Fear Factor

Greetings good citizen,

I am hesitant to raise the subject because Blogger’s stats tracking are, er, ‘spotty’ at best but yesterday my little window on our civilization experienced a ‘personal best’.

Attention/curiosity has been growing in recent weeks (so yesterday’s ‘spike’ isn’t totally out of character.)

Anyway, thanks for sharing this site (and my decidedly twisted observations) with your friends.

That said, let us proceed with the ‘business’ of these humble pages, which are intended to provide you with something to think about rather than the much simpler objective of telling you what to think.

While there is no shortage of people complaining about the path our civilization is on, it is somewhat futile to point out we’ve been here before (many times.)

It is even more futile to point out that the only thing that has been done about the deeply entrenched crap, crud and corrosion is the hitting of the reset switch, followed by a hearty rendition of ‘meet the new boss, same as the old boss!’.

And after a couple of decades of things ‘appearing’ to get better, we find ourselves right back where we started (again.)

The ‘true’ purpose of this site is to promote a sustainable alternative to the ‘perpetual expansion’ of predatory capitalism.

And, as we have witnessed ourselves (repeatedly,) if capitalism stops expanding, it immediately ‘collapses’.

Which is where we’re at today.

No irony should be lost on the fact that the only thing preventing our collapse into barbarism is socialism, the much despised ‘alternative’ to (more for me) capitalism.

Yet the corporate owned media continues to pretend that capitalism is alive, well and holding up the sinking ship of humanity.

Which is to ask ‘how much horse-shit are you willing to shovel before you realize there IS no pony under the pile?’

Speaking of ‘horse-pucky’ we have this insightful piece that sheds some light on a decidedly twisted philosophy we have come to know as ‘Libertarianism’:

From the fertile source of marginal utility value calculus the Austrians thus constructed a pristine moral and metaphysical system. But in doing so – like all metaphysicians – they allowed their imaginations to run away with them. They never noticed the point at which they crossed that fateful line; that line that separates our attempts to represent the world accurately and dispassionately to ourselves from our attempts to create a fantasy world in which we can live. The Austrians had, at first, attempted to use their imaginations to explain the world around them and, in doing so, had fallen into a dream world of their own creation.

And so the foundations of the political cult we call libertarianism were firmly in place. It is an ingenious creation which even came to include what CG Jung and other mythologists might call a central ‘archetypal’ or mythic figure. Even more specifically, what the Austrians have done is insert into their narrative what the great American mythologist Joseph Campbell called the ‘monomyth’. The monomyth is a recurrent theme in mythologies from all over the world. It is essentially a ‘hero myth’ and, as Campbell argues, can be located in most major religious narratives (Christ, Buddha etc.). In this the Austrians provided the libertarian religion with their very own version of the monomyth.

That most libertarians are ignorant of the source of their beliefs – just as most of them are not very conversant with economic theory generally, their protestations to the contrary notwithstanding – only adds a sociological dimension to their cult. Their cult forms a hierarchy where those who are closer to the Grand Truth are supposed to know more than those who are less conversant. Those who are less conversant then scrutinize the Great Texts – which are largely taken to be Holy Writ – until they can advance up the priestly ranks.

If you want to go fishing in Yves’s Archives you will find a rather shocking article describing the foundations of ‘Libertarian paradise’ (better know to you as Hell of Earth.)

Why bother kicking ‘fringe’ Libertarians in the shins?

Because the Libertarians have taken over the Republican Party, good citizen. That’s why they have suddenly become so ‘radical’.

Some of you are too young to remember but ‘back in the day’ you could find ‘common ground’ with an ‘old-time conservative’. Today this is not possible because Libertarians view non-libertarians as an ‘inferior species’.

Maybe it’s just me but once you start down that road it becomes pretty obvious that YOU are the one who is a few fries shy of a Happy Meal!

Libertarianism, like its ‘soul-mate’ Capitalism is centered on ‘private property’.

A Simple Plan is centered on individual sovereignty, that we all have an equal right to the bounty of this planet. (something that can't be achieved if the so-called 'owner' refuses to part with your share...or wants/commands more than it's worth!)

Bizarrely, Libertarians equate property ownership with self-ownership. They can own property BECAUSE they ‘own’ themselves.

This involves a certain degree of mental gymnastics, but that is always the case when it comes to justifying bullshit.

Tell the homeless that they ‘own’ themselves and they’ll respond with the most famous of observations ’nothing from nothing leaves nothing’…an equation the Libertarians choose to blame on the victim.

Native Americans didn’t believe in property ownership (and their civilization thrived for a hundred thousand years!)

Conversely, capitalism’s personal best is Rome’s 400 year stretch…(and the price in blood was horrendous just to get that far!)

Looks to me like the property-less native Americans were on to something.

So don’t ‘fear’ A Simple plan because it hasn’t been tried (in recent memory.)

It is a proven successful concept that flourished for a lot longer than predatory capitalism has been around!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Jettisoning the Baggage

Greetings good citizen,

Pursuant to downgrades issued by the major credit rating agencies, stock markets around the world have been bleeding from the eye-sockets all night.

The NYSE opened ‘down’ across the board but it’s interesting to note that the Magic of Wall Street has managed to lift the FTSE (London) back into positive territory, again, for no discernable reason.

I like to open my posts with these ‘What the fuck have you been smoking?’ reports to better contrast the ‘Happy Talk’ spewed in other sections of the media.

You’ve been hearing rumblings about ‘downsizing’ if not outright eliminating (privatizing) the Postal Service for the past couple of decades.

Well now they’re actually going to do something about it.

Oddly, the question is why now and why so much?

On Monday, the Postal Service said it would “move forward” with that plan, with closings to begin as early as March. It also said it was seeking a nonbinding advisory opinion from the Postal Regulatory Commission about the closures, although agency officials said they were intent on closing the processing centers as part of a plan to save $3 billion a year by 2015.

“The bottom line is that in the last three years, we’ve lost almost 27 percent of our first-class volume,” Patrick Donahoe, the postmaster general, said in a phone interview. “In 2000, 5 percent of people paid bills online. Now it’s 60 percent. The problem is we’ve lost so much volume in blue-box mail, we can’t hold out for next-day service anymore.”

The Postal Service lost $5.1 billion last year.

Um, geez Louis (Postmaster General is a ‘political appointment’ and changes with each incoming administration) You’d think somebody was ‘unaware’ of both the purpose and the importance of the global mail.

Just to give you an idea of ‘how important’ the mail service is (here in the US) imagine a 4 way intersection and 4 different vehicles pull up to the stop sign at the exact same time.

One is an Ambulance, the other is a Fire truck, the third is a police car and the last is a postal vehicle…who has the ‘right of way’?

You’re damn right, the postal vehicle!
(Not that the driver of the postal vehicle wouldn’t yield to the other three, those civilization altering communications are more rare than our example would lead you to believe.)

As stated, the Post Office has been ‘losing money’ and years ago clueless politicians decided to make the postal service ‘self-sustaining’, which once again displays stunning ignorance of the purpose/importance of a national communications system that is the postal service.

If the electricity goes down, the mail still ‘moves’…slowly, but it will still get there…eventually.

What do you suppose they intend to do with the ‘savings’ yielded from these cuts to the postal service?

Will they divert them to fighting the perpetual ‘war on Terra’ or will they go towards funding more surveillance apparatus for the growing Security State?

But perhaps it is the ‘bigger picture’ that is being ignored here, don’t you think?

Our second offering from the same source takes this same story to the next rung down on the government ladder:

“There’s always been this promise that if you came to work and did your job, at the end there would be your reward — a defined retirement. The idea was you could retire with respect and dignity. But that whole idea has been slashed now, and I felt like, ‘What is the point?’ ”

In some places, the rise in retirement has brought welcome and needed financial news. Kansas announced last month that it would save $34.5 million over two years because more than 1,000 workers had agreed to accept cash and health insurance incentives to leave. State officials said they had yet to determine which of the positions of departing workers they considered critical enough to refill.

But some experts and workers question the ultimate result of so much leaving, saying it is already leaving some governments short-staffed (and, in some cases, obliged to pay overtime) and at risk of losing institutional knowledge and technical expertise as older workers vanish.

Is this the conservative ‘Starve the Beast’ strategy in action? No.

It IS the end result of Globalization. All of those enterprises our politicians ‘allowed’ to be off-shored no longer contribute to the, er, ‘greater good’.

So they’ll shut down the post offices (what the hell, nobody can pay their bills anymore anyway!) and cut back on police, fire and the education system (teachers first, naturally.)

In fact, as you can plainly see, they already have.

And what will be left?

A Banana Republic where the privileged don’t set foot outside their walled and fortified compounds without a platoon of heavily armed bodyguards because they know if they drop their guard for even a second they will be kidnapped and killed (in that order.)

What, you can’t afford to pay a platoon of heavily armed men to protect you and yours?

Well, you’d better have enough to pay ‘tribute’ or you’ll be taking your life in your own hands just venturing to the corner store!

And that will be the hell of it, you won’t be able to afford to escape!

Without a functioning justice system you’re a chicken just waiting to be plucked by some greedy opportunist.

And on that unpleasant note…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Instant acting Kool Aid

Greetings good citizen,

The Dow opened up 125 points this morning driven (presumably) by ‘Happy talk’, which of late has been, er, ‘overly-optimistic’.

Then there’s the “What the fuck have YOU been smoking?” disinformation reserved for Arab Spring and other ‘convenient fictions’

Finally there’s this bull shit (which is on par with instantaneous acting Kool Aid.)

Are ‘investors’ so unhinged that they are confusing the ‘death spiral’ of the Euro-zone with just another ‘bag ‘em and tag ‘em’ rip-off scam?

What is this, the seventh time the Euro-zone has had to be ‘bailed out’? (this year..)

How deep does this rabbit hole go, good citizen and will we ever find the bottom? (which appears somehow connected to our ability/willingness to pay…)

Is a ‘new charter’ the answer (when it appears nobody can afford the old one?) It is highly unlikely a ‘new charter’ will provide more, er, ‘lenient’ terms and conditions than the original.

Would, er, ‘economic blending’ (similar to the US) ‘solve’ this fiscal crisis?

Mr. Williams of Shadow Government Statistics provides us with some insight on the subject

December 4th, 2011

There Is No Sudden Economic Recovery, Just Bad-Quality Numbers and Deteriorating Labor Conditions

Latest Jobs Level Still Well Below Pre-2007 and Pre-2001 Recession Levels

November Unemployment: 8.6% (U.3), 15.6% (U.6), 22.6% (SGS)

Money Supply M3 Annual Growth at 2.7% in November

Potential Euro Disintegration Is Nothing Like the Looming Dollar Collapse 

The very first ‘bullet point’ demonstrates the failure of the unified US system of commerce has had in mitigating, much less curing the general economic malaise globalization has visited upon the world.

Economics 101 good citizen, you cannot live in an economic desert (thus anything that makes that desert worse is, by necessity, ‘bad’!)

The second bullet point only makes the situation that much more dire…labor force participation is still below the 2001 level…so what are the media fucktards crowing about an economic recovery for, to make Obama look bad?

I just walked away for a moment (to walk the dog) and that successfully derailed the rant I was going to unleash on what could politely be called Bush’s third term…(and he’ll get a forth [term] if the useless Democrats don’t dig up a challenger, pronto!)

Let it suffice to say we can only wonder why nobody in the ‘corporate owned media’ has picked up on the fact that labor force participation is so low?

Could the answer be as simple as ‘corporate owned’ and if you report what the man signing your paycheck doesn’t like, not only will the subject not make publication but neither will you!

Now to dot the i’s and cross the t’s we have this story from Jesse of the Cross roads café fame:

"A dollar-denominated deposit made in foreign banks or foreign branches of U.S. banks. Depositors sometimes transfer their funds to European banks in order to take advantage of higher interest rates. The Eurodollar is one type of Eurocurrency. Eurodollars are US currency deposited in banks outside the United States but not always in Europe. Certain debt securities are issued in eurodollars and pay interest in US dollars into non-US bank accounts. Eurodollars are a form of eurocurrency."

I think the term Eurodollars outgrew its origins, as it had come to refer to dollars held overseas outside the jurisdiction of the Fed and the US Federal Government. It started as a movement by certain entities to hold their assets outside the Fed to avoid freezing and seizure of assets, but it become much more broadly used as the dollar grew into the global reserve currency.

So to avoid confusion, Eurodollars will refer to any US dollar held as foreign currency as defined by the BIS. M3 Eurodollars will refer to the discontinued series by the Fed which estimated the dollars held overseas at branches of US banks.

I would agree with the Fed that their definition had become quaintly irrelevant to the markets. I estimate that today the M3 eurodollars represent less than a third of Eurodollars held around the world.

Okay, so what we’ve got here is a world kept on ‘life support’ via ‘creative accounting’.

Um, some (see the Automatic Earth’s 1,000th post) don’t think the global economy will make it to Christmas!

Since all money is ‘funny’ I’m pretty sure they’ll muddle through until the New Year, then they’ll pull the plug (and blame it all on the Mayans!)

As I have stated repeatedly, NONE of this should be/ NEEDS to happen.

Lenders made bad loans, they should suck it up and suffer the consequences.

Given the extremely ‘unstable’ nature of (more for me) capitalism, the whole system should be scrapped and a new one erected…with an eye towards leveling the playing field!

The world is going to come unglued attempting to pay the imaginary debt demands of people who already have more than they can spend!

Does that sound ‘right’ to you?

I didn’t think so.

Thank you for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

America Hater (post # 800)

Greetings good citizen,

Sometimes the news feed on your homepage yields a ‘gem in the rough’, like this one which brings us back to the important issue of ‘just who the hell ARE these idiots?’

Mitt Romney has accused president Obama of not being, er, ‘patriotic’ enough…

So ‘Dear Leader’ gave this response:

In the battle over "American exceptionalism," Obama used a recent trip to Asia to highlight America's role as the strongest and most influential nation on earth. In this election season, responding to the Republican critique is essential for Obama, the only incumbent ever compelled to show a birth certificate to defend his legitimacy.

"Sometimes the pundits and the newspapers and the TV commentators love to talk about how America is slipping and America is in decline," Obama said Wednesday at a New York fundraiser. "That's not what you feel when you're in Asia. They're looking to us for leadership. They know that America is great not just because we're powerful, but also because we have a set of values that the world admires."

"We don't just think about what's good for us, but we're also thinking about what's good for the world," he said. "That's what makes us special. That's what makes us exceptional." Republicans have seized on "American exceptionalism," a belief among many in the nation that the U.S. is special among global powers, and tried to portray Obama as expressing ambivalence about the promise of his own country. The message resounds with party activists who still admire President Ronald Reagan, who memorialized America as that "Shining City on a Hill" during the 1980s.

A ‘Shining city’ surrounded by some of the worst slums on the planet, but that’s the same no matter where you go in this world based on ‘predatory capitalism’.

Which brings me to my real point…the ‘either you’re one of us (a true blue, patriotic America Lover, [who happens to HATE Americans] or you’re one of those ‘America Haters’ that should leave if they’re so unhappy with the way (the 1%) runs things!

Yes sir ee, they like this hunk of real estate just fine…it’s YOU telling them what they can and can’t do that has their dander up!

They LOVE America (and want it all to themselves) but they make no bones about absolutely detesting Americans, especially the ones that were here first!

Which is to point out that only a few Americans believe they’re ‘exceptional’ (and this would go a long ways towards explaining why the rules that apply to you and me DON’T apply to THEM!

Laws are for ‘little people’.

Although we will be unable to find a single ‘scofflaw’ once the uprising begins. Execute a couple of ‘em and the rest are instantly ‘law abiding citizens’ with rafts of attorneys swearing it’s all true!

But I digress.

The question at hand is not just ‘who are these idiots’? Isn't there a whole boatload of other issues facing civilization that are far more pressing than who is more ‘patriotic’ than the next dingle-berry?

Has even ONE candidate come forward with a plan (and before we elect him would be the time to do it) with a workable solution to our economic woes?

You KNOW the answer lies in work sharing (not that the capitalists will like/support this necessity but ‘plan ‘B’ is to kill off the surplus workforce!)

They’d probably turn it into a ‘patriotic’ thing and ask for volunteers. You could just see it now. ‘take a bullet for capitalism, it’s your patriotic duty!’

Which is to say there is only a single solution that doesn’t involve genocide on a civilization destroying scale. (Would YOU trust a government that chose to murder the majority of your ‘fellow citizens’ as a method of, er, ‘restoring prosperity’? Or would you be wondering if next time you might find yourself on the wrong side of the ‘keeper’ divide?)

Now ask yourself WHY not one of the current field of candidates is proposing THE ONLY POSSIBLE SOLUTION?

Are these people REALLY ‘that stupid’ (or are they merely convinced YOU are?)

As I have stated before, the work sharing plan doesn’t work without making serious adjustments to the worker’s ‘expense profile’. (If we are to ½ their pay then we need to cut their expenses by that much or more.)

Capitalism doesn’t work that way but I’m cool with that because the statement ‘capitalism DOESN’T WORK’ is still true.

We CANNOT sacrifice our entire civilization for the reckless desires of a few psychopaths!

Which is to point out that if a majority of the population can’t make ends meet on the ‘average’ paycheck then it’s not the workers that are the problem but the people who (aren’t) paying them that are!

But you don’t see a single candidate working THAT little nugget into their platform either, do you?

Which brings us back to our initial issue, the fictional America Hater and the very real American Haters (who happen to BE in charge of this never ending misery-fest.)

I do not hate America nor do I hate Americans…although I do loathe the people in charge of this nation (and that’s a pretty, er, ‘tiny’ group.)

Ironically, more than half of us don’t vote…which is, er, ‘progress’ looking at it from a at least half of us aren’t fooled by this rigged election bullshit.

The question there is will those who refuse to vote also refuse to fight?

Time will tell, good citizen.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

The pursuit of Liberty

Greetings good citizen,

If you’re gonna tangle with John Law, ‘enmasse’, it is, er foolish to expect speedy service much less ‘gentle handling.’

Mass arrests present logistics not easily overcome…which is to opine that we’d all find it much more disturbing if they were ‘well-prepared’ to process several hundred ‘detainees’... swiftly.

So, good citizen, what were the protestors ‘expecting’?

 I heard from two different sources that at least one busload of protesters (around 40 people) was forced to spend seven excruciating hours locked in tiny cages on a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. prison bus, denied food, water and access to bathroom facilities. Both men and women were forced to urinate in their seats. Meanwhile, the cops in charge of the bus took an extended Starbucks coffee break.

The bus that I was shoved into didn’t move for at least an hour. The whole time we listened to the screams and crying from a young woman whom the cops locked into a tiny cage at the front of the bus. She was in agony, begging and pleading for one of the policemen to loosen her plastic handcuffs. A police officer sat a couple of feet away the entire time that she screamed–but wouldn’t lift a finger.

Everyone on my bus felt her pain–literally felt it. That’s because the zip-tie handcuffs they use—like the ones you see on Iraq prisoners in Abu Ghraib—cut off your circulation and wedge deep through your skin, where they can do some serious nerve damage, if that’s the point. And it did seem to be the point. A couple of guys around me were writhing in agony in their hard plastic seats, hands handcuffed behind their back.

Most of us don’t make it a habit of getting thrown in the pokey thus most of us have no freaking clue what constitutes ‘normal’ in the local lock-up.

From the writer’s perspective these abuses are indeed horrible…but, in defense of the men with badges, there weren’t any ‘alternatives’.

Once cuffed you remain cuffed until you are either released or inserted into a ‘holding area’…which also sports a ‘communal commode’ (again, for security reasons.)

Um, while being forced to wet oneself is regrettable, imagine the logistics of having to cycle hundreds of desperate people through a ‘rest-room break’.

The ties used as ‘substitute’ handcuffs aren’t ‘reusable’…and trying to put new ones back on someone with already sore wrists is likely to be ‘challenging’ to say the least.

There’s something about pinning someone’s hands behind their back for hours that makes them a lot less ‘peaceful’.

Would it have been ‘more humane’ to seal the encampment, bring in ‘handy-huts’ and, er, ‘process’ the protesters ‘in place’? Definitely…but that would require thinking, something that’s legally prohibited in law enforcement!

Which is to point out that ‘the process’ isn’t supposed to be ‘humane’ or ‘quick and easy’ for that matter, the process is about ‘punishment’!

The ‘process-ees’ are being punished!

Don’t, er, ‘enjoy’ being humiliated? The solution is simple, don’t get busted!

The police aren’t equipped to (humanely) handle large numbers.

The ‘procedures’ they are bound to follow also weren’t intended to facilitate large numbers.

Crime is usually a rather lonely profession, even a ‘gang’ of bank robbers seldom numbers more than a half dozen.

Funny thing about technology, the money is no longer in the bank, the money is in the bank’s computer! Most banks don’t have enough cash on hand to throw a good party! A testament to how ‘credit driven’ our society has become.

While we still hear about banks being robbed, we also have a new show on TV called ‘America’s dumbest criminals.’

No irony should be lost on the fact that there will continue to be (attempted) bank robberies even after cash is outlawed! (Trick number one will be finding the bank!)

But I digress…

We can indeed be ‘thankful’ that the nation’s police departments ARE NOT equipped to handle large scale civil disobedience. What would it say about our civilization if they were?

Um, let us abandon the topic of police brutality and return to the more familiar territory of financial collapse.

Thanks to what can only be described as one of the worst cases of ‘irrational exuberance’ in recent memory, the stock markets posted their largest single week gain this week since 2008!

Which makes you wonder because the markets ‘started to tank’ in mid 2007...

Worse, the, er, ‘employment index’ posted its largest gain all year, coinciding with a nearly half a percentage point drop in the ‘national’ unemployment rate.

Yet the NYSE closed in negative territory…

Talk about your mixed messages, good citizen!

Like this message (because I’m going to ask you to ram it into reverse for a moment as we revisit our previous topic.

Your first amendment rights are only valuable on a proverbial ‘level’ playing field. Once the judiciary is corrupted the only thing ‘freedom of speech’ protects is the freedom to lie!

So, and understand that the, er, ‘police’ will be even less, er, ‘friendly’ when you do this, the time has come to defend/uphold your 2nd amendment rights.

Conversely (and just ‘opinionating’ here) it is likely that when this glove is dropped we will find a ‘good percentage’ of police ‘switching sides’.

It is time for us to stop this 1st amendment nonsense and begin the 2nd amendment, er, assault for our children’s liberty!

Liberty is freedom from ’tyranny’ (Tyranny is being bent to the will of another.)

Liberty should NEVER be the exclusive preserve of the privileged few.

Think about it.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Realization...

Greetings good citizen,

Happy freaking Friday! You’ve survived yet another week of financial skullduggery with your wallet and your bank account more or less intact…

To which you reply ‘naturally’, why wouldn’t my wallet and my bank account be, er, ‘less than secure?

For some of you this is a ‘bad example’ but for the older folks out there it only takes two words to bring reality crashing down on them. What are those two words?

Retirement account!

Those were supposed to be ‘good as gold’ but the collapse of Enron taught a shitload of people the true meaning behind the fine print on their investment account disclaimers: Investing involves ‘risk of loss’…and if you’ve trusted crooks with your funds then those losses are ‘guaranteed’.

If pudding head hadn’t ‘followed the herd’ and invested ALL of your contributions, first with Enron and then into MBS, you might have more than a negative balance today!

You’d be half inclined to say ‘live and learn’ but you’re a little too old to be suffering the ‘rookie mistakes’ of kids without a year of salary history under their belts!

Yup, your ‘retirement nest egg is the sandbox these bozo’s use to ‘train’ future investment advisors…

They figure since YOU don’t know the first thing about investing that you won’t be able to detect when the kids ‘fuck up’.

Which brings me to my ‘thought of the day’ (and most of my posts are centered on precisely this type of ‘observation’)

I don’t usually share these little epiphanies…because my first thought after being stricken by this morning’s ‘pearl of wisdom’ was ‘people generally aren’t thankful for being reminded they are up to their knees in shit’.

Yes sir-ee Bob! My epiphany of the day was ‘when you live in a cesspool you train yourself not to look down’ (that way you can ignore your shitty circumstances.)

Now, how many of you want to ‘thank’ me for reminding you of what you already know?

Worse, it is the polar opposite of what those flag waving patriots tell you (and you just know in your heart of hearts that they secretly agree with me because they’re NEVER happy with anything!)

The patriots among us say ‘wear your shit proudly! It is a privilege to be shit on in such a great nation!

All the while ignoring the fact that it’s still shit…

(This is ‘training yourself not to look down’ on steroids!)

Sadly, this sort of ‘willful ignorance’ leads to scapegoating, which only serves to mask the true causes of our problems.

Which is how the media turns a blind eye to ‘more of the same’ behavior.

And when they’re not turning a blind eye they’re busy ‘spinning’ the story beyond recognition (often pretending not to ‘get it’ so that you will doubt yourself! The media‘s treatment of the (endless) War on Terra is a perfect example of this.)

Oooo! Did I just do it again? Damn it, I did, didn’t I!

And nobody is going to ‘thank’ me for that one either!

Like I said, nature of the beast.

Perhaps the most ironic aspect of this whole situation is how much we’ll miss being lied to once civilization as we know it vanishes.

Because when they no longer feel the need to lie, you aren’t gonna like what they tell you.

Oh, and choice? Forget about it!

We’re talking my way or the highway baby!

And if God chose the nobles, well God’s choice is good enough for the, er, ‘new’ nobles…some of whom will trace their lineage back to the ancient nobles…for all that it matters today.

Again, it’s the nature of the beast, people are ‘funny’ that way.

My great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grand-pappy was Genghis Kahn, so fuck you! (People are THAT KIND of ‘funny’) Not that you’ll ever see me claiming to be the next ‘Lord Kiss-my-ass’!

It remains to be seen if I will even survive to lead the movement I myself created!

As matters currently stand this is unlikely…for a number of reasons.

But let us not fret over such trivial matters now, it is of no consequence at this time.

What IS of importance is the inevitable collapse of the global financial network which will result in the collapse of the global supply network.

Left to our imaginations is which will ‘go’ first, the MSM or the Internets/telecommunications networks?

You could easily imagine these ‘enterprises’ ceasing operations for, er, ‘cash flow’ reasons but the genuine reason will be, in the end, an ‘executive decision’…

Worse, good citizen, we won’t have to wait much longer before it happens.

IF the power network is shut down first then all bets are off.

Thank for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Teaching Opportunity

Greetings good citizen,

If we were to stay focused on the destruction of our civilization, the current ‘blow-back’ of globalization is, er, ‘insignificant.’

There’s a great ‘read between the lines’ story here as well as huge ‘red flag’ that signifies the ‘beginning of the end’.

Through ‘currency manipulation’ (something only bankers can do, our politicians are TOO STUPID to handle this stuff themselves.) The ‘off-shoring’ of production lines to the newly created ‘cheaper there’ (which solved the political problem of predatory capitalism by providing jobs that wouldn’t have ordinarily existed.) ’lifted’ the local economy of the target nation while eviscerating the local economy of the (former) host nation.

Understand, the ‘trick’ here was supposed to be the slow ‘elevation’ of the workforce so they would ‘replace’ their former customer base.

Economics 101 good citizen, your employees ARE your ‘customers’.

But, if you don’t pay them enough to afford your products, you end up with no (too few) customers

Before we launch into the commentary of the accompanying link I’m taking advantage of a ‘teaching opportunity’.

We are provided with a rare ‘profile’ of your believe it, ‘typical’ entrepreneur.

During the 1970s, when he and his family spent four years in Washington, a question kept nagging him: “Americans weren’t really smarter than us, but why were they richer than us?”

It was a timely question because India’s economy then was turning increasingly socialist and state-directed. Policy makers nationalized large banks, raised the highest tax rate to 97.5 percent and required factories with 300 or more workers to get government permission before layoffs, a threshold later reduced.

Mr. Sabharwal’s family of civil servants and teachers believed in India’s socialist policies. His father, who worked for a time at the Indian Embassy in Washington, was a solid member of the establishment.

Never mind the socialist claptrap provided totally without ‘context’. Focus on the fact that here was a kid raised with at least a 'Silver-plated' spoon in his mouth.

And what is the first thing we are informed of about him?

The very thing that makes most of us loathe foreigners!

But, sadly, there is more than a grain of truth in this annoying observation.

Americans AREN’T particularly ‘smart’ (but neither are the foreigners!)

Worse, the foreigners USE this (personal) prejudice to get ahead!

Now, take a good look around you and ask yourself is THIS the work of a ‘smart person’?

It’s part of the ‘human condition’ to think you are smarter than the average individual, so BELIEVING you’re smarter than everybody else usually proves precisely the opposite.

It’s unsurprising that the ‘children of privilege’ are more susceptible to this, er, ‘misconception’.

But hearing their parents constantly remind them that they are ‘lucky’ to be getting the finest of everything only adds to this variety of ‘Exceptionalism.’

But I (once again) digress!

What does this article tell us?

The ‘original intent’ was to ‘replace’ the smaller Western customer base with the much larger Eastern one…that has failed…because of IDIOTS like Mr. Sabharwal!

His degree from Wharton will never translate into prosperity for the average Indian, he is trained in globalization!

This is why he wants to pauperize a nation already struggling to survive on less than a dollar a day (so Western capitalists can ‘pocket the difference’ themselves.)

I repeat myself when I point out that globalization was not done FOR you, it has been done TO you!

Um, circling back to the post of the other day where we took a quick peek at twisted Libertarian philosophy…

Libertarians honestly BELIEVE everybody is just as greedy, grasping and as selfish as they are!

I don’t know how far back in the history books we have to dig to attribute the observation that you can fill a man’s head with a good deal of nonsense and he is still capable of functioning adequately…I suspect it (by a considerable margin) predates Hitler.

Although (and this says something deeply disturbing about our, er, origins’) before the Christian ’reformation’ thinking outside of a very narrowly defined box was considered ’heresy’, which was punishable by death.

We’ve come a long way baby…so why are there still those among us who want to kill those who don’t think…the, er, ‘right’ way?

I based a screenplay on precisely this premise but, as you can tell, it didn’t ‘sell’.

As one might imagine, the world isn’t quite ready for my variety of ‘outside the box’ thinking.

I, for one, am thankful I can express these thoughts without being (legally) executed for simply thinking them! (yet)

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner