Veteran Support Occupy

Since many veterans are getting as screwed, if not worse, than the rest of the 99%, it's not surprising to see them stepping up.   From Occupy Veterans Movement Growing Across U.S.:

"For veterans especially, health care is paramount, yet is always on the table to be cut," Jenkins said in an interview with ABC News. "Vets in this movement don't want to fight anymore. We want to make peace and live peaceably. We shouldn't have to fight for our benefits, and if vets are fighting for their benefits then it can't be any better for nonvets.

"What do you think is going to happen in 2012 after everyone gets home from Iraq? No jobs, no benefits. This will not be a good scene," Jenkins continued. "I imagine the suicide rate will climb, and sadly, I think that some people in this country don't feel any responsibility for that."

It seems being used, abused and discarded, like the Vietnam (not to mention WWI) veterans, does not sound so appealing.  It is also a good sign that they are willing to stand up to pigs.  (Of course, all police are not pigs, some even support Occupy, but the human garbage that shot Scott Olsen in Oakland certainly qualifies.) Although I don't think the Constitution, upon which they swore, has any remaining functional use, I respect their willingness to stand up for its ideals.  In this spirit, I have placed the little banner in the upper right corner of this blog.

This development will prove worrisome to reactionaries.  Perhaps, whilst in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military industrial complex should have pushed more dope to break them?

Fetishism

Only in America could fetishism become an ideology.

Dehumanization

Dehumanization is facilitated by arrogance.

Laws

Laws are undermined by the stupidity of the makers.

Computer Models are Always Wrong

The territory is not the map, so it should not be surprising that computer models are always wrong.  It's pretty intuitive (at least to those of us who don't live in a virtual world.)  But for those that do, someone has taken the time to prove it as described in Why Economic Models Are Always Wrong.

So economic models are always wrong.  Big shock there.  It also means that other sophisticated computer models are always wrong as well.  So the next time you hear that computer models predict something, as they say, "don't believe the hype."

Too Many Males

I've been saying for years that the one child policy of China and male-centric societies like India, combined with selective abortions of females, would result in severe social consequences in the 21st century.  I grew up in a rural town with a lopsided male/female ratio and I've seen the results.  It isn't pretty, but at least I could move a hundred miles to the nearest city.

From The unstable future of a world full of men:

As the global population hits seven billion, experts are warning that skewed gender ratios could fuel the emergence of volatile “bachelor nations” driven by an aggressive competition for brides.

The precise consequences of what French population expert Christophe Guilmoto calls the “alarming demographic masculinisation” of countries such as India and China as the result of sex-selective abortion remain unclear.

But many demographers believe the resulting shortage of adult women over the next 50 years will have as deep and pervasive an impact as climate change.

Ugly.

The Unpopular

In a mass media capitalist society, as often noted, the unpopular is unprofitable.  Niche markets exist, but the real money comes from mass appeal.  Unsurprisingly, mass appeal is not as important as mass tolerance.  Accepted backdrops, which develop into verbal worlds, are exploitable for Maximum Advantage in all Things.  As the same response is promoted on all occasions, by nature (or anti-nature if you prefer) all responses are reactive and mediocre.  Even fear may be stretched and strangled.  The latest terror alert ceases to have meaning.  One would think a failing propaganda campaign would cease in favor of a different tact.  It often does not.  Those caught in their own verbal world have abandoned reality.  Who is to say what is reality?  A kick in the teeth!

What Planet?

Only 23% trust U.S. financial system: poll.  So what the hell is wrong with the other 23%?!?  On what planet do they reside?

No Credibility

It appears that the announcement that the US is leaving Iraq has no credibility.  When you lie so often, after a time, nothing is believed.  Maybe Bush and Obama should have read (or in the case of the former had read to him) the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf?

Cratering

Cratering can be managed.   Plan the work, then work the plan.  What we get: plan the work, then do nothing.

Hyperbole

Hyperbole is fun!

Keep it up, Geezers!

The stupid geezers behind what is left of the "Tea Party" movement that has since become co-opted by the slimy Republican Party are showing their desperation. They obviously know they do not represent the future, but instead of trying to do something about it they piss and moan. Rather than find some commonality with people whom they would generally agree on the larger symptoms of systemic disease, they would rather distance and isolate themselves further in a self-imposed ghetto. The hilarious thing is the contradictions in their criticism of OWS. They will claim that it is more interested in anarchy, but at the same time believe in "big government." It's kind of hard to see how these two extremes can coexist.  From Wall St. Protest Isn’t Like Ours, Tea Party Says:

“They seem to be more in favor of anarchy than they are in favor of working out problems through the Constitution,” Jenny Beth Martin, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, said about the Occupy forces.

 “We have worked very hard to be respectful of the laws,” she said in an interview. “We protest and complain, but we’re also trying to work within the system. It’s frustrating to watch people who have an utter lack of respect for our form of government.”

Tea Party Patriots issued a statement last week titled, “Occupy Wall Street? They’re No Tea Partiers.” Tea Party supporters, it argued, were the ones who “have stood firmly on principle.”

 “They believe freedom from government allows entrepreneurs to try new things, see what works and discard what doesn’t,” it continued. “They don’t believe corporations are inherently evil, or that bankers should be beheaded.”

By contrast, it portrayed Occupy protesters as freeloaders, or would-be freeloaders: “Those occupying Wall Street and other cities, when they are intelligible, want less of what made America great and more of what is damaging to America: a bigger more powerful government to come in and take care of them so they don’t have to work like the rest of us who pay our bills.”

So which is it?  Granted a truly leaderless movement (which truly scares authoritarians) will have such contradictions, but this propaganda isn't even interesting.  (The Constitution is a dead document, so why would it be respected is besides the point.)  It shows why their generation has done such a great job of destroying America: they believe what they are saying even if it makes no sense compared with what they just said.  Keep it up, geezers!  Your doing a heck of a job...

(It's also amusing to note that capitalists, whose feet they lick, don't feel an obligation to pay their bills either--and for real as well.)

(Another Maximum Advantage Discussed moment.)

Going Well

When a politician tells you things are going well, they most certainly are not.

New Song

Drunk And Armed, my music project, has released the 4th track to the politician E.P. called Cranial Rectal Embedment.




The song title was suggested by the Author Morris Berman, author of Dark Ages America (see Also) and other titles.  His latest book is Why America Failed.

See Here for Downloads.

More Drunk and Armed songs may be found Here.

No Demands

From Occupy Wall Street’s demand? No demands:

“You can make demands, but I’ve seen coalition after coalition marching and marching and making demands, yelling mostly, and then going home,” said Janet Kobren, an experienced activist who left Occupy Wall Street’s San Francisco outlet to join the New York hub.

“Who are they talking to?” Kobren, 68, asked of protestors who habitually stand outside barricaded government offices asking for something specific. “I see them as kind of teenagers saying, ‘I want, I want,’ to their parents.”

Kobren reflected the purist Occupy Wall Street philosophy: that there’s no point demanding change from the government or the financial industry when those institutions are rotten. “We need to do it (bring change),” she said.

Nicely said.  (Obviously some of the older generations get it.)  Other than "drop dead" what else can one say?  The government and large corporations that back it have no legitimacy whatsoever.  The federal government does nothing for (but a lot to), and corporations, especially the financial sector, are nothing but parasites to the average citizen.  Demanding something from them is like asking a tapeworm to stop feeding.  It isn't going to happen--so why bother?  The best response is to turn away and make something that excludes their sort altogether by its definition.

I believe the success of OWS (so far) and the miserable failure of the Tea Party (by which I mean the original concerned citizens who comprised it before it was co-opted by the Republican Party) is due to this fundamental difference in premise. The Tea Party went on and on about the Constitution, but for many it is a document that has no real meaning--especially those to whom it was entrusted. Legitimacy dies when values are only paid lip service.  Who gives a crap about something over 200 years old that has no real relevance to modern issues?  Only naive "geezers" apparently (as evidenced by the lack of support from youth or even middle aged).  By definition, there is no future there.  They are "past it."  The Twentieth Century is over.  Get on with it.

OWS is what it is.  Perhaps its appeal represents a foundation for resilient communities?  (I will concede some of the original members of the Tea Party, and conservatives in general, may already by well on their way as well--as a reaction.  The way is forward.)