It's not
about being liberal or conservative anymore y'all. That is a hype offered by the fascist whores who want to confuse the people with lies while they turn this country into an aristocratic police state. Some people will say anything to attain power and money. There is no such thing as the Liberal Media, but the Corporate media is very real.
Trump was purposefully recruited by Putin's thugs. The Republican party has been infiltrated with intrusions of money from foreign sources and entire floors of Trump hotel rooms are being paid for at thousands of dollars per room by foreign agents. Much like the condominiums on his various properties got bought for millions of dollars over the market value by dubious characters with foreign connections.
Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell's wife Elaine Chao has had links to Chinese elites through her father.
In China, the Chaos are no ordinary family. They run an American shipping company with deep ties to the economic and political elite in China, where most of the company’s business is centered.
[SOURCE:Michael Forsythe, Eric Lipton, Keith Bradsher and Sui-Lee Wee | New York Times | 2 June 2019]
The smart Republicans jumped ship once they sniffed the treason. Only a few have actually spoken out. The vast majority of Republicans are cowering in fear because they have never governed based on conviction but upon what pablum they could speak to those who voted for them that their wealthy corporate donors would support. Mike Pence is a perfect example of this ilk.
Wednesday, 25 September 2019 at 3h 34m 12s
Richard D Wolff explains the Market
We are all bullshitted by propaganda provided for us by the wealthy who buy the communication systems (newspapers, media outlets, magazines, social apps) for the sole purpose of brainwashing the rest of us on their paradigm.
If you are getting manipulated, the manipulators need to make you feel that your manipulation is somehow a natural state of the "real" world. They hire charlatans and snakes who willingly use nuanced language or stir up primordial prejudices in order to bullshit the vast majority of persons who are getting fucked over by the morbid stupid paradigms used by those who are in positions of wealth to justify this dysfunctional system.
Markets destroy communities when they are not properly regulated. There is nothing inherently "free" about markets. Market systems exist independent of the overall political system. Dictatorships and Democracies alike rely upon markets for the distribution of goods and services.
Tuesday, 24 September 2019 at 1h 24m 11s
My Wholesome Advice to a Friend
This is what I advised a lady friend of mine recently who was concerned about some other people that she referred to as "enemies"
If indeed you feel these folks are purposely trying to “get under your skin” … why would you give them that satisfaction?
My mom always told me that 90% of what you react to is based on your own personal history, the other 10% is what is actually in the moment. So perceiving other people as “enemies” is kind of silly. People do what they do. If they are so weak and pathetic that they need to play mind games then that is on them. Which is very sad. Once you encounter such persons, put them in the regressive child category, because this is how children behave. And then treat them accordingly. The phrase “Love thy enemies” means to develop a big picture understanding. If people are playing mind games and are petty, they are telling you that they cannot overcome their unresolved issues. If you take that personally, it is because of your own unresolved issues.
I say this because this is true of me as well. But if you see others as enemies, you will be carrying a burden of disdain and negativity that is not good for your soul. Instead perceive these overgrown children as fools, silly people who need help, and you should just be you and don’t even give them a microcosm of space in your brain. However ... always leave room in your heart. Because that is how you end the cycle of pain and suffering.
Thursday, 19 September 2019 at 4h 20m 3s
Sorry for the absence
My mantra when life gets real and stress is up
You have to go through this. There is no other way. Live by example. Be honest with yourself. There is no other way.
Repeat.
Friday, 16 August 2019 at 1h 33m 45s
Brian Tyler Cohen
This actor has stepped up.
Friday, 16 August 2019 at 1h 26m 47s
Sam Seder from Brooklyn
This is a clip from Sam Seder's daily show called "The Majority Report". The show is the relic of what it was during the Dubya year's (see the previous post) on what was called "Air America"
@6:30 timestamp: this moron starts talking about zero, and then watch what he does --- belittles Sam, but insists he's not making fun of him. Behold the massive projection of this fucking moron.
Equating the potential of human beings to a number is pathetic on the merits, because all numerical assessment is inherently biased by the humans who are determining the rubric through which such merits are assessed. But morons want to start equating workers with numbers, and then start elaborating about some pseudo-profound delusion about the number zero.
Or as was stated at the end of the above video : "There is nothing worse than undeserved pedantry".
Math question. Why has productivity increased exponentially, and yet wages have remained relatively constant?
Friday, 16 August 2019 at 0h 41m 50s
Hypocritical monarchs
Mike Malloy has been a hero of mine since I started listening to him back in the Dubya Bush days, circa 2002. Lately he has been doing a daily podcast with video on youtube from Georgia. He uses all the pejorative and profane language necessary to express himself, so fair warning.
Thursday, 15 August 2019 at 3h 45m 50s
How the aristocracy rules
The Aristocracy uses racism and xenophobia to keep the lower classes in line. As Beau explains so well in this video.
Tuesday, 30 July 2019 at 22h 40m 37s
The Liberty to be Free and the Freedom to have Liberty
The fundamental flaw in all Libertarian philosophy consists of the following truth: no one
individual exists or can exist without assistance from his or her community or fellow human beings.
We have to talk to one another and have community discussions about what to do and how to proceed.
There is also no automatic calibration that can be created which attaches individuals to their
community or society that is independent of the social conditions and relations.
We are not primitive tribes, hunting and wandering off the land, living in temporary easily
constructed and deconstructed abodes. Our nation is a heavily capital invested social order. Every
person, every single day lives their life in the modern world (especially the United States) thanks
to the infrastructure created by a heritage of fellow human beings and their community. Every where
you go, everything you do, everything you eat in the modern world would not be possible were it not
for unseen persons who provided these conveniences like indoor plumbing, septic systems, traffic
lights, interstate highways, coffee shops, truck drivers, wharf attendants, train stations,
restaurants, grocery stores, etc… Even in the ages before airports, every harbor or river port town
needed a maned lighthouse and a reservoir of knowledgeable local professionals to navigate the
waterways. A single ship (or plane) represents a plethora of different persons, both in the creation
of the ship, and in the usage after the ship was created. The mere act of walking into a building is
possible only because a large number of persons designed, organized, and physically constructed that
building.
Libertarianism ignores this context when viewing capital creation from a historical perspective.
When you purchase an item in a market (retail or internet) a whole infrastructure was or has been
created that is being regulated by numerous unseen persons in order to maximize the efficiency of
such markets. Libertarianism views these concerns as more easily addressed by the minimization or
elimination of government because unclean humans are biased, and human governments tend towards
authoritarianism. Libertarianism strips the people out of the background environment and portrays
events based upon individual singularities, individual responsibilities, while ignoring the
alternate reality of aristocracy evolving to authoritarianism. Libertarianism hides human reality
behind the facade of money and mathematics — where only prices, formulas, mathematical algorithms
and spending habits determine the development of society and community. However every advance was
enabled by an environment. You can’t have automobiles without roads. You can’t have a free
exchange of ideas (or an efficient market for goods and services) without a cheap postal service.
You cannot have basic human services (police, fire, legal) effectively and efficiently administered
without taxes paid for proportional to the level of income. Having a standing military or a state
department gathering data and global relationships is also better done than when not influenced by
the various potential agendas of private interests and the natural profit motives thereof.
Libertarianism is a belief that government is anathema to the natural order of human society.
Intrusion of government into human affairs is thus viewed with an immoral character. Taxes in
particular is the poster child for why the Libertarian Party exists — which is why Libertarianism is
hijacked by large wealthy elite individuals who don’t want to pay taxes and need a justification.
In the past, this was the difference between “Liberty” and “Freedom”. Liberty means you are not
held accountable for your social or economic practices. Freedom means that the court of law or
civil jurisprudence has no reason to limit your actions. In this sense, individuals have the Liberty
to be Free, but not the Freedom to have Liberty. Either way you still have to pay taxes. In the
Libertarian view, taxes are a theft from the productive uses of individuals because of the
fundamental Libertarian premise that individual uses are always better than collective uses, ie. not
having freedom to have Liberty.
This idea that the individual will always make better choices and can better use investment funds is the
crux of the Libertarian philosophy, the conflict between Freedom and Liberty. The dynamic is often
couched in a further belief that relying on individual choices is the best protection against
authoritarianism. Human beings are irrational, often driven by needs that are dysfunctional to the
larger society. Short term desires override long term needs, especially when such long term needs
can be outsourced or externalized to other responsible agents and then ignored. Individuals are hard
pressed to wait 20 or 30 years to make a marginal return on invested funds while taking large losses
up front. Humans are more easily persuaded to make tons of money on the front end of the cycle,
then getting out on the back end of the cycle when the losses accumulate. This has been the dynamic
of the mass consumer economic system. Look at all the consumer items that were developed since
World War Two. These events occurred because of short term profit motives, not from long term
stability concerns. Making money was always the priority.
Hence, currently we are all dealing with the external costs of plastic refuse destroying ocean
eco-systems and carbon pollution tipping the climate system equilibrium. We have infrastructure
needs all over the 50 states that are not being addressed by the invisible hand of the free market
because Libertarianism is a stillborn idea. Human beings are not solitary isolated individual units
of economic production. All human progress is a collective effort, even in a capitalist society.
Which is what the word "capitalist" means btw, an economic system that relies upon the development of "capital" goods. The word is quite often twisted and construed by Libertarians, who confuse economic feudalism with the development and nurturing of capital goods. How these capital goods are created and distributed is more related to the social and cultural norms of the community and society, not to some abstract equilibrium models that balance market & wage prices, even when capital goods and markets are largely controlled by non-government entities.
Thursday, 25 July 2019 at 3h 2m 8s
A Summary of the Mueller Report
Congressman, and true patriot, Adam Schiff makes these opening statements at today's 2nd hearing
with Robert Mueller in the House Intelligence Committee.
Your report, for those who have taken the time to study it, is methodical and it is devastating,
for it tells the story of a foreign adversary’s sweeping and systematic intervention in a close U.S.
presidential election.That should be enough to deserve the attention of every American, as you well
point out. But your report tells another story as well. For the story of the 2016 presidential
election is also a story about disloyalty to country, about greed, and about lies. Your
investigation determined that the Trump campaign – including Trump himself – knew that a foreign
power was intervening in our election and welcomed it, built Russian meddling into their strategy,
and used it.
Disloyalty to country. Those are strong words, but how else are we to describe a presidential
campaign which did not inform the authorities of a foreign offer of dirt on their opponent, which
did not publicly shun it or turn it away, but which instead invited it, encouraged it, and made full
use of it. That disloyalty may not have been criminal. Constrained by uncooperative witnesses, the
destruction of documents & the use of encrypted communications, your team was not able to establish
each of the elements of the crime of conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt, so not a provable crime,
in any event.
But, I think, maybe, something worse. A crime is the violation of a law written by Congress. But
disloyalty to country violates the very obligation of citizenship, our devotion to a core principle
on which our nation was founded: That we, the people, not some foreign power that wishes us ill, we
decide, who shall govern, us.
This also a story about money, about greed and corruption, about the leadership of a campaign
willing to compromise the nation’s interest not only to win, but to make money at the same
time.About a campaign chairman indebted to pro-Russian interests who tried to use his position to
clear his debts and make millions. About a national security advisor using his position to make
money from still other foreign interests.And about a candidate trying to make more money than all of
them, through a real estate project that to him, was worth a fortune, hundreds of millions of
dollars, and the realization of a lifelong ambition – a Trump Tower in the heart of Moscow.A
candidate who, in fact, viewed his whole campaign as the greatest infomercial in history.
Donald Trump and his senior staff were not alone in their desire to use the election to make
money. For Russia, too, there was a powerful financial motive. Putin wanted relief from U.S.
economic sanctions...imposed in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and over human rights
violations.The secret Trump Tower meeting between the Russians and senior campaign officials was
about sanctions. The secret conversations between Flynn and the Russian ambassador were about
sanctions.Trump and his team wanted more money for themselves, and the Russians wanted more money
for themselves, and for their oligarchs.
But the story doesn’t end here either. For your report also tells a story about lies. Lots of
lies. Lies about a gleaming tower in Moscow and lies about talks with the Kremlin. Lies about the
firing of FBI Director James Comey, and lies about efforts to fire you, Mr. Mueller, and lies to
cover it up.Lies about secret negotiations with the Russians over sanctions and lies about
Wikileaks. Lies about polling data and lies about hush money payments. Lies about meetings in the
Seychelles to set up secret back channels, and lies about a secret meeting in New York Trump
Tower.Lies to the FBI, lies to your staff, and lies to our Committee.
And lies to obstruct an investigation into the most serious attack on our democracy by a foreign
power in our history.That is where your report ends, Mr. Mueller, with a scheme to cover up,
obstruct and deceive every bit as systematic and pervasive as the Russian disinformation campaign
itself, but far more pernicious since this rot came from within.Even now, after 448 pages in two
volumes, the deception continues. The President and his acolytes say your report found no collusion,
though your report explicitly declined to address that question, since collusion can involve both
criminal and non-criminal conduct.Your report laid out multiple offers of Russian help to the Trump
campaign, the campaign’s acceptance of that help, and overt acts in furtherance of Russian help. To
most Americans, that is the very definition of collusion, whether it is a crime or not.
They say your report found no evidence of obstruction, though you outline numerous actions by
the President intended to obstruct the investigation. They say the President has been fully
exonerated, though you specifically declare you could not exonerate him.In fact, they say your whole
investigation was nothing more than a witch hunt, that the Russians didn’t interfere in our
election, that it’s all a terrible hoax.The real crime, they say, is not that the Russians
intervened to help Donald Trump, but that the FBI had the temerity to investigate it when they did.
But worst of all, worse than all the lies and the greed, is the disloyalty to country, for that
too, continues. When asked, if the Russians intervene again, will you take their help, Mr.
President? Why not, was the essence of his answer. Everyone does it.Not in the America envisioned by
Jefferson, Madison & Hamilton. Not for those who believe in the idea that Lincoln labored until his
dying day to preserve, the idea animating our great national experiment, so unique then, so precious
still: That our government is chosen by our people, through our franchise, and not by some hostile
foreign power.