JHK’s Three-Act Play
Cue the xylophone.
Like the dancing skeletons of film history, here come the elected office-holders of the US government cutting their capers in the graveyard of empire, giving the paying customer – er… citizens – a nice case of the Friday night heebie-jeebies in a mock battle over inanities. It made for a few hours of diverting theater, with an emphasis on diversion – since the whole gruesome melodrama of the US budget finally hinged on a ploy to de-fund the Planned Parenthood organization, one of the few useful endeavors left in this land of depravity, monster trucks, and microwaved cheese snacks.
I don’t believe for a moment that the political right cares about the well-being of fetuses, anyway. The abortion issue is just a convenient cudgel to bash their political adversaries on the left. Karl Marx, a useful polemicist if a hinky guide in practical politics, had an apt term for what has become the ideology of the American right wing: “rural idiocy.” It included all the familiar superstitions, phobias, obsessions, bugaboos, misconceptions, animosities, and sadistic impulses of simple country folk. Of course, today we’d have to update it as “suburban idiocy,” because that is where the simple country folk of yesteryear have transpired to relocate, most traumatically in the Sunbelt, where today’s car dealers, franchise moguls, and country clubbers, were only two generations ago digging chiggers out of their bare ankles after long days in the sharecrop furrows.
These folk believe all kinds of things that are not true, in fact lack the mental equipment for measuring the difference between what is true and not true and, having never known it, don’t miss it. How else can you account for the burgeoning industry of “creation” museums all across Dixieland? These are the folks who, in the name of “liberty,” want to regulate your sex life in accordance with the Southern Baptist Convention, the folks who want to start World War Three in order to promote the mythical “rapture,” the folks who don’t think twice about destroying the conditions that tend to support life on Planet Earth.
This is not going too end well for us, despite Congressman Paul Ryan’s much-applauded “Path to Prosperity” proposal unveiled last week just before the whole battle degenerated into the ruse over abortion. The central truth that reflective persons can take away from these shenanigans is that American polity is unreformable. Nobody elected to congress will have the backbone to manage contraction, especially to cut payments to old people. The medical system can’t be fixed. It is made up of too many rackets benefitting too many enterprises and individuals. It just has to fail completely so that in the rubble of the system doctors and patients can reestablish some meaningful relationship between services rendered and the rate of payment.
The Obama health reform bill only illustrated the fatal weakness of progressive politics these days – the irresistible impulse to address issues of excessive complexity with added complexity. While most of the overt stupidity in our politics resides on the right, an equally disabling hubris and grandiosity reside in the political left. I suppose people who graduate from very selective and expensive colleges, and receive immense reinforcement from colleagues who preceded them there, develop an inflated sense of their ability to effectively manage things, especially complex things. Many of these young, bright people cannot believe that our creaking and foundering systems won’t yield to their managerial tinkering, and the net effect must be to turn them into very cynical careerists with nothing left but personal ladder-climbing and wealth accumulation – hence, the disgusting biographies of figures such as former public servant Lawrence Summers and Mary Shapiro of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The political left in America makes up in cynical cowardly avarice for all the mendacious stupidity on the political right, so we end up at this moment in history with a perfect blend of every bad impulse in human nature and none of the virtues.
Personally, I don’t see how breakdown and revolution can be avoided now. Anyway, outside of politics itself is a gigantic realm of other things that are not trending well at all – things that will aggravate and amplify every political blunder we make. The combination of the breakdown in the world’s oil allocation system and the disorders in money and banking are sure to obviate any momentary public relations triumph by one political faction over another. Reasonable people should expect turmoil going forward. The spectacles staged in congress are little more than skeleton dances performed by creatures lacking even the verve to be zombies and vampires.
Somewhere – perhaps in the Pentagon, or on some lonely Air Force base in a desolate corner of the nation – a colonel is watching his country collapse and thinking about what can be done. Is it a good thing, or a bad thing, or just something that naturally happens when things are how they are? I don’t know.
Media bullshit shout-out of the week goes to the dim James Suroweicki of The New Yorker Magazine, who said, astoundingly, on his political podcast that the nation’s dire fiscal condition was “a myth,” that “the recovery is underway…things are getting better.” Suroweicki, the magazine’s economics writer, also sees no problem with rising oil prices.
This blog is sponsored this week by Vaulted, an online mobile web app for investing in allocated and deliverable physical gold. To learn more visit:Kunstler.com/vaulted
New Paintings from the 2022 Season
Barrel Racers, Cambridge, NY
The Jeff Greenaway series of novellas. These rollicking, short books depict the misadventures of an eleven-year-old boy growing up in New York City in the early 1960s
Other Books by JHK
The World Made By Hand Series:
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James – The scenario you depict is more than accurate. But, the evil inherent in this system is nothing less than barbaric. The collapse will be more far reaching than anyone understands. Enjoy the following:
http://wp.me/P1lJ1g-5n
Second?!
Once again; everything is going to be just fine, just keep watching TV.
A decade ago, when I learned how close Peak Oil really was, I also studied just what it was we had to do to ameliorate the situation. Then during the subsequent 10 years, I’ve watched the political fighting but especially the inability of those on both the Left and the Right to think and adequately deal with the situation.
There is no solution for the US except collapse at all levels at this point and anybody who thinks otherwise is simply too young to see the truth.
As regards “impulse to address issues of complexity woth added complexity”, you are far too kind there, Mr. Kinstler.
The truth is, the far left never met a crisis or problem it couldn’t turn into yet another publicly funded jobs program for incompetent social science grads.
This trend started when the Nixon admin proposed the Guaranteed Annual Income, and the Democratic Party wouldn’t support it because Dems wanted the social service jobs for their less intelligent aunts uncles and cousins whom they numbered in the dozzens. Most recently, the so called Food Safety legislation, over which I fanilly parted company with the Democratic Party and especially its’ left wing, turned into yet another jobs program for incompetents with degrees from 5th rate diploma mills. Plus, so called “progressives” were afraid that their immigrant minority group allies might throw the “R” word at them if they dared to take on factory farming.
Jimbo! We can complain, we can try to do something about it, or we can try to protect ourselves and our families.
For those inclined to the latter, buy gold or land, and to protect yourself from the looming medical disaster, try this tongue-in-cheek method: http://www.thenothingstore.com
All I can say is to encourage everyone of us to prepare for major disruptions. Plant a garden, get a solar lease to help power your homes, and most importantly get to know your neighbors. – Zev
did the yankees win last night ?
Every trend that’s been building for the past few months will accelerate as U.S. gasoline prices hit $4.00 and over. The paradox of decreasing consumption with rising prices and decreasing incentives (investments in exploration) for oil companies will be what finally shuts the whole thing down.
The Fed will be cranking up the printing presses, and this will keep the illusion of growth going for a short while. Economic inertia.
We are oil, and this civilization is doomed. I’m sad for my daughter’s generation.
James – at least I am not alone in my belief that the system is rapidly flying apart.
I am reading The Global Class War by Jeff Faux and tho it was written/published in 2006…and here we are in 2011…it does not seem like things have changed much at all. We are being further ravaged and destroyed as a nation in the name of globalism…whereby nation states do ot exist, but rather a global higherarchy of corporate domination and flow of money and goods rules man.
Sadly, it is the lack or absence of natural resources of energy that will be our saving grace to end the macabre death march of the people. Yeah, it’s gonna suck not being able to traverse one’s local region to get groceries…find entertainment….leisurely shop and be a general mass of wasted space. But on the flipside the farce of unlimited growth, global domination and international corporate rule will come to an end.
That and the fact that things are falling nicely into the collapse model of Dimitri Orlov’s COLLAPSE….People are speaking out more, unafraid of the repercussions…and even in WI when the Dems were taking refuge outside the state – the GOP knew that, even if they crossed state lines, no cop would arrest them…. So when people aren’t afarid to speak out anymore and the cops won’t come to the aid of the ruling class…it’s Domino Time.
The ultimate irony is that those in power and those delusional religious book-humpers do not see the irony in all of this. I think the legend of the Tower of Babel fits nicely….
“And as things Fell Apart, nobody paid much attention!” – Talking Heads, Nothing but Flowers
“Press the Pause on the Self-Destruct” Happy Mondays, 24-Hour Party People
Remember when deadeye dick Cheney opined that “deficits don’t matter” I guess that is true when one wants to fight a war but not raise taxes. Suddenly the repubs. Have got religion and changed the political debate and ,yes Virginia, deficits do matter. TAX THE RICH!
Jim: This may be significant. There is talk around Washington that Gen. Petraeus will be brought back from Afghanistan to be Director of Central Intelligence. He would be far from the first uniformed officer to head CIA, but this development indicates that some people want to rescue him from the looming Afghan disaster and to have him on hand in our nation’s capital for whatever contingency in which he may be useful. Stay tuned.
should be “floundering” ?? “Many of these young, bright people cannot believe that our creaking and foundering systems ”
sorry, just used to proofreading husband’s blog.
Spent a few months in Az. this winter, had a knee injury, went to a small clinic, had excellent quick care… cost: if I paid that day “half price special “. $30 instead of $60 !!
Not sure what a Dr. gets in Ontario, CA. for a 30 min appt. where I live, but suspect it is much more than $30/visit
I just don’t get it, why or how it is possible that more intelligent people are not talking about or the least bit concerned with what is going on. It is just ludicrous….
Thanks Jim…
Best regards,
Kelly
Got my tomatoes started, gonna try growing some opium poppies this year. Got a decent supply of gold and silver and a friend gave me a bunch of shotgun shells. They may let us start raising a limited number of chickens and goats here in Denver (pending election) and, for the moment, there are plenty of trees to burn. Life is good, may get better! Or more interesting, anyway. Paul Ryan kiss my ass!
JHK has really hit the mark. Our erstwhile “geniuses” have morphed into fame and money grubbers. Rather than being genuine leaders, they have adopted postures. They learned their lessons from Zardoz: you don’t need a brain, all you need is a diploma (and I would add, a boatload of chutzpah to shamelessly promote yourself). Summers and Shapiro are excellent examples provided by JHK. This is the nubbin of our problem in the US. WE DO NOT HAVE LEADERS. We have a bunch of poseurs who want all the trappings, authority and benefits of leaders without any of the responsibility. Worse, until the whole miserable shebang collapses, the current crop of “leaders” will eliminate any real leadership from arising. Worse still, we will have to endure a round of opportunists who will offer a road to sanity by promoting insane behavior. I think JHK would call them “cornpone” Nazis, or maybe Commies. Doesn’t matter, the common thread will be revenge and death.
“did the yankees win last night ?”
Naw, the Red Sox smuffled’em.
Jim,
Your definition of “suburban idiocy,” is partly correct, but the opportunities in the Sunbelt aren’t where the simple country folk of yesteryear have transpired to relocate. Sadly, the jobs that were promised and incentivized by state and local government are held by transplants who “recently moved from Rochester, and just love it down here.” The chigger diggers still inhabit the dead and dying mill towns across the South, and make oxycontin their pain reliever of choice. They aren’t digging chiggers out of their bare ankles after long days in the sharecrop furrows these days. They’re digging Walmart, melted cheese tacos, and Uncle Sam. Sad.
The South is pretty much “eat up with Yankees” (like a dog is eat up with fleas). A tragedy, I agree, in the Sunbelt, where today’s car dealers, franchise moguls, and country clubbers, were only two generations ago punching the clock and making eight for IBM.
“There is talk around Washington…”
Could you source this please? Otherwise it is just pointless jibba-jabba.
Keep in mind there is also “urban idiocy”.
For example the supernatural economic theories of Nobel-Prize winning village idiots like Paul Krugman.
Add to that the environmental idiocy of the likes of Tom Friedman.
I would say, in fact, that idiocy flourishes in all types of communities in the US.
Stop with the liberal bashing.
Obama is not a liberal, HCR was not a liberal proposal, and very little of the liberal agenda is even getting consideration.
False equivalency.
Agree that the health care system as we know it is doomed to failure given the way it is structured and with its emphasis on expensive technology, medicines, and doctors. On the other hand, Cuba is a very poor country which also happens to have a lot of doctors, even an excess, as they often go to other countries to help out.
I have not seen anyone argue that we really should find a way to have more doctors and other health professionals as a way to bring down costs and as a way to have better health care. As it is, you are lucky if u can get a doctor to spend more than about 3 minutes with you or really trying to diagnose what is wrong with you.
I agree that the new health care law is fundamentally flawed in that it massively increases the demand for medical care without doing much to increase supply.
Anyway, Cuba has shown that is is possible to have pretty decent health care without a lot of oil. Their experience with little oil has not been a picnic by any means but it still may indicate what is necessary in a future with a lot less oil.
Oh, and it won’t do much good to save medicare if the only people getting care are those who pay an extra fee each year to get priority care with doctors who don’t want to treat the masses.
JHK, it bugs me a little when you pick on the South so much, but we probably deserve it a bit. Good column all the same, thanks.
Creation Museums kill me, but I drive by that one in Ohio by the interstate semi-regularly and it always seems to be packed. Here’s a picture of Jesus on a dinosaur:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/172/431306643_528c65a6b3.jpg
“I would say, in fact, that idiocy flourishes in all types of communities in the US.”
Yes, Yes, “in fact”, indeed, My Dear lsjogren. I’m glad you are so confident in your powers of observation. But in the US only, correct? Idiocy doesn’t flourish in other parts of the world. Right? ehem.
I was just in one of the many “Banana Republics” in Central America, and while they have their own governmental issues – coup replacing a leftist with a right-wing privatizeer – many of the people I met were agape in bewilderment at the situation in the E.E.U.U. (USA). They asked me, “Americans call us a ‘Banana Republic’ but what is going on in your country? How can your government ‘shut down’ because it ran out of money.” One English radio programe, a very informal radio host with a matter-of-fact way of speaking (not unlike our own JHK less the Carib inflections and expressions) asked, “If they run out of money up there, whatever will happen to us here?” to which the guest on the program (a grandmother discussing island family history) chided “I couldn’t help myself but I watch CNN for two days and with all that nonsense talking, I can’t tell you a single word they say, cause none of it made a lick of sense.” I was in wonder. Just a generation or two ago, we were seen (perhaps hated) as a formidable country of educated people. So goes the “American Way.”
My own rants at http://schwerpunkter.wordpress.com/
I disagree with Kunstler that the system will necessarily fall apart due to unsustainable deficit spending.
Deficit spending will necessitate massive printing of US dollars by the Fed to sop up the US Treasury Bonds issued to cover the deficits and which eventually will be considered such garbage that no one will want to buy them.
(the alternative is sky high interest rates which would immediately plunge us into a depression that will make us long for the 1930s)
The massive money printing will lead to massive inflation. Wages will stagnate because in the real economy, the labor market will still be a buyer’s market.
The drop in real (inflation-adjusted) incomes due to the inflation-eroded salaries will create the downsizing of the US standard of living that everyone who actually has an inkling of comprehension of the unsustainable state of our economy recognizes is inevitable.
I don’t know whether this downsizing will be an orderly one that leaves society intact, or if it will lead to such massive social upheaval that we will wind up with the government overthrown and replace by regional warlords with armies and weapons arsenals.
However, at the very least, it is clear that even if we do nothing to attempt to stem the flow of red ink, there is a natural negative feedback mechanism that is going to kick in that is going to work against our attempts to live beyond our means indefinitely.
Jim shows his liberal version of invincible ignorance, as if watching Jon Liebowitz’s “Daily” show gives him special insights into us hillbillies and our children of the corn culture. Really Jim do you want the right to support Sanger’s original version? Me a social Darwinist thinks abortion is an abortion, a poor excuse for not sterilizing the dim black, hispanic and retarded white girls. David Duke suggested implants for welfare recipients and the crazy left went, well crazy, but abortion is okay because it too is a racket that pays.
Other than the abortion sideshow basically what JHK is stating is that Mommy Professor’s culture is crumbling and fraying at the edges. I’ll bet that the Asians who gamble everything for an American “elite” education will be doing the biggest collective forehead slap of all time in the very near future as they learn they been had.
“bright people cannot believe that our creaking and foundering systems won’t yield to their managerial tinkering, and the net effect must be to turn them into very cynical careerists with nothing left but personal ladder-climbing and wealth accumulation”
Love the picture. I now have a new expletive in my vocabulary – “Sweet Jesus on a dinosaur!”
Thanks for the name check, Jim. Sort of.
Um, Kelly,
“Foundering” as used by Jim in the context you quoted, is perfectly acceptable.
Definition:
1. To sink below the surface of the water: The ship struck a reef and foundered.
2. To cave in; sink: The platform swayed and then foundered.
3. To fail utterly; collapse: a marriage that soon foundered.
4. To stumble, especially to stumble and go lame. Used of horses.
5. To become ill from overeating. Used of livestock.
6. To be afflicted with laminitis. Used of horses.
And, that colonel believes we are fighting for a Christian Nation and is dreaming of a Christian overthrow
The Obama Healthcare reform bill is nowhere near progressive. It is what the health care industry wanted in a so-called reform bill. This bill increases their profits. The same applies to the financial reform bill, since it does nothing about the most volatile of vehicles–the derivative contracts.
Obama is not a liberal, nor a progressive, nor really a Democrat. He is a shill, a baton carrying parade dancer in the front of the orchestra of Congressmen who are mostly made up of millionaires not giving a crap about the state of the nation, but only where their next campaign check will come from.
The nation will continue to devolve with the sub-literates leading the charge. “Keep Government Out Of My Medicare” is their campaign slogan.
http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com
http://moontownshippa.blogspot.com
One thing I notice on this thread:
Some people are torn between their superstitious political beliefs, whether it be for progressivism or tea partyism, even while showing an awareness of the looming economic and natural resource disasters about which both those political cults are utterly clueless.
I would say one step to a better future. Give up your superstitions. You are far too aware of what we are facing to justify clinging to granfalloons that have no answers for the challenges we face.
Sounds like CFN’s own dim Asoka.
Hi Jim and all
Yes the so-called debate about the budget was mildly amusing and very revealing. Ryan shows an attractive, innocent, wide eyed, blue eyed poster boy face that conceals a true vicious, barbarian. This man is determined to make sure he and his corporate contributors are assured of scooping up any loot that may still be eked out of the nearly drained US of A. The dems put on an even more disgusting performance as the softly protesting opposition party on one hand, and on the other hand not making even the slightest push to reframe the issue by loudly and clearly pointing out that deep social cuts wouldn’t be necessary if the repugs hadn’t orchestrated millions in corporate tax breaks and phony cuts to the military budget. INstead we see a swooning Obama who faintly whispers “oh can’t we all just get along?” Very amusing and I agree with an above post that the US is falling in pretty neatly with Orlov’s collapse model.
Meanwhile the Japanese crisis, that continues to worsen on an hourly basis has dropped almost entirely from the news. It makes you wonder about the survival instinct of humanity in general.
loveday
Hey Kelly, an American medical office visit averages around $80-100, while the Canadian office visit is around $30.
It has been documented that in Arizona, an office visit can cost anywhere between $100-nearly $300.
You got off cheap.
Bang on, Jim!!!
It needs be said again and again ’til it finally sinks in…
The rank, stinking stupidity, hubris, and dog-and-pony show of Washingtonian political theater (and its’ slavering followers) attempts to trump reality in nearly ALL cases.
Only authoritarians (of whatever stripe) need be paid attention to, because of the true enemies of man and nature that they truly are…
This current buffoonery will not end well; it’s becoming too transparent, even to some of the most blinkered fools.
Now, let’s hear from some of those blinkered fools; they’ll appear in right short order. (You’ll know them for their inflexible insistence that the forest is a monoculture of only one type of tree; and the nature of the forest can be wholly understood by studying one single example of said tree… forever and ever, amen.) Let the idiocracy run its’ course! The only way out is through.
Path to Prosperity? How ’bout the old chestnut instead: Road to Ruin. Not quite the same righteous, lofty Goebbels-ian ring, but probably more accurate in the long run. (Why are the politicos sounding more and more like Mao, every day? The PR coming out of the “think tanks” that they’re mouthing these days is beginning to reflect the stupidity of the “public” at large, methinks. I may be a peasant, but I’m not QUITE as dim as some of this patent horseshittery. [tm MM])
Ah, an echo of Jack Ripper from the movie Dr. Strangelove. But he was a Brigadier General.
“There is no solution for the US except collapse at all levels at this point and anybody who thinks otherwise is simply too young to see the truth.”
Or are we just too old to have any hope? I agree with you…but sometimes I wonder if age colors our perceptions of the world, and makes us more cynical than we should be?
Jeez, you’re just such a lefty hack it’s sickening! I really enjoy your writing when you speak objectively about what we’re heading for economically. However, your subjective bias that comes from being a northeast elitist, just overcomes you so often. Planned Parenthood should not be government funded…period! It has nothing to do with abortion, just that’s it’s a “medical” group, albeit one who’s roots are in the eugenics movement and that 90% of their function is abortion, and no business chain of any kind should be government funded. Same with NPR and if there were any conservative businesses that are funded on a national basis, then they should be cut as well. Take every major cesspool decaying U.S. city and you will find decades of “progressive” social policy, Democrat mayors, strewn with corruption and promises of government assistance ‘cradle to grave,’ and that’s what you get. I for one would love to see this country divided by those with a libertarian/semi-conservative view and those with your liberal view and let’s see who prospers and who doesn’t. Let’s say, the Northeast states,Maine to DC, left coast and Illinois and Michigan are the ones who can live in your world with the policies that you feel are best and the rest of live in a Ron Paul type of America. It wouldn’t even be close to who would thrive and who would die and I know where I would want to be and it’s certainly not your utopia!
just remember-when things get bad,the truckers are going to stay home-i deal with these guys everyday in my business-they are more aware on average what is really going on-you won’t get your food,goods-the shelves will be empty very quickly..make your plans now.
I just finished Dmitry Orlov’s “Reinventing Collapse”. It’s a must-read. Orlov draws parallels between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the U.S. today, which he says is on the verge of collapse, mostly due to Peak Oil.
His analysis of the U.S. educational system is Spot On. My fear is that if there is a collapse, then with all the money printing in the context of a major economic contraction, then inflation runs wild. By the way, “collapse” is defined as “…the inability of production to meet the maintenance requirements of existing capital.” If the suppy of energy (particulary oil) constricts, then the economy contracts.
Orlov offers a uniquely penetrating insight into American society and culture. It’s a brilliant book.
Yeah, I’ve wondered if I’m just too old and cynical, but after much self-reflection I have to say, no, the country really is doomed (shrugs shoulders.)
Soon, I fear, there will be “no more sugarplums” (with a nod to Sam Beckett).
“The political left in America makes up in cynical cowardly avarice for all the mendacious stupidity on the political right, so we end up at this moment in history with a perfect blend of every bad impulse in human nature and none of the virtues.”
This so accurately describes the collapse of genuine leadership in America.
It’s not just political. Business, religion, the nonprofit sector, all are operating today led by mostly a bunch of ciphers who are in it for the money and not much else.
We are mostly a dumbass nation who after reaching some degree of mass literacy by the mid 1970s has drifted backwards at an alarming rate.
I totally agree with one of Jim’s major theses, that after WW II the suburban project created anti-communities. The whole HOA, gated community, no sidewalks, privatization of formerly public services and amenities (ie. community swimming pools), destroyed our ability to relate to anyone other than ourselves.
Maybe this is the way it always is, always will be. A nation reaches a point of maturity, complexity, and it all becomes just too much to handle, too much to manage, and then it collapses. Maybe this is what happened to Rome and Athens and Egypt.
I guess the only difference between those societies and ours is none of those nation states had thousands of nuclear bombs as they fell apart.
I don’t know what’s going to happen, but if our current trend continues, it will not end well.
Nail + Head = This remark:
“Many of these young, bright people cannot believe that our creaking and foundering systems won’t yield to their managerial tinkering, and the net effect must be to turn them into very cynical careerists with nothing left but personal ladder-climbing and wealth accumulation”
The best educated and most affluent Millennials grew up in sheltered suburban areas where problems were easily solved by neighborhood covenants, road-building, ignorance of different conditions, and parental involvement.
The poor kids will find soon that there are worlds not far from their suburbs that cannot be fixed and people who can no longer be bought off, because governmental largesse has ceased to exist.
Say what one will about Welfare, but a Welfare State is a great way, if the payments are high enough, to tamp down social upheaval. The Saudis are expert at this.
I just wonder why the lumpenproles have not gone wild this time over $4 per gallon gas? Marx called the lumpenproletariat a dangerous class; they can be bought off…and had better be.
“…so we end up at this moment in history with a perfect blend of every bad impulse in human nature and none of the virtues.”
And does anyone think people will change in the event of a collapse? Gun owners think they will defend their homes with high-powered rifles (or in one comment here, a shotgun?), not recognizing the power-elites propensity for lowering the boom on anyone who won’t tow the line; gardners think they’ll plant and reap, without recognizing that their crops can be stolen, and will; solar power advocates can’t visualized the dire reactions of those who don’t have power against those who do, as in vandalism; the gold and silver buyers don’t seem to understand that it’s not just the government that can take their wealth–there are plenty of people who wouldn’t mind killing you for your pot of gold. Then there are the anti-government types, and if you are one of those, build yourself a fort, arm yourself to the teeth, grow plenty of vegies, and fill your vaults with gold and silver. The vandals will love you for it.
James – thanks again for stopping by my blog and commenting. I enjoy your weekly posts, as well!! All my best, sandy
The Athenian collapse is pretty well understood. They bankrupted themselves in a squabble with Sparta, including a stupid foreign sideshow in Sicily that probably lost them the war. They lost their naval advantage gradually. See Hanson’s outstanding book A War Like No Other:
http://www.amazon.com/War-Like-Other-Athenians-Peloponnesian/dp/1400060958
Athens went from solid polity and a form of democracy in the time of Pericles to bankruptcy and autocracy in a little over a generation.
Cheerful stuff, that, for bankrupt naval hegemon America.
But when Americans think “Greece” at best they may conjure up visions of a good Souvlaki with some Feta and olives.
“They” are not going crazy over $ 4 gas because it’s a Dem is the White House now and not a Republican and the media is so far left…simple answer there Joe 🙂
Good advice! I have been trying to encourage Friends and Family to start a garden.
One thing I am doing different in mine is how I cultivate. I have ditched the Roto tiller and have purchased a couple of good grub hoes. Its A LOT of work cultivating 2500 square ft. by hand but at least It won’t be such a shock to the system when the gas pumps run dry and that is the only way to prepare a garden.
should be “floundering” ?? “Many of these young, bright people cannot believe that our creaking and foundering systems ” -Kelly
Nope, it’s “foundering”.
thanks MSB.Judy for setting me straight. Learned something today !
Love it Helen Highwater…
$4.00 a gallon gas will lead to our “Dance Macabre”
At this moment we are “Defying Gravity”
To keep the cartoon analogy going we are the Coyote standing on a rock over the canyon waiting for it to drop.
But in perspective, it’s been a fun ride. In the history of the world we’ve had party like no others. All good things must come to an end. The trick is to enjoy it while you can and not lament the bright light of dawn.
Aimlow Joe was here.
http://www.aimlow.com
Speaking of higher education would it not be hilarious to read young Obama’s college papers? Imagine a young out of place man stoned out of his mind college kiss up to the professor whackiness. Our new fearless leader rambling on and on as stoners are wont to do about post, de, re, and ist whatever-isms, and no doubt with heavy fixations upon the white devil, please Mr. Trump pay some real money and get us these papers.
Of course quack Freudians are quick to sexualize the rantings of us hillbillies, but imagine we reverse this process and imagine the stoned Obama ranting about one of his classmates, “the priveleged young blonde girl whose flaxen hair reflected the light and whose blue eyes looked right thru me an oppressed person of color, did she not realize our common humanity, our common destiny, did she not conceptualize a potential bonding with a person like me, or was she looking for that square jawed scion of wealth and privelege a fair haired child of wealth who would in pairing with her perpetuate injustice?”
Of course we end up with a “studies” reject who replaced the affirmative action president before him (legacy admission GWB).
Please god help us.
“The political left in America makes up in cynical cowardly avarice for all the mendacious stupidity on the political right, so we end up at this moment in history with a perfect blend of every bad impulse in human nature and none of the virtues.”
Classic Kunstler, now that’s the kind of thing I crave every Monday to start the week off right!
Thanks Ozone,
Not sure why I had never heard that word before… always good to learn something.
And, that colonel believes we are fighting for a Christian Nation and is dreaming of a Christian overthrow. -Jerry
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Are they now?
If so, let the Great Culling begin.
(Odds of my surviving it are about 50/50, I’d figger. Oh well, everybody’s gotta “begone” somehow ‘r ‘nother.)
(I like your image of Obama as drum major leading the [current] parade of dumbfuckery!)
As always your post is entertaining. I don’t necessarily agree with your politics or morals – there are many of us out here who believe abortion is murder. Just because you can’t see the unborn baby doesn’t mean is isn’t alive or human.
Enough morality. The United States is in for a very difficult economic, political and social upheaval. You can make a compelling argument that we are already there. Will it mean the end of the United States? I don’t believe it will. I may mean the end of the United States AS WE KNOW IT, which may not be a bad thing. The idiot Keynesian’s in charge of economic policy along with the criminal corporate and political elite have to fail and fall in order for the rest of us to collectively survive and prosper. We are undoubtedly in for a downward reset in our standard of living. That is not necessarily a bad thing.
I tend to be an optimist and I believe that this crisis will ultimately become an opportunity to renew the values and beliefs that made America great. At least I hope so.
“Speaking of higher education would it not be hilarious to read young Obama’s college papers?”
This is silly (but probably true). Did George W. Bush actually EVER write a college paper?
All my good buddies on the Right, your new assignment is to find all the papers Bush wrote himself at Yale and Harvard Business School.
Good huntin’.
As a nurse, I have a great interest in the Health Insurance Giveaway Act, put forward first by the health insurance companies, now called “Obamacare”.
The money the US spends on “healthcare” is indeed ridiculous, but it keeps me employed. I obviously think that spending on the elderly and sick is more important than spending on the war machine, but the ruling class dismisses any such talk.
The mantra is “non-defense spending will be cut”. Really? Who decides this? When the American people are polled, 80% believe that any budget deficits should be cut by tax increases on the obscenely wealthy, or cuts to the military-industrial complex.
But these beliefs are simply not allowed to be spoken by anyone who has a pulpit.
When Obama solicited “ideas” for healthcare, I participated and called for an end to cars and corn, as well as single payer healthcare. Obviously, as long as Americans are stuffed like Christmas geese, and moved around by fossil fuels, health care costs will be unaffordable.
All the good that my contribution did was to get me on Obama’s mailing list.
And instead we get a shuffling of hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare, (hospitals and doctors get that money, not the elderly) to insurance companies.
Medicare has an overhead of 3%, while private insurance companies siphon off 30%.
Hence, my job is about to be lost.
And my right wing co-workers are so hateful that they seem willing to be unemployed rather than see the elderly or poor get medical care.
No how many times I point out that the poor don’t get a cent of the Medicaid money spent on them – we do- they still want them cut off.
Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face!
Jim your blog this morning has one redeeming virtue —equal opportunity bashing.
Jim, you need to get back on track — talking about bright shiney new Peace trains, ——localized sustainable agriculture, walkable urban design etc. —–the nihilism is getting boring — and its bringing out vile racism like this:
“Me a social Darwinist thinks abortion is an abortion, a poor excuse for not sterilizing the dim black, hispanic and retarded white girls.”
Your blog needs some moderation to sustain some semblance of credibility.
If collapse happens, __it happens—–and its going to be miserable. But in the mean time, I come here to look for new ideas and perspectives.
And the really cool thing about the Canadian doctor’s office visit or hospital visit is that you DON’T HAVE TO PAY FOR IT. If you are low-income, all medical care is free. If you are not, you pay a monthly health insurance fee to the government. The cost is not at all onerous, nowhere near like the cost of US health insurance. Then when you go to the doctor or hospital, you pay NOTHING! You just show your medical card and everything is covered. This is the system that Americans fought so hard to defeat.
So are you suggesting we just do nothing because nothing will be of any use anyway?
Mr Kunstler makes much of the mental inferiority of people in rural areas. I would ask this: has Mr Kunstler got CLUE ONE about what it actually takes to get food from the farmer’s field in the sticks to the grocery store? Because if not for these obese, toothless hicks, the simple country folk he derides, he and all of us would be dead in two months.
The mendacious stupidity of the right? Yeah well, IMO this mendacious stupidity is matched by that on the left, who for all their monumental self regard, don’t know shit from shinola.
How would I know? I’ve seen it in action, I grew up in a small town but spent my adult life in the big city. (IMO rural and urban Canada have many elements in common with their counterparts in the US. So I think that much of what I see up here applies in large measure down there) And what I see are Big City people, mostly lefties, acting all big and superior. But for all their supposed intellectual superiority have fuck all to back it up.
Stupidity on stilts, taking what was once a prosperous, respectable country and reducing it to the preserve of tremulous, whining ninnies, helpless, illiterate, innumerate, armed with degrees and diplomas in self esteem, unable to handle simple family finances without the aid of “financial advisors”, witlessly believing charlatans in the real estate and financial industries, cacking up what were once solid household balance sheets with mutual fund turds and credit card and mortgage debts. Why did they do it? Because they were told to. Because everyone else was. Because they are oh so intelligent and informed.
What we have up here is an urban real estate market glistening like a distended aneurysm, waiting for the slightest economic jostle before blowing its infected gunk throughout the financial system and wider economy. Did anyone learn from the American experience? Pshaw. Least of all the pious, glaring leftist birdbrains that bought these howlingly overpriced houses.
So much for the alleged intellectual superiority of lefty urbanites who can’t/won’t see this coming. So much for the educational establishment, owned and operated by the left for decades (that, ahem, “educated” these idiots), intellectually impoverishing two generations and maybe more.
This leftist educational establishment, that for all its disdain for rote learning and its attendant boring, eye glazing, irrelevant facts and supposed enthusiasm for independent thinking and analysis, created herds of imbeciles unknowledgeable about the world, their own country, their own history, science, mathematics and any other subject you’d care to talk about. And, most importantly, graduated millions of nitwits that are utterly incompetent at basic reasoning and logic.
All these “graduates” know to do, besides displaying their pathetic, infantile helplessness, is smile winningly, screw, drink, screw, infect each other with shitty, debilitating diseases, drink, screw, carry themselves handsomely, screw, drink, learning nothing while remaining as great blockheads as ever (to paraphrase Ben Franklin). Tell me all about the inferiority of rural people and the superiority of urbanites. I know better and I’m having NONE of it.
I am beginning to think that this story of the “others” the “idiots” is a very good excuse for justifying our ineptitude, our resignation, our easily giving up, our saying and never doing anything.
The fault is because people are too stupid, too idiotic.
But the intelligent, the wise, the ones who understand everything, those, what do they do?
They look, disapprove, criticize, but in the end whose fault it is doesn’t matter.
Why 300.000.000 of Americans are not able to say: enough is enough!
No more wars, no more cheating.
Let the quadrillions debts go bust.
Is there a hope of a better future in repaying the debts?
Is there an advantage for the people on the road?
Or is it just the nice, safe way for those few to get richer and richer…
When there is nothing to lose, that is the moment to lose it.
Let’s not fall in the stupidity of comparing the declining of the Roman empire with America.
If America has an empire, the simple “idiot” normal people on the road do not have ANY advantage.
They only have the duty to work more to buy more weapons.
So, What do they care to lose the empire?
Is that winning a war the gasoline is cheaper, or there are more jobs, or food costs less?
So, tell me, Mr. Kunstler: WHO ARE THE IDIOTS?
No prob, Kelly.
The day I don’t learn at least one new thing, will be the “hang-it-up, give-it-up” day! ;o)
Nothing much is different in Canada. Right wing primitives seem to have the upper hand with Steve Harper and Rob Ford leading the way.
A few weeks ago, I suggested that you revisit “corn-pone Fascism” in one of your essays. You didn’t use the phrase, but you gave the “corn-pone Fascists” the cameo they deserved!
I suspect the largest political unit that is aware that it is managing contraction is the City of Detroit, where they can’t avoid the realization. I blogged about it in the latest installment of Crazy Eddie’s Motie News. Of course, Detroit and its collapse and renewal are the subject of more than half the posts on my blog. The topic is, as Spock would say, “fascinating.”
Ah, a tree has been declared “the exemplar” of the forest. Hurrah and Hallelujah!
It’s the “moral” tree; if we simply purge the forest of the “immoral” disease, all will be well!
(I’d suggest getting busy with that by praying every hour of the day that can be spared, and going door-to-door to spread the word; it’ll help; really…)
We will only see action when gas hits $10/gal. The wake-up call can’t come soon enough. There was still traffic on my commute today.
Sincerely,
The Bay Aryaan
($12M in sales booked YTD and on track for 50 … the recovery is going well).
Welcome to 2008.
Only 3 years of reading left, and you’ll be caught up. 😉
“Your blog needs some moderation to sustain some semblance of credibility.”
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Just why one wouldn’t want to know ones’ once-and-future enemies is puzzling to me.
As LLB said: “Forewarned is forearmed.”
Don’t shoot the messenger. I hate to point this out but I saw a news show that said that Dubya’s grades at Yale were about the same as John Kerry’s.
According to this Kerry got four D’s, Bush got one.
http://able2know.org/topic/53183-1
That colonel on an air force base? More like Burt Lancaster in Seven Days in May, Rod Serlings’ compelling, and prophetic dramatic 1964 take on an attempted military overthrow of the U.S. government. It was frighteningly plausible, with Lancaster playing the charismatic general behind the coup attempt.
And that’s when he only had 3 networks with which to manipulate the masses. Think of the possiblities today, with cheerleading by the likes of Faux News…..
Well, I argued that we needed more doctors, but, like I said, no one pays attention to me!
http://wagelaborer.blogspot.com/2009/08/affordable-health-care-supply-and.html
Whoa!
I’m getting an inkling that you don’t believe JHK inveighed against the foolishness of the “left” sufficiently, this week. ;o)
There are 2nd Amendment blogs for folks to discuss who they are going to shoot at after the collapse. I’m not into that.
I gave up hoping for Americans to say enough and stand up to the political and financial rapists sometime last Fall. There is no peaceful way out of this mess now but to take back the country by force. I know how that will end…
When there is nothing to lose, that is the moment to lose it. -Patrizia
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That moment has not yet arrived. Nothing will be “done” until it does. Cassandras are not listened to until after the fact; then, they are promptly forgotten. (Example: How many do you PERSONALLY know that are aware of the writings of Dmitri Orlov?) The past is prologue.
Look for the “little corporals” (funny moustache or no).
Newworld… You are wrong about the Asians. They are, generally, a smart folk and they know from millennia of experience that success in life is partly a crap shoot so they are willing to take some risks. Back during the imperial age in China, families were willing to have their sons castrated for the chance to be a eunuch in the emperor’s service. This often led to a painful dearth from blood loss or infection. So fast forward a few centuries. It is likely that our elite’s have a plan worked out where they can escape to a safe and secure locale while the rest of us languish in the coming chaos. The providence of technology will assure them a comfortable life. Their newly borne social order will require a (relatively) few highly educated technologists for maintenance. Want to survive in style but don’t have any real money or influence? Then get into that technology corps. No different than becoming a eunuch, though you don’t need to give up your “jewels”. If nothing else, the Asians, at least the Chinese, are social Darwinists. (Before anyone points out that eunuchs can’t have progeny, an imperial eunuch’s family was greatly advantaged by having a son so indentured).
“I gave up hoping for Americans to say enough”
As far as I can tell, people are saying plenty, but words have a limited impact. In fact, every person I meet claims to know how to fix things if we’d just follow their 10 steps to prosperity.
How is Equal Racist?
Au contraire, Cashie, it is a fact proven by polling that self-identified Lefties are far better informed about the goings-on in the world and of scientific truths than those who claim to be conservatives. At least in America, the lack of basic knowledge on the Right is astounding. This dovetails nicely with self-identified Christians and Fox News watchers (who woulda thunk).
Is this really any surprise, given the rampant irrationality from that group, including Jesus-loving, Climate Change denial against all evidence, belief in unlimited oil supplies, etc.
The real question to me, regardless of who “knows what is going on,” is: Will it make a damn bit of difference going forward?
You can know everything there is to know about Peak Oil, Climate Change, and the global financial house of cards. But doing something (anything) about it is a lot more difficult. It is like a fish trying to fight the motion of the ocean.
The Left is still struggling against recognizing that they’ve been bamboozled by a straw man. Funny, really; Obama does a head move feint left, then drives the country further across the center line into the glaring headlights of the Right’s onrushing disaster.
Most secret though of weapons applied toward goal of US sovereignty subsumed into globalism (so called multiculturalism) is dual citizenship. No surprise (right?) that our high rate of immigration — refugees and illegals as well — is paralleled with rapid increase in naturalized citizens retaining citizen status in nation of origin. These “globalized” citizens subsequently have clout beyond that inherent to citizens of US status alone.
More crazed conspiracy theory you say? Just consider how frequently news coverage is focused on US action abroad justified on basis of securing the safety (and justice) of US citizens back in the nation of their dual citizenship.
Is this like a Zen koan? Or will you answer this cryptic question for us?
“…deep social cuts wouldn’t be necessary if the repugs hadn’t orchestrated millions in corporate tax breaks…”
Shut up. Your statement is moronic. We have been living WAY beyond our means and doing so for decades. To suggest otherwise is imbecilic.
Truly.
There are also blogs that don’t want to take into consideration that anybody has ever “kilt” anyone else for any reason. That plant just happens to be integrated into the forest as well. Sorry that it bears such bitter fruit, but it doesn’t cancel the fact of its’ existence.
Those who use lots of Oil that they must buy themselves are on the front line!
I hear that tomorrow is the 150th anniversary of the start of the US Civil War or the War Between the States depending on whether you grew up north or south of the Mason Dixon Line.
I guess you can’t say anything like “happy” anniversary because there’s nothing happy about it. You wonder what the world would have been like if the war had come out differently or if it had never been fought. Fools errand maybe to try and re-write history.
The guns echoed up north and, according to some stuff I read, the heat from that war incubated the British North America Act and the formation of Canada in 1867. I suppose that colonial and British leaders of the time thought that forming an unhappy marriage of fractious colonies into one country was less worse than the colonies staying separate and maybe going to war like those to the south.
But we don’t learn from history. Twice (1980 and 1995) Quebec held referenda on secession. The vote in 1980 was against by a wide margin but the vote in 1995 was lost by the secessionists by a whisker. The Quebec Premier later said that if the Yes vote had won he would have made a unilateral declaration of independence within days.
In the inevitable squabbling over borders and assets that would have followed, you wonder if fighting might have broken out a la Fort Sumter. One thing is for sure, secessionists in Quebec will take another stab at it. The second thing for sure is we don’t learn from history and, as such, we’re doomed to repeat it.
“Of course, today we’d have to update it as “suburban idiocy,” because that is where the simple country folk of yesteryear have transpired to relocate, most traumatically in the Sunbelt…”
Hey Jimbo. Small problem. These suburban Idiots and Sunbelt yahoos you show such contempt for AREN’T THE FUCKING PROBLEM, YOU SIMPLE FUCK. They don’t run things. Its the simpleton big city folks who call the shots, shitheel and their fucking days are numbered.
“How is Equal Racist?”
I’m not sure I get your meaning here.
Come again.
“A nation reaches a point of maturity, complexity, and it all becomes just too much to handle, too much to manage…”
Yep. Its called “Big Government” and it is in the process of being downsized. The pigs at the trough are headed to the slaughterhouse.
Did you mean Norplant, not implants? Last week, I commented on this site with some radical ideas (using Norplant) that might reduce unwanted pregnancies & abortions. The issue is so emotionally charged, that I don’t see anybody wanting to challenge current practices.
Why open oneself up to charges of misogyny or racial discrimination?
Haha..ya old grump..you sound like that Pat Buchanon.
This am I was reading a blog at ModelMayhem.com .
> Offtopic> soapbox
All the dumbed down lefties talkin about Rambos right to go with the Israeli army in 1991.
Well, you’re wrong about leftists, Cash.
Any leftist would know that capitalism is unsustainable, and that speculative bubbles always crash.
I have quoted Karl Marx here before, pointing out that very thing, but you ignore it, in your continuous hostility to the liberals you disdain.
Personally, I have expected capitalism to collapse for years, never speculated in real estate, and took my pension pay-out tax hit (which was the government trying to get me to “invest” in Wall Street), and paid off part of my mortgage, paid as little as possible to my 401K.
And ain’t I a leftist?
“Truly.
There are also blogs that don’t want to take into consideration that anybody has ever “kilt” anyone else for any reason. That plant just happens to be integrated into the forest as well. Sorry that it bears such bitter fruit, but it doesn’t cancel the fact of its’ existence.”
Are you referring to pacifist blogs that consistently advocate for non-violence? Give us a link if you know about one of those. I would be interested in at least looking at it.
The primary fallacy I see across the political spectrum is the idea that endless growth is possible on a finite planet. The mental constructions of the Age of Exuberance still seem to hold a lot of sway in many people’s minds. What most don’t realize is that we’re in an Age of Scarcity. The cornucopian viewpoint that growth and progress can go on forever into the bright and shiny future is quite an alluring prospect, regardless of your political stripes, and people find it very appealing.
The above is paraphrasing Catton in “Overshoot.” (hell of a good read)
Many socialists seem to think that as long as we worship at the altar of fairness and equity, not only can all those already present on the planet receive the “goodies,” but ditto going into the future.
Capitalists seem to be under the assumption that we can always grow our way out of trouble and that all we need to do in order to accomplish this magic act is to get the government “out of the way,” nevermind the fact that QE and similar Keynesian beyond-Keynes strategies are be used just to make sure the whole crap bag doesn’t explode.
So, sure, there is wrong-headed thinking on all sides. But many liberals at least acknowledge the harsh realities of human impact on this finite sphere, such as Climate Change, Peak Oil, etc. The Jesus freaks think that as long as we just drill a few more holes in the ground and stroke our crosses, everything gonna be okay. Yeah, not so much.
” If you are low-income, all medical care is free.”
No it isn’t, idiot. It is paid for by others.
Oh, I know this poster. Welcome back zsa/OEO/tootsie/etc.
Tom Tom Club is a pretty good band but nothing compared to Talking Heads.
“Tell me all about the inferiority of rural people and the superiority of urbanites. I know better and I’m having NONE of it.”
This is the joke, Cash. Jim-bob gets his hate on for the very people who had nothing to do with our current meltdown. It was all the degreed shitheels in the cities that fucked all of us. Yet he wants to blame suburbanites and southerners. What a fucking, cluleess MORON.
Ignorant me, I didn’t realize that Norplant has not been in production since 2002. Also, all hormonal male birth control methods are currently in the testing phase. My musings are mute.
Keep this up & you’ll be banned again by JHK.
Polling? Be my guest, you can have your poll results. Forgive me but I’m highly skeptical of polls taken by people with who knows what political or ideological axe to grind especially with one that involves an issue like “who is more knowledgeable” and especially given the rancour of your left vs right, north vs south, urban vs rural culture war. Lies, damned lies, statistics, poll results. IMO manipulable bullshittery in the hands of statistical tricksters. Was your poll “on the level” so to speak? I have no idea. But automatically I’m suspicious because I’m an accountant, steeped and marinated in the art of presenting and interpreting numbers. So I’ll believe the evidence of my own eyes.
You don’t know shit, dickless. The band, Tom Tom Club sucked.
I see you’ve missed my point by a large margin. I haven’t made myself clear.
YOU want this blog to be narrowly focused on the areas you happen to think are most important [regarding contraction]. You don’t seem to believe it’s important to “waste time” looking at human violence as a possible factor in that. I do (as part of a holistic perspective).
Try fighting with the racists on here; go ahead; try to re-train their focus and tell them their thoughts are irrelevant.
“Keep this up & you’ll be banned again by JHK.”
I think I’d have to be banned the first time to get banned “again”, numbnuts.
You mention breakdown and revolution and I agree with everything you write about today and yet why is it that very few realize that the way our culture is set up it really cannot operate under the pressures of overpopulation and consumption. We shoot ourselves in the foot every time a so called american corporation props up the Chinese and Indian business’s meanwhile creating more and more consumers of commodities, including water, oil and food. So talking about breakdown and revolution leaves one wondering what is this revolution you speak of going to be over? Freedom to get yours and the hell with everyone else, the right to consume anything and everything? Or asking ourselves is this direction that we were headed really the direction to go if we had really thought about it no matter what the founding wig wearers believed. It seems like everything has gotten to big to fail and really no way out and the lords of the economy will do anything to keep power in their hands alone. There is absolutely no one that has a clue of what really to do. Well, on with the big show.
James: great post again. The inevitability seems to be upon us and yes I doubt the politicians of either persuasion have any real answers. My take is that it is economics and it’s step parent; money is readily showing obsolescence. When we see the collapse of money and that even the greedy grab-bags hoarding it all just becomes miser/hermits while the rest of us learn our real nature; to co-operated, each of us doing our own thing and that the planet will still turn on it axis. C’est la vie. Jack
Four steps to a better America
1) raise the eligibility age for social security and medicare to 75
2) lower military spending to $200 billion per year, close all foreign bases, end all foreign wars
3) cap all government pension past and future at $40,000 per year
4) build out a new energy infrastructure
I do not see any pol doing any of these. So move to a place where it is warm in the winter and has good soil and water.
How dare you denigrate microwaved cheese snacks!
Hey, Cash.
I was thinking of the well-known polls that concluded Fox News watchers are more likely to believe falsehoods.
http://www.prwatch.org/node/9822
“For example, people who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely to hold beliefs that are not true, including that their own income taxes have gone up, that most scientists do not believe climate change is occurring, that most economists estimated the new health care reform law will worsen the deficit, that most Republicans opposed the TARP bailout, and that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and cannot legitimately serve as president.”
But that’s not to say all conservatives use Fox News as their primary source of news. At least, I would hope they don’t, as it isn’t that great a source and has clear biases.
Senor Google is telling me about a Zogby poll that shows self-identified conservatives as being better informed on economics issues, which doesn’t surprise me a whole lot as this subject is their primary “axe.”
Another set of data is showing that self-identified liberal households tend to have more years of formal education by a fairly wide margin. More years of schooling does tend to equate with additional knowledge, the bias of some conservatives against higher education non-withstanding. Rush Limbaugh is not a substitute for college coursework.
I’m not wrong about leftists. I’ve watched them for a lifetime. Greatly adept at devising and swallowing SUV sized cretinisms. Reality defying, reality ignoring, mind bending, mind blowing stuff. You’re the exception of course Wage.
And you know what, I despise the right for their own idiocies but for some reason I find myself happy shitting on lefties. It’s the air of moral and intellectual superiority that bugs me. They lead with their chins and I can’t help myself.
Here is another item arguing that liberals tend to be more intelligent.
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-02-26/health/liberals.atheists.sex.intelligence_1_sexual-behaviors-liberalism-exclusivity?_s=PM:HEALTH
This study shows that liberal atheists have 6-11 points higher average IQ. But I guess this is comparing with a sample including everyone else.
Faith-based decision making tends to be a hallmark of a certain segment of the conservative population, and this is a prima facie irrational and unintelligent belief system.
Though that’s not to say there aren’t some very intelligent conservative thinkers out there. Thomas Sowell comes to mind.
Again, though, they all tend to subscribe to the Cornucopian fallacy, which leads in all kinds of funny directions, regardless of ideology.
Cash,
Maybe the conservatives are a bit different up in Canada (sounds like it), but the Jesus-humpers down here have always irked me far more than Lefties. They will tell you they are right about everything, because God told them. They’ll selectively quote the Bible to backup their point, even though this doorstop of a book contains plenty of advice that they don’t follow (like it being a sin to wear clothes made of two different fibers).
You want to talk about leading with your chin. There are few people more irrationally stupid and blind than Bible-thumpers who are sure that Jesus put the earth here for us to consume.
“It’s the air of moral and intellectual superiority that bugs me.”
And conservatives don’t have this? From the little I have watched of conservative media, the righties are constantly reminding all of us about their own intellectual superiority, knowledge of politics, etc. I’m thinking of the Fox News blowhards like Hannity and Glenn Beck, who apparently read the Constitution every time they take a dump.
“I can’t help myself.”
We noticed. 😉
“I tend to be an optimist and I believe that this crisis will ultimately become an opportunity to renew the values and beliefs that made America great.”
The opportunity you anticipate will be based upon repentance of “values and beliefs” which pretend to replace morality.
Most of us, if presented with a choice between virtuous dullards and brilliant mattoids, would find it a pretty easy pick.
“Give up your superstitions. You are far too aware of what we are facing to justify clinging to granfalloons that have no answers for the challenges we face.” This is another way of saying, “Burn your idols”.
Pagans have always murdered their offspring.
So, I take it you are the exception to the intelligent atheist theory?
How did you decide upon these magic numbers?
Jim’s right and you are wrong, Mrs. Proofreader, but its a common mistake. “Floundering” indicates fishing for flounder. The term founder or “foundering” refers to a disease of the horse’s foot; it is also known as laminitis and has a long history in the horse world.
Unlike you, I manage to not get banned from this website twice a month, so I’m clearly ahead of you in the intelligence department. But that’s not really saying very much, is it?
And pray tell, when has Communism worked? It just creates a new hierarchy with Union Thugs and vicious leftist lunatics on top.
A military coup might be the best thing for the Country if you want to avoid civil unrest and avoid bloodshed – and if you want to keep the United States united. The two parties seem incapable of governing – completely crippled by having to pander to special interests in order to get reelected.
The real question is whether America should stay together – is it worth it anymore.
Funny how the budget “debates” omit any consideration of the $700 billion “defense” budget, including $160 biilion or so “off-budget” for various optional wars — even in a JHK column. To paraphrase Richard Nixon, are we all military Keynesians now, assuming a substantial trickle-down from Lockheed Martin to the little guy?
Le sigh. It would have been nice if, instead of focusing on GWB’s war credentials, or BHO’s college transcripts, people could have been more concerned about the government’s actions or lack thereof concerning the crapfest that we seem to be neck deep in. You know, seeing as how the president is more or less the national mascot and has about as much to do with the running of the country as Mickey Mouse does with the day to day dealings of Disneyworld. Oh, well.
Hey, Prelap.
You read this before?
http://mondediplo.com/2008/02/05military
Oh so now you accept the reality of IQ? So where do Blacks rate in all this? I bet Conservative Blacks not on welfare are smarter than ordinary “liberal” welfare Blacks.
“Unlike you, I manage to not get banned from this website twice a month, so I’m clearly ahead of you in the intelligence department.”
Firstly, to get banned from this site twice a month one would have to be posting here for at least a month.
Secondly, to be banned from this site does not show either a lack or a plethora of intelligence. It merely indicates a poster that is not willing to be a meat puppet of the host.
OK, you can crap on religious folk all you like. I’m not religious myself but I take a rather more tolerant view (to any Canucks out there I glommed onto this perspective living in Alberta the least religious province in the country besides maybe BC but where religiously oriented people were not crapped on unlike in the east which is choking with oh so knowledgeable and brilliant liberals).
Sorry for the digression. Your lovely document, the Declaration of Independence, which I’m jealous of because we have nothing remotely as good (and let’s not get into the Gettysbug Address which makes me tear up and blubber like a little girl every time I hear it) talks about certain inalienable rights:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
OK like I said I’m not religious and I’ve heard that some of the writers of that document were a bunch of no account atheists. But it talks about people being endowed by their CREATOR (and not other people) with certain inalienable rights. Now go ahead and sneer but as for me I think this was a stroke of brilliance.
Why do I think so? Because I’m familiar with another culture and way of thinking from the other side of the planet that isn’t having any of it. These folk by and large are atheistic, have no time for the idea of a creator, sneer at the idea of democracy (like I said in another post I wish I had a buck every time I heard one of them deride the concept), have no time for the concept of “rights” but rather think that you arrive in this world screaming and naked and to survive you eat what you kill, are accorded no respect as an individual, are not considered invaluable or irreplaceable as we think we ourselves are.
So where do we come up with such silly notions as thinking we ourselves are deserving of respect and rights and due process and equality under the law? These couldn’t have a religious origin could they especially …gasp… Judeo-Christian? That noxious concoction of stupidness and superstition especially Roman Catholicism with its incence and bells and magic and ghosts?
Jim wishes for the collapse of American Empire as fervently as any bug-eyed Christian wishing for the rapture, and he seems to think this will be followed by some sort of utopia where people conduct themselves with fairness and goodwill.
When have the affairs of men EVER been conducted with fairness and goodwill? Are those not luxuries only enjoyed be people living in lands of abundant natural wealth? And what are the odds any of that is going to magically happen after the bloody trauma of a collapse?
I’d just as soon play the lottery.
Much more likely, it seems to me, is that our national nightmare will manifest its current deprivation and depravities ever more starkly in a world where there is much less to go around.
The wealthy criminal class will be ten times poorer, but they will hardly notice as they have 500 times the wealth of everyone else. Besides which they also have walled compounds, security condo towers, and jackboot police to keep other peoples grubby hands off what’s left.
The much more modest middle class will also be ten times poorer, which will totally wipe them out and, despite all attempts to “keep up appearances”, they will sadly come to occupy the slums of New Normal, USA.
The poor, not having ten of anything, will also hardly notice. Ten times less of nothing is still nothing. To the extent that their current infirm existence may only be possible due to massive government medical entitlements, then they may be excused if they simply drop off the face of the Earth.
And there you have it, a perfect description of life as currently enjoyed by billions of people in the slums of the so-called “Third World”.
Coming soon to a First World theater near you!
“So where do we come up with such silly notions as thinking we ourselves are deserving of respect and rights and due process and equality under the law?”
It is called The Enlightenment, which, need I remind you, was an intellectual and philosophical reaction against Christian ideals, including the idea that kings were put here on earth by Jesus to lord over their subjects.
Modern western law, jurisprudence, and concepts of rights certainly did NOT emanate from the crypto-totalitarian Catholic Church but were, if anything, a reaction against it.
Oh, that comment above was meant for Cash, not tomtom.
You’re a liar, as well as psychotic, tootsie/OEO/zsazsa. Everyone recognizes your stench.
As far as getting banned, it is your terminally stupid habit of calling anyone who disagrees with you naughty names that continually gets you canned from this site, not your refusal to be a “meat puppet.” If Vlad can manage to keep his account, it can’t be that hard, except for mentally challenged individuals with internet Tourette Syndrome like yourself.
I would say, in fact, that idiocy flourishes in all types of communities in the US.
lsjogren, Thank You.
It is eerily quiet today in the countryside where I live. Well, except for the sound of all those wallets slapping shut as gasoline reached 3.56/gal and diesel 4.09/gal.
Well, you’re entitled to that opinion. I’ve read other opinions that differ with that assessment (sorry, can’t remember sources, too long ago). And it’s not just the Roman Catholic Church. You have to give Judaism its due either positively or negatively. Because whether you believe Christianity or not Christ was a Jew who preached to Jews. (yeah yeah yeah I know he didn’t really exist, whatever) I’ve read others who say that the basis for our system of laws is the ten commandments. Now don’t go crapping on the ten commandments. As one guy described them they’re ten two word laws (maybe in ancient Hebrew) that any illiterate shepherd could put to memory.
Excuse me but in the prior post you address me as tomtom. Then you address me as tootsie/OEO/zsazsa and accuse ME of being psychotic Talk about the kettle calling the pot black. Back off bro. Try not to be such a little meat puppet and please get a grip on your anger
Interesting. Because of taxes (I guess), the relation is reversed in Europe with diesel running roughly about $1.20 less per gallon.
http://www.clever-tanken.de/statistik6.asp?typ=Diesel shows average prices for European countries for diesel and super unleaded.
Cheers
When things get bad, Blacks are going to burn down the cities as they have done before. Not racist thinking – fact. Get with reality or reality is going to get with you in a bad way. As a White, you don’t want to be anywhere near Blacks when things go south. Hispanics may join them or fight them – or both in different times and places.
Cash,
It is not just an opinion. Thomas Jefferson literally despised Christianity and any suggestion that the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were primarily based on that religion would have been met with derision, if not horror, by most of the country’s founders.
How many times is God mentioned in the Constitution? I’ll answer that question: precisely zero. If American law is based on Christianity, gee whiz, doncha think they would have mentioned it at least once.
Far more important were the ideas of pre-Christian classical philosophers like Aristotle and Plato, as well as the Enlightenment philosophers like Kant and Locke.
Some of them were deists, but for their day, that was like being an atheist.
And then I think of the French Revolution, in which the Catholic priests had their heads removed.
Modernism is a direct reaction against faith-based belief systems and the philosophical dictatorship of the church with its Divine Right of Kings. That’s a historical fact.
This message from the late 40’s or 50’s still seems relevant.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD TODAY?
Meher Baba
“Such questions are bound to arise in thinking minds, but often
the answers given are not completely honest. Diagnosis given
and remedies adopted have all been biased and so the
situation remains vague and unresolved.
The crux of the matter lies in the correct reinterpretation of
the ancient word ‘religion’. The West has very little religion,
and whenever one hears of it, it is either subservient to
politics or at best an adjunct of material life. The East is
suffering from an overdose of religion, and consequently it
hankers desperately for a material antidote.
Religion in the West is synonymous with scientific progress,
which is distinctive in its manifestation. Religion in the East,
and in India in particular, has gone underground and been
replaced largely by crude ceremonies, vague rituals and
lifeless dogmas. Instead of nourishing the seeds of peace and
plenty, this subterranean religion tries to propagate
communism, fanaticism, nationalism and patriotism, which
have become bywords associated with leadership and
greatness, suffering and sanctity. In short, religion as a living
force has become obsolete.
The urgent need of today to resuscitate religion, is to dig it out
of its narrow, dark vault and let the spirit of man shine out
once again in its pristine glory.
The most practical in the world is to be spiritual-minded. It
needs no special time, place or circumstance. It is not
necessarily concerned with anything out of the ordinary daily
routine. It is never too early or too late to be spiritual. It is just
a simple question of having the proper mental attitude towards
lasting value, changing circumstance and avoidable eventualities,
as well as a healthy sense of the inevitable.
Spirituality is not restricted to, nor can it be restricted by,
anyone or anything, anywhere, at anytime. It covers all life for
all time, and it can easily be achieved through selfless service
and that pure love which knows no bondage and seeks no
boundary.
A mighty surge of this spirituality is about to sweep over the
world.”
GLOW INTERNATIONAL, February 1995, p. 2
Naosherwan Anzar, Editor
Copyright 1995 Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public
Charitable Trust
Wagelabourer
I have seen just such cold hearted healthcare providers myself. It is very discouraging that they dislike some of the people they have to take care of so much that they would lose their own job in order to deny them care.
Tomtom
I find your spicy comments to add color to the comments, but really it does show a certain lack of carefull thought on your part. It would be silly to deny that corporate taxes were at their highest in the sixties, incomes in the highest earner brackets were taxed 70% or more. The country was very prosperous. Currently corporations are supposed to pay 35% income tax, most pay NONE. But still these oligarchs and elite earners are still demanding more, they never seem to have enough.
Also I would like to say that the sometimes very bitter exchanges seen on this comment section reflect the divisions that are nutured by the TPTB, they seem to be masters at the divide and conquer strategy. The population needs to be aware of these tactics and to understand that surviving what’s coming will require cooperation. Wisconsin is a prime example!
“Hispanics may join them or fight them – or both in different times and places.”
Or maybe not. Or maybe. In some places and in good time. Or not. Probably.
Ozone, you are a marvelously perceptive human being.
“YOU want this blog to be narrowly focused on the areas you happen to think are most important [regarding contraction]. You don’t seem to believe it’s important to “waste time” looking at human violence as a possible factor in that. I do (as part of a holistic perspective).”
It’s Jim’s blog. If I grow weary of what’s being discussed here. I’ll just go somewhere else. But I hope Jim will be mindful of the feedback.
My sense of what will be needed if there is a collapse, are some principles of non-violent communication to rebuild community. There may be circumstances where communities would need to defend against marauders, but in those instances, it’s vitally important that folks know what it is that they are defending.
This just in ….
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110411/ap_on_re_us/us_global_finance
Gee, the IMF says all is right and rosy in the world. What a relief. I can relax and sleep at night. Seems like a lot of wishful thinking, on their part.
Internet Tourette Syndrome. LMAOROTF That’s great!
Well, back to Season 1 of “Glee.” Don’t know why I resisted so long. Resistance is futile.
Cash,
The Code of Hammurabi, the first known set of laws, is a more applicable set of statues than the Ten Commandments, several of which are not even applicable to the law.
Number one is completely bogus. Modern liberal society allows people to worship at any altar they please.
Number two is another one we can toss out. Clearly, the making of images of God is not outlawed by any reasonable system of law.
Taking the name of the Lord in vain is also plainly not something we should outlaw.
Remembering the Sabbath is optional.
Honoring your father and mother is a nice thought, though not mandatory.
Six through ten have some applicability, so I guess you’re about half right.
But do we really need God to tell us not to steal, murder, and bang the neighbor’s wife?
Have you even read them?
The same thing with the United Nations: the charter goes on for pages and pages raveing about the Right of Man (including children) and then just quietly says that all these rights are contingent upon social and govermental necessity – in other words, just privledges that are granted and can be taken away. This is Liberalism in a nutshell: all power to the bureacrats with the people left with crumbs and illusions.
Property is sacred you commie bastards. There is no Freedom without Property and no Property without the Freedom to defend it. Hands of my wallet. Defund NEA and Planned Parenthood. US out of Libya. Free Tilicum.
In a way, yes. I’m saying that no matter what you do, you can’t escape the chaos brought about by a society which has become chaotic. Think of it this way: if you were in Germany in 1932, how would you have escaped the Nazi regime? Some did so by emigrating. Everyone else had to face the music, namely: war, military service, bombings, defeat and starvation. Those opposed were hung, worked to death, or shot. You might say, chaos does a pretty good job of grinding everyone down to the same level. Do you really believe you can defend yourself from, say, government mercenary (such as Halliburton) thugs, roving gangs, organized territorial gangs, thieves, and modern day Visigoths? Good luck.
There will be an attempt to create a false One World Religion to facilitate globalism. People like Baba will be used to shore up this monstrousity.
Christianity is far more sophisticated than the East when it comes to the mystery of Evil. Evil is an illusion may be ultimately true but it doesn’t help us in the trenches.
I know about the five sheaths and what not and the Discourses, God to Man to God, et al. The fact remains: Evil is or has become Personalized and organized. It recognizes its own and makes alliances. It can only be defeated on this plane by the same. Obviously one must endeavor not to be conquered inwardly as one fights it outwardly.
I would be afraid of the humans that are cold and have no food or jobs, they will pose the greatest danger.
“Taking the name of the Lord in vain is also plainly not something we should outlaw.”
Well of course not. Because you aren’t God.
The Ten Commandments are believed by many to have come directly from God and to them you assign a naive belief. And yet you are now going to amend the very commandments you find childlike? And that isn’t the exercise of a fool?
Prperty rights no longer exist in the USA. SUpreme court ruling about a CT case expanded imminent domain to include commercial enterprises seeking properties to increase value and therefore property tax revenues. Translation: anyone with more money that you can take your property.
“Honoring your father and mother is a nice thought, though not mandatory.”
Are you nuts? You know your mommy is going to read this and be very angry with you.
A correction to that 90% that you said goes to abortion – it’s actually more like 3%. 97% goes to things like pap smears, breast and prostate cancer screenings, and STD education and treatment. Title 10 provides basic public health services to low income people. Do away with it, and watch disease become even more prevalent throughout the country – perhaps even you will be impacted. I wonder about a relative, an older woman, left years ago by her husband for a younger gal and now living small on SS – she gets all her cancer screenings from such a clinic, but is still a rabid righty – wonder how long she will be able to maintain that?
Your right it has to fail. That being said you could also replace the word fail with evolve. Can you say punctuated equilibrium?
Everything has within it the seeds of its own destruction, and that which you fear the most will meet you halfway.
Thanks, Turkle, for pointing out that the US legal system is in no way based on “our Judeo-Christian” background.
Cash, if you’re so damn cynical, why don’t you question that bullshit when you hear it? Just because it’s the dominant meme doesn’t make it true.
Not only is it not illegal to take the Lord’s name in vain, it’s not illegal to make plastic Jesuses, or shop on the Sabbath, or covet your neighbor’s goods, or disrespect your parents, or bang your neighbor’s wife, for that matter.
AND- it’s only illegal to steal or kill on an individual basis. It is a billion dollar business, supported by over half the massive US budget (and TOTALLY off-limits to both parties in government) to manufacture ways to kill lots of people.
And what the hell is Wall Street, if not legal stealing?
Sorry, the US legal system has no relation to the Ten Commandments.
Actually, what a hit the US economy would take if it had to close down on the Sabbath, stop manufacturing weapons of mass killing and destruction, and abolish advertising, which is all about coveting goods.
There’s also the little matter of usury, frowned upon by the Bible writers. Hmmm
I’m just sayin’
Hey folks,
It’s not big govt. that’s the problem. Govt. grew big to take on challenges that were and are beyond the means of individuals and groups. That’s the purpose of govt.
We had private corporations at the time of the American Revolution, but their number and influence on our society was minuscule. The rise of the modern corporate state really didn’t start until the Civil War and started to kick into high gear after it was over. The growth of our govt. went hand in hand with the challenges of a growing nation that was trying to conquer a continent.
Today we have become a complete corporate state with our corporate controllers taking on many of the functions formerly and currently provided by govt.
Those of you on the right see govt. as the problem, and that may have been true in 1840 or 1850. But today, corporate power has surpassed govt. power and influence. Our govt. bows to corporate power.
So everyone on the Right, you need to refocus, recalibrate, rethink and retarget who you HATE. You mad? Make a copy of the Fortune 500 or the top 20 firms on NASDAQ. Get out your pitch forks and torches and head over to their headquarters. That’s where you should be spewing the majority of your ample venom.
Here’s the formula: direct three quarters of your bile at corporate America, 1 quarter at the govt.
Thanks for the rant, ront.
We are being allowed to try every type of political/economic/religious system that we can dream up simply to illustrate {maybe I should say to learn} what does not work. Only after we have exhausted ourselves in this manner will most turn to the Creator’s simple instructions which of course have been, for the most part, misunderstood, misused and then disparaged.
http://projects.nytimes.com/executive_compensation
“Thanks, Turkle, for pointing out that the US legal system is in no way based on “our Judeo-Christian” background.”
Hogwash. Just because its been whittled away does not mean that the early laws of our land were not based on the Big 10. For instance there used to be “blue laws” in effect that were established to honor the Sabbath. About the only retail establishment that you would find open on Sunday was a drug store.
It is still illegal to steal, murder and one could argue, cheat on one’s spouse as doing so is grounds for a divorce.
Bearing false witness? In a court room its called perjury.
There seems to be a lot of bitching on this site about wall street and its attendant shenanigans. Is wall street nothing less than a false god or idol? Maybe you should all pray that our laws DID better reflect the Big 10.
My comment on the creator endowing you with certain inalienable rights is to point out a cultural difference between here and another place that has no such idea and pays no attention to the idea of human rights. The point was that the role of religion is not all bad. My take on it is that religion puts a brake on human behaviour, I don’t buy the view that it’s responsible for all the world’s ills and wars. The wars would still be there without religion. After all the Romans conquered and made war and they needed no religious justification.
I’m a bean counter and not a religious or legal scholar but I think you’re also minimizing the role Christianity and Judaism and their moral precepts.
For all the freedom of religion we’re still oriented towards Christianity. We have Good Friday and Christmas Day off, we traditionally had Sunday off. When I was a kid we were moving to a five day work week and for a while people were taking Wednesday and Sunday off instead of Saturday and Sunday. Also when I was a kid we had school prayer. Almost everyone was Christian. We had a Jew or two in class who comforted themselves with the thought Jesus was a nice and hugely successful Jewish boy. And also, our church was packed to the rafters every Sunday, both services.
The Code of Hammurabi was discovered, as I understand it, in the late 1800s. I presume you’re being factious in your remark. Having said that, I suppose it’s entirely possible that aspects of it made its way into Jewish and Greek thought in ancient times and incorporated itself in Western culture via that route.
And yes I’ve read the ten commandments. I’ve read the four Gospels, Revelations, bits and pieces of other books in the New Testament. I’ve also read Genesis, Exodus, Ecclesiastes, the book of Job and some other odds and sods I can’t remember.
Do we need big G to tell us to behave? If people were rational, no. So what do you think? Do you think people are rational? I would point out what many others have already pointed out, that the worst butchers in history were atheists (Mao, Hitler, Stalin).
I think what is showing through here is your anti religious bias. You’re fully entitled to it but I think if it were otherwise ie if you were merely indifferent instead of hostile and if you didn’t despise religious people you’d have a different take on things. As for me I was bored by it and I didn’t buy the narrative because it made no sense. (Jesus died for our sins?) I could not find one Sunday school teacher that could give me an explanation. I read some of the religious texts, got bored by the scriptural sominex and gave it the wave. But I don’t dismiss the role that religion played in the development of our civilization.
Not convincing, Larrymoe.
Sunday is only the Sabbath for some. And those laws no longer apply.
It’s only illegal to steal or murder if you are an individual, as I pointed out.
Bearing false witness may be perjury in a courtroom, but it’s called “news” on TV.
” Govt. grew big to take on challenges that were and are beyond the means of individuals and groups.”
Wrong. Government grew big to justify its own existence. Ask yourself this question. Who in government has EVER expressed their end game? What is the ultimate goal of our governors? When will they be big enough. When will they have taxed us enough? What portion of our daily existence will they NOT attempt to regulate?
Left? Right? Left Right Left. Yo’ left, yo’ left, yo’ left right left.
See?
“Not convincing, Larrymoe.”
Really? Well all you have done is explain the dumbing down of our laws that at one time WERE based on the 10 commandments.
I try to steer the fff-ing crap space toward thoughtful discourse and all I get is “labels” and stereo types. Yeah, most of you comment like you are “ditto-heads.” And of course baby-talk racists.
Good for you.
Well, while labels are good for broad-stroking generalities they hardly interest those who attempt to learn or extract meaning from any of the current events.
The essential matter at hand is how to live through or prepare for a civilization driven by profits-managed resources and continue to live well in a needs-managed resource.
In its simplest form this means identifying the differences between discretionary energy consumption and essential energy consumption.
Developing strategies that curb and promote human behaviors that conserve energy based upon priorities such as national security, personal security and well-being, or just plain old human amusement would be a start.
As the human race enters a new era of increasingly frugal hydro-carbon consumption, it must find the balances between personal behaviors and social technologies that offer the best chance of surviving long enough to develop sustainable cultures.
Finding away to redevelop workable, honest political subdivisions, along with personal responsibility are key.
But I digress, continue banal rhetoric below.
“(Jesus died for our sins?) I could not find one Sunday school teacher that could give me an explanation.”
OK here is my understanding from a Christian perspective:
We are born into sin. There is nothing we can do about this. As sinners there is nothing we can do on an individual level to change our sinful ways. Why? Because we are human…mere mortals.
The only way to find our way out of a state of sin into a state of grace is through God’s grace. He forgives us because he chooses to, not because we can do anything on our own to earn his forgiveness.
By sending his Son to our earthly realm he set up the path to grace. He sent his son amongst the sinners to explain to them how it is they should try to live their lives. As sinners are incapable of taking on responsibility for their own sins it could only be a direct emissary of God (his son, Jesus) to sacrifice himself for the sins of mankind.
All someone must do to receive God’s grace, is to recognize that He sent his son to die for our sins.
yep, them people on the Left are just too smart for us all, they all graduated from expensive universities, they only suffer from too much intelligence, while everyone non-Kunstlerlike microwaves cheese…..
all generalizations are useless, including Kunstler’s
REHASH #799
“yep, them people on the Left are just too smart for us all, they all graduated from expensive universities, they only suffer from too much intelligence…”
They also suffer from the fact that they occupy the very seats of power that have delivered us to our current state of decline. Funny, ain;t it?
“The Ten Commandments are believed by many to have come directly from God”
I don’t take those people too seriously.
It is dubious to claim the Ten Commandments are the basis for Western law, because half of them never really were laws. Loving your mother and father was never part of any legislation of which I’m aware. And plenty of other societies function just fine without Jehovah’s magic tablet of 10 laws.
If you’re claiming that people should be punished for harsh language involving God, that’s just silly.
“Do you think people are rational?”
Mostly regarding their short-term survival, people are pretty rational. Like, I don’t see too many people running stop lights. Though that may be because of the cameras.
“Wrong. Government grew big to justify its own existence.”
That may be true, in the same way you wrote what you just wrote because you could. But here’s something I always put to my right wing friends:
Leading up to, during and after the American Revolution, leaders of the day had many decisions to make. Why did they choose to form governments and not private corporations to manage the affairs of the emerging nation? After the war, if government was so evil, why didn’t they disband the Continental Congress and go back to their private lives?
If you have difficulty answering these questions, it will in part be because most Americans today lack any understanding of what it means to be a citizen. What are our obligations as citizens to the community? What are the proper rights of individuals in a free society? How do we negotiate the rights of the individual vs. the group? The state vs. individuals and groups?
How’s everybody doing with Commandment #8 (or #9 depending on which author you’re following)?
It’s a nice fairy tale.
OK Maybe I’m being too simplistic but if the narrative said something like “God had himself incarnated on this earth as a human to get us onto the straight an narrow and in the process severely annoyed some powers that be and was lynched” then I could understand it. Perfectly straight forward.
Don’t get me wrong. Christianity as I understand it has some good things. In order of importance in my mind anyway:
The idea that you are fully in control of what you do and say, no excuses, no blaming society or mommy and daddy,
The idea that since you are fully in control of what you do and say then you are fully accountable for what you do and say, no excuses etc as above
The idea that you can be a worthless shit but you can redeem yourself and put yourself right ie because you are fully in control of what you do and say
The idea that in big G’s eyes if you turn a leaf and redeem yourself you will be forgiven the shitty things you’ve done
The idea that because big G will forgive trangression we are also obliged to forgive
The idea of mercy and compassion as illustrated in the story of the adultress about to be stoned by a mob “let he who is innocent cast the first stone” and then to the adultress “neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more”
I just never bought that idea that religion is all bone headed stupidity and superstition. And I never bought the idea that it had no bearing on the development our legal and political systems. I never became religious because I was just too impatient and bored by all the piety and ritual. If you want to know the meaning of eternity you had to listen to one of our priest’s sermons. Cripes.
“I don’t take those people too seriously.”
Exactly. So why take the time to type: “”Taking the name of the Lord in vain is also plainly not something we should outlaw.”? You either buy into the 10 Commandments and where they came from or you do not. If you do you believe, taking the Lord’s name is not optional. Even if Turkle says it is. Especially, if Turkle says it is.
I must be having a black and white day, because reading Jim’s column it all seems that simple to me. It’s stupid to argue about rural vs. urban; caucasian vs. not; left vs. right; and so on.
In my simple world today, it seems to boil down to one simple fight: reason vs. superstition. Whether you’re catholic or muslim and think everyone else is going to Hell, or protestant or hindu and think you can buy your way to eternal life with your good deeds, you’re operating from superstition and not thinking clearly. Your emotions (fear mostly) are overtaking your rational brain functioning. It’s all about stages of enlightenment, and religious folk are only halfway there in finding solace in magical beings and superstitious belief systems.
Much of the conflict and stupid decision making in the world is a result of our brains not being able to overcome our primitive emotions, especially when we’re encouraged to let our emotions rule us.
That was an excellent post today, Jim. My congratulations on the triumph of your superior brain capacity over foolish emotinal impulses.
larrymoecurley,
Would you support the idea to provide an entire state for all the people who believe dinosaurs were around at the time of Jesus? We could then separate that state from the rest of the country and they could form their own govt. Would Texas be okay? Maybe Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi?
“OK Maybe I’m being too simplistic but if the narrative said something like “God had himself incarnated on this earth as a human to get us onto the straight an narrow and in the process severely annoyed some powers that be and was lynched” then I could understand it. Perfectly straight forward.”
Well that is exactly what the Bible does say. But it also tells us that God knew before he ever sent his Son that his Son would be crucified. This was a part of His plan. And through crucification, man would have the choice of salvation for eternity. Man would also have the choice of NOT seeking salvation.
” If you want to know the meaning of eternity you had to listen to one of our priest’s sermons.”
Not true. I never listened to one of your priest’s sermons and I know the meaning of eternity. Eternity would be being stuck next to Turkle on a 3 hour bus ride.
“Would you support the idea to provide an entire state for all the people who believe dinosaurs were around at the time of Jesus?”
No, but I think that those who think that climate change is attributed to the actions of man should get their own theme park. And in that park there should be some dinosaur rides that are powered by the hot air of Mr. Al Gore.
Isn’t the rule of law from the Old Testament? The God of Abraham was the first God to come along that you went to heaven not by the whims of arbitrary Gods and Kings of the time but by following Gods laws — The 10 Commandments?
I remember President Clinton saying our Constitution should be interpreted as to whatever best suits our needs, in other words arbitrarily. Nevermind the Constitution was to be written in plain language everyone could understand lest it be misinterpreted. But President Clinton was not the first and will not be the last to govern arbitrarily by subverting the rule of law.
Most people could care less about the difference between right and wrong that is why arbitrary governance is so easily foisted upon us. Incrementally at first, then with wanton abandon.
“Somewhere – perhaps in the Pentagon, or on some lonely Air Force base in a desolate corner of the nation – a colonel is watching his country collapse and thinking about what can be done.”
I believe John Ringo wrote a sci-fi novel, “The Last Centurion” along these lines.
Jim, you’ve been mind melding with Chris Hedges again, haven’t you? I use to think that Hedges (and you as well) were a tad extreme, but with the American body politic moving from the sublime to the FUBAR with no stops in between, maybe you folks will have to pull a domestic ‘regime change’. Shit, that last comment probably just landed me on the no-fly list. Oh well, just make sure that the 1 %’ers are first against the wall!
“Isn’t the rule of law from the Old Testament? The God of Abraham was the first God to come along that you went to heaven not by the whims of arbitrary Gods and Kings of the time but by following Gods laws.”
I’m not certain of the relevance of heaven to old testament readings. My understanding from my Jewish friends is that an afterlife is not a big part of Judaism. I’ve been led to believe that Jews place more importance on the here and now. You should behave well today for the sake of today, not for some future reward. In a way, this belief is much more noble on certain levels.
Maybe you could pose the question to our moderator as I believe he is of the Jewish faith.
IS4U:
The post I was noting said ‘racist…black,brown,white’.
since all are mentioned equally hows it racist?
And welcome back jimjim, tomtom….byebye
“American body politic moving from the sublime…”
There has never been anything closely resembling the sublime related to the American body politic.
I, for one, think that the “spiritualists” should have their own state. That way the rest of the country could confine the bickering to political matters. All I have to do is look at the variances in the Ten Commandments to know that the State of Spirituality would eventually fragment over differences in the interpretation of His word.
MB said he controlled the universe…ive met several [in the 1970s] who had spent time with him.
Hes long gone and predicted a horrible world crisis.
turkle what do you do. your is historical arguments are great. a hundred times better than mine, whether i agree with you are not.
“has Mr Kunstler got CLUE ONE about what it actually takes to get food from the farmer’s field in the sticks to the grocery store?”
I think you mean Cargill’s field, you inbred simpleton. And yes, I think he knows – it’s called a truck.
Lay off the ‘shine, hillbilly. They don’t allow your type in cities. I think you were talking about some place where they have running water and the people wear shoes close by to the rock you live under.
“Lay off the ‘shine, hillbilly. They don’t allow your type in cities.”
Of course not. The only ones allowed are the very cretins who have run our culture, banks, institutions and government strait into the mountainside. Those bastards get perpetual day passes into Gotham. Wow man. They’re special.
Jim, and any other weird evolutionists, if you haven’t yet watched “Religulous” by Bill Maher, you absolutely must. Although it could be labelled a comedy, and beleive me I laughed my ass off, it closes with the most profound comment on the current state of humanity. I put it right up there with “Borat” as 2 of the best movies produced lately.
The Eleventh Commandment:
Thou shalt not talketh authoritatively about word definitions before thou hast consulteth a dictionary.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/founder
agree with you 100 percent cash
I think we can look back to the Magna Carta (1215) as having a big influence on the development of the “Rule of Law.” It limited King John of England’s power.. and is the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot.
And the Magna Carta is making a special visit to San Francisco’s Museum of the Legion of Honor for a month (May X to June5). This is the first time the Magna Carta has made it across the big pond to be viewed by the public. I feel so lucky to live near a great cultural city such as San Francisco! Glad I don’t live in a Hooterville.
Jen
I think there were elements of the Old Testament used in the creation of the rule of law, our Constitution, branches of government, etc. There has historically been a struggle for power with the church that was recognized and incorporated into our government. A large powerful church is no different than a large powerful government. Power is power and inherently corrupt to a God that wants us to govern ourselves. Was it Ben Franklin who said, “It doesn’t matter which form of government, as long as the citizens are righteous.”?
There are elements to Communism that are appealing from a self governance perspective but they, (all previous attempts at Communism) have fallen prey to giant central government bureaucracies similar to our own experiment in self governance.
Re: “idiocy of rural life”
FWIW, it is from Marx in The Communist Manifesto, and it has been said that the phrase would be better translated as “the isolation of rural life”:
“This oft-quoted expression is a mistranslation. The German word idiotismus did not, and does not, mean “idiocy” (idiotie); it usually means idiom, like its French cognate idiotisme. But here [in paragraph 28 of The Communist Manifesto] it means neither. In the nineteenth century, German still retained the original Greek meaning of forms based on the word idiotes: a private person, withdrawn from public (communal) concerns, apolitical in the original sense of isolation from the larger community. In the Manifesto, it was being used by a scholar [Marx] who had recently written his doctoral dissertation on Greek philosophy and liked to read Aeschylus in the original.*
Monthly Review, October 2003, http://www.monthlyreview.org/nfte1003.htm
Larrymoecurley,
“No, but..”
So you want everything the modern brings, but you reject trying to solve the problems that come with it?
Larrymoecurley,
“No, but..”
So you want everything the modern world brings, but you reject trying to solve the problems that come with it?
Thanks NM DEM…. a couple of posters already set me straight… guess you hadnt noticed …
Best Regards,
Kelly
I’ll betcha’ $10 that in 1804 somebody said exactly the same thing.
God and Jesus good
Hitler and Stalin bad
“rural idiocy”,which includes believing that on Sept.11,2001 a man in a cave caused 3 high rise buildings in New York City to Collapse at FREE FALL SPEED
into dust, breaking almost every known law of physics. Also included are beliefs that pilots on 4 separate hijacked Jets all decided not to follow standard operating procedures by not sending out hijack alert signals. Keep in mind that not one piece of any of these 4 jets were ever recovered.
“suburban idiocy) includes the belief that a hijacker who could not fly took a 757 and turned it into a stunt plane causing it to crash into the only part of the Pentagon that was not occupied.At the same time adroitly avoiding any of the myriad video cameras. Don’t forget the grand finale of leaving a compact 16 foot hole(columns jutting outwards instead of inwards),while leaving windows intact where the engines should of impacted.And of course NO WRECKAGE!
On a lighter note, any seen the Bloomberg FOIA spreadsheet yet?
My copay here in CA is 50$… that is on top of the insurance we pay 500.00 a month thru husbands employer. our copay was 20.00 until the first of the year now it is $50.00 per visit.
if suppose if i were to pay total out of pocket for an average office visit it would be between 125 and 200.00. not including any tests.
stay healthy if you can. it’s very expensive to be sick.
oh yeah i went to the E.R. last year, had gall bladder issues. 8k each visit. of course they couldn’t diagnose it, or anything for that matter. our insurance paid them 5k of the 8k they wanted each time. we paid 75$ copay.
they didn’t to diddly squat for me, except pain shot and said ‘follow’ up with your primary in the morning. cuz it was middle of the night or i wouldn’t have gone to that hell hole.
the costs are insanely rediculous.
Any solutions beyond plant a garden?
Solution to what?
LOVEDAY SAID:
“…deep social cuts wouldn’t be necessary if the repugs hadn’t orchestrated millions in corporate tax breaks…”
TOMTOMCLUB SAID TO LOVEDAY:
Shut up. Your statement is moronic. We have been living WAY beyond our means and doing so for decades. To suggest otherwise is imbecilic.
KAY SAYS TO LOVEDAY:
Don’t let TOMTOM bother you because you are correct only you were nice enough not to mention the 2 wars Bush got us into and the insane borrowing from China over the years.
KAY SAYS TO TOMTOM:
Go beat your drum.
Spot on. I knew the trogdolytes in the south, with their Creation Museums and lethal addiction to deep fried excess exemplified by the Heart Attack Grill (already one death to its credit in AZ) were unreachable. But of late I’ve been having really, really, stupid arguments with people in third party movements. I was excoriated in the Green Party for saying that the answer for future transport isn’t putting everyone in EVs–it’s walkable cities and rail. The Northeast contingent especially seem immune to the idea of scarcity and how that will doom the car–they KNOW peak oil is some conspiracy, and they’ll walk you through the players as soon as they force you to sit through their Youtube presentation arguing that the planes on 9/11 were actually [I]holograms[/I] (I wish I was kidding). The ones who aren’t accusing me of sabotaging the Greens as a COINTELPRO fifth columnist for advocating the end of cars are vilifying me because, man, we’ll run it all on HEMP, dude!
There’s complete delusion about all of this, best exemplified by the nuclear proponents who are acting like the Fukushima Clusterfuck will all be over any minute and in no time at all the Japanese will be sitting down to tuna sashimi again.
We really are too stupid to keep going. fortunately the ionizing radiation drifting from the Pacific is going to fix the breeding problem.
TOMTOM SAID:
Hey Jimbo. Small problem. These suburban Idiots and Sunbelt yahoos you show such contempt for AREN’T THE FUCKING PROBLEM, YOU SIMPLE FUCK. They don’t run things. Its the simpleton big city folks who call the shots, shitheel and their fucking days are numbered.
TOMTOM – Are you off your medication again??? Good thing I left the Catholic church or I’d be offended.
Kay
I plan to support myself as a dentist during the Long Emergency. I bought a set of pliers over the weekend and I’m practicing with nails to strengthen my wrists. For pain, I’ll have whiskey, brandy, and vodka. For fillings, I’ll use solder I guess. The Ancient Etruscans used gold – but that’s kind of expensive. If any of my patients want it I’ll oblige as long as they provide the gold.
TOMTOM SAID:
Yep. Its called “Big Government” and it is in the process of being downsized. The pigs at the trough are headed to the slaughterhouse.
KAY SAYS TO TOMTOM WHILE BEATING *HER* DRUM:
And, of course, TomTom, YOU are NOT a pig. No, not you. You have written your letter to Congress and told them to HOLD your Social Security and every right you have to Medicare. You are giving it ALL up because YOU don’t want to have anything to do with being a “pig at the trough.”
Good going, TT. Oink! Oink!!
Kay
I’m wincing as I type this; you should probably hook up with the person from a previous post here who is growing opium poppies.
JOHNATHAN SAID TO TOMTOM:
“Keep this up & you’ll be banned again by JHK”.
Oh, Johnathan – say it isn’t so!!!
I love it when he is beating his chest (read “heart”) and it makes that sound like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz.
Kay
TURKLE~
I just wanted to tell you that I agree with your every word about *certain* of the Jesus freaks that you talk about. You wrote a very good comment last time, but I didn’t make it in time to write back to you so I’m doing it now.
This is one of the reasons that I cannot even *think* about joining the other side. Ronald Reagan gave birth to the Moral Majority thing, I think, and we haven’t been a sane society since then.
Just my opinion. You’ll can go back to your regularly scheduled programs.
Kay
Ah, the Magna Carta.
Ironic that it shows up 5 years after it was abolished here in the USA.
Or, as I call it, Dumbfuckistan.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-336125524577953609#
I am calling you a liar, misterbadexample.
I am a Green, and we call for public transportation, walkable cities, sustainable agriculture, energy efficiency, renewable energy and an end to wars.
I also don’t believe the official conspiracy theory that 19 young Arabs shut down the biggest, most expensive military on the planet for two hours, while they cruised around in planes unimpeded, but that planes can cause 110 story buildings to explode, throwing massive steel girders and tiny bits of human flesh into neighboring buildings. And I don’t believe that a 47 story building can implode into itself at the speed of gravity, just because. And I don’t believe that Al Queida is capable of manipulating the US corporate media, the Congress and all criminal investigative bodies into ignoring evidence and hyping 9-11 for going on a decade now, using it to invade multiple countries.
But I don’t believe that the planes were holograms, either, and neither does the Green Party.
Yesterday, I had yet another patient in excruciating pain from dental decay. He couldn’t afford to go to a dentist.
My co-worker pointed out that he had gone to Tijuana to get his teeth fixed. What would have cost $800 in the US cost $60 in Tijuana.
It makes me wonder if part of the reason that the US shut the borders to Mexico (unless you have a passport) is that Americans were going there for cheap health care.
I live in Los Angeles and know several people who have indeed done what you suspect.
Jim –
Great, solid piece.
Thanks.
I don’t know, Jim, maybe Sureweicki at the NYT is right. Last night on Bloomberg I heard the chief economist at UBS predict 4-7% economic growth for this year in the USA and even better in 2012. Today it was warm, I had a day off, so went tooling around town on my Royal Enfield. In Avon, Ct a new McMansion development is going in. Yeah, the chainsaws and heavy equipment are running and the big dump trucks are rolling again … like it was 2003! Those houses look to be BIG!! And when I rode by Walmart the parking lot was so full they had to have a cop directing traffic! Sure gas prices are high, but Foxwoods casino reported recently record slot machine revenues, and plan to expand once again. I stopped at a HS varsity baseball game and the kids and spectators seemed to be whooping it up and enjoying themselves just like we did decades ago.
This place operates on a logic and momentum of all its own. Its unstoppable. Nothings changed that I can see and maybe nothing ever will.
-Marlin
CFNation YD Post 1
New England Chapter
Ahhhg!!! [extracting knife from back] The venerable Creation Museum is in Kentucky, not Ohio! A small distintion to the outsider perhaps, but we only provide the billboards and attendees for it here in Ohio [snark]
Man we just don’t seem to able to help ourselves. I’m convinced that our way of life will go on like it is until it just suddenly cannot (I refer you to previously mentioned Bloomberg FOIA spreadsheet). At that moment I expect to see people just standing out in the street with the same puzzled expression that I remember people having after having seen “2001: A Space Odyssey” for the first time.
My robot keeps going in a circle due to a loose lug nut.
Kay
Thanks for your nice words, but old Tomtom lurks around this site under various names adding a really nasty zing to the proceedings, don’t pay him/her any mind. We have better things to do than get worried about people only interested in causing trouble. Plenty of those folks to avoid everywhere.
Take care and look to the future, it’s coming fast!
loveday
Top of your game this week, Jim, thank you. Your writing helps keep me angry and aware of the crap surrounding us. Some pure poetry in the blog this week. Love the incisive jab into healthcare; as a cog in that gear train, I see it firsthand. The company I work for builds surgical supplies; complex mechanisms made out of rare, expensive metals and oil-derived, high-grade plastics. And they are used *ONCE* and then thrown out (or incinerated, with toxic consequences) And we expect this to go on indefinitely.
Got plans B and C in the works, got a garden in this year, growing food, making “better” investments with my money, readying my career for post-peak if necessary. Maybe I can morph into what society needs next – machinist, farrier, carpenter…
Apparantly, suicides are greatly under reported in order to protect the feelings of the families or so I have read while briefly researching the subject. Doctors have the highest rates followed by security guards and pilots. Some researchers have concluded that there is no conclusive evidence supporting higher rates by profession vs. the general population.
There is surprisingly little detail that I can find on the webz about suicide. I’ve recently been in a situation where a customer committed suicide while I was halfway through a project renovating his master bathroom. He was a pilot for FedEx and he liked sitting in his garage listening to Rush Limbaugh on AM radio. I feel bad about bending his ear for the past two weeks with my Malthusian bullshit. I know many people find this sort of discussion depressing and for him to be that depressed and at the same time subjected to my B.S. has me a little more than guilty feeling although I have no idea about the details of his demise.
People who don’t believe in abortion should be ready and willing to adopt and raise any unwanted children. Leave your contact info at your nearest Planned Parenthood office.
I suppose you don’t believe in farm subsidies either, because they go to private businesses.
Well I think Dick was right “deficits don’t matter” It is the interest on the deficits that matters!!!
That is what will drive us to the poor house.
Just exactly where did all the money come from for the TARP – Stimulus plan 1 and 2 – and the Gargantuan annual deficits? It did not come from China, it was created out of thin air by accounting entries by the Fed. AND NOW we suffer to pay interest on it? What a bunch Carp we are.
Think of the relief we would get if we just stopped paying interest on the Fed created debts. They do not deserve the interest it is not real money.
I don’t believe any candidate for pres. in 2012 should be allowed to run till they tell us their pick for Sect. of the Treasury. Or will end up with another Obama “capitulation of the century” picking a Goldman Goon.
“Jim wishes for the collapse of American Empire as fervently as any bug-eyed Christian wishing for the rapture, and he seems to think this will be followed by some sort of utopia where people conduct themselves with fairness and goodwill.” -Jerry
************
Have you ever read any of JHK’s future-speculative fiction? I’d guess that would be a “no”, from this snippet above.
(I do agree [for the most part] with your projections, but please don’t put suppositions upon the writer of this blog that are non-existent and about 180 degrees away from his actual writings.)
LARRYMOECURLEY SAID:
“Not true. I never listened to one of your priest’s sermons and I know the meaning of eternity. Eternity would be being stuck next to Turkle on a 3 hour bus ride.”
Kay says hysterically:
“HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”
Thanks for my laugh of the evening. Nothing against you, Turk.
I don’t think who is in the White House has anything to do with people not going crazy over $4 gas. It just hasn’t sunk in yet, and it hasn’t yet affected the prices of everything that is shipped long distance. But it will.
Hey, talk to the racists about their comments, not to Jim. He doesn’t force them to say those disgusting things.
Some small dog yapped?
H. L. Mencken’s definition of Puritanism seems appropriate here:
“the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
The Puritans were NOT fleeing for religious freedom (they had been kicked out of 2 countries before coming to what would become the U.S.), they were fleeing to a place where they could try to impose their religion on others. That theme is still a big part of our culture.
LOL!
Backatcha, m’man… ;o)
Hey, Kelly, no problem. We all have much to learn 🙂
We have been hit with severe storms in the last few years. And we know that the severe weather will only get worse, as global warming progresses.
It seems that we will need linemen, roofers and tree men, as well as carpenters, judging from the guys who flocked into town to help clean up the mess.
God and Jesus good
Hitler and Stalin bad
******************************
You know, you learn some new every day.
Kay
And, at home, I reduce, reuse and recycle. I never throw anything away, if I think it can be used again.
At work, I make piles of trash just starting one IV.
It’s insane.
Hey Cash, it’s not a “lefty” government that has kept interest rates at nearly zero in Canada, thus encouraging that housing bubble you’re ranting about. Every time Carney (sort of Ben Bernanke’s counterpart here in Canada) had a chance to raise interest rates he chickened out. And it’s a right-wing government that is the most undemocratic government we have ever had in Canada, just found guilty of Contempt of Parliament and now hoping to get re-elected. So I don’t think it’s necessarily “lefties” that are the problem.
My sense of what will be needed if there is a collapse, are some principles of non-violent communication to rebuild community. There may be circumstances where communities would need to defend against marauders, but in those instances, it’s vitally important that folks know what it is that they are defending. -IS4U
*******************************
Absolutely.
That is why I advocate for “knowing thine enemy” as well as peaceful cooperative behaviors.
(I could be wrong that this might happen to be “necessary”, but there ya go, agendas should be flexible according to circumstance, no?)
I doubt very much that you had anything to do with his suicide, Scott.
People don’t just decide to commit suicide in two weeks. At least not those who seriously do it.
He probably had a lot of other things going on.
Orlov has revised Reinventing Collapse and a new version of it will be coming out next month.
“Hey! Where can I get me a set of those Hammurabi statues? I’ve got the commemorative plates [with display stands] and the limited-edition silver-plated coins in the gen-u-wine hardwood case, but the statues… oh, the statues; I quiver with avaricious lust!”
(Home Shopping Network testimonial.)
to tomtomclub – Loveday is right. If taxes on the wealthy hadn’t been cut so deeply (and far less of the taxes that are collected weren’t being spent on the military, I might add) cuts to social programs really wouldn’t be necessary. Spending beyond your means means spending more than you are taking in. The way to fix that is to take in more, for example by taxing the wealthy and corporations who should be paying a lot more than they are. Check out the facts and figures before you tell people to shut up and call them imbeciles.
Well Cash, it would be fine with me if Quebec seceeded from Canada. And even better if British Columbia would seceed. I think in the future Canada will be divided much more bioregionally and a central government won’t be trying to run the whole place from Ottawa. I can envision the countries of BC, The Prairies, Ontario, Quebec, and The Maritimes.
Thx wagelaborer, I doubt it too but I still feel bad about being so politically competitive with someone who had so much on his mind. He did seem like a very nice person. He always looked me straight in the eye when I was talking and always acknowledged my points respectfully. He even gave me $20 and said he wanted to buy me lunch and that he appreciated all the hard work that I was doing for him.
Yup, his nasty mouth sure sounds familiar, doesn’t it. He called me an idiot for saying health care for low-income people in Canada is free. Well yes, it is free to the low-income person who needs it, yes it is paid for by others who have the ability to contribute more. And that is the way I believe it should be. Some people think that they should get to keep every penny that they can amass and contribute nothing in the way of taxes to government to provide for those who have less, or to provide “public” services. I guess they would like every less fortunate person to just go off somewhere and die, rather than contribute a penny of their money to someone else’s well-being. I am very thankful that this attitude, which seems to be a great deal of the problem in the United States, is not quite so prevalent here in Canada, although our current government seems to have been taking lessons from our neighbour to the south. People who believe in a more equal society, which incidentally is a happier, healthy, less-violent society, are denigrated by some as “lefties” and “commies”. And a little quote for all you Christians out there – Jesus said it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Gotta agree with you Turkle. In my experience, the left leaning people are generally better read than the right wingers. There are exceptions of course. But just because they are better read doesn’t necessarily mean that some of their conclusions make any more sense than anybody else’s. I’m thinking mainly of political correctness, which I like to call “friendly facism”. It’s just as bad listening to that crap, as it is to listen to Glen Beck. I prefer people who think rather than people who parrot ideas. That’s why I like this website.
For those who think American law is based on the 10 Commandments, thought you might find this interesting: “The people of the Six Nations, also known by the French term, Iroquois Confederacy, call themselves the Hau de no sau nee (ho dee noe sho nee) meaning People Building a Long House. Located in the northeastern region of North America… Together these peoples comprise the oldest living participatory democracy on earth. Their story, and governance truly based on the consent of the governed, contains a great deal of life-promoting intelligence for those of us not familiar with this area of American history. The original United States representative democracy, fashioned by such central authors as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, drew much inspiration from this confederacy of nations.
Things good about religion:
A sense of community and a place to be with others who share your beliefs.
Getting a helping hand when you need it.
Lending a helping hand when others need it.
Things bad about religion:
Men forcing boys to perform oral sex; the religious bureaucracy condoning it.
The Inquisition
The Holocaust
The Crusades
Pogroms
The Middle East
Terrorist bombings
Anti-abortion
Creationism
Marginalization of women
Departure from empiricism and manifest reality
The concept of Hell
And on and on
Religion is gradually dying out anyway.
Yes, I read the LA Times.
Newsweek, Time Idiots, fareed zacharia etc.
Barter groups, country living, lessen expectations.
OMG I just tried to watch that meat video link. Two minutes? Are you effin’ serious? I got about 35 seconds in and couldn’t take it anymore. Wow.
IS4U, thanks for providing the right term for what I’ve been harping on every week when I ask some of the posters to not be rude and abusive to others – “non-violent communication” is what I’m yearning for. Calling people names and telling them they are morons, idiots, and worse is verbal violence, and verbal abuse. It is like giving someone a mental punch. It gives the impression that it could well be a physical punch were it possible. You are so right that we need to learn to communicate without using violence on each other. We’re all in this together. If we work together instead of competing and putting each other down, we stand a much better chance of getting through the hard times that are coming.
Thanks, G.O.G.
It seems we read the same missive from JHK today.
That teeth have nerves is certainly an argument against the argument (intelligent design) for the existence of God. And that so many people don’t have insurance is a indictment against our whole way of life. No one should have to go thru that kind of shit.
Are you saying that illegal immigrants from Mexico aren’t being allowed back into Mexico!?
Maybe I couldn’t personally defend myself against thugs, merceneraries, roving gangs, etc. but maybe my community could defend itself against those things, that is if I could just convince people that they are a very real possibility and we should be preparing now.
“Spending beyond your means means spending more than you are taking in. The way to fix that is to take in more”
Sure. Thats the way to fix things. Take. Take. More. More. More. Just like little children in a candy store. And we end up where we are. Every. Single. Time.
” yes it is paid for by others who have the ability to contribute more. ”
Then it ISN”T free is it? And you posting it a SECOND time makes you a what? Thats right, it makes you an idiot.
Maybe you can figure out how to make those surgical supplies in “a world made by hand”. A lot of those things you make will be probably still be needed in the future, but they’ll have to be made from different materials and be re-useable.
Or, as I call [the FUSA], Dumbfuckistan. -Wage
****************
That’s what I refer to “it” as, also.
It’s famous for dumbfuckery, and exports a massive (and creamy-delicious) amount of it!
To see large pulsating examples of this fine product, check the comments section of CFN! Awesome! ;o)
“Calling people names and telling them they are morons, idiots…”
The terms moron and idiot are actual words which actually apply to certain people. If I call someone blond who is blond… not a problem. If I call an idiot an idiot thats a problem. Why is that, idiot?
I’ve never understood this, maybe someone can help. And yeah, as cruel as it sounds, I suppose I can logically get my head around the “I don’t have terminal cancer, why should I have to pay for it?” argument, but, what exactly do you gain by taxing the snot out of people with barely enough income to survive? Doesn’t that make them need the social programs that are clearly the root of all evil?
“You don’t know shit, dickless. The band, Tom Tom Club sucked.”
Well then your name is appropriate.
uh …Commandment #8(9)?
“but, what exactly do you gain by taxing the snot out of people with barely enough income to survive?”
Who are you suggesting does this. In the U.S. almost 50% of the population pays NO income tax. How is that “taxing the snot out of people with barely enough income to survive?”
Jesus freak aren’t allowed to call other people idiots. There’s that part in the Bible about he being without sin casting the first stone. Plus, you live in a glass house.
It’s a good thing we Americans like microwave process cheese food product. If we liked real cheese there would be more inflation. Dairy prices are up 15% in the last month.
http://future.aae.wisc.edu/data/annual_values/by_area/2018?tab=prices
But they still have to pay the SS and Medicare taxes and sales tax, etc.
I don’t want the cheese, I just want out of the trap!
Wow! Social programs “clearly the root of all evil”. No wonder the U.S. is going down the tubes, if that is the prevailing point of view. And it certainly does seem to be in your recently-elected Senate. It’s not the people who barely have enough income to survive who I would tax the snot out of, it is the ones who have more than they could possibly spend in 10 lifetimes that I would tax the snot out of. And corporations like GE which didn’t pay ANY tax last year. It would be interesting to hear your opinion on “social programs” should you ever find yourself in need of same. But of course, that could never happen to you, could it…Yes, it could happen to any of us, we never know what the future might bring, that’s why social programs exist.
Idiot-a very foolish or stupid person.
There are millions walking this planet that fit this description. What would you prefer me to call them geniuses? OK. Turkle, you are a genius.
Did I suggest someone? …hold on, I just received a text from Vishnu. Damn, he said he was going to turn me into an azalea shrub if didn’t stop wasting time on this site responding to paid trolls. Well, it’s been fun, but hey! I gotta go!
And exactly what qualifies you to decide how much intelligence a person has or has not? Never mind, don’t bother answering that, I don’t think I could stand to hear what you would say.
Code of Hammurabi has 282 statutes to your paltry 10. And it also prescribes punishment for wrong-doing, which seems to usually be death, maiming, or paying some amount of shekels to the victim. Interestingly enough, they don’t seem to have been too big on imprisonment.
The thing about the Ten Commandments is that it doesn’t establish punishment or severity of the crime. Not loving thy mother or missing Church on Sunday is right up there with murdering someone. Saying “God Damn” is equivalent to stealing your neighbors goats.
But with Hammurabi, if you do something messed up like incest, you get the death by burning.
We don’t need social programs when we has Jesus. [sarcasm]
“that’s why social programs exist.”
Social programs exist because it is a way to keep voters in line. There are very few instances where an outbreak of personal responsibility would not make social programs unnecessary.
Unfortunately, people are no longer held responsible for their choices. Everything gets excused away. Mommy didn’t potty train properly, teacher didn’t understand little Johnny, etc. etc. etc. What do you end up with? Mental children in adult bodies that need cradle to grave fixes from their all knowing government.
“They do not deserve the interest, it is not real money.”
Therefore they are not real debts. Fraud cancels contracts. It is your belief in either a lie, or threat of harm that keeps you enslaved.
“We don’t need social programs when we has Jesus. [sarcasm]”
So you felt the need to identify your statement as sarcastic? Why is that? You’ve already identified yourself as an atheist.
Funny thing is if Jesus’ teachings were adhered too we would not need social programs. But you being a “genius” already knew that. (Not sarcasm)
Don’t want to be an American Idiot…doo bee doo bee doo.
“Don’t want to be an American Idiot..”
Than you better change countries. But you would still be an idiot with a different nationality.
“Calling people names and telling them they are morons, idiots, and worse is verbal violence, and verbal abuse.”
Hey, lay off. It’s his blog.
And Green Day suck more than Tom Tom Club. Figures you’d quote from their catalog.
“a colonel is watching his country collapse and thinking about what can be done.”
I just picked up O4.
These poor animals, many with the intelligence of cats & dogs, live a life of misery and degradation. They never have a chance to experience being one with nature.
On the other hand, I hear many fast food shacks are continuing their dollar menus.
Have you tried the new quintuple-stacked, bacon and sausage chicken patty death blow?
So, do you think that we should let them roam free in the fields before we chop their heads off and feed their feet to my dog?
Code of Hammurabi has 282 statutes to your paltry 10… The thing about the Ten Commandments is that it doesn’t establish punishment or severity of the crime.”
Well, of course not. This is the purpose of the Statutes and Judgements.
“In its broadest context, the law is the foundational revelation of the mind of God that we currently have on record. It is the Word of God as given to Moses. The Ten Commandments provide a moral guideline that summarizes and categorizes the rest of the laws and statutes.
In addition to the moral laws, we find certain penalties for sin (law breaking 1John3:4) which are called “judgments.” Normally, these take the form of restitution payment to the victims of injustice, and the death penalty for such sins as cannot be paid by restitution–such as premeditated murder, kidnapping, bestiality, and rape of a married woman.
There are also forms and rituals by which sinners (law breakers) were to find justification and reconciliation with God. These sacrifices were the Old Covenant method of justification, and they served as types and shadows of a greater Sacrifice which was yet to come in the Person of Jesus Christ. When He came, the old forms became obsolete.
Finally, the law reveals the moral code by which God relates to mankind and judges the people of all nations, taking into account their level of knowledge. This gives the law a prophetic tone, for all the types and shadows prophesy of something greater to come. The Sacrifices all speak of Christ and His death on the cross, the feast days prophesy of His first and second comings, and laws of redemption and Jubilee speak of the process by which God judges and saves mankind.
In the New Testament, while the forms of the law changed, as spelled out in the book of Hebrews, the moral code remained the same, for in the matter of morality and character, God changes not. God had two ways of saving mankind. He could have put away the law and legalized sin, which would have made it impossible to prosecute sinners, simply because there was no law to make sin sinful. But He chose instead to uphold the law and pay its full penalty for the sin of the world, thus retaining the law as the standard of righteousness and character–the ultimate goal of what we will attain by faith in Him.”
Turk, you have some catching up to do, but so does most of churchianity.
http://www.gods-kingdom-ministries.org/weblog/WebCategory.cfm?CID=13
I don’t have the answers. Since these warehousers care mostly about profit, maybe the USDA can set guidelines restricting some aspects of factory farming. Since this will raise meat prices, the benefit could be a shift away from so much meat eating. The last time I looked, I believe that Americans eat twice as much meat as the rest of the world.
It’s time to tattoo the foreheads of every politician, thus we will know who to shoot on sight during the final days…
“The last time I looked, I believe that Americans eat twice as much meat as the rest of the world.”
Not surprising. I think most beans have as much protein as meat, but I could be talking out of my ass. I’ve also heard that most meats contain protein that’s actually harder for one’s body to synthesize, except fish, which is the easiest of animal proteins. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
I wrestled with the thought: How can I eat during frigid Northeast winters with no oil to ship my favorite bread? I was amazed to learn that winter-wheat is planted in the fall and harvested in the spring.
I think there’s a farmer or two on this thread. Any suggestions for growing wheat in the Northeast?
I don’t understand why, if the government subsidies meat production, why beef and chicken costs so much money? I mean corn is wicked cheap, and so is wheat. Why meat?
Don’t know if anyone has noticed that everything this man has said in the last 2 years has been exactly right:
http://tinyurl.com/3t4devk
Arab Monarchies to be Overthrown. Of course this simpleton is one of those Bible-believers to stupid to understand what all those Harvard grads in Washington are talking about.
The biggest single factor in suicide is opportunity – that’s why doctors are number one – they can get drugs, and they know what they are doing.
After two suicides in my family I did some research, and I have given the matter a great deal of thought (probably way too much). I am very sure that you have nothing to feel guilty about – suicide is never caused by a relationship that goes back only a couple of weeks. From your description of your former client I gather he had a lot of stuff going on long before he met you.
Orlov’s book was published in 2008. His concern over the danger posed by so many nuclear power plants located in coastal areas sure proved prescient!
I had lunch the other day with a former high-ranking U.S. state government official of a certain Southern State. He said that he owns a fully-automatic Uzi.
harvest skeleton
sulfur legs for the chiggers
without melanin
“Wrestling with the thought…” A phrase I’ve picked up recently is “Nostalgia for the present.” Missing stuff now that is likely to go away later. Been doing that a lot lately and speculating on replacements. Dental floss? Especially the kind with the hard little end to get under my bridgework?
Not a farmer, but have wondered about grains, myself. I’m in a rural area of Western Washington. I don’t think there’s any wheat grown in this county. But, our local newspaper runs a little history column every day. Clips from past news articles … 1889, 1911, 1936. Those are the ones I read. One of the 1889 entries last year mentioned a “bumper wheat crop” up in the Big Bottom. That area is now under a lake, behind a dam.
But, if a farmer shows up on this blog, I wonder if wheat comes in varieties? I know there are at least two or three. More? As with apples, are there varieties that have died out? Maybe something suited to our climate?
When I was in college, some buddies and I took a road trip up to Canada. We brought back 50 pounds of some kind of special Canadian wheat that someone’s mom needed for some special German dish. Couldn’t get it in the US. It was a hoot getting it past the border. We declared it, the border guard popped the VW hood and took a look, shook his head and waved us through. This was the 60’s. Probably wouldn’t happen today.
I think this song is one of the best to listen to if you are brave enough to really try to observe the world around you. I would say that is nearly everyone on this forum.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za5AH7qVlqE
Headless,
Not to miss or twist your point, but throughout the history of human beings every day has been the final day for various people. But if it really were the “final days” in a manner of speaking, I have to wonder if the weight of murder, even under the guise of retribution, is something that a person wants to shoulder into the realm of mysterious death. I know, it seems that meritocracy thing never gives a conscious mind a moment of respite.
Pacifism might be the most disciplined form of denial known to man.
bullshit
According to what I read in the US, folks are eating 100x as much chicken as 100 years ago.
Cash, thank you for that comment. I must say that one of the side benefits of a faster-collapse is that it may cull some of these arrogant wimps.
I have observed that rural people have concepts of self reliance. Doing more with less. Solutions from the tools at hand. These are all attractive and durable species characteristics.
Therefore I fail to see the basis for Mr. Kunstler’s contempt, particularly in view of the themes in at least one of his books. I suspect he needs to feel superior to somebody. I note for the record that paradoxical rage is a telling indicator of dementia.
Mr. Kunstler, practical capabilities have value. All societies in terminal decline have enclaves of preening wimps, whose chief contribution consist of fatyous wordplay. Such folk are ill prepared to thrive in a new reality. If we are lucky, they will be driven to extinction. Hey, call me an idiot, and I’m not likely to find the time to deal with you.
We morons surely do not relish the prospect of supporting you while enduring your contempt. As you have demonstrated, you have nothing of value to trade.
I am a faithful reader of your blog and rarely comment, but this entry is exceptionally spot-on. The handwriting is on the wall and the proverbial sh*t will hit the fan sooner rather than later. Most people don’t realize that we are already past the point of no return. I am paying closer attention than usual to my vegetable garden this year, and am hoping my skill for growing food will be of value in the coming collapse.
A key point in this week’s CFN Chronicle is
the notion of HUBRIS. Hubris is THE
precondition for all cultural decay because
it is most held by the monied elite (of the
left OR the right) who feel that no matter
how chaotic the outcomes, their lucre will
buy “collapse protection”.
That’s why the real dichotomy in America right
now is not “left vs. right” but rather “has
sufficient excess to buy ‘collapse insurance’
vs. has a razor thin margin against any kind
of collapse”.
The vast majority of us cannot fight inflation,
deflation, 20% interest rates, unaffordable
health care, the “throwing out” of the old or
infirm, the increasing stupefaction of our
populace and its service sector “helpers” (ahem),
water/food/fuel problems, and the breakdowns in
a century old infrastructure. How does a person
of sensible modesty (not one of these smuggies
who thinks they’re clairvoyant about the precise
kind of disaster they’ll face) prepare? They
can’t!!!
The common man, like myself, is literally in
the same position as the little boy who ran
out of fingers when trying to plug all the
holes in the dike. There are too many TYPES
of disasters looming and no one can predict
which will strike them first … and it could
be vastly different from region to region.
That’s why I’m not a survivalist. Survivalists
are like Burt Reynolds in “Deliverance” … they
prepare for ten disasters and fall apart when
the ELEVENTH type surfaces. I’d rather live
AS IF civilization will continue and do my
part not to waste water, food, or fuel.
E.
“There are too many TYPES of disasters looming”
but one only single mind behind.
Fight the mind and you will avoid disasters.
Blame the others and you will drawn.
How?
With the only weapons we have:
do not buy, do not pay, do not work, starve if necessary.
Anyway you will starve later.
Understand what is happening and stop it before it is too late.
America’s being hollowed out, dismantled, and the Democratic Party is helping to usher in these changes. Americans either can’t believe it, or are so numb that they cannot react. Many of us ask, ‘what will it take?’ to get Americans riled up? So far, they’re not riled up enough to do more than call in to talk shows and to blog—so it’s still in that ’emerging awareness’ stage for most Americans who WOULD care if they actually recognized the severity of what has been happening and of what is yet to come.
But for now, judged from outside, it appears that Americans support capitalism as we have it now–subsidies and entitlements for corporations and banks, with the bill going to the taxpayer, and NO entitlements (soon to come) for Americans, especially those who are too old to work, or too young to work.
Until the squeeze becomes too much to bear, and when will that be, Americans will continue to think that THEY, individually, can somehow maneuver through this maze and come out just fine. Many are finding out that it’s impossible to accomplish but they are still intellectualizing matters; we’re at the fork in the road already, but everyone seems stuck at the fork, unable to take the needed path.
The right wing indeed could care less about actual right to life issues. Once that fetus is born, it will possibly receive no medical care, no food, etc., if born to the wrong circumstances–which I believe IS the point for the right wing–eugenics practiced by proxy. And its not just the right, but all those fundy churches out there who fret over abortion, but don’t lift a finger to help young kids or even adults who, when LIVING, need help to do so.
So, at the moment, its like the battered wife who goes to therapy and tells the therapist about her shopping trip, refusing to confront the fact that she has a black eye and that her husband did it. We Americans remain in denial, unable to ‘move out’ because we can’t risk it, so instead, we blog, we call talk shows, and wait for someone to come along who will unite all of us, and call for action. That part hasn’t happened yet, and meanwhile, our country is being dismantled—by Obama and Democrats every bit as much as by the GOP, the right, etc. Recall that the repeal of Glass-Stegall was signed by Clinton, who also gave us NAFTA along with promises of great it would be for America. And recall too that broadcasting de-reg was signed by Mr. Clinton. Today, this week, Obama will propose privatization of SS and doing away with Medicare as we know it.
What will it take? I guess when every single American’s ox is gored is what it will take, along with a recognition that things ARE ending for real.
Good Luck. The GOP is way way ahead of us, and Democrats in Congress and the White House are following the GOP’s lead.
The Chinese have a saying, ‘talk doesn’t cook the rice.’ And Einstein said ‘nothing happens unless something moves.’ So far, we ain’t movin’ and the rice remains uncooked. The GOP is moving and boiling the rice—Democrats are helping them, and ignoring us. What does this indicate?
That Democrats are NOT intimidated by us and that we’re marginalized. Welcome to the world created by all those who just let things slide—the playground bullies have taken over.
Orlov in his book “Reinventing Collapse” says that based upon the dramatic rise in vodka consumption in post-collapse USSR, he expects marijuana farmers to do quite well in post-collapse USA.
And, oh yeah, the Real Estate Slicksters are back, too. Maybe they never really went away, just laid low for a coupla years. Yesterday on previously mentioned MC ride stopped for lunch in a local pub on Farmington Ave. I sat at the bar but behind me in a booth sat 3 well dressed dudes with beers in front of them. CNN was on the screen. Evesdropping on their conversation, I determined they were putting together some sort of commercial real estate deal involving condo units in a nearby town. Most of the talk was about financing, where to get it and at what cost. One of them stated that interest rates are the lowest they’ve been in history.
So what the hell has changed? Nothing maybe. The system might be dying but 99% of us don’t even have a clue. Those Real Estate mavens are doing what they’ve been doing for the past 50 years: making deals. They are like those doomed characters in the old Twilight Zone episode who die but don’t realize they are dead, and go on like they always have.
-Marlin
CFNation YD Post 1
New England Chapter
“Religion is slowly dying out anyway” – BTown Bill.
True enough, BTownBill, if you mean in the US, Australia, Europe and Israel. That is, with Whitey, and his Christian and Jewish faiths. We’re way beyond such superstitious beliefs, now that we have cell phones and drive Prius’s. Islam is not dying out, however. Quite the contrary, BTBill, Islam is growing stronger and more potent by the day.
“And therein lies the rub”, to quote Shakespeare.
-Marlin
CFNation YD Post 1
New England Chapter
JHK, Good post this week. And thanks for the link!
After watching the ridiculous gyrations of the governing wrecking crew this past week, one can only conclude that this system can’t continue! As Jon Stewart pointed out last night on the issue of Planned Parenthood, when discussing the percentage of abortions done by PP, the Republicans make up a number. 93% they claim, when it’s really only 3%! They make things up to get their way.
But what we keep missing is that there rally was a silent coup moving this country from a mixed economy set-up by Roosevelt to build the greatest marketplace and middle class. I’m sure that the Viet Nam war put us into deficit and that’s partially why the Milton Friedman and Chicago Sch. of business gang replaced the Keynesian theory with their own Laissez faire/ supply side.
By the 1980’s we were well on the way to where we find ourselves now. It’s not just stupidity, it’s ideology which is adhered to like fundamentalist religion.
Celente: All you have to know is Harvard, Yale and Princeton, Banks, bullets and bombs….
________
Ozone correction: I was the one who said to be forewarned is to be forearmed.–That was my first reaction to reading the Long Emergency in 2005.
Great post, E.
Really solid perceptions. I’m pretty much in the same boat as you. Can’t prepare, cause you don’t know which disaster is going to hit first!
Somebody else on this thread mentioned that you won’t be able to protect what’s yours. Exactly the same response my guy had when I told him that maybe we should do any number of things to survive.
Who could have imagined Japan? With an already moribund economy. Now they’re on a load shedding regimen with their electricity. Then they have to worry about radioactivity in the air and the food they eat.–Let’s see what happens with their economy. A few weeks ago they would have called you crazy if you told them what was about to happen.
–LB
The best protection against high inflation is to borrow as much money at as low an interest over as long a period as you can. You will be repaying the debt in dramatically depreciated dollars and able to buy things now at lower prices that will cost much more later. A friend of mine is from Iowa and his family and friends families have been in farming for a long time. He says with the run up in commodities and biofuel and ethanol subsidies over the past several years that farmers in Iowa have been building “palaces”. He also said that Investment bankers both foreign and domestic have been bidding up farm land prices beyond what their families and neighbors families can compete.
The U.S. has so much debt that creating inflation is a must regardless of how many dollars it takes to create it. The government cannot cut spending fast enough on the fiscal side to give the FED any leeway in raising rates to fight inflation.
http://dailyreckoning.com/why-the-feds-are-desperate-to-avoid-an-economic-correction/
E & Ibendet;
I don’t agree. I think its possible to prepare oneself for hard times ahead. Simply being aware of the situation we are facing is a nascent kind of preparation.
Certainly I’m no survivalist, but I practice with my rifle all the time. For one thing, it makes me feel more confident, and more independent. I doubt if it will ever come to using it for self defense, but if it does I will know how. Then, all the hunting I did as a kid plus the training I got in the military and the work I put in now, would come in handy.
-Marlin
CFNation YD Post 1
New England Chapter
$4 per gallon gas based entirely on speculation. There is no current shortage, just greed jacking up the prices. And so far no one is fighting back — no real workable alternatives, no boycotts, no demand that an essential commodity like gas be regulated or rationed. Basically oil is becoming so expensive that only the super rich will be able to afford it and the rest of us (the other 99% of Americans) will be living in just a few years like medieval peasants. We’ll have to grovel at our masters’ feet. Our homes will be owned by the rich and if we want to survive, we’ll be stuck field farming for these creeps.
And I doubt it would be as pleasant a life as depicted in The Witch of Hebron. At least JHK’s characters have chance to make their own futures, better or worse depending partially upon skill and luck. If the current political situation in America continues where the middle class is forced to subsidize the rich (via offshore accounts, hedge funds, questionable tax dodges, no corporate taxes, lower taxes on interest and dividends compared to higher taxes on salaries), we will make ourselves literal slaves to the rich.
In JHK’s Hand Made novels, Robert Earle (the rich guy), is somewhat reasonable but when he hangs that group of raiders (without hardly a mock trial), you have to wonder how many of these rich people would even be that fair. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. If the rich are allowed to lord over us, they will revert to the medieval cruelty and torture because NO ONE will be able to stop them. Education and the ability to read would disappear — what lord and master wants a peasant population that can think? We have got to come up with the system that prevents the rich from completely taking over. Everything seems so corrupt with the state/federal governments that it doesn’t seem possible that even the best-intentioned politician would have any luck improving things.
And even if we have paid off our mortgages and plowed our lawns under, what would stop the overlords from taxing us any amount they please? The rich could easily afford the last remaining fuel and could have their hired armies come to our homes and shake us down, seize our homes or imprison us for not paying up. If we don’t fight back right NOW, what chance do any of us have in the future?
A lot of people seem to believe if the current civilization collapses that they will be self-sufficient, their own masters. I think they will all be in for a very UNPLEASANT surprise when it turns out their future masters are actually the very same people who are the CEOs of today. Tax the rich more and throw out their sycophants a/k/a the Tea Party or lose everything.
” How does a person of sensible modesty (not one of these smuggies who thinks they’re clairvoyant about the precise kind of disaster they’ll face) prepare? They can’t!!!”
And yet Doomer blogs–with collection plate in hand– are sprouting up like a New Mexico poppy bloom. And one can only surmise the paid-for-advice is pretty specific, otherwise why pay for it?
It reminds me of that old saying, ” when the going gets tough, the weird turn pro.” (Apologies to Hunter for twisting his quote.)
Interesting Article:
“We’ve been conned into thinking that we can fund a massive government on the backs of the rich. This is simply not so. It’s not working today and it’s not going to happen in the future. We cannot tax the rich enough to pay off our debt or even enough to keep the government going long-term. Even if we could, the rich have the resources to flee the country for greener pastures if they’re being taxed into oblivion. The middle class? Not so much.
What that means is the more desperate the government gets, the more the average American is going to be hammered with new taxes. How much more of your income can you afford to send overseas to pay China for the money they’ve loaned us to keep PBS, Planned Parenthood, and the National Endowment of the Arts going? What about if the country goes bankrupt and your income tax rate shoots up fifty percent? How are you going to pay your mortgage? How are you going to feed your kids? When the government runs out of cash and it can’t borrow any more money, then it will start leveling massive taxes on the American people.”
Full article here:
http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2011/04/12/5_things_that_will_happen_to_you_when_america_goes_bankrupt/page/full/
The American way of life is predicated on cheap oil. With $14 trillion of debts, three unwinnable wars, 800 military bases, there is nowhere for such an economy to grow: it’s stuck in a spiral of declining resources and recession. Raising the debt ceiling and printing money is like throwing a bucket of water at a forest fire. Very soon there will be a realization that the motor car age is over and the paradigm of infinite growth is a sham.
Go ahead, eliminate all Fed spending on these, it’s trivial. How about the following?:
*Make Medicare a means based program. That means, if you’ve got the funds, the elderly pay a much greater percentage of the total costs. I’m tired of hearing about “class warfare”, death panels or kicking granny out of here home. The elderly are the richest segment of the population with the lowest overall rates of poverty (thanks to gov’t benefits, aka “entitlements”). They’ve been working their whole lives and have built equity.
* Same with SS. See above. Again, regarding benefits for retirees, gov’t support was meant to supplement retirement. Sorry to break it to some of you, but somebody has to sacrifice, like your parents and grandparents did during The Great Depression and WWII. One last thing. Who said people should expect to maintain the same living standards they have in retirement that they had when they were working? Unless they sacrificed, lived way below their means and saved for retirement.
* Start chopping defense spending. You name the % figure.
Now we’re getting somewhere, on the order of $100’s of billions.
Well, meat production takes 20 times the resources to produce than the grain and corn fed to them. If the gov’t didn’t subsidize our petroleum and corn production, you would see beef prices much higher. Also, cattle use up quite a bit of fresh water.
My solution. Grass fed, natural diets for all cattle. No more corn feeding to “fatten them up”. Corn is a wholly unnatural diet for cows. I saw some disgusting video, I think it was in “Food, Inc.”, in which a rancher put a hole in the side of the cow in order to pull out crap that is stuck in one of their stomachs due to eating corn.
Other solutions. Become another trippticket. Read all his past comments in the archives. Read “Omnivore’s Dilemma” by author Michael Pollan.
“Code of Hammurabi has 282 statutes to your paltry 10.” -turkle
*****************
While I find Hammurabi [and his whole family] most intriguing, I hope you noticed that I was having a bit of fun with your misspelling of “statute” as “statue”.
BTW, I only gots me 2 “statutes”, not some Nosey-Mosey’s Big 10.
They go like ‘dis.
1.)DO NOT steal from, defraud, or kill other folks.
2.)If you DO any of these 3 forbidden strictures (even for self-preservation), expect retribution, up to and including death.
Uhhh, I’m going hunting with the shotgun. For birds and stuff. Calm down.
Man oh man I hate wasting time with simpletons like you. This is the first and last time.
Didn’t your parents know to send you to school? Oh, your mommy was a crack ‘ho? Never met your daddy? It’s not your fault. But, having said that, you are a walking, talking argument for mandatory sterilization.
Stay in your enclave of urban idiots. Go anywhere else and you’ll lower the average IQ.
Another thing, get to a doctor. You’re probably spreading a half dozen shitty diseases. Maybe they can do something for you, maybe they can’t.
For me I try to go by one principle –
People are more important than things.
It goes against the grain of almost everything this culture practices. And so is a good way to subvert the dominant paradigm.
Honed to a keen edge! Consistently applied; the death knell of “commodification of everything”.
We’re Americans. We’ve been taught that we are self-sufficient, that we pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, that those without jobs deserve to just die, along with retired people.
We’ve also been taught that “democracy” consists of watching endless TV commercials in order to decide which of two corporate candidates we should “vote” for. Only then, we are told, do we have the “right” to complain about our subsequent disappointment.
So, what to do when the whole damn thing falls apart?
We can see no social solution, except to “vote” out the incumbent bastards and put in different ones.
And anyone with brains can see the results of that.
So we turn to the individual solution. Stockpile food, guns and ammo. Kill for food. Why not? We’re killing for oil.
We are Americans. We are powerless and we know it. So we hole up like rabbits and dream of omnipotence with our assault weapons.
How’d that work out for David Koresh?
“Ozone correction: I was the one who said to be forewarned is to be forearmed.–That was my first reaction to reading the Long Emergency in 2005.”
-L.B.
*************
Okay, I’ll give you that. :o)
(Notwithstanding that LLB was the last to utter the phrase in last week’s comments, and I’ve had it stuffed into my noggin since I was about 10.)
I cede the authorship of the phrase to you!
(I’m KIDDING, so please take it easy. ;o)
WOW – JHK –
You must have suddenly realized that you were suddenly under your quota for Rural Bashing, Sunbelt Bashing, and Southern Bashing for the year!
So you decided to make up for it in one fell swoop?
Not that those three sectors don’t deserve their share of blame for the National Predicament. And they certainly make convenient targets and GREAT literary devices – “corn pone Nazis, indeed.”
But in a blog devoted to energy descent, let’s all remember that the last president to do anything nondetrimental about these problems was Jimmy Carter. And that a WESTERN president, elected in 1980, set us on the course that finds us where we are today.
In between we had BushI (big Ivy easterner) Clinton (who knows?) and BushII (Texan???).
Speaking of Texas brings us to Creation Museums. Texas has several. So does Florida. To pretend that TX or FL are rural or Southern is a bit disingenious, don’t you think. Those two states, especially, filled up with Northern transplants – who went on to run the “car dealerships” and provide the huge numbers to the voting block that has skewed national policy.
And there are Creation Museums all over the country, and one in Turkey. Who knew??
http://www.creationmuseums.com/
Seriously, who the hell knew? Thanks for pointing it out JHK. And thanks for another weeks work and inviting us all to criticism and brainstorm.
==========
But in a blog devoted to collapse, very few posters are picking up on US population growth as the ONE defining area where we in the US might have some control and might yet do something to save ourselves from a nasty, overpopulated, and hungry fate.
There is a group called “Federation for American Immigration Reform” that is worthy of support, if you are have concerns in this critical area.
Hi 40.
You know it’s not only practical skills.
About ten years ago one of our big city, national newspapers published a big long article on my home town, a small place in southern Ontario. Seems that the students there were consistently placing at the top of provincial rankings in terms of academic performance (if I remember right, I think they were looking at the results of standardized provincial tests).
So this newspaper dispatched some reporters and photogs to the hinterland to see what was going on. They interviewed the locals (who I grew up with) and asked what was the secret.
The unspoken question was “how do these corncobs beat big city kids”?
Why shucks, my old buds were all nice and polite, talkin’ decent an’ proper an’ edyoocated, about the “wovenness” of town life, how everyone new everyone etc. You know, the usual stuff. If it was me, I wouldn’t have given them the time of day, hit the road Jack, I’m busy earnin’ a livin’.
What really bugged my ass about the whole thing was that if it was big city kids beating out the rest it wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow. But because it was a small place it was worthy of note.
This is absolutely typical stinking liberal, urban superiority at work. Insufferable, patronizing, condescending assholishness.
But back to the original point, it’s not just practical skills that rural and small town folk have. It’s the readin’ and writin’ and figurin’ too by golly. Andy and Gomer and Goob ain’t so dumb.
“Speaking of Texas brings us to Creation Museums. Texas has several. So does Florida. To pretend that TX or FL are rural or Southern is a bit disingenious, don’t you think. Those two states, especially, filled up with Northern transplants – who went on to run the “car dealerships” and provide the huge numbers to the voting block that has skewed national policy.” PoC
**********************
Soooooo, I don’t quite get what you’re saying here. Did the yanqui transplants IMPORT dumbfuckery into these areas, or did they specifically move there because they SHARED a quotient of dumbfuckery with the indigenous creatures. Both? None? …what?
Perhaps the importation of too much yanqui-flesh provided an environment for dumbfuckery to organically/magically flourish.
(Believe me, there’s plenty of blinkered, dumb fucks to go ’round EVERYWHERE in the FUSA [and I do not exclude myself; lots and loads I still need to learn]. Quoth Amy Madigan’s character in “Streets of Fire”: “Everywhere I go… there’s always an asshole.”)
Well, beware the answered prayer. Maybe my knowledge of history is sketchy on this but I don’t know of too many national crackups that didn’t end up getting nasty.
The Pakistan and India partition was a bloodbath and so was the US Civil War. The split of Bangladesh from Pakistan was bloody, so was the Biafran uprising against Nigerian rule, Irish separatists duked it out with Britain etc.
My worry isn’t so much that we won’t recognize a legitimate vote to secede. It’s the subsequent squabble over drawing new boundaries, who owes who what for assets, debt etc. Despite what a lot of us seem to think we are not endowed with a “peace” gene. This stuff about us being a peace-loving nation is poppycock. It ignores our long and even recent history in war making.
But if a split has to be it has to be.
Hey Montsegur you out there? Besides the velvet divorce between the Czechs and Slovaks and maybe Norway and Sweden do you know of any off the top of your head that didn’t get violent? Singapore maybe but that was only a city.
Good questions, Ozone – probably a bit of “all of the above” to answer you.
My idea was more that transplants moving into the South were what put us “over the top” in terms of national voting strength that can impact policy.
I’ve got another comment, but it keeps getting blocked. Must keep trying.
All those ignorant Southern Dumb-asses, like William Faulkner, James McMurtry, Shelby Foote and Flannery O’Connor. To name just a few.
-Marlin
I think in the hard times ahead I think normal civil authority (like your friendly local police) is going to have a hard time exerting its authority. I hope it won’t come to pass but, as far as self defence goes, the rule of thumb may come to be shoot, shovel and shut up.
Gosh, why didn’t I think of that — assault weapons — the Answer to Every Problem! At least the NRA would have us believe that. But how good is an assault weapon against a tank? People can get guns but the feds have tanks. Zillions of guns v. one tank. Tank wins. Guess I will just try to vote the bums out and keep civilization afloat for a little while longer. I am just amazed that there are people who believe that letting the whole thing collapse is a better idea. Better for who?
Recovery or Not?
My last kid graduated from college a year and a half ago. He got a good job. I helped him buy a good car. He just got a good raise.
He just moved out of my basement!! YeeHaw.
So – finally – – we’ve been going through storage and organizing as we helped him move. This has led to several trips to the local drug rehab Thrift Store. They are BRIMMING with donated items.
Does that mean that the economy is picking up and people are giving away their old stuff so they can buy NEW stuff?
Or does it mean that people are losing their jobs, homes, and apartments and moving back in with the inlaws and outlaws – and having to – simply – give stuff away that they can’t store, use or sell.
I don’t have a clue – just posing the question to the readers of CFN.
One more thing – everywhere I drive – I see old pickups, driven by good old boys, loaded with scrap metal they have picked up, going to sell their loads for “easy” money at local scrap dealers.
Why are scrap prices so high, in a downturn?
Are these old boys Great American Entrepreneurs,
Or desperate scavengers?
Anyone have an opinion?
Do you not agree that Western Civilization lost an essential element with the outlawing of the duel? What greater expression of individuality could there be? To fight another man because he has offeded you; to get Satisfaction – how satisfying. Or even to “pick” a fight just because you don’t like his face! Esta la vida!
“From 1790 until 1990 there were only a few cases of successful peaceful secession. Belgium seceded from the Netherlands in 1830; Norway from Sweden in 1905; and Singapore from the Malaysian Federation in 1965. All were negotiated peacefully.
But suddenly after 1990, the number of successful peaceful secessions surged. Fifteen republics seceded from the Soviet Union. A Czech and a Slovak republic were created out of Czechoslovakia through secession.”
from http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/11/302785.shtml
Cheers
The “people” don’t know jack. They need Leaders – real ones. The problem is not having an Elite but rather having a bad Elite. And the Anglo-American Elite has to be the worst in Western History.
> Anyone have an opinion?
Wait until they get ambitious and begin dismantling entire railway bridges. The “old boys” in Czech have already pulled that one.
Cheers
Read Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughter House Five” for more information about the Dresden Holocaust. Vonnegut was there as a young soldier and was a card carrying Liberal. He knew better than any that Liberalism had betrayed itself by perpetrating that atrocity.
You’re right about the rate setting. But remember that we’ve been down this road a few times in the last twenty years or so and not just under conservative govts in the US and Canada. We’ve had ultra low rates under Chretien and Clinton also.
It’s not just low rates inflicted by Mark Carney, this bubble had its genesis in a long period of excessive money printing going back into the 1990s.
I think it was Eleuthero that said there’s not a dimes worth of difference between the Dems and the Repubs and I think the same applies to the Cons and the Libs. If Iggy gets in as PM I doubt you’ll see a stitch of difference between him and Harper as far as policy goes.
I’ve been watching these clowns for decades. Remember the Free Trade debate in the 1988 election? It was a Conservative govt under Mulroney that pushed for it (and let’s not forget that Mulroney was formerly bitterly opposed to it). And it was bitterly opposed by the Liberals under John Turner. Know what? It was a royal commission under a Liberal that recommended Free Trade.
Then the Libs under Chretien went one better. They brought it NAFTA. So everyone was for it before they were against it and against it before they were for it.
In short Helen they’re all full of shit up to their eyebrows.
Vlad, I’ve read Vonnegut. Have you read the web page I pointed to you about war crimes committed by ordinary German soldiers?
Cheers
You’re probably right.
Libya is another fake country: the Libyan people don’t exist – it’s not a useful or real phrase. At least we are supporting Caucasians this time against their traditional Black Enemies. Too bad they’re Al Quaeda! Things can’t get anymore ridiculous – yet still the people sleep. Thus Democracy as a system is invalidated. Bring back the Republic and its voting requirements.
What do you think of Calgary and Edmonton? Are they worth visiting?
So because German Soldiers behaved badly therefore Dresden didn’t happen? Of the Three Armies, the Soviets behaved the worst. People fled with the Germans to get away from them. Not only were they not ordered not to rape, they were ordered to rape to “break the racial pride of the Germans”. In your hatred of Nazism, you have developed some very strange priorities. You seem to be siding with the oppressors of Europe – those you have pledged to eliminate us culturally and racially.
Good questions, PoC. I’d assert that the scrap metal, anyway, is eventually making its way to China and India.
My father told me about times back in the 30’s, in Hartford, when junk collectors would make their rounds chanting “Junk metal for Japan, Junk metal for Japan.”
Ozone, have you picked up any Burroughs yet? ‘Junkie’ is a good place to start. There is a riff in there when he talks about heroin as being the perfect commodity because the seller has to do nothing but the buyer will move heaven and earth to get it. (Something like that. Its been awhile) Kind of like crude oil.
-Marlin
CFNation YD Post 1
New England Chapter
This is interesting.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42494839
Here we go again with the Nazi apologetics. *yawn*
Vlad liberalism is a sick, sick cult, and getting sicker by the day. That fool you are lecturing truly believes every white person is a nazi war criminal unless they grovel to the point of complete ruin.
Best WWII book is “Forgotten Soldier”, forget the author but he was a French national with a German mother and therefor eligible to join the German army where he served on the Eastern Front.
Plus how many of these white libs that post here realize that half the voting Democrats have an IQ below 95? As I wrote above they have “invincible ignorance”, and they like it that way, going from one fad to the next and calling it intelligence.
There are so many wrong/stupid things about this post, it is hard to even know where to begin.
Let them eat cake in the winter!
‘half the voting Democrats ‘
YEP..MUST BE WHY THEY WANTED TO GIVE FELONS THE RIGHT TO VOTE…THEYRE LOSIN LOTSA VOTES WITHOUT THE FELONS!
that shows how fast and low the whole things sinkin.
Yes, the reason there are fake borders is OIL,
as in how can we get their resource.
excepting Israel.
Actually, there are shortages. The price of oil is going up because demand is outstripping supply and a number of the supplies currently online, especially Libya and the Gulf States, are in a tenuous position.
Speculators merely amplify price swings that would happen regardless. I highly doubt that many of the speculative purchases are motivated by a nefarious long-term conspiracy to keep the little guy down. Commodity speculators have a much more short-term perspective than that. They’re driven by the hope of immediate profits, which they expect to realize by accurately predicting price trends.
I’m afraid that you may be right about a coming American feudalism, however. Parts of the South have a particular knack for feudal oppression. It was the South that solidified race-based slavery after Bacon’s Rebellion, seceded from the Union and fought the Civil War for reasons that clearly included the continuation of slavery, and maintained Jim Crow for a century. Even with race largely eliminated as a basis for state policy, Southern states have been at the forefront of skulduggery against labor unions and other protections for the working class. Elites in much of the South would have no trouble regressing to old, nasty feudal practices latent in their neighborhoods. Some of them have never stopped dragging their heels on the treatment of their social inferiors.
I’m not arguing that feudalism won’t develop in other parts of the country. The present-day global elite are pretty fucking contemptuous of the rights and welfare of ordinary people, so ethically they don’t have far to fall. Given a chance, they will worm their way into control of every corner of the world that they don’t consider a useless backwater. They’ve already spread their supply-side, trickle-down bullshit far and wide, too, especially in the business schools, which is pretty scary.
The Founding Fathers proved their wisdom in establishing checks and balances in the government that they created. They understood human sin, especially sins of power. If Constitutional government really breaks down, it is entirely conceivable that some homegrown Qaddafi could step into the vacuum. Even Qaddafi was something of a reformer for several years before he went apeshit with his Green Book movement, and we have prospective tyrants waiting in the wings who talk a much less civilized game than he ever did. Hell, with people like Tanya Treadway installed as prosecutors, they aren’t all prospective tyrants.
Vlad, more hyperbole won’t help your case.
The oppressors of Europe were Hitler’s soldiers. The Soviets would never have arrived in central Europe if the Germans hadn’t been stupid enough to invade the USSR. Big mistake caused by being too cocksure.
You’re correct, Nazism does nothing for me.
Did you bother to read the article?
If you don’t wish to read it, then that’s your decision. But you’ll miss some valuable insights in the article that have little to do with Germans in particular but a lot to do with soldiers in general.
Cheers
So? It’s the bling of weapons that reflects his ignorance in weapons choice. Probably a reformed drug dealer. Anyone who can own a gun, can get an automatic weapon. A-Okay with BATFE as long as your local ‘officials’ are on board, you pay the ridiculous tax and enjoy needlessly pissing away ammo. Shotgun is a much more effective and versatile self defense tool.
I don’t know why scrap metal prices are high. Maybe we’ve hit peak ore.
I remember reading about Russians, hungry and desperate after the collapse of the USSR, ripping out powerlines to sell the copper, and thinking how horrible it was that they would screw so many people for temporary gain.
Now, here in the sticks, people are doing the same. Not so much communal powerlines, but going after air conditioners and private house’s lines.
Plus, we’re having home invasions out in the country, with people stealing guns and any valuables they can find.
You would think that we have so much stuff here in the US that we could live off of it for years. (I think JHK pictured a future economy based on people selling their garage contents to each other).
So why the theft? I don’t know.
Cash, if you’re so damn cynical, why don’t you question that bullshit when you hear it? Just because it’s the dominant meme doesn’t make it true. – Wage
Wage, there are many memes out there. There is another meme, a Christianity hating meme on the left of the spectrum whose adherents, for reasons known best to them, seem to think that religion is the root of all evil. I see it all the time up here.
Put it this way, I come from a group of people that are/were highly religious/superstitious. I look at how they think and behave and I can see that they are not only believers in Christianity but far older traditions that had their roots in the deep recesses of time. Whether they’re conscious of it or not religious tradition permeate their thought and action. And I saw it in others of other ethnic backgrounds when I was growing up. I see it in people of non western or non european backgrounds. A lot of us North American born are way too hip to give such stuff credence. In fact we sneer at it. It is what it is.
Because of what I’ve seen I don’t for a second doubt that religious tradition in general and Christianity in particular had an influence on our laws and traditions notwithstanding the fact that maybe some of your founding fathers and other people (maybe like yourself) wished otherwise. Maybe they never once mentioned the G word in the constitution. So what. Religious tradition can still leave an imprint without explicit recitations of religious doctrine.
Let’s look at another example. Ever read Lord of the Rings? Not a single word about God (that I could see) and barely a stitch of overt religion yet to me (and others) it was one of the most deeply religious yarns I’ve ever read. It’s full of religious content, has all the big religious themes, good vs evil, darkness vs light, faith that good would win in the end, blah blah blah. No doubt you’ve heard all this before and have a binder full of refutations.
The writers of the Declaration of Independence may have held their noses when they wrote that you are endowed by your Creator with certain inalienable rights but I submit that the state of the writers’ religious belief or disbelief is irrelevant. Many others took those words to heart, as a result they left a deep imprint on your culture and ways of thinking.
Your schoolyard insults are silly.
It is interesting how you completely to fail understand that the most terrible destruction done to “white people” was done to them by their own kind in the last century. The events were known as the world wars. Read and learn.
Cheers
Thank you for your gracious replies to the numerous people who took it upon themselves to correct you, some rather rudely.
I admire your politeness.
Meanwhile the Republican bubba gumps have attached a rider onto the budget that removes protection status from the gray wolf so hillbilly retards can hunt and kill one of nature’s most beautiful land-based creations, nevermind the fact that farmers may already kill them if livestock are threatened.
Could these psychos be any more skeazy?
Messianic
I blundered into this youtube clip.
It’s Hurdy Gurdy Man (remember that old tune?) with some accompanying images. I immediately thought of you. I don’t know if this stuff is your cup of tea. Have a look.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqhxK_g9mrA
Forgotten Soldier is a good read, but there are a lot of questions about its validity and if it isn’t either entirely made-up or partially fictionalized. Anyways, I don’t remember reading anything in there that excused or justified any Nazi atrocities. In fact, from what I remember, the author of the book ends up concluding that war is a pointless waste of life and the Nazi ideology was hopelessly flawed and doomed. Correct me if I’m wrong.
FS was okay as a novel. Some of the passages in it are complete nonsense. I’ve seen arguments pro and con as to whether Guy Mouminoux really experienced some, none, or all of what he mentioned in the book. Fritz’s Frontsoldaten is a far more reliable source on the war experience of German soldiers.
Cheers
Vlad I agree with Mont. I think you’d have a radically different take on this if you were one of those suffering under the Nazi boot.
Thanks to Watson for pointing out the mistranslation of Marx’s words. I hadn’t heard that before. Not “idiots” but “isolates”. Interesting.
I recently discovered the radio show “Guns and Butter”, which lbendet knew about, but never told me! 🙂
I’ve been working my way backwards through the archive, and yesterday heard a very interesting show.
I was brought up with classical Marxism, so never paid attention to China. It didn’t go through the capitalist phase, so how could it go to communism? I still know pretty much nothing about it.
But I think it’s kind of funny that the most rabid right wingers on this blog froth about the disrespect that city people show for country people, BUT they are the same ones who scream about Mao being a mass murderer.
This is a speech by a man who was a rural boy during the Cultural Revolution, when educated Chinese were sent to the country to teach illiterate peasants how to read and write and do figures AND for them to learn how to farm and fix machinery and gain an appreciation for farmer’s contributions. This guy would have been an illiterate farmer, like his parents, if not for the help of the city people.
Kind of what the frothers advocate. I think that’s funny.
I couldn’t understand him very well, but I listened closely, and found it very interesting.
Probably Cash will have no problem understanding him, but I encourage others to try to listen also, because he talks about what cooperation can accomplish. This is VERY relevant to the crisis we face. Will we cooperate to make a better society, or will we shoot each other with uzis or shotguns?
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/57773
Even more incomprehensible, but funny-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxnIlWwVQco&feature=player_embedded
I haven’t been back in a while. Calgary has grown by leaps and bounds. When we were there it was a good place to live but I would say it’s not a touristy type place. Calgary is a head office type city full of office buildings.
Neither is Edmonton a tourist mecca. When I was there it was a govt town ie the seat of the provincial legislature and a blue collar place.
I would say that if you go there go to Calgary, then go see the Rockies ie Banff, Lake Louise etc. Buy a Trail Guide. I don’t know the state of your fitness but there are absolutely spectacular day-long hikes out there in the mountains.
One for the corruption watch, seems the last great journalist a lefty named Tabbi over at RS exposed a swell deal for a bankster’s wifey using TALF. I forgot all about that swindle, but it is a doozy for Wall St. floozies.
Hey Turk speaking of war crimes Ambrose in one of his post D-Day books all but implicated one of the officers of Easy Co for gunning down German soldiers as they were on a POW working party. Also Ambrose (one fine prosesmith ) wrote of one French farmer’s complaint that the allied soldiers looted his strawberry patch whereas the Germans in 4 years had been nothing but polite.
Yes I view “Soldat Oblique” as literature, but it simply is very fine literature, but since the Holocaust is our religion, our creationism with its very own museum to let us know of our pre-guilt Guy Sajer’s great work lies in near anonimity.
I doubt Lawrence Summers sees himself as being of the “Left” (I sure don’t); but if that is the case, the Michele Bachmann a centrist. The right would therefore be those people who live, heavily armed, off the grid, surrounded by creates of potable water. Actual leftist positions are as marginal in today’s discourse as those of the Barons of Idaho. A genuine leftist will never get a seat at the roundtable on Meet The Press or This Week. We’d just as soon see an avowed atheist elected president.
Read Suvarov’s “Ice Breaker” best take on the subject. Stalin used Hitler, and Stalin almost launched his attack but Hitler finding out that the USSR was going on the offensive launched the hastily prepared Barbarossa.
Hitler brought destruction, but the German army saved the West.
But newworld, Suvorov was a former KGB officer. You never know with former intel people because they so love to play the game.
A useful counter-read to Suvorov is David Glantz’s work on the prewar Soviet army.
My take on the German army is that they saved nothing. They were used as a tool by the Nazis to provoke the Soviets in the mistaken belief that the USSR would crumble once subjected to invasion.
Around four years later, the Red Army occupied Berlin. Germany had ceased to exist as a political entity and was completely occupied by foreign armies, as well as being in a state of near-complete ruin.
Like I mention above, they saved nothing, and Germany’s blundering in eastern Europe only served to place Russia in a position of unprecedented influence in the heart of Europe for almost 45 years.
Thank you in any case for your comments. I’m aware there are a lot of different viewpoints on these topics.
Cheers
Wage, I’m up to my neck in Chinese family, acquaintances, co workers etc some of whom grew up in Red China. Nobody likes Mao. Mao was not a nice man. I’ve told you eye witness accounts about the Cultural Revolution which you dismiseed so I won’t repeat them. The Cultural Revolution was a time of barbarism. Communism was a great ideology for psychopaths.
And why do you think I’m a rabid right winger?
I’ll tell you another story Wage. This happened not too long ago. A well known Canadian liberal political commentator was talking on television about Toronto and its environs where according to her “people are educated”.
Nothing ignites me faster than such jaw-dropping idiocy. She is a know-nothing. This is the same kind of insufferable, big city, know-nothing that I’ve had to endure for ages that insists that the West is a land of Bible thumpers. It is nothing of the sort, it is the least religious part of the country.
Wage, what infuriates me is when a group of people assume they’re better than others and smarter when they are no such thing. Especially when the objects of their scorn and contempt are their fellow countrymen. Now rational people would know to piss outside their own tent. You don’t piss inside it. Have I got this right?
They ask for it in spades and I give it to them.
Did you see my post from 12:39 pm about a big city national newspaper that thought they’d do a story about my hometown because of its students’ high academic performance? Puzzling to them. How DO these corncobs DO it? Smug, superior, condescending, IDIOTS.
Cash,
There is no need to be rabid. 😉
You would like this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Mao-Story-Jung-Chang/dp/0679746323/ref=sr_1_1
Mao does not come out of it looking very good.
The USSR was NOT going to invade Germany. Stalin tried to go out of his way to make sure the Germans did not invade, including putting the entire frontier region on standdown and setting up lucrative trade deals. Russian military unreadiness was the reason the Nazis steamrolled them in the first couple months of the invasion. Stalin had just finished purging the army officer corp. They were in no shape to invade anyone.
Revisionist Nazi apologists first suggested Germany was preempting a Soviet invasion, which is patently false history. Hitler wanted Russian land and, most importantly, the oil fields of the Caucus region. He invaded them without cause just like all the other countries they attacked. The theory behind the invasion is laid out in Mein Kampf, where he talked explicitly about the need to invade that country for leibenstraum.
I don’t know why, out of all the people in history, one would pick the Nazis to defend. They are certainly worthy of all the scorn heaped upon them. In particular, the upper leadership were a bunch of narcissistic psychopaths, kind of like some posters we’ve got here on CFN.
And, indeed, I have read all kinds of books on this time period and subject. Let me know if you want some titles.
Neither newworld or Vlad had the slightest idea what they’re talking about w.r.t. the history of WWII. They are pushing a revisionist perspective trying to absolve the Nazis, because I guess they find a facsist ideology steeped in racism and inhumanity to be appealing. It says a lot about them that they’d choose to do this.
“the West is a land of Bible thumpers”
America certainly is from my experience. I dunno about Canada.
“Especially when the objects of their scorn and contempt are their fellow countrymen.”
Oh, please, Cash. You are so full of bile against liberals in your own country that I can practically see it dripping out your ears.
It came to me recently that we’ve probably all got until about 2013 to live. Maybe ’14 if it takes the new President a bit longer to get bored of the comfy chair and start pressing the little buttons.
Suggested book for all: http://www.fhu.com/brainwashing_book.html
How’s that, Chicken Little? You been reading the Mayan calendar again?
In the same way that so many people’s eyes glaze over when you bring up the subject of Peak Oil, there are many who can’t comprehend the obvious lies of the government approved version of 9/11. But it’s not that they can’t comprehend it. It’s that they refuse to even “go there”. There was an awful lot of things going on that day that had nothing to do with 19 radical jihadists from the Middle East.
Wagelabor, “I was brought up with classic Marxism … ”
You gotta be shittin’ me! Where the hell were you brought up, Moscow?
-Marlin
Where does it come from? Why does it persist? Where will it lead?
I dunno, but Phil’s got some theories and dangerous speculations…
“The cordiality of my fellow southerners is as facile as it is fragile. In southern culture, a great deal of psychic energy goes into distancing oneself from shame. Brooding beneath southern culture’s superficial charm and gentility is the unspoken threat: “Be nice, now” that often translates to, “ya’ll do as I say — and there won’t be any trouble.”
More often than not, it is all made personal. Affronts are long remembered and resentments cultivated, and being confronted with information outside of one’s realm of experience and field of reference is regarded as condescension.” [the real dr.] Phil
oopsie.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27859.htm
ozone,
We’re the species that is willing to kill all the big fishies in the ocean for the grand cause of sushi restaurants. What do you expect?
You ever seen Koyaanisqaatsi? (sorry spelling)
There is a long shot of the end of some sort of flying device falling to earth in flames. That’s a nice metaphor for the whole shebang.
Marlin,
off-topic aside,
I’ll have to get to our little library to have them ship in a copy of “Junkie” this week. Thanks.
(I had responded at the end of last week’s thread, but that was, like, ya know, um, like soooo last week! ;o)
Ozone are you trying to reignite the Civil War? The cinders are still smoldering, buried underneath 150 of bullshit. It won’t take much. Just a little spark.
-Marlin
You have to fight against you upbringing as red diaper doper baby – just as you would want anybody raised in a fundamentalist household.
In order to make his iron quota on one his great leaps forward, Mao confiscated plows that had been passed down father to son for generations. He was the Greatest Mass Murderer in history – he starved his own people.
Ozone, are you trying to reignite the Civil War? The cinders are still smoldering, buried beneath 150 years of bullshit. It won’t take much, just a little spark.
-Marlin
Nope, but unlike others, I tend to “go there” to perhaps put some maggots to the gangrenous flesh of needlessly old wounds and entrenched [but quite useless] beliefs.
Purge, anyone? ;o)
I might but luckily I didn’t – so I can be objective. Objectively speaking, whatever their crimes, the Nazis would have saved Western Civilization from International Capitalism and Communism. As it is, the Montseugurs will end the West in another generation. So it took the victors of WW2 a little over three generations to dismantle the West – exactly as the Nazis warned they would.
“the Nazis would have saved Western Civilization from International Capitalism and Communism”
This is just more inane apologizing from a known fascist sympathizer. Fact of the matter is that given Naziism and these two other systems, the former was FAR more evil and destructive than either, hence the entire world banding together to crush them.
You can blather on about what they “would” have done but looking at what they did actually get done, I doubt there would have been much saving of anything.
Ah, so it’s “white people” is it? Now you show your true colors. Since Whites don’t exist in the first place, they have no rights, and therefore can be genocided with impunity.
And it will be their own fault – bad white people resisting peaceful Communism. Islam is a religion of Peace too – right?
If anything the Nazis represented the terminus of a certain strain in Western civilization obsessed with cultural and racial purity and solving all problms by force of arms. Given the availability of nuclear weaponry in today’s world, it is a good thing that this philosophy has not been carried to its logial conclusion. Or we’d likely be bundling up for the nuclear winter.
That’s not to say communism and capitalism don’t have their “sins” but seriously, the Nazis are the best alternative? Get real, clownie.
Vlad, your Nazis were all homos, all of ’em, Heydrich, Rohm, Himmler, the entire Liebstandarte SS, you name it, maybe and most likely even Hitler himself. (the evidence for Hitler is sketchy) What the hell do you think those snappy, black, tight fitting SS uniforms, with the high boots were all about? Who would wear something like that unless you were gay? Nobody, that who!
-Marlin
You ever seen Koyaanisqaatsi? (sorry spelling) -t.
************
Saw it, dug it, can’t spell it either!
Marlin,
Vlad already knows this; in fact, Hitler’s favorite sculptor was Arno Brecker. But doesn’t the below image reveal something closet-like in his lament of a regime not to be:
http://www.goodart.org/abdepar.jpg
Thanks, I’ll check it out.
Actually, Turkle, Germany is lucky it didn’t hold out any longer and surrendered when it did. Truman didn’t like Germans (he served on the western front in WW1) and wouldn’t have had any qualms whatsoever about nuking a German city, maybe two if they didn’t get the message the 1st time. (Truman, now there was a Democrat with balls)
-Marlin
CFNation YD Post 1
New England Chapter
Look out! Jesse’s on the warpath. Read his “Letter to the Ruling Class” (very short).
http://weaintgottimetobleed.com/
That’s a very big sword (in comparison to his feet).
You don’t fool me – you secretly wear a Nazi uniform when no one else is home. People are obsessed with Nazis – the farther Left, the more obsessed. Let’s face it – the West has failed. We fought the wrong people. Now American fighting men are increasingly commanded by dykes and coloreds. We fight to set up Muslim states in Europe. Yet still the poor fools sign up – what else are they going to do with themselves? In Europe, the armies will be majority Muslim in another generation – and that’s game over. Do you really think Hitler would have sold Europe out to Islam like these swine have?
Buck, you’re always looking a pictures of naked men. You posted that awful quick! You must be a Nazi too. Gay men are notoriously racist after all.
Vlad, Germany aligned itself with Turkey in WW1, a Muslim nation. Also in WW1 Germany sent emissaries thruout the ME & Central Asia trying to persuade them to enter the war on their side. In 1943 Himmler set up a Bosnian SS Division, with Hitlers blessing, all Muslim. In the 1930’s leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt were frequent honored guests in Berlin. Hitler expected them to help him out murdering Jews. It was Germany who first brought Muslims into Europe in large numbers, guest workers from Turkey in the 1960s.
As far as being a leftist, do I sound like a leftist to you? Come on, now.
-Marlin
Vlad’s not too big on that whole history thing. He likes to make things up as he goes along.
Vlad, do you know why I only drink pure grain alcohol?
Yeah, larrymoecurley, if Jesus’s teachings were adhered to we wouldn’t need social programs because every individual would be “his brother’s keeper” and anyone who couldn’t, for whatever reason, supply themselves with proper food or shelter or other needs would be taken care of by other members of their community. But since nowadays people have abdicated those responsibilities, we have to have social programs to do it. I’m curious as to just how many less fortunate members of your community you are taking care of, since you seem to be so fond of Jesus’s teachings. He also said there will always be poor people among us. (Matthew 26:11) He seemed to think that every human being deserves a decent level of care. Too bad you are not as compassionate as he was.
I don’t understand the Christians who say we should all be focused on personal responsibility. If I can simply accept Jesus and be absolved of all my sins, ending up in Heaven, why would I need to worry at all about it?
Once again, Vlad, I have to thank you for giving me an insight into how a racist thinks.
Thanks for that, Ozone,
I just got home and my sister was talking on the phone with me about Ventura. That’s when I saw your post.
I guess he got to say what he wanted!
I thought it was Kunstler’s blog.
On scrap metal –
Marlin – Roosevelt’s policy of selling scrap and oil to the Japanese led to the first few months of the war, when –
“The Jap’s were burning Texaco oil and shooting pieces of old Buicks at us!”
And you’re right, the Chinese are likely Hoovering up all of our scrap metal right now. Which is kind of unsettling when you think about the parallels.
And Wage – We’ve already got white trash and black trash stealing copper bus bars and things from GA Power substations. There were a few guys killed trying this – and a few prosecutions of the survivors and it mostly stopped. It’s not a desire to “preserve the commons” that stops thieves like that –
It’s a fear of dying.
=======
Unrelated note – absolutely no threat intended –
Ozone, you seem to have some deep feelings about Southerners – “ripping off our scabs,” and all – I’ll get back to you later, if you’re interested.
And of course, Cash, YOU never assume you are smarter than others, do you.
Will hell have to freeze over for the Catholic Church to undertake the moral triage necessary to help avert catastrophic effects from overpopulation?
I’m Catholic, and that’s a question that I often ask myself. Theology of the Body radicalism was the only serious reservation I had about the Church when I was in RCIA, and it remains the main reason that I consider leaving the fold. A lot of the laity have simply stopped paying attention to the Vatican’s pronouncements on sexual matters, especially natural family planning, and the Church’s credibility has suffered on account of the extremism and divisiveness involved in the debate.
From my perspective in the laity, childless, celibate clergy appear to be conducting a prolonged philosophical debate on the theoretical perfection of sexuality and family life and trying to impose the outcome of their debate on everyone else.
In some ways, it’s a classic problem of an ivory tower where no one has any understanding of the real world, but the implications are serious. Failure to control population growth, and frankly to reduce population, will result in population being limited by other, external, means. Malnutrition, disease, famine and war will result. History tells us that these are hellish ways to reduce the population. For that matter, current events teach the same lesson.
For most of human history, high mortality and low life expectancy made high birth rates necessary to maintain stable populations. These causes of early mortality hardly exist in much of the modern world, so populations have exploded. As we run up against resource limitations, we face a potentially cataclysmic die-off, and the more we breed the worse we can expect it to be.
None of that informs Vatican positions on reproduction. When any of these things are mentioned, it is merely to say that hunger, war, disease and so forth are unfortunate circumstances that the faithful ought to combat. Then the married faithful are given contradictory instructions to effectively breed like Australian rabbits unless doing so causes extreme hardship.
As disturbing as abortion can be, it has been an important method of keeping population growth under some sort of control, and I have no doubt that it has prevented a huge amount of human misery. The Church and its laity have to ask themselves whether they would really rather have people be born into inevitable disease, starvation and war.
The Vatican’s hard lines on contraception, non-coital sex acts and limiting family size are even more untenable. It has largely forbidden couples to modify sexual practices that were well adapted to times of severe resource scarcity and dark-age medicine but that now result in growth rates that would normally be cancerous within an organism. The talk about children being a blessing from God and unprotected coitus being the epitome of sexual intimacy is all well and good until it reaches the real world of medically dangerous pregnancies, too many children to watch over and too many mouths to feed.
To judge from the Vatican’s rhetoric, the solutions to overpopulation will manifest themselves in due course of time, and sooner if more people follow the Church’s teachings. Yet official pronouncements direct Catholics not to implement sexual practices in their own lives that have a proven record of mitigating the very conditions that lead to so much of the strife, hardship and untimely death in this world. I get the feeling that Rome is burning and the Vatican is worried about fire hoses getting the furniture wet.
Pope Benedict XVI recently made a very humane, levelheaded pronouncement that Catholic couples may licitly use condoms to prevent the transmission of AIDS between spouses. I hope to soon hear a similar pronouncement allowing couples to use barrier methods, spermicides and non-coital acts, at the very least, as means of contraception. I hope not to see widespread apocalyptic misery, but I’m afraid that that’s our current course.
Until then, if the Church won’t say it, I will: don’t be a punk; wrap your junk.
Nice post, AMR. I think Catholic leadership has NO SINGLE CLUE about biology and exponential growth of the human population.
I grew up Southern Baptist. In ’71 they said that abortion could be OK, in some circumstances.
Since then, they have lost their minds to groupthink and the Joys of Republican Power Politics.
If there is ever a Day of Judgment – I suspect your Catholics and my Baptists may be found wanting –
For failure to use their God (god?) given intellects.
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/baptist/sbcabres.html
Forgot to post the link that proves the flipfloping of the SBC on abortion.
You have to read it to believe it.
“…if a farmer shows up on this blog…”
A man owned a small farm in eastern Kansas. The department of labor had heard reports that he was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an investigator out to interview him.
“I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them!”, demanded the investigator.
“Well” replied the farmer, “there’s my farm hand who’s been with me for three years. I pay him $200 a week plus free room and board.
“The cook has been here for 18 months, and I pay her $150 per week plus free room and board.”
“Then there’s the halfwit. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10 a week.
He pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of whiskey every Saturday night. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally.”
That’s the guy I want to talk to…the halfwit!” said the agent.
“You are,” replied the farmer.
Hi Marlin, speakin’ of famous rebs, you forgot Bubba, Goober,Otis,Clyde,Gomer,Sonny,Buford, and the Bandit!! HAHA. I have been south many times and have found warm and hospitable folk. In the Long Emergency I’d take one of them southern farm boys over a dozen “edjimacated college booksmart assholes from up north”. Dem college boys don’t no nothin’ bout raisin’ hogs!
“So everyone was for it before they were against it and against it before they were for it.”
Obama voted against raising the debt ceiling as a Senator, but now says that was a mistake which he deeply regrets.
See:’AMERICA ALONE’ by Mark Steyn
Is Religion dying? Replaced by what?
Do you know what book is #1 on NYT non fiction?
folks believe in heaven but not hell.
World: Africa, Middle East, Chindia
ALL NON CHRISTIAN
AND MOST OF THE PLANETS POPULATION!
Read ‘Mad Cowboy’
Those ranchers are non hillbillies.
Well Cash. I can shoot and shovel, but the shut-up part I am not quite down with. I can get the young guys at work to listen to me but the older guys are to set in their ways and believe everything will always be as it has been in the past. Forewarned is to be Forearmed indeed! I AM down with that. Better to have a tool and not need it than to need the tool and not have it! I have lots of tools! And I will not become a tool myself!
Not only farm boys, Ripthunder, but them rebels that I knew made mighty fine soldiers and sailors. Southern Infantry and Northern Artillery … an unbeatable combination!
-Marlin
I can relate although this is probably closer to the mark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NziqyNiNdI&feature=related
There are many Christians outside the West, especially in Africa and South America (which you didn’t mention for some reason).
Looking at per capita energy consumption would be a better way to assess the impact of populations on this planet, and it is far higher in the West than in the third world. Last time I checked, America was using 20-25% of the world’s total energy resources.
I don’t blame overpopulation on Christianity. I don’t like the Catholic Church’s policies regarding birth control and contraception, but to blame them for the current state of the planet would be naive and unfair.
The “need to breed” is built-in as an evolutionary survival technique when, as someone posted above, child mortality rates were, historically, orders of magnitude higher. Now when most children survive into adulthood, it has become maladaptive. The earth doesn’t need any more people, certainly not above replacement level.
As far as I can tell, Islam also has a built-in “be fruitful and multiply” commandment. (don’t know the specifics…just assuming)
If you read some ecologists like Catton, they’d argue we’re already far above long-term carrying capacity, and he was saying that in the early 1980’s.
I’m pretty much with you on the general outline, asia. I think we’re doomed by our biological urges. Blaming specific ideologies seems pointless to me, as most just mirror our innate biological tendencies.
Tanks need fuel, the Abrams is a SUPER energy hog. How many people and supply trucks does it take to keep one Abrams running. I’ll tell you. A shitload! and they are all in the open. no fuelley , no tankey. These tanks are working pretty well in Afganistan don’t you think? Sure tanks are great in the desert or the wide open steppes of eastern europe. Monsters like the Abrams cannot operate in heavy forest or close urban enviroments. The Abrams is named after Creighton Williams Abrams Jr. a former neighbor of mine up here in western MA. I did not know the man.
Actually Brecker is very famous and along with many Soviet sculptors–and other artists serving totalitarian regimes–has stirred quite a bit of debate among aestheticians. Is the work valid, or does it content disqualify it from serious consideration. Quite a few formalists have tied themselves up in knots over the issue.
That aside, you assert a connection between the notoriously racist and gay men. Whatever Vladdie, I won’t hold the latter against you.
Larry-ya-ya said:
(Big snip)
“How much more of your income can you afford to send overseas to pay China for the money they’ve loaned us to keep PBS, Planned Parenthood, and the National Endowment of the Arts going?”
*****************************************
Kay retorts:
I’ve read a lot of bullshit on this blog as well as some well thought out, well meaning and intelligent comments, but this is PURE CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s so lame that all I’ll do is call it bullshit and move on.
Bill Gross of Pimco is now boldly heavily shorting U.S. Treasuries with every expectation that SSI, Medicare and Medicade cuts will not be made to shore up 75T in debt.
http://www.pimco.com/EN/Insights/Pages/Skunked.aspx
He quotes Mary Meeker’s U.S.A. Inc. piece…
http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/11_10/b4218000828880.htm
Certainly not in 1941. Whether Stalin might have gotten up to that later in the war had Germany been otherwise occupied . . . perhaps. But even if one accepts this speculation as having any validity, it still means the argument that the German army saved Europe by invading the USSR in 1941 is faulty.
Hitler was looking for a fight with the birthplace of communism, and he found it.
Cheers
LOL. You attribute a lot of influence to me.
Cheers
“If I can simply accept Jesus and be absolved of all my sins, ending up in Heaven, why would I need to worry at all about it?”
First, you are not doing the accepting, He is. Second, we are not going to “heaven” it is coming here. Third, being justified is only the first step of salvation. Sanctification {learning -often the hard way – to walk as He walked} takes a lifetime.
If one were to accept your premise, then, given the historical record, one would have to conclude that any such genocide was perpetrated by the “white people” upon themselves. The enemy you seek is in the mirror.
Cheers
US lacks credibility on debt, says IMF
“To meet the 2010 pledge by the Group of 20 countries for all advanced economies – except Japan – to halve their deficits by 2013, the US would need to implement tougher austerity measuresthan in any two-year period since records began in 1960, the IMF said. In its twice-yearly Fiscal Monitor, the IMF added that on its current plans the US would join Japan as the only country with rising public debt in 2016, creating a risk for the global economy.”
Scott;
Did you say “$75 TRILLION’ in debt?
-Marlin
I’m a little surprised at that statement because I saw filmmaker Michael Moore interviewed the other night and he said the “country is not broke”. The Governor up in Wisconsin, the Republicans in the US House, are just being mean SOBs. There’s plenty of dough for everybody.
-Marlin
Yep, 75 Trillion! Bill Gross uses Mary Meekers reasearch to conclude unfunded Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security liabilities at 65 Trillion on top of about 9.5T in debt.
Bill Gross aint no gambler, if he is shorting Treasuries it is as close to a sure thing as it gets. They say once the greedy old bastards see that their benefits are going to get cut the jig will be up on any meaningful spending cuts.
“I’m pretty much with you on the general outline, asia. I think we’re doomed by our biological urges. Blaming specific ideologies seems pointless to me, as most just mirror our innate biological tendencies.”
-turkle, to asia-
Turkle, if we could find someone to blame, maybe we could change the paradigm before it is all too late.
I have no problem drawing a straight line from the Catholics and the American Religious Right to today’s FUBAR’ed birth control and family planning policies – WORLDWIDE!
Get mad and blame somebody, Turk – before it is all too late.
Well, what are their options? Are they going to go on strike?
By the way, given my current net worth and what I stand to inherit, I’m not going to claim SS benefits when I’m eligible in 13-1X yrs (who knows the true age by then?). I’m looking at the common good, a less is more philosophy and the teaching’s of Jesus.
Hey, Michael Moore, you blow hard, you can’t get something for nothing.
I’ve never had any expectation of collecting SSI and have always seen it as a Ponzi scheme. The past few years I have revised my expectations in that I expect to get something but there will be no inflation adjustments so it might as well be nothing.
I’ve been thinking about how U.S. companies that do business globally keep their profits outside of the U.S. to keep from paying U.S. taxes. Also been thinking about how the U.S. is ranked #1 in manufacturing yet most components are manufactured overseas and assembled here to be counted as U.S. manufacturing. The U.S. is counted as #1 in manufacturing in U.S. dollar terms and most of U.S. manufacturing is high ticket items such as large farming tractors, planes, computers, military armaments, etc. that are high dollar items but low volume items that do not provide a lot of jobs to assemble.
I’ll bet Michael Moore has lots of government stats to back up his claim too like how low the inflation and unemployment rates are. I don’t believe any of the governments numbers particularly how they count the debt at 9.5T while conveniently leaving out the 65T in medicare, medicaid and SSI unfunded liabilities.
Michael Moore may be an entertaining political hack but I’ll leave the economic analysis to those I consider to have integrity in such matters. If a CEO say’s we never came out of recession, that it’s all government spending, knowing full well his stock is going to get hammered by Wall St. every quarter he gives bad guidance because of the economy is integrity in my book. He could easily do what others are doing and talk up the “recovery” and be richer for it.
Michael Morre said there are mean people? I wish he would send a check for 3/4 of his income to charity. NOT!
NEWWORLD:
Below are my sentiments EXACTLY about the Repukes, *not* the Dems. With the likes of Palin and Bachmann???? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Stupidity on a grandiose scale.
The Repukes care about NOTHING but taxes and they have every cockeyed Fundamentalist in the country thinking that they REALLY about their religious gawkiness toward abortion!! What a crock. Limbaugh, Beck (now losing his show of Faux News) – liars, liars, ignorant liars.
You’ve got your nerve saying what you do. Some of us watch something ELSE besides Faux News every day in order to see the truth about the REPUKE PARTY.
Vlad liberalism is a sick, sick cult, and getting sicker by the day. That fool you are lecturing truly believes every white person is a nazi war criminal unless they grovel to the point of complete ruin.
Best WWII book is “Forgotten Soldier”, forget the author but he was a French national with a German mother and therefor eligible to join the German army where he served on the Eastern Front.
Plus how many of these white libs that post here realize that half the voting Democrats have an IQ below 95? As I wrote above they have “invincible ignorance”, and they like it that way, going from one fad to the next and calling it intelligence.
“How much more of your income can you afford to send overseas to pay China for the money they’ve loaned us to keep PBS, Planned Parenthood, and the National Endowment of the Arts going?”
I’d be willing to pay at least like 5 cents or whatever number it would cost if every person in the country paid for all of these equally.
But please pay no attention to the $1 trillion military gorilla in the room or the Medicare Part D elephant.
For that matter, let’s follow Bush’s lead and keep the highest tax bracket at historically low levels, even though the country is running a gigantic fiscal deficit.
Deficits don’t matter…right?
Vlad is sick and getting sicker by the day.
Ya’ll don’t need to worry about peak oil anymore!
Check out this news story from WMAX-TV, wmaz.com
“Georgia pastor plans prayer gathering at gas pumps”
Dublin, GA — Members of a central Georgia church plan to gather at gas pumps to pray for lower prices. WMAZ-TV reports the beacon of Light Christian Center is planning the Saturday prayer gathering at gas pumps outside a Kroger grocery store in Dublin.
Pastor Marshall Mabry said he believes that if church members come together and pray as a community, they can make something happen.
Mabry said that with prices reaching almost $4, he says he plans to ask God for help.
He said its’ the thrid time members of his congregation have met at gas pumps to pray.
Mabry said he wants to start a movement which spreaks from the small town of Dublin to the rest of the nation. Dublin is about 130 southest of Atlanta.”
####
I fell a snark attack coming on! Magical thinking’s finest hour is coming on Saturday.
Jen
My die hard Catholic friend insists that the world can support ten times as many people as it has now. His idea is that all the Earth should be used to do this – forgeting that alot of it is mountain and desert or that fields need to lay fallow. And it assumes that the political and economic problems about distribution can be solved – event though they never have before. And he seemed to imagine that this magical ten times number would only be reache in some far distant future – which is completely false. And when we reach the magic ten, then what? Full stop? As if one can stop a speeding train on a dime. Most likely a huge die off as occurs when any species exceeds the carrying capacity. Needless to say, our discussions never reach this stage – he’s already red faced and yelling by this point.
You jumped tracks there bucko: that Hitler wanted the Muslims as allies is well known. But He did not nor would he ever turn the Continent over to them as our current tyrants have done. The Germany that brought the Turks in is a vile joke that spits on its own heritage.
Have you read about the Morgenthau Plan to starve Germany after the War and not allow its industry to be rebuilt? It was on its way to becoming the policy when a Senator got up and charged them with contemplating genocide. Or how about the Kaufman Plan to sterilize all German men?
Sorry, Cash, I didn’t mean that you were a right winger. I was referring to Marlin and Newworld.
I’m sure that your relatives don’t like Mao. I have no real opinion, like I said before, because I haven’t heard much except the usual frothing right wing stuff.
I don’t like Obama, nor Bush before him. If I moved to another country, I’d let that be known.
They are murderous barbarians, with over a million dead bodies on their hands, between them. So, yeah, I’d tell some stories.
What a silly question – as if you have to agree politically with someone to appreciate their art. As if only Catholics can appreciate centuries of great art and architecture.
But they’re right in a way: those sculptures are far more than mere stimulation for aesthetes: they’re road maps. The show the goal: to acutally bring forth the best in ourselves; to produce a race of people who were actually that beautiful. Obviously ugly little art critics and galley ownesr aren’t going to be able to handle that. They can only deal with Hollywood Beauties if they own them and hopefully corrupt them. But White People who actually looked like that and free? The World will always try to crush anything like that.
And obviously there are a few people who look like that – and are corrupted by it all by themselves. It means little without a culture that would foster inner beauty and character development.
Abortion is such a horrendous crime and sin, that the Church gets alot of “points” for being against it – and the irrationality of their ultimate position on population is overlooked. I know that since abortion lower population, then it should be “good” – but it’s just not that simple. Post Abortion Syndrom has been repressed for decades by the psychiatric establishment. Birth Control is an answer not abortion.
From my Facebook friends-
Hey, remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?
Yeah, me neither.
Abortion should be free, and freely available. There are too many people on this planet.
No baby should be born that is unwanted.
Period.
Or, how about, what a woman does with her body is her own business?
Right on!
Birth control is an answer, but so is abortion!
Wagelaborer;
Wait one gosh darn minute, here.
You call me a right winger.
Vlad calls me a left winger.
I’m a little confused. I gotta figure out here i stand in the CFNation general scheme of things.
-Marlin
CFNation YD Post 1
New England Chapter
Overpopulation and religion:
One thing about ideology and religion in lieu of overpopulation issue, it really matters less who you blame for the condition. It’s what you do about it that counts.
Because of religion, no real discussion or solution is sought internationally or nationally.
China wasn’t hampered by those concerns, so they instituted a one child policy, with many problems, but at least they didn’t get hung up on the religion thing.
The right wing would tell you we have the liberty to have as many children as we choose or progenerate by accident.
_____________________
Marlin–don’t be confused. You’re entitled to your own opinions and they may land you in different locales on the right-left spectrum on different issues.
Ibendet … the voice of reason in CFN land. Just what is needed.
-Marlin
I think that you can say democracy is finished when the very people you elected to represent you, do exactly the opposite they told you they would have done, the moment the politicians work in the interest of the big corporations (who pay them) and NOT in the interest of the citizens.
The moment you do not punish the criminals you legalize the crimes.
As for birth control, the best would be leaving the matter in the hands of the ones who have or do not have children.
But you have the duty to educate those same people.
As we see, the more educated the people, the less the children they give birth.
I do not believe in forcing, I believe in convincing.
Vlad – you are being played by the RW on abortion. For example, Planned Parenthood abortion numbers are TINY/MINISCULE compared to the pregnancies they can prevent through education and contraception.
Yet the RW uses the issue to “gin up” support for the base to vote against “demonic” planned parenthood.
To say that a first trimester human fetus is a “beating heart” a “living human soul” INSTEAD of a group of cells in a uterus – – all of that is a religious viewpoint and a religious judgement that the Right is using to gain votes from the uninformed or unthinking.
==============
Try another tack – Vlad, what if the fetus was that of a black rapist with an 80 IQ – you still think the woman should be forced to carry it to term?
Marlin –
If you are making people mad – who reside on both sides of the political spectrum – that shows you are a thinking person. The world needs more people like you.
=============
On another note – praying for lower gas prices in Dublin, GA.
HEY, people – we were having a severe drought 2 years ago – bad, bad drought.
Our governor at the time, Sonny Perdue, suggested prayer for rain, and I believe he actually led some public prayer on this subject.
6 months later we had a widespread 100 year flood with huge loss of property and some loss of life.
So – be careful with the Power of Prayer.
=======================
You will all be glad to know that the Georgia house and senate just approved a bill to allow local communities to vote to allow Sunday sales of beer and wine.
Debate went on for hours.
Opposition was religious in nature.
Opposition was funded and encouraged by liquor store owners – ’cause they are going to lose sales, not because liquor store owners suddenly Got Religion.
But the bill passed anyway. Heehaw and giddy up!!
The thing is, both Vlad and WLaborer are pretty intelligent, knowledgeable people. That much is clear by the way they write. And they’re both ‘Mericuns (with apologies to Ozone). Its just puzzling to me, knowing what we know now about the carnage and slaughter perpetrated by Communists and Nazis in the 20th century, how anybody could still speak up for them. It doesn’t make sense.
PoC, we are having the same debate in CT about Sunday liquor sales. I take the opposite view that you do and was kind of happy when, a few weeks ago, the plan was tabled. (temporarily) There are a lot of drunks around here and Sundays gave their families and everyone else a break from their alcohol fueled shinanigans. Plus the package store owners were against Sunday opening because they would lose their only day off. Sunday package store closing is the last ‘Blue Law’ left on the books in CT.
-Marlin
You know the Tea Party is screwing with the religious right when Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) claims that Planned Parenthood service is well over 90% abortion. When it was brought to Kyl’s attention that the actual rate was 3%, his office replied that his words were “not intended to be a factual statement.” O so being caught red handed lying is now called an “un-factual” statement.
Here is a clip to see the liar in action — http://www.tvsquad.com/2011/04/13/stephen-colbert-tweets-jon-kyl-non-facts-video/
PoC;
We’re having a whole bunch of Civil War displays ’round here lately, including reenactments and encampments, and everybody breaking out relics, to commemorate the 150th anniv. Some are pretty interesting, including many muskets.
Is it the same in Georgia?
-Marlin
Mornin’ Marlin, when MA. allowed alcohol sales on Sunday, the only ones opposed were the store owners. It added to their overhead costs. Labor, utilities, and such. Liquor sales didn’t increase because any real drunk knew enough to swing by on saturday night and pick up his supplies for sunday. Don’t ask me how I know these things! Hic
I can relate to that too. Old hippy. Tell me about it. I’m not hung up on getting old but I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize myself. In my mind’s eye I’m still 18, long black hair, all nose and cheekbones. In the last couple months on three occasions young fellers offered me their seat on the subway. Sheesh. I thanked them and declined.
“Georgia pastor plans prayer gathering at gas pumps” -SJM
That is just freakin’ hilarious!
Talk about you prime example of a cargo cult. Ya think it can get any more ridiculous than this?
You betcha! (The show’s just beginning.)
Ps. Just had a mean flashback on Firesign Theater’s “Petition the Lord with Prayer” segment. A sure sign “the end is near”, eh? Aaaaaaaaaa! My head’s on fire and my ass is catching!
Ripthunder;
Hoped to get some herbs (oregano, kale) in the ground today but its rain and more rain. Plus its f—-g cold! So watching movies.
Did Clayton Abrams retire to W. Mass., or was he from there? A few years back Gen. Alexander Haig lived down the street. He was working for UTC at the time. You’d see him around town.
-Marlin
Ripped, this is what I meant by “shut up”.
Let’s say in a coming period of disorder you have to kill someone in self defence because law enforcement is incapable of responding. Let’s say it’s an intruder in your house that you have to shoot because you don’t have the time or inclination to sit down and have an amiable chat about whether he intends to kill you and rape your wife.
What I’m saying is don’t trust the judicial system or what remains of it or law enforcement to do the right thing. You may have to shovel (bury the body) and shut up (don’t tell anyone about it).
Don’t tell anyone about it because of the slant of the justice system that could cast you as the bad guy for daring to defend your life and the lives of those around you.
Want an example of what I mean? There was a famous incident not long ago in Toronto where a Chinese immigrant shopkeeper tackled a repeat shoplifter, tied him up and called the cops. Amazingly, the SHOPKEEPER was charged (followed by a huge public outcry).
After a year the shopkeeper was tried and acquitted. I’m sure the judge wanted to hang the shopkeeper, I mean, what fucking gall defending your property. But people were in a really foul mood. This was a howling injustice, really lousy treatment for a good citizen and taxpayer and a spectacular lack of common sense from the cops.
So like I said: shoot, shovel and especially, for your own good, shut up.
“I’m a little confused. I gotta figure out here i stand in the CFNation general scheme of things.”
-Marlin
*************
No, no, a thousand times, no! ;o)
(Besides, keepin’ everybody guessing is more fun.)
You’re right I don’t except if they annoy me. But I have other monumental faults as people who know me are seldom shy about cataloguing.
Hey Marlin, it is darn crappy out. I wanted to do onions and peas today. General Creighton W. Abrams was born is Springfield but grew up in Feeding Hills just down the road apiece. He never retired. He died while serving as US Army Chief of Staff. His World War II commander, General George S. Patton, Jr., once said: “I’m supposed to be the best tank commander in the Army but I have one peer – Abe Abrams. He’s the world champion.”
http://agawam.ma.us/content/76/128/default.aspx
I have reason for it. I’ve gone into it in past posts and I’m not going to get back into it. And I’m powerfully sick of their insults and arrogance.
Especially towards rural people that these liberals so liberally cover with scorn and contempt never suspecting it’s these same rural people that these know it all liberals depend on for food and other commodities and without whose labours these oh so sophisticated liberals would be dead from starvation within weeks. You know the simple country folk I mean. You know, the Andys and Aunt Beas and Gomers and Goobers and all those hicks.
a classic quote by Creighton W. Abrams at The Battle of the Bulge
“They’ve got us surrounded again, the poor bastards.”
– Creighton Abrams
It isn’t. But our know it all liberals think it is among other things. And so the steady stream of insults that so powerfully piss off westerners and make them laugh in equal measure.
Make them laugh? Because for every such attempted slur, like the West being a land of Bible thumpers and tea partiers, eastern liberals show their lack of knowledge about their own country.
I mentioned in another post that Calgary, in the middle of supposed redneck, Bible thumping country, just elected an articulate, Harvard educated Muslim as mayor. Torontonians just elected a fat, ranting, right wing businessman as mayor.
So, as I say, eastern liberals, especially in Toronto, should travel more, get to know their own country. They claim to be more educated. A cut above. I’ve been listening to their bullshit for a long, long time. They haven’t proven it.
Thanks Turk I’ll have a look at it.
“I thanked them and declined.”
I’ve never been on a subway, but I get the senior discount when we go out to eat, without asking {IOW without lieing}. Must be the hair.
Was The Andy Griffith Show popular in Canada?
Or, a more general question is, how popular is U.S. television in Canada?
Cheers
(That should be “Oh Blinding Light” from F.T. ‘Twere da Doors wid da petitioning. Soft Parade?)
More useless trivia later? Mmmm, let’s hope not. ;o)
Tuned in CNN. The news today? Reactor meltdown in Japan? renewed unrest in Egypt? war in Libya? massacres in Yemen, Syria, Ivory Coast? No, no, and again no! Wrong on all counts. No, the big news today is that Michelle and Barak are appearing on one of Oprah’s final shows! Plus, the upcoming Royal Wedding!
That’s what its come down to. That’s how lame this place become.
-Marlin
The Andy Griffith Show and its contemporaries was very popular. US programming in general was and is very popular up here.
Oh really? Show me where I ever called you a left winger. What you are is someone who feels loyalty for people who have no loyalty to you. True or false – you get emotional when they raise the flag and play a little patriotic music? So do I, but it can be resisted and should be. They have no loyalty to their own people, Marlin. True or false – you love watching news clips about our military actions and you love air shows? So do I, like most men, I love things of power be they military, horses, or big dogs. This is natural, but you need not confuse any of this with loyalty or patriotism. Try it – watch some clips of the Russian Army on parade – nobody does it better. In other words, you can enjoy the action in Libya without believing that we should be there.
Yeah, hair. A couple days ago I got a haircut. My barber is this rough little Chinese peasant lady. She charges 8 bucks. She’s always very direct, in the Chinese peasant way ie how much do I earn, what do I like to eat, what does my wife cook and she asked my wife if I fuck around behind her back (my wife said not to her knowledge). Anyway she asked me, in her usual loud voice, presumably so the other customers could hear, if I wanted her to cut the hair growing out my damned ears. So it occurred to me that a guy loses the hair on his head and grows it where he needs it, out his ears.
Anyway I’ve not been offered a senior discount because we don’t eat out. But if we did I’m pretty sure I’d be offered.
FAT,DUMB AND HAPPY!!!!!
Fascinating. They are so dominated by American Media that they apply our catergories of East and West to Canada – even when they don’t fit. The Liberal “better than thou” is so intoxicating that they can’t resist. As C.S Lewis said, it is the ultimate drug. Interestingly enough, he called it the Ring with those outside the ring being a lower order of beings. I’m not sure if he called it so before or after Tolkien pusblished his Trilogy.
US CARGO CULT!!!
Mommy Professor’s hateful shtick is about to come to an end. Simple story, Nazi beasts, naziism resides in all whites and whites only, purification rituals (left cults), end whites and utopia reigns. Good story for useful idiots with outsized vanities like the white liberals here, but such nonsense ideology like all ideology has a shelf life.
Anyway are any of you anti-whites here going to attend the “White Privelege conference” in Minneapolis? If so please write up a summation for us.
Anyway in June 1941 the German army launched a hail mary doomed from the start mission to defeat the USSR, but it did destroy Stalin’s main goal of “liberating” Western Europe from the hated Nazis.
Rush just quoted a study: there’s an inverse relationship between bust size and IQ. This is not confirmed folks (unlike Black IQ), but I think you would agree with me that it demands further study. As Jefferson said, “There is not a Truth existing that I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world”. That is real Liberalism and it’s is all but extinct – the Turkels and Dales killed it.
Not with my money, Wage. If you want to donate to abortion clinics, go right ahead. You people want to take our money just like Mao took the ploughs from the Chinese farmers. You have no more right than he did.
I killed old school liberalism, personally, Vlad. BLAME ME. I don’t mind.
Breathe deeply now…
You are?
Skinny, smart, and unhappy.
Vlad, did you go to school at an Anti-Liberal Arts college?
Huh?!?!
Jeebus, Duke-o’-Divinity-on-a-Dinosaur, Oprah’s finally got enough cash to last her awhile and will be shutting down one of her propaganda organs, soonish??
That IS a slice o’ good news! Hallelujah!
(And, yes, another cogent and timely piece of reportage [fr.]; glad we were let in on it… “need to know” and all that good shit.)
Planned Parenthood is an abortion mill – everything else is just PR. They don’t care about women – just money. Abortion is very hard on women psyche’s – many feel guilt for the rest of their lives, especially during the month their baby would have been born.
I didn’t know that a fetus could be a rapist, but Ok. You are correct though – Planned Parenthood was founded by the Eugenicist Margaret Sanger and she advised them to build near Black neighborhoods. I would focus more on positive Eugenics – good people being helped to have more children. As for Blacks, once we separate they can do whatever they like. And of course that will mean the traditional pattern of high infant mortality being matched by a high birth rate. They idea that they have internalized our Culture and could maintain it is simply laughable.
I am pro abortion mills. In fact, if your mother had made the right choice, we wouldn’t have to read (or scroll past) your blathering idiocy every day on CFN.
My exposure to University Liberalism acted like a knife sharpener – their craziness honed me to a fine edge. I once went to a women’s studies class – it was an invitation to our philosophy class. The Cultic energy in there was beyond anything I’d ever felt – Moonies included. Everyone was against pornography – including the men. When the men from my class spoke, their voices changed, became abnormally high. They were in an altered state of consciousness, a state of spiritual servitude.
Addiction to Porn is a real problem though. It’s just I seriously question letting Feminists be our moral highground – since their hatred of men is unspeakable.
The little righties slaver when the bell rings and get mad at exactly what their overlords command.
Abortion? Get mad!
Multi-culturalism? Get mad!
Immigration? Get mad!
Liberals? Get mad! (and reload)
Ever feel like you’re beening played?
Government money already can’t be used for abortions, m’k?
Keep getting angry about it just like “they” want you to though. You’re what’s called a useful idiot to them.
“You people want to take our money just like Mao took the ploughs from the Chinese farmers.”
Dumbest…analogy….ever.
Thank you. You are a handy example – truly a useful idiot.
Um, I should think that ol’ Rush-bo had better keep bust size (as a ratio to IQ) very hush-hush, as he’s not what one would call “flat-chested”.
Anal cysts and massive man-boobs! (Limpbough is just as cute as a corpulent little bug, ain’t he?)
Heap your scorn upon me, Vladdie. I can take all the melodramatic whining and blaming you got (an infinite amount apparently). Ain’t no thang. That’s how we commies roll.
And keep stoking that anger about paying 0.0001 cents of your tax dollars to family planning organizations. That’s a real good target for your angst….really it is.
Vlad in a Women’s Studies course is like Hitler attending a lecture on diversity and tolerance. I just can’t imagine you being there without your head exploding.
“their craziness honed me to a fine edge”
Wait, don’t you mean college honed your craziness to a fine edge?
I like to fashion myself a useless idiot but thanks for the compliment. I’m glad you find me useful.
Rush is pretty smart, regardless of man-boob size. He’s laughing all the way to the bank.
“Everyone was against pornography”
That’s no fun.
“since their hatred of men is unspeakable”
You hatred of women is speakable. You speak about it all the time.
I’m against aborticide, in part, because about half of them could grow up to be feminists, and an even larger percentage may grow up to be liberals. I love both feminists and liberals.
“aborticide”
Sounds like some sort of topical cream you apply down there before the intercoursing.
Man, I’m bored today. Maybe I’ll work on some “solutions” to the “problems” we’re facing and then I’ll post them in a numbered list. No one’s ever thought of doing that before.
You’re right, they apply categories that don’t fit. What you see in American conservatism with its overt, strident religiosity is absent up here. But you can’t tell a know it all liberal that. Alberta and Saskatchewan are Bible country and that’s it, case closed.
Westerners are uneducated, toothless hicks. They are extremists and rednecks and racists. You tell them don’t be daft, the Mason Dixon line is far to the south. Their eyes do little discos of incomprehension. What’s the Dason Mixon line? You try to explain the facts of academic achievement in Alberta, that Alberta kids are/were ranked tops in Canada and 2nd in the world in reading and scientific literacy but forget it, it just does not compute.
And this “tea party” stuff is just cacked. But don’t tell a Torontonian that. Most Torontonians don’t follow Canuck politics, never mind American politics, most of them haven’t got a sniff what a “tea partier” is. But Westerners are “tea partiers” and Harper is the Tea Party leader. End of story.
If you try to explain the strains of thought in canuck conservatism you find after about 2 minutes that you are getting zero traction. Conservatives are tea partiers or Republican wannabes. And that’s it. It would never in a million years occur to them that this ain’t the US, that canuck conservatism has its own origins in parts of the country with their particular cultural quirks and history and economic interests and gripes.
I am frustrated out of my mind Vlad. The idiocy emanating from this place is beyond belief. Bit by bit over the last 30 years the Liberal Party is losing. It used to be the Natural Governing Party. No more. It lost the West, it lost Quebec, it’s losing rural and small town Canada. They keep deriding and insulting the people whose votes they are trying to get. They created an east/west cleavage and instead of trying to heal the divide they keep on and on with the insults.
“I am frustrated out of my mind Vlad.”
You take yourself far too seriously, my man. Just sit back and laugh. Read some Mencken. Marvel at the idiocy of it all and then take a nice walk.
No I don’t take myself seriously. I know I’m not listened to. I’m a rapidly aging face in the crowd. I’m boggled that we are the luckiest people on the planet sitting with an uncontested claim on the world’s richest landmass and we are doing our damndest to fuck it up.
And how bout the invocations done by Shamans to begin parlimentary sessions in British Columbia? Liberals aren’t against Religion, just Christianity. Therefore Christianity is the True Religion. This is the best proof possible. Liberalism is like a photographic negative – most everything they believe is wrong. I’ll see you in Church this Sunday.
Liberals aren’t against Religion, just Christianity. – Vlad
There is something to that. They single it out for scorn. The hipsters had one go at Mohammed with the cartoons but no more. I wonder why.
I saw on Dr. Oz about protein sources.
COMPLETE PROTEIN. only a couple of foods have the complete protein that MEAT has.
Quinoa has all amino acids (is a complete protein in itself). Those big mushrooms, can’t think of the name, really big, those have complete protein.
otherwise, you have to combine beans with corn.
(you can combine things to make complete protein.)
beans and corn tortillas. I don’t know much more but you get the gist of it.
We do not need to eat so much meat. Especially if we live in a warm area. I mean it makes sense if you live in Alaska or a Cold place you may need the heavier meals to keep you warm, the fat and all.
I am eating less meat, but I still eat it.
I never did like seafood. Dr. Oz says if you don’t like that fishy flavor, he says to soak the fish, or seafood in lemon for awhile before cooking it removes that flavor. I may try that.
It is their invincible ignorance a condition of their vanity. Sick people who rely on censorship to maintain their illusions and the power of those. Look at Jim K. his provincialism is outsized as any creationist preacher, but he claims a worldly outlook, but would refuse to acknowledge that half the Dem party’s voters have an IQ
Post fail.
I dislike all religions about equally. They’re mostly at the same level of absurdity. Christianity I scorn the most because of its dominance in the US. Islam is even worse in terms of believing absurdities, but since it isn’t very prominent here, I don’t feel much of a need to comment. I could if you want though. I don’t make fun of Hinduism too much, because it isn’t evangelical. I hate it when others try to convert me.
And I’m a liberal, too, according to Vlad, who I guess knows about such things. So much for your theory…
Jesus H. Christ, Marlin.
Look at the sympathy and praise you got for lying about Vlad calling you a leftist.
Which he didn’t. He said you were a secret Nazi.
I just call you a John Bircher.
Vlad and I disagree only on the depth of your right-wingness.
Yeah, that too.
Did OLD6699 finally call it quits?
Don’t be too surprised if he turns up on overnight radios’ Coast-to-Coast as a returned UFO abductee with some very interesting tales to tell! (Which involve splitting the sun and building skyscrapers on Jupiter)
-Marlin
Wage;
that should be rightwingedness.
I know you love me, Wage.
-Marlin
Well, Cash, Dongpin Han was of peasant stock, like you.
And like you, he reveres the system that took him out of poverty.
Ironically, the Chinese emigrants you know are probably the pointy-headed intellectuals you despise in your own country.
Dongpin assumed that because he was told that the intellectuals were “honored” to come and learn farming and help the peasants become educated, that it was the truth.
But the intellectuals that you know clearly despise the peasants and the attempt to help them become educated and the hard labor involved in farming. And you identify with them, I guess.
Very ironic.
“Vlad and I only disagree about the depth of your rightwingness, Wage.
Don’t tell me the Nazis and the Commies are teaming up again, like back in 1939? (Stalin-Hitler Pact)
-Marlin
just when it was gettin’ good too.
Yeah you’re wrong too. I implied that Marlin’s patriotism is misguided – given to those who are unworthy of it. My Country right or wrong is not a viable philosophy. It should be “My Country right or wrong – when right to be kept right and when wrong to be put right. And America went way wrong a long time ago.
Repeat seems necessary, so here goes:
The real terror being perpetuated upon the world by religion fundamentalist is compliance with religious injunctions to have as many children as possible. No, there are no nightly TV news spots featuring helicopter views of large, smoking craters with burning buildings, cars and bodies strewn about, but the eventual devastation will be more horrific.
Nice post regarding discussion with a catholic and Earth’s carrying capacity. I’m thinking, “is it me or him that’s changed?”
But, later that day, after listening to Rush, you’re back to your old self:
Your attempt at humor? As if you didn’t know ProCon’s intent.
Laughable, at best. Could you document the number of liberals you surveyed and exactly how they’re specifically discriminating against Christianity?
If I may interject for a moment here, mis amigos, there is a new post at Small Batch Garden that addresses some of the questions of where the smart folks of the industrial world, like people who read CFN obviously, might choose to ride the slide of energy descent. Just some of my thoughts this week.
And there is also a new link posted over in the right sidebar to a Skype audio interview I gladly did for the Northern Homestead. I’ve always wanted to know what you guys sound like – for example, POC sounds nothing like what I expected, he’s almost the spitting vocal image of Sam Elliot. When I talked with him on the phone a month or so ago, I kept expecting him to invite me over for some beef. It’s what’s for dinner, after all. Here’s your chance to hear one of the craziest among us.
http://smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com/2011/04/where-should-i-live.html
Off to plant some squash and tomatoes.
Ta.
Is yr ‘old’ place being urban farmed?
ANY UPDATE..JUST CURIOUS, AFTER THE
WORK YOU DID ON IT.
Hey Wage, my angel in the ER. where did you get the term Jesus H. Christ and what does it mean? I have used it also. I probably got it from my father. What is with the H?
Interesting observations about water. In San Jose it doesn’t rain between May and September.
I know a viticulturist that says the best grapes are dry-farmed. I don’t know what else can be dry-farmed? Certainly not lettuce!!
Jen
Jesus HOLY Christ, naturally.
I’m sure all the high rollers at Planned Parenthood are getting filthy rich providing abortions to the poor. They probably make Soylent Green burgers out of the aborted fetuses, too.
Thanks Turk, It never occurred to me that the H was a stand in for Holy. I learn new stuff everyday!
Let me interject in your conversation here. I think H stands for Harry…
Asia, yes! There is an older Danish gentleman at the old ghetto house, and he is amazingly self-reliant. Still catching onto the low-input gardening though. But I have no doubt he’ll get there. I took a lot of the nursery perennials when I left, but the annual and herb gardens are in fine form, and he’s added to them. Strawberries I left are ripening apparently.
Jen, at least you guys will have plenty of good drink when things get bad! Could be worse…I saw a semi pull into town yesterday that had painted on the side “Bro and Sis so-and-so, Salvation, Revival, and Faith Healings”. I doubt we’ll get anything stronger than raw milk to drink if we get cut off…hell, probably be looked at as a heathen for drinking that.
Asia, yes! There is an older Danish gentleman at the old ghetto house, and he is amazingly self-reliant. Still catching onto the low-input gardening though. But I have no doubt he’ll get there. I took a lot of the nursery perennials when I left, but the garden is in fine form, and he’s added to it.
Jen, at least you guys will have plenty of good drink when things get bad! Could be worse…a semi pulled into town yesterday with “Bro and Sis so-and-so, Salvation, Revival, Faith Healings” painted on the side. I doubt we’ll get anything stronger than raw milk to drink when things go south…hell, probably be looked upon as a heathen just for that…
I hate this site sometimes…
It needs delete and edit buttons as well as nested posting according to “reply” button.
Primitive blogging software if you ask me…
. . . as in Harold.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-jes1.htm
Nicely done!
Cheers
There’s also Jesus F Christ. I leave that one up to your imagination.
For those who missed it, President Obama committed math in public today and demolished the idea that there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/04/13/text-of-obama-speech-on-the-deficit/
His speech today was not Kabuki theatre.
Social Security is not causing the deficit.
Deficits are not evil; they are often strategic.
Health care costs contribute to the deficit; Healthcare costs in the private sector must be controlled.
The budget cannot be balanced on the backs of the old, the unemployed, the disabled … while cutting taxes for the wealthy (who are NOT job creators: they are sitting on their wealth).
We don’t need spending cuts. We need to tax the millionaires and billionaires.
Indeed, LBendet, I find the hubris of most
survivalists and self-anointed financial
genii to be nauseating. It’s like talking
to Christians who believe we should just
be waiting for the Rapture … they have
“Divine Smugness”.
All that one individual can do is behave
according to principles, very old principles,
that stress the commonweal over the individual.
That’s not too complex but morality has been
made so relativist because the “new Liberalism”
has mistaken license for freedom and immodesty
for “creative self expression”.
Therefore, the new Liberalism cannot possibly
be an antidote to the sheer meanness of the
GOP because their own house isn’t ethically
in order.
E.
Obama said that 2/3 of the budget is SSI, Medicare and Medicaid. Add in unemployment benefits, defence and VA benefits and the rest of the budget for everything else the government does is only 12%. Education, infrastructure, clean energy, etc.
Obama said that everybody wants to focus on that 12% when looking for cuts. It’s time for step up and make tough decisions. I think he is taunting Republicans to go ahead and touch the third rail.
The problem with taxing the rich is that U.S. corporations are by in large global and do not repatriate any profits. It is way too easy for companies that manufacture in say China to move money out of the U.S. and leave it there to avoid paying U.S. taxes. Major corporations enjoy all of the benefits of globalization such as being able to do business in U.S. dollars as U.S. companies as well as using the cheapest and best labor the world has to offer. It is a huge advantage using U.S. dollars outside of the U.S. because of U.S. dollar hegemony. That is why losing Worlds reserve currency status is so important.
I agree that there are tough decisions to be made all around and the rich corporations do have a lot to lose when the dollar loses reserve currency status as a result of hyperinflation attempting to sustain SSI, medicare and medicaid Ponzi schemes. The rich corporations should be willing to come to the table and share in the pain that will befall all of us.
If U.S. corporations think they will be able to maintain their positions after the U.S. falls and loses worlds reserve currency status they are mistaken. Foreign countries, China in particular will be quick to nationalize outside interests.
“All that one individual can do is behave
according to principles, very old principles,
that stress the commonweal over the individual.
Agreed, E.
That would be the logical way people in a society should be arranging themselves. The commonwealth. The Commons, which the Republican party, along with neoliberals in the Democratic party [through the ideas of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman] are trying to obliterate.
One of the ideas I got from reading “Cold Mountain” is that when society breaks down, there are those who hold onto their humanity and values and try to remain civilized. There are always those who find those conditions convenient to exercise the worst part of their psyche, though. How many of us will fall into one category or the other remains to be seen.
Also it is true that the Deomocrats allowed the Republicans to form the message for the last few years without a strong comeback.
As I mentioned yesterday, Kyle claimed that Planned Parenthood performed abortions 90% of the time, when the facts are that’s it 3%.
They play fast and loose on anything they want and say it with great conviction, for the record. This is one of many examples on how distorted the right wing ideological arguments are.
Nobody seems prepared to counter the outrage. I think truth is relative for the Reps., no?
Now, back to Japan.
I ran across an interesting article last night which refers to Japan’s possible nuclear program (as in bomb making). There was a scant reference to this possibility on CNN a few weeks ago and never again mentioned. That happens a lot BTW.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24275
There’s more going on there than what meets the eye.
The biggest misconception about SSI is that there should be plenty of “money” for SSI, the government just spent it on other things. People believe that there should have been some type of “vault” or “lockbox” that their SSI payments would have gone in and been there at retirement.
Not the way a debt based economic model works. What is the difference between old paper and new paper? There is no difference between printing new dollars as if they had been placed there all along and actually having placed them there — it’s still paper. Now if we had been banking actual resources, say crude oil instead of consuming them all along it would be different. No one afaik, is suggesting that or has ever argued that when saying, “the government has been spending SSI money on other things”.
I’ve argued against SSI for most of my life knowing full well that I was a bagholder and stood little chance of collecting what I was paying in. Arguing against SSI has been a lot like arguing Peak Oil. Those that I have argued against have had the past 150 years of persistent economic growth on their side while I have had only the rest of human civilization to contrast it with. Most people can only comprehend the world in which they live in or maybe a generation prior.
“Sounds like some sort of topical cream you apply down there before the intercoursing.”
Just striving for accuracy in communication {verbal intercourse?}. The term had to be modified because it sounds too much like homicide, suicide, fratricide, regicide, etc.
you should have the right/ freedom to have as many kids as you want, but the taxpayer should not be obligated to care for them. that one policy would cut down on population growth.
Ironically, the Chinese emigrants you know are probably the pointy-headed intellectuals you despise in your own country. – Wage
Nope, not the case. Ordinary stiffs that spent their whole lives busting their asses. All people with practical skills.
But the intellectuals that you know clearly despise the peasants and the attempt to help them become educated and the hard labor involved in farming. – Wage
Only the “intellectuals” I’ve met here around Toronto and eastern Canada that tell everyone they’re so superior clearly despise Canuck “peasants” ie rural people, small towners, farmers. But you’re right that they have no clue about what’s involved in farming.
And you identify with them, I guess. – Wage
Wrong again.
Hmmmm, Pimco, Pimco; where have I heard that name recently? Shenanigans? Misdirection? Market “advice” and “disclosure” at whose behest?
I must have dreamt it; they’re a fine upstanding Cayman Islands based company. They’d NEVER be involved in something like THIS:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27883.htm
(Me? I’m investing in lamp posts; they tend to get weakened after too many “usages”. Ramp up the production!)
Hey PoC;
To pick up a thread from earlier in the week, and also from Jim’s blog, I’ve been thinking up some more examples of you ignorant, knuckle-dragging, illiterate, reactionary, neanderthal white Southerners, cause of all our problems and main impediment to the establishment the progressive agenda in the US:
Tennessee Williams
James Agee
Truman Capote
James Dickey
Sidney Lanier (a favorite of mine)
Robert Penn Warren
Katherine Porter
Carson McCullers
Eudora Welty
Harry Crews (Crews spelled the correct way)
Man, what a bunch of talentless reactionary morons those people were! If it weren’t for you Southerners this place (the US) would be a f—-g utopia right now. Yes, we have our black President, no thanks to you!
Good day, Sir!
-Marlin
CFNation YD Post 1
New England Chapter
I know I listed Faulkner earlier in the week but I have to list him again. Is Faulkner still being read, or has he been totally replaced by the Third World cannon so prevalent in the Universities today? If he isn’t its too bad because Faulkner is the one truly great American writer of the 20th century. (except of course Maya Angelou. That goes without saying)
-Marlin
You can bet that all of them, PIMCO and all the rest, without exception, “talk their book”.
Remember those congressional hearings, after the great financial deluge, when the boys from Goldmans couldn’t give a clear unequivocal answer to the issue of whether they put their clients’ interests first? It’s because they don’t. They put their bonuses first.
They do neat things like bet against the securities they sell a client with the whip-smart sounding reasons that go something like “the client doesn’t care what position we’re taking”, or “this is normal hedging” or some such gobbledeegook. More of the usual twisty-turny-upside-downy-no-one-can-understand-it-without-a-Wharton-MBA type stuff.
You don’t get it either?
You don’t get it because there’s nothing to get. Wall Street jargon is carefully concocted, time tested bullshit specially designed to baffle brains like yours and mine. It all sounds so good when they say it. It sounds convincing because they are articulate, well dressed, carefully coiffed, manicured psychopaths.
Now with a bit of rehearsing YOU can sound terribly clever and astute when you repeat it to your friends. Collect a few phrases, stand in front of the mirror, look straight into your own eyes and say “this is normal hedging”. Repeat. Repeat again. With practice you can get good at it. You can really impress the chicks (got your eye on your neighbour’s cute little wife?). Saying it with a little smirk makes you sound twice as clever and astute. But it means nothing. Their MO is to find credulous suckers and separate them from their money.
Why aren’t there laws against blatant fraud and thievery? There are but they aren’t enforced. Some things are perfectly legal like being able to buy credit default swaps to insure against loss on bonds you don’t even own.
Look to the right side of the ideological spectrum for that. Alan Greenspan was against going after fraudsters with the rationale that the “market” would sniff them out and out them out of business. You know, the “market” is always right. It doesn’t need the clammy regulatory fist of government bureaucracy. The “market” is self correcting. You knew this right?
Didn’t he say “the past isn’t dead and buried, it isn’t even past”.