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Guest Post: Comfortably Numb
Submitted by Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform
Comfortably Numb
Hello?
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone at home?
Come on, now,
I hear you’re feeling down.
Well I can ease your pain
And get you on your feet again.
Relax.
I need some information first.
Just the basic facts
Can you show me where it hurts?
Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb
As I observe the zombie like reactions of Americans to our catastrophic economic highway to collapse, the continued plundering and pillaging of the national treasury by criminal Wall Street bankers, non-enforcement of existing laws against those who committed the largest crime in history, and reaction to young people across the country getting beaten, bludgeoned, shot with tear gas and pepper sprayed by police, I can’t help but wonder whether there is anyone home. Why are most Americans so passively accepting of these calamitous conditions? How did we become so comfortably numb? I’ve concluded Americans have chosen willful ignorance over thoughtful critical thinking due to their own intellectual laziness and overpowering mind manipulation by the elite through their propaganda emitting media machines. Some people are awaking from their trance, but the vast majority is still slumbering or fuming at erroneous perpetrators.
Both the Tea Party movement and the Occupy Wall Street movement are a reflection of the mood change in the country, which is a result of government overreach, political corruption, dysfunctional economic policies, and a financial system designed to enrich the few while defrauding the many. The common theme is anger, frustration and disillusionment with a system so badly broken it appears unfixable through the existing supposedly democratic methods. The system has been captured by an oligarchy of moneyed interests from the financial industry, mega-corporations, and military industrial complex, protected by their captured puppets in Washington DC and sustained by the propaganda peddling corporate media. The differences in political parties are meaningless as they each advocate big government solutions to all social, economic, foreign relations, and monetary issues.
There is confusion and misunderstanding regarding the culprits in this drama. It was plain to me last week when I read about a small group of concerned citizens in the next town over who decided to support the Occupy movement by holding a nightly peaceful march to protest the criminal syndicate that is Wall Street and a political system designed to protect them. My local paper asked for people’s reaction to this Constitutional exercising of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Here is a sampling of the comments:
“What are those Occupy people thinking?! The whole concept is foreign to me. There are always going to be the haves and the have nots. Get over it. Blame yourself for not paying more attention in school or not working hard enough. Just wish people would take responsibility.”
“If they worked half as hard actually working as they do being a pain in everyone else’s ass, they’d be rich! Being born does not guarantee success or wealth. Only hard work does. Maybe we should let them all occupy a jail cell or two.”
“If the goal is to irritate hardworking suburban commuters on their way home, that sounds like the perfect time and location.”
“Let’s hope they don’t pitch tents and trash Lansdale. They need to look for a job, not occupy the streets.”
“I work, and even if I wasn’t working I wouldn’t (march); I would be out looking for a JOB!”
I was dumbfounded at the rage directed towards mostly young people who haven’t even begun their working careers and have played no part in the destruction of our economic system underway for the last 30 years. The people making these statements are middle aged, middle class suburbanites. They seem to be just as livid as the OWS protestors, but their ire is being directed towards the only people who have taken a stand against Wall Street greed and Washington D.C. malfeasance. I’m left scratching my head trying to understand their animosity towards people drawing attention to the enormous debt based ponzi scheme that is our country, versus their silent acquiescence to the transfer of trillions in taxpayer dollars to the criminal bankers that have destroyed the worldwide financial system. I can only come to the conclusion the average American has become so apathetic, willfully ignorant of facts and reality, distracted by the techno-gadgets that run their lives, uninterested in anything beyond next week’s episode of Dancing with the Stars or Jersey Shore, and willing to let the corporate media moguls form their opinions for them through relentless propaganda, the only thing that will get their attention is an absolute collapse of our economic scheme. Uninformed, unconcerned, intellectually vacant Americans will get exactly that in the not too distant future.
Greater Depression Hidden from View
“Look at the orators in our republics; as long as they are poor, both state and people can only praise their uprightness; but once they are fattened on the public funds, they conceive a hatred for justice, plan intrigues against the people and attack the democracy.” – Aristophanes, Plutus
The anger and vitriol directed at OWS protestors by middle class Americans is a misdirected reaction to a quandary they can’t quite comprehend. They know their lives are getting more difficult but aren’t sure why. They are paying more for energy, food, tuition, and real estate taxes, while the price of their houses decline and their wages stagnate. More than a quarter of all homeowners are underwater on their mortgage and many are drowning in credit card and student loan debt. At the same time, government drones tell them the economy is in its second year of recovery and corporate profits are at all-time highs. Government statistics, false storylines, and entitlement programs are designed to confuse the public and obscure the fact we are in the midst of another Depression. Everyone has seen the pictures of the Great Depression breadlines, farmers forced off their land during the dustbowl, and downtrodden Americans in soup kitchens. The economic conditions today are as bad as or worse than the Great Depression. This Depression is hidden from plain view because there are no unemployment lines, bread lines, or soup lines. We are experiencing an electronic Great Depression, as food stamps, unemployment compensation, Social security payments and welfare benefits are electronically delivered to millions of recipients.
There have been over 12 million foreclosure actions since 2007, with millions of Americans losing their homes. Another 16 million homeowners are underwater on their mortgages as home prices continue to fall and the economy sinks further by the day. The value of household real estate has fallen from $22.7 trillion in 2006 to $16.2 trillion today, a loss of $6.5 trillion concentrated among the middle class. In contrast, mortgage debt has only decreased by $600 billion mostly due to write-offs by the banks that created fraudulent mortgage products to lure Americans into debt.
The unemployment rate in the United States reached 25% during the Great Depression. The government manipulated fictional unemployment rate reported to the public by drones at the BLS is currently 9.0%. They conveniently ignore the millions of people who have given up looking for work and those who have taken jobs as part-time pickle ploppers at McDonalds, when they previously assembled automobiles at GM. The true number of unemployed/underemployed is 23%.
Since 2007, unemployment has officially gone up by 7 million. In reality, the same percentage of the working age population should be employed today as in 2007 (63%). Since only 58.4% of the working age population is employed today (lowest since 1983), another 4 million needs to be added to the official unemployment tally. The fact is there are 240 million working age Americans and only 140 million are employed. This means there are 100 million working age Americans not working, but our government only classifies 14 million of them as unemployed. There is certainly millions of stay at home moms, students, and legitimately disabled among the 86 million people classified as not in the labor force, but you can’t tell me that another 20 to 30 million of these people couldn’t or wouldn’t work if given the opportunity.
The deception in government reported figures is borne out by the most successful government program of the Obama administration, which has been adding participants at an astounding rate. The Food Stamp program has been a smashing success as we’ve added 13.8 million Americans to this fine program since Obama’s inauguration, a mere 43% increase in less than three years. There are now 45.8 million Americans dependent upon food stamps for survival, 14.7% of the U.S. population. This program began in 1969 and enrollment always surges during recessions and declines during recoveries. But a funny thing happened during our current “recovery”. The government reported our recession over in December 2009. It was certainly over for the Wall Street psychopaths as they rewarded themselves with $43 billion of bonuses in 2009/2010. The number of Americans on food stamps has risen by 6.8 million during this government sponsored “recovery”. You’ll be happy to know that Obama’s good buddy – Jamie Dimon – and his well run machine at JP Morgan earns hundreds of millions administering the SNAP program.
Since 2007, Federal government transfer payments have increased from $1.7 trillion annually to $2.3 trillion, a 35% increase in four years. This is surely a sign of a recovering economy. Bernanke’s zero interest rate policy has stolen $400 billion per year from senior citizens and savers and handed it to the very bankers who caused the pain and suffering of millions. Personal interest income has declined from $1.4 trillion to $1.0 trillion, while Wall Street faux profits have soared. The game plan of the oligarchy has been to transfer hundreds of billions from taxpayers to bankers, report profits through accounting entries reducing loan loss reserves, pump up their stock prices and convince clueless lemming investors to buy newly issued shares at inflated valuations. The plan has failed. The zero interest rate policy’s unintended consequences have caused revolutions throughout the Middle East and massive food inflation across the developing world.
The single biggest reason the middle class feel frustrated, angry and like they are falling behind is due to the Federal Reserve and the relentless never ending inflation they produce in order to support their masters on Wall Street and provide cover for the trillions in debt spending by politicians in Washington DC. It is no surprise that beginning in 1980 when government spending began to accelerate much more rapidly than government revenues, the government decided to “tweak” how it measured inflation. The government reports inflation at 3.5% today. The truth is inflation is running in excess of 10% if measured exactly as it was in 1980. That’s right, we have a recession and we have inflation in double digits. No wonder the masses are restless.
The reason middle class Americans are being methodically exterminated and driven into poverty is the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve. Since 1971, when Nixon extinguished the last vestiges of the gold standard and unleashed politicians to spend borrowed money without immediate consequence, the U.S. dollar has lost 82% of its purchasing power using the government manipulated CPI. In reality, it has lost over 90% of its purchasing power. The average American, after decades of being dumbed down by government sanctioned education, is incapable of understanding the impact of inflation on their lives. As their wages rise 2% to 3% per year and inflation rises 5% to 10% per year, they get poorer day by day. The Wall Street banks, who own the Federal Reserve, step in and convince the average American to substitute debt for real wealth in order to keep living the modern techno-lifestyle sold to them by mainstream corporate media.
The oligarchy of moneyed interests have done a spectacular job convincing the working middle class they should be angry at 20 year old OWS protestors, illegal immigrants and the inner city welfare class, rather than the true culprits – the Federal Reserve, Wall Street banks and mega-corporations. This is a testament to the power of propaganda and the intellectual slothfulness of the average American. U.S. based mega-corporations fired 864,000 higher wage American workers between 2000 and 2010, while hiring almost 3 million workers in low wage foreign countries, using their billions in cash to buy back their own stocks, and paying corporate executives shamefully excessive compensation. The corporate mainstream media treats corporate CEO’s like rock stars as if they deserve to be compensated at a level 185 times the average worker. The S&P 500 consists of the 500 biggest companies in America and while the executives of these companies have reaped millions in compensation, the stock index for these companies is at the exact level it was on July 9, 1998. Over the last thirteen years workers were fired by the thousands, shareholders earned 0% (negative 39% on an inflation adjusted basis), and executives got fabulously rich.
Man made inflation has stealthily devastated millions of lives over the last four decades. When the weekly wages of the average worker are adjusted for inflation, they are making 12% less than they did in 1971. Using a real non-manipulated measure of inflation, the average worker is making 30% less than they did in 1971. Sadly, our math challenged populace only comprehend their wages have doubled in the last forty years, without understanding the true impact of inflation. Thankfully, the Wall Street debt dealers with a helping hand from Madison Avenue propaganda peddlers stepped up to the plate and imprisoned the middle class with the shackles of $2.5 trillion in consumer debt. So, while real wages have fallen 30% since 1971, consumer debt has increased by 1,700%.
Americans have been snookered into renouncing their citizenship and converting to being mindless consumers. Citizenship requires a person to be actively engaged in the community with obligations to fellow citizens and future generations. Consumerism requires people to love things, embrace debt, worry about what others have, and become driven by the accumulation of possessions and the appearance of wealth. The disgusting exhibition that Madison Avenue maggots have coined Black Friday is the ultimate display of consumerism. In a nauseating display of senseless spending driven by retail conglomerates, Americans act like Pavlov’s salivating dogs by lining up for hours to stampede over and pepper spray other consumers to get the ultimate deal on that Chinese made toaster oven, Vietnamese made laptop, Korean made HDTV, or Mexican made tortilla maker. They don’t seem to grasp the irony of going deeper into debt buying cheap crap made in foreign countries by the workers who took their jobs. The mainstream media proclaims a hugely successful Black Friday as millions bought crap they didn’t need with money they don’t have, while millions more ate their Thanksgiving meals in food shelters – unreported by the media.This repulsive manifestation of consumerism is applauded and encouraged by our government, as described by George Monbiot:
“Governments are deemed to succeed or fail by how well they make money go round, regardless of whether it serves any useful purpose. They regard it as a sacred duty to encourage the country’s most revolting spectacle: the annual feeding frenzy in which shoppers queue all night, then stampede into the shops, elbow, trample and sometimes fight to be the first to carry off some designer junk which will go into landfill before the sales next year. The madder the orgy, the greater the triumph of economic management.”
The masses have been brainwashed by those in power into thinking consumer spending utilizing debt is essential for a strong economy, when the exact opposite is the truth. Saving and investment are the essential ingredients to a strong economy. Debt based spending only benefits bankers, mega-corporations, and politicians.
Mass Manipulation through Propaganda
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses 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. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” – Edward Bernays, Propaganda, 1928
Edward Bernays, the father of propaganda to control the masses, would be so proud of his disciples running our country today. He clearly believed only an elite few were intellectually capable of running the show. Essentially, he hit upon the concept of the 1% telling the 99% what they should think and believe over eighty years ago. The mechanisms for controlling the thoughts, beliefs, and actions of the population are so much more efficient today. The conditioning begins when we are children, as every child will be bombarded with at least 30,000 hours of propaganda broadcast by media corporations by the time they reach adulthood. Their minds are molded and they are instructed what to believe and what to value. Those in control of society want to keep the masses entertained at an infantile level, with instant gratification and satisfying desires as their only considerations. The elite have achieved their Alpha status through intellectual superiority, control of the money system, and control of the political process. Their power emanates from eliminating choices, while giving the illusion of choice to the masses. People think they are free, when in reality they are slaves to a two party political system, a few Wall Street banks, and whatever our TVs tell us to buy.
Our entire system is designed to control the thoughts and actions of the masses. In many ways it is done subtly, while recently it has become more bold and blatant. It is essential for the ruling elite to keep control of our minds through media messages and the educational system. It is not a surprise that our public education system has methodically deteriorated over the last four decades. The government gained control over education and purposely teaches our children selected historical myths, social engineering gibberish and only the bare essentials of math and science. The government creates the standardized tests and approves the textbooks. We are left with millions of functionally illiterate children that grow into non-critical thinking adults. This is the exact result desired by the 1%. If too many of the 99% were able to ignore the media propaganda and think for themselves, revolution would result. This is why the moneyed interests have circled the wagons, invoked police state thug tactics, and used all the powers of their media machine to squash the OWS movement. It threatens their power and control.
“Experience has shown that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” – Thomas Jefferson
A highly educated engaged citizenry would be a danger to the existing social order. The 1%, educated at our finest universities, does not want average Americans to obtain a great education for a reasonable price. They want them to get a worthless diploma at an excessively high price tag and become debt slaves to the Wall Street 1%. They want uneducated, indebted consumers, not educated productive citizens. Our republic has been slowly perverted since the time of its inception. The insidious process had been slow and methodical until 1913. The establishment of the Federal Reserve by an elite group of bankers and their politician friends and the establishment of a personal income tax created the conditions that have allowed a small cabal of powerful men to dictate the course of our economic, political, social, and military policies for the last 98 years. Anyone that chooses to open their eyes and awake from the propaganda induced stupor can see the result of allowing a small group of corrupt authoritarian men using their power to pervert our government into tyranny. The majority remains oppressed, buried under trillions of debt, while the shysters reap obscene profits, poison the worldwide economic system, and walk away unscathed in the aftermath of their crimes.
The ruling oligarchy has become so brazen in the last few years that it has attracted the attention of the critical thinking minority. The advent of the internet has allowed these critical thinking few to analyze the un-sanitized facts, discuss the issues, and provide truth amidst a blizzard of lies. The proliferation of truth telling websites (Zero Hedge, Mish, Financial Sense, Naked Capitalism) has allowed truth seekers to bypass the government sanctioned corporate media. The pillaging of society by the politically powerful, corrupt 1% is plain to see in the graphs below.
The divergence in household income was not the result of hard work, superior intellectual firepower, or the media touted entrepreneurial spirit of the rich. It was the result of the 1% capturing the economic and political system of the United States and using it to ransack the wealth of the formerly working middle class. The fatal flaw which will ultimately result in a fitting end for the powerful elitists is their egos. They are psychopaths, unable to feel empathy for their fellow man. Enough is never enough. They always want more. Life is a game to them. They truly believe they can pull the right strings and continue to accumulate more riches. But they are wrong. They are blinded by their hubris. There are limits to growth based solely on debt and we’ve reached that limit. The world is crumbling under the weight of crippling debt created by these Wall Street psychopaths, while the corrupted bought off politicians try to shift the losses from the bankers who incurred them to the citizens who have already been fleeced. Nomi Prins captures the essence of our current situation:
“Today, the stock prices of the largest US banks are about as low as they were in the early part of 2009, not because of euro-contagion or Super-committee super-incompetence (a useless distraction anyway) but because of the ongoing transparency void surrounding the biggest banks amidst their central-bank-covered risks, and the political hot potato of how many emergency loans are required to keep them afloat at any given moment. Because investors don’t know their true exposures, any more than in early 2009. Because US banks catalyzed the global crisis that is currently manifesting itself in Europe. Because there never was a separate US housing crisis and European debt crisis. Instead, there is a worldwide, systemic, unregulated, uncontained, rapacious need for the most powerful banks and financial institutions to leverage whatever could be leveraged in whatever forms it could be leveraged in. So, now we’re just barely in the second quarter of the game of thrones, where the big banks are the kings, the ECB, IMF and the Fed are the money supply, and the populations are the powerless serfs. Yeah, let’s play the ECB inflation game, while the world crumbles.”
Those in power are beginning to lose control. You can sense their desperation. Their propaganda is losing its impact as the pain for millions of Americans has become acute. The outrage and anger flaring across the country on a daily basis, reflected in the OWS movement, is just the beginning of a revolutionary period descending upon this nation. The existing social order will be swept away, but they will not go without a fight. They will use their control of the police, military and media to try and crush the coming rebellion.
The Dream is Gone
“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.” – Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome
In addition to controlling the monetary system and brainwashing the inhabitants with relentless propaganda, the ruling class has used their control of the political process to impose thousands of laws, statutes, rules, and regulations upon the citizens. Again, an apathetic, distracted, trusting populace has been easily convinced that more laws will make them safe and secure. They have willingly sacrificed liberty, freedom and self reliance for the façade of safety, security and protection. The overwhelming number of government rules and regulations are designed to control you and insure your compliance and obedience to those in power. In a non-corrupt society inhabited by citizens willing to honor their obligations, government’s function is to insure property rights and defend the country from foreign invaders. Citizens don’t need to be herded like sheep with threats of imprisonment to do what is right. We don’t need 90,000 pages of regulations telling us the difference between right and wrong.
There were 400 pages of Federal Tax rules when the 1% personal income tax was implemented in 1913. Did the 18,000% increase in tax rules since 1913 benefit the average American or did they benefit the 1% who hires the lobbyists to write the rules which are passed into law by the politicians who receive their campaign contributions from the 1%? Do you ever wonder why you pay more taxes than a billionaire Wall Street hedge fund manager? Do you think our tax system is designed to benefit billionaires and mega-corporations when corporations with billions of income pay little or no taxes? Complexity and confusion benefits those who can create and take advantage of the complexity and confusion. Corporations and special interests have used their wealth to bribe politicians to design loopholes, credits, and exemptions that benefit their interests. The corruption of the system is terminal.
“The mistake you make, don’t you see, is in thinking one can live in a corrupt society without being corrupt oneself. After all, what do you achieve by refusing to make money? You’re trying to behave as though one could stand right outside our economic system. But one can’t. One’s got to change the system, or one changes nothing. One can’t put things right in a hole-and-corner way, if you take my meaning.” – George Orwell
The American people are paying the price for allowing a few evil men to gain control of our government. The American people cowered in fear as the 342 page Patriot Act was somehow written in a few weeks after 9/11, introduced in Congress on October 23, passed the House on October 24 with no debate, passed the Senate on October 25 with no debate, and signed into law on October 26 by George Bush. A law passed by the ruling elite that stripped Americans of their freedoms and liberties was passed using fear mongering false patriotism propaganda to squelch dissent and the American people had no say in the matter. The government has used fear to keep the American people under control. We now unquestioningly accept being molested in airports. We shrug as our intelligence agencies eavesdrop on our telephone conversations and emails without the need for a court order. It is now taken for granted that we imprison people without charging them with a crime and assassinate suspected terrorists in foreign countries with predator drones. Invading countries and going to war no longer requires a declaration of war by Congress as required by the Constitution. The State grows ever more powerful.
Therefore, it is no surprise that Americans sit idly by, watching their 52 inch HDTVs, as young people across the country are beaten, pepper sprayed, shot with rubber bullets and tear gas, and scorned and ridiculed by corporate media pundits for exercising their free speech rights to peacefully protest our corrupt system. The American tradition of civil disobedience is considered domestic terrorism by those in authority. Our beloved protectors in the Orwellian named Department of Homeland Security write reports classifying Ron Paul supporters and returning Iraq veterans as potential terrorists. If the powers that be get their way, the internet will be locked down and controlled, as it poses a huge threat to their thought control endeavors. Freedom to think, learn, question and organize resistance is unacceptable in the eyes of the elite. The country has reached a tipping point. Will enough right thinking Americans stand up and fight to bring down this corrupt system, or will we be herded silently to slaughter. The truth is there is something terribly wrong in this country. We are facing a myriad of problems that will require courage and common sense to overcome. We need only look in the mirror to find the guilty party. It is time to stop letting fear dictate our actions. Conflict is coming to this country due to the evil sanctioned by our corrupt leaders and the upright men and women who will bear the burden of destroying that evil.
Our civilization has adopted the worst aspects of the two most famous dystopian novels in history – Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World. The question is whether the population of this country is too far gone to recover. The answer to that question will determine whether the country chooses authoritarian dictatorship or a renewal of our founding principles. Aldous Huxley understood the three pillars of Western civilization fifty years ago and that their destruction would result in a collapse of our economic system:
“Armaments, universal debt, and planned obsolescence – those are the three pillars of Western prosperity. If war, waste, and moneylenders were abolished, you’d collapse. And while you people are over-consuming the rest of the world sinks more and more deeply into chronic disaster.”
The three pillars sustaining the American empire edifice of never ending war, ever accumulating debt and excessive consumerism are crumbling. The growing corruption and weight of un-payable debt have weakened the very foundation of our grand experiment. The existing structure will surely collapse. My entire adult life has tracked the decline of the American empire. I had become comfortably numb. I came to my senses and began to question all the Federal government/Wall Street/Corporate Media sponsored truths about eight years ago. Many others have also awoken and begun to challenge the false storylines dictated by those in power.
The young people leading the protests across this land are showing tremendous courage and a tenacity of spirit that has been dormant for decades among the lethargic, distracted, over-medicated public. Despite being subjected to government education conditioning, these young people have zeroed in on the enemy. They may not have all the solutions, but they have correctly identified the corrupt banking system as the central nervous system of this vampire squid sucking the life out of our nation. I will support any effort to shine a light on our crooked system. My three young sons deserve a chance at a better life than they will get under the thumb of this oligarchic criminal enterprise. As a child I caught a fleeting glimpse of the American Dream. I turned to look, but it was gone. I choose not to become comfortably numb. I choose to do whatever it will take to renew the opportunity for my sons to achieve the American Dream.
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown,
The dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.
Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb
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This one needs to be included in a history book
True prosperity and an equitable, sane society are attained by going down the correct one-way street, we are no wheres near this.
Once again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q
George Carlin: The American Dream.
Boy I tell you whut. What I wouldn't give to stop people from postin unidentified vidyuhs from that "Yhou Tube thing." /Hank Hill
The american dream is alive for the sleepwalkers. They still have dreams of avarice, and it drives them.
Contrast this with the poor Whalen screed begging for more handouts because he can't function unless there is institutional crime.
Perhaps Jim is our Tom Paine. I thank you.
Hey Quinn-
When you are part of a mob that is engaged in breaking the law, making yourself a serious public health hazard, interrupting legitimate business commerce on main street, the police tell you to leave and go home but instead you attack the police...... you can expect to be beaten, bludgeoned, and get some tear gas and pepper spay in your face. When you engage in that kind of lawless behavior you had better be thankful that's all that happened to you.
What a clueless dolt.
Yeah, like those kids at UC Davis, serious law breakers .......she's a witch, BURN HER!
Hey Numbers, go crawl back into the fascist troll cave that you live in.
Why does the 1 always believe it can dictate to the 99? Tell your neighbors how you feel. Share with them your deep hatred of them so they will understand. Explain how people have attacked the police as a start.
You are a part of the problem, don't disguise yourself, embrace the crown. Treason is popular right now. Enjoy your time remaining Major Andre.
There are people in our society so driven by fear of change, the unknown, their own shadow, that they are willing to trade so much for just a modicum of "security." You can't hate them, you actually have to pity them. They were born in fear and shall live in slavery, and die in debt. They deserve our compassion.
IMF 1 trilion to package to ITALY approved?
http://capital3x.com/think-tank/imf-to-lend-1-trillion-euros-to-italy-to...
Yes - The system needs to change - But so do PEOPLE.
I've watched in growing horror as the public have become lazier and lazier, and willfully ignorant over the years, and this is why the system became corrupted. Everybody wanted everything, but nobody wanted to work. These Occupy Wall Streeters are not asking for a fair system - they just want their own bail out!
I live a modest lifestyle, and save some of my pitiful income ($10.00 an hour), and am financially stable because of it. I don't pay other people to mow my lawn, clean my car, or clean my house. I fix my own things, and make my own repairs. Me and my wife bake and cook our own food. We don't borrow money for consumer spending, and our credit card is only for building our credit rating. We do the shopping with our credit card and pay it every week, so there is never an outstanding amount.
When we see injustice, we get out and harass our local politicians about the bribes they are taking, and we joined Gun Owners for a Gold Standard. Why? Because it's the right thing to do - that's why.
Maybe if everybody acted responsibly, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in, the corrupt politicians would be in jail, and the law would not be written for the benefit of criminal corporations.
If you would like to stop whining and actually do something, then join us:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gun-Owners-for-a-Gold-Standard/180803025347901
Well at least the owners and players have come to an agreement and there will be an NBA season starting December 25th!
The problem with the same rant we see from Mr. Quinn every month is that he blames everyone but the people. Yes some CEOs are way over compensated. Yes bank executives got away with a lot without any criminal, civil or even very much self sacrifice. Yes government is bought by monied interests
The real problem is we have an increasingly ill-educated masses who want "the government" to give them lifestyles they don't really need and are not earning. There are many job openings but few skilled people that can either do manual but difficult trades, or think lucidly, or know their history or geography. They sure do know vampire movies, celebrity affairs, sports statistics, and the latest in electronic communication toy technology
OWS knows something is wrong and they are right. But they miss the point of what is really going on. They complain about tuition. Tuition costs are skyrocketing because the government allows colleges to charge whatever they want by making unlimited funds available to them via student loans, especially for ridiculous classes that even open minded people have a hard time believing colleges are offering. Kids can't get jobs and can't pay the bill
OWS rails against capitalism. But capitalism is the best system for democracy. Not crony capitalism. People who are in the top 1% because they invented something great, or work hard or are brilliant deserve every penny they get. Crooks and people who feed at the teat of the government do not deserve what they get.
OWS fails to distinguish between these points.
By math there will always be a top 1%, unless you do a Mao. He went after that difference as his primary focus. That did not work out so well after all for anyone.
This country can throw out the idiots. But they don't since they like their idiot. That's because their idiot spends on the things they like. They wanted unneeded military bases in their county. They want social security until they're 90 even though it was never meant to be a retirement program. They want to eat sugar crap and never exercise, but want the medical ramifications of that lifestyle paid by someone else
Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracies get the government they deserve. Let's face it, we've lost the culture that starts with self discipline and accountability. As a result, we give it to the gubmint. With that decision, you get a system where the money owns it
Wake up America and accept accountability. The people you elect will come to resemble your values then, not the values we have now
You "rail" against the movement (OWS) that you in fact resemble.
The OWS movement is failing because they are working off of a defunct education...which is actually more of an indoctrination...and a brainwashing...and not really much of an education at all.
They...and you apparently...need to learn some history about our country and forget about "foreign observers" like De Tocqueville and what he thought the world was or should be.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFXuGIpsdE0
The Prisoners' Dilemma
http://faculty.lebow.drexel.edu/McCainR/top/eco/game/dilemma.html
Moral of story.. I'll tell you where the crated ECB printing presses are, in exchange for debt forgiveness. Mwahahaha!!
The Chameleons - Monkeyland
Well, I hate that my first post must be a negative - but Jim, your contention that OWS and the "young people leading the protests" are the ones who have "zeroed in on the enemy" is nothing but wishful thinking at least, and propaganda at most. This group is being led by the nose by a group of old radicals who have never had anything but contempt for social mores and western society. Failing to acknowledge that feature of the "protests", let alone mention it, is nothing but a disservice to the real movement of actualization happening with more and more people, of all walks and ages, that is really going on. I agree with almost every point you make in your article. I know many people of age that also agree and are working diligently in contribution to changing the current system. They are clear in their thinking and their efforts are making a difference where it counts. They aren't out fucking in public or shitting on sidewalks. They aren't depriving others from feeding their families or causing small businesses to close. They aren't destroying property, slicing up police officers, scaring groups of young children, or espousing anarchy or death to individuals because of those other people's beliefs. These people, from their homes and meeting in small groups, are the real OWS (Outraged With Sense) movement. They will make the difference. They will be the ones that, should it all collapse, will "magically" appear to help those that need it and be in the forefront of returning (turning?) the country to sanity and personal responsibility. Your view of the problem is excellent. Your deductions regarding who will be the primary force in change is the only flaw. All IMO and with all due respect, of course.
We all know the problems, but in your 50 pages of prose and charts there are no attempts to propose a solution.
... is NOT a solution! ... it's just wasting precious time.
I have it:
1. Start a new business (find a killer app and exploit it, I know you have one, and corner the market);
2. Pledge to hire five new employees within two years;
3. Announce intentions to neighbors, friends, business associates, if you're self-aggrandizing and have the stones, place ads;
4. Profit!
Reincarnating a AVON business model. Don't forget to offer a new pink Cadillac for high sales force performers under Mary Kay Inc. ponzi principles.
And sign away your rights to that of New York State?
No fucking thanks.
AVON is simply a driven force to make people sell a certain amount within two weeks at a time or they are out. And all under a binding contract to AVON....
I would say we will know that the end is near when:
Dentists discover that doubling the ppm of fluoride in drinking water is more effective at reducing tooth decay in CHILDREN than brushing,
Researchers demonstrate conclusively that aspartame and anti-depressants are actually VEGETABLES, and
The FDA approves GMO corn that significantly reduces obesity and cancer in humans consuming five or more servings per day.
All kidding aside, better living for the 1% will be effected through chemistry.
I like OWS. But is is painful waiting for them to figure out who the enemy is. I do not like the author of this article and their self-assured confidence that they have all the answers. I think The United States of America has the inherent advantage of being structured to kick the fuckin bums out, on their asses; excuse my French. The U.S. Constitution + Balls = FREEDOM.
A couple of thoughts:
1. It doesn't help the cause of the OWS protestors when they hold up signs complaining about their student loans. It comes off too much like the whining of a bunch of spoiled brats who are just discovering that life isn't a totally free ride. Sorry guys, but most of us also took out (and ended up repaying in full) students loans. But some of us also had the good sense to major in fields where there were actually jobs available (like engineering, the sciences, medicine, law, etc.).
2. It also doesn't help when some of the OWS mouthpieces are clearly Marxists who are just trying to hijack the anger into support for their insane agenda.
3. Lastly, its not that most of us don't care. Most of us do--a lot in fact. Its just that we're too busy earning a living and raising our families and don't have the time or energy to go out and protest. Our protests are mainly registered at the voting booth on election day.
Jee-zuss!!!!
THERE ARE FREE RIDES--just not for them.
Tip: Tap water can be hazardous to your (brain) health.
Tell that to the Vet who took out 20K to get a 4 year degree only to learn 50,000 others took the same in the state and there are only 4 thousand jobs open.
Or the 10 thousand young women who go to nursing school and 3 thousand graduate 14 K in debt and under contract to the hiring hospital to repay them back.
I hire contractors to do work around the home. They always show up themselves and with a helper... usually a very skilled middle aged or elderly person who works like a ox.
No time to train young folks. There are a few who are lucky enough to find and gain skilled work in the right place, but not so many.
The rest stay in schools and keep tugging on the teat hoping the masters or doctorate will finally pull them out of the pack. WHen they do go home and wake up to realize that the debts are greater than the income... bitter.
I prefer to pay cold cash instead of a credit card. That way it's done and move on to the next issue. That usually starves the debt driven system as it exists today.
Good read from Edward Bernays: http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/bernprop.html
cockenslither stories
solution has always been reissue us note then abolish fractional reservelending.
how many people have to run out of a 100 capacity movie theater screaming fire before you decide to leave? 1? 10? 20?
our survivin humans willhave one thing in common. the answer to that question.
The larger problem that doesn't get enough notice, what with all the grand-scale financial turmoil, moron political activities, and high profile people caught in scandals and meteors falling from the sky, etc., etc. Is that there is no way to get on a plain of reality with anyone any more. Intelligence is a hindrance, not an asset. We are in a world populated with nothing but liars, spinners, perpetual excuse makers, outright scamsters, shell gamers, the terminally distracted TV/iPhone/iPad/Internet/iPod Black Friday shopper individual, the spoiled recipients of a windfall life based on other people's guilt and moonbat political correctedness, and on and on. We can attack those at the top, sure. I'm all for that. But just as bad, are many of the people that don't have any real 'power'. Well, they have power in that the are both incompetent and extremely impulsive while at the same time (since they've been this way their entire life) very good at making sure no person or thing gets in their way. Me personally, I spend my time running in quicksand. I try to make headway with all the people I have to deal with in my world but, as I said, they were ready for that way before I even thought of approaching them to change. Just like our friends the potted plants in Washington.
So there is some self-determination that any person out there who is tired of all this shit can exercise, just be advised that the entity or person on the other side of you already has enough ammo to use on you to last much longer than your expected lifetime.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqnMrynpq9U
RAGE!
Brilliant article, very well written.
I agree with much of this article, but the author is trying to make the OWS crowd into some kind of high order noble cause. I call bull shit. From a friend currently living in Cairo:
"God in heaven. Not 3 miles from me, people are fighting to the death in hand to hand combat for the freedom to have a civil democracy. And then I see a photo like this." http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2011/11/23/the-entire-occupy-movement-summarized-in-one-sign/ To the author and all those 60's hippies wanting to reconnect with your beloved drug induced past, please spend a bit of time reading through wiki's overview of China's cultural revolution and see what happens when supreme control is given to a bunch of teenagers out to "change the world" as the Red Guard slaughtered millions of Chinese to save society from the ills of capitalism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Struggle_sessions_and_purgesWIKIPEDIA - GOOGLE - CIA RELATIONSHIPS
It is pretty dorky to quote the CIA's Wikipedia site ... Any moron can look up whatever propaganda happens to be on the CIA's Wikipedia, put at the top of search results by the CIA's Google. In case you didn't know, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales works for the US government and is one of the 'dearest' friends of his fellow extreme Zionist, the President of Israel, who has thanked Wales personally for letting Mossad plant so much false info there.
Wales was hired to run Wikipedia because of his willingness to spread false info, tell lies and help murder innocent people. In the 1990s 'Jimbo' Wales was a mafia pornographer, likely doing child porn, he is such a criminal ... probably how the US regime blackmailed - pushed him into being the front face for Wicked - Pedia.
Wikipedia is 'anonymously' sourced precisely because it is where US and Israeli agents can plant false information on selected targets, leaving the other 90% sort of 'neutral' sounding, to make the false info more effective!
And remember the CIA folks can totally change what anyone reads there in the blink of an eye, by the time you check back to it ... aaaand it's gone.
If you can't take a minute to go and find an actual legitimate source for something, you shouldn't make yourself look ignorant by using the CIA shill-site as your source, like a 12-year-old would do.
Or are you among the deluded folks who thought Wikipedia was 'volunteers'? Ha!
Here in Brussels I know some of the EU officials who will be issuing fines against Wikipedia and Google for their crimes, and I know the political refugee from the US in Belgium who is currently a target of major deceptive hoaxes on Wikipedia. I use one of the photos taken by this dissident for my avatar, he is also known here for some popular photos of Brussels as well as being under the protection of the House of the King of Belgium.
Years ago, this dissident - who has all his websites illegally blocked from Google -
Live Photo: Google Inc. Caught Censoring EU Search Results (for USA - CIA)
Google Internet Censorship - Censure d'Internet par Google - Internet censuur door Google
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22325431@N05/6100668211/in/photostream
The guy whose writings are being censored in that picture above, years ago he wrote an article about the CIA and Wikipedia, which was later proved entirely true by Wired News and other people tracing Wiki edits back to CIA computers et cetera ... consider that Google blocks this from search results.
Wikipedia is a US Government Fraud - How US Agents Can Embed in Wikipedia, Plant Propaganda, Delete Facts, Deceive and Attack Citizens - Wikipedia and the CIA
http://www.banned-in-america.net/wikipedia-cia-answers-com.html
EU Report with a lot of detail about Wikipedia spreading lies, amid its overall focus on crimes of Google:
Report to the EU Parliament and the Commission of the European Union
Anti-Competition Crimes of EU Internet Monopoly Google Inc. (with CIA) and Wikipedia (with CIA), to Erase EU Journalism, to Slander and Murder EU - Polish Citizen, Writer, Journalist Dr LES (LESZEK - LESLIE) SACHS
http://www.indymedia.nl/nl/2011/07/77181.shtml
SEE This Too: http://groups.google.com/group/us.legal/browse_thread/thread/e415d321fcf...
Original in pdf format:
http://eureportsnonzionistjews.hostfile.nl/file/0zndj5ea3v/410/nzjd-eu-r... (use browser!)
http://www.banned-in-america.net/nzjd-eu-report-1.pdf
There’s a great deal of antipathy & outright derision for so-called ‘sheeple’ by many of the very bright people on this site. But not much in the way of answers: a post dripping in sarcasm & ridicule may make the author feel superior but does zilch to get the message across.
How to get through to the apathetic, awaken the sleeping masses? How to convey what are complex facts & ideas in terms that can be understood by the ‘average Joe’ who isn’t as smart as you are? Telling them they're numb & dumb isn't going to do it.
The OWS movement appears to be largely captured by the left and anyway is incoherent and being done over by MSM. No time for that to evolve & develop legs.
What’s needed is something effective and hard-hitting that will grab the imagination of ordinary people and at the same time instruct on the Fed, Wall Street, erosion of liberties and the rest. And do it within a time-frame of a few months, max. Big ask? Maybe, but not impossible.
One quality that - most - Americans seem to have is Patriotism. They may be on food stamps or in the slammer (what is that total these days - 60% of population?) but underneath it all they love America - they’re patriots. How could that be tied in to an education campaign? I wouldn’t have a clue, but then I ‘aint the sharpest knife in the rack. You guys are, aren't you? Any marketeers out there?
At present, even though there are quite a lot of you, you're essentially talking to each other, preaching to the choir. Hasn’t the time come for ZH to go to the next level? Tyler?
PS Yes, you’ve guessed it - I am a Sheeple, but never-the-less, Always Positive J
Soft despotism - Alexis de Tocqueville
"The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/ch4_06.htm
I've wondered for a while why 2007 became such a tipping point, things seemed to hum along in their vastly corrupt way before that. Why the drastic change of direction all of a sudden? I think the answer is pretty simple. The global standard of living is levelling out, and for those who don't realize it, that means that the 98% of the world that has a lower standard of living than the US gets to go up a tiny bit while the West gets to drop dramatically. This happened "suddenly" because of the confluence of three tectonic forces:
1. Globalization of labor/wages through NAFTA and WTO;
2. Rise of levelling technologies like cellular phones and of course the internet
3. Crescendo of debt saturation so masking these effects by borrowing is becoming impossible.
You can add the final casino-ization of banking and markets as our fiat money/fractional reserve regime reaches its end-of-life date.
What does it mean for markets? (since most ZHrs are here to make some money)...Well it's no longer about value, it's about price and price action. So you have to throw out what worked for 20+ years of bull markets and what the entire industry spouts as received wisdom. Company announces great earnings? Meaningless. Company doing well in the developing world? Puh-lease. Convinced we're in for a huge drop? Save it. With governments ready to drop a fiat bomb at any moment, all these impulses can just get you slaughtered.
I suggest finding a good bull/bear/neutral daily price signal and buying QLD/QID at the open and selling at the close every day. With 4x leverage the strategy is up 331% YTD. Fundamentals are dead, value(s) are dead. Good luck>>>
One important influence on politics, throughout the developed world, are little old ladies. Little old ladies have been a force in US politics since women first got the vote. Women's suffrage gave us Prohibition and the federal income tax.
Prohibition is the most ridiculed and flouted law in this nation' history, but nevertheless it persisted for over a decade. Even when repealed, Prohibition only morphed into the war on drugs, giving us today's self-sustaining prison-industrial complex. In California, it has been called the "Iron Triangle" of politicians, prosecutors, and prison-guards, but it is founded on the votes of little old ladies.
What makes little old ladies different from other voters? I know from personal experience that they are the most timid persons you can imagine, and they spend a lot of time watching the television, which depicts a world that consists chiefly of murder, tragedy, and celebrity lifestyles. Because of this, little old ladies vote en bloc, regardless of party affiliation. Little old ladies mean well, but they cannot resist voting for politicians who promise tougher laws, and harsher penalties. Nor can they resist voting for enlargements of the welfare state, even though the vast bulk of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending already goes to them. Their votes are not balanced by the votes of old men, whose numbers are much fewer.
In my view, the reason that our republic continues to evolve into a police state, is not a conspiracy of the wealthy, nor is it due to the idiocy of the "sheeple". The problem, unfortunately, is a group of voters for whom we all share great sympathy - little old ladies who live alone, and are fearful, and who vote their fears.
Their numbers are growing.
whoa.
you MUST be Rush Limbaugh, amirite?
else you missed your /sarc tag, lttle man.
this article is best of the very best....
sodom and gomorrah will have it easier on the day of judgment than those cunts quoted in the comments section....so will be true of the banksters and other economic and financial terrorists...
Thanks for the excellent treatise Jim Quinn.
I shall print it to paper....offer it up to any sheep that are ready to awaken
Well said tony, "the best of the very best"
FFS, Quinn ... How many alias log-ins do you have!?!
Negative
I am not Jim Quinn
I am a snowboarder from North Idaho
AgShaman is the only online ID I've ever used....I use it also at a couple of Precious Metals forums where I enjoy commenting on geopolitics and MMT and how it relates with precious metals ownership.
Will that explanation suffice?
I was being more tongue-in-cheek than anything and apologise for the direct offense to you. BUT, Quinn is known here for using aliases when posting troll responses (which he hasn't done for a while ... he's probably too busy writing more 50-page propaganda pieces).
Look at the people rushing into Walmart at midnight on Black Friday or the people milling around the Redbox outside Walgreens or Kroger in the evening and what do you see? I see proles from George Orwell's book "1984"!
Of course, I see Zero Hedge readers as Winston Smith. So, what is your greatest fear which the big brother corporatocracy can wield to guarantee your allegiance? Mine is becoming a prole! Believe me, I would be thanking Big Brother for bringing the torture to an end.
By the way, I don't thing the author mentioned the state monarch acting as judge, jury, and executioner of American citizens overseas. At last count, Bush killed one and Obama killed two. Unless it is stopped now, it will come to the homeland/fatherland/motherland ... and you can take that to the bank! [Correction: make that credit union instead of bank]
Randolph Bourne speaking about World War I: and think that since World War II we have been in a state of nearly total war, despite the closure of the Cold War. Now the new war is both at home and abroad and the "Clash of Civilizations" will usher in the Iron Heel of Jack London once the fight wiht Syria and Iran involves Russia and China. As Washington's blog notes the Senate is prepared to bring the war home. The US/USSR distinction will erode.
War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society those irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the Government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense. The machinery of government sets and enforces the drastic penalties; the minorities are either intimidated into silence, or brought slowly around by a subtle process of persuasion which may seem to them really to be converting them. Of course, the ideal of perfect loyalty, perfect uniformity is never really attained. The classes upon whom the amateur work of coercion falls are unwearied in their zeal, but often their agitation instead of converting, merely serves to stiffen their resistance. Minorities are rendered sullen, and some intellectual opinion bitter and satirical. But in general, the nation in wartime attains a uniformity of feeling, a hierarchy of values culminating at the undisputed apex of the State ideal, which could not possibly be produced through any other agency than war. Loyalty - or mystic devotion to the State - becomes the major imagined human value. Other values, such as artistic creation, knowledge, reason, beauty, the enhancement of life, are instantly and almost unanimously sacrificed, and the significant classes who have constituted themselves the amateur agents of the State are engaged not only in sacrificing these values for themselves but in coercing all other persons into sacrificing them.
War - or at least modern war waged by a democratic republic against a powerful enemy - seems to achieve for a nation almost all that the most inflamed political idealist could desire. Citizens are no longer indifferent to their Government, but each cell of the body politic is brimming with life and activity. We are at last on the way to full realization of that collective community in which each individual somehow contains the virtue of the whole. In a nation at war, every citizen identifies himself with the whole, and feels immensely strengthened in that identification. The purpose and desire of the collective community live in each person who throws himself wholeheartedly into the cause of war. The impeding distinction between society and the individual is almost blotted out. At war, the individual becomes almost identical with his society. He achieves a superb self-assurance, an intuition of the rightness of all his ideas and emotions, so that in the suppression of opponents or heretics he is invincibly strong; he feels behind him all the power of the collective community. The individual as social being in war seems to have achieved almost his apotheosis. Not for any religious impulse could the American nation have been expected to show such devotion en masse, such sacrifice and labor. Certainly not for any secular good, such as universal education or the subjugation of nature, would it have poured forth its treasure and its life, or would it have permitted such stern coercive measures to be taken against it, such as conscripting its money and its men. But for the sake of a war of offensive self-defense, undertaken to support a difficult cause to the slogan of "democracy," it would reach the highest level ever known of collective effort.
For these secular goods, connected with the enhancement of life, the education of man and the use of the intelligence to realize reason and beauty in the nation's communal living, are alien to our traditional ideal of the State. The State is intimately connected with war, for it is the organization of the collective community when it acts in a political manner, and to act in a political manner towards a rival group has meant, throughout all history - war.
There is nothing invidious in the use of the term "herd" in connection with the State. It is merely an attempt to reduce closer to first principles the nature of this institution in the shadow of which we all live, move, and have our being. Ethnologists are generally agreed that human society made its first appearance as the human pack and not as a collection of individuals or of couples. The herd is in fact the original unit, and only as it was differentiated did personal individuality develop. All the most primitive surviving tribes of men are shown to live in a very complex but very rigid social organization where opportunity for individuation is scarcely given. These tribes remain strictly organized herds, and the difference between them and the modern State is one of degree of sophistication and variety of organization, and not of kind.
Psychologists recognize the gregarious impulse as one of the strongest primitive pulls which keeps together the herds of the different species of higher animals. Mankind is no exception. Our pugnacious evolutionary history has prevented the impulse from ever dying out. This gregarious impulse is the tendency to imitate, to conform, to coalesce together, and is most powerful when the herd believes itself threatened with attack. Animals crowd together for protection, and men become most conscious of their collectivity at the threat of war.
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” — Albert Einstein
Talking about Syria and Iran, here's a good read:
Preparing for WW3, Targeting Iran...Jim Quinn has become the Thomas Paine of our time.
Juice by Tappy,
Juice by Tappy.
Juice by Tappy.
Weeeee got a winner.
What a fucking Marxist shit! What, motherfucker, do you have to offer?
Your fucking diagrams? Nobody is going to pay you for this shit. Go and find real job if you can do anything of use.
Publicly urinating, masturbating shit in Zuccoti Park? According to official data, there are 3.5 million job openings in US right now. Including millions of high paid jobs. You have millions of motherfuckers , spending 99 weeks on unemployment benefits doing nothing. Everybody with minimal amount of brains could use this time to prepare himself for available gainful employment (I would give a break to folks after 50). If you are lazy, worthless, stupid, ignorant motherfucker who wastes tax payers money for 99 weeks, then after that time you deserve soup kitchen and shelter for homeless and nothing more. These lazy swines from OWS, spending weeks doing nothing should be dealt with as harshly as possible. And enough of this fucking whining!
You, motherfucker, have absolutely nothing to offer except for Mad Max World where charlatans like Simon Black will thrive and others will be exterminated. Fucking Shit!
This post was full of candor and cool-headed debate.
Peace is the only answer....
Bring the boys home and stop the military machine.
The cut the government size slowly till we can meet our obligations
violent protests are not the solution but the answer the present government is waiting for!
Help each other in good times and bad do not rise up with out knowing the consiquence.
Marchall law is not what we want, we want to disband crime inc running washington and the fed and the judisiary.
>>n/t
This article is shite. All Jim Quinn's articles are shite. He makes the assumption that everyone is dumb, when the reality is only a small percent don't care or are so disaffected that they carry on with their inane lives. Most people either don't know what to do, or are too busy trying to keep food on the table for their families to take the time to express outrage to their local paper.
Grow the fuck up, Jim. Right some deeper shit if you want remain credible.
I am Chumbawamba.
This has to be one of the best cases of dialogue and debate I've seen yet, top shelf zh!
Typo:
Should be:
The American people are paying the price for allowing a government.
I think alot of people are missing the point of OWS. They are already doing something by keeping the dialogue going in the infomercial media and beyond. We're talking about it here. They are doing this by simply existing. Whatever people want to think about OWS, they need to atleast admit, that if wasn't for them, the 'news' would be back to stories about Natalie Wood's case being reopened and other equally wanton sheeple entertainment. We know the news cycle is, at best, 36 hours long. The discussions about OWS, sometimes touching on the governement corruption and collusion with Wall Street fraudsters, have been going on in the mainstream media, for months. The protests, the pepper spray at UC Davis, Bloomberg's media black out, these events, have gotten the entire country talking about serious issues since the protests began.
We've needed to discuss the rampant corruption in government, the lawlessness in the financial industry, the fact that the student loan bubble is another tax payer insured bubble being blown right now, using fraud, just like the housing bubble was blown in the same way. We need to discuss why journalists are being arrested while the people committing financial crimes, like Corzine, are walking free. We need to quetion why our Constitutional rights are being trampled upon every single day and why Congress is getting to profit from inside information and from voting against the interests of the American people, ext, ext, ext. We need to discuss these things until we make them better. And for that, I am grateful for movements like OWS.
Admiting that there is a problem is the first step towards recovery.