JHK’s Three-Act Play
On last week’s podcast, Duncan and I yakked about an important concept introduced by Nicole Foss at The Automatic Earth blog site. This concept was “the trust horizon,” which outlines how legitimacy is lost in the political hierarchy. That is, people stop trusting larger institutions like the federal or state government and end up vesting their interests much closer to home. Thus, life de-centralizes and becomes more local by necessity. Your own trust horizon extends only as far as other persons, businesses, institutions, and authorities immediately around you – the banker who will meet with you face-to-face, the mayor of your small town, the local food-growers. At the same time, distant ones become impotent and ludicrous – or possibly dangerous as they flounder to re-assert their vanishing influence.
It is obvious that we are in the early stages of this process in the USA (and Europe), as giant institutions such as the Federal Reserve, the Executive branch under Mr. Obama, the US Congress (the ECB), the SEC, the Department of Justice, the Treasury Department, and other engines of management all fail in one way or another to discharge their obligations.
The people of the USA, having been let down and swindled in so many ways by the people they placed their trust in, and even freely elected, appear to be in a daze of injury. Maybe this accounts for the obsession with zombies and persons drained of blood – who yet seem to carry on normal lives (at least in TV shows). This odd condition is best defined by the familiar cry from non-zombies: “where’s the outrage?” Which brings me to today’s point.
Investment guru James Dines introduced another seminal idea on Eric King’s podcast last week. Dines’s work over the years has focused much more on human mob psychology than technical market analysis – which he seems to regard as akin to augury with chicken entrails. Dines now introduces the term “murmuration” to describe the way that rapid changes occur in the realm of human activities. The word refers to behaviors also seen in other living species, such as the way a large flock of starlings will all turn in the sky at the same instant without any apparent communication. We don’t know how they do that. It seems to be some kind of collective cognitive processing beyond our understanding.
Dines goes on to suggest that the political stirrings and upheavals of the past year represent an instance of human “murmuration” that will lead to even greater epochal changes in geopolitical and economic life. Now, I’ve often said 1) history doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes [thank you, Mark Twain], and 2) that these times are like the 1850s. To be more precise today, these two concepts of “the trust horizon” and “murmuration” point to a moment in time that I believe we are now rhyming with: the revolutions of 1848 and the events that grew out of it.
The spring of that year was an inflection point when discontent over the changes sweeping through European society broke into open insurrection in France, Prussia, Austria, Italy, Poland, South America, and other places all seemingly at once – despite the absence of television and the internet. However, the upheavals of 1848 occurred not long after the first practical installation of a telegraph line from Annapolis, Maryland, to Washington, DC (and then in Europe). It was also a time when the first railroad networks were linking up.
In February that crucial year, the liberal “Citizen King” Louis-Philippe of France was driven off the throne after an 18-year-reign characterized by tranquility and prosperity compared to the decades that preceded it. In March, street protests and violence spread through the grab-bag of kingdoms, dukedoms, and obscure principalities (Prussia… Saxony… Hesse… Fulda…) that would eventually make up the super-state of greater Germany. The Austrian empire began its slide into senility as its constituent states rioted. Even the people in Switzerland went batshit. And so on. Enter, stage left, Marx and Engels with a new political theory, for the excellent reason that the industrial revolution was reaching its stride and the conditions of daily life were changing very rapidly. Country people left farms for factory jobs all over the continent, and the ill-effects of the new wage-slavery drove them into solidarity. The uproar of 1848 was widespread and left many changes in its wake. But it was short and it produced odd instances of right-wing reaction.
In France, for instance, Louis-Philippe was sent packing (to England), and a new republic was established – but the president it elected was Napoleon Bonaparte’s nephew, Louis Napoleon who, in a matter of months declared himself president-for-life, and then Emperor. He was not at all a bad ruler, as things turned out. Among other achievements, he presided over the massive physical renovation of Paris that produced the “city of light” beloved today. But he was driven off his throne twenty-odd years later from the ill effects of the opera bouffe known as the Franco-Prussian War.
In any case, the main point is that so many people across a continent got the same idea in the first weeks of a particular year, and then set about expressing themselves violently. More to my point is how things worked out in America. You have no doubt realized by now that there was no uprising in the USA in 1848 (though we did prosecute a war with Mexico). Yet, in the best Fourth Turning sense of history, a new generation had come of age and was producing the revolution in ideas that included Emerson and Thoreau’s Transcendentalism, and the abolition movement, dedicated to ending slavery. This combination of broadly-held idealistic notions boiled away for another decade and led to the “mumuration” that precipitated the biggest bloodbath of the civilized world in the 19th century: the American Civil War. The Revolution of 1848 expressed itself most horrifically in the place that thought itself most specially insulated from its effects.
Hence, when you read an idiot such as Paul Krugman in Monday’s New York Times Op-Ed kindergarten, prating on the end of hard times in the USA, swallow a good half-pound of kosher salt. James Dines is right, a great human “murmuration” is underway, vibrating like a bass chord through bodies politic all over the world. Wait until you see what breaks loose at the Democratic and Republican conventions later this year.
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Great read this week, Jim.
Rhymes, indeed. More like free verse looking for a beat to dance to.
Congratulations (for making it through another year) and wishing you prosperity (however you may define it) in this Year of the Water Dragon!
I like the concepts of trust horizon and murmuration, as they connect me to my scientific roots. Trust horizon recalls event horizon, something that marks the surface of a black hole. If we hit the event horizon, then we’ll be sucked into the black hole with no escape. Of course, the center of a black hole is a singularity, so I suspect you don’t want to extend the metaphor that far! As for murmuration, that’s an even better one, as I’m an amateur astronomer, but a professional biologist who has studied animal behavior. Since humans are just a very smart social mammal, we shouldn’t be surprised at how our behavior reflects that of other social animals, including coordination of group behavior by murmuration. Thanks for adding those concepts to my vocabulary. I’ll be sure to blog about them and credit you for inspiring me.
Speaking of my blogging, I started off and ended the week at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News pointing out the GOP’s lack of sincerity in their ideas, as the two major political parties have core interest groups, not core ideologies. I also showed that I wasn’t the only person who thought Willard the Rat Romney was a robot, supported the blackout against SOPA, documented a small success for public transportation despite Tea Party obstruction, noted this year’s tardy first significant snowfall and meditated on how it was a continuation of last year’s record-setting weather, and once again pointed out how Detroit is both a warning and a source of hope for the rest of North America. All that was in addition to wishing everyone a Happy Lunar New Year in four languages and three scripts. With that, I leave you all with another wish: Happy Motoring–for now–from Detroit!
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/
“the trust horizon”
I’ve been calling this the “Leaven of Herod”. As in, trusting those who have not passed any test of trust other than a self-administered one.
Great article.
Yeah, like we really care what a bunch of guys in New York City are trying to sell us or those in Washington that are charting our national destiny or those in Hollywood that are coaching us what to think about and how we should react socially.
The biggest farce is letting those in Tel Aviv chart our foreign policy.
we ll hope like hell it won t be the rhythm of war drums…
That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.
Ecclesiastes, 200 BCE
Archeologists in Israel have discovered that the ancient City-States of K’na’an were wholly abandoned and their temple complexes left to rot. The Israelites rejected the old system of Empire and abandoned their City-Lords in favor of freedom in the hills of Judea.
What the ancient Israelites have learned that without YOU participating in the system, there is no system.
To everything there is a season. And that which has been done is that which will be done again.
James, Freedom is just another word for something left to lose! We prefer censorship here in the Empire!
http://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/censored/
It was a good essay. I was hoping, though, for an analysis of the “Sieg Heil” moment at the beginning of the CNN debate in South Carolina, when all of the baldknobbers stood to cheer their new-found Führer.
Love the post, JHK
A friend of mine just posted a video the other day of the bird migration you just described. As she is a both political in her thinking and is a well known performance artist who was just on WBAI yesterday, I find it interesting that the bird behavior would be the way to describe this moment.
As we move toward the distortions of the event horizon created by the lies and doublespeak of globalism we are entering into a trust horizon…
NONE of the politicians “leading” US will be honest with us with as to what needs to be done. I assume half do not know and the other half are terrified to tell us. You can’t look to them.
“Contraction” I guess that now includes a shrinking “Trust Horizon”
Last – For the moment.
i am inspired to think of the m c escher birds, in that we as blog families have an opportunity to steer our own flocks through, and hopefully past the knee-jerk reactions and directions of those flocks of vultures (zombified) that will unavoidably arise at the whim of whatever nazi tries to take over in the vacuum of what is left of our (formerly) constitutional republic…
“Yet, in the best Fourth Turning sense of history, a new generation had come of age and was producing the revolution in ideas that included Emerson and Thoreau’s Transcendentalism, and the abolition movement, dedicated to ending slavery.”
*Blink*
Oh. My. G-d! I was hoping to see the day you mentioned Strauss and Howe’s “The Fourth Turning,” but was never sure I would. After your a handful of your readers have been suggesting you and the rest of your followers read the book for nearly two years, you finally did. This ranks right up there with you paying heed to the commenters who suggested you read Joe Bageant, and you finally did, assimilating his concept of “The Hologram” for being the simulacrum of American civil society that produces what you have called “the Consensus Trance,” which the murmuration you describe appears to be the way in which the country is waking up form “the consensus trance.” As someone who has been a fan of Strauss and Howe for more than 20 years, when they published “Generations: A History of America’s Future,” I’m thrilled!
That written, your comparison of today with 1848 and the subsequent 1850s would be one that long-time students of Strauss and Howe’s idea of the Saeculum (their concept of cyclical history) would disagree with, at least for the United States. They (actually, we, as I’m one of them) would point out that the 1840s and 1850s were part of what Strauss and Howe call an Unraveling, as were the Nineteen-teens and Roaring Twenties, and the Eighties and Nineties, with some people thinking that early and mid-2000s were part of one, too. All the serious followers of Strauss and Howe would consider the period since 2008 (if not since 9/11) to be part of a Crisis. We’re much more like 1860 or 1936, both early parts of a Crisis, than 1848.
On the other hand, if you’re comparing the Arab Spring to 1848, you’d probably get the posters at The Fourth Turning forum to agree with you. Most of the Islamic part of the planet seems to have passed through a Spiritual Awakening during the late 70s, 80s, and early 90s, so the Arab World being in an Unraveling right now would be very plausible.
Also, comparing the Transcendentals to the Boomers is a very apt and fair comparison. No one who has read any of Strauss and Howe’s books would argue with you about that!
Nice historical framework. As a longtime reader, glad to see the satellite view, not just the witty screed view (right enough as it tends to be).
I’d add into the murmuration the resonances of distrust (at last) of the corporate consumer culture, whose blandishments of endless growth were believable for a time, but are no longer. Of course that’s the framework of your thinking — but it’s worth mentioning, as you’re tarring government institutions with thef mantle of murmuration.
Part of what we’ve been doing for the last four years at apocadocs.com isn’t just be-quipping the new of the converging emergencies, but also listening for rumbles of discontent — hoping for murmurs.
For the most part, we’ve listened to a vast empty chasm of nothing, even as the news got more dire and fit the worst predictions like puzzle pieces.
But over the last year we’ve been seeing the various Springs, the Occupy movement, and increasing numbers of people saying “hey, wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute” about where the world is going. The murmurs are rising.
My hope is that we will see a set of mostly nonviolent revolutions, even if it’s grindingly ugly and itchy and scratchy.
Hope is about all I have to battle my informed pessimism; there ain’t many facts available to serve as weapons in that personal battle.
I was unable to download the Dines podcast as I’m not very computer savvy. But if I understand you (and Dines) correctly then this ‘mumurization’ process is one in which a disconcerting reality or idea emerges in a population more-or-less all at once. The collective conscious is helpless to deal with the issue in a coherent manner, and thus grumbling or murmuring about the problem emerges, seemingly from all sectors of the population. The authorities become alarmed, as this murmuring seems to have no center – no culprits or leaders to detain.
The earliest written example I can find on this process comes from the 15th chapter of the Book of Exodus. Murmuring is mentioned several times, example, “And the whole congregation of Israel murmured against the Lord, saying, ‘Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate bread to the full. Instead you have brought us to the wilderness to perish of hunger’.”
God didn’t take murmuring lightly. Sometimes he met the demands of the murmurers, more often he came down hard on them. But he seemed to know that murmuring always has the potential to lead to big trouble. He never treated it lightly – not once!
Those who have ears, let them hear.
Quick! Anyone who has something intelligent to say, send it in before the cranks and racists take over with their tiresome pissing matches!
Human society is the ultimate example of a chaotic, self-organizing system, and we are only beginning to grasp the dynamics of such systems. The one intellectual edifice most in need of being shattered and reformed in light of this new understanding is economics. At her best, Stoneleigh’s writings are a breath of fresh air and point the way toward this new kind of understanding, so as far as that goes, more power to her.
All the same, it seems to me that we as a society have more invested in those long-distance bonds of trust than just Wal-Mart’s quarterly dividend and the ten thousand mile Caesar salad. To put it bluntly, people you can do profitable business with are worth more to you alive than dead, which goes a long way toward explaining the relative peace and prosperity (for quite a few, anyway) of the past few decades. When that profit motive dies and the trust horizon contracts, the incentives can fall on the other side of the life/death equation.
Within societies as well, contraction will produce suspicion and paranoia, identification with tribe, clan and in-group, and motivate hostility against out-groups and a search for scapegoats. This is a formula for losing a lot of what is best in our societies, not just the things that we will be well rid of. Unless, that is, we choose solidarity over tribalism. I hope we will.
You can have a cete of badgers, a clowder of cats, a pride of lions, or a a murmuration of starlings, but not a murmuration of human beings. Very weak metaphor.
Just look at the current chaos in the Republican Party and the failure of murmuration despite Roger Ailes’ best efforts.
Oh c’mon, let the good times roll! I don’t want the party to end until I am passed out drunk in the gutter. I’m just getting going.
Pass the salt.
Aimlow Joe was here
http://www.aimlow.com
Thanks Jim. I love history. It explains where we have been and usually where we are going. Indeed it does rhyme. It is also about 60 years since France “Gaul” has had a good ass-kicking by Germany “Prussia”. Economically or otherwise. Being of German descent with family in Hamburg I know Germans are sick of bailing out Europe just as we would be, keeping Mexico and the rest of Latin America solvent. There is brewing trouble everywhere and still the burning question is slow crash/fast crash. When the people that are pulling the cart get tired of and/or become outnumbered by the people riding in it is when real change will happen.
Hi Jim and all the gang
Well, at first I thought, boy Jim is really disconnected, talking about 1848. But those murmurations are occurring, they are most visible on the internet. Now that open cyberwar has commenced, those murmurations will become a roar. Everyday brings news of new battle engagements in cyberspace. I expect a large and serious assault on the internet as a whole to take place soon, by the PTB. They desparately want to shut down this avenue of information exchange and hotbed of independent ideas. The murmurations on the net are viewed, I suspect with deep chagrin and consternation by PTB entities. Who have a vested interest in controlling the current paradigm. So good job Jim, pointing out connections with today to times of past unrest and uncertainty. Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat disasters, according to General Santanna.
The farce of the GOP primaries continue with a resurgence of the ethical midget Gingrich, LOL. Does it get anymore burlesque? Meanwhile Obama continues to deploy troops and carriers to the Mideast. Europe has agreed to the economic sanctions against Iran. Iran has said they will definitely c
Gingrich paid for by Sheldon Adelson, he of fame for pulling his support of AIPAC for being liberal squishes over Israel’s security. Now do you understand why the gentile white left is in such dissaray and fewer and fewer people identify with the left except to protect their little financial rackets?
The Left simply cannot explain reality anymore. And no you lefties don’t bother ripping me about the half wit “acceptable” TV approved Right Wing full of idiot Christian Zionists (and Glen Beck) who drip with White Guilt Syndrome while praising Chinese slave labor capitalism.
Hi Jim and all the gang
Well, at first I thought, boy Jim is really disconnected, talking about 1848. But those murmurations are occurring, they are most visible on the internet. Now that open cyberwar has commenced, those murmurations will become a roar. Everyday brings news of new battle engagements in cyberspace. I expect a large and serious assault on the internet as a whole to take place soon, by the PTB. They desparately want to shut down this avenue of information exchange and hotbed of independent ideas. The murmurations on the net are viewed, I suspect with deep chagrin and consternation by PTB entities. Who have a vested interest in controlling the current paradigm. So good job Jim, pointing out connections with today to times of past unrest and uncertainty. Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat disasters, according to General Santanna.
The farce of the GOP primaries continue with a resurgence of the ethical midget Gingrich, LOL. Does it get anymore burlesque? Meanwhile Obama continues to deploy troops and carriers to the Mideast. Europe has agreed to the economic sanctions against Iran. Iran has said they will definitely c
An important component of the revolutionary period leading to 1848 was the Chartist Movement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartism
This originated in the UK among skilled artisans/craftsmen who were threatened or had be put out of business by industrialization. I grew to include many of the factory ‘slaves’ themselves dissatisfied with the new system.
The old battle of the Chartists (and the Luddites) is being taken up again as industrialization falters due to inability of the enterprise to support itself or gain more credit.
I must agree with the above commenter that today reminds me more of the 1930s. I think a good parallel might be the democratic Third Republic of France. It formally ended with the “peoples representatives” handing over power to a dictator, Petain, as the Germans put the final nails in the coffin. Even though the Germans were the final impetus, the republic was already dead for all practical purposes as it was not meeting the demands of governance. The populace was divided, cynical and had lost all faith in the republic.
“…such as the way a large flock of starlings will all turn in the sky at the same instant without any apparent communication. We don’t know how they do that. It seems to be some kind of collective cognitive processing beyond our understanding.”
A study of magnetite and the magnetic force fields surrounding the Earth might yield some clues.
Mister James,
Most interesting you should write on this topic at this time; although I’m sure that the troglodytic “debate” audiences gave us some brief eye-opening moments recently. ;o)
I’ve seen the slow erosion of trust in brittle, over-complex and unresponsive/inflexible institutions turn to an accelerating landslide very recently. It’s really been an exponential acceleration; it wasn’t noticed by most for over the past 6 or 7 years (the period in which it’s been most evident), but now it’s gained an unstoppable momentum.
I feel the FIRST iteration of the floundering State will be iron-fisted Fascism in all it’s bloody glory. What damage that might inflict is anybody’s guess, up to and including WW3.
BUT, that’s usually the reaction to loss of stability and trust; many weak-willed, weak-minded, directionless lumpenprole fools will buy into this “former glory” bullshit and will invest their very lives into gimlet-eyed, megalo-maniacal leaders who will bring about the final suicidal crash of the FUSA in a blaze of fire and rivers of gore. (I think this describes the majority of ‘Murkins, unfortunately. Survivors of the Great Crumbling will simply be lucky, or UNlucky, depending on one’s point of view.)
One can see how postures of belligerence by the G.reedy O.ld P.ederasts “candidates” are greeted with rabid enthusiasm.
This will be the learning process; what comes after will be informed directly by what these death throes will have revealed.
Missed this week’s ‘Cast! That will be corrected; I must have my dose of Kunstler-ganda! ;o)
From the “hip-replacement” fan from years ago…Last year you said you’d give-in & get a Twitter Acct or at least a Share Button so fans could post your articles….
Recommend-Fukuyama’s “The Origins of Political Order” & Rickards “Currency Wars” as food for thought-Naked Capitalism as best blog.
Currently a Ron Paul Supporter as carrier of rebellious messages.
JHK- GREAT FUCKING MUSTACHE ON THE KUNSTLERCAST PHOTO! WELL DONE BRO!
..such as the way a large flock of starlings will all turn in the sky at the same instant without any apparent communication. We don’t know how they do that. It seems to be some kind of collective cognitive processing beyond our understanding. That was worth meditating on for another moment…The vibrating bass chord also resonates with me.
http://vimeo.com/31158841
So here’s my idea: murmuration is a leisure activity. Those starlings aren’t feeding when they’re flying around like that. They’re fed, and playing. People wouldn’t run marathons if they had to work on farms.
A phenomenon of group experience leads to a communication of shared sensation. Plants do this. With people, it is a yearning for ideas.
And the greatest, sudden discovery of leisure time is to become unemployed. Like Dines said, there are not going to be anymore jobs, ever, not like before. People sense that the weather is changing, that food is becoming more expensive, that all sorts of little broken things are not getting fixed any more. A foreboding, shared, expressed. A desire for panic, a release from the monotony of denial.
And before I leave, how come nobody remembers Marshall Mcluhan anymore? In trying to understand television he described the Internet, and was probably the first to do so.
Rhino, didn’t you read my criteria for who is an immigrant? The context of the immigration discussion is North America, of which Mexico is a part. The Mexicans are the indigenous peoples. If your family has not been here 500 years, then you are an immigrant. The Amerindians and Mexicans are not immigrants in my mind because they were here before 1492. – Asoka – last week
Asoka I’ve read a lot of absurd comments on this site but this is right near the top of the list.
“If your family has not been here 500 years, then you are an immigrant.” – In particular, this part of your comment Asoka is too imbecilic for further argument…
Or as Bustin more diplomatically put it:
“Asoka attempts to define the argument in his favor. This point of yours is not technical. It is not even a semantic or logical fallacy. It is just pure fantasy.” – Bustin
Charliefoxtrot hilariously put it in it’s proper context:
“here you go, hose (I think he meant Jose but then again maybe he meant hose – Rhino): a chance to change the perception of you as resident impediment- as i understand it, mexicans are not entirely indigenous; but a (forced, for the most part) mix of spaniard conquistadors (rapist soldiers) and indians…the question is moot, since it is not, in fact, 500 years ago; but for the purposes of discussion: i ll take 40 hectares and a bvurro…” – Charlie
But we’re not finished Asoka. “Mexicans” are the indigenous peoples? Excuse me …. sorry I just pissed myself laughing… had to change my clothes.
And you didn’t answer my question: what about the interests of Ameridians whose ancestors had been living in the southwestern part of what we now call the USA for 10,000+ years and who are not remotely what you call “Mexican”? Why do the interests of Hispanic or Spanish speakers from south of the Rio Grande take precedence?
You need to explain this. Why? Because there are situations in other parts of the world where people are trying to re-occupy areas that they say their ancestors once owned. Unfortunately these places have currently occupied by others who would beg to differ. Similar to what we see in the southwestern USA. Maybe we can take your ahem … “principles” of simple justice to the UN. Lord knows they can use some new ideas.
What about it Asoka? Don’t be shy. This is an anonymous blog. At the worst, even if your answer is half as nonsensical as the one I quoted above it will still be good for a laugh.
The “idiot” Krugman is one of the only sensible economists (modern day charlatans)who dares suggest that the great neo-con movement is actually just a con movement. He points out quite rightly that the economy and the state of the union would be in a much worse state if there had not been at least some public spending to offset the reduction in private spending. Just ask any right-wing business man if they would rather not have had any government contracts. Or just ask any employee if they would really rather have worked with an employer who has shrinking sales and revenues. That’s the easiest way to have a hypocrite revel himself! And you call Krugman an idiot?
Sorry for the double post and unended post, computer glitch.
As I was saying Iran has said they will definitely close the Strait of Hormuz if those sanctions are enforced. Ten dollar a gallon gas anyone?
Meanwhile the Tebow craze continues, evryone is in deep mourning for Joe Paterno, and we are treaterd to a long article about one of Jolie’s dresses. SIGH….. Oh well the tragicomedy continues.
loveday
well done JHK, you’re much too good for the sophomoric writing & prognostications that characterized you as of late…
very strong metaphor, the murmuration of starlings…
peace peaceniks
You know, Jim, I doubt if there’ll be much trouble at the Conventions this summer. Any potential troublemakers will be kept far, far away from the happy proceedings. Expect battalions of police and national guardsman, helicopters buzzing overhead, plainclothes operatives circulating throughout crowds identifying malcontents, K-Nine officers dressed in black tethered to their well disciplined German Sheperds … everything will under control, don’t you worry.
The other night local TV station ran ‘1984’ with Richard Burton and John Hurt. This was written in 1948, not 1848. This movie might be more apropo for us than any murmuring. “The future of mankind is a boot on a human face”. How could Blair had known. Now that’s what I call prescience!!
–WSP7
The trust horizon has two dimensions – the vertical or ‘power’ dimension (how much more powerful than you are the people you trust) and the horizontal or ‘geographic’ dimension (how far away are the people you trust and, thus, how large is the number of people you could potentially trust).
Because communication and organisation was, historically, bad, the two dimensions tended to be well correlated – the only way to trust someone thousands of miles away is if you were both subservient to the same sovereign. This is not the case any more.
When you talk of going back to small, local, and simple you keep the correlation unbroken and predict a complete reversal of history (which pretty much never happens). I , on the other hand, strongly suspect that we will be entering a never-before-experienced world in which the vertical trust horizon is low, but the horizontal trust horizon will remain rather high (and, indeed, continue to increase).
Really? Twelve days ago, Rasmussen gave Romney a 22% lead for the Republican nomination. Now after his performance in the South Carolina primary, Gingrich leads by 9%. This according to Andrew Sullivan’s blog this morning. If that’s not murmuration (an entire flock turning on a dime), I don’t know what is. It’s just that the one orchestrating it isn’t Roger Ailes, it’s Newt Gingrich.
“Your own trust horizon extends only as far as other persons, businesses, institutions, and authorities immediately around you.”
Well said, JHK. As a person of Middle-Eastern descent, I can safely say that this is a salient problem (among many) of “my people.” We trust what our crazy cousin says, such as “those Americans set off H-bombs under Indonesia to make the tsunami!” rather than employ a bit of critical thinking.
But that is too Western. Until now. Now we are acting like my crazy cousins.
Why? As a book reviewer of Eileen Pollack’s novel Breaking and Entering (about Michigan’s right-wing militias) put it so well in the NYT yesterday, “It may be more gratifying for people to regard themselves as victimized by a vast government conspiracy instead of ground down on a daily basis by an indifferent universe.”
Alas, 2012. Poor us.
My understanding of the events of 1848 is that it was a time of reaction to extreme disparities in wealth, specifically extreme poverty caused by the gathering momentum of the industrial revolution. Society was divided between those who had nothing and those who had property or who had made money off of those who had nothing.
But what do I know? I wasn’t there. If there is a parallel to be drawn it must be the widening gap between those who have and those who have not.
Our flock of birds will turn when the people realize the primrose path down which they have been lead benefits the few and not them. For now the belief in a ‘recovery’ keeps things peaceful. Our have nots remain deluded into believing that their ships will come in someday so peace continues.
Things will fall apart when the great majority comes to the realization that the future that they have been forced to pay for does not have a place for them in it.
K-dog
The contraction of the “trust horizon” will have calamitous consequences.
I’m familiar with a culture where people’s “trust horizon” extends no further than family and close friends and where the one certainty is that when you leave your house to do even what we would consider trivial tasks you need to have your antennas on full alert. Why? Because the person you are interacting with, if he or she is not a relative or close friend, will try to cheat you. Trust is in extremely short supply. Nothing is done on the level and nothing is clean and everyone cheats if they can.
This is an exhausting way to live and people in this place are utterly sick of it. But who will be the first to be honest? They know that honesty is the best policy but in their world the honest man is a fool. Just like the sprinter that doesn’t use performance enhancing drugs. The honest man like the honest runner will always be two strides behind the others at the finish line.
Who seriously thinks that govts and especially national govts aren’t bought and paid for by monied interests? Does anyone on this blog believe that what David Brooks calls the New York-Washington Axis acts with the interests of the man in the street in mind? It sounds trite to say that the fix is in. But it’s true. The fix is in. And so the trust horizon inexorably contracts.
Maybe because McLuhan was late to the party? We did have a functioning telegraph system in the late 1800’s that worked toward making the world a global village.
In the 1930’s Vannevar Bush came up with the memex concept. He published it in 1945:
Then computers were developed in the 1950s with the idea of point to point communication between mainframes and terminals, followed by DARPA development of the Internet in the 1960s. (The internet came before the WWW, which only got going in the 1990s with the development of HTML)
McLuhan wrote Gutenberg Galaxy in 1962 and Understanding Media in 1964, long after the development of the telegraph and Vannevar Bush’s memex concept.
Great comments today….well written. However,a command of the English language and a creative pen will not fix the Country.
Take note that we the people no longer control the Country. We have given our freedom to a crime family that dictates our lives. Soon there will be war. The people are too close to questioning why things are as they are in this Country. We are getting too close to the truth. The crime family/big money must change course and involve us in a scary, dangerous environment. This will take the people’s eye off the ball of misery that we now face. The citizens will be more involved in trying to find gasoline and tires, flour and sugar.
Soon the question we be…..what’s for supper rather than who won the super bowl!
Santa Claus isn’t coming to town this year……..
Which will happen first: the Second Coming or the collapse of the world economy. Jim may not live long enough to see his predictions vindicated.
Rhino, I am not going to respond to anyone posting on immigration or race or anti-feminism this week.
Can’t we just stay on topic for one week?
Kunstler: “the biggest bloodbath of the civilized world in the 19th century: the American Civil War.”
Not so: what about the contemporaneous Taiping Rebellion? Wikipedia: “The Taiping Rebellion was a widespread civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864, led by heterodox Christian convert Hong Xiuquan against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty. About 20 million people died, mainly civilians, in one of the deadliest military conflicts in history.”
Your formulation makes sense, but it’s not true that we’ve ‘never before experienced’ a world of low vertical and high horizontal trust. This was exactly the formulation of the socialist movements, which emphasized international solidarity even as they sought either to overthrow or transform national governments.
Where socialist movements stayed on the path of low vertical trust, the result was totalitarian Communism. On the other hand, where they sought to restore high vertical trust, the result was the welfare state on either the European or New Deal models, and the familiar middle-class world of widely-shared prosperity which is now unfortunately beginning to crumble. The lesson is that trying to smash the state works out worse for everyone than working to fashion it into something that is worth trusting.
“This analyst sees the perfect storm of converging criteria almost perfectly timed and aligned with the 2012 election cycle. When the moment arrives, the financial earthquake will rapidly demolish the existing highly precarious financial system. Government will stand by helpless, unable to shield itself, much less its vulnerable citizens or private financial institutions from the tsunami of debt and currency destruction.”
A Financial Crisis in 2012 Is Inevitable! Here’s Why –
by Arnold Bock04/12/2011
Why insist on goading these people, there is more nonsense and out and out horseshit written on this blog about immigration than just about any other subject, well maybe religion.
Leftists, I call them leftists never can explain why someone from another country is more important than the people living here. They always fall back on sob stories about the suffering poor from other lands, and the rich traditions of ‘melting pot’, i.e ethnic food is really really really important. Or we’re all descended from immigrants, as though that justifies piling millions more people here until we become like China.
And lets no forget the constant hostility that wine sipping leftists have for Joe Sixpack, he’s fat, has tattoos, maybe an ex con, likes car races, likes guns, likes parades, believes in God, etcetera.
There’s really no arguing with these people, or perhaps there is no inteligent arguing with them, would be a better way of putting it
In the phenomena of murmuration, 27% of the starlings do not decide to go one direction, while 40% of the starlings decide to go another direction, 13% go a different direction, and some decide to stay home and not vote.
Get a different metaphor. Humans are not starlings.
Murmurations—Murmurizing–Murmur: an indistinct, continuous sound; a mumbled complaint.
I am not so sure this defines what has been coming out of the mouths of those inside the Grotesquely Oligarchy Party. What has been be pouring from their oral cavities is the message of a Neo-corporate George Wallace platform. To hell with those in the 99%. Hail to those in the 1%.
The Message has been distinct, nor mumbled. There is fear, discontent, and flailing. It is more like those who can’t swim and fear being in the center of the pool due to their lack of awareness, and foolhardiness when they find themselves suddenly in that situation. Yet, many don’t want to blame themselves for finding themselves in the center of the pool and can’t get back to the ladder without panic, and blaming others for their own situation. Romney blames other by firing them; Gingrich blames others for being lazy; Santorum blames others for not being Born Again; And, Paul blames others because they are not following the rule book found in the Mother Ship.
The media fails to define the lies, the fraud, the corruptness in the debates and positions until it is in their face. Romney is a predator; Gingrich is the new George Wallace; And, Santorum is a fail; Ron Paul is stuck in his lack of reality.
Obama is a very slow swimmer, splashing about trying to stay afloat, but nevertheless, approaching the edge of the pool.
The GOP will do what they do best if they gain full political control and that would be to destroy.
http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com
Good read this week JHK. You’ve got a knack for picking up on provocative references that run around the brain for days after reading them.
I’ve been thinking too that at the political conventions this year we’ll probably see what a full fledged return of the #OWS movement looks like.
http://alttransbikes.blogspot.com
I hear you. One example I go back to is Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s description of her upbringing in tribal Somalia, where her mother made it clear to her that no one outside the family or clan was to be trusted, and that if anyone gets cheated it was their own fault. When this is the prevailing attitude, it takes real moral courage to improve matters — the courage to risk not only being cheated, but looking like a fool in the eyes of braying cynics who are looking for an opportunity to say “I told you so”. That kind of cynicism, I’m sorry to say, is widely in evidence in this comments section.
“…the way a large flock of starlings will all turn in the sky at the same instant without any apparent communication. We don’t know how they do that. It seems to be some kind of collective cognitive processing beyond our understanding.”
This isn’t true. Biologists, and programmers, well understand how flocking behavior in birds, schooling behavior in fish, or the behavior of pixels in an ‘artificial life’ simulation, are coordinated. An individual basically does what other individuals beside, above or below, them do. Group behavior can be influenced by the behavior of any given individual that reacts in a novel manner to a stimulus, the sight of a predator, for instance, or the need to avoid collision with a tree branch. To attribute such behavior to “collective cognitive processing beyond our understanding” is superstitious and silly. Please do your homework Jim.
Always good to see The Fourth Turning by Strauss and Howe get referenced
I love reading this blog, although it seems rather delusional in a Chicken Little kind of way.
Times are indeed a-changing, but despite our hope for the entire absurd system to come crashing down, the changes – the murmuration — appears to be toward an Evolution, not a Revolution.
Furthermore, it is an evolution forward, not backward to some agrarian and small-town paradise of yore.
Furthermore, as bad as things seem (and are) it ain’t nothing compared to some of the bad times in the past. I would expect those CFN readers age 60+ would remember the spectacular absurdity of Vietnam (50,000 Americans dead) occurred in their lifetimes. But let’s go back to the Tuskegee Experiment, the Japanese internment in WWII, the world-wide insanity of WWI, the Dred Scott decision. And on and on and on. Our government has NEVER been trustworthy, indeed, it might even be more trustworthy now, than at certain other times in relatively recent history. Consider this: Until the 1980’s many American citizens were forcibly sterilized – this was legal, and common practice for “wayward” girls and the mentally deficient. Let’s put things in perspective. Times are tough, but at least our government is not snipping off people’s genitals anymore.
Not when you make absurd assertions. Does what Assoka say matter? I say it does. You have many fellow travellers and in my experience the more looney tunes the idea the greater chance it gets traction.
On topic? I say immigration/migration/racial conflict are bang on topic. What James Howard Kunstler writes about is a multi-dimensional problem. The steady degradation of the energy situation, the economy, the financial system has got wider implications that just the size of the cars we drive, the state of our household balance sheets. These things set off movements of people sometimes backed by armies and sometimes not. And we’ve seen the results of cultural and ethnic and religious balkanization that comes out of invasion/migration/immigration – whatever term you want to use – and the failure of peoples of varying origins to inter-marry, to assimilate. Look at the Balkans, Northern Ireland, the Middle East to name a few. Really nasty stuff. Do you want nasty stuff Asoka?
Do you want to play with fire Asoka? Surely you do. Surely you must know the practical consequences of what you advocate. You put on the face of a starry eyed idealist – one world – one love. But you don’t fool us Asoka. We know that YOU know human nature. We know that YOU know the potentially disastrous consequences of what you push for. The question is why do you do it? It’s a perfectly legitimate question Asoka. What is your motivation?
As far as feminism/anti-feminism goes I have no strong opinions and have nothing to say on this. But you go right ahead.
I still find it hard to fathom how what some call “developing” nations (India, China, Brasil, Viet Nam, etc.) are going to participate in any kind of environmentally stable localism in the midst of their rapid embrace of all things “Western,” namely, consumerism and status-seeking based on the same. They will logically call us out as hypocrites if we try to convince them that “continued economic growth” is a model that some are seeing as untenable. And it’s not like this consumer-based aspirational psychology has not already taken firm hold, often in the most embarrassing ways (SUVs and Hummers in China).
We are being done in by the Seven Deadlies, often using technology to enhance our participation in those “sins.” There is now a “girl power” type singing group in China…If I were an investing type, I would invest in plastic surgery providers in that country.
rhino- goes something like this: asoka ~ soaka ~ soaker ~ hoser ~ hose…he pissed me off a little when he wouldn t answer my question about his precious mexicans, which he brought up, as i recall…anyway, glad you got a chuckle out of it; that was my main intent…and i guess we ll see how long the peace & quiet lasts…
…Should woild events shake out as I believe they well could, our next consideration might be what a couple here have posited: Does mankind, in all his ecology-destroying, nest-fouling delusions, deserve to be included in the life-web of the universe? Or, is He [in his present “modern” form] a stain and unclean aberration that requires cleansing by The Host [planet]?
I expect to see some critical evidence that might answer that soon-ish.
It matters not if you can comprehend the Universe, if you’re only aim is to conquer and pervert it for your own twisted ends. I believe this to be the parable/final-bedtime-story of gawd vs. da deb’bil, since it’s been observed from the first that the act of “conquering” destroys and tramples all in its’ path.
Only those of extremely limited imagination take these stories as literal. It’s time to deal with earthly consequences and the denouements of man-made predicaments.
I believe the genocide leveled against Native Americans was the largest bloodbath of the 19th Century followed by The American Civil War.
“However, the upheavals of 1848 occurred not long after the first practical installation of a telegraph line from Annapolis, Maryland, to Washington, DC (and then in Europe). It was also a time when the first railroad networks were linking up.”
Then, the parallel for our world is Social media, allowing ease communication and organization of protests.
This Hessian wishes to congratulate you on one of your best essays in memory.
We should all be prepared for vapor trails, bright flashes, and mushroom clouds sucking houses up like 400 mile per hour tumbleweeds in Teheran as the nuclear powered and armed USS Enterprise steams irrevocably towards the straights of Hormuz to square off against an inept third world coast guard crewed by apathetic conscripts who would rather be left alone not having grown up on a steady diet of war is fun entertainments starring the likes of John Wayne, the draft evader who avoided service in World War II because he already had five kids but whose film inventory has subsequently inspired several generations of young men with no imagination to go enlist to do the shit he didn’t have the stomach for. Later on when he did have more stomach it was due to inhaling dozens of donuts on a regular basis.
I guess we are using “trust” differently. To me, any relationship in which at least one of the parties regularly, directly, and effectively influences the life of the other is one of high trust. The trust may be forced rather than earned, or it may be subconscious, but the party being regularly influenced is offering neither active resistance nor passive disregard. As a result, the more centralised the structure of any given organisation, the higher its vertical trust horizon, I would argue.
Most communist political systems. then, would be quite high on the vertical trust dimension (with totalitarian systems being at the zenith – checks and balances are, after all, hallmarks of distrust), and quite low on the horizontal trust dimension (a tendency towards siege mentality, enemies/counterrevolutionaries everywhere, you’re either with us or against us mentality). In fact, in my eyes, when it comes to trust horizons, the main difference between state communism and corporate capitalism is the identity of the Very Powerful Entity trusted – in the former it is unaccountable government, and in the latter it is unaccountable corporations.
To go from clans to tribes is a huge step – as is going from Tribes to the Nation state. Our accomplishment was huge and we didn’t appreciate it and have pissed it all way through bringing in aliens to do our dirty work. They will never forgive us and they want their own Nation States. I suggest we give it to them and start anew. Otherwise things will just keep getting worse.
South Africa is interesting because not “all Blacks” benefited from the takeover, but mainly the Xhosa. The Zulus were left out in the cold. Could not a Zulu/Boer coalition possibly overthrow them and then agree to go their own separate ways? There is no there hope for the White Tribe there.
Speaking of history repeating (or rhyming), check out this report from the national conventions of 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RzF0Wj4VJw
One suspects the cop presence will be even heavier this time. Or maybe O will just call out the army now that the USA is a battleground as defined by NDAA 2012.
Trust, you say?
I gots yer trust right here for ya…
(And I repost, because apparently it got “lost” in the news cycle; imagine that, if you will!)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/20/us-usa-holder-mortgage-idUSTRE80J0PH20120120
I guess it’s why we put persons of high trustworthiness in omnipotent positions of trust, eh?
Remember this is the CHIEF ARBITER of the Dept. of Justice we’re talking about here, not some pissant town manager.
Get the priorities straight and stop being distracted by paid shit-slingers.
Nice one, Jim. As fun as your rants are, it’s nice for the occasional bit of analysis and introduction of interesting ideas. My trust horizon has become quite small of late–rooted in this little community of mine where I’ve somehow found a home. It provides me quite a bit of local food, enough paid work to scrape by, and plenty of work-trade opportunities. In other words, it very much provides me a true local economy within which to function, which is precisely what I’m looking for.
It’s going to become smaller yet this year as I begin my 2012 plan of serious gardening, regularizing multiple homesteading activities, delving full bore into voluntary poverty, and writing about all of it. That strikes me as one of the better ways to respond to the coming (here already!) hard times, no matter what nonsense Krugman appears to be writing this week. We’ve got a poorer future ahead of us, so time to start figuring out how to live as well as possible in it.
Sorry, here’s a better link for DNC/RNC ’08: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmQKV0ez1kA
Extra acerbic today! Paul Krugman is an idiot! Everyone is a crook! Trust no one! Yes, the sting is extra acidy today. So what to do? Ignore it, fight it, or simply give up? Everyone likes to blame the government. But blaming the government really doesn’t cut it because who is the government – the government is us. I know its hard to get the government to function (look at our do-nothing Congress) but if we want to improve things, get people back to work and have some hope for the future, we’re gonna need to work together. Hoarding canned food, bottled water, silver coins, guns and ammo will only make you a desirable target if the end ever comes. Here’s my suggestion – encourage a revolution in CHINA. That’s right, the Chinese are taking manufacturing jobs because their government is willing to make their citizens work for pennies a day. Reading about them is like reading a Charles Dickens novel – horrible working conditions, slave wages, death, sickness, hopelessness. The suicide rate according to a recent NYT article is huge. Workers throw themselves out high windows because they don’t have any hope.
Who is suppressing them? Who is taking away their dreams and hopes? The Chinese Communist government. Even the average worker deserves more than pennies a day especially when he’s working 12 hour days for weeks on end to manufacture fun distractions for rich westerners. If the Chinese workers get more money, their goods become more expensive and then the US manufacturers will become more competitive. Also we should raise tariffs on imports, increasing the tax rate on dividends and interest from 15% to 30% and put American off shore account holders in prison for tax avoidance; all that new revenue could go into the infrastructure repair and into manufacturing green energy products. All of which would beef up the economy. And please don’t tell me that Americans are too stupid to learn new jobs. How is it then that in WWII we converted auto factories into munitions factories in a matter of weeks? Are we innovators and go getters or just cheese doodle munchers?
A Chinese revolution will only happen when the Chinese get sick of being treated like slaves. But here, in America, we can insist that the rich pay more by electing politicians who have the same goal. Anytime somebody says the government is the problem, they are just admitting that they themselves are the problem. So you can sit around and be part of the problem or you can get up and do something about it and work on a solution.
I believe the genocide leveled against Native Americans was the largest bloodbath of the 19th Century
==
Them Native Americans don’t count as human beings. They never did. Manifest destiny makes that perfectly clear. Just ask any imported blue-eyed devil dog or his master, the bloodthirsty Roman imperialist pederast Vatican/Jesuit lizard.
years ago, maybe mid-nineties, i saw the gov of alaska defend the decision to allow the hunting of wolves from aircraft thusly: “we can t just let mother nature run wild”…he said this on national television; and there was hardly a murmur (thnx jim, for our word of the day) from anyone…ever since, my philosophy re ‘hoomahns’- which is klingon for “ape with opposable thumbs”- has been, kill us all; to give the dolphins a chance…they are, after all, demonstrably smarter than we are (got any idea what THEY are saying?!)…
We faced the Army when we levitated the Pentagon. We had asked for a permit to levitate it 300 feet by chanting ancient Aramaic exorcism rites.
Now, with OWS and NDAA 2012, just do the same: stay nonviolent and put flowers in the barrels of their guns. Bongo drums help.
If the Army, which has sworn to defend, does anything violent to nonviolent OWSers, it violates its duty and loses its honor.
So, the “solution” to our troubles is to foment rebellion in China. Okay then.
Ummmm, go right ahead; get over there and git ‘er done, and best of luck to ya!
Before the Democratic and Republican conventions, there will be another event, one that almost seems designed to leave blood in the streets, or hundreds of thousands in military detention.
I speak of the upcoming NATO and G8 meetings to be held in Chicago this May.
WTF? Are they asking for trouble?
Since the Seattle protests of 1999, and the Genoa protests of 2001, our ruling overlords have preferred to plot in out-of-the-way places. Islands and mountains and Dubai.
But not this year. Oh, no.
They’re coming to Chicago, home of insurrection since the May Day protests of 1886 and the events of 1968.
Surely they realize that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of very pissed-off people will make their way to Chicago to make their voices heard by the 1%.
Or is that the plan?
I find this very, very suspicious.
“…give the dolphins a chance…they are, after all, demonstrably smarter than we are (got any idea what THEY are saying?!)…” -CFT
Charlie, I haven’t the foggiest clue! But it’s gotta be something like: “I wish these fuckers would leave us alone to play in their bow-wakes…” (when referring to humans, which they rarely do).
That was an actual quote on the actual teevee ’bout the wolves?!?
That’s the definition of obscene hubris. whew
We could learn a thing or two from this research but alas the attention span of Super Bowl advertisements and Vegas odds makers for the big game leaves me feeling that a positive solution is riding a dark horse. Consider it a long shot.
“They desparately want to shut down this avenue of information exchange and hotbed of independent ideas. ”
Dude, the take down of the Megaupload site was just a test, a warning shot. Notice how easy it was. No warning.
If things get really bad next year, you can bet other sites will go down without warning. Communications will be hobbled. They want noting but TOTAL CONTROL OF ALL COMMUNICATIONS.
Only what they want you to hear or read or see will be out there, anything else will be quietly silenced.
They can jam cell signals, so no organizing by text either.
Like I have mentioned often here, you really, and I mean you REALLY have no idea what living in the US Asylum for the Insane really is like until you have been out of it for awhile. The USA is being run by the most insane of the inmates of the Asylum. As long as you are immersed in it, you just really can’t understand. I’m glad I got out.
I mean, don’t you even get it? You have devolved from a nation of Citizens to a nation of consumers. That is all you are valued for by the PTB.
Wish you all the best.
🙂
of course, given my druthers, we as earthlings could always pull back from the precipice of destruction and work together as a part of life as opposed to our perceived position as ruler of life on this planet…which will require a major reset in population and distribution, and a common goal…not that of survival of a few but “thrival” of all life
CHANGE WE SHOULD FEAR ! For sure this election cycles upcoming convention season will be a sight to behold. Complete with clowns and noise makers ! Grab the cheese doodles, some goobers & an RC cola, kick back and watch the show. With the NDAA 2012’s trashing of the Constitution and the Posse Commatatus Act my bet is that Charlotte could be the “Kent State Moment” that the communist’s in the occupy movement are wanting. Pissing in the 82nd Airborne’s backyard might just give them that moment. The score back in 1970 was Ohio ANG 4 – Kent St. 0. This time it might be a real combat ready force that see’s no dif between Kandahar, Narnia and Charlotte. Enemy combatants are just something to be neutralized with extreme predjudice ! Same same down in Florida. Might be some real body count and great helmet or gun cam footage. Maybe even Drone strikes. All on the nightly news just like the ‘Nam.
From what I see neither side has the balls to get a grip on things and do what is right for the Country. Basicly we’re fucked no matter who wins in November.
Party on Clusterfuckers !
They want noting but TOTAL CONTROL OF ALL COMMUNICATIONS.
Only what they want you to hear or read or see will be out there, anything else will be quietly silenced.
i respectfully disagree, there are tons of hackers/enthusiasts/techbrains out there that will find a way to encrypt communications/bypass censorship et al, to get the message out.
it’s human nature. good luck to them jamming millions of minds working on a way around their horrific censorship.
a major “may they rot & suffer” to all those who wish ill…..
the US is, to use the words of another commentarista today, a madhouse, see here for chilling confirmation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQME8mx4DMo
peace peaceniks
that last bit is only 99.99999% accurate…there are a few of us with the perspective of literature and history, and i personally was raised on a commune, which for all intents and purposes was apart from the madness…i refer to it as 3.1 square miles of absolute freedom…remember the inside-out house with the placard over the door reading “asylum”, from the hitchhiker’s guide…?
We’ve got a poorer future ahead of us, so time to start figuring out how to live as well as possible in it.
…speak for thyself, friend.
this is precisely the kick in the gut to get you started on how to maintain a comfortable standard of life without self-abnegation, WHILE using fewer resources, for example.
get them smarts working, theres lots of room for innovation.
here in brazil at our place we have solar-heated water, photovoltaic electricity, captured rainwater, and, to max out our computers, we use free Linux (Puppy Linux, which roxx) operating system so we don’t need to purchase everlarger boxes….
peace peaceniks
I find this very, very suspicious.
===================
Seems very thoughtful of them… to make it within commuting distance for you, Wage.
🙂
That you, ozone. I think that you did post that before, because for some reason I already saw it.
That MERS corporation was what the article in Harpers was about. (That I referenced a couple of weeks ago)
It was set up, according to them, to make it much easier to divide up and sell mortgages, since the traditional way was that you had to physically go to the county courthouse, fill out paperwork and get the county clerk to stamp and file the papers.
How do you run up a multi-trillion dollar scam if you have to do all that gruntwork?
So, MERS was set up to, supposedly, make it all “legal”. At least, according to their lying claims.
I guess it helps make it “legal” if the top Justice officials are in on the scam, doesn’t it?
Anyway, talk about a trust deficit. Wait until someone pays off their mortgage and finds out that the bank they’ve been paying doesn’t actually hold their mortgage title.
We don’t have any reason anymore to trust the officials who are supposed to enforce the laws.
This country has descended into open lawlessness, and only the cluelessness of the vast majority of the American people keeps us from realizing it.
Yeah, I know. And most of the people I hang with are busily making plans to attend, while I sit there and say, “wait a minute. Is this a trap?”
They’re saying “Why is the US military using us to get blown up looking for mines?”
Mr Kunstler brings up Mr Krugman’s columns. So i read yesterday’s in the NY Times. And Mr Krugman said this in part:
But anyone who has looked seriously at how we got into this slump knows that private debt, especially household debt, was the real culprit: it was the explosion of household debt during the Bush years that set the stage for the crisis. – Paul Krugman NY Times – Jan 22, 2012
To say that this is a worthless sack of shit would be incorrect. Excrement has some worth. It comes from living beings, it’s part of the natural cycle, it can be used a fertilizer for crops.
So how do we describe a comment like this? Beats me. Words fail me.
I’m just an average fella, a child of working class folk that was lucky enough to have parents that encouraged me to go to university. But you know what? The most valuable lesson I learned was from my dad and not in those august halls of higher learning: people have agendas, they will bullshit you, manipulate you.
So the questions I would have for Mr Krugman are as follows and they are fairly obvious: who the fuck lent the money in the first place? Who the fuck invented liar loans, who the fuck invented subprime lending? (OK maybe it was organized crime). So why the fuck did Wall Street get in on the game, why the fuck did Wall Street start making loans on grotesquely inflated housing values to people that had no hope in hell of repaying? Why the fuck did Wall Street get into packaging and buying and selling worthless mortgage backed securites?
Yeah yeah yeah it was Joe Sixpack, it was all his fault, he should’ve known better. I could go on and on. The point is that private debt is one part of the equation but only one part and to absolve the fuckers on Wall Street of their major part in this leaves me breathless.
Economics is anything remotely like a respectable academic pursuit? I want to vomit.
Earth to DEE:
Did you mean: LOSER
Search Results
Urban Dictionary: looser
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=looser
A looser is a loser who can’t spell “loser”. … 2. looser. Idiotic way of spelling “loser”. Most often used by teens and adults with no more than a 2nd grade grade……………..
I am so sorry for you… though this does explain all your “why” questions. You are looking for a hidden agenda, a motive, where there is none. Sad.
Rhino….Be it the NY/LA Times or WSJ the writers are paid…to lie!
They did the same thing with Clinton and Obama in 2008, elrond. First one won, then the other. Ooh, who will be the choice to be the ruling puppet?
It’s the only way to keep the interest of the masses.
What kind of a contest would it be if one person won them all?
Clearly, the ruling overlords prefer Obama and the voting machines will be programmed for his benefit in November, but they have to keep us occupied with busythought until then.
Hola, sir.
I don’t understand your quibble, or at least why you think Krugman is way off here. The statement he makes, that private debt was the primary cause of the financial crisis, is essentially correct, as far as I can tell. You then go on to discuss the enabling of and sources for this private debt, e.g. liar loans, etc., but I don’t see how that invalidates his statement. He singles out household debt in particular, but that doesn’t mean he’d say banks didn’t play a part, as well. I’d probably make the case that the derivatives markets played the primary role in magnifying the losses into cascading chains of failing loans, which then triggered debt obligations.
“So why the fuck did Wall Street get in on the game, why the fuck did Wall Street start making loans on grotesquely inflated housing values to people that had no hope in hell of repaying? Why the fuck did Wall Street get into packaging and buying and selling worthless mortgage backed securites?”
There’s a pretty simple answer for this. They ran out of legitimate mortgages to spin off, so then they decided to create more.
Good book. She is passionate and preaches to her countrymen that the Dutch way is higher. But despite this, and amazingly enough, in the final analysis she’s anti-Western: even though it’s not working, she refuses to admit the necessity of curbing immigration. Her heart is still with her own people. She is not Dutch and she is not Western.
So ultimately assimilation didn’t work with her despite her brains and idealism. It takes generations and we don’t have that kind of time. The second generations are now more radical than the originals – both here in America with the Mexicans and over there with the Muslims. Why? Because the West is weak and didn’t demand that they assimilate for one thing and secondly that would mean giving up Islam – not very likely for the first generation. There was just no place to start with them – unlike the Christian immigrants of Europe to America.
Sure, we would have had the time if the immigration had remained small. But it was massive and then producing a huge 2nd generation of radicalized youth – who want plush jobs, mercedes benzes, and blonde girlfriends or they’ll blow the whole thing to Muslim hell.
Well, welles, Brasil also has one of the largest discrepencies between rich and poor, and judging from them being #1 in all forms of vanity plastic surgery, they are not always the best culture to emulate. I also went to a rather busy Walmart outside of Sao Paulo (Alphaville)and was amazed at how amenable the people were to that business model.
That said, I DO think those little in-line water heaters they use make a lot of sense.
“Be it the NY/LA Times or WSJ the writers are paid…to lie!”
I’m not so sure that it is telling bald-faced lies as it is lying by ommission. Papers generally try to get their facts straight, for various reasons. Point me to an article from a recent NYT, LA Times, or WSJ that contains some obvious “lies”, and perhaps I’ll change my tune. The editorial pages are perhaps another matter, but that’s clearly marked as some writer’s opinion.
And, BTW, passing on fraudulent or inaccurate press releases or government reports doesn’t really count, in my book. In that case, they’re merely reporting that entity X said Y, without necessarily verifying the information.
JHK,
Thank you for this insightful essay. This is the most important writing I’ve seen on this sight in the past year. I’ve printed it out and saved it in my journal.
SJmom
You are looking for a hidden agenda, a motive, where there is none. – Asoka
Who says there isn’t? YOU? LMAO!
Big questions for YOU Asoka that I asked earlier.
I’ll repeat them:
“what about the interests of Ameridians whose ancestors had been living in the southwestern part of what we now call the USA for 10,000+ years and who are not remotely what you call “Mexican”? Why do the interests of Hispanic or Spanish speakers from south of the Rio Grande take precedence?”
“Do you want nasty stuff Asoka? Do you want to play with fire Asoka?”
“We know that YOU know the potentially disastrous consequences of what you push for. The question is why do you do it? It’s a perfectly legitimate question Asoka. What is your motivation?”
What’s YOUR agenda Asoka? Do tell.
Yes we should have taken the country back with a universal strike when the 82nd turned their bayonets on the American People in Little Rock. And all Whites should have taken their children out of the schools.
J-lee said “He points out quite rightly that the economy and the state of the union would be in a much worse state if there had not been at least some public spending to offset the reduction in private spending.”
I agree as well, Krugman is no idiot. He is an economist but has not pulled punches, nor does he seem to serve the status quo. He calls it like he sees it.
In Krugman’s future, the economy exists. But what do you expect, he’s an economist, and JHK is a doomer. In JHK’s future, the economy is like Humpty dumpty, shattered into a thousand fragments. Perhaps modern economist theory only works when you have the efficiency of large economies.
Krugman is an academic, a thinker, a noble prize whiner. He is also horrifically ugly. None of these attributes matter. What matters is that no one listens to him. He will still have his Noble Prize, his column, and his rumpled tweed suits and tenure, even through a repeat of the Great Depression. That makes him an optimist. He is doing us all a great favor by tracking the crazy shit going down in the spreadsheets of the world.
Krugman doesn’t go home and oil the handle shafts of his woodworking tools- he takes his overcoat to the dry cleaner and eats hot dogs while staring at the comings and goings of the suited bunch who magically produce the numbers he analyses. You have to have a special sensitivity to read and dispense the proper economic augury to keep America’s hopes up. You also have to kind of, sort of BE one of them, the people who stalk the marble and glass canyons. You have to have a peer group with intimidating IQs but be casual enough to eye the cleaning lady’s butt when she bends over.
Krugman is a certain kind of human being I’ve always found to be rather reliable. He has never been a cheerleader, never a sunny optimist, or spewed pablum. You look at him and get immediately that he did not get where he is by affirmative action. He is nerd to the core.
So I dunno. I hope the best for ol’ Krugs. I also trust that future columns will allow us to see more sides of him, and more opinions on more things that unfold that are integral to the field of economics- which touches everything.
This is exactly why K-dog is running for president.
A Massive Write in Vote followed by a General Strike and the Chief Justice Swears Me In and I fix things.
Easy as pie.
His is the logic of the La Raza (the Race) movement. Simply put: they consider themselves Aztecs. Now they have vague legends of coming down from the North and conquering the Civilization that was already there in the Mexican Valley. And Anthropolgists have found linguistic and ethnic similarities to one or two of the Southwestern Tribes – the Utes for one. But culturally not really – different religion, way of life, etc. So that’s it. That entitles them to not only the Southwest, but the whole Continent in their book.
In other words, the weaker we have shown ourselves, the more outrageous their claims have become. They used to just want to take the Southwest, then it was all of America except “the 13 colonies”. Now they are telling us to go back to Europe. Needless to say, many of the Southwest Indians are freaked out since their treaties are with us not with the Mexicans.
Thank you for not rising to his bait, asoka.
Clearly, he’s itching for a fight, but both his points, and yours, have already been made. He’s just looking for a reason to hurl insults.
Paul Revere: “The redcoats are coming”.
Vlad Kranz: “The 82nd Airborne is coming”.
So you’re cheering on the massacre of American citizens? By an armed force sworn to defend the Constitution, which document guarantees the right to assemble and petition for redress of grievances? Because you personally disagree with their politics?
That’s pretty chilling.
It would be hilarious, 200 years hence and we claw our way back to something like stability, to find this conversation archived somewhere. Think about it. We quibble over the GOP nomination process, the threat of Obama’s “Socialism,” even Vlad’s coo-coo theory of Atzlan rising.
Meanwhile, the hairballs running Iran get ready to shut down Hormuz and blow up the Saudi chokepoints.
World Made By Hand in six months, if that happens. Okay, Mad Max for six years, followed by World Made By Hand.
And to think that Americans used to be able to lead in a troubled world. We’ve become a parody of a once-great people.
“a noble prize whiner”
Haha. A telling Freudian slip?
I don’t understand your quibble – Turkle
I’ll explain it: He neglects to lay out Wall Street’s part in this. You know the lies, the bullshit, the fraud, the rating agencies…there’s so much it’s really hard to know where to start. Or just the colossal failure of common sense as the book of the same name put it.
I’ll repeat what I said in my post: “Yeah yeah yeah it was Joe Sixpack, it was all his fault, he should’ve known better. I could go on and on. The point is that private debt is one part of the equation but only one part and to absolve the fuckers on Wall Street of their major part in this leaves me breathless.”
“There’s a pretty simple answer for this. They ran out of legitimate mortgages to spin off, so then they decided to create more.” – Turkle
Why shit, I should’ve thought of this. So it was all just a big misunderstanding, Wall Street is innocent, they just do what they do like mindless automatons…
George Carlin did some hilariously funny pieces. They’re on youtube. One is called advertising and bullshit. Have a look. Talks a lot about bullshit. Which is what the economics profession is.
Chris Hedges:
“Turn off your televisions. Ignore the Newt-Mitt-Rick-Barack reality show. It is as relevant to your life as the gossip on ‘Jersey Shore.’ The real debate, the debate raised by the Occupy movement about inequality, corporate malfeasance, the destruction of the ecosystem, and the security and surveillance state, is the only debate that matters. You won’t hear it on the corporate-owned… airwaves and cable networks, including MSNBC, which has become to the Democratic Party what Fox News is to the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party. You won’t hear it on NPR or PBS. You won’t read about it in our major newspapers. The issues that matter are being debated, however, on ‘Democracy Now!,’ Link TV, The Real News, Occupy websites and Revolution Truth. They are being raised by journalists such as Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi. You can find genuine ideas in corners of the Internet or in books by political philosophers such as Sheldon Wolin. But you have to go looking for them.”
“Wall Street is innocent”
Uh, I don’t know how you possibly could have gotten this out of what I wrote. *shrugs*
He’s just looking for a reason to hurl insults. – WL
I just want some answers. Asoka looks to toss gasoline bombs with his comments on race and ethnicity and nationhood. So let’s have at it. If he can stake out positions on incendiary issues (like La Reconquista and what he calls simple justice, karma) then he can defend these positions. Sorry, he can’t play the wounded innocent at this point. Does not work with me.
asoka plays at a lot of things: provacateur, clown, wounded innocent, etc.
Uh, I don’t know how you possibly could have gotten this out of what I wrote. *shrugs* – Turkle
I got it from your answer which was: “There’s a pretty simple answer for this.”
Simple? No it was more than just “simple”. This was a massively destructive criminal enterprise. There’s no “simple” about it and there’s no sugar coating Wall Street’s role.
Wage,
Your point is well taken. Let me add Greg Palast to the list of important contributors of this moment in the real world, not the matrix.
two Topics of his is the Vulture’s picnic. Which billionaires want to run the White house and who they want to use as their front (Pres).
Also very important is the software that’s supposed to warn of leakage in the Keystone pipeline is deliberately broken. see:
The Pig in the XL Pipeline
http://www.gregpalast.com/the-pig-in-the-xl-pipelineinsider-reveals-concealed-%e2%80%9cerror%e2%80%9din-pipeline-safety-equipment-that-could-blow-away-the-gop%e2%80%99s-xl-pipe-dream/
@ andrei_timoshenko,
I had similar thoughts on those two dimensions. Summarized in a word: Internet.
I recently got my hands of a copy of “The City in Mind” brilliant. but I must beg to differ with James re his thinking on “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” in as how it applies to the Aztec kingdom. Jaynes’ book was seminal for me when I first read it in the 70s? Because I was longing for an answer for our past human idiocies, an answer that would lead me to have faith and hope in the future. Alas, there was no “breakdown” the mind is the mind; people were pretty much exactly like they are now. As I listened recently with growing horror, to a mother speak of her son in Afghanistan, in a bland Cristian acceptance of his sacrifice, I realized that with the help of religion, you can get people to do anything. No need to explain past atrocities’ manifestations with mind-set.
Love your work. So free of ignorance and cant.
Keep hope.
Live as if.
Die brave.
Well you know the old saying, the fastest way to get treated like a punching bag is to act like one.
wage- i m reading the archives at fredoneverything, and he points out something i already knew, but hadn t made the connection…we have the Department of Homeland Security now right? well KGB means something like the office of state security…not likely to make me feel any better about what s going on lately, fer sure!
How does calling it ‘simple’ remove any blame from Wall Street? I don’t get it, and this wasn’t my intention. I merely meant that from one goal, i.e. creating more loans, many other things followe.d
I’ll concede the point though. What ended up happening wasn’t actually all that simple.
That’s fine except that there’s nothing clownish about what he’s advocating. And he’s been called a racist. Nothing clownish about racism either. I asked him if he was a racist because of his comments about Iranians and Americans. He said he wasn’t. So maybe he isn’t. Maybe given that America and Iran are multi-racial countries his comments didn’t cross the line. But when he accuses Americans of being ignorant barbarians he’s crossing the line into bigotry. Nothing clownish about that either. Are you American Turk? Are you an ignorant barbarian?
You got that right, Turkle!
Asoka is a regular homo ludens
(published in 1950; tip of the hat to Johan Huizinga).
Asoka is playing all the time. It’s a wonder anyone takes him seriously. I know for a fact he does not take himself seriously.
This week Asoka has decided not to respond to anyone who wants to wallow in race, immigration, and anti-feminism…
Perhaps Asoka is hoping for murmuration. 🙂
You just watch… humans are not starlings.
“How does calling it ‘simple’ remove any blame from Wall Street? I don’t get it, and this wasn’t my intention.” – T
OK then mea culpa. I read too much into your comment.
i would submit that one big reason for the pile-on is that many people have their money invested in corporations via the stock market, and in hedge funds, so they will not see the evil results of rapine consumption, and the cdo boondoggle; because they feel like part of the system rather than victim…if people weren t profiting from wal-mart, then they would see it as profiting from slave labor…same for anyone with stock in exxon or bp…it boils down to that people don t want to admit to themselves that THEY are part of the problem; it s those scapegoats over THERE…
But when he accuses Americans of being ignorant barbarians he’s crossing the line into bigotry.
==================
What Asoka said is that Americans who think it’s OK to turn Iran into an irradiated parking lot are ignorant barbarians. Asoka stands by that comment.
Turkle does advocate nuclear annihilation of Iran and the beautiful Iranian people. Ipso facto, Turkle is not an ignorant barbarian.
Your explanation is full of shit. You don’t fuck around with issues of race and La Reconquista and then say aw shucks I was only kidding.
If you’re not serious, if all you want to do is ignite fury, then take my advice on issues of race: Shut the fuck up. Nothing funny about it.
So what about answering my questions given that you so wish for la reconquista. What about the interests of Amerindians living in the US southwest whose ancestors got there 10,000+ years ago? Why do the interests of Spanish speakers from south of the Rio Grande take precedence?
We’re waiting…
Vlad –
This phoney “Mika” character of yours is pathetic.
HC
Good question, Rhino.
What Asoka is really advocating is the replacement of one imperialist political structure with another. As though the Spanish imperialists are any better than Yankee imperialists, the Jihadi imperialists, etc.
Dines reference to murmuration as an example of mass mind psychology is interesting but I see it more as a highly evolved biological manuever than an aspect of psychology. Herd or flock behavior is instinctual as the DNA has learned that there is safety in numbers. Humans seem more subject to mass psychosis or panic, eg the tulip bubble or the real estate crash.
New paradigms do arise when there is sufficient opinion change to get the ball rolling. The early adopters legitimize the switch then encourage the followers to follow. This has happened in the Middle East and with OWS here in America. Sweeping changes may follow, but not necessarily the appropriate ones – the Muslim Brotherhood and Herr Gingrich, for example.
Meet the New Boss – worse than the Old Boss.
Something like this?
“What will happen when millions of people are forced to admit that fundamental beliefs which form the foundation for those people’s vision of themselves and their world are shown to be lies? And what happens to the millions of American who are currently taking medication for psychological conditions, if the “system” collapses and they are suddenly deprived of their “meds”?”
http://adask.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/being-so-wrong-for-so-long/#comment-10218
might i suggest a nickname comprised of a combination from dee: “flad” and mika- flicka
I wonder what the members of R.E.M. would think about the word ‘murmuration’? I hope they hear of it somewhere.
‘Being of German descent with family in Hamburg I know Germans are sick of bailing out Europe just as we would be, keeping Mexico and the rest of Latin America solvent.’
Except, GAZ, post WWII at least, Germany had no equivalent to the School of the Americas, or a flourishing policy of setting up the vilest fascist dictators in the other countries of Europe, in order to plunder their resources.
Wake up to the reality of the history of the US and Latin America. That’s like the most cynical of the worldly-wise, the Wall Street megafraudsters, blaming their needy victims, the least worldly-wise people, for the ‘sub prime’ crisis.
Well, worse actually, since torrents of blood of the poor have been shed throughout Latin America – still is being, as well that of priests, nuns, catechists, et al. I’d never heard of people being tortured in front of their family, before. What awesome refinements Pinochet brought to the history of torture.
Cults always fall to the question, and they fall quickly once the right questions are asked. Can you name any of the “liberal” posters here who could withstand being questioned about their “beliefs?”
Anyway I think Gingrich stumbled onto something that is destroying the white guilt syndrome cult’s voodoo, and even if he is not fully cognizant of what he is doing I don’t think the control word “racist” is going to stop him.
How funny that you accuse Liberals of belonging to some kind of cult and then namedrop Gingrich like a good little dittohead. Just a tad ironic?
ccm989, your right-wing voting machines are private and have minds of their own. They don’t take any **** from would-be progressives.
Apparently, the term “liberal” has come to mean anyone who disagrees with something a self-styled conservative has to say about, well, pretty much anything. Witness how anyone who questions Vlad’s pronouncements immediately becomes part of the Vast Liberal Communist Conspiracy. Typical of his crowd, really. They take their queues from Limbaugh and Hannity and all the other network gorillas, even if they claim to be independent thinkers. The tactics are exactly the same.
And it is kind of an overly broad brush, doncha think? I mean, people who call themselves conservatives say some remarkably stupid and uninformed things (hey just watch the Republican presidential debates where they’re falling over each other to be the first to say they don’t believe in evolution), being as a large chunk of them base their politics on a fruitcake, outdated (is there any other kind?) religion that involves eating Jesus and has absolutely no basis in reality.
Can’t we just point out this self-evident insanity without someone accusing us of belonging to a counter-cult? Cuz I don’t think of myself as a liberal, just a bemused, jaded observer of the circus. How about you call me a circus goer instead? But it fits for the Jesus freaks. They’re definitely part of a weird cult. But I never drank no Kool Aid.
Oh, well, continue with the inane blathering about Liberals and Commies if it makes you feel better. No skin off my back, really.
Our host here seems to have the patience of Job, and I don’t mean Brother Job from the Witch of Hebron either.
If Gingrich attacks the white guilt syndrome then he is useful. But for the most part his career except for being useful to rich whites he is as anti-White as they come. Paul Kersey has that down pat in his latest blog essays.
If the white guilt syndrome collapses as I think it will then I believe this murmuration has wings.
IMO being an anti-White is not a good career path, just sayin.
I want you liberals to just shout your head off using the control word “racist” day after day nothing but calling people who dissent from your cult’s worldview “racist”, can you do that for me?
Liberal is someone who falsely believes themselves morally superior. Of course they are not, simply questioning them drives them nuts, its why we have PC to shield them from harsh reality. Even Maher realizes that the dwindling numbers of stupid white gentile leftists are brainwashed, or as the jewish lefties call it “goyimkopf” yiddish for gentile headed childlike thinkers.
Now myself I am a progressive, I fully believe with effort that mankind can improve itself and its condition, but what I am not is some lunatic who believes that by wiping out white countries and white countries only mankind will be improved.
“Liberal is someone who falsely believes themselves morally superior.”
Are you kidding me? This is EXACTLY how the Bible-thumping, Conservatives act, almost to a tee. Is it Irony Day today, or what?
DeeJones
Yes the PTB took out Megaupload, but that was followed by some pretty aggressive tactics by Anonymous. They took down Dept of Justice, FBI,
US copyright office, and many other websites pretty sharpish. Of course hackers can and will fight back. Next time they may destroy those websites instead of just blocking access for awhile. The PTB will of course get meaner too. That’s internet war, I just hope it doesn’t lead to catastrophic events like crippled nuke plants, or chemical plants that explode( think Bhopal India). In any case the battle has been joined, so plan accordingly.
To all the commenters here who insist on rehashing all the old divisive arguments about race, party affiliation, blah, blah, blah, ad nauseum. Knock it off, it’s boring. Try to get your mind around the fact that alot of these divisions have been deliberately created and fostered by the PTB. Divide and conquer, a policy that has served them well for centuries.
A new paradigm is in the beginning stages of development. Do your bit to help this paradigm come into being, even if it means just not keeping the old divisions alive and well.
loveday
“what I am not is some lunatic who believes that by wiping out white countries and white countries only mankind will be improved”
I don’t know where you get this lame-brained idea that most self-identifying liberals believe in this. Clearly, it is a figment of your imagination, or at least some line you heard from a conservative commentator that you took to heart. If you talk or converse with actual Liberals, you’d realize that most of them do not believe it.
“i respectfully disagree, there are tons of hackers/enthusiasts/techbrains out there that will find a way to encrypt communications/bypass censorship et al, to get the message out. ”
Well, I wish them the best, but the Feds have quietly been implementing various lockdown and control mechanisms on the internet over the past few years.
You think only Anon & other hackers are capable of DDOS attacks, or running & controlling botnets?
The US military has a huge cyberwarfare section, and guess what, its not all targeted at China or Russia.
If things get crappy at the conventions next year, you can bet only the government approved stories & video will make the news & the net.
Those with differing views will find it very hard to get them out, or their options limited.
But to hell with it all, I don’t live there anymore. I sure as hell ain’t voting.
😉
“and i personally was raised on a commune, which for all intents and purposes was apart from the madness…i refer to it as 3.1 square miles of absolute freedom…remember the inside-out house with the placard over the door reading “asylum”, from the hitchhiker’s guide…?”
Glad to hear you have or had some form of asylum from the Big Asylum. Sorta like hiding in the storeroom. But not everyone does.
For most americans, its all about being obedient little consumadroids.
And unless the the Vogons show up to put in that hyperspace bypass, well, things are’t looking too good for old Planet Earth anyway.
😉
“…but that was followed by some pretty aggressive tactics by Anonymous. They took down Dept of Justice, FBI, US copyright office, and many other websites pretty sharpish.”
Um, so they defaced or blocked access to some government websites. Big deal. You don’t think the government can’t institute a huge slowdown of the net if they want?. All it takes is an order to the Telecoms. Kinda hard to hack a government web page if you have NO or ‘dialup’ speed internet access.
People have gotten so used to DSL speed access that they will be helpless if they only have 56k speed available. Can you imagine waiting 10 minutes for THIS page to START loading?
But I wish the best to Anon & all the hackers out there. The are on the forefront of the fight in the ‘net era. Get your backup access points lines up now! Remember the Pringles Can-tenna? You may need it….
😉
He’s a Jew just like yoo. And therefore you will never criticize him or his ideas. Never.
Vlad,
Must you go on continually about race? Your posts are like a train that runs thru the CFN blog on an hourly basis. After a few weeks of tuning in to CFN, the folks in the neighborhood simply tune your white-supremist messages out.
Please try to calm down a bit.
SJmom
Nothing is completely real, socially and therefore personally, until it is spoken out in public. Gingrich is calling the media out on sliminess and liberal bias. The crowd loves it – a validation of what they all believed but couldn’t ever hear in the mass media forum.
Journalists have to be seen for the hucksters and hacks that they are. Why didn’t one the Republicans do this years ago?
The best case scenario is registered Republicans fight a civil war against registered Democrats. Kill each other off sort of thing. Civil war type bloodbath is warranted.
Would be easy to revolutionize the remnants.
Very interesting week’s work, JHK, and a particularly interesting application of the word, “murmuration.”
Definitions
1. “the utterance of low continuous sounds or complaining noises”
2. “flock of starlings” -webster online-
And the question proposed by Mr. Dines is whether human thought and murmuration can turn the course of human history on a dime – much as this amazing murmuration of starlings in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eakKfY5aHmY&feature=related
Is human history about to change as radically as it did in 1848 through 1864 – and if it does, how many of us will survive the changes? Change is not always for the better, you know?
———-
“”mumuration” that precipitated the biggest bloodbath of the civilized world in the 19th century: the American Civil War. The Revolution of 1848 expressed itself most horrifically in the place that thought itself most specially insulated from its effects.” -jhk-
—————–
The jury is still out on the question, above.
And thanks for giving us some totally new vocabulary for the week’s discussion, James.
Vlad, I hate to break it to you, but with a whole network devoted to singing the praises of so-called conservative politics, and it being the most watched news network here in America, the term liberal media should officially be consigned to the trash can. You’re behind in your thinking (again).
You still haven’t understood – it’s an important part of reality. If you don’t deal with it, it will deal with you. You’re projecting your own deracinated homogenous white bread approach to life onto Non Whites – and it’s just not true.
They don’t want to get along with us, they want to be us and/or to have what we have. Our job is to stop them. Get on the train or get run over.
Yawn.
SJmom
“…. I am not going to respond to anyone posting on immigration or race or anti-feminism this week.”
-asoka-
This is going to make for a very quiet week for you isn’t it, a..?
=====================
Fortunately, we have Ixnomore waiting in the wings from last week, ready, willing, and able to derail logical discussion of United States population growth* – with loud and distracting charges of “RACIST!”
Ix uses a familiar tactic, that grows tiresome.
*to go with this week’s metaphor, US population growth may be taking our whole murmuration of human starlings – flying directly into the side of a huge death mountain.
Vlad,
It was the 101st Airborne that was sent to Little Rock, Selma and later to Detroit. Fort Campbell was closer then Fort Bragg. Charlotte is just down the road apiece from Fort Bragg. Chicago in May might be anyones guess. Maybe Canadian’s with robins egg bleu helmets.
I personally feel that something bad is in the wind for legislation like what has just passed to even be thought of. What sucks is that there was hardly any debate on the key part allowing the use of active military to police America. The attempt to take down or censor the internet is very Orwellian indeed ! Wasn’t it The Who that had a line in a song about the “thought police are in my head” ?
Stay Frosty and under the radar
I do think that out of necessity, we are trying to find the local over the far from local. I for one will use the pharmacy that is owned by a pharmacist and he actually knows my family and I, by name. I shop nearby for all necessities. Even Pathmark. I know all the cashiers, and they will sometimes tell me about discounts that I might have missed. I don’t want to go to Manhatten to have my hair done, when I can go nearby and get to know everyone. I been going there for about 10 years. Anyway, I don’t see the connection yet to politics. For instance, NOT ONE candidate, on either side has anything to offer of any value. All of it is LIES> Just look at the leader OBAMA. CHANGE? What was he talking about? He is a racehorse for Wall Street, and he wants to take from the rich? What? All lies from the beginning. Of course, the country fell for it. What a mistake. However, the other party, had someone who was deformed inside and out. His running mate became a laughting stock, as did Obama’s VP. So what do we have to look forward to? LIES, LIES, LIES, DEATH, TAXES AND MORE LIES. If we stopped paying our income taxes then we would see if they started listening to us.
Liberal is someone who falsely believes themselves morally superior.
==
And what are you, a moral degenerate? Maybe you are. Talk about a goyishe kop, you are the very definition. Knucklehead! Tell us more about how Soros and AIPAC are going to sink the vatican nazi american empire and why that is a bad thing.
Btw, what come first, VLAD or NEWWORLD? I realize it’s a chicken/egg conundrum, but maybe we’ll finally be able to put an end to that mystery.
Hey, Procon. It depends. It will be a quiet week if people only want to post about immigration, race, and anti-feminism.
But I’m willing to engage on a whole host of other issues, as I did last week on Peak Oil, the world’s largest movement, 350.org, alternative energies, simple living, etc.
I’m just done with immigrant bashers and racists and misogynists this week.
Wage, I’m not cheering at all ! I find it beyond chilling that the present government even thinks this kind of power is remotely justified. The employment of combat troops to me is unreasonable,un-necessary and unacceptable ! However there are those in power who obviously feel it’s necessary.
The people behind the Occupy movement are at best communist revolutionaries. Bill Ayers and Bernette Dorhn and their followers still want to bring down America and establish a totalitrian socialist state. They have the CP-USA, DSA and the backing of various Soros funded foundations. There is more then enough seed money to stir up some real shit.
I never would support the use of any means outside of the electoral process to bring about any kind of change. Violence is never the 1st choice for solving any problem.
Quick note to E. from last night.
E. thanks for your responses. We agree. Yes these people use Christianity to hide behind hoping we won’t catch on that just as capitalism is for the little people, while socialism is for the elite, so is religion. Our elite prove over and over again that they are the opposite of Christian.
I don’t know Wage, city-planners don’t typically look much further than the promise of a big sales tax bonanza. And Chicago sure could use the money: Yes they can!
As far as security goes, what’s the use of being the ‘City of Broad Shoulders’ if cracking a few heads gets in the way of making money. This is all about business, and nothing else, IMO.
And speaking of business, how about India buying Iranian oil with gold instead of dollars. Moreover, according to Debka ( is this website believable?)China and Russia are waiting in the wings to do the same thing:
http://www.debka.com/article/21673/
I couldn’t tell you whether the website is believable/credible, but the concept of gold being a tangible item to trade oil for certainly is!
(This is what Pepe Escobar was on about last week, BTW; it’s all about the hegemony of the US $. It’s a pretty good con, denominating black gold in unbacked Benjamins, and you can certainly see why some would want it to continue [even to the point of starting a big, hot war over it]. THAT you can believe. ;o)
Fox news was a smash success because it seemed to offer an alternative to the MSM, which obviously has a huge Left Wing bias. But they don’t challenge alot of the fundamentals of the sytem. They said nothing about the NDAA for example – so they suck too. I admit I get a personal kick out of their attacks against the Liberals, but at the same time I realize that they’re playing with me and millions of other Conservatives. I mean Sarah Palin was supposed to be Tea Party and she now supports Gingrich and not Ron Paul? Real Conservatives are relatively few in number and Fox intends to keep it that way.
You don’t like my fanaticism? Why did you people create it with your contempt, disdain, and decades of ignoring the issues we brought up? Of course we can’t talk about anything except immigration and race – you people made sure these issues were ignored for decades or only seen in a circumscribed Liberal way with Blacks, Browns, and immigrants as victims and a therefore a priori innocents. And therefore Whites as Evil oppressors. You should be ashamed of yourself.
“We don’t have any reason anymore to trust the officials who are supposed to enforce the laws.
This country has descended into open lawlessness, and only the cluelessness of the vast majority of the American people keeps us from realizing it.”
-Wage
Yep, witness what the professional diversionistas have applied their dogmatic, Orwellian newspeak crowbars to… yet again! (And people think I’m paranoid without reason. Ha.)
The item that Buck just referred to is about [at its’ very roots] TRUST. Con jobs and confidence men are about the illusion of TRUST.
I basically don’t TRUST anyone who appears incapable of staying with the subject matter at hand. It gives the impression of trying to steer discussion away from unsanctioned/taboo areas, especially those referencing TRUST. Take fr’instance RACE, it has a seemingly radical, controversial sheen that invites lively argument, but beneath it all, it’s a tired screed about, “I don’t want THEM gittin’ what I got”, or, “I wanna git what THEY got”. As you have said before, it’s tired cant to divert us from identifying real tyranny and a gluttonous evil (small e) that stalks us all.
Three ways of doing business in this world? (Your basic “exchange of goods and services”.)
Fraud
Theft
Fair Dealing (satisfaction of both parties)
Societies are created by TRUST, and are destroyed by the lack of it. Agent provocateurs are the worst sort of traitors to their people; it’s their JOB to destroy trust. I spit on the cammy-jammy clad keyboard peckers whose bread and butter is made by the purposeful sowing of distrust. They are a disease.
Yes there was a very quiet if not quite secret agreement made a few years ago: Canadian and American forces will back each other up in the case of civil unrest. It is more likely to be the Candadians since we have more unrest and more of our troops “doing good” all over the world. All part of the plan to create a North American Union.
“Even the people in Switzerland went batshit.”
God, that made me laugh
Yes Soak. When are women going to start washing diapers again instead of using throw away Pampers and the like? These women are too pampered – it must not go on – it cannot.
Let’s make a deal Vlad. If you can limit yourself to one racist post a week, I promise to consider your arguments with an open mind.
SJmom
Exactly. How can we trust Liberals when they started screaming about White racists the second Gabby Giffords hit the pavement? Or when the Liberal Professors at Duke University tried to railroad three White Guys into jail – heartily helped by the local D.A up for election in a majority Blacks area? No apology has ever been forthcoming from these spiritual vampires. We are waiting and will continue to wait.
And you pretending to have the moral high ground! You never are willing to talk about race except to condemn Whites. You are the problem.
Ah duplicity thy name is Woman. If I accepted such a bogus thing I would be short changing everyone – especially you. It would be an admission that I was in the wrong instead of you. You shouldn’t have to bribed to have an open mind, SJ.
I reiterate: a disease.
“If you talk or converse with actual Liberals, you’d realize that most of them do not believe it.”
“I don’t think of myself as a [ actual ] liberal, just a bemused, jaded observer of the circus. How about you call me a circus goer instead?”
How many rings do you believe there are in your circus?
The “murmuration” concept is useful and possibly quite apt to current predicaments, but not because the revolutions of 1848 (notable historically for their FAILURE, by the way) are about to be reenacted or even “rhymed” to. 1848 marked the unleashing of a cornucopia of major radical intellectual agitation and analysis: the revolters were excited and eager about new liberalisms, nationalisms, socialism, etc. 1848 was not about being unemployed and having fun camping out in protest. European societies then were on the verge of one of the greatest and most sustained economic booms ever. They were not headed towards stagnation or collapse. Wrenching change: yes. Downsizing into the foreseeable future, no. People who had had modest means and limited rights for centuries began seriously envisaging the real possibility of major improvements in their intellectual and economic lives. Very different than today.
The problem with complaining about “liberals” is that everyone else is an asshole as well. So why not complain about everyone, and how opponents are typically two sides of the same coin? Then of course there’s race: wouldn’t you, again, be one of the assholes if you’d been born into one of the races you find so annoying? Or perhaps you allow for the existence of good members of races you imagine to be inferior kind of like crackers who say “course there’s good niggers [pardon the term Mr. Asoka, please]”, but you can’t trust ’em when they’re in a crowd.
On the other hand I’m not going to take you to task on obvious signs that things are headed downhill and likely to turn out nastily. Because in the end we’re probably not going to all be getting along, unless of course there is to be some sort of new Pax Brittanica or what have you, something based upon some new form of power which cannot be resisted by those without it, perhaps a gift of alien technology to some paranoiac’s notion of the anti-Christ, perhaps the UN, who knows?
I’m not totally sold on JHK’s notions that everything is going to end up being local and fragmented. Even if most people end up being provincialized and isolated that doesn’t rule out some overarching scheme of global control.
I’m now traveling in Cambodia for the Chinese New Year holiday, and I’ve got some disturbing news to report. I re-visited the Tuol Sleng torture prison again in Phnom Phen. I have visited the museum 3 times in the last 15 years. As you may remember, the Khmer Rouge tortured about 17,000 people at Tuol Sleng (also called S-21 after the Khmer Rouge “intelligence” agency of the same name). The purpose of Tuol Sleng was to torture victims into giving incriminating “confessions”, after which they were taken away in the dead of night to be killed and their bodies dumped in mass graves.
In any event, I suspect that at least 80% of the items on display at the museum have been stolen, probably sold to rich people.
Think about it: Some filthy rich FUCKER has a Khmer Rouge era torture device on display in the basement of his/her house! Sick!!!!
I think that the world has basically “Lost It”. The rich and powerful have gone MAD!
http://www.tuolsleng.com/
flicka, you stupid jackass! have you ever changed a diaper, much less a huggies? women have historically changed them because if not, then it wouldn t get done…not because it s their place…you re such a fucking douche man, i pity you really, for being so obviously lacking in understanding and compassion- i d feel sorry for you as well, if you were maybe six…wake up; you at some point have to take responsibility for your choices and actions i am quite aware that the conventional wisdom is that our personalities are well set by then- but one also can, as an adult consciously choose to change the neural pathways in our brains to embrace new ideas and ways of thinking…perhaps you should take the hint from those of us here who are still willing to interact with you, and take a look at yourself and try to assess the reasons you feel the way you do about apparently all others who seem not like you…i submit that even if they (pick one) are the way you say; you ultimately only control yourself, and your interactions with others…whereby if you can somehow find a way to be less (sorry) of an asshole, then in TLE when it might do you some good, then you can have some chance of interacting with people on an individual basis rather than as hordes of enemies…i mean, you do get from folks what you ask for, depending on how you see/treat them, more often than not…and once again, don t forget the adage divide and conquer: i assure you the fuckers in charge now haven t…
vituperation aside, advice is offered in the true spirit of help; it s just that i have a chip on my own shoulder concerning the shabby treatment women have gotten at the hands of men for most of our history; i don t like to see it continue even in writing- call it on a pedestal or whatever; they are our mothers, sisters and daughters; and deserve respect if for no other reason…
That’s a true sentiment – Truth is Truth even if told by a cracker. I used to argue this with my Jewish Friend – that the N.Y Times might be beautifully written and still be full of lies. Keats is wrong in his T=B and B=T.
But liking someone and appreciating their virtue is different than friendship in my experience. Friends have to fit into your life somehow – and that means common referents and experiences, and that means within your own Race and Culture. Of course Liberals feel more in common with their oppositve numbers in other countries. They are deracinated and deculturized. A triumph of their Masters creation. Zombies in suits and heels.
I’ve read the column twice now. It just doesn’t sink in. Is murmuration similar to resonance, somehow? The period in history JHK picks is not very resonant, I think. This is a very fast moving, dynamic, yet crippling time of contraction. Somehow, that just doesn’t say 1848.
Dude you’re like a woman. Teenage Girls like to write like that – not capitalizing etc.
Women have been oppressing men via the State for decades now. They bring 70% of the divorces if not more. No Women have ever been as pampered as our women and they hate our guts and allie with Blacks and the Welfare State against us – the producers. The payback is coming, the longer delayed the worse it will be.
I seriously question if any Republic can be maintained once they are given the right to vote. They will always go for cheap sentimentality and feel good compassion – the kind which has destroyed us and made the word budget a dirty word.
Pampers ruin the environment and women should go back to the reusable cloth kind.
Not to forget the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, from which emerged the Declaration of the Rights of Women , and the first wave of feminism in the US.
This is just not a very enlightened post, any way you cut it.
The more they get the more they want. And they want to get it via others – men in other words. Women are hypergamous – every few years they have a desire to trade up. They may not if they have kids, they’ll just be miserable and make their husband’s life miserable. It’s his fault she’s not fufilled as in Eat, Pray, Love. And hell hath no fury like a woman who is trying to “find herself” or “get on in her life”.
Why has Black behavior gotten worse as they gained civil rights? Why are women more unhappy than ever? Because they both need someone to set limits on them. That’s why so many Western Women are going Muslim in Europe: those Men know the art of managing Women; they are willing to give Women what they crave – the word No. That they can respect. But someone who caves in to them? Hell no. Same with Blacks. Weakness is fatal.
And of course a certain group of Gentlemen orchestrated their respective revolts and gains from the chaos and weakening of Western Society.
Great reading, Jim..
If only there was one week without the spewing of Vlad’s curdled mind. Just one week. Instead, we have week after week of it, post after useless post after useless post posturing, pontificating, poltrooning , pishing , and putrefaction of a peculiar nature, that dribbles on and on and on.
What Vlad doesnt get is that he, personally is rejected by women, justifiably, correctly and wisely. This truth is too uncomfortable for Vlad so he expands it. In fact, billions of men lead very happy lives with women all over the world, and women lead happy lives with men all over the world, day in, day out, and its only Vlad that hasnt figured this out. I notice on the blog that ALL women ,of whatever race, religion or nationality know instinctively to not be in the vicinity of Vlad for anything over 40 seconds.
But Vlad doesnt get it. There has been no provision made by him for reflection of his situation and to the nature of its cause. This is the sign of a simple mind. A curdled mind. This is why Vlad is surplus to requirements. A useless mouth. Just ONE WEEK without this embarrassment to Americans on a blog would be a real bonus.
You don’t mention any specifics so it just seems like conventional prejudice on your part. Do you think if we were the Men our Ancestors were we would have gotten into this state: owing trillions to nameless Bankers who basically own the United States? We’re hirelings – the Founding Fathers were farmers and tradesmen. Big difference psychologically. I hate my fellow Whites and I hate myself for what we have become. How we dropped the most beautiful ball of all. We tried to help the Princess out of the carriage and we dropped her in the mud puddle. And now the swarthy men laugh at us and take our women. Worse is coming – much worse.
There is plenty of electrons Pepp. People can talk about whatever they like. Why do people have so much trouble ignoring me? Obviously I strike alot of nerves so somethings I say must have some truth in them – truths that people don’t want to deal with.
Aboriginees treated their women worse than any other society as far as I know. But the suffering between the sexes is a constant thru out the world. We had a good balance in the West until Feminism ruined it. Now women are married to the State and can kick men out of their own homes at will and whim. That’s what happened to the Black Family once welfare could provide more money than Black men could.
Liberal Blogs are moderated and therefore boring. Liberals hate free speech. How did that come about? Weren’t Liberals supposed to be FOR free speech? I bring life here. I know my worth even if you and your’s don’t. If you or Ozone or Asoka have something to say about Peak Oil or Resource depletion, or survivalism – fine. Just ignore my rantings. Maybe I’ll listen and join in your conversation. I am interested in all of that too. But my issues are also important and aren’t going anywhere.
Howdy Asoka, Per your comment clip: “Then computers were developed in the 1950s with the idea of point to point communication between mainframes and terminals, followed by DARPA development of the Internet in the 1960s.”
Not so fast there my good man. ENIAC (considered to be the first programmable digital computer) was developed for US Army BRL (Ballistic Research Laboratory) and operated by same, from 1943-46, to develop cannon/artillery ballistic tables for use by Navy and Army during WWII. Computer interface to terminals with video displays came about in the late 60’s, preceded and supplemented by teletype, paper tape and the ubiquitous Hollerith/punched card inputs.
SNAFU
Pucker said “I’m now traveling in Cambodia for the Chinese New Year holiday, and I’ve got some disturbing news to report. I re-visited the Tuol Sleng torture prison again in Phnom Phen.”
Thats my kinda vacation.
“In any event, I suspect that at least 80% of the items on display at the museum have been stolen, probably sold to rich people.
Think about it: Some filthy rich FUCKER has a Khmer Rouge era torture device on display in the basement of his/her house! Sick!!!!’
The thing is, is that a culturally relative statement? After all, Cambodia is not world-renown as the museum capital of the world.
Hell, look at their ancient art and architecture. The landscaping is growing all over it.
If it was in America it would be given a monthly snip ‘n’ blow by Jose the magic hispanic. And there would be a giant sign saying ‘Do Not Climb’ and probably a handrail, and a guard.
But yes, I do imagine if the Magna Carta or Bill of Rights were on the open market, they would find a price. And yes, the ultra-wealthy and even the middle class somehow manage to afford all kinds of crap to decorate their dens and offices.
Tourism is despicable. There is something kind of empty and vain about it. Not that tourists care.
1943-46? That was Vannevar Bush memex time.
What you say supports my main point, which is that the internet was being worked on way before Marshall McLuhan wrote his books in the early 60s.
The Ballad of Joe Six Pack
He went to work, that Joe
He had a cuppa, He ate a big suppa,
Then it was down to the den for a sixer
He cracked open a Schlitz
Which made him feel rich…
And passed out in front of Wolf Blitzer
Okay, just read this to understand the MC Krug’s dissertation… kicking Joe Six Pack in his schwetty balls… or maybe just good analysis?
Maybe Joe Six Pack is a fuckin’ retard without impulse control? Or maybe the banksters con-jobbed him? Maybe both?
this post was sponsored by Red Bull Energy Drinks
The Shallowest Generation
http://seekingalpha.com/article/103202-the-shallowest-generation
Ron Paul was great tonite as usual. He said, the so called Conservatives are willing to cut the budget at home but not at all overseas. And they’re perfectly willing to start WW3 by pretending that Iran is goading us on – ignoring the fact that we’re blockading them.
The Boomers delivered on their liberation and consciousness changing movements, especially women’s liberation.
For women, the Baby Boom era has been one of incredible Boomer-led change — in a single generation American Boomer women have effected one of the greatest social metamorphoses in recorded history.
What women are able to do today would have been unimaginable four or five decades ago, at best the stuff of utopian fantasy or science fiction.
Thank you, Boomers!
Please scroll past these blocks of texts. Please erase all of my posts from the Internet. Please erase the Internet. Thank you.
Indirection
Be cryptic, be hard to understand, dazzle and confuse people, make it seem as if you are saying something deep (what a joke, deep doesn’t and can’t exist as all is a segment of logic, a set of associations, a sequence of symbols, hence a painting, a picture nothing else) making it seem as if you know oh, so much more, you have constructed complex logical segments that have made you see through all and understand all: in essence make them worship a logical segment that they cannot understand fully, as that is what we all want, something that is unclear and mysterious, that leaves open the door to some further, deeper, unknown and therefore more exciting and adventurous and mysterious meanings that can imply so many other things and activities and behaviors and causes and effects and possible pain/pleasure segments and sequences, etc.
The indirection starts from birth since you have to become aware that an outside world exists with its logical consequences, the first and strongest indirection, something that exists although you don’t touch it (strange I said that ? but touch is the most concrete thing between baby and mommy, actually that is the real justification and reinforcing of all other more abstract and indirect pain/pleasure events!), is your mommy and all the interactions with this thing outside of you starts to create a complete logical map, you realize that you are not some independent purely subjective entity that is sufficient of itself and can live in a bubble of its own self, it needs to and starts to interact with external signals and symbols and behavioral patterns, you start to know that that thing outside of you is similar to you in some ways, and you slowly learn that it is like you just different and just a multiple image of yourself, another version of another contraption that has pain/pleasure/logic/cause and effect, etc. And so the master denotations and indirections and signals and symbols become engraved on the Man Brain and its memory and behavioral pattern circuits, etc.
Like an atom, an electron and nucleus already have a slight indirection they know that they are a reciprocal reference system to each other, each defines the other in terms of how they are related and how they are hard wired to interact and behave between each other. Each becomes aware that the other is outside of itself, is an external chunk (of logical segment ?) of matter, and indirect external world where they don’t touch but know that each other are there otherwise matter would disintegrate. But it has very few degrees of freedom within which to move whereas interactions between complex large chunks of matter like people have many degrees of freedom within which to move and interact (and you can see how the limits of degrees of freedom becomes a variable from one extreme to another and can be anything in between and anything can be set up as an indirection to anything else, etc.). And that is the indirection, you know that something outside is there, but you cannot touch it, but through contorted signals the something outside can respond and deliver some small events of pain/pleasure and such, and you project your own pain/pleasure on the outside device and feel for it, you become aware of the importance of that other devices pain/pleasure but it is just a ghost an indirection since when you fight a war you disconnect those logical circuits and go with it carelessly (or when you fight your “enemy”, as friend and enemy are designated only through logic, logic is what defines our reference system but logic disintegrates itself if pushed to the limits of itself).
I saw the priest talk about Jesus and he loves you and you love him and so on, he was completely worked up on all of this insane BS, he was worshiping a logical segment, a sequence of symbols, a set of associations, not the content of his words, which really have and are no content, but just as the first denotations justify themselves, so do all the others, ever more detached and abstract, ever more degrees of freedom, ever more possible associations, meanings, abstractions all connected to imaginary (and occasionally real pain/pleasure events as to become finally real, as the only thing that is not a denotation is the pain/pleasure event, not all the rules and logical segments and rules of engagements necessary to obtain small pain/pleasure events).
And when you contradict the religious types they will reply: do you love your children and things like that as to say, do you believe in an indirection ? how can you believe in something invisible ? if you believe in that indirection than you can and must believe in the other indirection that god exists, that other people exist, that good and bad exists. Or also, if you believe arbitrarily in one indirection how do you justify not believing in any other, no matter how far out, indirection ? because you choose to believe in A and not in B, but it is not justified in any way, it is an arbitrary choice not based on anything at all but your free will and random, fluke quirk choice that has no better or deeper value than the choice of believing in god.
If one indirection exists and is justified then all of them are justified, if one indirection is operating all of them are operating and each can reinforce each other, you believe in god, hence in good and bad hence in helping the poor and so on and each becomes a tag of a logical segment reinforcing itself, worshiping itself as indirection really means worshiping some special logical segment but most of all we worship logic, the association, the cause and effect (and the confirming occasional events of pain/pleasure (and the further occasional invented pain/pleasure events in terms of internal feelings and emotions? but these are really make believe arbitrary connections with no justification whatsoever)) and how it is connected to outside elements and events and entities, we are constantly fascinated and dazzled by how logic makes us clearly interpret and decode indirections.
Of course all is logic, in war you kill someone, another will power gadget, another person, but you don’t kill your son, but the difference between them is all based on the principle of identity and non contradiction: you are not going to get confused and make a mistake between an unknown soldier and someone you “love”, and yet the action is simply the elimination of another human with all that that should mean in terms of denotations and values: and yet, it is ok, we create and reinforce differences, we worship our subjectivity (that is what everyone does, so it is a rule of engagement of society).
I’m waiting for the box set of Stan Romney
and Oliver Gingrich
The Short Emergency
Hey, it seems as if JHK’s doom prediction is coming true in Italy: trucks are blocking highways and such since gas costs too much, the entire system can collapse, goods don’t get to stores, all kinds of subsystems fall apart, etc.
Cool, instant disintegration of the society, economy and all in a jiffy, just one small strike can demolish a part of the “first world”, a part of the “EU”, etc.
So it was never going to be a Long Emergency, but a quick and simple falling apart of everything from one moment to the other: and everyone will beat up and fight each other over nothing and everything!
Way to go, the end result will be chaos, confusion, winners and losers, the same old crap a stone age APE Man Brain has been performing since the dawn of time.
But the most interesting aspect is how all the theories, all the blocks of texts, all the new rules, and precisions and debates, years long studies, all of this huge BS about what to do, how to do, what are the “reasons”, the structure of the economy, the OWSers, the Tea Party, all of this huge BS, the theory, the debates, the politics, everything is just worth a big fat ZERO, simply NOT APPLICABLE (actually never was applicable).
It is a very Short Emergency, everything will fall apart just like a glass that falls on the floor and breaks up in so many pieces, end of story, so will the economy, society, structures all. A one bit story, a very short story, a very short emergency, end of story.
Now, go on, keep on constructing, theories, new rules of society, right or wrong, left or right, who is good and bad, what to do, this structure, theory economy, this other and so forth: all a waste of time and not applicable.
“This is why Vlad is surplus to requirements. A useless mouth. Just ONE WEEK without this embarrassment to Americans on a blog would be a real bonus. ”
Who says he’s American ?
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=177939
The idea that Modified Brains imply a new Universe with new laws of Physics is a kind of extreme Anthropic Principle. In this model, the universe is only the way Matter is decoded by another organization of Matter, there is no view from nowhere, there is no external objective observer and view, all views are 100 % subjective as dependent on an entity that appears invariant (the Man Brain – the Observer – the Processor) as compared to all the variants (“external” signals and symbols and sense organ inputs) that entity interacts with, but it is itself a variant, although frozen in a fixed configuration so as to be the “Measure of Everything”.
This kind of extreme Anthropic Principle implies that essentially, There is no “External Reality” (or Matter, or World), there is no Inside and Outside with regards to Matter in general, only a subdivision of Matter in a chunk assigned as Inside and a chunk assigned as Outside, a delimitation of one chunk of Matter is Inside (the Observer) and another chunk as Outside (the place from nowhere from which all the signals arriving at the Observer come from); in other words the Observer cannot be separated and placed in some kind of place from nowhere where it can make believe that it is “Objective”, Matter cannot arbitrarily be divided into two parts only because it seems so convenient from our point of view: reductionism doesn’t work anymore at a higher and more general level of abstraction that now includes the mind itself as a variable, it is now either all or nothing, either you admit that the Observer is not independent from its substrate and design and arbitrary situation in which it finds itself or that the Observer is some metaphysical – abstract – spiritual entity looking at the universe from the “Outside”…
What has happened since 2008 is an all-out war against the middle class for reasons that remain obscure. Keynesian stimulation only works in a manufacturing economy where all debt is self-liquidating (company X borrows, makes widget Y, sells widget Y, pays back debt) and demographics are improving.
The USA has NEITHER condition. After TARP/TALF, QE2, and other direct and indirect stimuli, real wages are still plummeting because the skilled, high-paying jobs were offshored. I feel like writing an article to the WSJ inquiring how Mr. Bernanke proposes to end this structural depression by throwing MORE money into the economy that won’t get lent by banks and that won’t be used to build the plants that make REAL widgets that cause a natural debt liquidation.
I don’t know if Bernanke is just an unusually stupid academic or he suffers from the same delusion as the Republicans … that this is the America of 1950 or 1960 when we were manufacturing giants. His formula for endless stimulation is actually a formula for re-raising commodity prices and stock prices. In other words, any “recovery” kills itself because the masses, with their falling wages, can afford the necessities of life less and less. Is Bernanke a fool or a knave? Doesn’t matter. He’s wrong no matter which hat he wants to wear.
E.
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=177939
Within this framework it can be said that Science is Wrong. That’s it. I said it. Science is Wrong from the outset, what we do have is a local logical segment that is sufficient for our uses, we have found the many repetitive patterns and have found out how to apply them (and we may find others in the future), but the Metaphysical – Spiritual – Abstract properties that we apply to Science are Wrong. There is no “Objective Reality” and “Objective Science” or “Set of Patterns” as applied to an “External Reality” such that justifies this other new subtle form of Religion: as even Science has properties of Religions, the faith factor, the belief factor, only in this case you have faith in logic and reasoning and you believe that reality is outside of yourself, that the Observer is independent of the Observed, that the Observer can be separated from the Observed: nothing further from the truth, there is no way to split the Observer from the Observed, it is all one, a confusing monolithic slab of Matter, nay, symbols talking to themselves.
In fact Science tries to find repetitive patterns by comparing things to what it already knows, but formatting new events, patterns, causes and effects, observations into the language and words and symbols it has already created: the past conditions the future in this sense, the memory of what you already know creates the reference system, reality is just the memory of all you have seen and all the patterns you are used to and have been solidified into expectations where very few really surprising events can happen. And as such since the Universe is only the way Matter is decoded by another organization of Matter, and since Matter is only Information Relationship Events, hence Symbols, it is more correct to say the Universe is only the way a set of Symbols are decoded by another set of Symbols.
What does probability have to do with it ? It is said that there is a probability that your quantum atoms align up in such a way that you can walk through walls, or there is one chance in a very large number that atoms just align up and make a dead man live again for maybe a week and such. Do we expect such things to happen ? Not really, but they are not 100 % excluded from what official Science tells us. And that is the point: if these things can happen, and they can, then anything can happen (and even if they can’t, it doesn’t matter), there is no longer any need to explain anything; the event is the explanation, it needs no further investigation, the observation is the science and the explanation, science becomes a very short story, it is only that which we see, the entire idea of explaining, relating, connecting a long chain of causes and effects and such is no longer necessary, the simplest explanation is no explanation.
So how did Natural Evolution create the first living cell and a Man ? No explanation, it just happened, end of story, the very long complex number that created the end point is just a number that has been selected out of a very large bag of numbers just because, for no reason at all.
And in fact, No Reason at All is the Best Reason Possible, No Reason at all, Just Because, It is just a randomly assigned number.
And such for anything else: does God exist ? I don’t know, but if yes he exists For No Reason at All, just because. Does anything else, no matter how wild and insane exist ? I don’t know, but if it does it exists For No Reason at All, just because. But even saying I don’t know does not really do justice to the idea that Science is Wrong: we must take it further, and leave the entire concept of “truth” behind as it implies external realities, true and false, imaginary spiritual properties entities have and such so we can say: Does anything at all exist ? Yes, anything at all exists (an oldsmobile that is a brain and talks to little children) everything exists For No Reason at All, just because.
And taking it even further does nothing at all exist, is everything a temporary ghost and illusion ? Yes, nothing exists For No Reason at All, just because.
Coincidences, no matter how specific and far out no longer need to be explained. They just exist and happen.
E.
Keynesian stimulation only works in a manufacturing economy…
That’s what I’ve been saying as well..I call the half-baked measures taken by this administration to stimulate growth as a Keynesian band-aid against the gash of neoliberalism and globalism.
As they say, we always fight the last war. Our depression scholar, Bernanke doesn’t get that these conditions are different than those of the great depression, but is treating the economy the same. You’ll never get the exponential benefit of stimulus if you don’t have vertical and horizontal integration in manufacturing.
Last week IxNoMore mentioned that the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the largest infrastructure project in process right now is being built with inferior Chinese steel. Likewise, our Keystone pipeline. One person being interviewed about the potential disaster of leaks and breaks in the pipeline described the oil sludge as sandpaper going through weak steel pipelines throughout multiple states over the largest aquifer in the country.
The manufacturing base is crippled, thanks to the sausage making that is globalism and we no longer have vertical and horizontal support for making things here.
Romney wants us all to believe that Vulture Capitalism is capitalism and if you don’t like it, go to North Korea. No discussion here, just move along…
Whoever wins the presidency this time around will need to address this issue and if they refuse due to ideology, this country is finished.
KAPUT!
Pucker,
I think you’ve got something there. The rich and powerful are in Thanatosian mode. The rich reveling in artifacts of torture.. it says it all.
They are a death cult. They will allow wildlife to die on this planet as water sources dry-up, thanks to global warming, they will continue to gin up wars for profit, they will continue to destroy indigenous people where there are resources they want without any regard for the environment–‘cuz god forbid they actually spend some money to do business. We can’t have that in the no taxes, no regulations, money to the enth degree business cult in which they are a part.
Hate to be a pedant, but the bloodiest war of the nineteenth century was the Napoleonic wars, not the American Civil War (not that the latter wasn’t bloody).
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=177939
To clear a point up : the reason why the Universe is a set of symbols decoded by another set of symbols is also (amongst other more abstract reasons) because our reference system in terms of logic, cause and effects, patterns and especially the memory of all that knowledge (as has been established by Science and the Man Brain’s accumulative knowledge) is a kind of fixed language, fixed formal system of symbols decoded by other symbols and defined according to other symbols etc. synchronized and associated according to how we interact with “External” Matter. But since all of this is just Matter talking to itself, therefore symbols talking to themselves, it cannot be considered really objective, but in fact the exact opposite; the most extreme subjectivity possible, as it is just like a large number assigned for No Reason at All, Just because, and something totally arbitrary and random is something totally subjective and outside of the process of our imaginary Objective Science.
As a small correction of a block of text above:
This kind of extreme Anthropic Principle implies that essentially, There is no “External Reality” (or Matter, or World), there is no Inside and Outside with regards to Matter in general, only an ARBITRARY subdivision of Matter in a chunk assigned as Inside and a chunk assigned as Outside, an ARBITRARY delimitation of one chunk of Matter is Inside (the Observer) and another chunk as Outside (the place from nowhere from which all the signals arriving at the Observer come from); in other words the Observer cannot be separated and placed in some kind of place from nowhere where it can make believe that it is “Objective”, Matter cannot arbitrarily be divided into two parts only because it seems so convenient from our point of view.
As a corollary Science does exactly this: it arbitrarily separates the Observer from the Observed, although Quantum Physics started having issues with this…
And Wow, I think I am starting to take myself too seriously with all of this…
‘A useless mouth. Just ONE WEEK without this embarrassment to Americans on a blog would be a real bonus. “”
You know what Flad uses for contraception?
His personality, what little there is of it.
Not enough to attract, but just enough to repel.
Did you know that Flad lives in a trailer someplace, lives off disabilty, and dresses in womens underwear?
During the summers he’s a rodeo clown at the local carnival, and part of his act is to get kicked in the head by a donkey.
Its really, REALLY funny, the kids just love it.
“Make the donkey kick the clown again daddy!” And for only a $1, you can too!! Flad makes hundreds of dollars a day this way!! Quite amazing.
Then he spends it all on meth-whores and really, really cheap booze.
So, don’t take what he says at all seriously, he’s been kicked in the head by that dang donkey thousands of times now.
The kids jut love it!! Remember, only a $1!
😉
Dear Mr. Kunstler,
You are a disgusting man with a disgusting message. If I could, I would censor you by cutting out your tongue and removing each of your fingers, one by one.
jugular@ameritech.net
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=177982
[quote=”Flannel Jesus”][quote=”nameta9″]Now, go on, keep on constructing, theories, new rules of society, right or wrong, left or right, who is good and bad, what to do, this structure, theory economy, this other and so forth: all a waste of time and not applicable.[/quote]
Isn’t that what you do in most of your threads? You keep on trying unsuccessfully to present your theory about society and economy — namely the theory that if we just build a whole bunch of skyscrapers, everything will be good. Is this your resignation from that type of thread? You’re planning on quitting those “skip over these blocks of text” posts? If so, I think that’s a good decision. It was all a waste of time and not applicable.[/quote]
Hey Green Thug:
I didn’t say only skyscrapers, I also said we need high speed trains, lots of them, Atomic Energy plants, lots of them, BUS systems, lots of them, Rockets to Mars, lots of them, and many other kinds of large scale complex projects, many kinds all different ! etc. All things that imply huge public private projects (where private companies can make trillions of dollars in profits, who cares, the important thing is people have jobs that create something big and important), instead of all of these puny “small businesses” and “startups” and crap. We need large monolithic, visionary projects that give the kids pride, a goal in life, an achievement, a real task achieved, you win, make them win, when they see so many skyscrapers and Rockets they know they have won, the future is being constructed, they have won, they have achieved, they are proud and happy…And let Nature pay for it, nature is just a tool in our hands, it is not some kind of fairy tale god..
Thug…
Another thing I think is operating is that all this emphasis on education and specific skill sets and all is to brainwash everyone that they are all such special little turds having all such special skills that are needed in all so special little areas: divide people, make them all different and make them think they do not belong to one social class, make them think they are special when in fact it is all a farce… You can invent only so many special little skill sets in the end, there can’t be hundreds and hundreds of different special skill sets, it is obvious that it becomes a farce and make believe, that other reasons are behind the game…
AN APE
Hey Vlad, your sister signed in!
Didn’t know you had a sister tho…
😉
Forgot to ask: Is she as butt-ugly as you are?
😉
Existence requires balance. All our systems are in a state of conflict ie. imbalance a disharmony fed by the ego’s desire for greater control ,economic political,religious etc. The innate will to live is moving our human being to that place of reality of balance.In the meantime the conflict intensifies as we move from an ego centricity ,seen as quite psychotic to a centering that is in alignment with the fundamental order of the cosmos.
E. said:
Back then GM, Ford, and Chrysler were the big three. Then Toyota surpassed GM in 2008 and suddenly we are not a manufacturing nation. Or, as lbendet says: “Our manufacturing is crippled.” We don’t make motors anymore.
Just a minute… Mrs. Asoka is telling me something.
Oh… turns out we have had 22 consecutive months of private sector job growth. (including manufacturing sectors)
Mrs. Asoka says we are making motors again. What? No way?
But E and lbendet say manufacturing is going to hell.
OK, she says GM became number one again in 2011.
Was auto making considered manufacturing in the 50s and 60s? Is it still in 2012?
Interesting to see how something dead is anything you see, any combination of objects you see, since everything you see is dead (in the sense at least of not having self consciousness at least as far as we can tell ? …), but only one very specific organization of matter, configuration of matter, combination of matter is alive and that is Man (or better the process of his Man Brain interacting with his external reality, etc.(but didn’t I say that there is no external reality ? yeah, but I fooled, you, ha, ha, ha (lose any hope in trying to find coherence and non contradiction in all my BS))). So imagine what could be all the intermediate steps ? imagine a limit of matter going from dead to alive (but not in our scientific or biological sense, in an imaginary metaphysical sense) look at all the dead things outside of you and imagine combinations of them that become a little self aware and so on, an entire linear scale, and then maybe the scale can go even further in both directions more dead than dead, more alive than alive, so if dead is 0 (but corresponds to trillions of different objects) and alive is 100 and corresponds to only one, imagine the scale going from minus a trillion to plus a trillion and each state of existence (from super dead to super alive but much more, etc.) can correspond to trillions of different objects, combinations of matter, etc.
this country is finished.
KAPUT!
==
Oh zog, faster please!
This disgusting empire (as they all are) needs a killing in every which way possible.
??????? – ??????? ??? ????
– http://youtu.be/xfAYFEw3_ig
via @youtube
E, re bernanke, i think you give him far too much credit: it wouldn t take the brains to run a chicken to have been able to see that our (and i quote) “economy” isn t working, and long before 2008…i believe he DOES know, and that he and his crony vultures have decided that it is all unsustainable and this is the last cycle; that they might as well get as much out of us now as possible before we truly (violently) object to the gang-rape…to his hypothetical defense of ‘somebody, it might as well have been me’, i declare that he could have come clean and didn t; being part of it all is guilt…
Did you think the economy was working in the 50s and 60s, when the Big Three led the world in auto manufacturing?
Did you think the USA lost its manufacturing capability when Toyota took over number one in 2008?
Does anybody remember the 50s and 60s? Women were kept at home, minorities were denied their dignity, homosexuality was a crime, and anyone who marched to a different drummer was labeled un-American and viewed as a threat. The so-called “greatest generation” imposed a cultural complacency whose worst elements included racism, sexual inequality and anti-Semitism.
Boomers rebelled against their parents’ values, striving to create an inclusive society that would recognize the contributions of all of its members.
Defying and denouncing authority, the baby boomers protested against an unjust war and challenged an unethical political system.
Even after the clamor of the 1960s quieted down, boomers refused to tolerate environmental violations, continued to challenge racial and sexual discrimination, rejected religious intolerance and defied racial and sexual taboos.
And despite an apparent conservative turn in America, boomer values have in fact permeated our society to the point where a younger generation takes them for granted.
Asoka,
For the record: Obama did save the auto industry and its horizontal/vertical businesses. That was the discussion in 2009.
However, in all other areas we are not allowing the manufacturing base to do the same.
I work for a manufacturing company as an outside contractor on digital imaging for their catalogs. They do everything in China. When I asked them whether they would consider manufacturing in the US they explained. We couldn’t afford it, we could not manufacture on the scale that we need and America is finished.
LB and E.,
Youses have laid out the case that maintaining the status quo has become a study in tunnel vision, to the point of psychopathy. (Turns out that it’s simply maintaining the privileges of the rich and powerful.)
Interesting piece from Greer about what the status quo really represents in its’ insistence on feeding the upper part of the hierarchical structure by limiting true choice and wasting incredible amounts of energy.
Here’s a slice:
“One after another, nearly every economic sector has undergone drastic reorganizations that slashed jobs, pay, and benefits for everyone below the middle class, and a growing number of people in the lower end of the middle class itself. Now that everyone below them has been thrown under the bus, the middle classes are discovering that it’s their turn next, as the classes above them scramble to maintain their own access to the payoffs of privilege. Having nodded and smiled while those further down the pyramid got shafted, the middle classes are in no position to mount an effective resistance now that they’re the ones being made redundant. I can almost hear a former midlevel manager in an unemployment line saying: “First they laid off the factory workers, but I said nothing, because I wasn’t a factory worker…” ” -JMG
Who is being served, and why are these “managers” to be trusted?
The FMC (former middle class) is pissed, but they don’t know why… do they, Mr. Jones? But they’ll turn to these wasters, managers and experts to, “Put it back like it was, pleeeeease!” and stomp their feet while hollering, “I want it, Iwantit, Iwantit!”.
…And this is why they’ll turn willing brownshirt to “protect what’s theirs”. It’s a Laddie-an utopia of death and cruelty; how fun is that? We’re not going to have this shit out until these froggies jump; and they’ll jump first, you can count on it. When we’re [subtley] told to set upon one another (which Newt&Co. have made a career of), and that becomes explicit rather than implicit, you’ll know to get your shit together and decide what kind of world you want to live and die in.
I don’t see a good ending to this particular crumbling, because the pump creating the vacuum to be filled is driven by desperation and purely selfish considerations. (What else to expect?)
What’s the deal here with this symbiotic relationship between the TV networks and the massive police-prison apparatus which exists now in the US? So I work 3rd shift and the rare occasion I get a night off I have trouble falling asleep. Inevitably the TV is on for lack of anything else at those late hours. And on numerous channels its aggrandizing reality programs riding with the police on the street or filming inside American prisons, with the resplendently attired officers portrayed as heroes, and the entire American citizenry portrayed as scum. SWAT tossing grenades into houses in the middle of the night, forced cell extractions, arrests everywhere for everything (13 million per year) it almost as if a parallel universe exists unseen alongside the one we live in, similar to what Solzhenitsyn described in Russia in the 1930s.
The possible reason there is so much of this sort of programming is to scare the crap out of people and keep them in line. The system with their police and COs appears ubiquitous and all powerful. “You too can end up here,” seems to be the message. That’s why the civil disorder Jim predicts for this summer will never occur. “Lockdown, lockdown!!!”, “Get on the ground, get on the ground!!!”, and “Show me you hands, show me your hands”!!!, could vie for our new national mottos, replacing the quaint “E Pluribus Unum” and the like. A new motto for a new, uncertain century.
—WSP7
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Good one, O
Thanks. I’ve got to read Greer more often.
Prison Planet, indeed!
(forgot to link)
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2012/01/waking-up-walking-away.html
HaHa….one thing I think you can count on…..if chanting would levitate the Pentagon, then the best chanters would be inside the Pentagon, not outside.
that right there is precisely why i have never watched those shows…and it could have been, but wasn t, because i already hated cops in general in response to my step-grandpa…shereiff, and suffice it to say it started before i was born anyway, sadly, i think you re right, and sadder: it s working- witness the world around us
and America is finished.
===============
Finished as rah rah American exceptionalism, we’re number one? Yes, I agree… and about time.
England was once number one. “And England is finished” doesn’t quite ring true.
You see, just because a country devolves into third world status does not mean that country is “finished.” People go on living their lives, having babies, loving one another, etc.
We have to get over this false impression that life is not worth living if we are “finished” as the world’s pre-eminent superpower.
The world will be better off when America is truly “finished” and we can live life more fully like much of South America does because we are less focused on GDP and $$$.
I lived over a decade in South America in a country where people earned US$100 a month. What happy people! We have so much to learn from the third world.
NEWSFLASH: Money is not necessary for happiness. Money cannot buy human warmth. Lack of money cannot inhibit a people who know the value of other human beings and celebrate it regularly.
When suddenly, a country is not the world’s leader in manufacturing, it does not mean that country is finished. Like JHK’s podcast this week, it just means things will be done differently.
I know it seems like death, like we’re “finished,” to American exceptionalists, but it isn’t death. It is an opportunity to develop new priorities, human priorities, where our primary role is not as consumers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-pgHlB8QdQ
We have a right to delirium, a right to dream. We don’t have to be cogs in a capitalist machine.
Listen to Eduardo Galeano. English translation in the lower right hand corner of the screen. Galeano presents a different set of non-materialist values. Change comes from the bottom up. Listen to JHK’s podcast this week.
America lost its manufacturing capacity bit by bit over the last 40 years.
Listen to what Lbendet has to say.
And it is no longer just manufacturing which is being offshored.
I worked for a firm for a good many years and over that time I saw management gradually relocate what had been formerly white collar occupations from Europe and Canada and the USA to India where people would work for 80% to 90% less.
What kind of occupations? Everything from accounts payable to new business analysis (usually done by business school grads) to CPA firm partner level tax work (usually done by highly experienced CPAs) to checking accounting documentation for compliance with Sarbanes Oxley legislation (again usually done by highly skilled and experienced accounting staff).
The work was moved there for the simple reason that the folk there would work for a small fraction of what was being paid in Europe/Canada/USA. The work offshored to India was not done in India by semi literate villagers. It was done by highly educated and skilled people.
Of course there is a BIG problem here. Firms that offshore their work gut the market for their productsin Europe/Canada/the US. How? By laying off a well paid work force in favor of a low paid work force. So who buys their products? The slave wage worker or the unemployed/underemployed American/Canadian/European?
This business model based on offshoring isn’t even underpinned by simple logic. What is the root of the financial/economic difficulties the so-called developed world is facing? It is the simple illogic of offshoring.
The big thinkers like Bernanke are trying to sustain the unsustainable first by accruing massive govt debts to make up for the lack of demand caused by the gutting of their domestic economies and then by massive printing of money.
Ain’t workin. Cain’t work. Even simple country boys like me can see that much. I’ve been around long enough to watch the long debacle unfold.
LB said:
That’s what I’ve been saying as well..I call the half-baked measures taken by this administration to stimulate growth as a Keynesian band-aid against the gash of neoliberalism and globalism.
E. says:
A “gash” is an excellent metaphor because Keynesianism in a service economy is like treating a gaping wound with sulfuric acid. The wound will “heal” because the skin making up the wound gives way to visible BONE. And that’s where the consumer is … the bone.
LB said:
As they say, we always fight the last war. Our depression scholar, Bernanke doesn’t get that these conditions are different than those of the great depression, but is treating the economy the same. You’ll never get the exponential benefit of stimulus if you don’t have vertical and horizontal integration in manufacturing.
E. says:
Exactly. Bernanke looks at the deflation ONLY. He’s so fixated on ONE “threat” that he doesn’t see that our current economy has NOTHING in common with 1932. And I mean NOTHING.
LB said:
Last week IxNoMore mentioned that the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the largest infrastructure project in process right now is being built with inferior Chinese steel. Likewise, our Keystone pipeline. One person being interviewed about the potential disaster of leaks and breaks in the pipeline described the oil sludge as sandpaper going through weak steel pipelines throughout multiple states over the largest aquifer in the country.
E. says:
This is a rather standard symptom of a dying empire. Remember when we were going to hire the Chinese to build a nuclear detector for the Straits of Florida?? It may appear as naivety but it’s really the desperation of a country that has sold out all of its intellectuals and therefore has to rely on ENEMIES for pivotal projects. I mean, it’s so farcical that one wonders if we’ll hire Shi’ite clerics to oversee the TSA.
LB said:
The manufacturing base is crippled, thanks to the sausage making that is globalism and we no longer have vertical and horizontal support for making things here.
E. says:
We’re even gutting the basic R&D in this country. That’s one step worse than gutting manufacturing. R&D is how you build BETTER stuff and NEWER, INNOVATIVE stuff. But this takes a multiyear commitment and shareholders want a quarterly payoff in our casino economy. Even manufacturing would die if you just build factories to make old-fashioned widgets if you don’t have the R&D to make that widget better or, better still, make a brand new type of widget.
LB said:
Romney wants us all to believe that Vulture Capitalism is capitalism and if you don’t like it, go to North Korea. No discussion here, just move along…
Whoever wins the presidency this time around will need to address this issue and if they refuse due to ideology, this country is finished.
KAPUT!
E. says:
Romney, of all the Republicans, is the most mainstream Republican tool. In some ways, he’s just a more subterranean, covert version of Gingrich who, at least, has the gumption to have the gall he has. Romney is trying to masquerade as a Republican and try like hell to hide his past associations.
Vulture capitalism is inverse capitalism because it seeks to thrive by robbing CREATORS and INVENTORS of the control over their own creations and the monies that they would have accrued via that control. A vulture capitalist wants the REAL capitalist, the innovator/entrepreneur, to do all the work for a gutted-out compensation, while the Vulture … who creates NOTHING sits back and waits for the returns.
Indeed, the very fact that we create these euphemisms shows the desperation with which we are trying to sanitize stealing and plundering with catchy phrases. Soon, we’ll have to have the Chinese, Indians, Brazilians, Russians, and Germans do ALL the creating because we’ve disincentived creation itself. Already, even our weapons firms cannot compete against the Norwegians (submarines to the Chinese), the Russians (Sukoy fighters are cheap and compete favorably with F-18s and India bought a huge fleet), and the Israelis (selling subs to Germany).
When we can’t sell KILLING MACHINES you know that the end is nigh.
E.
You Asoka have the sound of someone who has NEVER suffered poverty.
‘What kind of occupations? Everything’
If a PC and Inet connection are available…
Architecture [CAD software] etcetcetc.
The worlds gotten alot more interconnected.
I recall a story of Wedding invitations..ordered on Main Street, designed in India..it was a 70$ order.
You Rhino have the sound of someone who has NEVER actually lived in the Third World.
Hence: Next stop Iran. Nothing like on-going war with no tax base!
Whatever became of economic determinism? Guess that’s what globalism is all about. Dissolution of the nation-state and a complete destruction of the employment base in favor of cheap labor and currency differentials.
I’ve been amazed for a long time that we want the Chinese to build our military hardware. At what point do we get industrial sabotage? Poisoned goods? With no regulation and no quality control.
Perhaps the Bay Bridge will buckle and fall apart with a full load of traffic on it. When does the the reality of the situation dawn on everyone?
We are moving more tax burden onto the states and they will have to sell out infrastructure to Sovereign Wealth funds etc.
As Orwell suggests, this ideology of bad ideas will eventually be tested on the battleground.
Bloody wars endeed!.
Just at battle of Borodin Napoleon lost close to 300 officers. The reason I am mentioning this, officer at that time ment that he is a man from well healed family. Regular soldier was promoted only after exceptional bravery that he has to survive in the first place, be seen and confirmed by his comanders which is also tricky since, sometimes, thay like to keep the gloory for themselves. Nevertheless, unlike today’s chicken hawks powerful people at that time willingly or not at least walked the talk.
Mitt Romney @ his last presidentail run:
” My boys are contributing to the USA by working on my campaign”.
I have close relatives that grew up in such places. They bear the scars of inadequate nutrition like stunting and bent leg bones. Have YOU ever suffered such a lack Asoka? I think they would tell you that when you talk about their poverty that you haven’t got a fucking clue what you’re talking about.
By most standards, in most countries, US$100 a month income qualifies you as living in “poverty.”
Keynesian stimulation only works in a manufacturing economy… L
Otherwise it’s like pushing on a string.
Asoka have you ever been desperate for food? Have you watched your kids grow up scrawny and stunted for lack of food?
No? I listen to those that have. And I would again submit that you’re talking out your ass.
Soon, we’ll have to have the Chinese, Indians, Brazilians, Russians, and Germans do ALL the creating because we’ve disincentived creation itself.
=======================
I’m happy for the Chinese, Indians, Brazilians, etc. who have a chance to work and provide for their families.
The USA has had a good long run and has built up a lot of wealth. Time has come for others to do the same. Good for them!
“As Orwell Suggets … ”
-Ibendet
It would do us all well to read and reread Orwell, ‘specially 1984. Blair, the great oracle of the dark heart of the 20th century, has even more relevance in 2012. So far nobody since has emerged with a cautionary tale like his great masterpiece, his summing up of the Soviet and Nazi systems brought to Great Britain in the near future.
Jim says the US Government in TLE will so incompetent and hapless it won’t be able to answer the phone or keep the lights on. I don’t know about that. The Military and the police will be well funded to the end, the lights shining brilliantly down at the local precinct amidst amidst the squalor and darkness surrounding it.
–WSP7
9:03
Stop picking on that little fagot: ask me the question:
What did I achieve in my lifetime ? A big fat ZERO. And I hope that one second after I die no one remembers about me at all, nay, I hope that I am not even thought of or remembered alive that is why I always say erase all of my posts, erase the entire Internet, etc. We need to kill memory, erase all memories.
Do I give two c*cks and a d*ck that I am worth a big fat ZERO and didn’t achieve anything at all ? NO.
Ok,satisfied ? Jesus ph*kng christ, what fake problems people deal themselves…
As far as vladie, he is a little queer who is even afraid to talk dirty to Alexandra that old horny slut: go vlad talk dirty to her, you both have the same fantasies, talk about a handsome young black stud…
Entertain us a little, this blog is so boring with all of these Green Thugs, give us back old tzatza, party poopers, ph*cktards…
So please explain to us all why it has to be done at the expense of the ordinary American worker.
Take your time. But not too much time because we’re waiting.
As a matter of fact we’re still waiting for your answers on a number of other questions…
Science is worth zero because it is dependent on an imaginary invariant, the Man Brain, it is only valid within the process of interactions that a Man Brain can have with its environment hence it is only a local logical segment: a real objective science would have to investigate all possible Man Brain permutations and designs and rules of interactions with all possible memory organizations, emotion and pain/pleasure circuits, logics, sense organs, you name it: obviously the number of different kinds of Man Brains (or simply Processors, Observers ) possible is astronomical hence even investigating many and many, the amount of Real Science that we could write down is always vanishingly small, hence it is the entire idea of Science that is false and wrong.
It only works in our puny world, so then any set of symbols that are assigned to process any other set of symbols is a completely new universe with a completely new science, etc.
Design your new Science, make it wildly interesting, design your make believe, don’t be shy, we are only at the beginning of Real Science…
TOBOR AN 8 MAN
8,
As long as you stick with skyscapers, robots and your usual you’re fine. Dildo crap that you aimed at Alexandra at last blog is…what shall I say?
Little of name calling in the heat of the night to get your point acress I understand, but your rant?
I love philosophy?
Are you by chance a father, Vlad? If so, have you ever once held up your end and actually changed a dirty diaper? Or do you believe your penis is a get-out-of-dealing-with-baby-poop-free card?
And I would again submit that you’re talking out your ass.
================
You make that claim rather often. You are welcome to your opinion. But it gets boring and I don’t respond to ad hominem attacks.
Just don’t feel hurt if I refuse to respond in kind or refuse to hurl insults or refuse to respond at all. You are welcome to do as you please and it will not affect my happiness.
I am enjoying all the attention you are giving me.
Vlad –
What makes you think I’m a Jew? I used my alias there just to have some fun with your sorry ass.
Say hi to Mika and Metuselah for me.
Humble Harv
This kind of trafficking in sick relics is nothing new. Not praiseworthy, obviously, but it’s hardly an unprecedented symptom of a new unfathomable depravity in human affairs. On balance, this is in many ways the most civilized time in human history. Most armies nowadays don’t collect trophies, for example, and punish soldiers who do such things.
So please explain to us all why it has to be done at the expense of the ordinary American worker.
====================
Please explain why Americans (6% of the world’s population) had to take 25% of the world’s resources for so many decades.
Look, it’s karma, Rhino. Our time is up. You can cry that it is “unfair,” you can play the victim card.
Or you can accept it, look forward to how to adapt to a new reality (listen to JHK’s podcast) and be happy for the Third World people who now have jobs and for their children who will now have enough to eat. I’m happy for them.
The so-called “poor” in the USA have so many safety nets and live in such a wealthy country that they will survive. They might even be motivated to organize when they realize their fate, much like the people of Wisconsin did when they realized their collective bargaining rights were being taken away from them.
The United States consumes over 1800 cubic meters of water annually per capita, about three times the world average.
The United States consumes more water than any other country.
The United States consumes about 17 million barrels of oil per day, of which nearly two-thirds is used for transportation.
The United States consumes timber at a rate nearly double the average for developed countries.
Though its population does not exceed 6 per cent of the world total, the United States consumes almost three-quarters of the available supply of rubber and gasoline, two-thirds of all the raw silk, and one-quarter of the sugar.
The United States consumes 33 times as much energy per person as India, 13 times as much as China, two and a half times as much as Japan, and two times as much as Sweden.
The United States consumes 30 percent of the world’s paper. The United States consumes a disproportionately high number of the world’s trees.
All that is about to change. And it’s about time. Third world status is our new reality. You can whine, Rhino, or you can adapt and find the silver lining.
Correction:
not but , by
In fact Science tries to find repetitive patterns by comparing things to what it already knows, by formatting new events, patterns, causes and effects, observations into the language and words and symbols it has already created:
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=177939
Within this framework it can be said that Science is Wrong. That’s it. I said it. Science is Wrong from the outset, what we do have is a local logical segment that is sufficient for our uses, we have found the many repetitive patterns and have found out how to apply them (and we may find others in the future), but the Metaphysical – Spiritual – Abstract properties that we apply to Science are Wrong. There is no “Objective Reality” and “Objective Science” or “Set of Patterns” as applied to an “External Reality” such that justifies this other new subtle form of Religion: as even Science has properties of Religions, the faith factor, the belief factor, only in this case you have faith in logic and reasoning and you believe that reality is outside of yourself, that the Observer is independent of the Observed, that the Observer can be separated from the Observed: nothing further from the truth, there is no way to split the Observer from the Observed, it is all one, a confusing monolithic slab of Matter, nay, symbols talking to themselves.
In fact Science tries to find repetitive patterns by comparing things to what it already knows, by formatting new events, patterns, causes and effects, observations into the language and words and symbols it has already created: the past conditions the future in this sense, the memory of what you already know creates the reference system, reality is just the memory of all you have seen and all the patterns you are used to and have been solidified into expectations where very few really surprising events can happen. And as such since the Universe is only the way Matter is decoded by another organization of Matter, and since Matter is only Information Relationship Events, hence Symbols, it is more correct to say the Universe is only the way a set of Symbols are decoded by another set of Symbols.
What does probability have to do with it ? It is said that there is a probability that your quantum atoms align up in such a way that you can walk through walls, or there is one chance in a very large number that atoms just align up and make a dead man live again for maybe a week and such. Do we expect such things to happen ? Not really, but they are not 100 % excluded from what official Science tells us. And that is the point: if these things can happen, and they can, then anything can happen (and even if they can’t, it doesn’t matter), there is no longer any need to explain anything; the event is the explanation, it needs no further investigation, the observation is the science and the explanation, science becomes a very short story, it is only that which we see, the entire idea of explaining, relating, connecting a long chain of causes and effects and such is no longer necessary, the simplest explanation is no explanation.
So how did Natural Evolution create the first living cell and a Man ? No explanation, it just happened, end of story, the very long complex number that created the end point is just a number that has been selected out of a very large bag of numbers just because, for no reason at all.
And in fact, No Reason at All is the Best Reason Possible, No Reason at all, Just Because, It is just a randomly assigned number.
And such for anything else: does God exist ? I don’t know, but if yes he exists For No Reason at All, just because. Does anything else, no matter how wild and insane exist ? I don’t know, but if it does it exists For No Reason at All, just because. But even saying I don’t know does not really do justice to the idea that Science is Wrong: we must take it further, and leave the entire concept of “truth” behind as it implies external realities, true and false, imaginary spiritual properties entities have and such so we can say: Does anything at all exist ? Yes, anything at all exists (an oldsmobile that is a brain and talks to little children) everything exists For No Reason at All, just because.
And taking it even further does nothing at all exist, is everything a temporary ghost and illusion ? Yes, nothing exists For No Reason at All, just because.
Coincidences, no matter how specific and far out no longer need to be explained. They just exist and happen.
THE EIGHT MAN
This is the vision of the future you have: White male supremacy, all others “in their place”, with violence very much on the table to make it happen. People who believe as you do, Vlad, are a real danger to the common good and need to be challenged at every possible opportunity. I’m glad when I get e-mails for “picking on” you, as though you’re a victim and a barely suppressed aggressor. It’s solid evidence that I’m doing some good in the world, however minor.
rhino- did you catch the last part of his post? he s as much as embraced his office as RI; and as such isn t interested in continuity of discussion- rather distraction i submit that one might be better off in the long term to relegate the hose to ‘resident ignorata’, since it is as unlikely for ass-soaker (how dya like them ad hominations?) to answer any real question as for flicka to do the same…
*rather than a barely suppressed aggressor.
Because the consequences of letting the likes of you get out of control are unacceptable to civilized people.
“America lost its manufacturing capacity bit by bit over the last 40 years.”
Do you remember when immigrants used to come to the USA because of the higher wages they could earn here? When US wages were the envy of the world? When a good-paying US job was something people used to do just about anything to get?
No more, corp execs have instead aimed US labor in the opposite direction, and won’t be satisfied until, due to globalization, US wages are equal to Chinese wages. But they get to keep all the profits ….
Serfs up! Grab a board….
Work! Work! Work! Gotta make $ for the Jerk.
😉
Asoka,
You must not be listening very carefully to the political dialogue here because I think the current safety net is being called into question while the middle class pays for the cost of speculators to continue speculating with government guarantee.
Many issues are being confused here, but the discussion we are all having is a falsity. Slave labor is producing wealth for a few and speculation is extracting wealth from us.
It’s not a question of whining its a question of seeing that you’re being systematically cheated in broad daylight and the thievery continues. We are being undermined as a nation state, but that doesn’t mean the folks for India and China etc don’t have their own national pride and sooner or later will be garnering more for their countries and not just the top elite like we do.
That’s the calculus of change and it doesn’t have to be that way.
But you haven’t answered the question: why does it have to be done at the expense of the average American worker?
I’ll ask the question another way: Why does production by American companies necessitate the use of slave wage workers in China? And not only China.
This is simple exploitation Asoka. American workers are not the only ones suffering. These foreign workers are used and abused and crippled by overwork. By American companies Asoka. Understand Asoka?
Do you remember when immigrants used to come to the USA because of the higher wages they could earn here? When US wages were the envy of the world? When a good-paying US job was something people used to do just about anything to get? – DJ
Yeah actually I do remember.
Yeah actually I do remember.
Me too! Rhino
Paul Krugman is most certainly an idiot – and a myopic one, at that. Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn’t paid attention to his ravings in the last decade. His most recent comments are nothing new. I was glad to see this remark from James.
You see Asoka words matter and the trouble with this internet thing is that it transmits words which convey ideas many of which are nonsensical and/or destructive. Understand so far?
Elrond Hubbard’s reply to Vlad applies to you too so I’ll quote him:
“Because the consequences of letting the likes of you get out of control are unacceptable to civilized people.”
You see Asoka what you are doing in playing the clown/provocateur (or whatever your game is) is to advocate for the interests of the 1%.
Third world people according to you should be happy to get slave wage work, American workers should be happy also with their increasing impoverishment.
Big question Asoka: who benefits? I would submit that it’s the 1%.
So back to my original question some weeks back:
Why do you advocate for the interests of the 1%?
Give it up, CFT. Rhino is addicted to me. He can’t resist responding to them. So dialog continues.
I can’t wait to hear him explain why American workers deserve 25% of the world’s resources. Now that the jobs are being done by Chinese and Indians he is not so happy about that. He is angry.
You mean back when unions were strong? Yes, I remember that time. Who voted in Reagan? Who voted in both Bushes? Who destroyed the unions? The same “American workers” who now have no jobs.
Yes, clowns are dangerous. You are playing a vital role here on CFN.
CORRECTION
Who voted in Reagan? Who voted in both Bushes? Who destroyed the unions? The same ignorant barbarians who supported the military budget and imperialist wars, the same “American workers” who now have no jobs.
CORRECTION
Yes, clowns are dangerous. You are playing a vital role here on CFN.
I’m just playing… and enjoying your posts.
I can’t wait to hear him explain why American workers deserve 25% of the world’s resources. – asoka
Deserve?
I’m getting the strong impression that you have a very tenuous relationship with the world of work. You know, where you do stuff for somebody. Like make things or build things or provide some service for them. And they pay you.
Never mind, that’s not my main point.
This is my main point: there is a country to the north of the United States. This country is a major producer of goods like oil, natural gas, wheat, potash, lumber. You know, resources. The USA imports roughly 400 billion dollars a year worth of products from this country. Two thirds of the goods imported are things like those I just described.
Guess what ASSOka, those goods are paid for by Americans. Amazed? Did you think they were stolen? And in the end do you know how they’re paid for? By sending from the US roughly the same value of other products that they need north for their use up there. You know, work is done. By people in both countries. Get the picture?
You STILL haven’t answered Asoka.
Why do you advocate for the interests of the 1%?
Rhino, I’m still waiting for you to explain why American workers deserved to consume 25% of the world’s resources, made possible through imperialist wars and the bombing of dozens of countries, which the same American workers carried out as members of the military.
Now those same American workers want to scapegoat others, instead of taking responsibility for their actions, instead of accepting their karma. Blame the immigrants, blame the Chinese and Indians.
Maybe your karma is to fight back.
Join OWS. Join ACLU and CCR. Organize labor unions. Fight for a repeal of Citizens United.
Vote for Jill Stein and support the Green Party.
(does that sound like I’m shilling for the 1%?)
I am going to have lunch with Q. I’ll be back later.
I’m still waiting for your response, Rhino.
So you’re saying that workers were fooled by an elite who bullshitted them, who promised that if things were done their way ie free, unfettered markets, low taxes etc that good times would abound, that jobs would be plentiful? And can we agree that it wan’t only Reagan and Bush and the Republicans but also academics that talked the dame talk?
So those people you so hold in contempt, you know, the ones with pitchforks and nooses and tattoos and firearms, are/were stupid and they had it coming?
Is that what you’re saying Asoka?
“dame talk” – correction should be “same talk.’
Don’t want any women posters/readers to think I’m dumping on them.
lights shining brilliantly down at the local precinct amidst amidst the squalor and darkness surrounding it
==
Maybe. But can you imagine them fat nazi idiots in their american nazi police uniforms without their nazi police cars? And it would be a VERY simple matter to target the nazi pigs cars with petrol bombs and disable them. No nazi police cars, no nazi police force.
Read my response above Asoka at 1:26 pm.
Canada is the USA’s biggest trading partner last time I looked and I haven’t heard about any imperialist American bombing in Canada nor have I heard about American troops committing atrocities on Vancouver Island nor have I heard any reports of US forces taking control of the oil sands.
Have you?
thought of another home- remedy i know from experience works: year or two ago i had a very painfull ear infection…since i haven t insurance, and already knew of the healing properties of white sugar: my mother had a cat years ago who had a rather large gash on his head…she packed sugar in it and with repeated applications it healed…so i warmed up some almond oil (not necessary to the recipe), mixed it with sugar (yes, plain old white sugar) and packed it in my ear…over night the stuff expanded out (gross color) and i felt like my ear was healing- pain was greatly reduced, and i no longer felt as if i was dying
Join OWS. Join ACLU and CCR. Organize labor unions. Fight for a repeal of Citizens United.
Vote for Jill Stein and support the Green Party.
(does that sound like I’m shilling for the 1%?) – Asoka
You say third world people should be happy with their shitty lot in horrible sweatshops and American workers should be happy and gracefully accept their impoverishment. And by implication close their eyes to the enrichment of the 1%.
It sure sounds like you’re advocating for the 1%. Are you?
Have you ever worked in one of those Chinese electronics sweatshops Asoka? How about an Indian textile shop? I’d wager that you’d last about half a day. Am I wrong about that too?
what i meant above was that one does not have to use almond oil; i m sure any cooking oil would work…anyway the process worked like a charm and most assuredly did not cost me anything besides what i already had…
Honey is an ancient disinfectant for wounds. Also maggots are good too – let them eat the infected part away. Life is pretty grotesque isn’t it?
You were talking about Bernanke ——— “he and his crony vultures have decided that it is all unsustainable and this is the last cycle; that they might as well get as much out of us now as possible before we truly (violently) object to the gang-rape.
Basically i agree but you give him far too much credit. We here are always trying to figure things out and put ourselves in other peoples heads. Often it winds up being a big mistake because it leads us totally in the wrong direction. Everybody here does it including me. We imagine a morality where there is none. Not everybody thinks the same way.
Bernanke may not know that this is the last cycle and if he does know it does not mean that it means anything to him. Bernanke is part of the plutocracy and we are not. Our tribe is not his tribe. His tribe uses our tribe for their benefit. There is nothing at all in his mind to justify. To him this is the natural order of things and he’s all set up. The most important thing for Bernanke is to keep Things the way they are. This means the 1% stays the 1%, membership does not change and he’s one of them. Anybody here know his net worth?
The 1% will get by with as much as we let them which sadly turns out to be quite a bit. Nothing ever really trickles down and the privileged takes as much as they can. The plutocracy does not see the world or our future in the same way we do. We could demand a fair and sustainable meritocracy but that would take balls leadership and spirit.
If you’ve watched “lifting the Veil’ you would know the 1% is really 0.1%. Most of the 1% can actually pass for human on a good day but the 0.1% flies first class or in private jets and are proud of the low mileage their engine heavy cars get. The 0.1% see nothing wrong with burning as much as they can and never will. They will make sure that they burn the last gallon and we don’t. Somebody has to do it and it may as well be them. That’s how they think.
The fact that another way of life could mean the survival of humanity means nothing to them. Another way of life for them would mean giving up a privileged life which is unthinkable. Baubles define their existence. This could be the last cycle or the cat could have nine lives. I favor the last cycle hypothesis but the behavior and attitude of the privileged would be no different regardless of their opinion of the last cycle hypothesis.
People with views like mine created America and the West. Femininst leftist weenies like you are unworthy of the heritage bequeathed to us. I’m unworthy too btw – at least I acknowledge it and do my small part to educate people about how much we’ve lost – and been stolen from us. And how the way forward is backwards for awhile – back to where we went wrong.
Have you seen James Stewart’s movie “Harvey”? You are henceforth a pooka, an invisible rabbit.
Actually, Rhino, in my view Asoka has a point. We who live in the rich world enjoy a far greater than pro rata share of the Earth’s resources, and by strict accounting identity, that has to come out of the share enjoyed by people in the poor world. I think you miss a contradiction in your position when you point out on the one hand that you once lived in a country where people were happy on $100 a month, while complaining on the other that workers in China, India and elsewhere are being exploited, and all the while questioning why this has come at the expense of American workers.
The answer to all of the above is that Americans and the West in general have benefited over the years from an enormous wealth conveyance system accumulated over time, which is now slowing or even going into reverse. America used to be a creditor nation, but over the past few decades the balance has shifted in favour of China and other developing countries. Both sides of the equation are reverting to the mean, in other words, getting closer to meeting in the middle. The process is driven by an interaction between: the dynamics of capitalism, chasing percentages with the regularity of a cellular automaton, in an environment of (temporary) energy abundance where exponential growth is (again, temporarily) possible; mass decisions by large populations either to accumulate their share of the economic surplus or spend themselves into debt for consumption’s sake; and (c) the machinations of elite decision makers in government and finance, the so-called 1%.
No the women will come crawling to us for protection and food. And with what will they pay for these, Hmm? Feminism dies on the Day. Gird thy loins brother and prepare.
Elrond was only half elven. Half breeds can be good if both halves are. Hubbard was a swine though. So you are half bad.
Now those same American workers want to scapegoat others, instead of taking responsibility for their actions, instead of accepting their karma. Blame the immigrants, blame the Chinese and Indians. – Asoka
Accept their karma? Yeah sure. So American workers have no right to be angry do they Asoka? They should smilingly accept their worsening lot. Right?
Then what was this stuff you spewed about joining unions?
Of course multinational businesses are blameless. And also their shareholders. Aren’t they Asoka? And the politicians and academics that give them legal and ideological cover. Right Asoka?
I don’t really know who to blame more, people executing economically/financially/socially destructive policies or people that advocate on behalf of those that benefit from those destructive policies.
Who do I blame more Asoka? Who do I hold to account for this?
I think you miss a contradiction in your position when you point out on the one hand that you once lived in a country where people were happy on $100 a month – Elrond
I didn’t live in such a country. Asoka said he lived in such a country.
I have relatives that grew up in dire poverty overseas and suffered terribly. There’s NO happiness in poverty and deprivation.
Your lower parts are really salivating for those Vogon road crews. Meanwhile you study your Vogon/English dictionary – can’t wait to say “I’m with the crew”.
Someone has to dominate – why not us the founders of this Nation? Why give it to aliens or minorities, or the whole grievance coalition of Women, Blacks, Browns, Yellows, etc. What a nightmare they have raised up against us. And yes our Women have been secuced into supporting all this against us. As if they and not us can give them the lifestyle they crave. Stupid.
The same with the Big Dig in Boston – they used inferior concrete and it leaks. Amazing. No self respect at all, no pride in workmanship. No Chinese needed, just a bidding war, a Capitalist race to the bottom.
Things really have changed. We never would have gotten this far if Capitalism had always been this bad. There used to be values and self respect as well. A moral context in which profit was just one of the values.
Murmurations…? That and more will be going on as its Davos time again, from tomorrow folks!
So private jets will be buzzing the ‘usual suspects’ over to Klosters right now… for the global elite’s supreme annual networking experience… courtesy of the WEF. The meta-theme being: The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models.
A few things about this make me chortle… one is they are going to discuss shaping new models to control everyone… (for our own good obviously)… and theirs too. Though for any current or looming new key govt decision maker walking the talk… is getting nastier, harder and more difficult to do… as the non-negotiable nasty stuff accumulates.
Buzz words abound: hard power, hierarchical power, soft power, the importance of being on message… global togetherness, (sounds cosy)… micro-entrepreneurship, and transitions from capitalism to talentism.
However, importantly it’s all about how to develop new business models, as I guess there ‘twigging’ that the current ones are dying, i.e. how can a few keep on new rapping and robbing the planet?
These last two para’s are key:
‘To respond to the expectations of the young generation, we have to provide them with the hope and confidence that they will not have to pay for the mistakes and excesses of the present generation. There is a tipping point where velocity, interconnectivity and complexity become so pervasive that the whole system collapses, regardless of whether certain elements at the surface have been addressed.
The Annual Meeting 2012 in Davos is the place where we must – individually and collectively – have the foresight, the commitment and collaborative power to shape the new models needed to safeguard our global future, and to respond to the expectations and hopes of the hundreds of millions of people who presently feel left out.’
Me thinks they seem a tad nervous of the burgeoning, listless young underclass…
The ad looks good btw, (look away Vlad) women and people of colour abound…
http://www.weforum.org/global-leadership-fellows
Though don’t bother to go serious protesting if GIABO aware you be, thousands of Swiss soldiers and police have been shovelling snow to erect a ‘ring of steel’ against unwelcome demonstrators, and the forum centre, well not even the white badge clad wives, mistresses or even high class call girls are allowed in there.
But I’m sure there will be lots of MSM TV ops at the igloo ‘protest’ village site, well out of harms way… or nicely packaged and controlled.
Though one banner of note reads: “If voting could change anything it would be illegal”… I wonder if that will make a tracking shot?
However the one thing I’ll look out for with some relish will be a keynote speech from Niall Ferguson re: Breakthrough Ideas for revitalizing Europe… (no less)
Here’s a snippet of his coming thinking…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtLcalkHgyA
Toodle-pip
You’re right, there’s blame to go around.
But I heap it on the people that strut around like know it alls with fancy degrees, that are opinion leaders, that make laws, that tell people what to think, that say do this do that or else, that browbeat people that dissent from obviously destructive practices, that hold their fellow citizens in contempt.
In short I put most of the blame on the 1% ie academics, business leaders, ideologues on both sides of the spectrum, educrats, the political class… the list is a long one but the numbers of people relative to the whole is small.
This calamity that’s unfolding was avoidable and I point the finger on leadership that was and is in a position to see it coming and did see it coming and did nothing to change course.
Sorry about that. Doing this on my phone, it’s easy to get mixed up.
I hear you. I guess the reason why so many people in the Third World are willing to accept such conditions is not because they see their present getting better, but because they see their future getiing better. As a way to get their hands on the excess wealth that we in the West enjoy, it may not be either pretty or fair, but it has this advantage: It’s working for them. That’s likely to change as peak-everything comes to a head, but it’s not the worst thing. And even if the equality balance in the West between the 1% and the 99% were restored to something more like it should be, this other imbalance would still exist as a separate question. That’s why I don’t perceive Asoka to be quite the shill for the 1% that you do. You should give him a break.
Loathsome.
It came to me the other day – you grew up watching reruns of The Avengers. Your whole character has been twisted in your desire to be Emma Peel. Not many women could pull that off for very long – nor could society bear the burden of such a thing. Women have to take off the Leather Cat Suits and get busy breeding – instead of outsourcing it to Muslims or Mexicans in our case.
It used to be called marriage before the State empowered young Women to have children out of wedlock. And then acts outraged when a Mormon sect does the same thing – but without asking for handouts. Also they were so so White.
What’s really sad or loathsome is Women trying to get married and have children in their 40’s. But you are so out of touch with Nature that all your values are twisted and you don’t realize that.
If you want to support homeless women without asking for anything in return go ahead. It would just make you a sucker and a fool. I don’t believe that of you – just that you’re a hypocrite.
Who do I blame more Asoka? Who do I hold to account for this?
======================
Oy vey! Now I’m Asoka the psychic?
I’m supposed to read your mind?
You tell me. Who do you blame?
You tell me: did you vote for Reagan and the Bushes?
You tell me: have you supported the union movement for workers to have collective bargaining and rights in the workplace?
There’s NO happiness in poverty and deprivation.
=====================
Right. We agree. Happiness is not related to economics. That was my experience of happy people who lived in what most North Americans would call poverty.
You can’t see this by visiting a country for a few days and then making a superficial judgement, as some on CFN have done, that the place is a “shithole,” thus insulting their country.
You have to stay in one place for years, learn the language, get to know the people, work with them, dance with them, cry with them, attend funerals with them, break bread with them, build houses with them. I have done all these things. That’s how you I know that their joy is genuine and is unrelated to money. What is your experience of Third World poverty?
Happiness can be with or without money. There have been many surveys of happiness and the countries that come out on top are not the rich countries. They are places like Brazil and Colombia.
It’s amazing that nazi scum like VLAD have the hutzpah to dictate to others what their personal choice should be. When to get married, who to get married to, to have kids, when to have kids, etc. Or dictate to others what their political choice should be. Who to vote for, and on and on. What’s even more amazing is that people entertain this degenerate nazi scum. You people must be really really bored.
2009 Happy Planet Index Top 10
1 Costa Rica 76.1
2 Dominican Republic 71.8
3 Jamaica 70.1
4 Guatemala 68.4
5 Vietnam 66.5
6 Colombia 66.1
7 Cuba 65.7
8 El Salvador 61.5
9 Brazil 61.0
10 Honduras 61.0
It’s possible that many women have been media influenced by character such as Pussy Galore, Emma Peel, Wonder Woman, female super heroines and no doubt more recently Lara Croft…
But why should this make us twisted?*
And why do you insist on reducing us back to basics with solely children, kitchen and church as our domains to exclusively focus on – catholic values for sure – and while on the subject of faith… how’s the flirting at Sunday mass going?
As the modern woman’s lifestyles been around for a fair few decades now… me thinks Vladdie darling your quest for putting the Genie back into the bottle’s falling on deaf wombs for now… even over there in the third world…
Which it would seem Europe and the USA too if ‘economic’ thinking isn’t altered soon we’ll be heading toward that status… our glory days well behind us.
(And I do blame the whitest privileged male leadership for that)
As to mass breeding a new USA super race, surely it’s a case of less = more… but of course you’ll need a high quality male iQ input for that…
(Grown saturated fat on Taco Bell, MacD’s Coke and Pepsi… eeerrgh no I think not, I know of few bachelors that like to cook from scratch btw)
But at the higher end of the spectrum… who knows… maybe?
(*And note to self, stop engaging in dialogue with CFN’ reprobate’s)
The happiest country in one of those surveys was
Denmark. A wealthy country with more than adequate social services, health care, an economic safety net, and a wealth of super models. They pay high taxes but actually get something for them instead of their taxes propping up a dying military empire.
Humble Harv
The Happy Planet Index shows that around the world, high levels of resource consumption do not reliably produce high levels of well-being, and that it is possible to produce high well-being without excessive consumption of the Earth’s resources. It also reveals that there are different routes to achieving comparable levels of well-being. The model followed by the West can provide widespread longevity and variable life satisfaction, but it does so only at a vast and ultimately counter-productive cost in terms of resource consumption.
This is where we should be going: voluntary energy descent, simpler lifestyle, less income, less consumption of the Planet’s resources, and more happiness.
It’s up to us. Move any money you might have out of the big banks, stop buying cheap crap, invest more quality time with your loved ones. Tune in, turn on, drop out. Boomers got that right.
Vlad:We never would have gotten this far if Capitalism had always been this bad.
You got that right, Vlad. This is the one topic that we agree on.
Yes, Harvey, I read that survey, too. It did not take into account the level of efficiency in terms of resource consumption.
All the top ten in the survey you refer to were developed countries with the most resources but they did not combine environmental impact with human well-being to measure the environmental efficiency with which, country by country, people live long and happy lives.
The Happy Planet Index strips the view of the economy back to its absolute basics: what we put in (resources), and what comes out (human lives of different length and happiness).
No one *wants* to entertain Vlad. But he’s not the worst troll this place has seen, the PTB on CFN see fit to let him keep spewing, and I for one am not interested in trying to censor him, so the remaining option is to take him down on the merits. No doubt he feels like he wins either way, but then, who gives a shit what he thinks? The world is a better place with him effectively opposed than otherwise. There’s ways the hope that one day he’ll give up.
I just wanted to add that the ever-insightful Yves Smith had some interesting observations on this topic over the weekend:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/01/new-york-times-tells-us-only-chinese-near-slave-labor-could-handle-steve-jobs-demands.html
In Vlad’s world view, the idea of women with power or authority — even over themselves, much less a man, much less political or other office — is twisted by definition. This includes women with powerful role models, whether fictional or otherwise. He wants ’em all trampled underfoot: dependents, not equals.
Thanks for that article. I found this sentence to be interesting, the opposite of CFN wisdom.
Everyone on CFN is always saying it’s the wages, that we can’t compete with the Chinese wages. Maybe we just aren’t as smart as we think we are, and we can’t compete intellectually, on a planning level, or intellectually on a engineering level. Maybe our educational system is not turning out people with sufficient knowledge to compete at all.
But let’s cut more taxes, then let’s cut even more taxes, then let’s cut spending, and cut spending even more, instead of supporting education, research & development, etc.
Let’s buy more tanks, submarines, and drones. Yeah, we’re number one … militarily. Everyone better respect us or we’ll bomb the shit out of them.
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=177982
[quote=”Flannel Jesus”]I know what a satire is. Which part is the satire? The part where he writes hundreds of posts alone in his own threads beginning with “skip over this text, I’m just a troll” and ending with “So clearly we should just build humungous sky scrapers all the time!”? Or the part where he said that that sort of thing is a waste of time and not applicable? I personally doubt that either of them were not meant seriously, but I could be mistaken.[/quote]
Hey, Jesus, Son of Man, King of the Jews, are you sick in the head or what ?!?! I am dead serious, no sarcasm here, there is no other way to create millions of jobs that are needed worldwide: huge public private projects, the FED and BCE and BANK OF JAPAN and BANK OF ENGLAND must print trillions of dollars and just pay for it all and hire, baby hire!
I don’t give two *cks and a d*ck if th private parts make trillions in profit, who cares, they deserve it since they are creating jobs and creating large scale projects for the common good; there is no other solution, nothing else is applicable, there are no special skill sets, small businesses or startups that can ever match the amount of work generated by such huge projects.
And then, Jesus ph*kng Christ, are you and every one else who reads my crap all day long and have been reading it and studying it all very carefully for years all thick heads ?!?! I have been repeating this BS for years, over and over again and it still doesn’t get in all of your thick heads ?!?!? I can’t believe it….and then I am the one they say is crazy, go figure…
THE APE
Here’s the background for the agenda Asoka is peddling: the U.N’s Agenda 21 for sustainable development – bascially a scheme to eliminate private property and to “equalize” the West with the 3rd World. Basically like Communism, a conspiracy that uses human idealism to concentrate all wealth and power into a very few hands. Asoka and Wage are sincere but misguided and don’t realize this. Part of the problme is their hatred for Whites and the Rich that blinds their wisdom eye.
http://www.newswithviews.com/Marquardt/kathleen103.htm
Fuck you yehudi. You are nothing without us – whereas we would be fine and more without you. Parasite.
LOL!
Vlad, you and Rhino better get your story straight. You say I’m scheming to eliminate private property. Rhino says I’m a spokesman for the 1%
I think you guys are hilarious! A very bad vaudeville act.
I read a book about the science of happiness. They found Bhutan very happy as well as Iceland. Community was the most important along with having enough to eat etc. Beyond that wealth wasn’t important.
Bhutan is a Monarchy so there goes all the political idealism as well. They are just begining to get Western Media – which will no doubt be a disaster in terms of happiness.
The United States wasn’t found to be very happy. Too much rushing. Switzerland is better because of the slow pace and that makes for more community etc. Moldavia was the least happy: Communism detroyed all Community and imported in huge number of Russians whom the people hated and envied. Now they have Western Values and feel resentment and self hatred because they don’t have what they see on TV.
Such a curse Communism is. How much suffering has it caused. Yes they still keep believing and saying “next time it will be different…”.
Easily resolved: the 1% will own all “public property” as in medevial times when no could in hunt in the Kings forest except the King and Nobles.
CORRECTION
Yeah, we’re number one … militarily. Everyone better respect us or we’ll bomb the shit out of them.
And Americans are so happy. NOT
Their wealth has made them happy. NOT
Americans are bored materialists who don’t even know the difference between happy, content, ecstatic, blissful, delighted, euphoric, joyous, etc. They live superficial lives, thinking if they only had more money they would be happy. NOT.
There’s ways the hope that one day he’ll give up.
==
Not a chance.
VLAD is playing a very duplicitous game, driven by an ego of a dupe that knows that it’s been played. What you need to know and understand about VLAD is that he’s a Vatican Sith. All his ideas come and originate from the Vatican/Jesuits. But what VLAD wishes and deny, lie, and obfuscate, is the fact that EVERYTHING which he protests also comes and originates from the Vatican/Jesuits. He wishes to deny and hide this with propaganda and lies, but he knows the score. And he knows that basically he’s a dupe that’s been played by his masters, but his ego wont allow to admit it.
So the role of Robin Hood is open for you?
No, taking from the rich and giving to the poor is too much like communism for you.
CORRECTION
Americans live superficial lives, thinking if they only had more money they would be happy. NOT.
They should have listened to the boomer hippies. Then we’d have communes, not nuclear family suburbs, we’d have community not isolation, we’d have reasonable and energy efficient shared housing (or co-housing with common buildings) instead of energy hogging McMansions in the ‘burbs, etc.
Yes this ideal’s been around for a few decades – and how has the West fared during these same for decades, hmmm? Has our birth rate kept up? How has marriage fared? How are the children doing? It is to laugh Alex.
Why not? Because this ideal doesn’t fit women but for a few. It shouldn’t be the popular ideal because it leads to unhappiness. Women want security far more than adventure; to create a nice nest with a man who will take care of them and the children.
I didn’t say any – some women want freedom more than marriage. Their own business and if married, no kids. I’m fine with that. Why torture people and make everyone get married. It just means that the ones who do marry have to have more children though – and should get tax breaks the singles or no kids couples don’t get.
If you fit the Emma Peel mode, more power to you. Just don’t argue it for all girls or many at all. Enjoy yourself and respect the common people whose labor makes your life possible – and serve the common good. The Elite should serve the People not torment them unto death and then start bringing in a whole new population to rule. All of which has been done under Labor and the Democratic Party over here.
The Anglo American Elite will go down in History as one of the worst in all of human History. They will be seen as monsters before the end of this century by everyone. The rest of the world already sees it. As do Russia and China who are ready to allie against Oceania in the next war.
“Did you know that Flad lives in a trailer someplace, lives off disabilty, and dresses in womens underwear?
During the summers he’s a rodeo clown at the local carnival, and part of his act is to get kicked in the head by a donkey.
Its really, REALLY funny, the kids just love it.
“Make the donkey kick the clown again daddy!” And for only a $1, you can too!! Flad makes hundreds of dollars a day this way!! Quite amazing.
Then he spends it all on meth-whores and really, really cheap booze.
So, don’t take what he says at all seriously, he’s been kicked in the head by that dang donkey thousands of times now.
The kids just love it!! Remember, only a $1!”
Yep, ol’ Flad has been kicked in the head one too many times…..
But hay, its only a $1, go for it…
(But also, you wanna know what he does with the donkey after midnight? That will cost you $5).
😉
Hey, DeeJones. Did you see Costa Rica is #1 on the 2009 Happy Planet Index? Congratulations!
Your country of choice is the most ecologically responsible and produces the most happiness, most efficiently, in terms of resource consumption.
The Planet is happy about that!
Rhino, I’m still waiting for you to explain why the tattooed, beer drinking, NASCAR, military-supporting, pro-war, anti-Iran, anti-Taliban American workers deserve to continue to consume 25% of the Planet’s resources when they are only 6% of the world’s population.
Karma’s a bitch.
But American workers earned their comeuppance with their unsustainable bellicose lifestyle. It’s payback time. Now they get to be Third World for a while. It is a blessing in disguise. Believe me.
Asoka, I believe your assessment is accurate generally. Things are changing gradually and thus it is hard to observe.. An awakening is taking place. The more shaking (suffering) the the more the waking.
Satisfying the craving either doesn’t happen or, when it does, no lasting happiness accrues. So, one suffers and seeks an escape. And what is that escape: a different craving. This is being caught up in the delusions of the ephemeral world.
Seek a better way.
Now that we’re together again – it’s time for you to express how you feel about men’s rights. Do you affrirm that men have the right to life, liberty, and happiness? And that they don’t have to give up their seats in lifeoboats for women?
That’s bullshit list – part of the discredited globalist agenda. Happiness does not come from living under an oppressive bureacracy – which is what they want for us.
The Elders of Zion admired the Jesuits as some of the few gentiles who could match them in wits. See the Protocols. I therefore take you nonsense allegation as a compliment.
The West sought outer freedom, the East inner. But like the Yin/Yang symbol, you need a bit of the one to have the other. The Scriptures advise Yogis to settle in the realm of a good King. Only in such a peaceful place will they have the chance to cultivate their inner freedom.
And we are losing our Outer Freedom because we didn’t have enough inner freedom. Instead of thinking and voting resonsibly, we frittered it away with games, toys, and distractions.
Ha! you’re funny, Vlad
You sure don’t let things go, do you?
Take a deep breath and let your argument with Alexandra go. You’ll feel a weight off your shoulders.
————-
As I said we have a common distain for globalism and neoliberalism.
Actually, the greatest bloodshed the world had seen in the 19th century was a series of insurrections in China. China was a pretty advanced place. Their population was at least 300 million. British merchants got sick of sending so much silver to China in trade for silk and fancy curios for rich british folks. So they started peddling Opium. Britain beat up the monarchy a few times and flooded China with Opium. Many Chinese were indignant at this, and rebelled against their government. Britain sided with the government. After twenty million to sixty million dead, the rebellions fizzled out until other ideologies inspired the people 50 years later to “take back their country”.
… And back to the subject at hand (energy) prognosticators and experts on CNBC, Bloomberg, in the WSJ and IBD are all over the place in regard to oil futures … some say $150 per barrel this summer, others say $40. And they all have facts to back up their predictions. Just goes to show you how hard it is to predict anything, especially the future, even the near future.
One thing is for sure, tho, Natural Gas is suddenly cheap & plentiful, and getting cheaper. Does that fact make any of you CFNers more optimistic?
–WSP7
How to save America in a few useful steps:
Abolish the Dept. of Education. Education is a province of the state, not the National government. Federal dollars are wasted in public schools on redundant, unnecessary programs that attempt to re-invent the wheel. Children who cannot behave in school should not be permitted re-entry without the presence of their parents each and every day, without question.
End foreign wars. Period. Get the heck out of Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., etc. They don’t want us there and our sons and daughters don’t need to go there to shoot, be shot at, or behave indecently towards Muslims.
End “free trade”. It’s killed our manufacturing base by off shoring all industry. Slave labor is supported by the West when we buy trinkets like Apple Iphones, etc. The middle class is just beginning to get a taste of what the blue collar and working class has been facing for 30 odd years. Diminishing wages and vanishing jobs.
If you decide to have children, please do so only if you’re financially able to provide for them. Being a stay-at-home mom will help you bond with your kids, not a day care rep.
Lower the age of Social Security to 60 so that we can clear up some jobs for the younger set.
End the Dept. of Agriculture, which forces out small farmers and favors big Agra firms.
Abolish Freddie and Fannie…enought said.
Abolish federally guaranteed student loans. The cost of a college degree these days is insane and is making our children debt slaves forever.
Just a few musings. Add a few if you care.
Kramps
I do not understand this building a pipeline from Canada to Southeast Texas.
If we’re going to import this much oil from Alberta, it should be refined in the northern states. states that border Canada and/or the Great Lakes. build the Refineries in the north.
Assuming their isn’t some Kunstleriffic Catastrophic Collapse! 😉
While on the subject of letting go… twill be interesting to see what Team Obama, have come up with for Barack’s ‘State of the Union’ chat in a few hours or so…. ??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM9ArTbJquk&
Everyone playing by the same rules (cough) apart from the chaps on WallSt… The disappearing middle-class, no surely not?
And he’s suggesting you get together with your tribe, community (insert the group of your choice) to watch it together… so it will be me and Steed then, hunched over the B&W TV, me in the latex catsuit/boots… having just popped down to the shops for our breakfast eggs in the Lotus.
*giggles*
So perhaps his hacks have been reading this here Kunster blog… to get some tips and advice… re the reveal later of finally a sustainable future focused America yippee, oh yeah and the war with Iran’s off…
Ha…
And that’s Mrs. Peel to you Mr. Krandz, though deliberately appealing to mens weaker natures is not a game I personally choose to play…
But enough of tittle-tattle, stand by yer beds Yanks, your commander-in-chief request’s your rapt presence…
I haven’t been watching the Repugs debates since they are all so twisted and I’m even wondering whether I want to waste my time on Obama, since its going to be the same old, same old. We shall see.
BTW I liked your post on Davos. There latest greatest ideas are not gonna help them.
” Things really have changed. We never would have gotten this far if Capitalism had always been this bad. There used to be values and self respect as well. A moral context in which profit was just one of the values.”
Very true. I remember the days when sober, strategic contractors would frown upon a bid too low. They understood a low-ball price was often a reflection of desperation and an inability to honor a signed contract. In other words, bad business at the end of the day.
Now a contractor has utilize cheap foreign labor just to be able to compete in the bidding process, even on Govt contract jobs.
“Your country of choice is the most ecologically responsible and produces the most happiness, most efficiently, in terms of resource consumption.
The Planet is happy about that!”
Thanks, things do seem pretty happy here.
Its the Costa Ricans tho. They are a pretty balanced people.
🙂
“Do you affrirm that men have the right to life, liberty, and happiness?”
And do YOU agree that Women have the same exact and equal right?
You do, why thanks! Oh, wait, we don’t need your approval. So go to hell.
🙂
” do not understand this building a pipeline from Canada to Southeast Texas.
If we’re going to import this much oil from Alberta, it should be refined in the northern states. states that border Canada and/or the Great Lakes. build the Refineries in the north.”
Well, one: There aren’t any refineries up North.
Two, new refineries are VERY expensive, and in fact a new one hasn’t been built in quite a long time.
Plus the oil co’s don’t see a very good long term investment on them for some reason. Like, they expect the oil to run out someday? The nerve!
Aren’t we Drilling, baby, drilling?
😉
Hey now! The laddie reveals himself as some shit-stain by the name of Jesse Walters. A few of his deeper “thoughts” on women are to be found here:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/im-more-of-a-breast-man-and-completely-worthless-h,27152/
Enjoy! What a guy…
while i agree with most of your post, i ve never understood doing away with the various depts which don t give us the desired result…ex: why not abolish high school, with it s cliques and rigid study plan; to be replaced after middle school with a collegiate format, almost like a voluntary trade school, if you will…i say reform the beauracracy throughout the governmental apparati; not the functions designed to help…how about use the dept of ag to help small farmers compete with corporations…
Pura vida!
In South America everybody kept talking about “rumba” and I thought it was a dance, but it turned out “rumba” is a general term meaning “we are going to dance all night just for the fun of it.” Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night in “los sitios” there would be “rumba” from 9 pm (after it cools dow to 75 degrees) until 3 am (when by law city establishments had to close). Then people would caravan to the places just outside the city limits and continue the “rumba” until 6 or 7 a.m.
If the “rumba” happened in a person’s house, you would be expected to dance until you couldn’t dance anymore, crash and sleep there, have breakfast, and continue dancing.
The Global South is a bit different from the work-obssessed, profit-obsessed, capitalistic work ethic of North America. People know how to have fun and are hospitable. Jokes, laughter, love of music and sharing music are the order of the day for people aged 6 to 96. Life is relaxed and fun and communal.
I do affirm equal rights – but not equality. We have to conform to Nature and not try to force “Her” to conform to us. Trying to make girls as interested in sports as boys is an example of the latter. Taking funds away from boys sports to do this is an example of the wrong approach, – a false forced equality or sameness.
If we can’t agree (the basis of any culture) than we have to pull out of public schools and other public instituions. How bad have things gotten? They actually have White teachers crying and feeling guilty because Blacks continue to fail – as if it’s their fault!
It’s unfinished business. The ledger is not balanced. Only you can balance it.
Mika –
You do realize that you speak of “Vatican Siths” with more disdain and hate, than Vlad expresses for those “you know who’s” of his.
Just for a little background I did a Google search for “Vatican Sith.” That returns only 43 hits, so the Vatican must be very good at hiding its Siths, I suppose.
Here’s an interesting webpage, in that it does mention the “vatican” and a “sith” in the same reference.
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Benedict_XVI
What a desperate vile creature you are – reading liberal filth like the Onion and then pretending I’m the writer. Have you no shame?
For decades the Mika’s of the World have been slandering Pius the 12th as an accomplice of the Nazis. In fact, he let thousands of Jews take refuge in Vatican City and wrote Encyclicals against National Socialism. Many prominent Jews thanked him for this, but a contingent of them just couldn’t let go of it and continue their campaign of slander in the face of all evidence.
Many Catholic Priests died in the Camps – they had often opposed the Regime which didn’t tolerate such civil resistance. Met’s equation of Catholicism and Nazism is madness as a moment’s googling reveals.
As for me, I’m caught in the middle here as I see value in both philosophies, though I reject some of the brutality of National Socialism (some of the brutality never happened, other parts were part of the war and the critics don’t accuse the Allies and Russians at all) Likewise, I reject the corruption of Vatica Two Catholicism and it’s tolerance of the Homosexual Cult in its midsts.
Sith? Is that what I think it is – something from Star Wars?
Vogueing with the Vogons! And Asoka plays the zither.
What is Davos? I don’t like the idea of you ladies being someplace wihhout me. Of course now the chorus chimes in with screams – “Stalker”! No it’s love!
I used to like the old show the Nightstalker. I identified with Karl Kolchak and his fight against the forces of the night.
Big solar storm. Just a fore runner for the giant ones to come towards 12/22/12. The internet will go down and we’ll be alone in the dark, freezing in the dark. Work now to effect righteousness, for the Night comes when no man shall labor.
Just for a little background I did a Google search for “Vatican Sith.” That returns only 43 hits, so the Vatican must be very good at hiding its Siths, I suppose.
==
It’s called full spectrum dominance. They control the money. They control the corporations. They control the government. They control the military. They control the flow of information. They control the cultural programming. They have lulled people to sleep by way of time, ignorance, and the elimination of rivals. They killed millions if not billions of people, and they are preparing the grounds to dwarf the barbarism of their previous insanity and bloodlust. The age of endarkenment is now.
How to save America in a few useful steps:
Whatever lotus your eating must really be good.
Care to share?
“You see Asoka what you are doing in playing the clown/provocateur (or whatever your game is) is to advocate for the interests of the 1%.”
-rhino-
I am enjoying watching you win this latest battle of wits with a.. I will offer only one small difference of opinion. Many of asoka.’s positions do favor the interests of the 1% over the interests of US citizens. But I think this is unintentional on his part.
Asoka. is so full of hate for the US – and so eager to see the US taken down a peg, that he advocates for terrorist nuclear attacks on US soil, for uncontrolled immigration – and other bizarre positions born of his hate.
He claims that he is an elderly black man, justified in his hate because of discrimination he experienced in the 1950’s and early ’60’s.
I doubt this.
Regardless, I feel sorry for anyone who has spent as much time as he has, for 7 years, on a blog like this one.
Normal behavior, this is not.
Turk called me a monster the day Gabby Giffords was shot – implying that I had done it. These punx are hilarious.
I’ve met Blacks like him – it’s possible that he’s legit. Their hatred makes them anti-White rather than pro-Black. That’s no uncommon at all though Asoka’s passion and breadth of learning is. That’s always been my point to you: the will is a mystery. The most capable Blacks, the smartest, the ones most able to climb and attain the American Dream – often hate America and want to tear it down. They don’t accept your apology and they will never forgive Whites. That’s why separation is the only answer.
first off, i m not espousing forced mixing, but since we are all here with each other now, doesn t it seem what leads to hatred and mistrust is that isolation? and that it is a one-way proposition? think about this: these inner city conclaves of black kids hate because they don t feel like part of our society, and i don t care if they re right or not, that s how they feel; your attitude can only make things worse- and i submit that your separatist idea would only make a final reckoning worse…
Oh? When did that happen? Who is Mr Peel? Who is your steed?
It hasn’t worked Charlie. It’s not going to work. We’re not omnipotent. And there’s only such much violence we can take without taking action. We’ve bent over backwards so far that our back is breaking. But still they hate and refuse to move on. Same thing in South Africa. Ever wonder why there was so little news out of there after the turn over in power? There have been countless atrocities against Whites – and many Blacks now admit things were better for the average Black under White rule.
I support the hater Louis Farakahn. He makes no bones about it and he wants a Nation for American Blacks. I say give it to him. He has some real IQ and Blacks like him could make a go of it. We could help for awhile. But the Monroe Doctrine is in place – hands off to China etc. Once the collapse comes, that wont be an issue nor will we be able to help anymore.
Rememer, I was once a Liberal. They (and other things) changed me. And I’m not alone. They have blown it with us and it’s time for a change. Just doing the same thing for the next 50 years while things get worse as they did in the last 50 is not an option. I mean I know that the PTB want us to all miscegenate, but that aint gonna happen.
Vlad, last night you said I had no specific criticisms of your post. It is hard to be specific when you make such broad based generalizations about the female gender. What I could say, however, is that, even as a male, I see very little hope in re-generating any kind of life, not only biological, but also psychological, without women. I know the tortures that flesh is heir to and how that can lead to cynicism — you seem to have de-mystified women to the point that there is no life left in them, in your experience. There is a great deal of life in women, beyond the obvious. Since we are at a stage when so much re-generation in this dying socieity is needed, women, in new and unique ways, are needed more than ever. I don’t say that to appease women or to dis you. You’ve had some rotten experiences with them, so have I, as have all men. But you are smart and can overcome it. I know you want to. It’s important that we grown men do just that, so that we can stay grown men. Sorry not to be more specific, but if you make more specific comments regarding your experiences with women, and I come across them in here, I will take you up on them. Thanks very much.
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????“????”,??????????????????????????3????????????????????????????????????????????????????????1???2???3???????????????????????
Asoka. is so full of hate for the US
=========================
Yes, you got that right.
The United States consumes a quarter of the world’s resources.
The United States controls the channels of world trade and the institutions of inequality.
The United States squeezes whole nations to death.
What’s not to hate?
With 6 percent of the world’s population, the United States consumes 60 percent of the world’s illegal drugs.
The United States consumes 20% of all metals.
The United States consumes 30% of all paper.
The United States generates almost 75% of total global toxic waste.
I hate all that.
I’m full of hate for the destruction the USA has rained down upon the world’s environment and the world’s peoples, killing millions of civilians, including the intentional starvation of millions of children, and the creation of millions of refugees.
And it feels so good to hate USA violence and USA military adventurism and USA smug air of moral superiority.
Thanks for helping me get all that out, Procon, and for helping me in my cause: a hate-free world.
A hate-filled clown. LOL!
No chance yet to read through all the poasts tonite (only about 1/3 through).
Apparently, according to the pushover Obama himself, “American made energy. … Tonite I’m directing my administration to open more than 75% of our potential offshore oil and gas resources.” Really, fracking, bull-dosing tar sand forests, and mining the melting arctic?!? Wow, talk about a corporate talking head!!! Sarah (and Todd) would be proud – drill, Bay-BEE, *DRILL*!!!
“Very weak metaphor.”
Someone forgot to poast as his sock-puppet Bud (wizer)…
You really don’t do yourself any services, with shit like that, you douche. Regardless of whether you poasted it, or your sock puppet did.
Your crates of master-debate material are almost worthless here – We all know and see, and your tripe doesn’t pull *wool over eyes*…
But hey, enjoy yourself in that duality of Tejican border/Amazon clearcut… Many *friends* to be made, in those zones!!!
In the phenomena of murmuration, 27% of the starlings do not decide to go one direction, while 40% of the starlings decide to go another direction, and some decide to stay home and not vote.
Very weak metaphor. Humans are not starlings.
and Dee called you a ‘looser’ Sunday night.
Who are you? do you have a facebook?
And you were expecting something else? The system created Obama and really who looks much beyond their next trip to Disneyland. Damn few. A crafty move that will get Obama votes and Obama does know how to get votes. He excels at that.
With the so called opposition being a bunch of elephant worshiping idiots who confuse privilege with justice Obama even gets to be portrayed as a progressive liberal on the National Pathetic Radio. It’s enough to make you crazy. But with Republicans being so far beyond the pale it becomes a strange twist of fate.
Business as usual is change we can believe in? Or is it change we can believe in is business as usual? I’d be confused but I don’t see much difference between the two statements so I’m not going to sweat it. Bottom line is that we are all screwed no matter how the cheese gets cut.
We need windmills, lots of them. Jobs and a healthy sustainable environment would also be nice.
So if 75% of our offshore endowment gets used up does that mean that there is only 25% of it left?
Somebody help me here. Inquiring minds want to know.
Since when do people here agree or need to agree?
I welcome a range of opinions!
Do you not support diversity?
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=177939
So going back to the idea that everything is dead except you, then you are the invariant particle as compared to all of the dead variant particles, an invariant in a sea of variants, could also be a definition of an Observer, a Processor: but since that invariant has a free will gadget attached to it, it sees and uses all the variants as tools, as items to manipulate, as words to put together within its language constructing a syntax according to its random, arbitrarily assigned numbers associated to its completely random and arbitrary free will decisions.
But if there a number of point like multiples – instances of the same invariant (a Man Brain for example) within a sea of variants (all the dead points of a volume of space time and all of its possible combinations even if disjoint and separated in disconnected spatial and temporal chunks) you can imagine all of the possible combinations and degrees of variants and invariants point like or diffused, having multiple instances of the same or similar invariants or / and many different invariants (a sea of different designs of Man Brains – a monolithic slab of substance designated as BRAINIUM, that which everything you see conceive, invent, all signals and symbols and sense inputs and pictures and designs are new kinds of brains) and variants that are gradually becoming invariants (hence all dead items that are slowly becoming processors or contraptions that resemble a Man Brain), just like a solid state crystal with each vertex having an atom on it within a sea of electrons (in this case each atom is a brain, or even different new brain designs) or an ocean with each atom of water being a brain or vice versa, each atom of water is the dead variant and the forces moving them are the brains, and so on, every conceivable configuration and mix between dead and alive brains and tools, variants and invariants and maybe transforming themselves into each other constantly or reciprocally becoming a variant and an invariant between each other and all others, and all possible combinations of such entities you can imagine…
Thanks for the pep talk. I can still fall in love even as I realize my own foolishness. There are a few good women I think, but they will go to men higher in rank than me. Such women know their worth as do many qualified men. But most women will work to get what they can by hook or by crook. As society decays and community weakens, standards have fallen and there is no one to keep them in line. At best they can be controlled by shame or external considering. Guilt, is largely beyond them. Men are higher on the average with more having an innate moral sense.
No I feel Facebook is an info gathering tool of the State. I’m still searching for my real Self. Reading about and trying to practice the jhanas of Theravadin Buddhism right now. They say that Buddha studied with the best Hindu Teachers of his day and that the jhana sytem is a reflection of that. Later it was codified in Hindusim as Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
Jhana is the pali form of dhyana which became somehow Chan in China and Zen in Japan. Jhana has been given the short shrift in the West with people trying to jump to Insight without it. An unwise move for most. But one can understand since the jhanas take alot of time and most of the Teachers of Vipassana haven’t mastered them and can’t teach them. Of course are they qualifed ot teach Vipassana either?
From:
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=177939
Interesting to see the difference between Theoretical Physics and Philosophy – Metaphysics:
Theoretical Physics:
Essentially states How far can we take logical and mathematical structures and still make them somehow be tied up to the real physical world, still have some kind of connection, even though very weak or indirect with physical reality ? An example could be Superstring Theory.
Philosophy and Metaphysics:
Essentially states How far can logical and mathematical structures be pushed operating on items as far removed as possible from the physical world, items as abstract, absurd and impossible as possible, hence having zero connection to the real physical world, but still being connected to each other though any form of logic, mathematical or thought processes and sequences ? An example could be the invention of a new state – meaning – concept expressing it as “the square root of the word thought”.
But whereas the theoretical physicist and also the mathematician still has some constraints upon what he can do by some connection, no matter how weak, with the real world, or at least with some possible logic that is somewhat non contradictory and that somewhat still must follow some sense, the metaphysical and philosophical “Inventor” no longer has any constraints whatsoever, is free to investigate anything at all, make up any connections he wants, invent anything he wants, doesn’t have any possible constraint operating upon his tasks. But then items as contradictory and absurd as possible can always be connected to each other or invented, just their existence, their delimitation in our mind, their presence already provides them with a minimum of logical and mathematical structure as in order to exist, in order to contain them in our mind, in order to even speak about them they must at least follow the basic principles of identity and non contradiction..
You can see it as a kind of Content Invariant Machine: it operates the same mental computer program, the same operations (non contradiction, identity principle, some others ?) on any content at all: a Content Independent Machine that generates new content from mixing and matching and combining other older content: only that Theoretical Physics uses content that is somewhat tied to something somewhat real, Metaphysics uses any content at all, nay, the nature of the content is irrelevant, but the more colorful, far out, wild, absurd, the more the content teases our logic and our “Normal and Common Way of Looking at the World”, the better, the more fun Metaphysics can have juggling the oddest possible content and processing it in the oddest possible way, just for fun, just to have fun, just because, “For No Reason at All”.
And, as usual, you can extrapolate the two limiting tasks, put it on a scale, and say that if Theoretical Physics is 10 and Metaphysics is 50, then what is 23 ? what is minus 2000 ? what is plus a trillion and so on, extend and challenge, invent and create, forever (and then, is that scale digital or linear ? is that a gradual transformation of what tasks into another or does each number correspond to something completely different from anything we can conceive and Contain in Our Mind ?…).
President Jomama gave a great speech last night, but unfortunately, the country is still going down the drain pipe to the septic tank. His laundry list of wonderfulness obliviously missed the obvious point that medical costs will continue to spiral out of control since he failed to put through single payer universal coverage in the form of national health insurance, the only thing which could have reined all the greedy doctors and insurance companies in. Hence, since Mr. Jomama is clearly NOT any sort of real socialist that I can relate to I will have to punish him by voting for his opponent whoever that might be. BECAUSE, if I am forced to choose between his version of health care reform and NOTHING I will of course vote for the NOTHING since at least the Republicans weren’t considering fining people for not buying a private product from the god-damned insurance industry. This is what I’ve chosen to fixate on and I don’t give a shit how brilliant he might be with his wonderful pointless speeches.
I own the entire Emma Peel megaset of DVDs but don’t watch them constantly but know that they are there any time I wish to contemplate Mrs. Peel in her black leather cat suit. Anyone who did not grow up wanking off to Mrs. Peel could not possibly have developed into a normal lecherous Anglophile…fair winds and following seas.
Obama went into full campaign mode last night – and you could tell by watching the House chamber that almost every single one of those sum’bitches is ALSO in full campaign mode. It’s going to be a long time until November.
One thing that seems to unite the whole bunch is their Genuflection toward The American Military. There is no longer any “loyal opposition” to be tolerated, anywhere on that subject. Which brings some eerie parallels to another time in history.
http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2011/12/28/a-tale-of-two-cities-weimar-and-washington/
“Neoconservatives frequently eulogize Washington as a new Rome, promising a worldwide empire without end carried on the back of a Pentagon bristling with advanced weaponry. Other observers also cite Rome but are rather more sanguine,..”
-giraldi-
“And it feels so good to hate USA violence and USA military adventurism and USA smug air of moral superiority.” -asoka.-
Glad you got all of that hate out in the open, a..
It seems like a rare burst of clarity and honesty for you, and a long way from your usual equivocation and impedimentation.
You just need to remember that a great deal of the increased US use of world resources is due to population growth due to immigration. Same thing for projection of military force – the larger our population, the more inevitable and bruising this projection becomes to the the rest of the world.
For example, the one version of the DREAM act that even Mittens and Gingrich agree on involves citizenship in exchange for Military Service.
Obama really nailed the throttles to the firewalls last night. “No options are off the table,” he said. He was speaking about Iran – but could just as easily have been speaking about energy policy or the Grow, Grow Corporatism that will dominate what’s left of the future.
Hope. Change. Irony.
Antisoak,
Would love to know where on this blog I have ever stated that I don’t want diversity on this blog. There are some posts that I find distasteful, like one that appeared yesterday with someone threatening JHK.
Otherwise the only other thing I state is that we spend way too much time on race and religion on a site that should be about peak finance energy and sustainability.
Note Vlad: Davos is a yearly get-together for the elite in business and governments around the world who think they can determine the trends. Google it.
Similar to the Bilderbergs.
Re. State of the Union.
Pretty much as I expected. One thing that someone brought up on C-Span this morning. That the San Francisco Bay bridge is being built with Chinese steel and that there is a media blackout about this.
The moderator said he never heard about that and would look into it.
The US always goes with the lowest estimate, but when you’re hiring a contractor to work on your home, you would never take the lowest bid, you would take a medium bid as you realize that the lowest bid could be inferior. Why isn’t this basic logic used in contracting business?
It’s all very fine and good to discuss infrastructure as stimulus, but now when its contracted out globally. It doesn’t help our manufacturing base. So far O’s vision is to hire graduates from our colleges from outside the country, who he says will hire Americans.
This guy’s a dedicated globalist–but so are the Repubs! That’s why they vote for his trade deals without a peep.
Emotional State Machine
The Man Brain usually tries to obtain a steady state of Emotional State: Sometimes high sometimes low but a pretty decent average as in terms of relatively “happy”, but then it always hoses itself, it starts to get itchy, it starts to decrease its Emotional Steady State by lowering it, just because, because it wants Action, it wants More, it wants Different (who knows what it wants ? or does it even want anything ? ), but especially it starts to associate that lowering to some imaginary “reasons”, to some “targets missed”, or it start to create goals and targets, paths, logical and behavioral and interactional (especially social based, free will oppositional based as in opposing other free will gadgets to see if you win, if you guess, if you can condition the other free will) events that are supposed to make it win and therefore relinquish the interdiction to happiness that the Man Brain is imposing on itself just because. And so it goes up and down, it starts some goals and then changes its mind, it tests the waters and then goes backwards with this emotional roller coaster, going up and down, etc.
But then sometimes it just stays put and maybe other times, more smartly just gives up and keeps it steady, it frees its mind instead, no more emotional state changes and challenges, just try to keep a steady state, and assign it as a win.
And then why does it want to communicate and interact anyways ? Is it not sufficient of itself, and especially why does it care to reproduce its own mental informational state in another point in space and time, why does it want to fill all time and space (hence all others, especially all other free will gadgets (people)) with itself, with its information, does it need to be confirmed and sure that it is replicating itself across all ? Is it envious and jealous and angry if other people (really chunks of matter) are concentrated on other information chunks instead of its present Information Chunk ? Maybe it needs to be sure that it is not alone with its information, but it is and no amount of communication and interaction will ever change the fact that it is a separate chunk of matter trying to expand itself by emitting denotations and symbols so as to try to convert symbols to matter by converting others into itself.
And anyways, any present state information a mind contains, any instantaneous informational state and emotional state always completely dominates the entire universe for that brain and completely erases and eliminates all past or future informational states, although there are signs of it in its memory, but that serves just as a reference system: you are just as good as your present informational state, you are your present informational state, all other past and future states have vanished and never were…
Skillfully encapsulated comparison between Weimar and the FUSA. Diplomatic too! ;o)
Example from the article:
“Both countries were on the receiving end of acts of terrorism that produced a dramatic and violent reaction against the presumed perpetrators of the crimes, so both quickly adopted legislation that abridged many constitutional rights and empowered the head of state to react decisively to further threats. The media fell in line, concerned that criticism would be unpatriotic.” -P.G.
“presumed perpetrators” Nicely done, Phil. They can’t stretch your neck for that one… yet.
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=177965
“On a side note, I used to be a really stereotypical Socialist, straight Party-Lines, to the extent that we have them. I was incredibly forgiving, but then I have spent years looking at all of these people that just don’t want to work, and it’s ridiculous. In the summer, when I desperately need housekeepers, I’ll only get a handful of applicants, few of them worth a shit, and I can’t get myself to full staff levels when I’ll hire from all but the absolute bottom of the barrel, it’s crazy! 60% of everyone around here is on some kind of Government Assistance, and nobody wants to actually do anything to make any cash. ”
Interesting: for every story I hear about “how hard it is to get a job”, I read an opposite and equal story of “how people are lazy and don’t want to work” or “there are loads of jobs”, etc. So where is the truth ? What is the truth ?
The real logical mistake is probably that of assuming that there is a truth in the first place: there is no truth only so many specific, individual situations and conditions all very varied and as varied as people are and as varied as the impression of things people have when confronting those impressions.
Everyone kind of makes up the truth that suits them either to justify themselves (maybe they are lazy and don’t want to work but “blame the system”) or that they are on the other side looking for people and justify that they can’t find “the right one” by saying “people are lazy”, etc.
I think these debates, these contrasting positions will go on forever, there will never be a common ground because for each story, made up or real or partially real, impression, subjective impression (or objective with statistics ?), for each one who is to blame on either side there will always be an opposing view and story and explanation on the other.
My personal conclusion ? Man Sucks. End of Story.
P2C,
What I generally like about Giraldi, is his thoughtful cause-and-effect, action-reaction scenarios, whether they be historical or speculative.
(You’ve probably read this one; scary, but quite plausible, from what we’ve witnessed lately.)
http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2012/01/11/what-war-with-iran-might-look-like/
Interesting to have the perspective of a former CIA officer and contributor to The American Conservative. We do wonder what his “agenda” might be, but his analysis is instructive and valuable nonetheless.
I say that we are ALL globalists now, perhaps even those who would rather not be. That said, I don’t think that “The World is Flat.” In fact, that is the problem, with huge disparities in worker pay and standards of living; offshoring makes economic sense in this regard. I hate to say it, because even I like being part of a “nation,” but I think the UN is going to have to establish a mechanism/s whereby companies that move simply to use cheap labor have to have obligations to raise the standard of living (and working) for those they hire; a little more economic equalibrium. Good luck with that, however.
“One thing that someone brought up on C-Span this morning. That the San Francisco Bay bridge is being built with Chinese steel and that there is a media blackout about this.
The moderator said he never heard about that and would look into it.” -LB
Whoa! Clusterfuckers calling in to Washington Journal now? That’s some subversive shit! ;o)
Wonder if there’s any WTC tower steel melted into that structure for the bridge? Good way to dispose of the evidence while making some gelt and goodwill. Perfect.
Speaking of Reichstag fires, where is “Deadheart” Big Dick C. these days, and how is he feeling? Have they birthed his evil clone yet with incantations to the Da Deb’bil? Those paying attention would like to know…
Giraldi
==
Complete BS. The Vatican Sith, Philip Giraldi, has not changed his spots. He is still a CIA agent, spewing BS to an ignorant public. In fact, a quick glance at the ridiculous articles published by that organization, tells me it’s really nothing more than a CIA/Vatican disinformation propaganda outlet catering to morons.
Another shot fired while no one was looking and out of distance of hearing:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30350.htm
Got it?
All right then, who do you trust?
Place yer bets.
That may be, laddie.
(I already posted my personal disclaimer, and we knew your standard response was soon to be stamped onto the site from your approved list of talking points. Talk to the colonel about frequency of posting; folks do tend to become immune when over-exposed, no matter the military’s research indicating otherwise.)
If only there would be a rule that establishes anything fair in “free” market trade!!
The Milton Friedman neoliberals believe in making money to the enth degree. As W. put it,”Sometimes money trumps everything”. What he meant to say is always, not sometimes! (incl. religion)
That’s why these guys spend more money on lobbying for lower taxes and no rule of law (not regulation) than what they would have paid in taxes.
What a colossal waste! But then again waste is their middle name. God forbid it should go to the nation state even for their unending wars!. That’s just socialism. Only the little people pay for the wars.(but I digress..)
———-
Ozone, the man with no heart is in the background leading Neocon Newt to war with Iran. He’s got his black hand in that, trust me.
That may be, laddie.
==
There’s no maybe about it.
Israel’s radar system is completely integrated to NATO’s radar system. Think about that for a little, and what that means. And if I know this, so does any and every CIA agent. What Giraldi is spewing is pure garbage propaganda. Fantasy tales for the clueless morons and propagandized ignoramuses.
Please scroll past these blocks of texts. Please erase all of my posts from the Internet. Please erase the Internet. Thank you. No Rights Reserved, all of these blocks of text do not belong to anybody since they were not written by anybody; they are machine generated; feel free to pollute the internet by copying them and posting them anywhere, but please DO NOT POLLUTE THE INTERNET ANY FURTHER ! Thank You.
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=177982
A Chunk of Matter is Better (Off) ?
Another thing about jealousy and envy: are you jealous because you want to be that person you are jealous of or are you jealous of the state that person finds itself in, aka because you know you can never be that person, or you assign that person’s state as something so very greatly better or higher (mysteriously better and higher and even if your logic says that this is not the case your emotion says it is, another unresolved (and never to be solved) internal conflict) ? Both and neither and anything in between.
And even if we would become or obtain that person or be that person or whatever, would we be satisfied (or would it last a while only to wear off and then find a new unobtainable target) ? No, maybe it would last forever and you would be ever more happy of your new acquired state, as that state becomes better and better forever! So then your jealousy was worthwhile, justified, go figure.
So yes, it is the second case, you will never be that other person (or have that other “special” person as in “love” ?) and your anger and envy and jealousy will increase forever, you have been assigned as a loser, you will lose, you lost, god wanted it that way, now beat yourself up, punish yourself, it is your fault, go man, go …
But logic says differently… and isn’t the entire affair defined and distinguished with logic (non contradiction and identity principles ?) you wouldn’t confuse the other person with yourself would you ? you wouldn’t make that logical mistake would you ? But then if logic says that there is nothing and no reason to be envious and jealous but your emotions, instincts and “Natural Reactions” say yes you must be, nay, are forced to be ever more envious and jealous (and all) especially of the other person’s pleasure and fun (and so you want the other person to deny their pleasure ? or merge with their pleasure ? or be the object of their attention and become their pleasure ?) which is right ? which to follow ? none and both: this is the contradiction of separate chunks of matter communicating between each other (and fooling each other into thinking that they have it better or are special ? they lie to each other ? and deceive each other ? just for fun ?) and having the necessity of being similar so as to control that one chunk doesn’t have it too good, but we just go back to square one and assign another chunk as having it so much better just to punish ourselves and generate guilt complexes: we want to be guilty always, we want guilt, guilty if we win, guilty if we lose (but not really, we should be happy the object of our envy and jealousy is enjoying and we are “allowing” that it enjoys without us, our non presence is fundamental in that item’s joy…), guilty in between, guilty for any interaction since it always could have “been different and better”, “it could have gone in another direction, if only”, there is always that “if only” this and that, as if there is another history and not only one history, the one inserted in your memory, the only gadget keeping score: but then erase and change your memory, it can be done, it is just a puny gadget, change your memory and it will become real and reality.
Wow, what a boatload of drivel, trype and self delusion….
“Karma’s a bitch.” – Asoka
Really Asoka?
So explain to us all about this “karma” stuff.
Explain to us how “karma” worked on Black people in the US. How do we start.. ancestors of Blacks were brought here in chains, they spent centuries as slaves, even after they were freed they spent more than a century oppressed.
And now because of the financial machinations of a some people on Wall Street and to be fair other financial capitols, American Black people are suffering disproportionately, first from the offshoring of American production and now because of this financial crisis.
So explain to us. Is the essence of karma getting your just deserts Asoka? Is it all about justice?
So what did Black people do to deserve what they’ve gotten?
As I’ve said in other posts there’s a very angry Black man named Tavis Smiley who’s really pissed about how the lot of Blacks has worsened so much more than others recently.
I doubt that he gives a shit what you personally think but I think he would give a shit that this idea of cosmic retributive justice might take root ie that Blacks are getting severely screwed because they collectively had it coming.
So explain please. We’re waiting…
A great Sanskrit sage sent a student to the West who translated ‘Karma’ as ‘work’ [and the result of work/action].
Karma does not mean…’good’ ‘bad’ ‘suffering’.
Thanks for pointing out asokas nonsense.
Tehran Pushes to Ditch the US Dollar
The official line from the United States and the European Union is that Tehran must be punished for continuing its efforts to develop a nuclear weapon. The punishment: sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, which are meant to isolate Iran and depress the value of its currency to such a point that the country crumbles.
But that line doesn’t make sense, and the sanctions will not achieve their goals. Iran is far from isolated and its friends – like India – will stand by the oil-producing nation until the US either backs down or acknowledges the real matter at hand. That matter is the American dollar and its role as the global reserve currency.
The short version of the story is that a 1970s deal cemented the US dollar as the only currency to buy and sell crude oil, and from that monopoly on the all-important oil trade the US dollar slowly but surely became the reserve currency for global trades in most commodities and goods. Massive demand for US dollars ensued, pushing the dollar’s value up, up, and away. In addition, countries stored their excess US dollars savings in US Treasuries, giving the US government a vast pool of credit from which to draw.
We know where that situation led – to a US government suffocating in debt while its citizens face stubbornly high unemployment (due in part to the high value of the dollar); a failed real estate market; record personal-debt burdens; a bloated banking system; and a teetering economy. That is not the picture of a world superpower worthy of the privileges gained from having its currency back global trade. Other countries are starting to see that and are slowly but surely moving away from US dollars in their transactions, starting with oil.
If the US dollar loses its position as the global reserve currency, the consequences for America are dire. A major portion of the dollar’s valuation stems from its lock on the oil industry – if that monopoly fades, so too will the value of the dollar. Such a major transition in global fiat currency relationships will bode well for some currencies and not so well for others, and the outcomes will be challenging to predict. But there is one outcome that we foresee with certainty: Gold will rise. Uncertainty around paper money always bodes well for gold, and these are uncertain days indeed.
The Petrodollar System
To explain this situation properly, we have to start in 1973. That’s when President Nixon asked King Faisal of Saudi Arabia to accept only US dollars as payment for oil and to invest any excess profits in US Treasury bonds, notes, and bills. In exchange, Nixon pledged to protect Saudi Arabian oil fields from the Soviet Union and other interested nations, such as Iran and Iraq. It was the start of something great for the US, even if the outcome was as artificial as the US real-estate bubble and yet constitutes the foundation for the valuation of the US dollar.
By 1975 all of the members of OPEC agreed to sell their oil only in US dollars. Every oil-importing nation in the world started saving their surplus in US dollars so as to be able to buy oil; with such high demand for dollars the currency strengthened. On top of that, many oil-exporting nations like Saudi Arabia spent their US dollar surpluses on Treasury securities, providing a new, deep pool of lenders to support US government spending.
The “petrodollar” system was a brilliant political and economic move. It forced the world’s oil money to flow through the US Federal Reserve, creating ever-growing international demand for both US dollars and US debt, while essentially letting the US pretty much own the world’s oil for free, since oil’s value is denominated in a currency that America controls and prints. The petrodollar system spread beyond oil: the majority of international trade is done in US dollars. That means that from Russia to China, Brazil to South Korea, every country aims to maximize the US-dollar surplus garnered from its export trade to buy oil.
The US has reaped many rewards. As oil usage increased in the 1980s, demand for the US dollar rose with it, lifting the US economy to new heights. But even without economic success at home the US dollar would have soared, because the petrodollar system created consistent international demand for US dollars, which in turn gained in value. A strong US dollar allowed Americans to buy imported goods at a massive discount – the petrodollar system essentially creating a subsidy for US consumers at the expense of the rest of the world. Here, finally, the US hit on a downside: The availability of cheap imports hit the US manufacturing industry hard, and the disappearance of manufacturing jobs remains one of the biggest challenges in resurrecting the US economy today.
There is another downside, a potential threat now lurking in the shadows. The value of the US dollar is determined in large part by the fact that oil is sold in US dollars. If that trade shifts to a different currency, countries around the world won’t need all their US money. The resulting sell-off of US dollars would weaken the currency dramatically.
So here’s an interesting thought experiment. Everybody says the US goes to war to protect its oil supplies, but doesn’t it really go to war to ensure the continuation of the petrodollar system?
The Iraq war provides a good example. Until November 2000, no OPEC country had dared to violate the US dollar-pricing rule, and while the US dollar remained the strongest currency in the world there was also little reason to challenge the system. But in late 2000, France and a few other EU members convinced Saddam Hussein to defy the petrodollar process and sell Iraq’s oil for food in euros, not dollars. In the time between then and the March 2003 American invasion of Iraq, several other nations hinted at their interest in non-US dollar oil trading, including Russia, Iran, Indonesia, and even Venezuela. In April 2002, Iranian OPEC representative Javad Yarjani was invited to Spain by the EU to deliver a detailed analysis of how OPEC might at some point sell its oil to the EU for euros, not dollars.
This movement, founded in Iraq, was starting to threaten the dominance of the US dollar as the global reserve currency and petro currency. In March 2003, the US invaded Iraq, ending the oil-for-food program and its euro payment program.
There are many other historic examples of the US stepping in to halt a movement away from the petrodollar system, often in covert ways. In February 2011 Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), called for a new world currency to challenge the dominance of the US dollar. Three months later a maid at the Sofitel New York Hotel alleged that Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted her. Strauss-Kahn was forced out of his role at the IMF within weeks; he has since been cleared of any wrongdoing.
War and insidious interventions of this sort may be costly, but the costs of not protecting the petrodollar system would be far higher. If euros, yen, renminbi, rubles, or for that matter straight gold, were generally accepted for oil, the US dollar would quickly become irrelevant, rendering the currency almost worthless. As the rest of the world realizes that there are other options besides the US dollar for global transactions, the US is facing a very significant – and very messy – transition in the global oil machine.
The Iranian Dilemma
Iran may be isolated from the United States and Western Europe, but Tehran still has some pretty staunch allies. Iran and Venezuela are advancing $4 billion worth of joint projects, including a bank. India has pledged to continue buying Iranian oil because Tehran has been a great business partner for New Delhi, which struggles to make its payments. Greece opposed the EU sanctions because Iran was one of very few suppliers that had been letting the bankrupt Greeks buy oil on credit. South Korea and Japan are pleading for exemptions from the coming embargoes because they rely on Iranian oil. Economic ties between Russia and Iran are getting stronger every year.
Then there’s China. Iran’s energy resources are a matter of national security for China, as Iran already supplies no less than 15% of China’s oil and natural gas. That makes Iran more important to China than Saudi Arabia is to the United States. Don’t expect China to heed the US and EU sanctions much – China will find a way around the sanctions in order to protect two-way trade between the nations, which currently stands at $30 billion and is expected to hit $50 billion in 2015. In fact, China will probably gain from the US and EU sanctions on Iran, as it will be able to buy oil and gas from Iran at depressed prices.
So Iran will continue to have friends, and those friends will continue to buy its oil. More importantly, you can bet they won’t be paying for that oil with US dollars. Rumors are swirling that India and Iran are at the negotiating table right now, hammering out a deal to trade oil for gold, supported by a few rupees and some yen. Iran is already dumping the dollar in its trade with Russia in favor of rials and rubles. India is already using the yuan with China; China and Russia have been trading in rubles and yuan for more than a year; Japan and China are moving towards transactions in yen and yuan.
And all those energy trades between Iran and China? That will be settled in gold, yuan, and rial. With the Europeans out of the mix, in short order none of Iran’s 2.4 million barrels of oil a day will be traded in petrodollars.
With all this knowledge in hand, it starts to seem pretty reasonable that the real reason tensions are mounting in the Persian Gulf is because the United States is desperate to torpedo this movement away from petrodollars. The shift is being spearheaded by Iran and backed by India, China, and Russia. That is undoubtedly enough to make Washington anxious enough to seek out an excuse to topple the regime in Iran.
Speaking of that search for an excuse, this is interesting. A team of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors just visited Iran. The IAEA is supervising all things nuclear in Iran, and it was an IAEA report in November warning that the country was progressing in its ability to make weapons that sparked this latest round of international condemnation against the supposedly near-nuclear state. But after their latest visit, the IAEA’s inspectors reported no signs of bomb making. Oh, and if keeping the world safe from rogue states with nuclear capabilities were the sole motive, why have North Korea and Pakistan been given a pass?
There is another consideration to keep in mind, one that is very important when it comes to making some investment decisions based on this situation: Russia, India, and China – three members of the rising economic powerhouse group known as the BRICs (which also includes Brazil) – are allied with Iran and are major gold producers. If petrodollars go out of vogue and trading in other currencies gets too complicated, they will tap their gold storehouses to keep the crude flowing. Gold always has and always will be the fallback currency and, as mentioned before, when currency relationships start to change and valuations become hard to predict, trading in gold is a tried and true failsafe.
2012 might end up being most famous as the year in which the world defected from the US dollar as the global currency of choice. Imagine the rest of the world doing the math and, little by little, beginning to do business in their own currencies and investing ever less of their surpluses in US Treasuries. It constitutes nothing less than a slow but sure decimation of the dollar.
That may not be a bad thing for the United States. The country’s gargantuan debts can never be repaid as long as the dollar maintains anything close to its current valuation. Given the state of the country, all that’s really left supporting the value in the dollar is its global reserve currency status. If that goes and the dollar slides, maybe the US will be able to repay its debts and start fresh. That new start would come without the privileges and ingrained subsidies to which Americans are so accustomed, but it’s amazing that the petrodollar system has lasted this long. It was only a matter of time before something would break it down.
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– http://goo.gl/lU42k
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Hey you libs listen up, the old guilt trips are dying, soon no more guilt over slavery, colonialism or the holocaust. The world really is changing.
See folks we are coming to find out that the people holding the whip hand of guilt are really not nice people. Sure for now the facade holds, but not much longer.
As for you old white women for whatever reasons you sided with these bad people, just give it up if you have a conscience. The days of playing “Earth Mother” are about over because the days of guilt are soon over and the people you patronize really really hate your white skin.
You see, P2C, the way I look at it “idiocy” stands astride human history along with its nasty twin, “evil”. Idiocy has always had legs even when communication was slow and difficult but now idiocy travels at the speed of light and has great multiplicative or reproductive power thanks to the internet. To paraphrase Churchill (I think) idiocy gets halfway around the world before wisdom and forebearance have a chance to gets their pants on. Idiocy screams from the rooftops while common sense barely murmurs “now just a minute here”.
Bad ideas get traction. Just look at the recent past. Somehow the idea took root to wipe out all the Jews and this in the most educated country in Europe and look at what happened. And not only to the Jews but to Armenians, Roma, Ukrainians. Look at the killing fields in Cambodia. Segregation of Blacks seemed like a good idea to a lot of people too. Still looks good to folks like Vlad.
Somehow the idea took root in the business community to offshore production to crapholes in China where people are treated like slaves. In the 1990s if a CEO wasn’t aggressively downsizing there was something wrong with him. And Greenspan was the “Maestro”. Remember that?
And now there’s this idea that offshoring is collective punishment to American workers: karma. But not a peep about the outsized benefits to the 1%. Is this fair? Is this a part of karma too? Yo Asoka, you listening? Explain that for us.
Is it karma that Chinese farmers are thrown off their land with no compensation so the Chinese kleptocracy can build shopping malls and condos?
I’m not done with Asoka yet.
There are those here that really, really, REALLY have not been paying attention. *whew*
I have close relatives who are stunted from lack of food, whose legs are bent from ricketts. Ever seen that Asoka? Ever suffered hunger? Ever suffered hunger for months on end? Ever seen a bad harvest and know without a doubt that your kids will go hungry? Ever had a landlord take from your farm most of what you produce just because he wants to and because he has the bullyboy muscle to back it up? Ever occur to you that oppression goes hand in hand with poverty?
When you talk of poverty in such glowing terms I would suggest that you haven’t got a fucking clue what you’re talking about. You obviously haven’t suffered and you haven’t listened to people that have. Open your ears.
I have to say that yours is is the kind of talk that came out of the Roman Catholic Church in its discourse with impoverished peasants: the poor are loved by Jesus, be happy with your lot, be happy in your strong and loving families, be happy that your reward will come in Heaven.
And never mind that you’re hungry, that you have no shoes, that you can’t get even basic medicine.
There are places in this world that the Roman Cathoic Church is reviled because of this.
Again Asoka, are you advocating for the 1%? There are impoverished countries where the Roman Catholic Church sure as hell did. Are you of that ilk? Be happy with your lot, you don’t need money and food and shoes and medical care to be happy?
Idiocy and Evil as mutually reinforcing “twins”.
Good ‘un.
Some very intelligent folks have turned their talents to the dark side as well, but [for the most part] Idiocy supports its’ twin more vigorously. ;o)
Your “Tehran pushes to ditch the dollar” post is the best post you have ever made. Though we’ve been bitter enemies on this site, I wonder if you have observed that I’ve made posts which echo your sentiments about US foreign policy.
I think we’re looking at any “philosophical” excuse as a false flag in order to ramp up our war machine to attack Iran.
Iran has threatened to close the Straits of Hormuz many times before so why is there RECENT threat to be taken so seriously?? Even their allies wouldn’t support that so why did the US send their largest carrier to the international waters outside of the Straits??
The USA has become an Orwellian country which uses “liberation slogans” as a reason to enter in stuff that’s none of our business like the bombings in Libya. We claim we’re “liberating” people and then form alliances with people like the House of Saud or, in the first Gulf War under Bush, the despot Kharmova out of Uzbekistan.
We are the most ideologically hypocritical G-20 nation and then wonder why we are detested.
E.
…anti-Taliban American workers… – Asoka
Another interesting nugget. So tell us Asoka how YOU see the Taliban. Are you PRO Taliban? Tell us why. Just curious.
ozone said:
Idiocy and Evil as mutually reinforcing “twins”.
**********************************************************
A friend of mine, an English prof, has coined the beautiful term, “The Arrogance of Ignorance”. He uses this term in support of his observation that in social life in the postmodern world, people are MILITANTLY stupid and unprincipled even in their teen years.
I’ve never seen an era where people exposed their dirty linen in public with an in-your-face PRIDE like the last decade.
E.
Alarm! Alarm! Warning! Warning! Mental Disaster Area ! TILT ! PLease Ignore these kinds of Posts. Thank You.
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=177939
Words as Logic ?
The fact that the Grand Unified Theory of Everything is being sought after in terms of Mathematics and Logic, structure instead of words is interesting. And very strange since words are much more powerful than any possible mathematical structure (although it seems that one can be formatted and translated into the other in some way), can be many times more abstract since for example in Mathematics you do not have anything that can represent the following application of logic to words: The Square root of the Word “Thought” multiplied the word “Space” Divided by the limit of the word “Forward” for the word “Sky” tending to the word “Absolute”.
So ((Thought ^1/2) * Space)/(limit Sky -> Absolute of Forward).
Now what can that mean ? How is that related to anything else ? How many inventions of this kind are possible and how many other abstract complex absurd structures as such can be invented, etc. But especially, the very fact that words are ambiguous, are not very precise, can mean and be applied in so many different ways, you can make them change meanings, suggest something but then peedle back, you can lie, deceive, you can do a lot with words and such.
And especially, words seem closer to how a modifed brain would like to process concepts, wildly modified brains having parallel circuits, confusion all connected in very odd networks of understanding and experiences and such. And then compare that to the one bit logic mathematical structures imply as compared to metaphysical boldly and proudly fake and artificial and lying and deceiving structures composed of words.
As a test, could anybody write down the mathematical equivalent of the above blocks of text ? You see, you would have to assign too many arbitrary symbols having arbitrary meanings, so the entire deal of mathematical precision would be void of substance.
The Grand Unified Theories will be composed of mental structures expressed in very much more abstract items than words or sentences: and then the entire program of Science is False from the outset, it wants explanations, it wants relationships between things, it wants more symbols than are necessary (and why, what is the end reason ? the “Intentionality of Use” ? to solve problems ? to execute new experiences ? but these can be achieved directly modifying the Man Brain and directly obtaining anything you want).
So when they ask: why these equations (of physics) and not others ? the reply should be: Just Because, for No Reason at all. No reason is the Best Reason and also the Simplest Reason. Those equations were just a wild number chosen randomly, that is all.
You can also reply why not those equations ? why not anything ? why not accept what random chaos gave us for free without any further explanation or deeper relationships ? Why should there be any further relationships ? And even if we find millions, at a certain point they must end, or maybe we want them to go on forever ? (We can always force them to go on forever…)
Also because a reply different from that would generate an infinite regression of symbols, other questions and answers, a never ending sequence of symbols until finally you have to assign an end point, and at the end point you must assign some final Symbol which really means No Symbol at All, No reason at all.
LB said:
Asoka,
You must not be listening very carefully to the political dialogue here because I think the current safety net is being called into question while the middle class pays for the cost of speculators to continue speculating with government guarantee.
**************************************************************
Well said, my friend!!! Well said!!! This is EXACTLY what the “QE” are all about. Such tactics haven’t touched real wages in the middle class at all but they do kite up the stock market which is like the beautiful porch or a house riddled with termites.
E.
The USA has become an Orwellian country which uses “liberation slogans” as a reason to enter
==
This has ALWAYS been so. It’s only that now you’re getting a glimpse at the truth and realizing what a fool you have been to believe the CIA/Vatican propaganda all your life.
Emotional programming is VERY difficult to undue, if not impossible. Still, I would encourage you read Anthony Sutton, Carroll Quigley, Samuel Morse, Jeremiah Crowley, Eric Phelps, etc. There’s a thread to history which has been deliberately obscured by the CIA/Vatican. You cannot understand where we are and where we’re going without understand where we’ve been and where we’re coming from. And that information you will NEVER get from the gov mafia propaganda outlets.
Btw,
It’s the sale of German diesel subs to Israel, not the other way around. Israel does not have the shipyards for anything near that kind of work you imply. The most Israeli shipyards can produce is small anti-ship missile corvettes.
I’ve seen militant stupidity in the past.
Decades ago when I was in 7th grade there was a really big kid in our class. The rest of us, being pubescent no-ass twigs in comparison, he drew attention. He was at least a head taller than the tallest of us and about 50 lbs heavier. Lucky for me, being one of the no-ass twigs, I stayed on his good side and, being of the same ethnic origin, we had something in common.
So one day I jokingly asked him what his mother fed him that accounted for his outsized strength and stature. And this kid was really strong. I said I ate my spinach but it ain’t helping so what’s the secret? He looked at me mournfully and he said in a quiet voice to not let it get around but he started school late. I thought, well he must have been sick or something so I looked at him questioningly. And he said his mom “didn’t know”.
How the fuck can she not know? His dad must not have known either nor any of his numerous relatives nor any of their friends and neighbors. Not exactly a secret that at a certain age a kid goes to kindergarten.
Maybe she “didn’t know” or maybe she didn’t give a shit. Nor his dad.
Well said, my friend!!! Well said!!! – E
I agree, Lbendet’s post really nailed it.
This QE stuff is all about keeping the casinos afloat.
Who’s running the casinos? Who’s pocketing the skim? Not you I’ll bet and sure as hell not me.
(lunchbreak)
Rhino: Who’s pocketing the skim?
Why do you think they want to privatize social security? Give it all to the speculators, me thinks. In the meantime anyone who says there should be fair trade, fair taxes, fair information are screamed at that they are fighting a class war by the global class warriors.
The saddest thing of all is that the progressives are never prepared to fight the bullies back. They never anticipate the other side lying. Why?
NeoCon Newt is a great lesson in tactics and strategies, just watch, listen and learn!
We are in for a hard long fight. These a-holes will not give one inch. They want it all–they’ll nuke ya if they think they have to.
________________________
If you want to read a real doozie about how Iran is selling oil to the BRIC countries in gold, check out Pepe Escobar’s article:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NA26Ak02.html
Why do you think they want to privatize social security? – L
Sure, more money from the suckers, more management fees for the investment industry.
I agree this is in fact a “class war”.
But how is it fought? Re-define the terms and make obvious issues go away.
So they tell despondent, angry guys in their forties or fifties who’ve been out of work for years, whose families have fallen apart, that they have no right, that class warfare has no place in American society, that it’s envy, that it’s reprehensible, that it’s just “karma” in Asoka’s verminous terminology, .
Well, the guys at the top are doing just fine. And so they browbeat the guys at the bottom, shut up, shut up, shut up.
Or, it’s karma, accept your lot.
So these “progressives”, who are they, who do they actually work for, what stake do they have in things as they are. Follow the money IOW and you may find out why they won’t fight back.
A new one from Pepe following the State of the Stump speech!
Delicious.
Thanks for the link, LB.
“The Arrogance of Ignorance”
E.,
Tell him “thanks” from the rest of us. That truly does roll off the tongue smoothly and sharply…
LB,
And di’dja see the advert for the CIA on that asia times site??? Orwellian, much?
“Hey, come join us, your friendly destroyers of capitols and countries! It’s fun, profitable, and you’ll be supporting the police states! Sign your soul away today!”
Also, I don’t know about you but it seems to me that too many “progressives” are contemptuous of ordinary people and people at the bottom of the food chain. Very prepared to tell the unwashed what to think and how to live their lives when what the “smerd” want is a good job and not the condescension and disdain of their “betters” ensconced in the civil service or academia. Why don’t the “progressives” fight back? Maybe too comfortable themselves?
Old68 said “…words are ambiguous, are not very precise, can mean and be applied in so many different ways, you can make them change meanings, suggest something but then peedle back, you can lie, deceive, you can do a lot with words”
Not with English.
In English, words mean what the dictionary says they mean, period. There is no ambiguity.
Thats why English is so great. We have specific words for specific things.
Likewise with the laws of Physics. The language of physics is precise. Interesting though, that at some point, 0.999999 simply becomes one. Or Pi. But these are quibbling points.
E. and Rhino thanks for the comps on my anser to Asoka yesterday.
_______________
In regards to the progressives not having a good argument.
You have to figure that Frank Luntz and the Orwellian crew will come up with something off-the-wall or something that turns reality on its head.
I really think that few of them are what you might refer to as jungle fighters. Ed Schultz can answer them, Dylan Ratigan, a conservative could answer them, but most people can’t think on their feet. They may be bright, but not when they are caught off guard. Later they could be kicking themselves for not having a good comeback.
You need to be prepared to fight people that turn things around on you when you least expect it. They may not have a logic that you can respond to, so you back down cuz it’s too crazy. That’s a mistake, my friends. It gives the crazies the last word and it appears like t hey won.–They’ve been doing this for years.
They never forget to blame the victims.
Iran’s government exists only because of oil remittances.
There should never have been trade with Iran for oil.
In fact, there should have been an international embargo years ago.
Without oil money, Iran could not have begged, borrowed, or bought much of the technological infrastructure needed to enrich plutonium.
It would not have had the economic power to pay the goon squads to run about beating men and women for holding hands in public.
America should have blacked out Iran’s communications network during the uprising several years ago and imposed sanctions, and erased its strike capabilities.
Perhaps we weren’t quite ready.
Now we are.
Now we have the power to destroy the Iranian government and liberate its people.
Lets do it.
Kill Kill Kill
Why engage the crazies in the first place? Why not just disengage from them and thus withdraw your support? The morons that follow the crazies will have KARMA take care of them. 😀
Agreed with the first part.
You want to help the people of Iran, educate them to the truth. A steady underground supply of small arms to potential rebels would not be a bad idea either. 🙂
I’m talking about people on the media. The semi informed and uninformed might be watching this and if they see the people on the left, sitting there like this discussion is above their payscale, what do you think the message is?
In order for the Murmuration to take place, a critical mass needs to be reached.
If you want my opinion, there is a big difference between limosine liberalism and working class politics. The upperty crust snobs like John Kerry, Ted Kennedy set the tone for modern liberalsim, or at least what passes for it. This constant concern for oddly dressed foreigners and homosexuals is the result of snobs. They gave the country bussing and quotas, what does somebody like John Kerry care gets in the electrician union, or who passes a police exam? He doesn’t care about things like that. Does Jane Fonda care about veterans?
Shit I hope you’re kidding, just about the time I think you can’t maintain this level of craziness, you manage.
I’m talking about people on the media.
==
So am I. Boycott them. Deprive them of importance, viewership, money, legitimacy. Create your own alternative. Those that are interested in being informed will come to you. They will seek you and they will listen to you, on your terms.
Going back to highschool French here:
Plus English has the added benefit from having absorbed words from other languages like French so you have added distinct layers of meaning. You have the word “ask” and then you have the word word “demand” (of French origin). “Demander/demandez” in French can mean “ask” but in English “ask” and “demand” have two distinct usages and meanings.
I agree, the snobs as you call them, have theirs. So they go off on all sorts of tangents which they think are worthwhile but meanwhile the local plant just shut down throwing a thousand people out of work. One plant, then another, then another, then another and pretty soon millions of jobs are as gone as can be.
And the liberal intelligentsia has exactly what to say? What to do? Fill me in, I’m confused but I can’t think of anything. Shovel ready projects maybe, or maybe “stimulus”. Or something.
Not one fucking word to the bastards behind it all never mind retribution or a threat of retribution, nothing whatsoever. At least that I can remember.
M,
People tend to keep their stations on the same place. If you want to reach more people for critical mass, you need to be very accessible. Sooner of later you have to have a debate. You should be ready for anything they throw at you.
“You want to help the people of Iran, educate them to the truth.”
I suspect they know the truth.
http://www.gods-kingdom-ministries.org/weblog/WebPosting.cfm?LogID=3154
it has been many years since i read either, but it sure seems that the “conservative” right were inspired by ayn rand and use methods from machiavelli, with modern tools such as television and newsrags…for example hammering over and over on “big government” while a part of beauracracy unparallelled; or calling for cuts in “entitlements” which by definition we re entitled to- and pay for…i just have a hard time believing that people are stupid enough to call themselves republican, or let them any where near positions of power or decision-making…i d bet that w literally can t read- that the reason his speeches were so weird was that he had somebody read them to him to try to memorize…
#@%!…have you noticed the backgrounds with their prases repeated over and over, behind who ever is at the podium? Everybody is doing it now, and apparently works…just tell the rubes what they want to hear; you can do anything…like sec state clinton telling syria to stop human rights abuses- anyone heard of gitmo?! and newt the slime putting forth ‘family values’…what a fuckjob that is…sanctimonious bullshit writ large
My event horizon as well as my trust horizon have shrank dramatically over the past ten years. Both horizons just now barely reach the city limits. I can cross this horizon in any direction in about 20 minuts going 40 miles per hour. And yes! – We are having a mayoral race coming up so this will be an exciting year!
2012
C-A-B-R-A-1-0-8-0 *
* *
* *
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The Energy Curve of History
I have to agree with you here. Notice for one thing how, in the past 4 years the phrase has changed from “Neoconservative” to “Neoliberal”, as if the former had nothing to do with the current world situation. They have successfully shifted the blame from themselves, and suddenly liberals and progressives find themselves being blamed for all the problems that had origination with the NeoCon agenda during the previous 8 yeas of the Bush & Republicans.
Same goes for the bank bailouts that were passed by the Bush administration just before the elections. They knew it would not be enough, so they left it to the Obama admin to pass the rest, and guess what, get blamed for the whole freaking mess. Amazing.
Orwell would be amazed. I know I am.
And everyone here has fallen for it.
History: Read, Forget, Repeat….
😉
The Energy Curve of History
*****************************
Cabra,
That is stone cold Prophetic.
D.
Be aware that Neoliberal is not describing a progressive, but quite the opposite. It means liberal or free markets as espoused by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of business. The free unfettered trade with no regulation is what that means. Laizze-faire capitalism without protections or government interference. That is indeed what the Republicans and many Democrats at this point are.
The Rupugs are just taking advantage of people when they say that, knowing most people don’t know who uncle Miltie is.
Read Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine and the rise of Disaster Capitalism”. It will make you sick!
Neocon Newt is both and he wants to privatize social security a la Chile. (that was Friedman’s first victim in 1972 when they overthrew Allende.
Say, this is great, it deserves another post:
A Tale of Two Cities: Weimar and Washington
http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2011/12/28/a-tale-of-two-cities-weimar-and-washington/
History: Read, Forget, Repeat….
😉
Yep,
Make language mean anything you want it to mean (thus robbing it of meaning) and bafflement via bullshit becomes a fine art and excellent prodder of the cattle once known as “citizens”. Works like a friggin’ charm, I tells ya. ;o)
Good points P2C. Also, the president somehow forgot to mention that he actually wanted to STAY in Iraq but the Iraqi Shiite government made us leave! Then of course we are still in Afghanistan, over ten years after we should’ve at the very least nuked Kandahar after perhaps a brief warning period to permit an humanitarian evacuation, even though the 9/11 hijackers gave us no grace period to evacuate the World Trade Center. What’s going on with our Afghan “allies” today? They are of course murdering coalition troops albeit in scattered incidents. Guess what? ALL the fucking towelheads over there are the enemy. Get it President Jomama? Although I could never bring myself to vote for a Mormon bishop I believe that I could vote for Gingrich if predictably, Obama is his opponent.
I would also like to see Obama lose the education fixation. As it is we are already grossly over-schooled to a grotesque extent. For instance, today I gave a bald fade to a member of the Laborers’ Union who graduated from JESUIT PREP SCHOOL for Christ’s sake. Let’s pay for national health insurance by shutting down the fucking public schools EVERYWHERE. Let the teachers go look for real jobs, if they can find them. Personally, I could care less whether or not they ever find real jobs. They’re certainly not doing us any good by babysitting for five to ten times the going rate for babysitters.
Bid doins in Davos, eh!
Our Governor (Dan Malloy, D. Connecticut) flew their with his staff of homosexuals to smooze and hob nob with the world elite. No doubt they’ll be falling in with the English delegation. Imagine those closed-door meetings! Well, I’m sure a gay time will be had by all.
I’ll bet they’ll be eating good! I’d like to see that dinner menu. Anyway, we will here all about it when he returns.
Meanwhile, our State credit rating was just reduced by Moodys when it was learned we have $100 billion in unfunded pension liability to the public sector unions. Howsthat gonna get paid off?
–WSP7
“…both major U.S. political parties remain unmoved by the opinions of their constituents and unresponsive to their needs. By having the right to vote under present day, political duopoly, one is granted the right to co-sign the ongoing fraud that the nation is a democratic republic. To vote for either a Democratic or Republican candidate (i.e., the well vetted stooges of the 1%) is to cast a vote in favor of the only political party allowed in the rigged process–The Big Money, Perpetual War Party.” -Phil Rockstroh
Ahhhhh shit, there’s no one left that’s remotely trustworthy.
Place yer bets (while you’ve something left to bet WITH, or bet UPON).
$100 billion in unfunded pension liability … Howz that gonna get paid off?
Oh yea, tax the shit out of the millioonaires like Obama said last nite at the class warfare rally.
–WSP7
Well, ya gotta give Dapper Dan props for gi-normous stones. (I’m a “Fop” man, m’self. ;o)
Perhaps Danny Boy is hoping that Davos is a geographical oddity and is two weeks from everywhere! lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw_YryVgLOg&feature=related
Two weeks should be plenty of time for the outrage to blow away. ………Uh, come to think of it, a couple days should do ‘er.
Good stuff, O!
Dapper Dan Indeed.
–WSP7
Yep, look how the RW has managed to make ‘Progressive’ & ‘Liberal’ into bad things. Look how the labor unions have been demonized, the only force that could have stopped the “outsourcing” & “offshoring” of American jobs, but Reagan turned the full force of the government against the unions, and they were powerless to stop it, and now, guess what, they get the blame for the outsourcing because they fought to keep good jobs and wages here.
Look at ‘BubbleBrained’ above shouting for the closure of all schools. Yeah, right, that will really help with the IQ deficit in this country.
Someone in an earlier post suggested that it was parents responsbilty for education, not the governments. Yeah, right, look how good thats turned out too, when parents are working two jobs and don’t have the time to make sure the kids are GETTING an education.
Look at WSP calling a suggested increase in taxes on millionaires & billionairs “Class Warfare”.
How do you think the “unfunded pension liability” happended anyway? Its because the City & State governments “borrowed” the funds to pay for things like under-used sports complexes now.
Oh, sorry Mr & Mrs former government employee, we gone & spent all your pension money. Oh, you can’t get Social Security because you were required to pay into the State fund in lieu of that? Gee, um, well, hope you have a comfy car to live in now.
Cat food can’t be that bad tasting, cats like it, right?
Yep, Orwell would be amazed.
History: Read, Forget, Repeat….
😉
SHIVER me timbers, Vladdie Boy! This ship, she’s, sheee’s going down!
Holy Macorini and Cheeze Whiz, Bubble! Teachers go through freaking hell trying to manage classrooms full of hellions who simply mimic the bad behavior in class that they see in homes. I think you said at one point you had been a teacher. And found it to be a futility. I’d agree and sympathize with your view. But teachers have become the whipping boy of the PTB, along with other (genuinely needed) public service. That said, the system isn’t working and needs to be shut down and started over again. From scratch.
Thanks, Dee.
The comment about “class warfare” was incredible. As if taxing millionaires and billionaires is going to hurt the “job creators”
Look at what Romney did with his lowered tax rate. What do “job creators” do with lowered tax rates? They hide the money in the Cayman Islands, in Swiss bank accounts, etc.
Do the American people really want to elect a guy who hides money in Swiss bank accounts to avoid taxation? Regular folk don’t have that option and pay a higher tax rate than Romney did.
Is insisting the “job creators” pay their fair share really “class warfare”?
Con gusto.
The US A is an insane asylum. You have lived outside it, you know. I only really started to suspect on my trips out. Now I know for sure, the Insane are running the Asylum. Its unbelievable. But its real.
As long as one is immersed in it, you really can’t tell. Only when you get out do you realize.
Then those left inside curse and damm you FOR escaping.
But once out, you can truly breath the air of freedom.
History: Read, Forget, Repeat….
😉
The US A is an insane asylum.
==
The US is an imperialist plantation, a modern day animal farm, ala Orwell. People in the US are human farm animals. Same in most of the world.
I’m not sure if this is standard practice in the blogosphere, but your article is reprinted verbatim elsewhere under someone else’s authorship credit. Of course, your blog gets a link at the end of the article. I just thought you’d be interested in how your work’s being appropriated. Cheers, and keep up the good work!
http://redgreenandblue.org/2012/01/24/james-howard-kunstler-occupy-locally-1848-the-trust-horizon-and-murmuration/
I haven’t had a post “held for review” in a long time – maybe it was the three included links.
We’ll find out.
Hey Mika/Met,
Is this your guy Phelps? Somebody doesn’t like him very much, if so.
http://www.conspiracyworld.com/phelps_zionist_promoter.htm
And, several of your listed authors linked to the VaticanAssassins dot org website, where I found this link on racial separation that Vlad should also enjoy.
http://www.vaticanassassins.org/2011/11/biblical-plan-to-establish-a-new-black-protestant-nation-in-shemitic-north-america/
As I’ve asked before, Mika/Met, are you sure you are really Jewish? I don’t see overwhelming evidence for it, based on your posts and most of the links that you post.
It is strange, to me, that a fine gentleman like Bill of Beantown should refuse to criticize your online persona, simply based on your declared Israeli residency. But it’s a strange world.
Getting stranger all the time, hey?
Here’s the rest of it, Mika/Met,
And I’ll say again that your fixation on blaming the Vatican/Jesuits for all the worlds evils is a relatively rare conspiracy theory, from where I sit. But – it is no less a conspiracy theory than any other conspiracy theory that blames all the world’s evil and strangeness on:
The Jews
The Bohemian Grovers
or any other single group –
It takes a lot of evil groups to make an evil world, Met – you need a bigger tent.
Speaking of groves, or of a Pleasure Grove
Here’s another link –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Grove
These are some weird and powerful Bohemian mo’fo’s, no doubt about it.
PC,
Why do you think a sites like conspiracyworld.com exist? They are there to discourage you from reading this material so you wont learn the truth. Read the material! Much of it is available online. You’re not going to get informed following the guidance of people whose agenda is to discourage you from reading the source material. This is scholarly material written by very brave historians. It is well sourced and referenced. READ IT!!
PC,
Why do you think sites like conspiracyworld.com exist? They are there to discourage you from reading this material so you wont learn the truth. Read the material! Much of it is available online. You’re not going to get informed following the guidance of people whose agenda is to discourage you from reading the source material. This is scholarly material written by very brave historians. It is well sourced and referenced. READ IT!!
As I’ve asked before, Mika/Met, are you sure you are really Jewish?
====================
Mika/Met never said he was Jewish. He said he was Israeli, a secular atheistic Israeli. There is a difference.
It takes a lot of evil groups to make an evil world, Met – you need a bigger tent.
==
Not necessarily. They created a system where evil and deception is systemic. Their whole existence is based on lies and parasitism.
I’m Jewish. And not only am I Jewish but I’m a Kohen. That means I’m a direct descendant of Moses.
CFN seems to have a short memory span, or should I say short time-horizon?
Remember how a few months ago the posts were all about Europe and how (Greece, Spain, Italy, etc.) were all on the verge of collapse and probably would not last until Halloween, or was it Thanksgiving?
Now, Europe is off the radar.
Now the new buzz is Iran.
Who know what it will be next week, but it won’t be murmuration, that’s for sure. We are not starlings.
Oh, that is interesting. I guess it was Mika who was denouncing the curly bearded Jews and saying they speak for no one.
In any event, Israel is the only modern state in the world that has held territories under military occupation for over four decades.
Met,
Look, man – I’m not unsympathetic to some of your views. But one conspiracy looks like any other conspiracy – to anyone who is not also a true believer.
Take 9/11. I haven’t seen you address it, but there is certainly a thread of conspiracy that will connect the events of 9/11 in the United States to the Vatican and the Jesuits. It’s a straight arrow to a true believer, but none of the rest of us will ever see it.
There is just as strong a thread of conspiracy that will connect the events of 9/11 to the Israelis or to Mossad. Again, only the true believers in this particular conspiracy will be able to see this one.
There is the “false flag” thread of 9/11. And I suppose that one circles back to the US government and to the CIA, and therefore to your Jesuits and their Vatican.
So, what makes you pick one conspiracy – and someone else pick the diametrically opposite conspiracy.
Just consider the possibility that both of you are wrong. Just consider that possibility and think about it.
That means I’m a direct descendant of Moses.
=================
LOL!
I am also a direct descendant of Moses.
Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas; well, you get the idea. The begatin’ just kept on until…
Pretty soon they begat Asoka!
But one conspiracy looks like any other conspiracy – to anyone who is not also a true believer.
==
I’m not asking you to be believer. I’m asking you read the source material. Why is that so difficult for you? If you rather spend your time entertaining the idiocy that is ASOKA, then that’s your mental problem.
As for 9/11, my opinion is that it was a CIA inside job. The people involved were sponsored by the CIA and were trained on US military bases in Florida. (See: Russ Baker).
Hey, bro, that no way to be treatin’ a brother Jew.
Shabbat Shalom, Met.
Kol Tuv. L’hitraot.
HA!
Lamadeta kama milim. Kol hakavod!
SBPDL;
‘ it defies all logic and reason that this nation is currently importing hordes of African nationals.
Such illogicality is further compounded by the fact that many of these African immigrants are totally illiterate, both cognitively and technologically.
None of which even addresses how they are often arriving from Islamic cultures which are brazenly antagonistic to all aspects of Western civilization.
Again, much of this is a direct result of Liberal Democrats cultivating tax consuming Mendicant Voter Plantations at the direct expense of White Middle Class tax producers.’
Ouch!
I still like you as a person, Met.
Me too. Not that I’m a narcissist.
WHATS AN INDIRECT DESCENDANT?
FROM DADDYS SIDE?
That would be you. 🙂
ARE YOU MARLIN?
I had a scholarship [not full] to a Franciscan HS,
got kicked out..
One brother graduated..2 others graduated Jesuit
High,…..get this, At the JHS the swim class was IN THE NUDE..ALL THOSE NAKED TEEN WHITE BOYS.
‘For instance, today I gave a bald fade to a member of the Laborers’ Union who graduated from JESUIT PREP SCHOOL for Christ’s sake.’
What point are you trying to make?
That hes better off illiterate?
What point are you trying to make?
===============
Good question, antisoak. As a carpenter I worked side by side with members of the Laborers’ Union. They are good and intelligent hard workers.
Asoka I meant about education, Catholic or otherwise…His ‘close down schools’???
His client had a Jesuit Education…???
AND GO JAN GO…TO HELL WITH OBAMANATION:
hat’s when things went sour. Obama and Brewer engaged in what reporters described as an “intense exchange,” with the Republican governor pointing her finger at the president and the two appearing to talk over each other.
The exchange ended when Obama abruptly walked away as Brewer appeared to still be speaking, according to a summary provided by reporters in the press pool that shadows the president on his trips.
Asked about the conversation, Brewer told the reporters that Obama was “a little disturbed” about her book, “Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure the Border.’’
The book, which was published two months ago, details her conservative approach to dealing with the state’s illegal immigration challenges. An article in the Arizona Republic last fall said that Brewer cast Obama as “patronizing and condescending.”
She portrayed the federal government as “out of control” and said that the president lectured her during a June 2010 meeting in the Oval Office, the newspaper reported.
If you rather spend your time entertaining the idiocy that is ASOKA, then that’s your mental problem.
================
Met, I hope you had time to listen to this poetry read by Eduardo Galeano (Uruguay) about the right to delirium. http://youtu.be/m-pgHlB8QdQ
================
Idiocy 1. Extreme folly or stupidity.
He admitted that he is Marlin, our best John Birch Society representative on CFN.
…
Also because a reply different from that would generate an infinite regression of symbols, other questions and answers, a never ending sequence of symbols until finally you have to assign an end point, and at the end point you must assign THE LAST SYMBOL which really means No Symbol at All, No Reason at All.
…
Such a lyrical message! I’m also seeing the level of distrust rise with each passing day, even in the small things. The automatic ads that line the top and right side of my computer on certain sites (And, yes, I have pop-up blocker. Doesn’t stop them.) all have bold type descriptions such as “secret”, “trick”, or “Ohio Mom” ostensibly offering something to you that is withheld by the nebulous “they”. This is a small thing, but I think it means the ad is appealing to an audience who doesn’t trust anyone anymore.
Vlad (the original, not the lame imitator) seems to be getting an unfair amount of demeaning and rude comments lately. As far as gender-baiting goes, I agree with him. My husband and I have six children. Five boys and one girl. All different personalities, but the girl is definitely a world apart from her brothers. She’s a beauty as well as highly intelligent, but she’s different in the most basic way. Most rational parents without an agenda to push will agree that boys and girls are different, from birth on.
I am the parent sponsor for our Quiz Bowl Club and we’ve had a heck of a time getting more girls to turn out. Right now, we need to fill a slot that requires strength in math, plus some social aggression. Teenage girls are awful, but they are awful to each other, not usually the public or authority figures. The principal said we need to find a girl to apply for gender equity purposes. Girls have a brain as sharp as any boy, but they aren’t interested. Right now, only the boys have applied for the engineering program. Girls are welcome, they just aren’t interested. This isn’t some parental plot, it’s just the nature of most girls. Sociological History, music and literature are dominated by girls, and math, engineering and chemistry are dominated by boys. It’s not a plot, but many educators believe it is, so they spend an inordinate amount of time trying to convince girls to enter these fields. There’s no overall gender difference in IQ, so it must come from the child, herself.
On another note, I have some interest in womens’ rights. Our oldest child is my son from my first marriage and when I divorced, there was no child support, a sham division of property and I never took, or was offered, food stamps, Section 8 housing, or any help at all. My first two jobs were highly “respectable” and paid below minimum wage. I gradually worked up to a much better job, but was amazed to find that the janitor (male) was paid more than the brightest woman. That was unfair, but it has changed. Blacks used to be lynched, but they aren’t anymore. Move On. I hope for the best for my highly intelligent sons, as well as my highly intelligent daughter. Too bad they’re entering this abysmal economy for which I blame both parties. (And yes, my sons can cook and do laundry. I consider those living skills, not “woman” skills. My daughter can change the oil in her car and a flat tire, but she doesn’t want to. With her looks, she will probably never have to do so.)
Metusaleh said:
This has ALWAYS been so. It’s only that now you’re getting a glimpse at the truth and realizing what a fool you have been to believe the CIA/Vatican propaganda all your life.
**************************************************************
I’m not quite sure how you ever came to believe that I ever believed the CIA (especially as an ex-NSA contractor who saw amazing sleaze “up close and personal”) or the Vatican. I have always looked at the Catholic Church as the “Whore of Babylon”.
Christianity died when the Council of Nicea institutionalized Christianity in 325 A.D.. into what is now Catholicism. The REAL Christians were the Gnostics who did not try to make an idol of Christ. They rightly put Mary Magdalene on an equal footing with Christ because she was redeemed by her humility and unconditional love.
Perhaps you should examine whether your “brush strokes” are too broad when you condemn all of us as tools of the Vatican or the intelligence industry. I am a vehement critic of both.
E.
Rhino said:
This QE stuff is all about keeping the casinos afloat.
Who’s running the casinos? Who’s pocketing the skim? Not you I’ll bet and sure as hell not me.
***********************************************************
You can bet your bottom dollar that they’ll rationalize the QE as “saving pension funds” so that at least the geezers (who VOTE) will believe their claptrap.
The problems will come as a clusterfuck in the second half of this decade as the increase in the NOMINAL DJIA won’t be close to covering inflation after the housing inventories normalize in a year or two. Right now, a surfeit of retail businesses plus housing deflation are the only offsetting forces against massive inflation. In a couple of years, the housing inventories will normalize and retail destruction (Border’s, Mervyn’s, etc.) will mean that fewer goods will be available with VASTLY more dollars chasing them.
In a scant few years, retirees like myself will be FORCED to own inflation hedges. Otherwise, even several hundred thousand dollars will start looking like a couple years of living instead of a decade of living. Meanwhile, wages are falling, oil just won’t go down for long, and workforce participation is at 28 year lows. This spells CIVIL DISORDER and it won’t just be in ghettos and barrios when it breaks out. These are MACRO trends that are so structurally built in to our economy right now that no force on earth can stop these events from unfolding. Globalism is going to make all of us CHINESE PEASANTS.
E.
Pray, tell me, how do you manage economically to have 6 children ? Does your husband make a lot of money ? I am only asking because of a comment I read on another website (the one above of the ex-socialist who says that there are “loads of jobs”, etc.), and so just to have a feel of how varied the “real economy” really is…
May I venture to guess ? I phanthom you have a few houses rented out and make good cash there, you both came from families with some cash and have inherited some houses, your husband is a doctor and makes more than 200,000 dollars a year, and you are a stay at home mom…
Just curious, I am always amazed at people that have more than two kids, how on earth do they ever pull it off money wise!?!?!
I was referring to your beliefs regards the US. You did not see the US as a vile malicious evil empire in your younger days. You were totally fooled and blinded by CIA/Vatican propaganda regards the evil machinations of the US, largely because of ignorance. You did not know then what you know now. You did not know the things you know today because I have not yet informed of these things, and you did not seek to learn these things on your own. You were an unwitting CIA/Vatican gov mafia employee. That’s who you worked for all your life. Be honest, you were a useful idiot and an ignorant fool.
..You did not know the things you know today because I have not yet informed ^you of these things..
Alarm! Alarm! Warning! Warning! Mental Disaster Area ! TILT ! Please Ignore these kinds of Posts. Thank You.
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=177939
Extreme Subjectivity is the Only Science
In a sense, it is the entire process of Abstraction that is being questioned: we go from the particular, to the general, eliminating information that is not pertinent to the model. And we generalize, get rid of quirk “initial conditions” and quirk “single cases”, and set quirk arbitrary fixed parameters (speed of light, mass of electron, etc.) from measurements without questioning them in order to go forward, in order to find that which is in common between many different instances of similar events, repetitive patterns, etc.
In short we try to eliminate forms of subjectivity, the specific details of specific experiences, the never ending amount of information needed to describe something real, that is happening, some real configuration of matter in which it finds itself in.
And this is the general program of Science: but as soon as you start to change the design and manipulate that which has always been invariant, and namely the Observer, The Processor, the Man Brain and start putting the emphasis on specific experiences such a newly designed Man Brain can undergo, we go in a completely different direction from where Science has always been going: we accept, in a sense, that there are no more generalizations operating, only instantaneous point like events occurring by matter being set up in some unique and arbitrary configuration (random events occurring in a specific point in space and time) and self manipulating, talking to itself, interacting with itself, exchanging Information Relationships within itself.
And of course, generalizations and abstractions presuppose a common ground, and common reality, something a multitude of similar Observers have in common, the common way they interact and behave and the communication amongst them: but in a modified brain, common ground is no longer there and you can have a multitude of similarly modified brains exchanging some forms of communication, but you cannot know if they perceive a common “external reality” amongst themselves: and then who says that there must be multiple copies of similar man brains ? there could be many different specific, one time designs, it is just as good, there are no longer “Objective Rules” or “Intentionalities of Use” to follow (aside from the fact that multiple instances of a specific Man Brain (like ours and our Society) can be assigned as just one specific design of a Man Brain diffused in space and time and connected through communications of symbols and denotations and the imaginary “common external world” instead of being connected by hard wires in direct neural circuits in a small volume like any other specific design that is local and sufficient for itself ( a solid state civilization ?)).
In short, that which our present Science eliminates from “Science”, and namely subjectivity, actually becomes the only and total Science (Extreme Subjectivity as the only possible rules of engagements with Reality, hence all kinds of lies and self delusions are actually more real than any reality we have ever experienced) possible in Modified Man Brains, new designs of the Observer, new designs of the Processor…
Why Are You Buying Apple (And Other Chinese) Products?
– http://goo.gl/ZD94e
In other words Orthodoxy is a calcification of gnosticism, rather than gnosticism having been a Christian heresy. Try reading either “The Pagan Christ” by Harpur or “The Jesus Mysteries” by Freke & Gandy.
The Roman state cult of Orthdoxy/Latin Rite Catholicism was set up by the Emperor Constantine and his mother Helena, who personally toured the holy land setting up the more famous shrines still venerated today. The bishops at the coucil of Nicea, most of whom were Greek at that time, were given just two choices: endorse the creed or be expelled from the empire. At this time all of the unapproved writings extant from the early Christians were also burned to contribute to the illusion that the gospels were historical rather than mythological. Constantine was a monster who murdered his own son, much like Ivan the Terrible of Russia.
Globalism is going to make all of us CHINESE PEASANTS. E.
Ah, as you know I’ve been saying all along that we will all be working for a dollar a decade.
Good points, Mark.
Both the Orthodox creed and the Catholic creed are a creation of Imperial Rome, created to serve Rome and to kill the underground Christian insurrection. The early Christians are the Ebionites. They are the same group that had earlier been called the Nazarenes. Really they are the only Christians who can be called Christians. The rest is just Roman/Egyptian paganism.
Alarm! Alarm! Warning! Warning! Mental Disaster Area ! TILT !
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=177939
Please Ignore these kinds of Posts. Thank You.
But that is the point: Reality is only Pure Subjectivity, Extreme Subjectivity, nothing else, no one else exists, you are finally your own boss, be yourself, don’t have any kinds of considerations anymore (OTHER PEOPLE DON’T EXIST, USE THEM AS A TOOL, THEY ARE JUST DEAD PROCESSORS IN A SEA OF DEAD PROCESSORS TRYING TO “CONDITION” YOU), don’t be part of a circuit, be you own circuit, be your own Solid State Civilization: as the way our Man Brains are presently configured, we are like a diffused multiprocessor system (each person is a similar but distinct processor) and the data bus is the external reality, the communications and the sense organs inputs etc. But this is just a machine, and we are just a processor in a multiprocessor machine, but the entire machine as such is a single entity, a single monolithic slab of matter (the ball of matter of the earth with these puny processors interacting on its surface, go figure) : So just remove yourself from the machine and be your own universe, you can do it, go man go, do it…(Also because if you “Abstract” away the apparent, but virtual separate processors and just consider them all as just one entity, which they really are, then you see that the entire ball of matter of the earth with these processors on its surface is just a single Man Brain, a specific design of Man Brain simply occupying way more space, time and items than are necessary: you could probably condense the entire equivalent Information Relationship Ensemble of our Civilization into a small cube measuring one meter across, in width and height (1 M^3 of volume) assign it as a specific new Man Brain, and hence just as one of many trillions of other possible new designs of Man Brains: hence you just decide that you are a new specific design of Man Brain as opposed and different from that one meter cubed monolithic cube of interactions, you become your own Solid State Civilization and you make up all the rules and “Science”).
The entire program of Science and Objectivity is based on simply being part of an artificial machine that has no higher value, or metaphysical value or necessity than your own self programmed as wickedly as you want: for you to participate within the machine you must learn all the rules of engagements and all the Objective rules of Interaction both with other processors and with the communication formats entering you as an Observer, but especially the rules of interaction and engagements with those communication bits according to fixed internal Mental Programs incrementing the pleasure circuit events as opposed to the pain circuit events according to the reference system of pain/pleasure guiding the behavioral and interaction and output/input choices the processor executes.
And then, there is no higher or metaphysical or Spiritual or Abstract value of Objectivity as opposed to Subjectivity: they are simply different choices of interactions, they are just one and the same, only one has to follow rules of decency and constraint (and the rules of communication and somewhat survival (as defined simply as lasting as long as possible and avoiding executing too many pain circuits)), the other is mostly free of most rules.
TILT ! TILT !
TOBOR ATE MAN
TILT ! TILT !
I’m a human being, damn it! We are social animals. We are not isolated processors. We are not lonely islands to ourselves. We are human beings, damn it!
OTHER PEOPLE DON’T EXIST, USE THEM AS A TOOL…
if they don’t exist, how can you use them
this type of philosophic sounding diarrhea gets you exactly to what state/accomplishment?
it’s merely endless loop rubbish, you will be spouting this till 3099 A.D. to no effect.
i reserve the right to be wrong
peace peaceniks
Also reserve for yourself the right not to read drooling codswallop.
See? That’s better…….
;o)
Ok guys, I take it all back: I was all wrong, I am wrong, please erase all of my posts, erase all of those kind of posts, you all have win, I am a loser, a sore loser. End of Story.
Hey Juletta:
Pray, tell me, how do you manage economically to have 6 children ? Does your husband make a lot of money ? I am only asking because of a comment I read on another website (the one above of the ex-socialist who says that there are “loads of jobs”, etc.), and so just to have a feel of how varied the “real economy” really is…
May I venture to guess ? I phanthom you have a few houses rented out and make good cash there, you both came from families with some cash and have inherited some houses, your husband is a doctor and makes more than 200,000 dollars a year, and you are a stay at home mom…
Just curious, I am always amazed at people that have more than two kids, how on earth do they ever pull it off money wise!?!?!
You have a pretty name, I bet you are hot !…Do you want to be my girlfriend ? Pretty Please ? I promise I will not talk about my insane theories…Pretty Please ? Or better yet, be my Mommy, I need a Mommy more than anything else (and a Spanking!), you already have six kids, what’s one more extra ? just leave me playing in the backyard with my imagination, while you cook in the kitchen…
tx Owe-Zone, you made me laff!
best, welles
Howdy Clusterfuckers, What do you think about this as a solution to our energy problems?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLDgQg6bq7o
‘zone, I don’t know your location but out here in my area between Detroit and Toledo the CIA is running ad’s seeking people interested in careers on 89X CMIX out of Windsor Ontario. This is an Alternative Rock station beamed at the under 30 crowd.
They make it sound great. No layoffs at the CIA or anyother govt agency.
That’s a good one, RT.
Here’s the upgraded version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fjcJp_Nwvk&feature=related
And here’s a comment I lifted on it:
“This right here is sadly what normal people hear when they try to listen to normal science. It is so stupid that people that hear things like this try to decide what is best for our countries and? communities.” -youtube commenter-
I will add that this is also what “normal” people hear when they are reading Conspiratorial Theory from True Believers in one or another of the many conspiracies that float around out there.
Try to walk a mile in the other man’s shoes, folks.
(Yeah, I get the irony, asoka.. But I’d walk back home to my family, ASAP.)
Hanoi Jane cares ! Only because we Vet’s won’t let her forget her Treason ! Can you imagine how long the line of vet’s will be to piss on her grave when her time is up ?
I’ll be there, she’s earned that much !
“Pray, tell me, how do you manage economically to have 6 children ? Does your husband make a lot of money ?” -tegmark-
Teg, I’m going to go out on a CFN limb here – and say that this post of yours is lucid, logical, and intelligible. Way to go!
And you only posted it once, so far.
Cool!
“You’re not going to get informed following the guidance of people whose agenda is to discourage you from reading the source material.”
This is the argument you ignored last week about the book of Jude.
“If we trace it back far enough, we find that the real reason America supports the Israeli state is because many Jews and many Christians living here believe that the Jews are God’s Chosen People. This is what has underpinned America’s foreign policy in the Mideast for the past century. There are many Jews in Europe, too, but because the Evangelical, Pentecostal, and Fundamentalists are so scarce over there, support for Zionism is more limited. Why? Because, while they support human rights for all–including Jews–they do not think that one group is more human than others.
The opposite is true among Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Fundamentalists in America. Having been raised in this, I think I can speak with a certain amount of authority in this matter. I clearly remember how I was raised, and while many might try to deny the “racist” label, I can testify by personal experience that I was raised as a racist who believed that Jews were a superior race. And because God had “chosen” them–whether they were Christians or not, based purely upon their supposed superior genetics–we “gentiles” were obligated by God Himself to give them everything they asked for, and to protect them with our very lives.
This is the attitude that demands that our government support the Zionist state at all costs, even if it means wiping out billions of people by nuclear war. All non-Jews are, after all, secondary in importance to God, and are therefore expendable.
Once I became an adult and began to learn from sources other than my parents and church, it was not long before I realized that my viewpoint needed some serious alteration. The first thing that shook my foundations was when I learned that the Jews were not the biblical Israelites. I discovered that I had made that assumption without comprehending ===> the clear biblical distinction between Judah and Israel http://www.gods-kingdom-ministries.org/weblog/WebPosting.cfm?LogID=3154
I went to a public high school( 1960 to 65) in NYC and our swim class was nude for the boys and with suits for the girls. Might’ve just been a way to show young men that not all are created equal.
Jim,
I am not sure why you think the Demopublican and Republicrat conventions are going to be seminal events in human history… this isn’t 1968 or Seattle 1999.
The conventions are professionally produced staged events, much like the Stupid Bowl coming up soon (er, I somehow forgot the date).
Add to the fact that police forces have been largely militarized, and you’ll have Charlotte and Tampa looking like Pittsburgh for the G-20 or the Baghdad Green Zone in 2007. Evacuated cities for the elites to conduct their business.
This is not to say that the elites have not lost their legitimacy. Indeed they have. There has yet to be an effective popular movement to knock things off center. It will not happen here for a long time to come.
The US isn’t the Arab spring — in spite of what NPR and CNN may stenograph to us. Those weren’t “Twitter Revolutions” or “Facebook Revolutions”. Most of these people don’t have broadband and 40% of Egyptians are illiterate. There were broad-based popular uprisings that had been simmering in the pressure cooker of poverty, oppression and degradation for decades. Like 1848.
The good old days of Bubba Clinton are not that long ago and people are still fat-n-happy for the most part. It will happen, but not in Charlotte or Tampa.
How mature of you!
Unfortunately Jane will outlive all the vets.
She did not commit treason because it was an undeclared war. She was a patriot protesting crimes against humanity and she was under the bombs falling on civilians. The vets were the ones damaging the USA by committing atrocities. And only a few of the vets were tried for their crimes.
Nice post…we are winning the Race To The Bottom and the fools keep cheering like it’s fuckin’ NASCAR !
Crazy times ahead for sure.
What is the point of your post exactly?
I read somewhere once that some ridiculous percentage of Americans could claim direct ancestory to Charlamagne….a majority if I remember correctly.
I’m thinking maybe you and Vlad have some history together, if you know what I mean…..and that’s not even counting the 10% of ‘caucasian’ Americans who have African ancestory as well.
Racism isn’t only stupid, it’s based on a false premise. In the U.S. race mixing has already occurred to such an extent that the concept is rapidly becoming moot.
I’m thinking maybe you and Vlad have some history together
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dale, that was kind of the point of my post: that we are all related. My post had nothing to do with racism. I was pointing out we are all one.
MD’s point is clear: Israel and Judah are not the same. Cf. Jeremiah 18 and Jeremiah 19.
D. This one’s for you.
I responded yesterday re: Neoliberalism. I hope you read it.
The best description of what’s going on is discussed this week on a radio program from Berkeley, Ca. by Michael Hudson, one of the few sane economic historians in the world.
He actually understands classical economics!! Unlike the idiots that spout nonsense on the media.
Now hear this:
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/77234#comment-11953
Wasn’t Michael Hudson the guy you linked to last year saying the Euro was going down and the USA economy would collapse as a result? sigh.
The last time I looked at major indices the Nasdaq was down about 50% from its tech bubble peak in 2000, the Dow and S&P have spiked up and down since 2000 but in the end went pretty much nowhere.
So your investments in the past 12 years are underwater in real terms by whatever rate of inflation over that time that you figure applies to you. 3% per year? 4% per year? More? Whatever you figure. Your only real return was from dividends.
I always found mighty puzzling official rates of inflation. 2%?. 3%?. 4%? This after American manufacturing was offshored to China with its miniscule wage rates. You’d think that overall inflation would be in the negative.
So something must have offset the effect of dramatically lowered costs ie maybe dramatically higher prices of goods and services produced domestically.
Or maybe firms that were offshoring didn’t lower prices charged in the US but rather pocketed the difference between American wage rates and Chinese slave rates. Maybe this helps account for why the 1% made out like bandits?
Or maybe inflation rates as published by govts are a worthless pile of shit that are massaged and fucked with until at best they tell you nothing useful and at worst actively mislead anyone dumb enough or unfortunate enough to have to put their trust in them.
Asoka, you haven’t yet explained to us yet about “karma” and its workings.
About how karma has acted to further undermine the well being of a small and commonly despised minority group in the US – Black people – and how karma has acted to further promote the good fortune and well being of the top 1% often at the expense of everyone else and especially Black people.
Still waiting…