This Is The End, My Friend!

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These words from Jim Morrison’s 1967 song ~ originally intended as a breakup message to his girlfriend ~ are prophetic, almost proleptically describing what is now coming to full flower here in the homeland, in the brave new world of America fifty years hence.  Do we, or at the very least, do those responsible for managing the affairs of State, even stop to review the coalescence of intertwining events, globally and domestically, that increasingly define the dimensions of our collapse ~ the End?

Let us review some of the more salient aspects.  We have an untethered FINANCIAL industry~the very heart of our capitalist economy~set free by Billy-boy Clinton himself, an industry running wild and run amuck, over citizens and markets alike. The 2008 financial collapse is only one dimension of the larger domestic and global turmoil it has spawned. The subprime mortgage debacle is another piece of that clusterfuck. Of course, Wells Fargo’s recent fraudulent activities, are yet a further indication of the fractious disease infecting our banking and financial system.  Investors are being fleeced, homeowners thrown out on the streets, savings accounts vanished,  jobs lost, poverty abounding~all right here in the homeland.  All the while our banking-elites keep right on paying-off Queen Hilary, her red-nosed court jester of a husband, as well as others on her friends and family plan.

Then, of course, we have international financial scandals, also involved in pay-for-play schemes with, who else, the Clinton clan, their Foundation, as well as a host of other characters whose names become more familiar to us each and every day. The behemoth British bank, HSBC, was found to have funneled some $80MM to the Clinton Foundation (perhaps a money-laundering scheme).  Meanwhile, James Comey, Director of the FBI, previously on the Board of Directors of HSBC, recently excused Queen Hilary from Federal prosecution in the case of the treasonous scandal concerning classified information while she headed the State Department.  And, not to forget any of the relevant players, your very own Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, brokered an HSBC settlement deal, ultimately letting the bank off the hook for over $100MM in tax evasion. The captains of the banking industry, their boards, and our bought-and-paid-for leaders just keep playing catch-me-if-you-can with the American people.  And, of course, this does not even address the speaking fees to the Queen-in-waiting totaling millions of dollars from the most prominent of financial institutions.

Shall we move on to the Obama health insurance scam? Here we have a federal order mandating each and every citizen purchase health insurance from private insurance corporations, or face federal fines.  And the premiums demanded by these private insurers keep rising exponentially, along with the deductibles that are quickly bankrupting a large portion of Americans who can ill-afford it. And, of course, the new law was written by the INSURANCE industry lobby itself.

What about the ENERGY industry? Well here we have another gang of crooks, thieves, and thugs who, now that the liquid-gold is harder to find, are fracking through bedrock to squeeze out whatever they can manage from the earth, and in so doing poisoning the ground water and drinking water supplies of cities and villages across the land.  In the meanwhile, they are soliciting the government, and buying up right of ways to lay oil and gas pipeline across the country, in untouched wilderness, and smack through the heart of sacred, American Indian lands.  And so, we get militarized police responses to the efforts of native Americans and other citizens to try and stop the despoilation.

Speaking of POLICE.  We have indefensible police killings of black Americans over the past five years in increasingly alarming and escalating numbers.  And the protests in response to such killings are met with equally disturbing militarized reactions from what appear to be local, state and federally-sanctioned militias. Where are we heading?

Speaking of militarized militias, it’s time we speak of the American appetite for WAR.  Our hunger seems insatiable!  From Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, and Libya, to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Ukraine, and Syria, we cannot seem to keep our hands out of other peoples’ pants.  We instigate, cajole, threaten, finance, arm, manage, and support civil wars, insurrections, regime change, all under the false umbrella of humanitarian aims, when the facts suggest otherwise.  Why are we trying to overthrow Assad?  Is it because he refused our deal years ago for the pipeline? And, why are we supporting neo-Nazis in Ukraine, for example?  Why is Joe Biden’s coke-head son, Hunter (also a former executive at MBNA America Bank) on the board of directors of Ukraine’s energy company, Burisma?  For that matter, why is Natalie Jaresko, a former U.S. diplomat and recently-minted Ukrainian citizen, who was involved in insider dealings while managing a $150 million U.S. AID-backed investment fund, now the Finance Minister of Ukraine? Easy answers, we paid for the revolution, the coup, so we get to play in the sandbox. More pay-for-play, internationally.

And what of the wholesale surveillance of US citizens in our newly-minted SECURITY STATE overflowing with its many tentacled apparatchiks~ NSA, CIA, FEMA, DHS, etc.?  I mean we all know this is standard operating procedure by our government now, but we refuse to stand up to it or rebel against it. And the people informing us of such deceptions and unconstitutional activities are persecuted and prosecuted: Manning, Assange, Snowden and others.  The powers-that-be say they are protecting us against TERRORISM. But who is terrorizing whom?  What of 9/11? Congress has approved the rights of ‘terror’ victims to sue Saudi Arabia. Why? Were they involved?  Was there collusion, coordination with the US government?  Was this a FALSE FLAG event in order to overthrow Sadam in Iraq and move on from there to the rest of the MENA?  And who funded Al Quaeda? ISIS, ISIL, Daesh? Why do they have US weapons and trucks? What other potentially false-flag events have transpired both here in the exceptional country and in Europe at large? Speculation abounds, as do the conspiracy theories.  But, really why should we doubt the speculators and conspiracy theorists?  Do we have any more reason to believe the likes of Queen Hilary, Bill the red-nosed reindeer, Hussein Obama, the US  MIC, the spooks  (CIA, NSA, etc), or the oligarchs and bankers who are lying through their teeth, dissembling at each and every turn, and making war profits to boot?

And, now, we’ve decided to polarize and DEMONIZE RUSSIA, China and Iran.  The propaganda being spread like creamy peanut butter across the airwaves is incredible.  Putin himself is responsible for everything from rigging the Democratic election to destroying humanitarian convoys in Syria.  Of course, he stole Crimea; the annexation had nothing to do with an vote by Crimeans in the wake of a US-backed and engineered neo-Nazi coup in Ukraine.  And we won’t allow China to protect its own territorial waters.  And we will be damned if Iran wants to enhance its relations with Syria or Russia.

These are only a few of the elements defining The End. We have been had, my friends; but we won’t be fooled again! Or will we?

43 Responses to This Is The End, My Friend!

  1. Pingback: This Is The End, My Friend! | kulturCritic

  2. Disaffected says:

    What? Are you stealing my thunder now, kC? LOL! This one’s uncharacteristically dour on your part, so I guess I’m forced to be the “shining light of optimism” for change. God Damn you Sandy for painting me into this corner! LOL!

    Rather than pick apart your paragraphs one by one, which are for the most part an entirely accurate summation of recent events and their implications, I guess I have to wax philosophical and attempt to explain/describe what it all means, for me at least. As always, your local experience might well vary of course, and likely will.

    First of all, here in the “homeland,” those of “us” (the term must be invoked ironically, for here in the west these days it means so many things other than what one might think it means) most likely to feel the effects of the current dispensation are simply too poor, too busy, and too stressed to focus on the likely causes, never mind effects, never mind solutions to the myriad of day to day problems facing “us,” most of which are never officially recognized in the first place. Well and fine and exactly according to plan.

    Second, and more importantly, our current predicament was never inevitable, although it was always just so damned attractive that many have asserted (and they might well be right) that it might as well have been. In the end, it doesn’t really matter all that much, does it? We bought the ticket, we’re taking the ride, and we’ll experience the inevitable outcomes, as Hunter Thompson might have said.

    Third, and most seriously, the current US demonization of Russia, China, and Iran has been a long time in the making and was almost certainly inevitable all along. It is the inevitable result of what Steve Ludlum calls Steve’s First Law of Economics: the costs of managing any surplus increase along with it until at some point costs exceed what the surplus is worth. Hence, all competitors must be eliminated.

    To wit: Because industrialization has produced outsized surpluses, the rottenness of caliphs (cost) is increased in proportion. Tyrants’ failures are more destructive; so are the failures of well-intentioned elected caliphs. The First Law outcome is invariably surplus reduction, nothing can stop it; conventional policies only makes things worse. Resource depletion is both unpleasant and permanent, the only strategy is to carefully navigate decline; to surf the smashing waves rather than be swept away by them. Depletion cannot be defeated in battle or outmaneuvered, it cannot be negotiated away or paid off. Less can only be adjusted to: unwillingness to adjust leads to exhaustion and ruin. Sadly, no leader, not one … no economist, no central banker or financier proposes to voluntarily make do with less, to embrace the ancient virtues of restraint, patience and modesty; to corral our competitive greed and tread lightly upon our life-support system …
    Reference: http://www.economic-undertow.com/page/3/

    So, in the end, I guess all of our individual ends will likely be pretty much what they always might have been, albeit perhaps a bit more dramatic in some/many cases. Here in the US “homeland” I fear mostly for the children brought into such a surreal existence at such a time, but I trust in a “higher power” of whatever sort to sort that all out. I now fully realize at the tender age of almost 60 my impending mortality, in that I have finally achieved “true wisdom,” and the idea of my own death no longer scares me at all. In fact I think and dream of it almost everyday. Just as everyone should.

    In closing, the western – aka European – “dream” of material riches and man over nature is little more than a psychosis prompted by nothing more than evolutionary/historical circumstances and luck. Our own holy books, properly interpreted, have predicted our inevitable ending all along, but we were all simply “too smart” to listen to them properly. In the end, mankind will be undone by all the usual suspects: greed, pride, and intelligence.

    • Disaffected says:

      Let me add, there is no such thing as “security” in this world of ours (least of all from human created states!), and perhaps it’s high time that we all remembered that again. In the end, it is our own state created “security” that has become our undoing, creating the illusion that we are all somehow “immortal” in our materiality. In the end, and every single one one of us knows the the truth of this, we are all of us disembodied “souls” of whatever sort who inhabit material bodies for whatever lessons they provide. And the primary lesson of materiality is that as sure as things are born, they also just as surely die. We would all do well to remember that.

  3. johnrachel says:

    It is said: “The truth shall set you free!”

    What conclusion can we draw when the only freedom we seem to have is rattle the chains that bind us in ignorance and assure our helplessness? This is the freedom of a butterfly in a hurricane. Yes, little winged one, reach for the sky!

    • Disaffected says:

      Not sure I buy you’re conclusion John. We have the the freedom to break the chains of ignorance that bind us, and yet almost none of us actually do. Our true captors turn out to be little more than our own delusions, expertly crafted and perfected to be sure, throughout the 20th and now 21st century.

      The information’s out there, but the true culprit, stolen wealth and affluence on the part of the western upper ~10% – that’s YOU and ME by the way – prevents most from ever feeling the need to absorb it. And thus it will continue to be until that upper crust of civilization slowly dissolves away – as it surely is as we speak – and becomes part of the human race again and realizes that this mother is going down(!), and OUR OWN LUXURY was the main reason why.

      • Disaffected says:

        Music and lyrics for people who at least pretend to give a shit (alas, I think pretending is about all any of can muster these days):

      • Disaffected says:

        Although I love it equally when Browne bares his teeth and gets at the heart of the matter. Few have said it better:

        • kulturcritic says:

          I think J Browne is the only musician you like, DA LOL

        • kulturcritic says:

          Try this: Grigory Leps, Cupola!

          FIRST LISTEN: THEN READ TRANSLATION!!

          The air is stale with thunder what will happen now
          my throat contracting and my zest for life is spinning
          downwards – as I look for omens, can I trust the vows
          those prophetic birds of fairytales are singing
          I hear Sirin, bird of gladness, and her song of lure
          has trills that drills my faith out of its ease
          Alkonost, a bird whose brooding sorrow and pain
          has a message that’s splitting my peace
          Grief and joy have now begun
          reverberating what’s in store
          little bird of hope named Gamajun
          it’s me she’s singing for

          All over the universe there are bells that chime
          a belfry sky lined copper sign
          is it sadness, is it madness, is it joy
          cupolas of the Russians are decked with gold
          that our Maker should watch us more often
          In the middle of the fairytale of this eternal land
          an enigma beyond the means of man
          land of mine where people live in poverty and sham

          Under big blue skies with ample gifts from nature’s hand
          My precious horses sink down belly-deep
          stuck in the mud of fat and yellow falseness
          and yet they carry on so I can see
          the oozing, stinking realm arise from slumber
          The lunar sickle baptized me
          but it makes a tricky mate
          Gamajun, can I trust you hopefully
          to give me comfort, boost my faith
          I shall keep on polishing my weary soul
          until it’s reeking, until it bleeds
          until it’s shining out of fury, out of joy
          and I shall mend my ragged clothes with gold
          that my Maker shall watch me more often

          • Disaffected says:

            Very nice! Not surprisingly, the Russian and American sensibilities are so very different! The sheer density of the Russian lyric/poetry above would send most Americans rushing for the exits, especially when you consider that even Browne’s decidedly more “poppy” lyrics, chock full of hooks to keep the listener drawn in, are now several generations out of fashion here in the west. For example, Casino Nation above, which I consider positively incendiary for it’s political lyric content never even registered on the American psyche one way or the other, primarily (I’m guessing) because 1. Nobody who actually buys music in America these days listen to the lyrics anyway unless they’re truly shocking culturally. Questioning the underlying culture itself is simply no longer fashionable or shocking. 2. Browne and the whole west coast rock wave of the 70’s/80’s have been reduced to cultural kitsch/parody, and thus are not listened to by anybody outside of a niche audience anyway. 3. Western culture itself has been reduced to its lowest common denominator across the board due primarily to economic factors, enforced by concerted efforts of the global oligarchy who calls the shots.

            And briefly about that last term – “global oligarchy” – I know its fashionable to flash that word around these days as a sport of placeholder for whatever ill you want to pin on someone you can’t quite name, but that’s the point of being a global oligarchy in the first place. Of course they’re not nameable, just the same as CEO’s of large corporations are not nameable or recognizable to most people; nor are the parent companies, holding companies, and all the rest of the legally obfuscatory terms immediately recognizable to even trained financial insiders. And that’s the point of it all in the first place!

  4. Disaffected says:

    Kunstler adds some much needed levity to the proceedings this morning:

    The torment of who or what to vote for has become unbearable. I’d considered casting mine for Johnson / Weld, until Gary Johnson demonstrated that the front end of his brain is missing. Aleppo? Wasn’t he one of the Marx Brothers? I sense that Jill Stein of the Green Party is more Social Justice Warrior than EcoWarrior, and the last thing I want is for the rest of America to become one big college campus rife with trigger warnings and micro-aggression persecutions. Vote for Trump? Not if you chained me to the back bumper of a Toyota Landcruiser and dragged me over six miles of broken light bulbs. Hillary? Make that nine miles, and throw down some carpet tacks.

  5. Disaffected says:

    Flipping around the dial tonight briefly I happened to land on HBO’s Bill Maher shout-fest, which I haven’t seen for any duration for what must be several years now. Sarah Silverman, an economist, and two other people I’ve never heard of. I think I’m viewing this stuff through conservative eyes now, as I’ve never heard so much non-sensical clap trap spouted (with absolutely NO ONE listening to each other!) in my entire life. I think the Sanders coalition was onto much more than we know this year, even though “The Bern” was evidently not quite as committed as his followers. We in the US need to burn this whole damn political apparatus down permanently(!) after this election and at the very least come up with something better than this sham two party system! Fortunately, and I think I agree with Kunstler’s post this week, Queen HRC’s election in November (not that I’m advocating voting for the bitch!), is likely the quickest way to achieve that goal. In other words: how do you get an alcoholic who’s almost hit bottom to finally realize the errors of the their ways? By helping to send them on another bender of course! Sadly, I think its where we’re at these days. And keep in mind, that’s before we wake up hungover the morning after and realize all the other truly terrifying shit we’ve got to deal with vis-a-vis AGW, Peak Oil, Peak Finance, and Peak Humanity. We’ve got a LONG road ahead of us before we even hit bottom!

  6. Disaffected says:

    Looks like we’ve settled into the awkward pause between the party conventions and the final showdown during an election season that has produced two presidential candidates that not even their own parties can support. As horror show objectionable as either candidate is, can anyone in their right minds imagine voting for the other? The mental reverberations simply boggle the mind. Predictably, most Americans simply choose not to think about it at all, which is probably the best course in the end.

    But the question looms, just as it always does. Can it possibly get any worse, and what can I do personally to avoid that? And the answer’s as discomfiting as it is easy. Of course it can (and almost certainly will, and very quickly at that!) and absolutely nothing. So I guess the good news is that you might as well just relax and enjoy the shit show as it goes down and quit worrying about things. We’ve all got one life to live, this is it, and who are we to say that it should have turned out any different?

    • kulturcritic says:

      Try this horse’s ass on for size, DA. This is the end my friend!!!
      https://www.facebook.com/RussiaInsider/?fref=nf

      • Disaffected says:

        Obama began selecting Generals to support his (and Hillary’s) agenda soon after assuming office. McChrystal was likely the last General who will openly voice dissent and not be run out the service. At this point, we’d honestly be better off if a saner group of high ranking officers who are laying low for now succeed in a military coup to put down our insane civilian leadership. I think it could very well work out that way eventually.

  7. follyofwar says:

    Vote for Hillary? Do you have a death wish? To me, it’s very simple. Hillary will keep poking the Russian Bear until the Bear has no choice but to fight back. If Dmitry Orlov is right, Russia is a generation ahead of us in war making technology and will win (Western Europe, living in their post-WWII feminized stupor, would be decimated) – unless both sides decide to end the deathly stare down and finally launch their Nukes. The US, BTW, has been itching to launch them since Truman decided that he wanted to kill hundreds of thousands of yellow people to show the world, especially the USSR and Stalin, how tough the little, poorly educated Napoleon haberdasher was. Per Oliver Stone, the War Party, at the last minute, stole the 1944 VP nomination from the peace candidate Henry Wallace. They knew that FDR was dying, and weren’t about to take any chances with this peace thing. And, now, the USA has the largest Empire in the history of the world.

    So, the Deep State desperately wants Queen Hillary to finish the job that Obama was too reluctant to do. He blinked on his pledge to bomb Damascus after the false flag chemical attack, after all. Where Obama still had a conscience left, Hillary/Killery never had one. She would have been more than happy to kill Assad (still, more than ever, she wants to) and add another scalp to her growing collection.

    If I didn’t have children, I’d say HELL YES, get this shit over with and blow this sucker up. The Earth would be much better off without humans. But having children does change one’s perspective. Trump says he wants to have friendly relations with Putin. I don’t know whether to believe him or not. It may be a thin reed to place one’s hopes on. Obama, our Nobel Prize Peace President, said the same thing when he was elected, and lied through his teeth. So, I don’t care how much of a self-destructive buffoon Trump might be otherwise. If there is a chance to avoid World War III, I’m ready to hold my nose and pull the lever for him. Ironically, he may be the last chance that Western Civilization has.

    • kulturcritic says:

      Follyofwar, I’m with you on this one. But, I gave up voting a while ago. Anyway, your comment made me smile. Like DA, you have an excellent feel for language. 😉

    • Disaffected says:

      follyofwar,
      I’m with you for the most part as well. I’m not sure at all what Trump will do regarding Russia in particular and US foreign policy in general, but I’m QUITE SURE what Queen HRC will do, and it doesn’t look pretty for any of us. That said, it also doesn’t look like any of us have any realistic choice in the matter, especially considering Mr Trump’s latest political revelations.
      My recommendation (not that it’s necessarily any better than anyone else’s)? Simply refuse to participate at all in the official voting charade. The internet has allowed us the historically unprecedented ability to get our true opinions out there and influence any who might be inclined to agree, and that might be the most true voice any of us have ever or ever will have. We should exercise it loud and proud, whether or not we’re convinced that it will actually change anything (and rest assured, it probably won’t), because one thing’s for damn sure, merely pulling a lever for either one of the two officially recognized legacy parties ain’t doing anything but fill us with a totally mistaken and false sense of misplaced “civic duty,” when in fact it’s doing little more than hammer another nail in our collective coffins.
      Finally, children or no children is a total non-issue. There will always be children of all remaining species involved (and if you’re concerned about children, why limit to just human children?), but so what? Perhaps if we’d thought of the children of (fill in the blank) yesteryear we wouldn’t have ended up in the shit storm we have now? Were those children any less precious? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
      Fact is, we are where we are, and we are who we are, because of the choices we’ve made all along the way, and the even more uncomfortable fact is that we’re showing no sign whatsoever so far of changing! And that’s some pretty sobering shit!

  8. Disaffected says:

    Looks like Trump is up to his ears in shit now with his latest revelation. The one thing he couldn’t afford in a election that will likely turn on his ability to be at least occasionally mildly politically correct was something like his latest faux pas.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html
    In light of the fact that his latest pronouncement is “There’s zero chance I’ll quit,” I’ll go out on a limb here and predict he’ll throw in the towel shortly after Monday night’s debate, thereby safely and comfortably handing the “election” to Queen Hillary, her incorrigible husband, and their huge coterie of paid in full masters and servants.
    I think the only question remaining to be answered is, was this the plan all along? Not that it really matters all that much. Trump was always a political operative’s delight with his largely open book controversial past, so if this wasn’t planned from the start, it’s hard to imagine what took Hillary’s spin doctors so long to come up with this. Either way, I think we all knew it was going to end up like this one way or another, so in a sense it’s somehow oddly comforting to know that our political masters are still on top of their game and all is still right in our decidedly skewed version of the political universe. At this point it’s much less important to question the legitimacy of the election process; but rather, to focus on the legitimacy of the entire social political economic system itself, which I think it’s now safe to say is thoroughly below reproach across the board.

      • Disaffected says:

        Obama’s true a chameleon, stage managed to appear to be just what his handler’s want him to appear to be. Manchurian Candidate anyone?

    • Disaffected says:

      Didn’t watch the debate last night, but saw the highlights this morning, and the early returns were mostly favorable for Trump. He was right to hammer Bill’s sexual predator past (and present?) and Hillary’s shameless enabling, which is every bit as bad as Trump’s rather oafish sexual braggadocio. That said, there’s a distinct subset of US women out there who, if not actually attracted by such talk coming from would be alpha-males, are at the very least tolerant of it (although most would never admit that in polite company), so I think Queen Hillary and her politically correct liberal crowd will likely be surprised by the number of such women for whom this is a non-issue. Long story short, this whole sex-tape thing might have been just what the doctor ordered to shake Trump out of his recent malaise. If he stays on the attack from here on out this might just turn out to be a race yet – assuming the whole thing isn’t fixed – of course.

  9. Disaffected says:

    Looks like identity politics continue to carry the day, as Trump’s mainstream GOP supporters are now deserting him in droves. He’s probably be wise at this point to renounce the GOP in entirety and basically run as an independent regardless of the R label he’ll have to carry. Regardless, it’s looking more and more (to me at least) like the fix was in on this electoral charade all along. Watching the MSM close ranks behind “Der Fuhrer” HRC now gives one a continued sense of “deja vu all over again” as the US spins out of control into what seems certain to be its final act as a world power.

  10. Disaffected says:

    And in a new, albeit altogether logical, political tack, the R’s just might be trying to tank Trump now to help ensure they’re (presumed) down ballot success, and then possibly, go after Queen HRC once she’s inaugurated for her many corruption issues.
    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/10/11/republicans-claim-collusion-after-email-appears-to-show-doj-clinton-campaign-contact.html
    A good and sane approach I think, assuming you can actually believe any of it of course. DC’s moneyed special interests cut across far too many personal and party lines for that to be a reliable indicator however, although I think it will be the best early indicator out there as to whether this election was in the bag all along. If Queen HRC sails through the first six months without being indicted, you’ll know all the GOP outrage was just for show, and that they’re likely just following orders from on high as well. Which all makes sense, as the D and the R agendas have successfully merged over the past eight years of Obama, a fact that’s getting harder and harder to deny by even the ever equivocating politicians themselves these days.

  11. Disaffected says:

    Ok, clear the air hear. NO title, just freelance. More to come if it works out:

    It had occurred to him more than once that his chosen life of increasing desperation and powerlessness in spite of all his vapid rantings and ravings about this systemic deficiency or that cleverly concealed conspiracy was running out of steam fast and that he needed to do something about it soon if he ever hoped to survive to recreate himself into that long imagined but never realized version of mediocrity that he fashioned as James 2.0, or whatever the fuck the slick MBA marketing geniuses from the high priced east coast B schools were calling it these days. Almost constantly in fact, although that fact in itself did not perturb him the least. In fact, he viewed his entire life now, and indeed, all the civilized industrial world, with a rather morbid and detached curiosity that he found to be strangely fascinating.
    He thought back to his childhood days spending summers on the farm with his grandparents in central Nebraska. Grounded, earthy folks of hard times and depression; still firmly rooted in the soil and the old time religions that such folks to this day in that part of the country stubbornly cling to. His cousin Linda, a year older and likewise the spawn of a child gone bad and moved off to the big city, would often accompany him on his regularly scheduled two week summer forays back to the farm to relieve soon to be divorced working parents for two precious weeks of the chore of child care. The grandparents, ever forgiving and understanding in the way that only Midwestern grandparents could be, accepted their lot stoically and indeed from all outward appearances cheerfully. He had no way then of knowing if they thought for better or for ill of their childish antics, although he always imagined himself the young hero in such dreams, a fantasy fully encouraged by his mother.
    Like many rural farmers, his grandparents had “inherited” a rural school house and its effects: the schoolhouse itself a ¼ mile down the road or so and now inhabited only by country mice and visiting grandchildren in the summers that delighted in dredging through the old school books and magazines long abandoned by the school children of long forgotten WWII era yesterdays. But perhaps cognizant of the six children they and similar such farm families of the era were wont to have, his grandparents plucked the old wrought iron pipe and wood traditional rural merry-go-round up off its roots and established it at the new homestead precisely (as it turns out) next to a row of very fine short Cherry trees/shrubs.
    And of such were dreams made! Memories of cool evenings, early mornings, and crisp afternoons spinning our life away, for reasons untold, or simply no reason at all! In spite of all that he knew better now. Such memories had turned out to be nothing more than disillusionment toward the current state of things, and he realized now that things had changed forever. In spite of all that, he smiled and reflected on what might have been, if only in his extremely small and limited mind’s eye.

  12. Disaffected says:

    Uh oh! The Clinton’s are pulling out the heavy artillery now! They must have something up their sleeve for after the election. Another spring 2017 coup attempt maybe?

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/10/12/trump-campaign-had-advance-warning-russian-backed-wikileaks-dump/91931602/

  13. Disaffected says:

    How to even keep up with it all anymore?

    The “attack of the killer femmes” has now mounted into an all out onslaught, with apparently every femme born in the last half century now empowered and emboldened to declare sexual assault against the Donald. Identity politics will evidently and predictably win the day for what is soon sure to be declared the “Age of the Femme” (TM), following as it did on the “Age of the Minority*,” a designation that already seems quaint in its not yet historical context.

    * As always (and almost certainly by design), actually characterizing Obama and his sycophants as this, that, or the other is extremely problematic. Perhaps they can best be characterized as politically androgynist synthetic creations of the 21st century post-political world, created for the sole purpose of getting elected and maintaining the illusion of continuity in government thereafter. In that sense Obama was perhaps the perfect bridge between a 20th century government of privileged white male dictated perfect evil masquerading as kinder, gentler conservatism; and a 21st century government of privileged white femme dictated perfect evil masquerading as tougher, smarter liberalism. In the end, the Who had it right all those years ago, just like we knew they did.

    • Disaffected says:

      To add, I like the word “femme” in all its connotations, and plan on using it regularly from here on out. Looks like it’s guaranteed to be a word on the rise in the coming years. Turns out, like many “new age” terms, it’s still quite open to interpretation at this point. I think we’ll be hearing it a lot in the coming years. Either way, I expect it will be a term to be bandied about constantly on both sides of the political aisle in the coming years under a Queen HRC administration.

      http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=femme

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/27/whatfemmelookslike_n_5890738.html

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_and_femme

      http://www.autostraddle.com/what-we-mean-when-we-say-femme-a-roundtable-341842/

      • kulturcritic says:

        WTF: Femme, Domme, Butch, Metro, Les, Bi, Trans… what in the hell is going on with the US culture?

        • Disaffected says:

          We are totally degenerate now. The “femmes,” literally a grab bag of definitions for women who want to act like men or men who want to act more like women and just about everything in between, have been emboldened to militancy by Queen HRC and her sycophant minions. It’s a very strange dynamic unfolding now here, but it feels like it might morph into another inquisition of sorts. Maybe powerful white men have it coming after all these years, but it’s not that the femmes bring anything new to the table, other than a bunch of BS about getting in touch with our feelings before we launch the drones or the ICBMs. We are clearly in the process of losing our fucking minds!

    • Disaffected says:

      Kunstler’s missive this morning is sounding similar themes: The Odor of Desperation

      It must be obvious even to nine-year-old casual observers of the scene that the US national election is hacking itself. It doesn’t require hacking assistance from any other entity. The two major parties could not have found worse candidates for president, and the struggle between them has turned into the most sordid public spectacle in US electoral history.

      Of course, the Russian hacking blame-game story emanates from the security apparatus controlled by a Democratic Party executive establishment desperate to preserve its perks and privileges . (I write as a still-registered-but-disaffected Democrat). The reams of released emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, and other figures in HRC’s employ, depict a record of tactical mendacity, a gleeful eagerness to lie to the public, and a disregard for the world’s opinion that are plenty bad enough on their own. And Trump’s own fantastic gift for blunder could hardly be improved on by a meddling foreign power. The US political system is blowing itself to pieces.

      What’s really comical is the idea that Russia is using the Internet to mess with our affairs — as if the USA has no cyber-warfare ambitions or ongoing operations against them (and others, such as hacking Angela Merkel’s personal phone). News flash: every country with access to the Internet is in full hacking mode around the clock against every other country so engaged. Everybody’s doing it. It is perhaps a projection of America’s ongoing rape hysteria that we think we’re special victims of this universal activity.

      http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-odor-of-desperation/

  14. Disaffected says:

    Just when I was beginning to think (again) that Trump might be synthetic candidate created by the Dems to provide HRC a cakewalk in November, he bares his teeth and comes out fighting again as he’s cornered by the onslaught of femme indignation at his naughty sexual remarks. His assertions that the election is rigged seem to have struck an oddly resonant chord among mainstream Ds and Rs alike, especially considering that accusations of such have been lingering in the air like stale, back room political cigar smoke for some months now. I think it reveals a real fear of popular uprising in the aftermath of the sham election, as well as providing a hint of authenticity for Trump. It’s also interesting to me at least that most discussions of election fraud don’t even consider the fact of Comey’s FBI white wash of Clinton’s email server issues, itself the illegal predicate for her entire candidacy. But of course we Americans don’t do nuance, so that’s probably excusable, but we certainly do do election day fraud in all its techno glory, so that’s a sensitive issue for politicos up and down both tickets, some of whom will be unfortunate enough to wake up the morning after and actually find themselves elected to governments that have never been so openly reviled in recent history.

    Trump’s recent turnabout struck really a chord when I came across this Feb 2016 post by John Robb over at Global Guerrillas:

    What’s most surprising to many pundits and analysts is that Trump has done this without presenting all of the detail plans, voluminous position papers, etc. that we’ve come to expect over the last couple of decades.
    He has simply refused to play by those rules, and he’s not paid a price for it.
    Trump is able to pull this off because he’s not running a political campaign. Instead, he’s running an insurgency.

    Granted, Robb’s post was written way back in the halcyon days of spring and the R primaries that Trump would go on to dominate, but when you stop to think about, Trump only began to go wrong once he came out of the R convention with the stink of legitimacy on him for the first time and began to act as if his candidacy was anything but an insurgency. His recent performance then, is perhaps a recognizance of that fact and return to its roots. Not that that’s necessarily a winning hand, nor that either Trump or the rest of us should hope that it is. Insurgencies are traditionally good for unseating untenable governments (which is what we have now, IN SPADES!), but not necessarily for governing in the aftermath. In all likelihood, that’s the case with Trump, especially since he has no insurgent political apparatus/following to actually help him make it a reality. He would find himself a sheep among wolves from day one in DC, and in my opinion, would just be eliminated by whatever means were most expedient. His current femme smearing, most of it simply bought and payed for on the open market HRC loves to whore for, being a prime example.

    But the larger issue is, and I think Robb’s got a tiger by the tail here, is that Trump’s candidacy – if it’s truly legit – reveals something much more ominous and yet promising about politics in America. It means that even at this late date and in such an obviously distorted form, American’s tolerance for the bullshit of their moneyed elite corporate masters has reached a breaking point such that only blatant election fraud and other shenanigans can continue to keep the lid on the boiling cauldron below. Do we actually want Trump for our president? No, probably not. But do we want HRC instead? Insanely, even less! We are truly stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place.

    Bottom line is, as a few other social commentators out there have noted as well, this might well not be just an isolated dysfunctional electoral event, but the beginning of many such dysfunctional events, until the basic political economy of the US, and indeed the entire capitalist industrial West is overturned for good!

    • kulturcritic says:

      Ahhhh! But how to overturn it?

      From: kulturCritic To: zietz53@yahoo.com Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 8:45 PM Subject: [kulturCritic] Comment: “This Is The End, My Friend!” #yiv3457318409 a:hover {color:red;}#yiv3457318409 a {text-decoration:none;color:#0088cc;}#yiv3457318409 a.yiv3457318409primaryactionlink:link, #yiv3457318409 a.yiv3457318409primaryactionlink:visited {background-color:#2585B2;color:#fff;}#yiv3457318409 a.yiv3457318409primaryactionlink:hover, #yiv3457318409 a.yiv3457318409primaryactionlink:active {background-color:#11729E;color:#fff;}#yiv3457318409 WordPress.com | | |

      • Disaffected says:

        That’s the hard part. It’s going to be tough sledding for the whole world for a good long while. But this has all been unfolding gradually since 9-11 anyway. Fifteen years of war – 3 times the length of WWII – and not an end in sight yet. And their won’t ever be. The GWOT is nothing less than perpetual war on everything as the global hegemon crashes and burns.

  15. Disaffected says:

    I forced myself to watch about 15 minutes of the “debate” last night, mostly out of morbid curiosity to see if I could detect any Parkinson’s symptoms in HRC (more on that in a minute). No such luck, although I did note that her eyes dart all over oddly when she’s listening to Trump resond. Even before Trump’s “major gaffe” declaring that he wouldn’t necessarily accept the election results if he lost, two things became evident: 1.) Trump is a LOUSY conventional speaker/debater. In fact, it looked very much like rumors that he avoids prepping altogether are in fact true. 2.) This once again calls into question whether he was ever even a legitimate candidate in the first place. I own’t go into the particulars again here, but suffice it to say, his entire candidacy has been just plain odd, especially after the R convention, even considering the fact that it’s been run more as an insurgency than a conventional political campaign.
    Finally, Dr Ted Noel continues to offer compelling proof that the Queen has Parkinson’s. I’ll post the video links and let the reader decide for themselves. A few points here: 1.) Whether she has Parkinson’s disease or not, it’s now apparent that she’s going to be elected president either way. 2.) Given the impact of the US shadow government in decision making, it’s not immediately apparent whether or not her being incapacitated would have much impact in day to day decision making anyway (which implies that she’s not the one making decisions – essentially a “puppet”, very convenient since former president Bill will be “in the house” anyway). 3.) One has to wonder how long the Clinton’s can pull off this ruse once she’s elected and what will be the political fallout once it inevitably comes out 4.) Is there a nefarious agenda behind her candidacy that demands that she be elected for some specific purpose(s), or is this just good old fashioned corrupt legacy building following a “ends justify the means” philosophy. 5.) How many people in DC officialdom know about this already and are complicit in the cover up?

    A summary of signs (09/6/16, 5:04): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a60kchXkiAI
    Another summary of signs (09/09/16, 16:36): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0yYQu7aInA
    Debate analysis (10/05/16, 9:17): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcWZyJBgwJE
    NBC broadcast video analysis (10/07/16, 7:31): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltlhBW3eoZk

  16. Disaffected says:

    The Archdruid’s latest post is a perhaps uncharacteristically harsh (but deservedly so!) take down of the Pentagon’s latest delusional report, JOE (Joint Operating Environment)-35, a typical exercise in bureaucratic non-speak that attempts to paint the US threat environment through the year 2035 by basically describing the current environment as though it’s the future.

    To the Pentagon’s rather obvious and already observable main points: 1. Violent Ideological Competition 2. Threatened U.S. Territory and Sovereignty 3. Antagonistic Geopolitical Balancing 4. Disrupted Global Commons 5. A Contest for Cyberspace 6. Shattered and Reordered Regions…

    The Archdruid responds with 5 a little less obvious (to MSM readers anyway) of his own: 1. A crisis of legitimacy in the United States 2. The marginalization of the United States in the global arena 3. The rise of “monkeywrenching” warfare 4. The genesis of warband culture in failed states 5. The end of the Holocene environmental optimum.

    Of Archdruid’s 5, arguably all but number 4 are well under way as well, although the MSM and other official US Government sources are certainly not acknowledging them, and number 4’s in full flower as well, at least at the small unit level, although I think the Archdruid’s mostly hinting at a larger scope here (simple solutions to negate very large systemic technological advantages).

    At any rate, the post is well worth reading, and from a personal viewpoint at least, it’s truly astounding at the rate of creeping decrepitude election 2016 is revealing in the US body politic as a whole. I had for some time been truly fearing what sort of monstrous evil this season of madness would unleash, but in the final analysis (and I fully realize that HRC is going to unleash a whole lot of pain and misery for a whole lot of people into the world), I think it’s going to be much less of a “monstrous evil,” and much more of a “pathetic old beast trying to regain the glory days of it’s youth and failing miserably.” That metaphor works for Hillary and her corpse-like husband Bill, both of the major political parties and their remaining die-hard supporters, and indeed, the entire moribund political apparatus of the US itself, having been repeatedly raped, looted, and plundered by every capitalist special interest group and plutocrat spawned over the last 200+ years.

    In the end we were just another experiment in human governance that tried, and then failed, albeit spectacularly! Was this evolutionary path inevitable in any case, especially with the discovery of fossil fuels – the quintessential “energy genie?” Perhaps, and I’m inclined to think so. Will any of this really make any difference anyway, in that humans are just like every other animal out there, and will live and die regardless, this will just mean all of us, or nearly all of us die at sometime in the near future? I’m almost 60 now, so perhaps I’m not the best judge of that question, but I tend to think that no, it won’t. I think that answer’s supported by our quite observable current behavior toward all of the current existential threats we face. In my lifetime alone, we’ve learned to accept the threat of instant nuclear annihilation, we’ve learned to accept the threats of widespread environmental degradation and resource depletion (yawn!), we’ve learned to accept the threats of perpetual war, synthetic terrorism, and related crimes, and we’re learning to accept now to accept the slow withering death of economic deprivation. ALL OF WHICH, it should be reminded, are based on the slow withering death and madness that comes TO ALL SPECIES who dare to wander into the kill zone of overshoot. So yeah, imagining at this late date that we’re somehow going to martial the resources to combat the still intellectually hypothetical concept of AGW is simply a fools errand. We won’t at all, not now, not ever. And even if we somehow did, it’s far too late now anyway. We’ve shit the bed this time around, and there simply ain’t any getting it back again.

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