"Exaggerate the essential; leave the obvious vague."
~~ Vincent Van Gogh [1853-90]
"It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered."
~~ Aeschylus [c. 525 - c. 456 B.C.E.]
"Life is all about how you handle Plan B"
~~ gag t-shirt
"Even true things shouted from loudspeakers start to sound like lies."
~~ Leonardo Sciascia [1921-89]
"A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience."
~~ Oliver Wendell Holmes [1809-94]
"Idiots are everywhere. Many have degrees."
~~ Terry Black
"Dare to be indifferent"
~~ gag t-shirt
"Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost."
~~ Thomas Fuller [1608-61]
"One ceases to be a child when one realizes that telling one's troubles does not make it any better."
~~ Cesare Pavese [1908-50]
"Life is one long process of getting tired."
~~ Samuel Butler [1835-1902]
"There is no greater sign of innate misery than a love of teasing."
~~ Anthony Powell [1905-2000]
“The most important thing in acting is sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
~~ George Burns [1896-1996]
"I listen to Beethoven every week, and to Bach twice a week, but to Mozart every day."
~~ Igor Stravinsky [1882-1971]
"[The Jesuits] appear to have discovered the precise point to which intellectual culture can be carried without risk of intellectual emancipation."
~~ Thomas Macaulay [1800-1859]
"The primary reward for human toil is not what you get by it, but what you become by it."
~~ John Ruskin [1819-1900]
"Why are women so much more interesting to men than men are to women?"
~~ Virginia Woolf [1882-1941]
"The more serious the face, the more beautiful the smile."
~~ François-René de Chateaubriand [1768-1848]
"To die of love is overdoing it."
~~ French proverb
"A long life may not be good enough, but a good life is long enough."
~~ quoted by Benjamin Franklin [1706-90]
"If you marry, you will regret it; if you don't marry, you will also regret it."
~~ Søren Kierkegaard [1813-55]
"Having a good wife and rich cabbage soup, seek not other things."
~~ Russian proverb
"Possibilities are like the wings of birds; they allow man to soar and to climb to the heavens. And facts are like the atmosphere against which those wings must beat, and without which the soaring bird will surely plummet back to earth."
~~ Ivan Petrovich Pavlov [1849-1936]
"McCarthyism has not disappeared from the American scene."
~~ André Schiffrin (2008)
"Only people destroy beauty."
~~ Michael Collins
"I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system."
~~ George W. Bush (C.N.N. interview 16 December 2008 AFTER the meltdown-recession-depression)
"All that you have is your story."
~~ voiceover narration of the movie "Australia" [2008]
"The wise man never has to lie."
~~ Jesuit maxim
“Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.”
~~ Flannery O'Connor [1925-64]
"The pen is mightier than the sword."
~~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton [1803-73] (in stageplay "Richelieu", 1839)
"Endeleya mbele!"
~~ Kimani
"The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent fishing."
~~ Old Saying
"The world is run by C students."
~~ basketball announcer Al McGuire [1928-2001]
"The color of truth is gray."
~~ André Gide [1869-1951]
"For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack."
~~ Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936]
"Three things make up a nation: its land, its people, and its laws."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65]
"Two things are wanted by a true man, danger and play – therefore, he seeks woman as the most dangerous play."
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]
"It ain't bragging if you can back it up."
~~ baseball player Dizzy Dean [1910-74]
"An artist must learn ... that he or she works for the work itself, not for approval."
~~ Erica Jong
"Never take stupidity too much in earnest."
~~ a 'Chinese proverb' invented by Jacques Maritain [1882-1973]
"Lying about the future produces history."
~~ Umberto Eco
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account."
~~ Walter Lippmann [1889-1974]
"[Writing] is like driving a car at night. You never see farther than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."
~~ E.L. Doctorow
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Monday, December 29, 2008
Saturday, November 08, 2008
November Quotations
"You can never do a kindness too soon, because you will never know how soon it will be too late."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]
"Our best hope for change is a fusion of those concerned about environmental sustainability, social justice, and political democracy into one progressive force."
~~ James Gustave Speth
"Home is the place where, when you go there / They have to take you in"
~~ poet Robert Frost [1874-1963]
"Intellectual virtues are civic virtues; intellectual vices leave the citizens vulnerable to superstition and demagoguery."
~~ George Scialabba
"The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism."
~~ Gore Vidal
"All men must escape at times from the deadly rhythm of their private thoughts."
~~ Raymond Chandler [1888-1959]
"One immediately recognises a man of judgment by the use he makes of the semicolon."
~~ Henry de Montherlant [1896-1972]
"There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of life getting a living."
~~ Henry David Thoreau [1817-62]
"37 seconds well used is a lifetime!"
~~ Mr. Edward Magorium character, as written by Zach Helm
"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]
"Every great and original writer, in proportion as he is great and original, must himself create the taste by which he is to
be relished."
~~ William Wordsworth [1750-1850]
"Writing a book is an adventure: It begins as an amusement, then it becomes a mistress, then a master, and finally a tyrant."
~~ Sir Winston Churchill [1874-1965]
"Somewhere in the world there is an epigram for every dilemma."
~~ Hendrik Willem van Loon [1882-1944]
"I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have had."
~~ Marlene Dietrich [1901-92]
"My father showed me his library, which was very large, and told me to read whatever I wanted, but that if something bored me, I should immediately put it down."
~~ Jorge Luis Borges [1899-1986]
"Morality is all right, but what about dividends?"
~~ Kaiser Wilhelm II [1859-1941]
"Have nothing ... that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
~~ William Morris
'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, although there's nothing in't.
~~ George Gordon, Lord Byron [1788-1824]
"Few girls are as well shaped as a good horse."
~~ Hannah Arendt [1906-75]
"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind."
~~ Aristotle [384-322 B.C.E.]
"Trust your editor, and you'll sleep on straw."
~~ John Cheever [1912-82]
"There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money."
~~ Robert Graves [1895-1985]
"Sexual intercourse has never done a man good, and he is lucky if it has not harmed him."
~~ Epicurus [341–270 B.C.E.)
"Henry [Kissinger] does not lie because it is in his interest. He lies because it is in his nature."
~~ Helmut Sonnenfeldt
"A large income is the best recipe for happiness."
~~ Jane Austen [1775-1817]
"The knowledge that the aristocrats take for granted, we must pay for with our youth."
~~ Anton Chekhov [1860-1904]
"Every gun that is made ... signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, and those who are cold and are not clothed."
~~ Dwight D. Eisenhower [1890-1969]
"That is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great."
~~ Willa Cather [1873-1947]
"I am so tired of being told that I want mankind to go back to the condition of savages. As if modern city people weren't the crudest, rawest, most crassly savage monkeys that ever existed, when it comes to the relation of man and woman. All I see in our vaunted civilization is men and women smashing each other emotionally and physically to bits, and all I ask is that they should pause and consider."
~~ D.H. Lawrence [1885-1930]
"The sense of being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity which religion is powerless to bestow."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]
"The domination of women by men has lasted for fifty thousand years. Why can't it last just fifty more?"
~~ grafitto in Berlin, Germany
"[Mankind is] a herd of beings that must be governed by fraud, effigy, and show."
~~ Edmund Burke [1729-97]
"Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise."
~~ Sigmund Freud [1856-1939]
"If it rained knowledge I'd hold out my hand, but I would not give myself the trouble to go in quest of it."
~~ Dr. Samuel Johnson [1709-84]
"[Poetry] is not so fine a thing as philosophy – for the same reason that an eagle is not so fine a thing as a truth."
~~ John Keats [1795-1821]
"Indignation is the soul's defense against the wound of doubt."
~~ Allan Bloom
"The superior man is distressed by his want of ability."
~~ Confucius [551-479 B.C.E.]
"Why not make the reader re-read a sentence now and then? It won't hurt him."
~~ Vladimir Nabokov [1899-1977]
"To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness – though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless."
~~ Gustave Flaubert [1821-80]
"In the depths of my heart I can't help being convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless."
~~ Sigmund Freud [1856-1939]
"It is not true that suffering ennobles the character. Happiness does that sometimes; but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive."
~~ W. Somerset Maugham [1874-1965]
"You have to choose: live or tell stories."
~~ Jean-Paul Sartre [1905-80]
"Truisms are best."
~~ Noam Chomsky
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]
"Our best hope for change is a fusion of those concerned about environmental sustainability, social justice, and political democracy into one progressive force."
~~ James Gustave Speth
"Home is the place where, when you go there / They have to take you in"
~~ poet Robert Frost [1874-1963]
"Intellectual virtues are civic virtues; intellectual vices leave the citizens vulnerable to superstition and demagoguery."
~~ George Scialabba
"The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism."
~~ Gore Vidal
"All men must escape at times from the deadly rhythm of their private thoughts."
~~ Raymond Chandler [1888-1959]
"One immediately recognises a man of judgment by the use he makes of the semicolon."
~~ Henry de Montherlant [1896-1972]
"There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of life getting a living."
~~ Henry David Thoreau [1817-62]
"37 seconds well used is a lifetime!"
~~ Mr. Edward Magorium character, as written by Zach Helm
"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]
"Every great and original writer, in proportion as he is great and original, must himself create the taste by which he is to
be relished."
~~ William Wordsworth [1750-1850]
"Writing a book is an adventure: It begins as an amusement, then it becomes a mistress, then a master, and finally a tyrant."
~~ Sir Winston Churchill [1874-1965]
"Somewhere in the world there is an epigram for every dilemma."
~~ Hendrik Willem van Loon [1882-1944]
"I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have had."
~~ Marlene Dietrich [1901-92]
"My father showed me his library, which was very large, and told me to read whatever I wanted, but that if something bored me, I should immediately put it down."
~~ Jorge Luis Borges [1899-1986]
"Morality is all right, but what about dividends?"
~~ Kaiser Wilhelm II [1859-1941]
"Have nothing ... that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
~~ William Morris
'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, although there's nothing in't.
~~ George Gordon, Lord Byron [1788-1824]
"Few girls are as well shaped as a good horse."
~~ Hannah Arendt [1906-75]
"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind."
~~ Aristotle [384-322 B.C.E.]
"Trust your editor, and you'll sleep on straw."
~~ John Cheever [1912-82]
"There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money."
~~ Robert Graves [1895-1985]
"Sexual intercourse has never done a man good, and he is lucky if it has not harmed him."
~~ Epicurus [341–270 B.C.E.)
"Henry [Kissinger] does not lie because it is in his interest. He lies because it is in his nature."
~~ Helmut Sonnenfeldt
"A large income is the best recipe for happiness."
~~ Jane Austen [1775-1817]
"The knowledge that the aristocrats take for granted, we must pay for with our youth."
~~ Anton Chekhov [1860-1904]
"Every gun that is made ... signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, and those who are cold and are not clothed."
~~ Dwight D. Eisenhower [1890-1969]
"That is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great."
~~ Willa Cather [1873-1947]
"I am so tired of being told that I want mankind to go back to the condition of savages. As if modern city people weren't the crudest, rawest, most crassly savage monkeys that ever existed, when it comes to the relation of man and woman. All I see in our vaunted civilization is men and women smashing each other emotionally and physically to bits, and all I ask is that they should pause and consider."
~~ D.H. Lawrence [1885-1930]
"The sense of being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity which religion is powerless to bestow."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]
"The domination of women by men has lasted for fifty thousand years. Why can't it last just fifty more?"
~~ grafitto in Berlin, Germany
"[Mankind is] a herd of beings that must be governed by fraud, effigy, and show."
~~ Edmund Burke [1729-97]
"Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise."
~~ Sigmund Freud [1856-1939]
"If it rained knowledge I'd hold out my hand, but I would not give myself the trouble to go in quest of it."
~~ Dr. Samuel Johnson [1709-84]
"[Poetry] is not so fine a thing as philosophy – for the same reason that an eagle is not so fine a thing as a truth."
~~ John Keats [1795-1821]
"Indignation is the soul's defense against the wound of doubt."
~~ Allan Bloom
"The superior man is distressed by his want of ability."
~~ Confucius [551-479 B.C.E.]
"Why not make the reader re-read a sentence now and then? It won't hurt him."
~~ Vladimir Nabokov [1899-1977]
"To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness – though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless."
~~ Gustave Flaubert [1821-80]
"In the depths of my heart I can't help being convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless."
~~ Sigmund Freud [1856-1939]
"It is not true that suffering ennobles the character. Happiness does that sometimes; but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive."
~~ W. Somerset Maugham [1874-1965]
"You have to choose: live or tell stories."
~~ Jean-Paul Sartre [1905-80]
"Truisms are best."
~~ Noam Chomsky
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Monday, November 03, 2008
November News Factoids (with election predictions)
PREDICTIONS
Barack Obama will win by a landslide 60% to 40% over John McBush in tomorrow's national election – UNLESS the Rove-bot machinery of the Republican Party manages to steal another election, in direct conflict with The Constitution and the Will of The People.
The once-red state of New Mexico will switch all five Congressional seats to Democratic. Bingaman continues as Senator; Udall replaces disgraced longtime Sen. Domenici; and Martin Heinrich & Harry Teague & Ben Ray Lujan sweep the House seats.
OTHER NEWS
Influenza kills about 36,000 people each year in America.
~~ A.P. Radio News
My local power company P.N.M. included a chart in the billing last month that defines their fuel sources as 41% coal (San Juan Generating Station), 16% nuclear, 22% natural gas, 8% wind, with solar a small part of 13% other. So New Mexico is basically up to speed with a lot of what T. Boone Pickens is after with his energy plan.
~~ sign up with the Pickens Army at www.PickensPlan.com
"One result of the Bush policies that erupted in the Russia-Georgia miniwar is that Russia now controls the Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline."
~~ The Washington Spectator
"The [U.S.] military budget, now nearly $600 billion, is almost as large as the combined military budgets of the rest of the world. We outspend China by a factor of ten to one, Russia by sixteen to one, and Iran by almost ninety times."
~~ The Nation Magazine (Oct 2008)
THE ECONOMY
George W. Bush has run up more debt than any other person in the history of Mankind, i.e. fifteen trillion dollars (to be paid off by U.S. taxpayers).
The $700 billion subprime market bailout is the largest money bill ever passed by the U.S. Congress; it is also more money than it cost to fund the VietNam War.
September data on job losses in America show that we have lost jobs for nine months in a row.
~~ A.P. Radio News
There were 5.6 million jobs lost or displaced in 2007.
~~ Economic Policy Institute (Sept 2008)
Over the last 25 years, the percentage of obese children in America has doubled.
~~ www.EarthShare.org
"[Wall Street] had a party / Now you're going to pay"
~~ subhead of Time Magazine cover story (cover date 29 Sept 2008)
"The S&P Case-Schiller Index of house prices in 20 [U.S.] cities has been falling since February 2007. And the decline is accelerating. In June [2008], prices were down 16% compared with a year earlier."
~~ Time Magazine (Sept 2008)
As-of October 2008: The S&P 500 Index was down 33% for the year; the Nikkei Index fell to its lowest in 26 years; the Chinese stock market was down about 60% for the year; Germany's DAX Index was down 38%; the BM&F-Bovespa Index in Brasil was down 40%; Shanghai's S.E. Composite Index was down 60%; Russia's RTS Index was down 67%.
ENVIRONMENT
Worldwide, species threatened or extinct: birds, 1 in 7; amphibians, 1 in 3; mammals, 1 in 5.
~~ Time Magazine chart 10/2008
Due to global warming and to irrigation use during the dry season, the rivers Colorado, Yellow, Ganges, Nile (and many others) no longer reach the ocean.
"Our best hope for change is a fusion of those concerned about environmental sustainability, social justice, and political democracy into one progressive force."
~~ James Gustave Speth
"Environmental crisis is gathering as ... the result of a system of political economy - today's capitalism - that is profoundly committted to profits and growth and profoundly indifferent to nature and society."
~~ James Gustave Speth
"We are losing the planet ... Half the world's tropical and temperate forests are gone. Half the planet's wetlands are gone. An estimated 90 percent of the large predator fish are gone and 75 percent of marine fisheries are overfished, fished to capacity, or depleted. ... Twenty percent of the corals are gone, another 20 percent severely threatened. Species are disappearing about 1000 times faster than normal."
~~ James Gustave Speth (in 2008)
"[In the United States,] forty percent of ... fish species are threatened with extinction, a third of plants and amphibians, 15 to 20 percent of birds and mammals. Half of U.S. lakes and a third of the rivers still fail to meet the standards that the 1972 Clean Water Act said should be met by 1983."
~~ James Gustave Speth (in 2008)
Barack Obama will win by a landslide 60% to 40% over John McBush in tomorrow's national election – UNLESS the Rove-bot machinery of the Republican Party manages to steal another election, in direct conflict with The Constitution and the Will of The People.
The once-red state of New Mexico will switch all five Congressional seats to Democratic. Bingaman continues as Senator; Udall replaces disgraced longtime Sen. Domenici; and Martin Heinrich & Harry Teague & Ben Ray Lujan sweep the House seats.
OTHER NEWS
Influenza kills about 36,000 people each year in America.
~~ A.P. Radio News
My local power company P.N.M. included a chart in the billing last month that defines their fuel sources as 41% coal (San Juan Generating Station), 16% nuclear, 22% natural gas, 8% wind, with solar a small part of 13% other. So New Mexico is basically up to speed with a lot of what T. Boone Pickens is after with his energy plan.
~~ sign up with the Pickens Army at www.PickensPlan.com
"One result of the Bush policies that erupted in the Russia-Georgia miniwar is that Russia now controls the Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline."
~~ The Washington Spectator
"The [U.S.] military budget, now nearly $600 billion, is almost as large as the combined military budgets of the rest of the world. We outspend China by a factor of ten to one, Russia by sixteen to one, and Iran by almost ninety times."
~~ The Nation Magazine (Oct 2008)
THE ECONOMY
George W. Bush has run up more debt than any other person in the history of Mankind, i.e. fifteen trillion dollars (to be paid off by U.S. taxpayers).
The $700 billion subprime market bailout is the largest money bill ever passed by the U.S. Congress; it is also more money than it cost to fund the VietNam War.
September data on job losses in America show that we have lost jobs for nine months in a row.
~~ A.P. Radio News
There were 5.6 million jobs lost or displaced in 2007.
~~ Economic Policy Institute (Sept 2008)
Over the last 25 years, the percentage of obese children in America has doubled.
~~ www.EarthShare.org
"[Wall Street] had a party / Now you're going to pay"
~~ subhead of Time Magazine cover story (cover date 29 Sept 2008)
"The S&P Case-Schiller Index of house prices in 20 [U.S.] cities has been falling since February 2007. And the decline is accelerating. In June [2008], prices were down 16% compared with a year earlier."
~~ Time Magazine (Sept 2008)
As-of October 2008: The S&P 500 Index was down 33% for the year; the Nikkei Index fell to its lowest in 26 years; the Chinese stock market was down about 60% for the year; Germany's DAX Index was down 38%; the BM&F-Bovespa Index in Brasil was down 40%; Shanghai's S.E. Composite Index was down 60%; Russia's RTS Index was down 67%.
ENVIRONMENT
Worldwide, species threatened or extinct: birds, 1 in 7; amphibians, 1 in 3; mammals, 1 in 5.
~~ Time Magazine chart 10/2008
Due to global warming and to irrigation use during the dry season, the rivers Colorado, Yellow, Ganges, Nile (and many others) no longer reach the ocean.
"Our best hope for change is a fusion of those concerned about environmental sustainability, social justice, and political democracy into one progressive force."
~~ James Gustave Speth
"Environmental crisis is gathering as ... the result of a system of political economy - today's capitalism - that is profoundly committted to profits and growth and profoundly indifferent to nature and society."
~~ James Gustave Speth
"We are losing the planet ... Half the world's tropical and temperate forests are gone. Half the planet's wetlands are gone. An estimated 90 percent of the large predator fish are gone and 75 percent of marine fisheries are overfished, fished to capacity, or depleted. ... Twenty percent of the corals are gone, another 20 percent severely threatened. Species are disappearing about 1000 times faster than normal."
~~ James Gustave Speth (in 2008)
"[In the United States,] forty percent of ... fish species are threatened with extinction, a third of plants and amphibians, 15 to 20 percent of birds and mammals. Half of U.S. lakes and a third of the rivers still fail to meet the standards that the 1972 Clean Water Act said should be met by 1983."
~~ James Gustave Speth (in 2008)
Friday, October 31, 2008
Essay #84: "Your Future Is Foreclosed"
You are now a slave. The change took place on Sunday September 7th. Everyone in the United States of America, every man and woman and child in America – You are now a slave.
You were charged on that date with paying off FIVE trillion dollars added to the Republican National Debt. The folks who took the money are the same Corporatist-Fascist-Federalist pirates who took control of the machinery of government in 2000, and now they have taken total control of the U.S. economy.
And you are their slave.
The full Republican National Debt stands at TWENTY TRILLION DOLLARS. (Republican George W. Bush already ran up more debt than any other human being in the history of Mankind.)
Your personal share of that debt, as a resident of the U.S.A., is $70,000. Every child too young for HeadStart owes the same amount, though they are not yet potty-trained.
Alternate computation: Your personal share of the Republican National Debt as a taxpayer or voter (half the population) is twice that, so $140,000. And a duplicate amount is owed by your spouse or partner or other taxpayer or voter in your household.
Look that debt amount in the eye. You owe that amount.
You are a slave to the Master Class because they will not allow you to pay off the Republican National Debt in your lifetime, so your children and grandchildren are slaves as well. Today. Now.
* * * * * * * *
The Middle Class in America is gone, and in danger in all other countries around the world. Jobs were and are being off-shored, the Bush Economic Meltdown is just beginning, savings and other indicators have been negative all year, and because the Middle Class has no money (the Oligarchy took it all), the economy is grinding to a halt.
So you are a member of the Working Poor, the economic class below the Middle Class. And as a member of the Working Poor, you will never be able to pay off that $70,000 share of the Republican National Debt.
Every adult and every grandchild in America, every preschooler, every Senior on a fixed pension or Social Security, and every teenager has received the ‘gift’ of that debt from the Reagan-Bush-Bush dynasty, from the damaging policies of the Republican Party, in cahoots with the Corporatist-Fascist-Federalist Master Class.
Ordinary Americans will never be able to pay off that $70,000 – or $140,000 or $280,000 per person, depending on how it is divided up. Ordinary Americans no longer can look forward to owning their home. Vacations are a practice of the past. No one else can afford your once-precious boat (or other toy) and you cannot afford the payments.
You are a slave to the Master Class until the entire Republican National Debt has been paid off – to the Saudis and the Chinese and the Russian Mafia.
* * * * * * * *
When H.G. Wells wrote his novel “The Time Machine” in 1895, he predicted a future where the human race split into two descen- dent races: the simple and frail and handsome eloi race, who have no intellectual curiosity, and the morlock race, who are muscular and hairy and brutish and live in the dark and run the hidden machinery that provides for the easy life of the eloi.
And the morlocks are always hungry, so whenever they find an opportunity to capture and eat one of the eloi, they do so.
It is possible that Wells was prescient, but only half right. If the Master Class succeeds in taking over the entire planet, then Mankind will likely split into two directions from that point in time.
But the Master Class are the Brutish Branch, and the Working Class are the Good Guys. Workers don’t produce much Art, or discuss Serious Matters. But give the Working Class a job that needs doing, and they are right there with sleeves rolled up. But we seem to be no match for the brutish and cannibalistic Master Class.
The Class War is perpetual. It could very well continue to the year 802,701 A.D. (as per Wells).
The Master Class is winning this Class War. THEY have your $70,000; they have the $70,000 owed by each and every grandchild in America; and in fact, the Master Class has the entire TWENTY TRILLION DOLLARS stolen by the Republican Party – and what you get in exchange is slavery.
How d’ya like that deal?
* * * * * * * *
The Master Class owns your future. Just like they own the petroleum futures, and set the price. And you pay.
The Master Class controls grain steel and copper and gold futures. And you pay.
The Master Class has a free ride because they control grain futures and agri-business. And you pay.
The Master Class began the ethanol futures market in March 2005. If you have ethanol to sell, the Master Class sets their price to you and always sell at a profit – a profit to themselves (as handlers) and also a profit to the oil monopoly.
And you pay at the pump.
The next futures market will be water. And you will give your allegiance to the Master Class – you will agree to continue your slavery – or you will have nothing to drink. The Master Class will charge higher prices to small farmers and to small towns, gleefully watch them collapse as viable businesses, and then buy them up to add to their monopolistic corporations.
What the Master Class does not control, they want. And they have become very skilled at getting what they want. The Romans provided ‘bread and circuses’ to keep the masses compliant, and the equivalent today is ‘fast food and cable TV’ – you are all compliant slaves, so-o-o-o surprised at Bush’s Economic Meltdown, how could such a thing happen and what does it mean. O.M.G!
The Mandarins are the Master Class in China. They took back control and now use the Communist Party as the means to have what they want – a pseudo-capitalist economy based on slave wages and social cannibalism. The Chinese people have never been free, nor have the fellahin (peasants) of the Middle East, so they see no reason to complain, as long as they perceive their lives to be gradually improving.
But Americans sold their freedom to the Reagan Machine. And YOU are going to pay the bill, slave.
* * * * * * * *
You are not likely to see this situation reversed, since almost half of American voters are emulating the lemmings of Scandinavia – follow the leader, right over the cliff. If the voters of America can’t muster the will to take back the helm of governance on November 4th and every election thereafter, the will to restore ALL the lost provisions guaranteed by the Constitution of 1787 (as amended), then slavery will be the future for you and all your family and every person that you know.
Your future is a commodity, just like ethanol or oil, and the Master Class owns that future – as the paper contracts for the Republican National Debt of TWENTY TRILLION DOLLARS.
The Master Class grabbed a mere FIVE trillion dollars on September 7th in exchange for Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac junk bonds. The Master Class – be they Mandarins of China or ‘oilagarchs’ of America or greasy princes of Arabian sheikdoms – will continue to use coercion and stealth and televised propaganda to achieve their aim, which is to have it ALL!
Then there will be no need for them to pretend that the U.S. Constitution is anything but a piece of paper.
A mortgage is a written contract. A governmental constitution is a written contract. But each such contract is only as good as the integrity, the absolute Word of the parties involved. The U.S. Constitution does not guarantee ‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness’.
Never did.
The only guarantors of constitutional rule (in each country) are We The People.
And We The People are not doing that job. Not in America, and not elsewhere.
The Master Class has hijacked the judicial system, and the legislative system, and the Executive Branch, and now the economic system.
You are a mere slave tenant in their world, the Master Class are the owners (the Oligarchs), and when they decide to foreclose . . .
Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
You were charged on that date with paying off FIVE trillion dollars added to the Republican National Debt. The folks who took the money are the same Corporatist-Fascist-Federalist pirates who took control of the machinery of government in 2000, and now they have taken total control of the U.S. economy.
And you are their slave.
The full Republican National Debt stands at TWENTY TRILLION DOLLARS. (Republican George W. Bush already ran up more debt than any other human being in the history of Mankind.)
Your personal share of that debt, as a resident of the U.S.A., is $70,000. Every child too young for HeadStart owes the same amount, though they are not yet potty-trained.
Alternate computation: Your personal share of the Republican National Debt as a taxpayer or voter (half the population) is twice that, so $140,000. And a duplicate amount is owed by your spouse or partner or other taxpayer or voter in your household.
Look that debt amount in the eye. You owe that amount.
You are a slave to the Master Class because they will not allow you to pay off the Republican National Debt in your lifetime, so your children and grandchildren are slaves as well. Today. Now.
The Middle Class in America is gone, and in danger in all other countries around the world. Jobs were and are being off-shored, the Bush Economic Meltdown is just beginning, savings and other indicators have been negative all year, and because the Middle Class has no money (the Oligarchy took it all), the economy is grinding to a halt.
So you are a member of the Working Poor, the economic class below the Middle Class. And as a member of the Working Poor, you will never be able to pay off that $70,000 share of the Republican National Debt.
Every adult and every grandchild in America, every preschooler, every Senior on a fixed pension or Social Security, and every teenager has received the ‘gift’ of that debt from the Reagan-Bush-Bush dynasty, from the damaging policies of the Republican Party, in cahoots with the Corporatist-Fascist-Federalist Master Class.
Ordinary Americans will never be able to pay off that $70,000 – or $140,000 or $280,000 per person, depending on how it is divided up. Ordinary Americans no longer can look forward to owning their home. Vacations are a practice of the past. No one else can afford your once-precious boat (or other toy) and you cannot afford the payments.
You are a slave to the Master Class until the entire Republican National Debt has been paid off – to the Saudis and the Chinese and the Russian Mafia.
When H.G. Wells wrote his novel “The Time Machine” in 1895, he predicted a future where the human race split into two descen- dent races: the simple and frail and handsome eloi race, who have no intellectual curiosity, and the morlock race, who are muscular and hairy and brutish and live in the dark and run the hidden machinery that provides for the easy life of the eloi.
And the morlocks are always hungry, so whenever they find an opportunity to capture and eat one of the eloi, they do so.
It is possible that Wells was prescient, but only half right. If the Master Class succeeds in taking over the entire planet, then Mankind will likely split into two directions from that point in time.
But the Master Class are the Brutish Branch, and the Working Class are the Good Guys. Workers don’t produce much Art, or discuss Serious Matters. But give the Working Class a job that needs doing, and they are right there with sleeves rolled up. But we seem to be no match for the brutish and cannibalistic Master Class.
The Class War is perpetual. It could very well continue to the year 802,701 A.D. (as per Wells).
The Master Class is winning this Class War. THEY have your $70,000; they have the $70,000 owed by each and every grandchild in America; and in fact, the Master Class has the entire TWENTY TRILLION DOLLARS stolen by the Republican Party – and what you get in exchange is slavery.
How d’ya like that deal?
The Master Class owns your future. Just like they own the petroleum futures, and set the price. And you pay.
The Master Class controls grain steel and copper and gold futures. And you pay.
The Master Class has a free ride because they control grain futures and agri-business. And you pay.
The Master Class began the ethanol futures market in March 2005. If you have ethanol to sell, the Master Class sets their price to you and always sell at a profit – a profit to themselves (as handlers) and also a profit to the oil monopoly.
And you pay at the pump.
The next futures market will be water. And you will give your allegiance to the Master Class – you will agree to continue your slavery – or you will have nothing to drink. The Master Class will charge higher prices to small farmers and to small towns, gleefully watch them collapse as viable businesses, and then buy them up to add to their monopolistic corporations.
What the Master Class does not control, they want. And they have become very skilled at getting what they want. The Romans provided ‘bread and circuses’ to keep the masses compliant, and the equivalent today is ‘fast food and cable TV’ – you are all compliant slaves, so-o-o-o surprised at Bush’s Economic Meltdown, how could such a thing happen and what does it mean. O.M.G!
The Mandarins are the Master Class in China. They took back control and now use the Communist Party as the means to have what they want – a pseudo-capitalist economy based on slave wages and social cannibalism. The Chinese people have never been free, nor have the fellahin (peasants) of the Middle East, so they see no reason to complain, as long as they perceive their lives to be gradually improving.
But Americans sold their freedom to the Reagan Machine. And YOU are going to pay the bill, slave.
You are not likely to see this situation reversed, since almost half of American voters are emulating the lemmings of Scandinavia – follow the leader, right over the cliff. If the voters of America can’t muster the will to take back the helm of governance on November 4th and every election thereafter, the will to restore ALL the lost provisions guaranteed by the Constitution of 1787 (as amended), then slavery will be the future for you and all your family and every person that you know.
Your future is a commodity, just like ethanol or oil, and the Master Class owns that future – as the paper contracts for the Republican National Debt of TWENTY TRILLION DOLLARS.
The Master Class grabbed a mere FIVE trillion dollars on September 7th in exchange for Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac junk bonds. The Master Class – be they Mandarins of China or ‘oilagarchs’ of America or greasy princes of Arabian sheikdoms – will continue to use coercion and stealth and televised propaganda to achieve their aim, which is to have it ALL!
Then there will be no need for them to pretend that the U.S. Constitution is anything but a piece of paper.
A mortgage is a written contract. A governmental constitution is a written contract. But each such contract is only as good as the integrity, the absolute Word of the parties involved. The U.S. Constitution does not guarantee ‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness’.
Never did.
The only guarantors of constitutional rule (in each country) are We The People.
And We The People are not doing that job. Not in America, and not elsewhere.
The Master Class has hijacked the judicial system, and the legislative system, and the Executive Branch, and now the economic system.
You are a mere slave tenant in their world, the Master Class are the owners (the Oligarchs), and when they decide to foreclose . . .
Monday, October 13, 2008
October Quotations
"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."
~~ Benjamin Franklin [1706-90]
"Education is a better guard of liberty than a standing army."
~~ Edward Everett [1794-1865]
"He who opens a school door closes a prison."
~~ Victor Hugo [1802-85]
"I'm an idiot, I'm a fool, I know ... but I've been a good read, right?"
~~ Hunter S. Thompson [1937-2005] in his suicide note
"I reject the cynical view that politics is inevitably, or even usually, dirty business."
~~ Richard M. Nixon [1913-94]
"The feminist movement is just something for ugly women to do."
~~ ugly male Limp Rushbaugh
"There is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to fish and a time to cut bait."
~~ John F. Kennedy [1917-63] (improvising from Ecclesiastes)
"Time has convinced me of one thing: Television is for appearing on – not for looking at."
~~ Noel Coward [1899-1973]
"Why not?"
~~ Robert F. Kennedy campaign slogan
"Any man who hates dogs and children can't be all bad."
~~ Byron Darnton, New York Times reporter (about W.C. Fields)
"Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing."
~~ Red Sanders, football coach at Vanderbilt University {long before Lombardi)
"I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected."
~~ Wm. Tecumseh Sherman [1820-91] (in 1884)
"History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history [that] we make today."
~~ Henry Ford [1863-1947] (in 1916)
"No one on his deathbed ever said 'I wish I had spent more time on my business'."
~~ Arnold Zack (quoted by U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas)
"[New York Tribune editor] Horace Greeley himself could not give a young man better advice than "Go west, young man'."
~~ John B.L. Soule, editor of the Terre Haute, Indiana Express (in 1851)
"Even though a number of people have tried, no one has yet found a way to drink for a living."
~~ Jean Kerr [1922-2003]
"The Bush-Cheney administration [has] been the worst in modern American history – a failure at home and abroad, [and] intellectually and financially corrupt."
~~ Lou Dubose
"To my mind, pretty much everything besides bread is a dietary supplement."
~~ Corby Kummer, senior editor at Atlantic Monthly
"Never invest in any idea [that] you can't illustrate with a crayon."
~~ Peter Lynch, Wall Street tycoon
"I was always an independent, even when I had partners."
~~ movie producer Samuel Goldwyn [1879-1974]
"Life can only be understood backwards. It must be lived forwards,"
~~ Søren Kierkegaard [1813-55]
"Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for."
~~ Earl Warren [1891-1974]
"It is somewhat surprising that there is not already rioting in the strets [in America], given the gigantic fraud perpetrated by the financial elite at the expense of ordinary Americans."
~~ Larry Elliott, economics editor at The London Guardian
"The basic question of philosophy ... is the same as that of the detective novel: Who is guilty?"
~~ Umberto Eco
The Law of Louis XIVth: The reason that real antique chairs are often uncomfortable is that the comfortable chairs get used, and get worn out – and are replaced.
"The discovery of a sign of true intellect outside ourselves procures us something of the emotion [that] Robinson Crusoe felt when he saw the imprint of a human foot on the sandy beach of his island."
~~ Maurice Maeterlinck [1862-1949]
"Civilization involves subjection of force to reason, and the agency of this subjection is law."
~~ Roscoe Pound [1870-1964]
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
~~ Benjamin Franklin [1706-90]
"Education is a better guard of liberty than a standing army."
~~ Edward Everett [1794-1865]
"He who opens a school door closes a prison."
~~ Victor Hugo [1802-85]
"I'm an idiot, I'm a fool, I know ... but I've been a good read, right?"
~~ Hunter S. Thompson [1937-2005] in his suicide note
"I reject the cynical view that politics is inevitably, or even usually, dirty business."
~~ Richard M. Nixon [1913-94]
"The feminist movement is just something for ugly women to do."
~~ ugly male Limp Rushbaugh
"There is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to fish and a time to cut bait."
~~ John F. Kennedy [1917-63] (improvising from Ecclesiastes)
"Time has convinced me of one thing: Television is for appearing on – not for looking at."
~~ Noel Coward [1899-1973]
"Why not?"
~~ Robert F. Kennedy campaign slogan
"Any man who hates dogs and children can't be all bad."
~~ Byron Darnton, New York Times reporter (about W.C. Fields)
"Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing."
~~ Red Sanders, football coach at Vanderbilt University {long before Lombardi)
"I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected."
~~ Wm. Tecumseh Sherman [1820-91] (in 1884)
"History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history [that] we make today."
~~ Henry Ford [1863-1947] (in 1916)
"No one on his deathbed ever said 'I wish I had spent more time on my business'."
~~ Arnold Zack (quoted by U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas)
"[New York Tribune editor] Horace Greeley himself could not give a young man better advice than "Go west, young man'."
~~ John B.L. Soule, editor of the Terre Haute, Indiana Express (in 1851)
"Even though a number of people have tried, no one has yet found a way to drink for a living."
~~ Jean Kerr [1922-2003]
"The Bush-Cheney administration [has] been the worst in modern American history – a failure at home and abroad, [and] intellectually and financially corrupt."
~~ Lou Dubose
"To my mind, pretty much everything besides bread is a dietary supplement."
~~ Corby Kummer, senior editor at Atlantic Monthly
"Never invest in any idea [that] you can't illustrate with a crayon."
~~ Peter Lynch, Wall Street tycoon
"I was always an independent, even when I had partners."
~~ movie producer Samuel Goldwyn [1879-1974]
"Life can only be understood backwards. It must be lived forwards,"
~~ Søren Kierkegaard [1813-55]
"Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for."
~~ Earl Warren [1891-1974]
"It is somewhat surprising that there is not already rioting in the strets [in America], given the gigantic fraud perpetrated by the financial elite at the expense of ordinary Americans."
~~ Larry Elliott, economics editor at The London Guardian
"The basic question of philosophy ... is the same as that of the detective novel: Who is guilty?"
~~ Umberto Eco
The Law of Louis XIVth: The reason that real antique chairs are often uncomfortable is that the comfortable chairs get used, and get worn out – and are replaced.
"The discovery of a sign of true intellect outside ourselves procures us something of the emotion [that] Robinson Crusoe felt when he saw the imprint of a human foot on the sandy beach of his island."
~~ Maurice Maeterlinck [1862-1949]
"Civilization involves subjection of force to reason, and the agency of this subjection is law."
~~ Roscoe Pound [1870-1964]
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Friday, October 03, 2008
Essay #83: "New Homeland Assault Force"
The Army Times newspaper has published several articles recently mentioning the new assignment for the Third Infantry Division, First Brigade Combat Team, set to begin October First for twelve months.
That unit spent 35 months out of the prior 60 months fighting in Iraq, and they are battle-hardened and glad to be home.
But this new assignment is the first-ever permanent allocation of a military unit for a domestic military mission. Technically, the unit reports to NorthCom {U.S. Army Northern Command), but their orders will actually come from the Department of Homeland Security.
Based at Fort Stewart in Georgia, the 3ID-1BCT is already preparing for sudden deployment anywhere inside the U.S.A. to enforce security or manage humanitarian efforts in the event of natural or man-made catastrophe, or maybe to put down any sort of insurrection or civil unrest or mass demonstrations that the federal government wants quelled – especially if such mass protest is triggered by bad-faith actions by that same federal government.
(Civil unrest would normally be addressed by state governors calling out the National Guard. But two problems pertain: the National Guard in many states is depleted from service in Iraq, and not all governors kowtow to the President.)
* * * * * * * *
Why is this option suddenly available?
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was cancelled with passage of the John Warner Defense Authorization Act for 2007, signed into law in October 2006. After much uproar, that reversal of the 1878 law was revoked in the Defense Authorization Act for 2008, but in January 2008 President Bush issued one of his infamous ‘signing statements’ declaring broadly that provisions of the new act might inhibit the authority of the President.
And the assignment of the 3ID-1BCT under Homeland Security is one result.
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was put in place to prevent certain excesses of the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era, and in fact the issue has a long history, back as far as the English Civil War (circa 1642).
That act of 1878 prevented the use of federal troops as law enforcement, the use of combat-trained soldiers against the people of this country, as military action per se.
But the Federalist Society and P.N.A.C. and other components of the Corporatist-Fascist conspiracy to revoke the U.S Constitution feel the need for armed troops with loaded weapons as a tool in the implementation of their plan for totalitarian (i.e. ‘unitary executive’) rule of this country.
The Republican Party forced the issue in Congress (with the usual stealth manipulations), and the weak-kneed cowards of the Democratic Party buckled and allowed the present situation.
The new assignment of the Third Infantry Division, First Brigade Combat Team is AS posse comitatus.
* * * * * * * *
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has positioned seven U.S. Navy battle groups (major vessels and all their support ships) inside the Strait of Hormuz, i.e. off the coast of Iran. (The prior sentence is not a breach of national security: the Iranians know, and the Russians & Chinese have satellite photos, of course.)
Three of those battle groups are aircraft carrier groups, which can deliver American W.M.D. by air far into the interior of Iran (for example) or just install mini-nuke warheads on Tomahawk missiles and do damage from offshore.
Operation Sitting Duck? The narrowest part of the Strait of Hormuz is twenty-one miles across, which is less than from Catalina Island to San Pedro or Long Beach harbors in California. The seven battle groups will be accomplishing a great thing merely by not bumping into each other, and even more of an accomplishment in managing NOT to ‘accidentally’ violate Iranian territorial waters.
The war-hawks in America get what they want the easy way if Iran sends even a teeny boat to attack or confront the U.S. fleet – but the leaders in Iran are not that stupid.
The present leadership of America is, however, either stupid or incompetent or both, or possibly worse. The massive U.S. military presence off Iran’s coast is a threat to them – intended and perhaps perceived as such – and a happy result for the war-hawks would be any kind of incident where shots are fired.
Accident? Provocation? Who fired first? Black-flag assault on them or us? Any one of these crises will work, and the facts will be left to historians prevented from access to any actual records for ‘national security’ reasons.
* * * * * * * *
The terrible and likely scenario in the coming weeks and months is that a tiny mouse-size event occurs, the war-hawks declare Pearl Harbor III, and that is all it takes to begin World War III and Armageddon and The End of Civilization.
Something happens to the ‘sitting duck’ fleet off the coast of Iran, Dubya or McCain shoots from the hip and uses W.M.D. without authorization from Congress, Congress collapses in a Constitutional crisis, and riots or protests follow.
And waiting in the wings is the 3ID-1BCT, now Homeland Security’s Domestic Assault Force. The President calls them out to ‘restore order’, U.S. citizens die in the streets of America from federal bullets, and the President declares himself dictator per Presidential Directive 51 (still up on the White House website).
And the United States of America ceases to exist as either a democracy or as a republic, but instead metastasizes into the Federalist-Corporatist-Fascist heaven, a dictatorship.
With twenty-trillion dollars in debt, tanks and APCs patrolling the big cities, no jobs, no food, and no Constitution.
Vote carefully on November 4th: Your life and your country are at stake.
Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
That unit spent 35 months out of the prior 60 months fighting in Iraq, and they are battle-hardened and glad to be home.
But this new assignment is the first-ever permanent allocation of a military unit for a domestic military mission. Technically, the unit reports to NorthCom {U.S. Army Northern Command), but their orders will actually come from the Department of Homeland Security.
Based at Fort Stewart in Georgia, the 3ID-1BCT is already preparing for sudden deployment anywhere inside the U.S.A. to enforce security or manage humanitarian efforts in the event of natural or man-made catastrophe, or maybe to put down any sort of insurrection or civil unrest or mass demonstrations that the federal government wants quelled – especially if such mass protest is triggered by bad-faith actions by that same federal government.
(Civil unrest would normally be addressed by state governors calling out the National Guard. But two problems pertain: the National Guard in many states is depleted from service in Iraq, and not all governors kowtow to the President.)
Why is this option suddenly available?
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was cancelled with passage of the John Warner Defense Authorization Act for 2007, signed into law in October 2006. After much uproar, that reversal of the 1878 law was revoked in the Defense Authorization Act for 2008, but in January 2008 President Bush issued one of his infamous ‘signing statements’ declaring broadly that provisions of the new act might inhibit the authority of the President.
And the assignment of the 3ID-1BCT under Homeland Security is one result.
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was put in place to prevent certain excesses of the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era, and in fact the issue has a long history, back as far as the English Civil War (circa 1642).
That act of 1878 prevented the use of federal troops as law enforcement, the use of combat-trained soldiers against the people of this country, as military action per se.
But the Federalist Society and P.N.A.C. and other components of the Corporatist-Fascist conspiracy to revoke the U.S Constitution feel the need for armed troops with loaded weapons as a tool in the implementation of their plan for totalitarian (i.e. ‘unitary executive’) rule of this country.
The Republican Party forced the issue in Congress (with the usual stealth manipulations), and the weak-kneed cowards of the Democratic Party buckled and allowed the present situation.
The new assignment of the Third Infantry Division, First Brigade Combat Team is AS posse comitatus.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has positioned seven U.S. Navy battle groups (major vessels and all their support ships) inside the Strait of Hormuz, i.e. off the coast of Iran. (The prior sentence is not a breach of national security: the Iranians know, and the Russians & Chinese have satellite photos, of course.)
Three of those battle groups are aircraft carrier groups, which can deliver American W.M.D. by air far into the interior of Iran (for example) or just install mini-nuke warheads on Tomahawk missiles and do damage from offshore.
Operation Sitting Duck? The narrowest part of the Strait of Hormuz is twenty-one miles across, which is less than from Catalina Island to San Pedro or Long Beach harbors in California. The seven battle groups will be accomplishing a great thing merely by not bumping into each other, and even more of an accomplishment in managing NOT to ‘accidentally’ violate Iranian territorial waters.
The war-hawks in America get what they want the easy way if Iran sends even a teeny boat to attack or confront the U.S. fleet – but the leaders in Iran are not that stupid.
The present leadership of America is, however, either stupid or incompetent or both, or possibly worse. The massive U.S. military presence off Iran’s coast is a threat to them – intended and perhaps perceived as such – and a happy result for the war-hawks would be any kind of incident where shots are fired.
Accident? Provocation? Who fired first? Black-flag assault on them or us? Any one of these crises will work, and the facts will be left to historians prevented from access to any actual records for ‘national security’ reasons.
The terrible and likely scenario in the coming weeks and months is that a tiny mouse-size event occurs, the war-hawks declare Pearl Harbor III, and that is all it takes to begin World War III and Armageddon and The End of Civilization.
Something happens to the ‘sitting duck’ fleet off the coast of Iran, Dubya or McCain shoots from the hip and uses W.M.D. without authorization from Congress, Congress collapses in a Constitutional crisis, and riots or protests follow.
And waiting in the wings is the 3ID-1BCT, now Homeland Security’s Domestic Assault Force. The President calls them out to ‘restore order’, U.S. citizens die in the streets of America from federal bullets, and the President declares himself dictator per Presidential Directive 51 (still up on the White House website).
And the United States of America ceases to exist as either a democracy or as a republic, but instead metastasizes into the Federalist-Corporatist-Fascist heaven, a dictatorship.
With twenty-trillion dollars in debt, tanks and APCs patrolling the big cities, no jobs, no food, and no Constitution.
Vote carefully on November 4th: Your life and your country are at stake.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Essay #81: "Your Vote Is A Gift"
The Founders of the United States of America established in the Constitution that each and every citizen has the Right and the Duty to exercise their will in the act of voting. {While the Founders believed in the principle of We The People, the unenlightened times reserved voting for only white male landowners, or about 3% of the population. We The People have since extended the reach of that concept.)
Voting is a right and a privilege and a gift and a duty. If you do not vote (and you are eligible) then you demean the U.S. Constitution.
* * * * * * * *
The act of voting is so important that the Corporatist-Fascist machine (i.e. the Republican Party) is removing voters from the rolls. The Secretary of State of Colorado (Republican, of course) removed 20% of registered voters statewide – without notifying those voters. This brings intentional hassle to every disenfran¬chised Colorado voter, and a serious problem for voters who take no action and show up to vote in November at their polling place and are turned away. (Provisional ballots are worthless.)
* * * * * * * *
How you have Power is you give it away; how you have Love is you give it away; how you have Freedom is you give it away.
Your vote exists only when you cast it – at the ballot box and elsewhere. Your vote is a gift that you must give, to yourself and in behalf of your loved ones. And to your enemies.
Many sheeple say that they don’t vote in elections because their vote doesn’t count, doesn’t matter, is wasted effort.
All that proves is that they bought into the propaganda.
What is true is that each of these non-voting sheeple has decided that he/she doesn’t matter. They each surrendered (at best) and are often-times soon semi-innocent tools of the vast Corporatist-Fascist Oligarchy. They blindly obey orders and trudge unhappily toward a meaningless death.
Each and every citizen matters when they vote. When they vote they have done something that matters – therefore ...
Each vote is registered in the Universe as an event, as an overt act. Many other overt acts also constitute a kind of voting, such as each and every monetary act – where you buy your groceries or your fuel or your clothing ultimately matters.
Which is why advertising exists, to manipulate the masses of sheeple into trading with the Oligarchy. The reverse is a very powerful form of protest: Keep your dollars away from the Oligarchy – Wal-Mart, Big Banking, Big Oil, Big Pharma, the Agribiz monopoly, Big Media - and they will starve.
* * * * * * * *
Who says that you cannot fight/beat City Hall? City Hall, of course. The entrenched bureaucracy wants no opposition.
Who says not to discuss politics or religion? The same entrenched regressive folks who use religion and politics as their excuse for dastardly deeds. They use religion and politics as their stealth weapon, and don’t you dare use open discussion of religion or politics back on them. Don’t you dare discuss religion or politics as if they are not closed issues, cast in stone in the dogmatic form that the regressives want enforced.
(Knowledge gives light. Only bugs under rocks fear the light.)
You vote when you attend religious services. You vote if you keep a promise. You vote when you smile at a stranger – or smile at a loved one.
You vote when you drink a six-pack. You vote when you go to bed early. You vote when you obey the speed limit. You vote when you litter – or when you recycle.
Every overt act performed by all citizens, even the sheeple, is a vote for or against some Value, some program, some political intention. Likewise, avoiding taking any action is still a vote, albeit a vote against the result of such an action.
Vegging out in front of the tube is an action and a vote. Mindless chitchat or texting for endless hours on your cell-pod-P.D.A. unit is an action and a vote (for vapidity). Hours spent absorbing actual information at the library or on some wiki is an action and a vote. Visiting bed-bound old folks is an action and a vote – for connection and for service and for unlimited & unexpected experience.
* * * * * * * *
And another big vote is participating in the General Strike on Thursday September 11th. A major vote. And asking all your friends and family to participate in the General Strike is a vote in itself. The plan: Stay home, buy nothing, make no phone calls, skip the TV and radio for just one day.
An army of aware, progressive activists in Manhattan are planning to spend Strike Day out¬doors and in the streets, joining with their neighbors in demon¬strating Solidarity, showing that the People have the Power, that the Power is indeed inherent in the Individual.
You can also do this wherever you live. The official website is www.votestrike.org.
Voting is not about winning. The win is in the act of voting itself. By each act of voting we each protect the Right to Vote, the Privilege that there is in voting, we both give and receive the gift of voting.
Anyone who is not living their Life AS a series of votes is missing out on the Gift given to the world by the Framers of the U.S. Constitution. Your vote, the series of votes made by your actions in your Life, determines whether Freedom exists for the next generation and forward in History.
Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
Voting is a right and a privilege and a gift and a duty. If you do not vote (and you are eligible) then you demean the U.S. Constitution.
The act of voting is so important that the Corporatist-Fascist machine (i.e. the Republican Party) is removing voters from the rolls. The Secretary of State of Colorado (Republican, of course) removed 20% of registered voters statewide – without notifying those voters. This brings intentional hassle to every disenfran¬chised Colorado voter, and a serious problem for voters who take no action and show up to vote in November at their polling place and are turned away. (Provisional ballots are worthless.)
How you have Power is you give it away; how you have Love is you give it away; how you have Freedom is you give it away.
Your vote exists only when you cast it – at the ballot box and elsewhere. Your vote is a gift that you must give, to yourself and in behalf of your loved ones. And to your enemies.
Many sheeple say that they don’t vote in elections because their vote doesn’t count, doesn’t matter, is wasted effort.
All that proves is that they bought into the propaganda.
What is true is that each of these non-voting sheeple has decided that he/she doesn’t matter. They each surrendered (at best) and are often-times soon semi-innocent tools of the vast Corporatist-Fascist Oligarchy. They blindly obey orders and trudge unhappily toward a meaningless death.
Each and every citizen matters when they vote. When they vote they have done something that matters – therefore ...
Each vote is registered in the Universe as an event, as an overt act. Many other overt acts also constitute a kind of voting, such as each and every monetary act – where you buy your groceries or your fuel or your clothing ultimately matters.
Which is why advertising exists, to manipulate the masses of sheeple into trading with the Oligarchy. The reverse is a very powerful form of protest: Keep your dollars away from the Oligarchy – Wal-Mart, Big Banking, Big Oil, Big Pharma, the Agribiz monopoly, Big Media - and they will starve.
Who says that you cannot fight/beat City Hall? City Hall, of course. The entrenched bureaucracy wants no opposition.
Who says not to discuss politics or religion? The same entrenched regressive folks who use religion and politics as their excuse for dastardly deeds. They use religion and politics as their stealth weapon, and don’t you dare use open discussion of religion or politics back on them. Don’t you dare discuss religion or politics as if they are not closed issues, cast in stone in the dogmatic form that the regressives want enforced.
(Knowledge gives light. Only bugs under rocks fear the light.)
You vote when you attend religious services. You vote if you keep a promise. You vote when you smile at a stranger – or smile at a loved one.
You vote when you drink a six-pack. You vote when you go to bed early. You vote when you obey the speed limit. You vote when you litter – or when you recycle.
Every overt act performed by all citizens, even the sheeple, is a vote for or against some Value, some program, some political intention. Likewise, avoiding taking any action is still a vote, albeit a vote against the result of such an action.
Vegging out in front of the tube is an action and a vote. Mindless chitchat or texting for endless hours on your cell-pod-P.D.A. unit is an action and a vote (for vapidity). Hours spent absorbing actual information at the library or on some wiki is an action and a vote. Visiting bed-bound old folks is an action and a vote – for connection and for service and for unlimited & unexpected experience.
And another big vote is participating in the General Strike on Thursday September 11th. A major vote. And asking all your friends and family to participate in the General Strike is a vote in itself. The plan: Stay home, buy nothing, make no phone calls, skip the TV and radio for just one day.
An army of aware, progressive activists in Manhattan are planning to spend Strike Day out¬doors and in the streets, joining with their neighbors in demon¬strating Solidarity, showing that the People have the Power, that the Power is indeed inherent in the Individual.
You can also do this wherever you live. The official website is www.votestrike.org.
Voting is not about winning. The win is in the act of voting itself. By each act of voting we each protect the Right to Vote, the Privilege that there is in voting, we both give and receive the gift of voting.
Anyone who is not living their Life AS a series of votes is missing out on the Gift given to the world by the Framers of the U.S. Constitution. Your vote, the series of votes made by your actions in your Life, determines whether Freedom exists for the next generation and forward in History.
Essay #82: "The National Election is Contaminated"
Karl Rove has not yet been convicted of his many crimes and locked up in prison. His job is to mess up the U.S. national and local elections because the Republican Party cannot win on the issues important to American voters. So the Republicans have given Rove the covert task of inventing new ways to subvert the Constitutional election process in America, so that the Corporatist-Fascist leaders of the Republican Party can continue their rape of the American people and economy.
* * * * * * * *
Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews were recently removed as scheduled anchors on MSNBC’s coverage of the upcoming national debates and of election day and evening on November Fourth; the reasons given are spurious. The scheduled replacement is Karl Rove’s dancing partner (indeed!) David Gregory. So that gives election coverage by Karl Rove on FOX (‘the faux news channel’) and coverage on MSNBC by his close buddy Gregory – with Olberman and other legitimate journalists left to radio and the blogosphere (if their contracts even allow such).
* * * * * * * *
The Secretary of State in Colorado, Republican Mike Coffman, removed twenty-percent of Colorado’s voters from the rolls during 2008 – without notice to the voters. Reason given: to prevent voter fraud, when instead the act was another case of Republican election fraud. At best, each of these summarily-disenfranchised voters will have to visit their local County offices to fight for restoration of their Right To Vote. The intended result is that the mostly-Democrat disenfranchisees will show up on November Fourth and be surprised to find that they are not allowed to vote. Period. (Provisional ballots are worthless.)
* * * * * * * *
Republican John McCain approved and executed an even more nefarious election fraud, across seventeen key states. Under his signature, bogus absentee ballots were mailed out to registered independent and registered Democratic Party voters asking them to vote for McCain, but if they still wanted to vote for Barack Obama, no hard feelings, here’s a convenient absentee ballot. The number of these bogus absentee ballots was as many as a million in some of the 17 states.
But when the ballots arrived at the County offices, all were rejected. McCain’s stealth tactic was to have one extra box printed on all of the myriad versions of absentee ballots, so that each and every McCain-approved ballot was disqualified. In all seventeen states.
* * * * * * * *
Having thus committed election fraud in seventeen states, Republican John McCain has disqualified himself from ever holding any further elective office in America. When the Democrats restore Constitutional Law in America in January 2009, and the new Attorney General begins the plethora of impeachment hearings and prosecutions long stymied by the Republican Party’s control of the filibuster in Congress, then Republican John McCain will be held to account for his desertion of his oath of office and his criminal acts in this election.
* * * * * * * *
Any vote besides the Democratic Party candidate for President or for Congress and Senate is a vote for the continuation of the Corporatist-Fascist agenda that has destroyed the American economy, killed millions of people here and abroad, and made the world that your children and grandchildren will inherit a mean and nasty world, with the United States of America seen around the world as The Bad Guy.
Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews were recently removed as scheduled anchors on MSNBC’s coverage of the upcoming national debates and of election day and evening on November Fourth; the reasons given are spurious. The scheduled replacement is Karl Rove’s dancing partner (indeed!) David Gregory. So that gives election coverage by Karl Rove on FOX (‘the faux news channel’) and coverage on MSNBC by his close buddy Gregory – with Olberman and other legitimate journalists left to radio and the blogosphere (if their contracts even allow such).
The Secretary of State in Colorado, Republican Mike Coffman, removed twenty-percent of Colorado’s voters from the rolls during 2008 – without notice to the voters. Reason given: to prevent voter fraud, when instead the act was another case of Republican election fraud. At best, each of these summarily-disenfranchised voters will have to visit their local County offices to fight for restoration of their Right To Vote. The intended result is that the mostly-Democrat disenfranchisees will show up on November Fourth and be surprised to find that they are not allowed to vote. Period. (Provisional ballots are worthless.)
Republican John McCain approved and executed an even more nefarious election fraud, across seventeen key states. Under his signature, bogus absentee ballots were mailed out to registered independent and registered Democratic Party voters asking them to vote for McCain, but if they still wanted to vote for Barack Obama, no hard feelings, here’s a convenient absentee ballot. The number of these bogus absentee ballots was as many as a million in some of the 17 states.
But when the ballots arrived at the County offices, all were rejected. McCain’s stealth tactic was to have one extra box printed on all of the myriad versions of absentee ballots, so that each and every McCain-approved ballot was disqualified. In all seventeen states.
Having thus committed election fraud in seventeen states, Republican John McCain has disqualified himself from ever holding any further elective office in America. When the Democrats restore Constitutional Law in America in January 2009, and the new Attorney General begins the plethora of impeachment hearings and prosecutions long stymied by the Republican Party’s control of the filibuster in Congress, then Republican John McCain will be held to account for his desertion of his oath of office and his criminal acts in this election.
Any vote besides the Democratic Party candidate for President or for Congress and Senate is a vote for the continuation of the Corporatist-Fascist agenda that has destroyed the American economy, killed millions of people here and abroad, and made the world that your children and grandchildren will inherit a mean and nasty world, with the United States of America seen around the world as The Bad Guy.
Monday, September 15, 2008
September Quotations II (The Sequel)
"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}
~~ 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}
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}
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