Land of Broken Promises

Greetings good citizen,

The rubric of ‘gradualism’ crept into public awareness during the (largely fabricated) ‘Red Scare’.

The analogy of a frog in a pot of water was used to exemplify how ‘gradualism’ worked (by the time you realized you were being boiled alive it was too late.)

We’d go about our lives and the insidious ‘commies’ would be infiltrating American Institutions and ‘contaminating’ them with their evil socialist poison!

(Which is what capitalists call every social ‘protection’ you have that they are required to fund.)

At the end of the day Bubba, it’s not their money but yours! But they still ‘view’ your social welfare as money THEY could have kept.

Who gives a fig what happens to you when you stop working? (Or at least that’s how the typical capitalist thinks.)

How disturbing is it that you can easily exchange the word capitalist for the word Republican? Even more disturbing is how the label Republican is now synonymous with the notorious >One Percent!

Now let’s bring the two concepts home

Water Torture, as American as Apple Pie
What does it mean when torture, already the definition of “cruel,” becomes usual?
February 24, 2013 |

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Try to remain calm -- even as you begin to feel your chest tighten and your heart race. Try not to panic as water starts flowing into your nose and mouth, while you attempt to constrict your throat and slow your breathing and keep some air in your lungs and fight that growing feeling of suffocation. Try not to think about dying, because there’s nothing you can do about it, because you’re tied down, because someone is pouring that water over your face, forcing it into you, drowning you slowly and deliberately. You’re helpless. You’re in agony.

In short, you’re a victim of “water torture.” Or the “water cure.” Or the “water rag.” Or the “water treatment.” Or “ tormenta de toca.” Or any of the other nicknames given to the particular form of brutality that today goes by the relatively innocuous term “waterboarding.”

How evil is it that you are being denied your RIGHT to ‘due process’ while the (hijacked rogue) government reclaims the right to torture its ‘enemies’ with impunity?

Even more disturbing is how even you might come to find yourself on the ‘enemies list’.

The question creeping through the back of everybody’s mind these days is whether or not, somewhere in their murky past, they may have (unknowingly) befriended a current Enemy of the State…and how that accident of fate has made YOU a ‘Person of Interest’.

Put two and two together. Let’s suppose this ‘old acquaintance’ that you haven’t laid eyes on IN DECADES is blamed for some act of civil disobedience. For the sake of argument let’s say this act resulted in the loss of a multi-million dollar facility and some first responders were injured will doing their job…but nobody died.

Guess who becomes a lightening rod if they can’t find a more recent ‘acquaintance’ of the suspect?

Let’s make it even more interesting…let’s suppose you never said a word to this geek, the only thing you’re guilty of is being a member of the same high school class as he/she was.

They’re not about to water board you…unless the suspect was one of those people you stayed in touch with after leaving school.

Now it gets more ‘interesting’…guilt or innocence is irrelevant, so is the, er, ‘intensity’ with which they pursue clues to the suspects whereabouts.

You get to take a ride on the government’s new toy whether you know anything of not!

“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Your lawyer can’t get you out of this because you won’t be allowed to contact him…yes good citizen, in the name of ‘national security’ you’ve lost that right too.

Counsel will be advised he/she will be disbarred if he/she files any action against the torturers…and that should be the end of your search for ‘legal representation’.

Welcome to the NEW U.S.A. good citizen, (if you’re smart you’ll find the nearest exit before you’re trapped here and can’t escape!)

THIS is what those commie hating, capitalism loving patriots were trying to create to block the insidious spread of ‘socialism’.

Sort of puts the >One Percent thing in a whole new light, doesn’t it?

Bad enough they made you struggle through seven years of college and didn’t even offer you a job. Now you’re supposed to be ‘happy’ they’re not water-boarding you!

Yessiree Bob, the good ol’ U.S.A. has become precisely what the Native Americans called it long ago, “The land of broken promises.”

With that chilling thought in mind good citizen, I’d be extremely careful about who you cross.

The point of a gun is the only ‘law’ these psychos understand.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Brinksmanship

Greetings good citizen,

What a week to round out a year spent waiting for the other shoe to drop, eh?

Seems we aren't the only ones incapable of rolling back the tax structure:

French Council Strikes Down 75% Tax Rate
By SCOTT SAYARE 11:33 AM ET

A council opposed a plan to impose a 75 percent marginal income tax rate on the wealthy that would have applied to annual income above 1 million euros, or about $1.3 million.

Like I said in yesterday’s post, this ‘criminal elite’ shit transcends the ‘Nation State’ (via the global banking cartels.)

Which, ironically, leaves us here:

If a deal is reached, votes in the Senate could begin Sunday.

Obama Urges Senate Leaders to Put Together a Tax Deal
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and ANNIE LOWREY 12:03 PM ET

In his weekly address, President Obama again urged lawmakers to find a last-minute solution to avert a fiscal crisis that would begin Jan. 1.

As many of my contemporaries point out, the ‘fiscal cliff’ only exists in the ‘neocons’ heads.

It is being used as an excuse to extend tax cuts the wealthy should never have received and to cut desperately needed social programs as the global economy continues to tank.

The question none of our so-called ‘betters’ is prepared to answer is what they intend to do about the badly broken and now largely rogue criminal banking sector.

It CAN’T be ‘repaired’ (and certainly not by the criminals currently in charge!) so it has to be ‘replaced’…and none of the chiselers has given this predicament a single moment of thought.

So we get bullshit stories like this:

Several of Walmart's suppliers had used the factory in Bangladesh where 112 workers died last month.

As Walmart Makes Safety Vows, It’s Seen as Obstacle to Change
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and JIM YARDLEY

After a deadly factory fire in Bangladesh stirred soul-searching around the apparel industry, critics say Walmart has not done enough to improve safety standards.

And naturally those ‘critics’ will be dismissed as being ‘anti-capitalist’ and ignored.

Business always does the right thing (for the company, if some employees become collateral damage, so what?)

There was an interesting story in the local rag praising a recent government decision to make restitution to the families of workers who unwittingly handled highly hazardous material (which proved fatal for almost all of them!)

And the decidedly conservative local rag was praising the government for doing the ‘right thing’…while totally ignoring the private sector employer who murdered these people (by failing to disclose, never mind failing to provide adequate safeguards so these workers might have had a fighting chance.

Again it is being swept under the rug under the mantle of ‘state secret’ and the situation does involve The Manhattan Project and how the uranium was processed.

And the private sector contractor didn’t pay these people a single cent extra…(probably terminated them when they got sick!)

(I know, nothing personal, it’s just business! Where are your fucking ‘job creators’ when people die because of their recklessness? Sadly the twits are still thumping their chests, damn proud of what they’ve done!)

Stupid is as stupid does…

Did I mention capitalism is a bad idea? How about another example:

Utility workers in Seaside Heights, N.J., making pole repairs after the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy.
Hurricane Sandy Alters Utilities’ Calculus on Upgrades
By DIANE CARDWELL, MATTHEW L. WALD and CHRISTOPHER DREW

It is typically much cheaper for a utility, and its customers, to skip prevention measures and just clean up the mess after a catastrophe, but Hurricane Sandy has changed that thinking.

This particular headline sends a chill up my spine because of what’s implied here. The US no longer ‘needs’ its robust power infrastructure (as our ‘betters’ continue to export our jobs wholesale.)

Will our ‘private sector’ power companies take the ‘cheap out’ once again and only replace what is needed to restore service, even if that means reduced capacity?

What the hell, the peasants don’t need it (and can’t pay for it anyway…)

Have you ever wondered what would happen if our mostly imported economy stopped?

Unlike the fiscal cliff, the fuckers in charge bowed to the longshoreman’s demands…partially anyway.

Ports in Newark and more than a dozen other cities will stay open after longshoremen reached an agreement with shipping companies to avert a coastwide strike.

Partial Deal With Union Averts a Strike at 14 Ports
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Shipping companies and dockworkers reached a deal on their main dispute, and the longshoremen’s union agreed to drop its threat of a strike this Sunday.

Probably just a mistaken perception that ‘brinksmanship’ has become the watch-word of the day. Fiscal cliff on one hand with a shutdown of the real economy looming on the other.

Yeah, it just ‘looks like’ they’re playing ‘hardball’ (because if they really try it there can be ‘no escape’ for most of them.)

And stiffing so many of their minions would leave them in a bad way when it came to cleaning up the mess the peasants are going to make.

Yeah, life can really suck when you look down on everyone like they’re beneath dirt.

Just something to ponder as we head off the non-existent ‘fiscal cliff’…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Making a list...

Greetings good citizen,

Considering the increasingly fragile socio-economic situation we can only be puzzled by this morning’s headline in today’s business section of the NY Times:

Stocks Start With a Gain
By REUTERS 9:37 AM ET

Wall Street opened higher as it enters a traditionally quiet period heading into the end of the year.

Irrationally, the market is up almost 150 points this morning alone and almost 250 points over its recent lows.

Have YOU heard ANY economic ‘good news’ that might justify the trillions of dollars in stock valuations this translates into?

Nope, you didn’t miss it because it don’t exist.

While I’m tempted to go screaming off the reservation on a tirade blasting public apathy over this blatant theft…it will do no good, so I’ll shut up (about this particular topic.)

More succinctly, I think you all know a rising market by no means indicates the salvation of our civilization.

Quite the contrary in fact.

In a rather ‘fitting’ article for the season that has become so closely associated with ‘conspicuous consumption’ we have this tidbit for your consideration

6 Things Money Shouldn’t Be Able to Buy

1. Prison Cell Upgrade

In America’s two-tiered justice system, the rich get access to high-priced attorneys and special privileges, even in the form of a more comfortable prison cell.

2. Internships

It has long been easier for children of the wealthy to secure internships in hot industries, whether through the indirect financial contributions of their parents or the luxury of being able to take unpaid positions. But outright purchase? That's the new normal.

3. Leadership Positions in Congress

No other legislature in the developed world does it. But in America, congressional parties now post prices for key slots on committees. It wasn’t always so, but in the last few decades, the old seniority system that used to govern leadership selection and committee assignments has been swept away. As political scientist Thomas Ferguson explains, “In its place, the parties copied practices of big-box retailers like Walmart, Best Buy or Target…You want it – you buy it.”

4. Airport Security Checks

While the folks in coach are standing in long lines, wealthy customers zip through security at lightning speed. Why? Because they can afford to.

5. Doctor’s Cell Phone Number

Our private healthcare system has clearly failed us. We have by far the most expensive system in the developed world, and many of us still can’t seem to get basic services or see a doctor when we need one. But the doctor is always in if you’ve got the dough.

6. Human Organs

It used to be considered an urban legend, but yes, there is a robust black market for human organs which often involves violence. Criminals in the organ trade can make many times what they pay; a kidney, for example, may cost $10,000 and be sold for up to $150,000.

I love lists like this because of what they omit.

Before I go ‘off the reservation’, do you find the above list to be fairly inclusive, touching on the ‘high point’s of what has become ‘socially acceptable’?

Because naturally ALL OF THE ABOVE would be illegal under A Simple Plan.

How fortunate is it that the last would be impossible…

In a world full of unjustly rich and extreme desperation don’t you think it’s time we ‘re-examine’ the how and why we do what we do?

How fucking sad is it that we have morphed into ‘Libertarian paradise’ thanks to thirty years of morally bankrupt Republican leadership?

What does it tell you when we see the marriage of the concepts ‘If you don’t have a job then society has no use for you’ joined with the idea of ‘paying’ for work…

Where does that leave you?

Could you afford to ‘buy’ your job?

(If you could your employer would be out of business! Chew on that!)

Oh, got that covered…you’re ‘self-employed’.

Guess what? Self-employed with no paying customers is no different than being ‘unemployed’.

Like I said, the above list is a good start but it should be MUCH longer.

Can you think of anything you’d add?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Our fates are intertwined

Greetings good citizen,

I am unsure how to present this one because it poses the same problems we face when we look at the issue of what to do about the criminals running our government.

We certainly aren’t going to successfully separate money from electoral politics, we would need to create a ‘not for profit’ media to even attempt that.

More curiously, how far do you think a truly independent media organization would get before the capitalists crushed it?

Our Oligarchs (a.k.a. the >One Percent) don’t want the public informed of who is really responsible for our myriad problems!

If our oligarchs fear one thing it is a recurrence of The Terror…

With that fact firmly in mind, what are we to make of this latest exercise in ‘mental masturbation’?

As the 2012 election crests with all its chaos—billionaire-driven TV ad wars, legal fights over voter suppression tactics, endless fundraising e-mails and worries about stealing the vote—progressives need to remember what’s been destroying our democracy and what solutions are needed to restore the balance of power in America.

Now is the time to note precisely what’s wrong, what’s gotten worse and what’s completely broken in key corners of the electoral process. That’s because once the dust settles after Election Day, the impetus to fix things will wane among the political victors, media and much of the public, as it does after every big election. The winners will say there is not a problem because they won. The press will start covering the new administration. And weary voters will want to look ahead to solutions, not back to old problems.

That’s how our dysfunctional democracy may limp along until the next major election (the 2016 midterms) or a national crisis. But the first year of a presidential term is the most likely time that Congress might do anything on a big enough scale to touch the underlying problems because it’s the ebb tide in the electoral cycle.

And once again I have to sit here and contemplate why it is so difficult for the average person to understand that NONE of this will change WITHOUT A FULL BORE, BLOOD IN THE STREETS REVOLUTION!

You aren’t going to see a ‘non-profit’ press as long as the capitalists have something to hide.

C.K. Michaelson reminded me this morning that capitalists don’t have a ‘lock’ on unemployment, poverty and homelessness. The dictatorial regimes that called themselves ‘Communist’ in both Russia and China had their share as well…although it is interesting to note that the problems have gotten worse since they, er, ‘converted’ to capitalism.

At least communism nods at the notion of a shared fate. Wonder how the Chinese party brass reconciles that one to their rebelling public?

This presents a mathematical conundrum to those of us awaiting a ‘tipping point’. China has a roughly twenty percent prosperity rate with the eighty percent scraping by as subsistence farmers.

Um, is the key here the self-reliance factor, that a significant portion of the country still grows its own food?

Because we have a similar split labor force wise (considering half of our labor force is part-time) but the percentage of US citizens who are food self-sufficient is infinitesimal.

Across our ‘for profit’ culture only a tiny percentage of the population grows 100% of the food.

(Let’s not visit the issue of how much of it is grown and how much is whipped up in ‘vats’ just now…)

But let’s rewind a couple of steps to the idea of a ‘shared fate’.

This is something that the Capitalist and the Conservative both abhor and that is how our fates are 'intertwined.'

Ironically, they will be the last to admit that it is you (mostly your stupidity) that is responsible for ‘their’ success.

Your belief in their lies makes them rich!

Without you, they are nothing but common peasants, the very thing they abhor about YOU!

Worse, it is this point that they mince as proof of their ‘superiority’! YOU work for THEM! (They totally leave out the part where they sold you out to the king to obtain this envious position…no need to go there, right?)

But I digress.

Worse, I fear that even these simple concepts sail right over your heads.

There is nothing ‘natural’ about ‘the natural order of things’.

The self-important slime makes no objections to the idea of intertwined fates…as long as it is YOUR fate to SERVE them!

YOU weren’t born to be somebody else’s jackass!

Wake the fuck up, will ya?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Sustainable

Greetings good citizen,

After a positive start and a generally positive performance put in by markets around the world, the Dow closed down 20 points today giving the NYSE a ‘mixed’ finish…the Nasdaq was also down but the S&P 500 was positive…

But this is trivia. None of it matters if we can’t feed ourselves or get what we need to where it needs to be, when it needs to be there.

Thus we will need to relearn the lessons of ‘redundancy’ and ‘backing things up’ when we implement our new, sustainable way of life.

And this is not a question of ‘if’, it is a question of ‘when’.

Because the day is (rapidly) coming when it will no longer be possible to pick up the phone and have a replacement what-have-you on your doorstep tomorrow.

The trains travel on a schedule and it won’t speed up just because YOU needed it yesterday.

While you’ll still be able to ‘occasionally’ catch the jet stream and cross the country in a couple of hours, it may take you more time than just riding the prevailing winds to get there.

Then there’s the altitude factor. A lot to be considered when you ‘ride’ the wind rather than just push your way through it.

If I’ve been on a kick lately, the ticking clock would be one of the mainstays. The days of society running on fossil fuels are coming to a close…quicker than you think.

Again, we are NOT ‘out’ but the ‘infamous they’ are going to start choking off the supply so people will, er, ‘get used to’ a future that has less available energy.

I can’t stress enough that the ‘transition’ from a fossil fuel driven society BACK to a more primitive way of life needs to be very carefully managed indeed.

As expected, the deficit and debt were both discussed in the first presidential debate on domestic policy. However, despite this year’s endless American summer and a devastating drought that won’t leave town , climate change wasn’t. What would you bet that it won’t be a significant topic in the final debate on foreign policy either? Only one conclusion seems reasonable: climate change has no place on this American planet.

So far, both presidential campaigns indicate as much. To a wave of laughter in the final moments of his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, Mitt Romney mocked the subject, linking it negatively to the president. (“President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. My promise... is to help you and your family.”) Obama simply avoided the subject in his. And that pretty much sums up the situation to date.

Though opinion polls indicate that undecided voters want to hear the candidates’ thoughts on climate change, I’m hardly the first person to note that the subject has gone MIA in the campaign season. Noam Chomsky , the Nation magazine , Salon’s Andrew Leonard , and Joe Romm of Climate Progress , among others, have all commented strikingly on its disappearance. But here’s the curious thing: if American debt and deficit happen to be your worry, then climate change should be your subject.

In response to a question about the deficit in the first debate, Romney typically said , “I think it's, frankly, not moral for my generation to keep spending massively more than we take in, knowing those burdens are going to be passed on to the next generation and they're going to be paying the interest and the principal all their lives.” Not a bad point really. Who wants to pile an unbearable burden of debt on future generations who won’t be able to work their way out from under it?

Here would be my follow-up question, however: In that case, what’s “moral” about doing exactly that in terms of the planet -- ensuring the release of such quantities of greenhouse gasses that the global “debt” will increase staggeringly? And here’s the kicker: unlike a financial debt, the planet, the atmosphere, nature, physics will not, as Bill McKibben often points out , be prepared to negotiate a deal. If Argentina or even the U.S. goes bankrupt, there is always an imaginable path back. If humanity goes bankrupt on this planet, it’s another story entirely.

Maybe, in fact, the debates have it right: climate change isn’t either a domestic or a foreign policy issue. It’s the whole ball of wax. The total thing.

Um, don’t ask…yes I did steal the whole article…which I thought/hoped was longer.

Not that this isn’t important, it is!

Um, the climate is changing and we need to change with it.

That part that is debatable is whether or not WE CAN do anything about the sun burning hotter!

Ironically the only way to ‘temporarily’ fix that problem is ‘nuclear winter’ and we’ll have an extinction level event on our hands if we attempt that variety of ‘radical action’.

Green house gases are only part of the problem…and maybe the infamous they are focused on that aspect because it fits the ‘illusion’ we can do something about the problem.

Because the sun’s core getting hotter is just a fact of life and there ain’t a whole hell of a lot we can do make it ‘cool down’.

Worse, fixing our sun is a task so monumental in nature and we’d have to invent ALL of the technology to accomplish the task.

Because it doesn’t currently exist.

Not like we can call the next galaxy over and ask to borrow a couple of billion tons of anti-matter.

Fortunately I suspect our ‘immediate’ problem is the (artificial) end of fossil fuels and that the gradual (and largely unavoidable) warming of the sun itself can be adapted to.

It’s going to be fixing the global economy to accommodate the post peak oil world that we have to adjust to.

And sadly that requires ‘prying’ the levers of power away from those who wield power by virtue of their control over fossil fuels.

Which, ironically means the >One Percent…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Monster(s)

Greetings good citizen,

Stock markets are once again bleeding from the eyesockets…BUT, in case you haven’t noticed, the ‘needy-greedy’ grab inexplicable one to two hundred point jumps in share value while giving back a paltry ten or twenty points over the following days…a net win…for them.

Um, as is my custom I latch onto the first thing that grabs my eye, like this story about the alarming surge in homelessness in NYC. and how the whiny ‘One Percenters’ are reacting…

New York's Boom in Homelessness

The crisis stems from a lack of affordable housing and the city's ever-growing gap between the rich and the poor, one of the widest in the U.S. and comparable to that found in sub-Saharan Africa. Unlike in other cities, New York is required by law to provide shelter to every person who seeks it. As the crisis escalates, the city has used its power of emergency authority to create shelters as quickly as possible, bypassing the typical community approval process. And that has created turmoil in neighborhoods like the Upper West Side, where a shelter opened in August among apartments occupied by the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans.

Further complicating matters is the fact that the shelter is right across the street from P.S. 75, an elementary school which also has a playground. "There definitely seem to be more people hanging around the street corners, at the subway stops, panhandling," said Jen Zunt, a mother of a fifth-grader at P.S. 75. "There's not enough supervision. And these are going to be people who have mental health issues, possibly."

Anxious parents say they've seen homeless men urinating in doorways and loitering near the school. (Does anyone wonder why, considering the general scarcity of public restrooms in metropolitan areas across the nation?) Many mothers have stopped letting their children walk home alone. The parent-teacher association is working with local police to increase security on the street, which is a pedestrian corridor to Riverside Park's soccer fields and playgrounds.

You can click through to read the whole article but I can save you the time good citizen, you won’t find a single sentence questioning the origins/source of this flood of homelessness.

How does it make YOU feel that the >One Percent who destroyed our economy now expect to be ‘protected’ from the consequences of their actions?

Is this just another symptom of ‘failing to think things through’?

While it seems as though I’ve been on a ‘homeless kick’ lately I’m going to ask you to switch mental gears with me as we confront the daunting if not insurmountable issue of how we fix this whole ‘corrupt to the core’ situation.

Let us first take a moment to assess the collapse of classical ‘liberalism’

Um, you’re going to have to watch the video that accompanies this link to the end to get to the part where we are once again advised to ‘protest and not cooperate’ in our own enslavement…which is bullshit.

This is a failure I have witnessed repeatedly in liberal circles. These people don’t want to threaten their comfortable lives so they encourage a ‘peaceful’ negotiation that will ‘gradually’ improve conditions for all.

Now, Mr. Hedges is being granted an international stage (albeit one that is in the back room of a dark and poorly lit studio that nobody pays attention to. If not for Jesse I would not have seen this.) Which might explain his ‘non-violent’ stance…and we could also chalk it up to his being a ‘man of God’.

Which totally ignores the true situation. We are not having a ‘dialog’ with the oligarchs, they are in fact, as Chris points out, ‘dictating’ ‘how it’s going to be.’ With no opposition or opposing alternatives intruding on that narrative.

Yes, loss of lives will be senseless and the resulting carnage wasteful…but only an IDIOT believes the same results could be achieved through ‘negotiation’.

The people who stole our civilization DON’T NEGOTIATE. And will only give lip service to anything resembling compromise UNDER THE THREAT OF DEATH, PERSONAL!

And that threat has to be more ‘real’ than mumbling the words ‘or we’ll kill you!’ Which is how our failed liberal ‘protectors’ would put it.

All our uncompromising greed-heads would hear is the ‘or’ and it would be ‘game on’!

The line we need to enforce, good citizen if we want to regain control of our civilization and our children’s future is “You and anybody who aids you WILL BE EXILED!”

And if you haven’t read the section of A Simple Plan that covers Exile, now would be a good time to look it up.

But since most of you won’t, I’ll spare you the work of finding the appropriate section by providing a thumbnail sketch here:

Exile is a one way trip where the ‘rights’ of civil society are stripped from the individual convicted by a jury of the people.

Once stripped, the convict will be released, naked and alone to live out the rest of their natural days as best they can.

Hell, it’s hard to imagine that some of these boot-strapping boot-strappers wouldn’t have electricity and running water by sundown of the first day, such gifted and talented individuals…oh wait…there is the ‘alone’ part in there.

How are these greed-heads going to get by without anybody to do their heavy lifting for them?

Short answer, they won’t.

Now we come to the second, more diabolical part of exile. These boot-strapping bootstrappers WON’T be alone! They will have tens of thousands of likeminded (albeit naked) individuals…many of them in the early stages of starvation and dehydration.

Forgot to mention that they won’t be exiled to a tropical paradise…they will be exiled to the badlands, which is what our bootstrappers were best at creating, fucking deserts!

Take what you know about the ‘charitable tendencies’ of the >One Percent and imagine a few acres of ‘likeminded individuals’ left to share what the land has to offer?

How cruel of us to teach these ingrates what socialism (the sharing of resources) is the hard way?

We shall not see how much more ‘noble’ the savages among us will be towards one another because their depravity will be unbearable to witness.

But it must be done…not to ‘cleanse’ the species but surely to preserve it.

How ironic to see social Darwinism turned upon those who would exterminate the weak? (Without a second thought or the slightest twinge of regret.)

There’s a certain justice in letting the exterminators exterminate each other.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

PS. If this makes ME a monster, what does what they are doing make them?

More pointedly, what does it make YOU if you refuse to act?

At least the last question is easy; it will make you and your children ‘extinct’.

Change

Greetings good citizen,

Stock markets around the globe traded sideways today as the markets once again showed a definite ‘lack of direction’.

I’m currently reading Michael Lewis’ book titled ‘Panic’ and it sort of hit me between the eyes how the stock market went from right around a thousand to the current thirteen thousand figure around the same time the US’s manufacturing capability was being off-shored wholesale.

Which is to point out that the stock market is basically one gigantic fraud and the Justice Department simply pretends it isn’t happening.

Which is disturbing enough but now the Justice Department is ignoring other, more troubling things and once again, there isn’t anything we can (legally) do about it.

Talk about your timelines. When I was dating my wife the Dow had just breached the 2000 level. I just recently celebrated my 22nd Wedding anniversary and not so terribly long ago the stock market was only two thousand points.

Since that time my entire career ‘disappeared’ from these shores. Sure, there are still some small shops out there (cutting each other’s throats for what little work is left.)

And for some bizarre reason the stock market, with record unemployment and the lowest labor participation rate since WWII, is over thirteen thousand points.

And it rose 225 of those points last Friday when the Fed announced another trillion-dollar giveaway program that is going ONLY to the too big to fail banks.

FOR THE THIRD TIME (since our financial markets went insolvent.)

And the pundits can’t figure out why the recovery is essentially non-existent.

I mean they’re pumping trillions of dollars into the coffers of people who already have more money than they can possibly spend. Raising the question of ‘why’ the One Percent’s government is giving the already super rich even more money when a full half of our nation’s population doesn’t earn enough to feed themselves!

Well good citizen, every coin has two sides and here’s one of them!

Unemployment is still above 8 percent, job gains aren’t even keeping up with population growth, the economy is barely moving forward. And yet, according to most polls, the Romney-Ryan ticket is falling further and further behind. How can this be?

Because Republicans are failing the central test of electability. Instead of putting together the largest possible coalition of voters, they’re relying largely on one slice of America — middle-aged white men — and alienating just about everyone else.

Start with Hispanics, whose electoral heft keeps growing as they become an ever-larger portion of the electorate. Hispanics now favor President Obama over Romney-Ryan by a larger margin than they did six months ago.

YOU’D THINK Mr. Reich has a damn good point, wouldn’t you?

After this latest fiasco they’re saying Mitt’s own father wouldn’t vote for him…but that doesn’t matter.

In fact, even if NOBODY voted for them the ‘Gruesome Twosome’ will be our next commander in Chief and trusty side-kick.

Because the ballot box is broken.

Sure, it wouldn’t ‘hurt’ the oligarchs to let their other boy win again. Hell, he’s obedient enough.

But the agenda isn’t moving forward fast enough and the shit is almost ready to hit the fan!

They don’t care if coming events make Republican’s look bad, they’ll never have to hold fake elections again.

If they are going to cement the yoke of monarchy around our waiting necks they’re going to have to be quick about it.

As well as brutal.

They have to let the public know that ‘justice’ has returned to the land and that their newly minted royals are dispensing justice.

But understand good citizen, the sudden interest in prosecuting criminals won’t be ‘retro-active’, it will be ‘pro-active’…basically exterminating anyone who MIGHT object to the restoration of god given leadership.

I’m sure you all know that the kings of old were all appointed by God. It’s part of the reason the original royals inter-married with one another extensively…in (stupid) attempts to keep ‘the lord’s bloodline’ ‘pure’…

Always trying to strengthen the claim to the throne…although all of this in-breeding did little to improve the quality of leadership those Chosen by God provided.

And here we can see the seeds of animosity that were harbored by God’s appointees against God’s chosen people.

Again, the reason for this is simple. They don’t want you to think they want you to accept…

It doesn’t matter if it’s ‘good for you’, you’re missing the point. It’s GOOD FOR THEM, that’s what matters!

Worse…after the shiny newness wears off they’ll get tired of all of the intrigue that will return with a vengeance.

It seems nobody remembers why the Kings of Old (willingly) walked off of their thrones and ducked safely inside their treasuries.

It’s because they were sick to death of always being the ‘target’. If this one wasn’t trying to kill you, his brother was.

And the ones that didn’t want you dead were perpetually trying to crawl into bed with you.

How’s that for some gruesome choices?

Again I close with the question of ‘is this how you want it to end, good citizen?

Of course you don’t, that’s why you need to get behind A Simple Plan, ASAP!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Commemorating a lost cause...

Greetings good citizen,

Um, after the Dow tacked on 225 totally irrational points after the Fed announced the commencement of QE3 (Ah, but for the days when QE was short for Queen Elizabeth and the QE2 was a luxury ocean liner!)

But I’m showing my age, am I not? (Or perhaps we’re all getting a little long in the tooth, don’t have a good handle on the demographics of my audience.)

Anyway, back to the stock market…which is tanking as we write this. Oddly, in a microsm of the larger world the Eastern markets did…okay (bit of an overstatement as they traded sideways throughout the first trading session of the week.)

The West went into the tank the minute Europe came online and has (thus far) stayed there…but it’s still early and we all know that movement of the markets doesn’t have to make sense.

As last weeks 225 point rise of the Dow proves.

Just as our lead story for the day informs us:

Earnings in United States Are Beginning to Feel a Pinch
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ

The estimated drop in corporate profits removes what had been an economic bright spot in an otherwise cloudy picture.

For Spain, Rising Risk in Discord

Equally as, er, ‘curious’ is the sudden re-appearance of the Occupy movement…like a ‘flashback’ from last year.

They are planning on, er, ‘commemorating’ last year’s (mostly fruitless) occupation of a space four or five blocks from Wall Street.

Just as the original occupation accomplished nothing, it is tough to figure out what the point is of commemorating an event that ended with their being on the receiving end of a bum’s rush administered by Bloomberg’s NYPD.

Was the whole point to ‘do nothing’ (besides grumble about how ‘unfair’ the system was) and to protest their being duped by a system of commerce that has no need for them?

Welcome to the USA kiddos! It’s all fun and games until it’s not!

If you have eight minutes to kill you might want to have a gander at this piece for a ‘gloves off look’ at our current geo-political situation provided by Chris Hedges.

I’ve never seen anyone paint it quite as clearly as he does here…so it’s worth the trip.

(Talk about knocking the scales off your eyes!)

So what was the ‘occupy’ movement all about? It seems nobody knows.

More the pity because all of the ‘heavy hitters’ (also known as the ‘serious people’) got behind the Occupy movement figuring it was the next big thing.

Well, thanks to the corporate owned media, the Occupy movement ‘served its purpose' (resistance is futile) and was ‘extinguished’ only to be resurrected again just before the elections to rile up the Republican base.

Not that there are enough of them to elect anybody.

Funny how the pundits keep waffling between a deeply divided populace and one that doesn’t give a shit so the ‘marginal few’ decide for the rest.

You don’t need to conduct a poll to figure out that the current situation is ‘untenable’ and won’t be tolerated much longer.

The old system doesn’t work…so the question now is what to replace the old system with?

I’m ‘lobbying’ for Direct Democracy where we all vote directly on the laws we ALL must live under. (It is utter bullshit that members of Congress can and do ‘exempt’ themselves from the laws they make.)

And truth be told good citizen there aren’t a whole lot of ‘other choices’ out there.

In fact most of the other choices involve having someone else decide what THEY like and your having to lump it…(sort of like now.)

And only the insane conservo-loonies think now is ‘okay’.

But what do you want from people who are cool with being told what to think?

It’s the same mindset the tolerated slavery for thousands of years.

But back to our (neglected) original headline…

Sorry good citizen, it’s easy to sidetrack a freight train full of ideas, all busting to see daylight at the same time!
Thus do I digress (all the time!)

Who among you is surprised to see US corporate profits ‘slipping’?

If so, then how long have you been a stock analyst? (Those guys are always ‘surprised’…by fake numbers no less!)

For the past ten years I have been pointing to the Riders of the Apocalypse closing in on our civilization.

The part that should be bumming you out is they have arrived and they are just outside the gate.

It’s gonna be an ‘interesting winter’ good citizen, mark my words.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

The Sole Super Power...

Greetings good citizen,

Two months to the next presidential election and gas is hovering in the four bucks a gallon range, and mind you, oil is less than a hundred bucks a (33 gallon) barrel!

Did I miss another hurricane closing in on the gulf or did another refinery shut down for repairs?

But then we have the price of gold back over $1,700 an ounce…not that value has a rigid meaning anymore. You think you have a handle on prices then the next thing you know the ‘king-makers’ go crazy and start valuing stuff at insane levels…and there isn’t anybody to stick their hand in their face and scream bullshit!

Nope, you can’t argue with ‘em. After all, they’ve got the >One percent behind them.

Which begs the question of just who the fuck is behind THIS nonsense?

(Wanna bet it's the same, er, people?)

Israeli Sharpens Call for United States to Set Iran Trigger
By DAVID E. SANGER and ISABEL KERSHNER

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the Obama administration for not setting clear "red lines" on Iran's nuclear progress that would prompt the United States to undertake a military strike.

Probably the same rocket scientists who thought it was a ‘good idea’ to ‘restore’ the Jewish homeland right in the middle of the heart of Islam!

They could have gone anywhere, including the US but no, these bubble-heads HAD to re-fight the fucking crusades all over again!

More curious is the fact that Iran is nowhere near Israel…okay, let me rephrase that with they don’t share a single border with one another so it’s not like the Israelis cower at the ‘constant threat’ of an Iranian invasion.

Needless to say this whole Kabuki Dance is about the second largest oil reserves on the planet and nothing else.

Isn’t capitalism wonderful?

Or should you be more fearful that the rabid capitalists are the world’s sole nuclear superpower?

I mean India HAS the fucking bomb…why isn’t ‘What-a-Yahoo’ flipping out over that?

And now he has the chutzpah to complain that the Obama administration ‘hasn’t done enough’ to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions…ambitions that so far appear to be a figment of What-a-Yahoo’s imagination.

More disturbing is who the fuck is HE to be dictating what the US ‘should be doing’ to defend it’s ‘strongest ally’ in the Middle East.

Because, truth be told good citizen, with allies like this, who needs enemies?

Which brings us back to the issue of just whose side is our bought and paid for government on that we have nonsense like this?

U.S. Income Gap Rose, Sign of Uneven Recovery
By SABRINA TAVERNISE 21 minutes ago

The median household income in 2011 was $50,054, a level last seen in 1996.

Once again we are looking at data that has no relationship in reality. If they take ALL of the, er, ‘income’ and divided it by the number of households the number in the middle WOULD NOT BE the ‘median’.

The bottom 60% of the population of this nation (accounting for a majority of its households) only possesses two percent of the nation’s wealth.

So that smidge over 50 K is utter bullshit. What you’re seeing is the whole domestic take divided EQUALLY by all of the households…and you know it ain’t anywhere near ‘equal’.

Under the ‘actual’ income distribution, the ‘50% mark’ is still just under $30,000 and that DOES NOT mean that ‘most people’ make almost that much and the rest make less.

About five percent of the population makes roughly $5,000 north or south of that $30k figure the rest makes significantly less or considerably more.

And that’s part of what’s causing this, er, ‘concern’.

Because the whole fucking domestic pie is getting smaller and the >One Percent doesn’t want to explain why that is.

Worse, the >One Percent DOESN’T want anybody pointing out that this is their fault!

Because it is.

You didn’t ‘buy’ the government and neither did I. Think, think, think…WHO had the money to have the tax structure rolled back and ultimately shredded while blocking any trade restrictions/job protection legislation the unions might have supported?

Geez, it sure looks like only one party could have pulled it off, and the bigger their fortunes grew, the easier it became!

But you don’t need me to tell you this…you already knew!

Although you may not have known outright…but you’ve suspected them for quite a while, didn’t you?

At first you didn’t let this bother you. They were rich so they were obviously smart and they were Americans…or at least you thought they were so you never suspected they would do anything to harm America…I mean heck, they live here too…right?

Um, obviously not.

They don’t have homes all over the planet for nothing and some of them have arranged dual citizenship, for travel purposes of course!

Which is to point out that their ties to the US are ‘tenuous’ at best.

Their ‘loyalty’ is to their money…

Now reflect for a moment that these are the people who ‘bought’ our government, the last remaining nuclear superpower on the planet…

Now ask yourself who 'the terrorists' really are?

Chew that one over for a few minutes and try not to shudder…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Shooting Blanks...

Greetings good citizen,

It is difficult for someone such as my humble self to hit three in a row out of the park but here goes:

A Tight Election May Be Tangled in Legal Battles
By ETHAN BRONNER

With federal and state courts handing down decisions on ballot casting and counting, the presidential election may hinge partly on last-minute legal battles by both parties.

This morning the campaign ads for the hotly contested Senate seat currently held by Scott Brown ran an ad accusing ‘congressmen’ of ‘insider trading’ and how HE penned and got passed legislation that would forbid this otherwise illegal activity.

Um, there are a lot of things happening that are ‘against the law’ and that’s not stopping the criminals from doing them so what makes this supposedly ‘new’ law different?

Could it be because he is a freshman Senator that he believes his legislation carries more weight?

Without actually reading this bill and parsing EXACTLY what it says, we don’t know what got passed. He could have written legislation forbidding littering the floors of congress with the receipts from insider trading…

If you don’t read the actual document you won’t know what it actually prohibits or enables!

But I digress.

The topic here is the gerrymandering that goes on right before every election…and like yesterday’s piece, we have to take a moment and wonder just who this Kabuki dance is for the benefit of?

We have a bona-fide member of the >One Percent running against a DINO.

The only ‘choice’ you’re being given is the degree of conservatism you like.

The ‘smart man’ has proven spineless and unprincipled while the stuffed shirt has lived up to the reputation for cluelessness that defines his class.

As illustrated here:

Washington Memo
Romney's Tax Plan Leaves Key Variables Blank
By ANNIE LOWREY and DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI

Mitt Romney has pledged to cut individual income tax rates for everyone, but he has provided few specifics, confounding analysts and leaving himself open to attack from Democrats.

Correct me if I am mistaken but didn’t ALL Republicans sign a ‘no new tax’ pledge prior to being sworn in to office?

I guess we’re back to the riddle ‘define tax?’

Did you know it was a Republican that coined the phrase ‘My words mean exactly what I want them to mean, nothing more and nothing less’?

They LOVE to use the term ‘tax and spend liberal’ while denying their own propensity for ‘borrowing and spending’ (often like drunken sailors) on idiotic and catastrophic causes.

But that’s an aside…the truly disturbing part is the ‘irresponsibility factor’. It is this same (faux) inattentiveness that is supposedly responsible for the destruction of the global economy.

But hey, that had NOTHING to do with Republicanism (because the whole government is captive so neither party is responsible.)

Actually, when all ‘elected officials’ take their marching orders from the same elite clique, party membership is superfluous.

The ONLY interests being represented in the US (and its ‘satellites’) are those of the >One Percent.

The question is whether or not your nation is in a US centric orbit (while your politicians claim to be ‘independent’.)

So if your nation is considered a part of the West, you are in a definite US centric orbit, under the control of US based oligarchs…although that will soon change.

Meaning oligarchs that currently call the US home will be, er, compelled to flee for their lives when the hunt begins…and they won’t be coming back either.

They’ve made their bed and now they are going to be forced to lie in it.

Which will only make them punish the US more…causing the minions they leave behind to be, er, ‘exorcised’ from here as well.

Now do you see the benefits of a monetary system that isn’t tied to global markets and that can’t be manipulated by the ‘self-interested’?

They can inject their oil up their backsides; we won’t need it. (Because the new economy is efficient and designed for pedestrians.)

Do I have ‘A Plan’? Why yes I do and you can read all about it right here!

Let me know if you find any ‘blanks’, will you?

(Although some parts are purposefully left undefined so YOU can live the way YOU want to.)

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Primary(s)

Greetings good citizen,

Almost lost it last night. The people claiming to represent our interests are spineless jellyfish.

Worse, they ‘caved’ to Republican taunts about the platform not including God or Israel (and had the platform re-written…at the president’s direction no less! But we all know who ‘Uncle Tom’ carries water for…)

Again I feel compelled to ask just how much more ‘proof’ do you need that we have a ‘captive’ government that takes its order from an elite few?

But don’t take my taunt to heart because the proper response to such righteous outrage is the same as it has always been: What are YOU gonna do about it?

And the answer, sadly, is the same…everything we can…which amounts to nothing because there is nothing (short of revolt) we can do.

There is the ‘slap in the face’ good citizen. Until YOU take ‘personal action’ NOTHING is going to change.

You’ve got to stop worrying about being on the ‘wrong side of the law’ because the perps can draw that line anywhere they choose to…because they have become the law.

Either way, you’re the outlaw if you stand up for yourself…as illustrated by how the law treats demonstrators these days…and we ‘ain’t seen nothin’ yet!’

So we begin today’s journey with a check of the markets, which spiked (up) over a hundred points around the world…once again coinciding with the opening of the NYSE…(like we should expect anything less.)

Now the media is mute on this bizarre episode of ‘self-enrichment’ that benefits the >One Percent the most…and maybe that’s why they remain silent.

Is the following headline going to be passed off as the cause of the global spike?

Central Bank Sets Bond Plan Meant to Ease Euro Debt Peril
By JACK EWING and MELISSA EDDY 20 minutes ago

The decision means there will be no immediate relief for countries like Spain whose borrowing costs have soared in the two-year-old euro debt crisis.

Read my lips: there is NO (capitalist) solution to the Euro Debt Crisis!

This ‘jawboning’ of the bond market is an exercise in the movement of hot air and will amount to nothing.

Because there is nothing they can do to repair the damage done by the global race to the bottom.

Slash your customer base you slash your own throat...but for reasons unknown they DON'T teach this epic fact to new MBA's!

Nothing that complies with the laws of capitalism anyway.

My solution, A Simple Plan throws out the principals of Capitalism and replaces them with the more realistic rules of supply and demand. [In case you’re wondering there is very little about capitalism (better known as the ‘fuck you, pay me’ system) that has any relationship with supply and demand.]

Supply is FREE so demand is what needs to be ‘regulated’. Which is to admit the fact that we all can’t have everything NOW!

This is an important economic tool (when used properly.)

[This is due to stupid being permanent. Because of this, one need not go too far to find some pinhead who believes we can have everything, immediately, all of the time!]

When framed this way guess how much our modern world (that YOU are constantly be charged for using) cost?

NOTHING! You’re being charged for nothing…actually not nothing, you’re making some greed head rich, that’s why you’re forced to pay!

I digress (mightily) but it is important to for YOU to understand that the chicanery that is tearing our civilization apart is escalating considerably.

Enough said, next headline:

Ford Expands Offerings in Europe
By BILL VLASIC 8:13 AM ET

The Mustang will arrive on the Continent as Ford seeks to bolster its sales in the region.

Otay…gas is what, the rough equivalent of eight dollars a gallon in the euro-zone…so let’s send ‘em a ‘gas guzzler’ and see how that improves our ‘market share’.

Of course, every carmaker on the planet has a SUV/crossover/fucking TANK that gets two miles to the fucking gallon and you have to wonder just what the fuck is wrong with these people?

That and they all want you to take out a mortgage on the fucking thing like you can afford a $30,000 vehicle on what your part time barrista job at Starbucks pays you!

WTF!

[I’m TRYING not to make this a second overlong post…but it’s not looking good.]

E.U. Investigates Chinese Solar Panels
By KEITH BRADSHER 8:34 AM ET

The authorities are looking into whether companies poured $26.5 billion worth of imports into Europe at less than the cost of manufacture.

How the fuck do you suppose those ‘clever’ Chinese managed that? Is this just another example of that now famous phenomenon known under capitalism as a ‘loss leader’?

How much of a ‘loss’ is it if we go back to the initial premise of A Simple Plan and reduce the cost of ‘inputs’ to their ‘true cost’ (even labor is *free under capitalism! [*So long as demand is strong.])

Now we can see the ‘truth’ behind the cheaper there peeking out at us.

While we’re here it could be useful to point out, once and for all, that there is only ONE ‘job creator’ (and it ISN’T the Almighty!)

The ‘one and only’ entity/factor responsible for ‘job creation’ is Mother Nature (and her sidekick physics.)

So the ‘stupid is permanent’ Republicans can go crazy insisting otherwise, we know the truth…and it doesn’t rely on being a ‘superstitious peasant’.

But,(naturally) I digress.

Let’s wrap this baby up so you can move on with your day!

Steel Leads Revival in Ohio River Valley
By KEITH SCHNEIDER

From the vantage point of crew members of the tugboat Mike Weisend, the regional economy is improving as seen in increasing shipments along the Ohio River.

Curious, wouldn’t you say good citizen?

Consider if you will that Shanghi harbor is overflowing this very minute with Australian iron ore?

Who would be ‘reckless’ enough to start up a domestic steel operation with so much surplus already on the market and slack demand plaguing global commerce?

I’m really going out on a limb here but my guess (and believe me, it’s a guess) is somebody is getting a head start on the coming ‘barter economy’.

You have to have ‘trade goods’ and one of the best (most useful) will be raw steel.

I applaud this forward thinking individual for his/her courage and foresight! The ‘risk’ here is that collapse is still a long way off…and it could be as exemplified by the previous story.

What you ‘believe’ shapes your reality, whether it’s fact or not.

Look at the current economy still chugging along, five years after it flat-lined…and the ONLY thing keeping it running is ‘perception management’.

Just one more thing to think about as you lay your aching head down to sleep…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Pigs & Ducks III

Greetings good citizen,

News of the collapse of our civilization has now reached the corporate owned media, just to give you an idea of how far gone the situation is.

Observe this headline plucked from this morning’s business section:

Economic Scene
The Spreading Scourge of Corporate Corruption
By EDUARDO PORTER

The misconduct of the financial industry no longer surprises most Americans, and trust in big business overall is declining. We should be alarmed.

DealBook: Assessing the Chances for Criminal Charges

“Eddie” is correct, you’d have to search far and wide to find someone this news, er, ‘shocks’.

We’re all used to it by now.

Worse, we also read what the ‘infamous they’ are prepared to do about it if any of us should call them on their decidedly criminal behavior.

Don’t gather in large ‘unarmed’ groups, you’re just making it easier for the Drones.

We all know our ‘civil disobedience’ will be punished far more severely than how their criminal actions will be dealt with…

Which brings us to the last line in today’s offering.

What do you think the chances are of ‘justice’ being done?

The consensus is ‘slim to none’.

All the have to do is claim ‘everybody is doing it’ and they’ll get off with a slap on the wrist and a chicken feed sized fine.

That’s what blows most people’s mind…who said Crime doesn’t pay? Steal a billion and they ‘fine’ you a couple of million! (But you get to keep the billion…and you ‘walk’!)

WTF!

Um, good thing there aren’t billions just laying around waiting to be stolen or everybody would be doing it!

Sure beats the bag out of busting your ass every day for a paycheck you can’t live on!

But stealing billions isn’t an ‘everyman’ sort of crime, is it?

You need to be born into that kind of money, Making the crime that much more heinous.

Bobo is already ‘rich’ (comparatively speaking) but he’s ‘light-fingered’ anyway.

What do you do with a wealthy criminal?

I recommend (public) hanging but hey, I’m not a judge.

They used to hang criminals publicly for its ‘deterrent’ value…although I doubt it actually entered the criminal’s mind that THEY’D ever get caught (especially the ‘privileged criminal’.)

All they have to do is whisper the magic word and all charges against them are ‘dropped’, hell, go high enough and all traces that they were even suspected of a crime vanish as well.

But that’s not how it works for YOU.

If they want you bad enough (depending on how desperate they are for a scapegoat) you’re going down even if you’ve never stolen so much as a paperclip in your entire life!

Given those two ‘constants’ good citizen, what do you suppose the prospects are that anyone will be ‘prosecuted’ for robbing investors?

Isn’t the first test ‘how can they tell?’

Of course I am referring to how there is no ‘rational basis’ for determining the value of a given stock…but if we take that to the next level there also isn’t a rational basis for determining the value of money either!

It’s all a matter of ‘opinion’.

And somehow the opinion of the weirdo has prevailed lately.

Which is why nobody is ‘surprised’ that our entire system of commerce is ‘untrustworthy’.

But fear not good citizen, barter is making a strong come back!

Soon you will be able to trade ‘directly’ for your wants and needs, so you’ll know right then and there EXACTLY what you’ve got.

If you have nothing of ‘value’ to trade then you won’t be able to buy or sell.

And that’s going to kick the shit out of the ‘fuck you, pay me’ supply line.

They won’t be able to ‘re-supply’ if they are unable to pay for their inputs ‘in kind’.

When the bottom falls out beneath money it will be because of its original failing…nobody knows the answer to the question of how many ducks equal a pig…or how many pigs equal a duck (If the pigs are small and the ducks are large!)

Leading us back to our original conundrum.

If a pig is a pig and a duck is a duck then why isn’t a buck a buck?

(Because bankers are corrupt…)

Thanks for letting me insider your head,

Gegner

One Thousand!

Greetings good citizen,

Welcome to the one thousandth post of A Simple Plan! Truth be told I haven’t been keeping track. Blogger tells me when this one hits the net; it will be labeled as post number one thousand.

So whoop de do, good citizen!

And I suppose one thousand posts would be as good a time as any to restate the reason why this blog even exists.

Regular readers may remember me from the original blogger, which, back then, billed itself as a ‘get paid to write site’ based on the popularity of what you wrote. I didn’t go by my current handle then but I’m still pedaling the same ‘ideology’ I was then. So we’re talking the mid-nineties.

Which is to point out that there are a lot more than a thousand posts possibly triple that amount, maybe more.

Like I said, I’m not keeping track.

Posted on Daily Kos for a couple of years before the Libertarians chased me off in that heavily polluted pool, then I joined Conceptual Guerilla and stayed there for about three years.

For the record there is no ‘bad blood’ between Joe and me, he told me he wanted to take the site in a different direction and I respected his request, stopped posting there and started posting here, end of story.

Which brings us back to today and the 1,000th post here.

Same shit, different venue.

But, naturally, (and for me it appears to be consistent thing) I digress…

I was going to explain ‘why’ (my reason) this blog exists, what makes Gegner write?

Um, to say I was born ‘disadvantaged’ would be both an understatement and an exaggeration.

I was never hungry or naked. In this respect I am MUCH ‘luckier’ than my ‘third world’ counterparts who were born (and died) in war torn hellholes where they never stood a chance.

But I found myself at the bottom of the food chain, born to a crippled and uneducated father who had no ‘trade’ to pass on to me.
Ironically, since my ‘trade’ got off-shored, I have nothing to pass on to my son either, an outcome that I find, er, ‘worrisome’.

But it’s not just MY kid who will find himself behind the eight ball when he graduates High School in a couple of years, he’ll have plenty of company.

So this is not a ‘woe is me’ platform where I cry foul for the advantages I never enjoyed because that’s not the point.

This post (and the multitude before it) exists to prove the meme of ‘there’s nothing out there better than capitalism’ is a boldfaced lie!

But is it a lie if you can’t prove there IS a ‘better way?’

Some would say A Simple Plan is ‘unprecedented’ and therefore, ‘unproven’. I would counter that the Native Americans lived under something very close to A Simple Plan and their society flourished for centuries longer than any European civilization ever did!

Um, the more astute would ask how lucky I am to arrive on the scene just as Capitalism enters its death throes?

As you have seen repeated here countless times, nobody can survive in an ‘economic desert’ and capitalism has turn the whole world into a gigantic one with only sporadic oases of wealth scattered around the globe.

It really does boil down to the question of whether civilization exists to help all humans prosper or if it exists to make a few humans wildly prosperous?

We know how things have turned out but we also know this isn’t ‘as advertised’.

Worse, we continue to believe that ‘someday’ it will be ‘our turn’ to live in the big house and play with all of the ‘toys’ until we die…

As irrational as that ‘belief’ is.

Since this model is ‘unsustainable’ it will invariably collapse, and what is poised to replace it, so far, ain’t looking to, er, ‘equitable’.

Part of my ‘goal’ is to point the way to a more equitable future. The rest is centered on raising awareness of the eminent failure of the lifestyle we have all become accustomed to.

The ones who have buttered their bread on both sides are expecting a reasonably smooth transition from their self-destructing ‘free-state’ to the all-powerful slave state.

Which should explain why our bought and paid for politicians are sitting there ‘twiddling their thumbs’ as (what passes for) our justice system sits there, inert.

We all KNOW our civilization is rushing headlong off a cliff, NO ONE denies this, not even the corporate owned media but only a hand full know that this no accident.

That handful has only THEIR best interests in mind, you get what you get (and only after they have determined you deserve it.)

We MUST hunt them down and cast them out or our species is doomed, good citizen.

Some of you think it’s not possible and the simple minded think it’s not desirable but I tell you that the ‘parasites’ among us exist only at the top of our civilization!

Some of you recognize this and it is my intention to show you that you are not alone, others only suspect and it is my purpose is to show you that your suspicions are correct.

If we fail to identify the enemy, they WILL defeat us.

And that’s your ‘thought to ponder’ on this 1,000th post

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Nightmare

(In yet another ‘book review’) Joe Stiglitz, in his newly released book, The Price of Inequality, returns to this theme of a divided society.

Lynn Parramore: An argument has been made, particularly since the end of the Cold War, that capitalism is great at producing things that can improve our lives, and so we ought to therefore tolerate some unfairness. What's wrong with that narrative?

Joseph Stiglitz: Well, capitalism does have a lot of strengths, including producing things that are very innovative. But what drives capitalism is the profit motive. You can profit not only by making good things, but also by exploiting people, by exploiting the environment, by doing things that are not so good. The narrative that you describe ignores the extent to which a lot of the inequalities in the United States are not the result of creative activity but of exploitive activity. And if you look at the people at the top, what is so striking is that the people who've made the most important creative contributions are not there.

By that I mean the really foundational things like the computer, the transistor, the laser. And how many people at the top are people who made their money out of monopoly -- exercising monopoly power? Like bankers who exploited through predatory lending practice and abusive credit card practices. Or CEOs who took advantage of deficiencies in corporate governance to get a larger share of the corporate revenues for themselves without any regard to the extent to which they have actually contributed to increasing the sustainable well-being of the firm.

While our Nobel laureate makes some interesting points, he offers no hints or strategies for dealing with this, er, ‘crisis’.

And that’s perfectly understandable, the system wasn’t designed to prevent usurpation (hijacking) by the ‘self-serving’ (the > One Percent.)

The system doesn’t have the tools necessary to shut it down and reallocate power to that rarest of commodities, ‘Men both ‘Good and True’.

Understand, one of the hottest debates during the constitutional convention centered on providing the people with some sort of mechanism to keep the newly formed government ‘in check’.

And the argument that won the day was, ‘It won’t be necessary so long as there are men both good and true in charge of government.

So tell me good citizen, when was the last time ANY candidate ran on the ‘good and true’ platform?

Whose campaign literature used You can trust Moe; he’s both Good AND True ?

The ONLY (post revolution) example of a ‘good and true’ politician happens to be Roosevelt (Franklin D.) and there’s still a mountain of ‘irregularities’ that get swept under the rug when discussing his unprecedented three terms in office.

Even Jefferson despaired over the notion that the ONLY thing protecting our new republic was ‘faith’ (in men both good and true.)

And Jefferson is one of the few who were permitted to attend the constitutional convention, so he knew there was NOBODY there that matched the description.

230 plus years later and we are seeing how prescient Mr. Jefferson actually was.

The ‘royalists’ won the day after all.

The ‘peons’ were not only muzzled but hog-tied. They had no voice and no representation in the government, leading the > One Percent to conclude that the ‘revolution’ had reached a ‘successful’ outcome.

And our failure to rein them in then has resulted in this latest disaster we are faced with today, one that threatens to end in the destruction of our species.

Ms. Parramore taunts us with Mr. Stiglitz’s ‘nightmarish vision’ for our future and Hollywood’s recent obsession with Zombies (who in real life are simply cannibals.) should be all the ‘hint’ we need for what ‘they’ (the > One percent) have in mind for the bulk of humanity.

And I just ‘re-combed’ the article and have determined Ms Parramore lied, Sadly Joltin’ Joe still has a 'sunny side up' attitude when it comes to (his personal) the future.

Sadly, his ‘prescription’ is to use capitalism to save capitalism…and that ain’t never gonna work because we arrive back at the ‘men, both good and true’ conundrum.

No such animal so there’s no point in even going there.

If we are to have even a tiny hope of turning this mess around we must put the levers of power beyond the reach of the self-interested.

Hanging as many of them as possible for treason wouldn’t be a ‘bad start’ as far as rescuing our species is concerned.

Because it is not just about ‘changing direction’, we also need facilitate communication that will allow us to grow together rather than this conservative focus on demonizing the phantom ‘other’.

If we can’t put our minute differences behind us we will never be able to move forward.

A Simple Plan lets us move forward, it provides you with ‘you space’ that is separate from the ‘we space’ necessary to conduct the business of life for all.

‘Birds of a Feather’ is no accident. People are different and if we don’t start off accommodating those differences, people will find their own way to accommodate them…usually with disastrous results.

I will say up front that the goal of the ‘Birds of a feather’ program is to, er, ‘spawn’ a ‘one people’ movement.

Wondering what this ‘Birds of a Feather’ bullshit is…go read A Simple Plan, it’s all there.

Maybe Mr. Stiglitz should read it too, he might learn something.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Monsters

I have made a lot of predictions over the years and one of them has been the ‘void of power’ play.

When a government is paralyzed into ineffectiveness, the threat of a coup looms eminent.

So it is that we are witnessing the impossible choices of an elected governing body.

Mr. Schäuble told the magazine Stern that he had sympathy for the Greeks, but added: “The Greek minimum wage is just dropping to the level of Spain. If the country wants to become competitive again, it has to sink.”

It has been sinking, Greeks say, as they cut their budgets and think about making Mr. Tsipras, only 37, their new prime minister, to shake up what everyone agrees has been a political system rotten with cronyism and corruption. While New Democracy appears to be running neck-and-neck with Syriza, many say they believe that Europe’s best chance to negotiate a lasting deal with Athens — and to keep down social unrest at home — would be if Syriza is in the government and part of whatever emerges.

“We have a brand new political landscape and it will change a lot more in the years to come, because the austerity collapsed the center,” said Nikos Xydakis, a political analyst and an editor at the daily newspaper Kathimerini. He added that the next Greek government would not have much staying power.

Geez, the things you see when you don’t have a gun! Here we have a crippled global economy and there is dipstick calling for ‘more of the same’!

These idiots are relentless!

We can truly ask if the return of slavery will put an end to the ruinous global ‘race to the bottom’?

What kind of MONSTERS are they? Just look at the question above! What else do you need to know?

While my excerpt comes from the end of the article, the beginning asks the question of whether or not the Greeks will be able to form a government under such impossible conditions.

We hear ‘Progressives’ complaining that ‘austerity’ doesn’t work and they’re right, austerity does NOT lay the groundwork for ‘prosperity’, it only provides the few that have with an excuse to withhold it from everyone else.

‘We’re promoting austerity!’ they cluck happily while their yacht pulls out of the harbor so they can feast like pigs unobserved.

The part that should amaze you good citizen is how nobody (in the media) points to this unbalance and states it is ‘unhealthy’.

Because the ‘propaganda machine’ tells us we all secretly aspire to be just like them (that has more than they can use!)

Oh can you wait until it’s YOUR TURN?

Some one of these days that lucky lottery ticket is going to justify your ongoing support of the ‘selfish assholes’ club.

How sad is it that it is the ONLY reason to vote Republican (not that who you vote for matters, they are ALL corrupt beyond belief.)

And once you join that other club, the one nobody prepare you for (Bankrupt lottery winners club) you might realize you’ve been rooting for the wrong team your whole life.

But ‘hope’ springs eternal an you just know if you did it once that you can do it again.

Although the odds are roughly the same as seeing God, for real, in person…with witnesses!

And still being unable to prove it but watcha gonna do?

Sadly, a full 20 percent of the human population falls into this ‘deluded’ category and gets played expertly by those who have a stake in maintaining the ‘status quo’.

To be a conservative is to support the status quo, wholeheartedly.

Even though the structure underlying the status quo (cheap, abundant energy) is about to collapse.

Now we return to the issue at hand, ‘will the global race to the bottom ‘end’ with the return of slavery?’

Sadly, I predict the answer will be ‘no’.

Because the slavers are NEVER satisfied, there will be minute, quantitative differences between slaves from here and slaves from there that will drive them to work the slaves they have to death in vain attempts to ‘outperform’ the slave holders from elsewhere.

Is a short, brutal life ‘as good as it gets’ for you and yours?

Keep voting Republican chuckle head and that will be what you will get…again, not that it matters who you vote for.

What matters, good citizen, are what you get to vote on!

If you don’t get to vote DIRECTLY on the laws you must live on then others will use those laws to enslave YOU!

Wake the fuck up, damn it!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Cyberwarfare Alert!

Greetings good citizen,

As you might expect, markets are down (for the moment…but you know those ‘silly’ traders, they are unable to resist a ‘bargain’ for very long…

So how sad is it that ‘equities’ are (still) overpriced by a factor of ten? (Which is to ask 'what bargain?)

Um, on a more ‘indicative’ note, oil is down to $80 a barrel and Gold is back over the $1,600 an ounce mark. (Just because I call it funny money doesn’t mean the people holding it ‘acknowledge their folly’. Their wealth is YOUR stupidity!)

Just another factor to ponder as our trip down the ‘rabbit hole’ proceeds.

Newspapers Cut Days From Publishing Week
By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY

Some daily newspapers are cutting printing and delivery schedules and shifting their emphasis to the Web, but industry analysts warned that such moves might alienate once-loyal readers.

What’s wrong with THIS PICTURE, good citizen?

For those of you unfamiliar with newspaper industry, the subscription cost of having the paper delivered barely covers that expense, paying the reporters and the printing staff is totally reliant on ADVERTISING.

Which should pop the bubble of all of those ‘free press’ idiots!

THERE IS NO SUCH THING!

Worse, a press ‘reliant’ on advertising revenue is/becomes the ‘captive’ of the advertiser!

Guess where non-existent housing, auto and the whole spectrum of ‘personal advertising’ leaves the newspaper industry?

People who are living hand to mouth can’t afford the basic $30 it costs to run a ‘personal ad’ in the paper, especially when you can post it on Craig’s list for free!

Which is to say that ‘cascading systemic collapse I’ve been warning you about, well guess what? It’s begun!

But this is a ‘natural side effect’ of the mis-management that allows the wealth of a society to flow (unhindered) ‘to the top’.

Even more (I am torn between which Alice in Wonderland reference to use) ‘rabbit-holeish’ is the asshat running under the Republican banner is calling for even more tax breaks and ‘free-trade agreements’ to lube an already badly damaged chute!

We (the US Public) are ‘bleeding out’ and these assholes want to cut us again!

And, naturally, the corporate owned media remains mute while it cannibalizes itself.

(How much more ‘Wonderland-like’ does it need to get good citizen before you wake the fuck up?)

Um, now it’s time for a quick trip ‘off the reservation’ as we visit another ‘Doomsday scenario’:

Expert Issues a Cyberwar Warning
By ANDREW E. KRAMER and NICOLE PERLROTH

Eugene Kaspersky says his discovery of the Flame virus adds weight to his warnings of the grave dangers posed by governments that manufacture and release viruses on the Internet.

I won’t ‘candy coat’ it good citizen, if we ‘lose’ the web, life as we have come to know it literally vanishes.

You don’t believe that…everything is ‘backed up’ right?

Wrong. The people who believe funny money is real have drunk their own kool-aid and believe that ‘redundancy’ is expensive (and therefore unnecessary!)

Even worse, any virus worth its salt would take out the back-up systems too.

The destroyers of our society, in their haste to ‘reduce headcount’ have automated the infrastructure of all of western civilization.

Ironically, the only places that MAY escape (total) devastation are in remote Africa or Siberia.

Link time (since we’re going off the reservation, we may as well go ‘all the way’)

IF you were an ‘oligarch’ seeking to extend your control beyond ‘peak oil’, the only sure way to do this is to ‘kill-off’ the ‘surplus population’.

What would be the ‘most efficient’ way to achieve this goal?

By pushing the useless masses into their own cesspool.
[Turn off the lights and the phones, sit back and watch the ‘fun’!]

Totally ‘interconnected’ are the power and communications grids. Better yet, it’s 2012!

How ‘handy’ is that? The Ancient Mayans ‘predicted’ the end of the world…which, suspiciously, NOBODY has a handle on…

Which is not to opine that Mayan ‘end time’ prophecy is any more reliable than Christian end time prophecy!

But at least the Christians left the time factor open so it could be dragged out on an ‘as need’ basis. If the Mayan prophecy doesn’t come through, they have the Christian one in their back pocket as back-up!

Turn off the electricity and the phones for a single week and our civilization would be on the brink of collapse, two weeks and it would take years to rebuild.

Worse, some areas would have to be ‘re-conquered’ from the despots who seized power after the lights went out!

And some of them may not go ‘quietly’.

But the ‘aftertimes’ are a story for another day.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

I’m sure you can find your way back to the reservation from here…and nobody would blame you if you didn’t want to go back.

Family

Greetings good citizen,

I’d say Thank (you know who) it’s Friday but that misses the mark by a couple of miles because the nonsense just keeps on coming.

Let’s have a look at today’s headlines, shall we?

TOP NEWS
Fears Rise That Recovery May Falter in the Spring
By ANNIE LOWREY

Global finance leaders are meeting in Washington to discuss oil prices, unemployment and other issues putting a cloud over the global economic picture.

Okay, not particularly surprising and consistent with the world most of us wake up to each day.

This is what the lede to the business section reads like:

BUSINESS

Special Report: Global Trends
A Tarnished Standing for Europe
By ANNIE LOWREY and JACK EWING

European problems will be at the forefront of discussions this weekend at the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Kim Appointment May Spur Changes at the World Bank
BRICS Agitate for a Seat at the Table

DealBook
Threat of Credit Downgrade Persists for Morgan Stanley
By PETER EAVIS and SUSANNE CRAIG

A credit rating downgrade could hurt the bank's huge derivatives business, forcing the group to come up with billions of extra dollars. [?]

No Power, No Boom
By VIKAS BAJAJ

India cannot get enough fuel to run power plants, and the problem has contributed significantly to a second year of slowing economic growth in the country.

This more closely resembles a litany of woe than a declaration of prosperity but guess where the Dow is right now? Up more than a hundred, ‘in sync’ with a global rally in stocks!

Now the lying ‘corporate owned media’ claims this is due to ‘earnings’ but we have seen the rather ‘creative’ way Wall Street arrives at it’s ‘earnings’ figures.

Then there’s the ‘basis in reality’ part that no one (credible) is willing to debate in either direction.

This is ‘The Walrus’ biting us on the ass. What Walrus? The one who said, “My words mean exactly what I want them to mean, nothing more and nothing less.”

How fucking sad is it that the ONLY, er, ‘entity’ that KNOWS what you mean is YOU (and even then there is a degree of waffling because speech is a far from perfect medium!)

So, stock markets around the world are rallying and we can only wonder “who is loony enough to be buying stocks in this market?”

And survey says?

The fuckers who make their living off of the markets…

Okay, not enough? How about this bit of speculation from today’s edition of Alternet

The growing minority vote (which leans heavily Democratic), the shift of white college graduates from red to blue and the shrinking white working class (which traditionally votes Republican) are good omens for the left, said Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress. Sean Trende, senior elections analyst for Real Clear Politics, said he largely agreed with Teixeira’s analysis, although he sees room for the GOP to make gains down the road.

Teixeira and Trende told Governing that however these trends play out on the federal level, the effects are likely to be felt in state legislatures and governorships. The 2010 midterm elections, in which Republicans gained 69 seats in Congress and nearly 700 seats in statehouses nationwide, are the latest example of that correlation.

"It could have a huge impact,” Trende said. “The evidence definitely suggests that state politics follow the national trends.” Teixeira concurred, with the caveat that state politics have their own peculiarities (such as the gerrymandering of state legislative districts) that distinguish them from national elections.

“These trends have got to filter down in some ways,” he said. “This will have a big effect.”

How fucking sad is it good citizen that the Democratic Party as we now know it is nothing more than a sock puppet controlled by the minority conservatives?

By their actions shall they be known…well, I know I’m not the only one to notice that the ONLY legislation getting passed through Congress these days is decidedly conservative (and putrid!)

But this is what happens when money takes control of politics.

And I again belabor the obvious when I point out that this should surprise nobody.

Um, is the ‘browning’ of the US the reason it has been ‘abandoned’ by our great white leaders? (The ‘owners of commerce’)

I’ll bet the Native Americans wish they knew this earlier, they could have chased the Europeans out of here with the ‘threat’ of non-white grandchildren!

Sadly, this, in perspective, explains efforts to EXTERMINATE the Native peoples…it seems this planet isn’t big enough for some white people…

Maybe we should figure out a way for them to get off? (This ‘contaminated’ planet)

(And Gegner is white!)

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner (A proud member of the ‘family of man’)

Revolution

Greetings good citizen,

I know most of you have me pegged as one of the first to get ‘disappeared’ come the ‘crackdown’ (and you’re probably right.) If you’re looking for a ‘canary’ to watch in this whacko coal mine of ours, you could do worse than keeping an eye on this page.

So it might come as a surprise to you that my latest effort to tempt fate tackles the thorny issue of  ‘revolution’:

America's greatness and prosperity was built on the strength of her working and middle classes. Together, we — the 99 percent — built the world's strongest democracy, enforced the rule of law, provided for the common defense, promoted the general welfare, established an ever-rising standard of justice, ensured domestic tranquility and secured the blessings of liberty for many generations of American families.

Now, our 99 percent way of life is gone, devoured by an elite 1 percent who took over our own government and used it against us to seize both the personal and the common wealth amassed for us by generations of our ancestors and provided to us by the bounty of this land.

We want our American birthright back. We want to restore rule by the 99 percent. We want the elites to return our futures and our government to us. We will challenge them by every means we can find until this happens.

We are not going away. Their 1 percent's dream of an American feudal state is over. Our American dream of sustainable prosperity and opportunity for the rest of us is now beginning — again.

[Note: this text was italicized in the original article.]

You’re tempted to add to that last line something like ‘I hope we’re ‘luckier’ this time…’ because we didn’t make out too good last time.

In fact, things went south right out of the box last time.

Ya know, it scares the daylights out of me to see people advocating revolution without spelling out (in this case, not even vaguely) what we’re revolting for.

Just re-read the first line. That’s the sort of (BS) that makes historians mouth’s water.

Empty platitudes that tell you only vaguely ‘what’ and not at all about ‘how’.

I’m pleased to say A Simple Plan doesn’t suffer from either of these ‘deficiencies’.

Of course, then there’s the ‘mythical’ six people you can’t run a revolution without…

Which are enumerated for us as follows:

Activists

Intellectuals

Artists

Insiders

Supportive Elites

The Masses

Ahem, I’ll give the writer the ‘benefit of the doubt’ that these ‘groups’ are in no particular order.

Then I’ll belabor the obvious, if you don’t get the masses riled enough to at least ‘defend’ you, then you’re gonna end up in jail before you know what hit you.

Activists are NOT revolutionaries, in fact they are most often focused on working ‘inside’ the current system, a system they have little interest in disrupting.

Intellectuals? Seriously? WTF!

It might be nice to have the art’s community on your side but it’s only gonna help if they can shoot straight!

Er, if you have the people you’re trying to overthrow on your team, the only thing you’re doing is helping them escape prosecution for their numerous crimes…worse, you’re spreading the ‘welcome mat’ for them to screw us all (again.)

The, er, frightening statistics are that most ‘revolutions’ are fought by a tiny minority of the population, but ‘sympathy for the revolution’ has to be near universal!

This also explains why most ‘popular revolutions’ are, er, ‘co-opted’ almost immediately after the dust settles (sometimes even before that!) the people you threw out of power retake control BEFORE you get a chance to change anything! (What they do to hide their treachery is make superficial changes that change nothing.)

Then there are ‘supportive elites’, just what we need in our leaderless world, more stuffed shirts!

Yup, like I comment above, you don’t even need the masses, there is already enough support in this country (I’d dare say any country) for a popular revolt to succeed…‘sight unseen!’

The sad truth is the primary goal of any revolution is to wipe out the former ruling class, that is the ONLY way you will enjoy a ‘fresh start’.

And if we don’t achieve a ‘fresh start’ PDQ, we are doomed as a species.

So imagine my excitement when I spy the ‘recipe for revolution’ ready to distribute and it turns out to be another plea to sit in a big circle, hold hands and sing ‘kum-by-ya’…

Seriously good citizen, the ground is plenty ‘fertile’ and the time is right. Mismanagement by the powers that be has been colossal (and also deliberate) fostering massive ‘ill will’ against the ‘status quo’.

All we need is our own ‘One Percent’ to coalesce into an army. (That is the same percentage as fought in the ‘original’ revolution…)

Hell, good citizen, how fucking scary is it that the ones responsible for this CF are trying to incite a revolt too? (Only you won’t be too happy with how that will turn out.)

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner