 | radlure |
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The tea party seems to be trying to re-invent their moniker to something like revolutionary patriot and that renaming has inspired me to post here once again.
It was Seneca who said those that don't remember their history are doomed to repeat it. Again and again I believe. The actual facts about the Boston tea party were somewhat obscured by the acts that followed it-like the declaration of independence from England. But if you take some college level American history you may find that the tax imposed by England was actually less then the colonists were paying to privateers/black marketers. Does that make anyone think that the tea party patriots of the American colonial period were aligned with the black marketers?
It's always hard to prove chicanery or criminal action since people usually aren't too interested in advertising that. Those tea party patriots also couldn't very well go before the public or put in print that they were outraged that the British crown was going to put their buds out of business.
No, it was much more preferable to talk about freedom and the British oppression.
Whose freedom were they talking about though? If you know much about the federal reserve of the US you are both rare and aware that it's not a government organization. The federal reserve appears to be controlled by very wealthy individuals who are not able to be influenced or even questioned by the US Gov. There is a lot more one could say about the federal reserve but the public mostly is distracted by other things and as I said they really don't care what anyone thinks. They do as they please. The federal reserve determines the amount of money in circulation and can cause or resolve financial calamity as suits their needs.
As I type this today and within my own community, condos and high rises with security have become prevalent. Most of these modern living structures cost close to a half million dollars and upwards but at the same time more modest homes are in value free fall and home mortgages are still failing in dramatic numbers. People who have lived in this community for a long time are astounded and often ask who is it that can afford such lavish and expensive dwelling space while the middle class continues to erode?
The answer to that remains an unknown. Just like the questions of who really runs America, who controls our money and what were those patriots really up to in the Boston Harbor all that time ago.
It was Seneca who said those that don't remember their history are doomed to repeat it. Again and again I believe. The actual facts about the Boston tea party were somewhat obscured by the acts that followed it-like the declaration of independence from England. But if you take some college level American history you may find that the tax imposed by England was actually less then the colonists were paying to privateers/black marketers. Does that make anyone think that the tea party patriots of the American colonial period were aligned with the black marketers?
It's always hard to prove chicanery or criminal action since people usually aren't too interested in advertising that. Those tea party patriots also couldn't very well go before the public or put in print that they were outraged that the British crown was going to put their buds out of business.
No, it was much more preferable to talk about freedom and the British oppression.
Whose freedom were they talking about though? If you know much about the federal reserve of the US you are both rare and aware that it's not a government organization. The federal reserve appears to be controlled by very wealthy individuals who are not able to be influenced or even questioned by the US Gov. There is a lot more one could say about the federal reserve but the public mostly is distracted by other things and as I said they really don't care what anyone thinks. They do as they please. The federal reserve determines the amount of money in circulation and can cause or resolve financial calamity as suits their needs.
As I type this today and within my own community, condos and high rises with security have become prevalent. Most of these modern living structures cost close to a half million dollars and upwards but at the same time more modest homes are in value free fall and home mortgages are still failing in dramatic numbers. People who have lived in this community for a long time are astounded and often ask who is it that can afford such lavish and expensive dwelling space while the middle class continues to erode?
The answer to that remains an unknown. Just like the questions of who really runs America, who controls our money and what were those patriots really up to in the Boston Harbor all that time ago.
My previous post here titled "The end of Guardian Angels" leaves me with ambivalent feelings. It's not well titled although I know why I titled that way.
Sometimes the person I am gets more out of something as time passes. Saying that another way my feelings, reactions, and impressions may actually increase for awhile after some experience. Re-watching Cool Hand Luke wasn't something I wanted to do but I had rented it and promoted it as a "classic"so I watched it.
For me the protagonist "Luke" is incapable of staying within the norms of culture and society. Even more clearly or dramatically he is unable to stay out of danger and death. As an aside very little about the film is cartoon like or exaggerated. The violence is not the hyper extreme violence most films of the current time depict. So watching it again is in some ways a return to a reality that has become fuzzy with the passage of time.
I can't help but be compelled to look at the character Luke a little more deeply now. Undoubtedly that's one reason to make art and likely what the artists who created the film wanted. Well maybe they just wanted money? I don't know about all that. In reflecting on this Luke I find him in people I knew before the film was made. I find him in a few people I knew in Vietnam. Maybe he is all of us in some small way?
The question is what do we do with people who are lost or incapable of helping themselves? I believe that US society through Ronald Reagan and Reaganomics answered that question long ago. So too did most of the Western World. If you can't take care of yourself then you deserve to fail and die. One problem with that is that the equation keeps getting tightened up. So that now being able to take care of yourself is becoming a different proposition with increasing levels of difficulties. It's convenient to let the "Lukes" of the world fail. I mean it takes time and energy to even try to help them. In letting them fall through the cracks though did we then widen that passageway for the rest of us?
Perhaps another film answers that question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Ruling_Class (I'm not sure how to insert links here and am too lazy to search how to)
Happy Patriot Day everyone!
Sometimes the person I am gets more out of something as time passes. Saying that another way my feelings, reactions, and impressions may actually increase for awhile after some experience. Re-watching Cool Hand Luke wasn't something I wanted to do but I had rented it and promoted it as a "classic"so I watched it.
For me the protagonist "Luke" is incapable of staying within the norms of culture and society. Even more clearly or dramatically he is unable to stay out of danger and death. As an aside very little about the film is cartoon like or exaggerated. The violence is not the hyper extreme violence most films of the current time depict. So watching it again is in some ways a return to a reality that has become fuzzy with the passage of time.
I can't help but be compelled to look at the character Luke a little more deeply now. Undoubtedly that's one reason to make art and likely what the artists who created the film wanted. Well maybe they just wanted money? I don't know about all that. In reflecting on this Luke I find him in people I knew before the film was made. I find him in a few people I knew in Vietnam. Maybe he is all of us in some small way?
The question is what do we do with people who are lost or incapable of helping themselves? I believe that US society through Ronald Reagan and Reaganomics answered that question long ago. So too did most of the Western World. If you can't take care of yourself then you deserve to fail and die. One problem with that is that the equation keeps getting tightened up. So that now being able to take care of yourself is becoming a different proposition with increasing levels of difficulties. It's convenient to let the "Lukes" of the world fail. I mean it takes time and energy to even try to help them. In letting them fall through the cracks though did we then widen that passageway for the rest of us?
Perhaps another film answers that question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Ruling_Class (I'm not sure how to insert links here and am too lazy to search how to)
Happy Patriot Day everyone!
Gorbachev to Reagan: "I'm going to do the worse thing one human can do to another. I'm going to take away your enemy." It appears Gorbachev was correct.
It always has seemed surreal to me that the majority follow the directives of their masters so well.
Of course in the US we don't even believe we have masters. It's a really good inside joke I suspect.
To me it seems that the most constant of these directives is who we should hate. In the past we hated the communists even while we knew very little about them. Today we hate liberals and anyone who opposes our interference in their land. I don't think "their land" is a useful expression except to say that there is land that certain peoples occupied. Like the ancient Roman Empire we don't recognize ownership of land by people who are "less" civilized than us. We never have recognized the rights of indigenous peoples because if we didn't take their land someone else would. I know of the US Supreme Court decision that recognizes the rights of American natives reservations but those rights have been violated very frequently so I don't considered that a very recognized, acknowledged or more importantly implemented Supreme Court decision.
The myth the US population operates under is that of individual independence. Groups that ban together for the benefit of their members are distrusted usually. Exceptions to that would be noble groups with altruistic purposes like the Ku Klux Klan. Is that nervy of me to post about the Kan like that? Yeah maybe since except for the name people like Beck and Limbaugh are using the very same tactics and language and at last look becoming very popular. With the resurrection of the white male system of bully-ism is there any question who will be devalued?
I recently re-watched Cool Hand Luke-a film of the late 60's featuring Paul Newman. What hit me most was that the film makers were able to portray prisoners in a sort of compassionate light. My friend who watched the film with me said it even stronger-Our sympathies now are with the Bosses, the prison guards and management. Anyway I suspect most people can't enter into the set up of Cool Hand Luke anymore and that's because the Bosses, Owners, Management, or Masters have paid people like Limbaugh to convince us that compassion is for idiots.
Being older and having watched Cool Hand Luke not long after it first came out I can remember that people who called themselves Americans once considered compassion a human trait. Those same people once thought about people who had had some bad luck or fell through the cracks. Americans once actually rooted for the underdog, and we reflected on the phrase "There for the grace of God go I." American Government and those entrusted to performing duty for that service tried however imperfectly to improve the lives of the citizenry but now government itself is bad just like those groups who try to help their members.
In the aftermath of the re-privileging of the Bosses, which is mostly just returning them to favored public status since they never lost any privilege, all your interactions with government will be handled by Corporate Directors.
And then you will learn why compassion is an essential part of being human but it will be too late for you.
It always has seemed surreal to me that the majority follow the directives of their masters so well.
Of course in the US we don't even believe we have masters. It's a really good inside joke I suspect.
To me it seems that the most constant of these directives is who we should hate. In the past we hated the communists even while we knew very little about them. Today we hate liberals and anyone who opposes our interference in their land. I don't think "their land" is a useful expression except to say that there is land that certain peoples occupied. Like the ancient Roman Empire we don't recognize ownership of land by people who are "less" civilized than us. We never have recognized the rights of indigenous peoples because if we didn't take their land someone else would. I know of the US Supreme Court decision that recognizes the rights of American natives reservations but those rights have been violated very frequently so I don't considered that a very recognized, acknowledged or more importantly implemented Supreme Court decision.
The myth the US population operates under is that of individual independence. Groups that ban together for the benefit of their members are distrusted usually. Exceptions to that would be noble groups with altruistic purposes like the Ku Klux Klan. Is that nervy of me to post about the Kan like that? Yeah maybe since except for the name people like Beck and Limbaugh are using the very same tactics and language and at last look becoming very popular. With the resurrection of the white male system of bully-ism is there any question who will be devalued?
I recently re-watched Cool Hand Luke-a film of the late 60's featuring Paul Newman. What hit me most was that the film makers were able to portray prisoners in a sort of compassionate light. My friend who watched the film with me said it even stronger-Our sympathies now are with the Bosses, the prison guards and management. Anyway I suspect most people can't enter into the set up of Cool Hand Luke anymore and that's because the Bosses, Owners, Management, or Masters have paid people like Limbaugh to convince us that compassion is for idiots.
Being older and having watched Cool Hand Luke not long after it first came out I can remember that people who called themselves Americans once considered compassion a human trait. Those same people once thought about people who had had some bad luck or fell through the cracks. Americans once actually rooted for the underdog, and we reflected on the phrase "There for the grace of God go I." American Government and those entrusted to performing duty for that service tried however imperfectly to improve the lives of the citizenry but now government itself is bad just like those groups who try to help their members.
In the aftermath of the re-privileging of the Bosses, which is mostly just returning them to favored public status since they never lost any privilege, all your interactions with government will be handled by Corporate Directors.
And then you will learn why compassion is an essential part of being human but it will be too late for you.
I want to write something about virtual space. People have always needed and sought out escapes.
The types of escapes just vary with what is available to use. I have been an off and on user of secondlife since about 2006. I read a Wired article at that time that featured that virtual space and then tried it out.
Over the years I have been somewhat bemused to find that secondlife or sl as it's mostly referred to by it's user-base mirrors a lot of the physical world back to us.
Today as I write this a 13 year old (the teen grid was or is being integrated with the main grid) posted a message in the sl blog claiming that he or she had been ripped off by one of the merchants. The responses were predictable and also without compassion. Just suck it up and realize that trust is stupid-everyone will take advantage of you so now you either learn that or you keep getting taken. I'm paraphrasing but that is the essence of the advice that was given.
There was also some advice to not be nasty or harsh with the merchant and the constant reminder that you can't name names in the the blogs at sl.
For me it is a real fool's errand to be involved with secondlife. You really cannot win there. The merchants in sl get super upset if anyone rips them off but let something occur to a plain user and it's buyer beware and that ends it.
So sl teaches us one thing if we are open to it, and that is that there are separate rules governing commercial interests versus any consumer protection. Consumer protection by it's very nature is socialistic-therefore it's communism and cannot be tolerated. So like a Goldman Sachs customer if you haven't done all your homework and you get screwed-tough beans! And if you did all your homework you wouldn't be buying and that wouldn't be good either so really the marketplace wants stupid and silent consumers.
In sl and in the physical world if you want to commit larceny you really want to be in business.
The interesting bit to all this is that the majority now back business because business interests have spent a lot of money funding mouthpieces that promote the business ideal. The ideal touted is that business is good and businesses are all about providing for their consumers. If that were true consumer protection and men like Ralph Nader would never have risen to prominence. Don't take my word for it though. Simply search consumer fraud and auto repair.
Auto repair fraud in the US is a billion dollar industry last time I checked. When States run scam catcher programs they find a lot of crooks disguised as businesses but since the crooks can use their money to lobby the US Congress they can help to shutdown those programs and stop "wasteful" government programs. How good is that-for them!
In sl it's very similar. There just is no money to prevent merchants from ripping people off BUT Linden Labs-the creator of secondlife does it's part to help merchants in secondlife who have had their creations copied. Seems biased to me but I'm not an sl merchant. I'm just one of those ordinary consumers. I have no rights in sl and in the physical world? Well maybe it's mixed in the physical world but the lobbyists for business and the political right both say that business can manage itself fine without any government interference. So to me secondlife is just a little ahead of the physical world but I'm sure given a little time the real world can catch up.
The types of escapes just vary with what is available to use. I have been an off and on user of secondlife since about 2006. I read a Wired article at that time that featured that virtual space and then tried it out.
Over the years I have been somewhat bemused to find that secondlife or sl as it's mostly referred to by it's user-base mirrors a lot of the physical world back to us.
Today as I write this a 13 year old (the teen grid was or is being integrated with the main grid) posted a message in the sl blog claiming that he or she had been ripped off by one of the merchants. The responses were predictable and also without compassion. Just suck it up and realize that trust is stupid-everyone will take advantage of you so now you either learn that or you keep getting taken. I'm paraphrasing but that is the essence of the advice that was given.
There was also some advice to not be nasty or harsh with the merchant and the constant reminder that you can't name names in the the blogs at sl.
For me it is a real fool's errand to be involved with secondlife. You really cannot win there. The merchants in sl get super upset if anyone rips them off but let something occur to a plain user and it's buyer beware and that ends it.
So sl teaches us one thing if we are open to it, and that is that there are separate rules governing commercial interests versus any consumer protection. Consumer protection by it's very nature is socialistic-therefore it's communism and cannot be tolerated. So like a Goldman Sachs customer if you haven't done all your homework and you get screwed-tough beans! And if you did all your homework you wouldn't be buying and that wouldn't be good either so really the marketplace wants stupid and silent consumers.
In sl and in the physical world if you want to commit larceny you really want to be in business.
The interesting bit to all this is that the majority now back business because business interests have spent a lot of money funding mouthpieces that promote the business ideal. The ideal touted is that business is good and businesses are all about providing for their consumers. If that were true consumer protection and men like Ralph Nader would never have risen to prominence. Don't take my word for it though. Simply search consumer fraud and auto repair.
Auto repair fraud in the US is a billion dollar industry last time I checked. When States run scam catcher programs they find a lot of crooks disguised as businesses but since the crooks can use their money to lobby the US Congress they can help to shutdown those programs and stop "wasteful" government programs. How good is that-for them!
In sl it's very similar. There just is no money to prevent merchants from ripping people off BUT Linden Labs-the creator of secondlife does it's part to help merchants in secondlife who have had their creations copied. Seems biased to me but I'm not an sl merchant. I'm just one of those ordinary consumers. I have no rights in sl and in the physical world? Well maybe it's mixed in the physical world but the lobbyists for business and the political right both say that business can manage itself fine without any government interference. So to me secondlife is just a little ahead of the physical world but I'm sure given a little time the real world can catch up.
