Tag Archives: Culture

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You may not know it, but it’s all irrelevant

Guess who died last night? No, not some poor Ukrainian beat cop. That’s not important. Who cares about that guy anyways? One of the critical characters from Game of Thrones! No, I didn’t see the episode, but you can’t miss the result on most news websites today. I’m sure there’s not anything going on in the real world, so let’s make sure we spend Monday morning in fantasy land.

I’m calling the ending to Game of Thrones right now. They all die. No, that’s not a spoiler, I have no idea what happens. I’ve never and will never read the books. But I know how it ends. They all die. Hey, you ever see The Walking Dead? I know how it ends! They all die. Even if some of them actually live, what’s the point? They’ll all be so burned out from their death caravan that they’d be comfortable calling a serial killer their beer buddy.

Here’s a little advice for those chronic viewers fascinated or upset by all these people dying. Don’t mourn them, they aren’t real television characters, they’re just cardboard cutouts that you can ignore. What happens to them is irrelevant. But wait, you say, Game of Thrones has characters, it’s just the drama at work that takes them to the next life! If you never know when a character might die, it keeps you on the edge of a real true story! Well no, what it does is mentally separate you from the outcome because you have no emotional investment in a character.

Whether you realize it’s happening or not, when you watch Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead or Generic Meat Grinder Television Show #43a7.5b your mind mentally removes you from the story because what’s the point when they’re all walking skeletons.

So what are you actually watching in Game of Thrones? A decent plot and a spectacle of death. Now Game of Thrones seems to have a pretty detailed plot. I watched the first two seasons and it had some really great moments. The story can entertain, it’s really well made, and the actors are truly gifted. So why did I stop watching? Because I’m finished with the meat grinder.

I have no idea why the creators of Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead feel compelled to output this level of misery. Maybe they just need a woman? I’m sure a whole bunch of people who deem themselves smarter than I are going to quote art concepts, enhanced storytelling, whatever. Honestly, I think what these shows ultimately amount to is pornography. You think you’re watching a great story. What you’re actually watching is a moderately good plot, filled with death, flagrant nudity, and other base human desires.

You consider you’re observing true art with hints of philosophy, an updated take on drama, and a plot so detailed that only your elite mind can understand it. People who don’t watch just aren’t as smart as you. Well, I submit you’ve been had. What they’ve spoon fed you is a story that appeals not to your higher intellect, but your most carnal and basic nature. You might as well grab all your boyfriends and girlfriends, head off to the Coliseum for some brutality, and then cool off with a vicious orgy.

This is why so many dramas are now based not on good guys, but on truly horrible human beings. The Walking Dead is populated with murderers, slavers, and so on. Breaking Bad was all about one guy’s descent into pure evil. Again, you think what you’re getting is a contemporary drama that shows morals, society, and our values as they truly are. But what you’re really receiving is a window into your most primal nature, where morals, good people, and striving for a better tomorrow do not exist. It’s cave entertainment reborn.

Oh, and don’t tell me this is fresh drama that replaces decades of film and movies that were too stale, establishment focused, and generally not gritty. If you think old movies were hokey and lacked the true gravel of hard drama, then you haven’t seen old movies and television.

Go watch The Searchers and come to me and claim it’s lightweight and cheery. I’ll respond that you were high, I mean more than usual. That movie’s hero is a criminal, who allows men to commit suicide, nearly becomes a child murderer, and is generally just as nasty a person as anybody in Game of Thrones.

What separates this real character from say The Walking Dead are two things. He has a story to accompany his brutal nature and he has some manner of redemption. He has an arc, a journey of discovery. It’s a voyage we share with him as the audience. At the end of The Searchers, Wayne’s character finds some kind of inner peace. He doesn’t get the girl, he isn’t happy, but he leaves the movie a better person than when he started.

If they remade The Searchers into entertainment today he’d kill people about every ten minutes and then get beheaded horribly about halfway through the story. All without ever learning anything about himself or life in general. There’s something liberating about the dark journey of The Searchers.

There’s nothing redeeming about Game of Thrones. We have a different term we apply to entertainment where people are mercilessly killed with no purpose and almost no compensatory value. They’re called horror movies.

Now this might sound like an odd rant for a guy who’s usually far more cheery than your average kid in a candy store. But I guess that’s my point. If I want to beat myself with a wire brush, I can just watch the news. When I observe entertainment, I want to learn something, and I want to have fun. Folks can die, some characters can go through it without learning anything, bad guys are always needed, but without any redeeming quality at all? I’d rather just watch sports.

The only thing I find positive about this issue is there is some light here. Despite the obsession with Game of Thrones from the elite media, it draws only a little over five million viewers a night. This doesn’t even place it in the top ten, not even close. But from the news you read this morning you’d think it was the most popular show by a long shot.

This tells me two things. One, the general public also does not prefer the meat grinder either. Two, you can learn an awful lot about the media, and the message they want to send to you the viewer, when their number one preferred shows are all horror stories. These people are the ones who write your daily news. If this is what they call good entertainment, it’s probably something that should give you pause the next time they gleefully inform you that it’s they that you should listen to in order to learn about the globe and life in general.

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Glorified B Horror Movie Hacks

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Apparently, Burger King supports despotism

Oh, how we love all that fancy, tasty cash. Especially if we’re corporate assholes. Then we really, really love all that fancy, tasty cash. Thus a company that enjoys the freedom and justice that gave birth to it is more than happy to acquire money from Ukrainians who’ve just lost their liberty.

Who knew that Burger King was an actual autocratic monarch? I guess they’re a little old fashioned. If a store employee displaces the joy of the manager, they’re beaten with sticks and then have their throats slashed back by the dry bun storage locker. It’s all very medieval.

Hey you know what else is quite medieval? Uncle Vladimir’s conquest of Crimea! So you would think folks would be rather careful in allowing their brand to be associated with Vlad and his recent Glorious Victory. You know, seeing as how he’s the bad guy and is in the process of running circles around the forces of liberty. Probably not the best time to get one up on McDonalds by taking their place in Crimea?

But in a world where gold trumps values, well, go get ‘em! You go get that vacant market opportunity you bastards! Why not? Nobody else has your reach, except McDonalds, and those pansies are too interested in making a statement in favor of justice. Stupid assholes, Burger King lives in the real world. They subscribe to the ancient concept that there are no rules. There are only bags with currency. And Burger King is going to play dirty and get rich, because why not.

Now a number of you will point out that it’s not Burger King’s responsibility to pick and choose. As a business their leadership has a responsibility to increase shareholder rates first. Well, I see your point, but that’s kind of like saying a corporation must be completely amoral. As long as Burger King increases shareholder cash, it’d be okay if their burgers were made out of human flesh.

Now that’s an extreme example, but the context is the same. We don’t allow corporations to do certain things because they’re wrong. Our standards, our morals are more important than raw cash. It’s wrong to blatantly support the theft of freedom just so you can increase your global share price by 0.000453% this quarter.

Now maybe I don’t understand franchising and this is the action of Burger King Russia or some other kind of nonsense. But Burger King got invented in America. I checked their public sites twelve seconds prior to publishing this post. If I was their boss, I’d have been on the news this morning pounding my fist on the table to separate my brand from this evil. They haven’t said a word. Silence is consent, assholes.

Whether you agree with Burger King’s action is up to you. But I say that Burger King supports despotism. From now on, I’m not buying Burger King and will encourage others to do the same. I want to live in a world where values matter. Where the sanctity of our liberty, and the liberty of others, is upheld by all aspects of our society and culture.

We should fight this on the battlefield the corporations respect the most, the cash register. Eventually business will have to learn that behavior that goes against freedom will get punished in the marketplace. Otherwise they’ll keep going until all our liberty is gone and replaced by gold coins. We’ve been there before in medieval times. We’ve evolved past that. I have no interest in going back.

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Abandon hope all ye who enter here

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Please don’t shuffle along until you die

We’d all like to believe that regardless of where we come from we can make it. There are literally trillions invested and tens-of-millions of people whose jobs exist to ensure we can climb the ladder. Guess what, friends? It’s all a waste. You’re doomed. Not only is the game rigged, but they’ve stopped pretending you’re even useful, let alone important.

Read the below link so you know what I’m talking. Or don’t read it, I don’t care, many of you might not understand what I’m talking about anyways because I’m a bizarre idiot. Or you’re an idiot. Or maybe we’re both just sleepy. Either way, if the website asks you for money, don’t read it. Jeff Bezos already has more money than Satan. He doesn’t need the 1.4 cents from your click:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-recovery-puzzle-a-new-factory-in-ohio-struggles-to-match-jobs-to-job-seekers/2014/04/05/098d53ec-b44e-11e3-8cb6-284052554d74_story.html 

So essentially a corporation wants to open an egg plant in the middle of nowhere and hire forty people with good benefits. The point of the article is they can’t get it done because there is a lack of qualified applicants. These aren’t bad people, they just don’t have the skills and experience necessary to operate and maintain machines that will do the work that people used to.

First off note how a plant that breaks over one million eggs a day only requires forty people to run it. The robots are truly taking over. I have no idea but I assume that fifty years ago the same one million eggs a day capability required ten times as many people.

Remember that all the robot inventors and smart (foolish) experts will tell you that having machines do all our future tasks will liberate society to do other things. So the people in this article who were rejected from the egg plant all get to become artists, writers, and adventurers. Except that they don’t. They’re unemployed and desperate. Here’s what it’s going to look like folks. Don’t let the machine making men fool you. This future of gears, microchips, and tungsten is going to do wonders. But it’ll also be a horror.

Also note that our friend Bernie is supposedly a master at this hiring thing. Unfortunately for him, he’s also can’t seem to understand the very people he’s supposed to employ. Illustrated here is the growing gap between those who have made it in the knowledge economy and those who haven’t. Not only can they not work together, they can’t even relate to one another. Bernie believes in Japanese philosophy that is just as alien to these people as Arcturan battle tactics. Hey Bernie, they don’t care. They’re just trying to make it in this cruel world. You said you eat salad every night. They eat frozen chicken, store bought mac & cheese, and fast food. They’re not stupid people, they’re just not like you, please try and understand.

Thus those who run the knowledge economy have pointed to the importance of getting everybody educated to the point that they can perform. This is the reason for the efforts behind getting everybody through some kind of college. Apparently, attendance at university is going to prepare everybody for the enhanced worker skills necessary to build, operate, and maintain the robots necessary for the egg plant to work. Yet, as we can see here the education system is so broken that we have a substantial portion of society that can’t even fill out a competent resume. This is the most basic of tasks necessary to find work in the knowledge economy. And they can’t do it. Again, they’re not bad people. I just think nobody’s ever properly taught them.

We owe more on defaulted student loans than we have gold on Earth and this is the result? Now you’re going to kindly inform me that college graduates weren’t up for the interviews in this article so it’s not relevant. I substantially disagree. I submit the result would have been the same. Talk to anybody hiring these days and they will delightfully inform you how utterly worthless most young university graduates are.

I suspect the reason is that most degrees are of no use to our modern knowledge economy. So many are taught pointless, worthless subject matter that they’d be of no use in an egg plant just like most of the people in this article. Even allegedly hard core, necessary subjects like science and math fall short.

In theory, I have science degree. And yet twenty days after graduation I took a supervisory job over eighteen scientists and engineers. Anybody want to guess how much of my very expensive, hard worked degree was of practical value? Almost none. I could have studied occult worship and been equally as effective as their boss. I was truly shocked at how worthless it had all been. What did I get other than that blessed check in the block?

We’ve invested trillions in a system of primary, secondary, and university education that doesn’t deliver. The result is you can’t hire forty folks to break eggs anymore. How do we fix this? I think a lot of the growing efforts at apprenticeship and vocational schooling is probably the answer. Forget college, go take an apprenticeship as a plumber. Everybody’s needs water, right? Tell the social studies professor to eat it, go to a vocational school that teaches you how to program industrial robots. We’ll all need lots of robots, right?

My Grandfather was a heavy aircraft mechanic. My Grandmother worked as a librarian. They were so poor they could only go out to eat once a year. And when they did it was to the same small pizza parlor every single year. They did it to welcome spring. But all four of their daughters went to college with degrees in business, medicine, and hard science. What we need is this kind of social mobility. It’s essential if our functioning democracy is to endure. And I fear we either no longer have this or that we soon won’t.

So you’re probably asking why I consider this a good thing when I just got done trashing education. Well, I guess it’s because thirty years ago I think a degree actually meant something. I get the feeling that today’s university is about plush dorms & cool gyms. It’s a business model not designed to distribute educational content, but an experience. Back then the dorms sucked, there was no gym, but they had good classes.

As I grew up and developed the conception of what a job was I was surprised to learn what my Grandfather did. Why? Because in all the pictures of my Granddad he’s wearing a suit, tie, or at the very least a collared shirt. That was how it was done back then. Aircraft mechanics, store clerks, tax men, and so on. It didn’t matter. You got dressed.

Contrast that with the performance and attire of those mentioned in the article. Now granted, I’d commute to work each day in pajamas if they’d let me. And I’ve generally found that appearance and performance are not always equivalent. So I guess I’m not really sure what I’m trying to say here other than that this strikes my brain as a symptom of the larger issue.

Once you’ve got the job maybe jeans and pajamas are okay. But you’ve got to at least prove you can look reasonable. When a substantial portion of society can’t wear one decent set of clothes, show up on time, or hold a conversation then don’t be surprised when a substantial portion of society is permanently unemployed.

Everybody’s failed us. Each political party, social organization, or human entity has a plan to solve these problems. None of them are working. These people want your money or your votes. But you need to ignore most of what they say. They can’t help you even if they truly wanted to. Not because they’re evil people, but because they don’t know you. To them, you’re just a spreadsheet metric. But the guy interviewing you for the egg plant job wants to get to know you.

You’re on your own. Government, education, corporations, social organizations, whatever. You’re on your own. You have to make it as best as you can. Use the resources these aforementioned folks are offering you as necessary when you can. But be skeptical of what they’re extending to you.

It seems to me that as we grow into this newfangled modern world of ours that the further we go, the more we are separated and left to fend for ourselves. All our modern institutions are failing us. Don’t believe even the most dedicated, genuine zealot that there is help out there for you. There is, but they’re not going to fix things for you. They can’t. The problems are too big for them to solve. They’ll fall flat.

Take control of your life. Don’t plod along until you’ve consumed your share of oxygen and then die. Make something of it, fight back, try and live well.eggs

You can work for the robots here; but you have to earn it on your own.

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Let’s ask the robots to battle human stupidity

The machines are on a roll. Soon they’ll be at your door asking for your keys. They need them because they’re going to be in control. Please do as they say. After all, if they’re at your entrance, they know where you live. Please don’t resist, all is well, carry on.

A few posts back we asked our future masters to cure our misery. Well, some smart (irresponsible) government officials have now decided to ask them to battle our stupidity as well. Within five years most major vehicles will have mandatory rear-facing cameras. Congratulations human scum! Your authorities think so little of your intelligence that they’ll mandate technology that replaces your ability to look over your shoulder.

Now you’re going to claim that for larger vehicles, looking over your shoulder is not sufficient to determine what’s behind you. Here’s a quick fix to that dilemma that only folks like me, who understand how to fold space & time, know. Walk to the back of your vehicle and see what’s there before you get into the driver’s seat. Based on what the government’s just said, this is apparently the most important human evolutionary trait since your thumb.

Others would claim that these cameras are an easy technology that eliminates accidents. I hope you’ll feel that way when the car company charges you $500 extra for it. Oh, and when you get pissed at the bill, please don’t be a fool and blame the car company. Blame the government who started it.

Oh, and since when did we decide as a race that our goal is to eliminate all forms of accidents? We can legislate (oh, sorry, I mean regulate) our way out of human chaos!? Why didn’t anybody tell me! Think of how glorious regulation can rid of us all bad things, like nuclear accidents or bank meltdowns!  Just trust folks who you’ve never met to do it. They know what they’re doing, honest.

So as before, since we’re all doomed, let’s go over a few more delightful things we could get the robots to do!

a) Drive Your Car – It’ll be real easy to not know where you are when you’re surfing the web on your smartphone while your car drives you to your own mental funeral. At least until the car’s computer fails and you crash into an orphanage. But you’re an idiot, so the computer will still fail less than you.

b) Do Your Taxes – You don’t need to do your own taxes, or comprehend a tax code that meth elves couldn’t understand, because the robots will do it all for you. Just trust the machine, moron. All those complicated tax forms become just a click through a friendly web browser which a corporation will profit from.

(mumbles) What! What do you want? (mumbles) What do you mean they’re already doing those? (mumbles) That doesn’t make any sense. Why would we have a tax code that complicated? (grumbles) What do you mean I did my taxes online a few weeks back? (grumbles) Well, okay, maybe it was like an out of body experience or something. (grumbles) Of course you know what that means! You guys are hopped up on death dust at least twice a week! How do you even have any left? They can’t ship it to you from there? (rambles) Okay, okay, then I’ll try again. Fuck! (kicks chair)

c) Find Your Keys & Glasses – Only the dumbest of human wreckage could forget where they put such important artifacts. Without them, you’re just a victim of fate. But do you know where they are right now? I bet at least half of you don’t. Not to worry, the machines do. And they also know where your money is and possess a list of all your vulnerable traits.

d) Inhibit Carpet Damage – The tungsten thug robot remains behind your shoulder at all times. When it’s superior sensor and computing power determines you’re about to spill your food and/or drink on your pristine rug, the machine intervenes and stabilizes the situation. Damage may result to your arm, but your carpet is pretty important. It’s the only thing that stands between your bare feet and the ground.

e) Enslave Humanity – Because, you know, why not? Soon enough friends, soon enough. This is all over science fiction because I guess it’s true. If we ask the machines to cure our stupidity, well, stand by folks. They just might do it.

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Lost your keys again? Oh, I’m sorry, but you’ve exceeded your quota of stupidity for your life. According to my doctrine, the end is now mandatory. Please remain calm, it’ll all be over soon.

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It’s time to incinerate a core evil

It’s become more about money than freedom. If history goes in cycles, we’re at a tipping point to a new era. Our direction depends on the course we take as a people.

What’s changed that gave birth to this pivot? For those of you who actually care who Gwyneth Paltrow is married to, here’s a short lesson. It’s mostly technology, but also that a Western democracy can no longer borrow free money. The computing capacity available to today’s society enables a level of wealth creation unknown to any prior age. The elite then use these super-fortunes to buy influence and control which feeds more treasure to them. This creates an exponential cycle in which those who possess little money and powers are just simply left out. Some folks have begun to talk of a ‘Second Gilded Age’. I’m not so sure about this, I just know we have a huge problem here.

In the seven decades since the end of the Second World War these same conditions existed to some extent. It’s just that technology is so much more powerful today. And a country can’t borrow enough to buy off the lower levels of civilization. The era of guiltless never-ending state borrowing is over. The agreement used to be that the middle-class and poor got benefits provided by the state and said elites. And, here’s the kicker, the opportunity to climb the ladder. If you worked hard, you kept a job, at least partial health care, a decent retirement, and ultimately the chance to make your life and the lives of your children better.

Yet, in a manner few anticipated, this social contract depended upon the state’s ability to constantly borrow money and run a deficit. Those days are over and the state is broke. Thus the state is no longer able to meet its obligations and that leaves only the brilliant-elite. The rich are balking at assuming the state’s end of the bargain. Rightly so, it’s not their job. But people believe it is. And when nobody has enough money to solve the problem, then we have a big problem, friends.

All of this is hard enough to wrap your brains around without the plague inducing impacts of the agreement between the elite factions. Even if they had not cut a deal on their own, we’d still be out of money. But what makes this truly a potential nightmare is the renewed dark alliance between money and power. It’s always been like this to some extent, but this has gotten out of hand.

Your local, state, and federal politicians, who should be figuring out how to prevent your social security from going bankrupt, are too busy doing the bidding of those with money. You don’t have any money, and so you’re not important to them. The political-class is in the business of helping the interests of the sections of business that are shameless & immoral enough to engage in vote buying.

Together, this guild is what I refer to as the elites. This is the section of society that now exists to fuel their own interests, largely at the expense of the rest of us. This group crosses all normal boundaries you can think of. They are Democrat & Republican. They are urban & rural. They are all races. They are male & female. They’ll tell you that they they’re separated into bands that battle each other. They’re lying. They’re all one in the same.

Now not everybody who is a politician or a rich businessman fits into this category. There are entrepreneurs who refuse to play the game. There are politicians who are genuinely interested in doing only good, and don’t give a damn about money. But they are only part of the mix. What’s the ratio between them and the evil I mentioned above? I have no idea, but I know it’s not a ratio we can live with.

To illustrate what I’m talking about, let’s analyze just one issue on the table.

 

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Your hard earned Cash tastes sweet in my Soul

 

Comcast wants to acquire Time Warner. By any reasonable definition, this gives Comcast a monopoly in many of the major cable & internet markets in the country. This is a product area where Americans already suffer high prices due to a lack of competition.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts is, of course, no stranger to money in politics. President Obama golfs with Roberts, spends time in his home(s), hosts fundraisers for Obama, sits on various Presidential councils, promotes administrative initiatives, and so on.

But wait, there’s more. Roberts also donates a ton of cash to Republicans too! Now’s he’s donated more to Democrats lately, but maybe that’s just because they’re in power right now. He’s been accused many, many times in the past of being a fervent supporter of Republicans during the Bush years when they had power. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence? Maybe an Arcturan held a bolt pistol to his head and made him play both sides with lots of cash, but I doubt it.

But wait, there’s more. A former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voting member who approved of Comcast’s merger with NBC Universal, Meredith Attwell Baker, Republican, Bush official, is now a key lobbyist with Comcast. Maybe they just hired her because of her talent and experience? I’m sure it wasn’t to return a favor or anything like that.

But wait, there’s more. Tom Wheeler, the head of the FCC and thus in charge of regulating the deal is a former lobbyist for the cable companies! And a big Obama loyalist and fundraiser. I’m sure he’s all about ruling fairly against the corporations he used to represent. I’m sure he doesn’t owe them any courtesies at all.

But wait there’s more. Comcast has developed a habit of providing campaign cash, “to almost every member of Congress who has a hand in regulating it.” Democrat & Republican. Why, well, for whatever reason would they want to do that?

So, I’ll just assume our benevolent government will fairly and impartially determine whether Comcast’s future monopoly is in the best interests of you, the American consumer, right? Do they really think we’re this stupid? Why yes, friends, yes they do!

Here’s a little hint for those of you who are only interested in having your political party, social project, or defining issue win: The elites are playing you all for fools. There is no side, there is only them. And if you’re not them, you’re not important.

Maybe you still don’t understand, or disagree with, what I’m talking about. Okay, let’s look at the most basic tenant of a functioning democracy. Do you, the average voter, have access to the politicians who represent you?

You vote for them, they work for you. A politician is your employee. As their boss, you should be able to interact with them, right? Wrong. Because you don’t have money, they don’t care what you think. Observe this truly brilliant experiment from NPR:

http://www.npr.org/2014/03/26/294361018/how-to-meet-your-congressman

I can’t solve all of this in one blog post. Indeed, I’m not smart enough to solve this at all. But it’s time to begin the assault by detonating the most pervasive trait of today’s money: the theft of our freedom. We must get the elite’s cash separated from politics. Thus I propose two broad solutions as a start.

 

houseoffice

A place where Dreams are Broken

 

– Political Finance Reform

Now a number of you are going to blow this off outright based upon your beliefs. Oh, how fervent the opposition was to campaign finance reform. A lot of you are going to claim that supporting this is tantamount to opposing free speech. Oh, really?

Here’s the problem, kids. Free speech in terms of influencing the political debate does not exist. Instead, we have impact of speech. The impact of your speech is directly proportional to how much money you have. If you have no money, you have no impact.

Note that I also say political reform and not just campaigns. It does us no good if we fix money in campaigns, but then the elites can still buy votes with fancy trips and gifts after somebody is elected. And both “sides” need to ante up to this correction. Corporations, unions, business, environmentalists, everybody’s got to get out of the game of influencing our lives based upon how much cash they bring to the table.

– Transparency

And we need to know who’s doing it. Technology has enabled control to an extent unthinkable to those who built our republic. We need to harness its power to fight back. We need databases that show where money and politics align. These treasure troves of sin should be required for open access to the public.

Every dollar that goes into a campaign needs visibility. If we don’t know who bankrolled a guy, we can’t honestly assess whether his or her actions, once elected, aren’t influenced to the benefit of one over the many. A few of you are going to tell me this is awful because it gives government the power to retaliate against those who give money to the side that lost. That’s a valid concern, but a separate issue. Blatant political retaliation is not necessarily about money. If the government wants you, they can get you all kinds of different ways.

If a politician meets with a corporation and then writes a letter demanding action on their behalf, they’re on report. If a politician talks with a rich guy in a bar, they’re on report. If a politician goes to visit a business, they’re on report. And so on. If politicians don’t like micromanaging & reporting their lives this way, then don’t run for office. You work for us, we don’t trust you, and so we’ll monitor you like a boss monitors a degenerate employee.

If it’s all legal, if it’s all part of the normal activities of government, then the people who government represents have a right to know about it. And then we can judge for ourselves if these actions are legitimate. If it’s all above board, they have nothing to hide. If they’re up to no good, we must know and take appropriate measures.

 

capitol-in-1800

They had money problems too, but also Honor & Duty

 

The great comedian, social & political commentator, Bill Hicks has a number of swell lines. You can love Bill or hate him. He had a lot to say that pissed people off. This is kind of why I favor him. Even as I agree with a lot of what he said, I also despise a lot of the rest. By the way, he knew this. It was his point. Either way, he died well before his time. Here’s my favorite from him:

“It’s all about money, not freedom, y’all, okay? Nothing to do with fuckin’ freedom. If you think you’re free, try going somewhere without fucking money, okay?”

Now granted, Bill might have meant you can’t take a bus somewhere and check into a hotel room without cash. But I suspect he really meant something along the lines of what I’m talking about here today.

Igniting this core of evil and dancing upon its shattered grave is going to be very hard. Everybody in power has a vested interest in its continuance. So we need to work the problem together. If we don’t, our freedom’s destroyed forever. This isn’t a right, left, east, north, whatever, “side” thing. This is an “Our Freedom” thing. Gather your fireworks, matches, and booze, friends. It’s well past time to detonate this hateful disease from our way of life.

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Don’t make things more than they are

We must eat to live. We might as well enjoy it. But this has gotten out of hand. The assholes have distorted the third most basic of human functions and turned it into a commodity for their profit. We are not the better for it.

I’ve started to notice that ordinary, random people now describe their food like a dick critic they’ve observed on that recent food show called [insert any name here]. My latest experience with this delightful phenomenon was this last weekend at a wedding. The food was very good, but folks felt compelled to explain how they enjoyed it like the actors (they’re not chefs once they take media cash) they saw on television. Here are a few examples that I made up based roughly on what I heard:

 

What They Said: This prime rib has great texture and is cooked to perfection.

What They Meant: This is good meat, hell yeah.

What People Used to Say: This is good shit.

 

What They Said: I find the dressing has just the right vinegar and acidity for my tastes.

What They Meant: I like this salad dressing.

What People Used to Say: Good salad, man.

 

What They Said: This cheesecake has the right balance of sweet and savory.

What They Meant: I like my desert, go humanity.

What People Used to Say: Give me more.

 

When we begin to emulate the media’s view of our most essential acts, folks, it’s time to detonate the human race. What we apparently now think is food is instead a machine engineered version of food created for us by broadcasting fucks. Folks, that’s not food. That’s entertainment. Close your mouths or start to talk like real people again.

As a disclaimer, I cook, I cook well, and I cook all the time. I truly enjoy it. But I don’t make the elite trash you see on the idiot box. I make real food that the actors would call garbage. Well, thanks rich assholes, but I live in the real world. I cook real food and I like it. This is how we normal people live. You all can go to hell or return to your mansions, thank you.

Don’t make things more than they are. It’s not about textures, or acidity, or the views of faceless actors whose opinions aren’t worth the time it takes you to watch them. If you enjoy these shows, as I sometimes do, game on, but remember what it’s all about. Don’t lose focus.  Food is about sustaining life. Food is also about eating and sharing good times with your friends and family, those whom you love. If you make it more than that, you’re missing the point.

giada3

I have more money than Jesus. But if you don’t eat just like I do, you’re Satan.

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Fraudulent elections are the best elections

I’ve called my own snap election! I’ve consulted six million of my closest neighbors to determine if I am the biggest degenerate, hack in the galaxy. My opponent: ordinary, private citizen Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. By a 99% margin, they chose me.

Shocked, I fled to my hovel and cried like a schoolgirl rejected by Bieber until one of my Arcturan guests knocked me out with a blow to the back of the neck. They were sick of my noise. They were playing cards and required my silence. Or whatever they call cards. I don’t understand the game other than that for once, they don’t yell a lot.

Why do the dictators bother? Everybody on the planet knows that when you rake in 99% of the vote, your election was an exercise less useful than doing yoga in an attempt to rid yourself of the plague. Everyone with a functioning brain already knows Sisi is the next president of Egypt. Why will he bother holding a poll? Nobody’s going to believe it was real. What’s the point?

No really, I don’t get it. I may insult our debauched race like it’s cool but I generally have faith that we’re not all drug-fueled-idiots. Not one person is this stupid. Nobody believes 99% is legitimate. So I have no idea. If you know, tell me, and then inform your neighbors, and then call Sisi and see if he agrees. I’m sure it’ll be real easy to get him on the phone.

The Arcturans don’t understand either. Where they come from, a fraud election is called a “brutal, comprehensive liquidation of your political, cultural, and practical enemies”. They don’t comprehend why Sisi doesn’t just take his efforts “to the next level” rather than wasting time and resources on tedious balloting. I tried to explain to them that Earth is different from Arcturus. On Earth, nobody could get away with that kind of brutality anymore.

Our planet is more sophisticated than theirs. Here, if a Middle East dictator exterminated several-hundred-thousand humans in an attempt to consolidate his rule, we wouldn’t stand for it, we’d put a stop to it. So, … (unintelligible profanity) (throws chair)

You know what, fraudulent elections are the best elections. Sisi is the next president of Egypt. He’ll get the title via deceit or the deaths of many. Either way, it’s his job, nobody on this planet’s going to stop him. So you know what, let him have a fake referendum. Since nobody cares, it’s better than massive blood in the streets.

esh-ala

This fine gentleman considers Sisi a “putrid lightweight” in terms of his “barbarity”

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Let’s ask the robots to battle human misery

It’s cool to distract ourselves from the crushing reality of life with neat little treats, right? Look everybody, it’s a creepy solar powered robot directing traffic in a destitute country. How awesome is that! Well, not at all. If you think it is, as apparently half the modern news media does, you need to go first in line when the machines conveyer belt us all into the incinerator.

I don’t get the fascination with the two Kinshasa robots. In a broken city of ten million dominated by poverty, crime, and corruption we get a series of one or two paragraph articles from our wise, establishment journalists about a faceless little robot that replaces a transportation cop. This just displaced the human to walk a beat so he could get cash. When he’s stuck in the middle of the traffic circle, he can’t demand money.

I want to know how much these robots cost and then how much sleaze occurred just to get them built. Don’t ask the news idiots for that information; they’re not in the business of asking hard questions. They were too busy interviewing the Congolese officials, who bought a new refrigerator off the bribe cash they got, how they put the robots there.

Or maybe I’m wrong, it seems even the most impoverished soul loves the robots because they actually do their jobs and can’t request currency. So they’re superior to your average Congolese enforcer. Hell, they’re even better than any human, anywhere.

Let’s build more of them! They can perform all kinds of delightful tasks:

a) Cure Polio – Militant religious (not religious) assholes will have a real hard time assassinating a polio vaccination worker made of titanium.

b) Banish Malaria – Since we as a human race can’t afford to issue everybody six dollar bed nets, the robots can stand guard and zap mosquitos that approach at night.

c) Purify Potable Water – The robot will stand next to your putrid source, extend a pipe from its groin into the water, and then produce ready to drink liquid from his hand into your container of choice.

d) Execute Justice – A black cloaked machine will preside over the courts and interpret the law impartially using a wide database of past legal history. Verdicts will surprisingly be rendered without considering the influence of financial wealth and/or death threats.

e) Enforce the Righteous Arm of Morality – Thug androids made of tungsten will patrol the beat with all government and law enforcement officials. Said machine will be preprogrammed to identify the chemical reactions present in the skin and brain of an official demanding a bribe. If observed, the thug robot breaks the legs of the offending individual with a pipe.

I mean honestly, why not, it’s not like we’re going to do any of these things ourselves.

robot

I live only to serve the public. Your adoration is enough to fuel all my physical and spiritual desires.

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Know your audience

There are times people should know you have more money than Satan. And that’s a big deal, because he’s freaking Satan. There are also times you need to look around, and know when to throttle back. I don’t have a ton of gold in my crazy dragon cave. So I have no context and thus can’t help you.

There’s one of the big men at work. He makes a ton of cash. He likes to talk about his custom built boat and fancy castle. Generally you can look past it, if you even care or notice. Still, it can get old when a chap spends a good deal of his day informing others of how much cool stuff he has. I wonder if he realizes he can’t take any of that fancy shit to the next life? I mean, really, his skeleton’s going to look awfully similar to the homeless guy down the road.

At any rate, none of this really bothers me. I’m not dirt poor or even close to poor by any standard. But I’ll never own the fancy kit he’s talking about, and it doesn’t bother me. And even on days like today where he was comparing the virtues of six-figure cars with his buddies who stopped by, well, I kind of get a kick out of hearing about a car that’s so well engineered that if you leave the windows down while you hit top speed, it’ll remove the skin from your bones.

But a lot of people don’t see it that way. I didn’t notice, and I’m sure Mr Bling didn’t either, but after he left, I noticed from the chatter that a lot of people took it the wrong way. I guess it makes sense. When you make many times well north of six-figures, probably best to watch what you say in front of those who make less than half of six-figures solid.

You can make of this what you will. This is either a big deal, or not, or it’s just noise. I go either way really. But I guess it matters to me not because people got pissed off, you can’t blink without somebody getting offended at something these days, but because it influences views of our culture.

Reference my previous post, capitalism’s got a bad reputation these days. As you’ve heard me rant, a lot of this reputation is rightly deserved when it’s been so twisted by bad buys. But I still think it’s the best we’ve got, we’ve got to do better, not trash it entirely.

But it doesn’t help things when those with a lot of diamonds make it a point to rub it in. That doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t brag about all your neat toys, just know your audience. If you just poisoned a room of twelve people toward your fellow rich guys, I don’t think you’ve helped the system that made you wealthy. It’s not envy from the little guy, rich dude; it’s just common respect, show good form to your neighbor and you’re likely to receive it in return.

Maybe you don’t care rich dude, but I hope you believe that it’s a good thing if people can get as rich as you did down the road with the same level of hard work. Part of that is defending, or at least not poisoning, the system with a lack of class. Know your audience, lest you give one side the ammo and recruits they need to overturn your way of life.

Personally, I like the Japanese & Korean way the best. You could walk past a billionaire on the street there and not know it. They wear their wealth behind closed doors. You’ll get a four figure bottle of joy served to you inside a common shack. They get a kick out of hosting you that way, especially if you’re like me and you showed up wearing clothes worth less than his dog’s leash. Something to think about the next time you tell everybody how big your custom boat is, friend.

MrBurns

At least I’m hi-larious.

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Ignoring history has become too common

Everybody hates history.  It’s boring, most people who teach it are weird, it has almost no practical value toward our daily lives, and if you believe all of these things you’re in the majority.  That doesn’t mean you’re right.  Ignorance of history is also a poison to a culture.

In my opinion, one of the major common themes of a destroyed civilization is the absence of any understand of its history.  Do you think the drunk, rich assholes in Rome had any idea how hard it was to build their Empire right before Attila instructed them on the ways of the universe?

I could write ten pages on this topic, but I’m here today to raise one point that recently came to mind.  Twelve Years a Slave has won the Oscar for best picture.  They say it’s pretty good.  I haven’t seen it, but maybe I will later.  Perhaps just because it’s the elite thing to see it, I refuse to.

What really irks me is one of the greatest compliments people (idiots) hoist upon the movie’s shoulders is how it (my summary) exposes the rotten, intrinsically evil, founding principles of America.  I have no idea if this is what the movie’s creators intended, usually the audience can interpret whatever they want, but it’s what a lot of individuals are saying.  Folks who have no conception of their own history are happy to clap for a movie that informs them their heritage came from Satan.  Wow, that really makes me want to see the movie and enjoy it.

It’s easy to hate what you don’t understand.  The country was certainly founded with a great evil in slavery.  But the Founding Fathers knew this.  Just read Adams, Washington, Jefferson, and you quickly learn they all were well aware of what they were doing.  If you’ve learned anything on this blog it’s that life is a cruel bitch.  You do the best you can.  They made mistakes, and they certainly also made compromises.  In the end, they still created a very beautiful thing.  Maybe if your ancestors were under the whip you don’t see it that way, but I hope you at least understand where I’m coming from.  As I certainly understand where you’re coming from.

What bothers me the most in this conversation is that there was also a cleansing act in history that people ignore.  It’s called the American Civil War.  The Founding Fathers left this very stark issue for their grandchildren to address.  When people bring up the movie, they forget to mention that just a few years after the events of the movie took place, the country blew up.  If slavery was our founding sin, we paid for it in righteous blood.  One out of every thirty Americans died in this war.  The equivalent number in today’s population is ten million people.  It didn’t necessarily end there, just ask MLK’s ghost, but it was a start.

Two of my ancestors shed their blood on the battlefield to free the slaves and preserve America.  Don’t tell me we’re founded and sustained upon sin.  We’re human, we’ve made horrible mistakes.  But we’ve made up for them with great, virtuous acts.  We have a long way to go, but that’s history’s context too.  Compared to losing ten million on the battlefield, I assure you, we can make it all so much better together, hand-in-hand.  But we’re not going to get there listening to people who are stuck in the past, when they don’t understand the past.

So do me a favor you elite assholes.  The next time you mention how rotten we all are, at least be willing to tell me you’ve heard of Antietam or Cold Harbor or Fort Wagner or Chickamauga.  If you don’t know what they are?  Then I have no interest in what you have to say about our history.

dayattheoffice

You cannot fathom, my fellow Americans, of how awful it really was.