Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. Available in weekly or daily dosage. |
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Ask Carter by Rebecca Thursday, August 21, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Bush administration open to giving Musharraf asylum in the United States Ask Jimmy Carter how it worked out when he laid out an American welcome mat for the Shah of Iran. Rebecca  First blood by Bill the Professor Thursday, August 21, 2008 PERMANENT LINK The bear is back on the prowl
To the best of my knowledge (and I have been paying attention) this is utter, shameful disinformation from TIME magazine. The fact is, Georgia attacked first. Russia's response -- while overwhelming and unjustified -- falls far short of what America would do if, say, Mexican troops invaded San Antonio and killed 1000 people. Bill the Professor Sick of this crap by Gertrude Q. Thursday, August 21, 2008 PERMANENT LINK McCain lies that his campaign hasn't impugned Obama's patriotism Are you as sick of this crap as I am? McCain has to lie about Obama and about virtually every campaign issue, because if it's a choice on the issues Americans would choose Obama in a landslide. Gertrude Q. There's always a path by Sherri B. Thursday, August 21, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Re Dumbing down by Hanna U. Not if they keep dumbing down our kids, and frankly, people in general.The responsibility of adults -- meaning parents, mentors, important family adult figures, and teachers -- is to break the cycle. If they don't -- that's why homeschooling exists. Anyone that is serious can learn about it. There's always a path -- if the person wants to walk it. Sherri B. Based on pipelines, the "Cold War" IS over -- if only the US-UK would shut up by Marie K. Thursday, August 21, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Russia and Western oil and natural gas companies are WORKING TOGETHER just fine while even experts get fooled into thinking that Russia is blocking Western efforts and/or that WWIII is only minutes away. Basically, the same goes for Iran. Marie K. Shameless by Wig Thursday, August 21, 2008 PERMANENT LINK The persistent Christian cusses... Petraeus endorsement of fundamentalist book draws fire ... continue to be shameless. Wig I knew he was a nutball, or he wouldn't be in command. Helen & Harry
Uncle Tom by Chris M. Thursday, August 21, 2008 PERMANENT LINK One thing I will never understand is how the middle class and lower class Americans genuflect to the rich and elite. It's worse than seeing some "Uncle Tom" black guy saying "Yas sur. I'll gets on dat rights now sur." to his white master. Makes me want to puke !!! Chris M. Slaves had no escape but literal escape, or death. And realistically, neither do present-day Americans, but we're perpetually told that they can escape to become the upper classes. Helen & Harry
This funnel isn't fun -- it's fatal by Xavier Onassis Thursday, August 21, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Frank Luntz, the Propagandist of the Century Meet Frank Luntz. Expose this servant of mayhem, injustice, and oppression to bright light. See the PDF and know his once-secret playbook of rightwing propaganda that was leaked but is little-known -- steal his very dastardly but effective strategy and tactics -- put terms like 'overpay-underpay' and 'unlimited-fortunes capitalism' and 'principles of pay justice' and 'justice capitalism' and 'self-earned versus other-earned money' into your vocabulary and writing -- start floating memes that undo the damage this man has caused ... Beat them at their own game. Hoist them on their own petards. We can DO this. We are MANY. "The first of these I shall call the funnel system. All that the community produces you are to imagine going into the large end of a funnel, which collects everything and channels it toward the richest persons. The collective wealth has only one prime destination, the person who already has valuable possessions. This system depends upon certain men's claims to the labor of others, or upon ownership and the right of favored persons to corner certain articles of wealth. It reaches its highest development where there is interest and where wealth can be used to obtain forced labor. The second great pattern of economic orders is one I shall call the syphon system. This is the economy where wealth is constantly channeled away from the point of greatest concentration -- from any point of concentration -- and spread throughout the community. The syphon system ensures great fluidity of wealth. Since everyone is provided for, poverty is not a word to fear, and anxiety, which develops so luxuriantly in funnel societies, is absent to a degree that seems to us incredible. These are preeminently the societies of good will, where murder and suicide are rare or actually unknown. If such societies have periods of great scarcity, all members of the community cooperate to get through these periods as best they can. When one is studying aggression in different cultures, therefore, one of the things one looks for is the degree to which economic distribution is set up according to the syphon method or the funnel method." Hmm. Now have a look at the most extreme funnel ever in this remarkable 3-minute youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woIkIph5xcU Wow. Now, keeping that wow youtube funnel in mind, and keeping the hmm funnel system's aggression in mind as well, I have a question: Has anyone here read Dr. Helen Caldicott's "The New Nuclear Danger"? Hmm ... Wow. Gulp! ? "Oh, heLL! Here comes our funeraL. Let us pry, for our missed understandings." (thanks and apologies to James Joyce) So. Anybody ready to hear more about a grassroots campaign to help each other prioritize correctly and focus like lasers on murdering the single worst human idea ever -- the idea that is the root cause of 99% of unnecessary human suffering? The economic system is SCREAMING myriad confessions of its sins. We WILL rid ourselves, our species, of the diabolically stupid, extremely unjust, ultimately fatal idea of allowing unlimited personal fortunes, or we of this unique modern age of highspeed transportation and communication WILL succumb to the results of having the next and the next wealthpower giants, ad infinitum. Extreme economic injustice makes it impossible to solve other problems and it drives the escalating violence pollution in our world, and E=mc2 is NOT a fact subject to human persuasion. Terrible things are NOT going to simply be so ashamed of themselves that they will just slink away and not happen. If only we could capture and collect the sounds of all the unnecessary suffering ... the explosions, screams, moans, hysterical grieving cries of the mothers and babes who always suffer most in the wars people must and do conduct to gain other-earned wealth and the overpower it gives them ... and if only we could add to that collection the sound of all the working people on earth whose lives ascend as continual sighs (thanks again, JJ) uttered by a globeful of underpaid ... and if only we could add in too, the sound of the deepest sorrows which have no voice ... and if we could play it back on the world's radios for just an hour, just ten minutes, just one minute ... would we then determine ourselves to bring this global insanity to a halt? There is a Global-Local Emergency going on! We are in a Global-Local Emergency! One more time: "The patience of the oppressed has always been the most inexplicable, as well as probably the most important, fact in all history." Author Amos Elon from The Pity of it All Pass this Lcurve youtube around. Start making people aware that there IS legal theft -- astounding amounts of our wealth have been stolen by myriad legal thefts (which are explained in what i sent you when i wrote the first time, H and H). This -- economic injustice and our unnecessary acquiescence to it -- is THE issue that cuts across EVERY issue! Nothing is closer to pursuit of happiness and safety and freedom and democracy than this issue. There is no subject closer to civic responsibility and pursuit of happiness -- no subject more worth our care and mental labour -- and it is utterly neglected... -St. Ambrose (4th century AD) "If there were but one person in the world, it is manifest that he could have no more wealth than he was able to make and save. THIS is the natural order." -- Henry George. Ah, Henry, you were so very, very wise. THAT is the sanity, the common sense, the whole-picture reality that the richest have driven us all far from!! Think about this: Lion cubs, to this day, get born with their birthright to a place to put their feet still intact. This is not so for human cubs anymore -- not since all land became owned. Man emerged from man-in-a-state-of-nature, and readily adopted societal living for the very purpose of its greater benefits for those in the society, yet society has made a tremendous collective 'logic whoopsie' that has produced a terrible DECREASE in benefit: Society has stripped off everyone's birthright to a place to put their feet before they're even born, and we have done this to ourselves without thinking to give ourselves ANY compensation for the legal theft of our primary birthright that no one is able to live without. Logic whoopsie, indeed. It's as though past people didn't realize present people can't just float in the air, and continuing the practice is as though present people don't realize future people can't float in air, either. Just how far can we GET from our natural sense, anyway?? Do people think that persons past had more right to a place to put their feet ... to live their lives ... than future people do? Here's what our irrational tolerance of legal theft and our collective mindless acquiescence to economic injustice has wrought: "The richest 5% in every nation, rich and poor, North and South, East and West, now own between 70% and 95% of their own countries." That comes from a beautiful, succinct, easy-to-read, mightily important webpage that is a super eye-opener to the mother of all monopolies, the land monopoly that is the very back bone of rule by the rich: http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/3046/index.html Seeing just the quick first page is entirely worth going to BEarthright, but scrolling down you'll see a click to a page called "Our crowded planet NOT" -- which most people find a total surprise. The entire site is full of valuable thought. By the way, is anyone else here already familiar with Henry George? If so, what do you think of the BEarthright site? Do you know of a better first introduction to the land issue? Please share if you do? Winston Churchill: "Land Monopoly is not the only monopoly, but it is by far the greatest of monopolies -- it is perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly." From the BEarthright site, here is (part/most of) "Archimedes" by Mark Twain "It is evident that he was an over-rated man. He was in the habit of making a lot of fuss about his screws and levers, but his knowledge of mechanics was in reality of a very limited character. I have never set up for a genius myself, but I know of a mechanical force more powerful than anything the vaunting engineer of Syracuse ever dreamed of. It is the force of land monopoly; it is a screw and lever all in one; it will screw the last penny out of a man's pocket, and bend everything on earth to its own despotic will. Give me the private ownership of all the land, and will I move the earth? No; but I will do more. I will undertake to make slaves of all the human beings on the face of it. Not chattel slaves exactly, but slaves nevertheless. What an idiot I would be to make chattel slaves of them. I would have to find them salts and senna when they were sick, and whip them to work when they were lazy. No, it is not good enough. Under the system I propose the fools would imagine they were all free. I would get a maximum of results, and have no responsibility whatever. They would cultivate the soil; they would dive into the bowels of the earth for its hidden treasures; they would build cities and construct railways and telegraphs; their ships would navigate the ocean; they would work and work, and invent and contrive; their warehouses would be full, their markets glutted, and: The beauty of the whole concern would be That everything they made would belong to me. It would be this way, you see: As I owned all the land, they would of course, have to pay me rent. They could not reasonably expect me to allow them the use of the land for nothing. I am not a hard man, and in fixing the rent I would be very liberal with them. I would allow them, in fact, to fix it themselves. What could be fairer? Here is a piece of land, let us say, it might be a farm, it might be a building site, or it might be something else -- if there was only one man who wanted it, of course he would not offer me much, but if the land be really worth anything such a circumstance is not likely to happen. On the contrary, there would be a number who would want it, and they would go on bidding and bidding one against the other, in order to get it. I should accept the highest offer -- what could be fairer? Every increase of population, extension of trade, every advance in the arts and sciences would, as we all know, increase the value of land, and the competition that would naturally arise would continue to force rents upward, so much so, that in many cases the tenants would have little or nothing left for themselves. In this case a number of those who were hard pushed would seek to borrow, and as for those who were not so hard pushed, they would, as a matter of course, get the idea into their heads that if they only had more capital they could extend their operations, and thereby make their business more profitable. Here I am again. The very man they stand in need of; a regular benefactor of my species, and always ready to oblige them. With such an enormous rent-roll I could furnish them with funds up to the full extent of the available security; they would not expect me to do more, and in the matter of interest I would be equally generous. I would allow them to fix the rate of it themselves in precisely the same manner as they had fixed the rent. I should then have them by the wool, and if they failed in their payments it would be the easiest thing in the world to sell them out. They might bewail their lot, but business is business. They should have worked harder and been more provident. Whatever inconvenience they might suffer, it would be their concern, and not mine. What a glorious time I would have of it! Rent and interest, interest and rent, and no limit to either, excepting the ability of the workers to pay. Rents would go up and up, and they would continue to pledge and mortgage, and as they went bung, bung, one after another, it would be the finest sport ever seen. thus, from the simple leverage of land monopoly, not only the great globe itself, but everything on the face of it would eventually belong to me. I would be king and lord of all, and the rest of mankind would be my most willing slaves. It hardly needs to be said that it would not be consistent with my dignity to associate with the common rank and file of humanity; it would not be politic to say so, but, as a matter of fact, I not only hate work but I hate those who do work, and I would not have their stinking carcasses near me at any price. High above the contemptible herd I would sit enthroned amid a circle of devoted worshippers. I would choose for myself companions after my own heart. I would deck them with ribbons and gewgaws to tickle their vanity; they would esteem it an honour to kiss my glove, and would pay homage to the very chair that I sat upon; brave men would die for me, parsons would pray for me, and bright-eyed beauty would pander to my pleasures. For the proper management of public affairs I would have a parliament, and for the preservation of law and order there would be soldiers and policemen, all sworn to serve me faithfully; their pay would not be much, but their high sense of duty would be a sufficient guarantee that they would fulfil the terms of the contract. Outside the charmed circle of my society would be others eagerly pressing forward in the hope of sharing my favours; outside of these would be others again who would be forever seeking to wriggle themselves into the ranks of those in front of them, and so on, outward and downward, until we reach the deep ranks of the workers forever toiling and forever struggling merely to live, and with the hell of poverty forever threatening to engulf them. The hell of poverty, that outer realm of darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth -- the social Gehenna, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched -- here is a whip more effective by far than the keenest lash of the chattel slave owner, urging them on by day, haunting their dreams by night, draining without stint the life blood from their veins, and pursuing them with relentless constancy to their graves. In the buoyancy of youth many would start full of hope and with high expectations; but, as they journeyed along, disappointment would follow disappointment, hope would gradually give place to despair, the promised cup of joy would be turned to bitterness, and the holiest affection would become a poisoned arrow quivering in the heart! What a beautiful arrangement -- ambition urging in front, want and the fear of want bringing up the rear! In the conflicting interests that would be involved, in the throat-cutting competition that would prevail, in the bitterness that would be engendered between man and man, husband and wife, father and son, I should, of course, have no part. There would be lying and cheating, harsh treatment by masters, dishonesty of servants, strikes and lockouts, assaults and intimidation, family feuds and interminable broils; but they would not concern Me. In the serene atmosphere of my earthly paradise I would be safe from all evil. I would feast on the daintiest of dishes, and sip wines of the choicest vintage; my gardens would have the most magnificent terraces and the finest walks. I would roam mid the umbrageous foliage of the trees, the blooming flowers, the warbling of birds, the jetting of fountains, and the splashing of pellucid waters. My palace would have its walls of alabaster and domes of crystal, there would be furniture of the most exquisite workmanship, carpets and hangings of the richest fabrics and finest textures, carvings and paintings that were miracles of art, vessels of gold and silver, gems of the purest ray glittering in their settings, the voluptuous strains of the sweetest music, the perfume of roses, the softest of couches, a horde of titled lackeys to come and go at my bidding, and a perfect galaxy of beauty to stimulate desire, and administer to my enjoyment. Thus would I pass the happy hours away, while throughout the world it would be a hallmark of respectability to extol my virtues, and anthems would be everywhere sung in praise. Archimedes never dreamt of anything like that. Yet, with the earth for my fulcrum and its private ownership for my lever, it is all possible. If it should be said that the people would eventually detect the fraud, and with swift vengeance hurl me and all my courtly parasites to perdition, I answer, "Nothing of the kind, the people are as good as gold, and would stand it like bricks -- and I appeal to the facts of today to bear me witness." I'll leave you with another quote: "The patience of the oppressed has always been the most inexplicable, as well as probably the most important, fact in all history." Author Amos Elon from The Pity of it All Xavier Onassis |
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