With as many shows have been produced in the past few years on TLC or other channels about the mental illness of hoarding things that others would consider trash or hoarding far too many belongings one could never use, and the popularity of Marie Kondo and her methods of de-cluttering... I suggest we call them Wealth Hoarders. Keep it simple and use very current words that people can associate immediately. A lot of people don't know that "morbid" is an undesirable term, they think it's associated with something cutely Goth. And 'Rich' implies a goal to be achieved.
Addicts Dan, Which of the following addicts are the hardest to break. Gambling, Sex, Drugs, Tobacco, alcohol.. The answer is gambling.
And there is one even above gambling, but is ne'er mentioned because it is so rare, as it affects so few people and that is extreme wealth. Money, or rather the pursuit of it is an addiction.
How about a name for those who worship Trump as ruler of the land? Realty is sold by REALTORS. so it stands to reason fealty is sold by FEALTORS. Yes, that is good. I shall call them FEALTORS.
Money and wealth is their oxygen… need to start putting sand in their gears.. 0 Amazon Prime Bill in Dec and 71 in January… only way to buy 2 books for Christmas.. we have more freedom where we spend money so we should use it… haven’t bought anything at Whole Foods in 5 years..suggest reading How to Resist Amazon and why by Danny Caine to see how they have taken over publishing
You may be too young to have read The Monkey Wrench Gang, or Desert Solitaire, both by Edward Abbey. Did a little monkey wrenching in my day on big yellow equip. mentioned by another writer. It refers to using very small actions that cost little or nothing but recycled objects and time to sabotage very large and destructive projects or actions. Guerilla warfare, so to speak. Our best and last course of action. Flying over the cuckoo's nest while pretending to be inmates of Herr Adolpho in the Marat de Saude.
“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.”
Back in the day, the government tried reconfiguring our beach in Ocean Beach, San Diego, using massive yellow monster earth-moving equipment. Locals who loved the natural shape of our beach and who were renegade surfers put sand in the oil and gas compartments, rendering the machines unusable, and the government gave up. I like your metaphor for putting sand in their (Morbidly rich) gears. While at the time, and I still do, I cringed at the destruction of others' property; it was our property operated with government funds.
That's it Carol,, what I've been preaching here and on Robert Reich. Passive resistance and sabotage. In the digital age, with the technological advances of Ai and that humungous server farm at Bluffdale, UT that sniffs all electronic communications, it is almost impossible to organize, even in the old analog world, the FBI easily infiltrated everything from the American NAZI movement to the American Indian Movement AIM. I've know infiltrators of both.
"Morbidly Rich" seems very appropriate, Thom, but perhaps something a little stronger like the "Parasitic Rich"? They are already---and will soon even more be--sucking the life out of our democracy, coffers, and people. The "Tick Rich"?? But if I may diverge a bit, I'd like to suggest an approach to take their political / governmental POWER away--and that would be by the opposition (anyone who opposes tyranny, oligarchy, etc.) to do virtually NOTHING for the next two years. Let Trump & his MAGA crows run our country into the ditch to educate the vast majority of citizens that this group isn't what they / we want or need. I think too many "upright citizens" saved Trump in his first term...so the country didn't get the message that he is a sociopathic, greedy, narcissistic, racist, misogynistic bad dude. Now he's back...with greater experience due to lessons learned... and with much greater monied support. What do you think ?
Greedy billionaires and corporate leaders along with bought and paid for politicians are the issue. Not political parties! The Koch brothers have been working on dividing us for years. We must not let this happen.
It already has happened, for 40 years. It is impossible to imagine a more divided nation than 'murka right now. I watch birds almost constantly. If you want to know how to achieve anything both altruistic and pragmatic, watch wild animals, or just sit inside groves of trees for hours, doing nothing conscious but being there. Unity is where you least expect it.
Over my 77 years, I have observed a lot of "rich" people, including "morbidly rich" people - my great uncle for one, my best friend in Europe for another. I find the observations of my colleague Dr. Clawson to be spot on. I would even go a bit further and suggest that high-profile wealthies, such as rock stars, movie stars, and those morbidly rich people who seek celebrity - like Elon Musk - wind up developing a sort of schizophrenia. They lose touch with the reality experienced by most everybody else and they wind up living in fantasyland.
Normally schizophrenia is a congenital disease, but with enough wealth, I think you can develop it. Super wealth leads to being surrounded by minions whose role is to satisfy one's every need without question. Just like schizophrenia, it becomes increasingly difficult for the morbidly rich to distinguish between fact and fantasy. They merely have to want something and they have it. For example, one day, the late Michael Jackson mused "I wonder what it would be like to see the bones of the Elephant man close up." A few days later he finds that he now owns those bones.
Donald Trump's inability to distinguish between fresh vegetables from groceries is a recent example. He has likely never set foot in a Winn-Dixie or Publix grocery store pushing a basket to replenish household necessities like toilet paper, dish soap, cookies, and ham. He has people for that. Over time, this makes it difficult to communicate with people who know what living P2P can be like, who know that there are some things they can never own or experience, and who even swab out their own toilet bowls.
I do not doubt that Elon Musk thinks he can not only fly to Mars but colonize it when he gets there despite there being insufficient breathable air and potable water to make living on the planet sustainable. My late uncle cultivated entertainers who claimed to read minds. That disconnect with reality creates a disconnect from fellow humans. You're weird.
One of the joys of life is being able to exchange views and experiences with close friends. The morbidly rich have no close friends not just out of fear of being taken advantage of financially, but because you have very little in common - often including a moral compass. Without that intimacy, life is devoid of emotional fulfillment. Nobody loves you anymore. They just say they do to obtain access to your wealth and power - like Melania perhaps.
You and I are similar in age and disposition. Hoarding is one massive, addictive symptom of the disease of paranoid isolation. Bio-chemical fear caused by first traumas and then dramas posing as traumas initiates these addictive behaviors. They are compensations for the pain and indignity of experiencing those traumas, real an/or mostly imagined. Would you not tend to agree that, right now, the majority of humans are psychologically imbalanced to the point of delusion? An old friend and mentor, himself at one time having been morbidly rich and then struck down by a catharsis, once said to me - 'It is impossible for the majority of men (and women) to admit that their entire life has been a lie.' These human artifacts surround themselves with fawning acolytes, opiates of all kinds, erotic or sadistic and perverse pleasures, massive over-consumption of food, housing, shiny objects, perverse sex, jealous braggadocio posing as grievances, and above all else, violence, either actual or once-removed. If these acts are perverse, then the purveyors are perverts; sadistic, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, sociopathological and vacuous. They become as empty as the loneliness and isolation they fear. Their fear is palpable, and in order to psychically survive, they must project and transfer that horror on all others and all other 'things.'
Tom: A salient piece of evidence that Musk is not intelligent, and lacks basis reasoning skils is his Occupy Mars obsession. The breatheable air and water is indeed a problem,but there is water on Mars, subsurface and frozen, at the poles. The real problem is the .38 ge (gravity to earth).
With such a low gravity there is no chance of terraform Mars, as there isn't enough gravity to hold the light gases of oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen to the surface, and as a consequence create an atmosphere with sufficient pressure to hold water in suspension..
Water exists at the poles in ice form and because there is no centrifugal force at the poles. (On earth things weigh more at the poles than at the equator, because of centrifugal force)
With a .38ge a simple step on earth would result in a bound of 14 ft on Mars, not to mention leaping into the sky. A vehicle traveling at say 20 mph instead of simply hitting a bump would result in bounding into the sky. There is atmosphere on Mars, but it is co2.
A heavy gas not easily thrown off into space as is the lighter gases.
If a child could be born in Martian gravity, it would be spindly, actually look like the drawings of gray aliens. And unable to perambulate on earth, unless in an exoskeleton.
Martian colonists, who lived on Mars for an extended period would never be able to return to earth unless they worse exoskeletons and underwent a period of acclimation in a special facility.
The reason is, that we Earthlings have a skeletal structure that has developed due to gravitational pressure. As stress is increased on bones, the bones gain mass, the inverse is true, NASA knows this so does a dentist, so does anyone who has lost teeth
Bone mass increases because the muscles and tendons . enlarge in response to gravitational pressure when we try to perambulate. Humans born at sea level are taller, have more body mass, bones and stronger than those born and raised, say in the Himalayas.
Increase gravitational pull, and you increase atmospheric pressure (airplanes have altimeters that work on that principle, and the fact that barometers are sealed from the outside atmosphere is worthy of a discussion that nobody wants to have).iit is the atmospheric pressure and gravitational pull tthat requires or forces the body to develop tendons and muscles to perambulate, increased tendons and muscles increase strain on the bones and the bones compensate by building mass.
Osteoporis comes about in old folks like me, beause as we age, we become less active, and as we become less active,our muscles and tendons are assimilated and exit as defecation, and stress is reduced on our bones, as a consquence our bones thin.
I am sitting here as an experiment.When I was in myh 30's I could don a 45lb main and reserve parachute, 20lbs of weapon, web gear,canteen and ammo, and attach and 80 lbload to my 135 lb frame and jump out of the door of a C-141,C-130,
C-119. pr C-47,on the ground I would shed only th parachutes, the rest I would hump for miles if need be. In old age I became sedate, lazy,and the muscle loss, hence bone less has become entropic, the less I do, the less I am able to do.
I now have osteoporosis, but the only symptom is a few cracked ribs, when i tried to body slam a garage door.
If Musk were really intelligent he would have thought all of this through.
Mankind can go to Mars, he can even build geodesic domes as habitats, but they better be of such strength that they can withstand an object or the human body being thrown .
.Man will almost certainly be able to tap subterranean water, but at what depth, and water should be able to supply oxygen and hydrogen, but the solar radiation is so weak as compared to Earth that it will require super solar panels. Maybe use the hydrogen separated from the water, to power generators to provide heat and electricity, but on Mars water is not a renewal resource.
The salient feature is once a Martian always a Martian and forget return trips to Earth
Be ready for still births, sickly and spindly offspring as well.
The neo Martian will be in the same situation as the Lost Colony of Roanoke or the People of Jamestown or those of Massachusetts , totally dependent on a lifeline that stretches back to home, for parts and supplies.
Depressing to say the least. But we can all take individual baby steps to make changes. Quit your meta accounts. X too. Don’t buy anything from Amazon and don’t buy stuff you don’t need. Over-consumerism feeds the morbidly rich. Stop excess traveling. There is a ton of things that can make an impact if we all work together.
Thom, democracy has been on a collision course with fascism for the last four decades. today democracy will die when Trump takes control of the government. When Joe Biden ran for president he vowed to save the soul of America. he took the oath to protect the Constitution against foreign and domestic terrorists. but, Joe because of his age and health was too old. He lost the fight to do what was necessary to accomplish his goal. He basically rolled over and surrendered our democracy to Trump, who has promises to become dictator on day one. Biden needs to do the only thing left provided by the Constitution to save us from a horrible a terrible future with Trump.
Joe Biden needs to become a dictator on his last day. Stop the transition of power until Trump has been tried for for all charges including the ones the Supreme Court said he was immune of.
The the Republicans have chipped away at the Constitution so that the safeguards, and the checks and balances no longer protect us from a tyrant taking over our nation. With the support of the ultra rich, the biased and slanted news media, and the disinformation and lies spread by Russia and China to brainwash a large segment of voters, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris or even Jesus Christ could have won the 2024 election.
When Trump has control of the military, he will rule the good people of America like Putin rules the Russian people. In Russia as well as here elections will be just a formality. Trump's successor will probably be J.D. Vance. It could even be the Antichrist because the vote of the people doesn't really matter. It is naive to think that in the next election someone other than a trumpite will win.
Dictators don't believe the transition of power and they don't step down at the next election. It took World War II to get rid of Hitler. In other countries it took violent protest and even a civil war to rid the country from a tyrant. Today we lose that last opportunity to save our Democracy. For all the good things that Joe Biden did to help lift the middle class and restore the economy to the envy of the world, he will be remembered most for surrendering the keys to the government to the wannabe dictator Donald Trump.
I have shamelessly plagiarized that phrase since I first saw it in one of your columns, Thom. It perfectly describes the predatory, parasitical, dead and deadly nature of those with far too much money in a world of people with so little on comparison. Call me a Communist, but no one “needs” a mega mansion, a 500-foot yacht, hundred million dollar weddings, or the other excesses the morbidly rich flaunt. Better they should encounter a new National Razor. A serviceable one or ten would cost very little to build. And we could use AI to run the process very efficiently! Better yet, just return to the Eisenhower tax rates. We could have a truly great country then.
I just read an article online about the Obamas' four multi-million dollar homes—my goodness. Obama certainly contributed to the wealth of those bailed out when he began his presidency, and in turn, they seem to have gained excessive wealth. Yes, I know about revenue earned from his books, Michelle's books, and speaking fees, but those could all be tied up in the intricate payback game.
Venture Capitalists morphed into Vulture Capitalists, who, thanks to GOP policies since Reagan, are able to pick the bones of struggling American workers--longer hours, cuts in health and other benefits, rollback of workplace safety rules, real wage decline while corporate profits soared, etc. etc. Republicans replaced non-profit and government safety nets with privatized agencies with little transparency or accountability. The public education system has been hollowed out, experienced administrators replaced by ideologues and political players who are rewarded with outlandish compensation. Prime examples in Florida, New College and University of Florida presidents. Higher taxes and grocery bills are directly related to the hefty salaries.
Last Friday, Trump rolled out a digital meme coin — $TRUMP — that’s issued on the Solana blockchain, and within a few hours his net worth climbed by an estimated $58 billion, making him one of the 25 richest men on planet Earth.
Can some one explain to me how this works? I do not understand it at all. Explain like I am five. What is a digital meme coin? What is Blockchain? How does Trump cash in on it?
Predatory, sexually deviant digital meme coin - The $TRUMPET. All these oligarch artifacts are perverse misanthropes, hence their constant moralizing about other person's failings.
I kinda like the old fashion “robber barons” because that’s how they made the money—stealing from America(ns)
Theyre the TOXIC RICH.
“Morbid” implies that they are somehow sick, but in fact they are vigorously and gleefully POISONING the body of the nation.
Yes, they are. With their 'sickness,' they are poisoning America.
With as many shows have been produced in the past few years on TLC or other channels about the mental illness of hoarding things that others would consider trash or hoarding far too many belongings one could never use, and the popularity of Marie Kondo and her methods of de-cluttering... I suggest we call them Wealth Hoarders. Keep it simple and use very current words that people can associate immediately. A lot of people don't know that "morbid" is an undesirable term, they think it's associated with something cutely Goth. And 'Rich' implies a goal to be achieved.
So, Wealth Hoarders is my suggestion.
Chazers -- pigs.
They are piggish, there is that!
And 90% of the MAGATs are schnorers (if not lumpen)!
Addicts Dan, Which of the following addicts are the hardest to break. Gambling, Sex, Drugs, Tobacco, alcohol.. The answer is gambling.
And there is one even above gambling, but is ne'er mentioned because it is so rare, as it affects so few people and that is extreme wealth. Money, or rather the pursuit of it is an addiction.
How about a name for those who worship Trump as ruler of the land? Realty is sold by REALTORS. so it stands to reason fealty is sold by FEALTORS. Yes, that is good. I shall call them FEALTORS.
Money and wealth is their oxygen… need to start putting sand in their gears.. 0 Amazon Prime Bill in Dec and 71 in January… only way to buy 2 books for Christmas.. we have more freedom where we spend money so we should use it… haven’t bought anything at Whole Foods in 5 years..suggest reading How to Resist Amazon and why by Danny Caine to see how they have taken over publishing
You may be too young to have read The Monkey Wrench Gang, or Desert Solitaire, both by Edward Abbey. Did a little monkey wrenching in my day on big yellow equip. mentioned by another writer. It refers to using very small actions that cost little or nothing but recycled objects and time to sabotage very large and destructive projects or actions. Guerilla warfare, so to speak. Our best and last course of action. Flying over the cuckoo's nest while pretending to be inmates of Herr Adolpho in the Marat de Saude.
Have read both books and loved them
“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.”
The Monkey Wrench Gang….
Back in the day, the government tried reconfiguring our beach in Ocean Beach, San Diego, using massive yellow monster earth-moving equipment. Locals who loved the natural shape of our beach and who were renegade surfers put sand in the oil and gas compartments, rendering the machines unusable, and the government gave up. I like your metaphor for putting sand in their (Morbidly rich) gears. While at the time, and I still do, I cringed at the destruction of others' property; it was our property operated with government funds.
I don't, however, cringe at the thought of putting sand in the gears of the monied wealthy.
That's it Carol,, what I've been preaching here and on Robert Reich. Passive resistance and sabotage. In the digital age, with the technological advances of Ai and that humungous server farm at Bluffdale, UT that sniffs all electronic communications, it is almost impossible to organize, even in the old analog world, the FBI easily infiltrated everything from the American NAZI movement to the American Indian Movement AIM. I've know infiltrators of both.
"Morbidly Rich" seems very appropriate, Thom, but perhaps something a little stronger like the "Parasitic Rich"? They are already---and will soon even more be--sucking the life out of our democracy, coffers, and people. The "Tick Rich"?? But if I may diverge a bit, I'd like to suggest an approach to take their political / governmental POWER away--and that would be by the opposition (anyone who opposes tyranny, oligarchy, etc.) to do virtually NOTHING for the next two years. Let Trump & his MAGA crows run our country into the ditch to educate the vast majority of citizens that this group isn't what they / we want or need. I think too many "upright citizens" saved Trump in his first term...so the country didn't get the message that he is a sociopathic, greedy, narcissistic, racist, misogynistic bad dude. Now he's back...with greater experience due to lessons learned... and with much greater monied support. What do you think ?
Poisonous Parasitic Plutocrats.
Greedy billionaires and corporate leaders along with bought and paid for politicians are the issue. Not political parties! The Koch brothers have been working on dividing us for years. We must not let this happen.
It already has happened, for 40 years. It is impossible to imagine a more divided nation than 'murka right now. I watch birds almost constantly. If you want to know how to achieve anything both altruistic and pragmatic, watch wild animals, or just sit inside groves of trees for hours, doing nothing conscious but being there. Unity is where you least expect it.
Agree .. I do the same .. squirrels especially
Over my 77 years, I have observed a lot of "rich" people, including "morbidly rich" people - my great uncle for one, my best friend in Europe for another. I find the observations of my colleague Dr. Clawson to be spot on. I would even go a bit further and suggest that high-profile wealthies, such as rock stars, movie stars, and those morbidly rich people who seek celebrity - like Elon Musk - wind up developing a sort of schizophrenia. They lose touch with the reality experienced by most everybody else and they wind up living in fantasyland.
Normally schizophrenia is a congenital disease, but with enough wealth, I think you can develop it. Super wealth leads to being surrounded by minions whose role is to satisfy one's every need without question. Just like schizophrenia, it becomes increasingly difficult for the morbidly rich to distinguish between fact and fantasy. They merely have to want something and they have it. For example, one day, the late Michael Jackson mused "I wonder what it would be like to see the bones of the Elephant man close up." A few days later he finds that he now owns those bones.
Donald Trump's inability to distinguish between fresh vegetables from groceries is a recent example. He has likely never set foot in a Winn-Dixie or Publix grocery store pushing a basket to replenish household necessities like toilet paper, dish soap, cookies, and ham. He has people for that. Over time, this makes it difficult to communicate with people who know what living P2P can be like, who know that there are some things they can never own or experience, and who even swab out their own toilet bowls.
I do not doubt that Elon Musk thinks he can not only fly to Mars but colonize it when he gets there despite there being insufficient breathable air and potable water to make living on the planet sustainable. My late uncle cultivated entertainers who claimed to read minds. That disconnect with reality creates a disconnect from fellow humans. You're weird.
One of the joys of life is being able to exchange views and experiences with close friends. The morbidly rich have no close friends not just out of fear of being taken advantage of financially, but because you have very little in common - often including a moral compass. Without that intimacy, life is devoid of emotional fulfillment. Nobody loves you anymore. They just say they do to obtain access to your wealth and power - like Melania perhaps.
You and I are similar in age and disposition. Hoarding is one massive, addictive symptom of the disease of paranoid isolation. Bio-chemical fear caused by first traumas and then dramas posing as traumas initiates these addictive behaviors. They are compensations for the pain and indignity of experiencing those traumas, real an/or mostly imagined. Would you not tend to agree that, right now, the majority of humans are psychologically imbalanced to the point of delusion? An old friend and mentor, himself at one time having been morbidly rich and then struck down by a catharsis, once said to me - 'It is impossible for the majority of men (and women) to admit that their entire life has been a lie.' These human artifacts surround themselves with fawning acolytes, opiates of all kinds, erotic or sadistic and perverse pleasures, massive over-consumption of food, housing, shiny objects, perverse sex, jealous braggadocio posing as grievances, and above all else, violence, either actual or once-removed. If these acts are perverse, then the purveyors are perverts; sadistic, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, sociopathological and vacuous. They become as empty as the loneliness and isolation they fear. Their fear is palpable, and in order to psychically survive, they must project and transfer that horror on all others and all other 'things.'
Tom: A salient piece of evidence that Musk is not intelligent, and lacks basis reasoning skils is his Occupy Mars obsession. The breatheable air and water is indeed a problem,but there is water on Mars, subsurface and frozen, at the poles. The real problem is the .38 ge (gravity to earth).
With such a low gravity there is no chance of terraform Mars, as there isn't enough gravity to hold the light gases of oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen to the surface, and as a consequence create an atmosphere with sufficient pressure to hold water in suspension..
Water exists at the poles in ice form and because there is no centrifugal force at the poles. (On earth things weigh more at the poles than at the equator, because of centrifugal force)
With a .38ge a simple step on earth would result in a bound of 14 ft on Mars, not to mention leaping into the sky. A vehicle traveling at say 20 mph instead of simply hitting a bump would result in bounding into the sky. There is atmosphere on Mars, but it is co2.
A heavy gas not easily thrown off into space as is the lighter gases.
If a child could be born in Martian gravity, it would be spindly, actually look like the drawings of gray aliens. And unable to perambulate on earth, unless in an exoskeleton.
Martian colonists, who lived on Mars for an extended period would never be able to return to earth unless they worse exoskeletons and underwent a period of acclimation in a special facility.
The reason is, that we Earthlings have a skeletal structure that has developed due to gravitational pressure. As stress is increased on bones, the bones gain mass, the inverse is true, NASA knows this so does a dentist, so does anyone who has lost teeth
Bone mass increases because the muscles and tendons . enlarge in response to gravitational pressure when we try to perambulate. Humans born at sea level are taller, have more body mass, bones and stronger than those born and raised, say in the Himalayas.
Increase gravitational pull, and you increase atmospheric pressure (airplanes have altimeters that work on that principle, and the fact that barometers are sealed from the outside atmosphere is worthy of a discussion that nobody wants to have).iit is the atmospheric pressure and gravitational pull tthat requires or forces the body to develop tendons and muscles to perambulate, increased tendons and muscles increase strain on the bones and the bones compensate by building mass.
Osteoporis comes about in old folks like me, beause as we age, we become less active, and as we become less active,our muscles and tendons are assimilated and exit as defecation, and stress is reduced on our bones, as a consquence our bones thin.
I am sitting here as an experiment.When I was in myh 30's I could don a 45lb main and reserve parachute, 20lbs of weapon, web gear,canteen and ammo, and attach and 80 lbload to my 135 lb frame and jump out of the door of a C-141,C-130,
C-119. pr C-47,on the ground I would shed only th parachutes, the rest I would hump for miles if need be. In old age I became sedate, lazy,and the muscle loss, hence bone less has become entropic, the less I do, the less I am able to do.
I now have osteoporosis, but the only symptom is a few cracked ribs, when i tried to body slam a garage door.
If Musk were really intelligent he would have thought all of this through.
Mankind can go to Mars, he can even build geodesic domes as habitats, but they better be of such strength that they can withstand an object or the human body being thrown .
.Man will almost certainly be able to tap subterranean water, but at what depth, and water should be able to supply oxygen and hydrogen, but the solar radiation is so weak as compared to Earth that it will require super solar panels. Maybe use the hydrogen separated from the water, to power generators to provide heat and electricity, but on Mars water is not a renewal resource.
The salient feature is once a Martian always a Martian and forget return trips to Earth
Be ready for still births, sickly and spindly offspring as well.
The neo Martian will be in the same situation as the Lost Colony of Roanoke or the People of Jamestown or those of Massachusetts , totally dependent on a lifeline that stretches back to home, for parts and supplies.
Wow. I need a little time to absorb all of this.
Depressing to say the least. But we can all take individual baby steps to make changes. Quit your meta accounts. X too. Don’t buy anything from Amazon and don’t buy stuff you don’t need. Over-consumerism feeds the morbidly rich. Stop excess traveling. There is a ton of things that can make an impact if we all work together.
"Mark Zuckerberg called for more “masculine energy,”" says the guy who genuflected/groveled to Trump and his cult.
Zuck is a parody, the nerd who would be a jock. He can change his physique but he can't change his character.
Voltaire said that a man can no more change his character than a leopard it's spots.
Your Problem: I have read "Animal Farm" -- the humans and the "pigs" end up being THE SAME.
And you imagine yourself Napoleon. You make no sense Tim. Your comment is out of place, inappropriate unrelated to Thom's article or any response.
In a word: Total out of thin air bullshit.
Gad man, you are your own worst enemy. Extremists of left and right are mirror images, long on belief, short on reasoning.
Thom, democracy has been on a collision course with fascism for the last four decades. today democracy will die when Trump takes control of the government. When Joe Biden ran for president he vowed to save the soul of America. he took the oath to protect the Constitution against foreign and domestic terrorists. but, Joe because of his age and health was too old. He lost the fight to do what was necessary to accomplish his goal. He basically rolled over and surrendered our democracy to Trump, who has promises to become dictator on day one. Biden needs to do the only thing left provided by the Constitution to save us from a horrible a terrible future with Trump.
Joe Biden needs to become a dictator on his last day. Stop the transition of power until Trump has been tried for for all charges including the ones the Supreme Court said he was immune of.
The the Republicans have chipped away at the Constitution so that the safeguards, and the checks and balances no longer protect us from a tyrant taking over our nation. With the support of the ultra rich, the biased and slanted news media, and the disinformation and lies spread by Russia and China to brainwash a large segment of voters, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris or even Jesus Christ could have won the 2024 election.
When Trump has control of the military, he will rule the good people of America like Putin rules the Russian people. In Russia as well as here elections will be just a formality. Trump's successor will probably be J.D. Vance. It could even be the Antichrist because the vote of the people doesn't really matter. It is naive to think that in the next election someone other than a trumpite will win.
Dictators don't believe the transition of power and they don't step down at the next election. It took World War II to get rid of Hitler. In other countries it took violent protest and even a civil war to rid the country from a tyrant. Today we lose that last opportunity to save our Democracy. For all the good things that Joe Biden did to help lift the middle class and restore the economy to the envy of the world, he will be remembered most for surrendering the keys to the government to the wannabe dictator Donald Trump.
I have shamelessly plagiarized that phrase since I first saw it in one of your columns, Thom. It perfectly describes the predatory, parasitical, dead and deadly nature of those with far too much money in a world of people with so little on comparison. Call me a Communist, but no one “needs” a mega mansion, a 500-foot yacht, hundred million dollar weddings, or the other excesses the morbidly rich flaunt. Better they should encounter a new National Razor. A serviceable one or ten would cost very little to build. And we could use AI to run the process very efficiently! Better yet, just return to the Eisenhower tax rates. We could have a truly great country then.
I just read an article online about the Obamas' four multi-million dollar homes—my goodness. Obama certainly contributed to the wealth of those bailed out when he began his presidency, and in turn, they seem to have gained excessive wealth. Yes, I know about revenue earned from his books, Michelle's books, and speaking fees, but those could all be tied up in the intricate payback game.
Dead on, Thom. I'll be scribbling out some hopefully more relevant terms in the weeks to come.
As for this exact moment in time, I'll be following Jeff Tiedrich's lead - "today is Martin Luther King Day. let’s honor his memory."
Venture Capitalists morphed into Vulture Capitalists, who, thanks to GOP policies since Reagan, are able to pick the bones of struggling American workers--longer hours, cuts in health and other benefits, rollback of workplace safety rules, real wage decline while corporate profits soared, etc. etc. Republicans replaced non-profit and government safety nets with privatized agencies with little transparency or accountability. The public education system has been hollowed out, experienced administrators replaced by ideologues and political players who are rewarded with outlandish compensation. Prime examples in Florida, New College and University of Florida presidents. Higher taxes and grocery bills are directly related to the hefty salaries.
Last Friday, Trump rolled out a digital meme coin — $TRUMP — that’s issued on the Solana blockchain, and within a few hours his net worth climbed by an estimated $58 billion, making him one of the 25 richest men on planet Earth.
Can some one explain to me how this works? I do not understand it at all. Explain like I am five. What is a digital meme coin? What is Blockchain? How does Trump cash in on it?
Predatory, sexually deviant digital meme coin - The $TRUMPET. All these oligarch artifacts are perverse misanthropes, hence their constant moralizing about other person's failings.