Is this thing on?
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right…
Dempublicans. Republicrats. You are told that you have a two-party political system in the USA. Most of you buy it. Most of you think you see huge differences in the policies put forth by the Pubs and the Dems. Most of you vote, almost always for one or the other. When was the last time you voted for anyone who was not either a Democrat or Republican? I’m talking national level, here. Please allow me to pass along some factually correct information for your consideration. By all means, PLEASE fact check me in case I screwed up somewhere.
As of right now, the 112th Congress is IN. We are currently just past the mid-point of the session, since this Congress began January 3, 2011 and will end January 3, 2013. The Guide To House And Senate Members reveals that, of the 535 members of Congress, TWO have a different party affiliation listed. One is Joseph Lieberman, who is listed as Independent AND as Democrat, and the other is Bernie Sanders, listed as Independent.
How many political parties does the USA have? Looks like two right, maybe three if you count Independent. Actually there are many but the site, politics1.com lists the “Big Three” of third parties as, The Constitution Party, Green Party of the United States and Libertarian Party (we haven’t gotten to Independent yet).
So, we looked at Congress; how about the President? Who was the last person elected president of the United sates who was NOT either Democrat or Republican? That would be Millard Fillmore. He was a Whig. Was President from 1850-1853.
Almost 160 years we have enjoyed our one-party system, which continually spins round like a coin on edge, now the Republican side, now the Democrat side, and ALWAYS the agenda goes on. If you have a ham sandwich on your plate, flipping it over or moving it to the other side of the plate does not magically make it a BLT or a bowl of chicken soup. No matter which way you position it, it’s always a ham sandwich. The figurehead Americans know as “the President” is utterly irrelevant as far as the agenda is concerned. That person is there only for theater…for propaganda, to perpetuate the delusion that YOU have a say in the policies of your nation.
It’s all about money, you say. If a different candidate had sufficient money he might win. Ross Perot had billions of his own money and was entitled to a great deal more, by law, as a “viable” candidate. Only he never was a viable candidate…because he was neither Dem or Pub. You think that was because he did not strive to be either the Dem or Pub candidate. If he held and espoused the things that he did, he didn’t have a chance in hell of being either. If he was willing to follow orders he conceivably could have been either one, but probably would never have “won”. He even started his OWN party, the Reform Party. No go.
In Congress, since there are so many of them, a relative handful of malcontents might be allowed in, just to help maintain the illusion of “voter choice”. After all, such a small number in Congress can do nothing at all really without the support of the others. And if you look closely at the rules involved, you start to find that just because you might be a Congressman, from the X party, you still have to be a Dem or Pub to be on the important committees that make the laws.
Given what is at stake – the hundreds of billions of dollars in various programs and contracts, etc., do you, as a reasonably intelligent person, seriously think that those in power would leave such decisions to the whim of “the electorate”? Really? Have you looked around you at the makeup of this electorate? If you wanted to run things, would you seriously allow the possibility of the unwashed masses to be making major decisions about the future of humanity that you could not control?
Many people, especially on the political left, admire people like George Carlin. He told you all these same things many different times and ways and you applauded and laughed. He said the real owners of this country have you by the balls…they OWN you…it’s a big club and you ain’t in it. They don’t give a FUCK about you. Be happy with the “education system” you have, it’s never going to get any better, because it is not in the interest of the powerful to have an informed electorate. Bill Hicks said things like that and you might have applauded and laughed. Sometimes Bill Maher still says things like that and he gets applause and laughs. Is that what it takes? Does someone speaking a truthful message to you have to do it in a funny way so you can laugh? Or, if they are serious, then they must be one of those nutjob conspiracy theorists?
Still, new political parties appear. There is now the National Atheist Party (NAP). If ever there was a party with a chance of winning… Do you know how many different political parties there are in this country with the word Socialist (or a derivative) in the name? I count EIGHT listed at Politics1. Oh yeah, the Communist Party and the Nazi Party are also included…isn’t freedom great?
We’ve had OWS or ‘the Occupy Movement’ for five months or so….many places are said to have been ‘occupied’. And? What has changed as far as American public domestic policy? Name one. Are the proceedings at The Grove or Davos, etc., all videoed and put online for public consumption? Actually you CAN watch some ‘highlights’ of Davos here. Guess how many Facebook ‘Likes’ that video got? 136. I bet Whitney’s funeral had a helluva lot more viewers, no? You might remember, Carlin had a bit about where politicians come from… they don’t fall out of the sky, they come from “out there” from among the public. If all these ‘invitation only’ meetings were televised live, from start to finish, how many would watch? How many tune in to C-SPAN?
Which is worse, a case of too many Chiefs and not enough Indians or a clusterfrak of dumbpidity?
In the interest of being fair and balanced…ya know, just like Faux Noos, I thought it interesting to contrast this video “There’s No Tomorrow”, about how this is the last century of humanity as we know it, no matter what happens we’re all frakked…with an interview Sam Harris did with the authors of Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think. Whose side are you on, lol?
Yeah, I watched the entire latest Battlestar Galactica series all the way through to the end. Frak.
TRB
From the Tin Can…..
This little trailer we live in is just that… a tin can. I’m pretty sure it’s older than I am and it has no insulation at all in the walls, which is why I can sit 4 feet from the AC on full blast with a high velocity fan in front of that blowing straight on me and it’s still so hot in here, some days between about noon and 7 or 8 in the evening, that even that blowing wind won’t evaporate the sweat off Melinda and I which means there is no sleep during that time no matter how sleepy or tired. The trailer itself has the potential to be a fairly nice place to live with a good deal of work, but then again, if you were going to spend that much money it would be easier to just get a newer trailer. Landlady offered to sell it to us for only $1000 but there are problems with that.
We’d still be paying rent for the land it sits on; it would require much work and money to make it come up to code even, not to mention be efficient and comfortable; the amount it would cost to put wheels and tires and all the required stuff on in to move it would be more than another trailer; then there would be the problem of having some place to move it TO. Most trailer parks I know of would never accept a trailer this small and old, so that is a gone idea and when we eventually MUST move from here, it will be bye, bye trailer. Landlady would probably also sell us the little piece of land too if she could but her husband had a codicil in his will that none of the land she was left may be sold, period. The wishes of dead people often outweigh the needs of the living.
Landlady has already been told she will get zip on rent again this month, the third month in a row. On the up side, we are told our application for rent assistance was approved and a check (presumably for the first two months behind we were) will be sent to the landlady, though that could take up to 30 days. Fingers crossed that the Pubbies don’t manage to kill that program before the check goes out. At least the final payment on the computer is made, so we will have that to help next month. We already gave up burial insurance, satellite TV, and now without a computer payment, it should be a little easier.
The power bill alone for this month is $232…that’s more than the rent. Hopefully, we will be able to shut down the air a little next month if it will cool off. For those who don’t know, I have been declared 100% PERMANENTLY disabled by my heart doc, and I have a defibrillator in my chest. With my disability check and Melinda’s income when she was working, we did reasonably well, but since she lost her job it’s ONLY my check and that don’t go very far. She hasn’t heard anything from the truck stop restaurant where she applied to be a cook. I’m always torn between trying to be supportive and encouraging and being, what I call, realistic. Of course it’s possible she might get a job somewhere, she does keep trying, but I won’t hold my breath.
Now, we’re trying to work on the grass. Landlady says the insurance people will inspect next month and they may drop her coverage with the grass as high as it is. I didn’t think it was such a big deal myself, even the highest grass is no more than 4 or 5 feet and you can still see the propane tank if you look closely. All you have to do is wait till winter and the cold will make it all go away. It’s probably no more than 50 feet from our porch to the storage shed, but it was all I could do to walk that far in that kind of grass, much less trying to push a mower through it. We managed to get it fired up and I made a few swaths across the yard and then almost fell out. Made it back to the porch and got inside but poor old heart was chugging like the Orange Blossom Special and I was getting nauseous. Melinda has managed to get 90% of the front yard done, but rain is coming. I hate seeing her work that hard especially because she is not in all that much better shape than I am. I see pickups with big rider mowers on trailers going by on the road all the time. Would be very simply for someone like that to either cut the grass or at least let me borrow the rider. I enjoy mowing when I have a powerful rider to mow with. I would do that if I had the mower and knew of someone who needed their yard mowed. I’d do it just for fun, of course, not charge them a cent of money. *sigh*
I think it’s time to try applying for Section 8 housing assistance. As with all things that has pros and cons, but two of the pros I think of right away: wouldn’t have roaches running through your food while you try to eat or over your face while you sleep, and very unlikely have any kind of yard mowing or other such maintenance, plus, at least with the one I’ve seen so far, the power bill is included in the rent. I’m not really a huge fan of being in a tiny apartment, especially smashed up in the middle of dozens of other tiny apartments, perhaps with small humans creating havoc all about, but all things have a tradeoff or cost. There might be some chance of getting an actual house or decent trailer on Section 8 but we will just have to see. The big drawback is most such places would not allow “pets”, though they are typically far less destructive and troublesome than the small humans… I won’t leave or sacrifice my boy Tucker…I’m no Abraham.
Coming shortly, a look into the bigger picture.
TRB
Credit
There is very little about the current monetary system in use the world over that is not utterly fraudulent or, at the very least, misleading. Everything from the very existence of the system as a whole to the definitions of terms. Here’s one example of a definition from “investorwords.com”:
credit:
1. A contractual agreement in which a borrower receives something of value now and agrees to repay the lender at some later date. When a consumer purchases something using a credit card, they are buying on credit (receiving the item at that time, and paying back the credit card company month by month). Any time when an individual finances something with a loan (such as an automobile or a house), they are using credit in that situation as well. Source.
Do you see what, in the definition above, is misleading or inaccurate? This phrase…”purchases something using a credit card…” This is something that is not possible. Yes, I know many people and dictionaries do put various spins on terms, but my definition of a completed purchase is “when someone has received something of value AND has completed all agreements to pay or reimburse” for that thing. A purchase is at least a two-step transaction; an exchange of “money or its equivalent” for “something of value” If you have taken possession of the “something of value” and have only made a “promise to pay”, the transaction is not complete. It cannot be complete until the promise is honored and actual payment is made, or the promise is withdrawn and the “thing” returned, etc.
When a person typically “buys” something with a credit card, only half a transaction has occurred. You have taken possession of the “thing” and made a promise to pay. You have also transferred your debtor from the person, store or company from whom you are acquiring the thing, to the credit card company. The person, store or company has received their agreed upon payment but the transaction is not complete on your end. You have not bought the “thing”, you have arranged for someone else to buy it for you in exchange for your promise to pay THEM in the future. If all goes well, you pay the secondary “debtor” AND almost always an added fee for the convenience of having acquired the “thing” you wanted earlier than you probably otherwise could. If all does NOT go well and you are unable to pay your secondary debtor…
Often the “thing” you acquired is completely consumed, thus removing any option to return it and cancel the debt. At this point (or sooner, depending on how you look at it) you have become an indentured servant to the credit card company. You OWE. You are expected to work to pay your debt. If, for whatever reason, you cannot work and pay your debt, then your reputation in the monetary and social systems have been damaged. No one cares WHY you did not pay, least of all the credit card company, only that you did not. This has a very negative effect on your “credit worthiness” and this might be fine except for the fact that our society attaches the moral “worth” of a human being to how much money and/or possessions they have and whether they are able to “pay their bills”. Everyone knows that people who “don’t pay their bills” are people of “low character” or worth. There is no relevance attached to WHY one has not paid the bills.
This brings us back to why anyone would engage in any credit transactions in the first place. How many reasons are there for this? Perhaps simple greed…”I want this now”. Perhaps the person has bought into the social mythology meme that their worth as a person is determined by how much money and/or things they have. They may or may not fully realize the folly of this attempt to get that “acceptance”, but it is so important to most that they will continually repeat the credit transactions to at least give the appearance of being wealthier (and thus worth more as a person) – all the while growing poorer – than they actually are. After all, most polls show us that “appearance” is often far more important than actual truth or substance.
Sometimes the “thing” acquired through “credit” is actually of literal and immediate life and death importance. Typically this would be medical care, but in some instances it may even be as simple as food. Many people are so emotionally attached to the concept of a person’s worth being indicated by their wealth status (“how much is he worth?” is still a common expression), that they are perfectly willing to allow people to simply die, rather than engaging in what their paranoid fear calls “socialism”, i.e., people helping people via government action.
You don’t have to pay actual cash money for your purchases, you know. There are things that look almost identical to credit cards, but work very differently. They are called debit cards. With this kind of card, when you make a purchase, it is actually a genuine purchase, a completed transaction. You have “bought” the “thing” and have instantly paid for it. You do not OWE. The net effect is exactly the same as using actual cash. The trouble is, this kind of card also has the same “drawback” as using actual cash. It will not allow one to maintain their illusion that they have more (and are thus worth more) than they actually do. And if you do not have as much as you would like to have or pretend to have, what does this mean? Does it really mean your worth as a human is less than you thought? Maybe that is a lie designed to enslave you. Could it possibly be that you are not given a fair or just payment or compensation for your work in the first place? Perhaps if you were, you would never have any trouble acquiring all the things you really need, whatever they might be? Perhaps you should consider another meaning of the word “credit”: “5. Public acknowledgment or praise, typically that given or received when a person’s responsibility for an action or idea becomes or is made apparent.” Perhaps if everyone got much more of this kind of credit they would feel far less need for the other slavery kind of credit?
TRB
What just happened…II
For those who follow the minutia of our personal monetary situation… This is Tuesday, July 26. Still no word on whether or not there will be money coming to pay our past due rent. I am about 90% certain that there will not. The reason is that the landlady is one of those paranoid types who refuse to give their SS#, which is one of the things required on the form that she was supposed to fill out in order for the Community Action For Improvement (CAFI) office to put in the request to whomever they request it from. If that doesn’t come through, we are left to manage to slowly catch up the past due amount. We’ve done that before. We were once more than $1000 behind on the rent and we caught that up. The difference between now and then was that I was trucking and later Melinda had her job at the Wild Animal Park. Now there is nothing but the disability check. There was some hope last Monday when Melinda applied at a truck stop restaurant as a cook. She was told that her app would be on top of the pile and, since the kitchen boss there also rents from our landlady and she had put in a good word for Melinda, there seemed good reason for hope she would be hired. Now, more than a week later with no word at all, I am severely doubting that will happen. Call me a pessimist, most do.
Of course I could be wrong on either or both of these accounts, and I certainly hope I am…I’m just not a “person of faith”, except in the sense that, if anything can go wrong, it will. This, based on over half a century of experience. Direct TV has not yet stopped the service, but will as of the 8th unless we pay about $150. Of course that ain’t gonna happen, so we will be out of that. Oh sure, no one could possibly drop dead from being without TV. Many people CHOOSE to be without any TV at all. That’s not the point. The point is that it is one more cut in the “death by a thousand (or far fewer) cuts” that comes with being poor, at least for those who have a need for TV. I am considering talking with AT&T about possibly getting a “bundle” which would include Direct TV, at a cheaper price than the current AT&T bill plus Direct. We dropped the burial insurance so now, if one of us dies, it will be up to any family, if they are able and so choose, to deal with our “disposal” or up to the county. Doesn’t matter to me. Dead people not only don’t tell any tales, they also don’t have any problems.
August will be the last full payment on the computer, and after that, only a small amount remains and we will have more toward other bills. The computer is another example of how the poor get screwed. We got it through Rent-a-Center. Yes, by the time we finish paying on it, we will have paid somewhere between 2 and 4 times what the actual cost of it should be. That is a cost of being poor. If you are poor your only choices in such a situation are to either pay far more than a rich person would pay for the same thing, or simply not have one at all. There are many examples of the poor having to pay much more than the rich or simply be denied.
Of course there are many millions of Americans, not to mention other people in the world, who have far greater financial and other problems than ours. The typical reaction to such a thing is, “Oh well, it could be worse.” Indeed, it could. Why do so few people though, voice the obvious alternate that, “It damn well could be a lot better too.” Why do so few people seem reluctant or unable to voice their own sense of justice and fairness about such things?
There is a bit in the CAFI thing above which says something about helping people to become “self-sufficient”. I find this hugely insulting, not to mention just plain stupid. “Self-sufficient” is in the same category with “self-made man”…utter bullshit. Everyone knows this, but few will acknowledge it…why? If you use electricity that you did not produce, if you drive a car that you did not build, if you live in a building that you did not build, if you wear clothes that you did not make, if you eat food that you did not kill or grow, don’t even give me this “self-sufficient” horse shit. It is a flat lie. Many people seem to actually believe that if they work at some job and are paid money and they then use that money for their needs, that they have somehow “done it on their own”. Amazing. If no one agreed to give you any money for your work, where would you be? A job is not a thing one simply goes out and gets, as though it were a pebble alongside a road. Someone somewhere must agree to pay you some amount of money in exchange for your work. Naturally, being a severely inferior person, by virtue of being poor, your pay for spending an hour of your time will be nowhere near the “pay” for a hedge fund manager who spends an hour playing squash, or even for doing his “work” which helps no one at all but himself and the small rich group he is in.
As anyone who has read many of my blogs knows, I am one of those people who most certainly want to live forever, or at least very close to it. A truly intelligent and caring species would recognize that the final defeat of the last disease – death – would be, could be, the zenith of human accomplishment; that it’s not even that difficult, now that we have the ability to print out or grow all manner of human replacement organs; that a “waiting list” for people who need transplants, and that based on the death of others, is hideously primitive and unjust. And yet, the thought of living a very long time in such a social system as that which we have here makes even me, grateful to know that death, the infinitely patient friend, awaits me; promises the only genuine freedom there is from the insanity.
There is no hope of “educating” significant numbers of our kind to be able to live in a world of plenty and fairness for all. You could never teach your dog even simple mathematics. A dog’s brain, no matter how smart relative to other dogs, simply has no capacity for understanding such things. In principle, IF we knew enough about brains in general, we very well might be able to increase a canine’s cognitive capacity to the point of understanding maths. No reason why not that I know of, other than our current ignorance of understanding how. Likewise, although many people across the world do have some understanding of justice and fairness and a world of plenty for all, their numbers are miniscule compared to the rest. And most of “the rest” have no more capacity to understand such things than a dog has to understand mathematics. Human animals still carry a great deal of their evolutionary baggage, some of which evolved long before there was even such a thing as a mammal, much less a human. Such are not actually “mindsets” at all, but far more primitive… instincts; the same instincts that work just fine for constructing the various hierarchies of existence of most other species. We are the only species, so far, with the possibility of surpassing our “instincts”. But in order to do this, we must become, in a very fundamental sense, something other than the current definition of “human”.
In order to do THAT, we must first, have a complete understanding of the genetic programming, the capacities of human brains, how they do what they do and how to operate them with intent. We are just beginning to have some understanding of that and I’m sure it will take a long time to arrive at a real understanding. I have no doubt at all that, aside from the possibility of total extinction, the human species must and will, at some point branch into at least two different species. One will be considerably “smarter” than the other, and the other will have little chance of survival unless the smart ones, for whatever reasons, see to their survival. Unfortunately, “smart” does not automatically coincide with fair and just and compassionate. In fact some, as some do now, will consider such traits as anathema to their own survival…hence the very rich.
TRB
What just happened…
So, here’s what just happened. All the money was gone or ‘spoken for’. We put the last $2 into the gas tank and got a whopping half gallon of gas (I remember when you could fill a big tank for that) in order to get over to the discount store. We had a little left on the EBT card and were out of bread. We got bread and some OJ and a couple of cheap dented cans of veggies and some marked down (almost to a reasonable price) cubed steak in which the green had not progressed very far. We have been completely without any tobacco of any kind for about 3 days now. I don’t like it and it ain’t easy, but for Melinda it’s more than that. Her addiction is stronger, both physiologically and psychologically than mine. She had already gone the 3 days or so, using up the last shreds of the roll-your-own pack someone gave us. She was in pain, to the point of tears. We have about 9 days yet to go before more money shows up…IF the Republicans (infuriatingly enough enough, with Obama’s consent) somehow don’t manage to cut all disability, Social Security, etc. There was just over $11 left in the bank, ‘spoken for’ by Netflix. I could not sit here and see my wife, whom I love very much, in tears from the pain, and experiencing nightmares. I went to a store and got some cigarettes.
This means, of course, that when Netflix puts in for their payment it will trigger an ‘insufficient funds’ at the bank. In turn, the bank will then put an ‘insufficient funds charge’ on my account of about $30. The net effect is that, when the next check comes, I will have to pay the regular Netflix bill of $10.69 (assuming they have not yet kicked in their new rate of $16), plus the bank charge…in effect we will have paid $30 for 3 packs of cigs. There are those who may think I am not smart enough to understand that this is illogical. Indeed, it is most illogical…BUT it is only one of many illogical things in the scenario and, there are more things to consider than JUST logic. Some of the other things involved…or, at least, that SHOULD be involved in this whole scenario, are kindness and compassion and empathy.
Some will say, just get rid of the Netflix, it is not a necessity, just turn off the Internet, it is not a necessity, just stop with the tobacco, no one has to have tobacco, ad nauseum. It is very easy for some people to declare what is or is not a necessity, especially for other people. Interestingly, how often do you hear anyone say, of the very rich, just stop with the investing, no one has to invest, just stop with the multi-million dollar houses, no one needs more than a simple compact home? I do tend to say that sometimes, but usually get screamed at, as though I had suggested rich people do without oxygen. Of course some people couldn’t care less about having a computer and Internet access…that’s perfectly fine for them. For other people such things are as vital to their well-being as heart medication.
Our little situation here is one of millions of microcosm examples of different mindsets. It’s difficult for me to write about such things because I have to continually jump back and forth between what is and what should be; what would be a reasonable, kind, compassionate and caring world in which all people have the basics of what they need in life, and the actual world we have which is mostly one of overly simplistic and primitive ideas like, “if he don’t work, he don’t eat”. Again, strangely, the logic of this primitive ideology seems to not apply at all to the very rich. “He has $100 million dollars. He doesn’t work at anything at all a day in his life, yet he has an enormous continuing income simply because of the fact that he has $100 million dollars.” But no one says, “Why should he sit on all that money and still have so much…why should he not only eat but eat very well, when HE doesn’t work at anything”? It is a mindset in which people are judged to be inherently superior people by virtue of having large amounts of money…conversely those who have little or nothing are judged to be inherently inferior people.
Everyone knows the scenario… a disheveled-looking guy dressed in dirty and torn clothes walks into a “high-end” (even the language is biased) store and someone immediately comes over to hustle him out. Chances are that no one will ask him anything at all; no one will say “May I help you”? – probably no one will be respectful toward him; the main thing will be to get him out of there as soon as possible to avoid embarrassment to the workers and customers in there. If it is then revealed that this same individual is in fact a very wealthy man, a multi-millionaire; that his appearance was only a prank or joke of some kind, he is then welcomed with open arms, workers compete with each other to see who can better serve his needs and impress him. Why? Is he not exactly the same man as before? Sadly, the answer is no. In a sane, kind, compassionate and caring world, he would indeed be precisely the same man as before. But we do not live in such a world. In our world, it is almost a universal truth that “rich” = “good” and “poor” = “bad”.
This is not new. This mindset has been around at lest since biblical times, and surely far longer. Even the Bible says you will always have the poor with you. That is hardly surprising within a monetary system which cannot exist at all without a relative few rich and masses of poor. I found an interesting article in the Daily Kos by a person known only as ‘cmhmd’ with the title The Poor You Will Always Have With You. I’m in general agreement with the article, though I differ with the interpretation of that statement. From the article:
“Jesus is being lavished with expensive oils, and a member of the group sanctimoniously points out that these oils could have been sold to the benefit of the poor. Jesus notes that we will always have the poor to take care of, long after he is gone. Jesus is actuallyreferencing the book of Deuteronomy, “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.”
That is cmhmd’s interpretation of the line “The Poor You Will Always Have With You”. My interpretation is that, sensibly enough, someone pointed out, that lavishing expensive oils on the feet of Jesus was basically a waste and could have been better used to help the poor…in much the same way as some people today point out that all the billions of dollars wasted on humongous expensive buildings and rites, and rituals, could be better used to help the poor… The Jesus character, perhaps tasting the corruption of wealth, basically dismisses the poor with the airy comment that, “Oh, there will always be poor people” and goes right on enjoying his oily footsies. Sounds downright Koch-ish to me; or maybe a precursor to the Queen of Mean, Leona Helmsley’s infamous quote, “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes”..
There would at least be a kind of internal logic in the mindset that the rich are inherently superior to the poor, if it were only the rich who tout such a notion. Amazingly though, a huge percentage of the poor fall right in line with this bizarre thinking. Now THAT’S propaganda that works! At least a lot of it is. Sadly, a lot of it is also left over evolutionary baggage from our past which might have had merit long ago, but now is only a hindrance to the species. I’ll be Bach (in some lifetime).
TRB
On The Verge
When George W. Bush was President, there was a while there when I very seriously wondered whether he would step down when his final term was up. Maybe it had to do with that remark he made, “….just as long as I’m the dictator”. Maybe it had to do with the first time in my memory, a man being installed as US President who did not win an election or get there through any legitimate means. (Gerald Ford was never elected either but got there through normal means in an unusual situation.) There was some relief when I did not see tanks in the streets as Obama prepared to take office.
I either did not know yet, or had forgotten, that who sits in the Oval Office has no more bearing on the nation’s policies than who will replace Katie as anchor at CBS. Democrat or Republican have been the only “choices” allowed since Millard Fillmore in 1850. Not even if you have your own billions to spend on a campaign can you be elected if you are not Dem or Pub. The Agenda rolls along, unfazed, either way. I don’t know whether Obama was part of the plan from the start or whether he was just naive. Perhaps he didn’t know either until he was actually elected and then given his orders.
In any case he now seems fully on board with the Agenda. He finds reasons why he has not closed Gitmo. Finds reasons why he cannot fully and unequivocally support the LGBT community. Finds reasons why he must (at least claim to) spend time with the Big Daddy in the Sky – on his Blackberry, even. Now he says he cannot guarantee that the eighty plus million checks that the government is supposed to send out next month for SS, disability, etc., will be sent. There might not be enough “money in the coffers”. Imagine tens of millions of Americans having ZERO money for food, rent, etc. If this happens do you really think it will be very long before there ARE tanks in the streets here (never fear, there is always abundant “money in the coffers” for that kind of thing).
How long until some of the poor start to push back? How long until some of “our service men and women” who are “keeping America safe” from horribly threatening military powers like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, etc., are also called to “maintain order” in American streets? Can’t have starving people raise a ruckus, now can we? Why, that would be unseemly. Just die quietly and all will be well. It’s going in in small scales now. In Florida you can be arrested for feeding homeless people.
Much of the state of Minnesota is officially shut down. The latest “official” national unemployment rate just went up to 9.2%. Of course, most of us know the REAL unemployment rate is far higher than that, some saying it is well over 20%. Luckily, many of our corporations are stepping up and saying the unemployed need not apply. Wait…what?
The “debt ceiling” is now being hailed as the huge CRISES in Washington. There may well be a crises for many millions of Americans if this “ceiling” is not raised. Raising it is not a big deal. Not raising it could result in civil war. The debt ceiling has been raised over 70 times since JFK. Republicans raised it SEVEN TIMES just while Dubya was president. They actually might not this time because they, in particular, seem hell bent on driving our country literally into the ground. Read more at Mother Jones.
If you are on a “fixed” income, or Food Stamps or Welfare or any such program, that rumbling noise you hear may be your stomach growling…for now. When it gets very loud it may be tracks on pavement. That rhythmic sound you hear may be your heartbeat…for now. When it gets much louder, it may be the sound of thousands of boots marching in unison. Perhaps it is nearing a time when all Americans will be reminded, again, that without the Second Amendment, the First, indeed all the others, are meaningless puffs of air.
STOP! Children, what’s that sound….Everybody look what’s going down.
TRB
Tick
It all started with a tick. He bit me on the arm back around the2nd or 3rd. Well, you know what they say, “Lie down with ticks, and you get up with dogs…er sumpin’”. That’s happened several times, no biggie. THIS time he launched a stealth suicide attack. HE didn’t last two minutes after he bit me, got flushed. Turned out that he was basically a personnel carrier, and unloaded bunches of other critters into me. They immediately launched a blitzkrieg attack, starting with the formation of a base of operations at the landing site. Turned that into a red mountain with a strange black hole in the middle that I could play Yellowstone Geyser with when I poured hydrogen peroxide into it. No doubt a diversionary tactic.
I wasn’t all that worried about it because I was already on bactrim, an antibiotic doc had given me at last visit for a UTI. But after a couple days seeing the minions had decided that was a cool food source, I suspected harsher measures were needed. They were marching in red rows up my arm through the lymph nodes and across my chest. I started to think maybe the main mission was to get to me defibrillator and knock that out, thus taking me down and making me easier to eat.
Went back to doc. He said, “they are drug resistant”, I said no kiddin’, where do ya keep the Apache attack helicopters of meds? We laid off the bactrim in favor of amoxycillin. I don’t know if they knew it or not, but I ain’t exactly alone here. Their initial surprise attack set my guys back a bit but, as the general, I supplied my own minions with a whole new weapon. That set off full scale war. That, in turn, led me to discover surprising new territory I never knew I had cuz it never hurt before. Fever and chill and chills and fever. It’s 300 freakin’ degrees in here!, an hour later how the hell did I get to Antarctica? If I still had teeth they would have chattered.
Meanwhile, back at headquarters… I’m also in a whole different war none of the minions know anything about. Gone begging at some places which supposedly offer rent assistance. Spent a lot of time walking on sidewalks in town. Turns out, most don’t. “No funding” is the standard reply. Understandable. Finally got to one place where, we had an appointment at 1pm. Sign on door said, be back at 1:30pm. We sat under an awning in 95 degree heat heat for over an hour. No one came to the door till well after 2pm. Woman there finally gives us form to take to the landlord and an appointment for the 18th. This, AFTER she harangues and belittles and ridicules for half an hour about WHY we need help with rent; ringing on her calculator on how if we didn’t have Internet and a computer payment we have rent money. I almost didn’t make it, almost walked out. We’ll see if it results in any actual money.
Whole body broke out in red pimples, looks almost like measles. The sore from the bite has changed little. May end up going to surgeon to get the sucker cut out like coring an orange. Have only been hit and run a little on FB, can’t focus attention very long. Haven’t blogged at all. I hope to do it again soon, if I can ever get healed up from whatever this is and get the impotent hurt and rage tamped down some. I had a 40 ouncer a couple days ago. First beer I’ve had in years. I used to be a good boy. Not so much when I’m angry and hurting.
TRB
Pledge of Allegiance
The basic facts of the Pledge of Allegiance are short and direct. You can find them here, or at wikipedia. Written by a socialist. HA!
My first problem with it is that it’s a pledge of allegiance to a piece of cloth. WTF!!? I can see someone pledging allegiance to the country, it does at least make some sense, but what kind of maroon would pledge allegiance to a bit of cloth!?
Bellamy, being socialist and all, seems to have stuck his ideals of “liberty and justice for all” in there. Cool ideals, but ideals and $5 will get you a cup of coffee. There was no “liberty and justice for all” when the country was founded in 1776, and not much had changed over a hundred years later when Bellamy wrote this. “Liberty and justice”, to the extent they existed at all, was for rich white men. If you were not a rich land owner, pfft! If you were not white, you didn’t mean spit, unless you tried to get uppity. If you were a woman, you were breeding stock, nothing more.
Bellamy, even being Baptist, didn’t stick his God into it. That only happened when most of the American government, and its people, were scared spitless of something they knew not the first thing about; “communism”. And the greatest terror of THAT was because people thought “godless” and Communist were the same thing and both were vile. Now, more than 100 years after Bellamy, some rather trivial “progress” has been made, though the “rich landowner” bit is roaring back with a vengeance.
You won’t ever get me to “pledge allegiance” to any piece of cloth, even the Rebel flag, which I like. Fuck a flag, all flags. My country does not want my allegiance either except as a silent, mindless cog in the Big Machine. You want me to have some respect, some allegiance, some enthusiastic support for my “republic”? Start implementing that “liberty and justice for all” bit. Let’s not have all these millions of Americans homeless and hungry. Even the used up bits of cannon fodder soldiers that gave so much of their lives fighting people they didn’t know to make very rich people they will never know, just so much richer.
Respect and support are things that must be earned. Fuck JFK and his “ask not what your country can do for you.” That’s what it’s friggin’ THERE for, to meet the needs of its citizens. Remember this:?
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
I guess you could say this Preamble has been a rousing success, when you remember that the “ourselves and our Posterity” meant rich white men. How many women were at these various meetings and conventions? How many Mexicans? How many Indians? How many black people? Whatever happened to “general Welfare”? Just words, various puffs of vibrating air, lost amid the universal animal lust for power. How could it ever be different as long as we remain animals?
In1830, there were 12,866,020 people in these United States, according to that year’s census. Source. We only had about 22 or 23 states then. If you add another 1.5 million or so to the population number above, you get the number of unemployed Americans in 2009. Source. That was a jump of nearly 60% over 2008.
Yeah, here’s MY Pledge of Allegiance…
I pledge allegiance to the void, from which I sprang; whose infinite black nothingness holds the closest thing to freedom that humans will ever know…er, not know.
Maybe we should all move to Europe…at least they have more interesting tunnels.
Y’all have a Glorious Fourth!
TRB
Writer
I’m a writer. I write. That’s what I’m doing right now. Writing changes and evolves, as do people. I can’t remember the last time I saw something I wrote on paper. I have some vague, nebulous kinda-sorta understanding that some of the thoughts that form in my brain are directed down my arms to my fingers and, mixed with vision and co-ordination the fingers touch the right keys which cause electrical contacts to send digital versions of alphanumeric characters to a processor which decodes the information and displays it on a screen I can see. I know it’s an applied scientific process which some people fully understand and are capable of creating…otherwise I could do what I’m doing. But it’s almost close enough to magic to make it seem so.
Thomas Jefferson was a smart guy and he wrote a lot of things. But every bit of his writing was done (I think) with the end of bird’s feather repeatedly dipped into a small container of ink, then applied to paper. The only way he could get others to see his writing was to take or send that paper to someone. I think our biggest improvement so far is that we don’t have to carry our screen around to show to people we want to see our words. There are billions of screens now and we can, almost magically, send our words to huge numbers of them. I sure wouldn’t write very much if Mr. Jefferson’s feather, ink and paper were the only way I had to do it, in part, simply because the process is hugely time consuming and laborious, compared to this. Sometimes I wonder what’s next. When a time comes in which writers look back at this period and say, “all that messing about with tapping physical “keys” and things called “mice”…shudder, how did anyone ever get anything written?” Will there still be such things as “writers” then and how will they do it?
There are some “voice recognition” programs now which can instantly convert your spoken words into visual text on a screen. I don’t see that as much of an improvement. Judging by how much “texting” people do with phones, as opposed to talking, many agree. Of course, there is another thing about most writers…they wish to involve others. How many writers would write anything at all if they were reasonably certain that not a single human other than themselves would ever see and read the words? I think of writer as social…but it’s a kind of what I call a “projected” sociability. They intend their words for some future audience. Writers write for a myriad of reasons but I view most as the passive aggressive intruder sort. The aggression is wanting to intrude their thoughts into your head. It only works if you agree and allow it (that’s the passive part)…so far. 
But there surely has to be an easier and faster way. Some draw analogies between individual cells making up your body and individual persons making up humanity. Maybe this is still only in the crude and primitive stage. Suppose humanity eventually becomes a “creature”. A global mind composed of billions and billions of single brains, supplemented with still more billions or trillions of “artifical” devices. Could we learn to adapt to such an environment? Would we still be “humans”? Would it be good or bad if we were not?
I’ve written hundreds, maybe thousands of books. Not a single one has ever appeared on screens or on paper. All of them have appeared in my “mind’s eye”, fleetingly and never fully formed…I think of them as miscarriages. The best and most extensive have contained a few paragraphs or pages that might possibly be discernable to another mind – if the technology existed yet to do that. All these books, Julia Loui-Dreyfus finishes for me with “yada, yada, yada”. I understand them without the tedium of having to form complete thoughts and words and sequences of events, etc., but no one else would.
This kind of communicating with other brains is exhausting. Even when you supposedly speak and understand the same language, a great deal can be lost (and inserted) in “interpretation”. If a whole different language is involved, well, hang it up. I might say I’d like some jussipussi with my supper and folk could get the wrong idea. See?
TRB
