Forum Post: The Personal and The Political: A brief Manifesto for a Beautiful World, through a Revolution of Everyday Living for USA's 99%..
Posted 6 years ago on Feb. 11, 2018, 1:34 a.m. EST by ImNotMe
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It is the very ethos of American society that has to change. I agree with you. It is a very tall order and sometimes, I think, not very possible. But if we really think it is not possible - we wouldn't be here talking about it, right?
A long program of Neoliberalism, Capitalism, Consumerism, Advertising, brain washing, etc., has got us to this place. Love of stuff. Love of winning, as you say. And all so that the rich can get richer while the wannabe masses drool in admiration. It's just sickening.
I watched the Olympics last night, you know the bit when the teams march into the stadium and honestly, I felt embarrassed for how arrogant the Americans seemed. No humility.
We have to teach manners, humility, morals, tolerance, generosity, philosophy, poetry even and from an early age, so that people learn that life is not just about how much stuff you can acquire, it is about something much deeper.
We can actually create a society where people care about one another rather than constantly competing with one another. This is NOT the goal of the Oligarchy however, and yes .. at the moment they seem to be winning. "Seem to" being the critical words because ... is it actually sustainable? Life expectancy in USA is falling & suicides and drug use are up. Why? Because the psychological poison that the masses have been fed, is finally starting to kill them!
I have to believe in better and that the revolution is around the corner....
From a reply comment by bw to elf here: http://occupywallst.org/forum/for-those-of-the-99-truly-serious-about-non-violen/#comment-1075033 .... where the replies had reached the 15 comment limit of the mini-thread. Re.''Neoliberalism'' - please consider the following links:
Dr. Michael Hudson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH8FWrbzxEs and also see ..
Dr. Michael Watson:"History of Neoliberal Economics" https://youtu.be/iZzH8xxCzR0 +
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/35692-neoliberalism-the-ideology-at-the-root-of-all-our-problems by George Monbiot.
Finally, note: https://berniesanders.com/issues/ and https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/
per aspera ad astra ...
Happy birthday, Occupy Wall Street!
9 years ago Occupy woke up class consciousness in America. Yes, we're 9 years out and we have a fascist govt but more people are woke than ever before.
DSA membership is climbing. Bernie Sanders was an actual democratic socialist candidate who nearly did (probably would have without DNC corruption) win the nomination. The Fight for Fifteen, Black Lives Matter, the Sunrise Movement and many more all fight in the spirit of what Occupy was all about. Americans have not been this politically charged for social and economic change since the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's.
So, these are extraordinary times and success comes when you don't give up and you wait it out. Momentous change takes time. The French Revolution took several decades.
And, Covid 19 stimulus has shown that the money IS there to help the people, the establishment just doesn't want to do it. People are on to this now.
So, forge on, fight on. It's worth it. Never give up!
For #S17 by DG: "Our society is addicted to work. If there’s anything left and right both seem to agree on, it’s that jobs are good. Everyone should have a job. Work is our badge of moral citizenship. We seem to have convinced ourselves as a society that anyone who isn’t working harder than they would like to be working, at something they don’t enjoy, is a bad, unworthy person. As a result, work comes to absorb ever greater proportions of our energy and time.
"Much of this work is entirely pointless. Whole industries (think telemarketers, corporate law, private equity) whole lines of work (middle management, brand strategists, high-level hospital or school administrators, editors of in-house corporate magazines) exist primarily to convince us there is some reason for their existence. Useless work crowds out useful (think of teachers and administrators overwhelmed with paperwork); it’s also almost invariably better compensated. As we’ve seen in lockdown, the more obviously your work benefits other people, the less they pay you.
"The system makes no sense. It’s also destroying the planet. If we don’t break ourselves of this addiction quickly we will leave our children and grandchildren to face catastrophes on a scale which will make the current pandemic seem trivial." - from ...
https://www.bigissue.com/latest/environment/david-graeber-to-save-the-world-were-going-to-have-to-stop-working/ and also please consider these links:
https://www.dsausa.org/ + https://twitter.com/DemSocialists
fiat lux ...
"The Banners of the King of Hell Advance"! by Edward Curtin:
Which ends with: "It is no laughing matter. If we want to get through this hell we are traversing, we had better clearly recognize those who are carrying the "Banner of the King of Hell". Identify them and stop their advance. It is a Real Spiritual War we are engaged in .. and we either fight for God or the devil"!!!
Deus Vult?
"The spiritual and artistic imagination that transcends materialist, machine thinking is needed now more than ever. We emphatically need to realize that the subject precedes the object and consciousness the scientific method. Only by realizing this will we be able to break free from the trap that is propaganda and digital simulacra, whose modi operandi are to dissolve the differences between truth and falsity, the imaginary and the real, facts and fiction, good and evil. To play satanic circle games, create double-binds, whose intent and result is to imprison and confuse."
"In his classic work, Propaganda, Jacques Ellul writes that “An analysis of propaganda therefore shows that it succeeds primarily because it corresponds exactly to a need of the masses…just two aspects of this: the need for explanation and the need for values, which both spring largely, but not entirely, from the promulgation of news.”
"Professor Mattias Desmet, a clinical psychology professor at the University of Ghent in Belgium, has some interesting thoughts about it, but they don’t necessarily lead to happy conclusions. I think he is correct in saying that for decades there has been a situation brewing that is the perfect soil for mass formation with a hypnotized public embracing a new totalitarianism, one that has now been made real through COVID 19 with the lockdowns and loss of liberties as we descend with Dante to the lowest depths of the Inferno.
"These background developments are the breakdown of social bonds, the loss of meaning making, its accompanying free-floating anxiety, and the absence of ways to relieve that anxiety short of aggression."
"These conditions didn’t just “happen” but were created by multiple power elite actors with long range plans. If that sounds conspiratorial, that’s because it is. That’s what the powerful do. They conspire to achieve their goals."
The quotes are taken from Ed Curtin's "The Banners of the King of Hell Advance"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56808.htm
And therein lies the problem that needs a solution. How do we overcome the power of the elites?
Note: "America is not an absolutism in the same sense that Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia were. And yet, the extraordinary degree of control its Ruling Elite has established - and maintained, over the generality of the people is arguably greater because, as Orwell predicted - instead of being instilled by violence it has been inculcated by the perverted science of mental and psychological conditioning.
USA's "Ruling Capitalists developed a method of mind control light years ahead of the bludgeon, pistol, and dogs terror of the past. The rudimentary work of Goebbels was greatly refined by Edward Bernays, nephew of Freud, in the 1920s. He saw the mass of humans as irrational and stupid, and asserted that manipulation of their herd mind would enable precise control of their beliefs and behavior.
Later - "Walter Lippmann summarized his idea, saying ... “Their prejudices, notions, and convictions are used as a starting point, with the result that they are drawn into passionate adherence to a given mental picture.”What Edward Bernays achieved in his work, Chomsky later fully elaborated in his epochal study, “Manufacturing Consent”.
"The prejudices and convictions of the vast majority of ordinary, poorly educated Americans were clear and unequivocal, and not different in any significant way .. from people around the world. The principle thing was to play to their battered, damaged egos to make them esteem themselves better than lesser breeds, and therefore to revere the power elite that molds and controls them.
"In the insecurity of human life in which the alien and unknown seem mortally threatening, the same prejudices obtain: fear of the other, of his race, color, religion, force. These are deeply imbedded in human nature, along with a primal fear of the mystery and power of woman that men have smothered with patriarchy.
"Playing on these fears,the Capitalist Power Elite in America has kept the people in a continuing state of anxiety, exacerbating their racism, sexism, jingoism, and cultural and political hatreds, while constantly dosing them with triumphant assurances of their own moral superiority and incomparable grandeur. This tactic of praising the victim is not new. Nazis told Germans they were the Herrenvolk: the Master Race; our rulers tell us that we are the Exceptional Nation. What real difference is there between “USA, we’re Number One!” and “Deutschland Uber Alles”?" - excerpted from:
"Good Americans" by Paul Edwards http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56810.htm +NB
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/11/04/us-moral-superiority-complex-is-accelerating-its-decline/ by Laura Ruggeri
et veritas vos liberabit?
"Playing on these fears,the Capitalist Power Elite in America has kept the people in a continuing state of anxiety, exacerbating their racism, sexism, jingoism, and cultural and political hatreds, while constantly dosing them with triumphant assurances of their own moral superiority and incomparable grandeur. This tactic of praising the victim is not new. Nazis told Germans they were the Herrenvolk: the Master Race; our rulers tell us that we are the Exceptional Nation. What real difference is there between “USA, we’re Number One!” and “Deutschland Uber Alles”?"
Holy moly. That pretty much says it like it is.
The way the "capitalist power elite" have managed to turn Americans, who should have solidarity with each other (i.e. working people), against one another is unbelievably frightening really.
Because if these people continue turning on their own social class in defense of a social class they wish they were in (the elites), they will continue to fight against their own interests and hence, the interests of the majority of people in America and the quality of life in this country will continue it's descent.
Consider - "Economist Prof. Michael Hudson explains the inflation crisis and the US Federal Reserve’s “austerity program to reduce wages.” Western so-called economics experts are openly calling to boost unemployment.
"Dr.Hudson warns a “long depression” is coming, in which the poor will suffer so the rich can get richer, in order to advance Washington’s new cold war on Russia and China." - from:
"Inflation and the Fed Plan to Cut Wages: A Depression Is Coming"! - by Michael Hudson, with Benjamin Norton: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57109.htm (with full transcript)
And An Alternate Video Link: https://youtu.be/-AJwMvCxwm0 (95m)
I can NOT encourage any and all readers here to avail themselves of these^links enough - the insights are deep, serious, insightful and a salutary warning! The first link is also redolent with references to Dr. Hudson's other works over the decades and so please explore, listen, read and watch; it'll reward your time and effort - guaranteed! This is a dot-joining analysis, that is second to none I have read or heard for a very long time!
et fiat lux!
Higher unemployment leads to lower wages leads to decreasing inflation. This is standard economics taught in our universities but it's not true. It's created.
That the fed is trying to make this happen (increase unemployment) is one of the main points of this interview with Michael Hudson. This is evil stuff. Being unemployed causes stress, anguish, heartache and sometimes suicide.
A long time ago in a Labor economics class, I figured out the professor's thesis, the whole point of his class, and it was to tell us (the economics students) that 5% unemployment is essentially full employment. The reason for this (which they don't tell you, they just want you to absorb this information blindly) is to keep the worker down, keep him/her powerless.
Because, let's face it, the more job openings there are, the more power the worker has to demand a higher wage.
Capitalist governments always want there to be as few job openings as possible, hence unemployment, in order to keep the worker weak and his wages down.
That is only one part of that very in depth article/interview. There is a lot more about imperialism and oppression of the U.S. dollar around the world, war, banking, and all of the connections or dot-joining, as you say. Great piece!
Also by Prof Dr. Michael Hudson:
from which NB: "Instead of the West’s privatization of basic economic infrastructure to create private fortunes through monopoly rent extraction, China keeps this infrastructure, in public hands. Its great advantage over 'The West' is that it treats money and credit as a public utility, to be allocated by government instead of letting private banks create credit, with debt mounting up without expanding production to raise living standards. China also is keeping health and education, transportation and communications in public hands, to be provided as basic human rights.
"China’s socialist policy is in many ways a return to basic ideas of resilience that characterized most civilization before classical Greece and Rome. It has created a state strong enough to resist the emergence of a financial oligarchy gaining control of the land and rent-yielding assets. In contrast, today’s Western economies are repeating precisely that oligarchic drive that polarized and destroyed the economies of classical Greece and Rome, with the United States serving as the modern analogue for Rome."
et fiat lux!
"What distinguishes Western economies from earlier Near Eastern and most Asian societies is the absence of debt relief to restore economy-wide balance. Every Western nation has inherited from Rome the pro-creditor sanctity of debt principles that prioritize the claims of creditors and legitimize the permanent transfer to creditors of the property of defaulting debtors. From ancient Rome to Habsburg Spain, imperial Britain and the United States, Western oligarchies have appropriated the income and land of debtors, while shifting taxes off themselves onto labor and industry. This has caused domestic austerity and led oligarchies to seek prosperity through foreign conquest, to gain from foreigners what is not being produced by domestic economies driven into debt and subject to pro-creditor legal principles transferring land and other property to a rentier class."
OMG, that quote from Hudson says it all.
"American Diplomacy As A Tragic Drama" also by Prof. Dr. Michael Hudson:
WHICH STARTS WITH: "As in a Greek tragedy whose protagonist brings about precisely the fate that he has sought to avoid, the US/NATO confrontation with Russia in Ukraine is achieving just the opposite of America’s aim of preventing China, Russia and their allies from acting independently of U.S. control over their trade and investment policy. Naming China as America’s main long-term adversary, the Biden Administration’s plan was to split Russia away from China and then cripple China’s own military and economic viability. But the effect of American diplomacy has been to drive Russia and China together, joining with Iran, India and other allies. For the first time since the Bandung Conference of Non-Aligned Nations in 1955, a critical mass is able to be mutually self-sufficient to start the process of achieving independence from Dollar Diplomacy.
"Confronted with China’s industrial prosperity based on self-financed public investment in socialized markets, U.S. officials acknowledge that resolving this fight will take a number of decades to play out. Arming a proxy Ukrainian regime is merely an opening move in turning Cold War 2 (and potentially/or indeed World War III) into a fight to divide the world into allies and enemies with regard to whether governments or the financial sector will plan the world economy and society.
"What is euphemized as U.S.-style democracy is a financial oligarchy privatizing basic infrastructure, health and education. The alternative is what President Biden calls autocracy, a hostile label for governments strong enough to block a global rent-seeking oligarchy from taking control. China is deemed autocratic for providing basic needs at subsidized prices instead of charging whatever the market can bear. Making its mixed economy lower-cost is called “market manipulation,” as if that is a bad thing that was not done by the United States, Germany and every other industrial nation during their economic takeoff in the 19th and early 20th century."
AND ENDS WITH: "How then can the United States maintain its world dominance? It has deindustrialized and run up foreign official debt far beyond any foreseeable way to be paid. Meanwhile, its banks and bondholders are demanding that the Global South and other countries pay foreign dollar bondholders in the face of their own trade crisis resulting from the soaring energy and food prices caused by America’s anti-Russian and anti-China belligerence. This double standard is a basic internal contradiction that goes to the core of today’s Neoliberal Western worldview."
This ^ is arguably perhaps the most important article that I've posted here for years! Please try to read it and then also try to carefully consider the following, by C.J. Polychroniou in conversation with Chomsky:
"21st-Century US Foreign Policy Is Shaped by Fears of China’s Rise, Chomsky Says"! https://truthout.org/articles/21st-century-us-foreign-policy-is-shaped-by-fears-of-chinas-rise-chomsky-says/ - and also consider:
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/08/03/al-qaeda-chief-killing-does-not-make-us-safer/ by Phyllis Bennis
fiat lux et spero meliora!
"Michael Hudson: A New Bipolar World - US finance capitalism vs. China's mixed public/ private economy"!
Note: "The world is dividing into two parts; a high-cost US & NATO-centered world of finance capitalism that has become post-industrial and debt burdened, and a China- and Russia-centered Eurasian mixed economy - in which the basic infrastructure is provided as a public service at subsidized prices or freely, in which the monetary and financial systems .. are a public utility, aimed at providing credit for the “real” economy instead of loading down real estate and existing assets with debt."
Prof.Michael Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a former Wall Street Financial Analyst,Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He's the author of ... 'Super-Imperialism - The Economic Strategy of American Empire' (Editions 1968, 2003, 2021) and"And forgive them their debts" (2018), 'J is for Junk Economics' (2017), 'Killing the Host' (2015) 'The Bubble and Beyond'(2012) 'Trade, Development and Foreign Debt' (1992 & 2009) and of 'The Myth of Aid' (1971) .. amongst many others. He acts as an economic advisor to governments worldwide including China, Iceland and Latvia on finance and tax law.
MULTUM in parvo!
"The End of Western Civilization", by Michael Hudson
https://michael-hudson.com/2022/07/the-end-of-western-civilization/?fbclid=IwAR1cXxXuqshKR99S07z4Vi0gtJ3_gRgygMieA7AoU4RMJLwuXUHG_4OgzY0
"The problem is that Western democracies have not proved adept at preventing oligarchies from emerging and polarizing the distribution of income and wealth. Ever since Rome, oligarchic “democracies” have not protected their citizens from creditors seeking to appropriate land, its rental yield and the public domain for themselves.
If we ask just who today is enacting and enforcing policies that seek to check oligarchy in order to protect the livelihood of citizens, the answer is that this is done by socialist states. Only a strong state has the power to check a financial and rent-seeking oligarchy. The Chinese embassy in America demonstrated this in its reply to President Biden’s description of China as an autocracy:
Clinging to a Cold War mentality and the hegemon’s logic, the US pursues bloc politics, concocts the “democracy versus authoritarianism” narrative … and ramps up bilateral military alliances, in a clear attempt at countering China."
"This subjugation is depicted by mainstream economists as a law of nature and hence as an inevitable form of equilibrium, in which each nation’s economy receives “what it is worth.” Today’s mainstream economic models are based on the unrealistic assumption that all debts can be paid, without polarizing income and wealth. All economic problems are assumed to be self-curing by “the magic of the marketplace,” without any need for civic authority to intervene. Government regulation is deemed inefficient and ineffective, and hence unnecessary. That leaves creditors, land-grabbers and privatizers with a free hand to deprive others of their freedom. This is depicted as the ultimate destiny of today’s globalization, and of history itself."
Are things getting better? Robert Reich says, yes, if we keep up the fight.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2023/jan/01/things-are-getting-better-keep-fighting-2023
"But this is no time for complacency. No one should assume that the battle has been won.
The anti-democracy movement is still fulminating. Trump is still dangerous. Corporate malfeasance continues. The climate catastrophe is worsening. Inequality is widening. Reproductive rights have been dealt a major setback. The haters and bigots have not retreated.
These regressive forces have many weapons at their disposal – lobbyists, money to bribe lawmakers, giant media megaphones, the most rightwing US supreme court since the 1930s, a Republican party that has lost all moral bearings and, starting soon, a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
But their most powerful weapon is cynicism. They’re betting that if they can get most of us to feel like we can’t make a difference, we’ll stop fighting. Then they can declare total victory.
We must keep up the fight."
"Markets and Technology Won’t Solve Climate Crisis - We Must End C(r)apitalism"! - by Eve Ottenberg:
"It’s the accumulation of capital that’s destroying the Earth System as a place of human habitability."
et veritas vos liberabit!
"Have you noticed a New Train Derailment story every day this year?!!!
"It is not just you!! There are 1700 train derailments Every Year in the U$A &
"the rate of train accidents - Has Risen 27% over the last 10 years & this is a
safety crisis! https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS investigated what’s behind it:"
https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1638652981422981120 [6.38m vid]
e tenebris lux?!
Re. East Palestine "'Get Our Grandkids Out!' East Palestine Residents Erupt at Norfolk Southern Meeting"!!
"Every day that this community doesn't have relocation options," said local organizers .. "is another day this community is in crisis"!!!
fiat lux et fiat justitia ...
Prof. R. D. Wolff & Nomi Prins: "On the Distorted US Financial System"!!!
And please consider this "How Elon Musk got rich - the $230 Billion myth"!
The Chris Hedges Report: 'How To Defeat The Billionaire Class!' [35 mins]
78 total minutes of essential analysis - that'll never appear on MSM in the U$A!
radix omnia malorum - est cupiditas!
"AOC Says GOP Energy Bill May as Well Have Been Written Entirely by Big Oil"! [Sharon Zhang]
"The sweeping bill amounts to a 'trickle down fantasy' to hand profits to fossil fuel companies, she said."
caveat emptor!
My hope for 2023 is that more Greta Thunbergs' take down more Andrew Tates'.
"Greta Thunberg ends year with one of the greatest tweets in history" Rebecca Solnit
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/31/greta-thunberg-andrew-tate-tweet
May the good prevail in 2023! Happy New Year!
Humanity can kill itself OR, it can learn to survive!!! + Further consider:
Which ends "Understand, love, heal ... these are not simple words. Will we
ever learn what they mean? Will we ever give them a budget?"!! (Sad sigh)
et veritas vos liberabit!
Closely consider that:"The CIA was founded in the wake of the 1947 National Security Act.The Act foresaw no need for the Courts and Congress to oversee a simple information-aggregation facility, and therefore subordinated it exclusively to the President,through the National Security Council he controls.
Ergo: "Within a year, the young agency had already slipped the leash of its intended role of intelligence collection and analysis to establish a covert operations division. Within a decade, the CIA was directing the coverage of American news organizations - while overthrowing democratically elected governments (at times, merely to benefit a favored corporation), establishing propaganda outfits to manipulate public sentiment - launching the long-running series of mind-control experiments on unwitting human subjects (purportedly contributing to the creation of the Unabomber), &—gasp—interfering with foreign elections. From there, it was a short hop to wiretapping journalists and compiling files on Americans who opposed its wars.
And "In 1963,no less than former President Harry Truman confessed that the very agency he personally signed into law had transformed into something altogether different than he intended,writing “For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times, a policy-making arm of the US Government. This has led to trouble…” - FROM:
et veritas vos liberabit!
"the US/NATO confrontation with Russia in Ukraine is achieving just the opposite of America’s aim of preventing China, Russia and their allies from acting independently of U.S. control over their trade and investment policy.
"Confronted with China’s industrial prosperity based on self-financed public investment in socialized markets, U.S. officials acknowledge that resolving this fight will take a number of decades to play out. Arming a proxy Ukrainian regime is merely an opening move in turning Cold War 2 (and potentially/or indeed World War III) into a fight to divide the world into allies and enemies with regard to whether governments or the financial sector will plan the world economy and society.
Is dividing the world into allies and enemies America's aim or not by supporting Ukraine? Is the opening move to support Ukraine an act of "America?" If yes, there is a contradiction built into the excerpts. Out of a contradiction, every conclusion becomes logically possible. That's actually the genius of Socialism in service of the "people." They serve to massage the teeny weeny Igor of the gremlin in a kremlin and the sniffing shoving snout of the char siu Shit-pig.
You do know that "America" isn't a monolith, unlike the Red Pretenders to be monoliths, don't you?
I am America and are you America?
Socialism as a viable form of economy has been dead for decades already. Only the diehard Red Pretenders who had utterly failed still pretended that Socialism held any promise. There are a few de facto failed "Socialist" states around to illustrate this, fortunately for the teaching of posterity, as museum pieces. At the top of the Z-list is the failed state of North Korea which lies at the nexus of the formerly Big Two so-called socialist states of Red China and the Soviet Union. Now both of these have already abandoned Socialism for decades and turned into Party-Fascist states with parasites of the people holding power topside. Both have become much-despised-by-Mao-who-did-die-in-1976 Revisionist: utterly failed economic Socialism by now "with [de facto market-economic] characteristics."
Freedom attracts people: the densest populated part of Hong Kong and probably in the World during the time when it existed was Kowloon City, a Ching/Qing garrison-barrack exclave free-from-multiple-authorities but the homegrown freed-from-Big-X-laws one, despite an airplane roaring overhead to land every few minutes. It was very shocking and surreal there but people could just walk [freely in and] out of that bizarre neighborhood anytime. It was known as the "three-don't-govern-here" 「三不管」 neighborhood (no British jurisdiction, no Hong Kong Government's, no Mainland China's, no Nationalist China's, and no Ching/Qing dynasty's governance). Why do people even live there? With its extremely narrow hallways, wires strung every which way, and extremely cramped living spaces but they could do what they wanted by being there. My Mom and I went there to buy the freshest live-killed chicken sacrifice to offer to my spiritual godfather (who was actually vegetarian ! my Mom was just so ignorant but she certainly had [redeeming] Faith, and fervor with an attitude and air, when my Big Brother confronted her with her three mistaken notions about my spiritual godfather and the other male-to-female transgendered "big-foot auntie" 「大腳娘姨」deity of Mercy also revered and worshiped in his temple, together with Confucius who I suppose must be a carnivore because the other two deities were vegetarians and there were certainly many kinds of meat being brought in and offered as thankful sacrifices in the temple by the devotees -- my Mom couldn't afford to offer a roasted suckling piglet or the dorsal half of an adult pig but even cooled-down aroma-already-consumed-by-deities roasted pork cutlets, salty-water-boiled shrimp, steamed crabs to be eaten after dipping their meat in vinegar-sugar-ginger soy sauce, and whole shiitake mushrooms fried with gluten, soaked wood fungus in sugary soy/soya sauce were delicious treats to me as I don't mind sharing the hot aromas with the deities; I asked Mom why we didn't just eat these delicious foods while they were warm and aromatic without having to wait so long for the rituals to be finished; she said that the aromas rising up to the gods and the rituals were the real purpose of the worship, not our gourmet gorging of the foods.)
The only way for North Korea to escape this quicksand it's in to fool the World yet again is to adopt "Socialism with [failed-but-no-doubt-blessed-by-Mao's-clitoris] North Korean characteristics" by emulating Russia's "Victory Parade of 'advanced'[literally? to be near the targeted destination? Kyiv] Russian armored vehicles in Kyiv, with Russian characteristics." Missing from the Victory Day parade in Moscow, they have finally reached the heart of Kyiv, by the arduous labor of Little Brother Ukraine !
In Christianity, there's no such thing as "half-baptized" ( cf. Achilles' near-complete baptism in the River of death Styx ) conferring protection but there is indeed baptism by many other means: I got two but I got the message and wised up with the third [sacred] version. Why am I talking about Christianity? North Korea's avowed enemy is the U.S.A. which is predominantly Christian, a powerful country founded on a multi-sectarian Christian foundation. Ending hostilities and reconciling with enemies require understanding "where they are coming from" and taking enemies-appropriate actions. Beware of 「当权的土包子」 "power-mud-dumplings."
Militaristic Imperial Japan understood what it meant to surrender and Douglas MacArthur certainly became a Nipponophile, together with my Dad who was also in Greater Yokohama/( my Dad definitely visited Kamakura but didn't say much aside from the tourist-brochure-like explanation when I asked him about the faded hand-colored black-and-white photograph of him standing in front of the Great Bronze Buddha statue of Japan but I now understand why he was reticent about his experience in Japan; an inquisitive child like me is feared because I may very well have asked, "Dad, Who took this photograph of you, Mom ? What were you doing in Japan ? Why were you on the aircraft carrier ?" my Mom, who had at times harped about "the Japanese little waifu" 「日本小老婆」 never visited Japan until after he had given away that beautiful Japanese doll to the neighbor who witnessed his officiated marriage with my Mom, together with their adult son, my Big Brother, witnessing the ceremony and signing as the second witness, as demanded by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service for a proof of my Mom's marriage with my Dad ) Occupied Japan during those very difficult teetering near starvation lean postwar years, rebuilding Japan.
I understand why my Dad would marry a Japanese wife after the [in-joke] "Communists" of China had accused him of being a spy for the Americans during the post-WWII reignited Chinese Civil War. Whom would or could he turn to? His WWII friends ( largely Chinese and yes, Americans, too, who were allies in the war against Japan, dating to pre-Pearl-Harbor attack when Hitler chose Imperial Japan over Nationalist China to partner for his world conquest project, most likely in a quest to make Russia fight the world's largest-separated-distance two-front land war: in eastern Europe and northeastern Asia simultaneously, ) and his wartime fairy/guardian angel whose boss, knowing what my Grandpa did for founding their company in the Orient, tasked the Japanese woman to protect my Grandpa's son, my Dad, in China during its occupation by Imperial Japan. It took a Japanese "waifu" to help out for a former captive in a German POW camp and prisoner of Apartheid South Africa ( i.e. my Dad, the global oceanic pinball, who had "seized the opportunity" to take up the slack in the British Merchant Navy { whose original workers had been moved to join the war effort, } probably as a coal heaver, to escape the Second Sino-Japanese War raging in his homeland; he no longer worked for the coastal East-China shipping line but would see deep blue oceans, get torpedoed by U-boat for shipping American coal to Britain, nearly end up as food for sharks, but wind up in a North-German POW camp instead, try to get out of the European theater of war in the Atlantic { probably as advised by the Abwehr which knew that Hitler would imminently choose partners such as the British, Americans, Nationalist Chinese, and/or Japanese, in his upcoming major offensives in Europe, Africa, and hoping to open up a northeastern Asian front to tie U.S.S.R. up in a transcontinental land war on two fronts, } and run into trouble with Apartheid -- Duh, it's World War II !!! There's no place to run to but his Dad's memorial legacy ) to survive a Japanese occupation and be rehabilitated.
Yes, my Grandpa saved his youngest child (all others died), likely "the designated survivor," with his deeds' influence "reaching out from his grave." People do die but their values can indeed live on beyond death. That's why we the warriors belonging to ancient warrior clans can face overwhelming odds and still charge ahead to fight for the right cause. Right is Might, not the idiots' "Might is Right."
The U.N. General Assembly votes with regard to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and Russian Federation's being on the U.N. Council on Human Rights were the most united condemnations ever cast: 142 countries to 0 and 141 countries to 0. Despite Russia's stature as a founding member of the U.N. and veto-wielding permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, No country was supporting Russia's "cause" to change state boundaries by force and commit war crimes against civilians (especially outrageous against Little Brother Ukraine's civilians).
Would you like to edit or maybe remove, anything from your extended reactionary brainfart of 7 paragraphs of 3, 5, 5, 1, 1, 3 & 4 lines - before I comprehensively demolish it & hand you your RW ass to wear, as a well deserved ass-hat?!!!
It is predictably just like an immature, imbecilic, binary brained, RW retard ... to try to critique Socialism from the purview of North Korea -- lol!!
However - I wholly agree that The U$A is at the other end of any spectrum you may wish to try to opine and brainfart upon at any great length!
& try to note: https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/capitalism-abandon-secular-religion-markets/ - by Richard D. Wolff and ...
further read & meditate upon https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism - by A.Einstein
and note: https://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/01/how-swedes-and-norwegians-broke-the-power-of-the-1-percent/ -- by George Lakey
multum in parvo - et veritas vos libarabit ...
Predictably, the RW ass-hat has YET AGAIN - disingenuously spewed some extra added putrid, RW horse manure on his previous reactionary crap - instead of replying like a man, or even just a rational human! I don't ever read your retarded crap, dickhead and the wealth of information in this link below, will suffice as comprehensive reply to your rancid RW, Establishment Ass Kissing Puke!
http://occupywallst.org/forum/in-defence-of-the-broad-church-of-socialism-from-t/
Also go consider this gripes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logorrhea_(psychology)
per ardua - ad iudicium!
Re."Socialism" or anything else, the truth is that the unreadable, reactionary, rancid twaddle won't stop, eg see below from gripes & so as these fights have been fought before, then the replies need not be too long, as the points still remain tenable, despite any length of time elapsed! Eg.please try to consider this:
It looks like TPT have 'got to' the ICH, however IF you copy & paste the article & author into your search engine, then you will find them on other sites, where ICH Archive's "404 Error" may not then be a factor!
respice; adspice; prospice - et spero meliora!
I prescribe indirectly eating much horse manure and chicken feathers for improving health and wealth.
Horse manure is rich in minerals gathered by the browsing horses. Once they have been grown into delicious mushrooms, they are gourmet, protein-, minerals-, and nutrient-rich. Mushrooms are excellent for health and wealth. Of course, we require tons of horse manure to make them en masse. Well, here's a basic reason why the U.S. is so rich. We indirectly eat horse manure and may even get mind-power-boosting psychedelic medication from mushrooms.
Similarly, I indirectly eat chicken feathers because they are protein rich and can be processed to make chicken feed and I eat chicken. Here's another reason why the U.S. is so rich. What is otherwise garbage is made into food in the form of chicken meat. Do you get why I actually got fed up in my youth with "chicken at every meal?" It was so damned literal ! And just as my Dad had promised... to entice me to join him emigrating to America. I did learn from this experience the virtue of exercising moderation: be careful and think about what one wishes for while being in a particular situation which tends to bias one inordinately to change abruptly to its opposite extreme. King Midas got his golden touch alright but regretted it.
When you realize that a dickhead is highly sensitive to feelings and humans are upside-down relative to plants ( human reproductive openings are down-under instead of up-high as plants' flowers are -- there's much evidence and biochemical pathway showing that men do think with the tiny seedy brains in our crotches,) you will appreciate the beauty of the macho-thinking dickhead.
“Winter is coming, and it will be hard, and what we see now is a grinding war of attrition. This is a battle of wills, and a battle of logistics. Therefore we must sustain our support for Ukraine for the long term, so that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation,” Stoltenberg said, speaking at a virtual conference about Crimea, organized by Ukraine.
NATO doesn't want to risk a direct confrontation with Russia and Russia isn't in any way, shape, or form of being able to conquer Ukraine so it's obvious right from the start that the conflict will become a war of attrition. NATO doesn't want to decisively win this war so Russia keeps on pushing futilely, hoping that NATO's military support of Ukraine will crumble as the West loses its resolve to withstand Russia's economic assault. Z-targeted List may well be: Chechnya, Syria, Georgia, Crimea, Donbas, Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia, Belarus, Romania, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Germany, France, Britain...
Euro-renewable energy is a not-so-in joke after all. It's just too bad that Germany didn't get Angela Merkel as yet another German director onto the governing board of Gazprom to lobby for Germany so that the cheap Russian natural gas would keep on coming full-bore, cheaply, from a dickhead.
Having overruled U.S. objections to Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Merkel wasn't cozying up with Moscow anymore, I hope, so cold cold winter is indeed coming, actually regardless of how servile Germany gets in begging Russia.
At least for now, we haven't got Huawei's cheap 5G equipment tapping the West's intelligence spinal cord yet. Unlike we the genuine Americans, the Europeans are so prone to selling out their [hard-and-bloodily-won] freedom for cheap Red things. Multi-generational postwar peace in Europe made it psychologically "soft" for invasions from its East.
YES "The way the 'Capitalist Power Elite' have managed to turn Americans, who should have solidarity with each other (i.e. working people), against one another is unbelievably frightening really.
"Because if, these people continue turning on their own social class in defense of a social class ... they wish they were in (the elites) ... they will continue to - fight against their own interests and hence ... the interests of the majority of people in America ... and the quality of life in this country ... will continue it's descent." = PERFECTLY analysed, put and excerpted bw & so here's a case in point,in current topical confirmation:
mind too boggled for latin!
Elon Musk to Bernie Sanders, "‘I keep forgetting you’re still alive."
What a guy!
Imagine saying that to someone over 80 and thinking you would get away with that. And why? Because that over 80 person wants you to PAY TAX.
What a piece of garbage. I personally, will never buy anything from any of Elon Musk's companies.
I don't know about you all, but I'm friggin' sick and tired of living in a country where the wealthy run around amassing more and more wealth while the masses who create that wealth pay all the taxes on the pittance incomes they receive. I'm also sick of all the people who lionize people like Elon Musk. Wake up and quit defending the interests of a social class you'll never get near. Defend your own interests!
It's time for a revolution where we TAX THE RICH the way we did 50 years ago! Taxes are the peaceful way to redistribute income, history tells us that.
https://taxfoundation.org/historical-income-tax-rates-brackets/
Here you go, look at 1952/53:
https://www.ntu.org/foundation/tax-page/how-have-the-top-and-bottom-income-tax-brackets-changed-over-time
In 1952/53 the highest tax bracket was 92.8% on income over $400,000.
In 2021 the highest tax bracket is 37% on income over $628,300
This is why we can't have nice things and Americans live on debt. And, how did the capitalist elites, such as Elon Musk, pull off this con?! And, how do they continue to pull off this con! Shouldn't we know better? It's a pretty blatant fact that the wealthy and corporations in this country are not paying their fair share! Not even close!
Elon Musk is on Bernie Sanders with insults for proposing that billionaires pay a fair tax. I know whose side I’m on and progressives across all countries need to unite for a Global Wealth Tax that billionaires can NOT avoid!! US/UK Bankers are THE enablers of global tax avoidance and evasion and are at the tippy top of the list of folk who need to go to jail for their parasitism and parasitic enabling of parasites!
Thanx for the excellent comment/links, that show the scale of the crimes being perpetrated every day! The American "Middle Class" (actually "Working Class"!) were at their apogee when Taxes on The 1% were at their highest. Since then MSM indoctrinated Stockholm Syndrome has prevailed! WTFU U$A!
radix omnium malorum - est cupiditas!
Piketty on why we need a Global Wealth Tax.
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/03/10/why-we-need-a-global-wealth-tax-piketty.html
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/thomas-piketty-capital-ideology
Read/Rejoice "Seattle’s Capitalists Couldn’t Defeat Kshama Sawant"! by Richard Silverstein:
"Revival of Class Politics in the US; will it be Socialism or Fascism?"by Finian Cunningham:
Apologists for Crapitalism's Excesses & Externalities won't Tax The 1%! Only Socialists want to!!!
commune bonum est summum bonum!
"Millennials aren’t getting more RW with age (-AND-) I suspect I know why"! ---- by Arwa Mahdawi:
"The radicalism of my generation is often attributed to housing costs. But, as I found when I had my first child, there are much deeper issues at play"
at spes non fracta est!
Thank god for the generation gap in American politics. It's one way we might actually get a better society. Let's hope the young stay open to being left of center.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/01/the-generation-gap-in-american-politics/
"Millennials are the most racially and ethnically diverse adult generation -- in the nation’s history. Yet the next generation stands to be even more diverse" - from your comprehensive and exhaustive link and THAT is exactly what the older, whiter generations just can't seem to come to terms with as they repeatedly fall for - Lee Atwater's GOP "Southern Strategy" - and continuously deprive themselves of what they too need just so some darker hued human - can't have it too!!! Meanwhile, try to consider this:
"The question today is: whether we as a nation and a people will recover from it, OR if it will, as Reagan promised, destroy the American experiment of pluralistic liberal democracy"? Also please try to consider:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy and see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_8E3ENrKrQ (99s)
respice; adspice; prospice ....
"In American politics, the Southern strategy was a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans."
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
I would say, however, that it shouldn't say "was" as this is still in play today.
"The neglected white working-class gave up on the Democrats that sold them out and they were ripe for Trump’s empty promise to “Make America Great Again”. They were outraged by their perception that the gains made by people of color and women were what took their jobs away. That was a misperception distorted and presented to them by Trump. People of color and women still earn less than white men. It was not people of color and women but rather corporate profiteering that took their better-paid manufacturing jobs to nations like Mexico, China and India with terrible job conditions. It was corporate capitalists like Trump and their servants like Clinton who took their jobs. Trump exploits white working-class rage. In the absence of a powerful present socialist analysis, Trump alone speaks to their outrage. Bernie Sanders, a socialist, had a chance to win as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. Sanders was defeated. He was outvoted by traditional African-Americans who chose Hilary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. Sanders’s defeat was aided and abetted by the Democratic Party leadership." Quote from Harriet Fraad from Finian Cunningham interview above.
She also says "Germany became fascist because when its capitalism failed and wild inflation wiped out the livelihoods of the mass of workers, although Germany had a powerful Communist Party at the time, the German corporate wealth supported fascism as an alternative to socialism.
The spontaneous labor uprisings in the U.S. are promising. But we do not know how it will turn out in the United States."
Pretty chilling. Because we know how much corporate power looms in America and we know they aren't going for a socialist society....
"What Will We Do With Our Rage in 2022?" [Kelly Hayes:18m audio]
Yes my previous links were - "Pretty chilling" but 'Resistance Is Fertile'!
MULTUM in parvo!
Bernie Sanders should run again, this time as a 3rd party candidate.
Clearly, the Republicans are a bunch of nutjobs.
And, becoming clear is that the Democrats are a bunch of do nothings who can't agree about anything, whether on purpose or not, they are not a functioning party. And, they align over and over again with corporations.
Bernie could pull it off in 2024 imho. He's still sharp as a tack and what difference does age make anymore? None.
"2022 Midterms Are a Referendum on the Future of Democracy in the US"! ... by Henry A. Giroux:
"In the current political landscape, Fascism is on the rise and the threat to democracy is imperiled, both as an ideal and promise. A number of politicians now running for a variety of political offices - believe in conspiracy theories; embrace elements of white supremacy; espouse antisemitic ideology; are election deniers; and argue for White Christian Nationalism and policies that endorse voter suppression and the banning of books, among other repressive measures.
"All of these positions should be understood as toxic elements of a RW rhetoric fueling the neo-fascism embraced by most of the Republican Party .. a rhetoric of historical erasure, hate, bigotry and a politics of disposability. Fascism in the United States is no longer a spiraling improbability.
"While President Joe Biden claimed in a recent speech that the coming election puts democracy on the block; he still vastly underestimates the degree to which the resurgent right wing, could soon usher in a long period of - Fascist Politics in the United States!
"Neoliberalism has now created a society of monsters .. for whom pain and suffering are now viewed as entertainment. Warfare is seen as a permanent state of existence. Racism is accepted as an organizing principle of society. And militarism is centered as the most powerful force shaping masculinity.
"US Politics has taken an exit from ethics and thus the issue of social costs is divorced from any form of intervention in the world. These are the ideological metrics of political zombies. THE key word here now is atomization and it is the curse of both neoliberal societies and democracy itself. Neoliberal Capitalism now preys on the fears of the alienated, fearful, isolated and uninformed, to pour gasoline on the fires of racism, hate and bigotry.
"Progressives & The Left - have failed to take the current crisis seriously by working hard to address the symbolic and pedagogical dimensions of struggle All of this is necessary in order at the very least to get people to be able to translate private troubles into wider social issues.
"The latter may be the biggest political & educational challenge facing those who refuse to acknowledge that the current 2022 election is not only about those who believe in democracy .. and those who do not, but also about the possibility of the United States turning into a fascist state.
"If the election does not become a referendum on democracy, the American people will have to bear the burden of living in a number of GOP-run states that often punish anyone who isn't a RW white Christian nationalist, white supremacist or a supporter of Fascist Politics.
"The sinister nightmare of a Fascist Takeover no longer resides in the works of dystopian fiction — it is here in the present, functioning as a lethal fairy tale defined by a contempt for democracy and heralding political doom.The threat of fascism is no longer a matter of speculation. It is about to be put to a vote in an election that could transport the unthinkable from being a provocative fiction to a cruelly excruciating reality."
spero meliora!
"It’s a Billionaires’ World, We’re Just Living in it"! by Grace Blakeley:
radix omnium malorum - est cupiditas!
"As we end this year, I think a lot of you are probably feeling the same love, rage and grief that I’m feeling. I think the question for 2022 is what we plan to do about those feelings beyond merely expressing them. What will we contribute to? What will we build? Who will we get to know or deepen our relationships with? What is the world worth to us? And what are we worth to each other?
I know a lot of people like to get down on New Year’s resolutions, but I’m a big fan of making commitments. So I encourage people to make at least one commitment, as we head into the new year, with regard to how we spend our time and how we vent our outrage into the world. If you spend a lot of time taking shots at people on social media, and it’s not helping you feel any better, could you redirect a little of that time? If there’s an issue you’re passionate about, like voting rights, climate justice or prison abolition, and you are not actively engaged with that work, will you re-budget some time toward that issue? Or create a ritual that gives you a more meaningful outlet for your anger or your hurt?"
From Truth Out: https://truthout.org/audio/what-will-we-do-with-our-rage-in-2022/
"Chomsky: Midterms Could Determine Whether US Joins Ominous Global Fascist Wave"! .. with C.J. Polychroniou:
From which - "GOP leaders began to lose control of the base, and even the party management, in 2016, when, to their shock and dismay, they were swept aside by the Trump crusade. By now they have either succumbed, often slavishly or have been expelled apart from a few relics who are hanging on in silence. By now it’s Trump’s party. He has managed, skillfully, to maintain a voting base that he is undermining at every turn along with dedicated service to the traditional Republican constituency of extreme wealth and corporate power.
Alas - "Denialism is one sign of the breakdown of the social order, and is an element of the undermining of democratic forms. It is now rampant among the GOP voting base & among those running for election, amounting to “A majority of Republican nominees on the ballot this November for the House/Senate and key statewide offices,” according to The Washington Post."
respice; adspice; prospice - et spero meliora!
Consider "Biden’s Wing of the Democratic Party Is Sinking His Presidency" by John Knefel:
et veritas vos liberabit!
There are real estate taxes for Middle Class homeowners' unrealized capital gains so there should be unreal estate taxes for billionaires' unrealized capital gains on their stock holdings. This tax will dampen the mirage for the masses that stocks greatly outperformed other forms of investments by turning the gaze of the masses towards the tweaked indices which dumped the losers and added the new winners.
How many people's investments have actually tracked the indices of the relevant stock indices? Very few ( the indices don't show the number of people achieving that type of returns; additionally, even the few who did track the indices are subject to great "down draft" on their Icarus' cashouts because "paper profits" must periodically be destroyed to track reality unless political contributions work their magic for massive multitrillion dollars of goverment bailouts in which massive public debt funds high private profits.)
Paper profits have no inherent limit so the financial sector spins more and more of it and runs to the government for massive bailouts to preserve their high-return financial misadventures. This is also the reason why "energetically greening" the global economy is so impossible: making unrealizable paper profits is much easier than solving tough environmental and economic problems. Corruption via political contributions is an easier form of financial "work" than actually doing people real good. Selling the same property between the same two parties while doubling the sale prices due to "improved sentiment" can make their paper wealth grow hundreds to thousands of times. Where did the wealth come from? The people who will buy this highly appreciated property. Paper wealth must remain paper wealth unless new suckers come in. "A new sucker is born every minute." -- P. T. Barnum of circus-shows' fame.
There are income tax deductions for home offices of small businesses so all affected-by-pandemic-and-confined-to-home workers should get tax deductions for their de facto home offices.
Non-primary residences, primarily owned by absentee landlords, get annual depreciation allowances to help rebuild someday their eventually dilapidated residential properties. All primary residences of the Middle Class homeowners should get the same depreciation allowances or we stay in the current state of affordable housing being unsustainable but absentee landlords' residential properties are sustainable via annual depreciation tax allowances. Absentee landlording gets much tax break.
A United States Postal Bank makes much sense because it is a tried-and-true method to provide financial services to the ordinary folks in many happier countries. North Dakota has its state-owned bank so even in the U.S. this idea has already succeeded. Big banks don't want to deal with small accounts anyway so this can serve them by ridding them of their "peskier customers."
Public banking is a great way to ensure that people are not ripped off by banksters!
Everyone should have access to public non-profit banking and then those who want to go to the private banks should be allowed to but we should not all be forced to use private rip-off banks.
https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-can-improve-the-lives-of-us-workers-while-helping-save-the-planet/
Great comment, Grapes. You are 100% right.
"A Philosophy for a Fair Society" by Prof. Michael Hudson:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57084.htm &,
or see these linx https://youtu.be/XDo7HykYN9k [72m]
https://youtu.be/I-xWgLertkg [50m] + Transcript @ ICH
It's a shame that grapes didn't reply to U & so I did + do see^!
per aspera ad astra!
Michael Hudson on money and debt.
"When banks create money, they don’t lend for people for spending. About 80% of bank loans in America, as in England, are mortgage loans. They lend against property already in place. They also lend for corporate mergers and acquisitions, and by the 1980s for corporate takeovers.
The effect of this lending is to increase asset prices, not consumer prices. You could say that money creation actually lowers consumer prices, because 80% is to increase housing prices. Banks seek to increase their loan market by lending more and more against every kind of real estate, whether it’s residential or commercial property."
" Democratization of real estate on credit means turns rental income into interest, not taxes This meant that the role that had been played in the 19th century by landlords is now played by banks. In the 19th century, the problem was absentee landlords, the heirs of the warlords who conquered England or other European countries in the Middle Ages. You had hereditary rent. Well, now our rent has been democratised. But it’s been democratised on credit, because obviously, the only way that a wage earner can afford to buy is is on credit. For an investor you can buy whole buildings on credit.
Finance has transformed real estate into a financial vehicle. So that that’s what rent is for paying interest means."
This is the crux of the unfair society!
"Socialism and strong government as the program of post-rentier industrial capitalism. At the broadest level, socialism meant collecting economic rent and getting rid of the landlords and the aristocracy, either by taxing away rent or nationalizing land and natural monopolies, in hope that that by itself would create a viable industrial economy. you had libertarian socialism, Marxist socialism, anarchist socialism, industrial socialism and Christian socialism."
"It’s antithetical, because the root of classical value and price theory was to isolate and define economic rents statistically. To deny economic rent is to deny the whole point of classical value and price theory. That is where economics became untracked."
So, essentially, we need an entirely new way of looking at land ownership, rent, work, education, the whole thing, all aspects of the economy. It must be de-financialized so that it works for all people.
"Democracy is a danger to any powerful group. Take, say, the United States – formally maybe one of the most advanced democracies in the world. And one of the earliest, in fact – in the 18th century, it was way in the lead. The founding fathers were very concerned about the danger of democracy and spoke quite openly about the need to construct the democratic institutions so that threat would be contained. That’s why the Senate has so much more power than the House, to mention just one example.
"I wouldn’t call myself a Marxist, I don’t think anybody should be any kind of an “-ist.” As far as Marx’s analysis of capitalism, there’s a lot of very useful ideas in it, but we have to remember – and he would’ve been the first to say – he’s developing an abstract model of 19th century capitalism. It’s abstract and it’s changed. As far as his prescriptions for the post-capitalist future were concerned, he really didn’t have much to say. And with some justice, I think. On the other hand, I wouldn’t say that I don’t care much for Marx; he offered lots of insights into how society works, and he was an extremely good analyst of the current events of the day. I think he would take it for granted that elites are basically Marxist – they believe in class analysis, they believe in class struggle, and in a really business-run society like the United States, the business elites are deeply committed to class struggle and are engaged in it all the time. And they understand. They’re instinctive Marxists; they don’t have to read it.
"I think (Adam Smith) had a lot to say that is important, once we eliminate the mythology that has been created about him. For example, his critique of division of labor on classical Enlightenment grounds. Or his recognition that state policy is designed by those who dominate the economy, for their own interests, even if the effect on others is “grievous,” including the people of England, but most importantly the victims of “the savage injustice of the Europeans,” referring primarily to Britain’s crimes in India, his main concern as an honest person. His remarks were about the England of his day, but they generalize. Or even his one use of the phrase “invisible hand” in “Wealth of Nations,” in arguing (not very persuasively) that it would protect England from the ravages of what we call “neoliberalism” – Ricardo did much the same. Or his call for banking regulation in reaction to a major financial collapse. And much more. That’s quite aside from his interesting work as a moral philosopher.
"In fact, the capitalist class in the ’50s was sort of part of a social contract. It was part of the tenor of the times. During the Depression and the War, there was a real radicalization of the population -not just here but all over the world. And the post-War system was designed to reflect that. That’s why you get welfare states developing in the ’50s – a lot of popular pressure you couldn’t escape. Changes have taken place since then and there’s actually been a return to an extreme form of predatory capitalism, which means that not only will I close my business or move if I don’t like what you do, but something else that’s been happening, which is interesting. In the financial institutions, which by now dominate the economic system, the management level repeatedly acts in ways which will destroy their own institutions if it’ll increase their benefits, and benefits are not small. You know, you take a look at the revenue of, say, Goldman Sachs – a very high percentage of it just goes to payment of management and bonuses. There was a time traditionally – say, GM in the 1950s – it was trying to develop a consumer base that would be loyal and lasting and they were thinking in terms of an institution that would remain and grow and thrive in the society. By now, a lot of the investment firms – bankers, hedge funds – are perfectly happy to destroy what they’re in and come out with huge, tremendous benefits. That’s a new stage of capitalism."
EDITED FROM "Chomsky: “The Business Elites - Are Instinctive Marxists"! https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-the-business-elites-are-instinctive-marxists/
a Q & A with Keane Bhatt & from Pre-OWS, Nov. 2010 & as True Now - as then!
Et encore: "So, essentially, we need an entirely new way of looking at land ownership, rent, work, education, the whole thing, all aspects of the economy. It must be de-financialized so that it works for all people." (bw)
respice; adspice; prospice!
Sanders has a warning for the Democrats.
"Bernie Sanders has something to get off his chest: Without a course correction, he sees the Democratic Party on track to get shellacked this fall.
As the progressive Vermonter, not one to mince words, put it in an interview on Tuesday: “You really can’t win an election with a bumper sticker that says: ‘Well, we can’t do much, but the other side is worse.’”
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/09/bernie-sanders-democrats-midterms-00038183
Bernie's tweet:
"Think about this. There is not a single state or county in America today where a full-time worker making minimum wage can afford the rent for a two-bedroom home. Does that sound remotely acceptable to you?"
It doesn't to me! It's insanity! But the Democrats are the "Oh, sorry, we don't have the power to do anything party." Which is why Bernie should have started a 3rd party years ago!
Please consider how "The Ultrawealthy poured money into a successful campaign to defeat a graduated state income tax. For the very first time, we can reveal the scale of their return on this investment." from:
Also: "Today, in America, just 3 Wall Street firms BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street - manage $22 trillion in assets. These 3 firms are major shareholders in more than 96% of S&P 500 companies."- from:
caveat!
For July 4th, please consider:
Note that: "We have an opportunity to prove that a government of the people, by the people and for the people can still deliver big things. And we can feed tens of millions of hungry kids while we do it."Hmm!
fiat lux et fiat justitia!
The U.S. can afford this alright, no problem. Brain power comes from food power. We have food in the U.S. and we do need brain power for constructing a better future.
I worked for feeding kids in my youth. There was waste, of course, but I paraphrase from the Bible, "Heavenly Father makes rain fall upon both the good and the evil ones." There were and probably still are far more good than evil ones. I dislike trillions of dollars of tax cuts for the rich people during boom times. We should have been working on reducing budget deficits in boom times because the bust times will inevitably come.
Too much money in rich people's pockets is what drives many living costs much higher for common folks. Rich people often don't even use money but credit to drive up living costs of everyone. "Credit expansion" sounds familiar ? We are getting "credit contraction" to rein in the "CreditNoMoney" gone wild.
Trillions of dollars (~1800 billions; all 1800 billions wasted) by Trump's tax cut in boom time plus trillions of dollars (~2100 billions; >>700 billions wasted) for countering CoViD-19 impact obviously did great PPP ("There's gold in them pee !" -- governmental Payout Protection Program to business owners, not really workers) to ignite rampant inflation, incidentally the preferred persistent-inflation policy effect of all who had borrowed money and had a source of income sufficient to fend off defaulting on a loan. A minimum of 1800 billions + 700 billions = 2500 billion U.S. dollars of the U.S. National Debt was recently incurred to enrich the rich people and ignite rampant inflation for everyone, all because of U.S. babysitting and nudist socializing excesses with experimental "pissing into a camel toe." Federal estate/inheritance taxes will disappear completely in 2024 allowing the greatest transfer of [Baby Boomers'] wealth ever, to be untaxed. Tax-free distributions from Roth-IRAs can also be made taxable because the new and improved expediency of law and evolving-towards-non-English-common-law arbitrariness for the greater good require it. States should resurrect miscegenation laws for the freedom of not being fucked by Coloreds as White isn't a color; Black is a color, not the lack of colors; and Red is hotter than Blue. Why is Orion's bluish Rigel much hotter than Orion's reddish Betelgeuse ? E = hf, f of Blue > f of Red. Red is a warm color and Blue is a cool color only because of our parochial geocentrism, due to our forebears' inability to create extremely hot artificial flames. Should we throw away all of artists' color theories about warm and cool colors ? I'd say no because that's what a genuine intellectually homeless Conservative should be: to preserve our heritage appropriately despite knowing fully its at-times seeming or de facto absurdities. My Mom laughed at her being demanded by U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to get married, to be witnessed by her adult son, that being acceptable !!! That was a traditional-Chinese and English-Common-Law marriage recognized by the U.S.A., which was doing immigration strictly by the law books: the U.S. recognized a British-Colonial marriage certificate issued by Hong Kong Government, witnessed and undersigned by a Chinese neighbor, and my Mom's adult son. My Hong Kong Government-issued birth certificate naming my Mom and my Dad as the mother and the father was insufficient to establish them to be husband and wife in a marriage. Hence, Mom had to get married to my Dad to immigrate to the U.S. Then another problem popped up because my Big Brother had witnessed the marriage so he was obviously an adult and therefore his immigration to the U.S. had to be handled as a completely separate case but fast-tracked by letting him use the single visa approved, originally targeted at my Dad. It made sense because my Dad was illiterate, poorly suited to spearhead the establishment of a new home in America (of course, he's well-qualified to take us all to watch a Radio City performance or cherry blossoms -- as that was his American experience as a seaman on shore leaves.) The U.S. immigration apparatus followed written laws quite literally.
Via rampant inflation, Donald Trump is being greatly relieved of his huge debts (his perennial loans from very questionable sources to cover up for his many business ventures' failures: Trump Taj Mahal Casino, Trump Shuttles, Trump University, Trump U.S. of Asses, Trump Trumpery, Trump Coup d'État.. hmm, maybe the failure of the attempted coup was a crowning success after all because he didn't "cross the Rubicon" and got "stabbed to death [and live-streamed]" in the U.S. Capitol by Congress, thanks to the {still fully clad despite the adult not having returned yet} Babysitting Secret Service's restraint on him,) so is Joe Biden (his real estates' loans), and many others such as the ones with outstanding student loans.
Of course, a major portion of the inflation came from mangled global supply chains created by the Masters of Business Apoptosis and the one who lost his shirt horsing around "like a boss" at Tuva, center of eruptions of the Siberian Traps. Siberian Traps' mineral wealth tripped up Russia again and again by zombifying it with Stool-inist Euro-Empire-megalomania and creating the most appalling polluting hellish ( both extremely cold and extremely hot with dense toxins all around to make cancers for the present and unborn generations ) cities in the world such as Norilsk, showcasing European-Russian oligarchic industrial colonialism transplanted to extract Asian wealth to fund Russia-Ukraine War and create global famine for the soon-upcoming ¿jihadis?
Eurocentric Russia is a menace to Europe and the global South because it controls and colonizes Siberia and lies like this about sulfur dioxide, which we in the U.S. use for creating sulfuric acid and gypsum in drywall, a construction material (which was also sourced by Red China which unconscionably skimped for profit and ruined U.S. houses in the wet U.S. South; Red China murdered our pets, attempted murdering me with probable CoViD-19 on Feb. 11th, 2020, covered up its de facto policy to wage a biowar on the world, >1 million U.S. deaths already, { 土包子 cornwalled Red China must renounce its blind faith in military might per 鄉下人 Mao's saying about political power coming out of a gun barrel; I was Redwalled but after having visited CV-66 USS America and laid my hand upon the Phantom jetfighter topside, PanAm Clipper Gem of the Sea withdrew me to Tokyo }
ruined our houses, stole our jobs, poisoned our foods, lied about us and many more, and created ever more coal-cookers to cook our planet, to sizzlingly well-done.) Poo-tin is allowing children to make sulfuric acid with every breath they take. Poo-tin said a lot with his facial expressions -- his speech about the new republics in Donbas showed anger and tipped off the imminent invasion into Ukraine. Where's Donetsk's fireworks celebration now ? I wonder because I saw fireworks celebrating our Independence Day. Free at last ! Free at last ! Independence... Are the people of Donbas living better now than four months ago when Russia their Big Brother came to their aid to free them from Nazi Jew ?
When an arrow has been loaded onto the bow and the archer frowns showing anger, twitches his thumb and finger ( the Soviet KGB trained its officers to use guns and keep that gun-controlling hand close to their bodies; the thumb-and-finger motion is likely an unconscious Pavlovian trained response to anger, executing "cocking and pulling the trigger;" the peculiar gait resulting from the Soviet KGB self-defense training to keep the gun close to the body is evident in the style of walking,) and slips his cocked finger a bit, the arrow is probably going to fly away soon.
Do you see how the global famine may be averted ? There are carotid arteries and jugular veins thousands of miles long to fund the "special military operation" in Ukraine. The magical number two also manifested itself in the aorta, didn't it ? Mate, how about a game of Arctic ice hockey ? No shirt is required. It's not Tuva. There may be mosquitoes but they feed the fishes. Highly efficient learning intelligence can break out of playing a devastating game by playing tic-tac-toe and timing out from One Infinity Drive to understand futility. That's the essential difference between the dumbness of an extremely fast fool ( with sub-nanosecond cycle time ) and intelligence.
Realtime microcontrollers have settable interrupt timers for preventing potentially runaway processes by changing course upon the controller's receiving timeout interrupts. Diplomacy is an extension of war: DPRK nuclear-tipped missile blackmailing-to-food program.
DPRK for all its stupid hoopla about nuclear energy couldn't even provide nuclear electricity to its people. Yeah, the whole world might piss at the transmission lines by shorting them out at night with drones-dragged conducting ticker-tapes. At least DPRK isn't extracting heavywater to build a gigantic D2O aquarium to drop upon London as "precision-engineering for optimum" Germany did in WWII. That could've been extremely heavy weaponry !!! It's just too bad that Germany didn't have the Gazans helping with levitating concrete.
Plan for a two-week self-retreat in a nuclear fallout shelter.
NB "Fascists in Our Midst"! by Chris Hedges:
AND A "MUST READ" - IF EVER I READ ONE!
Finally gripes, if U can't keep it short; just abort!
verb. sat. sap.?!
Thom Hartmann on how the fascist mantle has been passed to Ron DeSantis. Ugh.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/11/09/did-fascist-mantle-just-pass-ron-desantis
"Democracy holds that the will of the people—as expressed through free and fair elections with the widest possible participation—should determine how a nation is governed and who does the governing.
Fascism holds that the will of the people—as expressed by a single powerful leader and his local subordinates—should determine how a nation is governed and who does the governing.
This is why Tennessee law prevents 21 percent of all Black people in that state from voting.
It's why DeSantis created a new "election police" force and then paraded 15 Black Florida voters before the cameras in shackles, successfully driving down the Black vote and guaranteeing his own reelection.
It's why Brian Kemp put a new law into place that reduced the mail-in vote in Georgia this year by more than a million people over 2020.
It's why yesterday it took the threat of a lawsuit to stop white poll workers in Beaumont, Texas from turning away Black voters and, when a few got through, looming over them to watch them fill out their ballots.
Those Republican politicians who've embraced fascism as their governing philosophy understand that fascist followers don't really care about policy. Instead, it's about which group has power and which group is powerless.
Republicans want to ban abortion, gut Social Security, and give another trillion-dollar tax cut to billionaires, all while killing the right to unionization and quality public schools? Fine with GOP voters; they're really not noticing policy.
And they're not noticing because they're not interested in policy: that's secondary in the fascist follower's mind. First and foremost, in every case, is The Leader and their relationship to him."
Reflect: "Ron DeSantis Is a Case Study in the Threat of Fascism in the US"! .. by Henry A. Giroux
"FLA Gov. Ron DeSantis has pursued white supremacist policies with deep roots in the Jim Crow era."
respice, adspice, prospice et caveat!
"Fascists achieve power by creating parallel institutions — schools, universities, media platforms and paramilitary forces — and seizing the organs of internal security and the judiciary. They deform the law, including electoral law, to serve their ends. They are rarely in the majority. The Nazis never polled above 37 percent in free elections in Germany. Christian fascists constitute less than a third of the U.S. electorate, about the same percentage of those who consider abortion to be murder."
Chilling words from Hedges.
right on beauty!
Thanks. Nice to see you, flip! Hope you're well!
Here's one of Bernie's latest tweets. He'll never give up lol.
https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1460302828308676612
Consider - "workers at Rutgers University have organized across hierarchies and are preparing to go on strike" - from:
"One of US’s Largest Public Universities Could See First Strike in Its 257 Years"! by Deepa Kumar .. https://truthout.org/articles/one-of-uss-largest-public-universities-could-see-first-strike-in-its-257-years/ - also ...
NB - http://occupywallst.org/forum/all-the-psychoses-of-us-history-how-america-is-vic/#comment-1081926 - and
note https://truthout.org/articles/public-universities-run-on-underpaid-labor-now-grad-workers-are-fighting-back/ - from which,
this .. "From Temple University to Rutgers, the devaluation of academic labor has its roots in decades of Neoliberalism"!
e pluribus unum?!
"Why are academic workers striking? Simply put, they are fed up with the priorities of the corporate university that put profit ahead of the academic mission of research, teaching and service. And strikes are proving to be the key vehicle through which faculty and students can push back against the corporate model and create the kind of university we deserve."
“Imagine working at a university for 5 or 10 or 15 years or longer and having to reapply for your job every term,” says Bird Jackson, a part-time lecturer (PTL) at Rutgers-Newark. “That’s the situation of PTLs at Rutgers. We are overloaded with unpaid work that follows us home."
From: https://truthout.org/articles/one-of-uss-largest-public-universities-could-see-first-strike-in-its-257-years/
Not to mention low pay for "adjuncts."
These degradations of worker rights have been going on for 40 years. "Temporary jobs," "independent contractors," "part-time jobs." Anything greedy employers can do to avoid paying benefits like vacation time, health insurance, life insurance, disability, retirement. Workers are left with the bare minimum, impossible to raise a family, hence the low birth rates.
Neoliberalism is the root cause and it has shredded our society into bits. Basically everyone just works to enrich the shareholders and that goes for those who invest the trust funds of these universities that are essentially "hedge funds." All they care about is making the rich richer.
Has it gone too far? Is that what these strikes finally represent? An American people broken but willing to fight back? I hope so.
"Rutgers Faculty Strikes: 9,000 educators to walk off job, affecting 67,000 students" [Karen Yi]
https://gothamist.com/news/rutgers-faculty-strikes-9000-educators-to-walk-off-job-affecting-67000-students
& also note - https://twitter.com/ruaaup/status/1645224261097779201 [an essential 2m video]
"The Rutgers University faculty will strike Monday, marking the first teacher work stoppage, since the university opened its doors 256 years ago."
e pluribus - umum!
"These degradations of worker rights have been going on for 40 years."Temporary jobs," "independent contractors," "part-time jobs." Anything greedy employers can do to avoid paying benefits like vacation time, health insurance, life insurance, disability, retirement.Workers are just left with the bare minimum, impossible to raise a family, hence the low birth rates.
"Neoliberalism is the root cause & it has shredded our society into bits.Basically everyone just works to enrich the shareholders and that goes for those who invest the trust funds of these universities that are essentially 'hedge funds'. All they care about is making the rich richer." Ergo, consider ...
"It's as if the people of the Soviet Union, had never heard of Communism! The ideology that dominates our lives has - for most of us - no name. Mention it in conversation and you'll be rewarded with a shrug. Even if your listeners have heard the term before .. they will struggle to define it. Neoliberalism, do you know what it is?
And: "Its anonymity is both a symptom & cause of its power. It has played a major role in a remarkable variety of our crises: the financial meltdown of 2007-8, the offshoring of wealth and power, of which the Panama Papers offer us merely a glimpse, the slow collapse of public health and education, resurgent child poverty, the epidemic of loneliness, the collapse of ecosystems, the rise of Donald Trump. But we respond to these crises as if they emerge in isolation .. apparently unaware that they've all been either catalysed or exacerbated by the same coherent "philosophy"; a 'philosophy' that has, or had - a name! What greater power can there be than to operate namelessly?
"So pervasive has Neoliberalism become, that we seldom even recognise it as an ideology. We appear to accept the proposition that this utopian millenarian faith describes a neutral force;a kind of biological law, like Darwin's Ttheory of Evolution.But the philosophy arose as a conscious attempt to reshape our human lives and shift the locus of power."
respice,adspice - et caveat emptor!!!
Cornel West - "I am running for truth and justice as a presidential candidate for the People’s Party to reintroduce America to the best of itself - fighting to end poverty, mass incarceration, ending wars and ecological collapse, guaranteeing housing, health care, education and living wages for all! So join the movement at https://www.cornelwest24.com/ "
Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5ydesBadno (61m)
https://twitter.com/CornelWest/status/1665743761551548416
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW2iPjaJ-Js w/DemNow!
dum spiro, spero!
NOTE “In the spirit of a broad United Front and coalition strategy, I am pursuing the nomination of the Green Party for President of the United States. Go to - http://CornelWest24.com for more information to continue to support this unprecedented effort to empower precious poor and working people here and abroad. I thank the volunteers of the People's Party for the initial launch!”
FROM - https://twitter.com/CornelWest/status/1668781531849199616
& AGAIN FURTHER CONSIDER THIS https://www.cornelwest24.com/
et spiro meliora!
https://www.cornelwest24.com/
dum spiro, spero!
"Cornel West and the Campaign to End Political Apartheid"! by Chris Hedges
"The two ruling parties have destroyed our democracy. Voting for one or the other
will not bring it back"! Consider more of the same will NOT disturb the status quo!
ad iudicium?!
"... the extensiveness of privatisation and, even more, the recourse to outsourcing, makes these twin manifestations even much more difficult to evaluate. This is the reason why the near-uncritical acceptance of the “private=good/public=bad” consensus has held sway for so long and is only now being questioned ...
"... At the recent Davos conference, it was reported that there was a general feeling among corporate participants that ethical behaviour needed much improvement; though don’t bet on anything happening very quickly. Another, slightly more tangible cause for a measure of optimism is that a handful of large enterprises are beginning to announce measures aimed at improving their behaviour. We can but hope but time is not on anyone’s side and by default Karl Marx may be allowed to have the last word."
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/02/carillion-can-capitalism-clean-act-will-marx-final-word.html
BOYCOTT...the mere whisper makes Wallstreet tremble. It is the most powerful weapon of the underclass. Forget everything else. Boycott holds an intense amount of power. If Americans want power back stop shopping and tell the company why. Hey Walmart I have not shopped once in your stores in my adult life because you piss on your workers like dogs and your products are madeby slaves in a Communist Regime where they have no voice standing in front of poisonous plastic ovens all day to make stuff that will turn around and pollute our planet in the next month after it breaks or is no longer in season. And it's true. Macdonalds I piss on your healthfood offerings (same tune here) torture animals ...slave wages. America we have power. Power isn't the problem it is the failure to realize it. Put away your Wallet shrink corporations down to size. Buy only things you absolutely need. And really think about need. Buy only from companies with ethics. As far as monopolies and such shrink down their subsidiaries partnerships and holdings in WS and they will also lose power. Trickle up is a bitch. Oh and their favorite rhetoric " we are the job creators"...The jobs they privide arent real jobs you arent supportinng families when you shop there you are supporting indentured servitude and a system that wont change anything for workers as well as cuts off other would be employers and competative labor. Spread the joy of not shopping!
"Our Friends @ Wallmart" as stated on 5/03/2018 on @TheEllenShow! PEOPLE BOYCOTT THIS SHOW - as Wallmart uses it as a platform 2 get shoppers! Wallmart = 1 of the nations largest ABUSIVE employers = billions in profits/yr & will not pay a minimum "living" wage 2 it's employees!
''In These Three Races, The Establishment Fought Hard And Still Lost!'' - by Alexis Goldstein:
omnia causa fiunt!
''The Democratic Party Dinosaurs Have Seen the Meteor ... and It is Coming From Vermont!!!''
dum spiro, spero ...
''We are (still) The 99 percent''..
respice; adspice; prospice ...
RIP Bill Withers. During a raging Coronavirus Pandemic, the loss of such a lovely man, is particularly poignant. Turn Friday Thoughts to this excellent doc.film about Bill Withers, that will lift up your Friday Feeling, in this difficult time for all of us & as we say RIP Bill Withers :-(
désolé.
''The Bigger Picture is Hiding Behind a Virus'', by Jonathan Cook:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55020.htm & also consider
https://twitter.com/Shadz66Shadz6t6/status/1247038872225275906
et fiat lux ...
"Pandemics Show How the Free Market Fails Us", by Niklas Olsen and Daniel Zamora:
multum in parvo ...
Note "The '3.5% rule': How a small minority can change the world" by David Robson:
Try to consider ... "Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts - and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change." So WOW!
dum spiro, spero ...
"John le Carré (1931-2020) on the Iraq War, Corporate Power, the Exploitation of Africa & More"
via DemocracyNow! ...
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/12/25/john_le_carre_1931_2020_on - (video & transcript)
Also fyi in edit: https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2020/12/25 (Full 12/25 show + imp. intro)
+NB http://occupywallst.org/forum/us-policy-to-israel-palestine-must-change-by-by-ji/#comment-1079751
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/13/john-le-carre-author-of-tinker-tailor-soldier-spy-dies-aged-89
RIP David Cornwell / John Le Carre: https://johnlecarre.com/ U knew more of The Truth than imagined!
First link above is a Very Rare Insight into the US/UK Deep State & I totally recommend it to all readers.
e tenebris, lux ...
"Money laundering is simply everywhere. On the grand scale, it’s endemic to banking. You have to bear in mind that when Lehman Brothers wasn’t going to function anymore and the big banks weren’t lending to one another, back at that terrible time, $352 billion of illegal money were then tacitly released upon the market, and that was about the only money people were lending to one another. So, money laundering is not some distant fantasy. It’s actually how you handle the profits of extortion, tax evasion, criminal conspiracy and huge quantities of drug money, how you get that into the white sector. And what we are gradually learning from these little exposés that come to light is that there is almost no way of denying people, in the end, the profits of their crime, which is a tragedy. And it’s also a frightful annoyance, because we pay vast sums of money across the way here to agencies that are supposed to stop money laundering. Doesn’t happen."
"One of the problems, surely, is that victims never forget, and the winners do. And they forget very quickly. If people knew basically, for example, what we had done in Iran when we ousted Mosaddegh through the CIA and the Secret Service here across the way and installed the Shah and trained his ghastly secret police force in all the black arts, the SAVAC, if people understood the extent to which we had humiliated Iran, then they would understand the later developments in Iran and Iran’s posture now. If people would look at the map and see the extent to which Iran is encircled by nuclear powers, they wouldn’t take it perhaps quite so seriously that Iran is seeking to arm itself with — if it is — with nuclear weapons."
"Now you have to bear in mind also that we are creating what American media are referring to as a deep state in this country. That is, I think I read, indeed, in The Washington Post that 890,000-odd Americans who are not in government service are cleared for top secret and above. I don’t know to what extent that situation is replicated here, but more and more I have the feeling that the power of the counterterror market is expanding and creating a wider — an ever-widening circle of those who are initiated, indoctrinated, part of the security structure, whether directly or indirectly, and those who are not. So then it makes it possible, as at the time, for example, of the parliamentary vote on whether we should go to war in Iraq — it makes it possible for a senior MP to take a neophyte aside and say, “If you’d seen the papers that I’ve seen, you would know which lobby to go into when the vote comes up.” And this suggestion that there are those in the know and those not in the know, and that those not in the know are second-class citizens, is extremely dangerous to society. And I think we have to address it all the time."
Those are 3 somewhat disjointed but very interesting, and ultimately connected quotes taken from the Democracy Now interview with John le Carré.
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/12/25/john_le_carre_1931_2020_on
"The United States of America Has Gone Mad!" .. by David Cornwell; aka John le Carré:
https://www.commondreams.org/views03/0115-01.htm (IN FULL)
&, https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2020/12/25 (Full Show)
The essay written 18 years ago is featured in the DemocracyNow! link above & is still so true!
A few paragraphs of the essay were not read out by JleC in the video^. Can U spot them - lol?
Thanx for the important excerpts above bw & ditto re. "ultimately connected quotes". Solidarity.
Requiescat In Pace DC/JleC et veritas vos liberabit!
"Michael Hudson Interview: FTX, Ukraine and the government in Kyiv"
this excerpt: "U.S. diplomats have been telling Europe for many years not to rely on Russian oil and gas. The aim is twofold: to deprive Russia of its major trade surplus and to capture the vast European market for U.S. oil producers. U.S. diplomats have convinced German leaders - not to approve the Nord Stream 2 pipeline & finally used the excuse of the NATO war with Russia in Ukraine to act unilaterally to arrange the destruction of both Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines.
"The split is not only geographic, but above all reflects the conflict between Western Neoliberalism & the traditional logic of industrial capitalism. The West has now deindustrialized its economies ... by replacing industrial capitalism with finance capitalism,initially in attempt to keep its wages down by moving abroad to employ foreign labor and then .. to try and establish monopoly privileges and captive markets or arms (and now oil) and high-technology essentials, becoming rentier economies.
"A century ago .. industrial capitalism was expected to evolve into industrial socialism, with governments providing subsidized infrastructure services ... such as health care, education, communication, research and development) to minimize their costs of living and, of doing business. That is how the United States, Germany and other countries built up their industrial power, and it also is how China and other Eurasian countries have done so more recently.
"But The West’s choice to privatize and financialize its most basic infrastructure, dismantling the role of government and shifting planning to Wall Street, London and other financial centers, has left it with little to offer other countries – except or the promise not to bomb them or treat them as enemies if they seek to keep their wealth in their own hands instead of transferring it to US investors and corporations." +MH:
caveat actor!
FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested for using customers’ funds, to make
illegal political donations." ... quoted from this very eye opening piece by "Station Gossip"
caveat actor!
''The Demise of Democracy Under Trump - Proves the Frankfurt School Right.'' .. by Mike Lofgren:
''Trump is like a holographic projection of every American failing that astute foreigners have noticed for centuries. Since about 1980, we could observe the culture industry patiently assembling him - piece by piece. The media barons grasped that his fabricated persona embodied the forbidden wish projections of millions of psychologically repressed and resentful individuals.
''In 1935, Ernst Bloch, a peripheral figure of the Frankfurt School, wrote about such people as not having adjusted to the shock of modernity, the pace of change, and the gross inequalities .. that had arisen. But they do not turn to socialism or the search for equality but instead, they fall back on a bogus golden age, the breeding ground of fascism and the impulse to worship an authoritarian father.''
e tenebris, lux?
''The world-wide 2008 financial crisis specifically engulfed the banks and the financial sector more generally. For the most part, governments bailed them out with vows of “never again”. Numerous enquiries followed proposals for reform implemented to a greater or lesser extent aimed at securing this desired outcome. While many have questioned their practical efficacy, the problems shifted but did not go away. This is because they are clearly systemic and call for much wider and more far-reaching approaches.
''Despite some increase in shareholder activity since 2008, particularly over the remuneration packages senior corporation executives award themselves, these are now showing evidence of diminishing. The position of shareholders has also been further weakened by the recourse to Electronically Traded Funds (ETFs) whereby large tranches of shares are traded in nanoseconds having been triggered algorithmically. ETF shareholders can have no role to play in corporate governance. This new situation has not been adequately addressed by any of the numerous corporate reviews of the past two decades.''
From your long but interesting link above.Thanx. Yves Smith's blog https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/ is very insightful which is of course why not many in US/UK have heard of it - as ANY critiques of The Late Stage Crapitalism that is Neoliberalism - is verboten by the MSM. We struggle on, knowing that a mass intellectual insurrection is needed IF Outright Fascism is to be avoided! Finally, fyi ...
per aspera ad astra ...
''Standing Rock’s Surprising Legacy: A Push for Public Banks'' - by Deonna Anderson:
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/good-money/standing-rocks-surprising-legacy-a-push-for-public-banks-20190102
& https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/12/28/st-charles-parish-louisiana-sheriff-pipeline-records-standing-rock by Julie Dermansky
e tenebris, lux!
''To Conjure the Future We Want, We Need a Revolution of the Heart'', by Cherise Morris:
https://truthout.org/articles/to-conjure-the-future-we-want-we-need-a-revolution-of-the-heart/ but
compare & contrast with: https://www.yahoo.com/news/pelosi-warns-democrats-liberal-menace-ahead-2020-vote-211900281.htm
spero meliora ...
''Sanders Says 'Democratic Socialism' Just Means Creating an Economy That Works for All'' ...
ad iudicium?
Would Bernie Sanders' presidential campaigns even have existed without Occupy setting the groundwork?
Guardian writer, Andrew Anthony thinks not, as do I.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/12/occupy-wall-street-10-years-on
"One school of thought views it as a transformative event in contemporary US history, a popular uprising against the power of corporate America that helped shift the Democratic party leftwards, enable Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign and the election of self-proclaimed socialist politicians such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. By this reckoning, it was also the original leaderless social media-organised movement on which #MeToo and Black Lives Matter would be modelled."
I mean, never in my lifetime did I ever hear Americans discussing class conflict until Occupy. Something I longed for for most of my adult life. So, people who say it was a failure are very perplexing to me and perhaps it is younger people who may think that, because they don't remember when there was zero economic discourse of any meaningful kind in this country.
Occupy, in my mind, changed the conversation to such an extent that every American today knows that the rich are exploiting them. Now, maybe they don't all think that is a bad thing but what Occupy did was shine a light on the exploitation that is inherent in a capitalist economy and for that I will always consider Occupy to be an amazing success.
By the way, we're also free to say the word "socialist" now which was actually not a thing 10 years ago. And, let's not forget the growth of the Democratic Socialists of America.
"Occupy, in my mind, changed the conversation to such an extent that every American today knows that the rich are exploiting them. Now, maybe they don't all think that is a bad thing but what Occupy did was shine a light on the exploitation that is inherent in a capitalist economy and for that I will always consider Occupy to be an amazing success." Yes, MFATIC Ditto as it totally bears repeating & also fyi, consider...
e tenebris, lux?
Libertarians also cower and run when posed with the idea that to have true libertarianism, you have to start out with true equality and then run the race from there.
In other words, when all humans start out with the same amount of wealth, therefore, a fair beginning, then going ahead with a free market would also be fair. But, no, they are too afraid of that. They know they have the upper hand with the wealth they've already acquired through inheritance and exploitation of others so they love the "free" market when they know they start out the race ahead.
From the article above:
"Libertarian economics stresses individualism, even though these guys know that their moms changed their diapers and they had to get help all along the way growing up. Individualism is great, but I remember going to class reunions and seeing that once you got to the 20th reunion, there was a lot less individualism and a lot more humility. We all need people. We are not islands.
Yet there is a theme historically that comes from Mises. For Mises, as I quoted in Ludwig Von Mises Implies Being a Savage Animal Is Ok!, the newborn child is born a savage. This is why libertarians only accept the legitimacy of voluntary relationships. This plays into the desire to repeal the civil rights act, so that you can kick out ethnic minorities from your restaurant without serving them."
Your analysis of Libertarians & Libertarianism - remains unmatched, unchallenged and undefeated here in the 10 years since OWS .. both on the boards on this forum & on Twitter & across the inter-webs, imo and so I must repeat, that ...
"... when all humans start out with the same amount of wealth, therefore, a fair beginning, then going ahead with a free market would also be fair. But, no, they are too afraid of that. They know they have the upper hand, with the wealth they have already acquired through inheritance and exploitation of others so they love the "free" market when they know they start out the race ahead."
Also fyi, please consider: https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/the-right-wing-love-affair-with-ayn-rand-ties-conservatism-to-one-of-the-most-disturbing-sociopathic-killers/ - by Thom Hartmann
MULTUM in parvo?!
It's worth repeating.
When everyone, every single person in this country is evened out in terms of their wealth, i.e. all people have the same amount of money, only then would it be fair to turn the switch on to have a free market economy.
Having a free market economy where there is a group of people starting out way ahead in the race isn't free, isn't fair, isn't moral and is not economically sound.
As 'your analysis of Libertarians & Libertarianism - remains unmatched' again "it's worth repeating" that "when everyone, every single person in this country is evened out in terms of their wealth, i.e. all people have the same amount of money, only then would it be fair to turn the switch on to have a free market economy (so) having a free market economy where there's a group of people starting out way ahead in the race isn't free, isn't fair, isn't moral and is not economically sound." Also FYI - please NB:
MULTUM in parvo?!
NOTE "The most vicious class war in U.S. history! Social inequality has reached its most extreme levels of disparity in over 200 years .. surpassing the rapacious greed of the era of the robber barons. The legislative, executive and judicial branches of government, along with the media and universities, have been seized by a tiny cabal of billionaires and corporations .. who pass laws and legislation that consolidate their power and obscene wealth at our expense.We are sacrificial victims, whether on the left or the right, helpless before this modern incarnation of the Biblical idol Moloch.
"In 1928 - the top 1% held about 24% of the nation’s income, a percentage that steadily declined until 1973. By the early 1970s - the oligarchy’s assault against workers was accelerated in response to the rise of popular mass movements in the 1960s. The billionaire class & corporations poured billions into political parties, academia, think-tanks and the media.Critics of capitalism have had difficulty finding a platform, including on public broadcasting. Those who sang to the tune the billionaires played ... were lavished with grants, book deals, tenured professorships, awards and permanent megaphones, in the commercial press. Wages stagnated. Income inequality grew to monstrous proportions & tax rates for corporations and the rich were slashed until it culminated in a virtual tax boycott.
"Today the top 10% of the richest people in the USA own almost 70% of the country’s total wealth. The top 1% control 32% of the wealth. The bottom 50% of the US population only hold 3 percent of all U.S. wealth.
"These ruling oligarchs have us, not to mention the natural world - in a death grip. They have mobilized all the organs of state security, militarized the police, built the largest prison system in the world & have deformed the courts to criminalize poverty. We are now the most spied upon, watched, photographed & monitored population in human history & I covered the Stasi state in East Germany!When the corporate state watches you 24-hours a day - you can nott use the word liberty. This is the relationship between a master and a slave.
"The Oligarchs have bought off intellectuals and artists to serve commercial interests.The machinery of corporate dominance is now carried out by the college-educated, those who rise to the top of academia — such as the economist Larry Summers,who pushed the deregulation of Wall Street under Bill Clinton, or the political scientist Samuel Huntington who warned that countries like the US & UK - were suffering from an “excess of democracy” — those who manage the financial firms and corporate superstructures, those who provide the jingles, advertising, brands & political propaganda in public relations firms, those in the press who work as stenographers to power and those in the entertainment industry ... who fill our heads with fantasies."
AND ENDING WITH --- "Our oligarchs are as vicious and tight-fisted as those of the past. They will fight with everything at their disposal to crush the aspirations of workers & demands for - democratic reforms! It won't be a quick or an easy battle. But if we focus on the oppressor, rather than demonizing those who are also oppressed,if we do the hard work of building mass movements to keep the powerful in check, if we accept that civil disobedience has a cost,including jail time, if we are willing to use the most powerful weapon we have – the strike – we can reclaim our country."
"This is a talk Chris Hedges gave on April 4th at the Independent National Convention in Austin, Texas."
et veritas vos liberabit!
https://berniesanders.com/issues/
fiat lux!
"Civil Rights Leader, Educator Bob Moses Dies at 86" ... by Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow!
respice et prospice ...
Re. the U$A's Ongoing Opioid Crisis - please do try to carefully consider this:
multum in parvo!
IN compliment, that we shall overcome someday ... https://www.salon.com/2018/02/12/thom-hartmann-how-the-gop-used-a-two-santa-clauses-tactic-to-con-america-for-nearly-40-years_partner/
40 year long GOP con of the American people, the tactic of two Santa Clauses laid it out in simple summary:
"First, when Republicans control the federal government, and particularly the White House, spend money like a drunken sailor and run up the US debt as far and as fast as possible. This produces three results – it stimulates the economy thus making people think that the GOP can produce a good economy, it raises the debt dramatically, and it makes people think that Republicans are the “tax-cut Santa Claus.”
Second, when a Democrat is in the White House, scream about the national debt as loudly and frantically as possible, freaking out about how “our children will have to pay for it!” and “we have to cut spending to solve the crisis!” This will force the Democrats in power to cut their own social safety net programs, thus shooting their welfare-of-the-American-people Santa Claus."
From: https://www.salon.com/2018/02/12/thom-hartmann-how-the-gop-used-a-two-santa-clauses-tactic-to-con-america-for-nearly-40-years_partner/
The American people do have a knack for confusing concurrency for causality.
The Orangutan is NOT responsible for the economic recovery -- Obama's economic policy was, eight years in the making, much slower than usual because of the Stehlenist Retards who recently sang the Keynesian paean when they wanted to cut taxes for the rich folks who had donated to the Retards' political campaigns.
On the other hand, the Orangutan is NOT responsible for the crux of the whitehead pimple eruption problem. It has been brewing for decades with no one in authority having the gumption to take out the garbage. Appeasement was simply easier to live with. The time to minimize the carnage will run out in a matter of months. Monkeying around even with showy orange fanfares will likely not deflect from the bloody rendézvous with Destiny.
There are two parts of any potential threat to consider: the means and the intent. Only when both are apparent and definite should one take drastic actions to create one's desired future, hopefully not this one though. Prepare for the worst @31:38. Hope for the best -- when sandwiching Poker FACE.. Every Good Bitch Does Fine. A young child said, "I am going to eat you up!" There's stated intent but there's not much means for committing cannibalism so hahaha! A security guard walks by with a lethal weapon on his belt. There's the means but there's most likely no intent if the security guard is working for you. However, if that person with the weapon is not your security guard and says, "I am going to eat you up!" it's definitely time to consider taking drastic actions.
Well, on Valentine's Day, Grace applies because "All women in Russia are beautiful!" They absolutely "sing" beautifully on social media! Now Pootin demands YouTube and Instagram to squelch Navalny's pointer video and the "song" within three days. The Orangutan is also singing, "The World is closing in. Did you ever think that we could be so close like brothers?"
Yeah, Pootin and Orangutan should "testify" together as brothers so that we can all watch. "Make America Zilth Again." - MAZA Nostra.
"A squirrel scented with manafort can lure a pussy up this tree."
Like China, Russia needs to build its own Great Firewall of Russia and watch it incessantly. I frankly think that our infrastructure plan needs to have provisions for "a video camera lurking in every toilet bowl," just like "a cannibus plant in every pot" espoused in some states already, or like China's initiative for "a chicken in every pot" ( I frankly got sick of more than enough chicken at every meal already but fortunately, I still have my free choice, unlike the food stamps recipients who may well lose that soon to the overbearing, swaggering, knuckle-dragging, and green-mouthing Orangutan; our Retards used to complain incessantly about the government overreaching and being far too overbearing but now I only hear crickets from the Retards. ) I recommend Russia's consulting with our NSA for pornographic guidance from an experienced hand. Everybody craves the big 'O'.
Hmm, how did Russia know more than two weeks ago to warn its citizens against U.S. 'hunt' [perhaps for meddling in 2016 U.S. Presidential Election]?
Did we have collusion from the U.S.A. to tip off Russia before the U.S. Department of Justice's indictment of the Russian nationals has become public? Who's the mole [in the U.S.]?
If it was a "continued hunt," why did Russia issue the travel warning? What's special at that time?
The Demonkrapts don't really understand the economy. If they do, they would have made so much money already that they would have become the Retard-I-Can'ts who subscribe to Stehlenist policies. Most Demonkrapts who got rich joined the Retards. Just look at the Raygun and the Orangutan.
Reagan was so much off of the mental deep end ( he probably had Alzheimer's disease already while in office ) that he had actually convinced the Soviet Union that the U.S. would make all of the Soviet nuclear missiles "impotent and obsolete." The Soviet Union had no choice but to double-down, triple-down, etc. to maintain its military supremacy. That eventually led to the demise of the Soviet Union. The CIA was telling Reagan very scary stories about the Soviet military strength but Reagan instinctively believed in the greatness of the American Economy, overruled the CIA's assessment, and just went for broke, going head-to-head against the "Evil Empire" worldwide ( 600-ship Navy, Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles for the mujahideen to shoot down Soviet helicopters in Afghanistan, short-range nuclear-tipped Pershing II missiles in West Germany, Strategic Defense Initiative, etc.) He was correct and it did take the True believer ( "Trust your feelings." "The Force will Always be with you." ) to convince others of a questionable proposition that many thousands of hypersonic nuclear missiles can be detected and shot down in minutes worldwide. I'm not saying that it cannot be done ( since it was being tried by the "The impossible takes a little while longer" Americans ) but we have better usage for the resources required if we just mothball nuclear arms, don't we? Reagan and Gorbachev saw the light together in Reykjavik, Iceland. The resulting peace due to ending the Soviet phase of the Cold War spawned the internet by demilitarizing the ARPAnet (which dated back decades to the 1960s as a defense, industry, and academia research and collaboration network developed in response to the extremely near but missed global nuclear catastrophe of the Cuban Missile Crisis { which we'll relive or likelier die with Korean substituting for Cuban in a few months } ). "In 1983, the GPS ceased being solely a military system and was made available for public use. President Ronald Reagan declassified the GPS system in response to a tragedy involving a civilian airplane. Korean Airline flight 007 got lost over Soviet territory and was shot down by Soviet fighters." Korean Air Lines flight 007's pilots' navigational error triggered the process through the former lifeguard Reagan's grief over the lost lives ( Cold War tensions and uncertainties had probably caused the Soviets to kill regardless of whether it was a civilian airplane or not ) that eventually led to the end of the Soviet phase of the Cold War via the hitherto unnamed and schizophrenic Strategic "Peace" Initiative winding through Reykjavik, Iceland. We can all see that the peace dividend resulting in the internet has been all important to the most significant four new U.S. companies of Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google. The U.S. winning the Soviet phase of the Cold War improved many lives worldwide through the internet and GPS so it was worthwhile despite its huge price tag. The Soviet system should be commended for having produced such a great reform-minded ruler as Mikhail Gorbachev without whom the demilitarization would have been impossible. I think that the U.S. had messed up integrating the former Soviet Union with the West. However, I very much doubt that a benevolent military dictatorship by the U.S. would have been palatable ( the U.S. did charge huge numbers of troops into both Japan and Germany after the war. Yes, the troops at that time were indeed issued condoms as confirmed by my Dad who was present there in Greater Yokohama/Kamakura, Japan. Men dominate societies because they can trust each other for coöperation -- they can grab each other's EXTERNAL testicles and 'testify'! It's been suggested that the Japanese people gained body heights postwar because the Japanese women had received inseminations of tallness-related genes from the American G.I.s of Occupation Force { viz., the conquering-hero sandwiches, "Trust your feelings." "May the Force be with you." Advocating for the future taller stature of the Yamato race, Yoda implored the Yamato women, "Do. Or do not. There's no try." After more than six centuries of samurai-enforced Shogunate military dictatorships, the Yamato race understands well ( "the American Caesar" was just the latest yet another Shogun so few adjustments were needed ) that the warrior code says: To the Hero goes the Beauty. Maybe not quite a "battle-hardened[-by-a-golf-club]" Tiger Woods can result from that but a forked-hero sandwich has Double the efficiency of a "strait"-one in golfing which is the kingty sport the powerful Orangutan ( who mandates precoital HIV tests for his trivial pursuits - absolutely a germophobe and believer in preventive healthcare for himself only but not others because he had his mind's "eyes torn out" -- he'll become the "blind man looking for a shadow of doubt," the "rich man sleeping on a golden bed," and a "skeleton choking on a crust of bread" ) enthusiastically promotes and supports, yeah, such as the Brownx links ( what was there before? a hazardous waste dump, burial plots, a forgotten royalty burial site converted to a parking lot, or a landfill? ) next to a cemetery for efficiency; "we dig diverse Hoㄹes!" } ) Imagine how life would be with NO internet and NO GPS, no Facebook, little Amazon, zombie Apple, and minuscule Google. NO Big Data. Little long-distance anything.
There IS a limit on how high the U.S. debt can go. It's ill-defined but it must be there. The U.S. is extremely special but it still cannot defy universal gravitation. All we can say for sure is that there are countries which got into terrible economic distress after their national-debt-to-GDP ratio had exceeded 100%. The U.S. has already gone past that threshold. It's one reason that I was opposed to adding trillions of dollars worth of new debt onto the existing debt. There's such a thing as "upsetting the apple cart" in Economics. Recent volatilities in the financial markets indicate that the cart is rather wobbly. The Orangutan probably went for the wrong fruit. He should have grabbed the one from South Carolina, juicier anyway.
''We Live in a Country That Has a Totally Corrupted Political System'' by Thom Hartmann:
I really like Thom Hartmann. I really do & we follow each other on Twitter but even as he writes excellent & insightful pieces like your link & the link above ... his attachment to the Democratic Party is what stops him going from well meaning progressive to an actual radical. Radical & Revolutionaries need to lead us into the Promised Land of All That We Can Be - individually & societally if our myriad problems are to be solved. That requires a rejection of a 'Duopoly = Democracy Delusion', that too many people suffer from.
Private Bankers corrupt & control both sides and then occupy & own a demoCRAZY deMOCKERYcy! It doesn't have to be like this. True Democracy & PUBLICLY OWNED BANKS can liberate us all from The Tyranny of Double Entry Bookkeeping & Compound Interest! We can engineer & create, better systems.
radix omnium malorum est cupiditas ...
''Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Proposes 70 Percent Tax on Mega-Rich to Pay for “Green New Deal”''
fiat justitia ...
Through Occupy change has taken time, but change always takes time. People were quick to call the movement a failure but 11 years on we can see the changes are coming. A decade is nothing in the span of history.
"We need to celebrate incremental change" says Rebecca Solnit
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/14/we-need-to-celebrate-incremental-change
"Change itself becomes invisible when your timeframe is shorter than that change, and the short-term view breeds defeatism and despair."
Occupy was never going to bring instant change. What it did was plant the seeds in the minds of the American people that they ARE the 99%, that they MATTER, that the economy should work for ALL of them. It takes time to plant these ideas and even more time for the actions to create the change.
Take for instance the fact that, "student debt emerged as a focus in 2011’s Occupy Wall Street uprising" says Solnit. Right and what victory did we just win, a large debt jubliee. A perfect debt jubilee, no, but would David Graeber be thrilled? Yes, I think so.
She goes on to say, "Nevertheless as soon as Occupy began, pundits were asserting it was a failure, and when the Zuccotti Park presence in Lower Manhattan was violently broken up by police in November 2011, they declared that it was over. But even when the rock’s on the bottom of the pool, the ripples are still spreading."
"Occupy was never going to bring instant change. What it did, was plant the seeds in the minds of the American people that they ARE the 99%, that they MATTER, that the economy should work for ALL of them. It takes time to plant these ideas and even more time for the actions to create the change." As it warrants repetition! Also fyi:
multum in parvo!
"Occupy Wall Street did More than You Think"
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/how-occupy-wall-street-reshaped-america/620064/
By Michael Levitin, co-founding editor of the "Occupy Wall Street Journal"
"And in a sense, the protesters have never gone home. Harry Waisbren, who helped lead the movement’s online efforts at Zuccotti Park, told me, “The individuals and the networks would go on and start new projects, and you’d keep seeing them over and over at the cutting edge: The same people who were in Occupy Wall Street were in Black Lives Matter, the People’s Climate March, the Sunrise Movement. Some of the top activists of this generation got their start at Occupy.”
Of course you could add Bernie Sanders' stunning 2016 presidential campaign, the Squad with AOC and Ilan Omar etc as well as the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America and the Fight for 15.
Occupy Changed America for good. Yes, I agree with that sentiment. See the article below:
"10 years ago, a ragtag army called Occupy Wall Street changed America, for good | Will Bunch
Ridiculed and harassed by militarized police, 2011's Occupy movement sparked a progressive movement remaking America a decade later."
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/occupy-wall-street-10th-anniversary-20210909.html
"First, they ignored Occupy Wall Street. On the late-summer morning of September 17, 2011, there were no major news organizations present — not even the hometown New York Times — when a ragtag army of a couple hundred protesters fed up with America’s gross inequality tried to set up camp in the heart of Manhattan’s Financial District and were pushed back by a massive police response to an unknown spot called Zuccotti Park.
"Then, they ridiculed it. As the crowds of campers in the park re-dubbed “Freedom Plaza” swelled and protests spread to scores of other U.S. cities and then around the world, the usual suspects in right-wing media rediscovered the canard about “dirty, smelly hippies” to whip up resentment — rather than address the issues that marchers were raising, such as (then) three decades of soaring income inequality, massive student debt, and U.S. military spending.
"Then, they fought it. Big-city mayors like New York’s Michael Bloomberg or Philadelphia’s Michael Nutter stopped pretending to respect the free-speech rights of demonstrators and called in militarized police who squirted pepper spray and swung nightsticks to clear out the tent cities, or to kettle and arrest the Occupiers on trumped-up charges.
"Today, on the cusp of its 10th anniversary, Occupy Wall Street is winning.
"Scores of cities, several states, and even some large corporations have adopted the $15 minimum living wage that had seemed a pipe dream on that September Saturday in 2011 when NYPD officers ringed the “Raging Bull” statue in Lower Manhattan. The student loan crisis — which no one in power was talking about a decade ago, even as the debt load skyrocketed toward its current $1.7 trillion — is finally on the political front burner in Washington. A new president, who was still a cautious, centrist Democrat back when the Occupy protests erupted, has since adopted a progressive agenda — already cutting child poverty in half, as Congress debates a slew of ambitious social programs and funding them by taxes on “the 1 Percent,” a term launched by the 2011 protests.
"The fascinating thing about the Occupy protests is that no one — including the established stalwarts of the political left — saw them coming. Few people had heard of Adbusters, the radical magazine that announced the protest that summer with an illustration of a ballerina atop the “Raging Bull” statue and the question, “What is our one demand?,” or knew about secret planning meetings that New York activists like the late David Graeber were taking part in.
"But timing is everything. Around the world, 2011 was a year of revolutionary upheaval, beginning with the so-called Arab Spring and the massive Tahrir Square uprising that toppled the Egyptian government and became something of a template for Zuccotti Park. Here at home, young people had initially channeled their angst over the Iraq War fiasco and the 2008 financial crisis into the “HOPE”-emblazoned presidential campaign of Barack Obama. But hope was fading two-plus years into his gridlocked presidency.
"Critics who called Occupy a failure — noting it never agreed on that “one demand” as called for in the Adbusters meme — missed the offshoots and alliances that continued working to re-energize a once moribund progressive movement in the U.S. For example, a then-31-year-old progressive filmmaker from Manhattan named Astra Taylor, who also joined the Occupy Wall Street protest that first September Saturday, was drawn to the working group around debt, which organized a nationwide protest that fall as outstanding student loans passed the $1 trillion mark. From that sprung the Debt Collective, an ongoing campaign that has helped everyday folks retire $2 billion in debt and is leading the fight for college loan forgiveness.
"“I don’t think I’d be doing what I’m doing” if not for the Occupy protest, said Stocker-Kelly, who said the uprising taught her how to cover contentious social movements and to listen to voices of everyday people.
"It’s one more way the momentum forged one decade ago, which once echoed down the concrete canyons of Lower Manhattan, can still be heard today." ... ^Excerpted^ from your link + FYI, NB:
per aspera ad astra ...
Cuba's Covid19 vaccines serve people, not profit.
"Cuba’s socialist approach to developing vaccines against COVID-19 differs strikingly from that of capitalist nations of the world. Cuba’s production of four vaccines is grounded in science and dedicated to saving the lives of all Cubans, and to international solidarity."
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/02/08/cubas-covid-19-vaccines-serve-the-people-not-profits/?fbclid=IwAR11uHSl3Q8xHqs9kMcnbbqP5i7t8NZNGTQMUHyi95MDAfNHQXDjXYGrE2s
Compare and contrast Cuba with this ...
respice; adspice; prospice ...
Success of Occupy: Corbyn & Sanders both have a real chance to lead the UK & USA. The seeds of Occupy from 8 years ago are growing. Who would ever have thought 2 socialists would be leading the pack to run two of the richest countries in the world just a mere 8 years from when Zuccotti was occupied? That is success. Never tell me the ideas of occupied failed, that's crap.
The UK election is December 12th. Do what you can to get a Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn into power. It will change the course of neoliberalism if they win! It will be a watershed moment in history if they win. Let's do this!
Make your plans to Vote in UK General Election on December 12th.
Where is your polling station?
What time will you vote?
How are you getting there?
Who are you bringing with you?
Do you need to tell your job you need time to vote?
Plan now and VOTE LABOUR.
Get the Tories out. End Austerity. End the deleterious neoliberal policies of the past 40 years
David Graeber's "take on the AS controversy and why intentionally fanning the flames, as so many are doing, endangers Jewish people'' - from …
multum in parvo ...
Vote Labour on December 12th to end Tory Austerity and get Jeremy Corbyn, a fundamentally good person, as Prime Minister.
Don't listen to the establishment's fear mongering. The Labour Manifesto will bring relief to the many. It is fully funded and doesn't even bring UK spending up to the spending of France and Germany. That is how bad Tory austerity has been.
Graeber is right about the canards against Corbyn.
Consider: Why Labour Lost …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I_ZhGHxnHQ&feature=youtu.be [ 9.26] & also consider...
https://medium.com/@umar.nasser/why-corbyn-lost-what-labour-must-do-next-974780cee6d6
et fiat lux!
End Tory Austerity. Vote Labour tomorrow, December 12th and take part in changing the world for the better, for the many.
Sadly Stockholm Syndrome Suffering "Boiling Frogs" were unable to resist MSM Mind Management, Mendacity and Manipulation - to vote for their own long term collective self interests .. YET AGAIN!!! With regard to ''Graeber is right about the canards against Corbyn'' - please carefully consider this …
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/12/14/dont-let-smears-sank-corbyn-tank-bernie-sanders by the ever clear eyed Asa Winstanley & submitted in response to U above & here ..
http://occupywallst.org/forum/us-policy-to-israel-palestine-must-change-by-by-ji/#comment-1078105
multum in parvo ...
Citizens need to read and engage deeply with the issues, the candidates and their societies in general before they vote.
Lazy minds move us toward fascism. The British people will realize in the coming days what they have done and what they have lost.
Re. Dem Debate, sadly ... "IF anyone thinks Trump plans to have a fair race against whoever wins the Democratic nomination, they haven’t been paying attention. Trump and the Republican Party do not consider themselves bound at all by rules of electoral fairness or reality.'' ... from:
https://truthout.org/articles/impeachment-could-prevent-trump-from-attempting-election-fraud-in-2020/
& see link embedded here https://twitter.com/Shadz66Shadz6t6/status/1207869388776509450
fiat lux …
Sanders must learn from Corbyn's defeat.
There are many lessons there that are well outlined in this article:
"Why Corbyn Lost & What Labour Must do Next"
https://medium.com/@umar.nasser/why-corbyn-lost-what-labour-must-do-next-974780cee6d6
(Bernie must be much tougher. He needs to stop being Mr. Nice Guy. He must never allow anti-semitism canard/smears to take hold against him, a Jewish man. Corbyn an absolute anti-racist of all sorts didn't defend himself and allowed the media to control the mendacious narrative. Libel is libel - sue if you have to.)
(This is interesting because I think it does relate to the USA as well. The idea of "Make America Great Again" is a nationalistic outcry because it doesn't concern itself with whether America really is made great again it's just a shallow phrase. The left has to figure out a way to deal with cries of nationalism that override class consciousness and bring it back to matters of class.)
(Ahh, this applies to the USA too and relates again to how Bernie Sanders needs to toughen up. He needs to be more assertive with the press. "Every media outlet was anti-Corbyn" in the UK and while they are generally much more polite to Bernie than they were to Corbyn, they are condescending, they lie about his positions and policies and funding and they lie a lot about where he stands in the polls and they almost never show his rallies or give him decent coverage, etc.)
A O-C "I'm someone's daughter, too. My father, thankfully, is not alive to see how Mr.Yoho treated his daughter," she went on to say. "My mother got to see Mr. Yoho's disrespect on the floor of this House towards me on television. And I am here because I have to show my parents that I am their daughter and that they did not raise me to accept abuse from men." from ...
dux femina facti!
"British Culture Prioritises National Identity Over Economic Progress" It's false. The foreign policies of the U.K. demonstrated that it would rather make economic progress with Red China than stand up for Hong Kong where it had de facto treaty rights to enforce upon Red China. The U.K. also led the stampede of the Western nations ( excluding the U.S. ) to join Red China's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The U.K. was nowhere close to being what the British Empire had been.
It's probably why Russia had dared to assassinate a number of Russian expatriates in the U.K. although Russia is no match fighting with the U.K. as a foe in a conventional war. ( It's the reason why continental Europe didn't feel the need to spend much on defense.) If a conflict should escalate to a nuclear war, Russia will likely find that most of its nuclear weapons have already become duds. Russia has probably already lost the older generation of scientists and engineers who possessed the knowledge and knowhow about these nuclear weapons in order to deal with them ( naturally turning inevitably into nuclear waste over time in a popcorn-popping-like process.) People die and radioactive atoms decay. Plutonium ( the rich's metal ) burns hole in the owner's pocket and nuclear weapons must be made reliably triggerable and maintained for their staying as being weapons.
This is why putting "a plutonium bomb under every kitchen sink" ( or maybe it's better with a bottle of Russian "cooking" wine instead, as potatoes plus natural gas no longer going to Germany can be anaerobically fermented with yeast and distilled using natural gas into the spirits of wine to feed the wino and the auto ) is such a great idea because when it's been achieved we'll have global peace since nobody knows whose bomb(s) may actually work and over time they all become duds ( regardless of whether via hypersonic or infrasonic delivery.)
For "the huddled masses yearning to breathe free," "[T]he air is also free in the land of the free," regardless of whether it's hot or Erklärungsnot. Huawei's cheap ( Also sprach Zarathustra !) After Thanksgiving, turkeys are on sale, too.
When one's drilling a hole and the drill is stuck in the hole, one reverses the direction of the drill in order to back up before trying again. What hasn't worked for so long will probably not work anytime soon unless a new method is tried. Everyone should be glad that it's not the United Prefectures of Japan managing the aftermath of the meltdowns of a few nuclear reactors and their accumulated used nuclear fuel-rod waste. China syndrome was a misnomer because it should've been Japan syndrome, Ukraine syndrome, or DonbAss syndrome.
My first kindergarten's English vocabulary book started with 'apple', 'arm', 'book', 'bus', 'car', 'cat'/'cup', 'dog', 'door', etc. 'book' definitely came before 'bus' when throwing things at before throwing people under. My Mom was often happy seeing me "hitting the book." It's good that she didn't know what book it was as she might claim that it's a "low energy" little red book about human wongs. Hmm, 'car' 'cat'/'cup'/"¿Holy Grail?" coming on also make sense.
I didn't get to learn 'apples' and 'arrows' until I'd been relocated and started attending the very expensive ( my Mom was engaging me in my foie-gras building; it's a total waste of her money, my time, and my kindergarten's teaching effort as I had yellow "throughput;" education is much more than a one-way stuffing; I learnt much more on my one-and-only discovery trip going with my Big Brother to my purported but no-doubt bottom-oriented "birthplace;" "immersion" of newly arrived immigrants in learning English makes no sense at all because it's gibberish to someone without much understanding of the rudiments of English; my experience moving to an all-everyday-English-and-English-only-instruction kindergarten using hundreds of vocabulary words, from having learnt a 2x26-word English vocabulary book in my first kindergarten was more akin to a drowning than an "immersion" as I was grappling with several languages and dialects concurrently--it became my topmost priority when Dad started complaining to Mom that he couldn't understand his kids' conversations and imposed rules on what languages or dialects could be spoken where and when, to whom and in particular to him--linguistically a T-man, knowing a little of many languages sufficient to travel to and get back safely from a few dozens of countries { except from apartheid South Africa--apartheid was a violence creator } but only one much deeper than all of the others; I've begun to suspect that he had supplied the stupid money and Mom had provided the education-zealot's aspiration; means+intention=stupid boredom to me, a "seedling" being fertilized and pulled up higher to help it "grow tall" faster; educating at the appropriate level is the best, particularly when the interest to learn is intense: I wanted to learn about my purported "birthplace" so I learnt a lot very quickly { Mom lied } and remembered well due to the multi-sensory impressive experience; it's why "enriched environments" delighted me despite their being non-systematic but having sufficiently many puzzle pieces in hand makes "clicking" into place far more probable and enjoyable ) but literally shitsink kindergarten which overflowed one day! The overflow was not because of my bottom orientation, okay?! The event's cause was likely ionic in origin ( i.e. Stalin Fe meeting Na+Cl-aq.+O2(Sauerstoff)=Rustia Collapse.)
Ultimately, only force can settle disputes for a while between untrustworthy parties to whom agreements and declarations are the means of delaying tactics or camouflage to gain a strategic advantage rather than being the expressions of genuine intentions. If there's no ball(s), having an agreement doesn't matter so force will eventually matter ( the World desperately needs Open Crotch Treaties/Friendships as Churchill had so famously demonstrated to Roosevelt in those dark dates of war.) "Rendézvous with Destiny" is probably inevitable. It was a "nice try" so at least there's the peace of mind gained. Recall the biblical story of Sodom--if only one righteous person existed in Sodom after Lot's much bargaining down the count, Sodom would've been spared but no, not even one... so Na+Cl-s. ( not aq.) is for "ye of little faith." Matt. 5-37.
Pootin the Great has MoscowMitch in place, the rulemaker in the upcoming NON-jury trial, to protect our 'cat' on the white porcelain throne. Prayer helped Jesus at Gethsemane to overcome human weakness when confronted by an inevitable prophesy. Taking the Fifth is outlawed but taking the Ninth is still permitted.
The qualification for having human rights is just for being human, regardless of religions, ethnicities, genders, social classes, skin colors, wealth, etc. Rights are artificial constructs so they are to be exercised, protected, and shored up as necessary from time to time to remind others of their continued existence lest limits such as the statue of limitation should prohibit the exercise of "expired" rights. Whites have accustomed to using this method of acquisition to gain the control of indigenous peoples' land and resources under the banners of Colonialism, "White Man's Burden," cultural enlightenment, or mercantile expansion. Magnified with credit ( with the help of the very famous world-renowned groups,) this approach has infected other [non-White, bloody] nations, often resulting in many terrible unwarranted conflicts. A sudden influx of "money"( actually numbers backed by hot air ) created out of thin air into a community ( my residence's rent approximately tripled in two years probably due to the greed of the real estate parasites ) can cause massive disruptions, distress, and probably murders of the weaker members of the master race. It's why when I'm transferring stone coins which are non-inflationary due to their being the fruits of actual-but-not-always-by-myself labor, though diminished by the master race's hot air blowing over the years, I do it in smaller amounts over time. A little bit at a time can perk up the local economy and make everyone share in gaining a bit more of income but too much all at once can trigger greed and inflation which is the means by which the master race steals the fruits of labor from all workers, especially the worker bees being rightsized by a "mysterious" colony collapse disease. According to Fortune magazine's article, "The Shrinking Middle Class," January 2019, p. 54:
The important number for most non-supervisory workers is the average hourly earnings adjusted for inflation. Inflation is largely generated by the master race with the numbers backed by hot air. A human worker is much slower to be trained than a smart programmable machine. As my learning experience in my second kindergarten had revealed, the speed of education would probably lag far behind that of firmware upgrades by orders of magnitudes. The costs to create a new human worker ( not just initiating one!) are generally more than those of creating one more smart programmable machine. Besides, there's little pension cost for a non-nuclear non-coal machine. Human workers will largely become obsolete in the on-the-production-line jobs which can be done by smart programmable machines. I expect a future cyborg society with humans and machines working complementarily together and many existing non-supervisory jobs will be taken over by machines although the supervisors' jobs of watching the videos will likely persist or even increase greatly ( the foundations of human and most biological lives are food and sex so once Deep-Ai has taken over the food side, aside from the non-supervisory jobs of developing firmware upgrades, what's left over to be done but to keep an eye on things and fuck till a machine breaks down?) Recent years' White male mortality rate has already increased in the direction for alleviating the social problem of having an excessive number of human workers ( primarily from importing the labor of foreign non-White countries with the largest populations such as India and Red China.) It's important to join the [human, not Deep-Ai] supervisors' ranks before the cyborg society arrives at the parking lot. Education matters--e.g. machine psychiatry, counseling, debugging, module transplant, recycling, etc.
Trump Thoughts. 》Die Zukunft gehört der neugierigen Jugend.《 Barron!
The President of the United States Donald John Trump has been impeached (as of 2019-12-18 20:50 ET) by the U.S. House of Representatives on both articles of impeachment: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Belarus set an example for how long to imprison 指鹿为马 Donald John Trump for "inciting mass unrest and social hatred" on many occasions, including but not limited to January 6th, 2021.
Per the Belarus-Russia reunification pact, the Russian Army already in the position to pounce can liberate Belarus to help Pootin's twice-impeached Bosom Buddy Donald John Trump's sinking prospect as a leadener of the freaked-out Whites. The people of Belarus and Russia are "one single people," Pootin's "people."
Did my Dad only live twice -- once in China and once in Japan ? Did he live with a Japanese wife who protected him during WWII and bore him two of my half sisters { the people of Japan and China are "one single people" } after the war was over and thus there was the artwork memento preciously preserved as an heirloom ? It seems to me that there was a "grand bargain" between my Dad and Mom around the time when my Big Brother told me that from then on we had to speak to my Dad in his own dialect only. There were several pieces of circumstantial evidence that Dad dedicated to his Chinese-side family from that time onward while still retaining some Japanese mementos. That was so WWII-》Anschluß-like. Now it's different... regardless of whether it be the Kremlin or Sochi, it'll become just SWIFTly "rubbles."
Warmth may be a good thing in Russia's southern flank, but never to excess, such as near Pootin-smeared Georgia, Crimea, eastern Ukraine... A street performer's life can easily be endangered by a sunstroke ( Cypress Garden in Flori-duh might have had a similar problem with its Southern Belle display -- better working conditions such as rehydration breaks or someday actions triggered by body-integrated sensors can help avoid tragedy. In Hong Kong, I was sunstroke twice, once on an island on a boating trip, and once I threw up after being overheated due to [what I'd call excessive] British formality ( it's not just my Dad's obsession with nicely greased and combed hair, unruffled creases on pants/trousers, and shiny reflective black-waxed polished shoes; hanging around with the British could rub off on one's cultural inclinations and perhaps "prejudices" because he had worked for the British for the bulk of his working life; he told me that Americans were mongrels in diversity and didn't care that much about what other people wore { probably because of a general tolerance for "innovations" such as truly fancy worn-out bedsheet draped and wrapped artfully as high fashion -- sufficiently GOOD-TASTE "garbage wear" is indistinguishable from high fashion -- this had even been tested and worked in "private-client" bank where there's no autistic kid noticing the threadbaredness or holes 《 a beautiful model with flawless skin filling up the holes might not impress an autistic pre-pubescent child at all; G-strings and lace were very expensive but definitely not because of the amount of clothing materials needed for making them -- they were aiming for visibility 》 and blurting out something akin to "the emperor is naked..." that just attests to the alchemist power of "art" to transform } that suits me just fine ! Meghan, I understand a bit of British "stuffiness;" some of which is maladaptive when transplanted from a high-latitude country to my subtropical Hong Kong; Indians and Arabs, i.e. White people transplanted to sunsplashed hot countries often donned headdress; In the sun were only "Mad dogs and Englishmen"... )
Let me save the scientific communities of Russia and Red China some work: the practical global plan for climate change is "full steam ahead" with coal; climate will yield. Russia has vetoed U.N. Security Council's involvement with the climate-change issue ( the Ukraine-Russia war won't be due to freshwater shortage in Crimea after hundreds of thousands to millions of Russians having moved to Crimea for the warmth and the extra Russian governmental expenditures there, blah, blah, blah..."the gatherer of lands" forgot about freshwater so Crimea grows more land-without-much-freshwater desert with Russia-vetoed "climate change", hahaha... ) India is accelerating using cheap coal, too, in order to pull its 1.3-billion people out of poverty into prosperity. With at least 2.8-billion people in just Red China, India, and Russia alone exercising their global "democracy" forging ahead with coal, oil, and natural gas, our destiny is crystal clear: mass human migratory chaos the U.N. Secuity Council will ignore.
Fossil-fueled ( mostly coal initially but oil and natural gas became important later on; Red China, India, and Turkey are running whole-hog coal-based industrialization to get rich quickly by ruining the environment; their people must eventually migrate for clean air and water, for 》Lebensraum《 which often meant chaos and war via the Trumpery populism of Capitalism, Colonialism, Communism, Fascism, and Nazism ) industrialization combined with compound-interest-rate-being-x loans to power it is the overly real mirage which will destroy the Earth as a human-habitable planet, our only long-term sustainable abode in the Universe. When we run out of natural gas to make ammonia, one third of humanity will have no protein to survive with ★ a pizza pie can be cut and made roughly in the limit of really thin 《 as the change in r or delta r becomes the infinitesimal dr which is a positive number smaller than any given fixed positive number; the d in dr is a difference operator { I donate money to fund wikipedia so my frequent quotes from it are just } and the result of its operating on r, dr, isn't zero in divisions dr/dr = 1, dr squared / dr = dr, ... because it is 0.1, 0.01, 0.001, 0.001, .. in turn but is effectively set to zero in the final valuation because doing that large enough times such as 0.0000000000001r is almost exactly 0 although still being nonzero; (r + dr) squared - r squared = 2r dr + (dr squared); dividing through by dr gives 2r + dr; setting dr to zero yields 2r as the derivative of r squared 》cuts into a rectangle -- via the infinitesimal/disassembling and integral/assembling calculus process called quadrature; Newton was assembling and disassembling powers of 1+x using Pascal's Triangle for coefficients in the video ★. The tried-and-true solution from olden times was war. Most if not all of us humans have warrior ancestors who would have loved eating pizzas, with all of that salt and fat. How many times must Man eat a bullet before he realizes that wars are a negative-sum game but just, transparent, and symmetric trade is a positive-sum one ? Once, but too late -- Adolf Hitler died eating bullet as a finally married to Eva Braun man.
I don't worship Zeus anymore since I got hold of his lightning bolt at age 6 to electrify my life with refrigerator ( our time machine slowing food decay ), fluorescent lighting ( "Let there be Light and there was Light" -- from Lighthouse Publishing in free lighthouse libraries with its motto: "spreading the Light of Knowledge everywhere [it can, and warning of where not to run aground to all intrepid sailors in the Ocean of Knowledge] while eating Portuguese/Macau/Hong-Kong egg tarts and curry-beef-filling Chinese puff pastry" ), palm-held transistor radio ( "today we'll have a sunny day with localized regional sporadic thunderstorms with gusty winds; temperature will reach 30°C " Do I need to wear rubber boots and raincoat to walk to school today ? it's a very typical weather forecast in Hong Kong; I usually chance it because my elementary/primary school was only 10 minutes of walking from my home ), breadbox-size multiband radio with global shortwave listening reach ( Communists' propagandas lied and lied and lied and lied and lied and lied and lied -- how did Laika really die ? I frankly wasn't surprised that U.S.S.R. eventually collapsed if its leadership couldn't even come to moral terms with what had been done at their command; Germany was superior & Japan was inferior about WWII ) ... after my family had moved away from our shantytown called "bamboo-garden united village."
Russia's bat-shit-crazy mobiles can be keyed by the Betelgeuse ¿2022, no? Deathstar.
Unsustainable rapid industrialization is the cancer of the planet Earth, with Red China spearheading the collapse of human habitats worldwide. India and Turkey second and third Red China's leadenship with the dirtiest and most polluting fossil fuel. Red China has dirty killer air and dirty killer water ( surely much cancer to its people ! ) Most photographs and videos of Red China showed smog as if everyone there were huffing and puffing away on cigars and cigarettes. Now they don't have 1.4 billion Monicas to swallow the pollution or blow aubergine cool with Altoids' coating so... they share with the impressionable (e.g. soot to coat transPacific British Columbia's Snow Whites) Clitorite Girl Guides worldwide !
I strongly urge the U.K. electorate to take this exit very seriously and go to vote, especially its younger voters.
The U.K. possesses the strongest military force that can protect democratic free Europe against Russian aggression. The European Union doesn't have an integrated continental multi-EU-member ready-to-fight military force but if the U.K. says go, its troops can get to the European frontline and fight very quickly. The bulk of the U.S. forces are an American salty lake away so Free Europe had better be capable of holding off Russia for a while. The U.K. exiting the E.U. may leave many free European countries exposed. It may also trigger the breakup of the E.U. bloc. There are already a few countries waiting in line!
Although the U.S. and the E.U. are at times at odds ( mostly over economic matter,) it's largely true that we all hold the same values regarding the freedom and sovereignty rights of the smaller [European] countries ( recall what had happened to Crimea, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, East Ukraine, etc; will you like having something similar happen for more of continental Europe? Russia is and was very troublesome for Europe; geographically it's in both Europe and Asia but its population, easily livable space, and culturally significant city centers are largely in Europe; mentally it's actually a European country thinking that it's much more than just a European country due to its having the vast Siberia but in fact that land mass is so inhospitable that it borders on being useless except for natural-resource extraction and a few unsavory activities such as developing neurotoxin, dumping nuclear wastes, etc; Siberia reminds me of our Alaska where the state pays its eligible residents free money and yet there's no population boom coming from the U.S. residents who can move freely to live there.) Of course, the U.S. may help the post-exit U.K. by forming more trading ties with it. The U.K. can also trade with its many former colonies which have become economically and militarily very significant. The U.K. is the only country with such connections.
Regardless of what position one takes, let us all hear from the people who must live with its historically decisive consequences. Vote!
The destruction of multilateral world trade is THE BEST WAY TO GO FORWARD when there's the built-in inflexibility for dealing with the members of an institution which had joined it in order to undermine it insidiously from within. The West India Company shall surpass the faded glory of the East India Company. The U.S. corporations which didn't heed the cannon shot being fired around noontime to dislodge the rocks would miss the lunch set out by my Mom.
In parachute jumping, where and how one lands matter greatly. 》Rot scheint die Sonne !《
Things have obviously become dire when a bank teller had used the trick told to me in my teen years ( probably in an effort to prevent me from being tricked, shortly after I had been plunked down in Manhattan as a newbie to America "you do count your money when you're standing at the counter { if the dealing's done }" "grab the crotch under the gown of the monk or nun and feel for the testicles or the vulva if your life hinges on your identifying exactly whether it was a swastikas-filled monastery or a nunnery; if you'd already lost the feel for the balls, remember that their common nickname is family jewels so the nobles in the family may still possess them as heirloom" ) stereotyping the Jews ( but I didn't know "Jews" in my earlier years so I was reminded, "the air is also free in the land of the free" and I figured out a way to identify them in line with my Mom's very successful criterion for identifying terrorists/kid-nappers and distinguishing between the two types { wir putzen das Auto }; the Jew kids who had been shanghaied to go to a free port of China were in fact offered a chance at a new life with the Chinese and ethnically Jewish people who dispensed mercy despite their own dire circumstances under the Japs' occupation; Hong Kongers seeking to escape the clutches of the CCP may find a friendly and understanding face in the Jews due to the deeds of their forebears ) in order to short-change a customer cashing a dividend check immediately before the bank closed for the day. Big shots can steal and not go to prison but now has the same thing gone true for the little guys morally, too? Jersey Shore/Staten Island alarm clock went off. Maybe it's indeed - don't don't be evil.
Recently I was wondering about my Dad's life experience on the rim of the Great West American Salty Lake. Remarkably an item from decades ago accidentally emerged. It's apparently of some importance to him because it was well protected inside of a waterproof bag and was said to have been stored together with his [¿old?] bank passbook(s).
A single bullet on Fifth Avenue killing a person is no different from that same person being hit by a nuclear bomb coming home to its prophetic namesake birthplace--"the Manhattan Project," as long as that person doesn't care about others. We certainly have such individuals in command of nuclear weapons so whether it's New York or elsewhere doesn't matter to any Manhattanite or any other individual being accurately targeted. During the Cold War, there were thousands upon thousands of nuclear warheads possibly targeting New York ( by both enemies and allies alike,) wasn't it true that some New Yorker only cared about making more money hand over fist?
They became "billionaires," didn't they? Ignorance is bliss. "Could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters." When one's counting the eggs before they hatch into chicks, "it's all in the wrist."
Global Plutonium Association Lesson 8: ( Quote from Roland Lee )
The very long 20,000 years is about the same as the radioactive half-life of plutonium. The U.S. bought Japanese cars made in Hiroshima with the steel of U.S. bombshells spent in Vietnam so radioactivity was certainly not a concern. If you think of the plutonium being the fuel giving off the destructive energy, known as yield E ( measured in units of kilo-/Megaton of TriNitroToluene-equivalent,) primarily as heat T and resultant (adiabatic) shockwave P, nRT=PV, you know by applying law of conservation of energy that the nuclear bomb-makers would have minimized the amount of residual plutonium after a detonation as a competent carmaker would have minimized the amount of unburnt gasoline spewed out as exhaust.
As for "nuclear power plant as a war breaks out," Fukushima already had a similar situation from a tsunami resulting in the meltdowns of several nuclear reactors. People just don't live nearby anymore except for older people who are likely to die of other causes before they are likely to get cancers from the radiation. One vast difference between the tsunami-caused meltdowns of the nuclear reactors and the war-caused ones will be the existence of a well-organized society to handle the aftermath. Japan is still around and managing it! I suspect though that the voluminous radioactive groundwater will soon be dumped inevitably into the ocean.
There are also other Anthropocene's markers. We have already marked every banana present and future with radioactivity so "America's most favorite fruit" shows that we eat what we make. Of course, the Russians do the same. That's why they had the world-renowned peace activists ( let's face it; the Russians had skirted very close to the abyss many times, stared down, and recoiled with honor { in my personal opinion but not Russians'! it's unsurprising that many heights of beauty and rationality have a Russian accent: epic music, novels, ballets, chess-playing, mathematics, physics, etc. I feel that it's unfortunate that Russia seems to be eternally cursed somehow } as opposed to the blissfully ignorant U.S. populace, but like the "billionaires," our populace had a better time snoozing undisturbed in comfort--dreaming of making just a few billions of dollars more!)
The UK Labour Party's Plan to Win!
https://plantowin.peoplesmomentum.com/
"This Is It:
The next six weeks are the most important weeks of our lives. After years of hard work knocking on doors, phone banking and campaigning - it all comes down to this. It’s either socialism with Jeremy Corbyn, or disaster capitalism with Boris Johnson - and now it's down to us. We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to transform our country, but we face the very real and terrible possibility that Johnson will destroy it. It's him or us, and this is our chance to change the course of history. We can only do it together.
At the last election in 2017, we knocked on over a million doors and made hundreds of thousands of phone calls to voters in marginal constituencies across the country. We swung key constituencies for Labour, and deprived Theresa May of her majority in parliament. Our people-powered campaign was unprecedented, and we caused the biggest electoral upset in British modern history. We defied the media, the money, the polls, and all expectations. Now we need to do it again - and this time we need to win.
The Tories are raking in tens of millions from hedge funds and bankers - but we can beat them with people power. You are Labour’s secret weapon - and we need you to step up and go big. We need every single one of us to get out on the doorstep, organise local events and make big sacrifices to win. This is the chance of a lifetime, and we need you to give all you can. Here’s how we’re going to win.
The Strategy. There are 3 main parts to our strategy:
1) We need to build people power.
For Labour to win this election, we're going to need people power. Boris Johnson's campaign strategy relies on having millionaires and the media on his side. We have hundreds of thousands of people across the country inspired by Labour's vision for transforming the country, ready to make small donations and volunteer huge amounts of time to our campaign. People-power can beat millionaires and the media - and it's up to us to prove it.
We showed this in 2017. Our movement knocked on over a million doors and made hundreds of thousands of phone calls to voters in across the country - and it worked. We won the biggest increase in vote share since 1945 and deprived the Tories of their majority in parliament, defying the media, the polls, and all expectations. Now we need to do it again - and this time we need to win.
But this time we don't just need to knock on doors - we need to organise in all the ways we can. We need to organise hundreds of phone bank parties. We need to organise hundreds of voter registration events. We need to build huge online volunteer teams. We need to put on hundreds of trainings for new activists. We need to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds of small donations - and so much more. We need to use every tool at our disposal - and we need to make the best use of the huge amount of talent and hard work in our movement.
We can only do this together, and every one of us will need to make big sacrifices to win. This is the chance of a lifetime, and we need you to give all you can.
2) We need to target marginals.
We must be strategic about where we focus our campaigning. There are a number of seats across the country that were won and lost at the last election by just a few thousand voter - and 11 seats were won by fewer than a hundred. These are what we call marginal seats, and it’s in these constituencies - like Chingford and Woodford Green, Mansfield and Southampton Itchen - that the election will be won or lost. This is where we need to focus our firepower - on marginals seats we’re likely to win from the Tories and seats that Labour is defending.
In the 2017 general election, Momentum focused our firepower on a number of key marginals including Battersea, Brighton Kemptown and Crewe & Nantwich - and we won them from the Tories. Now we need to do this again - and on a much, much bigger scale.
Tory donors are planning to pour millions into marginal seats at this election - but we can beat them if we campaign strategically. The best way to persuade people to vote Labour is through face to face conversations. We’ve calculated that in the 150 most marginal constituencies in the country, there are around 2 million target doors that we’ll need to knock on over the six week election period. The number of doors a person can knock in a day varies depending on a number of factors, but we estimate that on average a person can knock on 50 doors a day. This means we need over 5,000 people to do 8 full days of door knocking over the election period in order for us to win.
This might sound like a lot, but there's no doubt that together we can do it. At the last election we flooded marginal constituencies on polling day, swinging key seats for Labour and defying the polls. In the recent Peterborough by-election we got 1000 people knocking on doors for Labour - and won the seat against all the odds.
Now we need to do it again, except unlike in 2017, we won't be asking activists to go to their nearest marginals. This time our campaign will be much more data driven, and we'll be mobilising activists to go to the marginals that need them most. Where activists are most needed will be calculated based on a number of factors that will include where they are in the country and what marginals are in their area, but also how many doors have been knocked on and how many activists have turned out already. We're going to be smarter than ever before.
3) We need you to step up.
At the last election we asked people to canvass, take the day off on polling day and phone bank for Labour. This was very effective for swinging key marginal constituencies, but in this election we're going to ask you to step up and go bigger.
This time we're going to be taking a volunteer-driven approach to our campaigning called ‘distributed organising’, based on the experiences of the Bernie Sanders campaign in the US. This means we’re going to ask you to step up and become organisers, dedicate significant time and resources to campaigning, and run some of the most important parts of our election operation.
Over the past few weeks, we've been building the systems and infrastructure we need so that hundreds of you can step up during this election. We need you to organise carpools to marginal constituencies. We need you to organise phone bank parties from your living room. We need you to organise voter registration street stalls in your community. We need you to run huge online volunteer teams. We need you to run trainings for first-time activists - and so much more.
This time around, you are Labour's secret weapon. It's only by stepping up your commitment that we'll win."
"The only way forward, the only way to save our planet and our civilisation, is a rebirth of history. We must all revitalise the Enlightenment and recommit to honouring its values of freedom, respect for knowledge and democracy."
Thanx for your very important reply comment and info above. Sanders & Corbyn show The Way!
fiat lux ...
Sanders and Corbyn are watching each other closely.
If these two politicians, or movements, really, ("not me, us" & "for the many" can prove victorious, this would spell the end of neoliberalism.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bernie-sanders-jeremy-corbyn-uk-election-politics-democrat-labour-a9186316.html
"Corbyn strategist Steve Howell’s book about the UK’s 2017 general election, Game Changer, discusses what the Labour campaign learned from Sanders. The strategy of holding huge rallies as a way of building momentum was an early adoption. Sanders’ use of what Howell calls “narrative arcs” to spread political messages was the inspiration for Labour’s election slogan: “For the many, not the few.” Like team Corbyn, Sanders has made no secret that he’s been keeping an eye on political events across the pond too. In 2017, he aligned himself with Corbyn and said he was “very impressed” by the Labour leader’s campaigning style."
Bring it on. Let's do this. Let's finish off the evil policies of neoliberalism for good. President Sanders and Prime Minister Corbyn. Sounds good to me!
''Neoliberalism’s children are rising up to demand justice all over the world'' (incl. U$A/UK imo!)
''From Chile to Lebanon, mass mobilizations are calling for a political and economic revolution against the neoliberal consensus.''
per ardua ad astra ...
Let's begin with Corbyn.
A Corbyn PM and Labour government in the UK will begin to change the world.
Read the Labour Manifesto here:
https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/
For the Many, Not the Few is the reason why the British and American establishment are shitting themselves over the possibility of a Labour government. It will begin to turn around the evils of neoliberalism, fear-mongering, war-mongering, hate and austerity which have been enriching the 1 percent and corporations for decades.
"Media Taking Notice as Sanders Surges in New Polls'' by Ilana Novick:
caveat!
Sanders is surging.
"...Sanders has bounced back stronger than ever, according to two new polls. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll released Monday shows that even in the crowded Democratic primary field, 22% of respondents said they would vote for Sanders. Joe Biden came in first place, at 24%. Together, they have the support of almost half of Democratic and Democratic-leaning independent respondents. Elizabeth Warren came in third place, at 17%. Pete Buttigieg was fourth, at 13%."
Note: "Bernie Sanders Leads in “Gold-Standard” Iowa Poll for First Time" by Jessica Corbett
https://truthout.org/articles/bernie-sanders-leads-in-gold-standard-iowa-primary-poll-for-first-time/ and for an alternate link to the same article:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/10/he-could-win-caucuses-pollster-says-bernie-sanders-leads-gold-standard-iowa-survey
per ardua ...
Sanders is leading in IA, NV, NH & CA as of right now, January 12, 2020.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3a8qyb/bernie-is-now-leading-iowa-according-to-the-best-poll-in-the-game
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/05/poll-shows-sanders-leading-new-hampshire-tied-first-iowa-less-month-first-2020
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/01/12/election-2020-bernie-sanders-polling-momentum-has-team-eyeing-win/4421883002/
And precisely because Bernie is leading …
consider ... ''CNN's Debate Performance was Villainous and Shameful'' .. by Matt Taiibi: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/january-democratic-debate-2020-cnn-bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-938365/
and also note - https://www.thenation.com/article/sanders-warren-cnn-debate/ by Jeet Heer
et spero meliora!
Biden is going down and the establishment know it, hence the boosting up of Warren. I mean who else do they have that's even close to where Bernie is at? No one. Warren. So now she is the establishment's choice.
Biden is going down because of several factors: He's been relying mainly on name recognition which he has from being Obama's VP. He is not charismatic. He is not energetic. He does not have a following. He has bad record on war and social security, etc. He does poorly in the debates. And, the big one, he is all wrapped up in the Impeachment of Trump and the Ukraine scandal.
Bernie Sanders on the other hand has a movement that has been growing for 4 years. His policies are what most Americans want. He can be trusted, he is beloved and he beats Trump by more than any other candidate. Polls said in 2016 that he would have beat Trump.
Bernie's biggest challenge is to fight back against a biased media.
https://www.thenation.com/article/sanders-warren-cnn-debate/ by Jeet Heer
"Princeton historian Matt Karp tweeted, “Even as Bernie Sanders has built the largest grassroots campaign in US history—and currently leads the race in Iowa and NH—the networks still run post-debate panels without a single Bernie-friendly voice.”
HuffPost reporter Zach Carter commented, “CNN’s crew is just straight bashing Sanders post-debate.”
CNN’s treatment of Sanders raises a major problem that he’s going to have to confront going forward: Some major players in the mainstream media are clearly unafraid to cover him in a biased and one-sided manner. But this problem also has an upside: Sanders thrives under adversity, and he can use these examples of bias to fundraise and to mobilize his base. The Sanders campaign is a gamble, and one major uncertainty is whether his base is strong enough to overcome consistently negative media coverage."
Bernie Sanders must do what Jeremy Corbyn couldn't or wouldn't and that is fight the hell back at the establishment bias.
Never Trust A Person Who - is trapped in binary constructs! Bernie is a threat to The 1%, as he wants Economics & Politics for The 99%, whether it's via Capitalism OR Socialism because the truth is more nuanced than one OR the other! - from this link:
where the salient link - is a version of The Article that I most recommend to all readers ... everywhere!
fiat lux …
Biden is getting desperate.
https://www.theroot.com/wishful-thinking-joe-biden-would-like-michelle-obama-a-1841337974
Meanwhile,
https://nypost.com/2020/01/30/michelle-obama-spotted-with-hunter-bidens-ex-wife-at-swanky-dc-hotspot/
Sold out one-percenters never change. All they want is fame and fortune. Gross.
Bullshittin' Biden aka Creepy Joe is hung on his own petard & this is his-story:
So, just whyTF was this fkn creep Obomber's VP? Can Michelle Obummer explain?
respice; adspice; prospice!
Americans, stop believing lying politicians!
ShaunKing tweet:
"Just 3 weeks ago @JoeBiden lied to say he protested the Vietnam War.
In 1987, he had to admit and apologize that he never protested it."
Gee wiz, pretty awful thing to lie about.
Here is another disgusting lie outed by ABC news:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IndzH0HTZ7A
"He died! He died!" Such drama, but sadly, a lie from Joe Biden.
It is achievable https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stephanie-kelton-economy-washington_us_5afee5eae4b0463cdba15121
Yes, of course, with the help from the allies in "the joint study group." Don't hang oneself before it's time. Have a joint first before we blow this joint. What's the proper response to "a chicken in every pot?" "A cannabis in every pot" comes close, according to Kali. "A starving child in every family" seems more apt, according to the Retards.
Why are so many Red states starring in the top-ten list of the ones with the highest rates of food insecurity? And yet the Red states support the Retards who want to cut their federal food aid. The Red states are masochists and the Retards are sadists (BDSM practitioners)!
They don't hang loose like "Aloha Ke Akua, Aloha Kuleana, Kuleana..."
''Kelton’s core idea ― that the government can’t run out of money or go bankrupt, no matter how much it spends ― hasn’t really changed since the days when Buiter and Krugman were trashing her thinking. But it seems the world has. Today she is a full-fledged member of the American power elite, juggling television bookings with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes and Bloomberg TV’s Joe Wiesenthal, writing op-eds for The New York Times and being quoted in The Wall Street Journal.'' & ...
''In one of her most important academic papers, published in 2000, Kelton maintains that government doesn’t actually finance its activity by levying taxes or issuing bonds. Instead, it creates money by spending it into existence. If a government wants to build a road, it calls some contractors and puts money in their bank accounts to pay for it. Where does this money come from? The same place all money comes from: thin air.'' - from your XCLLNT link re. Stephanie Kelton & MMT. Thanx & fyi...
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/05/19/surprising-popularity-far-left-policies & note
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/43-percent-of-american-households-cant-afford-basic-needs/
& https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/15/rightwing-thinktanks-secret-plot-against-unions
commune bonum est summum bonum ...
Monbiot describes Neoliberalism:
"Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.
We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages -- such as education, inheritance and class -- that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances.
Never mind structural unemployment: if you don't have a job it's because you are unenterprising. Never mind the impossible costs of housing: if your credit card is maxed out, you're feckless and improvident. Never mind that your children no longer have a school playing field: if they get fat, it's your fault. In a world governed by competition, those who fall behind become defined and self-defined as losers."
The key there, for me, is "the poor begin to blame themselves...." The shaming of the masses, ahhh, such a success for the oligarchs. Get the little people to blame themselves for their lowly economic position and their shame will cause them not to ask for a bloody thing. Too embarrassing for them, since, of course, it's all their fault for not being hard-working, entrepreneurial, and as Monbiot says, "feckless and improvident," ultimately, those lazy sons of bitches!
This is the primary job of the activist right now. To convince the masses that a. there is a problem, b. it is not their fault at all, and, c. they can do something about it.
''A Bold, Progressive Agenda for a Happier and Healthier New Year" ... by Bernie Sanders:
dum spiro, spero ...
Work and the meaning of life. How do the two connect? Read this insightful and moving piece by Ed Curtin.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50906.htm
"Ever since I was a young boy, I have wondered why people do the kinds of work they do. I sensed early on that the economic system was a labyrinthine trap devised to imprison people in work they hated but needed for survival. It seemed like common sense to a child when you simply looked and listened to the adults around you. Karl Marx wasn’t necessary for understanding the nature of alienated labor; hearing adults declaim “Thank God It’s Friday” spoke volumes.
In my Bronx working class neighborhood I saw people streaming to the subway in the mornings for their rides “into the city” and their forlorn trundles home in the evenings. It depressed me. Yet I knew the goal was to “make it” and move away as one moved “up,” something that many did. I wondered why, when some people had options, they rarely considered the moral nature of the jobs they pursued. And why did they not also consider the cost in life (time) lost in their occupations? Were money, status, and security the deciding factors in their choices? Was living reserved for weekends and vacations?
I gradually realized that some people, by dint of family encouragement and schooling, had opportunities that others never received. For the unlucky ones, work would remain a life of toil and woe in which the search for meaning in their jobs was often elusive."
Capitalism has brought us to this point where we toil for a meaningless existence. We must fight back to re-discover our humanity, meaning and joy.
Ed Curtin also has a website: http://edwardcurtin.com/
Meaning, purpose of life - same answer: If you want meaning or purpose in your life you must create it. Otherwise your meaning and purpose will be subsumed in that of your employer(s). Hers, his or their meaning for your life is to create wealth for them to enjoy. WTFU idiots!
And, you can't create meaning and purpose in your life if you're allowing your employer to poop all over you. Don't allow yourself to be exploited.
Demand a wage you can live on! Demand sick pay! Demand pension! Demand health benefits if your country is too weak to provide them for you. Demand paid time off, also known as vacation time! And, don't work overtime that you're not paid for!
American workers are so cowed and frightened. I completely agree with you that they need to wake up. They have much more power than they've been convinced they have.
Don't work overtime "PERIOD". Demand a living wage and the right to work a maximum of 40 hours per week so that you can have a LIFE OUTSIDE OF WORK! If an employer NEEDS the work force to work 50 or 60 or more hours per week - that employer needs to expand the work force as well as the workplace to meet the demands for the product!
Sweden has a 30 hour work week. That is the direction we should be going in. With today's technology, we should all be working far less hours for much more pay. Our lives should be improving, not getting worse.
Something like 40% of the work that is still being done by people - is said to be done by technology very shortly and will eliminate those jobs for people. Scary!
People need to be brought into the work that remains & civilization must ensure that skills are not lost BECAUSE technology is taking care of it now = Plan for the worst while hoping for the best = What if? and for whatever reason some or all of a tech or all tech is wiped out.
This is why For Profit economy [Capitalism] is a failure. Profit motive doesn't facilitate the survival of the human race. The only intrinsic purpose of life is to create more life. Other motives we create for ourselves. So for we've let a ruling class of parasites create our motives for us. It is failing us but they don't care about tomorrow, when the failure comes round to them. They refuse to see anything but today's profit.
Yes, yes, and yes. A more humanities focused society. Where wealth is more evenly distributed and time is considered as much of a commodity as a car. Where a doctor can live next door to a school teacher or janitor. Why do we work - to pay for a roof interest and resources like heat. Those things held by the few elite. Those things so expensive that many need subsidies to reach them. The basic needs of life are no longer within reach to a majority of this nation. When we pass laws allowing the super rich unprecedented access to our government that funnels more and more of the civilian wealth into the hands of the ownership class, what you get are the makings of a third world nation and the recipe for suffering. it also created a rigid caste system that divides the haves and have nots. Upward mobility is predetermined by the headstart while those with nothing find the basic needs of life have already been horded by the time they get to the same place in life where others began. It is a relay race they can't possibly win or catch up to. We need rent control and stop the landlord middlemen who stand as the gatekeepers to basic needs. We must charge all landlords commercial rates as well as splice up landlord and corporate non owner occupied monopolies. As far as subsidies does it make sense for gov to be paying landlords their outrageous mark-ups? It would be cheaper to put an end to landlord permitting and actually buy houses rather than continue to pay outrageous rates month after month after month. Get the landlords out of it, and housing costs will come down. With costs down paychecks go further than ever, people have money to buy extras and that spending produces more jobs or perhaps they get the leg up to become entrepreneurs. Add to all this regulate utilities and communications rates so costs stop eating up their entire paychecks.
Younger people don't know that renting used to be a boatload cheaper than mortgages. Housing wasn't owned by banks and landlords and commercial entities who now do and pay just a fifteen percent capital gains rate on all that highly profitable income . When I was growing up and my parents were young, people viewed housing like food, a basic need, not a market to racketeer off of or flip. Most people had a house and kids in their early 20's. A home back in the boomer generation was reachable. Because rent was cheap people could easily save the down payment. Unlike today where renting costs as much and in many cases more than a mortgage. When those smarmy people came onto the seen we quickly labeled them slumlords and implemented rent control. Now our government seems to encourage and heavily support those slimebag developers and slumlords to siphon off the populous especially our young people. Our Developer in Chief knows all about real estate. If he wants to keep his campaign promise to raise the middleclass perhaps he should start by allowing them to get their land and real estate back from the clutches of the crocodiles.
benefits from gains in productivity flow to the holders of capital not the workers this is facilitated by policies enacted and supported by the Republican Party as this has become ever more successful union membership has fallen and with it the interest of the Democratic Party in economic issues and of course there is more to the story, but the solution starts with killing the GOP we MUST work night and day to defeat ALL Republicans at the polls we must never throw away a chance to defeat a Republican and we must educate young people to that fact.
Do you seriously think that Democrats are not capitalists?
I seriously think Democrats are our best chance to defeat Republicans.
Why do you prefer Republicans?
Oh, Republicans are the gentlemen in the Congress who knew how to fly in the wake of 9-11 with Herr Bushit. Republicans "made government run like a business." Holy see the gentle spokes:
"So here's the thing—it's so terrible what's happening," Mr. Trump told the publicationBreitbart. "You know, the left plays a tougher game, it's very funny. I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don't play it tougher. Okay? I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don't play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad. But the left plays it cuter and tougher. Like with all the nonsense that they do in Congress … with all this invest[igations]—that's all they want to do is –you know, they do things that are nasty. Republicans never played this." Yeah, "Let's do Cali poppies, eh?"
The above passage doesn't project Islamophobia, hate crimes, or White supremacy. The only target specifically mentioned was the Congress. Make America Great A.S.S. forever with the Warren-Buffett-MBA-style-Fook-of-the-Doomb "I have nothing to hide" underwear.
Sitting on the backseat of the bicycle, the kindergartner's lead feet should hang loose. Despite the gargantuan lorry speeding by extremely close to a foot, fear must be overcome to avoid the foot being cut up by the spokes.
Absolutely! Demand revolution!
Finance/Banking, Insurance, Real Estate, Medicine and Pharmaceuticals, Energy, Mass Communications and Transportation must be done on a non-profit basis of, by and for the people. Eliminate billionaire class and the scurge of "free market" capitalism. Let the debt slaves rise and overthrow the masters. Remove the ruling class of parasites from the gene-pool of the Planet Earth.
So you want to "Demand revolution" while you allow the GOP to win elections?
"Ed Curtin also has a website:"
http://edwardcurtin.com/ & please try to consider this very important article by Wm. Rivers-Pitt ...
https://truthout.org/articles/shutdown-exposes-how-many-americans-live-paycheck-to-paycheck/
multum in parvo ...
78 percent live paycheck to paycheck.
From truthout:
"According to a report by Forbes Magazine, a full 78 percent of all US workers are living paycheck to paycheck. One quarter of workers are financially unable to set aside any money for savings after each pay cycle. Three quarters of workers are in debt, and half of those believe they always will be. Most minimum wage workers are required to work multiple jobs to make ends meet."
And, 4 in 10 Americans can't cover $400 for an emergency!
But, here's the thing, right? We've all been shamed into thinking this is our own fault. I've been saying that for years.
From Truthout:
"And it’s all a great big secret, a problem most people struggle with but seldom discuss, because we have been trained to be embarrassed about such things. This is the greatest country in the world! With the greatest economy! Rugged individuals and bootstraps! If we are failing to amass a personal fortune, it’s because of our own inherent laziness or lack of incentive. Shame on us, right?"
But the TRUTH is our shitty economic situations are NOT our fault.
"This situation has been created by decades of Reagan-born trickle-down capitalism and the moral cowardice of bought politicians of every stripe. These unbalanced economic policies favor the wealthy and shun the rest with deprecating propaganda that parks the fault for financial struggle squarely on the shoulders of the very workers who have been taken advantage of for generations.
Many millions of people in the US spend their lives sprinting to stand still, financially speaking, desperate to squeeze every ounce of value from a dollar whose purchasing power seems to diminish with each passing year. It’s a damned expensive country to live in, especially if you reside with most of the population on the coasts. We don’t seem to get very much for the money we spend or the hard work we do, and our social safety net is weakening more each day."
''Bernie’s Likely 2020 Bid Could Transform the Political Landscape'' ... by Norman Solomon:
Many thanx for your extensive excerpt from that incredibly revealing 'T-Out' article. Please repeat.
fiat lux ...
"The Occupy movement that began in autumn 2011 put income inequality — and class analysis of “the 1 percent” vs. “the 99 percent” — in the national spotlight. The movement notably altered public discourse and helped clear a runway for the launch of the Sanders presidential campaign in 2015.
Since then, activism has propelled an array of movements that have compelled more and more Democratic politicians to respond seriously — on such issues as mass incarceration, a $15-an-hour minimum wage, enhanced Medicare for All and free college tuition."
From https://truthout.org/articles/bernies-likely-2020-bid-could-transform-the-political-landscape/
Good analysis:
"A 2020 Sanders campaign would mostly pick up where it left off in 2016. Contrary to widespread media spin, the fact that Bernie would be facing dozens of contenders for the Democratic nomination this time doesn’t change the reality of his unique approach to economic power relations. Whether it’s called democratic socialism, progressive populism or something else, that approach sets him apart from the other candidates, even including Elizabeth Warren.
Sanders has been willing and able to use a national stage for public education and agitation about inherently anti-democratic and destructive aspects of corporate capitalism. That explains why, in political and media realms, so many knives are again being sharpened against him.
Attacks on Sanders have come from many directions, but they largely spring from his detractors’ zeal to defend corporate power as a driving force that propels and steers the US government as well as the Democratic Party. Efforts to undermine the Sanders 2020 primary campaign would span from mainstream media to liberal and centrist forces aligned with competitors for the Democratic nomination."
"Attacks on Sanders have come from many directions, but they largely spring from his detractors’ zeal to defend corporate power as a driving force that propels and steers the US government as well as the Democratic Party." Repeated from your excellent excerpt above. Thanx & also fyi, reflect upon:
https://truthout.org/articles/establishment-democrats-are-trying-to-unseat-ocasio-cortez/
and this https://www.thenation.com/article/socialism-sotu-donald-trump-bernie-sanders/
respice; adspice; prospice ...
Bernie Sanders 2020. Donate now.
https://berniesanders.com/
He's announced he's running as a Democrat. Let's hope the others, who are running on HIS platform, fall away quickly.
"A United States plagued by inequality, corruption, racism, and war is gearing up for a polarizing and potentially explosive election season in 2020.
''Most likely, President Trump will be the Republican nominee, while Sen. Bernie Sanders leads the pack of (declared) contenders with his democratic socialist challenge to the status quo.
''Senator Sanders, however, is facing an opposition coalition that has found common cause in his destruction: Republicans, liberal Democrats and their common ally — Zionists.'' - from ...
''The Zionist Smear Campaign Against Bernie Sanders Is Just Beginning'' ... by Yoav Litvin:
https://truthout.org/articles/the-zionist-smear-campaign-against-bernie-sanders-is-just-beginning/
Also pls consider - https://jacobinmag.com/2019/04/bernie-sanders-medicare-for-all-unitedhealth
& this really very revealing video https://twitter.com/ronnie_barkan/status/1121245093460152322
e tenebris lux ...
The Democratic Party cannot be trusted. MSM is putting out propaganda that Biden is the leader, quoting polls that only included over 50 year olds.
Like in UK, where they go after Corbyn, the establishment will go after Sanders. In the end, they still prefer Trump to Sanders.
"The Era of “Centrist” Establishment Democrats Is Over'' ... by William Rivers-Pitt:
https://truthout.org/articles/the-era-of-centrist-establishment-democrats-is-over/ &
https://truthout.org/articles/nancy-pelosis-winning-strategy-is-to-appease-centrists/
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/05/08/shocking-tale-two-generations
People like Jess Phillips,MP in UK are just like Joe Biden in U$A; stooges of The System!
ad iudicium?
Dems prefer Trump to Sanders or Warren.
"If you really want to dig right down to the center of the centrist Id, Pelosi doesn’t even want a Democrat in the White House. She’d rather dance the triangulation tango with Trump for four more years."
From https://truthout.org/articles/nancy-pelosis-winning-strategy-is-to-appease-centrists/
"Wealth does not trickle down ... it just floods offshore, research reveals!'' by Heather Stewart:
AND THE FKN VENAL DEMS/DNC KNOW THIS & ARE IN ON IT & HELP UPHOLD & ENABLE IT!
Also see https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/indoctrinated-econ-101 from here:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/bernie-sanders-leads-joe-biden-in-emerson-national/#comment-1077347
spero meliora ...
Occupy's first demand to get money out of politics holds many of the answers to our problems. IF this doesn't happen so much else cannot follow as the venal greedy bastards will continue to own our government and rape and pillage the people.
Occupy was ultimately correct. Ignore this at the peril of our democracy.
let's hope everyone that supports Bernie supports others in the Party and stays with the Party like Bernie will till the end...defeating the GOP is the only way to make things better.
"The mind comes in second place when the stomach is empty."
The "a starving child in every family" Retards have got to go.
Food in the U.S. on a translated to a foreign currency basis is somewhat expensive. I noticed that when I first came to the U.S. as a teenager (it's obvious why I remember the five 99-cent pillowcase-size watermelons so vividly) when I was converting the food cost to foreign currency. If I wanted to eat cheap, I would have to starve instead. That's absurd so I stopped converting after a while. Once I had started earning money after graduating college and working, food cost relative to my pay shrank to insignificance. It's the U.S. earnings being much higher that makes life easier, not the cheapness of the cost of living. It's why most (especially illegal) aliens sent money abroad to their families rather than moving them here.
Non-U.S. food fed to foreign children generally costs less than U.S. food fed to children here. It therefore makes economic sense to feed the children abroad, such as the ones seeking asylum and being buffered in Mexico.
In my case, completing my studying in college made a huge difference in pay per hour worked, mainly due to doing an entirely different line of work. The toughest and most hectic time in my life was when I was working multiple jobs while studying full-time in college. I had never spent a single moment basking in the sun like the many college students (land cetaceans et al: seals, sea lions, sea otters, walruses {with moustaches!} . . .) I saw when I was a teenager in high school passing by looking forward to college life.
Yeah, my teenage hormones perked up my ears to listen when the other kid yearning for "college [social] life" started asking about "the wild parties." "Well, not quite here." I did meet young women who started talking to me about "streaking" on campus but I was surprised, ¿blushed?, and became speechless ;-(
I caught a whiff of the lingering Puff, the Magic Dragon, upon returning to my shared dormitory room after a long-weekend's absence. Much later on in life during the reminiscence catching up with an old college friend for old times' sake, he said and advised that choosing one's dormitory or otherwise mate wisely was important to avoid ending up in jail. In a conspiracy charge by a non-discretionary likely-non-Bobbie disciplinarian, many innocent fish may well be caught up in the huge dragnet. "Zero-tolerance" policy's execution can far overshoot justice's fairness bounds, such as that happening in the Philippines. As justice doesn't matter there, the U.S. should just give Duterte a few nuclear bombs to "clean up" the problems there quickly and efficiently.
Our Shittoad-in-Chief had a full-newspaper-page-croaking for imposing the death penalty on the Central Park Five who turned out years later to be innocent of the particular crime they were accused and convicted of. Only if justice were so easily served as was to the Russian Parliament! Welcome the Spirit of Russia to our Pounding Laundry at Home of the Free. Where's the humongous Cervix of the Earth? VirChina? "Let me run my little finger all the way around it first." "I'll practice my Kung-Fu chops around the all-power-off Big Red (and shielded on both sides by steel plates) button! Never forget that the CCP leadership doesn't believe in the Comparative Advantages of different countries so the U.S. must destroy the CCP leadership at ANY AND ALL costs. True warriors stick by rules, especially the rule for achieving Freedom. Let VirChina turns its Nipple On for the New Japan's Prince Asaka. What's inevitable must be dealt with sooner rather than later. Troubles grow.
"Be prepared! Be prepared! It's our endeavor. Trusty and steady is he. We are always jolly company. A bull should be!" The college girls were correct! Lovely titillating girls -- great sensuous company.
In the 1970's, we didn't put ethanol into cars, after swilling it like "Doc," ( although there was gasohol; now it's just called the "regular" E10 gasoline gumming up and rusting our seldom-used engines of lawn mowers and boats. Yay, gross domestic product increases again due to the fixing of these broken things! We definitely had an half-assed government for quite a long while, just like my one-time-only Warren-Buffett-MBA-profit-seeking "I'm gored, inconvenient-truth" underwear pants {avoid receiving gifts others buy for you that must touch your skin like the cuckoo's, hour in and hour out, or fit your body well such as shoes} that had the so-called "extraneous" layer of cloth cut out from the front so that I became far more fertile from the near-perfect cool sperm due to the underside cooling and the exposure of my cuckoo-clock "birdie;" hmm, I wonder whether Warren Buffett's Greed made my offspring "perfect;" the pants should henceforth be marketed as no-cholesterol no-artificial-sweetener "sperm-protector" men's underwear; Want healthy and smart kids? Don't fry your sperm -- wear our "Sperm Protector!" Less cloth, more offspring; Little Peanus Finger must have caught on to this earlier than I did.) We spiked the fruit punches with it. For teenagers newly away from home at college, it was yielding 1.21 Gigawatts, absolutely electrifyingly hot. It's not surprising that some died from the flux capacitor's overflowing. Time travel using what's caught in a bottle can be dangerous so don't swill and "Garden-State park."
I exercised moderation with Dad's exorbitantly priced Johnnie-Walker-Black-Label whiskey (Mom let me use it to flavor the salted chicken, probably due to her curiosity {Red-Label whiskey was more familiar from before} as well as her lack of an alternative at the time -- "don't drench it in a [bird]bath!" -- being inconspicuous with the amount used was important for Dad not to notice; the chicken tasted Great! Ahhh, maybe the price was beside the point as long as Dad thought of it as being worthwhile -- the chicken did taste better than with just beer.)
''Neoliberalism: The Idea That Swallowed The World'', by Stephen Metcalf:
Thanx for your excerpt from Monbiot. Your point about 'Poor Shaming' is fundamental & that is part of the process that leads to the Stockholm Syndrome necessary to keep The 99% complicit in their own servitude!
''This is the primary job of the activist right now. To convince the masses that a. there is a problem, b. it is not their fault at all, and, c. they can do something about it.'' Or otherwise..
respice, adspice, prospice ...
How the Fed will Trigger the Next Crash by Stephanie Pomboy. A killer article. A must read.
We have a Fed and a government that clearly doesn't give a sh-t about the American people. Beware.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/stephanie-pomboy-how-the-fed-will-trigger-the-next-crash-1521737213
She says: "The problem is that nobody is looking at: A) what’s driving that consumer spending, and B) how consumers are funding it. When you go through that kind of detail, you discover that they are buying more because they have to. They are spending more on food, energy, health care, housing, all the nondiscretionary stuff, and relying on credit and dis-saving [to pay for it]. Total retail numbers have done nothing but go down. We’ve seen the biggest increase in food and energy outlays since 2011, accounting for 30% of the increase in consumer spending in the past six months, up from 11% in the two years prior. Consumers have had to draw down whatever savings they amassed after the crisis and run up credit-card debt to keep up with the basic necessities of life."
We all feel that right? If you live in the Northeast you can hardly afford to pay your home heating bills, right? Food prices up, right? Car insurance up, right? Rents and homeowner taxes and insurance all up, right? College tuition up, right? Healthcare costs up, right?
How long does this government think the American people can sustain this, even in debt?
Solidarity For May Day! With ref. to your powerful link, excerpt and comment, consider, Prof.R.D.Wolff in conversation w/Chris Hedges ...
''On Contact: The Coming Collapse of the American Economic System'': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i1T72jfoWA&feature=youtu.be [28.30m]
+FYI: http://occupywallst.org/forum/for-those-of-the-99-truly-serious-about-non-violen/#comment-1075394 &
https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/46512/Making+a+Marx+on+history+celebrating+200+years+since+Karl+Marxs+birth
respice, adspice, prospice ...
Marx predicted correctly what we are living with today.
"Marx Was Right: Five Surprising Ways Karl Marx Predicted 2014"
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/marx-was-right-five-surprising-ways-karl-marx-predicted-2014-20140130
"Yanis Varoufakis: Marx predicted our present crisis – and points the way out"
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/20/yanis-varoufakis-marx-crisis-communist-manifesto
Solidarity to you and workers everywhere this May Day!
Marx didn't think it would be this bad.
Michael Hudson: “Creating Wealth” Through Debt: The West’s Finance-Capitalist Road
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/05/michael-hudson-creating-wealth-debt-wests-finance-capitalist-road.html
Gut wrenching article by Edward Curtin.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49885.htm
"The Sexual Passion of Winston Smith"
Grapes may have trouble with the title but it's about the predictions of Orwell's "1984," Big Brother and the empty, materialistic, commodified lives we are living today, worse than Orwell predicted.
Curtin proposes:
"We are now faced with the question: Can we escape the forces of propaganda and mind control that run so very deep into American life? If so, how? Let’s imagine a way out."
''The Collapse of Civilization May Have Already Begun'', by Nafeez Ahmed:
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xwygg/the-collapse-of-civilization-may-have-already-begun
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52758.htm (for an alternate link and clearer font)
"Scientists disagree on the timeline of collapse and whether it's imminent. But can we afford to be wrong? And what comes after?''
respice, adspice, prospice ...
I have no trouble with the title. Scotland-Yard Bobbies "taught" me "discretion" and I'm benefiting lifelong from that lesson. If dogs can write their social-media posts at the roots of the trees and fire hydrants, why should the police harass the well-watered people coming out late at night from the closing pubs and later on bursting with golden showers? Aren't people more important than dogs? Some are even Urianoral poets when writing their golden scripts on the walls! Wall, wall, wall! Yep, the beached Walfisch wails.
Also older men generally grow their prostate glands large so what is so bad about their golden showering under pressure? The Bobbies (Dad told me that one, especially any global-culturally aware pinball, should never knock down their headwear with the Crown on it, even after having stripped them nude!) understood this -- any "old sea dog" has more human rights than any dog for an island nation (such as the British Isles, Japan, AND the U.S.A.) needing its global empire to feed it (heute zu Hause sprechen wir Deutsch nicht.) Kowtowing was considered humiliating by the British, even in the nineteenth century before the Opium Wars, when, the gang, rapists fought to the Supreme Heavenly Court for two cups of tea a day, served up in a bikini without ancient Roman propriety. Wars and revolutions originated from "Tea Time." I think both canine and human piss work rather well in making the trees grow beautifully green.
Being Homo-Urian masochists, the U.S. aristocrat-golf-course-green-lawn-wannabes love to be defaced and goldenly pissed off by the British-English-accented judges in our reality television shows. Due to our revolutionary heritage (yep, tea again! teats' secretion of milk could have averted our Revolutionary War as well as the Opium Wars) from the time of the Boston Tea Party, we in the U.S. do drink much coffee, a diuretic, so it's not like we don't have any tariff-free domestically brewed golden piss for the Trumpery show.
Why should the Bobbies break up the couples mating in the streets as long as the weaker female is pinning the stronger male to the wall? Isn't mating the most life-giving and life-creating rapacious or rapturous activity people can engage in? Of course, whose back is being pressed against the wall largely determines whether it is a rape or rapture in progress. Oh, let it be! Let it be, let it be! Let it be! I'm speaking words of wisdom, let it be! When a drop of blood squirts out as the cleaver 刀 slices a bit into a heart 心, keep cool and practise toleration: 忍
Obama had this virtue so he tended not to lose his heads (both Sir Toppenhead and Baron Untenhead) but far too many younger rulers nowadays lack it. Of course, it's not biological age which makes one "young." Smokers never get "old" because they are wrinkled and they die early as they blow smoke into people's faces.
It is fine lying again and again as long as the woman is on top -- and no euros' insertion <=€ has been used to open up the ¿coin-activated? Urianoral.
After the recent Supreme Court Justice confirmation for the Kavalry cadet to occupy the chair next to the Devil's Triangle, we in the U.S. have learnt what "the Devil's Triangle" of D.C. with the new balance of sexual predatory power is and the NYC "Canal Street" (Kanalstraße) consumer merchandising means. Wir trinken Kanalwasser gerne. "Beat around the bush. Leave out the Geez spot. Co-mit Y-ale."
Watch from @16:16 and on to "We've got to go!"@24:57. Then as "it's getting late," I, being a child deflected by the unsuitable-for-children-content-programming small hours of the night, fell asleep. I dreamt of learning to swim in a blue-water swimming pool, and finally reached escape velocity on a Boeing-747 jumbo-jet with an upper-deck bar and "first-class lunge." No, on that night I didn't get to the video's latter part with the soft-hair-entropy mystery surrounding the blackhole of Stephen Hawking's fancy. @16:57 of the video: "What're you doing?" "Nothing... I didn't take mine last night. Did you like it? I had to pee." "I know... it kept fidgeting." <=€ euro insertion by I'm F. (of "not that I've never parked before" fame) has been proposed as a fix around the OMG cracked phallus ..hmm.. "do the Bimbo-thumping Retards believe that we had all come from the sister-fuckings done by Cane, the murderer of his brother Apel?" A National Golden Shower Day for our National Greenery can satisfy Scheißkröte's love for greens: "my dad doesn't discriminate, he loves all greens." Synchronized million-man piss and/or million-woman pee on our National Mall will be a greening event remembered for ages by posterity. Barbies and Bobbies, no look! Remember discretion: to pee is human, to really foul things up requires the only still-non-Jew dodo-turd.
It's not just a legend that there were people in those silvery glittering tubes with the wings, roaring in the blue blue sky while blowing smoke, as I was looking up above the treetops while standing up from a squat (with the ants, their hills, ponds, aqueduct, spam key, sandwich, bike dynamo, broken umbrella, ...) in my neighborhood garbage dump. I said unto myself, "I can set fire to my feathers .. to fly to 'a new world somewhere, they call the Promised Land.'"
Yeah, I forgot that being a mammal (that drank the mooootherly "tea" served in the bi-parti-san-kini), I didn't have feathers there but admiring Baron Untenhead's "who put the pubic hair on my Coke?" I unterstehe. Pubic hair will burn as well as the feathery nothings for reaching the Supreme Court of the United States. Soon our downunder kangaroo justice will be advanced by leaps and bounds.
Under the Retards' mob rule, the Urian-Suck-Ass is fading, failing, ..., gegangen!
''Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals'' ... by Martin Lukacs:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/jul/17/neoliberalism-has-conned-us-into-fighting-climate-change-as-individuals
Also consider reply and links here: http://occupywallst.org/forum/climate-change-is-happening-now-a-carbon-price-mus/#comment-1076610
Thanx for article by http://edwardcurtin.com/ ''Let's imagine a way out" of the predicament we're all in!
dum spiro, spero ...
Planet has only until 2030 to stem catastrophic climate change, experts warn
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/07/world/climate-change-new-ipcc-report-wxc/index.html
"Governments around the world must take "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society" to avoid disastrous levels of global warming, says a stark new report from the global scientific authority on climate change.
The report issued Monday by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says the planet will reach the crucial threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by as early as 2030, precipitating the risk of extreme drought, wildfires, floods and food shortages for HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. The date, which falls well within the lifetime of many people alive today, is based on current levels of greenhouse gas emissions. The planet is already two-thirds of the way there, with global temperatures having warmed about 1 degree C. Avoiding going even higher will require significant action in the next few years.
"This is concerning because we know there are so many more problems if we exceed 1.5 degrees C global warming, including more heatwaves and hot summers, greater sea level rise, and, for many parts of the world, worse droughts and rainfall extremes," Andrew King, a lecturer in climate science at the University of Melbourne, said in a statement.
Global net emissions of carbon dioxide would need to fall by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach "net zero" around 2050 in order to keep the warming around 1.5 degrees C. Lowering emissions to this degree, while technically possible, would require widespread changes in energy, industry, buildings, transportation and cities, the report says.
"The window on keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees C is closing rapidly and the current emissions pledges made by signatories to the Paris Agreement do not add up to us achieving that goal," added King.
Consequences of past inaction:
The report makes it clear that climate change is already happening -- and what comes next could be even worse, unless urgent international political action is taken.
"One of the key messages that comes out very strongly from this report is that we are already seeing the consequences of 1 degree C of global warming through more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice, among other changes," said Panmao Zhai, co-chair of IPCC Working Group I.
Even if warming is kept at or just below 1.5 degrees C, the impacts will be widespread and significant. Temperatures during summer heatwaves, such as those just experienced across Europe this summer, can be expected to increase by 3 degrees C says the report.
More frequent or intense droughts, such as the one that nearly ran the taps dry in Cape Town, South Africa, as well as more frequent extreme rainfall events such as hurricanes Harvey and Florence in the United States, are also pointed to as expectations as we reach the warming threshold.
Coral reefs will also be drastically affected, with between 70 and 90% expected to die off, including Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Countries in the southern hemisphere will be among the worse off, the report said, "projected to experience the largest impacts on economic growth due to climate change should global warming increase."
The report underlines how even the smallest increase in the base target would worsen the impact of recent natural disasters. "Every extra bit of warming matters, especially since warming of 1.5 degrees C or higher increases the risk associated with long-lasting or irreversible changes, such as the loss of some ecosystems," said Hans-Otto Pörtner, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II.
The report cites specific examples of how impacts of global warming would be lessened with the 1.5 degrees C increase, compared to the 2 degrees C increase:
Global sea levels would rise 10 cm lower by 2100. The likelihood of an Arctic Ocean free of sea ice in summer would be once per century, instead of at least once per decade. Coral reefs would decline by 70% to 90% instead of being almost completely wiped out.
Re. IPCC Climate Change Report, thanx for the powerful excerpt. IF The 99% in U$A & UK want to understand the very dark forces of newly monied Oligarchy & dynastic, old money de facto & actual Aristocracy .. who stand opposed to any action on AGW (Anthropomorphic Global Warming), then I VERY STRONGLY recommend this PBS, Frontline documentary to any and all who still read here..
''Climate Of Doubt'': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyPeceraS7o
Also .. ''Economists win Nobel for work on climate and economy'' : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45785222 and further, FYI, see ..
''Climate Change Is a Major Midterm Issue. Corporate Media Are Ignoring It.'' : https://truthout.org/articles/climate-change-is-a-major-midterm-issue-corporate-media-are-ignoring-it/ - by the ever-excellent Dahr Jamail & finally, re. Finance Crapitalism, consider:
Bernie/Nomi Prins (6m vid) https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1049749880548323328
e tenebris, lux ...
Your "Climate Of Doubt" link is blocked in the U.S.A. due to copyrights. Different locations of it were also blocked. Although I haven't watched your version, I vaguely remember having watched this episode on PBS Frontline.
It is a definitively causal linkage of the human-induced emission of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide to global climate change. It is excellent for understanding the scientific basis of the case for anthropogenic climate change.
Aber unsere Scheußkröte versteht das nicht, denn sie immer im Sumpf schwimmen muß.
See ''Climate Of Doubt'' here ...
https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-climate-doubt/ &/or ...
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/climate-of-doubt/
spero!
Before 2012 Ralph Nader opposed Al Gore, then he made this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu6SE5TYrCM I wonder what he could have done as POTUS? Of course Nader could do whatever he wanted to, just like people that voted for W Bush they had the right to do it,. it was just stupid and made climate change MUCH worse.
But hey I always welcome people who can learn from the past we don't have to make that mistake again, here is a good site to see what is happening with Arctic temperature if you're interested in such things.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
''Democrats once represented the working class. Not any more"! by Robert Reich:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/10/democrats-working-class-americans-us-election
and also consider ... http://occupywallst.org/forum/now-is-the-time-to-unify/#comment-1076659
multum in parvo?
The "Inconvenient Truth" about Al Gore, scion of an old patrician WASP family - that U won't face is that
it was HIS abject failure ... to face down and litigate the Voting Skulduggery and Stolen Election in 2000,
that paved the way for G.W. Bush because there was NOTHING that Al Gore was going to do - that was
going to upset the apple-cart of The demoCRAZY Duopoly Delusion! But sad sacks like U>frf - with your
amnesiac & partisan myopia are still fixated on Nader ... a man who has done more for USA's 99% over
the years, than any living Democrap U can mention!! U are still too busy kissing Obomber's A$$, to look
beyond it to ask WTF did he substantively do for US' 99% ... when SO fkn MUCH remained undone? As
for your predilection for HRC, the less said about that, the fkn better!!! Finally in case U are getting ready
to follow the DNC into the disaster that could be a Biden run, do try to consider Joe's RW resume' here..
Clean as a sack of sh*t right? But it won't stop your partisan Dem arse from extolling JB's virtues for '20!
Bernie needs to learn the lessons of 2016 & "Go Independent",as he wins a 2, 3 or 4 way POTUS race!!
Another DNC/Corp.Dem insider from a Corp.CON-troll-ed Establishment'll give U another tRUMP term!!!
FYI https://www.forapeoplesparty.org/ and https://www.dsausa.org/ etc.for a way forward for USA;
also consider: http://occupywallst.org/forum/why-liberals-have-to-be-radicals/#comment-1064464
& finally, NB - http://occupywallst.org/forum/impeach-trump-for-the-innocents/#comment-1076609
Good Climate Change link [ http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php ] btw & we agree on that.
respice; adspice; prospice ...
PS:re.idiotic reply below see https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2008/08/26/the-biden-plagiarism-scandal/
& nobody here "LOVED" Bush or tRUMP but U'll kiss Corp.Dem/DNC arse in a heartbeat tho' - right frf?!
IF U could "understand" anything here ... U'd "understand" how very out of touch U are with US Politics!!
U have N0THING to offer the youth and young folk in U$A, except More Corporate Controlled Duopoly!!!
https://www.forapeoplesparty.org/ &
https://www.dsausa.org/ & eg., see:
https://www.socialistalternative.org/
U are & forever will be, an impediment to true political progress for US' 99% & the real changes needed!
U've N0THING to offer kids or anyone else - other than your "R-Bad; D-Good" simpleton's binary do U?!
Explore the three links above to see just how far U & the Democraps have got to go to inspire The 99%!
Finally, try to consider the truth here https://twitter.com/4aPeoplesParty/status/1052512060280590336 &
et temet nosce!
PPS: WTF is this - https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/412227-clinton-aide-chances-highly-unlikely-but-not-zero-hillary-will-run-for ?!!! IF true, then it's Democrap suicide for sure!! Fkn Faux-Liberal Losers!
et caveat emptor!
Obomber encountered severe political resistance from the Retards. Of course, he didn't do enough for the victims of the Retards because he also had a severe character flaw of compromising which had never worked with the uncompromising people such as the Retards.
He kept on drawing redlines in the Middle East and allowed Assad to trespass them repeatedly. This eventually brought about the depravities suffered by many peoples there and no longer there. Obomber should have just bombed Assad into oblivion after he had refused to leave Syria and used poison gases instead. For uncompromising people having trespassed our redlines, we could find their dead bodies cooperate very well indeed. Davy Cocker red the Bimbo every night.
Even a two-or-three-year-old toddler can understand, "one.., two.., three!" I found it amusing that I was asked repeatedly, "Is it two already?" whereas a babysitter kept on saying the same thing over and over again but there was no status request from the toddler.
If we had no intention of enforcing a redline (yes, the U.S. has many different kinds of rather formidable power alright but the Lord of the Ring must understand their natures and wield them humbly in service and wisely), we had no reason whatsoever to announce the redline.
There were and still are largely invisible cultural redlines which are quite visible to "the bridges" linking the two sides. My Dad told me that an important reason why the U.S. had dropped the two nuclear bombs on Japan was because Tora! Tora! Tora! happened while the peace negotiation was still going on. He mentioned something about Japan's naval attack task force was running on the "¿Japanese-invented?" Daylight Saving Time but the U.S. Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor of O'ahu island was not. Since the U.S. had imposed an oil embargo on Japan due to its invasion of and aggressions in China, it's plausible that Japan used Daylight Saving Time to reduce energy consumption. Maybe the poor mutual understanding of the other country's system of time led to the nuclear revenge.
Japan was seen by the Americans ( whose ancestors, by the way, pried open the thighs of Shogunate Japan with Y-ale cannons for "trade" so Japan learnt the rapacious Euro-Amero ways, too, and fucked Korea and China, and many more eventually... similarly for Germany under the Kaiser and more recently Israel, Iran, Afghanistan[destroyed the Great Buddha], ISIL[destroyed Palmyra], Pakistan, and other Muslim countries -- cultural siege and whiplash imposed deliberately or unintentionally by the West on these culturally medieval societies are very inflammatory leading to terrible national, religious, moral, and cultural "cleansing" allergic response -- by my reckoning, nihilistic destructions reveal deep shit in the "heart" and portend future deep shit in reality [ when the Great Buddha was destroyed in Afghanistan, I exclaimed to myself, "an ancient do-little-else except being-of-great-historical-value relic but still an excellent tourist attraction to enrich Afghan coffers. Destroying it? Holy Shit !!!" We certainly get emptied coffers and "Holy Shit" there by now, don't we? Jesus said that what pollutes the greatest comes not from what a man eats or drinks but from his "heart" ]; when a gorilla-strong adolescent grows much muscle without the modern moral superego to reign in its growing strength, wars and catastrophes ensue; the Europeans went through many wars: the Thirty Years War, Eighty Years War, Hundred Years War, etc. before discovering the Enlightenment about God-given human rights through the separation of church and state to unload their by-then-millennium-old moral shit or dodo-turd ) as deliberately negotiating in bad faith. It took many days for the attacking Japanese aircraft carriers' task force to move across thousands of nautical miles into position within striking range of O'ahu. It took special adaptations of the torpedoes to allow them to be dropped from aircraft and still have them work properly in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor. Note the strangely bulky tailfins of the torpedoes -- wood? for buoyancy in shallow waters so that the torpedoes don't sink too deep or hit the bottom and explode ineffectively after they have been dropped from an aircraft. Didn't the U.S. expect a potential outbreak of hostilities with Japan? Didn't the U.S. detect the supposedly stealthy Japanese aircraft carriers' strike force before it had started the attack? Yes, yes!
Why was there such a catastrophic surprise then? It's no different from how 9/11 attack came about and it was manned-video-captured prior to the North Tower of WTC being hit commencing the attacks. Someone always knows but some may have been turned into "an instantaneous Christian Patriot bearing the Confederacy Cross" everywhere they go so the rest of the people are chafe! Remember the word "actionable" intelligence? What does it mean? Who determines that? If the populace has equanimity, filtering can be less restrictive.
Japan's intention was to go to war with the U.S., months ahead of the breaking-off of the peace negotiation that was used as a cover for the attacking task force. Culturally, Japan's negotiating for peace in bad faith and sneak-attacking on a Sunday morning ( on a day of rest during chaplain religious service [de facto Christian at that time; nowadays we swear a candidate into a high office by requiring them to lay their left hand on the Bimbo and raise their right hand up towards heaven so yeah... John Wayne is dead and pussy grabbers reign in a vast cloud of uncertainties; perhaps muddied waters do hold big fish, Walfisch vielleicht, but no one knows for certain what else.. Fat Boy, Thin Man, Obese Moabite, All-White Moby-Dick, Boaz Constrictor, Ruthie Baby, Little Boy, Tiny Girl, Grapefruit, Walnut, Davy Cocker, Orange U-tan, Valley Forge, Daisy Cutter, or a Soft-Haired Blackhole?] ) were extremely infuriating to the U.S. because it was unfair.
Far too many rulers nowadays forgot about the lesson from the Peace of Westphalia which allowed the rise of Europe to modern prosperity and cultural dominance. Figuratively speaking, God blessed the Europeans because they had resolved state sovereignty amongst themselves. Auferstanden aus Ruinen\Und der Zukunft zugewandt. On a smaller scale, unity, justice, and freedom yielded peace dividends to Germany for it to become the most dominant country in Europe. All who break state sovereignty shall return to long wars/nation building.
The Russian word "vodka" was derived from the word "voda," (the Australian aborigines' term "gahbeh" was not Indo-European but @36:16 the White boy bridged the communication gap -- a bridge to nowhere is still a bridge to somewhere in the ethereal touristy mind of "America Zilth" ) meaning water in English. Distilled from this year's bountiful wheat harvest, voda of pater-land captures well the grounded F-35 spirit. Is a tailless manta ray in the vodkary ocean still considered a deadly vegetarian? Anyway without the modern translation, "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" became "the wine [probably vodka] is great but the meat is rotten." - an epic Fehler of OMG!
Enjoy vodka even if it's hidden under the bar (lawyers were historically drunkards alright, congregating inside vodkaring hóres) of the U.S. Supreme Court. Do the pyramid-building pussies romp there amongst the Walfisch-nuts to build up yet another cracked dual-sponge OMG?
The Bimbo holds the X-Words of God. X said that God gave him sheep to tend. All sheep which belong to God would all come running to X upon hearing the Words of their True Lord, God. They recognize His Voice. Whether X is God or not seems irrelevant to me because it's the Words of God which matter. Maybe X is just a transistor radio for God's sheep but the Words are what matter to the sheep. Having gone through human interventions, the Words of God have probably been garbled as all forms of communications are prone. I believe that the Bimbo had been oral history long before it was written down so it's plausible that exaggerations and fuzziness had crept in.
I have no doubt that the agricultural people largely replaced the hunters and gatherers starting from near Mount Ararat of Noah's Flood fame in Anatolia and reaching Europe. Then a much later wave of horse-domesticators became traders and conquerors sort-of "globalized" Urasia through the Indo-European expansion. There were certainly other peoples (from whom Caine's wife came) beyond the agricultural people (of Caine's derivation) who left little traces on land because they were seafaring peoples. We only see their legacies in the alphabets, languages, seaside ruins, port cities, human genomes (paternal lineage through the Y chromosomes and maternal lineage through mitochondria to probe the past fuck cones) etc. Since the ports of the world with few exceptions such as Sidon and Tyre have been inhabited continuously, ancient relics tend to be under urban areas unavailable to archeological excavations.
Since you had asked me about my Urheimat, I traced my heritage back to Europe and Asia so Urasia seems a good name to encompass both the Eur-asia and the Ur- parts. The Silk Road is the only thing with a compact label that seems expansive enough to hold my past fuck cone (analogous to physics's light cone.) My Urheimat is Urasia, traced back to the last Ice Age, perhaps even more than that to also include Africa and Americas, before the last Ice Age. Hitler could surmount the "racial" barrier because he had more respect for Jesse Owens than FDR ever did. He chose to partner with Imperial Japan in WWII so he was doomed. Yeah, allies determined fate. Keep in mind that the single state of Arizona receives enough sunlight to power the entire U.S. How many lower-latitude states ( Alaska, though huge, is unsuitable due to its high latitude [and far away from population centers using the solar electricity] so it has weak sunlight but New Mexico is low-latitude and cold, ideal for high thermodynamic efficiency, and Texas is both huge and low-latitude, then there is southern California, even Russia's cold and sunny eastern Siberia near Vladivostok has potential for Russia ) does the U.S. have? Maybe we can only see what happened to the USS Arizona with its thousands dead sailors and couldn't move on. 9/11 certainly killed a comparable number of civilians. It's all about oil. In WWII, we were so very close to turning into a German-speaking world dominated by the Nazis because of this stupid concept of race.
I suspect that our species Homo started out in South Africa's seashore ( whose ancestors were the East-Siders who had survived the drying up of East Africa in the rain shadow when the Rift Valley formed and later on they were driven to the seashore by intolerable inland heat [why we are so naked a great ape and sweat] and hunger, quenched by seafood, ) setting out in a small near-incestuous band of almost identical genetic clones in search of greener pastures, so race is a rather stupid expedient concept invented to justify the arbitrary rule by the vitamin-D-deficient farmers' descendants of Europe (lighter skins with cholesterol can produce more vitamin-D under the weak ultraviolet light from the sunlight of high latitudes than darker skins can; farmers tend to eat less vitamin-D rich food than others; vitamin-D deficiency causes a host of diseases including depression.) Hitler being vegetarian might have been vitamin-D deficient since vitamin-D is fat-soluble. He was surely homicidal. Maybe the rapacious ways of European colonialism arose from the homicidal depression of the farming populations of northern Europe due to their diet.
I believe that culture defines the essence of our species so I date our origin to the Cognitive Revolution when our forebears had developed the mind's eye, invented art, and imposed our will on physical objects. Pair-bonding and its associated social institution of monogamous marriage was a fundamental innovation for (promoting--we're obssessed with love and sex in our literature, at least 50% have them, and) controlling fucking Love that came with its many many legacy taboos to keep it under social control for some peace and quiet. I imagine therefore I am.
A flame is a miraculously delicate thing made possible by gravity. We couldn't even have a lit candle's flame in zero-g on the International Space Station.
Nearly everyone's artist-parents fucked. The purpose of life is to fuck and get fucked so that posterity can continue doing the same. The torch of life that gets passed on is the ejaculation and fertilization (the lighting of the electric fire) in water.
"plagiarist" are you fucking five years old?
I understand you LOVED W Bush and now you LOVE Trump!
Michael rowed the boat ashore and sister helped to trim the sails. Downunder W Bushie children's prayers have been answered (near Panama City, Florida.) Hallelujah! Florida made a huge difference in the Bushie 2000 election.
The Bimbo reached back into Myth Time so it might not be the literal truth but it's likely close to the truth albeit with some exaggerations. I think that Cane's mate was NOT his sister so we didn't come from their incestuous fuckings. Cane was a farmer so he was probably living in the Middle East where agriculture had originated. There were certainly many other peoples there thousands of years ago from whom Cane's mate had come. The Bimbo had been oral history before the farmers' descendants wrote it down.
I think that the numbers such as the numbers of years are probably fairly accurate because agriculture requires the knowledge of the seasons so farmers definitely know about years. Also the Babylonians knew of numbers so the neighboring farmers in the Middle East probably knew them well, too.
What On Earth Are U Talking About Mr. grapes?! Especially in your reply here, immediately above:
Now maybe go try to make some semblance of sense of this article by one Professor Robert Reich ...
ipsa scientia potestas est!
200 years after Marx's birth & from your excellent "Rolling Stone" link ...
From Yanis Varoufakis ...
Finally, from agk's long but very good link by Dr. Hudson ...
''Volumes II and III of Marx’s Capitaldescribe how debt grows exponentially, burdening the economy with carrying charges. This overhead is subjecting today’s Western finance-capitalist economies to austerity, shrinking living standards and capital investment while increasing their cost of living and doing business. That is the main reason why they are losing their export markets and becoming de-industrialized.''
''In Volume I of Capital, Marx described the dynamics and “law of motion” of industrial capitalism and its periodic crises. The basic internal contradiction that capitalism has to solve is the inability of wage earners to be paid enough to buy the commodities they produce. This has been called overproduction or underconsumption, but Marx believed that the problem was in principle only temporary, not permanent.''
''Marx’sTheories of Surplus Value(German Mehrwert), his history of classical political economy, poked fun at David Ricardo’s warning of economic Armageddon if economies let landlords siphon off of all industrial profits to pay land rent. Profits and hence capital investment would grind to a halt. But as matters have turned out, Ricardo’s rentierArmageddon is being created by his own banking class. Corporate profits are being devoured by interest payments for corporate takeover debts and related financial charges to reward bondholders and raiders, and by financial engineering using stock buybacks and higher dividend payouts to create “capital” gains at the expense of tangible capital formation. Profits also are reduced by firms having to pay higher wages to cover the cost of debt-financed housing, education and other basic expenses for workers.''
Also fyi ...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/04/aaron-bastani-five-books-to-understand-marx
and then - this animation here ... https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/992477631923793921
''Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains!''
Whence comes all this talk of German, German, German..? Marx is a Chinese comedian with Jewish characteristics.
Oh, that P=russian! "There's Gelding in them Pis." He probably mixed in his dad's wine to make the silky smooth golden polyurethane.
Meanwhile, there's action in Russia. I was frankly impressed by the Red Army being the people's army in 1989 refusing to slaughter its own people ( or was it Mikhail Gorbachev's order restraining the soldiers? Egypt's army also stood down when Mubarak was deposed; maybe it was the conscript nature of these armies making them closer to the people but how does this hypothesis explain the Chinese failure? ) unlike that People's Liberation Army which "liberated" TianAnMen Square with bullets and its people's blood, sweat, and tears leaving behind tank tracks and bullet holes despite assiduously scrubbing the aftermath in overtime. Censorship may fool people for a while but the truth leaks out in time.
Tank Man is known all around the world. He's the most courageous man I'd ever watched on television standing up to a column of tanks holding what looked like a shopping bag and his coat. Where's he now? Have his human rights been violated?
WTF are U on about grapes?!
multum in parvo ...
Bush-it invaded Iraq despite the advice of the Saudis being against it. Let's take a look at the blooming star of human rights and democracy there fifteen years after Bush-it's invasion. Aside from oil companies having made some money from the Kurds' oilfields, what have we gained?
The U.S. strengthened Iran greatly by taking out both of its enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq. Additionally, the U.S. just let Syria fester and kept on shrinking back from what it had said it would do and let Assad grow into a monster. Geoduck drew many redlines in Syria with NO consequences meted out when Assad trespassed them. Assad got the message alright that he could get away with using artillery shellings, aircraft bombings, chemical weapons, etc. against Syrians, all of which geoduck had prohibited.
Now Rustia got its wish conflagrating the Middle East with Iran as the pawn. What can I say for the Palestinians? Only Israel and Saudi Arabia together has a chance of stopping Iran's expansion into Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. If the Palestinians had read the news that Israel had expelled Human Rights Watch, they might have acted more circumspect, having known Israel's intention.
Palestinians of Hamas are the rare Sunnis supported by Shia Iran. Israel could see that Iran's proxies are closing in all around it. A Shia land bridge from Iran through Iraq through Syria through Lebanon is nearing completion so Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and western Syria, a terrorist group recognized as such by Israel, the U.S., and Saudi Arabia in common is about to be easily supplied by Iran with weapons (U.S. troops had experienced these while being in Iraq; yep, Iran was meddling and killing U.S. soldiers even when they were killing Iran's enemies for Iran under Bush-it's command.) Iran also supplies Hamas in Gaza on the southern flank of Israel with weapons (if Gaza is in such dire conditions, why does it still have rockets to shoot at Israel?) Hamas is on our terrorist list, too. What do you expect Israel to do when the Palestinians agitate? Iran is closing in on Israel on multiple fronts. Israel had even attacked its powerful ally, the U.S., when it felt greatly threatened by the mobilizations near its borders in 1967's Six-Day War. Thanks to Bush-it's effort in Iraq and geoduck's non-effort in Syria, a fistula is developing next to Lebanon and Syria. Another one is developing next to the Gaza Strip. Israel has a record of poking at unwelcomed eyes when it plans to do things which might be deemed to be unbecoming. It's why the U.S.S. Liberty was attacked. It's also why Human Rights Watch had been expelled before the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. Hamas learnt from Israel what the U.S. had learnt in 1967. Hamas may benefit from studying history.
I admit that our Orangutan was fuckingly idiotic in moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem igniting the long-simmering issue of the capitals of the states of Palestine and Israel. However, who chose the Orangutan? Rustia certainly had a preference for it and Orangutan has a business interest for it, too, generally as well as specifically relating to Rustia. Now the U.S. government is truly being run like a corrupt business. My young kid spinning around on the big tall-back black-leather executive chair pointing index finger at us and the store clerk, shouting, "You are fired! And you. And you!" aptly portended the state of our union.
Our Retards have been clamoring for the U.S. Government to be run efficiently like a business. Now their wish is being fulfilled. By not staffing the administration and centralizing power to Orangutan, it's being run economically (but ineffectively so efficiency is moot) and highly profitably for the gravy-train-linked businesses of Orangutan's but it's very much like the Harvard MBA who was running Apple, Inc. into the dirt.
Hey, the guy came with the experience of running a sugar-water company. Transitioning from corn chips to silicon chips is supposedly a cinch for him! Crunch, crunch. Is it Apple or silicon chips? It's both but not Frito-horn chips. It sounds like silicone ships--"though I had sailed through the Valley of Boobs, the Lord was with me..." Yikes! I guess six bankruptcies are also great experience qualifying Orangutan for running the U.S. but where is the International Bankruptcy Court in which it can exercise its "Great expertise?" It doesn't exist--wars "settle" disputes.
Yeah, living through the Kultural Re-voluption, our doughnut Emperor knows the classics of Confuse-us, "Fried-rich Angels," and Groucho Marx. Rus Amerika has lost its moral Kultur.
''On U.S. Imperialism, Capitalism and Fascism" by David William Pear:
From which ... ''U.S. foreign policy is the domain of the elites. The public busies itself with domestic issues, just trying to make a living and raise a family. Sometimes the elites of foreign policy let their masks slip to reveal their true nature. When Zbigniew Brzezinski said in 2009 that “today it is infinitely easier to kill a million people than to control a million people” he was not just intellectualizing, as if teaching a Harvard course on political science. Brzezinski was admitting to his personal responsibility for policies that have killed millions of people.
A fantastic article - that totally warrants reading more than once & placed here in reply to your US Exceptionalism oozing & Imperialism accepting hubris above that I may (or may not) have time to deconstruct paragraph by paragraph later. Also fyi, a 4m vid. that explains much more than I can!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwyDfZToo1E&feature=youtu.be & finally,
consider https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears
e tenebris, lux?
The U.S. is definitely exceptional! Nikki Haley is surely future Presidential material. She, representing the U.S. single-handedly pushed through at the U.N., with a resounding vote count that will resonate through the ages, for an investigation of the alleged human rights abuses in Gaza by Israel. The U.S. is the Star of Freedom for the World. Our children and our children's children will stand up in awe whenever "Nikki Haley" is uttered anywhere.
Ascrew Jerksome was absolutely a great Presidential model for Nikki Haley. Her Indian heritage surely contributed the great success of her leadership of her Indian tribes to resettle in "The Promised Land" of global connections. Umm, it should be "The Wall of Tears," NOT "The Trail of Tears."
The U.S. is winning bigly, greatly, and repeatedly. Orangutan swinging out of the jungles of Queens ( "though I've sailed through the Valley of Boobs, the Lord {Shiva?} was with me" ) to the Whitewash Haus seeking holes to hide in ( from press covfefe and probes; yeah, brother, is there any urinal nearby? I told you that it's absolutely stupid to break away from the BoBBie jewisdickzion of the only-insane-for-a-little-while British Empire { which generally only leaves if and only if the people (such as of Northern Ireland, Scotland, Falklands, and Brexit) vote for it to go away } ) and whores to make it whole creates moans and groans never ever heard before in these united states.
''Orientalism: An Exchange'' by Edward W. Said and Oleg Grabar, reply by Bernard Lewis - who just died & who was a malign influence on US/UK Foreign Policy, disguised in the guise of a doyen & sage:
respice, adspice, prospice ...
Islamophobia, hate crimes and white supremacy on the rise.
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/3/15/white_supremacist_kills_49_muslim_worshipers
This seemed a fitting place to put this since Edward Said first explicated how white people "orientalize" those from foreign lands, be they Indian, Chinese or Arab, etc. When white people orientalize foreigners they see them as less than white people, and when they feel these people have taken something from them it is convenient to see them as not fully human, or not human at all, and thereby not deserving of the things white people have. Hence, the disgusting ideology of white supremacy that we see on the rise today which is rooted in greed, low self-esteem and pure hate.
That "Edward Said first explicated how white people "orientalize" those from foreign lands, be they Indian, Chinese or Arab, etc. When white people orientalize foreigners they see them as less than white people, and when they feel these people have taken something from them it is convenient to see them as not fully human, or not human at all, and thereby not deserving of the things white people have. Hence, the disgusting ideology of white supremacy that we see on the rise today which is rooted in greed, low self-esteem and pure hate.'' ... is really a very important & a revealing rear window that shows us why we are where we are in U$A. Thanx for your important reply. +
https://twitter.com/Shadz66Shadz6t6/status/1120308925163819008 & also FYI...
https://www.liberationnews.org/pentagons-endless-war-brings-endless-pollution/
ad iudicium ...
The USA is NOT the only place in the world suffering the rise of ethno-nationalism or white supremacists!
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/02/in-europe-nationalisms-rising/
All foreign policy is domestic in our age of connectedness. Ashes/soot will be a great future (after nuclear detonations, such as those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki that had licensed the Japanese Miracle stimulated by the mayhem of the Korean Conflict close-by). Having lived through the shithole inflationary 1970's decade, I'm just one who was woken up earlier than others by this sequence: orange juice, Tang, and then no more Sunday family brunches (initially with Both milk and orange juice.)
WTF did Israel, Saudi Arabia, and later on Iran have to do with me being many thousands of miles away? Via addiction to oil, Everything! Elohim, Jews, Allah, Arabs, Sunnis, Shah, Shias, Ayatollahs, etc. are still here fighting, raping, and killing every day even after millennia. They can endure because they live in and through us who fuck each other for immortality. Christianity's persecutions silenced the worship of the Olympian gods. Weren't they gruesome?
Where are you located? No matter, the contagions ( reruns of the 1918 influenza pandemic, 1929 Great Panic, 2008-2011 Great Recession, West-Nile Disease, Zika virus, Ebola, .. ) will be there for you. Reportedly after @21:28, Tom Bodett promised, "we'll leave the lights on for you," so that you can see the cockroaches and do a "Michael Jordan."
I had once walked through a graveyard near a tailing pile on a flattened mountaintop before a winter storm came through, thinking of the ages of the deceased and buried--"geez, people died young back then," I thought. Only much later did I make the connection: they ALL ended in 1917, 1918, and 1919 !
WTF happened? Where were all of my uncles and aunts? As titled, "Angela's Ashes."
When will they ever learn?
Agreed it is Stockholm Syndrome with an abusive husband. This economy is abusive....And the name of the game is to convince people they are crazy for feeling it is like this (Gaslighting). "It is you who has the problem...if you aren't doin well it is your own problem so suck it up whiners we provide you with everything you need so if you fail to take the brass ring the fault lays with you snowflake". The work environment reiterates this theme...status quo more work and micromanaging longer hours no raises even as the company profits and ceo pay skyrockets on our labor and support and productivity. We are supposed to forget about the last meltdown and hits and abuses like robo signing...inaccurate forclosures...excessive bank fees, school closures, cutting of college aid and sky high loan rates, outsourcing, insourcing, job loss while prices still soared and rents didn't budge, stresses and inadequate or no healthcare, 30 job interviews and hundreds of resumes (call backs and actual group tryouts and interviews (to cashier petfoood) yes that actually happened, massive oil spills and polluted drinking water. It all did happen, we are not crazy and life isn't fun anymore...the struggles aren't being caused by our own failures and stupidity. They constructed a lack of upward mobility to keep us frozen in place in our station of serving wallstreet, building their wealth while they build massive extreme mansions in New Zealand and buy flashy toys and golden wall outlets and hideous architectural add ons ( like plane wings hauled by helicopter to remote locations to make a patio) just sick obsessing to extremely sick degree on things that don't matter and can't take with you while children around the world go hungry and BLIND from malnourishment. Planning all the while to bail in next time stealing our bank accounts outright then abandoning us to ...destitution (and probably takeover by another country). When we let narcissists run our country...we get narc abuse. Pretty simple. The people ( mostly men) running our country and jobs are mentally ill. The only life purpose they have is to subserviate all others and flaunt that in our faces. A steak dinner in front of a starving man...and that gives them a sick little thrill. Trump, Putin, the majority of Congressmen. Wallstreet and most every CEO.
Chris Hedges & Prof. R. D. Wolff ...
''On Contact: The Coming Collapse of the American Economic System'':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i1T72jfoWA&feature=youtu.be [28m 27s]
Thanx for your strong and heartfelt reply. Try to link up with locals who are organized.
per aspera ad astra ...
Brilliant!
Thanx & long time no see. Come visit occasionally & help to contribute to the spread of news, views & info for The 99%, US & Global. Please consider the video in reply to elf above + FYI:
Solidarity!
Will you be coming out in support of Bernie Sanders in his pursuit of the Democratic Nomination?
The DNC is going to load up the field with candidates, so that no one will be able to secure the majority
required in the first round & then in will come the super delegates, in the 2nd round and they'll pick The
Establishment Candidate! When that happens folk like U>frf will then forget all about Bernie Sanders &
revert to your usual Corporate ass kissing type!! Nevertheless U can try to consider these links below ..
https://medium.com/@brianhanley_41165/20-reasons-bernie-sanders-is-the-one-to-beat-trump-in-2020-backed-by-data-593b0ad179e4 - and scroll and then critique this Pro-Bernie Sanders ...
Twitter Thread: https://twitter.com/Shadz66Shadz6t6/status/1100201482400485377 Furthermore,
my support for Bernie is not now .. nor ever has been - contingent on his being The Democrap Nominee
and IF Sanders has the wit & wisdom to run as a 3rd Party Independent, he'd be free of the RW, DNC &
be able to represent USA's 99% much more effectively! Of course, your dumb partisan arse just can not
compute this clear calculus, 'cause U are happy to be a GOP-lite Dem partisan and willing DNC stooge!
temet nosce ...
So that's a no? The forum is here you can post or not we will see and remember, will you support Bernie in his attempt to win the nomination or not?
Your bullshit don't mean shit now Shadz its put up or shut time!
"Your bullshit don't mean shit now" & "its put up or shut up time!" See what I did there?!! Read wtf I
wrote to U above 1 month ago and then either address the points raised in these two links here ...
http://occupywallst.org/forum/3-reasons-bernie-sanders-is-now-the-democratic-fro/#comment-1077120
http://occupywallst.org/forum/bernie-sanders-leads-joe-biden-in-emerson-national/#comment-1077119
OR just address yourself to this video: ''Michael Moore on the Democrats"..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVnIatb7iVI&feature=share&app=desktop
respice, adspice, prospice ...
https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=Michael+cohen+broadcast+live
Let's ALL watch Michael Cohen's testimony first, now live @10a.m. Eastern Standard Time (UT -5).
讓我們首先觀看邁克爾科恩的證詞，現在是@上午10點。 東部標準時間（UT -5）。
让我们首先观看迈克尔科恩的证词，现在是@上午10点。 东部标准时间（UT -5）。
Lassen Sie uns ALLE zunächst Michael Cohens Zeugnis ansehen, jetzt live um 10 Uhr. Östliche Normalzeit (UT -5).
Давайте ВСЕ сначала посмотрим на показания Майкла Коэна, теперь в прямом эфире в 10 часов утра. Стандартное восточное время (UT-5).
Michael Cohenの証言を最初に見てみましょう。今は午前10時です。 東部標準時（UT-5） 우리 모두 마이클 코헨의 간증을 먼저보고, 지금은 @ 오전 10시에 라이브를 보자. 동부 표준시 (UT -5).
Veamos a TODOS el testimonio de Michael Cohen primero, ahora en vivo a las 10 a.m. Hora estándar del este (UT -5).
Vamos todos assistir ao testemunho de Michael Cohen primeiro, agora ao vivo @ 10 a.m. Horário Padrão do Leste (UT -5).
Regardons TOUS le témoignage de Michael Cohen d'abord, maintenant en direct à 10 heures. Heure normale de l'Est (UT -5).
Lasciateci TUTTI guardare la testimonianza di Michael Cohen prima, ora live @ 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (UT -5).
دعنا جميعًا نشاهد شهادة مايكل كوهين أولاً ، ونعيش الآن في الساعة 10 صباحًا. التوقيت الرسمي الشرقي (UT -5).
בואו נסתכל כולנו על עדותו של מיכאל כהן, עכשיו חי @ 10 בבוקר. זמן תקן מזרחי (UT -5).
بگذارید همه اول شهادت مایکل کوهن را ببینند، اکنون زندگی می کنند @ 10 صبح. زمان استاندارد شرقی (UT -5).
Mari kita SEMUA menonton kesaksian Michael Cohen dulu, sekarang tinggal @ 10 pagi. Waktu Standar Timur (UT -5).
നമുക്ക് ആദ്യം മൈക്കൽ കോഹന്റെ മൊഴി രേഖപ്പെടുത്താം, ഇപ്പോൾ ജീവിക്കുന്നത് @ 10 മണിക്ക്. കിഴക്കൻ സ്റ്റാൻഡേർഡ് സമയം (UT-5).
ให้เราทุกคนดูคำให้การของไมเคิลโคเฮนก่อนตอนนี้อยู่ที่ @ 10 เวลามาตรฐานตะวันออก (UT -5)
Trước tiên, chúng ta hãy xem lời khai của Michael Cohen, bây giờ trực tiếp @ 10 giờ sáng. Giờ chuẩn miền đông (UT -5).
"Shall we play a game?" It will be fun; Tic-Tac-Toe is better than Monopoly!
Solid-state rocket fuels save time (for pumping in the otherwise liquid-state fuels; gaseous-state fuels are too diffuse to provide the energy needed) before the rockets' launches but there will be NO recalls in flight. Our Minuteman land-based ICBMs use solid-state fuels for achieving very fast launches within minutes before the enemies' ICBMs land. If the rockets had been aimed correctly, there would be sure kills at the targets, barring early warning systems' detections (Russian Blackjack strategic bombers were probing NORAD readiness to scare the shit out of the LOTUS of Enlightenment.) In decades past, a Soviet person did not defend against a mistaken nuclear attack from NATO.
Global Plutonium Association Lesson 5: There are lots of nuclear weapons lost around the world but We the pee-dude buddies will ALL be sick of winning except for the answer 42 -- from the no-body of the Made-In-Taiwan Texass-Connection-Machine, Deep Ai.
Note @3:54 that a nuclear explosion's light/flash comes earlier than its sound/shockwave. The difference in their arrival times may let one move away from the sharp flying shattered glass of the windows. Knowing physics lets one see (using the mind's eye for retrocognition) how far this room was from the nuclear detonation. Based on the video, how far was it situated? Note that the video segment of the room's destruction has been slowed (down - U.S. English, up - British English) from realtime using high-speed photography so one needs a calibration. The flying debris offers a clue from gravitation if one assumes that the room was on Earth's surface which it most likely was, knowing how difficult and expensive it is to get things up into space (both the Soviet and U.S. Space Shuttles never reached their objectives although the U.S. ones did help construct the International Space Station. Russia's powerful legacy rockets are BIG shots albeit ¿aged perhaps? {hopefully not deliberately by sabotage or terrorism} to unreliability.)
The Univision journalists got into trouble (previously one pissed off our well-deserved Shittoad-in-Chief) with Venezuela's dictatorship for recording Venezuelans eating the discarded foods retrieved from the back of a garbage truck. Based on my preschooler experience playing fun and games in our shantytown neighborhood garbage dump, these people were certainly in a pretty well-fed neighborhood. It's far scarier if a neighborhood is squeaky clean. I felt safe (from being eaten) when the red and black ants were fighting each other over a discarded turkey sandwich. There always comes a time for the garbage truck to haul away the garbage because this Venezuelan neighborhood is definitely not a shantytown where the garbage stays being roasted in the sun. Before a fancy wedding banquet, I had to run quickly to my baptismal hall equipped with ¡the Bidét! in it because the hosting bartender had treated me so well to a bottle of Coca-Cola, some water, and a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. Liquids are almost incompressible!
The ants' Tiber will be filled to overflowing with liquid gold (Warmbier + disinfecting chlorine bleach.) It's about time that the Father of the King of Kings be served with Apfel/Apple's roasted fatty portions of the firstborn boars. With this aroma, He will be well pleased.
Our Shittoad-in-Chief still doesn't get it that it must insert the scrod into the VirChina in order to beat the depth of the hot wet Soviet/Russian near-arctic (heart-shaped) borehole to reclaim the ultimate triumph of the American Mohole Project. Make America Deep Ai to hide the tungsten from leubhing VirChina! Another option is to drill into Europa as Zeus did. New life may be found.
Made-in-Taiwan, Deep Ai:《真鎢不怕火, 怕火不真鎢。》