for jobs.}
Right on, Marlin. That’s the real value I have found in my degrees as well. I grew up dirt-poor in the deep South, but I’ve ALWAYS been a reader. My mom was a drunk, married to an abusive man, and it was my way of escaping the reality of my circumstances, I think. I remember a period of a couple of months once, with no electricity in our house . . . I recall sitting outside at night, reading my school library books by the glow of the street light. Neighbors thought I was out of my gourd, obviously, but I NEEDED that at that time in my life. I didn’t even know I was ever going to go to college until I was around 20 years old . . . the shit never crossed my mind. A friend talked me into it, community college, so I went, managed to finish that . . . then had a job where I was making barely more than minimum wage, doing transcription for a claims adjuster. People there were the same age as me, already had their degrees, and were making a shitload more of money. They seemed to make a huge deal out of “having a degree” and “can’t even be considered for this job without a degree”, so I decided to get the undergrad, because I was pretty sure I could smoke their asses if I only had the creds 🙂
When I applied for grad school, I took the GMAT, and got 98th percentile on the Verbal/writing section of the test . . . them’s Ivy League scores, ya’ll (not so awesome in the math, fairly average, unfortunately 🙂 But I chalk that up to the reading bug. The takeaway here is that those who really love to learn, WILL. The piece of paper is an expensive wall decoration that proves to powerful assholes in charge that you are worth a fuck 🙂
{So I get to be one of those people who sneers at pointy-headed intellectuals who have degrees but no common sense (as defined by me).
Damn smart people!}
Wage, just by reading your missives over time, I get the feel that your non-degreed noggin is fairly pointy in its own right, as well as damned common-sensical 🙂 Great combination, IMO!
One of the finest, smartest people I have ever known was a Harley-riding, tattooed, Vietnam vet pipefitter with a high school education . . . he turned me on to Nietchze and Lao-Tzu. (For Vlad’s benefit, he also had a first edition of “Mein Kampf” on his bookshelf, next to first editions of Rudyard Kipling’s compilations and some awesome H. G. Wells from back in the day . . . oh, I almost forgot, Twain’s “Letters From the Earth”)
“One of the finest, smartest people I have ever known was a Harley-riding, tattooed, Vietnam vet pipefitter with a high school education…”
=======
We all have native-born intelligence (although Vlad seems to think I have less).
I find it helpful to not confuse intelligence with education.
We are born with intelligence, and with any luck some of it survives our education.
Palin’s position on taxation will prevent her from gaining any traction.
Even Republicans are siding with the Democrats on taxes.
Look what happened in NY26: Kathy Hochul won NY26 by defending Medicare and by speaking out about tax equity.
Republicans attacked Hochul on taxes but she won anyway because she would talk to small business owners about the fact that they pay a higher rate than General Electric.
Palin is toast.
{Men produce far more idiots and criminals and more geniuses than Women. Since it’s easy to see what’s below you but not above, women know about the first truth but not the second. Women are by and large in the middle – mediocre. (also to be fair, there are FAR more idiots than there are geniuses.}
Nice. It’s a quite mediocre creature, Woman, which bore you within her body for nine months, gave you life, nurtured you into a (somewhat?) functional human being, and probably never got a goddamned thing in return in relation to the amount of effort put in.
Mediocre, indeed 🙂 Inferior, too, I imagine is the next clause in that ill-fated sentence 🙂 Yes, Vlad . . . you are indeed right about the men/idiots connection . . . the mirror, she do reflect back, honey 🙂
Where’s Myrtle anyway? You really should take a hit off her bong, suck some of that sticky icky deep down, and chill the fuck out, maestro. If you’re nice to her and don’t tell her she’s mediocre, she might share her weed with you, man 🙂
{To end with humor –
I’ve always heard that “all women are only a bottle of wine away from being bi.”
I’m still researching that one.}
Prog,
I’ve sucked down my share of wine (by the glass, by the bottle, by the box 🙂 and I have yet to partipate in a male lesbian fantasy 🙂 Generally, overindulgence in ethanol for the hetero female leads to deep regrets at the choice of man who ended up attached to the fabulous cock in question, shotgun marriages at the Elvis marriage chapel in Vegas, visits to the clinic for antibiotics and/or abortion services, and occasionally a good friend. Rarely does it lead to the deeply desired Nirvana of two chicks in the shower making a Prog sammich 🙂 Hetero IS hetero, man 🙂
Your comments tonite have been unusually cogent. The eye of flesh, eye of mind, and eye of spirit are classic perenial philosophy. I never doubted your intelligence – just your inability to remain objective. You are carried away on a regular basis by your emotions – positive in the sense of idealism and negative in the sense of resentment which leads you into being contrary.
I share you devotion to Motherhood. Thru it women rise to great heights of love and sacrafice – which few men can ever attain. It is their salvation from their natural selfishness and veniality. A good society supports Motherhood for as many women as possible and the institution of marriage which is natural to it.
“You are carried away on a regular basis by your emotions…”
=======
Thank you for your kind comments, Vlad.
I am, indeed, carried away by my emotions. I am passionately in love with life, ecstatically blissful, and inspired … able to take the next breath and the next and the next without taking any of the opportunities for breath for granted.
I am still working on dwelling in that space between the in-breath and the out-breath, that still, small instant of awareness with no thought.
When I am alert enough to watch my thoughts and let them disappear through watching, then I can move to feeling — which is even more subtle.
Those are the three steps of vipassana. First breathing, second thinking, third feeling.
And when all these three have disappeared, what is left is only being. Bliss. To know it is to know all. To conquer it is to conquer all.
Samasati!
{We are born with intelligence, and with any luck some of it survives our education.}
Hi Asoka,
I like to think mine has 🙂 My expensive education is going to be fairly worthless in a Long Emergency like JHK talks about. I’m busy hooking on to the Tripps of the world who can give me real-world, practical advice about “how the fuck do I get this food to grow without Sevin Dust, man?” :)~
On that positive note, I’ll say that it seems that the “plant-thrax” and the Sluggo (both organic approved products) have worked on the fuckers decimating my peppa plants 🙂 I have some jalapenos doing real nice, and a couple of nice fat (and starting to get BIG) bell peppers on my plants, and the leaves seem to be coming back. My ‘maters look great, but I don’t have as many flowers/buds as I’d like to see on the hybrids . . . however, the romas look like they are going to produce a vat of paste, as there are quite a few baby ‘maters going on those vines, and so far the damned critters ain’t et ’em 🙂 My cukes and summer squash are getting flowers, and so I’ll be munching on those shortly too, I imagine. I’ve already gotten a few large bowls of spring mix/baby lettuces out of that bed, and it’s ready for a major harvest again this week 🙂
I’m amazed beyond myself that I’ve had the success I have already had this first year of trying my hand at organic gardening . . . I mean, I really have always had a kind of green thumb, got it from my deceased mom, but I haven’t tried to grow a real garden in 20 years, and my success so far is blowing my own mind. Here’s to many more years of home-grown food!
It is just as Tripp says: NATURE IS BOUNTIFUL!
Work with the life force, don’t try too hard (no need to endlessly till the earth), and you will be rewarded, as you are finding out. Even container gardening can yield quite a bit of home-grown goodies, but soil quality is important.
And there are basically three ways to improve soil organic matter: reduce tillage, improve soil structure (use cover crops to suppress weeds; legume cover crops add nitrogen), and recycle excess plant nutrients. Easy peezy. Enjoy!
Spirit cannot be defined because to define means to equate with something else. Thus God says I am what I am. Does that satisfy you? Would you rather He said I am a Chicken – something less than Himself? What else could He say but what He said?
Supreme Intelligence? That’s angelic in and of itself. Creator? Sure, but is that all? All Good? Getting warm. You see, these are all Names of God. Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam all have an extensive Theology of the Name. But a name isn’t a definition – since there are other names…
Eyetemologically, the Asoka is correct too – the old root of spirit is breath.
OBAMA GROWS A SPINE… FINALLY
The President responded by saying it was vital to have revenues as part of the mix, stressing that a budget can’t be balanced on non-defense discretionary spending or the “backs of the most vulnerable.” Obama added, according to the member, that, “he would not support extending the Bush tax cuts for the top two percent again no matter what hostages Republicans took.”
About fucking time. The Republican tax cuts and wars not paid for have cost us TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
Getting back to the sexuality thing, again.
Years ago I had a friend who used to agonize over if he were gay or not. Whine, whine, whine. One day I finally turned around and said “Look Joe. Men, woman, goats or sheep, to you I don’t think it makes a difference. Hell, I think you’d do it with mud if nothing else were available. Your just Joe and sexual. Deal with it.”
Another friend goes through the same agonizing, but has a taste for chicks with dicks AKA she males. Him, knowing his history, I told him “You’re probably more gay than straight. But you just can’t give up those big hooters, can you?” He thought I’d probably hit the nail on the head.
Humans, in all their variety are … interesting 🙂 .
Well, as long as everyone else is riffing on religion, I might as well throw in my two cents worth.
I have a spiritual life, but it’s mine and mine alone. I don’t talk about it much. Being involved in a Twelve Step program, it kind of rubs off. But I always had a bit of a spiritual bent.
God has spoken directly two me, twice. It was short, sweet and direct. I don’t talk about that much, either. See Lilly Tomlin quote, above.
As far as organized religion goes, it’s not for me. “Organized religion is the politics of spirituality.” But, I think a bit of Sunday School is important for kids. I don’t care which church. There are little moral lessons to learn.
I think everyone should have a nodding acquaintance with the Bible. With Shakespeare, too. It’s that cultural reference thing I was talking about, further up the posts.
On Christianity. Well, something was going on in the vacinity of Jerusalem around 33 AD (or, ACE, After Common Era if you want to get all politically correct on me.) Sure was a lot of smoke, to have no fire.
I read widely about the early Christians and the development of the New Testament. I find this stuff really interesting. The history and archaeology. I had an interesting thought a couple of weeks ago. The Gospels seem to be derived from a common source, usually referred to as “The Q Document.” Undiscovered, as yet. The thought I had was, what if Q was a person? Some storyteller who could recount what happened, over and over, with little deviation?
So Ends the Epistle for Tonight.
Lew, CFN, Post 5, Western Cascadian Division
(PS: Lewis is my faggy evil twin. 🙂 )
Ozone said:
As I’ve said before, ignorance and stupidity are dangerous things, and most especially when wielded as “virtues”.
“Yew must be one-a them ‘reeeeaders’ we hear’d tell of…”
***************************************************
The most common incantation of the white trash
contingent is that “book larnin'” means you lack
“common sense”. Really?? It turns out that
education is correlated with: 1) Less divorce,
2) Children who don’t get into academic or legal
trouble, 3) Less psychiatric illness, 4) Less
propensity to have a rap sheet, etc.. Need I
go on?? Turns out that those eggheads who
READ have enough “common sense” to get along
better in life, have fewer broken families and
marriages, less drug abuse, and so on. Now
THAT is *my* definition of “common sense”.
I’m very, very far from being an intellectual
snob since I believe we’re in a Dark Age and
I just like level-headed people with decent
motives regardless of their educational level.
Yet more and more, I see the young worshiping
displays of MILITANT STUPIDITY like loud and
vulgar conversation in public, women spitting
in public, love of “music” that’s just ear
splitting screaming, and the list goes on and
on.
We’re definitely developing fodder for Hitler
Jugend v. 2.0 because dopey people also have
fewer critical thinking issues and are far more
prone to fall for a superficially charismatic
leader if he’s got a hip shtick. The new form
of something like Nazism will be full of Hollywood
shtick, heavy leather, provocative and gratuitous
vulgarity, … a general “in your face” social
persona.
History doesn’t repeat but it rhymes.
E.
“The author points out that fully one third of humanity is now “surplus” -unneeded as either producers or consumers, and that governments are merging with transnational corporations and profiting from the military-and prison industrial complexes needed to warehouse these people.”
All the more reason to make ourselves useful. As actual net producers, rather than mindless consumers, we become a boon to the human operations left to be attended to in a very different future.
Becoming a useful person to society, in the real, ecological sense, takes time and practice, something our schedule appears to be getting tighter on. But the alternative is far less appealing.
The time is ripe for firing the machines – the tractors, the forklifts, even the Sarah Palins of the world, who would whip us into a frenzy about the same problems without ever offering any sort of real solutions. There’s plenty of work out there, rewarding work, when we start demechanizing the industrial world, cutting out metabolically-expensive middlemen, shortening our food/supply chains, and taking back the tasks we used to take some pride in accomplishing. It really is quite rewarding.
http://smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com/2011/06/im-sorry-mr-deere-but-were-going-to.html?showComment=1307053171149#c4684743168181237210
Cheers!
Tripp
Depends on how you look at it. On the submarine this one guy was called the chicken hawk, because he was supposedly converting people into “queers”, if everyone will forgive the vulgar term. I wasn’t buying any of it then and I’m not buying it now either. Normally, while stuck on patrol and having to put up with the rest of the crew for ten weeks submerged in a 415 foot nuclear powered sewer pipe if someone made unwelcome advances to you you’d simply say “no thanks I’m not gay” and that would be the end of it. Nor would anyone turn anyone in. In those days virtually everyone had something to hide, even if it was only the occasional doobie smoked down on the seawall while in port. So turning people in wasn’t the done thing.
I don’t see how a “chicken hawk” can turn anyone gay and more than a bartender can turn you into an alcoholic. I’m a 20 years’ sober alcoholic and I know that I was always an alcoholic from the first time I got drunk in Cochrane, Ontario when I was 16 and doing the Northwoods Camp Hudson’s Bay Trip to qualify as a canoeing guide. At that point alcohol immediately became the missing ingredient that made my head run properly! Except when it made me crazy, of course.
“It really is quite rewarding.”
This made me think of Middle earth and the practice of enlightened creatures of eschewing metals as inherently evil and embracing wood, leather, twine, even glass as preferred materials for all productive enterprises. Growing things is always rewarding in some way, even if only in watching.
“Ode to Billy Joe” is a good one to listen today. I always wondered what they threw off the bridge.
I love your posts but today I must be the perversely contrarian annoyance that I tend to be and insist that yes, some people ain’t got no common sense. This problem isn’t as simple as it first appears on the surface either.
True, more intelligent people tend to be better adusted and to have fewer problems overall, that much is indisputable. Nevertheless, as people become more abstract and theoretical in their outlook they can embrace exotic philosophies which come to dominate their outlook and have a distorting effect. Of course smarter people are less likely to adopt stupid philosophies.
I think what the much despised redneck contingent is getting at is that perhaps more socially elevated persons are less likely to have practical skills including even changing a flat tire, and more likely to be hiring everything out to tradesmen. Persons who are not practically oriented then can be shockingly ignorant about matters such as internal combustion engines, electricity, and plumbing and to the extent that they might harm themselves or others if they did attempt to dabble in these matters on an occasional basis.
There also may be an element of reverse snobbery operative here as well. After all, if our betters never need soil their hands performing any manual labor then they will most likely be unrealistic about what is involved therein and tend to have unrealistic expectations about how long various jobs ought to take. In my world I don’t like waiting on little kids brought into the barbershop by stay at home mommie because these housewives always want junior to look like little lord Fauntleroy no matter how little or how fidgety in the chair he might be. Sometimes you have to tell them that that’s the best you can do under the circumstances and if they don’t like it there’s no charge but then please take the hint and don’t come back again because YOU’RE A PAIN IN THE ASS. It’s always easy to have an uninformed opinion when you’re not the one doing the work.
The last time I checked the gospels were all different one from another! Yes, the early Christians are fascinating, but “where there’s smoke there’s fire” doesn’t necessarily apply here. The smoke of the gospels really emanates from the ancient Egyptian religion and the Egyptian trinity. You really need to get your hands on a copy of “The Pagan Christ” by Tom Harpur. Then check out “The Jesus Mysteries” by Freke & Gandy. Both of these books will blow your mind.
“It’s always easy to have an uninformed opinion when you’re not the one doing the work.”
I think this is the attitude of some unbelievers toward Jesus. He is building a kingdom, beginning with training His staff officers {administration – if you are politically inclined}. People that can follow simple orders, unsupervised, and make simple decisions based upon reasonable principles drawn from or illustrated by agrarian concepts that common people would be familiar with, faithful in small matters, can be trusted to keep their word {promises} are indispensible to peace.
“Silly women laiden with sin” will not qualify without a lot of self-examination.
This is a better link; it doesn’t take you straight to the comments section.
http://smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com/
Hi Jack, good to hear from you too. I have relatives in Montreal. Great city. I used to live in Alberta. Currently living in Toronto.
I don’t know what to make of this Canada Post thing. I think in the longer run there are alternatives so that if they make it too expensive or if they disrupt their service with strikes/lockouts they’ll make themselves irrelevant.
About 20 years ago there was a transit strike in Toronto. I read that ridership fell precipitously after that and only recently regained the old levels from way back. I guess people walked/drove to work. If Canada Post doesn’t watch out the same sort of thing could happen to them. No point striking for more dough and piss people off and then find yourself out of work.
Pretty good intel there, BBHeadMarc, about the state of the British Navy. Thanx for that! Actually, you are much more positive, and hopeful, than the the Wall Street Journal was on the same subject a few weeks ago, in a page 1 article.
But, hey, that’s why you’re Minister of Naval affairs, CFNation!
Here’s some other recent cabinet appointments:
Treasury Secretary … Ibendet
Homeland Security Chief … Ripthunder
Gov. of TransMississippi (west coast) … LLBooks, (Lewis)
Immigration & Naturalization … PoC
Chief of Moms … SJMom
Chief Medical Officer … WageL
Minister of Agriculture … TripT
That’ the only appointments made so far. More to come.
-Marlin
CFNation YD Post 1
New England Chapter
I’d like to give a nod to Truthteller. Some pretty good posts last nite, Sir!
-Marlin
I respectfully decline any future cabinet appointment.
I don’t want to live off the government teat.
Asoka
CFN Chapter 2
Southwest Chapter
That’s too bad Asoka because you are in line for the post of Ambassador to the Far East, the Middle East and the Near East.
-Marlin
Marlin,
Purdy good thar! I especially like LLB’s position of “Gov. of TransMississippi (west coast)”. :o)
I’m sure he would “rule” quietly and considerately, and Q. would be adequately punished for his multitudinous crimes of “persickety-ness” by being conscripted as his scribe [in perpetuity].
(“conscripted as a scribe”; I LIKE that one. ;o)
FYI, Truthteller would be a “madam” (formally), I am led to understand.
BHM
I think this is the carrier you’re refering to:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4e6_1297757049&comments=1
If only. And I know what you mean about subs.
The problem in this place is a large swathe of the populace (probably a majority) that’s convinced that we’ll be left alone. Even bare bones national defence is a politically difficult thing.
This is the type of stuff we have now. Decent enough boats:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mypt40A7TEY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s7mWz4qXx0&feature=related
Yeah Ozone, just my clumsy attempt at humor. Everybody is so serious about everything here to the extent that you have a guy like Ripthunder, who sounds like a pretty good dude, threatening to drive to Idaho, track down Vlad, and kick the shit out of him. I know its just internet hyperbole, but still …
Are you appearing anywhere around here anytime soon?
-Marlin
“The smoke of the gospels really emanates from the ancient Egyptian religion and the Egyptian trinity.”
The question is “how ancient”? If you go back far enough, the founders probably did worship the Creator and His Son. But, later rebellious belief systems were incorporated into the things taught by Noah and Shem, renamed, repackaged, chopped and slopped until it was an indigestable piece of man-made puke-up.
Jesus came to restore “the way”.
Q. would be adequately punished for his multitudinous crimes of “persickety-ness”
===============
Oz, you left out the letter n … the word is persnickety
😉
From dictionary.com:
per·snick·et·y? ?/p?r?sn?k?ti/ Show Spelled
[per-snik-i-tee] Show IPA
–adjective Informal .
1. overparticular; fussy.
2. snobbish or having the aloof attitude of a snob.
3. requiring painstaking care.
P.S. My first chore on LLB’s staff would be to teach him (and pound it into his head with a hard rubber mallet) the difference between then and than.
That’s actually pretty good humor there, Marlin.
Although it says something positive about you that you’ll make me head of the INS, even though our views don’t align 100%.
I’ll suggest SolarGuy for Minister of the Interior – maybe he’ll use our dwindling resources for something besides huge trucks moving lettuce coast-to-coast.
You, Marlin, will be Chief of Staff, since it was all your idea.
And I suppose JHK will be President. Actually, since he has the power of life and death over us through Screen Name Banning – JHK will be dictator.
Speaking of humor –
Did you hear about the guy who went to a costume party wearing nothing but a potato on a string tied to his male member?
Party guests: “What are you supposed to be?”
Potato guy:”Isn’t it obvious? I’m a dick-tater.”
=================
The more easily offended or platonic among CFNation will be glad to know that my wife comes back home today. Thus, being occupied in a positive manner, I will likely stop with most of the sexually oriented posts and inyouwindow.
Spirits? Please! Vlad, there’s nothing original or intelligent in parroting other people’s nonsense. Are you really that insecure in your own mental abilities and your own intelligence that you need to keep dropping these half-assed assertions as some kind of “divine revelations”? How about applying some critical thinking? Show some original thinking. Enough with the regurgitated nonsense that you keep peppering this blog with. All it shows is your feeble-mindedness.
Also, it was not god that said ‘I am that I am’, it was the ancient jewish scribes attributing that nonsense to their fictional deity “yehoveh”. That fictional jewish deity is not your god, and he was never meant to be your god. Secondly, none of these fictional deities are god because there is no god!
Eleuthero,
Indeed, we are in a dark age of social graces. Last night we went to my son’s graduation. It was more dreadful than I could have imagined. Two little Latino girls in front of me were playing with an air horn through the entire ceremony. I couldn’t even hear all the names. The parents were oblivious. Horrible vuvazellas(of South African soccer fame) were being blown with regularity. The family next to us asked some folks a few rows in front of us if they could lower their balloons so we could see the stage. The response? “Too bad, you should have come earlier.” Other people started complaining and eventually they relented.
Fat Latino moms with bare shoulders and backs showing off their horrible tattoos. I hate to say it, but manners are directly correllated with socio-economic status.
Thankfully, after the horror show was over, we took my son and the grandparents to a quiet French restaurant and spent the next few hours enjoying good food and polite conversation.
SJmom
“God has spoken directly two me, twice. It was short, sweet and direct. I don’t talk about that much, either.”
-LLB, in a nice riff on religion last night-
Yeah, LLB, God has spoken to me in a similar manner. Once one has had an experience like that, I believe complete and total Atheism goes off the table. I mean, you only get one life, right? May as well leave that channel of communication open a little – no matter what else happens.
Now – Mr. Dawkins, for example, would immediately launch into an argument concerning the human brain, oxygen privation, and cultural conditioning.
That’s not going to matter to someone who has had the experience you describe, LLB.
I figured Turkle was being facetious when he asked why God didn’t talk to him or his dog.
“Do I not have the God Communication Brainchip?”
-turkle, paraphrased-
That idea – concerning mental hardwiring – actually may explain more about the differences in genuine atheists and the rest of humanity – than we realize.
I’ve got something like that “brainchip.”
I’m going to believe in something ’till my brain stops working.
Marlin, Just fer shits and giggles, check out this years’ door prize. Niiiiiice.
(Door prize is a bike every year, and what I like is that each person can only enter once, as a half of your admission ticket. So the odds last year were about 1 in 5000; not bad for that prize.)
http://www.ctbritiron.org/gwbike2011.html
Ps. Unless you’ve been invited to a party in NW Granby this evening, I dunno when I’ll be making a “public” appearance. It’s the “economic climate”, don’cha know. (Plus, it burns me down sum’thin’ fierce; I ain’t 25 and bullet-proof na’more. Will I be hefting a chain saw tomorrow? We’ll just have to see! ;o)
I’ll give you a shout on the blower when something materializes, no worries.
NO EVIDENCE has been found that there was some divine creator who authored the whole shebang and now watches us from on high, and when I say evidence, I mean physical, tangible proof that I can see or touch. – Turk
What if there was someone that you would trust with your money and your life and who is of sound mind and utterly rational. Someone of impeccable level headedness. What if this person told you confidentially that they saw and heard something really unusual that might fall in the realm of what we call the supernatural?
Would you believe them or would you insist that such a thing never happened unless you were the one who saw the phenomenon? Would you tell them to get a medical check? That maybe it’s their brain misfiring? Let’s for argument’s sake it was a burning bush and a voice that called itself Yahweh (or pick a name, let’s say “Fred”). And let’s say the person did get checked out and there was nothing wrong with them.
What I’m suggesting is that evidence comes in many forms and sometimes we live with evidence that is less than what would be acceptable in a rigourously controlled setting.
Do we know for sure that Columbus existed? Do we know for sure that he visited America? Have you seen his writings or other records of the times? Do we know for sure that the writings and records aren’t total forgeries or woefully misinterpreted?
I would say that in practical fact we listen to people we trust or have no reason to distrust. We look at indirect evidence of varying quality and completeness and we go with a balance of probabilities that events of long ago and past living memory actually happened.
Two news items today:
Dr. Jack Kevorkian died today. The right to one’s death is an interesting topic for sure. IMO the man was persecuted.
And, in a news item that bolsters the viewpoint of those who disagree with my technophile position and shows that the collapse of civilization could be approaching: a 17 year old in China sold a kidney so he could afford to buy an ipad2.
Q.
Haw!
…And that would be yet ANOTHER infraction for ‘snicking on a simple typo.
(I know you will actually enjoy your servitude. ;o)
“I hate to say it, but manners are directly corrollated with socio-economic status.”
-sjmom-
You are absolutely correct, SJ – socioeconomic status and culture are trending sadly downward in many areas around the US.
My mom had a visceral love of hard work – which came in part, from a childhood lived too close to “white trash.” I think the Depression gave her whole generation a look at the tenuousness of good fortune – and that most of them fought their whole lives against sliding lower on the cultural scale.
And now we have 10’s of millions of people who think an air horn and a vuvuzela and disrupting a ceremony IS the pinnacle of the American Dream.
I’m beginning to believe I may have to throw in my lot with that “Elite” that we’re always in fear of on this blog.
Sorry, Cash, but a phenomenon such as you describe should be either replicatable or recordable, and/or have it pass an Occam’s Razor test before any consideration of supernatural validity could be taken.
For example, several years ago a comet broke up as it approached the planet Jupiter and the 9 resultant pieces smashed into it. It was a spectacular event. Fortunately it was captured on camera by several different astronomers; and Jupiter’s collision with a comet or small asteroid fit the criterion of Occam’s Razor.
I’d bet that if one wanted to take the trouble, one could track back that Columbus really existed, and prove that he did make the voyages for which he became famous.
John Emry, “If they (the US) really cut back entitlements, 18.7% of personal income is coming from entitlements now. So let’s say you cut it back, well that’s great, all the people wouldn’t have any money to spend and that would put a dent in the economy. Tax revenues would fall even further, so how does that solve anything?
That’s the sort of stuff that leads to revolutions, and if you disadvantage enough people and they look around and see all the banksters with all of the dough, somebody is going to wake up some day and say, ‘Hey, let’s get those guys.’
The easy thing to do is stick your head in the sand, but if you’ve got assets to protect you have to understand this stuff or you’re going to get killed. This is going to be the biggest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind. This is going to be a seismic event. I think the action of these guys (policy [rule] makers), the way they are conducting themselves right now suggests to me that they are on the edge of panic.”
The petty tyrants have run out of workable ideas, this leaves unworkable ideas. “A prudent man seeth trouble afar off, and hideth himself.”
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/6/3_Embry_-_Silvers_Drop_is_JP_Morgan_Trying_to_Protect_Their_Ass.html
“And now we have 10’s of millions of people who think an air horn and a vuvuzela and disrupting a ceremony IS the pinnacle of the American Dream.” -PoC
I’m thinking (to take your musing a bit further) that the “pinnacle of the American Dream” would now be to appear on “American Idol”.
It’s not the DISRUPTION that’s important; it’s the “look’it me, look’it me!”, that’s the zenith of social wonderfulness.
It’s terribly embarrassing to me (as a person of SOME modest talent) to have a drunken person (of absolutely NO talent) barge in and try to “be the show” by garbling their tuneless “singing” into an open microphone. I’m pretty tolerant of this behavior (you’ve gotta be to play in bars), but sometimes it’s just too much. One can tell when other talentless drunks are becoming embarrassed FOR the inhibition-less gob. That’s when the [inconspicuous] power switch gets flipped.
It’s all about narcissism, perhaps filling some psychic void, I dunno. “YOU can be a star!” No… you can’t; stars of the music world are even rarer than athletic stars. That means that there’s a shitload of people banging their heads against doors that will never open; you’re required to “have the goods”. I’ve always been realistic about what goods I possess, and what goods I do not…
Interesting you should bring such things up; I feel they relate directly to the “Palin phenomena”. After all, does she really “have the goods” to lead anything in a competent manner? Or is she just posing on a stage, for love and money? (Ain’t it something that “Palin” is specifically spell-checked? A little scary, I tells ya.)
MD,
Things that far too many people seem to forget! Most important, and timely as well.
Thanks for the link.
Re: Higher education. I had an acquaintance who got his Phd. in Diversity. AKA Political Correctness. (Believe it or not.) He received it the same week a study was released claiming that the more education one obtained, the less sex one had. I enjoyed tweeking him about that.
He was a humorless asshole with a rather literal view of the world. So, he often left himself wide open to my bent sense of humor.
One point we would constantly go round about was my belief that discrimination based on class, age and looks was far more damaging and pervasive than gender and race.
Sorry, Cash, but a phenomenon such as you describe should be either replicatable or recordable, and/or have it pass an Occam’s Razor test before any consideration of supernatural validity could be taken. – Bean
You’re right, maybe it should.
But what I’m saying Bean is that there is a wide range of evidence that we accept, that some evidence that won’t pass muster in one setting will pass muster in another.
For example we accept oral testimony in courts where there is no way of replicating or recording what a witness says they saw or heard or experienced.
I sat in a jury in a rape case. It was essentially “he said” vs “she said”. It was the testimony on the stand of the accuser and the testimony of the accused. Plus some testimony from the detectives and the testimony of the defendant’s landlord. But there was no physical evidence provided.
We almost got to the end of the trial when a mistrial was declared over something that someone said on the stand. Can’t remember what, it was too long ago. Then there was the retrial which I read about in the papers. The accused attacker was convicted. Sentence: four years at Club Fed. The outcome hinged on the credibility of the accuser vs that of the defendant.
When we’re dealing with events past living memory we’re in the realm of often sparse and fragmentary evidence. Yet we have a “history” long established as fact often based on nothing more than partial writings and some engravings on half ruined monuments. Hardly ironclad yet such stuff is accepted as conclusive. Why? We have nothing better so we make do.
BTW I’m comfortable that Columbus sailed to America. I’m also comfortable that the first human settlers of the Americas came from Asia. Some have suggested that the Americas were also settled from Europe by people that made their way across the Atlantic along the edge of the Arctic ice pack that allegedly would have projected far south during the ice age. The evidence? Awfully sparse stuff: some similarity in tool making technique between tools found in the Americas and those found in Europe.
LOL. I’m one of those people that is internally combustion and plumbing-ly challenged. But, I’m willing to learn.
Once upon a time I had an old 67 Jimmy. I called her Emma. She had problems that were hard to run down, so over the course of one summer a gear head buddy and I pulled the engine 3 times. Generally, I was the observer and tool hander. But, by the end of that summer, I knew my way pretty well around an engine.
I still like the old trucks. If I see a guy with an old truck, sometimes I ask to look under the hood, just to marvel at the simplicity. You can see the ground! And, there isn’t much there but block, battery, radiator and alternator.
Back when I had a VW bug, I got the book “How to Keep Your VW Alive for the Complete Idiot.” Could do my own oil changes, points, plugs, condenser and timing. Now a days, I look under the hood of my 04 Ranger and just shake my head.
On Religion: I really like your posts and admire the life you’ve lived. Look long and hard enough and you can find a book that supports you’re point of view (on just about any topic.) So, on this point, I don’t agree with you.
However, if it makes you feel better, I concede every point. (Not that I do, but, ya know, just to make you feel better.)
A book worth looking at that touches on several of the topics we’ve talked about over the past few days…
“Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams” by Alfred Lubrano.
“Dr. Jack Kevorkian died today.”
All by himself?
Re: God speaking. Oh! One part of my riff that I forgot last night, on this topic that I don’t talk about much…
For all I know it’s just my left brain lobe talking to my right brain lobe. 🙂 .
If you look at the history of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) one of the founders, Chairman Bill (W) had some kind of earth shaking spiritual experience. What I think of as “The Burning Bush.” Doctor Bob, the other founder, had what he called “moments of clarity.” I think Doctor Bob had the more peaceful life. Bill spent the rest of his life trying to re-capture that Burning Bush. Apparently, he could only climb down from Mt. Sinai, once.
If you want to subject yourself to some intellectual torture, tackle James’ “Varieties of Religious Experience.” Just be sure to have a rather large dictionary, at hand.
And after you read William James, read Evelyn Underhill’s greatest book, Mysticism: A Study of the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness, (published in 1911).
Underhill’s book has spirit. It is romantic, engaged, and theoretical rather than historical or scientific.
Underhill has little use for theoretical explanations and the traditional religious experience, formal classifications or analysis.
She dismisses William James’, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), and his “four marks of the mystic state” (ineffability, noetic quality, transcience, and passivity). James had admitted that his own constitution shut him off almost entirely from the enjoyment of mystical states thus his treatment was purely objective.
Underhill substituted (1) mysticism is practical, not theoretical, (2) mysticism is an entirely spiritual activity, (3) The business and method of mysticism is love. (4) mysticism entails a definite psychological experience.
Reading Evelyn Underhill kept me out of Vietnam.
Oh, wait, according to somebody on CFN I’m a 17-year old in my mommy’s house.
I read both James and Underhill in the ’60s and enjoyed them both, for different reasons.
The Labor Department released their report with unexpectedly low job-growth numbers that pushed the unemployment rate back over 9 percent.
This is harmful to the Obama administration.
Now, for all you conspiracy folks on CFN who have told me government statistics are lies and the government manipulates the stats, can you tell me why the government would manipulate the statistics in a way that hurts the Obama administration?
If the Labor Department is not providing objective data, then who is calling the shots on when to make the reports positive (the last 21 months) and when to make them negative (this month)? And why?
And, if you can’t trust government statistics, then we can’t trust this month’s negative Labor report. Unemployment must really be going down.
If an Edomite had been converted genuinely when they were absorbed into Judea (126 B.C.), he would have joined the company of “good figs” whose hearts were right with God. Any convert can give up their identity as citizens of a foreign nation and become a citizen of the Kingdom of God.
However, forced conversion to any religion is not the same thing. One can be forced to join a nation or a religion, but when it comes to the Kingdom of God, it really is a heart {spiritual} matter. The Edomites who were forcibly converted to Judaism did indeed change religions, but their hearts were as violent and bloodthirsty as ever. Hence, they were among the most nationalistic Jews fighting against the Romans in the first century A.D.
Masada was the final Edomite holdout. It is revered today by the Israelis, who honor those Edomites as national heroes.
Jesus was no Zealot.
Very funny, Tripp. Actually I think his heart helped him by going on strike.
James Arness died today. You know, Marshall Matt Dillon from “Gunsmoke.”
Hottest topic of conversation and debate on my grade school playground back in the 50s? Marshall Dillon and Miss Kitty. Did they or didn’t they DO IT?
Interesting bit of trivia. James Arness’ brother is … Peter Graves.
“Carelessness and disregard” is a major theme in our culture.
I’m perplexed today. My son was supposed to receive a “Golden State Seal Merit Diploma” for testing in highest percentile band in six different subjects (California is obsessed with state testing.)
So last night he gets his diploma and there is no sign of a “Golden State Seal” on the certificate.
I called the school registar this morning and she said, “Oh that’s pretty much meaningless. In about three weeks I’ll get some stickers from the state…but obviously that is way too late to stick them onto diplomas.”
She further explained that New York has a special diploma that actually means something.
SJmom
James Arness and Jack Kavorkian – both on the same day – that’s ironic, but I’m not sure why.
May they rest in peace.
Meanwhile:
“Marshall Dillon and Miss Kitty. Did they or didn’t they DO IT?”
-LLB-
They may have, LLB. I sure hope they did.
But then, as June certainly must have said:
“Ward, you were awfully hard on the Beaver last night.”
http://pranksshop.com/item.cfm?id=1770
So what does the divine creator say to you?
“This is God. Make me an egg salad sandwich on rye please. Hold the mayo.”
That’s pretty interesting.
Nurses are the same way. The higher-ups wanted to “professionalize” it, and make it so we poor people couldn’t become nurses, by requiring a bachelor’s degree, or even a master’s.
Not many well-to-do people wanted to become nurses, though. It’s literally a shitty job. So the nursing shortage kept it open until now.
I don’t think that anyone who has to sell their labor to someone else should consider themselves “professionals” anyway. That’s contradictory.
I think it is weird to draw the conclusion that there is a God from your subjective mental state. The mind is easily confused. Haven’t you ever had a dream that you thought was real? You’re not talking to God. You’re talking to yourself.
We had an inland hurricane 2 years ago. Is that the same thing?
This city burned 4,000 trees that fell over. What a waste. And the other cities burned trees also.
You should have seen the place. Every electric line had a big ol’ tree on it.
I thought that we would be without electricity for weeks. I couldn’t imagine that people could remove all those trees, and repair all those lines quickly.
But damn! Hard working men from all over the country showed up, with chainsaws and pole climbing equipment.
My electricity was back on in 3 days! I put a sign on my fence “Thank you, linemen”, that I hope they saw.
When I first got to town, I was introduced to a guy who proudly told me that he was related to Ronald Reagan.
I, of course, told him that that was nothing to be proud of.
So he didn’t speak to me for a while, but then he got over it.
He was a drag queen, and participated in the weekly drag queen contest that we have in the only gay bar in town.
Once, about 35 of us hit up the bar to cheer him on. I’m sure that the gay bar had never had so many good ol’ boys whooping and cheering for a drag queen.
So what does the divine creator say to you?
“This is God. Make me an egg salad sandwich on rye please. Hold the mayo.”
Response to the Big G:
“How [in Heaven] does one make egg salad without mayo?? How’s ’bout some “Miracle” Whip instead, Big G; isn’t that why you created it?”
It might be that you’re getting older, but it might that it’s getting worse. Much worse.
And, yes, whatever happened to “paying your debt to society”? And then you’re done.
The rich don’t have to answer to society at all, and the poor have to pay forever. This is ridiculous, especially for victimless crimes.
You’re not talking to God. You’re talking to yourself.
-turkle, to me and (I assume) LLB-
Again, maybe, turk. But once you’ve “*heard*” the voice of God as I did – then we’ll talk.
Of course, you, personally, can’t hear the voice of god because:
1. You don’t have the mental hardware or
2. You’ve conditioned yourself to never make that interpretation – regardless of what you experience.
No harm no foul – believe as you prefer.
I’m always going to leave a door open for God.
You’re trying to get me to slam that door shut on my own hand. I’m not going to do that, and I really don’t see any reason why anyone should.
Although you may be about to try to point one out.. 🙂
Yeah, I’m guessing that bottles of wine lead WAY more often to babies than to girl-on-girl action.
It’d take more than one bottle of wine to get me interested in sex with a woman.
Actually, like I said when my neighbors got drunk and handed the keys to their car to their 12 year old – I could never be that drunk.
I’d be passed out before I’d think that was a good idea!
I never realized that spiritual came from the same root word as inspire. Thanks, Asoka.
One of my friends that I argue religion with always manages to end the argument by insisting that I may not be religious, but I’m “spiritual”.
What the hell does that mean? I mean, sure, I breathe, but that seems basic.
You can’t seriously believe that anyone pays attention to the US government labor statistics!
We look at our friends and neighbors. We can see that our employers feel free to threaten us with firings now. We know that people can’t afford to do the things they used to do.
Come on, asoka. Why are you cheerleading for that war-mongering, nuclear energy pushing, lawless President?
As if, as Al Klein points out, this horse race means anything anyway.
Oh I meant like extra mayo on the bread ya know. Sorry, God can be unclear sometimes.
Yes, that’s the carrier. As a merchant seaman I used to work on an Military Sealift Command charter that tied up in Rota all the time so I’m familiar with the Spanish navy. The Spanish adopted the British system of using jump jets off of smaller carriers. Then the US Navy applied the same approach to it’s helicopter carriers, but didn’t install the ski jumps on theirs. The USNavy & Marines are now going to fully integrate their air wings and fly the Marine FA-18s off of the big carriers on a routine basis instead of just occasionally for requals.
Canada is a remote country other than the shared border with the USA so probably most everyone will leave Canada alone. As one of my acquaintances once said, “who’s going to ever get pissed off at Canada?” Canada already did have nuclear weapons however because the USA lent them nuclear warheads for their anti-aircraft missiles during the Nike-Ajax program.
I’m convinced that small surface combatants other than Coast Guard cutters are obsolete and that virtually all naval surface craft should have full length flight decks even if they’re only intended to carry perhaps twelve jets. After all, twelve jets are better than none. If the US Navy had scores upon scores of such ships such a fleet wouldn’t even need the super carriers.
What I could never understand about the British Commonwealth was why Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the coastal provinces of South Africa were not invited to send their members of Parliament to London in order to totally confederate those dominions into the United Kingdom. I don’t think they would’ve gotten an armed rebellion as they did with the thirteen American colonies. Then you could be bitching about London instead of Ottawa and everything would be equally miserable with no net gain whatever.
By the way, Rippedthunder, you were asking about horse racing a few weeks ago.
I don’t follow any horse racing except for the Triple Crown.
In the Kentucky Derby, I picked Shackleford, because he’s big and red, like Secretariat, even though he wasn’t favored.
Then, he led for a good part of the race.
Then, in the Preakness, I stuck with him, even though I kind of wanted Animal Kingdom to have a chance at the Triple Crown.
Whoo hoo! He won!
Did you notice that this year they sang the Star Spangled Banner at the Derby? I don’t remember that before. This mindless patriotic genuflection is taking over, I tell you!
Oh, oh. There’s the NSA, flying past my window!
I’ve always enjoyed people who were totally over the top themselves and to hell with everyone else so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find how entertaining Johnny’s [my former boss] customers were. Johnny himself was one of a kind and when young was a go-go dancer at a gay bar. I knew a few people like that in the navy as well so he wasn’t exactly a complete novelty. At any rate I’m not buying it that these character traits are a matter of preference. If in fact there is such a thing as free will it is extremely circumscribed, and that’s putting it mildly. Do alcoholics choose to wind up face down in the urinal of life? Of course not. But then that’s an unfair comparison because alcoholism is clearly pathological and is now recognized as a disease.
“Once, about 35 of us hit up the bar to cheer him on.”
==================
You travel in a posse of 35? Damn!
Well, I guess there is safety in numbers.
Well, I guess there is safety in numbers.
Unless those numbers come from the Labor Dept. 🙂
alcoholism is clearly pathological and is now recognized as a disease.
===========
Growing up I remember my parents saying: “Funny kind of disease. The way you contract is take yourself to a bar, put $5 down, and ask the bartender for a drink.”
Of course, I know realize how wrong my parents were to make fun like that.
This week I think we will go over 1,000 posts.
916th!
Thanks for complimenting my posts. I like your posts as well. I don’t expect you to agree with me or concede any of my points. I want you to read “The Pagan Christ” by Tom Harpur to test yourself to see what you think after reading the book, as after all, you are a book dealer and have an excellent excuse for stocking the book.
I do believe in God myself but as a buddhist I’m more of a pantheist and a gnostic. I’m not that good of buddhist though and wouldn’t pass muster with the orthodox Theravadins like you find in Burma and Thailand.
Also don’t forget that James Arness was the carrot man from outer space in the original version of “The Thing”. Unfortunately Miss Kitty died of AIDS which she probably contracted from a blood transfusion I’d wager.
Bill “W” the co-founder of AA whose shrine is in Akron, OH nearby to me was an enthusiastic acid-head, so that may explain the burning bush experience. On the other hand if I recall from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous he did have an experience of cosmic consciousness without chemical assistance when he was first inspired to sober up so perhaps the LSD was an effort to recapture that initial mystical experience.
Before you die, you should have a drink. Remember once a philosopher, twice a pervert.
In your case I guess you didn’t get the full experience of the campus, eh Q?
==========
Apparently not.
I don’t know how they operate today but back in the day – Christmas “break” 1958 – Freshmen did not actually get a break. (BTW, there were no Freshwomen and we men had to wear a jacket and tie to school every day.) We were required to attend a novena that ran, if I remember correctly, from 9AM till noon each day for 9 days during the period that everywhere else is called “Christmas Break.”
I didn’t live on campus. I commuted from home in NJ to St Joe’s which was (is) on the western edge of the City of Philadelphia — literally on City Line Ave. So it was maybe a 15-20 mile schlep every day (if Vlad doesn’t mind me adopting the Yiddish).
It had nothing to do with being pissed off about getting no “break” but somewhere in the midst of those 9 days of intensive religion I had the kind of epiphany I’m sure the good fathers were not aiming for. I flat out admitted to myself that I was a non-believer. Mary had done it with somebody and it wasn’t the Holy Ghost.
I never made a big deal about it but if it came up in conversation I would say I was an agnostic. It wasn’t till much later that I ceased using that cop-out label and admitted I was an atheist.
“You can’t seriously believe that anyone pays attention to the US government labor statistics!”
==========
Here are my questions:
If they are manipulated, how come this month they were made to reflect badly on the administration?
Who is in control of the manipulation?
If we can’t trust the positive numbers, then shouldn’t we doubt this month’s negative numbers as well?
Do you have any answers, Wage? Who did it?
Illuminati? Masons? Bilderbergers? The Jews? New World Order? CFR? Trilateral Commission?
C’mon, Wage, don’t be a conspiracy freak.
Why would faceless bureaucrats in the Dept. of Labor be manipulating the data up one month and down the next? To what end? There is no money in it. No rhyme nor reason. What politician is going to manipulate data to make him look bad?
Maybe the Labor statistics just reflect reality.
The Latinos are causing trouble? Is it not even as I said? Do you think it will get worse or better as more of them come in?
Some new appts have come thru;
Qshtik … Minister of Ball Busting i.e. Attorney General
Solar Guy … Minister of Energy Depletion (only pops in on Mondays but comes highly recommended by PoC)
WageL … Promoted to Surgeon General
More to come. there are many posts to fill.
-Marlin
He cheers him and will continue to do so because he is Black. Blacks vote their skin color – exept in the off chance (very rare) of a Black who is a real conservative like Clarence Thomas.
“At any rate I’m not buying it that these character traits are a matter of preference.”
-BHMarc-
That’s not my argument, either. I’m more – making the argument that human characteristics fit on a continuum and the the EXTREMES that seem so common today are a matter of preference, to some extent – –
Or that there is something else operating here related to peaking oil/society.
I keep wondering – what all of the bizarre personalities in the US would be doing if we were all building pyramids for the Pharoh? Or if we were laboring for the tiny minority of high muck-mucks at the pinnacle of Aztec society.
Probably dying in droves – with very little display of personality extremes.
Maybe this is a chicken/egg question?
God – send Miracle Whip, please.
Your parents did have a point. I’m not totally sold on the disease theory of alcoholism myself. A book I used to quote was called “Heavy Drinking” and that book argued quite convincingly against the disease theory of alcoholism. As a fellow attendee at navy alcohol rehab put it, an prior enlisted ensign who graudated from Columbia University and clearly no dummy, “if alcoholism is a disease then what’s the pathology?” Because, there is no pathology. To me it’s really a bad habit which escalates into a physical addiction and there’s no doubt that alcohol is far more toxic and habit forming than cannabis, for instance. And during earlier periods of history people avoided water and drank enornmous quantities of beer throughout the entire day. In colonial American the average adult male drank approximately a fifth of whiskey per day! Were they all alcholics? Of course not. Neverthleless real alcoholics can go way beyond a mere fifth per day and also tend to become morose and self-pitying depressives so there you have it.
I have never ever drunk beer or liquor at all. Ditto legal drugs or illegal drugs of any kind.
Once a month I may take one aspirin.
I have had a glass of wine.
I have one glass of wine every four or five months. Does that count?
I mean, sure, I breathe, but that seems basic.
=========
It is basic. And I am glad you don’t deny it.
We are all breathing. Always so close, always so available, even on your death bed.
When our spirit {breath}, our re-spiration, ceases, we cease.
Awareness of breath is the key.
No the evidence is quite a bit better than that. First the points are virtually identical – and found nohwere else in the world. They are identical with those of the Cro Magnon Solutrean Culture.
Then there are the skeletons such as Kennwick Man or the Spirit Cave mummies. They are not Indian. The Kenewick Man might be a mix but the Spirit Cave mummies are White. Very tall with Red hair.
Then there are the legends found through out much of the Americas of Whites. In Central America, there is Quetzlcoatl – a god who taught the people. The people near Spirit Cave have tribal legends about exterminationg a race of red haired giants.
Of course this is a text book case of how knowledge is socially mediated. The Indians obviously don’t want to be upstaged so they claim kinship and bury the evidence as quick as they can. The Anthropologists who have studied the Indians don’t want them (or themselves!) to be upstaged so they refuse to take the thesis seriously. And of course there is Political Correctness as an over arching trope. The Status Quo doesn’t want to give Whites any credit that it doesn’t have to – nor have to deal with the reality that if we where here first, then the Indians may have genocided us as they did in the Spirit Cave area.
Because, there is no pathology.
————
Whoa, partner, what about the pathology alcoholics suffer, like a higher rate of Dupuytren’s disease a higher rate of liver disease, caused by alcohol abuse.
Seems to me there is also a higher rate of social pathology related to alcohol abuse, like drunk driving and domestic violence.
Your right. It’s somewhere in the 80-90% range.
Asoka was baiting CFN earlier this week by pointing out that Herman Cain polled well among GOP voters who attended the recent convention (debate?); whatever is was called, Republican presidential hopefuls got together to talk.
Looks like the Economy is tanking. Dow down, house values down, unemployment up. I think Jim is right about no growth in the future, least not the 3% it takes to keep things going.
-Marlin
The main type of conservative that I am truly interested in is a fiscal conservative.
I have to give it up for John Boehner, Majority Speaker, who seems to be making reasonable economic statements recently. I hope he and Obama can get on the same page and walk the walk.
Okay, by “pathology” my buddy the Ivy League Ensign was pointing out that the deleterious effects are all the RESULT of heavy drinking itself as a form of gluttony, and not some sort of illness which is caused by a virus or an infection of any sort.
So in other words, an alcoholically inclined individual who either belongs to a teetolism religion and is obedient to that stricture or else is confined against his will to a mental hospital or penal institution where he presumably is going to have great difficulty “scoring” his drug of choice ETOH is not going to develop these pathologies even though he has the strong preference for drinking himself into a stupor.
The book I mentioned is “HEAVY DRINKING: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease” by Herbert Fingarette.
Nonetheless it has been demonstrated that alcoholics metabolize alcohol abnormally and in consequence have difficulty telling how intoxicated they are, with concomitant abnormalities in brain waves leading to the much vaunted “hollow leg syndrome”, admittedly not a proper clinical term.
The one really convincing evidence for the validity of the disease theory though is the curious situation which obtains wherein once you’ve become addicted to alcohol physically you can no longer drink in moderation no matter how long your period of abstinence. It is indisputable that you will always pick up right where you left off. You at that point are no longer a cucumber but a “pickle”, as it were.
I left off at half a gallon of Windsor Canadian per day while off duty which is why I dare not resume my drinking career. While shipping on the lakes I would always genuflect in the direction of the Windsor distillery every time we were steaming down the Detroit River.
So it’s kind of irrelevant whether or not you have a valid disease per se or simply have FUBARed your liver or your brain. After all, what’s the difference?
“I’m always going to leave a door open for God.”
Do you leave the door open for the Great JuJu Under the Sea or Thor? Or does only the Judeo-Christian God speak to you?
Jonathan, Herman Cain is a no-nonsense business man who speaks his mind and doesn’t mince words.
That has some appeal to the Tea Party types who are fed up with smooth talking liars who mostly inhabit the Washington Beltway.
Herman Cain is an outsider, a fresh voice, and yes, he is Black which may even help him among the Tea party value set. What better way for older white guys to prove they are not racists?
CORRECTION: “teetotalism” not teetolism
You know schizophrenics hear voices in their heads all the time, and we don’t believe that these are real messages being sent to them externally. In fact, they are given medication to deal with this problem, which can be quite persisten and severe. Perhaps you have low-grade schizophrenia and are mistaking it for divine intervention.
Nice try, Turkle, but the conditioning is deep.
It’s a Southern Baptist thang.
It’d take more than one bottle of wine to get me interested in sex with a woman.
=============
Not me. It would only take a thimble full of 3.2 beer …… if that.
Dirty old man. ^^^^^^^ 😉
“So it’s kind of irrelevant whether or not you have a valid disease per se or simply have FUBARed your liver or your brain. ”
—————-
Point taken, and thanks for the education. I have never had to deal with alcoholics, have none in my family of tea-totalers, so it is really something I know next to nothing about. I appreciate your taking the time to educate me.
“Do you leave the door open for the Great JuJu Under the Sea or Thor? Or does only the Judeo-Christian God speak to you?”
-turkle-
Turkle, I don’t believe in closing doors, as a general rule. I’ll listen to any God (god?) who wants to address me – by whatever method He (he?), she (She?) or IT/it chooses.
And no, I do not think IT (information technology) is a god.
You’re a sarcastic son of a gun, you know that?
Hearing voices in your head and attributing them to some divine being is not having an “open mind.” We call it insanity in others when they do not share in the particulars of our personal experiences with God talk.
Let’s say I told you that I just had a stimulating conversation with Ugthoth, a divine being from the ninth circle, currently inhabiting a small rocky planet in Alpha Centuri. You’d call me crazy, and rightly so.
So why should I believe any hogwash about personal conversations with Jehovah? It is similarly absurd. You just happen to fit this delusion into an accepting cultural framework (Christianity).
I myself keep a closed mind and open the door occassionally to let in the ideas that pass my sanity checks.
“You’re a sarcastic son of a gun, you know that?”
Yeah.
I think we have already gone off the cliff, like Thelma and Louise, and we are rapidly accelerating toward our demise.
We should hit bottom right around 2:00 p.m. next Tuesday.
Or maybe not. We’ve been saying “we are so fucked” for at least 12 years now, and no massive bank collapses, empty store shelves, and bands of roving looters yet. Maybe next Tuesday. Maybe this time it’s for real. NOT.
Take a deep breath, asoka.
You wouldn’t want to inhale any of that bullshit you’re slinging.
Who manipulates the Dept of Labor statistics? The Dept of Labor.
They don’t count all of the unemployed. They don’t count the underemployed. They happily tout seasonal employees as employed.
They fudge the numbers, so that they get a 9% unemployment rate, when most people know that it’s higher.
So it’s worse this month, and you’re using that as a reason to cheer previous months. AND using it as a way to make them seem honest reporters. OK. But I’m not impressed.
Don’t mention it: I’m just a compulsive typist. Took personal typing in the 11th grade from Mrs. Anderson at Fairview High School in west Cleveland, then took word processing in the early ’80s, and figure this is more constructive than sitting in the lobby of the Overlook Hotel typing “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” over and over again on reams of paper until somebody notices and locks themselves in their room while dialing 911 for the men in the white coats to come to take me to the locked ward at the Northcoast Behavioral Institute…
“…LSD was an effort to recapture that initial mystical experience.”
Bingo! Give the man a cigar! 🙂 He also messed around with Niacin Therapy, was a spiritualist, a skirt chaser, and played a mean fiddle.
Won’t be stocking much of anything, pretty soon. Am in the process of closing out the store. Probably run into the fall.
All right, all ready! I put the damn book on hold at my library. No copies in this branch, but there are some sitting on the shelf out in East Jesus. I should have it by next week. Looking forward to taking a gander at it.
It’s all good. If that was low grade schizophrenia, I kind of enjoyed it. 🙂 .
Excellent! I don’t expect you to agree with me either. Sometimes I wish that I didn’t agree with me. Good luck on post bookshop life. I still go to church occasionally so don’t feel like you’ll be a pariah if the book makes you too skeptical. I am convinced that even if the churches totally overhauled their theology the liturgy would go on basically unaltered and the churches would survive. All that would change is that the heirarchy would no longer be pretending that they alone have it all figured out. And pertaining to your earlier remarks about your not having a degree: I’m sure that you’re better educated than most degreed people simply owing to your extensive reading. Many college graduates don’t crack open another book once they get their DEEGREE. Maybe we could get the Wizard of Oz to grant you an honorary doctorate like he did for the Scarecrow.
“Follow the money, James.
Who is it that is funding Sarah Palin?
Who is it that was funding Adolf Hitler?
Who is it that set up WWI and WWII?
Who is it that swindled the tax paying US citizenry and the tax paying citizenry world out of TRILLIONS of dollars?
(If you haven’t a clue, read the works of historians such as Anthony Sutton, Carroll Quigley, and get educated!)
Nothing is a coincidence, James. Follow the money. You’ll find all your answers there, including why your obsession with the fake red/blue political kabuki theater is so idiotic.”
———
Must be the Jews.
I have to say sarcasm here because it can be tough to convey, or comprehend through text.
Mr K – just remember I scolded you first thing this week for attempting to Sarah to some level of importance.
She hasn’t disappointed – she demonstrated her true self again. search Paul Revere Palin
When my Mom and I lived in Phoenix in the 1980’s, she worked very hard at a minimum wage job, and did a lot more work that the suits who came in periodically. I don’t consider anyone who does useful work to be trash. You know who I think is trash, dweeb crap asses like Charlie Sheen. He’s given millions for acting up in public. Or those crooked bankers who took TARP money, I think they’re trash. Or athletes, they get millions for jumping around in their drawers, a lot of it from cities that can no longer afford police or public schools. You’d think some of them would say, ‘Gee these are just kid’s games maybe it isn’t worth this at this time’. No, fuck no, they’re entitled.
Better than nothing – but beer is good too sometimes. The bitterness is very refreshing in the summer’s heat. As you know, we need bitterness – it is one of the six flavors of Ayurveda.
What do you mean “we cease”? The body stops being capable of breath so the breath body leaves and with it the other subtle bodies.
Au contraire to: “You’d think some of them would say, ‘Gee these are just kid’s games maybe it isn’t worth this at this time’. No, fuck no, they’re entitled.”
There was one professional athlete who recognized that the NFL was actually men playing a boy’s game, not that mere boys could play or even survive the NFL, so I’m certainly not saying that these men are weenies certainly, but yet, there was ONE who had more gravitas certainly, and his name of course was PAT TILLMAN, and he didn’t earn his posthumous silver star on a playing field but on a battlefield in Afghanistan. Maybe they should be naming the next aircraft carrier after him instead of the guy who pardoned Richard Nixon.
How can you be so unfair to lesbians? Don’t you think you owe it to your sisters? Suppose you had a female Union boss who wanted you – don’t you think she has a right and you a duty? I mean where no talking about a MAN here, but a WOMAN and not only a WOMAN but a Union Leader. Don’t you want a revolution you can dance to?
What do you mean “we cease”?
————–
We cease to be Wage or Vlad or Asoka and we cease posting to CFN. 🙂
What I meant and did not specify, is that our residence in the physical body ceases. We cease to inhabit the body. We drop the body.
“We should hit bottom right around 2:00 p.m. next Tuesday.”
If you are going to drive your car off a cliff, don’t ask the passengers to wave their arms.
There is no God but God. If you can’t get that from your own scriptures – you’ll have to get it from the Koran – La Illaha Illalah
You liberal Jews are just as confused as liberal Christians. And the same tactics that you people used against Whites in South Africa and the American South will now work against you now that the Communists have joined forces with Islam. You taught them well and your chickens are coming home to roost. Hitler warned you that someday your gentile zombies would turn on you. That day has come. The Flotilla approaches – and the whole world is watching. And guess what – you are no longer the “good guys”. The Media will have no mercy. The public wants an Italian Western: good guys wear white and bad guys wear black. Good for the Hasids too since they always wear black.
“I myself keep a closed mind and open the door occassionally to let in the ideas that pass my sanity checks.”
They are called taste buds.
We ain’t questioning what goes in, we’re disgusted by what comes out.
As G.K. Chesterton has written, and this is merely a paraphrase from memory: ” don’t be so open minded that your brain falls out.”
Then again, Chesterton was also known to carry a Webley revolver and if anyone within earshot whined that they wished they were dead so tiresome had their continued existence become, he would pull out the pistol and offer to put them out of their misery right then and there. I don’t think he got an takers.
And who are the big bankers? Think there might be a few Jews amongst them? Ever hear of the Rothschilds? Warburg was their agent here in America and was the Father of the Federal Reserve. And who are the people in Obama’s cabinet involved in finance? Sorry, conspiracy theory does not let the Jews of the hook at all. For people who have swallowed the establishment point of view all their lives, it is quite an eye opener.
Why do you think the Jews wanted Glenn Beck off the air? He’s a vehement pro-Semite Israel fan – but he talks too much about the Conspiracy and that’s dangerous to them. They want people’s attention caught up in the day to day political drama – not the Causes behind it all. Your bringing up the Jews just to ridicule the idea is a clumsy old canard which isn’t going to work much longer.
“This is God. Make me an egg salad sandwich on rye please. Hold the mayo.” “Oh I meant like extra mayo on the bread ya know. Sorry, God can be unclear sometimes.”
If you can’t relay information any better than this, it is probably best that He doesn’t talk to you.
Worthy and righteous post Mr. Kunstler.
He was a Prophet – he wrote a novel called “The Flying House” about how the Hero drives the Muslims out of England. This fits in very well with Catholic Prophecy which predicted this invasion long ago.
Now see here: when I said “turned out” I meant the young. I know the military isn’t this bad yet. Wait until there are openly gay officers. Read about the old Ottoman Army.
You admit I’m sure that countless gay men have lived and still do lives of torment where they pretend to be straight. What makes anyone think that it can’t happen the other way – guys who think they are gay but are just messed up straights? Consider a shy young man unsure about himself and his sexuality. Can’t make it in the brutal hetero dating world and no woman will approach him because woman don’t like to approach in general. But gay men approach him. Young, affable when given a chance, good looking – he finds a world of warmth and acceptance. He is courted and won and considers himself gay. But is he? He would have gone with a woman in a heartbeat if one had ever approached him.
Don’t think it happens? Happens all the time – and more now that the power stucture is radically pro-gay in many places and quarters of our Society. All the young women I’ve met for the last twenty years considered themselves bi even though they never dated women and had littel interest as far as I could see. But it just wasn’t cool not to be – and things like that matter to young women.
Then you wont be Black anymore and I wont be White. Then we can be friends. You were given a Black body as a punishment for some nameless crime in one of your past lives. The body matters after all: even a master violinist wont be able to play his best music on a beat up old fiddle. Just so, the soul needs a good vehicle to make good progress. The Black Body has many detriments to it. As the ancients knew, it has a stronger lower nature: anger, lust etc. That why one of Desert Fathers was called St Moses the Black – people thought it significant enough to mention his skin color. Quite an achievment for a Black to master his vehicle enough to become a Saint.
We lined up our second woodstove this afternoon, right beside the first one on the front porch. This one is the cast iron cookstove my great-great-great grandmother cooked on. She was obviously a good deal shorter than we are. It’s rusty, missing one of the small rectangular damping irons adjacent to the flue, plus a few door hinge pins, but how cool! I think if we build up about a six inch brick hearth for it we’ll be in business. It has 4 eyes, and the oven looks like it could probably hold a decent sized turkey or goose (which I might be trying out soon, though not in the wood stove for several more months). I think in our climate this stove will cover our heating needs the majority of the time, and we will only have to use the soapstone on colder nights.
We’re also installing a solar attic fan as soon as we can. They are supposed to drop the attic temperature by about 50 degrees, so life without AC in the south might just be bearable. Actually we’re doing fine with it so far, even without the fan. Being proficient at the window dance helps. It takes about 3 years to acclimate to a new climate, and this is year 2 for us, but we’re adapting. Even with triple digits on record. We were running the AC by late May last year, but haven’t really come close to caving this time around. It just slows you down a bit, which honestly the planet could use more of. Hard to break out of the enculturation though.
Crank up that AC so you can get some work done, mister! Then you can afford to pay for the AC, and be comfortable. What for? So we can produce and buy more stupid shit we don’t need? I think I’ll just slow down.
Ditching the heat-producing upright fridge in the kitchen for a modified chest fridge (freezer with external thermostat) in the laundry room soon too. Better insulated, runs on about 125 watts and doesn’t lose its cool when you open it. Uses about 8% of the energy an upright uses. So we’ll be down to lights, fans, computer, chest fridge and freezer, and washing machine by fall, once we build our solar batch hot water heater.
I love these guys who talk about their sweet solar systems, and good for them for having them. But we should be down to barely any electrical use at all before we start looking for alternative supply routes. Some things electric is good for, like light, some things not so much, like heat. Think through the physics before you just assume that renewable to electric conversion is the best choice. Cheers.
-ctemple-
Physical work, sure – like most girls raised on a farm in those days, my mom was always preparing, cooking, or cleaning something.
But she also had a deep love of intellectual work. She was the first female from her Georgia county finish 4 years of college. And then she taught high school for 35 years – business courses – back when all the machines were manual and all the record keeping was done by hand. I still find her work career amazing. So does my wife – who was teetering on the edge of burnout when she finished her 30.
After that Mom wrote 4 family genealogy books – copyrighted, illustrated, Library of Congress numbered – the whole nine yards. All the while cooking no telling how many hundreds of meals and perhaps thousands of cakes – to give away to folks having a little trouble – or just to share with family and friends.
That generation of Americans looked privation in the face, and resolved to spend their whole lives working to make the world a better place.
That they may have done too good of a job – so that the generations following are a little too soft – Well, that appears to be going in the record books now, and is also a frequent inspiration for many of the posts on CFN.
PoC
I don’t see the sexual landscape as being quite so scary for the socially subpar as it were. Rather, I see the dweebs and the double dweebs bumping uglies with the members of the opposite sex who coexist on their own level of the undesireables and moreover in time such types typically become quite rebellious and even get accepted into their own milieu which perhaps would appear superficially contemptible or perhaps just lame and pitiable to the types who were for instance considered cool in high school but may have slipped themselves with some advancing years as the geeks overtake them in some instances or even become quite successful. I don’t see lots of people having sex with people they’re not ordinarily attracted to either. You know this isn’t exactly like Lawrence of Arabia traveling undercover in native mufti behind enemy lines in the wartime Ottaman Empire then getting arrested by the Turks to be taken to an officer who’s cruising for boys where he is forced to play dumb and keeping saying “effendi, effendi” like some sort of Circassian peasant he was pretending to be since the Circassian’s had blue eyes. Then getting caned for kicking the officer in the cojones. In other words, they’re not being forced to do anything they don’t want to.
Welcome back Urban, it must be a year or more since you’ve posted here. Still in Ireland? Any new tatts?
I’m not disputing Cain’s qualifications. I agree with you. I see where you are pointing out Tea Party appeal. We could debate whether a business background, a la Trump, Whitman or Fiorina, enhances their governing ability.
My problem is, I just don’t consider race or gender as part of my decision making. I’m biased, I consider those that do to be rubes or shallow.
On CFN they need no encouragement, MD.
I just don’t consider race or gender as part of my decision making.
————-
This is commendable. I wish more caucasians were like that.
Heres a good Messianic Jew [?]
Listened to him last nite on am radio:
LEN HOROWITZ…talking about ebola…..Yikes!
Leonard Horowitz (born 20 Jun 1952) is a former dentist, a health industry entrepreneur, and the author of a number of books, pamphlets..etc
975th!
We are going to break 1,000 comments tonight.
Good work, Clusterfuck Nation!
Maybe you should invite Jimmy K down for a few days, to cheer him up and show him,
‘a success story who blogs on his site’.
“So it’s worse this month, and you’re using that as a reason to cheer previous months. AND using it as a way to make them seem honest reporters.”
————-
Wage, I’m not going to ask you a third time. I’m going to let this drop.
Your cognitive dissonance is palpable.
Vlad, you Vatican sith, I’ve said this to you before and I’ll say it to you again. The handful of showcase Jews are deliberately put there for the media to focus on. They are nothing but middle level managers, doing what they’re told by their masters. Holographic sock-puppets is what they are. Geithner, Summers, Greenspan, Ruben, Bernanke, are no different from Obama. Ask yourself, who the fsck is Obama. He’s a nobody. A nobody from a nobody family. Who the fsck is Geithner? Again, a nobody from a nobody family. Who the fsck is Greenspan? Again, a nobody from a nobody family. Who the fsck is Bernanke? Again, a nobody from a nobody family. And on and on down the list. These people are completely unimportant.
What we need to look at is those that hired them, brought them out from obscurity, sponsored them, control them. And those people are in the deep shadows. The way operate is by a chain of control at least 4 orders removed. You talk about the Rothschilds, but who the fsck are the Rothschilds? Again, these people are nothing. They are middle level managers. In the case of the Rothchilds, they were the public face for the Vatican Bank, the money managers for the Vatican. Simple question: Where is the Rothschild bank ranked among the big banks of the world? Nowhere. What is the great Rothschild fortune? Nothing. They served their purpose for the Vatican and now they are back to nothing, the nothing they came from. It was all Vatican money.
The Vatican controls it all. The Vatican and the Templars invented banking. And when Vatican killed off the Templars, they then had control of it all.
Cui bono? To whose benefit? To whose benefit was the destruction of the Greek (Byzantium) and Russian Orthodox Church? To whose benefit was the murder of 90% of european jewry? To whose benefit is the setup of remaining Jews in Israel for destruction, Trying to deny Israel all defences while up-arming its enemies? To whose benefit is the constant incitement against Israel? To whose benefit is the constant de-legitimization propaganda against Israel? To whose benefit is the constant focus on Israel/Jews and holding them to impossible double standards? To whose benefit is the reverent tone that’s always reserved for the nazi pederasts in the Vatican and nazi “Royals”? To whose benefit is the tax exemptions for the Church the “Royals” and their various foundations? To whose benefit is the constant machinations towards world domination and empire? To whose benefit is push towards the dissolvement of the nation-state? To whose benefit is the politically correct pro-thiest propaganda of ignorance? To whose benefit is this parasitic fascist anti-enligtenment age of darkness? And I could go on and on and on.
To me it is very obvious to whose benefit it is. It is for the benefit of the Vatican, the “New” Old Roman Empire, the “New” Old World Order.
Spider, do you have any pull with the top shrink over there at Greystone? Maybe you could get Metuselah in. Maybe you guys could be roomies.
Listen. I’ve never been a proponent of logic, but there’s a perfectly logical reason for the Jew-money stereotype. Hundreds of years ago, Jews were not allowed—by Christian law—a profession outside usury.
So you’re telling me what, that big banks and the Fed chief are keeping you from living locally and abandoning oil? Isn’t that what this blog is really about?
Jews have been slaves for thousands of years. They’ve been, slaves to the Egyptians, slaves to the Christians, slaves to the corporations. We are too smart for our own good, and many years ago, evil learned how to take advantage. Yes. Jews are much smarter than the rest of you, except not able to physically and metaphorically dominate.
Don’t play the Jew-domination card. It’s more tired than ridicule over JEWS RULING THE EARTH conspiracies. LOL! Are you for real, or this is some kind of blog comment social experiment?
I doubt one book will turn me into a skeptic. It’s just one man’s opinion and research, after all. 🙂
I have a retirement sale sign slapped on my door. People keep asking me what I’m going to do. “None of your damn business!” I want to say. Usually, I just say, “Become a hermit and grow potatoes.”
Oh, I think I’m past wanting a degree. As for being “smart,” I do (and have) read a lot. And, I remember the damndest bits of minutia. But, other then that, not particularly smart.
There are people on this and other blogs that awe me. Maybe not the content, but the delivery. Critical thinking (when people started throwing around those words, I had to Wiki the term. Still don’t quit grasp what they’re talking about.) Socratic method, etc. etc.. Maybe I’m intellectually lazy, or maybe I just don’t care.
Bingo Asoka. You are on a winning steak. Herman Cain is token Negro for brow beaten Whites terrified of being called a racist. He is to the best of my knowledge, a fraud and tool of the Elite.
Hey Qshtik,
I was never far away, I jusrt don’t bother commenting these days.
Tatts eh? Well did I tell you about the star on the back of my neck, that’s to let the fascists know where to shoot me for maximum killing effect, below that there are two magpies (for luck and Newcastle United Football Club), recently on my right wrist I got a rather nice geometric kind of one, it’s an upside down eye in a triangle in a circle with the letters F T L around the edge. (F T L stands for F*** The Law of course).
Shine on brother…
Regardless, don’t you think Cain, with successful business executive experience, could do better job than Palin, who couldn’t run a town of a few thousand in Alaska without leaving it in debt?
Sarah Palin’s latest version of American history and Paul Revere and his ride:
“He who warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells and, um, making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were going to be secure and we were going to be free.”
Look out everybody, Sarah Palin is coming!, Sarah Palin is coming!
I swear she’s coming, run, run, everybody, run!
Marc said:
True, more intelligent people tend to be better adusted and to have fewer problems overall, that much is indisputable. Nevertheless, as people become more abstract and theoretical in their outlook they can embrace exotic philosophies which come to dominate their outlook and have a distorting effect. Of course smarter people are less likely to adopt stupid philosophies.
***************************************************
My experience is that SOMEWHAT educated people
have the least common sense i.e., people who are
“wannabee” intellectuals. Out here in California,
most of the people I know who are Californicated
“Buddhists”, believers in nonsense like astrology,
and so on, tend to be people who couldn’t quite
get a degree or whose degrees are in BULLSHIT
disciplines like Social Psychology, Intercultural
Studies, and the like.
Many of these pseudo-metaphysical goofballs are
hilarious because when you talk to them about,
for example, the ideas and history of Buddhism,
they know NOTHING. They don’t know about
Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana, what created
the transitions between those movements, etc..
They just know enough to senselessly follow
some guru from Peoria, Illinois who’s renamed
himself Baba Ram Toejam or something.
Just as the nouveau riche are far more obnoxious,
pretentious, and senseless than the old rich,
people who think that a “mystical” line of
conversational bullshit passes for “intellect”
are far harder to take than a less gaudy but
more solid physical scientist or engineer.
Of course, there are people lacking in “common
sense” at all intellectual levels but the
demographic data about the correlations between
educational achievement and longer, safer, and
healthier lives is indisputable.
E.
At my college, I see “diversity” celebrated
as the idea that “As a person from country
X, I can bring all of the WORST aspects of
my home country here and you have to kiss
my ass or be a ‘racist'”.
In the school cafeteria, all of the old guard
faculty can’t believe the piles of shit left
behind on the tables of Asian students who
never clean up a spilled drink and never bus
their own tables after eating. It’s as if
they see “freedom” as the freedom to indulge
their ID, rather than their SUPEREGO.
In your case, you were victimized at the school
celebration by people who also don’t know the
difference between freedom and LICENSE.
Unfortunately, since schools seem to cater more
and more to a “lowest common denominator”, this
kind of “freedom” is now also indulged in by
the Anglo majority as well.
White Trashiness is now flaunted and the garish,
loud, ill-mannered, and vain seem to be a kind
of “fraternity” that transcends all ethnic
boundaries. This is our “Brave New World”.
E.
An ominous sign … the dollar index keeps
making lower highs and lower lows. Europe
may have its problems but I don’t buy the
idea that European internals are WORSE than
the internals of the United States.
Laurence Kotlikoff of Boston University actually
published an article which showed that USA financial internals are worse than … ARGENTINA.
The only factor keeping the dollar from having a
meltdown is its reserve currency status … which
I fully expect it to lose within a decade.
Like most failing empires in history, the USA sits
on its laurels from the past while current
realities spell a distinctly different story. We
are 17th in life expectancy, 23rd best in infant
mortality, nearing the Middle Eastern shitholes
in achievement test of literacy and numeracy,
have alltime low levels of equity in our homes,
and I believe the QUALITY of our immigrants is
way, way down since even the 1990s.
Our leading industry, high tech, is built on
hype and outright lies. When a company like
GroupOn is our future, we are in very, very
deep doo-doo. Yes, folks, GroupOn … a
company that’s in the consumer coupon business
is our knight in shining armor.
Well, personally, I don’t want to be an American
outsider in a foreign country in my senior years
(which lie just ahead) but I have to confess that
if I were young I’d jump at the chance to split.
Our entire economy is based on insubstantialities
unnecessary to survival.
E.
Be afraid, Be very afraid!
See my 3:26 post, if you dare!
Sorry, Jim. I love your stuff, but I ain’t buying this one. Palin seems like a standard issue rent-a-pol, just like your boy Obama. It might help you put things in perspective if you’d just admit the truth about Mr. Change, i.e. that he was a Trojan Horse, and you fell for it. He took the silver long before he was elected and had sold you out with his appointments before he even had his foot in the door of the White House.
I find it hard to believe that the people who really pull the strings on these characters, i.e. the big banks and corporations, would put in power a figure who might do things they wouldn’t like, such as, say, the nationalization of certain key industries or the transfer of power from the money men back to the government (think Putin in Russia). No, since that disgusting glitch with Jimmy Carter, they’ve learned to spank these people hard before they ever get near a position of power.
You may rest assured that Palin will be kept on a short leash, and that her followers will remain what they are, slaves to the establishment. Good cannon fodder for their wars and dependable, disposable labor for the rare occasions when there is actual work needing to be done.
More, “in your face”:
“Forget Apple’s sycophantic entertainment industry boot licking for a moment. Will agents of the state have a kill switch on recording devices as well? Apparently so.
The patent itself, U.S. Patent #20110128384 uses the phrase, “classified facility” as an example of a venue where the devices would be crippled.
(Can you hear that sickening sound? That’s Cheney squealing with joy over this as he rolls in his own slop.)
Don’t ask me how this crippleware will get installed on non Apple digital cameras and other devices, but it will probably involve suitcases of cash and hookers and a number of senators. Hmm. And maybe an appeal to public safety???
Obomb-ya can get up in front of his teleprompters and talk about how we need to innovate and partner with industry to foil the attempts by al Qaeda to conduct surveillance on government buildings, etc. etc.
It’ll be grand. And once Obomb-ya finishes up, why not go for a quick Cinnabon before Dancing with the Stars comes on?”
The comments can be applied locally.
http://cryptogon.com/?p=22722#comments
The Low Info Pols
Both Sara Palin and Michelle Bachmann represent the low information brigade. It’s amazing how awkward Sarah was when she was describing what role Paul Revere played in our history that every five year old knows. She stumbled through her explanation like someone who was just making something up on the fly—and she didn’t pull it off very well–it was painful to watch.
Michelle Bachmann, a tax lawyer did the same on numerous occasions. Surely she must have gotten some kind of education in order to have earned that degree…
These women look like they’ve been given bad scripts by some demented political advisers who believe the American people are so stupid that they have no idea what’s true and what isn’t. Boy you could just imagine how they’d do in a true/false test!–I think all they care about is that these ladies say the things they want to hear.
So these “Patriots” can’t be bothered to even google historical facts, because either they are too lazy or they think they are charming when they wing it.
It’s frightening to think they have even a small chance to be president–that they actually have a following.
As I’ve said before, if either one ever won, they could be the PR-in-Chief–Oh and here’s a bowl of jelly beans on your massive desk in the West Wing..
I love your comments because you have good specifics plus of course they’re highly negativistic! After all, as someone I knew in AA used to rant continually, “reality sucks”. Positive thinking is for weenies and people who are trying to put one over on us or worse persons who place mental hygiene above being in touch with reality.
To me some of these academic pursuits might be okay if you studied them at the Univ. of Chicago for instance, but then if you start getting down to the bottom of the barrel of open admissions schools then you end up with crap. The school I went to is now ranked 79th nationally and used to be higher ranked and even there probably one-third of the kids were only marginally fit to be in college. Of course even Yale had the likes of Dubya and Cheney, although at least they had the sense to flunk Cheney out.
I kept on reading more about buddhism because I didn’t want to get duped. In addition to that it was like a vast puzzle to me and I wanted to solve the puzzle. Plus I don’t like being herded or jumping through a bunch of unnecessary hoops just to please the local zen master or what-have-you. And I am suspicious of anything which appears simplistic especially if the adherents come off with that dazed deer in the headlights affect, reminiscent of the Moonies or something like that, so I will not be rushing over to chant with the local Nichiren zombies anytime soon.
Neverthless I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the Bhagwan Shri-Rajneesh [sp.?] of Rajneeshpuram formerly Antelope, OR I believe because at least he was totally loopy and even sedated on valiums much of the time, had a great fleet of Rolls Royces, and encouraged his followers to fornicate with each other as much as practicable. His appearance on 60 minutes had me rolling on the floor in paroxysms of laughter.
I just don’t consider race or gender as part of my decision making.
_JSS-
————-
This is commendable. I wish more caucasians were like that.
-Asoka, to JSS-
I wish more people of all races, creeds, and gender(s) would emulate Jonathan’s example.
PoC
Asoka, your admission that you are aware of your own feelings of racism – early in this week – seemed heartfelt.
If you make a statement that could be construed as racist, I’ll try to help you see it. This one qualifies, IMO.
I’m out until late Sunday, but I’ll try to read through the thread and make responses then.
Have a great weekend, CFN’ers!
Well Vlad, the cat is long out of the bag.
I think that most anthropologists now accept that the peopling of the Americas was a more complicated process than previously thought. But what I’ve read is that the remains you talk about like Kennewick and Spirit Cave aren’t the remains of white caucasians of European descent but rather of individuals descended from Pacific rim people that resembled Ainu of Japan or Australian Aborigines ie they weren’t descendants of Siberian Mongoloid nomadic hunters.
I saw a program not long ago about scientists on the trail of modern descendants in the Baja Peninsula of people that did not have the typical physical traits like the cranial vault, cheekbones, dentition of Siberian peoples. There was one other show that explored this issue. They said that in Patagonia there are people that are are a mixture of the later Siberian Mongoloid and the earlier non Siberian migrants.
I hadn’t heard about the tribal legends. Interesting. I know that modern North and South American Indians want to keep the story line as simple as possible. Indian good. White man bad. Anything that muddies it like accounts of earlier peoples that were exterminated or subsumed European style by Siberian nomads is an unwanted complication.
I wouldn’t completely discount the theory that European people made their way along the southern edge of the arctic ice pack hunting aquatic mammals or fish much the same as modern Inuit (Eskimo). But my sense is that most scientists think the evidence is still sketchy. I guess if someone finds Cro Magnon burials in N. America with all the typical Cro Magnon cultural artifacts it will nail it down once and for all.
Anyway it’s fascinating stuff.
What I could never understand about the British Commonwealth was why Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the coastal provinces of South Africa were not invited to send their members of Parliament to London in order to totally confederate those dominions into the United Kingdom. – BHM
I don’t know about Australia and the rest by I’ve read that by the 1840s Britain wanted out of Canada as much as possible. I guess they didn’t see it as a profitable venture and on top of it there was the never ending, never resolved, unresolvable problem of French speaking Quebec. Just not worth the bother.
How about making the UK part of NAFTA and the USA part of the Commonwealth? The US is a former colony after all. And not all Commonwealth countries have the Queen as head of state. Quite a few are republics.
I hear that Americans go gaga over royalty. How would you like King Charles and Queen Camilla or King William and Queen Katherine presiding over meetings? Forget that old unpleasantness about taxation without representation and that 1812 dust-up.
You are on a winning steak.
===========
NY Strip?
Swiss?
Fillet Mignon?
there are two magpies (for luck and Newcastle United Football Club),
============
It must be a cultural thing … in what way are magpies representative of luck and Newcastle United Football Club?
Whatever….but I am interested in how things are going in Ireland. We read over here that Ireland is lumped in as a financial basket-case with Greece, Spain and the rest of the southern tier of EU countries but how does that play out in day to day life from your perspective?
Yeah, I agree govt provided economics numbers like “unemployment” are a joke.
They’re cooked up by govt bureaus who are the masters of statistical trickery ruled over by ultimately by politicians who themselves are in the pockets of Wall Street and their corporate cohorts. I believe them as far as I can throw them. Another govt stat that makes me laugh is “inflation”.
I don’t give a shit what govt economic stats say. I’ve been around long enough to know better. Things started going bad in the 1970s and things have been going south ever since.
Like you said Wage, we all have eyes and ears. Look at your friends and neighbours. Listen to what others are saying, keep tabs on their situation. You can get a pretty good picture of things.
I remember how things were when I was a kid. My memories of the 50s are pretty sketchy but we lived in a big house and I remember my dad one day bringing home a big car and in the car trunk was a pedal car for me. Times were good. And times got better in the 1960s for us and all our relatives and friends and they were all like my parents, semi literate peasants.
Nowadays such people as my parents and our relatives would have zero chance. They’d be working for minimum wage in pizza parlours instead of having good paying steady work in factories.
I’m with you on this. Skepticism is a good thing but I wouldn’t be scornful of people that would leave the door open just a crack. As Stephen Hawking once said he has an idea of how the universe works but he doesn’t know what breathes fire into the equations. I just don’t think we’ve evolved the neurological machinery to answer the big questions. I think that various religions and religious texts are an attempt and maybe the best cut we can make for the time being. In the end I think it’s as you say, believe what you will.
One of my Facebook friends posted a sign that points out why the culture is deteriorating, and the kids these days seem so prone to walking on our lawns –
“…there is only one Truth and that is that life under capitalism is shit and only drugs, loud music and fucking make it bearable….”
But, other then that, not particularly smart.
=============
First of all Lew I would like you to put aside my rep as a ball-buster nonpareil. I enjoy your posts immensely. You have opened a window for me onto an unfamiliar part of the country (although I have been to Seattle on two occasions on business). Your tale many months ago about a day – when some sort of downtown event had drawn significant crowds to Centralia’s main street yet “not one person crossed your (bookstore’s) threshold” – broke my heart. I told my wife and mother-in-law about it at the dinner table.
But, be that as it may, I have set certain life goals … a kind of “Things To Do Before I Die” list on which Asia is among the top-most entries with a note saying “Must get to write complete, non-cryptic, sentences that start with upper case letters.”
I also have it on my list to find out why Metusela (previously known as Mika) cannot bring himself to type the word “fuck” (and also why on earth he would choose “fsck” as a replacement when there are so many more logical ways such as “phuk”) as though if he did his hair would instantly catch on fire. Is “fsck” the standard in Israel for writers who wish to avoid the use of foul language but still emphasize a point?
Well, you are on my list too for your repeated use of “then” where “than” should be used. Keep this in mind: “then” is almost always used to mean at that time; over that period of time or (as a sentence modifier) in that case; that being so.
Previous entry is for LLB.
Intelligence Attractive ? You must be crazy, much better simple (especially girls) as simple as possible, no mind at all, essentially dead, even better, nothing is my friend…
Kill Intelligence.
Now, go on and read the following, you will be under the dictatorship of my free will forcing you to put the words and ideas together as I chose in your mind, I will control your mind and the content of your thought for a few minutes, abide, be my slave.
Economy Misunderstood
I am a bit like those ex-christians that believed, all of their lives in a kind of religion, a kind of objective, external reality, rules and models of reality shared and believed by everyone, or most, or anyways some kind of objective truth, rules that we should abide to, an aggregation and serialization of results (just like in religions, be good and you will be rewarded, etc.), but then discover it was all a lie, a huge deception, there is nothing only crap in people, outside of people and everywhere, no god exists, no nothing, the world is totally meaningless, has nothing to say to us and we have nothing to say to it, there is nothing that has to be communicated to us, no metaphysical or spritual truth, no beauty, no value, a total void, zero, empty, undefined, barren, boring, no need for any communication, you simply live, life is a bitch, eat drink and be merry and then you die, end of story.
Only in my case I kind of believed in the Economy, the system, it progresses, Capitalism goes forward, it is for the better good, it defeated Communism, etc. Nothing further from the truth, no religion has ever been more false than this one.
Economy only exists in terms of people interacting and mostly fighting, it is a constantly unstable system and will be unstable forever, there is no aggregate value being produced, no lasting result only power struggles, some win, some lose, always changing and never really producing lasting collective results. Except in the form of technical advancements that optimize many processes and imply less labor needed, no matter what, this is probably the only real collective aggregated value being produce. We are producing “the end of labor” and “the end of labor needed” more than anything else, and this is in fact the great deception of Economy, as all of the economists want yuo to believe that it has rules that favor “society” or that well run economies genertte “wealth for everyone and jobs” etc.
They want you to believe that there are structural and objective advances by an economic system applying competition, innovation, productivity. But this is the lie, this ideology just serves to concentrate money and power in fewer and fewer hands, and no economists will ever tell you the truth: the modern economy is only producing one product really well and really fast, the end of labor, the elimination of labor, the end of the need of people in general for them to do anything at all. The modern economy is generating leisure time by the boatloads, is eliminating the need of people in all endeavors, and ever more and ever faster by optimizations, technical advances, software, robots, internet, globalization having factories anywhere in the world being able to export to anywhere else etc.
Economy exists only in terms of exchanges and interactions between people, if you are not interacting and exchanging then the economy slows down or halts, the process slows down, fewer and fewer people can earn money and live and “work” (which is the exchange), in a sense, the interactions, transactions and exchanges must be forced, or are forced sometimes by fundamental necessities (but minimally in this case as this is the primary sector of the economy – agriculture). The economy doesn’t really produce “products”, it produces transactions between people, interactions between people and imaginary values of mostly placeholders (ipads, movies, education, you name it) that serve as an excuse to interact. But this interaction and exchange between people is always simply a fight, a status challenge, what is exchanged is simply an excuse for the interaction, what is exchanged often has no value, only a temporary invented value that serves the purpose of being an excuse and placeholer for an exchange and interaction between people, so that they can get “the money flowing”, the process going, constantly going, constantly exchanging.
But we have a strange short circuit happening today: on one hand the placeholders and excuses – objects of interaction are evaporating into the abstract world of information, a combination of bits that can easily be transfered anywhere at any price and mostly for free (the internet and all kinds of “Information Products” (music, video, tv shows, books, blogs, forums) as we now live in the “Information Economy”), but this free information doesn’t really imply much exchange in real money anymore. But the information generated, in free form mostly is increasing ever more, thanks to the Technological Economy creating EXCESS CAPACITY, in the form of technical advances making this exchange cost less and less and also by all the free “hobby factories” generating this information for free by free labor (everyone generating their own information so easily, blog, videos, you name it).
But there is a reason why it seems that the future items of exchange are destined to evaporate into the abstract, light weight material of bits, as opposed to heavy real products like cars and boats and houses: because it is very easy to generate these “products”, they cost almost nothing, there are very few inhibitions and interdictions to their flow across the world and mostly the energy needed to produce them and transfer them is infinitely smaller that the energy needed to produce cars, houses, boats, real products based on a real material world.
But if you want to create “Jobs” you better get people building real heavy things like Skyscrapers, Rockets to Mars, etc.
So just this development makes it seem as if we are headed towards an abstract virtual world, a virtual reality where only the information exchanges count, where emotions and reactions are all tied into how we react and interact with this information, and each information reflecting a person behind it and having varying degrees of emotional interaction with the information and person behind it. It only takes a few steps to go from here to a modifed mind, modifying the neural networks of brains and them interacting in any new way.
People sometimes say that they believe that “there is more to reality, the world, life than meets the eye”: No it is the other way around, there is not even that that meets the eye, not even that exists or is reality, reality and life is less than what meets the eye, is essentially nothing at all, hence the justification to invent modified minds and invent and lie and create any reality, world or anything you like: it is all fake and a lie anyways, there is absolutely nothing at all, no necessities, no obligations, no interdictions or inhibitions (although we are full of subtle interdictions and inhibitions, the greatest inhibition being the “suspension of belief” in the form of the mental variable C, which means the degree to which you are convinced something is real, and this is usually higher than 0 and less that 100, so normal reality would be about 80, you are convinced by 80 % that your reality is “real”, but by 10 % that a fake reality is “real”: but a totally fake and made up reality can be assigned a C of 95 or 100 if you are good enough at it, hence, you demonstrate that there is nothing outside of what you create for as reality).
By the way, I could write about how “Love” better understood as “Infatuation” could be essentially much more pornographic and dirty than sex: Infatuation is much more involving, some forms of infatuation can get quite extreme and totalizing and emotional. Sex, even the most intense could effectively imply much less emotional involvement,is mechnical, but anyways…
Now, go on San Jose Mommy, let your little lucy and bobby copy all this for their homework, the teacher will give them an A and a GOLD star, let them play outside in the backyard, go on mommy, let them find some mental contraption representing a new mind universe interaction, here is a new one, they can try to figure it out, they can run around together in the backyard, imagining and playing with all of this, oh, what fun:
ShshHSHShhdhehdhruuJJE))======$)%))&666
Wow, who knows what that is. It must be a very complex block diagram where emotions are converted into sensory information, the organization of reality in those minds must be so different from anything we can even come close to thinking, there is a feeling to thought generator or something like that, mutliple memories, 20 dimensional time coordinates, who knows what else…
Quo vadis ? baby …
Lewis, I’d like to second Qshtiks assertion about your posts. I don’t know too much about the NW US, never been there. But you describe it well, painting a pretty clear picture, sort of like in Joan Haverty Kerouacs autobiography, Jacks second wife, who lived most of her adult life out there.
Minister of Propaganda, CFNation … Vlad Krantz.
-Marlin
Minister of Lunatics … Spider/Old6699.
-Marlin
My one tatt is Mondrian’s “Blue Rose” on my back. Got it back in the 70s when getting a tattoo still had a little creed. 🙂 The whole “rebel, rebel” thing. “What are you rebelling against?” “What-ya-got?”
Dropping the fact that I had a tatt into beer stoked conversations (without revealing what or where it was) got me laid a time or two.
Those were the days!
But most 5 year olds DONT know about Paul Revere. It’s just more of our cultural references slipping away.
“Listen my children, and you shall hear,
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.”
Over on Michael Greer’s blog, the Archdruid Report, he has a link to a sci-fi story he’s telling, a chapter a month. (The wait is killing me) called “Star’s Reach.” It’s 400 years in the future and what was America is a very different place. Very agrarian and a guild of people mine the ruins.
A folk hero is referred to. Dizzy, who after the Second Civil War took ten years to make it home from the last great battle in Troy (Michigan) to Ithica (New York). Playing his horn to pay his way along the way. Later on, our hero, the Ruinman, hears another story about Dizzy, saying that in life he was actually two people.
I posted to the comments that it seemed to be an amalgamation of Dizzy Gillespie and Odysseus. Michael Greer posted back that he wondered if anyone would catch the reference. 🙂
Odd. Last night I was digging through boxes of books and came across a nice two volume set of Homer. Probably slap $12 on them. Due to my 50% off close-out sale, they’ll go for $6.
Rajneesh has popped up a couple of times on this blog. Being an ex-Orna-gonian, I pretty much followed the tale, up close and personal.
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is when everything started to unravel. I doubt if the Rajneesh was the mastermind behind what came down.
Antelope is a low population town in a low population county. The goal was to take over the town and county government. The first phase was to bus in loads of people right off of Skid Road in Portland to establish residency and register to vote.
The second phase was to infect a local salad bar with bacterial agents in the days before the election. A restaurant where only original residents ate. Salmonella or E. Coli, as I remember.
There’s alot more that doesn’t fit into the narrative so it’s been brushed under the rug. The Natives of Easter Island also talk about fighting and exterminating a race of tall red haired Over Lords who were oppressing them by making them build those statues. Like the Paiutes of Spirit Cave, they talk about driving the Giants into a Cave and then suffocating them with fire and smoke. Same story? Hard to imagine how.
The Spanish found that some of the Inca Lords were almost as fair skinned as themselves. When asked, the Incas said that they had defeated a race of tall fair haired people, killed the men and taken their women as wives. This had happened only a few generations previously so the genes hadn’t been totally absorbed into the Amerindian masses yet.
When the Spanish went to the Canary Islands, they found a very primitive race of tall red haired people – not just legends in this case either – the mummies have been found. Lacking any curiousity at all and not notable for compassion, the Spanish exterminated them.
Anyway, my theory is that there was a once an earlier Nordic People(s) far advanced beyond their bretheren back in Eastern Europe and West Asia. They traveled the world both conquering and helping many peoples. In other words, they had no more commonsense than we do. They ended up being either absorbed into the subject races and/or getting their throats cut by the same.
Of course, many things are possible: we’re talking about many thousands of years. What you said about Ainu type Siberians coming over might be true as well. But in any case, the strange non Indian skeltetons are the oldest – they were here before the Indians. And the Indians were here before the Innuit and Aleuts.
“Feudalism with cable.” Not mine. Stole if from somewhere, but can’t remember where so I can cite the source. 🙁 .
Eleuthero…”White trash is flaunted.”
You hit the nail on the head. The other day is saw a bumper sticker on a filthy car that said, “Tattooed White Trash.”
SJmom
There is or has been some support for admitting the UK to NAFTA and conversely the USA to the Commonwealth as a Republic which is India’s status in the commonwealth as well as Pakistan probably. Jamaica and the Bahamas are Constitutional monarchies like Canada though.
As you mention there were many complications especially in the case of South Africa, in which the British got distracted and allowed themselves to be baited into fighting the Dutch settlers in the interior called Boers or Africaans. Also, because of French Canadian pacifism during WWII the Canadians could not get a draft law through parliament in Ottowa so the Canandian forces were all volunteer during WWII. In spite of this Canada built the third largest navy in the world by tonnage, composed mostly of destroyer escorts, which today are called frigates. New Zealand is by far and away the most Anglophiliac of the former dominions so a complete confederation with the dominions as pushed for by the Chamberlain tories 1870s United Empire Confederation movement if successful at all might only have been succesful with New Zealand. But in reality none of this occurred so the term “dominion” is now archaic and outmoded as all of these countries are now completely independent with their governors general having been stripped of their powers to dissolve Parliament in both Canada and Auistralia. Australia also has a robust republican movement which already got the issue put to the ballot once where the monarchy was retained by only a narrow victory margin.
If industrial civilization fails though then we’ll probably become more atomized instead and become ultra-isolationist.
Quite possibly better than Palin. But if you want management, Mitt’s the Man. If you want reform, Ron Paul is. We need reform and management, Paul/Romney would be the best ticket.
Fox had a good point: Romney’s blowing it by trying to be one of the guys. He’s stiff as a board and can never beat Palin on that level – or any of the other canditdates either. He should put back on the Blue Suit and be what he is. As far as Romney Care – just say that he had to do it so he did it well. That’s what Managers do.
I just looked that one up myself online after foolishly saying how amusing I thought Rajneeshpuram had been based upon my foggy recollection of a 60 minutes episode from the eighties ans was appalled to see the criminal sort of shit they were up to with both the Bhagwan character and his secretary’s mug shots.
There can be no wonder then about how they ended up on 60 minutes. I’d also like to check out “Feudalism with Cable”. Also remember that any books you can’t dispose of when liquidating your book store can be pulped and converted into high insulation value papercrete blocks which are also amazingly light considering how they do contain some portland cement.
So who owns the Federal Reserve then? Even they admit that they are private if you read their literature. So does the Federal Goverment. Sooo – if we don’t own it – who does? Since Paul Warburg was an agent of Rothschild, almost certainly the owners of Fed (and thus the United States), are the Jewish Banking Families of Europe – who are all intermarried with each other. And sure there may be a gentile or two as well. It certainly would explain why hundreds of billions of our money was given to Europe last year….and much else besides.
Now on the Continent things may be more balanced between Jews and Gentile since their are old Gentile Banking Families in Italy, Switzerland, and elsewhere. Metuselah graps onto this with all his strength to indict the Vatican – and abolve the Jews of everything. Such absolution is a full time job these days. There is so much to absolve.
That’s a pretty interesting take from your Facebook friend. I’m not buying it though; it sounds like a cop-out , or worse, a nihilistic rationalization.
But at least you have Facebook friends. I was just “de-friended” by one of the few I have and so I‘m down to two now. Anyway, my former friend was posting a lot of health claims on his wall for some very expensive bottled water and finally I had enough and inferred he was the equivalent of a snake-oil salesmen when I posted the below on his wall:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sh0wr7HH8Y
Thanks Marlin! Well, I guess it’s time for another epistle from out here. Centralia: a small rural town, in a small rural county, half way between Portland and Seattle. 2 1/2 miles off I-5.
The sun shines down on our Hooper-esq main drag. It’s supposed to hit 80 today. I see guys on the sidewalk in Hawaiian shirts, shorts and flip-flops. Looks to be shaping up to be the best day of the year, so far. It was our second dark and rainy (and long) spring. It may be the new normal.
The climate change projections I see for the Pacific NW (Western Division) say rainier and cooler. For the most part. Followed by hot summer’s and falls that will melt the snow pack, too fast. Flooding in the spring, water shortage in the fall. We hear the Columbia runs high and all the reservoirs are full. Luckily, we are not in that drainage system. We are flood prone, but it’s from the rain.
It was dreary enough, for long enough to even make me, a native, a bit twitchy this year. Talking to the farmers at the local Farmer’s Market, several of them are switching to raised beds and row covers. Just to get early crops.
Open two hours and not a customer through the door. Parking spots galore. Not much foot traffic. Everyone is out doing something in the sun. Later on, out-of-towners may sift over from the factory outlet malls on the freeway and the larger “antique” malls. The ones with the money and an interest in books. I’ve got three boxes of books on the counter to sort through, clean and price.
My divestment continues. My downsizing. On to part II.
Lewis, you got part of the Rajneesh story right, but you left out an important part: Rajneesh called the FBI and State Police and asked them to come investigate as soon as he became aware of what Sheela had been up to.
On Sept. 16, 1985 Rajneesh informed the authorities of a host of crimes, including extensie wiretapping (Sheela had bugged his own bedroom), attempts to kill members of Rajneesh’s personal staff, a conspiracy to assassinate US Attorney Charles Turner, and the spraying of salmonella bacteria on salad bars in The Dalles.
Sheela fled for Europe to avoid being arrested, though they got her later.
I guess Sheela never thought her illegal activities would be revealed, but as soon as Rajneesh learned of them, not only did he talk about it to everyone in the morning discourse (causing Sheela to flee), he called in authorities to investigate and they happily obliged. They had been looking for a reason to arrest and deport him for years.
Part II: A letter from Out Here.
I will probably never get around to writing those novels that have been rattling around in my head for years. So I finally tear loose of the extensive reference collections. The books on early Imperial Rome. The books on the Middle East covering the same period. A large collection on the fall of Roman Britain. Extensive works on monasticism in the 11th century. I price them and put them on the shelf. I pull them off the shelf. I put them back again.
I’ve been hauling stuff to the auction. I actually went to the auction, last week, for the first time. I may go to more auctions in the future, but not one’s where there is stuff of mine. It’s too painful. Given the economy, the prices are very low. The blue glass powder box with the embossed roses that my mother was given on her high school graduation in 1938 went for $17.50.
But, it’s given me a different perspective on what’s left. I think I’ll keep the little white pottery owl that’s in the window. He’s just go in a box lot with a lot of other stuff, which would go for $5.00, of which I would receive $3.50. I’ve got 5 or 6 old Japanese baskets I’m fond of. Think I’ll keep those, too.
I’m beginning to think about the garden I may have next year. I’ve ordered a couple of books from the library on keeping deer and other critters at bay. There will be losses, but one must plan ahead and fight the good fight.
That’s about it from here. But I have decided that from here on out, I will swap then for than. And, than for then. Personal and personnel will also be exchanged. I’m tired of always having to hesitate to remember which has to do with Human Resources. I will cast out the rule about “i before e, except after c” …and those exceptions I can never remember. After all, I AM simplifying.
Lew, CFN, Post 5; Western Cascadian Division
Well, in a lot of ways, he WAS amusing. I think in some instances, he was a tool for his underlings.
Wonder how papercrete holds up in our climate?
I agree with your post and like your proposed ticket. In addition to the blue suit, the GOP candidates have to do more than bash Obama. I would like to hear some specific solutions to problems, not just hyperbole. Like Mitt saying the US is “only inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy” under Obama.
Funny, since I believe that we haven’t really been a free market economy for a long time… we are a weird hybrid of a centrally controlled and planned economic system that mixes elements of fascism and socialism.
Hollywood came out and filmed a movie in the next town over, a few years back.
They called it Sunrise Awakening, or something like that, and got the natives jobs as extras, which they bragged about.
Until the movie was released. The new name was “Poor White Trash”.
It was actually a funny movie. We watched it as a family, and the very next week I had to take my son to the courthouse featured in the movie to pay a traffic ticket.
I thought it was pretty funny that we were walking up those same stairs we had just seen in the movie. (But I have strong white trash tendencies myself). So I called my son poor white trash.
Well!! He was highly offended.
Maybe that’s why he moved away and never writes or calls.
A silver lining to rising petrol prices, as reported by the NYT on June 2nd:
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/112852/retailers-greener-packaging-nyt
Even better than tree based cardboard would be hemp based packaging. When is a politician going to take a stand in favor of this remarkable plant? I understand special interests had a hand in banning hemp along with “Reefer Madness” hysteria and minority discrimination:
http://www.thc-ministry.net/untoldstory/hemp_5.html
By the way, one of the plots of the movie was that the kid needed to rob a store to get money to go to college. His only ticket out of poverty, or so he believes.
Kind of ironic, considering our conversations this week on college attendance and tuition.
Lew, I have never had any difficulty understanding what you are communicating, whether you use then or than. Context usually tells the story.
I hope you don’t feel anxious and I hope you don’t stop writing just because of Q’s neurosis over then/than. That would make Q. an RI.
My hemp link is eye opening. In the funny if it wasn’t so sad department is this exerpt:
I originally joined Facebook to keep track of my son’s activities. He never writes or calls. As it turns out, he rarely posts to Facebook either, but his friends post pictures of him, so I can see what he’s doing with them. My daughter, on the other hand, posts hourly updates on whatever she’s doing.
The rest of my friends are an odd mixture.
I have real friends that are political, and friends that I work with that friended me for reasons which baffle me. They know my politics. Why would they want to be bombarded with leftist propaganda on their scrolls?
A bunch of 20 year olds that I work with Friended me, which also baffles me, but, obviously, I think it would be rude to reject a request from someone I work with.
A young EMT who never had said a word to me friended me. OK. I thought that once we were Facebook friends, that he would be friendly in real life, but, not really. So that is strange. I know what he’s doing all day, but he never talks to me.
The rest of my friends are people who saw my comments on other friends scrolls, and asked to be my friends. Like, if we could befriend people here, I’d go for Ozone and lbendent and the other leftists.
Then, I started doing the same thing to people whose comments I liked.
So now I have friends in Pakistan and Australia and Serbia, who I will never meet.
So my Facebook scroll is bizarre.
Half of it is updates from people who are going out drinking with their BFFs, and the other half is articles on the capitalist, imperialist police state that we live in.
”
I like that. Feudalism with cable.
By the way, I’m sure it was your intelligence that attracted the women to you, not your tattoo:)
I remember a guy once trying to pick me up by telling me about his great car, and how he’d take me for a ride in it.
Omigod! As if!
I’ve actually always hated cars, because of the air pollution, before I ever knew about peak oil, or global warming.
How bout a stake thru your art?
Asoka,
In the last sentence from the excerpt of my post, could you comment? {LOL, or is it COL (cry out loud)?}
I’ve been impressed with your lifestyle and self-educated transformation. I would be interested in reading your thoughts on hemp. It’s supposed to be good for the soil and would grow well in GA. I wonder if it would be a good cash crop for you.
Is the EROEI of pressing hemp seeds into oil in order to power an ICE better than corn based ethanol’s?
From a posting on Common Dreams-
“I’ll leave the marijuana/hemp resources to other posters, however at the top of any list must include a few basic facts —
“The actual story behind the legislature passed against marijuana is quite surprising. According to Jack Herer, author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes and an expert on the “hemp conspiracy,” the acts bringing about the demise of hemp were part of a large conspiracy involving DuPont, Harry J. Anslinger, commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and many other influential industrial leaders such as William Randolph Hearst and Andrew Mellon. Herer notes that the Marijuana Tax Act, which passed in 1937, coincidentally occurred just as the decoricator machine was invented.
With this invention, hemp would have been able to take over competing industries almost instantaneously. According to Popular Mechanics, “10,000 acres devoted to hemp will produce as much paper as 40,000 acres of average [forest] pulp land.” William Hearst owned enormous timber acreage, land best suited for conventional pulp, so his interest in preventing the growth of hemp can be easily explained. Competition from hemp would have easily driven the Hearst paper-manufacturing company out of business and significantly lowered the value of his land. Herer even suggests popularizing the term “marijuana” was a strategy Hearst used in order to create fear in the American public. “The first step in creating hysteria was to introduce the element of fear of the unknown by using a word that no one had ever heard of before… ‘marijuana'” (ibid).
“DuPont’s involvment in the anti-hemp campaign can also be explained with great ease. At this time, DuPont was patenting a new sulfuric acid process for producing wood-pulp paper. “According to the company’s own records, wood-pulp products ultimately accounted for more than 80% of all DuPont’s railroad car loadings for the next 50 years” (ibid). Indeed it should be noted that “two years before the prohibitive hemp tax in 1937, DuPont developed a new synthetic fiber, nylon, which was an ideal substitute for hemp rope” (Hartsell).
The year after the tax was passed DuPont came out with rayon, which would have been unable to compete with the strength of hemp fiber or its economical process of manufacturing. “DuPont’s point man was none other than Harry Anslinger…who was appointed to the FBN by Treasury Secretary Andrew MEllon, who was also chairman of the Mellon Bank, DuPont’s chief financial backer. Anslinger’s relationship to Mellon wasn’t just political, he was also married to Mellon’s niece” (Hartsell). It doesn’t take much to draw a connection between DuPont, Anslinger, and Mellon, and it’s obvious that all of these groups, including Hearst, had strong motivation to prevent the growth of the hemp industry.”
Cash;
Have you ever seen the film “Breaker Morant” about the Boer War, and the role of colonial soldiers who served with the British?
-Marlin
Back in the late 1970’s a popular X-rated movie, “The Cheerleaders” was filmed at my highschool, Monta Vista. The school district approved using the school as a film set. The basic plot of the movie was that the cheerleaders would go into the locker room and screw the daylights out of the opposing team, rendering them too exhausted to function on the football field. They only used outside shots of the school. The sleazy locker room scenes were shot somewhere else.
Needless to say, this was a big scandal in Cupertino!
SJmom
LOL!
I can’t imagine that happening today.
Papercrete is a combination of water, shredded paper, and portland cement. It would probably be okay in a damp climate but I can’t swear to that so you’d have to look it up if you were seriously interested. The two advantages it has over cinder block are low weight and greatly improved insulating qualities.
His secretary was indeed considered the villain in the Antelope, OR crimes. I only read one internet article.
Like when a person jogs or does physical exercise or activity thinking that he is doing something “good” for himself (but mostly good metaphysically, for an imaginary metaphysical reference system that doesn’t exist, if not only in the minds of people communicating with themselves or others and trying to convince themselves), like the mommy growing her kids and putting so much effort in it, all those people working and trying to construct something, trying to achieve, trying to do the right things, the right actions, so that they may be judged by god (but mostly a reflection of other people’s judgment that takes god’s place, or is god really taking other people’s judgments place ? but especially your own as god’s?). Always trying to fight for the “right thing” (undefined by definition), effort, dedication, belief, construction, always struggling and fighting and especially making believe you are winning, that all the sequence of “one damn thing after another”, the story of your life the “history of your life”, somehow is adding up, is achieving is constructing, and you doing the right things feeling smug and comparing yourself always (even if you don’t notice, even if only vaguely in the background) to everyone else that does the wrong things, or even slightly wrong things, so you feel superior, better, you think you are winning (or even slightly winning), you think you can win. Always some activity that is a closure, some “1) start – 2) activity – 3) end”, some delimitation, especially in time, something done, some sequence having value, as a product, as an achievment, no matter how small, it is supposed to make you feel a little better.
Nothing further from the truth, all you do is zero, mostly and many times negative, worthless, is probably all the bad things possible and all the wrong things, you will be punished anyways.
Hey mommy, how I love the idea that god hates us all so much, he hates our guts, he is so different from what we think: when we die, he says to each of us, to everyone, no matter how good or bad you were, no matter what (and therein lies his absolute power and genius) you suck, you got it all wrong, he punishes all unconditionally and sends them to his paradise that consists of infinite pain forever but is in reality extreme pleasure because he uses a different logic from us. Jesus speaks to little childen, this is the task I have been given by my boss, as I am Jesus.
Now go on, contradict me, prove me wrong if you are able.
The world is a total void, has nothing and no meaning and no worth in it, is a dead, irrelevant, indifferent entity, is so valueless that only an extremely modified brain – mind could hope to give it some value. Therefore stick wild electrical signals in the ball of meat that is the brain, pour crazy wild chemicals inside it, put it into a nuclear reactor, soke it up with neutrons, extreme magnetic fields, let it go wild, let it all out, be crazy, let the brain be what it should be, a complete free and wild contraption visiting the most far out insane places ever, go on mommy. Do it, you can do it, just do it.
Will you be my mommy ? I think I need one, and a spanking being as I have been a bad little boy on blogs and forums, a blog – hog, but that is ok, we have EXCESS CAPACITY, they sell hard disks having Terabytes of data of storage at supermarkets, can you imagine how many cool sounding blocks of text I could write with all of that free memory ?
Now tell little lucy and bobby to copy this new block of text for their homework for Monday, it is a nice A+ and BLUE star. But if you want, you can use it for your “work”, show it to your boss, as a special “research document” you invented, or give it to your husband to give it to his boss, they will give you or him a raise for this and the other huge piece of crap I wrote before, actually you would have finally given them a clue on what on earth they should produce in their fairy tale, imaginary, quirk jobs and corporations, being that most corporations today don’t have the slightest idea what to do with those few employees left “working”.
Quo Vadis ? baby …
LOL! Marijuana is not necessary for those effects.
I know of two people who have built with papercrete. One was a success, the other a failure.
In any event, supposing the papercrete blocks are correcting fabricated, in a damp climate it would definitely be required to keep them covered with a stucco or some type of waterproofing to avoid deterioration.
Spider9629, I know this guy you might get along with. His name is Marcel Proust. He wrote something you might enjoy: À la recherche du temps perdu. Except he didn’t publish his to a blog.
“this is the task I have been given by my boss, as I am Jesus. Now go on, contradict me, prove me wrong if you are able.”
—————–
It is not necessary to contradict you. We are all Jesus because we are all one.
This is a central teaching of the ages and of Jesus himself.
John 11:52 says Jesus was to die to make all God’s children “one.” As MD says: “It is made so.”
“Like many intellectuals, he was incapable of saying a simple thing in a simple way.”
Marcel Proust
Okay, thanks for the feedback. That does make sense. For the arch shaped roof on a Quonset hut I would use ferro-cement instead. Papercrete could be good for some of the elements in the end walls if the end walls were sheltered by the arch shaped roof. Most of these demonstration videos I’ve watched were shot in the desert.
Spider, here is another guy you might read and get along with: Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger. He wrote:
“Time no longer appears to us as a gigantic, world-dominating chronos, nor as a primitive entity, but as something derived from phenomena themselves. It is a figment of my thinking.”
Asoka;
I’ve spent some time with Proust, “Remembrance of Things Past” … Talk about minutia … I think he died in bed around 1921, still writing …
-Marlin
If its a monolithic dome you want, you know the kind that is hurricane and tornado proof, then you should take a trip down to Italy, Texas. Or check out their website at:
http://www.monolithic.com/topics/cabins
They offer cabins in a variety of sizes, as well as dome houses that are indestructible shelters.
Wouldn’t surprise me. I think he had an obsession about writing … kind of like some people have about correcting grammar and spelling.
In fact, any potential **cough**Lew**cough** hermit might want to check out these bullet-proof, tornado-proof, fire-proof dome structures:
http://www.monolithic.com/topics/cabins
Of course, said hermit would need some cash on hand to afford one of them.
If you want to build one yourself, there is a five-day workshop you can attend:
http://www.monolithic.com/topics/workshops
Of course, it would also be possible to make your own adobe bricks and build an adobe structure with similar earth mass/protection and the added advantage of it being breathable.
If you want to build one yourself, they have a five-day workshop you can attend. Of course, it would also be possible to make your own adobe bricks and build an adobe structure with similar earth mass/protection and the added advantage of it being breathable.
Gathered outside the prison where Manning is currently being held, protesters denounced Manning’s treatment and called on the White House to drop all charges against him.
“PFC Bradley Manning is a fellow soldier,” Brian Wolfe, a Kansas-based Army Veteran who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, said in an email statement. “If a fellow soldier is punished for taking his oath to defend the constitution seriously, what does that mean for our military and for our democracy?”
“The information Bradley Manning is accused of releasing should have been in the public domain. Whoever revealed it is an American hero.” said Jeff Paterson, a Steering Committee member of the Bradley Manning Support Network who also spoke at the rally, in a statement. “Our leaders in Washington need to return to American principles of transparent and accountable government. That starts with protecting — not prosecuting — whistle-blowers and dropping all charges against Bradley Manning.”
Daaay-um, JSS,
Sounds to me like Vladdie [the Laddie] would be a fine candidate for an enforcer in the DEA, under that rubric/fine spew.
Ooooo, perhaps he already IS a narc! Perfect…
(Sorry Vlad, it was just too easy. ;o)
Thanks. I’m already familiar with the monolithic dome. One was built in the path of a hurricane in a low lying coastal area and it survived unfazed.
I’m more interested in quonset huts for a variety of reasons, but a ferro-cement quonset hut would be equally strong but with the virtue of being easier to build. For the end walls I would use lots of so called “clear vue” glass block. You have to be careful about where you are and codes. There’s a guy in Los Angeles County who’s just been ordered to dismantle his bizarre telephone pole house now that he’s been there for some thirty odd years. I think you’re better off building these “extreme” homes in unzoned areas far from large cities such as off of Interstate 80 in northern Nevada. Lazy people can order pre-engineered metal huts which come with the plans for the building dept. if you’re in an incorporated & zoned area.
Above comment was in reply to ASOKA.
Asoka,
I think spider 6699 should focus ALL his energy on writing a sequel to Joyce’s, “Finnegans Wake.”
Dazed and confused,
SJmom
Good thoughts on reinforced concrete structures.
Quonset hut conformation definitely the most common-sensical design for multiple usage and energy efficiency. “Honest [insert officious bureaucrat here], it’s just a place to store my junk!”
One thing? I’d get busy with it right quick; Portland is mucho energy-intensive to produce. Concrete is one of those things that’s about to get real expensive, real fast. …And think about available water when siting, as well. Nevada? Really? Rattlers for dinner, mebbe? Vulture blood as a nice aperitif?
Let’s double federal borrowing and give every American $20,000 per year.
What is it with conservatives and vouchers/cash handouts?
Let’s raise the tax rate to 50% on anyone making over a million dollars a year (persons or corporations) and give every American guaranteed universal health care and tuition-free education to the post-graduate doctoral level.
Sounds good to me.
The wisest people who ever lived throughout history, whose most treasured and profound thoughts and insights wait patiently between the front and back cover for the fireside intimacy of an earnest mind, and we spurn them for the everyday nitwit posting on Facebook? Well, I’m just as guilty as anyone else. But in recognizing this I often ask myself the following: What is more real and has more impact on a persons life, the day-to-day events of the current epoch or that which persists eternally ? I suppose the answer is obvious, and yet some of us have not yet transcended the carnality of the trivial in favor of the longevity of a genuine mind-to-mind transmission. Or at least on a consistent basis. I suppose like the alcoholic/drug addict who has had enough, the rejection of junk starts with the emanation of will and intent. A choice as they say.
If Denmark and Costa Rica can provide health care and education to its citizens, the USA can do it, too. We just have to take the profit motive out of it.
In other countries medical workers and health care executives make reasonable salaries.
Wayne Smith, CEO of Community Health Systems, had a total compensation in 2009 of $17.8 million (that is $17,800,000 per year), according to FierceHealthFinance, a weekly health care finance update for health executives and financial managers.
I don’t think any health system CEO should be earning more than $250,000 a year. And if they threaten to leave, let them. There are plenty of qualified people out of work who would work for a measly $250,000 a year.
Howard Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman who helped Democrats capture the White House in 2008, warns that Sarah Palin could defeat President Obama in 2012.
Really, Howard? I don’t think so.
Obama has deeper pockets and a bit more experience, and he is still killing Al Qaeda leaders … another one bit the dust this week.
This is hard to believe, but Stephen Helmsly, CEO at United Health Group, apparently received 102 million in total compensation in 2009.
Back around 2005-6, William McGuire, then CEO at UHG, received between 60-125 million. He was forced to return around 400-500 million in a backdating scandal involving stock options.
Health care in America.
Apparently Wayne Smith’s salary increased by $7 MILLION from 2008 to 2009, from $10.8 MILLION to $17.8 MILLION.
How do you get a salary increase of $7 MILLION? Was there a corresponding increase in his productivity? Or is this just out and out legal theft?
Health care in America.
Republicans before 2010 election:
“We are focused like a laser beam on job creation. Where are the jobs, Mr. Obama?”
Republicans after 2010 election, in control of Congress:
“It’s the deficit. It’s spending. It’s Planned Parenthood. It’s the unions. It’s gay marriage. It’s public employee pensions. Etc. Etc.”
Where are the jobs, Mr. Boehner?
WHAT SCHOOL?
WHAT CITY?
‘Baba Ram Toejam or something’..yeah Ive seen a few of them..Oh lama surya das is in soviet monica this thursday! at brentwood ‘country’ amrket.
What you worry?
Also there may be a good Chinmayananda group in yr area..he was ‘the real deal’.
I don’t think Sarah Palin will be there Monday June 13 Wilshire Ebell, 4401 West 8th Street, Los Angeles, Kirtan concert with Krishna Das. Doors open at 7 pm
Sarah Palin probably has not read this book:
OBAMA MEETS AHMADINEJAD (Kindle edition: $2.99)
http://tinyurl.com/62mttbb
Here are some of the issues raised in this easy-to-read book:
* Voter fraud
* Killing of opposition
* The Shah, Jimmy Carter, Ayatollah Khomeini and the CIA
* Drug use
* Religious affiliations and megalomaniacal delusions
* Islam, infidels and apostates
* The Quran and sharia law
* Iranian oppression of minority religions
* Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden
* Homosexuals and women in Iran
* Hangings and stonings
* Oil and nuclear policies
* Israel, Zionists, Jews and anti-Semitism
* 9/11 conspiracy theories
* The American economy and the Gulf oil spill
* Basij and Revolutionary Guard crimes against humanity
* The “Birther” movement and Kenya connection
* “Crypto-Muslim” and “Manchurian Candidate” contentions
* Shiite v. Sunni sects
* Anti-Americanism, the “Great Satan” and Islamic supremacism
* The Twelfth Imam
* Iraq and Saddam Hussein
* Iran’s role in terrorism
* China, Russia, Pakistan, et al.
* Islamization of Europe
* And many more shocking revelations…
Now that we have a 1000 comments, lets go for 2000. JHK probably thinks he created a Frankenstein when he first started allowing comments here. Of course I’m pretty sure he didn’t anticipate someone posting 150 times a week to cheerlead for the Obama Administration, (asoka), or somebody ranting and raving constantly about niggers, jews, mexicans, homos, chinks, (Vlad the Impaler), or some anal retentive wacko obsessing over spelling, (Cue stick). Hell, he probably thought we’d be on here talking about peak oil and the decline of society, well, some of that does happen, thankfully.
asia, I just heard an interview with Puppetji. Very grounded and funny.
Puppetji gives socksangs: http://puppetji.blogspot.com/
To those morons defending Sarah Palin here is why she is a lazy idiotic unqualified for public office.
1. Young Earth creationist, fossils anyone, hello is anyone home? Managing the transition to a post fossil fuel society is going to take intelligence and scientific knowledge, she has NONE.
2. She is quitter, she literally quit her job as governor half way through her term. How can anyone have confidence in her ability to stay on task after that?
And to the utterly clueless this is not to defend the also corporate whore war mongering democrats, making it though the very difficult years of global climate change , resource scarcity, outsourcing of good paying American jobs and financier class malfesance is going to require people to put aside media inflamed faux red blue hatreds and pull together as communities to do basic things like growing more food, erecting local sustainable power like wind mills, starting food co-ops and coopertive schools as BOTH the big bloated state and big bloated corporations die of over shoot. Can corn pone lazy ass tee vee zombie heavily propagandized Americans handle this? I have my doubts…
🙁 x 1000
ctemple said: “he probably thought we’d be on here talking about peak oil and the decline of society, well, some of that does happen, thankfully.”
—————-
Ctemple, thanks for the reminder about the “zeitgeist” of this blog, although the blog is named Clusterfuck Nation (provides ample latitude, I’d say)
But maybe you are implying that this blog should really be named “Peak Oil and the Decline of Society” and we should be talking about that?
Most people are just not interested in peak oil. Unfortunately, what is common knowledge for experts in sustainability is not for the average consumer.
How can we, as members of CFN, find ways to better disseminate this information to the consumer in order to encourage acceptance of renewable energy technology to cover for the inevitable shortfall in oil in the future?
Got any ideas, Ctemple?
I think the first step in acceptance is awareness, and awareness comes with meditation practice. So, from my perspective, meditation is part of a solution to the issue of “peak oil” …
We need intelligence, if we are to be ‘change agents’ with the goal of encouraging sustainability in the marketplace.
Becoming less focused on “material things” and more focused on spiritual matters can also become part of the solution, and once again, meditation has a role to play there.
I don’t see meditation and societal change as being antithetical … but, of course, I am large and I contain multitudes.
ctemple, the short answer is:
this week JHK focused on Palin
and our discussion of Palin as a serious presidential candidate
is an indication of the decline of society.
I was searching on the Internet to understand something more about the genetically modified E. Coli that caused 18 deaths in Germany (but the number will grow).
I was astonished to find out that MONSANTO uses genetically modified E. Coli to produce Posilac, a growth hormone which is given to 17% of cows and Aspartame, one of the most used synthetic sweetener, is produced by Monsanto with GENETCALLY MODIFIED E. Coli!
That explains what I thought, that the bacteria was a lab produced one.
The infection cannot come from animals, being so toxic at least a few of them would have died or shown symptoms, not from humans ( for the same reason).
The E. Coli is a bacteria which usually doesn’t cause death, it gives diarrhea and is sensible to antibiotics.
But this particular E. Coli is modified and particularly aggressive.
I wouldn’t be surprised the epidemic was intentionally caused to create panic and a vaccine would be produced soon.
A billion dollars market for some Pharmaceutical company.
May be Ely Lilly which bought Posilac from Monsanto.
Don’t know about y’all, but I’m still in touch with Joe Bageant. Here is his latest:
http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2011/06/joe-picks-and-sings-hemingways-whisky.html
ctemple, there is a guy who decided that instead of criticizing or trying to change others, he would try to change his own lifestyle.
He wrote a book and made a movie about changing his life to have zero impact:
No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process by Colin Beavan
http://noimpactproject.org/
The surprise was when the family gave up modern conveniences they ended up living a happier and richer life than they ever imagined was possible.
If we are lucky and TSHTF on Tuesday afternoon, we, too can begin to make the transition to a simple life without modern conveniences.
Here is a video on a no impact one week carbon cleanse: http://noimpactproject.org/experiment/
Sitting alone in your room, be loving. Radiate love. Fill the whole room with your love energy, as if you are in an ocean of love.
Create vibrations of love energy around you. And you will start feeling immediately that something is happening, something in your aura is changing, something around your body is changing. A warmth is arising around your body… a warmth like deep orgasm.
You are becoming more alive. Something like sleep is disappearing. Something like awareness is arising.
— Osho
1,080th!
A series of fast-charging stations for electric cars will be installed this year along Interstate 5 in Southern Oregon to become one of the first links in a Green Highway stretching down the West Coast from Canada to Mexico.
The Oregon Department of Transportation announced Wednesday that AeroVironment has been chosen to build eight level-3 DC fast-charging stations between Eugene and the California border
People debated at length whether the Nissan Leaf all-electric car would be practical or cheap enough for the mainstream.
But that debate was moot because Nissan doesn’t have enough Leafs to sell to the mainstream anyway. The company is going to have no problem selling the 10,000-plus Leafs it’s hustling to crank out in 2011. The limiting factor right now is not public interest in electric cars, it’s the car companies’ ability to make them.
And demand will always outstrip supply. Run this same poll in two years when electric cars are cheaper, have longer ranges, charge more quickly, and gas is at $5+ a gallon. Fewer Americans will have this “anti-electric sentiment” USA Today uncovered and the car companies will still be struggling to keep up.
From:
QUOTE(old6598 @ Jun 04, 2011, 09:18 AM) *
Kill Intelligence.
What about imagination?
http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=22324&st=150
Yeah, kill that too. Kill everything, just kill, just do it, I don’t care if I “contradict” myself.
EXCESS CAPACITY SUFFOCATED
The system posesses or generates so much excess capacity in al productive endeavors that it needs to burn, waste and trash as much excess capacity possible, and must suffocate and kill, repress its productive potential that is hundreds of times greater than what is used otherwise it would rapidly reach COMMUNISM ACHIEVED and an INFINITE RESOURCE SOCIETY.
I always hear someone say there is more computer power in your PC than used for the space program to go to the moon. And I would like to add, and what have we achieved with all of this computer power, what has been achieved and produced ? Nothing at all, a turd of an economic system with capitalist hogs stuffing themselves with trillions of dollars of profits, a lot of people idle and frustrated with no jobs in sight, no common goals, no serialization or accumulation of labor results, only local specific egotistical slobs working for themselves and their own profit not connecting the specific to the general, but the economists always aggregate all of the specifics in generalized numbers to tell us how we all suck, how we must increase “competitiveness”, “productivity”, “competition”, “innovation”, you name it, they are allowed to use large scale general concepts to hose the weak and poor and workers, but the workers are not allowed to use large scale generalized concepts to demand that all of the excess capacity, computer power and other excess capacity, technology, know how, manpower, you name it be used for collective aggregated results like Rockets to Mars, Skyscrapers, Total Automated Factories, Cheap Rents, Free Salaries, Hobby Factories, High Speed Trains, a complete BUS system all across the USA, etc. you name it, what could benefit everyone is a never ending list of items.
Why not demand that all the computer power and technological advances be used for the general collective good ? because everyone has been brainwashed to be a puny hog, think of their own private profit, never connect the specific with the general, that is the job of economists who then punish entire nations like Greece and Spain and who knows who’s next with their Macro Economic Models that always leads to hose the weak and poor and workers.
One good thing the economy does is large scale consumption, we need ever more consumption, kill nature, nature is a tool in our hands, we use it and try to consume and waste as much as possible, that should be the goal. But it is not enough, we need large scale collective projects like Rockets to Mars and Skyscrapers to try to discharge the huge excess capacity the economy has within itself.
But we need shallow people, we need people that are simply reactions to actions, that are always ready to change in order to increase consumption which is then transactions and exchanges of money between people, we need a simple, always ready to buy the new gadget economy, buy the new IPAD, change the car tomorrow, hire and fire, change jobs, house, buy new furniture, always change, go with the flow: this is why the USA is the highest consumer economy, people are simple and shallow (not like the europeans that are critical, “deep”, don’t buy into things easily, a stiff economy, eurosclerotic) and are used to buy and throw away, always following the next fashion, new cars, what is important is the light weight structure of the economy, always change, but especially don’t think, keep the factories operating at full capacity ever more, ever more change, consumption ever more gadgets, buy and trash forever,in fact the USA has light weight homes, wood, easy to build fast to build easy to hose, change, easy to go someplace else, a fluid econmy, with change as the name of the game.
Even in language, when we use generalized, large scale concepts we need to “reach a conclusion” a general conclusion that is supposed to paint a picture of eveything, like when you say, “energy is running out”, that becomes the large scale narrative of all reality, or the end result of your life “I failed in saving that marriage”, large scale concepts that are supposed to paint the entire picture of reality: nothing further from the truth all of those concepts are just tricks of the mind, there are no large scale concepts, they are just a sequence of symbols that provoke feelings and are supposed to be “Important”, but they are just as important as that stain on your shirt. And if you analyze anything for enough time, any possible sequence of symbols as a combination of words can be true, wait a long enough time and any words put together in anyway at all will have been concluded and generated.
Automatic for the people, when you turn around the corner and you see a new house built, that is automatic results generated, labor that is parallel in time to you and creates free results for others to enjoy, everything is mostly automatic, just think of it and it has been done, performed, all automatic, the new car done, made, finished, now enjoy, the amplification of results, anything can appear and be instantly. That is excess capacity.
I can’t understand those turds that think that it isn’t ok to be anonymous on the internet, you are free to say whatever, who cares who you are, of course in real life you would never talk about much of this crap, who cares.
EXCESS CAPACITY SUFFOCATED
The system posesses or generates so much excess capacity in al productive endeavors that it needs to burn, waste and trash as much excess capacity possible, and must suffocate and kill, repress its productive potential that is hundreds of times greater than what is used otherwise it would rapidly reach COMMUNISM ACHIEVED and an INFINITE RESOURCE SOCIETY.
I always hear someone say there is more computer power in your PC than used for the space program to go to the moon. And I would like to add, and what have we achieved with all of this computer power, what has been achieved and produced ? Nothing at all, a turd of an economic system with capitalist hogs stuffing themselves with trillions of dollars of profits, a lot of people idle and frustrated with no jobs in sight, no common goals, no serialization or accumulation of labor results, only local specific egotistical slobs working for themselves and their own profit not connecting the specific to the general, but the economists always aggregate all of the specifics in generalized numbers to tell us how we all suck, how we must increase “competitiveness”, “productivity”, “competition”, “innovation”, you name it, they are allowed to use large scale general concepts to hose the weak and poor and workers, but the workers are not allowed to use large scale generalized concepts to demand that all of the excess capacity, computer power and other excess capacity, technology, know how, manpower, you name it be used for collective aggregated results like Rockets to Mars, Skyscrapers, Total Automated Factories, Cheap Rents, Free Salaries, Hobby Factories, High Speed Trains, a complete BUS system all across the USA, etc. you name it, what could benefit everyone is a never ending list of items.
Why not demand that all the computer power and technological advances be used for the general collective good ? because everyone has been brainwashed to be a puny hog, think of their own private profit, never connect the specific with the general, that is the job of economists who then punish entire nations like Greece and Spain and who knows who’s next with their Macro Economic Models that always leads to hose the weak and poor and workers.
One good thing the economy does is large scale consumption, we need ever more consumption, kill nature, nature is a tool in our hands, we use it and try to consume and waste as much as possible, that should be the goal. But it is not enough, we need large scale collective projects like Rockets to Mars and Skyscrapers to try to discharge the huge excess capacity the economy has within itself.
But we need shallow people, we need people that are simply reactions to actions, that are always ready to change in order to increase consumption which is then transactions and exchanges of money between people, we need a simple, always ready to buy the new gadget economy, buy the new IPAD, change the car tomorrow, hire and fire, change jobs, house, buy new furniture, always change, go with the flow: this is why the USA is the highest consumer economy, people are simple and shallow (not like the europeans that are critical, “deep”, don’t buy into things easily, a stiff economy, eurosclerotic) and are used to buy and throw away, always following the next fashion, new cars, what is important is the light weight structure of the economy, always change, but especially don’t think, keep the factories operating at full capacity ever more, ever more change, consumption ever more gadgets, buy and trash forever,in fact the USA has light weight homes, wood, easy to build fast to build easy to hose, change, easy to go someplace else, a fluid econmy, with change as the name of the game.
Even in language, when we use generalized, large scale concepts we need to “reach a conclusion” a general conclusion that is supposed to paint a picture of eveything, like when you say, “energy is running out”, that becomes the large scale narrative of all reality, or the end result of your life “I failed in saving that marriage”, large scale concepts that are supposed to paint the entire picture of reality: nothing further from the truth all of those concepts are just tricks of the mind, there are no large scale concepts, they are just a sequence of symbols that provoke feelings and are supposed to be “Important”, but they are just as important as that stain on your shirt. And if you analyze anything for enough time, any possible sequence of symbols as a combination of words can be true, wait a long enough time and any words put together in anyway at all will have been concluded and generated.
Automatic for the people, when you turn around the corner and you see a new house built, that is automatic results generated, labor that is parallel in time to you and creates free results for others to enjoy, everything is mostly automatic, just think of it and it has been done, performed, all automatic, the new car done, made, finished, now enjoy, the amplification of results, anything can appear and be instantly. That is excess capacity.
I can’t understand those turds that think that it isn’t ok to be anonymous on the internet, you are free to say whatever, who cares who you are, of course in real life you would never talk about much of this crap, who cares.
EXCESS CAPACITY SUFFOCATED
The system posesses or generates so much excess capacity in al productive endeavors that it needs to burn, waste and trash as much excess capacity possible, and must suffocate and kill, repress its productive potential that is hundreds of times greater than what is used otherwise it would rapidly reach COMMUNISM ACHIEVED and an INFINITE RESOURCE SOCIETY.
I always hear someone say there is more computer power in your PC than used for the space program to go to the moon. And I would like to add, and what have we achieved with all of this computer power, what has been achieved and produced ? Nothing at all, a turd of an economic system with capitalist hogs stuffing themselves with trillions of dollars of profits, a lot of people idle and frustrated with no jobs in sight, no common goals, no serialization or accumulation of labor results, only local specific egotistical slobs working for themselves and their own profit not connecting the specific to the general, but the economists always aggregate all of the specifics in generalized numbers to tell us how we all suck, how we must increase “competitiveness”, “productivity”, “competition”, “innovation”, you name it, they are allowed to use large scale general concepts to hose the weak and poor and workers, but the workers are not allowed to use large scale generalized concepts to demand that all of the excess capacity, computer power and other excess capacity, technology, know how, manpower, you name it be used for collective aggregated results like Rockets to Mars, Skyscrapers, Total Automated Factories, Cheap Rents, Free Salaries, Hobby Factories, High Speed Trains, a complete BUS system all across the USA, etc. you name it, what could benefit everyone is a never ending list of items.
Why not demand that all the computer power and technological advances be used for the general collective good ? because everyone has been brainwashed to be a puny hog, think of their own private profit, never connect the specific with the general, that is the job of economists who then punish entire nations like Greece and Spain and who knows who’s next with their Macro Economic Models that always leads to hose the weak and poor and workers.
One good thing the economy does is large scale consumption, we need ever more consumption, kill nature, nature is a tool in our hands, we use it and try to consume and waste as much as possible, that should be the goal. But it is not enough, we need large scale collective projects like Rockets to Mars and Skyscrapers to try to discharge the huge excess capacity the economy has within itself.
But we need shallow people, we need people that are simply reactions to actions, that are always ready to change in order to increase consumption which is then transactions and exchanges of money between people, we need a simple, always ready to buy the new gadget economy, buy the new IPAD, change the car tomorrow, hire and fire, change jobs, house, buy new furniture, always change, go with the flow: this is why the USA is the highest consumer economy, people are simple and shallow (not like the europeans that are critical, “deep”, don’t buy into things easily, a stiff economy, eurosclerotic) and are used to buy and throw away, always following the next fashion, new cars, what is important is the light weight structure of the economy, always change, but especially don’t think, keep the factories operating at full capacity ever more, ever more change, consumption ever more gadgets, buy and trash forever,in fact the USA has light weight homes, wood, easy to build fast to build easy to hose, change, easy to go someplace else, a fluid econmy, with change as the name of the game.
Even in language, when we use generalized, large scale concepts we need to “reach a conclusion” a general conclusion that is supposed to paint a picture of eveything, like when you say, “energy is running out”, that becomes the large scale narrative of all reality, or the end result of your life “I failed in saving that marriage”, large scale concepts that are supposed to paint the entire picture of reality: nothing further from the truth all of those concepts are just tricks of the mind, there are no large scale concepts, they are just a sequence of symbols that provoke feelings and are supposed to be “Important”, but they are just as important as that stain on your shirt. And if you analyze anything for enough time, any possible sequence of symbols as a combination of words can be true, wait a long enough time and any words put together in anyway at all will have been concluded and generated.
Automatic for the people, when you turn around the corner and you see a new house built, that is automatic results generated, labor that is parallel in time to you and creates free results for others to enjoy, everything is mostly automatic, just think of it and it has been done, performed, all automatic, the new car done, made, finished, now enjoy, the amplification of results, anything can appear and be instantly. That is excess capacity.
I can’t understand those turds that think that it isn’t ok to be anonymous on the internet, you are free to say whatever, who cares who you are, of course in real life you would never talk about much of this crap, who cares.
Marc said:
I love your comments because you have good specifics plus of course they’re highly negativistic! After all, as someone I knew in AA used to rant continually, “reality sucks”. Positive thinking is for weenies and people who are trying to put one over on us or worse persons who place mental hygiene above being in touch with reality.
*************************************************
Love that last line, Marc!! Indeed, being
delusional just so that one can be “optimistic”
seems to be the standard, hackneyed advice these
days in everything from pop psychology to the
Californicated versions of Buddhism.
Some people don’t even seem to realize that the
ability to assess something as a negative state
of affairs is a SURVIVAL SKILL. You don’t preach
Zen Satori to a grizzly bear running straight at
you.
Negative evaluations of situations are FAR, FAR
more likely to result in actions to resolve those
situations than this idea that all we have to do
is simply “declare” that “bad” is “good” and
“black” is “white”. Gee, I just need to think
about murder differently instead of being so
damned NEGATIVE about it!! 🙂 🙂
Of course, my last statement is an exaggeration
to show how loony our culture has become but it
serves to illustrate the psychopathology of the
“positive thinking” movement. We’re not to look
at vulgarity and vanity as “negative” but rather
as “different modes of expression”. We’re not
to look at uninformed stupidity as destructive
but rather as an “antidote” to “book larnin'”.
We’re not to view lifestyles of extreme debt and
wastefulness as a burden to the entire culture
but rather as an exercise in “freedom of choice”.
Every possible indiscretion and irrationality has
now been rationalized … and even more by
Republicans than Democrats. Gee, I thought that
Republicans were about CONSERVING old American
values, not validating nouveau, “hip” values
which turn old values on their ear.
When I hear Mark Levin or Rush Limbaugh referring
to themselves as vanguards of “conservatism” I
want to ralph in the nearest toilet bowl. Which
old American values are they “conserving”?? They
always seem to focus on how the Constitution
protects “individual liberty” which they seem to
interpret as the freedom to be avaricious,
wasteful, and relentlessly mercantile.
Our Founders wrote a lot about being a GOOD
CITIZEN and about putting the greater good
(the “commonwealth”) above the individual.
The new Republicans seem to be promoting the
idea of infinite “growth” above culture
sustainability and the idea that consumer
impulse control is a neutral issue.
I just wonder what cornucopian universe these
toadies live in??
E.
We are always only Will Powr denied, our Will Power denied sometimes more sometimes less, but only this forever, like that pretty car you wanted but couldn’t buy, a degree of Will Power denied, a path of high and low denial of your Will Power. Will Power is such a crappy non elegant concept, and yet that it all we are.
That was on:
Instant Singularity on brainmeta
http //brainmeta com/forum/index php?showtopic=22324&st=120
E.
These toadies have broken with the tradition of Conservatism and are spokesman for the Milton Friedman neoliberalism and Ayn Rand acolytes who say greed and uncontrolled avarice is a natural state, even at the expense of the planet. That’s the supply-side revolution that is taking it’s toll.
They turn reality on it’s head as a matter of course, since the ideology they represent has not worked for the middle class anywhere it’s been imposed. As Catherine Austin Fitts, said so well in a recent video, there won’t be one giant collapse, just little localized collapses where we impose the Milton Friedman model on specific countries in the process of our global economic terrorism. Keep you eye on Greece! I’m sure some oligarchy is going to buy one of those islands for peanuts when they’re through with gutting Greece.
Now they’re doing it here. Our taxpayer money has gone to European banks by the trillions, which is why they are on their rampant privatization bender. Since the Republicans will throw this country over the cliff (debt ceiling) over restructuring Medicare, Obama will knuckle under and will be always known as the president who privatized Medicare ans Social Security, by the time his term is over. As a follower of the Chicago School of Business himself, he was always poised to do so. (hence the Trojan Horse description).
This is no different from the fundamentalism they embrace with religion which they are trying to politicize. The reinterpretation of history now is that Church and state was not to be separated in the minds of the founding fathers.
As I’ve said before The Family has turn Jesus into the CEO and the apostles into the board of directors.
Intellectually speaking these people are hacks and dangerous. They are revisionists and revanchists.
This is what’s behind Sarah Palin.
The ferro-cement quonset hut is a mental hobby farm which cannot be built while I’m tied down running my one man staff nursing home. Also, I don’t believe in banking land because then when you’re free to move something else will come up preventing you from using your land.
I am also interested in the north woods of Michigan, and ideally would have more than one site. But I love geography and am continually checking out new areas.
The problem with any ideal site is that it will also be obviouu to everyone else you’re well set up and that in itself would or at least could attract foragers and scavengers and worse. Better to find an ingenious adaptation to less ideal place which is unlikely to attract hordes of jealous people.
Quonset huts are indeed the easiest structures to erect which is why the military used them and then farmers started buying them as well. Ferro-cement is also called thin-shell and uses comparatively limited amounts of cement because you are really only fillling in the voids in the multiple layers of extruded stainless masonry lathe. This lathe also is self supporting under tension and serves as its own form work.
Under more primitive conditions one can resort to adobe barrel vaults. The arch shape can also be achieved using multiple layers of peg board strips fastened together with carriage bolts and wing nuts. This form work could then be covered with multiple layers of thinner plywood and covered with cedar shakes or even the wider rolls of aluminum flashing, speaking of an energy intensive material.
Although it is fairly obvious that Quonsets are the easiest structure to build this project currently exists only inside of my own head, so it hasn’t been reality tested except by viewing what others have done online. The commercially produced galvalume kits have been adapted to every type of use including churches and houses. If you hire an architect to represent you at the building department it’s generally possible to get away with pretty much anything just so long as you’re not in a suburban development with extremely narrow minded zoning and codes.
Quonsets also have excellent wind loading characteristics and can stand up to typhoons as the hut city on Guam did handily towards the end of World War II. The first American huts were designed by the navy SEABEES and built as kits by the Great Lakes Steel Company of Detroit. The Quonset hut was adapted from the earlier semi-tubular British Nissen huts, but were insulated. There were multiple designs though and some were made out of plywood or were more tent-like as indeed today there is a variety of arch shaped storage tents and temporary garages.
If I was really in a fix and needed something quick though I’d dig out a bunker and build a cave house provided of course I wasn’t situated on solid rock like you can get up north on the Canadian shield or in the mountains.
As per usual, you’ve packed a lot of historical info into your posting, which always piques my interest. :o)
I’ve always dreamed of “cave living”, or an underground structure of some sort, but have never had the “extra” resources [or time] to do it. There ARE one or two hillocks on the place to make an easier go of it, but… it’s all about the various resources at ones’ disposal, ain’t it?
(Apologies for being “site specific”; I understand being responsible to family first. My mom is going to have to “downscale” after my dad’s recent passing, so we’re kinda in that limbo between sentiment and practicality. -sigh-)
My favorite show on tv used to be “Extreme Homes” on HGTV which was hosted by a Japanese woman. One house was actually built out of those shipyard mothballing domes which the navy sticks atop the gun mounts in the mothball fleet such as what you find moored just upstream from San Francisco Bay on the Sacramento River.
If you read the various websites and books the easiest design is probably the underground house employing a clerestory level up high of windows at ground level to illuminate the house below. You can also dry-stack block then make it adhere into functional walls by using Quickrete Quick Wall.
It should also be possible to build a single storey house out of blocks cut from the thickest grade of styrofoam insulation then simply stucco that. Other houses are made out of sand bags and there’s even an instant cement hut which is built by being inflated then hosed down with water to activate the chemical reactions in the cement.
To me your only real problem in any of these projects would of course be the government, because they want to get their cut of everything and interfere on a bureaucratic level. Provided you’re in an unincorporated rural area you would then generally be free to improvise whatever works for you. To me this is on the same basic level as pitching a tent and virtually any able bodied person ought to be able to do this sort of project.
Good luck with downsizing your mom’s living arrangements.
JHK must be working weekends; More appts. have come down for CFNation. Here they are:
Minister of the Army … Montsegur
Minister of Education … Eluthero
Minister of Culture … OzonePete
I concur, Jim! Good choices all. The only thing, we now have a German heading up our Army. I hope he is a ‘good’ German. We shall see.
BTownBill, Ibendet, Rthunder, Ozone, SubEmpire, i.e. Northeasterners, CFN, my, what a lovely, lovely day! Cool, sunny, no humidity. Definitely one for the books, no? Hope you all can get yourself outdoors today and enjoy it. That’s what I’ll be doing. Next shift doesn’t begin till midnight …
-Marlin
What has an impact on any person’s life is the day-to-day events of the current epoch. The wisdom of our ancestors helps us to deal with current realities. And the internet helps us find out what the realities are.
I know that my job is at risk because the ruling class has decided that keeping people alive long past their productive years is something they will no longer do. My co-workers believe that it is their individual behaviors, not a systemic problem. Spider always nails this part correctly. They try to tell you that you’re not productive, or your attitude is wrong, when there are larger forces at play here.
On the other hand, knowing what all my Friends ate for breakfast isn’t necessarily helpful.
I briefly looked into attending a nursing assistant or phlebotomist class but rapidly lost interest because it was obvious that the candidates for these positions were being treated like criminals. So it fits that they want to keep everyone as small as possible.
On the other hand if there were a conspiracy to undermine people’s health to save money on old age care cigarettes would be more acceptable here like they are in Europe.
The governor of Ohio is doing in the schools and nursing homes here right now, so that those who must move immediately to a medicaid nursing home because they don’t have any funds are going to be screwed.
At work each day I have to listen to all these Republicans who voted for Kasich ranting about mounting a recall when it is they who put him in office in the first place! Idiots.
Another good reason for living in a remote rural area is that if you suffer a heart attack you’ll simply die and then never end up in a nursing home.
WageL;
The demand for trained nurses ’round here is tremendous. And they are among the best payed jobs going. I’m surprised to hear you say your job is at risk.
-Marlin
There was an article in the local paper several months ago about the State Mental hospital. Some psychiatric nurses are making $300,000 per year with overtime. The jist of the article is that a lot of the OT is mandatory and the nurses, many with families and children of their own, don’t want to work that much.
-Marlin
Interesting you mentioned Rand. I wasn’t going to, but since you brought the subject up…
I was going through some boxes of books last night and ran across something called “Return of the Primitive; The Anti-Industrial Revolution.” An expanded edition of “The New Left.”
“The New Left” came out in 1971. This new version in 1999. From what I can tell, it’s basically a screed against things like environmentalism, etc.
I think the timing is interesting. When it first came out, it was a reaction to the back to the land, simplification of life movement. Localization. Probably helped put that whole thing on ice. Now that it’s becoming important, again, we have this new version. Expanded by Peter Schwartz. He’s is (or was. I’ll have to Google up the guy, later) chairman of the board of the Ayn Rand Institute.
Interesting discussion of housing. I have always had a fascination with Quonset huts, underground houses, and most recently with adobe construction.
As far a underground houses go, the bible is a book originally written in 1981: The Fifty Dollar and Up Underground House Book by Mike Oehler and Chris Royer
Rob Roy updated the book in 1994: The Complete Book Of Underground Houses: How To Build A Low Cost Home by Robert L. Roy
$50 won’t cut it anymore, but still there are ideas for inexpensive construction. The thing that attracted me to underground houses was what attracted me to adobe: using the thermal mass of the earth itself.
I wonder what Sarah Palin thinks of underground houses?
Interesting discussion of housing. I have always had a fascination with Quonset huts, underground houses, and most recently with adobe construction.
As far a underground houses go, the bible is a book originally written in 1981: The Fifty Dollar and Up Underground House Book by Mike Oehler and Chris Royer
Rob Roy updated the book in 1994: The Complete Book Of Underground Houses: How To Build A Low Cost Home by Robert L. Roy
$50 won’t cut it anymore, but still there are ideas for inexpensive construction. The thing that attracted me to underground houses was what attracted me to adobe: using the thermal mass of the earth itself.
Interesting discussion of housing. I have always had a fascination with Quonset huts, underground houses, and most recently with adobe construction. As far a underground houses go, the bible is a book originally written in 1981: The Fifty Dollar and Up Underground House Book by Mike Oehler and Chris Royer
Rob Roy updated the book in 1994: The Complete Book Of Underground Houses: How To Build A Low Cost Home by Robert L. Roy. $50 won’t cut it anymore, but still there are ideas for inexpensive construction. The thing that attracted me to underground houses was what attracted me to adobe: using the thermal mass of the earth itself.
Well, Marlin, there you go again. Where do you get this stuff?
$300,000? That’s a LOT of overtime. No wonder they’re complaining.
Considering that I made $44,000 last year, I can’t imagine how many hours they are working.
How can you live on $44,000 in California?
Do you have a mortgage?
Do you eat?
Oooops! Now I remember you live in Illinois. And cost of living is much more reasonable there. Sorry.
Wage, I got that article from The Hartford Courant.
-Marlin
Good ol’ Ayn. There was an interesting article on Alternet by Mark Ames (“Going Postal”) about the sociopathic roots of Rand’s philosophy.
http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/?page=entire
There was a KunstlerCast (#111) called “Brutalism” about the horrendous “Modern” architecture we are subjected too. I made a point in the comments that I thought we could lay a lot of the blame at the doorstep of Ayn Rand, due to the success of her book, “The Fountainhead” and the subsequent movie (1949.) Nobody much agreed with me, but I still beleive 🙂 that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountainhead
Here is what the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurses Association says about salaries:
What is the annual salary for PMHNs?
Basic-level PMHNs usually start at an annual salary of $35,000–$40,000.
SOURCE: http://www.apna.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3292
Mental health services generally are not funded well or compensated well.
I would say the Hartford Courant is full of it.
I also think Wage is underpaid for the work she does.
The economic and societal tug-o-war is not occurring down in the darkness or in full broad daylight; it’s occurring in the half-tones – the in-between – where a 44g a year California worker is glad to just have a job. Because as Wage points out, the managerial pimps wield authority like an ax: become a good streetwalker or else. So the honorable and responsible soldier on, not quite good but nowhere near devastated. But one of these days, the agents of greed will pull too hard, and the other end of the rope will fall into darkness and despair. And being unremitting power and control freaks, they will not let go of the lighter end of the rope.
It’ll serve em RIGHT,too. They delineated their existence from greater humanity and deluded themselves into thinking they had a globe on their soldiers as moral justification. But the rope of connection is stronger than Atlas himself… so, be seeing you in hell, Suckers.
I keep meaning to get around to reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Bright-sided.” Might as well add it to my library hold list.
I have actually used it in conversation. Ran into a perky twit at the local thrift store the other week. Someone who has never set foot inside my store. I got the usual … “Well, how’s your bookstore going, Lew?” Me: “Do you want the truth, or would you prefer to be bright-sided?”
As I’m winding this venture down, I’m really getting cranky. Now, if someone wants to put a poster in my window I say “Have you ever spent a dime in my store?” Cranky, cranky, cranky…
Your post also brought to mind another one of my home grown aphorisms. “An adventure is a disaster that turns out O.K.” tm Me.
I’m surprised that you think my income is insufficient.
It’s pretty close to the US median income, meaning that 1/2 of Americans make less than I do. When you said your income was low, I assumed you were living on much less than I.
The average income in my city is $14,000/year.
Yes, the wages for nurses are lower here in flyover country than on the coasts.
However, I can breathe the air, which was painful to do in LA.
We all make choices.
Marlin,
To that end (enjoying the day) I have just completed swimming my daily mile. It was windy and cool, especially as I tried to dry outside, but I feel great!–now to warm up.
___________________________
LLB
Yes, although there are many architects and designers who embraced modernism completely unconnected with Rand. Not all modern architecture is bad in my opinion, but I get your point. There is something about Rand’s ideology that fits into extolling those structures to celebrate the money and power behind the aesthetic.
I read yesterday your comment about finding the Homer volumes and it occurred to me that there is an interesting development with the Republicans in challenging Obama’s choice to go with NATO against Libya–you know “Odyssey Dawn”.
Perhaps we are about to see Odyssey Dusk–on this I might agree with the Republicans.
I appreciate you googling skills, asoka. Your figures seem more likely.
Marlin’s imply a WHOLE lot of overtime. At a shitty job.
and ozone….
Digging through my boxes of books last night I ran across a copy of “The $50 & Up Underground House Books” (4th ed.) by Mike Oehler. It’s one of the classics of the genre.
I don’t know if my life’s going to be long enough to actually “do” an underground house, or not. But once I get settled in, I at least want to have a root cellar / fire shelter / storm shelter.
Fire shelter as even though we are having cool wet springs, our late summer and falls can be blistering. Three years ago, we had a couple of days of around 106. In historic times, there have been bad forest fires out in the east county, where I’ll land. Even wiped out a few small towns.
Storm cellar as we do get some pretty bad windstorms, here. And, we had a small tornado last week. Not unheard of, here, but perhaps a sign of things to come. And, I can remember the Columbus Day storm (hurricane) in the early 60s. 1/3 of the trees in Portland came down. Blew the roof of my school. And we had no warning. It was before weather satellites.
As far as underground goes in this part of the world, there is always the water to consider. I don’t think I’d go entirely underground, in this part of the world. If I were building from scratch, I think I would face it south and berm the hell out of the back and sides. And, drainage to beat the band.
A cave would be nice. There are caves around here, but even more old coal mines. The hills are honeycombed with them.
Not that it is insufficient to live on… more that it is insufficient because of the nature of your work. Nursing, being a woman dominated profession, is sorely underpaid … as compared to say, medical doctors.
I consider my fixed income as low ($12,000 a year) but for my simple lifestyle it is more than enough to live comfortably.
Here are some suggestions for how to live on $12,000 a year: http://w4.telcen.com/simpleliving.html
Wage,
What you said about our dear leadership wanting people to die at younger ages rings true to me, especially in lieu of the Ryan Medicare privatization bill. On the one hand, they are all paranoid that this country would be moving to a single payer mode eventually and they are trying to break that trend by privatizing Medicare so there will be no pathway to implement singe payer.
I remember so well W’s State of the Union when he sounded almost as if complaining that people were living into their ’80’s! That’s why he wanted to privatize Social Security, if you recall.
The logical approach to the insane pricing of the Medical industry would be to adopt a wage and price control model, but of course they’ll fight that to the death.
So I ask: What happens when the elderly on Ryan’s plan get $500,000.00 bills for hospital care the insurance companies won’t pay and the elderly could never pay? Don’t forget under Bush they changed the bankruptcy laws…see how it’s all been set-up from one president to the next?
It’s all about smashing Roosevelt and the middle class.
Yup. Zoning is always a problem. Even in rural areas if you want to build something a little “alternative.”
Basically, talking to some of the old timer’s around here, as long as nobody bitches about what you’re doing, you probably won’t have a problem. The real deal-breaker seems to be if there are kids involved. And, things can get sticky if we try and resell your property.
On one hand, the way the roads and bridges are deteriorating around here, and the county government getting stretched pretty thin, they may have a hard time getting to you to regulate you.
On the other hand, the county is beginning to rely on satellite photos to detect new construction and upgrades. So they can reassess your taxes and regulate what you do. Perhaps another reason to go totally underground.
I’m glad you post here. I appreciate the European perspective on issues.
“Don’t forget under Bush they changed the bankruptcy laws…see how it’s all been set-up from one president to the next?”
Yes. And don’t forget that candidate Obama and Democrats in general promised to reverse that law. They did not even try.
Indeed, they’re all there to serve the Global seamless international banks.
I’ve heard of the movie but I’ve never seen it. Good flick?
Now that we’re onto movies we just watched The King’s Speech. Great movie. Have you seen it? What did you think of it? Anyone else seen it?
We saw another one last night on TCM from 1936 titled Dodsworth. Surprisingly good.
Wage, Asoka;
Yea that $300,000 was atypical and unusual. At that same facility there were some police officers making that amount, too, and the article suggested some fraud might be occurring.
Still, nurses in Connecticut are highly sought after, and well paid. I know ita a hard job.
-Marlin
Republicanism raises its head once in a while in these parts but there’s no apparent appetite for it. I think the Aussies will find that if they dump the monarchy it will be much ado about nothing.
We had a round of constitutional wrangles in the late 1980s and early 1990s which led directly to a referendum in Quebec on secession. So after all that we’re going to make changes but nothing dramatic and nothing that involves constitutional changes.
Like right now the fed govt put on the table Senate elections. At present it’s an appointed body, a dumping ground for hacks and bagmen. Senate elections and reform is one thing that Westerners have wanted for a long time. But they’re going about it without re-opening the constitution.
Cash, “Breaker Morant”, is a film you would really like, set in the Boer War, Australian soldiers taking the fall for some of the Empires excesses in prosecuting that war. A rel interesting time and place, too, S. Africa 1899.
LewisBooks; you mentioned earlier about having ideas in your head for a novel. From your posts here, about running the bookstore, different characters in your town, and the transition to a new life, you might have the material right there to put something together. You certainly have the writing ability. Give it a try.
-Marlin
“King’s Speech” was a great movie. A whole aspect of history I’d never been aware of. You might also like “The Lost Prince.”
There was a couple of references to him in “The King’s Speech.” He was the brother who was developmentally disabled. Prince John. He was hidden away on a farm out in Yorkshire, I think.
Actually, I don’t think his life was too bad, if the movie is at all accurate. The people who looked after him were quit fond of him. And, his brothers always looked out for him.
OK. Queen Mary was a product of her life and times, but I still think she was a cold piece of work.
Cash;
A book you might like is “Back to the Front”, by Stephen O’Shea.
He’s a Canadian writer who, in the 1990’s, walks the entire 500 miles of the Western Front. He himself is a committed pacifist. He ruminates a lot about Canada’s role in WW1 and its relationship with the British Empire. That where I first learned about Vimy Ridge.
-Marlin
Yes, there were a rash of Australian films that came out in the ’80’s, Breaker Morant and Gallipoli, directed by Peter Weir with non other than Mel Gibson (when once upon a time he did great work) also a wonderful war film. About Australians during WWI fighting in Turkey.
Marlin said: “I know ita a hard job.”
——————-
What pisses me off is that those who do the heavy lifting (literally–as in moving patients) are the LPN’s, yet they get less pay than the RN’s who do more administrative tasks.
Nurses like Wage, the white shirts like to say, are part of a health care team, yet their salary doesn’t seem like a team salary.
I’m not saying everybody should get paid equally, but the salary discrepancies should be less pronounced. After all, those who are often in most contact with the patients are not the MDs, but the nursing staff. Those who are there monitoring progress and saving lives are not the MDs, but the nursing staff.
Nurses do twice the work of MDs and get half (or less than half) of the salary. It is not fair.
Yes, the whole “duty to die” meme that the Republicans put out first, and the Democrats tacitly adopt.
I think that the whole medicine for profit scheme has to go, not just the insurance companies.
I would be for government-run medicine, like the VA or the public health clinics that we already have.
One think I like about the ER is that we are not allowed, by law, to turn anyone away for lack of funds. I would HATE to do that.
However, those people who have no money, contrary to popular belief, do not get free care. Their bills are not paid for by the public.
The hospital goes after every cent they make. The only ones who get free care are the homeless, because they can’t pay. But the taxpayers do not pay those bills.
Anyway, none of this will matter. People will die earlier, just like they do in every country that gets IMF’d.
When the USSR became “free”, millions of people died. The US corporate media referred to it as “shorter lifespans”. The average lifespan dropped something like 12 years in one year in the 90s.
Seriously? We’re supposed to believe that lifespans can drop 12 years in a year, and not realize what that means in real people’s lives (or deaths?)
Well, apparently so. It’s all in the framing.
Expect the US lifespan to drop precipitously very soon.
It’s self-inflicted Death Panels. Like self-inflicted torture, (developed by the US in a billion dollar research project in the 50s and 60s, see “A Question of Torture” by Alfred McCoy), self-inflicted death panels will be particularly horrible.
High co-pays, demands for cash up-front and high deductibles, will keep more and more people from seeking health care. They already are now, but mostly from younger, healthier people.
People will die from lack of medical care, but it won’t seem like it. It’ll just be more obituaries saying, ______ died at home.
Dimitry Orlov points out that the high death rate will not really be noticed, except by statisticians. It will be spread out, and you won’t know all those people.
Just some of your friends will die at younger and younger ages. You always know people who die, it’ll just be more.
And, maybe, as in Russia, fewer and fewer people will be willing to have babies with such lousy futures.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Marlin. Most the of stuff I contemplated writing was historic novels. But as I turn loose of all the books I was going to use to support those novels, it has been a bit easier because I keep telling myself “Well, if you really want to write something, all you need is a pad of paper and a pencil.”
Oh, the life I’ve lived. But, nobody seems much interested. And, publishing has changed so much. Amazon is selling more downloads then 🙂 real books. But they have an interesting program for writers to download their books. Hmmm.
I watched all of them, Ibendet. “A Year of Living Dangerously”, about Indonesia in the 1960’s, was another good one.
Question, It seems the “Arab Spring” has taken a violent turn in Yemen and Syria. As these countries surround Saudi Arabia, how much longer can the House of Saud keep the lid on in their own country? Any real trouble there wouldn’t bode well for us here. There would be gas lines, for starters.
-Marlin
Queen Mary was a product of her life and times, but I still think she was a cold piece of work. – Lewis
In the movie Mary comes across like someone that hasn’t shit for a week. I think the actress that depicted her was really good (Claire Bloom?).
Those royals look to me like the Addams Family. What the hell is their surname anyway? Sometimes it’s Windsor. But William calls himself William Wales. And I had thought for a long time that his grandfather (Prince Philip) was a Mountbatten. Then someone on some documentary said that it’s not actually Mountbatten it’s actually Gluecksberg or somesuch. What’s so tough with this anyway? Not that I give a damn but surnames ought to be really straight forward things.
I’ve never heard of The Lost Prince. Thanks for the tip.
Ha, ha, asoka, I do a lot of heavy lifting.
My ex-Marine sniper co-worker and I lifted so many patients together that I picked up the habit of making a Marine grunt when I do heavy lifting.
This annoys me.
The weird thing is that I can only do it when I lift. And I complained to him about it, and he said “What noise?”
And I said “That Marine noise”
So he tried making various noises, but they were wrong. He couldn’t do it without lifting either. Which I thought was kind of funny.
Lewis, you say “Nobody seems much Interested”, but I’ll tell you, from the way you’ve presented yourself, and talked about running a small business, I’m curious to see how things will turn out for you. The possibilities are endless.
-Marlin
I get the impression that Canadians like anything that makes them distinctive vis a vis the yanks. And then of course Canada was essentially founded by Loyalist refugees so they’re more invested in the monarchy than the Australians. At one time though the Australians were considered more monarchist than the Canadians. I also agree that if and when the Australians get rid of the monarchy they’ll ultimately discover that it’s a meaningless distinction. What would really be affected, after all? The governor general can no longer dissolve a deadlocked parliament to call for new elections. The flag would be altered as would postage stamps and the currency. Perhaps the naval uniforms would be changed with the crowns removed from the cap devices and some of the rating badges. Big deal. After all, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.
Well, up until 1917 the family name was: Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Anti-German sentiment was running pretty high during WWI. And then there was all that unpleasantness in Russia. One of the things that brought down the Tsar was a feeling that the Tsarina was pro-German.
Any royal with a German surname was pretty spooked. So, you had a lot of name changes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Windsor
Weird hermit, lives in the woods, grows potatoes. The End. 🙂
Cash, the Royals are Germans. They had to adopt an English name because of WW1, and Germany was the enemy. It goes all the way back to the English Civil War, 1642-49, Oliver Cromwell, the beheading of King Charles 1, and the English finally getting sick of the Stuarts running things and bringing in German Royalty, a little after 1700, from I think Paletine, to take over. Its pretty complicated.
-Marlin
So is that kind of speculation common in Europe?
Because no one but me seems to notice that these new diseases are frequently announced as bizarre couplings of unrelated bacteria, or viruses, in the case of bird flu.
How does this happen? Although Americans know that we have people working on biological warfare weapons, they just never seem to think that perhaps those people have produced such things.
I read a New Yorker article, talking about how the US was worried after 9-11 that there may be a biological attack.
Luckily, said the article, there was none.
Really? That whole anthrax thing so far down the memory hole so soon, that the vaunted New Yorker fact-checking department can’t remember it?
Lewis, you’ll have to flesh it out a little better than that!
-Marlin
The British royal family’s real German name was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. This was changed to Windsor during the first world war. Their cousins the Battenbourgs changed their name to Mountbatten. The dynasty immediately before the Germans from Hanover were called the Stewarts and originally sat on the throne of Scotland. They were gotten rid of [James II] in 1688 and replaced by William of Orange and Mary, who was a Stewart. James II was run out of the country for being an annoying Catholic which the rich whig gentry had grown weary of. The dynasty before the Stewarts was the Tudors, ending when Elizabeth I produced no heirs. The Tudors came into power originally at the end of Wars of the Roses when Henry VII defeated Richard III, who was the last of the medieval catholic Plantagenet line. There were some other surnames associated with the Plantagenets such as Mortimer. A friend of mine is a Mortimer but he’s not going to quit his day job anytime soon because Mortimer is a fairly common name. Even the late medieval English kings weren’t actually English because they were Norman. The last of the Anglo-Saxon Kings was Harold, who died fighting the Normans shortly after vanquishing the Norwegians.
I get the impression that Canadians like anything that makes them distinctive vis a vis the yanks – BHM
That kind of tremulous whining ninnyism you hear mostly in the east and mostly in Ontario. When we lived in Alberta I hardly got a whisper of it. Happily I think it’s seen much less nowadays. It’s so patently stupid. It must sound so patently stupid, especially to American ears.
I think the lack of appetite wrt to republicanism is in large part due to apathy. Who can be bothered?
LLB said, ” I price them and put them on the shelf. I pull them off the shelf. I put them back again.”
Just bury the treasure. Make a map. Some cryptography to encode its position. The work invested learning how to package, hide, encode, and preserve things is a LE skill-set.
Start a Hollow Rock manufacturing company. With a low-profile RFID chip embedded. This is the 21st century after all.
spider meta-fizzes: “Like when a person jogs or does physical exercise or activity thinking that he is doing something “good” for himself (but mostly good metaphysically- Etc. (sic)”
Most exercisers are doing real, not just metaphysical- good for themselves. Health is wealth.
I’m a ninja-level exerciser. 99% of people don’t even come close- they all think there is no theory and spend no time learning from experts.
Starting relatively young is a huge bonus as well. Most people make the mistake of kicking the can too far down the road before embarking on the project of self-cultivation. At that point it is just more difficult in general to start and/or maintain.
Sure, exercise is Sisyphean. But that is life- adversarial in nature. Push the rock up the hill or it will simply roll right over you. Gravity takes no prisoners.
Jogging is simple, not easy.
Harold died at Hastings, Oct 1066, after kicking Viking Butt at Stanford Bridge a few weeks earlier. According to the Domeday Book!
-Marlin
Marlin,
I had to go out to do an errand, but I couldn’t stop thinking about “Year of Living Dangerously”, my favorite among all those films it had everything, incl. some good political/humanist thinking about the human condition, done by none other than Linda Hunt as Billy. I had to see it twice because Linda Hunt’s acting was a total transformative tour de force!
Mel was ok too.
Watch the opening 15 minutes of Stephen King’s “The Stand.” If something can go wrong, it will.
But some of the Norman kings and nobility married back into Anglo-Saxon nobility.
Somewhere, over the years, I saw a genealogical chart that showed that Henry VIII was related by blood to every one of his five wives. Even Anne of Cleaves. Power has been an inside club for a long time.
Exactly. It’s not as if it really matters. In fact it was also a waste of time changing the flag over from the old red ensign to the new maple leaf. What difference does it make?
I too like it better out west. I’m not going to be sticking around Ohio once I no longer have any family obligations. I’ll just find an eastern treed slop of a mountain range somewhere and settle in to the business of becoming a dirty old hippie.
Buck Stud said: “And don’t forget that candidate Obama and Democrats in general promised to reverse that law. They did not even try.”
——————–
Buck Stud, I’m not sure of what you say.
Obama promised in 2008:
Obama acted on his promise in 2009:
To say Obama “did not try” does not seem correct. It was part of his 2009 proposal. He didn’t just forget about his 2008 promise.
Well said. What more can be said about the decision of the GOP that seemingly their main goal is to defeat Obama. Not focus on what’s best for the country; the common good.
U.S. citizens, for years, have been complaining about negative politics, but politicians keep using neg. attacks because they work. By work, I mean it helps them get elected. The majority of the public, spending time with their ICE toys and glued to “reality” TV, can’t be bothered to study the issues that matter. Lame sound bites are what are remembered.
OK Asoka, I overstated my assertion and engaged in some hyperbole. But here is the deal: The Medical Bankruptcy Act of 2008, introduced by a conscientious congressional member – from New Hampshire I believe – languished right up until the GOP regained the house. I hardly call that pounding on the bully pulpit when one’s own party was in power. Nearly half of all bankruptcies have a medical component according to some researchers; that is a deplorable legacy for the majority party when presented with such a positive opportunity for main street.
Am I wrong?
I like your post, except I have to defend the three individuals you mentioned. What would CFN be without them?
What I like about reading these comments is that they are a stream of consciousness collection of thoughts that cause me to think about many different topics, many of which I would not be exposed to. I’ve read quite a few of the book recommendations that I’ve heard about here on CFN.
I have been trying to keep the focus on TLE. I was championing hemp (low THC, by the way) this week. I knew something was wrong with US policy when I visited a store in Santa Barbara three years ago that specialized in hemp clothing. 80% of their wares came from China & some from Canada. None from the USA. I thought about what I learned in US History class, in which cotton growers depleted their soil because they didn’t practice proper crop rotation. Hemp could help them. By fighting hemp, they’re missing a market.
Great post. Your right, it seems that the conservation oriented folks are looked at derisively by the right wingers. They seem to thumb their noses at resource limitation talk (“this is America, dammit; we’re the greatest, most productive society; don’t talk to me about limits).
What can one say about Rush who said about CFL’s, “I’m not gonna put those little curly-cue things in my house. I’M NOT GOING TO DO IT!”
Fine douche-boy, spend a little out of your millions on some LED lighting, available in a range of color temps, from cool white(4000K), warm white (2700K or 3000K) & daylight (6000K).
“Is the EROEI of pressing hemp seeds into oil in order to power an ICE better than corn based ethanol’s?”
JSS, I have an opinion on this, and it’s a pattern opinion more than a specific opinion. EROI goes up as the perennial nature of the crop in question goes up. With a cheap energy subsidy we could gain “wealth” faster with annual systems by exporting the impacts of those systems…for a while. That’s why we went there. Without a cheap energy subsidy, we’ll start doing the math correctly eventually, because we’ll have to.
I think hemp is an annual, so its EROI is most likely negative. I don’t know that you could grow enough without oil-burning machinery to matter, so we’re back to the same question we have with corn. Can you even get as much energy out of the oil as you input to grow the crop? Seems like a food chain question to me, and we’re lengthening the food chain by using energy to grow a crop to produce fuel, instead of just using the energy itself. Every step in a lengthening food chain carries significant metabolic waste. But if I’m wrong and hemp is a perennial then maybe you could make the equations work on a small scale.
You’re talking about running a chain saw and a well pump, right? Not running the automobile culture? Although I certainly think Cannabis (if not hemp) has a more important role to play in this world than as fuel oil…
Thanks for the props!
“Maybe you should invite Jimmy K down for a few days, to cheer him up and show him,
‘a success story who blogs on his site’.”
Now I think you’re just making fun of me…
Sorry, I just get excited about every new self-reliance factor, and I can’t keep it in;) Invulnerability is quite the motivator. I often think that if people spent as much energy on making themselves invulnerable to whatever is headed our way as they do on skin color, and politics, and pop culture, and cheap rents, that all of that stuff would just sort of stop being an issue. I guess that’s why I probably share way more than I should.
Speaking of sharing way more than I should, while I’ve got you I just thought I’d tell you about the 3 geese I sent off to freezer camp today! Plucking a goose is a very tedious job. All that damn down! (And killing animals is always hard, but I think if we’re going to eat meat we ought to be big enough to do the job ourselves.) But my permaculture system just wasn’t mature enough to handle their physical presence yet. They are destructos! Maybe in a few years I’ll try them again.
One more little brag if I may. Sorry. But I just got a phone call asking me if I would consult on the landscape design of the net zero energy home of the future they are building here in our little burg.
Of course I will! Yippeee!!
Good for you, Trip!
Congrats. Glad people are recognizing what you’re doing.
Of course I will! Yippeee!
============
Tripp, the correct answer to the person who called you about the landscape design of the net zero energy home is NOT “Of course I will! Yippeee!” it is “That depends, what does the gig pay?”
😉
P.S. Did you see my question to you early this week (6/1/11, 10:42AM) about Amish farming practices?
I’m responding to your post about zoning. I have obsessed over this issue a great deal. What I’ve come up with is: [1] buy the land in a county which has as little incorporated space as possible eg: the county that area 51 is in, Lincoln County I think; [2] start out on your land living in a travel trailer so you don’t feel like you’re homeless and start getting depressed; [3] go through channels before building anything on your own because in such areas they’re usually quite lenient about non-commercial construction; [4] If they present you with an problem you can usually overcome their objections by putting up a pre-engineered kit instead of an eccentric home made structure.
My sense of this problem stems from having been staff at remote canoeing camps in north Ontario. Virtually everything there at both camps was roughly equivalent to a two car suburban garage uninsulated for summer use only mounted on concrete pilings. We had to generate our own electricity and only had electricity in the evenings. The better camp actually only had army style latrines with garbage bags in garbage cans under the toilet seats. This sewage was then taken to the mainland where it was dumped at our garbage dump.
Many of the locals lived in tarpaper shacks just like poor people in Maine, for instance. Houses can be bought in the played out mining towns for very little money indeed. What we’re talking about here is a entirely different world from the suburbs, although to be fair a good number of people have nice homes, so it’s not all Tobacco Road by any means. Nevertheless, in such areas there seems to be a good deal more tolerance of eccentricity and voluntary poverty for the sake of simplicity. This area roughly corresponds to the region between Marten River Provincial Park and Moosonee, both in Ontario.
Thanks for the response. Yes, allowing a farmer the chance to have liquid fuel for a chipper, chainsaw, pump. Autos energy use is too great and a waste.
Q, Tripp may not have seen your question. I can answer it for you. The short answer: if there is a permacultural heaven, the Amish are never going to see the 72 virgins.
The Amish fall down in the areas of soil maintenance and weed and insect control. The Amish do a big no-no by using fertilizers like 6-24-24 and 19-19-19 and 15-15-15. (The formulae of inorganic fertilizers, a peak-oil no-no, refer to percentages of the three most important elements of plant nutrition. The first number represents the percentage of nitrogen, the second stands for phosphorous, and the third denotes potassium as potash.)
There are even some Amish farmers (granted a minority) who do not even think of manure as fertilizer. Duh! Like I say, they are a minority. Most Amish farming reinforces an ideology emphasizing the cycles and dynamic equilibrium of ecological agriculture based on permanence. So, most Amish farmers are therefore apt to think of animal waste products as fertilizers.
One interesting difference, Q., between Amish and non-Amish farmers, is in crop rotation. The Amish put oats into the cycle, to provide feed for horses. Most Amish farmers employ a standard three-year rotation of corn-oats-hay, or a six-year cycle of corn-corn-oats-hay-hay-hay, with an occasional fourth or more years of hay added, lengthening the cycle. The length of time that a field would be planted in hay depended on the quality of hay produced from year to year.
The Amish use about the same amounts of pesticides (another peak-oil no-no) as the non-Amish, but the specific types of chemicals vary, as do the proportions.
The Amish really fall down on herbicide use (more than pesticides). Some use them on their gardens, and on cropland. On gardens, insecticides are generally applied once or twice daily; on cropland, insecticides are applied one to three times during the growing season. The insecticide used most commonly was carbaryl (brand name: Sevin). Carbaryl is a relatively nonpersistent chemical in wide use, although it is a known teratogen, a suspected carcinogen, and a strong toxicant for a variety of animals, including bees, worms, crustaceans, fish, and birds. They got some ‘splainin’ to do. Forget the 72 virgins.
More Amish use herbicides on their gardens than non-Amish, but then, probably, a larger proportion of Amish farmers have gardens the Amish are more likely to think of gardens as part of their farms, whereas non-Amish don’t.
Gardens are essential for Amish subsistence, and a large number of Amish farmers sell surplus vegetables at roadside stands. Gardens may be important for non-Amish farmers, but they are unlikely to be necessary for existence, and they are certainly not part of the agricultural enterprise.
Of the Amish farmers who apply herbicides in cornfields, most use atrazine, simazine (brand name: Princep), and/or 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid or 2,4-D (brand name: Amine). These are dangerous in terms of harm to the environment and human health. Atrazine is a known carcinogen and immunotoxin; simazine causes long-term damage to the kidney, liver, thyroid, and testes, with consequent disturbances in sperm production; and 2,4-D is a known carcinogen, teratogen, and immunotoxin, a suspected fetotoxin, and a toxicant to the kidney, liver, and central nervous system. Atrazine and 2,4-D also create serious ecological impacts for a wide variety of nontarget species. The 72 virgins are getting farther and farther away for the poor Amish.
Of course, some of this can be explained (you still with me, Qshtik?) by the greater frequency with which oats are planted by Amish farmers. Oats demand more of petroleum-based inputs than hay.
Sorry if I am bursting any bubble you might have had about the Amish. They are a long way from permacultural heaven.
Asoka
CFN post #2
Southwest Chapter
P.S. These comments come from observations of Amish farming practices in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.
“P.S. Did you see my question to you early this week (6/1/11, 10:42AM) about Amish farming practices?”
Negative. I’ll check it out.
On the other note, what we’re doing is still so fringe (especially down here) that we have to build the demand for it as we go. Not a lot of money in radical anti-establishment behavior in Jawja just yet. And I’m just as anti-establishment to the left as I am to the right, if not more so, so my pool of interest is still more like a puddle. I’ll take whatever notoriety I can get!
When you walk into a mature permaculture garden you immediately feel how different it is. So I figure I got about 5 years of ‘splainin’ to do before I can just bring folks by and let them get it on their own. Although in my defense a lot of people are digging it already!
Back to you on the other soon as I can. And just so you know, I didn’t really say “Yippeee!!” I just thought it;)
“Thanks for the response. Yes, allowing a farmer the chance to have liquid fuel for a chipper, chainsaw, pump. Autos energy use is too great and a waste.”
In that case, by god, use whatever works. I plan to run my chainsaws and chipper long after I’ve given up on just about everything else liquid fuels did for us. But hemp v. corn, head-to-head, you surely know more about that than I do.
“Do you know anything about their farming methods? They all seem very prosperous and well-prepared for TLE.”
Despite some serious fossil subsidy issues like the ones Soak pointed out, I’d say the Amish are better prepared for the long emergency than most. They generally live at horse-pace, and have a robust sense of community compared to average Joe, and the ones who don’t now will remember how to do things organically again when the need arises. Though I don’t envy the Amish. Their piety will only increase when they see the masses slowly heading down the energy scale toward them. They’ll assume that god has served justice on the wicked and immoral.
And I think the last thing the future needs is more mental monoculture. Though I wouldn’t mind one of their horse carts….
Years? Try decades or centuries. People never stop fighting when their country is occupied. Would you?
101st Airborne Division is a good example of how stupid Americans are, to allow themselves to be ordered into an illegal and hopeless mission. If they were intelligent, and if they had the guts, they would refuse orders to deploy to Afghanistan… they would challenge the legality of USA presence there from their prison cells. But they are corn pone cannon fodder, obeying without thinking, doing whatever they are ordered to do (and they are supported by folks at home). And if the soldiers die carrying out their mission, they will be thought of as brave… defenders of freedom… heroes defending our way of life… right.
Overall, yes, the Amish are better prepared, but they have given in to some modern stuff. Some Amish in Iowa and Ohio use steel-wheeled tractors. Amish farmers in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, have selectively adopted certain modem innovations, such as mechanical milkers, veterinary services, and artificial cattle insemination, although they continued to use horses and mules to pull field machinery.
“And I think the last thing the future needs is more mental monoculture.”
—————
So, Tripp, it sounds like you think maybe people should be larger in their perspectives, maybe able to contain multitudes of perspectives? Permanence through diversity? My good friend, Walt Whitman, said something very similar in LEAVES OF GRASS.
What? Go to Afghanistan? If the 101st Airborne soldiers had the gumption, here is how they would react to such orders:
http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE7542IS20110605
“Thieves – hustlers – bankers,” read one banner
like those who profit from military adventures in MENA.
I hate to admit it but I’m inclined to agree with what you’re saying about Afghanistan. After all, didn’t Petraeus admit that to him it is more important to create the impression of progress on the battlefield in order to convince congress and the public to back a given war than that we actually we winning in the field?
To me that makes high ranking military officers little more than salesmen for a given war so that the government and the people will continue to back that conflict and to what end? This clearly creates the impression that the pentagon merely wishes to be at war all of the time because as DeToqueville noticed about armies in democracies the only way the officer class can profit and earn promotions is by being at war as much as possible. This was contrasted with aristocratic armies where the officer class presumably has better things to do than fight since they have estates back home to take care of or careers in politics in their capacity as noblemen.
My good friend, Walt Whitman, said something very similar in LEAVES OF GRASS
=========
Every school day for four years I crossed my good friend Walt Whitman’s bridge on my way to and or from St Joe’s and if I didn’t use his bridge I used my other good buddy Benjamin Franklin’s bridge.
“Overall, yes, the Amish are better prepared, but they have given in to some modern stuff.”
After some of their horses died from the heat of western Kansas wheat harvests, they adopted the use of tractors. Preferring the simplest methods does not make one a fool.
Zoning – Oh, I heard a story from my farming friends about a county in either Eastern Washington or Idaho. They went into the courthouse for a building permit. Lots of consternation and digging around for the forms. More consternation on exactly how much to charge for the permit. $20 was thought to be sufficient.
Of course, these are the same folks who think there’s a vast pool of oil under South Dakota. Heard that from his brother-in-law.
Hmmm. Might be the myth of the Libertarians. That somewhere “out there” is a place where the Government regulations are almost non-existent.
Sometimes, a streak of Conservativism (sic) can play in your favor. As in, out in the east part of this county. Up in the hills …
The Amish. They change, just not as fast as the rest of us. And, they are not monolithic. They tend to be different from place to place. All depends on the local Ordnung, or ruling body.
I was looking for an article I saw a year or two ago. Couldn’t find the exact one. But, basically, only 5 to 10% of the Amish are full time farmers. Oh, they still take care of their own needs. Forage for the animals, big truck garden for the family. But you’re more likely to find them running small businesses or working out. “Carrying the lunch bucket” is how they put it.
They are more likely to be a bit more open then in the past to get a tourist bucks. I notice in recent footage from Amish country, fewer people go into that old “duck and cover” mode when accosted by photographers.
Some of the businesses they go into are furniture shops, quilt shops, etc. Traditional crafts that used to be sold among themselves, but are now sold to outsiders. There’s a paragraph or two in one of these links about capitalizing on organic farming. I suppose we’ve seen the articles about Amish puppy mills.
We have a large Mennonite community in our county. I had the pleasure of working with a mother, daughter team at one of our branches. Also, used to stop at a weekly bake sale near their church. They made a plain ol’ glazed donut … well, the darn thing just melted in your mouth. Had a Mennonite family in my store last week. Unless they were Apostolic Lutherans. We have a lot of those in the area. Visually, it’s sometimes hard to tell them apart.
Ann-Marie and Lynn-Marie used to tease me about joining the Mennonites. I’d tease back and say that I had given it serious consideration, but just couldn’t get past giving up my mustache.
Interesting. Looking at the sports photos in the newspaper of the various high school teams, it seems there’s a fashion for beard but no mustache. Same as the Amish and Mennonites. I wonder what that’s all about.
Blog doesn’t want to play nice and publish the links. Oh, well. This late on a Sunday night, it probably doesn’t make much difference, anyway. 🙂
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Degree inflation in nursing is a huge, huge pet peeve of mine. I’ve been taking prerequisites for RN training, but I’ve repeatedly gotten cold feet about becoming a nurse on account of the all the administrative and political bullshit that has been introduced into American medical care. I’m not sure I have could tolerate a career under the supervision of self-important twits who think that they’re hot shit for having patently worthless master’s or doctoral degrees.
Nursing is an inherently clinical line of work. There is absolutely no good reason to require RNs to have academic training beyond the associate’s or diploma level. Clinical specialty training (e.g., nurse anesthetist) and NP training are legitimate, but general academic training from the BSN to doctoral level is progressively more stupid, wasteful and deceptive. Requiring bullshit credentials just inflates the egos of pompous asses who need to get lives, makes hospital and faculty recruiters jump through a needless set of hoops, and snarls already strained academic programs by contriving a shortage of qualified clinical faculty.
As far as I can tell, this crap came about because some overly sensitive social climbers didn’t like being lorded over and condescended to by M.Deities. Instead of privately dealing with their own stupid inferiority complexes, these jerks went into administration so that they could make everyone pretend that their profession was equal to medicine.
They’re out of their damned minds. Of course nursing isn’t equal to medicine. It shouldn’t be. With the exception of nurse practitioners, anesthetists and other advanced or specialized clinicians, it involves a very different scope of practice from medicine. For that matter, internists have a very different scope of practice from surgeons or PhD pharmacologists.
None of this makes nurses any less important than physicians, surgeons or PhD scientists. The different professions complement each other, and human life would be a lot rougher without this specialization. The problem is that the fools trying to “professionalize” nursing aren’t concerned about clinical improvement; they’re obsessed with their class neuroses and don’t have the decency to refrain from taking it out on society.
The Dilbert administrators are imposing this shit on physical therapy as well! It is becoming de rigueur for physical therapists to pursue doctorates, often online, which adds yet another layer of absurdity.
Words often fail me when I realize how shallow the dolts in charge have become. The United States well and truly needs a rectification of names.
Always good to hear from you, LB. Even before
David Stockman pooh-poohed “supply side economics”
in the 1980s, Ravi Batra of SMU said the following
about charitable giving: “The rich are notable
by their ABSENCE of giving”. Batra kept a litany
of stats that basically said that, as a percentage
of total annual compensation, the poor and middle
class give FIFTY times more money to the poor than
the rich.
So, it stands to reason that if we are brought into a “supply side” Friedmanesque economy, the rich, far from being philanthropic, will do
EXACTLY what they’ve been doing … HOARDING
WEALTH. Look at the behavior of banks since
TARP and QE2. They’ve asked for, and RECEIVED,
permission to engage in “creative accounting”
by the FASB so that they can deceive investors
and depositors about their true asset base,
and they just flat-out aren’t giving loans
unless YOU have serious collateral and/or down
payment. Then they have the audacity to say
they’ve “paid back TARP”. It’s an audacious
and sociopathic LIE since the Fed and money
center backs WILL put taxpayers on the hook
for the lost money being hidden with the
permission of the FASB.
Trickle-down economics might be the most failed
political/economic ideology IN THE HISTORY OF
THE HUMAN RACE. What have we learned about the
rich since trickle down started in the 1980s?
Well, they’re never satisfied with their wealth
base no matter how obscene. They don’t give a
shit about their communities and have no problems
with offshoring American jobs. They are generally
involved with industries which don’t produce
useful products. In other words, they’re
“skimmers”. They’ve got each other’s backs.
Perhaps the history of plutocracies has always
been an obscene history but I’ve never seen such
a deceptive duping of the middle-classes to fall,
time and time again, for this idea that, God
forbid, we cannot, we must not, limit just HOW
obscene the wealthy can be in their collection
of more and more largesse. They can ruin the
country in the plain light of day. Rush Limbaugh
and Mark Levin have their backs.
E.
Boy, you hit the nail on the head. Way up thread, I ruminated on the same issues in the library “profession.” But, not as well as you.
But, they’ve really screwed themselves over and the chickens are coming home to roost. Because of the collapsing economy, they’re becoming too expensive.
There was a book in the last library system I worked in called “The Library Para-Professional.” It pretty much covered what we’ve been talking about, here. Interesting. When I started talking about it “You’ve GOT to read this!” It disappeared out of the collection.
One point I found very revealing. The MLS (Master of Library Science) who has no public contact is of higher status then those who deal directly with “the great unwashed.”
We had a change in system heads, while I was working for the library system. The old system head was a great defender of the MLSs. No rural branch, no matter how small, could function without a “certified” librarian. But, she had inherited a lot of “un-certified” heads of buildings. They were gradually replaced with MLS building heads. No matter how unsuitable they were for their small communities. Usually, they were just 2 or 3 year stints on their way to somewhere else. They most often didn’t live in their communities, but commuted in.
That system head was replaced by a pragmatic woman who knew we couldn’t afford so many MLSs. Experience counted for more than degrees. She also stripped out an entire layer the MLS “district managers” who didn’t do much of anything. If there were staffing problems (sickness, whatever) in a branch, they couldn’t even lower themselves to jump in the trench and throw themselves into the breech.
I don’t know what to tell you. Early on, I knew I couldn’t deal with the hypocrisy. My life probably would have been, different, easier, if I had. On the other hand, I’ve never had to take care of anyone, other then myself. Has there been a cost? Well, yes, but worth the price of admission. I’ve pretty much gone my own way and lived life as I choose. You make choices and have to live with the outcome.
LOL. I sympathize with your outrage. But don’t ya know? We’re all going to be obscenely wealthy some day. It’s the American Dream and the American Promise! Ed McMann is going to visit my house. I’m going to hit that jackpot at the casino.
Last! Maybe, but probably not. Spider has yet to make is early AM appearance.
Jonathan said:
Great post. Your right, it seems that the conservation oriented folks are looked at derisively by the right wingers. They seem to thumb their noses at resource limitation talk (“this is America, dammit; we’re the greatest, most productive society; don’t talk to me about limits).
***************************************************
I’ve always been appalled at the wastefulness of
my fellow countrymen, Democrat or Republican.
The town in which I live is two-thirds Democrat
but you couldn’t tell it by their “carbon foot-
print”. I count the number of SUVs, large trucks,
and vans among the parked cars of Palo Alto often.
About 36% (four-elevenths) are these “jumbo”
vehicles.
California might be the only state in the union
where some people would drive to an anti-pollution
rally in a Chevy Suburban. It’s that
hypocritical. Republicans are certainly the
most vociferous supporters of conspicuous
consumption because they’re more supportive of
the idea that waste is a part of “liberty” but
in terms of actual lifestyle I’ve never discerned
a huge difference between members of the two
parties when it comes to waste and excess.
In a way, the Republicans are more honest about
vocally supporting waste. The Democrats sound
prettier but they don’t LIVE much different.
E.
We are always only Will Power denied, our Will Power denied sometimes more sometimes less, but only this forever, like that pretty car you wanted but couldn’t buy, a degree of Will Power denied, a path of high and low denial of your Will Power. Will Power is such a crappy non elegant concept, and yet that is all we are.
On Resource Scarcity Myths and Other Myths
I find it fascinating that Kunstler’s Peak Oil theory, and his entire ideological construction is based on a single point of failure, just like he points out, correctly, that oil (but it would be more correct to say energy) is the single point of failure of the USA economy: and namely how much energy is available to propel vehicles. If this amount is greater than his fairy tale estimate by a substantial amount, well their goes his Peak Oil theory and his entire ideological construction (cool to see how just one small number can demolish years of texts and debates by thousands of people).
It seems like just the total reserves of shale gas worldwide could propel a billion cars worldwide for another 100 years if you only used that gas, let alone using all the combinations of energy that could be used to propel cars like ethanol, diesel, electricity, etc. So I fanthom that you can safely say that Kunstler’s Peak Oil scenario, if it is ever going to happen (and that is a big if, considering that technology is always going forward, even if slowly and no matter what anyone thinks) will happen at least more than 100 years from now.
On the fact that people think that there is “something else” to life and reality, “something deeper”; “something more than meets the eye”, and then they associate it with all kinds of feelings, emotions, and “beauty they see”, all kinds of cheap idealisms and “feel good” thoughts and sensations, etc. I respond, FALSE, there is nothing at all not even what meets the eye or what you feel, actually, what you feel is a sign of weakness, is vulnerability, is you being defeated by MATTER that has you under its thumb. We are only simply a puny “fight”, a “contrast”, “an opposition to our will power and how we react”, a reaction to the opposition to what you want, but you are driven by your instincts and impulses so it is not really you anyways (but then again where or who are you ? another infinite recursion of intractable – impossible metaphysical “problems” (are they even problems ?)).
We are the deep end of of reality, we are the only thing that is deep and reality is as deep as we think we are (which is zero, no depth, we are just a simple “Action – Reaction Machine”, a one transistor circuit, go figure). We are the deep end of “deep”, reality has nothing deeper than us, us pretending to be deep. The only thing “deeper” than us could be Modified Minds and Instant Singularities, wildly Modified, and they can become as deep as ever, infinitely “deep”.
The myth of progress, that you could learn the rules and patterns of reality and control it, improve it, the myth that experiences were accumulative, added up, that you were going forward, and especially the Technological – Scientific Myth (not to even mention the Economic Myth of Capitalism and Free Markets) of increasing knowledge, all the models, the pristine pure (platonic, nay, somewhat metaphysical models), all the Math and Equations especially had a deep, implied intentionality of use, that you were in control that you didn’t depend on the fact that “The World Is Your Enemy”, “That it is Independent From You”, that we are just the next reaction to action in terms of the fight, the simple reaction to your Will Power contrasted and opposed. And also we always fool ourselves that we are in control when in all truth all of our existence deeply depends on just that one photon not going wrong in your body, that quirk photon provoking an ictus and immediate death, a sudden heart attack, whatever.
We are simply Will Power Fighting, the impulse to do or get or achieve what you want and external reality opposing this, but especially external reality in terms of other people’s Will Power opposing you, and you knowing that they have an impulse that is the same as yours, but only opposed to yours (hence you aren’t even justified Metaphysically in wanting to satisfy your impulses, you know they are quirks, arbitrary trash and quirks just like all of life and existence).
Also, I probably make a lot of mistakes and wrong analysis, but who cares, I could care less, all I write and have written is trash, just dump it, who cares, I have no problem in “contradicting” myself, I actually like to contradict myself and trash myself, I am always wrong (sounds so cool), always, that is my greatest satisfaction, to know you are always wrong, as in “The Mind is Always Wrong”.
So on work – labor – activity (whatever it is delimited as): the fact that work is just a reflection of exchanges, which is really an excuse for an interaction between people (as probably people don’t have to interact and exchange anything and could live in total isolation forever, never seeing another soul and be 100 % happy, as in Man is the “Infinitely Programmable Machine”), as this creates money transfers. But an infinite amount of excuses for interactions and transactions between people can be invented and created, hence work may be infinite anyways and never run out.
So this contradicts my theory of “Work Ending”: but maybe because I belong to a generation where work was tied into something material and physical (agriculture, manufacturing, things you can touch and see like Rockets to Mars and Skyscrapers), something that was necessary, and maybe it is I that can’t wrap my head around the idea that real work never existed (or may have existed in the past but is destined to disappear into abstractions and fluff), but always was a proxy for human interaction and exchange, human transactions and hence a cultural construction, an invention from the outset.
We are always only Will Power denied, our Will Power denied sometimes more sometimes less, but only this forever, like that pretty car you wanted but couldn’t buy, a degree of Will Power denied, a path of high and low denial of your Will Power. Will Power is such a crappy non elegant concept, and yet that is all we are.
On Resource Scarcity Myths and Other Myths
I find it fascinating that Kunstler’s Peak Oil theory, and his entire ideological construction is based on a single point of failure, just like he points out, correctly, that oil (but it would be more correct to say energy) is the single point of failure of the USA economy: and namely how much energy is available to propel vehicles. If this amount is greater than his fairy tale estimate by a substantial amount, well their goes his Peak Oil theory and his entire ideological construction (cool to see how just one small number can demolish years of texts and debates by thousands of people).
It seems like just the total reserves of shale gas worldwide could propel a billion cars worldwide for another 100 years if you only used that gas, let alone using all the combinations of energy that could be used to propel cars like ethanol, diesel, electricity, etc. So I fanthom that you can safely say that Kunstler’s Peak Oil scenario, if it is ever going to happen (and that is a big if, considering that technology is always going forward, even if slowly and no matter what anyone thinks) will happen at least more than 100 years from now.
On the fact that people think that there is “something else” to life and reality, “something deeper”; “something more than meets the eye”, and then they associate it with all kinds of feelings, emotions, and “beauty they see”, all kinds of cheap idealisms and “feel good” thoughts and sensations, etc. I respond, FALSE, there is nothing at all not even what meets the eye or what you feel, actually, what you feel is a sign of weakness, is vulnerability, is you being defeated by MATTER that has you under its thumb. We are only simply a puny “fight”, a “contrast”, “an opposition to our will power and how we react”, a reaction to the opposition to what you want, but you are driven by your instincts and impulses so it is not really you anyways (but then again where or who are you ? another infinite recursion of intractable – impossible metaphysical “problems” (are they even problems ?)).
We are the deep end of of reality, we are the only thing that is deep and reality is as deep as we think we are (which is zero, no depth, we are just a simple “Action – Reaction Machine”, a one transistor circuit, go figure). We are the deep end of “deep”, reality has nothing deeper than us, us pretending to be deep. The only thing “deeper” than us could be Modified Minds and Instant Singularities, wildly Modified, and they can become as deep as ever, infinitely “deep”.
The myth of progress, that you could learn the rules and patterns of reality and control it, improve it, the myth that experiences were accumulative, added up, that you were going forward, and especially the Technological – Scientific Myth (not to even mention the Economic Myth of Capitalism and Free Markets) of increasing knowledge, all the models, the pristine pure (platonic, nay, somewhat metaphysical models), all the Math and Equations especially had a deep, implied intentionality of use, that you were in control that you didn’t depend on the fact that “The World Is Your Enemy”, “That it is Independent From You”, that we are just the next reaction to action in terms of the fight, the simple reaction to your Will Power contrasted and opposed. And also we always fool ourselves that we are in control when in all truth all of our existence deeply depends on just that one photon not going wrong in your body, that quirk photon provoking an ictus and immediate death, a sudden heart attack, whatever.
We are simply Will Power Fighting, the impulse to do or get or achieve what you want and external reality opposing this, but especially external reality in terms of other people’s Will Power opposing you, and you knowing that they have an impulse that is the same as yours, but only opposed to yours (hence you aren’t even justified Metaphysically in wanting to satisfy your impulses, you know they are quirks, arbitrary trash and quirks just like all of life and existence).
Also, I probably make a lot of mistakes and wrong analysis, but who cares, I could care less, all I write and have written is trash, just dump it, who cares, I have no problem in “contradicting” myself, I actually like to contradict myself and trash myself, I am always wrong (sounds so cool), always, that is my greatest satisfaction, to know you are always wrong, as in “The Mind is Always Wrong”.
So on work – labor – activity (whatever it is delimited as): the fact that work is just a reflection of exchanges, which is really an excuse for an interaction between people (as probably people don’t have to interact and exchange anything and could live in total isolation forever, never seeing another soul and be 100 % happy, as in Man is the “Infinitely Programmable Machine”), as this creates money transfers. But an infinite amount of excuses for interactions and transactions between people can be invented and created, hence work may be infinite anyways and never run out.
So this contradicts my theory of “Work Ending”: but maybe because I belong to a generation where work was tied into something material and physical (agriculture, manufacturing, things you can touch and see like Rockets to Mars and Skyscrapers), something that was necessary, and maybe it is I that can’t wrap my head around the idea that real work never existed (or may have existed in the past but is destined to disappear into abstractions and fluff), but always was a proxy for human interaction and exchange, human transactions and hence a cultural construction, an invention from the outset.
On Resource Scarcity Myths and Other Myths
I find it fascinating that Kunstler’s Peak Oil theory, and his entire ideological construction is based on a single point of failure, just like he points out, correctly, that oil (but it would be more correct to say energy) is the single point of failure of the USA economy: and namely how much energy is available to propel vehicles. If this amount is greater than his fairy tale estimate by a substantial amount, well their goes his Peak Oil theory and his entire ideological construction (cool to see how just one small number can demolish years of texts and debates by thousands of people).
It seems like just the total reserves of shale gas worldwide could propel a billion cars worldwide for another 100 years if you only used that gas, let alone using all the combinations of energy that could be used to propel cars like ethanol, diesel, electricity, etc. So I fanthom that you can safely say that Kunstler’s Peak Oil scenario, if it is ever going to happen (and that is a big if, considering that technology is always going forward, even if slowly and no matter what anyone thinks) will happen at least more than 100 years from now.
Check out:
http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=22324&st=150
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=175489
I’ve had similar thoughts but then the fact remains that the validity of the peak oil theory doesn’t rely on the timeline, but in that reality that this is a finite resource and a one time gift from the geological heritage from the deep past such as the carboniferous period.
I also believe that if the human race survives we would eventually recover form the disruptions of peak oil as technology evolves. And then we would also adapt to using less energy as well.
But unfortunatley we can already see the effects of the demand for oil outstripping supply, which drives up the price, and then undermines the economy by withdrawing what was formerly a cheap abundant resource. Under these circumstances the situation is created in which we would never completely exhaust the resource because our economy would collapse and then there would be no financing to further exploit what remains in the ground. In other words we must cope with and live in the present with the limitations imposed upon us by the current reality and not in the future when presumably there would be a much larger boost from technology.
Some Perversions
Of course there really are no perversions, there are only entities or behaviors, patterns that are compared to others and seem completely the opposite of what you were used to or expected, different, wrong, or unrelated, whatever. Also, language and thought is always an equation of concepts based on previous concepts, that are simply mixed and matched in a different combination, something new (or perceived as new ?) is related and defined and associated with some combination of old things (when did new words, entities and concepts appear anyways ? aren’t they all old ? when did the first new one come out ? uh oh, another infinite recursion).
But, on the fact that economy today is more and more based on inventions and less on necessities, but especially how the necessities are tied into the inventions, how something arbitrary and ridiculous can become “Important” and economically tied into real money and necessities (the arbitrary mix of real and fluff, what is payed for and what not), like Facebook (most people thought that website was really “stupid” when it came out, now it is all fashionable, cool, and really important, or cell phones with cameras in them, etc.) is really tied into the fact that there are fewer and fewer real jobs to do in terms of basic necessities, real economic circuits in which to employ so many people so you must keep on inventing new ones, ever more, ever newer, an excuse for an interaction between people, an excuse for a transaction and money exchange.
But there is a real reason for all of this: the ruling class must always create new sectors, new fashions, something that pushes people to buy, change, always new and change, and new companies hiring young (especially young, since they believe easily in the BS of the importance of their “jobs”, etc., but even more importantly firing the old, now obsolete workers, planned obsolescence, and you pay the kids a lot less and fired old guys now feel that they have failed their game at life and career, they are now total failures they didn’t “study hard enough” or “innovate hard enough”, whatever), so as to create instabilities, large flows of money into new things like that idiotic website of groupon, etc. You can expect virtually anything, no matter how far out, really anything at all, as long as it creates cash flow. This is based on the fact that Man is the Infinitely Programmable Machine.
Some Perversions
Of course there really are no perversions, there are only entities or behaviors, patterns that are compared to others and seem completely the opposite of what you were used to or expected, different, wrong, or unrelated, whatever. Also, language and thought is always an equation of concepts based on previous concepts, that are simply mixed and matched in a different combination, something new (or perceived as new ?) is related and defined and associated with some combination of old things (when did new words, entities and concepts appear anyways ? aren’t they all old ? when did the first new one come out ? uh oh, another infinite recursion).
But, on the fact that economy today is more and more based on inventions and less on necessities, but especially how the necessities are tied into the inventions, how something arbitrary and ridiculous can become “Important” and economically tied into real money and necessities (the arbitrary mix of real and fluff, what is payed for and what not), like Facebook (most people thought that website was really “stupid” when it came out, now it is all fashionable, cool, and really important, or cell phones with cameras in them, etc.) is really tied into the fact that there are fewer and fewer real jobs to do in terms of basic necessities, real economic circuits in which to employ so many people so you must keep on inventing new ones, ever more, ever newer, an excuse for an interaction between people, an excuse for a transaction and money exchange.
But there is a real reason for all of this: the ruling class must always create new sectors, new fashions, something that pushes people to buy, change, always new and change, and new companies hiring young (especially young, since they believe easily in the BS of the importance of their “jobs”, etc., but even more importantly firing the old, now obsolete workers, planned obsolescence, and you pay the kids a lot less and fired old guys now feel that they have failed their game at life and career, they are now total failures they didn’t “study hard enough” or “innovate hard enough”, whatever), so as to create instabilities, large flows of money into new things like that idiotic website of groupon, etc. You can expect virtually anything, no matter how far out, really anything at all, as long as it creates cash flow. This is based on the fact that Man is the Infinitely Programmable Machine.
The ruling class knows how to hide the hidden agenda, they always describe something as new and important with some kind of objective, structural description, that is very hard to see behind: you know, we are “competing” with South Korea (their students study 12 hours a day), or we have to implement websites and Internet Commerce to “cut costs”, and so on, a never ending sophisticated list of descriptions of things that seem so “logical”, so “natural”, so “advanced”, so “correct”, who on earth is ever going to challenge any of this ? who on earth will even ever doubt any of this ?
By the way, on those two examples, a service economy doesn’t “compete” with anyone or anything anymore, it is actually quite a closed loop process, that South Korean students study 12 hours a day is not related to and totally irrelevant to anything at all in the USA (but then in South Korea, they say to their kids that they are not “creative “and “innovative like the Silicon Valley kids”, they just “study – memorize and don’t invent”, go figure, you can never get it right, you are always wrong no matter what you do) as is the concept of competition since 70 % of the USA economy is not even in manufacturing (it is fluff and consumption when it is not health care, fixing up so many busted bodies, or busting new bodies in other countries as in defense), etc. Cutting costs by websites is just a fancy way to close real stores and hose as many workers as possible and dealing over that work to virtual “hobby factories” of people maintaining those websites for free in their basement or bedroom.
But some oddball sectors you can expect to flourish: porn (websites, contacts, whatever, this sector can get really carried away, all kinds of new combinations, behaviors, paid or not paid for what or not, real or fake, in between, what new kinds of behaviors “families” or “families busted”, so many possible economic circuits), groupon like crap and similar, anything that intercepts money flows, and so on and so forth. And all of this possibly destroying the old fashion “family” model, or straining all of the old social models in all kinds of ways, etc.
But most of this will be based on the death of the old fashion 9 to 5 job (as that is seen as freeloading even if you work really hard in those 8 hours, since what really counts is the “time at work” not what is produced, which today is a big fat zero, only status challenges and relationships, only money flows back and forth across all kinds of actors for any reasons at all, backed up by nothing at all).
I like the way the young kids think they are inventing something really cool and new in the “new startups”, they know better, they are the future of the economy, so it was with google (but the old altavista was way better but designed by old farts, so that had to go), they now feel important (the old farts don’t “understand” are “obsolete”, “they can’t keep up with technology, etc.”), they buy into the idea of being the new economy, the new sectors, the new inventors, whatever. And they really believe it all, they don’t know that they are being taken for a ride by the capitalists that have this all planned out, just to hose them all a few years down the line (except for the few super rich, which will be created on purpose, to feed the myth, to show that the system really works, that innovation creates winner, when it is all set up and a lie, but a lie that no one even knows how to challenge). And the cycle will repeat, creative destruction.
We need Rockets to Mars, Skyscrapers, Cheap Rents, Free Salaries and Hobby factories.
Interesting week’s worth of comments going in the CFN record book.
I’ve always wondered what would happen if JHK didn’t publish a Monday post for some reason or another.
Would the regulars meet on the previous week’s JHK blog and continue to grapple?
What if JHK quit writing every week and took the whole comment’s section down? You ever think about that? This blog and comment section seems to me, to be unique in all the world – due to its self-regulated nature, the mental horsepower of some of the posters, along with the fact that no ideas seem to be censored by our host.
Just things to ponder.
1,181! Very interesting.
“…a one time gift from the geological heritage from the deep past such as the carboniferous period.”
There is little consolation in the abiotic theory, given our timeline. The supply of oil is enhanced occasionally by close encounters with cometary bodies. The results of these events are known as “fire and brimestone” raining from the sky upon populated areas, others went unwitnessed. Tar pits eventually are buried by tsunamis, floods etc. and mountain building wherein sea beds are lifted while cities sink to the new ocean bottoms, to be discovered only by those who ignore the histories spouted by mattoids for our own good, of course, since we can’t handle the truth.
I read how at “Stanford”, some kids wrote Facebook APPS and got rich, or something like that. This is a case where:
1) Money flows into places where rich people already are (how convenient, what ever happened to the poor slob in the garage that makes an APP making him rich ? not reading much of those (but the Apple APPS seem to have really produced some of these honestly through Free Work (Hobby Factories anyone ?)). But the powers that be will invent the Winners, they will invent them, they will be created “by design”, by the powers that be, very subtly, without anyone ever noticing how it is rigged, so you can get really confused, what is the cause and what is the effect, is it a subtle “command language” (where the command to do something is hidden in what is said but you don’t notice)?
2) You can’t really tell how many “connections” (as in people connections, maybe someone telling the ad companies to pay those particular kids a lot more money, you know (who knows?)) there were between the ad companies bringing the kids “Millions” or if it was all so casual. This also by design, prove it that it wasn’t the pure chance – luck and especially “skills” of the oh, so precious young kids inventing oh, so precious APPS for such an old fashion and boring sector that was once called advertisement, better known as TV commercials since the 1950s and in the last 50 years.
3) How to keep on feeding the myth, the kids invented something “new”, they are in new “Venture Capital” Startup Land, all so new and cool and so important. But this also is all by design, is planned, there are probably many subtle connections behind the scenes, what is important is to feed the myth, put on the show, and let everyone believe it, see it works, if you design new APPS you will win big time, etc.
By the way, a whole lot of sectors are rigged, a whole lot of money flows occur “by design”, it is hard to prove and pinpoint them down, but so it is. I guess they all need a spiritual and ethical justification for Inequality, there is a “good objective reason” why that guy has “more cash”, “he deserved it”, etc.
Incorporating Homeland Security with the Pentagon is pretty much what Hitler did when he combined the brown shirts, the SA w/the SS. The Nazi’s could have never dreamed up what our government is going to us, thanks to technology, amazing to think she might get in; always said she was the result of our litigious/evanglical and victimology pathologies….
The inflation bomb that’s about to it combined with the dollar devaluation is going to be pretty deadly, for all of us, in its own way.
Strange to think I could never have had the life I’ve had if I hadn’t grown up in a lovely little place called Magnolia, in Seattle; basically Mayberry RFD w/money. I could never have had this life, built up my own businesses and traveled and lived in all the countries I have…
Arrivederci America…yep, that’s the title of my book.
Exactly, Asoka.
I bought hay from an Amish guy and complimented him on it, and he explained that he sprayed a lot.
I bought hay from another Amish guy and he delivered it by tractor. 20 miles. I guess they can have tractors, but not trucks.
And, I have a feeling that part of my problem with decreasing yields is that I use compost made with animal manure made from sprayed hay.
Apparently, it’s getting to be a noticed problem.
Oops, spelling error: guess where the spelling error was game!
I read how at “Stanford”, some kids wrote Facebook APPS and got rich, or something like that. This is a case where:
1) Money flows into places where rich people already are (how convenient, what ever happened to the poor slob in the garage that makes an APP making him rich ? not reading much of those (but the Apple APPS seem to have really produced some of these honestly through Free Work (Hobby Factories anyone ?))). But the powers that be will invent the Winners, they will invent them, they will be created “by design”, by the powers that be, very subtly, without anyone ever noticing how it is rigged, so you can get really confused, what is the cause and what is the effect, is it a subtle “command language” (where the command to do something is hidden in what is said but you don’t notice)?
2) You can’t really tell how many “connections” (as in people connections, maybe someone telling the ad companies to pay those particular kids a lot more money, you know (who knows?)) there were between the ad companies bringing the kids “Millions” or if it was all so casual. This also by design, prove it that it wasn’t the pure chance – luck and especially “skills” of the oh, so precious young kids inventing oh, so precious APPS for such an old fashion and boring sector that was once called advertisement, better known as TV commercials since the 1950s and in the last 50 years.
3) How to keep on feeding the myth, the kids invented something “new”, they are in new “Venture Capital” Startup Land, all so new and cool and so important. But this also is all by design, is planned, there are probably many subtle connections behind the scenes, what is important is to feed the myth, put on the show, and let everyone believe it, see it works, if you design new APPS you will win big time, etc.
By the way, a whole lot of sectors are rigged, a whole lot of money flows occur “by design”, it is hard to prove and pinpoint them down, but so it is. I guess they all need a spiritual and ethical justification for Inequality, there is a “good objective reason” why that guy has “more cash”, “he deserved it”, etc.
Incorporating Homeland Security with the Pentagon is pretty much what Hitler did when he combined the brown shirts, the SA w/the SS.
The Nazi’s could have never dreamed up what our government is doing to us, thanks to technology. Amazing to think she might get in; always said she was the result of our litigious/evanglical and victimology pathologies; she’s the trifecta.
The inflation bomb that’s about to it combined with the dollar devaluation is going to be pretty deadly, for all of us, in its own way.
Strange to think I could never have had the life I’ve had if I hadn’t grown up in a lovely little place called Magnolia, in Seattle; basically Mayberry RFD w/money. I could never have had this life, built up my own businesses and traveled and lived in all the countries I have…
Arrivederci America…yep, that’s the title of my book.
After my wooden barn doors were damaged in the hurricane, I had them replaced with metal ones, made to order by Amish workers.
Great stuff, as usual. But James, I have to ask: what is your big issue with tattoos? I am liberal, educated, successful, quite fit, and I have several tattoos. Living in Portland, Oregon as I do, I observe that many of the most creative, artistic, thoughtful, and successful people I know also have tattoos. The days when, as my grandfather used to say, “only bikers and convicts have tattoos,” seem to be over. I’m not being argumentative here, I am legitimately interested in your thoughts on the subject, especially since I agree with you on just about every other issue.
Mr. Kuntsler,
Interesting perspective on Ms. Palin’s circus, I must admit, I hadn’t thought of it in that way but you’re right, there are some very interesting parallels there.
Of course it’s not really about Sarah Palin, nor was it so much about A. Hitler. Both are/were clowns and buffoons but Der Fuehrer came along – as you so eloquently put it – when Germany was deep into its shame. And most in the Weimar government were equally clownish and buffoonish. Palin has come along when clowns and buffoons are pretty much all the American mainstream media are interested in. And of course, in today’s media, anyone daring enough to even hint at something so outrageous as truth, is immediately ridiculed and marginalized – even if they’re ignorant but favored righties like Mr. Gingrich.
I’m curious, have you ever read Konrad Heiden’s “Der Fuehrer?”
By the way, in a later column of yours I read (“The Creeping Nausea of American Exceptionalism”), you coined an absolutely brilliant phrase: “History, that coy dominatrix . . .” I love it! Thank you.