Thursday, January 08, 2015
Javohl!
Sometimes instead of “yes,” I say “ya,” in a way that I picked up when I lived in Oshkosh, WI in the 1970s. It is one of just a few identifiable traces of that odd southeastern Wisconsin dialect that stayed with me as part of my somewhat eclectic dialectical palette after I left there at 13. The inhabitants of that town were of predominantly German descent, and although they were all native English speakers and very few actually spoke German, the dialect of English spoken there had a distinctly German accent to it. Later when I traveled in Germany in my 30s and 40s, my German friends would spontaneously laugh when, without thinking about it and when speaking with them in English, I said “ya” (ja) instead of "yes." It seemed to amuse them consistently. I got the impression it was partly just because I was throwing in a German word while we were speaking English, but it also had to do with the way that one word came out, sounding not only curiously and unexpectedly like a native German speaker to them, but perhaps also a little archaic, like from their grandparents or a very old film. While chuckling, they would sometimes respond with the longer (older/more formal?) "Javohl."
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Articles of Faith
One of my friends was telling me recently about a book he read where some sociologist or anthropologist said that in EVERY past culture he could find, there were articles of faith/belief which were (1) central to the culture and (2) later proven to be false. (E.g. the local dictator is actually a deity, the world is flat, the sun revolves around the earth, God wants darker-skinned people to be slaves, etc.)
I believe that the dominant sociopolitical culture of the West currently includes a long list of false articles of faith. If a politician or public figure were to step out of line on any ONE of those tenets, he or she would have to be extraordinarily persuasive and charismatic to avoid being easily, automatically marginalized and sent into the weeds. Two or more and that person is pretty well finished with the vast majority of people.
Unfortunately, given that there are currently so many of these false articles of faith, a conscious, thinking, sincere, honest, rational person will almost inevitably fall outside the matrix on at least a couple of those points. As a politician, then, that person would be left with a choice between lying, or being labeled a kook -- and having a majority of people in the mass culture agree that s/he is a kook -- and being therefore unelectable to higher offices. Such a person might squeak by in a local election, or maybe even carry a congressional district, but probably not a state or a nation.
But wouldn't this make ALL of our major elected leaders either dupes, or liars, or both?
Yes, it would.
I could offer a list here of the false tenets of Western culture, but to list them all at once is just asking for trouble, because it would just make ME a kook in the eyes of most any normal or even semi-normal reader, and undermine the one simple point that I wanted to make in this post.
:-)
Sunday, January 01, 2012
Happy New Regime
Our puppet president, Mr. Obama, signs into law a bill allowing the government to detain anyone, anywhere, without trial, indefinitely. This is part of a bill authorizing another $662 billion to be added to the nation's fictitious debt to finance more military imperialism, death, and destabilization on the inexorable road toward WW3 in the Middle East, martial law, and totalitarian global socialism.
Happy New Year! This is the change you can believe in.
Obama did claim to be signing this bill "despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists." Bullshit!
I didn't think Obama could possibly lie as much, as often, as egregiously, or as consistently as George W. Bush, but he is at least as bad. In fact, I can barely stand to listen to him talk, because pretty much every sentence he utters is a lie. Obama was a good actor, and gave a lot of us the impression that he was a good guy who meant well, who would try to do the right thing, who believed in the Constitution, and who would try to help the average American. But this man, and the higher-ups that he serves, hold the average American in utter, malevolent contempt. Most people still can't wrap their minds around that reality, which makes it possible to hide it in plain sight.
America is finished, dead and gone. All the people who bought into the easy marginalization and dismissal of "conspiracy theories" as being the domain of weirdos and lunatics are already living through the first courses of the inevitable, draconian punishment for their intellectual laziness. Unfortunately they still don't understand the real sources of their difficulties, nor do they have any idea how much worse it is going to get in the years and decades to come.
Friday, December 09, 2011
Leaked Memo to Mr. Corzine
Mr Corzine:
As you know, the US ship of state has already been scuttled, and the pretense that it still exists as a constitutional nation will soon be dropped. This ship and its passengers are being sent to the bottom of the ocean. As you also are aware, your price for a seat on the lifeboat is 2 billion dollars' worth of gold dubloons. Your account is not yet fully funded. Please rectify this shortfall immediately or face the consequences.
We don't care where you get it.
We remind you that there will be no refunds for partially-funded accounts. (What good would the money do you anyway?) Please also note that a fully paid-account covers only your passage off the ship, and does not include breaking you out of any kind of detention. However, if you are merely under suspicion or indictment at the appointed hour, that also is of no concern to us.
Conduct yourself accordingly.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
It's not all rabid ranting...
http://www.interviewmagazine.com/blogs/fashion/2011-08-16/latex-syren/
Lately I guess this blog has become a soapbox for cranky political ranting... maybe it's just as well nobody reads it (except my mother... Hi Mom... she finds the rants amusing). Recent postings could give the impression that's almost all I do... but that's not the case.
The link above is for a nice bit of press we got for our Syren store and line recently in Interview Magazine Online.
Monday, August 08, 2011
"I'm Just a Patsy"
The coordinated mass-media scapegoating of the Tea Party for the downgrading of the US debt rating is a ridiculous ruse, and the last stage in a very successful effort to derail and marginalize a movement that started out with some sincere people taking exact aim at the real authors of this nation's economic and political implosion-- The shamefully parasitic Federal Reserve, its corrupt, oligarchical member banks, Goldman Sachs, a horde of corrupted and/or hoodwinked boneheaded politicians, and the forces of collectivism that have been steadily working to undermine and dismantle the Constitution and the sovereignty of the United States for more than a century now.
It is a fact that the Tea Party as it exists today is a co-opted, mutated, retarded zombie shadow of the grass-roots uprising in which it began. At its beginning, I believe the Tea Party was actually the biggest threat that the real "evildoers" (the central bankers and their minions who have now seized complete control of the US government) had on their radar screens... But they have a lot of practice dealing with these movements and they know just what to do. They made damn sure it got neutralized and led off into the weeds under the influence of fake fruitcake "leaders" like Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann.
Now, at the final stage, as they take the country they looted and slaughtered into bankruptcy and receivership, they have their patsy, their Lee Harvey Oswald, to pin it on... the very movement that started out warning us about the excesses of these criminals and the lofty institutions they have created to rob and control the masses.
Republics always go down, and there are patterns in how it happens. Americans always think that other nations are corrupted and unstable, that other countries are undemocratic with their illegitimate scam elections, that other economic and governmental systems are inferior and inequitable... but to whatever extent the American republic may have been an exception to those rules, the American Empire is not an exception now.
But the demise of this republic, though it follows ancient patterns, happens in a truly new and different context. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon and struck the coup de grace that turned the Roman republic into the Roman Empire, that empire dominated a vast portion of the world as they knew it at the time. But it didn't have a military stranglehold on the entire planet, lightspeed global telecommunications, computers, vast databases, RFID, full-spectrum surveillance capabilities, a digital global financial system, and a mind-boggling arsenal of weaponry up to and including intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with megaton atomic explosive devices. Can you imagine if the Roman Empire did have those things? Well... actually, no need to imagine it. Just wait, and watch. :-)
It is a fact that the Tea Party as it exists today is a co-opted, mutated, retarded zombie shadow of the grass-roots uprising in which it began. At its beginning, I believe the Tea Party was actually the biggest threat that the real "evildoers" (the central bankers and their minions who have now seized complete control of the US government) had on their radar screens... But they have a lot of practice dealing with these movements and they know just what to do. They made damn sure it got neutralized and led off into the weeds under the influence of fake fruitcake "leaders" like Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann.
Now, at the final stage, as they take the country they looted and slaughtered into bankruptcy and receivership, they have their patsy, their Lee Harvey Oswald, to pin it on... the very movement that started out warning us about the excesses of these criminals and the lofty institutions they have created to rob and control the masses.
Republics always go down, and there are patterns in how it happens. Americans always think that other nations are corrupted and unstable, that other countries are undemocratic with their illegitimate scam elections, that other economic and governmental systems are inferior and inequitable... but to whatever extent the American republic may have been an exception to those rules, the American Empire is not an exception now.
But the demise of this republic, though it follows ancient patterns, happens in a truly new and different context. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon and struck the coup de grace that turned the Roman republic into the Roman Empire, that empire dominated a vast portion of the world as they knew it at the time. But it didn't have a military stranglehold on the entire planet, lightspeed global telecommunications, computers, vast databases, RFID, full-spectrum surveillance capabilities, a digital global financial system, and a mind-boggling arsenal of weaponry up to and including intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with megaton atomic explosive devices. Can you imagine if the Roman Empire did have those things? Well... actually, no need to imagine it. Just wait, and watch. :-)
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
-Thomas Jefferson
Sunday, May 08, 2011
Just a Question
I wonder how you would like to be charged 4 trillion dollars for a 10-year global campaign to find some trumped-up McGuffin that your government said you had to have... only to be handed an executive summary saying, "OK, through our heroic efforts, we found your McGuffin. Out of common decency, we have cast it into the sea. We do have photos of the McGuffin, but to show them to you would be arrogant and offensive, like 'spiking the football' in a matter of the most somber importance. Please note that, though your McGuffin has been located and disposed of, the McGuffin-search-and-destroy campaign must be continued and expanded, as now people will be angry with you for your success, and you need eternal, vigilant protection. Please also do not be late with your monthly payments for these services for the rest of your life, as you will be fined and/or jailed for default on these debts. We do apologize for any inconvenience, including but not limited to the cancellation of your bill of rights and other aspects of the republic you thought you grew up in."
