Listen to a reading of this article:
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Well, it finally happened. We finally received our eviction notice on the crumbling rental we’ve been living in for the last twelve years.
We knew it was coming. The landlords told us years ago they’d be bulldozing the place to put in two new units, which according to the notice is exactly what’s going to happen after we move out on or before January 30th.
The house has been letting us know too; everything’s falling apart, the electricity cuts out all the time, the sun roof blew off the kitchen during a windstorm a couple weeks ago and the roof and chimney are falling to pieces. The deterioration of the building combined with our aforementioned bed bug infestation has made it feel lately as though we’re being driven from the land by a bunch of Old Testament plagues.
Still I’ve been having a lot of big feels about it. This is where my kids have spent most of their lives. Their heights are drawn on the door jamb in the kitchen. Losing this house is like losing a loved one. I’m also a bit nervous about where we’ll wind up; we can’t afford to buy a house and rent in Melbourne has skyrocketed over the last few years.
Mosty, though, I’m just annoyed at this stupid, backwards system which forces people to pay landlords for shelter from the elements if they’re not fortunate enough to be able to afford a home of their own. Rent is largely an extortionate double-dipping scam where renters pay landlords for the privilege of keeping vandals and vermin from destroying their investment property which they’ll generally make a handsome profit off of when they sell, and this practice is held in place by a system which depends on the permanent existence of an underclass who can’t afford to own land.
Capitalism is such a grossly inefficient means of distributing resources that there are currently around 69,000 homes sitting empty and unused in Melbourne while families like my own stress out over finding an affordable place to live. Prices are set at “what the market will bear” and investors are happy to sit and wait until a buyer comes along willing to meet it, because they’re in no rush since they already have roofs over their own heads. Property values are driven up by this artificial scarcity forcing those who can’t pay it to rent from landlords, who ratchet their own prices up to “what the market will bear” as well because they know people can’t afford to buy their own homes.
And it’s just such a silly, stupid way of organizing a civilization that we’ll all have to evolve beyond sometime soon. This insane competition-based model where everyone’s trying to squeeze every crumb out of everyone they can and stepping on one another’s heads to keep from drowning is ultimately driving our species toward disaster through ecological destruction and imperialist warmongering. If our species is to evolve into the future we’re going to have to move into a collaboration-based model of existence where we pour our creativity and ingenuity into finding ways for us all to thrive in cooperation with our ecosystem rather than into finding new ways to extort, exploit, abuse and kill one another. Into making sure everyone has enough rather than into funneling wealth from the poorest to the richest.
And right now that feels all too personal. This old house might be falling down, but it’s our home, and there’s nothing wrong with it that we couldn’t fix ourselves. All the love and celebrations and memories, good and bad, are about to be a pile of rubble. I would’ve loved to mark the heights of my future grandchildren on the door jamb alongside their parents; but it wasn’t to be. To put them to bed in the same room I sang lullabies to their parents in; but it wasn’t to be. To plant a tree and watch it grow old with me; but it wasn’t to be.
Everyone deserves a home on the planet they were born on. They deserve to feel invested in the health of the land they live on rather than like a stranger who is just passing through. Centuries of war, famine, forced migration, and the alienating effects of competition and capitalism have shaped us into a species that acts as though we are separate from the planet that sustains us. We act like a cancer rather than a native species of mammals. This essential mistake of our own perception of separation needs to be rectified if we are to evolve into a species that collaborates with country rather than lays waste to it. We are not separate from our home, and we need to start acting like it. We can start by making housing a right for all humans so that people will feel invested in the health of the land rather than the digits in their investment portfolios.
And perhaps then we will love our home the way she deserves to be loved.
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72 responses to “Renting Sucks”
There is a way out ofthis mess. 15-20 September 1986 a secret pact was signed between the oligarchs of north and south in Punta Del este, uruguay. It was a dirty deal to steal the world’s future and make “services” tradable basically to turn all the jobs into poker chips that could be traded for dirty things they wanted to hide. And nullify democracy, and thats what they have done. These services agreements are in many ways a huge evil. They are behind the privatization of countless of what were once public services. They tie the hands of governments and require the Australian Robodebt and centrelink systems to enslave the poor with a system of digital surveillance totalitarianism. They were behind the global power grab that surrounds all of us today. The only way out is to reject their scheme to privatize and monetize everything, reject the toll roads, reject the digital poorhouse system, clam back the right to regulate, and democracy, which they have taken. Dont allow your precious jobs to be traded away, you’ll never get them back again, because of the ratchet all thee thefts only go one way. Flush the WTO and its (“STAG” backwards) Reclaim democracy to save humanity.
Nylene, no soon those people will All be guest workers who attendexpensive Private Schools in Least Developed Countries, and paid under the counter bribes to be placed in your country in temp jobs which can last as long as six years.. In exchange for the possibly tens of millions of allegedly skilled jobs, your country gets all sorts of horrible Intellectual Property Laws that lets its Corporations charge $156,000 each year for a prostate cancer drug that costs 1/4 as much in the civilized countries and $12-30000 each year for life saving HIV drugs. This is the real reason your people can never get Affordable Health Care, those jobs have already been promised away.
“Everyone deserves a home on the planet they were born on”
I would amend that as follows: everyone deserves a home in the very town they were born in (if they so wish, of course.) Exile may be stimulating sometimes but it’s still death.
Really dumb argument. It’s the no true Scotsman fallacy. My dear old deceased Dad used to make those tired arguments, like ‘our system isn’t perfect, but it’s the best available’ and ‘England was bringing civilization to the natives’. Show me when and where there was this beautiful capitalism. I contend that if you dig into it, you’ll see it never existed, there was always exploitation involved.
You wrote: “Capitalism is such a grossly inefficient means of distributing resources . . . And it’s just such a silly, stupid way of organizing a civilization that we’ll all have to evolve beyond sometime soon.”
I would love to hear a system that works better than the oft-maligned system of capitalism; lay it on me.
Here’s the thing: Today’s capitalism is a grisly shadow of true capitalism. Today’s capitalism is all about cronyism and technocratic capitalism and hegemonic capitalism and plutocratic capitalism, and on and on mutations of real capitalism, ad nauseam.
Here’s the other thing: I’ve been a renter all my life; over my many not insignificant years, I’ve had several orders to vacate the premises; I’ve had my rent double in one fell swoop; I just received my third rent increase in less than one year that now is going to require me to leave my current cardboard casa and find another place to live in the North Bay area of San Francisco, one of the most expensive places to live on earth.
I think it blows chunks but it isn’t the fault of a true capitalistic system – something we have not had in the USA for a very, vary long time. And likely will never see again.
Peace out.
Really dumb argument. It’s the no true Scotsman fallacy. My dear old deceased Dad used to make those tired arguments, like ‘our system isn’t perfect, but it’s the best available’ and ‘England was bringing civilization to the natives’. Show me when and where there was this beautiful capitalism. I contend that if you dig into it, you’ll see it never existed, there was always exploitation involved.
So sorry Caitlin, this is so unfair.
Could you buy an empty lot and a used RV? It may be almost the same as living in your car, but it would be something you can build on. I don’t know how anyone can save enough money for a down payment on a house while most of their income goes to rent.
Just brainstorming here, but what if you knew someone with some money to invest, like a small portion of retirement savings, and made a personal person to person loan arrangement where you borrow money at an interest rate higher than a bank would pay them, but lower than a rate a bank would charge you for borrowing?
Caitlin Johnstone, it was the love and the family that made the house special.
Without that, it was just a house.
You are taking all that was of value with you.
To a new house.
Where the love and the family.
Will make the house a home.
And special.
Amen.
I’m sorry for your loss Caitlin.
Since they’re going to tear the house down anyway, why don’t you take the door jamb with your children’s heights marked on it with you when you move.
If I ever have to replace the door jamb (so far I’ve just painted it) that my gone but not forgotten cats would scratch on to let us know they wanted in – I plan on taking the scratched up door jamb and making it into a picture frame with their photos inside.
When my mother sold the house I’d grown up in since I was 8 years old after my father died, I took some roots of his muscadine vines and planted them in our yard. That was over 25 years ago and the muscadines are still here. My father is the reason I garden.
I wish you luck on finding your next home.
Its all good, soon we will all own nothing and all be happy.
Holiday in Australia
Twelve years in a rental ?? WOW ! My wife and I, together with our two kids went down the road of rentals, despite being eligible for War Service loan, every time we fronted up at the Banks, as soon as we told them we were eligible for such a loan, they showed us the door. It was explained they were not prepared to play second fiddle to a loan the war service took precidence over. So no loan or FULL loan and no service loan. So we saved up for deposit by both working long hours and lots of overtime. Yes, was hard times, but better than renting. No way would I ever rent for 12 years. Hope things work out better for you now, but suspect you may have left it too late.
Caitlin, I totally feel you about leaving the place where your children grew up. I too have had their heights marked on the wall. And I have an answer for you and it’s good. Since they are tearing down the house, why not ask the landlord if you can just take the whole damn doorjamb with you? And put it up again wherever you settle. I had a friend do just that. Then all of your future grands can make their mark there, right next to your kids. Here’s hoping this might help just a little as you leave your old Eden. The next one will be just as good.
Absolutely take the doorjamb! They’re easy enough to pry off, and the structure is going to be demolished. I would not try to remove and relocate the whole door, though. They are big and awkward to move, and fragile to boot. Just take the part that has your history on it, and nail it up wherever you like at the new place.
Renting sucks in the US, too. Thousands are rooting for you and your family, Caitlyn. All the best.
This just strengthens the case for rent to regulated as an utility, like electricity and gas.
I hope you find a new happy home
In Australia the system is particularly insidious because landlords are triple subsidised by taxpayers through negative gearing, tax write offs for property improvements, and rent assistance paid to the poor.
I know several smug middle class landlords who wallow in their opportunistic ‘luck’.
Our solution was to buy a small piece of land in the countryside and self build (with no building experience) our own solar passive home. We lived in a shed for two years during the process.
During that time we set up a Permaculture system around us.
It was a very fulfilling experience.
Good luck with your choices Caitlin.
I was a Commonwealth Public Servant for 10 years and a Parliamentary Servant for 2 years and have put my life on the line for dickheads like you so shut the fuck up.
Touched a nerve ?
I was a wage slave for forty five years because I realised very early that ambition is the mother of sociopathy.
If I was ambitious I would never have left the Melbourne legal scene and moved to Canberra for a fraction of the money. I am completely anonymous and have no ambition for fame or public office. You will not find a photograph of me. Sociopathy? I have over 20 years decalcified my pineal gland. Do you know how difficult a process that is? Do you even know what a pineal gland is?
Glands and chakras, chakras and glands.
Yes, I am familiar with those mysterious centres John.
I was reading about them in the early 70’s and took the necessary action, after much trial and error.
Action purifies thought.
Well said.
Housing and medicine shouldn’t have to make money for people who are already rich.
I am a federal court registrar and an internal medicine registrar, and an army reservist. My money is public money.
Been a reservist myself. The time and trouble wasn’t worth the (taxpayers’) money.
John I am only 47, I am not going to retire to the county lifestyle yet. What is there left for me to do? I have been a lawyer, public servant, Parliamentary Servant, now an internal medicine physician. I have no need for money so I am putting myself at the service of my country. You dismiss that with a wave of your hand? Stand a post if you can shoulder a weapon.
What are you talking about? I said I’d been a reservist too, and now you’re mad? WTF?
John Broomhall said it best:
Time is a tempest and we are all travellers, we are all travellers, we are all travellerfs
Time is a tempest and we are all travellers, travelling though the storm
Our cities are crowded, the forests are falling, war clouds above, angry voices are calling
Five minutes to midnight, there’s no time for stalling its time to share a load
So lift up your voices and sing on the wind and rain, sing on the wind and rain, sing on the wind and rain
Lift up your voices and sing on the wind and rain, travelling through the storm
They poison the oceans, they dam the great rivers, they’ve killed all the jungles, they’re takers not givers
They call it progress, it gives me the shivers, we’re in for a winter that’s long
The long winter is arrived. We are at the beginning of a cold war that will last decades. I am going to take up arms to protect my little bit of permacultured land and the forest that surrounds it, and the beaches, and all the animals, and I am going to help clean up the shit to the best of my ability until my dying day, and I am going to die standing up.
You sound like a cynic who has given up living and has taken up wine appreciation. What have you brewed recently? I make medicines from plants and recycle every damn thing in my house, even rubbish I pick up on my morning walk. I run a free medical clinic. Why are you an ex-reservist?
What are you doing?
Is there a meggase somewhere in there?
Message
“Capitalism is such a grossly inefficient means of distributing resources”
Accounting is the achilles’ heal of capitalism, if it can be measured in $ then capitalism helps, if it cant be measured in $ then capitalism harms.
The people that capitalism helps, harm each other, they call it competition.
The people that capitalism harms need help from those that capitalism helps to prevent further harm.
If people that capitalism harms help each other, they call it socialism.
The people that capitalism helps forget how valuable things are that cant be measured in $
Thank you Caitlin
I feel with you and for you having been through very much the same as you.
My dream is to build Urban Villages where all will have a home in every sense of the word for life and no stranger will be profiting from it.
Much Love
Michael
“Losing this house is like losing a loved one…I’m just annoyed at this stupid, backwards system which forces people to pay landlords for shelter…”
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We all get attached to things. But mystics have warned us for thousands of years that this is where many of our problems begin. Getting too attached to something.
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Another proverb: Everything for its season. A home serves us for a season of our lives and then we must move on. Our lives carry on but the ‘material’ vessels that we use never will.
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As for landlords? Just more of this delusion that we ever ‘own’ anything. We own nothing material. Many of us act like we do and convince others of this delusion, but this does not make it so. And very many humans just like ‘lording’ over others in any way they can. Two of the detestable human qualities rolled into one.
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“Capitalism is such a grossly inefficient means of distributing resources…”
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Capitalism at its purest allows any person the opportunity to have power over resources rather than having some centralized handful of opportunists with delusions of godhood control everything.
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The profit motive in itself not a bad thing. The problem is when those who have acquired those resources choose to keep them all for themselves. There is no rule that says that wealthy people and corporations can’t distribute resources for the human good and the benefit of society. They could do this if they so chose. The problem is not that they acquired those resources but in the irresponsible and selfish ways they choose to hoard them. How about… wealth people and corporations with a heart. It’s never been tried. But that works.
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“All the love and celebrations and memories, good and bad, are about to be a pile of rubble.”
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All of the love and celebrations and memories live on where they were actually created… in your mind and your spirit and your soul. Buildings do not create these things… only people do (or don’t). It’s much sadder when the ‘rubble’ is when a person has turned away from their divine nature and turned their spirit into… rubble.
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One’s Home is never really a dwelling and never will be. Your home is… where your HEART is. And we carry that around with us all the time… even unto after our Earthly days are over.
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Time to make some new memories and leave the building rubble behind. And embrace the love in your heart that creates those good memories in the first place.
I am printing that and putting it on my wall. Just beautiful.
So Cait and family are out apartment hunting in Australia. It sounds like they had plenty of advance warning so should not be scrambling. It seems they were content with where they were at.
I shall attempt to be encouraging toward her. I would like Cait back blogging at full capacity as soon as possible, hopefully in better surroundings.
I did a little research in the rental market in Australia. Good old internet. It seems the vacancy rate in Melbourne is rising and the rents are declining; the same situation as in Toronto, Canada, except Toronto is coming down from a more extreme place.
I have no fears about evictions. I am living in a Rent Geared to Income government apartment. This is a reasonably well run place in a good neighbourhood.
Actually, things are not all wonderful here. We have had a recurrence of an infestation which periodically strikes most public housing buildings in this city. Toronto Housing is constantly under pressure from phoney left city councillors and some nut case advocacy groups, to lease to people with addictions problems, bypassing the usual screening process.
Almost invariably, these people turn out to be drug dealers. It is then very hard to get rid of them. They have also brought a bedbug case into the building, which we have not had for many years.
Our building committee has been dormant for a few years, for various reasons including covid. We are holding a meeting tonight in fact, to choose two new representatives. We are having to be careful about it to avoid the notice of the drug boys.
I am not running to be a rep. I have been through that often enough and I am getting old. I want to see if there are people in this building who can stand up.
I was the rep at the last TCH building I was at. I stood up for the residents against this vicious building manager who was shaking them down. They did not stand up for me very well when I was attacked and arrested on false charges for doing so.
Fortunately, this all blew up in TCH’s faces and they were suddenly eager to send me to whatever building I chose. I chose this one. As I said, it is a very good place to live and I have been here seventeen years. Happy ending.
Post Script; I would never want to own a house. I prefer having the landlord take care of everything. As for growing things, I have a big sundeck on which I can grow my special strain of jalapeno peppers.
If those children were getting a decent education at a reasonable cost, you might have a point. New York State is ranked 40th in education in a country that ranks near the bottom amongst OECD. It spends more per capita than any state in the country. The state is splintered into hundreds of districts each with its own costly bureaucratic overhead. My partner works at one of them. There is an excessive number of administrators making six-figure salaries who contribute nothing to the education of children. She has the misfortune of having to hear their conversation from her office. Most of their time is not spent in productive activity. Her position in finance gives her a window on the waste that is endemic to the system. Multiply what she sees on daily basis times the six hundred or so school districts in the state and you will have an understanding how so much money can be spent producing thoroughly abysmal results. I understand why people are angry and want to replace the public schools systems with vouchers. I don’t support those efforts but they would not have developed if the public schools were performing as well as the systems in other countries that cost far less.
Becoming a homeowner is a dubious achievement. I worked two poorly paying jobs for nearly a decade to put together a down payment large enough so the mortgage burden would not be difficult to meet. Those efforts were negated when my property taxes tripled to nearly ten thousand dollars a year on a two thousand square foot house. To put that into context, the average US house today is six hundred sq. feet larger.. While the mortgage will be paid off, the tax burden will continue to rise at a rate far higher than my income. I don’t receive much in return in terms of services My property does not have public water or sewerage and I don’t have children in the school system. My total tax rate is three times that of what the nation’s richest pay. It may “suck” to be a renter but being an owner isn’t easy either.
You DO have children in the school system.
As you age, your Doctors, Nurses, Pharmacists, Mailmen, Firefighters, all the people in your society will be people who were children in the school system.
The children in our society are all OUR children.
As far as tax rates go, Capitalism is the problem.
Tax the Rich.
Your situation is sad, common, and irritating.
I am also a renter and have had to put up with being powerless like you.
This evil has been recognized for a very long time. The Bible refers to it indirectly as sin and more directly as usury.
But, again and again, we succumb to the 3 evils of greed, anger, and stupidity.
What does that say about our species?
Good luck finding the right home.
Good luck as well in Australia, which currently seems to be going mad.
Sorry, I prefer to rent. The last time I owned a home (complete with mortgage) was in 1978. Not only do I not want the hassles involved in home ownership, but had I acquired a new one (also complete with mortgage), I’d have lost it due to an extended period of disability that did not let me work and earn money. This article – which is merely an extension of an earlier article by Caity regarding renting, assumes that all renting is for investment purposes. Yes, my landlords live below me – I have the top apartment of a duplex. My rent is reasonable and when something needs fixing, they take care of it promptly, we are all senior citizens now and have become more like family than renter/landlord.
Now, I won’t be around to see it – it won’t happen that soon. Bur had U.S. capitalism finally died and been fully replaced with socialism, then I’d happily have accepted an apartment at no cost to me. However, that’s an entirely different situation that would require far more commentary that does this reply to the article. But, for now, I enjoy many advantages that I could never have afforded under our capitalistic economy. The greatest of those has been the elimination of risk of homelessness.
Love you, Cait. — don’t get me wrong but please abandon “sucks” as the insult since the origin is really about sucking a mans penis and ultimately is about men and women performing what should not be a humiliating act. Should fellatio be?.
I have the same complaint about “Useful Idiots” for Taibbi who have a segment “Democrats Suck” and “Republicans Suck”. Let’s all grow up and find an insult, the origin of which does not berate certain folks .https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/12/29/on-the-sexualized-insult-not-for-the-faint-of-heart/
Cancel culture sucks :o)
If you wanna start eliminating words because of their etymology, the job might deal the Oxford Dictionary a heavy blow.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/535187/innocent-words-with-naughty-origins
Hah — yes, people love their words no matter the harm.
These days, it’s OK to insult someone by calling them a “dick” but not OK to them a “cunt.” What sort of disrespect for men makes that alright?
Tear/cut out the door frame where your kids heights are carved.
Turn it into a wood framed work of art with room for your grand-kids heights to be added.
Tell you to be EX landlord that it deteriorated from age. He probably won’t even ask.
Find a small older home away from the city where you can afford to buy and fix up.
Don’t let the Bastards get you down.
Dear Caitlin,
Much as I hate to suggest this, you should consider monetizing your newsletter like Dr. Paul Craig Roberts (via quarterly donations), Benjamin Fulford (via monthly subscriptions), and no doubt other “rogue journalists” have. Everybody needs to eat and, so long as you don’t allow $ to corrupt you, there’s nothing wrong with getting paid for your considerable efforts. Surely you have enough of a following to make such an undertaking profitable!
Best,
Author of the soon-to-be released horror/paranormal mystery THE DEATH TAX, S.A. Hogan
Totally agree.
The lesser of two evils ratchet, RIGHT into authoritarian Idiocracy ain’t new for any of our countries. Like “Catastrophe Capitalism,” or tag-team kleptocracy, it predates journalism’s race to the bottom as astute, fearless whistleblowers were fed to jackals for discussing forbidden, if pretty damn obvious shucks & jives (we ALL feel in our gut, but sublimate, project or attempt to anesthetize away?) Now, we’re ignoring kids, infected as vectors, to flip MORE rent-stabilized apartments and indenture more ally PASC gig-serfs… Peh!
Since ancient times: a “permanent existence of an underclass who can’t afford to own” – or, even work/save their way out of the status/system. Directly related: Amazon/Bezos pays less in taxes than a teacher or a janitor. In such a construct, how many could ever overcome to such a degree as to even basically escape? Since a certain beginning, the 1% have taken every measure to assure their continuance – and to only add upon the never-ending burdens of those so cursed as to having been born beneath them.
https://seaclearly.com/2021/09/28/insuring-heaven-or-hell-on-earth
Attachment stunts your spiritual growth and it is also my experience that whenever you find yourself in this kind of tight spot, there always comes a miracle – for want of a better more realistic word taking into account the whole complexity of the situation – that projects you into a place you’d never have thought of but where you’re better off than before. On top of which having an audience multiplies the chances of that “miracle” happening exponentially. So good luck for that one. Immediate bonus to start with: you’ll get rid of the bed bugs scare :o)
Well put. We are renters too, in the outlandishly overpriced NYC suburbs. Wishing you an easy resolution to this, and a happy new home.
Hi Caitlin
You are welcome to stay at my place in Coffs Harbour for as long as you like. I’m in Brissie this weekend, but I have got heaps of space. 59 Long Street, Coffs Harbour. Check it out on Google Earth. Lots of pussycats and friendly pupplies, yowies, beaches, etc. HUGE library of books.
cheers
John Murray
It’s the quality and honesty and courage of Caitlin’s blog that attracts readers like this. And I know there are many more. Bless you, John Murray, and may God (or whatever higher power or natural or human goodness you might use to replace that word) see Caitlin and her family safely and securely into a new home. Which, yes, should be a fundamental human right like so many other necessary things.
Cheers brother
I second that blessing.
I was very lucky, and in the Celtic tradition I offer every traveller a bed and a meal and the best hospitality until they are well enough to be on their way.
I feel all that. I had the exact same situation happen to me. For many years I lived in a cabin someone handbuilt. All the years of my kids being young. It was creaky and the walls, windows and doors were all off center. I used to call it the crooked house. No one wanted it because it was orange inside and everything was very rough. I loved it.I always wanted to meet the ambitious soul that built it from scratch without official building skills and materials. The property was wonderfully grown in with bamboo and redwoods. The most important part was I could afford it. It was our sanctuary in a part of California that had continuously gentrified. When we got evicted because some rich developers wanted it for selling to richer people than us or that the property could be rented for I had to leave the land I was intimately connected to for the last 25 years. I now live somewhere that I always feel at loss for place and time. And it is because of the whole thing of people making money at the expense of other people. Everyone settles for have and have not. They think it’s natural. I want to live in a gift economy where everything is a product of giving. People marketed to buy buy buy, and to defend from the oh so scary others (kill kill kill) have such stunted imaginations about what is possible.
Caitlin, I am sorry to hear of your troubles. I hope it resolves itself without too many difficulties. Rent indeed does suck along with a myriad of other things in life. Here in America rent is skyrocketing as well. A friend was notified his rent was rising 40% when his lease expires. Homelessness is exploding in major cities because of this. I fear things are going to get much worse.
If you are looking for a new start, and ready to leave Australia, check out Paraiso-verde.com
Here are freedom-loving people who aren’t vaccinated, don’t wear masks, have much laughter and hugs while creating the more beautiful world we all know is possible.
Thank you for sharing that link.
I see from your website you go to Paraguay to escape “5G, chemtrails, fluoridated water, mandatory vaccinations and health care.”
Well, to be blunt, I would not want to live among people who are so gullible as to believe in the chemtrails hoax. I assume you are OK with 4G, but the next level is where the danger lies. It appears you have an insane asylum built and run by the voluntary inmates.
Or perhaps it is my social programming talking, here.
You choose a different insane asylum. Ok. I am pulled to a community where love matters, coming from one dominated by fear. We all choose, and many feel safer in the status quo.
Frank,
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FEQO7WoX0AU8KZv?format=jpg&name=900×900
Perhaps you forgot this? It’s an actual thing.
Geoengineering for Financial Gain: A History of Weather Derivatives
https://www.activistpost.com/2012/08/a-history-of-weather-derivatives.html
Your linked article from 2012 claims “Chemtrails are admittedly sprayed as part of weather modification programs.”
I have never seen a statement where anyone who might have actual first-hand knowledge has ever “admitted” that chemtrails are anything but a figment of some deluded eccentric.
The article goes on to describe financial shenanigans by certain fraudsters, but has no content to actually back up the assertion made above, or in fact, that chemtrails could be an actual real thing.
Come back from delusion-land.
Chemtrails, Chemtrails, Chemtrails! As usefull as Russia, Russia, Russia!
“Ha, figures it’d be something like this,” was Nada’s summary in “They Live?” Our betters, can’t even be bothered to CHEW us anymore, and they’re all outa saliva? In the States, my hero’s answer is for COVID indentured “essentials” to take over their corrupt unions, community, “minority” or faith-based organizations. Ah, er… HOW? This is simple, sneering woke-washing, virtue-signalling by petit bourgeois white kids; afraid to aknowledge powerlessness? Don’t believe me, try posting “1099” “gig” or “essential workers” on NC’s comments threads?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y6VQJjvNxj4
https://wolfstreet.com/2021/11/14/inflation-becomes-a-political-bitch-for-democrats-as-mood-sours-amid-biggest-ever-fed-fueled-boom-for-the-wealthy/
https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/6-252?s=09
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/why-mislead-readers-about-milton-friedman-and-segregation
I often agree with the author. This one misses the mark. There are slumlords true enough, but many as myself go on as landlords for decades hoping eventually to have the property paid for. In the meantime there is a whole lotta babysitting going on with no compensation in sight. If you want to do a redo of capitalism in general fine but singling out landlords as a bunch of vermin preying on the poor…. I disagree.
You acknowledge that slumlords exist. If you aren’t a “slumlord,” why do you take offence? I assume you are human so I wonder if you take it personally whenever another human is classified as something you find distasteful.
You’re too close to see how the whole thing works. You’re not the actual land lord. You’re the hired help managing wealth for others. The bank likely owns your land. The bank owns the majority of every house you see, the majority of every car that drives down the road, a big part of every business, a chunk of debt for every child ambitious enough to go to college. These are people that own the basis of everything in society while hands like yours gather up all the gold for them. The fact that you have enough to be comfortable is why they get to do that. There are just enough of people comfortable enough to not object. You’re just grateful that you’re not one of the masses of oppressed people so you let this system of oppression continue because it’s all ok for you. The fact that billions of people on this planet are suffering makes you feel grateful you’re not rather than outraged that they are.
I was very lucky, and in the Celtic tradition I offer every traveller a bed and a meal and the best hospitality until they are well enough to be on their way.