I take great cheer that we remain a nation of Laws, not men, as evidenced by the DOD notice legalizing the murder of innocent Americans exercising their political rights much as Obama was legally empowered to execute without further judicial hesitation American citizens whom he considered terrorists and did so. We can all breathe a sigh of great relief.
Charles is highly intelligent and not blinded by wealth or investments. I say that because we have been reading each other since 2010 at least and communicate fairly frequently. (mild humor intended)
I used to send him a Franklin for a new book and he would send it nicely endorsed to me, before I got fired. a few years ago.
He's hip to peak-oil, peak-other-stuff, Limits To Growth, etc, so he grows veggies and lives close to the land in rural Hawaii, where he's a haole-homeboy, having moved there in 9th grade or so. His wife is local there.
""Mander’s scorn for technology was a lone voice during the heady genesis of the Bay Area tech industry. He maintained that the deceptive term ‘communications technology’ was not at all about accommodating communications, but rather, about centralizing control. He was viewed at the time as nothing less than heretical.
Jerry’s pariah status was summed up perfectly at a lecture he gave in 1995, hosted by Stanford University. After having warned the packed auditorium that a culture based on computers would kill both the Earth and democracy, the audience became outraged. To utter such words was tantamount to telling them there was no God."
...
"I am predisposed to skepticism on two counts. Majoring in Philosophy at university taught me to examine the assumptions underlying any claim about the nature of reality, and my experience as a builder taught me to brush aside vague assurances and ask: yes, but exactly how does this work? Under what conditions does it fail? What are the consequences of its failure? Generalities are not substitutes for the mechanisms of cause and effect we need to understand a system well enough to repair it."
... John here: What people attribute to science, industry and human ingenuity happens to need coal, oil and gas in order to exist...
"The goal of this book is to outline a new mythology of progress that advances human well-being and global sustainability by reconnecting our actions to their consequences. Rather than cling to the belief that growth and technology will magically solve all our problems, we will be better served by advancing well-being without regard for growth or technology; in many cases, consuming less will advance well-being—true progress—far more effectively than obsessively seeking to consume more.
To save the world, we need a mythology that redefines progress to drive learning and adaptation beyond the narrow realm of technology. Without a substitute mythology, we will cling to our 19th century mythology of limitless consumption even as it pulls us over the event horizon into the black hole of Anti-Progress oblivion."
...John again: We have to work-the-problem ourselves to benefit our kids and grandkids.
"The US spends about 7% of its GDP on pensions (THEY ARE NOT PENSIONS...), that is, about 1.5 trillion dollars per year (about $30.000/person/year). That's more than the about 1 trillion dollars that the US government spends for the military budget, bloated as it is."
I have no idea who or where this statement was concocted but it's a blatant lie and I won't waste my time to figure it out.
Social Security is a TRUST FUND. It is not paid out by the feds from the GDP. It is deducted every single working day from every single working person's pay to be held in TRUST until the working person retires.
If the feds have stolen the monies paid by the working people for their own retirement, then paying it back is something that must be done as is paying back any loaned monies. BY LAW.
To word this as if the retirees of the US are somehow financial burdens on America is a gross lie.
If anything, the retirees of America are being bumped off by the federal cartels who owe them money they stole from the retirees. Plain and simple. The same as any tawdry murder/fraud scheme.
What is being done to the people of Appalachia is no different that what was done to the Native Americans. The only difference now is we are the Indians.
Yes. By calling it the wrong name with the wrong meaning over and over for years, the government convinces even those who are currently paying in to their own trust fund, that it is an entitlement. Which it is not. And, yes, this matters. It casts the individuals receiving their OWN MONEY which they paid into their own account for many years as entitled freeloaders, as burdens on society. If you don't see how that matters, I can't explain it further. You simply don't see it.
No one said anything about "clawing back" anything. I find your wording absurd.
The monies paid into social security have been stolen and as monies today that could be used to repay the thefted monies are paid out to Ukraine and Israel, etc., the theft is unrectified and the lie that retirees are an enormous burden on society is perpetrated indefinitely.
If it is what it is now, I would love to come to your home and take what I want, walk away with no consequences and you live with it as "it is what it is". Thank you so much.
I didn't say the Indians were the good guys. I said their land was stolen from them, they were conquered by the use of superior force and forced from their stolen lands, demoralized and vanquished. The same is happening now to the American population and we don't like it any better than the Indians did. Who does or would? No one.
Social Security has always been run as a Ponzi scheme, which worked fine while the young workforce greatly exceeded the retirees, and the excess funds were spent right away, with IOUs in the cookie-jar. Under Reagan it was apparent that the Ponzi-scheme was stressed, so payouts were greatly reduced to "insure solvency into the future".
"Clawback" is the usual term for taking assets from those "persons" who have been found complicit in financial fraud. It is not my term. Their personal assets are subject to confiscation. If you read my statement in that light it will make sense.
We retirees are an enormous burden upon the productive economy. That is clear.
We have competing-claims upon societal assets with the "owners". They want our competing-claims to go away at minimal cost to themselves.
I did not put my grandmother's words or my words into your mouth. Read it again, please.
I did not invite you to sack my house.
Yes, it's ugly when you see what is being done.
Don't act rashly. Shooting civilians is approved as of October 27, I believe.
Netanyhu hasn't just got a 'god complex' his dad changed the family name from Milekowsky to the hebrew anagram of God given. No doubt he believes that, I'm sure the people behind Biden do as well.
Sadly this business of govt or bankers land grabs from there own people is nothing new. (Remember those movies of heroic small holders fighting to save there little farms?) They made people leave there just built houses here in England for HS2 which was cancelled soon after anyway, just the methods are new.,
I’m trying to figure out if the new lethal force boiler plate puts the treatment of the citizenry on par or below the rules of engagement for handling potential combatants in a conflict zone? Lately I had the idea that the male preoccupation with legal justifications for heinous deeds or change of practices with deadly effects is related to the archetypal challenges of doing things like killing the king. I saw a documentary drama on the trial Charles i by Cromwell’s group. Since Charles had precipitated the death of more than 10% of the men — it struck me how hard they worked to massage the law to challenge divine right. Then, it struck me that they were struggling with enormous archetypal energy related to the Kingship. It took a while to overcome it AND they used the archetypal energy of THE LAW to overcome THE KING. The puritans also used a biblical type called something like the burning man to bolster the energetic formulation.
This pre-approval to kill Americans on American soil, in "foreseeable" circumstances may be enough to cause many enforcers to change teams, or at least to ask themselves where their true loyalty lies.
Perhaps it's true that Appalachia is no safer from climate chaos than the sea-soaked coasts or the drought-stricken west, but our hollers and streams have been ripped up for profit so many times that we'd be fools to expect the government to help. Forty-eight inches of rain is a lot, and the body count is likely in the thousands. Mutual aid groups are doing an amazing job of getting supplies to the survivors in spite of government efforts to thwart them. If you've got drinking water, some tarps and blankets, some antiseptic, and some food, you're doing okay for now and will be sending out aid yourself in the next disaster. Long live Appalachia.
Haiti gets a hurricane and Sean Penn and Angelina are there in a heartbeat. Where's the celebs standing with America in distress?
Hiding out from the Diddy story...
🤣
I take great cheer that we remain a nation of Laws, not men, as evidenced by the DOD notice legalizing the murder of innocent Americans exercising their political rights much as Obama was legally empowered to execute without further judicial hesitation American citizens whom he considered terrorists and did so. We can all breathe a sigh of great relief.
More laws... fewer men.
;-(
Ugo Bardi says next They'll come , to liquidate/delete, the middle
class elderly... Whew ! That's a relief (or - a reprieve ?), as i was
raised in a working class family (and we had no lawns)...
Anybody in the US over 65 and/or drawing Social Security will "qualify for this benefit".
;-(
The Mythology of Progress.
https://charleshughsmith.substack.com/p/my-new-book-is-unleashed-the-mythology
It's the intro only... Any thoughts ?
(PS. i'm trying to not let following The Wars take up too much of my attentions.)
Charles is highly intelligent and not blinded by wealth or investments. I say that because we have been reading each other since 2010 at least and communicate fairly frequently. (mild humor intended)
I used to send him a Franklin for a new book and he would send it nicely endorsed to me, before I got fired. a few years ago.
He's hip to peak-oil, peak-other-stuff, Limits To Growth, etc, so he grows veggies and lives close to the land in rural Hawaii, where he's a haole-homeboy, having moved there in 9th grade or so. His wife is local there.
""Mander’s scorn for technology was a lone voice during the heady genesis of the Bay Area tech industry. He maintained that the deceptive term ‘communications technology’ was not at all about accommodating communications, but rather, about centralizing control. He was viewed at the time as nothing less than heretical.
Jerry’s pariah status was summed up perfectly at a lecture he gave in 1995, hosted by Stanford University. After having warned the packed auditorium that a culture based on computers would kill both the Earth and democracy, the audience became outraged. To utter such words was tantamount to telling them there was no God."
...
"I am predisposed to skepticism on two counts. Majoring in Philosophy at university taught me to examine the assumptions underlying any claim about the nature of reality, and my experience as a builder taught me to brush aside vague assurances and ask: yes, but exactly how does this work? Under what conditions does it fail? What are the consequences of its failure? Generalities are not substitutes for the mechanisms of cause and effect we need to understand a system well enough to repair it."
... John here: What people attribute to science, industry and human ingenuity happens to need coal, oil and gas in order to exist...
"The goal of this book is to outline a new mythology of progress that advances human well-being and global sustainability by reconnecting our actions to their consequences. Rather than cling to the belief that growth and technology will magically solve all our problems, we will be better served by advancing well-being without regard for growth or technology; in many cases, consuming less will advance well-being—true progress—far more effectively than obsessively seeking to consume more.
To save the world, we need a mythology that redefines progress to drive learning and adaptation beyond the narrow realm of technology. Without a substitute mythology, we will cling to our 19th century mythology of limitless consumption even as it pulls us over the event horizon into the black hole of Anti-Progress oblivion."
...John again: We have to work-the-problem ourselves to benefit our kids and grandkids.
Load 'em if you got 'em.
"The US spends about 7% of its GDP on pensions (THEY ARE NOT PENSIONS...), that is, about 1.5 trillion dollars per year (about $30.000/person/year). That's more than the about 1 trillion dollars that the US government spends for the military budget, bloated as it is."
I have no idea who or where this statement was concocted but it's a blatant lie and I won't waste my time to figure it out.
Social Security is a TRUST FUND. It is not paid out by the feds from the GDP. It is deducted every single working day from every single working person's pay to be held in TRUST until the working person retires.
If the feds have stolen the monies paid by the working people for their own retirement, then paying it back is something that must be done as is paying back any loaned monies. BY LAW.
To word this as if the retirees of the US are somehow financial burdens on America is a gross lie.
If anything, the retirees of America are being bumped off by the federal cartels who owe them money they stole from the retirees. Plain and simple. The same as any tawdry murder/fraud scheme.
What is being done to the people of Appalachia is no different that what was done to the Native Americans. The only difference now is we are the Indians.
What they call it and how it works are different, huh?
There is no way to "claw back" those misspent funds, is there? The pirates spent them and retired and died, and in official-capacities, and so on.
It is what it is now, and going forward...
When I was four and asked my grandmother why the Indians were so mean to the cowboys, she explained.
"So the Indians are really the good guys?"
"Yes."
I rooted for the Indians after that, and worked on the Navajo Res. my first 2 years after Residency.
"We" were always "their" herds, and the Indians were mustangs... ;-(
Yes. By calling it the wrong name with the wrong meaning over and over for years, the government convinces even those who are currently paying in to their own trust fund, that it is an entitlement. Which it is not. And, yes, this matters. It casts the individuals receiving their OWN MONEY which they paid into their own account for many years as entitled freeloaders, as burdens on society. If you don't see how that matters, I can't explain it further. You simply don't see it.
No one said anything about "clawing back" anything. I find your wording absurd.
The monies paid into social security have been stolen and as monies today that could be used to repay the thefted monies are paid out to Ukraine and Israel, etc., the theft is unrectified and the lie that retirees are an enormous burden on society is perpetrated indefinitely.
If it is what it is now, I would love to come to your home and take what I want, walk away with no consequences and you live with it as "it is what it is". Thank you so much.
I didn't say the Indians were the good guys. I said their land was stolen from them, they were conquered by the use of superior force and forced from their stolen lands, demoralized and vanquished. The same is happening now to the American population and we don't like it any better than the Indians did. Who does or would? No one.
Social Security has always been run as a Ponzi scheme, which worked fine while the young workforce greatly exceeded the retirees, and the excess funds were spent right away, with IOUs in the cookie-jar. Under Reagan it was apparent that the Ponzi-scheme was stressed, so payouts were greatly reduced to "insure solvency into the future".
"Clawback" is the usual term for taking assets from those "persons" who have been found complicit in financial fraud. It is not my term. Their personal assets are subject to confiscation. If you read my statement in that light it will make sense.
We retirees are an enormous burden upon the productive economy. That is clear.
We have competing-claims upon societal assets with the "owners". They want our competing-claims to go away at minimal cost to themselves.
I did not put my grandmother's words or my words into your mouth. Read it again, please.
I did not invite you to sack my house.
Yes, it's ugly when you see what is being done.
Don't act rashly. Shooting civilians is approved as of October 27, I believe.
Netanyhu hasn't just got a 'god complex' his dad changed the family name from Milekowsky to the hebrew anagram of God given. No doubt he believes that, I'm sure the people behind Biden do as well.
Sadly this business of govt or bankers land grabs from there own people is nothing new. (Remember those movies of heroic small holders fighting to save there little farms?) They made people leave there just built houses here in England for HS2 which was cancelled soon after anyway, just the methods are new.,
The BCBS emails are now gone
A bit late to scrub those emails...
These cats keep getting out of these bags because some of us who used to work all the time are spending much more time watching the perpetrator-class.
Thank You, Warrior-Sister
I’m trying to figure out if the new lethal force boiler plate puts the treatment of the citizenry on par or below the rules of engagement for handling potential combatants in a conflict zone? Lately I had the idea that the male preoccupation with legal justifications for heinous deeds or change of practices with deadly effects is related to the archetypal challenges of doing things like killing the king. I saw a documentary drama on the trial Charles i by Cromwell’s group. Since Charles had precipitated the death of more than 10% of the men — it struck me how hard they worked to massage the law to challenge divine right. Then, it struck me that they were struggling with enormous archetypal energy related to the Kingship. It took a while to overcome it AND they used the archetypal energy of THE LAW to overcome THE KING. The puritans also used a biblical type called something like the burning man to bolster the energetic formulation.
This pre-approval to kill Americans on American soil, in "foreseeable" circumstances may be enough to cause many enforcers to change teams, or at least to ask themselves where their true loyalty lies.
It is that kind of thing.
Perhaps it's true that Appalachia is no safer from climate chaos than the sea-soaked coasts or the drought-stricken west, but our hollers and streams have been ripped up for profit so many times that we'd be fools to expect the government to help. Forty-eight inches of rain is a lot, and the body count is likely in the thousands. Mutual aid groups are doing an amazing job of getting supplies to the survivors in spite of government efforts to thwart them. If you've got drinking water, some tarps and blankets, some antiseptic, and some food, you're doing okay for now and will be sending out aid yourself in the next disaster. Long live Appalachia.
Right-On, Sister!
Thank You.
My experience is that the US government wants to kill me.
ScKamala, Gavin care not cash child killer Gruesome Newsom, lockdown London Greed
Nazie Peloskie shit I could go on all dammmm day