The Siren
Most of us feel that terrorism has put a serious crimp in our experience of freedom here in the “homeland.” But what it may have done is inadvertently expose the pretense of freedom under which we have been laboring for these many years, perhaps centuries. Perhaps it has succeeded in outing the underlying motive beneath our politics, its maneuverings and behind-the-scenes deal making, whether with big business, lobbyists or private contractors. Maybe it has betrayed the prime motivation beneath all political systems – power, its control, and aggrandizement.
Well, I imagine we will soon begin to see things more clearly. The full force and impact of the Obama presidency is on its way to the light of day, straight through the corridors of darkness and the possible instantiation of a domestic “thought police.”
Of course, we can thank W and his troupe for starting us down this path, with passage of legislation allowing more flexible wire tapping rules and other “homeland security” measures intended to infringe upon our so-called civil liberties. But Obama is doing more than his fair share in escalating the endeavor.
After having given his nod to fines and jail time for citizen non-compliance with health-care reform legislation, Obama has tipped his hand to the next challenge, making sure all of us citizens believe what we are told by his administration, and do as we are asked by those in power.
I believe it was George Orwell who first raised the specter of the “thought police” in his novel, 1984. In Orwell’s horrifying proleptic vision, it was the job of this agency to uncover and punish thought-crimes using a host of covert psychological and surveillance techniques to find and eliminate members of society whose very thoughts were challenging to the controlling hegemony.
Well, Obama is about to make Orwell’s vision a reality for the homeland in 2010. His pick to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), Dr. Cass Sunstein, Harvard Law Professor, proposed such an agency in a 2008 article published in The Journal of Political Philosophy.
Professor Sunstein, affectionately called (but not to his face) “Mr. Sunshine,” wrote in “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures,” that such theories pose “real risks to the government’s antiterrorism policies,” stemming as they do from a “crippled epistemology.” What he means by this is that conspiracy theorists have limited or poor information. His cure is to infiltrate these ill-advised groups with independent undercover agents (reporting to and paid by the administration) to correct the knowledge base of their disparate, renegade followers. As the article states:
“Government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action.”[20]
In this manner, he hopes to undermine the credibility and internal coherence of these heterodox groups. It is worth noting that Sunny, a Harvard Law Professor, has already been criticized publicly as a potentate for implementing censorship, online and elsewhere. It’s Soviet style propaganda, plain and simple folks. And Mr. Sunshine has been in the news as recently as April and May of this year. As the April article suggests:
Reading between the lines of Sunstein’s research paper, I believe it’s “justified” to ask whether the Obama administration took Sunstein’s “main policy idea” and put it into practice. If so, then We the People may likely pay for bureaucrats to engage in “counterspeech and marshall arguments” against us. We may pay, directly or indirectly, for “credible private parties to engage in counterspeech” (FactCheck, Media Matters, Snopes, public relations firms, progressive operatives who appear on CNN, FOX, CNBC, MSNBC and call into talk radio show, minions who write op-eds and letters to the editor, or “obots” who comment on blogs). Or we may merely pay for informal communication with such parties, encouraging them to “help.” Did we pay for the secret meetings wherein someone organized media groups like Journo-list? We certainly paid for those organizing phone conferences between administration staffers and the NEA, which aimed to recruit artists to “help” promote the Obama agenda.
And this brings us full-circle to last week’s post, reminding us again about the commodification of social policy, and the marketing of the State’s overarching agenda to the populace. Stand aside China, America is in lock step, or is that goose-step, with your sentiments about Google and censorship. Whether it is direct or “inverted” (Chris Hedges), the creeping and covert totalitarianism of our state belies the fascist tendencies of all states. Nietzsche was correct; there is no truth and no freedom where there is political society.
State is the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it tells lies…in all tongues of good and evil;…state, where the slow suicide of all is called ‘life.’ [Kaufmann, 160-1]
Politicians have one concern (no matter what they tell the public); and that is protection and expansion of power. Obama is no different than W. And the USA is no different than Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, China, Iran or North Korea.
We are moving slowly, but definitively into a police state. If you refuse to buy health insurance or if you even think the wrong thoughts, you are an enemy of the state. My friends, by writing this article, I am already labeled a heretic. I am already singled out as a potential problem to be solved or silenced.
Sunstein is now proposing a method of officially dealing with what he calls “dangerous” ideas, by claiming that the government could, “ban conspiracy theorizing,” or “impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories”. In short, Sunstein wants strong, official censorship, backed by threats of legal punishment, for those whose ideas he views as “dangerous” …
The siren song is getting louder as we approach the Scylla and Charybdis of our own historic destiny; do not be fooled by its enticements. We are doomed as long as there is someone telling us what to believe and how to live our lives: someone who knows nothing of us personally – our suffering, our longing, our simple pleasures and our needs. This is especially so when all the maneuvering is behind the scenes, part of the scaffolding holding up the Spectacle. We are all heterodox thinkers my friends; one and all, conspiracy theorists (or worse: terrorists) in Sunny’s view. The time to reflect is over. The time to make your voices heard is at hand. Or should we just retreat to the toilet and put a gun in our mouth?
Only where the state ends, there begins the human being who is not superfluous; there begins the song of necessity, the unique and inimitable tune. Where the state ends – look there, my brothers! [Kaufmann, 163]
kulturCritic 
“Thought crime” dovetails nicely with the age of refutation. Political entities can mobilize literally thousands of respondents, on any forum, at a moment’s notice to pillory, spin, confuse or totally obfuscate an issue should it be necessary when something or someone does not adhere to the “talking points”. All government is about control. Labels of these entities is meaningless. The aim is identical. Generally accompanied by ” well, at least it’s not like it is in (insert nation , state, locale) and be thankful for that. Orwellian indeed with a hearty dose of Bradbury.
Pixel-
“All government is about control.”
Absolutely correct about that. Ever since the emergence of hierarchical power backed by law and police/armies, control of the citizenry has been the foundational business of the State. But, we should be clear on the fact that centrally-governing, hierarchical authority was really established with the emergence of the first cities (although foreshadowed in chiefdoms) approximately 6,000 years ago. Prior to that time, by and large, there were small egalitarian bands usually guided by some elders, or even a big man. But there was no formal hierarchy or stratification of the members of the social group.
Great, if sobering (no pun intended), post this morning Sandy. You and Jim Kunstler are my regular Monday morning antidotes to MSM circus, which this week of course is focused on the what else but the ROYAL WEDDING! Oh joy!
I had to Google Sunstein, since you mentioned him last week and I’d heard his name bandied about previously in several other forums as we well. Turns out ol’ Sunny spent 27 years at the University of … wait for it… Chicago, which explains a lot, although he’s a from Massachusetts originally and is a Harvard alum as well. Not surprisingly for someone exposed to much egg-headery over so many years at such premier institutions of egg-headedness, he’s into economics as well, more specifically a branch called Behavioral Economics and the associated Public Choice Theory (I’m familiar with Public Choice but not much just yet with Behavioral Economics, although, I now view most fields of economics as extremely limited in their usefulness for a wide variety of reasons, but most notably because they’re mostly almost always used as an academic pretext/justification for preconceived policy actions).
His views on infiltrating internet groups are based on the concept of “cyberbalkanization,” a typically egg-headed word for the concept that like minded individuals cluster together on the internet to the exclusion of others and then promulgate wild-eyed conspiracy theories, thus necessitating government infiltration and intervention – all for our/their “own good” of course. (A personal aside: Yes, I’m a 9-11 “Truther” – such a quaint term – as well as a strong believer that the whole “War on Terror” was a premeditated fabrication to justify an unprecedented grab for power in the middle-east oil producing region, as well as the fact that there’s an unholy alliance between the Fed, Wall St, and the US MIC [which includes US executive and legislative branches in entirety, and is in fact the “unofficial” enforcement arm for American corporate interests world wide]), which, among other things, guaranteed the Wall St bailout in 2008, and continues to guarantee that the interests of the US corporate elite will be put first and foremost in the coming economic crash(es). Although I’ve been on some MSM sites where a few courageous souls tried to discuss such things, not surprisingly, they were all quickly dismissed and banished using such impeccable logic as “This is the US, our government would never do such a thing!” and “The 9-11 Commission has already looked into it. Move along now.”
I’ll read up some more on all of this and post again later.
DA – yep, you’re a real conspiracy perp… careful out there!!
Ok, back to ol’ Cass. I do remember checking this guy out a few weeks back when all the hubbub first erupted about his nomination to head OIRA (Ain’t it amazing at how the bureaucratic acronymic gobbledygook is reaching the point of high farce? Surely a sign that the empire is shuddering under the weight of its own pretensions, and its collapse may indeed be imminent.). Sorry to say, I wasn’t particularly concerned about him then, nor am I particularly concerned about him now, for a couple of reasons, and (of course) with a long-winded explanation to boot.
First of all, back to the economics thing. He’s evidently, just like any truly academic geek who’s lived in academia for most of his professional life (no doubt why Obama, the prototypical egg-headed geek – albeit with a political agenda/ambition – chose him), been (perhaps) unduly influenced by the other major academic discipline of his time (Cass is of course a J.D., a lawyer), economics. And not coincidentally, the University of Chicago is one of the major centers of economic thought in the world, home of the infamous and aptly named Chicago School of Economics (in the academic “school of thought” sense), spawning such economic heavy hitters as Hayek, Stigler, Friedman, Becker, and Posner.
I’m down with all that and even empathetic with his thinking. What I’m truly impressed by however, is his embracing of Public Choice and Behavioral Economics, as they pretty much fly in the face of all “real” intellectual academic theories such as those preached at such high cathedrals of academia as UC, and would no doubt have earned him much scorn as an academic interloper in such an environment. The UC school of econ, among other things, has brought us the “efficient markets hypothesis,” or the idea that markets always know best, and that the interference of us mere idiots (read: government regulators), will always lead to negative outcomes.
At any rate, why am I not really concerned about Cass Sunstein? Several reasons.
One, he’s a career academic and does what academics do. They preach loudly what they believe and why they believe it. Ain’t no one out there gonna credibly claim that anything Cass Sunstein said was a surprise when it finally bit them in the face.
Two, ain’t anything he’s proposing even moderately controversial. I’ve always assumed that government agents might be infiltrating internet boards in the first place, although I’ve never considered that even a moderately dangerous precedent in the first place. The far bigger danger in my opinion is that NSA “super snoops” are monitoring surreptitiously and identifying you for further monitoring.
Three, I think he’s simply wrong in suggesting that monitoring and trying to influence “balkanized” internet groups by interlopers would be effective. It’s a simplistic idea that I’m sure that the NSA types have already rejected, other than for highly specialized applications involving very tightly knit groups and very highly trained interlopers.
Anyway, gotta go, got a minor emergency to take care of.
Alright, I’m back. Let me wrap this up.
First of all, a public service announcement. When taking glass pressurized objects out of the refrigerator, say, a bottle of beer for instance, one should be particularly careful if the underlying floor is, oh, I dunno, ceramic tile maybe. In such an instance, the resulting explosion of said pressurized vessel will result in a righteous mess of exploded beer and micro-shards of glass that will be truly a cause for momentary, if not lasting, alarm.
That said, as I’ve said previously, what truly concerned me in the first place was the “Patriot Act” (what an aptly named piece of disinformation if I ever heard one), and its provisions for the Feds to compel librarians, internet providers, and others to give up their secrets “blindly” (without informing you that you’ve been given up). That was indeed the “key to the kingdom” as far as I’m concerned. All else since has been mere smoke and mirrors.
Do I think that the federales have a mark on me since then if they deem that they have a reason to? No doubt. Do I think that the numb-nuts have a clue in general, or an idea at all about me specifically, even if I WAS a legitimate “Al Qaeda” terrorist? Laughably (out loud), no.
NPR on the ride home (one of my favorite times of day, HEY PEOPLE! Don’t give up on NPR!) reinforced my opinion, with its story on the WikiLeaks TRULY REVEALING revealing of the incompetence of the Bush bunch in instituting Guantanamo in the first place, and the EVEN MORE CRIMINAL reaffirmation of Guantanamo by the yet to be convicted war criminal Barack Obama.
Make no mistake ladies and gents, we live in extraordinary times, and true to their call, the criminals among us have risen to the challenge.
Will we rise above it? I doubt it, but that’s not the point.
The real point is, we’re all going to die anyway, but what will we make of it all in the end?
For my part, a mere capitulation to the capitalist “winners” among us simply just won’t do. Unfortunately, neither will giving in to the seemingly “opposite” communist/fascist dictatorships either, although, upon closer examination, capitalist, communist, and fascist seem to all merge into one.
I think Sandy probably hit upon it in his initial post: FERAL humans, if they still exist, will be the final judges of our fate. Unfortunately, I doubt they’ll judge us kindly.
Surely there must be some way to get a bottle of beer out a fridge on a hard floor without it exploding!
I rarely drop a bottle of beer in my tiled kitchen, despite damage to nerves and tendons in right hand/arm while constructing this house. When i do, Plan A is to catch it with the other hand, Plan B is to bounce it up to the other hand with foot. Motivation is: if it hits the floor, no more beer for that day! So far (five years with tile) no explosions!
DA – A penetrating analysis, as always!! But the one thing that is noteworthy is that this man was picked to run this Office. And his positions, academic, quirky or otherwise, are squarely located within the realm of propaganda, thought control and, behavioral modification. That says a bunch about where our politics are going and, quite frankly, where it has always been, albeit, less obviously so.
Sandy,
Agreed. A further “penetrating analysis” if you will. The collection of glass shards from whatever means off of a tile floor while in the act of mopping up a spilled beverage; say beer, while more often than not deemed “necessary,” can ASSUREDLY be deemed PAINFUL!
That says less about where our politics are going, and a WHOLE LOT MORE about where my knees, never mind my MIND is going!
Anyway! I love the blog! Keep it up!
Reply to all above. The imposition of state ownership of our person began long before Bush, although he and Ronni the Forgetful inherited that history. With the beginning of mass automobile usage, the Supreme Court decided that the warrant requirement for a search of a person’s effects or person was not required when that person was in his automobile (his effect). They reasoned that because the car was mobile (necessity) the search and seizure could take place with out a warrant. Not discussed, of course, was that any probable cause that would support a warrant would support an arrest and detention, giving the cops the time to present a neutral (quaint term these days) disinterested (even more quaint) magistrate and application and affidavit for a search. As this decision filtered into the thinking of the law enforcement cabal, WWII and organized crime provided opportunity to further erode the Constitution. Americans of Japanese ancestry became mere property on the west coast of the land of the free, and J. Edgar Crossdresser decided that anyone who did not hew the “Catholic/RAH! America” coalition was an enemy of the state. (there’s that ugly word again.) The final legal irony was the supposedly pro civil liberties decision in Katz v. United States, where the question was whether the tapping of a public phone used by the accused required a warrant and a showing of probable cause. Leaving aside the rights of non target users of the public phone, the court held that the target had a “reasonable expectation of privacy” so a warrant was required. Today, that meme, “a reasonable expectation of privacy” has completely disposed of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Our cars, papers, routes through the landscape, our glove compartments and anything done outside our locked,curtains drawn, white noise accessorized homes where the phones are disconnected and the computer reformatted are places and conditions where we as human beings have no reasonable expectation of privacy. Corporations and LLC’s, of course, are another matter. Despite not being “persons born in the United States” as set forth in the Fourteenth Amendment, they have all the rights of the living humans who are the citizens of this country, and many more. They are free from prosecution for fraud, perjury, larceny, and many other crime that are on the books but ignored unless committed by one lower than the High Aristocracy. No different than the Ancien Regime of France.
So, now, there is no protection from government or corporate spying, recording and making files on any of us. Of course, the security state has everybody scared, and the Facebook phenomenon has millions of presumable conscious and competent people revealing their entire lives, hope, dreams and financial life on the internet on a product that openly sells the data thay collect to any tom, dick or corporation that has the money. So, Sandy is so right, that the state the citizen and the individual are engaged in a final tarantella, trying to skip over the currents of the whirlpool, which is dragging us all down to hell.
StrayCat,
This synopsis captures my viewpoint entirely. I appreciated the concise manner in which you articulated the core denial currently operating in American culture. The question now is what do WE do? Thanks!
I believe that the best we can do for ourselves and our progeny is to withdraw our financial, labor and allegiance from the state. For me that entails withdrawing all of my financial matters from banks, stocks or any other “investments” and putting everything in credit unions where I can attend the board meetings, vote for or run for the board. Ownership by shares is democratic, and personal. Buy as little as possible. No toys, plastic gegaws or foods from far places. We grow as much as we can, and are learning to fish economically and have been active in creating a community organic garden.
Ending all services that require a time contract which deprives us of rights to jury trial, ending cable, sat tv and the like. i will not fly except in dire emergency. (weddings and funerals are not dire emergencies). Bicycles and walking are becoming our short term mode of transportation. A three wheeled bike is going to be the grocery cart.
May be we can move things along. I am writing on some political/social blogs about making this fourth of July an economic independence day, where no one travels, stays home with friends and family, buys no gasoline, avoids restaurants, movies and all other commercial activity. If this gets any traction, a weekly day of independence may be possible.
Complete withdrawal from facebook type things, despite our grandchildrens’ probable pouts and grimaces. I believe that the bankster/wall street/government predators can only do as much damage as they are doing is with our money and our passivity. The crooks steal from us a dollar at a time but multiplied by the millions of “customers” that do business with them. An example is the billions of dollars the banks complain of losing by new regulations limiting the swipe fees that are to come effective this year. The banks have spent millions in Congress to stop this. From now on, we will be paying cash, and keeping a cash notebook. Yes, it’s inconvenient when compared to an on line bank statement with Quicken, but it is far less inconvenient that what our first army faced at Valley Forge. We must trade convenience for freedom and sloth for activity, or we will become serf in name and law instead of just financially.
SC – an aggressive plan. But one that I follow as much as possible. Of course I am spread between two continents (Eurasia and NA) so financial matters are things I must deal with on a global (ie., internet driven scale) with large players; and travel issues I must contend with annually. However, we have the dacha, the garden, no autos, bare minimum insurance on our humble property in Geneva NY; no long term contracts, etc. Facebook, although I use it for some contact with the past and distant friends, I will address tomorrow.
A quick look at the definition of corruption at dictionary. com reveals:
“The act of corrupting or state of being corrupt. (2) moral perversion; depravity, (3) perversion of integrity, (4) corrupt or dishonest proceedings, (5) bribery, (6)debasement or alteration, as of language or a text, (7) a debased form of a word,
(8) putrefactive decay; rottenness, (9) any corrupting influence or agency. ”
…I can understand how #3 can subtly lead to the many of the more outward characteristics. Cancer grows by corrupting one cell, yet one cannot see it until it starts to destroy internal systems or presents itself as a tumor.
Cass Sunstein and his ilk serve to pervert integrity of the public discussion one cell at a time and turn everything into a questionable malignancy. All the while, the ‘treatment’ is the intended goal.
I like the brief analysis HB!! Truly, it is a disease.
Just a word in defense of Cass Sunstein: He’s trying to think of ways to get the public to face reality (as defined by himself, of course) since it’s clear that rational discussion of established facts isn’t doing the job. That’s a pretty sad conclusion to work from, but who among us can put his hand on his heart and say it isn’t true?
The best way to accomplish that is to end the secrecy and classification of facts and matters that belong in the public domain. Too many of the reports created by government arise from selective investigation and selective statement of the facts for the purpose of supporting the desired narrative. There is no honesty in the process, even when the final decision may be true
The end of the Cold War really introduced the notion that taking care of the people was unnecessary. During the Cold War the Soviet propaganda made hay of the condition of the poor and underclasses in America, forcing corrective action to prove our system was better than theirs with it’s cradle to grave welfare system.
After the Cold War collapsed there was no counter to the brand new notion that free marketeering was the be all and end all and now all that mattered was making more profit. The notion of taking care of one’s own became a quaint footnote to the history of the late 20th century.
Japan has exposed globalization as a very risky way to make a profit so I’m sure now that we have third world levels of unemployment manufacturing will come closer to home where the workers can be paid a pittance, no social security, no health care and there will be gratitude across a land ravaged by 30 percent unemployment. It’s back to the Pullman strikes for the next phase. History repeats itself. For now we have to fight the Tzar’s police state.
Conchscooter – great brief analysis. I am right with you. But, all the care for the downtrodden back in the first half of the century was just more kabuki play to make the American Dream seem real and sustainable, no? So, it has been a joke all along, just another gimmick to keep the have nots in line with the talking points… better to keep those dirty Commies at bay. But, now the window dressing is gone (albeit it did do something, it had to in order to work its magic) and we can see the State for what it really is… not a comforting place to make your bed.
It’s your use of terms like “kabuki,” “joke,” “gimmick” and so forth that marks you as a conspiracy theorist. There really were a lot of poor, sick, old, non-white people who were/are helped (yes really, actually helped) by Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, the Voting Rights Act, affirmative action, Pell grants, etc. Those things were not window dressing to make it seem like people were being helped. They worked.
Were they perfect? No. Were they all even good ideas? Perhaps not. Were they motivated entirely out of altruism or a desire for justice? Undoubtedly not.
But the idea they were intended simply as unsustainable window dressing to counter Soviet propaganda is just loopy. Conspiracy theory stuff.
If no one is going to reply to the Squeaky Rat that has just crawled out of the woodwork (just a little joke SqueakyRat), I guess I will. SR, nothing in the words kabuki, joke or gimmick even suggest conspiratorial theorizing. They simply mark the justifiable assumption that politics and political decisions are often typical (but questionable) efforts on the part of the State to insure the masses stay quiet and under control. In other words, I am arguing that political/State decisions are not guided by some unprejudiced altruism or kinship based warmth but by the desire to maintain the status quo for those who are in control. They act, by and large, out of their conception of rational self interest; it is in the nature of the disease. And never once did I say or imply that the social services you mentioned were not effective in helping people; they were and are; and I count myself among those helped. However, the motivation for implementing those was not out of concern for humanity pure and simple, but just as importantly they were accommodations to insure the continued preservation of the State. And you, yourself make the same assertion. But, you raise an interesting point that I had not previously considered: perhaps they were meant to counter Soviet propaganda? And since you brought it up, then I guess we should call you the loopy one – to use your own words. But I would not call you loopy or a conspiracy theorist; I would simply say you are a person who does not quite buy into the myth about American exceptionalism and the American Dream. Hope you stay with us here, SqueakyRat; I like the way you think!! Sandy
Pixel, Sandy and others,
My pendent for exposing slime and corruption has gotten me in trouble. I suppose that many times we are looking at a way to deal with the impending doom that is sweeping us toward TEOTWAWKI. We don’t have a clue about what is really going on here. The dammed liars and the lies they tell us is an effort to control us and our lives. Obama, far from being a liberal, is actually marxist in his approach. When I see George Orwell’s name being spoke about, I think of the classic novel, Animal Farm. I also see serfdom is its most forceful form. Actually, Obama is shoing his true roots as a Bill Ayers disciple. The control of information and the disinformation that exists to further the real agenda of Obama is really an offshoot of the old KGB/CIA style of control. The naked rise of gas prices, the fact that nobody has been convicted, yet alone charged in the ponzi stock market crash of 2008 and the massive and fraudulent war on drugs, shows the true nature of the desprate frantic efforts to pump water out of a sinking ship. The simple fact is that we live in the age of fraud. The faster we get thru this lie, the less damage it will inflict on all of us.
John – it is all about controlling the message; deception and shutting down alternative views. Now look what the Chief Deceiver is up to, trying to make up a scape goat for the skyrocketing oil prices… what? He has Eric the do-nothing-AG playing a shell game of Look-for- the-manipulators!! He really wants to find reasons not to discuss the real issues including TEOTWAWKI.
http://tinyurl.com/3mfoc5p
Americans have never trusted government; it’s part of our culture (and our Constitution). Probably what gives rise to the tendency to create every kind of conspiracy scenario. But despite Mr. Sunshine’s chilling call for infiltrators, his words were “government agents (and their allies)” to enter chat rooms, et al. The designation “undercover” is yours – he doesn’t suggest they hide their identity. For that matter, does it make a difference whether they identify themselves or not? You and I both know their myopic beliefs won’t be easily changed.
Walt – it’s not ‘their’ views we are concerned about, but rather, their insidious influence on open discussion. And they will gather information on those they deem most harmful to national interests. Then, watch out, when things fall apart. And while our constitution may suggest a distrust of federal government; it is fairly evident that our populace generally is a go along to get along kind of group. We don’t typically question authority; and we don’t seek to rock the boat. That is why this whole thing is a sham; you are implored to work within the system, but the system is a straight jacket from which neither of the two parties ever diverges by more than a wink and a nod. And this is the wrong discussion for us to be having anyway. The fact is, we are walking off a precipice (not the Nation, but the frickin world…) led by the nose by marketers and kleptocrats and snake oil salesmen who want us to keep consuming their crap. This is not about contemporary politics; it is about the nature of industrial civilization, driven now hard by robber barons who constantly work to undermine any real understanding of what is happening. That is the issue Walt! Not changing the views of the slithering creeps who wish to confuse and bewilder us.
Oil prices are going to double in the next few months to unbearable levels. The one way that oil pries go is up. We will not have an economic recovery, we will have the crash of 2011 and no way on earth will Obama be able to spend enough money to prop up a dead horse. So we are facing the begining of the end of the ponzi scheme that we call capitalism. The first cracks are starting to break in the economy.
And just watch how THEY try to fill those cracks, John!!!
John,
Not sure whether the crash will be in 2011 or not (never underestimate the combined power of the Fed and Wall St to keep yet another illusory bubble inflated), but it is INDEED coming. And you are correct. Oil prices may indeed precipitate such a crash, as Jim Kunstler at CFN once again forewarned this week.
Oil prices, financial bubbles, and government deficits are INDEED an unholy and “destabilizing” (I especially like using that word in reference to the US government, as it’s the US government’s favorite word to use with reference to any other government in the world) influence in the world.
[Posted by Linda Marie in Resistance As Commodity; kulturCritic decided to repost it here along with my response to her comment]
“I agree, the state is basically a monopoly on violence. And it is getting pretty scary with these youngsters with guns called Police. They are not even close to being mentally equipped to have that kind of ‘power’. But they DO. And many of them are sick and twisted sociopaths. IMO.
Oh but let’s remember to Not Take The Law Into Our Own Hands ! I have always thought that this is a very strange way of being. We have no choice, but it doesn’t seem to be working out.”
[My reply to Linda Marie]
“Linda Marie – thanks for commenting. Yes, there is much that is sociopathic within the law enforcement community. But, it is likely the case that every hierarchy attracts sociopaths into its ascending ranks. It provides them with a high place from which to look down upon the masses; it provides that illusion of separation that heightens their own sense of self importance and individual superiority. It allows them to create laws, pass judgments and execute decisions that don’t apply to themselves (just look at the sociopaths in Congress and in the courts, not to mention the Sociopath in Chief and his cohort sitting just down the street from that august body of lawyers and lobbyists). The entire charade of politics, of hierarchical organization – the military for god’s sake – the entire edifice of civilization; all of these institutions are erected upon a similar pathological basis and all are focused on command and control. That is what happens when you draw together 10′s, 100′s of thousands, let alone millions of strangers within tightly packed cities and their extensions, all scratching to find a place in the socio-economic structure.
Civilization is the pathology; hierarchy, the pathogen.”
Wow I just now ‘got back’ here. sorry it took so long. i am not too computer savvy at all.
i do only post on a couple of pages and recently kinda stopped on the other one. you are familiar with it. I miss CASH. He went away. anyway.
Loved your response, makes alot of sense. Thought provoking.
Civil ! ha ! oh well watcha gonna do.
Stay out of harms way.
A parade of charades !
Yep.
They’re already working filters on the Inet. Cleenah den Skeetah’s peetah! Feeling lucky? Maybe you are. Trust in FacePlant!!!
If they want to shut U down, they *WILL* – cakewalk. The fact that this might actually get posted, means they aren’t working very *WELL*.
Silence is golden – truly a kick-@$$ song. The mantra of the elite MIC. You say something they don’t liek, they *WILL* silence your @$$ – period. Talk all you will about conspiracy – it’s *FUTILE*. 2012?~!… it’s almost upon us, and we live *IN DENIAL*!~!~!~!
PS – kick-@$$ web page. “Free” for a *while*…
While I was thinking about the reality of the issues here, an interesting thought came thru my thinking. What is it that these freaks are after? Control of our lives ? Power in fact may be an illusion. Let me restate this in another way. What is power when all authority breaks down ? When the internet and all of the trappings of globalism collapse, What will Washington do ? Will it really matter ? In my long emergency style of thinking, The collapse of the trappings of power will lead to a simliar decline in the communications of said power. All power will instead be localized. Hence, power will be watered down to simple brute naked force. That is the only way that power will be able to be transmitted. Soooo, even the most virile propaganda will only reach so far. Strikes ? people will be living in semi feudal lifestyles. Money will be hard currency not paper. We don’t have much a choice here but to enjoy the ride down the ladder from civilization to chaos and back to civilization, abet a much simpler one.
John,
Power has been amazingly flexible and easy to exercise throughout history, and current technological and sociological trends, with some exceptions, seem to indicate that it will be even more so in near future. Indeed, the current world-wide economic looting and plundering in the face of increasing global integration (and thus dependence) of commodities markets can be read as a blatant attempt at establishing the first of many choke holds on dependent populations world-wide. In fact, the only reason we’re probably discussing this at all is that the US underclass was predictably the last to get the word. The rest of the world – especially outside the affluent west – has seen this coming for at least two decades now.
As far as re-localization, yes, that indeed will come. In fact, it will be forced upon us whether we like it or not. But now for the unfortunate side effects:
Re-localization will be viewed as a threat from the still powerful forces of nationalism/globalism during the descent and will be prosecuted as such. And make no mistake, the powers that be will retain significant power deep into the descent! In fact, my recent posts on drones are but one indication of such.
Re-localization will suffer significant and constantly shifting organizational and logistical challenges during the descent, which will be almost impossible to prepare for ahead of time, no matter how dedicated and adept the local “authorities” are. This factor should not be underestimated, as it will indeed be the most significant and lasting challenge for local groups, and by far the greatest advantage for the forces of nationalism/globalism.
Finally, re-localization will suffer from one ominous and overarching fact that NO ONE is currently prepared to deal with, and for which there is simply NO solution currently, nor even remotely, possible. Current population levels have only been enabled by current oil-based technologies, and, in the absence of those same technologies, those populations levels…
WILL SIMPLY HAVE TO RECEDE SIGNIFICANTLY(!), WHETHER “BY HOOK, OR BY CROOK!”
That said, what’s the danger for us?
First of all, start schooling your youngsters as to the future. The next 100 years promise to be “turbulent”, to say the least. Don’t continue to feed them the current line of BS. You’ll feel stupid (and rightfully so), and be remembered as an idiot.
If you’re a 20 something, hopefully you’ve got the word already. If you haven’t, surely you’re figuring it out as you go, and by now you’ve at least got an inkling as to what’s coming. If not, you’ll soon join the 30 something group ahead of you. Welcome to the club!
If you’re 30 or older and you haven’t got a clue yet; relax, it’s almost over for you anyway. Go back to sleep and wait for the end to come already. Just try not to fuck up your kids anymore than you have already. They’re probably not listening to you anyway.
If you’re 40+ like me, you no doubt fall into one of two categories. If you’re a plutocrat or an aspiring plutocrat, you’re more than likely not reading this anyway. Press on with pride and have a good life, and hopefully it will all turn out for you. If you’re one of the rest of schmucks, relax, find time for family and friends, and enjoy what little time you’ve got left. Remember, less than 100 years ago – a mere pittance in the big picture – 50+ years would have been considered a godsend, as it still should be. Quit your job, sell your house, take a rental in a warm climate, get drunk, make love to your wife or whomever, and THANK GOD you’re still alive. And FOR GOD’S SAKE, get out of the way for the young when your time comes, just as you’d hope the old ahead of you would get out of the way for you!
Wow DA – I se you got a bit worked up on that reply, huh? LOL
Sandy,
The word comes to me occasionally. No LOL needed on this one.
DA
An addendum:
The baby boom generation (I’m one of them) is the first to buy into the ridiculous myth of their own immortality (sold to them by big pharma and big healthcare just like any other garden variety commodity), and they are gonna be just one colossal pain in the ass as the “great retrenchment” proceeds. The youth will rightly come to despise them (from many of the comments I’ve seen around the net, they already do), as they realize that the boomers are claiming the last resources at the top of the peak, and that conditions in the future will never be as good again. I think it’s entirely predictable that not only will SS and MC be eviscerated, but that that might be the least of it. I can’t imagine that a great many gen x, y, z, and millennials will be overly enthusiastic about nurse maiding their Alzheimer’s ridden elders for years on end in an era of collapsing everything.
Once again, I think America is gonna have to get real about geriatric and end of life care issues, something we’ve never even been remotely mature about before (you’ll recall Obama’s so-called “death panel” proposals during the hysterical health care debate). You might think that the sight of increasing numbers of elderly homeless people might do it, but we’ve proven amazingly adept at hiding the homeless problem (an “inconvenient truth” if there ever was one), so I’m guessing we’ll just find another way to sweep it under the rug like we always do.
The breakdown of authority is already underway. The aristocrats are not prosecuted for their crimes, while the underclass gets long sentences for violations of statutes that are socially harmless acts. The mainstream press is flooded with letters and comments crying out about this. Respect for law and obedience to authority cannot exist in this environment. And the breakdown is accelerating with the unemployment rate and the foreclosures and loss of property values. As the predators gain more control of the regulatory structure, property insurance rates, medical insurance premiums and other diminution of value will further speed this very real dissolution along. While Washington may not be in the position to do much on the county level, you can be sure that the Blackwater/Xe/Titan private armies allied with the sheriffs and the Oathkeepers will seek to fill any vacuum left by the FBI, state police or the ICE. It will, at least in the Old South be Onward Christian Soldiers. Unless there is a well established democratic local administration at the municipal level, with the tax base to pay the troops and teachers, there may be chaos. Brute force that you envision may be the outcome. But if so the brutality will be fatal to many. The antidote to this may be the creation of authentic authority based on competence, limits and consensus. The elements of such often, or even usually, exist in towns and villages, and even in neighborhoods. The question is whether these elements can be fashioned into an operating culture during the maelstrom.
That is one of the many unknowns we face in the coming year(s) SC. And another is, what kind of culture will it be? After all, the only recent example is not much more than fascism in comedy theater costume with guns and executioners at the draw.
Excellent link:
The Fourteen Characteristics of Fascism
Whether or not Cass Sunstein is a harbinger of certain doom, he’s certainly indicative of the overall direction we are heading. With Shrub, this trend was mildly scary, if only because we always knew that a fascist state was always the goal of the right wing lunatic fringe. With Obama, we have official confirmation that such a state is the goal of what passes for the “left” and the mainstream as well, which means that there’s little or no hope of turning back from our rush to the precipice now.
I honestly didn’t see a single condition on this list that we haven’t met already, and most are simply unarguable and not even controversial at this point. Such is our collective delusion.
And, something hot off the tele, just to let us know that Sunny and his ilk are already hard at work!!
New Speak: “Conspiracy Theory” is now defined as anything that goes against the official party line.
DA,
While I do agree with most of your premises, the fact remains that with the collapse of the oil based economic system, the power structure will collapse with it. Simply put drones need fuel and the fuel is going to be hard to get and it will take an infastructure to support. People will not simply let the powers that be win by default. If anythhing is to be learned from the Vietcong and Taliban, it is this : it takes boots on the ground to win a counter insurgency campaign. It is going to take boots on the ground to occupy the land. Now, given that the powers that be are going to be in constant chaos and the breakdown in communications and transportation will take place, those in authority will be hard pressed to attempt to occupy the vast swaths of the american west or the ozarks or the swamps of central florida. Political figures will make brave statements about the power of the federal union. They will not waste valued oil stocks nor drones on areas that do not bring them maximun profit.
When power collapses, the power brokers will be to scared to do anything..
John,
You could be right. One thing’s for sure, they won’t waste needless energy on us once the subduing’s done, and I agree, it probably ain’t gonna take a great deal of effort to subdue the American sheeple. We’re a pretty passive lot for the most part. Kinda like the feedlot cattle we eat, passively headed down the chute to their own execution.
The current land grab going on for natural gas rights is a good indicator. In spite of mountains of evidence of the irreversible damage fracking does to the water table, the sheeple are, for the most part, lined up to cash in and supportive of big oil and gas.
That’s the real beauty of fascism done right. The boot on the neck is rarely required at all. For the most part, the peons beg for and welcome their own enslavement.
I honestly think that this may be staged political theater with the express purpose of making Obama look “reasonable” in comparison, and thus, re-electable, or, at the very least, to preoccupy the hard right lunatic fringe, so that a more reasonable Republican (Mitt Romney, who’s got that unfortunate “Mormon thing”) can emerge later. One thing’s clear, all is not right with “The Donald,” but I think this is more than just a case of a rich, eccentric, ego-maniacal gasbag giving free reign to his delusional thinking.
Donald Trump in Vegas: ‘Our leaders are stupid, they are stupid people’
He certainly seems possessed by his own sickness. Sure would hasten the end of the world as we know it if he gets in.
A sign of the times:
Arizona Gets an Official State Gun — And It’s Manufactured in Connecticut
I propose that Arizona be dubbed the”Canary in the Coal Mine” state, in recognition of the fact that they seem to be on the leading edge of the cultural insanity that’s gradually swallowing us all. Neighboring states Nevada and California claim runner up and honorable mention titles as well.
What would you expect from desert dominated western states based on the techno-illusions of cheap and abundant water and climate controlled environments, all based on cheap and abundant energy supplies, most coming from half a world away? Long before the end of this century we will regard our current lifestyles for what they are: the delusional dreaming of a once great empire in its death throws, but too stubborn and proud to admit it.
I imagine native Americans of 150 years ago saw these days coming even before they were slaughtered and run of the land, many forming the humble beginnings of the modern prison state. Government sponsored crony capitalism, then as now, brooks no dissent, and what better symbol to convey that meaning than a state gun? Good work Arizona!
DA,
Arizona is an example of a state that should have never been a state. No viable natural resources except in mining and ranching. I lived in zona and it has no future once peak oil crisis takes its toll. People will just simply abandon ship and go elsewhere. Phoenix will be a ghost town like vegas and sanity will return as people realize that you can’t have a city in a area that is a arid wasteland. Again the best places to leave to is the rural midwest.
How appropriate for “full metal jacket”!!
In his excellent book Cadillac Desert book and subsequent 4 part PBS documentary Cadillac Desert film and Film You Tube Links, author Marc Reisner discusses the damming(damning?) of the American West in order to conquer what otherwise is mostly an inhospitable wasteland, suitable for only what it was being used as at the time: light grazing and nomadic hunter/gathering. True to the delusional thinking that led us to commit the unspeakable atrocities of slaughtering the great buffalo herds and the native American tribes that coexisted with them (indeed, who even worshiped the “great buffalo spirit” in recognition that it was nothing less than the giver of life to them) and plowing the tall grass prairie just east of the rockies, we even invented pseudo scientific “theories” to justify our actions: Rain follows the plow.
He also details that the Phoenix basin had already been irrigated and deserted by native Americans on a much smaller scale in the past, due to the inevitable soil salination (salt accumulation) that occurs as the result of irrigation. And of course, the real story is the damning of the Colorado and the Owens (CA) rivers in order to steal water and provide hydro-electric power for the other two twin abominations of western culture: Las Vegas NV and Los Angeles CA, neither of which would exist without modern technology life support systems. I highly recommend! the You Tube video series of the Cadillac Desert documentary. It’s enthralling.
A personal note. You can easily see why I assert that we are vastly overpopulated (especially in areas that we should not be populating at all for the most part), due almost completely to the fact of modern technologies, ALL powered and themselves enabled by one thing: cheap and abundant fossil fuel energy.
How ironic for DA to state that arizona is canary in the coal mine. For years the leading economic indicators of how bad it is getting has been the disabled population. Indications of downturns in society have always hit the disabled population first. The last hired for jobs, and the first to be dumped by social service agencies, the disabled are truly a first indicator of economic stress. let’s see, if you have high cost medical expenses and Medicare or Medicaid places copays on the medications that you need to stay on this earth, it takes away money that could feed you or pay the rent. The apartment complex that houses a few of my consumers has vacancies. Something that never happens except in times of great economic stress. You have the elderly and disabled residents eating rice and beans for weeks on end. Many of the residents are facing gas shut offs and electric shut offs as medical bills skyrocket due to cut backs, copays and crazy insurance regulations which deny you medication in order to kill you. The states are facing budget cuts and they don’t want their money spent on keeping disabled people alive, they have more important things to do like build a new football stadium or to send people on junkets promoting state tourism.
Good points John. As I said above, I think the current attacks (which are just getting started) on SS and MC are just the leading edge of a tsunami of government roll-backs in favor of everything private, which is of course just code word for corporate profits. Poor old people are definitely not profitable and will definitely be dispatched by whatever means is ultimately deemed economically efficient and politically expedient. In spite of the fact that big med and big pharma have a vested interest in keeping us alive longer, that’s all predicated on the ability to pay. Absent the ability to pay the freight, old people will simply be deemed more valuable as food for worms.
Let me add, the current “trickle down” tax theory mantra of the Republican right actually does have a basis in “fact,” if only because that’s how the rich and powerful dictate how things unfold. Prosperity generally always unfolds as a top down process, as even grass roots based booms are always captured soon after by the rich, powerful, and politically connected. Needless to say, austerity during times of bust is always a bottom up process for obvious reasons.
So when hard right ideologues advocate trickle down prosperity based on tax cuts for the rich I don’t doubt the motives of at least a few, although anyone with half a brain should have noticed that the ongoing experiment with this line of thinking since 1980 has been an abject failure. In my view, no one with a current income less than $50K should be taxed at all, but that’s just me.
The current mantra of tax relief for the rich is an idea that’s so obscene that it could only have been conceived in a nation that’s gone completely off the rails. In my opinion, if I manage to remain above ground for another 25 years, I’ll see the complete dissolution of the US Federal government as a functioning entity. In fact, I think we’ll be most of the way there by the end of this decade.
WE CAN ONLY HOPE!!
Wow – there is ice running through those veins now!!
Yup, DA and it is just getting started here. Many of my consumers don’t have enough money to pay for rent food and meds so most of them are down to 2 meals a day. In many cases, the elderly are being subjected to backdoor mercy killing via state denial of drug coverage. You see that with transplant denials and with sudden deaths after nursing home placement. Once the person’s savings run out and they have hocked over the house to the nursing home, it is bye bye granny or grampa. The industry will deny this simple fact to the until the cows come home but the painful facts are that once your money runs out and you become a burden to the home, they find ways to hasten your death.
You 2 are just a gas!! I’m glad I have a young healthy wife, and an apartment and dacha in Siberia!! LOL
Don’t feel too good there Sandy. The collapse of the US will be the domino that starts all the others falling. US money and technology have, like water, permeated every nook and cranny of the world economically and politically. A rapid demise of US influence will no doubt have unpredictable catastrophic consequences for the rest of the world as well, at least in the short run. You’ve got a system now that, for all its faults, is at least marginally stable. The instability that its failure will unleash will be monumental, and of course, possibly nuclear as well. Although, I must admit, Siberia might possibly be the best place imaginable to weather the storm.
DA – you know, of course, that we agree on the global reach of this collapse. The entire civilized world will be thrown back into another dark age, but the recovery from that point is yet to be seen. My primary points about Siberia, and dacha are as follows. There are real forests still in Siberia with things that grow which you can eat; there are a lot fewer people here per sq kilometer (much less chance for confrontations); the cold weather will keep others away; and it will become more temperate as climate continues to change. The dacha community is located by the river and the forest, plus there is a deep water table which supplies the entire community with fresh ground water, like an aquaduct; we are not dependent upon electricity there or gas (although they are helpful, of course); we have a huge garden with lots of fruits and vegetables and I continue to learn how to take care of it; we do much of our own canning, pickling, etc. We are surrounded by neighbors just like us, who are all prepared to help one another, if need e.
Sounds like I need to meet some Russian girls.
DA – you just need one… the right one!!
Sandy,
We need to converse via private email. I’d really like to know about the culture up there. I read an article in the New Yorker or Harper’s I believe a few months back about the construction of the trans-Siberian railroad that really piqued my interest. It seems like an impossibly difficult place to settle due to the swamps and harsh weather (indeed, if the RUSSIANS – renowned for their legendary stoicism in the face of adversity – can’t settle it, who can?), and the Google maps flyovers seem to confirm that judgement at every turn.
Anyway…
Many of my consumers don’t have enough money to pay for rent food and meds so most of them are down to 2 meals a day. In many cases, the elderly are being subjected to backdoor mercy killing via state denial of drug coverage. You see that with transplant denials and with sudden deaths after nursing home placement.
John,
Just a quick additional reply, and I know that this will sound harsh. The above cases that you allude to are the inevitable result of an unsustainable medical/social system that was set up from its inception based on the equally unsustainable capitalist perpetual growth model. As in, today’s drug sales, transplants, and other life extending procedures will always and forever be financed/enabled by tomorrow’s miracle discoveries, less of course the EQUALLY exponentially increasing expectation for investor returns.
It continues to astound me that anyone in their right mind can be at all perplexed at the impending failure of capitalism as we know it. It takes only a basic (albeit genuine!) 6th grade education to grasp the fundamentals of the exponential function, after which common sense takes over. Exponential growth forever and ever amen? Ain’t gonna happen. Further, anyone that believes that it will is an idiot. Further still, any society based on that concept is doomed to fail. From the bottom up, of course. Nuff said.
In reviewing the Cadillac Desert documentary on You Tube this morning, it occured to me how stupid the 9-11 hijackers were, if they were indeed legitimate in the first place (Has anyone ever wondered how it is that the mighty US military has been completely unable to catch the mythical Osama bin Laden in the ten years since?). If they had truly wanted to cripple the US completely, they would have only needed to detonate truck bombs, a la Timothy McVeigh’s OKC rig (airlines would have done the trick as well, in arguably a more spectacular fashion), over the top of the Glen Canyon and Hoover dams. In one fell swoop they would have unleashed an unimaginable and unprecedented environmental, economic, and political catastrophe that would have signaled the end of life as we know it in the American west. Las Vegas and Phoenix would have instantly been history, and LA would have been seriously on the ropes. Millions of people would instantly need to relocate, and the resulting political turmoil might well have turned completely and unequivocally totalitarian. What were they thinking?
Careful DA – you are getting close to the edge… Big Sunny is watching you. 😉
It’ll keep ’em entertained on a slow Sunday morning. Lovely spring snowstorm here in the southern end of the rockies this morning. I’m gonna get outside and get some hiking in.
A good plan… and wait til tomorrow’s post!!
An article to read through in entirety:
Tomgram: Engelhardt, Are We Still on an Imperial Planet?
A new paradigm? Oh no! Say it isn’t so!
Good link DA – but too long… had to go to the end and bypass some of the goodies to get to the point!!
I’m more worried about the “history” they teach 4th graders than any trolling they do. More worried about the message beneath every sit-com or the toys they sell kids at Christmas. Hegemony comes packaged with every breath mint.
Troutsky – go back and read my last post – Resistance As Commodity; but you are absolutely correct!!
“Only where the state ends, there begins the human being who is not superfluous; there begins the song of necessity, the unique and inimitable tune. Where the state ends – look there, my brothers!” [Kaufmann, 163]
I don’t really give a shit who Sunny is and whatever his plans are. Kiss my ass! I have taken the blue pill and disconnected from the insane matrix in modernity. I am actually using my real name, imagine that. Nor do I intend to run off to Siberia although still looking forward to attending one of Sandy’s cocktail parties someday.
If we give our authentic autonomous private virtual selves to historic cultural discourses, institutions and practices in fear, we fail to enactively embody the wisdom, dignity and human justice we desire to bring forth in confronting the insane idiots at the edge of global chaos. We literally defeat ourselves by empowering the appearance of terror in the manufactured media surrounding us and pieces of Humpty Dumpty scattered in meaningless dribbling conversations.
Instead “Personhood’s Full Metal Jacket” is authentic power. Harnessing trust in our attentive (non violent) effective actions capable of intervening in creative collapsing opportunities is the genetic wisdom of “the unique and inimitable tune” that constitutes who you (i) (we) and (us). My immediate concern is that the emergent global chaos is producing profound moods of collective distrust, resignation, confusion, and despair that is paralyzing autonomous and collective effective actions.
Hope is a mood in a world to come. A notion we definitely need to dispense of immediately. It’s time for our “Full Metal Jacket’s” as autonomous human beings in this Emerge~N~SEE experience. The only solution I see in this situation is reconfiguring the power of masses of personhood’s confronting a very limited elite state-private-corporate plutocracies. Globalization is a disease infecting all patriarchal cultures currently in existence. The new configurative interactive communication platform I imagine exploits the weakness in the blind spot of current global leadership.
Imagine global citizenry confronting “Goldman Sacks’ notion of Facebook where the stove pipe command and control systemic system no longer owns the content of our lives. Where we wake up to the new notion of free being technological cookies tracking every transaction. Imagine a private office of the future where the content of one’s personhood is privatized and cookies you eat with friends. Imagine investing a $100 a month in a cooperative collaborative private office for 10 years. Imagine an interactive communication structure where “Sunny” can have a seat and all his bullshit notions of censorship by a state private plutocracies are disempowered in laughter.
Here is my bottom line on my dance card. These SOB’s butt fucked the wrong guy and there is no comprise. They are gonna have to shoot me to shut me up. And at this point I almost welcome it versus living another day in this insane bull shit. (Just for the record “butt fucked” and “bull shit” are technical terminology intended to offend Sunny’s blind spot.)
I am not prejudice I hate the entire system and here is my “Full Metal Jacket.”
Groubal Complaint http://www.groubal.com/american-family-insurance-rapes-small-business-entrepreneur/
Sandy, it’s great connecting and thanks for your courageous stance.
Patric
Powerful statement, Patric!!
whoah this weblog is magnificent i like reading your articles.
Stay up the great work! You realize, lots of people are hunting round for this information, you can
aid them greatly.