Listen to a reading of this article:
❖
The US is on the brink of a massive eviction crisis and the ecosystem is dying and the world order is maintained by endless violence and we’re being rapidly transformed into a brainwashed slave class, but it was a small price to pay for some billionaires to pretend to be astronauts for a bit.
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There’s nothing more enraging than a system which treats the homeless like the problem rather than homelessness.
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There would be a lot more opposition to the emerging use of police robots if they called them “robotic cops” instead of “robotic dogs”.
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Every ruler since the dawn of history has been acutely aware that there are a lot more of us than there are of them, and that even their own forces could turn against them at any time. That’s what makes robot technologies so appealing to the oligarchic rulers of our age.
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Millions of highly traumatized men came home from the World Wars and started families and poured all their trauma into the minds of their children. That trauma has been passed down through subsequent generations. That’s the real lasting legacy of those wars, not the stuff in the movies.
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The only way to believe lesser-evil strategizing works is to believe the “two” evils in question are actually two separate and distinct power structures operating in opposition to one another.
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It’s cool how US progressives are learning that the Democratic Party is a narrative management op designed to continually derail the possibility of economic justice in America, and it’s sad that this lesson will be completely forgotten in the next partisan politics news cycle.
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We were always headed toward more and more inequality, impoverishment and authoritarianism, whether you want to call the next step in that direction “the Great Reset” or some other name. We will necessarily continue along that trajectory until we replace our dominant systems.
There has never been a better time to crush capitalism.
❖
The theory: The individual is prime, everyone gets total financial freedom, and the government is kept from becoming a tyrannical dictatorship.
The practice: Billionaires become tyrannical dictators who turn people into uniform consumers and machine cogs with no financial freedom.
“I am an individual!” yelled the faceless indoctrinated cog in the corporate machine while churning out products for other faceless indoctrinated cogs to help them escape the feeling of futility brought on by the meaninglessness of their predicament.
Societies which purport to prioritize the rights of the individual do so only up until the point where individuals start talking about maybe not not wanting to be ruled by billionaires and secretive government agencies anymore, then suddenly the rights of those individuals get a lot less important.
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I might actually end up moving away from using words like “capitalism” and “socialism”, because they have completely different meanings to people from different ideologies. Leftists understand what I mean by those words, but those to the right of me consistently misunderstand what I’m saying because of the way those words are used in their ideological circles. I could just use other words to describe the same stuff I’ve been talking about.
I run into people who think socialism is when the government does something authoritarian, or when the government does anything at all. I’ve been told that capitalism is when people do what they want to do (someone once literally told me hugs are capitalism), and that capitalism is anything that’s good. You can’t get around communication barriers that thick if you want to convey ideas to large numbers of people, and there’s not necessarily any reason to try to do it that way when I can instead just talk about economic injustice, how everyone should have enough, how systems where mass-scale human behavior is driven by profit-chasing will always lead to imperialism and ecocide, and how greatly people’s lives would be improved if there was democratic control in areas like the workplace.
I might stop using -ist and -ism words altogether, or use them sparingly, and just talk about the actual concepts without having to rely on any label which tries to capture them all. I already kind of do this, but I can do a much better job of it. I’ve never had a stimulating conversation with anyone who uses a lot of -ists and -isms anyway; mostly they just use it as a crutch to hide the fact that they don’t understand the individual components of the concepts being discussed.
❖
If you mentally mute the ideological worldviews, partisan bickering and sectarian spats and just look at humanity as a whole, what you see is a species on a trajectory toward its own extinction. We are collectively deciding right now whether we continue on that trajectory or not.
Because change is inevitable and life is inseparable from its ecosystemic context, every species eventually hits a juncture where it has to either adapt to changing conditions or perish. Our juncture just came along faster than most. We either adapt or go extinct.
Because our adapt-or-die juncture came about as the result of our unwholesome relationship with our newly evolved capacity for abstract thought, our adaptation will necessarily need to take the form of moving from an unwholesome relationship with thought to a wholesome one.
The good news is that we already know such a move is possible. The bad news is that up until now it’s been fairly rare. A movement from a dysfunctional relationship with thought to a healthy one is what the phenomenon commonly referred to as spiritual enlightenment is. What’s changed is that we are now being squeezed toward adaptation by the same kinds of pressures that other species have come under which caused them to attain flight, camouflage, prehensile tails, etc.
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Just throw sand in the gears of the machine and try to wake people up in whatever way you can. No one person can win this, but we can each shine a bit more light on things for others and make life a bit harder for the bastards. You can’t do everything, but you can do your bit.
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112 responses to “There’s Never Been A Better Time To Crush Capitalism: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”
My Dad was one of the Iron Men of Metz. Came home with one bullet narrowly passing his heart, another f’n up his elbow. And a Purple Heart. For a war that Churchill and Roosevelt concocted. I grew up with PTSD, long before the term was created, thinking it was normal. Yea, I thought this trauma was NORMAL.
I was replying to ACE below.
US and NATO wars are primarily an industrialist/capitalist venture run on the stock exchanges of the G7. Nothing better for these cretins than getting fat contracts funded by borrowed public money to build obscene tech weapons for single use. But in the brutal carnage of these lucrative mass murders, the pain on the ground always comes home to roost:
https://www.juancole.com/2021/08/military-suicides-americans.html
The returning soldiers “poured all their trauma into the minds of their children”?
Oh, sure. That happened.
Yes. It happened to my brother and me. Our father is German and traumatized by losing his older brother, who he adored, and his father. Both were killed in the war. My father was also put into a Polish prison farm. He should have gotten psychiatric help but didn’t. As a result, my brother, mother, and me were subjected to a life of authoritarianism and abuse while frequently being reminded how we should be putting pictures of his brother on on our bedroom walls instead of rock musicians. That was just one example. So don’t go spouting off about things you’re obviously ignorant of.
Maybe not always, but definitely too often. If you’re looking for another anecdote:
I know of a man who got into WWII just near the end, in the air force. He (almost) never talked about it, but his squadron (following orders) ended up accidentally bombing our own troops. Maybe he would have ended up a wife beating, child abuser anyway, but I think maybe the wartime trauma had something to do with it.
I suppose that if an individual is to improve her thinking or spirituality, the point of that is to improve her overt behavior. When you advocate for such improvement, you could shortcut the conversation by just talking in terms of the improvements to overt behavior. Maybe some of your audience already has enough self-management to engage in such behavior, should they come to understand what pattern of overt behavior is appropriate to the times and to the goal of survival of our families. So, please shortcut your discussion more often. Talk about overt behavior at least as much as you do spirit.
Capitalism is entrenched in myth and mind. The commonly considered alternatives bleat a similar methodology of abundance for all as opposed to abundance for the few. Capitalism has drenched an ego no longer capable of considering that beyond ego based behaviors. The faux sacrifices of the Green Age bear no connection an Earth in service to the learned egoism. It is only narcissism which says so.
It is time to see the real world through the fog .This planet our only home is made up of a finite soup of genetic cascade as are all living things so when humans manufacture offspring or dogs or cats they choose to hoard the limited planetary RNA DNA denying other fauna or flora or tellurian a fair share of the finite planetary genetic soup hence the growing extinction of the other living organisms and desertification of this planet literally turning this planet into a narcissistic manifestation of the human ego our home will die.as for economics whatever that be it capitalism or any other name ism if it is based on profit or gain by denial of other planetary fauna or flora their share of the finite genetic soup then it is based on greed or ignorance which ever form of economic verbatim is chosen the illogical concept of it all is deferred accountability for the theft that is accruing in the name of the human species to the detriment of our home planet we will surely become extinct .Also one should not ignore the human theological construct called religion whatever form or name it truly is the greatest manifestation of propaganda ,mind control and indoctrination ever created by humans if there was one lie to rule them all then this is it the word propaganda itself was invented by a religion in the 1500,s hope you open up your minds or this planet will die….
I’ve said it before in conversations with others about how best to move forward in combatting the current paradigms controlling our world: we need entirely new vocabulary. The existing terms and thoughts and ideas have been so corrupted and deliberately co-opted by the powers-that-be for their own propaganda purposes, that as Caitlyn points out it makes it impossible to have any fruitful explorations of those alternative concepts. Even a word like “democracy” has lost all meaning with the neo-cons “spreading democracy” through their wars of terror. I wholeheartedly believe we must first develop entirely new terminology to have any chance at lasting systemic change.
Construction began on the Pentagon on 9/11 1941 – 60 years later ( to the day) the Zionist/Khazarian mafia showed their true contempt for Americans !
People have NO idea how weak ISRAEL is now – IRAN – masquerading as the ‘Palestinian Resistance’ destroyed an untold amount of ISRAELS military assets during the recent GAZA episode !
ISRAEL had to negotiate a ceasefire because they were unable to FVCKING continue !
Here is Doctor Assad accurately predicting it before it happened !
https://syrianews.cc/the-war-on-gaza-will-be-over-within-48-hours-israel-lost-this-battle/
And this is happening in IRAQ almost DAILY !
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/176708/Three-US-logistics-convoys-in-Iraq-come-under-attack
And YEMEN is lobbing BALLISTIC missiles at Saudi Arabia military bases !
see here
http://en.ypagency.net/226731/
I mean !!
Where the FVCK did YEMEN get ballistic missiles ??
It is OVER for the Zionist/Stolen/Apartheid state of ISRAEL in the ME !
Looks like Australia is FVCKED as well !
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-03/rabbi-marcus-solomon-first-rabbi-australian-supreme-court-judge/10034419
Looks like Lebanon will soon call out ISRAEL for the Beirut bombing as well !
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/176907/Hezbollah-stresses-need-to-clarify-reality-of-Beirut-blast
There might be something buried in that Jack, and frankly, I think there might be.
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Seems like crickets chirping lately with respect to some posters who have gone all silent.
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Oh, well – life in the BIG CITY of LONDON and NEW YORK and maybe DUBAI and maybe another one there SINGAPORE and maybe even my own home city of CHARLOTTE.
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bunch of bankers all over the place – seems out of proportion to me….a function of usury I reckon.
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Well I reckon this and you reckon that, but I reckon the reckoning is happening….its been happening….a few more days to go I reckon. I could be wrong though. What you reckon?
~
Sweet Dreams
BK
8321 1658 est
Here’s an idea, solidarity! Respect strikers and picket lines! Turn on your camera when you see a cop hurting someone! Give food to poor people! Vote against bigots! Open the door for people in wheelchairs! Get vaccinated! Helping other is helping yourself!
Jeepers. Are you kidding?
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I can agree with much of that except, obviously, the “get vaccinated” part. Maybe put a picture of a sweet damsel in distress on the message and maybe just then I’d change my mind, but odds are not. In fact, the chance of me changing my mind is damn near nil.
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John Knox – you would have never been successful in the field of marketing. Just saying it like it is. Please – you must be kidding….was that a joke….if so admit it.
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CRAZY
Turning on your camera with some objective is flailing. Throwing away your slave phone is action.
Find self. It’s not some story.
Meanwhile: if you’re working around loud-ass, mouthbreathing, hive-minded narcissists, who’re told what they believe by Drs Anderson & Rachel. NYMag, WaPo, NYT, Gothamist ALL have articles stating the (~5 week denied, blocked & censored) truth. But I’d just had a post removed, for stating what THEIR own article admitted & links THEY’D cited, while “aggregating” their scoop. Mask up, or simply eat outside. If forced to work around hive-minded imbeciles… >KF-94!
https://mobile.twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1422585951629500421
https://truthout.org/articles/end-of-moratorium-could-fuel-wave-of-invisible-evictions-organizers-warn/
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm?s_cid=mm7031e2_w
OK, so fine. As the title says:
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Outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 Infections, Including COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Infections, Associated with Large Public Gatherings — Barnstable County, Massachusetts, July 2021
~
Now really, the simple question is. Did the masks help?
The not so simple question is. Did the vaccines help?
The obvious end point from the perspective of the
vaccine makers is the whole effing human
population, what is left of it, will have
to get a booster shot every 4
months or thereabout.
~
So let me ask an even simpler question.
Is that what you want?
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I don’t want that and I ain’t wearing no freaking mask again. They repel me.
I’m offended to have to wear a mask.
It makes it hard for me to talk to
those that I love.
~
I ain’t putting up with it anymore.
I’ve got science on my side!
~
So shove that up your fluorine butts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(that was not directed at you Belitsari – I’m just screaming in the wind)
Ken
We’d a “mild” case of D.614g 17 months ago. I’m not lecturing anybody. But, I’m just HATING the entire, everything’s back to NORMAL, uppity essentials… where’s my BRUNCH!” shit, that caused 34K fatalities & PASC symptoms you do NOT want in a several hundreds-of-thousand poor ass 1099’d survivors. Drunked-up rich assholes spewing, “strip off that mask, so we can see if you’re WORTH tipping!” at a scantily dressed, sweaty single mom, in Icy Manhattan; who’d just had loved ones’ killed by Cuomo, Trump & de Blasio. Doesnt NEED to go through infecting loved-ones all over again. Because MSCNNDisney tells them they’re SAFE, so go kvetch at the schvartzes!
I can sort of see what you saying, but to just cut to the chase, I think a little herd immunity would be the wise course of action.
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That coupled with treatment options that are becoming more and more evident as the virus weakens for its own sake.
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Invermectin – ain’t that one of the options being proposed? I’d just assume have a proposed treatment option versus some experimental jab in the arm that ain’t really even a vaccination, but rather is a grand experiment in mRNA. Well, the evidence is in. The experiment was a failure.
~
BK
other treatments are out there as well and this is so effing obvious…….must be the capitalists who have no clue what is coming….you reap what you sow.
We’d the luxury of NOT working sick, outside, that terrifying period in NYC. We’re in our late 60s, healthy & used shit like Quercetin, D3, zinc, a diet rich in iso-flavonoid phyto-polyphenols and Nicotinamide riboside, nitric oxide precursors and Pterostilbene… brought to us by 1099’d gig workers who’d no health insurance, sick leave, overtime, imported PPE, dark tart juices or brightly colored greens in their bodegas; only other sick, scared, indentured refuges, with vulnerable old folks caring for the infectuous kids. Ivermectin, disappeared before Quercetin or anti-anxiety/ OCD drugs, also tried in desperation? Thailand & Vietnam had some luck with our hippy snake-oil, until Delta came along?
https://www.mintpressnews.com/on-eviction-moratorium-progressive-agenda-squad-talks-the-walk/278126/
Whatever….
whatever you say…
BELITSARI
,,,,
seems likes lots of words mixed up and plenty of conflation for the sake of inflation and such.
~
Good night.
Sweet dreams.
When I woke up this morning, I knew nothing was gonna change even though the evidence has become so overwhelming – to me at least – you wouldn’t believe some of the other speculations I have, but I’m doing my due diligence. I’m thinking a day or two is all that is left.
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This is an important discovery when deep in the rabbit hole – what I type below.
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Folks take lots of pride in what they vested in…..even if the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. Folks will say to you when you say that to them – “easy said now ain’t it?” Still, if you look at the numbers of folks saying this or saying that and how the numbers change, and how the story unfolds, even if it is a false one, then a glimmer, a sliver of light has a chance to break through, and then the sky is the limit.
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I missed my chance to swim in the Ocean this past week because I chose not to get a vaccine. My choice was based on principle, and if anyone thinks they can pass a law or intimidate me on this choice, then they get a fight coming back at them like they might have never imagined. Ain’t no harm in that now is there?
~
BK – it is my body and I’m gonna swim in the Ocean before too long cause this craziness can’t last……..it ain’t my craziness. I’m just crazy indignant and I’m not alone!
Incidentally, Belitsari, I’ve read a bit more closely the article that was your final link and the one I mentioned, and frankly, that article is scary as hell.
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Makes it seems as if they are already tracing our every move. At least if you live in Massachusetts. Glad I don’t live there. Neither there or Connecticut.
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Do you want your every move traced and tracked for the sake of so-called “public health”.
Who gets to define public health I query.
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I’m telling you, the whole effing world has gone crazy!
Don’t bode well for the children I’m sad to say.
~
Oh well, sleep tight. Maybe tomorrow will be better……..
BK
Economic and cultural ideas are wrapped in such nebulous concepts that I seriously doubt any two peoples definition of capitalism, socialism, communism etc. are the same. Today they have taken on almost philisophical ideals. To say this or that group just does not understand is a misnomer because if you queried your own philisophical group with which you identify, you would be shocked how varied each defines your shared ideals. Socialists think they know but dont, capitalists think they know but dont, communists and the rest have no idea, just an internally personalized ideal. In college a bunch of us used to get really high and discuss philosophy and politiics. It was fun and we always agreed it was all a bunch of crap. Too bad we cant see that in the real world.
Here is a song that does.
Edie Brickell
~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDl3bdE3YQA
~
No wonder Paul Simon married her, but it has been rocky.
~
I understand that.
~
Thanks BB Be
Ken
Here is another good one.
~
Caitlin Johnstone frequently writes about inequality, war and homelessness, among other things. She wrongly blames capitalism for those problems which are truly caused by our money system.
Inequality – If you allow a small group of men to print money, should you really be surprised that they have more money than you? Isn’t it obvious that given that power it will be abused? They print for themselves, their friends and their families while the little guy without a printer suffers the painful consequences.
War – Those men with the printer soon tire of their toys and want more power. Their dreams of ruling the world become nightmares for millions of innocent victims of our endless wars – also financed with that damn printer.
Homelessness – In order to strip the people of their most important asset and the independence that asset provides, homes are targeted. Those men with the printer intentionally create and then burst bubbles by manipulating interest rates. They lower rates to nothing and people buy like crazy, burying themselves in debt. Then rates are raised, the economy slows, people stop buying homes and the values collapse, leaving many underwater. Jobs are then lost in that intentionally slowing economy and indebted homeowners lose those homes when unable to pay. Presto!
The current Fed Funds Rate is 0.00% – 0.25%. Never would you have a zero percent interest rate in free market capitalism. We don’t have free market capitalism and Caitlin Johnstone knows it. No one loans money at zero percent because there is risk that you might no get repaid. Only a group of men with a printer would do such a crazy thing. And they do it to encourage borrowing, discourage saving and ultimately make you dependent. Dependent people are easy to control and exploit.
It was easy to see that Caitlin Johnstone was and is very wrong about capitalism. So, after asking a few questions and clarifying some misconceptions, it’s now also easy to see it is intentional. After her obvious misconceptions were questioned, she now says she’s going to “or might” stop using words like capitalism and socialism because “they have completely different meanings to people from different ideologies.” What a crock! A very cowardly crock.
Rather than admitting that she is wrong, she actually has the nerve to pretend that the definition of capitalism changes from person to person. When wrong, some make it right, others run and hide. I don’t think I like that word and I’m not going to use it anymore, she whines in a cross-armed, childish huff.
What a fraud.
*
*
*
*
Previous post:
Ms. Johnstone:
You recently posted a list of regrets on Twitter. Didn’t you forget one? Mistaken criticism of capitalism should probably top that list.
I realize that you’ve been at it for a long time. But wouldn’t you rather allow your position to evolve instead of spitting anti-capitalist fire which you’ve never really supported or identified?
What specific problems or harm is truly caused by capitalism? And please do not mistake and blame capitalism for problems created by our corrupt money system.
Try to name one!
*
The empire hates capitalism because it creates self-sufficiency and freedom. Free and independent people do not need, want or tolerate government masters. So, the empire demonizes and blames capitalism for problems they truly create. Those who don’t honestly understand capitalism fall for it and jump on the bandwagon. They [you] tweet: “There has never been a better time to crush capitalism” without realizing the deception.
There has never been a better time to crush your misconceptions about capitalism. But it’s up to you to do it. And don’t forget about those lists.
Here is my previous post:
THOGEN / JULY 31, 2021
Re: “Hacking Capitalism”
This system is not capitalism. Our rigged money system deserves your anger instead. It is the root cause of virtually every problem you rail against on this site.
List one problem in the world which seems unrelated and I’ll do my best to connect the dots. Please.
THOGEN / JULY 28, 2021
Ms. Johnstone:
Please consider my comments regarding capitalism and sound money. I (respectfully) believe you have that puzzle piece out of place. In my opinion, that piece, the sound money part at least, is the ONLY way to end the empire and the devastation and destruction it endlessly creates.
The Bitcoin/cryptocurrency community, although well intentioned, is moving us in the wrong direction. The central banks are using them to build the digital infrastructure and will soon issue their own digital currencies while banning all of the non-government issued options. At that point the empire will have the power to effectively silence their opposition by simply turning off their money. Caitlin Johnstone wrote what? No soup for you!
Here is my original post, your reply and my response:
THOGEN / JULY 27, 2021
Quote from your story: “Capitalism is responsible for the historically unprecedented level of human thriving today. Also, anything you say to criticize our current system is invalid because this system isn’t real capitalism. Both of these things are true for me somehow.”
*
Criticize our current system all you like, but don’t call it capitalism.
There are no bailouts in capitalism. And there is no central bank manipulating interest rates either. The former US capitalist system was lost when sound (Constitutional – Article 1, Section 10) money was abandoned (after JFK’s assassination, but officially in August of 1971).
The gold standard restrained government spending because you cannot print gold & silver out of thin air. With Constitutional restraints removed, money was printed freely to finance wars, bailouts, interest rate rigging and whatever else was needed to finance this corrupt system.
Returning to sound money is the path to a far better world.
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE (AUTHOR) / JULY 27, 2021
You don’t get to claim the successes without also owning the failures. If you won’t call the current system capitalism then you don’t get to give capitalism any credit for the advancements of the modern world.
THOGEN / JULY 27, 2021
I am saying that the former US capitalist system ended when Constitutional money ended. Credit that once great system for the successes and prosperity which existed at that time.
It is no coincidence that the 1964 minting (only weeks after JFK’s 11/22/63 death) was the last Constitutional (silver) coinage. Kennedy’s assassins substituted cheap alloys in place of expensive silver, essentially robbing citizens by issuing counterfeit and pocketing the difference.
Google “melt value of 1964 quarter” and compare that to 1965 and later coins. Its value is about $4.50 per pre-1965 quarter today and just $0.59 for 1965 – 2014 coins. By the way, the 1964 minimum wage was $1.25 (five of those quarters) the equivalent to $22.50 per hour today.
Dollars were also counterfeited as the Constitutionally required gold backing requirement was ignored. Read about the wonderful French leader back then, Charles de Gaulle. He famously exposed how the US cheated the world and used the proceeds to finance the Vietnam war.
Returning to sound money would end the empire.
The war machine would screech to a halt without funding. Without the ability to print money, financing wars would require taxation which people would resist. Do you think George W. Bush would have been able to sell the Iraq war if at the end of his pitch he asked each citizen to fork over $20,000 for their share of the costs?
This is right. Changing the definition of words is a favorite trick of the rulers to control us. As I wrote earlier, The definition of a dollar is a silver coin. They changed that definition so that they can steal from all of the rest of us. It is a fact that money printing pays big bucks. Kings & Queens know that fact.
Does anybody really believe that Bezos & Musk created gadgets which made them $Billions? Richer than GM, Ford, & Toyota combined? No. They are friends of the Kings & Queens who have all the money because they print all they want. That’s why they are all rich while the homeless hope for a good meal.
Will they get “Sovereignty” redefined? Maybe.
Rethinking Sovereignty – by Richard Haass – Feb 14, 2006
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rethinking-sovereignty
“All of this suggests that sovereignty must be redefined if states are to cope with globalization.”
Richard Nathan Haass is an American diplomat. He has been president of the Council on Foreign Relations since July 2003, prior to which he was Director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State and a close advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Wikipedia
Was the 1792 Act “definition” ever rescinded?
That is my question.
~
I’m guessing it was.
Still, I prefer the earlier definition – the one straight out of the 1792 Act.
~
If it wasn’t, then, like I indicated earlier – “we got a big problem here”.
~
Any good lawyers around or what?
BK
Yes. Coinage Act of 1965
LYNDON B. JOHNSON
36th President of the United States: 1963 ‐ 1969
Remarks at the Signing of the Coinage Act
July 23, 1965
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-signing-the-coinage-act
“If anybody has any idea of hoarding our silver coins, let me say this. Treasury has a lot of silver on hand, and it can be, and it will be used to keep the price of silver in line with its value in our present silver coin. There will be no profit in holding them out of circulation for the value of their silver content.”
Oh boy, them Hunt brothers thought elsewise did they not or is my timing off?
~
Thank-you again.
Ken
“Silver Thursday” I just learned is the name they gave for the “peak” day.
~
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday
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I’m thinking something similar, except maybe 1000 times greater is fixing to happen. I hope I’m wrong.
~
BK
8321 1424 est
Here.
At least this has some more info.
Now, I’ll go read it without the suggestive “narrative”.
Thanks,
Ken
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coinage_Act_of_1965
I read it.
It was all
a bunch
of
BS.
~
pisses me off to no end
~
Lets get to the bottom of this shit and fix it.
~
Can you argue with that?
~
Ken
This Guy.
Lyndon Johnson control the weather, to control the world ! 1962
Here is a link on the brothers I’m sure you already are fully familiar with…..
~
I’ll read the link you provided and then get back to you.
~
I still think the 14 Amendment is the way to be free of debt, and I think Article V is a good idea cause when a ship is sinking – what is there to lose?
~
Best to you
Aristaeus.
~
BK
I read the link. Do you have a better one. One that actually has the Coinage Act 1965 law signed by Johnson. Or did I miss that.
~
Why make it tricky. I just want a link to it if it rescinded the 1792 Act. I want to see the actual language of it and then make a judgement for myself. I’ll figure it out.
~
there really ain’t too many good lawyers out there these days and that ought be evident.
~
Matters into Hands is a good idea
I see nothing in the article that points to the conclusion expressed in its title. On the contrary, the forces marshaled by the corporate fascist imperium have never been stronger: more guns, more surveillance, more stupidity.
Nevertheless, the Empire of Stupid is doomed. It is dying even as I type, dying of the multiple and incurable cancers it inevitably has generated within its own corpus. Its dying will be protracted and agonizing for many if not most of the human race outside the Independents (Russia, China, etc.). What we who are trapped within the Empire need to focus on is how to survive the collapse.
We need ethical socialism.
I have no freaking idea what “ethical socialism” is….but I’m thinking it likely I’m gonna concur with Kropotkin on most things as ought be most evident had you ever read anything I typed earlier. The new thing for me is the other fella….Veblen….????….I’m just thinking could be something symbiotic for them two and somebody else already thunk it per the previous link provided – can’t remember when.
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But maybe that has something to do with “ethical socialism”. Maybe, maybe not.
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Bartender – get me a dam drink – you choose!
BK
Enjoy your self; it’s later than you think. If you are fortunate enough to live in a rich country and are a part of the “Brave new world” rather than the 1984 people, try and enjoy your self because the future is almost certainly a dystopian hell.
bob I feel compelled to say – “I disagree with this sentiment”.
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thanks bob bob bob obb bbo bob.
great fella you are with all the
hope you throw out there.
thanks bob
~
BK
8321 1324 est
As Michael Moore said more eloquently than I could “fuck hope”; hope is for losers. Find a way to improve your lot or you could try and fight the ruling classes and their empire which is the entire western world. Pick up a paper or click a link to any MSM in any western country and you will see you will see the same BS from AP or Reuters. The ruling classes care nothing about website’s like this. They care about and fear Free trade unions so they destroyed them in the USA and weakened them elsewhere. Every university in the west teaches a fraudulent version of economics. China is going it’s own way and growing real wealth. Our elites are feeding off the corpse’s of what was the real economy.
I know I have gotten a bit fixated on a few things. It is really, really hard to get good scientific info these days. Anyhow, here is a scientific article that mentions Hypercapnia. Per my initial cursory reading, I’m impressed by some of the science discussed. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7525365/
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However, and I mean HOWEVER – check out the “final recommendations” at the end of the article:
• Suitable facemasks that will help release into the atmospheric environment exhaled CO2 should be recommended, for example the full mask respirator described in Table 2i could be suggested due to the following: No jaw fatigue, no snorkel clearing, less fogging due to better air circulation, suitable for colder climates, no risk losing your regulator, can be used when u have a beard, optional under water communication.
• The use of beaches in coastal areas should be prohibited as the wave spry of the ocean could help spread droplets containing COVID-19 on beachgoers.
• In all winding regions around the world the port of facemasks outdoor should be imposed even when not in public, as droplets containing COVID-19 could be transported by wind and make a non-facemasks wearer a victim.
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Let me untwist my head for a moment – so they are recommending nobody goes to the beach? Why are they so scared of stupid droplets? Droplets are everywhere – no avoiding them.
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I’ve made my judgement.
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The whole freaking world has gone batshit CRAZY!
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I don’t need no scientist to tell me I can’t go swimming in the Ocean. Eff them.
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BK
8321 1053 est
Another link – there are many. None of the editors saw fit to remove the beach prohibition statement. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211379720318921?via%3Dihub
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Now you know, why I made the judgement I did.
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:
but don’t mean we “all” gone crazy now do it?
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BK
8321 1150
The debasement of currency is at the heart of inequality. Just like Kings & Queens of days gone by, our rulers debase our currency in order to keep their power over us.
The U.S. Constitution charged the founders with establishing standards. They did that. They established the foot, pound, acre, dollar, on and on, etc.
The Coinage Act of 1792 established the “dollar” standard as “Dollars or the same is now current, and to contain three hundred and seventy-one grains and four sixteenth parts of a grain of pure, or four hundred and sixteen grains of standard silver,” https://www.usmint.gov/learn/history/historical-documents/coinage-act-of-april-2-1792
Did you get that? The American Dollar is a silver coin that weighs 371.25 grains of pure silver.
The Coinage Act of 1792 also stated that anyone who debased the dollar shall suffer death. That’s the importance our founding fathers placed on keeping our standards static.
The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 debased the currency. They created an elastic standard which is an oxymoron. The Act passed in the middle of the night Sunday evening Dec 21st and Monday morning at 4:00 AM as nearly 1/3 members of Congress were away on Christmas vacation debased the dollar. Nobody read the bill. It was written by international bankers.
The debasement of currency is at the heart of the narrative that we all have to endure now… and hopefully fix… someday.
Think of it like this: The acre is a standard. 1acre = 43560.00ft² What would life be like today if the rulers made the acre an standard elastic. What if they made the acre 1 acre = 1500.00ft². Most houses would not fit on an acre. It would fuck everything up just like our elastic dollar fucks everything up.
If I could love a comment, I would love this one.
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The only law I can proffer up that is inviolate is that “time moves on”.
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Time cannot be violated. It could give a flip about us.
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Again, let me say – one hella of a comment.
Now – is there anybody around here who can study of the case history as to whether this hearn dollar definition from 1792 was rescinded.
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If not, seems to me, we got a problem on our hands.
That is how it seems to me, but don’t listen me – I’m an effing country bumpkin.
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Thanks Pumpkins….
Incidentally, my “love” was for the comment above mine as posted by:
ARISTAEUS
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Thank-you madam or sir, whichever the case may be and even if neither of them tis. Thank-you. I mean it.
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Now I did check how many “grains” there are in an ounce and that was most informative. Thanks again.
Ken
This would be a perfect time to crush capitalism if people weren’t cowed and brainwashed into believing a “virus” that has never been isolated is going to kill us all if we don’t stay home, wear muzzles and get jabbed. And then it’s still going to get us!
“Just … try to wake people up in whatever way you can.” With quotes: “In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words [or Medium] in which to express it.” With articles: Syrian Insurgents Guilty of ‘Red Line’ 2013 Sarin Chemical Attack https://thegrayzone.com/2021/07/26/syrian-insurgents-guilty-of-red-line-2013-sarin-chemical-attack-study-finds With videos: https://seaclearly.com/2020/11/21/the-times-they-are-a-changin
Explain to me how economic justice can happen when to fix a root canal and to put a crown in one of your front teeth is about 6000 dollars. For the same price I can go and come back from any other country in Europe or third world countries to have the same tooth fixed and some money can be saved during this process. Dental Insurance in America is a big bad joke. To go into a hospital you are discriminated according your insurance company. And when you finally get the chance to have a chance to start your treatment or post surgery procedures, your bed has chains to make sure you will not run away. Honestly, I don’t know why people want to come to live what they call “the dream”. It’s not a dream. It’s a fucking nightmare for Americans and something worst for illegal and legal immigrants.
And there’s no better example of what’s become of “our” party than an honest candidate, about to be crushed for trying to represent her voters in Cleveland and another, who’d snuck by in a district ignored by DCCC (aside from their EZ Credit and PayDay Loans, or incarcerating them for usurious debt to FIRE & PhARMA funders)
https://www.dailyposter.com/dems-scored-real-estate-cash-before-letting-eviction-ban-expire/
https://theintercept.com/2021/07/16/nina-turner-shontel-brown-dmfi/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/08/03/evic-a03.html
https://prospect.org/economy/beware-wall-street-democrats-calling-for-austerity/
Financial capitalism is the number one target to eradicate. Buying and selling money. Usury.
Since [imaginary] money of all descriptions has no fecundity there is no possibility of ever paying back [imaginary] money lent at interest. An absolute scam leading to an exponentially deepening quagmire of debt. The international villains of the piece race to the rescue with their Great Reset wet dream. Megalomania reaching exquisite levels.
It happens to be my belief that we are entirely capable of governing ourselves, and we certainly do not need total effing strangers to do it for us.
https://youtu.be/SGlkwKA-t_4
Bail outs, endless war machines, big pharma welfare, privatisation, indemnity for corporations _ _ _ it just goes on and on.
Capitalism has already failed,
It would be fucked without us humble taxpayers.
I have to say that I am relatively certain that they both ‘took the money’.
A cogent plea for sanity in an insane world and no doubt one that will be ignored by those who rule the insane asylum that is the military-industrial-congressional complex. Ignored at everyone’s peril.
As more and more people – especially Bill Gates – worry about the pandemic and the possible extinction of mankind through Covid-19 which only a mere 99,96% of people have managed to survive without a vaccine, forget all you’ve been told about its origin, be it the Wuhan lab, the wet market bat or the Fort Detrick “conspiracy theory promoted by discredited American former research scientist Judy Mikovits in the film Plandemic” (Wikipedia).
A new study shows how it was transmitted from beast to man before he shot himself back into the Dark Ages (VIDEO).
I am totally a fan,
But,
I have an honest question for you,
Do Socialist governments and Capitalist governments openly trade the fruits of their respective populations’ labor on the open market (with big silly smiles on their faces) or not?
This robodawg homeless-harasser is just like the use of drones: lower the risk for the institutional killers and moderates any guilt involved in the inevitable use of serious force (as in ‘extreme predjudice’). Let’s see if the inevitable “kinetic” responses to these automatons will be effective. I sincerely doubt that anyone will be confused by their appearance/ configuration.
We’re ALL the terrorists, now. Drones can be tested on chronically ill essentials with PASC to force us back to our disruptive 1099 gigs. They don’t have to pay half the working class to kill the darker half, they can bill us for $74K drone cops and use III% OathKeeper cops & Boogaloo Boi agents provacateurs to incarcerate firefighters?
https://mobile.twitter.com/heather_haq/status/1421287986566676480
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/08/02/chic-a02.html
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/08/sloppy-pfizer-booster-clinical-trial-consent-form-provides-way-to-exclude-reactions-that-require-emergency-care.html
We’ll see what happens when the word lockdown is uttered in the west. That’s the true litmus test. Especially, with ADE immuno compromising the Pfizer vaxxers. Israel is already vaccinating the 60 something with a third dose at the 6 month marker which implies it wasn’t the magic bullet after all….but we can’t say that…can we? Risibly, just today Pfizer jacked up its prices to the EU by 25% as a sign that they really care
I’d been holding off my 2nd Moderna mRNA, had D.614g 17 months back) awaiting a BioNTec booster. Reading about their BS test protocols; I just DREAD all my brainwashed yuppie neighbors kvetching MASKLESS at the terrified 1099 gig “help!” It was quickly ascertained that vaccinated vectors had viral loads 1000X the original strain & maskless, were infecting more victims than un-vaccinated vectors. That kids could transmit and fall victim to acute (eg: pneumonia, CNS & heart damage) and PASC symptoms, yet to be reported. But, if you’d reported, these double blind, peer-reviewed major studies’ results, you were banned as, “anti-vaccine” for telling folks to wear REAL masks, indoors! Why would media & CDC want essential workers to spread DELTA?
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58065463
https://mobile.twitter.com/shesinscrubs/status/1421231440516222976
https://asiatimes.com/2021/08/the-covid-19-gravediggers-of-indonesia/
https://ninaturner.com/issues/
Hey – Belitsari….are you as scared as your sound. Are you really that fearful or did I read it wrong?
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Just let me tell ya – them droplets are everywhere – them quantum mechanic particles are bombarding you and me as I type this if one is to believe their gibberish – I don’t believe that either, but that is a discussion for later if there ever is one for US.
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Don’t be scared is what I tell members of my family. We fight to the end.
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Ken
I agree:Dump the-isms. No -ism or system or organization of any kind Can possibly work If the individuals in it Are not Conscious. And if enough people wake up to what’s going on,The revolution will be over before it even begins.What could they do, Round us up And force us at gunpoint to go and shop?
Absolutely right on !
I agree as well. I agree with you Jeffy S and Oz. “Dump the -isms”
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They are definitely NOT improving communication, and therefore, they must be worthless words to be thrown in the dust bin of history.
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F the isms
Make that “Jerry”.
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Must of been a colloquialism mistake if you know what I’m meaning.
Me and my pet doggies. One is named “ism”.
The other is named – “get him”.
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You’d be amazed what I can do with these robot dogs!
Ha, ha.
BK
I do try however with my new found puppies to avoid ever saying:
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get him ism
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I try but a few times I said it inadvertently.
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Anyhow, that seems to cause them puppies some confusion, so I reckon I’ll just have to add a few lines of code to keep them from fighting each other.
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-Ken
a poem tis….
8421 1251
Oh yeah, I should add:
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I get the same response as well when I inadvertently say:
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ism get him
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Go figure – I reckon talking to robots is a delicate matter when it comes to definition.
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Best,
Ken
You can read this one and that one, and display your erudition for the World to admire. And then you can read some more. And yet more of them. And eventually you must look at the new Cuban Constitution, for which every Cuban community was involved in formulating. Could the “free western democracies” function as societies as well as they have under the conditions imposed by the BLOCKADE of those to the north?
A link would be appreciated.
Here, I’ll do it for you.
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https://constitutionnet.org/sites/default/files/Cuba%20Constitution.pdf
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In a heartbeat.
It was a piece of cake.
Ken
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incidentally, the reCAPTCHA getting more and more annoying – I think a message needs to be sent back
Spiritual enlightenment is a fascist meme to take you into the dream world. We need physical, educational, material enlightenment. How do you get a person out of his schizophrenic thoughts once driven into a hole by a life of abuse? How do you prevent children from being indoctrinated by a cruel, cruel, raping world? The word “spiritual” is in itself a lie meme. There is no spirit, no soul, separated from the body. We are unified but can be driven into a life of only frightened thought by the economic system which maintains the slavery of women to men. A person who has compassion for other people is a communist: he or she recognizes the need for loving, nurturing community. A person who knows the power of communication is a communist. A person who does things for mutual benefit is a communist. A socialist is a communist who believes in gradual, no-violent change. And I am thankful you exist and communicate yo so many.
https://freefall555.blogspot.com/2017/03/war-games.html
That’s right, say what you mean, forget the labels designed to divide and confuse.
Or, “Just tell people what you want to do, and let them do the name-calling.”
Or just forget the labels.
I’ll take the latter.
The Empire is unravelling!
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With every passing day, more and more private businesses and government agencies on both the state and federal level are requiring proof of a COVID-19 vaccination in order for individuals to work, travel, shop, attend school, and generally participate in the life of the country.
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No matter what ones views may be regarding the governments handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, this is an unnerving proposition for a country that claims to prize the rights of the individual and whose Bill of Rights was written in such a way as to favor the rights of the minority.
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By allowing government agents to establish a litmus test for individuals to be able to engage in commerce, movement and any other right that corresponds to life in a supposedly free society, it lays the groundwork for a “show me your papers” society in which you are required to identify yourself at any time to any government worker who demands it for any reason.
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This fine article can be read here:
A New State of Segregation: Vaccine Cards Are Just the Beginning By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead!
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/a_new_state_of_segregation_vaccine_cards_are_just_the_beginning
The empire unraveled a long time ago along the road of unraveling empires….
Have you ever studied history – if so you must know….
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Thanks Ron.
Ken
Hi Caitlin,
I disagree its corporatism we don’t want. Small business and primary production has to return.
I approve of everything you do and stand for otherwise. A lot of people make this mistake IMHO and don’t realise they’re supporting the slide towards Facism (ie: Corp/Govt control. No self employment, small farmers, traders etc.)
Simon
small farmers used up the soil of the great prairie. small plantations used slaves. Ford was once small. as was Edison. the first oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania. the Rothschilds were once a pawn shop in a ghetto.
the 1st king was probably a poor horny lonely thug.
his queen became QE 20% owner of BP. or Q Beatrice who owns the same of Royal Dutch Shell.
get a bigger picture. love is give is love.
not take, exploit, or use up.
once upon a time ALL women were slaves. one small family after another.
now we know more.
I support small business and primary (local) production.
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My fig tree is coming into bloom.
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Pay me a dollar per dozen, and best of all, you get to pick the ones you want.
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I’m thinking on just a single tree, a long grown and groomed one, I could clear about $200 dollars on that price.
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Best thing is, I don’t have to pick the figs, the customers get what they want, and let me tell ya – fresh off the tree!
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Could anything be better than that I query?
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No robot dog needed.
BK
I’d post a picture to prove it cause I really do have a fig tree about halfway down my driveway.
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Maybe one day, we could post pictures here.
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It might make us think are are close together, but please, really please, lets not go all face-book……bunch of monopoly bs that is.
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My figs are sweet!
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My attitude is
not.
BK
Hey math question.
How many figs do I think I have on my tree?
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ha, ha…
Oh crap.
A correction.
I think I have maybe $50 dollars at best.
A Grant.
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Paper not accepted.
Peace is easy,
BK
Unfortunately, this is “right on the money” (Capitalist expression). As usual, Caitlin is telling – with a new spin – the truth we hate to hear. Caitlin: your writing is excellent, and the passion is admirable. WHAT you write is hard to read. But I’m in my 70’s, what do I know?
“There’s never been a better time to crush capitalism” – HOW? Got suggestions?
That’s the gazillion dollar question! To crush capitalism, enough people have to wake up to the hard facts, the harsh terrifying reality of what capitalism has done to the people and planet – AND then get up and actually DO things to restore balance, harmony, equality, sustainability, etc, etc to the world. Not talk, action!
That means going up against the rich, the powerful, the mean, the nasty, the selfish, the greedy, police, armies, corporations, governments, and millions of people who fear and resist change.
That’s a lot of people who will fight back. People who will resist change even though many of them know it is necessary, that it is the right thing to do, that it will give their children a better chance, etc, etc – these people will resist because they are frightened, weak, selfish, greedy, lazy, ignorant, etc.
That’s what we’re up against.
Without going into your questionable ideas about the environment, I think you should know about what happened in about the year 1870 in Paris, when the city people decided that they knew enough to govern themselves, and set up a socialist republic. Volunteers streamed in from the provinces to fight them, and Bismarck let his French prisoners-of-war go home, so that they could fight the Paris communards.
Action is great if you know what you are doing, but socialists in general do not. Lenin almost did, but his ruthlessness on behalf of the proletariat was trumped by Stalin’s ruthlessness on behalf of the Communist bureaucracy. A politically knowledgeable person should have seen that coming. Maybe, as some have alleged, Lenin’s backers in the West did see it coming.
Join the Socialist Equality Party and the struggle for socialism. What is necessary is a party of the working class with a definite program. Nothing will be achieved by mere demonstrations without a plan or program and without leadership. That is what has held back the working class for decades. The world cannot continue on the path it is on for much longer. Capitalism and its bastard, imperialism, have destroyed the planet and slaughtered millions of people. Unless it is stopped, there will either be nuclear war or complete destruction of the biosphere, making life impossible. Either way it means death to everything. Time is running out. We must make the commitment to bringing down the dictatorship of capital and it must happen now.
Better not to bother crushing it. Just leave the room.
Ja – one simple suggestion: don’t rely on the centralized, corporate-run behemoths to (ever) self correct. Look for their fundamental supporting $tructures, and remove them definitively. One might consider the offshore financial paradises where the structures, shares, and contracts are maintained by the consignlieri of the oligarchies.
Let capital “ism” crush itself under its own weight.
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If us little entrepreneurs bide our time there will be many opportunities.
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Honest to goodness it is fixing to crash under its own weight.
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I have no idea how this will unfold.
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It ain’t gonna be perty I reckon, but it doesn’t have to be brutal, and nor is violence called for. It could simply be a Time of Transition.
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Please, give that idea some consideration. I’ve discussed further elsewhere, but I could use all the help I can get when it comes to really flushing it out so to speak.
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I’m hopeful.
Local Commerce is Step #1 you want my opinion.
-Ken
Wow, Caitlin. I can see this is one time I shall have to exercise iron control to keep from going on for too long, as I always want to do.
I take it that the main idea of your essay is that there has “never been a better time to crush capitalism.” Then you throw doubt on that (in my mind at least) by suggesting that you will try to move away from using “-ism” words.
I think trying to avoid “-ism” words is an excellent idea. I see that you also say that people to the right of you misunderstand what you mean when you use words like “capitalism.” I hope I’m not being too rude by suggesting that you may not know absolutely everything yourself. Have you read Adam Smith, for example? I suppose it is getting on for fifty years since I read him, but I don’t think you can discuss economics meaningfully in English if you haven’t read him. (I understand that during the height of Spanish civilisation, some very good works on economics were published in Spanish, and these actually pre-date Adam Smith’s works, but Adam Smith was the first to write about this stuff well in English.)
The fact is that what leftists call capitalism is simply the only way to organise larger societies with any semblance of justice. It grows naturally out of the right to private property. It can be corrupted, especially by the use of bad money (as we have now), but it will survive in some form even in the most dire conditions. Even Cubans and Chinese have found that out.
I think that if you really want to understand how society works, you also need to read Machiavelli at least. Machiavelli wrote about power, about the use of force and deception, which are things that Adam Smith left right out of his description of society. (I am not saying he may not have mentioned them to some degree in his other book, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments.” I haven’t read it.)
People like us, who are fanatical about following the news and commenting on it, have a hard time reading the classics. And it isn’t easy to know which ones to read: nobody can read everything. However, I suggest you make time to read those two. You also need to take evolution (a la Charles Darwin) into account, but I don’t think it is necessary to read Darwin’s book. I have, and I’m glad I have, but the basic idea is a simple one and you don’t need to spend time you can’t afford on it.
I see that you say that “everyone should have enough.” That sounds like a girl idea to me. Women always seem to think that things should just be nice. They aren’t, and they won’t be. We can weaken our society if you like, but if we do, we shall inevitably be exterminated by somebody else – no prizes for guessing who that looks like being at the moment.
You also mention “democratic control in the workplace.” There is an “ism” word for that, too: syndicalism. Noam Chomsky (for whom I have a lot of respect in some ways) likes it. At least it isn’t like Marxism, which elevates murder and theft to moral principles, and there is no reason people shouldn’t be allowed to try it if they want to. As a matter of fact, some form of syndicalism may very well come next, after our present hopelessly corrupt financial capitalism implodes, as it looks like doing. People will get together to merge their knowledge, skills, and labour to keep their industries going. Something like that happened in Germany at the end of World War Two, I believe. Also, I believe, something like that worked for a while in the early days of the Soviet Union. Workers’ committees quickly found out that they didn’t know which end was up, and they called back former managers and even former owners to help them run things.
I have also read about the same sort of thing happening in black-run farms in Zimbabwe. Sometimes the new black landholders found that there were things that they just didn’t know, and sometimes the dispossessed white farmers helped them out temporarily. But that sort of organisation isn’t very progressive. The smartest people aren’t in charge: the majority are in charge. When change is necessary they will be found wanting. In the free-enterprise system, the enterprise that fails is just replaced by another enterprise that can adapt, and production goes right on. This would allow a small-scale syndical enterprise to go on producing as long as it was productive, after which it would come to an end. But if syndicalism were the only allowed system, the syndicates would of course see to it that the newer, more efficient enterprises would be forbidden to operate. That is how political power works.
I don’t know that I can say anything about spiritual enlightenment. That sounds like another girl idea. I note that women who actually achieve power, like Mrs Gandhi in India, don’t try that sort of thing at all, but girls who are just wishfully thinking about it seem to think that they would have that, and men don’t. I’ll believe it when I see it.
I would like to see some sand thrown in the gears, too. I am a little inclined to cheer on the Taliban at present, even though I don’t share their ideas about how girls should be treated, because in spite of all the Americans could throw at them, they are still there. It makes you think that humanity is not dead.
I read Adam Smith. Thorstein Veblen said that Smith was obsolete as soon as he.published his work, and Veblen was right. The Industrial Revolution was beginning even as Adam Smith described the “master-workman” relationship that the rise of the industrial factory would destroy.
Smith also laughed at ideas which are commonplace now, such as worker’s comp and old-age pensions (Social Security). The only cure for the poor having babies was abstinence in Smith’s mind. (Good luck with that!) He couldn’t conceive of (no pun intended) any other form of birth control, and he wasn’t creative enough to try.
Caitlin should read The Wealth of Nations as an historical document that has been superseded by better ideas.
You should read Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.
Or better, read the world.
I read the world.
The story sucked.
I’d rather read
a better
story.
~
poem of the day by BK and the time is: 8321 1638 est in the us of a
I only have a vague idea who Thorstein Veblen was. I can look him up and maybe learn something, but it’s no use your trying to convince the average conservative person who has maybe looked at Adam Smith or seen an explanation of division of labour based on his work, that there is something wrong with it, just by throwing out the name of a fairly obscure left-wing (I think) commentator. These people often try to be smart-alec, relying on their readers knowing less than they do. Adam Smith vividly described division of labour, using as one famous example, a pin factory. You can’t say that making pins is delightful creative work, but it is work that has to be done. Adam Smith pointed out, as a matter of observation, that it was done by dividing up operations into very small pieces, and having different workmen do each one very quickly. I don’t see that modern factories and automation make any fundamental difference.
I don’t remember Adam Smith saying anything about birth control or workers’ compensation, but I do remember that he had what I would call an enlightened attitude to the ordinary man’s relationship to his work. He decried the idea, apparently common among industrialists in his day, that a good thing about economic slumps was that it made the workingman more submissive and harder-working, and he said that the ordinary man needed some periods of leisure “and even dissipation.” Remember that this was at a time when all the old ladies would have regarded the workingman’s “dissipation” as a sin that needed to be extirpated. This attitude reached its peak later in the United States, when they tried to ban alcohol.
The Theory of the Leisure Class, (1899) Thorstein Veblen. A relatively short and entertaining book on political economy. Available on-line here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/833/833-h/833-h.htm
A good article on the Taliban in Zerohedge: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-taliban-go-tianjin
Not nice guys – but they have had what it takes to break empyres. They embody the Tuareg saying: “Kiss the hand you cannot sever.”
“Millions of highly traumatized men came home from the World Wars and started families and poured all their trauma into the minds of their children. That trauma has been passed down through subsequent generations. That’s the real lasting legacy of those wars, not the stuff in the movies.”
This.
My experience was that the veterans basically kept the horrors of what they went through to themselves. They did support each other to some extent.
My experience was with a father who came back from WWII and became an alcoholic and was prone to violence against us kids.
THIS is where they should start looking for the origins of the ‘novel’ Corona Virus !
The TRUTH about Fort Detrick !
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-05-12/The-mind-blowing-history-at-Fort-Detrick-Qr1cLbK0dW/index.html
The TRUTH about the HASBARA shill army !
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/israel-039-s-war-on-truth-paid-shills-and-trolls-underneath-your-comments_jgoAKQPkvwy3tCC.html
The TRUTH about the Uyghurs !
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-04-02/The-War-in-the-Shadows-Challenges-of-Fighting-Terrorism-in-Xinjiang-Z7pLLRzm1i/index.html
I prefer the term “free market” to “capitalism.” The term capitalism too often lumps in the politically-connected manipulators that amass fortunes and power using government contracts and regulations that crush real competition and override real consumer preferences. Real free markets mean competition to be the best at what one does to better serve others. Success in serving others, of course, is rewarded with profits, but these profits are limited by the ability of others to imitate that success and better it.
What we have in America now is not a free market. What we have is a grossly distorted and politically manipulated market weighed down by taxes and regulation designed to benefit some at the cost of others. I am all for ending such a system, but one must have something viable to replace it with. Restoring sound money would be the first step replacing the government’s central bank fiat money with gold and silver. The second would be restoring the U.S. Constitution as it was originally written decentralizing political power and restoring the states to their rightful place in the federal system. Third, eliminate the standing army so loathed and feared by the founders of this country or at least reduce its size to the minimum necessary for the defense of US territory from invasion or attack. This would mean no troops stationed outside US territory and a navy suitable for coastal defense only. Fourth, eliminate the federal income tax and “starve the beast” as I believe President Reagan once said. These are practical and doable things that have brought relative peace and prosperity in the past.
You see, I agree with Caitlin Johnstone on her critique of the US government and the unholy union of the big money interests and government power. Where I disagree is that we need to somehow scrap what has worked (i.e. free markets) in favor of some vague and unspecific notion that we can somehow remake humanity into something resembling an ant colony or bee hive. Such experiments have never turned out well.
Free markets have NOT worked except for the wealthy. Your comment really offends me. What a diehard capitalist you are. I support the struggle for socialism and will until my dying day.
Free market have elevated the standard of living of the ordinary man and woman enormously. You wouldn’t have the luxury of going on about ideas at all without the benefits they have provided: you would have had a short and nasty life. Declaring that you will support this or that “until your dying day” isn’t argument at all. If you don’t want to think or to learn, that’s your business, but don’t expect anyone to be impressed.
I’m not sure I agree with Jerome Kohn’s every word, but he is definitely on the right track. Sorry if he and I are intruding on socialists who would rather just talk to each other about how good they are and how wicked everyone else is.
By the way, I like Caitlin because of how hard she tries to think in some ways, and how she often makes sharp observations. I don’t think she is right about everything and I don’t think she has read enough of the right things. If she is younger than me and has had to go through the regular education system, I can’t blame her for that. Modern education is designed to waste your time and cripple any capacity for thinking that you might have had.
“Free market”, “capitalism”, and “private enterprise” are three different things, at least if you bother to look into what these phrases meant when they were invented. But now they’ve been turned into shibboleths, so, like I say above, tell people what you want to do and let them call you names, babble the epithets, or whatever it is they want to do.
There cannot be any free markets as long as we have a private for-profit money system that concentrates wealth which is then used to dominate the markets, industry and governments.
Good idea to purge the -isms terms. I think the use of these terms to describe these ideologies will end up working against us, making it easier for the Globalists’ agenda to succeed at “divide and conquer.” Anyway, I think many of these terms are so overused and distorted by the MSM these days, that they have lost their meaning.