Mary, god I loved your comment. You said it so well and eloquently.
I think people in this country have grown accustomed to being a victim and they not only are accustomed to it but they look for it, desire it, and search out opportunities to be a victim. Why? Well, I have a theory. Wanna hear it?
Mary, god I loved your comment. You said it so well and eloquently.
I think people in this country have grown accustomed to being a victim and they not only are accustomed to it but they look for it, desire it, and search out opportunities to be a victim. Why? Well, I have a theory. Wanna hear it?
Boredom.
Pure and simple. Boredom. Why? Because in our society of excess and greed we have everything and with a cancer known as credit we can do pretty much anything we want to do. Gone are the days where our hard labors were required to feed ourselves and give us shelter. Gone are the days where we worked our hands raw with blisters making clothing, growing food and providing the essentials of life. Now we have it all at our fingertips.
So, when something like covid comes along all of these bored individuals whose lives really mean nothing of any importance to anyone (including themselves), they glom onto these issues, become a victim and suddenly that becomes their "cause" and their sole reason for existing. Their life's mission.
I have a friend who is a teacher. Teaching is no longer his job, it is his life. He eats, drinks, breathes, craps and sleeps everything about teaching. Not just teaching his students in the classroom, but he is now on the NEA council, goes to conferences everywhere, lobbies legislators for more money and higher teacher pay (and more time off I am sure) and it is his mission to procure tax dollars to continue funding "educators" and the broken system they employ. It's all he cares about from sunrise to sunset. He no longer works as a "teacher" he has become an "educator" and that is his "cause" and is now his sole identity.
If we had to spend more time worrying about our next meal or keeping a roof over our heads we'd be less inclined to worry about our genitals, genders, tattoos, covid, and every other stupid cause people engage in.
CP - you're right, they're all in training for the Victim's Olympics - new events continually being added.
On teachers, yes, many more concerned with adding to their credentials, and gaining prestige, than actually teaching.
Many pursue Master's degrees and Doctorates, a la "Dr. Jill". Using the term "Educator" is the first clue that they are holier than thou.
My father is a retired Juris Doctor but never had the hubris, audacity or self-importance to go by "Dr. Anselmo". Thank goodness, just a first-generation Sicilian legal immigrant, that made everything he had, grinding it out on merit.
Generalizing on teachers - there are many great ones out there who have sacrificed greatly and influenced our lives for the better - we can all remember one or two.
I like what Real Mary Rose said above. Some teachers become activists. At that point they consider themselves more than just a teacher, but an advocate for the long term welfare and mental well being of America's youth. It's the activists that I despise.
It sounds like your friend is an ACTIVIST rather than a teacher. And this is not atypical! I have a friend who is not this active, but she was in education and now she goes to all the Bernie rallies and posts all sorts of idiotic crap on Facebook. They are fully indoctrinated!
I buy somewhat into your boredom theory. Let's face it, starting after WWII modern conveniences made life easier. And if we weren't bored, why do we fill up SO MUCH time with social media, TV, music, movies, etc?
I am trying to replace some of this with sports (playing, not watching). Because that gets me out in life. I don't really use any major social media platforms anymore. They are toxic.
I think it's boredom mixed with programming from said TV. It's been going on for a long time. We've become pretty malleable. Just what the people in charge want.
Nothing proves that more to me than the covid heist, critical race grifting, and the trans agenda.
It's all very crazy. It goes deeper than just boredom. However, I'll grant you it is very much about self-identifying as a victim.
Mary---I guess I am not as nice as you and Cankerpuss because if I had "friends" like you two, I would quite quickly decide to find new friends who are not bat guano crazy.
I cannot stand all the drama of these kinds of people. My wife and I have 250 acres, 25 cows, 2 horses and some large hayfields and.....we have zero time for stupid schiff and crazy people.
I can't avoid 'em if I want to live in "regular" society and do stuff like work and play pickleball. But if I had my druthers, I'd have a set-up like you, as Cankerpuss says. Although I think I'd select a place in the mountains, and have big Anatolian Shepherd dogs to guard me.
Ron, you have what I dream of having. I waited too long and now land is too expensive. So, I am stuck with my 1/4 acre lot that I garden the hell out of!
This "friend" I referred to was at one time a great friend. At one time we were very similar in our views. Both of us were gun concealing conservatives. When he got into the teaching lifestyle and became an "activist" for public education he became more and more leftist until he is now a big time Biden/Harris supporter and has gone into mourning since Trump won. We have very little contact but I still get his stupid Facebook notices in my email with another rant about evil Trump and what Trump is doing to hurt his precious students.
You should learn about proper anarchy (not the anarchy-as-chaos nonsense 'they' call it) and then have a word with your 'friend' (or whoever). If you manage it well, some people will be interested and not shut down (shut you down-- results will vary of course... makes we wonder now as I write if I should try anarchy out with someone I see who is still wearing a mask...) and sometimes ask, 'How do you know all this?'.
One guy asked me just that after a bit of a convo at a bar (it was on a block where the electricity was not already out), until a young woman, interested in him, showed up and used astrology as an ice-breaker-cum-shoe-horn. Suffice to say I eventually lost him to her and a different, more intimate seating-arrangement to boot, but not before I had a chance to get him to maybe think about what we talked about. Sometimes the seeds we plant take root, sometimes they don't. Don't sweat it. Did Johnny Appleseed sweat it? Sometimes the seedlings die, sometimes they grow into trees that produce fruit. Ok, so sometimes the trees get diseases and the fruit, worms, but that's ok. There are a lot out there. And what is life about, but life?
Get really into anarchism where you're eating, living and breathing it and where it sort of sheds off you and onto others like a virus-- a good virus, though, as in 'viral info', at least to some virus-fertile folks. A good cancer-of-the-State. Maybe in those regards, risk getting kicked out of places sometimes if you think the risk is worth it. But don't be reckless about it. Try to manage it like a bucking bronco. It's a tightrope. Let your anarchy slowly consume the State with a death of a thousand cuts in the people who begin practicing it and leaving the State to whither and die. At least for some.
Anyway, I have an idea for a 'glocal' society that takes back the land, rather like feminists used to say 'take back the night'. Will it be able to? Time will tell. Have women taken back the night? I don't know, but am unsure it's a similar sort of problem anyway.
What do you mean? I can guess, but spell it out, clearly and consisely as if I have no idea and am 10 years old. :D
I was going to respond to Disaffected with this theme, but how about with you, instead, or as well:
It's about Mom Nature and the idea of the State fucking around and finding out-- that acronym that everyone and their penguin is throwing around these days. At your age and wisdom, that's probably all I need to write, right?
Your turn. A Bailey's Irish Cream Eskimo bar is in it for you.
Can you then call yourself an "anarchist" because you don't want anyone telling you what to do? Consider that NO ONE ever wants to be told what to do if contrary to their own desires. The accepted term "anarchist" has an entirely different meaning in general use.
Can you then call all men "rapists" because of their unfettered desire?
Note: I thank you for your kind offer of a Bailey's Eskimo Cream Bar, but any other flavor than the original vanilla is an abomination before God.
Zazzy, I'll testify as a convert of yours. I too had a long-time preconceived notion of anarchy - defining it internally as chaos laden, and possibly violent and destructive.
After your patience and tutelage, I came to see it as, and define anarchy as, simply not being governed. Period. That being my new(er) understanding, I'm down, 100%.
And thanks again for that, Zazzy.
Sorry about the girl and the ice-breaker-cum-shoe-horn, it's like when they start talking astrology, I can't help myself.
Should we discourage such talk in the cafe? Dreamy will surely object, so I'll let you two co-owners hash it out.
"Sorry about the girl and the ice-breaker-cum-shoe-horn..." ~ Ron Anselmo
I was about to leave anyway, but also, in retrospect, it was probably an opportune moment: We don't want to overwater our seeds, nor do so when we're too drunk, do we?
I don't drink all that much and the oversweet dark 'Russian' beer that I said would be better poured over cereal was a bit much. Before I drank my first sip, of course I toasted to Putin.
I am fine with Astrology for those who are fine with it. Using it for ice-breaking, too, is a fair strategy for those it works for or who want it to work for them. Besides, if some wanted to read our palms as an excuse to delicately hold our hands and run their fingers all over them, who would we be to argue against our 'futures', at least at that time?
Here's my point: I needn't be governed - by anyone - I'm capable of self-governing. On a macro level where does that go, as you suggest, given human foible? You know the answer - Law of the Jungle.
Why is that always so disparaged? It works; it's the natural order. Think about it. Absent man, it has always worked just fine. We are the ones who fuck everything up. It's our hubris, not wanting to live as intended.
elysianfield seems to have an unrealistic, 'boxed' counter-ideology about human-nature that he tacks onto anarchy (or any interest in the improvement of the human condition) and that inevitably, logically leads to an impasse, a stalemate.
The point is, it cancels out. Pure mathematics. It's a rationalization to remain stuck. 'We can't do this because we can't.' It's circular reasoning.
My point is that some humans-- and it doesn't have to include those trapped and comfortable in the logic-- may be able to break out of that trap and forge a new way of being, even if as small as a village and a few members to start. That's how we get off this planet. It begins with a shift in the headspace.
That's all it takes for a new species to evolve, is to break free of the impasses. A sociocultural mutation. A different way of being, of doing, of thinking.
elysianfield, God bless his little heart, doesn't have to come with us if he doesn't want to. That's part of the beauty of anarchy. It is not mandatory, impositional, coercive.
So he is free to remain in his headspace WRT anarchy or any other interest in the improvment of the human condition, even if just one's own. Just one's own is a start. Baby steps.
Let me remind that we are a land-dwelling species. Sort of spacefaring even. We had to get past the impasse that was the land and out of the ocean. And yet here we are. We left the elysianfish, along with our fins, behind.
We have arms and legs now and bigger brains. What's next?
Oh, and as far as my unrealistic "counter ideology" about human nature? I can only salute your safe, secure and prosperous upbringing. You won the lottery, but your education of reality is necessarily uncomplete, without full emersion into the realities of human nature at it's most base level.
You, who questioned prison rape. Prison is currently the state sponsored laboratory for study of "Anarchy". Bigger brains are good but being able to press 400 pounds even better in that venue.
Rape in prison is rape in an artificial State construct. The State is rape, so what do you expect? What do you think anarchists are trying to transcend? An Amish village? Furthermore, your citing of it illustrates why in part we need to transcend the State. IOW, you're helping our argument.
The old Soviet Union was a State, which has nothing to do with anarchy.
"no, I mean the New Anarchist Man..." ~ elysianfield
No, you don't know what you mean. Different animals are different. You're likely a different breed of human. That's ok if you keep it to yourselves and don't impose it in our direction. It's not ok, otherwise. So maybe you're really talking about yourself and suggesting that you'll be part of that impasse. So be it. We've transcended tougher challenges.
Everyone going solo on their phones all day whether on social media or gaming etc. are living solitary lives. Look at the effect porn has had on relationships! Gone are the days of a sleazy laser disc that was stored high in the closet for occasional “use”!
Back in the 1950’s and 60’s when I was growing up my parents had set nights to go bowling or play cards with friends. Lots of talking went on then! (We used to listen in on the steps). Church activities pulled people together socially and lots of interactions happened there as well.
The iPhone has changed all that. You can now sit alone on a park bench and continue bingeing the latest “White Lotus”! Back in the day one or two programs might be watched in an evening on the TV plus the news.
It seems to me that TPTB want us to be isolated and easily propagandized (lied to). So far they are winning.
This feels right, like maybe "my suffering gives my life meaning" kind of thing. I don't get it, but I'm also from the "life's not fair, get over it and fight" camp. Old school, before being a victim was cool.
Mary, god I loved your comment. You said it so well and eloquently.
I think people in this country have grown accustomed to being a victim and they not only are accustomed to it but they look for it, desire it, and search out opportunities to be a victim. Why? Well, I have a theory. Wanna hear it?
Boredom.
Pure and simple. Boredom. Why? Because in our society of excess and greed we have everything and with a cancer known as credit we can do pretty much anything we want to do. Gone are the days where our hard labors were required to feed ourselves and give us shelter. Gone are the days where we worked our hands raw with blisters making clothing, growing food and providing the essentials of life. Now we have it all at our fingertips.
So, when something like covid comes along all of these bored individuals whose lives really mean nothing of any importance to anyone (including themselves), they glom onto these issues, become a victim and suddenly that becomes their "cause" and their sole reason for existing. Their life's mission.
I have a friend who is a teacher. Teaching is no longer his job, it is his life. He eats, drinks, breathes, craps and sleeps everything about teaching. Not just teaching his students in the classroom, but he is now on the NEA council, goes to conferences everywhere, lobbies legislators for more money and higher teacher pay (and more time off I am sure) and it is his mission to procure tax dollars to continue funding "educators" and the broken system they employ. It's all he cares about from sunrise to sunset. He no longer works as a "teacher" he has become an "educator" and that is his "cause" and is now his sole identity.
If we had to spend more time worrying about our next meal or keeping a roof over our heads we'd be less inclined to worry about our genitals, genders, tattoos, covid, and every other stupid cause people engage in.
CP - you're right, they're all in training for the Victim's Olympics - new events continually being added.
On teachers, yes, many more concerned with adding to their credentials, and gaining prestige, than actually teaching.
Many pursue Master's degrees and Doctorates, a la "Dr. Jill". Using the term "Educator" is the first clue that they are holier than thou.
My father is a retired Juris Doctor but never had the hubris, audacity or self-importance to go by "Dr. Anselmo". Thank goodness, just a first-generation Sicilian legal immigrant, that made everything he had, grinding it out on merit.
Generalizing on teachers - there are many great ones out there who have sacrificed greatly and influenced our lives for the better - we can all remember one or two.
I like what Real Mary Rose said above. Some teachers become activists. At that point they consider themselves more than just a teacher, but an advocate for the long term welfare and mental well being of America's youth. It's the activists that I despise.
Agree, Mary brought her "A Game", she's right on the money today.
Activist of any kind at this point they all seem very leftist in nature.
The many great ones have retired or been forced out by miserable conditions. I have 2 in my family.
Please give them my regards, my thanks and my respect - there is no more noble calling than teaching, but at the same time, no more thankless task.
Well said Cankerpuss and thank you!
It sounds like your friend is an ACTIVIST rather than a teacher. And this is not atypical! I have a friend who is not this active, but she was in education and now she goes to all the Bernie rallies and posts all sorts of idiotic crap on Facebook. They are fully indoctrinated!
I buy somewhat into your boredom theory. Let's face it, starting after WWII modern conveniences made life easier. And if we weren't bored, why do we fill up SO MUCH time with social media, TV, music, movies, etc?
I am trying to replace some of this with sports (playing, not watching). Because that gets me out in life. I don't really use any major social media platforms anymore. They are toxic.
I think it's boredom mixed with programming from said TV. It's been going on for a long time. We've become pretty malleable. Just what the people in charge want.
Nothing proves that more to me than the covid heist, critical race grifting, and the trans agenda.
It's all very crazy. It goes deeper than just boredom. However, I'll grant you it is very much about self-identifying as a victim.
Mary---I guess I am not as nice as you and Cankerpuss because if I had "friends" like you two, I would quite quickly decide to find new friends who are not bat guano crazy.
I cannot stand all the drama of these kinds of people. My wife and I have 250 acres, 25 cows, 2 horses and some large hayfields and.....we have zero time for stupid schiff and crazy people.
Good Luck.
I can't avoid 'em if I want to live in "regular" society and do stuff like work and play pickleball. But if I had my druthers, I'd have a set-up like you, as Cankerpuss says. Although I think I'd select a place in the mountains, and have big Anatolian Shepherd dogs to guard me.
Ron, you have what I dream of having. I waited too long and now land is too expensive. So, I am stuck with my 1/4 acre lot that I garden the hell out of!
This "friend" I referred to was at one time a great friend. At one time we were very similar in our views. Both of us were gun concealing conservatives. When he got into the teaching lifestyle and became an "activist" for public education he became more and more leftist until he is now a big time Biden/Harris supporter and has gone into mourning since Trump won. We have very little contact but I still get his stupid Facebook notices in my email with another rant about evil Trump and what Trump is doing to hurt his precious students.
You should learn about proper anarchy (not the anarchy-as-chaos nonsense 'they' call it) and then have a word with your 'friend' (or whoever). If you manage it well, some people will be interested and not shut down (shut you down-- results will vary of course... makes we wonder now as I write if I should try anarchy out with someone I see who is still wearing a mask...) and sometimes ask, 'How do you know all this?'.
One guy asked me just that after a bit of a convo at a bar (it was on a block where the electricity was not already out), until a young woman, interested in him, showed up and used astrology as an ice-breaker-cum-shoe-horn. Suffice to say I eventually lost him to her and a different, more intimate seating-arrangement to boot, but not before I had a chance to get him to maybe think about what we talked about. Sometimes the seeds we plant take root, sometimes they don't. Don't sweat it. Did Johnny Appleseed sweat it? Sometimes the seedlings die, sometimes they grow into trees that produce fruit. Ok, so sometimes the trees get diseases and the fruit, worms, but that's ok. There are a lot out there. And what is life about, but life?
Get really into anarchism where you're eating, living and breathing it and where it sort of sheds off you and onto others like a virus-- a good virus, though, as in 'viral info', at least to some virus-fertile folks. A good cancer-of-the-State. Maybe in those regards, risk getting kicked out of places sometimes if you think the risk is worth it. But don't be reckless about it. Try to manage it like a bucking bronco. It's a tightrope. Let your anarchy slowly consume the State with a death of a thousand cuts in the people who begin practicing it and leaving the State to whither and die. At least for some.
Anyway, I have an idea for a 'glocal' society that takes back the land, rather like feminists used to say 'take back the night'. Will it be able to? Time will tell. Have women taken back the night? I don't know, but am unsure it's a similar sort of problem anyway.
Goddamn it, Zaz,
Eating, breathing and living at the sufferance of the biggest asshole on the block.
You have no idea.
Who's the asshole? Trump?
What do you mean? I can guess, but spell it out, clearly and consisely as if I have no idea and am 10 years old. :D
I was going to respond to Disaffected with this theme, but how about with you, instead, or as well:
It's about Mom Nature and the idea of the State fucking around and finding out-- that acronym that everyone and their penguin is throwing around these days. At your age and wisdom, that's probably all I need to write, right?
Your turn. A Bailey's Irish Cream Eskimo bar is in it for you.
Zaz,
Can you then call yourself an "anarchist" because you don't want anyone telling you what to do? Consider that NO ONE ever wants to be told what to do if contrary to their own desires. The accepted term "anarchist" has an entirely different meaning in general use.
Can you then call all men "rapists" because of their unfettered desire?
Note: I thank you for your kind offer of a Bailey's Eskimo Cream Bar, but any other flavor than the original vanilla is an abomination before God.
Zazzy, I'll testify as a convert of yours. I too had a long-time preconceived notion of anarchy - defining it internally as chaos laden, and possibly violent and destructive.
After your patience and tutelage, I came to see it as, and define anarchy as, simply not being governed. Period. That being my new(er) understanding, I'm down, 100%.
And thanks again for that, Zazzy.
Sorry about the girl and the ice-breaker-cum-shoe-horn, it's like when they start talking astrology, I can't help myself.
Should we discourage such talk in the cafe? Dreamy will surely object, so I'll let you two co-owners hash it out.
"Sorry about the girl and the ice-breaker-cum-shoe-horn..." ~ Ron Anselmo
I was about to leave anyway, but also, in retrospect, it was probably an opportune moment: We don't want to overwater our seeds, nor do so when we're too drunk, do we?
I don't drink all that much and the oversweet dark 'Russian' beer that I said would be better poured over cereal was a bit much. Before I drank my first sip, of course I toasted to Putin.
I am fine with Astrology for those who are fine with it. Using it for ice-breaking, too, is a fair strategy for those it works for or who want it to work for them. Besides, if some wanted to read our palms as an excuse to delicately hold our hands and run their fingers all over them, who would we be to argue against our 'futures', at least at that time?
Ron, Jesus! Why not another fairy tale completely devoid of human foible? No more wars! No more disease! Next year Wakanda!
But that's precisely what you're saying as well-- as an inverse.
It's still as unrealistic an ideology as what you critique here. Just mirror it and take a look for yourself.
Anarchists-- not your imaginary inverted versions of them-- are all too aware that no one's perfect, but that's not the point, nor their points.
See also:
kunstler.com/p/the-great-consternation/comment/111903017
E - I always respect your opinions.
Here's my point: I needn't be governed - by anyone - I'm capable of self-governing. On a macro level where does that go, as you suggest, given human foible? You know the answer - Law of the Jungle.
Why is that always so disparaged? It works; it's the natural order. Think about it. Absent man, it has always worked just fine. We are the ones who fuck everything up. It's our hubris, not wanting to live as intended.
elysianfield seems to have an unrealistic, 'boxed' counter-ideology about human-nature that he tacks onto anarchy (or any interest in the improvement of the human condition) and that inevitably, logically leads to an impasse, a stalemate.
The point is, it cancels out. Pure mathematics. It's a rationalization to remain stuck. 'We can't do this because we can't.' It's circular reasoning.
My point is that some humans-- and it doesn't have to include those trapped and comfortable in the logic-- may be able to break out of that trap and forge a new way of being, even if as small as a village and a few members to start. That's how we get off this planet. It begins with a shift in the headspace.
That's all it takes for a new species to evolve, is to break free of the impasses. A sociocultural mutation. A different way of being, of doing, of thinking.
elysianfield, God bless his little heart, doesn't have to come with us if he doesn't want to. That's part of the beauty of anarchy. It is not mandatory, impositional, coercive.
So he is free to remain in his headspace WRT anarchy or any other interest in the improvment of the human condition, even if just one's own. Just one's own is a start. Baby steps.
Let me remind that we are a land-dwelling species. Sort of spacefaring even. We had to get past the impasse that was the land and out of the ocean. And yet here we are. We left the elysianfish, along with our fins, behind.
We have arms and legs now and bigger brains. What's next?
Oh, and as far as my unrealistic "counter ideology" about human nature? I can only salute your safe, secure and prosperous upbringing. You won the lottery, but your education of reality is necessarily uncomplete, without full emersion into the realities of human nature at it's most base level.
You, who questioned prison rape. Prison is currently the state sponsored laboratory for study of "Anarchy". Bigger brains are good but being able to press 400 pounds even better in that venue.
Human nature, like all nature, changes over time.
Rape in prison is rape in an artificial State construct. The State is rape, so what do you expect? What do you think anarchists are trying to transcend? An Amish village? Furthermore, your citing of it illustrates why in part we need to transcend the State. IOW, you're helping our argument.
What next? The evolution of the New Soviet Man, no, I mean the New Anarchist Man, who transcends human nature and builds the next Utopia.
"That's all it takes for a new species to evolve, is to break free of the impasses"
Next year, Wakanda!
The old Soviet Union was a State, which has nothing to do with anarchy.
"no, I mean the New Anarchist Man..." ~ elysianfield
No, you don't know what you mean. Different animals are different. You're likely a different breed of human. That's ok if you keep it to yourselves and don't impose it in our direction. It's not ok, otherwise. So maybe you're really talking about yourself and suggesting that you'll be part of that impasse. So be it. We've transcended tougher challenges.
Everyone going solo on their phones all day whether on social media or gaming etc. are living solitary lives. Look at the effect porn has had on relationships! Gone are the days of a sleazy laser disc that was stored high in the closet for occasional “use”!
Back in the 1950’s and 60’s when I was growing up my parents had set nights to go bowling or play cards with friends. Lots of talking went on then! (We used to listen in on the steps). Church activities pulled people together socially and lots of interactions happened there as well.
The iPhone has changed all that. You can now sit alone on a park bench and continue bingeing the latest “White Lotus”! Back in the day one or two programs might be watched in an evening on the TV plus the news.
It seems to me that TPTB want us to be isolated and easily propagandized (lied to). So far they are winning.
This feels right, like maybe "my suffering gives my life meaning" kind of thing. I don't get it, but I'm also from the "life's not fair, get over it and fight" camp. Old school, before being a victim was cool.