Honk if you love caviar
By Joe Bageant
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"I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instil is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost—— and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is, that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages." —Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
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references energy econ permaculture ecology globalization / jobs central / world banks
"This indispensable guide to the next twenty years of global turmoil and transformation weaves the full spectrum of disciplines--history, political economy, ecology, energy, marketing, investing, health, and the psychology of happiness--into a uniquely comprehensive understanding that offers every thinking person practical principles for not just surviving but prospering in the difficult decades ahead." -Amazon
by charles eisenstein
"In the waning days of the American Empire the US administration finds itself mired in political crisis; foreign policy has come under sharp criticism; and the economy is in steep decline. These trends mirror the experience of the Soviet Union in the early 1980's. Reinventing Collapse examines the circumstances of the demise of the Soviet superpower and offers clear insights into how we might prepare for coming events. Rather than focusing on doom and gloom, Reinventing Collapse suggests that there is room for optimism if we focus our efforts on personal and cultural transformation. With characteristic dry humor, Orlov identifies three progressive stages of response to the looming crisis..."
‘So as our corporations crumble, taking our jobs with them, we bail them out to preserve our prospects for employment – knowing full well that their business models are unsustainable. As banks’ credit schemes fail, we authorise our treasuries to print more money on their behalf, at our own expense and that of our children. We then get to borrow this money back from them, at interest. We know of no other way. Having for too long outsourced our own savings and investing to Wall Street, we are clueless about how to invest in the real world of people and things. We identify with the plight of abstract corporations more than that of flesh and blood human beings. We engage with corporations as role models and saviours, while we engage with our fellow humans as competitors to be beaten or resources to be exploited.’ — Life Inc., by Douglas Rushkoff |
Buffett, Gates, Rockefeller and the Conscience of the Very, Very Rich By CARL GINSBURG
by Charles Eisenstein Imagine you were alive thirty thousand years ago, and had a vision of all that was to come: symbolic language, naming and labeling the world; agriculture, the domestication of the wild, dominion over other species and the land; the Machine, the mastery of natural forces; the forgetting of how beautiful and perfect the world is; the atomization of society; a world where humans fear even to drink of the streams and rivers, where we live among strangers and don't know the people next door, where we kill across the planet with the touch of a button, where the seas turn black and the air burns our lungs, where we are so broken that we dare not remember that it isn't supposed to be this way. Imagine you saw it all coming. How would you help people thirty thousand years thence? How would you send information, knowledge, aid over such a vast gulf of time? You see, this actually happened. That is how we came up with the three seeds.
What Jeffrey Goldberg Didn't Report Top Israeli Generals and Intel Officials Oppose Striking Iran By GARETH PORTER
Public Theft and the Decline of Empire America on the Precipice By MARGARET KIMBERLEY Americans are a people living on the precipice of economic disaster, both as individuals and as a group. The continued precariousness of their situation is a direct result of government connivance in stripping them of public assets and the distribution of those assets to the corporate sector. Retired public employees are literally having money they earned stolen from them. Children are losing days in public schools and counties are eliminating public transportation because political leaders are firmly committed to expanding empire abroad, assisting rapacious individuals and corporations at home and keeping workers and people of color in their place.
One of my favorite writers and thinkers, Joe Bageant, is featured in this upcoming film that looks intriguing. Joe's essays are at www.joebageant.com
22 Statistics That Prove The Middle Class Is Being Systematically Wiped Out Of Existence In America
by Arthur Silber
see if you can find the terrorist in this photo:
BWAAAAAHMP. Wrong! The 'man' pointing the high-powered rifle at two terrified children is of European descent (not a Semite at all) and is Jewish, so he is a 'Hero'. The correct answer is: all three Palestinians, because... they are Palestinian! Israel: America's "Most Important Ally", and home of the world's "Most Moral Army"
by Alexander Cockburn Obama had his window of opportunity last year, when he could have made jobs and financial reform his prime objectives. That’s what Americans hoped for. Mesmerized by economic advisers who were creatures of the banks, he instead plunged into the Sargasso Sea of “health reform,” wasted the better part of a year, and ended up with something that pleases no one.
by CH Smith The con of the decade (Part I) involves the transfer of private debt to the public (the marks), who then pays interest forever to the con artists.
Social theorist David Harvey thinks it is finally time to consider a new economic model.
SO MUCH STUPIDITY by Ted Rall 7.8.10 NEW YORK--As I pack for my return trip to Afghanistan next month, many people are asking me: Why are we losing? What should we do there? The short answer is simple: Afghan resistance forces live there. We don't. Sooner or later, U.S. troops will depart. All the Afghan resistance has to do is wear us down and wait us out. As I have pointed out before, no nation has successfully invaded and occupied any other nation since the 19th century. All occupations ultimately fail. continue >
april 2010
Spectacular images of the Icelandic volcano eruption... complete with otherworldly ash plumes lit from within and Aurora Borealis painting the backdrop! What more could you ask for... Four Horsemen descending from On High? Hit the jump for more wicked cool shots of untamable wild. And don't worry... everything is 'under control'. —g.brazel 4.20.10
Peace: A New Way of Thinking about
Achieving and Preserving It
If you're a junkie for rock/pop/metal/blues/hip-hop/country/funk/soul/punk, or just music in general, this book will speak to your soul. A rockin' good time, complete with Bitchin' Soundtrack'.
____ Yet another report surfaces of veterans being kicked when they're down by the 'leadership' that sent and keeps them in a pointless war based on blatant lies and propaganda. As you read the article, take note: here we see the tried and true GovCorp strategy of 'pre-existing condition' being deployed once again. Where is the 'support our troops' mob when the troops actually need them? Slapping another ribbon-magnet to their oil guzzler? Campaigning for the next Dem/Repub warmonger? The only good news about this everyday tragedy is that the more soldiers who become aware that they are regarded, according to Henry Kissinger, as "just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy," the sooner they will refuse to go kill and die for the insane psychopath elites who run the empire and profit from the resulting genocides. —g.brazel 4.22.10 by Joshua Kors "PD [personality disorder] is a severe mental illness that emerges during childhood and is listed in military regulations as a pre-existing condition, not a result of combat. Thus those who are discharged with PD are denied a lifetime of disability benefits, which the military is required to provide to soldiers wounded during service. Soldiers discharged with PD are also denied long-term medical care. And they have to give back a slice of their re-enlistment bonus. That amount is often larger than the soldier's final paycheck. As a result, on the day of their discharge, many injured vets learn that they owe the Army several thousand dollars."
An Act Of War "Let us remember a few important things. Iran, a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has never been found in violation of that treaty. Iran is not capable of enriching uranium to the necessary level to manufacture nuclear weapons. According to the entire US Intelligence Community, Iran is not currently working on a nuclear weapons program. These are facts, and to point them out does not make one a supporter or fan of the Iranian regime. Those pushing war on Iran will ignore or distort these facts to serve their agenda, though, so it is important and necessary to point them out."
Anderson Cooper and Class Solidarity You cannot man the barricades with a mouth full of Cheetos by Joe Bageant
by Justin Raimondo
Barack Obama may not get it but the SEC finally is taking action by Linda McQuaig
"That is how to create a single
story. Show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over, and
that is what they become."
This brilliant talk by Ms. Adichie is the stuff that
can unite humanity and create lasting peace. Listen to her eloquent
words, and you will realize the way to peace and acceptance is not at all
complex, but simple... if we just see our commonalities, connectedness, shared interests,
basic humanity, and the inherent value of every single human life, we will overcome the
ignorance that breeds fear and spawns the ugly rationalization to dehumanize, bomb,
strafe, kidnap, imprison, irradiate and generally terrorize the 'others'.
I'm sorry, is 'terrorize' too strong a word? I imagine sitting on my
patio and watching a drone (remote control) launched 'Hellfire' missile come
screaming at me and mine, and I think 'not'.
If this strategy seems too idealistic, how well is the
whole 'war is peace' thing working out? Why have we not yet pieced together the
empirically obvious and universal truth that violence only begets more violence?
And yet our 'leaders' and fear-mongering media relentlessly pitch the barbaric and
patronizing might-makes-right approach without ever pausing to ponder that peace is
not just the end, but the one and only
legitimate means to the end. This is as true for the home as it is for
the globe (which is, in fact, just our extended home). Sorry to go all
Martin Luther King and all, but: The Man was right.
What to do, what to do? Perhaps we should
re-criminalize corruption and
bribery instead of openly permitting them under the Orwellian banners of
'free speech' and 'campaign contributions'. The
fact that arming the world to the teeth is outrageously profitable for a few,
and that
major investors in the perpetual warfare state and its coast-to-coast
sprawl of munitions [pork] factories also happen to skulk the halls of power
certainly can't be helpful if we're at all serious about ending the cycle of
industrial mayhem and state sanctioned genocide.
As America's first Republican President, Abe Lincoln,
foretold 150 years ago, "America will never be destroyed from the outside.
If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed
ourselves." And in 1953 another genuine conservative, Dwight
Eisenhower, put us on notice that:
This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the
genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a
modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a
town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter with a half million
bushels of wheat.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be
found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any
true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from
a cross of iron. full text here All this and more has come to pass. Our wars are blatantly unconstitutional. We need not argue the fine print of treaties or international law or banned weapons or preemptive strikes or night raids or secret prisons or attack dogs or psychological operations or stress positions or child prisoners or separation walls or habeas corpus or targeting infrastructure or wasting civilians or sovereign rights or crimes against peace/humanity. Nor even morality. It's in-your-face blatant: No US war, since 1943, has been declared by the Congress. Illegal, All, No Exceptions, End of Story. Be sure to 'compartmentalize' that truth if it makes you uneasy in any way.
Very few of our 'representatives' seem to know or
care that they have subjugated their duties and flagrantly violate
— day in, day out
— their sworn oath of office: to uphold the
US Constitution. Bottom line: the US is a lawless state, and has been
for decades (unless you are poor/powerless, express dissent against the
goals and means of Empire, or consume a mind-altering substance that
corporate Private 'defense' contractors afloat on a sea of Public funds funnel a wee percentage back to the political class who then vote for another round of War and payouts that are killing our youth (and theirs x1000, but who cares) and bankrupting the nation; fiscally, spiritually, morally, and intellectually. Rogue generals, degenerate agencies, and unaccountable 'think tanks' set policies that, by law, are to be determined by civilian leadership. Countless resources, dollars, lives, and ingenuity are wasted away on a leviathan industry that is forever dreaming up fantastic new ways to more efficiently kill earth-life while simultaneously poisoning the eco-system that sustains all life on the planet. If those born since the dawn of the apparently endless 'War on Terror' are to ever glimpse real peace, it will be up to we-the-people to bring it about. Our neo-Roman ruling class, tucked safely inside their cash-padded and heavily armored cocoons, has proven itself totally opposed to peace, for it is not politically expedient nor financially profitable; and they are also completely immune to front-line exposure. All return, no risk: the capitalist money shot! So, why work to staunch the bloodflow? What will it be, Brothers and Sisters: peace and progression toward a higher consciousness; or a mindless, dark age perma-war to all consuming bankruptcy and global annihilation until 'we' finally 'win'? The pages of history, yet unwritten, find us at another momentous turning point where it is, once again, up to us... meaning YOU, and ME; not the guy next door. It is totally in our hands to determine how we will be remembered by those future interpreters who will be the eternal judges of what we did, and did not do. As usual, I've digressed considerably. Ms. Adichie never mentions war once in her presentation, however the ramifications of her 'one story' thesis are clear. And her string of thoughts, regardless the interpretation, conveys a beautiful and powerfully humanistic message. Please check out the video, and pass it along if you agree. —g.brazel 4.16.10
Noam Chomsky has 'Never seen anything like this' by Chris Hedges
The geopolitics behind the phoney US war in Afghanistan "The problem for the US power elites around Wall Street and in Washington is the fact that they are now in the deepest financial crisis in their history. That crisis is clear to the entire world and the world is acting on a basis of self-survival. The US elites have lost what in Chinese imperial history is known as the Mandate of Heaven. That mandate is given a ruler or ruling elite provided they rule their people justly and fairly. When they rule tyrannically and as despots, oppressing and abusing their people, they lose that Mandate of Heaven. "If the powerful private wealthy elites that have controlled essential US financial and foreign policy for most of the past century or more ever had a “mandate of Heaven” they clearly have lost it. The domestic developments towards creation of an abusive police state with deprivation of Constitutional rights to its citizens, the arbitrary exercise of power by non elected officials such as Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson and now Tim Geithner, stealing trillion dollar sums from taxpayers without their consent in order to bailout the bankrupt biggest Wall Street banks, banks deemed “Too Big To Fail,” this all demonstrates to the world they have lost the mandate."
Wall Street Is Now America
The Age Of Ignorance And The Federal Reserve The Great Con Job - There Is No Money!
US military warns oil output may dip causing massive shortages by 2015 by Terry Macallister
It's Impossible To "Get By" In The US by Graham Summers
by Matt Taibbi
One Marine's 'Liberty Walk' for the Rest of Us by Chris Hedges
Engineers of Human Souls: The Pentagon's Cult of Killing Strikes Again by Chris Floyd
Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, threatens to block Nato offensive by Stephen Grey
by John Michael Greer
Silent Coup: How the CIA is Welcoming Itself Back Onto American University Campuses by David Price
by Dave Lindorff
Incomes Decline, Debt Increases: Why the Credit Bubble Cannot Be Reflated
Stone Walls and Steel Bars: America's War on its Own Keeps Raging by Chris Floyd
by Olga Bonfiglio
On job creation: fruits and vegetables vs corn and soybeans by Ben Lilliston
Laugh out loud video on the madness of MAD (mutually assured destruction). Adult language.
Now you can be the protagonist of the petroleum era: explore and drill around the world, corrupt politicians, stop alternative energies and increase the oil addiction. Be sure to have fun before the resources begin to deplete.
The Silence of the Liberal Lambs: Outrage at Outliers, Hosannas for State Crime by Chris Floyd __________ march 2010 by John Michael Greer U.S. Rescue May Reach $23.7 Trillion, Barofsky Says by Dawn Kopecki and Catherine Dodge 'Half' of commercial mortgages to go 'underwater' in 2010 by Stephen C. Webster 'Very good reason' to believe home prices will collapse by Peter Schiff The Health Care Hindenburg Has Landed by Chris Hedges __________
february 2010
by Christine Muhlke
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links u.s. and global economy updates on the perma-wars the health care "industry" bail-outs & other epic swindles corporate media owners & their (liberal — ha!) agenda organic agriculture money=debt alt energy & building relocalized economies
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
zero hedge — probably the most astute financial site on the web
by strauss and howe
of two minds — updated daily charles h. smith
david walker (u.s. comptroller genl) on 60 minutes
housing and the paradox of credit bubbles, equity and demand —superb summary essay on the causes and effects of the res. real estate bubble by charles hugh smith
"A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Self-Reliance —by dmitry orlov brilliant. ca 2006
The "Impossible" Healthcare Solution: Go Back to Cash by Charles H. Smith
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