JHK’s Three-Act Play
Those Panglossians around the USA awaiting something like an election in Egypt are going to be disappointed. What’s going on in the streets of Cairo right now is an Egyptian election – minus the American-style trappings of corporate grift , scripted “debates,” and polling places that make our elections so satisfying.
Many here in the dreamland of Happy Motoring and Cheez Wiz are asking themselves why President Obama is waffling about the obvious tides of “change” now lapping over the ancient Kingdom on the Nile. How can he not believe in it? Why isn’t Mr. O out there in front with a bloody bandage around his head, cheerleading for the street fighters? If you lay aside the subtleties, the answer is simple: nothing beyond the status quo of recent years is good news for America.
For one thing, only people paid to flap their gums on Larry Kudlow’s nightly CNBC show, and children under nine years old, believe that anything like “democracy and freedom” will arise out of a street revolt in this region of the world. Sure, the opening acts of an historic event like this bring on mass intoxication that the Shining City or the Kingdom of Heaven or some other ideal disposition of things is at hand. There may even be an intermezzo of civil factional interplay, as we saw in Iran thirty years ago, with figures like Shapour Bakhtiar, Mehdi Bazargan, and Abolhassan Banisadr revolving through the turnstile of politics. It doesn’t take long for the turnstile to turn into a meat grinder, and it doesn’t take much vision to see all the things that can go wrong when that happens in that part of the world.
Before I go any further, I don’t want to be misunderstood by eager misunderstanders. In my view, President Mubarak has about as much chance of sticking around his presidential palace another fortnight as a bluebottle fly has of conducting the next Easter mass at the Vatican. Mubarak’s resistance to that message prompts one to wonder: what is it with these old despots that they can’t manage some sort of orderly timely transition – even if they handpick the successor dude.? There must be a few capable younger replacement despots in a country that large (around 80 million). Why does it always have to come to this?
For the answer to that abiding mystery I can only commend you to the works of Gabriel García Márquez. Who else really knows what winds of confusion blow through the minds of old men in realms of power? But, on the “plus side,” as they say in American positive thinking circles, the old bastard did manage to keep the peace for three decades at his end of things in the world’s premier political hot-spot. This is truly one of the unsung miracles of the age we’re living in. Of course, with Mubarak pulled down, all bets on this would be off.
At the moment, Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a seemingly rational, capable fellow of unquestioned gravitas is angling to replace Mubarak. By declaring his intentions, ElBaradei has already crossed some kind of line in the sand that, under less fateful circumstances, would get his ass tossed in a crocodile pit faster than you could recite an incantation from the Scroll of Thoth. But these are extraordinary moments.
More troubling is ElBaradei’s flirtation with the Muslim Brotherhood, a venerable mostly underground opposition with a not altogether trustworthy agenda where the USA, and the OECD West generally, are concerned. Whatever the MB represents – and I don’t think even the Arab Desk nerds at the State Department are even quite sure – there’s enough chance that it includes mischief like promoting a Sharia state, inciting mischief through Hamas, supporting uprisings in other key Muslim nations, and egging on new, unwelcome disorders in a region that the stability of the world hinges on these days.
The key to all that is oil, of course, and mainly the oil of Saudi Arabia. King Abdullah there is at least 86 years old and in poor health. Crown Prince Sultan, his successor, isn’t much younger. If ever a country was ripe for a political flipping it is this shaky kingdom. Everyone from the White House to Foggy Bottom to Langley, Virginia, is probably messing his/her pants this week wondering how much longer the lid can be kept on that joint.
To return to an earlier theme, what should amaze us now in the unraveling of this region, is how remarkable and long the recent era of stability lasted. Meaning, most of all, how reliable those tanker shipments of oil have been moving through the Straits of Hormuz and the Suez Canal to their destinations in the lands of the Crusaders (and their younger kin in the New World). To put it pretty starkly, the so-called developed world can’t keep its act together more than a week without that steady mainline on Arabian oil, even though it doesn’t represent most of the oil traded in the world. The margins are too thin. There’s no wiggle room, really, especially for us, in our kingdom of freeways. We lose ten percent of our oil supply and that’s all she wrote for business as usual around here. I’ll put it even more starkly: we can’t afford to let this shit get out of hand for a New York minute.
But it’s not really up to us, no matter how many times Hillary Clinton says “uh,” through her tightly pursed lips. And Barack Obama is kicking back like everybody else watching things beyond our control spin out on cable TV. Remember something else: these uproars in the Middle East are only the first stirrings of political reaction to coming scarcity of key world resources, especially grain crops, which have never been in such short supply in modern times. And that part of this problem that isn’t due to sheer population overshoot, is almost certainly a result of climate change – which many idiots in the US congress refuse to acknowledge out of sheer tenacious stupidity.
A word or two about last week’s State of the Union speech. The platitudes were nearly too painful to bear: techno-magic and a zillion engineering PhDs will keeps us at the zenith of historic wonderfulness. Has anyone been to Youngstown, Ohio, recently? We’re so full of shit about ourselves, our true condition, and our prospects, that you can see it through our eyeballs. I did, however, mutter a prayer of thanks that Mr. Obama did not act out the mortifying ritual (first established by R. Reagan) of introducing the various role models, heroes, and exemplars installed up in the gallery. We have enough award shows in this country, and it’s the horror-inducing season for it – just as the world is flying apart at the seams.
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First!
Thanks JHK, great column this week. For some soundtrack:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iGHgjOHyN8
spot on!
Egypt has a 6,000 year history of Monarchy, including Mubarak, Sadat, Nasser, and back as far as recorded history. Not a shred of Democracy. The American push for universal Democracy is looking ridiculous in Afghanistan, and absurd in Egypt.
I fear you are right, I hope you are wrong.
So the question is: when Saudi Arabia inevitably begins to come apart at the seams, will the USA fly in troops and equipment to help the existing regime hang on? The reaction in the Muslim world to such an intervention would be swift and savage. Or… do we sit back and hope for the best? Neither choice is particularly appealing, but make no mistake: that crossroads approaches.
Great column this week JHK!
The most robust looting occurs in the final years of dictatorship in return for years of “service.” You can be sure US banks (GS) have been there all along supporting “financial innovation”. Our political system enjoys an even greater degree of innovation (bribes) that makes Egypt look tame.
Shouldn’t you be like uhh, writing about the SUPERBOWL!?!? It is next SUNDAY!!! GO STEELERS!
I’m ashamed but I took an airplane ride late last night. Flying over cities of lights looked like giant constellations of stars. I couldn’t stop imagining them all just going dark…soon. The view at ~20,000 feet is the best perspective I’ve had lately of how fucked we really may be.
Enjoy your breathes…
PUSH ON. DO GOOD. KEEP SMILING.
“Has anyone been to Youngstown, Ohio, recently? ”
Yeah, as a matter of fact I was there yesterday. Youngstown has been down for so long that it is finally coming back. There is actually a steel mill currently under construction on the grounds of some of the formerly shuttered steel mills of days gone by. The product from this mill will be tubing for the Marcellus Shale play that is underway to the West of Youngstown. The natural gas from the Marcellus shale is said to represent roughly 100 years worth of present usage.
Additionally, the Chevy Cruz, being assembled at the Lordstown plant, a suburb of Youngstown, is said to be of “unexpected refinement with a quality interior.”
Have you been to Youngstown lately? Were you wearing your glasses?
One more thing- these are likely food riots as much as anything else. Few people love their bread as much as Egyptians, and with the stresses on wheat crops these days, it’s not surprising to see something crack.
Good insight on this, Jim.
It is really time to get the body in shape, calm the mind, and be ready to adapt to the coming changes.
“These uproars in the Middle East are only the first stirrings of political reaction to a scarcity of key world resources, especially grain crops”
I for one am glad not to be in a city where, once chaos kicks in, I don’t think all these nice Transition Towners will be able to spread the word fast enough. Fifty people or so, mostly Boomers, showed up last night (in a city of 115,000) for a peak oil talk by a prominent member of the movement. The message just hasn’t spread.
Hunkering down with my friends in the sticks it’s starting to feel like I made the right move in 2005. If the truck stops coming to stock the grocery store twice a week, I won’t have been depending on stuff that comes in packages.
Lynn
http://www.10in10diet.com/
For a small footprint and a small grocery bill
“It is really time to get the body in shape, calm the mind, and be ready to adapt to the coming changes.”
Of course when one is on the dole, one has time to get “calm and in shape”.
Austin Goolsbee, the President’s chief economic advisor, appeared at a Ways & Means Committee hearing on Wednesday. The repubs wanted to make their sorry case that “Obamacare’ was a jobs killer. Regardless, Goolsbee was asked by a Nevada Republican why Nevada’s unemployment rate is 15.4%. Goolsbee stumbled then said something about a nationwide economic downturn. Not a mention that Las Vegas is particularly vulnerable to high energy prices. If Goolsbee doesn’t have a clue, neither does Obama!
The people in the street are yelling about freedom and getting rid of Mubarak, hoping desperately for an epiphany, a catharsis, or both. I wonder, however, why we don’t hear screams of “bread, bread, bread”. Our media seems incapable of drilling down more deeply than the rantings of the crowd.
Today, the U.S. market is up, so I guess what happens in that part of the world doesn’t make much difference.
I have followed CNN and MSNBC pretty closely and have yet to hear an analysis which recognizes the issues of global warming or peak oil. I guess everything that happens is just a freak event, unattached to anything of substance here on planet earth.
“The repubs wanted to make their sorry case that “Obamacare’ was a jobs killer. ”
And you think Goolsbee doesn’t have a clue?
“I have followed CNN and MSNBC pretty closely and have yet to hear an analysis which recognizes the issues of global warming or peak oil.”
I’m guessing peak oil will take care of global warming, so you can relax now. If you want the best coverage of what is occuring in Egypt, you really must tune in Aljazeera TV via the internet. Their coverage is excellent but don’t for a moment think that anyone on that network has any better idea as to how Egypt will play out.
Well it’s so unpredictable, even a week ago,
Egypt wasn’t mentioned.
It’s about food. That’s how the French
revolution started, the subsidized bread
ran short. We are taken by surprise because
we are well-fed.
Under the “Be Careful What You Wish For” category:
“As we sit glued to Al-Jazeera watching authority crumble in the cultural and political capital of the Arab world, exhilaration can turn quickly to foreboding.
This is nothing like the fall of the Berlin Wall. The triumph of secular democracy was hardly in doubt in central Europe. Whatever the mix of aspirations of those on the streets of Cairo, such uprisings are easy prey for tight-knit organizations – known in the revolutionary lexicon as Leninist vanguard parties.
In Egypt this means the Muslim Brotherhood, whether or not Nobel laureate Mohammed El Baradei ever served as figleaf. The Brotherhood is of course a different kettle of fish from Iran’s Ayatollahs; and Turkey shows that an ‘Islamic leaning’ government can be part of the liberal world – though Turkish premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan once let slip that democracy was a tram “you ride until you arrive at your destination, then you step off.”
full article here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8291470/Egypt-and-Tunisia-usher-in-the-new-era-of-global-food-revolutions.html
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/bamer.htm
The sea-changing meme inflicted upon America by POTUS Obama’s State of the Union Address was “salmon,”
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/28/133211131/the-state-of-the-union-in-your-words
There is no freeze-dried horde of stolen techno-Nazis to be rehydrated, then eager to save America from its enemies. Rather than foster brilliance we allocate for its suppression: social promotion, diversity, and the psycho-drugging of any “aggressive” male child.
Obamanation is poster boy of the 18th century educated man – somebody carefully, elegantly, wholly ignorant of the fingernail-dirtying realities of empirical reality. America will not drown in water or perish fire. America will smother in nostalgia and paperwork.
“So the question is: when Saudi Arabia inevitably begins to come apart at the seams, will the USA fly in troops and equipment to help the existing regime hang on?”
“Groton Guard [Connecticut] detachment is heading to Egypt”
“…the subsidized bread ran short.”
Well let them eat cake.
Great article Jim.
I loved this part: “a result of climate change – which many idiots in the US congress refuse to acknowledge out of sheer obdurate stupidity.”
BTW, the second video you did with Max was also very good.
Not sure what your point is here.
Obamacare care may or may not cost jobs. For sure it is such a convoluted mess, who can tell? I have thought long and hard about health care reform and believe that a single payer system would save the most money. For those who cry socialism, our nation’s health care system is already financed to great extent by government and it is grossly inefficient. For those who claim that other single payers systems around the world don’t work well, I say let’s not assume that we can’t look at those problems and solve them. We are after all an exceptional nation.
“To return to an earlier theme, what should amaze us now in the unraveling of this region is how remarkable and long the recent era of stability lasted. Meaning, most of all, how reliable those tanker shipments of oil have been moving through the Straits of Hormuz and the Suez Canal to their destinations in the lands of the Crusaders (and their younger kin in the New World).” -JHK
======================
That has always been a wonderment to me, but I guess as we get some peeks behind the “leadership” curtain (where the massive gouts of filthy lucre are pumped), we begin to get some rough ideas! ;o)
Whew! These are con games with the very highest stakes of all. How long will the shipments continue once the dollar standard is removed from the black blood of the Empire? As you say, we’re just observers of this particular clusterfuck, and I do believe that the meddlers are finally going to be asked to kindly get the fuck out. (It is devoutly to be wished, at any rate.)
…And how many other dominoes need to fall before there’s not enough promises/lucre to bribe the new crop of despots longing for a collection of villas and unveiled wimmenz in the South of France?
Great outline of the corner that [by reflection] we’ve managed to paint ourselves in. Thanks for a “proper” re-focusing.
The url for the “Groton Guard” article is
http://www.theday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20110124%2FNWS09%2F301249955%2F-1%2Fnws
Wealth disparity and a lack of political rights are growing interrelated problems. Starting yesterday, even the Chinese government decided to cut off reports of the Egyptian revolt. With the exception of a covey of billionaires, the vast majority of people in almost every country are tolerated only if they display impeccable table manners.
We certainly wouldn’t tolerate a child who had access to a nuclear arsenal. Why then should we tolerate idiots who’ve acquired access to billions?
Isn’t it time we decided to treat selfish billionaires and those loyal to them in the same manner we’d treat spoiled children? Perhaps it’s time for a mass “Reeducation”; one in which those who cavalierly oppress the majority are sent to cultivate beets in the frozen earth of places like Montana with their bare hands?
http://www.gwabert.com/
Wrong analysis: it is not resource scarcity, it is millions of poor guys and gals not having a simple job, even just paying a few hundred dollars a month, and a cheapo house to rent, so that they can just live on their own, start a family, slowly create some kind of life for themselves.
I think a 500 dollars a month salary, with a rent of about 100 dollars could already be a good start, for a 2 bedroom house with a decent kitchen and parlor, for a young couple.
But it seems like nearly impossible in the Middle East for millions, and in may other parts of the world because of the same old BS on “being competitive”, “being innovative”, “more education” and all.
These are exactly the places that need millions of government – private jobs hiring millions, and millions of high quality homes built for rent.
Very simple, but impossible (not even in the west is it possible anymore) because of a primitive – cave man mentality that doesn’t recognize that we now live in excess capacity – automatic economies that need very little work to deliver all production, hence the jobs must be given away – or in alternative free salaries (what they call unemployment in the US and EU, and food stamps…).
“ By declaring his intentions, ElBaradei has already crossed some kind of line in the sand that, under less fateful circumstances, would get his ass tossed in a crocodile pit faster than you could recite an incantation from the Scroll of Thoth.”
Despite the severity of the overall message, I sometimes have to stop and enjoy the word-images rolling around my skull…and then have a good laugh!
I have no doubts that the banksters have gotten their mitts into Egypt like everywhere else they can but we know for sure that the $1.5-2 Billion
annual “aid” to Egypt has gone to the military.
Is it time to redirect this to solar energy arrays in the desert?
Even if such projects are no panacea for peak oil
they have a much better shot than another 1,000
oil-guzzling Abrams tanks…
the US Empire is crumbling one way or the other…
And by the by, a certain Mr. Beck, has been suggesting for months that it might be prudent for Americans to put up a little food in the larder. He was laughed at by all those in the know as being alarmist. And now those same geniuses what to attribute Egypt’s troubles to food shortages? Go fucking figure.
We are all just 12 meals away from anarchy. This is no time to join the masses punting down the River DeNial hoping there’s a stocked 7-11 around the corner.
So much bad faith in this week’s post. I’m celebrating what is happening in Egypt: a bid for human freedom, an uprising by a long-repressed people. Who is with me?
Interesting perspective from Chris Hedges:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/31-0
Pretty good post, as usual. Maybe a bit deterministic in terms of predicting awful outcomes? No doubt there will be blood (already has been plenty…), but things are changing so rapidly and in such intense causal inter connections with the resource crises, the sclerosis of the empire, the information revolution, and SO MANY other factors, as Yogi said “Predictions are dangerous, especially when they involve the future…”
In the last month an a half, right in front of our eyes, a petty, routine, barely noticeable act of local tyranny in an overlooked imperial backwater exploded into a grassroots revolutionary situation in one of the western world’s most critical, vulnerable and oldest societies, with earth-shaking potential implications for the empire.
“On December 17, Mohammed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old unemployed graduate in the central Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, set himself on fire in an attempt to commit suicide. Earlier in the day, police officers took away his stand and confiscated the fruits and vegetables he was selling because he lacked a permit. When he tried to complain to government officials that he was unemployed and that this was his only means of survival, he was mocked, insulted and beaten by the police. He died 19 days later in the midst of the uprising.
Bouazizi’s act of desperation set off the public’s boiling frustration over living standards, corruption and lack of political freedom and human rights. For the next four weeks, his self-immolation sparked demonstrations in which protesters burned tires and chanted slogans demanding jobs and freedom. Protests soon spread all over the country including its capital, Tunis.
The first reaction by the regime was to clamp down and use brutal force including beatings, tear gas, and live ammunition. The more ruthless tactics the security forces employed, the more people got angry and took to the streets. On Dec. 28 the president gave his first speech claiming that the protests were organized by a “minority of extremists and terrorists” and that the law would be applied “in all firmness” to punish protesters.
However, by the start of the New Year tens of thousands of people, joined by labor unions, students, lawyers, professional syndicates, and other opposition groups, were demonstrating in over a dozen cities. By the end of the week, labor unions called for commercial strikes across the country, while 8,000 lawyers went on strike, bringing the entire judiciary system to an immediate halt. …
The former U.S. Ambassador in Tunis, Robert Godec, in a cable to his bosses in Washington, dated July 17, 2009, recently made public by Wikileaks, he stated with regard to the political elites: “they rely on the police for control and focus on preserving power. And, corruption in the inner circle is growing. Even average Tunisians are now keenly aware of it, and the chorus of complaints is rising.”
Even when the U.S. Congress approved millions of dollars in military aid for Tunisia last year, it noted “restrictions on political freedom, the use of torture, imprisonment of dissidents, and persecution of journalists and human rights defenders.”
Yet, ever since he seized power in 1987, Ben Ali counted on the support of the West to maintain his grip on the country. Indeed, Gen. Ben Ali was the product of the French Military Academy and the U.S. Army School at Ft. Bliss, TX. He also completed his intelligence and military security training at Ft. Holabird, MD.
Since he had spent most of his career as a military intelligence and security officer, he developed, over the years, close relationships with western intelligence agencies, especially the CIA, as well as the French and other NATO intelligence services. …
In 1999 Fulvio Martini, former head of Italian military secret service SISMI, declared to a parliamentary committee that “In 1985-1987, we (in NATO) organized a kind of golpe (i.e. coup d’etat) in Tunisia, putting president Ben Ali as head of state, replacing Burghuiba,” in reference to the first president of Tunisia. … since Ben Ali became president, the U.S. military delivered $350 million in military hardware to his regime. As recently as last year, the Obama administration asked Congress to approve a $282 million sale of more military equipment to help the security agencies maintain control over the population. …
January 14, 2011 has indeed become a watershed date in the modern history of the Arab World. Already, about a dozen would-be martyrs have attempted suicide by setting themselves ablaze in public protest of political repression and economic corruption, in Egypt, Algeria and Mauritania. Opposition movements have already led protests praising the Tunisian uprising and protesting their governments’ repressive policies and corruption in many Arab countries, including Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, Libya, Yemen, and the Sudan.” – Esam Al-Amin, 1/19/11
(http://www.counterpunch.org/amin01192011.html)
At the risk of seeming ridiculous, it reminds one of the reported historical incident around 2000 years ago, in which an obscure rabbi was crucified in Jerusalem by the Roman Empire, and a religion (loosely?) based on his teachings grew to be the dominant spiritual tradition in the modern western world…
Who says turning water into wine and raising the dead are miracles? Any lessons here about the nature and scope of change?
Turning from Esam Al-Amin’s account of the Tunisian match-strike, check out Prof. Gary Leupp’s analysis (even better than Kunstler’s in this case?)of the Egyptian inferno:
A Very Fine Thing
The Egyptian Revolution
By GARY LEUPP
January 28, 2011, Day of Rage.
I’m watching live coverage of the Egyptian revolution on Al-Jazeera TV. Cairo is swarming with hundreds of thousands, defying the curfew, hurling stones at the police. The images recall the Palestinian youth waging their Intifadas. The National Democratic Party headquarters is in flames. Downtown Suez has been taken over by the people, two police stations torched. The security forces are out in strength and shooting into crowds. But the people have lost their fear.
Reporters and commentators on Al-Jazeera and other channels have no choice but to note that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is widely hated, and that those in the street are seeking freedom from a dictatorship. But they also keep saying “The situation is getting worse.”
Worse?
I think of Mao Zedong’s response to critics of peasant rebellion in China in 1927. He noted that “even progressive people” saw uprisings as “terrible.” “But it’s not terrible,” he declared. “It is anything but ‘terrible.’ It’s fine!”
Watching the live coverage, I see the people of Egypt, fed up with their oppression, and inspired by the revolution in Tunisia, doing something very, very fine. It is inspiring. It is profoundly hopeful.
The Obama administration line (as summarized by Joe Biden, interviewed by Jim Lehrer on PBS), can be summarized as follows: Egyptians have the right to protest. Many are middle class folks, with legitimate concerns. But we should not refer to Mubarak as a dictator. It’s not time for him to go. He has been a key ally of the U.S. and Israel, in the “Middle East peace process” and the War on Terror. Egypt is dissimilar to Tunisia, and it would be “a stretch” to suggest that a trend is underway. The U.S. should encourage those protesting and Mubarak to talk. Everyone should avoid violence.
The mainstream infotainment media spin can be summarized like this: The “unrest” in Egypt puts the U.S. in a difficult position. On the one hand Mubarak has abetted U.S. “national interests” and been Israel’s only Arab ally. (These two are always assumed to be closely linked; the notion that an Arab leader is a friend of the U.S. to the extend that he kisses Israel’s ass is never questioned.) On the other hand, U.S. officials have been saying for years that the Middle East needs “democratic reform.”
This puts in the U.S. in bind, we are told. The U.S. confronts a “dilemma.” The talking heads depict the U.S. as somehow a victim in this situation. (Isn’t it terrible, they’re implying, that the Egyptian people by their militancy in favor of supposed U.S. ideals are trying to topple the USA’s best friend in the Arab world? What a headache to have to deal with!)
Seems to me however that this is another of those instances of chickens coming home to roost.
The U.S. has supported Mubarak primarily in appreciation for his stance towards Israel. (The mainstream media is referring to him as an “ally” of Israel.) It’s not really because he’s been a “partner in the peace process”—because there is no real peace process. Relentless Israeli settlement activity on Palestinian land supported by the Lobby in the U.S. has insured that.
Wikileaks documents indicate that Mubarak has been content for the “process” to lag indefinitely so that he could represent himself as the vital Arab middleman while enjoying two billion in U.S. military aid per year. But Palestinians hate him for cooperating with the demonization of democratically elected Hamas and the embargo imposed on Gaza. And Egyptians hate him for, among many other things, betraying their Palestinian brothers and sisters.
Rather, the U.S. has supported Mubarak because he’s provided an Arab fig leaf for the unequivocal support for Israel that the U.S. has provided for decades. U.S. diplomats have, as Wikileaks reveal, at times expressed concern that the dictator might be causing some problems by his “heavy-handed” treatment of dissidents. But this is not a matter of moral indignation, or concern about the lives of Egyptians. It’s nothing more than an expression of concern that his fascistic rule might jeopardize his ability to help U.S.-Israeli policy in the region and keep the Suez Canal open.
And now that brutal rule has caused an explosion. The reaction from U.S. officials and political commentators is, “We never expected this.”
Well surprise, surprise! (These folks were dumbfounded by the Iranian Revolution of 1979 as well. Don’t they understand that people eventually fight back?)
I think of that old Langston Hughes poem:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Egypt is exploding. The deferred dreams of the Arab world are exploding. And even the corporate media acknowledges that the people are jubilant (while warning that none of this might be in “our interest”). But for people with some basic morals, concerned about the happiness of humanity in general, is this not totally fine?
Al-Jazeera shows viewers how U.S. officials are changing the tone of their comments, backing off more and more each day from support of Mubarak. They’re reiterating with increasing emphasis that the demonstrators indeed have legitimacy. (Did these people they just figure this out?) What sheer opportunism!
Obama, always the centrist opportunist wanting to be everybody’s friend, wants to be the Egyptian people’s friend. He showed that in Cairo in 2009. In his celebrated speech to the Muslim world he on the one hand spouted platitudes about U.S. acceptance of Islam and on the other insulted everyone’s intelligence by calling the invasion of Afghanistan a “war of necessity.” He (accurately) described the vicious assault on Iraq as a “war of choice,” but said anything about how those responsible for such a crime ought to be punished. He does not support any investigation that would show how neocon Zionists in his predecessor’s administration faked a case for war that has killed hundreds of thousands of Arabs.
His real message is: the U.S. can lie and kill, and then posture as the moral exemplar (maybe even apologizing slightly when crimes are embarrassingly exposed). Even so, the people of the world are supposed to understand that alignment with the U.S. is the best hope of their best hope.
And now Obama wants the best of both worlds: an ongoing engagement with Mubarak (if he survives), and a hand outstretched to the people of Egypt, tainted by so many other handshakes with so many dictators so far.
Demonstrators in Cairo note that tear gas canisters on the street are marked “Made in USA.” What should they to make of that? Who’s really encouraging their dreams? Who’s caused them to defer them, decade upon decade? It’s the same foe that has caused the deferment of dreams here in this country and around the world.
I learned to say shukran in Cairo. To my friends there now, engaged in this fine, fine battle, I say that now.
Shukran, shukran for inspiring the world, showing that another world might be possible.
Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Religion.
http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp01282011.html
Tom Stephens
jail4banksters@yahoo.com
“We’ve created a whole society with culture and institutions around the idea that people exist to serve the economy. That’s a misplaced priority.” – David Korten
We should be looking at it from the perspective of how we managed to keep the whole collage of ureality believable. The shit is hitting the fan,reality sucks. We don’t have a centre from which to analyze our state of unreality ,and therefore we can only go further into increasing entropy, that is falling apart. The battle will go on with renewed vigour as new villians emerge and the battle for survival intensifies. What boogey man will get you?
The BBC reported the islamist leader has returned to Tunisia after two decades in exile in London. Sudan is splitting, Yemen is rioting,Lebanon is rioting, Jordan is rioting, Syria is watching. These are all countries with no oil and a great deal of poverty. Poverty is also endemic in Saudi Arabia though we in the west wouldn’t know it. Iran is the most stable country in the region, wedged between Afghanistan which is dragging down Pakistan (with our help) and Iraq which is a basket case and wants us out.
And all I read in the paper (I have no TV) is long stories about Westerners planning their evacuations.
We have pushed Turkey away from the west and that brings the new muslim crescent next door to the EU and the Russian spheres of influence in the west.
Golly, I wonder what the Tea Party will make of all this when they calculate that we produce 5 million barrels of oil a day in the US and we consume 18 million. I doubt Hugo Chavez or Nigeria or Indonesia will want to bail us out.
Welcome to the New Crusades! Bring out your Christian cannon fodder.
I’m not yet certain that “human freedom” is what the uprising in Egypt is all about.
I am with you… and I find it offensive that the results of democracy are being categorized as dangerous with negative references to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, based on exaggerated negative stereotypes.
“What’s going on in the streets of Cairo right now is an Egyptian election – minus the American-style trappings of corporate grift, scripted “debates,” and polling places that make our elections so satisfying.” God bless those Egyptians for waking us up and demonstrating exactly what kind of trouble we’re in for here and now, not the near future. Last night’s lead story on the local evening news in Detroit was not some celebrity fuck-up who made a spectacular ass of themselves but the reaction of local Egyptian Americans to the civil unrest in their homeland and the implications this civil unrest could have for the North American Way of Life as we know it, including much higher gas prices and higher unemployment. The CBC’s National reported that oil prices had reached $100 a barrel last night on fears that any prolonged shutdown of the Suez Canal would lead to prolonged energy shortages in the West. The folks in Egypt did us a huge favor by delivering a brutal bitch slap to everybody in North America and waking us up from our dark raptures of celebrity worship.
Shut up dumbass. I told you last week that the ME would be on fire by Spring. You wanted to give my statement the assignation of 6 Freedman units. You are a MORON. For once be silent.
lmfao
comments longer than the article
so let it be written
A couple of points-
The US supported the Muslim Brotherhood as a bulwark against the Arab socialists, just like they supported Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the muhajadeen in Afghanistan.
http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Game-Unleash-Fundamentalist-American/dp/product-description/B00171748C
It is an impudent reversal of the truth to claim that the Muslim Brotherhood is a socialist group.
Obama may not have pointed out heroes in the gallery, but he did make reference to “our children’s” dreams, like that little girl’s, in Tucson. Without mentioning that the little girl’s dreams are pretty much shot down now.
Stopped Clock Man is right twice a day.
Hi Jim
Big doings going on in the world, there is no doubt. Yes, the Egyptians will have to be careful about who fills the power vacuum or they might end up with someone worse than Mubarak, a younger more brutal psychopath raised on those killer video games so popular now.
The question of wether such events will occur in the US seems to be answered in the recent article( can be seen on the What Really Happened website and many others) that reported that inequality is worse in the US than in Egypt, Tunisia, etc…. So folks don’t be surprised to see food riots in say maybe Detroit or a city close to you in the near future.
It’s great to get my Monday dose of reality here with Jim and all his regulars. Take care and tighten the seatbelts, we are on a wild ride!
loveday
The next 48 hours will tell. One mistake by the Egyptian government (on top of all the others) and welcome, world of permanent energy shortages.
The Saudis shut out Facebook some time ago. They have a sense of what’s coming. Robert Baer’s Sleeping with the Devil says it all. Had Abdullah come to power earlier, the kingdom might have had a chance. Now it’s only a matter of time until the third generation of the House of Saud takes power.
And like that pampered and clueless third generation of US Postwar citizens, they’ll blow the bank and wreck their homeland. The saying here is “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.” In currently oil-rich parts of the Middle East, it will be “sand fleas to sand fleas in three generations” as dad’s BMW rots, an empty and burned out shell beside the wreck on the mansion, after the coming civil wars.
When Egypt was Rome’s vassal, she was a grain exporter. How sad that she is not, now, able to feed herself. One can only hope that the Muslim Brotherhood, which runs social services inside the country (maybe they deliver Thanksgiving turkeys, like all good ward heelers do), has learned enough to govern effectively. If not, things will be ugly, very ugly.
Come to think of it, this may not be the year to visit the Holy lands, after all.
Obamacare is costing jobs, including, probably, mine.
But, not to worry. I can simply retrain in IT, because Obamacare is pouring billions into computerizing and centralizing medical records, while cutting billions in patient care money. Hmmm, I wonder why?
We just need to all become computer programmers, in order to be competitive, right?
Cause that’s what a government is for – to train obedient workers for global corporations.
That’s what the Man said, in his speech.
GAbert… Your plan to send plutocrats to Montana to cultivate beets has some merit. But lest you think your idea is novel, I believe the Kmer Rouge under Pol Pot came to the same conclusion about their “elites.” May old Pol was really onto something!
80,000,000 of them! Where did they all come from? I guess they do like sex and more sex even under their burquas and niqabs – which they want to bring back. What a crap-hole that whole country is aside from their pile of rocks and the odd shapely ass under a burqua. It doesn’t matter if it is democratic corrupt or despotic corrupt, the guy and the street is in a bit of a bind. And just wait till there are 100,000,000 of them little beggars. But we don’t need to look at Cairo to see the future, just come to Detroit. Ain’t america grand!
” inequality is worse in the US than in Egypt, Tunisia, etc….”
Oh you mean all those getting three squares a day with big screen TV’s are worse off than those in E, T & etc.? And you believe that?
“It is an impudent reversal of the truth to claim that the Muslim Brotherhood is a socialist group.”
A little article as to the Muslim Brotherhood’s connection to Hiitler:
“As we follow the unfolding story in Egypt, we are torn between hope and fear, hope that democracy will gain a toehold, fear that the fundamentalist Moslem Brothers could take control of Egypt. Perhaps you have heard the Moslem Brothers are the oldest and largest radical Islamic group, the grandfather of Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda.
What you haven’t been told is this: the Moslem Brothers were a small, unpopular group of anti-modern fanatics unable to attract members, until they were adopted by Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich beginning in the 1930s. Under the tutelage of the Third Reich, the Brothers started the modern jihadi movement, complete with a genocidal program against Jews. In the words of Matthias Kuntzel, “The significance of the Brotherhood to Islamism is comparable to that of the Bolshevik Party to communism: It was and remains to this day the ideological reference point and organizational core for all later Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda and Hamas.”
Full article here:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/01/why_we_should_fear_the_moslem.html
not OEO
Last time I checked poverty was the highest it has been in decades in the US and many folks are going hungry. Food stamps really don’t feed folks( currently over 40 million Americans on food stamps) properly they are meant to supplement whatever income a family can come up with to put food on the table, so yeah I believe that.
Also you may want to check out the average salary in the US as compared with the highest salaries, a huge disparity exists there. And that’s not even delving into how many are below the official poverty income line.
Take care
Loveday
When the Berlin wall fell in 91, a whole generation of East Germans who had known nothing for over 30 years but communist “democracy”, looked to West Germany and Bonn welcomed them “home” and a new Germany was born. West Germany wasn’t exactly ready, but we stepped up to the plate and got it done.
Mubarak was in power for 30 years and a whole generation of Egyptians, having known little but suppression, now looks for what’s next.
I believe the world has yet to understand how deep and black the void really is that will begin to show itself over there. It is not a question of what the country could end up being than rather of what the people in it can and can not make of this situation. And Democracy is the last item on this very long list. It hasn’t worked for Iraq so far either. Or Afghanistan. They’re still busy stoning people to death for having emotions.
And, as is usually the case, “God” can be counted on to fill that void quietly, while the rest of the world squabbles like little children over the last piece of candy.
What comes next is civil war and in the end islamic extremism in the form of 90 year old men who claim to have a direct wire with “God”.
What will fill the void when America reaches the point Egypt is at now?
The Mormons? Glenn Beck? Jehova’s Witness? Sarah Palin? Southern Baptist? Roman Catholicism?
What could a whole generation of spoilt, arrogant, raised in excess, ignorant of others, digitized and plugged in to the core, dissasociated but instantly gratified Americans do? I mean besides loot every Big Box store in sight?
Dark days ahead, indeed.
“Last time I checked poverty was the highest it has been in decades…”
Your story has shifted. You were putting poor U.S. citizens on parity with those in “Egypt, Tunisia, Etc”. That is laughable. You are a joke.
Chris Hedges at Common Dreams sums up the situation in Egypt and the Middle East in a nutshell.
I hate to disillusion you, old6699, but it takes resources to provide jobs and homes. When the resources start to run low, the jobs and homes run low too.
“What will fill the void when America reaches the point Egypt is at now?”
That won’t happen because in America Democracy Is NOT the last item on this very long list.
Egypt only shows the ineptitude of our ruling “elite.” For three days there were riots there and none of our media had in their hands a script on what to tell us to think. Then we got the usual mash of “human rights” or the likudnik bomb them to allah garbage we rightwingers are fed.
Folks they have no answers, to anything except to their own little ventures in feather bedding. Nothing whatsoever. Government/media = clueless
Some countries will revert back to their traditional role in as the least developed and backward thinking regions of the world.
Others will UP-Rise.
The problem with installing dictators and arming them so they keep things under control so we can have our oil and go on partying is that when the people of Egypt get fed up with this corrupt scheme we call democracy, the USA gets egg on its face.
The column today seems to reveal JHK as a supporter of these dictatorships, which he appears to feel are necessary to keep the rabble from harming the security of our 51st state, next door to Egypt.
That is disappointing. (I’m referring to Jim complimenting Mubarak for his long term in office. It’s not hard to do when you are your oligarchy rule with an iron fist and have the support of the USA.)
We can’t print money fast enough, nor can we borrow much more from the Chinese, in order to keep our welfare clients in line against the will of their people.
When our country keeps the people of Egypt, Palestine, Tunisia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and even Israel under the control of royalists, military dictators, and religious rightists, the pressure is bound to blow at some point.
Our country is broke and our leaders have made a royal mess while trying to micro-manage the world. Now, things are getting out of hand — Should we be surprised?
Better get ready for the next act of the Long Emergency. This is where it starts to get exciting.
I have spent the past thirty years under Reaganomics but nothing seems to change. We have increased paperwork (now on email – please don’t print this message unless you have to) and a new new new call for education in a system that is producing a product (American workers… that is, us) that is unfocused in what we are supposed to know other than “innovate.” I doubt that the protests in other lands will impact our general trend to the edge of the cliff… however; it is to the edge we march and not off it. It is amazing how long a Long Emergency can take.
My humble rants on our own lack of revolution…
http://www.schwerpunkter.wordpress.com/
I’ve read your overheated article from American Thinker (sic). It amounts to saying that the Egyptian people are too stupid to demand an independent destiny, free from Washington-appointed strongmen. I think you’ll find Egyptians are anything but stupid.
Tell me, NotOEO, do you always let people tell you who to like and who to fear?
[Klaxon sounding] BLaaaaaat!! BLaaaaat!! BLaaaaat!!
WARNING! WARNING! WARNING, Helen!
Do not engage! Repeat, Do not engage!
“Democracy” in the Mid-East will make the price of oil go up? It could also make the price go down, since revolutions and instability will kill off OPEC. Instead of a dozen hypocrite perverts controlling the oil fields, you could end up with hundreds of warlords, each one desperate to get any advantage over the goat-lover next door. Imagine if the only thing standing between you and certain death by slow torture was a crate of anti-tank missiles, and all you had to trade for said missiles was oil. You can understand how the price might drop.
Obamacare is costing jobs, including, probably, mine. – Wage
I guess most of us have been in your shoes. It really sucks. What’s going on, are you hearing rumours?
I suppose management started with stout denials, then they said it’s business as usual, then they said there are no plans for layoffs, then they backed off a bit saying there are no guarantees for anyone, then they started threatening people with immediate dismissal if they don’t shut up and keep their heads down and work, then they announced restructuring of operations, then they said they don’t know if there will be layoffs, then they said they’ll let people know as soon as they can what it means for individuals, then one friday afternoon they start pitching people out the door. I’ll bet this nightmare sounds familiar to most of us.
My wife worked in a large company a while back where one fine day they announced that there would be a new list of qualifications posted for every job in the company, that people would be required to re-apply for their jobs, that anyone could apply for anyone else’s job, that if you don’t meet the posted qualifications then it’s bye bye.
This bit of management psychopathy put the place into absolute turmoil for more than a year. It was pure idiocy. It was also hell for my wife and all the employees. Then these shits wonder why workers aren’t loyal to their employers.
In any case I hope in the end you land on your feet. Dust off the old resume and call up your old references and tell them you might need their good word.
Aw, come on now, o, why not humour 8m, youngster that he is … he does make some interesting, albeit naive, conjectures.
“Tell me, NotOEO, do you always let people tell you who to like and who to fear?”
No, moron. I let history be my guide. A direct association with Hitler tends to give me pause. I’m certain that YOU, on the other hand, could find good reasons in partnering with Adolph.
not OEO
And you my friend are a shining example of Americans lying to themselves about the true state of the country.
By all means drive on.
These Arab uprisings in Egypt, Yemen, Algeria and so forth represent a complete surprise to global political events. This is a 1989 moment, as Jim stated ‘When the Earth shifts’, this is a non-linear event that could not have been predicted even a month ago by anyone.
Zerohedge is indicating that Egypt, a country of 80 million, has less that a week’s inventory of food. Next week the real story will start when the food is exhaused.
Then maybe will see millions of people start to emigrate somewhere else. Won’t that be a sight to watch as millions start disembarking South down the Nile, North across the ocean or by foot into Israel.
Cash said:
Is that the way they do it in white collar world?
I was on my stomach, on the cold wet ground, with my head down a hole, nailing wooden concrete forms, when the boss came up and said “Go pick up your check; it’s your last day.”
It was a Friday afternoon, so there is that in common. It was 3:00 p.m., so I actually got paid for two hours I didn’t work. America is a great place!
There is a specter haunting America, and it is crossing the globe
The money was given to Wall Street, and then a portion of that went into commodities speculation to enrich the wealthy, which pushed those prices ever higher on paper contracts representing more commodities than actually exist.
Now cost inflation is out of hand and revolts are igniting around the globe as a result. This is what we get for not taking back our government right then when the banks demanded to be bailed out!
The fraud that led to this situation won’t stop so it is only a matter of time before riots find their way to our shores. Someone will pay but many of us will suffer first. Best prepare yourselves for a little chaos.
“And you my friend are a shining example of Americans lying to themselves about the true state of the country.”
Hardly. You came on-line braying about how the poor in America have it as bad as the poor in Tunisia and Egypt. That is a lie. Purely and simply a lie. Now you want to call me out regarding how I am lying to myself while at the same time lying to me about the state of our country. You are a self deluded idiot. The silliest kind of idiot, I might add.
“We are one international incident away from being put out-of-business as an advanced civilization.” – JHK, Puke Time, 20 Sept, 2010. That about sums it up…
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2010_10_01_archive.html
“I was on my stomach, on the cold wet ground, with my head down a hole…”
Come on man. We know you head was up your ass.
http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/
Here is the website for the newly formed Public Banking Institute, which lists events by state.
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2010/10/specter-is-haunting-america.html
“80,000,000 of them! Where did they all come from? I guess they do like sex and more sex even under their burquas and niqabs – which they want to bring back.” -J Lee
===================
Hey now, that’s an easy one! “They all” come from a set of very strict rules (imposed by permanently-woody-ed, nasty-minded old authoritarian assholes draped in their [man-made] trappings of godly piety). These rules define women as fucking chattel; quite literally. The rules say that if a man should get any small itching in the dick-region, his wife must “scratch” it by “assuming the position” without any kvetching (thank you very much). …And the quicker the better!
Now, how do we feed all the “results” of these beneficial rules, eh? Quite the quandry, as there’s little left but blasted wilderness to shove ’em towards, while the old woody-sportin’ sum’bitches yell, “God is great; go eat dirt! (And thy children shall eat dirt as well, and they shall be grateful to gawd that they have gawd-given dirt to eat!)”
In which case, history dictates that as an American you can’t be trusted to vote, much less protest on the streets.
Which country resolutely refused to fight Nazism for almost nine years after the Nazis came to power?
Which country approved Hitler as a “moderate” who represented order, anti-Communism, and a favorable investment climate?
Which country increasedinvestment in Germany after Hitler came to power?
Which country’s corporations continued to trade with Germany during the war years, and even demanded sizable compensation for damages inflicted on its German plants by Allied bombing raids?
You guessed it. The good ol’ US. Ancient history. Nobody cares.
“The rules say that if a man should get any small itching in the dick-region, his wife must “scratch” it by “assuming the position” without any kvetching…”
Sounds great to me. Especially the kvetching part.
“Aw, come on now, o, why not humour 8m, youngster that he is … he does make some interesting, albeit naive, conjectures.” -LD
That may be true, BUT, once you get ‘im rolling, he tends to go on… and on… and onnnnnn. ;o)
Muslim Brotherhood:
For more info on see ‘THE LOOMING TOWER’ By Wright.
Its at Amazon for like 10$.
Ive read about Egypt.Very poor and the population has like tripled[?] in JHKs lifetime!
Also on C2C Radio I heard one Andy Goss[?].
he knew all about Obama and why we are not yet like pre WW2 germany with hyperinflation.
Which country, ultimately kicked Hitler’s ass and (for the second time) saved Europe? The good ol’ US, so lick me bro.
Food riots have been going on in Egypt [and elsewhere] for quite some time.
And the tear gas theyre gassed with is …[you guessed it oeo] MADE IN THE USA.
“In which case, history dictates that as an American you can’t be trusted to vote, much less protest on the streets.”
Well, I can be trusted to vote. Every, fucking, single election. And those that don’t? They are FREE to either vote or not vote. If one MUST vote, one does not live in freedom.
An excellent overview this week Mr. K of the current unravelling in the Middle East, which is why I for one always return to this stalwart blog – month after month – for insight just as sharp as this.
A concise well considered take of the reality of what’s going down, mixed with some intelligent foresight too.
I’d only add what ‘Syriana’ the movie portrays, fundamentalism works for the poor starving, unemployed masses in the ME because it promises them a ‘better’ more equal way, as long as you’re a righteous ‘believer’ and will do what it takes to bring the elite oppressors and there Anglo/imperialist friends down…
(This guarantees you suicide-bomber-zealots by the truck load for decades to come)
Perhaps our Arab friends know this, which is why the head of XE (Blackwater) Erik Prince has moved to Abu Dhabi? Always if the price is right, the assets to stave-off collapse can currently still be mustered.
Starving, and devoid of hope and no useful work available are the catalyst ingredients to trigger the same scenarios through all the overpopulate and under mineral resourced nation states, depending on how yours stacks in the collapsing dominoes, chaos order of things…
And as every sharp member of the CFN community knows only too well, at some point we’ll all undergo our ground shift ‘Do the Egyptian’ moment…
The USA much like the UK and all the OECDs have there own unique hourglass playing in the background – those of us not myopic – are all ll caught up with watching the grains run through steadily, accelerating ever faster to the inevitable’ end…
“And the tear gas theyre gassed with is …[you guessed it oeo] MADE IN THE USA.”
Thank god for that. We at least can still manufacture tear gas. Would you rather they be gassed by French or Russian tear gas?
“New York minute.” Every thing can change in a New York Minute, things can get pretty strange.
One day you’re here next day you’re gone.”
DON HENLEY EAGLES
It’s a Fragile World. And is coming Undone seems like, feels like.
Time to Powerdown. Lay low. Help your neighbors and community.
How long before the Suez Canal gets shut down … maybe for good? The things will really get interesting!
Give a tip of the hat to the Soviets too. The way I’ve read it the bulk of the fighting was on the eastern front. I read somewhere a while back (I can’t remember where) that Germany suffered 14 million war casualties in WW2 and 10 million of them were inflicted by the USSR.
And no I’m not an anti American, pro communist dictator hugging, re-writer of history. The communists were butchers, as bad as the Nazis.
So credit to the good old, imperialist, US of A for pissing away millions of man years, trillions of dollars keeping the commies out of western Europe and other parts of the world.
You guys saved Europe but IMO not so much from Hitler as from the Soviets. I think the Russkis could have got rid of the Nazis themselves but, without the Yanks in the West, the Red Army would have rolled straight to the English Channel.
You guys IMO got shafted in the whole deal. Aside from some folks in Eastern Europe and a few other lonely voices, you are getting no appreciation for this valuable service.
Marlin,
Who would benefit from the Suez shutting down? Regardless of who ends up in control in Egypt, they will need money to govern, Traffic on the Suez will have to continue. And Egypt, which practically exists on tourist dollars will have to continue to rely on steady stream of tourists. Order will be reimposed out of necessity.
How long before the Suez Canal gets shut down, unlike 1956, maybe for good this time? Then things will get interesting real fast!
“Give a tip of the hat to the Soviets too.”
I won’t argue this point. Their losses were staggering.
Sg says: “I’m ashamed but I took an airplane ride late last night. Flying over cities of lights looked like giant constellations of stars. I couldn’t stop imagining them all just going dark…soon. The view at ~20,000 feet is the best perspective I’ve had lately of how fucked we really may be.
Enjoy your breathes…”
====================================
Enjoy your hyperventilating
JHK says: “To put it pretty starkly, the so-called developed world can’t keep its act together more than a week without that steady mainline of Arabian oil, even though it doesn’t represent most of the oil traded in the world.”
===============================
Perhaps, but I doubt that the sand kingdom would last long without Western technology and food either. It’s a mutual dependency…..and it doesn’t matter who is in charge they still need the money.
What does IMO stand for?
“What does IMO stand for?”
IN MY OPINION.
NotOEO; True enough, besides I’m Not worried.
The markets up 50, and best of all, FERGY IS ATTENDING THE ROYAL WEDDING!!!
Phew! Now that’s something to fret over.
Good point. And that is essentially why oil will keep flowing from oil producing states. Regardless of who takes over, even if it’s Islamists, they will realize that people have to eat. How else do they stay in power? They have to buy food from food producing countries. How do they pay for it? By selling oil.
As you say order will be reimposed. When all is said and done and the machinations and maneuverings are over and the bodies carted away IMO the new order will look a lot like the old order. Different beards, same old shit. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
You actually watched that?
” IMO the new order will look a lot like the old order.”
The unknown, critical factor is what will the “new order” ‘s stance be regarding Israel? That has the potential of “End Times” repercussions.
It really makes me wonder how some people are going to behave when the shit hits the fan if they can’t even be reasonably civil to each other on an comment board.
Jim, which work of Gabriel García Márquez would you suggest for starters? Thanks.
Then you better be civil. We’ll all be watching you, Helen.
I believe that Dr. Pangloss’s optimism was not so simple-mindedly positive. He just said that it was “the best of all possible worlds,” not that everything that happened was immediately positive. That is why, even through all the pain, deceit, corruption and death, he maintains his view. Candide seems, to me, to be evocative of fatalism rather than optimism. It’s a sort of “it is what it is” for it’s time. It’s just that Voltaire was happy to skewer all blowhards, religion, politics, so as to let people know what the “it” was. So, even if Egypt (and later the entire Mid-East) sinks into a political and literal bloodbath, it still is “the best of all possible worlds,” Cheez Wiz and Happy Motoring included.
Lost,
In case James is too busy, you can’t go wrong with either “One Hundred Years of Solitude” or “Love in the Time of Cholera” .
Also IMHO is In My Humble Opinion. 🙂 that’s for the Humble.
Speaking of acronyms, what is an OECD? Thanks.
IMHO could also be In My Holy Opinion – for the not so humble.
QUESTION:
What is taking place on the street in Egypt, citizens protesting a government that they feel is not responsive to their needs/wishes, is viewed by many on this site as something that is good and noble.
Why should the Tea Party be viewed differently?
Ah, yes, the playbook.
I forget if they started with reassurances, but I think they did.
The old administrator “retired” and they brought in a new business graduate, and started announcing that we now would be run as a business.
One of the first things he did was hold meetings announcing that there would be people coming to the hospital pretending to be patients, going through tests and procedures, and checking us out.
So I asked, “Isn’t that unethical? To treat people who aren’t sick?”
He literally could not understand my point! He answered “No, we pay them”.
“No”, I said. “First of all, do no harm. What if they’re harmed by the treatment”.
He repeated that they were paid well, and then said “I’ve been doing this for years, and only 2 people have been harmed”. (!!!!)
This was my introduction to the new boss, not the same as the old boss. He doesn’t understand the word “ethics”.
Then, the firings began. First all of the department managers, then 2 supervisors, then random people.
I call it terrorism. A few targeted to terrorize the rest.
Then the threats began. And it’s getting ridiculous.
They literally have threatened to fire us if we don’t check boxes on forms.
Two Saturdays ago, I went to a community forum. My old boss is now running for mayor. I said “I thought you didn’t want to be mayor” (long story)
He said, “Things change. You still working?”
Well, you know I went right back to work and reported that to everyone.
Last Wed I went to a computer training class. Someone there pointed out that last year, they started training us, and then gave up.
The trainer said, “We’re not going to give up now. The government is giving us millions of dollars to computerize.”
I, of course, started talking about Big Brother, which baffled the people there who don’t know me, but didn’t surprise the ones who do know me.
http://wagelaborer.blogspot.com/2008/12/health-care-in-america.html
So, they keep telling us that Medicare is cutting money for patient care.
But the money flows for centralized computerized medical records.
Is that ethical?
I am afraid that now matter what leader will be leading Egypt or any other country in the world, they won’t be able to lead people into a bright future of economic abundance and hence will kicked out… eventually. The best would be honesty, tell the people about peak oil, getting ready to get land, have a land reform, resettle the masses, teach mass farming. Honesty would reduce suffering, Groupthink and blind spots increase suffering.
And… yes, Obama’s speech was unbearable… is he really so out of touch. The faster we get the ipod kids into a “seed pod” the better…
Thanks for the list, I just requested all 3 of these books from our local library.
I am already on a list I am sure. being the ‘radical’ that I am, trying to understand things.
OECD
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
You’re welcome!
See Helen, politeness is alive and well on the comment board.
“We’ve created a whole society with culture and institutions around the idea that people exist to serve the economy. That’s a misplaced priority.” – David Korten
You are wrong.
If economy is what feeds us and our children, as it always was and it always will be, we people serve the economy.
Very often in a society of overfed we tend to forget that without eating also the best brain cannot think…
Exactly so – to judge another is to automatically invoke judgement upon oneself. And the average Liberal is an extemely self righteous person with little capacity for introspection. Their proposed “civility” code is just a gag order for others. How are we going to get along after the Fall? We aren’t. The Helens of the World made sure of that along time ago. I can’t wait. Can’t wait.
Wagelaborer,
Don’t tell me YOUR job is in danger. You’re a nurse in an E.R., right? If you’re not safe, nobody is safe. Oy vey!
My sister’s best friend is a highly-regarded expert in the field of autism and lives in Denver. Apparently, Colorado is cutting off support for families with autistic kids starting this summer.
Jen
Oh, yeah, I forgot.
The last two years, they have hired 5 new graduates each summer (who work for much less).
I kept pointing out that we were training our replacements.
Luckily, my job sucks. Not many people are cut out for working in an ER.
So, the first year, they all quit. The second year, all but 2 quit.
Now, (nowhere near graduation) they have hired 10 new nurses! Even the most clueless of my co-workers are starting to wake up.
We were already fully staffed. Now we are told to go home an average of one day a pay period, due to over-staffing.
When people question the boss, she says that there are openings that we can’t see.
Oh. Really?
Al Jezeera is so important in the Arab World – but many have said their coverage is often far from objective. What is their Agenda and who owns them? If it’s the Saudis, I can probably guess. Of course there is more than one Saudi Arabia – and the House of Saud is teffified of its own people and for good reason.
“So, the first year, they all quit. The second year, all but 2 quit.”
If they all quit the first year, there would not be any left for a “second year”. Please try and make just a little sense. Thank you. That is all.
Because as everyone knows, except, apparently, you, the Tea Party movement is a fake grassroots movement, bought and paid for by the Koch brothers. Astroturf, right? Mark Ames and others at The Exiled have exposed the connexion between the Tea Party and its corporatist backers exhaustively.
“Al Jezeera is so important in the Arab World – but many have said their coverage is often far from objective.”
I can assure you, it is far more objective than any coverage I have seem in the MSM. I am shocked to admit this, but it is true.
“If economy is what feeds us and our children”
That premise is wrong. People have fed themselves and their children as long as we have been around, starting with scavenging and gathering, and moving on to agriculture.
The organized system of working at other jobs in order to trade money for food is something that some people have worked out in the last couple of thousand years.
And it’s not working out so well for a whole lot of people.
(And there still are tribes on this planet who live by hunting and gathering. Now they are being wiped out systematically in order to take their forests and the oil and minerals that lie beneath them.)
“Because as everyone knows, except, apparently, you, the Tea Party movement is a fake grassroots movement…”
Really? Well an awfully lot of “fake” people recently voted a lot of “real” political candidates right the fuck out of office. So chew on that falsity for a bit, MORON.
And of course we all know the non-fake motives that are driving the Egyptian situation? You are an asshat. Be quiet.
Damnit, Martin! You KNEW that supposed “question” was just a canard to begin a spate of fucktard-ery [tm MM] of epic (and unending) proportions.
…[klaxon sounding] etc…
“That premise is wrong. People have fed themselves and their children as long as we have been around, starting with scavenging and gathering…”
I welcome you to use this methodology in today’s world. (Sheeesh there is an outbreak of idiocy, today.)
What I wanted to say was that first comes the need to eat, then all the rest.
The economy is, or should be, what makes us able to fulfill the primary needs.
Not really. I just find it fascinating that someone is willing to assign a noble cause to a movement that is little understood, half way around the world, yet will run down their neighbors for having legitimate grievances against their own legislators. I was waiting for a intelligent reply. I still am.
And who are these “Koch” Bros besides the obvious? Necro-Mongers or Neo-Cons? I hadn’t heard it exactly but I pretty much knew since Palin reports directly to Kristol. He wouldn’t even let her meet with Phyllis Schlafley. I got to hand it to them, they sure know their target audience right down to their Achilles Heel. Throw in a little patriotic music, wave the Blue and White, and the Red, White, and Blue and you have these poor fools in tears and rarin’ to go die for a people who despise them. The Ministers or Black Brigade helped create America; now by supporting crap like this they are helping to end America.
Revolutions are fought by the majority for food or better life conditions.
Just a few (the lucky ones) fight for democracy.
In Nazi Germany people loved Hitler as long as they had a job and better life conditions.
I bet most Americans would welcome ANY kind of dictatorship if that could guarantee a high standard of living, including a well paid job and so on…
What people (ordinary people) want (and rightly IMO) is to have a good life.
Yep. Right you are.
NotOEO’s canard fucktardery calls to mind this quotation: “The man who pretends to be a modest inquirer into the truth of a self-evident thing is a knave.” — William Blake
I think you have the wrong channel… You want FOX”NEWS”
a place for idiots
The domestic concerns of the Tea Party and some of their ideas are completely valid and not astro-turf at all. But they were and are being co-opted by the Republicans who want business as usual: war, immigration, sending our jobs overseas (it’s GOOD for America!) bringing in workers from abroad (the best and the brightest, it’s GOOD fro America!) etc. Please try to make this distinction. I failed to in my first post and only gave one side.
SERIOUSLY?
You think that when the shit hits the fan you are going to fare better than your neighbour because you bought a CONSUMER PRODUCT from Glen Beck????
Better order some gold and a snuggie to buddy… oh and I have some overpriced canned goods to sell you?
Once again, I was waiting for a intelligent reply. I will no longer wait for one from your quarter as that is not possible.
“You think that when the shit hits the fan you are going to fare better than your neighbour because you bought a CONSUMER PRODUCT from Glen Beck????”
No, I think scratching around in the back yard, looking for some worms and dandelion seeds will be much more productive.
Help me out, Vlad. What is “the Ministers or Black Brigade”?
It’s back to the stone age. With your skills you’ll be a doctor using flint knives to perform operations. Apparently the bare foot doctors of the Chinese Revolution performed wonders with little more. I used to see the manual in bookstore but not for many a year now.
“”The man who pretends to be a modest inquirer into the truth of a self-evident thing is a knave.” ”
So you are saying that the grievances of the Tea Party and those on the street in Egypt are “self-evident”? Wow man. Trippy.
Nice quote!
…And thus is a false “debate” enjoined! (Let’s hope it remains internal.)
The transparency of the tactic is the only amusing part of such fucktardery [tm MM].
Someone bellowed? I’m teffified.
Disengaging as of…………now.
I don’t think many Americans understand the magnitude of whats happening in Egypt. They are the bedrock upon which we had built our middle east policy. Once they fall the rest will go like a wall of dominoes. This will likely be the spark that sets off the power keg we call the middle east.
Hold on to your hats folks, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!
Conditions in America as of 2009:
poverty income threshold- $10,830 per individual
$21,750 for a family of 4
US poverty rate 2009 14.3 % or 44 million people
median income 2009 $ 49,777 individual income
Source- US census Bureau
2009 income of Lloyd Blankfein CEO of Goldman Sachs as per his ranking on Forbes’ executive pay list
$25.84 million dollars in 2009
total 5 year compensation was listed as
$ 136.61 million dollars
All of the above does equal serious income inequality and pretty serious poverty.
Seriously who could live for a year on $10,830, pay for food, rent, clothes… not even close.
That’s the true state of America as of 2009, we all know it has gotten much worse since then.
Loveday
Egypt
No one ever talks straight talk, everyone fom left to right has to express abstract ideas, has to give indirect solutions, vague, undefined, incomprehensible solutions: no one says what is really needed worldwide for most people and for the economy to at leat hum along decently:
WHAT IS NEEDE IS JOBS AND A CORRESPONDING HOUSE FOR RENT THAT IS ALIGNED WITH SAID JOB, SUCH AS 500 DOLLARS A MONTH PAY, 100 DOLLARS A MONTH RENT FOR 80 SQM (1000 SQFT) HOUSE.
The jobs are created directly by governments and private – public companies in all kinds of sectors, the houses built by the same entities and then rented.
Now is that so hard to understand ? Is that so hard to do ? Why all the funny talk ? Because no one wants to do it. Because all the wealth must be constantly transferred to the already rich with all of the excuses from the funny talk. Crap head obama doesn’t want to do it, because he says (like everyone else) that the “invisible” hand of the market and economy will do it through “competitiveness”, “innovation”, “education”, and all the other totally undefined and incomprhensible abstractions.
No one wants to directly give what is really needed to millions worldwide whether in Greece, Brazil, India, USA or Egypt.
The resource scarcity myths all do the same thing, justify in all ways to not give to everyone because everything is running out, oil is peaking, food is peaking, too many people, etc. But the end result of all of this green environemtalist talk and resource scarcity myth is to give ever more money to the rich and take it away from the weaker classes.
The US economy “grew” 2 % in 2010, that is equal to 200 billion dollars more wealth = to 7 million jobs paying 30,000 dollars a year. But only 2 million jobs were created, the other 5 million equivalent jobs were all hogged up by the rich and banks, and corporations, with the excuse of the recession, resource scarcity myth, the trillion dollar debts, the non competitiveness of economies, the not innovative or educated enough workforce, etc. Either you give it to millions of workers or the rich will just hog it all up, as they have always been doing. But go on, keep on saying, peak oil, we have trillions on debt, pensions and medicare etc. are “unfunded” entitlements, etc. Play in the hands of the rich.
Modern economy is now an automatic system that needs very little real work to operate, therefore you have to force and create the jobs by the millions worldwide, it won’t happen automatically.
They say Africa grew 6 % , etc, poverty decreased 50 % in 10 years, etc. But that is simply because they went from making 50 dollars a month, to 100 dollars a month, and went off the povery level line. Another BS talk. Also, the countries that are growing now, China, India, etc are doing so with millions of low level jobs in manufacturing, etc, but when the economy quickly reaches a certain threshold those jobs will dissappear and they will all become stagnant like JAPAN, the EU and most of the USA. There simply are not enough high quality jobs for tens of millions of people, the economy can’t use them all, they are not needed, hence you must give out FREE SALARIES.
Or else many other Egypts around the world…
but when the economy quickly reaches a certain threshold those jobs will dissappear and they will all become stagnant like JAPAN, the EU and most of the USA…
I agree with you.
It is Not that there is not enough food or enough jobs…
Before the industrial revolution jobs were done manually.
The machines were invented and result?
No more jobs.
It could have just been: thanks to the machines people work less hours and there would have been enough jobs for all.
Progress should mean better life conditions for ALL, not better earnings for a few.
And that would certainly mean a better life for those fews also.
No wars, no fights.
A life where you do not fear to be robbed (because the others have just what you have), or murdered.
A life where everybody has a share of wealth, of food, of culture, of whatever.
It is a dream, but it could be reality, if we just were not so greedy, if we were a little bit more intelligent…
I live in East Germany (ex DDR).
Once I asked somebody what he missed of the DDR:
“At that time a girl loved you for what you were, not for what you had, because everybody had the same, more or less…”
I wholeheartedly agree with you there.
So you think resources are limited ? Well the worldwide economy is 50 trillion dollars a year GDP, equal to 30 trillion more than 20 trillion: with 20 trillion dollars you pay 10 billion people 2,000 dollars a year, way above the poverty level, especially when you pay housing what it really costs, namely a few dollars.
There are 10 million empty houses in the USA, in Europe from Lisbon to Moscow there may be 20 million empty houses, in China there are many millions of empty houses (someone talks about entire cities), there is no reason why housing must be a scarce resource: the only reason is to force people to buy and make banks rich with mortgages or house onwers rich with high rents.
Same with health care, education in the US, and many other items, the resource scarcities are imposed from above, only you all play into it and believe it, you really all believe the huge fairy tales the economist all tell you…
My “skills” require IV equipment, drugs, needles, monitors, defibrillators, etc., all of which require manufacture somewhere else.
I’m not experienced in performing surgery, with scalpels or flint knives.
As soon as people are well off they also want to make babies and procreate and there lies the problem since the way things are structured with increased population there is less and less willingness to share and be sustainable. Wish people would realize how irresponsible it could be to have kids under the unfolding circumstances. Scarcity is indeed a good excuse to not share and have excuses for changes. Still, we can share we can help each other but the consequences of our humanitarian aid to others is that they simply make new babies. I wish people would have more awareness in this regard… not to say that babies are not precious, they are but they are…
Not sure how an automatic system of work works world wide Old6699, the complexities are beyond me, but it does not sound at all as if things could be under any kind of control… not when people are not being told the truth about our resources.
Less is more! 🙂 Today’s entries are pretty good. Thank you all.
Strangely, I tend to enjoy helping myself and others and enjoy the interaction but sometimes these days it crosses my mind that I don’t want to help anybody who sets another 3 to 10 kids into the world thus hurting them ultimately as there is no support for them there in the future.
What a warped thinking I discover and id saddens me that even I think that way now and then. Then again, it is only a thought.
Yes, and when it comes to Egypt… I can’t see peace there, not with 30 percent unemployment, increasing population and less stuff to go around. It will never know peace till they find sustainability and that is dangerous for our economy. Hopefully, we wake up to the realities rather sooner than later that we have to downscale big time and learn to enjoy our friends and neighbors again (hopefully, I can do that as some of them are pretty disturbed).
Anyway, I did to be comfortable in a state of not knowing. There is peace in that too.
What moved for me was the perception of the Middle East as presented by Al Jazeera, while our own media was basically repeating the messages tossed over the fence by the former. These were articulate, intelligent, media comfortable young reporters, concentrating on getting it right rather than sincerity or sex appeal.
What also moved for me was the perception of the United States, with brilliant young woman rattling off a thorough analysis of events from her perspective in California–wearing a head scarf.
The young man reporting from Washington outside the Egyptian embassy used vocabulary that I have not heard on television in my life. A new generation is arising that is going to make most of us idiots irrelevant–actually, we are irrelevant, but they will confront us with their intelligence and social sophistication, and we will knot it.
Middle!
“I’m guessing peak oil will take care of global warming, so you can relax now.”
A real doomer will tell you that global warming (a.k.a. the euphonious global climate change) will take care of peak oil. And peak everything else. There is some evidence that we have already tipped and are headed for a balmy Venus-like 900 degree surface temperature.
At least the uber wealthy will have spf 10000 sunscreen.
Joshua,
This was what I said in response to E. last week when E. was whining about the youth.
I am very impressed by their intelligence and perceptiveness. They are an impressive generation; change I can believe in. Keep hope alive!
And, thanks for noting the head scarf. We have got to overcome our narrow-minded phobia about Muslims.
“Seriously who could live for a year on $10,830, pay for food, rent, clothes… not even close.”
Well you have quite succinctly made my point and for that I salute you. In Egypt around 40% of the population lives on less than $2.00 per day. Now shut up. You are digging yourself the fucktard tunnel of no return. Be quiet. Pretty please, with pyramids on top.
“A real doomer will tell you that global warming (a.k.a. the euphonious global climate change) will take care of peak oil.”
You have it backwards (there’s a surprise). I said peak oil will take care of global warming. If you can’t distinguish the difference in the order you have my deepest sympathy.
“…especially when you pay housing what it really costs, namely a few dollars.”
Yeah. There is a figure I can believe in a “few dollars” for housing.
I see the assclown is back.
“I see the assclown is back.”
Yes you are and welcome back. Now put your make up on and entertain us. But be nice.
Funny how you come snarling when called, just like a cur…
“Funny how you come snarling when called, just like a cur…”
Not particularly funny but your make-up is a laugh filled riot. What? You mean you haven’t applied your make up yet? Ooops…sorry.
Is that all ya got Assclown? My Jr. Highschooler can do better. LOL, at you.
“LOL, at you.”
So you are sitting in front of your computer monitor, laughing (out loud) at me? Does your Jr. Highschooler think you odd? Does he/she also wonder why Daddy doesn’t go do something else? Like maybe go to work?
Naw, him’n his brothers ‘n sisters know we had all 11 of them so we could sit at home, swilling pbr and laughing out loud at The Assclown, welfarin’ it all on his dime. It’s a nice life, a hoot! So, yeah, I’m LOL at you, Assclown!
“We are one international incident away from being put out-of-business as an advanced civilization.” – JHK, Puke Time, 20 Sept, 2010.
That about sums it up. If the riots spread to Saudi Arabia we can all kiss our a$$ goodbye.
Yeah buddy. This just breaking:
Federal judge rules Obamacare unconstitutional
By: Mark Hemingway 01/31/11 12:06 PM
The full text of the decision from Federal Judge Roger Vinson is not available yet, but according to reporters who’ve seen the decision, he’s ruled the entire Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. The ruling favors of the 26 state attorney generals challenging the law. The judge ruled the individual mandate that requires all Americans to purchase health insurance invalid and, according to the decision, “because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void.”
“… welfarin’ it all on his dime.”
Well, well. Now don’t you feel better having come clean? I’m glad the library still lets you use the internet. Does the nice Librarian lady help you log on? Do they ever complain about the smell? I sure hope not.
“”We are one international incident away from being put out-of-business as an advanced civilization.”
Well Obama’s FCC’s attempt to give him a kill switch for the internet could be just the incident. Say your prayers.
“We are one international incident away from being put out-of-business as an advanced civilization.”
Well I was thinking (as was Jim presumably) that if the oil stops flowing from the sands of Arabia into the gas tanks of America then it is game over. Overnight gas is $10 a gallon and the economy crashes, burns and turns into ashes. The Apocalypse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbWGoPEN9l8
not OEO
Wow you are giving a very credible performance reminiscent of the worst of politics of our time, rude, immature and specifically designed to distract from the issues. You also show your tremendous narrow mindedness and incredible ignorance, really, Sarah Palin has nothing on you, really, really.
disengaging as a wise commenter did above
219 U.S. citizens evacuated today but 2,400 still awaiting flights
Mr. Change We Can Believe was vacationing in Egypt about a year and a half ago. I will be listening to what he says about this mess in the next few days. What he says might tell a bit about whats going on between those two ears.
“disengaging as a wise commenter did above’
Oh darn. Everthing you brought to the table was so truthful and factual. What will we do without your input?
“Well I was thinking (as was Jim presumably) that if the oil stops flowing from the sands of Arabia into the gas tanks of America then it is game over.”
I hear you. But as was discussed earlier, all of the oil producers, need the money, regardless of who is in charge. I mean even Iran, THE major player in the area has to import gasoline as they do not refine their own. The oil will continue to flow until there is no more oil. Now when that day comes…
This is how I see the situation in Egypt panning out — President Mubarak will either (a) give the rioters bread which will calm them down or (b) will use his military’s tanks to shoot them dead. He doesn’t want to step down and he has the backing of Big Oil (Big Oil wants to protect the Suez Canal and the oil line that goes through their country).
Tunsia may have inspired the Egyptians to demand freedom from tyranny but the since the tyrant has the backing of Big Oil, they have no chance. If the Egyptians are lucky, the US or Europe will air drop some food but the chance of them overtaking Mubarak is none and less. And, of course, the USA does not want to take any chances that some Islamic fundamentalists will take over.
So we can all hop back into our Hummers and check the commodities market reports and see that the price of oil hasn’t risen at all despite the 6 days of intense rioting.
The pissant is a busy little fellow today. Much wisdom to dispense.
Interesting insights on the Egyptian situation, JHK.
Thanks as usual!
I’ve just got two things to offer to the thread right now:
1. SIRIUS XM radio gives me what seems like 57 news channels to chose from. Yet, I just finished a 2 hour car ride and Egypt is ALL those people on all those news/talk channels can find to talk about.
Did the rest of the world STOP having news – just so they could cover this situation?
2. I can not help but notice that FOX news coverage of these Egyptian events sounds – pretty much – like the coverage on NBC, CBS, ABC, CNBC, CNN, and the BBC. (Except the accents are different on the BBC AND the announcers are generally much hotter looking on FOX.)
So FOX news really can be Fair and Balanced.
All you’ve got to do is keep them out of the US.
But wait… WHO’S GOING TO WIN THE SUPERBOWL ?
I think you may be wrong on all counts here, CCM989.
As JHK has pointed out, there’s a world shortage of grain at the moment and bread is unlikely to make much difference when the people are this incensed. The protest began on a holiday that celebrates the police, the same police who’ve been torturing and killing their people for the best part of thirty years, and offering them anything less of a leadership change is not going to cut the mustard.
Mubarak has little control over the military who are siding with the protesters, which is understandable when you consider that Egypt, like many countries, including Israel, has compulsory military enlistment for all males between 18 and 30. A lot of the protesters are in this demographic and many would likely be able to use the tanks, and other military hardware, were they able to take over any of it.
Big oil has no leverage in a revolution, unless they’ve the ability to harness an American, or American coalition, invasion force. Not only is that impossible with America and the rest of the “free” world tied up in several other conflicts, including the pipelineistan conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it would be politically suicidal to get openly involved.
And finally, oil has risen overnight with Brent crude sitting at US$100.36 a abarrel and West Texas crude at US$91.90, Topix is sitting at US$104 . Oil will continue to climb until a demand-destroying collapse of the market occurs, again. Of course it’ll likely be blamed on the Europeans who are struggling with sovereign debt issues but that won’t fool me or anyone who understands anything about peak-oil. The bumpy plateau will just get bumpier as the decline sets in.
Fortunately I don’t have to watch American news services down here in Australia, even though I occasionally check them out for a laugh. Of course we have Fox here too but I don’t go near that slimy mob, and wouldn’t consider it for a second. If you want to get the real lowdown on what’s happening in the Middle east, and Egypt particularly, you cant go past Al Jazeera – which is probably why Egypt shut them down yesterday and arrested six of their journos last night. This hasn’t stopped Al Jazeera though, it just made a lot of their viewers very unhappy (especially their Mid East viewers).
I’ll go along with climate change, but caused by humans? Who cares? Damage done. Eventually something will cause chaos and change, something always does. Just because we want the world to stand still doesn’t mean it will, the world isn’t and never has been static.
We WILL eventually run out of food, thats a given, we will eventually run out of oil and all the easy to get to minerals too. Does it matter if things last 100 years or 10?
Sure we want our way of life to go on, at least until we’re dead right?
Someones gonna be left holding the bag, guess thats gonna
be…us.
REPEAT PERFORMANCE: Sorry, but this bears saying again:
The fat lady is singing and she (mother nature) is ad-libbing a theme different from that scripted by the PC correctness crowd. Or, for that matter, the wonks and politicos who are spinning happy final curtains in the media.
Sorry folks, but the denouement to this production does not adhere to classical grand opera finale of evil parsed from the good. No sir, mayhem and grief beyond operatic scale are sweeping aside all the standard feel-good conclusions of justice triumphal.
The realities of nature aren’t run like La Scala, you know, so neither dramatic gesture nor rousing aria is going to cure all the baleful woes besetting the world. Many posting on this site though seem to believe so.
Is it pratfall of evolution that our human capacity to conceive “time” necessitated the anecdote of that other great abstraction “God”? We seem programmed to invoke the supernatural force of God (or gods) to overpower nature with operatic gesture. Well,….wasn’t it a wave of his hand that created the universe, that parted the Red Sea, etc., etc., etc….? Unalleviated anxiety over the “future” (that time concept again) might otherwise have caused our large brain – a real gas hog, so to speak — to burn more calories than we could obtain.
Many posts on this site posit proposals of similarly grandiose proportion, as though the world’s problems can be overcome as easily as moving around props and set pieces on stage. A counter “surge”, so to speak, to the military theatrics of “Shock and Awe” — billed as transforming the Middle East into a tranquil cluster of Jeffersonian democracies.
I know, I know, it was only a mask of stage paint to hide the malicious smirk of the actual producers finagling the bigger sub-plot in the off stage wings (flashing lights and flexing metal to simulate lightning and thunder), but the ruse sustains traction through belief in American exceptionalism.
“Bring’em on” has now been adopted by the chorus on the Left singing a theme opposite Bush’s opus PAX American, but just as unrealistically grandiose. In this version a magnanimous gesture of surrendering US sovereignty would cure the world’s problems.
Accordingly, immigration policy crafted and enacted into law by elected representatives of the citizenry must default — so the theme goes – to however many foreign nationals choose to come here in disregard to the law.
Wow, what a great theatrical gimmick for absolving one’s feeling of remorse for past national foreign policy perceived as unjust. The consequence though is bound to be more the likes of tragic comedy – laughter fading as the audience empties from the theatre back into the reality of streets growing ever meaner due to exploding population in face of increasing resource scarcity.
Loveday wrote:
“Seriously who could live for a year on $10,830, pay for food, rent, clothes… not even close.”
It’s not hard, but it is a different sort of life. A used bicycle you repair yourself, thrift store clothing you wear out; beans, rice, and seconds you prepare and cook yourself; a room in a shared house; and NO BAD HABITS costs less than that–even in expensive areas.
I think many, if not most, citizens of developed countries will have the opportunity to try this in my lifetime. If you have friends, community, and hope, it’s not bad at all.
‘Thank god for that. We at least can still manufacture tear gas. Would you rather they be gassed by French or Russian tear gas’
Gawd!
‘still manufacture tear gas’!
Such industrial power the failing US has.!
In answer to yr question:
ID PREFER THEY NOT BE GASSED AT ALL!
And its ‘G’ on God.
I’m looking over the edge, toward the water, the black surface gliding over brown currents. I see my face, distorted, rippling, and I look past it, to the green algae rippling underneath. Always, Coca-cola. The wood under my hands, slimy with biofilms, it just exists, impregnated with a Chemical Known To The State Of California To Cause Cancer and Other Reproductive Harm. I have been looking at the water for ten minutes and there have been no fish, even though it is deep and runs for a half mile into the woods. Xerox, the document company. The banks of the river are slimed with a rainbow film that clings to the rocks on either side. Thick, aggressive vines spring from the sides, a mass of woody, dormant shoots with inedible remnant fruits and leaves being digested by sporulating fungi. The air is still, the sounds of birds absent. Delta- We Love to Fly and It Shows. The birds are gone and the deer gone too, probably because of all the development- which sits empty, Scotchboom fields so thick as to be impassable, but I try, tripping over half-buried cables, a receptacle for a lamp-post, here, the sidewalk ends. Apple- think different. This was called “Meadowbrook”, where before it wasn’t called anything, now it is a place that wind-blown garbage collects, and people walk their dogs. The unfinished secondary entrance to the block approaches a bull-dozed barrier, looking like an emergency landing site. Spray paint decorates the asphalt, permanent tic-tac-toe. Toyota, moving forward. I remove the spout from the gas can and inhale deeply. Eyes watering, I see spots and feel light headed as I splash the gas on my pants and then on my shirt, suddenly feeling the chill and the fumes force me to hold my breath, which is just as well. GI Joe- a real American Hero. I can barely see and my eyes tear up and I squint as I pull the bic lighter from my shirt pocket. If it gets wet, this will not work. I hold it away from my body as I splash the cold gasoline over my head and neck. Some dribbles into the corner of my eye and I squeeze them tight. Budweiser. King of Beers. I can’t help but take one last gasp for air but it is all fumes and I suddenly become disoriented, dropping the can of gas and choking. Now or never. I bring the lighter toward my center and drag my thumb across the sparker.
Yesterday, for the first time ever, I watched Fox Sunday News (or maybe it was called Fox News Sunday) and there was a journalist – first name Chris, but I missed his last name (his mouth moves funny; I noticed this especially with the sound muted).
Anyway, distracting mouth movement aside, Chris What’s-iz-Name interviewed Hillary Clinton about the situation in Egypt. It was probably the most consecutive minutes I’ve ever listened to Hillary and I was impressed with her ability to string together flawless sentences on the fly. I was, however, disgusted to near rage that she never once directly answered the question asked her. Chris showed a film clip of a statement Hillary made just 24 hours earlier and compared it to what she was saying currently. She had made a nearly 180 degree reversal on the question of whether the US still supported Mubarak. It was all couched very carefully in diplo-lingo. Any normal human being’s face other than a Texas Hold em champion would have registered embarrassment at the read-between-the-lines flip-flop but not Hillary’s. OK, true, our own Asoka would have had no problem with such inconsistency.
Next up on the show was John Boehner. His ability to NEVER directly answer the question asked was astonishing. Measuring this acquired “skill” on a scale of 1 to 10 I’d give Boehner an 11 and Hillary a 10.
Is it any wonder I have always detested politics and politicians?
Its a free for all over there it seems. I am trying to understand why now. I mean this regime has been in power for 30 years. What happened now? Are they starving? Are they being tortured? The news here never seems to elaborate on the conditions there that caused this to happen. The people seem very, very angry. The old guy in power is in his 80’s and the people rioting seem very young. I can’t believe its an age thing. However, the problem might spread to other countries and that will be an interesting tsunami. I am ready to riot against the TSA. Just the thought that american citizens are being treated like terrorists or someone about to be put into prison is so infurating to me that I can see a justification for rebellion against the system. My thoughts can help but wander to those people who think it is perfectly fine to violate their human rights in the name of “safety”. When will they protest? Will a body cavity search be the point that they thing its going “too far”? I wonder!
All the desert dwellers are harnessing those giant worms to take back the spice from the evil other worldly USA overlords.
More than just coming to a theater near you soon.
What happens when the USA’s food surplus goes away or decreases greatly, and America has to choose between giving away its food earmarked for its citizens in order to get oil, or keeping the food for itself and face oil supply disruptions?
I don’t know what will happen with global food supplies, but the choices of food-producing, but energy-dependent countries will really be interesting.
Just watch what happens on the streets of Egypt, that’ll be a good bell-weather of what will happen here.
Qshtik said: “OK, true, our own Asoka would have had no problem with such inconsistency.”
============
Qshtik, I prefer to call it tolerance for ambiguity … It means I don’t suffer and I don’t become “disgusted to near rage” because someone changes their position as a result of changes in the real world.
I rather admire that quality, as opposed to someone like Obama and Bush who have stubbornly insisted on “staying the course” in Afghanistan.
Those men have “character” … look up the origin of the meaning of the word “character” … what it means is they are in a rut.
I have no “character” and don’t want any either.
I prefer the fluidity and spontaneity of being inconsistent because life is change and trying to not change, to “be consistent” is ignoring the reality of life.
I would rather embrace change: I love getting old for that reason and look forward to death. As Peace Pilgim once told me when I asked her about death: “Ah, death, what an adventure to look forward to!”
More on Peace Pilgrim here: http://www.peacepilgrim.com/
Bill said: “Just watch what happens on the streets of Egypt, that’ll be a good bell-weather of what will happen here.”
==========
What happens here might be worse, or it might be better, but looking to Egypt will not give us any clue.
How can the reaction of people who have lived under a dictatorship, in poverty, who might have had less education, who have live without freedoms like those in our Constitution, etc. … how can their reaction be in any way likened to our reaction?
It’s like saying look at what happened in Country X when student tuition was raised. Does that mean when student tuition is raised here the reaction will be the same?
There are so many cultural, educational, social, economic, etc. variables and differences from one country to the next that such statements as “look at what’s happening there because it’s going to happen here” are not really possible. When extreme conditions of austerity happens the way people react is always going to be different: in Iceland, in Bolivia, in Japan, in Russia, in Tibet.
People’s reactions cannot be painted with a broad brush to be equal simply because physically we all have the need to eat.
asia said: “And its ‘G’ on God.”
=======
asia, thank you for your careful attention to capitalization.
Cavepainter said: “Well,….wasn’t it a wave of his hand that created the universe, that parted the Red Sea, etc., etc., etc….? ”
========
Since you asked, it was the wave of Her Black hand.
You don’t know that by now you gonna have some ‘splainin’ to do.
At least the USA has topsoil, fresh water and trees.
More than I can say about Haiti, China etc.
What will happen? I dunno.
Trading food internationally implies ‘logistics’ and that requires OIL!
Downward spiral..eh?
Newfie said: “then it is game over. Overnight gas is $10 a gallon and the economy crashes, burns and turns into ashes. The Apocalypse.”
==========
What mental poverty! The only outcome you can imagine is the Apocalypse?
When tragedies have struck and neighbors helped neighbors and government helped citizens, you didn’t notice that? Were you too distracted by a handful of looters breaking windows or by a few police who shot innocent citizens?
When gas is $10 a gallon people will reorganize their lives and will begin to provide each other with mutual support. Car pooling will be the “in” thing to do overnight. Cooperation will increase.
Acts of charity will increase, though you may not see them on TV news, because news focuses on “if it bleeds, it leads” and that is why people like you have a completely brainwashed and distorted view of human nature.
Typical CFN drama: “crashes, burns, and turns into ashes” … pure doomster porn fantasy.
I bust out laughing when I read yr name.
8M is yr child? yr the 7th generation?
Natalie Portman has a 2 million dollar look according to yahoo!
So who cares about the STUPID BOWL?
Bustin J,
You’re a good, descriptive writer and obviously smart.
SJmom
as a recovering Catholic, I can tell you that on several occasions I witnessed a Mass performed by green and bottlenosed flies. Admittedly, the Pope ws not in attendance. I think.
JJF –
If you are guy who was a first time poster last week, recently returned home from Afghanistan –
That means I have a good memory. Which is normally unlikely to be proven these days – when it sometimes seems that I will be doing well to remember my own 3 initials, much less those of a new poster on CFN.
Anyway – – JJF or XYX – I’m talking to that guy.
Thank you for your service and welcome home. And I hope you stick around CFN for a long time come. Yours is a perspective that’s hard to really get access to these days back home in the US.
I’m not asking you to give anything away here – but did you happen to know a guy, who had a friend, who had a MOS, who posted on Facebook one time –
Something that might give us a US serviceman’s perspective on that “Arab Street,” that we keep hearing about on the news on Egypt.
For example – last week I really did hear a news story that the tear gas canisters or the rubber bullets, or something being used in Egypt were marked “Made in USA.”
The more I think about it the less plausible it seems. Are we THAT stupid. I can more easily imagine an Arab running around with a stencil and a can of spray paint than I can imagine crowd control ordinance labeled “Made in USA.”
Although I have seen worse ideas, through the years.
Anyway, JJF or XYZ, what do you think?
=====================
And note to regular CFN thread-riders. This is the first time I’ve ever posted like this without reading through first. I’m planning to do it later on tonight. It will be my luck if this whole issue is addressed just a few clicks up the thread.
Too late now – mouseover SUBMIT
ONE Word, Cavepainter: “WOW!”
“Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs Group has tripled the base salary of chief executive Lloyd Blankfein to $2m (£1.3m), up from $600,000.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12316309
Anybody out there still believe Obama is the MESSIAH … here to lead us and all of humanity out of the wilderness and into the promised land?
He appears now to be little more than a small time street agitator, the kind I used to see standing on a milk crate just outside the loop in Chicago, rousing rabble, a little man and growing smaller by the day.
Remember his ‘historic’ speech in Cairo, apologizing to the whole world? That was right after the ‘historic’ speech’ in Berlin, apologizing to the Germans for who knows what. America apologizing to Germany! How about Germany; does it have anything to apologize for?
Let’s see how the Messiah handles the blowup in North Africa and the middle east. Him and Hillary were going to do things smarter, remember, smarter than that troglodyte George Bush.
Did you think we’d forgotten so soon?
Talk like that’ll land you in the funny farm, just ask Q.
Although, they no longer have farms, just psychoactive drugs.
Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama are as phony as the day is long. They are mere handmaidens to the oligarchs who rule us: Kardashians, Rockefellers, et.al.
What we’re seeing in the ME is an unfolding of years, by which I mean DECADES, of over-the-top United States hegemony, which has been coming apart at the seams since the Belgians lost the congo back in l960, maybe even before. Of course, we never fucking learn, DO WE? Shit, I remember back in the l950’s when the Shah of Iran was installed. Members of the intelligentsia saw what a fraud he was (EVEN THEN!)…and said…NOTHING! Where, oh where are the Adlai Stevensons today? (google it, if you’re under 50!) Lo and behold, the same “Intelligentsia” in Washington D.C. in the ’70s told me at the time (husband was a high ranking State Department hack)AND were crying, “Oh, we just can’t let them take out the Shah! It’d be murder!” Christ! The hypocrisy! I Didn’t have the guts to say it back then, but do NOW!
Myself, I’m pissed off more at at amerikans today, relentessly bitching, “oh my gosh, now we’re gonna hafta pay more in gas prices!”
My response? “Well, good on ya, BITCH! How long did ya think you and your country were gonna rape the planet and ignore the suffering of our FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS? Not to mention their having to endure our “non-negotiable way of life”? It doesn’t feel so good swallowing a tiny morsel of the CRAP we’ve been spewing about “human rights and democracy”, now, does it?. Makes me choke when I hear our “leaders” vomit up these remarks!
“Because as everyone knows, except, apparently, you, the Tea Party movement is a fake grassroots movement, bought and paid for by the Koch brothers.”
Dear Martin, Include me in the “I don’t know” group since “I don’t know” if you are automatically including the few who bailed when the Kochs {and their ilk} got involved. Since then, Tea Party 3.0 {or teocons} might be more accurate; In My Honest Opinion.
“Anybody out there still believe Obama is the MESSIAH ”
=======
The only ones who ever used the word Messiah were the Rush Limbaugh types. You a dittohead? The word Messiah was never used but you are in an echo chamber asking people who never used the word if that is what they still believe.
BTW, I admire Obama’s Cool Hand Luke restraint. He’s not out there saying “Bring it on!” and he’s not sending thousands of troops to be slaughtered in a land war in the Middle East.
That alone qualifies him as Messiah re: Egypt.
I say, Bustin J, keep on flicking the Bic that ignites your fiery prose. I, for one, very much enjoy it!
In the days my grandpa farmed with horses, a family could only farm so much. People helped each other, for the most part, because a man could only farm so much and you needed all the help you could get. People were farmers then, not heavy equipment operators. Neighbors did not eye your land hoping to grab it, what would they do with it? It all went away, little by little, I still remember as a boy we had the big family reunions, the hogroasts. All gone.
Now it’s every man for himself. Even farmers barely know their neighbors. I remember going to sales and seeing the old guys, rough, lean looking men. Those men knew work, most had parts missing. Fingers, legs eyes from accidents. Not a year would go by that someone didn’t get killed, many were young. That was life, and death, on the farm. You grew eyes in the back of your head, learned from near misses. Child labor laws? Never heard of ’em.
You learned hard lessons.
I asked Granpa if the Depression was hard. He told me that if things had gotten any worse “They’d been picking the corn out of the shit with the chickens”.
We farmed right at the end of the old ways, when people still kept livestock and you still counted farms in hundreds of acres instead of thousands.
Anyone with half a brain can see where things are going. It seems the grief process has already begun for us as a country.
1.Denial -as in we’ll find more oil, there’s still plenty left or my favorites: “Technology will save us” and “Natural Gas will save us”
2.Anger -those damn Arabs, those damn oil companies, those damn gas guzzling SUV’s
3.Bargaining – “I’ll get a hybrid” “I’ll move closer to work”
soon will come…
4.Depression – “we can’t live like this” or “Whats the point?”
5.Acceptance – “It will not ever be the same, but it doesn’t have to be, I can’t fight it, but I can prepare for it”
Time to get to work, politicians won’t save you, prayer might help, but I’m afraid if there is a God, he only helps those that helps themselves.
I may be right, I may be wrong, but either way, I’ll be alive.
Yeah. All we have to say is, “You want the food, bring the oil and we’ll ship you the food.
Bill [of Beantown] said: “Just watch what happens on the streets of Egypt, that’ll be a good bell-weather of what will happen here.”
==========
What happens here might be worse, or it might be better, but looking to Egypt will not give us any clue. -Asoka
===============
I would beg to differ. The “sitch” (to put it offhandedly) in Egypt (and Tunisia, BTW) puts the spotlight on the elephant in the living room. Namely: There ain’t enough cops (paid mercenaries of TPTB) to put down a popular revolt. And, to boot, the military has to tread VERY carefully in such circumstances, ’cause, hell, they’re the supposed PROTECTORS of the populace. If they should side with the Masters of Thievery……… Hey now! It’s civil war time! How much fun is that?
What happens in USofA will most definitely be worse; imagine the most demonstrative temper tantrum of a spoiled and pampered 4-year-old in a crowded big-box store…… in possession of an automatic weapon. (It might get messy.)
Remember, the average Egyptian who bands together with their buds to protect their neighborhoods depends on sticks and knives for armament. Think about it before any ideologically reflexive response.
“A life where everybody has a share of wealth, of food, of culture, of whatever.
It is a dream, but it could be reality, if we just were not so greedy, if we were a little bit more intelligent…
I live in East Germany (ex DDR).”
Wow, Patrizza – I had no idea you were from E. Germany. Are you old enough to remember it pre-unification.
That’s another perspective that’s hard to hear much of in the US. Especially from someone who might admit a good thing under communism.
Interesting.
So am I a dummy or what? I had to google Panglossian to see the definition. Where the heck does JHK come up with these words? I thought I had a decent vocabulary. He really is quite the wordsmith!
Wage,
Don’t sell yourself short. I’d rather head out into The Long Emergency with a good ER nurse carrying a stone knife – than with a lot of other combinations that I can imagine.
Like, how about a politician carrying a B-52.
Or Dick Cheny carrying a shotgun.
It’s a phrase from John Adams if memory serves. Many of the Ministers were in favor of the American Revolution and preached to that effect. Some of the Founders acknowledged them and said that it couldn’t have happened without their support. And since Ministers wore Black – thus the name the Black Brigade.
Particularly confusing coming from me I guess. But even I sometimes deign to talk about other things besides the most important thing; the trunk from which other issues come forth. Yeah food and energy are even more primary – but everyone here knows that. You have to survive before you can have a Society of any kind. But after that is taken care of the question becomes what kind of society and for whom. Then Race comes in and any attempt to avoid the discussion is sophistry or tyranny as is happening in Charlotte to American Renaissance. Of course no discussion is necessary if you have only one race per society – it makes things so much easier. Also great if you have just one culture per. The opposite is fine: many States in one culture like in old Greece or Renaissance Italy. Both rather productive cultures that didn’t suffer from “lack of diversity” or “racial enrichment”.
Welcome back. I saw you over at a certain Occidental site a few months ago.
The Muslim Brotherhood is drooling for a chance to control government and build a greater Islamic state that will push up against the chests of America. They may have a puppet in El B.
The Saudis are getting ready to arm themselves up there in their golden places with US planes and bombs. The MB would just love to take over their oil fields, and topple the Golden Rulers.
I recently read an assessment from a day trader, which was basically as long as Bernanke keeps funding Wall Street in his Wall Street Economic Stimulus Program, keep watching the Bull Market grow. But once the spigot is turned off, there will be a growling Bear rise upon its hind legs.
http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com
“asia said: “And its ‘G’ on God.”
=======
asia, thank you for your careful attention to capitalization.”
I just blew some Fosters through my nose…
Pavlov’s Bulls
I really like it when a hard-headed investment adviser agrees with mainstream science and takes a pot-shot at big business Congressional whores in the same paragraph:
“Weather-induced disappointment in crop yield seems to be becoming commonplace. This pattern of weather extremes is exactly what is predicted by the scientific establishment. Snow on Capitol Hill, although cannon fodder for some truly dopey and ill-informed Congressmen, is also perfectly compatible. Weather instability will always be the most immediately obvious side effect of global warming.”
http://www.johnmauldin.com/outsidethebox/pavlovs-bulls
Keep it coming, man. I see a different view of “farming” for the future, but it’s good to remember what we were running from as we gather up the worthwhile pieces and forge a new relationship with the biosphere.
Instead of farms in the 100s of acres, much less 1000s, I see farms on the “fives of acres” scale by the time I go. I recently read about an urban farm that made nearly 900k off of one acre.
If this 300 acres I help work ever becomes mine, after the CRP program is long since over, I can see splitting off 5 acre parcels governed by a master watershed plan and ethical group oversight.
Oh rubbish. I have no doubt but that when your community calls you will respond. If your neighbor is about to die from addendicitis, I’m sure you will “dig in” with your rusty old jack knife named bob. Beneath that flinty old New England like commie exterior, you are an ocean of compassion and a spring of humor. As Mandela says, don’t be afraid of your own greatness. Don’t let it hold you back.
Mandela went into the hospital over the weekend – very weak. Another change coming perhaps. The word on the street is that when he goes, the machetes come out for the Whites. Both sides are no doubt sharpening and shining their respective instuments of art.
Buy the Barefoot Doctor’s Manual and start sharpening those flints.
I feel as if I’m watching the Stallone movie, Cliffhanger, where the woman (a civil U.S.) is hanging by an overburdened carabiner (the circular nature of The Federal Reserve printing press); it truly feels as if we have little time left; AND there surely is no future like the past 30 years of denial and deception have allowed a non-American world to believe in–and an American world to live.
Say goodnight to “the dream.”
The Black Swan is aloft…
“Remember something else: these uproars in the Middle East are only the first stirrings of political reaction to a scarcity of key world resources, especially grain crops, which have never been in such short supply in modern times.”
Jim…you said a mouthful here. This week’s interview on http://www.ecoshock.org at 30 minutes and 31 seconds into it is with Nafeez Ahmed about his latest book “A User’s Guide to the Crises of Civilization”. Something that’s been largely overlooked is the interconnectedness of all these problems (climate change, peak oil, economic crises, food scarcity, fisheries depletion) that really are all part and parcel of one big problem that’s bearing down hard on civilization as we know it. And because of our global interconnectedness the shocks to us from a small little uprising in Tunis will affect us greatly.
Somebody once wrote that there is no guarantee that the transition to a lower energy future will be smooth. I think the events in Tunisia and Egypt will prove that to be the case.
Uprising is reportedly being caused by the educated but unemployed youth and if it succeeds, it will eventually lead to increasing standards of living of the many millions and growing (TFR is 3.x in Egypt and half population living less than $2 a day), meaning more consumers of oil and food in the global market similar to the dynamic of large numbers of poor peoples ($single-digit/day) in India and China moving quickly to the consuming middle class. Middle east will cater to each others needs first when it comes to oil but only if food needs can be met (oil can be used for food needs by unsustainably converting deserts to gardens at the cost of GHGs). The geopolitics will be overtly governed by this complex dynamic of oil and food which are almost inseparable variables. So it may no longer make sense to look at peak oil and peak food separately, we may as well study them jointly (peak water to be added in version 2.0), call it peak foil (food + oil). A lot of analysis will need to be redone if the unrest succeeds and spreads across Middle East. Most likely the results will be more alarming.
I’d guess that the Tea Party will shit a brick over our nonnegotiable way of life becoming the subject of urgent negotiation. They’ll shit another brick when they realize that the quickest, least painful way out of the quagmire is to channel Jimmy Carter: turn down the thermostat, put on a cardigan, start carpooling again, and generally recognize that it’s high time to resume being stewards of the hydrocarbons that we came to assume fall like manna from heaven. They will hit the ceiling when or if they realize that their brand of American exceptionalism, one that they have proclaimed as a nonnegotiable article of conservative (sic) faith, is untenable in the real world from which they must purchase their oil.
The faction of the Tea Party that I’m describing is, frankly, delusional. It also appears to make up a plurality or small majority of the overall movement. These really are the sort of people who are sore with Carter because they consider him a killjoy. They worship Ronald Reagan, or rather the one-sided hagiography that Ronald Reagan’s boosters have spread as a latter-day Gospel; they would be scandalized by many of the positions that Reagan took on welfare, immigration and abortion as Governor of California.
From what I’ve read, the Tea Party appears to be swarming with the sort of people who chose to live in Newport Beach under the flight path of John Wayne Airport and have since spent their free time bombarding public officials with complaints about noise from commercial aircraft. A few miles inland, the same sort of people raised holy hell over proposals to convert El Toro Naval Air Station into a commercial airport, despite its having much longer runways than the 5,700′ main runway at SNA.
At least two things have been missing from the public debate over these airports. First, no one is courageous enough to tell the complainers that they are free to move to some other, likely cheaper, place that is not right next to an airport, but that they have chosen to stay in place and complain about something that was, in most cases, there before they were. Second, there is no consideration of the commonweal. The very concept of a commonweal appears alien to those involved.
These people are a multigenerational “Me Generation.” Orange County offers extreme examples of their mindset because it is one of the places where people indifferent or hostile to the public interest have disproportionately settled. Regardless of how engaged any of these people are with churches, other private organizations or freelance philanthropy, their effect on government operations and public policy is disastrous.
I expect that this faction, in Orange County and nationally, will be thick with obstinate sourpusses should drastic conservation measures become necessary in response to curtailed oil supplies. These are people who, to an even greater extent than the average American, consider minor inconveniences to be hardships.
Dana Rohrabacher, whose 46th Congressional District includes SNA and abuts its main takeoff path, has called global climate change a “hoax” perpetrated by “hucksters who would frighten us into giving up our birthright in the name of saving the planet.” One of his reasons for opposing cap-and-trade legislation was that “the rest of us will not be able to travel by plane and will be stuck sitting next to gang members on public transportation.” It’s telling and worrisome that this pathetic hyperbole appeals to the folks back home.
And it gets worse:
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/critic-of-science-vies-to-lead-house-science-panel/
(I don’t know what ghetto bus lines poor Dana has been riding, but the worst people I had to deal with on OCTA were mildly obnoxious; the friendliest person I met on OCTA was an ex-con who seemed as trustworthy as anyone I’ve ever encountered on a bus. Maybe he’s only ridden the bus to the Land of Make-Believe; the trolleys no longer go there, or anywhere else, in the OC.)
A friend intoduced me to a new/old controversy: apple seeds. Or to be more precise and general – cyanide bearing seeds. The AMA speaks of the deadly danger – others speak of the anti-carcinogenic benetifts. The Hunza love their apricots and the banned drug Laetrile is from apricot pits. As usual, there is no middle ground at all. What do you think? I can guess but I’d like to hear your reasoning if you’ve studied it at all – like what you did with immunity a week or two ago.
I had a couple a few days ago even though I’ve usually just passed them up. No ill effects. In fact, I thought there was a slight “brightening” but it might have just been self suggestion.
Re: the 13 m bbl/day shortage of US crude:
Offhand, I’d say that US drivers could eliminate this shortfall just by eliminating all their redundant driving. It would suck for a lot of people and crimp their lifestyles (i.e., less flexibility in commuting, less shuttling by soccer moms, etc.), but it would not be a matter of life and death. We Americans can eliminate the vast majority of our driving and still have enough necessities to get by comfortably.
We have much less flexibility to reduce diesel because much more of our diesel is used to power trucks, trains and barges without which people actually would start going hungry. For instance, my current hometown, Eureka, CA, would have a mess on its hands if the Winco truck were unable to make its daily run up from the Bay Area. That’s a hell of a long supply line.
“it truly feels as if we have little time left”
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Not. Just practicing CFN violence-fantasy-porn … CFN drama-speak … repeating what I have learned from CFN.
Endless unsubstantiated CFN fears are amplified and projected during TLE awaiting TSHTF and WMBH.
Have fun! Just kidding about Thursday…
There is a specter haunting America… and it is making its way across the globe.
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2010/10/specter-is-haunting-america.html
so since you were so clever and ordered the “Glenn Beck MRE Survival kit” I have a question… what are you going to do with those “Glenn Beck MRE” when you have to shit? We are talking “end of the world” here, is he going to provide you with a waterless porta pot too? And what are you going to wipe with? Is Glenn Beck going to come wipe your ass for just $19.95?
Are you really such an asshole that you honestly believe that you can survive as an island to yourself? (probablly, David Koresh was too)
The American way to face the end… buy just one more thing and you too could survive!
If your neighbor is about to die from addendicitis
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Vlad, this is a disease, I would imagine, that bean counters like Cash and myself are particularly prone?
EYEWITNESS REPORT FROM EGYPT
SOURCE: Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous in Egypt, Monday, Jan. 31, 2011
Something that’s been largely overlooked is the interconnectedness of all these problems
===========
If a butterfly farts in China … etc.
This is what happening … in the middle of millions of people protesting … in the streets:
People are picking up trash in Tahrir Square. People are handing out food. People are helping each other.
SOURCE: Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous in Egypt, Monday, Jan. 31, 2011
============
Watch carefully the cooperation, the spontaneous organization among people to commit random acts of kindness. That is happening in Egypt.
That is what will happen in the USA also. Acts of love. Acts of kindness. Acts of sharing. Helping others in time of need. It’s in our DNA. It’s how we survived until now.
JJF,
I have passed through many Doomerville’s in my travels across the World Wide Web, but never, ever, have I heard anyone mention the possibility of “picking the corn out of the shit with the chickens” as a means of potential subsistence.
Very fine post!
Asoka, at 6:42 p.m. you said: “What happens here might be worse, or it might be better, but looking to Egypt will not give us any clue.”
Then you later said, at 12:50 a.m., “That is happening in Egypt. That is what will happen in the USA also.”
Asoka, you are so frustrating, maddening really, because you contradict yourself in the course of a matter of hours. You are completely inconsistent.
I’m going to have to start scrolling past your posts because you make no sense. You say whatever comes into your head and you cut and paste endlessly.
You seem like a likable and bright fellow, but what are you doing on CFN, besides being a resident impediment?
Actually I am Italian, or should I say I am European.
I was born in Italy, lived in Switzerland, France, England, married a German (West Germany) and I now live in Sachsen.
It is my choice and a good one I guess.
We both are unemployed, we invested our money in real estate here.
IMO it is a good place where to invest.
Most people do not own a house, so they rent.
There are a lot of very old and beautiful buildings at a very cheap price.
The countryide is stunning and the place is underpopulated.
There are so many lakes and forests and the weather is milder than you would think.
East Germany is a jewel because, on the contrary of what happened in the rest of west Europe, they didn´t do anything.
You still have stone paved roads and Medioeval buildings.
Tourists who come here go to Berlin and ignore Mecklenburg Vorpommen or the East sea.
There are not many jobs (not so much industry)but here people are “Harz IV” people.
That means they get a certain sum from the government and many things for free (like health insurance). It is not a great sum, but much more than what they had in the DDR “working”.
The Reunification was a great business mostly for the West.
Here we have the best infrastructures, built by West companies, as all the rest.
It was done mostly to feed the West.
They had good industry here.
Germans were different, also in the ex USRR.
They had good factories producing very good items which they exported to West Germany (and were relabeled there).
They were like a small China.
After the reunification they closed them down.
It is better to have people living on charity than competitors.
But Germany is a great country to live.
Everything works, and especially in the East, you can still breath a relatively good air.
Linearity, Cause and Effect…
People love linearity, love to see clear cut causes and effects, love simple explanations which they can logically follow, problem is, the modern global economy no longer follows any kind of linearity or cause and effect, and in fact it has been like this for some decades now. This is because technology and optimizations has simplified, automated and optimized most of the production processes worldwide. This implies the need for less and less labor, work is really no longer needed, and this process is destined to continue and become ever more dominant.
But people simply can’t wrap their heads around this idea: it is too non linear, they can’t see that technology, communications, and the fact that we now have increased the global workforce by hundreds of millions that are even disciplined and educated has created an automatic economy, an economy where the old rules no longer apply.
But, in order to keep on feeding the rich, the banks, in order to keep everyone convinced that it is right and justified to not give the basics to everyone, the right wing thugs keep on feeding the huge ideological construction and brainwashing that has been going on for the last 50 years.
Here is a list of all of the false linear, and cause and effects that everyone loves to believe is true, that everyone accepts without ever challenging or questioning them, because they are completely and totally brainwashed BIG TIME on all of this:
1) We need more “education”, “more skills” to create jobs. FALSE, there has never been an era where there are so many educated and skilled workers worldwide of all kinds, so many scientists, etc. We need more information workers and scientists like a hole in the head, in fact all of those skilled technicians, workers, etc have only given us subprime loans, ipads, and all methods to rob money from the weaker social classes. We really don’t need another IPAD, or another programming language, we need CHEAP RENTS, and CHEAP BASIC HEALTH CARE for all. Maybe all of those math and science majors could be needed if we were sending trillions of rockets to colonize the solar system and building trillions of skyscrapers, or many other large scale projects…
For decades I have been hearing that we need more math and science experts, then how come thousands have been laid off in the last decade ? How come they can’t find jobs ? So then they are not needed ? Oh, I see, as you grow old, you don’t know how to do math and science anymore ? Oh, I see… What a huge pile of crap people believe in. The truth is most innovation in these fields have been done, most of the calculations that had to be done, have been done, We haven essentially run out of really new and productive math and science to do (although, I admit, this may be another subtle form of resource scarcity myth, but anyways, I don’t buy into the idea that we need so many more techies…).
2) We need to be more “competitive” and “innovative” to create jobs. Since no one really knows what on earth these 2 words mean, and since they can mean anything and nothing, everyone accepts this as some kind of metaphysical truth. FALSE, we have almost all of the really useful innovations already invented, and corporations now exactly how to increase competitiveness by laying off, putting robots in factories, making software do most linear types of jobs, or offshoring low level manufacturing jobs to bangladesh at 200 dollars a month, etc. This is just another abstract word, impossible to ever meet, impossible to ever measure, impossible to do anything about that justifies firing people and not giving the jobs and CHEAP RENTS people really need to live. This plays in nicely into the hands of the rich, they will just keep on hogging up all the wealth, after all there will never be enough competition or innovation.
3) Hard Work will make the economy richer. FALSE, there has never been an era where hard work is meaningless and actually most of the time counter productive. JAPAN has performed Hard Work for decades and they have been in a stagnation for decades, the same with Silicon Valley. In fact the myth of hard work in software and programming is what killed alot of companies: they thought that just because they “worked” 70 hours weeks they were creating great software. What fools, software is like mathematics, you have to simply know exactly how to write the correct equation, the simplest and smartest equation to get something done, this has nothing to do with “Hard Work”, or the time at the job, it is totally non-linear, in fact most of the best programs and ideas are simply that, smart constructions that can be done in little time and with little effort, but with alot of SMARTS. But this linear, cause and effect idea, that hard work achieves something is what everyone loves. This plays in nicely into the hands of the rich, they will just keep on hogging up all the wealth, after all, the lazy slob workers will never work hard enough and there will never be enough math – science experts.
4) Workers are lazy slobs, the unions killed manufacturing, etc. In fact the idea of hard work and that poor slobs should work 3 minimum paid jobs for the economy, or that this is a sign of progress feeds in the instinct of wanting to beat up other people, the instinct of wanting to punish other people because they didn’t work hard enough, it feeds into the very attractive and simple and linear idea that hard work will generate wealth and well being. But it is totally false, it just serves to give ever more to the rich by squeezing people at the bottom, and everyone accepts this and buys into it. This plays in nicely into the hands of the rich, they will just keep on hogging up all the wealth, after all workers are all lazy slobs.
5) We live in a world of resource scarcity, there is not enough for everyone. Another idea people are in love with, it is so simple to feed on and believe this linearity, this simple cause and effect, there are not enough houses so it is correct and justified that they cost so much, there is not enough health care, same story, etc. In fact there has never been an era of more resources available for all, and an ever increasing amount available exactly because of technology ( and all of those math and science experts) , but we just love to believe that there is not enough for everyone. So cut the jobs, cut the pensions, fire people, lay them off, get rid of the “entitlements”, etc. Funny how this word “entitlement” is so popular, how people love to beat up other people, how they love to take something away from others. This plays in nicely into the hands of the rich, they will just keep on hogging up all the wealth, after all there are resource scarcities, there will never be enough resources for everyone.
6) TAX cuts will generate jobs. FALSE, if anything we need more taxes, as taxes are the only mechanism that forces some wealth to flow to the weaker social classes from the stronger. But taxes are a sin, taxes are for the common good, but the idea of the common good is a disgrace, is a sin, you don’t want to give anything to all of those millions of lazy slobs robbing you hard earned money through taxes.
7) Home Ownership is an investment. FALSE, a home is something you use, end of story, and in fact according to the myths of “flexibility” it is much smarter to rent, so that you can change places and jobs according to the new flexible economy. Homes shouldn’t cost much at all, in the US there are 10 million empty homes, in Europe from Lisbon to Moscow there are maybe 20 million empty homes. Homes are not a scarcity and home ownership is not an investment. Get over it. I hope the prices collapse worldwide, a really hope this housing crisis gets worse and worse!
8) Privatize the economy, more private companies as opposed to public will improve the economy. FALSE. What on earth do private companies have that a public company can’t have ? Nothing, it is just another excuse to fire people and rob more money from the poor. A public company with GOOD MANAGERS can operate just as efficiently, if not even more so, than a private company.
The real simple cause and effect, that could really improve the lives of millions, namely A BASIC JOB OR SALARY EVEN 500 DOLLARS A MONTH, AND A RENT OF 100 DOLLARS A MONTH for 1000 sq feet (80 sqm) house, is totally ignored and out of the question. Oh, but this is a disgrace, saying this is a sin, oh, you want to “kill the economy” if you do this, oh, no, this can’t be done, etc.
Instead of governments and obama simply stating and executing a very simple program, cheap rents for all, and millions of jobs to all from public or public – private entities producing all kinds of items, they just keep on talking about abstract concepts, impossible to measure, impossible to define, impossible to manipulate like innovation, competition, education, totally arbitrary in how these things are then judged etc. Invent an abstract word, and make believe that that word is the solution.
But just keep on feeding the beast, we have resource scarcity, there is overpopulation, we need more innovation and education, we need to be competitive, all things impossible to measure or achieve, but plays in nicely in transferring all the wealth into the hands of the already rich.
There are many other ideological constructions people have been brainwashed with, it is so dominant and extended that it is really nearly impossible to list them all and even see through them. But since no one clearly explains them, this is an attempt.
During the past 2 days the Big M supermarket started a 99 cent per pound sale on grapes. Each morning I tired to buy some but the store sold out in record numbers. Some of the senior employees have told me never have they seen so many food stamps and such a rush on sale items. I saw prophets of Doom that JHK and others were on. Interesting points of discussion, but even a SYFY nerd like myself giggled when the one gentlemen feared a rise of machines. The last working farm in my town, burb, inner city sold some of its land to build another small strip of office space and stores, many are still open. Great article about the great waste of high speed rail in Newsweek magazine. The above poster is correct time to get in shape first and eat local and in season. May Zeus help us all.
tHIS HAS BEEN PREDICTED BY QUITE A FEW IF YOU KNOW WHERE TO LOOK AND LISTEN -REGGIE MIDDLETON FOR ONE THIS IS MERELY PART OF THE GLOBAL AWAKENING THAT IS TAKING PLACE COMING SOON TO A STREET CORNER NEAR YOU! aS FAR AS EGYPT IS CONCERNED IT IS UNDER CONTROL HASNI IS SICK WAS O HIS WAY OUT ALREADY, THE ARMY RUNS EGYPT ALWAYS HAS SINCE NASSER. ARMY WOULDN’T ACCEPT HASNI’S SON AS HE WASN’T MILITARY.THAT’S WHY THE ARMY IS IN THE STREETS CHILLIN.HASNI IS PACKIN HIS BAGS LET THE PEOPLE BLOW OFF STEAM, AFTER THEY GET TIRED AND HUNGRY THEY TOO WILL CHILL. THE US NEEDS TOO CHILL AS THIS IS THE BEGINING OF GREAT CHANGE IN THE ME AND THE WORLD.US NEEDS TO STAND DOWN BEFORE WE ARE MADE TO LAY DOWN. WE HAVE DONE OUR DAMAGE GET SMART LIKE THE BRITISH DID AND HAND THE BATON PEACEFULLY. IT’S NO BIG DEAL TO BE # 2 OR 3 IT’S ACTUALLY BETTER.
WE MAY BE GOING TO HELL IN A BUCKET, BUT AT LEAST I’M ENJOYING THE RIDE! A HUI HOU
“Bustin J,
You’re a good, descriptive writer and obviously smart.”
He can’t answer you. He burned himself up.
“It doesn’t feel so good swallowing a tiny morsel of the CRAP we’ve been spewing about “human rights and democracy”, now, does it?. Makes me choke when I hear our “leaders” vomit up these remarks!”
I don’t think it is what our leaders vomit up that is making you choke. I think it is the tiny morsel of crap. Try flossing and brushing your teeth.
Not “particularly confusing,” Vlad. Just even more gnomic than usual.
Charlotte > “supremacist” > Usual slur. Starting to wear thin?
Mandela > “night of the long knives” > I doubt it. Let’s not scare ourselves out of the bushes needlessly, eh?
“That alone qualifies him as Messiah re: Egypt.”
“The only ones who ever used the word Messiah were the Rush Limbaugh types.”
Guess this makes you a ditto-head
“so since you were so clever and ordered the “Glenn Beck MRE Survival kit” I have a question… what are you going to do with those “Glenn Beck MRE” when you have to shit?
Hmmm. Don’t recall having ordered such a thing but if I have to shit I’ll merely have a target of your face to make the act a little more fun.
Nice piece of writing there.
No, Asoka, I am not a ‘dittohead’, whatever that is. I got the ‘Messiah’ concept from Charlie Rose, a phrase he used on election nite 2008.
The Dow went up yesterday, and it is going to go up again today. Jim, the market is not going to 4000, it is going to 14,000 … once again. It’s my impression that the entire world could go down in flames and the Dow would still, inevitably, rise.
Orionior, I know that there are earth shaking events unfolding right now, but did you see the news out of Connecticut on Sunday.
The office vacancy rate in Hartford has passed 30%. Properties that were prime real estate just a few years ago are now abandoned. I was downtown recently and its all empty storefronts and homeless people. Yet the local newspaper, The Hartford Courant, assures us almost daily that the ‘recovery’ is proceeding nicely. Just give it a little more time.
‘Rehab’ and ‘Recovery’ seem to to be the watchwords of the 21st century. Every f_____ing celebrity, actor, musician, you name it, is in rehab! Every town, city county, state, government, business, bank, every organization you can think of, is in recovery. It reminds me of the practice, begun about 20 years ago, of calling every craphole country of the planet as ‘developing’. I had been to some of them and it was clear to me they would never develop; they would just keep getting worse.
Also, Saturday, in New Haven, three more people were shot to death. Many outsiders might think of New Haven as eclectic and erudite … the home of Yale, after all. I know that city more from Winchester and the New Haven Railroad, two once great institutions, now defunct, where several relatives worked. I can remember the beauty of the place. How about now? Now New Haven is just another bloody battleground of gang warfare with a weekly roll of dead and wounded, all industry gone, a vast welfare colony. To make matters worse it has not only declared itself a ‘sanctuary city’ for illegals, it has issued faux IDs so they can access the city’s social services system. You can imagine what the results of that program are.
So it seems that The Long Emergency is bearing down on Connecticut and all of New England, like one of those nocturnal fogbanks, opaque and abstruse, that sometimes roll in off the ice cold waters of Long Island Sound, engulfing everything.
Another hugely false cause and effect, false linearity is the fear of overpopulation: this is one of those huge lies that everyone worldwide believes in. The exact opposite is true, there has never been a time when population growth has decreased so rapidly so quickly. As soon as a country reaches a somewhat higher standard of living, birthrates collapse, and in fact many countries have negative birthrates. The population today is 7 billion, the very worse case prediction is that it could reach 15 billion by 2050. But that is nothing at all, the world is a hugely empty place, with just 1/10 of the land area of the USA you could easily host, in all luxury and creature comforts a cool trillion people in skyscrapers. But colonizing the solar system you could easily host thousands of trillions in all creature comforts with them all having free salaries, with machines doing all of our thinking and working and even all our living.
But you have this doomsday atmosphere, this insecurity of all of these scarcities, of all of these catastrophies that are going to happen. No trust in the future, no vision forward for progress, all doomsday and the sky is falling pessimism that plays in very nicely in the hands of the rich and capitalists. The best friends of the banks and rich and capitalists are the environmentalists, the doomsdayers, those that love to reveal all of the imaginary resource scarcities.
Even if global warming is true for example, we can easily solve all those problems technically, even food can be created with genetically modified lifeforms, etc.
And also, all the pessimism, doomsday ideology, all the resource scarcity ideology justifies all kinds of fights and conflicts, all kinds of arrogance, since THERE IS NOT ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE. That is the crux of the problem: there is enough, way more than what anyone thinks, and it could easily be given to all if we had a progressive government that really looks towards the future.
“The office vacancy rate in Hartford has passed 30%. ”
That is called EXCESS CAPACITY, that is the opposite of resource scarcity.
Does anybody know why westerners are so desperate to escape from Egypt, like it was the Belgian Congo in 1960? If this is just a pro-democracy movement, why would Americans or Europeans feel threatened? Maybe it’s something else.
Also, why is everybody crowded into the airport, waiting sometimes days for a flight out? Why not just get into a bus, OK many busses, and drive across the Suez Canal into Israel, where they would most certainly find safe haven?
That’s what I wanna know!
I have a family member who came into some wealth in the computer business and has decided to go into the slumlord business to retain said wealth. So I went house shopping with her in the depressed California town of Bakersfield.
There may not be a Hell but there is Bakersfield. Anybody who thinks that the poor of America are going to keep the lid on if things get ugly hasn’t looked around. The happy talk about “stay in school; get a good job” is just another con job like nursing assistant school or a business degree from an advertised private university.
The big lie is failing.
Mr. Kunsler, you obviously resent those who have a good heart, such as Ronald Reagan and Jesus — you seem to put them both down and/or can’t quite say/write their names without some negative comment or “twang” of sorts in your writings. While you may not care for Mr. Reagan and his politics, his heart was in the right place and he was a good man – a man who believed in what I would call “capitalism with a Christian conscience” and not what you see going on in Wall Street and everywhere in the USA today. There is nothing wrong with capitalism if people put what is right first — honesty in dealings, care for other fellow Americans/human beings, and what’s best for the country — still making profit.
If you would like to put everything in general, broad brushed terms, then the truth is that the democrats have bankrupted the country morally and spiritually through pushing filth and pornography as “free speech” while the republicans have bankrupted the country financially by not regulating the greed of wall street and big business.
I suggest you take a look at your own resentment and brainwashing — you will always defend those on the left, even while criticizing them, such as the current president. Your anger at humanity is evident by the name of your column (clusterf…) which is even lower than the people you derail – the fatsos, cheese eaters, those with gas guzzling cars and so on — you have no moral grounds to stand on putting all these people down while using a filthy title as you have and then try to take the moral high ground. Clean it up and be an example of a dignified human being, as you wish others to be (I hope that is what you wish).
Lastly, you have the insight to see something bad is coming, to our country and the world. Scan yourself to see if you, like so many others, welcome what is coming, as the subtle resentment built up inside you for all humanity wants to see and “end” to all of it. I don’t know what it is, but I too see something horrible coming to our world and do not welcome it.
Marlin – Nice post
We may not have drifted quite as far from our Country’s founder’s vision as we may have thought.
===========
Of Connecticut you say:
“To make matters worse it has not only declared itself a ‘sanctuary city’ for illegals, it has issued faux IDs so they can access the city’s social services system. You can imagine what the results of that program are”
============
In Georgia we’ve basically done the opposite. Besides 287(g) in several jurisdictions there is a lot of stuff in the legislative hopper that will affect the “undocumented” in negative ways. The State has visibly emptied in certain corners of major metropolitan areas.
Those illegals are by no means dumb, they have finely tuned instincts for survival that most of us can’t imagine. I know I would try to develop those instincts if I were in their situation.
But then – my instincts would have kept me at home in the first place.
Back to the Founders – they envisioned each state as an individual “Laboratory of Democracy.”
So it is only natural – when you think about it – that some state somewhere was destined to continue the open border/free food/come in everyone experiment.
That’s natural because the whole Country has been doing it for thirty years in a vast National Experiment involving the lives, hopes, and dreams of – now – 300,000,000 souls. The Experiment is showing serious signs of not ending well for our Nation and our Planet, so Georgia and some other states are now backing away from it as fast as possible.
Connecticut may be destined to carry the Immigration Experiment forward to its logical and extreme conclusion.
Let me know how that works out for y’all, would you?
Well Icur, the only thing that could change President Mubarak’s chance of settling things down is if the military turns against him. I can’t say I know any of his soldiers but if they are like the US military, they are probably loyal to their commander and won’t turn against the man who pays them. The grain shortage is terrible and I have read that the droughts in Russia and floods in Australia have reduced the amount of grain available worldwide. Devastating for millions of hungry folks.
However, the Middle East has always been a powder keg and hardship/disease/starvation is pretty routine over there. Only in first world nations like Europe/Japan/US/Aust. is life normally safe and pleasant. Its very rough in the rest of the world (esp. Africa). The media, of course, is having a field day with this.
The price of oil in the US is $90 a barrel and has been sitting at this price point for at least a week now. Of course, oil being a volatile commodity could skyrocket but more because of speculators and less because of supply/demand. The rest of the Mid East could easily implode but if they are non-oil producers, I don’t see the First Worlders doing too much about it. Also because there seems to be no central leadership for the Egyptian rioters, there is not much chance for their successfully taking over the government.
I should have said:
“Of A CITY in Connecticut, you say:”
Doesn’t change the main idea of what’s going to happen in such a small and densely populated state.
Or maybe it does, ever so slightly
==============================
Now that I’m hogging bandwidth this am –
Maybe the future of the country is going to be that our cities become ever more densely packed and “third-worldish?,” while the rural areas contain the people who supply the food and space for *Creativity?* that keeps the whole country running.
Gonna take lots of oil, though – to pull a thing like that off – – –
What’s the name of this website, again?
Thanx for the response, PoC. Well thought out.
As for myself, although I realize that there is a limit to what we can do for the 3rd world people who come here, I’m well disposed to the illegals I see around me and all thru out the U.S.
Why is that? Because at the river I see them, a Pop and 5 or 6 Kids piled into a battered old Ford on a sunny Sunday, fishing for perch with worms and a Walmart Rod, cooking cheap hot dogs over an open fire, the old man drinking beer from a can, the mom sitting in the shade, enjoying themselves, just like my Swamp Yankee Mill Town family used to do 40 years ago, same place, in a battered old Ford, the Old Man drinking beer, and everybody having a helluva time because we didn’t know any different.
I still don’t. And at the same time my neighbors driving their Hummers down to the air conditioned Gambling Casinos, spending their day in dim light, or flying off all over the world for exotic overseas vacations. or taking greasy cruises on massive ships …
That’s why I like the illegals, Mexicans most specifically.
I like very much what you wrote.
It is so true!
Re. Orange County sourpusses: On the bright side, at least they won’t be complaining about the air traffic anymore.
I see that about them, also – Marlin.
The strong family orientation and all of that.
Of course that is a DIRECT effect of the rural/small town environment that they came from in Mexico. They stay in the US long enough and their kids or grandkids will lose that.
Walk a mile in the other man’s shoes – I always say.
So I try to think myself into the head of the guy you describe, happily fishing with his little family.
And knowing what you and I see coming –
I do believe I’d take my fish home and clean them for dinner. And the next morning I would start easing back down home to Mexico – and find the rest of my family down there.
Before it was too late.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBWhlBiaKYc&feature=fvst
Take the words to “Down Home” by Alabama.
Translate them into Spanish.
I’d be giving the man MY survival strategy.
“That is called EXCESS CAPACITY, that is the opposite of resource scarcity.”
Maybe I’m alone on this one, but I don’t consider shitty 1970s office parks to be “resources.” Freshwater and topsoil, the things humans actually need, have been in steady decline since we started spreading wheat seeds on the ground. At the same time human numbers, and perceived “needs,” have skyrocketed.
Get a grip, man.
PoC, ya, it’s hard to believe 150 years ago this week we went to war with you guys.
old6699, I agree with a lot of your list (not overall resources however, though I admit there is an artificial housing scarcity).
I wonder if I can add one more thing to your list? IDEAS. I was encouraged by someone to watch one of these recent spiffy concept animations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU
and I responded thusly:
Johnson does not seem interested in whether ideas are Good or Bad, he just knows that he wants More of them. But more good ideas bring with them more bad ideas. A lot of times the “good ideas” (National Socialism? Nuclear weapons? Housing projects for the poor? Cultural Revolution? Motorcars? Christianity? Mortgage securitization? Tang?) turn out to be just as bad as the bad ideas, if not worse. Though this will never occur, what would objectively be best is to stop having “ideas” altogether, frankly, as they only get us into more, different, trouble as we promiscuously fall in love with them in the manner of Ms. Nin. [And, in fact, upon a second reading, I wouldn’t have a problem defining the ideas in my random list above as expressions of mental illness.]
Now I was being provocative, but I’m serious about this “idea” stuff. What good are all the educators and think tanks if they can’t see, much less help us adapt to reality?
What about thousands of empty office parks suggests the need for “trillions of skyscrapers on Mars”? As if more office space will solve the problem.
You have a complete and utter disconnect with your energetics reality.
Whoops! old6699, I see I spoke too soon. You’re one of those “ideas” people, yourself, apparently.
with just 1/10 of the land area of the USA you could easily host, in all luxury and creature comforts a cool trillion people in skyscrapers… colonizing the solar system you could easily host thousands of trillions in all creature comforts…food can be created with genetically modified lifeforms…
—
Exponential population growth is so clamorous an aspect of our current predicament that it cannot be overstated.
Hey JK,
Remember that email about the weather a few years back? I was spouting off about the massive “pressures” that air masses take on now with global warming – here it is again……
This used to happen once a decade, now its every year or more often.. Link is only accurate for Feb 1 AM cst
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sfc_con_pres.gif
I think that we industrial humans spend a lot of time trying to figure out things that may not need figuring out. My thoughts on this question are that trees evolved pleasant fruit to tempt animals to spread their genes. Animals that eat lots of roughage, like horses, have no problems with the fibrous core of an apple, but humans find it unpalatable.
I don’t personally recommend doing anything that is uncomfortable. Just like the research that’s come out lately about how running isn’t so good for you. I always found running somewhat uncomfortable, and so haven’t done much of it. I don’t eat apple cores either. But if you dig it, eat em up.
Just my .02
Tripp, thanks, I was just about to write that.
I wish there were an English version to link you to, but there is a great documentary by WWF Parma that shows the Po valley farmland (generator of Parma hams and Parmesan cheese) continuing to be bought up and cementified to build empty commercial real estate, to go along with the existing empty commercial real estate. There is no end in sight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3u7y-SN2O0
Farmers who are cash-strapped end up being forced to sell off their land, in a downward spiral.
This is all just because of the existence of money itself. In the Natural Economy, a person with land and cows would be rich, not poor. And no one in their right mind would turn land+cows into unoccupied cement. It’s only in the UnNatural Economy where this “makes sense”.
We worship a system that is mathematically, mechanically, intent on killing us, and we are blind to its inherent evil.
Its interesting, the very author of this blog quite nearly called for a military takeover of this country, and yet no one here mentions it.
You see some unauthorized non-vetted individuals critisized “the bankers” and to JHK that is code speak for showers or something which sets him off.
Now yesterday Rush Limbaugh mentioned what is known, that QE2 is a peasant starving ploy, and so I wait for the likes of JHK or his relatives to go off their rockers and call for “tanks in the streets.”
Our elite cannot make any correct choices since they are beholden to the to big to fail banks run by people who are from a culture of paranoia and distrust. They take any criticism of them as proof that everyone is a nazi out to get them if that person is an unauthorized non-vetted individual.
Ironically, every time I eat a good, small, tree ripened apple, I eat the whole thing.
Now, those wax-polished globs at the Wally World called a Red *Delicious!!!?!!* I can hardly stand to look at one, let alone eat it.
But I’ve been chewing up and swallowing apple cores for over thirty years now.
Hasn’t bothered me physically – may have helped.
Y’all can let me know about mentally.
PoC, ya, it’s hard to believe 150 years ago this week we went to war with you guys.”
No kidding, Marlin.
Our deranged liberals and conservatives led the Country to war and and killed a million men because they were too smart for compromise.
Hope that doesn’t happen with US overpopulation.
“Farmers who are cash-strapped end up being forced to sell off their land, in a downward spiral.”
Yeah, it is due to our lovely inheritance taxes. Farmers, many of whom are just scraping by but own their land, are considered “land rich”. When they pass on their heirs are forced to sell the family farm to pay off the inheritance tax. You can thank you friendly Congressman for this phenomenon.
“Tunisia is a minnow in the global oil market, Egypt slightly more important. Algeria, however, matters a lot as its oil production is probably close to total demonstrated OPEC spare capacity. Thus serious social instability in Algeria would have major effects on global oil prices. If instability spread to bigger oil producers than that (eg Kuwait or UAE), the effects could be very dramatic.
Presumably, the regimes in those countries are in a much better position to buy their populations off, being much wealthier. I must admit to feeling slightly dirty writing that sentence. Staring at this list of countries makes clear what we already know: about a third of global oil production comes from this array of nasty autocratic regimes, and thus the global economy is utterly dependent on their continued stability.”
some nice charts at:
http://subrealism.blogspot.com/
That was a stupid way to end that post – I was searching for a picture I’d seen of two cows on the opposite sides of the same fence – each reaching desperately across to graze a clump of grass on the opposite side. That was gonna’ be Marlin or me and our allegorical Mexican father fishing with his family.
“The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”
But my cow search distracted me.
Here’s a better ending.
==========
Instead of “Our deranged liberals and conservatives led the Country to war and and killed a million men because they were too smart for compromise.
Hope that doesn’t happen with US overpopulation.”
===============
How about
This time we aren’t going to be able to take the Nation to war over overpopulation and immigration.
Eventually we are going to reach a logical compromise with our environmental limits.
We can do it the easy way.
Or we can do it the hard way.
Crap, we’re Americans. We don’t ever do anything like this the easy way!
You put forward a reasonable argument here but I take exception with what I perceive is (a least one) fatal flaw in your “solution” –
“Instead of governments and obama simply stating and executing a very simple program, cheap rents for all, and millions of jobs to all from public or public – private entities producing all kinds of items …”
The last thing we humans need is more “stuff” – what we do need to learn is to stop defining our (shared) existence purely in material terms. After all the “he who dies with the most toys” mentality could be considered the root of all of the various civilizations’ downfalls throughout history.
Just my .02
“…cheap rents for all..”
So, by decree all rents are now cheap? How does that work?
So we exempt family farms and family owned business.
Tax the inheritance of the Rockefeller family Exxon stock or anyone whose heritable assets are only “unearned,” “corporate, or “paper” in nature – above a certain dollar amount.
Compromise on taxes and spending is the only way we’re going to dig this country out of this economic hole.
Now, go ahead notmommy/Taz/Ling and channel whatever Limbaugh entity you go to for all you *thinking.*
And I will guarantee you that you will demonstrate the point at which your own brain fails you – because you will then begin your usual insults or invent some new insults.
=============
And by the way, if Wage isn’t going to call you on it, I will. Your last insult to her contained what looks like a fairly important error of logic and math.
Are you an honorable enough man or woman to go back and look at it and apologize to CFN?
I will point it out for you tonight – otherwise.
Gotta go to work.
I’ll be Bach.
PoC;
‘Down Home-Alabama;
Kind of makes me want to jump on AMTRAK and leave this snowy north and head for that sunny south. Snowing like hell right now; already 4 feet on the ground and another 12 inches expected. If you want to know what its like (and why would you?) read Edith Wharton’s novel ‘Ethan Frome’.
I’ve got family obligations here right now so can’t go, even though I recently took early retirement. Maybe next year.
In October, on the last tag sale weekend, I bought a thin, hard cover volume for 25c, ‘Andersonville Commemoration’ privately published in 1908. It is about 100 former POW’s from Connecticut who return to Andersonville in Georgia to dedicate a monument to fellow Yankees who died and are buried there. The 16th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry was from right here west of Hartford and many of them, en masse, ended up in Andersonville after the Battle of Antietam. Every cemetery around here from that period have young soldiers who perished at Andersonville. So people must have took the trouble and expense to bring their loved ones back after 1865.
One of the revelations of the book is how well these old soldiers were treated on their trainride through the south at every stop along the way. And at the dedication itself former Confederate Soldiers also participated.
And this brings me to how I fundamentally disagree with Jim. Its this: ‘before oil’, before 1905, we had a country and an economy here. In Thomas Fleming’s book ‘Liberty’ about the Revolutionary War period, he states that by 1776 we were already the 2nd wealthiest place in the world after England.
Also, the U.S. has gotten thru worse time than this, namely the Civil War. If we survived that, why cannot we survive whatever we face now? In 1868 Robert E. Lee left Lexington and took a trip south, passing thru Petersburg, VA, scene of the grimmest chapter of the war, grim because it harkened in the trench warfare in which so many died 50 years later in France. Lee expected a barren landscape and devastated, embittered population; instead he found a busy, thriving town, although happy too see home, had already put the war behind them.
That’s what we’ll do; get thru this and move on to something else.
Sorry Sir, I have a lot of “friends” who had (and have an MOS) I had an AFSC, in fact I had two 3E071 and 3E052, lot of good that’ll do me when the lights go out. But I don’t know anything about “Arab Street”, just that I don’t ever want to see one again, except maybe in Abu Dhabi, they have it together there, but for how long who knows. I served in Iraq, and let me tell you, when resources are as tight as they are there,it doesn’t take much to set them off. I think that whole region is gonna go off like a powder keg. I may be wrong, but with all the unemployed young people there what else is there? Life for those people is so close to the edge, you live that way long enough and how can you tell when you’ve fallen off it?
Where I was the Arabs and the Kurds were at each others throats. Over what? Oil. It always comes back to resources: food, water, and something to trade for cash -oil. What the hell else do those folks have? Somebody has to win, and somebody has to lose. Don’t matter what YOU and I want to happen. It isn’t destiny or divine right or whatever, it’s just the way shit is.
And the way shit is, is pretty fucked up.
Hopefully we won’t be joining them too soon, I got things to do.
And by the way, anybody who thinks any kind of DEMOCRACY will happen in Egypt just look at the TV, a MOB is PURE DEMOCRACY.
You’ve noticed that when a senator or congressman is asked, usually after some rhetorical posturing about the federal deficit, what specifically they would cut from the federal budget ie what entitlements, medicare, the military etc, the response is a stock: well, we’ll have to have an adult conversation with the American people, blah, blah, blah.
I saw part of the same Fox News Sunday program as you. I heard John Boner give the “adult conversation” answer to Chris Wallace. This was after about ten minutes of Wallace getting non answers to the question “what would you cut”. I couldn’t bear to listen anymore so I switched the channel.
It’s worthless drivel. I think you can suppose that they are counting on Ben the Bubble Blower to buy up federal debt racked up through spending on whatever it is politicians cannot contemplate cutting ie printing money. They are willing to do symbolic cuts, they will not cut anything substantial and neither will they raise taxes.
If you watch programs like Meet the Press hosted by David Gregory, which is broadcast opposite Fox News Sunday, you soon notice that the interviewees seldom give straight answers to anything. You get elliptical answers to questions Gregory never asked and when he tries to nail them down, the answers go into ever widening trajectories calculated to avoid the topic.
Listening to politicians or Ben Bernanke or Timmy Geithner or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a waste of time. Sometimes I do it just to see what the Sunday talk show hosts are asking about. But the answers you get are not worth listening to.
On Sunday mornings one of our sports channels broadcasts Italian league soccer. Italian soccer, like everything else over there, is corrupt, you can never be sure that a game hasn’t been fixed or a referee bought, the players take ludicrous dives (they go down as if they’ve been shot, the grimacing and writhing is inversely proportional to the injury inflicted and you get some Oscar winning performances) but it’s better than listening to politicians. And on Saturday mornings you get English league soccer. Bread and circuses. Lower your blood pressure, save your health, don’t watch political talk shows.
“And I will guarantee you that you will demonstrate the point at which your own brain fails you…”
You are in some sort of position to guarantee something that someone does on the internet? Wow, you seem very powerful.
“And by the way, if Wage isn’t going to call you on it, I will. Your last insult to her contained what looks like a fairly important error of logic and math.”
Wage wanted to make a parallel between the poor in our country and the poor in Egypt. There is no parity. None. To claim so is ridiculous.
Gosh, thanks, Vlad. Such kind words!
But – just two days ago, I guessed that a doubled over 20-year old was doing the “PID shuffle”.
A CT scan showed appendicitis. Whoops.
I really couldn’t have cured either without drugs or surgery. And remember that in the old days, many people died from infection after surgery.
Just saying…
Tripp, are you familiar with “Keyhole Gardening”?
It looks to be an efficient way to use rocks (or adobe bricks) to built a raised garden bed that effectively uses waste water and compost, supplying nutrients to a family.
Check out photos here of Keyhole Gardening in Africa: http://bit.ly/dTY4Ei
And thank you, also, Prog, for the kind words and the defense against the guy with no reading comprehension.
He also misread ladelfina. She was talking about Italy, not the US.
CORRECTION
It looks to be an efficient way to use rocks (or adobe bricks) to build a raised garden bed
http://bit.ly/dTY4Ei
“We worship a system that is mathematically, mechanically, intent on killing us, and we are blind to its inherent evil.”
Another echo of:
“For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen [ and therefore unbelieved ] world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world [system], and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms.”
What is the PID shuffle?
Actually, real estate taxes are a bigger problem than the inheritance taxes. And most serious farmers I know do the estate planning to avoid inheritance tax issues anyway. But when land that was worth one or two thousand an acre goes to $25k an acre or more because of development, then the property taxes get harder and harder to cover, not to mention that the temptation to sell is very attractive to the younger generation…
Someone with pelvic inflammatory disease, usually caused by a severe case of the clap (gonorrhea).
They walk sort of hunched over and shuffle their feet, to minimize the pain of walking.
Why thank you, notOEO.
Those are very kind words:
“And I will guarantee you that you will demonstrate the point at which your own brain fails you…” PoC
“You are in some sort of position to guarantee something that someone does on the internet? Wow, you seem very powerful.” notOEO
=============
notOEO, actually you do seem more polite and focused, so far – so perhaps I do have some small power.
============
And again, look at your insulting words to Wage and see if you can’t at least find the ability to admit error. (I’ll give you a hint. You insulted her over an example she gave regarding personnel and staffing. The insult we are speaking of is based on YOUR MISTAKE, and has nothing to do with Egypt.
I begin to suspect that an apology will be impossible for you because the ability to apologize requires a certain amount of manliness or honor.
But I am asking you to at least acknowledge your error.
And I’ll give you another hint. Your error is in your post back to Wage at 1:47, yesterday.
PoC
PoC, Please don’t delude yourself into thinking your posts reflect manliness or honor.
JJF,
Thanks for the shout back. Your answer doesn’t surprise me. It’s the same kind of thing I hear from my son’s friends who have finished their deployments over there.
It’s still gut-wrenching to see it in print from somebody who just got back home.
And I know it’s like in the “code” – or your military DNA or something – that you just don’t come back home and talk about SHIT like that.
But something’s gonna have to give, here.
SNAFU – and any other Vet’s out there – any ideas?
What are you talking about?
Please explain.
Your comments to notOeo are sarcastic & are tinged with a holier-than-thou vibe. You are passive-aggressively provoking him. I’ll give you credit for cloaking it under the guise of being a gentleman.
Why thank you, BICO.
You’re new around here aren’t you?
What are your views concerning taxation?
notoeo reading your posts i can tell you’re one ‘fart smella’ a little humility would go a long way towards helping with your oder.
Sir,
Would Arabs try to make anything look like our fault? Almost certainly they would. I’ve seen them blow up whole buildings with over 50 Iraqi police in them. I’ve seen them cut the heads off Iraqi civilians working for us. I heard an Iraqi christian tell me that nothing will ever end until ALL the muslims were dead.
You see, it’s all about perspective, we can easily judge these people by their actions. But we created a power vacuum there, and something will fill it. I don’t think a whole lot about right or wrong anymore, like so many people say “They were killing each other thousands of years ago, they’ll be killing each other a thousand years from now.” Humans are crafty vicious little shits, every one wants something. It all depends on how far people will go to get it, and if survival is on the line…watch out. I think even the most docile little bunny hugger has it in them to kill. Push the right buttons on someone and you’ll find out. We are all not too different down deep, I’ve had close family members screw me over way worse than any stranger. Turns your world upside down.
People see how our government treats foreigners and they never give it another thought, when what they should be thinking is “If they do that to them, how far will they go to keep us in line?”
Before it’s all said and done…pretty far.
Right now it’s banks screwing us. Then comes the generations screwing each other, and who sets us against each other? Why our “Dear Leaders”, they don’t really get their hands too dirty, they’re a bunch of pimps. We just fuck each other for their gain. Couple of years we’ll get new ones. It’s the game Sir, House wins everytime! Hope that helps.
Holy Moly. Thank You for taking the Time to write this. I will get thru it later today.
I can tell it’s Excellent Info.
(I too was up at 3 am) but was on my other favorite topic, Cat Pics.
I want to read it now but need to eat some food.
I can tell I like the way you Think. And how you SEE things.
“Walk Like An Egyptian”
I kinda could believe that we ARE all Egyptian, I love Cats so much, and they were Worshipped there.
I know this sounds lame.
I will study what’s going on over there soon 2 b here soon.
Thanks for posting.
“Walk Like An Egyptian”
I kinda could believe that we ARE all Egyptian, I love Cats so much, and they were Worshipped there.
I know this sounds lame.
I will study what’s going on over there soon 2 b here soon.
Thanks for posting.
Here time for some Music if you care to…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVrNV_5LhNE
It’s WALK LIKE AN EGYPTION SONG ! Great lyrics, I never knew until now btw. just loved the music before, learning the words now. here I go back to listen thru it.
Maybe they will gain their Freedom…as we are trying to here. Our Pharoah just got thrown in the dust when Obama Care was declared illegal, null, and void. We can only hope that SCOTUS will agree. We have a good man there in Clarence Thomas – he truly is what all the Liberals and Conservatives think all Blacks are: just a White Man with a good tan. Kudos to Berlusconi for being insensitive enough to say as much to Obama. No man or people can walk on egg shells and be free.
GO TOM COBURN (R-OKLAHOMA)
In June, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen argued that America’s national debt is also its biggest national-security threat.
Starting from that premise, Coburn pointed out that the Pentagon is one of the least-accountable federal agencies, unable to even produce auditable financial statements that are required by law.
From his letter (emphasis added):
I will continue to push for a budget-freeze of all base budget non-military personnel accounts at the Defense Department until it complies with the law regarding auditable financial statements.
For decades, the mission of the Department of Defense to comply with basic financial standards has been viewed as a waste of scarce resources, even more so during a time of war.
The Pentagon doesn’t care about the law. The military is a dishonorable thieving operation dedicated to death and destruction through oil consumption.
Here you go, Prog. A vet who now sees things clearly-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akm3nYN8aG8
Our Pharoah Obama just negotiated a peaceful settlement of the Egyptian crisis without a single American soldier losing his or her life.
Count me in also ! Excellent stuff here. I can’t come up with it, but I know it when I see it !
THX for being here.
I find it strangely amusing that people with money are still using it to build more infrastructure – opening a new tire shop when the one across the street just closed its doors forever. It’s mind-boggling, but I laugh, because it’s funny to me to see the collectors steadily redistribute their collected wealth, here at the end of growth. The developer simply hands it back to the carpenter, and the concrete man, and the roofer, and they give it to the grocer, and the barber, and the preacher. But there’s certainly no net flow back up to the developer!
Similarly, I find it oddly rewarding to see the poor gathering up the mess we’ve made to turn it into a meager living. Scrap metal comes immediately to mind. Lots of people living on scrap metal these days.
At the end of the fiat culture we clean up our mess, redistribute the loot, stop moving around, and get back to growing our own food. All this other stuff just seems like filler to me.
Good comments. Thanks.
Dude they are our replacements. You’re being well disposed towards them just means that you are a pall bearer at your own funeral – exactly what the Elite want. Employees at Bank of America have had to train their minority replacements – or else get no severance package. But you do it willingly! You are enmeshed in your own mind and energy, never looking at them and their’s. You ASSUME that they are well disposed towards you as well. How very wrong you are. Watch and Listen.
I woke up this morning to a white world. Fresh snow is so beautiful. Today, we’re getting 8-12 inches more, but that is the lesser of 2 storms; tomorrow we’re getting hit with 10-15 inches and still more on Saturday. Although I enjoy all of the snow, since I’ve been on the CFN website I look at each inconvenience in a new light of extremism. What if we get a lot more snowfall? What if global warming is leading to a very cold northeast USA climate (arctic ice melt shuts off the ocean conveyor belt and stops the warm water coming from the south)?
Where are we going to put the new snow from today and tomorrow? Yesteday I was driving through a blue collar Boston neighborhood called Roslindale, on a main street, Washington Street. In this area Washington St. is relatively narrow. Because of all the prior snowfall, the street was even narrower than usual, effectively one lane in each direction; and there’s a lot of traffic lights. It was barely possible to travel down the street. Took me over an hour for a ride that would usually last 20 minutes. And over the next 24-36 hours we’ll be getting up to another 24 inches. Wher are we gonna put the snow?
We’ve had worse. I went through the blizzard of ’78, a real historic winter hurricane. Basically,people couldn’t drive on the roads for 2 weeks, you needed a special permit, and only then if you were “essential personnel”, like a doctor, EMT, nurse, etc.
But in 1978 we didn’t have a financial crisis. Cities and towns and the state had enough money to clear the roads and handle the emergency. Now the governments are broke and short-staffed. People aren’t as cooperative – they’re meaner.
So for the 1st time ever, in a bad stretch of weather I start thinking about day-to-day survival. The trees are so heavy with snow, they could fall on electric wires strung along the roads. Zap! No electricity for 3 weeks. Better get the camp stoves into the house. Better do all my laundry today, the washer-dryer is electric. Make sure I got enough flashlights and candles. Better fill up the Prius, then it’ll be good for 600 miles. Should I get firewood?
I’m a city guy, I never used to think of this stuff. Thanks CF Nation, don’t I have enough to be concerned about? Now I gotta think with an extremist “what if” attitude?
I’m an anarchist. Which I describe as #1, not #2:
1. a person who advocates the abolition of government and a social system based on voluntary cooperation
2. a person who causes disorder or upheaval
Hey look I’m glad I got you: you lack the requisite quantity and quality of Free Willonium necessary to understand the Old One’s posts. You must gather more and better. Go out at Midnight to a Park on the next full moon. Take off all clothing. Bend over and moon the moon. The beams will enrich you. For more info read the that story – what’s the title? The Effect of Gamma Radiation on Man in the Moon Marigolds? Something like that. You will be enriched after a few months of this double reflexive mooning. You will come to understand Old!
Who knows what we’ll do with all the empty buildings, but Jim’s book “World Made by Hand” offers a plausible idea. Salvage. In garden terms I might think of the excess as a slow-release fertilizer for the remaining useful, smaller-scale, more realistic, hard infrastructure.
Also: I’m new to posting, but I’ve been reading cfn for years.
Sounds like you speak from experience, LARWBD.
“Actually, real estate taxes are a bigger problem than the inheritance taxes.”
============
All true enough concerning genuine family-held farms, TOO.
A funny thing happened in Georgia about 15 years ago related to real estate taxation. Our State Legislature finally established something called the “Conservation Easement.”
This is a state program, not to be confused with the Conservation Reserve Program – which is a Federal cost-share (read government give-away if you like) for building ponds or planting pine trees.
Anyway, Georgia’s Conservation Easement kicks in on any property 5.0 acres or larger. And it reduces annual property taxes A LOT, like 75% or so.
I know about all this because I benefit from it a little bit on a couple of parcels I own here and there in Georgia.
So I shouldn’t complain – and the program does benefit the few remaining genuine family farmers in Georgia quite a bit as well.
Thing is, though, 20 years ago there were a lot more family farmers in the state. Many of them finally gave up and sold out to the HUGE timber companies (like Georgia-Pacific) that own tens of thousand of acres.
Now, who do you suppose hired the lobbyists that got the Conservation Reserve through the Georgia State House? It wasn’t the family farmers, I’ll tell you.
It was the huge timber corporations.
That was also about the time that local boards of education began to lose control to the State Board of Ed – because their main source of funds – local property taxes from the timber interests operating in their Counties – dried up.
Which starts to sound like another conspiracy.
But I’m afraid it’s just bare-knuckles Georgia politics paid for by corporate lobbyists.
End of local rant.
PoC
Is there any Bibical passage that speaks to overpopulation? I’ve don’t remember any – it’s just be fruitful and multiply and subdue the Earth. Can we say to God mission accomplished and get some new instuctions? Or do think it’s all going to blow before that becomes anymore of a problem? Like the deer: without predators they multiply and fill the Earth – and then they just all die but for a few.
Cool, welcome aboard. And that’s a pretty good internet diagnosis. I am a little bit passive aggressive when provoked.
I’m told passive-aggresivity is part of the set of instincts that makes for a good trial lawyer. Or perhaps a good corporate CEO.
We’ve all got to play the hand we are dealt as honorably as we can.
PoC
By the way, what are your views on the Federal Estate Tax issue?
Federal Estate Tax issue: I’m not up on this.
Vlad,
I’m glad it’s too late in the day for coffee.
And too early in the day for homemade wine.
“Can we say to God mission accomplished and get some new instuctions?”
Because, otherwise, I might have just demolished a perfectly good laptop by spitting one of those two liquids on it.
In 1963 I worked in a scrap metal yard. The owners were making a fortune selling the junk to the Japanese. Makes me think that having a business re-cycling and re-selling other people’s junk might be lucrative in TLE.
BTW, a friend of mine driving down the street saw a pile of trash on the sidewalk for the garbagemen to pick up. In the pile, he saw an old spinning wheel. He got out of his pickup and took it, cleaned it up and now he has a beautiful and useful piece of equipment. What some people consider junk!
and elohim said, let us make adam as our inner self and as our likeness: to rule over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Good article. I thought you would find the following articvle on peak oil in Egypt and oil shipments through the Suez Canal consistent with your thinking: http://oil-price.net/en/articles/egypt-riots-and-oil.php
Welcome BICO. I don’t know where you got definition #2, but the distinction I make is between anarchism and anarchy. The former is a system of voluntary cooperation and mutual support. The latter is chaos. They are opposite but people usually associate anarchists with chaos and not with an organic voluntary system of order.
Glad to have an anarchist perspective here.
IMO the world needs more anarchists, more anarchism, and less anarchy.
HOIST BY YOUR OWN PETARD!!!!!!!!!!!
I think of early days when JEWISH scripture was pushed on me [as well as new testament]
CAN YOU BE CONSISTENT?
I HATE THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ITS ‘EYE FOR AN EYE’
[and kill all the sodomites].
READ ‘MYTHS OF THE BIBLE’ [I forget its exact title].Its on AMAZON.
SO YOU WERE DRAWN INTO THE JEW CONSPIRACY AND NOW ARE UNDER ITS THUMB VIA THE OLD TESTAMENT.
[WHEN YR NOT QUOTING RAMANA AND PRABUPAD…2 AT LOGGERHEADS WITHIN THIER OWN RELIGION]
There is alot of truth to what you say, Vlad. Trouble is, it’s not in me to hate somebody because of their race or background. It’s just not in me. I look at people as individuals, not as members of this or that group.
Are you familiar with John Dos Passos, author of the USA Trilogy and a million other books? He was a friend of Hemingway, Lawrence Durrell, Robert MacAlmon et al? He once said … the USA is so vast, so complex, so varied that anything you could possibly say about it, right or left, in or out, up and down, would be equally true.
I’m familiar with Instauration and American Renaissance. I just don’t know where that stuff leads to anymore … except Sobibor or Treblinka.
What I laugh at is slovenly/ fat guys out cleaning / fixing their sleek car or truck with their ‘free’ time!
Perhaps many here are glad that at least 6 degrees separate them from [insert name].
asoka, I copied those definitions from dictionary.com
I just wanted it to be clear that I don’t advocate anarchy. Although, the Sex Pistols wrote a lively ditty about it.
‘office vacancy rate in Hartford has passed 30%.’
Maybe Obama can give the hedge funds another trillion and they can use the space, to hire Indians.
In terms of being an anarchist, in what camp do you consider yourself: individualist anarchists or collectivist anarchists?
The individualist anarchists were folks like William Godwin, Henry David Thoreau, Josiah Warren, Lysander Spooner, and Pierre Joseph Proudhon.
The collectivist anarchists were folks like Peter Kropotkin and Mikhail Bakunin.
Or are you a different type of anarchist?
“That’s what we’ll do; get thru this and move on to something else.”
– – – Marlin
Marlin, this may be hard for you to believe, but I’m an optimist, too. Together, you and I would probably be a couple of characters – as they say of the laughing/joking types down here in the South.
But I’m also a hard-headed realist. And I’ve got the sort of general science background – shaped by a life of work and son-rearing – to sometimes see the forest and the trees.
On the Titanic – I would like to think I could be the kind of man who could have moving around encouraging the other passengers to prepare for the worst – while also cracking jokes like, “That water can’t be that cold, can it?? Maybe we ought to go for a quick swim to try out these new life vests!”
We’ll never know the answer to whether I would do that or not, of course, will we – wait for it – – –
Cause that Sucker sank in 1912! hawhawhaw!!
Anyway, 1912 brings me to my real reason for my post back to you. The US (especially the North) was already a huge industrial economy by the Civil War.
I don’t know the exact chronology, and I’m making this up on the fly – but this should be close enough for accurate discussion.
I’d say one of THE defining things that makes human labor efficient is iron and some sort of motive source besides human muscle to make that iron move.
Well iron requires iron ore and heat and carbon – from wood or coal. And the motive power for iron in the nascent US was first horses, then water, then coal, then oil.
You see where I’m going with this, right?
Because of 300,000,000 mouths to feed – most of the resources that helped the South recover after the Civil War are getting – pretty – scarce, at the present time.
I’m not saying we can’t recover. I don’t mind saying that we COULD have been working on solar and renewables steadily for decades, though – starting when Jimmy Carter first screamed out, “Iceberg – DEAD AHEAD!”
============
‘Cause, Marlin, I now think we may be facing some *energy descent issues* pretty soon. Which doesn’t sound too bad does it?
In fact, boys and girls – Marlin and I just talked about it and we think energy descent is going to be FUN.
In fact PoC has been on CFN for MONTHS – just thinking about how much FUN we will have!!
Now WHO’s ready to see how this lifebelt works???
PoC
BTW, Marlin, last 4 paragraphs are attempt at pure sarcastic-type humor. Don’t know if it will translate well – didn’t want you to think I was insulting you all of a sudden.
Nice last paragraph. Especially the part about being full of shit.
Your reply is as incomprehensible as a SEB comment.
@ BeantownBill
Good synopsis of Boston’s current winter blues, as long as Logan’s still operational in two weeks, i’m willing to be chillin… when I fly back home to Blighty.
But all my cab drivers have been bitching about the fact that this is not ‘snow’ go as usual…
BTW we’ve discovered a kool real food cafe on Washington Ave called Flour Café – real bread real texture, real soups, real nice – sadly Scottsdale wasn’t so well equipped.
How do folks do it, eat Taco’s that cost less than chewing gum?
I like this city, though Back Bay I guess is well sheltered at the mo from the gathering TLE warning clouds, but change begging is endemic, but bright young things carrying real instruments tells me Berklee’s still doing good by them…
Playing for real is going to take on a great importance – perhaps it will help us to get a new Beethoven, Bach or Brahms…
Now the nightly news? Why is Charlie Sheen’s addiction profile so news worthy? No really please someone tell me why? Because he’s popular on a lame 2.5 chap sitcom? For which he’s grossly over rewarded. Also the free TV stuff here is also so lacking in creative thoughful art provoking stuff, its bottom-feeding reality TV cr#p adnauseum…
The ugliest of all Jerry Springer, which seems now only there purely there to feed on lowest common denominating ‘bitch-slapping trailer-trash girl-on-girl venality’, while the errant husband, B/f SO gawps on… does anyone get any form of real entertainment from this? Again please tell me that others DO see that this at some DEEPER level is really something quite sinister, to be despised and switched-off for good?
Finally, here’s a tip…. my life allows me to travel a lot, and NO it was not down to just luck, birthright and family favour – though these do help for sure.
And I can wander-lust-venture not without a daily news round up which is free and comes from the UK… and is based in a form of grown-up reality… if that’s your thang too…
Catch it here:
http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/
“At the end of the fiat culture we clean up our mess, redistribute the loot, stop moving around, and get back to growing our own food.”
If “loot” includes land, you got it.
One thing that should be mentioned here is the role that urban space has played in the protest. It is notable that Tahrir square has played a critical role as the center of resistance, where a critical mass of people could come together to make their displeasure known. Cairo is an extremely dense urban area with a huge population that actually comminuicates face-to-face with each other rather than sitting alone in their ranch houses absorbing official pronouncmenets through the teevee and accepting them as “the truth”. Listen to the description of Tahrir square from Nick Kristof’s column today:
Can anyone imagine that happenning anywhere in the United States? Can anyone imagine that much social cohesion, even in the face of discomfort? Where is our urban square? Where is our public space? The mall? The commerical strip? Bed Bath & Beyond?? Everything is private property, owned by the oligarchy with enough more than rental cops to bust up any nascent demonstration, assuming we weren’t too busy playing Call Of Duty IV. With our spread out suburbs, there will never be the same critical mass. Even if this were to happen in our older major cities, the corporate owned “liberal” media would just ignore them as a bunch of rabble-rousers, out of touch with “decent” Americans, who are, of course, those who live in the suburbs of Scottsdale and Schaumburg (much as they did with anti-Iraq war protests).
As I listen to the Egyptian protesters’ grievances, I can’t help but think that our situation is not so different – rising prices, mass unemployment, no opportunity for young people, official corruption, oligarchy, kleptocracy, government heavy-handedness, economic desperation – and wonder what is really different here? As a blogger on Naked Capitalism pointed out, our Gini coefficient is actually higher than Egypt, Tunisia or Yemen: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/01/guest-post-inequality-in-america-is-worse-than-in-egypt-tunisia-or-yemen.html
There are a few other important differences – their population is young – 80 percent is under twenty-five, while the majority of our people are aging baby-boomers who are able to demographically throw the younger generations under the bus, and our rulers are much more clever than any conventional dictatorship. Rather than having an individual lightning rod like Mubarak out in front, our oligarchy rules from behind the scenes, putting out a new face every four to eight years to make us think we think we have democracy, and the majority actually believes it!
The difference between the U.S. and everywhere else is that in the US almost everybody has fallen for the bullshit “cult of personal responsibility” crap. If you don’t have money, connections, education, housing, food well “it’s your own damn fault isn’t it.”
The fact that the person claiming that it’s your fault is probably collecting Social Security retirement, Medicare benefits and getting around on our massively subsidized automobile transit system always seems to escape them.
People in their twenties are as confused as fuck about this. They keep hoping the next seminar, spiritual movement, diet, or college course will fix them; it won’t. Until they realize that only collective action will do shit for them they’re screwed. As are we all.
According to Howie Carr, the Blissful Monkey Yoga Studio on Centre Street, Jamaica Plain is the epicenter of Moonbat Nation. Are you game – or do you have game? That tends to be the eternal question. Going to the studio to pick up a Moonbat Chick would be the latter. Letting Hispanics overrun our Nation is the former.
“Can we say to God mission accomplished and get some new instuctions?”
But the mission is not accomplished. We haven’t followed the instructions. If we would follow the instructions, we wouldn’t be having these problems.
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried” – G. K. Chesterton
The Covenant contains curses as well as blessings [Duet. 28]. God promised to chastise us for disobedience and bless us for obedience. Putting aside the Covenant and following other ruler[maker]s {g-o-d-s} puts us under the curses of the law {1 John 3:4} until we repent {change our mind}.
Lack of real estate is not a problem. We could have been terraforming Mars and mining the astroid belt by now, if we had been following the instructions. We are not going to get off this planet until we get the basics right.
Lift up your heads, redemption is drawing near.
MD said: “Lift up your heads, redemption is drawing near.”
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Thank you, MD. I lifted my head. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord and he is one angry dude. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored, and … get this … He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword. One thing is for certain: His truth is marching on.
Ahoy Matey. The Israelites were White Men. The Ashkenazis are come latelies – Khazarim. Adam means reddish or ruddy – blood in the face in other words. As Bin Ladin said, they are not Semites for the most part.
Just in from Glenn Beck – Code Pink is in cahoots with the Muslim Brotherhood. Ayers, Dohern, and the Gays and the Left in general as well – just as in Europe, hate us so much that they make common cause with the Enemies of the West. The West is between a rock (the Zionists) and a hard place (being conquered and converted to Islam). We must eschew both sides and say a plague upon both houses. But where does that leave you? You better be nice to us. Remember when the Lone Ranger was surrounded by Indians and he said, “Tonto, we’re in a tight spot”. And Tonto said, “What do you mean we White Man”? Sure you want to go that route? I appreciate your conflict though – but Whites are by far the most understanding in gereral. But as the song says, You don’t mess around with the old Lone Ranger and you don’t mess around with Jim.
our rulers are much more clever than any conventional dictatorship.
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You’re quite the cynic Cruz. You wouldn’t be related to Howard Zinn by any chance would you?
Anyway, you said: “Where is our urban square? Where is our public space?” How about Central Park in NYC. Is that big and public enough for you?
montysano:
“So the question is: when Saudi Arabia inevitably begins to come apart at the seams, will the USA fly in troops and equipment to help the existing regime hang on?”
We already have major military bases all through the region including Saudi Arabia. Won’t need to “fly in troops”…equipment is also there. We own the Middle East with our watchdog Israel.
It’s the Anglo-American model. Vlad will bark about the supposed superiority of the “White Race” and his Vatican sponsored fascist imperialist swine, but in fact, when you look at how people live in North America and now in Europe, and what their lives consists of, it’s obvious they have become little more than dumb animals [behemot (hebrew) = cattle, dumb beasts]. They have sold their soul and humanity to that fascist/commie bankster gov mafia mouthpiece Henry Ford and his ilk, and there ins’t a price on earth short of suicide that will allow them to redeem it back. Kunstler has it right. They are dead souls. Fscking zombies is what they are.
Really? I didn’t mean it to be funny so much as poignant. Except possibly for one passage in the Bhagavad Gita, I have found nothing in World Scriptures about this problem. There are some nice things in the Bible, Koran, Hinduism and Buddhism about being frugal and respectful of the Environment – but even these are still a bit too anthro-centric. There are a few praise songs in the Old Testament about the Beauty of the Earth though. “The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” is a good begining and reminder of man to be humble since the Earth is not his. Also Christ’s, “Consider the lillies of the field, they toil not nor do they spin but I tell you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as these” is beautiful and and as Alan Watts once said, never commented upon. It really didn’t fit in with the Protestant work ethic and their view of the Earth as simply capital.
Uhm, except this is in Italy, where there are no inheritance taxes any longer.
Nice try, though.
I read that Justice Souter ate an apple for lunch each day, core included.
messianicdruid:
“The Covenant contains curses as well as blessings [Duet. 28]. God promised to chastise us for disobedience and bless us for obedience. Putting aside the Covenant and following other ruler[maker]s {g-o-d-s} puts us under the curses of the law {1 John 3:4} until we repent {change our mind}.”
If you must quote a bible “passage” written by human males as if it were something passed down from on high, from heaven in the clouds where your god lives…ah, forget it. You’ll never ever understand life, society, true human nature or where we came from. So-called religion is a controlling societal structure promulgated by those who seek to keep control of our thoughts & behavior. Those who would also create false emotions such as guilt, worry and jealousy to continue to control those who don’t want to know.
Re. rents should be cheap… of course they should, compared to what they are. Would you argue otherwise, that no person born on the earth has any right or expectation of any share of its resources?
Vlad said: “The West is between a rock (the Zionists) and a hard place (being conquered and converted to Islam).”
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Vlad, have you ever studied the teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood? Just what is so odious about converting to Islam?
I will gladly surrender to Allah and proclaim there is but one God, who is is the all-powerful and all-knowing creator, sustain-er, ordain-er, and judge of the universe, and Muhammad, upon him be peace, is His prophet.
These are just words and throughout history people have mouthed words to survive. Native Americans did it to prevent being slaughtered by the White devils who murdered the natives who refused to be conquered and converted from “savages” to Christianity.
Entirely too much importance is placed on such abstract concepts as God and God’s Word and God’s Son and God’s Prophets … whether God is merciful or wrathful … whether God is a He or a She … whether God is White or God is Black or God is Brown.
To me it does not make one bit of difference.
Therefore, I can easily convert to Islam and not make such a big deal out of it. I will enjoy it. As George W. said: “Bring it on!”
Resistance is futile, Vlad. Islam will eventually be the only World Religion. You will be Muslim, too. Unless you are so prideful as to think it better to die standing and fighting rather than to bow your head to the Almighty Allah. Your choice, dude.
Well said, James. Unfortunately, deprogramming these idiots/imbeciles is beyond my patience.
Hey BTB, I miss Roslindale. Usta live in JP.
In olden days, they didn’t even try to clear snow; they used horse-drawn rollers (like steamrollers) to pack it down. Then you would just travel on top of it. I read about this in re. Northern NE, but that’s what they do in Norway & other northern venues. There’s no point in trying to take away all the snow from the roads; you just live with it.
In Italy where I live, there’s a few inches here, a few inches there… on the odd occasion when there is a half-a-foot things just slow down. No one expects to have to go anywhere, and life as we know it does not end.
James Crow said: “So-called religion is a controlling societal structure promulgated by those who seek to keep control of our thoughts & behavior.”
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Nice try, James.
When confronted with an unsavory truth like this, MessianicDruid just changes the terms of the debate, recharacterizing what you have said as being representative of what MD calls “Churchianity” whereas, of course, he has the real thing.
You cannot argue with people who have totalitarian thought systems. Whatever you say you are saying because you have denied God… you are controlled by the devil, etc. etc. etc. You cannot win with these people.
And I remember the blizzard of ’78. Like many students, I walked out onto the Charles. Some folks set up all the furniture from a dorm room out there.
It was magical to have a break from the usual rat race, and people were helping out all over the place, to dig out cars, walkways and so forth. It was magical and humbling.
I don’t think it’s extremist to think “what if”. It’s exhilarating and a reality check. The reality will be the same whether you think about it or not, anyway.
PoC, there are conservation easements and Land Trusts in Vermont. Do you think these are also tools of larger corporate interests? I was attracted by the possibility of buying land in Vt and selling the easement. I don’t have direct heirs, and would like it that as much land as possible remain undeveloped commercially (i.e, housing plats or Walmarts).
Some folks in VT are challenging corporate “rights”, apparently.
Do you know anything about this?
Vlad, of all of your nonsense, this is spot on.
Religionists are our worst enemies in any conservation enterprise.
My born-again sister freaked out because the public school taught her children that humans were animals!! She told them, NO! , humans are NOT animals. Okaaaayy.
With this kind of denial of the interconnectivity of all living species on the part of a huge swath of Americans, how can we hope to modify our destructive behaviours? These people think that Jesus is going to come in their lifetimes and clean up the earth, so they couldn’t care less about oil usage, recycling and so forth. It’s all going to be taken care of supernaturally via the Rapture. They are not joking.
Are you kidding me? I’ve been married so long that if a naked Anne Hathaway threw herself all over me in bed, I’d just wonder how she got there (no – I’m just joking). It’s been many years since I’ve tried to pick up any female, but as dim memory serves, I was damn good at it. And no, I don’t want Hispanics or any other group to overrun us.
OMG, My mom has a new neighbor who is obsessed with having a sterile yard and driveway. 8:00am on Sunday? 3:00 pm on Christmas? He will be out there with either a leaf blower or a power washer, blasting his yard/driveway to Kingdom come. There’s a constant industrial buzz coming from his quarter, and he is out there in any weather, powerwashing the driveway during a blustery and leaf-laden fall rainstorm.
I would not be able to stand it and would hire neighbor kids or someone more sinister to sabotage his machinery.
“use the space, to hire Indians.”
In Italy, they are already in-sourcing the out-sourcing… using Chinese immigrants in crappy sweatshops to produce stuff that they can nominally legally say is “Made in Italy” despite its crappy Chinese workmanship and raw materials.
PoC, I wanted some information about home-made glues, and came across an early Industrial Era text about how to make various adhesives and their precursors.
You would not believe the incredible amount of energy directed at what we would now consider primitive operations: the mass burning of animal bones to render a certain element, the burning of rock, the burning of trees, the cooking of animal hides or fats. The separation of various minerals/salts. The energy inputs were beyond tremendous even then!
I fear we face a post-industrial world without the resources of our pre-industrial world. Hence, it’s not just a matter of going back in time. We have to go back in time with a fraction of the real resources of that epoch.
fwiw
Perhaps the MSM is starting to get a hint … this blog entry is an “Editor’s Picks” on Forbes website.
by Prof Chris Rhodes (physical chemistry, Sussex University, U.K. )
Endangered Elements Pose Threat To Green Energy
(This is basically a discussion about rare earth elements and the Chinese lock on these vital minerals for electric cars, cellphones, wind turbines, etc. I’ll just quote the last 2 paras.)
Peak oil may already be with us, and peak coal in 10-15 years, while peak lithium remains a subject of speculation. Peak neodymium is the latest threat to green energy, while doubt emerges over the security of many other element groups including the rare earths, the platinum group metals, and elements such as antimony, beryllium, gallium, germanium, graphite, indium, magnesium, niobium, tantalum and tungsten. Helium (used to cool superconducting magnets in hospital MRI scanners) and phosphorus (in agricultural fertilizers) are also under threat.
If even “renewables” cannot save us from waning fossil fuel depletion, the only solution is to begin seriously the deceleration of consumption to a lower-energy society based around local communities immediately, with vastly reduced inputs of energy and all kinds of “mined” resources. Recycling must be key to this most difficult transitional step, in hand with a new concept of a “circular economy,” that aims to model nature where nothing is wasted.
ladelfina – forgive me, but if you are a native speaker of Italian you must be female, no?
Just curious, and making a guess about your handle.
Regarding land trusts and Vermont and:
“Do you think these are also tools of larger corporate interests?”
Yes, la del, I have sadly decided that all changes to tax laws in the US from now on – local, state, or national – are going to be, as you so eloquently put it, “tools of larger corporate interest.”
There is just too much corporate money sloshing around all of our politicians for there to be any other outcome –
BUT
Your post raises the interesting question, what happens when two corporate entities with radically differing interests – collide??
The short answer is, “the corporate interest with the most money will win, of course,” but because corporate money is nearly infinite in politics these days – the answer has to be more nuanced than that.
And now, in the rest of my answer, I can only speak for my native State of Georgia.
Corporate
In your example, Wal-Mart vs large landowning corporations in Georgia – The Winner IS
– – -Large Landowning Corporations – – –
Why? Because in Georgia, at least, the large landowning corporations are controlled by corporate officers who are only a generation or two away from their hard-nosed grandfathers – who bought the land in the first place from dirt poor farmers who didn’t have two cents to rub together most of the year.
And these grandchildren are still local Georgia boys and they “know where the bodies are buried” at the Legislature and in the Governor’s office.
This doesn’t mean they would care about a single Wal-Mart location – Oh, non, non, non –
They’d sell out nearby property owners over a single Wal-Mart store in a New York Minute.
Anyone from Vermont want to tell us whether you think there’s still a “Good Old Boys” network up there too?
Maybe they moved to the Hamptons?
Howie Carr is a fatuous tool.
“If you must quote a bible “passage” written by human males as if it were something passed down from on high, from heaven in the clouds where your god lives…ah, forget it. You’ll never ever understand life, society, true human nature or where we came from. So-called religion is a controlling societal structure promulgated by those who seek to keep control of our thoughts & behavior. Those who would also create false emotions such as guilt, worry and jealousy to continue to control those who don’t want to know.” -JC
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Thanks, James,
The stinking miasma of religiosity was blown [quite handily] away with that brief comment, and boy, everything seems so much lighter and even a little hopeful.
(MD has a lot of good things to say IMHO, but when the spirit pony gets lathered up, I just get the hopeless-stupid-human blues.)
Seems wordpress doesn’t like my html coding.
Here’s the link to the article (in plain text)
http://blogs.forbes.com/energysource/2011/02/01/endangered-elements-pose-threat-to-green-energy/
Now I’m really confused.
” terraforming Mars and mining the astroid belt ”
Oh Geez, another one with “ideas”!
WE CAN’t FIX The Freakin’ Terra-based Potholes and Bridges, and you want Martian colonies with trillions of inhabitants??
Where does this depraved human narcissism end?
Hi Bill. We’re friends now. (See how I don’t take your feelings into account – just like a drunk who thinks everyone likes him) Will you please call Mika an anti-gentile? You don’t have to pick up any girls – just take your wife out and trys some blissful monkey yoga – if you are two are moonbats. Otherwise say hi to Howie – a fake blue collar guy just like Mike Barnacle was. But they both made good points.
That’s right – I forgot from an earlier post of yours that you’re in town.
Flour Cafe sounds familiar, I could have eaten there awhile ago, but I’m not sure. Romero’s is a great Mexican restaurant (if it’s still in business) in the Back Bay. It’s in an alley off Gloucester Street, I believe, but if not, right in the area. Davio’s on Newbury St. is a very good Italian restaurant (if it’s still in business).
Back Bay was built on swamp land in the 1800’s. Buildings were built on top of wood pilings. After so many years, much of the pilings in the old buildings are rotted, and some day the buildings will suffer a lot of structural damage.
Numerous beggars have always been in the area, at least since I was much younger. I knew a girl 30 years ago who was a professional beggar in Back Bay. She averaged around $80 per day; 30 years ago this was a lot of money, and it was never taxable income.
If TSHTF, Back Bay homeowners from Boylston St. to the River will be eaten alive by the rampaging hordes from neighboring, less affluent areas.
Q, Central Park is a relic from another, liberal humanist, era.
Outside of New England I don’t think TPTB have been so generous with their open spaces.
“So-called religion is a controlling societal structure promulgated by those who seek to keep control of our thoughts & behavior.”
Yes James, Jesus had a lot to say about the scribes and Pharisees, the “so-called religion” of his day. In Matthew 23:13-36 he called them [among other things] serpents and vipers.
I find it a curious thing that people like yourself seem to always overlook the warnings given by the prophets and apostles of following “the commandments and doctrines of men” and “desiring a king to judge us, like the other nations”.
“And the LORD said to Samuel, “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.”
After God allows us to go our own way, it seems rather snarky to blame Him for our pigheadedness.
Wait till we find out that all the spare parts for everything come from China or thereabouts. Or imagine the surprise when post-crash homeowners learn that asphalt roofing shingle doesn’t just appear spontaneously at the building supply warehouse. Or that there isn’t a tree worth cutting for lumber within 500 miles of Pheonix.
In the US we can barely maintain our roads in urban areas and rural roads are reverting to gravel. The myth that everything will return to normal once Wall Street is given permission to print endless free money and then keep it to themselves is being challenged by reality.
Nice answer. You are often surprising. I think I can agree with all that. I would have loved to see us go into space – as long we didn’t ruin the Earth or exploit any more Nations or Peoples. But it is not to be. We have been so selfish and we are going to pay.
In C.S Lewis’s science fiction, the Sons of God have the run of the solar system at the least. Only fallen races like our’s are confined to their own “prison planet”.
Lara’s Dad said: “doubt emerges over the security of many other element groups including the rare earths, the platinum group metals, and elements such as antimony, beryllium, gallium, germanium, graphite, indium, magnesium, niobium, tantalum and tungsten.”
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There is absolutely no doubt about the abundant availability of THORIUM and it has been proven as a source of energy that does not produce nuclear device byproduct.
It is a tested, proven technology and thorium is easily available (no drilling or mountaintop removal needed).
Thorium is a naturally occurring metal and is only slightly radioactive.
btw MD, you seem to be awfully well-versed in the christian tomes … for a pagan, that is /snark.
“Do you think these are also tools of larger corporate interests?”
Yes, la del, I have sadly decided that all changes to tax laws in the US from now on – local, state, or national – are going to be, as you so eloquently put it, “tools of larger corporate interest.”
There is just too much corporate money sloshing around all of our politicians for there to be any other outcome -” PoC
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Sorry to butt in for a moment, but there are most certainly other “outcomes”. (Use your imagination; ownership doesn’t necessarily mean control, or even profit, in the end. Some victories are pyrrhic, even for those who believe they have every possible advantage.)
Eygpt is having an “outcome” at the moment (or “impending outcome” if you wish). Israeli intelligence hadn’t a clue, and some would argue they’re the best in the biz. What’s that tell you? A fly can appear in anyone’s soup, and everyone can be touched, regardless of their station.
In America, with its history of empty capitalism, many people do indeed live lives of quiet desperation. By watching vacuous tv programs and then following the personal travails of its stars, the public can chortle on about how these poor stars deserve what they got. And, how they are a lot like us – so we could be stars, too. Jerry Springer’s program is about the worst of the worst. It’s fit for the mentally and emotionally crippled.
There are a few excellent television programs, but they are overwhelmed by the insipid, stupid,trashy ones. We ain’t got no taste ova heah!
BTW, I have a friend living in W. Hollywood connected to the movie industry, and let me tell you, it is a horrible, horrible business, a real soul-killer.
no asoka, I did not say …; just quoting a blog written by a chemistry prof in the U.K. (see my comment at 7:19pm for the link)
I wish the denizens of cfn would learn to read !
“After God allows us to go our own way, it seems rather snarky to blame Him for our pigheadedness.”-m’druid.
Your God, supposing it exists, is an asshole.
He makes a bunch of petty rules and then leaves humanity in the hands of tyrants. If he can make a Galaxy what’s holding him back from a little smiting of gross destroyers of his creation?
The prophets were schizophrenics; get over it.
PoC;
There aren’t many Walmarts in Vermont. Maybe none. The blue collar white trash, small town rubes, and mill town hicks in Vermont have to drive across the Connecticut River into New Hampshire if they want to go to Walmart
When the south freezes over.
What do you know- I just heard that the south did freeze over last night. All right then- maybe the mid-east really is unravelling before our eyes. I guess the best we can hope for now would be for the Netflix revolution to sweep across the region.