JHK’s Three-Act Play
I don’t want to be party pooper, but is it possible that all the 9/11 remembrance hoopla was a kind of weekend refuge from reality for this psychologically spavined nation? Memorializing is easy; acting resolutely in the here-and-now is another matter. To me, the various 9/11 doings that radiated out over the media gave off an indecent odor of triumphalism – a correspondent of mine referred to it as “self-important histrionics.” We seem to put on these shows because we don’t know what else to do, and because the only truly effective homegrown industry left in the USA is public relations, the business of making your own reality.
The trouble is that reality accepts no substitutes (as the old ad jingle goes). It does its thing regardless of whether you acknowledge it or not. I was in Mexico City mid-week and sojourned behind the Zocolo at the ruins of the Templo Mayor, headquarters of the New World’s champion people-eater, Huitzilopochtli, a bad-ass muthafucka of a god if ever there was one. The Aztecs had everything going for them except their reality, at the center of which was this bloodthirsty hallucinated monster demanding fresh beating hearts by the hundred-weight. And so, consumed by this insane myth, a half a million of them allowed themselves to be destroyed by three hundred adventurers from Spain.
Strange to relate, the environs of the ruined pyramid was the most tranquil spot in the entire super-gigantic permanent catastrophe of Mexico City. Old Huitzee would like these times, I thought: a bad moon rising and plenty of fresh meat everywhere. The way the stars were lining up, a pitiless deity could really get his mojo on. It made my skin crawl, I hardly know where to start this week.
I’ll yield to the obvious, then, and turn to President Obama’s jobs speech. I don’t believe for a minute that it added up to much beyond more political game-playing – although there is more than one game being played judging by the knuckleballs and downfield juke-moves displayed by Mr. O. You can throw in some rope-a-dope, too, since the main objective was to make a virtue out of weakness. So, the Republican-dominated congress will pass a few fragments of the proposals (probably some tax cuts and maybe even unemployment extensions) but they’ll wrinkle their noses at everything else and the result will barely make a difference – given the nature of this economy, which is having its Thelma and Louise moment. Obama will claim that the nation was gyped, and the Republicans will claim that they were just following the orders of party chairman the Hon. Jesus H. Christ.
None of them has a clue that reality has other plans for the US economy, which is to contract, de-globalize, downscale, and go local. That so-called economy they’re trying to bring back? It’s gone, baby, gone. I saw the remnants of it in the supermarket yesterday afternoon, endless freezer displays of unbelievable food-like shit such as Fridays © frozen fried cheddar-stuffed jalepeno poppers and something called “Rattlesnake Pasta.” What kind of people are we? Is Huitzilopochtli behind all this, fattening us up for the altar? The fact that chili peppers are involved makes me suspicious. Anyway, this trip to the supermarket was like a visit to some unholy museum. A lot of the stuff behind those glass freezer doors I’d never actually noticed before, and surely never imagined in my wildest Iron Chef fantasies. In a few years, when the US public has become accustomed to a diet of cabbage soup and corn-pone, the memory of all that will astonish us.
As to Mr. Obama’s delivery, I wish he would give up that little vocal trick he employs of constricting his windpipe so as to sound extra-special sincere. In fact, every time he puts that phony voice on, I discount what he is saying, such as you would if listening to a speech by Pinocchio and seeing his nose grow at every utterance. The non-entity former governor of New York, George Pataki, who mounted a seventeen-minute campaign for president a month or so ago, also favored that speech-delivery trick. All it accomplished was to make him look like he was straining himself to appear authentic. Note that the most self-consciously clueless political podcasters in the whole pod-world, the jokers at The New Yorker Magazine’s podcast, gave Obama super props on delivery. For them, it was all about public relations, of course. They have no idea what kind of economy is greeting us in reality. Not your grandpa’s Wheel of Fortune Rotary Club extravaganza, I assure you, Rick Hertzberg and Ryan Lizza. They’re thrilled that Mr. Obama may finally be getting John Maynard Keynes right. OMG….
The stars are lined up now pointing straight at the tragic heart of Europe. I really don’t quite see how the Euro currency gets through to the end of this week. German government officials are making noises about an orderly bankruptcy in Greece. What do they mean by that? Does Greece walk into its lawyer’s office with a tidy list of assets for sale? Say, the Parthenon, assorted caryatids, the contents of the Thessalonica Country Club’s trophy cabinet, and Uncle Nikos’s fabulous stamp collection? I don’t think so. More likely, you can expect an unholy shit-storm of credit default swaps setting every bank in the OCED (and few outside it) on fire, and by extension every executive mansion, until you turn around on Saturday morning and the world’s currency system looks like an incinerated slice of smoldering wonder bread. It was a wonder that the Euro nations could keep their end of this unholy racket going as long as they did, since their constitution doesn’t even allow bail-outs, period. Anyway, it is nowhere recorded in the annals of Bernal Diaz or the Aztec codexes that Huitzilopochtli liked sandwiches. He was a straight-up barbeque deity, though a little molé on the side goes nicely with a plate of human thigh.
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James – 9/11 memorials have ended, thankfully, and still we are faced with the reality of our situation; the Islamic fundamentalists are waiting for the Christian fundamentalists to take over the USA for a good honest fight to the death.
http://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/sister-sarah-and-the-coming-fascist-christian-troika/
Shakti will fill the void!
http://www.gwabert.com/
There is little left in the way of responses to the problems of our current age. Political leadership only matters as long as there are solutions available and the will to use them, but we have neither now and the only sane response is to prepare for the coming collapse.
Visit the Leibowitz Society at http://leibowitzsociety.blogspot.com/2011/09/somme-ideas.html for more information and discussion about our collapse what is coming post-collapse.
2nd
Yeah, how about Building 7 sir?
Not hit by an airplane with a few fires burning off to one side, yet it too fell straight down into a neat pile taking all the records of 1980s on corporate crimes with it as the SEC offices were destroyed.
Huitzilopochtli was mighty fierce but the way the drought is going in Texas, Gov. Perry may need to convert and start leading group prayers to Tlaloc (the lovely Mayan rain god)!
spavin |?spavin|
noun
a disorder of a horse’s hock. See bone spavin.
DERIVATIVES
spavined adjective
ORIGIN late Middle English: shortening of Old French espavin, variant of esparvain, of Germanic origin.
Well, you know that Obama wants to pitch himself as the guy who finally got Osama bin Laden, so he has to have an extra-large serving of 911 this year. And Hollywood is producing a movie about the shoot out at bin Laden’s compound, and this movie will be released in October 2012.
Oh, and speaking of doom, how about the Greek government which is going to leave the Euro and bring back the Drachma? That’s going to screw Europe – because it won’t just be Greece leaving the Euro.
Well it looks like Jack and the team from 24 saved us. No dirty bombs in Times Square. What is happening with Europe isn’t much news. Afterall we have NCAA and NFL football to go along with NASCAR,Bud-lite and cheese doodles.
It will surely be interesting to see how Europe plays out this week.
Whenever it all hits the fan, it will be a shock to some and just another told you so day to others.
Stock up & Stay Frosty
Better get militant about fighting the money lender parasites, or you too could end up living in this tent city. If you are lucky.
http://www.businessinsider.com/lakewood-new-jersey-homeless-tent-city-2011-9?
Notice that one of the most valuable things is plastic sheeting, 2x4s and connectors for the same. Without the surplus scraps from society’s waste, these Americans would have no building material or places to keep from freezing to death.
The Mayan god Tlaloc required the sacrifice of virgins being thrown into sinkholes in order for him to produce rain. Fortunately for Gov. Perry, there are a lot of Southern Baptist girls in Texas “who have not known man.”
Pretty soon Confederate bills will be worth more than Euro notes.
Good post, things are definitely getting worse lately… If it’s ever passed, this jobs bill will probably do little more than give businesses tax cuts for hiring the few people they already would have hired. I say just employ more people to do park maintenance with the same money, at least that would create some jobs for sure… For those of you watching the Fukushima disaster, here’s a piece about how there have been a lot more nuclear accidents in history than most people think: http://aeinetwork.com/news324.html
NEW SUITS FOR BANKSTERS:
Nothing would please me more than requiring all banksters to wear orange jump suits and wander thru the ghettos of New York giving away money until their entire personal fortunes are gone, before retiring to a cell without a mattress for their remaining days.
Unfortunately that would not reverse the situation we are in. What we are witnessing is capitalism in its final stages, dying of its internal contradictions much as Marx predicted in 1848. Wealth has become concentrated to the point where it controls all political discourse and physically and mentally impoverishes the middle class and all other productive classes, destroying the markets upon which capitalism depends. America’s high- tech imperial army has grown to the point where it sucks the capital away from infrastructure and education investments necessary if capitalism were to continue. It has repeatedly been defeated by ragtag armies, and has been unable to deliver the flow of cheap oil that is its primary mission. The era of cheap oil is over, and with it the viability of the entire physical infrastructure that has been built upon the assumption that supply is infinite.
Unfortunately Marx was wrong about the collapse of capitalism leading to a more rational and democratic form of social organization. Che Guevara dreamed that a New Socialist Man would arise from the elimination of private property. That New Socialist Man is paddling a raft thru shark infested waters, dreaming of becoming a debt slave to a shiny new car, and his sister haunts the tourist bars selling her body to buy a pair of nylons to increase her market value.
Capitalism is indeed in its final throes, but if human nature takes its course religious fascism will be its successor and the billionaires will become trillionairs standing on the backs of their debt slaves.
The sincere delivery is an interesting point. It’s rather like using the author’s first name in a comment.
Well James, that was a profound essay. Very nice.
( do I sound thoughtful?). We have learned our lessons well from our leaders!
If 9/11 happened in sticksville, say Kansas City for instance, the networks would have been back to Seinfeld reruns within 24hours, and a ten year anniversary would have been a blurb on the news after the Lady Gaga update.
So some half assed muslim crackpot living in a dump in Af/Pak understood America better than just about everybody who actually lives here, there is some irony there.
Well done this week, Jim. Poetry for the downfall.
Perhaps it’s a good thing that we enjoy mourning and keening so much — since we’ll have a lot to cry over in the years to come.
One of my favorite parts of any widespread media hoopla is the always-essential hand wringing done by the media, ala “Are we covering this too much?” Cracks me up. Must be on page 72 of the Newsroom Manual.
Now let’s sit back and watch the DOW slide…..
“because the only truly effective homegrown industry left in the USA is public relations, the business of making your own reality.”
Perfect! We do nothing but create entertainment for each other and this past red, white and blue, 9/11 orgy weekend was the perfect example. Pumped up chests, flags waving everywhere, all the while our country continues its downward spiral, like that idiotic ground zero memorial that appears to be sucking all the souls straight in to hell.
Well, JHK
You did go all over the map this week in order to read the map of who we are and where we’re going.
Yes, as I said in a post last week nobody does it better than us when it comes to the PR narrative of what really happened and what did really happen exactly?
Oh, the maudlin stories amidst real suffering of those who morn the loss of loved ones. They are left with a memorial with inscripted names in bronze on the hallowed ground in which their loved-ones’ fragments are buried–were they the sacrifices to the Empire?
On Max Keiser’s page there is a piece called High Frequency Frauds. Here we go again with the unreal world of high finance taking a greater position than real world needs. Let’s really waste $billions so some can be Trillionaires. Must be all those armies of lobbyists these people can afford to deploy.
[In the high-speed world of automated financial trading, milliseconds matter. So much so, in fact, that a saving of just six milliseconds in transmission time is all that is required to justify the laying of the first transatlantic communications cable for 10 years at a cost of more than £300m.]
About the Keynesian model. I am a Keynesian myself, but it can’t work as a mere band-aid over the Global supply side paradigm. We’ve gone so far in the opposite direction, we’ll break ourselves trying to go through this pantomime.
Yes and as I always say about these financial Christianists. They turned Jesus into the CEO donned in Armani, barefoot hair slicked into a neat ponytail. He is surrounded in the boardroom with his apostles. Money is God. And you know what Little Lord Blankfein says, “We are doing God’s Work”
JHK, this was one of your better posts. I especially liked this:
The roadrunner (off-the-edge-of-the-cliff peddling frantically) metaphor was old. Now we will see how long Thelma and Louise can stay suspended.
Of course, in “real life” gravity (the laws of physics adored on CFN) would not allow such a thing. In “real life,” such a metaphor would imply the whole world economy would collapse today, maybe around 2:00 p.m.
We are about to see the laws of physics do not hold, that scientific materialism is a hoax.
Texas is in the midst of its worst drought since the Europeans arrived (no, climate change here, just move along please) and Rick Perry asks everyone to pray for rain. Then the fires start all over Texas. Now that is ironic.
Perhaps he is praying to the wrong god? Or maybe it is proof that the GOP is in league with the Dark One since who else would send fire rather than rain?
On the otherhand maybe it is a sign from god telling Perry NOT to run…
First of all, dont knock cabbage soup and corn pone! It’s frickin’ awesome!
The thing that struck me about this weekend was how everyone was trying to outdo everyone else with their greusome stories of “where they were”. Like there’s some kind of prize for who has the most vivid memory of what they had for breakfast that morning. I couldn’t help feeling like it was some kind of sick competition to see who could act the most traumatized. Of course those who actually were traumatized by it probably spent the weekend with the TV off, wishing people would stop bringing it up.
Phew. I thought it was only me resenting all the 911 ‘remembrance’ running all month long. Yep, it was a horrible event and some great folks are no longer here because of it. To me, we should have left the Twin Tower site empty, save the candles quietly left by thoughtful mourners as they passed by. But no, we had to construct yet another obscene obelisk; yet another tribute to our decadent, ‘flip the world the finger’ unsustainable way of life. We used up yet more fast disapearing energy, oil and materials just to prop up our ‘America right or wrong’ egos. And we wonder why the rest of the world hates us.
Breathe deep the gathering gloom and cover yourself with sackcloth and ashes.
Hi Jim and the gang
Well, I saw an article that pointed out that Europeans after WW2 got on with the business of rebuilding and privately mourned the loss of 30 MILLION people as a result of that conflict. Maybe the US could give this approach a thought.
Anyway there are plenty of financial fixes to be employed, just read a little Dean Baker or Ellen Brown, they are proffering viable solutions to the current financial mess, but no one wants to hear about them. That is no one in gov’t, they might lose some of their nice perks or health care coverage- Gawd forbid. But that is the real problem isn’t it, no leadership for the general population to rally around. Just endless paid for pols who spout bullshit straight up and out into deep space.
The whole PIIGS thing is approaching the red zone, but jeez this has been the case for a long time. So what’s next? Who knows, only the Shadow knows( that is shadow gov’t). So pop up the last of the popcorn and watch the spine tingling events with a critical eye. An action review will be required next Monday.
New commercial: 40 yro virgin opens front door to find an old fart. “I’m here for your mother,” he says.” “Mom! Nice car” the virgin says. “Keeps me young.” Mom comes.
Camera switches to inside the red car. The old farts have transformed into 20 yro brats. “Where to?” he says. “Just drive” says she. Brat tromps the accelerator. Off they squeal as the virgin stares after them in slack jawed amazement.
Chevy. Runs deep.
Remember last week’s comment about Ponzi Perry’s being a Dominionist? A friend of mine has a wild hair of an idea that ties that idea together with your comments about Huitzilopochtli. My buddy thinks that while the Dominionists think they’re worshiping Yahweh, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, they’ve been hoodwinked, and Huitzilopochtli and a couple other of his buddies from the Aztec pantheon are receiving the Dominionists’ devotion instead. That could explain why the biggest applause line of the night during last week’s Republican debate was when Ponzi Perry mentioned executing more prisoners than any other sitting governor. It was the kind of sacrifice the deity they really worship would approve of. Jesus, not so much.
I blogged about your entry from last week and my response to it, with supporting examples, on Crazy Eddie’s Motie News. I then reblogged it on Daily Kos to make sure that what passes for The Left in the U.S. knew about it. It was the most read diary of the day. Trust me, The Left knows about Ponzi Perry’s Dominionism.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/
John, I am not sure about the virgins and the sinkhole thing. I know as a matter of fact though, that there is a very special sinkhole in central Texas. You throw central bankers into it, and the economy improves.
Is Huitzilopochtli behind all this, fattening us up for the alter?
I am beginning to wonder something along similar lines myself, lately.
I never see anyone much younger than 60 driving a new Camaro. Dang ol’ government motors buiding crappy cars for old people.
Love me two times baby:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v3CzvQ9e_w
At first glance, the artist sincerely captured the Trade Centers’ cascading crash. This until Mr. Maineiac pointed out, “like that idiotic ground zero memorial that appears to be sucking all the souls straight in to hell.” The reflecting pool drains into an inner cascade that seem to be doing just that. It says, the ground wasn’t far enough, you have further to fall. Strange.
Southern View
JHK sez:
“To me, the various 9/11 doings that radiated out over the media gave off an indecent odor of triumphalism – a correspondent of mine referred to it as “self-important histrionics.” We seem to put on these shows because we don’t know what else to do, and because the only truly effective homegrown industry left in the USA is public relations, the business of making your own reality.”
Brrr! That’s one of the most chilling observations I’ve ever seen in print. Truly.
Even the mourning and grieving (aside from those who actually lost family members) rings false, manufactured, and distributed by the Great Wurlitzer of the Tube. It is the impenetrable armor that defends the bloodlust and greed of the most efficient killing-machine the world has ever had the misfortune to look upon.
Huitzilopochtli and Mammon are very close cousins who often work together for their common benefit in my Prickly Pantheon.
My brother and I ignored the whole greasy, stinking charade (he got his butt out of NYC) and stacked a couple cord of wood, built a big fire and burned the scraps of bark and some brush we had cut up. Rustic satisfaction was gained, and self-important histrionics neatly avoided.
Huitzilopochtli could not be fattening us up. No way.
The hearts of Fatso Nation are too clogged with long-chain fats to be of much good to a hungry god.
We will, however, be building pyramids in downtown Houston, Jacksonville, Atlanta, and other doomed Southern cities soon. There we will make the duly appointed sacrifices of liberals, homosexuals, bicyclists, environmentalists, Hollywood Celebs, and Muslims to bring back cheap oil, Cheese Doodles, Hemi V8 engines, and baggy shorts made in China.
It’s our sacred lifestyle, isn’t it? W said it was not long after 9/11. The gods demand sacrifice.
Zaax,
The real issue with Fundamentalist bankers or fundamentalist ANYTHING in America is that they
assume, as Europeans have since the old days when they extricated all those pesky ‘heathens’ from this land, that God has ‘ordained’ it to be so; Manifest destiny will prevail! We are ‘blessed’ by God and he must approve of what we have done….doesn’t He? I offer that He does not and that we have never been and by all appearances never WILL be a Christian nation. God has merely tolerated, not blessed us. Further, God has not suspended the laws of ecological population dynamics or physics in deference to our faithful prayers. We have been dodging bullets for far too long and the piper has finally come to call, and he does not accept checks.
Jim Thank you for giving voice to the media BS around 9/11. I know lots of us are sick about this annual manufactured rehash of a terrible day for 3000 business folks. Their loss was a tragedy. The greater loss is that virtually no one has the journalistic courage to ask WHY it happened and how to stop a large part of the world from hating us. We are an imperium in decline but still occupy their lands, their sea lanes and export a BS culture that Jim rants about that they loathe. Another reason for TPTB keep this 9/11 charade alive is right out of Goebbels’ playbook. Keep fear alive and maybe you can keep your sorry job for another term or two. Come on people, get over it.
They turned Jesus into the CEO donned in Armani, barefoot hair slicked into a neat ponytail.
===========
I’ve never heard of barefoot hair. Or did you mean barefoot,?
Only the unadulterated truth of what went down on 9/11 will heal the rot and corruption that has the ‘murkin-people in it’s barbed grip.
…And I guess we’re gonna have to step up and say it; most of this populace can no longer handle the truth, or even bear a fleeting glimpse of it. It doesn’t fit “the narrative”.
Thank GOD somebody else has put into words precisely what I have been feeling this entire weekend. I have absolute and total sympathy for the victims and families of the 9-11 attacks, and I quite obviously, wish they had never happened, but I am fed up not as much with the endless memorials as I am with the anticipated governmental scare tactics voiced as warnings of further attacks. It has occurred to me, after 10 years of these hyped-up “warnings” that we have simply acquiesced to allowing ourselves to come increasingly under martial law. And for what? So that the grossly obese, tatooed 20-somethings who were standing behind me in the grocery store line yesterday, encouraging their friends to get on the food stamp program, can score more government benefits at my expense? I, who still work hard and am at least 40 years these young peoples’ senior, can pay their way through life so that they can score more freebies at my expense? Gee, and the government wonders why there is so much discontent throughout our country.
I have read that it is projected that the US populace will have 2-3 weeks to get out of the dollar once the Euro bites the dust. I shudder to think what will happen when all of these fat, ill-equipped to handle reality individuals are finally cut loose to fend for themselves and can no longer receive government benefits. This is not going to be a pretty picture, as JHK has warned us so consistently in the past.
James, I have a question for you. You wrote, “None of them has a clue that reality has other plans for the US economy…”
I find that hard to believe. The facts about the economy (world and national), climate change, peak oil… they’re all readily available. The people who run the government – not, necessarily, elected politicians and appointees, but those who are there year in and year out, regardless of what ‘flavor’ the public elected – must be aware of these things. What are their plans?
I would be interested in your thoughts on this.
What gets me is the use of the word “Heroes” to descibe those poor souls that died in the 9/11 attack. They were victims, not heroes, as opposed to the men and women that tried to save any survivors. Frankly, I can’t stand any of this 9/11 crap, especially given the fact that the bozos that lied us into war afterward are still walking around scot free.
Is Huitzilopochtli behind all this, fattening us up for the alter?
Apparently he also likes freshly-murdered languages served up steaming on his ALTAR 😉
Great post, though. I observed the 10th anniversary of 9/11 by spending time with my family, splitting wood for our winter’s heat, and enjoying the fresh air outdoors.
Today’s CNN.com poll about what 9/11 made us do made me sad. Most votes: consume more. Fewest votes: volunteer more.
Well it sure is good to know I am not the only one who couldn’t down the saccharine-sweet spoonfull of arsenic-throrazine tinted cough syrup that was the events of this past weekend.
Since I no longer watch TV except for True Blood and Jeapordy, I missed all the solemn remembrance events.
But a part of me wonders what kind of remembrance we’ll be “watching” when the whole system crashes down and 9-11 was merely a warning shot accross the bow. Did the Romans, the Napoleonic French, the Nazis, the Empire of the Sun, the Vikings, the Mongols, etc…. What was trheir day of remembrance, or was the ending of it all for them what really mattered and nobody wished to remember?
Jim’s allegory to the Old Huitzee is not only spot on but prophetic… Was 9-11 the big event, or just the nosebleed before a massive cranial embolism? Shudder to think….
(no, climate change here, just move along please)
============
It looks like it’s shaping up to be a punctuation day.
I’m guessing you actually meant (no climate change here,
OK, that’s two thoughts in a row totally f’d up by the use of or failure to use a comma, first by Lbend and then by Zaax. Let’s see what other gems may follow.
Neil Postman nailed it 20 years ago with “Amusing Ourselves to Death”
Not only does the title neatly sum it up, he was able to describe what we’ve become based on the early ripples on the shore that have since become a tsunami engulfing us all.
“Further, God has not suspended the laws of ecological population dynamics or physics in deference to our faithful prayers.”
Dirk,
Why the hell not? I also thought there would be a magical, endless supply of Cheez Doodles, Barcaloungers and giant screen entertainment in heb’bin. Isn’t that why we kneel, fold our hands together and try to look humble? I had thought that was to ensure a nicely stocked cozy crib on the “other side”. Shit, hornswoggled again…
Sounds a bit like you are beginning to choke on your own vomit there Jim Bob? I understand. I watch the media propaganda and the mass ignorance of the slaughter of those innocent people on 9/11 and it makes me want to puke.
Maybe all the genetically modified corn pone I was raised on has caused structural damage to the foundations of my mind? I could really use some help in understanding just WHAT happened to building 7? And why do so many people keep bringing it up?
I agree with judetennessee: If we’re going with bloodthirsty Aztec god metaphores, Tlaloc is a better choice, since it was believed that Tlaloc pereferred his sacrifices in the form of drowned children, which he re-payed with rain and prosperity. They believed the more the children cried before being sacrificed, the better the rains would be.
It’s a small step from mortgaging our children’s futures in the name of short term prosperity to simply throwing them into a lake with their hands tied.
“…to ensure a nicely stocked cozy crib…”
Q, there’s another for ya! ;o)
(Even though it doesn’t really change the meaning.)
The reflecting pool drains into an inner cascade that seem to be doing just that.
==============
My impression was of a square toilet where America doesn’t swirl but just goes straight down the drain.
I really would like to have the designer of this monstrosity explain his/her rationale.
Well Zaax, Gov Perry has asked everybody to pray for rain at the same time he proposes cutting the budget for voluntary firemen by 75%. If he ever gets elected, I’m guessing that prayers will be on everybody’s lips.
I love cabbage soup!
Actually, there is a vow of silence about Building 7, at least in the coporate media.
And what’s with the two beams of light shining into the night sky? (Although Harper’s points out that even two interfered with bird migration).
There should be three beams of light confusing the migrating birds.
But I’m glad that so many other people are disgusted by the annual “no pain like our pain” celebration.
Maybe it was OK for America to wallow in self-pity in the days after 9-11-2001, although, even then, we had to forget native Americans in the constant repetition of the mantra that no one had ever been slaughtered in such numbers on our soil before.
But now, when over a million corpses and countless destroyed buildings lie in the wake of our revenge, it is extremely unseemly for us to participate in the wailing and breastbeating over one day 10 years ago.
It’s very embarassing.
Well, here’s a lame poke at it…
“The memorial’s designer, Michael Arad, was a young, little-known architect whose plan was selected out of 5,200 proposals.
He told CBS: ‘These two acre-sized voids are like a moment of silence and what we do with that moment of silence depends on us. We just want to make sure everything is done very carefully. We’re building for the ages.’
-Daily Mail, UK
Ummm, could he possible BE any more vague? I guess this is what passes for “brilliance” these soggy-bottomed days. Hey, Mikey, while yer up; take a piss for me, would’ja dude?
Maybe the Europeans got on with rebuilding after WW2, but the US used Hitler almost everytime it attacked another country. Until the Day That Changed Everything.
Then, Al Quaeda started being the designated Bad Guy.
Until Libya. Now the US is again allied with Al Quaeda. But I heard a very sincere man (maybe he closed his windpipe?) explain that it was OK for the US to allied with Al Quaeda in Libya, because they were only terrorists when Ghaddfi was in power, and now they have renounced terrorism.
Well. OK, then.
Right on Dirk!!
And, to top it all off… there is no god; “God Is Dead”
Thor – but it is not human nature taking its course; it is civilized behavior taking its course.
You’re so right, sadly.
Marx nailed the dynamics of capitalism, and pointed out that the contradictions lead to speculation and collapse.
But living in the 19th century, the time when human possibilities seemed endless, led him to the hope that humanity would go back to cooperation and sharing.
He couldn’t have forseen the rise of mass psychology, and the ability of the ruling class to so masterfully manipulate perceived reality. Although he did point out that the ideas of society are those of the ruling class. But were priests ever able to do what TV can?
So, here we are, in a stripped and polluted world, watching as the last bits of Nature are sacrificed to capitalism, and the great mass of yeast people are about to find out that we need air, food and water to survive, even if that is bad for the Economy.
Huitzilopochtli that’s good, I’m reminded why I read this column.
No doubt the Mayan leaders conducted their political, administrative, and economic functions right along next to their heart extractions. The priests and nobles of that day cared not for their people, nothing has changed.
The analogy fits too well, it’s very creepy and 2012 is just around the corner.
I’m correcting myself Mayan shoulb be Aztec.
Q.,
Sorry: “possibly”.
Q, your post appears to take a zero tolerance approach to punctuation. It just eats shoots and leaves. 🙂
Add Asoka to Lbend and Zaax.
we spend trillions of dollars on defense and spying and no one was able to stop the 911 event….maybe we need to double done and spend twice as much…oh wait we have…!
napolean built an arch for his triumph while we build a hole in the ground for our memorial…we have some weird ideas of whats is what today…?
..actually a decent article today mr kunstler.
+100 points for “spavined.” Well done sir!
We canned garden vegetables all day and avoided television. Our popular culture has turned into a particularly virulent episode of Jerry Springer, with no one to call out the networks for their total lack of sensibility. If Hoover Dam was built in two years and ahead of schedule, why do we still have a big hole in the ground?
Obama’s vocal sleight-of-hand convinces no one except his benighted worshipers. I particularly hate it when he refers to the random populace as “folks”. You can almost see him choke on it. Did you read that Jackie Kennedy referred to the sainted MLK as a “terrible man and a phony”? Props to Jackie, but keep in mind that MLK wasn’t the last of the phony “black” politicians.
Where’s Vlad?
Isn’t that why we kneel, fold our hands together and try to look humble?
============
A similar thought/question goes through my head as I watch football. The exceptional black athlete (they are usually but not always black) – a cornerback, running back or a defender intercepting a pass – scampers into the endzone and goes to one knee with head bowed for a brief moment. Presumably he is thanking The Lord for the gift of the physical attributes that have allowed him to accomplish this amazing feat.
The prayerful athlete is given his moment, unmolested by joyful teammates, who would otherwise (if he weren’t in prayer mode) jump on him, do leaping chest bumps or smack his helmeted head repeatedly.
It is all ritualized and quite predictable. A 270 lb defender who makes a crushing sack of the opposing quarterback does NOT go to one knee with head bowed to thank the Lord. No, he makes a goofy testosterone chest-pounding display of strength and aggression.
And if the sport happens to be tennis the gifted athlete who amazes the crowd with a no-look between-the-legs winner does not drop to one knee in prayer. Not even when the match is won … no, the acceptable gesture is to fall down on the court in a state of utter collapse in amazement at what he or she has just accomplished.
I keep wishing one of those female journalists who prowl the sidelines (I’m back talking football again) to do color commentary (they always use female sports chicks in this role) or to advise us the results of x-rays in the case of gruesome injuries where the player is driven from the field on a battery powered gurney, would get in the face of one of the post-touchdown prayer-offerors and probe him for an explanation of what, precisely, he said in his prayer and to whom.
As to Jesus in an Armani suit, some fundamentalists here in Canada have already figured out that Our Lord and Saviour needed a make-over. Knocking on my son’s door recently, the earnest ones left a flyer with a lovely picture of a re-made Jesus on the front. While still wearing the traditional robes, his hair had been cropped quite short in a look that we dubbed “Business Casual Jesus”. Mounted for the time being on the fridge door, it’s a source of much amusement to us heathens.
I would have loved to get in on the discussion that led to the hair cut for Him. Did they decide he looked too much like a hippie, or maybe a Muslim? Did they think cleaning up his look would lead to more converts? Quite bizarre.
What I really want to know today is how my life long favourite science fiction author, Robert Heinlein, knew so long ago that fundamentalist Christians would take over the USA and impose a totalitarian system of government?
Check out his book called “Revolt in 2100” about the resistance movement that broke the fundamentalists’ back. First alluded to in his landmark book “Stranger in a Strange Land”, this one is copyrighted in 1954, and is becoming increasingly prophetic as time wears on. Downright freaky, as we used to say. How the hell did he know some sixty years ago that this was the fate we were doomed to live?
Yesterday I swore that I would avoid all 911 TV shows–I had myself worked up about possible follow-up attacks. Then I did kitchen and garden therapy. Made a lovely shrimp and avocado salad for dinner. Planted some dianthus plants and seeds for a new variety of nasturtium.
I’m worried that the US has some bad karma coming its way. Hope karma doesn’t “know the way to San Jose.”
From “Locksley Hall” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson:
Here, Maam. My respect for the Kennedy’s has definitely gone up in the last few days. But I already knew that JFK was not just what the Liberals had made him. In truth, He seemed unfinished in his Ideas. He signed some kind of UN proclomation that would have disarmed the American People. But there is also evidence that he had awakened to the Money scam shorly before his death – and intended to do something about it. Also interested parties might check out his glowing rememberance of Hitler’s economic genius in his book “Profiles in Courage”. He was sure that posterity would judge Hitler well once the hoopla had died down – this was before the rise of the Holocaust Cult of course.
So what to make of him – Playboy or Philosopher? Duped or Duplicitious? Time might have clarified his character and made his a voice of Reason for an America he clearly loved.
I gardened, listen to some Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane, and made a tabbouleh salad, also garnished with avocado slices.
About karma, I was thinking the best time for a repeat performance would be AFTER the ten year anniversary, when the guard is down.
Also, times heals all wounds, if the wounds are allowed to fade in memory. But, to me, the phrase “Never Forget” seems to mean “Never Heal.”
Others have noted the strange symbolism of the down the drain to the underworld motif of the 9/11 memorial. The other irony is the “world’s largest artificial waterfall” and the “heated and cooled bronze inscription monument”. So everything depends on a continuous supply of cheap energy, even our memories?
My other burning question for the day is whether our own JHK, my favourite living author, is a fan of Robert Heinlein? He’s the right age to be a fan and I’m sure he encountered Stranger In A Strange Land too. That book led me to eagerly collect every single one of Heinlein’s books over the years and they have become a big part of my consciousness.
Never mind that a teacher friend of mine was horrified that I liked Heinlein, telling me his writings were obscene. To that I say, so what?
So JHK, if you’re reading this, would you tell us?
I saw a picture yesterday that portrayed Him as a shy muscleman. He’s God for God’s sake! He’s not shy, he’s going to kick ass – your’s included if not first.
Why is a Greek default bad? It will allow the Greeks to localize. They will gain jobs as they grow their own food, provide their own cloths, provide their own energy, build new modes of transport like sailboats. It sounds great for Greece.
I understand that some bank that make high risk investments in Greek bonds will go bankrupt but that is the capitalist way. Make stupid decisions go out of business (evolution for businesses). There will be no shortage of Chinese banks to take over the banking trade to name just one country.
Basically, Greece needs to go the way of Cuba. Localize, become green, become self sufficient. If they remained hooked on debt/imported oil/imported food/imported manufacture from China, it will only hurt more when it eventually does end.
Heinlein’s character degenerated under the influence of the 60’s perhaps. Lazarus Long (a great character) goes back thousands of years to his fuck his own Mother? Please. But at least Heinlein never repented of his machismo as shown in novels like Starship Trooper or a bit of race realism in Farnham’s Freehold. He doesn’t say Blacks are inferior but simply that no one wants to find out. But they are definitely very human and want revenge on Whites. How can one glorify Blacks as being just as good as Whites – and then trash Whites? Heinlein is free of such later irrationalism of the type you roll around in.
Heinlein? Obscene?
Stranger in a Strange Land is a pro-religion, anti-theist book about free love and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but obscene?
Still, it is not surprising that in Rick Perry’s drought-stricken land, Stranger in a Strange Land was challenged as part of the curriculum of a summer “Science Academy” course in Texas. And, for that stupid act, God has punished them with a drought.
Hispanic ball players used to make the sign of the cross in front of the plate when they came up to bat. Yogi Berra once said to one of them, “Oh why don’t you just let Him watch the game”?
How is Yogi doing?
…everyone plant a tree, it’ll do more good than bellyaching.
…down here in brazil, am planting 1,500 nice, not-too-often used wood trees (not endangered) on a rough acre, should bring in about $700,000 over the next 15 years or so, three culls.
either way, helps the environment, helps financially, whoever ends up with the money (me, kids or others near and dear), and helps employ
some workers with the planting/culling.
this would actually be a good idea for young folks to do, plant something when very young that’ll grow into valuable wood/tree products later on….
kind of like a retirement security etc.
peace peaceniks
They won’t stage any follow-up attacks until it’s necessary to do so. Say, a revolt of the unemployed, or sabotage of the oil pipeline, or a movement to restore civil liberties.
But, if an attack really did come from non-US security state forces, San Jose would be top priority.
I used to worry about living close to the Blue Cube in Sunnyvale, back when we were told that the Soviet Union was out to get us.
Remember? They had diabolical plots, worked on daily. They lived only to see us destroyed. Every person in the USSR thought everyday about how to kill us. And I lived next to the control station for the satellites.
But now, the USSR no longer exists. Now, it’s muslims and al queada that exists only to destroy us. They’re out to get us and we must cower and quake in our boots, and line up for Real ID cards to protect us.
Except for the ones in Libya. Those guys are OK.
Dear Kunstlermeister: just read “The City In Mind” a masterpiece of history, architecture, intelligence. One small disagreement re how the good folks of Mexico City meekly went to their deaths: no need to conjure up some pre-lapserian state of non-awareness–I just talked to a Mom @ Walmart who had packed her boy off to Afghanistan (this son who had played soccer with my boy) she was as bland and sweet-mouthed as rice pudding. “I just put my faith in Jesus,” she told me.
The bad karma showed up in San Jose several years ago. All those big box stores. Freeways and expressways. Get rid of the fruit orchards and agriculture and put in more condos, parking lots, and other so-called development. There is no way that scenario is going to end well.
There’s no such thing as karma, or Dick Cheney would be dropped, starving and writhing in pain, right in the middle of the wildfires in Texas.
Wow!
obama eats pancakes…
led him to the hope that humanity would go back to cooperation and sharing.
==============
Go back? Chortle snort.
Please describe in detail for me the time and place of this supposed “cooperation and sharing” … a time when there were no wars nor rumors of wars.
In the 19th century, anthropologists were reporting on aboriginal lifestyles, including Henry Morgan, who investigated the American Indian tribes before they were wiped out.
Many of them lived in what Marx called “primitive communism”, and were much more peaceful and cooperative (obviously) than the European invaders who were busily wiping them out.
Hi Asoka, you Jimi Hendrix/Jefferson Airplane fan, you. You’re dating yourself with that comment, which is fine with me since it’s my era too. Might explain some of our similar sensibilities.
I believe that teacher’s objection to Heinlein was all that sex, particularly the incestuous stuff. Since I had evolved into the Heinlein way of thinking I hadn’t seen much wrong with it, and it took awhile to even realize that’s what this teacher’s problem was. Humph. Middle class suburbanite that he was, he didn’t know any better.
JHK writes:
“More likely, you can expect an unholy shit-storm of credit default swaps setting every bank in the OCED (and few outside it) on fire, and by extension every executive mansion, until you turn around on Saturday morning and the world’s currency system looks like an incinerated slice of smoldering wonder bread.”
Well, it wont be long now. Maybe I should follow JHK’s lead and take a little advance mini-vac before it all falls apart next week.
Maybe Cheney won’t get his karma in this life–but I expect that in his next life he’ll devolve to being a bacteria in the ass of some Taliban leader.
Sorry to mention the 9-11 theme again, but here is one of the best reflections on 9/11 I’ve read for a long, long time… I’m not kidding!
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175437/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_tear_down_the_freedom_tower/#more
Best regards from B.C.S., Mexico
I’m beginning to think that most of these specific predictions/speculations from JHK are self-parody. Something along the vein of ‘humor as the great lubricant of life’ type of intent. Because, I have no doubt that one of these days lubrication will be in high demand.
Revolt in 2100 was one of my all time favorites. I lost my copy in Hurricane Rita. I thought it far fetched when I first read it. not so much now.
Hey Qshtik, you’re slippin’. You didn’t notice he spelled altar wrong.
Great, what species of Tree?
Read ‘HUNDRED YARD LIE’…Its old by now and the HGH powered players MUCH BIGGER.
Are you sure you don’t mean Kali? Check her out at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali
Indian Goddess of time and change, also known as The Dark Goddess. Usually depicted wearing a necklace of human skulls.
Groucy Old Girl, have you read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margart Atwood? Another futuristic story of fundamentalist Christians taking over. Quite scary, especially if you’re a woman.
times heals all wounds,
===============
This is like saying “the internets.”
Sounds great, but remember that the average Cuban lost 30 pounds during the ‘special period’. Of course, that might not be a bad thing.
Margaret Atwood is another great reason I love Canada.
From Elaine Supkis blog…………….
‘Israeli Racists Want To Ship Africans To Australia’
Her latest!
Helen, yes I certainly have read that one. Since Atwood is a fellow Canadian living just up the road from me in Toronto, I’ve read lots of her stuff. I recommend that anyone who has only seen the movie should read the book to get the real thing. It is quite ominous, and I think of it often when I pull out my bank debit card to pay for something. I suspect that secretly there are many alleged liberated men out there who would just love to have the ability to put women back in their place: completely dependent on them. Very scary indeed.
WOW, Thanks again Jim for another Monday morning head butt. I was thinking this weekend, while seeing the WTC / 911 memorial for the first time, what a more fitting monument that would be for all the soldiers who died and for those who were maimed in pursuit of these endless futile wars. Lives and loves endlessly pouring right down the rat-hole… Such a waste, especially in the context of so many other pressing needs.
Historical Note: the 300 were a very tough crew but they did not bring down the Aztec Empire all by themselves. They had thousands of Indian auxillaries – subject peoples who were glad to have a chance to throw off the Aztec yoke and avoid getting eaten.
how about them cowboys ?
It is also known as a simple typo. 🙂
typo shmypo
😉
Good point. You don’t hear much about all the lost records. Pretty convienient when you think about it. There is a good book by Denise Smith former NYFD turned writer. He brings up the points of how little attention was given to the fact that the towers came down so quickly with what should’ve been a sustainable impact. Remember that in 1944 a B-25 smacked into the upper floors of the Empire State building with minimal damage to the building. And how millions of dollars and a year or so is spent reconstructing an airplane crash which claims maybe 200 to 300 lives. The WTC was scooped up and hauled off to a landfill as quickly as possible. Not much forensic investigationg done. Maybe someday a hundred years from now someone will find that the steel used wasn’t up to spec just like the rivits on the Titanic !
That was a pretty sobering web site to look at. The start of the World Made by Hand ? How many of these “camps” do you think are out there ?
I guess we’ll just have to see how far down we fall.
Qshtik replied to comment from asoka. | September 12, 2011 3:36 PM | Reply
times heals all wounds,
===============
This is like saying “the internets.”
Hey, if it’s good enough for George Bush, it’s good enough for Asoka.
“Maybe Cheney won’t get his karma in this life–but I expect that in his next life he’ll devolve to being a bacteria in the ass of some Taliban leader.”
I think you meant to say that he’ll EVOLVE to being a bacteria in the ass of some Taliban leader. LMAO! ;0
I love her posts!
Exactly. George Bush was right to say “internets” (plural). Although the original Internet was invented by DARPA (funded by Al Gore), there are many government, corporate, and university internets. The two best known are the internet you’re reading this on and Internet2 which is used by a consortium of universities.
Asoka, Q, and the rest of you scoundrels. Greetings and salutations.
Hey, I’m not banned. Neat huh? I know you people loves me. I guess they must have firewalled this site at work or in front of kunstler.com itself though, due to all the naughty words floating over the wires these past few months (years really). I notice that the pissant is nowhere to be found here (yet?). Hopefully, there was a permanent solution found to combat his annoying asshattery.
Any-who, I was (re)reading that old chestnut, The Creature From Jekyll Island, last night. What a humdinger of a good read. It states that all money is created from debt by bank loans, and that if all debt were paid, there would be no money. Crazy huh? So I guess we need at least some of this debt floating around in order to buy our Cheezedoodles and tickets to NASCAR unless you want to trade for chickens or moonshine or something.
I dunno though about all the weekly doom and gloom. Every week we get some prognostication about how, “This can’t go on much longer.” or “No way the Euro will last through the end of the month.” It gets a bit old. The whole shibboleth has shambled along zombie-like for so many years now that no one can make an accurate prediction about when it will all come crashing down. Financially, the major players will just continue to rollover and reschedule all the debts. That will be no problem, as finance is mostly bookkeeping trickery, and that’s exactly what they’ve been doing for years.
What will be far more harmful to people will be inflation (esp. of essentials like food and gasoline), food shortages (already seen throughout the globe), and the effects of natural disasters and ongoing global phenomena such as climate change, in addition to political and cultural upheaval.
The financial end of things has always been pretty much tailor made for banks to make a profit no matter no matter what and to be bailed out when they screw up. I don’t see that changing, due to capture of the highest levels of government by the financial oligarchs. But can our financial system really collapse all at once? When the Fed can simply make up trillions of dollars on the spot and helicopter it in to the Citibank helipad (so to speak), special delivery, can’t the game continue ad infinitum? Of course, the effects of inflation could become quite severe if it continues forever. But as far as immediate, “the sky is falling” problemos, I’d be more worried about all those angry starving people in the Third World. I dunno, perhaps it is just me, as I’m pretty financially secure.
Anyways, carry on.
Q, what does one have to do with the other?
You could still have a tribe or limited subset of people cooperating and sharing amongst themselves in their own area within their group, even while warring with others. From the (admittedly limited) amount of sociology texts I’ve read on primitive tribes, many are far more like communists than little capitalists. They don’t tend to have a lot of possessions and share what they have. Many of the tools are considered communal property. Sharing amongst the group is quite common, as in the weekly kill being brought into camp and share among all the inhabitants (This still occurs in a few relatively untouched African tribes.). That’s the kind of basic sharing and cooperation that I believe is being discussed. I read one modern piece (sorry don’t remember exactly where) that implied one of the major problems with the rural poor moving to cities is this change from communalism to “every man for himself.” For example, in the village, you could pretty much sit yourself down at any table and get at least a basic meal, which is not the case in the hard knock urban slums of the Third World.
Though I agree with you that a worldwide, Communist, caring and sharing utopia where peace rules the earth is about as likely as Cheney admitting that he did 9/11. Cooperative behavior seems to be built into us as humans, prob because it has evolutionary advantages to get along well with others, in a “you scratch my back…” kind of way.
Or am I missing something more subtle in this discussion?
Sharing amongst the group is quite common, as in the weekly kill being brought into camp and share among all the inhabitants (This still occurs in a few relatively untouched African tribes.). That’s the kind of basic sharing and cooperation that I believe is being discussed.
================
If you go by my own family and, to a degree, by my extended family there is without question sharing and cooperation. Nobody ever comes to a birthday party or Thanksgiving dinner and leaves without plastic containers of leftovers to enjoy the next day.
But Wage was not talking about families or even tribes. She spoke of “humanity” and today that’s 7 billion people. Even throughout the recorded history that we’re aware of up until recent centuries the headcount of humanity is generally believed to be 500 million.
Despite being a non-religious atheist I buy the biblical words that “there will always be wars and rumors of wars” … hardly what you would call sharing and cooperation. Look around you right now … how could you believe otherwise?
Turkle, glad to see you back. I don’t think you are missing anything. I think you are right on target with regard to cooperation being hardwired in us.
You say:
I lived over a decade in the third world (southern hemisphere) and saw a lot of cooperation. The indigenous had “mingas” … much like what we used to do in the USA with barn raisings.
In the urban areas no matter how poor a family was they always had room for one more at the table. Then they would dance all night and invite you to stay over, and feed you breakfast in the morning.
Taxi drivers would tell me about relatives who went north to the USA and then decided to return home because in their home country they had family and would not starve, but in the USA they did not have either the emotional support of a family and when they could not earn enough to survive in the USA there was no safety net.
Now that I am temporarily back in the USA I have come across many immigrants from the global south who are dirt poor here and feel alone. What they uniformly say to me is: if I am going to be poor, it is much better to live poor in my home country where there is family and where they may be poor but they will not starve. The quality of the food is also better than in the USA.
When TSHTF I’m pretty sure there will be a mass exodus of immigrants from the USA. Many only came to the USA because they were seduced by false advertising and political propaganda about the American dream that turns out to be a nightmare.
I can’t blame them for leaving the USA. Here in the USA they come to appreciate what they left behind. They realize they can return to a country where they have good and cheap public transportation, a loving family in a “we” society, single payer health care, and better quality food. Where I lived you could go to the farmers’ market, pick out food freshly harvested, and shop for the whole week for US$20 (I didn’t buy animal products).
Wonder what happened to Alexandra and Iownalaudromat? I miss them.
What they uniformly say to me is: if I am going to be poor, it is much better to live poor in my home country where there is family and where they may be poor but they will not starve.
================
By all means these people should return to their homelands. Who or what is stopping them?
Would someone else here care to continue this reply? Asoka’s flip flopping from one day to the next still amazes me. I grow weary. Be sure to mention the mayhem and piles of bodies in Mexico … a country to which its citizens, currently in the US, fear returning, even for a week’s vacation. Ditto for Honduras.
Polenta is a dish made from boiled cornmeal. My mother made it for us during those great snow days in the 70’s. The way things are going that old Italian dish will be a great meal in the future. Take your fresh tomoates, fresh homemade sauce and your meal is ready. JHK, a truly great essay this week. I fear for all the young children in my neighborhood, and the Seniors who are still active. I agree we are not worshipping the teachings of Jesus Christ, instead the religious right is praying to Cthulhu!! Cthulhu for President. Why vote for a lesser evil?
I’m more assured with each day that the FIC (fuckers in charge) are and have long been convinced by the arguments of Messrs. Kunstler, Martensen, Heinberg, Matt Simmons et al. They are preparing for the coming Resource Wars. What else explains the insane explosion in military, intelligence and “security” spending and bases worldwide—after the fall of the Soviet Union? Certainly not “terrorism.” Not even the obscene profits of the arms industry accounts for it.
The old post-colonial game of the 60s of hire-a-dictator-and-a-few-of-his-thugs-as-stand-ins, ala Sadam Hussein, isn’t good enough anymore. When the SHTF, air power can’t cut it; it’s gonna take boots on the ground.
The FIC want to make sure that the gas pump that squeezes the last drop of gasoline from the earth is prized out of the cold, dead hands of an American G.I. They know that’s the way the American people want it and will accept nothing less. Like Slim Pickens riding his nuke in Dr. Strangelove, we want to ride this hypertrophic, overblown Rube Goldberg device of a civilization into the ground screaming at the top of our lungs and waving our cowboy hats. We will not compromise on the American way of life. Not even with reality.
Mr. K. hasn’t said it—yet—but what he’s talking about is the death of the middle class, the one and only American dream.
America’s incredible natural wealth, the frenzy of economic activity in building an advanced civilization ex nihilo, the industrial revolution, the “labor peace” at the end of WWI and seemingly endless supplies of fossil fuel allowed us to delude ourselves that we could build a completely middle class society. That and the fact that we have chosen to ignore the poverty created by the perpetual economic churn of capitalism, to demonize “the poor” (working people) and blame their poverty on their own “moral bankruptcy” rather than economic conditions.
The last of the long series of conditions that allowed the American miracle is playing out now.
We have managed for generations to obfuscate a basic economic fact: each middle class life is built on the labor of tens, hundreds, thousands of working people. Fossil fuels, “labor saving devices”—and endless gobs of self-delusion—have muddled and obscured that equation somewhat. We’ve pretended that wealth is a “no harm, no foul” game, but we enrich ourselves by impoverishing others. “Think and grow rich” doesn’t work nearly as well as stealing the labor of others.
We’re going to see the reemergence of the working class. There’s gonna be some really ugly, pissed off people.
“That’s going to screw Europe – because it won’t just be Greece leaving the Euro.”
Iceland makes icebergs out of thiers. Use fresh water and make ice. Lemonada…
pried, not prized.
Q said: “Asoka’s flip flopping from one day to the next still amazes me.”
——————
My position has not changed, Q. I have always said the borders should be open and people should be free to move both directions. No flip flop, just a belief in the right of movement on the planet.
What ever happened to those 1.2 billion Chinks *shooting the moon*, 2-4+ years ago? I hear the US is going to send yet another unmanned mission to the moon, @ year’s end.
I thought we discovered everything we wanted to know about the moon? Why are we going there again, *unmanned*?
LOL, this sh!t’s gunna get real nasty, real *fast*. In other words, all the human race will find on the moon, are remnants of the USSR’s 3-5 unmanned missions from ~1965-1968…
Such a sad state of affairs… *EAT* that solar wind, you knuckleheads! 2-8 days worth should render you a radioactive *CORPSE*.
prise or prize (pra?z)
— vb
1. to force open by levering
2. to extract or obtain with difficulty: they had to prise the news out of him
prise or prize (pra?z)
— vb
1. to force open by levering
2. to extract or obtain with difficulty: they had to prise the news out of him
==============
That’s a new one on me. I stand corrected.
WWII btw.
Can economic circumstances ever get so bad that it is good for a sitting president? I’m thinking that if Europe does indeed blow up the current administration has their political cover, as in Europe dragging down the U.S. Of course, there would be truth to that scenario, just as it was true that President Obama inherited an economic disaster – 598,000 lost jobs per month when President Obama took the helm. So despite reversing 598,000 lost jobs per month and adding adding jobs, the GOP, aided by the short attention span of Americans, will attempt to sell the current economy as an Obama failure.
Just a morose thought for a dark blog.
“And you and I” – Yes.
Yours is no disgrace…
Starship Trooper…
I’ve seen all good people…
Roundabout…
Long distance runaround…
their 1999 album is *EVERY SINGLE SONG* good…
No more, NO MORE! (Pink Floyd, The Wall) *STOP*!!!
Obama sure poses well. He is the quintessential representative of the new America, shallow and foggy, put into office by same. How fitting that he is arrogant enough to even try to run for a second term in office. It’s pure poetry in motion. His 3/4 view is his best don’t you think?
I have to say you seem very happy Ixnei, which might be one of the Owner of a Lonely Heart perks -i.e., it doesn’t matter if people know what you’re talking about 🙂
Yes, Obama will easily win re-election. There is no one with gravitas to oppose him.
I have long suspected that Robert Heinlein had a time machine and came here from the future. His stories were fascinating, but I did not care for his nationalistic saber-rattling he sometimes did. Perhaps he knew the results of doing nothing about foreign tyrants. We should seek peace, but remain alert to the evil that stalks the world.
Aunt Jemima’s?
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=176423
We describe “another universe” with “new laws of physics” using our universe with these laws of physics. That means we use this universe’s logic, mathematics, language symbols, etc. So, in essence, no matter how wild and far out the new universe with new laws of physics we describe or invent is, it is essentially always this universe with these laws of physics no matter what, since this universe implies this logic, language, mathematics and this particular brain structure to process it all and perceive it all.
But to really go into a new universe with new laws of physics, the only way is to radically modify the brain structure and the decoding – encoding of information, sensations, whatever. Of course this means that the new universe has no relation to anything and everything we already know, it can’t be described within our language or thought, etc. It is not observable.
As a corollary, any universe with new laws of physics that we can think up of, that we can invent and imagine is essentially just a subset of this universe, is just a system that exists within this universe and is not really outside of ours. Even a wildly abstract metaphysical universe, like a non mathematical universe, or a totally contradicting universe, or a universe in which logic – language and thought cannot be used, in short, no matter how inconsistent and contradictory, no matter how totally incomprehensible the new universe we describe – invent is, it really remains a subset of ours, as it can still be related in some way to ours (like “thought by our brain, which is part of this universe” ?), if even very remotely, if even we describe it as having “no relationship at all to our universe – laws of physics”, if even it is described as “totally non related to our universe and us”, it still is related as it still can be described by a sequence of symbols in our universe and compared to ours, we can still use our language to describe it, even if the description is all wrong, etc.
As in all information is real, as in all of the laws of physics are just Informational Relationships, therefore we can invent trillions of new universes.
But something interesting happens: since any universe we invent and imagine with new laws of physics is a subset of this universe, then we can just assign a new universe that is defined as not being a subset of this universe, as being really completely outside of this universe, and as being totally unrelated, therefore we really can create – invent – assign a 100 % new universe with new laws of physics outside of ours. And we can assign that universe as being trillions of times more real than ours, and assign our universe as a subset of that new one, or anything else. In short we can invent – assign – lie, make up anything and assign it as true, and it becomes true, etc.
Therefore any combination of words, concepts and symbols, any thought, anything, no matter how abstract, even if it is 100 % noise and random, no matter what, anything is a completely new universe with new laws of physics, in short, you are now free to invent anything you want, it is all true (and false, who cares, true and false can be redefined and manipulated as you want), any concept, a sequence of symbols, any relationship you want entities and items to have, just assign it, it is true and valid, etc.
LOL!
Yes, what those histrionics REALLY represent would be the only thing about sports-for-profit I’d like to know, as well. Why isn’t anybody getting a little tired of these childish “lookatme-lookatme-mommy” displays? Gads, what a retarded “society”!
Maybe that should be *emotionally* retarded?
(Yes, I am also an example from time to time; lawdy he’p me, and more’s the shame.)
I’m worried that the US has some bad karma coming its way. Hope karma doesn’t “know the way to San Jose.” -SJM
Well, you got through the braying-of-many-jackasses day okay by interacting with the “natural world”. That settles the mind, doesn’t it?
As far as the karma thang, I dunno. Sounds to me like some cosmic revenge plot, and I ain’t so sure the cosmos really gives much of a shit about the clever monkeys. ;o)
Unfortunately, I think we (the little people) will be forced into [mostly] reactive mode when the movers and shakers decide to let the tent collapse when they pull up stakes. Can’t worry too much, you’ll drive yourself bonkers; making up a bug-out kit might ease your mind some. Tell the kids, “No fucking make-up, no fucking CD’s!”.
;o)
This was a good one, JHK. The cultural reality
vs. the real reality. For the Aztecs, this
meant Huitzilopochtli vs. drought, perhaps.
Cortez arrived as if from a flying saucer, and was interpreted by them as a god who had been foretold.
What is our Huitzilopochtli? For JHK, that is the automobile itself, I presume. So what is it for me?
Hey, it’s 1000 years in the future and archaeologists are digging up Hollywood Boulevard. And there they find … all these images of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Charlie Chaplin, the Beatles. And they conclude these were our gods, and this was the cultural reality by which we destroyed ourselves.
And this is true. These symbols represent pleasure seeking, hero worshiping, vicarious living, and repetitious pleasures, industrially produced, to which we sacrificed our health, our minds, our future. Very much like giving oneself to the priests who will cut out your heart.
Lpat,
…And further, to get the “citizens” on the same page with this em’par deal, a galvanizing event was needed.
Here, in 5 minutes, is all you need to know. Now, be calm, get in line, and fer crissakes, stop that thinking stuff!
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29110.htm
(This one’s for you to, Wage. Enjoy!)
“The Aztecs had everything going for them except their reality, at the center of which was this bloodthirsty hallucinated monster….”
-JHK-
Wow – home run, James!
Because of the scientific method, it’s easy to argue that the reality of Western progress has been fairly close to the reality of reality – until post WWII America came along.
And our reality has three “unrealities” that will destroy us:
1. Unlimited growth is possible and desirable
2. Growth always makes things “better.”
3. Forty years is a long time.
I think that it is #3, and our skewed and distorted view of the passage of time, that are likely to destroy us – and most/all of humanity, perhaps, along with us.
Excessive legal immigration and demographic trends mean that the US will be one of very few countries with a growing population in 2050.
Fossil fuels for agriculture (and anything else) will be mostly GONE by 2050.
There’s a cliff ahead.
Either we go over at full speed.
Or crash into the base.
Only a realignment of American human nature –
or a repeal of the “laws of physics,”
can help us. Both seem unlikely.
Pretty good comments this week, though!
**too**
P2C,
I like THIS comment! ;o)
The only thing I might have a quibble-some moment with, is the idea that populations ANYWHERE will be “growing” (in biological reality). Sure, running hither and yon, chasing resouces, but that would be what would determine the numbers flux, IMHO. (As you imply: migration.)
**Only a realignment of American human nature –
or a repeal of the “laws of physics,”
can help us. Both seem unlikely.**
Let’s get to work on repealing those pesky laws of physics! Perry and his faithful flock can pray ’em away, I’m certain.
(Good one, BTW.)
You are so right. For some reason the drum beating of this weekend story of the “enemy” who wants to destroy us, seemed overdone and false. 10 years ago, I believed the govt. story about the “enemy”. But if you just scratch under the surface, and do the minimum police work, the motive for the “inside job” was to go to war and control its population with the “patriot act” FEMA, and the TSA. WE have become the enemy in a world that the Govt. says is hostile to americans, and the terrorists are trying to destroy us, and shoes and underwear terrorists are about to take over the country. We have become the terrorists now, with the statement,”homegrown” leading us to subject our own people to scrutiny in the name of “safety”. ALL A BUNCH OF LIES> We cannot go into other countries ie. the middle east, and take over in the name of “democracy”. WE put the govts. there to begin with, now we decide to get rid of them. WHY? Who annointed us the Saviours of the world? Do we want to protect those Paris Hiltons, drugged out ghetto blacks, and white trash, and the right of the Bravo Channel to show us the “Housewives” series. I as sure don’t want to protect them. As a matter of fact, we should send those types overseas to fight. Getting rid of them could only lead to GOOD things. Unfortunately, America will have to pay for the lies, lies to our own citizenry, lies to the people of the middle east or where ever we go, in the name of “democracy”. American values are being sorely tested now. We have a lot to correct. Is is possible? I really don’t think the Baby Boom generation can even begin to understand all they lost when they wanted to “change” our country with the histronics of the 60’s drug hippie culture. How can they change now. They are running the Govt.
How can anyone believe the White House after obamas speech, comes:”There is a credible threat, possible Home Grown terrorist attack”. Hunker on down sheeple in your cages, and be fearful, is the translation. The Govt. will protect you. I don’t know about you all, but the barrels of those automatic machine guns can kill us americans, as well as the so called “Terrorists”. Very dangerous saber rattling in NYC>
And just maybe Osama can go to the red carpet awards ceremony for the movie and accept his award for the best performance in a farce that tricked the americans into believing he was the enemy, and now being dead of course, we are safer, thanks to the might of the Govt. ability to take on terrorism. Dead Osama, will be in disguise as a live person, and accept on his own behalf. (Fellini would have loved it).
Naturally, the award will be handed to him by Pres. Obama and Bush.
(Paul Craig Roberts on the Toronto hearings.)
“The NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology, a government agency) reports on the twin towers and building 7 are fraudulent. Witnesses at the Toronto Hearings proved that building 7 was a standard controlled demolition and that incendiaries and explosives brought down the twin towers. There is no doubt whatsoever about this. Anyone who declares the contrary has no scientific basis upon which to stand. Those who defend the official story believe in miracles that defy the laws of physics.”
Damn! Now you see why it’s DOUBLY important to repeal those inconvenient laws of physics!
Not only the laws of physics, but the amount of evidence that supports inside job theory is so great that the Govt. has no chance of defending itself, except to label those who question, “conspiracy nuts” etc. and then continue the fear mongering like this weekend to justify their actions in killing thousands of innocent civilians. (not to mention the thousands outside this country). It does speak very loudly to the belief in NEVER volunteering to help in this kind of catastrophe until we know who is really behind it, and how far reaching it can be. Many of those who helped out in NYC are now suffering from fatal diseases.
Okay, but don’t you think that linking hippies to empire-continuation is a bit of a stretch?
If so, ‘murkin “values” are not being sorely tested; they’ve been expunged.
I just meant the Baby Boomer thinking of that time has not quite left the american landscape yet.
Now I get your drift.
BTW, I had forgotten to give a link to that article by PCR. He’s hinting at the Orwellian nature of the creeping anti-scientific attitude that’s blinding this country to realities.
Which, I suppose, is it’s point and purpose: if you can’t reason, all that’s left is belief in what you’re “told”. Just look at what JHK keeps hollering about: “growth is a myth in an age of declining access to resources”. But what do we hear, “officially”? “Growth is just “slowing” for the moment; as soon as we plug in the right inputs and re-jigger a few nuts-n-bolts, a return to “normal growth” will surely be in our wondrous and deserved future.
Anyhoo:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29103.htm
“I really don’t think the Baby Boom generation can even begin to understand all they lost when they wanted to “change” our country with the histronics of the 60’s drug hippie culture.”
-insuff-
You’re going to have to elaborate, Insuf.
I never saw where the “histronics of the hippie drug culture” hurt a thing in the world – in any sort of serious or significant way.
“Make love, not war.”
“Get back to the land.”
“Protect the environment.”
-These were generally good, or at least harmless, ideas.-
The problem never was the hippie movement.
The problems came from the (over)reaction of TPTB TO the ’60’s.
“War on Drugs.” – Nixon –
“Trickle Down.” – Reagan –
“We kicked the Viet Nam syndrome.” – BushI –
“The SACRED American Way of Life.” – BushII –
We’re screwed all right, from the looks of things.
But it wasn’t the “hippies” that did the actual screwing – where and when it hurt the most.
Ok. I lost many of my friends to the Counter culture of the 60’s. My cousin got hooked on drugs and died in Haight Ashbury. (spelling?) and many of my friends bought the logic of the times since we were all so young, and went full force into drugs, and never were able to live their life to the fullest. Some went to prison because of their drug habits/selling. The counter culture were not involved in changing the govt for the generation were involved in their own narcisstic pleasures. The war was terrible, but they were so drugged out and sexed out they couldn’t change things because they attacked the problem by rioting etc. They didn’t like religions, govt, or any social norms that would look down at their childish attempts to continue to have fun. It really had nothing to do with helping this country, although the romantic version of what you see was just that and not reality. The Govt. corrupt as it was then,chose to denigrate them in order to maintain their takeover of our country. (via Kennedy assassination). The Govt. has to be changed from the inside out, and look at the mess now. Most of our culture is a result of the aging of the Baby Boomers immersion in Narcissism. They have now achieved a drugged out culture that indulges in sexual prowess and freedoms, and now they have gotten rid of the banking regulations that led to their narcisstic feeding in relation to greed which led the destruction of the banking industry as well as the home markets. All because of the (hippie, for lack of a better word) baby boom lets just party attitude. The self sacrifice that is needed to help others exists of course, but it is overshadowed by the overwhelming ability to party on regardless of the fate of the country. Its the same old same old….narcissism rules. Don’t bother me and I won’t bother you. Of course the govt is now controlled by the Boomers, including Bush mentality (new world order), Clinton (what is the meaning of “is” garbage), Bush II, (what, travel the world? why should I do that?) garbage, and Obama, (vote for me I am going to save you) garbage. All the while, the narcisstic vibe is: Lie to the people, because they really don’t count more than just a vote. Party on!!! Dems and Republicans are the same types just different costumes in a play that will end in tragedy.
We will see a reemergence of the working class only if there is work to do. Otherwise we will see the underclass continue to grow. It seems to me that it is not so bad to be working class. It was the norm forty years ago. My dad (super smart but with an 8th grade education) developed a variety of productive skills. We didn’t just survive as a family, we thrived. We didn’t have as much junk or gadgets but we had enough of everything else including fun.
The key to the future is smaller populations. On that we have to begin somewhere. Japan had a good head start. If not for immigration Europe and North America would be on the right path also. Decline, in the U.S., began with unlimited immigration and globalism. We can’t control how much population growth occurs in Guatemala or India but we can control the numbers moving here if we have the political will and common sense to do so.
As a conservative, I disagree with my colleagues on the roll of government on spurring the economy. There is a vast amount of work that needs doing that only government action can encourage. But cuts would have to be made in unproductive or vastly bloated programs that already exists. I would say defense, foreign aid and any public assistance to foreign nationals would be a good place to start cuts. Cash incentives for sterilizations Could be implemented too.
my above post was replying to lpat.
The powers that be don’t care about the American lifestyle, or what Americans want.
The American lifestyle is not Dick Cheney flying in private jets to golf vacations and duck and lawyer hunting.
The other day we sent a sick baby to St Louis. The mother was crying because she wanted to go, but she didn’t have enough money to buy gas to get there and back.
Plus, her husband didn’t want to take care of the other 6(!) children.
It’s pretty obvious that TPTB have written off the American people. Gas for us? Come on!!
There are STILL cement trucks going down my street each day. I think I mentioned this 2 years ago. What the hell are they building? I was told it was a Red Cross/FEMA disaster building.
Really? This is a sparsely populated area of the country. Why would we need such a vast disaster building?
We already have 14 prisons, up from 2 in 1980. Americans are being taken care of, all right.
Thanks, Ozone. That was a great video. I posted it on Facebook, where it will be ignored by my friends.
About 50 people came to our 9-11 program, over both days. I was kind of disappointed. I was hoping there would be more.
3 people came from St Louis. They said that there was no 9-11 truth meeting in St Louis. I think that is pathetic.
Yes, the volunteers are dying, including the rescue dogs.
When I had the bookstore, I met some people who trained rescue dogs, and they said that many dogs had died from inhaling the toxic fumes at the WTC.
Their dogs were spared, because when they went there, they were told they weren’t needed.
the roll of government
============
Comes with peanutbutter, jam or honey.
That was a major mishmash of trends and people, insufferable.
There were 78 million baby boomers. Not all became hippies, not all went to Vietnam, not all protested Vietnam, not all went to business school, not all took drugs, not all changed the banking laws, and I doubt most of them are still engaging in drug-fueled sex orgies.
You’re painting with a might broad brush.
The problem in the US is not the mass of baby boomers.
It’s the top .01% who own 80% of the wealth, and are trying to get it all, as if they’re playing some demented Monopoly game for real.
Well it seems Michelle Obama has put the 9/11 ceremony in a different perspective, she was caught rolling her eyes at the flag folding part of the ceremony and whispering to the glorious community organizer, “WTF?”
Thank god Americans are fat dumb and happy with their car racin’, football and DWTS because in other kleptocracies ruled by a visable minority such as the glorious USSR and Yugoslavia and various African, Arab hodge podge states the revolution would have begun over such “disrespect.”
Imagine a future stumble bum Israeli leader at the Holocaust memorial glancing at his watch and yawning, imagine Abe Lincoln at Gettysburg dozing off?
Thank god for Michelle it gives us trailer livin’ white trash untermensch of the diversity paradise a bit of snobbery all our own.
I agree with you. The elite does not care about the quality of life of American citizens. The elite claims global citizenship first. The average American is no more to them than a person from any place else. The elite of course are more equal than others regardless of their ideologic perspective.
And I agree with you that we need to pay people who voluntarily sterilize themselves. (Although I have also advocated that, I’m glad that you thought of it also.)
The 28 y.o. with the seven kids probably would have tied her tubes long ago, if there was a cash reward for it. Surely she needed gas money before Friday!
“The problem in the US is not the mass of baby boomers.
It’s the top .01% who own 80% of the wealth, and are trying to get it all, as if they’re playing some demented Monopoly game for real.”
+911
All of our problems are caused by this group and they have the power to prevent real change.
What’s next? Death camps? Soylent Gray? (Old people making a contribution to feed the poor workers). Maybe a false flag biological attack to lower Social Security costs and reduce the “usless eaters” whose jobs have been offshored?
Another problem is most of USA has been programmed from grade school or earlier to repeat what they are told. Those who excell at repeating the propaganda are considered “smart” and rewarded with good positions. Those persisting in independent critical thinking are sidetracked, ridiculed, or worse. Most others are incapable of seriously considering anything that conflicts with the programming. How many people (other than market traders) actively look for evidence that the positions or beliefs they hold are in error?
She was disbarred as a lawyer in the 90’s but no one knows why. Her record has been sealed just as Barack’s and MLK’s. They call it transparency. Anone who lives to see MLK’s record unsealed will be shocked at what the man actually was. His sanctity was completely a creation of the Media.
Michelle…I read she had a job [board of directors/ Chicago hospital? 300K a year]…
The job didnt exist before she got it and it ceased when she moved on, Ooops, I mean up.
Planned Parenthood founding Mother Margaret Sanger was a White Nationalist who set up her clinics near Black neighborhoods.
-Planned Parenthood-
OK – so Planned Parenthood is blocked by the left wingnuts because of “racial genocide” or some such nonsense.
And Planned Parenthood is blocked by the right wingnuts because of the possible death of “fetal tissue” or some such nonsense. (Or because of a generalized fear by RW US Christians that someone, somewhere, might enjoy sex without making babies.)
This has been going on worldwide since the Christian Coalition ’80’s, at least.
It’s business as usual in The US of A, where common sense is outvoted by the illogic of left and right.
You’re going off the deep end here, prog.
Planned Parenthood is not blocked by the left.
And Vlad is not left, so his racial genocide comment is no fodder for your attack.
Are you making an effort to be fair and balanced by attacking the left and the right?
Because it’s not fair or balanced to make shit up in order rail against both sides.
I always suspected Phil Gramm was a Deadhead in disguise.
“Anone who lives to see MLK’s record unsealed will be shocked at what the man actually was. His sanctity was completely a creation of the Media.”
You’ve seen the records?
Planned Parenthood produced….”a leaflet acknowledging that Sanger agreed with some of her contemporaries who advocated the voluntary hospitalization or sterilization of people with untreatable, disabling, hereditary conditions, and limits on the immigration of the diseased. The leaflet also states that Planned Parenthood “finds these views objectionable and outmoded….”
-wikipedia-
(sarcasm) Yep, immigration of the diseased into the US is something that many on the Right advocate for constantly. (sarcasm off)
I was really just tweaking Vlad over abortion, Wage.
But the fact remains that many on the far Left oppose PP because it attempts to reduce birth rates among the poor, brown, or stupid.
Prog is right on that one. A few years ago someone in california was paying for crack addicted mothers to be sterilized. The black community raised hell about genocide even though more whites had their tubes tied. Btw the incentives should for vasectomies also.
Those who excell
============
Only one l Bel
excel
bossier22 said: “we can control the numbers moving here if we have the political will and common sense to do so.”
————–
LOL! One of the funniest comments on CFN.
No you cannot control 6,000 of borders from entry by boat, plane, tunnels, submarines, on foot. The proof is evident everywhere in the USA that the last 30 years of efforts at border control have failed. You could put one million soldiers on every border and you can NOT stop the influx. Give up and stop throwing taxpayer money at border control. It is throwing money down a rat hole.
Obama has put more agents on the border. Obama has deported more immigrants than Bush ever did. But it is all futile and wasteful.
Get real, bossier22. Reality is 20 million immigrants are here and more are coming daily and there is nothing you or Obama of law enforcement can do to stop them.
Immigration is an economic phenomenon that cannot be stopped with “discriminatory anti-immigrant laws,” though it could be slowed down if CEOs starting going to jail for hiring undocumented workers. Don’t hold your breath. Resistance to immigration is futile.
bossier22 said: “The average American is no more to them than a person from any place else.”
——————
You are correct. This is a Christian position.
Jesus loves them all, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight.
Resistance is futile. It does seem like the Borg are taking over Captain Picard. I really don’t think a credible effort has been made at the southern border or other ports of entry. A lot of money has been spent on looking busy. The fact of the matter is the ptb want American society to more closely resemble 3rd world societies with large underclasses. Both sides of the political spectrum has their own reasons for this. As you are probably well aware. You are absolutely right about Ceo’s. just another piece of the puzzle. We have always taken a break from immigration following other waves of mass immigration with laws regulating it. It is time for another break.
“BOB”
Once I had a landlord named Robert Baran.
Every rent day we sang a little song.
http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/09/seeing-stars.html#_login
Census data reveals that the majority of immigrants, legal or illegal, use taxpayer funded welfare programs. In states with high immigrant populations the percentages go like this: AZ 62%, TX, CA, NY 61 % and PA 59%. If nothing else our social safety net and our institutions need a break in austere times.
“We can’t control how much population growth occurs in Guatemala or India but we can control the numbers moving here if we have the political will and common sense to do so.”
-bossier-
Of course we can, bossier – and eventually the people of the US will wake up to this fact – despite all statements to the contrary by asoka., and those of his ilk.
And we’ll wake up to the fact that legal immigration can be reduced more easily than illegal immigration. Even though both should be reduced to “replacement level.”
Did you join FAIR or NumbersUSA?
Maybe you’d like to tell us your reasons.
I decided to join both, though the Southern Poverty Law Center gives its highest ranking to NumbersUSA.
And I’m still looking for a good international population control organization to join.
In an effort to maintain their particular deluded reality and their status-quo Aztec PTB’s sacrifices to Huitzilopochtli, were horrific bloodthirsty visible but very quick. Today the PTB’s sacrifices to maintain our status-quo are prolonged miserable hidden but very clean. Jobs go and people disappear off the radar. Carnage of a different sort.
that was TOTALLY wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wU7RlEmdxE
I joined FAIR but I liked both organizations. It amazes me how people can not grasp how overpopulation affects your personal quality of life. Never mind the big picture of increased resource use with it’s synergistic effects. I really believe some of the job situation would be mitigated by a moratorium on all immigration for now.
Pro, I think we disagree on PP but if my memories right back in a Far Saner Time those immigrants who couldnt support themselves were sent home. Yes?
To those cfn folks who think I’m a hater, try being a little more broad minded yourself. One can’t live in Texas without knowing an illegal personally . Some have become dearly loved friends. So don’t bother with the race baiting please.
bossier22, you want the government to regulate immigration?
You want more government regulation?
You want to interfere with free enterprise, to stop American businesses from hiring essential personnel from other countries?
You want government to interfere with private business?
You want the USA to suffer negative consequences from limiting immigration?
Immigrants create new businesses.
Immigrants create other employment-generating activities.
Immigrants promote the renewal of city neighborhoods.
Immigrants promote commercial districts.
Immigrants strengthen America’s economic ties with other nations.
Immigrants strengthen political ties with other nations.
Immigrants enhance our ability to compete in a global economy.
Immigrants provide leadership in international affairs.
Immigrants provide leadership in international humanitarian affairs.
Immigrants strengthen American scientific resources.
Immigrants strengthen American literary resources.
Immigrants strengthen American artistic resources.
Immigrants strengthen American and enrich America through other cultural resources.
Immigrants promote family values.
Immigrants are important components of good schools.
Immigrants are important components of strong communities.
American immigrants demonstrate to other countries that religious and ethnic diversity are compatible with national civic unity (at a time of ethnic strife in many parts of the world).
Immigrants built America. Immigrants are the reason we have had a democratic and free society.
20 million immigrants are here and more are coming daily and there is nothing you or Obama [of] law enforcement can do to stop them.
Immigration is an economic phenomenon that cannot be stopped with “discriminatory anti-immigrant laws,”
=================
Sure there is … we can make it dangerous to life and limb and a poor economic decision as well.
Only yesterday Asoka would have us believe that immigrants were saying “if I’m going to be poor I might as well be poor among my own people who love me and where I won’t starve to death” (to which I replied, “who’s stopping them from leaving?”).
Today comes the truth … the hordes are still flooding in, not out, and Asoka is reveling that they’re unstoppable. I disagree. I believe they are stoppable and that it is a legitimate function of government to determine who is a citizen and who may become a citizen of the US.
And BTW, what is meant by “discriminatory anti-immigrant laws?” The word discrimination along with racism, prejudice, bias, etc has taken on an absurd negative sense over the decades that is based entirely on political correctness.
Let’s remember:
We revere people with discriminating taste.
Racism is the recognition that groups of people, often due to geographical separation for long periods, differ in language, genetics, religion, culture, etc and these attributes taken together constitute race and each race tends to value and prefer associating with its own kind.
Prejudice is a word comprised of two parts: pre and judge. When I step onto the sidewalk outside my door, unafraid that it will collapse under me, it is because experience has allowed me to pre-judge its safety. We make pre-judgements thousands of times a day. We could not exist and function without the benefit of prejudice. If the sidewalk caves in under my feet tomorrow is this an argument against my 33-year-long sidewalk-safety prejudice?
I am biased toward the welfare of my immediately family before all others. Is this a bad thing?
So, of course, if one is against immigration one must discriminate between (ie identify) those who are citizens and those who are not.
Q said: “I disagree. I believe they are stoppable and that it is a legitimate function of government…”
—————-
They weren’t stoppable under Reagan.
They weren’t stoppable under Bush I.
They weren’t stoppable under Clinton.
They weren’t stoppable under Bush II.
Obama has done a better job than any previous president, but he has not stopped immigration. Obama does not even agree with bossier22’s “moratorium” on all immigration.
Given the evidence of the last 30 years, how do you conclude “I believe they are stoppable”
It is an irrational conclusion. It is in direct opposition to reality. Get real, Q.
Immigration is not stoppable, nor should it be. Immigration is as American as apple pie.
People from other places (Africa, Asia, Europe, etc.) built America.
Stopping immigration would be the death of America.
Just to get back to what Wage and Bossier were discussing a bit earlier about our friends on top of the food chain.
two interesting articles:
Opednews by Bob Kall on a real interesting development with P&G and other multinationals. They are adjusting to the burgeoning American neo-poor and accepting the new reality of a double-tiered system.
They are thinking differently about their market and coming out with products that will be geared to the bottom of the pyramid, globally incl, you guessed it, the ole US of A….
They are not going to be hurt by the death of the middle class, but will in fact do just fine as they sell these low-priced products around the world.
[“P&G’s roll out of Gain dish soap says a lot about the health of the American middle class: The world’s largest maker of consumer products is now betting that the squeeze on middle America will be long lasting.]
——
On Max Keiser there is a link to an article on the Big Picture, (ritholz.com) that discusses the two economies we are now witnessing. The bullish one for the top .1% and the depression for the rest. Even Alan Greenspan admits the distortion of the recovery since 2008.
[“Put another way, the top .1% are currently acting like parasites, stealing the money from the rest of the population.”
Moreover, the giant insolvent banks – which are receiving trillions in bailouts, guarantees and opportunities – are not lending to Main Street, while the smaller banks are (even though the smaller banks are being unfairly penalized by the Fed.) And perhaps most importantly, consumer confidence – and Americans’ confidence that their government is doing the right thing to fix the economy – is extremely low.
Why?
Largely because the rule of law has broken down, and fraud is so rampant – and is actually sanctioned by the government – that it has become “the business model” of Wall Street. And see this.
In short, people no longer trust the economic system, which makes an economic recovery impossible.]
The article suggests that people start working out an alternative economy from the bottom up on a local level. anyway it’s worth a read.
Ignore Ass Soaka!
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE..GANGLAND SLAYINGS AND REVENGE:
The suspect involved in a shooting that killed a 3-year-old girl and critically wounded a pregnant woman and another 3-year-old was apparently angry that a Good Samaritan in their home had tried to stop him from assaulting a woman nearby, according to San Bernardino Police Chief Keith Kilmer.
Both children were shot in the head. The woman, who was five months pregnant, was shot in the neck and the jaw. Police said her unborn child was not harmed. The surviving 3-year-old is in critical condition at Loma Linda University Medical Center.
…………………………………….
Mayor Patrick Morris called on residents to assist with the investigation. Police believe there are witnesses to the shooting, which occurred Monday night in the 1300 block of D Street, six blocks from San Bernardino Police Department headquarters.
………………………………
The shooter was on foot and opened fire on the front patio of the home, which was crowded with children and adults. He fled down the street.
The suspect has been identified as a black man in his early 20s, 6 feet tall and weighing 160 to 170 pounds with a thin build
Thanks LB,
ritholz. com, eh?
Wait not with bated breath, however, I will return. ;o)
Q.,
There is a quick, easy, no-added-expense way to drastically reduce the number of illegal border-jumpers.
Those who would hire illegals having their licenses to **do business** revoked, period, no excuses. I could find you about 4 per day [who employ illegals] without any trouble at all. So, is the INS enforcement arm completely hopeless and helpless, or what’s the story here?
Perhaps the laws against hiring illegals are toothless shams? Well, repeal them and make new ones with some sharp [wallet-shredding] teeth.
If there’s no “incentive” to do so, I think we can all figure out why that might be.
Ps. Prosecuting the illegals is useless and stupid. If they have no gainful employment and cannot collect public services, they’ll go elsewhere.
Prosecute those that give them a reason to come here; those “good citizens” that hire them.
…And let them find their own way out. The taxpayers didn’t “pay” to bring them in, why use public funds to ferry them out?
6 feet tall and weighing 160 to 170 pounds with a thin build
=================
Uh … Duh.
This reminds me of the weather reporting during the height of Hurricane Irene. The outside guy is on the street in the midst of the storm. Everything but his face is covered in rain gear which is flapping furiously in the wind. The rain is so heavy that visibility beyond the reporter is zero around 50 or 100 yards out. There’s a good looking blond chick in the studio (high heels, perky boobs and a little cleavage) asking the outside guy about conditions. She asks – honest to God, I’m not shittin ya – “Joe, is it humid where you are?”
I wish I could recall the guys response. It was brilliant and hilarious and even the blond chick cracked up at her own stupid question.
Oz, to both your posts I say: PRECISELY!!
Ozone said: “The taxpayers didn’t “pay” to bring them in, why use public funds to ferry them out?”
——————-
You are getting there. Take it one step further.
Stop wasting taxpayer money trying to keep them out at the border. Stop wasting taxpayer money trying to “catch” those who cross the border.
Get on the freedom train (endorse freedom of movement on the planet) and stop worrying so much about what others are doing.
Some of the benefits of immigration you listed are old school. The benefit of immigration is a dying paradigm in a resource scarce world.
As I stated earlier I disagree with my conservative buddies about the role of government. I definitely think we need environmental regulation. Air and water quality was worse forty years ago. Now I would like to see some land use regulation to protect not only for wilderness but for farm land preservation. Katy, TX pisses me off. It was a neat agricultural small town. you could see thousands of geese in rice fields from the road in fall. Now, it is a mega-burb of Houston with seven 5A high schools. A pity.
I also think we need a population plan before it becomes more of issue than it already is. Immigration regulation would be a good leg up for population stabilization.
Why Asoka I didn’t know you were so libertarian. Fascinating.
Yeah, I like some of the libertarian positions. I think government could save a lot of money by eliminating laws against personal drug use or laws against consensual sexual practices. Money spent by law enforcement, courts, prisons, for those kinds of “offenses” could all be saved for more serious offenders who engage in violent crime.
I also like the libertarian stand on closing down the worldwide empire of military bases and bringing the troops home from Germany, Okinawa, and the other countries where they are stationed. The military could easily be cut by 75% and still be an effective defense of the country since we waste more on defense now than all the other countries of the world combined.
I don’t agree with libertarians on dismantling government agencies related to education, environmental protection, healthcare, consumer protection, etc.
I think the Constitution means government is for BOTH defense and welfare of all citizens. Clean air, sanitation, healthcare, education, etc. are proper areas for government to insure the well-being of the citizenry. A return of the Dark Ages, complete with Black Plague, would not be good for any of us.
JHK – I’ve suddenly sickened of your doomsday pronouncements – in the world to come that you mentally masturbate to, you’ll be a hopeless wretch, unable even to make a good porch, much less a society.
You ape the methods of science, without understanding anything of the actual structure, or the hard-won facts that make it work. You employ a sort of twisted logic based on false premises. It’s called “scolism”. Look it up.
You know nothing of science, and have forgotten most of what you may have learned of the human spirit. You were probably stoned out of your mind all through college, and not much seems to have stuck, other than a pervasive fear and hatred of “The Man”.
Of course, as a member of this Sorriest Generation, you have lots of company, from Bush to Obama and everyone in between. So it’s not all Your Bad. But your tiresome litany of failure is wearing on my nerves.
What makes modern civilization work is not oil, but electricity – and it must be got, by any means necessary. With it, the oils can be synthesized. Without it, we crawl back, literally, to the Dark Ages, something you seem to welcome, because then the crippling fear that comes from your ignorance of the very thing that makes you soft-handed, pussy-complainer existence, that fear will be relieved, at last. You can sit home and get stoned and whittle until, literally, the cows come home, while other people break their backs and, you hope, buy your hopeless books. I will not be joining you.
What is needed is a crash program to guarantee the constant flow of electrons from every source we can muster, from the sun, the wind, and most importantly, that bugbear of your generation of pussies, the atom. There is sufficient fissionable material to generate electricity at modern levels for 100 generations even of the sorry, fearful creatures who inhabit the planet right now. That gives us another 100,000 years to get things right. If we can’t do it by then, well, damn us all for failing.
All of you Doomers, like your spiritual brothers the Truthers and the Birthers, share the same defect – a failure of imagination and a collapse of the intellect – I’m not talking about faith in technological miracles, but in the simple, sane application of what is already known. You operate from a condition of hopeless, abject, existential fear of things you do not, and very likely cannot understand – you cannot see because you will not see, and you are such cowards, that you project your fear on everyone. Well, fuck you.
Left, right, and center, all of you are simple cowering shitbums. I will not sit by for another second while you spew your morbid fantasies, which are no better than the stupid parables of the religiously credulous.
You should just shut the fuck up. You are part of the problem, not the solution. We didn’t come this far to have some latter day Puritan doomsayer tell us what can’t happen. You are no different in principle than any of the people from across the political spectrum, onto whom you project your miserable shadow.
-drl
(199th!) 😛 …Well, Mr. (or is it Doctor?) Gloomy Gus, you sure did have a diaper to empty out there now, dint ya? Climb up on Ole Aunty Mert’s lap and tell me all (or more) about how old mean, ruthless, and heartless dear ole dad, mum, great grand dad, mum, auntie, etc., were all a bunch of grab what fors, or whatever. Evil people, they!
And thank heaven and the stars above you and your ilk are here to save us from the sins of our dear fathers and mothers! It’s not unlike the dislike and hatred I had for my own ancestors, who, perhaps unwittingly, contributed to the very destructive ultimate weapon (the H-BOMB). Mores the pity that I didn’t sling more arrows at them than I did, but alas, I was a beneficiary of their actions, and thus kept my well-fed mouth shut.
You’ve got plenty of arrows to sling at the preceding generations, laddie! Try instead to concentrate on transforming this wasteland of destruction into a new fertile crescent. Cheers to you all! MM
I can refreshingly agree with 100% of your post. And now I must rest.
I agree with you about drug and sex laws. Both are a waste of time and are self limiting. Ie, drug abusers die off as an example for others
I also agree that many of our far flung bases could be curtailed, we have subsidized our allies security all we can.
Government’s role in healthcare and education must continue but it must change also. For example in education,we must accept that abilities vary. We can’t continue to waste effort trying to equalize outcomes. This is politically correct bs. Germany identifies their brightest and guides them appropriately. No child left behind only holds everyone back.
Healthcare will need some type of tiered system. Some kind of single payor basic plan for all I suppose. Those who want cadIllac coverage, buy a supplement. There are too many profit centers in the current system especially in the insurance area.
You already know where I stand on the environment. I had friend in the oil business who visited China. He said he would never complain about the EPA again after seeing environmental degradation there.
====================
P.S. That said, I love your vocabulary and ability to turn a phrase:-)
I’d like to make a comparison between some posters’ beliefs and a toilet. And not in the way you think. I recently had to replace my existing toilet. I wanted my new toilet to have features I deemed important, like the right hight and shape, a strong water conservation system, and good quality. So what I did was a lot of research. First I noted the features that make up a toilet, then I looked at product ratings and specifications, and finally I read reviews from consumers, trying to separate out the specious comments from the cogent ones. The whole process took me about 90 minutes to come up with the toilet I felt was best for us.
The point of me mentioning this little exercise is that to arrive at a purchase decision, I gathered a bunch of facts and numbers and studied and evaluated both pros and cons listed by actual purchasers.
I notice that a fair amount of posters here believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy involving our government or business leaders, and probably some of their allies as well. This is an extraordinary claim. It’s hard to imagine the logic that would lead these secret conspirators to such an extreme act. So extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and the most likely cause is the one that is most simple.
When I first read about alternate 9/11 theories, I did the research like I did in buying a toilet. I found that basic physics could in fact explain the collapse of building 7, and pre-wiring the building with explosives would have been logically unlikely. The result of my research indicates that a false flag conspiracy is much less likely than the standard explanation, and therefore, I dismiss the conspiracy theories by the principle of Occam’s Razor.
The purpose of my post is not to go into details, but to illustrate some of the thinking processes I used to come to my conclusions.
I do agree with you in principle, but my only comment is, “Why the fuck do you waste your time reading JHK’s comments and then spend the time to write a long post, if you are sick and tired of reading the doomsters’ theories, and being an adult, knowing you won’t change anyone’s mind?”
When I first read about alternate 9/11 [conspiracy] theories, I did the research like I did in buying a toilet.
===========
… and, I determined the toilet would eventually be as full of shit as the conspiracy crowd.
😉
I suspect that if someone compared Obama’s speeches now with his speeches from the beginning of his tenure that they’d find that Obama is sounding more “black” in the tone of his voice. Perhaps, this is by-design and at the instruction of Obama’s political handlers. Insidious….
Because, Beany, I needed to take a good verbal dump on this cringing mama’s boy.
-drl
It always cracks me up when supercililous official theory believers use Occam’s razor as their final spike.
I understand Occam’s razor to say that the simplest explanation is the most likely.
And yet, when you look at the videos of the three buildings exploding into their own footprints at free fall speed, what would make you believe that something other than controlled demolition would be the simplest explanation?
Never before and never since have steel-framed high-rise buildings fallen from anything other than demolition, yet you haughtily proclaim that it makes total sense to you that the NIST team refused to check for evidence of explosives or incendiary devices, although the fire manual protocols call for such investigation.
And their final explanation, which took 7 years for them to invent, actually doesn’t explain anything in real life. They used computer models to explain the collapse initiation and they refuse to make public the inputs they used to make their computer simulations work.
And you proclaim yourself a follower of science when you announce your satisfaction with their results?
What kind of science starts with one hypothesis, refuses to investigate other hypothesis, and refuses to make public the data they used?
That there is some Dark Ages science you got going for you, Beantown.
Good thing you only research toilets yourself.
quote “And yet, when you look at the videos of the three buildings exploding into their own footprints at free fall speed, what would make you believe that something other than controlled demolition would be the simplest explanation?”
If I hear this stupid argument again then I’m going to collapse into MY own footprint.
Don’t even bring up the word physics, indeed, don’t even use the word science unless you can grasp that things do not scale up, or down, as you might expect from making play forts from cardboard refrigerator boxes. Once the buildings began to collapse, there was nothing to impede their progress to earth at essentially free-fall speed. The individual concrete floors and underlying truss structures are meant to support an acre or so of office equipment, furnishings, and persons, NOT the weight of even ONE of the concrete floors above it. This is neither mysterious nor surprising. If ONE SINGLE FLOOR had collapsed suddenly onto the one below, it would likely have precipitated exactly the same free-fall speed collapse as we witnessed, as the combined floors would have passed through the ones below as if there were not there.
Once and for all – if you don’t know anything about physics or engineering, just shut the hell up and stop embarrassing yourself.
-drl
The way I see it, you just embarassed yourself. Or rather, you should be embarassed to announce that falling floors meet no resistance from the building below.
But perhaps you have no shame?
Goddammit, I’m a physicist!! You’re a fucking troll! Is that enough for you??
-drl
Number one, I never mentioned physics.
Number two, you are an asshole, more than anything else. First you tell JHK to shut up – on his own blog!! Then you tell me to shut up.
Then you say something so incredibly stupid that I point out you should be embarassed.
And then you use foul language and proclaim yourself to be a physicist, which can’t possibly be true, or you would realize that when a floor of a building collapses, it lands on the rest of the building, the rest of the building doesn’t magically disappear because one floor collapsed.
So you’re a liar, an asshole, stupid, and rude, to boot.
I’m fucking sick of this entire constellation of morons who think that guessing and conjecture are a substitute for differential equations and structural analysis! You haven’t spent a single minute actually trying to understand anything – I’ve spent DECADES. How many times do you have to be told that you are fucking utterly wrong before you get it? It’s maddening!!!!!
-drl
The real thing that is maddening, is that neither you, nor JHK, nor the neocons, nor the liberals, nor the Tea Party, not a single goddamn one of you has any real knowledge of anything that is not soft, pliable, and vapid, and designed to shore up your tottering ego! The very idea of attacking a problem systematically and with the methods of science that go back to fucking Copernicus are completely beyond your ken – so just crawl back into the hole you inhabited before the Internets gave you a voice!!! Do the world a favor – no – do yourself a favor and work at something for even a week or two, before proclaiming yourself an expert in it!!
-drl
OK, you’re crazy, too.
Alright, I’m signing off this dismal slough of despond for good. I can’t even bear to read any more of the continual stream of repetitive negative bullshit from JHK, a person whose books I’ve read and enjoyed, much less the babblings of some moronic truther who couldn’t tell a truss from a hernia from a hyena. Later dudes.
-drl
A truss from a hernia from a hyena?
Is that hyfaluting physicist talk?
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=176611
The Myth of Science
Science is mostly indirection, denotation, symbol, the “Intentionality of Use”, it is abstraction, it is like astronomy – observation, measurement, construction of some mental model with some possible predictions and the loop continues (notice how most modern science deals with things that are ever more far away, remote, both in size and distance and energy levels, we observe items that are “billions of kilometers away”, we observe events at very high “particle accelerator” energy levels, etc.). The mental model is a mathematical – logical – and/or somehow language expressed model, something that our mind can contain, that gives us the illusion of control, the illusion that we can contain within our mind and the model and relationships occupying our mind large complex ensembles of chunks of Matter interacting and playing out and configuring itself according to random internal contrasting forces.
Hence the myth of the “Unification of the Forces of Physics” in a few short tidy “equations” (except that, when you have to really use them for real calculations of real ensembles of chunks of Matter, like protein folding, you must execute trillions of calculations on computers hoping that the results can be mapped to reality since the differential equations expressing the forces rarely have “exact solutions”, then in what sense are the forces “unified” ?) so that they can be contained in our mind and give us a feeling of being on top of them.
But even more interestingly, science is kind of like trying to compress information in less space, how to find the master patterns that can summarize a lot of apparently different events, how to say more with less words. Only that something is always lost in the compression, there are always some details that just get canceled or simply ignored never telling us the whole story. But science is mostly a short story, only so much can be said in the end: try to predict the exact shape of the next wave on the shore.
But an even greater limitation of our science is that it always finds a one to one correspondence of reality to some mental narrative, to some language, to a sequence of symbols whether they are expressing a concept in language or expressing quantative relationships between various measurements (that is chopping up reality into distinct pieces and measuring these pieces and then relating them to other pieces through possible additions, subtractions, multiplications, even though the equations and symbols make you think that something more is going on, all the equations are just how measurements are associated to other measurements according to a more or less long combination of additions and subtractions and multiplications as in the “numerical models” of physical systems on supercomputers) no matter what. If we perceive it, we invent it, we create it, we automatically find the relation because the relation is the perception from the outset, it is already given and assigned by how we are designed.
But this finding the correspondence is mostly forcing a correspondence, is inventing a correspondence even when there is none (may be the case of quantum mechanics with all of its vagueness), as if we format and/or translate reality according to our mind – brain, according to how our sense organs and mind have delimited reality in distinct chunks of events, extensions, sensations, all carved out according to arbitrary pain/pleasure circuits and arbitrarily imposed “target programs” in our mind – brain – body like “avoid pain” and “last as long as possible”, etc. by the way that huge random fluke of Natural Evolution “Designed” us.
So we already know from the outset, from the get go, that any future science, formulas, discoveries will always be simply relationships that our mind can “relate to”, will just be a new combination of symbols that more closely map and translate and format reality according to our mind – brain, and much more subtly according to our culture, our “Intentionality of Use” of the results (build new models ? simulate them on computers ? build new contraptions ? build new devices (ipads?) to sell – which means new behaviors as in Man is the Infinitely Programmable Machine ?), our interaction and relation with Matter outside of us, etc.
But change the design of the mind, the sense organs, the interactions these have with “outside Matter – Reality” (?), and we get a completely new and different science for a completely new and different world.
One question would be, is there a one to one correspondence between the narrative (in symbols, equations, concepts) of the “old world” formatted by the old clunker brain and the new world formatted by a new Man Brain ? Maybe, maybe not, but this is not observable, you would need some third brain containing both brains to “objectively measure” and say this, but how can any objectivity exist if it always depends on the random design of the observer ? So no matter how many different brain designs a containing brain has, it will never be objective, but completely subjective, a completely subjective – fluke – random contraption that thinks that it is interacting with some kind of “objective external reality”, when in all truth it is simply interacting with itself, its own decodings and encodings of reality, its own narrative and mental models and symbols of reality, but nothing else.
Therefore the universe just subjectively thinks itself into existence and then disappears, it is a virtual particle that exists and doesn’t exist at the same time, a pure contradiction, there is no one to one correspondence between reality and our mental models, only sense organ inputs encoded and then formatted and translated – decoded into a narrative of the world our mind is always telling itself: we are simply Matter talking to itself and making it all up.
An interesting thing that brought me to think this up is what happens when a star collapses and becomes a “neutron star”. We can’t really touch one or manipulate one or interact with one given how far away it is and how remote it is compared to us (as in Man is the Measure of All ?) : but we create mental models of what we think happens simply extrapolating what we know at the energy levels we already know. But there may be new laws of physics, new phase transitions, new rules of the game just like when quantum mechanics had to be invented to deal with atoms that we are unaware of. Or there may even be no longer any rules of the game at all (after all, isn’t predicting “black holes” a way of declaring that rules and laws of physics don’t operate anymore ?), but given that most of the Matter of the universe is either in “neutron stars”, “black holes”, “Dark Matter” and “Dark Energy” it appears that our planet and Man with all of his “Nature” is an extremely rare configuration of Matter, is really a total fluke – random invention, therefore totally fake, more fake than any virtual reality (or just as fake) we invent and make up.
Even the most optimistic Democrats trotted
out by Bloomberg TV, when asked what the most
optimistic scenario was if every last plank
of Obama’s suggestion list was implemented to
an absolute “tee”, generally agreed that the
outcome would be reduction of U3 unemployment
from 9.2% to 8.5%. Those are the OPTIMISTS.
In reality, as we all know, the Republicans
won’t consent to raising Vikram Pandit’s or
Lloyd Blankfein’s tax rates by a nickel. Yes,
Mr. O. “called out” the stupid Republicans who
think that an effective government can run
indefinitely on reduced revenue (esp. since
it was announced today that average US wages
fell 2.3% in ONE YEAR).
The problem is that the Fed is out of bullets
and any “solutions” on the fiscal side from
this feckless Congress will only tweak the
margins of all of the problems. This dog
won’t hunt.
You know things are bad when the CBO cheerfully
comes out and says that in year 2013 under the
current conditions, the Federal Government will
“only” run a $900B deficit. Houston, we have
an insoluble problem here. Austerity only
creates a downward growth spiral and total
collapse. This leaves … THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC
“SOLUTION”.
There WILL be a QE3 because the Fed is being
kicked like a recalcitrant mule and would rather
be seen doing SOMETHING even though QE2 was a
large-scale experiment which showed that
“stimuli” only feed the stock market and nothing
in the real economy.
Meanwhile, back in the “real” world, oil just
REFUSES to stay below $85 and food futures also
won’t stay down. We’ll have MASSIVE deflation
… except for the stuff that you need EVERY
DAY … where there’ll be ruinous inflation
and, some fine day, food riots in the good old
US of A.
E.
WL, thx.
No7 just came down out of solidarity w/No1+2, obviously.
It’s ‘highfalutin‘ – btw (acc2mw)
[sorry,q]
What if there is no relationships to discover when a star collapses into a neutron star ? What if the relationships exist but are non mathematical (whatever that could mean or maybe it could mean nothing ?) ? What if they are a mix of mathematical, language, concept based and something else ? What if the relationships are expressed in terms that our thought system – logic – mathematics and language cannot encode in any way (therefore change the design of Man Brains, put new wild symbols, signals, chemicals and circuits in the Man brain) ? Or what if they are mathematical but have trillions of terms (who thinks that Nature, as independent from us (the assumption of an “external, objective universe” implies total independence from us) should always choose something small and comfortable and tidy like a few equations, just to please our mind ?) ? Or what if the relationships can be expressed in symbols that have metaphysical meanings and very vague and abstract relationships and meanings ? There is no end to what can be invented as “science”. What if the relationships have more symbols than particles in the universe and are denotations of denotations, an infinite amount of indirections, and what if they contain infinities but the infinities are correct “but our mind is wrong”, what if we can invent very complex concepts – abstractions – contraptions metaphysical – artistic and not, logical and not and assign that as the “science” and as the “truth” ? What if the goal is to find as many wrong relationships as possible, do the exact opposite of unifying theories, explode them, find as many unrelated items as possible, make believe it is all unrelated, force them to be unrelated, lie, deceive, make it all up, win, you win, force the fact that you win, win anyways, win no matter what, you win.
What if the logic is not based on numbers but some intermediate entity between a number and a word, if 1 is a number and 666 is a word what is 345 ? or if they are mathematical but imply new mathematical – logic operations that we can’t imagine that are not addition or subtraction or anything else we know and use (Integrals, Series, you name it) but an infinite array of new symbols doing things that are outside of our mind structure and so on, invent new entities, abstractions, especially things that don’t exist, nay, can’t exist, invent impossible things, the more impossible the better, the more insane the better, go for it man, you can do it, go for it.
AN APE MAN
That was from:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=176611
and check out:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=176423
Study it all very carefully, JHK will test you all…
E.,
As usual you gave a realistic fundamentally sound analysis of the economic situation and why neither party at this point will do anything to interfere with the status quo of their own crazy thinking, corruption and new world order of economics. I am certain that when Germany balks at bailing out Greece, we will be the givers of last resort to keep the whole sick mess going.–There goes our ss and medicare. What more will they have to steal from after they run out of that. Someone has to pay for their sins, and it won’t be them!
Last evening I posted about two stories I read about this form of economy and who our business leaders are planning for the end of the middle class. As I said, once they have a plan in place to deal with neo-poverty, they will have all their ducks in a row. They will not have to exert one iota of pressure to the leadership to turn things around. They’ve got the world market.
Welcome to the third world, most Americans. We’ve got a lot of company.
“Welcome to the third world, most Americans. We’ve got a lot of company.”
And what will it look like, I wonder. I’ve been to Puerto Rico. Will it look like that? Dirty, old cars being held together by bailing wire, filled with people?
Will the interstates be “policed” by ex military, who randomly stop vehicles to do warrantless searches, wielding machine guns, as they do in Mexico (been there, did that)?
Will entire families be sitting out in the noon day sun, filthy from the dry, dusty air that the scorched earth cruelly blows through their haciendas (Mexico again)? Will their be lots of stray dogs and cats who look as though they haven’t had a shread of meat on their bones in years?
Will there be high walled, concrete fences that separate the “haves” from the “have nots”? Who will do the cooking and cleaning the the rich among us? Will only the young, pretty girls and boys be allowed employment in these compounds (as we see taking place on the evening news)?
Will roving gangs of thugs roam the streets, robbing and raping the populace, with no fear of reprisal, as long as they stay clear of the high walled compounds of the uber rich? Are we beginning to see some of the slightest signs of this come into play now?
In one of JHK’s podcasts, he describes a theoretical time traveler from around 1875 or so being transported to Detroit, circa 1925, where the time travelor marvels at seeing the huge, magnificent buildings, streetcars, automobiles, and a populace rushing from work or school back to home. This same time traveler JHK takes from Detroit, 1925, to Detroit 1975, when the poor guy scratches his head and essentially asks, WTF happened? You guys were doing so well! Indeed, what will America look like 50 years (or less) from now? I can almost guarantee you won’t see any flying cars, ala George Jetson, as we imagined there would be 50 years ago.
Sorry, I had to cut that last post down into smaller sizes to avoid being “held for review”, which is code for “Kiss your sorry ass comment goodbye!”
“doomsday pronouncements…..mentally masturbate….ape….false premises….know nothing…pervasive fear and hatred…..”
-dr lunsford-
Gee, D R, you need to post more often. Let it build up like this and one day you’ll explode.
Maybe today’s the day, huh?
I did want to get you to reference or fact check a couple of points:
“There is sufficient fissionable material to generate electricity at modern levels for 100 generations even of the sorry, fearful creatures who inhabit the planet right now. That gives us another 100,000 years to get things right.”
-drl-
HOW LONG DO YOU THINK A GENERATION IS??
Because you have it at 1000 years.
That’s a long time.
And at the STANDARD 20 years/generation – 100 generations worth of uranium/etc would last only 2000 years, not 100,000.
And 2000 years is still wildly excessive. At present trends – peak oil comes first, followed in short order by peak fissionable materials, and then peak coal.
And then – if not BEFORE – civilization dies. Because, you are correct, civilization won’t work without LOTS of electricity.
You are aware that even the Germans – no “pussys?” they – have completely removed nuclear power from their energy future.
One more thing. Your hatred of boomers. We’ve been through this before. You were almost certainly born between 1930 and 1945. Thus you missed WWII and the Depression. And you, along with the early Boomers – lived in a time of rising jobs/stocks/real estate/everything.
Your selfish cohort INCLUDES BushII and Clinton –
And now it falls to the last of the Boomers, along with the X, Y, and Millenial generations to clean up your mess. If it can be cleaned up.
Which I doubt.
Thanks.
LB,
It certainly appears that the US taxpayer is going to be the bail-out-backer of last resort. ;o)
However a QE of the Eurozone will work just as well as it has here! Oops. It’s all merely more extend and pretend.
(Merkel has already been in contact with Obama, so I’m sure the begging has commenced.)
Why would these financial shenanigans be predicated on impoverishing all but a few? The upshot of that will be authoritarian feudalism and warring city-states; doesn’t sound like much of a satisfying life for anybody (even the military, unless one happens to be a psychopath).
The 3rd world has indeed come to the FUSA. Ever buy legal drugs anywhere else in the world? The scissors are always to hand to cut the blister packs for 1 or just a few pills. The pharmacist is usually astounded (and pleased) that you’d like to purchase the entire package; it’s entirely too expensive for the locals.
Well, now I’m seeing expensive allergy drugs in blister packs of 5 on the shelves. Yep, they’ve got it figured. Rather than reduce the price, reduce the quantity, so they’re more “affordable”.
The Great Crumbling has commenced in earnest.
Link to latest shenanigans:
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/09/september-13-2011-he-said-she-said.html
Gotta go… Llllater.
(Thanks, and “probably” MM. ;o)
Well, what is the “middle class”?
If you mean people who can afford to take cruises and leave the lights on, OK, that’s over anyway. Because of the peak oil and the global warming, and all that stuff.
But giving up food, water, shelter, education and medical care? To live in barefoot poverty with your skinny dogs? Like so many of our people ALREADY do? While the rich continue riding in their private jets to their tropical island golf courses?
I remember way back in the 80s, when my Mom said “If things continue this way, we’re all going to be servants again.”
A few years later, I read a newspaper article and the reporter said, “If things continue this way, we’re all going to have servants again”.
Well. That explains the corporate media spin, in my opinion. Which side are they on,boys?
Of course, that reporter probably got laid off years ago.
He’s a physicist, Prog, not a mathematician! Just take his word for it, you troll!
>>The powers that be don’t care about the American lifestyle, or what Americans want.
Dear Lord in Heaven! I never for a moment suggested they did! Like the good little vampires they are, the FIC will suck the last drop of blood out of the AP, as well as the last drop of oil.
What I said was that it would be foolish to think the AP would have it any other way. No matter how many are shoved out of the middle class, no one’s going to surrender that dream voluntarily–or peacefully.
Beantown, thank you for the toilet thinking process.
Given that we are in a contractionary economic time and will need to simplify our lives in the future (especially after TSHTF), here is the toilet I think should become more popular:
http://www.sulabhinternational.org/st/advantages_sulabh_toilets.php
The Sulabh Toilet is inexpensive and does not require connection to an expensive grid. Provides compost for your garden, too.
We can learn a lot from Third World when it comes to the appropriate technology innovations we will need post-collapse.
I had just posted something on Facebook about this very subject, and then read your comment.
I do think that Americans will surrender peacefully, or at least submissively, just like the Indian farmers, ruined by Monsanto, who have killed – rather than Monsanto reps, or the politicians who sold them out.
Americans are doing, and will do, the same thing, I think.
E writes:
“Austerity only creates a downward growth spiral and total collapse.”
You’re one of the few from the right side of the political spectrum ( apologies if I am misrepresenting your political leaning) to admit this. Typically, the refrain from the right ( and those from the right posing as leftists; I’m thinking of a blogger who holds his hand out for cash but won’t reveal his real name or previous station in life) goes something like this: “ You can’t cure debt deflation with more debt.” Which seems to be a very logical assertion on the surface and if one is marginalizing overall contextual reality. Along that vein, Krugman , the rights’ favorite whipping boy , provides some very chilling data on the deleterious results of implementing austerity measures while in the storm of a severe recession.
And yet some from the right may hold the real answer in terms of the current economic disaster (not long term however): Plug in the buzz-cutter, write off the debts and start anew.
Whoops. The farmers in India who have killed themselves – over 100,000 of them.
“There goes our ss and medicare.”
Lbendet, have you not heard from the Teabaggers that there is no ss and medicare? WE ARE BROKE, they say. All we have is a drawer full of IOUs. The money has been spent, so they say.
So, how we gonna bail out Greece?
Well, yes, we need a worldwide Jubilee.
And then we need to start over with money issued by the US government (and other governments can issue their own currency) to pay citizens for productive, necessary labor, not with money borrowed from private banks.
Money can also be issued to pay pensioners, the disabled, orphans and widows, for maternity leave, and to pay for voluntary sterilization.
This money put into the economy will provide for the necessary means of life, and will make life more pleasant for our citizens, while providing for a natural decrease of population to a more sustainable number.
P2C said: “And 2000 years is still wildly excessive. At present trends – peak oil comes first, followed in short order by peak fissionable materials, and then peak coal.”
——————–
Do you have any citations to peer-reviewed literature to back up these claims?
I have wondered why writing off the debts would not work just fine. Paying them off is hopeless anyway.
One of the interesting links from that site asserts that President Obama is going to be asked to bail out Europe to the tune of trillion, imposing a classic catch-22 on the president as a result. That if he doesn’t come to the rescue, Europe, and by extension, the world’s economy, dominoes down. And that if he refuses, the same exact scenario.
Obviously, President Obama cannot agree to bail out Europe and so Europe will become America’s whipping boy, i.e., the reason for our America’s economic malaise. This is The FACET that will be presented,indeed the only facet that will allow political cover for President Obama.
It’s Europe’s fault, my fellow Americans (tongue placed firmly in cheek:)
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/2006/uranium_resources.html
85 years worth of U.
2500 years if one blows smoke while a black/brown supremacist whistles Dixie while decrying Nagasaki and praising fast breeders. (the reactors NOT the demographic)
Why bother discussing it?
All the CFN talk in the world won’t make it happen.
Only raw American/Chinese capitalism will get that U out of the ground – and, then, only to turn a profit on it by selling it on the open international market.
=============
Did anyone ever find the best international population control organization?
Donating to that might help.
===============
Wage,
I suspect we could have some violently pleasant discussions if we were ever to meet in person.
And I’ll never call you a troll.
I doubt you’d call me a racist, either.
Well, I’m going to be in Boston next Tuesday morning, if anyone wants to meet up in person.
ProCon, I apologize publicly for calling you a racist. I trust and honor your word that you are not.
Now, you ask “Why bother discussing it?”
The answer is because if there is no peak oil phenomenon we will not have to discuss it.
The Peak Oil movement claims there will be an impending peak in global oil production (or that it has already happened) due to an inadequate resource base.
However, the underlying analysis is inconsistent, void of a theoretical foundation and without support in empirical observations.
Global oil resources are huge and expanding, and pose no threat to continuing output growth within an extended time horizon.
In contrast, temporary or prolonged supply crunches are indeed plausible, even likely, on account of growing resource nationalism denying access to efficient exploitation of the existing resource wealth.
There is peer-reviewed literature on this. For example, see Marian Radetzki’s 2010 article: “Peak Oil and other threatening peaks—Chimeras without substance.” in the journal Energy Policy (volume 38, no. 11). Radetzki works at the Luleå University of Technology in Sweden, so is not paid by the USA oil and gas industry.
See why it is important to determine first if what we are discussing is real? If it’s not, then we need not continue discussing.
Wage told “Doc” Lunsford: you’re crazy, too.
Then Doc replied: I’m signing off this dismal slough of despond for good. I can’t even bear to read any more of the continual stream of repetitive negative bullshit from JHK … much less the babblings of some moronic truther
=================
If you’re still reading Doc, here’s the thing … You’re dealing with one of those people (Wage) who has never EVER seen or heard of a horrendous event that they couldn’t rationalize as a conspiracy of the Elite (especially the Elite of their OWN country, to make it all the more hateful) against the common man. The conspiracy is always hatched in a smoke filled, mahogany walled room. And not by mere Presidents of the United States. No … Presidents are mere lackeys and puppets of dark forces a level or two higher. i.e. People above “the Bilderbergers,” people above the “Trilateral” geezers, people above the skull and bones crowd, people above even “da Joooze.”
There are many people exactly like Wage … just look around this site. I think it may be genetic. When I hung in bars and shot pool there were always a few tattooed, dentally challenged sports nuts glued to the TV (you know, the type that always has some action going on a baseball game or a fight.) To listen to them, every game and every boxing match is fixed. Blaming some unidentified “they” when they lose, I believe, helps them explain away their own failures and lowly station in life.
From what I’ve seen here at CFN, Wage is a born and true communist. Not a fake Commie like the Chinese or the old Soviets but the real deal. She cannot accept that we actually DO live in a dog-eat-dog world … that we are NOT all equal (nor ever will be) … that the sharing and cooperation she so desperately wants and thinks possible on a global scale will, at best, happen only at the family level … that “there will ALWAYS be the poor among us.”
comment from progress2conserve | September 14, 2011 11:55 AM | Reply
“Global oil resources are huge and expanding,”
==========================
How can oil resources be expanding? Either they’re there, or they’re not, unless Mother Earth is producing more as we speak.
So it’s a dog-eat-dog world, but the top dogs would never, ever, never do anything to harm the underdogs? And it’s paranoid for the underdogs to look with suspicion upon events that are physically impossible (as explained by the top dogs), and extremely beneficial to the top dogs, but very harmful to the underdogs?
Your world view is internally inconsistent.
“Either they’re there, or they’re not”
——————-
This is what you believe if you believe the hypothesis that oil is a resource created by biological processes.
But the hypothesis of the evolution of hydrocarbon molecules (except for methane) from biogenic ones in the temperature and pressure regimes of the earth’s near-surface crust is glaringly in violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics (which rules on CFN!).
I mean, sunlight is “either there or not there” … the sun is going to burn out one day. But we don’t really have to worry about it.
Which rules on CFN, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics or the violation thereof?
P2C (who is not a racist) said: “And 2000 years is still wildly excessive. At present trends – peak oil comes first, followed in short order by peak fissionable materials, and then peak coal.”
—————–
Actually, 2,000 years is about right, when you combine U and oil and coal.
The world’s presently known coal resources is about 6,300 Gigatons, giving a nominal close-to-1000 years supply of coal production potential.
We don’t have to worry about peak-coal any time soon.
I can cite the peer-reviewed scientific literature to substantiate my claims, if you are interested.
“Global oil resources are huge and expanding,”
-confusionism, misquoting-
You have named yourself well, Confusion.
And don’t go trying to pin the above on me.
Asoka, our resident (for today, at least) resource optimist – said it.
Last year he said we had 47 years of oil.
So this year we are down to 46.
So the clock ticks,
As US population expands.
I come to CFN for ideas.
And take action elsewhere.
My apologies to Progress2Conserve. I did indeed credit you with Asoka’s words.
Confusionism, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics rules on CFN. Petroleum is a primordial material of deep origin which is transported at high pressure via “cold” eruptive processes into the crust of the earth. Petroleum is not “running out.” We have barely scratched the surface in terms of supply. Supply will be expanding with future discovery.
I can say this based not only upon extensive geological observations, but also upon rigorous and analytical physical reasoning using the sciences of chemistry and thermodynamics.
Trust me, Confusionism, the generation of hydrocarbons must conform to the general laws of chemical thermodynamics. With the exception of methane, hydrocarbons like petroleum have no intrinsic association with biological material.
My apologies to P2C for calling him a racist.
I stand behind my words challenging peak oil, but I regret having called P2C a racist and I apologize again.
Q,
Your argument/criticism of Wage has some merit on the micro-individual level, but it falls apart on the “macro-structural” level. For instance, it sounds like you have done pretty well for yourself, and no doubt, mainly to your own innate talent and hard work. But, Q the successful business professional in 1985 might very well be Q the victim of an outsourced profession in 2011 – after he has already invested a considerable amount of time and money in his chosen, but ultimately doomed profession. Put another way, and in your words, you might be just another one of the ” poor that will always be among us”.
In fact, you would not be a lone individual; massive swaths of society are succumbing to this exact scenario. And yet you may be right as far as a conspiratorial means in achieving this hollowed out end. They – politicians/legislators, lobbyists, media outlets, economic propagandists, and yes, the successful and comfortably retired now living in a world of time-warp delusion – have constructed the current and obscene economic disparity and stratification like a towering crane lifting the elite off Main Street in broad fucking daylight.
It’s High Noon in America, Q.
http://www.worldenergy.org/documents/ser_2010_report_1.pdf
There are coal reserves equal to 147 years – at present rates of consumption.
“Peak coal” will occur about 2025 –
again, at present rates of consumption.
==================
And the higher the US population – the higher the world wide (and US) rates of consumption.
So subtract from 147.
And shift 2025 to some year closer to today.
And work on something that US citizens should have control of – – – like US population numbers.
Is it kinda like Rick Perry claiming the earth is 6000 yrs old? If not where do you read about it?
P2C, you are not looking out far enough and your 2025 peak coal date is pessimistic. I think you are also failing to take into account synergy. In 2100, 30% of the total energy supplies will be natural gas; 28% renewables; 20% oil and 20% coal. In the event of coal and oil production being curtailed for environmental reasons (most notably global climate change), then natural gas with its widespread distribution around main regions of the world seems to be most likely to fill the gap, given its potential availability on such a massive scale.
In any event, we don’t have to worry about energy supply for the rest of the 21st century. We still have time to come up with the techno-miracle and/or new conventional discoveries.
Ah Wage,
What is the middle class? Well according to P&G its anyone making $50k-$250k.
But you know, it’s all about state of mind. Why you could be flat broke and as long as you believe you’re middle class, well thar you be.
I caught something earlier today that had Target carrying Missoni. Oh, the humanity, the hoards went through the stores like the running of the bulls through the streets of Pamplona. Not to mention the crashed website and other mishaps.
Do these people really believe these clothes are on the same caliber as the clothes made for high end buyers?
ps Wage, if you’re ever in NYC–would love to meet you.
Pretty interesting overview of how the US/NATO attacked Libya.
At the end of this brief segment of a talk, he lists the targets in Libya, including fuel, electricity, hospitals and currency.
Hmmm. Sounds like observations here about the future of the US.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_pPH5vPQJw&feature=share
Well, as Tabbibi and Baegant have pointed out, most Americans think that they’re middle class, from those making $10,000 to those making $100,000. Even those pushing shopping carts to their under the bridge shelter think that they’re just temporarily down and out.
Those making $250,000, on the other hand, are a different story.
I read a fascinating survey which said that 20% of Americans think that they are in the top 1%.
So, not only do poor Americans think they’re middle class, but higher income workers think they’re rich!
OK, if I ever come to New York, I’ll hang out with you.
Where do you read about alternatives to the peak oil theory?
There’s a lot of work being done in Europe and in Russia. Check out Peter R. Odell, Professor Emeritus of International Energy Studies at Erasmus University in Rotterdam (“Why Carbon Fuels will Dominate the 21st Century’s Global Energy
Economy”) or V.I. Sozansky’s work on spontaneous renewal of oil and gas fields (available through the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers).
Above all, learn to distinguish between experts who have published peer-reviewed literature, lobbyists who are being paid to write opinion pieces, and doomsters who love to scare people.
I am clueless about brand names, lbendet.
When I hurt my ankle, I went to buy new shoes. I found some cool looking shoes at TJMaxx.
So, I’m at work, taking care of a (very nice) gang-banger, and his friend goes nuts, pointing at my feet and saying something in a very strong eubonics accent, so quickly that I couldn’t understand him.
I totally forgot about my new shoes. I assumed I was standing in a puddle of blood, or something.
But, no. Turns out that I had bought designer shoes. Go figure!
And, contrary to popular belief, guys care about that sort of thing also.
Its called Kin Altruism in Psychology.
Wage doesnt seem to get Tribalism or SubGroups
are hardwired into humans.
BENEFITS n IMMIGRATION:
FOODSTAMPS [EBT?]
FOOD FROM DEPT OF AGRICULTURE/ surplus food program
EDUCATION
HOSPITALIZATION
INCARCERATION [BETTER THAN BEING SHOT BY NARCO TERRORISTS]
FREE OR CHEAP HOUSING
All the benefits are to those who move here,
Only the top 1% of US Citizens ‘benefit’ from immigrants flooding in.
his friend goes nuts, pointing at my feet and saying something in a very strong eubonics accent,
==================
It’s Ebonics, a combination of ebony and phonics.
But spelling aside, as someone attuned to language, Ebonics is of great interest to me. I blame Ebonics (or Black English) more than any other factor for the failure of Blacks to gain full acceptance into American society. It has the appearance of a willful refusal to assimilate.
A wonderful discussion of this topic appears in an essay by David Foster Wallace where he tells of his experiences teaching Standard American English at Pamona College in California. As they say in the publishing business: “A must-read.” See Wikipedia blurb below.
“Authority and American Usage” A 62-page review of Bryan A. Garner’s A Dictionary of Modern American Usage. Wallace applies George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” to grammar and the conditions of class and power in millennial American communication. In addition to examining such seemingly technical ideas as descriptive linguistics versus prescriptive grammar, Wallace digresses to discuss the legitimacy of Ebonics as opposed to “white male” standard English. (originally published in Harper’s as “Tense Present: Democracy, English and Wars over Usage”)[1]
Anti, your preaching to the choir buddy. What Asoka says about immigrants leaving doesn’t add up to me. Conditions are deteriorating and adding people will not help.
I notice that your link is over 360,000 views now. I have passed it on, also. Although no one commented on it, 3 of my friends shared it.
natural gas with its widespread distribution around main regions of the world seems to be most likely to fill the gap, given its potential availability on such a massive scale. -Asoka
…with the caveat that you folks in frackville had better not strike a match near the water running from your spigots. -Q
In any event, we don’t have to worry about energy supply for the rest of the 21st century. We still have time to come up with the techno-miracle and/or new conventional discoveries. -Asoka
OK, got it. I’ll mark this down on my white board as your new, firm, position regarding remaining energy supplies and erase the note I had saying 47 years. Or, is this just another of your throw away comments, good until a new whim strikes you? -Q
Wage and ozone, it was a fun video. You do wonder why they cannot answer some simple questions sometimes. I know many think the government is inept, but they can move a mountain if they decide they want to. I saw it in action during H. Rita. It was only a month after Katrina and they did not want a repeat of that. The army had the CEO’s of few local power companies steppin and fetchin like their head was fire and their ass was catchin.
I guess the ptb either don’t want to go to jail and/ or they think we can’t handle the truth. Both I’m sure. I do believe they intend to grow the underclass in this country somehow to their benefit.
“….47 years. Or, is this just another of your throw away comments, good until a new whim strikes you? -Q, to a.-
It’s 46 years now, Q. 47 years was last year. Keep it straight, man.
And maybe asoka is trying to shed some multitudes.
Although I’m seeing something new here from him.
“In any event, we don’t have to worry about energy supply for the rest of the 21st century. We still have time……”
-asoka.-
There is selfishness in this statement. It’s OK that all of Earth’s fossil deposits should be used for today’s 7 billion, NOW. No thought for future humans, post 2100.
Considering that the source is Mr. Open the Border and Share Everything – this is surprising.
Self, self, self. Now, now, now.
Interesting.
I have to admit to being sick of 9/11 myself. I live in Middletown, NJ and trying to escape 9/11 is impossible. There are monuments and memorials everywhere. Someday though, 9/11 will become like Pearl Harbor Day, a distant memory that only the very old recall. The best part of the 10 year anniversary is that Absolutely Nothing happened. I found watching the ceremony kinda boring so for a little while I watched the original footage of the attacks. I didn’t miss seeing people leaping in pairs and threesomes off the buildings. Can’t imagine what happened inside the WTC but obviously it was so horrible that it made leaping to their deaths seem like the better option. Hope I never see that again.
Didn’t go to church, didn’t go to any of the memorials. I weeded my garden in quiet contemplation. Been having a crazy busy last few weeks, earthquake, Hurricane Irene, Labor Day, start up of school. The list is endless. Was out of power for 3 days during Irene. Didn’t miss the a/c or the lights, missed TV, the Internet and JHK’s blog (of course)! After a long day, I forget how much I enjoy flopping down on the sofa and watching HBO. Ran the office off a generator so we had phone lines, computer programs, etc. so work got done, bills got paid, etc. The grocery store was empty. Long aisles of nothing. Bread gone, bottled water gone, all the businesses on the highway shut down. All the traffic lights off. Gas stations empty. One of my client’s asked me if I thought it was the end of the world with so many events happening. I told her no. It was just a string of bad luck. Her husband’s unemployed so it probably seems worse to her.
Mostly everything is back to normal. Just the usual worries that Greece will collapse and bring down our economy (although why still doesn’t seem clear). Is Greece that important? Is the US greenback tied to the Euro? If Greece falls and then the US, does China go down too? All our money is fiat and so is all our debt. Stock market seems to swing way up one day and way down the next. Does this really mean anything at all other than no one is really in charge and no one has any idea how to fix it. For the US, I say tax the rich MUCH MORE and hand out free birth control to the poor. That way the rich won’t be so able to run amuck and the poor will stop making more poor people. And if you really want to get rid of illegals, put the people who HIRE them in jail. That would solve the problem quickly.
Funny that youze guys from New Joysy care about Ebonics.
But then you think Wallace taught at Pamona College.
“No thought for future humans, post 2100.”
———-
This comment is uncharitable. And untrue.
I apologized for calling you a racist and all you want to do is make sarcastic remarks (“It’s 46 years now, Q.” “Self, self, self. Now, now, now.”)
2100 is not now, now, now. My assumption is that others will have energy in 2200, 2300, etc., just as we do, but in a different form.
You can disagree with me. Just try not to be disagreeable in so doing.
Did Wages Top off with Oil?
Check out Charles Hugh Smith on his blog oftwominds.com. Yesterday he discussed the move away from gold in the same context.
This is the topic this blog is supposed to address.
The other article to check is The oil Drum site discussing the bankruptsy of of Solyndra, the Calif. based solar energy firm which got big tax dollars in the stimulus package although the studies showed that this firm would go under!
Okay, Q.,
I realize that Wage can certainly defend/speak for herself, but that backhanded snipey shit was really fucking low.
I don’t usually take much exception to your BAU (business as usual) bridling and run-to-the-ramparts support of the crap that passes for “legitimate” hierarchy in Da Woild, but that was really fucking low.
(Don’t bother excusing/apologizing, we now see where your social proprieties lie. Completely self-realized… but that is all. Good luck, you’ll need it.)
…and what really pisses me off is: It Hurts Me To Say It! (Wish I was as dead inside as you.) :o(
“I come to CFN for ideas.
And take action elsewhere.”
And there we go…
Someday we’ll perhaps be forced by circumstance to combine those actions in a warding off of extinction. (Or submerge, thrashing and alone, into oblivion.)
lbendet, am I reading between the lines to think that both you and Charles Hugh Smith are leaving unstated some kind of assumption that a lowered standard of living from the hyped-up oil-fed over-consuming “American way of life” is a bad thing?
Isn’t it good that the USA is headed toward being a third world country? Isn’t it good that the USA is headed toward no longer being the world’s military and economic superpower? Won’t it be healthier (both physically and mentally) to live more like the rest of the world, like other countries … perfectly pleasant countries, I might add … without the responsibilities and temptations of so much power? (power that we have abused by overthrowing democratically elected governments, setting up secret torture prisons, and generally trying to be the world’s policeman.
I cannot share your or Charles Hugh Smith’s dismay at the loss of the gold standard, or the loss of cheap energy (if that happens), or the loss of status and power in the world.
I welcome our devolvement into a third world country (if it is true that is what is happening). I embrace a lower standard of living more in tune with the rest of the world, less wasteful, and with more consciousness of the need of stewardship of natural resources.
Living more simply and more in touch with nature is a healthy development. I hope neither gold nor oil come back, if indeed they are all that important to begin with. There are definite advantages to living without either one.
(Or submerge, thrashing and alone, into oblivion.)
It’s clear that some of our fellow countrymen would think that is exactly as it should be.
You’re on your own…good luck to ya.
Oh, this is a beaut I can’t shut down my computer without mentioning
(Opednews)
It’s Ron Paul’s campaign manager dies at 49 of pneumonia because he couldn’t afford Cobra health insurance and left his family $400,000. in debt.
That Libertarianism is an equal opportunity killer, that’s for sure.
Bernie Sanders says people in the lowest 20% will die on the average 6 years earlier than those in the top 20%.
My point is that loss of financial power, loss of military power, loss of status as the world’s superpower is an opportunity for us to THRIVE in a qualitatively better country where thrashing into oblivion is less likely because human relations become more personal (a good thing) and less impersonal, as emphasis on “work” and “money” and “spending” and “accumulating” and “getting ahead” become less and less the primary focus of life. That is my experience from living in the third world. That is my experience from living where the average income is $100 per month.
The function of the left has always been to stand up for the working classes and the poor. But the last forty years or so, they mostly just make fun of what used to be the working classes.
The enemy is, I believe the entrenched monied interests, interconnected with corrupt and broke banks, the military, and a bought off political system. The enemy is not Joe Peckerwood in Oklahoma, he’s just a fat guy who used to have a job.
The left is tired of looking at people like Michelle Bachman and Rick Perry, well, the left is largely responsible for them. If the left had done their job, we wouldn’t be looking at these mouthpieces for the rich.
Let me think, what was the left doing when the global economy was being set up, factories being shut down, unions being busted, probably worrying about the Confederate flag somewhere, or all upset about the Ten Commandments being on a courthouse.
When all these bullshit wars were started, what did the Democrats do, help the Republicans start their stupid wars.
What about forty year war on drugs, what has the left done, they were probably upset about public Christmas displays; not inclusive enough. For some reason or other, some liberals have always been hacked at peace on earth, good will towards men. I don’t know why.
What about the Patriot Act, what did the liberals do to stop it? Nothing!
Or the bank bailouts, the TARP, what did the Democrats do, help W Bush pass it!
What has Obama done to stop the wars, or punish wall street criminals, nothing.
When the global economy was set up, like NAFTA, and the WTO, what did the left do, well, they were worried that homosexuals weren’t being treated fairly and stuff.
Cheap labor was brought into the U.S by the basket load, to break the wage scale and bust unions, what did the left do? stand around moaning and pissing about ‘diversity’. Even to the point of bringing people into the country who wanted to blow stuff up, that, they defended and still do.
Yes, it’s now chiseled in big-box concrete; you’ve entered the YOYO nation. (You’re On Your Own.)
Dance faster, Monkeys; it’s the American Way!
Dance Monkeys, dance!
Your argument/criticism of Wage has some merit on the micro-individual level, but it falls apart on the “macro-structural” level. For instance, it sounds like you have done pretty well for yourself, -Buck
It seems I have a talent for creating this illusion unintentionally. In reality my success is rather ordinary. I’m neither particularly smart nor well-off. In grammar school I scored 112 on an IQ test which was the very peak of the bell curve of all the students who took the test that year. My highest annual salary was ~$78K, excluding OT. -Q
and no doubt, mainly to your own innate talent and hard work. -Buck
About a year ago Asoka started a practice of beginning sentences such as the one above with [sarcasm on] and ending them with [sarcasm off]. -Q
But, Q the successful business professional in 1985 might very well be Q the victim of an outsourced profession in 2011 -Buck
Your words paint a prettier picture than the reality. I think you see a blue-suited executive cutting lucrative defense deals in California then hopping the red-eye back to HQ in Jersey. Your vision is way too glamorous. Basically I was an ordinary cube rat that advanced from 4′ walls to a private office, though the walls were short of the ceiling by 2′. Any success achieved was the result of a relentless competence and persistent stick-to-it-tiveness. I pissed off some people along the way but there were probably a dozen times they decided they’d have to be nuts to can me. As to being outsourced I thank The Lord (metaphorically speaking) to this day that this was never my fate. I did go through a one year period in 1978-79 (a period of economic hard times somewhat like today) during which I was fired twice with two young kids and a wife (pregnant with a third) at home in a house in the first year of a thirty year mortgage. I did temp accounting gigs at $5 per hour and sold the plasma in my blood for money on a regular basis. My wife would cry and beg me “don’t go to ‘bloodsuckers’ tonight.” It almost makes me ill to recall that year. -Q
Put another way, and in your words, you might be just another one of the “poor that will always be among us”. -Buck
Yes, I might have been but I was always one to forgo gratification in the present, to spend less than I earned, and to always pay the full balance on a credit card bill. My greatest challenge was and still is to make my wife think the same way. -Q
And yet you may be right as far as a conspiratorial means in achieving this hollowed out end. They – politicians/legislators, lobbyists, media outlets, economic propagandists, and yes, the successful and comfortably retired now living in a world of time-warp delusion – have constructed the current and obscene economic disparity and stratification like a towering crane lifting the elite off Main Street in broad fucking daylight. -Buck
Not sure I’m catching the drift of the vivid scene you describe but if you mean I’m one lucky SOB to have made it to the finish line relatively unscathed, I agree. I don’t however buy these grandiose conspiracy theories. -Q
If the ‘Left’ is JFK,Teddy, LBJ..They are the ones that Opened the floodgates [JFK was dead by 1965]…So this leaves me wondering about yr Idealization of the ‘Left’….
“Cheap labor was brought into the U.S by the basket load, to break the wage scale and bust unions, what did the left do”?
Brought in More..like 100,000,000!
Lee killed himself [he was Korean] with a sign…
WTO kills farmers..the slogan then became ‘We Are Lee’.
Interesting comments, but if you’ll look a bit closer, you’ll see there hasn’t BEEN a “left” since the end of WW2 [or so]. The big Red Scare took Right good care o’ that. Oh yes, there’ve been pretenders and innocent believers, but the false-fronts have dissolved in the winds of good ol’ ‘murkin reactionary idiocy, and only vaguely-defined tatters remain.
Look with a colder eye for those who may have stolen your future and defended depravity.
What about the Patriot Act, what did the liberals do to stop it? Nothing!
I respectfully disagree…didnt Boxer, Feinstein and Hillary vote FOR it?
‘ big Red Scare took Right good care o’ that’
If the killing of 90 Million by Mao and Stalin is what you are referring to well what more do I need to know about your, er, line of thought!
…there you have it. Hot-blooded. You bought it; pay for it. You’ve missed the point [seemingly, on purpose. Thought? Please tell me more.
BTW, if anyone thinks the Hillary Clinton represents anything resembling a “leftist”, they might want to check their glossary at the door to Hell…
But then you think Wallace taught at Pamona College.
=============
Good catch … Pomona.
BTW, you should read that short section about Ebonics in Wallace’s 67 page essay. It might encourage you to do your missionary work among Blacks who could really use your help rather than spending your life here among mostly whites who need your help so much less.
I have lost everything. That’s right. No money, no possesions, no where to go. Politics no longer mean a fucking thing to me. Voting? The topic used to make me laugh. Now it makes me nauseous. There are more people like me in the United States every day. I am a convicted felon. Even though it was many years ago, it never goes away. The United States now locks up more people than any other country in the world. Apparently, it’s better just to watch you suffer and die than to kill you outright for your offenses. I have tried repeatedly to leave the United States. Ain’t gonna happen. So I am stuck in Home of the Gutless and Banal. If I do post again, it will be awhile. Gotta move.
Good post. That is why many people who were democrats forty years ago are now republicans or independents. Even when it is generally against their best interest. In that time no one has represented the middle class or working people.
Fuck You.
Q, nice post. You’re a good guy, modest with an all American work ethic. But hell on wheels when it comes to grammar.
Hey, I’ll give ya a big “Thumb Up” if you shine my boots.
Do you have your passport I’ll contribute to your airline ticket out. Acting like a prick won’t make your life better.
Since I watched my best friend get killed by “friendly fire” I’m thinkin’……Fuck You.
It’s still me. Keep in mind. Most of what you read here…..it’s only talk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbuqtDhTAwQ
Michelle Obama thinks flag ceremony ridiculous. Barack agrees. After all, it’s so old fashioned ot have a President who love his country.
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=10420
Ow! Stop stabbin’ me with that knife! And you, Vlad, I’ve decided to learn how to speak Serbian so I can hang w/Nowak Djokovic.
Vlad,
Thanks for sharing that link. I’m really disappointed by Mrs. Obama.
What do you think of the Solyndra Green Energy Scam? It looks bad for Barack. The paper trail leads right to the White House!
It’s a sin to sully the Sun this way – the very essence of purity. You can’t meter the Sun, yet Liberals will continue to try.
Please be at the Rosicrucian Museum this Friday Evening at 7:00 sharp to get fitted for your robe. Your’s will be green.
Honestly Dude, since the Righteous Fucks are on the verge of having to accept “power down”, the whole thing smacks of grabbing at straws.
an opportunity for us to THRIVE in a qualitatively better country where thrashing into oblivion is less likely because human relations become more personal (a good thing) and less impersonal, as emphasis on “work” and “money” and “spending” and “accumulating” and “getting ahead” become less and less the primary focus of life. That is my experience from living in the third world. That is my experience from living where the average income is $100 per month.
=================
Oh PULLL LEEEZ!! How friggin stupid do you think we are?
I challenge you to find me even one person (excluding religious fanatics who’ve taken a vowel of poverty) in the third world who wouldn’t swap his $100 a month for the $1000 a month you’re getting from SS … not to mention your portfolio of fixed income investments yielding a “modest” 12.25% (chortle snort guffaw) income.
And when you locate this individual please have him confirm to us how having only the $100 pittance allows him to live a richer life of more personal human relations, a life where a person can shuck off unseemly aspirations concerning “work” and “money” and “spending” and “accumulating” and “getting ahead,” a life as pleasant in a tar paper and corrugated metal shack as any two-bedroom bungalow in America with running water and indoor plumbing.
Seriously, when you write such tripe doesn’t it ever occur to you that your next step should be to sign over your SS check to Qshtik (who will remit $100 per month to you on-time and without fail), pull up stakes and head for that third-world paradise?
OMG you must have NO respect for us to think we would swallow such a load of crap.
Even the most isolated Americans that I’ve seen are in no way prepared for the poverty that I’ve experienced in other parts of the world.
Right! I forgot to add that race and culture kind of fade away when you and your ethnic opposite(?) have to cooperate to survive.
Thanks for sharing that link. I’m really disappointed by Mrs. Obama.
============
Did I miss something Mom? I watched the link and didn’t hear a word she said. Since I’m hearing impaired I’ve become a pretty good lip-reader and I thought she said “I never liked the sound of bagpipes.”
😉
It was a weird link. I had to activate all the PC defenses. I once had Canadian roommate of Scottish descent who liked to come home drunk and practice his pipes post Midnight. I had to consult an anatomy textbook to see if the bagpipes would actually fit into the orifice in question.
So..eh..just how cool lookin’ are these robes, anyway? I’m thinkin’ Eric Clapton coming up the middle of the church aisle playing a Les Paul (Clapton?) in that God Awful “Tommy” movie. You know. The one with Ann Margaret? Well, THAT kind of robe. Yes. That’s the vision.
This is a bit tangential, but do you agree that the tenor of TV and radio advertising has worsened in recent decades? I have a limited data set that includes ads that I heard as a preteen, but my gut feeling is pretty strong. The garbage aired today seems very different from my memories of ads on KPIX, KEEN, WLBR, and WGAL, among other stations, circa 1988-1995. Pharmaceutical ads were prohibited back then, and there wasn’t a constant stream of ads for Indian casinos or happy horseshit about fossil fuels: “clean coal,” 9.2 million jobs in the oil and gas industry (presumably including pump jockeys–or should I call them “downstream consumer delivery specialists”?), low-emission tar sands, etc. Ads back then just seem less annoying and offensive in retrospect than today’s.
The NY Times had an article Sunday about “campus brand ambassadors” at schools including UNC; disgusting stuff, all about reducing college students to the lowest common denominator of Astroturf “crowdsourced” advertising gussied up as grassroots peer-to-peer consumer advice.
Sadly, one of my aunts was doing an online version of that for pocket change during her mother’s death vigil, writing “consumer reviews” of products for $5 apiece, via a bidding process that she described as “kind of like throwing meat to the lions.” The rich part is that she’s a lapsed attorney, so if she paid up on bar dues she could do equally soul-sapping mercenary writing for $28-35/hour on contract, if my JD ’09 buddy in DC is any indication.
Naw that was just a banana I smuggled thru customs by telling them it was a dildo. Here’s the knife:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCW2hxux3Ro
Great speaker, great speech. Can any language inspire like German? Perhaps He has returned to lead the battle anew.
But might not a $100 in say Ecuador go further than a thousand here? Or has that changed now because of inflation and the rumors of coming collapse?
About your Aunt, the attorney; when you say “soul-sapping mercenary writing”, I am left with the impression that she, herself, felt like these tasks were an undesirable aspect of her profession. I wonder if she had to face a decision I once faced about my former profession in computer database development. In essence, is it OK?
The only thing that I could possibly find inspiring about that video is the knowledge that Western Europe & Scandinavia as a whole are shrugging off the “God” thing. The Swiss. Who da thunk that ANYONE could be more xenophobic than the Japanese?
“Pucker —
Supporters like you are the reason I’m here, and the values we share have always made our organization more than just a political campaign.
So whenever I can, I want to take the opportunity to meet you. Last month, that meant I got to talk to folks in Iowa about small-business opportunities, and sit down with a group of volunteers from around the country who helped build this campaign in their communities this summer.
Today, I want to ask if you’ll join me and three other supporters for a meal and conversation sometime soon.
Please donate $5 or more to be automatically entered for a chance to join me for dinner.
If this sounds a bit familiar to you, it’s because we’ve done this before. In fact, my hope is that I’ll be able to keep doing these dinners throughout the campaign.
They’re a chance for me to talk one on one with people like you who are taking ownership of this campaign and connect with the work going on every day in neighborhoods across the country.
These dinners also set our campaign apart. No matter what our opponents do over the next 14 months, dinners like these are how we will continue to put people at the heart of this campaign — and prove that we don’t need checks from Washington lobbyists or special-interest PAC money to win an election. We can do it person to person, in our neighborhoods and backyards, and over the dinner table.
That’s why I’m asking for your donation today. I hope you’ll take a minute to help build this campaign. When you do, you’ll have a chance to join me for dinner:
https://donate.barackobama.com/Dinner
Maybe I’ll get to thank you in person.
Barack”
The President! Rollin’ for 5!
You’re pretty close to the mark. My aunt burned out within a year, due less to the ethics than to the disturbing nature of the cases she was handling, which involved child protective services. All the same, her distaste for the law is also informed by a distaste for the sleaze that is a calling card of so many attorneys.
The irony is that she has lately been doing work that is ethically and functionally on par with a mercenary law practice but pays pennies on the dollar. It’s like a prostitute who quits the Bunny Ranch out of disillusionment with the industry, only to end up turning $5 tricks on the streets of Reno. (Ouch, I just compared lawyers to prostitutes! No offense to any decent whores in the audience. Come to think of it, there seem to be other things at least as degrading as prostitution.)
I have more details on my blog, aliensinthefamily.wordpress.com. Two Minutes Hate on Amway is my latest offering. Most of my recent scribblings are there since longform guest commentary is getting tricky in these parts.
Both Germany and France are still insisting
that Greece will remain in the EU. Can these
people get their stories straight?? First
Merkel says that Greece will be allowed to
go into a “controlled” default but does not
give the specifics of that.
I thought Europe was a more sophisticated
continent than North America but maybe I was
too hasty in that assessment because one day
even FRANCE is going to have a passel of
banks downgraded and the next day they’re
going to contribute to bailing out ANOTHER
country??
I’m suspecting that when the truth comes out
it will involve more of these “EU Bonds” that
Spain just sold $4B of. This situation can
truly lead to “mutually-assured destruction”.
Little wonder that Merkel lost the election
and Sarkozy is about as popular as leprosy
at this time.
Europe has always been more prone to “ideological
purity” than the United States but what they’re
doing now in the name of some sort of EU
“solidarity” seems like throwing the entire EU
economy at some Orwellian slogan.
Watch Trichet’s successor wilt under the pressure
and lower rates immediately with an EU version of
TARP or other sorts of QEs. Just a few months
ago they were worried about “inflation” and
rightfully so because it was exceeding their
growth rate … never a good thing.
I expect they’ll soon be talking to Mr. Bernanke
as if he “saved” the US with QE2. No doubt that
TARP/QE1 staved off a self-feeding downward
spiral. However, Bernanke will feed economics
textbooks of the future as the NE PLUS ULTRA of
“pushing on a string”.
And Mr. Bernanke can be expected to do it again
soon. Why? Well, their dual mandate is interest
rates and EMPLOYMENT and with Yahoo about to have
a monster layoff, Cisco in the middle of theirs,
and BofA ready to dispatch 30,000, it’s pretty
silly to expect future employment reports to be
anything but a bummer.
The United States and Europe are mired in
STRUCTURAL DEPRESSIONS and the “growth mentality”
nutters in all of their political parties will
continue to feed the airwaves with a chronic
stream of disinformation about growth. Managed
contraction is the only way out but which
politician will say “I want to manage a -1% GDP
for the next decade”. Answers itself, eh?
Managed contraction means many things and this
post is already too long but it means ramping
things down so NO GROUP IS HURT TOO MUCH NOR
TOO SOON. That’s what worries me … the assholes
passing for Republicans, especially the
Teabaggers, want to drop entire demographic
sectors into the ocean and pretend they don’t
exist. Managed contraction CAN be done humanely
… but I doubt it will.
E.
Buck Stud said:
Along that vein, Krugman , the rights’ favorite whipping boy , provides some very chilling data on the deleterious results of implementing austerity measures while in the storm of a severe recession.
***************************************************
I am, indeed, to the right of political center but
few Republicans of the modern variety would
acknowledge me as such. They aren’t fiscally
responsible (Clinton was better than Reagan, Bush
I, Bush II in that regard), they love foreign
wars, they like church and state as siamese twins
… who in hell are these guys? They sure don’t
understand the Constitution.
However, the problem with Krugman’s radical
QE idea ($2 trillion) is that we do not live in
a manufacturing economy any more. When you use
borrowed monies to make tangible goods, the sale
of those goods provides natural payback for
incurred debts. When you sell a SERVICE, there
is often a distinct lack of NECESSITY for that
service. Do we “need” Comcast? Does everyone
“need” an Iphone or other high end services??
Also, the international barriers to entry for
service companies are lower because it’s much
easier to provide a service than to MAKE A
TANGIBLE THING.
If we were the US circa 1960, I’d be one of
Krugman’s philosophical allies. However, in
this type of economy, I think he’s just dead
wrong and the result (as PROVEN by QE2 to my
mind) of more QEs will be more stock kiting,
more wealth concentration, higher food prices
for the third world, and yet another huge bill
for our children.
Therefore, I’m in favor of massive INFRASTRUCTURE
projects because utility grids and other things
give back something to the real economy and
aren’t like Web 2.0 websites. Where are all
those “shovel-ready” projects of Obama??
E.
Hardy har har. Merkel just came out an hour ago
and said that she is OPPOSED to the “Eurobonds”
idea. Is this woman mentally addled?? How can
she proclaim that Greece won’t leave the EU and
yet she doesn’t want them to sell their debt like
Spain.
John Hussman, a pretty astute economist, said that
yields on Greek 2- and 10-year notes speak of a
ONE-HUNDRED PERCENT chance of default. There is
no saving Greece. Yet Merkel somehow wants Greece
to save itself by paying 98% interest on short
notes.
Maybe I’m missing something here but it almost
appear as if Ms. Merkel is relying on “magic
forces” to prevent an all-out Greek default.
I don’t see how Greece can SELL their SOVEREIGN
notes (who is going to buy them?) but Merkel
seeks to prohibit the EU from approving much
lower yielding (therefore, much more PAYABLE)
Eurobonds for Greece.
Is it possible that Europe’s economic wizards
are even dumber than our own expecting AUSTERITY
to work in the PIIGs??
E.
E.
Is Greece TBTF?
Ha, What happened to the EU is that they allowed us to become the financial hegemon of the world and they followed us down the primrose path to financial destruction.
I mentioned before that 2 years ago I watched Christine Lagarde discuss the financial mess in Europe with Fareed Zacaria and he asked her if infact they were creating new bubbles adn she answered: “There’s nothing else to work with”.
Call it lack of imagination–but it’s so much worse.
They are stuck in an economic paradigm that no matter how much they try to bolster it, it can only fail. Except for Germany, manufacturing must be done by slaves. Doesn’t mean they aren’t going to keep trying—can’t change the status quo, now, no matter what.
Each leader incl. O is stuck in this morass and the only way for it to change is if they let it go. They will wait until it blows up.
I agree that they will also not make it humane when it does.
I also agree with you about the Republicans. It’s as if most of the population is invisible to them.
Years ago I was watching a Presdidential election cycle I realized these guys wouldn’t even want my vote. They are insulting my demographic and couldn’t care less who the are alienating while putting forth their precious “family” values.
They are Orwellian when they say that as well as when they talk about Jesus.
If you heard the cheers about letting someone die because they didn’t get health insurance–a sin that calls for a death penalty, you know this group is a big problem.
I mentioned last night that Ron Paul’s campaign manager died of pneumonia. He didn’t have health insurance. What was going through RP’s mind when he was asked the hypothetical question about letting someone die because he didn’t have health insurance? Why didn’t anyone discuss this in context?
One more thing,
I agree once again with E. about the QEs.
Keynesianism won’t work in the global free market paradigm. When we manufactured and had barriers to entry, it could work.
I’ve mentioned numerous times on this blog, that although there is a law on our books that says that govt stimulus should only go to American workers, the trade laws we have since gotten into for our top 400 says otherwise.
When O institute the last stimulus package, the Chamber of Commmerce stepped in and said the money had to go overseas as well in accordance with international trade laws.
This country is superseded. (game, set and match)
If God existed he would be an atheist…
And you are terribly wrong about Europe Mr. Kunstler.
What is so terrible if Europe went back to be what it always was: France, Italy, Spain, Germany etc…
Do you really believe that there was one Europe?
Europe will exist the moment people will think of themselves as Europeans and not as French, Italians, Germans and so on…
What will really happen will be a deja vu..while Europeans Nations will fight against each other to find out who is the best or the worst, who deserves to be saved and who doesn’t…the Chinese will buy ALL what they can, and who will be the winner, or better the less looser…the ones who have the biggest debts.
The Italians have good chances to be saved…because France has 500 billions Italian debts, and losing Italy would mean complete bankruptcy of French banks…as the old saying goes, if you have to be in debt, it is worth to have huge debts.
Greece will probably go into default; the losses will be very low compared to Italy and Spain…
E.,
Lest we forget, US banks (not to mention the wallstreeters) are heavily invested in European debt. The size of the boat they’re all in is massive, but not massive enough to thwart a swamping. Services; yep, serve THAT up. ;o)
(It’s nice they’ve thought to take us on the cruise with them, don’cha think?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9mgZkOOh4o&NR=1
Signs at protest: “Islam Will Dominate the World.”
There are many (CFN) atheists, who would like to see all religions disappear. But (human) nature abhors a vacuum.
Will this fill the religious vacuum that presently exists in the West?
If I had to do with somebody who owes me billions I would help him the way he can actually repay his debts.
What they are doing (German banks in first row) is taking advantage of a bad situation, squeezing the more they can, in a way that makes it clear that they KNOW Greece will default…
It is like giving an extra dose of heroin to somebody who is in abstinence crisis.
A normal doctor would cure the symptoms and help the patient to recover and THEN curing him NOT letting him assuming any drug…
A bad doctor would just give the patient additional heroin as long as necessary to have a fast death…
The only reason Greece hasn’t default or it is going through a “controlled default” is not to create panic in the market.
That would mean EVERYBODY selling everything.
I do not think the situation is as tragic as it looks.
After WW2 people were much poorer, everything had to be rebuilt and with no resources.
They did it.
That means that when you want you can.
The problem is that people are not aware of the situation and in principle they do not want.
They are waiting for some miracle to save them in a painless way.
They would like to save, but there is nothing they want to say good bye to.
It is like dieting eating.
How many promise: you can lose weight eating as much as you like.
This is the miracle everybody likes to believe in.
I just read that Pat Robertson said that it is OK to divorce your spouse if they have alzheimers because that disease is a kind of death. Hey Pat, whatever happened to “in sickness and in health?”
Robertson has the compassion of an icycle.
“after world war 2 people were much poorer”
We are going crazy over what that generation would have just shrugged their shoulders over.
The needs of the people were neglected.
CTEMPLE says:
“The left is tired of looking at people like Michelle Bachman and Rick Perry, well, the left is largely responsible for them. If the left had done their job, we wouldn’t be looking at these mouthpieces for the rich.”
A good point and the rest of the post is great.
Howdy, Clusterfuckers!
Finally got a new post up at my blog, Small Batch Garden, titled:
“Use Oil, Not Too Much, Mostly To Build Procreative Systems”
A play on the subtitle of Michael Pollan’s latest book, “In Defense of Food,” this post is another rant against the psychology of previous investment that terrorizes American culture in ways Al Qaeda could only fantasize about. Read it if you have time.
Miss you guys. Been awfully busy lately planting fall crops, working out the details of mob grazing beef, and inoculating the season’s mushrooms.
Hope all is well,
Tripp
“(excluding religious fanatics who’ve taken a vowel of poverty)”
———–
Religious fanatics shun vowels of poverty. Many, however, do go for consonants.
Hey, thanks for the defense, ozone. I appreciate it.
ctemple, you are responding to the fake left presented to you by the corporate media.
As a genuine leftist, I can assure you that I am against NAFTA, WTO, the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, the prison industrial complex, the importation of cheap labor, and the exportation of productive machinery.
Am I represented in the media? No.
It’s just like E complaining that the fake right, as represented by the corporate media, seems only concerned with making sure pregnant teenagers pop out those babies, so they can complain about welfare. And making sure that the Chinese-made American flag is saluted by all, preferably with a straight armed salute.
Fiscal responsiblity? Personal liberty? Anti-imperialism? Not represented in the media.
You can see the way Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul are treated in the corporate media.
As for the Patriot Act, there were two liberals opposed, Daschle and Leahy. They had anthrax mailed to them, remember?
At the time the letters were mailed, starting one week after Sept. 11, the letters were tied to the attacks, with muslim threats typed out.
Interesting, isn’t it?
Clearly, the attacks had to be prepared before 9-11, and the targets were clearly freedom defenders.
But as soon as it became clear that the anthrax came from US sources, the ties were dropped, and so was the scare mongering.
Although most people I know were much more afraid during the anthrax attacks than the original plane attacks, (which didn’t affect us), you no longer have people afraid to open their mail, although they will submit to porno scanners and gropings to get on a plane.
To me, it shows the power of the media to shape opinions, fears and behaviors.
I’m very sorry to hear of your problems.
You’re right, there are more and more of you everyday.
Have you thought of heading towards Washington, DC? There will be an encampment of angry people there, starting 10-6, kind of like a mini-bonus marchers thing.
Good luck.
Last night I attended a trivia contest, with the proceeds going to help a new child protection place. It’s 2 years old, and it takes kids whose parents don’t want them.
WTF? What is this? I thought that foster care had that covered.
The news occasionally covers the animal shelters, showing heartbreaking stories of dogs whose owners can no longer afford them, waiting in the cages for their people to show back up, and take them home.
I got the impression that this child shelter was something similar, kind of a no-kill shelter set up to provide an alternative to the animal control one.
We came in second, and donated our proceeds back to the shelter, but, as we left, I told my husband that I hoped it wasn’t something like Boys Town, providing kids for rich people’s perversions.
Again, I think we should pay for voluntary sterilization. And we should pay for spaying and neuturing animals.
Just trying to shame people into social responsibility obviously isn’t working.
Did your grandmother die? My condolences.
Remember what VK posted a few days ago..
That in 20 years Frances army will be young Muslim males.
I see Shades of Foot Hood !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow Wage , as a righty I’m against most of the same things you are. Interesting.
Voluntary sterilization would railed against by both the left and right. I guess it makes too much sense.
I get along with right wingers.
It’s not right vs left. It’s top vs bottom.
You have Great Taste in Music.
Doesn’t get much better than that, Gardening to Great Music !
Right wingers that I know come up with the idea on their own.
The only difference is that they think that poor and/or stupid people should be forcibly sterilized.
I think that this is funny, coming from people who purport to be small government advocates. Sometimes they announce that people should have to have a license to breed.
Really? Who gets to decide?
When I say that it should be voluntary, and paid for, they usually agree with my version.
I just point to whatever pregnant methhead they are railing against and ask them if they really think that she wouldn’t voluntarily sterilize herself.
Why, yes. She would. And so would her methhead “fiance”. And that would solve a small part of society’s problems.
Multiplied by hundreds of thousands, it would solve a large part.
Freedom to choose is what it’s all about. Although if the methhead asks for help, perhaps it would ok to ask for something in return. We make a truly decent effort to help you with rehab. Then you get sterilize at our expense.
The top/ bottom argument is a good one. In different ways both the very top and very bottom could be better citizens. I guess we all could.
See, I’m more of a libertarian than that.
I truly believe that if people want to destroy themselves with drugs, then they have that right.
But don’t involve children in your mess.
The interesting thing about meth heads is that they don’t usually ask for help.
But, if they did, it should be separate from sterilization.
And, yes, they may blow their money on meth. That would be a waste and a shame, but it’s their choice. To withhold the reward for sterilization unless you get to approve how they spend it, would be wrong.
Your approach would probably curb drug use more than the current war on drugs policy. Self limiting by death. It would be an example for others. The reward for sterilization would be the key, not the deal I suggested.
You guys,
Have you got around 8 minutes of your life to while away, gaping at a video?
Although Wage won’t find anything shockingly new and different, some others of youse (right, left, and center) may. You’re correct, it’s not a matter of where we are on some horizontal spectrum of leaning right or left, it’s all a matter of who’s in charge and what they wish to do. (That would be vertical; over and under.) THOSE peoples’ only constraint is dictated by their peers, a tiny sliver of the populace.
Conspiracy “theory” be damned; conspiracy “facts” are laying all about the place like so many unburied, bloated, reeking corpses.
A [former] darling of the “Right”, Wesley Clark, tells us a scary little story from loooooong ago.
Goddamn right, an actual conspiracy, “Folks”!
(Gee, how did that nasty little man, McCain, become the GOP’s go-to guy during that debacle?)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29129.htm
Time to stop believing that your average “righty” and “lefty” have nothing in common. The time is coming on quickly when “the governed” will withdraw their consent (out of bare necessity).
Of course, this qualifier (in a following comment) is quite germane for us icky cynics. ;o)
“Sorry peeps. As soon as I heard “it’s all in my book … “, vid off.
That is all these scumbags do. Take the gravy-train for 20-30 years, defraud the system of every last cent they can squeeze outta it, then write a goddamned book to tell us how they did it.
Clark is just another talking-airhead calling himself an expert. ”
Alrighty, I’ll take that on advisement…
Jim, it looks like your past prediction about the decline of American suburbia is already coming to pass. Check this out:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/The-Beginning-End-Suburban-atlantic-1156625650.html?x=0
I haven’t been able to reply to you before this because of some stuff going on in my personal life, which I’ll go into a little more in another post.
Wage, I’m very surprised about the insulting tone of your reply to me concerning the 9/11 attacks. You usually aren’t like that, but I guess when someone doesn’t agree with an individual’s long-held beliefs, they get angry.
WTC7 did go into freefall, but only for 2.25 seconds according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). WTC7 was not hit by an airplane, but was struck by the North Tower as it was burning. NYFD firefighters there described “huge, raging unfought fires” on many floors, and saw visible deformations and creaking of the building before it collapsed. The fires in #7 caused column #79 to fail because of thermal expansion. NIST said this caused the collapse, as well as damage from building 1’s collapse. NIST also found that the collapse occurred in 3 stages: The 1st stage lasted 1.75 seconds, slower than free fall; the 2nd stage lasted 2.25 seconds wherein the north face freefell 8 stories; the 3rd stage, 1.4 seconds was less than free fall as the building fell 130 feet. Building 7 actually fell outside its footprint as it twisted and tilted over to one side and damaged 2 other buildings.
I could go on with other disputations of the conspiracy theory, but space is limited. I think you should be the one to look at other studies showing your understanding to be incorrect. I’ve already studied conspiracy theories and found them to be in disrepute.
The Perception Management economy by Charles Hugh Smith. (oftwominds)
Today his post addressed the psych-ops and propaganda techniques used to inform our perceptions on the economy.
I love this article, since it describes much of what I keep saying about this system.
[There are nine strategies for perception management. These include:
Preparation — Having clear goals and knowing the ideal position you want people to hold.
?Credibility — Make sure all of your information is consistent, often using prejudices or expectations to increase credibility.
?Multichannel support — Have multiple arguments and fabricated facts to reinforce your information.
?Centralized control — Employing entities such as propaganda ministries or bureaus. ?
Security — The nature of the deception campaign is known by few. ?Flexibility — The deception campaign adapts and changes over time as needs change. ?
Coordination — The organization or propaganda ministry is organized in a hierarchical pattern in order to maintain consistent and synchronized distribution of information. ?
Concealment — Contradicting information is destroyed. ?
Untruthful statements — Fabricate the truth.]
Check out how Greece now sees the rest of Europe:
http://www.zazzle.com/europe_according_to_greece_poster-228147705655358696
Beantown,
I’m with on 9/11. I don’t think there was a big conspiracy.
Thank you.
Thanks for the link to information clearinghouse.
Doesn’t surprise me in the least. These people aren’t just neo-cons, they are dedicated to Milton Friedman’s neoliberalism.
It’s a convergence of crony capitalism in the form of no-bid contracts and they wanted to get the transnationals in those countries for oil and infrastructure. (military_financial hegemony)
What are Russia and China thinking about this?
Maybe they’re hoping we’ll get exhausted militarily and financially….
It’s getting boring around here. Where are our great writers?:
BubbleHeadMarc
Orionoir
What happened to our misanthropes?:
TreeBeardsUncle
Metusela (Mika)
Where is our direct link to the Supreme Being?:
MessianicDruid
Where is the Sultan of insults?:
Fabian (Tootsie)
What ever became of the biggest asshole to ever post here?:
Johnny “Jennie” Rico
How’s about all you guys come back and stir the pot.
We’re getting some infrastructure investment in Humboldt County, mainly in the forms of sorely needed road resurfacing and a redundant broadband line to Red Bluff, since our existing broadband line along 101 often gets cut by construction crews.
One thing that we badly need but don’t seem to be getting is investment in our gas pipeline network; no one wants another San Bruno, but PG&E doesn’t seem up to the task of preventing that. My sense is that a government-run utility in the mold of LADWP, especially one run by the state, would be more efficient and organized than PG&E, whose archives seem to be in utter disarray and which is woefully behind on repairs. If PG&E got a tender to maintain our roads, I cannot imagine it doing nearly as good a job as Caltrans.
Something else that this state and others need is better railroad infrastructure. With the exception of the Oakland-Sacramento line, the network that Amtrak uses in California is almost entirely singletracked with sidings. This includes its second most popular line, between Santa Barbara and San Diego. Amtrak’s entire California system is shared with freight trains. Its signaling and dispatching, like that of railroads throughout the US, is moribund; this is a staffing, funding and managerial problem, not a technological problem. Yet there is no political will to do anything to improve the rail system shy of a $10b high-speed rail boondoggle, which was a feel-good “green” gesture until Peninsula NIMBYs decided otherwise.
Meanwhile, Amtrak can’t get a redundant tunnel to back up its ancient, deteriorating two-track tunnel under the Hudson River to Penn Station because the funding process was vetoed by NJ Gov. Chris Christie. That tunnel serves Amtrak’s most heavily trafficked line. Why the feds haven’t taken over that project from the Port Authority is beyond me.
Yeah, grandma died early Friday morning. Thanks for the condolences.
We have some family friends who are raising a foster daughter who had the language development of a one-year-old at the age of two and a half. This couple is politically center-right as far as I can tell, although not doctrinaire or partisan, but they do not mince words about their views on public policy towards unfit parents. They openly argue that parents who are too drug-addled to properly raise children should be allowed one “oopsie” before being forcibly sterilized. They say that they’ve seen too much human misery and destruction to feel differently and that the foster care system is simply too overwhelmed to handle the huge numbers of wrecks produced by unfit parents.
My main concern about such a policy is that it could easily be expanded from hardcore tweakers to harmless potheads. I agree with you that voluntary sterilization is a much better idea.
I apologize if I offended you. My beliefs are not really “long held”. I believed the official story for 4 years, following the blow back theory so popular among leftists. It’s the secular version of karma, I suppose.
When presented with new facts, though, I changed my mind. It’s one of those “doh” moments. It seems very obvious to me now that the official story is bullshit.
As for the NIST report that took 7 years to write, yes, they now admit that for a couple of seconds, the building was in freefall. Well, why? Contrary to that idiot I was arguing with last night, freefall implies no resistance. Why no resistance for 2 seconds? NIST doesn’t explain.
The raging fires? Prove it. Photographs show some fires at different times and places than NIST claims.
You accept that if column 79 fails ( because the computer models proclaim expansion of the steel, but not the concrete. Really? Because in Real Life, concrete expands about the same as steel) the whole damn building falls down? Really? This is what I find so baffling.
My co-worker’s son got drunk and ran his car into a house. The part he ran into collapsed. But, believe it or not, the rest of the house stayed up!! How could this happen? NIST states very clearly that if one column in a 47 story steel-framed building collapses, the total collapse of the entire building is inevitable. So it should be the same in a house, right?
And we’ve had some horrendous fires in some buildings around here lately. Beams have collapsed, but the rest of the buildings haven’t. What’s up with that?
You assign me the task of reading things that will make me agree with you? Don’t you think that’s a little arrogant?
I’ve read plenty of information, and I came to different conclusions than you have.
You say that you’ve studied conspiracy theories and found them to be in disrepute? Damn straight! If you mean conspiracy theories other than the official one, that is. The corporate media does its damnest to make sure that anyone who doesn’t follow the party line is in disrepute.
There are no limites – NONE – to the mendacity and vicious pettiness of bureacrats. Anyone who wants big goverment is insane. The more you take the more they control you. Great Britain now has begun to register 3 year olds as thought criminals for using words like “gay” or calling someone a brocoli head.
http://www.infowars.com/3-year-olds-branded-racist-homophobic-put-in-government-database/
Did you even look at the video?
It explains the official theory, which IS a conspiracy theory!
This is the beauty of propaganda. Most of our Days Which Change Everything are attributed to Lone Nuts. And when people express doubt that Lone Nuts could carry off such feats, they are called Conspiracy Theorists.
And Americans are taught to shun Conspiracy Theorists. They wear tin-foil hats and think forbidden thoughts!
So here we are, in the 21st century, and the game is slightly changed. The Day That Changed Everything is this time blamed on a conspiracy! (19 Arabs and their dialysis-dependent boss in a cave).
It doesn’t matter. Those who follow the party line use the same pejorative to denounce the free-thinkers.
Amazing!
I wasn’t at work for an hour today when my 22 year old co-worker explained to me that she thought that people should have to get licenses to have kids. And they should have to prove that they would be good parents, and they should have to pass a financial test.
So I asked her how to do such a thing? How could the government manage people’s sex lives?
Well, she didn’t think that sex should lead to pregnancy.
I said that’s what birth control was about. But she didn’t think that the kind of people who didn’t use birth control should be allowed to have babies.
Ooh. As it happens, that’s exactly the kind of people who do have babies.
So I told her my voluntary sterilization plan. And she liked it.
This is probably one of those things that the vast majority of Americans would support that we don’t have a chance in hell of getting, like single payer health care, or peace.
I’m just sayin…
LBendet said:
The Perception Management economy by Charles Hugh Smith.
****************************************************
Wow. You didn’t need to say a word beyond the
title of Mr. Smith’s work. Exactly. Bread and
circuses. Make people believe we can make an
economy out of doing each other’s lawn and
laundry. McDonald’s is now counted as a
MANUFACTURING firm.
Until recently, I didn’t think Europe could outdo
us with the Orwellian rhetoric but Merkel and
Sarkozy have proved me wrong. They think
Greece can be saved … without a “United States
of Europe”. And the money will come from whom??
Greek bondholders have been warned, according to
Bloomberg’s recounting of a recent emergency
meeting of EU leaders, that they will “… take
a 50% haircut …”. Fifty?? I love how they
picked that particular number. Fifty?? How
about NINETY-NINE. Greek bonds are Europe’s
CDOs and MBSs. If they couldn’t pay off three
months ago when the 2-year yielded 20% what are
the chances that the Greek government will give
ONE-HUNDRED PERCENT INTEREST to people selling
before maturity??
The whole thing is so fucking nutty that it’s
schizoid. The EU wants all the “other” countries
to save the PIIGs but they, especially Germany,
don’t want to be the first in line to donate to
the “Eurobond” stockpile.
Debt restructuring at this point is absurd. How
do you restructure something that was beyond
salvation in January and is now ten times past
salvation??
E.
Very well put in the last three paragraphs. I would, however, add a caveat about the war. War for oil is very popular among the happy motoring set, that is to say most of the country. At least on some level it is. Few motorists would want to incur higher retail oil prices as a result of the US Military ceasing to garrison major oil-producing regions. This garrisoning puts very effective pressure on a number of major producers not to shut off our supplies or sell them on a truly open market, where other countries, mainly China, would Hoover it all up.
On the other hand, the strategic effect of the Iraq war on oil markets had the opposite effect of what was intended, fostering violence that shut down already poorly run fields. The Afghan war is an even worse bit of oil geopolitics, since Afghanistan is a piss-poor country without oil. In fact, in retrospect it looks bad all around. At the time I was glad to see the Taliban driven from power, but their replacements suck and the Taliban keep worming their way back into de facto control of large parts of the country. Going after bin Laden was a bad strategic blunder. Sure, it felt good and right, but it was exactly what he wanted. Instead of forcing al Qaeda to attack us on our territory, where we held the advantage, we allowed ourselves to be baited into a guerrilla war on al Qaeda’s home turf. It was as though bin Laden was the only one studying our history in Vietnam.
The “Iran sandwich” theory of military policy and geopolitics is interesting but probably overrated. We certainly have no business attacking Iran, as the neocons wanted, because it would be a fierce military enemy but is one of the easiest countries to contain with sound diplomacy. Ahmadinejad is crazy like a fox. He takes calculated risks with his saber-rattling and theocratic musings, but he knows when to back off because he’s crossing the wrong people. I’m convinced he’s one of the savviest politicians in the world today. Still, he regularly burns his scant political capital among Tehranis by pandering to provincial theocrats, and as long as we’re at peace with Iran we can use that against him.
The inability of the US electorate to force its elected officials to implement policies that it supports by majorities raises serious questions about our capacity for self-government.
I’m convinced that the most fundamental problem is with the voters. No one is forcing them to vote for policies that they oppose. No one is forcing them to vote for representatives whom they consider scoundrels.
It seems that the voters know what they want but don’t know how to get it. Or something like that. It depends on how broadly the electorate is defined: eligible voters, those who vote in presidential general elections, primary voters, and midterm and off-year voters are very different groups. Part of the problem is that the minor elections bring out a really large nut crop. More broadly, though, how are we still blowing up the best of our youth and dumping money into the same rat hole that finished off the USSR militarily when the public wants out? How do we still have such a dysfunctional, corrupt, cruel medical racket when so many people have been personally affected by its cruelty and want real reform? Worse, how did Obama and Congress get away with enacting “reforms” forcing individuals to buy health insurance on a rigged, avaricious private market? How the hell does a Congress with something like a 17% approval rating have a reelection rate on the order of 90%?
My sense is that it comes down to misguided priorities among voters. There is definitely a lot of cultism at both ends of the political spectrum. It’s scary. Damn straight Obama should be facing a primary challenge. Carter, widely considered incompetent and tin-eared, got one from the scoundrel Ted Kennedy. That wasn’t the most public-spirited thing for Kennedy to do (nor was a lot of his other “public service”), but it served an important function in the electoral process. It gave Democratic voters a way to express their displeasure with Carter’s performance and sent a message to other politicians that they could expect the same for fucking up. Partisan politics in both parties seem to have become too cultist to enable a serious primary challenge today.
The Last Waltz
Last night we lost our cat in an instant we never would have imagined.
He had a stroke in his upper back one month earlier and had managed to come back to 85% of himself, only to run into other complications last week.
We kept him home and treated him to the best of our abilities, but you can’t fool mother nature forever. All the medication in the world won’t keep you going when your time has come.
Earlier in the evening Jumbalaya wanted to look over his domain, he so generously shared with all the cats dogs and people who lived in his territory for 15.5 years. Weak but resolute he checked all the new smells indicating the turnover in residents, checking for new pets I imagine.
I was always amazed at all the details he saw in his realm. Once there was a water mark on the ceiling down the other side of our floor and we walked right under and sat down looking up.
We always said he transcended catness and had an integrity and intelligence of any being you would respect.
Anyway later on in the evening he asked to go out again and I obliged.
This time he walked the whole two hallways like a little country gentleman looking over his fields, now a crooked little cat walking a crooked mile. I didn’t know how sick he was, but somehow I knew he thought this was his last time.
I’m sorry. :o(
I suppose that’s why we like cats so much: their intelligent independence and easy affection. We can only ask for their company temporarily, and letting them go is always very difficult.
All the best from the land of the wild cats, kept from their night habits by the human interlopers.
Bill,
The problem with people who believe the government mafia propaganda, is that they are emotionally compromised. If you start with the premise, which btw is a true premise, that the government mafia is capable of ANYTHING, then you quickly come to realize how you have been emotionally compromised and emotionally manipulated into blindness and complacency by the lies and misdirections of gov mafia.
I would urge you to ask the question(s), who benefits? Nothing that happens, happens by accident. Ask the question, why did the government mafia lie about the the 9/11 perpetrators, putting out the impression that they supposedly had no or very limited student flying skills, when in fact these were professional military flyers with multiple flying licenses in multiple countries, having been also trained on US military air-force bases? Just observing the stunning flying maneuvers into the WTC and the Pentagon, an intelligent person can deduce that these are not the flying skills of amateurs. Why is it that this is information is not widely known? Why is it that Daniel Hopsicker is the only reporter and investigator that looked into this?
Spitfire List | FTR #482 Interview with Daniel Hopsicker
– http://goo.gl/MNvQl
No acceptance of any other plausibilities than the official 9/11 narrative, eh?
Try this one then.
From Paul Craig Roberts:
“Somehow we survived 46 years of this [Soviet] threat without going to war. But Iraq, which all but the most stupid people on earth now know had no “weapons of mass destruction” was such a threat that the US government felt not only compelled to invade but also justified to lie to the United Nations in order to attack and destroy a country that had done nothing whatsoever to us and posed no threat whatsoever.” -PCR
Any conspiracy there? Or were those “accidental” lies? Or lies in the service of a greater truth. Or does the conspiracy justify its’ result?
Or do you think he knows not whereof he speaks?
Perhaps the evidence indicates otherwise.
Mr. Clark is here characterizing himself as a dispassionate observer, pleading ignorance of a dastardly conspiracy in the first instance, then keeping quiet for “s’cur’dy” reasons in the second. How much of his polishing his turd of a reputation is a pack of lies, and how much is outlining a real and dangerous conspiracy by those in the very highest levels of gum’mint? Try watching it this time, and tell me if you think that there might be something to this PNAC business. (A conspiracy of dunces is a conspiracy nevertheless.)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29129.htm
To believe in the purity of the motives of those who wield the literal power of life and death, is to blunder into a cave system with no light or minimum safety precautions. Somebody’s gonna get hurt.
I like the Paul Craig Roberts piece, O3.
You know that I will respectfully disagree with you and Wage on most of 9/11 conspiracy thinking. Doubtless, parts of the official narrative are based on some chicanery and obfuscation. (It is the Government, after all.)
Still, the overwhelming body of evidence shows that 19 men with boxcutters and a suicidal one-time-use plan, really did turn the political, social, and military life of the last great Superpower – completely on its head. It was quite a plan. And it worked brilliantly. And I’ll grant you that the 9/11 attackers DID benefit from a LATER conspiracy, of which they had no knowledge or ability to control.
This later conspiracy was the Conspiracy of Dunces making decisions in the administration of BushII the Lesser. These people did deliberately conspire to involve the US in Afghanistan and IRAQ – by twisting, spinning, and shamelessly lying to the American people.
Amazing.
BushII and his gang cannot POSSIBLY be judged favorably by the verdict of history? Can they?
And I still see some people driving around with “W” stickers on their vehicles.
Truly. Amazing.
It’s not that I automatically accept government declarations, O3, it’s just that I find alternate descriptions of the cause of 9/11 lacking in facts and reasoning. Please believe me when I say that in my opinion the government is populated by many corrupt, venal, and incompetent
persons.
As regards Iraq, we were lied to, which I knew pretty early on when we never found WMDs. I’ve always believed the whole mideast political process is about oil, as well as W being pissed at Saddam for sending someone to the US to try to kill his father.
We could have flushed out Bin Laden in Afghanistan and then left, but no, we had to try to secure our oil in the region; by getting involved in Iraq and Afghanistan I think we’re trying to send a message not to mess with the oil.
Of course, we could have always used food as a weapon, but then the world would have hated us even more than they do now. Ironically, the way things are going, what with global warming, overpopulation and the gradual destruction of the American physical environment, we may ultimately need to curtail food exporting to feed our own people.
Yes, we’ll have to disagree then. So be it.
Consider this, as long as we’re on the subject:
Why would Cheney [et al.] have any scruples about wasting a few thousand US citizens, when he doesn’t appear concerned about the manifest evil involved in the death of a few HUNDRED thousand Iraqis, and scattering many, many more than that to the four winds?
Just let that thought percolate for a while; these boyz been in bid’nez since the murder of JFK. An amazing collection of psychos that now feels safe out of the closet, with the lights on. I think it indicates the state of awareness in the general populace, don’t you?
I believe the government, explicitly charged with protecting the safety of its citizens, got caught with its pants down. They lied to American citizens to avoid embarresment and to hide their incompetence. Then, in a stroke of supposed genius, they decided not to waste a good crisis, and used the whole incident to invade the Middle East.
Not sure why you’d crave the company of assholes [such as I], but if it’s good writing you desire, go to AMR’s blog, here:
http://aliensinthefamily.wordpress.com/
Au revoir, et bon chance…
(Start a blog site to bind and collect them all. Call it “Assholes Eponymous”. Toots and the Rico are one and the same; I’m surprised you hadn’t noticed the stylistic similarities. And I don’t think you’ll find Orionoir as desirous of inclusion.)
I believe what I believe, just as you do. To me, most of what I see on this site regarding 9/11 is conspiracy. I wanted to let CFNers have a more balanced dialogue on what happened in 2001.
In any case, I knew I would never get you or other conspiracy believers to change their minds; that will never happen. Since that’s the case, and since by posting my 9/11 comments I’ve achieved my goal, I’m not going to go back and forth and debate the issue, so I’m done with it now.
I think we’re pretty much on the same page with this issue, Procon.
ProCon, I tend to agree with you that it was 19 men with boxcutters. I have trouble believing a government plot would have a plane crash into the Pentagon. They don’t want to kill their own.
BTW, ProCon, I hope you have accepted my apology and we can be friends now.
Speaking of the medical racket, did you see in yesterday’s paper that the CEO of UC Davis medical school is getting a $259,000 raise–granted by the UC regents. Her yearly salary is now $960,000 a year.
Apparently, she was being recruited by another academic medical school and they were offering $1.5 million.
Did the UC regents ever think, “Shucks, let her go, it will save California taxpayers some money.”
And people wonder why a bandage applied at a hospital costs $20.
“I believe the government, explicitly charged with protecting the safety of its citizens, got caught with its pants down. They lied to American citizens to avoid embarresment and to hide their incompetence. Then, in a stroke of supposed genius, they decided not to waste a good crisis, and used the whole incident to invade the Middle East.” -BTB
So, you would agree/believe that a conspiracy to invade, destroy, and kill [without anything approaching just cause] was embarked upon.
Don’t be confused that the word “conspiracy” implies “fantasy”; that can get into the territory of Orwellian terminology.
I spent a lot of time looking at videos on youtube and other websites. I’ve read a few books by 911 conspiracy theories, and yet I came to a different conclusion than you.
Much as I’d like to pin it on Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc., I’m going to blame radical Islam.
Are you surprised by 960,000 annual pay?
What about the annual pay for CEOs of Health Insurance Companies: First five are for yar 2008.
Aetna Ronald A. Williams: $23,045,834
Cigna H. Edward Hanway: $25,839,777
Health Net Jay M. Gellert: $3,686,230
Humana Michael McCallister: $10,312,557
U.Health Grp Stephen J. Hemsley: $13,164,529
WellPoint Angela Braly (2007): $9,094,271
L. Glasscock (2006): $23,886,169
Cigna is my insurance and my co-pay is much higher than last year. I think Mr. H. Edward Hanway receved a rase.
I’m planning to retire soon. And (not if but when) Medicare is privatized I will pay for another 20 mln dollars a year salary
I do believe we entered into a war without just cause. It is possible that the CIA deliberately misled the Bush administration about Iraq’s WMD (maybe with Cheney involved), but in any case, the war with Iraq was immoral, just like the Vietnam war (we could say any war is immoral, which I don’t feel is true).
In law, the concept of criminal conspiracy exists, and it’s illogical to assume all conspiracy is fantasy. Like any other important claim, a claim of conspiracy ought to be investigated to determine its validity.
Beantown Bill writes:
“It is possible that the CIA deliberately misled the Bush administration about Iraq’s WMD (maybe with Cheney involved)”
Did the March 16, 1988 Halabja poison gas attack really not occur?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Halabja1.jpg
Obviously, Iraq at one time had WMD capability. And I find it highly implausible that what Saddam Huessein was willing to use in 1988 he did not have stashed in 2002-03.
What did happen is the U.S. telegraphing their intent to invade Iraq for well over a year. An invasion that was publicly being sold and debated on the basis of the WMD charge. So yeah, I think the WMD’s went missing in advance.
By all accounts, Saddam was a monster and not just a CIA propaganda puppet. The type of guy who might feed a living adversary feet first into a table saw with a very sharp running blade. ( It’s more torturous that way(feet first), anticipating the groin being slashed just before the heart and the head). And like Bin Laden and the Mujahideen, he was an American monster who served the national interest for a while.
They don’t want to kill their own.
==
You are NOT part of their own!
These reptiles are the philosophical and political parents of Hitler. They don’t view you as a human being. They view you as a dispensable farm animal on their corporate plantation. Soon to be completely replaced by less costly mechanic/electronic automatons.
These reptiles orchestrated WWI. They orchestrated WWII. They orchestrated the holocaust. They orchestrated the Vietnam War via the Gulf of Tonkin incident. They are responsible for 90% of the drug trade worldwide. They set up the Japanese via Pearl Harbor. They set up Saddam Hussein via Kuwait. They set up the Serbs via false accusations of genocide and ethnic cleansing. They murdered Jack Kennedy for refusing to start WWIII using atomic weapons. For decades they’ve been trying to start WWIII by using Israel as a spark for war.
When genocide and holocaust through war will prove insufficient, they already have nutritionally degraded frankenfoods, poisoned water, poisoned air, poisoned soil, poison vaccines, cancer epidemics and a collapse of the world’s economies on stand by to kill the other billions.
It’s all about who you know. Saddam is bad and Mummar is good for these folks since one is a “fascist” and the other a “communist” (neither was either in reality).
Muslims are good since they are now part of the Revolution against Western Civilization. The monumental egotism of these people masks their equally huge gullibility. The Muslims know exactly our weaknesses and how to exploit them. The Left is utterly clueless as usual. Literally, a conspiracy of dunces.
No we shouldn’t be supporting Israel either. What should we be doing? Supporting ourselves – what a novel, revolutionary idea. Our borders, our Language, our Culture, our Future.
Most American Jews will support Israel over America. This is the kind of thing which makes them such Trouble – and exactly the kind of thing which has gotten them into trouble throughout history.
Much as I’d like to pin it on Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc., I’m going to blame radical Islam.
==
Who finances and gives political cover to radical islam? Who’s been carefully nurturing radical Islam from a small band of outcast heretics in the Hashemite Kingdom, to watch it grow to become the player that it has become? If radical Islam is a weed in the garden, stomp it out. But that’s not what we’ve been seeing. What we’ve been seeing is the constant supply of money, weapons, and western propaganda for the service of radical islam.
Fissures seem to have appeared among the Globalists. Brezinski said that the Neo Cons and their rabid pro Israel agenda have put back World Goverment thirty years. And there are Jews on both sides of this apparently – the Jews behind Obama (Soros, Goldman Sachs) are the old school CFR World Goverment types.
have put back World Goverment thirty years
==
Good. They’re doing god’s work. Just like Soros and GS.
The Jihad is ancient and it was due to return as Islam waxed strong thru oil revenue. The way it actually worked out are the not unimportant details. I mean Europe didn’t have to sell itself out as it did. We are making it easy for them. And now the Left has jumped on – the last stroke of Doom.
I think it was Sullieman the Magnificient who invaded via the Sea – threatening to quarter his Horse in Saint Peter’s in Rome. European Merchants assumed that Islam was going to triumph and started funding him hoping for favor when his Regime came into power. Merchants are not to be trusted – money is their God. Our whole Civilization is now nothing but mercantile. It’s no wonder that it’s going down like wet cardboard.
Papal Forces and the Noblemen of Malta and Greece defeated Sulieman at Lepanto despite his vastly greater force. The slaves were unchained, given swords and rosaries, and promised freedom if they fought. The wind shifted from the side of Islam to that of Christendom. As Turkish Chroniclers said, Allah turned His face away from the Muslims.
All real Civilizations have a deep and abiding distrust of Businesmen and Bankers. Such creatures have to prove their worthiness by constant acts of charity and kindness. Otherwise they are to be rubbed out. Thus is Evil kept in check. It doesn’t matter if they feel like doing good – they are forced to. Private citizens have more freedom of course.
So the Jews are working together in spite of the apparent differences? I don’t automatically disbelieve you. The Protocols say as much. Tikkun Olam is Tyranny in Jewish Drag.
Papal Forces and the Noblemen of Malta and Greece defeated Sulieman
==
Vile creatures of Mordor, that’s what all these imperialists are. All are enemies of enlightenment liberty freedom and democracy.
Tikkun Olam is Tyranny in Jewish Drag.
==
How so?
You’re blaming the corporate-controlled Congress, White House and Supreme Court on the voters?!!
That’s pretty amazing.
Most people who voted for Obama thought that they were voting for a repudiation of Bush policies, for an end to secrecy, war, torture, and favoritism for the rich.
They were punked.
A higher voter turnout for one of two corporate parties is meaningless. Especially because the voting machines, like the NIST computer inputs, are kept out of public scrutiny.
I don’t think that Max Cleland actually lost his election and I don’t think that Bush actually won the 2004 election. I think the machines were rigged.
And so many people were pointing this out that they fixed the problem. They quit telling us the results of the exit polls.
In this country, that is. In other countries, exit polls are still considered very reliable, and our shameless politicians point their fingers in accusation at those vote tampering countries.
I am very sorry for your loss, lbendet. I know how much you loved your cat.
After the last few weeks of constant reguritation of the official story, complete with endless media coverage and political haymaking ceremonies, also televised, you decide that a few skeptics expressing doubt on clusterfuck nation was too much for you to bear. And you decided to balance it out.
Well. Mission accomplished.
They didn’t kill their own, asoka, as you would know if you actually listened to the official version.
The official version is that an inexperienced pilot, flying toward the Pentagon on a direct path to the side where Rumsfield and the top generals were, decided instead of crashing directly into them to fly another few minutes, making a 330 degree turn and then executing a dive and leveling out to come in at ground level on the other side of the building.
The side were the auditors were working on finding the missing two trillion plus dollars that Rusfield announced on 9-10-11.
“Their own” weren’t killed. The auditors were.
That is the official theory.
Israeli agents were seen filming the smoking Towers and celebrating nearby. They knew of the threat and didn’t tell us. The Agents were arrested and quietly taken out of the Country with no charges being made.
SJ Mom said:
Speaking of the medical racket, did you see in yesterday’s paper that the CEO of UC Davis medical school is getting a $259,000 raise–granted by the UC regents. Her yearly salary is now $960,000 a year.
***************************************************
And as anybody who’s worked in a college knows,
these figureheads in schools don’t do any real
work. Sure, her salary doesn’t compete with
the CEOs of health insurers but, then again, at
least the insurers aren’t living off of direct
State subsidies.
I’ve noticed that in the middle of this
depression (I call it what it is, no matter where
the Dow is at), the UC has increased profs
salaries as well. How is it being financed?
More tuition increases. Do the tuition increases
cover all of the salary increases? NO!!!!
In other words, colleges are ACTING like
insurers and other gougers … why do they do
these things … because they know that they
CAN. Legalized embezzlement by the people on
the top of the org structures of companies
(public or private) is now labelled …
COMPENSATION.
It’s no longer considered a moral wrong for the
upper crust to give themselves 30% raises when
the enterprises they oversee are losing money.
This cannot be given any name other than
embezzlement. Congress will NEVER pass laws
that declare theft from losing enterprises to
be embezzlement. That’s because THIEVES WILL
NOT PASS LAWS AGAINST THIEVES.
The US of A is a full blown kleptocracy.
E.
It presupposes World Jewish Dominance of course. And Jews have proven themselves terrible rulers of others as witness Soviet Russia and today’s Palestine.
You must give up your racism. Admitting it is not the same as giving it up. Being sorry about it is not enough either. Or as Ram Das said, It’s not enough to wish you want to surrender. It not even enough to want to surrender. You just have to surrender.
Why don’t I do the same? Because my racism is rational and even compassionate – not vicious and based on lies.
It presupposes World Jewish Dominance of course.
==
I see. Nevermind that it is you that does this presupposing, what’s Jewish world dominance? Define what this is supposed to mean.
These reptiles are the philosophical and political parents of Hitler.
These reptiles orchestrated…
They are responsible for…
They set up…
They murdered…
they’ve been trying…
they degraded…
[they] poisoned…
=================
Last night did I ask this guy to come back to stir the pot?
I take it back.
DID YOU HEAR THAT THE ‘INDIANA JONES OF JEWS’
IS FACING 40 YEARS IN PRISON???
If not websearch ‘Indiana jones of jews arrested, fake torahs’.
‘people who voted for Obama thought that they were voting for a repudiation of Bush policies’
Yes They “Thought Wrong” but thats the Price they pay for trusting Pols!
Also Blacks voted for BHO because, uh Duh…
[he had a black dad and called himself AfroAmerican]. They didnt look at his Pathetic Voting Record.
I call him a Liar and Traitor.
Cite Source?
‘Most American Jews will support Israel over America’..yes but why?
Are you familiar with
‘Whats the matter with Kansas’?..that People will vote AGAINST THEIR OWN BEST INTEREST?
“In law, the concept of criminal conspiracy exists, and it’s illogical to assume all conspiracy is fantasy. Like any other important claim, a claim of conspiracy ought to be investigated to determine its validity.” BTB
So, do you, or don’t you think a conspiracy was enjoined to invade Iraq? (This would indicate that you believe high-ups in the gum’mint are capable of engaging in some very nasty behavior that would be contrary to the consent of the “gub’burned”.) Dance faster, the cognitive dissonance is beginning to tell.
If you think it requires “more study”, say so, and I’ll know exactly what you are and who you represent.
RD is a Jewish [or HinJewish] gay!
Gawd..are you out of the closet?
Gone soft….Friends with asoka?
I just found out Bob Dylan wrote a song defending the Rosenbergs!!!!!!!!!
‘Julius and Ethel’ is the title, lyrics online.
May you live in interesting times.
Careful what you wish for.
You’ve cast your own cursed fate.
It’s no longer considered a moral wrong for the
upper crust to give themselves 30% raises when
the enterprises they oversee are losing money.
This cannot be given any name other than
embezzlement. Congress will NEVER pass laws
that declare theft from losing enterprises to
be embezzlement. That’s because THIEVES WILL
NOT PASS LAWS AGAINST THIEVES.
The US of A is a full blown kleptocracy. -E.
Yeah, but all we have to do is elect the right persons to appoint the right judges to prosecute the conspirators and grifters and…… oh… shit…
Who makes these laws again?
SJMom said: “I’m going to blame radical Islam.”
———–
Agreed, with a caveat. Radical Islam and the violence it embraces is but a very small minority of Islam.
99.99% of Muslims are peace-loving and Islam is a religion of peace. Sure, they defend themselves when their countries are invaded, the nature of Islam is submission to God, not violence towards men.
As George W. pointed out, it would be wrong to condemn Islam for the actions of a radical minority. The same holds for not condemning all Christians for the actions of a few extremist Christians.
Hold individuals responsible for their actions, but don’t generalize to condemn an entire faith tradition.
Lisa V…
Holy crap! Those salaries are obscene. I have Cigna, and am pretty happy with it. We used to have United Healthcare and they were a pain to deal with–I had to fight them a lot.
For example, my husband was doing some extreme weightlifting with a personal torture-trainer, and he popped a lung (technically, it was a spontaneous pnuemothorax sp?) The surgeon on duty at Good Samaritan had to put in a chest tube because, dang, he was turning blue. Well…United Healthcare said we shouldn’t have used that surgeon–too expensive. (Hello…I’m not going to do comparison shopping when my husband seems to be dying.)
My husband is tall, and I guess tall people are more prone to popping lungs.
Sorry, O3, I didn’t realize exactly what it was you wanted me to say. If it will make you feel better, I say, yes, there was a conspiracy by the government to invade Iraq. I was not attempting to equivocate.
Thank you! I do feel better. :o)
(I was beginning to picture you with eyes squeezed shut, fingers in ears, saying, “lalalalalaIcan’thearyouIcan’thearyoulalalala!” That was uncharitable and obviously incorrect. ;o)
Anyhoo, have fun!
Okay then peoples,
What would be the “big fish” that these familiar assholes/conspirators (who should all be rotting in prison) might be angling for?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29142.htm
(If you don’t recognize the names, you’d be well-advised to familiarize yourself with them and their nefarious deeds.)
Tooooooooooooo much posting and net searching! Much Later….
Sigh. I guess I’ve really touched a nerve when I talk about 9/11. Not that I have to defend myself, but FYI I knew well in advance that the 10th anniversary would provoke much self-posturing and self-pitying “entertainment” about 9/11 so I didn’t watch 9/11 programs on tv. I usually don’t read newspapers, but get my news online, and even then I skipped the 9/11 articles.
Just popping in, haven’t read the comments the last two days. Forgive my impudence. I was just listening to Utube (one of my favorites on the Internet) and every (old) tune I played had a picture of our fearless leader, “Obama” on it to the right. So what gives, are they trying to play up his numbers among the older set? Ya gotta be kidding me! Yank my bank C.D. interest rates from me, threaten to end my S.S., Medicare, etc., and I’m gonna like, turn onto you because your picture is right beside my Rick Nelson (Golly, gee, he was so CUTE!) Ya gotta be kidding me, right. Okay, go on with your talking, I just needed to vent.
Since conspiracy talk seems to be the topic what’s up with the marginalization of Ron Paul? He gets the tough questions (when he gets any attention at all) and yet he comes out WAY on top in the post debate polls and not by a small margin :
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/07/7658608-who-do-you-think-won-the-republican-debate-at-the-reagan-library
I find this lack of acknowledgment to be extraordinarily strange (not really) , as well as being a major indictment of so-called objective political coverage. If it was 1960 Rod Serling would close out the episode with “Ron Who” ? But isn’t that what so called journalism as practiced by the MSM has become in 2011, a nightmare rerun of The Twilight Zone?
I know what you are saying, I think. But my point was, however you categorize the left, in my mind it has been remarkably unable to really have it’s way with the really important parts of ordinary people’s lives. It has been impotent and incompetent. And to me they have spent way too much time on trivial things, like Christmas displays, or public prayer.
And not only that, they’ve antagonized Joe Blow with this kind of thing.
Jewish World Dominion means domination of the World by Jews and their Gentile Servants, the Free Masons and the Chamber of Commerce types who know about nothing except money. This is what they mean by “repairing the World”.
What are talking about? Every now and then Asoka and I have a temporary truce – much like the truces described in the Koran. Then we praise each other but don’t be fooled: it is a subtle way of aggrandizing our own egos – as if to say, see I can raise him up as well as destroy him!
Asoka is on exactly the same wavelength when he does it. I know what I’m doing but he probably does not. Understanding these things is in itself an initiation. So much of human life is like an iceberg – below the level of awareness. Jung totally believed this – as does every keep observer of human life.
Look at the social insects. They don’t know what they’re doing but they sure know how to do it.
Get Hirsi Ali’s new book. She says Islam is violent and inferior to Western Culture. Not only is she a Muslim and presumeably knows her own Culture more than you do, she is a woman, and Black. She is what’s known as a “three fer” while you as a Black Male are only in one minority category. By the Laws of PC, you are seriously outranked in significance and grievance level. Her words carry more weight even apart from what she knows or where she’s been.
Good observation – many know about this. Fox News loathes Ron Paul because he is a real Conservative. Fox and Rush seek to take the energy of the Tea Party and and siphon it off onto the Republicans. Real Conservatives follow the Constitution and the Traditions of the Founders. This means not only a gold standard, which the Republicans really don’t want even though they pretend to be interested, but getting out of foreign wars and treaties. This is completely anathema for the Legions of Fake Conservatives.
my Rick Nelson (Golly, gee, he was so CUTE!)
====================
Some of the rich, deep and nuanced dialog from the Ozzie and Harriet Show:
Scene: Harriet at sink in kitchen..other family members drift in one by one.
Rick: Hi Mom
Harriet: Oh, hi Rick …… (Dave enters)
Dave: Hi Rick
Rick: Hi Dave
Harriet: Hi Dave
Dave: Hi Mom …… (Ozzie enters)
Dave: Hi Dad
Rick: Hi Dad
Ozzie: Hi boys
Ozzie: Hi hon
Harriet: Hi dear
Rick: You’ll never guess what just happened
Harriet: Oh my gosh, what?
Ozzie: Everything OK?
Dave: What happened?
Rick: I tripped over a shoe.
It really is quite remarkable, this level of support for a candidate being almost completely minimized. But these are not small numbers of support for Paul, and I would not be surprised, despite the media’s complicit marginalization , if Paul pulls off an “upset “ of sorts in the early primaries. At which point, the media will kick in with Plan B and scumble a whitewash narrative of a hooting Howard Dean over the denouement of “Pariah Paul”. And if that don’t work, well, that’s why election computers are unaccountable.
“By the Laws of PC, you are seriously outranked…”
————–
LOL! I have multitudes of strikes against me, Vlad. Hirsi Ali does not even come close.
I am Black, atheist and spiritual (Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Sufi, and Hindu … depending the day of the week … often atheist and agnostic on weekends), as well as pacifist, anarchist, and communist (anarcho-communism a la Tolstoy and Kropotkin) …
Even on this blog intelligent people like Q (who graduated from a Jesuit institution) cannot understand how those all go together.
http://insider-magazine.org/christianmafia.htm
Whether it be Christian mafia, Hindu radicals, Muslim fanatics, etc. I am not sympathetic with any type of extremism (political or religious or nationalist) that justifies violence for any reason.
Read “Milestones” by Saayid Qutub for the classic Muslim perspective on this. Briefly, it states the men are free to choose their own Religion but they MUST live under God’s Law – it is their right and of course, the WiLL of Allah and therefore the Muslim’s duty to spread Shariah by force or otherwise. It’s quite similar to America spreading Democracy by any and all means.
The classic Muslim dodge that Islam was not spread by force is thus true – only Muslim Law is spread by force. People are allowed not to convert as long as they accept 2nd class citizenship and all that entails: the tax, ritual humiliations, much fewer rights, etc.
Another Muslim dodge that they sometimes use is that Muslims didn’t spread Islam by force – the wars were simply something Muslims felt like doing on their own to make money. To his credit, Saayid Qutub rejects this as despicable and unworthy of the Companions and Rightly Guided Caliphs. One Muslim kid used this on me and was obviously humiliated even as he said it. I think he knew he was lying but didn’t wasnt to tell me the straight truth.
Did you hear about the scandal last time? I don’t know if it hit the mainstream. New Hampshire has a sizeable libertarian population. There has even been a conscious attempt to get more of them to move there to win elections. Anyway, in several very small towns, no votes for Ron Paul were recorded. People came forward and said they voted for Him and wanted to know where there vote was. Alot of people, myself included, wanted Ron Paul to raise hell about that but he just let it go. He seemed to give up just about then and his campaign lost all its steam. Some people wonder if his family was threatened. Others said it was just not in his character to fight hard enough for something like that. Alot of people were very disappointed – especially when he gave up while still maintaining a hefty war chest. Some people wanted their money back.
I still think he should have made a fuss – apparently Kucinik felt shorted as well. Together they could have forced an issue that bodes ill for all – the Diebold machines and their lack of accountability. The company refuses to open them up for inspection. Recently Ireland and other countries in Europe were going back to the paper ballot for just this reason.
If he does well, they will destroy him as Asoka indicated. Ron Paul has talked to White Nationalists in the past. This is unforgiveable since Whites are now Pariahs in the United States. Don’t thinks so? Can you imagine a White Caucaus like the Black Caucaus?
“I still think he should have made a fuss – apparently Kucinik felt shorted as well. Together they could have forced an issue that bodes ill for all – the Diebold machines and their lack of accountability. ”
Well stated, Vlad.
Vlad said: “…the Diebold machines and their lack of accountability…”
http://blackboxvoting.org/
Thanks for raising this issue, Vlad.
Voter suppression and vote count manipulation affects the right (Ron Paul), and the left (Kucinich), and the middle (Asoka) … because it destroys all faith in democracy.
Thanks to President Obama’s Justice Dept, election machine accountability may be on the uptick:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/ess-sued-in-antitrust-cas/
The corporations can’t really control anything to do with politics in a republican system without the support, or at a bare minimum the acquiescence, of the electorate.
I agree that electronic voting systems are easily manipulated, tinged with conflicts of interest, and have most likely been used to perpetrate electoral fraud, but I would make two points. First, it is much easier to steal close elections than landslides; the Electoral College elected the runner-up in 2000 and nearly did so in 2004; based on my understanding of the prevalence of the Diebold machines and contemporary politics, I do not believe that Kerry would have won a national popular majority if every variable but these machines remained the same. Second, these machines are more common in states with large GOP organizations and voting blocs that consider them to be to their advantage. California, by contrast, issues paper ballots by mail to any voter who requests them. This is done because California voters demand such things and make heads roll if they aren’t provided. On the other hand, we’ve also put our state in a bind by voting for ill-advised propositions including Prop 13 and the three-strikes law.
Our major parties are corporatist because the voters suffer corporatists gladly. We also suffer fools, bullshit artists and propagandists gladly (Dmitry Orlov is very perceptive about this), which plays right into the hands of corporations and their lackeys and sycophants in the media. Most of our politicians are masterful at pandering to their constituencies. They know that if they throw the right sort of meat into the ring, they’ll get voters to acquiesce to all sorts of malfeasance peripheral to their narrow obsessions. If voters weren’t so monomaniacal and had broad principles, they wouldn’t elect so many ass hats.
I disagree with your analysis of Obama’s 2008 coalition. The leftist base that you described was out in force, but not enough force to get him over the top. The margin of victory in most swing states came from centrists who were scared of Palin and by extension McCain. I also perceived an unusually high useful idiot count at Obama’s rallies. Obama brought out a huge rabble of personality cultists–more cultists of all stripes, I’d say offhand, than Bush II, who was surrounded by legions of partisan cultists.
The Supreme Court is harder for the electorate to influence than Congress or the President. This is by design. Still, there is practically no pressure on Presidents and Congressmen to keep corporatists off the high bench, for the same reasons that there is no pressure on Presidents and Congressmen not to be corporatists themselves.
So, yes, I blame the voters. As a group, we plainly suck.
That isn’t even genuine wage arbitrage; it’s kabuki theater designed to make rigged featherbedding look like wage arbitrage.
The UC system is part of California’s state government. There’s no reason that its employees can’t be assigned civil service pay grades and compensated accordingly. And, if they complain, told, “Well, what did you expect? You took a fucking job with the state. If you don’t like the pay, that’s your problem.”
Given the parlous state of California’s finances, this isn’t just moral posturing; it’s a pragmatic necessity. We don’t have the money to waste on that sort of featherbedding. Shit, we can hardly meet payroll and pension obligations for civil service line employees.
Come through for us, Moonbeam!
There you go again – superficially agreeing in order to deflect criticism and obfuscate the issue. You are wrong about Islam and Hirsi Ali is right – by both the standards of scholarship and the standards of the PC Cult to which you belong.
Hirsi Ali has been threatened countless times and is forced to travel with bodyguards when she is in Europe. Is this the kind of world you want? No?Then stop supporting Islam.
If you want a really egregious example, take a look at Jeff Marsee, the recently departed president of College of the Redwoods. He’s a total dance of the lemons two-stepper. A CC in Ventura hired him from away from a for-profit diploma mill on Long Island. CR hired him for something like $370k a year after he pissed off a bunch of Venturans, only to have its faculty go into open revolt over his boneheaded managerial interference, especially his insistence on increasing the percentage of online courses. The CR revolt was timed exquisitely, coming raucously aboveground while Marsee was on an exchange junket in Russia. Then, scant months after he was publicly savaged in the North Coast Journal, Marsee was hired away by a CC in Stockton, a spokesman for which told the Times-Standard that his institution was aware of the controversy in Eureka!
Are college trustees all dolts? Ours at CR certainly seem to be. The only reasonable solution that I can devise for CR is for my anatomy professor to assemble a faculty junta and hogtie the trustees if they object. Otherwise they’ll keep hiring lemons and grossly overcompensating them to turn a good school into a diploma mill in the name of “innovation.”
Good instructors, the ones who love teaching and do it well, aren’t the ones gumming up the works with managerial and techno-whiz-bang bullshit. I went to high school at a small K-12 school that at the time had a rather modest but very pleasant campus. My teachers, most of whom were stellar, never gave off the vibe that they felt constrained by the cheap, old-fashioned equipment in the non-science classrooms. Most seemed fine with chalkboards, whiteboards or no board at all. Only one teacher that I can recall, one of my worst ones, was enamored of tech gadgets, projecting PowerPoint lecture notes with a grating array of audiovisual special effects. Another teacher, one of the good ones, wrote out her lecture notes on an overhead projector, which was her trademark on campus.
By the time of my five-year reunion, the campus had been transformed by a building spree not unlike the new terminals at SFO and SJC. Not only did the additions have none of the charm of the original building, but the new classrooms had been outfitted with very expensive “smart walls,” which greatly impressed the trustees and administrators but which many of the faculty, according to an administrator with whom I talked at length, regarded with utter indifference. He found it mystifying that the faculty weren’t more impressed with the expensive whiz-bang crap that they had been provided.
My estimation of this administrator and my high school fell that day. I’m glad I went to high school when I did.
Another brief dispatch from the end of civilization to complement my last screed:
My Alma Mater has a large library with two wings. The old wing, a rather drab, uninspired 1960s concrete box, houses the main collection. The new wing, which houses the reference collection, circulation desk, study rooms and of late a cafe, is architecturally elegant and downright opulent.
The thing is, I found the library’s collection underwhelming, especially its collection of nonfiction for lay readers. My most telling experience was when I had to go to a nearby, allegedly inferior library at an allegedly inferior college, to borrow William Manchester’s “A World Lit Only By Fire,” bar none the best, most concise history of the Middle Ages that I’ve found. The closest equivalents that my Alma Mater’s library owned were much more verbose and unwieldy, bad muses for my disorganized mind. (I liked little roadtrips and was too impatient for Interlibrary Loan.)
A few weeks ago, when my sociopathic buddy was raving about the wonderfulness of Alma Mater’s library, I related this anecdote. His response blew me away: “I never thought of the library in terms of books.”
Apparently the libraries at second-tier liberal arts colleges are now valued as very large Internet cafes. That’s probably why Alma Mater built a cafe in the new wing. In the old days food and drinks were prohibited in libraries because they might be spilled on books, but if no one’s there for the books, no harm, no foul, right? The only part of the library where a ban on food and drinks is still enforced is the archives, which are visited mainly by history majors under duress. Of course, our multitasking-mad culture sees no reason to keep food and drink separate from computers, whose keyboards and monitors might be dirtied or terminals fried by spillage. (I’m not one to talk, as I was just doublefisting coffee and tea in front of my laptop).
If I understand it correctly, the new conception of the college library is a mega-Starbucks with a Lexis-Nexis subscription. But in a country where independent bookstores are usually marginal at best and there seems to be a large enough market for only one national bookstore chain, where the hell are we to go for books? Maybe we should start thinking about libraries in terms of books since they’re the only place to find them in many counties?
As it happened, I didn’t hold a candle to the real bookworms among my classmates. I was too much of a social butterfly to hole up in the stacks. I did, however, give a shit about books, and I find it appalling that so many of my schoolmates didn’t. If alumni of my Alma Mater aren’t among the educated, I don’t know who is.
Economic growth is over, we need an extreme deflation, all costs and prices should go way down.
On another note:
The answer to your question is “very few indeed”. After all, normal socially well adusted extroverts almost by definition are virtually incapable of ever becoming truly “educated” because they are simply not cranky, contrarian, or introverted enough to spend the vast amount of time alone reading which is necessary to ever become even remotely well educated.
Another limitation of the clubable is their tendency to defer to the judgements of others they hold in high esteem and hence to neuter themselves intellectually through accomodation to the opinions of their overwhelmingly incurious peers who mostly have it on good authority that “there’s nothing to that [presumably crank subject, whatever it might be] so the entire field can be safely ignored.
This reminds me of the time I was on the wheel on a freighter, an Able Seaman with an unlimited ticket and a bachelor’s in social studies education and history, shipping out after getting burnt out on teaching in the ‘hood, taking rudder commands from a hawsepipe 2nd mate with no college, who was extolling the virtues of the US Marines and how they could easily kick ass in Central America where the beaners presumably would not dare stand up to them in battle, so studly are the jarheads, presumably. Actually being not only fairly well read but also a military veteran of both marine officer training in college and the submarine service in the enlisted ranks I managed to demolish his smugness with the brief observation: “they didn’t do too well against the North Vietnamese, did they?” Rather than handle this objectively he became angry and told me “mind your helm”. I replied “you say mind your helm when the helmsman is off course but I’m not off course, so why did you say that?” After all, I was a navy Quartermaster so I know when to say “mind your helm” because that was one of my jobs as the duty chart plotter if my compass repeater was wandering around with a bad helmsman.
A King’s Point educated officer would merely have laughed cynically at my comment, as they’re all naval reservists and can be counted on to hold low opinions of the active duty military establishment. But the officer who never served in the reserves or the regulars for that matter can be counted on to be a military enthusiast for the simple reason that he doesn’t know any better, never having had to put up with the military himself. So he subconsciously assumes that all is well in hand when in reality nobody knows what the fuck they’re doing. If he had any intellectual curiosity beyond cramming for his mate’s exam he might have actually read something about Vietnam and some glimmer of reality might have penetrated his thick skull but that would be asking for too much. So he will carry on earning his pay delivering munitions to our futile overseas conflicts oblivious to the ineffectuality of the military industrial complex.
Sir,
I don’t know if my comment is going to be posted as this blog has changed but I have had some time to reflect on my own questions and would still value your opinion.
I have seen how each turn of the financial crisis was going to play out, since 2008, by applying Long Emergency principles.
My prediction would be that by flooding the banks with unlimited central bank dollar reserves is possibly the most dangerous step taken so. The intention was to presumably to stop contagion but the unintended consequence could be coupling the US Dollar to the Euro.
If the Euro then collapses, which many people think it might, this has the potential to bring down the banking system of the entire Western world. Possibly japan as well since it is participating in the same scheme.
All these countries are net importers of fuel, may are net importers of food.
China will not be unharmed since its foreign markets will vanish and the value of its dollar reserves will greatly diminish. Huge factory layoffs must surely follow, possibly with a collapsing housing bubble as a consequence.
I think that I have answered my own questions but please tell me that this will play out differently.
Interesting post.
I would say that humans on an individual level can really assess things intelligently especially if as you say they take the time to read and reflect.
Think about the few who invent things and change our lives for the better. We’re all sitting on the shoulders or those who think differently. Yet, it’s all a matter of timing. Conditions have to be perfect for something to catch on and be utilized.
We are capable of great thinking until we get into group-think and then it all falls apart.
We acquiesce to those with the strongest personality and logic is cast to the wind.
If I say something with conviction, it must be so. And all bow down to the aggressor.
It happens in social situations as well as with leadership. I guess you have to be lucky to live in a time when the leadership chooses to be rational. Such is not our time.
I’ve often thought that this weakness is our greatest failure as a civilization and is why we are living in such a frustrating time.
One would think surely we could do better than that…
I don’t mean to alarm you but if your husband is tall, lanky and has had a spontaneous pneumothorax, which is uncommon, he should be checked out for Marfan’s syndrome before continuing to lift weights.
An echocardiogram would be helpful if he does have Marfan’s.
I realise that this is not the best medium for this information, and I apologise for any concern that it may cause. Better safe than sorry.
Voter fraud in elections is nothing new. It goes back to the 19th century. In my time, JFK really lost the election to Nixon in 1960, but Mayor Daley of Chicago rigged the election in Cook county and Kennedy won Illinois and the presidency. As one example, it was later found that a bunch of Chicago voters were actually dead at the time.
Who says dead men don’t vote?
Whether or not voting is done by machine or manually really makes no difference. Scumbag politicians will find and hire people willing to rig the results.
I agree with you that the electorate bears the ultimate responsibility for this.
AMR said: “His response blew me away: “I never thought of the library in terms of books.”
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Quite an enlightened response. Libraries are not primarily about books.
Libraries have always been about storing human knowledge. Forms have varied from cuneiform to papyrus rolls, to velum scrolls, wax tablets, clay tablets, to computer databases, always with the goal of extending human memory for the benefit of future generations.
Codices, of which the codex book is one form, are only one of many forms that libraries have used to preserve the best of human civilization.
Don’t get me wrong. I love books. I just think the mission of libraries has always been much larger than books.
LBENDET,
Your post stirred memories of a Mark Twain passage from his brilliant essay “St Joan of Arc”:
” We should expect Edison’s surroundings and atmosphere to have the largest share in discovering him to himself and to the world; and we should expect him to live and die undiscovered in a land where an inventor could find no comradeship, no sympathy, no ambition-rousing atmosphere of recognition and applause — Dahomey, for instance. Dahomey could not find an Edison out; in Dahomey an Edison could not find himself out. Broadly speaking, genius is not born with sight, but blind; and it is not itself that opens its eyes, but the subtle influences of a myriad of stimulating exterior circumstances. ”
…Sounds like a CONSPIRACY to me. ;o)
He doesn’t have Marfans. He’s stopped lifting weights, however, because of a shoulder injury.
Take care.