The whole situation between Israel and Iran looks more insane and stupider everyday, just like TRump. The radical Christians think THIS will kick-off Armageddon? The Neo-Cons think the same for WWIII? The world is sick of them. Netanyahu, the Ayatollah, Trump, and Putin are all being exposed for the psychos, liars, and thieves they are. No country in their right mind would form alliances with any of them.
In our naivete, we used to ask what if they had a war and no one came. That might just happen. What a wake-up call concerning stupidity and insanity! And by now, the world knows you must FOLLOW THE MONEY.
Good history lesson, Thom. See you in the streets.
According to oft quoted statistics, 53% of Americans read below a Grade 6 level (that would be Grade 4 in Canada). These low information people are the source of the MAGAts. They are subject to lies and conspiracy theories because they do not seek further as long as it confirms their bias. Better educated people also have biases but their sources of information are much wider so they have better information on which to base their beliefs.
There was a map posted on Facebook of a survey of some 2500?? Americans to point out where Iran was located. About half got it right. The rest - all over the map of Europe and Asia
But that is the purpose of education Chris. To indoctrinate. Even with theoretically objective sciences.
There is a regnant paradigm in each culture, and nation and even in science. And the purpose of education is to teach and reinforce that paradigm.
We all know that the revolution was fought over taxes (no taxation without representation)
Wrong: In Boston and Philadelphia it was a rejection of the monopoly given to the East India Company, which was enforced by laws and taxes.
In Virginia, the tidewater aristocracy, lived well by selling tobacco to England, and had no problem paying taxes imposed by the crown, but what they wanted is to be the nobility in the new country.. the elite in the mother country (England) considered them crude, rude, country bumpkins, and they want to be the lords, the ladies, the barons and dukes in America.
In Finland they are teaching children critical thinking (another name for logic). Perhaps you might think that they have done it in a biased way but it would be very hard to devise a corrupted system without setting off bells and whistles.
True education is not indoctrination but exploration.
Montessori and Waldorf. Now I must say something true. I lived in a village of 400 in the middle of nowhere. My dad was a mechanic trained in WW2. He was either president or sec. of the school board - 425 students - for 20 years. I had the so-called public education many of you are scorning, big time. Bullshit. There were 25 kids in my grade. I got a tremendous education, all through all grades. In the MIDDLE of Nowhere. Stop this generalization shit. The system might have problems, but WE the citizens create and foster the system. Who controls who? Come on, tell me truthfully the answer to that question. We want all kinds of shit done for us What do we think makes that happen? Not the system. We, very easily, can control the system, and modify it, and regulate it, and innervate it, and inspire it, and love it and care for it. BUT WHAT DO WE DO?
We bitch and complain and project and transfer EVERYTHING!!!!!!!! Stop this system is the issue crap. WE are the ISSUE. We all are good for nothing, lazy, compromised, retarded, self-aggrandizing, feckless bullshitters. Time to wake up, that means WOKE, or time to die. There are about 6 months left before THAT outcome is a CERTAINTY. Prove ME WRONG.
Thomas Jefferson spoke so eloquently on the subject of class warfare. As I see it, conservatives are pathological in their fear and loathing of a world of randomness; hence they become control freaks. Money is their pathway to control; the more money, the more they control. More police, bigger armies, massive prisons.
Our cave and jungle dwelling ancestors feared the unpredictability of nature, which led to the belief in gods and the need to placate them with sacrifices and supplication.
Conservatism is a religion. Resist change and beseech god.
People voted R out of spite, cruelly targeting the racially defined "Other."
But, just like a last-minute reversal-of-fortune in a Rod Serling "Twilight Zone" episode*.
TWIST !!! . . . "YOU are the Other !!!"
Meaning: The robber-barons (Barrons?) are going to cook your ass, too!
IT's A COOKBOOK !!!
* "To Serve Man"— aired in 1962. It features a seemingly benevolent alien race called the Kanamits, who arrive on Earth offering peace, prosperity, and advanced technology. They even leave behind a mysterious book entitled "To Serve Man."
The twist? After much effort to translate the book, it's revealed — too late — that "To Serve Man" is a cookbook. A classic Rod Serling gut-punch.
Ending this article with a quote from Sean Combs, a truly contemptible man currently worth $400 million, is unfortunate.
Oligarchy is frequently used to define our government but we are also a kleptocracy, a term more focused on rule by thieves. Rich thieves belong in prisons; the poor, like Jean Valjean sentenced to years in prison for stealing bread.
Benjamins, money is just a tool, for those who struggle or feel that they aren't getting enough, it is chased after, even worshipped. Money defines their world.
But for the Thiels, the Musks, the Dimons, the Trumps, the MBS and Sheiks of the world, it is a tool, a tool by which to secure safety and dominance.
Thiel, Yarvin, Vought, Musk,, Leo, the Supremes, they all have an agenda over and above money, and that agenda is total social control, to make society in their image. And that image is a theocratic technate.
This is what organized crime looks like today in our 21st century. These are the same type of individuals that have lived amount us for thousands of years and managed the same dishonest things. They have become “organized” into a human belief pattern that justifies seizing what others have labored for to make it their own. Thieves, have always lived among us.
Those who are too lazy to take care of themselves and depend upon draining the benefits of other’s hard work.
They call it smart and now instead of riding in as barberous hordes or sailing in as pirates, they hide their thievery from the population under the cover of the laws they bought and paid for in order to do their plundering.
They call it smart and have often convinced the rest of us that they are just better and more deserving. They have special abilities, cleverness, or superior financial instincts and genius in their manipulations, or even their right of pedigree or perhaps their right of dynasty, which are much older beliefs.
The question is, when are we going to stop falling for it? These people, the .05% or smaller in number, are counting on us never declaring their type of thievery as predatory and inconsistent with evolutionary development of our species.
This type of greed and way of thinking is part of a belief system that has destroyed civilizations over and over again, and will continue to do so until we discover that we don’t need to be subjugated by others. And on the other side of that, we must also let go of dreams of glory and riches off of the toil and suffering of others and allow for a new way of living. One where we all participate for each other’s benefit as a whole.
The problem is the codependents accept his bullshit and rationalize it. As #45 impeached twice and some of his own cabinet said he was nutsy koo koo. Nobody like that now.
Today, he is most vulnerable in the senate, which has a Republican majority that is divided. The same people who support him on Iran can stop his legislative agenda.
Hopefully the parlimentarian's rulings will hold. She's still working on them.
Meanwhile all politics are local. Here in Baghad By the Sea, Florida seizes Everglades land to house detained migrants in ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ By Ana Ceballos
"The construction of the facility — surrounded by wetlands filled with alligators, snakes and mosquitos — represents a new, expanded front in Florida’s push to increase its immigration-enforcement footprint and the harsh optics deployed to dissuade migrants from entering the United States.
"Under Florida law, the governor has the power to commandeer or use any private property if it is deemed necessary to “cope” with an emergency. State and county officials are currently negotiating the purchase of the property, which straddles the border between Miami-Dade and Collier counties.
"The state offered to pay $20 million for the land. A pair of county appraisals dated May 25 listed the value of the county land on the site, which sits within the Big Cypress National Preserve, at a combined value of $195 million.
"Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, a Democrat, has raised concerns to state officials about developing the property...."
OF COURSE they would dream of people dying and being eaten! These are the same people that would have loved the Colosseum. Seriously, they were and ARE in every country since the beginning of "humanity". Not sure how human they are, but I am sure their brains are broken or defective.
SAY IT LOUDER!! We still can't hear you!! We are just a little pissed off. Your methodology ain't working. Your language is limp. You need to SHOUT IT! I went to see Bernie Sanders the other night and gave both the Democrats and Republicans hell. Capitalism, by definition, is a zero-sum game.
You're gonna have to talk about that one day. It is that culture that produced Trump and Putin & and Orban, and the rest. You'd better start talking about the system that produced those guys. There is bound to be some history in some of those books behind you. You are one of the best, and you ain't getting the job done!
Our corporate M$M continues to repeat right wing lies without reporting the truth - the reality - in each example. Their craven dereliction is matched by appallingly timid, supine establishment Democratic “leadership”. The net effect is a massive and accelerating erosion of American democracy. In all cases, money rules.
If it weren't for the media, we would never had known anything about Trump. Indeed like a broken clock,Trump was right "the media is the enemy of the people" and again like a broken clock, "the FBI, HSI, ICE, ATF, DEA are proving to be the enemy of the people.
Stunning how "they" continue to get away with their crimes in absolute daylight. How "they" have built the Right Wing echo chambers that have brainwashed the very people they continue to steal from and subjegate.
I read your newsletters daily, and have the most respect for you, but I really wish you had found someone else to quote besides Puff Daddy (Sean Combs), Thom.
Criminals moving the money while distracting.....
The whole situation between Israel and Iran looks more insane and stupider everyday, just like TRump. The radical Christians think THIS will kick-off Armageddon? The Neo-Cons think the same for WWIII? The world is sick of them. Netanyahu, the Ayatollah, Trump, and Putin are all being exposed for the psychos, liars, and thieves they are. No country in their right mind would form alliances with any of them.
In our naivete, we used to ask what if they had a war and no one came. That might just happen. What a wake-up call concerning stupidity and insanity! And by now, the world knows you must FOLLOW THE MONEY.
Good history lesson, Thom. See you in the streets.
Stupidity, insanity, and CRUELTY all together in one fur-ball.
Excellent newsletter perfectly distilling the questions running through all our heads....
I keep asking, if countries really want nuclear energy, why use uranium? Why not thorium? https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/thoriums-long-term-potential-in-nuclear-energy-new-iaea-analysis#:~:text=Thorium%20is%20a%20by%2Dproduct,as%20great%20as%20for%20uranium.
Ans. to make bombs.
They lie because it works. We drastically need an educational system that actually educates not indoctrinates.
According to oft quoted statistics, 53% of Americans read below a Grade 6 level (that would be Grade 4 in Canada). These low information people are the source of the MAGAts. They are subject to lies and conspiracy theories because they do not seek further as long as it confirms their bias. Better educated people also have biases but their sources of information are much wider so they have better information on which to base their beliefs.
There was a map posted on Facebook of a survey of some 2500?? Americans to point out where Iran was located. About half got it right. The rest - all over the map of Europe and Asia
But that is the purpose of education Chris. To indoctrinate. Even with theoretically objective sciences.
There is a regnant paradigm in each culture, and nation and even in science. And the purpose of education is to teach and reinforce that paradigm.
We all know that the revolution was fought over taxes (no taxation without representation)
Wrong: In Boston and Philadelphia it was a rejection of the monopoly given to the East India Company, which was enforced by laws and taxes.
In Virginia, the tidewater aristocracy, lived well by selling tobacco to England, and had no problem paying taxes imposed by the crown, but what they wanted is to be the nobility in the new country.. the elite in the mother country (England) considered them crude, rude, country bumpkins, and they want to be the lords, the ladies, the barons and dukes in America.
And so it goes.
In Finland they are teaching children critical thinking (another name for logic). Perhaps you might think that they have done it in a biased way but it would be very hard to devise a corrupted system without setting off bells and whistles.
True education is not indoctrination but exploration.
And it's teaching cooperation to problem solve and create.
Montessori and Waldorf. Now I must say something true. I lived in a village of 400 in the middle of nowhere. My dad was a mechanic trained in WW2. He was either president or sec. of the school board - 425 students - for 20 years. I had the so-called public education many of you are scorning, big time. Bullshit. There were 25 kids in my grade. I got a tremendous education, all through all grades. In the MIDDLE of Nowhere. Stop this generalization shit. The system might have problems, but WE the citizens create and foster the system. Who controls who? Come on, tell me truthfully the answer to that question. We want all kinds of shit done for us What do we think makes that happen? Not the system. We, very easily, can control the system, and modify it, and regulate it, and innervate it, and inspire it, and love it and care for it. BUT WHAT DO WE DO?
We bitch and complain and project and transfer EVERYTHING!!!!!!!! Stop this system is the issue crap. WE are the ISSUE. We all are good for nothing, lazy, compromised, retarded, self-aggrandizing, feckless bullshitters. Time to wake up, that means WOKE, or time to die. There are about 6 months left before THAT outcome is a CERTAINTY. Prove ME WRONG.
"Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company". ----Mark Twain
Thomas Jefferson spoke so eloquently on the subject of class warfare. As I see it, conservatives are pathological in their fear and loathing of a world of randomness; hence they become control freaks. Money is their pathway to control; the more money, the more they control. More police, bigger armies, massive prisons.
MAGATs aren't "conservatives." And Trump is a fascist.
Our cave and jungle dwelling ancestors feared the unpredictability of nature, which led to the belief in gods and the need to placate them with sacrifices and supplication.
Conservatism is a religion. Resist change and beseech god.
People voted R out of spite, cruelly targeting the racially defined "Other."
But, just like a last-minute reversal-of-fortune in a Rod Serling "Twilight Zone" episode*.
TWIST !!! . . . "YOU are the Other !!!"
Meaning: The robber-barons (Barrons?) are going to cook your ass, too!
IT's A COOKBOOK !!!
* "To Serve Man"— aired in 1962. It features a seemingly benevolent alien race called the Kanamits, who arrive on Earth offering peace, prosperity, and advanced technology. They even leave behind a mysterious book entitled "To Serve Man."
The twist? After much effort to translate the book, it's revealed — too late — that "To Serve Man" is a cookbook. A classic Rod Serling gut-punch.
I remember the episode!
Ending this article with a quote from Sean Combs, a truly contemptible man currently worth $400 million, is unfortunate.
Oligarchy is frequently used to define our government but we are also a kleptocracy, a term more focused on rule by thieves. Rich thieves belong in prisons; the poor, like Jean Valjean sentenced to years in prison for stealing bread.
Benjamins, money is just a tool, for those who struggle or feel that they aren't getting enough, it is chased after, even worshipped. Money defines their world.
But for the Thiels, the Musks, the Dimons, the Trumps, the MBS and Sheiks of the world, it is a tool, a tool by which to secure safety and dominance.
Thiel, Yarvin, Vought, Musk,, Leo, the Supremes, they all have an agenda over and above money, and that agenda is total social control, to make society in their image. And that image is a theocratic technate.
Money to get the power, power to keep the money.
This is what organized crime looks like today in our 21st century. These are the same type of individuals that have lived amount us for thousands of years and managed the same dishonest things. They have become “organized” into a human belief pattern that justifies seizing what others have labored for to make it their own. Thieves, have always lived among us.
Those who are too lazy to take care of themselves and depend upon draining the benefits of other’s hard work.
They call it smart and now instead of riding in as barberous hordes or sailing in as pirates, they hide their thievery from the population under the cover of the laws they bought and paid for in order to do their plundering.
They call it smart and have often convinced the rest of us that they are just better and more deserving. They have special abilities, cleverness, or superior financial instincts and genius in their manipulations, or even their right of pedigree or perhaps their right of dynasty, which are much older beliefs.
The question is, when are we going to stop falling for it? These people, the .05% or smaller in number, are counting on us never declaring their type of thievery as predatory and inconsistent with evolutionary development of our species.
This type of greed and way of thinking is part of a belief system that has destroyed civilizations over and over again, and will continue to do so until we discover that we don’t need to be subjugated by others. And on the other side of that, we must also let go of dreams of glory and riches off of the toil and suffering of others and allow for a new way of living. One where we all participate for each other’s benefit as a whole.
I was with you 100% until you quoted Puff. he's a serial sexual offender and abuser. maybe you could have chosen someone else?
One more word for today's trumpery is Kleptocracy, rule by theft. Another word we don't hear lately is Abrogate, that's when a treaty is broken.
AND it's also when someone evades their responsibilities. Time to show who is responsible and it's time to be responsible. See you in the streets.
The problem is the codependents accept his bullshit and rationalize it. As #45 impeached twice and some of his own cabinet said he was nutsy koo koo. Nobody like that now.
Today, he is most vulnerable in the senate, which has a Republican majority that is divided. The same people who support him on Iran can stop his legislative agenda.
Hopefully the parlimentarian's rulings will hold. She's still working on them.
https://thehill.com/homenews/5363606-senate-republicans-trump-bill-challenges/
Meanwhile all politics are local. Here in Baghad By the Sea, Florida seizes Everglades land to house detained migrants in ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ By Ana Ceballos
"The construction of the facility — surrounded by wetlands filled with alligators, snakes and mosquitos — represents a new, expanded front in Florida’s push to increase its immigration-enforcement footprint and the harsh optics deployed to dissuade migrants from entering the United States.
"Under Florida law, the governor has the power to commandeer or use any private property if it is deemed necessary to “cope” with an emergency. State and county officials are currently negotiating the purchase of the property, which straddles the border between Miami-Dade and Collier counties.
"The state offered to pay $20 million for the land. A pair of county appraisals dated May 25 listed the value of the county land on the site, which sits within the Big Cypress National Preserve, at a combined value of $195 million.
"Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, a Democrat, has raised concerns to state officials about developing the property...."
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article309263990.html#storylink=cpy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP4EYVdVB5Q
OF COURSE they would dream of people dying and being eaten! These are the same people that would have loved the Colosseum. Seriously, they were and ARE in every country since the beginning of "humanity". Not sure how human they are, but I am sure their brains are broken or defective.
More local stuff: More reason for Cubans who want to flee: https://globalpost.com/stories/in-the-vice-cuba-is-hanging-on-barely-as-the-us-turns-the-screws/?lh_aid=35942&lh_cid=ct7k6nfaip&lh_em=apaalj%40gmail.com&di=5f3910b9d519ac17a950e684cbf088b2
Lies. Lies. Lies. The new truth.
SAY IT LOUDER!! We still can't hear you!! We are just a little pissed off. Your methodology ain't working. Your language is limp. You need to SHOUT IT! I went to see Bernie Sanders the other night and gave both the Democrats and Republicans hell. Capitalism, by definition, is a zero-sum game.
You're gonna have to talk about that one day. It is that culture that produced Trump and Putin & and Orban, and the rest. You'd better start talking about the system that produced those guys. There is bound to be some history in some of those books behind you. You are one of the best, and you ain't getting the job done!
Thank you another excellent article.
Our corporate M$M continues to repeat right wing lies without reporting the truth - the reality - in each example. Their craven dereliction is matched by appallingly timid, supine establishment Democratic “leadership”. The net effect is a massive and accelerating erosion of American democracy. In all cases, money rules.
If it weren't for the media, we would never had known anything about Trump. Indeed like a broken clock,Trump was right "the media is the enemy of the people" and again like a broken clock, "the FBI, HSI, ICE, ATF, DEA are proving to be the enemy of the people.
Stunning how "they" continue to get away with their crimes in absolute daylight. How "they" have built the Right Wing echo chambers that have brainwashed the very people they continue to steal from and subjegate.
I read your newsletters daily, and have the most respect for you, but I really wish you had found someone else to quote besides Puff Daddy (Sean Combs), Thom.