Skepticism and critical thinking is not panacea, but can help to understand the world better
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May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-) Skepticism and critical thinking is not panacea, but can help to understand the world better |
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James Geary once wrote that "Aphorisms are like particle accelerators for the mind." When particles collide inside an accelerator, new ones are formed as the energy of the crash is converted into matter. Inside an aphorism, it is minds that collide, and what spins out is that most slippery of things, wisdom.
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THOUGH it was not understood a century ago, and though as yet the applications of the knowledge
to the economics of life are not generally realized, life in its physical aspect is fundamentally a struggle
for energy, in which discovery after discovery brings life into new relations with the original source.
[[Frederick Soddy, WEALTH, VIRTUAL WEALTH AND DEBT, 2nd edition, p. 49] ]
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Feb 03, 2021 | www.goodreads.com
John F. Kennedy > Quotes > Quotable Quote
"The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings...Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe...no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent...For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed."
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Jan 29, 2021 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"Democracy is held captive, not just by money, but by ideas -- the ideas that money buys." ~William Greider
"A multibillion-dollar bailout and Wall Street's swift, subsequent reinstatement of gargantuan bonuses have inspired a narrative of parasitic bankers and other elites rigging the game for their own benefit. And this, in turn, has led to wider -- and not unreasonable -- fears that we are living in not merely a plutonomy, but a plutocracy, in which the rich display outsize political influence, narrowly self-interested motives, and a casual indifference to anyone outside their own rarefied economic bubble." ~Chrystia Freeland, The Rise of the New Global Elite, January 2011
"They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection." ~Henry Wallace, 9 April 1944
"Our future could be one in which continued tumult feeds the looting of the financial system, and we talk more and more about exactly how our oligarchs became bandits and how the economy just can't seem to get into gear. Recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we're running out of time." ~Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, May 2009
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Jan 28, 2021 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
flora , January 27, 2021 at 10:58 am
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken
flora , January 27, 2021 at 11:01 am
The full Menken quote:
"Civilization, in fact, grows more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. Wars are no longer waged by the will of superior men, capable of judging dispassionately and intelligently the causes behind them and the effects flowing out of them. The are now begun by first throwing a mob into a panic; they are ended only when it has spent its ferine fury."
― H.L. Mencken, In Defense Of Women
fresno dan , January 27, 2021 at 6:14 pm
flora
January 27, 2021 at 11:01 am
http://www.mit.edu/people/fuller/peace/war_goering.html
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."
=================================
I remember the very first time I read that – I thought it was a made up internet meme. When I determined that it was in fact true, it was "of course."Robert Gray , January 27, 2021 at 1:00 pm
A perhaps more well-known Mencken:
"No one in this world, so far as I know – and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me – has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."
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Jan 27, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org
David G Horsman , Jan 27 2021 19:41 utc | 30
"Human intelligence is just a tool. High intelligence does not guarantee a dedication to a search for truth. High intelligence can give one a developed skill at rationalizing whatever beliefs one already holds."
I never heard another human agree with that before.
"The Psychologist's Introspection Paradox"
It should have a better name than I can coin.
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Jan 27, 2021 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
tegnost , January 27, 2021 at 9:02 am
I think it's the social heuristics that collapse the adverse trends of corruption and rampant self interest among the elite into a structured narrative with actionable villains.
This is a great sentence that distills it all very nicely, thanks.
Kurtismayfield , January 27, 2021 at 9:35 am
The problem us that not many people realize how much they are being manipulated. Case in point.. check out the editing the grey lady Twitter. Sometimes it's a minor thing, sometimes they change their headline to fit their agenda. This is what happened to the headline:
https://i.redd.it/z1w45dc7ewc61.png
It went from : Market workers strike asking for a dollar an hour raise. To: Market workers strike, threatening supply chain
Not an innocent, unbiased edit. Setting the agenda for their neiliberal readership.
jsn , January 27, 2021 at 11:12 am
Yes, it's amazing what digital has done to push people without their knowing it.
I signed up for Netflix after a five year hiatus from TV and was struck by how, every step of the way, the interface speeds things up and pushes things at you. I found myself constantly hitting "pause" or "mute!"
But most people, I figure, are at this point inured to the perpetual media push and don't realize how far they've been cut out from the familiar and herded off into various feed pens.
Kurtismayfield , January 27, 2021 at 2:52 pm
Hah.. when Copeland coined the term "veal pens" for the 90's office environment.. I never thought that it could apply to the little information silos we would eventually self migrate to.
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Jan 24, 2021 | en.wikipedia.org
The Red Queen's race is an incident that appears in Lewis Carroll 's Through the Looking-Glass and involves both the Red Queen , a representation of a Queen in chess , and Alice constantly running but remaining in the same spot.
"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else -- if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."
"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" [1]
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Jan 22, 2021 | off-guardian.org
niko , Jan 21, 2021 9:02 PM
"What matters most is not who is sitting in the White House, but who is sitting in, and who is marching outside the White House, pushing for change."
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders and millions have been killed because of this obedience Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem."
-Howard Zinn
Norm , Jan 21, 2021 10:22 PM Reply to niko
What matters is who is marching outside the White House, pushing for change.
Um no. Nothing against Howard Zinn, but this is no longer the 20th century.
Due to the adoption of unprecedented surveillance and control technologies, the old methods of making voices heard no longer work, neither to spread the message, nor to pressure the powerful.
In civil disobedience, we need to up our game -- and badly .
S Cooper , Jan 22, 2021 12:15 AM Reply to JoeC"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
~ Frederick Douglas, 1857.
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Jan 22, 2021 | off-guardian.org
dr death , Jan 16, 2021 2:18 PM Reply to Paul Vonharnish
this from famous dress wearer, boy lover and venal, corrupt head of the fbi
"The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst. It rejects even the assumption that human creatures could espouse a philosophy which must ultimately destroy all that is good and decent."
– J Edgar Hoover
so presumably it's quite bad.
and this from eisenhower.
'in the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.'
Paul Vonharnish , Jan 16, 2021 3:40 PM Reply to dr death
Hello dr death: Yes. Excellent quotes which I've used many times on other sites.
The scientific community has become a captured asset of the corporate e-state. There are still independent researchers, but government grants and funding have placed these persons on the fringes of academia Exactly the situation Eisenhower (and many others) warned civil populations about for many decades.Excellent post. Thanks!
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Jan 21, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com
NIRP-BTFD 9 hours ago remove link
We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the work is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries."
-David Rockefeller, founder of the Trilateral Commission, in an address to a meeting of The Trilateral Commission, in June, 1991
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Jan 20, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org
gm , Jan 18 2021 20:10 utc | 119
Re: "Once an accident, twice a coincidence, three times a pattern"
-Norwegian | Jan 18 2021 16:19 utc | 98
"Fool me once, shame on ... shame on you. Fool me... You can't get fooled again!'" fooled again!" GWB, Sept 17, 2002.
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Jan 19, 2021 | off-guardian.org
NoNickYet , Jan 17, 2021 3:31 AM
He [Biden] will seem like a breath of fresh air as he continues and expands the toxic policies of all presidents.
after all the events from the past year, and with DC now turned into a Bagdad style green green zone, I hardly believe either Democans or Republicrats will see the years to come as a breath of fresh air . If any, it has divided the country more than ever.
Imho, too many people now have been exposed to and witnessed the dirty plays of the umbrella.S Cooper , Jan 17, 2021 3:09 AM
"In SHAM DEMOCRACY USA the name of the regime (at least its master of ceremonies) may change but the CORPORATE FASCIST REICH stays the same . Unless and until WE THE PEOPLE rise up and free ourselves of its criminal yoke and shackles of oppression."
https://www.youtube.com/embed/rsL6mKxtOlQ?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&listType=playlist&list=FLnnoDlrP9jUXGwJPoM_f7sg
The Republican and Democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the Republican-Democratic party, represent the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the political wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles. Eugene V. DebsBen , Jan 17, 2021 1:40 PM Reply to S Cooper
Astounding to think that Eugene Debs was an American.
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Jan 19, 2021 | www.nybooks.com
Orthodoxy of the Elites - by Jackson Lears - The New York Review of Books
By 2016 the concept of "liberal democracy," once bright with promise, had dulled into a neoliberal politics that was neither liberal nor democratic. The Democratic Party's turn toward market-driven policies, the bipartisan dismantling of the public sphere, the inflight marriage of Wall Street and Silicon Valley in the cockpit of globalization -- these interventions constituted the long con of neoliberal governance, which enriched a small minority of Americans while ravaging most of the rest.
Jackson Lears is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers, Editor in Chief of Raritan, and the author of Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877–1920, among other books. (January 2021)
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Jan 18, 2021 | www.unz.com
Cyrano , says: Next New Comment January 13, 2021 at 8:57 pm GMT • 4.8 days ago
@RadicalCenter s, while socialism was notorious for under-rewarding talents and contributions of everybody.That's why socialism failed. But I don't think you need to have private ownership in order to properly reward the contributions made from each individual.
Unfortunately, you can't put a human in charge of assigning rewards for efforts – humans tend to over-reward themselves first and it all goes downhill from there.
Maybe one day they'll invent a scanner which in a matter of seconds can access person's abilities and talents and assign an appropriate reward. Until then, favoritism will reign supreme:
From each according to their class and status, to everyone according to what you can get away with.
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Jan 18, 2021 | www.unz.com
The Alarmist , says: January 12, 2021 at 12:59 pm GMT • 6.1 days ago
@Majority of OneYou forgot the three Delphic Maxims inscribed at the entrance to the temple, not to mention the full set of 147
Know thyself
Nothing in excess
Surety brings ruin
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Jan 15, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com
Democrycy 3 hours ago
Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game - Donald Trump
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Jan 11, 2021 | thesaker.is
Nussiminen on January 08, 2021 , · at 1:23 am EST/EDT
To find out who rules society, find out whom you're not allowed to criticize. PCR's above submission has the heading America's Color Revolution and is fairly large. Yet, there isn't even one mention of George Soros anywhere -- quite an achievement.
The compulsory outrage related to the 2nd amendment begs the question when have Pindos ever used their private firearms to overthrow the world's by far most hated government? Has it ever crossed their minds? Believe me: As their Empire and all its spoils vanish, they will unleash their fears and fury on each other.
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Jan 09, 2021 | off-guardian.org
Jan 09, 2021 | off-guardian.org
Tom Larsen , Jan 8, 2021 3:07 PM Reply to Steve Hayes
They are not afraid. It is about creating the atmosphere for the last evisceration of civil liberties, of legalized censorship, the crushing of any dissent, a one-party state (in the service of global capitalism). This is not really just about Trump or his supporters (although, unlike Biden, Trump has genuine mass support). This will be used against all of us.
From Glenn Greenwald yesterday:
It is stunning to watch now as every War on Terror rhetorical tactic to justify civil liberties erosions is now being invoked in the name of combatting Trumpism, including the aggressive exploitation of the emotions triggered by yesterday's events at the Capitol to accelerate their implementation and demonize dissent over the quickly formed consensus. The same framework used to assault civil liberties in the name of foreign terrorism is now being seamlessly applied -- often by those who spent the last two decades objecting to it -- to the threat posed by "domestic white supremacist terrorists," the term preferred by liberal elites, especially after yesterday, for Trump supporters generally. In so many ways, yesterday was the liberals' 9/11, as even the most sensible commentators among them are resorting to the most unhinged rhetoric available.
Within hours of the Capitol being cleared, we heard truly radical proposals from numerous members of Congress. Senators and House members who objected to Electoral College certification, or questioned its legitimacy, should be formally accused of sedition and removed from expelled from the House if not prosecuted, argued Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), with other House members expressing support. Even those unarmed protesters who peacefully entered the Capitol should, many argued, be hunted by the FBI as domestic terrorists.
Calls proliferated for the banning of the social media accounts of instigators and protest participants. Journalists and politicians cheered the decision by Facebook and Twitter to temporarily bar the President from using their service, and then cheered again when Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Tuesday that the ban on Trump extended through Biden's inauguration. Some journalists, such as CNN 's Oliver Darcy, complained that Facebook had not gone far enough, that more mass censorship was needed of right-wing voices. The once-radical 2006 Gingrich argument -- that some opinions are too dangerous to allow to be expressed because they are pro-terrorist and insurrectionary -- is now thriving, close to a consensus.
These calls for censorship, online and official, are grounded in the long-discredited, oft-rejected and dangerous view that a person should be held legally accountable not only for their own illegal actions but also for the consequences of their protected speech : meaning the actions others take when they hear inflammatory rhetoric. That was the distorted mentality used by the State of Mississippi in the 1970s to try to hold NAACP leaders liable for the violent acts of their followers against boycott violators after hearing rousing pro-boycott speeches from NAACP leaders, only for the Supreme Court in 1982 to unanimously reject such efforts on the ground that "while the State legitimately may impose damages for the consequences of violent conduct, it may not award compensation for the consequences of nonviolent, protected activity," adding that even "advocacy of the use of force or violence does not remove speech from the protection of the first amendment."
The complete reversal in mentality from just a few months ago is dizzying. Those who spent the summer demanding the police be defunded are furious that the police response at the Capitol was insufficiently robust, violent and aggressive. Those who urged the abolition of prisons are demanding Trump supporters be imprisoned for years. Those who, under the banner of "anti-fascism," demanded the firing of a top New York Times editor for publishing an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) advocating the deployment of the U.S. military to quell riots -- a view deemed not just wrong but unspeakable in decent society -- are today furious that the National Guard was not deployed at the Capitol to quash pro-Trump supporters. Antifa advocates are working to expose the names of Capitol protesters to empower the FBI to arrest them on terrorism charges. And while Rep. Cori Bush's proposal to unseat members of Congress for their subversive views went mega-viral, many forget that in 1966, the Georgia State Legislature refused to seat Julian Bond after he refused to repudiate his anti-war work with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, then considered a domestic terrorist group.
Those who argued in the summer that property damage is meaningless or even noble are treating smashed windows and looted podiums at the Capitol as treason, as a coup. One need not dismiss the lamentable actions of yesterday to simultaneously reject efforts to apply terms that are plainly inapplicable: attempted coup, insurrection, sedition . There was zero chance that the few hundred people who breached the Capitol could overthrow the U.S. Government -- the most powerful, armed and militarized entity in the world -- nor did they try.
Tom Larsen , Jan 8, 2021 4:46 PM Reply to Researcher
How do you get that out of what Greenwald says? Yes, GG stays clear of anything with a CIA conspiracy theory label on it. OTOH, his expertise is Consitutional law and he has been documenting the concentration of power of abrogation of civil liberties for twenty years. And that is really what this response to the "coup" is all about. He is right about that.
There's one quote that I think sums up this moment:
"Sure we'll have Fascism here, but it will come as an anti-Fascism movement." -Huey Long
Anti-anti-fascism to be formally inaugurated on 1-20-2021.
Moneycircus , Jan 8, 2021 5:31 PM Reply to Tom Larsen
Anti-fascism is the new fascism. It makes perverse sense if you follow the Corporatist money. Many of the giants of the Corporatist State were persecuted by the Nazis. The fascist titans like Monsanto-Bayer-Exxon are back but they seek a new cloak.
So they are trying the 1940s Corporatist State trick once again, but it cannot be seen in the same light: it should be presented as the opposite.
So anti-anti-fascism will be demonized if not banned.True anti-fascists, such as those who cling to the Constitution, will be called right wing. Defenders of the family or religion in the face of the state will be called white supremacists. This has already begun.
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Jan 09, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org
Triden , Jan 9 2021 2:02 utc | 154
As Christopher Hitchens once said :
"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."It is not for me to disprove an unproven case, but rather for you to produce sufficient evidence to support the allegation
And unlike you with your evidence free claims I actually provided evidence for mine.I linked to quotes from the official police statement on his death which states
No mention of a fire extinguisher nor of a "crushed head" in the only official police statement that so far exists.
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Jan 08, 2021 | www.youtube.com
Congressman Johnson objects to the electoral college submission of Arizona - YouTube
"The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant." Maximilien Robespierre French Revolutionist
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Aug 12, 2008 | www.leftbusinessobserver.com
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Dec 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
4 hours ago remove link"After a time, civil servants tend to become no longer servants and no longer civil." – Winston Churchill
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Dec 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
librul , Dec 3 2020 22:57 utc | 77
"If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you do, you're misinformed."
~ Mark Twain (apocryphal)
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Nov 30, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
TheZeitgeist 1 hour ago remove link
IridiumRebel 1 hour agoYou aren't entitled to your own facts; only our own facts ~Libclowns
"Facts do not cease to exist simply because they are ignored." ~Huxley
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Nov 28, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
hey gee , 16 hours ago
"The difference between genius and stupidity is genius has its limits"
Al Einstein
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Nov 25, 2020 | www.youtube.com
parallelworldsguy , 5 days ago"Affirmative Action" is an euphemism for bigotry.
"Any social programs that benefit the working class are, in fact, affirmative action programs."-Krystal. So true.
Nathaniel Allen , 5 days agoDamn, Krystal dropping one of her classic heaters today: "Affirmative action is the type of program that poses little threat and only benefits to affluent white liberals. It's the college admissions version of identity politics: more about getting brown faces in high places to make WHITE people feel good than it is about actually addressing the very real problems it seeks to ameliorate." - Krystal Ball
Will J , 5 days agoAs a black person I hate to admit that I've bought into the BS all of this time but she is absolutely right. All of her data is correct. AA is just a tool for bourgeoisie blacks to get into better schools. Period. Nothing else. Stop trying to sell it as some saving grace that it is not. The point about student loans is exactly right. If you want to help a ton of black people with college then do something about this BS student loan situation.
Jackson Morgan , 5 days agothe term "brunch liberals" is pure gold 😂
Chris Colon , 5 days agoIdentitarianism is a far more effective strategy at watering down the left than any Red Scare or McCarthyist witch hunt ever was.
halfeatenwaffle , 9 hours ago (edited)"White Saviors" is a way to say what we've been saying all along. Affirmative Action IS racist. You are saying that someone needs help because of their skin color, as if that makes them inferior. Racist.
Bert C , 1 day agoWhen Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America, by Ira Katznelson (W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2005), preface, appendix, index, 238 pp.
trinnas , 9 hours agoHow does it help the poor to have $15 minimum wage when they are priced out of the job market and you have raised the overall cost of living?
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Nov 20, 2020 | www.liveabout.com
"There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president."
"So let's give another big tax cut to the super-rich. That'll teach bin Laden a lesson he won't soon forget."
"The overwhelming popularity of President Bush , in spite of everything, finally shows us what the American people, whom we have so sentimentalized for so long, a la Norman Rockwell, really are, thanks to TV and purposely lousy public schools: ignorant. Count on it!"
"The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don't acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead."
"Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler."
"The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush , Dick , and Colon."
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Nov 20, 2020 | www.liveabout.com
"The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post 'Thou shalt not steal,' 'Thou shalt not commit adultery,' and 'Thou shalt not lie' in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment."
"I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death."
"Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?"
"These days many politicians are demanding change. Just like homeless people."
"The owners of this country know the truth: It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."
"I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way: I don't vote. On Election Day, I stay home. I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. Now, some people like to twist that around. They say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain,' but where's the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote -- who did not even leave the house on Election Day -- am in no way responsible for what these politicians have done and have every right to complain about the mess that you created."
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Nov 18, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Shadow , Nov 18 2020 0:17 utc | 86
Join the Army; travel to exotic distant lands; meet exciting unusual people and kill them.
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Nov 16, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Thomas Paine: "To argue with a person who has renounced reason is like administering medicine to the dead."
H.L. Mencken: 'Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.'
Voltaire: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
likbez Ricardo2000 • a few seconds ago
You should add famous Stalin quote, which is highly relevant for Dominion controversy:
"It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes."
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Nov 09, 2020 | www.breitbart.com
Allen M. Ease TheDaliLlama • 26 minutes ago
"A nation which expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, expects that which never was and never will be." ― Thomas Jefferson
"Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will."
"This is the secret of propaganda: Those who are to be persuaded by it should be completely immersed in the ideas of the propaganda, without ever noticing that they are being immersed in it.""Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play."
"Not every item of news should be published. Rather must those who control news policies endeavor to make every item of news serve a certain purpose."
"It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.""Whoever can conquer the street will one day conquer the state, for every form of power politics and any dictatorship-run state has its roots in the street."
"We shall reach our goal, when we have the power to laugh as we destroy, as we smash, whatever was sacred to us as tradition, as education, and as human affection."
--- Joseph Goebbels"The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists." --J. Edgar Hoover, Head of the FBI
"It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but a matter of what is perceived to be true." --Henry Kissinger
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American people believe is false." --William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But
it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and
unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear."
---Marcus Tullius Cicero"Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible."
"I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology . ... It's importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda ... Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated."
----Bertrand Russell"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men
do nothing."
---Edmund Burke, British House of Commons
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Oct 18, 2020 | circadeum.com
George Orwell warned us. In 2008, then congressman Ron Paul published a book -- a book I highly recommend -- titled Revolution: A Manifesto . Within that book, the good doctor lays out a refreshingly persuasive case for the necessity of individual liberty; including the dangers it shields us from and those that are effectively eroding its protection. Among these threats, a sophisticated and malicious dishonesty reigns abundant; one that he immortally enshrined with this famous quote from Orwell :
"Truth is treason in the empire of lies."
This "strategy of untruth" has proven quite popular in the past. Throughout the ages, elite and powerful figures have used it as means to consolidate and manage their agency in virtually every nation on earth. It's a very simple concept: team one tells the people what they want to hear, people vote them in, team one doesn't follow through on most of it, but takes incremental steps toward additional power consolidation, creating discontent among the people. Then the other team tells people what they want to hear, the people vote them in, they don't follow through on most of it, but take incremental steps toward additional power consolidation; and so on and so forth. This cycle of dishonesty has been turning now for over 200 years in America and the resulting chaotic snowball of deceit has probably only been marginally slowed by president Trump's victory in November of 2016. The minions (and masters) of Hillary Clinton and her ilk, however, are certainly not lying down in defeat.
In the past, the uncouth schemes of power-mongering politicians have been partially obscured by a miasma of deception. Politicians today, however -- Mrs. Clinton chief among them -- don't even seem to care about the integrity of the webs they weave when speaking untruths. In 2015, Clinton made many public statements about her private email debacle knowing that her words were untrue and, unless she is a complete idiot (she's not), she had to have known that her deception would easily be uncovered by the investigation. The explanation for this? Hubris. She doesn't care, because she knows there are millions of mindless partisans who would support her Democratic Party no matter what she (or they) did. All she has to do is tell them what they want to hear.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/rgeuLn4AkXk?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
Clinton has had ample time and opportunity to practice at her foundry of lies over a long political career, stretching back to the mid-70's, and, as was evidenced in the election cycle, is more than comfortable with what has become a habit for her. If she would have become president, do her supporters believe Mrs. Clinton suddenly would've started being truthful? Many of them would not even be able to admit she doesn't tell the truth now or in the past; so the answer to my question is largely irrelevant, because many people are simply apathetic about the truth. That is why politicians feel so free to lie with impunity. The truth doesn't always feel good. The truth is often ugly and uncomfortable. The truth hurts. Would you rather live easy in the Matrix or struggle to survive in the real world?https://www.youtube.com/embed/LWZk24MA7TE?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
A great author of fantasy-fiction, Terry Goodkind , has written a series of novels that are collectively titled, " The Sword of Truth ." In each book of the series he posits a rule which the main characters embrace as proverbial truth and use to direct their actions in life. The first rule states the following:"People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool."
Powerful men and women have used this fact for thousands of years to control and manipulate the great masses of people that have been under their government -- and that is why people should be skeptical of everything that those seeking to govern are telling us. We live in the information age where it is relatively easy -- compared to all other times in human history -- to fact-check what any would-be Caesar is saying. Are these people telling the truth? It is our right and responsibility to vigilantly protect ourselves from such wolves. Knowing the truth is a way to do that. It is a weapon that we can use; a weapon we should use. Dr. Ron Paul used this weapon to great effect in 2008 and 2012 to martial many to the cause of liberty. His great work and project are a powerful example for the rest of us. Learn from him. Learn how to know and tell the truth.
" Truth is treason in the empire of lies If we want to live in a free society, we need to break free from these artificial limitations on free debate and start asking serious questions once again this is a long-term project that will persist far into the future. These ideas cannot be allowed to die, buried beneath the mind-numbing chorus of empty slogans and inanities that constitute official political discourse in America." – Ron Paul (Revolution: A Manifesto)
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Sep 27, 2020 | www.unz.com
Anonymous [401] Disclaimer , says: September 26, 2020 at 11:06 pm GMT
>" insanity can be defined as 'doing the same thing over and over again, while hoping to achieve different results.' "
Unless you are
(1) playing slot-machines/lotteries; or
(2) practicing to get better at anything.
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Sep 27, 2020 | www.unz.com
Nancy Pelosi's Latina Maid , says: September 26, 2020 at 5:07 pm GMT
@Tom WelshOn some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
Mencken {sigh}. Back in the 20th century we could afford "acerbic." It was still droll.
In 2020 the guy just comes off as another self-aggrandizing asshole. In these Internet days, negativity's the only thing we got plenty of, and H.L.'s as useful as Pola Negri.
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Sep 27, 2020 | www.unz.com
Socrates , says: September 26, 2020 at 4:42 pm GMT
@Ultrafart the Brave or he is known and carries his banner openly. But the jew traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the jew traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.
A murderer is less to fear."Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC-43 BC)
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Sep 27, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
play_arrow
Freeman of the City , 39 seconds ago
Freeman of the City , 18 seconds ago"Life is hard, it's harder if your stupid" - John Wayne
palmereldritch , 49 seconds ago'It's Easier to Fool People Than to Convince Them That They Have Been Fooled'
- Mark Twain
Freeman of the City , 1 minute agoAnd prior to Bezos/CIA ownership the paper was managed by heirs whose ownership stake was originally acquired through a bankruptcy sale by a board member/trustee of The Federal Reserve.
So maybe it was just a share transfer...
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free"
- Goethe
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Sep 27, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
foolisholdman , Aug 9 2020 15:42 utc | 62
William Gruff | Aug 8 2020 18:45 utc | 5
Is this what you were thinking of?"Quem Iuppiter vult perdere, dementat prius" (Those whom Jupiter would destroy, he first makes mad.)
A prior Latin version is "Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat" (Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791)
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Sep 22, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Clint Liquor , 2 hours ago
"I am going to suspend my free market principles, to save the free market". G.W. Bush, before announcing the 2008 Bank Bailouts.
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Sep 06, 2020 | onebornfree-mythbusters.blogspot.com
onebornfree , says: Website September 5, 2020 at 6:09 pm GMT
"The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" H.L.Mencken
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Sep 01, 2020 | doc.cat-v.org
The Great Man is colder, harder, less hesitating, and without respect and without the fear of "opinion"; he lacks the virtues that accompany respect and "respectability", and altogether everything that is the "virtue of the herd". If he cannot lead, he goes alone. He knows he is incommunicable: he finds it tasteless to be familiar. When not speaking to himself, he wears a mask. There is a solitude within him that is inaccessible to praise or blame.
-- Friedrich Nietzche, The Will to Power
Man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet, [he] is free; because, once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
-- Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism
The existentialist does not believe in the power of passion. He will never agree that a sweeping passion is a ravaging torrent which fatally leads a man to certain acts and is therefor an excuse. He thinks that man is responsible for his passion.
-- Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism
If you don't know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.
-- Henry Kissinger
Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
-- Alan Perlis, http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html
Him that I love, I wish to be free – even from me.
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh
We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Distrust those in whom the desire to punish is strong
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Similar statements have been made by Nietzsche, and attributed to Dostoevsky)
There is nothing worse than imagination without taste.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It is an old observation that the best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric. When they do so, however, the reader will usually find in the sentence some compensating merit, attained at the cost of the violation. Unless he is certain of doing as well, he will probably do best to follow the rules. After he has learned, by their guidance, to write plain English adequate for everyday uses, let him look, for the secrets of style, to the study of the masters of literature.
-- Elements of Style, William Strunk, Jr. - 1918
- Mas vale solo que mal acompa~ado
- Quien dice "mas vale solo ke mal acompa~ado" es porke nunca a estado solo
- Si estas mal acompa~ado estas mas solo ke nunca – Lanas
Committees do harm merely by existing.
-- Freeman Dyson
Il semble que la perfection soit atteinte non quand il n'y a plus rien à ajouter, mais quand il n'y a plus rien à retrancher.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
-- Antoine-Marie-Roger de Saint-Exupery, Wind, Sand and Stars
There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.
-- George Orwell
To keep out evil doctrine by licensing is like the exploit of that gallant man who sought to keep out crows by shutting his park gate.
-- John Milton
Some people have very sensitive corns, and the only way to live with them is to step on those corns until they are used to it.
-- Wolfgang Pauli
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.
-- Thomas Sowell
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.
-- Thomas Jefferson
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. All progress, therefore, depends upon the unreasonable man.
-- George Bernard Shaw
I try not to think with my gut. If I'm serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble.
-- Carl Sagan [When asked a question to which he didn't know the answer and after he firmly said so and the questioner persisted: 'But what is your gut feeling?']
The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
-- Horace Walpope
How do you have a just society when genetics is unjust?
-- James Watson
The chief cause of problems is solutions.
-- Eric Sevareid
To be empty of a fixed identity allows one to enter fully into the shifting, poignant, beautiful and tragic contingencies of the world.
-- Stephen Batchelor, "Verses from the Center"
Above all, don't fear difficult moments. The best comes from them.
-- Nobel Laureate Rita Levi Montalcini, on the occasion of her 100th birthday
Sufficiently advanced political correctness is indistinguishable from sarcasm.
-- Erik Naggum
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt.
-- Bertrand Russell
No monumental evil act in the history of mankind has been committed by anyone who thought of themselves as "evil" -- on the contrary, the worse the (objective) evil, the more the perpetrator was completely convinced of the goodness of himself and of his "purification".
-- Eric Naggum
there is a special place of torment reserved for those have been neutral in life. Their sin is regarded so grave that they are not even allowed into hell, only its vestibule, separated from hell by the river Archeron. For their sin of indecision and vacillation, Dante devised an appropriate and awful torment: they were condemned to rush for ever behind a banner "which whirls with aimless speed as though it would never take a stand, while also being stung by swarms of persuing hornets".
-- Deliver Us From Evil, William Shawcross, pp. 32-33. ISBN 0-7475-4844-7 (quoted in 9fans by Boyd Roberts)
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
-- Hanlon's razor
I divide my officers into four classes; the clever, the lazy, the industrious, and the stupid. Each officer possesses at least two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments. Use can be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy however is for the very highest command; he has the temperament and nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious is a menace and must be removed immediately!
-- German General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord in Truppenführung
Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.
-- Santayana
Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.
-- Albert Einstein
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
-- George Bernard Shaw
We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones.
-- La Rochefoucauld
When you start off by telling those who disagree with you that they are not merely in error but in sin, how much of a dialogue do you expect?
-- Thomas Sowell
They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
-- Andy Warhol
The opposite of courage is not cowardice, it's conformity.
-- John Perry Barlow
For every 10 people who are clipping at the branches of evil, you're lucky to find 1 who's hacking at the roots.
-- Thoreau
Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.
-- Marcus Aurelius
The noblest way of taking revenge on others is by refusing to become like them.
-- Marcus Aurelius
The ultimate result of shielding men from the results of folly is to fill the world with fools.
-- Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), "State Tampering with Money and Banks" (1891)
You must deffend people you disagree with, it is how you find out what your principles really are.
-- Penn Jillette
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
-- Thomas Jefferson
The man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.
-- Michel de Montaigne
Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.
-- Oscar Wilde
Security is mostly a superstition. [ ] Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
-- Helen Keller
If you obey all the rules, you will miss all the fun.
-- Katharine Hepburn
If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance.
-- George Bernard Shaw
If you're the smartest person in the room, go look for a room with smarter people in it.
-- kevinpet in hackernews
Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.
-- Quentin Crisp
Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.
-- Vladimir Nabokov
A good leader is someone whose troops will follow him, if only out of curiosity.
-- Gen. Colin Powell
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
-- Somerset Maugham
Doctor No said, in the same soft resonant voice, "You are right. Mister Bond. That is just what I am, a maniac. All the greatest men are maniacs. They are possessed by a mania which drives them forward towards their goal. The great scientists, the philosophers, the religious leaders - all maniacs. What else but a blind singleness of purpose could have given focus to their genius, would have kept them in the groove of their purpose? Mania, my dear Mister Bond, is as priceless as genius. Dissipation of energy, fragmentation of vision, loss of momentum, the lack of follow-through - these are the vices of the herd." Doctor No sat slightly back in his chair. "I do not possess these vices. I am, as you correctly say, a maniac"
-- Dr. No
A superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid having to exercise his superior skill.
-- Frank Borman [found in http://jwz.livejournal.com/1096593.html]
Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
-- Dalai Lama
Eventually, I decided that thinking was not getting me very far and it was time to try building.
-- Rob Pike , "The Text Editor sam"
Any view of things that is not strange is false.
-- Neil Gaiman, Sandman
"It's better to be lucky than smart, but it's easier to be smart twice than lucky twice."
-- Seen by Henry Spencer on a button at the World Science Fiction Convention [http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=HL2t45.F7v%40spsystems.net&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain]
One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing star.
-- Nietzsche
Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.
-- Stephen Weinberg
Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
-– John F. Kennedy
A witty saying proves nothing.
-- Voltaire
The FutureThe future is always scary to those who cling to the past.
-- Tim O'Reilly
The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet.
The future has a way of arriving unannounced.
-- George F. Will
TravelThe greatest thing about a city is the unexpected encounter.
-- Eric Kuhne
A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.
-- Lao Tzu
There's nothing I'm afraid of like scared people.
-- Robert Frost
I said to my soul, be still, wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing.
-- T.S. Eliot
Humor is the only divine quality to be found in humanity.
-- Schopenhauer
The shortest path to exceeding expectations doesn't generally pass through meeting expectations.
-- Ward Cunningham
Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh
When you're a connoiseur you look for interesting rather than good.
-- Bram Cohen(?)
To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.
-- Thomas Paine
One is never so dangerous as when he's utterly convinced he is right.
-- John Perry Barlow
There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays to the devil."
-- Alfred North Whitehead
Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him.
- -- Cardinal Richelieu
Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.
- -- Daniel Kahneman
Offending people is a necessary and healthy act. Every time you say something that's offensive to another person you just caused a discussion. You just forced them to have to think.
- -- Louis C.K
When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth.
-- Steve Jobs
Some people never go crazy, What truly horrible lives they must live.
-- Charles Bukowski
Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle.
- -- Ian MacLaren
Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane.
- -- Philip K. Dick
Your mind is credulous enough to believe any narrative you feed it. Choose wisely.
- -- Stephen Sadowski
I like offending people because I think people who get offended should be offended.
-- Linus Torvalds
Morality is doing what's right regardless of what you're told. Obedience is doing what you're told regardless of what is right.
-- Unknown
Why do I always parody? Neither in life nor in writing can I achieve complete sincerity.
-- William S. Burroughs
It's possible for good people in badly designed systems to perpetrate acts of great evil completely unthinkingly.
-- Ben Goldacre
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Aug 24, 2020 | www.unz.com
Tom Welsh , says:
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Aug 02, 2020 | www.unz.com
Si1ver1ock , says: July 7, 2020 at 1:34 am GMT
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
–Thomas Jefferson
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Aug 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
monty42 , 3 hours ago
"We cannot continue to send our children to Caesar for their education and be surprised when they come home as Romans ." ― Voddie T. Baucham Jr
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Jul 23, 2020 | www.unz.com
onebornfree , says: Website July 22, 2020 at 12:08 pm GMT
@Godfree Roberts r. " H.L. Mencken"Democracy is the worship of jackals by jackasses." H.L. Mencken
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." H.L. Mencken
"If x is the population of the United States and y is the degree of imbecility of the average American, then democracy is the theory that x times y is less than y." H.L. Mencken
"All of democracy's axioms "resolve themselves into thundering paradoxes, many amounting to downright contradictions in terms. The mob is competent to rule the rest of us – but it must be rigorously policed itself. There is a government, not of men, but laws – but men are set upon benches to decide finally what the law is and may be." H.L. Mencken
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Jul 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Peter AU1 , Jul 18 2020 20:21 utc | 36"The forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy."
This sacred cow of illusion is being threatened from all directions it seems. Democracy is great for whoever owns it, and whoever owns the media owns democracy. A cow well worth milking.
JohnH , Jul 18 2020 21:18 utc | 48
Norman Finkelstein must be laughing out loud at the sight of so many hypocritical liberals opposing cancel. Did anyone in this crowd get 150 people to sign a letter of protest when Finkelstein got cancelled? Or when Phil Donahue got fired for opposing the Iraq war?
IOW, cancel culture is just fine, as long as it's your side doing the cancelling...or if it's Israel or the national security state doing the cancelling . CountrPunch, a victim of blacklisting themselves, has a major takedown of the screaming hypocrisy of some of the signers: https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/10/harpers-and-the-great-cancel-culture-panic/
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Jun 28, 2020 | en.sodiummedia.com
In addition to the direct meaning, does the proverb "appetite come with eating" teach something useful? Of course. And in order to demonstrate this visually, let us turn to the example of the famous and very popular writer Stephen King. In his remarkable work "How to write books, " he insists that no inspiration exists in nature, the more important thing is the schedule.
The life of the master is subject to a strict schedule, the main thing is that King sits down to write at the same time, and this rule is indestructible. This is the secret of fantastic fertility - transcendent performance and discipline. According to King, the muse (by the way, he has a regular source of male insights) needs training, then she will be able to give ideas to the surface. Thus, we can conclude that the renowned writer chooses an "appetite comes with eating" as his life guide. Its meaning may or may not be known to Kingu; nevertheless, the author of The Dead Zone follows the adage strictly.
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Jun 23, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
"Every record has been destroyed , every book rewritten , every statue and street building has been renamed ... nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right ..." - George Orwell, 1984.
Authored by Giulio Meotti via The Gatestone Institute,"Antiracism is no longer the defense of the equal dignity of people, but an ideology, a vision of the world," said the French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, son of Holocaust survivors.
"Antiracism has been transformed... At the time of the great migration, it is no longer a question of welcoming newcomers by integrating them into European civilization, but exposing the faults of this civilization".
He referred to "self-racism" as "the most dismaying and grotesque pathology of our time".
Its capital is London.
" Topple the racists " consists of a map with 60 statues in 30 British cities. The removal of the statues is being requested to support a movement born in the United States after a white policeman, Derek Chauvin, killed a black man, George Floyd, by kneeling on his neck.
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Jun 20, 2020 | quoteinvestigator.com
MichaelSF , June 19, 2020 at 12:18 pm
Jay Gould, a U.S. robber baron, is supposed to have claimed that he could hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.
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Jun 20, 2020 | taibbi.substack.com
Check Jun 13
"If none of us ever read a book that was "dangerous," had a friend who was "different," or joined an organization that advocated "change," we would all be the kind of people Joe McCarthy wants."
Edward R. Murrow
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Jun 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Often is man's best wisdom to be silent , 1 hour ago
Marionettes can easily be transformed into hanged persons. The ropes are already there.
Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
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Jun 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
BaNNeD oN THe RuN , 1 hour ago
He is right...
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
~ Isaac Asimov
But he is also one of the reasons that the anti-intellectual movement can maintain momentum. Too many of the "authoritative voices" in positions of power are total charlatans.
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Jun 19, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
flora, June 19, 2020 at 1:36 am
Thanks for this post.
"What's being protected? The social order that feeds the wealthy at the expense of the working poor. " -- Neuberger
In the aftermath of these movements, the police increasingly presented themselves as a thin blue line protecting civilization, by which they meant bourgeois civilization, from the disorder of the working class. -- Mitrani
I think this ties in, if only indirectly, with the way so many peaceful recent protests seemed to turn violent after the police showed up. It's possible I suppose the police want to create disorder to frighten not only the protestors with immediate harm but also frighten the bourgeois about the threate of a "dangerous mob". Historically violent protests created a political backlash that usually benefited political conservatives and the wealthy owners. (The current protests may be different in this regard. The violence seems to have
John Anthony La Pietra, June 19, 2020 at 2:20 am
Sorry, but the title sent my mind back to the days of old -- of old Daley, that is, and his immortal quote from 1968: "Gentlemen, let's get the thing straight, once and for all. The policeman isn't there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder."
Adam1, June 19, 2020 at 7:39 am
LOL!!! great quote. Talk about saying it the way it is.
It kind of goes along with, "Police violence is focused overwhelmingly on men lowest on the socio-economic ladder: in rural areas outside the South, predominately white men; in the Southwest, disproportionately Hispanic men; in mid-size and major cities, disproportionately black men. Significantly, in the rural South, where the population is racially mixed, white men and black men are killed by police at nearly identical rates."
I bang my head on the table sometimes because poor white men and poor men of color are so often placed at odds when they increasingly face (mostly) the same problems. God forbid someone tried to unite them, there might really be some pearl clutching then.
run75441, June 19, 2020 at 8:23 am
Great response! I am sure you have more to add to this. A while back, I was researching the issues you state in your last paragraph. Was about ten pages into it and had to stop as I was drawn out of state and country. From my research.
While not as overt in the 20th century, the distinction of black slave versus poor white man has kept the class system alive and well in the US in the development of a discriminatory informal caste system. This distraction of a class level lower than the poorest of the white has kept them from concentrating on the disproportionate, and growing, distribution of wealth and income in the US. For the lower class, an allowed luxury, a place in the hierarchy and a sure form of self esteem insurance.
Sennett and Cobb (1972) observed that class distinction sets up a contest between upper and lower class with the lower social class always losing and promulgating a perception amongst themselves the educated and upper classes are in a position to judge and draw a conclusion of them being less than equal. The hidden injury is in the regard to the person perceiving himself as a piece of the woodwork or seen as a function such as "George the Porter." It was not the status or material wealth causing the harsh feelings; but, the feeling of being treated less than equal, having little status, and the resulting shame. The answer for many was violence.
James Gilligan wrote "Violence; Reflections on A National Epidemic." He worked as a prison psychiatrist and talked with many of the inmates of the issues of inequality and feeling less than those around them. His finding are in his book which is not a long read and adds to the discussion.
A little John Adams for you.
" The poor man's conscience is clear . . . he does not feel guilty and has no reason to . . . yet, he is ashamed. Mankind takes no notice of him. He rambles unheeded.
In the midst of a crowd; at a church; in the market . . . he is in as much obscurity as he would be in a garret or a cellar.
He is not disapproved, censured, or reproached; he is not seen . . . To be wholly overlooked, and to know it, are intolerable ."
likbez , June 19, 2020 at 3:18 pm
That’s a very important observation.Racism, especially directed toward blacks, along with “identity wedge,” is a perfect tool for disarming poor white, and suppressing their struggle for a better standard of living, which considerably dropped under neoliberalism.
In other words, by providing poor whites with a stratum of the population that has even lower social status, neoliberals manage to co-opt them to support the policies which economically ate detrimental to their standard of living as well as to suppress the protest against the redistribution of wealth up and dismantling of the New Deal capitalist social protection network.
This is a pretty sophisticated, pretty evil scheme if you ask me. In a way, “Floydgate” can be viewed as a variation on the same theme. A very dirty game indeed, when the issue of provision of meaningful jobs for working poor, social equality, and social protection for low-income workers of any color is replaced with a real but of secondary importance issue of police violence against blacks.
This is another way to explain “What’s the matter with Kansas” effect.
Carla , June 19, 2020 at 12:39 pm
MLK Jr. tried, and look what happened to him once he really got some traction. If the Rev. William Barber’s Poor People’s Campaign picks up steam, I’m afraid the same thing will happen to him.
I wish it were only pearl-clutching that the money power would resort to, but that’s not the way it works.
km , June 19, 2020 at 11:56 am
In most countries, the police are there solely to protect the Haves from the Have-Nots. In fact, when the average frustrated citizen has trouble, the last people he would consider turning to are the police.
This is why in the Third World, the only job of lower social standing than “policeman” is “police informer”.
cripes , June 19, 2020 at 3:35 am
The anti-rascist identity of the recent protests rests on a much larger base of class warfare waged over the past 40 years against the entire population led by a determined oligarchy and enforced by their political, media and militarized police retainers. This same oligarchy, with a despicable zeal and revolting media-orchestrated campaign–co-branding the movement with it’s usual corporate perpetrators– distorts escalating carceral and economic violence solely through a lens of racial conflict and their time-tested toothless reforms. A few unlucky “peace officers” may have to TOFTT until the furor recedes, can’t be helped.
Crowding out debt relief, single payer health, living wages, affordable housing and actual justice reform from the debate that would benefit African Americans more than any other demographic is the goal.
The handful of Emperors far prefer kabuki theater and random ritual Seppuku than facing the rage of millions of staring down the barrel of zero income, debt, bankruptcy, evictions and dispossession. The Praetorians will follow the money as always.
I suppose we’ll get some boulevards re-named and a paid Juneteenth holiday to compensate for the destruction 100+ years of labor rights struggle, so there’s that..
Boatwright , June 19, 2020 at 7:51 am
Homestead, Ludlow, Haymarket, Matewan — the list is long……
Working men and women asking for justice gunned down by the cops. There will always be men ready to murder on command as long as the orders come from the rich and powerful. We are at a moment in history folks were some of us, today mostly people of color, are willing to put their lives on the line. It’s an ongoing struggle.
MichaelSF , June 19, 2020 at 12:18 pm
Jay Gould, a U.S. robber baron, is supposed to have claimed that he could hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.
rob , June 19, 2020 at 7:58 am
So how can a tier of society(the police)…. be what a society needs…?
When as this story and many others show how and why the police were formed…. to break heads.
When they have been “the tool” of the elite…forever.
when so many of them are such dishonest,immoral ,wanna be fascists.
and the main direction of the US is towards a police state and fascists running the show…. both republican and democrat. With technology being the boot on the neck of the people… and the police are there to take it to the streets.
Can those elusive “good apples” turn the whole rotten barrel into sweet smelling apple pie? That is a big ask.
Or should the structure be liquidated, sell their army toys. fill the ranks with people who are not pathological liars and abusers and /or racists; of one sort or another. Get rid of the mentality of overcompensation by uber machismo. and make them watch the andy griffith show. They ought to learn that they can be respected if they are good people, and that they are not respected because they seek respect through fear and intimidation.
Is that idiot cry of theirs, .. the whole yelling at you; demanding absolute obedience to arbitrary ,assinine orders, really working to get them respect… or is it just something they get off on?
When the police are shown to be bad, they strike by work slowdown, or letting a little chaos loose themselves. So the people know they need them… So any reform of the police will go through the police not doing their jobs…. but then something like better communities may result. less people being busted and harassed , or pulled over for the sake of a quota…. may just show we don’t need so much policing anyway. And then if the new social workers brigade starts intervening in peoples with issues when they are young and in school … maybe fewer will be in the system. Couple that with the police not throwing their family in jail for nothing, and forcing them to pay fines for breaking stupid laws. The system will have less of a load, and the new , better cops without attitudes will be able to handle their communities in a way that works for everyone. Making them a net positive, as opposed to now where they are a net negative.
Also,The drug war is over.
The cops have only done the bidding of the organized criminal elements who make their bread and butter because of prohibition.
our representatives can legally smoke pot , and grow it in their windowboxes in the capital dc., but people in many places are still living in fear of police using possession of some substance,as a pretext to take all their stuff,throw them in jail.
but besides the cops, there are the prosecutors…. they earn their salaries by stealing it from poor people through fines for things that ought to be legal. This is one way to drain money from poor communities, causing people to go steal from others in society to pay their court costs.
and who is gonna come and bust down your door… when you can’t pay a fine and choose to pay rent and buy your kids food instead…. the cops. just doing their jobs..
Evil is the banality of business as usualTom Stone , June 19, 2020 at 8:20 am
The late Kevin R C O’Brien noted that in every case where the Police had been ordered to “Round up the usual suspects” they have done so, and delivered them where ordered.
It did not matter who the “Usual suspects” were, or to what fate they were to be delivered.
They are the King’s men and they do the King’s bidding.The Rev Kev , June 19, 2020 at 10:10 am
To have a reasonable discussion, I think that it should be recognized that modern police are but one leg of a triad. The first of course is the police who appear to seem themselves as not part of a community but as enforcers in that community. To swipe an idea from Mao, the police should move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea. Not be a patrolling shark that attacks who they want at will knowing that there will be no repercussions against them. When you get to the point that you have police arresting children in school for infractions of school discipline – giving them a police record – you know that things have gotten out of hand.
The next leg is the courts which of course includes prosecutors. It is my understanding that prosecutors are elected to office in the US and so have incentives to appear to be tough on crime”” . They seem to operate more like ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ from what I have read. When they tell some kid that he has a choice of 1,000 years in prison on trumped up charges or pleads guilty to a smaller offence, you know that that is not justice at work. Judges too operate in their own world and will always take the word of a policeman as a witness.
And the third leg is the prisons which operate as sweatshops for corporate America. It is in the interest of the police and the courts to fill up the prisons to overflowing. Anybody remember the Pennsylvania “kids for cash” scandal where kids lives were being ruined with criminal records that were bogus so that some people could make a profit? And what sort of prison system is it where a private contractor can build a prison without a contract at all , knowing that the government (California in this case) will nonetheless fill it up for a good profit.
In short, in sorting out police doctrine and methods like is happening now, it should be recognized that they are actually only the face of a set of problems.
MLTPB , June 19, 2020 at 11:00 am
How did ancient states police?
Perhaps Wiki is a starting point of this journey…
Per Its entry, Police, in ancient Greece, policing was done by public owned slaves.
In Rome, the army, initially.
In China, prefects…leading to a level of government called prefectures .
Pookah Harvey , June 19, 2020 at 10:54 am
I spent some time in the Silver Valley of northern Idaho. This area was the hot bed of labor unrest during the 1890’s. Federal troops controlled the area 3 separate times,1892, 1894 and 1899. Twice miners hijacked trains loaded them with dynamite and drove them to mining company stamping mills that they then blew up. Dozens of deaths in shoot outs. The entire male population was herded up and placed in concentration camps for weeks. The end result was the assassination of the Governor in 1905.
Interestingly this history has been completely expunged. There is a mining museum in the town which doesn’t mention a word on these events. Even nationwide there seems to be a complete erasure of what real labor unrest can look like..rob , June 19, 2020 at 11:58 am
Yeah, labor unrest does get swept under the rug.
Howard zinn had examples in his works “the peoples history of the United States”
The pictched battles in upstate new york with the Van Rennselear’s in the 1840’s breaking up rennselearwyk…. the million acre estate of theirs . it was a rent strike.
people remembering , we have been here before doesn’t help the case of the establishment… so they try to not let it happen.
We get experts telling us…. well, this is all new… we need experts… to tell you… what to think.
It is like watching the footage from the past 100 years on film of blacks marching for their rights… and being told.. reform is coming.. the more things change, the more things stay the same. decade after decade.century after century…
time to start figuring this out people.
so, the enemy is us….
now what?Carolinian , June 19, 2020 at 11:01 am
Doubtless the facts presented above are correct, but shouldn’t one point out that the 21st century is quite different from the 19th and therefore analogizing the current situation to what went on before is quite facile? For example it’s no longer necessary for the police to put down strikes because strike actions barely still exist. In our current US the working class has diminished greatly while the middle class has expanded. We are a much richer country overall with a lot more people–not just those one percenters–concerned about crime. Whatever one thinks of the police, politically an attempt to go back to the 18th century isn’t going to fly.
MLTPB , June 19, 2020 at 11:15 am
Perhaps we are more likely to argue among ourselves, when genetic fallacy is possibly in play.
Pookah Harvey , June 19, 2020 at 11:37 am
” the 21st century is quite different from the 19th ”
From the Guardian“How Starbucks, Target, Google and Microsoft quietly fund police through private donations”
More than 25 large corporations in the past three years have contributed funding to private police foundations, new report says.
These foundations receive millions of dollars a year from private and corporate donors, according to the report, and are able to use the funds to purchase equipment and weapons with little public input. The analysis notes, for example, how the Los Angeles police department in 2007 used foundation funding to purchase surveillance software from controversial technology firm Palantir. Buying the technology with private foundation funding rather than its public budget allowed the department to bypass requirements to hold public meetings and gain approval from the city council.
The Houston police foundation has purchased for the local police department a variety of equipment, including Swat equipment, sound equipment and dogs for the K-9 unit, according to the report. The Philadelphia police foundation purchased for its police force long guns, drones and ballistic helmets, and the Atlanta police foundation helped fund a major surveillance network of over 12,000 cameras.
In addition to weaponry, foundation funding can also go toward specialized training and support programs that complement the department’s policing strategies, according to one police foundation.
“Not a lot of people are aware of this public-private partnership where corporations and wealthy donors are able to siphon money into police forces with little to no oversight,” said Gin Armstrong, a senior research analyst at LittleSis.
Maybe it is just me, but things don’t seem to be all that different.
Bob , June 19, 2020 at 11:40 am
If we made America Great Again we could go back to the 18th century.
rob , June 19, 2020 at 12:11 pm
While it is true, this is a new century.
knowing how the present came to be, is entirely necessary to be able to attempt any move forward.
The likelihood of making the same old mistakes is almost certain, if one doesn’t try to use the past as a reference.
And considering the effect of propaganda and revisionism in the formation of peoples opinions, we do need ” learning against learning” to borrow a Jesuit strategy against the reformation, but this time it should embrace reality, rather than sow falsehoods.
But I do agree,
We have never been here before, and now is a great time to reset everything. With all due respect to “getting it right” or at least “better”.
and knowing the false fables of righteousness, is what people need to know, before they go about “burning down the house”.Carolinian , June 19, 2020 at 12:42 pm
You know it’s not as though white people aren’t also afraid of the police. Alfred Hitchcock said he was deathly afraid of police and that paranoia informed many of his movies. Woody Allen has a funny scene in Annie Hall where he is pulled over by a cop and is comically flustered. White people also get shot and killed by the police as the rightwingers are constantly pointing out.
And thousands of people in the streets tell us that police reform is necessary. But the country is not going to get rid of them and replace police with social workers so why even talk about it? I’d say the above is interesting….not terribly relevant.
Mattski , June 19, 2020 at 11:37 am
Straight-up fact: The police weren’t created to preserve and protect. They were created to maintain order, over certain subjected classes and races of people, including–for many white people, too–many of our ancestors, too.*
And the question that arises from this: Are we willing to the subjects in a police state? Are we willing to continue to let our Black and brown brothers and sisters be subjected BY such a police state, and to half-wittingly be party TO it?
Or do we want to exercise AGENCY over “our” government(s), and decide–anew–how we go out our vast, vast array of social ills.
Obviously, armed police officers with an average of six months training–almost all from the white underclass–are a pretty f*cking blunt instrument to bring to bear.
On our own heads. On those who we and history have consigned to second-class citizenship.
Warning: this is a revolutionary situation. We should embrace it.*Acceding to white supremacy, becoming “white” and often joining that police order, if you were poor, was the road out of such subjectivity. My grandfather’s father, for example, was said to have fled a failed revolution in Bohemia to come here. Look back through history, you will find plenty of reason to feel solidarity, too. Race alone cannot divide us if we are intent on the lessons of that history.
Susan the other , June 19, 2020 at 1:16 pm
It’s a good argument for keeping business small and evenly distributed. Promote the distribution of small enterprises all around the countryside and it’ll be a preventative against mergers and monopolies and giant corporations. Legislate for small business everywhere. When mega corporations turn into godzilla they are no longer efficient. They just tweak the statistics to imply that they are making such a profit that that means they are efficient. Maybe their robots are. Maybe their security forces are. But rapacious capitalism is almost comical, if not pathetic, when there is nothing left to rape. Which is where we now find ourselves. They’ve been allowed to evolve into private monopolies and have sucked the life out of the rest of the economy because they provide no employment, no training, no health care, no responsible maintenance for themselves; they set up tax havens, etc. And they produce way too much crap. We need far less consumption to save the planet. If we need monopolies to create equal distribution let them be state-owned monopolies. States do a good job. I’m thinking here of the State owned liquor stores in Utah. Even tho’ it’d be nice to buy wine in the grocery store, the state does a good job of supplying booze at a good price. (They are in the process now of setting up marijuana stores. Yes, Utah.) And they hire lotsa people. And they generate a nice tax revenue. I think medical care should be the same way – but on a national scale. This way we don’t need to bludgeon the poor. Until we can turn things around, we need to give the poor a state owned and controlled place to live – commonly thought of as a house. We’re gonna need to do food stamps too. If we must put up with private enterprise at the expense of public welfare, just so that we keep a certain optimism toward “free enterprise” and keep it nurtured because: sometimes a great notion, then let’s restrict it from becoming a plague. But let’s not kill capitalism just because it almost killed society. Let’s remake it. As it is now it’s just dragging itself around like a cave troll. It is no longer fit for purpose.
K teh , June 19, 2020 at 2:48 pm
Protect and serve MMT to the 10%. And no, the answer can not be give MMT to everyone and complain about automation replacing the population. Also, slavery is not a white issue; it’s a control issue, going back to Africa, which is once again being pumped with debt.
Looking at how the term redneck was twisted to serve it’s current function is revealing. Fear, insecurity, control. Educate your own.
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Jun 17, 2020 | www.youtube.com
Knapweed , 12 hours ago
"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it."― George Orwell
We seriously have news analysts stating public health officials "can't just make stuff up." This is deep.
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Jun 16, 2020 | caucus99percent.com
"But it was impossible to save the Great Republic. She was rotten to the heart. Lust of conquest had long ago done its work; trampling upon the helpless abroad had taught her, by a natural process, to endure with apathy the like at home; multitudes who had applauded the crushing of other people's liberties, lived to suffer for their mistake in their own persons. The government was irrevocably in the hands of the prodigiously rich and their hangers-on; the suffrage was become a mere machine, which they used as they chose. There was no principle but commercialism, no patriotism but of the pocket."
-- Mark Twain
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Jun 16, 2020 | www.youtube.com
Kevin FitzMaurice , 1 month ago
"Modern journalists are selectors of facts, not reporters of facts." -- Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
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Jun 16, 2020 | carnegieendowment.org
... There are no signs that the [USA-Russia] relationship will improve in the near future.
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Jun 16, 2020 | www.youtube.com
Robert Schupp , 4 days ago"That's why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it." -George Carlin
You can't just move to American cities to pursue opportunity; even the high wages paid in New York are rendered unhelpful because the cost of housing is so high.
Dingo Jones , 3 days agoDirtysparkles , 4 days ago@JOHN GAGLIANO Cost of living is ridiculous too.
Jean-Pierre S , 4 days agoOur country has become the American Nightmare
John Sanders , 3 days agoMartin Luther King, Jr. was vilified and ultimately murdered when he was helping organize a Poor People's Campaign. Racial justice means economic justice.
Adriano de Jesus , 4 days agoOld saying: A Recession is when your neighbor loses their Job. A Depression is when you lose your Job.
Ammon Weser , 4 days agoA lot of mega wealthy people are cheats. They get insider info, they don't pay people and do all they can to provide the least amount of value possible while tricking suckers into buying their crap. Don't even get me started on trust fund brats who come out of the womb thinking they are Warren buffet level genius in business.
crazyman8472 , 4 days agoThere's a documentary about Wal-Mart that has the best title ever: The High Cost of Low Cost
David Tidwell , 4 days agoNight Owl: "What the hell happened to us? What happened to the American Dream?"
Comedian: "What happened to the American Dream? It came true! You're looking at it."
-- Watchmen
D dicin , 4 days agoNailed it. As a millennial, I'm sick of being told to just "deal with it" when the cards have always been stacked against me. Am I surviving? Yes. Am I thriving? No.
farber2 , 4 days agoWhen the reserve status of the American dollar goes away, then it will become apparent how poor the US really is. You cannot maintain a country without retention of the ability to manufacture the articles you use on a daily basis. The military budget and all the jobs it brings will have to shrink catastrophically.
Michael D , 4 days ago (edited)American trance. The billionaires hypnotized people with this lie.
B Sim , 3 days ago...and sometimes you CAN'T afford to move. You can't find a decent job. You certainly can't build a meaningful savings. You can't find an apartment. And if you have kids? That makes it even harder. I've been trying to move for years, but the conditions have to be perfect to do it responsibly. The American Dream died for me once I realized that no matter the choices I made, my four years of college, my years of saving and working hard....I do NOT have upward mobility. For me, the American Dream is dead. I've been finding a new dream. The human dream.
Sound Author , 3 days agoThis is a very truncated view. You need to expand your thinking. WHY has the system been so overtly corrupted? It's globalism that has pushed all this economic pressure on the millennials and the middle class. It was the elites, working with corrupt politicians, that rigged the game so the law benefited them.
This is all reversible. History shows that capitalism can be properly regulated in a way that benefits all. The answer to the problem is to bring back those rules, not implement socialism.
Trump has:
- - Ended the free trade deals
- - Imposed Protective tarriffs to defend American jobs and workers
- - Lowered corporate taxes to incentivize business to locate within us borders.
- - Limited immigration to reduce the supply of low skilled labor within US borders.
The result? before COVID hit the average American worker saw the first inflation adjusted wage increase in over 30 years!
This is why the fake news and hollywood continue to propagandize the masses into hating Trump.
Trump is implementing economic policies good for the people and bad for the elites
Julia Galaudet , 4 days agoThe dream was never alive in the first place. It was always bullshit.
Scott Clark , 4 days agoMaybe it's time for a maximum wage.
Siri Erieott , 4 days agoPrivate equity strips the country for years! It's the AMERICAN DREAM!!!
andrew kubiak , 4 days agoA dream for 1%, a nightmare for 99%.
Globalism killed the American dream. We can buy cheap goods made somewhere else if we have a job here that pays us enough money.
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Jun 16, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
joego1 , 12 hours ago
o homines ad servitutem paratos
Men ready to be slaves!
attributed (in Tacitus , Annales , III, 65) to the Roman Emperor Tiberius , in disgust at the servile attitude of Roman senators ; said of those who should be leaders but instead slavishly follow the lead of others
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Jun 16, 2020 | www.youtube.com
Shaun Ellis , 7 months ago" We were warned about the Military Industrial Complex, Sadly the Government Media Complex, has done way more damage, and will be much harder to overcome" ~ Dr. Mike Savage 2008
"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing the world he didnt exist" Credit the --- Usual Suspects ---- That's the playbook of the "Deep State"
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Jun 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
bob sykes , Jun 15 2020 22:02 utc | 53
b hates the US, because it played a significant role in the destruction of his beloved Third Reich.Passer by , Jun 15 2020 22:06 utc | 54
@bob sykes | Jun 15 2020 22:02 utc | 53juliania , Jun 15 2020 22:25 utc | 56Well, you guys (US) are killing people all over the world, so that's why the world hates you. Stop killing people all over the world and then people might stop hating you.
Thank you, karlof1@50.This is the crux of the 'matter', not meaning to be glib about it all. Those of us on the fringes, and there are many, do not want the divisive issues of the past to rear their ugly heads again. We have come too far. We do not need to focus on the shameful deeds or positions of former bigots who rose to prominence in this country.
Martin Luther King is dead but his words live on, and so they should. They are the better part of his nature and of human nature itself. So it is in my church with the saints we revere. No man is perfect, and they themselves knew their own imperfections. But we build on the shining moments some men have risen to, and we hold fast to the good if we are to make our own lives meaningful.
The sins of our ancestors are not our sins, but their achievements can be ours if we remember and pay them respect. In that spirit I would like to recall that George Wallace, whose earlier bigotry was so shameful, rose above those beginnings after his near death experience when crippled by a would be assassin. He renounced his former self. He should be remembered more for that renunciation than for his bad character that was so damaging theretofore. And President Kennedy was a good president, struck down too soon. His intention was to make the world a peaceful place; he did not deserve his end.
Hold fast to the good.
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Jun 16, 2020 | www.unz.com
RSDB , says: Show Comment June 12, 2020 at 8:55 pm GMT
"Mind Your Language" was somewhat distantly based on the "Hyman Kaplan" stories written by Leo Rosten, the Yiddish-speaking son of Polish Jewish (and also Yiddish-speaking, of course) immigrants, who taught an ESL class one year during the Great Depression.A quote of his: "A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead". Perhaps since he is now a "racist" it should be reformulated: "A radical is one who despises radicals a generation after they're dead."
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Jun 13, 2020 | www.unz.com
Just another serf , says: Show Comment Next New Comment
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Jun 10, 2020 | www.unz.com
mahern , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 10, 2020 at 8:02 pm GMT
@Huh
...It is all so staged. Somebody here quoted Oscar Wilde commenting on the funeral of Little Nell, "you'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at it." Sums it all up very well.
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Jun 08, 2020 | www.unz.com
another fred , says: Show Comment June 5, 2020 at 2:09 pm GMT
@NiebelheimThe best medicine against the grapes of wrath is a whiff of grapeshot – Napoleon
Only when applied at the propitious time and place.
When the student is ready, the teacher appears.
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Jun 06, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
alexcojones , 33 minutes ago
lwilland1012 , 30 minutes agoYears ago I wrote an online called The American Media is The Enemy of The American People.
Six years later they have become even worse. Oddly enough, Don took my hint and followed up with his POV, four years later....see link below mine. BTW, I quoted lots of Zerohedge members in my post.
alexcojones , 29 minutes ago"We are ruled, our minds are molded largely by men and women we have never heard of."
Edward Bernays in "Propaganda"
lwilland1012 , 33 minutes ago"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the public believes is false," - William Casey, CIA Director.
"The propagandized people in the West have no idea of the fate toward which their demented governments are driving them," wrote Paul Craig Roberts
Facts are scary things for most folks
Operation Mockingbird is alive and well..
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Jun 04, 2020 | www.youtube.com
" Do not trust to the cheering, for those very persons would shout as much if you and I were going to be hanged." Oliver Cromwell English Statesman - uttered some 400+ years.
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Jun 04, 2020 | www.unz.com
Biff , says: Show Comment June 3, 2020 at 1:02 am GMT
@Enemy of EarthAmerica is not a country; it's just a business." – Closing lines of dialogue from the film, Killing Them Softly. And it appears to be a failed business.
I like that. I'm gonna view things thru that lens from now on.
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Jun 02, 2020 | www.youtube.com
DNA , 10 months ago"We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist." James Baldwin
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate with that spectrum" Noam Chomsky.
TheLegendOf Arthur , 1 year ago (edited)Karl Popper did it gracefully: in order to protect tolerance, we ought to be intolerant towards those who are intolerant.
Melanie Harder , 5 months ago div classThat "Free speech does not guarantee you freedom from consequences criticism or protest, because those are, in fact, forms of free speech." was a beautifully succinct summary and needs to be on posters all over the everywhere.
="comment-renderer-text-content expanded"> Fun (?) fact: there is a politician in Germany called Björn Höcke, who was publically called a fascist. He sued that person for defamation. And then he lost the case, because the court found that calling him a fascist is not factually wrong. Also, he wrote a book and then some journalists quizzed his colleagues: they quoted either Hitler's Mein Kampf or his book and then they had to decide where the quote comes from. All of them either declined the answer or a few of them got it wrong. He also is one of the leading figuers of a party polling at about 20% in Germany right now. And recently a liberal politician, who in that situation was overseeing a parliament debate, reprimanded a left-wing politician for wearing an Antifa pin during a speech. Getting kinda scary here if you think about it a little. :(
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Jun 02, 2020 | www.youtube.com
Zeno Stoikos , 1 year agoWhen some people claim that my country is stealing their jobs... I think they should look more to the capitalists and neoliberals. They perpetuate the injustice of capitalism. We "stole" their jobs, but we're getting paid much less than they would have. We're getting paid around $1-$2 per hour. We're just getting the scraps we could get.
There's a good discussion to be had in how right-liberalism/conservatism/neoliberalism relate to aristocratic ideology. The obsession with "meritocracy" and genetics in particular, common to these three related ideologies(and how often its used to justify their flaws&failings), seems to be an important bridge(or political line, to be more cynical) for this connection.
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May 29, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Norogene , May 29 2020 22:19 utc | 105
Kaddath writes:You can't be a Democracy at home and an empire aboard, the violence of empire will always turn against the very idea of democracy.
Yes, a keen observation of what ultimately undid Athens. You will find in Sheldon Wolin's final book "Democracy Incorporated" an intricate dissection of this precept in the modern form through his analysis of America's decaying trajectory. Thank you for reminding us of this.
lysias @ 109
A variety of scholars who study that period would disagree with you: You cannot maintain an empire abroad and democracy at home. The two principles are diametrically opposite to one another. It's what caused the democracy of Athens (which was limited to men -- as usual) to ultimately lose its internal cohesion and reason to be. Yes, formally it was incorporated into the Macedonian empire, but its demise came because Athens' imperial ambitions sapped domestic resources which further contributed to the trend toward inequality within the society.
Here is a fine quote from Wolin's book (page 264) which illustrates the point (please excuse the length of this quote):
A twofold moral might be drawn from the experience of Athens: that it is self-subverting for democracy to subordinate its egalitarian convictions to the pursuit of expansive politics with its corollaries of conquest and domination and the power relationships they introduce. Few care to argue that, in political terms, democracy at home is advanced or improved by conquest abroad.As Athens showed and the United States of the twenty-first century confirmed, imperialism undercuts democracy by furthering inequalities among its citizens. Resources that might be used to improve health care, education, and environmental protection are instead directed to defense spending, which, by far, consumes the largest percentage of the nation's annual budget.
Moreover, the sheer size and complexity of imperial power and the expanded role of the military make it difficult to impose fiscal discipline and account- ability. Corruption becomes endemic, not only abroad but at home. The most dangerous type of corruption for a democracy is measured not in monetary terms alone but in the kind of ruthless power relations it fosters in domestic politics. As many observers have noted, politics has become a blood sport with partisanship and ideological fidelity as the hallmarks. A partisan judiciary is openly declared to be a major priority of a political party; the efforts to consolidate executive power and to relegate Congress to a supporting role are to some important degree the retrojection inwards of the imperial thrust.
Second, if Athens was the first historical instance of a confrontation between democracy and elitism, that experience suggests that there is no simple recipe for resolving the tensions between them. Political elites were a persistent, if uneasy and contested, feature of Athenian democracy and a significant factor in both its expansion and its demise.
In the eyes of contemporary observers, such as Thucydides, as well as later historians, the advancement of Athenian hegemony de- pended upon a public-spirited, able elite at the helm and a demos will- ing to accept leadership. Conversely, the downfall of Athens was attributed to the wiles and vainglory of leaders who managed to whip up popular support for ill-conceived adventures.
As the war dragged on and frustration grew, domestic politics became more embittered and fractious: members of the elite competed to outbid each other by proposing ever wilder schemes of conquest. In two attempts (411–410 and 404–403) elites, abetted by the Spartans, succeeded in temporarily abolshing democracy and installing rule by the Few.
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May 29, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
If you think about it -- the most important moments in your life -- were you alone?" Ryan Bingham, George Clooney's traveling termination officer, asks in Up in the Air -- a film about the last recession . "Life's better with company. Everyone needs a co-pilot."
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May 29, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Thus, it is said that during the First World War, a woman asked him why he was not "out at the Front." He answered: "If you go round to the side, you will see that I am." Also in the hours he spent debating with his friend Bernard Shaw, it was common for his physical appearance to come out. "To look at you, anyone would think a famine had struck England," Chesterton once told him. Shaw's answer soon came: "To look at you, anyone would think you have caused it." He liked to live by his own old words: "What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism."
In our post-coronavirus days, when some are tempted to call for larger, more restrictive governments with less individual freedom, it is useful to recall Chesterton's feeble regard for government and the deification of our democratic systems, which he implied are better for what they avoid than for what they give. In the end, he knew that "all government is an ugly necessity." And that's because Chesterton loved freedom. As a reminder that we, too, should love it after the nightmare of global confinement we've experienced these past months, the author of The Man Who Was Thursday wrote: "The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost."
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May 29, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
In his dialectical battle with Bernard Shaw, Chesterton stated: "The decay of society is praised by artists as the decay of a corpse is praised by worms." Perhaps that is why, with brilliant irony, in the final stages of his life, Chesterton recalled his happy childhood, with no dark ghosts to sell to his audience: "I regret that I have no gloomy and savage father to offer to the public gaze as the true cause of all my tragic heritage; no pale-faced and partially poisoned mother whose suicidal instincts have cursed me with the temptations of the artistic temperament ( .) and that I cannot do my duty as a true modern, by cursing everybody who made me whatever I am".
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May 28, 2020 | caucus99percent.com
The easiest way to register your disapproval is with your vote. Will it change things? Absolutely not.
But I'm only asking for you to send a message. Asking you for more than that would be presumptuous of me.
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May 24, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
" Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about. Thus the production of bullshit is stimulated whenever a person's obligations or opportunities to speak about some topic exceed his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic. "
-Harry G. Frankfurt
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May 22, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
One Too Many , May 22 2020 22:23 utc | 35"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage." - John Kenneth Galbraith
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May 22, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
"But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?" –James Madison, Federalist 51
"They had one weapon left and both knew it: treachery." –Frank Herbert, Dune
"They had learned nothing, and forgotten nothing." –Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
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May 22, 2020 | twitter.com
"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than
he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so
simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people.
The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy.""I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people
get rid of the lizards?""It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all
pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to
the government they want.""You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got
any gin?"
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May 22, 2020 | twitter.com
Socialism is a scareword they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.
Socialism is what they called public power.
Socialism is what they called social security.
Socialism is what they called farm price supports.
Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.
Socialism is what they called the growth of free and
independent labor organizations.Socialism is their name for almost anything that
helps all the people.-HARRY S. TRUMAN,
speech, Oct. 10,1952
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May 22, 2020 | caucus99percent.com
Senators Express Outrage at Hearing over Mnuchin's Sneakiness with $500 Billion of Taxpayers' Money
We've been watching Senate Banking Committee hearings for decades. There is typically some level of professional politeness by Senators toward witnesses that are testifying. That didn't happen yesterday. Both Republicans and Democrats lashed out at Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin for effectively cooking up a deal that put him in charge of $500 billion of taxpayers' money under the stimulus bill known as the CARES Act and has now left Congress in the dark about how that money is being spent. During the hearing, which was held virtually, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts summed up the situation to Mnuchin like this: "You are boosting your Wall Street buddies and leaving Americans behind."
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May 22, 2020 | consortiumnews.com
Herman , May 17, 2020 at 09:00
Interesting comparison between the aspirations of De Gaulle and Putin.
"Having a sense of history, de Gaulle saw that colonialism had been a moment in history that was past. His policy was to foster friendly relations on equal terms with all parts of the world, regardless of ideological differences. I think that Putin's concept of a multipolar world is similar. It is clearly a concept that horrifies the exceptionalists."
Agree with Johnstone.
OlyaPola , May 19, 2020 at 11:55
"Having a sense of history, de Gaulle saw that colonialism had been a moment in history that was past. "
Mr. de Gaulle like other "leaders" of colonial powers did understand that the moment of overt coercive relations of colonialism had passed and that colonialism to remain qualitatively the same, required covert coercive relations facilitated by the complicity of local "elites" on the basis of perceived self-interest.
The exceptions to such strategies lay within constructs of settler colonialism which were addressed primarily through warfare – "The United States of America", Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia, Indonesia, Algeria, Kenya, Rhodesia, Mozambique, Angola refer – to facilitate such future strategies.
"I think that Putin's concept of a multipolar world is similar."
As outlined elsewhere the concept of a multi-polar world is not synonymous with the concept of colonialism except for the colonialists who consistently seek to encourage such conflation through myths of we-are-all-in-this-togetherness.
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May 22, 2020 | consortiumnews.com
Bob Van Noy , May 17, 2020 at 14:43
"As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it"
Albert EinsteinMany Thanks CN, Patrick Lawrence, and Joe Lauria. Once again I must commend CN for picking just the appropriate response to our contemporary dilemma.
The quote above leads Diana Johnstone's new book and succinctly describes both the universe and our contemporary experience with our digital age. President Kennedy and Charles de Gaulle of France would agree that colonialism was past and that a new world (geopolitical) approach would become necessary, but that philosophy would put them against some great local and world powers. Each of them necessarily had different approaches as to how this might be accomplished. They were never allowed to present their specific proposals on a world stage. Let's hope a wiser population will once again "see" this possibility and find a way to resolve it
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May 21, 2020 | www.unz.com
Vojkan , says: Show Comment May 20, 2020 at 11:24 am GMT
"There is no universal campaign for universal brotherhood and friendship outside ubiquitous Western multicultural propaganda."Correlation doesn't mean causation but there are no Jews in power outside the West.
And yes I hate it all too and I am an impenitent hater. I am pro-life and pro-human dignity. Live and let live as long as it isn't in my face. Be depraved as you wish as long as it doesn't harm anyone and as long as you don't force your depravity upon the rest of us. Therefore I am necessarily anti-choice, anti-surrogacy, anti-genderism, anti-same-sex-marriage, anti-communist, anti-banksterism, anti-Big Pharma, anti-Big Agri, anti-Greta, anti-Quran, anti-Old Testament, anti-Talmud I regard not feeling the uttermost abhorrence of it all as either a sign of extreme cowardice or a sign of irredeemable mental illness. For one can easily see the line of further abjections that will be imposed upon us in the future.
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May 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
krypton , May 19 2020 11:54 utc | 14
Propaganda: Saying the same thing over and over again and expecting people will believe it. Synonyms: indoctrination, brainwashing, hype, hogwash
JW , May 19 2020 12:08 utc | 16
"This game isn't totally rigged, you aren't winning only because you aren't betting hard enough!"William Gruff , May 19 2020 12:58 utc | 18Jen @6: "For all the sophisticated techniques and tools of propaganda that the likes of Edward Bernays and his followers in the PR industry bequeathed to the US, the elites and their mass media lackeys can't even get the repetition to look and sound more than banal and one-dimensional."vk , May 19 2020 13:22 utc | 21Nice observation that incompetence is pervasive even among the empire's most important servants. It must be asked, though, if better talent is really necessary? The propaganda and brainwashing may be ham fisted and blunt as a hammer, but it does seem to work nonetheless.
Anyway, the more sophisticated brainwashing is not in the infotainment field but rather in the supposedly pure entertainment domain. Redneck dynasties built upon the monster retail bonanza from selling duck lures, for example. Those implant "The American Dream" directly into the subconscious without the need for awkward capitalist ideological exposition, bypassing any potential bullshit filters that the typical media consumers might possess.
The American Dream died in 1969 - the last year of the post-war miracle in the USA. For the following five years, the country continued to flourish, but at a clear slower pace. With the oil crisis of 1974-5, the American Dream definitely died, albeit some indicators (e.g. real wages) still showed some improvements.1978 was the last year real wages showed significant growth in real terms in the USA. After that, came the great stagnation of the neoliberal era (1978-2008), 30 consecutive years of frozen earns for the American working classes. This era is not marked by a slow down in consumption, though. On the contrary: consumption continued to rise, but, this time, it was mainly debt-fueled. Americans wages stagnated, but they didn't want to give up their hyperconsumption privileges, so they contracted debt after debt.
As the timeline shows, it is a myth neoliberalism begun in the USA only with Reagan's election in 1980. Most neoliberal reforms begun during Jimmy Carter's second half of his lonely term (1978-1980). It was Jimmy Carter, for example, who hired (nominated) Paul Volcker to the Fed. Other essential Acts that paved the way to neoliberalism were also passed during Jimmy Carter's later part of the reign.
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May 18, 2020 | off-guardian.org
"If you look at the Internet's creation and development by the US military-intelligence-Silicon Valley network as a tool for social control, propaganda, and total spying, if you grasp this nexus and their intentions, you will come away realizing that the Internet and the total integrated digital world is a dystopian tool designed to make you crazy. To sow confusion and endless contradictory information from minute to minute. To "flood the zone" (see Event 201) with propaganda and disinformation. To give you a headache, keep you agitated, destroy your genuine human experience in the physical world." "This is the double-bind. It is what Jacques Ellul in 1964 called the technological society that is ruled by technique in every aspect of its life. Technique is a way of thinking that emphasizes efficiency; it is a way of thinking that emphasizes order and standardized means to a predetermined end. It is rational, deliberate, and focused on results. It is a way of thinking that has penetrated deep into the psychic structures of society and opposes spontaneity and unreflective action."
Even for those who navigate with greatest dexterity, the triple W's are fraught with unparalleled peril, which I believe was Mr. Curtin's main point: the double bind.Intrinsic to the medium, as eyestrain was to Gutenberg's first customers.
"The Medium *IS* the Message." -- Marshall McLuhan
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May 17, 2020 | caucus99percent.com
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
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May 16, 2020 | www.youtube.com
Igor Drizik , 4 days ago"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." John F. Kennedy
Spud Bono , 4 days ago"What they accuse you of doing, they are eagerly doing themselves" Very well said at 7:04 .
Gary Owenby , 1 day agoThe great thing about sociopaths is that when they start feeling a little heat, they come out swinging and expose themselves.
Obama, and his cronies committed treason against our elected POTUS and Gen Flynn!
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May 16, 2020 | en.wikipedia.org
British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke formulated three adages that are known as Clarke's three laws , of which the third law is the best known and most widely cited. They are part of his ideas in his extensive writings about the future. [1] These so-called laws are:
- When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
- For each expert there is a similar expert with the opposite point of view
- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic .
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May 15, 2020 | angrybearblog.com
Originally written in 2018 on the Save The Post Office blog and featured at Angry Bear in 2019, retired North Carolina Post Master Mark Jamison wrote on the issues facing USPS while in competition with Amazon, UPS, and FedX. The same issue has been brought to the forefront again with President Trump refusing to give a subsidy to the USPS, unless the USPS raises prices to deliver packages for Amazon, and also punishes Amazon's Owner Bezos. The answer remains the same, "no" and Mark explains why.
... ... ...
Motivated by his dislike for Jeff Bezos -- who has far more money than Mr. Trump will ever have or imagine having and who also owns the Washington Post, which tends to say things that are not particularly complimentary of Mr. Trump and his Alphonse-and-Gaston act as president -- the president let forth a blast about how Amazon was ripping off the Postal Service.It was obvious from his Tweets and subsequent comments Mr. Trump did not have a clue about postal policy, let alone any sort of command of the details. Then again, when the president speaks, people tend to listen. And, as the English poet William Cowper once observed, "A fool must now and then be right, by chance." (Here in the mountains of North Carolina we might say that even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while).
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May 15, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
et Al May 9, 2020 at 10:53 am
al-Beeb s'Allah: Coronavirus: Belarus WW2 parade defies pandemic and upstages Putinthe Fraudian: Victory Day: Belarus swaggers on parade as Russians leave Red Square deserted
####
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May 11, 2020 | off-guardian.org
by Kit Knightly
Vanessa Beeley The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants" Albert Camus As Britain hurtles headlong towards neo-feudalist governance with heightened surveillance, micro-management of society and an uptick in fascistic policing of the draconian measures imposed to combat the "threat" of Covid–19, it is perhaps time to analyse the real forces behind this
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May 10, 2020 | www.verywellmind.com
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive bias in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are. Essentially, low ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognize their own incompetence. The combination of poor self-awareness and low cognitive ability leads them to overestimate their own capabilities.
The term lends a scientific name and explanation to a problem that many people immediately recognize -- that fools are blind to their own foolishness. As Charles Darwin wrote in his book The Descent of Man , "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."
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May 09, 2020 | www.youtube.com
Court docs corroborate Tara Reade claims, she calls on Biden to drop out
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May 09, 2020 | www.youtube.com
"Every election is the sale at auction of goods not yet stolen." -- Mencken
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May 06, 2020 | caucus99percent.com
It's Crucial to Distinguish Between Can't and Won't -- With a Million Lives at StakeIn a story predicting two more years for the coronavirus pandemic, CNN ( 5/1/20 ) quotes Michael Osterholm, who directs the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota: "This thing's not going to stop until it infects 60 to 70% of people," he said. "The idea that this is going to be done soon defies microbiology."
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May 05, 2020 | www.goodreads.com
"You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic."
― Robert A. Heinlein, Revolt in 2100/Methuselah's Children
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May 04, 2020 | www.unz.com
Jim Vrettos : Welcome once again to the Radical Imagination. I'm your host, Jim Vrettos. I'm a sociologist whose taught at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Yeshiva University here in New York.
Our guest today on the Radical Imagination is Michael Hudson. He was on our March 8th show. We had such an overwhelmingly positive response to that show that we've asked him to return today, and he's been gracious enough to accept.
Unlike most economists, he's been a fierce champion and advocate for the economic rights of the poor, workers, disenfranchised and the vulnerable around the world through his scholarship and lifelong activism. His unique economic analysis has explored h istory's main engine of economic exploitation – the banking, creditor and financial systems' ever-increasing extraction of value through interest payments. The rentier class and FIRE sector – Finance, Insurance and Real Estate – have long succeeded in depicting themselves as part of a productive economy. Yet for centuries, these sectors were recognized as being parasitic.
Now with the United States losing some 10 million jobs in just the past two weeks and the world awash in debt, the total world gross domestic product is $90 trillion. The public and private debt is a mind-boggling $260 trillion. The pandemic has given this parasitic sector yet another, even more vicious opportunity to exploit and devour humanity.
As our guest puts it, the recently passed Trump "Bank and Landlord Relief" bill, mistakenly named the Coronavirus bill, starts by providing banks with an even larger giveaway of wealth than they received from Obama in 2008. Helping the banks, financial and real estate sectors in a so-called free market system is conflated with helping the industrial economy and general living standards for most Americans. The essence of a parasite is not only to drain the host's nourishment, but to dull the host's brain so that it does not recognize that the parasite is there.
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May 04, 2020 | off-guardian.org
Excessive complexity of the society lead to paradoxical situation -- the society itself became above human understanding and many of modern technologies are indistinguishable from magic. Essentially belief in science and "experts" now as fragile as believe into priests wisdom in middle ages. the science became militarized and covered with the veil of secrecy, experts are often corrupt and amoral. But what has happened is that many who call themselves atheists worship science as "expert opinion" ( but not science as knowledge as it originally meant) so its mostly theories taken as facts without critical thinking are, infact pseudoscience.
Hugh O'Neill ,
Another thought-provoking article, Ed. I was reminded of four quotes:1. G.K. Chesterton: "When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn't believe in nothing; he believes in anything"
2. On the dropping of the first atomic bomb, Oppenheimer quoted from Hindu scripture: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds"
3. JFK's favourite poem was Alan Seeger's "I have a rendezvous with death". Seeger died in 1916
4. Whatever the merits of the poem, JFK was no stranger to death. Likewise, he had adopted Lincoln's prayer: "I know there is a God – and I see a storm coming. If he has a place for me, I believe that I am ready."
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May 02, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
― Issac Asimov
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May 02, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Hannelore , May 1 2020 12:29 utc | 2
https://twitter.com/elajedrecista_/status/1255512907103776770Mazarino: "If it is known that you influence the powerful, it is you who will be held responsible for their bad actions. Therefore, make sure that your lord listens to your advice and takes your comments into consideration, but that the great political changes he makes them in your absence".https://twitter.com/elajedrecista_/status/1255523894376697857
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Apr 30, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
xxx Ophiuchus, 4/27/2020, 2:02:13 PM
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false" CIA Director William Colby
"Shortly, the public will be unable to reason or think for themselves. They'll only be able to parrot the information they've been given on the previous night's news." -- Zbigniew Brzezinski
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the [public] is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country." Edward Bernays writing in Propaganda, l928 , from "Food & Water Journal"
"I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology. [...] Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. [...] Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. " Bertrand Russel
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Apr 30, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
xxx Ima Wouk, 4/27/2020, 1:48:00 PM (Edited)
Don't be too disappointed. We all watched the demolition of the world trade centers, live and direct, but everyone more or less bought the party line.
Six trillion dollars later, here we are.
It's hard to get a man to understand something when his paycheck depends on his not understanding it - Upton Sinclair
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Apr 30, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
xxx Boogity, 2 days ago
"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
― James Madison
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Apr 30, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
"So, you listen to me. Listen to me! Television is not the truth. Television's a god-damned amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true! But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube. You even think like the tube. This is mass madness. You maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing. We are the illusion."
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Apr 30, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
A quote I never thought I would post...but it's making more and more sense: "It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and our air force has to have a bake-sale to buy a bomber."
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Apr 29, 2020 | www.unz.com
Anonymous Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 19, 2012 at 6:49 pm GMT
Thank you for an excellent article on what is happening. My only criticism is that it appears that these things "just happen". With your insight and erudition, could you please address "why" the situation has arisen. What could be the motivation behind actions and policies which so clearly will destroy not only the 99% but also the basic wealth of the1%?This is not something new, but a recurrent theme in world affairs.
" Behind all the governments and the armies there was a big subterranean movement going on, engineered by very dangerous people." "Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organised, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."
-- Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States (1856-1924) "So you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes." -- Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister (1804-1881) President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote in November 1933 to Col. Edward House: "The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson."Many thanks
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Apr 29, 2020 | eduengl.ru
Give [a fool] enough горе, and he will hang himself.
A fool always rushes to the fore.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread .
A fool at forty is a fool indeed.
A fool may ask more questions in an hour than a wise man can answer in seven years.
A fool may throw a stone into a well which a hundred wise men cannot pull out.
Many men, many minds.
A fool's tongue runs before his wit.
Brevity is the soul of wit .
Two heads are better than one.
It is a silly fish, that is caught twice with the same bait.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
A lawyer never goes to law himself.
A silent fool is counted wise.
A nod from a lord is a breakfast for a fool.
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Apr 29, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Duncan Idaho | Apr 29 2020 19:41 utc | 31
"a tone-deaf showman who regards everything, even a mountain of corpses, as a stage."― Frank Bruni
Guess who?
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Apr 29, 2020 | www.unz.com
which do not care about that cosmological romantic lyrical notion of America.
Anonymous [589] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 29, 2020 at 8:38 pm GMT
It is undeniable that China has made impressive achievements since the Maosits revolution to date. BUT lets be realistic pre1973 China still a Nation with markedly 3th world living standards, even today with a soft racist inuendos , people speak about the Chinese must adopt better hygiene standards personally and privately.Before 1973 China had mainly 3th world status, eversince Nixon (or Kissinger?) opened China US Corporate Capitalists inundated Chinas economic landscape, in other words the real, KEY bases for Chinas economic success remain USA Corporations majority perhaps more than 70% of their industrial output, although China has wisely constraint, restrain the USA/World FINANCIAL cartels..(Soros speclation against te yuan, ans Soros Opensociety inflkuence in HongKong)
Can China remain stable internally with a growing well travel educated savvy middle class, and a POOR lower working class with meager salaries, slave like labor conditions, and oppressive political controls, that's a recipe for a social cauldron..
Will the Chinese proletariat demand more "democracy" western/eastern oriented reforms??..
... ... ...
China has become GREAT because the USA decided to become poor a Spartan, byzantinne, militaristic, mercenary rogue nation at service of the Globaloists ELITES which do not care about that cosmological romantic lyrical notion of America.
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Apr 24, 2020 | www.unz.com
Sean , says: Show Comment April 23, 2020 at 11:04 pm GMT
' IN a global village there will be global village idiots. And with this power, just one could be too many' Lord Marin Rees 2006
More than a decade Lord Rees ago predicted a million deaths by 2020 from a bio error or bio terror event.
China had the 2002 epidemic, caused by SARS-CoV which originated in China that year.
Dr Fauci warned the incoming US government administration in January 2017 of the possibility of MERS (a separate novel coronavirus from the Middle East) mutating to develop extreme transmissibility. Apart from the threat actually arriving from a new coronavirus pathogen more closely related to SARS than MERS, and the greatly reduced lethality of the massively more contagious than its predecessor SARS-CoV-2 virus, Fauci was prescient.That was almost two months after China had warned the WHO that there was a major crisis developing!
Talking about researchers in the Wuhan NYC Biodefense chief Professor Ian Lipkin said. "On December 31st, researchers there [Wuhan] identified it as a coronavirus but said, 'It's not highly transmissible'". On the 24th of January the WHO said "it is very clear right now that we have no sustained human-to-human transmission".
So it is clear that the Chinese were negligent, and the WHO made a disastrous mistake in believing the Chinese.
China still has not fully supplied data about the Wuhan epidemic that Western epidemiologists are desperate for and need to save lives. If we are reduced to looking at Xi Wuhan visit for hints as if we were Cold War Sovietologists, it indicates that China (the same country that was trusted enough by the UK to be given an enormously significant 5G contract) is very much remiss in discharging its responsibilities to the rest of the world.
Whatever the explanation, this is a watershed for the system in which globalising bankers and hedge funds bet the farm on Chinese growth continuing, and ignore supply chains, productive capacity and food production eroding within their own country. China has had a good run with globalisation, but it is coming to an end and they have only themselves to blame
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Apr 23, 2020 | www.youtube.com
Zauzi Travis , 2 weeks ago
Mark Twain. It is easier to fool a person than to convince them that they were fooled.
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Apr 20, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
karlof1 , Apr 19 2020 19:48 utc | 75
Pepe Escobar offers us some excellent food for thought beyond what is his usual, "The city in a time of plague:History teaches us that epidemics are more like revelatory moments than social transformers." I most heartily agree and have already written that the virus totally exposed Neoliberalism for what it is--Fraud on steroids. As usual, Pepe peppers his essay with enough source links to keep us busy for several days if not longer. I've never seen the mural at Siena that's central to his prose, for example. Fortunately, I needn't remain entombed inside my home, and the gorgeous sunny day demands I garden, and so I shall.
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Apr 20, 2020 | www.gutenberg.org
He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till after Easter. When he was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was feverish and delirious. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection. All were excited and did not understand one another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good; they did not know whom to blame, whom to justify. Men killed each other in a sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in armies against one another, but even on the march the armies would begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken and the soldiers would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting and devouring each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned, because everyone proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another, fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine. All men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices.
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Apr 19, 2020 | twitter.com
Thomas Connors 10:28 PM - 8 Apr 2020
Isaac Asimov died OTD in 1992. This quotation from 1980 holds up: "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States . [It is] nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"
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Apr 18, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Phyryne's frock , Apr 17 2020 21:48 utc | 124
He was wrong about that. It IS NOT a kindness to ANYONE to be putting people in positions of economic inferiority and superiority. It is artificially and unnecessarily contrived poison - but people swallow it every day, every hour, every minute.
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Apr 17, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
GeorgeV , Apr 16 2020 19:12 utc | 11
The global elites have no one to blame but themselves for the economic catastrophe that is currently unfolding as a result of the corona virus pandemic. There will also be no where to hide and probably no where to stash their ill gotten wealth. After decades of advocating and practicing discredited economic policies that can be best described as warmed-over late 19th and early 20th century economics, (aka: austerity) the chickens, so to speak, are coming home to roost. The same will apply to the political hacks, grafters and corporate greed heads who also made this economic disaster possible. What the end result will be however, is unknown. The future can go in many ways. But as the late Robert Heilbroner wrote in his book "The Worldly Philosophers" some 70 years ago: "Economics is the only science that puts men on the barricades."Realist , Apr 16 2020 20:15 utc | 23
This looks more like corporatism, not capitalism.Mussolini defined Fascism thusly:
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power"
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Apr 16, 2020 | todayinsci.com
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
-- Benjamin Franklin
Perhaps an older adage, but an example of its use appears in Pennsylvania Gazette (4 Feb 1734-5), about fire prevention, including taking care, moving live coals from a fireplace between rooms, for safety in a closed warming-pan. A midnight fire from a spilled ember might set your stairs on fire: "You may be forced, as I once was, to leap out of your windows, and hazard your necks to avoid being over-roasted." As cited in Benjamin Franklin and J. Sparks (ed.), The Works of Benjamin Franklin (1840), Vol. 1, 134, footnote.
Science quotes on: | Cure (122) | Ounce (8) | Pound (14) | Prevention (35) | Proverb (27) | Worth (169)Be not sick too late, nor well too soon.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1734).
Science quotes on: | Health (193) | Late (118) | Sick (81) | Sickness (26) | Soon (186) | Wellness (3)Be temperate in wine, in eating, girls, & sloth;
Or the Gout will seize you and plague you both.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1734).
Science quotes on: | Both (494) | Drunkenness (3) | Eating (46) | Girl (37) | Gout (5) | Health (193) | Plague (41) | Sloth (6) | Will (2354) | Wine (38)Beware of the young Doctor, & the old Barber.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1733).
Science quotes on: | Barber (5) | Beware (16) | Doctor (187) | Old (480) | Physician (273) | Young (228)Do not squander time for that is the stuff life is made of.
-- Benjamin Franklin
...
Science quotes on: | Do (1908) | Life (1799) | Squander (3) | Stuff (21) | Time (1877)Don't go to the doctor with every distemper, nor to the lawyer with every quarrel, nor to the pot for every thirst.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1737).
Science quotes on: | Distemper (5) | Doctor (187) | Going (6) | Lawyer (27) | Pot (3) | Quarrel (10) | Thirst (11)Don't misinform your Doctor nor your Lawyer.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1737).
Science quotes on: | Doctor (187) | Lawyer (27) | Misinformation (3)Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1735).
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(source) Eat to live, and not live to eat.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1733).
Science quotes on: | Diet (54) | Eat (104) | Eating (46) | Life (1799) | Live (629)He that waits upon fortune is never sure of a dinner.
-- Benjamin Franklin
...
Science quotes on: | Dinner (15) | Fortune (50) | Never (1087) | Wait (58)I have never seen the Philosopher's Stone that turns lead into Gold, but I have known the pursuit of it turn a Man's Gold into Lead.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1738).
Science quotes on: | Gold (98) | Knowledge (1536) | Known (454) | Lead (385) | Man (2249) | Never (1087) | Philosopher (259) | Philosopher's Stone (7) | Pursuit (121) | Seeing (142) | Stone (162) | Turn (447) | Turning (5)(source) If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
-- Benjamin Franklin
...
Science quotes on: | Best (459) | Empty (80) | Head (81) | Interest (386) | Investment (13) | Knowledge (1536) | Man (2249) | Pay (43) | Purse (4)If we are industrious, we shall never starve; for, 'at the workingman's house hunger looks in, but dares not enter.' Nor will the bailiff or the constable enter, for 'industry pays debts, while despair increaseth them.'
-- Benjamin Franklin
Published in Poor Richard's Almanac . Collected in Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin (1834), 477.
Science quotes on: | Dare (50) | Debt (13) | Despair (40) | Effort (227) | Enter (142) | House (140) | Hunger (21) | Industrious (12) | Industry (137) | Look (582) | Never (1087) | Pay (43) | Starvation (13) | Will (2354) | Workingman (2)If you would not be forgotten
As soon as you are dead and rotten
Either write things worth reading,
Or do things worth the writing.
-- Benjamin Franklin
Collected in Poor Richard's Almanack (1914), 32, No. 285.
Science quotes on: | Death (391) | Do (1908) | Forgotten (53) | Reading (133) | Rotten (3) | Soon (186) | Thing (1915) | Worth (169) | Write (231) | Writing (189)In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eat about twice as much as nature requires.
-- Benjamin Franklin
Louis Klopsch, Many Thoughts of Many Minds (1896), 67.
Science quotes on: | Cookery (7) | Diet (54) | Eat (104) | General (511) | Gluttony (6) | Improvement (110) | Mankind (340) | Nature (1928) | Require (219) | Twice (17)In New England they once thought blackbirds useless, and mischievous to the corn. They made efforts to destroy them. The consequence was, the blackbirds were diminished; but a kind of worm, which devoured their grass, and which the blackbirds used to feed on, increased prodigiously; then, finding their loss in grass much greater than their saving in corn, they wished again for their blackbirds.
-- Benjamin Franklin
Letter to Richard Jackson, 5 May 1753. In Albert Henry Smyth, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (1905), Vol. 3, 135.
Science quotes on: | Consequence (207) | Corn (19) | Destroy (180) | Devour (29) | Ecology (74) | Effort (227) | Grass (46) | Greater (288) | Kind (557) | Loss (110) | Mischievous (11) | New (1217) | Thought (954) | Wish (212) | Worm (42)Lost time is never found again.
-- Benjamin Franklin
No. 332, Poor Richard's Almanack (Jan 1748). Collected in Poor Richard's Almanack (1914), 35.
Science quotes on: | Find (999) | Lost (34) | Never (1087) | Time (1877)Many medicines few cures.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1734).
Science quotes on: | Cure (122) | Diet (54) | Disease (332) | Dish (3) | Food (199) | Health (193) | Medicine (378)Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one.
-- Benjamin Franklin
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Science quotes on: | Fill (61) | Happiness (116) | Happy (105) | Instead (21) | Man (2249) | Money (173) | More (2559) | Nature (1928) | Never (1087) | Nothing (969) | Produce (104) | Vacuum (39) | Want (497) | Will (2354)One should eat to live not live to eat.
-- Benjamin Franklin
As quoted, without citation, in John Walker, A Fork in the Road: Answers to Daily Dilemmas from the Teachings of Jesus Christ (2005), 83.
Science quotes on: | Eat (104) | Live (629)One today is worth two tomorrows.
-- Benjamin Franklin
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Science quotes on: | Today (314) | Tomorrow (60) | Two (937) | Worth (169)Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
-- Benjamin Franklin
Letter to Jean Baptiste Le Roy, 13 Nov 1789. Quoted in Albert Henry Smyth (ed.) The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (1907), vol. 10, 69.
Science quotes on: | Appearance (140) | Certain (550) | Constitution (76) | Death (391) | New (1217) | Nothing (969) | Promise (68) | Tax (27) | World (1778)The best of all medicines are rest and fasting.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In Tryon Edwards (ed.), A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908), 339.
Science quotes on: | All (4107) | Best (459) | Fasting (3) | Medicine (378) | Rest (281)The body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer (like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and stripped of its lettering and gilding), lies here, food for worms; but the work shall not be lost, for it will (as he believed) appear once more in a new and more elegant edition, revised and corrected by the Author.
-- Benjamin Franklin
Epitaph on his tombstone
Science quotes on: | Author (168) | Body (537) | Book (394) | Elegant (36) | Epitaph (19) | Food (199) | Lie (364) | More (2559) | New (1217) | Old (480) | Torn (17) | Will (2354) | Work (1351) | Worm (42)(source) The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 426:34.
Science quotes on: | Both (494) | Do (1908) | Eye (423) | Insight (102) | Master (178) | More (2559) | Will (2354) | Work (1351)The game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement. Several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired or strengthened by it so as to become habits ready on all occasions.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In The Morals of Chess . As quoted in The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle (1787), 590.
Science quotes on: | Acquire (39) | Acquired (78) | All (4107) | Amusement (33) | Become (815) | Chess (25) | Course (408) | Game (101) | Habit (168) | Human (1470) | Human Life (29) | Idle (33) | Life (1799) | Merely (316) | Mind (1339) | Occasion (85) | Ready (39) | Strengthen (23) | Useful (250) | Value (368)The greatest inventions are those inquiries which tend to increase the power of man over matter.
-- Benjamin Franklin
Unverified. If you know a primary source for this quote, please contact Webmaster who searched and, as yet, found none.
Science quotes on: | Great (1575) | Greatest (329) | Increase (211) | Inquiry (79) | Invention (377) | Man (2249) | Matter (801) | Power (747) | Tend (124)There has not been any science so much esteemed and honored as this of mathematics, nor with so much industry and vigilance become the care of great men, and labored in by the potentates of the world, viz. emperors, kings, princes, etc.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In 'On the Usefulness of Mathematics', in Works (1840), Vol. 2, 28.
Science quotes on: | Become (815) | Care (186) | Emperor (6) | Esteem (15) | Estimates of Mathematics (30) | Great (1575) | Honor (54) | Honored (3) | Industry (137) | King (35) | Labor (107) | Mathematics (1333) | Potentate (2) | Prince (13) | Science (3880) | Vigilance (5) | World (1778)There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth: the first is by war, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbors -- this is robbery; the second by commerce, which is generally cheating; the third by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favor, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In 'Positions to be Examined', The Works of Benjamin Franklin Consisting of Essays, Humorous, Moral and Literary (1824), 241.
Science quotes on: | Acquire (39) | Agriculture (68) | Cheat (13) | Cheating (2) | Commerce (21) | Conquer (38) | Continual (43) | Favor (64) | First (1284) | God (758) | Ground (218) | Honest (50) | Increase (211) | Industry (137) | Innocent (12) | Kind (557) | Life (1799) | Man (2249) | Miracle (83) | Nation (194) | Plunder (6) | Real (149) | Receive (114) | Reward (68) | Robbery (6) | Roman (36) | Seed (93) | Throw (43) | Virtuous (9) | War (226) | Way (1216) | Wealth (94)There's more old Drunkards than old Doctors.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1736).
Science quotes on: | Doctor (187) | Drunkard (5) | More (2559) | Old (480)Time is a herb that cures all Diseases.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1738). http://www. vlib.us/amdocs/texts/prichard38.html
Science quotes on: | All (4107) | Cure (122) | Disease (332) | Herb (5) | Time (1877)To inquisitive minds like yours and mine the reflection that the quantity of human knowledge bears no proportion to the quantity of human ignorance must be in one view rather pleasing, viz., that though we are to live forever we may be continually amused and delighted with learning something new.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In letter to Dr. Ingenhouz. Quoted in Theodore Diller, Franklin's Contribution to Medicine (1912), 65. The source gives no specific cite for the letter, and Webmaster has found the quote in no other book checked, so authenticity is in question.
Science quotes on: | Amusement (33) | Bear (159) | Continually (16) | Delight (109) | Forever (103) | Human (1470) | Ignorance (240) | Inquisitiveness (5) | Knowledge (1536) | Learning (274) | Life (1799) | Live (629) | Mind (1339) | Mine (77) | Must (1526) | New (1217) | Proportion (136) | Quantity (132) | Reflection (91) | Something (719) | View (488)(source) To lengthen thy Life, lessen thy Meals.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1733).
Science quotes on: | Diet (54) | Food (199) | Lessening (3) | Life (1799) | Meal (18)Use now and then a little Exercise a quarter of an Hour before Meals, as to swing a Weight, or swing your Arms about with a small Weight in each Hand; to leap, or the like, for that stirs the Muscles of the Breast.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1742).
Science quotes on: | Arm (81) | Arms (37) | Breast (9) | Diet (54) | Exercise (110) | Hand (143) | Health (193) | Hour (186) | Leap (53) | Little (708) | Meal (18) | Muscle (45) | Small (479) | Stir (21) | Swing (11) | Use (766) | Weight (136)We hold these truths to be self-evident.
Franklin's edit to the assertion of religion in Thomas Jefferson's original wording, "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" in a draft of the Declaration of Independence changes it instead into an assertion of rationality. The scientific mind of Franklin drew on the scientific determinism of Isaac Newton and the analytic empiricism of David Hume and Gottfried Leibniz. In what became known as "Hume's Fork" the latters' theory distinguished between synthetic truths that describe matters of fact, and analytic truths that are self-evident by virtue of reason and definition.
-- Benjamin Franklin
As explained by Walter Isaacson in Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2004), 312.
Science quotes on: | Change (595) | Declaration (10) | Declaration Of Independence (4) | Definition (224) | Describe (128) | Determinism (12) | Distinguish (160) | Distinguished (83) | Empiricism (21) | Evident (91) | Fact (1212) | David Hume (33) | Known (454) | Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (49) | Matter (801) | Mind (1339) | Sir Isaac Newton (335) | Rational (91) | Rationality (24) | Reason (744) | Religion (363) | Sacred (45) | Science And Religion (310) | Scientific (940) | Scientific Mind (13) | Self (267) | Self-Evident (21) | Synthetic (26) | Theory (972) | Truth (1062) | Virtue (109)What is a butterfly? At best
He's but a caterpiller drest.
The gaudy Fop's his picture just.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1740).
Science quotes on: | Best (459) | Butterfly (23) | Dress (9) | Gaudy (2) | Picture (143)What is the use of a new-born child?
When asked of the use of a new invention.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In I. Bernard Cohen, Benjamin Franklin's Science (1990), 38.
Science quotes on: | Ask (411) | Child (309) | Invention (377) | New (1217) | Use (766)What science can there be more noble, more excellent, more useful for men, more admirably high and demonstrative, than this of the mathematics?
-- Benjamin Franklin
In 'On the Usefulness of Mathematics', Works (1840), Vol. 2, 69.
Science quotes on: | Admirable (19) | Demonstrative (14) | Estimates of Mathematics (30) | Excellent (28) | High (363) | Mathematics (1333) | More (2559) | Noble (90) | Science (3880) | Useful (250)What signifies Philosophy that does not apply to some Use? May we not learn from hence, that black Clothes are not so fit to wear in a hot Sunny Climate or Season, as white ones; because in such Cloaths the Body is more heated by the Sun when we walk abroad, and are at the same time heated by the Exercise, which double Heat is apt to bring on putrid dangerous Fevers? The Soldiers and Seamen, who must march and labour in the Sun, should in the East or West Indies have an Uniform of white?
-- Benjamin Franklin
Letter to Miss Mary Stevenson, 20 Sep 1761. In Albert Henry Smyth (ed.), The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (1906), Vol. 4, 115.
Science quotes on: | Abroad (18) | Apply (160) | Body (537) | Climate (97) | Dangerous (105) | Exercise (110) | Fever (29) | Fit (134) | Heat (174) | Hot (60) | Labour (98) | Learn (632) | March (46) | More (2559) | Must (1526) | Philosophy (382) | Radiation (45) | Season (47) | Soldier (26) | Sun (387) | Time (1877) | Use (766) | Walk (124) | White (127)Whatever may have been imputed to some other studies under the notion of insignificancy and loss of time, yet these [mathematics], I believe, never caused repentance in any, except it was for their remissness in the prosecution of them.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In 'On the Usefulness of Mathematics', Works (1840), Vol. 2, 69.
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(source) When the well's dry, we know the worth of water.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In Poor Richard's Almanac (1757, 1900), 23.
Science quotes on: | Drought (13) | Dry (58) | Know (1519) | Knowledge (1536) | Water (482) | Well (14) | Worth (169)Wouldst thou enjoy a long Life, a healthy Body, and a vigorous Mind, and be acquainted also with the wonderful Works of God? labour in the first place to bring thy Appetite into Subjection to Reason.
-- Benjamin Franklin
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1742).
Science quotes on: | Acquaintance (37) | Appetite (17) | Body (537) | Diet (54) | Enjoyment (35) | First (1284) | God (758) | Health (193) | Healthy (68) | Labour (98) | Life (1799) | Long (789) | Mind (1339) | Reason (744) | Subjection (2) | Vigour (18) | Wonder (236) | Wonderful (149) | Work (1351)[Franklin always found it a] pleasure ... to see good workmen handle their tools.
-- Benjamin Franklin
Autobiography .
Science quotes on: | Autobiography (56) | Good (889) | Handle (28) | Pleasure (179) | See (1082) | Tool (117)~~[Attributed, authorship undocumented]~~ Mathematical demonstrations are a logic of as much or more use, than that commonly learned at schools, serving to a just formation of the mind, enlarging its capacity, and strengthening it so as to render the same capable of exact reasoning, and discerning truth from falsehood in all occurrences, even in subjects not mathematical. For which reason it is said, the Egyptians, Persians, and Lacedaemonians seldom elected any new kings, but such as had some knowledge in the mathematics, imagining those, who had not, men of imperfect judgments, and unfit to rule and govern.
-- Benjamin Franklin
From an article which appeared as 'The Usefulness of Mathematics', Pennsylvania Gazette (30 Oct 1735), No. 360. Collected, despite being without clear evidence of Franklin's authorship, in The Works of Benjamin Franklin (1809), Vol. 4, 377. Evidence of actual authorship by Ben Franklin for the newspaper article has not been ascertained, and scholars doubt it. See Franklin documents at the website founders.archives.gov. The quote is included here to attach this caution.
Science quotes on: | All (4107) | Capable (168) | Capacity (100) | Demonstration (114) | Discern (33) | Discerning (16) | Egyptian (5) | Elect (4) | Enlarge (35) | Exact (68) | Falsehood (28) | Formation (96) | Govern (65) | Imagine (165) | Imperfect (45) | It Is Said (2) | Judgment (132) | King (35) | Knowledge (1536) | Learn (632) | Learned (235) | Logic (287) | Mathematics (1333) | Mathematics And Logic (12) | Mind (1339) | More (2559) | New (1217) | Occurrence (53) | Persian (4) | Reason (744) | Reasoning (207) | Render (93) | Rule (295) | School (220) | Seldom (65) | Serving (15) | Strengthen (23) | Subject (522) | Truth (1062) | Unfit (12) | Use (766)Eripuit coelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis.
He snatched the lightning from the sky and the sceptre from tyrants.
Admiring Benjamin Franklin in a letter to Samuel P. du Pont, c. 1779.
-- Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot
In I. Bernard Cohen, Benjamin Franklin's Experiments (1941), xxvii.
Science quotes on: | Letter (109) | Lightning (45) | Sceptre (3) | Sky (163) | Snatch (13)People will accept your idea much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first
-- David H. Comins
In Dr. N Sreedharan, Quotations of Wit and Wisdom (2007), 35.
Science quotes on: | Accept (192) | First (1284) | Idea (845) | More (2559) | People (1005) | Tell (340) | Will (2354)The faith of scientists in the power and truth of mathematics is so implicit that their work has gradually become less and less observation, and more and more calculation. The promiscuous collection and tabulation of data have given way to a process of assigning possible meanings, merely supposed real entities, to mathematical terms, working out the logical results, and then staging certain crucial experiments to check the hypothesis against the actual empirical results. But the facts which are accepted by virtue of these tests are not actually observed at all. With the advance of mathematical technique in physics, the tangible results of experiment have become less and less spectacular; on the other hand, their significance has grown in inverse proportion. The men in the laboratory have departed so far from the old forms of experimentation -- typified by Galileo's weights and Franklin's kite -- that they cannot be said to observe the actual objects of their curiosity at all; instead, they are watching index needles, revolving drums, and sensitive plates. No psychology of 'association' of sense-experiences can relate these data to the objects they signify, for in most cases the objects have never been experienced. Observation has become almost entirely indirect; and readings take the place of genuine witness.
-- Susanne K. Langer
Philosophy in a New Key; A Study in Inverse the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art (1942), 19-20.
Science quotes on: | Accept (192) | Actual (117) | Advance (280) | Against (332) | All (4107) | Association (46) | Become (815) | Calculation (128) | Certain (550) | Collection (64) | Curiosity (128) | Data (156) | Deduction (82) | Drum (8) | Empirical (54) | Empiricism (21) | Experience (470) | Experiment (696) | Fact (1212) | Facts (553) | Faith (203) | Form (960) | Galileo Galilei (125) | Genuine (52) | Gradually (102) | Hypothesis (296) | Implicit (12) | Indirect (18) | Instrument (144) | Laboratory (197) | Logic (287) | Mathematics (1333) | Meaning (235) | Merely (316) | Meter (9) | More (2559) | Most (1729) | Never (1087) | Object (422) | Observation (560) | Observe (168) | Observed (149) | Old (480) | Other (2236) | Physic (516) | Physics (533) | Possible (554) | Power (747) | Process (423) | Proportion (136) | Psychology (154) | Reading (133) | Research (677) | Result (678) | Scientist (825) | Sense (770) | Significance (113) | Signify (17) | Spectacular (18) | Tabulation (2) | Tangible (15) | Technique (80) | Term (349) | Terms (184) | Test (212) | Truth (1062) | Virtue (109) | Way (1216) | Weight (136) | Witness (54) | Work (1351)It is impossible not to feel stirred at the thought of the emotions of man at certain historic moments of adventure and discovery -- Columbus when he first saw the Western shore, Pizarro when he stared at the Pacific Ocean, Franklin when the electric spark came from the string of his kite, Galileo when he first turned his telescope to the heavens. Such moments are also granted to students in the abstract regions of thought, and high among them must be placed the morning when Descartes lay in bed and invented the method of co-ordinate geometry.
-- Alfred North Whitehead
Quoted in James Roy Newman, The World of Mathematics (2000), Vol. 1, 239.
Science quotes on: | Abstract (126) | Adventure (56) | Certain (550) | Christopher Columbus (16) | Coordinate Geometry (2) | René Descartes (81) | Discovery (785) | Electric (76) | Electricity (160) | Emotion (100) | Feel (366) | First (1284) | Galileo Galilei (125) | Geometry (259) | Grant (73) | Heaven (258) | Heavens (125) | High (363) | Impossible (253) | Invention (377) | Kite (4) | Man (2249) | Method (506) | Moment (254) | Morning (94) | Must (1526) | Ocean (203) | Pacific Ocean (5) | Saw (160) | Shore (24) | Spark (31) | Star (430) | String (21) | Student (301) | Telescope (99) | Thought (954) | Turn (447) | Western (45)My ideal man is Benjamin Franklin -- the figure in American history most worthy of emulation ... Franklin is my ideal of a whole man. ... Where are the life-size -- or even pint-size -- Benjamin Franklins of today?
-- Isidor Isaac Rabi
Describing his personal hero, in a lecture (1964). In Gerald James Holton, Victory and Vexation in Science: Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, and Others (2005), 92. In John S. Rigden, Science: The Center of Culture (1970), 111-112. In Rabi, Scientist and Citizen (2000), xxv, the author states that a portrait of Benjamin Franklin hung in Rabi's office.
Science quotes on: | Emulate (2) | Figure (160) | Hero (42) | History (675) | Ideal (100) | Life (1799) | Man (2249) | Most (1729) | Today (314) | Whole (738)As an answer to those who are in the habit of saying to every new fact, " What is its use ?" Dr. Franklin says to such, "What is the use of an infant?" The answer of the experimentalist would be, "Endeavour to make it useful."
-- Michael Faraday
From 5th Lecture in 1816, in Bence Jones, The Life and Letters of Faraday (1870), Vol. 1, 218.
Science quotes on: | Answer (366) | Endeavor (67) | Endeavour (63) | Experimentalist (20) | Fact (1212) | Habit (168) | Infant (26) | New (1217) | Say (984) | Use (766) | Useful (250)Some of my youthful readers are developing wonderful imaginations. This pleases me. Imagination has brought mankind through the Dark Ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams -- day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain-machinery whizzing -- are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization. A prominent educator tells me that fairy tales are of untold value in developing imagination in the young. I believe it.
-- L. Frank Baum
Opening paragraph of preface, 'To My Readers', The Lost Princess of Oz (1917), 13.
Science quotes on: | Age (499) | America (127) | Apt (9) | Automobile (22) | Become (815) | Belief (578) | Betterment (4) | Brain (270) | Child (309) | Civilization (206) | Christopher Columbus (16) | Create (235) | Dark (140) | Dark Ages (10) | Day Dream (2) | Develop (268) | Discover (553) | Dream (209) | Educator (5) | Electricity (160) | Engine (98) | Eye (423) | Fairy Tale (7) | Foster (12) | Imagination (328) | Invent (51) | Know (1519) | Lead (385) | Machine (259) | Machinery (56) | Man (2249) | Mankind (340) | Most (1729) | Open (274) | Please (65) | Present (620) | Prominent (6) | Reader (41) | Reality (262) | State (491) | Steam (80) | Steam Engine (46) | Talking (76) | Telephone (27) | Tell (340) | Thing (1915) | Through (849) | Untold (6) | Value (368) | Whiz (2) | Wide (96) | Will (2354) | Woman (152) | Wonderful (149) | World (1778) | Young (228) | Youth (103)We have never had another man like him [Charles Kettering] in America. He is the most willing man to do things I have ever seen. Benjamin Franklin was a little like him. Both had horse sense and love of fun. If a fellow goes to school long enough he gets frozen in his thinking. He is not free any more. But Ket has always been free.
-- Willis R. Whitney
In book review, T.A. Boyd, 'Charles F. Kettering: Prophet of Progress', Science (30 Jan 1959), 256.
Science quotes on: | America (127) | Both (494) | Do (1908) | Enough (341) | Fellow (88) | Free (233) | Freeze (5) | Fun (39) | Horse (75) | Horse Sense (4) | Charles F. Kettering (69) | Little (708) | Long (789) | Love (309) | Man (2249) | More (2559) | Most (1729) | Never (1087) | School (220) | Sense (770) | Thing (1915) | Thinking (415) | Willing (44)Jefferson refused to pin his hopes on the occasional success of honest and unambitious men; on the contrary, the great danger was that philosophers would be lulled into complacence by the accidental rise of a Franklin or a Washington. Any government which made the welfare of men depend on the character of their governors was an illusion.
-- Daniel J. Boorstin
In The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson (1948, 1993), 178.
Science quotes on: | Accidental (27) | Character (243) | Contrary (142) | Danger (116) | Depend (228) | Government (111) | Governor (13) | Great (1575) | Honest (50) | Hope (299) | Illusion (66) | Thomas Jefferson (64) | Occasional (22) | Philosopher (259) | Pin (18) | Rise (166) | Success (303) | George Washington (4) | Welfare (25)
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Apr 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Bruce , Apr 12 2020 13:39 utc | 10
"If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you." Leo Tolstoy
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Apr 06, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Thomas Hobbes argued that life apart from society would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." Outside poor countries and communities, advances in science and industrialization have largely proven him right.
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Apr 06, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
" Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you're being miserable."
– Clare Boothe Luce
You don't have a money problem, you just have the wrong idea.
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Apr 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Mao , Apr 6 2020 2:25 utc | 134
Al Capone Money Quote saying that being a capitalist is the legitimate racket of those in power – with laws to back it up. Al Capone said:"Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class."
https://itsamoneything.com/money/wp-content/uploads/Al-Capone-Capitalism-Ruling-Class-Racket.jpg
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Apr 05, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
And as it is with men, so it is with nations.
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Apr 04, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Tobi , Apr 3 2020 22:08 utc | 76
Posted by: Christian J Chuba | @ 7Like Winston Churchill said " You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."
We'll get there eventually but will wear out a lot of shovels digging deeper in the process.
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NoseytheDuke , says: Show Comment March 27, 2020 at 1:29 am GMTMar 29, 2020 | www.unz.com
,
@Antiwar7 Was it PT Barnum who said that nobody ever went broke underestimating the American people?
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Mar 28, 2020 | quoteinvestigator.com
Otto von Bismarck? Cynical Broker? Hy Sheridan? Claud Cockburn? Edward Cheyfitz? Anonymous?
Dear Quote Investigator: Cynicism regarding official edicts is not a new phenomenon. Reportedly, the powerful German leader Otto von Bismarck once said:
Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.
Yet, these words have also been attributed to more recent political figures such as the journalist Claud Cockburn and the Washington attorney Edward Cheyfitz. Would you please help determine the proper ascription?
Quote Investigator: This sharp remark which borders on paradox can be expressed in many ways; hence, it has been difficult to trace. The earliest evidence located by QI was published in "The Tri-Weekly Gleaner" of Kingston, Jamaica in 1897. A writer suggested that pronouncements from the government in the Transvaal region of Africa were unreliable. The adage about official denials was credited to a "cautious observer". Boldface has been added to excerpts: 1
The fact that the Government have once more pledged themselves to execute reforms is taken as quite sufficient reason for not believing in them. A cautious observer declared: "I never accept anything about the Government until it has been officially denied; then I know it is true."
In 1900 "The Times" newspaper of London printed a letter from a correspondent with the moniker "Behind the Scenes" who presented the witticism as an axiom and provided no attribution. 2 The same letter was reprinted in "The St. James Gazette" of London: 3
It is an axiom of practical politics never to believe anything until it has been officially denied.
Otto von Bismarck died in 1898, and an instance of the saying was attributed to him by 1911. Claud Cockburn included a version in his 1956 memoir, but he was relaying an unattributed remark. In 1958 a note in the "Reader's Digest" cited "Look" magazine to credit Edward Cheyfitz. These citations were rather late, and the current evidence favors an anonymous origin.
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Mar 28, 2020 | www.democraticunderground.com
he said it to Sarah McClendon- in Dec. of '92.
Here's a link to keepers of her papers- don't know how to access them though-
Found it !
The original interview article is kept at the University of Missouri. the Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Columbia
Followed the quote to a few places that gave me more information.
------------------------------------------------http://www.antichristconspiracy.com/conspiracy1.htm
"If the people were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets and lynched."
President George H.W. Bush, quoted by Sarah McClendon (White House Reporter) in her June 1992 Newsletter.
----------------
http://www.newworldpeace.com/purge.html
"George Bush, what will the people do if they ever find out the truth about Iraq-gate and Iran contra?
'Sarah, if the American people ever find out what we have done (including the orchestration of September 11, the murder of JFK, Jr, the destruction of New Orleans and this Constitutional Republic), they will chase us down the streets and lynch us.'"
-- From a June, 1992 exclusive and published interview granted by President George H. W. Bush
to Sarah McClendon, the grand dame of the White House press corps at the time.---------------------------------------------
Here's where it is located----->
McClendon, Sarah Newcomb (1910-2003), Papers, 1931-1992 (C2579)
INTRODUCTION
The personal and professional papers of Sarah Newcomb McClendon, White House journalist and women's rights advocate, contain biographical information, correspondence, newspaper columns, speeches, and other miscellaneous writings, photographs, negatives, newspaper clippings and magazine articles, awards, certificates, press badges, press cards, programs, posters, federal agency reports and publications, research, and family materials.
DONOR INFORMATION
The Sarah Newcomb McClendon Papers were donated to the University of Missouri by Sarah McClendon on February 1, 1988 (Accession No. 4827). Additions to the papers were made by McClendon on August 21, 1990 (Accession No. 4982), June 18, 1991 (Accession No. 5048), and June 16, 1992 (Accession No. 5185). The papers are part of the National Women and Media Collection.
http://whmc.umsystem.edu/invent/2579.html
INDEX TERMS
These index terms are the subjects, people, places, etc. under which this collection is listed
in all available indexes at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Columbia.!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you are interested in a specific index term, please contact the reference staff. http://whmc.umsystem.edu/whmc/ref.html
Snip-->
Bush, George Herbert Walker (1924- ) f. 57, 60, 63, 64
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Mar 27, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Nathan Mulcahy , Mar 27 2020 16:08 utc | 220
@ by: bevin | Mar 27 2020 15:52 utc | 216..... and to quote my favorite author Mark Twain: " it is easier to fool people than to make them concede that they have been fooled".
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Mar 19, 2020 | en.wikiquote.org
- The fault I find with most American newspapers is not the absence of dissent. it is the absence of news. With a dozen or so honorable exceptions, most American newspapers carry very little news. Their main concern is advertising.
- The Haunted Fifties (1963)
- A certain moral imbecility marks all ethnocentric movements.
- I.F. Stone's Weekly ( 1967-08-03 )
- All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.
- In a Time of Torment, 1961-1967 (1967), p. 317
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Mar 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Copeland , Mar 18 2020 23:04 utc | 93
"Treason doth never prosper-- what's the reason?
For if it doth prosper, none dare call it treason".--John Harington
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Mar 17, 2020 | off-guardian.org
George Mc ,
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Attributed to Mark Twain.
Dave Hansell ,
Presumably that would also include statistics on previous years flu cases, suicide statistics, deaths from car accidents statistics, deaths from knife crime, or Ben population statistics?Or are some statistics more valid than others depending on their utility in arguing a particular case or agenda?
George Mc ,
Twain – or whoever- was drawing attention to the easiness of manipulating statistics – which is why we should scrutinise them as Catte has done above.
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If you shoot one person you are a murderer. If you kill a couple persons you are a gangster. If you are a crazy statesman and send millions to their deaths you are a hero. - Watertown Daily Times.
As noted previously in this article, in January 1947 the saying was attributed to Stalin in a syndicated column by Leonard Lyons:
Stalin interrupted him to say: "If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that's only statistics."
Also in 1947 Charlie Chaplin played the role of Henri Verdoux in the movie "Monsieur Verdoux". A line from the script written and spoken by Chaplin echoed the words Beilby Porteus: 7
That's the history of many a big business. Wars, conflict, it's all business. One murder makes a villain, millions a hero. Numbers sanctify my good fellow.
In October 1948 "The Atlantic" monthly magazine published an instance, but the words were not attributed to Stalin; instead, the speaker was characterized only as a "Frenchman". The quotation appeared in a book review column called "The Atlantic Bookshelf" which was written by Charles J. Rolo. This attribution may have been an echo of Tucholsky's French diplomat: 8
Scourges as immense as fascism and war present the novelist with a knotty problem of ways and means. A Frenchman has aptly remarked that "a single man killed is a misfortune, a million is a statistic." How to encompass the emotional reality of that aggregate of horrors which so easily becomes "a statistic" or a remote abstraction - "war dead," "purge," "pogrom"?
In 1956 the German novel "Der Schwarze Obelisk" by the prominent author Erich Maria Remarque was released. In 1957 it was translated into English and published as "The Black Obelisk". Remarque included an instance without attribution: 9
It's strange, I think, all of us have seen so many dead in the war and we know that over two million of us fell uselessly-why, then, are we so excited about a single man, when we have practically forgotten the two million already? But probably the reason is that one dead man is death-and two million are only a statistic.
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Mar 13, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Greenbean950 , Mar 13 2020 14:15 utc | 5
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.H. L. Mencken
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Mar 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
DFC , Mar 9 2020 22:17 utc | 64
"I have the hunch that this is a normal flu" (D.J.Trump, March 2020)"I have the hunch the recovery is around the corner" (Herbert Hoover, November 1929)
That is the way POTUS go down in History
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Mar 10, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Parker Dooley , March 9, 2020 at 1:53 pm
"Saving" Wall Street really amounts to "saving" the tapeworm while discarding the host.
But we love love love our tapeworm -- especially our "healthcare plans" and "capitalism".
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Mar 09, 2020 | nymag.com
"A cannibal doesn't eat his friends."
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Feb 27, 2020 | founders.archives.gov
Today, Carnegie continued, "we assemble thousands of operatives in the factory, and in the mine, of whom the employer can know little or nothing, and to whom he is little better than a myth. ЛИ intercourse between them is at an end. Rigid castes are formed, and, as usual, mutual ignorance breeds mutual distrust. Each caste is with- out sympathy with the other, and ready to credit anything disparaging in regard to it."
That shift was particularly profound in America -- one reason, perhaps, that even today the national mythology doesn't entirely accept the existence of those "rigid castes" of industrial society that Carnegie described a hun- dred years ago. The America of the national foundation story -- the country as it was during the American Revolution -- was one of the most egalitarian societies on the planet. That was the proud declaration of the founders.
In a letter from Monticello dated September 10, 1814, to Dr. Thomas Cooper, the Anglo-American polymath (he practiced law, taught both chemistry and political economics, and was a university president), Thomas Jefferson wrote, "We have no paupers. . . . The great mass of our population is of laborers; our rich, who can live without labor, either manual or professional,
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Feb 27, 2020 | en.wikipedia.org
If intellectuals replace the current professional politicians as the leaders of society the situation would become much worse. Because they have neither the sense of reality, nor common sense. For them, the words and speeches are more important than the actual social laws and the dominant trends, the dominant social dynamics of the society. The psychological principle of the intellectuals is that we could organize everything much better, but we are not allowed to do it.
But the actual situation is as following: they could organize the life of society as they wish and plan, in the way they view is the best only if under conditions that are not present now are not feasible in the future. Therefore they are not able to act even at the level of current leaders of the society, which they despise. The actual leaders are influenced by social pressures, by the current social situation, but at least they doing something. Intellectuals are unhappy that the real stream of life they are living in. They consider it wrong. that makes them very dangerous, because they look really smart, while in reality being sophisticated professional idiots.
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Feb 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Valar Morghulis , Feb 6 2020 18:32 utc | 46
it's not an actual Stalin quote, but often used as such
he did say something in the same vein, though.
it IS absolutely spot on here:"It's not who vote that counts, it's who counts the votes"
congratulations, DNC, you're on a par with Joseph Stalin; the most ruthless chairman the Sovyets have ever had.
so here is your real Russia Gate.
oh, come and smell the Irony.vk , Feb 6 2020 18:52 utc | 50
@ Posted by: Valar Morghulis | Feb 6 2020 18:32 utc | 47Oh, so you think the problem is only with the DNC?
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Feb 05, 2020 | caucus99percent.com
Job opening; Patsy wanted. Great pay. Free travel voucher. Three hots and a cot. Dynamic workplace. Free college. Meet new and exciting people.
Lifetime position.-
"View user profile." href="https://caucus99percent.com/users/earthling1"> earthling1
Exit polls not involving George W. Bush or Hillary Clinton tend to be quite accurate.
--Doug HatlemMr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: Once happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action.
-- Ian Fleming, Goldfinger
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Feb 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
DeaconPews , 3 hours ago link
Charlie_Martel , 3 hours ago linkThey don't teach history anymore. It's all indoctrination.
"The winners write the history." -Napoleon
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Feb 01, 2020 | www.youtube.com
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." ― Theodore Roosevelt
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Feb 01, 2020 | www.youtube.com
"The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society."― Thomas Jefferson
DA Poppa , 1 day ago (edited)"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." ― Thomas Jefferson TRUMP 2020
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Jan 24, 2020 | caucus99percent.com
"The trouble [with injustice] is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There is no innocence. Either way, you're accountable."
--
-- Arundhati RoyThe truth is never as interesting as wild speculation. --
In the Land of the Blind, the one-eyed man is declared insane when he speaks of colors. --
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
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Jan 19, 2020 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"...we had come to the stage where for our people what was needed was a real democracy; and of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy."Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography
"Stand up for what you believe, even if you are standing alone."
Sophie Scholl
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Jan 19, 2020 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"We've surpassed the $400 billion mark They call it 'not QE' because it's maturities of 12 months or less. But as of now, we have a $100-billion-per-month run rate of 'not QE.'"
Danielle DiMartino Booth
"Nations, like individuals, cannot become desperate gamblers with impunity. Punishment is sure to overtake them sooner or later."
Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
"But you can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them."
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
"The barbarian hopes -- and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being.
We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles."
Hilaire Belloc
"'Woe to you, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. On the outside you appear righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. You snakes, you brood of vipers.'"
Matt 23: 23-33
"Realize that narcissists have an addiction disorder. They are strongly addicted to feeling significant. Like any addict they will do whatever it takes to get this feeling often. That is why they are manipulative and fakers. They promise change, but can't deliver if it interferes with their addiction."
Shannon L. Alder
"As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool returns to his folly."
Proverbs 26:11
"This is the contempt in which they hold the majority of American people and the political process: the common people are easily led fools, and everyone else who is smart enough to know better has their price.
And they would beggar every middle class voter in the US before they will voluntarily give up one dime of their ill gotten gains."
Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, May 2009
"Remember that there will be trying times in the last days. For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, dishonoring their parents, and ungrateful. To them nothing is sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and despise what is good. They will betray their friends, be reckless and proud, and love pleasures of the world more than God. They may talk like they are religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Shun them."
2 Timothy 3:1-5
"When we talk about company culture in the context of financial services, the first thing that comes to mind is the risky, unethical, and sometimes criminal behavior in the banking industry, particularly during the financial crisis. And ten years on from the crisis, this behavior persists. [Persists? It remains their very business model] Instances of fraud, money laundering, and scandals related to foreign exchange and LIBOR continue to make the headlines.
This behavior puts a spotlight on the essential role of robust regulation and strict enforcement [which is the primary responsibility of the NY Fed]. But illicit and unethical behavior is rarely the result of an isolated 'bad apple.' [or a rogue trader] It's more often the symptom of a rotten culture. And rotten cultures don't appear overnight -- nor for that matter do positive, inclusive ones, where people feel empowered and accountable to upholding the values of the organization.
Culture is created -- intentionally or otherwise -- by the structures, incentives, and behavioral norms that shape our working lives."
John C Williams, President, NY Fed, Getting to the Core of Culture, 14 January 2020, London
"Oh, yes, we shall be in chains and there will be no freedom, but then, in our great sorrow, we shall rise again to joy, without which man cannot live nor God exist, for God gives joy: it's His privilege -- a grand one. Ah, man should be dissolved in prayer! What should I be underground there without God?
If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground. One cannot exist in prison without God; it's even more impossible than out of prison. And then we men underground will sing from the bowels of the earth a glorious hymn to God, with Whom is joy. Hail to God and His joy! I love Him!"
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
"Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory, or one of unthinkable horror."
C. S. Lewis
"Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering, in order that they may have existence."
Léon Bloy
"We shall not cease from exploring
And at the end of our exploration
We will return to where we started
And know the place for the first time
Through the unknown, unremembered gate."T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding
"It's déjà vu all over again."
Yogi Berra
"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter -- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning -- --
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Dickie: Where are we going?
Stymie: I don't know, brother, but we're on our way.The Little Rascals, Free Wheeling
"The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small. It is nearly nil. Perhaps this is inherent. In a community where the primary concern is making money, one of the necessary rules is to live and let live. To speak out against madness may be to ruin those who have succumbed to it. So the wise in Wall Street are nearly always silent. The foolish thus have the field to themselves. None rebukes them."
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash of 1929
"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit."
Matthew 7:15-18
"Fear not, little flock, for your Father's delight is to welcome you into His Kingdom."
Luke 12:32
"It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought."
John Kenneth Galbraith
"There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true."
Søren Kierkegaard
"Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris, waits impatiently for her meeting with us."
Chalmers Johnson
"In a sense, blowback is simply another way of saying that a nation reaps what it sows. Although people usually know what they have sown, our national experience of blowback is seldom imagined in such terms because so much of what the managers of the American empire have sown has been kept secret.
Even an empire cannot control the long-term effects of its policies. That is the essence of blowback."
Chalmers Johnson, Blowback
"...we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips."Shakespeare, Macbeth
"And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy...
Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way."
Milton Meyer, They Thought They Were Free
"Many politicians are tantalizing storytellers, as they mix facts with fiction, grab our emotion and tell things they want us to believe. Their factoids are unremittingly reiterated, take a life on their own, and in the end become the very truth -- until the bubble bursts."
Erik Pevernagie
"The narcissist devours people, consumes their output, and casts the empty, writhing shells aside."
Sam Vaknin
"Fragility is the quality of things that are vulnerable to volatility."
Nassim Taleb
"Four sorrows are certain to be visited on the United States.
- First, there will be a state of perpetual war.
- Second is a loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co-equal 'executive branch' of government into a military junta.
- Third is the replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, power, and the military legions.
- Lastly, there is bankruptcy, as the United States pours its economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchanges the education, health, and safety of its citizens."
- Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire, 2005
"Seneca had made the bargain that many good men have made when agreeing to aid bad regimes. On the one hand, their presence strengthens the regime and helps it endure. But their moral influence may also improve the regime's behavior or save the lives of its enemies. For many, this has been a bargain worth making, even if it has cost them -- as it may have cost Seneca -- their immortal soul."
James Romm, Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero
"If you are wise and understand God's ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don't hide the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God's kind of wisdom. Such things are worldly, carnal, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind."
James 3:13-15
"Wash the plate, not because it is dirty, or because you are told to wash it, but because you love the person who will use it next."
Mother Teresa of Calcutta
"How contrary are the teachings of Jesus to the feelings of nature. Without the help of His grace it would be impossible not only to put them into practice, but to even understand them.
Holiness consists simply in doing God's will, and being just what God wants us to be. Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them. Without love, deeds, even the greatest, count as nothing."
Thérèse Martin de Lisieux
"We pray for the big things, and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small, and yet really not so small, blessings."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Wash the plate, not because it is dirty, or because you are told to wash it, but because you love the person who will use it next."
Mother Teresa of Calcutta
"How contrary are the teachings of Jesus to the feelings of nature. Without the help of His grace it would be impossible not only to put them into practice, but to even understand them.
Holiness consists simply in doing God's will, and being just what God wants us to be. Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them. Without love, deeds, even the greatest, count as nothing."
Thérèse Martin de Lisieux
"We pray for the big things, and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small, and yet really not so small, blessings."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Wall Street Banks and the Fed
"In the last days the culture of society will become angry and hard, and a trial for those who love God. For people will be self-centered, lovers of themselves and obsessed with money. They will boast of great accomplishments, and strut around in their prideful arrogance, mocking all that is good and kind. They will neglect to love even their own families, and act ungrateful and lawless.Many will become addicted to hateful and malicious thoughts and hateful words. Slaves to their desires, they will be ferocious, angry despisers of what is good and right. With brutal treachery, they will act without restraint, bigoted and blinded by clouds of conceit.
They will demand and find their delight in the pleasures of this world, and ignore their need to serve God. They may act religious, but they want to serve themselves."
2 Timothy 3:1-5
"Paul turned the Emperor and said, 'When they permitted you to mount your father's throne, it was only on the assurance that you'd keep the spice flowing. You've failed them, Majesty. Do you know the consequences?'"
Frank Herbert, Dune
"Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country.
When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin!
Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out."
Andrew Jackson, From the original minutes of his meeting with the Philadelphia bankers, February 1834, from Andrew Jackson and the Bank of the United States (1928) by Stan V. Henkels
"Democracy is held captive, not just by money, but by ideas -- the ideas that money buys."
William Greider
Mammon, Child of Pride
"Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction."Erich Fromm
"Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population. Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful (though sometimes badly mismanaged) industries such as telecommunications, health care, automobiles, and energy. These policies are implemented and praised by these groups' willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America's political parties, academia, and lobbying industry.
If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultrawealthy elite. Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism.
The real challenge is figuring out how the United States can regain control of its future from its new oligarchy and restore its position as a prosperous, fair, well-educated nation."
Charles Ferguson, Predator nation
"Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege."
Thomas Clement Douglas
"If you are wise and understand God's ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don't hide the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God's kind of wisdom. Such things are worldly, carnal, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.
But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to make a way for others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no bias and is always sincere. And those who are peaceful will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness."
James 3:13-18
"God has ordered the world so that we may learn to help bear another's burdens; for no one is without fault, no one is without their burdens, no one is sufficient in themselves, no one is wise enough by themselves; therefore we ought to bear with one another, comfort one another, help, instruct, and admonish one another."
Thomas À Kempis
"Crime, once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity."
Tacitus
"At times God will be the only witness to your righteous behavior. Sometimes God is the only one who will understand your motives. At such times all you can do is maintain your integrity, trusting that God always keeps His eyes on you. God looks favorably upon those who walk with integrity, doing what they know is right, regardless of how others perceive their actions. The most important thing is that you are a person of integrity before God."
Henry Blackaby, Integrity Upheld
"Evil, when we are in its power, is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty. Power is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the latter it crushes, the former it intoxicates. The truth is, no one really possesses it."
Simone Weil
Cromwell: Sir Richard is appointed Attorney General for Wales.
Thomas More: For Wales. Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world -- but for Wales?"Robert Bolt, A Man For All Seasons
"It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery. These may, perhaps, succeed at first, and limp along on hope for awhile with a flourishing appearance. But time betrays their weakness, and they eventually fall into ruin of their own designs."
Demosthenes
"They are hypocrites -- they think the Church is a cage to keep God in, so he will stay locked up there and not go wandering about the earth during the week, poking his nose into their business, and looking in the depths and darkness and doubleness of their hearts, and their lack of true charity; and they believed they need only be bothered about him on Sundays when they have their best clothes on and their faces straight, and their hands washed and their gloves on, and their stories all prepared."
Margaret Atwood
"Demagogues are willing to do or say anything to gain office or to consolidate their power. Unconstrained by ideology, they have no concern for the consequences of their actions. Anything that serves to make them more powerful is good enough for them -- even if the political system that facilitated their rise should be destroyed in the process.
This, rather than some deep similarity to fascism, also explains the affinity between demagogues and political violence. True fascists venerate violence but also want to make it serve a purpose larger than themselves, like territorial conquest. Demagogues, on the other hand, tap into the most violent currents in a population simply to bolster their own popularity.
In the process, they often unleash lethal damage. They wreck the informal rules of civility that democracies require to survive. Once voters are activated along violent lines and fervently believe the myths propagated by the demagogue, the dam is broken; the ordinary rules of democratic politics no longer apply, and there is no telling what might come next."
Daniel Ziblatt
"The inability to identify with others was unquestionably the most important psychological condition for the fact that something like Auschwitz could have occurred in the midst of more or less civilized and innocent people. What is called 'fellow traveling' [collaboration] was primarily business interest: one pursues one's own advantage before all else and, simply not to endanger oneself, does not talk too much. That is a general law of the status quo."
Theodor Adorno
"I will not bow, and God grant that we will never bow, before the gods of evil."
Martin Luther King, But If Not
"O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!"William Shakespeare, Prologue, Henry V
"Since God has accepted you to be among the holy people that He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tender mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowances for each other's faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must also forgive others.
Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which brings us all together in harmony. And let the peace of the Lord rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful."
Col 3:12-15
"An old woman came down this way,
She had no bread left to eat they say,
The bread was gobbled by the corporate men,
And she fell in the gutter in the cold and rain,
And was never hungry again."Bertolt Brecht, Liturgie vom Hauch, 1927
There are those contentious and disorderly people, who engage in useless speculation and deceptive talk, and focus on divisive points of dispute... All things are good to the pure of heart, but to these corrupt and disbelieving controversialists nothing can be good, since both their minds and and their hearts are corrupted. They may say that they know God, but by their actions they deny Him, being corrupt and disobedient, and of no use for any good purpose."
Titus 1:10,15-16
"How terrible it will be for those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute what is bitter for what is sweet and what is sweet for what is bitter!"
Isaiah 5:20
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Jan 19, 2020 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."
J.R.R. Tolkien
"We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination."
C.S. Lewis
"If the devil tells you something is too fearful to look at, look at it. If he says something is too terrible to hear, hear it. If you think some truth unbearable, bear it."
G.K. Chesterton
"The barbarian hopes -- and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being.
We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles."
Hilaire Belloc
"In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists."
Hannah Arendt
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Jan 19, 2020 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers the most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all. It is his own existence, his own being, that is at once the subject and the source of his pain, and his very existence and consciousness is his greatest torture."
Thomas Merton
"One reason we rush so quickly to the vulgar satisfactions of judgement, and love to revel in our righteous outrage, is that it spares us from the impotent pain of empathy, and the harder, messier work of understanding.
Let me propose that if your beliefs or convictions matter more to you than people -- if they require you to act as though you were a worse person than you are -- you may have lost perspective."
Tim Kreider
"The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself: 'O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity -- greedy, dishonest, adulterous -- or even like this tax collector over there."
Luke 18:11
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Jan 19, 2020 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that "the market" delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.
We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances.
It has played a major role in a remarkable variety of crises: the financial meltdown of 2007‑8, the offshoring of wealth and power, of which the Panama Papers offer us merely a glimpse, the slow collapse of public health and education, resurgent child poverty, the epidemic of loneliness, the collapse of ecosystems, the rise of Donald Trump. But we respond to these crises as if they emerge in isolation, apparently unaware that they have all been either catalysed or exacerbated by the same coherent philosophy; a philosophy that has – or had – a name. What greater power can there be than to operate namelessly?"
George Monbiot
"Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies."
Robert F. Kennedy
"`But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
`Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. `Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!'
It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.
`At this time of the rolling year,' the spectre said `I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!'
Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.
`Hear me!' cried the Ghost. `My time is nearly gone.'"
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
"I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."
Alan Greenspan, apologising for his disastrous, ideologically-biased policies promoting financial deregulation , 23 October 2008
"Two souls, alas, are housed within my breast,
And each will wrestle for the mastery there...To speak the truth, as truth to me appeared,
Caused noisy protest, I was hooted down.
Such unpleasant incidents occurred
I ran off, to be on my own,
into a wilderness. Utterly forsaken,
I fell into that devil's grip, and was taken."Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust
"Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been [or could be] passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun."
Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater
"Isn't it a riddle and awe-inspiring that things can be so beautiful, despite the horrors? I've seen something wondrous peering through my joy in the beautiful, a sense of its creator.
Only people can be truly ugly, because they have free will to separate themselves from this song of praise. It often seems they may drown out this hymn with cannon thunder, curses, and blasphemy. But I have realized they will not succeed. And so I want to throw myself on the side of the victor."
Sophie Scholl
"Four sorrows are certain to be visited on the United States.
- First, there will be a state of perpetual war.
- Second is a loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co-equal 'executive branch' of government into a military junta.
- Third is the replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, power, and the military legions.
- Lastly, there is bankruptcy, as the United States pours its economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchanges the education, health, and safety of its citizens."
- Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire , 2005
"Do not be fooled into thinking that you will never suffer because you say that I dwell among you. It is your delusion and lying words. Do you really believe you can steal, murder, commit adultery, lie, and worship the gods of the world and those other new gods of yours, and then come here and stand before me in my own house and say, 'We are safe', only to go right back to all your lawlessness again? Do you not see that this house of yours, which you mark with my name, has become a den of thieves?"
Jeremiah 7:5-7
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Jan 18, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
The technocrats and neocons claim to be acting in the "national interest" but is that claim ever assessed in terms of logical validity or results.
As a part of the nation I am truly sceptical as to weather my life was somehow enhanced by the middle east conquest and disruption. I know there are other factors and they should be assessed one by one and an aggregate conclusion could be made. I know they like to resort to "national security" but seems a stretch to say that this has enhanced our security in the long term unless the plan is to destroy all life in the middle east (save a select few).Posted by: Jared | Jan 18 2020 17:43 utc | 151
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Jan 10, 2020 | thesaker.is
Лишний Человек on January 09, 2020 , · at 11:02 pm EST/EDT
Thank you for this excellent interview. You ask the kind of questions that we would all like to ask. It's regrettable that Chalmers Johnson isn't still alive. I believe that you and he would have a lot in common.Naxos has produced an incredible, unabridged cd audiobook of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. One of Gibbon's observations really resonates today: "Assassination is the last resource of cowards". Thanks again.
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Jan 08, 2020 | quoteinvestigator.com
In 1928 a columnist for the "Chicago Tribune" penned a sardonic passage about war and geographical knowledge: 7
In 1929 a newspaper in Canton, Ohio 8 and "The Washington Post" 9 both printed a one-liner quip on this topic that specifically referred to Americans:Wars should be stopped. At the same time they have their good points. How many of you reading this essay would have known whether Bolivia and Paraguay were in South America or at the North Pole if it hadn't been for the recent war scare? Think how much happier you are now that you know Paraguay is on top of the Alps -- or is it the Alps? Anyhow, geography makes us all better men and women. And war teaches us geography. Gittup!
Wars do some good, but they are a rather expensive way to teach Americans geography.
In 1932 a paper in Madison, Wisconsin: 10 and a paper in Greeley, Colorado published a different acerbic one-liner 11
Think of all those poor fellows dying over there just to teach Americans a little geography.
In 1987 the "Los Angeles Times" published some backstage notes about the Comic Relief concert broadcast by the HBO cable network. A joke by the comedian Paul Rodriguez caught the attention of the reporter who reprinted it in the article. This was the earliest close match to the popular modern jibe known to QI : 12
Paul Rodriguez got up to say "War is God's way of teaching us geography."
In 1996 the book "Comic Relief" containing extensive excerpts from comedy routines by top performers was published. The section for Paul Rodriguez included an instance of the quip with some surrounding material: 13
You know we live in such a pathetic world. It seems as if every year or so there's another new war breaking out somewhere. There was war in Sri Lanka. War in Beruit. War in Yugoslavia. In Croatia.
Sometimes I think war is God's way of teaching us geography.
Also in 1996 the book "That's Funny: a Compendium of Over 1,000 Great Jokes from Today's Hottest Comedians" was released, and it credited the line above to Rodriguez. 14
By 2001 the jape had been reassigned to the prominent humorist Ambrose Bierce. For example, in 2001 the "Los Angeles Times" published a commentary by Larry Minear who was the director of the Humanitarianism and War Project at Tufts University. Minear recounted the quip and credited Bierce: 15
If, as American writer Ambrose Bierce is said to have observed, "war is God's way of teaching Americans geography," Sept. 11 represents a wake-up call.
A writer in "The San Francisco Chronicle" noticed the linkage between the jibe and Bierce in the "Los Angeles Times", and he facilitated its dissemination by repeating it for his readers: 16
Yes, there have been a few enjoyable things in the news in recent days. How about this quote from the L.A. Times op-ed page, one attributed to Ambrose Bierce: "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."
The industrious quotation compiler Robert Byrne included an instance in "2,548 Wittiest Things Anybody Ever Said" where the words emblazoned on the back cover were ascribed to a well-known television comedian: 17
JON STEWART
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."
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Jan 08, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
75% Of Registered Voters Can't Identify Iran On A Map Zero Hedge
As thousands of American service members prepare for the worst in the Middle East following an American drone strike that killed Iran's second-most powerful man, just 23% of registered voters can identify the Islamic republic on an unlabeled map of the globe, according to a Morning Consult/Politico survey.
When shown an unlabeled map of just the Middle East, the number rose to a still-abysmal 28% . Eight percent of those thought Iran was Iraq on the second map - just like Joe Biden .
Of those surveyed, men were around twice as likely as women to identify Iran on both maps...
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Jan 08, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com
turcopolier , 17 September 2019 at 09:31 PM
jonstMatt -> turcopolier ... , 18 September 2019 at 12:54 AMWe have been so thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that Iran and Russia are intrinsically and immutable evil and hostile that the thought of actual two sided diplomacy does not occur. IMO neither of these countries are what we collectively think them. So, we could actually give it a try rather than trying to beggar them and destroy their economies. If all fails than we have to be prepared to defend our forces. DOL
I agree with your reply 100%
- Iranophobia goes back to 1979,
- Russophobia goes back to at least 1917 if not further, especially in the UK,
- Sinophobia for the US reaches back to the mid to late 1800's
these phobias are so entrenched now they're a huge obstacle to overcome,
Mark Twain: "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."
William Casey: "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false"
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Jan 07, 2020 | www.nytimes.com
FedGod New York 6h ago
When small men cast long shadows .. The Sun is about to set ~An old Chinese proverb.
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Jan 07, 2020 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
Rome and the whole pagan world had gone mad, and Caesar was swimming in blood.. . "Four sorrows are certain to be visited on the United States.First, there will be a state of perpetual war. Second is a loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co-equal 'executive branch' of government into a military junta. Third is the replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, power, and the military legions. Lastly, there is bankruptcy, as the United States pours its economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchanges the education, health, and safety of its citizens." Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire, 2005
"Seneca had made the bargain that many good men have made when agreeing to aid bad regimes. On the one hand, their presence strengthens the regime and helps it endure. But their moral influence may also improve the regime's behavior or save the lives of its enemies. For many, this has been a bargain worth making, even if it has cost them -- as it may have cost Seneca -- their immortal soul." ~James Romm, Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero
"If you are wise and understand God's ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don't hide the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God's kind of wisdom. Such things are worldly, carnal, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind." ~James 3:13-15
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Jan 17, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
BluebellWood -> Supermassive , 29 Nov 2018 12:41
Yep - education is the key.I remember at school we read Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language in an English class and then we were set a writing task as a follow-up, reporting on the same story using the same facts, from completely opposing points of view, using euphemism and mind-numbing cliches. Teach children to do this themselves and they can see how language can be skewed and facts distorted and misrepresented without technically lying.
How many children in schools are taught such critical thinking these days, I wonder? It might be taught in Media Studies, I suppose - but gosh, don't the right really hate that particular subject! Critical thinking is anathema to them.
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Jan 03, 2020 | thesaker.is
Sun Tzu on January 03, 2020 , · at 3:21 pm EST/EDT
"The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself."
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Jan 03, 2020 | thesaker.is
Tom Welsh on January 03, 2020 , · at 5:39 pm EST/EDT
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends".It's like a queen sacrifice in chess, where the player gives up his own life to win the game.
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Jan 01, 2020 | www.unz.com
Digital Samizdat says: December 19, 2019 at 6:01 pm GMT @Colin Wright
Echoing words once supposedly used by Hermann Goering: whenever I here the word 'philanthropist' these days, I instinctively reach for my revolver!
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Jan 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
james , Dec 29 2019 17:18 utc | 7
@ 5 steven t johnson quote " I think money put into financial speculation is money not invested in satisfying human needs." you've just provided another description of wall st.. thanks...
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Dec 23, 2019 | en.wikipedia.org
The psychological phenomenon of illusory superiority was identified as a form of cognitive bias in Kruger and Dunning's 1999 study, "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments". [1] The identification derived from the cognitive bias evident in the criminal case of McArthur Wheeler, who robbed banks while his face was covered with lemon juice, which he believed would make it invisible to the surveillance cameras. This belief was based on his misunderstanding of the chemical properties of lemon juice as an invisible ink . [2]
Other investigations of the phenomenon, such as "Why People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence" (2003), indicate that much incorrect self-assessment of competence derives from the person's ignorance of a given activity's standards of performance. [3] Dunning and Kruger's research also indicates that training in a task, such as solving a logic puzzle, increases people's ability to accurately evaluate how good they are at it. [4]
In Self-insight: Roadblocks and Detours on the Path to Knowing Thyself (2005), Dunning described the Dunning–Kruger effect as "the anosognosia of everyday life", referring to a neurological condition in which a disabled person either denies or seems unaware of his or her disability. He stated: "If you're incompetent, you can't know you're incompetent ... The skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is." [5] [6]
In 2011, David Dunning wrote about his observations that people with substantial, measurable deficits in their knowledge or expertise lack the ability to recognize those deficits and, therefore, despite potentially making error after error, tend to think they are performing competently when they are not: "In short, those who are incompetent, for lack of a better term, should have little insight into their incompetence -- an assertion that has come to be known as the Dunning–Kruger effect". [7] In 2014, Dunning and Helzer described how the Dunning–Kruger effect "suggests that poor performers are not in a position to recognize the shortcomings in their performance". [8]
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Dec 23, 2019 | astutenews.com
December 22, 2019 A Opinion Leave a comment It is amazing how easily, without resistance, the Western empire is managing to destroy "rebellious" countries that are standing in its way.
... ... ...
For instance, in 2015 and in 2019, I tried to sit down and reason with the Hong Kong rioters. It was a truly revealing experience! They knew nothing, absolutely zero about the crimes the West has been committing in places such as Afghanistan, Syria or Libya. When I tried to explain to them, how many Latin American democracies Washington had overthrown, they thought I was a lunatic. How could the good, tender, 'democratic' West murder millions, and bathe entire continents in blood? That is not what they were taught at their universities. That is not what the BBC, CNN or even the China Morning Post said and wrote.
Look, I am serious. I showed them photos from Afghanistan and Syria; photos stored in my phone. They must have understood that this was original, first hand stuff. Still, they looked, but their brains were not capable of processing what they were being shown. Images and words; these people were conditioned not to comprehend certain types of information.
But this is not only happening in Hong Kong, a former British colony.
... .... ...
You will maybe find it hard to believe, but even in a Communist country like Vietnam; a proud country, a country which suffered enormously from both French colonialism and the U.S. mad and brutal imperialism, people that I associated with (and I lived in Hanoi for 2 years) knew close to nothing about the horrendous crimes committed against the poor and defenseless neighboring Laos, by the U.S. and its allies during the so-called "Secret War"; crimes that included the bombing of peasants and water buffalos, day and night, by strategic B-52 bombers. And in Laos, where I covered de-mining efforts, people knew nothing about the same monstrosities that the West had committed in Cambodia; murdering hundreds of thousands of people by carpet bombing, displacing millions of peasants from their homes, triggering famine and opening the doors to the Khmer Rouge takeover.When I am talking about this shocking lack of knowledge in Vietnam, regarding the region and what it was forced to go through, I am not speaking just about the shop-keepers or garment workers. It applies to Vietnamese intellectuals, artists, teachers. It is total amnesia, and it came with the so-called 'opening up' to the world, meaning with the consumption of Western mass media and later by the infiltration of social media.
At least Vietnam shares borders as well as a turbulent history with both Laos and Cambodia.
But imagine two huge countries with only maritime borders, like the Philippines and Indonesia. Some Manila dwellers I met thought that Indonesia was in Europe.
Now guess, how many Indonesians know about the massacres that the United States committed in the Philippines a century ago, or how the people in the Philippines were indoctrinated by Western propaganda about the entire South East Asia? Or, how many Filipinos know about the U.S.-triggered 1965 military coup, which deposed the internationalist President Sukarno, killing between 2-3 million intellectuals, teachers, Communists and unionists in "neighboring" Indonesia?
Look at the foreign sections of the Indonesian or Filipino newspapers, and what will you see; the same news from Reuters, AP, AFP. In fact, you will also see the same reports in the news outlets of Kenya, India, Uganda, Bangladesh, United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Guatemala, and the list goes on and on. It is designed to produce one and only one result: absolute fragmentation!
***
The fragmentation of the world is amazing, and it is increasing with time. Those who hoped that the internet would improve the situation, grossly miscalculated.
With a lack of knowledge, solidarity has disappeared, too.
Right now, all over the world, there are riots and revolutions. I am covering the most significant ones; in the Middle East, in Latin America, and in Hong Kong.
Let me be frank: there is absolutely no understanding in Lebanon about what is going on in Hong Kong, or in Bolivia, Chile and Colombia.
Western propaganda throws everything into one sack.
In Hong Kong, rioters indoctrinated by the West are portrayed as "pro-democracy protesters". They kill, burn, beat up people, but they are still the West's favorites. Because they are antagonizing the People's Republic of China, now the greatest enemy of Washington. And because they were created and sustained by the West.
In Bolivia, the anti-imperialist President was overthrown in a Washington orchestrated coup, but the mostly indigenous people who are demanding his return are portrayed as rioters.
In Lebanon, as well as Iraq, protesters are treated kindly by both Europe and the United States, mainly because the West hopes that pro-Iranian Hezbollah and other Shi'a groups and parties could be weakened by the protests.
The clearly anti-capitalist and anti-neo-liberal revolution in Chile, as well as the legitimate protests in Colombia, are reported as some sort of combination of explosion of genuine grievances, and hooliganism and looting. Mike Pompeo recently warned that the United States will support right-wing South American governments, in their attempt to maintain order.
All this coverage is nonsense. In fact, it has one and only one goal: to confuse viewers and readers. To make sure that they know nothing or very little. And that, at the end of the day, they collapse on their couches with deep sighs: "Oh, the world is in turmoil!"
***
It also leads to the tremendous fragmentation of countries on each continent, and of the entire global south.
Asian countries know very little about each other. The same goes for Africa and the Middle East. In Latin America, it is Russia, China and Iran who are literally saving the life of Venezuela. Fellow Latin American nations, with the one shiny exception of Cuba, do zero to help. All Latin American revolutions are fragmented. All U.S. produced coups basically go unopposed.
The same situation is occurring all over the Middle East and Asia. There are no internationalist brigades defending countries destroyed by the West. The big predator comes and attacks its prey. It is a horrible sight, as a country dies in front of the world, in terrible agony. No one interferes. Everybody just watches.
One after another, countries are falling.
This is not how states in the 21st Century should behave. This is the law of attraction the jungle. When I used to live in Africa, making documentary films in Kenya, Rwanda, Congo, driving through the wilderness; this is how animals were behaving, not people. Big cats finding their victim. A zebra, or a gazelle. And the hunt would begin: a terrible occurrence. Then the slow killing; eating the victim alive.
Quite similar to the so-called Monroe doctrine.
The Empire has to kill. Periodically. With predictable regularity.
And no one does anything. The world is watching. Pretending that nothing extraordinary is taking place.
One wonders: can legitimate revolution succeed under such conditions? Can any democratically elected socialist government survive? Or does everything decent, hopeful, and optimistic always ends up as the prey to a degenerate, brutal and vulgar empire?
If that is the case, what's the point of playing by the rules? Obviously, the rules are rotten. They exist only in order to uphold the status quo. They protect the colonizers, and castigate the rebellions victims.
But that's not what I wanted to discuss here, today.
My point is: the victims are divided. They know very little about each other. The struggles for true freedom, are fragmented. Those who fight, and bleed, but fight nevertheless, are often antagonized by their less daring fellow victims.
I have never seen the world so divided. Is the Empire succeeding, after all?
Yes and no.
Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela – they have already woken up. They stood up. They are learning about each other, from each other.
Without solidarity, there can be no victory. Without knowledge, there can be no solidarity.
Intellectual courage is now clearly coming from Asia, from the "East". In order to change the world, Western mass media has to be marginalized, confronted. All Western concepts, including "democracy", "peace", and "human rights" have to be questioned, and redefined.
And definitely, knowledge.
We need a new world, not an improved one.
The world does not need London, New York and Paris to teach it about itself.
Fragmentation has to end. Nations have to learn about each other, directly. If they do, true revolutions would soon succeed, while subversions and fake color revolutions like those in Hong Kong, Bolivia and all over the Middle East, will be regionally confronted, and prevented from ruining millions of human lives.
By Andre Vltchek
Source: New Eastern Outlook
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Dec 23, 2019 | astutenews.com
~ Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin's
"What has happened in Finland now still makes the hair stand on end. I would still recall [Soviet leader] Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin's saying that every cook could become a minister, or words to that effect.
Now we can see that a saleswoman has become a prime minister and some other street activist and uneducated person has also become a member of the government.
Now we can actually see to some extent how the historical revenge of the reds on the whites, that is to say, the reds who wanted to liquidate the Finnish state already in the [Finnish Civil War of 1918], have now come to power and are now desperately trying to liquidate Finland, making it a euro-province which could be called either Suomi or Finland, but which, in fact, completely drags it down in the ideological philosophy at the end of the so-called Fukuyama history."
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Dec 22, 2019 | www.youtube.com
"The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five." ― Carl Sagan
The Missing Link , 19 hours ago
So interesting that the long held conspiracy theory that a certain insane group of people have actively been attempting to destroy 90% of the worlds population is now being propogated publicly. Getting ahead of the curve? Projection? I find it very intriguing that the same group of people who shouted down the conspiracy theories are now the conspiracy theorists. Funny world.
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Dec 22, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
McDee , December 21, 2019 at 4:10 pm
From "A Decade of Liberal Delusion and Failure" by Alex Pareene: If liberals want to get the next decade right, after the previous one in which we repeatedly failed to save the world while telling ourselves we were doing so, we will need to stop nudging and begin fighting.
Big Bill Haywood : A liberal is the guy that leaves the room when the fighting starts.
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Dec 21, 2019 | peakoilbarrel.com
HuntingtonBeach x Ignored says: 12/18/2019 at 11:16 am
When you owe the bank a little money, the bank owns you. When you owe the bank a lot of money, you own the bank.
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Dec 21, 2019 | peakoilbarrel.com
Survivalist x Ignored says: 12/18/2019 at 3:24 pm
"Money is a token in a message flow system used to convey information to control the flows of matter and energy" ~ George Mobushttps://static.financialsense.com/historical/broadcast/insider/fsn2016-0415-mobus-u4t7x9w.mp3
I guess it's hard to convey information when you create tokens and splash them about in preferred corners.
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Dec 19, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
Tulsi voted "present" In other words, she abstained. As with the Dem debates, she is openly and directly refusing to participate in the kabuki theater production.
Here's the email she sent her supporters tonight:
Tonight I voted alongside my colleagues in the House of Representatives on whether or not to impeach President Trump.
I want to explain why I decided to stand in the center and vote "present" instead of choosing a partisan position.
Throughout my life, whether through serving in the military or in Congress, I've always worked to do what is in the best interests of our country. Not what's best for me politically or what's best for my political party. I have always put our country first. One may not always agree with my decision, but everyone should know that I will always do what I believe to be right for the country that I love.
After doing my due diligence in reviewing the 658-page impeachment report, I came to the conclusion that I could not in good conscience vote either yes or no.
Click here to read my full statement:
https://www.tulsi2020.com/press/2019-12-19-tulsi-gabbard-releases-statem...
A house divided cannot stand. And today we are divided. Fragmentation and polarity are ripping our country apart. This breaks my heart, and breaks the hearts of all patriotic Americans, whether we are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents.
So today, I come before you to make a stand for the center, to appeal to all of you to bridge our differences and stand up for the American people.
My vote today is a vote for much needed reconciliation and hope that together we can heal our country. Let's work side-by-side, seeking common ground, to usher in a bright future for the American people and our nation.
United we stand,
TulsiWarrior Tulsi. Go, girl.
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Dec 19, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
All pretense of our country being a representative democracy @snoopydawg
is gone. Ourtwo partyuniparty government has completely turned its back on serving the needs of the vast majority of the people of this country, and of the wider world. Profit sits at the head of our government. The monikers "Fascist" and "Totalitarian" are apt descriptors of the direction of our current trajectory. A dystopian future surely awaits us on this beautiful, fragile and life sustaining planet that we are trashing with such abandon.Other than that, things are going quite nicely. Nancy is wearing her power pants and fools are applauding.
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Dec 19, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
It still amazes me... that people actually think impeachment accomplishes anything other than diverting attention from the Dems giving Trump everything he wants.
Kayfabe.
Impeachment without conviction means next to nothing.
The Senate will not convict. Trumps chances of being re-elected are continuing to improve as Democratic Party insiders work overtime to see to it that Bernie Sanders has to fight the Republican Party, a MSM that either dismisses or ignores his candidacy, AND the Democratic Party which has, once again, stacked the deck against him.
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Dec 19, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
WoodsDweller on Wed, 12/18/2019 - 9:30pm
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/12/trump-has-joined-the-losers-of-presiden...... Never-Trump conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin released a scorching assessment ... "Even Trump knows he will be lumped in with the 'losers' in the presidential history rankings such as Richard Nixon and Andrew Johnson," wrote Rubin. "Impeachment will define his presidency, dwarfing any other foreign or domestic action. No wonder he rages against a speaker he is powerless to stop. His worst nightmare is to be humiliated, and if not now, history certainly will regard him as a pitiful, damaged man utterly unfit for the role he won through a series of improbable events ... Just as Watergate figures ... were lionized as defenders of the Constitution, so too will Pelosi and House Democrats ... be among those admired for their lucidity, intellect and character. ... For every clownish, contemptible, screeching and dishonest House Republican, there is a sober, admirable, restrained and honest Democrat.
"No letter, no tweet, no Fox News spin can repair the reputations of Trump enablers," Rubin wrote. The right-wing media that cheered them on will, like outlets that rooted for Jim Crow and demonized Freedom Riders, be shunned by decent, freedom-loving people who reaffirm objective reality. The Republican Party will be known not as the Party of Lincoln but the Party of Trump, a quisling party that lost its bearings and its soul to defend an unhinged narcissist.
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Artful Dodger , Dec 19 2019 8:00 utc | 86
The Trump Card was and is a masterstroke of scripting live, non-stop, divisive, politically paralytic distraction while the US oligarchy goes all-tard-in for private power.Russ , Dec 19 2019 7:30 utc | 85
Since the whole impeachment farce already has been a political loser for the idiot Democrats, they'd have to be doubly stupid to double down on political stupidity by obstructing the transmission to the Senate, when most Americans just want this crap to be over with.Meanwhile the Senate Republicans, once they get the charges, would be stupid to do anything but vote them down immediately. Otherwise they'll become complicit in the odious circus and rightly incur their share of the political blame.
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
olibur , 25 minutes ago link
"If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible."
US senator Harry S. Truman 1941
let me fify
"If we see that the Republicans are winning the war, we ought to help the Democrats; and if that the Democrats are winning, we ought to help the Republicans, and in that way let them kill as many as possible."
the entire world would be better off
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Babyl-on , Dec 18 2019 23:21 utc | 35
I would like to put forward my understanding of the "deep state" and see if I have any company.In my view the deep state (the interagency consensus) is the hired help of the oligarchy, which infects the gov and occupies every key position of power(except president for the first time in over 75 years).
People are constantly saying the deep state wants this or it wants that and that is off the mark. The deep state follows the orders of the oligarchy it does not make policy or make independent decisions.
In effect, the CIA is nothing more or less than a secret army of the oligarchy.
The dems funded the wall, they gave the treasonous Trump another 100+ billion to do Putin's bidding with, the dems fast tracked 115 Trump judges (Bernie could have stopped it and did not) at least two nuclear treaties were abandoned and a third will be soon. The oligarchy and its empire laugh at all the plebs caught up in their macabre pantomime covering the non-stop for 75 years slaughter of innocent people.
It should be clear who is in charge - the people who own the world run the world.
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
H. L. Munchkin , 29 minutes ago link
LightBeamCowboy , 25 minutes ago linkIt could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
- Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar"Trump definitely understands that the primary reason why they are trying to impeach him is because they deeply hate him..."
"Hate" may be a useful shorthand here, but it really has nothing to do with what's going on.
"Drain the swamp" is useful shorthand, too, that means Trump is shutting off the flow of billions of dollars in corrupt money to corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, and threatening to properly prosecute them for their crimes. The impeachment is really another crime waiting to be prosecuted, where the legislative branch has been hijacked to commit obstruction of justice on behalf of themselves.
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
GeorgeV , Dec 18 2019 22:04 utc | 21
Watching the House impeachment live on TV reminds me of what the 19th century writer, historian and political observer Lord Acton said: "Never underestimate the influence of stupidity on history." This exercise in political sado-masochism however, must traced back to Hillary Clinton and the Clintonista hold on the Democratic Party. It began when Hillary started crying sour grapes about her loss in the 2016 election.In a previous post I have compared the Clintons and their followers to be the 21st Century's version of Typhoid Mary. Anybody who works with the Clinton's is invariably infected with corruption.
GeorgeV , Dec 18 2019 22:11 utc | 23
Oops! In my previous post I forgot to identify the author of that quote; it was Lord Acton. Many apologies to MoA readers.
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Dec 18, 2019 | www.unz.com
nsa , says: December 18, 2019 at 3:11 am GMT
@sally " ..the goal is to establish conflict ."
Good ole Jay Gould, the very archetype of a rapacious wall street oligarch, put it succinctly over 100 years ago when he reflected that "he could always pay half the working class to murder the other half". Truer words were never spoken.
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Dec 15, 2019 | www.truthdig.com
Myia Mcmillian emma peele • a day ago ,
While both Corbyn and Democrats separate themselves from the Working Class, Corbyn was derived and smeared much like Trump by the MSM as a 'racist' and "anti-Semite', and actively opposed by the British Intelligence Agencies as was Trump. Corbyn was a darling of London, much as Democrats are beloved by the bureaucrats in DC and the bankers in NYC. Will be interesting to see which forces are strongest come November 2020; not sure that voting is legit anymore anyway. "It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes."-- Stalin
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Dec 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
IG Report On FBI Spying Exposes Scandal Of Historic Magnitude For US Media Zero Hedge
BustainMovealota , 19 minutes ago link
Hadranian , 24 minutes ago linkThe tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
frankthecrank , 34 minutes ago linkDon't hold your breath waiting for justice. Most conspirators are busy doing book deals and TV gigs.
Sociopaths know no shame--they will not engage in any self introspection or seek any change in their behavior.
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Dec 14, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Moneycircus , 8 hours ago link
Washington DC is simply rival gangs of crooks. Take your pick.
Amazing Polly links BCCI to The Finders to Ghislaine Maxwell to SRA ( Youth. Sex. Relationships. - We Ascend )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSDWgq2YUos
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Dec 14, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
squid, 7 hours ago link
Meme Iamfurst , 6 hours ago linkThey want to do it by Christmas in the vain hope that this circus will all blow over by November. I think not.
While the typical BubisAmericanus will have forgotten all the details by then, me thinks the hard core democrats, I mean nomal'ish people that usually vote blue, simply stay home.
Part of me, however, thinks back to something that Harry Truman said, "in politics there are no accidents" .
Was this whole impeachment thing completely designed for the dems to fall on their sword and put the Donald back in for another 4? Dunno.
The Republicans will have both houses when in 2024 the the tax take will barley cover interest.
designed for the dems to fall on their sword and put the Donald back in for another 4? Dunno.
Been thinking along the same lines. May be the last thing they want is to be "on line" in 2021. I even wonder if CNN and BSNBC, etc, are there to DRIVE the decent Democrat to the Republicians.
I do think that things are not adding up.
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Dec 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Jasher , 6 hours ago link
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Ephesians 6 King James Version (KJV)
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Dec 11, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Bavarian , 1 hour ago link
The wheels of justice turn slowly but grind exceedingly fine - Earl Warren
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Dec 10, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
flora , , December 9, 2019 at 7:58 pm
Bituman_2000An old lawyer adage: If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither the facts nor the law , pound the table.
Karlan was pounding the table.
Starting to see a pattern. Absolute contempt for the plebs.
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Dec 10, 2019 | www.youtube.com
D Kahn , 1 hour agoPolitics is like religion. Facts mean very little before the over powering light of belief
Frank Stevens , 2 hours agoPatriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. - Mark Twain
The Watch Show , 3 hours agoNobody goes to jail in Washington !!!
Rules for thee but not for me.
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Dec 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
TJ , Dec 8 2019 21:03 utc | 38
@29 john brewsterA long time ago I watched "Manufacturing Consent" and have since assumed that what passes for mainstream "news" is nothing more than propaganda, and that Mark Twain was entirely correct in his observation that if you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed. Though it is sad when I see the likes of the once great Nature engage in such, all things must pass and I am sure they will too, most of what I read these days comes straight off arxiv.org so they have already been disintermediated in my life.
@32 c1ue
That will be £1,000,000 for linking to my post, please pay within 24 hours or legal action will be taken!
Do you see the point now?
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Dec 09, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread
Distrustful sense with modest caution speaks,
It still looks home, and short excursions makes;But rattling nonsense in full volleys breaks,
And, never shocked, and never turned aside.
Bursts out, resistless, with a thundering tide."Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism
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Dec 08, 2019 | www.goodreads.com
"The truth is rarely pure and never simple." ― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ― Mark Twain tags: misattributed-mark-twain
"Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it." ― Mark Twain
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always." ― Mahatma Gandhi
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." ― Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays 2, 1926-29
"Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love." ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
"In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act." ― George Orwell
"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it." ― Oscar Wilde
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." ― Oscar Wilde
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." ― Winston S. Churchill
"Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth." ― William Faulkner
"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." ― Flannery O'Connor
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Dec 08, 2019 | www.goodreads.com
"Government is the Entertainment division of the military-industrial complex." "So many books, so little time."
"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."
"If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it."
"If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library."
"A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open."
"Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth..."
"Definition of rock journalism: People who can't write, doing interviews with people who can't think, in order to prepare articles for people who can't read."
"There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life."
"It's better to have something to remember than anything to regret."
"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater."
"My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can."
"Art is making something out of nothing, and selling it."
"There's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over."
"Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff."
"The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced."
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Dec 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Tuyzentfloot , Dec 5 2019 23:46 utc | 85
Propagandists are rarely smarter than the group they are trying to influence. Most Propaganda is about reinforcing groupthink and pulling it in a desired direction. But the influencers are with one leg inside the bubble. They are more pushing the bubble from the inside than pulling from the outside.
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Dec 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Lochearn , Dec 5 2019 21:51 utc | 69
@ 23 psychohistorian"The US is dysfunctional on purpose to keep the masses under control and dumbed down/brainwashed."
This is an interesting statement which seems like a contradiction but is it? Surely there must be some functionality to be able to keep the masses dumbed down/brainwashed; it implies some sort of thought out strategy. How do we get the same narrative trotted out in media in exactly the same format from LA to Warsaw, from Lima to Bangalore if it's all so dysfunctional? Maybe decadence is preferable to dysfunctional as it implies a level of corruption which is typical of late empires.
But there's a deeper level to the comment. Netflix now gives us some great series on true crime where police behaviour is scrutinized in depth. We see cops plant evidence and set up victims for easy prosecution. In other words the cops are portrayed as dysfunctional and corrupt. Yeah, right. That makes us feel better. It also makes us feel that unlike drama we can make our own minds up about who is guilty and who is not. How delightfully postmodern.
The system has become so brazen that it can show us truths which sort of reinforce its very self. When it sets up false flags it can even give us clues and stuff to work on to the extent that every "terrorist" event that happens is considered by some people as a false flag when it may not be and everyone who supposedly died has not died when the reality is there is a mix -- some events are false flags some aren't; in some false flag events people are killed; in others maybe not.
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Dec 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
ak74 , Dec 6 2019 2:14 utc | 98
As the great wise man, Frank Zappa proclaimed about the USA:"Politics/government is the entertainment division of the Military-Industrial Government."
American politics makes much greater sense (and is a hell of a lot more entertaining) if you understand this truism.
US Presidential Debates and impeachment hearings are a swell occasion for drinking games.
Every time a political hack, media shill, or academic invokes some variant of American Exceptionalism, take a shot of your favorite alcoholic beverage.
You will be drunk within half an hour--guaranteed!
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Dec 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Likklemore , Dec 5 2019 16:13 utc | 7
Attributed to Mark Twain. Perhaps the learned professor karlan may affirm: "Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."juannie , Dec 5 2019 17:49 utc | 32AND Ukraine wishing to join NATO: well, not so fast for Hungary. Hungary says it will block Ukraine from joining NATO over controversial language law
Budapest has signaled that it will not support Ukraine's bid to join NATO until Kiev reverses a law that places language restrictions on ethnic Hungarians and other minorities living in the country.Legislation that limits the use of Hungarian, Russian, Romanian, and other minority languages in Ukraine must be repealed before Hungary backs Ukraine's NATO membership, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Wednesday.
... ... ...
Mischi #1Jackrabbit , Dec 5 2019 18:03 utc | 34never underestimate the stupidity of people. Even professors.Or as I think it was Einstein that reportedly said: (I paraphrase from memory)
To truly understand the infinite, just contemplate human stupidity.casey @31: When these people get together ... does the mask come off?I doubt it. They have convinced themselves that they are right and/or are following the wishes of people who are right-thinking. In USA, most people are brainwashed to assume that people with lots of money are right-thinking (as in: they must be doing something right!).
Upton Sinclair:
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.!!
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Dec 08, 2019 | crookedtimber.org
In all of this, it's worth remembering the observation of La Rouchefoucald that "hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue". The accusation of virtue signalling represents the refusal of vice to pay this tribute.
Phil 12.05.19 at 10:10 am ( 2 )
... in my experience the kind of people who talk about VS also talk about 'clicktivism' and similar; in other words, a lack of effort or cost is particularly characteristic of VS (and, in their eyes, particularly repugnant).nastywoman 12.05.19 at 11:13 am ( 4 )...And what's about all these people who wear these: "I'm a Deplorable" – T-shirts?SusanC 12.05.19 at 12:37 pm (no link)I thought the concept was supposed to be (a)not actually doing anything to reduce a problem; while (b) making ostentatious signs that purport to show you care about it.SusanC 12.05.19 at 12:45 pm (no link)A better example might be attending an Extinction Rebellion protest without changing your own consumption/pollution causing activities.
I wonder if it somehow relates to the Mary Douglas cultural theory of risk?
If so, we might tentatively include, e.g. Making a big noise about terrorism without really considering yourself to be at risk from it
"Vice signaling" was a good joke; I think it captures a notion that the affiliation the person is attempting to signal is not a universally shared one,
For that matter, terrorism itself, in its typical modern form, could be regarded as vice signalling: ostentatiously commiting public acts of violence ostensibly in support of a political cause, without regard to whether the political cause is in fact being advanced by their actions.cs 12.05.19 at 1:37 pm (no link)... I would say the implication is about the ostentation and a kind of insincerity. Insincerity in the sense that the person displaying the rainbow flag wants to be seen as the kind of person who cares about gay rights, when maybe they don't actually care about it all that much. That isn't quite the same as hypocrisy I think.MisterMr 12.05.19 at 2:02 pm ( 12 )I'll try to give my economic based explanation for this, based on this paper from Piketty:chedolf 12.05.19 at 4:14 pm ( 18 )Brahmin Left vs Merchant Right:Rising Inequality & the Changing Structure of Political Conflict
This paper has been cited here various times, however I'll drop this line from the abstract that summarizes the main finding:
Using post-electoral surveys from France, Britain and the US, this paper documents a striking long-run evolution in the structure of political cleavages. In the 1950s-1960s, the vote for left-wing (socialist-labour-democratic) parties was associated with lower education and lower income voters. It has gradually become associated with higher education voters, giving rise to a "multiple-elite" party systemin the 2000s-2010s: high-education elites now vote for the "left", while high-income/high-wealth elites still vote for the "right"
Do you think the criticism of Pharisees who pray theatrically in public was exclusively an attack on hypocrisy?Sashas 12.05.19 at 4:15 pm ( 19 )I would add to Phil @2 a third option.MrMister 12.05.19 at 4:34 pm ( 21 )
(a) You're a hypocrite.
(b) The thing you're signalling isn't actually a virtue.
(c) You're attacking me by reminding everyone of a virtue I don't have.I think the old-fashioned term for virtue signalling is sanctimony, not hypocrisy. Notably, sanctimony is also compatible with genuine belief and/or commitment. It does connote that the committed person has a degree of self-love over their commitments, and that perhaps the frequency or intensity of their display of their commitments is caused by an underlying desire to experience that self-love whenever the opportunity arises.Tohubohu 12.05.19 at 8:15 pm ( 26 )Sanctimony–correct word, I think–puts me in mind of that old bumper sticker, "I brake for animals" of which I once saw an example tidily shortened to: "I bake animals".Trader Joe 12.05.19 at 9:41 pm ( 29 )The problem I have with the whole concept is the stereotyping and bias implicit in it.Dr. Hilarius 12.05.19 at 10:24 pm ( 30 )When I see the Rainbow I'm supposed to think open minded, inclusive and left-thinking and that's fully o.k in the minds of liberals, but not in the minds of the Conservatives who see something else (which I'm not inclined to list).
When I see the MAGA I'm supposed to think closed minded, racist and right-thinking, but Conservatives would see hard-working Americans trying to make their country a better place.
Displaying a rainbow flag or wearing a MAGA hat strikes me as visible tribal identification more than virtue signaling. I think MrMister's mention of sanctimony is closer to the truth. Another poster mentioned Pharisees and public prayer. Consider a meeting to discuss replacing culverts to allow better passage of spawning salmon. The participants represent various interested parties, private and government. The meeting is disrupted by a person who proceeds to lecture all present about the history of racism, broken treaties and Native American reverence for nature. This person is not Native American. The speaker assumes that his/her information is unknown to the audience. The information does nothing to advance the goal of culvert replacement nor does it do anything to right historic wrongs. The speaker gets to feel superior. This is high-grade virtue signaling.SamChevre 12.05.19 at 11:17 pm ( 32 )It has been my experience that virtue signalling is often practiced on behalf of marginalized groups by people who do not belong to that group but presume to speak for them.
I'll second several commenters above: "virtue signalling" isn't primarily an accusation of hypocrisy. The related accusations targeted at the right are "sanctimony" and "prudishness" more than hypocrisy. The accusation is that you care more about "being seen as the sort of person who supports X" than about X.engels 12.06.19 at 2:19 am ( 37 )I think it means making a political statement in order to look good, where good is understood in a moral sense. That's a real phenomenon, especially in our age of online narcissism/personal branding, and it probably does affect the liberal-left more than the right because left-liberal politics tends to be more morally inspired.Bernard Yomtov 12.06.19 at 2:28 am ( 38 )I wouldn't use the term myself (or SJW)
I agree with SusanC at 7 and cs at 10 that the term is mostly intended to suggest that you support some cause or other that you don't really care about, as a way to identify yourself, or establish bona fides, with some group.steven t johnson 12.07.19 at 12:19 am ( 53 )https://www.primalpoly.com/virtue-signaling-further-readingengels 12.07.19 at 10:41 am ( 57 )https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/are-you-guilty-virtue-signaling
https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/identitieswhat-are-they-good-for/articles/virtue-signaling
https://www.nas.org/blogs/dicta/are_colleges_wasting_endowment_funds_on_virtue_signaling
I'm so far behind I'm still bemused by the thought that a flag lapel pin, pledges of allegiance and praying in public, are all virtue signalling. The tie-ins to libertarian economics and evolutionary psychology are even more puzzling, but maybe that's because I think they're just ideological scams/Vavilovian mimicry trying to pass off nonsense as real ideas.
I invented 'virtue signalling'. Now it's taking over the worldmtraven 12.07.19 at 6:47 pm ( 62 )
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/i-invented-virtue-signalling-now-its-taking-over-the-world/Bartholomew did not invent "virtue signalling", of course: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/20/virtue-signalling-putdown-passed-sell-by-dateDonald 12.08.19 at 12:42 am ( 64 )The term is related to " Social Justice Warrior".
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Dec 07, 2019 | www.unz.com
Never in the history of America, probably never in the history of any country, had there been such open and direct control of governmental activities by the very rich. So long as a handful of men in Wall Street control the credit and industrial processes of the country, they will continue to control the press, the government, and, by deception, the people. They will not only compel the public to work for them in peace, but to fight for them in war. -- John Turner, 1922
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Dec 03, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Temporarily Sane | Apr 23, 2017 8:43:48 AM | 83
That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.Terrence Zehrer , says: July 15, 2013 at 12:48 pmAldous Huxley
But the Pentagon is excellent at what it does – extort money from the US taxpayer. I call it treason."Massive military budgets erode the economic foundation on which true national security is dependent."
– Dwight Eisenhower
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Nov 30, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Teamtc321 , 20 minutes ago link
Libtard Logic......
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."- Joseph Goebbels
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Nov 28, 2019 | www.youtube.com
Savannah Thomas , 1 week ago (edited)"Censorship is telling a grown man that he can't eat steak, because the baby can't chew it." - Mark Twain
T B , 1 week ago (edited)"Biden to me is like having a flashlight with a dying battery and going for a long hike in the woods" - Joe Rogan 😅 1:28:33
Colin Hay , 1 week ago"When the government's boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence." - Gary Lloyd. We Americans are willingly blind to truth. It'll be the death of us.
John Merlino , 1 week agoGeorge Orwell said it best: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever."
Tenzin Nordron , 11 hours ago (edited)Matt Taibbi: "they're trying to sound like legitimate news, but they're also completely selling out at the same time " perfectly sums up news outlets today, on both sides.
Ricky Milano , 1 week agoWhen I was a kid, i heard, on live radio broadcast, Oswald shot to death in Dallas Police Station - still think that's a more blatant murder of Witness.
Adrienne Marini , 1 week ago"There isn't the shame of screwing something up like there used to be." - Welcome to Hell everyone, we have jackets!!!
Major Bloodnok , 6 days ago1:15:32 "There's also people that are like wolves trying to take out that baby joke wandering through the woods." So many good quotes in this podcast.
"We don't have any institutional respect anymore".. When even the broadsheets knowingly sow falsehoods or subtly mislead the public on a regular basis, you'd better be prepared for the harvest. You never win back respect from someone who's sussed out your con.
Matthew Weber , 1 week ago (edited)"That's why people call us fake news. They see us as doing PR for rich people"
John Merlino , 1 week ago"The press doesn't like to do stories where the problem is bi-partisan". We have an Autocracy masquerading as a two-party Democracy. "The press" works for the Autocracy and their most precious deception to protect is the appearance of two distinct parties.
Godwad , 1 week agoMatt Taibbi: "they’re trying to sound like legitimate news, but they’re also completely selling out at the same time " perfectly sums up news outlets today, on both sides.
Scott , 1 week ago“This Epstein case is probably the most blatant example of a witness being murdered.......” Rogan is too high to remember Lee Harvey Oswald.
DM R , 1 week agoHate is seductive, so everyone piles on.
swissgunner , 1 week agoTwitter, Google, Facebook and the like are now controlled and work for the State i.e the Government and CIA
Rosablue Hand-Made Originals , 16 hours ago (edited)If the Russians really did interfere with US and European elections then, based on the results, we owe them debt of gratitude.
"People are increasingly careful about what they put into their bodies. But they do not think about the news that way, or social media. They don't think about what they put in their brains. It's also a consumer product." -- This by Matt Taibbi has to be the Quote of the Day I will use to bore my former colleagues on LinkedIn today.
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Nov 22, 2019 | consortiumnews.com
Skip Scott , November 22, 2019 at 17:44
Hill's career advancement and access to the MSM depends on her faith in our "intelligence" agencies. And I doubt very much that Durham will be allowed to do his job probing the origins of RussiaGate. The evil ones will stop at nothing to keep control of the narrative.
“It is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.” Mark Twain
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Nov 23, 2019 | quoteinvestigator.com
Dear Quote Investigator: Cynicism regarding official edicts is not a new phenomenon. Reportedly, the powerful German leader Otto von Bismarck once said:
Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.... ... ...
In conclusion, this saying was presented without a precise ascription in the earliest instances found by QI ; hence, it should be considered anonymous based on current data. Future researchers may discover additional pertinent citations. The first published linkage to Bismarck appeared in 1911, and yet the statesman died in 1897; hence, support for this attribution was weak.
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Nov 21, 2019 | www.goodreads.com
"The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing."
― Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism, and Selected Critical Prose
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Nov 15, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right."
John Kenneth Galbraith
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Nov 09, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"A business man who was also a biologist and a sociologist would know, approximately, the right thing to do for humanity. But, outside the realm of business, these men are stupid. They know only business. They do not know mankind nor society, and yet they set themselves up as arbiters of the fates of the hungry millions and all the other millions thrown in. History, some day, will have an excruciating laugh at their expense." ~Jack London, The Iron Heel
"I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said -- 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias
"It seemed that out of every tear of a martyr new confessors were born, and that every groan on the arena found an echo in thousands of breasts. Caesar was swimming in blood, Rome and the whole pagan world was mad. But those who had had enough of transgression and madness, those who were trampled upon, those whose lives were misery and oppression, all the weighed down, all the sad, all the unfortunate, came to hear the wonderful tidings of God, who out of love for men had given Himself to be crucified and redeem their sins."
Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis
"I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency [the NSA] and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."
Senator Frank Church, 1975
"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments."
Michael Parenti
"People with advantages are loathe to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages. They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves 'naturally' elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves."
C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite
"Instead of flooding the entire economy with liquidity, and thereby increasing the danger of inflation, the Fed could support the stock market directly by buying market averages in the futures market, thereby stabilizing the market as a whole."
Robert Heller, Federal Reserve Board , 1989
Now, we don't have the legal right to sell gold but I'm just frankly curious about what people's views are on situations of this nature because something unusual is involved in policy here. We're not just going through the standard policy where the money supply is expanding, the economy is expanding, and the Fed tightens. This is a wholly different thing."
Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Minutes from May 18, 1993
"We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K."
Eddie George, Governor Bank of England, in a conversation with the CEO of Lonmin , September 1999
"Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune ."
Carl Jung
"His money came from human misery and death and despair, as always it does. Yet, there is none to reproach him, neither God nor man, and all fawn upon him and he will be a senator and crowds will laud him and he will have the ear of the President and all will honor his riches and consider him worthier than other men because of it.
Mankind adores its betrayers, and murders its saviors."
Taylor Caldwell, Captains and Kings
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Nov 09, 2019 | www.unz.com
Wilberweld says: November 7, 2019 at 2:11 pm GMT 100 Words Trump's problem was described in simple terms by John Connelly when talking with Henry Kissinger. "Henry", he said, "In Washington you are judged by the men you've destroyed". Trump has not destroyed anyone, not Comey, not Brennan, not Klapper. So he is viewed as weak, an easy target. So they just keep piling on. Attacking Trump is viewed as a "penalty-free activity
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Nov 09, 2019 | off-guardian.org
George Mc
Gore Vidal was always one of the most quotable commentators. Some example (probably paraphrased):
- "Any order that has successfully demonized the word 'liberal' has effectively stifled all opposition to itself."
- "America is the only country in the world that believes in socialism for the rich and private enterprise for the poor."
- "'Conspiracy theory' has become a code for 'unspeakable truth'."
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Nov 09, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
"I say enough! If Israel wants to be the only superpower in the Middle East then they can put their own asses on the line and do it themselves. I want to continue to eat."
-- snoopydawg
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"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it". George Orwell.
"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable." H.L. Mencken
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in a democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country." – Edward Bernays, inside his famous book Propaganda, 1928
"The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries." -David Rockefeller, Memoirs
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Nov 04, 2019 | www.goodreads.com
Milton Friedman was one of the most prominent neoliberal shysters.
"A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both."
― Milton Friedman tags: equality , freedom 405 likes Like "One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results."
― Milton Friedman 339 likes Like "Well first of all, tell me: Is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed? You think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed? Of course, none of us are greedy, it's only the other fellow who's greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about, the only cases in recorded history, are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worse off, worst off, it's exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear, that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by the free-enterprise system."
― Milton Friedman tags: capitalism , economics , greed 224 likes Like "The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another."
― Milton Friedman 164 likes Like "Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government-- in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player."
― Milton Friedman 153 likes Like "Now here's somebody who wants to smoke a marijuana cigarette. If he's caught, he goes to jail. Now is that moral? Is that proper? I think it's absolutely disgraceful that our government, supposed to be our government, should be in the position of converting people who are not harming others into criminals, of destroying their lives, putting them in jail. That's the issue to me. The economic issue comes in only for explaining why it has those effects. But the economic reasons are not the reasons"
― Milton Friedman tags: drugs , economics , law , morality 141 likes Like "Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program."
― Milton Friedman 136 likes Like "Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."
― Milton Friedman tags: free-market 104 likes Like "I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible."
― Milton Friedman tags: fiscal-policy , taxation 91 likes Like "Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government."
― Milton Friedman 88 likes Like "Governments never learn. Only people learn."
― Milton Friedman 84 likes Like "When unions get higher wages for their members by restricting entry into an occupation, those higher wages are at the expense of other workers who find their opportunities reduced. When government pays its employees higher wages, those higher wages are at the expense of the taxpayer. But when workers get higher wages and better working conditions through the free market, when they get raises by firm competing with one another for the best workers, by workers competing with one another for the best jobs, those higher wages are at nobody's expense. They can only come from higher productivity, greater capital investment, more widely diffused skills. The whole pie is bigger - there's more for the worker, but there's also more for the employer, the investor, the consumer, and even the tax collector.That's the way the free market system distributes the fruits of economic progress among all people. That's the secret of the enormous improvements in the conditions of the working person over the past two centuries."
― Milton Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement tags: free-market 82 likes Like "See, if you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true."
― Milton Friedman tags: drug-war 69 likes Like "Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable."
― Milton Friedman 65 likes Like "The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both"
― Milton Friedman 64 likes Like "In a much quoted passage in his inaugural address, President Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country." It is a striking sign of the temper of our times that the controversy about this passage centered on its origin and not on its content. Neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. The paternalistic "what your country can do for you" implies that government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view that is at odds with the free man's belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny. The organismic, "what you can do for your country" implies that government is the master or the deity, the citizen, the servant or the votary. To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshiped and served. He recognizes no national goal except as it is the consensus of the goals that the citizens severally serve. He recognizes no national purpose except as it is the consensus of the purposes for which the citizens severally strive."
― Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom 62 likes Like "Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government."
― Milton Friedman 55 likes Like "A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it ... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."
― Milton Friedman 54 likes Like "Society doesn't have values. People have values."
― Milton Friedman tags: people , society 54 likes Like "The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy."
― Milton Friedman 49 likes Like "There is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud"
― Milton Friedman tags: economics , ethics 49 likes Like "Even the most ardent environmentalist doesn't really want to stop pollution. If he thinks about it, and doesn't just talk about it, he wants to have the right amount of pollution. We can't really afford to eliminate it - not without abandoning all the benefits of technology that we not only enjoy but on which we depend."
― Milton Friedman, There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch tags: environmentalism 42 likes Like "Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power. Government is necessary to preserve our freedom, it is an instrument through which we can exercise our freedom; yet by concentrating power in political hands, it is also a threat to freedom. Even though the men who wield this power initially be of good will and even though they be not corrupted by the power they exercise, the power will both attract and form men of a different stamp."
― Milton Friedman 40 likes Like "He moves fastest who moves alone."
― Milton Friedman 40 likes Like "I think that nothing is so important for freedom as recognizing in the law each individual's natural right to property, and giving individuals a sense that they own something that they're responsible for, that they have control over, and that they can dispose of."
― Milton Friedman tags: freedom 40 likes Like "Education spending will be most effective if it relies on parental choice & private initiative -- the building blocks of success throughout our society."
― Milton Friedman 38 likes Like "The key insight of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is misleadingly simple: if an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another."
― Milton Friedman 36 likes Like "For example, the supporters of tariffs treat it as self-evident that the creation of jobs is a desirable end, in and of itself, regardless of what the persons employed do. That is clearly wrong. If all we want are jobs, we can create any number--for example, have people dig holes and then fill them up again, or perform other useless tasks. Work is sometimes its own reward. Mostly, however, it is the price we pay to get the things we want. Our real objective is not just jobs but productive jobs--jobs that will mean more goods and services to consume."
― Milton Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement tags: economics , friedman , job-creation , jobs , work 33 likes Like "This plea comes from the bottom of my heart. Every friend of freedom, and I know you are one, must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence. A country in which shooting down unidentified planes "on suspicion" can be seriously considered as a drug-war tactic is not the kind of United States that either you or I want to hand on to future generations."
― Milton Friedman tags: drugs , economics 33 likes Like "I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or it they try, they will shortly be out of office."
― Milton Friedman
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Nov 03, 2019 | www.mcsweeneys.net
"No taxation without representation. I'm not sure how much representation, I don't have an exact number."
-- James Otis, 1761"We hold these truths to be self-evident but just worry that the vast majority of Americans won't be ready to embrace them."
-- Declaration of Independence, 1776"Crime butchers Innocence to secure a throne, and Innocence struggles with all its might to have a civil conversation with Crime."
-- Maximilien Robespierre, 1794"Power concedes nothing without a demand. But maybe we should try politely asking again!"
-- Frederick Douglass, 1857"A house divided against itself sounds expensive to rebuild."
-- Abraham Lincoln, 1858"The only thing we have to fear is any fundamental change to the status quo."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1932"We shall compromise on the beaches, we shall compromise on the landing grounds, we shall compromise on the field and in the streets, we shall compromise in the hills, and we will see if surrendering makes sense long-term."
-- Winston Churchill, 1940
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Oct 30, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Batman11 , 8 minutes ago link
The prophecy on the neoliberal ideology emanating from the US.
"The death of Lincoln was a disaster for Christendom. There was no man in the United States great enough to wear his boots and the bankers went anew to grab the riches. I fear that foreign bankers with their craftiness and tortuous tricks will entirely control the exuberant riches of America and use it to systematically corrupt civilization." Otto von Bismark (1815-1898), German Chancellor, after the Lincoln assassination
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Oct 30, 2019 | crookedtimber.org
likbez 10.30.19 at 10:03 am 27
The growing view on neoliberal MSM as "fake news" might be yet another symptom along the lines of classic Marxism "revolutionary situation" definition: when the elite can't rule "as usual" and "deplorable" do not want to live "as usual".
From Wikipedia
Lenin describes the "revolutionary situation" as follows:
"To the Marxist it is indisputable that a revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation; furthermore, it is not every revolutionary situation that leads to revolution. What, generally speaking, are the symptoms of a revolutionary situation? We shall certainly not be mistaken if we indicate the following three major symptoms:
(1) when it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any change; when there is a crisis, in one form or another, among the "upper classes", a crisis in the policy of the ruling class, leading to a fissure through which the discontent and indignation of the oppressed classes burst forth. For a revolution to take place, it is usually insufficient for "the lower classes not to want" to live in the old way; it is also necessary that "the upper classes should be unable" to live in the old way;
(2) when the suffering and want of the oppressed classes have grown more acute than usual;
(3) when, as a consequence of the above causes, there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses, who uncomplainingly allow themselves to be robbed in "peace time", but, in turbulent times, are drawn both by all the circumstances of the crisis and by the "upper classes" themselves into independent historical action.
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Oct 28, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
- "When you go far enough to the right you meet the same idiots coming around from the left." ~Clint Eastwood, Interview, Time Magazine, February 20, 2005
- "A mighty bubble of wealth is blown before our eyes, as empty, as transient, as contradictory to the laws of solid material, as confuted by every circumstance of actual condition, as any other bubble which man or child ever blew before." ~Edward Chancellor, Devil Take the Hindmost
- "Life is a school of probability." Walter Bagehot
- "Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lies comes to a point when he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others." Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
- "The banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, and balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustained recovery." ~ Jesse, July 2009
- "He who does not shout the truth when he knows it makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers." ~Charles Péguy
- "Being in a position to know and nevertheless shunning knowledge creates direct responsibility for the consequences." ~Albert Speer
- "Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy." ~Captain G. M. Gilbert, Army Psychologist, Nuremberg Trials
- "Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse." ~Adlai Stevenson
- "A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it." G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
- "We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe." ~John Henry Newman
- 'The banks are circling the wagons. Somebody's got a problem.' ~Charles R. Geisst, as quoted in There's Nothing Normal About the Fed Pumping Hundreds of Billions Weekly to Unnamed Banks on Wall Street
- "The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool." ~Stephen King, Needful Things
- "The bully type, the false 'tough,' has been the first to break down under the actual fire of battle. The quiet, the calm, the determined have made the best soldiers. Why? Obviously the bully is insecure in himself -- he blusters to muster his own courage." ~Pearl S. Buck, What America Means to Me
- "Narcissists damage and hurt but they do so offhandedly and naturally, as an afterthough. They are aware of what they are doing to others - but they do not care." ~Sam Vaknin, Malignant Self-Love
- "We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. It is not merely that at present the rule of naked force obtains almost everywhere. Probably that has always been the case. Where this age differs from those immediately preceding it is that a liberal intelligentsia is lacking. Bully-worship, under various disguises, has become a universal religion." ~George Orwell
- "Crowd-pleasers [demagogues] are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage and whip their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy -- then go back to the office and sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece." ~Hunter S. Thompson
- The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato." ~Karl Popper
- "A confident, aggressive delivery style - often larded with jargon, clichés, and flowery phrases - makes up for the lack of substance and sincerity in their interactions with others ... they are masters of impression management; their insight into the psyche of others combined with a superficial - but convincing - verbal fluency allows them to change their personas skillfully as it suits the situation and their game plan. The most debilitating characteristic of even the most well-behaved psychopath is the inability to form a workable team." ~Paul Babiak and Robert Hare, Snakes in Suits
- "There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true." ~Søren Kierkegaard
- "The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists." ~Hannah Arendt
- "Narcissists are unstable and go through repeated cycles of self-destruction, with other people usually paying the heft of the price. Narcissists tend to be divisive, vindictive, confrontational, aggressive, hate-filled, raging, incoherent, judgment-impaired, and irrational. Narcissists are liars, confabulators, and miserable failures, although some of them are geniuses at disguising the fact that they are, in fact, losers." ~Sam Vaknin
- "Any idea pushed into the popular mind with considerable force will keep on going until some opposing force -- or the slow resistance of friction -- stops it at last." ~Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- "Religion used to be the opium of the people. To those suffering humiliation, pain, illness, and serfdom, religion promised the reward of an after life. But now we are witnessing a transformation: a true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, that we are not going to be judged." ~Czeslaw Milosz, The Discreet Charm of Nihilism
- "Evil, when we are in its power, is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty. Power is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the latter it crushes, the former it intoxicates. The truth is, no one really possesses it." ~Simone Weil
- Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum. Let justice be done, though the heavens may fall.
- "People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right." ~John Kenneth Galbraith
- "When Fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically. They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission. Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak." ~Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom
- "I understand why an equality that was founded upon God involved neither contradiction nor disorder. Demagogy enters at the moment when, for want of a common denominator, the principle of equality degenerates into the principle of identity." ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras
- "Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege." ~Thomas Clement Douglas
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Oct 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
pogohere , Oct 26 2019 20:46 utc | 115
chu teh @44 & 112
God is a comedian whose audience refuses to laugh.
chu teh , Oct 26 2019 19:08 utc | 112
karlof1 | Oct 25 2019 22:15 utc | 54
re: source of "God has an infinite sense of humor"...
Was told that in 1994[?] conversation w Jerry, a fellow worker, abt the baffling condition of Mankind. Never heard it before or since. At the time it was one of most incisive and impinging viewpoints; it still is.
It was said to me dryly, not coy and no smile, almost plaintively as tho it would be ignored and pass thru unrecognized. I never met a more rational or sharper mind.
Once, I remarked I was looking for an obscure book that was mentioned in another book, as "1 of the 3 best autobios ever written in English" by someone I never heard of. J:"Who and what?" Me:"Kropotkin and Revolutionist".
J:"Oh, sure! I think my wife still has a copy" and he brought it in next day.[An awesome read, too!]
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Oct 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Don Bacon , Oct 26 2019 22:16 utc | 33
The general charge against Trump is that he was "digging up dirt" on opponents. Well laddy-dah. So what. Welcome to Politics 101.President Harry Truman probably received as much flak as any politician ever did, especially after he canned war-hero General MacArthur. But Truman wasn't a candy-ass current politician complaining about dirt-digging. No, he gave back more than he got, in spades.
What was "give-em-hell" Harry Truman's attitude? Some Truman quotes:
--"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell."
--"It's the fellows who go to West Point and are trained to think they're gods in uniform that I plan to take apart"
--"I didn't fire him [General MacArthur] because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three quarters of them would be in jail."
-- "I'll stand by [you] but if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen ."
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Oct 27, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Greg Gerner , , October 25, 2019 at 8:36 am
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. Anatole France
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Oct 23, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
"The degree to which [neo]liberals are coming to inhabit an alternate reality, impenetrable by facts or reason, is actually frightening." -- Steve Maher
Actually, the issue at stake is patriotism. You must return to your world and put an end to the Commies. All it takes are a few good men. --QExit polls not involving George W. Bush or Hillary Clinton tend to be quite accurate. --Doug Hatlem
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Oct 23, 2019 | medium.com
It's absolutely insane that neoconservatism is still a thing, let alone still a thing that mainstream America tends to regard as a perfectly legitimate set of opinions for a human being to have. As what Dr. Paul Craig Roberts rightly calls "the most dangerous ideology that has ever existed," neoconservatism has used its nonpartisan bloodlust to work with the Democratic party for the purpose of escalating tensions with Russia on multiple fronts, bringing our species to the brink of what could very well end up being a world war with a nuclear superpower and its allies.
This is not okay. Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives
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Oct 08, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
anne , October 04, 2019 at 09:26 AM
ken melvin -> EMichael... , October 04, 2019 at 01:26 PMhttps://twitter.com/BrankoMilan/status/1179716954426359808
Branko Milanovic @BrankoMilan
The tragedy of American politics is that the educated "Brahmin left" are warmongers with good conscience, while the "Merchant Right" is utterly corrupt. Only W succeeded in combined the worst parts of the two.
4:16 AM - 3 Oct 2019
Private prisons, detention centers, Saudi Arabia, Russia, ... these deals were all made before the election in 2016. Who amongst Trump's circle made them? This is what needs be brought out.
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Oct 07, 2019 | nlm.nih.gov
1: It would be funny if it weren't so sad. Teratology. 1973 Feb;7(1):1-2. PubMed
PMID: 4693741.
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Aug 31, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Bugs Bunny , , August 31, 2019 at 7:58 am
A shrink friend once said "cynicism is the most logical reaction to despair".
Off The Street , August 31, 2019 at 10:52 am
I try to be despairing, but I can’t keep up.
Attributed to a generation or two after Lily Tomlin’s quote about cynicism.Out of curiosity, would it be cynical to question that political scientist’s grant funding or other sources of income? These days, I feel inclined to look at what I’ll call the Sinclair Rule* , added to Betteridge’s, Godwin’s and all those other, ahem, modifications to what used to be an expectation that communication was more or less honest.
* Sinclair Rule, where you add a interpretive filter based on Upton’s famous quote: It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
jrs , August 31, 2019 at 11:43 am
It’s good to look at funding sources. But it’s kind of a slander to those who must work for a living when assuming it’s paychecks (which we need to live in this system) that corrupt people.
If it’s applied to the average working person, maybe it’s often true, maybe it has a tendency to push in that direction, but if you think there are no workers that realize the industry they are working in might be destructive, that they may be exploited by such systems but have little choice etc. etc., come now there are working people who are politically aware and do see a larger picture, they just don’t have a lot of power to change it much of the time. Does the average working person’s salary depend on his not understanding though? No, of course not, it merely depends on him obeying. And obeying enough to keep a job, not always understanding, is what a paycheck buys.
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Aug 22, 2019 | www.jambell.com
Latin word Translation Comment ad hoc "for this thing" set up temporarily for a particular purpose e.g. an ad hoc committee ad infinitum "to infinity" as in Latin agenda (pl.) "things to be discussed/done" as in Latin but usually incorrectly used in the singular e.g. an agenda! alias "elsewhere", "sometimes" another identity alibi "at" or "in another place" proof of not being in the location of a crime/misdemeanour ante meridiem (a.m.) "before noon" in the morning post meridiem (p.m.) "after noon" afternoon anno domini (A.D.) "in the year of (our) Lord" as in Latin ad nauseam "to sickness" to the point of being sick bis "two times" as in Latin (Used in singing instructions.) ceteris paribus "with the rest of the things the same/equal" all other factors held constant confer (cf.) "bring together" compare c. or circa "about" approximately compos mentis "having mastery of (one's) mind" in full possession of one's mental faculties exempli gratia (e.g.) "by the grace of example" for example ego "I" sense of importance of self et cetera (etc.) "and the rest of the things" and so on ex libris "from the books" belonging to the book collection of ex post facto "from the deed/fact, afterwards" deduced or discovered after the event with the benefit of hindsight gratis gratia "favour" or "kindness" for no payment habeas corpus "may you have the body" the right to be brought to trial within a reasonable period after arrest and imprisonment ibidem "there in the same place" as in Latin id "it" (neuter) that part of the personality which indulges the "libido"(=sexual urge) and/or behaves impulsively (psychoanalytical terminology) idem (id.) "the same thing" as in Latin id est (i.e.) "that is" that is in flagranti delicto "in the blazing crime" caught in the act in loco parentis "in the place of a parent" as in Latin in vitro "in glass" in a test tube ipso facto "by the very fact" as in Latin inter alia "among other things" among other things! memento "remember!" a token to remember someone/something by memorandum (memo) "something which is to be remembered/mentioned/spoken about" as in Latin mens sana in corpore sano "a healthy mind in a healthy body" as in Latin modus operandi "way/method of operating" way of working moratorium Americanisation of classical Latin 'mora' – "delay" an American politician's decision to stop or delay doing something nil nil/nihil "nothing" nothing, no score nota bene (N.B.) "note well" as in Latin omnibus "with everything"; "for everyone" a compilation of all the magazines/programmes; a means of transport all can use ("-bus") par "equal", "the same" used in golf to suggest a target score for a hole which players attempt to equal; also "below par" meaning not up to the usual standard (of health, achievement) post mortem "after death" examination after death post partum "after giving birth" as in Latin pro persona (p.p.) "instead of the person" as in Latin. Used when a letter is being signed (with authorisation) on behalf of someone else. primus inter pares "first among equals" an old description of the relationship between Prime Minister and Cabinet in the U.K. pro bono "for good" in the public interest or for no money (American lawyers may work part-time "pro bono".) quid pro quo "something given in exchange for something" as in Latin; a £ sterling (pound) is still called a "quid". quod videas (q.v.) "a thing which you may see " as in Latin referenda "things which are to be referred/carried back to the people" votes on a single issue by all or part of the electorate. (Sometimes – ungrammatically – called "referendums".) scilicet scirelicet "it is permitted to know" to wit, namely, that is to say sic "thus", "in this way" as in Latin sine die "without a day" without a specific date being set for the resumption of (e.g. court) proceedings sine qua non "without which (thing) not" a sine qua non is something indispensable status quo "the state in which" the existing/prevailing situation sub iudice "under a judge" the subject of ongoing/incomplete judicial proceedings subpoena / sub poena "under punishment" a demand to comply with a court request e.g. attendance in court, which imposes an automatic penalty if it is not obeyed tempus fugit "time runs away" Time flies! ter "three times" as in Latin ultra vires "beyond (his) powers" as in Latin viz. from viet, a contraction of videlicet – "it is permitted to see": the "et" resembled a "z" in medieval Latin script.
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Decline of neoliberalism in not a pretty picture. And neoliberal elite in the USA is really crazy...
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Aug 13, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
im1dc , August 12, 2019 at 11:15 AM
I need to learn how to use this as an Occam's Razor to cull candidates for PRES"Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power."
Bertrand Russell
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Aug 11, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"'We didn't truly know the dangers of the market, because it was a dark market,' says Brooksley Born, the head of an obscure federal regulatory agency -- the Commodity Futures Trading Commission [CFTC] -- who not only warned of the potential for economic meltdown in the late 1990s, but also tried to convince the country's key economic powerbrokers to take actions that could have helped avert the crisis. 'They were totally opposed to it,' Born says. 'That puzzled me. What was it that was in this market that had to be hidden?'"PBS Frontine, The Warning
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Aug 04, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"Thus we see how the neoliberal utopia tends to embody itself in the reality of a kind of infernal machine, whose necessity imposes itself even upon the rulers. Like the Marxism of an earlier time, with which, in this regard, it has much in common, this utopia evokes powerful belief - the free trade faith - not only among those who live off it, such as financiers, the owners and managers of large corporations, etc., but also among those, such as high-level government officials and politicians, who derive their justification for existing from it.
For they sanctify the power of markets in the name of economic efficiency, which requires the elimination of administrative or political barriers capable of inconveniencing the owners of capital in their individual quest for the maximisation of individual profit, which has been turned into a model of rationality. They want independent central banks.
And they preach the subordination of nation-states to the requirements of economic freedom for the masters of the economy, with the suppression of any regulation of any market, beginning with the labour market, the prohibition of deficits and inflation, the general privatisation of public services, and the reduction of public and social expenses."
Pierre Bourdieu, L'essence du néolibéralisme
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Aug 04, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness.
George Frederick Watts, Mammon A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair. Indeed, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt.
The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers the most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all. It is his own existence, his own being, that is at once the subject and the source of his pain, and his very existence and consciousness is his greatest torture."
Thomas Merton
"Thus we see how the neoliberal utopia tends to embody itself in the reality of a kind of infernal machine, whose necessity imposes itself even upon the rulers. Like the Marxism of an earlier time, with which, in this regard, it has much in common, this utopia evokes powerful belief - the free trade faith - not only among those who live off it, such as financiers, the owners and managers of large corporations, etc., but also among those, such as high-level government officials and politicians, who derive their justification for existing from it.
For they sanctify the power of markets in the name of economic efficiency, which requires the elimination of administrative or political barriers capable of inconveniencing the owners of capital in their individual quest for the maximisation of individual profit, which has been turned into a model of rationality. They want independent central banks.
And they preach the subordination of nation-states to the requirements of economic freedom for the masters of the economy, with the suppression of any regulation of any market, beginning with the labour market, the prohibition of deficits and inflation, the general privatisation of public services, and the reduction of public and social expenses."
Pierre Bourdieu, L'essence du néolibéralisme
"How good is our God! When we are no longer able to come to Him, He comes to us. We are each of us like a small mirror, in which God searches for His reflection."
John Vianney
Stocks continued their move to the downside today, taking back only a little bit of it into the close.
The NDX finally closed the big gap it had left open a few weeks ago. These gaps keeps getting closed in these moves up. We are not seeing any breakaway gaps. That speaks volumes about these rallies, a word to the wise.
The SP 500 fell back to its 61.8% Fibonacci retracement in the most recent rally.
I have not yet labeled this latest episode as a blow off top, because I want to see it set a lower low first.
Gold held its gains from yesterday fairly well, as the Dollar continued to move even lower.
I was a little concerned about the big gold gain, because a portion of it was clearly due to short covering as the front runners of the Non-Farm Payrolls report short side play got smoked.
The action next week, the first week in August, will be most interesting.
I think we might look with some concern to the autumn, particularly September and October.
Have a pleasant weekend.
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4:43 PM
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01 August 2019
Stocks and Precious Metals Charts -
Whipsaw City
"Remember, my brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world's eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. God chooses those that the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think that they are wise. And He chooses those that are powerless to shame those who are powerful."
1 Corinthians 1:26-27
"Seneca had made the bargain that many good men have made when agreeing to aid bad regimes. On the one hand, their presence strengthens the regime and helps it endure. But their moral influence may also improve the regime's behavior or save the lives of its enemies. For many, this has been a bargain worth making, even if it has cost them -- as it may have cost Seneca -- their immortal soul...
The Rome he has been trained to serve, the Rome of Augustus and Germanicus, was gone. In its place stood Neropolis, ruled by a megalomaniac brat."
James Romm, Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero
"'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias
Stocks were rallying with a vengeance, regaining much of what was lost yesterday.
And then this afternoon, Trumpolini blindsided the markets with an angry tweet about China, adding a new ten percent tariff to consumer related goods.
And the equity markets and the Dollar took a nosedive, while gold just rocketed higher. They were taking the gold bears out of the pits on stretchers.
But not Citi, rumored to be the big Bank gold short. They were grabbing fistfuls of gold contracts the past two days, as you can see on the clearing report below. Think that they were tipped by some well placed advisor? Naw, couldn't be. They would never do that.
This would be much more amusing from a greater distance. But today was right up there.
Get right, sit tight.
And have a pleasant evening.
Posted by
Jesse
at
4:26 PM
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Gold Demand Trends Q2 2019
"Time is coming when markets search frantically for physical collateral to find that paper far exceeds underlying collateral for several metals and other resources. I am warning that when markets fall in sustained negative response to bursting bubbles, widespread deleveraging will reveal insufficient hard collateral underlying traded asset-backed securities.The words rehypothecation and hyper-rehypothecation may be rediscovered or remembered again, forgotten somehow during much of the decade since the Great Financial Crisis."
Harald Malmgren
Key highlightsCentral banks bought 224.4t of gold in Q2 2019
This took H1 buying to 374.1t – the largest net H1 increase in global gold reserves in our 19-year quarterly data series. Buying was again spread across a diverse range of – largely emerging market – countries.Holdings of gold-backed ETFs grew 67.2t in Q2 to a six-year high of 2,548t
The main factors driving inflows into the sector were continued geopolitical instability, expectation of lower interest rates, and the rallying gold price in June.A strong recovery in India's jewellery market pushed demand in Q2 up 12% to 168.8t
A busy wedding season and healthy festival sales boosted demand, before the June price rise brought it to a virtual standstill. Indian demand drove global jewellery demand 2% higher y-o-y to 531.7t.Bar and coin investment in Q2 sank 12% to 218.6t
Combined with the soft Q1 number, the H1 total ended at a ten-year low of 476.9t. A 29% y-o-y drop in China accounted for much of the global Q2 decline.Gold prices shot to multi-year highs
The gold price broke through US$1,400/oz for the first time since 2013. Among the factors driving this rally were expectations of lower interest rates and political uncertainty, with further support coming from strong central bank buying.
You may see the price of gold in various currencies here.
Posted by
Jesse
at
12:19 AM
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