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Guest Post: The United States Of Deceit: 1968-2011
Submitted by Ben Tanosborn
The United States of Deceit: 1968-2011
I’ve just returned from a day-trip to Sea-Tac airport where I spent three hours with an old friend on his way to Tokyo, his first stop of six in Asia before he returns home to Athens.
If in a symbolic way, I could say that during the past two weeks I have traveled, separately, on two voyages that had the very same destination: deceit. In one, I toured an impersonal, more generic international route; in the other I followed a personal path.
During the 160-mile trip north to Sea-Tac my thoughts for the most part did not revolve in anticipation of seeing my graduate school friend of four decades ago coming from Greece. Instead, they centered on a very close friend in Portland who was truly hurting and embarrassingly humiliated, a victim of duplicity and imposture by a former woman friend without apparent scruples. This woman friend seemingly failed to consider her family and past romantic associations in a reckless behavior that, although private and very personal, could easily become public or somewhat public; a behavior that in today’s society is considered totally amoral, and one where decent people can be tainted simply by association. And that would be my Portland friend. However, my trip’s purpose had nothing to do with personal reflections on deceit, but solely a visit with my Greek friend that I hadn’t seen for years.
Stefan received his doctorate in economics 40 years ago and he is more than just a spectator in the problems besetting Greece these days. Although we have not had much of a relationship past grad school, other than the obligatory 2 or 3 seasonal cards, nowadays converted to the same number of less costly and receipt-proof emails, there have been a few times of transcendental happenings, such as the invasion of Iraq in 2003, when we did exchange extensive personal notes of criticism on the infamy that stood behind such intervention and crimes perpetrated by uncontested US superpower.
Both Stefan and I have been bucking the establishment going back to our days in graduate school in 1967 and 1968 at UCLA. A group of us, probably fewer than a dozen, and never more than 4 or 5 at a given sitting, would make political hay of Lyndon Johnson and what we considered “his war” in Vietnam. Usually at one of the school’s cafeterias, no Starbucks then, at a table next to one usually frequented by later-to-be basketball legend, Karim Abdul-Jabbar, known at that time as Lew Alcindor.
Although our group was small, it probably included all or most of the active voices against the war in the Graduate School of Business (both students and faculty); also, all criticism of racial prejudice and lack of ethics teaching in the conduct of business. In June 1968, shortly before our upcoming graduation, four of us in the group celebrated the occasion at the Coconut Grove of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, three days before then senator and aspirer to the presidency, Bobby Kennedy, was assassinated a few feet away. That occurred two months and a day after another fighter for freedom, Martin Luther King, was gunned down in another hotel in Memphis.
In my conversation with Stefan, our first memory was that of the prevailing airs and gossip that transpired in the School of Business during those last 9 weeks of school. The typical statements made on MLK’s assassination then were not of outrage but the opposite, and how he had brought his demise onto himself. By just about everyone’s account he (MLK) was a commie, a plagiarist and a philanderer… a down and out troublemaker. Bobby Kennedy fared better although his progressive stands did not, perhaps considering that his father, Joseph Kennedy, had been a turncoat against Wall Street helping FDR,
During the extended lunch period at the airport, we revisited Vietnam and the Richard Nixon years. It’s Stefan’s contention that Watergate was an insignificant event, and that Nixon’s crime had been following the advice of his much lauded, irresponsible Henry Kissinger in the way in which he opened up relations with China. Not the fact that relations were established but how they were established, a path which was followed by every president since that time at a horrific cost to the nation’s economy. As far as Stefan is concerned, that was the very start of a policy of deceit by the US government on its people, and the shift of wealth from the US to China shouldered in exclusivity by the American people, principally those involved in the area of manufacturing; the true start of poorly planned globalization.
We shifted the theme and tone from one of an American equivocated foreign policy that stays silent on oppression against the Palestinians, and most often against the aspirations of much of the population in the Middle East or Southwest Asia, to the economic predicament that much of the world is in today. We concurred in the assessment that much of the problem had been brought about by the US directly through its creative financing and phony paper assets, and also by the emulation in some Southern European countries of the flawed US real estate model.
Although I am not as convinced as Stefan that the US government has brought about all our economic ills through deceit, I give it ample credence; but also give a good share of the blame to a citizenry at large vested with waste and greed.
On my drive back, ruminating on that blame placed on the government as the mastermind and source of deceit I thought of my friend back in Portland. Was he really the victim of deceit, or did he really invite deceit by his own self-deceit? By entering into a romantic relationship two years before with a woman less than half his age with a compromising polyamorous background, one which was not much different from that which she is exhibiting, and blamed for, today!?
Is it really economic, political or romantic deceit we are sometimes victims of, or is it more often than not a case of unfulfilled wishful thinking, of self-deceit?
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It is self-deceit! Most people create their own problems.
US is based on the myth of the individual as independent moral agent AND master of his/her own destiny.
Simultaneously, US is structured by the old boys network spawned by the Ivy League schools, who work only for the rewards handed them by their old money masters.
These two fact sets do not reconcile. They create only denial and deceipt.
US is morally and intellectually corrupt to the core - a fact enabled by denial.
US will crumble and fragment in the next nine months.
As you sow, you reap.
9 months...wow that is a fairly precise prediction. Any reason for that time period? Not saying you are wrong...I do believe fractionation of the US is very possible (but I'm leaning more to 3-5 yrs) but not so soon. If you have a better reasoning for your event horizon I would be interested.
Bollocks, the US had it great for 40 years overconsuming till we have pretty much exhausted all the easily available commodities and have left scraps for others to feed on...
thank you so do i. i take your 40 and raise you 25. overconsuming is as overconsuming does.
If you look all the great empires are still here: Greece, Rome, Ottoman, English, Russian, etc.
The US will continue for a thousand years. It will just have half as many people, half as much wealth and the people will be speaking some language called Sino-spanglish.
Cumulative effect of all destructive systems strategies maturing:
Failure of QE3 + failure of job creation + failure of economic growth + accellerating decline of US federal, state & local revenue + failure of fiscal discipline + expansion US military & covert activity and associated costs + US banks de facto insolvency + general massive division within US population demographics and socio-economic groups = increasing chaos and dissatisfaction, making the inevitable eventual collapse apparent to everyone by Q1 2012 - which clarity will exponentially accelerate total systemic collapse.
The 2012 election cycle will mature confrontation between all US political factions and ideologies, and bring into daily mass media focus the increasing US poverty and citizens' increasing distrust in US government. Continued corporate outsourcing and offshoring will increasingly be recognized as cause of the maturing destruction of the US working/middle class - and thus set the stage for real class confrontation.
Distractions - wars and likely false flag attacks - will be staged, but too late to "unite" the fractured US population segments into a common sense of national identity. Almost every US person know in their hearts that all that unites them is the pursuit of personal frivolity (stuff, status & escapism) - a weak "unifying factor", working only in times of plenty.
The US is a mythical construct. There is no "America"; there is only a leveraged & manipulated "market" of mutual consumption. Being a consumer - is NOT a national identity - and consequently, as the consumer is finally decimated during the next nine months, so is any remnants of broad national identity & allegiance.
Empires destroy themselves - from the inside - via quantifiable, exponentially accelerating fragmentation. My prediction of nine months till US collapse is based on projecting statistics of the structural components mentioned above; all are in consistent decline.
US debt is accelerating 10 times faster than US revenue. Direct US military spending exceeds 20% of US revenue - indirectly over 40%. Real US unemployment exceeds 20%, food stamps exceed 15% and likely to reach 20% by Q1/Q2 2012. Massive state and municipal furloughs and or layoffs equalling one million jobs are in the pipeline for the next 9-12 months and US corporations will shed a similar amount of jobs in the same timeframe - all the while DC will be in election cycle mudslinging, denial and gridlock.
During the next nine months no one will take responsibilty for anything - and, simultaneously - everyone will be in denial - and point their fingers elsewhere - all the while critical systemic thresholds are passed and systemic breakdown becomes clear and present to everyone.
It may take Q3/Q4 2012 - and even most of 2013 - for US collapse to complete its ugly destruction - but - by summer 2012 it will be clear and present to the entire world that US empire is a construct of the past.
On a positive note - I believe there is a real potential for a 2014 renaissance - IF the lesson is learned - that substance and truth in all dealings is essential - and pretense, decipt and denial are to be avoided.
Well hard to argue with that. I still think the possibility of fed/govt will pull a temporary rabbit out of a hat is high. But the timing of the election could be unfortunate. We certainly live in interesting times.
Whre else do you write? This is solid analysis.
"During the next nine months no one will take responsibilty for anything - and, simultaneously - everyone will be in denial - and point their fingers elsewhere - all the while critical systemic thresholds are passed and systemic breakdown becomes clear and present to everyone."
Business as usual. Only this time, those systemic breakdowns will start having very real impacts on the quality of life for many. This has been occuring in Japan for 20+ years. This has been allowed because Japan was a single country that has been significantly raped by the banking class already and still pay it hommage. If Europe and the U.S. start crumbling together, the affects become exponentially more intense. It would be great to experience the renaissance that you speak of, unfortunately, this means a substantially lower quality of life for everyone across the boards. It also means that the baby boomers not only accept this, but start accepting hard science regarding fresh water and alternative energy. As a perent of the population, relatively few actually see or understand the physics and thermodynamcs of the universe, the true capabilities of technology and the thread upon which this eCONomy (and life for that matter) depends. Simply things like phosphate and nitrogen in their reduced forms, coupled with fresh water issues, will move economies more that the price of gold going forward.
Nice work sir, enjoyed your writing.
Amen.
ALL Hollywood movies center on the individual hero who, near at the end of the movie, saves the day and kills the bad dude or dudes in obviously overwhelming odds. I mean how many times has James Bond survived the torrent of enemy bullets and explosions, not to mention the STDs from screwing all those beautiful chicks? (As an aside, if they made a real James Bond movie--MI5/6 propaganda at its finest and slickest, even Goebel would be jealous--where he is finally killed off, it would outgross all previous Bond movies.)
That is the MYTH--the individual can save the day--used to keep the sheeple from ever making any real and significant changes (even Christ had 12 disciples to spread the word). The sheeple, if s/he is luck and has a job is too tired at the end of the workday or if s/he doesn't have a job is too stressed, looks at all the problems facing the U.S. and just says, "I cannot do anything, I am just one person with a family to feed."
The good old boys know that it takes networks and organizations to effect significant change (their kind of repressive and greed-is-good kind of change). Hence, why there are these elite universities (Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc.) to train their next generation, elite organizations to network and take orders (Bohemian Grove, Bilderburger Group, CFR, TC, etc.), and corporations that they run as CEOs to amass money and power. These psychopaths/sociopaths and their minions (Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Bushes, Clintons) understand that it takes many generations to effect lasting changes. Hence, they have tax-free foundations to transfer wealth intergenerationally without being taxed, while the income taxe system puts a financial collar on the the "useless eaters" from ever moving upward social-economically.
Even wonder why Bill Gates Sr. is at the forefront of the repeal-the-death-tax movement? How about Bill Gates Jr. spending millions to vaccinate the masses?
The United States is the United States of Death, Disease, and Destruction.
ALL Hollywood movies center on the individual hero who, near at the end of the movie, saves the day and kills the bad dude or dudes in obviously overwhelming odds.
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No. Hollywood has been an echo chamber for the US middle class.
Individuality does not exist in the US. On the contrary, the US has killed individuality or suppressed it enough it looks like dead.
Group has always been prevailing in the US. The US is the world champion of the group approach.
Individuality in its non US citizenish meaning refers to something that can not be divided.
When one looks at what US citizens refer to as an individual, one observes not an individual but the recollection of multiple memberships to various groups. What is called individualism in US citizenism is actually extremely fragmented.
The group has always prevailed in the US way of thinking. The group is all. Citizen rights. People are characterized by the various groups they are supposed to belong to and acquire a similar life experience from.
Most Hollywood is built on that principle. In movies, you do not see individuals but various figure heads for their group so that various viewers can associate with them.
Hollywood do not think their characters as individuals, they think them in reference to the various groups they want to talk to (and take the money from)
A US movie hero is usually a white person, a US citizen, middle class, male, aged 30~40 and all the list of other groups that are targeted as an audience.
In such context, the US context, it is clear that only through a group, one can be got one's voice heard. The group is all in the US, you have to be of that ethnic profile, to be that age, to be that social class, belong to that frat, been to that college etc...
All this to say: no, the individual can make a difference. So it is wrong to claim that the individual does not matter. But one has also to state that in the US (and by extension the West) individuality does not exist.
People are used to refer to themselves not as individuals but as a recollection of various groups membership. In the west, people are supposed to be what their various groups overlapse on.
Are you fu*king kidding?!?
Or are you one of the NSA/CIA/Mi5//6/Mossad paid and trained bots?
James Bond, The Bourne Identity, Mission Impossible, Die Hard, Batman, Indiana Jones, The Matrix, Rambo, Rocky, Kill Bill, etc., etc., etc.
So what? Listing films tells nothing.
Rambo and Rocky are working class heroes for example. They are not individuals but figure heads to embody and symbolize various groups.
Die Hard features Bruce Willis, who was the US middle class icon at his peak of fame.
Etc...
I agree with what you say pretty much 100% - especially about the false "indiviualism" and "freedom" that Americans think they have.
But...you would do yourself a great service by not making predicitions about how the whole shithouse is gonna crumble in 9 months - when serious people, with serious, and truthful points of view start going down the path of soothsayer and making "predictions" of certainty....you start to sound crazy....and almost immediately turn off about 75% of the people who would continue to listen to you.
Now, I'm not saying it can't fall apart - or won't - It may just take a bit of time for TPTB to start to fail, and lose control. They won't let it go easily....and there will probably be another major war (to make the sheeple pick sides against each other). But eventually, it will have to happen....mostly because we have lived waaaaay Beyond our means...both in regards to money, materials and energy....but mostly, we are fucked because NO ONE is willing to make a direct sacrifice for anything other than something that benefits them directly. The concept of community is completely broken in the U.S. - This is the mindset that has been created, cultivated and cast upong the nation by corporations and their marketing firms - we are only a nation of consumption-oriented individuals....
" It is self-deceit! Most people create their own problems." ..... & many try really hard to be a good person, honest & forthright, but are surrounded by evil-doers who are working behind the scene to undermine the honest people.
Hello there LynnyB
US Foreign Policy written by the Israel Lobby and the CFR are the mother of all deception.
The Mossad motto: “By way of deception, thou shall do war”
good evening, Mr. Michael ! you are one of the truth tellers & i respect that. i've spent two years of my life researching when i should have been playing with grandkids. i, too , know who controls our government & it's damn ugly. i used to be stupid, not anymore. best wishes to you, sir. you are super cool .
Try not to trouble yourself with concern too much Lynny. Our army of watchdogs has grown tremendously. Keep spending time with the grandkids whenever you get a chance. Have a nice holiday weekend. You deserve it.
When will you learn? The deceit was perpetrated by Willson<1913. The American public is deceived by a banking cartel who willfully installed a Yes Man as president (the tradition remains) and created a monetary system that was designed to steal private property and destroy libertarian principles. That people are forced to use as money, the legal tender scrip that the banks illegally (constitutionally) produce. It is a deceit that is completely transparent yet not fully understood. That is slowly changing.
Destroy a country by first undermining its currency. (Marx, I think)
Pretty simple: your friend hooked up with a slut. Tell him he's not the first guy to fall for that...........................
"Fall" for it?
Aren't most men looking for it?
Men are looking for sex, then women pull their tricks and make you say "I love you." Then, well, you have this guy's problem...................
There are two "direct" routes to poverty and loosing everything one has ever worded for...one is crack cocaine and the other is, well, the other kind of crack, which has decimated many of my friends over the years. Keep it out of your nose and keep it in your pants and you are on your way to some financial security if you have the discipline to do so. I could have fallen off the log many times but thanks to some messages from my country baptist churh from 50 years ago I lucked out.
Huh?
Financial security means what? Remember: it's all deceipt!
Sitting on a pile of PMs is a pretty sad life. Life is worth living, and since we're social creatures being a hermit isn't something many of us are capable of being.
Those ridiculing partnerships with females are likely to have too small of a sampling size to cast a proper assessment, are going by the "gossip world" (which is based on the breakup/makeup model, the one that makes attorneys, real estate agents and jewelers rich), or, are folks that should really look in the mirror (what's the common factor in your repeated failings?).
Yeah, I suffered a less-than-good marriage. Now, however, I've got a partner who kicks ass; as a team we can out-do ANY individual. I learned from my first marriage, I learned to identify exactly what I wanted in my next partnership, and by properly understanding and defining it I got it!
Whatever......................let the board know when you're on your 4th, then maybe you'll have some decent wisdom to share.............
I have a pretty good sample size; enough to say that western women are useless. They are fucktoys. They are proud that they do not know how to cook, do not clean, want an aupair to raise their kids. Screw that.
Get a foreign girl, from a country where traditional values still exist. Either that or find any western woman, buy a firearm, load and cock it and put it in your mouth and walk around with her finger on the trigger.
i usually respect your comments; but, you got a little emotional on this one; it's a male thing; truth is, the family was sacrificed for economic gain of the elites/empire. like illegals, new slaves; the women have been brain washed to be like men. which is a very cruel thing to do; but, hey, they can sure spend to cover up the pain.
You are not looking in the right places. Besides, it sounds more like you want a servant.
i usually prefer not to respond to trav, but have to on this one. my best friend is a doctor with a very comfortable income. but he is not a typical doc, he puts in some serious hours and has been called to surgery at all different hours of the day/night including weekends. HE WORKS HIS ASS OFF! His wife of 15 years has given him 2 boys. She has spoiled them completely: both have their own rooms (in a BIG house), both have iPhones, iPads, Macbooks, 50' flat screen HDs, Playstations, etc etc et f'n c.........
About a year ago, my friend got tired of some very big clothing bills that were coming in every month (about 9-10 grand PER MONTH). Now you should know his wife has a cleaning lady, a lady that cooks three times per week and a nanny. So my friend asked his wife point blank "What do you do all day?" Her response was "shopping and keeping the house running." When he pointed out that his wife has 3 hired women to keep the house running, she went on a TIRADE. Started throwing shit around the house, cursing at him, etc. She felt that she was OWED the ability to do NOTHING and buy ANYTHING she wanted to do because she was a woman, she was his wife, she had borne him 2 sons and because he made a lot of money. SHE had become spoiled.
While my friend owns some of this too, I must say trav has a point here. My friend got all the sex he needed when they were dating, she made promises to him about TAKING care of him and the boys and raising them in a proper manner. Instead of keeping those promises the way he THOUGHT she would, she just got LAZY and went and hired other women to do it on her behalf. Did I mention that the sex is non-existent now and he was only getting it about twice per month for the last 3 years????
And that my friends, is a typical story. Give a woman the CHANCE to become lazy and have a LOT of money in your life, and the odds are they will do it. Then the sex disappears, and then half of your shit disappears after you are dragged thru divorce court.......
you forgot the third way: put your life savings in dollars at a new york bank and they will tax it away through fees or inflation.
"Keep it out of your nose and keep it in your pants and you are on your way to some financial security if you have the discipline to do so."
Excellent advice. +1 for you.
Can someone translate this for me . . .
The US set itself up for failure when it entered into a relationship with China...now we are fucked.
asian chicks, yeah...
thats what I said...
In plain English:
Red pill of truth is in principle the real thing, but truth is not pretty like a ex-supermodel in her 50s without make up or photoshop or surgery. Politicians, actors, religious figures, salespeople, "leaders", almost anyone opportunistic will exploit this human weakness for their self-gain.
Here are my two cents:
Crap dude you should have written the article...makes far more sense and straight forward.
Post again a good example of cheap US propaganda.
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American business thought they would make money selling to billions of chinese, but chinese communists outsmarted american capitalists on their own game:
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That is plentifully wrong. That is selling the propaganda for what is covered.
Normal consequences to Smithian economics.
The US has never wished the Chinese to consume. That is the story sold to US citizens (some of them) so they can swallow the smithian pill more easily.
Smithian economics get people to look for the most imbalanced solution possible, so that the wealth transfer from the exteriour to the interior is optimized.
In case of labour, it means looking for the cheapest labour possible.
China fitted the bill for a while, which has allowed US business to make a killing extracting wealth from the Chinese at the lowest cost and selling it much higher to the rest of the world.
On the contrary, the Chinese tried to break that circle by patiently and painfully rising little by little their capacity to consume. Situation shows they failed.
The story that the Chinese will one day consume enough has one aim: selling the idea that US citizens, especially those who were to be excluded by smithian economics mechanics, would one day sell items to Chinese.
That is all. Chinese are operating on a razor thin margin so that US business could make a killing in profits.
What is happening now is simply the end of the expansion cycle. Everything else is hogwash.
In order for US to grow beyond simple manufacturing economy, it needed to find a replacement. China with massive labor fit the bill. The idea was US (protector as world's police/government) > Japan/India (service) > China (Manufacturing) > Middle East and Africa (natural resources)
China must consume oil to manufacture and to maintain dollar reserves. US does not wish for China to consume US oil, but middle east oil and just wants to tax the saudis and indirectly China for providing world class military protection.Same game has been played by many empires throughout history. British Empire didn't manufacture jack squat except war machines. What would Chinese buy anything from UK? But they had control of sea trade via navy.
That's why US middle class is shrinking. US elites do not care about the main street. only banking and military (which is where all science, technology funding is going anyways).
In order for US to grow beyond simple manufacturing economy, it needed to find a replacement. China with massive labor fit the bill. The idea was US (protector as world's police/government) > Japan/India (service) > China (Manufacturing) > Middle East and Africa (natural resources)
such a cogent quick coda: here succinctly thought/written out
does force consideration, even given the difficulty/unto clarity of such crisp hindsight, of how studied the astute foresight of empire, and farreaching . . . all-the-way-back down again and again into their predecessors' great intergenerational hindsight
That's an education
{fields-of-eton, etc, reading thucydides}
that's entertainment
It tells nothing about US business not making a killing.
US middle class is shrinking from a simple cause: the resources and the conditions that have supported the creation of the US middle class are vanishing.
The US middle class was born out of theft, taking from others to promote poor people to the middle class.
From a US perspective, there is not much left to rob in the world as the robbing has always been done.
Wow!!! Bet Stefan has done nothing his entire life but work for some Greek government institution or college producing nothing but hot air on what should have been. You guys sound like some 19th century anarchist who never do anythng but work yourselves into frenzies. The only solutions you offer are wild meanderings and never come to fruition. Good luck and keep consoling each other because no one else takes you seriously.
True and where are all the sordid details about the sordid goings on?
"You guys sound like some 19th century anarchist"
What a dumb fucking thing to say! Sigh, people who paint with large brushes get paint all over themselves...
NOTE: I'm defending anarchists, not the author and or his friend.
Takes two to Tango, but most people were born into the countries where they live and taught/fed ides of govt and official honesty and working for the whole. The deception has a definite polarity about it.
At the same time, I do find, especially among Americans and some others, reluctance to look under the hood of the machine. It's just too painful for many. Dealing with their immediate problems is hard enough without questioning the macro system.
History suggests that willingness to look is a threshold phenomena. When pain exceeds a certain point, there is a collective awakening. We are in the early stages now- the threshold is not a step function. Or if you like, some of us have been tunneling (in the quantum sense) for a decade or more, and there is a definite advantage to being on the leading edge of the curve.
Contrary to the guy a few posts up, I believe the ability of the government to mortgage America's resources and subisidize our way of life could go on for many years before the pain threshold is hit. I predict a long slow death.
Belief in the invisible sky daddy
What I REALLY don't understand is why this article is on ZH. Even better, WHY the Washington Post...
It's more comparable to the ramblings found in some chicks diary..
So again, why here on ZH gobbling up megabytes??
Slow news day?...I don't know...
Here kitty kitty, come get your bowl of milk from the big government teat.
Russ in Redding: The Human Face of The End of Work
Just another day of playing cat & mouse games. The State must continue its propaganda role in kicking this delusional eCONomy can down the road a bit further.
If you put a group of low-income, poor credit history people in a casino not much will happen. But if simultaneously you extend a bunch of credit to them (for the expressed purpose of betting) NOW you've got some action. Probably even manage to attract more players.
Prudence? Who is Prudence?
Book smart is not life smart.
Long-John...Right On!
Wow; now how do I get that 5 minutes of my life back...
As someone here so aptly stated; "behind every woman are 4 guys who couldn't put up with her bullshit." truer words were never written.
To you young guys... Travel, Adventure, Live, Explore, Enjoy... And stay !@!@#$ single...
Sounds to me like 4 guys may be behind her right now...........................
+9 months
Amen IronShield! If living in the current west, truer words have never been said.
"Bobby Kennedy fared better although his progressive stands did not, perhaps considering that his father, Joseph Kennedy, had been a turncoat against Wall Street helping FDR,"
Fuck ALL of You Evangelicals!
Kennedy Ideals are coming back!
You Mother Fuckers can NOT! be Dead soon enough for me!!
Vote a Bullets!
Forget to take your meds?
do you take issue with the idea that talking, marching, protesting will not solve any of the issues we face today, Agaiin?
well sweety?
how do you want to effect change?
another 40 years of protesting?
should we hold hands and sing christian songs to the federal government and their owners wall street?
tell me.. what would you like to do to help fix the problem?
"tell me.. what would you like to do to help fix the problem?"
As Eric Sevareid said, the chief cause of problems is solutions.
Before asking for a "fix/solution" perhaps you can state what the "problem" is?
NOTE: problems are generally issues regarding life or death, all else are just issues.
NOTE2: "fix" or "solution" presents a terminus, a final end. Is it really possible for anything to be in a state permanance (other than death? [though those believing in reincarnation would beg to differ])?
see and I think of problems in relation to being able to find fuel in the islands when the big fish are running.. it is a bigger problem than most know.
good, clean fuel in the islands is hard to come by when you want / need it.
on the flip side.. if the fish are not running.. good clean fuel every where!
(i didnt down arrow you, I have a locals only rule that has been burned onto my main board)
guillotines?
Sit on your wallet!
the only interesting thing worth debating is the contention that K started the chinese ball rolling in 1968. And that RN bought it...Now that, takes somes believing considering he carpet bombed Vietnam for four to six years more.
I personally believe that K got wise on the inevitable Viet debacle in 1971 when his Cambodia gambit back fired and made the region even more unstable. Its was that side war that started K's slide into detente!
Just saying...Maybe others can comment on this. The key man to selling the Outsourding deal big to China, was LEE KWAN YEW of Singapore; after Mao was replaced by Deng in 1976-1978.
That's when the ball really started rolling. By then it was Carter but obviously K had laid the foundations.
Mr. K is a traitor to all Americans. The East Timorese will never forget his green light to Suharto and the Greeks will never forget what he did in Cyprus.
He is condemned to stay in his flat and be guarded everywhere he goes. He knows that a small security "faux pas" will render him dead.
May a thousand camel flies infest his armpits
Considering Americans' track record in reducing population numbers I'd have to say that Kissinger WASN'T a traitor to all Americans. The correct statement would be:
"Kissinger is a murdering bastard." (and should be hung)
"May a thousand camel flies infest his armpits"
Now that is a curse!
"Mr. K is a traitor to all Americans. The East Timorese will never forget his green light to Suharto and the Greeks will never forget what he did in Cyprus.
He is condemned to stay in his flat and be guarded everywhere he goes. He knows that a small security "faux pas" will render him dead."
All the security in the world won't stop a JDAM. The Air Force/Navy/Marines have families to protect/avenge too, if and when TSHTF. There just may be more justice handed out than some may think.
Though I think a public, and preferably televised worldwide, Braveheart-style 'hang draw and quarter' solution would be more fitting for the likes of Mr. K.
and as for Stefan and his sit home and work on your inner child bullshit! peace building one child at a time!
40 years of Government Evil!
Ignored! or given a Pass!
Fuck a March!
Fuck Protest!
Fuck Painting Posters!
These Evil Fuckers have been Killing Americans of how long?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw0D0yG3QmA
97th Anniversary of the Ludlow Colorado Massacre
Under the command of the Rockefeller family, the National Guard fires at strikers and their families to suppress a strike of twelve thousand workers
http://www.openfilm.com/videos/psywar <----- Thanks "CD"
http://metanoia-films.org/index.php <----- Thanks "CD"
You idiots better wake up!
You will be killed laying down or standing..
There can be NO! Peace!!
An Armed Nation of 300 million? 5 to 10 guns per person with 8 to 10 Billion Bullets a year being sold! going back for the last decade!!
They want Population control and they want us to kill each other!
Have you ever noticed how it is the Jews or Aztlan??? but NEVER!! The Fault of the Blue Bloods who really own everything???
The game has already been fought and won.. "We the People" lost.
Why do you think? Just ask Mr Lei.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8715823/Martin-Luther-King-memorial-made-in-China.html
Average Joe Rant - This guy must be a Tea-orrist. Shame on this African American questioning the Messiah, Big Sis has placed this man on the list of being a racist. LOL and enjoy.
Chinese even got to make his memorial statue....hmmm
http://metanoia-films.org/psywar.php
MLK was whatever they wanted you to think he was.
We are merely another rickety old empire clattering to an inevitable and ignominious conclusion. Nothing more, nothing less. This essay confirms that, and in ways its author wouldn't be all that comfortable with.
Exactly! Dreams of collapse or revolution are just that. Looooong slow death.
All of today's problems are due to Tricky Dick going to China and having an affair with a polyamorous woman chosen by Henry Kissinger?
Man, and I thought it was the aliens landing in Roswell...
Makes ya think.
I want my five minutes back...
Agreed. What a snorer.... zzzzz.....
No shit...all he had to do was say the relationship with China fucked us.
Deceit is nothing new, in relationships, government or society.
What is new is our collective education towards it & awareness of it.
We are little more than one living generation from a free public education for all, and the generational results are little analyzed, for surely we are better as a society than the uneducated masses of a century ago. But at what cost has this education come? Deceit and all its related ills are not in decline, we as a society are now educated to the point that we recognize the inevitability of it use to govern. In fact, the very process of education gives us the tools with which to use them.
Would the so called Green Revolution in the Middle East really have been possible without the level of education exhibited and thus awareness demonstrated by the protesters? The efforts of government to educate their populace clearly backfired as it is those who were educated and able to use social media and the likes to communicate effectively and organize against the very government that had elevated the education levels of their citizenry. The problem was these governments were beset by deceit.
So the question becomes: If the quality of life for the most people depends on the use of deceit to get ahead, to rule and to prosper, what effects has an education for all had on its proliferation and should we continue to educate everyone if the end result is the collapse of society?
The Green Revolution will have proved to be, in the end, the BIGGEST fucking calamity EVER. The greater the manipulation of nature the greater the boomerang affect (blowback) will be.
People confuse education with knowledge (and wisdom). If you look at today's educational system it's pretty clear that it's part of the assembly line that feeds TPTB. Sure, there's good in that it helps us to learn how to communicate (better), but I'm still not going to give it a PASS based on just this merit.
Analytical thinking is what's needed. And then we need to have reverence for tradespeople, those who know HOW TO DO.
If you realize the degree to which people are hoodwinked into serving TPTB I'd have to say that the current educational system has worked very well. Yeah, it has produced dissenters, but the powers are continuing to concentrate- TPTB still have momentum...
The overwhelming majority of what we see around us is the result of having been able to exploit ancient sun light (fossil fuels). When this store is too severely depleted most of what we see is around us now will vanish.
Oh, nature is expert at deception. And since humans are OF nature, humans possess this trait. Should we condemn ourselves for practicing self-preservation and propagation? I don't think so. Further, based on our numbers one can hardly say that we haven't, on the whole, been more cooperative than competitive and deceptive.
what can ya say?
SHIT HAPPENS...
or
FORGET ABOUT IT...
The unfortunate results of self deception (whether national or personal) is that inevitably reality kicks the stilts out from under the illusion of hedonistic self-gratification. . . come what may , there is always a price to pay.
Pretty simplistic and factually untrue, by what I have read. FDR was Wall Street's bitch, as was Hoover.
Why this talk of opening up China as the cause of our collapse? China was the solution for inflation. Value deflation (cheap chinese crap) and debt leverage is what gave us our standard of living of today. If they did not do that, we would have collapsed already.
It was when gold was severed in international trade that things became unglued. That was Nixon, but was needed due to gold outflows. So the problem (trade imbalance) was already there. We just came up with ponzi fiat to paper over it.
Trade with China was not the cause, it was the solution. If not, we would have hit the wall a long time ago.
If we were to find another slave labor nation to take our printed dollars, we would again have the facade of prosperity.
As for the slut relationship, BFD. If people were to stop giving a shit about how everyone perceives them, the world would be a happier place.
pods
"but that was needed due to gold outflows"...just like today when there is a shortage of Treasury Bonds...then there was the Vietnam war. Do you think the gold grew legs? or was Government spending on unfunded wars out of control and leading to an episode of currency debauchery?
and "If not we would have hit the wall a long time ago"...you say that like it's a bad thing. Look around you. Just gimme one.more.day huh?
Ben,
Thanks for this piece; it is an interesting change of pace for the long weekend.
"Is it really economic, political or romantic deceit we are sometimes victims of, or is it more often than not a case of unfulfilled wishful thinking, of self-deceit?"
In the experience of this oldman, it is 'more often than not a case of unfulfilled wishful thinking, of self'. What else is deceit?
Thanks again I enjoyed the piece om
Sorry, but this has to be the most worthless article I have read on ZH!
my thoughts exactly. a puddle of inanity.
http://www.larsschall.com/2011/09/03/911-was-a-fantastically-profitable-...
9/11 Was A Fantastically Profitable Covert Operation
September 3rd, 2011
....
..
"If I would ask the Cui Bono question with regards to 9/11, what was your answer?
CAF: Actually I wrote an article about this, the 20 largest areas of profit on 9/11.[iii] 9/11 was extraordinarily profitable for Wall Street, they of course got a kind of “Get Out of Jail Free card“ as I’ve just described. In addition, the largest broker of government bonds, Cantor Fitzgerald, was destroyed, and there was a great deal of money missing from the federal government in the prior four or five years. If you look at the amount of funds involved, it is hard to come to a conclusion other than massive securities fraud was involved, so I find it very interesting that this happened.
In addition, the federal government took the position that they couldn’t produce audited financial statements after 9/11, because they said the office at the Pentagon that produced financial statements was destroyed. Now given what I know of the federal set up of financial statements, I am skeptical of that statement. But needless to say, if you take the government on its word, you had another “Get Out of Jail Free card“ for four trillion dollars and more missing from the federal government. So if you’re just looking at the financial fraud angle, there were a lot of parties that benefitted from 9/11. But then of course what 9/11 did, it staged the passage of the Patriot Act and a whole series of laws and regulations that I collectively refer to as “The Control on Concentration of Cash Flow Act.“ It gave incredible powers to centralize.
In addition, if you look at monetary policies right after 9/11 – I remember I was over in the City of London driving around with a money manager and his phone rang and he answered it on his speaker phone. It was somebody on Wall Street who he hadn’t talked to since before 9/11, and he said to him: “Oh Harry, I am so sorry about what has happened, it must have been very traumatic.“ And the guy said: “Don’t be ridiculous! We were able to borrow cheap short and invest long, we’re running a huge arbitrage, we’re making a fortune, this is the most profitable thing that ever happened to us!“ – So you could tell the monetary policies and sort of insider games were just pumping profits into the bank at that time, so that was very profitable. But of course the big money was used for a significant movement of the military abroad and into Afghanistan and then into Iraq. – Lars, have you ever heard the story about my experience at church on 9/11?
Not yet, but tell it, please."
Is there a worse sound on earth than the plaintive wail of offended liberals? If so, it must be that of old, wrinkled and whiney offended liberals. You guys are always butthurt about something.
I happen to be a poly, and so feel qualified to comment. If she really is polyamorous, the man has only himself to blame if he is now uncomfortable that she is a poly. Poly is the POLAR OPPOSITE of denial; it is the living process of being honest about having more than one lover.
BTW, polys are also the polar opposite of amoral; we are honest about behavior that most folks engage in at some point in their life, but in a sneaky, deceitful manner.
Bad Women and Bad Banks. Take your money and then make you depressed. Lot of songs written about bad romantic endings with women. “ my woman done lef me and took my dog too” Where are the Bad Bank songs? “ BofA done done us and got all the Fed money too”
I know terrible, ----best I got--- quit you say?
How to tell if a house is overpriced?
If the price is over $100 per square foot then it's too expensive imo.
I guess the comments say it all.
Geeeeeez... the author could have at least posted a picture of his friend's "woman friend without apparent scruples".
Always good to see what non-scruples looks like... just sayin'. Might have saved the article.
Mistakes are costs assumed by an individual in doing life.
Broadly based major fuckups are the faire of widespread willing co-conspirators. There are few true victims in such times. Only those to be distinguished by a passive or active deceit.
This woman friend seemingly failed to consider her family and past romantic associations in a reckless behavior that, although private and very personal, could easily become public or somewhat public; a behavior that in today’s society is considered totally amoral, and one where decent people can be tainted simply by association
Well, that was real classy: accusing some one of being a paedophile, anonymously online, since that's about the only thing that is considered totally amoral these days. You're living in the USA, an affair just doesn't cut it, nor does anything drug wise, nor import wise barring shipping in under aged children to harvest organs from nor taking billions in TARP money. So we're left with being a paedophile or an anarchist - my money is on young boys.
Oh.
But..wait. the plot thickens
Registrant:
Gonzalez, Jr., Ben
1551 Officers Row
Vancouver, WA 98661
US
Domain Name: TANOSBORN.COM
360-607-0107
I've seen that name before. Did you move from Miami? Forex scalps? But anyhow, you live right next to the Senator Patricia there - http://www.redfin.com/WA/Vancouver/1551-Officers-Row-98661/home/14678822. Why are you registered to a Canadian senator? Are you really from Portland? Is the woman from Venus and the man from Mars?
Your audience is confuzzled - shall they do a proper trawl on you? Since you're slinging mud / innuendo anyhow, perhaps we should. Perhaps we should cut through the innuendo and get to chasing the money.
Wait.. I have it. This woman is ISLAMIC?!? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g
No?
Wait...
By entering into a romantic relationship two years before with a woman less than half his age - Fairly standard practises for many men. You know, that whole Hugh Heffner dream?
with a compromising polyamorous background, And? Did you miss the summer of love? Is he not a consenting adult able to chose that whole scene?
one which was not much different from that which she is exhibiting, and blamed for, today!? Blamed by whom? The fucking inquisition?
Ok, This whole piece is pathetic, odious and purient. Are you like 14, and still at school?
/retch
P.s. UCLA MBA graduates, 1968, first name Stefan. That's not a long list [ahem]. You kinda just publically outed your friend there. Grats - anyone wanting to now publically blackmail your friend probably can. A quick trawl shows four public sources that you've hawked this story to as well, not including your own site. Shotgun approach! Seriously, what a total lack of ability to recognise what online data can do.
I like the amount of info.. but I have not had my 2nd cup of coffee.. can I get some connect the dots.. for dummies! myself being the dummy, pretty please!
to, too much GREAT! info here for me not to understand what it is all meaning.
Thanks in Advance and Sorry to Trouble You!
Self-deceit really knows no bounds. Your linkage of Henry Kissinger's advice to today's de-industrialization of the US is really a shining example!
I better not ask what Stefan thinks Greek's problems originate from...
And when the economy crashes totally, people will be looking for enemies. It happened in Yougoslavia...people were friendly towards each other... then the world bank and the IMF screwed their economy and people started turning on each other... it will happen again...
He or she who aggresses is the aggressor. To be sure, people are well advised to be alert, observant, insightful and prudent, but a victim is not the perpetrator, and everyone deserves honesty even if they don't get often it.
I am reminded of the phrase "Let the buyer beware". How many people besides me recognize the inherent fraud in that statement? Think about it. In any transaction in which there is a buyer and a seller, the buyer receives a product that may or may not be what is claimed or what it appears, and the seller receives money, which is 100% fungible and is always exactly what the seller expects. This is inherently a grossly uneven playing field, and therefore the field should be leveled by the SELLER needing to beware of misleading the buyer in any way, shape or form. In other words, since the seller knows exactly what he is getting, the seller should be obligated to reveal everything of significance about the goods he exchanges for that money. So I say, "let the seller be honest" is the appropriate phrase, not "let the buyer beware".
In my life, two potential friends explicitly stated that anyone who is cheated or scammed deserved what they got. I grilled them a bit to learn whether they meant what they said. They flat out did. Needless to say, I made sure to never see their faces again - to their apparent surprise. This shows how craven many humans are, and how completely and utterly corrupt human intellect can become.
These problems of dishonesty and intellectual/ethical corruption have gotten so bad today, that the only solution I can envision is a return to the ways of the wild west, where everyone carries a couple very visible six shooters (or better), and has no hesitation to kill anyone who defrauds them, steals from them, or harms them. The government tends to protect predators these days, which is not surprising, since they are the most egregious predators of all. The only viable solution is individualism, and lots of dead bodies. Otherwise, civilization is finished, and the few remaining pretenses and comforts will soon vanish. Just look around. Time grows short.
yeah but who are you going to buy the "six shooters" from?
WTF
Smoke another, brah!
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Just build a compound and grow as much of your own food as you can. Keep romantic relationships to f-buddy status, and avoid marriage like the plague.
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Now, I'm not saying it can't fall apart - or won't - It may just take a bit of time for TPTB to start to fail, and lose control. They won't let it go easily....and there will probably be another major war (to make the sheeple pick sides against each other). But eventually, it will have to happen....mostly because we have lived waaaaay Beyond our means...both in regards to money, materials and energy....but mostly, we are fucked because NO ONE is willing to make a direct sacrifice for anything other than something that benefits them directly. The concept of community is completely broken in the U.S. - This is the mindset that has been created, cultivated and cast upong the nation by corporations and their marketing firms - we are only a nation of consumption-oriented individuals....
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