Abraham Lincoln in 1837:
"It is an old maxim and a very sound one, that he that dances should always pay the fiddler. Now, sir, in the present case, if any gentlemen, whose money is a burden to them, choose to lead off a dance, I am decidedly opposed to the people’s money being used to pay the fiddler…all this to settle a question in which the people have no interest, and about which they care nothing. These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people, and now, that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people’s money to settle the quarrel."
(From This Modern World.)
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Bailout Lies and Cowardice
The corporate media has started talking about the $700B tax theft in a little more detail now that the first "bailout" proposal has failed (although the shadow bailout already gave $630 billion away).
Naturally, now that the corporate media is going into a little bit of detail, a conventional wisdom (i.e., a collection of viewpoints that are not wise) is starting to build up whereby ordinary people, armed with a few choice facts, begin thinking that they understand the situation, that it is complicated and serious, and that they know what to do about it. And that means that they think it is time to grudgingly pass the theft proposal, in one form or another.
Don't call it a bailout. It's not a bailout. That is another of their lies. It is theft, god dammit. Stop using their terms or they have already won part of the victory. Tax theft is the name of the game. It's what they do. It's how they exist. Like hogs at the trough with reverse anorexia, they choke themselves gobbling down wads of spittle-soaked cash at a breakneck speed, afraid they might lose an ounce.
These lying, cheating, murderous thieves are not going to stop. They never stop. These are the people who brought you the invasion of Iraq. Stop calling it "the Iraq war." It wasn't a war. That's their term. It was a bullying. It was a mass murder. It was a trillions-dollar military machine pounding the fuckhell out of however many hundred thousand people. A war implies there was a country capable of resistance.
It's not a "fight" when a grownup kicks an infant: even if the infant swings a chubby little arm back. Nor is it a war when the American military swings in and topples the Iraqi government in a few days. Iraq right now might qualify for a "war," except that the people killing Americans are not necessarily doing so in the name of the nation of Iraq. But whatever. The point is, the original attack and killing was not a war, and stop calling it that. But back to the bailout.
These are the people who brought you the invasion of Iraq. They're the ones who keep bombing wedding parties in Afghanistan, so often that it seems like they're trying to disrupt marriages. They're the ones who throw napalm at children because a bogeyman terrorist might be living next door. They're pure evil. And now you want to believe them about the $700 billion?
Why do they do it? God help them, but most of them probably deserve pity. Like the rest of us, they live in the system of greed, where death by starvation is what happens to you if you lose. So there's nothing to do but try harder, and play by the rules, which means screw everyone you can and keep every red cent. There can be no peace in this twisted, loaded market, because there are so few guarantees against starving in the street. If you have an opportunity to gobble money, you have to do it, because if you don't, someone else will gobble it, and you will be that much closer to starvation. Or losing your house, going bankrupt to medical bills, skimping, postponing, or whatever stage of the game you are at. So gobble, damn you. It's all we have.
The elites are, in some ways, more afraid than the rest of us. That's why they look so happy at the prospect of stealing $700 billion: because it postpones the worry for just a little while. Their deep inner fear that if society became based on merit, they would starve in two days. God help them if they tried to run around selling their ability to "leverage financial markets" in a society based on character and hard work.
Look at all they can do, those Congressmen and Senators: they can manage money in financial firms, they can haggle about the bullshit little details of laws that their own staff made complicated in legal firms. Basically, they can't do anything productive. They are parasitical beings on top of those who actually produce things of value. And deep down, they know it. That is why they fight so fiercely to maintain systems of ownership and control whereby those who don't produce anything useful--those who "manage," or "coordinate," or "oversee"--get the most money. Those who actually do something get a poor man's wage, and have trouble paying to send their kids to the doctor.
So this brings me back to my own private little war against the paragon of having your head jammed in your ass known as Bitch PhD. Naturally, being that she is among the hallowed individuals who perceive that Barack Obama is the Light and the Way, she wants the "bailout."
Since once again Bitch has proven to be the crucible for progressive American error, I'm going to tear apart her stern lecture over why we should give $700 billion of our descendants' money away to the same people who caused various and sundry financial troubles, in exchange for their promise that this might avert future disaster.
Without further ado, here's Bitch embarrassing herself. Naturally, she embarrasses herself by channeling (half the time) her expert friend, who helps explain complicated things like finance to her, in return for her parroting it on her blog. This makes Bitch a modern news correspondent. Good for her! But really, I said without further ado, so let's make true:
"In the US and UK at the least, we (individuals, companies and countries) are hooked on credit. We buy our cars, houses and food on borrowed money. The companies we work for borrow money to pay us. Our hospitals, schools and buses are all bought with … yep, you guessed it …. more borrowed money."
The implication here is that people are "hooked on credit" out of choice. Rather, people are hooked on credit because they have nothing, so they require credit to get things they need. Like, say, medical help, or food, or a car, or a place to live. Like most American progressives, Bitch is very populist in this regard when critiquing McCain's tax policy and its effects on the poor, but when it comes to paying off the bankers, suddenly becomes very critical of poor peoples' credit "choices."
Poor people don't enjoy paying interest for the privilege of buying things. They do it because they have no money. Who has the money? They do. Like Nancy Pelosi, the twenty-five-times-over millionaire. That's why they look so happy.
I'll wager a guess here that Bitch's husband works in the FIRE (Finance Insurance Real Estate) industry, which might be why she's a little protective about that $700 billion theft (and could help explain a lot of American progressives, also). That inflated paycheck is all that's keeping her and her kid in iPhone lala land, after all.
Synopsis: poor Americans choose credit because they have no capital to buy anything else. The monopoly on pre-existing possessions held by the rich forces them to use credit. Therefore, using their use of credit to justify giving $700 billion from them to the very wealthy is extremely fucking stupid, not to mention wrong and inappropriate.
And if you think the poor can afford cars and houses and doctors and all that without credit, you're living in lala land (possibly iPhone lala land--check your purse).
If, as seems increasingly possible, however, its not just individuals but rather the entire banking system that's in trouble, the fact that some former traders are cashing large pay-checks is the least of our troubles.
Actually, no, it's not. All of those twenty million dollar bonuses going to financial executives who have driven their companies, and the banking system itself, into the ground, are not "the least of our troubles." They are our troubles. These are the same people who did it, and you want us to forget that they're getting paid truly huge chunks of money for waltzing out the door as failures?
Excuse me, Bitch, if I don't think it's trivial. Maybe my lack of a PhD in 18th century English literature makes me unable to comprehend things as well as you do, but here's how I see it: every $20 million bonus represents, say, a hundred $200K mortgages that could be paid off.
That's a hundred families with children that could be living in their home instead of shacking up in a relative's apartment, or camping out in the car. A hundred. And that's per bonus. So it is not "the least of our concerns;" it most certainly is a big fucking concern. Unless, of course, Bitch PhD cares only about her kid and living situation. And I know that's not the case.
If a sufficient number of banks go bust or the remainder get so nervous that they refuse to lend to anyone other than their own governments, then none of us will be able to either get new debt or, worse, renew the debt we have.
Okay, enough deriding Dr. Bitch for her ignorance and callousness toward the less-fortunate. The above quote is the crux of the Obama/progressive bullshit argument. It's basically the argument of the extortionist.
Here's how it goes: I got your money. You got a problem? Open your mouth and I'll make it worse. Go on. I dare you.
Otherwise known as: we've dug ourselves into a hole, and the only way out is to keep digging.
If we have gotten into a problematic situation where we require "new debt" or "renewed debt" in order to function, the answer is not to pay even more to keep the cycle going. Debt-financing is bad. It ultimately leads to huge deficits, economic slowdown, and spiraling interest payments. The idea of compounded interest relies upon the assumption of continual growth, because without continual growth, compounded interest cannot be financed. "Compounding interest," i.e. "debt," is nothing but magic: it implies creating value out of nothing. Putting $500 of gold in a vault does not create anything new. Working, growing, building--these things produce. But just owning alone does not produce anything--unless you use ownership to get other people to work for you, and keep the profits of their labors yourself.
Debt is disruptive and dangerous. It is by its nature an extortionary arrangement, whereby those who own can extract work from those who produce simply by virtue of their ownership. I.e., by holding a monopoly on resources, owners can never have to work, by parceling out "their" resources in exchange for someone else's work.
Aside from that, debt encourages living beyond means. It is a costly means of buying anything, because you pay more for it than it's worth. It raises prices thusly. It also encourages risk, because when you invest with debt (particularly through a limited-liability entity), you are much more willing to risk than if it were something you owned.
The resulting bill for all this mess, and the huge bureaucracies and courts for our bankruptcy system, are paid for by the taxpayers. It is our taxes paying for the bankruptcy system that keeps busy adjudicating the debt system--at a huge administrative price.
"That's also why we have to suck in our breath and prop up the flawed, panicking banking system that got us into this mess whilst we find a longer-term solution to our debt dependency. Finally, its why we have to stop venting on Henry Paulson and let him get on with buying time for a systematic review of our financial companies, systems and regulations."
Bitch's plea, and Obama's plea, is that we continue relying on the banking thiefs, because they think we can't make it without their lending. They even admit it is the same people who got us into this mess.
How can you be so insane? How can you want to give seven hundred billion dollars to people that you openly admit are the cause of the entire problem?
That is maddening. Almost as maddening as supporting Obama's plans for more war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and maybe Iran.
Yes, under our current system, the bankers could punish us a great deal if we don't pay them off. And they will. But they will do the same thing if we give them the money. In the same way that they drove up commodity prices, including food and oil, to begin hedging their investments against crashing mortgages, they will take the $700 billion and do the same thing, driving prices up further as they try to insulate their own portfolios against the mess they made for the rest of us.
Check out Mike Whitney's latest on the $700 billion theft: he predicts, accurately, the same commodity dumping that happened when real estate prices began to drop.
Seriously, remember: these are the same people who keep funding the Iraqi slaughter, and who voted for telecom immunity under FISA. Do you really think they're going to take the $700 billion and start nicely lending it out to bright-eyed young couples to buy their first home or start a small business? I guess, if you're looking to someone like Obama to save you from the future of endless war, you might well believe such a fantasy.
These are killers, liars, thieves and cowards of the lowest order. Give them $700 billion more? Are you crazy?
We can live without them. We can live without their debt and wars and blood and hidden enemies. Be brave.
Naturally, now that the corporate media is going into a little bit of detail, a conventional wisdom (i.e., a collection of viewpoints that are not wise) is starting to build up whereby ordinary people, armed with a few choice facts, begin thinking that they understand the situation, that it is complicated and serious, and that they know what to do about it. And that means that they think it is time to grudgingly pass the theft proposal, in one form or another.
Don't call it a bailout. It's not a bailout. That is another of their lies. It is theft, god dammit. Stop using their terms or they have already won part of the victory. Tax theft is the name of the game. It's what they do. It's how they exist. Like hogs at the trough with reverse anorexia, they choke themselves gobbling down wads of spittle-soaked cash at a breakneck speed, afraid they might lose an ounce.
These lying, cheating, murderous thieves are not going to stop. They never stop. These are the people who brought you the invasion of Iraq. Stop calling it "the Iraq war." It wasn't a war. That's their term. It was a bullying. It was a mass murder. It was a trillions-dollar military machine pounding the fuckhell out of however many hundred thousand people. A war implies there was a country capable of resistance.
It's not a "fight" when a grownup kicks an infant: even if the infant swings a chubby little arm back. Nor is it a war when the American military swings in and topples the Iraqi government in a few days. Iraq right now might qualify for a "war," except that the people killing Americans are not necessarily doing so in the name of the nation of Iraq. But whatever. The point is, the original attack and killing was not a war, and stop calling it that. But back to the bailout.
These are the people who brought you the invasion of Iraq. They're the ones who keep bombing wedding parties in Afghanistan, so often that it seems like they're trying to disrupt marriages. They're the ones who throw napalm at children because a bogeyman terrorist might be living next door. They're pure evil. And now you want to believe them about the $700 billion?
Why do they do it? God help them, but most of them probably deserve pity. Like the rest of us, they live in the system of greed, where death by starvation is what happens to you if you lose. So there's nothing to do but try harder, and play by the rules, which means screw everyone you can and keep every red cent. There can be no peace in this twisted, loaded market, because there are so few guarantees against starving in the street. If you have an opportunity to gobble money, you have to do it, because if you don't, someone else will gobble it, and you will be that much closer to starvation. Or losing your house, going bankrupt to medical bills, skimping, postponing, or whatever stage of the game you are at. So gobble, damn you. It's all we have.
The elites are, in some ways, more afraid than the rest of us. That's why they look so happy at the prospect of stealing $700 billion: because it postpones the worry for just a little while. Their deep inner fear that if society became based on merit, they would starve in two days. God help them if they tried to run around selling their ability to "leverage financial markets" in a society based on character and hard work.
Look at all they can do, those Congressmen and Senators: they can manage money in financial firms, they can haggle about the bullshit little details of laws that their own staff made complicated in legal firms. Basically, they can't do anything productive. They are parasitical beings on top of those who actually produce things of value. And deep down, they know it. That is why they fight so fiercely to maintain systems of ownership and control whereby those who don't produce anything useful--those who "manage," or "coordinate," or "oversee"--get the most money. Those who actually do something get a poor man's wage, and have trouble paying to send their kids to the doctor.
So this brings me back to my own private little war against the paragon of having your head jammed in your ass known as Bitch PhD. Naturally, being that she is among the hallowed individuals who perceive that Barack Obama is the Light and the Way, she wants the "bailout."
Since once again Bitch has proven to be the crucible for progressive American error, I'm going to tear apart her stern lecture over why we should give $700 billion of our descendants' money away to the same people who caused various and sundry financial troubles, in exchange for their promise that this might avert future disaster.
Without further ado, here's Bitch embarrassing herself. Naturally, she embarrasses herself by channeling (half the time) her expert friend, who helps explain complicated things like finance to her, in return for her parroting it on her blog. This makes Bitch a modern news correspondent. Good for her! But really, I said without further ado, so let's make true:
"In the US and UK at the least, we (individuals, companies and countries) are hooked on credit. We buy our cars, houses and food on borrowed money. The companies we work for borrow money to pay us. Our hospitals, schools and buses are all bought with … yep, you guessed it …. more borrowed money."
The implication here is that people are "hooked on credit" out of choice. Rather, people are hooked on credit because they have nothing, so they require credit to get things they need. Like, say, medical help, or food, or a car, or a place to live. Like most American progressives, Bitch is very populist in this regard when critiquing McCain's tax policy and its effects on the poor, but when it comes to paying off the bankers, suddenly becomes very critical of poor peoples' credit "choices."
Poor people don't enjoy paying interest for the privilege of buying things. They do it because they have no money. Who has the money? They do. Like Nancy Pelosi, the twenty-five-times-over millionaire. That's why they look so happy.
I'll wager a guess here that Bitch's husband works in the FIRE (Finance Insurance Real Estate) industry, which might be why she's a little protective about that $700 billion theft (and could help explain a lot of American progressives, also). That inflated paycheck is all that's keeping her and her kid in iPhone lala land, after all.
Synopsis: poor Americans choose credit because they have no capital to buy anything else. The monopoly on pre-existing possessions held by the rich forces them to use credit. Therefore, using their use of credit to justify giving $700 billion from them to the very wealthy is extremely fucking stupid, not to mention wrong and inappropriate.
And if you think the poor can afford cars and houses and doctors and all that without credit, you're living in lala land (possibly iPhone lala land--check your purse).
If, as seems increasingly possible, however, its not just individuals but rather the entire banking system that's in trouble, the fact that some former traders are cashing large pay-checks is the least of our troubles.
Actually, no, it's not. All of those twenty million dollar bonuses going to financial executives who have driven their companies, and the banking system itself, into the ground, are not "the least of our troubles." They are our troubles. These are the same people who did it, and you want us to forget that they're getting paid truly huge chunks of money for waltzing out the door as failures?
Excuse me, Bitch, if I don't think it's trivial. Maybe my lack of a PhD in 18th century English literature makes me unable to comprehend things as well as you do, but here's how I see it: every $20 million bonus represents, say, a hundred $200K mortgages that could be paid off.
That's a hundred families with children that could be living in their home instead of shacking up in a relative's apartment, or camping out in the car. A hundred. And that's per bonus. So it is not "the least of our concerns;" it most certainly is a big fucking concern. Unless, of course, Bitch PhD cares only about her kid and living situation. And I know that's not the case.
If a sufficient number of banks go bust or the remainder get so nervous that they refuse to lend to anyone other than their own governments, then none of us will be able to either get new debt or, worse, renew the debt we have.
Okay, enough deriding Dr. Bitch for her ignorance and callousness toward the less-fortunate. The above quote is the crux of the Obama/progressive bullshit argument. It's basically the argument of the extortionist.
Here's how it goes: I got your money. You got a problem? Open your mouth and I'll make it worse. Go on. I dare you.
Otherwise known as: we've dug ourselves into a hole, and the only way out is to keep digging.
If we have gotten into a problematic situation where we require "new debt" or "renewed debt" in order to function, the answer is not to pay even more to keep the cycle going. Debt-financing is bad. It ultimately leads to huge deficits, economic slowdown, and spiraling interest payments. The idea of compounded interest relies upon the assumption of continual growth, because without continual growth, compounded interest cannot be financed. "Compounding interest," i.e. "debt," is nothing but magic: it implies creating value out of nothing. Putting $500 of gold in a vault does not create anything new. Working, growing, building--these things produce. But just owning alone does not produce anything--unless you use ownership to get other people to work for you, and keep the profits of their labors yourself.
Debt is disruptive and dangerous. It is by its nature an extortionary arrangement, whereby those who own can extract work from those who produce simply by virtue of their ownership. I.e., by holding a monopoly on resources, owners can never have to work, by parceling out "their" resources in exchange for someone else's work.
Aside from that, debt encourages living beyond means. It is a costly means of buying anything, because you pay more for it than it's worth. It raises prices thusly. It also encourages risk, because when you invest with debt (particularly through a limited-liability entity), you are much more willing to risk than if it were something you owned.
The resulting bill for all this mess, and the huge bureaucracies and courts for our bankruptcy system, are paid for by the taxpayers. It is our taxes paying for the bankruptcy system that keeps busy adjudicating the debt system--at a huge administrative price.
"That's also why we have to suck in our breath and prop up the flawed, panicking banking system that got us into this mess whilst we find a longer-term solution to our debt dependency. Finally, its why we have to stop venting on Henry Paulson and let him get on with buying time for a systematic review of our financial companies, systems and regulations."
Bitch's plea, and Obama's plea, is that we continue relying on the banking thiefs, because they think we can't make it without their lending. They even admit it is the same people who got us into this mess.
How can you be so insane? How can you want to give seven hundred billion dollars to people that you openly admit are the cause of the entire problem?
That is maddening. Almost as maddening as supporting Obama's plans for more war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and maybe Iran.
Yes, under our current system, the bankers could punish us a great deal if we don't pay them off. And they will. But they will do the same thing if we give them the money. In the same way that they drove up commodity prices, including food and oil, to begin hedging their investments against crashing mortgages, they will take the $700 billion and do the same thing, driving prices up further as they try to insulate their own portfolios against the mess they made for the rest of us.
Check out Mike Whitney's latest on the $700 billion theft: he predicts, accurately, the same commodity dumping that happened when real estate prices began to drop.
Seriously, remember: these are the same people who keep funding the Iraqi slaughter, and who voted for telecom immunity under FISA. Do you really think they're going to take the $700 billion and start nicely lending it out to bright-eyed young couples to buy their first home or start a small business? I guess, if you're looking to someone like Obama to save you from the future of endless war, you might well believe such a fantasy.
These are killers, liars, thieves and cowards of the lowest order. Give them $700 billion more? Are you crazy?
We can live without them. We can live without their debt and wars and blood and hidden enemies. Be brave.
Bailout Passes 09/29/2008
Bailout happens September 29
In case you were busy celebrating the failure of the bailout package, take note: it wasn't necessary for Congress to pass a bailout package. The legislation was already passed in 1913.
The Federal Reserve has the ability to fund a bailout without going through Congress already. The link above, if you didn't click on it, describes how they gave the banks $630 billion dollars just a few hours before Congress voted down the Bush/Paulson/Democratic Party bailout plan.
I.e., when the Fed saw that they weren't going to be able to win over the necessary ideological conservative votes, they used their existing authority to steal another $630 billion anyway.
In case you were busy celebrating the failure of the bailout package, take note: it wasn't necessary for Congress to pass a bailout package. The legislation was already passed in 1913.
The Federal Reserve has the ability to fund a bailout without going through Congress already. The link above, if you didn't click on it, describes how they gave the banks $630 billion dollars just a few hours before Congress voted down the Bush/Paulson/Democratic Party bailout plan.
I.e., when the Fed saw that they weren't going to be able to win over the necessary ideological conservative votes, they used their existing authority to steal another $630 billion anyway.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
God Bless America
You make me sick.
Because I'm finding BitchPhd to be such a good parable for America right now, here's her latest:
I'm cheerful, I've done all my grading before finishing my morning coffee, I've banned three tiresome trolls, and comments to the previous thread are now closed.
Now I'm going to go find various checks that I've gotten recently paying me for my fruitful labors, swing by the bank to deposit 'em, take my bike in for a tuneup, send Ding the money I owe her, and buy myself a goddamn iPhone because I want one. So there.
But really, enjoy the iPhone. It gives me hope that there are still finer qualities in you that you are trying to repress.
Because I'm finding BitchPhd to be such a good parable for America right now, here's her latest:
I'm cheerful, I've done all my grading before finishing my morning coffee, I've banned three tiresome trolls, and comments to the previous thread are now closed.
Now I'm going to go find various checks that I've gotten recently paying me for my fruitful labors, swing by the bank to deposit 'em, take my bike in for a tuneup, send Ding the money I owe her, and buy myself a goddamn iPhone because I want one. So there.
What is it about this kind of behavior that grates me so? Is it the fact that buying things to distract you from the rest of the world is a matter of pride? Is it the fact that sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich is the same?
Or, is it the fact that this behavior occurs without any shame, from the same people who stick their fingers in the ears to the howls of the dead at the same time they're on the sidelines cheering Barack the quarterback as he lobs another moab into a civilian neighborhood?
Don't annoy her, damn you. Don't get in the way of her new goddamn iPhone. Of course, make absolutely sure you don't bother her with the dead. Because if she had to think about things like what happens to people blessed by our military, it would just, you know, ruin her day. It would ruin her next caramel swirl iFrappuccino, dammit!
By all means, buy your crap. What the hell else are you going to do? There's little you can do, before they cart you off to razor wire land. But do you have to dance around like a madman while you do it? Do you have to cheer it on, for decency's sake? What's that? You can't even stand to be reminded of what your saints are up to?
Your mindless quacking is why these killers are going to keep killing. You won't brook criticism of them. You can't even be bothered to talk about them. Go ahead and cleverly critique Palin's latest gaffe; go ahead and whine about McCain and the marginal percentage changes he's going to make in your tax structure.
It is so absolutely sickening. Let the record show that while the killing fields were laden with fresh bodies, Americans had their fingers in their ears, screaming shrilly, LALALALALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALALALA.
I guess I can at least take some relief from the fact that Bitch PhD's busy schedule required her to ban three terrorists, excuse me, three communists, excuse me, three Others, excuse me, three trolls (ah yes, that's the popular internet term for nonconformists) before she could breathe easy and go back to willingly distracting herself.
Is it the hopeless death and destruction of the place that turns so many of the inmates into willing captives? Does it break their spirit in youth, and turn them into this? Or is it in their nature, and there's no hope for the species?
I still believe in empathy. I think that's why Bitch PhD needs to go out and buy crap--because she needs something shiny and new to distract her from her conscience. So I guess I should take hope that she, and the rest of America, keep needing to dangle carrots in front of the donkey: if they have to distract themselves from conscience and empathy, it at least means there is still conscience and empathy left to repress.
So, there is hope. Enjoy your new iPhone, Dr. Bitch. I know you can't stand to think about what it is going to look like when Obama escalates military intervention in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
So, there is hope. Enjoy your new iPhone, Dr. Bitch. I know you can't stand to think about what it is going to look like when Obama escalates military intervention in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
But really, enjoy the iPhone. It gives me hope that there are still finer qualities in you that you are trying to repress.
Removing troubled mortgages from the market
$700 billion bailout plan
It's staggering sometimes, how you can let your guard down.
You think you have trained yourself to be skeptical about every heaping pile of crap the corporate media shovels on your doorstep and smears across your computer and/or television. But life goes on, and you get lulled back into complacency anyway, and you find that despite your best efforts, you have nonetheless allowed some of the media crap to shape your underlying assumptions.
About small things, sometimes. And you can even have predictable counterreactions based on those assumptions.
Like in the case of the $700 billion bailout. So, our great leaders propose this, and your first reaction is, "This is bullshit! They're going to buy a bunch of worthless securities from the same scum that came up with the plans to create the worthless securities in the first place!"
But then you realize you've fallen into the media craptrap again. And even in resisting their bailout plan, you've forgotten to question the deceptive way the news is presented, because you are accepting the basic details of the plan before you resist it.
Thinking about it outside the confines of the T.V., here's my stunningly obvious question. Like all stunningly-obvious questions, it reveals the dearth of analysis in corporate news, and thereby, their deceptions.
Stunningly obvious question: if the government was actually trying to spend a lot of money to keep all those mortgage securities from being worthless, even if they were planning to do so by wrongly indebting future generations of Americans, wouldn't the simplest way be to fund the mortgages that the securities depend upon?
There it is. Another dimension of the whole scheme now jumps out at you.
If you accept the details of the bailout plan as framed by the corporate media, here's the most critical explanation you can come up with (which Arthur Silber and Chris Floyd are both busy doing):
1) Wall Street begins artificially inflating the value of real estate by peddling sub-prime mortgages to people who can't pay them;
2) Wall Street gets rich packaging and trading the mortgages;
3) The bubble bursts, people default on mortgages they can't afford and lose their homes;
4) Wall Street forecloses on the lost homes, but prices are down and they can't recover the "value" they have been attributing to themselves;
5) Wall Street holds MBS (mortgage-backed securities) that aren't worth as much as they have been misrepresented to be, and houses that aren't worth as much as they have been misrepresented to be;
6) Wall Street appears to be in trouble;
7) The government indebts the taxpayers $700 billion to buy some of the worst MBS from the big firms, thereby alleviating some of Wall Street's loss.
While nefarious, this is not quite as dirty as what Wall Street actually did/is in the process of doing. This is obvious when you consider the fact that if the government used its $700 billion (or however much it will actually cost them) to fund those mortgages, the MBS held by Wall Street would still have their face value! The losses would be gone.
The end result of that policy would be that Wall Street would not lose their money--their securities would be worth what they had pretended, because the government was propping up the mortgages. Wall Street would make their dirty money, poor people would keep their homes, and the situation would be "solved" (inasmuch as any part of this charade can be solved).
But, they're not funding the mortgages. Instead, they're buying the securities off of Wall Street. Here's the catch, though: by having the government buy the securities in order to validate the security prices, rather than fund the mortgages, Wall Street still gets to foreclose on all the houses.
Do you get it, now? Because the government is buying the securities rather than funding the mortgages, Wall Street gets to have its cake and eat it too: it gets to keep the artificially-inflated price of its crappy "securities," and at the same time, it gets to foreclose on all the houses! It gets both pieces.
Poor people default, Wall Street gets houses. Wall Street then sells worthless MBS to the government at face value, and they make even more money than they would have made if their whole dirty subprime mortgage scheme had actually been paid off by the homeowners in the first place!
Here is the full deal, broken down:
1) Wall Street begins artificially inflating the value of real estate by peddling sub-prime mortgages to people who can't pay them;
2) Wall Street gets rich packaging and trading the mortgages;
3) The bubble bursts, people default on mortgages they can't afford and lose their homes;
4) Wall Street forecloses on the lost homes;
5) Wall Street sells its MBS to the taxpayers at face value;
6) Wall Street gets all the houses, and all the money
This wasn't a failure of the system--it was on purpose. The reason that lending standards were relaxed under Chris Dodd were so that low-income homeowners could sign onto the deal in the first place. This helped inflate the price of real estate, which pumped up the MBS to such a value that they could be spread throughout the entire system. The broad diffusion of these securities mandated that later on, when the values began to drop, Wall Street could threaten the country with a genuine depression in order to justify its no-bid contract for sale of MBS to the taxpayers.
Wall Street gets houses, Wall Street gets cash, and the next several generations get the bill.
Introduction to Tax Theft series
It's staggering sometimes, how you can let your guard down.
You think you have trained yourself to be skeptical about every heaping pile of crap the corporate media shovels on your doorstep and smears across your computer and/or television. But life goes on, and you get lulled back into complacency anyway, and you find that despite your best efforts, you have nonetheless allowed some of the media crap to shape your underlying assumptions.
About small things, sometimes. And you can even have predictable counterreactions based on those assumptions.
Like in the case of the $700 billion bailout. So, our great leaders propose this, and your first reaction is, "This is bullshit! They're going to buy a bunch of worthless securities from the same scum that came up with the plans to create the worthless securities in the first place!"
But then you realize you've fallen into the media craptrap again. And even in resisting their bailout plan, you've forgotten to question the deceptive way the news is presented, because you are accepting the basic details of the plan before you resist it.
Thinking about it outside the confines of the T.V., here's my stunningly obvious question. Like all stunningly-obvious questions, it reveals the dearth of analysis in corporate news, and thereby, their deceptions.
Stunningly obvious question: if the government was actually trying to spend a lot of money to keep all those mortgage securities from being worthless, even if they were planning to do so by wrongly indebting future generations of Americans, wouldn't the simplest way be to fund the mortgages that the securities depend upon?
There it is. Another dimension of the whole scheme now jumps out at you.
If you accept the details of the bailout plan as framed by the corporate media, here's the most critical explanation you can come up with (which Arthur Silber and Chris Floyd are both busy doing):
1) Wall Street begins artificially inflating the value of real estate by peddling sub-prime mortgages to people who can't pay them;
2) Wall Street gets rich packaging and trading the mortgages;
3) The bubble bursts, people default on mortgages they can't afford and lose their homes;
4) Wall Street forecloses on the lost homes, but prices are down and they can't recover the "value" they have been attributing to themselves;
5) Wall Street holds MBS (mortgage-backed securities) that aren't worth as much as they have been misrepresented to be, and houses that aren't worth as much as they have been misrepresented to be;
6) Wall Street appears to be in trouble;
7) The government indebts the taxpayers $700 billion to buy some of the worst MBS from the big firms, thereby alleviating some of Wall Street's loss.
While nefarious, this is not quite as dirty as what Wall Street actually did/is in the process of doing. This is obvious when you consider the fact that if the government used its $700 billion (or however much it will actually cost them) to fund those mortgages, the MBS held by Wall Street would still have their face value! The losses would be gone.
The end result of that policy would be that Wall Street would not lose their money--their securities would be worth what they had pretended, because the government was propping up the mortgages. Wall Street would make their dirty money, poor people would keep their homes, and the situation would be "solved" (inasmuch as any part of this charade can be solved).
But, they're not funding the mortgages. Instead, they're buying the securities off of Wall Street. Here's the catch, though: by having the government buy the securities in order to validate the security prices, rather than fund the mortgages, Wall Street still gets to foreclose on all the houses.
Do you get it, now? Because the government is buying the securities rather than funding the mortgages, Wall Street gets to have its cake and eat it too: it gets to keep the artificially-inflated price of its crappy "securities," and at the same time, it gets to foreclose on all the houses! It gets both pieces.
Poor people default, Wall Street gets houses. Wall Street then sells worthless MBS to the government at face value, and they make even more money than they would have made if their whole dirty subprime mortgage scheme had actually been paid off by the homeowners in the first place!
Here is the full deal, broken down:
1) Wall Street begins artificially inflating the value of real estate by peddling sub-prime mortgages to people who can't pay them;
2) Wall Street gets rich packaging and trading the mortgages;
3) The bubble bursts, people default on mortgages they can't afford and lose their homes;
4) Wall Street forecloses on the lost homes;
5) Wall Street sells its MBS to the taxpayers at face value;
6) Wall Street gets all the houses, and all the money
This wasn't a failure of the system--it was on purpose. The reason that lending standards were relaxed under Chris Dodd were so that low-income homeowners could sign onto the deal in the first place. This helped inflate the price of real estate, which pumped up the MBS to such a value that they could be spread throughout the entire system. The broad diffusion of these securities mandated that later on, when the values began to drop, Wall Street could threaten the country with a genuine depression in order to justify its no-bid contract for sale of MBS to the taxpayers.
Wall Street gets houses, Wall Street gets cash, and the next several generations get the bill.
Introduction to Tax Theft series
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Obama racism, again
Insulting Obama is automatically racist.
"The point, in all cases, is that the statement in question is objectionable, regardless of the speaker's intent, because it the social context in which the statement exists makes it so. Whether or not one is aware of that social context and is being offensive "on purpose" is irrelevant."
Perhaps the most frightening thing that jumps out of this statement is the assertion that social context defines meaning. Did you get that? Read the quote again: it is saying that regardless of what you are trying to communicate, your message is defined by social context.
But, the hostesses of BitchPhD have helped me to see that indeed, insulting Barack Obama is racist, and unacceptable.
I think the quote above (from them) speaks for itself: who the hell cares what you say, if they already know the answer? If you don't fit into their social context, any critique is automatically racism, because they already know all the definitions.
From the link:
"The point, in all cases, is that the statement in question is objectionable, regardless of the speaker's intent, because it the social context in which the statement exists makes it so. Whether or not one is aware of that social context and is being offensive "on purpose" is irrelevant."
Perhaps the most frightening thing that jumps out of this statement is the assertion that social context defines meaning. Did you get that? Read the quote again: it is saying that regardless of what you are trying to communicate, your message is defined by social context.
Who defines social context? People could argue about it at length; in this case, the author may be referring to the general blogosphere (i.e. the blogs the author reads or considers "important"), or the corporate media (i.e. the media the author absorbs or considers "important"). In any case, social context is dependent upon the person defining it. A person's group and perspective are their social context.
So, the quote essentially says: What you intend to communicate to me is meaningless. My social context tells me what you said, even if you don't agree with it.
An end to communication, certainly--the listener already knows the answer. Don't even bother correcting them, because their social context (or, depending on their level of arrogance, "everyone's" social context) has already told them the true meaning of what you're going to say.
I didn't initially believe Arthur Silber when he warned that progressives were labeling anyone who disagreed with Barack Obama as "racist." Having been either wise or ignorant* enough to avoid arguments about Obama, I gave the American self-titled progressives too much credit.
(*My money's on the former, but given this recent string of posts, I've obviously regressed into the belief that communication can change some peoples' weltanshauung)
But, the hostesses of BitchPhD have helped me to see that indeed, insulting Barack Obama is racist, and unacceptable.
I think the quote above (from them) speaks for itself: who the hell cares what you say, if they already know the answer? If you don't fit into their social context, any critique is automatically racism, because they already know all the definitions.
Of course, people who call Barack Obama a "muslim terrorist" are probably racist. They may be doing it out of racist motivations. They may be subconsciously racist, and may be wanting to cause racial turmoil by saying it.
But the statement itself is not racist. "Muslim" is not a race, and "terrorist" is not a race. A racist can, for racist reasons, call Barack Obama a terrorist, without the remark itself being inherently racist. A racist can also call a banana "tasty" without the remark itself being inherently racist. A non-racist can call a banana "tasty" without the remark itself being inherently racist, and a non-racist can call Barack Obama a terrorist without the remark itself being inherently racist.
Associating a phrase with the character of the speaker is a way of marginalizing the phrase. If an idiot accidentally says something intelligent, it might be good to pay heed. If a genius says something stupid, it might be good not to dwell on it too much. But if all language becomes associated with the speaker, it blinds the listener to learning anything from a source s/he has already considered "bad."
The words we select to communicate with each other have great meaning, because if we take them by their actual definitions, we can communicate things to one another that may be new and different. If all listeners automatically decide to redefine terms based on their "social context," communication can never occur. Viewpoints cannot be changed, and thoughts stagnate.
Shame on those educated, well-off American "progressives" who seek to make even Newspeak an inefficient means of control, because they have already decided to arbitrarily change the literal meaning of every English word so that no constructions are possible which can alter a viewpoint.
Obama terrorist's best friend
In which kid is suspended for wearing an anti-Obama t-shirt to school.
In which Sybil Vane embarrasses herself talking about said suspended kid.
Poor Sybil. And on such an easy target, too.
Putting aside the love of censorship (when it is used against people who don't worship Obama), which is indeed plenty stupid enough by itself, this gem of a phrase sticks out: "Your kid's shirt is racist."
The t-shirt, for the record, said: "Obama terrorist's best friend." Lack of punctuation in the original.
Now, I can't figure out how that is racist. But what I can figure out is that saying something bad about Obama is racist, even if it is not directed at him because of his race. Yes, I know what you're saying--that that's not the definition of racism. When it comes to Obama, though, you are wrong. Here is the new Obama (TM) approved definition of racism:
rac·ism [rey-siz-uh
m]
Excuse me, that was the actual definition. Here's the new one:
rac·ism [rey-siz-uhm]
...
Poor, foolish Sybil.
So, let me get this straight:
1) Obama is going to protect American womens' access to birth control.
2) Obama is going to have his military kill innocent Pakistani, Afghani and Iraqi women, thereby denying them birth control (or life control, or even death control).
Now, to the bitches, these contradictions are not racist, because American women are better than Pakistani and Afghani wo...well, maybe they are racist. Or nationalist, at least. But maybe I'm not approaching this from the right angle.
So, those contradictions are not racist, because women born in America merit more consideration than women born...no, that's still not good.
All right, I can't figure that out. But let's move to the next topic.
"Obama terrorist's best friend" is, I would argue, accurate, though probably not for the reason the kid or his dad wrote it on the shirt in question. Here's why:
1) For years, liberals have been complaining that Bush's war in Iraq was stupid because it created more terrorists, and helped al Qaeda* recruit. (*Let's pretend "al Qaeda" exists in anything close to the form we generally imagine it to exist in for the purpose of this discussion)
2) Obama is planning on continuing the occupation of Iraq with mercenaries, "security trainers," military bases, overflights, etc.
Again, call me crazy, because it seems like Obama is going to be dredging up the same helpful recruiting bonuses for al Qaeda by continuing the same occupation Bush started. So yes, he would be a "friend" to the terrorists. Every innocent family his goons gun down at a checkpoint is another loyal recruit.
And of course, if we define "terrorism" as the "unwarranted murder of innocents," well then, we might even say that Obama's plans to bomb Pakistan and Afghanistan and Iraq and possibly-Iran-and-who-knows-where-the-hell-else could constitute terrorism.
I think I know what Sybil Vane would say to that, along with her fellow hosts. That's right: this press conference is over.
In which Sybil Vane embarrasses herself talking about said suspended kid.
Poor Sybil. And on such an easy target, too.
Putting aside the love of censorship (when it is used against people who don't worship Obama), which is indeed plenty stupid enough by itself, this gem of a phrase sticks out: "Your kid's shirt is racist."
The t-shirt, for the record, said: "Obama terrorist's best friend." Lack of punctuation in the original.
Now, I can't figure out how that is racist. But what I can figure out is that saying something bad about Obama is racist, even if it is not directed at him because of his race. Yes, I know what you're saying--that that's not the definition of racism. When it comes to Obama, though, you are wrong. Here is the new Obama (TM) approved definition of racism:
rac·ism [rey-siz-uh
m]| 1. | a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others. |
Excuse me, that was the actual definition. Here's the new one:
rac·ism [rey-siz-uh
m]| 1. | a belief or doctrine that Barack Obama can do wrong. |
...
Poor, foolish Sybil.
So, let me get this straight:
1) Obama is going to protect American womens' access to birth control.
2) Obama is going to have his military kill innocent Pakistani, Afghani and Iraqi women, thereby denying them birth control (or life control, or even death control).
Now, to the bitches, these contradictions are not racist, because American women are better than Pakistani and Afghani wo...well, maybe they are racist. Or nationalist, at least. But maybe I'm not approaching this from the right angle.
So, those contradictions are not racist, because women born in America merit more consideration than women born...no, that's still not good.
All right, I can't figure that out. But let's move to the next topic.
"Obama terrorist's best friend" is, I would argue, accurate, though probably not for the reason the kid or his dad wrote it on the shirt in question. Here's why:
1) For years, liberals have been complaining that Bush's war in Iraq was stupid because it created more terrorists, and helped al Qaeda* recruit. (*Let's pretend "al Qaeda" exists in anything close to the form we generally imagine it to exist in for the purpose of this discussion)
2) Obama is planning on continuing the occupation of Iraq with mercenaries, "security trainers," military bases, overflights, etc.
Again, call me crazy, because it seems like Obama is going to be dredging up the same helpful recruiting bonuses for al Qaeda by continuing the same occupation Bush started. So yes, he would be a "friend" to the terrorists. Every innocent family his goons gun down at a checkpoint is another loyal recruit.
And of course, if we define "terrorism" as the "unwarranted murder of innocents," well then, we might even say that Obama's plans to bomb Pakistan and Afghanistan and Iraq and possibly-Iran-and-who-knows-where-the-hell-else could constitute terrorism.
I think I know what Sybil Vane would say to that, along with her fellow hosts. That's right: this press conference is over.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Fear Motivation
The BBC discusses a study showing that more fearful people tend to support capital punishment and authoritarian government.
How many decades before the idea of fear as motivation for violent behavior becomes understood?
How many decades after that before we begin looking at the environmental causes of instilling fear in children, thereby ensuring violent, authoritarian adults?
How many decades after that before we begin doing something?
How many decades before the idea of fear as motivation for violent behavior becomes understood?
How many decades after that before we begin looking at the environmental causes of instilling fear in children, thereby ensuring violent, authoritarian adults?
How many decades after that before we begin doing something?
Friday, September 19, 2008
Obama Lying About Iran WMD
and other sundry things.
"Out of curiosity, can you provide me with a citation for where Obama claimed Iran had nukes from *after* the CIA released a report saying they didn't?"
November 2007 was the new national intelligence estimate. You can download the report here:
The report is also discussed here:
Here is a July, 2008 article where Obama talks about how the world must stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon:
Here is a July 25, 2008 article where Obama talks about how Iran has to give up its "nuclear weapons program":
Here is an August, 2008 article where Obama talks about how Iran has to abandon its "nuclear ambitions":
Obama is laying the groundwork for the same type of WMD-related scare that paved the way for the Iraq War. He is, essentially, lying just like Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld, using similar terms--the same terms that, in fact, Bush and the Republicans are now using to lie about Iran. He knows what he is doing--fearmongering--and he knows how well it works on Americans.
Onto more katherine points:
"Would it be wrong, for instance, to kill German soldiers who were forcefully drafted into the Nazi army in order to end the Holocaust?"
As you write the question, no. I am not advocating pacifism, i.e., an unwillingness/inability to engage in self defense. Nor am I arguing against what would be, by a noble country, humane acts of freeing people from tyranny.
"a) We are not currently engaged in a war in Pakistan."
Our special forces are currently killing people there:
Obama has said he wants to "expand" operations there. That means even more death, and when you exchange fighter planes for Green Berets, the collateral damage goes up.
"b) *Your* solution to Iraq and Afghanistan is to 'expand' out military there. Why do you assume Obama is going to 'expand' the war in the wrong way?"
(Referring to my The Only Right Thing To Do In Iraq)
That solution refers to educated soldiers, among other things. For example:
First, we must increase the number of American troops in Iraq tenfold (or morefold) while we simultaneously increase our investment in military humanitarian training, MP oversight of troops, and public oversight of (an all new set of) contractors. There need to be so many U.S. troops that you can't go outside without bumping into ten. And they all need to be smiling, well-paid, living in sanitary barracks, off stimulant drugs, getting 8 hours of sleep a day, and handing out free candy bars, Qur'ans, Bibles, stuffed animals, food and water, and whatever else on demand.
(We can contract K, B & R to build said troop facilities for the price of $1, or just continue criminally indicting top executives until the remaining ones agree to do the work for $0.50. And in case you're wondering, they have to give back the money they overbilled, too. The $0.50 charge is punitive, not restitutionary.)
(We can contract K, B & R to build said troop facilities for the price of $1, or just continue criminally indicting top executives until the remaining ones agree to do the work for $0.50. And in case you're wondering, they have to give back the money they overbilled, too. The $0.50 charge is punitive, not restitutionary.)
This is not what Obama is advocating. What Obama is advocating is throwing a few dozen thousand more soldiers in there to continue with the same game plan as before. He called Bush's surge a "wild success," which shows what he thinks success is: car bombings, murders, etc.
If all you took away from my "right thing to do" was "more troops," you did not read it closely enough.
"a) I was perhaps unclear about what I meant about 'solving all the problems in the middle east'. I meant 'solving the problems in the middle east that have a high likelihood of impacting our economy or safety', such as theocratic regimes gaining nuclear weapons or invading large numbers of other states or even, say, attempting to perform 'ethnic cleansing' on large sections of their population. These are problems that our foreign policy should be involved with."
And when have we been involved with those problems? Secondly, if we have been, when has there been a successful outcome?
As to the economic consequences of my Iraq plan, I didn't say it was feasible, or nice. I said it is the least we can do to begin attempting to make up to the Iraqis for what we did to them. We should be disgusted with, and ashamed of, ourselves, and no amount of our sacrifices will be able to earn the Iraqis' forgiveness. When discussing the right thing to do in such an awful, murderous situation, how much it costs our government is not even a factor that gets to be included in the situation. If you don't understand why we don't get to be so arrogant as to whine about our taxes, I can link you to some shots of children burned to death in Fallujah.
Re: drafting people to raise the necessary troop levels. I did not say we would draft. I said we would raise pay and security until people wanted to join. That would require taxes. Which the aristocracy has more than enough money to pay. I think the Rockefeller family could get by with only three BMWs per person--four is probably a sacrifice they can afford to make.
I know that solution isn't going to happen, as I said within it; it was a thought experiment to imagine, "If we were decent, and we realized what we had done to those poor people, this is what we would do to try to begin to make up for it." But of course, if we were that decent, we would not have done it to begin with. Thought exercise.
As I said in my last post, though, if we limit our imagination to what we think other people will accept without trouble, we won't ever be able to go very far with ourselves. We will remain in the Blood Ages for all time, with no new renaissance to save us.
The Practical Effect of Not Supporting Murder
Again, for katherine.
As to the Which Preschoolers Go situation, I would indeed pick three preschoolers over five. If you do not make the choice, the maniacs will kill all of them.
As to the Which Preschoolers Go situation, I would indeed pick three preschoolers over five. If you do not make the choice, the maniacs will kill all of them.
And as to Obama and McCain, and the murders they are both going to commit after they are elected, I have to admit, you are almost certainly right in the hard facts you suggest. One or the other of them is going to be elected by some large number of voters in this country, and they will then go forward and commit their mass homicide. There is nothing we can do to stop it (without risking our lives, and without chancing an infinitesimally low probability of success).
You are also right in your implication that John McCain is more likely to use nuclear weapons or be more belligerent.
I disagree with you about whether or not Obama or McCain will ultimately kill more people or cause more damage worldwide, because Bill Clinton was very successful at doing both of those things--he simply did it in a more cost-efficient way. But I'll put aside that objection for the moment, and accept what you say: that McCain would be worse than Obama.
So back to the main point: voting for Obama is simply an attempt to prevent McCain's version of madness from taking control.
But here is the crucial difference between choosing Obama in this situation, and choosing him in the preschool situation: the preschool hostage situation is one time only. The presidential farce is recurring.
Imagine the preschool example, but this time imagine that it happens every day. (This isn't an extreme stretch; considering how many dozens or hundreds of thousands of innocent children both Obama and McCain are going to kill, 3 preschoolers a day is probably inadequate for comparative purposes. But let's just use it.) Every day, you go by the preschool, and every day the madmen execute either 3 or 5 children--your choice.
At what point do you stop choosing? At what point do you stop playing along with the insanity--putting the lotion on the skin for Buffalo Bob--and say, "Enough."
At some point, it becomes apparent to you that the game is never going to end. The children are going to keep dying--there will always be new madmen willing to take the hostages, make the speeches, and carry out the killings. Choose your decade. Choose your war. Choose your murders.
How long can you justify this morbid farce? How long will you play the terrible game with the killer? Go back to Vietnam, if you like. Go back to Hiroshima and choose which national leader you want to press the button. Go back to the invasion of the Philippines. Go back to the Mexican American War. Count the bodies.
Is it ever going to end? Are you ever going to say, "Enough"?
Every day you walk by the school. Every day the madmen are there.
When are you going to stop giving them what they want? When are you going to stop validating not only their deaths, but their entire horrific game?
It will never stop unless we stop it. If we keep supporting it, year after year, always justifying it as "a little less murder than we could otherwise commit," it will never end.
When you refuse to vote, or vote for someone else, you are a grain of sand. But at some point, change has to happen, and it will take individual people willing to refuse to support the killing. A few crazies, at first. Then maybe, someday, more. It's as daunting a task as getting blacks the right to eat at the lunch counter; maybe more daunting, since Europeans were murdering one another in wars when they didn't have Africans around to enslave. But it has to happen. Individual humans need to be able to make the decision to stop the killing. You can do it. You can stand for peace and justice--you can refuse to play the terrible game of choosing who will die, and in what quantity. Leave the sadists with nothing but their own fantasies, and they will shrivel away.
If everyone is afraid to take the step away from killing because "it will make no difference; I'm only one person" then no one will ever step away. And the killing will never end.
(Short answers to specific questions upcoming!)
Democratic Plan to Block Birth Control
I have uncovered details of a new, publicly-announced governmental act that will prevent women in numerous foreign countries from having access to birth control, or indeed, sexual freedom of any kind. This heinous plan is actually put forth by the Democratic Party and Barack Obama. Any true feminists need to instantly speak out against it, and pledge that they will refuse to vote for Barack Obama unless he instantly denounces this plan!
This plan involves deploying the U.S. military to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where it will pursue alleged "terrorists." While doing so, it will use so-called "precision strikes" to destroy the uteruses, bodies, and entire reproductive systems of these innocent women. One small example of this phenomenon is this mass murder of innocent women in Afghanistan.
Actions like these will have the obvious effect of denying these women access to birth control. And, since it involves killing them, it is much more important that we crusade against this denial of their right to birth control than we do against, say, a local pharmacist refusing to grant birth control to an American woman, so she has to drive across the street to get it.
Who's with me? Who will take a stand against Barack Obama and his hideous plan to deny birth control and reproductive freedom to the women of the far east?
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
On Decency - for katherine
A response to katherine.
Katherine asks: "How, exactly, am I supposed to 'resist them'?"
By not voting for them--not giving them the validation that they and the corporate media and the whole ruling establishment craves--you resist, if in a small way.
Don't focus on resisting them, though: focus on the shared humanity of our species, or on the sanctity of life. Show them that you are not willing to become a vehicle for mass death and destruction. Show them that you can be appealed to only if they promise to stop indiscriminate bombing, starvation sanctions, and the use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus weapons against civilian populations. That would be a nice start.
Katherine says: "not voting for Obama means McCain is more likely to win."
Think about my Which Preschoolers Go analogy: you are in essence saying, "If I don't tell Obama to go ahead and kill three preschoolers, then McCain will kill five preschoolers."
But outside of the preschool hostage situation, you don't have to choose either of them!
Sure--the rest of the country is probably going to support killing either three or five preschoolers (just like in tax, add as many zeroes to the preschooler totals as you like until it seems like an important problem). But that doesn't mean that you have to.
You have a soul. You have empathy. You have a family of your own. You perceive on some level what it must be like for those people over there--those human beings with different religion and skin color and daily habits--to deal with seeing their closest loved ones murdered in the most terrible ways.
Refuse to be a part of it.
Imagine that you woke up tomorrow and found that you lived in a society where child-beating was acceptable. Would you start doing it yourself, just because if you didn't beat that child, someone else would?
What about murder? Or rape? If people (without uniforms) started doing those things lawfully in your neighborhood, would you participate?
Right now, everyone thinks it is fine to support leaders who impose all those atrocities on foreigners. I know I am unpopular to suggest it is wrong, but here I am. Maybe, if enough people start thinking it is wrong, the killing fields can be cleansed again. Maybe we can start finding our souls.
This is the "if your cool friend jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too?" argument. You don't have to do the stupid thing everyone else is doing--even if they're going to do it no matter what you do.
You can stand taller, so to speak. You can be a voice of reason; a paragon of virtue. Or just a decent, humane, caring human being, which we need many more of.
katherine says: "foreign policy is ... *gasp* ... complicated. What, exactly, has Obama proposed that you disagree with and *what do you suggest he advocate instead*?"
Katherine asks: "How, exactly, am I supposed to 'resist them'?"
By not voting for them--not giving them the validation that they and the corporate media and the whole ruling establishment craves--you resist, if in a small way.
Don't focus on resisting them, though: focus on the shared humanity of our species, or on the sanctity of life. Show them that you are not willing to become a vehicle for mass death and destruction. Show them that you can be appealed to only if they promise to stop indiscriminate bombing, starvation sanctions, and the use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus weapons against civilian populations. That would be a nice start.
Katherine says: "not voting for Obama means McCain is more likely to win."
Think about my Which Preschoolers Go analogy: you are in essence saying, "If I don't tell Obama to go ahead and kill three preschoolers, then McCain will kill five preschoolers."
But outside of the preschool hostage situation, you don't have to choose either of them!
Sure--the rest of the country is probably going to support killing either three or five preschoolers (just like in tax, add as many zeroes to the preschooler totals as you like until it seems like an important problem). But that doesn't mean that you have to.
You have a soul. You have empathy. You have a family of your own. You perceive on some level what it must be like for those people over there--those human beings with different religion and skin color and daily habits--to deal with seeing their closest loved ones murdered in the most terrible ways.
Refuse to be a part of it.
Imagine that you woke up tomorrow and found that you lived in a society where child-beating was acceptable. Would you start doing it yourself, just because if you didn't beat that child, someone else would?
What about murder? Or rape? If people (without uniforms) started doing those things lawfully in your neighborhood, would you participate?
Right now, everyone thinks it is fine to support leaders who impose all those atrocities on foreigners. I know I am unpopular to suggest it is wrong, but here I am. Maybe, if enough people start thinking it is wrong, the killing fields can be cleansed again. Maybe we can start finding our souls.
This is the "if your cool friend jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too?" argument. You don't have to do the stupid thing everyone else is doing--even if they're going to do it no matter what you do.
You can stand taller, so to speak. You can be a voice of reason; a paragon of virtue. Or just a decent, humane, caring human being, which we need many more of.
katherine says: "foreign policy is ... *gasp* ... complicated. What, exactly, has Obama proposed that you disagree with and *what do you suggest he advocate instead*?"
"Foreign policy" can be complicated if it must be, but the proposition that murdering innocent people is wrong is not complicated. It is very simple. Too simple for our leading thinkers to waste time on, apparently.
I will repeat: Obama intends to keep an invading American force in Iraq against the democratic will of the people there. He wants to use mercenaries, bases, fighter jets, missiles, drones and naval ships against their country.
Obama is claiming that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, even though the CIA and the IAE say this is not true. He says he is keeping "all options" on the table. That is a code word for "I will nuke if I have to." So the nuclear apocalypse you fear from McCain is not exclusively McCain. It was a democratic president who used the first nukes in the world dropped aggressively on a civilian population, and it was another democratic president who almost used the second during Bay of Pigs. Now Obama is threatening to attack Iran over a nonexistent "WMD" program, against the advice of his own intelligence agencies. Remind you of anyone you know?
Obama is planning on "expanding" (read: killing more people) the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
These are not complicated plans. These are simple plans. "Obama not like terrorists. Obama SMASH Pakistan, place where terrorists be! Obama SMASH Afghanistan, place where terrorists be!" Repeat ad nauseum, until the world burns.
katherine says: "For instance, having American troops in Iraq will undoubtedly result in them killing some Iraqis. But, if they all left tomorrow, what remains of the country's infrastructure would crumble and more Iraqis would die. So unless you have a plan for how to solve all the problems of repressive, theocratic, hostile regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere, Obama's plan sounds pretty reasonable to me."
Firstly, I came up with a "plan" for Iraq, which is fanciful, but probably the closest thing to moral that we could manage to do to begin attempting to make up for the billionth part of trouble we have caused the Iraqis. If you'd like to read it, here it is: The Only Right Thing To Do In Iraq
As to your main point, I don't think it is our business to "solve all the problems" of the Middle East and elsewhere. Our history has shown that whenever we undertake someone else's problems, our elites make a lot of money, a lot of our poor soldiers die, and we commit horrific brutalities against other nations and peoples. We pull out our main force eventually, leave behind a few bases, bill the common taxpayers, make movies about it that highlight our troops' sacrifices, and go on with business as usual. We have an awful track record of solving our own problems, and an awful track record of solving the rest of the worlds' problems.
Firstly, I came up with a "plan" for Iraq, which is fanciful, but probably the closest thing to moral that we could manage to do to begin attempting to make up for the billionth part of trouble we have caused the Iraqis. If you'd like to read it, here it is: The Only Right Thing To Do In Iraq
As to your main point, I don't think it is our business to "solve all the problems" of the Middle East and elsewhere. Our history has shown that whenever we undertake someone else's problems, our elites make a lot of money, a lot of our poor soldiers die, and we commit horrific brutalities against other nations and peoples. We pull out our main force eventually, leave behind a few bases, bill the common taxpayers, make movies about it that highlight our troops' sacrifices, and go on with business as usual. We have an awful track record of solving our own problems, and an awful track record of solving the rest of the worlds' problems.
And if it was our business, or if we were somehow charged with doing it, we are doing it terribly. Our military is a force of mind-numbing evil, and whenever it commits those evils, it does so claiming justice and truth and democracy and puppies and so forth. If you want references, I can provide them by the metric ton of vileness.
But for decency's sake, I really think you can make all the right decisions simply by acknowledging that killing innocent people is wrong. Since you are not a Republican, you are probably not so deluded that you think no innocent people get killed by our military; you may even accept that a great deal of innocent people get killed, in hideous ways, by our military. The next stage of breaking through the underlying American assumptions is to perceive that this murder of innocents is not, in fact, either right or necessary.
Which Preschoolers Go?
You're walking down the street one day when shots ring out at a nearby preschool. You rush in and find two guys standing in there with preschool students as hostages: John McCain and Barack Obama.
Immediately, they turn their guns on you.
"Oh, tough guy, eh? Come in here to save the kids, eh? Think you're a real bruiser, eh?"
"Err, not really, John...well, I heard shots...I guess it would be nice if I could save them."
"Heehee, lookit John, he's scared! Whadda ya think we should do with him, huh? Whadda ya think we should do?"
"Mr. Obama, please, you don't have to do this."
"Ooh, I got it!" *Barack walks over and puts the gun against the head of the nearest preschooler.* "You can decide who's gonna die, tough guy! How about these kids?" *Barack waves his gun at the nearest three children.* "Want them to die?"
*McCain grabs another group of kids.* "Ha! You want them to die? Well, maybe you want THESE kids to die instead!" *McCain waves his gun at the five kids he has before him.*
"Who's it gonna be, tough guy? Who's it gonna be?"
...
So--who are you going to vote for? The difference here is that only 3 innocent children will die if you go with Obama, rather than thousands.
The difference also is that you have no choice. In the situation above, you have to choose between either Obama or McCain, or else both of them will kill the children. You have no choice except to pick one.
Obama/McCain is like the Green Goblin in the first recent Spiderman movie. They dangle McCain's 100 year Iraq War and greater likelihood of nuclear apocalypse off one side of the bridge, and Barack's slightly lesser likelihood of nuclear apocalypse and increased killing in Pakistan and Afghanistan off the other.
But you don't have to pick one of them. This isn't Spiderman; this isn't preschool hostages. You can refuse to play either of their terrible games. You can resist them.
Most of all, you have the power to give up the deception that Barack Obama is a hero because he might murder fewer innocent people.
Immediately, they turn their guns on you.
"Oh, tough guy, eh? Come in here to save the kids, eh? Think you're a real bruiser, eh?"
"Err, not really, John...well, I heard shots...I guess it would be nice if I could save them."
"Heehee, lookit John, he's scared! Whadda ya think we should do with him, huh? Whadda ya think we should do?"
"Mr. Obama, please, you don't have to do this."
"Ooh, I got it!" *Barack walks over and puts the gun against the head of the nearest preschooler.* "You can decide who's gonna die, tough guy! How about these kids?" *Barack waves his gun at the nearest three children.* "Want them to die?"
*McCain grabs another group of kids.* "Ha! You want them to die? Well, maybe you want THESE kids to die instead!" *McCain waves his gun at the five kids he has before him.*
"Who's it gonna be, tough guy? Who's it gonna be?"
...
So--who are you going to vote for? The difference here is that only 3 innocent children will die if you go with Obama, rather than thousands.
The difference also is that you have no choice. In the situation above, you have to choose between either Obama or McCain, or else both of them will kill the children. You have no choice except to pick one.
Obama/McCain is like the Green Goblin in the first recent Spiderman movie. They dangle McCain's 100 year Iraq War and greater likelihood of nuclear apocalypse off one side of the bridge, and Barack's slightly lesser likelihood of nuclear apocalypse and increased killing in Pakistan and Afghanistan off the other.
But you don't have to pick one of them. This isn't Spiderman; this isn't preschool hostages. You can refuse to play either of their terrible games. You can resist them.
Most of all, you have the power to give up the deception that Barack Obama is a hero because he might murder fewer innocent people.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Don't Bother Me With the Dead, Part 2
Reprehensible cowardice. Self-imposed blindness.
Thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, perhaps fresh new post-sanctions millions, all waiting to be butchered, phosphorized, napalmed, moabed to death by Barack Obama, and the self-titled progressive, liberal American bloggers can't be bothered to hear about it.
Situation 1: me at democraticunderground.com. I make a small handful of posts, perhaps three or four, in various "support Barack Obama" threads. I basically say--and no kidding, this is all I say--nothing more than "We must support Obama in increasing the size of the military because we must support his goals of escalating the war on terror in Pakistan and Afghanistan."
The end result: I'm banned, censored, shut up and shut away. Don't bother the Americans with the faintest whisper of the dead.
You can't even quote his holiness Barack Obama's campaign positions taken from his website, because it is such a stunning stew of cognitive dissonance for them to have a reminder that he plans on continuing the same war plans as George W. Bush.
They never really hated George W. Bush's actions. All they gave a goddamn about was that it was George W. Bush, a Republican, doing them.
Whether they support or do not support the killing is irrelevant. They're even worse than the Republicans, and just as cowardly as the Republicans accuse them of being: they can't even be bothered by reminders of the people their holy boy is going to kill.
Situation 2: me at bitch PhD. As the blogging team there bloviates about supporting Barack and helping women's rights, I dare suggest that it would help the rights of women in Pakistan and Afghanistan if they were not, you know, about to be brutally fucking killed by their holy boy Barack and his airstrikes, and his cluster bombs, and his tanks, and his checkpoints, and his cruise missiles, and his mercenaries.
While we're at it, they're going to get raped, and driven into prostitution and sex-slavery, just like the girls in Iraq. No, I didn't mention that one at the time, because my posts were already "too long." God knows 2 or 3 paragraphs is too much to trouble the bitch phd hosts about with regards to people who their chosen leader is going to kill.
Guess what the end result is, with these feminists who are so concerned with the rights of women? Deleted, silenced, shut up, shut away.
Cowards; disgusting cowards. They can't be bothered for a minute with a reminder so gentle, so un-controversial, so public that it is on Barack's website, and a key part of his speeches.
Who the hell cares about the women in Pakistan, anyway? About the children in Afghanistan? The elderly in Iraq? Or even the healthy adult men? Don't fucking bother them with that worthless shit. Barack Obama is going to protect their access to contraception, so let him shred the lives of another ten thousand human beings in the middle east, and don't make me think about it.
John McCain? Why, he's the mass killer who's not going to protect my access to birth-control pills. Omigod, can't choose him as president! Better pick the mass killer who is going to protect my access to birth-control pills. That's a super choice!
This truly is the land of the dead and the times of the dead. It is rude, and even crazy, to suggest that mass murder is a bad idea, let alone an immoral one.
Have I gone mad? Is my sense of decency the product of some world outside this one--an insane multiverse where killing lots of innocent people is actually bad? How did the door open that let me into this world, where I have everything backwards? I'm new here, people! Cut me some slack!
Or am I just the only person left who didn't get the memo that collateral damage is no longer a problem in modern warfare? Did God take me off his rolodex, and forget to call me and give me an update on how America really does kill with an honorable purpose?
I am dearly ashamed of my fellow human beings. It is almost incomprehensible that they can't bring themselves to think about what it is they're championing on--and yet, they do champion it on, and they understand it to some degree.
Too proud and afraid to give a damn. Cowards with terrified little souls, who can't be troubled to think about the terrors they are going to inflict on their kinsmen thousands of miles away.
I am so ashamed of my people, and they spit at me when I beg them to reconsider the death and the horror.
Thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, perhaps fresh new post-sanctions millions, all waiting to be butchered, phosphorized, napalmed, moabed to death by Barack Obama, and the self-titled progressive, liberal American bloggers can't be bothered to hear about it.
Situation 1: me at democraticunderground.com. I make a small handful of posts, perhaps three or four, in various "support Barack Obama" threads. I basically say--and no kidding, this is all I say--nothing more than "We must support Obama in increasing the size of the military because we must support his goals of escalating the war on terror in Pakistan and Afghanistan."
The end result: I'm banned, censored, shut up and shut away. Don't bother the Americans with the faintest whisper of the dead.
You can't even quote his holiness Barack Obama's campaign positions taken from his website, because it is such a stunning stew of cognitive dissonance for them to have a reminder that he plans on continuing the same war plans as George W. Bush.
They never really hated George W. Bush's actions. All they gave a goddamn about was that it was George W. Bush, a Republican, doing them.
Whether they support or do not support the killing is irrelevant. They're even worse than the Republicans, and just as cowardly as the Republicans accuse them of being: they can't even be bothered by reminders of the people their holy boy is going to kill.
Situation 2: me at bitch PhD. As the blogging team there bloviates about supporting Barack and helping women's rights, I dare suggest that it would help the rights of women in Pakistan and Afghanistan if they were not, you know, about to be brutally fucking killed by their holy boy Barack and his airstrikes, and his cluster bombs, and his tanks, and his checkpoints, and his cruise missiles, and his mercenaries.
While we're at it, they're going to get raped, and driven into prostitution and sex-slavery, just like the girls in Iraq. No, I didn't mention that one at the time, because my posts were already "too long." God knows 2 or 3 paragraphs is too much to trouble the bitch phd hosts about with regards to people who their chosen leader is going to kill.
Guess what the end result is, with these feminists who are so concerned with the rights of women? Deleted, silenced, shut up, shut away.
Cowards; disgusting cowards. They can't be bothered for a minute with a reminder so gentle, so un-controversial, so public that it is on Barack's website, and a key part of his speeches.
Who the hell cares about the women in Pakistan, anyway? About the children in Afghanistan? The elderly in Iraq? Or even the healthy adult men? Don't fucking bother them with that worthless shit. Barack Obama is going to protect their access to contraception, so let him shred the lives of another ten thousand human beings in the middle east, and don't make me think about it.
John McCain? Why, he's the mass killer who's not going to protect my access to birth-control pills. Omigod, can't choose him as president! Better pick the mass killer who is going to protect my access to birth-control pills. That's a super choice!
This truly is the land of the dead and the times of the dead. It is rude, and even crazy, to suggest that mass murder is a bad idea, let alone an immoral one.
Have I gone mad? Is my sense of decency the product of some world outside this one--an insane multiverse where killing lots of innocent people is actually bad? How did the door open that let me into this world, where I have everything backwards? I'm new here, people! Cut me some slack!
Or am I just the only person left who didn't get the memo that collateral damage is no longer a problem in modern warfare? Did God take me off his rolodex, and forget to call me and give me an update on how America really does kill with an honorable purpose?
I am dearly ashamed of my fellow human beings. It is almost incomprehensible that they can't bring themselves to think about what it is they're championing on--and yet, they do champion it on, and they understand it to some degree.
Too proud and afraid to give a damn. Cowards with terrified little souls, who can't be troubled to think about the terrors they are going to inflict on their kinsmen thousands of miles away.
I am so ashamed of my people, and they spit at me when I beg them to reconsider the death and the horror.
Don't Bother Me With the Dead, Part 1
sgtg: "what is your agenda/point? i get that you think the killing in the middle east will continue under obama. you also think that it will continue under mccain. so what are you getting at? what do you want "us" to do? are you suggesting that we don't vote at all? i'm really not getting what you're after. i know that the shit going on in the middle east is not going to stop with any candidate. and it sucks. but i'm going to vote for obama anyway. i'm just really dying to understand your point. and if you could keep it brief, wow, i'd really appreciate it. and if you just spew the same long-winded stuff as before, and not answer my question, i'll just stop reading your comments (which i think a bunch of folks have already done)."
What is your agenda/point?
1) Murder is wrong, even if you murder fewer people than someone else would have, or do it in a nicer way.
2) Supporting people who murder, and who openly plan more murders, such as Barack Obama, is wrong.
What is your agenda/point?
1) Murder is wrong, even if you murder fewer people than someone else would have, or do it in a nicer way.
2) Supporting people who murder, and who openly plan more murders, such as Barack Obama, is wrong.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Another Obama Moment in America
I run across: the bitches latest take on Barack Obama. The post discusses a program encouraging families to bring their daughters to support Barack Obama's candidacy.
I reply briefly, in essence suggesting an irony in pairing the innocence of America's young children with Barack's brutal rise to power.
I am then censored; my comment is deleted. I am scolded to not be "obnoxious." Apparently, "obnoxious" does not mean supporting murder. Rather, it is "obnoxious" and unthinkable to be sarcastic.
So, I comment anew. Text follows.
Okay, I am going to be as direct as possible in pointing something out:
1) Barack Obama intends to escalate the killing in Pakistan. Countless innocent little girls there--many peoples' daughters; their hopes and dreams--will have their lives shattered into black nothingness.
2) Barack Obama intends to escalate the killing in Afghanistan. Countless innocent little girls there will have their flesh torn apart by cluster bombs. They will have their brains liquified three blocks over by MOABs dropped from the clouds. They will step on land mines and spend the next fifty years of their lives in terrible pain, hobbling on stumps that never got proper medical treatment.
3) Barack Obama intends to keep mercenaries, bases and advisers in Iraq. Countless innocent little girls there will be shot to death when their father doesn't brake the car quickly enough when a Blackwater Hummer goes by. They will be raped at ten years old behind a crumbled mosque, by three eighteen-year-old US marines with AR-15 rifles. They will go home to find that their fathers have been taken for questioning, and will not be back ever again.
4) Barack Obama threatens that he is willing to use all options against Iran. Countless innocent little girls lie awake in their beds at night, wondering when the American planes will come turn them into Iraq.
It is abysmally sad to dirty the hands of America's little girls by bringing them to support this murderer--this horrid man who has sent billions of dollars to pay for the bullets, tires, bombs and fuel that grind away so many of the lives of their fellow human beings. He keeps voting for the resolutions and the money. He called Bush's troop surge a great success. He claims Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, even though his own intelligence agencies say it is not true.
How can you even begin to condone this horrid warmongering? Obama plots his murders in public; he stares into the camera and tells the country exactly where he is going to send his soldiers to kill and maim. And yet, you would support him because you think he might kill slightly fewer people than McCain would?
What a terrible thing to teach a child--support Murderer Number Two, because he is a little bit nicer than Murderer Number One.
I pity the children who have their open minds warped into believing that it is acceptable to cheer on violence and brutality, as long as there is someone "worse" out there to justify it.
I reply briefly, in essence suggesting an irony in pairing the innocence of America's young children with Barack's brutal rise to power.
I am then censored; my comment is deleted. I am scolded to not be "obnoxious." Apparently, "obnoxious" does not mean supporting murder. Rather, it is "obnoxious" and unthinkable to be sarcastic.
So, I comment anew. Text follows.
Okay, I am going to be as direct as possible in pointing something out:
1) Barack Obama intends to escalate the killing in Pakistan. Countless innocent little girls there--many peoples' daughters; their hopes and dreams--will have their lives shattered into black nothingness.
2) Barack Obama intends to escalate the killing in Afghanistan. Countless innocent little girls there will have their flesh torn apart by cluster bombs. They will have their brains liquified three blocks over by MOABs dropped from the clouds. They will step on land mines and spend the next fifty years of their lives in terrible pain, hobbling on stumps that never got proper medical treatment.
3) Barack Obama intends to keep mercenaries, bases and advisers in Iraq. Countless innocent little girls there will be shot to death when their father doesn't brake the car quickly enough when a Blackwater Hummer goes by. They will be raped at ten years old behind a crumbled mosque, by three eighteen-year-old US marines with AR-15 rifles. They will go home to find that their fathers have been taken for questioning, and will not be back ever again.
4) Barack Obama threatens that he is willing to use all options against Iran. Countless innocent little girls lie awake in their beds at night, wondering when the American planes will come turn them into Iraq.
It is abysmally sad to dirty the hands of America's little girls by bringing them to support this murderer--this horrid man who has sent billions of dollars to pay for the bullets, tires, bombs and fuel that grind away so many of the lives of their fellow human beings. He keeps voting for the resolutions and the money. He called Bush's troop surge a great success. He claims Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, even though his own intelligence agencies say it is not true.
How can you even begin to condone this horrid warmongering? Obama plots his murders in public; he stares into the camera and tells the country exactly where he is going to send his soldiers to kill and maim. And yet, you would support him because you think he might kill slightly fewer people than McCain would?
What a terrible thing to teach a child--support Murderer Number Two, because he is a little bit nicer than Murderer Number One.
I pity the children who have their open minds warped into believing that it is acceptable to cheer on violence and brutality, as long as there is someone "worse" out there to justify it.
The Best Things
The best things are not sold, which is generally repeated, but little understood. The (often rich) servants of antilife, therefore, work to repress the best things. This has two benefits: (1) firstly, if the best things are repressed, people will turn to lesser things for pastime--lesser things that they will pay for. The owners then get more goodies. And (2) secondly, when the best things are repressed, life suffers, and fearful minds rejoice.
The finest things of life are simple, wonderful, and cost nothing. They are available (potential) to all humans to varying degrees:
Friendship
Sex
Love
Imagination
Relaxation
Exertion
Creativity/expression
The societies of greed and antilife have evolved into wicked designs, whose function is to eliminate all of the above, and replace them with commodities (i.e., for purchase), which can be controlled by owners. As a result, most humans become reliant on owners for the substitutes of life, which solidifies ownership control. It is like taking a baby's mother away and replacing her with plastic arms.
Below follows how the owners control things.
Social interaction is limited to prevent the formation of sexual bonds, or those of friendship or love. At the earliest stage of life, the coercion begins; as humans grow older, they are pushed even more firmly in the direction of routines that separate people from one another, and make them reliant on paying rents to owners for the privilege of one another's company, or approximations thereof.
The finest things of life are simple, wonderful, and cost nothing. They are available (potential) to all humans to varying degrees:
Friendship
Sex
Love
Imagination
Relaxation
Exertion
Creativity/expression
The societies of greed and antilife have evolved into wicked designs, whose function is to eliminate all of the above, and replace them with commodities (i.e., for purchase), which can be controlled by owners. As a result, most humans become reliant on owners for the substitutes of life, which solidifies ownership control. It is like taking a baby's mother away and replacing her with plastic arms.
Below follows how the owners control things.
Social interaction is limited to prevent the formation of sexual bonds, or those of friendship or love. At the earliest stage of life, the coercion begins; as humans grow older, they are pushed even more firmly in the direction of routines that separate people from one another, and make them reliant on paying rents to owners for the privilege of one another's company, or approximations thereof.
Childhood
Mother's milk is replaced with chemical formula (natural v. purchased; life v. antilife)
Mother is replaced with daycare worker (natural v. purchased; life v. antilife)
Parents are replaced with toys and television
Socializing may more easily occur within a private home, or at a public park, but parks are few and far between, and most of the population dwells in small apartments. Television and culture encourages children to feel that socializing must take place at commercial venues, where their parents pay rent to owners for the privilege of a larger space to play: commercial park, kiddie pizza, etc.
In school, gender roles are reinforced and the sexes are segregated and differentiated. Gym, bathrooms and other norms teach children to be ashamed of their bodies, and that it is wicked (or gross) to look at other bodies. Television and culture have already taught them to divide the sexes based on product distinction, and that sexual identity is established through choice of toys or play activities. Physical intimacy is discouraged as repressed adults enforce their fantasy of sexless, "innocent" children through touching barriers and the respecting of firm notions of privacy.
Adulthood
You cannot walk out your door without running into a road where you are expected to be burning purchased gasoline in a purchased car to belong. You can go almost nowhere to be social without being expected to buy a drink or an entree, or be shopping for something else. Inadvertant socializing occurs in the workplace, but among a limited group of people, under the control of owners or managers, who are driven to excessive control by the pressure of economic competition.
The village green is replaced with the private bar.
Limited time for socializing between the demands of employment and maintaining economic well-being reduces the time available for interaction. Through decades of television and popular culture inculcation, interaction itself is a brainless word game of confidence projection, and deception about social status, power or income.
Individual economics pit single persons against one another in a quest to avoid losing out by marrying into a lower income group. Potential mates must be carefully weighed to avoid investing too much of oneself in a "costly" (by comparison to other "opportunities") mistake.
People have already learned to identify themselves by products. Clothing brands, television shows, sports teams, and occupation define the individual. Not surprisingly, people learning these things about other people find themselves to know nothing, even if they may feel a superficial pleasure at matching answers.
Every good thing listed above is very obviously crushed by the "be economically successful or starve outdoors" pressure of free trade. Exercise--exertion--becomes difficult to squeeze into the crammed life. Relaxation cannot be enjoyed if the body has not exerted previously, and is healthy and prepared to melt into true relaxation. Imagination is interfered with by the crushing of dreams, and is crowded out by the stresses and pressures of money.
How did society come to be designed around limiting the freest, easiest, best things, which we can give each other?
The devaluing of the self that the fearful mind engages in is king. Devalue your own flesh, and see it as sinful; devalue your thoughts, and see them as inadequate. Instead glorify the purchasable people available on television. Look to them for models of friendship and romance; look to the magazine covers for desire.
Enthroned avarice; antilife; notions of ownership that go against the core of the living universe. The outpouring of the ragnarist mind, where we pursue the monetary absolute, and deride everything true and good and alive. A pressure that cannot be ignored in these times, to be sure. Yet sustenance does not need to be paired with a rejection of life. Sustenance unfettered from the administrative costs of tithing owners for parceled privileges would be a hundred times easier.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Obama, oh, Obama!
Obama is not a man, but is a living god. He can do no wrong. He belches change and vomits purple roses with healing properties plus twelve. When he scratches himself, hungry children are fed. When he adjusts his tie, rainbows appear over Madagascar. Everything that he has done that is wrong was not actually wrong but was in fact a clever ruse designed to confuse his enemies and win him even more votes. Those who do not understand this do not understand politics.
When Obama bombs Iran, it will be different than if anyone else did it. The people there will be happy to accept his munitions. They will greet us as liberators and put up a giant statue of Obama on top of each one of their buildings. Yes, each and every one. Some of the buildings will not be able to support the weight, but Obama will personally support each one with his mighty hand. Dismembered Persians will all come back to life, and Obama will sing holy songs with them in a non-denominational way. They will try to give us their oil, but Obama will graciously refuse. He will then click his heels and return to the emerald city.
When Bush sends a bajillion dollars to Iraq, he is wasteful and stupid. When Obama does it, he is wise and political. Obama never compromises on his principles except when his principles are compromise. He can speak the secret language of canines, and his nationwide network of dog spies has reported to him that the voters were lying to pollsters, and in fact they secretly wanted Obama to vote for telecom immunity. They all told their dogs this after they got off the phone with the pollsters, and their dogs reported to Obama. This is how Obama knew that it was good politically to vote for telecom immunity. He only accepted telecom money to lull the companies into complacency. Any day now the hammer will fall on them.
The people of Afghanistan eagerly await Obama’s escalation of the war. Many Afghanis are Taliban, and the innocent ones are happy to leap into the meat grinder as long as the Taliban go with them. When the war is over, Obama will walk barefoot across the Pacific Ocean and sort out all the body parts. Obama’s close personal friend the Lord Jesus (who refuses to visit Reverend Wright’s church these days) will assist him in putting all the innocent people back together again.
Obama’s mercenaries are all nicer than other mercenaries. All private security contractors know this. They await only Obama’s election to put their safeties on and begin handing out flowers and fuzzy teddy bears. Sometimes, they worry that Obama will not be elected, and they will have to continue gunning down people in cars. It is our patriotic duty to elect Obama and help them lead happier lives. This is why Obama has promised to keep mercenaries in Iraq. Who else would hand out the flowers and teddy bears if they had to go home? A fuzzy teddy bear factory in Mississippi needs these contracts to create new jobs. Obama will do it all in one swoop.
Obama drinks wastewater and urinates refined petroleum. He will solve the energy crisis with three visits to the urinal. This is why he does not waste time giving details of energy policy. If things grow too hot, he will make a phone call to the sun and it will become cooler. The sun will feel giddy afterwards.
When Obama bombs Iran, it will be different than if anyone else did it. The people there will be happy to accept his munitions. They will greet us as liberators and put up a giant statue of Obama on top of each one of their buildings. Yes, each and every one. Some of the buildings will not be able to support the weight, but Obama will personally support each one with his mighty hand. Dismembered Persians will all come back to life, and Obama will sing holy songs with them in a non-denominational way. They will try to give us their oil, but Obama will graciously refuse. He will then click his heels and return to the emerald city.
When Bush sends a bajillion dollars to Iraq, he is wasteful and stupid. When Obama does it, he is wise and political. Obama never compromises on his principles except when his principles are compromise. He can speak the secret language of canines, and his nationwide network of dog spies has reported to him that the voters were lying to pollsters, and in fact they secretly wanted Obama to vote for telecom immunity. They all told their dogs this after they got off the phone with the pollsters, and their dogs reported to Obama. This is how Obama knew that it was good politically to vote for telecom immunity. He only accepted telecom money to lull the companies into complacency. Any day now the hammer will fall on them.
The people of Afghanistan eagerly await Obama’s escalation of the war. Many Afghanis are Taliban, and the innocent ones are happy to leap into the meat grinder as long as the Taliban go with them. When the war is over, Obama will walk barefoot across the Pacific Ocean and sort out all the body parts. Obama’s close personal friend the Lord Jesus (who refuses to visit Reverend Wright’s church these days) will assist him in putting all the innocent people back together again.
Obama’s mercenaries are all nicer than other mercenaries. All private security contractors know this. They await only Obama’s election to put their safeties on and begin handing out flowers and fuzzy teddy bears. Sometimes, they worry that Obama will not be elected, and they will have to continue gunning down people in cars. It is our patriotic duty to elect Obama and help them lead happier lives. This is why Obama has promised to keep mercenaries in Iraq. Who else would hand out the flowers and teddy bears if they had to go home? A fuzzy teddy bear factory in Mississippi needs these contracts to create new jobs. Obama will do it all in one swoop.
Obama drinks wastewater and urinates refined petroleum. He will solve the energy crisis with three visits to the urinal. This is why he does not waste time giving details of energy policy. If things grow too hot, he will make a phone call to the sun and it will become cooler. The sun will feel giddy afterwards.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Types of Intelligence
There is a keen split between the modern perspective on intelligence, and the results of that intelligence. PhDs who behave childishly. Highly-educated leaders with no respect for the human condition. Overweight physicians.
Why? It is because we incorrectly correlate one type of intelligence with all others.
Projective intelligence: outward problem-solving and analysis.
Creative intelligence: taken literally.
Introspective intelligence: taken literally.
Projective intelligence is, by and large, the only type we recognize or develop. Introspective and creative intelligence are almost wholly ignored. Introspective intelligence is acknowledged only after visits to the psychologists' couch, and there, the instructor is someone who has not been trained to be introspectively intelligence him or herself, but who has instead been trained only to be projectively intelligent as towards others' minds. Creative intelligence is acknowledged only in art or music instruction, and except for rare instances in composition theory or creative writing instruction, what is offered in training is projective intelligence as to the methodology of creation.
The inability to recognize different types of intelligence results in extreme dichotomies in the world. For example, we have the prospective intelligence to design and build nuclear weapons, then deploy them worldwide, but not the introspective intelligence to recognize that building such things in the first place is madness. Our greatest prospectively intelligent minds involve themselves engineering fighter jets, designing sprawling private mansions and building giant dams, without having the introspective tools to think intelligently about what they are doing. When they do think about it, their level of thought is as unprepared for the task as a first-grader analyzing War and Peace. Their faculties in that regard have been so neglected that they are not up to the task.
Both neglects are a consequence of ragnarism, and more directly, our worship of avarice (see Money Laundering).
Fearful minds do not want to understand themselves. Understanding the nature of the mind involves confronting the lack of an absolute, singular self. That is why our society is so structured around avoiding introspection. Carefully, over the years, we have crafted all academic, professional and social inquiry in such a way as to resist analyzing what someone thinks and feels inwardly. To brush upon the subject provokes a violent response, and sound condemnation from all corners.
The result of a society of introspectively stunted individuals is a chaos of sad, confused, sick, needy lives. All that holds it together is the overwhelming force of the very social mores that protect us from our inner selves: to ensure surface stability, and simultaneously protect our inner illusions, time is occupied with social ritual. Fixed behavior practices (i.e., the supposed affection for routine) occupies the mind with external schedules and controlled behavior. As the rituals occur, everyone is validated in their general participation, and thoughts can be as distracted as possible (by the details of the ritual) to avoid their turning inward.
Why? It is because we incorrectly correlate one type of intelligence with all others.
Projective intelligence: outward problem-solving and analysis.
Creative intelligence: taken literally.
Introspective intelligence: taken literally.
Projective intelligence is, by and large, the only type we recognize or develop. Introspective and creative intelligence are almost wholly ignored. Introspective intelligence is acknowledged only after visits to the psychologists' couch, and there, the instructor is someone who has not been trained to be introspectively intelligence him or herself, but who has instead been trained only to be projectively intelligent as towards others' minds. Creative intelligence is acknowledged only in art or music instruction, and except for rare instances in composition theory or creative writing instruction, what is offered in training is projective intelligence as to the methodology of creation.
The inability to recognize different types of intelligence results in extreme dichotomies in the world. For example, we have the prospective intelligence to design and build nuclear weapons, then deploy them worldwide, but not the introspective intelligence to recognize that building such things in the first place is madness. Our greatest prospectively intelligent minds involve themselves engineering fighter jets, designing sprawling private mansions and building giant dams, without having the introspective tools to think intelligently about what they are doing. When they do think about it, their level of thought is as unprepared for the task as a first-grader analyzing War and Peace. Their faculties in that regard have been so neglected that they are not up to the task.
Both neglects are a consequence of ragnarism, and more directly, our worship of avarice (see Money Laundering).
Fearful minds do not want to understand themselves. Understanding the nature of the mind involves confronting the lack of an absolute, singular self. That is why our society is so structured around avoiding introspection. Carefully, over the years, we have crafted all academic, professional and social inquiry in such a way as to resist analyzing what someone thinks and feels inwardly. To brush upon the subject provokes a violent response, and sound condemnation from all corners.
The result of a society of introspectively stunted individuals is a chaos of sad, confused, sick, needy lives. All that holds it together is the overwhelming force of the very social mores that protect us from our inner selves: to ensure surface stability, and simultaneously protect our inner illusions, time is occupied with social ritual. Fixed behavior practices (i.e., the supposed affection for routine) occupies the mind with external schedules and controlled behavior. As the rituals occur, everyone is validated in their general participation, and thoughts can be as distracted as possible (by the details of the ritual) to avoid their turning inward.
Ed Gein and Ragnarism
Ed Gein
Note the early repression, highlighted by:
1) Reverence for absolutes (cue: Bible);
2) Hatred of femininity/sex.
And consequently, the result.
Note the early repression, highlighted by:
1) Reverence for absolutes (cue: Bible);
2) Hatred of femininity/sex.
And consequently, the result.
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