Mrs. John Edwards (Elizabeth) passed away yesterday on Pearl Harbor Day.It was the day the President announced that the warsters and plunder barons had convinced him to help them plunder the people's treasury some more, like the harbor was plundered decades ago, and like Elizabeth was plundered by runaway growth (cancer).
Today is John Lennon's birthday, whose life was ended by an American who had passed his own personal peak of sanity, and had passed into a dark realm.
Meanwhile, Cancun is hosting a meeting between nations to talk about something, which I think ought to be called "global nihilism", the source of global warming, global climate change, and global weather weirdness:
ni·hil·ism: (nahy-uh-liz-uhm) –noun.(Dictionary). The Warlords of Civilization are in rebellion to the established laws of the Earth, institutionalized in the ecosystem around us.
1. total rejection of established laws and institutions;
2. anarchy, terrorism, or other revolutionary activity;
3. total and absolute destructiveness, esp. toward the world at large and including oneself ...
The laws that allow biological life to continue so long as those laws are obeyed, so long as the Earth is respected.
The anarchy, terrorism, and other revolutionary activity, in furtherance of the war against Earth life, will bring and is bringing total and absolute destruction to civilization as we know it.
Meanwhile some of those warlord nihilists suffering from nationalistic exceptionalism as well, have gone on to say:
“Now, I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described(NY Times, emphasis added). How is that viewpoint working out for establishing international relationships?as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets. Many governments — some governments — deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation.
You need me, I am indispensable, you are not.
Can there be any wonder about why, as Mr. Secretary Gates also said, that our neighbours "deal" with the U.S.A. "not because they like us, not because they trust us"?
That is why the climate change conferences, like Cancun, "work" the way they do, why "peace" talks "work" the way they do, and why Washington "works" the way it does.
Egomaniacal control freaks imposing their bad will on others through the vehicle of imperialistic oppression never leads to a normal way of life.
It leads, instead, to the nihilistic "global weirding" way of death.
If the dems follow through on Imposter NoBama's deal it's gonna spell the end for them. Not only are they going to lose their base altogether (if they haven't already, not that that bothers the Imposter in the least), but the Repubes are going to know without a doubt (if they don't already) that the Imposter is a mere rubber stamp for whatever they want.
ReplyDeletePaul Krugman and Stephen Moore faced off on the PBS Newshour last night. Krugman correctly called the Repubes' actions with regard to tax cuts and budget deficits "blatant hypocrisy", while Moore, get this, was concerned that merely extending the cuts for the plutocrats would not be enough!
I'm waiting for the Repubes to introduce a bill requiring those making less than $100K to start paying the rich directly (payroll deduction, you'll never even miss it!) or be forced into slavery. "Yassir boss! I'll git on those shoes directly, soon as I finish up here in da kitchen!"
Indispensable nation? Always the last claim made by empires in decline. History's littered with them. No reason whatsoever to think we're any better and a great many to think we're a helluva sight worse.
Well said disaffected.
ReplyDeleteI see the Imposter's political spin machine is working overrtime to spin this latest fiasco as a problem of his liberal "base." As in, if liberal democrats - you know, the one's who aren't imposters - reject his latest capitulation/deal, the nation faces a likely "double dip" recession. Funny, I didn't know the first dip was over with for those who have been affected. The stock market IS NOT the real economy!
ReplyDeleteThe political end game here is shamefully obvious. Side with the GOP, distance himself from the base, blame a rejection of the tax deal on the liberal dems, who then going forward will magically "own" the recession/depression. Classic GOP strategy, which makes me believe once again that this guy is a dem imposter/shill for the GOP.
Now the Imposter's even got hired gun economists - talk about carpet-bagging shills! - revising their analysis of the costs of the tax cuts, so as to make the whole thing "intellectually agreeable" (read obfuscated to the point of gibberish), since lefty liberals are noted "eggheads" (that was sarcasm).
Rachel Maddow on Today says its too early to worry about the effects of all this on the Imposter's 2012 election chances. Man does that bee-atch need to get a clue! Unless the Imposter is planning on picking up the vote of the hard right - his REAL "base" - then I'd say his goose is pretty much cooked already. Word to the Imposter, forget about who's going to run against you from the dems, and start KNOWING that your liberal base will desert you by staying home and handing the election to the REAL hard right, not the imposter version currently residing in the WH. And you can blame that on anyone you like. THAT was the real lesson of 2010 midterms.
Here is an interesting article about a theory that shows that this nihilism will cause industrial civilization to go down:
ReplyDeleteThe Olduvai Theory (PDF)
Dredd,
ReplyDeleteExcellent article, albeit a bit technical for some folks. Nonetheless, the main points are easily grasped and well supported, and fairly well supported in the literature elsewhere as well (realizing that energy projections of all sorts have turned into political milk cows).
I've read a fair amount of stuff along the same lines, and really find most of it to be common sense and rather intuitive. Mankind finds buried treasure (of the HIGHEST ORDER, to say the least!), promptly stakes his entire future on it (naively assuming it to be inexhaustable), somewhere along the line discovers his folly, selfishly denies the undeniable, then continues to rush headlong at an ever increasing speed toward his increasingly undeniable fate out of sheer ignorance and/or greed anyway!
That same basic theme is extremely well developed throughout classic literature and is readily observable on most any street corner in any large American city today in the form of the junky. Not surprisingly, the comparisons of our fate to modern western life (particularly in the gold standard - America) are rampant and well founded, both metaphorically and physically.
As you've said many times Dredd, we're hopelessly addicted to the stuff, for better or worse. The alternative - and it's starting to dawn on a few people - is a MASSIVE reduction in our standard of living, and inevitably, an EQUALLY MASSIVE die-off over the (hopefully and thankfully) somewhat longer term. I honestly don't see any way out of this pact we've made with our devil.
The good news? We're all gonna die anyway, and many of us a whole lot sooner than we think (that's a basic truism, as true now as it was 5000 years ago). Therefore, it's not what you PLAN to do with your life in some imagined future, it's only what you actually DO with your life in the eternal now. That's my mantra going forward, and once again, I'm going to make a renewed effort to actually remember and live up to it.
Don't we all. Here's to no more posing or accepting imposters - personal or public - from here on out. And HERE'S to our actually LIVING UP to our pledges (for once)!
The Olduvai theory missed the oil peak a few years, thinking 2008 would signal the decline of production phase. Recessions and the like can and did slow that factor down a bit.
ReplyDeleteThe theory is only off a few years, not because the data were off, but because recessions and other things that affect oil usage can't be predicted with certainty.
The theory is still viable.