"Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you."
~~ Carl Sandburg [1878-1967]
"Vice has this defeat: It cannot be truly intelligent. It's very motives are its weakness."
~~ Robert A. Heinlein [1907-88]
"One has to buy [immortality] with the blood of one's heart."
~~ Henry James [1843-1916]
"Knowledge always brings responsibility."
~~ P.D. James
"Every soldier who ever died was innocent."
~~ David Baldacci
"The worst crimes ... are the ones done by people who are trying to punish themselves."
~~ John D. MacDonald [1916-86]
"As a high school English teacher, I can testify that ,,, [television] is so poisonous and hypnotic that the disease of illiteracy is rampant."
~~ Robert G. Arthur of Kings Park, NY (circa 1984)
"The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action."
~~ Frank Herbert [1920-86]
"A poet doesn't choose his subject, it chooses him."
~~ P.D. James
"Life is, in fact, a battle ... Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy. But the world as it stands is no illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of a night; we wake up to it again for ever and ever; we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it."
~~ Henry James [1843-1916] (in 1878)
"The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done."
~~ Jean Piaget [1896-1980]
"Only education is capable of saving our societies from possible collapse, whether violent, or gradual."
~~ Jean Piaget [1896-1980]
"Scientific thought, then, is not momentary; it is not a static instance; it is a process."
~~ Jean Piaget [1896-1980]
"Live all [that] you can; it is a mistake not to."
~~ Henry James [1843-1916]
"The most deadly commitment of all is to be committed only to one's self. Some come to realize this [only] after they are in the nursing home."
~~ John D. MacDonald [1916-86]
"I don't seek, I find."
~~ Pablo Picasso [1881-1973]
"What kept me going was maybe stubbornness and a lack of good sense."
~~ Oliver Stone
"Every stick points in two directions, one opposed to the other."
~~ Isaac Asimov {attributed}
"Man was born to be rich or inevitably to grow rich through the use of his faculties."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]
"Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live."
~~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [1749-1832]
"The first man to see an illusion by which men have flourished for centuries surely stands in a lonely place."
~~ Gary Zukav
"A bit of perfume always clings to the hand that gives the rose."
~~ Chinese proverb
"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual."
~~ Galileo Galilei [1564-1642]
"Those who wish to sing always find a song."
~~ Swedish proverb
"Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power."
~~ Eric Hoffer [1902-1983]
"What science cannot tell us, mankind cannot know."
~~ Bertrand Russell [1872-1970]
"All utterances about the nature of God are nonsensical."
~~ A.J. Ayer
"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-1865]
"An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision."
~~ James McNeill Whistler [1834-1903]
"Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless."
~~ Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]
"Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose."
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]
"Many wealthy people are little more than janitors of their possessions."
~~ Frank Lloyd Wright [1867-1959]
"Crowded classrooms and half-day sessions are a tragic waste of our greatest national resource - the minds of our children."
~~ Walt Disney [1901-66]
"A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end ... but not necessarily in that order."
~~ Jean-Luc Godard
"Life is for each man a solitary cell whose walls are mirrors."
~~ Eugene O'Neill [1888-1953]
"The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other."
~~ Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961]
"Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television."
~~ Woody Allen
"Some of you rich men have to be taught that all the world cannot be bribed into condoning your offences."
~~ Sherlock Holmes
"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future."
~~ physicist Niels Bohr [1885-1962]
"The present is pregnant with the future."
~~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz [1646-1716]
"I have a naive trust in the universe ... that at some level it all makes sense, and we can get glimpses of that sense if we try.”
~~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
"The happiness that is genuinely satisfying is accompanied by the fullest exercise of our faculties and the fullest realization of the world in which we live."
~~ Bertrand Russell [1872-1970]
"Some day, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and grsvity we shall harness the energies of Love. Then, for the second time in the history of thr world, man will have discovered fire."
~~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin [1881-1955]
"I think our own hearts can teach us no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts to make the world a place to live in instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it."
~~ Bertrand Russell [1872-1970] {quoted by Felix De Cola on his deathbed}
"The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you've gotten the fish, you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit; once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning; once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so [that] I can have a word with him?"
~~ Chuang-Tzu (circa IVth Century BCE)
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Monday, September 15, 2008
Thursday, September 04, 2008
September Quotations
"When government fears the people, there is liberty. When people fear the government, there is tyranny."
~~ Ben Franklin [1706-90]
"Man must learn to think for himself, rather than follow blindly what he has been taught."
~~ R. Buckminster Fuller [1895-1983]
"Not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime."
~~ Michael Mukasey, figurehead U.S Attorney General, 2008
"Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits."
~~ Thomas A. Edison [1847-1931]
"Without risk there is no possibility for glory."
~~ David Baldacci
“It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing. But I couldn’t give it up because by then I was too famous.”
~~ Robert Benchley [1889-1945]
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
~~ Dr. Seuss {Theodor Geisel 1904-91}
"The solution to the problems of human relationships is to be found in liberty."
~~ Frédéric Bastiat [1801-50]
"True believers are always wrong, whether they are Christians, Muslims or Jews."
~~ Janet Maker of Los Angeles, CA
"If death is truly the worst that can happen to a man, there is nothing to fear. But death is not the worst."
~~ Edward Abbey [1927-89]
"Don't ever let anyone monkey with your swing."
~~ baseball great Ted Williams [1918-2002]
"To lay blame is an abdication of power."
~~ Jeff Herman
"The province of art is ... all experience."
~~ Henry James [1843-1916]
"No man is rich enough to buy back his past."
~~ Oscar Wilde [1854-1900]
"To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from Himself."
~~ Samuel Johnson [1709-84]
"It is the good girls who keep the diaries; the bad girls never have the time."
~~ Tallulah Bankhead [1902-68]
"Every man has his price? That is not true. But for every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing."
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]
"Nothing is so detrimental to quality as success."
~~ J.M.K. Nyks
"It is better to be able neither to read nor write than to be able to do nothing else."
~~ William Hazlitt [1778-1830]
"The great rule is not to talk about money with people who have much more or much less than you."
~~ Katharine Whitehorn
"A man in love is incomplete until he is married. Then he is finished."
~~ Zsa Zsa Gabor
"Excesses are essentially gestures. It is easy to be extremely cruel, magnanimous, humble or self-sacrificing when we see ourselves as actors in a performance."
~~ Eric Hoffer [1902-83]
"I require only three things in a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid."
~~ Dorothy Parker [1893-1967]
"Our prejudices are our mistresses; reason is at best our wife, very often needed but seldom minded."
~~ Philip Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield [1694-1773]
"The best answer to anger is silence."
~~ German proverb
"Most women are not so young as they are painted."
~~ Max Beerbohm [1872-56]
"Sometimes I write sober and revise drunk, sometimes I write drunk and revise sober."
~~ Welsh poet Dylan Thomas [1914-54]
"Small things amuse small minds."
~~ Doris Lessing
"Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level."
~~ Quentin Crisp [1908-99]
"Paradoxes are verbal, they do not exist in the real world."
~~ Robert A. Heinlein [1907-88]
"Liberty is always dangerous, but the safest thing [that] we have."
~~ Harry Emerson Fosdick [1878-69]
"Most of us edge forward, painfully advancing, yard by yard; [the truly creative] parachute behind enemy lines."
~~ P.D. James
"We have at times to be willing to be guilty."
~~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer [1906-45]
"No man is lonely while eating spaghetti."
~~ Robert Morley [1906-92]
"If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done."
~~ anonymous
"To kiss the lips of women, love the gods, do justice, laugh, and know [that] the world is mad."
~~ motto of director Oliver Stone
"Anything new, anything worth doing, can't be recognized. People just don't have that much vision."
~~ Pablo Picasso [1881-1973]
"There is such a thing as evil which can exist without causation."
~~ John D. MacDonald [1916-86]
"Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self; the passionate state of mind is an expression of inner dissatisfaction."
~~ Eric Hoffer [1902-83]
"Art and morality have little to say to each other."
~~ Anthony Burgess [1917-93]
"A true realist demands the impossible; a true idealist demands the impractical."
~~ Marilyn vos Savant
"The most pitiful human ailment is a birdseed heart."
~~ Wilson Mizner [1876-1933]
"What comes to perfection perishes."
~~ Robert Browning [1812-89]
"The flowing river never ceases, yet the water is never the same."
~~ Kamo-no Chomei [1155-1216]
"After a while you realize that if you're a real writer, then, like all writers, you're finally at the mercy of your readers. And giving yourself up to them, you just write."
~~ Michael Ventura
"Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold."
~~ André Maurois [1885-1967]
"An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere."
~~ Gustave Flaubert [1821-80]
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
~~ Ben Franklin [1706-90]
"Man must learn to think for himself, rather than follow blindly what he has been taught."
~~ R. Buckminster Fuller [1895-1983]
"Not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime."
~~ Michael Mukasey, figurehead U.S Attorney General, 2008
"Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits."
~~ Thomas A. Edison [1847-1931]
"Without risk there is no possibility for glory."
~~ David Baldacci
“It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing. But I couldn’t give it up because by then I was too famous.”
~~ Robert Benchley [1889-1945]
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
~~ Dr. Seuss {Theodor Geisel 1904-91}
"The solution to the problems of human relationships is to be found in liberty."
~~ Frédéric Bastiat [1801-50]
"True believers are always wrong, whether they are Christians, Muslims or Jews."
~~ Janet Maker of Los Angeles, CA
"If death is truly the worst that can happen to a man, there is nothing to fear. But death is not the worst."
~~ Edward Abbey [1927-89]
"Don't ever let anyone monkey with your swing."
~~ baseball great Ted Williams [1918-2002]
"To lay blame is an abdication of power."
~~ Jeff Herman
"The province of art is ... all experience."
~~ Henry James [1843-1916]
"No man is rich enough to buy back his past."
~~ Oscar Wilde [1854-1900]
"To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from Himself."
~~ Samuel Johnson [1709-84]
"It is the good girls who keep the diaries; the bad girls never have the time."
~~ Tallulah Bankhead [1902-68]
"Every man has his price? That is not true. But for every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing."
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]
"Nothing is so detrimental to quality as success."
~~ J.M.K. Nyks
"It is better to be able neither to read nor write than to be able to do nothing else."
~~ William Hazlitt [1778-1830]
"The great rule is not to talk about money with people who have much more or much less than you."
~~ Katharine Whitehorn
"A man in love is incomplete until he is married. Then he is finished."
~~ Zsa Zsa Gabor
"Excesses are essentially gestures. It is easy to be extremely cruel, magnanimous, humble or self-sacrificing when we see ourselves as actors in a performance."
~~ Eric Hoffer [1902-83]
"I require only three things in a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid."
~~ Dorothy Parker [1893-1967]
"Our prejudices are our mistresses; reason is at best our wife, very often needed but seldom minded."
~~ Philip Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield [1694-1773]
"The best answer to anger is silence."
~~ German proverb
"Most women are not so young as they are painted."
~~ Max Beerbohm [1872-56]
"Sometimes I write sober and revise drunk, sometimes I write drunk and revise sober."
~~ Welsh poet Dylan Thomas [1914-54]
"Small things amuse small minds."
~~ Doris Lessing
"Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level."
~~ Quentin Crisp [1908-99]
"Paradoxes are verbal, they do not exist in the real world."
~~ Robert A. Heinlein [1907-88]
"Liberty is always dangerous, but the safest thing [that] we have."
~~ Harry Emerson Fosdick [1878-69]
"Most of us edge forward, painfully advancing, yard by yard; [the truly creative] parachute behind enemy lines."
~~ P.D. James
"We have at times to be willing to be guilty."
~~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer [1906-45]
"No man is lonely while eating spaghetti."
~~ Robert Morley [1906-92]
"If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done."
~~ anonymous
"To kiss the lips of women, love the gods, do justice, laugh, and know [that] the world is mad."
~~ motto of director Oliver Stone
"Anything new, anything worth doing, can't be recognized. People just don't have that much vision."
~~ Pablo Picasso [1881-1973]
"There is such a thing as evil which can exist without causation."
~~ John D. MacDonald [1916-86]
"Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self; the passionate state of mind is an expression of inner dissatisfaction."
~~ Eric Hoffer [1902-83]
"Art and morality have little to say to each other."
~~ Anthony Burgess [1917-93]
"A true realist demands the impossible; a true idealist demands the impractical."
~~ Marilyn vos Savant
"The most pitiful human ailment is a birdseed heart."
~~ Wilson Mizner [1876-1933]
"What comes to perfection perishes."
~~ Robert Browning [1812-89]
"The flowing river never ceases, yet the water is never the same."
~~ Kamo-no Chomei [1155-1216]
"After a while you realize that if you're a real writer, then, like all writers, you're finally at the mercy of your readers. And giving yourself up to them, you just write."
~~ Michael Ventura
"Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold."
~~ André Maurois [1885-1967]
"An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere."
~~ Gustave Flaubert [1821-80]
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Essay #80: Rebuttal To The Rove-McCain Virus Email
1) Each & every person who forwarded this email is politically brain-dead.
2) The content of this email is fascist propaganda, i.e. false information. {FASCISM: the takeover of a government by corporate & military interests, as opposed to government By The People}.
3) The current U.S. National Debt is TWENTY TRILLION DOLLARS, and somebody will have to pay it off, probably your grandchildren. What is unreporte4d (not on the books) includes the fact that Dubya has set aside ZERO dollars for bringing the troops home, and in fact, no money is designated for any military programs past fiscal 2010
4) If Republicans spend nothing more, the National Debt will STILL grow by TWO TRILLION DOLLARS in interest each year, which is basically extortion money paid to the Oligarchy (out of the workers/taxpayers' pockets).
5) Each and every person in America owes a National Debt portion of $70,000, including newborns and seniors with no income.
6) The Republicans spent the money, so let's give them the bill; that is $250,000 owed by each and every Republican (who get to keep their mealy mouths shut until they devise a plan to pay that debt).
7) Obama's ACTUAL plan is to CUT TAXES for the Middle Class by $1000 each and CANCEL the freebie Bush Tax Cuts deal for the Wealthy Class; McCain's plan is to give FURTHER tax cuts to the Wealthy Class.
8) The mis-named Death Tax does NOT affect you, only the wealthiest 100 families in the U.S; the über-rich Walton family has spent over $100 MILLION to propagandize the sheeple -- which is working quite well, since their expected benefit is in the BILLIONS (and nothing for you).
9) The Dividend Tax does not affect you unless you earn over $100,000 in unearned income / dividends in the tax year. DO YOU?
10) The 2008 election cycle gives all American citizens the chance to choose between a fascist dictatorship and a constitutional republic. That is the only choice before you, no matter your location – democracy or fascism?
11) If the actual cost of health care in the United States is counted as a tax, then American taxpayers pay the highest income tax rate in the world - for faulty health care. Every industrialized nation except the U.S. has a version of single-payer healthcare, and in each case, the system works and the people live longer. Cost of healthcare in America is 16% of G.D.P., double any other country -- for faulty health care and 40 million not covered for any such care. Any single-payer or everybody-is-covered health plan here will reduce that cost, period.
12) "Congress is controlled by the Democrats" is simply a Republican lie.
The House is currently 236 Dems to 199 Republicans: 56% to 44% is not that wide a margin.
The Senate is 49 to 49, with independents Bernie Sanders & 'Traitor' Joe Lieberman; votes often hinge on bootlicker Lieberman.
The 110th Congress last year DOUBLED the previous record for filibusters -- Republicans preventing any action by the Democrats-- and the number will likely break that record this year.
The sad truth is that Congress is controlled by lobbyists of the Corporatist Party: There are 66 lobbylists in Washington, DC for each member of Congress.
The two-part solution is campaign finance reform and enough Democrats to prevent such toddler-tantrum filibustering.
13) The budget is determined by the President, modified & passed into law by Congress. In Dubya's case, there is much spent that is truly off-budget, such as military funding (over & over) and the trillion-plus annual interest on the Republican National Debt.
14) America does not "tax corporations to death". Corporations are doing quite well, paying 15% in tax, while the dying Middle Class pays 28% or more. The last two years, savings in America has gone negative (and that is including what the Wealthy Class set aside) – the first such condition since the Republican Great Depression. Hmmm.
15) You forget (or never learned) that "Labor is the source of all wealth".
16) "We are a Republic, based on capitalism". You obviously failed Civics Class. The United States is a representative democracy, or was until the Reagan Revolution, which changed America into a fascist-corporatist Oligarchy.
The Oligarchy now owns 65% of everything in America (similar around the world), and the Wealthy Class own 90%. The Middle Class is near dead, labor unions are prevented by law from organizing, and the goal of the Oligarchy is slave wages, a rubber-stamp Congress, and elections based on Fox News propaganda.
17) I am not a liberal, nor is liberal a dirty word. I am a progressive, and the Republican Party is told what to do by the Corporatist-Fascists, as delivered to them by the lobbyists of K Street, etc.
Disregard this Rovian propaganda and vote in November. But be very clear about the choice that you are making: If you do not vote to restore constitutional democracy, or if you do not vote at all, then you have voted for the Corporatist-Fascist Oligarchy.
Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
2) The content of this email is fascist propaganda, i.e. false information. {FASCISM: the takeover of a government by corporate & military interests, as opposed to government By The People}.
3) The current U.S. National Debt is TWENTY TRILLION DOLLARS, and somebody will have to pay it off, probably your grandchildren. What is unreporte4d (not on the books) includes the fact that Dubya has set aside ZERO dollars for bringing the troops home, and in fact, no money is designated for any military programs past fiscal 2010
4) If Republicans spend nothing more, the National Debt will STILL grow by TWO TRILLION DOLLARS in interest each year, which is basically extortion money paid to the Oligarchy (out of the workers/taxpayers' pockets).
5) Each and every person in America owes a National Debt portion of $70,000, including newborns and seniors with no income.
6) The Republicans spent the money, so let's give them the bill; that is $250,000 owed by each and every Republican (who get to keep their mealy mouths shut until they devise a plan to pay that debt).
7) Obama's ACTUAL plan is to CUT TAXES for the Middle Class by $1000 each and CANCEL the freebie Bush Tax Cuts deal for the Wealthy Class; McCain's plan is to give FURTHER tax cuts to the Wealthy Class.
8) The mis-named Death Tax does NOT affect you, only the wealthiest 100 families in the U.S; the über-rich Walton family has spent over $100 MILLION to propagandize the sheeple -- which is working quite well, since their expected benefit is in the BILLIONS (and nothing for you).
9) The Dividend Tax does not affect you unless you earn over $100,000 in unearned income / dividends in the tax year. DO YOU?
10) The 2008 election cycle gives all American citizens the chance to choose between a fascist dictatorship and a constitutional republic. That is the only choice before you, no matter your location – democracy or fascism?
11) If the actual cost of health care in the United States is counted as a tax, then American taxpayers pay the highest income tax rate in the world - for faulty health care. Every industrialized nation except the U.S. has a version of single-payer healthcare, and in each case, the system works and the people live longer. Cost of healthcare in America is 16% of G.D.P., double any other country -- for faulty health care and 40 million not covered for any such care. Any single-payer or everybody-is-covered health plan here will reduce that cost, period.
12) "Congress is controlled by the Democrats" is simply a Republican lie.
The House is currently 236 Dems to 199 Republicans: 56% to 44% is not that wide a margin.
The Senate is 49 to 49, with independents Bernie Sanders & 'Traitor' Joe Lieberman; votes often hinge on bootlicker Lieberman.
The 110th Congress last year DOUBLED the previous record for filibusters -- Republicans preventing any action by the Democrats-- and the number will likely break that record this year.
The sad truth is that Congress is controlled by lobbyists of the Corporatist Party: There are 66 lobbylists in Washington, DC for each member of Congress.
The two-part solution is campaign finance reform and enough Democrats to prevent such toddler-tantrum filibustering.
13) The budget is determined by the President, modified & passed into law by Congress. In Dubya's case, there is much spent that is truly off-budget, such as military funding (over & over) and the trillion-plus annual interest on the Republican National Debt.
14) America does not "tax corporations to death". Corporations are doing quite well, paying 15% in tax, while the dying Middle Class pays 28% or more. The last two years, savings in America has gone negative (and that is including what the Wealthy Class set aside) – the first such condition since the Republican Great Depression. Hmmm.
15) You forget (or never learned) that "Labor is the source of all wealth".
16) "We are a Republic, based on capitalism". You obviously failed Civics Class. The United States is a representative democracy, or was until the Reagan Revolution, which changed America into a fascist-corporatist Oligarchy.
The Oligarchy now owns 65% of everything in America (similar around the world), and the Wealthy Class own 90%. The Middle Class is near dead, labor unions are prevented by law from organizing, and the goal of the Oligarchy is slave wages, a rubber-stamp Congress, and elections based on Fox News propaganda.
17) I am not a liberal, nor is liberal a dirty word. I am a progressive, and the Republican Party is told what to do by the Corporatist-Fascists, as delivered to them by the lobbyists of K Street, etc.
Disregard this Rovian propaganda and vote in November. But be very clear about the choice that you are making: If you do not vote to restore constitutional democracy, or if you do not vote at all, then you have voted for the Corporatist-Fascist Oligarchy.
Friday, August 29, 2008
August News Factoids
"97% of the music business in America is foreign-owned."
== Thom Hartmann (7/2008)
"The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates the we're going to have to spend $1.6 trillion over the next five years to rebuild our infrastructure."
== Janet Kavinosky, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
ENERGY CONCERNS
The local energy company here in New Mexico reported in the July billing that the per-therm cost of natural gas increased 63 percent from last July.
"Twenty-five percent of all bottled water sold in the U.S. is transported from overseas, and that transportation uses 50 million barrels of oil [annually]."
== The Santa Fe Reporter
JOBS
U.S. Jobless Rate Rises to 4-year High of 5.7 Percent
== Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1 August 2008
The U.S. has lost 458,000 jobs since January First.
== Time Magazine, July 2008
Between 2001 and 2007, the trade deficit caused the loss or displacement of 2.3 million jobs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, including 366,000 last year.
== Economic Policy Institute, 1 Aug 2008
THE U.S. ECONOMY
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said in August that the economy continues to be in a recession, by his definition, and will continue to be for at least several more months. He's confident the nation will be doing better five years from now, but the economy could be worse five months from now.
"Overall U.S. credit card debt grew by 435 percent from 2002 to year-end 2007, from $211 billion to approximately $915 billion."
==Danny Schechter
6% of U.S. homeowners are behind on their mortgage payments.
== Time Magazine, July 2008
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 11% and the S&P 500 is down 10.5% since January First.
== Time Magazine, July 2008
Consumer prices rose at double the expected rate ... jumping 0.8 percent in July ... inflation rising at fastest rate in 17 years
== news headlines 8/2008
Wholesale prices rose at fastest pace since 1981
== news headline 8/2008
"The Labor Department reported that wholesale prices shot up 1.2 percent in July ... more than twice the 0.5 percent gain that economists expected."
ECONOMIC UPDATE
Congress is raising the U.S. National Debt ceiling to $10.615 trillion. The U.S. economy also carries the burden of the subprime mortgage meltdow, with Federal agencies Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac separately owing or guaranteeing $5.2 trillion. Plus at least $3 trillion in off-the-books spending (nothing is allocated for the cost of bringing troops home from the Middle East, the infrastructure is collapsing, etc.), and more than a trillion dollars each year in interest must be paid on the Republican National Debt (basically extortion money paid to the corporatist Oligarchy).
That adds up to almost $20 trillion of debt foisted on the American taxpayer by the Republican policies of 'cut taxes on the rich' and 'spend & borrow'. Comparing the country's debt to the current U.S. economy measured at $14 trillion per year, the U.S. is clearly bankrupt.
Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
== Thom Hartmann (7/2008)
"The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates the we're going to have to spend $1.6 trillion over the next five years to rebuild our infrastructure."
== Janet Kavinosky, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
ENERGY CONCERNS
The local energy company here in New Mexico reported in the July billing that the per-therm cost of natural gas increased 63 percent from last July.
"Twenty-five percent of all bottled water sold in the U.S. is transported from overseas, and that transportation uses 50 million barrels of oil [annually]."
== The Santa Fe Reporter
JOBS
U.S. Jobless Rate Rises to 4-year High of 5.7 Percent
== Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1 August 2008
The U.S. has lost 458,000 jobs since January First.
== Time Magazine, July 2008
Between 2001 and 2007, the trade deficit caused the loss or displacement of 2.3 million jobs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, including 366,000 last year.
== Economic Policy Institute, 1 Aug 2008
THE U.S. ECONOMY
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said in August that the economy continues to be in a recession, by his definition, and will continue to be for at least several more months. He's confident the nation will be doing better five years from now, but the economy could be worse five months from now.
"Overall U.S. credit card debt grew by 435 percent from 2002 to year-end 2007, from $211 billion to approximately $915 billion."
==Danny Schechter
6% of U.S. homeowners are behind on their mortgage payments.
== Time Magazine, July 2008
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 11% and the S&P 500 is down 10.5% since January First.
== Time Magazine, July 2008
Consumer prices rose at double the expected rate ... jumping 0.8 percent in July ... inflation rising at fastest rate in 17 years
== news headlines 8/2008
Wholesale prices rose at fastest pace since 1981
== news headline 8/2008
"The Labor Department reported that wholesale prices shot up 1.2 percent in July ... more than twice the 0.5 percent gain that economists expected."
ECONOMIC UPDATE
Congress is raising the U.S. National Debt ceiling to $10.615 trillion. The U.S. economy also carries the burden of the subprime mortgage meltdow, with Federal agencies Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac separately owing or guaranteeing $5.2 trillion. Plus at least $3 trillion in off-the-books spending (nothing is allocated for the cost of bringing troops home from the Middle East, the infrastructure is collapsing, etc.), and more than a trillion dollars each year in interest must be paid on the Republican National Debt (basically extortion money paid to the corporatist Oligarchy).
That adds up to almost $20 trillion of debt foisted on the American taxpayer by the Republican policies of 'cut taxes on the rich' and 'spend & borrow'. Comparing the country's debt to the current U.S. economy measured at $14 trillion per year, the U.S. is clearly bankrupt.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
August Quotations
"Bring home the troops. Leave the contractors."
~~ G.E. Nordell
"The right's greatest enemy is reality."
~~ Markos Moulitsas Zúniga of DailyKos
"The best work that anybody ever writes is the work that is on the verge of embarrassing him, always."
~~ author / playwright Arthur Miller [1915-2005]
"It is historically true that a nation whose people take out more than they put in will collapse and disappear."
~~ John Steinbeck [1902-68] (in "America & Americans" 1966)
"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it."
~~ Helen Keller
"24 hours in a day. 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not."
~~ H.L. Mencken [1880-1956]
"[Stupidity] is the sin that is never forgiven and always punished."
~~ Hercule Poirot, as written by Agatha Christie [1890-1976]
"The existentialist acts rightly for no reason."
~~ G.E. Nordell
"It is impossible to discourage the real writers; they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write."
~~ Sinclair Lewis
"Cowards never lasted long enough to become real cowboys."
~~ Charles Goodnight
"You've got to get the job done, whatever it takes – that's the cowboy way."
~~ Cody Lambert
"The great cowboys are the ones with the biggest hearts."
~~ Ty Murray
"Maybe the American cowboy represents the last of the free men."
~~ Casey Tibbs
"The Old West is not a certain place in a certain time, it's a state of mind. It's whatever you want it to be."
~~ Tom Mix [1880-1940]
"Rumors about highbrow music ridiculous. Am out to write hits."
~~ George Gershwin (telegram to his agent, circa 1935)
"We're all dying ... [The] best we can do is go out with dignity – or having fun. I haven't made up my mind which one I want. I don't think [that] you can have both."
~~ mystery author Stuart M. Kaminsky
"A wise man knows everything, a shrewd man knows everbody."
~~ old saying
"Life is a difficult business... It needs infinite courage and a lot of endurance. And in the end one wonders, Was it worth while?"
~~ Agatha Christie [1890-1976]
"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."
~~ Thomas Edison
LAWS of LIFE
Ninety-Ninety Rule: "The first 90% of the [software project] code accounts for the first 90% of the development time. The remaining 10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of the development time."
Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving Systems Dynamics: "Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a bigger can."
Hoare's Law of Large Problems: "Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out."
Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
Clark's Law: "Sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice."
Brooks's Law: "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later."
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
~~ G.E. Nordell
"The right's greatest enemy is reality."
~~ Markos Moulitsas Zúniga of DailyKos
"The best work that anybody ever writes is the work that is on the verge of embarrassing him, always."
~~ author / playwright Arthur Miller [1915-2005]
"It is historically true that a nation whose people take out more than they put in will collapse and disappear."
~~ John Steinbeck [1902-68] (in "America & Americans" 1966)
"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it."
~~ Helen Keller
"24 hours in a day. 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not."
~~ H.L. Mencken [1880-1956]
"[Stupidity] is the sin that is never forgiven and always punished."
~~ Hercule Poirot, as written by Agatha Christie [1890-1976]
"The existentialist acts rightly for no reason."
~~ G.E. Nordell
"It is impossible to discourage the real writers; they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write."
~~ Sinclair Lewis
"Cowards never lasted long enough to become real cowboys."
~~ Charles Goodnight
"You've got to get the job done, whatever it takes – that's the cowboy way."
~~ Cody Lambert
"The great cowboys are the ones with the biggest hearts."
~~ Ty Murray
"Maybe the American cowboy represents the last of the free men."
~~ Casey Tibbs
"The Old West is not a certain place in a certain time, it's a state of mind. It's whatever you want it to be."
~~ Tom Mix [1880-1940]
"Rumors about highbrow music ridiculous. Am out to write hits."
~~ George Gershwin (telegram to his agent, circa 1935)
"We're all dying ... [The] best we can do is go out with dignity – or having fun. I haven't made up my mind which one I want. I don't think [that] you can have both."
~~ mystery author Stuart M. Kaminsky
"A wise man knows everything, a shrewd man knows everbody."
~~ old saying
"Life is a difficult business... It needs infinite courage and a lot of endurance. And in the end one wonders, Was it worth while?"
~~ Agatha Christie [1890-1976]
"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."
~~ Thomas Edison
LAWS of LIFE
Ninety-Ninety Rule: "The first 90% of the [software project] code accounts for the first 90% of the development time. The remaining 10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of the development time."
Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving Systems Dynamics: "Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a bigger can."
Hoare's Law of Large Problems: "Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out."
Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
Clark's Law: "Sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice."
Brooks's Law: "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later."
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Essay #79: We The People 2008
We The People are the sole Source of the Power that makes America what it is – or at least what America used to be.
The Declaration of Independence of 1776 documented the concept, and the U.S. Constitution of 1787 made the concept official, made the concept of We The People the Law of The Land.
* * * * * * * *
How you have Power is you give it away. How you have Love is you give it away – same principle.
How you have Freedom, also, is you give it away. And America stopped doing that in the time of Reagan-Bush.
President Reagan stomped on the unions and the environment and education, and harmed the Middle Class by the policies of Reaganomics, causing the Reagan Recession of July 1981 to November 1982.
George H.W. Bush continued the damage.
President Clinton worked both sides, helping the Middle Class somewhat while also giving the Oligarchy/Wealthy Class most of what they demanded.
George W. Bush has basically shredded Constitutional law – including removal of habeas corpus and legalization of posse comitatus – and bankrupted the country. (George W. Bush has run up more debt than any other human being in the history of Mankind!)
The Corporatists now run the U.S. federal government, except for a few American bureaucrats who have bided their time and worked inside the system to prevent even worse disasters.
And these Corporatists, some of whom qualify as fascists, did this while you were watching Paris Hilton & Lindsay Lohan & Brangela news footage.
* * * * * * * *
The Corporatists did not take America’s natural Power away, the sheeple in the middle surrendered it to them. Willing victims in the fight between Good and Evil, the sheeple just turned their hands in the air and switched their allegiance from the context ‘America The Beacon of Liberty’ to the context ‘Let Somebody Else Fight’.
The sheeple are cowards, and there are now many more of them than there used to be.
America took on the Germans in World War I and the Axis in World War II and the Commies during Korea and the Cold War and the Vietnam mess. America gave itself the Power to lead the Allies in the fight against Nazism and Fascism and Imperialism. It had to be done, and America in those days was a Beacon of Liberty, under F.D.R and Truman and Eisenhower and Kennedy.
And America won those battles and those wars – well, with the help of half the world. America showed what We The People can do, we demonstrated the Power of We The People to the rest of the world. We showed them. We were the People described in and created by the Founding Documents of this nation.
America began from a commitment to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” and to pass these values on to all Mankind. Giving these contexts away was central to the purpose of the nation, the natural Purpose of We The People.
It was the living of these ideals that gave America its Power, and we did indeed give it away – Emancipation, the G.I. Bill, the Marshall Plan, the United Nations – and we kept generating more and more Power, which we shared with the world. And much was accomplished: the space program, Salk’s polio vaccine, the microchip and the computer – and rock’n’roll.
Since then (since the era of Reagan-Bush) the Corporatists have had free reign. The Corporatists gave away our jobs. They have not given Freedom away, nor Justice, nor the American Dream. The Corporatists took American jobs and shipped them overseas, and they took half the wealth of this once-prosperous nation, robbed American workers and gave us twenty trillion dollars of the current U.S. National Debt in return.
Very bad deal.
The Republican Party spent that money, stashed it in their over-stuffed vaults, and they are responsible for paying that debt down. The Republicans owe the current U.S. National Debt, and that comes to $250,000 owed in taxes by each and every registered Republican. (The Middle Class has no money to do so, nor jobs; the savings rate in the U.S. has gone negative over the last two years.)
And not a single Republican has any honor, nor the G.O.P. itself, until the entire amount of the U.S. National Debt has been paid off, until their economic obligation is fulfilled.
The Republicans, as individuals and as a political party, dishonor the Constitution as they dishonor the debt that they owe We The People.
And We The People are now constituted as a collection agency. The Republican debt will be repaid by the Republicans, and that will happen when We The People regain control of Congress from the lobbyists and war profiteers and the idle rich of the Oligarchy and the Wealthy Class, whose Corporatist legions take the plutocratic position that they own We The People.
Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
The Declaration of Independence of 1776 documented the concept, and the U.S. Constitution of 1787 made the concept official, made the concept of We The People the Law of The Land.
How you have Power is you give it away. How you have Love is you give it away – same principle.
How you have Freedom, also, is you give it away. And America stopped doing that in the time of Reagan-Bush.
President Reagan stomped on the unions and the environment and education, and harmed the Middle Class by the policies of Reaganomics, causing the Reagan Recession of July 1981 to November 1982.
George H.W. Bush continued the damage.
President Clinton worked both sides, helping the Middle Class somewhat while also giving the Oligarchy/Wealthy Class most of what they demanded.
George W. Bush has basically shredded Constitutional law – including removal of habeas corpus and legalization of posse comitatus – and bankrupted the country. (George W. Bush has run up more debt than any other human being in the history of Mankind!)
The Corporatists now run the U.S. federal government, except for a few American bureaucrats who have bided their time and worked inside the system to prevent even worse disasters.
And these Corporatists, some of whom qualify as fascists, did this while you were watching Paris Hilton & Lindsay Lohan & Brangela news footage.
The Corporatists did not take America’s natural Power away, the sheeple in the middle surrendered it to them. Willing victims in the fight between Good and Evil, the sheeple just turned their hands in the air and switched their allegiance from the context ‘America The Beacon of Liberty’ to the context ‘Let Somebody Else Fight’.
The sheeple are cowards, and there are now many more of them than there used to be.
America took on the Germans in World War I and the Axis in World War II and the Commies during Korea and the Cold War and the Vietnam mess. America gave itself the Power to lead the Allies in the fight against Nazism and Fascism and Imperialism. It had to be done, and America in those days was a Beacon of Liberty, under F.D.R and Truman and Eisenhower and Kennedy.
And America won those battles and those wars – well, with the help of half the world. America showed what We The People can do, we demonstrated the Power of We The People to the rest of the world. We showed them. We were the People described in and created by the Founding Documents of this nation.
America began from a commitment to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” and to pass these values on to all Mankind. Giving these contexts away was central to the purpose of the nation, the natural Purpose of We The People.
It was the living of these ideals that gave America its Power, and we did indeed give it away – Emancipation, the G.I. Bill, the Marshall Plan, the United Nations – and we kept generating more and more Power, which we shared with the world. And much was accomplished: the space program, Salk’s polio vaccine, the microchip and the computer – and rock’n’roll.
Since then (since the era of Reagan-Bush) the Corporatists have had free reign. The Corporatists gave away our jobs. They have not given Freedom away, nor Justice, nor the American Dream. The Corporatists took American jobs and shipped them overseas, and they took half the wealth of this once-prosperous nation, robbed American workers and gave us twenty trillion dollars of the current U.S. National Debt in return.
Very bad deal.
The Republican Party spent that money, stashed it in their over-stuffed vaults, and they are responsible for paying that debt down. The Republicans owe the current U.S. National Debt, and that comes to $250,000 owed in taxes by each and every registered Republican. (The Middle Class has no money to do so, nor jobs; the savings rate in the U.S. has gone negative over the last two years.)
And not a single Republican has any honor, nor the G.O.P. itself, until the entire amount of the U.S. National Debt has been paid off, until their economic obligation is fulfilled.
The Republicans, as individuals and as a political party, dishonor the Constitution as they dishonor the debt that they owe We The People.
And We The People are now constituted as a collection agency. The Republican debt will be repaid by the Republicans, and that will happen when We The People regain control of Congress from the lobbyists and war profiteers and the idle rich of the Oligarchy and the Wealthy Class, whose Corporatist legions take the plutocratic position that they own We The People.
We The People are America, and the job of government is to do our bidding. The Republicans, the Corporatists will repay their debt and Freedom will return to this Nation, and we will again be that Beacon of Freedom and Justice for Mankind that America used to be.
We The People can and must retake this Nation, for the only alternative is economic slavery, a nation of sheeple hiding from Reality, cringing from their Duty as citizens. There is only one exit from this quagmire, and that is to roll up our individual and collective sleeves and get to work – by retaking Congress and local government, by standing together for What Is Right, by holding the hypocrites and traitors and propaganda parrots to account for the damage that they do.
We The People are the sole Source of the Power that makes America what it is. By retaining that Power we deflate the self-important windbags of the Oligarchy. When we restore the values of Family and Education and Progress and Freedom and Justice that built this Nation, we will once again be the Nation that the world admires and seeks to emulate.
Failure to turn the tide in this never-ending struggle will bring about the end of Liberty, and a New Dark Age for Mankind.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
July News Factoids
The irrational & false accusations by the Republican dis-information machine against Barack Obama has led to a new official website www.fightthesmears.com
Nearly three years after Hurrican Katrina, the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans is still missing 90% of its former residents.
== The Nation Magazine, July 2008
The folks at Californians for High-Speed Trains Coalition are promoting a line from Sacramento to Tehachapi-Lancaster to Los Angeles to Riverside to San Diego, with a branch from San Francisco to Gilroy meeting up just below Merced.
ECONOMIC CRISIS
Annual U.S. consumer spending is $9 trillion for 300 million people, while China's 1 billion people spend only one trillion dollars.
== Barbara Ehrenreich, in The Progressive Magazine
"This is the worst bout of selling since 9/11. Global equities, as measured by the MSCI World Index, have now declined more than 20% from their October 2007 all-time highs. Just since late May, more than six trillion dollars' worth of equity values has been erased worldwide."
== Eric Roseman, Soveriegn Society ezine
"Consumer prices surged in June at the fastest rate in 26 years"
== headline 15 July 2008
"Inflation is rising at a faster rate today than at any time in the last 25 years."
== Jack Cafferty, CNN newsman
HOUSING/MORTGAGE CRISIS
"[In Jan 2008,] the number of homes facing foreclosure [was] up 57% compared to the same month of the previous year."
== Mother Jones Magazine
"[In the first quarter of 2008,] foreclosure activity [was] reported up 112% from the first quarter of 2007."
== Mother Jones Magazine
U.S. home prices dropped a record 15.8% in May, according to Standard & Poors in July.
"New home sales down 0.6 percent in June"
== headline July 2008
ENERGY CRISIS
The local utility company here in New Mexico reported to customers in the June billing brochure that their cost of natural gas increased 43 percent over last year. The base billing price for electricity went up 19.5% for the summer and 12.2% for other months, with higher increases for larger users.
HEALTHCARE
In 2005, Taiwan's successful and efficient single-payer health care system cost 6.2% of G.D.P. compared with 16.2% for the U.S. In 2003, Taiwan spent less than $800 per person for health care, compared with a U.S. level of approximately $5500 (By 2005, U.S. health care spending had increased 6.9% to $6697 per person.)
== per Ian Williams, in The Washington Spectator
JOBS CRISIS
The unemployment rate for men is 13%, the rate for women is 27% unemployment
== talk show host Randi Rhodes, 12 June 2008
* * * * * * * *
The National Jobs For All Coalition lists June 2008 figures of an official jobless rate of 5.5% with 8.5 million Americans unemployed (an increase of 19.6% over last year). They also list Hidden Unemployment of 10.3 million, for a total of 18.8 million, or 11.8% of the workforce. Meanwhile, the latest figures (2006) show 16.4% of full-time workers are earning below the official poverty line.
In addition, the N.J.F.A.C. site cites Bureau of labor Statistics statistics for May 2008 of only 3.6 million job openings, which computes out to roughly five job-seekers for each job opening.
Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
Nearly three years after Hurrican Katrina, the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans is still missing 90% of its former residents.
== The Nation Magazine, July 2008
The folks at Californians for High-Speed Trains Coalition are promoting a line from Sacramento to Tehachapi-Lancaster to Los Angeles to Riverside to San Diego, with a branch from San Francisco to Gilroy meeting up just below Merced.
ECONOMIC CRISIS
Annual U.S. consumer spending is $9 trillion for 300 million people, while China's 1 billion people spend only one trillion dollars.
== Barbara Ehrenreich, in The Progressive Magazine
"This is the worst bout of selling since 9/11. Global equities, as measured by the MSCI World Index, have now declined more than 20% from their October 2007 all-time highs. Just since late May, more than six trillion dollars' worth of equity values has been erased worldwide."
== Eric Roseman, Soveriegn Society ezine
"Consumer prices surged in June at the fastest rate in 26 years"
== headline 15 July 2008
"Inflation is rising at a faster rate today than at any time in the last 25 years."
== Jack Cafferty, CNN newsman
HOUSING/MORTGAGE CRISIS
"[In Jan 2008,] the number of homes facing foreclosure [was] up 57% compared to the same month of the previous year."
== Mother Jones Magazine
"[In the first quarter of 2008,] foreclosure activity [was] reported up 112% from the first quarter of 2007."
== Mother Jones Magazine
U.S. home prices dropped a record 15.8% in May, according to Standard & Poors in July.
"New home sales down 0.6 percent in June"
== headline July 2008
ENERGY CRISIS
The local utility company here in New Mexico reported to customers in the June billing brochure that their cost of natural gas increased 43 percent over last year. The base billing price for electricity went up 19.5% for the summer and 12.2% for other months, with higher increases for larger users.
HEALTHCARE
In 2005, Taiwan's successful and efficient single-payer health care system cost 6.2% of G.D.P. compared with 16.2% for the U.S. In 2003, Taiwan spent less than $800 per person for health care, compared with a U.S. level of approximately $5500 (By 2005, U.S. health care spending had increased 6.9% to $6697 per person.)
== per Ian Williams, in The Washington Spectator
JOBS CRISIS
The unemployment rate for men is 13%, the rate for women is 27% unemployment
== talk show host Randi Rhodes, 12 June 2008
The National Jobs For All Coalition lists June 2008 figures of an official jobless rate of 5.5% with 8.5 million Americans unemployed (an increase of 19.6% over last year). They also list Hidden Unemployment of 10.3 million, for a total of 18.8 million, or 11.8% of the workforce. Meanwhile, the latest figures (2006) show 16.4% of full-time workers are earning below the official poverty line.
In addition, the N.J.F.A.C. site cites Bureau of labor Statistics statistics for May 2008 of only 3.6 million job openings, which computes out to roughly five job-seekers for each job opening.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Essay #78: The Robber Barons
Karl Rove is just the football. He’s not used to that, as he aspires to being an evil genius. But he is essentially a very weak person, and when finally cornered, he will sing like the spineless lackey that he has always been underneath.
There are knots of power that are able and determined to manipulate Congress and Bush and both Clintons and the media, all in a day’s work. It is the calling of these Robber Barons to subjugate the masses more and more so that the only seeming option is to do as bidden, to work in lockstep with the other sheeple, and to keep one’s head down for fear of losing one’s livelihood – and maybe even one’s life – in a trice.
The Robber Barons don’t need a reason to cause hardship (except their own profit), so the sheeple don’t dare make it easy by provid¬ing the slightest potential reason, since the Robber Barons will jump at the chance, and you know who’s gonna get screwed.
The Robber Barons are like sharks, circling and circling, then attacking in a frenzy when a victim appears within reach. They are piranha that will strip a carcass to the bone in minutes flat. They are locusts that consume anything and everything in their path.
* * * * * * * * We The People are required by the U.S. Constitution to retake the helm (of the Ship of State) when these pirates take control and steer the Ship hell-bent toward the rocks – again!
Death and fear and hate are their only actual weapons, which continue to work on the mindless sheeple of the world. The Robber Barons seek to steal Power from the People in order to fill the emptiness of their souls – which, being bottomless holes, never get filled up, so they steal more ...
We The People produce every last smidgen of real Power. The Constitution says so (and the Declaration of Independence). Except that the Power gets given away, by blindness & ignorance, or by stealth, or by coercion. The stupid sheeple live their petty, consumerist lives, desperately looking over their shoulders and fearing the future because all the input from the media makes them afraid. The Robber Barons make money creating disasters, then make money from ‘repairs’ that make things worse, then ask for tax breaks and no-bid contracts, because if the People hand over still more money to them then, of course, they will really get down to business this time and manage all problems away, just give them another four years without those pesky Democrats on their backs, and then you’ll see an economic renaissance like you’ve not seen since – well, like nothing you’ve ever seen or heard before.
And the sheeple buy it, because they are, after all, sheeple. And the world turns, and the Robber Barons of the Oligarchy own 90% of everything in America and around the world, and the price of everything steadily goes up and up, and the sheeple are forever in debt (to the modern version of the ‘company store’), But dammit, somebody’s got to fight the bastids, and there are never enough of us on the barricades to win many battles in a row, and the Class War is perpetual – say ‘Amen!’.
But the reason that the Robber Barons need to make We The People afraid is that they are afraid of us. They work real hard to divide the masses, to make us afraid of each other, when the fear-mongers are the ones rooted in fear. They are afraid of us, but they don’t know that we know that. (Actually, the sheeple haven’t a clue on this.)
It is time to let the Robber Baron elite of the Oligarchy know that we know.
* * * * * * * * Be sure to pass along to everyone that you know that We The People are independently creating a General Strike, a National Strike like they do in Europe, on September 11th in 2008 (the seventh anniversary of George W. Bush’s biggest screw-up).
Stay home, buy nothing, no phones or internet or other gadgets. No school, no work, no travel. Introduce yourself to the neglected strangers living in your house or neighborhood, the folks that you’ve ignored because there is never enough time to hang out with the people that you love and admire, we all are too busy ‘making ends meet’.
Well, the ends are gonna meet when you and I and all freedom-loving and patriotic Americans show our solidarity on September 11, a unity that will strike abject fear into the heartless Robber Barons, and the unresponsive leaders of both major parties, and every business with an empty parking lot.
The coordinating website is www.votestrike.org.
Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
There are knots of power that are able and determined to manipulate Congress and Bush and both Clintons and the media, all in a day’s work. It is the calling of these Robber Barons to subjugate the masses more and more so that the only seeming option is to do as bidden, to work in lockstep with the other sheeple, and to keep one’s head down for fear of losing one’s livelihood – and maybe even one’s life – in a trice.
The Robber Barons don’t need a reason to cause hardship (except their own profit), so the sheeple don’t dare make it easy by provid¬ing the slightest potential reason, since the Robber Barons will jump at the chance, and you know who’s gonna get screwed.
The Robber Barons are like sharks, circling and circling, then attacking in a frenzy when a victim appears within reach. They are piranha that will strip a carcass to the bone in minutes flat. They are locusts that consume anything and everything in their path.
Death and fear and hate are their only actual weapons, which continue to work on the mindless sheeple of the world. The Robber Barons seek to steal Power from the People in order to fill the emptiness of their souls – which, being bottomless holes, never get filled up, so they steal more ...
We The People produce every last smidgen of real Power. The Constitution says so (and the Declaration of Independence). Except that the Power gets given away, by blindness & ignorance, or by stealth, or by coercion. The stupid sheeple live their petty, consumerist lives, desperately looking over their shoulders and fearing the future because all the input from the media makes them afraid. The Robber Barons make money creating disasters, then make money from ‘repairs’ that make things worse, then ask for tax breaks and no-bid contracts, because if the People hand over still more money to them then, of course, they will really get down to business this time and manage all problems away, just give them another four years without those pesky Democrats on their backs, and then you’ll see an economic renaissance like you’ve not seen since – well, like nothing you’ve ever seen or heard before.
And the sheeple buy it, because they are, after all, sheeple. And the world turns, and the Robber Barons of the Oligarchy own 90% of everything in America and around the world, and the price of everything steadily goes up and up, and the sheeple are forever in debt (to the modern version of the ‘company store’), But dammit, somebody’s got to fight the bastids, and there are never enough of us on the barricades to win many battles in a row, and the Class War is perpetual – say ‘Amen!’.
But the reason that the Robber Barons need to make We The People afraid is that they are afraid of us. They work real hard to divide the masses, to make us afraid of each other, when the fear-mongers are the ones rooted in fear. They are afraid of us, but they don’t know that we know that. (Actually, the sheeple haven’t a clue on this.)
It is time to let the Robber Baron elite of the Oligarchy know that we know.
Stay home, buy nothing, no phones or internet or other gadgets. No school, no work, no travel. Introduce yourself to the neglected strangers living in your house or neighborhood, the folks that you’ve ignored because there is never enough time to hang out with the people that you love and admire, we all are too busy ‘making ends meet’.
Well, the ends are gonna meet when you and I and all freedom-loving and patriotic Americans show our solidarity on September 11, a unity that will strike abject fear into the heartless Robber Barons, and the unresponsive leaders of both major parties, and every business with an empty parking lot.
The coordinating website is www.votestrike.org.
Monday, July 21, 2008
July Quotations
"To be persuasive, we must be believable; to be believable, we must be credible; to be credible, we must be truthful."
~~ Edward R. Murrow [1908-65]
"Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
~~ Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 25:40)
"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."
~~ Samuel Johnson {favorite quote of Hunter S. Thompson [1937-2005]}
"Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?"
~~ William Saroyan [1908-81]
"The writer is a spiritual anarchist, as in the depth of his soul every man is. He is discontented with everything and everybody. The writer is everybody's best friend and only true enemy – the good and great enemy. He neither walks with the multitude nor cheers with them. The writer who is a writer is a rebel who never stops."
~~ William Saroyan [1908-81] in "The William Saroyan Reader" 1958
"Trashy books are as hard to write as good ones."
~~ Lev Grossman
"If the dream of self-invention is profoundly democratic, it is also an open invitation to fraud."
~~ David Samuels
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
~~ President Abraham Lincoln [1809-65] in a letter written to Col. William Elkins on 21 November 1864
"Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat."
~~ former U.S. Navy Secretary John Lehman
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
~~ Hunter S. Thompson [1937-2005]
"[President Bush]'s subversion of the Constitution outdoes anything that has gone before, and ... has created large social constituencies ready to support the flag-waving ideals of an incremental fascism."
~~ E.L. Doctorow
"Somehow, plutocracy has furtively triumphed over democracy."
~~ Steve Fraser
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."
~~ Hunter S. Thompson [1937-2005]
"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived."
~~ Isaac Asimov
"If Job #1 for the next American president is getting us out of Iraq, Job #2 is leading the world's response to global climate change."
~~ Dave Contarino, manager of Bill Richardson's presidential campaign
"Inkstands and teacups are never so full as when one upsets them."
~~ Edith Wharton [1862-1937]
"Every novelist is a failed poet."
~~ F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896-1940]
"It is by attempting to reach the top at a single leap that so much misery is caused in the world."
~~ William Cobbett
"By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with."
~~ Duke Ellington [1899-1974]
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."
~~ Hunter S. Thompson [1937-2005]
"[Creationists] who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution as not being adequately supported by facts seem to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all."
~~ Herbert Spencer [1820-1903] in an 1852 essay
"Persistence. That's the secret of a good detective."
~~ Earl Derr Biggers [1884-1933], creator of detective Charlie Chan
"The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation more than its wealth."
~~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
A FEW FROM Cesar E. Chavez [1927-93]
"You are never strong enough that you don't need help."
"It is not enough to teach our young people to be successful ... so they can realize their ambitions, so they can earn good livings, so they can accumulate the material things that this society bestows. Those are worthwhile goals. But it is not enough to progress as individuals while our friends and neighbors are left behind."
"The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating."
"Being of service is not enough. You must become a servant of the people. When you do, you can demand their commitment in return."
{many other such quotations are posted
on the Working Minds website}
~~ Edward R. Murrow [1908-65]
"Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
~~ Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 25:40)
"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."
~~ Samuel Johnson {favorite quote of Hunter S. Thompson [1937-2005]}
"Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?"
~~ William Saroyan [1908-81]
"The writer is a spiritual anarchist, as in the depth of his soul every man is. He is discontented with everything and everybody. The writer is everybody's best friend and only true enemy – the good and great enemy. He neither walks with the multitude nor cheers with them. The writer who is a writer is a rebel who never stops."
~~ William Saroyan [1908-81] in "The William Saroyan Reader" 1958
"Trashy books are as hard to write as good ones."
~~ Lev Grossman
"If the dream of self-invention is profoundly democratic, it is also an open invitation to fraud."
~~ David Samuels
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
~~ President Abraham Lincoln [1809-65] in a letter written to Col. William Elkins on 21 November 1864
"Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat."
~~ former U.S. Navy Secretary John Lehman
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
~~ Hunter S. Thompson [1937-2005]
"[President Bush]'s subversion of the Constitution outdoes anything that has gone before, and ... has created large social constituencies ready to support the flag-waving ideals of an incremental fascism."
~~ E.L. Doctorow
"Somehow, plutocracy has furtively triumphed over democracy."
~~ Steve Fraser
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."
~~ Hunter S. Thompson [1937-2005]
"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived."
~~ Isaac Asimov
"If Job #1 for the next American president is getting us out of Iraq, Job #2 is leading the world's response to global climate change."
~~ Dave Contarino, manager of Bill Richardson's presidential campaign
"Inkstands and teacups are never so full as when one upsets them."
~~ Edith Wharton [1862-1937]
"Every novelist is a failed poet."
~~ F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896-1940]
"It is by attempting to reach the top at a single leap that so much misery is caused in the world."
~~ William Cobbett
"By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with."
~~ Duke Ellington [1899-1974]
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."
~~ Hunter S. Thompson [1937-2005]
"[Creationists] who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution as not being adequately supported by facts seem to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all."
~~ Herbert Spencer [1820-1903] in an 1852 essay
"Persistence. That's the secret of a good detective."
~~ Earl Derr Biggers [1884-1933], creator of detective Charlie Chan
"The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation more than its wealth."
~~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
A FEW FROM Cesar E. Chavez [1927-93]
"You are never strong enough that you don't need help."
"It is not enough to teach our young people to be successful ... so they can realize their ambitions, so they can earn good livings, so they can accumulate the material things that this society bestows. Those are worthwhile goals. But it is not enough to progress as individuals while our friends and neighbors are left behind."
"The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating."
"Being of service is not enough. You must become a servant of the people. When you do, you can demand their commitment in return."
on the Working Minds website}
Monday, June 30, 2008
Essay #77: In The Middle Are The Sheeple
The Paretto Principle states that “For many events, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes”, which is valid in many realms. Versions include “Twenty percent of any group do 80% of the work”, and “Twenty percent of customers (or sales force) produce 80% of business activity.”
However, in modern times, the numbers have shifted.
* * * * * * * *
The American Revolution of 1775 to 1783 was not a popular war. The active revolutionary colonists on one side were about 25% of the population; the Tories on the other side wanted King George to prevail. The sheeple in the middle tried to avoid engagement with either side: they had crops to raise and kine to tend and commodities were scarce and whale oil for their lamps cost too darn much. They would rather just be left alone.
In politics, one side is progressive, which means to work for the betterment of all. On the other side are the regressives and the repressives. Each side is roughly one quarter, and the fifty percent in the middle are the sheeple.
The sheeple do whatever they are told to do, by advertising or by community pressure, and generally have a tough life, one with too much work to do and never enough time.
The warmongers are on one side. Warmongers start wars because that is their reason for existence. On the other side are the peacemakers; their work is to stop wars. The sheeple in the middle take the brunt of military carnage, including cannon-fodder funerals in the heartland and in the barrio.
The top fourth of taxpayers own 90% of everything. The bottom quarter – non-taxpayers all – own nothing. The Middle Class 40% below the Wealthy Class are losing net worth, working harder and are paid with a shrunken dollar, while their benefits disappear like mountaintops in West Virginia.
Religious fanatics are on one side, and individuals who value Reason are on the other. The sheeple in the middle live in a soap opera of their own making.
Dogmatists are on one side, those who believe in and obey some magical system. But the situation is worsened because they also require that everybody obey their brand of subservience. The other side are free spirits, exercising Free Will, high on the Maslow Pyramid, acting for the good of all, based in their basic trust of the goodness in themselves (if not of the opposing dogmatists).
The sheeple in the middle careen from false solution to false solution, hoping for rest or respite, and seldom see marvelous happenings as their future. They struggle to survive, never having the sense that they are ‘over the hump’, and end their lives having missed out on just about everything.
* * * * * * * *
The progressives are too nice for their own good, thinking that if they just try a little harder, they can tip the balance of the Class War in favor of a better life. But the sheeple are in the middle, a mass of unconscious prey to the machinations of the regressive side.
The sheeple surrender control to whoever makes them afraid, which is the regressive side – the fascists, the fundamentalists, the racists, the fearmongers of all stripes, and their propaganda networks bombarding young and old 24/7 with hate, fear, and sleaze.
The regressives know well and use the moves of Machiavelli, the tactics of Hitler and Goebbels, and the recent strategies of Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay, and Karl ‘T*rdblossom’ Rove.
The future of America, and the World, will be determined by whether the sheeple are blinded by fear for fear’s sake, or whether some new paradigm can be instilled in the culture, wherein the meek sheeple actually find a backbone and stand up to the machinery designed to make them afraid.
Whoever is making you afraid, for whatever purpose or agenda, the fact that they want to make you afraid, that they work hard to make you afraid, should instead make you angry.
Very angry.
* * * * * * * *
The Paretto Principle has its uses, but does not apply to grand scheme-y things such as the Perpetual Class War, nor the Battle Between Good and Evil.
The Principle of Two Quarters is officially stated thus:
“In any conflict, the side that is for progress is about 25% of the population; the side that opposes progress is about 25% of the population; and in the middle are the sheeple.”
Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
However, in modern times, the numbers have shifted.
The American Revolution of 1775 to 1783 was not a popular war. The active revolutionary colonists on one side were about 25% of the population; the Tories on the other side wanted King George to prevail. The sheeple in the middle tried to avoid engagement with either side: they had crops to raise and kine to tend and commodities were scarce and whale oil for their lamps cost too darn much. They would rather just be left alone.
In politics, one side is progressive, which means to work for the betterment of all. On the other side are the regressives and the repressives. Each side is roughly one quarter, and the fifty percent in the middle are the sheeple.
The sheeple do whatever they are told to do, by advertising or by community pressure, and generally have a tough life, one with too much work to do and never enough time.
The warmongers are on one side. Warmongers start wars because that is their reason for existence. On the other side are the peacemakers; their work is to stop wars. The sheeple in the middle take the brunt of military carnage, including cannon-fodder funerals in the heartland and in the barrio.
The top fourth of taxpayers own 90% of everything. The bottom quarter – non-taxpayers all – own nothing. The Middle Class 40% below the Wealthy Class are losing net worth, working harder and are paid with a shrunken dollar, while their benefits disappear like mountaintops in West Virginia.
Religious fanatics are on one side, and individuals who value Reason are on the other. The sheeple in the middle live in a soap opera of their own making.
Dogmatists are on one side, those who believe in and obey some magical system. But the situation is worsened because they also require that everybody obey their brand of subservience. The other side are free spirits, exercising Free Will, high on the Maslow Pyramid, acting for the good of all, based in their basic trust of the goodness in themselves (if not of the opposing dogmatists).
The sheeple in the middle careen from false solution to false solution, hoping for rest or respite, and seldom see marvelous happenings as their future. They struggle to survive, never having the sense that they are ‘over the hump’, and end their lives having missed out on just about everything.
The progressives are too nice for their own good, thinking that if they just try a little harder, they can tip the balance of the Class War in favor of a better life. But the sheeple are in the middle, a mass of unconscious prey to the machinations of the regressive side.
The sheeple surrender control to whoever makes them afraid, which is the regressive side – the fascists, the fundamentalists, the racists, the fearmongers of all stripes, and their propaganda networks bombarding young and old 24/7 with hate, fear, and sleaze.
The regressives know well and use the moves of Machiavelli, the tactics of Hitler and Goebbels, and the recent strategies of Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay, and Karl ‘T*rdblossom’ Rove.
The future of America, and the World, will be determined by whether the sheeple are blinded by fear for fear’s sake, or whether some new paradigm can be instilled in the culture, wherein the meek sheeple actually find a backbone and stand up to the machinery designed to make them afraid.
Whoever is making you afraid, for whatever purpose or agenda, the fact that they want to make you afraid, that they work hard to make you afraid, should instead make you angry.
Very angry.
The Paretto Principle has its uses, but does not apply to grand scheme-y things such as the Perpetual Class War, nor the Battle Between Good and Evil.
The Principle of Two Quarters is officially stated thus:
“In any conflict, the side that is for progress is about 25% of the population; the side that opposes progress is about 25% of the population; and in the middle are the sheeple.”
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
June Quotations
"Nothing lives long, only the earth and mountains."
== White Antelope, chief of the Cheyenne
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”
== Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 19:24, Mark 10:25, Luke 18:25)
"The best relationship is one where your love for each other exceeds your need for each other."
== Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
"The future belongs to those who are passionate and work hard."
== Sen. Paul Wellstone [1944-2002] of Minnesota
"Sit down, and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it."
== Colette [1873-1954]
"If you want something, hold out an empty hand. If you want a poem, find a blank page."
== beat poet Philip Whalen [1923-2002]
"[T]he accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence ... So long as wealth is made the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it."
== Calvin Coolidge [1872-1933]
"In America, to look a couple of years younger than you actually are is not only an achievement for which you are to be congratulated, it is patriotic."
== Cynthia Propper Seton
"I don't mind living in a man's world as long as I can be a woman in it."
== Marilyn Monroe [1926-62]
"Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued."
== Socrates [469 B.C.E.–399 B.C.E.]
"Adventure is worthwhile in itself."
== Amelia Earhart [1897-1937]
"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go."
== T.S. Eliot [1888-1965]
"When you're going thru hell, keep going."
== Sir Winston Churchill [1874-1965]
"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go."
== William Feather
"You only live once, but if you work it right, once is enough."
== boxer Joe Louis [1914-81]
"The energy of the mind is the essence of life."
== Aristotle [384-322 B.C.E.]
"In the modern U.S. of A., grease is a condiment."
== G.E. Nordell
"Hedge funds are the sophisticated way to lose money, as opposed to the more mundane way[s]."
== Robert Hurley, of Stoddard Management
{many other such quotations are posted
on the Working Minds website}
== White Antelope, chief of the Cheyenne
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”
== Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 19:24, Mark 10:25, Luke 18:25)
"The best relationship is one where your love for each other exceeds your need for each other."
== Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
"The future belongs to those who are passionate and work hard."
== Sen. Paul Wellstone [1944-2002] of Minnesota
"Sit down, and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it."
== Colette [1873-1954]
"If you want something, hold out an empty hand. If you want a poem, find a blank page."
== beat poet Philip Whalen [1923-2002]
"[T]he accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence ... So long as wealth is made the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it."
== Calvin Coolidge [1872-1933]
"In America, to look a couple of years younger than you actually are is not only an achievement for which you are to be congratulated, it is patriotic."
== Cynthia Propper Seton
"I don't mind living in a man's world as long as I can be a woman in it."
== Marilyn Monroe [1926-62]
"Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued."
== Socrates [469 B.C.E.–399 B.C.E.]
"Adventure is worthwhile in itself."
== Amelia Earhart [1897-1937]
"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go."
== T.S. Eliot [1888-1965]
"When you're going thru hell, keep going."
== Sir Winston Churchill [1874-1965]
"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go."
== William Feather
"You only live once, but if you work it right, once is enough."
== boxer Joe Louis [1914-81]
"The energy of the mind is the essence of life."
== Aristotle [384-322 B.C.E.]
"In the modern U.S. of A., grease is a condiment."
== G.E. Nordell
"Hedge funds are the sophisticated way to lose money, as opposed to the more mundane way[s]."
== Robert Hurley, of Stoddard Management
on the Working Minds website}
Friday, June 06, 2008
Essay #76: “How To Survive The Coming Depression”
The economic situation in the United States is so bad right now that even the Democratic Party (i.e. President Barack Obama) may not be able to pull us out from under the $12 trillion National Debt run up by the Reagan-Bush and by the Bush 43 administrations.
None of us, nor all of us working together, can prevent dire consequnces from their tripling of the price of gas/petrol at the pump, by increasing the price of crude oil by 400% per barrel, nor from the impact of fuel prices on food and other necessities.
But there are steps that an Individual can take that will ease the inevitable economic pain, and perhaps soften the long-term effect on your children and grandchildren.
* * * * * * * *
1) Start now! – The longer that you wait, the stronger the negative impact on you and on your family.
2) Get out of the Virtual Economy – Pay off your credit cards. Park all but three of them, carrying for emergencies the three charging the least interest.
3) Spend only in the Cash Economy – If you don’t have the cash, then don’t buy (whatever).
4) Explore the Barter Economy – See whether you have some skill or asset that can be traded, or even sold face-to-face for cash.
5) Investments – If you own any stocks or mutual funds, grad¬ually sell off the higher-risk (non-equity) holdings and purchase gold and silver: the metal itself, not any futures products (too risky).
6) Debt – Make double payments on the mortgage on your home. If you have any mortgaged investment property, sell it for what you can get, and use the proceeds to pay down your home mortgage.
7) Transportation – Make double payments on your automobile/s, and give up plans to buy a new vehicle until the current one wears out, or you have the cash to make such a purchase.
8) Emergency Planning – Get ready for spot shortages in elec¬tricity, oil & gas (petrol, heating oil, natural gas). Stock up on supplies like we did for the Y2K fiasco.
9) Balance? – If you have any cash left over (each month), pay off debt and-or stock your pantry.
10) Hug your children. Leave generous tips. Hug your children. Let the other driver go first. Hug your family. Watch the sunset (or sunrise) with someone that you love.
11) And be not afraid.
Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
None of us, nor all of us working together, can prevent dire consequnces from their tripling of the price of gas/petrol at the pump, by increasing the price of crude oil by 400% per barrel, nor from the impact of fuel prices on food and other necessities.
But there are steps that an Individual can take that will ease the inevitable economic pain, and perhaps soften the long-term effect on your children and grandchildren.
1) Start now! – The longer that you wait, the stronger the negative impact on you and on your family.
2) Get out of the Virtual Economy – Pay off your credit cards. Park all but three of them, carrying for emergencies the three charging the least interest.
3) Spend only in the Cash Economy – If you don’t have the cash, then don’t buy (whatever).
4) Explore the Barter Economy – See whether you have some skill or asset that can be traded, or even sold face-to-face for cash.
5) Investments – If you own any stocks or mutual funds, grad¬ually sell off the higher-risk (non-equity) holdings and purchase gold and silver: the metal itself, not any futures products (too risky).
6) Debt – Make double payments on the mortgage on your home. If you have any mortgaged investment property, sell it for what you can get, and use the proceeds to pay down your home mortgage.
7) Transportation – Make double payments on your automobile/s, and give up plans to buy a new vehicle until the current one wears out, or you have the cash to make such a purchase.
8) Emergency Planning – Get ready for spot shortages in elec¬tricity, oil & gas (petrol, heating oil, natural gas). Stock up on supplies like we did for the Y2K fiasco.
9) Balance? – If you have any cash left over (each month), pay off debt and-or stock your pantry.
10) Hug your children. Leave generous tips. Hug your children. Let the other driver go first. Hug your family. Watch the sunset (or sunrise) with someone that you love.
11) And be not afraid.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
June News Factoids
A report came out May 2 that the No Child Left Behind program has NOT improved reading scores in any state, with many states losing ground.
In the past 12 months ... corn is up 70%, sugar is up 72%, and the all-important price of crude oil is up by an astounding 102%.
== Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. (Money & Markets Newsletter, May 2008)
"[Our] Army is starting to unravel. Our Air Force is starting to come apart. The Navy is the smallest since pre-World War Two."
== Gen. Barry McCaffrey [USArmy retired] in Senate testimony, April 2008
Godzilla has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Several economists have pointed out on Air America/NovaM radio shows that the pump price of gas/petrol is NOT going down. So plan accordingly.
The Pope recently issued a list of new official sins, which include road rage, genetic engineeering, and excessive wealth. But he forgot one: Having more than 15 items in the Express Checkout lane.
On a recent road trip, it soon became obvious that long-distance truckers are taking steps in reaction to the rise in price of diesel fuel, now close to $5 a gallon. Word got out that most trucks are designed for best fuel efficiency at 65 MPH -- so that is the speed of most big-rig trucks on the Interstate. Only a few truckers were at or above the speed limit, but the ones I saw seemed to be connected to oil drilling and refining. Most passenger vehicles are keeping to 70 MPH, politely maneuvering around the slower trucks, with maybe 10% of drivers going faster, the folks that were in a hurry (or self-important).
The drop in King salmon 'yields' from California's Sacramento River from 2002 to 2008 is estimated at 92%.
== Time Magazine
So far this year, these new pages have been added or split off or started on my bookstore websites:
pages about movie people
Woody Allen
Agent 007 James Bond
Sergei M. Eisenstein
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Pierre Melville
cowboy star Tom Mix
Satyajit Ray
King Vidor
pages about American authors & artists
William Faulkner
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Arthur Miller
Georgia O'Keeffe
Eugene O'Neill
Robert Louis Stevenson
Gore Vidal
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
plus topic pages for
Simultaneous Bilingual Film Production
Beatnik Film Festival
Culver City Online Film Festival
Hispanic-American Cinema
Cinema Pioneers
Current Directors & Actors
Roadside Americana
In the past 12 months ... corn is up 70%, sugar is up 72%, and the all-important price of crude oil is up by an astounding 102%.
== Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. (Money & Markets Newsletter, May 2008)
"[Our] Army is starting to unravel. Our Air Force is starting to come apart. The Navy is the smallest since pre-World War Two."
== Gen. Barry McCaffrey [USArmy retired] in Senate testimony, April 2008
Godzilla has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Several economists have pointed out on Air America/NovaM radio shows that the pump price of gas/petrol is NOT going down. So plan accordingly.
The Pope recently issued a list of new official sins, which include road rage, genetic engineeering, and excessive wealth. But he forgot one: Having more than 15 items in the Express Checkout lane.
On a recent road trip, it soon became obvious that long-distance truckers are taking steps in reaction to the rise in price of diesel fuel, now close to $5 a gallon. Word got out that most trucks are designed for best fuel efficiency at 65 MPH -- so that is the speed of most big-rig trucks on the Interstate. Only a few truckers were at or above the speed limit, but the ones I saw seemed to be connected to oil drilling and refining. Most passenger vehicles are keeping to 70 MPH, politely maneuvering around the slower trucks, with maybe 10% of drivers going faster, the folks that were in a hurry (or self-important).
The drop in King salmon 'yields' from California's Sacramento River from 2002 to 2008 is estimated at 92%.
== Time Magazine
So far this year, these new pages have been added or split off or started on my bookstore websites:
pages about movie people
Woody Allen
Agent 007 James Bond
Sergei M. Eisenstein
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Pierre Melville
cowboy star Tom Mix
Satyajit Ray
King Vidor
pages about American authors & artists
William Faulkner
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Arthur Miller
Georgia O'Keeffe
Eugene O'Neill
Robert Louis Stevenson
Gore Vidal
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
plus topic pages for
Simultaneous Bilingual Film Production
Beatnik Film Festival
Culver City Online Film Festival
Hispanic-American Cinema
Cinema Pioneers
Current Directors & Actors
Roadside Americana
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
May Quotations
"Supply-side economics is a bogus system."
== Ravi Batra
"Machiavelli described ways to destroy your enemy, and those ways are very effective. Unfortunately, the context is that everyone is your enemy, so that it is okay (and necessary) to destroy all."
== G.E. Nordell
"Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives."
== James Joyce [1882-1941]
"When anyone in the media cites 'buzz' as their basis, the rest of the sentence has been manufactured."
== G.E. Nordell
"Nothing kinder than strangers. Nothing stranger than kindness."
== Sara Paretsky
“Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace.”
== Eugene O'Neill [1888-1953]
"Need a job? Ask a Republican."
== G.E. Nordell
"All truly great art is optimistic. The individual artist is happy in his creative work. The fact that practically all great art is tragic does not in any way change the above thesis."
== Upton Sinclair [1878-1968]
"I’ve been married three times, so I’ve had lots of supervision."
== Upton Sinclair [1878-1968]
“In love, women are professionals, men are amateurs.”
== François Truffaut [1932-84]
"No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it."
== Andrew Carnegie [1835-1919]
"No nation keeps its word. A nation is a big, blind worm, following what? Fate perhaps. A nation has no honor, it has no word to keep."
== Carl Jung [1875-1961]
"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
== poet John Donne [1572-1631]
"Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value."
== Arthur Miller [1915-2005]
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
== Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]
“Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.”
== actor James Dean [1931-55]
"I'd rather tangle with a burglar than a television executive any day."
== ex-cop/author Joseph Wambaugh
"I go on working for the same reason [that] a hen goes on laying eggs."
== H.L. Mencken [1880-1956]
"Be civil to all; serviceable to many: familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none."
== Benjamin Franklin [1706-90] (in "Poor Richard's Almanack")
"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
== Benjamin Franklin [1706-90]
"Courage is the main quality of the Warrior Mind."
== Ravi Batra
"I pity the French Cinema because it has no money. I pity the American Cinema because it has no ideas."
== Jean-Luc Godard
"A man can be destroyed but not defeated."
== Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961]
"If my films don't show a profit, I know I'm doing something right."
== Woody Allen
"Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means."
== Albert Einstein [1879-1955]
"Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death – fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant.
== Edna Ferber [1885-1968]
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
== Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]
"You've got to give up being a little son of a bitch.".
== Harry Margolis
A FEW FROM George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity."
"Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done."
"There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it."
"I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor."
"Liberty means responsibility. That's why most men dread it."
{many other such quotations are posted
on the Working Minds website}
== Ravi Batra
"Machiavelli described ways to destroy your enemy, and those ways are very effective. Unfortunately, the context is that everyone is your enemy, so that it is okay (and necessary) to destroy all."
== G.E. Nordell
"Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives."
== James Joyce [1882-1941]
"When anyone in the media cites 'buzz' as their basis, the rest of the sentence has been manufactured."
== G.E. Nordell
"Nothing kinder than strangers. Nothing stranger than kindness."
== Sara Paretsky
“Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace.”
== Eugene O'Neill [1888-1953]
"Need a job? Ask a Republican."
== G.E. Nordell
"All truly great art is optimistic. The individual artist is happy in his creative work. The fact that practically all great art is tragic does not in any way change the above thesis."
== Upton Sinclair [1878-1968]
"I’ve been married three times, so I’ve had lots of supervision."
== Upton Sinclair [1878-1968]
“In love, women are professionals, men are amateurs.”
== François Truffaut [1932-84]
"No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it."
== Andrew Carnegie [1835-1919]
"No nation keeps its word. A nation is a big, blind worm, following what? Fate perhaps. A nation has no honor, it has no word to keep."
== Carl Jung [1875-1961]
"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
== poet John Donne [1572-1631]
"Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value."
== Arthur Miller [1915-2005]
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
== Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]
“Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.”
== actor James Dean [1931-55]
"I'd rather tangle with a burglar than a television executive any day."
== ex-cop/author Joseph Wambaugh
"I go on working for the same reason [that] a hen goes on laying eggs."
== H.L. Mencken [1880-1956]
"Be civil to all; serviceable to many: familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none."
== Benjamin Franklin [1706-90] (in "Poor Richard's Almanack")
"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
== Benjamin Franklin [1706-90]
"Courage is the main quality of the Warrior Mind."
== Ravi Batra
"I pity the French Cinema because it has no money. I pity the American Cinema because it has no ideas."
== Jean-Luc Godard
"A man can be destroyed but not defeated."
== Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961]
"If my films don't show a profit, I know I'm doing something right."
== Woody Allen
"Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means."
== Albert Einstein [1879-1955]
"Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death – fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant.
== Edna Ferber [1885-1968]
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
== Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]
"You've got to give up being a little son of a bitch.".
== Harry Margolis
A FEW FROM George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity."
"Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done."
"There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it."
"I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor."
"Liberty means responsibility. That's why most men dread it."
on the Working Minds website}
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Design for George W. Bush Presidential Library
On March 30th, the quadrennial General Conference of the United Methodist Church, meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, voted 844 to 20 to reject the George W. Bush Presidential Library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
Darn. Here I went and designed a building to house the Bush Administration documents that have not been classified Über-Secret for a hundred years.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
May News Factoids
Arctic ice in September 2007 was 23 percent less than the previous record low. == AP News
Super Tuesday voting on February 5th added up to 8.3 million Republicans who voted in those states vs. 14.6 Democrats.
For every 10,000 manuscripts submitted for children's books, only three are published. == Home Testing Institute
The two-term Clinton administration added 521 species to the federal Endangered Species List; Bush 41 added 231 species in one term; the Bush 43 administration has added only 59 species to the list in its seven years. == Time Magazine
Chrysler Corp. has a new program to shut down small dealerships across America. Each existing dealership now must pay half a million dollars UP FRONT for the privilege of remaining an official Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep etc. dealer for the next five years. Family dealerships in small towns are charged the same as dealers in urban markets, no negotiation or options.
WAR WITH IRAQ & IRAN:
U.S. troops are paying $3.50 a gallon for gas or deisel in Baghdad.
"2007 was the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Iraq." == Scott Ritter
ENERGY:
Ten years ago, kerosene heating oil in Vermont was 75 cents a gallon; today the price is $4.50 a gallon. Figuring on a typical 200-gallon tank, a refill went from $150 for the winter season to $900 for the season.
Five years ago, oil was $26 per barrel; oil went above $117 per barrel on 21 April 2008.
ECONOMICS:
The price of rice has doubled worldwide in the last four months.
== AP Radio News
The price of wheat flour has tripled in two years. == AP Radio News
If you make $28,000 a year, then you are in the top 50% of taxpayers; $55,000 puts you in the top 25%; and $92,000 puts you in the top 10%, the so-called 'super-rich'. {data from 2007} — Said another way, 90% of American taxpayers make below $95,000 per year.
U.S. home prices plunged by a record 8.4 percent in November 2007, marking two years of slowing returns.
"Construction spending fell again in February as home building tumbled for a record 24th straight month."
== U.S. Commerce Department, on 31 March 2008
Housing sales dropped in March to the lowest level in 16 years, and the bottom has not yet been reached. == AP Radio News
"Combined market value of independent, publicly-traded U.S. newspaper publishers has fallen by 42 percent in the past three years." == Eric Alterman (in The Nation, February 2008)
U.S. job cuts in December were greater than jobs created (while 150,000 net jobs are needed to keep even with the monthly population increase). == AP Radio News
BLOCKING TELEMARKETERS: Cell phone numbers were released this week to the telemarketing industry, and it will now be open season on all cell phone users – AND you will be charged for the call.
The solution is to call the National DO NOT CALL Registry [est. October 2003] at 1-888-382-1222 from your cell phone; it takes about a minute.
Telemarketers must obey these new Registry list restrictions starting on June First.
You can list all the phone numbers at your household or business concern online at http://www.DoNotCall.gov
Super Tuesday voting on February 5th added up to 8.3 million Republicans who voted in those states vs. 14.6 Democrats.
For every 10,000 manuscripts submitted for children's books, only three are published. == Home Testing Institute
The two-term Clinton administration added 521 species to the federal Endangered Species List; Bush 41 added 231 species in one term; the Bush 43 administration has added only 59 species to the list in its seven years. == Time Magazine
Chrysler Corp. has a new program to shut down small dealerships across America. Each existing dealership now must pay half a million dollars UP FRONT for the privilege of remaining an official Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep etc. dealer for the next five years. Family dealerships in small towns are charged the same as dealers in urban markets, no negotiation or options.
WAR WITH IRAQ & IRAN:
U.S. troops are paying $3.50 a gallon for gas or deisel in Baghdad.
"2007 was the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Iraq." == Scott Ritter
ENERGY:
Ten years ago, kerosene heating oil in Vermont was 75 cents a gallon; today the price is $4.50 a gallon. Figuring on a typical 200-gallon tank, a refill went from $150 for the winter season to $900 for the season.
Five years ago, oil was $26 per barrel; oil went above $117 per barrel on 21 April 2008.
ECONOMICS:
The price of rice has doubled worldwide in the last four months.
== AP Radio News
The price of wheat flour has tripled in two years. == AP Radio News
If you make $28,000 a year, then you are in the top 50% of taxpayers; $55,000 puts you in the top 25%; and $92,000 puts you in the top 10%, the so-called 'super-rich'. {data from 2007} — Said another way, 90% of American taxpayers make below $95,000 per year.
U.S. home prices plunged by a record 8.4 percent in November 2007, marking two years of slowing returns.
"Construction spending fell again in February as home building tumbled for a record 24th straight month."
== U.S. Commerce Department, on 31 March 2008
Housing sales dropped in March to the lowest level in 16 years, and the bottom has not yet been reached. == AP Radio News
"Combined market value of independent, publicly-traded U.S. newspaper publishers has fallen by 42 percent in the past three years." == Eric Alterman (in The Nation, February 2008)
U.S. job cuts in December were greater than jobs created (while 150,000 net jobs are needed to keep even with the monthly population increase). == AP Radio News
BLOCKING TELEMARKETERS: Cell phone numbers were released this week to the telemarketing industry, and it will now be open season on all cell phone users – AND you will be charged for the call.
The solution is to call the National DO NOT CALL Registry [est. October 2003] at 1-888-382-1222 from your cell phone; it takes about a minute.
Telemarketers must obey these new Registry list restrictions starting on June First.
You can list all the phone numbers at your household or business concern online at http://www.DoNotCall.gov
Friday, May 02, 2008
An Open Letter To Barack Obama
Take the gloves off.
You are fighting FOR the American people, not with them.
You are the only candidate for President who represents We The People. We were sold a load of crap in 2000, and the election was stolen in 2004.
We want our country back.
Billary sold out to the Corporatist Party – Richard Mellon Scaife, Rupert Murdoch, The Family, et al – long ago and Hillary thinks that she is entitled to dominion over the American people.
Not true, no way, no how.
John McCain is an unstable tyrant and a warmonger, and the saddest thing about this political season is that McCain is the best that the remnants of the Republican Party could come up with. (The key personality on the G.O.P. ticket will be the V.P. choice. If McCain wins the Oval Office through American stupidity or Corporatist chicanery, he will not serve his full term and the new President will be -- Lieberman? Romney? O.M.G. !!)
We The People demand restoration of Constitutional Democracy in these United States, we demand a return to the Rule of Law (not even George W. Bush is above the law), and we demand Freedom (from economic slavery), Justice (over corruption and cronyism), and Liberty (without tyranny by a self-declared 'unitary executive').
We The People demand that this country be restored to its former glory as the economic engine of the Free World, not the planet's greatest debtor nation. We demand that this country be restored as the beacon of democratic government and freedom and liberty for all peoples, rather than a bad example of imperial oppression. We demand that this country restore itself as the shining example of a free and prosperous and peaceful nation, as we were decades back, and that we hold all individuals and nationa accountable to the same high standard.
We The People want you, Barack Obama, to lead us. Like the Founding Fathers, We The People must "mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor" to restore the Constitution in America, and we ask that you take the gloves off and lead us in this battle for the soul of the United States of America.
You are fighting FOR the American people, not with them.
You are the only candidate for President who represents We The People. We were sold a load of crap in 2000, and the election was stolen in 2004.
We want our country back.
Billary sold out to the Corporatist Party – Richard Mellon Scaife, Rupert Murdoch, The Family, et al – long ago and Hillary thinks that she is entitled to dominion over the American people.
Not true, no way, no how.
John McCain is an unstable tyrant and a warmonger, and the saddest thing about this political season is that McCain is the best that the remnants of the Republican Party could come up with. (The key personality on the G.O.P. ticket will be the V.P. choice. If McCain wins the Oval Office through American stupidity or Corporatist chicanery, he will not serve his full term and the new President will be -- Lieberman? Romney? O.M.G. !!)
We The People demand restoration of Constitutional Democracy in these United States, we demand a return to the Rule of Law (not even George W. Bush is above the law), and we demand Freedom (from economic slavery), Justice (over corruption and cronyism), and Liberty (without tyranny by a self-declared 'unitary executive').
We The People demand that this country be restored to its former glory as the economic engine of the Free World, not the planet's greatest debtor nation. We demand that this country be restored as the beacon of democratic government and freedom and liberty for all peoples, rather than a bad example of imperial oppression. We demand that this country restore itself as the shining example of a free and prosperous and peaceful nation, as we were decades back, and that we hold all individuals and nationa accountable to the same high standard.
We The People want you, Barack Obama, to lead us. Like the Founding Fathers, We The People must "mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor" to restore the Constitution in America, and we ask that you take the gloves off and lead us in this battle for the soul of the United States of America.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
April Quotations
“The private control of credit is the modern form of slavery.”
~~ Upton Sinclair [1878-1968]
"Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes."
~~ Bertolt Brecht [1898-1956]
"Hell, if I'd jumped on all the dames [that] I'm supposed to have jumped on, I'd have had no time to go fishing."
~~ Clark Gable [1901-60]
"Love is the greatest refreshment in life."
~~ Pablo Picasso [1881-1973]
"By any common-sense definition, we are in a recession."
~~ capitalist Warren Buffett, in March 2008
"An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage."
~~ Jack Welch
"The Revolution is never over, the Class War is perpetual. Which side are you on?"
~~ G.E. Nordell
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right."
~~ Thomas Paine [1737-1809]
"Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil."
~~ Thomas Mann [1875-1955]
"I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do."
~~ Edward Hale
"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little."
~~ Edmund Burke [1729-97]
"Unless you are good at guessing, it is not much use being a detective."
~~ Hercule Poirot, as written by Agatha Christie [1890-1976]
"War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography."
~~ Ambrose Bierce [1842-1914]
"A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward."
~~ Franklin D. Roosevelt [1882-1945]
"In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
"Fiction is founded on fact – but is rather superior to it."
~~ Agatha Christie [1890-1976]
“Fascism is capitalism plus murder.”
~~ Upton Sinclair [1878-1968]
"I'd rather be dead than afraid."
~~ Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr,, on 4 April 1968 (the day of his assassination)
A FEW FROM William Faulkner [1897-1962]
"It's a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can't eat for eight hours; he can't drink for eight hours; he can't make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work."
"The end of wisdom is to dream high enough to lose the dream in the seeking of it."
"A man's moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream."
"All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible."
{previous quotations are posted
at the Working Minds website}
~~ Upton Sinclair [1878-1968]
"Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes."
~~ Bertolt Brecht [1898-1956]
"Hell, if I'd jumped on all the dames [that] I'm supposed to have jumped on, I'd have had no time to go fishing."
~~ Clark Gable [1901-60]
"Love is the greatest refreshment in life."
~~ Pablo Picasso [1881-1973]
"By any common-sense definition, we are in a recession."
~~ capitalist Warren Buffett, in March 2008
"An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage."
~~ Jack Welch
"The Revolution is never over, the Class War is perpetual. Which side are you on?"
~~ G.E. Nordell
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right."
~~ Thomas Paine [1737-1809]
"Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil."
~~ Thomas Mann [1875-1955]
"I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do."
~~ Edward Hale
"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little."
~~ Edmund Burke [1729-97]
"Unless you are good at guessing, it is not much use being a detective."
~~ Hercule Poirot, as written by Agatha Christie [1890-1976]
"War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography."
~~ Ambrose Bierce [1842-1914]
"A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward."
~~ Franklin D. Roosevelt [1882-1945]
"In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
"Fiction is founded on fact – but is rather superior to it."
~~ Agatha Christie [1890-1976]
“Fascism is capitalism plus murder.”
~~ Upton Sinclair [1878-1968]
"I'd rather be dead than afraid."
~~ Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr,, on 4 April 1968 (the day of his assassination)
A FEW FROM William Faulkner [1897-1962]
"It's a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can't eat for eight hours; he can't drink for eight hours; he can't make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work."
"The end of wisdom is to dream high enough to lose the dream in the seeking of it."
"A man's moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream."
"All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible."
{previous quotations are posted
at the Working Minds website}
Sunday, March 30, 2008
March News Factoids
The entire flap about what Barack Obama should have done about retired pastor Rev. Wright's speech last December was manufactured by John McCain's campaign. The posting to YouTube was tracked to a McCain staffer, and what they left out was that Wright was quoting a white man, a guest commentator on the Fox Noise Network.
The German press (only) reports that just days after Dick Cheney's visit to the Middle East, the official propaganda arm of the government of Saudi Arabia has published plans for how their citizens should prepare for possible nuclear war in a neighboring country.
Rumors abound among U.S. Navy & Air Force personnel (per emails to family) that the attack on Iran is planned for Sunday April 6th.
The race for the White House is between three distinct parties, the Democrats and the Republicans and the Corporatists: Hillary Clinton is owned by the Corporatist Party, and the G.O.P.'s John Mccain is a warmonger. Barack Obama is the only gentleman of the three.
In March, a huge chunk of ice the size of Connecticut broke away from the Wilkins Ice Shelf on Antarctic Peninsula near South Americaa.
THE ECONOMY
Home equity has fallen below an average 50% for the first time since 1945. ==A.P. Radio News
Employers slashed jobs by 63,000 in February, the most in five years. Job losses suffered in January were worse than the government first reported; employers cut 22,000 jobs, versus 17,000. == A.P. News
Mortgage foreclosures hit an all-time high in the last quarter of 2007. == Mortgage Bankers Assn.
The U.S. lost 225,000 jobs in February 2008 per the monthly government Household Survey.
Dubya's fiscal 2009 budget cut medical help for 9/11 first reponders by 77%.
Gas reached $4.08 & 9/10 in March in Needles, CA.
U.S. banks made out like the bandits that they are from the Subprime Mortgage Meltdown. The Federal Reserve Bank in March essentially purchased up to $200 billion of worthless (junk) bonds from the crooked mortgage-lending banks with our tax dollars 'to prevent economic collapse' – and the banks still have the foreclosed real estate!
The German press (only) reports that just days after Dick Cheney's visit to the Middle East, the official propaganda arm of the government of Saudi Arabia has published plans for how their citizens should prepare for possible nuclear war in a neighboring country.
Rumors abound among U.S. Navy & Air Force personnel (per emails to family) that the attack on Iran is planned for Sunday April 6th.
The race for the White House is between three distinct parties, the Democrats and the Republicans and the Corporatists: Hillary Clinton is owned by the Corporatist Party, and the G.O.P.'s John Mccain is a warmonger. Barack Obama is the only gentleman of the three.
In March, a huge chunk of ice the size of Connecticut broke away from the Wilkins Ice Shelf on Antarctic Peninsula near South Americaa.
THE ECONOMY
Home equity has fallen below an average 50% for the first time since 1945. ==A.P. Radio News
Employers slashed jobs by 63,000 in February, the most in five years. Job losses suffered in January were worse than the government first reported; employers cut 22,000 jobs, versus 17,000. == A.P. News
Mortgage foreclosures hit an all-time high in the last quarter of 2007. == Mortgage Bankers Assn.
The U.S. lost 225,000 jobs in February 2008 per the monthly government Household Survey.
Dubya's fiscal 2009 budget cut medical help for 9/11 first reponders by 77%.
Gas reached $4.08 & 9/10 in March in Needles, CA.
U.S. banks made out like the bandits that they are from the Subprime Mortgage Meltdown. The Federal Reserve Bank in March essentially purchased up to $200 billion of worthless (junk) bonds from the crooked mortgage-lending banks with our tax dollars 'to prevent economic collapse' – and the banks still have the foreclosed real estate!
Friday, March 28, 2008
WM Essay #75: “P.N.A.C., Fascism & Bush”
The United States of America is on the cusp of a Constitutional crisis. Americans do not want this, but impeachment is the only (peaceful) means to prevent P.N.A.C. and the Bush bullies from declaring themselves a totalitarian government. If things do not go well, i.e. Constitutional protection for all Americans is further destroyed, then the likely result will be armed conflict in the streets of America, complete disruption of the American lifestyle, the collapse of commerce here and around the world, and perhaps a modern Dark Age.
• The price of gas/petrol won’t matter, because there won’t be any on the market.
• Extinction of the polar bear and destruction of natural habitat won’t matter, because humans will be in danger of extinction.
• The Middle East will erupt into a continental bloodbath.
• China will roll across Russia like Rommel did across the African deserts.
• Food safety inside America will not matter because there won’t be enough food produced within our borders to prevent the starvation of millions.
• The engine of the U.S. economy will implode, making the Weimar Republic’s inflation look like a raid on a piggy bank.
The sections that follow move briefly thru the history of P.N.A.C., the construction of U.S. concentration camps, the intentional destruction of rights in America, to the recently-decreed takeover strategy (with documentation), and a few predictions.
Note also that I may become a target of the fascists for the simple act of standing in the First Amendment context of Freedom of Speech and passing these comments on to others; and you may be targeted by the Bush brownshirts (per the decrees below) because you clicked on this page.
* * * * * * * *
PROJECT FOR A NEW AMERICAN CENTURY
{ reference material at Wikipedia }
P.N.A.C was created in 1997, along with a "Statement of Principles" document dated June 1997, which defines an “imperial agenda of U.S. military expansionism”. Expectations in other documents about a ‘New Pearl Harbor’ event were satisfied by the attack on September 11, 2001, and are being touted as being fulfilled on an even larger scale ‘very soon’.
Important officials of P.N.A.C. include: co-founder & chairman William Kristol, most visible as a propagandist at Fox News; co-founder Robert Kagan, who lives in Belgium with his wife, Bush’s ambassador to N.A.T.O.; director Bruce P. Jackson, who was a weapons division vice president at Lockheed-Martin; and director Randy Scheunemann, who has been a foreign policy advisor to Sen. Trent Lott, to Secretary Donald R. Rumsfeld (on Iraq), and to G.O.P. presidential candidate John McCain.
Signatories to the Statement of Principles in 1997 include convicted liar Elliott Abrams; evangelical politico Gary Bauer; gambling addict William J. Bennett; First Brother Jeb Bush of Florida; traitor Dick Cheney; State Dept. lawyer Eliot A. Cohen; neo-conservative couple Midge Decter & editor-author Norman Podhoretz {in-laws of Elliott Abrams}; Fox News pundit Steve Forbes; current U.N. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad; traitor & convicted liar ‘Scooter’ Libby; Dan Quayle; fired War Secretary Donald R. Rumsfeld; D.C. lobbyist Vin Weber; and Paul Wolfowitz, deposed for nepotism at the World Bank.
Others involved in P.N.A,C. include confessed traitor Richard L. Armitage; former U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton; columnist Charles Krauthammer; defense lobbyist Richard Perle; and current World Bank president Robert B. Zoellick.
These creeps, and other scum such as the Federalist Society, are secretly running the government of the United States. George Bush is not a member of P.N.A.C.; he is merely their obedient puppet.
* * * * * * * *
MARTIAL LAW
Posse comitatus is a principle of common law going back centuries, with laws designed to prevent the government from using its military against its own people. The USA PATRIOT Act of October 2001 includes many exceptions to the posse comitatus restrictions of federal law (1878 & since). Section 104 of the PATRIOT Act authorizes the emergency use of the military in ‘case of attack with a weapon of mass destruction’.
{ Center for Defense Information article of August 2002 }
As reported in WMail Issue #57 (March 2006), the Kellogg-Brown-Root spinoff from Halliburton got another no-bid government contract, with maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term, to build concentration camps in the United States.
{ Halliburton press release of January 2005 }
(Actually, this author is not likely to be on any Threat List maintained by the fascisti, but these concentration camps will hold a lot of people, roundups are likely to be indiscriinate, and lots of just plain folk will be detained without cause – even you and me.)
President Dubya has tried several times to get authorization to use the Army to quarantine large geographic areas in the event of an epidemic of avian bird flu (or similar excuse). The plan usually states that Federal troops would prevent entrance or exit to the quarantined area by anyone. { CNN report of October 2005 }
The Military Commissions Act of November 2006 provides that aliens declared an ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ have no right to appeal their detention per habeas corpus {Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution). The War Department, the Justice Department, the lower courts and the Supreme Court are tossing this football back and forth, with the ultimate goal being a decision whether the right of habeas corpus applies to aliens or citizens or both or neither ‘during an emergency’.
Then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee in January 2007 that the right of habeas corpus is not part of the Constitution. Sadly, he may be right. { reference material at Wikipedia }
George Bush is now prepared to declare himself Dictator of the United States. His Emergency Presidential Directive 51 {N.S.P.D.-51 and H.S.P.D.-20}, dated 9 May 2007, states that the President can assume control of all three branches of government in the event of a ‘catastrophic emergency’ (defined as anything the President decides) anywhere in the world, and that all federal, state and local agencies are required to ‘cooperate’ with every edict from the President-slash-Dictator.
{ text of N.S.P.D.-51 on the White House website }
The most recent dangerous document from Dubya basically cancels the Fifth Amendment provisions for due process. The title of the quietly-posted 17 July 2007 document is Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq; its effect is that the President gives himself the power to sieze anyone that he decides is a threat, or that is suspected of being a future threat, and anyone that might conspire with others to be a threat, and to seize all property and freeze all assets of such persons, and that there is no recourse in law: no habeas corpus, no judicial review, and no one will even know when or where or why such a person is detained. (The detainees will likely be in a Halliburton-built concentration camp, but of course, the locations are very secret.)
{ text on the White House website }
* * * * * * * *
PREDICTIONS
Paul Craig Roberts, lifelong conservative Republican and former Asst. Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan, surprised many by writing an op-ed piece last summer entitled “Impeach Now: Or Face the End of Constitutional Democracy”. His central premise is the warning that after going to all the trouble of illegal wire-tapping of Americans, of building up the Blackwater & Triple Canopy mercenary armies, of inventing powers of the ‘unitary executive’ – that the P.N.A.C. folks will NOT hand over such powers to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama (or to any other Democratic winner of a legitimate election). Therefore, Constitutional rule will be cancelled before the November 2008 national election – UNLESS the Bush gang is removed by impeachment.
{ text of the article by Paul Craig Roberts }
In July, radio host Randi Rhodes interviewed a consultant to the C.I.A. and other agencies who stated that the United States has so few active military, or even National Guard, that the declaration of martial law can not be enforced. I was relieved for a while, and then I realized that all Der Führer has to do is order conscription of 18- to 25-year-olds into the military; or maybe not: without posse comitatus manpower to enforce such a draft, this may prove difficult. (There remain Blackwater’s goons.)
Unfortunately, the bottom line is the super-tough question: Is Bush a genius posing as an idiot, or an idiot posing as a genius?
Cheney is a psychopath, and Bush is psychotic, so there is no telling what they will do, even if, or especially if, the exercise of their false authority cannot work. The fascists of P.N.A.C. want chaos and anarchy, the collapse of the rule of law, and a fearful and compliant population.
They took us into Iraq, plans abound for the attack on Iran, this country is bankrupt, and the U.S. Constitution has been shredded – plans that work are not Bush’s strong suit.
Congress has already issued subpoenas for Harriet Meiers, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales and others; failure to appear will result in votes for ‘inherent contempt of Congress’, which will put them in jail. The impeachment of Rove and Gonzales and Bush and Cheney and Rice will lead to a critical confrontation between the three branches of government.
The year 2008 is certain to be a long and hot campaign year.
Impeachment or dictatorship: Choose.
Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
• The price of gas/petrol won’t matter, because there won’t be any on the market.
• Extinction of the polar bear and destruction of natural habitat won’t matter, because humans will be in danger of extinction.
• The Middle East will erupt into a continental bloodbath.
• China will roll across Russia like Rommel did across the African deserts.
• Food safety inside America will not matter because there won’t be enough food produced within our borders to prevent the starvation of millions.
• The engine of the U.S. economy will implode, making the Weimar Republic’s inflation look like a raid on a piggy bank.
The sections that follow move briefly thru the history of P.N.A.C., the construction of U.S. concentration camps, the intentional destruction of rights in America, to the recently-decreed takeover strategy (with documentation), and a few predictions.
Note also that I may become a target of the fascists for the simple act of standing in the First Amendment context of Freedom of Speech and passing these comments on to others; and you may be targeted by the Bush brownshirts (per the decrees below) because you clicked on this page.
PROJECT FOR A NEW AMERICAN CENTURY
{ reference material at Wikipedia }
P.N.A.C was created in 1997, along with a "Statement of Principles" document dated June 1997, which defines an “imperial agenda of U.S. military expansionism”. Expectations in other documents about a ‘New Pearl Harbor’ event were satisfied by the attack on September 11, 2001, and are being touted as being fulfilled on an even larger scale ‘very soon’.
Important officials of P.N.A.C. include: co-founder & chairman William Kristol, most visible as a propagandist at Fox News; co-founder Robert Kagan, who lives in Belgium with his wife, Bush’s ambassador to N.A.T.O.; director Bruce P. Jackson, who was a weapons division vice president at Lockheed-Martin; and director Randy Scheunemann, who has been a foreign policy advisor to Sen. Trent Lott, to Secretary Donald R. Rumsfeld (on Iraq), and to G.O.P. presidential candidate John McCain.
Signatories to the Statement of Principles in 1997 include convicted liar Elliott Abrams; evangelical politico Gary Bauer; gambling addict William J. Bennett; First Brother Jeb Bush of Florida; traitor Dick Cheney; State Dept. lawyer Eliot A. Cohen; neo-conservative couple Midge Decter & editor-author Norman Podhoretz {in-laws of Elliott Abrams}; Fox News pundit Steve Forbes; current U.N. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad; traitor & convicted liar ‘Scooter’ Libby; Dan Quayle; fired War Secretary Donald R. Rumsfeld; D.C. lobbyist Vin Weber; and Paul Wolfowitz, deposed for nepotism at the World Bank.
Others involved in P.N.A,C. include confessed traitor Richard L. Armitage; former U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton; columnist Charles Krauthammer; defense lobbyist Richard Perle; and current World Bank president Robert B. Zoellick.
These creeps, and other scum such as the Federalist Society, are secretly running the government of the United States. George Bush is not a member of P.N.A.C.; he is merely their obedient puppet.
MARTIAL LAW
Posse comitatus is a principle of common law going back centuries, with laws designed to prevent the government from using its military against its own people. The USA PATRIOT Act of October 2001 includes many exceptions to the posse comitatus restrictions of federal law (1878 & since). Section 104 of the PATRIOT Act authorizes the emergency use of the military in ‘case of attack with a weapon of mass destruction’.
{ Center for Defense Information article of August 2002 }
As reported in WMail Issue #57 (March 2006), the Kellogg-Brown-Root spinoff from Halliburton got another no-bid government contract, with maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term, to build concentration camps in the United States.
{ Halliburton press release of January 2005 }
(Actually, this author is not likely to be on any Threat List maintained by the fascisti, but these concentration camps will hold a lot of people, roundups are likely to be indiscriinate, and lots of just plain folk will be detained without cause – even you and me.)
President Dubya has tried several times to get authorization to use the Army to quarantine large geographic areas in the event of an epidemic of avian bird flu (or similar excuse). The plan usually states that Federal troops would prevent entrance or exit to the quarantined area by anyone. { CNN report of October 2005 }
The Military Commissions Act of November 2006 provides that aliens declared an ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ have no right to appeal their detention per habeas corpus {Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution). The War Department, the Justice Department, the lower courts and the Supreme Court are tossing this football back and forth, with the ultimate goal being a decision whether the right of habeas corpus applies to aliens or citizens or both or neither ‘during an emergency’.
Then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee in January 2007 that the right of habeas corpus is not part of the Constitution. Sadly, he may be right. { reference material at Wikipedia }
George Bush is now prepared to declare himself Dictator of the United States. His Emergency Presidential Directive 51 {N.S.P.D.-51 and H.S.P.D.-20}, dated 9 May 2007, states that the President can assume control of all three branches of government in the event of a ‘catastrophic emergency’ (defined as anything the President decides) anywhere in the world, and that all federal, state and local agencies are required to ‘cooperate’ with every edict from the President-slash-Dictator.
{ text of N.S.P.D.-51 on the White House website }
The most recent dangerous document from Dubya basically cancels the Fifth Amendment provisions for due process. The title of the quietly-posted 17 July 2007 document is Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq; its effect is that the President gives himself the power to sieze anyone that he decides is a threat, or that is suspected of being a future threat, and anyone that might conspire with others to be a threat, and to seize all property and freeze all assets of such persons, and that there is no recourse in law: no habeas corpus, no judicial review, and no one will even know when or where or why such a person is detained. (The detainees will likely be in a Halliburton-built concentration camp, but of course, the locations are very secret.)
{ text on the White House website }
PREDICTIONS
Paul Craig Roberts, lifelong conservative Republican and former Asst. Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan, surprised many by writing an op-ed piece last summer entitled “Impeach Now: Or Face the End of Constitutional Democracy”. His central premise is the warning that after going to all the trouble of illegal wire-tapping of Americans, of building up the Blackwater & Triple Canopy mercenary armies, of inventing powers of the ‘unitary executive’ – that the P.N.A.C. folks will NOT hand over such powers to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama (or to any other Democratic winner of a legitimate election). Therefore, Constitutional rule will be cancelled before the November 2008 national election – UNLESS the Bush gang is removed by impeachment.
{ text of the article by Paul Craig Roberts }
In July, radio host Randi Rhodes interviewed a consultant to the C.I.A. and other agencies who stated that the United States has so few active military, or even National Guard, that the declaration of martial law can not be enforced. I was relieved for a while, and then I realized that all Der Führer has to do is order conscription of 18- to 25-year-olds into the military; or maybe not: without posse comitatus manpower to enforce such a draft, this may prove difficult. (There remain Blackwater’s goons.)
Unfortunately, the bottom line is the super-tough question: Is Bush a genius posing as an idiot, or an idiot posing as a genius?
Cheney is a psychopath, and Bush is psychotic, so there is no telling what they will do, even if, or especially if, the exercise of their false authority cannot work. The fascists of P.N.A.C. want chaos and anarchy, the collapse of the rule of law, and a fearful and compliant population.
They took us into Iraq, plans abound for the attack on Iran, this country is bankrupt, and the U.S. Constitution has been shredded – plans that work are not Bush’s strong suit.
Congress has already issued subpoenas for Harriet Meiers, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales and others; failure to appear will result in votes for ‘inherent contempt of Congress’, which will put them in jail. The impeachment of Rove and Gonzales and Bush and Cheney and Rice will lead to a critical confrontation between the three branches of government.
The year 2008 is certain to be a long and hot campaign year.
Impeachment or dictatorship: Choose.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Three-Party Presidential Race
Going into the final primary elections of 2008, there are three opposing contenders. Hillary Clinton versus Barack Obama versus John McCain.
McCain has lousy political beliefs and is a hothead, but he seems never to have wavered from his loyalty to America. Obama is a political descendent of Abe Lincoln, and he has the ability to manage the country even during crises such as a Civil War (which is entirely possible if he does get elected).
The most dangerous candidate is Hillary Clinton, who has sold out already to the Corporatist Party.
She has met with and made deals with Rupert Murdoch and Richard Mellon Scaife, and the corporations are funding her campaign (while Obama & McCain hustle for donations from The People).
The D.N.C. and chairman Howard Dean try to be fair, avoiding Hillary's on-going attempts at coercion & manipulation.
If Barack wins the nomination, he will beat McCain and things will get contentious, but move toward the progressive. If Hillary wins the nomination, the battle will shift toward Revolution (since she is a Corporatist), the Class War will intensify, and the Clinton Depression will wreak havoc around the world.
We The People will suffer worse times if Hillary is the stealth candidate for the Corporatist Party on the November ballot.
http://datelinechamesa.blogspot.com/2008/03/call-for-general-strike.html
McCain has lousy political beliefs and is a hothead, but he seems never to have wavered from his loyalty to America. Obama is a political descendent of Abe Lincoln, and he has the ability to manage the country even during crises such as a Civil War (which is entirely possible if he does get elected).
The most dangerous candidate is Hillary Clinton, who has sold out already to the Corporatist Party.
She has met with and made deals with Rupert Murdoch and Richard Mellon Scaife, and the corporations are funding her campaign (while Obama & McCain hustle for donations from The People).
The D.N.C. and chairman Howard Dean try to be fair, avoiding Hillary's on-going attempts at coercion & manipulation.
If Barack wins the nomination, he will beat McCain and things will get contentious, but move toward the progressive. If Hillary wins the nomination, the battle will shift toward Revolution (since she is a Corporatist), the Class War will intensify, and the Clinton Depression will wreak havoc around the world.
We The People will suffer worse times if Hillary is the stealth candidate for the Corporatist Party on the November ballot.
http://datelinechamesa.blogspot.com/2008/03/call-for-general-strike.html
Saturday, March 08, 2008
We The People
The first three words of the U.S. Constitution are "We the People".
The folks who constitute themselves as The People are about 25% of Americans. The gangsters who seek to destroy constitutional rights are the dastardly opposing 25% -- the traditional Mafia, the PNAC Mafia, the neo-fascist corporatists, warmongers, all those who believe that they are above or outside the law.
The 50% in the middle have no idea what is going on. (These are the Sheeple.)
The Revolution is never over, the Class War is perpetual, and the Oligarchy has no scruples.
The only protection for the Rights of Man is We The People. Our rights exist when we defend them, our rights exist when we enforce them, our rights exist because we give them to others.
Rights exist only when they apply to everyone, and the only rights that exist are rights that apply to everyone equally.
The Oligarchy is the enemy of We The People.
Join the General Strike on Labor Day 2008 to show them our Power.
http://datelinechamesa.blogspot.com/2008/03/call-for-general-strike.html
The folks who constitute themselves as The People are about 25% of Americans. The gangsters who seek to destroy constitutional rights are the dastardly opposing 25% -- the traditional Mafia, the PNAC Mafia, the neo-fascist corporatists, warmongers, all those who believe that they are above or outside the law.
The 50% in the middle have no idea what is going on. (These are the Sheeple.)
The Revolution is never over, the Class War is perpetual, and the Oligarchy has no scruples.
The only protection for the Rights of Man is We The People. Our rights exist when we defend them, our rights exist when we enforce them, our rights exist because we give them to others.
Rights exist only when they apply to everyone, and the only rights that exist are rights that apply to everyone equally.
The Oligarchy is the enemy of We The People.
Join the General Strike on Labor Day 2008 to show them our Power.
http://datelinechamesa.blogspot.com/2008/03/call-for-general-strike.html
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Call For General Strike
The way that events are progressing (or not progressing) in America suggest that the present P.N.A.C.-Fascist government will likely prevent democratic elections in November.
With or without invokation of martial law, We The People need to send a very strong message to the other side in the Perpetual Class War, strong enough that they cannot ignore the message.
Everyone who still honors the U.S. Constitution is charged with speaking into existence a General Strike on Labor Day (Monday 1 September 2008) in the United States.
1) Enroll everybody that you know who cares about Freedom. Persons outside the U.S. are invited to participate, as an expression of Solidarity. Pass on the link to this Call For General Strike: http://datelinechamesa.blogspot.com/2008/03/call-for-general-strike.html
2) Simply do not leave your residence for the entire 24 hours (local time). Also, make no purchases online or by phone. Stay off your cell phone.
3) No violence is required; in fact, no violence is even possible during this protest.
MEANWHILE ...
a) Pass the text of this blog-page by email to lots of people.
b) Post the text of this blog-page to all your social-networking & bookmarking sites.
With or without invokation of martial law, We The People need to send a very strong message to the other side in the Perpetual Class War, strong enough that they cannot ignore the message.
Everyone who still honors the U.S. Constitution is charged with speaking into existence a General Strike on Labor Day (Monday 1 September 2008) in the United States.
1) Enroll everybody that you know who cares about Freedom. Persons outside the U.S. are invited to participate, as an expression of Solidarity. Pass on the link to this Call For General Strike: http://datelinechamesa.blogspot.com/2008/03/call-for-general-strike.html
2) Simply do not leave your residence for the entire 24 hours (local time). Also, make no purchases online or by phone. Stay off your cell phone.
3) No violence is required; in fact, no violence is even possible during this protest.
MEANWHILE ...
a) Pass the text of this blog-page by email to lots of people.
b) Post the text of this blog-page to all your social-networking & bookmarking sites.
March Quotations
"The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up."
~~ Paul Valéry
"There are two things to aim at in life: First, to get what you want, and then to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second."
~~ Logan Pearsall Smith
"You can have that done one of two ways – fast or good."
~~ old saying
"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust."
~~ Samuel Johnson [1709-84]
"Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it."
~~ Harold S. Hulbert
"The most certain test by which we can judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities."
~~ Lord Acton [1834-1902]
"Faith which does not doubt is dead faith."
~~ Miguel de Unamuno [1864-1936]
"Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt."
~~ Clarence Darrow [1857-1938]
"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
~~ Steven Weinberg
"I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering."
~~ Robert Frost [1874-1963]
"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."
~~ Edward R. Murrow [1908-65]
"Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to to hide them."
~~ François de La Rochefoucauld [1613-80]
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest."
~~ Thomas Paine [1737-1809]
"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."
~~ Anne Lamott
"It does not require many words to speak the truth."
~~ Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce [1840-1904]
"People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them."
~~ Dave Barry
"Lower your voice and strengthen your argument."
~~ Lebanese proverb
"An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it."
~~ Don Marquis [1878-1937]
"It is as easy to dream a book as it is hard to write one."
~~ Honoré de Balzac [1799-1850]
"I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself."
~~ Pietro Aretino [1492-1556]
"Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought."
~~ Graham Greene [1904-91]
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826
"Loneliness ... is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man."
~~ Thomas Wolfe [1900-38]
"The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?"
~~ cellist Pablo Casals [1876-1973]
"There are three truths: my truth, your truth, and the truth."
~~ Chinese proverb
"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success."
~~ Albert Schweitzer [1875-1965]
"What you do is of little significance; but it is very important that you do it."
~~ Mohandas K. Gandhi [1869-1948]
"Patience is also a form of action."
~~ sculptor Auguste Rodin [1840-1917]
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."
~~ Will Rogers [1879-1935]
"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
~~ Charles Darwin [1809-82]
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]
{many other such quotations are posted
on the Working Minds website}
~~ Paul Valéry
"There are two things to aim at in life: First, to get what you want, and then to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second."
~~ Logan Pearsall Smith
"You can have that done one of two ways – fast or good."
~~ old saying
"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust."
~~ Samuel Johnson [1709-84]
"Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it."
~~ Harold S. Hulbert
"The most certain test by which we can judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities."
~~ Lord Acton [1834-1902]
"Faith which does not doubt is dead faith."
~~ Miguel de Unamuno [1864-1936]
"Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt."
~~ Clarence Darrow [1857-1938]
"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
~~ Steven Weinberg
"I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering."
~~ Robert Frost [1874-1963]
"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."
~~ Edward R. Murrow [1908-65]
"Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to to hide them."
~~ François de La Rochefoucauld [1613-80]
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest."
~~ Thomas Paine [1737-1809]
"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."
~~ Anne Lamott
"It does not require many words to speak the truth."
~~ Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce [1840-1904]
"People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them."
~~ Dave Barry
"Lower your voice and strengthen your argument."
~~ Lebanese proverb
"An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it."
~~ Don Marquis [1878-1937]
"It is as easy to dream a book as it is hard to write one."
~~ Honoré de Balzac [1799-1850]
"I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself."
~~ Pietro Aretino [1492-1556]
"Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought."
~~ Graham Greene [1904-91]
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826
"Loneliness ... is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man."
~~ Thomas Wolfe [1900-38]
"The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?"
~~ cellist Pablo Casals [1876-1973]
"There are three truths: my truth, your truth, and the truth."
~~ Chinese proverb
"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success."
~~ Albert Schweitzer [1875-1965]
"What you do is of little significance; but it is very important that you do it."
~~ Mohandas K. Gandhi [1869-1948]
"Patience is also a form of action."
~~ sculptor Auguste Rodin [1840-1917]
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."
~~ Will Rogers [1879-1935]
"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
~~ Charles Darwin [1809-82]
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]
on the Working Minds website}
February News factoids
Crude oil has gone up to a record $103 per barrel, and the dollar sank to record low against the euro.
== AP Radio News
The U.S. defense budget in 2000 was $300 billion, and the request for 2009 is $700 billion.
== as calculated by Congressman John Spratt (Dem-SC).
Americans spent nearly $45 billion on their pets in 2007 (while the U.S. Department of Education annual budget is less than $70 billion).
According to Time Magazine, Nicole Kidman is set to star in a movie about Valerie Plame Wilson.
Wholesale prices in the U.S. went up 7% over the last 12 months (while Social Security stipends went up 2%).
Matthew Rothschild has written a chilling article in The Progressive about the card-carrying Infragard folks who operate outside the law in the United States. Infragard was established in 1996 under the F.B.I., had grown to 1700 members in November 2001, and currently claims nearly 24,000 members.
http://www.progressive.org/mag_rothschild0308
OPINIONATION
"The United States is over the economic cliff and in freefall. One symptom is that even the Mafia has cash-flow problems."
== G.E. Nordell
== AP Radio News
The U.S. defense budget in 2000 was $300 billion, and the request for 2009 is $700 billion.
== as calculated by Congressman John Spratt (Dem-SC).
Americans spent nearly $45 billion on their pets in 2007 (while the U.S. Department of Education annual budget is less than $70 billion).
According to Time Magazine, Nicole Kidman is set to star in a movie about Valerie Plame Wilson.
Wholesale prices in the U.S. went up 7% over the last 12 months (while Social Security stipends went up 2%).
Matthew Rothschild has written a chilling article in The Progressive about the card-carrying Infragard folks who operate outside the law in the United States. Infragard was established in 1996 under the F.B.I., had grown to 1700 members in November 2001, and currently claims nearly 24,000 members.
http://www.progressive.org/mag_rothschild0308
OPINIONATION
"The United States is over the economic cliff and in freefall. One symptom is that even the Mafia has cash-flow problems."
== G.E. Nordell
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)