JHK’s Three-Act Play
Here come the Corn Pone Nazis!
Fox News entertainer, former drug addict, and professional weeper Glenn Beck took center stage at the Lincoln Memorial exactly forty-seven years to the day after Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech for a rally dedicated to “restoring honor,” which is tea party code for the otherwise unutterable idea: get that nigger out of the White House! (despite the attendance of a few African-American shills on the scene).
Eighty-seven thousand disoriented citizens lined the DC Mall reflecting pool and adjoining lawns to witness Beck overstep his role as a television clown and don the mantle of an evangelist-savior battling the dark forces working insidiously to put the America of WalMart, Walt Disney World, Nascar, and Burger King into the Collapsed Society Hall of Fame — where it’s heading anyway, due to the bad choices these self-same citizens made during an extraordinary bonanza era of cheap oil that is now drawing to a close whether anyone likes it or not. Naturally, Beck invoked prayer against this prospect, which is what people resort to when they don’t understand what is happening to them.
Beck himself just seems to be following a career arc more than really answering “a call.” The emptiness of his platitudes and the confusion of his ideas shows that he is just flexing his demagogic muscles in a moment when weepy bluster passes for heroism. Ten years ago he was a cringing drunk contemplating suicide. Then he went shopping in America’s Mall of Utopias for something to believe in and found Mormonism, a “religion” dreamed up by an imaginative young man on the agricultural frontier of western New York during an earlier age of ferment which — guess what — coincided with a decade of economic turbulence. (Anyone interested in the bizarre subject is advised to read Fawn Brodie’s excellent biography of Smith, No Man Knows My History [Knoph,1945].)
Of course, what has allowed Beck to occupy center stage is the failure of rational political figures to articulate the terms of the convulsion that American society faces, brought about not by communists and other John Bircher hobgoblins but by the forces of history. The failure at the political center is a conscious one of nerve and will, of elected officials in both major parties playing desperately for advantage in defiance of the truth — this truth being that the USA went broke trying to swindle itself into prosperity. Add to this the failure of the law to go after the swindlers, which has undermined the fundamental belief in the rule of law that enabled this society to function as well as it did previously.
Barack Obama personifies this failure these days, a politician proclaiming “change” who not only managed to change nothing, but promoted a continuation of the national self-swindling with legislation so dazzlingly prolix and complicated that no one can claim to have read either the Health Care Reform Act or the Financial Regulation bill, the two hallmarks of his tenure so far, neither of which will change anything about how we do these things. Why Mr. Obama has turned out to be such a weenie remains a mystery. Even the former communists at Russia Today laugh at the idea that he is a “communist” or a “socialist” and so do I. He certainly appears to be hostage of the more malign forces in society these days — the medical insurance racket, the too-big-to-fail banks, the multi-national corporations. But I don’t believe it’s because he wants to suck up to them, or join their country clubs when his current job ends.
My own guess is that he’s been informed that the system is so fragile that if he dares to disturb even one teensy-weensy part of it — for instance, by throwing some executives from Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, et cetera, into federal prison — that said system will fly to pieces in a fortnight. So Obama’s main task for a year and a half has been to desperately apply baling wire and duct tape to the banking system while telling fibs to the public about a wished-for recovery to a prior state. Unfortunately that prior state is the ecstasy of a self-swindle in the moments before it unravels… the sublime feeling of having gotten something wonderful for nothing. We’re beyond that now and nothing on the age-old shelf of nostrums, spells, prayers, and miracle-cures will avail to bring that moment back, though the public does not know this.
This is what allows a faker like Glenn Beck to shine. The masses still truly believe that prayer will save them from bankruptcy, foreclosure, penury, the loss of status, and the cut-off of precious air-conditioning, so Glenn steps onto a national monument like an Aztec priest ascending the Pyramid of Huitzilopochtli to soothe the angry god with worshipful incantations, and incidentally maybe a few dozen sacrificial hearts cut out — just as the tea-bagger right-wing glorifies the sacrifices of US soldiers blown up by roadside bombs for the sake of American military adventuring in lost causes like the war to turn Afghanistan into a functioning western-style democracy.
Glenn Beck’s sidekick nowadays, Sarah Palin, is exactly the kind of corn pone Hitler that America deserves: a badly-educated, child-like, war-mongering opportunist easily manipulated by backstage extremist billionaires who think they don’t have enough money yet. Sarah Palin is going to run for president in 2012. In the process she’ll turn the sad remnants of the Republican party into a suicide cult, but she might just get elected and you can kiss the 230-year-long experiment in representative government goodbye for good.
In the meantime, the financial markets are getting ready to puke, the housing market has yet a million frauds left to unwind, the commercial real estate and retail sectors are crashing, the projects in Afghanistan, and Iraq, too (despite the current hype about the end of the combat mission there), are set to suck a few billion a day out of the system, indefinitely, and the season leading into the holidays is taking shape as a major amplification of all the converging clusterfucks that make these such interesting times. The tea-bagger faction will only get more desperately crazy as a result.
The bigger mystery in all this — if I may perhaps engage in some nostalgia of my own — is: what happened to reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country to drive them into such burrow of cowardice that they can’t speak the truth, or act decisively, or even defend themselves against such a host of vicious morons in a time of troubles?
___________________________________
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Sinclair Lewis
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross”.
2nd!
Fascism is here already – brought to you by the oligarchs in the FED, Goldman Sucks, Bankrupt America, Shittybank and the Plunge Protection Team.
http://www.creativedestruction.us/
Somehow this must all be the fault of illegal immigrant Mexicans. Do they listen to Glen Beck? If so, then definitely kick them all out.
Two lumps on Sarah Palin’s chin.
“Ten years ago he was a cringing drunk contemplating suicide.”
Odds are that in 10 more, he’ll be back there again, Jim.
“what happened to reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country to drive them into such burrow of cowardice that they can’t speak the truth, or act decisively, or even defend themselves against such a host of vicious morons in a time of troubles?”
Ask W.B. Yeats about what happens when the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity.
The Tea Baggers will self destruct when they cannot deliver. We won’t get Sinclair Lewis’ feared “Minute Men” in America. We’ll get chaos first, even in the land of NASCAR where lots of us Rednecks do not like anyone telling us what to do. And yep, we’re well armed and cranky.
The race card???? typical jew
nevermind the LACK of racism and nazi invective coming out of the tea party or Beck.
Just freakin make it up and lie. Get lost; this article is trash.
Beck is certainly a moron and his followers and Palin too are fools, but they are not nazis, and you, JH Kunstler, are a fucking liar
Quote:
My own guess is that he’s been informed that the system is so fragile that if he dares to disturb even one teensy-weensy part of it — for instance, by throwing some executives from Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, et cetera, into federal prison — that said system will fly to pieces in a fortnight. So Obama’s main task for a year and a half has been to desperately apply baling wire and duct tape to the banking system while telling fibs to the public about a wished-for recovery to a prior state.
Jim I couldn’t agree more. Throughout the election cycle no candidate talked about the mugging of America, except Ron Paul, kinda sorta. But that’s not surprising when elections are tantamount to beauty pageants. What I found far more disturbing was the utter failure of anyone in media to even ask candidate questions about the economy beyond the typical happy talk version presented on teevee every night.
Democracy fled with the establishment of the Theocorporatocracy as the primary funder of the political candidates.
Ask yourself who pulls BO’s strings?
Hopey changey was a fantasy. He is merely a stop-gap for Palin.
When so much was ‘off the table’ including prosecuting the criminals who invaded sovereign countries without cause and murdering its innocent civilians, the game was up.
“typical Jew”?
Who’s got the racecard then?
Thanks for your posts Mr Kunstler. I have found myself seeking them out pretty regularly these days and though your views are a little too err.. dark even for my tastes, I appreciate your style wit and turn of phrase.
Living out here in Oz, we are still not in quite the state you appear to be in over there, thanks mostly to the fact that we are one of China’s biggest sources of raw materials, but we’re selling the resources (and the farms) at a pretty snappy rate and I see signs of much of what you observe in your posts over here – albeit on a smaller scale and on somewhat of a trailing edge as far as timelines go.
Keep up the excellent work.
S.
Frank Rich over at the New York Times wrote a piece on the same topic which seems to back up JHK on his observations of the political winds blowing in the “Land of the Free”:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html
Scary.
trav777, if only they were all as dopey as you.
You wrote:
“The race card???? typical jew
nevermind the LACK of racism and nazi invective coming out of the tea party or Beck.
Just freakin make it up and lie. Get lost; this article is trash.
Beck is certainly a moron and his followers and Palin too are fools, but they are not nazis, and you, JH Kunstler, are a fucking liar.”
Racism is the unspoken, and often spoken, thread running through the Tea Party. As for Nazi invective: you supply it, pal.
14th!
Pathetic article this week. JHK once again oozes his disdain for the South and air conditioning — WTF do you really think he doesn’t use it too? — and sees Racism because someone said there are dark forces. Typical over-educated Dunce. Sorry to say this ‘writing’ is highschool at best. JHK whatever happened to your brain?
Why do you despise everyone that at least tries, and gets out on the street? How do you know they’re all fighting to preserve a 12ft tall SUV & triple-bypass Big Macs? You don’t, and everyone who’s read this blog several times now sees you for the tissue-thin intellectual you are.
And of course, if black people show up at Tea Party events they’re shills. Right JHK, not a SINGLE black person could EVER agree with the Tea Partyers. Cuz ALL Black People are the same, right? Moron.
JHK’s a pussy. He maligns people who are out on the street protesting, while he….writes. What a Tool this Fucking Pussy is. Go to Hell JHK.
Jim, the lack of dissent by responsible American thinkers is because they are just as committed to the myths of Happy Motoring and Home Ownership as everyone else. You often talk about how the Aspen Institute denizens hope to tweak the system with electric or hybrid cars. And yet you are still an optimist, inasmuch as you are confident that there will be an election in 2012; I wish I were.
Speaking of Sinclair Lewis, it may be time to re-read “It Can’t Happen Here,” his 1935 semi-satirical political novel. The story centers around newspaperman Doremus Jessup’s struggle against the fascist regime of President Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip.
Buzz is the typical power-hungry politician, elected on a populist platform, who promises to restore the country to prosperity and greatness, and, more importantly, promising each citizen $5,000 a year. (That’s about $77,000 in today’s increasingly worthless greenbacks; nice work, if you could get it).
Once in power, Buzz reverts to type, becoming a dictator, outlawing dissent, putting his political enemies in concentration camps, and creating a paramilitary force called the Minute Men who terrorize the citizens. (Today he would just call up the goons squads from Blackwater.)
One of his first actions as President is to change to the Constitution which give him sole power over the country, rendering Congress obsolete. In the book, this is met by protest from the Congress. (Which shows how far off even the usually clear-eyed Lewis could be; no one thinks this Congress would oppose anything.) There are alos outraged citizens, but Windrip declares a state of martial law and, yada, yada, yada.
Most “real” Americans either support Buzz and his Corpo Regime wholeheartedly or reassure themselves that fascism “can’t happen” in America. Until, of c(o)urse, it does.
Kool-Aid, anyone?
Jim –
Glad you had some time off. You’re back in top form.
Having lived near Palmyra, NY around the time you were in college out that way, I second your comments about Smith and his mythical gold plates. That Hill Cumorah Pageant is a yearly attempt to prove the nostrum; if you repeat a lie long enough…
Now, despite the “zesty” antisemitic remarks above, I agree completely that this is about race. Not ALL about race, but that’s a big part of it. Since Obama has been flailing around like a wimpy Harvard prof at a pickup game of stickball, he has allowed this to develop. The Tea Baggers get to use all his failures to cover their deep-seated racism and resentment.
In particular, I love the “prayer” part of Beck’s message. It reminds me of that scene in “Ghostbusters” where Harold Ramis says (upon seeing their first real apparition) “Get her!” Bill Murray responds later, “That was your plan? Get her?” Beck’s “pray” is the same; a clueless, kneejerk reaction. However, any sentient being should understand what he’s really doing, which is setting up a narrative which can’t easily be shouted down. After all, praying is good, isn’t it? And if you dare take issue with it, you’re a bad person, aren’t you? And we all know that “mean people suck.”
But perhaps the Tea Baggers are on to something, as it appears that, as you mention, no human has the answer. Obama, Congress, Bernanke; the whole lot seem totally incapable of first, articulating the truth and then dealing with it.
Oh. By the way. Pray for us 🙂
What we had in Washington DC, standing before The Sham Wow Beck and Palin were 80 plus thousand Sheeple. The Sheeple were attending a rally bought and paid for by the Koch brothers, and POX News’ Murdoch, three of the nation’s richest elites who would be so happy as to take the Sheeple’s Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid away from them leaving them closer to poverty. But appears to be OK with the Kool-Aid drinking Sheeple.
Prayer will fix it for them.
Beck and Palin are both incompetent, and ignorant snake oil hucksters. They are propaganda machines, not unlike what went down in pre-war Germany to sell the blond haired citizens that the Jews had horns under their Yarmulkes.
But instead of the Jews being the devil, it is Obama, progressives, and liberals, while the devil just so happens to be carrying a Fox News and Goldline paycheck.
http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com
JHK I really think you do yourself and your readers a disservice with the constant mocking of the people in flyover country.
For the most part, we weren’t the ones living in sexy enough housing markets to be a part of the proximate cause of the current economic crisis.
And as for the root cause of it- well, let’s just say that greed was endemic on both sides of the transaction, but it was the overeducated types in business and government who sold America on the lie that we could have a free lunch by borrowing in the private sector [to maintain the illusion of a growing middle class] while government borrowing would keep the Boomers and poor quiet through various transfer payments.
Did we tragically mismanage the past 50 years? You bet. But blaming the victim is not going to accomplish anything.
Maybe instead of mocking them you could go talk to them and see how much of your message resonates instead of blindly assuming that they are a monolithic group of mouth-breathing racists. I sympathize with the Tea Partiers from the standpoint that they were betrayed by the Replublican Party which has morphed into the right wing of the corporatist party.
I’m sure many progressive feel the same way about Obama who is keeping two wars going while making sure that the Wall Street types keep getting their fat bonuses.
There are plenty of people who you lord over with your pseudo-intellectual arrogance who would be willing to listen to what you have to say without the constant ad hominem attacks- the Tea Party isn’t just the slide into “corn pone fascism” that you like to describe: it’s an ad hoc group of people who recognize something is seriously wrong with the way the country is organized and run but they don’t know what it is.
BTW, Beck is a complete tool. The fact that people are willing to listen to that dipshit says more about the gullibility and politeness of middle America than anything else.
Regarding Glenn Beck’s career arc, just last week I watched 1957’s “A Face in the Crowd” about a charismatic, homespun jerk whose TV success gives him delusions of being kingmaker. This is an excellent movie that hasn’t dated a bit! The character’s poisonous attitude inevitably escapes to hang him with his own words, something I look forward to happening with Beck.
Again, I think JHK nailed our problems quite well this week.
I thought the opening paragraph was a little extreme:
===============
“which is tea party code for the otherwise unutterable idea: get that nigger out of the White House!”
=============
But it is PROVABLE that there is a subset of Republicans and “neo-conservatives who are openly, or worse *subconsciously* racist.
They, like the rest of the country, are being played – only with different music.
JHK’s readership seems to have a bias toward the left. Now I’ve argued that that is because reality has a bias to the left.
Nevertheless, it’s easy for most of us to see the pure simple wrongness of Beck/Palin et al.
Yet, there are problems with orthodox liberalism that many of us refuse to even acknowledge or consider for compromise.
Unable to compromise or consider reality, We the People of the United States lead our country to free market corporatism and the Planet to its doom.
Cluster Fuck, Indeed!
I’m glad I’ve got something like a little “lifeboat” ready for me and my family.
Have a great week, CFN!
TwentyFIRST!!
What happens when you cross a Mormon with a Unitarian?
Someone who goes door to door for no apparent reason.
SJMom
Whose ancestors crossed the plains with Brigham Young.
“what happened to reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country to drive them into such burrow of cowardice that they can’t speak the truth, or act decisively, or even defend themselves against such a host of vicious morons in a time of troubles?”
1-those people are mostly hard at work, doing their careers, trying to make sure that they have decent retirement funds (due to the delusion that the Florida will be habitable for their retirement), trying to put their kids through college (due to the delusion that an “education” will allow an upper middle class life in the future), and trying to otherwise make day to day ends meet (due to the delusion that they might actually “get ahead.”). I.E. they’re working their delusions.
2-these people, living lives of quiet desperation, glance up occasionally, see all the bullshit, think about taking a stand, but then turn away and seek solace in cultural or personal distraction as a form of stress management.
When these delusions are broken, when they bump up against the reality of permanent unemployment (both parents and kids alike), complete loss of hope in a better future, loss of all faith in government and other authority, and the loss of any sense of security and stability, that’s it; the proverbial shit will hit the fan. There will be a mass psychotic break that will tear the country apart, and yield the world that will eventually, after much bloodshed, lead to the….World Made by Hand.
Jim,
I think I know why you hate Glenn so much. You two are nearly identical. The main differences are that Glenn believes in God, you in…? Glenn sees through the President and detracts him, you see through him and desperately await the “hopey changey” stuff.
Other than that you both are awaiting the apocalypse (you just are awaiting a secular and peak-everything delivered calamity). I read both Glenn’s Books and your non-fiction books. I think that both of you are very intelligent and insightful. I just don’t understand your insistence on trashing people of faith or, more particularly, conservative people of faith. Faith and intelligence don’t have to be mutually exclusive as you seem to believe.
Finally many of us in the Tea Party movement are not on the right. In fact the left-right paradigm is wrong. It should be Tyranny vs. Anarchy, not left vs. right. When you get down to it left and right (commies, fascists,) they are really the same. Stalin & Hiter= Tyrrany. Socialists & Extreme Religions (Radical Islam, Radical Baptists = Tyrrany. George Bush (the patriot act) Obama (Forced health care) =Tyrrany. See these are left and right issues but freedom and tyrrany.
Oh well. I still usually enjoy what you have to say though I disagree so often. Good luck and God Bless
Tip to our Canuck friends – you folks had better get busy building a border fence – a really *long* border fence. Once things really go to hell down here in the US of A and the cornpone nazis take over, there are going to be a lot of us “reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose” who want to get the hell out, and Canada is going to look awfully attractive. Especially as the physical temperature rises along with the political temperature.
Agree with the last post.
The thought occurred that some of what Kunstler has been writing lately is sort of analogous to the stand up act of a comedian who is incredibly talented but insists on throwing in gratuitous expletives at every turn, being apparently unaware that by doing so he is detracting from his work rather than strengthening it.
Apparently that was second to last post rather than last post. I guess “last post” is not a robust referencing mechanism.
The biggest mystery to me is why the public at large simply does not understand that we’re in trouble. I’ve sought out conversations with hundreds of people lately, PhDs, accountants, guys running for political office, you name it. Maybe you can find one person in a hundred who understands peak oil and who realizes that the “recovery” isn’t coming and that we need localized economies etc.. I guess you’d expect this from the average redneck, but the horrifying aspect of this is that our supposed intelligentsia appears to be missing in action.
Racism?
I live in a small town in Louisiana.
The whites go to the white bar.
The blacks go to the black bar.
No whites go to the black bar except an occasional
crack whore and every four years a white
politician.
Now and then a black comes in the white bar but
they do not come back.
My white female friend was at the white bar.
We were having a drink and discussing the black
white situation.
She says I am a racist.
I asked her if she wanted to go have a drink
at the black bar, my treat.
She said no.
Actually, wasn’t 2nd to last either. I meant to concur with the post by m_barton2k10.
When I read you Jim, I feel like someone has taken the jagged shards of my shattered mind and reassembled them into what I would like to think existed prior to the disillusion and discomfort brought about by realizing I am actually living in a 3rd-world equivalent where are the mirrors have been either broken or unknowingly tilted so as to reflect another’s image upon which to heap invective and hatred and “see one’s own worst qualities.”
Keep talking, reassembling shattered minds,and rearranging mirrors to the “right” angle.
Thanks!
what happened to reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country to drive them into such burrow of cowardice that they can’t speak the truth
==
The truth?
The truth is that the US gov is a criminal syndicate. But you won’t say that. Why? Is it because you’re part of this criminal syndicate? Do you receive checks from them? Why are you protecting these fscks? It’s a simple question JHK. I won’t hold my breath for your answer.
MBarton: You said:
“BTW, Beck is a complete tool. The fact that people are willing to listen to that dipshit says more about the gullibility and politeness of middle America than anything else.”
How can purposely attending a rally in DC have anything to do with politeness? Or purposely listening to someone on television or the radio? That isn’t politeness. It demonstrates an interest in the subject and speaker. Let’s hope the interest is just curiosity and the listeners will be turned off by the message.
Rojelio:
“Maybe you can find one person in a hundred who understands peak oil and who realizes that the “recovery” isn’t coming and that we need localized economies etc.. I guess you’d expect this from the average redneck, but the horrifying aspect of this is that our supposed intelligentsia appears to be missing in action.”
Good point. People probably generally figure I am a right winger because I engage in a lot of ridicule of political progressives for supporting a policy agenda that is utterly irrational and leads to societal ruin.
One might ask why don’t I also ridicule right wingers who believe in similarly ludicrous ideas? Mainly because they already get blasted from both the progressives and the hack media, and secondly because progressives tend to have had a higher level of formal education so I feel like they have less excuse for their ignorance.
Excellent assessment of the ride we’re about to see madly accelerate.
JHK- “Glenn Beck’s sidekick nowadays, Sarah Palin, is exactly the kind of corn pone Hitler that America deserves: a badly-educated, child-like, war-mongering opportunist easily manipulated by backstage extremist billionaires who think they don’t have enough money yet. Sarah Palin is going to run for president in 2012. In the process she’ll turn the sad remnants of the Republican party into a suicide cult, but she might just get elected and you can kiss the 230-year-long experiment in representative government goodbye for good.”
I can’t understand why those of authoritarian bent get so creamy-dreamy about Sarah. Is it her fecundity, or perhaps the weaponry? Maybe the referral to handy, sound-byte talking points is the attraction. A smiley/jokey delivery of third-grade reasoning and badly concealed delight in ostracism and punishment of “the other” seems to elicit the cheers of the buffoons as well.
Deep down though, it’s “take from THEM and give to US”, or, “kill THEM and save US”; a tough thing to reconcile with their Christ. Is that why they’re trying to re-invent that figure somehow? (Buddy Christ from “Dogma”?)
…And if Sarah should mount to the throne of the [supposed] highest office in the land, would she find it engaging (or remunerative) enough to keep her there for a full term? I highly doubt it. The bimbo lives for adulation; and the bloom is off the rose rather quickly for presidents. She couldn’t take the heat.
“I was hop-een and pray-een that the folks of America would be think-een of me as their Pageant Queen, but I have to go now ’cause I’m not see-een the love I deserve. Besides, I have to go fish-een. Bye now….”
Hopey changey was Pablum for the lefties. B.O. needed ’em to beat Hillary. Oh, had it not been for Mr. Edwards she could be in the Oval office. Gotta be naggin’ at her. Even if B.O. is only a 1 termer.
Just be happy Beck & co is not going after all you dual passport carrying Bedouin tribe members,that are responsible for all this Weimar Republic mayhem,and making O look like a circus clown,running our khazar pig infested government managerie.
This blog is losing it. Reading some books, such as Kiyosakis Prophecy (2002), John Talbotts material (2003 to 2010) about RE finance, Peter Schiff, Chalmers Johnson, and a few more among others, and then going to the real truth, which is found at the County, State and Federal courthouses
(which may require some weeks of field trips), some county and city budget meetings and in a few months
one could get a reasonable view of what is really going on locally and nationally.
Considering that books have been written about the US financial demise years ago, what exactly is the commotion about JHK and his views ? These are light books, no complicated derivative formulas in them, and being a spectator at a bankruptcy hearings does not take any great effort. Motions can be read in the internet.
JHK, at the very least starts the knowledge and understanding part. The rest of us can continue
‘locally’ to fill out the rest.
Sarah Palins lack of international travel (and until recently lack of a passport) in this day and age and in light of her political stature and recent VP candidacy speaks volumes for her capacity to be a VP of the USA.
One needs to keep in mind that the frst 16 American Presidents were slave owners, and this instituional tradition, is alive and well in 2010.
In President Bush’s words, “this sucker is going down”.
Wow, trav777, you sure are nasty for first thing on a beautiful Monday morning. Have a rough night did you? If you think JHK is such a liar, why do you bother reading him? Just so you can trash what he says?
“what happened to reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country to drive them into such burrow of cowardice that they can’t speak the truth, or act decisively, or even defend themselves against such a host of vicious morons in a time of troubles?”
They are too busy posting the order in which they initially sign in to Clusterfuck Nation each week.
SNAFU
welles, surely you have something better to do with your time than read a writer that you hate. Or aren’t you smart enough to figure that out??
Here is what kind of shit Glenn Beck spends his time promoting (quoted from Boston Globe/AP article today 8/30/10):
“A day after his rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Glenn Beck, Fox News’s conservative commentator, yesterday renewed his criticism of Obama, taking aim at the president’s religious beliefs in a appearance on “Fox News Sunday.’’
Beck has said that many Americans don’t think Obama is a Christian because they don’t recognize the faith that he’s practicing, which Beck called a form of “collective salvation’’ rather than the personal salvation some believe is taught in the Bible.
In the Fox interview, Beck said Obama “is a guy who understands the world through liberation theology, which is oppressor and victim.’’
“People aren’t recognizing his version of Christianity . . . and 48 percent of the African-American community doesn’t recognize it either, by the way,’’ he said.”
Now that’s just ridiculous time-wasting bullshit, and if it isn’t a re-direction of attention away from our REAL problems, then I don’t know what is.
Who the hell cares what kind of a Christian someone is (or for my part, what freaking relition you are at all)? It’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve read lately, and that’s saying a lot. And the same article stated that only 38% of Americans even believe that Obama is a Christian at all!!! Crazy !!!!!!!!
Whoops. That would be “religion” rather than “relition.”
No, not Palin. She’s just a passing joke.
And a delightful entertainer!
But JHK is missing the mark about the Tea
Party. There will be a confusion of parties,
that is the point. It will be like the
1850’s again.
The only way out includes a policy of protectionism (tariffs). This is what
the party of Lincoln, who supported
tariffs in this day, should make
paramount on the 2012 platform.
And BTW, how about a prediction for when peak
oil is going to hit, and how? Your fans are
thinking you’ve been a little vague, JHK.
Will it be ten years, three years, thirty years … what’s your call, JHK?
Saw this Bumper sticker:
“Sarah Palin in 2012 to 2014.5”
It all boils down to people operating on facts (fewer and fewer these days) and those operating on belief systems. Once belief systems take hold, its impossible to overturn these despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. So as a nation we are believing ourselves into this black hole. In that context, the popularity of a Palin or a Beck doesn’t seem so surprising. It happened in Germany with Hitler. It can just as easily happen here.
Your comparison of Sarah Palin to Hitler is highly offensive. After all, Hitler had an IQ of 142. If you added up all the IQ scores of the entire Palin nuclear family, I doubt it would total 142.
“Forced health care”??? Well gosh, I guess we shouldn’t force people who don’t want health care to have it should we now. But what about all the people who want health care and can’t get it? I’ll bet they’d be real happy to be forced to have some. Your little rant doesn’t make much sense to me.
Tales from the Warpage 2:
“How curious it is, how bizarre, and what a coincidence!”(___Ionesco) Welcome to Theater of the Absurd.
Once the Cold War ended, our dear leadership decided that we didn’t have to be a model society anymore. It was no longer important to educate the coming generation and we are seeing the results loud and clear. Our populace doesn’t know the difference between socialist, fascist or communist. In their world you can be all three at once, especially if you’re a “black foreigner.” as these people believe.
We are now are experiencing the Know Nothings movement redux of the 1840’s. Nativist in nature and taken advantage of by the rich and powerful who convince these fools to vote against their own best interest! Think Koch brothers and Fox News.
This movement is growing up around the anti-Mexican illegal immigrant sentiment, as did the Know Nothings against the Catholic immigrants in the East who identified with the Democratic Party. (Not that I think that our immigration system isn’t entirely broken, mind you.)
From an article I found: “Growing rapidly, the Know-Nothings allied themselves with the group of Whigs who followed Millard Fillmore and almost captured New York state in the 1854 election, while they did sweep the polls in Massachusetts and Delaware and had local successes in other states.” This mirrors the Tea Partiers to a T! One can only hope that they will look too crazy to vote for by our citizenry.
Yesterday I wrote: They (Republicans who conflate mixed economies with Godless Communism) tell a hurting population, one that cannot afford their healthcare costs– that they have a choice between godlessness(public sector) and Christianity. Welcome to the “Theater of Cruelty”.
I personally believe that when it becomes clear that the Republicans cannot turn things around, they will go the way of the Whigs, but they will be given one more chance to drive the nail in our coffin. What we come out with is anyone’s guess, but it seems clear that our Global full spectrum dominance through unending wars and forcing our fiat currency on the world is going to waste more $trillions to benefit the few.
Nothing will come back to build the Nation State. That is done with. They will also help themselves to our direct payment to the state in the form of Social Security and Medicare etc. which they love to call it “entitlements”. They themselves think they are entitled to all the world’s resources and wealth and the Corporations will destroy everything their path to get what they need to make quarterly profits continuously. How long do you think they can keep this going?
When Obama was running for office he could have attacked Hillary for taking money from the Colombians to institute CAFTA, but didn’t. One can only imagine that he too is as Globalist and Neoliberal as the Clintons and the Bush. I voted for him anyway, given what paltry choices this once great nation has to offer.
What happened to all the intelligent people of purpose and good-will in this country? Many of us are tired of not being listened to when we try to vote for better candidates and policies than those profered by young Mr. Obama. So, we are busily working to provide our own bulwarks against the flood that is coming.
Expending a lot of time and energy trying to right the course of this crazy nation appears futile, so why bother? Many of us are on the ‘Net because this is the only free outlet left to commune with other smart folks who can read the writing on the wall.
About the question of why Obama turned into such a weenie — I think he knows as well as anyone that he would face the same fate as JFK if he made any serious attempt to rock the boat of the plutocrats who really run this country and the world. So he does what he’s told. He got elected to take the blame for what is about to happen — much of which was in the pipeline before he got into office.
Perhaps the powers that be wouldn’t mind a race war to take the public’s mind off the real culprits for our plight (the “powers that be” and the general public themselves for buying into their lies of “something for nothing” real estate wealth and cakewalk casualty-free wars, etc.).
A good post today, Jim. It gets us all to thinking, except for the knee-jerk racists lurking in the growing darkness.
I put up a blog post on http://www.healthyplanetdiet.com today that points our some related developments that might be of interest. The relationship between declining health and declining availability of food for the masses are going to bring cataclysmic changes in the Long Emergency. Shall we sit and talk about it, or petition our leaders for Change? Or get ready for it?
What happened to all the reasonable, idealistic “good” people? They sold themsevles and the rest of us for a mess of pottage. They refused to protect our borders against illegals – even if it mean the trashing of the environment which they were allegedly for. They refused to cut back on big goverment spending – even if it bankrupts us, social programs must increase. That many of them work for such programs in not insignificant. They refuse to treat people equally, but rather favor the dark skinned over the fair. It makes them feel SO GOOD about themselves – even to the extent of electing an unqualified individual as President. Last but not least, they bought into the idea of never ending growth and prosperity every bit as much as the Republicans and corn pone nazis of JHK’s fantasy. And as the previous poster said, with much less cause as they were more educated and prided themselves on being environmentally aware. In short, the Good People are a pack of self righteous, careerist clowns. The Good People aren’t.
The book “The Dumbest Generation” is billed
as a book about “… the death of reading
in the young”. Its only major defect, so
far as I can tell, is that I’m even seeing
the death of reading in the middle-class
and elderly. The goddamned boob tube is
all!!
Ironically, at some point we may NEED a
dictatorship because our population has
become so stupid that Harry Reid might
actually have a race on his hands against
Sharron Angle who is mocked even by her
own party. In the Nevada assembly, the
vote is often “forty-one to Angle”.
She is a certified nutjob with ties to
the Scientology movement which is as
insidious and insane as a “religion” can
get. To me, the emergence of the Angles
and the Palins is a signpost of a sharp
increase in American anti-intellectualism
and the abandonment of common sense.
I can only empathize too strongly with
JHK’s pillorying of doofus Beck. Beck
is an inarticulate loon who does, indeed,
have a penchant for crying in public.
Maybe America needs to be taught a lesson
and we need to “experiment” with government
being run by cretins like Palin and Angle.
As H.L. Mencken said in the 1920s …
“The American public knows what it wants
and we should give it to them good and
hard.”
Old H.L. was the last of his breed … a
reporter who wasn’t just a celebrity
lickspittle.
E.
My biggest fear in this asinine mess we call the 21st Century is that it will keep flailing along in its completely pointless way. Just as there is no Eskimo word for ‘nuclear grenade’ the rich have no concept of Enough. They will continue to strangle this country until the last worthless dollar is theirs.
How wonderful to live and participate in the perfect nightmare. Time to declare the American experiment a failure and try the next thing.
Glenn Beck is not the problem. The problem is people keep electing the same people over and over again, rep and dems alike expecting a different outcome!
[blockquote]what happened to reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country to drive them into such burrow of cowardice that they can’t speak the truth, or act decisively[/blockquote]
Well, I was left asking that question when you wrote about your road trip several weeks ago. You did the “easy lifting” describing the fat-slobs, the imbeciles and the other brain-damaged types that seem to populate fast-food nation but couldn’t take on the effort to illuminate and articulate the subtle character and nuances of the individuals that populate the “status quo.”
It’s what I’ll label the forty-percent of America who think they are “cool” and cock. It’s these forty-percent of the American population living off Wall Street, the Federal Government or some blend of flim-flam doo-dads that either pump sex or drugs int our culture.
Let the fat-slob morons go. They never did know what was going. Its the forty-percent fucking freeloaders that are making the big slide to be much steeper than it has to be.
The next time you see your neighbors, the ones that work for a government, or the ones that make six-figure incomes in some insurance, financial or other make believe racket, realize that these are the true failures, the true enemies of the last empire. They got theirs. Now, go fuck yourself.
Nicely done; I agree completely.
The mass psychotic break will be the dam-breaker. What will be the “final trigger” (suspension of SS, or food stamps, or any kind of safety net?) is yet to be determined, but your analysis of the current course [that leads to it] is spot on, IMO.
JHK- “Glenn Beck’s sidekick nowadays, Sarah Palin, is exactly the kind of corn pone Hitler that America deserves: a badly-educated,
child-like,
-war-mongering opportunist easily manipulated by backstage extremist billionaires who think they don’t have enough money yet.-
This is a Damn good description of Obama, and Bush also.
They are all YES MEN. The congress is full of
Yes Men. Bought and paid for by the big money.
Congress only listens to the rich who finance their campaigns and the poor whose votes they buy
with free checks. They do not care about the
middle class because they already know what the
middle class will do. 50-50 straight down the
middle – Republican / Democrat.
That is the real function of Glenn Beck, and
O’Reilley, and Anne Coulter, and all their opposites on the ‘liberal’ side. Keep the middle
class distracted with Liberal/Conservative so that America’s real rulers can function behind the scenes.
Pure Machiavelli. Divide and conquer. And some
of our best and smartest keep falling for it.
The public said No Tarp and Congress did it anyway.
The public said No War and Congress did it anyway.
Look like Democracy to you?
Not Public Service.
Public Lip Service.
They do not work for you, you work for them.
The only exceptions to that I see are Ron Paul
and Dennis Kucinich. Any others I am missing?
Having lived in Utah for more than a dozen years, Glenn Beck’s performance was strikingly similar to the show Mormons put on during their annual conference – treacly anecdotes, staged sincerity and patriotic bromides. He even made sure that his collar was unbuttoned so the faithful could see he was wearing his Mormon undies and prayed with the characteristic folding of arms. Nothing new here, folks, just a Mormon male acting out his Joseph Smith fantasy on his way to Kolob.
“I guess we shouldn’t force people who don’t want health care to have it should we now”
See, you do understand what I said. Mandatory Healthcare, Mandatory Social Security, and jsut about anything else that is Mandatory from the Federal Government falls on the Tyranny side of the Tyranny vs. Anarchy paradigm. We in the tea party would like to be somewhere in the middle of this. If the government can force you to buy health insurance and force you to save for retirement, what else can’t they force you to do? Save enough for college? Budget enough for groceries? By a section-8 home. Floss your teeth, get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. a lot of these things are “great ideas” but to force the people into them is Tyrrany. Therefore Stalin, Hitler, FDR, G.W., B.H.O., all fall on the side of Tyrrany in that they see government as the solution and tool of a “perfect” society. Remember the Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions. God Bless you Comrade
Redou,
Interesting post and you cite an
interesting political anomaly i.e.,
that our least hypocritical politicos
are at the “outcast” ends of our
parties … Dennis Kucinich for the
Dems and Ron Paul for the Republicans.
You forgot about Bernie Sanders who,
sanely, wanted to AUDIT the Federal
Reserve … a piece of legislation he
sponsored with Ron Paul and which
NEITHER party wanted any piece of.
Jefferson warned us about the “monied
interests” taking over the country but
we’ve overruled him by making government
purchasable by multi-national corporations
and men-in-black plutocrats.
How the Supreme Court could ever vote that
a corporation, originally conceived of as
a PUBLIC TRUST, has the rights of an
INDIVIDUAL is beyond my ken. That one
decision was a dagger in the heart of
our Republic because it legalized the
buying of government.
E.
>>reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country
Some interesting news outside the Fox Corporate Circus distractions:
1)US birthrate had a major decline since the Great
Recession
Although overpopulation is not the sole cause of our running the world out of resources while dumping our various toxins into it, it is certainly good news to slow population growth!
2)The epic traffic jam in China!
http://blogs.wsj.com/drivers-seat/2010/08/26/china-traffic-jam-eases-but-experts-say-it-could-happen-again/
Due to China’s move emulating US auto addiction and truck dependency a major highway has been stuck for days and weeks.
Amazingly enough, a Chinese official I read in I believe the NYTimes said the traffic jam would not be really fixed until 2012!!
The fix?
Completing major rail lines…
Will we wake up in this country to the price of our auto addiction?
I look forward to this blog every Monday, here in Australia our situation is beginning to emerge and it will draw comparisons with the US within 12 months, our economy is one trick and that is China buys minerals from us and we do F@##$ all else. China is buying dirt in bulk for future expansion, this plan will backfire when the US defaults and takes what ever is left of Europe’s fast depleting balloon with it, when world demand for China’s plastic trinkets tank guess what direction Australia is going to take? Our ratio of mortgage to income is 6:1 yours was only 3:1 it doesn’t take a genius to see what happens next.
We’re as dumb as dogshit down under!
We are also China’s fat, greasy, middle-aged, drunk, sloppy, two-dollar a trick WHORE! Monica isn’t the only bitch/slut who wears a semen-encrusted dress, only here in America, we wear an extra large MOO MOO (and love every second of it).
Vlad,
Either you are feeling mellow and agreeable this morning – you’re getting smarter – I’m getting dumber –
Or most likely, times are getting more desperate – but I cannot find anything to disagree with in the words in your post above.
You mention things that may have started out as good ideas, that have metastasized into things that may kill us all:
1. Growth based economy
2. Affirmative action
3. Increasing social program spending
4. Uncontrolled immigration
These things and many others served a noble, even necessary, purpose “back in the day.”
America can no longer be a savior to the World. I do believe we’ll be lucky if we even manage to save ourselves.
=================
Ozone,
I’ve got to disagree on timing. SSI payments, food stamps, etc, with not STOP – but they will be inflated away as years go by.
If the power stays on and the food (higher cost) keeps coming – we won’t have an exciting “doomer style” collapse.
==============
And SNAFU,
Still waiting on a solar PV for peak power cost/benefit analysis. I saw something the other day that said gas should be $12.00/gallon if we included ALL the costs of wars, environmental damage, etc.
And just for you, man – sixty FIFTH!
Fissile said, “If you added up all the IQ scores of the entire Palin nuclear family, I doubt it would total 142.” ROFL!!!
The same could be said about the Bush clan. Look at what a f*cked up country they left us.
Those who say the underlying message is “get that nigger out of the white house” are naive. People say it directly to me all the time even though they know I’m a democrat, but of course this is bar-room conversation, but alcohol loosens the tongue…
Usually they call him B.O. and feel so cutesy clever to have thought that one up, and they call him “that FUKIN nigger in the white house”.
I was at a dinner party Saturday night in a hillside California coastal town and the political talk was an incoherent mash of various talking points, all derivative in nature, which I thought reflected the general sense of bewilderment about our national plight. One of the things that happens when a people finds itself in an insoluble predicament brought about by systemic cumulative mistakes, is they feel lost and bewildered. Anyone who appears to offer a way out makes their ears perk up. I recently watched “Triumph of the will” with its interesting themes of deliverance and national rebirth. Sophisticated propaganda for its time.
Bubblesthecat said, “We’re as dumb as dogshit down under!”
Hell, and I was just about to move down there.
Maybe I’ll go to Alaska instead. :o(
RAW, come to Brazil, plenty of work here, no debt, warm weather, warm belles and/or beaus depending on your predilection.
Plus, Brazilian gov’t bonds pay something like 11%.
Canada is already looking darned attractive! I say, get while the gettins good. Cash, if you’re out there somewhere, please post the name of a reasonably clean Motel 6 on the Canadian side of the border…no excuse me while I finish packing…
@Debtor Loser
The first sixteen presidents owned slaves? Really?
Lincoln? John Adams? John Quincy Adams? Fillmore?
Got some supporting references to substantiate the claim?
JHK, I have followed your column, read, purchased, and distributed (at some cost, financially and personally) your books to friends and family for many years now. I enjoy both your perspective and your fiction. After reading todays comments I am growing increasingly uneasy with your vitrolic hatred, racism, and personnel attacks. Your rage spew and intolerance reminds me of some all time crazies like ummm Hitler. That’s becoming increasingly scary, and I would encourage you to seek help for anger mgmt. I am worried about your mental health and would ask you to at least take a few minutes to honestly evaluate this. Yes I too find times to vent and spew. Later I feel some remorse but I fear your are decontructing at time with this.
As far as your supposed hatred for the Tea Party and its ilk, I understand they are more right leaning than you would like and subject to less than perfect direction in their goals. In another breath you utter where are the supposedly intelligent protesters. They are still for the most part playing it safe and trying to build a margin of cushion around their existence. They are trying to buy a learning curve with their time and resources. Not as noble as hitting the street in protest and maybe fruitless in attaining that but that’s what a lot of them are doing. At least the ones that are engaged.
Yes we lack a leader that can gain and manage a salient perspective with an inclusive message that brings momentum and purpose. That you could have been a person of that talent is constantly burdened with the hate speak, imperfections, and intolerant rants that you so readily accuse others of. If you are unwilling to maintain a standard of decency and decorum why do expect others to?
I leave todays JHK message with even more pessimism that the swirl towards the drain is increasing and questioning why people of good faith would try to find purpose in reaching beyond their families and friends to address the needs beyond that circle. When anything beyond perfection in purpose is labeled and BBQ’d by as evil bunk by men such as you.
Wow, what a bunch of lefty, horseshit drivel today Jim! No sense in going through all your points and how they are just about all completely wrong. Once again, lefty claims of “violent” tea party people is a pure lie, with no evidence to back it up. You want inciters to violence, talk about the black panthers on the National Gepgraphic special wanting to kill all whites, babies and all, or how about your ELF buddies who blow shit up left and right. Yes, the rally where MLK’s niece spoke was anti-black? WTF are you talking about?!?! As far as putting Goldman Sachs executives, etc in jail, why would he? THEY ARE ALL DEMOCRATIC DONORS FOR THE MOST PART! GOLDMAN HAS HISTORICALLY BEEN A HUGE DEM SUPPORTER! BP donated more to Obama than anyone in 20+ years. Really Jim, pull your head out of your lefty asshole and face reality. Your articles on what has, and what is, happening to this country are often right on and I enjoy reading, but the “Old Woodstock hippie” in you still clouds your brain to the reality that it isn’t the”right” that has ruined it all. Both sides have claimed a part and the left, especially these morons in there now, have REALLY fucked it up!
Welles said, “RAW, come to Brazil…”
I already have a standing invitation to come to Brazil. But wouldn’t I be joining the ranks of the millions of landless poor? Or do they still hand out homesteads in the rainforest? How would I quality; I’m afraid of snakes and crocodiles!
Bingo!
Politeness and confusion. My mom thinks Beck is that cat’s meow. She doesn’t understand what’s going on and for her the Beck/Palin axis comes across as reasonable to people who think Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly are essentially correct but too hostile.
I think you’d find many people in the Tea Party movement [and their sympathizers] fall into that category. But Beck and Palin are a trap who would lead them right back to Republican Party.
I have a fear that Sarah Palin will get elected President in 2012, there will be a terrorist attack in February 2013, and President Palin will respond by deporting all foreigners living in America and refusing to allow any Americans to leave the country. Americans already living abroad will be rounded up and forced to return home. Anyone caught sneaking into Canada will be shot . . . from a helicopter.
“Ozone,
I’ve got to disagree on timing. SSI payments, food stamps, etc, with not STOP – but they will be inflated away as years go by.
If the power stays on and the food (higher cost) keeps coming – we won’t have an exciting “doomer style” collapse.” -PoC
The “safety net” references were “questionable” future occurrences, just to put some kind of face on what MIGHT be a final trigger. Get me?
(Geez, I’m having a hard time today with the ol’ synapses. Um… “There will be some unknowable [at present] trigger that will open the floodgates of madness-inspired violence; but open they shall”. Better? More worser? ;o)
As to power and food? There’s that “if”, ain’t there? How’d that turn out in Iraq after the glorious liberation?
P.S. “Exciting” wouldn’t be the word I’d put on it. (Something closer to “horror” would be my personal choice.)
May you live in interesting times! :o)
PoC,
Oh… nevermind. Just read Wardoc’s post again, and know that I agree. Ha! (Too thumped to think today.)
Great question…what indeed will it take. My current research is related to self-censorship so this is truly a fascinating topic for me and startlingly frustrating as a citizen. And furthermore why are we so damn receptive to propaganda and don’t understand where the money is coming from to fund these morons and their distorted messages?
Anyway, I too would love to find answers to the question of why people don’t speak up. Please feel free to check out my plea for your stories…
The Localizer Blog>Free speech stories
“Why do you despise everyone that at least tries, and gets out on the street?”
WTF Welles? Usually, JHK laments our collective lack of civic involvement. I’ll take a stab here that maybe he despises the lack of self-reflection, awareness, and authenticity that give a social movement credibility. If he doesn’t, I certainly see the baggers that way.
The TPM is run by lobbyists, political hacks, dimwits like Beck and Palin, and FoxNews. Most thinking Americans avoid those types and see the followers of these fakes as angry, greedy, bitter, racists (which many teabaggers seem to be).
Here’s what I see in your rant, Welles. Kunstler hit a little too close to home and you over-reacted. He’s right on this one and it makes you angry as hell. The frequently made point at this blog is that there are few (and possibly no) viable options for a thoughtful, effective social movement toward sanity in this country. The TPM is certainly no option. It’s full of guys like you.
As to the South and air conditioning. I sure wish we had just let the South secede all those years ago. Southerners and preachers, and snake-oil sailsmen like Beck, Palin, et.al. have ruined political discourse in this country. Good riddance to ’em, I say.
FYI: The government doesn’t “make” you draw from Social Security. You don’t have to collect a cent if you don’t want to. Many high income people I know don’t because it’s disadvantageous at tax time. There are a few little things about S.S., CFN, you might find interesting. The OMB is considering getting rid of the option of early retirees paying S.S. back if those folks change their minds and wish to put off receiving their checks until they reach full retirement age (ie, 62 instead of 65). Currently if you draw early and change your mind, you can pay back whatever you drew and collect at whatever your normal retirement age is (65-67, depending on y.o.b.). Also, I worked for the State Department years ago, and still know some fairly high up people at OMB. Apparently the PTB there are playing around with the idea of a proposal that anybody born on or later than January 1st, 1960, will have to wait until they are 72 to collect early S.S. and 75 for full S.S. (at which time, there won’t BE any more payouts).
Wow, Desert Dawg, are you still stuck in Saigon….errrr….Baghdad? After 8 years of Bush and his clan destroying this country, you are so stupid as to put the blame on BO? Unbelievable. Where do you dolts come from?
Friend, I don’t even live in the US, I live in Brazil. I have no alignment with the T.Party other than admiring the fact they at least recognize the ghastly corrupt US gov’t for what it is and take to the streets in an effort to force some change.
Guy like me want guys like you to pay 10% max taxes and have freedom of speech, and after that, the freedom to do whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t harm other people.
Get the gov’t the fuck out of our lives. That’s the extent of my political leanings.
The point is that they are making you save for retirement trough taxation. It doesn’t matter if you use it or not later. I don’t believe they have the Constitutional Authority to do it and because it is “Tyranny with a smile”. The Commies & Nazi’s social programs and social safety nets too.
Jim, I am really surprised by this article on Glen Beck. It’s not like he is evil as you have would have me believe. So, what if he is a recovering addict, over half of the population is on some kind of drug, addicted and not doing anything about it. My only beef with GB is the infusion of God angle, into politics. He obviously has not read Ayn Rand on objectivism, and why we are in such a mess.
He is wrong only on one account and that is the rights are granted by nature on some unseen entity.
I applaud him for his stance on what he believes in Just as you are Jim on yours. Hate is a double edge sword, mostly hurting the user.
On the spiritual ways of Pennsylvania Dutch hunters who bonded with the Lenni Lenape Indians: “Secret knowledge hides even more deeply in bad times. …This is the type of knowledge ‘the Grid’ always suppresses. We live under an institutional machine that wants all power in their hands. It has spent centuries hunting down old pockets of knowledge and attempting to wipe them out. The fight goes on today…-Dennis Boyer
It’s sad to see someone of intelligence sink as low as this hate filled diatribe that projects evil and racism on anyone who displays dissatisfaction with America’s untenable situation. Beck is a well meaning fool. Simplistic demonizations such as “nazi” and “n-word haters” for Beck and his followers do nothing but magnify your contempt and disdain for most of humanity. Every week you go to great lengths to demonstrate you are not subject to the same human foibles as the rest of us, and end up pridefully demonstrating , with accusation, invective and vitriol, that you are exactly like the rest of us failed humans.
Perfect description of the way it really is.
BECK ON BECK (excerpt from FoxNews Sunday interview, Aug. 29, 2010)
First, Beck said, in no uncertain terms, that Obama is racist.
Now Beck says his comment was “not accurate.”
What will Beck’s “position” be next week?
Should the comments of a clown matter?
Talk about reaching a tipping point- today’s blog really got the debate moving. That’s a good thing in that it gives people a chance to discuss their competing perceptions of the Tea Party movement.
There’s one point [maybe more] that I’d like to get out there: despite the personalization and demonization of politics both political parties [and the TPM] are steered by events beyond their control with a consistent internal logic that goes beyond good and evil.
Politics has been described as the art of the possible- well, in the early 70s the US got a wake up call in the form of oil shocks and instead of pursuing a different path we decided that there was too much invested in the consumerist/suburban organizing principle to just walk away from it.
The consequences that are bearing fruit now: the perversion of the petrodollar regime into an asset stripping game though ponzi finance, endless wars in the Middle East and the consolidation of power into fewer hands centered around first access to oil and money.
Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats were interested in stopping this because the lesson from the 1980 election was clear: we want consumerism and we want suburbia. The electorate made that choice, so let’s get past the name calling. Both parties know where their bread’s buttered.
Regarding middle America/the South I offer this: the Republican party grabbed hold of these groups partly because of the Nixon’s racist Southern Strategy but there’s more to it than that. The division between left and right in this country is far deeper than the mere political labels have you believe. There is an urban/rural divide in this nation that has been unresolved since before the Civil War and the GOP has cleverly marketed itself to the rural mythology even though they don’t believe in it themselves.
That mythology starts with the idea that people are largely capable of taking care of themselves and when that’s not possible, family steps into fill the gaps.
From there the mythology moves to ideas of small business and entrepreneurship serving as the cornerstones of an economy that serves the consumer and the producer. When you consider that agriculture is the basis of a lot of the Red States’ economies this makes sense: farmers are killed by the low agricultural prices that city dwellers demand so they can afford living in the city and the luxury goods they have access to.
TPM is about limited, local government: because it’s far easier to control the excesses of people in Topeka, Denver or Montgomery than it is people in Washington.
That’s the appeal of people like Beck and Palin to flyover country. They can tune into the ideas of self-sufficiency and community and make it seem like the Republican Party shares those values when in fact they do not.
For people who live in cities surrounded by strangers it sounds like a bunch of nonsense because the city isn’t a place where you get food from working the soil, family is not a source of economic strength and the neighbor down the street isn’t there to help you fix a hole in your roof.
The urban logic is built around maintaining a sense of order because there are far more details to contend with as opposed to a rural community. The fact that liberals are willing to at least pay lip service to helping out the people at the bottom of the food ladder is compassionate in an urban context but it’s a completely foreign compassion to rural dwellers who see compassion as action, not money- especially money extracted under the threat of prison time.
These competing mythologies run deep. I know why the urban left finds the rural mythology hokey and completely unhinged from reality but it is as real and valid to them as the urban mythology is to the city dwellers.
In my mind, the Long Emergency is about the recociliation of these opposing conceptions of what it means to be an American and we’d do well to at least make an attempt to understand the world from each other’s viewpoints instead of resorting to cliches, name calling and the rest of the nonsense that passes for debate these days.
The quote is actually “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”
“He is wrong only on one account and that is the rights are granted by nature on some unseen entity.”
I’m not following you here… where do you see rights flowing from?
Paul Kemp,
We have no leaders.
We are adrift and going down.
So I am getting ready, as best I can.
JHK, you really outdid yourself this time; I didn’t realize that the English language had so many adjectives. Anyway, keep up the good work, and let us all pray for Glenn’s hemorrhoids. Most of us love you.
JHK, your column this week was an enjoyable read.
Thank you for speaking your truth.
Sarah doesn’t need us praying for her.
Obama has proven by his words that he is unequivocal racist – just as much as you are. But I’m no Beck supporter. His attempt to draw on the checkered legacy on MLK is a true farce. As Sharpton said, MLK was a big goverment guy all the way. In truth, he was a closet communist.
To call a White a nazi is like calling a Black a nigger. JHK started it, why don’t you condemn him first? That you see nothing wrong with it makes you a bigot too. Get off your high horse Helen.
Myrtlemay said, “Sarah doesn’t need us praying for her.”
Why is that? Because she thinks she’s the chosen one, as Tea Partiers would have her believe?
ROFL
DesertDawg,
Good to have you back. This thread seems oversupplied with outspoken left wingers (some say that includes me, but I’m more of a pragmatic libertarian).
So if you can represent the right wing on here, good on you! You said,
===============
Both sides have claimed a part and the left, especially these morons in there now, have REALLY fucked it up!
================
And I’ll agree with you on that!
I’d also ask you to acknowledge that there is *some* percentage of Tea Party or RW conservatives who are open or “hidden” racists. I mean, I’m a “southern boy” by birth, and it’s obvious to me that this is true – I just don’t know what that number is – 5%? – 15% ??
And can you try to explain why it is that most of the right wingers I know seem so devoted to petroleum, coal, and nuclear as energy sources?
And *they* don’t want to consider conservation or green power – only the by God American right to have what we want when we want it – future be damned!
Like, why is drilling in ANWR now such a great idea? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a little American owned oil “in the ground” for 25 or 50 or 100 years from now when the rest of the world really runs out.
=============
And HEY, CFN there’s no point at attacking DD here personally – the man’s entitled to state his beliefs and defend them.
He might just make some of us think – and that might aid survival.
Maybe?
And all of y’all need to look at JHK’s post from July 4. It’s better than GB and BO put together.
http://kunstler.com/blog/2010/07/my-tea-party.html
Now if we could just attach these ideas to a cute pair of legs like SP – except with a better brain, perhaps ?? 😉
That’s a joke – don’t go all crazy on me, feminists.
Sir it’s time to take off the teddy bear suit and put on the man. Get ready to defend yourself and your neighbors when the hungry, dark hordes came ravening out into the countryside looking for food. And yes, some of the dark, evil horde will be unprepared Whites.
I am for the most part a big fan of JHK. I enjoy the Kunstlercast regularly and I have read nearly all his works. I am frequently confused, however, by his writings in CFN. In his other works, Jim frequently sings the praises of small towns and the small town,rural way of life, but his weekly CFN columns are frequently devoted towards painting the sort of people who make up small town and rural America in the crudest and ugliest caricature.
Guy like me want guys like you to pay 10% max
==
Why 10%?
If you want the gov mafia off your back, you need to bring that rate to zero. You need to kill the gov mafia. And you also need to get the gov mafia out of the currency counterfeiting business. People can do fine pooling their local resources and creating their own local bank and currency. Why the need for the thieving gov mafia taking at a minimum 3% per year of people’s purchasing power thru its counterfeiting money printing operation?
Uh Maineiac, WTF are you talking about? Please tell me what I said that wasn’t true and where did I say it’s all Obama’s fault? I actually didn’t even mention his name, except for the donations part. Jeez you lefty hacks just have your typical talking point responses without reading posts.Bush AND JUST EVERY OTHER MEMBER OF CONgress (Dem and Rep) got us into war. BOTH!!! Housing mess was mainly from barney fag and company and the exorbitant spending by Bush and the Repubs was in line with what the Dem side usually does and is WRONG NO MATTER WHO IS IN CONTROL! Bush was an idiot letting the spending get out of control, BUT it has QUADRUPLED under Obama in 18months! Those are facts! I love how the typical response is about Bush, 10 yrs, Blah, blah, blah. the ONLY thing Bush did right was cut taxes..period. The open border problem balooned under him! It’s been both parties screwing this country and as far as wars, a Dem president has been at the helm for most of them. Dolt? Yeah, I agree where do YOU clowns come from??
@ m_barton –
Thanks for such a well-reasoned post.
I agree, mostly. At one time, I was deeply involved in political consulting — at arms length. What I saw in places like Arkansas and Louisiana and other rural parts of the nation was just the sort of disconnect you mention.
In particular, I remember Oklahoma, where we had to record “locals” who were in support of our right-wing candidate. They ACTUALLY BELIEVED that he was a “good, god-fearing man.” Unprompted, this came up repeatedly. To my Eastern, big city ears, it sounded like something from another time, but these folks weren’t afraid to make such a statement.
The sad part, of course, is that they buy into this narrative and elect candidates who are fully aware of just how easy it is to use this mythology to manipulate them. They never really “know” these politicians and have no real idea if they are “god fearing Christians” or not.
But as you note, perhaps the naivete goes both ways. Liberals wanted to believe in “change.” My Okie friends wanted to believe in “no change.”
And none of use really know “the truth.”
Pilt
Certainly NOT John Adams or John Quincy Adams. I’d have to look up the others. Yes on Washington and Jefferson (as everyone knows). The Adamses were avowedly ANTISLAVERY. Slavery was also outlawed in Massachusetts (where the Adamses lived) in 1783 (Elizabeth “Mumbet” Freeman with her lawyer Theodore Sedgwick successfully argued that the newly-adopted State Constitution declared all men free and equal, so that slavery must be unconstitutional).
I read a good quote the other day…
“We are in a moving car heading straight towards a brick wall, and everyone is arguing about where they will sit.”
All I hear coming out of the Tea Party is hate. Hatred of illegal immigrants, so-called liberals (whatever that word even means anymore), gays, the government, other races, and on-and-on. Not all the Tea Partiers hate the same things, but they are united in that smug feeling of hating something. Doesn’t it make you feel good?
What is doubly ironic in this whole situation is that many of the Tea Partiers come from states that receive more money back from the Fed than any of the big blue states like California, Illinois, or New York. Alabama and Florida get back, what, like $2 for every $1 in taxes? My uncle is a proto-bagger, and guess what, he retired early and gets Social Security. It is so funny.
welles, you’re way off base. The Tea Party is funded by Fox News and a few conservative billionaires just like JHK says in his article. About 10 minutes of research will pull up that fact. And, indeed, the agenda of these organizations is to trash the remaining social safety net, so they can cash in on it. The whole movement resembles a pack of lemmings.
And, you know, any movement that wraps itself in the flag AND simultaneously claims to be a Christian movement is disgusting to my political sensibilities. It would have been to all the Founding Fathers, too. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what Jefferson and Ben Franklin had to say about Beck?
Just want to let “y’all” know,if you plan on moving to canada there will be IQ tests performed at the border ,this is the reason why http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seYUbVa7L7w
Hey pro-con, I’m not really a right winger, just pragmatic and realistic. I think our military should be out of foreign countries, except for special ops to keep an eye on things, not to engage and blow shit up and then rebuild it. Our military should be lined up on ALL of our borders and protect US! That is their job! As far as energy sources, I can’t speak for anyone else, but the fact is that nuclear is the most efficient and clean with today’s technology and coal and oil are the driving energy forces in the world. We need to produce more here because it gives us more independence and more importantly…JOBS. The greenies all talk about getting rid of these sources, well, those industries provide MANY, MANY jobs and we don’t need job killing! Wind doesn’t produce shit and solar could work well in places like AZ, NV, FL, etc, but not in Seattle, Oregon, etc! To think we can have efficient energy being completely off coal, gas and oil is pure ignorance. Remember all the other sources need equipment, which has to be manufactured…and what is providing the energy source? Right, coal, oil, gas.
As far as some Tea party people being racist, I’m sure there are. I personally haven’t seen it and it has NEVER been shown, as hard as MSNBC and CNN have tried to make it that way. It’s a cross section of people,and with any large group you get good and bad, but to categorize that movement as such is a lie. Will you acknowledge that there are racists on the left? There’s a clear cut example of that that I gave an example of in my earlier post. I agree that overconsumption and greed of I want it now exists, but again, this isn’t just the right, it’s America’s problem and the dirty little secret, that’s a fact, is that most of the big “evil” corporations and banks (which some, not all, are) have historically given bigger donations to the Dem candidates . here’s a link to see how much Obama got…it CRUSHES what McCain got.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?id=N00009638&cycle2=2008&goButt2.x=9&goButt2.y=5&goButt2=Submit
My uncle is a proto-bagger, and guess what, he retired early and gets Social Security. It is so funny.
SS just pays you back what you put into it, unless you outlive your contributions. How’s that living off the gov’t teat as you imply?
Once and for all, I don’t belong to the Tea Party, I don’t contribute to them, I merely admire the fact that they at least get out on the streets and voice their discontent.
Left/Right is Matrix Programming in your head so you’ll think there’s a difference between parties.
Not all the Tea Partiers hate the same things, but they are united in that smug feeling of hating something.
Tell us literally how many Tea Partyers you know & have sounded out about what they hate.
I don’t personally know any, but see that they take to the streets sort of Greece-lite. We need convulsion like that.
It just keeps getting weirder and weider…
“Last week on “Fox and Friends,” the Bush administration flacks Dan Senor and Dana Perino attacked a supposedly terrorism-tainted Saudi prince whose foundation might contribute to the Islamic center. But as “The Daily Show” keeps pointing out, these Fox bloviators never acknowledge that the evil prince they’re bashing, Walid bin Talal, is not only the biggest non-Murdoch shareholder in Fox News’s parent company (he owns 7 percent of News Corporation) and the recipient of Murdoch mammoth investments in Saudi Arabia but also the subject of lionization elsewhere on Fox.”
Wrong!!!! Just plain wrong
Hi, welles.
My uncle didn’t work that much. He’ll get far more back than he paid in if he lives to a ripe old age. Plus he retired early. I’m sure he’ll be loving the Medicaid, too. Point is not that those programs are bad. It is that railing against taxes and the government while you line up for handouts is kind of an odd political position.
The pulse of the whole Tea Party thing is hate, welles. Maybe you can’t see that from afar. I see it over here in the US from the way Fox News conduct themselves 24/7 to the torrent of pure hate launched at Obama via the internet. The Tea Parties are mostly not grass roots movements. They are constructs of the far right fed by constant attention on Fox News. It may look spontaneous from afar, but it isn’t.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html?_r=1
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
To me, the issue is the coupling of all these conservative “principles” with the basic idea of fiscal reform of the government. In other words, there is no need to tie together love of Jesus and guns with wanting the government to control spending. I respect those on all sides who bring a reasoned, common-sense approach to these issues and disentangle their personal politics from issues like fiscal prudence.
If you want to put your finger on the wild side, just look at the shout-filled NYC Mosque protests fueled by pure hate and speculation by Fox News. Or the wild, hate-filled rants about illegal immigration that fill the internet blogs and comments sections in your newspaper. This is not a reasoned political movement. This is a pack of dogs that want someone or something to blame for the way things have gone. And they are out for blood.
our JIMMY use to ‘ believe in barak hussein, but no longer. hence the ‘ bitterness of betrayal’….wish the 18 to 29ers that got the bastard into the white house id impeach him with as much fervor as they helped to elect him with, now that so many of them are unemployed they have the free time, might as well do something useful with it!
‘nevermind the LACK of racism and nazi invective coming out of the tea party or Beck’….
if its not there just invent it!
racism is a term oft used in an effort to silence an opponent or perceived opponent.
JHK,
No offense, but how in hell do you know that the financial and health care reform bills will not change anything? They are long and complicated, because laws in these areas are baroque and voluminous. So reform bills had to cover a lot. If you’re so confused and don’t know what those two bills actually do, how can you possibly say that they won’t do any good? It is okay to say you don’t know. But claiming you understand the bills when you don’t is disingenuous.
Also, what’s with blaming the POTUS for the legislation passed by the Congress? The Congress makes the laws in this great land, not the Executive Branch. The POTUS has the option to veto, but Obama uses it sparingly. Because Congress is with him politically, and the laws they pass reflect the majority view, more or less. Are you mad Obama hasn’t vetoed these bills? Why would he? How do you know the finance and health bills were not good ones?
Democracy is about compromise, which few of you on this blog seem to understand. Laws and viewpoints will never align 100% with whatever specific brand of right/left politics you have chosen. If you are looking for politicians or parties that agree with you 100%, well, good luck. You’ll never find it. That’s just the nature of the game. No need to get all mad about it and join a Tea Party.
Well you successfully did not answer either of my questions/retorts to you. Reread & come back, or desist.
Well, hey, thanks for your detailed explanation about why I am wrong. So grateful for your thoughts and counter-points.
You join a long line of internet douche bags who assume they have won the argument in their first, content-free post on a thread. Next I assume you will call me a liberal, or maybe if I’m luck, a Commie?
What questions/retorts might those be, sir?
‘Hopey changey was Pablum for the lefties’
cudos……now try getting our Jim to agree, fat chance!
Jeeezus…go to my 2:19 reply to your reply, in which i specifically axed you [yeah i know it’s not a fucking word] to explain yourself on two points. God [in a non-religious way], pay attention man!
‘She is a certified nutjob with ties to
the Scientology movement which is as
insidious and insane as a “religion” can
get’
and arriana huffington is with that dreadful old queen jon-rogers…tell that to those at huffington post!
see a book called ‘ life 102 ‘ by mc williams.
and her hubbys $ came from the timor slaughter plus he tried to buy his way into office with the most expensive campaign california elections had seen TILL THEN.
where does it end?
as yogi berra said ‘ it aint over till its over’
welles,
Answering one of your points (I think):
I don’t know any Tea Partiers personally, because I am not in Bagger territory. I have seen and read plenty from various news sources about and from them (they get a lot of media attention here in the States), including tv news, major newspaper stories, blogs, and many internet comments.
So am I allowed to draw some conclusions from these dozens of different media sources that I’ve seen over the last few years, or do I need to go out and meet these people in person?
Because I simply don’t want to, nor do I feel that I need to.
My post did not present the actual situation 100%. The Tea Partiers and similar groups are actually a big grab bag of different ideologies, political viewpoints, and prejudices. You have the anti-illegal immigrant crowd, the tax haters, the social conservatives, those who hate Obama, etc. That’s why you rarely see much of a positive agenda coming out of that movement, because in reality it is not a very coherent political movement.
What I object to is the shoe horning in of more “conservative” Republicans, when it is this exact crew of dingbats that backed Bush in his disastrous conservative agenda of 2000-2008. Why do people want these apes back in office again?
Say what you will about Democrats. That party has its issues. But acting like Republicans are the answer is a joke. They caused or exacerbated many of the problems we are dealing with in Obama’s administration. Conservatives are angry about where we’re at due to….the policies of the last conservative administration. Makes a whole lot of sense, doesn’t it?
What was your other point?
Greetings,
I thought that having only two bought and paid for candidates in the last election was somewhat abhorrent so I worked gathering signatures to put Nader on the ballot in Arizona. This futile exercise taught me quite a bit about American politics.
First, people screamed at me, threatened me with physical violence and threw things at me when I asked them to allow Nader on the ballot. I explained to the people that they didn’t have to vote for Nader but should allow him to run since this is America and all that jazz.
I talked to hundreds of people and all I could manage was 14 signatures – it was pathetic.
Now we will reap what we have sown.
welles,
No need to get your titties in a bunch. I answered both your questions with a few different comments.
Neither of your “points” was really very substantial, however.
To review:
Uncle retired very early and will likely live a long time. Uncle will definitely get back more than he paid in from SS. Uncle is a typical conservative, with no shame. The idea of personal hypocrisy in all this doesn’t even enter his mind. I’m sure he’ll be all over Medicaid when that’s available to him. My point was not that government programs are bad. It was to point out that we need to have a rational discussion about this, not subscribe to idiotic mantras like “government bad, free market good.”
No, I haven’t met any Tea Baggers in person. So what? They constantly troll the internet with brainless comments about Obama being a Muslim and a Communist, and that’s more than enough contact for me. I don’t need to meet these people in person to decide that they’re full of it.
folks…
how many US citizens are:
unemployed/underemployed?
on foodstamps?
declaring bankruptcy each year?in serious debt?
on social secruity? in the military?
and how many illegals have been given a green light?how many wetbacks are in this cuntry?
how many anchor babies a year?
Jim’s best writing in years. The whining in the comments is out of control as well as the Internet-Tough-Guy, right wing baggage.
A lot of you need to get your own blogs and find out how little what you have to say means to others.
agreed, jims writing this time gets an ‘F’ minus!
and this is assokas from y’day:
Moving Mexican immigrants back south of the border will not solve the climatic changes that are cooking our planet.
…………………we never said it would
Moving Mexican immigrants back south of the border will not rescue the oceans we depend on for life.
…nor is that the purpose in doing so
Moving Mexican immigrants back south of the border will not move forward legislation to address these problems. In late July, the US Senate decided to do exactly nothing about climate change.
Senate majority leader Harry Reid decided not even to schedule a vote on legislation that would have capped carbon emissions.
ass suka the tipping points been reached..the ‘limits’ been breached
The so-called “illegal” immigrant “problem” and the rants calling for “protecting our borders” ………………………….so called eh assuka
and those who focus on “illegals” are distracting us from saving the planet.
assuka you cant save anything let alone a planet with 7 billion humans busy destroying GAIA
Someone should do one of those Downfall videos with this title “Hitler discovers he’s being compared to Sarah Palin”
with 1/3 ? of Pakistan underwater, moscow aflame,
ice the size of 4 manhattans a driftin but JHK is a hatin..at least in todays post!
First, Beck said, in no uncertain terms, that Obama is racist.
Now Beck says his comment was “not accurate.”
What will Beck’s “position” be next week?
==================
Is anyone here as awestruck as me? Asoka, of all people, is taking Beck to task for inconsistency.
Yeah, but the problem is, you ARE forcing government healthcare, with all the bureaucratic red tape and cost it will entail, on people who don’t want it
And you’re also forcing them to foot the bill for others who took up addictive lifestyles — smoking, drugs, or McFries, whatever — which are encouraged by the Big Pharma/Big Farming/Big Food corporatocracy.
How come the idea of “fairness” in liberal politics always requires stealing from somebody?
What do you do when the haters decry hatred with an awesome display of hatery? This page has become the saddest place.
Excellent column today, JHK. I’ve been waiting to read something useful about Beck’s rally in Washington (not much coverage here in Canada) and this was it, along with a lot of food for thought.
The poster who talked about the urban/rural split is quite correct in assigning that significant importance. I’m watching a tv series now about the history of the Appalachin mountains and its people, and today’s struggle would appear to be an updated version of what the rich city people did to the unsophisticated land owners there, stealing their land through trickery and then using them as virtual slaves in their coal mines.
I understand why the Tea Partiers are angry, and why they are so vulnerable to the likes of Palin and Beck. I guess a bad solution is better than none at all. Their ability to think for themselves, if they ever had it, has been wiped away by the blandishments of popular non-culture, with the strings being pulled by those too smart by half Eastern advertising shamans who tell them what to think and what to love and hate.
But to those of you who think Canada is a haven from all that, I’m very sorry to tell you we have a government and a leader who think they are republicans and George W. Bush respectively. Not noticing that those clowns were voted out, our brave boys are busy erasing civil rights, building more and bigger prisons to house all the victims of their war on crime and war on drugs (sound familiar?) and they are certainly waging war against women, immigrants, and our native population.
Most significantly, they have developed a handbook for their government Members to disrupt and derail bipartisan committees so nothing gets done. Just like the republicans you have who just say NO to everything so nothing gets done.
I’m not a big conspiracy theorist, but it’s hard not to believe that your republicans and our conservatives are not collaborating to destroy the very foundation of our democracies.
We may not have a Tea Party here yet officially, but the government sponsored boosting of fundamentalist Christain beliefs suggests the seed has been planted.
I’m afraid we’re too close to you to avoid the same fate. Only difference is we still have plenty of undeveloped land left. The soil may not be the best, and it will be cold in the winter, but it’s still there for the brave souls ready for a challenge.
wow I don’t know who’s a bigger asshole…Beck, Palin, or KUNSTLER!!!
My question would be:
Why do you care? It’s likely you’ve got warrants for tax evasion waiting for you here. Enjoy what you’ve got where you are. I don’t see you’ve a dog in this here fight or [to mix metaphors] an ox to be gored.
I seem to remember seeing JHK being on the Beck show a few years ago. (Shortly after “the Long Emergency.” Might have been on the CNN show before Beck moved to Fox.) JHK was being interviewed as an expert on Peak Oil. Oddly, I don’t remember any name calling by either side. As I recall, Beck was sympathetic to JHK, and this was after JHK had already called Beck a nitwit or something on this site.
Was JHK on the show because he was then sympathetic to Beck, or wanted to use any medium to advance the Peak Oil story, or just selling out in order to sell books?
I agree. Over the past year or so, there’s come to be least as much bias, anger and slander on this site as at the worst of the Tea Party rallies.
Readers and writers here assure themselves of their superiority by running down whole bunches of people — Southerners, Jews, Tea Partiers, whatever — en masse. They’re stupid. They’re fat. They don’t think like we do!
Isn’t slandering large groups of people by assigning them stereotypical attributes the definition of racism? Or is that only valid if it’s done on the basis of skin color?
Like the libs and the repubs, JHK and Glenn Beck are two sides of the same coin.
Holt on thar, Vince.
It’s my contention that stupidity and ignorance are dangerous (and becoming moreso every day).
Beck is the personification of these. Besides, even he knows he’s a huckster. I’ve got a documentary you won’t want to see about the Beck-inator. He doesn’t have an original or sincere idea in his big, fat, tear-stained head.
I wouldn’t trust that charlatan as far as I could throw his big, fat, white ass.
I’d say you’re right for the most part, but essentially the tea party’s core motives are sound. It would be too presumptuous to call them racist or completely unaware of the government’s incompentency to resolve the country’s crisis. Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are not exactly economic and social saviors, but they’re better than the trainwreck administration that treats keynesian politics like an over eager 16 year old driving a new car.
It’s likely you’ve got warrants for tax evasion waiting for you here.
It’s not against the law to owe taxes if you’ve filed & can’t pay.
And one more thing. People on this site like to bitch about the corporatocracy, inept government, and the slow slide of this country down the tubes.
Yet the Tea Partiers are actually doing something about it.
Maybe folks here ought to quit justifying their own biased views by cherry-picking the inevitable racists that take advantage every movement (including the left) and see if a bottom-up, populist uprising isn’t just what the doctor ordered.
Asoka’s comments about moving Mexican immigrants back to Mexico, and that action not saving the planet, are based on comments made over the weekend on the last JHK post, comments by Prog-Con and others regarding immigrants changing their lifestyles to reflect the consumerist American ideal when they move here…and thus using more than “their fair share” of the world’s resources…that being the justification for opposing ALL immigration…that the U.S. must “SEAL ITS BORDERS” to protect what resources we have left here. Phew. Anyways, that’s what Asoka was referring to. I don’t mean that he agrees with that…quite the opposite…I don’t agree with it either…but it’s a long-running argument here at CFN in the comments section.
Hee hee hee. Good one.
Bread and Circuses!
At this late date, how many don’t understand that Glenn, Sarah, Barack, Bush, McCain et al are just clowns in a Circus bought and paid for by the financial pirates that own and run USA?? They seem to be doing an effective job of keeping sheeple distracted while the bosses keep ratcheting up the percentage they extract from those not collecting the “bread”.
To be a bit more blunt, executives from Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch are never going to federal prison, because job one of goverment minions (and every president since Kennedy except Carter is included) is to keep them safe.
The Tea Party is a bit of a problem though, (can’t have an independent voice for truth and reform) so the democlowns have orders to defame and detract; the republiclowns have orders to infiltrate, consolidate and co-opt; effective work there as well.
I have no interest in who will be next captain of the Titanic. The USA economic system is built on fraud and extortion, and is getting long in the tooth. The bosses are trying to set up some (world) replacement in the shadows before it collapses. I am not sure whether to hope it collapses before they are ready or hope it lasts longer to help me prepare for the inevitable.
While a potential problem, I am no longer worried about peak oil. I think that peak food, peak debt, peak climate or peak government will hit us first, if not pre-empted by a massive solar storm that knocks out the grid and the internet.
Lastly, JHK, relative to speaking the truth. It is obvious that you know more than i about what is happening. Why don’t you put it out there in nice simple terms? Afraid of being found floating in a swimming pool, like Matt Simmons?
Not really. The “lefties,” whatever that means, were going to vote for Obama anyway. The promise of hope and change was for the folks in the middle, the discouraged voters, and those who were voting for the first time. The so-called “lefties” were already onboard.
That’s a pretty strong brew you’ve prepared for us this week, Jim. A bit too bitter for my tastes, but most everything coming out of the kitchens of our intellectuals these days is
over-cooked, or under-done, or simply lacking some important ingredient. Like compassion, for instance.
These people whom you collectively dismiss as “Nazis” (and not just “Nazis”, but worse, corn-pone “Nazis”, which comes across as sneering Yankee condescension mixed with elitist
bile) are no doubt a crazy quilt of middle American angst and frustration. But these folk have been driven by neglect and indifference into the arms of wealthy manipulators and scheming politicians, because the educated liberals in this country have become far too smart and discriminating for their own mother’s home cooking, and now sup exclusively in the dining rooms of privilege, where the walls echo with a noisy analysis of haute cuisine and organic farming.
Beck and Palin are surely the deranged minions of corporate capitalism, but to accuse the frightened people gathering around their podium of genocidal tendencies is really to bluster into the same hyperbolic rhetorical style as used by Limbaugh and Hannity and, yes, Beck and Palin.
I’m sure you do it out of the same reflexive disgust most of us feel when we see or hear idiots lecturing the common folk with poisonous advice.
But this ranting of yours goes well beyond curmudgeonly indigestion and has become the acid reflux of a man with an Archie Bunker-like belly full of self-consuming ulcers. Which is truly the most predictable of all transformations, where youthful meathead bleeding heart liberal becomes an aging hateful ulcerative reactionary.
I think it’s probably a good idea to ditch the name calling and condescension and look for ways to re-establish real communication with our cousins who live outside the city limits. It won’t be easy, because they have become understandably distrustful of the slick Harvard dialect that could not conceal its disgust for the common vernacular. But it must be done, because reconciliation is the only way out of this mess. The next civil war will certainly destroy a nation that is already so fractured and split it may never recover.
A prayer for healing is one prayer I have absolutely no trouble saying, even in the presence of my own agnosticism.
Word
The Tea Party wasn’t any kind of a movement — at least not one with any kind of unified thought — until the plutocrats co-opted the useful idiots that are the teabaggers.
Originally, all you had was a gaggle of pissed off people, who really had no idea exactly what they were pissed off at. They were mad at “the government,” but not for not doing its job (which I am mad it for). They believe that government was the cause of their problems, when actually it is the corporations.
They want to respond by reducing government regulation and oversight of the abusive corporations, which would only make the teabaggers’ problems worse. They want to kick all the Congresspeople out of town, leaving the dominance in Washington to the 14,000 well-oiled and well-heeled corporate lobbyists.
Imagine a Washington with all greenhorn members of Congress, who don’t even know where the bathroom is, never mind understand the rules — and also needing lots of cash for the next election, which is coming like a freight train — being at the mercy of soulless lobbyists who have warehouses full of potential campaign donations — and who know exactly how the system works, almost too well.
It would be a slaughter of biblical proportions.
Talk to 10 teabaggers and you will get 12 different explanations of the causes of their anger and 15 potential remedies, all self-defeating.
Were they ever to get control, it would bring about a power struggle that would make the French Reign of Terror or the aftermath of the Russian Revolutions look like a Sunday school picnic.
Cool. I’ll have to try that.
Apparently you invent new words like “hatery.”
indeed. a new word was required for this level of pointless fuckery.
Hit me up with a PM if you want more info.
People in Mississippi are so angry at the government…
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html
That they get back $2.02 for every $1 they pay out.
And it seems that all the liberal states with the exception of Texas get back less than they pay in.
That is a provacative thought that I would imagine many Canadians have pondered.
I would like to think we would welcome with open arms all you “reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose” who want to get the hell out”. On the other hand, I believe that although on the surface there appears to be so much we have in common (the list is extensive), we do have some fundamental differences.
Our respective lefts and rights are not true mirror images of one another. Our “right” tends to reflect your “left” much more signficantly.
My fear is (and no disrespect is intended here) that with a flood of people you describe, this country might very well start veering further to the right than it already is with our current government, and that is not something many of us (despite who is currently in government) relish.
Should it come to that, I think it could be an amazing transformation for this country.
Talk all you want about hate. The bottom line is that the Tea Partiers subscribe to a version of recent history that is flat out false.
They blame liberals for all that is wrong with America. When, in fact, the conservative Bush administration caused many of the issues they complain about.
Clinton left office with a balanced budget and 60-something approval rating (even after the circus of an impeachment hearing). Clinton was more like a middle-of-the-road Republican than a liberal Democrat. He certainly was a fiscal conservative.
Then Bush got in office and proceeded to extend massive tax cuts to everyone, especially to his rich friends. This decreased the tax base and put the US back into the red. Then, following 9/11, the US government underwent its largest expansion since the New Deal. So Bush was not, in fact, any kind of conservative, except for perhaps a social conservative. He and his crew were really plutocratic statists and crypto-fascists hiding behind the label of conservatism.
Enter 2008. Obama comes into office. There is no money left. Finances are in shambles. The very office of the president has been left a wreck from eight years of Bush.
Queue the now out-of-power Republicans. They start sinking their money into Tea Party organizations, and a supposedly grass roots movement is born.
So now we are to believe that in order to fix the results from eight years of conservative government is more conservatives. Oh, except this time it will be “true” conservatism, not the Bush kind. In other words, sorry about wrecking things. We’ll get it right this time. Honest.
Color me skeptical.
Love the words. Awesome.
People posting on message boards they supposedly hate is like going to vacation places that they already know they don’t like and then complaining about it. Just don’t go there already. 😉
Mr. Kunstler,
This is the first entry of yours I have read. Interesting stuff. I have a couple friends who have sent me your way. I too am concerned about the “let’s pray about it” mentality you mentioned – it can veer towards denial. However, there are many traditions that have deep roots in meditative prayer and silence. In my little part of the world, and coming from a heavily Christian evangelical background, I have been advocating for this sort of prayer for a few years. There are a few of us who are “activist” types that are practicing silence and stillness as a form of prayer, and it’s something that incidentally is informing our active lives. We happen to be Christians, and I’m happy to say that many if not all of the religious traditions have similar practices that could also serve to support their activism. The fruit of this is quite often compassion which, I hope, transcends political lines and emerges with practical, radical, and long-term effects. I personally hope that the intentions I draw upon out of the silence direct me to climb out of the boulder of oil dependence I’m currently under along with most of the rest of my companions.
Good points. Very well spoken.
“restoring honor,” which is tea party code for the otherwise unutterable idea: get that nigger out of the White House!
There is no question that a significant part of our population has a problem with this. It was carefully taught and drummed in their dear little ears.
Guess you told me, Mr. Hall Monitor!
I used to come to this place thinking most everyone here was in agreement that TLE was coming. what i hoped to read and discuss is what readers here are doing to prepare themselves for it. There has been some great commentary in this respect, but lately the conversation has become as banal as an endless repetitive loop of cable news network.
RE: Tea Party
Having been in the neighborhood at the time, i can tell you that the Tea Party “movement” was founded by a group of (ex?) Ron Paul activists, disgruntled by Fox News decertifying him as a candidate in the Republican debates, prior to the New Hampshire primary. (i am not affiliated w Ron Paul, the libertarians or the Republiclowns)
It was at the outset a libertarian constitutionalist organization. That it is now more or less run by Fox News is ironic, to say the least. I agree that it has been “taken over by the plutocrats” simply by adding more “usefull idiots” than original members and thinking joiners combined. Likely by the 2012 elections (if they happen) it will be absorbed by the Republiclowns. If not, it will be an interesting loose cannon to watch.
Sounds a lot like Buddhist meditation, which is good for your mental health (truly).
…what happened to reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country to drive them into such burrow of cowardice that they can’t speak the truth, or act decisively, or even defend themselves against such a host of vicious morons in a time of troubles?
Here’s my take…
We got too cool. Capable of seeing all points of view we can’t get too invested in any particular point of view. We stumble over words like evil – have trouble with good and bad. No longer sure about God, we sound phony – to ourselves and others – when we try to use moral language. We have lost our language. We sputter and ramble. In seeking authenticity and self we lost both.
Dying on the floor of the Democratic Convention in the dark heart of 1968, Kurtz did not whisper, “the horror, the horror.”
He grinned, “the irony, the irony.”
‘That it is now more or less run by Fox News is ironic’
id use the word ‘ scary’ not ‘ironic’
and Q, how dare you take assoka to task for alleged ‘ inconsistency ‘!
You know,folks I am getting a little tired of Saint Adolph being quoted and black balled.I am sure he never killed a single Zionist,just like Bush and Obama never killed an Iraqi or an Afghan.
Kind of hard for reasonable, rational people to have a say these days. The right wing hate machine has been fully mobilized since the early Clinton years. Those with any differing opinions (even slightly) are shouted down, so why bother? Accuse me of being partisan, but that’s the truth. From Fox News, Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, O’reilly, the right wing has the propaganda thing all rolled up. Mostly Democrats and the Left just react, because they aren’t at root interested in that kind of debate.
I’m clear on God. It doesn’t exist. It is just a figment of people’s imaginations. Too bad 90% of Americans don’t agree with me. When you subscribe to the idea that an invisible person in the sky controls the universe and talks to you personally, well then, any kind of rational discourse not based on fantasy becomes a bit difficult, doesn’t it?
Say what you like about Palin, she is a handsome woman.
The US Open is sold out. The rich are back with style. The country is not going down. It is going up! We will all ride the coat tails of the rich to the land of prosperity! Or not… it’s hard to say at this juncture.
Aimlow Joe was here.
http://www.aimlow.com
Palin/Beck in 2012.
If we make it that far.
After 2012, I’m not sure what happens. But I’m glad Palin and Beck and their toadies will be holding the bag when the monsters are let loose. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.
Have you read the Citibank Plutonomy memo?
Excuse me, but I believe he is to be referred to as Dr. Beck. Jeez, it’s like you didn’t even watch the friggin “Takin Back America” thingy! Oh, and please lay off of Palin. My grandson says she’s “bitchin”! And he’s ten, so you know he must be right. Awesome tits…just awesome (kinda perky).
the left always invokes the idea of racism or hate in their criticism of right wingers, tea party or anyone else who disagrees with them. however, there must be a good reason we evolved the emotion of hatred back in the cave man days. it had to have some evolutionary advantage to survival. perhaps to help in identifying and fighting an enemy or perceived threat. believe me, there is hatred from the right, but the holier than thou left hates just as much. they are just too dishonest to admit it.
Part of the reason we needed to have a CFN is the Koch brothers.
The world they’ve created for us includes
The John Birch Society (humorous folk music)
Chad Mitchell Trio 1962
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG6taS9R1KM
Well Vlad,
That strange alignment of planets has again occurred, and I am in agreement with you and Asoka on the same day.
You say
==============
…. Get ready to defend yourself and your neighbors when the hungry, dark hordes came ravening out into the countryside looking for food. And yes, some of the dark, evil horde will be unprepared Whites
==============
I reckon I’ve been ready since I was 12 years old for something like that. That’s just part of the way I was raised. Handling weapons and defending my family is as natural as breathing to me.
The breakthrough here is for you to acknowledge that “SOME OF THE DARK, EVIL HORDE WILL BE UNPREPARED WHITES.” WOW.
And A says,
=================
JHK, your column this week was an enjoyable read.
Thank you for speaking your truth.
============
WOW, what a great day!
I really hate JHK, he always gets my BP up and I have this raging need to go TELL SOMEBODY OFF!
As to the appeal of Sarah Palin, as autoerotic as the whole “cornpone Hitler” meme is, with it’s suggestion of SS Regalia, riding crops, boots and pistols, I rather think it is something else.
She looks like Tina Fey. And Tina is smart, funny, good looking in a crooked smile off kilter kind of way, and relatively decent in the fun bag area.
So I can definitely say I would like to hit that, or that, for that matter.
Actually, I lied. I really like JHK’s writing.
It would be funny, if the reality wasen’t so sad.
Vinz Klortho
MDC,
Your post made me sad ;-(
===============
What do you do when the haters decry hatred with an awesome display of hatery? This page has become the saddest place.
===============
Haven’t seen you in a while on here. As I recall, you like to talk sustainability and gardening.
I can talk that stuff all day long.
You lead – guarantee you someone will follow.
Okay, Magister, so say people aren’t forced by the government to have health care or to save for their retirement. Then they get sick. Where do they go? They go to the nearest Emergency Room, where they tell the intake person they have no health care plan. Then either the intake person says, oh, too bad, go home and die, or they get taken care of at the expense of the taxpayer. Say they don’t save for their retirement. Then they retire because they get too old to work. But they don’t have any money to live on. So what do they do? They apply for welfare, they apply for food stamps, they get some kind of assistance paid for by the taxpayers. Or are they supposed to just go home and die too? If people don’t pay for their own health care or retirement, then the burden eventually falls on the taxpayers. Thank God I live in Canada where, yes, we are forced to have health care and it is run by the government. And if we can’t pay for it, the government pays for it on our behalf. The same government that also supplies our schools, teachers, libraries, roads, bridges, water systems, and many other things that we depend on. , or else we create a society where only those who can afford it get to live. Is that really what you want? If it is, you are a poor excuse for a human being.
Jim, This is one of your best pieces. Of course, current events are providing great material for ironic works these days. You are the featured editorial over at Max Keiser’s blog today with this editorial. They certainly liked it. The people coming in over there only read parts of it, you can tell, by their comments. They’re Americans, they’ll read a little bit and then go off on their own pet rant(s). That’s unfortunate, because this is really hitting the nail on the head, and they should digest it all..
Anyway, great work..
Regards,
Mark Lytle,
Houston Texas
“but the holier than thou left hates just as much.”
Thanks for the introduction to moral relativism but the modern “left” in America (a big nothing if there ever was one) can’t even compete on the same level with the 24/7 spew of hate emanating from the right wing media and its legions of commentators, pundits, and partisans. Anyone actually paying attention to American politics for, say, the last 20 years could figure this out. They even have their own television station (or two).
Who is the commentator on the Left competing with Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck? Or Hannity, O’reilly, Coltier, …
I can’t think of any except for a few angry people on this blog.
Hey turkle, you’re wrong as far as saying Fox funds the tea party. You want to see who funds movements, just follow Soro’s money and you’ll see every horsehit progressive cause. Fox jumped on the tea party bandwagon, they didn’t fund or start shit! It was really hatched in Ron Paul’s candidacy, and fox was certainly not for him, so you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, like most, no correct that, ALL, head up your ass liberal hacks!
If it weren’t for your weekly missals, I’d be unable to translate the “brave, new shorthand” that’s bandied about so recklessly.
Take this notion of “restoring honor.” I’ve asked about that one: What does it mean? Whose honor? How was that honor lost? Who lost it? What do we do to get it back?
Of course your column clearly translated the obfuscation, e.g. “get the nigger out of the White House!”
Thanks, Jim!
Of course there’s no one competing. It’s called the FREE MARKET and most people who don’t live in the Northeast or West Coast could give a crap about listening to garbage ideas of the lefty elitist asshole…or the righty elitist assholes either for that matter. That’s why the majority of the country is against the healthcare bill and for the AZ law, but F the people…the scum in power just go against the will of the majority
DD,
So much for rational dialog with you
=================
so you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, like most, no correct that, ALL, head up your ass liberal hacks!
=================
I’m not really seeing why you feel a need to defend Fox – they have plenty of psychologists and lawyers looking out for THEIR best interests.
Of course you also defend big oil and big coal.
Why, man, why??
And you never told me why we need to drill our great-grand-children’s oil out of the ground in ANWR and burn it ASAP.
Some reasoning that does not involve today’s greed or today’s jobs would be appreciated in your answer.
Desert Dawg has Fox News rabies.
Liberal hacks…as opposed to the conservative hacks that ruined the country.
“or else we create a society where only those who can afford it get to live.”
You’ve got your finger right on the pulse of the conservative movement’s heart.
James Kunstler may be surprised to learn that he has more than a few fans in the state of Utah and among the Mormons — whose “religion” (as he puts it) is guilty by association with crackpot neo-fascist Beck.
Let us remember that it was Mormons who, in 19th century Utah, pioneered low-impact and sustainable communitarianism in a grand social experiment called the “United Order.” (Anyone interested in the history of intentional community in American should read up on it.) Yep, it failed, but it’s purpose was to de-link Utah from crass Yankee commercialism and market consumerism. There is still more than a streak of this left in comtemporary Mormonism, just beneath the surface.
Jim, please don’t paint all Mormonism with the same brush you just dipped in the bile spewing from Glenn Beck. And don’t forget that you have friends in Utah. Give us the credit we deserve for finding you in the first place, and for sticking with you. We are, or should be, allies, and if you ever pay a visit to the Beehive state, I’ll be happy to show you why.
P.S. Fawn Brodie’s book on Joseph Smith is excellent, but out-dated. Take a look at Richard Bushman’s “Rough Stone Rolling.”
Regards,
Charles W. Nuckolls
UTAH VALLEY COMMONS (cohousing community)
Provo, UT
I’m pretty sure Sarah is in it for the $$ and the bright lights. Running for President won’t make her any more rich or famous so I doubt she does it. Now, letting people speculate about whether you might run keeps your name in play which is good for business.
Koch Brother fund the tea party, but so what, the reality is that in spite of some hyperbolic worrying about Sara Paln, who is in it for the cash, and not running for anything but the bank, And as regards Glenn Beck he is and actor playing a part, Beck is the WWE of the talk shows.
But Obama is on the verge of failure, he is on the precipice and if he does not act, and soon his administration will be replaced by who ever the GOP puts forward, that is if Mrs Clinton does not take him on in the primaries. But as she is a part of the Administration she will be tarnished by a failed Obama Presidency.
Now that we are past peak oil the lack of cheap energy will collar the economy and as we in the US keep borrowing to run this show then it is only a matter of time till the printing press money catches up with us and our Ponzi scheme falls apart, Chaos will reign, transition towns are a nice idea but unless the whole country goes that way or a large part of it, well the hungry masses will be a eaten what is stored or grown by those who have prepared.
Or Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer.
“Thank God I live in Canada where, yes, we are forced to have health care and it is run by the government. And if we can’t pay for it, the government pays for it on our behalf.” -Helen Highwater.
You mean that someone else, one of those evil “richers” has to pay for it on your behalf. I belief that everybody BUT the government is responsible for the welfare and safety of the individual. First and foremost the the individual, family, church, local community, and possibly the individual state if they elect in that state to have socialized medicine (like Massachusetts. It is not a responsibility outlined by our Constitution for our Federal Government. You should never forcibly confiscate the wealth of one and redistribute it to another…that is legalized theft. People should be charitable but you cannot make them.
Yes you should help your neighbors. When the Politician takes your money he gives it to your neighbors no thanks to you. He then buys their votes with your money. What a crummy system.
Let’s bring it down to the local level. Isn’t that what James Kunstler says is going to happen in the Long Emergecy? The further away the power and money go from the individual the more likely the corruption and complexity. Large systems are doomed to failure.
Large systems like ours and yours are prone to Tyranny too and it sounds like you are willing to trade freedom for security…much like those in Weimar Germany who were willing to trade their freedom for a plethora of Government programs from medicine to vacations (bet you didn’t know that the VW Beetle was the “Strength through Joy” care offered through the government vacation program). Nearly everyone had to enroll at the point of a Gun in many of these programs. Kind of like Obamacer and FDR Social Security.
Remember you have the freedom to succeed and the freedom to fail. A Tyrannical government is one that prevents failure (and yes some pain) at the expense of success. Look at how successful businesses in the U.S. are paying for failures Like Chrysler or AIG or Fannie & Freddie Mac. My God what a waste. Go ahead Comrade bask in your own irresponsibility and be thankful that some politician is buying votes with the money of another or those evil “richers”.
I leave you guys alone for a couple weeks…
Desert Dawg, I suggest you post on Youtube, Huffingtonpost or Fox News.
Your talking points are rather stale for this site. Come back when you have something new and/or original — from the left or right — to contribute.
Yes, we all know that George Soros is destroying America, libruls suck, climate change science is a conspiracy to turn Exxon’s profits over to Al Gore, the law of evolution is a lie and welfare mothers — not unregulated markets and Wall Street bonuses — are sucking our Treasury dry.
We’ve heard it all before.
Check out http://www.theyoungturnks.com. They’ve got some good stuff that could go mainstream if people on the so-called left gave a shit about standing up to the manipulative irrationality of the right-wing pundits.
That’s “theyoungturks.”
“I belief that everybody BUT the government is responsible for the welfare and safety of the individual.”
I belief you are a fucking idiot. The US Constitution says so…
“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
How does it feel to be so fucking stupid?
PROVIDE for the common defense
PROMOTE the general welfare
There is a huge difference between these two words.
We should provide (give) a military to defend the people that is something that it would be confusing and difficult if every state was completely in charge of their own army. We need a unified command for defense.
We should promote (to advance in station, rank, or honor. It literally means from the Latin to move forward (pro + movere). Definitely a tricky word. But it does not mean to provide at all times.
It is just one word but it means a world of difference to the true meaning of the Constitution.
By the way there is no need to swear. It dosn’t get your point across. I’m not stupid. I’ve been to Grad School, I speak Latin, and a little Spanish. I also majored in History in undergrad.
Thanks, & God Bless.
By the way I was thinking. The government promotes healthy habits like not having promiscuous unprotected sex right? But do we provide people with a healthy sex life? For chastity? Fine whorishness. You, sir, live in a world where Tyranny is desired and preferred to freedom. See you in the concentration camp because people like you and me will be the first to complain when the real Tyrants come. Good luck,
Magister
Hey POC,
Now that the thistle are blooming, do you have more butterflies? And how about that delightful hint of fall in the NoGa air last weekend?
I dont come here as much anymore because I enjoy CFN when JHK writes descriptively and elegantly about our common situation, and the ways in which we can understand that collapse is actually happening. A guide to the signs and symbols, so to speak.
For example, I loved the posts on architecture – how the care in craftsmanship and addition of ornament for no other reason than to create beauty has given way to big boxiness, cheapness and expediency -and how those visual cues tell us what we have become. I enjoy discussions on how we might weather the coming storm without losing our humanity and even possibly finding our character in the process. There have been some memorable comments by readers here that were insightful and eloquent on that front.
I dont like this climate of elitism and class snobbery. Amazing how comfortable people can be with that while issuing charges of racism. Seems to me that money is the great divider -not skin color. What ever is coming will happen to us all.
We have a common enemy: monolithic bureaucracy, and it doesnt matter what form it takes, because honestly? I can hardly discern Obama from W.
I dont want to focus on what people that disagree with me politically do or dont do anymore. I want to figure out how i can live well and as fully as possible through TLE with a community that actually believes this IS an emergency. But, it is what it is and as a few of the readers have said, if I dont like it i am free to hit the road. Im just sayin’……
‘ urban/rural split ‘
Uh…have you considered middle class flight from cities?
here in LA the school systems a mess, due in my opinion to the class [ lack of ] of the students. this includes grades and graduation rates.
at this point 1 in 3 black males does prison time and 1 in 4 is a felon.
ITS NOT FOR NOTHING THE DEMOCRATS WANT TO GIVE FELONS THE ‘ RIGHT ‘ TO VOTE!
Hmmm. That was an excellent article this week Jim.
Speaking from an Australian perspective, where labor unions whilst weakened, are still credible inasmuch as they fund one of the two major political parties, I would suggest that one power bloc still able to make a difference in the USA is the labor movement such as it is.
While most thinking liberals here and in the USA share an understandable suspicion of the mischief that can be wrought by irresponsible union bosses, it is no great stretch to presume that, with care, they and their members could be harnessed in opposition to predatory oligarchies, as has been done successfully in the past.
If you know of any good works done by right-minded unionists in your country, please do write of it.
Regards.
Alex Fiedler
South Australia
Who is the commentator on the Left….
uh the LA times, wash Post, NY Times..thats 3.
have you read the LA Times? its pathetic. 14 pages to the first section.
page one story about a ‘ 500 pound black drag queen ex male prostitue ‘
and lets not forget miss christine daniels, their sex change sports reporter suicide..
google if you doubt my facts turk.
a friend just moved from henderson nevada [ vegas burbs ]…she couldnt take the 110 degree heat.
she said it was very mormon and strange.
and the ecomony there has collapsed. indeed the 10 worst housing markets [ by media standards of good and bad ] are reno and las vegas as 1 and 2 .the other 8 are in florida!
Good point.They can’t make any money. Probably because they trash most of the sponsors who would provide them with money along with the sensible values of 70% of the people in this country who live their lives like they are conservative whether or not they call themselves though. Point of proof is Air America. The former director of which just put a $100,000 on Glenn Beck’s Career.
Magister,
Maybe I shouldn’t have written you off so soon as a know nothing, though I still think you’re off base here. You can split a lot of hairs regarding individualism and the role of the government in individual lives, but the Constitution is pretty clear in this area.
If the preamble is not 100% about the US government being responsible for the welfare and safety of the populace, I will go and join a Tea Party.
Here are the relevant phrases.
_welfare_
“promote the general welfare”
“in order to form a more perfect union”
“secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”
“establish justice”
_safety_
“insure domestic tranquility”
“provide for the common defense”
It is all about the government being responsible for the general welfare and safety. Some of the phrases apply to both. How do you read it otherwise? The language is not coded. I feel like you’re just mincing words and being overly pedantic. Are you a Constitutional scholar? I doubt that the original framers would have taken the same hair-splitting objection to the word “responsible.” The meaning is essentially identical.
Of course, individual are also partially responsible for their own welfare. I don’t think the Founders would have disagree with you there. But the government plays a primary role in establishing the conditions for that welfare, by promoting the general good. In other words, it is ultimately the government that is responsible for the general welfare. I don’t know why you’d take such objection to that word being applied here.
Governments have ALWAYS been responsible for their population’s welfare and safety. That’s why we define a rogue or bad government as one that kills its own citizens en masse without justification, because this act is the ultimate betrayal of these two principles.
If there is a “true meaning” to the Constitution, you are clearly not the one who has it. Most judicial precedent agrees with my interpretation (as far as I’m aware).
I guess this goes back quite a few comments to 8/30/10 10:46. I am sure the music was much better in the black bars. White folk can’t play the blues like the the black folk can. Just the facts Ma’am! White blues men are posers!
come down from yr orbit….
the only reason the US populations increased significantly since 1965 is due to the 1965 immigration act.by 1965 women were in the work force, staying in school longer and able to get a divorce when in a bad marriage.
then the dems / lbj ruined america!
what i read is ‘ due to the recession / depression ‘ the birth rate went down [ a bit ].
Most people do NOT read newspapers. Newspapers are becoming increasingly unimportant. Most people get their news from television, which is filled with right-wing conservative commentary 24/7. In many areas, Fox is literally the strongest signal on over-the-air tv.
The only two people I can even think of on the Left to compare with the conservative hordes would be Keith Olbermann and Rachel What’s-her-face. And their commentary is rather mild in comparison to the kind of out-and-out fear mongering and race baiting promulgated by Fox News and commentators like Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, and O’reilly.
And, BTW, Fox News is the most watched television news program in America. I have NEVER heard any of their in-house commentators say one good thing about Obama or any Democrat. It is always “socialist”, “liberal”, “terrorist”, blah blah blah. Bouncy ball. Hillary Clinton sucks. Jimmy Carter sucks. etc.
That’s the slant of America’s #1 watched news show.
And you’re telling me its just as bad the other way on the Left. Uh, no. You must be fucking blind. When the DNC gets its own news network that is the #1 watched in the nation, please let me know. Until then, you’re wrong (as usual).
Reasonable, rational educated people know there’s no point trying to change the course of history. At this point, there are no solutions. There are only strategies for survival, some of which will prove successful.
So yes, we are living in the boonies with our animals and vegetable gardens (and guns) and creating a different lifestyle for ourselves. Will that work? Probably better than staying in LA…maybe less well than moving to New Zealand.
Hey Mean Dovey,
Butterflies began to appear about one month ago, about the time the oil disaster was capped off. It’s probably coincidence, but we still do not have anything like the number of butterflies that we had up here for the last two years.
And yeah, cooler weather will be nice. This has been one HOT summer in North Georgia.
About two weeks ago the cough I’d been enduring all summer finally cleared up. Like Trippticket, I’d been noticing strange symptoms in myself, family and friends. Wonder if the CDC could have made a connection to the Gulf disaster.
Oh, well, all better now – BP make go away. ;0)
As regards the rest of your post, I’m not sure…
I mean some of the circular political wrangling on here is way beyond boring to me – yet I’ve learned a lot by reading and responding to certain other minds.
I guess I’ve begun to believe in the virtue of parallel discussions on CFN. Where else can I find white supremacists and “reconquista” liberals all at once – in an ongoing free for all?
I love hearing new ideas – even when they are wrong – but if you’ve been on here a while, maybe you’ve heard it all already.
You say
================
I dont want to focus on what people that disagree with me politically do or dont do anymore. I want to figure out how i can live well and as fully as possible through TLE with a community that actually believes this IS an emergency.
=================
And I hear you and sympathize with your viewpoint.
I just haven’t reached that level of acceptance *yet.* I’m ready? for TLE, and I continue to enjoy discussing my preparations. I will enjoy doing that with you.
But I’m still sharpening my mind against the other intellects on CFN in hope of fighting off some of the worst damage that TLE could cause.
I am such an optimist, sometimes! 🙂
lets not forget the web…its making print very difficult to break even in.
SEB,,,,,do you still read here?
heres yahoos ‘scandal ‘ of the hour….gawd how useless news often is:
vlad….you reading?
We’re just into a new high school sports season and there has already been a troubling impostor found among the scholastic ranks. According to the Associated Press, Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times, a 21-year-old man named Julious Threatts registered to play for the 13-14-year-old Town N’ Country Packers of the Tampa Bay Youth Football League on Aug. 21, and played in a game with the team the same day. Threatts, who had a past burglary conviction on his record, reportedly signed up for a spot on the team under the name “Chad Jordan” with a forged birth certificate. After further investigation, it now appears that Threatts — an avowed Danielle Steele fan who recorded poetry readings on a personal YouTube channel — also played in the TBYFL two years ago and another youth league in the Tampa area last year.
Make no mistake: This is not a Danny Almonte case of a forged birth certificate or a high school lineman holding a signing ceremony when he wasn’t recruited, this is a 21-year-old criminal taking athletic advantage of competing against 14-year-olds
Wow! Thanks! Well thought out response–honestly. I get it that you have a passion for the welfare of others. As you’ve said for the constitution,
“It is all about the government being responsible for the general welfare and safety [of the people]”
I think that we can agree on this in principal. The government should reasonable responsible for the GENERAL welfare. If we are treating the GENERAL population equally that’s fine. We all benefit from equally from fireman, police, CIA, FBI, public roads, and most of all the Military & Police who protect their lives and fortunes, etc. in theory of course.
Where we differ is that I do not think that the government has the right under the Constitution to take money (wealth exchangeable for goods, services, the fruit of one’s labor) and redistribute it to anyone in particular (the anithesis to General. From the Largest AgriBusinesses (Farmers are the ones taking most of the Dole) to the poorest soul receiving a subsidized Mortgage from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Individuals and businesses should never ever receive the wealth forcibly taken from another citizen. Charity is different and should be expected not demanded under penalty of Law of every citizen within their means. If they don’t pay out in this world then they certainly will in the next–if you believe in such and many of those “richers” will in their waning years.
I recommend to you the “5,000 Year Leap”. It is all about the Freedoms our Fathers had in mind when they framed the constitution and it is told in their own words. I for myself will have to check out this “youngturks” you are talking about. Thanks,
Magister
“Fascism is here already – brought to you by the oligarchs in the FED, Goldman Sucks, Bankrupt America, Shittybank and the Plunge Protection Team.”
Congratulations! Your comment, not anything Kunstler himself wrote, was the text Facebook selected as the description when I posted the link to this essay on my wall. Personally, I was expecting and would have preferred “Here come the Corn Pone Nazis!” but your line will do.
Magister,
America tried exactly what you suggest, having no income tax during the Industrial Revolution and into the early 1900’s. It didn’t work. The nature of capitalism is that it heavily favors winners and disfavors losers by its internal logic. Thus, after some time you inevitably get a plutocracy, or government by the rich. That’s why America almost had a revolution in the 1930’s and why many European countries turned into dictatorships. Capitalist systems failed them, leading to enormous wealth gaps where the vast majority of people found themselves at the bottom (sound familiar?).
Even now, the income differences between the upper 1% and everyone else are enormous in America. The upper 1% of households has more net worth than the bottom 90%. The bottom 40% has only 0.4% of the wealth. Wrap your head around those facts. The way we have structured society leads to massive differences in wealth distribution. Democracies cannot function properly in such societies.
Jefferson was aware of this disposition and said there should be a revolution every 25 years.
Ben Franklin said that all excess property not needed for the basic welfare of the individual should revert to the state.
Now, we don’t have that radical of a society as suggested by these two Founding Fathers (perhaps they were being a bit hyperbolic).
We have progressive income taxation. And judging from the massive and disproportionate share that the upper 1% have been taking over the last 20 years, their income tax needs to be higher, not lower. And they would still be more than fine.
If that offends your Libertarian sensibilities, I’m so sorry. But your ideology was discredited long ago as leading to plutocracy. You can’t continue to punish the economic losers generation after generation and expect to have a functioning society. We have seen time and time again that the government has to be a steward of capitalism, or the consequences for society can end up being disastrously bad for the vast majority of people.
There’s a hurricane coming – Earl hovers in the Atlantic, deciding whether it will aim towards the Carolinas or meander up the Atlantic coast, through Washington, DC, New York and possibly end up bowling into Nova Scotia on the way out. Perhaps it will be kind and scoot back out into the mid-Atlantic as the high over the East Coast shifts East, but I don’t think so – in it’s short life thus far it seems to be gaining a reputation for unpredictability.
I have a bad feeling about this – we’re teetering on the edge right now, the signal to noise ratio now hovering near zero. Should New York or Washington flood (shades of Kim Stanley Robinson), will global markets take this as an excuse to collapse, tearing away the band-aid over the suppurating wound we call the economy? Or will some other event come along like a hurricane playing dice? Ultimately, it is not the black swan that brings about the collapse – it is that the black swans can flock in the first place.
Jim, you repeat many of your themes and observations.
Nothing deserves repeating more each week than your final question
“what happened to reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country to drive them into such burrow of cowardice that they can’t speak the truth, or act decisively, or even defend themselves against such a host of vicious morons in a time of troubles?”
Do you think we could get some hidden video dedicated to our political, business and community leaders admitting they know better but are too cowardly and opportunistic to admit it?
The Deceptive, Dismissive nature of this ego tripping cowardly Dunce in the White House, is causing more Dissension in not only America but throughout the world. Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin pale in significance when compared to this dressed up shoe shine boy who would do a dance for a chance at gaining a tip, like some little con man money monkey on a rounders leash. all that’s missing are the balloons. He jumped at the opportunity to accept the Nobel Peace Prize as undeserving as it was, only to provide for himself a stamp of some form of official recognition in his created world of lies, as if Fantasyland had all of a sudden turned into real, when in all reality from the fiscal mess he’s making, his dream doesn’t even measure up to being on the same level of a Disneyland. Even this fraud in the Oval Office knows Disneyland is making a profit and America isn’t, or maybe he doesn’t?
JHK sez: “Beck himself just seems to be following a career arc more than really answering “a call.” The emptiness of his platitudes and the confusion of his ideas shows that he is just flexing his demagogic muscles in a moment when weepy bluster passes for heroism.”
Ah yes. As for that “career arc”, we have a fine study entitled: “Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance”. Yes friends, it’s the American Way [of opportunistic bull-shittery].
Here’s a link for those who enjoy yanking back the curtains of idolatry. Watch the interview; most revealing.
http://www.booktv.org/Program/11680/Common+Nonsense+Glenn+Beck+and+the+Triumph+of+Ignorance.aspx
“I have a bad feeling about this – we’re teetering on the edge right now, the signal to noise ratio now hovering near zero. Should New York or Washington flood (shades of Kim Stanley Robinson), will global markets take this as an excuse to collapse, tearing away the band-aid over the suppurating wound we call the economy? Or will some other event come along like a hurricane playing dice? Ultimately, it is not the black swan that brings about the collapse – it is that the black swans can flock in the first place.” -KC
Interesting comment; especially that last sentence. “Feast” for thought…
Now aside from all that are you ready for another season of football ? Are they giving odds in Vegas on when the oil spill will be cleaned up ?
Is the empire in trouble ?
Beck is certainly a media clown, and he would be well-advised to stay out of politics, but I don’t think the “Nazi” label is appropriate. Let’s not forget that the National Socialists were not advocating limited government. To the contrary, after coming into power the National Socialist took total control over every aspect of society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleichschaltung) including the media, labor unions, schools, universities, corporations, banks, health care, churches, etc. Other notable accomplishments include outlawing private ownership of firearms, home schooling and mandatory discrimination based on racial criteria. Thankfully nobody in America today is promoting crazy ideas like these. After all we are all kind and gentle people who have nothing but the deepest respect for our fellow citizen and their inalienable, God-given rights.
I recently read that LA Unified spent $580 million for a state-of-the-art school on the same site that RFK was shot. I saw pictures of the school theater and it was supposed to look like the Coconut lounge or something. Looked like a tacky cruise ship theater. WAY over the top.
Jeesh!
SJmom
Magister,
Whoa, man, if there ever was a good argument against going to college you just gave it:
============
…pay my wife’s student loans (all 100k of them) and she gets to be a stay at home mom.
============
Just thought I’d throw that out there –
Like a lot of folks in the US, you’re fixated on federal income tax rates, which tell only part of the story.
Don’t forget that social security is capped at +/- $180K of salary – after that high income earners pay zero.
And if you own a house you are going to be paying increasing amounts to fund local government operations as years go by.
Marginal tax rates for federal income were 90% under Eisenhower. Kennedy cut them to 70%. Reagan cut them lower. Now they are at 35% MAX – on the wealthiest of the wealthy.
Warren Buffet has said frequently that there is something wrong with tax policy when he, with all his wealth and income, pays less income tax on a percentage basis than does his secretary.
How can we have these low tax rates with two wars and a country in debt up to the ears of our great-grandchildren?
We’re FOREVER in debt to the Chinese without a tax increase – – and a tax increase has to be on the *rich* because they’ve got most of the money.
And remember I’m a capitalist. I own and manage rental properties. I’ve just had one go vacant at an unfortunate time. I’m having to cut the rent because there is such a glut of nearly new houses on the market as rentals because they won’t sell at the prices their owners need.
I’m replacing the AC on this house $3100.00
And replacing carpet $1500.00
And having a dead tree removed $1000.00
And paying local/state taxes $2000.00
So I’m coughing up $7600.00 this month on a house that’s not earning me a dime.
Serves me right for being a capitalist, I know. 🙂
But then I can write the whole $7.6K off against other income. And I’ll never pay a single DIME of social security tax on any rental property income – believe it or not, the FEDS call it “unearned income.”
So, there is a bias toward the rich – it’s just not usually acknowledged in “polite” society.
“I understand why the Tea Partiers are angry, and why they are so vulnerable to the likes of Palin and Beck.”
Can you guess? who said,
“As many frustrated Americans who have joined the Tea Party realize, we cannot stand against big government at home while supporting it abroad. We cannot talk about fiscal responsibility while spending trillions on occupying and bullying the rest of the world. We cannot talk about the budget deficit and spiraling domestic spending without looking at the costs of maintaining an American empire of more than 700 military bases in more than 120 foreign countries. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for cutting a few thousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool at home while turning a blind eye to a Pentagon budget that nearly equals those of the rest of the world combined.”
http://www.digitalmeetingcenter.com/ron-pauls-shocking-message-to-the-tea-party/851883/
You are right, co-opted…
Interesting comment; especially that last sentence.
==================
If by “interesting” you mean perceptive or profound, I disagree. The image Kurt presents is entirely wrong and I suspect he has not read Taleb’s book The Black Swan. If he had he would realize “black swans [can’t] flock” because they are so rare. When one shows up it may be for good or ill. It is the ones for ill that we worry about.
As is practically always the case you hit the nail on the head:Beck looks half-mad and sounds totally unhinged, and to think, millions listen to him and more millions will vote for that well-coiffed ninny with Nazi potential(Palin, if anyone was wondering…). Hang on for dear life, comrades…..
Q,
I had interpreted his meaning as being that a whole friggin’ FLOCK of rarities/unprecedented events are popping up nearly everywhere, and are “compounding” each other (sort of “the sum being greater than its’ parts”). And that’s why I found it truly interesting [in the stretch of the concept].
Ah well, there ya go… I’m seeing things that ain’t there! lol (Which I find interesting in itself. ;o)
….the whole being greater than the sum of its’ parts.
(That’s more betterer, or is it more betterest?)
Apparently the PTB there are playing around with the idea of a proposal that anybody born on or later than January 1st, 1960, will have to wait until they are 72 to collect early S.S. and 75 for full S.S. (at which time, there won’t BE any more payouts).
Why does this not surprise me? The boomers pissing on us Xers, who’ll have to remake the safety net for the future (IF the boomers, who seem to be joyously embracing the apocalypse, don’t go for the ultimate orgasm and destroy our nation for their entertainment).
Of course, it may all be moot. The Virginia court has decided to hear the case against “ObamaCare” (read: health insurance companies as gatekeepers of American Citizenship). Don’t be surprised if Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid gets thrown into the mix by the time the Roberts Court gets to rule on it.
I won’t like it. Maybe the Tea Partiers will, until they realize what THEY will lose.
Also replying to Magister:
We don’t need more taxes. We just need those on top and their minions to stop ripping us off. I doubt that will happen, as most of the victims are not even aware they are being robbed yet.
To show the methodology and history of this robbery, and where it is headed (in words) is more unpaid work than i’m willing to do and it would hog space that can be used by those more into “Beck as nazi”. So, for those interested, i’m posting a few links, most using pictures, graphs, and other stuff that can’t be done here.
In no case do i agree 100% with a particular post, but taken together, they do a fair job of stating the problem we face. Most of these sites
have quite a bit more to say if explored.
http://theburningplatform.com/blog/2010/08/29/the-age-of-mammon-featured-article/
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/d-sherman-okst/the-economic-insane-asylum?q=node/1327
http://neithercorp.us/npress/?p=674
http://gonzalolira.blogspot.com/2010/08/hyperinflation-part-ii-what-it-will.html?
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/d-sherman-okst/the-economic-insane-asylum
last and maybe least a defector from the cartels minions gives a warning of sorts, after you read it check his credits
http://usawatchdog.com/the-year-america-dissolved/
70 years ago the Nazi’s rounded up my grandfather.
Put an arm band on him and murdered him.
This time I will try to stay out of their way.
Red
Americans just want someone to tell them the TRUTH. It’s a shame that Glen Beck is one of the few who does…
cougar_w said: “Palin/Beck in 2012”
I think the bumper sticker should be:
Palin for President 2012 to 2013
As an executive Palin has a proven track record … she is a quitter.
A lot of the Founding Fathers would NOT
be celebrated by Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin,
and so on today. They’d be lambasted as
“income redistributionist Commies”.
Back in those days, the idea of the
“commonweal” existed and under that idea
corporations were allowed to exist as
OUR “bitch” … they were public trusts.
It seems that nowadays when the “common
good” is asserted in any way at all, the
alleged “conservatives” in the Republican
party pulled out the “class warfare” card.
Hey, you fake “conservatives” out there
(meaning about 80-90% of American Republicans),
the “redistribution” is necessary because
the banksters and multi-national CEOs stole
it in the first place and WE WANT IT BACK
in the form of living wages for even the
lowliest jobs.
I should think that even stodgy Republicans
aren’t so venal and sociopathic as to want
their neighbors to have to live 3 families
to a household because they wanted to appease
shareholders by offshoring so many good jobs.
They could make up for this scurrilous behavior
(usually done under the rubric of “shareholder
value”) by giving people a basic dignity of
life. Even those “Commies” … our Founders …
wanted THAT.
E.
Can you imagine the free entertainment coming out of Washington with Sarah Palin as President? I’m laughing already.
Qshtik
Last week you mentioned that in your neck of the woods you couldn’t find a KFC. If memory serves you live in a fairly densely populated area not far from Ground Zero as the crow flies.
Not being able to find a KFC sounds pretty trivial but I’m with you on this, I don’t think it is. EVERYBODY (OK maybe not everybody) likes KFC. Or at least that’s how it seems to me. So I wonder what the deal is. Is it competition killing it, changes in eating habits (ie everybody is going for Mexican instead of fried chicken) or is it really a shitty economy? Maybe KFC is another canary in the coal mine.
KFC is not exactly fine dining. When things head south it’s not places like KFC that suffer first. So I wonder if incomes and employment are so terribly squeezed where you are? I don’t know your area but, on the surface, I wouldn’t have thought it it’s another Detroit or Cleveland.
Eleuthero,
I would take Wall Street apart and throw it brick by brick into the ocean. We have a counterpart up here we call Bay Street. Same deal. Rotten to the core. Up here securities firms were misrepresenting something called asset backed commercial paper to investors as a safe liquid investment. It was nothing of the sort. Billions of dollars involved. Many people, companies and individuals got fucked. NOBODY was prosecuted.
I just read Harry Markopolos’ book about his attempts to tip off the SEC over Bernie Madoff. Amazing stuff. If you think the SEC and other American regulatory bodies are the enablers for fraud you should see ours especially the Ontario Securities Commission. The SEC is a hive of prosecutorial entrepreneurship compared to the OSC.
And, when it comes to white collar crime, our cops, especially the RCMP, redefine the term “useless”. I want the FBI, I want Patrick Fitzgerald, I want Robert Morganthau, I want Eliot Spitzer (I will take up a collection to ply him with escorts). We need these men up here. We need them to inspire dread and despair on Bay Street.
Mean Dovey wrote:
“I used to come to this place thinking most everyone here was in agreement that TLE was coming. what i hoped to read and discuss is what readers here are doing to prepare themselves for it. There has been some great commentary in this respect, but lately the conversation has become as banal as an endless repetitive loop of cable news network.”
Yes, it’s become very tiresome.
I think in the future I’ll just read Mr. K’s blog and leave it at that.
James, you nailed it. Unfortunately this is the dark side of democracy, “low information” (read stupid) voters swayed by whoever spends the most on propaganda, or who don’t vote at all, leaving elections to the insiders and party hacks. A mob that doesn’t understand that the “freedom” Beck and his ilk are pitching is the freedom of the theo-corp-neocon complex to export jobs and foreclose homes, to wage stupid wars, and to float away from the chaos they cause on a golden parachute. And who believe the God-myth that if they suffer now, they will get their reward in the next life (where the ruling elite don’t have to pay for it.)
Great reading your stuff. Proud that you’re a fellow grad of New York’s HS of Music & Art, as am I.
Mean Dovey:
I agree with you — I came here to discuss TLE and stuff like that, and ended up embroiled in all these crazy arguments…not sure how much reading you do, but Bill McKibben (Deep Economy — great book) mentioned one of his favorite books in an interview lately, the book being “A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster,” by Rebecca Solnit. It is SOMETHING that may give you a RAY of hope in an otherwise bleak outlook of things portrayed here at CFN…something other than “lock and load,” stock up on ammo, etc. It’s an interesting read.
For those who believe that the right wingers are grass-roots, down-home, salt-of-the-earth types who spontaneously developed their prostrated-to-the-corporations philosophy, Jane Mayer had an article in the New Yorker showing the big bucks it takes to make ordinary people so very stupid.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
The more-than-usual number of people slamming Jim’s excellent entry this week just proves to me how degraded our people are becomming. So many can’t handle the truth. Kunstler is our current “Vox Clamantis in Deserto”. We would be wise to listen, but widom seems to be a rare commodity in this clusterfucked nation.
“Americans just want someone to tell them the TRUTH. It’s a shame that Glen Beck is one of the few who does…” -G.33
Whew! Good to know that there’s someone we can turn to for truth. (It’s an actual commodity now, as you may know.) Glenn’s sellin’? I’m a-buyin’! Where can I get me some?
(btw, don’t listen to this; it’s truth-deficient)
http://www.booktv.org/Program/11680/Common+Nonsense+Glenn+Beck+and+the+Triumph+of+Ignorance.aspx
Myrtle, no use coming up here.
Example: California is a renowned financial basket case: population approx 35 million, deficit around 19 billion
Province of Ontario population around 13 million deficit around 19 billion.
Same deficit with 1/3 the population.
US federal deficit will come in at around 1.4 trillion.
Canadian federal deficit will come in at around 50 billion. Americanize the number ie you guys have 10 times the population and you have a 500 billion dollar deficit. Maybe it looks better in comparison but we’re just the healthier horse in the glue factory.
Americans are renowned for their lack of knowledge about the world, their obesity, their addiction to cheap oil and big, big cars.
Canadians in their vanity think we’re better. We’re not. We’re worse. We know dick about the world, we’re as fat, our cars are the same and if you think the BP oil spill was bad, go to the tar sands in Alberta. We have an on-going environmental catastrophe there.
Our central bank is manned by cretins who seem to think that artificially low interest rates and a housing bubble is what we need here.
So don’t bother moving.
Reason to puke number one on this beautiful summer day. The home page proudly announces Bristol Palin will be on the next season of “Dancing With the Stars”. The stars of what? The unwed mothers of Anchorage?
Q.
Off topic, but maybe you’ll find it informative.
Some of it is a bit “fudged”, but I think they’ve got the general trend correct (that matches your bets).
I dunno, some of it makes my head hurt, but take a peek if you’ve got some time. (Aug. 29 edition)
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/
“Why don’t you put it out there in nice simple terms? Afraid of being found floating in a swimming pool, like Matt Simmons?”
Maybe, but he doesn’t want the “coincidence theory” label either, and that’s all there is left.
This is a very interesting point to consider. I think Canadians, in general, would welcome the “reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose” who want to get the hell out” of the US of A.
But despite appearances, there are some distinct differences in our political spectrums. Your “left” is more akin to our “right”.
Hopefully those of you who are fleeing the madness that is ensuing south of the 49th parallel are prepared for our socialist and (deemed by your right) ‘communist’ ways. 😉
As an aside, most of us find it rather amusing to listen to those loons and nutbars in the US railing against all the supposedly wicked and flawed social programs sucking the very lifeblood out of our over-regulated business environment. Despite the perception, the reality is that, by comparison to the rest of the world right now, economically we’re doing pretty good. All that over-regulation kept our banking system solvent and all those social programs are keeping people from desperation.
It ain’t perfect, but given the choice, I’d rather be here. 😉
I have never been approached, harrassed, or experienced any type of hostily, knock on wood, on any trip into Canada. When I obtained my NEXUS card, the two interviewees, Canadian and American, were both stern but the American seemed more nosey about why I wanted to go into Canada so often. If you listen to Rush and Sarah, you would expect machine-gun bunkers and stormtroopers.
Mean Dovey, Mila, Cynical, Wage, Femme,Anne and all other humans of the XX genetic persuasion, 😉
I’m seeing something of a pattern developing here – which looks to be *something like* feminine disgust with the conservations on this discussion thread.
That is unfortunate, in every possible way.
There are 3,000,000,000 +/- women on the Planet.
If women could manage more engagement and control – things might improve.
This is my second official request to the group mind of CFN:
HOW CAN WE MAKE THIS HAPPEN?
And there are 150,000,000 American females. I think it’s past time to get women understanding the REAL issues in politics – and voting when possible in every election.
Personally, I think I’ve about worn out the thread concerning my acreage, garden, dogs, cats, chickens, National Forest neighborhood, and future goat herd, with (or without) respect to TLE.
But I can handle my end of an intelligent discussion on a bunch of non-political topics with interested parties. However, someone else needs to initiate these discussions.
And here’s a suggestion – if you don’t like some of the topics and posters – learn how to scroll.
Warmest regards from a man who loves women,
C
😉 🙂 :o) ;0)
or is it really a shitty economy?
==================
Cash, my little KFC tale is nothing more than a piece of anecdotal evidence that points to a “shitty economy.” No, it’s not like we’re Detroit or Cleveland here in central Jersey but it seems every time you turn around there’s another closed up store front. My discovery that 2 out of 3 KFCs in the yellow pages were gone kinda shocked me. Like you, I figured cheap take-out places would be the last man standing.
I have never been approached, harrassed, or experienced any type of hostily, knock on wood, on any trip into Canada. When I obtained my NEXUS card, the two interviewees, Canadian and American, were both stern but the American seemed more nosey about why I wanted to go into Canada so often.
Almost every time I return to the US from Brazil, I get harassed by US immigration.
“Whoa! Where’s your luggage?!” [even though I was carrying an obviously full shoulderbag]
“How long were you in Brazil? Why did you go there? Who did you stay with? How did you get to know those people?”
“Where’s your wife? Because you have a ring on & you’re traveling alone.”
“What do you do for a living?” [WTF biz is it of theirs?]
Never get harassed going the other way. Obnoxious “Homeland Security” type dolts.
conservations … hahaha
That’s what fascinates me, to me the Harper/Reformers sound like they’re to the left of Hillary Clinton. Interesting that a lot of people here revile Harper and his Reform cohorts as right wing extremists, the leaders of the Republican Party North. I think it came from the Liberals and NDP slandering for political points and people bought into it. But I never really got that.
I just never saw Reform and especially Harper as especially ideological. To me it was almost all about reforming federal institutions and keeping federal and provincial govts focussed on their constitutionally mandated duties. Those, to me, were not left/right issues.
widom seems to be a rare commodity
===========
It certainly does … teehee.
Here’s an interesting Cornucopian article suggesting that Civilisation can be run on Thorium for thousands of years, its cheap, clean and does not need a huge reactor.
“Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/7970619/Obama-could-kill-fossil-fuels-overnight-with-a-nuclear-dash-for-thorium.html#disqus_thread
But it does not address the coming crisis in agriculture and the world’s population. So no shortage of electricity, just nothing to cook.
Dear Mean Dovey Cooledge; I really like your handle. Very cool.
You might want to check out:
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/
Lots of interaction on gardening, putting stuff up, etc. Just lots of valuable prep stuff for when TSHTF. Or, the LE. It is heavily moderated. Coming in a couple of weeks …. forums.
I’m spending less time here and more time there. Probably will end up just reading JHK’s post and move on from there. I will miss envirofrigginmental, thou. 😉
And for all you ready to pack for Canada, have you checked their citizenship policies, lately? The point system. You better have a lot of ready cash, be well educated in a trade that they desire and be young. They knock of a “point” for every year over, I think, 50.
Global Empire and the International Banking Cartel (part 2)
– http://bit.ly/9Q3NYs
Oz, your link is very long. I read the first section that ends with the words “What do you think: women and children first?!” and I’m impressed with what appears to be an original way of viewing particular data. The conclusion one draws, as indicated by those words in quotes, is grim.
Ahhhhh
The IRONY when atheist start paraphrasing Sinclair Lewis. No one making these comments watched the rally or have clue what Beck or Palin are about. Too bad, the rest of America is waking up.
I believe Glenn Beck does a pretty decent job, everything considered. He competes against the mainstream media, and they spend most of their time cheer leading for wars, cheer leading for non existent economic recoveries, worrying about missing teenyboppers, and obsessing over reality show ‘celebrities’. It isn’t like he’s up against Edward R Murrow.
I like Sarah Palin, up to a point, again she’s about as qualified to be president as Barack Obama was, and he doesn’t seem to be able to do or say anything without a teleprompter.
After looking at Harry Reed, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and Nancy Pelosi for the last three years, I’m not sure why anybody would freak out over Sarah Palin being incompetent.
Re Brazil:
This is an excerpt from The 5 Minute Forecast:
“I am an avid traveler over most of Latin South America,” a reader writes, responding to Brazil’s sudden threat of nationalizing farmland. “A few years ago, I traveled to Brazil and came home to a group of farmers eager to invest in its land for cotton and corn production. I was received with open arms by the Brazilian people, but I always have my suspicions about foreign countries, especially Latin countries.
“Latin American people are very resourceful and highly intelligent, waiting for the next opportunity. After I read Dilma Rousseff was running for president and all the tariffs were placed against American producers, I have grown very sour with Brazil and offer a simple warning: Stay away! You will be the next victim of a scam. Research of Dilma Rousseff will reveal she has a very dark past and is fully aligned with none other than Hugo Chavez. The future of Brazil is bleak if this lady (scoundrel) is elected.”
The 5: “I think Brazil’s announcement is a big deal,” Chris Mayer responds. “We may not feel the effects immediately, but Brazil’s hostile turn toward foreign investment helps plant the seed for another food crisis.
“All of which makes our agricultural companies more valuable. BHP’s bid of $130 per share for PotashCorp seems especially inadequate against this backdrop.
“It also makes me wonder about investing in Brazil at all. There is all that hype over Brazil’s offshore oil discoveries, for instance. Yet what will the return on investment be there? Won’t the government also look for a hearty slice of any profits? I wonder if this ill wind is a one-off event or a harbinger of a larger storm down the road.
“We’ll see. But Brazil forgets there is a larger world out there. The money will just go elsewhere. Brazil will be the poorer for it.”
Maybe Bill Hicks was right — when a new President is elected a group of bankers, Wall Street tycoons, and oil company execs take him into a small room and show him a video of a previous President taking a ride in a convertible in Dallas.
Barack Obama conclusively outed as a CIA creation
– http://goo.gl/ZWmf
Re tariffs against US producers, I think it probably cuts both ways. Ethanol produced in Brazil is reportedly 30% cheaper than US-produced ethanol, even after accounting for shipping costs, yet due to US tariffs, it’s a no-go.
Brazil produces so much food, they’re breaking records for grains down here lately, I don’t think they’ll have any trouble selling their agwares.
Brazil uses sugarcane to produce ethanol, not corn as in the US. A major advantage of sugarcane is that, after it’s been used to produce ethanol, the leftover fiber is burned to generate electricity.
Also, the crop can be harvested up to three times per year due to the great growing weather.
Re presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff, there was an email making the rounds that she killed a soldier in a 1970 bombing, when she was around 18 years old.
I thought it was a hoax at first, but lately the news has been reporting that the police are refusing to unseal documents relating to some criminal activity she was involved in in 1970.
Rousseff is ahead in the polls by over 20 percentage points and is a shoe-in to be the next president of Brazil.
Roger and out.
All the women I know do vote.
The women who are posting here at CFN are ALREADY engaged in dialog — I think some of them are just tired of the invective here in the comments. We expect it, I guess, from JHK, but the personal stuff that goes back and forth here is troubling. And honestly, no one’s mind is ever going to get changed by the stuff that is posted here in the comments section. You’ve all (we’ve all, probably) already made up your minds! Perhaps women just come from a different place (in general — there are always exceptions) — the place that is looking for peace, love, security, and blah blah blah. Men are (more and more, it seems, on this site) looking for a pissing contest.
But I do appreciate your interest in the subject 🙂
what state or country are you in?
From the article Mika links to:
“Barack Obama, on the other hand, cleverly masked his own CIA connections as well as those of his mother, father, step-father, and grandmother…”
Mika, it looks like Big Government CIA training of the Obama/Manchurian Candidate paid off big time. [wink]
The article illustrates big government does work. Social security checks delivered to millions on time, post office deliveries of millions of letters daily, VA treatment of millions of veterans, Obama medical care for millions, it all just works. Thanks for the link
I understand – you want to spar in the ring politik but i am saying this particular post, the
“glenn beck and the tea party people are corn pone nazis”
is a well-travelled road. rutted, in fact. I can get this meme in over a half a million places. literally. google it. I think JHK is better than this.
O yes buildings are not cheap! SantaMonica College
has been called ‘ a construction site ‘…and 3 fields of plastic ‘turf’ cover football / soccer fields where grass once grew. the contractor musta made millions. a cop in santa monica makes 240k a year!
after the bell debacle the free press wrote of santa monica citys top 20 who make 200k a year or more.
bill ares [?], dhorn now Dilma Rousseff!!!!!!!!!!!
As I understand it, all the trouble with corporations replacing government harks back to a Supreme Court decision in the early 1800s.They awarded the status of personhood to corporations relating to the Fourteenth Amendment.
Ever after, corporations have enjoyed all the benefits of citizens (maybe more) while pursuing their only objective — making money.
To paraphrase Animal Farm, All citizens are created equal but corporations are MORE equal.
thanks for the tip on the book! Paradise in hell , sounds about right. I think what i am looking for is a discussion of what are we going to do as a people…i dont mean having chickens and surviving on Miss Scarlets final turnip. I mean, are we really not going to do anything? I wonder why after they did the bailout that over 70% of the people said “No!” there wasnt a collective freak out?
this should be a full tilt crazy town until some people go to jail – i am talking about a whole slew of bernie madoffs and congresspeople and the ineffectual losers at the SEC. Will BP get to skate as well? Is anybody but us going to twist? how about that orange man from Countrywide? grrrrrrrrr
I relocated to the mountains after the bailout. I just wasnt the same person. I think theres a whole lot of me up here. And i think we are sort of ad hoc redefining what is a good life, what is success and what kind of america we want to be post – everything.
Great post. Beck is too commercial and no amount of propaganda can hide the fact he is motivated by the same evils that he states beset his opponents.
Perhaps we are on a brink and it is just a matter of time. What will come will come and I believe it is too late for these forces to be reversed.
The post WWII consumerist boom was a fluke in history. A dream for those who were able to partake of the good things it had to offer. It is done. But a dream!
We are not moving toward a totalitarian state. We are one. The banks, corporations and nonprofits ultimately call the shots.
We live many lies under false ideologues. It is just a matter of time and the unveiling of circumstances that will return us to what life is really about.
It will be interesting to see how many people will be able to survive the new world?
i agree with your assessment. the race wars that happen(ed) here -has anything been accomplished? if so, it isnt evident.
thank you LewisLucanBooks – i forgot about that blog -I went there before through another friend. Thanks for the reminder!
For those of you who revile pop culture, you must set it aside and go to YouTube and watch Lady GaGa’s ‘Telephone’ video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVBsypHzF3U
This is truly brilliant theatre as it depicts females as far more complex and unsavory charcters than what society would like us to believe them to be.
Are these part of that demographic PofC would like to see join the discussion?
(One has to love those smoking cigarette shades! Too friggin’ much!)
Everything works until it doesn’t. My assessment: things that worked previously will not work in the future. We’re heading into a new paradigm. More and more people are becoming aware of the matrix, of the lies and holographic illusions around them. People driven by malice will not survive in the new paradigm. And that includes you. You’re smiling now, but that smile will not last for long.
Mika, the dominant paradigm is that we are physical beings living in a physical world and survival is paramount.
You say: “People driven by malice will not survive in the new paradigm. And that includes you. You’re smiling now, but that smile will not last for long.”
LOL!
I am not under any illusion that I will survive. None of us will. In two hundred years everyone now posting on CFN will probably be dead.
That is why I have a smile on my face. Survival is not the highest value. It’s not even possible. In the course of events everything that is born dies. Sooner? Later? Who knows when? But it is folly to be willing to kill others to prolong your own life.
I don’t take things seriously because we are only here a short while, much too short to demonize others or invent conspiracy theories or fret about “self-defense” or how to survive Apocalypse a few more days, weeks, months or years.
And I certainly don’t worry about imagined or manufactured fears like Obama being a Manchurian candidate groomed by the CIA to rule the world, or Obama being a Muslim out to bring Sharia law to the world, or Obama being a socialist out to destroy America, or Obama being a racist who has hatred in his heart for whites, or whatever this week’s jumble of conspiracy theories is.
Message to Tenth Jager, if you are still reading:
Years ago you said that USA troops would not withdraw from the cities in Iraq. You were wrong.
You said the war in Iraq would continue forever because of oil. You were wrong.
As of today there are no more combat missions ongoing in Iraq.
There are thousands of troops in Germany, in Korea, in Iraq, but there are no ongoing combat missions in those places.
Wars do end.
You would not be here if the latest “conspiracy” did not concern you. Your taqiyya dissimulation, ahmed, is not fooling anyone. We all see thru you, especially me.
Mika, thank you for your comment.
I think we will just have to agree to disagree.
You are totally enmeshed in the dominant matrix of war, violence, and revenge… and you take it all so seriously.
I, on the other hand, am engaged in a playful “taqiyya dissimulation” (whatever that means to you) and I plead guilty! LOL!
Nothing can erase the smile from my heart.
Are these part of that demographic PofC would like to see join the discussion?
=============
Yes, and we want to see them voting in the midterms as well.
And that’s the most sensible thing I’ve seen here today. Thank you, Asoka.
BUT…..I think everyone posting here will be dead a lot sooner than “in 200 years.” Unless someone here has found the fountain of youth. 🙂
Bye!
I don’t mind people having a smile in their heart. What I do mind is the smirk that’s animated by malice. You can’t hide forever, ahmed. Eventually things will catch up with you.
Q said: “Yes, and we want to see them voting in the midterms as well.”
Yes, they will re-elect Obama in 2012 because they understand what women have to gain with Obama and what they would lose if Obama is not re-elected.
Given the current state of Republican in-fighting, and the demonstrated 2010 voting back in of incumbents, Obama should have no problem at all. (Anti-incumbency shows up far more often in the polls than at the ballot box.)
Especially since Republicans are not endearing themselves to pro-abortion, pro-gay rights, pro-immigrants, etc., they are alienating large blocks of voters as they seek party purity.
Palin 2012 to 2013 was just a joke. No Republican (not Romney, not Jindal, not Newt, not Palin, etc.) … No Republican has a chance in 2012.
P.S. I really like the way the Obama family did the White House makeover. Great choice of furnishings. Nice to have a Black family with taste in the White House and an organic garden tended to by the First Lady out front.
CORRECTION:
“the demonstrated 2010 voting back in of incumbents”
What I meant is the demonstrated 2010 midterm primaries showed incumbents have all the advantages over challengers.
In the 2010 midterm primaries all but two of 217 House members seeking new terms have won renomination.
The mainstream media narrative that “voters are angry” is a lie … no, voters are not angry… 99% of voters are satisfied with their incumbents and voted them back in in 2010.
Don’t leave us LewisLucanBooks. 🙁
Like I said, never going into Canada. Coming back I have definetly been given the Gestapo treatment. Coming over the Whirlpool bridge which is NEXUS only I was ignored by three loafing American agents until I figured it was ok to pass without stopping at their “lounge”. I was basically told I was lucky they didn’t tackle me on my cycle. Then I got the pitiful American hee hee salutation.
Q,
Don’t let the jihadi get to you. He’s deliberately baiting you. What ahmed doesn’t know is that the days of US-Saudi petrodollar alliance are soon coming to an end. The largest oil deposits in the world have been found off the coast of China. Ahmed, the Chinese will be preparing your eyeballs in their soup. I know this, because I know they have the recipe.
I wouldn’t “freak out” other than for the fact that she is an embarassment possibly larger than George W. Bush was. The night he was re-elected will always be in my memory as something that could not have possibly happened. If Sarah were to win it would also be another “I can’t believe how stupid these people can be” moment. On the other hand, if the Democrats could lose that cake walk in 2004, they should be able to pull it off again in 2012. I’m with JHK, Dr. Doolittle is a one-term novelty.
According to a recent Gallup poll, 50% of Americans now have a favorable view of Republicans as opposed to 40% for the Democrats.
Yes, you read that right.
Half of the country has a favorable view of the party that wrecked the Bill of Rights, started two foreign wars, destroyed the finances of the government, broke down the wall separating church and state, filled every government agency with partisan hacks or corporate moles, created the housing crisis, created the financial crisis, and so forth.
Is this like inviting your alcoholic uncle Rico to live with you again after he has already molested your daughter?
I can only suppose that years of being force fed Fox News and high fructose corn syrup has disintegrated the long term memory centers of many Americans’ brains. Because, fudge me, I cannot figure out why we would want to go back to the abuser like some kind of meek housewife.
People are even dumber than I give them credit for, and I think people are pretty dumb. They will believe ANYTHING you show them on the television and have the attention span and long term memory of gnats.
Have we learned nothing?
We’ve learned nothing.
Q, (re. “The Automatic Earth)
Yep, their articles are usually quite in-depth. Although some of it escapes me (due to my personal ignorance of the market matters), it seems always informative of the general economic trends.
What I find gives them credence is the use of the original articles that they’ve cherry-picked [from] to form their final analysis. (Even if they’re in direct opposition! Who would’a thunk it?) I find that refreshing and ultimately supportive of their opinion. If you check in with them once in a while, it may be helpful to your pursuits, realistic forecast-wise.
(I just look at it to see how the economic world be turning, and what indicators to watch for that might be large warning signs. i.e. “Women and children first!” Yikes.)
Those sluts look like a couple of bitches I was with in Bryn Mawr.
And if you truly believe that, my dear, I’ve got some lovely land south of Key West I’d like to sell you.
I watched the Lady Gaga video. Such homicidal themes! I much prefer Beach Boy themes…but I’m just an old fuddy, duddy if you ask my 15 year-old daughter.
I don’t believe that most woman have such violent fantasies. My dark side’s idea of punishment/revenge is making a list of people NOT to invite to a party. Fortunately, there are only 4 women that I absolutely despise on the planet. I will loathe them until the day I die.
I must admit that Lady Gaga has a good singing voice and is very talented.
SJMom
OK..please clear this up:
if the purpose of the 1911 federal income tax was and still is to end dire poverty on us citizens…
‘America tried exactly what you suggest, having no income tax during the Industrial Revolution and into the early 1900’s. It didn’t work. The nature of capitalism is that it heavily favors winners and disfavors losers by its internal logic. Thus, after some time you inevitably get a plutocracy, or government by the rich. That’s why America almost had a revolution in the 1930’s and why many European countries turned into dictatorships. Capitalist systems failed them, leading to enormous wealth gaps where the vast majority of people found themselves at the bottom (sound familiar?).
Even now, the income differences between the upper 1% and everyone else are enormous in America. The upper 1% of households has more net worth than the bottom 90%. The bottom 40% has only 0.4% of the wealth. Wrap your head around those facts. ‘
Ill Wrap your head around those facts….so the tax failed to end poverty but increased social workers/ food stamp workers etc? the federal govt grew by like 100x?
turk, we dont see eye to eye on much but clear the poin up please!
‘wrecked the Bill of Rights’..wasnt it the dems / leftist dems like hillary that voted for pat riot act?
Everyone, see the 1950’s film “A Face in the Crowd,” starring Andy Griffith as a self-made television pundit who rises to unprecedented power using TV as the medium. This early version of ‘Network’ is well worth your time to view.
Beck, an ex-rock and roll, ‘morning zoo’ DJ, is the latest statement of how intellectually bankrupt America is, and how totally lame and uneducated Americans are. That this man could rise to prominence is stunning. But, see the movie “Face in the Crowd,” and you will get it. We love to be lied to and scammed—it must be in the American DNA is all I can say. This time though, we’re being slaughtered just as our leaders killed off native peoples, and we too will end up diminished, poor beyond belief, with paltry government stipends to live on. Get ready, it is really happening.
It’s funny when you mention Canada to some Americans. Many don’t know the first thing about our neighbor to the north. I was teaching a G.E.D. course at a local community college and the class discussion turned to economics, more specifically, trade. Some of the students didn’t know that Canada has a very strong and profitable trade with the U.S. Many didn’t know that Canada is ruled by a prime minister. A surprising few didn’t know Canada’s relationship with Great Britain. It really floored me how Americans (some well into their forties) could be that uninformed. I blame it on the educational system. We have been pouring billions of dollars into education and we produce citizens who can’t do basic math (I’m talking subtracting with regrouping, here). It is very evident to me that we cannot continue to compete in the world today or in the future until something very fundamental changes in our system of government. And I am not saying that my generation was a whole lot smarter. Geez we were dumb! But I don’t think we can continue to get away with ignoring the ADD educational problem in American society. Money alone can’t fix it. We’ve proven that. I think above everything else it’s an attitude adjustment we need to adopt. Being smart has got to be cool again.
Jim, I’m glad you’ve finally come to the realization that Obama is just more of the same.
Regarding your “biggest mystery” (what happened to reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose in this country to drive them into such burrow of cowardice that they can’t speak the truth, or act decisively, or even defend themselves against such a host of vicious morons in a time of troubles?)…
First, being reasonable and rational does not require being “educated” in any modern sense of the word. Education as we know it is mostly a mechanism of social control, despite the geniuses who regularly emerge from it unscathed. Nevertheless, we reasonable and rational people continue to educate ourselves — in the true sense of the word — every day.
We are still here, though by no means a majority. Some of us still have jobs and thus little time or energy for town-hall meetings, street demonstrations, and letters to the editor. As long as we have the blessing of income, we try to save and invest it wisely.
Many of us no longer believe (if we ever did) that voting changes anything. So we don’t participate in the national donkey/elephant sporting events.
And many of us are spending a good portion of our spare time trying to prepare for what you and others say is coming.
Good! That will leave the decisions up to those of us who still play in the national donkey/elephant sporting events.
A harmless occupation. I hope you are enjoying the preparations!
Please note that “what others say is coming” has been said over and over again since at least the 1970’s (that I remember in my lifetime) and much longer before I became aware of “end times” predictions.
Repent! The end is coming!
Jesus gave his apocalyptic prophecy about the end of time from the Mount of Olives and he was just jivin’ us, too!
Even people like Jesus can get sucked into the pessimist worldview. Rise above it (without buying guns or ammo or gold).
Don’t follow Jesus’ bad example.
Hi Stelios, what do you think of the mining tax? If it slows down the selling off, it’s good, or if not, it gives a useful source of revenue while the rest of the economy pretends to sleep.
But of course, the miners said “Oh we’ll have to cancel $X billion of investment” which sounds a bit like this:
I’d have to agree (good comedian who throws in expletives, weakening his work). If there wasn’t the foul language (from both JHK and commenters), I would have given my kids the URL a long time ago, and given them bits of it verbally.
Nick.
Asoka, voters do not make the decisions, unless they are also heavy and influential campaign contributors.
Voters leave the decisions to a few hundred corrupt and criminal politicians and lobbyists whose rhetoric they continue to swallow, and whose promises appeal to their own self interests.
In any case, I doubt that those lofty “decisions” you allude to will have much force in the real world, unless economic “happy days” return, and fast.
Actually, wasn’t 2nd to last either. I meant to concur with the post by m_barton2k10.
You really ought to press the “Reply” link.
“The tools make it easy. But given enough effort, you can make it hard for yourself.”
— Quote from a workmate of mine, late 2002.
The only exceptions to that I see are Ron Paul
and Dennis Kucinich. Any others I am missing?
Probably not, unless you go overseas. Then you’ll find David Lange (NZ Prime Minister 1984-7, who shut out the American warships), and Kevin Rudd (Australian Prime Minister 2007-10, rightly or wrongly, said “Sorry” to the Aboriginals: but at least he bowed to community talk on that one, coz the corporates wouldn’t have given a toss).
I should also throw in Marilyn Waring, who fell out with her party’s leader (Rob Muldoon, NZ Prime Minister) pretty quickly, and told it like it was. Not stated on Wikipedia: she was on a Johnsonville train when the doors flew open in motion.
While I generally enjoy reading Kunstler’s writings, I found this one really offensive. To start there was the risible hyperbole, typical of the diehard left, of comparing Palin to Hitler. But then to proceed to say that the election of Palin will be the end of representative government in America? I think Palin is a lot more representative of America than the “God damn America” closet Muslim presently in the White House. So no matter what else happens, America will have a more “representative” government under Palin.
And then to talk about Palin being bolstered by “backstage extremist billionaires”? Who exactly are these billionaires…this seems like groundless slander. But I’ll tell you a couple billionaires with some extreme views backing Osamabama. The senile Warren Buffet who believes the rich should give away all their money when they die and royally screw over their children. And Soros who seems to be trying to create some new world order by using capitalism to destroy itself. And of course there’s all the Muslim oil-billionaries who loved seeing a Muslim man (of course he adopted Christianity to better infiltrate the infidel…Mohammed in fact would have encouraged this) take the reins of the devil-on-Earth, the United States. But to Kunstler these billionaires are preferable to the “extremist” billionaires that Kunstler has yet to name.
But by making excuses for Obama’s continuation of the policies of every president in the past 100 years in saving the rich and powerful for the greater good…Kunstler showed his true colors. He is just like any other old lib who will always vote for the Democrat and always make exuses when that Democrat ineluctably fails to live up to expectations. I’m sure he had similar buyer’s remorse about Carter…but then, like now, could not admit he erred by voting for him. And by telling himself the Republican would have been even worse, he finds some justification for not doing some serious soul searching and revisiting of some deeply ingrained ideas about voting Democrat.
Oh… in November 2008 there were two people named John McCain and Sara Palin who wanted to be elected. Millions voted and decided no, they would not get that chance.
Or are you saying that the “real rulers” would have manipulated McCain and Palin in exactly the same way they must be manipulating Obama?
I insist that millions of people who were not heavy or influential contributors did make a decision against McCain and Palin in 2008.
Nick –
Planning a trip to New Zealand. What is the best month or time of year to go? Off subject i know but what the heck…
N.
So much invective. Jim, aren’t you getting away from your purpose—to get us ready for a different world?
Sure,Obama is a dissappiontment. Palin and Beck are reaching for something opposite. But that is not really the issue is a post oil, post modern world.
When did you shift focus on what we can do to adapt to the coming reality, to this petty name calling, regional bashing, so beneath you kind of venting?
You are brilliant and insightful. We need you to guide us through the dark days to come. Please don’t get sidetracked by this pseudo-political stuff. It is beneath you.
This is all just a phase of the process. Stand above it. I treasure your post each week. Just try to stay away from stereotyping NASCAR and
Southerners… It will not contribute to the work we all have to do wherever we are.
Not going anywhere. I just occasionally visit other forums to get a breath of fresh air. It sometimes gets a little stale in here. Besides, I like some of Jim’s “twist of phrase.” Memes to spread around in other forums. “Witch of Hebron” on the way. Might arrive tomorrow.
I liked “One Second After.” EMP wipes out every electronic gizmo in half the world. One year in the life of a small town. Ashville, (?) NC.
Grim doomer porn. Great stuff. Some scenes still stick with me.
Besides, someones got to keep the (rainbow) flag flying! 😀
I guess you missed this link. It was up toward the top 😀
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html
Hi Kiwi Nick. You sound like an expat currently residing in OZ(?) – or at least a Kiwi who’s well versed in Aussie politics. In any case, I think the concept of the mining tax is reasonable and well founded given the stuff mined IS a non-renewable resource & technically belongs to the nation. Frankly I have problems with the idea that any one person or corporation can own resources in the ground, or get in a position where they can be obscenely wealthy from the exploitation of said resources but that’s another story.
The problem was the way Rudd & Swan claimed “significant tax reforms” which amounted to little more than the mining tax (at short notice). Even if such a tax does impinge on investment & development, I could care less. I’m tired of all the usual arguments for business as usual (BAU) which are generally arguments to keep the fat cats – like Clive Palmer (who looks like a fat cat and snorts) fat, not so cleverly disguised as arguments about investment and employment etc., etc..
Frankly without some brakes on such practices, we’ll head even faster toward resource depletion and potentially oblivion. In my experience the average Aussie – perhaps like the average US citizen – has an unrealistic sense of entitlement that really needs to be kerbed. I could go on about this stuff at length – I have other things to tend to so I’ll leave it at that (for now).
Cash,
Our various populaces have gotten so
narcotized, stupefied, and spoon-fed
that I think a sort of dictatorship
is NECESSARY.
Provocative? Maybe. But I think the
situation on Wall Street has gotten so
out of hand that I would have rounded
up the CEOs of EVERY major investment
bank and jailed them and THEN sorted
it out.
These bastards COUNT on the byzantine
nature of our legal system to give them
time and good lawyers to create plausible
deniability for every goddamned scheme
they cooked up since 1985 from CDOs to
just plain lying to customers.
Seriously. Every one of them. I figure
a good DOJ investigation would result in
75% of them paying back billions to our
society and the other 25% can get released
in due course.
Our judicial system is as broken as our
financial system and the hucksters at
these financial firms can keep things
tied up in court for a decade.
No. In jail. Every one of them. That
is MY “dictatorship”. Jamie Dimon. Lloyd
Blankfein. Franklin Raines. I don’t need
to itemize the whole list.
While we’re at it, why don’t we put the
CFTC commissioners in jail, too. How
can people, for example, nakedly short
gold when they couldn’t possibly deliver
if the longs demanded it. How can that
happen?
In jail. Every goddamned one of them.
They’ve turned a financial system that
almost every 401K, Roth, Keough, and
State/Federal pension system is utterly
dependent upon yet there isn’t a shred
of security in the system.
And if I dare make a forecast, it is that
the real estate meltdown coming within
the next six weeks is as bad as it looks
out here in La La Land (California), we’re
going to have a new round of banking
failures and citizens in the bread lines.
How could our government’s watchdogs be
so utterly asleep at the helm while these
mangy dogs have turned the entire US
financial system into a Las Vegas but,
unlike Las Vegas where the bets are
simple, you don’t even have any idea
what you’re betting on when you buy
most financial products. Even money
market funds use Fed repos, for example.
Who knows that?
E.
The US Body Politic …
On the right you have a large contingent
of Glenn Beck-style “wing nuts” who want
to turn the US into a theocracy. On the
left you have a bunch of New Age hipsters
who don’t care that “Obama-care” is so
complicated that even his own party’s
members openly claim they haven’t read
the 1500-page “provisions” in the bill.
On the left, as long as it SMELLS “green”
and/or “caring”, we must pass the bill with
all due haste … that is, BEFORE anyone
really has a CHANCE to read it.
I voted for Obama … as an experiment. I
just didn’t want someone as stupid as Palin
a heartbeat from the Presidency. Did I get
my vote’s worth?? Nah. This dude is just
an empty suit who thinks he’s emperor.
I did a little digging and his “pick and
shovel” initiatives have amounted to around
FOUR percent of Federal bailout monies.
It’s not like he’s making the TVA or the
WPA. He wants “high speed rail” because
it’s HIP … and a huge waste of money.
We need to overhaul the BASIC rail system,
not build 50 billion dollar trains from
Cincinnati to Atlanta.
On the other side, however, are the
Republicans who are just the party of “no”.
To Obama’s credit, he has tried to create
forums to debate national health care. I
saw that “debate” and it was no debate
at all. A real debate has thesis, antithesis,
and synthesis. This requires actually seeing
the other guy’s point of view. All the
Republicans did was bullshit about things
like tort reform knowing full well that
insurance fraud accounts, according to
independent watchdogs, for somewhere between
0.5% and 1.0% of the total healthcare dollars
on the HIGH side and only 0.3% on the LOW
side.
No wonder JHK sounds as sad and cynical as
he does. Like many of us on this blog, he
is a man without a political party. The
existing two parties are totally PAC-controlled
and the only variable is who is bought out
by which PAC.
The Supreme Court making elections all buyable
was the final stake in the heart of the zombie
that IS the remains of our political system.
Enjoy your private lives, folks, because
corruption on the scale we’re seeing now
has NEVER led to anything less than the
total dissolution of civilizations for as
long as they have existed.
E.
Well, that sure is disgusting. And I never saw Lady Gaga close up — she’s kind of ugly! No boobs to speak of, either (eh, Q?). Yuck all the way around.
It makes me think that one of the symptoms of the decay of our “culture” (whatever it was) is this complete and total objectification of women, and they themselves are huge contributors to it!
I’m afraid, Asia, that both Republicans and Democrats got on board for the Patriot Act — but Bush was president, and there was a Republican majority in power.
Only a sensible few resisted. Maybe someone here has easy access to the names?
Why are certain people here calling Asoka “Ahmed”? Can anyone explain?
We Canadians are known (internally) for being excellent American-bashers. I guess because we have the best seats in the house, we get to see all the gory, close-up details the rest of the world misses during the show; all the lines and wrinkles, the imperfect make-up, the shoddy sets, the tattered drapes.
During my life I had the wonderful opportunity to visit much of the US… I would say more than most Americans. Further, I had an even better opportunity to work there, Atlanta specifically.
That’s when my eyes opened.
Canada? WTF is that? HELLO!
Jeez, Hartsfield Airport makes even our newly gigantic expanded Pearson (Toronto) airport pale by comparison.
So the question I put to my friends when they start deriding Anmericans for their Canadian ignorance is this: So what’s happenining in PEI right now? They look at you with a stunned look. “Who the fuck cares” is the normal retort.
Then they get it.
Would I rather more Americans know about Canada? Of course. Can I blame them for not knowing? Not any longer. Don’t beat yourselves up.
Well put. So sad. I like the analogy to an abused wife. Better the devil you know, eh?
All you “moderates” or “liberals” or non-Republicans are welcome here. I think we can make quite a nice country with y’all. And further to my previous post, we can sit and watch as the remainder tear each other apart as they degrade into protomorphic forms.
I think we could use some help with the wall though. 😉
I saw her interviewed on Ellen. Correct, she is not actually that pretty. Ordinary I suppose.
But she has a compelling personality. Not at all the personna she portrays in her videos. She was the outcast at school. The freak as she put it. (And I would say a very talented freak at that.) She sang a song that she wrote to her father. It was quite touching.
Objectification of women? I’m surprised that’s what you saw. I read it as a gestatory demonstration of the virility and potential of female power.
SJM51.. can I offer some advice? Let go of that hate for those four. It’s likely doing more harm to you than it will ever do to them. We all have a list of those people in our lives. Forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself, not others. It took me almost 50 years to figure it out.
I’m amazed that only women (or what appear to be female screen-named people) responded/reacted to the Lady GaGa video. Hmmmm.
I suppose if they told me they were sorry, I would let go of my anger. What they all have in common is narcissism and a bit of a mean streak –so being humble and apologizing isn’t part of their life script.
Sigh, SJmom
I’m amazed that only women (or what appear to be female screen-named people) responded/reacted to the Lady GaGa video. Hmmmm.
===============
Not so Frigg. I’m male and I believe I was the first to respond re the GaGa video. The gist of my obviously sarcastic remark was that not only should these “ladies” join our discussion here at CFN but they should be sure to vote in the mid-term elections. Next was another male, Asoka, who pulled a typical Asoka – turning my comment in a direction he knows was not intended – by launching into his predictions (all in favor of continuation of big government and spreading the wealth around) concerning up-coming election results. Who knows if he actually watched the GaGa video?
They won’t do it… nature of the beasts you describe. Sounds like you’re better off without them in your life. Celebrate!
My apologies to you Q. You are correct.
Somehow I suspect those women in the video aren’t the bimboes or heathens they portray. Much like the facades worn by the politicoes, pundits, talking heads, evangelists, corporate apologists et al, they too are not what they appear and are all part of the mirage they think society wants to see, allowing to hide their true intentions.
“Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the hearts of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” Eccl. 8:11
You might want to read this:
http://gonzalolira.blogspot.com/2010/08/termite-riddled-house-treasury-bonds.html#more
Ummmm, aren’t you getting the BIG PICTURE JHK is trying to provide here? Guess not.
Here’s the premise then:
The tone and slant of political discourse is directly indicative [a signpost, if you will] of coming collapse. (Your post being a fine example.)
Be disgusted/shocked all you want, it don’t change what is.
“We’re living in abject poverty compared to what could be, whether it is financial poverty, poverty of the soul, poverty of the environment or poverty of community. If you look at what’s possible, there’s no economic problems on Planet Earth, the only problem we have is a political problem, and that’s why to solve anything we think is an economic problem, what we need to do is to ask: Who’s in charge?, and: Why are they behaving this way? Because the wealth that we are sacrificing to that group of people, it’s extraordinary.”
Seems like a pretty good description of the Leaven of Herod.
http://www.chaostheorien.de/interviews?p_p_id=101_INSTANCE_rAD9&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column-3&p_p_col_count=1&_101_INSTANCE_rAD9_struts_action=%2Fasset_publisher%2Fview_content&_101_INSTANCE_rAD9_redirect=%2Finterviews&_101_INSTANCE_rAD9_type=content&_101_INSTANCE_rAD9_urlTitle=behind-the-wheel&page=4
Sorry, shudda linked to page one:
http://www.chaostheorien.de/interviews?p_p_id=101_INSTANCE_rAD9&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column-3&p_p_col_count=1&_101_INSTANCE_rAD9_struts_action=%2Fasset_publisher%2Fview_content&_101_INSTANCE_rAD9_redirect=%2Finterviews&_101_INSTANCE_rAD9_type=content&_101_INSTANCE_rAD9_urlTitle=behind-the-wheel&page=1
Mila59, thank you for your question.
My guess is that the poster using Ahmed instead of Asoka, is attempting to insult Asoka, based on a weird belief that being Arab or Muslim is somehow a bad thing.
The attempt fails given that the name Ahmed is perfectly respectable.
Ahmed means “highly praised or one who constantly thanks God.”
You said:
Shazam! Hit it with a lightning stroke there, E. I would only add that the “left”, being now almost wholly a corporate NEO-liberal operation, had given away the whole store to the Health MegaCorps before the “reform” discussion was even begun. Hell, Baucus shut out single-payer advocates from the conversation, then had them arrested on Day One. Then all the NEO-conservative and Neoliberal “people’s representatives” yukked it up and began the dog-and-pony-show.
No public option was allowed, not even the tiniest way a person could skirt the Power of the Corporations, now mandated by law and swollen even further beyond it’s current bloated, unchecked state.
And that’s about it in a nutshell. The only questions remaining are timeline and the amount of implicit or tacit conspiracy by the Aristocratic Elite, whether it be completely uncoordinated self-interested individuals/corporations or whether it’s guided by Bilderbergers and alien space lizards.
The last being influential to where this all is leading besides and beyond collapse, not to mention being unknowable. We might not be able to know for sure, but we can suspect.
I definitely tend to suspect various levels of conspiracies, since criminal conspiracy is a common practice at all other levels of society it stands to reason that the use of criminal conspiracies don’t cease just because people are rich and powerful as Gods..and drunk on said demi-god like power. Also, both Enron and Bernie Madoff show quite clearly that large scale coporate-aristocratic criminal conspiracies can successfully thrive for long LONG periods of time.
But in the end it doesn’t matter. In the absence of some cornucopian techno-triumphalist fantasy, the Titanic is going down, and the First Class Passengers are doing the same thing they have always done to the rest of us.
The Second Class Passengers get some soothing, calming band music, free hors d’ouveres and champagne.
Third Class/Steerage get locked in the bowels of the ship, denied information and staring at the barrel of the Purser’s gun.
Well, what I see in the video is “woman” as sado-masochistic sex toy. Whether Lady Gaga is actually intelligent, I couldn’t say, although anyone who makes a go of things in such a big way probably has some good smarts. Whether or not she can sing…I don’t think she sings any better than thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands of other women. She just knows how to market herself. Her voice is not exceptional. I was (sort of) joking about her looks and her other qualities — since she is objectifying herself with her whole persona-as-commodity, I felt she opens herself to that sort of judgment.
“the Titanic is going down, and the First Class Passengers are doing the same thing they have always done to the rest of us.”
Maybe the Titantic metaphor breaks down, but would it not be in the interest of First Class passengers (and any secret ruling elites you may want to posit) to keep the ship afloat?
If it goes down, the First Class and ruling elites all die. Everyone dies. They are greedy, yes… but I don’t think they are so stupid as to desire their own demise.
Well, I supposed that they were meant to be insulting. But I just couldn’t get the connection. Are the writers implying that you are a terrorist? Or supporter of such? Ahmed is a nice name, anyway, you’re right about that. I suppose since President Obama is being called a Muslim and so forth, you are at least in good company.
Ugh, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are in the neighborhood today. I answered the door and told them that I didn’t want a copy of the “Watchtower”, but wished them a good day.
Last week someone asked for what Mormons recommend for long term food storage. My mom lost her list, but suggested I check out providentliving.org…I found the site rather generic, not specific. They did have some good ideas about proper storage techniques.
SJmom
Thanks for the interesting link, MD!!
I concur with the contents of that article.
Treasury Bonds during the inflationary 1970s
were, indeed, “certificates of guaranteed
confiscation” because inflation is a “tax”
that does not have to be passed on to the
consumer via legislation.
Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University
economist (and author of “The Coming
Generational Storm”) has already gone on
record as saying that our economy is MUCH
worse than … GREECE!!!
The problem is, of course, the ability of
the Federal Reserve Bank to create illusions
… like the illusion that it is sensible for
retail investors and the rest of the world to
lend money to the USA for 10 years at 2.5%
interest. Would any bank in America loan
at such rates to an INDIVIDUAL who had the
balance sheet of the United States? It’s
a rhetorical question. They’d laugh you
right out of the bank.
Right now we’re in a period where wages are
falling, house prices are about to stage a
second leg down, and GM and Ford can hardly
give cars away (latest data!!). While this
is occurring, Treasury yields are likely to,
at worst, stay stable or even fall farther.
Thus, while savers should be rewarded with
huge interest rates because of the horrible
creditworthiness of the USA, instead they
will get near zero rates of return on fixed
income investments for an ill-defined period
which might last for more than five more years.
And all courtesy of the Fed and the cooperation
of the rest of the worlds banksters intervening
in the “free” markets (duh, right) and essentially
making RATIONAL investments temporarily seem like
the LEAST rational investments for years to come.
Little wonder that our teens are dressing like
gangsters. They’re just mirroring a fact of
American life i.e., that the powers that be in
high finance are publically legitimized gangsters.
Bernie Madoff was just a small fish they through
the book at so that your attention was averted
while the big fish will never spend a day in
jail.
E.
Correction to my last post “through the book
at” should read “threw the book at”.
E.
Well, Q, I think this week’s topical JHK post has me wanting to ask you again, have you listened to Glenn Beck and any of the rest of the RW Noise and Lie Machine yet?
You pose as such a die-hard skeptic and rationalist, but I maintain you are just as flawed as every single one of us in your blindness in the matter of self-assessment.
A couple weeks ago, I asked you why is it a historic fact that Hitler, Osama bin Laden, Pol Pot, the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, Stalin and King George III of England all shared a common belief in that they despised liberals, even though it’s quite a large spectrum from Left to Right represented by that bunch.
Glenn Beckers, with their limited, almost nonexistant understanding of political science, would have you believe that Hitker’s fascism WAS communism, but I assume you are too smart to let such absolutely “up is down” contradictory drivel unworthy of an educated 6th grader to pass your lips.
As Wagelaborer predicted at the time, rather than answer my question, you let it drop and ignored it.
You are pretty big in your self-appointed role of knocking down or mocking “wacky conspiracy theories”…when they come from the Left.
However, you conveniently turn a blind eye to the same stuff, if not worse, coming from the Right. You should listen to Beck’s radio show or watch his TV show. Just for a little while.
Because not only is much of his blabber at least as “wackily conspiracy theoretical” as anything anyone on CFN has to say.
And at least CFNers can articulate our positions without resorting to anti-common sensical ahistorical lunacy such as Hitler was a Leftist or that Obama could be both a Communist and a Fascist simultaneously.
So, I ask you again to watch and listen to Beck, Savage, Limbaugh and the rest, just so you can accurately assess what “your side” has been up to lately and what they have become.
Don’t get me wrong, what’s left of the actual American Left is often a clusterfuck with messed up priorities and it’s own panoply of faults that has lost it’s way.
But the American Right, the mainstream, get-it-24/7-from-any-TV-channel-or-radio station American Right, is off the deep end into the same kind of creepy Nazi-like demagoguery of which they accuse Obama and the Left.
Which is not surprising. Throughout history authoritarians both Right and Left have traditionally accused their intended victims and enemies of what they themselves were up to. The Nazis accused the Jews of being serial liars and propagandists out to enslave the world.
Gosh, sounds like the Nazis were describing themselves, doesn’t it? So in that sense, Beck is linked backwards to thousands of years of authoritarian history when he uses this tactic.
You owe it to yourself as someone who sees himself as skeptical and informed, to really take a hard look at what is coming out of the American Right these days. JHK, though oversimplifying a complex situation, has it right in his concern over growing Corn-Pone Nazism.
And yeah, it IS coming draped in a flag and carrying a cross just like Sinclair Lewis predicted.
mila59, I am puzzled also. The only thing I can think is some people consider pacifism to be somehow threatening. Or, you may wonder why Mika calls me a jihadi? That I can explain.
I am opposed to terrorism, war, nuclear weapons, the existence of armies, murder in “self-defense,” corporal or capital punishment, domestic battering, etc. In other words, I am opposed to the use of violence. I am opposed to the “lesser jihad.”
My jihad is the “greater jihad.” The greater jihad seeks a peaceful world using peaceful means. It is spiritual, full of peace, shines forth from the heart through a gentle gratefulness, and gives thanks for each day.
If it goes down, the First Class and ruling elites all die.
=============
No Asoka, I think Hancock’s metaphor means the elite get the life boats, 2nd class gets to hug their seat cushions full of beer farts and 3rd class goes down with the ship.
Oh, so the elite get to die later.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/01/last-titanic-survivor-dies
Check out Vanity Fair’s article on Sarah Palin by Michael Joseph Gross.
“Why are certain people here calling Asoka “Ahmed”? Can anyone explain?”
It started on August 21st at 8:07PM with:
“You obviously don’t have a drop of american blood in you, do you ahmed.” speaking to me, in response to my statement that *a code of law is made by a lawmaker, which is another word for g-o-d*. The conversation devolved to:
“So this is the nonsense your argument devolved to, ahmed. You and asoka, both worthless mindless eaters, and you both will be culled by the very system you support.”
I think it was an attempt to get me to shut up, using guilt by asscociation {I do not support the system!} because I was showing cause and effect between laws and outcomes.
Holy cow. I agree with you. I didn’t know there was a peaceful sort of “jihad.” But if there is, I’m all for it. Geeze, I can hardly kill an insect, except for swatting mosquitoes. Man, I didn’t know pacifism and related beliefs would earn you such opprobrium here.
Okay, cool. I went back and read it. So Mika was calling YOU Ahmed. Now people are calling Asoka Ahmed. It’s just an insult when you don’t agree with someone here at CFN. Oh well, ignore the insulters. High class, low class…I think they can safely be listed under the “no class” category.
i don~t get it..who~s Akmed
Well, Q, … have you listened to Glenn Beck and any of the rest of the RW Noise and Lie Machine yet?
=================
Honest to God Hancock, not a word. Welll, to be precise, I read several editorials and op-ed pieces in the NYT about the event and there was a newsclip showing thousands of people near the Wash Monument and reflecting pool and then the camera zoomed in on Palin who was launching into a populist speech of which I caught maybe 4-5 words before I clicked on the “Last” button of my remote which took me to either, Jeopardy, Seinfeld or pre-season pro football – I don’t rightly recall.
As to me not answering your question(s) of a couple weeks ago and as to Wage predicting that I would do precisely that … well, I hardly know what to say. You give me way more credit than I deserve if you think I’m knowledgeable about whether Hitler and the rest were leftist, rightist, hated liberals, or whatever. I haven’t the foggiest.
You appear to be a person deeply immersed in poly sci and all the terms and jargon that go with it. I am not. Way back, when Vlad (Jaego, at that time) first defined himself as a fascist I had to look the word up and the first thing I realized was that he only partially fit the description of a fascist.
Similarly, when you or others use the terms nazism or communist I go to Dictionary.com but I am always skeptical whether the definitions I find there actually match the template in the mind of the CFN commenter. I couldn’t define “Tea Partier” or “corn-pone nazi” if you paid me. I feel no affiliation to any political party. I am against welfare-stateism. I agree with whoever it was upthread that said there is a vast difference between the words “provide” and “promote.”
I have contempt for politics and politicians and for organized religions and proselytizers. I am not a joiner. I believe in “neither a borrower nor a lender be.”
I hope this is in some way helpful.
Just a name being thrown around as a sign of contempt.
Make that welfare-statism
Asoka,
The Vanity Fair article about Sarah Palin was interesting. How many personality disorders did you spot? (I found two.)
SJmom
A Black Man Goes To Glenn Beck’s Rally
by Jerome Hudson 08/31/2010
“To hear the mainstream media [and CFN??] tell the story, you would have thought that I, a black man, had walked into a hornet’s nest of racists when I decided to attend Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally. In reality, my experience was the complete opposite.”
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=38767
Well everybody’s entitled to their opinion, but I have heard from a few people that attended the Beck rally and it was not Nazi-like at all,it was a quiet well behaved crowd. The attendance figure of 87,000 is an absurdity, the crowd was much larger. The National Mall was pretty well packed from one end to the other, more like 1 million.
Yes, the “Tea Baggers” and “Corn Pone Nazis” also see that this is Cluster Fuck Nation and they want a “change” in the direction we have been stirred in by both major parties. That’s what it is all about, it is not about “Getting the nigger out of the White House” as you put it.
To TWT47:
Well, a large football stadium packed with
fans is about 100,000. I certainly do not
think that the National Mall, packed, is
equal to TEN such stadiums but I will concede
that it is certainly more than the 87,000
figure given. However, likely on the order
of only about 200,000.
However, whatever the crowd size was, I am
suspicious of the Tea Party because their
“messiahs” are people like Beck and Palin.
Frankly, Adolf Hitler was a Rhodes Scholar
compared to the level of erudition that Beck,
Palin, and the like demonstrate.
I’ve watched Beck’s show on Fox News and even
there where, presumably, he has a prepared
script, he often comes across as inarticulate
and unable to stay on any topic except his
“God”. He’s known to put Vicks on his eyelids
to accentuate the moist look after he cries
(don’t take my word for it, check it out).
These people are SELF-PROMOTERS pretending to
be for the “little people”. Palin is almost
pathologically authoritarian and a warmonger.
Beck is a theocrat whose economic and political
knowledge are sorry. Both have enormous
appearance fees.
Bob Sommerby once referred to the “millionaire
punditocracy” and the sham is that Beck and
Palin, the stalwarts of the Tea Party movement,
EXEMPLIFY this description. Palin demands sums
from several hundred thousand to a million for
formal appearances.
And that, TWT47, is why I am suspicious of the
Tea Party. It’s leading politicos are as
shameless and greedy as a TBTF bankster and
the citizens who partake in these rallies
obviously cannot see through people like this.
That’s why Kunstler’s critique, alas, is
accurate. Jim uses literary panache like
“cornpone nazis” to describe such people.
Personally, I’m not that acrid. However,
I think the average Tea Party person is
about like an average follower of Alex
Jones … fat, not too bright, and full
of religious zeal. Otherwise, they’d have
more compelling messiahs.
E.
Eleuthero, You are on a ROLL! Your last three posts have been insightful home runs!
Keep up the good work!
Hancock, you’re looking good also, with your post back to Eleuthero.
And SJ Mom, that was I who was asking about food storage. That’s a good website you suggested. The Mormons are all about PRACTICAL storage. I’m thinking that’s probably because they actually eat their stored food on a regular rotating basis – like normal people without refrigeration throughout history.
The responses to Lady Gaga and my post about female empowerment have been interesting, but sparse. I keep waiting, and working on some ideas to tie this all together.
And Ozone, your rewrite on Monday made a lot of sense. I’m letting the week wind down before responding. I’ve come to believe there is a spot in the human brain that is normally filled by what is normally called *religion.* And that spot of human consciousness does NOT want to be empty – which is why I’ve got a lot of admiration for atheists. 🙂
Maybe somebody else will jump in there and tie all this together for us!
At least in my neck of the woods the majority of kids don’t dress like gangsters. I visited the high school today to pick up some papers and I would call the way teenagers dress as DEPRESSING. Blue jeans for guys and girls of course, cut-off shorts, T shirts that are black and gray.
This year a few more girls are wearing skirts (my daughter has two polka-dotted skirts). The school colors are red, white and blue, but because red and blue are the colors of rival gangs, you can only wear one item of the color, even shoe laces count if they are red or blue.
I would characterize the campus fashion as depressing. Since I think we are in a depression, I guess it correlates. The school’s head secretary agrees with me, she can’t believe how many kids show up in sweat pants and pajama bottoms, and even slippers. It’s like they don’t care how they look.
When I went to school, fashion was a lot more lively and varied. Puka shells, hawaiian prints, “Candies” high heels, maxi skirts, wild patterned pants, Gunnesax dresses. I wore high heels and a dress almost every day.
SJmom
Hello, SJM!! I think you would witness
the “gangsta” fashion more when the teens
are in their off hours outside of school.
That’s when you’d see the crotch-scraping-
the-ground look. I suspect that gangster
wear has been made illegal by school
officials … they’re stupid but they’re
not THAT stupid … they know that things
like gang logos and gangster wear cannot
be tolerated.
However, I totally agree with you vis-a-vis
the DRABNESS of teen dress. You’re right,
there aren’t COLORS. It’s like a Kurt
Cobain Festival … olive greens, browns,
grays, and blacks. Indeed, the poor teens
might be depressing their own selves by
adding to the grayness of life by the
grayness of their wardrobe.
And not only grayness of wardrobe but also
a total absence of STYLE. One wonders if
their dress mirrors their internal psychological
state i.e. depression, just as you say. There’s
a lot of historical data that says you’re right!!
E.
More Tales from the Warpage
Just when you were wondering, What happened to all those jobs the stimulus package was supposed to create?
And can we have another stimulus bill to make up for the one that failed?
Huffington Post has the answer.
Well, look no further than the top CEOs who received stimulus money and laid off more workers to boost their own earnings.
As I’ve said before, a Keynesian band-aid on a neoliberal global system isn’t going to allow for job creation here in the USA. The system is too far gone and the top .01% think they are entitled to run this country and take all the value.
This is truly amazing, but why am I surprised?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/01/ceo-pay-layoffs_n_701908.html
There is no follow-through to check how the stimulus money was used by any given company.
But you keep hearing the Republicans and Tea Partiers insisting on no regulation as their mantra, along with those tax cuts for the wealthy that are supposed to create jobs here. Can you spell Disconnect? There’s a PR commercial for the oil companies that insist that we can’t raise taxes on oil companies, because—-we need the oil. You’ve got to love the logic.
No standards, no decency. E-Coli in our food, oil drilling debacles and so many more insults to a dying nation.
Another good article on Huff Post today discusses how S&P is calling the shots in congress.—And—
Yes, the Dems won’t roll back Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
Gee I wonder who’s going to pay for that. I don’t think the Chinese are going to want to.—-Gotta go after that social security.
Eleuthero,
I don’t really trust any leaders in politics much, but the “people” who follow the Tea party movement are simply sincerely disillusioned with both parties and with the constant pitting of liberal against conservative. They are looking for a new and better way.
Anyone else see this?
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/police-gunman-holds-hostage-in-discovery-building-in-maryland/19617365
Poor Mr. James Lee must have watched too much Discovery Channel. “Life After People,” can be as bad, in its own way as “Hannity” and/or FOX news 24/7.
CF, indeed!
I understand your point, TWT, but an
electorate really can be judged by the
QUALITY of their leadership. At the
risk of sounding extreme to make a point,
the followers of Hitler tended to be
people like the Brownshirts who were
also dissatisfied with their own political
system. Yet they were low-IQ thugs.
It’s not enough just to be pissed off. One
must be pissed off in a way that won’t lead
to a form of government that is even worse
than the one being fought against. I see
very little ENLIGHTENED anger in the Tea
Party. I don’t see a coherent plan. Mostly
what I see is what people are AGAINST but not
what they are FOR.
E.
There was no reason to think, Ahmed. I made it very clear. Both you and asoka subscribe to murderous imperialist supremacist ideologies (your being Christianity, asoka’s being Islam); ideologies that are no better than Stalinism and Hitlerism; both having victimized more people than Stalinism and Hitlerism combined. As far as I’m concerned, you’re both scum, and I don’t mind telling it to you. People like you need to hear it more often. We’re way too politically correct when it comes to “religion”. It’s a taboo that needs to be broken.
Ohhhhhhhh, JHK, this time you have outdone yourself. Although I generally find your columns intelligent and occasionally, even enlightening, this week’s contribution causes me to believe that you missed your calling as a gossip columnist. I am not from the South but even I find your propensity to paint the population of that area as overweight idiots offensive in the extreme. Prejudice works both ways, you know, and you all too often seem to embody all of the bigotry and prejudice so indicative of feeble intellects (can’t recall the author who first wrote those words).
I think a majority of the populace of the U.S. is simply fed up with this country’s “business as usual” (i.e., running up our national debt irresponsibly and attempting to spend our way out of debt via the manufacture of an increasingly worthless fiat currency). Whether it be Palin or Pelosi, Democrat or Republican, people I speak with are increasingly frightened, disgusted and disillusioned with politics and politicians. Hence, they are reaching for “hope and change” — at seemingly opposite ends of the spectrum (the polar opposite obviously represented by the Tea Party). Name-calling is tedious and I am perplexed as to what good end you believe it will accomplish. People are simply searching for common sense solutions . . . and the sun is setting all too rapidly. Forgive the pun but it is FINALLY beginning to dawn on people that a very black and moonless night is fast approaching for our country. We had better figure out how to work together to clean up this mess and quickly as it may very well already be too late to effect a viable political solution. I hope not.
Welles said: “i don~t get it..who~s Akmed”
He could be Brazilian for all we know!
Feast Dates: January 19 — The Brazilian Martyrs. … Patron Saints: St. Achmed was an architect who converted to Christianity after witnessing a miracle.
Eleuthero,
I don’t see any brown shirts in the Tea Party but yes we should keep a look out for that. Beck is not a brown shirt.
sjmom51, yes I did see several Sarah Palin personality disorders. Sarah Palin has what it takes to be a corn-pone Nazi:
Palin has a grandiose sense of self-importance (exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements).
The process of “tapping a running mate” isn’t passive and, in fact, is initiated by candidates proposing themselves. This aspect of the disorder explains how Palin could view herself as competent (though it doesn’t account for the Republicans who support her).
Most of us are amazed by her seeming absence of self-doubt, announcing “I didn’t blink” and repeatedly boasting about “fighting the old boy network” and rejecting money for the bridge to nowhere, claims disputed by others.
Palin is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love.
Palin, who entered a beauty contest, was eager to have her looks recognized and moved on to seek political recognition, continually striving for more, despite ambitions that far exceed her qualifications. She was fired up and liked to say, “When John McCain and I get to Washington…”
Palin believes she is “special” and understood only by special people (or institutions).
Thus her indifference to criticism and her ability to reject and publicly deny the decision made by the bi-partisan body (which she accused of having been partisan) that found her guilty of unethical behavior and abuse of power. This helps us understand how she shrugs off media attacks and remains buoyant.
Palin requires excessive admiration.
Entering a beauty pageant and the way she’s approached the campaign is evidence of this trait. Her wardrobe, hair and make-up show no signs of battle fatigue. One therapist pointed out that attaching importance to clothing and appearance is consistent with the disorder. Palin has no bad hair days.
Palin has a sense of entitlement, i.e. unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations.
She was determined that the Alaskan officer comply with pressure applied by Sarah and Todd Palin, who wanted their ex-brother-in-law fired. That Sarah Palin sees herself as competent to be in high executive offic in the United States is a demonstration of her unreasonable expectations.
Palin is interpersonally exploitative, i.e. takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends.
In addition to the vindictive attempts in the Alaskan incident with her brother-in-law, we’ve seen her manipulate crowds, riling up insecurities and hostilities towards Obama. She’s been accused of upstaging John McCain and promoting herself, rather than the candidate. When meeting political leaders in New York, it was apparent she fully expected to dazzle each, including Henry Kissinger and Ahmadinejad.
Palin lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.
She appears almost indifferent to the needs of her children, two of whom — the baby and the pregnant teenager — have special needs. Palin has put them second to her personal ambitions. It was also striking when she registered no emotions and pressed on at the vice-presidential debate as Biden teared up while speaking about losing his wife and other children.
Palin shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.
Her facial expressions show her to be smug and self-satisfied. One therapist said, “Another aspect of her extreme narcissism is not only allowing the out-of-control anti-Obama frenzy to take place when she appeared, but encouraging it. She did this with a smile and with no concern where it could lead. The crowd, as far as she’s concerned, is cheering her on. And she is the center of the universe.”
Palin has all the features of Histrionic Personality Disorder.”
This syndrome is defined by a strong need for applause, wanting things done your way, a quest for popularity, believing winning is no fun unless people know you won, desiring attention, competing for spotlight, needing to stand out to be happy, manipulating others, superficiality, feeling best when admired, using your looks to get what you want, vanity, performing and self promoting.
Besides, Palin cannot be trusted with money, based on her extravagant expenditures on clothing.
“I made it very clear.”
You have made nothing clear, since every time we communicate you demonstrate that you don’t know what my beliefs are. You are bearing false witness.
I am opposed to the “commandments and doctrines of men”, nicolaitanism, fundamentalism, darbyism, dispensationalism, phariseeism, corporatism, americanism, jingoism, etc.
Since you [apparently} cannot conceive of a spiritual reality beyond {and interacting with} this physical creation, you lump me in with the religionists.
I do not support the political/economic system, nor do I support “christianity” as you believe you understand it. I don’t believe God has given any man the authority to MAKE law. There are consequences to putting away God’s Law. The glaring example is to have ungodly men ruling over us, to bring us to repentance {change-mind}.
If you want to describe the Kingdom {rulership} of God as a “murderous imperialist supremacist ideologie[s]” then you make yourself an enemy of God. I believe you do it ignorantly, but I could be wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time.
Well done Asoka!!!
SJMom
I don’t know – I think A’s analysis of Palin would describe almost any politician I have known or studied in this modern age of media.
There are a couple of tweaks because Palin is female, specifically the “beauty” pageants and the obsession with clothes.
As yet, thank god, there doesn’t seem to be a male equivalent of the beauty pageant hierarchy.
And a man could be set for a month with 5 suits, 31 white shirts, 20 ties, a shoe shine kit, and one pair of underwear.
ProCon, about that “spot in the brain” normally filled by religion… you might want to check out the work of Gordon Allport.
In his classic book The Individual and His Religion (1950), Allport (1897–1967) illustrates how people may use religion in different ways. He makes a distinction between Mature religion and Immature religion.
Mature religious sentiment is how Allport characterized the person whose approach to religion is dynamic, open-minded, and able to maintain links between inconsistencies. (i.e., contain multitudes a la Asoka)
In contrast, immature religion is self-serving and generally represents the negative stereotypes that people have about religion. More recently, this distinction has been encapsulated in the terms “intrinsic religion”, referring to a genuine, heartfelt devout faith, and “extrinsic religion”, referring to a more utilitarian use of religion as a means to an end, such as church attendance to gain social status. These dimensions of religion were measured on the Religious Orientation Scale of Allport and Ross (1967).
I don’t believe God has given any man the authority to MAKE law.
==
You’re an idiot. An idiot that subscribes to absolute authoritarianism. The whole construct of God and religion is man-made. I really don’t know who’s worse, you subscribing to this nonsense out of stubborn idiocy, or asoka who subscribes to this nonsense out of general malice for liberty. But you’re both scum, you both should know better.
“And a man could be set for a month with 5 suits, 31 white shirts, 20 ties, a shoe shine kit, and one pair of underwear.”
If a man were to learn how to wash his own clothes, he could do with far fewer than 31 white shirts!
On a more serious note, I would like to see a woman become president. Even better, a woman with demonstrated competence who is also a Black woman or a Hispanic woman or a Jewish woman or a Vietnamese woman or a Lebanese woman, an Arab, a Muslim, or a Christian… it wouldn’t matter as long as she could conduct an interview with the press (not just FoxNews) and actually answer, in an intelligent manner, trick questions like: “What do you read?”
PoC wrote:
“And here’s a suggestion – if you don’t like some of the topics and posters – learn how to scroll.”
Done. And my scroll key’s a SMOKIN’!!! 🙂
“…or asoka who subscribes to this nonsense out of general malice for liberty.”
I am OK with atheists, agnostics, and religionists precisely because I believe in liberty, in the freedom of religion and in freedom from religion as set out by the Constitution. No malice involved in my defense of liberty.
I do not support fanatics who oppose building mosques (in several states and NYC), or stab Muslim taxi drivers, or burn the machinery being used to build mosques.
I condemn the many attacks being made on Muslims out of fanatic Islamophobia. Freedom to build houses of worship and worship the god of your choice is pretty fundamental in America.
I support the principle of religious freedom, even though I may choose, or choose not to participate. That is what liberty is.
CORRECTION:
I am OK with atheists, agnostics, and religionists (AND I LIKE ALL OF THEM AS PERSONS) precisely because I believe in liberty
PoC wrote:
“And here’s a suggestion – if you don’t like some of the topics and posters – learn how to scroll.”
Here is a suggestion: learn how to skim and find the kernel of truth every poster has to contribute.
While no one has 100% of the truth, we all have something to contribute to enrich our understanding.
Consistently ignoring any poster and scrolling past only indicates an unwillingness to take in new information that might disturb your existing mental model.
I give some attention to every post and find interesting information in most of them. CFN has some brilliant minds.
I do not deliberately or systematically discriminate against anyone. But, then, I consider myself open-minded and I am large and able to contain multitudes of perspectives without suffering cognitive dissonance.
I am OK with..
==
We already know you’re a taqiyya dissimulating jihadi shill. So you can stuff your condemnation of people resisting the spread of Islam back up your diseased trap hole.
Offense to “allah” is a death sentence in muslim controlled countries. And pretty much everything that has to do with liberty is antithetical to Islam. This is the ideology ahmed subscribed to, while he condemns those that do not wish this ideology and the symbols of his ideology erected here.
Mika said:
Mika, I would like to respectfully disagree with your characterization. What I am describing as the “greater jihad” involves at every moment in our conscious life seeking to perform jihad (a word which just means “effort”) in not only establishing equilibrium in the world about us but also in awakening to that Divine Reality which is the very source of our consciousness. For the spiritual man, every breath is a reminder that he should continue the inner jihad until he awakens from all dreaming and until the very rhythm of his heart echoes that primordial sacred Name by which all things were made and through which all things return to their Origin.
You are attributing mass murder to Islam without distinguishing between exoteric Islam and esoteric Islam.
My greater jihad pertains to an inner struggle and has nothing to do with the philosophies of mass murder you continually want to associate with me.
Your criticism feels malicious, but it is probably just a result of paranoia coupled with Israeli fanaticism… Zionism?
Mika said: “We already know you’re a taqiyya dissimulating jihadi shill. So you can stuff your condemnation of people resisting the spread of Islam back up your diseased trap hole.”
We? Who are you speaking for, Mika?
I have a right to share my point of view, the same as you. And I will not be stuffing it anywhere, thank you all the same.
You sound a bit disturbed, Mika, and I only wish you peace.
As-Sal?mu `Alaykum, Mika.
You are attributing mass murder to Islam without distinguishing between exoteric Islam and esoteric Islam.
==
LOL! What difference does it make? You want to be “esoteric”, start a different religion and call it asokaterism. Cause it certainly aint Islam.
Eleuthero wrote:
“And if I dare make a forecast, it is that
the real estate meltdown coming within
the next six weeks is as bad as it looks
out here in La La Land (California), we’re
going to have a new round of banking
failures and citizens in the bread lines.”
El,
Are you expecting a specific trigger of this next phase down? Why six weeks? (Except that 6 wks. puts us to mid-October.)
Thanks!
Mika said:
“LOL! What difference does it make? You want to be “esoteric”, start a different religion and call it asokaterism. Cause it certainly aint Islam.”
It makes all the difference because the word Islam means peace and the aim of Islam is to promote good, so those who engage in violence are practicing something, but it certainly ain’t Islam.
What do you know of Islam from the inside, Mika? Have you engaged in Islamic practices like zikr?
What do you know of Islam, other than your cartoon characterization that it is worse than Hitlerism and Stalinism?
You, Mika, admit you subscribe to the concept of “self-defense” to defend Israel. You subscribe to the same violent tactics used by the lesser jihadists.
I am speaking of a greater jihad, but you will not acknowledge that the greater jihad is at the heart of Islam.
Islam’s greater jihad, which has nothing to do with violence, bases itself upon the idea of establishing equilibrium within the being of man as well as in the human society where he functions and fulfills the goals of his earthly life.
I have a right to share my point of view, the same as you.
==
And I have the right to tell you to stuff it. I also have the right to oppose diseased vectors of jihadi totalitarianism and call you for what you are.
Mika said: “And I have the right to tell you to stuff it.”
Yes, I acknowledged your right to do that.
And every time you tell me to stuff it, you provide me with an opportunity to explain Islam from a different perspective, one you are seemingly unaware of… and for that I thank you, Mika.
sjmom51, yes I did see several Sarah Palin personality disorders.
================
Asoka, is this analysis of Palin in your own words or a copy and paste job from the Vanity Fair article, or elsewhere? Frankly, it doesn’t appear to be your writing style. If someone else’s words, why no quotation marks and attribution?
As for the analysis itself, it relies heavily on the notion that a woman trading on her good looks suffers from a “disorder.” Let’s face it, women have been wearing out mirrors since time began. The second lame complaint is that Palin is able to command, and actually accepts, high speaking fees. I suppose you also think when Miami agreed to pay Lebron $110M he should have said no, no, no that’s far too much. Get real!
Let this poor inarticulate woman fail on her own. She doesn’t need any help from you.
Q said: “Let this poor inarticulate woman fail on her own. She doesn’t need any help from you.”
But I want to help!
Islam is derived from the Arabic root “Salema”: peace, purity, submission, obedience. Islam is a totalitarian ideology that imposes itself in absolute terms, both on muslims and on the “infidels”. Only then can there be “peace”. Your ascribed “esoteric understanding” of Islam has little to do with Islam, both in terms of how it’s practiced by muslims in muslim controlled countries today, and how it was practiced by muslims in the past. Islam is an ideology that is blood soaked to the extreme. It revels in violence, domination, subjugation and war. Your “esoteric understanding” is little more than jihadi dissimulation meant to bamboozle the ignorant and naive.
Asoka, please answer my question. Was the Palin analysis your words? If not, whose?
Mika said:
“Your “esoteric understanding” is little more than jihadi dissimulation meant to bamboozle the ignorant and naive.”
Your condemnation is hollow, given the discrepancy between your words and actions. I preach a pacifistic esoteric Islam, but you share the same violence as the lesser jihadis exoteric Islam, and you justify Israel’s violence based on “self-defense,” to defend an exoteric Zionism. In spite of your exhortation to me to follow the Ten Commandments, you believe in killing to defend Israel.
At least I have some objective standards by which to condemn violent behavior: the scriptures of the religions of the book themselves. I do not deny that religious sentiments have been used or misused to intensify or legitimize a conflict. But to say the least, the Islamic world does not have a monopoly on this abuse as the history of other civilizations including even the secularized West demonstrates so amply.
When you are ready to renounce all violence, then I will take you more seriously Mika. Until then you are on the same moral level as the lesser jihadists who engage in violence against Israelis.
I think Asoka has access to a DSM and was pulling out descriptions of characteristics associated with diagnosing a narcissistic personality disorder and a histrionic personality disorder.
Not that I or anyone can diagnose someone just from an article. Going back to Kunstler’s post about Fawn McKay Brodie’s book on Joseph Smith, “No man knows my History”…..it’s been criticized for being a “psycho-biography” a lot of scholars criticize her technique with this book and others. I’m not arguing that Joseph Smith had big psychological issues — my guess is that he would be diagnosed as bi-polar in this day and age. I read Brodie’s book back in my early twenties–someone dared me to read it. This started my break with Mormonism.
However, I always had my doubts–the whole story of the Angel Moroni’s golden plates seemed sketchy to me even as a six-year-old. “Show me the plates,” I recall asking my mother. Her answer, “God took them back to heaven,” just didn’t seem logical to me.
Nighty night,
SJMom
Q., plagiarism is distasteful in the academic world.
Fortunately for me, we are not in an academic environment here. We are on a blog where nobody can verify anybody else’s identity.
So, if you find the exact same analysis somewhere on the Web, how would you know whether it was mine to begin with and I am copying my own original work, or whether it was someone else’s that I borrowed?
Sanjosemom51 said: “I think Asoka has access to a DSM…”
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
To be specific I have the DSM-IV-TR (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th edition, Text Revision)
I preach a pacifistic esoteric Islam,..
==
You preach a lie. A lie that is a cover for an ideology that is little more criminal insanity. Your assertion is the equivalent of “pacifistic esoterism” being ascribed to Hitlerism. It is patently absurd, and anyone with the least bit of commonsense can understand that.
In spite of your exhortation to me to follow the Ten Commandments,..
==
I’m an anti-theist! Where have I made this exhortation?
You preach a lie. A lie that is a cover for an ideology that is little more ^than criminal insanity.
Mika said:
Sorry, Mika, I guess I confused your believe in karma with a belief in consequences for killing other human beings.
Of course, if they are Muslim jihadists who are a threat to Israel, you probably don’t think there will be any karmic consequences for killing jihadists.
Who enforces karma anyway, in a non-theistic system?
It is just my opinion, but for your willingness to murder other human beings, I think you’re going to get hit hard with karma baseball bat to the head. There’s just no other way around
Well, what do you expect from a society that has romanticized youthful rebelliousness as having value independent of social purpose? Teen age rebellion is a developmental stage that is supposed to result in character building. The challenging of senior authority that occurs at that stage gets tempered by push-back from the seniors who typically still wield the greater power, so the youngster must learn to make distinction between simple adolescent willfulness as opposed to actions and ideas that garner serious consideration for having appearance of delivering benefit to society (read tribe) as a whole. In other words, doesn’t appear to be simple self aggrandized indulgence.
Our mercantile society though has identified youth (and its distinguishing trait) as just another “market demographic” to be exploited. To that purpose marketing panders to adolescent impulsiveness, championing it as heroic even in its most inane and arbitrary manifestations. Being a significant “market share” has validated youthful rebelliousness as having significance unto itself, separate from and even elevated above the guidance of “wise elders”. That’s why today kids can traipse about arrogantly in preposterous get-ups that mock more civil standards of public behavior. In essence, the critical function of adult influence and guidance to youth has been neutralized.
To make the point: consider Eugene Delacroix’s painting of 1839, “Liberty Leading the People”, wherein Delacroix includes himself in the painting as embodiment of inspired youth committed in rebellious cause of substance and social purpose. Then contrast that with the marketing of youthful rebellion since the James Dean movie “Rebel Without a Cause”. The latter is a romanticizing of youth in such way as to make more mature bearing seem a decline into stodgy, joyless existence. In consequence our society has become a youth cult wherein much of the population remains developmentally arrested at adolescence.
Mika said: “Your assertion is the equivalent of “pacifistic esoterism” being ascribed to Hitlerism.”
Once again, Mika, you lose the argument by bringing up Hitler. It is a corollary of Godwin’s Law:
In Islam you find a complete guide to the great stations of perfection in the spiritual life in the light of the inner jihad.
I don’t think Mein Kampf addressed this question of jihad? Hitler was a Christian and believed in in the “Aryan” Christ. Islam is a universal religion.
To become detached from the impurities of the world in order to repose in the purity of the Divine Presence requires an intense jihad for our soul has its roots sunk deeply into the transient world which the soul of fallen man mistakes for reality.
To overcome the lethargy, passivity and indifference of the soul, qualities which have become second nature to man as a result of his forgetting who he is constitutes likewise a constant jihad.
To pull the reigns of the soul from dissipating itself outwardly as a result of its centrifugal tendencies and to bring it back to the center wherein resides Divine Peace and all the beauty which the soul seeks in vain in the domain of multiplicity is again an inner jihad.
To melt the hardened heart into a flowing stream of love which would embrace the whole of creation in virtue of the love for God is to perform the alchemical process of solve et coagula inwardly through a ‘work’ which is none other than an inner struggle and battle against what the soul has become in order to transform it into that which it ‘is’ and has never ceased to be if only it were to become aware of its own nature.
Didn’t you say you had been listening to Alan Watt’s, Mika? Any of this esoteric Islam ringing any bells with what Alan Watts said?
Finally, in esoteric Islam to realize that only the Absolute is absolute and that only the Self can ultimately utter ‘I’ is to perform the supreme jihad of awakening the soul from the dream of forgetfulness and enabling it to gain the supreme principal knowledge for the sake of which it was created.
Awakening from the dream… Esoteric Islam, Zen, Sufism, Christian mysticism, Advaita Vedanta, Hasidic Judaism, all share the same essence, despite differing terms/practices employed… and none of it has anything at all to do with “Hitlerism.”
Sam Smith (http://www.prorev.com) on Obama, 2008: “There is one story from Chicago . . . that remains relevant. A citizen walks into his alderman’s office looking for a job. ‘Who sent you?’ he [is asked]. ‘Nobody,’ he replies. Says the staffer: ‘We don’t want nobody nobody sent.’
Who sent Barack Obama remains a mystery. He has risen from an unknown state senator to president in exactly four years and that only happens when somebody sends for you.”
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0811/S00090.htm
Ok.
So this week we are suppose to consider the phenomenon of the media personalities, perhaps cult of personalities, particularly of Glen Beck and Sarah Palin, and what they represent or reflect in terms of the state of the public, its moods, passions, and aims, as well as the machinations of their puppet-masters, exploiters, handlers etc. I believe Glen Beck is a simpler individual to understand. He is kind of the right wing reactionary — and I do mean reactionary not conservative here — answer to such leftist figures as John Steward, Oberman, Rachel Madoff etc. What is a reactionary as opposed to a conservative. A conservative is someone who ideally values tradition, continuity, and established ways of doing things and may even be conservative in the sense of being a conservator, a guarder, preserver, etc of the cultural and political legacy and tribal and national resources, defending them from the over-zealous exploits of revolutionary leftists, young rebels etc who would throw it all away and try to remake society in an attempt that it conform with a dream. A reactionary is rather different. This is a person who is more frightened and angry, who is more clear about what he is against than what he is for. He rants, and rails and opposes that which is new, that which is different, unfamiliar, strange to him, that upsets the apple cart. Such people are driven more by intolerance of and hostility towards the other, and a desire to keep out outsiders, to shout down opposition, than they are to preserve a culture,and its people, or value its works. I don’t think he is someone to be taken that seriously. He is basically a paid entertainer as is Palin. Palin is a reflection of those people who don’t see themselves as the erudite elite, the very wealthy, or the very well positioned. She appeals most to working class largely rural middle-aged whites from the south and midwest who are looking for someone to act as a bull horn, a spokes-person for their hostilities, and prejudices, and an advocate of their lifestyles. Don’t expect her to be a serious contender for high office again. I think she is in it for the money and fame as other said and is not seriously interested in administrating. Expect this show to blow over. Beck’s cartoonish understanding of the myths of American history, and Palin’s lack of understanding and hostility to ideas are representative of low and lower elements of common American pyschology. Don’t forget that half of the population has iqs below 100. The average intelligence of college grads is about 118 which is probably close to the average here. Once folks develop an iq that is more than 2 standard deviations apart, they generally find it hard to communicate with one another and have significantly different lifestyles, values, attitudes, habits, and ambitions. Anyway, don’t worry too much. These 2 will soon be yesterday’s news. This is hype bought and paid for by puppet-masters seeking corporate profits and using the medium of television to play a lot of lost fools out there.
“Don’t expect her to be a serious contender for high office again.”
I don’t.
Nor do I think any of the other yahoos (all white men) who might want their fingers on the nuclear button are serious contenders.
Mitt Mandatory Health Care & Tax Raising Romney
Adulterer Gingrich
Hell-Fire Preacher Huckabee
Faints-Before-Congress Petraeus
Crossdresser Giuliani
“Worst Governor” Jindal
Banker Jeb
Closeted Crist
“Never Been Married” Graham
etc.
I find it incredible that so many economists and smart people still believe that “More Demand for Goods and Services will Create More Employment”.
This no longer holds:
1) We live in mostly automatic societies – economies where most work is no longer needed, is automated, is optimized and will continually be further automated, optimized; the goal of any organization or company is to decrease, and decrease as much as is possible the number of employees it has, and this is what they will do no matter what;
2) Even if you do need “More Employees”, there are today so many options on the table: build factories in third world countries for people making 100 dollars a month salary; hire temp people for a month or two (heck even a year and then ax them) at low wages (since people have diminishing bargaining power, as being unemployed means your power is ZERO, you must accept whatever the Employer offers), make people work from the Internet (information workers beware), in this way you can choose from a pool of about 500 million people worldwide and choose the cheapest and best (Russian programmers are cheap and good), etc;
3) Even when demand increases, the relationship to Employment is non-linear, meaning that if a factory needs to build 30 % more cars it will not hire 30% more people, but jack up the working hours, working turns, and maybe hire a few temps (more like 3 or 4 % more). The same thing happens in Services and actually in Services most of the work is so phony and unnecessary that if demand increases I wouldn’t be surprised that they can make due with even less people, a negative relationship;
4) What we have today worldwide, in the globalized economy is a huge amount of Work Availability in terms of people that could potentially work, and a much smaller Need for this work, and the Need for this work is constantly going down with automation – computers – optimizations while the Availability is constantly increasing;
5) There is no counter force, no union, no nothing that is on the side of employees, the only thing that is happening is to make employees fight amongst each other for the breadcrumbs that will remain;
6) Services are supposed to create Employment, but only if people value or think the Services are worth the price: many are starting to doubt the real worth of “call centers”, Health Care Thieves of All Kinds, Education and Training towards imaginary jobs and positions that no longer exist, etc.
I find it amazing that in the Developed world there still are so many people “working”, I expect Unemployment to skyrocket in the USA, EU and JAPAN.
The only real solution to all of this is FREE SALARIES, that is what is needed, salaries of 1,000 dollars a month and CHEAP RENTS, rents of 200 dollars a month, no buying homes anymore or Home Ownership myth and crap. And a huge modern BUS transportation system, BUS MASS TRANSIT system (either public or private, doesn’t matter). I honestly cannot see how on earth, with present day technology and optimizations and the present combination of social forces, how on earth Employment is supposed to go up.
You mention Koch. You mean the oil money (Koch Industries)? Sad irony there since David Koch was on the board of Earthwatch Expeditions, Inc. for years if that is so.
What’s amazing to me is that I live near where supposedly the world’s best an brightest hang out and pass on the culture. Yet, this institution still lost one-third of its endowment speculating on the stock market. It was in the BILLIONS, enough to finance a small state for a year. Where was their care and prudence? Bad enough there are holes in the ground in the city neighborhoods form this institution,s imprudence. However, we also have holes downtown because real estate developers start construction before having the money to do so. Because of this, the original bargain basement may be just another memory in the world made by hand. Are people fools enough to depend on outside money instead of building their own capital to grow their enterprises? This exists on BOTH sides of the political spectrum: the State of South Carolina as well as the Harvest Cooperative Market.
JHK, the tea-baggers have been co-opted by the very same forces that have co-opted the two major parties. All new parties or movements are first observed, then taken over. TPTB don’t need to send in the troops to physically attack a threat like in days of old, they simply send in operatives/useful idiots (Palin in this example) to fund and “support” said threat. The tea-baggers have been effectively marginalized and neutered; mission accomplished. Nothing really changes, and that’s the point. TPTB don’t want any real change, they like things just the way they are, with THEM in charge! Same reason nothing changed when Obama came in. You seem surprised about that, but I’m not. R or D matters not. Remember, TARP was almost unanimously approved by congress and almost unanimously opposed by the peeps. This tells you everything you need to know.
The tea-baggers don’t represent some radical fringe element as you imagine. They don’t even represent the REAL anger that is brewing amongst the masses. They had a small chance of turning into a legitimate populist movement in the early stages but that opportunity is long gone – shut down by the elite bankster oligarchy. Don’t worry though, If the real thing is ever somehow released, you’ll know it. And a lot of banksters, media shills and other unsavory individuals in finance, education, and medicine that caused this mess will be hanging from a rope. The only way for this to happen is for things to get a lot worse for the peeps. So in other words, it WILL happen.
You have some good ideas and I like the passion, but you don’t seem to know who the real enemies are. Or maybe you do know and just aren’t saying?
Leaning to the left? I don’t believe so. I am thinking more on the lines of followers of Charles Tazewell Russell who stockpile canned goods, firearms, etc. for the coming Long Emergency. I’m you can find them in Maine. Idaho, even New Hampshire and (heaven forbid) Saratoga and Washington Counties, New York!
We’ve already had a woman president. Remember Jimmy Carter?
In lieu of JHK posting this week:
Revanchism
Bill Moyers interview with Sam Tanenhaus author of THE DEATH OF CONSERVATISM, who explains:”Revanchism really comes from the French word for ‘revenge.’ It’s a politics of vengeance.”
He continues: “So, what this means is that, yes, conservatism, what I think of, as a radical form of conservatism, is highly organized. We’re seeing it now– they are ideologically in lockstep. They agree about almost everything, and they have an orthodoxy that governs their worldview and their view of politics. So, they are able to make incursions. And at times when liberals, Democrats, and moderate Republicans are uncertain where to go, yes, this group will be out in front, very organized, and dominate our conversation.”
What Tanenhaus discusses is that this paranoid style of today’s Tea Party movement et al is the opposite of the intellectual side of the Conservative movement as exemplified by William F. Buckley and his National Review which had a richness of philosophy and self examination not seen in this movement.
But there may be a break. Yesterday I heard that some in the Republican camp want to recognize gay marriage a la Ted Olson. Now clearly there seems to be a schism between the religious fanatical right and the finance side of the party. Should be interesting.
Well the winning minority, the ruling class, the companies that are winning and will win, have all the interest in brainwashing the world that they “deserve” their profits, that they “worked hard” for their success, that they “innovated” more than the others, that they won the competition etc. And consequently all of those who are losing out, are losers, didn’t “innovate” enough, can’t compete, etc.
They are actually right, I admire them, they got it right one way or another, it doesn’t matter. I read an economic article that described how some companies are growing and making profits and expanding while others are losing. The real problem is what is the ratio ? Well, out of 10 companies it seems to be something like 3 win and 7 lose.
In the end 3 million people will be in companies and environments that are expanding – progressing and 7 million will be unemployed.
This is the natural inequality that is being generated: there is no common good, only winners and losers, only that this inequality is being amplified, is getting more and more extreme. But everyone is convinced that they will be a winner if only, they “innovate”, or get the right “skill sets”, etc. This is how they are brainwashed and kept in place.
The truth is, suck it up, get used to it, the world will have fewer and fewer bigger and bigger and richer winners and more and more losers.
So all the talk of getting the jobs back, improving education, being competitive is mostly all BS.
So yes, at least guarantee the basics in the form of a free salary and cheap rent for all the millions (eventually billions) of losers worldwide.
Sammy,
Does Oprah count? 😉
A society is judged by how it treats its most unfortunate members. There continues to be a growing chasm between the haves and have nots. Human behavior is often characterized by greed in our corporate and political “betters”. The avarice of our controlling hierarchy is a product of blatant indifference toward basic human dignity. The suicidal factory workers plunging to their deaths in China, the miners trapped in the gold mine in Chile, and the B.P. oil rig workers are a clear example of this blatant disregard toward humanity. These workers and millions like them are seen as expendable, useful only in that they are a means to an end. It exemplifies the increasingly desperate attempts humans continue to make in the race to deplete every last resource in the world.
The very essence of man is that he continue to strive to improve, to make his life and that of his family better. By extension, man’s striving to enhance his position in life can have the effect of improving the greater good of society as well. What can be observed in our own political, social, economical arena today is a distorted reflection of what it means to be purposeful in the world. Once man has been robbed of the ability to enact positive change toward his own life via the fruits of his own labor, the resulting poverty of his spirit causes a perpetuation of this societal malaise. The jobs are not coming back. Free salary and cheap rent, although no panacea for the sorry state of affairs in which we find ourselves today, can at the very least somewhat placate the physical needs of the masses – all the rest of us.
There is, however, an intense poverty that results within this framework: the poverty of the soul. This poverty can be seen among all walks of life, from the segregation of our elderly into retirement villages to the day care centers where we park our children. In our most precious resource, our youth, an aura of rebellion and defiance has been replaced by vacancy and indifference. The world has long since achieved a saturation point whereby there are simply too many mouths to feed and bodies to house without the needed soul-salvaging labor to provide it. We have seen the evolution of automation within our time which has mercifully eliminated the back-breaking labor mankind has endured for millenia. What we have to replace it with is nothing, except perhaps the natural inquisitiveness of the human brain. Through education and awareness, the machines and automation that have rescued most of the developed world from the daily drudgery of the past, mankind will eventually arrive at its higher purpose. How this will be accomplished is an extremely thought-provoking, worrisome matter.
Do you know of any charts that match IQ’s with abilities? You said that the average college grad has an IQ of 118. I remember reading that the armed forces don’t take anyone with an IQ less than 85.
What kind of IQ is needed to graduate from high school for instance?
Not important…just wondering.
SJmom
Comments and a question:
8M – It is not that difficult to argue that US society is on its way to the free salary/cheap housing goal of which you speak. Between SSI, welfare, unemployment payments, medicare, etc – there is a large segment of society that receives without *working.*
Tree – I like how you can give the whole discussion thread a Stanford Binet by *remote control* and arrive at an average IQ for us of 118. Honestly, you may be approximately correct – maybe a point or two too low. ?? Would you care to explain your methodology in more detail for us? 😉
Myrtle – Here’s the question – with respect to energy policy and economic policy:
1. How was Jimmy Carter womanly and why was that a bad thing?
2. Viewed from our present economic and energy *malaise* – how was Ronald Reagan’s first term an improvement over what would have been JC’s second term?
OK, make that two questions. And I’m not trying to argue virtues of presidents here. To me that’s no more productive than verbally refighting Pickett’s charge.
But I’ll always believe something fundamental happened when Carter lost and Reagan won. And that lead us to our present *situation.* So I don’t consider the Reagan presidency ancient history.
It’s “present history” if you will, and needs to be examined for personal, national, and planetary survival.
BTW, Hancock, both your posts yesterday were well stated. And they were to Q, not E – my mistake.
Well said, Cavepainter!!!!
It is, indeed, a youth “cult”. Indeed, I,
myself, have used the term to describe what
public meetinghouses have become … kiddy
world.
Part of this cult involves severe degradation
of language and intelligence. It’s now tres
chic for conversations to be very loud and,
above all, for females to use language that
would make a longshoreman blush. And listen
to the CONTENT of these conversations. I
think I’d faint if they were about politics,
sociology, or economics. It’s usually petty
personal concerns resembling the stuff sent
in text messages, tweets, or Facebook bon mots.
I see it. I hear it. I chronicle it. I
think it’s a signpost of a Dark Age. I’m just
glad I’m 58 and had a good run while life made
a helluva lot more sense. I’m a very social
being by nature but I must confess that I
find less and less out there … even for
mere observational purposes.
I’m getting used to the idea that childhood
now lasts until 35. I just hope our birthrate
falls as this will indicate that these kids at
least have the sense not to procreate. They
can’t even hold jobs. Thus, imagining them
as parents is too Kafka-esque for words.
E.
“The whole construct of God and religion is man-made.”
God uses evil men and seducers to test His people. Evil men and seducers use religion. People who look at religion/politics and cannot see beyond the evil men and seducers flunk the test. There would be no need for counterfeits if there were nothing to counterfeit.
Have a nice day.
there have been some uh problems with low IQ/ even retarded sent into battle.
in order to graduate public school whats needed is to ‘ warm the seat ‘! at least in the blighted inner cities.
see recent writings in news over LA school failure, drop outs etc.
‘ The suicidal factory workers plunging to their deaths in China, the miners trapped in the gold mine in Chile, and the B.P. oil rig workers ‘
work is always dangerous. in the 20th century at least it was made safer by osha, yes?
“We’ve already had a woman president. Remember Jimmy Carter? ”
I remember Jimmy Carter having lust in his heart when looking at women, so that must mean we have already had our first lesbian president.
NEWS FLASH: GOD IS AN UNNECESSARY HYPOTHESIS
God did not create the universe, the man who is arguably Britain’s most famous living scientist says in a forthcoming book.
In the new work, The Grand Design, Professor Stephen Hawking argues that the Big Bang, rather than occurring following the intervention of a divine being, was inevitable due to the law of gravity.
In his 1988 book, A Brief History of Time, Hawking had seemed to accept the role of God in the creation of the universe. But in the new text, co-written with American physicist Leonard Mlodinow, he said new theories showed a creator is “not necessary”.
The Grand Design, an extract of which appears in the Times today, sets out to contest Sir Isaac Newton’s belief that the universe must have been designed by God as it could not have been created out of chaos.
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing,” he writes. “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.
“It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”
In the forthcoming book, published on 9 September, Hawking says that M-theory, a form of string theory, will achieve this goal: “M-theory is the unified theory Einstein was hoping to find,” he theorises.
“The fact that we human beings – who are ourselves mere collections of fundamental particles of nature – have been able to come this close to an understanding of the laws governing us and our universe is a great triumph.”
Hawking says the first blow to Newton’s belief that the universe could not have arisen from chaos was the observation in 1992 of a planet orbiting a star other than our Sun. “That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions – the single sun, the lucky combination of Earth-sun distance and solar mass – far less remarkable, and far less compelling as evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings,” he writes.
Hawking had previously appeared to accept the role of God in the creation of the universe. Writing in his bestseller A Brief History Of Time in 1988, he said: “If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God.”
Hawking resigned as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University last year after 30 years in the position.
“If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God.”
Big IF…
How can God can tell smart people stuff, when they think it’s somebody else talking?
Hi. Am going to relate to your question before MM’s as it is easier to deal with. To come up with the estimate of 118 (I think 120 to 122 or so would be a fine estimate too.) I started with the assumption that the average iq in America is about 100. (It is actually a little lower, due to immigration of certain groups from south of the border and the black population, being perhaps 97 or so but this is just a starting approximation.) Then I observed that a large proportion — at least half of those here — appeared to have a 4 year college degree or the equivalent. I read awhile back that to get a bachelor’s degree and to generally relate to college level material one needs an iq of 118 or so.
Now, let’s think about the populations that are not here. About 35% or so of the US population does not get as far as a high school diploma. This group is largely in the low end of the iq spectrum. (50% of the population has iqs of less than 100 as a first approximation.) That skews the average high school graduate population to have an iq of something on the order of 103 to 105. I also read that to become a teacher, an iq on the order of 107 or so is typical. The average level of discourse here is more typical of that observed in college than in highschool, so I figure the average iq is up in the 115 to 120 range rather than at the 105 level, for which the high-school curriculum tends to be aimed. Qshtick indicated his iq is about 117 or 118 and I found his level of intelligence to be typical of this blog so I used him as a marker. Whereas he is strong with certain technical details and pendantic as far as grammar is concerned he has on at least several occasions showed a lack of a tendency to remember aspects of geography and poloitics that some in the slightly to moderately gifted range (130’s) generally has picked up. Futhermore there are a number of high iq outliers here namely: Cash, 8M, Hancock, Vlad, Asoka, Eleutherio, the guy who used physics to argue that an exploding gas cylinder could not lift a truck very far, and a few others who are clearly in the gifted range (somewhere in the 130 to 160 range it appears). I haven’t seen folks here with much over that. They tend to be doing serious work, being over-represented in physics, math, computer programming, electrical and chemical engineering, espionage, professorships, accounting, stock trading, medical investigation etc. There are a few other folks who look like they also have fairly iqs — namely you PC, and Wagelaborer but are not necessarily gifted. I would say in the 120 to 140 range. Am saying that because they tend to be politically well-informed but I don’t see as much concrete knowledge and elaborate mental gymnastics as some of the others. Trip is most likely gifted too but so lacking in conventional ambition that it is hard to tell. Another clear give-away to the high intellectual caliber on this board is the preponderance of folks who find it difficult to relate to the hoi poloi. As I said above having an iq of more than 2 standard deviation — 30 points — generally makes it hard for folks to understand, communicate with and deal with each other. Sub-Saharan Africans have iqs that run around 64 — definitely well under 70 — and their behavior appears childish and counter-productive to most Europeans who know much about them. Also, take a look at the Meyers-Briggs Personality Type Inventory (http://www.typelogic.com). Folks who are intuitive as opposed to sensing/observing are big picture people. They relate to patterns, make connections, and have well developed insight as opposed to sensers who focus more on facts figures, concrete details, typos etc. The intuiters do better in school and generally when tested score higher on iq tests. They also gravitate to internet discussion boards — especially the more introverted types of intuiters — whereas the sensers are not interested in that kind of thing. Sensers like sports, fast cars, working on their houses etc.
Hey JHK,
Check this out, the Germans have been reading The Long Emergency !!
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,715138,00.html
–Greg
P,
Overall, Carter was a fair president – perhaps more than a bit ahead of his time with regard to the U.S. energy policy, or lack thereof. Carter made more than a few major mistakes as president. Surrounding himself with his Georgia mafia, including the likes of press secretary Jody Powell didn’t help. Powell, like Carter, didn’t know his way around Washington and Powell didn’t make a great deal of effort to ingratiate himself with the inside political players of D.C. This was a grave error, as power plays literally define who gets what done in congress. As a result, much of what Carter wanted done domestically sat unfinished by the time the Reagan era was ushered in. In Washington, as well as anywhere else for that matter, it isn’t so much what you know, but whom you know. Carter seemed to waiver way too when it came to decision making. Also not helping Carter was the decision to make Hamilton Jordan his Chief of Staff. Jordan was known in Washington’s inner circles as the “Hoover” of the Capitol, a nomenclature in reference to his fondness for cocaine. In retrospect, of course, Carter was vastly superior to the clown and “revolution” that came after him.
Carter was most certainly an “illustious” president. (Sorry, I couldn’t help it!)
Again, in response to P.,
I tend to prefer men in positions of power and decison making. Men are (IMO) much less distracted by petty grievances and more focused on tangibles. With all due respect to females, my gender tends to spend a great deal of time “dithering” over all points major and minor. Emotion tends to get the better of them at times. I include myself in this observation. This is not to say that women are not as capable as men. I also believe that women have a much greater grasp of the intricacies of human relationships than men. Women are vastly superior to men (again IMO) in their ability to gather and assess many bits of information and come to egalitarian solutions. As much as I dislike Hillary Clinton, I do admire this particular trait in her. She also deserves kudos for putting up with those idiots calling out, “Iron my shirts!” during her election bid.
Qshtick indicated his iq is about 117 or 118
===============
Don’t know where you got that figure Tree. I have mentioned on a few occasions that I took an IQ test in 3rd grade, although it might have been somewhere between 3rd and 6th grade, and my score was 112. The interesting thing was that along with the score was an explanation that the average score of all persons administered that particular IQ test nationwide was (also) 112. This tells me there is more than one version of IQ test in existence and the tests must have evolved over time.
A week or so ago someone mentioned Hitler’s IQ being 140-something. I wondered where the commenter came up with that factoid and how it could be compared with current scores.
The other thing I noticed is that the test I took supposedly did not have a midpoint of 100 like the test scores that you and Vlad frequently reference. So, if the test I took placed me dead center on the bell curve I’d have a 100 IQ on the spectrum you and Vlad talk about. Whatever the case, I have been comfortable going through life believing myself to be certifiably average.
But as time wore on after I took that test I seemed to improve. My class ranking at high school graduation was 40%. When I graduated from St Joe’s College I was somewhere within the “1st quintile.” They didn’t provide precise standings. And when I graduated from Rutgers MBA program (4 years of night-school) I was inducted into Beta Gamma Sigma. That meant I was somewhere in the top 10%. Over all those years and right up to the present I never thought of myself as particularly smart but rather extremely persistent. In 20 years of schooling I never received a failing grade in any subject in any marking period.
As you might imagine, just looking at my own experience in life, I think the whole discussion of IQ on this blog is a bit overblown.
Carter was most certainly an “illustious” president. (Sorry, I couldn’t help it!)
================
Haw, haw, Ms. Myrtle! 🙂
I actually kinda like that little pun. I’ll add that no one outside of the “Born Again” Christian community in the South really understood what the man was talking about in that Playboy interview.
And it led to one locally generated joke as my wife and her friends started “birthin'” babies, “If Jimmy Carter can have lust in his heart, then I can have child abuse in my heart” 🙂
The ’76 election was the first time I was old enough to vote. And with Carter being a Georgia boy – I’ll always KNOW things would have been better had he won a second term. And the bull-headed arrogance of Reagan’s defenders will always be amazing, in light of present circumstance.
Anyway, thanks for the response. I sadly concur with most of your analysis.
Ah – what might have been – – –
===============
And I saw your second response just before I posted. To clarify – it’s not so much that I want women in office – although I don’t think women could possibly screw things up any WORSE.
What I’m after is for women to know enough issues to vote in the best interests of their families, country, and planet. Several female posters have said that women prefer security, love, etc.
That’s probably genetic (TBU?) in the XX human gene pool – because through human history that was *all* women needed to be concerned with.
But now issues of GLOBAL population and ecosystems mean we need females *in the game*
– QUICKLY, if possible!
Have to agree with some of the comments taking offense at Jim’s needlessly harsh and condescending tone. it does detract from the message, no question. I think its obvious that Jim’s enjoys pushing the envelope and people’s ‘buttons’. This is attracting as many comments as his message.
Jim : may I suggest you focus your efforts on the single, solitary reason for our ‘clusterfuck nation’, ie, central banking and fiat currency. All of our problems and distortions are a result of ‘funny money’ and to focus on some of the idiocies resulting from fiat currency is a complete distraction. You can be of more service by hammering home this point. There is no other cause and except for eliminating central banking and fiat currency laws, no other solution.
Also, why don’t you give folks credit for turning out for these rallies? Clearly folks know and feel things are very wrong and they are angry. Nothing will change if folks don’t actually act in such a manner. The tragedy is that no one is informing these well meaning folks what the source of all our current problems are : bankers creating money from nothing.
If everybody who is angry and dissatisfied just tapped on their keyboards all day that’s pretty useless in affecting change wouldn’t you agree? Participating in rallies is at least taking an active role. Your job should be to cut through all of the bullshit and symptoms of the problem and clearly outline what the problem is SO ALL THE FOLKS WHO ARE WILLING TO ACT CLEARLY UNDERSTAND WHAT TO RALLY FOR AND AGAINST!
Q, I think iq is associated with innate ability but is only moderately correlated with academic performance. Your score was probably measured as being lower than it was. Once one reaches a certain threshold, generally about 120, further gains in iq are not much correlated with higher academic performance. Rather persistence, diligence, conformity, timeliness, diligence, motivation, creativity are more highly correlated with high levels of success. There are a few fields like science, engineering, medicine and law in which having an iq above 130 is generally needed to be successful. Physics is the field one needs to have the highest iq in of all the fields to be successful and that level is about 140. Math is probably the field after physics in which a high iq is needed to do well. My iq was measured to be at least 146 when I was 5 but they never got a ceiling. Even though I got a BA and 2 Masters in physics and electrical enginering, I didn’t do that well in school, largely because I couldn’t stand how oppressive, abusive, and demanding the people were etc.
I’m surprised no one has brought up the Discovery Channel hostage situation, yet. It appears the hostage taking revolved around the worlds runaway population growth. Something that’s mentioned on this blog, from time to time.
I have never replicated myself. Nor felt the urge to. Not even a little twinge. Don’t know why, but the itch just isn’t there. Perhaps because … my father has 17 brothers and sisters. All single births, all the same parents. All born in the 20s and 30s. It is interesting that all my uncles and aunts (except for the crazy Coony Adams branch) have had two or less children. I’ve pretty much lost track of all my first and second cousins, but occasionally, a bit of information drifts in that indicates they are mostly childless.
The other day I was sitting in my store. The transom was open and I was eavesdropping on two young men out on the sidewalk. They looked about 25-30 years old. They apparently did not know one another.
They began with that small town pass time, “Who’s your people; what’s your mama’s maiden name.” Next up was “What gym do you work out in.” One was particularly well worked out. But he was trumped by pudgy, as he only had 6 children and pudgy had 8.
Central banking, the federal reserve system, and the fiat money mechanism is so boring. It is so much more fun to pray to god, rally for guns, and rail against gays, funny-looking dark-skinned people, and muslims. For gods, guns and country!
Have you all checked out the September “Eyesore of the Month?” Definately not a building I’d want to be in during an earthquake or windstorm. I don’t like buildings that look precarious.
SJMom
Who lost a chimney in the ’89 Loma Prieta quake
Tree,
I have always been interested in written expression of individuals as an expression of intelligence.
And as I’ve mentioned on these threads, it is fascinating how so many posters seem to “project” their own characteristics and personalities onto other posters.
I basically concur with your analysis of IQ’s on the CFN threads – and that was a very thorough answer, though mostly intuitive, as that term is generally used.
My major caution would be based on the use of the internet by posters as a biasing factor. I suggest a person with a good memory – or good copy/paste skills might be *channeling* IQ from another source, making his appear higher – because of the nature of this forum.
I am still wondering if there are instruments already in existence to measure IQ or personality based on written content or style.
If I ever pursue a graduate degree in psychology I’ll be sure to look into these areas. 🙂
Asoka notes:
===============
NEWS FLASH: GOD IS AN UNNECESSARY HYPOTHESIS
God did not create the universe, the man who is arguably Britain’s most famous living scientist says in a forthcoming book.
================
Actually, Professor Hawking said God (god?) is “not necessary….” for creation of the Universe.
So Hawking left himself an escape clause.
But no matter – this is excellent news for the US and CFN. No further need to build or discuss building churches, mosques, temples, or anything else like that ever again – even in Manhattan.
What a lovely day!
James,
I would like to direct your attention towards the billionaire brothers Koch, whose activities I think you would find quite interesting.
Covert Operations
The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.
(The New Yorker)
Also, The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party (New York Times).
This is seriously damaging stuff these fat cats are doing.
I noticed that the SEC isn’t going to press fraud charges against Moody’s. I’m going to go way, way out on a limb with this: there will be NO fraud charges against any rating agency.
I’m with you on this. This financial disaster is so destructive, so corrosive, so far reaching that you need to declare financial martial law. What makes this mess so much worse is that it was so predictable ie how the fuck can you have average house prices doubling in ten years while average family incomes were going nowhere and while the economy was being offshored to Asia?
I think that major banks and financial firms need to be dismembered to make them so small that they can’t threaten the financial system. Some, like Goldman Sachs, need to be liquidated in their entirety. And especially this: central banks need to have their powers severely curtailed. How in God’s name could people like Chauncey Gardiner Greenspan and his fartboy Bernanke be promoted to such levels of power and prominence to do so much damage? Without those two knuckleheads seeing deflation bogeymen under every desk and every bed we wouldn’t have had such a calamity.
With them the answer was always more liquidity. Long Term Capital Management hits the skids? More liquidity. Y2K? More liquidity. Tech bust? More liquidity. Telecom bust? More liquidity. 9/11? More liquidity. Housing bust? More liquidity. Can’t get a stiffy? More liquidity. Someone said not long ago that they expanded the money supply by about 5% more than the economy grew every year from 1995 onwards. What did we get? Sequential bubbles and busts each worse than the last.
We need the North American equivalent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, where Wall Street bullshit artists are chained and shackled, convicted of whatever you like in kangaroo courts, paraded around in dunce caps and put to work for decades shovelling shit in farmer’s fields. There they’ll do something useful.
I would also like to see something like a Holy Inquisitor whose one and only mandate is to root out lies and fraud on Wall Street by whatever means necessary. Sound extreme? It is but the howling lies coming from the financial industry are so extreme, the damage they’ve done is so extreme.
The necessary antidote is to yoke Wall Street, make them operate in a climate of extreme fear and dread where “justice” is fast and exceedingly severe. Convicted at 11 am and on a prison bus at 1 pm. Want to lie and cheat? OK we have stinking places for liars and cheaters where you will work your fingers to the bone and your fondest wish will be for a glass of water. Go to Wall Street panting, shouting, swearing 25 year old MBAs with greed standing out like beads of sweat and come out of work camps decades later toothless, witless, broken down old men. Retribution in this life not the next.
Great rant! Very nicely done!
Both Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin were born in 1964, which means that any neither was old enough to remember how life was actually lived in the 50’s and early 60’s, the era many middle-aged boomers like to call “the good old days.” Like nearly everybody of my generation, they learned everything they know about America’s “golden age” by watching reruns of “Leave It To Beaver” and “Father Knows Best.” No doubt, both of them looked at the idealistic nuclear families they saw on tv, compared them to their own highly dysfunctional families, and decided the best thing to do was escape reality by engaging in recreational drug use and having unprotected sex with multiple partners. At some point, both of them realized that their lives were going nowhere, gave up the sex, drugs and rock and roll lifestyle for religious fanaticism and extreme neo-conservatism, and are now trying to convince millions of equally disenchanted Gen X’ers that they can bring back the America of “Leave It To Beaver.” Another excellent post JHK.
SJ Mom, I just borrowed from the library a video called the TAMI Show (you may have heard of it) It’s a film of a concert in 1964 in Santa Monica. Performers included The Beach Boys, The Stones, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Chuck Berry, The Supremes, Leslie Gore, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Marvin Gaye and last and greatest James Brown and the Flames.
Smokey, Marvin (and his backup singers the Blossoms) were absolutely great but James Brown and his boys were absolutely ON FIRE. What a performance. They had the place in a frenzy. And Marvin had two dancers come up during one of his numbers and if the young’uns nowadays think they know all about booty shake they should see these two go.
The Stones back then were young fellers with pink cheeks. Keef did some really great blues riffs and he even smiled charmingly. This was before he had a mouthful of broken teeth.
Well worth the trouble to get your hands on the video if you like 1960s music.
Also borrowed a new posthumous Jimi Hendrix CD called Valleys of Neptune. Worth a listen if you’re a Hendrix fan. I still mourn Jimi and Janis and Jim Morrison.
Cash, people don’t care that much about these financial shenanigans. They are obscure complicated and the doing of rich people who operate behind the scenes. Also such folks are well positioned and powerful. Folks would rather vent their vitriol upon the visible and vulnerable like the homeless, the obviously different, new, and threatening like the muslim and Latino immigrants, or the present and annoying people whom they feel jealous of at their schools and work-sites.
I have no doubt that Carter would have made a better president than Reagan, however I think he did himself and America a huge disservice when he made that looney blowhard Zbigniew Brzezinski his National Security Advisor and began ignoring the moderates in his administration. Carter’s new-found embrace of the Palestinians and utter contempt for Israel echo Brzezinski’s long-held views perfectly.
I know what you’re saying. People don’t even know their own take home pay so how much can you expect. They unquestioningly accept every spoonful of bullshit from Wall Street and their lackeys.
But I wish it weren’t so. Money is dog simple but it’s painted up to be so terribly complicated that no mere mortal without a Wharton MBA could be expected to know how to balance his chequebook much less calculate simple interest. So that’s why we need “financial advisors” to tell us what to do. So the average joe listens uncomprehendingly, having been taught that there’s no possible way he can think this stuff through himself.
I don’t know who I’m more pissed with: the bullshitting bullshitters or the idiots they take advantage of.
Do I sound bitter?
Generally people with iqs over 130 make their money by playing the people with iqs below 100 for the fools they are. It is a fun game. Most people really are so stupid that they can’t understand how money works. The smart and dishonest play the less intelligent. Anyway, I have a gambit in play now. I bought about 300 shares of ABX gold on the bet that the employment report will be lousy tomorrow, folks will get nervous, and buy gold. Will know by tomorrow morning how that will have played out. Life is just a game with knaves preying upon fools and suckers to make their living, and some do live very well.
Gazing at Kuntsler’s monthly eyesores is much like reading the financial section of the Wall Street Journal. Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse, it DOES!
Asia,
You said,
“work is always dangerous. in the 20th century at least it was made safer by osha, yes?”
I’m not sure if you are being facetious, (probably Alzheimer’s settling in on my part) but yes, Osha has made the workplace safer. If your intent was to take osha to task for being overly bureaucratic and wasteful of federal dollars, I’d say you were probably correct. If your intent was to state that osha thrives only in America, a highly litigous country, I’d again agree with you. The fact remains that corporations must have their feet held to the fire to ensure that the workforce is protected from overt hazards that can and should be effectively managed.
You write:
“In spite of your exhortation to me to follow the Ten Commandments, you believe in killing..”
==
I asked you to show where this was done. You bring up a post that was neither addressed to you, nor had it anything to do with the ten commandments.
Once again you are caught lying.
I bought about 300 shares of ABX
===============
Why ABX? I notice that ABX was significantly weaker the past 2 days than GDX. If your strategy is right you should have your maximum stock price movement within the first 15-30 mins of trading. Be prepared to bail between 9:45 and 10:00.
You write:
“you lose the argument by bringing up Hitler. It is a corollary of Godwin’s Law”
==
Actually, no.
Hitlerism and Islamism share many similarities. Both are expansionist imperialistic murderous genocidal supremacist anti-semitic totalitarian idol-worshiping ideologies.
Many of Hitler’s most evil inspirations come directly from Islamic sources. This includes the herding of Jews into ghettos. Forcing Jews to wear identity badges. The yellow star is a muslim invention. Hitler’s cultural and physical genocide against minorities, such as Jews, again, is heavily borrowed from Islamic sources transmitted to him thru leading Islamic personalities such as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini. Husseini was a close confidant and adviser to Hitler’s “final solution”.
So, no. You can bring up “Godwin’s Law”, but I think my argument holds just fine:
Your assertion of jihadi “pacifistic esoterism” is the equivalent of “pacifistic esoterism” being ascribed to Hitlerism. It is patently absurd, and anyone with the least bit of commonsense can understand that.
Treebeard, I’ve worked in the financial industry for over 20 years, first as a stockbroker (now referred to as “financial advisors”) then as a compliance officer for a small firm. I am now teaching basic financial literacy, with NO sales of financial “products” involved, teaching people how to avoid scams, reduce and eliminate debt the honest way, and avoid running more up. I teach people how to “find” several thousands of dollars a year simply by eliminating unnecessary expenditures, hidden fees and charges, and other daily money drains that most people never think about, but that are costing them hundreds to thousands of dollars a year.
Over the years, I have talked to hundreds of people, mostly fairly to extremely affluent people, about their money. These people include highly educated professionals and successful businesspeople, and I’m here to tell you that people with high I.Q. scores and advanced degrees are just as gullible and vulnerable to scams as the po’ dumb folks to the right of the I.Q. divide…. if not more so.
On the other hand, a very brief two-week stint of selling subprime mortgages to supposedly dumb poor folk taught me a few things, which is that while many of these people lack sophistication, they surely have sense. “You people jus’ wanna get me into debt!” spat one older black woman before slamming the phone down. There were many other similar responses from people in the poor black neighborhood targeted by these scum- and that’s why I quickly quit. I couldn’t stomach the business model, which was selling second mortgages to poor people in little $35K cottages. But these supposedly dumb people had sense enough to call the game right away.
So much cannot be said for the bright, well-educated people I dealt with, who fell for unbelievable scams. Let me tell you that it’s not the poor who fall for the Russian Bride scams and the famous African scams where someone contacts you by email offering you something like 25% of the take if you help him or her move $20M ill-gotten dollars out of some African country. I rescued one of our clients in a nick of time from one of these scams, and one of my brokers had to gently inform his physician client, who was ALWAYS at the edge of financial desperation, that no way no how was someone going to give him $5M to move money into his acct. from some OFAC-listed country, and that that was no way possible anyway. Just how gullible and delusional do you have to be to think that someone would single out YOU out of billions of people, to award a fortune to just for offering up your bank account as a front? And do you think that this idea is terribly original or inventive?
And commodities scams do great with the supposedly savvy and well-heeled, just as the oil and gas partnership scams did in the 80s. Those who scam the affluent and educated for big bucks take advantage of the greed, overconfidence, extreme gullibility, and incredible sense of entitlement so many well-heeled and highly credentialed upper middle and upper income folks have.
I have watched hyper-affluent relatives of mine spend their way into penury and overwhelming debt, and I am amazed at how so many well-educated people with such bright prospects, manage to screw up their lives and finances beyond any hope of repair and end up stone broke and career-less at age 50, while ordinary people with blue collar jobs merely DISCIPLINE THEMSELVES, and often end up with a net worth of over $1M, with no debt and no problems.
All you have to do is look at the massive number of supposedly bright people who bought into the housing mania of the noughties and who pulled hundreds of thousands of dollars out of their houses… and are SHOCKED, SHOCKED!! that the party ended and they’re completely buried forever, and might actually have to pay back all that HELOC money.. or pay taxes on it, at any rate. I mean, who KNEW, huh?
This debacle was created by bright people whose principal talent seems to lie in buying and pressuring politicians to promulgate laws and policies that enable them to steal and defraud with no consequence, and they scammed a greedy, gullible public by manipulating their pretensions and delusions. Their victims were by and large people who should have known better.
Murder Spies and Voting Lies
– http://goo.gl/PXEv
Thanks for the tips. I generally find that the market reaches an extreme shortly after the opening bell too. I am not familiar with GDX that is why I bought ABX gold.
Actually, I agree with you on a number of counts, particularly the following line: Those who scam the affluent and educated for big bucks take advantage of the greed, overconfidence, extreme gullibility, and incredible sense of entitlement so many well-heeled and highly credentialed upper middle and upper income folks have. There are big differences between being smart, being educated, being rich, and being cunning. I don’t think the rich are much smarter or even more cunning than the poor. Education and intelligence is not correlated that strongly nor is education and wealth even correlated that strongly. I agree that the wealthy, the middle class, and the educated are easily suckered in. However, I don’t think those people are that smart. Rather I think they are more likely to be priviledged, sheltered, conformist, and entitled than the poor. Even having a high iq and being smart with money are not that correlated. I think what we are really talking about here is wisdom, which includes the qualities of having good judgement, foresight/perspicacity, restraint, awareness, understanding and especially prudence. There are many who are rich, educated, even smart but not wise, and they are hoisted upon the pitard of their greed, gullibility, entitlement, and over-confidence just as you said.
I fear that this bucketheaded idea that
houses “deserve” their current average
prices (nationally, around 5X household
income) might become a self-fulfilling
prophecy via the following mechanism:
Rich Chinese, Indians, and other Asians
will just come in and pay the price even
if Americans cannot.
It’s rather a tragicomical kind of Mad
Max idea that the USA might not die in
a bang but rather in a whimper by selling
off distressed assets in a fire sale to
foreigners. In this kind of way, America
could become like balkanized California
but from “sea to shining sea”. Yet in
these New Balkans, the Americans will be
the largest sector of homeless while
REAL Mandarins occupy their old neighborhoods.
This scenario might sound far fetched but
WHO are the banks going to sell the
foreclosed homes to if Americans are out
of work and in debt up to their eyeballs.
Gotta be foreigners!!
And this is a really sad scenario because
those civilizations in the Far East have
a long history of stark mercantilism …
they are the “Ferrengi” of Planet Earth.
Yes, they’ve contributed some to its
culture but if one goes to China, Japan,
or Singapore … which kind of art do
they value most? Western art, western
opera, and even western medicine. Sick
Chinese people go to ordinary “allopathic”
Western doctors … they do NOT go to
traditional Chinese medicine Shamans
unless they’re like nutty Californians. 🙂 🙂
Indeed, most of my ex students who’ve gone
back to their Asian homelands tell me that
those places are more “mad dog” capitalist
than the USA but there isn’t even a pretense
at stopping corruption. Everything is a
boiler room operation.
By the way, Cash … I got a huge amount of
vicarious pleasure at your depiction of the
chain gangs you’d have these financiers
working in for that glass of water you
mentioned. That was high farce. Indeed,
I suggest that a great five-act Shakespearean
type of play could be made just by describing
American financial life in the last fifteen
years.
Cheers, buddy.
E.
Did you mean: petard (scusi – I realize that smacks of OCD..)
Eloquently put, treedude. Cunning often exists sans the many conventional benchmarks of success; money, a sheepskin or three, even (as you say) a higher-than-average IQ. Yes, wisdom is the shit..
@ Jamesrolly. Thanks for turning me on to canadian humor. BTW, has your Ice Capital melted yet?
As for this post and comments, seems like there’s plenty of hate to spread around these days. That alone explains enough about why we’re in the shape we’re in. Hate and fear. Not a good combination, as history will show.
The Titanic was mentioned a lot as an analogy. Instead of women and children first, this time I believe it will be “Every man for himself.”
“God uses evil men and seducers to test His people.”
In other words, God is playing stupid, idiotic, and cruel games. I will have nothing to do with such a God.
“How can God can tell smart people stuff, when they think it’s somebody else talking? ”
Geez, you’d think an omnipresent, omniscient, and all powerful being could think of a way that didn’t include trickery and deception and seduction into evil.
“This financial disaster is so destructive, so corrosive, so far reaching that you need to declare financial martial law.”
Imagine if Obama declared financial martial law.
Obama would be called a socialist, a Marxist, a friend of the terrorists, etc.
But since he is already being called those things, maybe he should actually do something to earn those labels, you know, like nationalize the banks and seize control of the means of production like a real socialist or Marxist might do.
From :
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=172688
“I would not go as far as to say most work is no longer needed, we have simply moved from a Secondary (Use raw materials to produce things) economy to a tertiary (service-related) economy. Anyway, increased demand will result in more sales jobs, more cashier jobs, more transportation jobs (they still haven’t designed a computer that can independently drive a rig) and more jobs in many other areas.
Besides, the computers themselves still need to be both programmed and maintained, so while the net result of these things might be lost jobs, it is difficult to assert that every single job, “Lost,” is gone forever. ”
But the forces that govern PROFIT, OPTIMIZATION and AUTOMATION will make due with less and less people in sales jobs, cashier jobs, programmers and transporters. The very idea of “innovation” is to do something more efficiently, at lower cost, with more “smarts”, with more “intelligence”, this is why “education” is “so important”, so companies can find ever better ways to do “more with less”, hence in the end “cheaper”, which will one way or another be translated into “less people needed”, “less jobs” or at best jobs being there but “paying less and less”.
“It’s survival of the fittest, though, that’s for sure. The key is to pick a sector that you think will always need human beings on-site working there and be damn good at what you do.”
Right, and “millions won’t be the fittest”, so they will not be needed. And if those that are “the fittest” and “damn good at what they do” are hired, that means that they are able to one way or another do the jobs of more than one person at the same time, are very efficient, very optimized, otherwise they would be “low productivity” people. Once again, the economy is set up in such a way as to create a smaller and smaller minority of bigger and bigger winners. What are you going to do with the increasing numbers of all of the losers, the unfit, the low productivity slobs ?
“If the Unions were not unreasonable in the wages/salaries that they demand, the jobs would not have been outsourced in the first place.”
Any demand is always unreasonable, capitalism operates on squeezing out as much as possible from workers: in China, their East Coast factories are “starting to cost too much”, they are trying to move to “lower cost” regions or countries like Vietnam. Why ? because instead of 100 dollars a month, the workers now demand 200 dollars a month. Wow, that is quite an unreasonable demand. Anyways you think people are good, not true: economy is only and always a power struggle, a fight, a winner and loser, it is only a power relationship, if there is no counterforce, corporations would pay ZERO to people.
“You don’t have to worry about health care as it represents a necessary segment of the overall market. As far as call centers are concerned, I don’t think people doubt the value of them when the cable is out, they need to figure out what is wrong and call Comcast to get a signal sent to their box and Law & Order SVU is on in five minutes.”
Health Care in the USA is the most criminal organization that can possibly exist worldwide: they are forcing people to pay more and more money when they get sick, when they are in pain. I can’t imagine how on earth such an idiotic system is accepted by the American people, while in any other country most of health care is free or relatively cheaper. But the USA doctors, lawyers, health insurance bureaucracy has to make 10 times more money than any other place on earth. What a boatfull of crap…
Health Care demonstrates that work is no longer needed, since there are fewer and fewer economic segments to make a profit, then everyone goes into health care (like nurses being paid 60k a year, truly insane anywhere else in the world, most nurses worldwide don’t make more than 20k), the Health Insurance companies need so many workers for something that doesn’t even exist in most of the world, for an activity that is just fluff and sponging off.
Anyways on the lighter side check out:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=171666
http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=22324
Health Care demonstrates that work is no longer needed, since there are fewer and fewer economic segments to make a profit, then everyone goes into health care (like nurses being paid 60k a year, truly insane anywhere else in the world, most nurses worldwide don’t make more than 20k), the Health Insurance companies need so many workers for something that doesn’t even exist in most of the world, for an activity that is just fluff and sponging off.
Mika, I really resent you saying I am lying or purposefully engaging in deception, because I did remember you responding to me with a reference to the Ten Commandments.
I went back through some of the earlier comments and I found your post reply to me.
mika. | August 15, 2010 11:47 AM | Reply
The laws of the God of Israel are pretty simple. There are only ten of them, so they should be fairly simple to follow, even for you asoka.
The comment was addressed to me, not to another poster, and it specifically referenced following the Ten Commandments. I reproduce the relevant excerpt above for your benefit.
I don’t expect an apology from you for calling me a liar as calling me a deceiver has become commonplace in your responses to me.
But I do feel better knowing I am not losing my memory, nor am I “caught lying.”
The bold did not come through on the part Mika wrote to me about following the Ten Commandments:
mika. | August 15, 2010 11:47 AM | Reply
The laws of the God of Israel are pretty simple. There are only ten of them, so they should be fairly simple to follow, even for you asoka.
Mika, you say you are a non-theist. And you say you believe in karma.
Then in a reply to ProCon (August 15, 2010 10:32 PM) you say “the islamo-nazis will get their due payback” and later in the thread you say “We all have a choice to make. Choose life. L’haim, my friend.”
I’m confused about your contradiction here: slaughtering “islamo-nazis” seems to be OK with you, yet you say “choose life”
As a non-theist how can you believe in karmic retribution (what is the mechanism)?
At what point does karma hitting you in the head like a baseball bat kick in, how many human beings do you have to kill?
I’m the pacifist, so I agree with you completely in this regard:
We all have a choice to make.
Choose life.
L’haim, my friend.
E., in going back a looking for Mika’s comment on my following the Ten Commandments I came across a comment you made that I had missed:
“Buddhism is about HUMILITY… I could LECTURE a class in theology on the history and ideas of Buddhism from Hinayana to Vajrayana with all the major players, dude. [snip] I suggest you get a copy of “Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism” by Chogyam Trungpa.”
I just wanted to thank you for the laugh. I thought that juxtaposition in one post was hilarious.
I did read the book back in 1974 and loved it.
Thanks for your concern and your observations.
With reference to the final question in Mr Kunstler’s piece, my impression is that “reasonable, rational, educated people of purpose” are silent because they think that history ended a long time ago and is now only a matter for the history books. They are convinced that wars, depressions and totalitarian governments are consigned to the past and to distant “primitive” nations.
Well, history has not ended, and we are not in a privileged position; if anything, the characteristics of modernity will make what lies ahead even more dangerous and difficult to escape.
http://www.goldsubject.com/
I agree there are no solutions: but at least people should “know thyself”, they should know how they have been programmed. Granted man is the infinitely programmable machine, hence societies can be programmed in any possible way in the end: Hilter programmed Germany to induce war and hate jews, and so it was. Pol Pot in Cambodia induced a small army to kill a million people in the name of some Communist Utopia, and so it was, etc. Any other civilization has always programmed their people’s neural networks to associate any possible input or behavior to any other output or behavior and emotional circuits, reactions, etc.
We are programmed to fight, in a subtle way, but to always be in winner or loser mode. The economy is just a giant game of who is now winning and losing, what can I do to win, where do I stand, what is the present status. If things reach some kind of steady state it is called “stagnation”, it is called “socialism”, it is called “no incentive to work”. But in all truth, much of this fighting is a losing proposition to more and more people.
check out:
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/ … ta-centres
especially:
“San Francisco – Hewlett-Packard is to cut 9,000 jobs from its global workforce over the coming years as it automates its worldwide data centres, the company said Tuesday. However it will add 6,000 new jobs in the new data centres and in expanded technology services
, where it hopes to increase the challenge to rivals IBM and Cisco. ”
and later
“The announcement came as HP completes the integration of technology services company EDS, which it bought for 14 billion dollars in 2008. ”
Now how much richer can you possibly get ? 14 billion dollars ? not enough ? not good enough ? Maybe it is the return on investment that must always go up no matter what that provokes companies to always “move it” so to say. If you stay still you don’t want to fight, hence constantly change and constantly create a new game, as fast as possible, to see who wins and who loses. This merging and accumulation of capital can continue indefinitely, until trillion dollar buyouts are performed, until a handful of entities own the entire world. Great, they deserved it, they “worked hard” for it. The fight is also based on how much pain I can inflict so as to feel so much more of a winner. So no free salaries or cheap rents, but homeless and sick without “medicaid that costs so much to the poor taxpayers”. Actually the more poor there are, the more I am powerful and winning, the more millions and billions suffer the more I am great and a winner. This is the real underlying philosophy and psychology of all of this Free Market and Capitalism BS. But maybe this is the underlying program of our civilization, our present state civilization seems to always end up in similar programs, no matter what. That is why the neural circuits of humans must be modified, the Instant Singularity must be forced on all, and Free Will must be killed.
check out:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=172275
Many, don’t want to fight anymore because they know the game is rigged in favor of the previous winners, hence they are only being used as a tool and fooled into believing they will be the “Next Bill Gates”.
Re: More Demand will Create More Employment ?
Postby old6598 » Fri Sep 03, 2010 2:01 pm
I agree there are no solutions: but at least people should “know thyself”, they should know how they have been programmed. Granted man is the infinitely programmable machine, hence societies can be programmed in any possible way in the end: Hilter programmed Germany to induce war and hate jews, and so it was. Pol Pot in Cambodia induced a small army to kill a million people in the name of some Communist Utopia, and so it was, etc. Any other civilization has always programmed their people’s neural networks to associate any possible input or behavior to any other output or behavior and emotional circuits, reactions, etc.
We are programmed to fight, in a subtle way, but to always be in winner or loser mode. The economy is just a giant game of who is now winning and losing, what can I do to win, where do I stand, what is the present status. If things reach some kind of steady state it is called “stagnation”, it is called “socialism”, it is called “no incentive to work”. But in all truth, much of this fighting is a losing proposition to more and more people.
check out:
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1560019.php/HP-to-cut-thousands-of-jobs-in-automated-data-centres
especially:
“San Francisco – Hewlett-Packard is to cut 9,000 jobs from its global workforce over the coming years as it automates its worldwide data centres, the company said Tuesday. However it will add 6,000 new jobs in the new data centres and in expanded technology services
, where it hopes to increase the challenge to rivals IBM and Cisco. ”
and later
“The announcement came as HP completes the integration of technology services company EDS, which it bought for 14 billion dollars in 2008. ”
Now how much richer can you possibly get ? 14 billion dollars ? not enough ? not good enough ? Maybe it is the return on investment that must always go up no matter what that provokes companies to always “move it” so to say. If you stay still you don’t want to fight, hence constantly change and constantly create a new game, as fast as possible, to see who wins and who loses. This merging and accumulation of capital can continue indefinitely, until trillion dollar buyouts are performed, until a handful of entities own the entire world. Great, they deserved it, they “worked hard” for it. The fight is also based on how much pain I can inflict so as to feel so much more of a winner. So no free salaries or cheap rents, but homeless and sick without “medicaid that costs so much to the poor taxpayers”. Actually the more poor there are, the more I am powerful and winning, the more millions and billions suffer the more I am great and a winner. This is the real underlying philosophy and psychology of all of this Free Market and Capitalism BS. But maybe this is the underlying program of our civilization, our present state civilization seems to always end up in similar programs, no matter what. That is why the neural circuits of humans must be modified, the Instant Singularity must be forced on all, and Free Will must be killed.
check out:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=172275
Many, don’t want to fight anymore because they know the game is rigged in favor of the previous winners, hence they are only being used as a tool and fooled into believing they will be the “Next Bill Gates”.
The link was:
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1560019.php/HP-to-cut-thousands-of-jobs-in-automated-data-centres
Tree,
Your scenario for employment data, gold and ABX is playing out just the opposite as hoped. i.e. empl data perceived as better, gold price dropped and ABX is down $.50 as we speak. I’ll take a guess that that loss will be halved to – $.25 by 11AM at which point you may want to bail.
(like nurses being paid 60k a year, truly insane anywhere else in the world, most nurses worldwide don’t make more than 20k), … for an activity that is just fluff and sponging off.
================
WOW! I can hardly wait to hear what Wage will have to say about that i.e. just fluff and sponging off.
Tree,
It’s 10:28AM, ABX is at $45 even, down “only” 22 cents. Time to cut your loss?
You raise a good point Kendar… the truth is that our system of totalitarian capitalism turns everything into a commodity, especially threats to the hegemony. They do it with any countercultural or counter establishment forces that rise up. They incorporate it into their Spectacle, and make it part of the norm. There is no fighting this animal politically or socially. It will only happen when collapse is felt by the masses…
“The laws of the God of Israel are pretty simple.”
And they have “merit”.
MIKA SAID: “The laws of the God of Israel are pretty simple.”
MD ADDED: “And they have “merit”.
MessianicDruid, according to the OED (2nd ed.) “merit” is an abstract quality which, in a theological context, means:
1. a. Theol. The quality (in actions or persons) of being entitled to reward from God.
So, we have laws given by God which IF OBEYED give you rewards from God.
Sounds like a great deal, if you accept that any such entity called “God” exists and can write on stone tablets.
Otherwise, saying God’s laws have merit (entitle reward from God) is a circular and meaningless argument.
Besides, why would God want to box herself in like that? Even human judges favor discretionary sentencing guidelines when it comes to laws.
God, being the creator of humans, and the creator of laws, has complete discretion.
“Here is a garden. I made everything in the garden for you. Except, don’t eat the fruit from this one tree (of knowledge) because I want you all to remain ignorant fucks all your lives.”
Once again, this is a stupid and cruel game being played by God. A game which has no merit.
Mika, I really resent you saying I am lying or purposefully engaging in deception, because I did remember you responding to me with a reference to the Ten Commandments.
I went back through some of the earlier comments and I found your post reply to me.
mika. | August 15, 2010 11:47 AM | Reply
The laws of the God of Israel are pretty simple. There are only ten of them, so they should be fairly simple to follow, even for you asoka.
The comment was addressed to me, not to another poster, and it specifically referenced following the Ten Commandments. I reproduce the relevant excerpt above for your benefit.
I don’t expect an apology from you for calling me a liar as calling me a deceiver has become commonplace in your responses to me.
But I do feel better knowing I am not losing my memory, nor am I “caught lying.”
===
Here is the the full excerpt of what I wrote:
MIKA. | AUGUST 15, 2010 11:47 AM | REPLY
@asoka: “Jewish scriptures featured beheading.”
==
The Hebrew bible is an ancient chronicle of the people of Israel. Basically, their record of history. Yes, there are some cases where against overwhelming odds there occurred an outcome that was unexpected and it was described to be an intervention by the God of Israel. But to think of the Hebrew Bible as a religious text is an error.
Also, saying that this or that behavior is prescribed by the God of Israel because it was described to have occurred on this or that occasion is a logical fallacy. The laws of the God of Israel are pretty simple. There are only ten of them, so they should be fairly simple to follow, even for you asoka.
So to answer your assertion, no, beheading is not prescribed by the God of Israel under any circumstance. As to what muhmud/allah prescribed, I’ll leave that for you to enlighten us.
http://kunstler.com/blog/2010/08/vacation-special—-excerpt-from-the-witch-of-hebron.html
===
asoka,
I know you read the full excerpt because you went back to quote from it. Anyone reading that excerpt can clearly see that I did not exhort you to follow the ten commandments when I said “they should be fairly simple to follow, even for you asoka”. The expression “simple to follow” means that it’s simple to understand, simple to comprehend, simple not to get confused about. Those laws are not complicated. Most are less than 10 word sentences. Now, I know that you know exactly what I meant when I used the expression, “simple to follow”, because I used that expression more than once in our back and forth, precisely with the meaning described above.
Again, you show yourself as a shameless liar, a deliberate and malicious deceiver, a person of zero scruples and infinite hutzpa.
This is a characteristic you share with your co-religioners, and this is why ultimately you will be wiped off map. Nobody will believe anything that comes out of your mouths, even when you one day you will promise to reform. They will not take the chance, and they will destroy you utterly and completely.
Nobody will believe anything that comes out of your mouths, even when you one day will promise to reform.
Mika said: “this is why ultimately you will be wiped off map. Nobody will believe anything that comes out of your mouths, even when you one day you will promise to reform. They will not take the chance, and they will destroy you utterly and completely.”
Are you talking about killing human beings here, or are you talking about being “wiped off the map” figuratively like has been done in Iran with reference to Israel?
You have consistently avoided responding to my questions:
As a non-theist how can you believe in karmic retribution (what is the mechanism)?
At what point does karma “hitting you in the head like a baseball bat” kick in?
How many human beings do you have to kill?
Or, do lying Muslim dissimulators only count as vermin to be extinguished, with no karmic consequences and no consequences from violating the “simple to follow” sixth commandment, THOU SHALT NOT KILL
Or, do you want to argue over the interpretation of the word “kill” and “murder” … as if the distinction matters to the living human being who becomes a cadaver.
Mika projects: “Nobody will believe anything that comes out of your mouths, even when you one day will promise to reform”
Mika has “infinite hutzpa” to talk about mass murder, a final solution to the “jihadi problem” and then sign off his posts with:
We all have a choice to make.
Choose life.
L’haim, my friend.
Mika has “infinite hutzpa” to talk about mass murder, a final solution to the jihadi problem and then sign off his posts with:
We all have a choice to make.
Choose life.
L’haim, my friend.
We all have a choice to make.
==
That’s right, asoka. And you chose deceit and death.
That’s right, Mika. And you Choose life for jihadis. Your attitude feeds them.
L’haim, my friend.
As a non-theist how can you believe in karmic retribution (what is the mechanism)?
==
Action and reaction. It’s simple physics, that even you can follow.
Obama doesn’t need to seize control of everything. He just needs to seize control of industries and institutions that are doing such great damage.
I’ve shouted and screamed for years now up here that the Canuck banking industry has concentrated massive destructive power in the hands of bank CEOs. We have 6 big banks, huge by national as well as international standards. Their balance sheets have swollen enormously in the past ten years as they’ve gone on wild speculative sprees dealing in the turd that sunk so many US institutions. I defy any bank CEO to tell me what’s in balance sheet line items labelled “derivatives”. My bet is they can’t, they have no clue.
What’s more I’ll bet no one can. Not the CFOs, not the auditors, not people at the trading desks, not the grunts in their finance departments, nobody. These banks need to be seized pronto, their execs shown the door, their trading operations wound down, their traders turfed. They need to be broken up into smaller operations explicitly forbidden from operating both as investment banks and as deposit taking institutions. The big six need to become the small twelve and it needs to happen RFN.
wonder why the USA is in decline?
Passing AMNESTY…Ooopss Path to legal citizenship is what will destroy Social Security!
Cross the North Korean border illegally you get 12 years hard labor.
If you cross the Iranian border illegally you are detained indefinitely.
If you cross the Afghan border illegally, you get shot.
If you cross the Saudi Arabian border illegally you will be jailed.
If you cross the Chinese border illegally you may never be heard from again.
If you cross the Venezuelan border illegally you will be branded a spy and your fate will be sealed.
If you cross the Cuban border illegally you will be thrown into political prison to rot.
IF YOU CROSS THE MEXICAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU WILL THE THROWN IN JAIL FOR 2 YEARS.
If you cross the United States border illegally you get:
1 – A job
2 – A driver’s license
3 – A Social Security card
4 – Welfare
5 – Food stamps
6 – Credit cards
7 – Subsidized rent or a loan to buy a house
8 – Free education
9 – Free health care
10 – A lobbyist in Washington
11 – Billions of dollars in public documents printed in your language
12 – Millions of servicemen and women who are willing to – and do – die for your right to the ways and means of our constitution
13 – And the right to carry the flag of your country – the one you walked out on – while you call America racist and protest that you don’t get enough respect.
Oh…And OBAMAS Final Response to Problem: AMNESTY…Ooopps..I meant Earned Path To Ruination. Ha Ha Ha
Well, Q, I am going to wait for another day. It is true that expectations have changed a lot since the beginning of the week. However, I don’t think the double dip worries have quite disappeared yet. I expect their to be more bad news within the next month which will offer an opportunity to sell abx and buy apple and baidu. I moved almost entirely into cash, over 90% in order to avoid a posssible market crash this fall. Now it looks like there will be no crash or slide. 8M, if you were right the official unemployment rate would be well over 10% and the unofficial rate probably over 20%. I don’t think what you believe is going to come true anytime soon.
g
wonder why the USA is in decline?
==
All that is true, but it does not address the reason why this is so. The reason is corruption. As long as Americans tolerate corruption, corrupt politicians, corrupt judiciary, corrupt media, corrupt business culture, etc, this will be the end result. America is dead. There was a choice to be made, and America chose deceit and death.
A must watch:
Jimmy – http://goo.gl/PjRQ
Cash, it looks like the financial scare is fading into the rear view mirror. The US economy is moderating and there is strength in east Asia. Folks don’t care much about Canada’s problems. Looks like it is fairly safe to get back into the market. Will just look for some big dips in the weeks ahead. I would like to buy Apple in the $235 to $245 range. The lowest Apple has gone during the past couple of weeks was $235.60 or so and the highest price I think was a price it reached today, around $258/share. Am looking to buy Baidu at about $76/share. It was down in the $60’s back in July but that was during a different regime and there has been solid appreciation in the stock since the second quarter reports came in. Don’t think it is quite time to go back into metals yet though as industry tends to grow a little later in the recovery cycle.
Canada is just as idiotic. We just had a boatload of 500 Tamils show up and we rolled out the red carpet.
Yes, yes, yes we’re “compassionate”. Actually we’re not. Our immigration and refugee policies have nothing to do with compassion. They are based on cold, cynical, destructive political calculations. They are schemes cooked up by the Liberal Party to buy votes in our “ethnic” communities. If you dare call it what it is you are labelled a “racist”.
We’re also being played for suckers. Other people play by the rules. They apply to immigrate via legal channels. And they wait their turn.
You guys have the same problem. Dare to speak up and liberals will accuse you of being racist, bigoted, anti-immigrant, anti-hispanic.
Ask what Myrtlemay asked. If others can barge into the US and set up housekeeping can Americans do the same in other countries? If not, why not? Isn’t it only fair? Why can’t Americans walk across the Rio Grande, bring construction equipment, build roads and towns and farms for themselves on Mexican soil?
Cash, Democrats have been espousing immigration to get votes since the mid 1800’s I think.
There is no compulsion in religion. (Quran 2:256)
God has prohibited the use of force in religion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD5MFPDBego
Well, the item i’ve been waiting for for years is a comprehensive list, with names, of who the billionaires et al. who are running the oligarchy here in america. These are the powers that don’t want to be seen, and it’s time we put the spotlite on them. Rush Limbaughs, Glen Becks, Tea Baggers, couldn’t be doing their shtick without someone bankrolling all of this.. Let’s name names and get a list up.. at least when the pitchforks and torches come out, they’ll know which way to go.
Yaaaaawwwwnnn….ah, geez, sorry guys, usually when I drop in late in the week I dip to the end and check out the current discussion to see if I might jump in somewhere with purpose. But not today, so I’ll run an end-around from last week.
Q! You said something last time that made me think. And not just about the subtleties of the there/their/they’re triptych either. It was about how consumption levels for immigrants increase dramatically when they emigrate to the US. I’ve always sort of subscribed to the idea that population is population, and energy consumption is energy consumption, no matter where that takes place. But I’m not sure why, because I’ll be the first to point out that first-world consumption is just as big a rhino in the playpen than third-world population. I mean, a jet-setting Italian on a 100′ yacht cruising the Med probably burns more energy in an hour than entire villages in Lesotho do in a month (year?). But I’d never quite linked the two schools of thought under the immigration banner.
Thanks for something novel to ruminate on! (Yeah, yeah, upon which to ruminate…)
“than third-world population”
I meant “as third-world population”
We’re connected to the internet at home again finally, so you guys better get ready to see more of me!
And by “ready” of course I mean trim your torches and sharpen your pitchforks…
Interesting marker for where we stand in the federal finance circus: my wife got a letter from the state of Washington yesterday which informed her that because she was a recent UE claimant (ie after November ’09), she would not be eligible for any UE extensions beyond this first tier (there are now 5 tiers I believe). Does that make sense? Folks who have been on unemployment for nearly 2 years already have priority over her because she had a job up until fairly recently? Shouldn’t it be her turn now if needed? Say, 3 tiers for everybody?
On a happier note, however, I just accepted a job teaching an after-school ecology program here in Macon, GA. Damn good money too! So that made up our minds for us to stay and keep developing our garden here for a while. Next week I’m adding a new pomegranate (need a pollinator), 2 more tea camellias, 2 goji berries, and a rugosa rose known for its big hips. They should have plenty of time to settle in before “winter” down here (even though the forecast is calling for 55 degrees tonight! Haven’t seen anything like that in ages it seems.)
JHK nominated the santa monica ‘green’ parking structure at 4th and olympic as an eyesore [ despite the imported italian custom made glass]
and i sat in with the liberal who runs the ‘green’ [solar panels] roof of it [ thats why its leed certified green whatever]…
he said wed need 5 earths to give everyone USA levels of goodies…due to the liberals and possibly immigrants i didnt say
IF IT HADNT BEEN FOR THE 1965 IMMIGRATION ACT WED ONLY NEED 3 EARTHS..US POPULATIONS PUSHING TOWARD DOUBLING. HE SAID SUCH STUPID STUFF!
HIM AND HIS GREEN PARKING STRUCTURE..TURNS OUT HE TOOK A CLASS WITH AMORY LOVINS..SAYS THERE WERE 4 STUDENTS IN THE CLASS..AMORY GETS 20,000 PER LECTURE..BLABLABLA
You should see my list for spring projects! Metal roof encompassing old footprint plus new summer kitchen on the north side of the house, a full compliment of gutters, two 3500-gallon ferrocement cisterns, small graywater terminus pond (cutting in the system and building the water treatment marsh this fall), heavy attic insulation, solar attic fan, painting the brick white and starting some creeping fig to cover it, a full-length kiwi arbor across the southern face of the house, lining the goat paddock fence with a market blackberry crop, and other perennial fruits like you wouldn’t believe.
I’ll post some pics soon of our progress so far.
‘racist’..ive said it before…’racist’ is a word used to ‘ shame’ whites and shut up free thinkers of any skin color.
if someone does call you ‘ racist’ say you take it as a compliment!
did you or are you moving?
ignore my last one
one of the investors in the Ground Zero Mosque project contributed money to a terrorist organization! His name is Hisham Elzanaty and he is Egyptian born businessman. According to Fox 5, Elzanaty gave $6000 to an organization called the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, also known as HLF. He gave the money to the terrorist organization in 1999. Of course, along with the revelation of this, Elzanaty has an excuse. His attorney has told Fox 5 News exclusively that Hisham Elzanaty believed he was making contributions to an “orphanage”. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never confused a terrorist organization with an orphanage.
We already know Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a terrorist sympathizer, anti Israel Muslim, said America has more blood on it’s hands then Al-Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden was made in the USA. Now it turns out that Rauf is also an “alleged” slumlord. The New York Post reveals that at buildings in Union City and Palisades Park, where Rauf got tax dollars to renovate low-income apartments, tenants say their gripes about their lousy housing conditions have been ignored.
“Fuckery” and “hatery” both invented in the same comments section. Good to see you back, Dovey!
By the way, folks, Mean Dovey is as talented in the kitchen as she is in the garden. Although you wouldn’t know it to here her tell it…
And please, dear Christ almighty, don’t take anyone under 4 feet tall who isn’t immaculately potty trained with you when you pay her a visit!;o)
The New York Post reveals..
==
You forgot the sarcasm tags.
Anyway, what the MSM will never reveal is that the Ground Zero Mosque project is a CIA operation. All these characters have CIA/gov mafia connections and immunity. That’s why none of them are in jail for their crimes or simply suicided.
asia, the thing is the liberals were saying the stimulus should have been bigger. The conservatives were saying the stimulus would cause higher interest rates and inflation.
From Krugman’s recent editorial:
Mika said: “what the MSM will never reveal is that the Ground Zero Mosque project is a CIA operation. All these characters have CIA/gov mafia connections and immunity. ”
Once again big government illustrates how effective big government is through its efficient and super secret CIA operations that have their tentacles everywhere.
I’m beginning to think Mika is a CIA agent who is carrying out a false flag operation on CFN… successfully!
Once again big government illustrates how effective big government is through its efficient..
==
The efficiency works to enrich the corporate gov mafia, while fleecing everyone else. You want to lie and deceive and argue otherwise, well what’s new, it’s typical of what you do.
Stephen Hawking just told me that god (God?) is NOT pleased that you and Mika are talking religion again after all He just said.
ProCon said: “…god (God?) is NOT pleased that you and Mika are talking religion again after all He just said.”
ProCon, could it have been a brother? I have it on good authority that God is a Black woman.
Just saw a good movie: HALF PAST AUTUMN.
Yep, I misunderestimated Who was speaking to me (Me?).
God (god?) just told me that She (he?) and Stephen Hawking (stephen?) are tired of all the god (allah, Vishnu?) talk on CFN.
===============
On a happier and more relevant note, welcome back Tripp.
And congratulations on the new job. Macon should cool off by November, easy! I saw it happen when we lived there in the 1960’s – before anyone had even heard of anthropogenic global warming. 😉
Understanding America’s Class System
– http://goo.gl/I6TR
Excellent posts, EightM, regarding the plight
of the world’s workers and of America’s workers.
I don’t know if your remember a book written
a long time ago (I don’t even have my own
copy any more!!) called “The Demise of
Capitalism and Communism”. It was by Ravi
Batra, the controversial SMU economist.
Essentially, it said that both systems would
immolate themselves and come to the same end
even if for vastly different reasons. The
entire world saw that Communism created too
many inefficiencies caused by excessive
centrality of control. However, as you point
out so elaborately and astutely, capitalism
regards PEOPLE as a “commodity” and since
there are TOO MANY OF THEM, their “worth” as
workers is asymptotically approaching ZERO.
Thus, in the “human-as-commodity” model,
their worth as PEOPLE is asymptotically
approaching zero.
The multi-national corporation is beholden to
shareholders and bondholders and is an amoral
entity which looks for profit at ANY human cost.
Thus, they look for labor markets where people
will give up their dignity for nothing. They
look for governments with the most lax
environmental laws. Gold mining is huge in
Vietnam but the citizens there are having
their water supplies polluted. Ho Chi Minh
City’s air is filthy. The “gold rush” mentality
in East Asia makes our mess look tame.
However, the biggest dark irony in all this is
the deadly embrace between workers’ PENSION
FUNDS and the profit imperative. Most state
pension funds are roughly 40-50% in the stock
market … the market of huge companies whose
modus operandi is destroying the dignity of
labor all over the world.
The 1980s was a seminal decade in that prior
to that decade, pension funds were mostly
invested in Treasury notes and bonds and stocks
were considered way, way too risky for holding
the life savings of the common man or for the
common man’s retirement. The 1980s also saw
the enormous inflation of the size of the
financial services industry which continues
unabated to this day. Indeed, a typical fund
family (like Profunds, for example, will sport
a product line of 100 ETFs and just as many
ordinary mutual funds). There are now far,
far more mutual funds in America than there
are stocks on the NYSE and Nasdaq combined.
So the sad irony of the working man’s plight
is that he’s not only been played off against
the workers of the rest of the world (ready
to give up 20% more of your dignity to the
other guy … you’re hired!!!!), he’s been
hoodwinked into thinking that dangerous levels
of risk are “prudent” for savings and retirement.
So the working man in the world is going to live
in a constant state of insecurity (even if he’s
a normal Joe doing a good job and with a high
level of conscience) about his job and even
more about the life AFTER he gives up his job
in old age.
This is a giant omen of a DARK AGE if ever
there was such an omen.
E.
“God (god?) just told me that She (he?) and Stephen Hawking (stephen?) are tired of all the god (allah, Vishnu?) talk on CFN.”
Rigidly held beliefs in gods or non-theistic ideologies (zionism, communism, etc.) is at the root of much conflict that wastes resources needed to save the planet.
In other words, religion is part of clusterfuck nation and is a legitimate topic of discussion.
“There was a choice to be made, and America chose deceit and death.”
“But he who sins {1John 3:4} against me {God}wrongs his own soul; All those who hate me love death.”
It was a poor choice, but America {the little people-not the rulers} is being taught repentance. They are starting to say “No King but Jesus” like their forefathers did when they came to this continent to flee ungodly rulers. Soon they will learn not to follow {or make treaties with} people that are provided by mattoids to lead them astray. God speed the day.
MD said: “God speed the day.”
Halelujah!
La Ilaha Ila Allah (God is the Greatest)
Q! You said something last time that made me think … It was about how consumption levels for immigrants increase dramatically when they emigrate to the US.
==============
Tripp, credit goes to another commenter though I don’t remember who. I was just repeating what they said because it made such perfect sense.
So, is the double dip in the recession coming or not. Based upon the latest news in manufacturing, housing, and employment it looks like the double dip recession scenario is out. Thus the Dow should not crash or slide below 9000 and I think not even below 9500. Am just looking for good entry points to get back into APPL, BIDU, and probably VISA. Looks like gold is not going much higher. ABX was up to $47/share a couple days ago but now is only about $45.30.
Q,
That was good of you not to claim credit for the idea. You did give a good summary, which Tripp noticed:
=============
“Tripp, credit goes to another commenter though I don’t remember who. I was just repeating what they said because it made such perfect sense.”
=============
I’d take credit myself – it’s an issue I’ve been pushing on CFN for weeks. However CowsWithGuns and WageLaborer need at least equal credit.
It’s an anonymous discussion thread, so who could keep score, anyway??
(And Cash, Asia, Vlad, and others would be on board implicitly, though they may not have articulated this particular idea on the thread.)
And none of us should forget either Mila or Asoka who have served as the “loyal opposition” as the idea developed.
And here’s the idea, in the words of Tripp:
====================
“It was about how consumption levels for immigrants increase dramatically when they emigrate to the US. I’ve always sort of subscribed to the idea that population is population, and energy consumption is energy consumption, no matter where that takes place. But I’m not sure why, because I’ll be the first to point out that first-world consumption is just as big a rhino in the playpen than third-world population. I mean, a jet-setting Italian on a 100′ yacht cruising the Med probably burns more energy in an hour than entire villages in Lesotho do in a month (year?). But I’d never quite linked the two schools of thought under the immigration banner.”
===============
It is an idea worth considering!
Uncontrolled immigration is bad for immigrants, bad for the US, and bad for the Earth.
Other posters (Wage, Cows, ProCon) made the comment and I asked for some documentation. None was forthcoming. Just a feeeeeling that it “makes sense”
I pointed out that immigrants earning minimum wage (or less) working the fields, harvesting crops along US Highway 1, do not consume as much energy as the yuppies unloading their windsurfing gear out of their Toyota Land Cruisers, also along US Highway 1.
The poor black and brown consumers in the USA are not the high energy users.
The biggest waster of energy in the USA is the US military. To be precise, per capita energy consumption in the U.S. is 337 million Btu per year per resident. How much is the DoD’s? Well, 25 per cent more than the U.S. average, or 422 million Btu per person.
SOURCE: http://www.energybulletin.net/node/46134
SO, IF YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT ENERGY CONSUMPTION WHY NOT GO AFTER THE BIGGEST WASTERS OF ENERGY — THE USA ARMED FORCES, instead of picking on the poorest among us who probably use the least energy. (I’m still waiting for evidence that says otherwise)
So, let’s take bets on how low the market will go and how high it will go. I think the DOW will trade in the range of 9500 – 11,500 for the next couple of months.
g
So a family of 6, growing crops somewhat sustainably, happily living south of the border – walking everywhere surrounded by family, friends
Comes north
Buys at least one car, probably a big ol’ truck, starts driving everywhere, running the AC in the summer, heat in the winter when they can – driving everywhere,’cause it’s the US
Sending 20 billion dollars/year home (your figures, Asoka) so that their families back home can develop their OWN United State’s *type* standard of living down in Mexico.
Look Asoka – you want to live in a mud hut & that’s pretty well documented on CFN
So why do you think the American Lifestyle is so wonderful that third world immigrants should aspire to it??
What is so wrong with Mexican society that their own citizens will break the law trying to escape?
and Tree, are we boring you?
I’m projecting the markets to stay in this “trading range” that they have been in since the ’08 crash and rebound.
Markets will probably stay range bound until some major trigger moves them downward.
I can’t imagine a major trigger to move prices upward – but I’m a stock pessimist by nature.
And would certainly enjoy a pleasant surprise.
I’m about 50% VERY diversified stocks and about 50% cash.
That’s “liquid” money – then my wife and I have roughly 3X that in real estate and other tangibles, and zero debt.
How about you?
By Thanksgiving, I’m betting the Dow will hit a high of 10,900 and a low of 7,300.
SJmom
Hey, Clusterfuckers, here’s a Flickr link to some pics of our little ghetto permaculture project in Macon, GA. Sorry this took so long to get posted.
Enjoy!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45300880@N05/sets/72157624873863534/
As for the Dow, can’t it just go the way of Vaudeville? It’s a lot less useful and entertaining. Besides, if we were to honestly account for inflation over the last decade, wouldn’t it be cruising around the 3-4000 range anyway? I’m gonna say….lower. Just lower. Oh, except that that drop will be negated by freshly printed stimulus money and more inflation. Never mind.
Course, Ned Ludd and I are pretty tight sometimes.
I love the south…
http://blog.al.com/wire/2010/09/alabama_fugitive_arrested_in_g.html
Worthy of mention: The powederkegs that are Iran and Pakistan.
Iran is currently in a state of civil war, only made invisible by extreme state repression. Very similar to Iran in the last years before the Shah fell – remember, those sweet, nostalgic days when the US intelligence establishment was calling Moosavi Khomeini “a saint”?
As for Pakistan, it was already under duress before the flood. Nothing like plague and famine to help a toppling government retain power. Concerned about Iran making plutonium? Heck, Pakistan already has nukes, and they are about to fall in the hand of folks they seem to enjoy blowing themselves up. A nice practical combo.
As for the US economy, I have been building this nice model over 15 years that’s proven pretty accurate historically, and that’s giving me the happy prediction of stagflation called within the next 16 months @70% probability, give or take a few. And it’s like mud: If it hits, it will stick.
But don’t worry, because the US will not be alone in this predicament. The UK will have it, and a healthy dose of civil unrest, while the EU will be dragged under with the weight of the economic corpses of its weakest members. Greece was but a dress rehearsal for things to come.
I’m not even going to talk about Asia. I have not spent enough time on it, but if you are not worrying about the Koreas, may I suggest you lower your intake of Xanax one notch?
Meanwhile 60% or Americans don’t believe in evolution, The US is the only country where, in a time when diseases are coming back in force, vaccination rates are actually decreasing, and the level of child malnutrition has reached such a rate that African countries are starting to feel good.
So go ahead and pray with Mr Beck if that’s your thing, it won’t hurt. But if this is all you plan to do, you better be darn sure it’s the best response, because regrets and consequences for your (in)decision may come and bite you in the seesaw sooner than you think.
E.
Excellent core relevancies to our predicament.
Lemme rummage a bit for some real “hair-tearers” for a sec…
Aha.
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9217110
Shitcan it after the speech; it’s not worth putting up with the bad camera mic sound after that. I don’t understand why people can’t figure out that they can hardwire right into the sound board to get a decent feed! (Duh)
Anywhich, this is a barn-burner that gets right to the real nitty-gritty, so turn the volume down a bit so the distortion doesn’t drive you nuts; I think you’ll find it worth the 43 minutes or so.
Ha! Ol’ Ned stays at your place sometimes too, eh?
Glad to hear you’re staying flexible with so many projects pending! (Whew.)
As my boss used to say: “Keep ‘a go.” :o)
“…according to the OED (2nd ed.) “merit” is an abstract quality which, in a theological context, means:”
I’m not talking about an abstract quality, and I’m not talking about a religious context. I was using it tha same way Mika did; “laws must be judged on their merits”.
Also you said, “God is playing stupid, idiotic, and cruel games.” Only God can bring good out of evil. Men think they can do evil and good will result from it. The root of innovation.
He tells us to believe Him, but knows what will happen. It seems we can’t understand something without observing it’s opposite. We prefer to learn the hard way. Hard lessons for stiff-necked, obstinate, rebellious children.
Asoka said “There is no compulsion in religion. (Quran 2:256)”
The easy solution is of course simple: Don’t recognize the religion as a religion. Call it a political party, a spy ring, enemy combatant, whatever. Then arrest them all and throw them in jail – unless they pledge allegiance to the state, including to the official state religion. Oppress those you do not arrest.
Persia has had more than 500 years to refine the practice. First with Zoroastrian, currently with Ba’hai. It works so well, it has been adopted worldwide since.
Well, at least eating cheez doodles won’t do this to you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwFvNYSCmhM&feature=related
MD said: “I’m not talking about an abstract quality, and I’m not talking about a religious context.”
Humpty Dumpty said: “`When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
==========
MD said: “He tells us to believe Him, but knows what will happen.”
That is why it is a stupid and cruel game. God creates us, God creates the world, God creates evil, and sits back and watches how we react.
Since God is omniscient God knows exactly how the game is going to end before it starts. There is nothing God does not know. As you say, God “knows what will happen.”
That is what omniscient means and that is what makes it a stupid and cruel game.
Tripp said: “Oh, except that that drop will be negated by freshly printed stimulus money and more inflation. Never mind.”
And that is a bad thing?
Fiat money electrified America. Fiat money built the world’s largest military. Fiat money won World World II and financed industrial expansion and created the middle class in the United States.
Fiat money helped end the Great Depression. Fiat money has had its ups and downs, but has basically been stable for decades: so keep printing stimulus money.
CROWN OF CREATION by Jefferson Airplane
You are the Crown of Creation
You are the Crown of Creation
and you’ve got no place to go.
Soon you’ll attain the stability you strive for
in the only way that it’s granted
in a place among the fossils of our time.
In loyalty to their kind
they cannot tolerate our minds.
In loyalty to our kind
we cannot tolerate their obstruction.
Life is Change
How it differs from the rocks
I’ve seen their ways too often for my liking
New worlds to gain
My life is to survive
and be alive
for you.
ProCon said: “What is so wrong with Mexican society that their own citizens will break the law trying to escape?”
ProCon, you seem to be operating under a false assumption, perhaps planted in your mind by fear-mongerers and mainstream media, namely that Mexicans are desperate to escape from Mexico.
Here are the facts (though facts seem to mean little on CFN):
SOURCE: FoxNews, Sept. 2, 2010
While I don’t expect a mass movement in the USA to live in adobe structures, I do see move to downsize housing and use less energy in general. That needs to continue.
http://20somethingfinance.com/tiny-home-benefits/
Mexicans need to continue to cross the border so they can send money back to Mexico. And they also need to continue to push for basic services necessary for public health in Mexico. Lack of potable water, decent housing, sewage treatment, etc. leads to disease and death.
Eliminate the closed border! There should be an open border between Mexico and the United States as provided for by the Treaty of Hidalgo Guadalupe, as was the case for 70 years after the Treaty of Hidalgo Guadalupe was signed.
Consider the moral case for open borders. Let’s assume that I wish to hire a Mexican worker and that he wishes to work for me. What gives anyone the moral authority to interfere with the relationship that we wish to establish between ourselves? It’s my money, and it’s his time and energy. It’s our business, not anyone else’s. Why doesn’t he have the right, regardless of what citizenship he happens to hold, to accept my job offer, and why don’t I have the right to hire him?
Free movement! Freedom of movement! Freedom!!!!!
===
We Can Be Together by Jefferson Airplane
We are all outlaws in the eyes of america
We should be together
We should be together my friends
We can be together
We will be
We must begin here and now
A new continent of earth and fire
Come on now gettin higher and higher
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls
Won’t you try
Think about all the arrests, prosecutions, incarcerations, repatriations, deportations and especially the deaths of people who have simply wanted to cross a border in search of a better life.
All of this would be avoided under a system of open borders because people would be free to cross our Southern border as easily as Americans cross borders between states.
Can all this abuse and mistreatment be reconciled with the moral principles in the Sermon on the Mount? Can they be reconciled with what Jesus referred to as God’s second-greatest commandment: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself?
What about the economic consequences of open borders? Would the unrestricted movements of people be an economic detriment to the American people? On the contrary, open immigration would be a tremendous economic boon. After all, think about how open borders between our respective states have contributed to people’s economic well-being.
Whenever people are entering into mutually beneficial exchanges, their standards of living are rising, at least from their own individual perceptions. How do we know this? Because if a person does not perceive a benefit from an exchange, he simply doesn’t enter into it. Thus, the fact that immigrants are entering into business relationships with U.S. citizens is itself strong evidence that standards of living are rising.
Moreover, as everyone recognizes, those who flee the relative comfort and safety of their homeland, including friends, family, and a native language, are usually the industrious ones–those who are willing to take big risks for the sake of economic betterment. They provide an infusion of energy and vitality that every society should relish.
We Owe It All to the Hippies by Stewart Brand
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,982602,00.html
Freedom!
Boomer Generation just gettin’ started! Yeah!
TreeBeardsUncle wrote”
“Well, Q, I am going to wait for another day. It is true that expectations have changed a lot since the beginning of the week. However, I don’t think the double dip worries have quite disappeared yet.”
TBU … I see you’ve been suckered into the
game. Look at the absolutes since April.
The Dow peaked at 11,400 and is almost 1000
points under that despite the furious rally
of this week. Unemployment claims are still
WAY over 450,000 … nowhere near the 300,000
or under in an economy remotely healthy.
The Dow rallied today with a loss of 27,000
of the BEST PAYING jobs i.e. manufacturing
jobs, in August. That’s why Obama appeared
GLUM while the market rallied.
Your last sentence is the understatement of
the year. Students of market economics must
realize that a secular bear market of epic
proportions is like a play with fifty acts.
Such markets almost appear calculated to
extract the most money from the most
participants.
The bulls (like the staffs of CNBC, Fox Biz,
and Bloomberg TV) live for weeks like this
forgetting that their S&P 500 index fund
has returned NEGATIVE TWENTY-SEVEN PERCENT
since January of 2000. The bears get scared
out by the fury of bear-market rallies which
are, to use John Hussman’s lingo, “fast,
furious, and prone to failure.” So the bulls
who’ve bought into “buy and hold” continue
to “Wait for Godot” while the bears trade
too much, get whipsawed, and lose their asses
due to bad timing.
Bear markets only reward bears with STEEL
NERVES. I don’t believe one iota of Elliott
Wave Theory or most of Prechter’s nonsense
but he does have one bit of precocious
wisdom i.e., sometimes you just have to
SEE CLEARLY and make the decisions that
are based on long-term, macro, irrefutable
fact BUT while you are waiting for your
clear vision to be realized by the market
you have to have the guts to suffer 20-30%
losses. No one rings a bell when it’s YOUR
time to “win”.
And what are the facts that no Tooth Fairy
can make disappear?? Santa Claus, the Easter
Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy are NOT going to
make our $2 Trillion in debt to the Chinese
disappear or our $600 Billion in debt to
the Ruskies, and so on. States and cities
cannot expect civil order if they start
paying teachers, firemen, policemen, and
garbage men with IOUs. Do you get my drift?
We are in so deep that we have what a physicist
might call a “meta-stable state” where there are
N clear outcomes and only those N … no
“in-betweens”. And in this case there are
only TWO outcomes: 1) Ruinous debt-deflation,
and/or 2) Hyperinflation induced to prevent
outcome #1.
Since outcome 2 causes military overthrows of
governments, even the “wizards” at the Fed
know that stimulus is just silly. In reality,
there is ONLY AUSTERITY if we want to remain
an intact country.
There are no good jobs. Most individuals,
cities, states, and the Federal government
are PERMANENTLY unable to repay their debts.
And they know it.
Therefore, most “investment” is utterly futile.
However, if people find this incredible there
are a few guidelines from the Great Depression:
1) Stocks only of companies with gargantuan cash
flows. This ain’t no time to buy “story
stocks” with the usual investment bank hype
behind their negative earnings.
2) Bonds only from the US Treasury (because they
CAN print money) and from companies like
utilities that have guaranteed and large
cash income.
3) Food and fuel futures. Everyone needs to
eat and everyone needs heat and/or air
conditioning.
That’s it. The entire universe of “investment”.
Yet #1 has a problem because many of those
companies with “gargantuan cash flows” are
the same multi-national bastards who’ve gotten
those cash flows by giving YOUR job to an
Asian working for one-fifteenth your salary.
I still have some principles and I won’t
buy a stock of a company that sells you and
your family out. The worst, of course, are
companies like CITI that took many tens of
billions of TARP funds, are opening a branch
in China every week, but are not opening ONE
new branch in the United States. I won’t
buy stock of companies whose entire board
should be … IN JAIL.
Oddly enough, I don’t mind the grungy “old
guard” companies like your local electric
company because your local PUC lets ’em
make money but not TOO much money.
But to come full circle, TBU … don’t let
the happy horseshit talk this week get in
the way of the current condition of the USA
from the consumer on up to Uncle Sam. It’s
dire in the extreme. But you have to realize
that even in a monumental secular bear market
there are going to be LONG periods where you
take 1.5 steps forward (suckering everyone)
followed by 2 steps backward … for several DECADES. Just realize that the wizards
pulling the levers … have already pulled
about 200 rabbits out of their hat to make
things look semi-okay. They’re running out
of rabbits.
The US Economy is like a turd with forty
layers of pretty, ribboned, ornate gift
boxes around that turd. We’ve probably
opened the first ten or fifteen boxes.
There are a LOT of boxes yet to be opened.
But all the same, don’t fool yourself that
there’s a diamond ring when you open that
last box.
E.
The USA has a morally corrupt military, and not only for killing civilians regularly.
Not only is the Pentagon the biggest waster of oil, Pentagon employees and contractors are buying child pornography.
Pentagon declined to investigate hundreds of purchases of child pornography
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100903/us_yblog_upshot/pentagon-declined-to-investigate-hundreds-of-purchases-of-child-pornography
“As part of the probe, ICE investigators gained access to the names and credit card information of more than 5,000 Americans who had subscribed to websites offering images of child pornography. Many of those individuals provided military email addresses or physical addresses with Army or fleet ZIP codes when they purchased the subscriptions.
[snip]
DCIS investigators identified 264 Defense employees or contractors who had purchased child pornography online. Astonishingly, nine of those had “Top Secret Sensitive Compartmentalized Information” security clearances, meaning they had access to the nation’s most sensitive secrets. All told, 76 of the individuals had Secret or higher clearances.”
Krugman is like a cat burying his own
turds in a sandbox. What his article
does NOT say is that after all is said
and done, the “stimulus” has led to a
job environment where the U6 unemployment
is 17 percent, our car industries just
had the worst July in 23 years (it’s
what happens when you push future demand
into the present), there’s a sudden ruinous
glut of real estate (it’s what happens
when YOU PUSH FUTURE DEMAND INTO THE
PRESENT!!!!), the job losses are in
MANUFACTURING (not lousy-paying service
jobs), only 4% of TARP money went to
“pick and shovel” infrastructure jobs,
no TBTF guy is in jail (only the
sacrificial small fry lamb Madoff),
and the average consumer has reduced
debt by a whopping 3% of outstanding
debt.
Krugman’s Keynesian “solution” will just
result in the newly-printed money going
just where your dude, Obama, has been
making it go for the last year i.e.,
to his Wall Street backers. Krugman’s
naivety is the implicit assumption in
back of his Keynesianism i.e., that
somehow large additional money-printings
will be evenly distributed among all
300 million Americans.
Krugman is a very unimpressive economist.
Yeah, he won a Nobel Prize but so did
Sharpe … the guy from Long Term Capital
Management that fleeced $500 Billion from
Uncle Sam via bad options bets. Seems that
getting a Nobel in Economics almost guarantees
that you’re incompetent.
E.
“Meanwhile 60% or [sic] Americans don’t believe in evolution, The US is the only country where, in a time when diseases are coming back in force, vaccination rates are actually decreasing,”
Not sure what these two things have to do with each other, considering most of the people pulling out of the toxic vaccination scam are generally fairly intelligent, scientifically-minded free thinkers who aren’t beholden to the status quo. Ostensibly desirable traits for the era ahead of us. Like it or not, the Salk vaccine created another state religion, one that was greatly expanded by the fear mongers and power brokers. And some of us who aren’t part of your first religion of mention, aren’t part of the second one either.
And hey, if you disagree, Mike Adams over at Natural News still has a $10,000 bounty on the table for anyone who can prove that something as simple and ubiquitous as the flu vaccine carries with it any real measure of protection. (Just as a starting point, the little bit of data actually available from the industry itself claims protection for only 1 in 100 vaccine recipients;)
One might even posit that it’s the rampant use of vaccinations itself that’s responsible for the supposed return of our crowd diseases! Sort of like the sub-therapeutic use of antibiotics in livestock is compromising their efficacy for us. (Although I think we can safely assume that “the great return of epidemic diseases” is just another falsehood proferred by the same industry that makes 100s of billions of dollars off the sales of their snake oil.)
But there’s yet another silver lining to this Great Unwinding that’s getting underway: diseases like measles can only be maintained in populations greater than a few hundred thousand people. In smaller populations they kill or innoculate themselves out of business. So unless you live in a big city, most of these “diseases of civilization” will cease to be a problem when regular long-distance travel wraps up. Just another way the jet set is responsible for our demise. And if my calculations are correct, living in a big city (of today) might not be much of an issue either!
When we separate ourselves from nature, bad things happen. Next thing you know you’ll want me to cut the tip of my son’s penis off in the name of “sanitation!”
E said: 2) Bonds only from the US Treasury (because they CAN print money)
Then E. said: “Just realize that the wizards
pulling the levers … have already pulled
about 200 rabbits out of their hat to make
things look semi-okay. They’re running out
of rabbits.”
Rabbits, money, etc. … whatever you want to call it … it is not “running out” …
E. said: “States and cities
cannot expect civil order if they start
paying teachers, firemen, policemen, and
garbage men with IOUs. Do you get my drift?”
Breakdown of civil order will not happen. You underestimate the degree of civic commitment in the land and the willingness of people to voluntarily sacrifice to help out their neighbors and the role churches, mosques, temples, sanghas, satsangs, and synagogues play in addressing need.
There are lots of strategies that can be employed which will prevent civil unrest. Some of them include offering early-out for those close to retirement (a negotiated buy-out). Some places have gone from 5 day weeks to 4 day weeks to save on infrastructure/maintenance costs and not layoff workers. Some unions have renegotiated contracts and taken cuts in salary or benefits.
There is a mutual recognition that changes have to be made and a mutual desire that the changes happen fairly, voluntarily, and without violence.
Those are the facts, E. That is why we are not seeing mobs of people in the streets with sharpened pitchforks.
What people value is nonviolence, not violence. Perhaps to the chagrin of those immersed in pornographic violence fantasies of societal decomposition a la Mad Max.
The lack of civil unrest… due to the brainstorming and implementation of creative solutions at the city, county, state and federal levels… is the proof that people want and value a civil society where human relationships and the social contract are preserved, not broken.
This may not jive with your perceptions, but that only means that your perceptions are in error and are not reality-based.
You need to stop making irresponsible statements like “It’s dire in the extreme.” I have been reading the same appraisals for decades, since the 1970’s. I wasn’t there in the 1930’s but I’m sure similar things were said then.
Things are always dire for some, but over 80% of Americans are employed, not unemployed. A social safety net is in place, and is working for many.
You need to look around you and notice there are no mobs of angry people in the streets with tar and feathers.
Like Obama said: people are “clinging” to their guns and their religion. They are praying, and they are not using their guns irresponsibly. They have family values and morals.
The American public’s basic sense of decency is greatly underestimated by many on CFN.
People like you and Laura and Q and others here understand perfectly many concepts which are abstract to most people. Things like debt, fiat money, deficits, derivatives, credit default swaps, central banking, money supply, etc.
The importance of those concepts is greatly overestimated on CFN. Life is change. What goes up comes down, and what goes down comes up.
Regardless of how many Friedman units it takes, life goes on. And all the predictions of TSHTF and total economic collapse and FEMA camps, etc. etc. just ain’t happenin’ and that is why there is no massive civil unrest.
“There are lots of strategies that can be employed which will prevent civil unrest. Some of them include offering early-out for those close to retirement (a negotiated buy-out). Some places have gone from 5 day weeks to 4 day weeks to save on infrastructure/maintenance costs and not layoff workers. Some unions have renegotiated contracts and taken cuts in salary or benefits.”
Etc, etc. Yeah, but Asoka, we’re only a measly 3 years beyond peak economy. We’ve only seen one World Cup since this mess began. I guess we’ll see how talented the puppet masters are over the next decade. My guess? I think these folks are actually human beings, just like you and me (or me at least; you are large and contain multitudes). The rabbits, the smoke and mirrors, the rope-a-dope, whatever, isn’t going to overcome the laws of physics I’m afraid, sir.
Since I find myself suddenly facing a longer stay in Macon than I recently thought, I figured I’d read up on the place since I’m up so early and the house is quiet.
Did you know that Macon was the arsenal of the Confederacy? Or that our Wesleyan College was the very first degree-granting institution for women in the world??
I am not attacking Nurses, they work, the fluff is the Insurance companies and all the lawyers in health care. And the huge amount of money lawyers, doctors, hospitals and Insurance company ROB everyone.
Germany: I Have an Ax to Grind.
All economists and politicians keep on blattering the card of more “competitive” companies, more “productivity”, more “research”, etc.
Germany was considered, maybe for 3 decades, a stagnant, “old economy”, with “too much welfare”, free health care, not too many startups, etc. Germany was always considered a low consumer economy, for a time, together with europe it was called “eurosclerosis”, etc.
Now all of a sudden they are the superstars, they have become productive and are winning the economic game, improving profits and increasing employment. What happened ? Nothing, just that since the economists don’t know how to keep on brainwashing everyone that they must make less money, be ready to be fired at any moment, accept increasing health care bills and increasing rents and home prices, etc. they can justify by taking Germany as an example.
1) Germany is increasing its manufacturing capability, was always strong, so this actually applies to a very small segment of the economies of the developed world, since most work in Services.
2) By using the logic of productivity of factories and manufacturing, these economists then shift it to all economic endeavors and pretend that all the forces that improve manufacturing improves also services such as more overtime, less pay, harsher working conditions, more flexibility etc.
3) Services don’t operate at all like this, but this translation of economic description is constantly being done to crush workers, to pay them less, to make them ever more flexible, just like factories (the goal is Vietnam style factories and working conditions).
4) The developed world has finished growing, USA, EU and JAPAN have gone from poor to middle class from 1950 to 1990 thanks to the same forces that are making growth in 3rd world countries possible: more money to workers, they buy more furniture, cars, more money to schools, more jobs etc.
5) When a country is developed, growth is essentially over, it becomes a steady state economy like JAPAN or Italy. In fact these 2 counties have essentially stopped growing 15 to 20 years ago, their growth is over forever, no matter what they do or think.
6) The myth of growth is operating in China and India, etc. because it is easy to grow when you start from being so poor. Even a new car, or new furniture is a huge growth element in these countries, something that is taken for granted in the USA, EU and JAPAN.
7) Work is dissappering, the growth that JAPAN had was also with a given state of technology and automation, these new growing countries like Brazil and China may grow quicker and end their growth sooner thanks to the present day technology.
So all this talk about Germany being a superstar is just the same old fluff that the ruling class and corporations want evryone to buy, so they can pay workers less and fire them anytime in the name of “growth”.
One thing Germany has is a good housing market, rents seem to be reasonable and home ownership is not such a huge myth, and their home prices haven’t undergone any bubble. Maybe this is the secret to their growth ?
US Military now using the “Peak Oil” term openly and in a near-future context:
http://www.naturalnews.com/029642_oil_shortage_military.html
Finally, half a year later, I’ve updated my blog.
Because I’m talkin’ about the road…
Those of us in the densely populated (and impossibly muggy) southeast take the condition of our roads for granted. That is, in general, highways in the southeast are in pretty darn good shape. We don’t have the freeze-thaw issue most of the nation’s roads must endure, and what’s left of the (non-California) US tax base seems to be slowly withdrawing its long reach from the frontier and staying at home back east. The southeast could therefore be thought of as a fortuitous cross-road of US demographic information that is faring better than most, and far better than a certain notable Yankee peak oil pundit might purport, in between handfuls of Cheez Doodles and NASCAR rants. Well, at least in the quality of its highways. But that’s not the case everywhere.
Continue at:
http://smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com/
“The easy solution is of course simple: Don’t recognize the religion as a religion. Call it a political party, a spy ring, enemy combatant, whatever.”
The Kingdom of God is a government, not a religion. “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force.”
False messiahs and military leaders have always attempted to set up what they believe to be the Utopia on earth, their own version of the Kingdom of God — but they have always done so by force. These are the violent men who force people. Jesus did NOT speak these words to encourage us to use violence and force to bring about the Kingdom. He was criticizing these methods. We are to do as Jesus did.
“Humpty Dumpty said:’When I use a word'”
“Define or be defined.” If you have chosen to use the wrong definition for a word, or to redefine it {to make me look silly} you will not understand what I am trying to communicate. I am simply trying to clarify, scornlessly.
Because God is omniscient, and we are not, perhaps He has a better assessment of what is going on and has weighed the benefits against the costs and found then acceptable.
It is our rebellion that keeps this dog running.
Regarding vaccination scammery (tm MM); how many 30 year old autistic persons do you know of?
Ever heard of mercury poisoning? What do you think they’ve been stabilizing vaccines with for… ever?
How many vaccines are now “recommended” for newborns (23 or thereabouts)?
How much fish do you eat?
Ask a few questions folks (and don’t bother with Glenn and Sarah; they can’t or won’t give you any answers).
…And just as an aside, wishin’ and hopin’ and prayin’ won’t change what IS.
Thanks E.
Wait though! If we were to don the ruby slippers and click the heels together 3 times…
Or maybe just slather on a few more layers of primo bullshittery (tm MM)…
Oh well, back to that nasty ol’ reality thang.
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2010/09/september-2-2010-economists-not-clue.html
P.S. E, nice one with the “gift boxes”! Perfect.
Something else to digest.
Chew carefully.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26298.htm
Excellently stated, James. The fact that either Beck or Caribou Barbie are taken seriously by anybody only underscores that there are truly stupid people in the United States!!!
Another excellent entry by Wretchard the Cat:
Children of the Weaker God
– http://goo.gl/qTzX
.
What a great garden Tripp! I looked at your pictures when you were putting the garden together. Using cardboard and straw is a clever way of keeping weeds to a minimum.
Kudos,
SJmom
Germany, JAPAN and Italy (the 3 losers of WW2) had huge economic growth from 1950 to 1990. They followed the textbook on economic growth, more cars, more factories, some technology, exporting, etc. But even after all that growth and the little more they have had from 1990 to 2010, their levels of consumption have remained no higher than about 20 to 30 % of the USA. This is because of cultural differences, they have smaller homes, they have less malls, their homes are concrete not wood like in the USA that easy to manipulate and hence a lot of home improvements: there is nothing like Home Depot or Lowes in JAPAN or Germany, etc. Homes outside the USA are smaller so they can’t fill them up with all the crap bought at WalMart, etc.
So the USA is the only real worldwide consumer, the rest are mostly exporters, but who are they going to export to now that the US is broke ?
JAPAN and Italy can’t grow, like most other developed countries either because of sky high home prices, either rent or buy, it is way too high, they protect the status quo of those who bought during the good times. But no economist ever mentions, CHEAP RENTS, LOW HOME COSTS so as to increase consumption and create some economic growth. JAPAN has spent trillions on useless “infrastructure”, but they never touched home prices, so young people can’t live on their own and start consuming. Even after 20 years of stagnation, they don’t care, the ruling class and status quo win all the time.
Germany will never change its standard of living, they will never buy like crazy, like the USA does, but they will export forever, strange, but at least their housing is somewhat decent and not so insane like USA, JAPAN, Italy or many others.
check out:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=172219
A lot of people are good enough, but there are not enough jobs anyways. Don’t go into small details of single cases like hotels, etc. everyone is right and everyone is wrong, etc. The major pattern is that the ruling class plays off the little guys each against each other and keeps them in place fighting each other.
Even if people don’t buy here (US) they buy in another part of the world, in those parts that are growing, so this has no effect on pressuring employers: look at the big picture, when they talk about competition, tax breaks, research, innovation they are saying and referencing millions of office workers worldwide and large corporations and government workers, not your local hotel. And they are basically saying, you don’t deserve more becasue you didn’t innovate, you cost too much, you are not competitive, etc. Very easy to attack workers on this, since it is impossibleto measure, and any measure will always show workers are at fault.
They never say CHEAP RENTS, CHEAP HOME PRICES, MASS TRANSIT so as to help people consume their money on goods and really make the economy grow.
check out:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=172688
THE LINKS: READ THEM AND LEARN:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=172219
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=172688
I pick and choose what vaccinations my family receives. I wouldn’t dream of getting a flu vaccine. (But my husband gets one every year..his choice.)
The new Gardisil vaccine that they suggest for girls is a bad idea IMO, the pediatrician really pushed for my daughter to get one, but I said, “no way.”
On the other hand, my sister had such a bad case of the mumps (pre-vaccine days) she went deaf in one ear. I had my kids vaccinated for measles and mumps and whooping cough.
Because my son surfs in Santa Cruz, he got a hepatitis vaccination. You never know what crap is flowing into the ocean.
Just my two-cents,
SJMom
Tripp said: “The rabbits, the smoke and mirrors, the rope-a-dope, whatever, isn’t going to overcome the laws of physics I’m afraid, sir.”
O, ye of little faith in the puppet masters!
The laws of physics do not govern all of our reality. In my opinion, the laws of mathematics, with the concept of infinity, trump physics.
Take money, for example, since so many comments on CFN are about money.
Do you think money is physical stuff? There are coins and bills, which are physical things made of molecules. But the “laws of physics” really don’t apply in this realm and the puppet masters are running this realm very well.
The equivalence of a dollar bill and ten dimes cannot be explained on the basis of the molecules in them. So the “laws of physics” don’t really apply, do they?
Historically what has happened to money when currencies change? For example, what if you had Dutch guilders in your pocket when the Netherlands switched to the Euro. The molecular structure of those coins remained the same, i.e., the “laws of physics” did not change, but one day you could use the Dutch guilders to buy socks, and the next day you couldn’t. The “laws of physics” are irrelevant to help you buy socks when the value of currency changes.
Economists say that all the dollar bills and coins in the world make up only a third of the total amount of dollars that officially exist, so the “laws of physics” aren’t going to help here either. So much of our world is not “physical.”
Most American money does not have any physical form at all. It exists as only abstract ideas, represented as notional sums recorded in various computers. The “laws of physics” might determine how signals are sent and received, but money is not the same as the electrical signals inside computers; your bank account retains its value even if the bank turns off its computer.
The “laws of physics” don’t apply to whole realms of human experience.
I think maybe the puppet masters understand this.
If someone can’t take the heat/hate, they should stay out of the kitchen. She doesn’t like not nice comments. Of all attitudes, this is the most bizarre. Americans, especially Whites, have been sold down the river by the Elite. And she expects there to be no hate. We have every right to hate. The Founding Fathers hated the Crown. And they hated the Banking Conspiracy and the Illuminati/French Conspiracy. Of course, they believed in Conspiracies – they themselves were a successful Masonic Conspiracy. Some of them were Christain or quasi Christian.
REGARDING MERCURY: (no longer used)
Until recent years, the preservative thiomersal was used in many vaccines that did not contain live virus. As of 2005[update], the only childhood vaccine in the U.S. that contains thiomersal in greater than trace amounts is the influenza vaccine [1], which is currently recommended only for children with certain risk factors
Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination
===============
And my two cents on vaccination.
1. There is ample evidence that healthy adults can receive enormous numbers of vaccines in short periods of time with no ill effect. For an example, consider the US military vaccination protocols.
2. I can not imagine taking a child out of the US to an area where certain diseases (polio, for example) still exist WITHOUT obtaining proper immunizations.
3. Post TLE, vaccines may be impossible to obtain. Lack of control on migration or sanitation may make disease outbreaks likely. I prefer to have myself and my family *properly* vaccinated ahead of need.
4. Some childhood diseases (for example mumps) are much more serious in adults than in children.
==============
With all that said,
Intuitively, CDC vaccination protocols for infants may be too aggressive. TOO many vaccines given over TOO short a time period MAY be affecting CERTAIN children in unexpected ways.
Fiat currency is like many things – it works great for a while and then leads to ruin. But the consequences are immediate but hidden being passed on for several generations. Well the bill has come due. Every American now owes a hundred thousand or more.
It amazes me that you can’t understand this. Not everything can be explained as good/bad or black/white. It’s a process, ok?
The obsevant Jew is subject to over four hundred commandments of which, the Ten are chief. For gentiles, they prescribe seven, the so call Law of Noah. The Law of Moses, even just the Ten Commandments, are considered too good for us.
Theocratic Civilizations make distinctions or categories that we do not make. Now Islam admits no distinction between religion and the State. Thus when they control, all must live subject to Shariah Law. The no compulsion surah which you constantly quote does not effect this in the least. It merely states that you don’t have to convert to Islam, at least if you are a Christian or a Jew. If someone wants to drive a model T or follow an old bypassed revelation, that’s their business. But they will be thus considered a dhimmi, a second class citizen, pay the jizza tax, and step out of the way of Muslims on the street. If being beaten by a Muslim, they may cry out for mercy but not defend themselves. Get the picture now?
This is all laid out with great clarity in Seyyid Qutub’s book “Milestones” – the foundation handbook of the modern Jihadi Movement.
Also you can see it in the video “Obsession” – widely distributed amongst right wing circles. It portrays a White American convert saying that they will not force people to convert, but they will force people to follow God’s Law – the Shariah. It’s considered the fundamental human right and thus their sacred duty.
The Catholic Church took a similar stance albeit a bit softer at times. Non Catholics were tolerated, nothing more. Certainly not allowed to promulgate their religion publicly. Muslims don’t allow conversion to Christianity or the building of churches in their lands. Old Churches can be maintained, that’s it.
You dabble with all things, but don’t get too know any. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing O one of little knowledge.
Comment ten: “The alternative to God is not the laws of physics, it is chaos.”
The laws of physics are His laws. The way things work {or don’t work} are being revealed {discovered} a little at a time.
God said, “My thoughts are different from yours, and my ways are beyond your imagination. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
The puppet masters understand mathematics, the concept of infinity (just add more zeros!), and the fact that the laws of physics do not govern money.
People like to say the USA is broke, busted, in debt, etc. and they say it often and loudly. Tea baggers and opposition parties particularly get worked up about abstract concepts.
But the puppet masters at the United States Treasury Department know zeros are just zeros and money is not governed by the laws of physics.
So, if the Afghan elites loaned money to Dubai and now the Central Bank of Afghanistan is in danger of collapse, the USA has more than enough money to help out the Afghan bankers.
I really do not think it is worth high blood pressure, stroke, cardiac arrest, etc. because some zeros are added to an abstract “national debt” in a world in which national economies are so interdependent anyway.
No TSHTF is on the way. Things are really fine.
We need oxygen to breathe or we die. Take a deep breath. Did that cost you any “money”? Now take another deep breath. See? Things really are OK.
Put that breathing thingy on automatic pilot. Relax.
We ain’t anywhere near the Apocalypse CFNers love to dream about, and have been writing about for years (some since the last millenium).
wrt the arguments about muslim perceptions of human activities, I present from Wiki
Law in Saudi Arabia
The Basic Law, in 1992, declared that Saudi Arabia is a monarchy ruled by the progeny of King Abdul Aziz Al Saud. It also declared the Qur’an as the constitution of the country, governed on the basis of Islamic law.[13]
Criminal cases are tried under Sharia courts in the country. These courts exercise authority over the entire population. Cases involving small penalties are tried in Shari’a summary courts. More serious crimes are adjudicated in Shari’a courts of common pleas. Courts of appeal handle appeals from Shari’a courts.[13]
Civil cases may also be tried under Sharia courts with one exception: Shiites may try such cases in their own courts. Other civil proceedings, including those involving claims against the Government and enforcement of foreign judgments, are held before specialized administrative tribunals, such as the Commission for the Settlement of Labor Disputes and the Board of Grievances.[13]
Main sources of Saudi law are Hanbali fiqh as set out in a number of specified scholarly treatises by authoritative jurists, other schools of law, state regulations and royal decrees (where these are relevant), and custom and practice.[14]
The Saudi legal system prescribes capital punishment or corporal punishment, including amputations of hands and feet for certain crimes such as murder, robbery, rape, drug smuggling, homosexual activity, and adultery. Theft is also punishable by amputation of the hand, although it is rarely prescribed for a first offense. The courts may impose other harsh punishments, such as floggings, for less serious crimes against public morality such as drunkenness.[15] Murder, accidental death and bodily harm are open to punishment from the victim’s family. Retribution may be sought in kind or through blood money. The blood money payable for a woman’s accidental death, or that of a Christian male [16] is half as much as that for a Muslim male.[17] All others (Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs) are valued at 1/16th. The main reason for this is that, according to Islamic law, men are expected to be providers for their families and therefore are expected to earn more money in their lifetimes. The blood money from a man would be expected to sustain his family, for at least a short time. Honor killings are also not punished as severely as murder. This generally stems from the fact that honor killings are within a family, and done to compensate for some ‘dishonorable’ act committed. Slavery was abolished in 1962. A lot of laws related to these[clarification needed] carry harsh punishments such as floggings for entering the incorrect type of visa.[18][19]
Saudi Arabia is also the only country in the world where women are banned from driving on public roads. Women may drive off-road and in private housing compounds — some of which extend to many square miles.[20] The ban may be lifted soon, although with certain conditions.[21]
The Government views its interpretation of Islamic law as its sole source of guidance on human rights. In 2000, the Government approved the October legislation, which the Government claimed would address some of its obligations under the Convention Against Torture or Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.[13] The freedom of women is seriously restricted inside Saudi Arabia. In addition to restrictions on driving, women are not allowed to travel without the permission of their closest male relative. This can result in women being restricted from travel by their sons or younger brothers. Women who are divorced are required to return to the home of their father and any travel must then be approved by him. This means that women of 30 or more years old cannot make independent decisions without the approval of male relatives.
“The state protects human rights in accordance with the Islamic Shari’ah.”
– Basic Law, Chapter 5, Article 26.[22]
The first independent human rights organization, the National Society for Human Rights was established in 2004. The Saudi Government is an active censor of Internet reception within its borders.[23] A Saudi blogger, Fouad al-Farhan, was jailed for five months in solitary confinement in December, 2007, without charges, after criticizing Saudi religious, business and media figures.
Mexicans need to continue to cross the border…
in order to kill, maim, rape, rob and plunder!
“We need oxygen to breathe or we die. Take a deep breath. Did that cost you any “money”? Now take another deep breath. See? Things really are OK.”
That’s exactly the world I promote! Too bad
it’s not enough for the people pulling the strings…
“Mexicans need to continue to cross the border…
in order to kill, maim, rape, rob and plunder!”
Asia, I think the smog is starting to get to you. That or you need to stop partying in TJ and go to the mountains for a bit.
‘One might even posit that it’s the rampant use of vaccinations itself that’s responsible for the supposed return of our crowd diseases!’
also see gary Nulls research into cancer treatments…cancer and chemo are a huge industry with little accountability.
Thanks for the Isaiah 55:9 verse about the God of the Old Testament. Please not that a God which does not exist cannot have any thoughts, high or low.
MD said: “The laws of physics are His laws.”
Hmmmm … we could have a couple of problems here: the laws of physics explain very little of human experience and the Bible contains demonstrable falsehoods.
Take Deuteronomy 14:7-8 in which the Bible says hares chew cud. This is false. Its falseness is not arbitrary. Every culture that has mastered a study of animal physiology knows that saying hares chew cud is false.
But what are the physical properties of its falseness? That falseness does not have mass, or velocity, or acceleration. It does not have chemical composition, molecular structure, or the rest. It is not something “in” your brain, as if destroying your brain or performing psychosurgery on your brain could make it true that hares chew cud. The laws of physics do not apply to so many areas of human experience, like a statement being true or false.
Simply stating “The laws of physics are His laws.” does not make it true.
CORRECTION:
Please note that a God which does not exist cannot have any thoughts, high or low.
Ok. Eleutherio et al, I did not get suckered much. I am almost entirely in cash. I did buy some ABX gold as a contrarian play on a bet that the employment report would be weak. I had bought 350 shares on Wed and Thurs, but sold off 200 already on Friday (with 50 more shares to be sold at market’s open on Monday) at prices only a few cents higher than what I paid for it. So I mostly made small profits. I don’t pay commission on the first 100 shares I trade in each account. After that I pay $5.95 per trade. Thus I did end up having to pay about $5.00 more than I made in commisions in 1 account. If there is bad news early this week, ABX should go up a bit and I should be able to sell the remaining 100 shares. Otherwise I wait until there is some BAD NEWS that will drive up the price of gold and ABX. I am looking for BAD NEWS to drive down Apple to around $240/share and Bidu to about $77/share so I can buy back into them and then sell them on the next short-term rally. PS,PC almost all my assets are in cash now with WFB which I use for stock trading. I own a car but no real estate. I don’t believe in profiting by trading real estate much. My parents both own their place outright. They profited on residential real estate but that was lucky. I consider real estate speculation to be very destructive to the biosphere.
Asoka, whereas I am strongly opposed to your policies of open borders, race mixing, and miscegenation, I think you are right about the economy. 8M is a nut-berger and most of the people here are paranoid reclusive delusional alarmist/hysterical pessimists.
Looks like my last couple of comments did not go through. Think Asoka is right on the economy. Also, Eleutherio, those purchases of ABX gold were bets that the market would go down. I sold out most of them and hope to sell out the rest on BAD NEWS coming out before Obama makes his next speech about tax breaks etc maybe on Thursday. BAD NEWS makes people worried so they buy gold which drives up gold prices and the stocks of gold miners such as ABX.
They are not observant Jews. They are Litvak cultists dressed in 17th century Polack garb, and nothing more. Frankly, I seriously doubt they’re even Jews. Most Jews/Israelis ignore these alien impostors and their cultists nonsense, and I suggest you do the same.
TBU said: “I am looking for BAD NEWS to drive down Apple to around $240/share…”
I saw Apple’s new products launch this week and Steve Jobs looks strong and healthy. As long as Jobs is CEO Apple will continue to generate GOOD NEWS.
I doubt Apple shares are going down anytime soon. Given that Apple has been around $258/share, going down to $240 would be a hell of a fall.
Apple TV is playing nice with FOX, ABC, NetFlix, etc. and there doesn’t seem to any BAD NEWS hovering around any of them, or around Apple, to provoke a fall to $240/share.
You are betting against a tech leader. What made you want to do that?
“cancer and chemo are a huge industry with little accountability.”
A nurse repeatedly cured cancer back in the late 1800s with a tea blend of her own research. On her death bed she sold the recipe to a major pharmaceutical company of the era for $1 with the sincere hope that it would be spread far and wide.
Needless to say it wasn’t. It was squelched pretty effectively I’d say! Too much money in oncology to go about curing things willy nilly…
I’ll check out Gary Nulls. Thanks!
$AAPL is not a tech leader, it is a tech laggard. Anyone who has technical knowledge, knows this. Apple’s big strength has been that their products presented an integrated solution and pleasing aesthetic design. On both fronts that edge is being narrowed to insignificance. You will soon see this reflected in Apple’s market share as it will begin to decline. In a year or two I doubt $AAPL will even hold $100.
“Do you think money is physical stuff? There are coins and bills, which are physical things made of molecules. But the “laws of physics” really don’t apply in this realm and the puppet masters are running this realm very well.”
I think a spent dollar bill, for all practical purposes, is a unit of energy, and energy most certainly obeys the laws of physics.
“How many vaccines are now “recommended” for newborns (23 or thereabouts)?”
Washington state now “recommends” about 200 total shots for youngsters before they start school. Georgia’s a bit more hands-off, but considers rudimentary vaccination a prerequisite for public school, outside of religious exemption. The catch is they’re not allowed to ask you to explain your religion.
The horror! So many painful needles full of shite stuck into our babes.
ive been aware of gary since the 1970s..he claims that his was the largest indie study of the chemo industry yet….check his site or amazon for reviews of his books.
nulls got vids/ dvds of work with fireman who was at ground zero and had toxic reactions and talks of his curing mice almost killed by chemo!
interesting that so little $ has gone to indie studies of what must be a multi trillion dollar industry!
[ as the shepple clamor for free ‘ health care’ ]
did the lady have obisiwa[?] tea?
tell me more..and theres miss gersten, on the radio saying the rockefellers kill dr. gersten, her dad or grandad!
Mika said: “They are not observant Jews. They are Litvak cultists… ”
Neither are you an observant Jew, Mika. You have stated you don’t even recognize the holy scriptures. You seem to be more of a secular Israeli nationalist or a zionist. Are you a Zionist, Mika?
Mika, you refuse to accept the teachings of the Rabbis and continue to support a Zionist national state, but seem to be totally unaware of the history of Zionism and its contradiction to the beliefs of Torah-True Jews.
There are about 124,000 True-Torah Jews. That is a pretty big cult, Mika! (Compare to 123,000 Quakers in the U.S. and Canada)
True-Torah Jews believe that the Jewish homeland can not be created until the messiah comes. Although they live in Israel many refuse to accept welfare from the state or pay taxes.
Mika, if you would just follow a Torah life you would be happy. You don’t sound happy now. You sound angry and bitter, like you are seeing enemies (CIA) and Taqiya dissimulators everywhere.
If you know anything about Jewish history, you would know that Jews often practiced dissimulation. Precautionary dissimulation to conceal their faith when under threat, persecution or compulsion, saved the lives of many Jews.
Mika said: “$AAPL is not a tech leader, it is a tech laggard.”
Mika, I prefer to use objective measures to settle disagreements, rather than just express opinions.
One way to measure who is a technology leader is to look at who is inventing and discovering new technology and who is lagging behind.
The way you know who is doing the leading is by who files a patent first.
Apple has more than 3,000 patents. Compare to Google which has been issued 316 patents.
Apple is clearly a technology leader.
“2. I can not imagine taking a child out of the US to an area where certain diseases (polio, for example) still exist WITHOUT obtaining proper immunizations.”
I don’t intend to. Moving around so much is dangerous for all involved (see Eurasian colonization of continents with no prior exposure to Eurasian diseases). Some estimate that up to 95% of Native Americans were killed by disease before the disease-bearers even arrived in threatening numbers.
But my genes, and therefore my children’s genes, evolved immunity in close proximity to these diseases (polio included) with no obvious deleterious effects;). Even AIDS is a joke for those whose ancestors survived the Black Plague, like mine. (Immunity to one fortuitously equals immunity to the other; they gain access to cells via the same trickery.) Hence the reason we see tropical Africa suffering inordinately from this malady.
I’m staying put here in the temperate zone and have no intention of exposing my family to yellow fever and malaria, for which we have no genetic immunity. (Although these tropical diseases are Old World as well and brought to the New World tropics by colonists and slaves.) Energy descent will actually put a stop to much of this mayhem, not make it worse. Before long distance travel, we moved at a rate slow enough to develop useful immunities in the population as we went.
So an area where polio is still present is pretty much everywhere, outside of the tropics. I’ve never been vaccinated against it, and have no need to be. It’s not a threat to me. Tropical Africans and Native Americans – that is, the lion’s share of all casualties from polio – on the other hand, would be wise to do so.
There’s so much to be said for relocalization!
“In a year or two I doubt $AAPL will even hold $100.”
A friend told me not to buy an Apple in 1997 because the company would not last out the year.
Thirteen years later Apple had a net quarterly profit of $3.35 billion against Microsoft’s $4.52 billion net quarterly profit.
People have been predicting Apple’s decline for well over a decade now to no avail.
It’s a bit like the CFN penchant for predicting TSHTF.
That information is at home and I’m in Atlanta. I’ll get back to you with it soon.
Mika said: “In a year or two I doubt $AAPL will even hold $100.”
A friend told me not to buy an Apple in 1997 because the company would not last out the year.
Thirteen years later Apple had a net quarterly profit of $3.35 billion (compare to Microsoft’s $4.52 billion net quarterly profit).
People have been predicting Apple’s decline for well over a decade now to no avail.
It’s a bit like the CFN penchant for predicting TSHTF.
I will admit one other infirmity (besides to tropical diseases) in the vaccine department: tetanus. Human history with iron is short enough that nature didn’t have a chance to evolve a better remedy for it than our tetanus shots. None that I know of anyway. If anyone knows better please educate me!
I have a tetanus shot every 10 years like clockwork.
There are about 124,000 True-Torah Jews.
==
That number is bogus. I doubt the number is even 10,000. Anyway, the whole concept is complete nonsense.
Was King David a “true-torah” Jew? Of-course not. It’s all a complete nonsense. Jewish religious identity is one of ethnic and national identity. That’s where it starts and that’s where it ends. So as far as being an observant jew goes, any ethnic Judean who lives in Israel is an observant Jew.
Tetanus is a must!
Another development on the horizon that will greatly decrease domestic and foreign travel is bedbugs! Check out bedbugregistry.com and have your smelling salts ready. If you are traveling anywhere, be sure to see if your hotel/motel has had an infestation.
You’ve heard about New York having problems, but who would guess that tiny Moab, Utah has five different motels on the bedbugregistry? The San Jose downtown Marriott has them, yuk.
Also, one of our homeless shelters is totally infested. Makes me wonder if I should be sorting donated clothing at Sacred Heart Community Services.
Just a few miles from where I live there was a report of a home resident posting on Craigslist advertising free furniture. The post said, “just take what you want, don’t disturb residents.”
A woman took a bedframe and head board and within
2 hours she realized she’d exposed her house to these nasty creatures.
In a million years, I wouldn’t buy furniture/clothing from a yard/garage sale.
I get itchy just thinking about it,
SJmom
Mika, you refuse to accept the teachings of the Rabbis..
==
I see. Do you accept fatwas that imams issue?
Ozone,
Don’t you know that those ruby slippers
are now being worn by Asoka. Asoka, bless
his optimistic heart, is the guy that cannot
see the pink elephant that’s occupying 80%
of the living room. 🙂 🙂
E.
Yes, Mika, I accept some fatwas from some imams. For example, I accept this one:
I would not accept any fatwah that advocates violence in self-defense.
Some imams preach retaliatory violence when attacked. You also believe in using violence in defense of Israel when Israel is attacked, so you are in agreement with the imams who preach the lesser jihad. You are a lesser jihadi.
“Take Deuteronomy 14:7-8 in which the Bible says hares chew cud.”
No, the bible says “arnebeth” chews it’s cud. Your translation of the bible says “hare”. It’s probably an extinct animal because, as you say, no known hare chews it’s cud. The exact meaning is unknown, and therefore, best left untranslated as “arnebeth”
“Simply stating “The laws of physics are His laws.” does not make it true.”
What would?
First, that a god actually did exist.
Second, that said god would show his face and make some kind of statement like: “The laws of physics are mine,” instead of playing stupid hide and seek games.
Yes, Mika, I accept some fatwas from some imams.
==
Seems to me, you either accept religious authority or you don’t. If you don’t accept all the fatwas, then what’s the point of accepting any of them?
You’ve already arrived at the conclusion that religious authority is irrelevant, and that YOU, and only you, will decide what’s wrong and what’s right, and what you will do and what you will not do. The function of religious authority is completely superfluous in this process. The logical endpoint is to dismiss it completely.
As far as violence goes, I have no problem in applying it in its most deadly forms. Especially against those that are engaged in criminal insanity for the purpose of thieving and empire.
Well written, James!
It is so true that bad economic times bring forth the crazies from the woodwork.
I wish people studied their history books. WWII has so many lessons to learn from but I fear there are not enough people that can make those connections.
Another “savior” will be elected that will promise to cleanse the U.S. of it’s problems. Unfortunately, they will fail to make the energy / economy link and think one or several groups are the cause of their ill.
Keep on writing James, your writing skill is only matched by your grasp of reality.
Mika said: “Seems to me, you either accept religious authority or you don’t. … As far as violence goes, I have no problem in applying it in its most deadly forms.”
Mika, thank you for perfectly expressing the mind of a violent religious fanatic.
By your logic every law enforcer is a violent fanatic criminal. You need to go back and reread what was written. And then reread it again. Per usual, you seem to be throughly confused or pretending to be.
MD said:
MD, aka Humpty Dumpty, you cannot wiggle out of this one by saying my bible mistranslated the word.
In Hebrew “arnebeth” means rabbit.
In Arabic “arnab” means a male rabbit and “arnabat” means a female rabbit.
No amount of contortionist apologetics is going to get around these simple facts of language.
The Bible is in error. The Bible cannot be trusted. The Bible is not the infallible word of God.
Mika said: “Per usual, you seem to be throughly confused or pretending to be.”
Per usual, people who meet YOUR criteria for being “engaged in criminal insanity for the purpose of thieving and empire” will end up dead.
I say stop the killing now and never kill again. Never again. Not for any reason.
Mika said: “By your logic every law enforcer is a violent fanatic criminal.”
Hamas was democratically elected, yet by your logic Mika they are “violent fanatic criminals” and can be killed by violent military incursions. By your logic Gaza’s civilian population can be “put on a diet” and slowly starved. By your logic aid ships in international waters can be boarded and people can be murdered mafia-style with multiple bullets to the head at close range. You are defending a murderous Israeli military mafia.
I say stop the killing now and never kill again.
==
Stop the jihadist criminal insanity, and then all my terrible killings wont be an issue. As far as what you have to say, it carries about the same weight as my beloved litvak “True-Torah” spiritual mentors. Zero.
Hamas declared war on Israel. And war it will get. Same goes regards those that collaborate with Hamas.
Anyway, you’re feeble and idiotic arguments are boring me to death. Looks like you’ve succeeded where Hamas failed. You managed to kill me with stupefying boredom. Enjoy the rest of the night conversing with yourself.
Mika said: “Hamas declared war on Israel. And war it will get. Same goes regards those that collaborate with Hamas.”
Mika, you are engaging in dissimulation by leaving out part of the truth. Israel regularly commits war crimes and crimes against humanity on a massive scale.
Take the recent Gaza War with 13 Israelis killed and over 1,000 Palestinians dead from Israeli war crimes detailed in the Goldstone Report. A report submitted by IDF Military Advocate General Avichai Mandelblit to the United Nations in July of 2010 regarding Israel’s conduct during Operation Cast Lead confirms the key findings of the Goldstone Report, though it was suppressed in Israel.
At a certain moment the PLO accepted all conditions set out by “the international community”, i.e. the US acting on behalf of Israel and weighing on everybody else. What do they have to show for it?
But let’s imagine that Hamas would agree to its own castration, as the PLO did. What would then happen is that, just like the PLO today, they would not represent the Palestinians anymore. Probably some force more radical than they are would take their place and we would be back more or less where we are today.
Which of course would be fine with the Israelis, as they have no intention whatsoever to reach a just and stable agreement with the Palestinians. Which is also the reason why in the end the Israelis are going to perish.
Mika, you have not chosen life as you dissimulate. You have chosen to live by the sword … prepare yourself for the karmic baseball bat to the head.
Mika said: “That number is bogus. I doubt the number [of True Torah Jews] is even 10,000.”
WASHINGTON, July 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The “True Torah Jews,” an organization dedicated to informing the world that not all Jews support the Zionist state of Israel, would like to inform all that thousands of anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews will take part in a major demonstration on Tuesday, July 6, at 2:00 PM in front of the White House. They will be demonstrating against the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who will be visiting the White House on that day.
The demonstration was called by the Central Rabbinical Congress of the USA and Canada, in cooperation with the Asra Kadisha organization.
The Central Rabbinical Congress (CRC) is an umbrella organization for hundreds of Orthodox Jewish congregations in the United States and Canada, with a total membership of 250,000 Orthodox Jews; CRC represents the religious interests of their membership organizations towards the political and international community.
TBU … I consider you to be far more
rational than … about half this blog
considers you. However, if there’s a
“nutter” on the economy, it most certainly
is NOT EightM.
Indeed, Nouriel Roubini, Martin Feldstein,
John Hussman, Joseph Stiglitz, and quite
a few other mainstream, sober-thinking
market economists believe that we are
simply in a prolonged, maybe almost
INFINITE deleveraging process.
This means that everyone OWES. I would
not be so provocative as to call YOU a
“nutter” about the economy but I think
you really have a belief about debt that
is like the fundy Christian belief that
we’re all going to be “raptured” away.
Sorry, dude. I’m with you on many
issues but I think your trading ideas
have the “logic” of a weather vane with
five hundred arrows and you haven’t told
us HOW the Tooth Fairy is going to make
everybody forgive EVERYBODY’S debts …
now have you??
I hate to see an otherwise rational fellow
like you call EightM a “nutter” when the
FACTS scream out far more in his favor
(and are more elaborately articulated)
than your NON-PRESENTATION of facts.
EightM’s views are EXTREME … and so is
our plight. I suggest you either engage
in decent debate in the subject or stick
to other issues. You’re REALLY unimpressive
in this arena.
E.
The myth that small companies will generate the jobs we need. I can’t believe how idiotic all of these economists and politicians worldwide are in believing this BS. our economy is now worldwide and is the hands of fewer and fewer mega monopolies that have an iron fist stronghold on almost all of the economic segments: the Germans have a stronghold on luxury cars, Audi, BMW, etc. the US Silicon valley has a stronghold on Microprocessors and Computers and Software, Data centers, Internet etc. there is WalMart, Samsung (South Korea) on LCD TVs, etc. But the small companies will grow and hire the unemployed: the small mom and pop shop on the corner, that guy will hire more people, he is our hope (not the fact that WalMart ate all of his business), the US spends 200 billion dollars a year on Research equivalent to 5 million scientists a year pay, but a 1,000 smartass new inventors will bring up new companies with some great new invention and they will hire 1,000 employees, they will buy a few wires and transistors at radioshack and in their “garage” invent the next breakthrough 16 core CPUs against Intel.
Now in what kind of insane fairy land do all these people live ? How can they truly believe in all of this BS ? How come everyone drinks the cool aid ? Even if it were true these small companies could hire a million people at most, at the expense of a million people in New York or JAPAN or EU. But the fact is it is not true, it is just another ideological device of the right wing thugs, to fire employees from big companies, tell them to become inventors, and then blame it on them for not inventing the next big thing and not hiring other employees fired from the big companies.
Big organizations and companies and governments worldwide are the only ones that are really able to hire so many millions of workers, but the economists always play the little guys against each other: the small business owner against his crappy employees, it is always the fault of the “unions”, the no tax breaks for the small guys that would hire. In reality the tax breaks are only for the big guys, the small guys can’t hire anyways.
This is another example of rigged ideology and brainwashing, the small company myth, so everyone expects miracles from small people and small companies. The truth is we need big companies hiring millions with high pays, health care, and mass transit bus systems, cheap rents for high quality homes, not BS.
A million cars were sold in the US in August, with that money they could have set up 200 bus systems in each of the 50 most important urban areas of the US and started some kind of mass transit.
The myth that small companies will generate the jobs we need. I can’t believe how idiotic all of these economists and politicians worldwide are in believing this BS. our economy is now worldwide and is the hands of fewer and fewer mega monopolies that have an iron fist stronghold on almost all of the economic segments: the Germans have a stronghold on luxury cars, Audi, BMW, etc. the US Silicon valley has a stronghold on Microprocessors and Computers and Software, Data centers, Internet etc. there is WalMart, Samsung (South Korea) on LCD TVs, etc. But the small companies will grow and hire the unemployed: the small mom and pop shop on the corner, that guy will hire more people, he is our hope (not the fact that WalMart ate all of his business), the US spends 200 billion dollars a year on Research equivalent to 5 million scientists a year pay, but a 1,000 smartass new inventors will bring up new companies with some great new invention and they will hire 1,000 employees, they will buy a few wires and transistors at radioshack and in their “garage” invent the next breakthrough 16 core CPUs against Intel.
Now in what kind of insane fairy land do all these people live ? How can they truly believe in all of this BS ? How come everyone drinks the cool aid ? Even if it were true these small companies could hire a million people at most, at the expense of a million people in New York or JAPAN or EU. But the fact is it is not true, it is just another ideological device of the right wing thugs, to fire employees from big companies, tell them to become inventors, and then blame it on them for not inventing the next big thing and not hiring other employees fired from the big companies.
Big organizations and companies and governments worldwide are the only ones that are really able to hire so many millions of workers, but the economists always play the little guys against each other: the small business owner against his crappy employees, it is always the fault of the “unions”, the no tax breaks for the small guys that would hire. In reality the tax breaks are only for the big guys, the small guys can’t hire anyways.
This is another example of rigged ideology and brainwashing, the small company myth, so everyone expects miracles from small people and small companies. The truth is we need big companies hiring millions with high pays, health care, and mass transit bus systems, cheap rents for high quality homes, not BS.
A million cars were sold in the US in August, with that money they could have set up 200 bus systems in each of the 50 most important urban areas of the US and started some kind of mass transit.
Another myth is manufacturing: manufacturing must come back to the US (or JAPAN or EU). It is not going to happen, it is cheaper to manufacture in Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, etc. They can pay 200 dollars a month, in the developed world you can’t even pay the gas to get to work with that.
But they insist on taking manufacturing as the model, it is false: the developed economies are service, therefore all the ideology of manufacturing is false, like competition, productivity, etc.
And in the 3rd world there are millions of people available, it is easy to set up any kinds of factories anywhere, and it will take 30 years for them to get to 800 dollars a month salary.
And at best, manufacturing and factories can hire maybe 30 million people worldwide, what are you going to do with the other 100 million unemployed slobs ?
Thanks for the update.
Now I have to look into thiomersal and squalene.
Damn! So much to read, so little time. ;o)
“MD, aka Humpty Dumpty, you cannot wiggle out of this one…”
I guess I should now become an infidel, and spend hours every day trying to deny God’s existance and promoting doubt. You have destroyed my faith in Strong’s Concordance. I should have researched your contention more thoroughly.
This is another case of something that seems obvious to me, not being obvious to others, and failing to take it into account. Debating whether or not the rabbit chews his cud or only appears to chew his cud {because his mouth is always in motion} is a waste of time, and will only be interpreted by you as something it is not.
Rabbits and hares are unclean animals, and we shouldn’t eat them. The two obvious reasons {to me} they spread disease {among humans} and they are food for other creatures.
The other obvious thing to me, is that you are “straining out gnats, and swallowing camels”. This is to say, focusing on minutia and ignoring the larger issues.
God owns what He has created, lock, stock and barrel. He can do with it what He wants. Attributing my ignorance, or the ignorance of translators, or the imperfections of our languages to God is disingenuous.
I think you are a believer, but you are not an agree-er. IOW, you don’t think God is doing a very good job of running things, and you think you could do better. There are a lot of folks like you {and many of them actually believe they are being good christians}, and fortunately, only a few have gained enough power to “lord it” over the rest of us.
Do I want these kind of people interpreting and applying God’s Law to the world {a theocracy}? Hell NO. Christ-like people, who understand that Mercy triumphs over Justice, using the law to restore people instead of punish, are the people God is training.
Thanks for the lesson, but not the labeling.
MD: “God owns what He has created, lock, stock and barrel. He can do with it what He wants. Attributing my ignorance, or the ignorance of translators, or the imperfections of our languages to God is disingenuous.”
Yet this is exactly what you did, attributing the obvious scientific error in the Bible to a mistranslation.
I am glad you have recognized the crux of the problem: belief in a God who demands obedience. No such being exists.
In the future, if you want to argue fine points about errors in the Bible, don’t rely exclusively on Strongs. Others you might want to consult include:
Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, page 525:
“The assertion that the hare is a ruminant is contrary to fact. Some movements of the mouth and jaws have been erroneously interpreted as cud-chewing.”
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, page 616:
“This animal is mentioned only in the lists of unclean animals in Leviticus and Deuteronomy…The hare and the Coney are not ruminants, but might be supposed to be from their habit of almost continuously moving their jaws.”
Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, 2000 edition, page 552:
“Because it “chews the cud” but “does not have divided hoofs,” the hare is classified as an unclean animal (Lev. 11:6; Deut. 14:7). Actually, it is not a ruminant but may have appeared as such to ancient observers because of its constant chewing movements.”
On religion
Definition:
6.
something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience.
==============
In my opinion, it is proper and productive to explain and discuss one’s own religion in a forum such as this. And anyone should be able to benefit from something like this. For example, MD’s explained a unique version of Christianity, and how it was adopted by persons in the British Isles in the 1st century CE (AD).
And I have enjoyed hearing from those who put their faith in the control of events by an Aristocratic Elite or even by TPTB. I have learned much of these worldviews since joining CFN.
And there are many intelligent atheists (Atheists) on CFN who are able to make great contributions to any religious discussion.
(I say this with no intended irony.)
But I must add that this incessant parsing of minute religious artificialities by certain repetitive posters does grow tediously tiresome.
No irony intended in this statement, either!!
Tripp,
You have obviously put some thought into your decision to do as little vaccination of yourself and your offspring as possible. You have taken a principled stand and informed yourself of the risks. I admire that thoroughness, even though I would tend in large part to take the opposite stand.
No matter, we understand one another in this regard and I will not attempt to argue *”religion”* concerning vaccinations.
So let me share a little trivia. The original CDC in Atlanta was actually started during WWII and the original name was a jawbreaker, “Office of National Defense Malaria Control Activities.”
My mom actually worked for this Office during the war and referred to it by the generic, “Malaria Control.”
Atlanta was chosen because malaria was endemic to the South prior to the war. Malaria was finally “eradicated” in the US after the war, mostly through some SERIOUS applications of DDT and some SERIOUS swamp draining and river “channelization,” in the South. (You can still see lots of evidence of this today if you know what to look for in stream and river bottoms.)
There have also been outbreaks of yellow fever in the US, notably in Philadelphia and New Orleans. It is important to note that any coastal city with suitable mosquito populations could be the source of tropical disease outbreaks post TLE.
I suspect humans will continue to travel during and after TLE, even if they only use sailing ships.
All I’m saying is be alert to changes in the future.
Best of Luck!
from:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=172688
“nameta9 wrote:
The general trend is towards less and less power to workers and more power to employers. The very fact that you can ax so many jobs demonstrates how vague and useless they are. Anyone can decide to ax any job just because, because the power relationship between employers and employees is 100 to zero as of today. Just like in the conservative states where any employee can be fired “for no reason at all, just because”.
We need Free Salaries, Cheap Rents, Free Health Kare, Free Mass BUS transit systems, pass the word all you right wing thugs.”
Churro the Viscous wrote:
“100 to zero?
Employees can quit too.
It’s not like they have no power to quit.
As a matter of fact, because of tenured positions, I’d say there are LESS employees who can be fired than who can quit.
Seems like they have the upper hand here.
If I have a business, like idk say I had a small, 5-man mobile locksmith business.
Why can’t I hire and fire who I want?
Why not?
Who are you to tell me which employees I need to keep?
If someone isn’t doing a good job, BOOT.
If business isn’t good enough to keep 5 people and still make money, BOOT.
I don’t have an obligation to keep them.
I signed no contract saying I would, and they most certainly recognize that they don’t have a right to this job, but that their employment in this business is because I will it.
I didn’t force them to work for me, and they can’t force me to keep them.”
The fact is, when there are few jobs around, the workers are forced to accept whatever they can find at any price and condition otherwise they end up homeless and in the streets. You make it seem as if workers are rich and can afford to choose and quit. Well in many cases that is no longer true, and will increasingly become less and less true.
Your small outfit won’t hire hundreds or thousands of people, but all of this right wing ideology is created for people like you, the little guys attacking other little guys, because of the joy to boot other people, because of the instinct to beat up someone. The joy of exercising power by employers. You are just a tool in the hands of the right wing thugs, they are referencing large organizations worldwide, large corporations, government workers, all those millions of people that everyone has been brainwashed to hate because they exist, because they should just drop dead and starve since they don’t deserve anything since they are not Bill Gates or Steve Jobs and haven’t risked and become a billionaire. But the right wing thugs have a very precise intentionality and goal: that of booting them all, taking away all of their “entitlements”, their “health care”, their “rights”, the monopolies want it all, and they want everyone fighting everyone over breadcrumbs while they steal all the wealth and concentrate it in fewer and fewer hands.
Another myth is the myth of “Risk Taking”: they took risks and made it big, you didn’t take risks and deserve to be unemployed. Another insane idea, that everyone should be taking risks, and betting all their money on the totally idiotic invention they made in their garage (since millions of scientists and engineers worldwide are “too stupid” to have figured out your new cool invention). So the guilt complex is reinforced, the victim blames himself, the rich get richer.
You stupid asswipe. Apple just came up to $258 on Friday. I bought it at $246, and $239 through $241 within the last couple of weeks. It has gone down to $235 and a half recently. The stocks track the general market and some out-perform at times due to invididual and sector news. I am not looking for a bit slide, just short term variation.
g
Even if people don’t buy here (US) they buy in another part of the world, in those parts that are growing, so this has no effect on pressuring employers: look at the big picture, when they talk about competition, tax breaks, research, innovation they are saying and referencing millions of office workers worldwide and large corporations and government workers, not your local hotel. And they are basically saying, you don’t deserve more because you didn’t innovate, you cost too much, you are not competitive, etc. Very easy to attack workers on this, since it is impossible to measure, and any measure will always show workers are at fault.
Thanks for the update on bedbugs! A neighbor here in middle Georgia told me a story about a bedbug infestation in his rental house. Said it was just god-awful, and the only way he found to rid himself of this nastiness was to let the house heat up to about 120 degrees on a hot summer day. Apparently that did the trick.
So many animals have cashed in by coupling their plight with us humans!
Atheism debate, for your consideration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ_jqvnOahk&feature=related
If only we could’ve forseen the trouble agriculture would cause we would’ve kept hunting goats and gathering mushrooms. The crowd diseases are all the fault of concentrated livestock in close proximity (take that however you want) with their human care-takers; the kleptocratic elite are the result of grain surpluses; and overpopulation is the result of a sedentary lifestyle! Hard to carry two babies when your hunting band is on the move…
Ok, E. You say things will go down due to too much debt. That has already happened. I am just making short-term bets. If there is a little bad news this week, before OBama’s speech gold and ABX will go up, and I can make a little money selling that. Am just looking for a short term dip to buy back into apple and baidu. Apple has gone down to around $235.50 and up to around $260 lately. Figure a price in he $235 to $240 range is a good buy and anything over $250 is a good selling point. Baidu has gone down to about $76 lately and up to about $84. Am looking to buy it around $76 a share. Your negative pessimist argumnets over the long-term are not immediately relevant. Am just looking to come in and scoop up a few stocks when the market is relatively low and then sell them when it is higher and then come back in again. The trick is just knowing how low and high in the short terms the indices are likely to go.
Dubai is continuing last week’s rally now.
Oh, and malaria wouldn’t be an issue for Eurasians because we wouldn’t be in the New World tropics or subtropics to be exposed to it!
One of the underlying currents of permaculture is that “slow is sane.” It sounds a bit cliche’ at first, but I’m amazed at how often trouble can be avoided by just slowing down and thinking about what I’m doing for a while longer.
Thanks for the history lesson on malaria!
“I am glad you have recognized the crux of the problem: belief in a God who demands obedience. No such being exists.”
You are mis-stating the crux. It should be – unbelief in a God who demands obedience. If there were no God who demands obedience, the ignorance of His law would have no consequences.
But we see all around us the collapse of destitute, man-made institutions based on man’s ideas of right and wrong, and the utter bankruptcy of our “last, best hope” {paraphrasing Lincoln}.
Saying it is not so, does not make it not so.
MD, while you and I apparently see the relevance of our discussion to the Long Emergency and saving the planet, ProCon is tired of our “incessant parsing of minute religious artificialities by certain repetitive posters” (by “repetitive” he is referring to me, not you).
So, out of respect for ProCon and his desire not to read my posts on religion, I am going to give it a rest for an indefinite time.
Ok, E. You said why you expect economic conditions to get worse, because of too much debt not going to be repaid. Tell me how much you expect stock market indices to fall and when. I expect fairly moderate conditions for the next month or so. Am just looking for some short-term dips when things are over-sold so I can buy back in and then dump shares when the markets come back up for awhile.
Asoka, I agree with you that Apple is a market leader.
Take a look at this chart:
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/charts/chartdl.aspx?Symbol=AAPL&ShowChtBt=Refresh+Chart&DateRangeForm=1&C9=2&ComparisonsForm=1&CE=0&DisplayForm=1&D4=1&D5=0&D3=0&ViewType=0&CP=0&PT=2
Notice that Apple went down to $237.86 on August 27th 2010, which is just a week ago Friday! That was shortly before Bernanke talked up the markets later that same day. They could have gone down a lot lower. So this Friday on the 3rd after the 4-day rally and the news that apple was increasing production of ipads by a fact of 2, its share price went up to $258/share and then went down to $255/share after hours. So how long does the rally go? What will be the reaction to the release of the Beige Book study on Wednesday? When is Obama giving his speech this week about cutting r&d taxes etc to goose up the markets? Will the rally last till then? I want a nice dip so stocks will be oversold so I can buy back into Apple around $240/share. (Apple was trading at $240.70 at 9:40 AM on Tuesday, August 31st, you fucking nitwit, Asoka. That was when this rally was just starting.) I have recently sold shares I got in the $239/$241 for only a little more than that in the $241/$243/share range. I sold the shares I got earlier at $246/share at about $250 a share on Wednesday. I did not expect the Asian and US manufacturing employment report rally to carry into Thursday or the employment news on Friday to be relatively good and to have people buy in on that. I new there was news coming out about apple last week but did not know they were doubling production of ipads to $2 million. The competitive effects will come in later. There is still money to be made buying them (Apple) on short-term spikes downward and then selling them on rallies.
“I am going to give it a rest for an indefinite time.”
Respect is good. Rest is good. Indefinite is good. Take these with you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy
http://www.gods-kingdom-ministries.org/CreationsJub/CJch04.html {fourth paragraph}
I’ve been following the stock markets pretty closely the last three or four years, and the conclusion I’ve come to is what happens in the markets bears little or no resemblance to what the economy is for 95% of the population.
The stock market seems to care not at all that General Motors is owned by the federal government, unemployment gets worse, many states and municipalities are close to some type of bankruptcy, if it registers, I don’t see it.
I’ve heard and don’t know if it’s true, that Chinese investors prop up the gold market, and I’ve wondered if someone doesn’t prop up the United States stock market, people at the Federal Reserve Board, sovereign wealth funds with foreign investors, I don’t know. I’m not saying this is happening or even that it would be possible to do, I don’t have any real idea what kind of money it would take to do it in the first place. But I do wonder.
What I am convinced of is, the system runs on debt, what the federal government has done to fight the recession is to get people to take on more debt by buying a car they can’t afford, by starting a cash for clunkers program. Or they give them an incentive to buy a house, and again they are encouraging more debt.
I saw on the Internet that consumer debt in the U.S in fourteen trillion, thats more than the national debt.
At some point when the markets continually shrug this off, they’re saying none of this debt matters, not Greece, not Spain, not any of Europe, nor Japan. Why does anyone have to lose their house if it doesn’t matter?
And this:
http://www.jmccsci.com
Some insightful stuff.
In regards to rampant borrowing from the future, the descent from this great energy mountain could be smooth if the populace was informed and reigned in use appropriately. But that would compromise the elites’ opportunities to convert what’s left of the planet’s resources into real estate, clout, and indentured servants.
Instead, visualize a typical Poisson distribution, or bell curve, and a backhoe (the fed) sitting on top scooping up the downslope and piling it on top (stimulus money inputs), in an effort to make everything appear normal. What does this create? A cliff. The “Olduvai Cliff” as I’ve heard it called. A time when the industrial era ends fairly abruptly.
I try to maintain a sunny disposition about our chances of survival with proper planning, but in the end I don’t harbor much hope for anything more than pockets of low-energy human cultures seeing the other side.
After all, it’s only a cliff to high-energy peoples. The pygmies never climbed, so there’s nowhere to fall. If we can manage to not destroy the biosphere they depend on, there is some hope at least for them I think. The “United States” will not survive. Nor will the rest of the first world. But maybe humanity will.
I believe it is about high time these corporate criminals and banksters are being taught some social responsibility with mandatory iron clad penalties.
Just like signing a handful of documents when someone requires hospital care,these treasonous shysters need to be informed,that these are the rules you follow if you want to do business in America or else.This greedfest got to stop RIGHT NOW!The same riff-raff that gave Germany the Weimar republic collapse and consequently Hitler and his 3rd Reich is operating full tilt in the US and are trying the same in the rest of the world.
I believe it is high time these corporate criminals and banksters are being taught some social responsibility with mandatory iron clad penalties.
Just like signing a handful of documents when someone requires hospital care,these treasonous shysters,who are exporting all the US jobs need to be informed,that these are the rules you follow if you want to do business in America or else.This greedfest got to stop RIGHT NOW!The same riff-raff that gave Germany the Weimar republic collapse and consequently Hitler and his 3rd Reich is operating full tilt in the US and are trying the same in the rest of the world.That wall street casino needs to be shut down immediately and the rules we had in the fifties reinstated.
Is this not being update? Nobody seems to be writing much of anything lately.
That sweltering Georgia heat in good for something! A lot more cost efficient than dealing with an exterminator.
SJMom
PS My butternut squash plants are taking over the world! (The tiny world of my backyard.)
Is this not working?
“A lot more cost efficient than dealing with an exterminator.”
And less toxic!
I wish I could say the same for my butternuts! But then, I planted them at the totally wrong time. Still getting used to the “shoulder” seasons of the hot muggy south.
Concerning the bias of the US tax code in favor of the wealthy, I made a factual earlier in the week when I stated that SS taxes (FICA) are collected on a maximum earned income of +/- $180,000. The actual maximum is in the paragraph below.
===============
The Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) imposes a Social Security withholding tax equal to 6.20% of the gross wage amount, up to but not exceeding the Social Security Wage Base ($97,500 for 2007; $102,000 for 2008; and $106,800 for 2009 and 2010). The same 6.20% tax is imposed on employers.
===============
So a self employed person pays a minimum 12.4% tax JUST for Social Security, plus payroll taxes of up to 35%.
But a person earning dividend income pays an ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM of 15% tax on that income and pays 0% for social security.
======================
And for some reason if a *normal* wage earner points out this inequity – he is guilty of “class envy.”
If a wealthy person points it out – he is betraying the wealthy.
The real mystery is how so many *mainstream middle class Republicans* will scream “Cut Taxes” and “Don’t increase taxes on the wealthy,”
Without understanding any of the math involved – that causes the bias in favor of the wealthy.
And while clearing up inaccuracies consider this from Asoka:
People love to express and exercise their power, they love to decide the life of their employees and lay them off, boot them, they are programmed to fight and beat up people with this capitalist, free market mythology of “competition”, “productivity”, “hard work”, “deserving more than the other slob”, etc.
It won’t work in the long run, too many losers, too many people in a world where “competition” and “optimization”, and the race to the cheapest wage is becoming dominant. We need large corporations, organizations and governments hiring millions of people, even if they have nothing to do, since automation is taking away all the work that was once done in factories and offices. The only thing left is power struggles, status relationships, every encounter is a status challenge, there is no “common good”, only fights.
The world of labor is still stuck in the 1940s and 1950s when the factory and manufacturing and the “8 hour workday” was dominant, but this model is over, advances have essentially eliminated all work, it is all gone, deal with it.
By using the logic of productivity of factories and manufacturing, these economists then shift it to all economic endeavors and pretend that all the forces that improve manufacturing improves also services such as more overtime, less pay, harsher working conditions, more flexibility etc. Services have nothing at all to do with “productivity”, “competition”, in fact services operate better when there are less of them and less need of them, we don’t need more Health Insurance companies with all of their office workers wasting time, we don’t need more banks selling ripoff financial “products”, and especially:
WE DON’T NEED MORE RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY THAT IS KILLING THAT LITTLE WORK THAT IS LEFT. BY AUTOMATING EVERYTHING AND OPTIMIZING EVERYTHING, THERE WON’T BE ANYTHING LEFT TO DO IN THIS FAIRY TALE ECONOMY.
We need:
1) FREE SALARIES OR BIG COMPANIES HIRING MILLIONS OF PEOPLE AND GIVING THEM ALL THEIR BENEFITS LIKE PENSIONS, HEALTH CARE, ETC. JAPAN, FRANCE AND MANY OTHERS HAVE BEEN DOING THIS FOR DECADES ANYWAYS.
2) CHEAP HOUSING EITHER RENTS OR PAY, LIKE 100,000 DOLLARS FOR A 2 BEDROOM HOUSE ANYWHERE WHETHER MANHATTAN OR OKLAHOMA (OR 200 DOLLARS A MONTH RENT).
3) MASS TRANSIT SYSTEMS WITH BUSES, HIGH QUALITY BUSES AND INTERNET CALLED MASS TRANSIT NETWORKS.
Eightm
Shut the F… up puleeeesee
I will expose all the deceptions:
Another myth is this idea of “competition” in the global economy, against other nations. Now 80 % of the economies of the USA, EU and JAPAN are services, therefore local, have nothing to do with competition in the industrial sense, like in manufacturing. But the ruling class and all their economists and politicians like to shift ideas valid in manufacturing in to the realm of services, brainwashing everyone that in their local – service job they are competing in a global economy against the Chinese and South Korean tigers, therefore they have to be “flexible”, decrease their “salary”, otherwise they are not competitive. But this is a lie and deception, global competition has nothing at all to due with 80 % of the service jobs.
We need heavy taxes on homes, so these home prices and rents collapse, we need 1% a year tax, so house of 200,000 must pay at least 2,000 dollars a year. No upper limit required. With that money the government can hire millions of young people in research and innovation, but for the common good and not for corporations and capitalists.
Hey…FUCKTARDS I’m back. Talk at you real soon.
Eightm sez:
We need:
1) FREE SALARIES OR BIG COMPANIES HIRING MILLIONS OF PEOPLE AND GIVING THEM ALL THEIR BENEFITS LIKE PENSIONS, HEALTH CARE, ETC. JAPAN, FRANCE AND MANY OTHERS HAVE BEEN DOING THIS FOR DECADES ANYWAYS.
2) CHEAP HOUSING EITHER RENTS OR PAY, LIKE 100,000 DOLLARS FOR A 2 BEDROOM HOUSE ANYWHERE WHETHER MANHATTAN OR OKLAHOMA (OR 200 DOLLARS A MONTH RENT).
Sheesh what a MORON. What the fuck is a free salary? “Heres your “free salary” eightm. It isn’t worth anything because it is free but you claimed it as a need, so here it is.”
And a $100,000 house located anywhere? I mean location, location, location has absolutely nothing to do with a homes value.
You are a MORON. STFU. NOW!
pissant
Conversely, I think $100,000 is an insane amount of money to pay for a place to live (not that I haven’t done it). When that became normal we were beyond losing our minds already. Inflation is no more sustainable than NASCAR in the long view.
> the Tea Party isn’t just the slide into “corn pone fascism” that you like to describe: it’s an ad hoc group of people who recognize something is seriously wrong with the way the country is organized and run but they don’t know what it is.
That sounds a lot like what the followers of Hitler felt like. They knew something had gone horribly wrong in the Weimar Republic but they didn’t know what it was, and so they were looking for anyone they thought was expressing their own disenchantment to lead them. That someone turned out to be a big loser himself, who just happened to have a lot of charisma…
Hi, NOT MOMMY, stick it to 8m and asoka and whoever else who needs it. I can’t stand GOGREENORID and NUDGE. I call them GREENGOBLIN JUICE and PUDGE.
Saw the other day that 1% of the population owns 88% of the stocks. Actually it is advantageous to have the stock market doing well even when most people aren’t as it provides an easy opportunity for profit. Am just looking for some good dips when I will buy back into APPL and BIDU.