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The mystery is at last revealed: why does the field of candidates for president score so uniformly low in trust, credibility, likability? Why are there no candidates of real substance, principle, and especially of real charm in this scrim of political basilisks? (Surely there are many people of substance and principle elsewhere in America — they just don’t dare seek the job at the symbolic tippy-top of this clusterfuck of faltering rackets.) The reason is that the problems are unfixable, at least not within the acceptable terms of the zeitgeist, namely: the secret wish to keep all the rackets going at all costs.

This is true, by the way, of all parties concerned from the 0.001 percent billionaire grifter class to the deluded sophomores crying for “safe spaces” in their womb-like “student life centers” to the sports-and-porn addled suburban multitudes stuck with impossible mortgage, car, and college loan debts (and, suddenly, no paying job) to the deluded Black Lives Matter mobs who have failed to notice that black lives matter least to the black people slaughtering each other over sneakers and personal slights. None of these groups really want to change anything. They actually wish to preserve their prerogatives.

The interests of the 0.001 percent are obvious: maintain those streams of unearned, rentier, notional wealth as long as possible and convert them as fast as possible into hard assets (Caribbean islands, Cézanne landscapes, gold bars) that will theoretically insulate them from the wrath of history when the center no longer holds. The poor (and ever-poorer) formerly middle class suburban debt serfs, for all their travails, can’t imagine living any other way or putting less of their dwindling capital into the Happy Motoring matrix. The Maoist Social Justice Warrior students are enjoying the surprising power and thrills of coercion, especially as directed against their simpering professors and cringing college presidents anxious to sustain the illusion that something like learning takes place in the money laundering operations of higher ed. The Black Lives Matter crowd just wants to be excused from their failure to follow standards of decent behavior and to keep mau-mauing the other ethnic groups of America for material and political tribute.

It must be obvious that the next occupant of the White House will preside over the implosion of all these arrangements since, in the immortal words of economist Herb Stein, if something can’t go on forever, it will stop. So the only individuals left seeking the position are 1) An inarticulate reality TV buffoon; 2) a war-happy evangelical maniac; 3) a narcissistic monster of entitlement whose “turn” it is to hold the country’s highest office; and 4) a valiant but quixotic self-proclaimed socialist altacocker who might have walked off the set of Welcome Back Kotter, 40th Reunion Special. These are the ones left standing halfway to the conventions. Nobody else in his, her, it, xe, or they right mind wants to be handed this schwag-bag of doom.

On Saturday, the unstoppable Democratic shoo-in Hillary lost her 7th straight contest to the only theoretically electable Vermont Don Quixote, Bernie Sanders. This was a week after it was reported in The Huff-Po that her campaign crew literally bought-and-paid for the entire 50-state smorgasbord of super-delegates who will supposedly compensate for Hillary’s inability to otherwise win votes the old-fashioned way, by ballots cast. Wonder why that didn’t make nary a ripple in the media afterward? Because this is the land where anything goes and nothing matters, and that’s really all you need to know about how things work in the USA these days.

The Republican mandarins are apparently delirious over loose cannon Donald Trump’s flagging poll numbers in the remaining primary states. Should Trump fall on his face, do you think they’ll just hand Ted Cruz the Ronald Reagan Crown-and-Scepter set. (They’d rather lock Ted in the back of a Chevy cargo van with five Mexican narcos and a chain saw.) The GOP establishment insiders are already lighting cigars in preparation for the biggest smoke-filled room in US political history, Cleveland, July 20. But what poor shmo will they have to drag to the podium to get this odious thing done? Who wants to be the guy in the Oval Office when Janet Yellen comes in some muggy DC morning and says, “Uh, sir (ma’am)… that sucker you heard was gonna go down…? Well, uh, it just did.”

As for the Dems: they are about to anoint the most unpopular candidate of our lifetimes. The BLM mobs have promised to deliver mayhem to the streets of the party conventions and don’t think they will spare Hillary in Philary, no matter how many chitlins she scarfed down last month in Carolina. The action in Philly will unleash and reveal all the deadly power of President Obama’s NSA goon squads when the militarized police put down the riots, and Hillary will be tagged guilty by association.

And that is how Kim Kardashian gets elected president.

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James Howard Kunstler is the author of many books including (non-fiction) The Geography of Nowhere, The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition, Home from Nowhere, The Long Emergency and the four-book series of World Made By Hand novels, set in a post economic crash American future. His most recent book is Living in the Long Emergency; Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing Us the Way Forward. Jim lives on a homestead in Washington County, New. York, where he tends his garden and communes with his chickens.

355 Responses to “The Mystery Revealed”

  1. Greg Knepp April 11, 2016 at 9:51 am #

    Elitist snob that I am, I’ve dutifully avoided the Kardashian show for the past several years. But out of curiosity, I’ve tuned in lately and seen a number of episodes – mostly reruns. What shocked me was that, beyond all the glitz and glitter, Kim Kardashian is actually a pretty savvy dame: articulate, pragmatic, completely lacking in ideology, and well aware of the ludicrous nature of her status and situation.

    She might make a better President than any of those fools now running…I shit you not!

  2. noel bodie April 11, 2016 at 10:12 am #

    Can you imagine listening to Ted’s Nasaly Texas twang for 4 years? That is enough to disqualify him.

    • SteveO April 11, 2016 at 12:13 pm #

      After 8+ years of Bush the stupid? I think I’ll ice-pick my eardrums.

    • abbybwood April 11, 2016 at 2:54 pm #

      Regarding Sen. Dominionist Speaking in Tongues Cruz:

      If I wanted a sermon I’d go to church.

      Just the fact that he is itching to see if he can make the sands of the Middle East glow (except for Israel) disqualifies him.

      I think he is being played by the RNC to dump Mr. Trump so they can bring in Paul Ryan on the third ballot.

      Oh well, the Republican Party had to end some time, why not this summer in Cleveland?

      • outsider April 11, 2016 at 4:27 pm #

        I don’t see how Ryan would want it. He’d get beat in a landslide and also lose his Speakership. Unless he can do what he did last time when he was allowed to run for VP with Romney and his House seat at the same time. That would be novel. Run for POTUS and his House seat at the same time.

        • chipshot April 13, 2016 at 6:29 am #

          I don’t see how he wouldn’t want it.
          To get nominated without having to campaign?
          That’s like becoming a millionaire via a lottery ticket.

          Get beat in a landslide? Think he would unite
          republicans more than any other candidate they have,
          and given the degree to which Hillary (hopefully it’s not her)
          galvanizes the GOP, Ryan might stand a decent
          chance of winning.

      • Frankiti April 11, 2016 at 9:11 pm #

        Gary Johnson 2016

  3. Neon Vincent April 11, 2016 at 10:17 am #

    “The reason is that the problems are unfixable, at least not within the acceptable terms of the zeitgeist, namely: the secret wish to keep all the rackets going at all costs.”

    It’s hardly secret. As you wrote, even the middle class wants to keep some version of suburban happy motoring going. You were right about people electing maniacs who promise to keep the entitlements of suburbia, but you might just have gotten those entitlements wrong. They’re not the physical things you listed 13 years ago. Instead, they’re the psychological entitlements of being insulated from urban problems, real, metaphorical, and imaginary. Trump is making that promise, even if it’s not expressly about McMansions and SUVs. Surprise, you predicted Trump!

    Of course, there are some rackets that have finally been exposed and the people are clamoring for them to end. Here in Michigan, it’s the Emergency Manager Law, the blowback from which has resulted in Congressional inquiries and lawsuits along with eroded approval ratings for Governor Rick Snyder. That last is the least of the state’s problems, but it seems people are enjoying the Schadenfreude.

    • Janos Skorenzy April 11, 2016 at 2:34 pm #

      Hah! Not even you care to defend the evil Black Lives Matter movement. They are the lowest of the low. No doubt you still love them but politician that you are, you are always aware of the shifting of the wind.

      • abbybwood April 11, 2016 at 2:59 pm #

        I was supportive of them until they mistakenly added Michael Brown to their list of Blacks whose lives mattered.

        I can’t have sympathy for a criminal who steals from a 7-11 store and roughs up the owner then tries to grab a cops gun.

  4. DrTomSchmidt April 11, 2016 at 10:24 am #

    valiant but quixotic self-proclaimed socialist altacocker who might have walked off the set of Welcome Back Kotter, 40th Reunion Special

    That’s a great line! Thanks for the laugh.

    as Greg Knepp points out, Kardashian at least has a sensible business head on her. It is interesting that all our recent Democratic Presidents and candidates have been lawyers who had a questionable understanding of law, while the Republicans have been “businessmen” whose business acumen can rightly be questioned. W bankrupted company after company, his father ran an AWL company that depended on government contracts, and Romney collected his financialized rent on the backs of shareholders and workers.

    Trump at least has built things in the real world. Sanders strikes me as his counterpart: the legal/guardian type Who is NOT in it for the money. They differ greatly from previous candidates of both parties.

    • capt spaulding April 11, 2016 at 11:33 am #

      I like both your examples of either Trump or Sanders as the most preferable cantidates. The sad truth however, is that too many people pin their hopes on getting “the right guy” in the presidency, not realising that it takes more than just one guy to get the wheels of change moving regardless of the power of the office. Without some support from both houses of congress, our corrupt government won’t move an inch. Look at the Republicans under Obama. Trump or Sanders could win and still be unable to steer the ship of state anywhere but where the oligarchs choose to go. As a true cynic, I don’t expect much to come from this election. The electorate is rising up, but I don’t think it’ll be enough to effect a change.

      • DrTomSchmidt April 11, 2016 at 1:40 pm #

        Sanders strikes me as genuine. Given his level of wealth, he clearly hasn’t collected 153MM dollars in speaking fees, like some other unnamed candidates. Trump is literally grounded in reality, the kind of grounding that pours foundations and builds buildings.

        Neither one has amassed a fortune by sucking off the Federal Government teat. That cannot be said of Mrs. Cruz, or Mrs. Clinton. Not having made a fortune off the Feds, one hopes they’re less beholden to them.

        There is no illusion of hope with the other two.

      • Thinkgloballyactlocally April 11, 2016 at 2:14 pm #

        Exactly. So all this endless debating-around who will win this election is pointless….. you, guys, are spending your valuable time at this forum instead of preparing the soil, learning how to breed rabbits or plough with horse power. You know, what I mean.
        Maybe in September will be too late…..
        Good luck to all of us!
        (Yes, I kinda lost my faith in the human race. It was a beautiful shooting star in the history of this planet. I feel so sorry for it….)

        • Precipitous Decline April 16, 2016 at 6:24 pm #

          I’m actually taking a break from preparing my garden. I’ve recently moved so am starting all over. I am so far behind the power curve in terms of prepping but I make a little bit of progress every day.

          Thinkgloballyactlocally you have the last word in this discussion as far as I can see. It looks like this summer/fall will see this powder keg blown open. After the Colorado steal it is amazing that people aren’t marching on the streets with pitchforks but maybe folks are waiting for the the big shows in Cleveland and Phily. JHK has previously mentioned that it could be an 1860 moment. It could be a 1776 moment. Either way it is going to be one hell of a show.

          Time is running out. As Neil Young sings: “Comes a time”. I guess the world will keep spinning around after it all. My town might even find a way to be a real community once again. It could be good. Then again, it could make George Orwell look like an optimist.

    • abbybwood April 11, 2016 at 3:01 pm #

      Bernie Sanders is not a lawyer.

  5. Cold N. Holefield April 11, 2016 at 10:43 am #

    Great blog post, Jim. I wonder who Putin would like to see “elected?”

    No Silicone, No Veil

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    • outsider April 11, 2016 at 2:20 pm #

      Cold – Of course it’s Trump. They have mutual respect for each other. Under all the other candidates, even Bernie, the new cold war with Russia will continue. Only Trump offers the potential that it will stop.

    • abbybwood April 11, 2016 at 3:07 pm #

      I would guess Putin would prefer the same candidate as the Pope: Bernie Sanders.

      Sanders, of all the candidates, would be the least likely to start a nuclear war with Russia. I think he would be the least likely to spend hours every day having the MIC whispering in his ear about the next “regime change”.

      I think he would weed out all the Neocons who are currently infesting the Halls of Congress and D.C.

      I like the fact that he has brought Bill Black on as his economic adviser:

      http://neweconomicperspectives.org/category/william-k-black

      • Janos Skorenzy April 11, 2016 at 6:57 pm #

        Doubt it. Putin has already sent his warm regards to Trump after Trump sent his on the good job he was doing in Syria. Sanders is a hardcore Zionist when it comes to foreign policy. As you may know, the Zionists are against the Russians and vice versa.

  6. newworld April 11, 2016 at 10:48 am #

    Zerohedge the home of the troll and hype had a piece up about a surprise meeting or something between Obama and mumbles Yellen, could he be getting the bad news?

    FTR I doubt it, he is the supreme cult leader, the messiah, lightworker and the blah, blah, blah of the world. Dubya and McCain were true dupes that got their surprise of that Lehman bankruptcy theater, Obama probably won’t.

    The DC establishment is all out against Trump so expect grand theater which includes election year easy money, party like it’s 1999.

  7. pequiste April 11, 2016 at 11:03 am #

    Did anyone else see the famous and “illuminated” yesterday, during IBM advertisement breaks during the final round of The Masters golf Tournament, talking to the “Watson” artificial intelligence contraption?

    The GOP and Democrat parties need to use the/an A.I. program as their candidate because the idiocy and nonsense that has been foisted on the “Murikan” people for the last 50 years is just a hologram of someone or somethings’ evil imagination.

    Trump/Hillary/Cruz/Sanders – a collection of mere factotems.

    I believe it is time: it is the actual Apocalypse: from the original Greek meaning unveiling or uncovering.

    The mystery revealed is that the the U.S.A. is non-other than Mystery Babylon The Great. (Don’t take my word for it either – search history and the Bible for coroboration or you can ask Watson, SIRI, or your favorite A.I. personage. )

    And Kim Khardashian is non-other than the Whore of Babylon.

    It all makes sense now.

  8. orbit7er April 11, 2016 at 11:03 am #

    What is the deal with Kunstler dissing Bernie Sanders repeatedly?
    Bernie just won another State. And it is NOT true that Millenials are just all about Identity politics. Led by 350.org they stopped the keystone XL pipeline. They are getting $15 minimum wage all over the USA. They are leading the CSA and sustainable organic faming movements. They are leading the fossil fuel divestment campaign. They have an unprecedented lawsuit against Climate Change denying their future. And of course they are springboarding Bernie Sanders into the Presidency.
    Bernie is not just some washed up Socialist from the 1930’s – he has certainly been well aware of modern developments. His naming of Stephanie Kelton as his economics adviser from the MMT school of economics shows exactly the sort of change we need from the rentier private banksterism which has tanked the economy but also the world. Just why should he Fed print our money and hand it over to banksters for %0.50 who then have wasted $1.3 trillion on fossil fuel schemes like fracked shale oil, shale gas,. tar sands and all the current scheme destroying the planet?
    Check out Stephanie Kelton:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanie_Kelton

    Fortuitiously she is also aligned with James Galbraith Jr who has explicitly acknowledged the importance or resource constraints like Peak Oil on the 21st century economy. These are not your Keynesians of old from the 1930’s when the US was ripe with resources and especially Oil for growth but faced a demand problem…
    Kunstler should wake up and long around..

    • Farmer McGregor April 11, 2016 at 11:12 am #

      Not to be critical, dude, but “organic faming”, “he Fed”, “importance or resource constraints”, and most confusingly “long around” ???

    • BackRowHeckler April 11, 2016 at 11:14 am #

      Sanders has been running his pol ads here as the primary comes up in a few weeks: free tuition at State U, paid for from spoils when ‘Wall Street Banks’ are looted and broken up. That’s the plan, and the youngsters here are buying into it.

      brh

      • Pogo April 11, 2016 at 12:32 pm #

        Actually, brh, the concept of free tuition at “public” colleges does not seem illogical, absurd or impossible to me at all.

        Back in 1974 or so, the little woman and I were living in San Jose and she starting taking classes at De Anza Junior College. The tuition cost? NONE: it was free. Student ID card was about 10 bucks and you had to buy your books.

        We moved to Minnesota, where she continued her education at Normandale Junior College (where tuition was very, very low at that time) and finally graduated at the Univ. of Minnesota without the burden of gigantic student loans.

        Please recall that the universities in the Midwest were “land grant” colleges, meaning that the railroad Barrons (e.g., James J. Hill) who got all free land from Uncle Sam for the railroad, had to set aside a few acres to establish State colleges to provide free or cheap education to the great mass of the unwashed and “less educated”.

        I also recall UofMn is where Dobie Gillis attented, along with Zelda and Maynard G. Krebs. (Thank you Max Shulman.)

        • Lindy1933 April 11, 2016 at 1:04 pm #

          It was after WWII that the GI bill was going in full swing. GI’s got books, tuition and a bit to live on in cash as long as their grades were good. The amount of money that the government paid the GI’s was more than returned to the government in the form of increased taxes paid by GI’s who made more money than their non-college counterparts. Difference is the ‘good grades’ requirement. Otherwise, it would have been another welfare program.

          • MisterDarling April 11, 2016 at 7:27 pm #

            “Difference is the ‘good grades’ requirement. Otherwise, it would have been another welfare program.”-Lindy.

            The current ‘Post 9/11 GI Bill’ has the same requirements.

        • abbybwood April 11, 2016 at 3:20 pm #

          Back in good old Ohio in 1971 I borrowed $5000 to attend Ohio University’s nursing program.

          That covered my rent, food, tuition, gas etc. for the two years it took for me to graduate with an Associates Degree. I got all my books used from the book store on campus.

          I didn’t have to start paying back the loan for a year after graduation and my monthly payment was $50/mo. and the interest on the loan was very low.

          It was easy-peasy paying it off.

          Not sure if the loan was in the realm of the Pell Grants or not. I think that passed though right about the time I took out my loan.

    • SteveO April 11, 2016 at 12:27 pm #

      Well, if the millennials are going to elect Bernie, and this is from a Bernie supporter, I hope they the got the slackers in New York out from in from of the XBoxes 3 months ago to register Democrat, because if they show up at the polls unregistered, they are going to be unhappy campers.

    • Being There April 11, 2016 at 12:37 pm #

      Thanks JHK as usual a great set of insights.

      Kelston is in good stead. Interesting that she’s from Univ of MO. home of Hudson and Bill Black.
      Just the right orientation.—NOT NEOLIBERAL
      (Unlike the rest of the country think tanks and universities.)

      I had made a suggestion that Sanders look into Bill Black to put banks into receivership for Reagan during S&L scandals.

    • Newton Finn April 11, 2016 at 1:31 pm #

      Here are the kinds of possibilities that JHK’s understandably jaded outlook does not allow him to see:

      http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/08/somethings-happening-in-the-presidential-campaign/

    • orbit7er April 11, 2016 at 2:17 pm #

      Feelin the Bern – a new post from Doug Hatlem on Counterpunch.org whose forecasts have been more accurate than any other shows Bernie Sanders winning YUGE votes from Millennial Latino/as in California. It is way too soon to count Bernie out as Kunstler always does when he has won 7 of the last 8 Democratic contests and has a very good chance to win both New York and Pennsylvania:

      http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/08/will-latino-millennials-upend-the-democratic-establishment/

    • outsider April 11, 2016 at 2:46 pm #

      This $15 minimum wage is nonsense and will cause huge increases in unemployment and inflation. Let’s say the employer is forced to raise the guy at $8 to $15. What happens then to his more valued employee already making $15? Does he just stay there? Not if the employer wants to keep him. No, he will go to at least $22, and the guy making $22 will go to $29, and on and on.

      At the end of the day, after inflation, the guy who went to $15 will be right back where he started from – that is, if he can even find a job, as the private economy will no longer be producing them. And who else really suffers from this coming madness? How about retirees and those on fixed incomes? We’ll wind up with a lot more seniors and disabled living in poverty. I can see the demands for HUGE increases in Social Security to keep up. As Yeats said, “The centre cannot hold.”

      • Q. Shtik April 11, 2016 at 4:02 pm #

        No, he will go to at least $22, and the guy making $22 will go to $29, and on and on. – outsider

        ==========

        Your idea that people already at $15 or more having to get some sort of compensating increase is correct. The phenomenon is known as “wage compression.” However your numbers are off. The fact that the $8 guy gets a $7 increase does not mean that everybody at $15 and above must get an additional $7. The $15 guy will get, say, a $3 increase and as you work your way up the wage scale the increases will become less and less until they peter out at zero at, say, the $30/hr level. There is no formula carved in stone. Every company and every situation is unique.

        I have many years experience in resetting corporate hourly rates in situations like this.

        Changes in the Federal or State minimum wage are not the only time that wage compression issues arise. Take for example: a company has a workforce where “direct labor” people (those referred to as “hands-on” labor who actually make the product) are unionized while overhead (general and administrative) types like me who sit on their asses, push papers around, count beans and enter numbers in Excel spreadsheets are not unionized……. so the union guys negotiate a new (higher) wage agreement and, to keep the peace, similar increases (on a wage compression basis) must be given to the non-union employees.

        • Majella April 13, 2016 at 10:44 pm #

          As well, it is unlikely to be raised in one fell swoop – more likely graduated over a couple of quarters. Where I live, our Minimum Adult Wage is now $15.75, and it has cost no jobs as far as anyone can tell. The stated ‘Living Wage” here is $18.50 and many employers are electing to pay this.

          The part of the economy that squawks & shrieks about this sort of thing is the large multi-national corporates (the diabetes- delivering fast-food joint rackets and Big Box retailers pay as little as possible. Their workforce in subsidised by food stamps & welfare benefits…this is in fact a subsidy for their employers, as they coerce their labour as cheaply as possible.

      • MisterDarling April 11, 2016 at 7:53 pm #

        @ Outsider:

        “This $15 minimum wage is nonsense and will cause huge increases in unemployment and inflation.”

        You may have noticed that the job market was weak and consumer demand even weaker **before** the minimum-wage hike. It wasn’t rising wages that yanked the rug out from under the Retail industry, it was a lack of discretionary income – something that Walmart Inc. (largest retailer and private employer in the world) noticed and complained bitterly about – while having the largest pool of ’employed’ persons reliant on the SNAP program to stay fed well enough to go to work.

        If your business requires downwardly flexible wages to survive, you don’t have much of a business. It might be best to start planning for liquidation. Of course this is true of a great many enterprises utterly dependent on federal government largesse. In Walmart’s case the federal government subsidizes Walmart’s payroll by feeding its employees. In the case of the Finance, Insurance, Real Estate & Defense industries, it’s a matter of graft and protective legislation. In the Fossil-Fuel Energy sector, the US government and those of the rest of the world subsidize the industry at a rate of $10M/minute – and provide preferential legal protection.

        The truth is, there’s not much in the way of free-standing business and honest trade left out there – it lost out to crony capitalism. Well, the good news is that these grifters haven’t got much longer to cry about their supposed problems.

        Cheers!

    • ejhr April 12, 2016 at 8:05 am #

      I think he is keeping Stephanie under wraps. Makes sense not to unveil MMT to the masses as the cognitive leap would have Bernie out the door in no time. The truth or reality doesn’t matter. If Bernie gets up then we’ll see Stephanie doing her bit .
      I’m a believer in MMT but I’m blowed if I can get people to understand federal taxes are NOT used to pay for government spending, that the Fed just types up numbers in reserve accounts at the Fed and then, hey presto! new currency.
      Imaging saying that over the air now. People are not ready , they can’t handle the truth, as Jack N said.

      Still, Bernie has his problems. However he would win if the hopeless/ hapless Dems put him up. HRC will never get the millennials to vote for her, she is too wedded to the 0.001% and a warmonger. Dangerous combination!

      I’m not too worried about Trump. His main success might be the demolition of the GOP.

    • chipshot April 13, 2016 at 7:05 am #

      I wonder the same thing, orbit.

      How can someone so perceptive about
      our society and culture be so off on Bernie?

      All the candidates score so uniformly low in
      trust, credibility, likability?! NO. Bernie does
      quite well in those traits. With a 30+ year track
      record.

      No candidates of real substance, principle and charm?
      Has there ever been a presidential candidate so flush in
      those very characteristics as Sanders?

      Bernie is quixotic? What is he advocating that is
      so impractical and unrealistic??

      Not sure why JLK is following in the footsteps of msm
      (cnn, msnbc, wash post, ny times, etc) when it comes
      to Bernie, but it is surprising and most disappointing.

    • sprawlcapital April 13, 2016 at 12:12 pm #

      Very insightful, Orbit.

      My nostalgia for the 1930s is powerful. No, that time was not perfect–there were strange fruit hanging from trees, after all. But you could take streetcars and interurbans, and by changing from one line to another, travel from Boston to Chicago, at least according to legend. And you could take a train from downtown Des Moines to anywhere USA. Now there are no passenger trains here.

      There was virtually no urban sprawl; there were no nuclear weapons; farms in Iowa were about 100 acres and largely self-sufficient. There was no WalMart. The Brazilian rain forest was intact.

      There were, in the 1930s, Kodachrome film, Technicolor movies, and fluorescent lighting. And magnificent steam locomotives.

      And as you note, natural resources were still plentiful, which is why Keynsianism made sense.

      “Long around”, which farmer pointed out, must mean “look around”. Probably another attack of that good old speech recognition software, right?

  9. Farmer McGregor April 11, 2016 at 11:06 am #

    Great post, as usual, Jim. Sadly true that no one in their right mind would want anything to do with occupying the oval office. So we’re stuck with grandiose narcissists and incompetent sociopaths.

    The weekly vocab word “xe” was disappointing, turning out to be a mere finger-down-the-throat ‘gender neutral’ pronoun — was hoping that it was a reference to ET-style aliens, as in ‘xenophobia’. Alas…

    But ‘mau-mauing’ seems interesting. Gonna hafta hit the local library; hope they still stock the book.

    Keep up the good work. Monday morning wouldn’t be the same without ya.

    • BackRowHeckler April 11, 2016 at 11:17 am #

      See Tom Wolfe’s ‘Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers’.

      There’s nothing new about what’s going on inside college campuses; Wolfe wrote that nearly 50 years ago.

      brh

      • Farmer McGregor April 11, 2016 at 11:25 am #

        Hence my reference to the library — hoping they have Wolfe’s book on the shelf…

  10. teddyboy46 April 11, 2016 at 11:07 am #

    Great post. History shows us that when a Civilization is in Decline. The people choose the worst leaders to shepherd them down the road to ruin. From Rome to America 2016 history never fails to repeat it self because human nature never changes.

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    • Greg Knepp April 11, 2016 at 11:23 am #

      True enuff! Chris Hedges’ article on today’s edition of Truthdig.com deals with this issue at some length – excellent stuff; I strongly recommend it.

      • St. Roy April 11, 2016 at 1:10 pm #

        Caught it. Thanks. The human cycle repeats but with the destruction of the habitat for our species this might be the last go around.

      • seawolf77 April 11, 2016 at 1:37 pm #

        Yes it was a good analysis. The wages of sin are indeed death.

      • venuspluto67 April 12, 2016 at 1:01 pm #

        This was sitting on the other side of my appletini! (“The Wages of Sin” by Chris Hedges.)

    • saharasergei April 11, 2016 at 11:47 am #

      The fall of Rome shows that empires that decline and fall can’t back up. Thinking a major nation’s glory and might can be restored is a mistake too many people have made, and when a leader like Adolf Hitler pursues that goal to the nth degree, disaster ensues.

      • Janos Skorenzy April 11, 2016 at 3:27 pm #

        No, you’re wrong. The economic miracle of Nazi Germany is what they don’t want you to know about. Just as the news about Iceland was blacked out after they threw out the bankers. We don’t need these parasites. And to stop other countries from emulating Germany, the Capitalists and Communists united to destroy it.

        • JimInFlorida April 11, 2016 at 4:53 pm #

          That fact that Hitler liberated Germany from being an asset on the banksters’ balance sheet simply could not go unchallenged! It took the entire world to put Germany back under the banksters’ thumb.

          In addition, the world has been subjected to a never ending propaganda narrative regarding Nazi Germany. As you pointed out, to prevent other countries from emulating the German success.

          It’s also no mystery that you NEVER NEVER hear the testimonies of the German citizens who lived through the libertine horrors of Weimar Germany and why they gave their hearts to the ONE MAN who took up their cause.

        • seawolf77 April 12, 2016 at 10:04 am #

          Hitler created 6,000,000 jobs in 2 years. Does that number sound familiar?

          • Janos Skorenzy April 13, 2016 at 12:39 am #

            Yes, Bluto. Walt Disney warned us against the Jews taking over the movie industry, but we didn’t listen.

      • MisterDarling April 11, 2016 at 7:57 pm #

        “Thinking a major nation’s glory and might can be restored is a mistake”-sahara sergei.

        In the life of any human social system – from 2-person relationship, to enterprise, to nation or civilization – the call to restore things to their former glory generally turns out to be the death knell. That is pretty much when you know it’s over.

        • Janos Skorenzy April 13, 2016 at 12:42 am #

          True Civilizations fall many times and rise again. A Nation, regime or dynasty is just one “hand” in the game. Unfortunately, you may well be right about it being game over for America. We’ve been killed by diversity.

  11. amb April 11, 2016 at 11:20 am #

    Let’s just not elect a new president. Let’s board up the White House for a term or two. And, let’s dismiss Congress for the next 4 years as well (better yet, dismiss them permanently). The country will wind up being a lot better off and will start to naturally transition towards a more optimal status. Nothing could be better than to take the politicians and bureaucrats out of the mix.

  12. 99 cent nation April 11, 2016 at 11:21 am #

    I just laugh at all that is going on in the country and the rest of the world. Being in my 70’s certainly gives me a different perspective that most have. I also realize my generation and those that follow it are responsible for this joke we have played on ourself’s. Now the species is in serious trouble and it is way to late to change lanes. The only thing to do is sit back and enjoy the ride to end of civilization and wish you had been born 15 thousand years ago. Note: throw away the ties.

    • capt spaulding April 11, 2016 at 11:35 am #

      That’s ourselves.

    • Pogo April 11, 2016 at 11:38 am #

      My feelings exactly 99 cent (and I don’t fail to notice that you are 49 cents ahead of 50 cent). Yes, we “altacockers” have to laugh at the state of everything to keep from crying.

      And yes, we are responsible. As ol’ Pogo has said many times, “we have met the enemy and he is us”.

      Now if you want to have a few laughs and cry at the same time over how utterly stupid our nation has become, go listen to a few of the on-the-beach-at-San-Diego interviews by Mark Dice.

      https://www.google.com/search?q=mark+dice+youtube&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

  13. 99 cent nation April 11, 2016 at 11:22 am #

    that’s ties

  14. Zoltar April 11, 2016 at 11:23 am #

    If you have never seen the movie Idiocracy, you really should make a point of doing so before November. Reality is overtaking parody at such a rate that, after this election, it will only be possible to view the film as tragically prescient.

    • seawolf77 April 11, 2016 at 1:08 pm #

      I’m going to check it out tonight.

    • JimInFlorida April 11, 2016 at 6:08 pm #

      Idiocracy cannot be fully appreciated after just one viewing. Yes, the upfront stuff is good biting satire. The underlying rot that brought ‘Murikuh to that condition takes another viewing after a year or so. The viewer must first be awakened to the ideas and then can the current reality truly come into focus.

      It’s also a good idea to look on YouTube for George Carlin’s slaughter of The American Dream and all the lies that it rests on. Copy/paste the following into YouTube,

      “George Carlin on the American Dream.”

      It’s a slightly longer clip than most (4:49 in length) and includes the important lead-in rant.

      • Frankiti April 11, 2016 at 9:16 pm #

        His best line is something along the lines that it’s called a dream because you have to be f****ing sleeping to believe it.

  15. Pogo April 11, 2016 at 11:29 am #

    Thanks, Jim.
    I not only learned a new Yiddish expression (altacocker=old fart) but discovered an interesting web blog to explore >

    http://www.altacocker.com/

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  16. AKlein April 11, 2016 at 11:38 am #

    History is really starting to rhyme. During the final throes of the western Roman empire, nobody wanted the imperial crown. The only way the position got filled was the lure of getting rich. Finally, in the end, even that didn’t get any takers. The last Roman emperor was Romulus Augustulus, rather of a dim simpleton. When deposed by Odoacer, he didn’t even rate enough to be executed!

    • seawolf77 April 11, 2016 at 1:04 pm #

      Excellent point!

  17. Anotherplayaguy April 11, 2016 at 11:38 am #

    Kardashian is too young to be Prez. Kailan Jenner, however …

    • Q. Shtik April 11, 2016 at 12:31 pm #

      She makes it just under the wire….. she’s 35.

    • SteveO April 11, 2016 at 12:36 pm #

      Article 2, section 1 of the constitution:

      No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

      Kim Kardashian was born on October 21, 1980. She is currently 35 which is the minimum age. If “drafted”, she would be by far the youngest person ever to be president.

      Just think, those white middle aged liberals who want to be part of the “historic moment of electing the first women president” could still have their history fix with Kim…lol

      • outsider April 11, 2016 at 2:57 pm #

        I’d vote for Kim over Hillary any day of the week.

        • Janos Skorenzy April 11, 2016 at 3:24 pm #

          She stoops to conquer while Hillary just stoops to steal.

          As America become less White, new aesthetics become popularized by the media. Now White girls feel bad about not having a huge ass. We’re a bunch of assholes for letting any of this happen.

  18. saharasergei April 11, 2016 at 11:44 am #

    If ever lefty dissatisfied with Hillary Clinton – who will be the Democratic nominee because the media say so, and that’s that! – votes for Jill Stein of the Greens in November, she won’t win, but she will make a respectable showing.

    • outsider April 11, 2016 at 4:40 pm #

      They always say that about third parties but it never pans out. Stein and the Libertarian candidate will get their usual 1-2%. The only exception is when a crazy billionaire like Perot jumps in. Whatever happens to Trump, he is doing the nation a huge service by destroying the republican party.

      • Frankiti April 11, 2016 at 9:17 pm #

        Exactly. Trump is stuffing the GOP cadaver into the crematorium… come Cleveland it will be ashes.

        • pequiste April 17, 2016 at 7:30 pm #

          The question is who gets the ash urn? Barry? Hillary? Bernie? Rinse Priebus?

  19. K-Dog April 11, 2016 at 11:46 am #

    Obama’s NSA goon squads won’t be at the convention except to observe and collect info there as they are by reading this right now right here. Head cracking of protesters will be done by local police only. NSA goon squads will be focusing their attention on grass-roots organization and suppression of anyone foolish enough to try and advance an agenda of anything but this acceptable and totally ridiculous theatre of my turn-your turn aristocratic east coast beltway democracy bought and paid for by the finance industry.

    It is really too bad you can’t embrace Bernie. He is a cut above the other aristocrats of cash in this race and while you pretend he can’t do the job he does have the experience to do the job and his record shows otherwise. Perhaps he can’t perform to your liking but that nobody could do. Your claim that Shillary has all the super-delegates locked up won’t stop me from voting for Bernie next Sunday at my district caucus where I am a precinct delegate for Bernie.

    Your claim that she has all the super-delegates locked up is countered by the egg on Hillary’s face caused by the Panama Papers. Hillary is part of the global elite, the same global elite who has hid vast amounts of plunder to avoid tax in Panama. Clinton pushed hard for a trade agreement with Panama a few years ago; a trade agreement that Bernie Sanders argued against because he knew it would enable the stashing of cash to avoid taxes and said so at the time. Hillary said that the Panama trade agreement would be good for American workers at the time but that was bullshit that won’t even fly in Kansas.

    Saying Hillary has the super-deligates locked up makes us think you secretly support she who you called a flying reptile only a few weeks ago because that is a think you really can’t know.

    • Pogo April 11, 2016 at 12:46 pm #

      “Head cracking of protesters will be done by local police only.” K-Dog

      Yes, I suspect they are reviewing the TV video tapes from the 1968 DNC to garner a few ideas from ol’ Mayor Daley and his goon squads.

      I agree with you about Bernie and want to thank you for serving in the democratic trenches. Or as someone was posting some months ago (was it Sticks?) “Thanks for your servitude”!

      • SteveO April 11, 2016 at 12:48 pm #

        They are just going to setup the “free speech zone” across the river in Trenton and make “busting heads” fat boy Christy’s problem.

        • sprawlcapital April 18, 2016 at 11:46 am #

          SteveO–

          They are just going to setup the “free speech zone”
          ====================================

          That should be “set up”– a verb, “set” followed by an adverb, “up”.

          Setup is a noun: derivatives trading a sleazy setup.

          Or an adjective: make sure you follow the correct setup procedure.

      • Sticks-of-TNT April 12, 2016 at 2:22 am #

        “was it Sticks?”

        I resemble that remark!

        -Sticks

        P.S. and thank you for YOUR servitude…Shitizen.

    • SteveO April 11, 2016 at 12:46 pm #

      The “super delegates” are mostly party officials who are dependent on the DNC (read Debbie Wasserman Schultz) for their continuing lifestyles. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is 100% in the Clinton machine and anyone who chooses to defy her will and violate the oligarchic blood line of Clinton/Bush/Obama/Clinton will find themselves either out of their cushy appointment job or out of the lifeblood (money) of their next campaign.

      They are as bought and paid for anyone else in the corporate parties.

    • Janos Skorenzy April 11, 2016 at 11:22 pm #

      Just stop trying to close down Trump rallies and you people wont get hurt.

      What’s up with Bernie saying Whites don’t know about poverty? So ignorant….

  20. PeteAtomic April 11, 2016 at 11:48 am #

    Pretty funny blog post this week there, Mr. Jim.

    I can’t help but think a room filled with climatologists & financial analysts & foreign policy analysts & economists & education reformers & infrastructure engineers & military generals & government watchdogs & healthcare reformers & energy analysts & intelligence analysts & investigative journalists & … CAN ONLY be laugh/crying at the tragic-comedy of what is the executive branch.

    Bonne chance! 🙂

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  21. venuspluto67 April 11, 2016 at 11:59 am #

    This was a week after it was reported in The Huff-Po that her campaign crew literally bought-and-paid for the entire 50-state smorgasbord of super-delegates who will supposedly compensate for Hillary’s inability to otherwise win votes the old-fashioned way, by ballots cast.

    If it’s not too much trouble to dig up, would you please reply to this comment with a link to that? I think I should like to read it for myself.

    Indeed, part of the reason I won’t be terribly upset when Bernie doesn’t get the nomination is that I think he’s a basically good, principled man, and I’m not sure anybody would be able handle the trainwreck we’re about to experience.

    So the only way I could see myself voting this November is if Ted Cruz gets the Republican nod. I know you don’t think very much of homo-gays such as myself, but I don’t think you can really blame us for being willing to put down our apple-tinis just long enough to vote against the guy who pals around with peeps who want to put a bullet in the back of our heads execution style.

    • venuspluto67 April 11, 2016 at 12:31 pm #

      Nevermind, found it. (It was right next to the apple-tini!) 😀

    • Janos Skorenzy April 11, 2016 at 4:05 pm #

      What’s an apple tinni? Is it some kind gay thing? Rachael Maddow is looking more and more like a man as she gets older. Is that a good thing in your book? Is a Feminist really a Masculinist? Is Feminism really anti-woman, its whole purpose being to become just like men, with Lesbianism as the epitome of that on the butch end?

      • venuspluto67 April 11, 2016 at 11:07 pm #

        Oh dear, off your meds again? The nice nursey won’t let you use the asylum computer anymore if you continue not to take them, you know!

    • outsider April 11, 2016 at 4:56 pm #

      venus – Did you read about the latest GOP outrage in their attempt to stop Trump at all costs? They cancelled the Colorado caucus and pledged all 34 of their state’s delegates to Cruz. There’s a shitstorm comin.’ BTW, I don’t understand why you ‘homos’ hate Trump so much. Unlike Cruz, his agenda has nothing to do with stopping gay rights.

      • Janos Skorenzy April 11, 2016 at 6:52 pm #

        As the mutants in Dr Who said, “You know the Law. All norms must die.”

        • venuspluto67 April 11, 2016 at 11:18 pm #

          Hey, that’s just not true. Norm Peterson is my favorite character from “Cheers”! 😀

      • venuspluto67 April 11, 2016 at 11:04 pm #

        I’ve got nothing against Trump as a “homo”. My political attitude in that regard is that if you let me go about my biz, I’ll let y’all go about your biz. I don’t pretend to speak for other men who love men, so you should probably ask somebody else that question.

        Generally speaking, my own evaluation of Trump is best summarized by John Michael Greer’s now-viral blog-post.

    • MisterDarling April 11, 2016 at 8:01 pm #

      “So the only way I could see myself voting this November is if Ted Cruz gets the Republican nod. I know you don’t think very much of homo-gays such as myself, but I don’t think you can really blame us for being willing to put down our apple-tinis just long enough to vote against the guy who pals around with peeps who want to put a bullet in the back of our heads execution style.”-venuspluto67.

      This gets my vote for ‘funniest comment’ of the thread.

      😉

      Cheers!

  22. Poet April 11, 2016 at 12:08 pm #

    The Zapruder film is stark testimony that the presidency has become a largely meaningless office where the occupant is mostly relegated to ceremonial function. The real “powers behind the throne” in the US are the military industrial congressional complex that Ike warned about in his farewell address to the nation. (The Republican political hacks compelled Ike to remove “congressional” from his original address).
    How did such a situation come about? In 1916 Woodrow Wilson lied the US into electing him (“he kept us out of war”) as did FDR in the ’40 election. Then within less than a year after their inaugurations the US entered WW1 and WWII.
    Keynsian economics only works when there is something to offer as collateral for the profligate printing of money. Otherwise extreme inflation follows as it did in Weimar Germany after WWI.
    What the US had to offer at that time (as typified by FDR’s initial and most famous inaugural address in 1933) was a land rich in natural resources, a skilled work force, and large and intact industrial and agricultural base.
    WWII allowed the US to use these resources to create the “arsenal of Democracy” and basically outproduce the axis powers. It also produced full employment and a national morale that has not been equaled since then.
    It also unleashed the genius of improved production methods wherein US industry was able to produce more with fewer workers (thereby allowing 10 million men to be drafted into military service without missing a beat in wartime production of the implements of war).
    It also gave the military complete control of the economy (gotta to supply the boys fighting for our freedom) communication (loose lips sink ships) and future planning (we don’t ever want to have another Pearl Harbor). And due largely to the success of the venture most everybody just loved it (especially the business leaders who made massive fortunes and the military who gained new power and prestige never before realized in the US).
    In 1945 Truman and the congress faced the dilemma of what to do with those nearly 10 million men most of whom would be mustered out of military service.
    Industry didn’t need them because they had boosted production per hour worked so that they could do more with fewer employees. The rest of the world had been devastated by the world war that had consumed it for the previous 6 years and were broken financially speaking.
    Enter the GI bill which sent many young men to college to give them something to do and was paid for by the government.
    Also, the Marshall Plan that gave billions in credit to the devastated countries abroad with the caveat that they spend that aid on US produced goods.
    And, of course, at the base of it all was the new enemy (our former ally who was responsible for chewing up about 80% of the Nazi war machine and paid a really fearsome price by losing more casualties than the rest of the allies combined).
    However absurd the notion, the cold war allowed stability to reign and (to quote Orwell) “war” was “peace”.
    This is the same paradigm that the US is stuck in to this day except the largely worthless US petro-dollar has replaced the resources and industrial capacity of the past as the means by which the control of vital geography and the stealing of the wealth of the rest of the world is facilitated.
    Although the dumbed down people of the US are largely ignorant of these realities the rest of the world understands them only too well and they are seeking to undo this monetary domination imposed upon it by the US and UK financial elites.
    This has rendered political parties, charismatic or intelligent individuals, and dynamic planning pointless.

    • Q. Shtik April 11, 2016 at 12:24 pm #

      (gotta to supply the boys fighting for our freedom) – Poet

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

      I had no idea you were Italian, Poet.

      • Poet April 11, 2016 at 2:16 pm #

        Now that is funny and thanks for pointing out my needless preposition!
        Actually I am not Italian, butah North Dakota Germanah, likeah the lateah Lawrenceah Welkah!

        May I presume from the spelling of your last name, Q, that you are show-biz Jewish? (As I understand it the correct spelling should be Schtick).

        • Q. Shtik April 11, 2016 at 3:13 pm #

          May I presume from the spelling of your last name, Q, that you are show-biz Jewish? – Poet

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

          No, that would be presumptuous of you. Here’s the story: A vanity plate in NJ has room for 7 letters, numbers or spaces. In my case the plate, announcing to the world that I had an affinity for the game of pool, became |Q Shtik|. And so it has remained for blog handles, user names, passwords, etc ever since.

          • Janos Skorenzy April 11, 2016 at 3:19 pm #

            Why not QStick then? Why the h that makes it sound like shtick? It’s just not cricket.

    • Janos Skorenzy April 11, 2016 at 4:09 pm #

      Yes our whole system is based on usury. Ezra Pound ended up in a cage in Italy for supporting Fascism which forbids it. He then was sent back to America and sentenced to St Elizabeth’s. Only a crazy man is against honest money created out of thin air.

      • JimInFlorida April 11, 2016 at 6:18 pm #

        Honest money is only backed by time-labor value and what it produces.

        Dishonest money has a far superior basis. The barrel of a government gun and diktats that compel everyone to accept it and pay the usury fees for the privilege of using it.

        Better than gold!

    • seawolf77 April 13, 2016 at 9:35 am #

      Very cogent analysis. I believe the Beast of the Apocalypse is the military industrial complex, and now thanks to you I have the final piece of the puzzle, congressional. But I believe it is paranational, it has no allegiance to any country and simply morphs as it goes along like the Blob, sucking whatever politician it needs into itself.

    • Walter B April 13, 2016 at 10:41 pm #

      You are he kind of person that needs to be eliminated, just like me that sees what has happened and knows the truth for what it is. We are dangerous for those who rule over us, for the truth is what they fight to eliminate. I salute you for your insight and hope that when we (who know) are all rounded up for a trip to the camp, that I get a seat on the bus next to you so that we can enjoy a final intelligent conversation before the inevitable. There is no hope for the common folk because the vermin have distorted the very meaning of truth. Well written, thank you my friend!

  23. sprawlcapital April 11, 2016 at 12:15 pm #

    Altacocker. I have to remember way back to my reading of The Joy of Yiddish, by Leo Rosten (?)–around 1970–to figure out what that means: an elderly, grouchy man.

    Actually, JHK was rather kind to Bernie this week.

    • Q. Shtik April 11, 2016 at 12:26 pm #

      I searched up the definition “old fart.”

    • Janos Skorenzy April 11, 2016 at 3:34 pm #

      That’s not so bad. At least he didn’t call him a schlemiel or schmendrick. Yiddish has more negative psychological words than other language. We need this vocabulary now as the Kali Yuga bears down on us. But when does diagnosis become prognosis? Dare we who know tell? Perhaps even seeing changes the seen…

      • elysianfield April 11, 2016 at 7:07 pm #

        Schmeckle…

  24. baird April 11, 2016 at 12:20 pm #

    What is quite different this time around is the increasingly large number of things set on “hair trigger”. In all corners paranoia and fear are locked and loaded, socially, financially and militarily. And the interrelationships among all of these means the everything is at risk if one of the dominos even wiggles. We won’t even talk about the climate changes which are upon us. Gotta say though that for me having Teddy with the football or Hillary carrying business as usual in Sandland, well there aren’t enough bottles in the closet or pills in the cabinet that allow me to sleep.

    • Pogo April 11, 2016 at 1:04 pm #

      I like the expression “paranoia and fear are locked and loaded, socially, financially and militarily”.

      One small example of how fragile everything is: The little woman and I were waiting to check out at the local home center store when the in-store local network went down. The waiting line began to extend exponentially, like cars on the freeway when an accident is ahead. You would think there would be a contingency plan, no? Not!

      In the olden days, they would keep the manual credit card embossing machine and a stack of the carbon triplicate CC slips. Remember those, millennials? Think again.

      Things righted after 15 minutes or so but I suspect some contractors (time-is-money!) switched their allegiance that day to the other home center store across the street.

      We should all recognize that the better adapted to this hyper-dependent technological world we become, the less adaptable we are to any new environment.

  25. shotho April 11, 2016 at 12:30 pm #

    Charles Hugh Smith predicted several years ago that 2016 would be the last “normal” election cycle in America. After that, we would enter a new process that would only resemble the previous ones by a matter of degree. I think he was very prescient, but perhap off by about four years.

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    • ozone April 11, 2016 at 12:46 pm #

      shotho,
      That’s interesting. In the main, the “disturbance in the force” is being caused by Rubicus Americanus finally tumbling to the fact that they do not decide who they get to vote for. Perhaps in some distant future a significant portion the species will figure out that being poisoned for profit was likely not in their best interest. (As with the votin’ thang, by then it will be far too late for their chir’rens and their chir’rens chir’ren. That cake has been baked, served and eaten. Adjust thy genes while ye may… and good luck widdat; after all, you-man beans is so much more smarter-er than the evolutionary process from which they done sprung.)

      • ozone April 11, 2016 at 12:54 pm #

        (Sorry, that should be “sprung’d”, although “sprangded” is well-accepted in many parts of Indispensable Land.)

  26. volodya April 11, 2016 at 12:41 pm #

    What’s the problem, out of brutal third-world regimes comes a steady stream of profit built on the backs of people literally working their fingers to the bone. Just ask those Chinese girls in those garment shops or those poor bastards literally killing themselves at Foxconn.

    But bank accounts in offshore havens are fat to bursting. There’s no problem.

    Ok, well, maybe there IS a problem. As American jobs were sent offshore to those third-world sweat-shops controlled by those brutal regimes, prospects for the American wage-earning class went in the shitter.

    As JHK so aptly sez, if something can’t go on it won’t. As conditions in America deteriorated, so did the buying power of the wage-earning class. Now, this would seriously mess things up. Who’d buy the shiploads of stuff coming out of China?

    Enter the Fed. Two decades worth of Fed suppressed interest rates and goosed house prices. They managed to convince people to rack up huge consumer debt with their house as collateral.

    Oops, that plan came apart in 2008. Oh dear, what now?

    Enter QE. Money printing IOW. But it wasn’t enough. The rackets were faltering.

    Enter ZIRP. But that didn’t work out, even with shills shouting and touting fraudulent govt stats.

    Enter NIRP. Absurd you say? Oh, yes, in spades. This is it boys and girls, the game is over, the fat-lady is singin’.

    Enter Bernie and Trump.

    Such nice moderate men. This is the voice of opposition? Shit, the oligarchs should thank their lucky stars. If there’s a deity for billionaires, they should build a temple and make offerings.

    Oh, you think Trump is a “bad” man? Really? Seriously? I don’t mean to be disrespectful but let me suggest that maybe you don’t know from “bad”. We’ve yet to see “bad” men.

    But, if things go on like this, and all signs point to exactly that, we’ll surely make our acquaintance.

    • Janos Skorenzy April 11, 2016 at 2:32 pm #

      Yes, exactly. Considering the lateness of the hour and gravity of the situation, Trump is very moderate. He no doubt has lots of sympathy for the one percent. If he is denied, then the really hard men will come to the fore. But the elite are used to having absolutely everything their own way and cannot compromise.

    • abbybwood April 11, 2016 at 5:55 pm #

      I think when the Dodd-Frank “bail-ins” start showing up that will pretty much shock the ever livin’ sh*t out of most Americans:

      https://infinitebanking.org/banknotes/from-bailouts-to-bail-ins-understanding-the-dodd-frank-act/

    • MisterDarling April 11, 2016 at 8:10 pm #

      “Such nice moderate men. This is the voice of opposition? Shit, the oligarchs should thank their lucky stars. If there’s a deity for billionaires, they should build a temple and make offerings.”-volodya.

      Sharp, funny post Volodya. Nicely done!

  27. seawolf77 April 11, 2016 at 1:02 pm #

    Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. America would have collapsed long ago if it were not for the dollar being the reserve currency, and the dollar being the reserve currency will only last as long as China and Russia and India allow it. As soon as they balk, it’s World War 3. After the war, the winner will be the new reserve currency. That’s how the world works, and has for centuries. I’d say the smart money is on China. The wildcards are climate change and peak oil. If sea levels rise significantly and food production drops off dramatically, it’ll be one hell of a mess.

  28. bukowskisghost April 11, 2016 at 1:41 pm #

    I think Jim should change the name of his blog to Shitstorm Tsunami. President Kardashian will most assuredly be the butt of all jokes…

    • pequiste April 12, 2016 at 12:23 am #

      Shitstorm Tsunami t’would make a great name for a heavy-metal band.

      • sprawlcapital April 13, 2016 at 12:22 pm #

        LOL! Good work, pQ.

  29. volodya April 11, 2016 at 2:12 pm #

    As K Dog sez, this bullshit about trade deals being good for American workers is bullshit that doesn’t even fly in Kansas anymore. The wage-earning class is finally waking up to what’s been done to them.

    Trump, being an entrepreneur, saw a political opportunity and transferred some of his business skills (if you can call them that) over to the political realm to take advantage. Bernie, whose been saying the same stuff for forty years, has finally seen validation.

    Thing is, this has implications far beyond presidential elections. The American military is in large part manned by people from that same wage-earning class. That same wage-earning class is waking up to the fact that the regime is working against their interests. And as military-men they’re expected to fight and maybe die to preserve that same regime.

    Now what does this simple fact portend for the U.S. military and its effectiveness as a fighting force? If there are historical parallels to be found they might be in France and Italy in WW2. Both France and Italy fed its farming class into the Great War abattoirs. The Great War was a calamity to the most impoverished people who suffered so disproportionately. Then, come the 1940’s, the young men of those same farming classes weren’t about to have inflicted on them what was inflicted on their fathers. You know all about the dismal performance of both French and Italian militaries in WW2. No surprise that. Maybe the Pentagon should start thinking about this.

    As Orlov sez in one of his rants, this American wage-earning class hates those people that gave their jobs to foreigners and immigrants, they hate being fucked over by various bureaucracies that exist for the benefit of bureaucrats who don’t even pretend anymore to serve those they’ve been mandated to serve. They hate those people on the coasts who look down on them and call them “low-information voters” (ie stupid) and moreover tell them that things aren’t so bad.

    As Orlov sez, there’s very little the ruling regime can now ask of these people because the answer will be go screw yourself, we hate you. Go fight the Russians in Estonia? Fuck you.

    On top of it all there’s idiots (can’t think of a more suitable word) who pretend to know what’s what and see fit to use the word “fascism” to describe the Trump phenomenon.

    Now, I’m just a simple mule-skinner and far be it from me to question my betters, but based on on what I’ve been told by people that had direct experience of fascism, Trump is no fascist and neither are his followers. Not even close.

    Trump may not be everyone’s cup of tea. He’s not mine, that for sure, but this fascist bullshit is just a nasty, low-down smear, no more, no less, meant to discredit the man and his followers. Simple as that.

    If the folks running the show don’t smarten the fuck up and start taking account of the interests of tens of millions of people, many of whom I might add are heavily armed and who have military and combat experience, while they might not deserve the moniker “fascist”, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that there could spring up political movements that look a lot like it.

    America isn’t Germany and the 21st Century isn’t the 1920s. But as Mark Twain said, though history may not repeat, it sure does rhyme.

    • Farmer McGregor April 11, 2016 at 2:56 pm #

      …this fascist bullshit is just a nasty, low-down smear, no more, no less, meant to discredit the man and his followers…” –Volodya

      JMG calls this a ‘snarl’ word, intended not to convey meaning, but to invoke emotion or feelings, in this case the cold-prickly type.

      • K-Dog April 11, 2016 at 4:41 pm #

        Yes, and JMG also contends the craziness of the ruling class and people in general will spiral to new heights of irrationality as the road to collapse gets more bumpy as we travel along it to our ruin. How this will reconcile with our growing disgruntled class who gets more fed up with the false logic of our privileged class with every passing week might get very interesting. As in ‘we live in interesting times‘.

        I’m seeing that the tattooed crowd in clown clothes as JHK is fond of describe average Americans is not as zombie brain dead as has been assumed. The limit to which the rampant bullshit from Washington DC and their mass media presstitutes will be ignored approaches. The desire to simply ignore the repugnant bullshit of American silver spoons and the easy trust that ‘folks’ are known for was mistakenly confused with stupidity.

    • Janos Skorenzy April 11, 2016 at 3:13 pm #

      According to some, there is no difference between Nationalism and Fascism. If so, Trump is a Fascist since he is a Nationalist. But to your point, in other ways he isn’t, being more of a populist than a deep thinker or strong believer in an ideology.

      It’s an inexact word – and is so by definition since the theory goes that every Nation will develop its own version of Fascism in accordance with their own unique traditions. But of the “Big Three” (Hitler, Mussolini, Franco), the first two were dedicated to expansion thru war. Trump eschews this and if he is a Fascist, he would be more in the “isolationist” (a loaded word) Franco mode. To expand a bit, Franco was very proud of Spain and the Spanish people, but he didn’t think they had some kind of unique and eternal status or mission from God. That’s in contrast to Hitler and even Mussolini – and I might add the Likud Party of Israel.

      In other words, care to ponder that there might be good and bad Fascism? And that could depend on the Man himself or the foundational beliefs of that particular Fascism.

    • MisterDarling April 11, 2016 at 8:26 pm #

      RE | “As Orlov sez, there’s very little the ruling regime can now ask of these people because the answer will be go screw yourself, we hate you. Go fight the Russians in Estonia? Fuck you.”-v.

      Hello Volodya? I’d like to ask you (as a friend) to please avoid saying something that will alert the idiots out there. I think it might be best if we let them cling to their comforting, self-serving stereotypes: that military people are ‘mindless drones’ & what-not, at least for the time being.

      After all, military people tend to have thick skins (to survive the ‘military experience’) and combat veterans know that we really don’t have to give a *d a m n* about what people think or say about us. At the end of the day it’s garbage. The only thing that matters is who’s still breathing.

      😉

    • CyberPass April 12, 2016 at 12:09 am #

      Trump is not just a loose cannon, he thinks he can shoot off his cannon any time he wants- that Sir, is how a dictator operates. As to wheteher or not he is a “fascist” is almost splitting hairs. He is going to “bomb the shit” out of iSIS- never mind that the Constitution states that Congress, not the Executive is the one empowered to decide if the nation goes to war. The list of things that he has declared he will unilaterally do is mind-boggling. His narcissism and unprecedented vulgarity- anyone this foul-mouthed would have been dismissed out of hand as a candidate in the past- is only a testament to the low state to which the American public has been reduced.

  30. michael April 11, 2016 at 2:30 pm #

    Why you so fiercely opposed to the internal combustion engine?
    It only puts CO2 into the atmosphere — an edible plant food.

    Just wait until the lithium waste gets into the gound and later into the ground water (this just in: “Recycled lithium is as much as five times the cost of lithium produced from the least costly brine based process”) and you will think back fondly to the oil age which, in any case, does not seem to be ending soon.

    This is the right time to bring up the CO2 and warming hysteria.
    Looks like we are at an all time temperature low in the period since complex life emerged onthis planet.

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  31. AHtheHumanity April 11, 2016 at 2:49 pm #

    “The reason is that the problems are unfixable, at least not within the acceptable terms of the zeitgeist, namely: the secret wish to keep all the rackets going at all costs.”

    I agree…there’s no way anyone with sense or honesty would be attracted to rule the top of the heap of racketeers that the U.S. has become. People like Edward Snowden have pointed this out loud and clear. Julian Assange is pointing out the corruption of ALL governments and the PRESS. I thought Obama’s biggest challenge during his tenure would be how not be blown to bits by some crazy nazi sympathizer or any persuasion of terrorist. The biggest challenge came from his own government…people who are supposed to help him govern. What a weird world in which we live!

  32. Janos Skorenzy April 11, 2016 at 3:01 pm #

    Black calls herself a savage in search of knowledge. Another alumnus repeats it and she accuses him of calling her a savage. The Black students rally behind her to destroy another administration. The Whites beg for forgiveness but the noble savage refuses. The Revolution is tearing itself apart. These people raised Blacks up above their natural level and now they are being savaged by them. They deserve everything they get.

    http://thefederalist.com/2016/04/11/at-ithaca-college-the-lefts-kids-devour-their-parents/

    The best policy now is to wait and enjoy as our enemies destroy each other. Maybe someday there can be Universities again – but this time only for the qualified – the good minority group.

  33. Coilin MacLochlainn April 11, 2016 at 3:22 pm #

    Absolutely terrific article, James! And right on the money all the way through. And for good measure, a brilliant punchline. You know it won’t be Kim Kardashian’s rear end filling the big seat in the Oval Office, but it might as well be, unless things change radically.

  34. pfitz April 11, 2016 at 4:36 pm #

    For those readers or commenters weighing a decision of whether to put their confidence in JHK´s abilities for analysis, I submit to you the following…

    JHK seems to not let an opportunity pass to tie in, through whatever mental-verbal-rhetorical gymnastics it takes (which, lets be honest, he is pretty practiced and accomplished at) an attack at whatever group, movement or type that doesn´t sit well with him at the given moment.

    Black Lives Matters and minority college students somehow found themselves in the cross hairs for the I don´t exactly know how many-th consecutive week. Though there are several valid critiques and arguments to be made against the idea of erasing history (and and actually spreading segregation) at Princeton, I feel the need to point out something that has bothered me for quite some time. The argument that ´´black people kill (slaughter over sneakers actually according to JHK) more people than anyone´´ has a huge oversight working against it as it pertains to the Black Lives Matter movement.

    This movement arose in response to violence at the hands of a very specific social institution; Law Enforcement. The capital letters are there for a reason. Thieves, robbers, muggers, and gang bangers (though loosely organized in theory) do not constitute a social institution, so it is very hard to protest or organize against them.

    Black Lives Matter is barking up the tree of Law Enforcement, a very real and very prominent social institution, though DOZENS of other community organizations and do in fact make it their business to directly confront gang violence in poor areas, but again, with limited success. The fact is that the police killed a LOT of people last year, mostly black people, and if you think that is not a fair assessment, I’m all ears, tell me why, I promise I will listen. So there´s that.

    Also though, the fact that hundreds of thousands of black people are upset about the same thing is a very significant phenomenon, sociologically speaking, and seen in this light it doesn´t really matter what one (excuse me here) privileged, middle-aged, exurb-dwelling white man opines about it, regardless of this same man´s quite shrewd ability to see through the fraud that is the global financial system, electoral politics in the U.S, and the endless environmental disaster of consumption and its nefarious ideologies. I guess it´s just not Kunstler´s thing to go find out about those things himself though, like through some real research or something, I don´t know…

    I have always quite liked the line of JHK´s that in America, ´´everything goes and nothing matters,´´ because I feel that the material world that EVERYONE lives in is more important than the postist, Foucault world of identity politics and fringe wedge issues, but this line of thinking that because Michael Brown was not an upstanding citizen that the whole of Black Lives Matter is worthless or pointless is pretty far from this author´s best idea. Pissing on the grave of Trayvon Martin a few weeks back (a kid whose only crime was being a better fist fighter than an armed neighborhood watch stalker) is borderline unforgivable. It smacks of bitter, old, white, privileged, & out of touch at least, cruel and sadistically racist at worst.

    I fear that our blogger has been reading a bit too much zerohedge, and not just the nuts and bolts charts, but maybe now the comments and the ´´every woman has been raped by a migrant´´ type posts. I know JHK used to be a reporter, but I think it has been a hot minute since he was out in the field, and things do look differently from upstate New York than they do in other, differently tinted neighborhoods. Maybe we hit peak Kunstler in 2008-2009 when it was pretty much impossible to find anything wrong with what he was writing about, but this isn´t really doing much for me anymore, I don´t think there´s anything more for me to learn. It was refreshing while it lasted,

    Peace

    • elysianfield April 11, 2016 at 7:34 pm #

      Pfitz

      “The fact is that the police killed a LOT of people last year, mostly black people, and if you think that is not a fair assessment, I’m all ears, tell me why, I promise I will listen. So there´s that. ”

      One million(approx.) sworn law enforcement in the U.S. In any 24 hour period there are approx. 30-50 million contacts between police and citizens a day. The few contacts that result in a black criminal being shot are statistically insignificant.

      Enjoy your pending sabbatical…no sense remaining here, as you do not think you have anything further to learn…you might spend some time on the surface streets of your closest “tinted” neighborhood…plenty to learn there, I would opine.

      • pfitz April 11, 2016 at 8:32 pm #

        Hi Elysian,

        I have actually had the chance to live and learn from many different places and landscapes,(urban, rural, wealthy, middle class, poor, 3 different countries) I don’t only read books and blogs, but actually live and work in diverse places, with diverse types of people, but that’s cool if your idea of an argument is just to mock my vocabulary and very loosely self-define what is and isn’t statistically significant.

        Serious question though, if you were 9 times more likely to have something happen to you (like have a heart attack or stroke) than the rest of the population, would that be a cause of concern to you? Might you start taking baby aspirin? Now just insert the fact that a social institution is the reason that you would have to worry about that risk in the first place and you’ll start to understand what black men are dealing with. But I’m guessing you won’t. You’ll probably just put some typo I made above in quotes and use sarcasm on a blog, which is always a good idea;)

        Again though, the post wasn’t exactly for you or your type of reader, your mind is clearly made up. But thanks anyway, it was fun reading and responding, and don’t worry, I will continue to learn plenty from plenty of people in plenty of different ways, just not from you and probably not from JHK.

        • Janos Skorenzy April 11, 2016 at 11:06 pm #

          You’re assuming they don’t commit many times more crimes than Whites. They do. Trayvon was a thug – no big loss. No doubt the taxpayers were spared having to pay for his coming career in crime.

          Education is wasted on ideologues. The police are out of control, yes. This is an issue that could have brought the races together – but Blacks and their foolish enablers have blown it again. They don’t want equality after all, but special treatment and goodies.

        • elysianfield April 12, 2016 at 12:02 pm #

          Pfitz,
          Thank you for your reply. I am curious to learn of your experiences and opportunities to learn in (specifically) US “Urban” areas. You suggest that your vocabulary has been mocked…how so? To suggest that using quotation marks (to call attention to an attribution) is of a mocking nature, might indicate that you are predisposed to insult…I hope not, as I would prefer a civil discourse.

          You seem to indicate that my branding of police shooting unarmed blacks as “statistically insignificant” is a loose definition of the term. Since the last reported outrage, (about 6 months?), there have arguably been at least 6 BILLION contacts between law enforcement and citizenry…with no reported shooting of innocents…I would invite you to do the math, and then define what you consider significant (A note to Janos…”the police are out of control”? Really? All 1 million of them? You could then suggest, with the same level of pre-judgment, that all black men prefer white women and loose shoes….)

          I would like to state that “what black men are dealing with” is an existential threat from other black men. As of my recollection, there is very little violence visited on blacks by white Americans. Do not see them victims of the “knock out game”, nor whites burglarizing black’s homes in the Ghetto, nor random and senseless shooting of blacks by white men. You might reply that these events happened in the 50’s and earlier…yes, no doubt, but that is not the current paradigm, nor has it been in either of our adult lifetimes.

          I would end by asking you what exactly I am, or what “my type of reader” represents. I would admit that my mind is made up, but from extensive experience and observation, not secondary or tertiary accounts from popular media, nor suspect tomes from academia. You are, no doubt, educated and, perhaps, even genteel…please state your qualifications that allow you to make the generalizations that were offered earilier .

          • pfitz April 14, 2016 at 9:09 pm #

            Elysian,

            I have to admit, you are very polite and I sincerely thank you for that, so I will answer your questions directly.

            The black men being at greater risk of death from black men than police is obviously a point I have heard a lot, even from my friends, and I understand why they bring it up, but in my experience it is just a strategy on their part to deflect the attention from what BLM is trying to direct the public’s attention to in the first place. Law Enforcement, a public institution, being responsible for killing civilians, including unarmed civilians. Again, there *are* people protesting and organizing against gang and black on black violence, but that’s not doing much sadly. BLM are just a group exercising their rights to a redress of grievances etc. and the fact that you or others think they’re misguided is what it is, but the fact is that plenty of groups are equally misguided in their tactics/targets for their collective ire and JHK somehow doesn’t go out of his way to shit on them every single week. I have seen enough ducks to know what they walk and quack like, and I just honestly feel that JHK’s most useful contributions to my worldview have come in the detailed way he has dissected how wasteful and stupid (sub and ex)-urban planning has been and how financial racketeering wreaks havoc on the earth in general, not in insulting dead black people when his post started out about something altogether different. The predictable retort of “but these things are all interrelated” well, whatever, I just don’t really care to read a not even veiled any longer racist opinion from an old white guy who probably met a lot of black people a concerts he was covering for Rolling Stone, but I’m guessing you look at his rolodex and its probably white, upper middle class and old. I also think for all his readings, JHK doesn’t have a super strong foundation in understanding sociological phenomena, and I only say that because my wife has a PhD in sociology, and make no mistake, is not a mainstream academic in the least.

            As for your point about the billions of interactions that police have with civilians, sure, but you realize those are counting things like taking reports for petty theft and phone calls, and so your calculus changes a bit if you talk about police interactions with people who pose an imminent threat to the public. I would also like to point out that the Federal Government probably has many more billion interactions with the public, and I have a huge problem when they kill an American citizen with a flying robot, have meetings every week about their kill list, and then make jokes about it in public. I am guessing they have killed only a few hundred this way in the past few years, and so I would say that is too many. I imagine you understand the ways that statistics are manipulated and so your claims of statistical insignificance are just really subjective at best but dishonest at worst.

            I am sorry I don’t know how many times more likely a 20 yr old black man in Chicago is to be killed by any other black person, but I do know with regards to being killed by police, it is 9 times based on the Guardian’s report. When just talking about unarmed people killed by police, double the percentage of non blacks *were* armed when killed by police.

            And I don’t know what your thoughts are on the matter, but I think fraud that causes 2 million people to lose their homes and erases 40% of the accumulated wealth on Earth (as flimsy as that wealth may have been in the first place) is a more worrisome crime than selling cigarettes for a dollar apiece, yet a man doing the latter was strangled to death.

            Honestly, my personal experience doesn’t matter beyond the fact that it humanizes human beings to me (shouldn’t be necessary) and for someone with a better than decent ability to reason, JHK seems to be lacking the empathy (a cousin of imagination) to make a fair assessment about these people who I guarantee he does not understand on a very basic level. But since you are so curious I have lived in Chicago most of my life, in a majority white neighborhood, a majority Mexican neighborhood, and now a fairly evenly split 33% white-black-mexican area. And yes, i know for a fact that they are mexican. I am a spanish teacher for my job, have a Masters in Spanish, and have lived in Chile and Uruguay in addition to Chicago, and a small town in Washington. I have worked in a very poor urban school, a very middling middle class school, a very wealthy suburban school, and a not very diverse university. I know the JHK, zerohedge, peak oil, financial fraud, collapse, government oppression et al blogosphere inside and out, and that’s why I think I have nothing else to learn here. Also, my father is an attorney who has both prosecuted and defended in Chicago, my brother is a police officer, and I have worked at a police department before, so I am not just armchairing it up for fun. There are plenty of things I know nothing about and that would explain my lack of web presence on those matters.

            Thanks for admitting that your mind is made up, that was very honest of you, and that is what I meant by the post not being for you. It was for those on the fence about whether to bother reading JHK blog anymore. I am not going to, but you seem like a nice enough guy, its just that you used some of the exact words I used to disagree with me and that is a common choice of a lot of not really thoughful internet commenters who derive pleasure from zinging some person they will never meet for an audience of, lets just guess, like seven.

            anyway enough of this for me, I am gonna go ahead and officially retire from kunstler.com but go ahead and give me a shout at hctarea at gmail dot com if you want to keep the dialogue rolling, I am the nicest pompous ass you’ll find on the web.

    • newworld April 11, 2016 at 8:46 pm #

      In the abstract I am not hostile to BLM, if I a white man had to endure their racist behavior I would want to kill them no doubt. In short the old creaky reactionary politics are fading away, I have no need or desire to lecture blacks unlike JHK nor do I feel the need to subject myself to them.

      Can the walls of Political Correctness contain the spirit of the day of racial separation being made public knowledge? I don’t know, I guess the financial rackets of the American Empire will collapse and groups will separate, its Evolution.

    • Florida Power April 11, 2016 at 9:11 pm #

      “Maybe we hit peak Kunstler in 2008-2009 when it was pretty much impossible to find anything wrong with what he was writing about, but this isn´t really doing much for me anymore, I don´t think there´s anything more for me to learn. It was refreshing while it lasted,

      Peace”

      You are a pompous ass.

    • BackRowHeckler April 11, 2016 at 11:09 pm #

      Hey Pfitz, sounds like you’re down for the struggle!

      Death to the White Devils! I hear you, Brother!

      brh

  35. toktomi April 11, 2016 at 4:55 pm #

    Knock, Knock

    “Who’s there?”

    Knock, knock

    “Who’s there!?”

    knock knock

    “mfah…!?”

    dead horse still kicking – knock knock

    “Oh, hey, buddy, come on in.!.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WhLhF12TBE

    ~toktomi~

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  36. Mark Fleischmann April 11, 2016 at 7:19 pm #

    “…who will supposedly compensate for Hillary’s inability to otherwise win votes the old-fashioned way, by ballots cast.” Just so you know: Clinton has won 9.3 million primary and caucus votes, beating Trump (8.2 million), Sanders (6.9 million), and Cruz (6.2 million). Source: realclearpolitics.com. That sure does sound like winning votes the old-fashioned way to me. Love your books, looking forward to the next WMBH. Best wishes.

  37. MisterDarling April 11, 2016 at 7:23 pm #

    THE BEST THING about coming to the end of something is that ‘mysteries’ do actually get “revealed”: the curtain gets pulled back and the masks drop. Finally, you see what was happening all along. Finally you are let in on the joke. Finally you have no false-hope to be tethered by. [*]

    When the tide goes out we finally see who’s been swimming naked. With that in mind;

    “None of these groups really want to change anything. They actually wish to preserve their prerogatives.”

    I am in complete agreement. Their grievances are their comfort. They’re far too enamored with their false certainties & learned helplessness to think – let alone *act* – outside the box… So far, so good for the rest of us. Don’t say we didn’t try.

    “The interests of the 0.001 percent are obvious: maintain those streams of unearned, rentier, notional wealth as long as possible and convert them as fast as possible into hard assets (Caribbean islands, Cézanne landscapes, gold bars) that will theoretically insulate them from the wrath of history when the center no longer holds.”-JHK.

    Wealth has a poor record of insulating people from the Wrath of History, particularly when it is intimately embraced by History. Wealth requires Context, Infrastructure, Support Systems in which It is rooted for it to be accessible as Wealth.

    Without the aforementioned It is a Liability. To maintain wealth requires an adequate amount of wisdom and the restraint to avoid tearing up the framework in which one is wealthy… But those qualities go out the family window within a generation or two of the wealth being attained, so… Well anyway, at least we know how the story ends. History’s told us all about it.

    +++

    [*] If you still thought that it was arguable, This is as official as it’s ever going to get:

    https://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/speeches/2016/dud160411
    ‘American Dream’? Not in America.

    • Janos Skorenzy April 11, 2016 at 11:00 pm #

      Gold is good because it’s so portable. The wealthy Shaw brothers fled Mainland China for Hong Kong to escape the Communists. They worked in a kitchen of a restaurant like so many wretched others. Is there anything more wretched than a Chinese fry cook? One foggy night they rowed back to the mainland and dug up their gold. Wealthy again, they opened up a martial arts movie studio and became far wealthier again.

      • Thinkgloballyactlocally April 12, 2016 at 6:17 am #

        They could use their gold only because there was “Context, Infrastructure, Support Systems in which It is rooted for it to be accessible as Wealth.” Namely Hong Kong, a blooming economy.
        What could have they done with their gold in a Mad Max-like environment?

        • Frankiti April 12, 2016 at 6:24 pm #

          I think 223 and antibiotics are a good investment.

          • MisterDarling April 13, 2016 at 1:45 pm #

            “223 and antibiotics are a good investment”-f.

            Agreed, although precious metals in portable quantity are useful for negotiating your way through temporary disruptions, and in the ‘grace period’ following a real system collapse.

        • MisterDarling April 13, 2016 at 1:42 pm #

          Thank You, Think Globally…

  38. Frankiti April 11, 2016 at 9:02 pm #

    It’s not a mystery. Even though Chris Martenson and Zero Hedge and Stockman and so on and so forth are hidebound to their charts and their pedant’s P/E ratios, and untapped discoverables in petroleum and yadda, yadda, yadda they are finally coming to grips with the reality that the system is propped up by those still able to extract money from it and the governments they control. The .001% don’t want chaos and don’t want to lose money and control and neither do the leaders elected or appointed. Big revelation. Everything is rigged from the financial system to elections, yet people want to believe, no, they want to will democracy into action. It does not exist. The notion of linear time progression equating to human progress does not exist. These are all human constructs. Human deceits. They make life bearable, like religion for some; a salve. Peer to closely and it’s ugly, the indifferent universe. It’s unfathomably beautiful the cold stark honesty, too much for human eyes and salvation.

    • Frankiti April 11, 2016 at 9:24 pm #

      too closely

    • Florida Power April 11, 2016 at 9:44 pm #

      Mankind cannot bear too much reality.
      Not one on this board would opt for civil war. The escapism of sports and entertainment are far preferable. Let them cobble together whatever fix the system needs. There are too many of us, too much interdependence, too little self reliance to contemplate the horror of rockets slamming into malls and interstates at rush hour. Localism, peak oil, climate change: academic concepts without relevance to most. Check MLB attendance and advertising revenue. The lives of quiet desperation and those of imagined purpose go on unperturbed. No, not that Herb Stein was wrong, but the system will continue even though it should not. it must.

      • BackRowHeckler April 11, 2016 at 11:31 pm #

        People still like baseball, FP. I know I love it.

        Even if this place started falling apart at the seams there’d still be ball games to go to. Only thing is they probably wouldn’t such large scale spectacles like MLB.

        brh

  39. BackRowHeckler April 11, 2016 at 11:28 pm #

    Let us not forget about the afore mentioned Muffin, 22 year old UVM undergrad and radical down hill skier, terror of the Vermont slopes. Last week a mob of threatening BLM members, fellow students, shut down cold her sorority’s plan to host a Kentucky Derby Party — which consisted mainly of drinking mint juleps and wearing funny hats — claiming it was racially insensitive and ‘celebrated slave culture’; shut it down cold! Of course there were apologies issued, groveling, and many, many mea culpas offered. Still, the administration is promising a full investigation and states punishment will be meted out if any evidence of racism, insensitivity, micro aggression or hate speech is discovered.

    But Muffin has a bigger problem: she is ‘feeling the Bern’, and agrees ‘Capitalism must be brought down’, banks must be broken up, and Wall Street crushed, but on the first of every month she gets her Trust Fund Check in the mail, and it comes from a bank on Wall Street. The question is, if the Bern is elected, and she has no doubt he will because everybody on campus is voting for him, will the trust fund check still arrive in the mail?

    A season on the slopes costs a lot. Muffin needs that check.

    brh

    • malthuss April 12, 2016 at 12:10 am #

      What are you going to do? Have you guns and a few months worth of food?
      I dont think the ‘kultural revolution’ on kampus is worth your valuable time for time is short.

      VIVA COLLAPSE.

      • BackRowHeckler April 12, 2016 at 12:51 am #

        Things will go on as they are for a long time yet, Malthus.

        Sometimes change is hard to see, even over long periods of time.

        I went out Sat. morning opening day of trout season, same spot I’ve been going to for years not far from Ozone’s spread. Same guys I’ve known for years, same brand of beer (Rolling Rock) river looks no different, catching trout like it was 1975.

        I’ve been thinking for awhile now let the whole goddam thing come down who gives a sh-t as long as I can come up here by the river and fish for brown trout.

        brh

        • Thinkgloballyactlocally April 12, 2016 at 6:27 am #

          Until you can fill your vehicle with fuel…..

          • malthuss April 12, 2016 at 12:51 pm #

            CAN T?

          • Thinkgloballyactlocally April 12, 2016 at 5:16 pm #

            Can’t
            .:-)
            I am sorry, English is my second language.

        • malthuss April 12, 2016 at 12:53 pm #

          Under A2030 will commoners be allowed to fish?
          Remember the Barons and serfs of old?
          Whats the game plan of the elites?

          See the chemtrails overhead?

  40. Q. Shtik April 12, 2016 at 12:13 am #

    Update on the trend of weekly comment counts:

    02/22 … 775
    02/29 … 655
    03/07 … 521
    03/14 … 500
    03/21 … 424
    03/28 … 468 <<dead count bounce
    04/04 … 398

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    • Sticks-of-TNT April 12, 2016 at 12:50 am #

      Dead cat bounce–that’s funny.

      Well at least Monday (4/11) was a strong start for this week. My comment here should be #147.

      -Sticks

    • pequiste April 12, 2016 at 12:54 am #

      Snow is melting in those latitudes where it accumulates. The sap is running (as are the politicians.)
      Trees are budding and leaves are fanning out in the increasing sunlight of lengthening days.
      Flowers exude their first fragrances, baby animal creatures are born into the world and the birds sing with sweet exaltation that finally Spring is arrived and all around.

      People’s thoughts turn to the out-of-doors and all that it implies. Spring cleaning and opening all the windows in the house for a well deserved airing-out; walking in the park with the dog; playing whatever ballgame one enjoys in the fresh air; a bicycle ride without slush; taking a boat out; or just the myriad chores around the house that have been held in abeyance during the winter.

      Everything to do with the warming temperatures and it is, I suspect, the reason for the decline in the comment to the CFN – who wants to prolong sitting inside and playing on the computer??

      It’s ether that or everyone is just basically fucking exhausted from the grinding stupidity of our global clusterfuck.

      • someonetakethewheel April 13, 2016 at 4:28 am #

        Exactly.

        Happy Spring, anyway.

  41. jloughrey April 12, 2016 at 1:48 am #

    “And that is how Kim Kardashian gets elected president.”

    Didn’t KarTrashian’s hubby Kanye throw his hat in the ring to run for President in 2020? Maybe he could be elected First Husband this November by default for a pre-term warmup. You know, the same as Bill Clinton’s presumable bid to become First Husband in 2017.

  42. I AM SULLY April 12, 2016 at 4:52 am #

    “… scrim of political basilisks …”

    Really Jim?

    Did you have to use up your whole “rare word budget” in the first few sentences?

  43. I AM SULLY April 12, 2016 at 4:59 am #

    Scrim: a kind of fabric.

    Basilisk: a legendary reptile that can kill with a glance.

    Altacocker: Yiddish, for “old fart”.

    (I find one or two eldritch words in every JHK post)

    (it’s like he’s building a reserve, a national park, for “words” that pretty much nobody uses)

    (except him)

    • Thinkgloballyactlocally April 12, 2016 at 6:32 am #

      I enjoy it. English is my second language….:_)

    • Frankiti April 12, 2016 at 6:29 pm #

      He is a painter using words over oils. When he mixes, his portmanteus are incredibly fresh and vivid.

  44. I AM SULLY April 12, 2016 at 5:03 am #

    Ok …

    But it’s not “Kim K. Turn” …

    (it’s Dr. Freckles’ turn)

    (he’s got fatastic-o-potamus ideas)

    (he almost won in 2012)

    (in the way that I’m almost an NBA basketball player)

    http://iamsully.com/?p=1415

    http://iamsully.com/?p=1514

    • ozone April 12, 2016 at 9:51 am #

      Sully The Sullier, Besmircher of the Deserving, Potentate of Poo-flinging, Buster of Balloons! (Etc., etc., All Hail, etc., etc.)

      The “mercurial” nature of Dr. Freckles would have Congress in a panic. (Like being summoned before a distinctly bloodthirsty, head-chopping king.) This would probably result in a deflationary period for these puffed-up plutocrats. Of course, more listening devices need to be implanted into their bodies and those working for all the 3-letter bureaucracies to prevent JFK-types of “accidents” from forming. Will the White House become the Fun House or the White Hospital? Wandering minds want to know… but are not too sure they’ll like the answer.
      BTW, Sully as court jester and scribe would be just and fitting…

  45. volodya April 12, 2016 at 11:53 am #

    Mr Darling,

    On the one hand idiots, being idiots, don’t listen and don’t learn. But I know what you mean, the wiser thing is what you advise: don’t alert the idiots. Why take a chance?

    You know how it is, don’t tempt the gods, don’t get cocky because those whom the gods would destroy they first make cocky. Probably goes ten times more in a military context than in the civilian world. You would know.

    What I’ve found through sometimes bitter experience in the business world is the less you say the better because it will be used against you.

    Yeah, I know, I post long commentary which contradicts what I just said and I’ve said more than enough to be used against me. OK, but as a friend, I will try to not alert the idiots, especially any monitoring this site.

    BTW, your comment that any business that needs to pay crap wages to survive isn’t a viable business was spot on.

    More and more people just scraping by, one missed paycheck away from eviction, is what you see the length and breadth of the country.

    Not only is the crap wage model not a viable business model on the micro level, it’s not a viable economic plan on the macro level. This is a system that doesn’t work because there’s no way it CAN work. The arithmetic just doesn’t pan out. Not even close.

    Not that the Oligarchs and their hangers-on and apologists would ever admit it, but the crapification of the American hourly wage earning class is one big reason why the world financial system is coming apart.

    The Oligarchs will try to make it work first by brute financial force via govt treasuries and central bank money printing and interest rate suppression and all their other machinations.

    And when that doesn’t work (and it won’t work) they’ll try brute force, period. That won’t work either.

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    • MisterDarling April 13, 2016 at 1:50 pm #

      “Not only is the crap wage model not a viable business model on the micro level, it’s not a viable economic plan on the macro level. This is a system that doesn’t work because there’s no way it CAN work. The arithmetic just doesn’t pan out. Not even close.”-volodya.

      Creating a situation where 70% of the US economy was consumer-based, then impoverishing those consumers was not a stroke of genius… But don’t belabor the point with the culprits and their coat-tail riders, they simply switch to ignoring the results or pretending that the results are success-indicators. It’s like talking to crack-heads… or ‘Efficient Market Hypothesis’ fanatics.

  46. FincaInTheMountains April 12, 2016 at 12:14 pm #

    Guardian: Russians are reading classics out of fear of Putin

    http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/apr/07/the-writers-russians-dont-read-and-you-should

    In fact, I am a bit exaggerating. The article in the Guardian on this subject reads a little differently, though, given the difficulties in translation and the difference in mentalities, I am right, and the Guardian meant exactly that.

    The survey’s findings suggest a tendency to play safe and rely on officially authorised options.

    And all this has an international dimension, since such a division is now the place to be in the majority of other national houses.

    For example, those who support Hillary Clinton in the United States are remarkably similar to those in Russia who allegedly read Ulitskaya and the Nobel Prize winner for Literature Aleksievich (in fact, they only say that they read but in fact read some summaries of this rather dull literature), and collisions in Washington square of those who support Trump or Sanders with those who support Hillary Clinton, surprisingly reminiscent of a collision between hurray-patriots in Russia – “Vatniki” – and so-called “creative class” (“Creacles”).

    And if all goes as it goes now, they will soon resemble collisions between “Vatniki” and “Creacles” first on the Maidan square in Kiev, and then at the Donetsk airport.

    Moreover, the analysis of the election campaign of Hillary Clinton allows you to understand the Guardian bewilderment in connection with the survey by the Levada Center and the tendency of Russians for the classics. For example the representatives of Hillary Clinton in the media constantly focus on “fact” that Trump is supported by people uneducated, ignoring that Trump has gathered around himself the best of intellectual America.

    And to some extent this is true, because Hillary is mainly supported by people educated in American colleges, but this is due not to the mythical populism of Trump among the lower classes, but due to the fact that during the first year of college students receive lessons of literary English 101.

    It is cultural and psychological treatment, which after many years is turning them into Hillary Clinton voters.

    And an article in the Guardian, is much more serious than it sounds. This because that in the subtext of the article is clearly felt an idea that the fondness of Russians with the classics is directly related to the reluctance of Russians in Moscow to arrange Maidan and even the willingness to actively oppose it. And this article is essentially an admission of failure of the West in its attempts to impose Russian alternative culture, which is not connected to a Russian classical culture, but is very connected to the lessons of English literature 101.

  47. Janos Skorenzy April 12, 2016 at 2:20 pm #

    https://www.frcaction.org/get.cfm?i=WA16D22&f=WU16D04

    Separation of State and Corporation is essential. Ditto the separation of State and Church, Synagogue, and Gay Bar.

    • malthuss April 13, 2016 at 12:57 am #

      Did you read about pro ball player killed in New Orleans road rage?

  48. FincaInTheMountains April 12, 2016 at 4:58 pm #

    De-offshore process and the common fight against corrupt politicians – it is now a global trend, it is coordinated between the leadership and the security services of the large countries.

    Otherwise unlikely the CIA director flew to Moscow to negotiate what to give and what not to give. Although not to give anything about Putin’s friends, they could not, otherwise it would look quite dissonant with the sanctions. Total rather moderate “Panamanian message” goes like this: “Join us, gentlemen, join!”

    Now there are no more other offshore jurisdictions except for major players – the US, Russia and China, there is only a choice: patriot of which of the greatest powers you wish to be and invest your money there.

  49. malthuss April 12, 2016 at 6:32 pm #

    Western Civilization? No Thanks, Standford Students Say

    pj media
    To survive and thrive, human beings must think. You might imagine that such a statement goes without saying. But you would be wrong.
    In fact, the necessity of thought has long been a contested notion in philosophical circles. Societies which embrace thinking , societies which embrace rationality, steadily improve the condition of mankind. Those who reject rationality devolve into darkness, fostering human suffering. The generation making its way through academia today seems intent on the latter course, as evidenced most recently by news out of Standard University.
    There, the student government just voted down by a motion to require freshmen to learn “the politics, history, philosophy, and culture …

    • Janos Skorenzy April 13, 2016 at 12:47 am #

      Piffle approves. His so called education has made him into a Manchurian Candidate.

  50. Titchfield April 12, 2016 at 8:07 pm #

    MisterDarling: “Wealth has a poor record of insulating people from the Wrath of History.”

    This statement doesn’t ring true. However, I’m not the one to attempt a confident refutation of it.

    Since “record” cannot mean anything but “historical record,” a wholesale refutation would require me to marshal a vast amount of historical data. A refutation would, in fact, require me to have mastered the history of all the world’s civilizations. Some people have come close to doing that, I suppose–maybe Arnold Toynbee, maybe Will Durant. I haven’t.

    I say that the statement doesn’t ring true because I can recall from memory a number of examples that counter it. Some of them: the Huguenot bankers who fled to Geneva after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the Russian aristocrats who found refuge in Paris after the Bolshevik takeover, those members of the Third World’s exploiter/dictator class ( Jean Claude Duvalier of Haiti, Farouk of Egypt, Pahlavi of Iran, for instance) who ran to Europe or America when they’d made things too hot for themselves in the countries where they were born and lived.

    What all these groups and men have in common is that they escaped from “the wrath of history” because they had enough money to make that escape.

    Moderate wealth may not bestow on its owner the power to buy his way out of revolution or war, but it seems to me that great wealth nearly always does. That’s one of the benefits of having it.

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    • Q. Shtik April 12, 2016 at 8:38 pm #

      Some people have come close to doing that, I suppose–maybe Arnold Toynbee, maybe Will Durant. – Titch

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

      …maybe Kevin Durant.

    • Thinkgloballyactlocally April 13, 2016 at 7:31 am #

      When the economy and the climate collapses globally, where do you emigrate? With all your cash and gold and stocks and artworks and cars (with no fuel in them)?
      All of these will lose their perceived value when everybody is thirsty and starving.
      Have not yet read the “World Made By Hand”?

      • michael April 13, 2016 at 12:07 pm #

        There is always something to eat. Sometimes you can talk with the food. This sort of nutritional habit has a way of solving the problem.

    • MisterDarling April 13, 2016 at 2:48 pm #

      @ Titchfield:

      Hello! You articulate your point well, but those are examples of systemic disruption, not Collapse.

      Secondly, you’re talking about the percentage of people of who not only had the Means to relocate but (more crucially) the Will to do so – a lesser percentage even under favorable circumstances. The amount of wealth ownership shoved into gas-chambers, mass-graves, imprisoned and/or enslaved during each slaughter overshadowed that which survived them.

      It is agreed that fleeing to America (to one of the Sunbelt States, generally) was a great survival strategy for 3rd-World wealth concentrators. The US now has quite a collection of ex-puppet government despots and their family members. But – *question is* – where do they flee when the US and the rest of the developed world is no longer in a position to shelter their ilk – no questions asked – and too busy with their own internal issues?

      A well-documented example of an elite completely losing their footing is what befell Mesoamerica’s upper-echelon during the Conquest. In their case possession of wealth enhanced mortality, resistance was ineffectual & compliance a near-certain death-sentence.

      Cheers!

      • ozone April 13, 2016 at 6:37 pm #

        “It is agreed that fleeing to America (to one of the Sunbelt States, generally) was a great survival strategy for 3rd-World wealth concentrators. The US now has quite a collection of ex-puppet government despots and their family members. But – *question is* – where do they flee when the US and the rest of the developed world is no longer in a position to shelter their ilk – no questions asked – and too busy with their own internal issues?” — MD

        Yessir. This is another of those “little glitchy things” I’ve been cogitating about for many a year. As Orlov has stressed, sometimes it’s better to stay put with a community where you know what “the score is” and you know how most will react in a given situation. (Of course there are a lot of different factors that make this a whole cloth, and if you happen to be an unrepentant asshole, you might want to move along.) As for a predatory opportunist? Things might get uncomfortable very quickly, whether or not you’re native or recent arrival.

  51. FincaInTheMountains April 13, 2016 at 5:46 am #

    World marks Day of Cosmonautics

    Yuriy Gagarin discovered a way to other worlds for the humanity.

    On the 12th April, 1961 cosmonautics history as well as the whole world science saw the upmost event: for the first time a human dared to travel outside the atmosphere. Yuriy Gagarin, an astronaut who manned the Vostok spacecraft with his famous “Let’s go!” started the era of space flights. He discovered a way to other worlds for the humanity.

    http://news.az/articles/society/106568

    Space is important to us, with restrained souls and bloated bodies, not only for the study of technology, but as the aspiration for the High and Eternal.

    Cosmism is the same as knowledge of existence, the spiritual path.

    Not to search for primitive outer worlds and aliens, but a quest for the knowledge of ourselves, of man as the crown of God’s creation, for majestic complexity of the Universe in which God placed man.

    Raise your head!

  52. FincaInTheMountains April 13, 2016 at 8:50 am #

    To memory of Yuri Gagarin

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8ljrA9imFk

    • Q. Shtik April 13, 2016 at 11:15 am #

      One of the shots of Gagarin in your link is of Yuri shooting pool. I can tell you from a quick glance that he may be good at rocket science but he doesn’t know the first thing about pool.

      My saying so is not intended to reflect negatively on Gagarin as a state hero. What I am pointing out is the foolishness of placing a person in a position where they have no knowledge and do not belong. It would be the equivalent of having Menachem Schneerson pictured handling professional carpentry power tools.

  53. Q. Shtik April 13, 2016 at 10:56 am #

    Not sure why [JLK] is following in the footsteps of msm – chipshot

    ==========

    I think you are mixing up JHK with MLK…

    however

    our host is NOT “so off on Bernie.” He has been around long enough to see and understand that socialism cannot work over the long haul. America doesn’t have 70 years to waste a la the Soviet Union.

    I will grant you though, among all those running Bernie ranks first in “trust, credibility and likability.” What’s not to like about a free lunch?

    • volodya April 13, 2016 at 12:14 pm #

      Exactly. What’s not to like about a free lunch?

      That’s what interest rate suppression is all about, free lunches for Wall Street and its fund managers. And those guys sure enjoyed all those years of free lunches. Can’t do without ’em in fact, if you believe Yellen and co.

      Mind you somebody is paying because, as you imply, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Maybe one place to start looking is under-water pension funds.

      Another place to look is the multitude of people being forced by Janet and her minions “up the risk curve” in search of returns on their savings.

      Now, you would know what “up the risk curve” means. It means feeding people into the jaws of Wall Street money managers. Now, you’re no rube, you would know that there’s a huge asymmetry in terms of financial and legal knowledge between the money boys and mom and pop. Do you think maybe the money man won’t milk this for all it’s worth? Of course he will, he’ll have a feast.

      And yeah, I know, there’s asymmetries everywhere, asymmetries in knowledge and power, like when you go to the doctor or when you’re in the hospital emergency room. Another great racket. Ask JHK,

      NIRP is the next big thing in free lunches. YOU, sucker, pay the bank a percentage of the money you have on deposit. Good deal for the bank don’t you think? Oh, yeah, if you take out a loan the bank supposedly pays you instead of you paying the bank. Of course the bank is happy, it still earns a spread. The debtor is happy, what’s not to like, this is a GREAT free lunch. What’s next, run up a credit card balance and the bank pays YOU interest?

      Does this sound cockamamie to you?

      Well, it is, totally. But if, allegedly on bona fide policy grounds, free lunches are OK for the wealthiest people, what about people further down the food chain? Isn’t there a policy case to be made for free lunches for them too?

      • MisterDarling April 13, 2016 at 2:10 pm #

        “NIRP is the next big thing in free lunches.”-v.

        Nice… You’re grasping the nettle with this line. NIRP punishes savers while attempting to force them into a rigged equities market. In happens to be failing in Japan already.

        All too often the people jeering at plebes yelling for “free-lunches” are part of the biggest pack of Something-for-Nothing financial/crony-capital rapists in world history – qualitatively and quantitatively.

  54. Q. Shtik April 13, 2016 at 11:42 am #

    Yes our whole system is based on usury. – Janos

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

    Not quite, Janos.

    Charging interest on loaned money is not usury. Charging an “unreasonable” rate of interest is usury. But how much is unreasonable? If you borrow $10 from bent-nose Tony on Friday and have to pay back $20 on Monday or have a couple of fingers broken, that’s usury.

    Usury is made possible by a person on one side of a transaction being stupid about simple math concepts like compounding. As someone once said, compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world if you’re receiving it but a disaster if you’re paying it.

    • Janos Skorenzy April 13, 2016 at 1:53 pm #

      So we don’t accept it from Guido, but do accept it from John or Abe? Gangsterism is gangsterism – even if done by so called respectable men in three piece suits. People’s stupidity shouldn’t be an excuse. Predatory lenders should have their fingers broken with a mallet. Let them try and eat soup then – while the nation watches and cheers. The pit or the pendulum, Q. Choose quickly.

      And of course there’s far more to usury than that. Basically it’s creating money out of nothing and with this “nothing” you can get real resources, capital, property and labor. It is the ruin of economies and civilizations. It simply can’t be allowed. Money must be kept close to the Earth and not be allowed to “breed”. Meanwhile people don’t have enough money to have kids. Fertile money creates human sterility. Hitler was the literal Father of his Nation, since he reversed this. As you know, Whites don’t tend to have kids they can’t pay for and had been abstaining – unlike some we could mention.

      • Q. Shtik April 13, 2016 at 3:07 pm #

        Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. – Shakespeare

  55. capt spaulding April 13, 2016 at 12:13 pm #

    I see that Ford plans to build a new car plant that will employ 2,500 people. The only problem there, is it’s gonna be built in Mexico. Remember NAFTA? That was passed by Hillary’s husband. Just around the corner is TPP, which does the same thing for the rest of the world. Interestingly, I find that Trump and Sanders often have the same critiques. Both are focused on the corrupting effects of money in politics. It’s the main reason they are both popular.

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    • volodya April 13, 2016 at 12:24 pm #

      Dammit Captain, Ford is committed, COMMITTED I tell you, to producing cars in the good ole USA and good payin’ jobs for everyday Americans. It’s true I tell you, I heard them say it, it was on the news, so it MUST be true.

    • BackRowHeckler April 13, 2016 at 11:02 pm #

      Jesus H Christ Captain do you think they should have put the plant in Detroit?

    • elysianfield April 14, 2016 at 1:00 pm #

      “I see that Ford plans to build a new car plant that will employ 2,500 people. The only problem there, is it’s gonna be built in Mexico. Remember NAFTA? That was passed by Hillary’s husband. Just around the corner is TPP, which does the same thing for the rest of the world. Interestingly, I find that Trump and Sanders often have the same critiques.”

      What would Marx say? “I’ll stand for that….”?

  56. volodya April 13, 2016 at 12:39 pm #

    You can only laugh, I read on Bloomberg that a shadowy group of billionaires is busy trying to recruit former US generals for the Republican presidential nomination. No, Trump is just too crazy, he might upset their rackets, Cruz is just too something, I dunno, maybe too religious.

    A bunch of hats were named, Mattis, McChrystal, Petraeus, Mullins. But there are doubters ie Jeff Sessions. He sez it might be problematic to have a nominee that hadn’t faced the voters.

    Problematic, you don’t say, hahahahahahah, what a joker.

    So, the Oligarchs turn to the military. Now how ’bout that. Anyone surprised?

    • MisterDarling April 13, 2016 at 2:16 pm #

      “I read on Bloomberg that a shadowy group of billionaires is busy trying to recruit former US generals for the Republican presidential nomination”-v.

      The last time a “shadowy group” of American oligarchs gathered to select a general was 1933, and Prescott Bush (yes, of the same name) was leading them:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

      Y’know, same old ‘military coup’ stuff…

      • MisterDarling April 16, 2016 at 12:32 am #

        CORRECTION: there’s not enough documentation readily available to support the statement that Prescott Bush was “leading” the ‘Business Plot’ to establish an American Fascist organization to ‘pressure’ the Roosevelt Administration. Prescott may well have been a part of it, but not prominently.

        Prescott was however investigated under the Trading with the Enemy Act in 1942 by the same committee that looked into the 1933 ‘Plot’, and was implicated in the ‘Plot’ by managing at the executive level the Hamburg-American Shipping Line which provided perks & passage to American fascist sympathizers. . . “It’s been known for years, albeit not widely publicized, that Prescott Bush and the Harriman Bank had extensive business dealings with the Nazis…”-Ken Hirsch.

    • capt spaulding April 13, 2016 at 3:19 pm #

      Hi volodya, Seems that you have formed the same opinion that I have, along with millions of other people. Having turned into an Anarchist, I have begun stuffing rags into bottles, and preparing for the confrontations that are bound to arise. If we get saddled with Hillary or some other puke for president, you will find me on the barricades, and I’m serious. It’s been a long time since anybody has had to make a commitment for the people, and the kind of Democracy we deserve. The right wing took their best shot by voting for “W”, who was born on third base, and thought he hit a triple. Well, gee, that didn’t work out so well. As far as I’m concerned, the right wing doesn’t know it’s ass from a hole in the ground, and proved it by re-electing Bush for two terms. What I’m going for is an attempt to throw a monkey wrench into the machinery that has grown since the election of Ronald Ray-Gun. It didn’t work, and anybody who thinks it did is full of shit. It’s time to take the power from the Christian right wing (You know, the ones who masturbate with a cross in one hand, and their dick in the other), people have become like cattle, manipulated by the powers that be, blindly following the lead set out by both parties, fior the benefit of the oligarchs. Like I have said before, it’s not a coincidence that people from both sides of the political spectrum are voting for the mavericks. It’s time that the rest of you throw your political differences aside, and link arms to stop the bullshit that is going on in this country. It’s now or never.

  57. MisterDarling April 13, 2016 at 3:07 pm #

    Axe Fall!

    Time to look who made the ‘Late Show’ in the past seven days…

    Iceland & Ukraine have new Prime Ministers,

    The UK and Malta are working on it,

    In the US crony-capitalist arena liquidations are picking up in both ‘smokestack’ and ‘high-tech’ industries:

    Peabody Coal’s gone

    http://bigstory.ap.org/article/8925359a38144e8c9864735039e2106a/peabody-largest-us-coal-miner-seeks-bankruptcy-protection

    Yahoo! Inc. is gone

    http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/11/technology/yahoo-sale-marissa-mayer/

    But hey, they aren’t the first & certainly won’t be the last to go. In this market even McDonald’s is cutting back…

    • Janos Skorenzy April 13, 2016 at 6:38 pm #

      Axe not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

      http://bossip.com/1300991/justified-shooting-police-release-bodycam-footage-of-black-woman-with-axe-being-gunned-down-video/

      • pequiste April 15, 2016 at 7:47 pm #

        Thank you Janos – passed a penne pasta (with marinara sauce) through the nose with that statement. Good thing it wasn ‘t a bowtie (farfalle.) I also actually thought it (the video) )was going to reference a BLM situation.

        On the other hand the video was stark concrete reality recorded – horrible and fascinating at the same time.

        Who could fault any individual making such a life-or-death split-second decision under the presented circumstance?

  58. MisterDarling April 13, 2016 at 3:20 pm #

    Demand, it’s what is NOT for breakfast… Hear it from the horses-mouth:

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-opec-oil-idUSKCN0XA10P

    The way the energy market is right now – inventories bulging and demand cavitating – all it has to do is range-trade in the high-30’s to kill-off the next-lower set of price supports. After that, who knows what’ll happen?

    🙂

    Since the fossil fuels are still the critical resource constraint underlying global economic activity, you can be sure that when they aren’t being consumed, less of everything else is too – financial chicanery be damned.

    B T W, when I mention the Demand Collapse (as I have since joining your honorable ranks) I mean to confirm (not deny) the ‘post-cheap oil’ model. Demand was expected to collapse, post-peak.

    Cheers!

    😉

  59. Q. Shtik April 13, 2016 at 4:27 pm #

    I sent this email early this morning:

    Subj: Chapter 16 of Inventing English regarding African American English

    Dear Professor Lerer,

    First of all, your book is wonderful.

    I have nearly finished reading it but felt i must stop and see if I could locate your email address and write. I am upset about your discussion of Black English. In fact I have been upset about Black English for most of my 75 years. How is it a second generation Asian speaks English indistinguishable (dialect-wise) from the majority White population while virtually every 15th generation Black speaks in Black vernacular? If there is one thing that has caused a failure of Blacks to rise socially and economically it is the refusal, not failure, to adopt SAE (or, if I may, Standard White English). Oh, I understand they have their reasons for not caving in to “the man” but in their refusal they may as well hold a gun to their heads and pull the trigger. After all, it has been 150 years since emancipation and 50 years since Jim Crow. In 2116 will we still be able to correctly “guess” 9 times out of 10 that the unseen person on the other end of the phone line is an African American? When, if ever, will assimilation into the majority happen?

    I am guessing you are very familiar with the writings of the brilliant, late, David Foster Wallace. His book titled Consider the Lobster is a collection of mostly (or perhaps all) non-fiction essays one of which is his review of a then new dictionary. In it he describes his tribulations teaching young “minorities” Standard American English at Pomona College in California. Some were so offended that they actually tried to have him canned. This was back in the mid ’90s if memory serves. In today’s world of “safe spaces” and “microaggressions” he would not last two minutes.

    I don’t see how you can discuss the topic of African American English without at least mentioning what appears to be a deliberate refusal to speak like the people on TV in which they (and we all) are immersed their every waking hour.

    If you are so inclined I would like to know your thoughts on David Foster Wallace’s standard speech to minorities on the necessity, in his class, of their learning Standard American English.

    Warm regards,

    Q. Shtik
    Central NJ

    • Janos Skorenzy April 13, 2016 at 6:40 pm #

      Chess teachers have a hard time getting Black kids to be White. Now I axe you, can such a race obsessed race ever fit into these United States?

  60. Arkie April 13, 2016 at 5:41 pm #

    Naaa. Here’s how it’s gonna go down. The stingy old men of the Republican party will hold their little convention and through their usual hijinks will find a way to cheat Trump of what is rightfully his.. the nomination and a call to form up and close ranks behind him. Then Trump will say that he gave them a chance to do what was right, namely to bow to the will of the people, and that since the Republican leadership has shown their true intentions he will run as an Independent and all those who are sick and tired of the same old Republican B.S. are welcome to join him and his hoards on their conquest of the White House to keep Ms. It’s My Turn from totally ruining the country. Not that I believe that the Republicans are not just as at fault as the Democrats for the current mess this country is in, I believe that if Trump pulls this off there is gonna be a whole lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth post election day, and a whole lot of those BASTARDS are gonna have to learn to kiss his ass. The whole reason Trump is so popular is he is talking about the issues that really matter to the average middle class people who have been FUCKED by both parties and especially this administration, not some lame brained contrived issues that some dofus in one party or the other say’s that this will be the “Issues” for this election cycle. Trump has a pair and he is his own man and does not have to go begging to the power brokers like the Koch bros. for money to get elected and that is why he can say what he does and not have to apologize for it or not say anything at all. Clusterfuckers this is our last chance to save our U.S.A. Democrats and Republicans abandon your parties and and their business as usual B.S. and rally around Trump and lets see what a real man who is not beholden to anyone can do.

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    • Q. Shtik April 13, 2016 at 8:47 pm #

      Arkie, ^THAT^ is one terrific diatribe.

  61. elysianfield April 13, 2016 at 5:56 pm #

    BBC America reports this PM;

    A Texas teen who avoided prison over a fatal drink-driving crash by claiming he suffered from “affluenza” has been sentenced to nearly two years in jail.
    In 2013, Ethan Couch killed four people when he rammed his truck into a crowd, but he avoided prison.
    On Wednesday, the 19-year-old was ordered to serve four consecutive 180-day jail sentences – one for each of his victims.
    He broke his probation when he fled to Mexico in December

    Ethan, a toothsome little morsel indeed, will make many new friends in lock-up. His story will be well known amongst warders and prison population both. His “friendship” will be eagerly sought after, and many packs of Lucky Strikes will exchange hands…or, if he is particularly unlucky, Kools….

    • malthuss April 13, 2016 at 6:33 pm #

      or, if he is particularly unlucky, Kools….

      Clue me in, what do Kools get?

      • elysianfield April 14, 2016 at 10:32 am #

        Malthuss,
        Kools are a brand of cigarette that used to be very popular in…urban settings. Further, He would get the same as the Luckies, only( it is rumored) more of it….

        • Q. Shtik April 14, 2016 at 11:46 am #

          Kools were smoked for their heavy dosage of Menthol…. kind of a poor man’s coke.

    • Q. Shtik April 13, 2016 at 8:50 pm #

      Elysian, you made me laugh.

  62. Despatch from HQ INGSOC April 13, 2016 at 6:35 pm #

    Suddenly it appears the ceasefire in Syria has ended; fighting has resumed on all fronts. Syria, backed by Russia, is regaining lost ground. In other news, the Iraqi campaign against ISIS has stalled. The Iraqi army is down to one tank — one single tank — but it is doing good work, ‘punching holes in ISIS defenses’ according to an American observer.

    Earlier today a young Sanders supporter showed up at my door, he had a clipboard. He was a hipster wearing a wool hat even tho it was rather warm, tight black jeans, and sneakers. Did I mention the ‘dreads’ even tho he was white? Very earnest, the subject was ‘income inequality’. Did you know 1% of the population owns almost 1/2 of the nation’s wealth? I didn’t know that but what can you do about it? Confiscate it, and throw them in the Gulag? “No, make them pay their fair share”.

    • elysianfield April 14, 2016 at 10:38 am #

      “Did I mention the ‘dreads’ even tho he was white? ”

      A naked case of “cultural appropriation”…Elysianfield is experiencing Micro-aggression here….

  63. malthuss April 13, 2016 at 6:38 pm #

    Trannies kill trannie in Texas.

    I doubt that the SJW white-guilt libs at Salon and Gawker will cover this story.
    http://www.khou.com/news/local/vigil-held-for-two-killed-in-brutal-midtown-attack/128924749

    “HOUSTON — Sadness surrounded a Midtown street corner on Monday where less than 24 hours earlier, an angry mob savagely beat and fatally shot two people, including a transgendered woman.”

    “Other witnesses said some of the attackers were also transgendered and believed they targeted Chante out of jealousy.

    “We need to come together and get past this black on black and black hating on black,” said another transgendered woman.”

    • Janos Skorenzy April 13, 2016 at 6:44 pm #

      Yes, Black trannies and drag queens have a strong warrior tradition. Many a hapless White John had met his quietus at their delicate clawed hands.

    • BackRowHeckler April 13, 2016 at 9:13 pm #

      Also, male homosexual ‘married’ couples have a strange predilection of stabbing each other to death. I’m not sure why, but they like that intimate close in knife work.

      brh

      • malthuss April 13, 2016 at 11:16 pm #

        Phallic symbol?
        Or just ‘no gun around?’

  64. ozone April 13, 2016 at 6:49 pm #

    Ba-Blammo!
    Despite the weak attempts to direct the “conversation” to them niggers, commies, free-shitters (et-fucking-cetera) it’s all coming around to full-system FAIL. Sorry. Kunstler’s analyses are becoming MORE relevant, not less. Holistic viewpoints are the only ones that *may* give insight into an actually survivable way forward. Shallow clinging to worn-out tricks and venal mendacity are an easy path to extinction.

    • malthuss April 13, 2016 at 11:19 pm #

      Despite the weak attempts to direct the “conversation” to them niggers, commies, free-shitters (et-fucking-cetera) it’s all coming around to full-system FAIL.

      Who attempted this?

    • Janos Skorenzy April 14, 2016 at 12:47 am #

      You used the n word and deserve to be destroyed.

  65. Q. Shtik April 13, 2016 at 8:39 pm #

    Now I axe you, can such a race obsessed race ever fit into these United States? – Janos

    ===========

    Holy Shit!! Talk about yer pot calling the kettle black?!!

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    • malthuss April 13, 2016 at 11:17 pm #

      He can see. Can you?

      • Janos Skorenzy April 14, 2016 at 12:49 am #

        He’s equating Whites and Blacks – an echo of the primal sin when modern humans mated with Homo Erectus to produce the Negro race.

  66. Pucker April 14, 2016 at 1:16 am #

    72% —-

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uedIPaKEYHw

    • Pucker April 14, 2016 at 7:10 am #

      “A lot of these black women are making bad choices. What kind of a woman in her right mind would have a baby with ‘Shorty Low’?!”

  67. FincaInTheMountains April 14, 2016 at 4:29 am #

    I read on Bloomberg that a shadowy group of billionaires is busy trying to recruit former US generals for the Republican presidential nomination. — Volodya

    If America is looking for its Führer it doesn’t have far to go:

    http://cdn1.img.sputniknews.com/images/101563/64/1015636467.jpg

  68. FincaInTheMountains April 14, 2016 at 7:17 am #

    The Mysterious 28 Pages on 9/11 That Everyone’s Talking About

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mysterious-28-pages-9-11-101500248.html

    US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and former Senator Bob Graham called on US President Barack Obama to unveil the classified part of the report on the terrorist attacks September 11, 2001.

    According to Graham, who then he was a senator and co-chaired the Commission of Inquiry, the report gives details of who helped the citizens of Saudi Arabia in the subsequent seizure of the aircraft and sending them to the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, to be trained as pilots in the United States.

    It is reported that they arrived in the United States without any flying experience, but, thanks to the assistance of the Saudi representative Omar al-Bayumi, who supplied the money, were able to take the flying lessons.

    On the question of who exactly supported future terrorists – government, wealthy individuals or charities – Graham said: “All of the above.”

  69. Cold N. Holefield April 14, 2016 at 9:21 am #

    Where’s wpa? Bernie’s campaign called Hillary a whore.

    #DemocraticWhores.

    Way to go, Bernie!!

    But then he had his spokesperson, Dr. Paul Song, who said it apologize and recant. What would Machiavelli say about that? I think he’d thrash Bernie and tell him he was being a lousy Prince by apologizing and recanting.

    What say you?

    • Sticks-of-TNT April 14, 2016 at 11:58 am #

      “Where’s wpa?”

      Please don’t wake him/her/it.

      We’re enjoying the respite.

      • Q. Shtik April 14, 2016 at 1:35 pm #

        Short term MIA:

        . wpa
        . ‘Stuck Bud’
        . Beantown
        . others

        Long term MIA:

        . P4W
        . Many others

        • Janos Skorenzy April 14, 2016 at 3:18 pm #

          With Stuck, it’s the whole Asoka thing all over again. He realizes he’s wrong about supporting Hillary, but he wants to save face by giving it a bit of time.

  70. Cold N. Holefield April 14, 2016 at 9:33 am #

    BackRowHeckelr said: Jesus H Christ Captain do you think they should have put the plant in Detroit?

    There is a certain stark irony in the fact that Korean and Japanese automakers have no problem setting up shop in America, yet so-called American automobile manufacturers prefer to set up shop outside of America. The Koreans and Japanese are more patriotic Americans than are the executive management and shareholders of American automobile manufacturers.

    It’s why I will always buy Japanese or Korean-maufactured cars. I currently have two Hondas but my next purchase may be a Hyundai/Kia since they’ve come a long way in quality, style and performance for the price.

    Same thing with tires. Cooper makes a great tire and I’ve bought my last couple of sets from them, but they’ve relocated manufacturing to China, so I will most likely no longer patronize them. Many large so-called “American” companies are not really American. They pretend to be by using legacy brand name recognition, but they have no loyalty to America whatsoever.

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    • Sticks-of-TNT April 14, 2016 at 11:53 am #

      Cold,

      Hyundai makes a terrific car and, dollar for dollar, a great value when compared to the competition, including a ten year, 100,000 mile warranty. (Hopefully still the case–I haven’t shopped lately.) Same parent corporation owns Kia, which, to my eyes, seems a bit Korean kitschy compared to the Hyundai line. You should be delighted with either.

      -Sticks

    • Janos Skorenzy April 14, 2016 at 2:15 pm #

      So let’s go into it. After they’ve set up in White areas, how do they make a go of it economically speaking, if America is such a terrible environment for business? Or is it viable for them because they don’t have to pay American taxes as American Car Companies have to do?

  71. FincaInTheMountains April 14, 2016 at 12:53 pm #

    Direct Line with Vladimir Putin

    During the live broadcast that lasted 3 hours and 40 minutes, the President answered 80 questions out of the over 3 million that were received.

    http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/51716

    He looked cheerful, confident and relaxed.

    Showed a good knowledge of the subject in all areas

    Demonstrated a good sense of humor

    Reassured the public, instilled confidence in the future

    Showed humility in his personal life, confirmed for all curious that it’s all OK

    The protection of national agriculture and industry

    Gently chided negligent officials.

    Showed a healthy conservatism.

    Once again ridiculed his critics who found his billion dollars in the umptieth time

    Did not promised anything impossible

    Demonstrated concern and compassion about the problems of ordinary people

    Reaffirmed the sovereignty and independence of foreign policy

    Gently patted on the shoulder the American president and indifferently watched the sinking President of Turkey

    Initiated a couple of criminal cases and more inspections

    Many of the issues were highlighted in sufficient details and convincingly

    Properly averted answering slippery questions

    Another mass psychotherapy session was held successfully

  72. FincaInTheMountains April 14, 2016 at 1:15 pm #

    Another Jew becomes PM of neo-Nazi Ukraine

    Ukraine MPs approve Volodymyr Groysman as new PM

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36043967

    I know for a fact that Israel will never forgive current “leadership” of Ukraine for making national heroes from Bandera Jew murderers during the WWII.

    • pequiste April 15, 2016 at 5:16 pm #

      Sounds downright non-sensical: Jew selected to be PM of Neo-Nazi regime???

      I am very curious to know which “color” team this Groysman plays for.
      Red-Kids I’d bet.

      And for the right price, that small country on the Mediterranean’s easternmost shore, would forgive Tiglath-Pileser III , Nebuchadnezzar and Titus.

  73. elysianfield April 14, 2016 at 1:37 pm #

    Janos,
    Just as one might opine of Q-Schtik that “a good pool player is the result of a misspent youth”, you might also say something similar in regards to my condition. I have read, on an average, 3 books every two weeks since my early 20’s..the vast majority being non-fiction. I am beginning to feel that my education is incomplete as it now stands. Non fiction provides facts. Fiction, however, provides… ideas. I enjoyed reading Melville in my Youth, but only as a literal work…I cannot accept the efforts of critics who impart metaphysical meaning behind an author’s work, or deconstruct a comedian’s life’s work seeking deeper meaning. Just today finished a biography of Julius (Groucho) Marx…the entire book was a philosophical abstraction of Marx Brothers movies…whereas Groucho stated publically that he just wanted to make people laugh.

    Physical masturbation is something I have done away with…weeks ago….mental masturbation I should like to avoid in it’s entirety.

    Having said this, I believe that my style of writing… stilted, unimaginative offerings, are the result of my “misspent youth”.

    • Janos Skorenzy April 14, 2016 at 2:31 pm #

      I’m not sure what this is in response to – except my complete oeuvre, if that is the correct word. But as the Great Communicator, I will field this high fly. I agree in essence. A very serious intellectual I once knew said the same thing, namely that some things can be said in fiction that can’t be said otherwise. Perhaps logic and “just the facts” provides the bones, but only a story can flesh things out, eh?

      I of course have never had this problem, since I’ve always been big on both logic and mythology, metaphysics and stories. Math and Science are my weak points. And yes, mythologizing everything is disrespectful to the physical realm and its at times charming simplicity. There is a lot of hard core whaling and sailing stuff in Melville. Of course, he shifts gears: the White Whale is not just a Whale and Ahab not just a Man. Other writers might smudge these lines in a way Melville doesn’t – and use facts themselves in a symbolic way. You probably should get you hands on some pot as a way of opening yourself to these realms. Otherwise they will be foisted on you pell mell in the realms beyond the River Styx. Why not go out and meet the Enemy in the field?

      • elysianfield April 14, 2016 at 4:30 pm #

        “You probably should get you hands on some pot as a way of opening yourself to these realms. Otherwise they will be foisted on you pell mell in the realms beyond the River Styx. Why not go out and meet the Enemy in the field?”

        Janos,
        Yes, directed due to your oeuvre. I would like to think that those realms beyond the styx is where good dogs go…if not, then I would prefer accommodations otherwise.

        Regarding Pot…I’m afraid that train has left the station (culturally and generation-wise). However, heroin, at my age might have benefit…what could go wrong…?

        • San Jose April 14, 2016 at 7:35 pm #

          I read the book you suggested, “The Forgotten Soldier.” Thanks for the tip. The author painted a grim picture of life on the Russian Front.

          Any other book suggestions would be most welcome.

          Jen in San Jose

  74. Cold N. Holefield April 14, 2016 at 2:03 pm #

    Elysianfield said: Physical masturbation is something I have done away with…weeks ago…</i.

    Never say never. That itch will show up when you least expect it, and maybe sooner than you think. Perhaps tonight or tomorrow. Anything can set it off — a particularly appealing and alluring image or maybe just biorhythms or something you ate or a late night 1-900 call.

    When that time comes, you must obey your biological imperative and scratch that itch. That's one of Rosie's many purposes — and it behooves you to use her or else you'll lose her. To what (lose her), I don't know. Maybe to gangrene, or perhaps the macabre flesh-eating bacteria or just simple, yet painful, arthritis.

    Man was created to beat his meat. It's the one thing he's always done competently and proficiently since he first rose from the primordial soup and then the stupid Bible comes along and makes a law against spilling your seed. Religions are sadistic.

    The rest of this nonsense we call Civilization is merely a distraction between jerks to fill the time and provide more effective jerk-off material for the next jerk and the jerk after that. Maybe we should write the script to a movie about masturbation through history. It can even be a comedy. We can title it The Jerk or They Call Me Mellow Yellow.

    • Janos Skorenzy April 14, 2016 at 3:15 pm #

      You must learn to masturbate to anime though. It’s in tune with the coming ethos. Soon we’ll download into these realms, and if you’re not prepared, things wont work out.

  75. capt spaulding April 14, 2016 at 2:20 pm #

    I admit that I get worked up when it comes to politics, however really I’m a lot calmer than that. There’s a book that has been written by a guy named Martin Ford, who works in Silicon Valley and has written a book about the impact of computers and robotics on our life. There are no bad guys in the book. just an explanation of the impact of computers and robotics in our lives, and the implications of the impacts it will have on our lives. I’m not gonna say any more, just that it’s a hell of a book. The title is:”Rise of The Robots”, subtitled: “technology and the threat of a jobless future”. It’s an informative read, and well written.

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    • Janos Skorenzy April 14, 2016 at 3:02 pm #

      Robots yes, Mexicans no. Free money to all shareholders/taxpayers.

    • pequiste April 15, 2016 at 11:50 am #

      Best to join your nearest Neo-Luddite Club. The sooner the better.

      The AI/Robotics/Informatics/Cybernetic tsunami will hit the beach of human endeavour within 10 years. Work eliminated for 75-80% of persons in first and second world nations.

      Sounds consonant with the “alledged” plans of the NWO evil bastards for the human population to be “consolidated” also by 90%. Not by any chance a coincidence.

      What countermeasures work against “Terminator” robots?

      We are so tout fuckay.

  76. Janos Skorenzy April 14, 2016 at 3:00 pm #

    http://www.dailystormer.com/japanese-girl-group-performs-build-a-wall-song-for-the-leader/

    Cute Allies. Honorary Aryans. Remember, the Jew fears the Samurai.

    • Q. Shtik April 14, 2016 at 3:42 pm #

      Not exactly the Rockettes.

  77. Cold N. Holefield April 14, 2016 at 3:16 pm #

    Janos,

    You think American Car Companies pay taxes? Find the effective tax rate for the Big Three, respectively? But before you do, remember, GM & Chrysler had multi-year losses that are carried forward and offset against future years’ taxes.

    http://www.sanders.senate.gov/top-10-corporate-tax-avoiders

    When you can afford an army of tax attorneys, you never have to pay taxes again. Only saps pay taxes — that’s why you’ll never see a True Elite earning wages.

    • Janos Skorenzy April 14, 2016 at 7:15 pm #

      Well I admit this is more your area of expertise – and I was inviting you to hold forth. So again: can you explain why so many of our car companies left and if America is so bad, why Japanese car companies came in. In other words, why didn’t they just go to where our car companies went. Or are they getting an advantage here that American companies don’t get. And why?

      It’s an important and interesting question and believe it or not, I’m sometimes open to learning new things. And if you don’t know, that’s fine too. Maybe someone else will.

  78. Janos Skorenzy April 14, 2016 at 8:56 pm #

    World War One gravely damaged Western Civilization. World War Two almost ended it. World War Three will end it, probably forever. Only Trump can avert war with Russia, promoting at the very least an honorable peace and perhaps even brotherhood with those who should be our allies in a rapidly darkening world.

    http://bbs.dailystormer.com/t/straight-bitched-us-military-cowers-in-fear-at-sight-of-russian-fighter-jets/21075/9

    • malthuss April 14, 2016 at 11:53 pm #

      Aurobindo said something about ‘Those 2 wars were a funeral pyre
      that an obsolete culture were burned on.’

      Meher Baba ‘War is sent by God when a nation is moving backward spiritually.’
      MB has a whole book or booklet on war.

      • Janos Skorenzy April 15, 2016 at 3:13 pm #

        I read that. Baba though highly of war in that it can bring out the best in people, at least sometimes. I’m not sure what Aurobindo wanted. World Government like Baba seemed to? That would be a disaster.

        I went to hear Alison Weir last night on her book tour. A soul on fire with Puritan indignation. She related that Chief Justice Brandeis was head of a secret Zionist group and that fellow members used to meet with him in his chamber. So utterly inappropriate – much as Jews used to plot against the Church while meeting in a Church. Their oath was to put the Zionist cause above all things. This disqualified him to be a Chief Justice of America.

        Or another one: the Jews were so outraged at the British, that a plan was afoot to bomb London. Bombs were prepared but they didn’t have a pilot. They contacted an American WW2 Ace who played along but then betrayed them to both the British and American Governments. She also talked about the attack on the Liberty.

        Of course, she’s hopeless. She’s gone native in an inner sense. All that magnificent energy and intelligence is in service of an alien people, culture, and religion. Imagine asking her to feel so strongly about her own people – you’d get nothing or nothing but naked rage.

        Her whole view of Life has been colored by this one issue. So she thinks that all of the European problem with Islam stems from Palestine, as if they would all go home if the Palestinians got their state. But she goes even beyond that, invoking the right of return. Nations come and go, she said. No Nation has the “right” to survive. Only individuals have rights. This is hardcore United Nations pablum. If taken seriously, it would doom all advanced Nations stupid enough to accept it and strong enough to force their people to do so.

        • malthuss April 15, 2016 at 10:32 pm #

          What war does is disrupt.
          Both of those sages saw that attachments were broken thru war.

          Baba likened the world circa 1950 and humanities future in this analogy—— ‘a bow and arrow, before the arrow flies it moves backward.’

  79. FincaInTheMountains April 14, 2016 at 10:28 pm #

    What was said about backroom negotiations was confirmed today in the leading countries of the world, and it was decided in London, rather during the joint meetings of the City of London and the Privy Council of Her Majesty at Buckingham Palace.

    So for the next 10 years, the world politics will be determined by the “The Secret of Shakespeare” the Foreword to third edition of which was written by H.R.H, The Prince of Wales. And today it is impossible for me to comment on this book even at the most primitive level.

    Subordinates of Mr. Lavrov in the Russian Foreign Ministry have already started to read it, because the book is in its complexity is comparable to Einstein’s original work. Its understanding takes time.

    http://www.worldwisdom.com/public/viewpdf/default.aspx?article-title=The_Secret_of_Shakespeare_part_1_by_Martin_Lings.pdf

    On the Republican front of the global war against Hillary Clinton, the most important thing is that Ted Cruz joined in a tough, uncompromising fight with Donald Trump (from which he abstained earlier), since, apparently, it was decided not only in the City of London, but also in the Buckingham Palace, and not just not to allow Trump to occupy the White House, but to have a Canadian citizen leading the United States at the time when the West starts very dangerous restructuring of its relationship with Islam, based on 400 years of traditions of the East India Company, the tea policy of which 200 years ago forced to rebel British colony controlled by the West India Company.

    Besides Marco Rubio encouraged his constituents to vote for Ted Cruz, and an influential member of the Republican National Committee, Randy Evans lowered the bar for Trump (and hence for Cruise) from 1237 to 1100 delegates needed for the nomination of the Republican Party, recognizing thus a danger to Republican party in this situation, the danger which is completely senseless in the suddenly changed world.

    But the most important thing is that the speaker of the House Paul Ryan in very strong terms refused to run for the nomination and even to participate in the Convention of the Republican Party. That effectively cancels the joint plan of Hillary Clinton and the Republican Party establishment, designed a year ago, which was supposed to lead the War Party into the White House.

    But even more important is that this Sunday Barack Obama in an interview with FOX5 gave firm assurances to the American people and the Republican audience of the channel to ensure the impartiality of the Department of Justice in regard to the prosecution of Hillary Clinton. I must say that FOX5 was in a very difficult position because of its forced participation in a brazen attempt to discredit Donald Trump and deprive him of victory, and thanks to this interview the TV channel is able to be rehabilitated and take its rightful place in the brave new world that is going to be built by The City of London and the Buckingham Palace.

    But FOX Channel 5 gave this Sunday another interview with Barack Obama, in which he played more as a person, not as a president. And, when asked about his biggest mistake, Barack Obama sent in Aesop language message to Hillary Clinton, warning her that if she would falsify the results of the primaries in New York, he is ready to reveal her true role in the Libyan tragedy, and responding to question about the worst day in his eight years, Barack Oama hinted that if she did win the New York and will be able to fight back the Benghazi, he will reveal her role in such crimes that the Democratic party will perish, but Mrs. Clinton will go not to jail, but straight to the chair.

    This is personal, nothing business.

    And as if to support the Sunday interviews, the chairman of the US Congress committee that is investigating the incident in Benghazi said that “due to Hillary Clinton unique arrangement with herself as Secretary of State that allowed her alone to determine the secrecy of her private server, he was forced to ask her for an interview under the oath.”

    And as a cherry on the cake this morning, there was an official letter of the Federal Bureau of investigation to Attorney General, that (contrary to what was said by Hillary Clinton) the ongoing investigation could lead to the prosecution of Hillary Clinton accused of serious crimes that would require bringing her to justice.

    http://www.radixnews.com/2016/02/10/fbi-confirms-hillary-email-investigation/

  80. wpa_ccc April 14, 2016 at 11:47 pm #

    “Short term MIA: . wpa . ‘Stuck Bud’. Beantown” –Qshtik

    I am busy with voter registration, registering young people to vote for Bernie. This is a crucial time for the Sanders campaign.

    Bernie & Tulsi 2016

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    • Cold N. Holefield April 15, 2016 at 6:57 am #

      Apparently, you’ve been sleeping during class. We’ve finally learned this semester, or this election cycle of you will, what I’ve known all along, and that is, your vote, anyone’s vote, doesn’t count or matter if you’re not a delegate. This is not a Democracy or even a Representative Democracy. It truly is an Oligarchy running a State Capitalist economic System which plans on making that State Capitalist System global — one giant, prodigious plantation the world over.

      If you’re a Bernie or Trump supporter come this summer, the lesson will be complete. And if you are one of those supporters, you will have reached a crossroads. Everything you’ve been taught about America’s system of governance will turn out to have been a lie and your objective, organic, unmanipulated opinion is irrelevant and disdained if you have one.

      What do the Bernie & Trump supporters do when their candidates are brushed aside with the Delegate Card? Do they capitulate and shrug their shoulders and say “oh well,” and go back to their cubes and friers to make the spreadsheets and fries in perpetuity 24/7? I think so. There will be no revolts & riots. White people don’t do that sort of thing. Look at OWS. White people’s idea of a revolt & riot these days is Woodstock with Starbucks.

      Q. Shtik had you nailed dead to rights. This wpa skin & persona you’ve developed specifically for this venue will forget Bernie when that happens and readily lend its zealous allegiance to Hillary in the general election. Of course, I know better and realize wpa is just a role you play at this forum, and in reality, you have no personal choice — your job doesn’t allow for you to take sides, but instead requires that you inculcate the illusion that there are sides when in fact there are none.

  81. Cold N. Holefield April 15, 2016 at 7:54 am #

    Janos said: Well I admit this is more your area of expertise – and I was inviting you to hold forth. So again: can you explain why so many of our car companies left and if America is so bad, why Japanese car companies came in. In other words, why didn’t they just go to where our car companies went. Or are they getting an advantage here that American companies don’t get. And why?

    I’m impressed, Janos. You’ve been following along. One correction. It WAS my area of expertise, but I suppose once it is it always is. That particular expertise is like cancer and I’m currently in remission. Can you imagine me as a CPA? Like Harry Truman, I gave them hell. I dropped The Big One everywhere I traveled in my former career and I left a trail of burnt suits and offerings. In my final position, in my final meeting before I was “let go,” they revealed a file on me that was at least an inch thick. Little Ol’ Me. How could I warrant a file an inch thick? I never determined what was in it. They were following me around the building — even into the bathroom. They even put a surveillance camera in the ceiling tile and were interviewing my colleagues to find out more about me and what I was up to. They couldn’t figure me out. Someone at my level should have been tamed long ago. I was their Donald Trump and they rounded up the delegates to freeze me out for speaking The Truth. The Donald and I have a lot in common except the hair — I have better, and certainly less conspicuous, hair than The Donald and, of course, sans The Fortune.

    Anyhow, back to your question. Inherent in your question is the answer, or at least partial answer. You imply that the decision by the Japanese and Koreans to locate the majority of production to America is purely a financial/economic decision, but I don’t believe that’s entirely the case. It is true that heretofore so-called “American” companies do make decisions purely on the basis of economics, but the Asian companies, specifically the Koreans and Japanese, operate a bit differently. Their corporate philosophy is unique compared to American companies in a nuanced, but noteworthy, way.

    For sure, the decision by the Japanese and Koreans to locate production to America had a financial justification, but it was also a Public Relations/Marketing campaign. Honda and Hyundai/Kia are now major employers of Americans, and in my opinion now qualify as Too Big Too Fail just like the Big Three, although, of course, they would never be afforded that status. American consumers know this and look favorably upon it when purchasing a so-called “import.” I say so-called, because a Honda or a Hyundai/Kia is now actually less of an import than some, or many even, Big Three automobiles, especially Ford. The stark, hypocritical irony!!! I know it means something to me that Honda and Hyundai/Kia do this. It’s formed a favorable impression with me.

    Yes, I fully realize that like the Big Three, Honda and Hyundai/Kia are heavily subsidized and protected by their respective State Capitalist governments, but in America, the propaganda implies that the Big Three are independent and separate from government — that they’re private concerns, when in fact, they’re a hybrid now designed to look like independent private concerns, but like the dollar, they are backed by the full weight and declining reputation of the American Government.

    I’ll add more to this later in the day. It’s a topic that cannot be exhausted in one blog comment, but it’s good to know you’re paying attention. I have so many Guardian Angels. If only one of them would be an Angel Investor, it would Make My Day.

  82. Cold N. Holefield April 15, 2016 at 8:39 am #

    Pursuant to this discussion of the rationale for Honda and Hyundai/Kia locating production in America versus exporting, I’m providing the following link. It’s rudimentary and academic, but it raises some interesting points. Both America and Korea, and Japan and China as well, are diverging from their cultural roots and converging into a Global State Capitalist System. This new Global State Capitalist System is incorporating various aspects of the respective constituent’s (currently member nation-states) cultures, so it will ultimately be a cultural hybrid, but in effect, it will be a Feudal System of Plantations — a fusion of Candyland from Django Unchained and The Han Dynasty where feudalism ruled the land.

    I know peeps who work for Hyundai/Kia and they can attest to the fact that while demanding, authoritarian and strict, the Koreans reward that expected and required dedication and subservience with mutual loyalty and recognition. You genuinely are part of a collective and/or family. It’s not just lip service, although it is changing as noted above.

    http://www.aabri.com/manuscripts/09201.pdf

    The American individualism is characterized by individuals’ natural rights and covenantal freedom as well as individuals’ self-government, discretion, and accountability (Aldridge, 2002). It is this strong individualism that has produced in America a self-governing free market economy where individual investors and consumers are at the center. It is this strong individualism that has developed a shareholders-driven corporate paradigm in America.

    In Korea, where the possessive pronoun ‘my’ is all too often replaced by ‘our’ and people share many communal dishes on the table at the same time, everything is communal, collective, and interdependent. As individuals willingly subject themselves to group loyalty, solidarity, and conformity, the ideas of consensus decision-making and collective responsibility become quite natural. It is this strong collectivism that has traditionally put the welfare and growth of the corporation as a whole ahead of individual shareholders’ interests in Korea. It is this strong collectivism that has produced ‘chaebols,’ corporate conglomerates in Korea such as Samsung, Hyundai, and LG, which engage in many different businesses ranging from noodles to missiles (Morden & Bowles, 1998; Kee, 2008).

    • Janos Skorenzy April 15, 2016 at 2:20 pm #

      One time I created an account a Bank of America. The Spanish woman who was signing me up went and got the branch manager, a Japanese guy. He welcomed me to the family. I was extremely embarrassed since he obviously took this very seriously. I played along as best I could. As far as I could tell, the Spanish woman thought it was bizarre too, but she was used to it.

      See the problems multi-culturalism causes? What is your solution? Work your solution, if any or if you even see it as a problem, into your next post on the Oriental Car Invasion. Interesting so far, but I need more on the brass tacks. What do they pay here to our Government by way of taxes or duties? Anything? Or is letting them be here our contribution to the coming Globalist State?

      Candyland sounds good, but don’t forget Rollerball. Sports will play a huge role in the Global State. Soccer isn’t violent enough….

      • malthuss April 15, 2016 at 10:35 pm #

        You mentioned Eskimos.
        Can you answer this on Monday?

        Why did Eskimos not morph into Blond haired, blue eyed people like the Nordics? In the cold, if thats all it takes.

        And why didnt they ‘create the modern world?’

  83. pequiste April 15, 2016 at 12:01 pm #

    What was unveiled today watered my eyes:

    Russian aircraft “buzzed” the U.S.S. Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea. Really close taunting in this event. Where were the Aegis systems?

    No apology from the Russian government.

    Vlad Putin makes scathing comments regarding Goldman Sachs and ownership in reaction to the Panama Papers and responsibility for the leaks and client information releases.

    Kremlin apologizes to Goldman Sachs officially:

    http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/putin-claims-large-german-newspaper-owned-by-goldman-sachs/565909.html

    Breathtaking.

    This should inform everyone, conclusively, what kind of power those demonic bastards at Sacks-of-Gold-Man have.

    Unbelievable!

    • Cold N. Holefield April 15, 2016 at 12:13 pm #

      Yep, they’re pretty much all in league with one another. I’ve said it many times before at my blog. Vlad knows he has to kneel, but his passive aggression is difficult to bridle.

  84. Cold N. Holefield April 15, 2016 at 12:15 pm #

    I bet very few of you knew Gamal Abdel Nasser was a Feminist. I didn’t either until recently. He was way ahead of his time and not what The West, to include Israel, wanted for Arabs as Israel’s neighbor.

    https://catcherinthelie.wordpress.com/2016/03/27/no-silicone-no-veil/#comment-2828

  85. FincaInTheMountains April 15, 2016 at 1:53 pm #

    Personally I am very surprised by the discussion of a flyby of SU-24 over US destroyer in the Baltic Sea. In particular, Americans should understand that the presence of a destroyer in the Baltic Sea is a provocation in itself, and then blame the Russians for it is to re-allocate the blame on others. Americans are far more sensible nation than people think, and that common sense is the decisive factor in the current election campaign.

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    • Cold N. Holefield April 15, 2016 at 2:22 pm #

      I’m not surprised. In order to maintain the illusion of tension, things such as this are mandatory. It’s like smiling for the cameras.

  86. FincaInTheMountains April 15, 2016 at 2:27 pm #

    “Kremlin apologizes to Goldman Sachs officially”

    Putin is one of the few world politicians who get to conduct his policy on the conceptual level and he perfectly understands that constantly applying the lowest, the 6th in priority Military Force can’t lead to anything good in the long-term prospect.

    So he is constantly maneuvering between the world centers of power, understanding that destroying, or significantly weakening one of them, could only lead to one result – the multiplying of power of the remaining opponents.

    Just like Stalin, who used the contradictions between London and New York Centers of Power to enlist the Pirates of New York to invest into industrialization of the Soviet Union, Putin constantly maneuvers between London, New York and Washington, while still keeping his independence.

    I hope it is not a big surprise for you that Goldman Sachs is the official representative of the London’s Money Changers in US to watch over the FED’s printing press behavior so that the London could get its fair share on initial investment.

    • Cold N. Holefield April 15, 2016 at 2:32 pm #

      So he, like all the Global Elite, use America as a tool — a means to an end. Sounds about right and they do the same with Russia.

      • FincaInTheMountains April 15, 2016 at 2:36 pm #

        But of course. How else things could possibly be?

        • Cold N. Holefield April 15, 2016 at 2:52 pm #

          Nice job swapping places between “things” and “could.” It makes for great effect. Most people will be fooled into thinking you’re Russian. Not me.

          • Janos Skorenzy April 15, 2016 at 2:57 pm #

            Me neither. He’s what they used to call “An Eskimo”. See the New Testament passage “For fear of the Eskimos”.

          • Sticks-of-TNT April 15, 2016 at 6:50 pm #

            Cold & Janos,

            I’m confused. Are you guys saying Finca isn’t from Russia? If not, count me among those thinking he was.

            I wasn’t completely convinced he lived in Central America. He seems to spend most of his time here (at CFN) which doesn’t seem to jive with his claim to be leading the hard life of some rural mountain homesteader/entrepreneuer. Other times he indicated he now had American citizenship, including expressing an intention to vote for Trump.

            But not Russian? His choices of odd Russian YouTube videos alone was enough to convince me of his authenticity. How else could he come up with that obscure stuff? Does he have handlers?

            Perhaps I’m too gullible and “the enemy” too cunning. Maybe I need to go back and binge watch “The Americans” on Amazon (or was it Netflix?) to help me understand this deception.

            Can you guys help me understand the basis for your convictions? Janos, I googled “For fear of the Eskimos” and read a related Wikipedia entry, but that just confused me more.

            Thanks for any assistance you can offer in removing these scales from my eyes.

            Sticks-of-TNT

          • Janos Skorenzy April 15, 2016 at 7:12 pm #

            Finc is a Russian Jew living in the Caribbean. As you know, Jews are a Nation without borders. Whatever else they are or pretend to be, almost without exception they are loyal to the Jewish people first and foremost.

            For “fear of the Jews” is a line from the New Testament. Cicero spoke in a similar fashion in Rome. They stick together and don’t forget. And they don’t like to be named. Thus the word “eskimo” – a half humorous half serious code word in mid 20th century conservatism.

          • Sticks-of-TNT April 15, 2016 at 7:23 pm #

            Thanks. All that makes sense to me. Do you think he has/had American citizenship?

          • Janos Skorenzy April 16, 2016 at 1:38 am #

            Well I’m just going on what he himself has said. If memory serves, he has lived in America thus his deep interest in our politics. Can’t remember if he was ever a citizen or where he was born.

  87. FincaInTheMountains April 15, 2016 at 2:43 pm #

    Right now it appears that London’s getting the upper hand, the New York group is weakened by its recent failure in executing the “dollar vacuum cleaner” basic financial technique.

    Expect that the remaining crew will gang up against the London in the near future, after the Pirates will replace their front man, or, rather their front woman.

    • elysianfield April 17, 2016 at 11:08 am #

      Finc

      Ran across this article years ago and bookmarked it for further consideration…not absolutely sure I agree with the premise, however.

      http://tarpley.net/online-books/against-oligarchy/british-financial-warfare/

      • FincaInTheMountains April 17, 2016 at 1:12 pm #

        Sorry, elysianfield, I would be glad to oblige, if only I could figure out which side of that Einstein equation Mr.Tarpley is playing on.

        It’s all getting too confusing even for direct participants of the process, not to mention us, mere observers.

        Quite frankly I myself losing (or is that loosing? no, for damn sure it is losing!) the track of it.

  88. wpa_ccc April 15, 2016 at 4:13 pm #

    To Buck Stud:

    Any thoughts on why Bernie Sanders beats Cruz by 11.3 points, while Clinton only beats him by 3.4 points?

    Is there any explanation why Bernie Sanders beats Donald Trump by 16.3 points, while Clinton beats him by 9.9 points?

    Wasn’t Hillary Clinton supposed to be your “pragmatic” choice.

    Buck Stud, why is all this happening?

    Buck, some months ago, when I pointed out Bernie was leading in New Hampshire, you said yes, but NATIONALLY Clinton was leading. That was true then. Now Bernie Sanders is ahead of Clinton in three national polls.

    Bernie Sanders is ahead of Clinton nationally in the PRRI /The Atlantic poll, 47 percent to 46 percent.

    Bernie Sanders beats Clinton nationally in the McClatchy-Marist poll, 49-47 percent.

    Bernie Sanders is also ahead of Clinton in the Ipsos/Reuters national poll, 49-28 percent.

    Buck Stud, why could you not imagine Bernie Sanders ahead of Hillary Clinton in three major national polls, and almost tied in others, by mid-April of 2016?

    • Sticks-of-TNT April 15, 2016 at 6:17 pm #

      It’s not your nature to ask so many questions.

      Usually you just have ANSWERS–to questions none of us here are asking.

      -Sticks

      • wpa_ccc April 15, 2016 at 8:04 pm #

        I have learned from Volodya.

  89. FincaInTheMountains April 15, 2016 at 7:54 pm #

    Author of the book “The Secret of Shakespeare” Dr. Martin Lings was born in 1909 in the vicinity of Manchester, but at university he was impressed by the works of René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon, and due to accidental coincidence of circumstances, which are the reserve of you know whom, he in 1939 wound up in Cairo, where he began to teach English at the University, and in 1940 converted to Islam.

    As a result, after 20 years, he was one of the greatest Islamic scholars of Sufi leaning; the author of perhaps one of the most authoritative biographies of the Prophet and at the same time one of the leading Shakespeare scholars of the world.

    He was able to arouse interest in Shakespeare in Egypt, Pakistan and Iran, including the creation in Iran of the Shakespeare Theatre and Shakespeare Festival, which continue to operate to this day.

    Many of the most prominent Islamic authorities have compared Martin Lings with Al-Ghazali, thanks to whom the Muslim world, despite the division into Sunni and Shia, until recently, did not know the religious wars ala Wars between Protestants and Catholics in Western Europe in 16-17 centuries.

    In addition, Martin Lings was a bridge between the Islamic and Christian cultures, ecumenical in the best sense of the word, and it is in this sense compared with Al-Ghazali.

    According to Dr. Martin Lings a work of art, all art, not just the drama of Shakespeare, resonates with the reader of the book or the audience in the theater only if that work contains some truth, which we know because of our stay in the World Above before birth, but forget with the first cry at birth, and again remember when breathing our last.

    Forget but not entirely, and when we are confronted with a work of art which contains some analogue of the events in the World Above, our soul trembles and weeps and this what Aristotle calls catharsis.

    So Hamlet according to Martin Lings for us is an analogue of Christ, as the tragedy of Hamlet is the tragedy of the true heir of the Kingdom of Denmark, captured by the usurper Claudius, as well as the prince of this world is a usurper of the world created by God the Father, and his heir and the true monarch is Christ.

    Martin Lings belongs to tradition, which is a fundamental alternative to the Crusades, part of which was not only Al-Ghazali, Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas, but also Richard the Lionheart, who began with what became a mythical figure, which still frightens children in the Middle East, and ended with friendship with Kurd Saladin, who put a stop to the crusades and became the founder of the Muslim civilization, which is now called traditional Islam.

    And apparently the decision to restore this tradition, adopted by elites of the West is the root cause of the changes we are seeing lately in the international politics in general and in the election campaign in the United States in particular.

    • Janos Skorenzy April 16, 2016 at 3:07 pm #

      It’s posts like this that make you so hated. Lings was a Sufi – the kind of people ISIS hate. And the hate goes both ways: Rumi called such people “Sufi killers” and “Donkeys in Turbans”. Nevertheless, it is they who often dominate Islam and do so now again today. They are the ones being supported by the corrupt powers of the West – not the Sufis. If it was the Sufis, I might not be happy, but it would be interesting and perhaps not the complete disaster that is unfolding.

      Lings lived to see the London Bombing. He spoke out against it, but of course, in a very measured way. All Muslims stick together – unfortunately. Sufism is very beautiful but it is embedded in something very ugly. It like a beautiful girl with a horrible family whom she loved. You’d like to take her away from them, but she wont go.

      Again the question comes back to you: what are you playing at? In your own feckless fashion, you’re beginning to sound like wpa.

  90. wpa_ccc April 15, 2016 at 8:12 pm #

    Vladimir Putin is linked to close to $2 billion via secret offshore deals and vast loans in the Panama Papers.

    Putin is Russia mafia, a crook, a thief, an enemy of the Russian people who sends his stolen money out of the country to Panama.

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  91. BackRowHeckler April 16, 2016 at 12:50 am #

    Clinton Campaign Theme Song

    ‘I Like Big Butts’

    by Sir Mix-A-Lot

    Played before and after an event …

    Now there’s an American Classic.

    brh

  92. BackRowHeckler April 16, 2016 at 12:59 am #

    The song’s official name,

    ‘Baby Got Back’

    there’s a great video that could be streamed on a screen behind the candidate, like in a Tennessee Williams play.

    The fans would love it, this synergy of pop culture, art and politics all in one, a winning combination for young and old alike!

    brh

  93. Janos Skorenzy April 16, 2016 at 1:16 am #

    Trump has penned a scathing attack on the lying snakes of the GOP establishment for The Wall Street Journal:

    On Saturday, April 9, Colorado had an “election” without voters. Delegates were chosen on behalf of a presidential nominee, yet the people of Colorado were not able to cast their ballots to say which nominee they preferred.

    A planned vote had been canceled. And one million Republicans in Colorado were sidelined.

    In recent days, something all too predictable has happened: Politicians furiously defended the system. “These are the rules,” we were told over and over again. If the “rules” can be used to block Coloradans from voting on whether they want better trade deals, or stronger borders, or an end to special-interest vote-buying in Congress—well, that’s just the system and we should embrace it.

    Let me ask America a question: How has the “system” been working out for you and your family?

    I, for one, am not interested in defending a system that for decades has served the interest of political parties at the expense of the people. Members of the club—the consultants, the pollsters, the politicians, the pundits and the special interests—grow rich and powerful while the American people grow poorer and more isolated.

    No one forced anyone to cancel the vote in Colorado. Political insiders made a choice to cancel it. And it was the wrong choice.

    Responsible leaders should be shocked by the idea that party officials can simply cancel elections in America if they don’t like what the voters may decide.

    The only antidote to decades of ruinous rule by a small handful of elites is a bold infusion of popular will. On every major issue affecting this country, the people are right and the governing elite are wrong. The elites are wrong on taxes, on the size of government, on trade, on immigration, on foreign policy.

    Why should we trust the people who have made every wrong decision to substitute their will for America’s will in this presidential election?

    Here, I part ways with Sen. Ted Cruz.

    Mr. Cruz has toured the country bragging about his voterless victory in Colorado. For a man who styles himself as a warrior against the establishment (you wouldn’t know it from his list of donors and endorsers), you’d think he would be demanding a vote for Coloradans. Instead, Mr. Cruz is celebrating their disenfranchisement.

    Likewise, Mr. Cruz loudly boasts every time party insiders disenfranchise voters in a congressional district by appointing delegates who will vote the opposite of the expressed will of the people who live in that district.

    That’s because Mr. Cruz has no democratic path to the nomination. He has been mathematically eliminated by the voters.

    While I am self-funding, Mr. Cruz rakes in millions from special interests. Yet despite his financial advantage, Mr. Cruz has won only three primaries outside his home state and trails me by two million votes—a gap that will soon explode even wider. Mr. Cruz loses when people actually get to cast ballots. Voter disenfranchisement is not merely part of the Cruz strategy—it is the Cruz strategy.

    The great irony of this campaign is that the “Washington cartel” that Mr. Cruz rails against is the very group he is relying upon in his voter-nullification scheme.

    My campaign strategy is to win with the voters. Ted Cruz’s campaign strategy is to win despite them.

    What we are seeing now is not a proper use of the rules, but a flagrant abuse of the rules. Delegates are supposed to reflect the decisions of voters, but the system is being rigged by party operatives with “double-agent” delegates who reject the decision of voters.

    The American people can have no faith in such a system. It must be reformed.

    Just as I have said that I will reform our unfair trade, immigration and economic policies that have also been rigged against Americans, so too will I work closely with the chairman of the Republican National Committee and top GOP officials to reform our election policies. Together, we will restore the faith—and the franchise—of the American people.

    We must leave no doubt that voters, not donors, choose the nominee.

    How have we gotten to the point where politicians defend a rigged delegate-selection process with more passion than they have ever defended America’s borders?

    Perhaps it is because politicians care more about securing their private club than about securing their country.

    My campaign will, of course, battle for every last delegate. We will work within the system that exists now, while fighting to have it reformed in the future. But we will do it the right way. My campaign will seek maximum transparency, maximum representation and maximum voter participation.

    We will run a campaign based on empowering voters, not sidelining them.

    Let us take inspiration from patriotic Colorado citizens who have banded together in protest. Let us make Colorado a rallying cry on behalf of all the forgotten people whose desperate pleas have for decades fallen on the deaf ears and closed eyes of our rulers in Washington, D.C.

    The political insiders have had their way for a long time. Let 2016 be remembered as the year the American people finally got theirs.

    • Sticks-of-TNT April 16, 2016 at 1:26 am #

      FANTASTIC!

  94. Q. Shtik April 16, 2016 at 1:38 am #

    Trump has penned a scathing attack – Janos

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

    Correction:

    Trump’s speech writer has penned … etc

    Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

  95. tucsonspur April 16, 2016 at 4:13 am #

    Too bad it had to be Colorado epitomizing the rot in the system. I’d rather Arkansas or Missouri say, not that it really matters.

    Cruz is up from the lube pit, still sticky with grease and now on the bead breaker. He wants to be where the rubber meets the road so to speak, or rather where the delegates “meet” the candidate.

    I never knew that the process was THIS corrupt and convoluted!

    It has to be Trump. He has already done more for this country than many past presidents, even before taking office!

    Hail to the Chief! Hail Trump!

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  96. Cold N. Holefield April 16, 2016 at 9:10 am #

    Sticks said: Can you guys help me understand the basis for your convictions? Janos, I googled “For fear of the Eskimos” and read a related Wikipedia entry, but that just confused me more. Thanks for any assistance you can offer in removing these scales from my eyes.

    I charge extra for scale removal and I don’t do windows. If you want me to fully reveal the mystery that is FincaInTheMountains, you have to subscribe to my service, and you can’t be afforded membership until it’s approved by the committee.

    I like the word Eskimo. It has a nice ring to it. It feels good saying it. It certainly is more pleasurable to say Eskimo than it is to say Caucasian or Borscht. Leave it to the Russians to develop a language that appropriately fits who they are as a people, if they can collectively be called a people. It’s a tough language. It’s harsh. It’s not pleasurable to speak it — instead it’s quite guttural and primal, as though every word and sentence uttered is reflective of a constipated oaf trying to push a massive brick loaf from his abused & eviscerated colon. It’s indicative of the Russian experience — incomprehensibly endeavoring for centuries and/or millennia to sketch out an existence in the context of a wild, forbidding and foreboding natural landscape that deplores its unwelcome presence.

    Maybe sometimes a Russian is just a Russian just as a cigar is sometimes just a cigar, but I doubt it in this case. Highly doubt it. There are many more possibilities of who or what FincaInThe Mountains is than the one scenario you’ve chosen as your strawman, Sticks. FYI, I don’t subscribe to your permutation, but I do like The Americans. It’s cheesy, but a good cheese sandwich, one with a little ham and tomato encased in the gooey melted cheese between two pieces of perfectly buttered bread grilled to a golden brown perfection, is admittedly comfort food for me accompanied by a nice piping hot bowl of homemade tomato soup on a cool crisp Fall afternoon after a bit of leave raking and basic yard clean-up.

    • Cold N. Holefield April 16, 2016 at 10:03 am #

      Of course, there is a way around (there’s always a way around) the exorbitant fee and committee approval. The mystery of FincaInThe Urals can also be resolved by downing no less than 8 oz. (more is better) of quality (it must be quality even though the notion of quality is highly subjective) scotch in a half hour or less and then stare at this image without blinking for at least a half hour (sometimes it takes a little longer) without puking or passing out or stabbing your wife to death because you think she’s Hillary Clinton with a cock down to her knees and she wants you play The Crying Game.

      The Rubber Room

  97. Cold N. Holefield April 16, 2016 at 10:15 am #

    I think this is a great Ted Cruz Campaign Theme Song. We need to get back to Family Values. Without Family, we can never go back to The Good Ol’ Days where Russians were Russians and there was no disputing it.

    Please Don’t Go Topless Mother

  98. FincaInTheMountains April 16, 2016 at 2:47 pm #

    we can never go back to The Good Ol’ Days where Russians were Russians and there was no disputing it == Cold

    I understand your emotional frustration, Cold, that Russians after devastating defeat suffered in the Cold War unexpectedly raising from the ashes again, but you apply any logic to the process you could see that US have nobody to blame for it, but themselves.

    And that is beside the fact that your real competitor at the moment is not Russia, but the remnant of the British Empire that wants to finally take a revenge for humiliation suffered by them at the Bretton Woods conference when the British Pound was finally and completely dethroned from its Olympus and replaced by the paper of their former colony. And that, by the way, was a decisive factor in consequent dismembering of their glorious Empire.

    So now the City is aiming at taking a very lucrative position of being the primary middle-man for all foreign exchange trade between future currency zones that are coming online shortly. And they want a good subject of her Majesty, who just recently renounced his Canadian citizenship (no doubt with consent from the Foreign Office) to run their former colony during the difficult transition time.

    And all that Russians want at the moment, is restoring the rightful influence of the ruble in just the boundaries of the former Soviet Union (mmmm., may be add Eastern Europe and Baltic, and part of ME)

    • Cold N. Holefield April 16, 2016 at 2:51 pm #

      The Crown didn’t disappear or diminish in power, it just changed its color and shape. It shape-shifted West and now wields power via its American levers. You’ve fallen for the ruse if you think it just went away. It only goes away when Civilization goes away.

    • elysianfield April 17, 2016 at 11:40 am #

      Finc,
      Would you care to comment on this article?

      http://tarpley.net/online-books/against-oligarchy/british-financial-warfare/

      It seems Germaine to your current and recently past comments….

      • elysianfield April 17, 2016 at 11:41 am #

        recent

  99. Cold N. Holefield April 16, 2016 at 2:47 pm #

    Let’s not forget Bernie — he needs a Campaign Theme Song too. This is perfect, don’t you agree? It fits Bernie and his campaign like a bikini fit Mama Cass.

    Lick It Before You Stick It

    • Cold N. Holefield April 16, 2016 at 2:56 pm #

      Meaning — Tight Tight Tight Tight Yeah

      • Janos Skorenzy April 17, 2016 at 2:19 am #

        What about cars? And where will we be in the Year 2525, if Man is still alive, if Woman can survive….

  100. FincaInTheMountains April 16, 2016 at 3:26 pm #

    The interests of the Anglo-Saxons in this election campaign in the United States are represented by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz represents the Protestants (in fact they are not Protestants – we are talking about the Church of England clones, which are called Protestants by mistake, or rather by virtue of ideological diversion from the time of Cromwell).

    Bernie Sanders represents the interests of the multinational American people, which we conventionally call union of working and middle class, and Hillary Clinton, in addition to NATO, the EU and Saudi Arabia represents the interests of transnational corporations, which at some point were caught stealing so much that the preservation of the stolen goods, which they believe is their fair earned, is not compatible with the existence of any sane and fiscally responsible government anywhere in the world, but especially in the US, as it inevitably will want to “save capitalism from itself” and put TNKs at the service of US national interests, and not vice versa.

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  101. Pucker April 16, 2016 at 6:09 pm #

    I’m now reading Booker T. Washington’s book “The Negro Problem”. Booker T. seemed to realize that Civilization requires a certain material foundation. So his prescription for the negro was (a) to teach the negro that work is honorable and idleness is shameful; (b) to teach negroes marketable trade skills; and (c) to teach the negro how to save money. Booker T. doesn’t say anything about “White Privilege”.

  102. FincaInTheMountains April 16, 2016 at 8:31 pm #

    Are you wearing a cross, my child?

    https://cont.ws/uploads/pic/2016/4/image%20%28919%29.jpeg

    • pequiste April 17, 2016 at 7:02 pm #

      Frankie was thinking to himself:

      “Sancta Iesu qui sunt magna tormenta!”

  103. FincaInTheMountains April 16, 2016 at 8:52 pm #

    It’s posts like this that make you so hated. == Janos

    Forget but not entirely, and when we are confronted with a work of art which contains some analogue of the events in the World Above, our soul trembles and weeps and this what Aristotle calls catharsis

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA0aWBGqTR4

    Just wondering, I know Vladimir Vysotsky sings in Russian, but could you still feel it?

    • Q. Shtik April 16, 2016 at 10:03 pm #

      Russia’s Got Talent!

  104. FincaInTheMountains April 17, 2016 at 8:33 am #

    Saudi Arabia Warns of Economic Fallout if Congress Passes 9/11 Bill

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/16/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-warns-ofeconomic-fallout-if-congress-passes-9-11-bill.html?_r=0

    Saudi patrons in the US establishment are loosing their positions, and thanks to glorious Western tradition to finish off the looser, American lawyers, lobbyists and congressmen are looking into possibility to profit off the juicy Saudi assets.

    Saudis are showing their teeth, keeping the defense up.

    • Cold N. Holefield April 17, 2016 at 8:55 am #

      You’ve done a good job of appropriately forgetting the word “the” several times in the above passage and typing “loosing” instead of “losing,” but then you blow it by using the adjective “juicy.” Or maybe the “juicy” is for those of us who know and you’re just thumbing your nose at us by using such a giveaway word.

      Janos, that’s enough about “cars” for now. The topic is already boring me and I’m moving on to bigger, better and more pertinent and salient ideas & observations. The pace of play has increased exponentially in recent years. You risk being Left Behind if you dwell on irrelevant topics for too long, and everything is increasingly irrelevant after a few days, or a few months at most, these days. The name of The Game is not to win or lose, it’s to stay in The Game, and to stay in The Game you must remain relevant and avoid at all costs being Left Behind. That advice is graciously free of charge because it isn’t mine to own and exploit.

  105. FincaInTheMountains April 17, 2016 at 8:50 am #

    Regardless of what caused the destruction of a “special relationship” between US and UK, but the resultant of all forces acting on the UK is now a need to review its policy towards Islam in the last 100 years at least, since Islamism is out of control of British Intelligence Service and represents an existential danger to the very Anglo-Saxon world which had created it more than a hundred years ago.

    But Hitler also bombed London and occupied France, in spite of the Munich Agreement. It also is the subject of secret negotiations between the elite groups that face the need to stop the presumptuous witch, who apparently imagined herself the Antichrist, and completely lost her marbles.

    But a century-old policy can not be abolished by an Act of Parliament or by the decree of the Queen; at least it is necessary to offer an alternative. And here it comes, in the book “Secret of Shakespeare”. Firstly the author Martin Lings undoubtedly symbolizes the ability of the UK citizens to understand and appreciate the Sufi Islam, and secondly it represents the ability of the Muslims to appreciate and understand the British culture, and thirdly this book for the British themselves represents a return to the traditional British culture, as an example of the EU has shown that it is impossible to assimilate other cultures into a cultural vacuum.

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    • Cold N. Holefield April 17, 2016 at 9:04 am #

      Moscow on the Hudson

      You’re Robin Williams and I’m the big guy in the hat. If you’re not already in Moscow, go back. Take Dmitry with you. Otherwise, assimilate like all the rest of us. We’re tired of all the whining and boasting.

      • wpa_ccc April 17, 2016 at 10:02 am #

        Cold, don’t feed the trolls. You are battling with a hyperposting asoka sock puppet.

        • Cold N. Holefield April 17, 2016 at 10:33 am #

          I hate for anyone to starve in the land of plenty.

          • wpa_ccc April 17, 2016 at 10:51 am #

            Bill O’Reilley thinks Bernie can beat Hillary in NY.

  106. Cold N. Holefield April 17, 2016 at 10:31 am #

    Janos said: And where will we be in the Year 2525, if Man is still alive, if Woman can survive….

    Uploaded, if the Technological Ark can be built in time. Well, not us as in you and I. We’ll be turned back to dust and reconstituted in another form many times over by then, but for the few special ones, the ones who make it onto The Ark, they’ll find out soon enough The Ark is not a bridge to the next level of evolution but rather a pathway to a nightmare from which there will be no escape. And that inevitable outcome makes me smile like I smiled as a a child on the first Christmas I can remember.

  107. FincaInTheMountains April 17, 2016 at 11:14 am #

    Tuesday’s vote seems now will have a very little impact on anything.

    Immediately after the debate with Hillary Clinton Bernie Sanders for three days before the “decisive” primaries in New York, instead of spending time on campaign rallies flew to Rome to speak with Pope.

    Moreover, as a Jew he restrained from kissing the Pope’s shoe, but had 5 minutes to discuss a lot of questions from global warming to the general crisis of capitalism while giving Trump the opportunity to practice his wit.

    But this is not surprising, because Bernie and Pope are completely on the same page. Our current Pope is as red as a radish, and began his reign with a manifesto that not only Bernie Sanders could subscribe to, but Fidel Castro in his younger years.

    Meanwhile Cruz in Wyoming took all delegates except one for Kasich and one for Trump, so they wouldn’t cry.

    Finito la Commedia

    Russia now needs to urgently translate into English and show in the US “The Wedding in Malinovka” movie.

    It seems that the main secret of Shakespeare is that this fall Bernie Sanders will compete against Ted Cruz!

    Poor Trump!!! Truth be told, he gets a comforting contract for the production of silver bullets smelted from JFK silver half-dollars for the US National Guard, New York and Texas Police. So Hillary, too, will not suffer.

  108. Cold N. Holefield April 17, 2016 at 11:15 am #

    wpa, sans the dirty-dealing machinations of the DNC and its army of sycophantic apparatchiks, Bernie would be beating Hillary just as handily as BHO was beating Hillary at this point eight years prior. But Bernie has never had the endorsement of the Democrat Establishment. Note I say “Democrat” and not the customary “Democratic.” The Democrat Party is anything but democratic, so it’s not worthy of that adjective.

    Bernie & Trump, whether they’re cognizant of it or not, are there to make it look good. To make it look like a True Horse Race. To make it a media spectacle. But they are not ordained and The Establishment cannot afford to leave its vested interests to the capricious and whimsical ideals of two Loose Cannons. Therefore, neither will represent their party in the general election because neither has a party. Neither will be the respective nominee of their adopted party. That should be clear to you now. It’s not what you want, but rather what will be, and the two are hardly ever the same, if ever.

    • Q. Shtik April 17, 2016 at 12:21 pm #

      the capricious and whimsical ideals of two Loose Cannons. – Cold

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

      Lose Cannons. – Finca

      • FincaInTheMountains April 17, 2016 at 1:17 pm #

        loose cannons sink ships – Mr.Q

  109. wpa_ccc April 17, 2016 at 1:06 pm #

    “Note I say “Democrat” and not the customary “Democratic.” The Democrat Party is anything but democratic, so it’s not worthy of that adjective.” –Cold

    Yes, Cold, you are lock-step with Rush Limbaugh and the RNC who have been using “Democrat” since 1994. Congratuations.

    But if you look at the facts, the Democratic Party is the most democratic party, i.e., representative of the American population.

    There are a total of 81 minorities that are Democrats in both houses combined and 16 that are Republicans. The 114th Congress also has 79 Democratic women and 29 Republican women. The Democratic Party more accurately reflects America.

    Your use of “Democrat Party” makes you a good Republican, faithful to Republican talking points, but it is not correct usage of the word.

  110. barbisbest April 17, 2016 at 2:39 pm #

    It seems indicative of a Kim Kardashian fixation. Ms. Kerdashian is a corporation. Like Hillary. Which is a segue way to, did ya hear the one about the 10 corporations that have 1.3 trillion in offshore accounts that they didn’t pay all that much tax on. You don’t hear that on the media. Funny right there. Bravo to the people with the Democracy Spring at the capitol. You are celebrity. Don’t hear that on any of the mains either.

    What were the words of Phil Collins, the land of illusion and not enough love to go round.

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  111. barbisbest April 17, 2016 at 2:44 pm #

    When you say corporatist whore, you owe the whores of the world an apology. That was bad.

  112. BackRowHeckler April 17, 2016 at 11:36 pm #

    Malthus you say don’t waste your time commenting on what’s happening on campus but that’s where the revolution is cooking up right now, a revolution of the weak, the hopeless, the pathetic and the clueless. Take for example at the University of Hartford last night … a coupla of Gangstas from Hartford’s North End paid the campus a visit, and not a friendly one. Its not far, you can steal a car Park Street and be at UofH in about 10 minutes. It was at 2:00 am so these Gangstas were not interested in accessing the schools cultural and intellectual offerings, no, they showed up with the idea of not ‘micro aggression’, but ‘macro aggression’, armed as they were with a knife and semi auto, and had no problem invading ‘safe space’ inside the dorm in search of swag, cellphones, cash, coeds, and reefer. One fool resisted and was pounded bloody. Police are on the lookout, but, considering the complexion of the criminals (which you had to read very carefully to discover, that’s how cleverly the story was written) … who knows, perhaps its a good time for groveling and apologies, and a ‘conversation’ about white privilege. would that surprise you?

    brh

  113. FincaInTheMountains April 18, 2016 at 4:32 am #

    Video of the famous British linguist David Crystal and his son Ben, who explained and showed that rhyme and rhythm in the verses of Shakespeare exist and correspond to the meaning of the verse only in a language spoken by Shakespeare. In modern English, they disappear.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s

    Original Pronunciation – Hamlet – To Be, or not to be… – Ben Crystal

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYiYd9RcK5M

    • FincaInTheMountains April 18, 2016 at 4:39 am #

      For comparison Beowulf in Old English which in the 7th century was spoken by pagan Germanic tribes of Angles and Saxons when they invaded the British Isles, inhabited by the Christian Celts, whose leader was King Arthur.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzmmPRG4smU

  114. FincaInTheMountains April 18, 2016 at 4:50 am #

    Migrants and refugees from the Middle East and North Africa staged a mass brawl at the station “Stalingrad” metro station in Paris

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3543237/Video-Stalingrad-Metro-Paris-shows-violent-clashes-erupt-migrant-camp.html

    …it is impossible to assimilate other cultures into a cultural vacuum

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