Without Shoes

Gambling Pays...If You Are The House

2012-01-15T01:53:00.000-08:00

Editorial Commentary- A Response To Austerity and the Plunder of 99.09% of American Families.
A piece in Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal last week called for the elimination of pensions for nurses, firefighters, corrections officers and others who might still have them. Having already raped and plundered private sector workers retirement accounts and deflated the value of real estate through speculation and vulture capital schemes in order to pick up some fire sale deals...having destroyed the perceived value of any type of labor... these folks won't be happy until the whole concept of a secure retirement for any working Americans is a nostalgic anachronism.

A Nostalgic Anachronism

Public workers contributions, generally 3 to 10% of their pay checks combined with investment earnings, usually account for 75 percent or more of all pension benefit funding. When they were hired, these pensions were promised in lieu of better paychecks found in private sector jobs (at least until Murdoch & his .01 percenters pulled the proverbial rug out from under the private sector & demonetized workers there.) The economic collapse in 2008-2009 devalued retirement savings for most everyone. Ironically our nation's public pension systems, (which were fully funded before the crash) right now are earning their highest returns in decades (2011). Pensions provide unexpendable retirement security for many Americans. Yet, the corporate-backed opponents of pensions are creating a fairy tale that the system is falling apart and that state and local governments are going bankrupt because of a $19,000 pension an EMT might receive. This is rubbish. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, the size of projected state and local government pension funding shortfalls is absolutely manageable. In most states, the total shortfall for the pension funds is less than 0.2 percent of projected gross state product during the next 30 years. Even in states with the largest shortfalls, the gap is less than 0.5 percent. There are numerous ways to address that, one would simply be to take action that GROWS economic activity instead of shrinking it through "austerity".

The Odd Case Of New Jersey
In the Garden State of N.J., the liar Chris Christie has led a lynch mob trying to string up teachers, firemen, police, nurses, EMTs and other public workers. He wants to destroy their salaries and security. At least when he isn't too busy embarrassing the state by talking like the cast on Jersey Shore (who are NOT from N.J.incidentally) or campaigning for other corporate raider's candidates around the country.

Christie Sells N.J. Another Turkey

What Chris Christie fails to mention in his attack ads, pundit appearances, and You-tube video assaults is that the state has failed to fund it's portion of these funds for generations now (which it is legally obligated to do) and that the state raided the teachers retirement fund and "borrowed" (in quotes because no one gave them permission, nor did they ask) Billions of dollars. That's right! Billions stolen from the fund by the state. You know what they did with it? Let this be a lesson for one and all!

Christine Todd Whitman unseated incumbent Democrat Jim Florio in 1993 running on an anti-tax platform. The problem with cutting taxes, then as now, is that every dollar of tax revenue goes to someone for something, in this case it was the state contributions to public workers pension fund. So how did Governor Whitman handle the shortfalll she created with her tax cuts? Good question! She took the money in the public employees pension fund to make up the shortfall she created.
So the obvious question is "how will future teacher pensions be paid for?"
Whitman’s solution was gambling. I kid you not.

Now, gambling is a fine way to raise revenue—if you’re the house.

States have made billions this way in recent decades, either being the house, through state lotteries, or letting someone else do it and taking a percentage off the top. But New Jersey already had a lottery and Atlantic City. Whitman’s plan was for the state to walk into the casino like a Hawaiian shirted tourist in Vegas and let Wall Street be the house. It borrowed $2.75 billion and started spinning the wheel.
Guess how that turned out.
Yep.
They lost their Hawaiian shirt.

Gambler Christie Whitman

So why does Chris Christie want to dismantle the pensions of teachers and other public employees?
Sure it's no skin off his nose, he's a .01%-er, he and his friends don't send their kids to public schools anyway...they attend ivory towered private institutions for the privileged. Why does he make them scapegoats for the economic crisis he and his .01%-er friends created? After dumping their private losses on the public in a reverse sort of socialism, you'd think they would be grateful towards the working and middle classes...but no. Unmitigated greed is an all consuming mistress.
It's obvious.
They know the money that has been stolen by the state and gambled away will have to be repaid...and how could it be repaid? Revenues would have to be increased as services have already been paired back to the breaking point for Christie's tax cuts for the .01%. This means tax increases of some kind, and only his buddies the multi-billionaires are raking in enough dough from the collapse of American industry to bother taxing. Here is the truth- Christie is there ONLY to protect the interests of the .01 %ers. So if the system collapses you see, he won't have to deal with the stolen money problem. He wants the pensions to fail so the state won't have to return the money it stole from the pension fund. This is what Republicans want to do to your social security as well. (Social Security was a separate fund until the 1990s...it was set up that way so congress couldn't steal the money and bankrupt it. Then it was dumped into the general fund. That surplus in the 90s was something of an illusion, as the budget may have been balanced, but the surplus included the social security fund...which was never part of the general fund before. The same thing is being done to your social security money as was done to teacher pensions in New Jersey and what do you suppose the politicians will want to do rather than return the money they "used"? Defunct Social Security.

Remember this sad tale well the next time someone wants to "privatize" some government responsibility! Remember it well when someone tells you your social security should be privatized.
Sure, you could hit the jackpot in a Wall street casino, but what are the odds? Chances are much better that you will lose your shirt. Unless you see your SS insurance as some spare chump change you can afford to lose in a poker game...don't you believe it!

War On Christmas -The Front lines

2011-12-17T23:53:00.000-08:00

Visit "The Liberal War On Christmas" on Facebook for more seasonal humor!

War On Christmas PSA

Tis the season to arm one's self lob grenades at anyone who might not agree with you or especially those who purposefully insult you by wishing you happy holidays!

American Gothic (Horror)

2011-11-25T00:19:00.001-08:00

From the pharaohs of ancient Egypt who had claimed they themselves were gods to the self-regarding inbred thugs of ancient Rome. From the glorified warlords of medieval and absolutist Europe to the robber barons of America. In nearly every urbanized society throughout the entirety of human history, there have been people who have tried to constitute themselves as an aristocracy. They claim for themselves a "god given" right to dominate society. They have used various tactics to do this over the millenia, force being a perennial favorite. But force has been less effective against peaceful resistance in modern times. The self regarding would be aristocrats know that when people are pushed far enough, are robbed enough, stripped of their dignity, and deprived of enough they will eventually fight back. History demonstrates that heads are often lost when this push comes to shove. So newer tactics are employed along with the old violent standbys.

These tactics vary widely by place and time. But there is a central feature. Deference: a psychologically internalized attitude on the part of the common people that the aristocracy are "better" than they are. Modern-day liberals often theorize that conservatives use "social issues" as a way to mask economic objectives, but this is almost backward: the true goal of conservatism is/was/always will be to establish an aristocracy of some type, which is a social and psychological condition of inequality. Economic inequality and regressive taxation, while certainly welcomed by the aristocracy, are best understood as a means to their actual goal, which is simply to be aristocrats. More generally, it is crucial to conservatism that the people must literally love the order that dominates them. This notion sounds bizarre to the modern ear, but it is perfectly overt in the writings of leading conservative theorists such as Edmund Burke. For the would-be aristocrat democracy represents a dangerous psychological condition. One in which the carefully crafted masquerade of this manufactured superiority is questioned. One in which the possibility of social equality is raised. History is largely the tale of the struggle between those who claim aristocracy rightfully dominates society because of its intrinsic superiority against those who believe that human beings are of equal social value.
Conservatism, which is in truth the construction of arguments for establishing or strengthening an aristocracy, in every place and time is founded on deception. The deceptions today are especially sophisticated, simply because culture today has become sufficiently democratic enough that the myths of earlier times will no longer suffice in manipulating the serfs...er, slaves...er, general public.

The aristocracy have used a wide variety of methods to destroy reason throughout history. Fortunately, many of these methods, such as the suppression of popular literacy, are incompatible with a modern economy. Once the common people started becoming educated, more sophisticated methods of domination were required. What was required was a kind of "rationalized" irrationality.
The great innovation in recent decades has been the systematic reinvention of politics using the techniques developed by the advertising and public relations industry which are exactly the "rationalized" irrationality the aristocracy required. These would-be aristocrats and their sycophantic minions are using these techniques to persuade people to lay down their capacity for rational thought. Why? Because rational thought is the natural predator of aristocracy and conservatism. Hence, attempts are made to destroy rational thought, for example by destroying language, which is the medium of communicating rational thought.

The main idea is the distinction between "messages" and "facts". Messages are the things you want people to believe. A message should be vague enough that it is difficult to refute by rational means. (People in politics refer to messages as "strategies" and people who devise strategies as "strategists". It is useful to think of each message as a kind of pipeline: a steady stream of facts is selected , twisted, or fabricated to fit the message. Contrary facts are of course ignored. The goal is what the professionals call "message repetition". This provides activists with something to do: come up with new facts to fit the conservative authorities' chosen messages. Having become established in this way, messages must also be continually intertwined with one another. This is one job of pundits. To the public relations mind, the public sphere is a game in which the opposition tries to knock you off your message. Many of these "messages" have become institutions. Whole organizations exist to provide a pipeline of "facts" that underwrite the message of "liberal media bias". These "facts" fall into numerous categories and exemplify a wide range of fallacies. Some are simply factually untrue, e.g., claims that the New York Times has failed to cover an event that it actually covered in detail. Other claimed examples of bias are non sequiturs, e.g., quotations from columns that appear on the opinion pages, or quotations from liberals in news articles that also provided balancing quotes from conservatives. Others are illogical, e.g., media that report news events that represent bad news or good news for the sitting leader. The methods of identifying "bias" are thus highly elastic. In practice, everything in the media on political topics that diverges from conservative public relations messages is contended to be an example of "liberal bias". The goal, clearly, is to purge the media of everything except conservatism and aristocracy approved messages. The word "inaccurate" has become a technical term in the political use of public relations. It means "differs from our message".

The aristocracy aims to break down reason and replace it with mental associations. One tries to associate "us" with good things and "them" with bad things. For example, the memo from Newt Gingrich's former organization GOPAC entitled "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control". It advised candidates promoting aristocracy to associate themselves with words like "building", "dream", "freedom", "learn", "light", "preserve", "success", and "truth" while associating their opponents with words like "bizarre", "decay", "ideological", "lie", "machine", "pathetic", and "traitors". The issue here is not whether these words are used at all; of course there do exist individuals that could be described using any of these words. The issue, rather, is a kind of cognitive surgery: systematically creating and destroying mental associations with little regard for truth. Note, in fact, that "truth" is one of the words that Mr.Gingrich advised appropriating in this fashion. Someone who thinks in this manner cannot even conceptualize truth.This is an example of the destruction of language and the reasoning that it might convey. The strategists construct their messages in stereotyped ways. One of the most important patterns of conservative message-making is projection. Projection is a psychological notion; it roughly means attacking someone by falsely claiming that they are attacking you. Conservative strategists engage in projection constantly. A commonplace example would be taking something from someone by claiming that they are in fact taking it from you. Or, having heard a careful and detailed refutation of something he has said, the projector might snap, "you should not dismiss what I have said so quickly!". It is a false claim -- what he said was not dismissed -- that is an example of itself -- he is dismissing what his opponent has said.

Projection was an important part of the Florida election controversy in the United States, for example when Republicans tried to get illegal ballots counted and prevent legal ballots from being counted, while claiming that Democrats were trying to steal the election. Since around 1990, conservative rhetors have been systematically turning language into a weapon against those who would question aristocracy. Words are used in twisted and exaggerated ways, or with the opposite of their customary meanings. This affects the whole of language. The goal of this distorted language is not simply to defeat an enemy but also to destroy the minds of the people who believe themselves to be conservatives constantly challenging themselves to ever greater extremity in using it.
More importantly, conservative rhetors have been systematically mapping the language that has historically been used to describe the aristocracy and the traditional authorities that serve it, and have twisted those words into terms for liberals. This tactic has the dual advantage of both attacking the aristocracies' opponents and depriving them of the words that they have used to attack aristocracy.

A simple example is the term "race-baiting". In the Nexis database, uses of "race-baiting" undergo a sudden switch in the early 1990's. Before then, "race-baiting" referred to racists. Afterward, it referred in twisted way to people who oppose racism. What happened is simple: the aristocracy and their conservative rhetors, tired of the political advantage that their opposition had been getting from their use of that word, so they took it away from them. A more complicated case is the word "racist". The rhetors in this case have tried to take this word away as well by constantly coming up with new ways to stick the word onto their opposition and their policies. For example they have referred to affirmative action as "racist". This is false; it is an attempt to destroy language. Racism is the notion that one race is intrinsically better than another. Affirmative action, one could argue may be discriminatory, as a means of partially offsetting discrimination in other places and times, but it is not racist. The aristocrats and their rhetors have even stuck the word "racist" on people because they oppose racism. The notion seems to be that these people addressed themselves to the topic and the word "racist" is sort of an adjective relating somehow to race. In any event this is an attack on language. Another example is the destruction of the word "government". The agents of aristocracy have been using the word "government" in a way that makes no distinction between legitimate democracy and totalitarianism. This was largely how the Koch brothers, aristocrats; were able to snooker common people to take up their causes in the tea party. They simply bombarded the public with messages that destroy language, reason & logic. By repetition, susceptible people lose the ability to discern between legitimate government that functions by and for the public interest and totalitarianism. We are barraged with these attacks today. When language is assaulted, so to is the information it carries. Reason itself. The aristocrats are winning most of the battles folks. And of course when these techniques are not providing the proper effect the older techniques they employed...force and violence are employed. Yes mace is a vegetable, just like pizza. See what I mean?

The True Meaning Of Christmas

2011-11-03T12:52:00.000-07:00

By Without Shoes Staff Writer, Sarah Tonin

What is the True Meaning of Christmas?

"The true meaning of Christmas is going on shopping sprees and watching the effluence of washed up pointless celebrities singing cluelessly on T.V.", says Gus Comzadia; an expert on the holiday. "But some don't see that. I, and many other Christians, am greatly concerned by the increasing tendency to honor the birth of some Jewish guy on this day. Don't you people know what Christmas is all about? It's all about wrapping paper, gift bags, parking lots, and discount prices!!! (And pretending to have spent lots of money on shitty gifts)".

Aside from conspicuous consumption, Christmas is a time for falling down drunkenness

In reality, too many people around the world view Christmas as a time of togetherness and good will. People waste time with family and friends when they should be massively consuming cheap shoddy goods manufactured in Santa's Vietnamese sweat shops, guzzling booze and learning to hate each other.

Corporate cartels rely on your gross consumption of their cheap goods to stay on top.

WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT?
"What Christmas is all about" is a common theme in literature and arts. In the animated holiday classic A Charlie Brown Christmas, the main character, Charlie Brown, is depressed because he believes Christmas is too religious, and wants to know what Christmas is really all about. He learns, when his friend makes a touching speech, quoting from a Mal-Mart catalog: "'50% off on all holiday items!!!! Don't miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to SAVE, SAVE, SAVE!!!!!!!!!!!'. That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown!" Charlie Brown and his friends then go to a fast food chain restaurant together, to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas. Though others claim the true meaning of Christmas was the birth of Santa Claus. Of course, all the preachers and clergymen like to bullshit people with all this biblical crap about mangers and wise men being related to Christmas. but they are obviously just assholes... What do they know? Nothing.

The Birth Of Santa and honoring him by decorating your toilet in his likeness
Is The "TRUE" Meaning of Christmas.

The War On Holiday
Many people are growing concerned that the true meaning of Christmas, the buying of things at a big box discount store, owned by evil multinational corporate cartels and then eating and drinking until you throw up, is being forgotten in today's world. "I am greatly concerned by the amount of giving, caring, and honoring of cosmic muffins that took place this past Holiday season," says Mal Mart chairperson Rex DeEconomy, "All this talk about Gods and loving those around you, and a season of joy? Have you people forgotten the meaning of Holiday? I have very serious concerns that Holiday is being infiltrated by religion. This must stop if we are to save mom, apple pie, capitalism and the two party system! Christ, the next thing you know women and minorities will be demanding equal rights...we can't have that you know. Damn it!"

Glub...Hic...Barffff

Historically Conservatives Have Never Been Right About Anything

2011-05-01T23:48:00.000-07:00

Benjamin New

First let us examine what the concepts of conservative and liberal actually mean.
Conservatives are defined as being disposed to preserving existing conditions, institutions. Seeking to maintain established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, and dogmas, opposing change.
While liberal is defined as favoring progress, reform, and tolerance. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas.
(This definition is from the Princeton Collegiate Dictionary, others are very similar.)

Conservatives rely on everyone ignoring or completely forgetting their past positions because those positions have been consistently amiss, awry and erroneous.
Over time, the fallaciousness of conservative positions becomes incontrovertibly and painfully obvious. We find this happening in every culture, every generation, and in every century. Whatever the issue, a new consensus on it eventually develops around some view that conservatives once opposed, and the old ideas are so discredited that even conservatives themselves no longer attempt to defend them. The ideas of liberal thinkers from a century or two earlier, opposed at the time, are then adapted as the new conservative view.
Conservative error in the past was so outlandish that it has now passed into a legendary status. For instance, conservatives of the day clung to old beliefs that the sun and everything else in the universe revolved around the earth. They even imprisoned or banished people who tried to explain that this was an erroneous notion. Galileo and his colleagues were liberal thinkers, they sought to solve problems in new ways and kept an open mind about possibilities; their goal was not to protect the orthodoxies of the past. The conservatives in this dispute had the power to stage a heresy trial and force Galileo to recant, yet today we know who really won the argument. As Galileo said, "eppure si muove" (And yet it moves). For their efforts, the conservatives of Galileo's time have gone down in history as vicious and idiotic ideologues.

virtually all development that has increased knowledge, improved society, or benefited people’s lives was met in its day with furious conservative resistance.

Flat Earth Believers Leave the Planet Laterally When They Die

The conservatives of the 16th century insisted that disease was caused by Satan’s influence, epidemics by collective sin, and mental illness by demonic possession. They fought hard to limit efforts by liberal thinkers to study the true nature of human physiology. As the new area of "medicine" began to take shape, and scientific facts were becoming known, conservatives kept up the fight against further new developments, like vaccines and anesthetics – which, they said, violated “nature” and usurped God’s right to decide who should suffer and die.

In the 17th century, while Galileo was fighting his battles, other debates were underway regarding the source of government power – whether it lay within families or wealth and was rightly conferred by birth, or whether it rose from the people giving government consent to rule. Conservative opinion came down firmly on the side of aristocratic privilege and the divine right of kings.

In the 18th century, liberal thinkers wanted to reform criminal justice. They argued for speedy and public trials and rejected the “cruel and unusual” in favor of penalties that fit the crimes, and supported modest efforts to see that even prisoners were treated humanely. Why did these arguments need to be made? Because at a time when dozens of minor offenses carried the death sentence, when political and religious dissent was criminalized and when legal penalties included literally cutting people to bits, burning them at stakes, etc. conservatives however thought the laws were too soft and fought reforms.

In the 19th century, women were unable to vote, own property or practice professions. When reformers called for giving them these rights, conservatives invoked both nature and the Bible to prove that women were created subservient to men, belonged in the home, and didn’t need to participate in public decision-making because men knew their interests better than women themselves did. The Sufferegettes did not have an easy road. Once again conservatives were demonstrably and completely wrong.

In the 20th century, another movement argued that people should be treated equally regardless of race. Progressive reformers like Martin Luther King Jr. called on America to live up to its founding promise by guaranteeing civil rights for all. Conservatives – including many still alive today – replied that King was distorting both the Constitution, which left it up to each state to decide how racist to be, and the Bible, which licensed white supremacy based on some tale of an ancient curse. Defiantly standing in the schoolhouse door (literally and figuratively), conservatives darkly warned that “unnatural” mixing of the races would lead to all manner of social evils. Even the venerable and intelligent William F. Buckley who understood classical logic quite well, at the time argued for preserving blatantly racist local and state practices. (To his credit, in later years he apologized and confessed he was quite wrong).

In Todays world, it’s no longer controversial that the earth orbits the sun, and prosecuting scientists for heresy is no longer practiced. Today it's agreed that people should be able to elect and un-elect their leaders, that women should be able to vote, and that a person’s skin color shouldn’t determine where she can sit on a bus. But the reason these matters aren’t controversial is that in each case, the conservative side lost.

Precisely because they lose, however, it’s forgotten that conservatives have repeatedly taken positions that no one but a crank would try to defend today. Conservatism perversely benefits from its own failures: Because its past arguments were beaten back and its fierce resistance overcome, we don’t hear those arguments anymore. They’ve faded into the pages of history, and we have to study history to even find they were once made.

This is crucial to the conservatism of today. If the public recognized the conservative movement as the latest growth of the same overgrown tangled weeds that had tried to choke off science, democracy and civil rights, today’s conservatives would have a much tougher time finding any adherents. Suppose you had a friend you had known for many years, he's very opinionated, he always acts as if he's absolutely certain about everything, but he is always turning out to be wrong. He got you to buy stock in Enron and swore it would just keep on rising. He bet on the Yankees to sweep the Red Sox in ’04. He said mobile phones were just a fad, and before long people would give them up and go back to sending telegrams.

Would you trust this person’s powers of analysis?
Would you put any faith in his predictions?

“Conservatives,” or those who call themselves this nowadays, have an equally good and much longer record of erroneous analysis and wrong prediction. In order to exist as a viable movement, they depend on everyone forgetting that they’re basically always wrong.

Decade's Faith In Decade's End -Best Music Of 2010

2011-01-03T11:35:00.000-08:00

By DulyConsider Music Editor ,Benjamin New

"Best of" lists are a bit like the fabric that holds the universe together. (At least to the earnest music columnist). They are both in demand, composed of strings, and imply a sequence of some kind - an order within chaos itself. It is a comfort to perceive the grand parade of time marked by signposts like numbered measures in the score of a great opus.

Just as surely as Erebus is the son of Chaos, here is this years list:

Ô Paon, 'Courses'

If Dirges are your bag, and your waiting for the end of the world, the Mayan calender, or the end of this article; have no doubts that 'Courses" from Quebec mantra makers Ô Paon will fill the meaningless void until the apocalypse. Geneviéve Castrée sings in her native tongue, Quebecois-French, with English translations found in the liner notes. Literally this CD features haunting repeating phrases as prayers and meditations on alienation, violence, greed and pollution. The arrangements by Thierry Amar, will console listeners while they mourn and contemplate their termination. Tongue removed from cheek, it's a really lovely sounding and interesting collection of vocal pieces. Very unusual.

Arcade Fire, 'The Suburbs'

The compositions are engaging, well thought out, and fresh. It's something of an Avant Indie Pop Rock concept album that deals with the Suburbs as an object of both great affection and loathsome hatred. Though not exactly new territory, this collection gets it right. It's a palette with shades of noxious nostalgia and splendid contempt. The band retains it's cynicism while extolling the virtues of the post Vietnam era, backhanded as it may be.

PVT, Church With No Magic

Moody synth-rock. Drawing from Brian Eno and Talking Heads as references. This Austraian trio fearlessly indulge their artistic ambitions. It's hypnotic but begs your full attention. One of the better efforts this year.

Elton John/Leon Russell, The Union

Two of rock's legends, one nearly forgotten, make music that ranks among their best. But producer T Bone Burnett delivers the goods in a spectacular package filled with steel guitars, brazen brass bursts and uplifting gospel choirs. Russell's voice steals the show with a croon that knows all there is to know about Americana.

Thomas Adès, 'Tevot'

A beautiful sensation emanates as this massive orchestral score washes over one's psyche. One can easily argue that Thomas Ades of London town is the finest composer walking the earth today. Fans of Gershwin's orchestrations, Pink Floyd's 'Atom Heart Mother', Wagnerian brass flights, and lush unapologetic orchestral timbres will all find solace here.
Notable too, is the flawless efforts of conductor Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic. In my view, Ades is emerging as the emissary of post 20th century music. There have been some attempts to escape the gravity of the previous century...but Ade is first to provide the thrust to achieve the escape velocity. A marvel to behold. This is my pick for best album of the year and there is no other competition.

The Chocolate Drops, 'Genuine Negro Jigs'
Nothing short of breathtaking, The Carolina Chocolate Drops evoke ghosts with their 2010 release "Genuine Negro Jig", a true celebration of historical music. "Snowden's Jig" for instance, draws attention to the Snowden Family, an early black string band. Every tune, (most having been obscured by the clouds of time) is played with respectful but bubbling energy and reverence for history. The enthusiasm is so infectious, I defy anyone not to be truly drawn in. It's not all ancient music though, as the excellent Tom Waits composition 'Trampled Rose' receives the Chocolate Drop treatment here as well. Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson began playing old-time music at farmers' markets and town squares in North Carolina but today you'll find them in the most revered performance spaces and festivals in America...and rightfully so!

Mary Halvorson Quartet, 'Saturn Sings'

Until this release, Mary Halvorson has been primarily known for her excellent guitar playing, but with this release she joins the ranks of the greatest jazz composers of the last several generations. This is the real deal folks, every aspect of this outing is superb. It's everything Jazz should be - inventive, challenging, funky, transporting, and magically irresistible. Stunning ensemble work and brave improvisation here make for one delightful piece of work !

Trampled By Turtles, 'Wait So Long'

Newgrass? Bluegrass revival? Jam Band? All of the above! Exciting music regardless of how we perceive it. The musicianship in Trampled By Turtles is astounding by any standard. Why not enjoy a video?

Brian Eno, Small Craft On A Milk Sea

In Brian Eno's words-
''The work in this collection is a result of an occasional collaboration between myself, Leo Abrahams and Jon Hopkins. The two of them are gifted young player/composers whose work, like mine, is intimately connected to the possibilities and freedoms of electronic music. Over the last few years we've worked together several times, enjoying exploring the huge new sonic territories now available to musicians. Mostly the pieces on this album resulted not from 'composition' in the classical sense, but from improvisation. The improvisations are not attempts to end up with a song, but rather with a landscape, a feeling of a place and perhaps the suggestion of an event. In a sense they deliberately lack 'personality': there is no singer, no narrator, no guide as to what you ought to be feeling. If these pieces had been used in films, the film would complete the picture. As they stand, they are the mirror-image of silent movies - sound-only movies.'' Eno's work is without peer, on a conceptual level there is nothing quite like it despite myraids of electronic music composers influenced by him.

Ben New, Collapsed Light

A veritable feast of selections sure to entertain and delight. The songs cycle through eclectic mixes with subject matter that deals with Captain Beefheart, Les Paul, Quantum Physics, Ancient Egypt, Dancing Zombies, Tequila, Romance, Death, Deep Space Spaghetti Westerns, and Nuclear Mayhem. It does so in a detached way allowing the listener to form their own experience of the music without being specifically led to conclusions by the compositions themselves.
I wrestled with including this, my own work, in a 'best of' list for pretty obvious reasons. But when I went to compile the 10 best I honestly found that most other candidates even though I may see them as among the best releases of the year, simply weren't on par with the Collapsed Light CD. So at the risk of being a self promoting hack, I decided despite my personal involvement, this release shouldn't be eliminated as a candidate either. I hope you'll agree. Have a listen here and if you like the music, enjoy a free download of some of the songs. Happy New Year all. Hope your 2011 is filled with conderable sounds!

The 12 Expenses of the Daze of Christmas

2010-12-27T03:43:00.000-08:00

You know that song.., "On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me..."
Well the economy, or lack thereof has had quite an effect on the items glorified in the lyric of the song. According to PNC Financial Services Group, the total cost of items gifted by a True Love who repeats all of the items in each verse will cost over $75,000. The Partridge hasn't increased much but the Pear tree prices have risen dramatically.
The milking maids remained the steadiest due to the outsourcing of unskilled labor in the song. Maids a'milking can be purchased for very little capital from most developing nations or traded for a couple plastic beads, beer, or a whoopie cushion.

There has also been a major decline in the housing market which has decreased the demand for golden rings and other luxury items, driving their prices up.
Leaping lords and dancing ladies, as well as piping pipers have all had an increase in average wages in the last few hundred years. So, if you are planning on giving your true love all of the items from the twelve days, you may want to reconsider your budget.
The milking maids' minimum wage, fortunately for vulture capitalists, remains at $.15 an hour. This is the same wage that has been instated since 1697 adjusted for inflation. Next year Republicans have vowed to remove environmental protections making the birds in this song a bit less plentiful which will inflate their values as speculators reap windfalls in commodities such as geese a layin'. Swans range in the $4,000 price range... and you'll be needing 7.

At Waterloo Gardens, a nursery in Philadelphia, the pear tree went from $89.99 last year to $129.99 this year.

While on the subject, there is a good bit of urban legend surrounding this song.
Starting in the 1990s the lyrics were touted as some type of code for religious doctrine. The story goes that Catholics in England were not allowed to practice their faith openly, so "The Twelve Days of Christmas" became a secret catechism. Several suggestions are listed as to what doctrines the verses actually represented.
Now there are serious problems with this.
None of the hundreds of emails or citations of this story on the net includes any credible source. Most have no source at all, but those that do most often cite an article published on the Catholic Information Network in 1995. It was authored by Fr. Hal Stockert of Fishnetsite and it too offers no sources or corroboration of any kind.
The good Father was interviewed in 1999 about this and offered this bit of balderdash-"I've got all kinds of people writing me demanding references for my work," he said. "I wish I could give them what they want, but all of my notes were ruined when our church had a plumbing leak and the basement flooded." Meanwhile, he said, his copy of the original article is on "a computer floppy disk that is so old that nobody has a machine that can read it, anymore." Fr. Stockert's loss is of course unfortunate, but evidence that cannot be examined is not evidence at all.

The song, according to documented historical records would seem to have originated in France, not England. The prestigious New Oxford Book of Carols which not only cites the French roots of the song, but says it is based on a game that children would play on the Twelfth Night, the eve of Epiphany. In the game, each child would have to try to remember and recite the objects that were said by a previous child. If successful, the child would add another object to the list for the next contestant to recite. If not, the child dropped out. The game would continue until there was a winner.
There are also other problems with this catechism falsehood.
The assumption behind it is that the song allowed Catholics to secretly embrace their beliefs behind the backs of non-Catholic Christian leaders during a time when being a practicing Catholic was against the law under Anglican rule. None of the doctrines said to be represented in the Twelve Days of Christmas, however, was any different from the beliefs of Anglicans or even Presbyterians. There is also the question that if the song was that important for teaching or remembering doctrine, why was it associated only with Christmas? Still a few versions make the generic claim that it was concocted in some land that outlawed Christianity such as some unknown Muslim country...but it's French origin seems to make that absurd as well.
(Unless France is a secret Muslim like the American President is claimed to be by the same folks that tout this false rewrite of history). One final note is that the first printed version of the song is said to be in the children's book "Mirth Without Mischief" published in 1780 and that describes the song in similar terms as the Oxford Book of Carols.
The Twelve Days of Christmas" is what most people take it to be: a secular song that celebrates the Christmas season with fanciful evocations of gifts, dancing and music. Nonetheless, people continue to make up nonsense about "the beauty and truly biblical and spiritual meanings locked away in this wonderful song" that puts Christ into Christmas where he doesn't appear to be. I suggest those who consider this tale to be "beautiful" and "inspirational" (despite its obvious lack of truthfulness) should consider its underlying message: That one group of Jesus' followers had to hide their beliefs in order to avoid being tortured and killed by another group of Jesus' followers. Of all the aspects of Christianity to celebrate at Christmastime, that doesn't sound like a particularly good one to place importance on

Signs That The End Is Nigh

2010-12-04T22:05:00.000-08:00

I have no clue how this exists. But it does.
The question is; and it is an eternal one...why?
Surely the end is nigh.

America - Founded As A Christian Nation?

2010-09-24T12:19:00.000-07:00

"The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion ..."
--from the Treaty of Tripoli, signed by John Adams, June 10, 1797

This is particularly of interest because it was drafted while George Washington was president. It was ratified while John Adams was president and it was signed into law with a unanimous vote. Let me reiterate that...a unanimous vote.
Not one single legislator said "nay". We need not point out that the founders were still active in government at this time, Washington and Adams both presided over the development of this treaty, that if they had any notions of this country being founded as a "Christian Nation" I think they would have objected to at least the language of this treaty. So America is not a Christian nation and that is historical fact. It became a point of law in 1797. End of story.
Read the treaty here.

In this cartoon in the Political Register, September, 1769, an indignant New England mob pushes a bishop's boat back towards England, frightening the prelate into praying, "Lord, now lettest thou thy Servant depart in Peace." The mob flings a volume of Calvin's Works at the bishop, while brandishing copies of John Locke and Algernon Sydney on government. The crowd shouts slogans: "Liberty & Freedom of Conscience"; "No Lords Spiritual or Temporal in New England"
Ah, the age of reason! Sure there were the Puritans and that ilk too but don't imagine for a moment that they were a majority. Escape from tyranical religions in their home countries was a popular reason to throw caution to the wind and venture to the new world...an unknown wild frontier outpost.

Glancing at some websites that claim the U.S. WAS founded as a Christian nation, I came across these arguments and I'd like to address them:

Emblazoned over the Speaker of the House in the US Capitol are the words "In God
We Trust."

Well, yes but it was stuck there in 1962, pretty safe to assume the founders had nothing to do with that... and the concept of god is not unique to Christianity now is it? This was the cold war era, the anti communist hysteria was in full bloom and one of the slogans of the time in propaganda dispersion was "God is on the side of capitalists" this is the same reason it appeared on currency. Again no founding fathers were involved having long been dead.

The Supreme Court building built in the 1930's has carvings of
Moses and the Ten Commandments.

Um, how many framers of the constitution were involved in the 1930s? None. Many of these buildings were raised in Washington as part of FDR's New Deal to get people back to work, artists and indeed musicians were employed by this forward thinking program...I wonder if any musicians played Via Con Dios or some other tune that referenced a deity? I wonder if this doesn't indicate we are founded as a Jewish nation since it's Moses in the statue? Maybe it means Sandra Day O'Conner has a burning bush? Or is it likely the story of the 10 commandments is a mythology that relates to "laws" which is the primary concern of the SCOTUS?

You never know.

God is mentioned in stone all over
Washington D.C., on its monuments and buildings.

(See Above.)

The word GOD is not limited to Christianity, Deists believed in a god of nature, but dismissed all supernatural concepts of god. God is a very general term, Jupiter is a God...as is Mardouk....as is the very popular entity Mammon. Phsicists regularly refer metaphorically to God. Yet largely this is not the Hairy Thunderer...perhaps the Cosmic Muffin?

As a nation, we have
celebrated Christmas to commemorate the Savior's birth for centuries.

Really? Did you know From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed in Boston. Anyone exhibiting the Christmas spirit was fined five shillings. By contrast, in the Jamestown settlement, Captain John Smith reported that Christmas was enjoyed by all and passed without incident. So back around the time of the founding of the nation Christmas wasn't really celebrated by the entire nation. After the American Revolution, English customs fell out of favor, including Christmas. In fact, Congress was in session on December 25, 1789, the first Christmas under America’s new constitution. Christmas wasn’t declared a federal holiday until June 26, 1870. Christmas was a rather "adult" holiday in the old world with much drinking and revelry...the Puritan elements didn't celebrate it at all.

Oaths in courtrooms have invoked God from the beginning.
Well no, not from the beginning.
Text of the Oaths of Office for Supreme Court Justices...

Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are required to take two oaths before they may execute the duties of their appointed office.
The Constitutional Oath:
As noted below in Article VI, all federal officials must take an oath in support of the Constitution:
"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." The Constitution does not provide the wording for this oath, leaving that to the determination of Congress. From 1789 until 1861, this oath was, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States." During the 1860s, this oath was altered several times before Congress settled on the text used today, which is set out at 5 U. S. C. § 3331. This oath is now taken by all federal employees, other than the President. State level oaths are a matter of states and not the nation.

The founding fathers often quoted the Bible in their writings.

Well, yes but not as an authoritative religious book, often they were questioning passages. Of the most active and well known "founders" most were subscribers to of the age of reason philosophies and did not embrace superstitions or the supernatural at all. I am speaking of the principal architects of the constitution which includes Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Franklin, Adams, Hamilton, and Hancock. Even Hamilton, who was known to bitterly disagree with Jefferson on some matters was influenced by John Locke, an enlightenment author.
The bible as literature is one thing. As literally true unquestionable doctrine it is something else. I often quote the bible yet don't believe it is supernatural or literally true in any sense. Most of the well known Founders were Deists, which is to say they thought the universe had a creator, but that he does not concern himself with the daily lives of humans, and does not directly communicate with humans, either by revelation or by sacred books. They spoke often of God, (Nature's God or the God of Nature), but this was not the God of the bible. They did not deny that there was a person called Jesus, and praised him for his benevolent teachings, but they flatly denied his divinity. Now if we are speaking of the 250 men who were involved in the government in some way through the first couple presidencies we might be able to say generally they were Christians, but it's a guess as there simply not enough data on all of their beliefs...Madison, Jefferson, & Franklin wrote a great deal about their personal beliefs and their private thoughts are well documented. We must remember that yes many came to the remote colonies to escape religious persecution (From Christians incidentally) but many more came for the same reasons people go to any frontier...to look for a better life, or in the case of the merchants; to seek fortune, or to escape something . There were an equal number of merchants on the Mayflower who could care less about Calvinism, Puritanism, or any other "isms: that you never hear anything about, but the Pilgrims could not finance the trip themselves, the merchants had the means.

The national anthem mentions God.

Was Francis Scott Key a founder? No. The Star Spangled Banner became the national anthem under the Herbert Hoover Administration...long after the founding fathers died. (And how many have ever heard that 4th stanza that mentions God? If we were trying to discover whether Key was a Theist this might be clue. But has nothing to do with the forging of the Constitution) This has no bearing whatsoever on whether the founders created the nation as a Christian nation.

The Declaration of Independence mentions God.

Yet Jefferson's words were originally "All men are created equal and independent. From that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable." The words were changed in the final draft to appease some members of congress who probably were in fact theists. Again, God is not limited to the Christian idea of God. Oh and incidentally we are not governed by the Declaration of Independence-- it is a historical document, not a constitutional one. God is not mentioned in the Constitution, and Jesus appears nowhere in any official government historical documents.

The Bible was used as a textbook in the schools.
So was the "Grapes Of Wrath" and "Green Eggs and Ham".
Doesn't make it a true story. Or demonstrate any evidence that the founders sought a Christian nation.

The Founders were students of the European Enlightenment. Half a
century after the establishment of the United States, clergymen complained that
no president up to that date had been a Christian. In a sermon that was reported
in newspapers, Episcopal minister Bird Wilson of Albany, New York, protested in
October 1831: "Among all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism." The attitude of
the age was one of enlightened reason, tolerance, and free thought. The Founding
Fathers would turn in their graves if the Christian Extremists had their way
with this country.

Consider this: IF indeed the members of the First
Continental Congress were all bible-believing, "God-fearing" men, would there ever have been a revolution at all?

"For rebellion as is the sin of witchcraft." 1 Samuel, 15:23

Would they have initiated a rebellion if
indeed they thought it was equal to witchcraft (a crime punishable by death in Christian circles at that time)?
But that's only the tip of the iceberg.
The New Testament gives clear
instructions to Christians on how to behave when ruled under a monarchy, as were the Founders.

1 Peter 2:13: "For the Lord's sake accept the authority of
every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right."

Paul wrote in Romans 13:1:
"Let every person be subject to the governing
authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities
that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resist authority
resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."

The Founders clearly did not heed what was written in the bible. If they
were in fact "good" Christians, there would never have been an American
Revolution. Compare the above passages with the Declaration of Independence:

"...when a long train of abuses and usurpation... evinces a design to
reduce (the people) under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their
duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future
security..."

A thinking person can judge for themselves.

Was The U.S. founded as a Christian state?

You know the answer.

And it was written into law in 1797.

Insufferable Arrogance And The "Plutonomy"

2010-09-23T21:34:00.000-07:00

From Without Shoes

“This is an impressive crowd: the Have's and Have-more's. Some people call you the elites.
I call you my base.” --George W. Bush to his supporters at a campaign rally.

The leaked 2005 internal Citigroup “Plutonomy” memo describes how the richest 1% of the population has replaced the democracies of the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia; with a form of government they have coined “Plutonomy.” This relatively newly coined term combines plutocracy and economy, where only the wealthiest few rule and everyone else are essentially irrelevant slaves.

Citigroup was likely not alone in having this malevolent attitude towards the people and democracy. In fact in a sense, though I am very angry about this phenomenon, Citibank itself was merely observing what is so, and attempting to profit from it. Of course whether through irony or strategy, Citibank was one of the recipients of the great "bailout" in which John Q. Publics assets were simply seized by the AIG, Goldman Sachs, and the wealthiest firms on Wall Street.

If your not familiar with the memo, here is a link to it. Citibank has been actively removing this document from websites claiming it is a copyright infringement. (The truth is it is very unwelcome bad publicity). Again, this is not to single out one corporate entity. By observation it is glaringly apparent that we have allowed democracy, as minimally as it was practiced to be completely subverted. The one thing the plutocrats fear is democracy, the idea that their vote is no more important than another voter horrifies them. Of course they get around this two ways.
By turning all political debate into a meaningless clown show, and by using the vast wealth at their disposal to simply buy off the political process. The fact is even if a candidate starts off wishing to work for the will of the people, they will corrupt or extort them. They will smother them with disinformation, and threats of fearsome consequences if anything is done to make their game less prone to cheating.

In this game in which 99% of us are unwilling pawns, Bankrobber #1 has $500 billion in assets, Bankrobber#2 has $250 billion, and John-Q-Public (owner of the gameboard) has $500 billion. The banksters agree to pay $100 billion to the winner, (but good old John-Q-Public is not even informed of the game). The Banksters also agree that for each piece captured, $25 billion will be stolen from the owner’s assets and given to the player who lost the piece. The game is played and Bankster-1 wins. He receives $100 billion from Bankster-2, and $150 billion for the six pieces he lost, increasing his assets to $750 billion. Banker-2 pays $100 billion to Banker-1, but receives $250 billion for the ten pieces he lost, increasing his assets to $400 billion. John-Q-Public’s assets are reduced to $100 billion, and he has no idea what the hell happened.

There IS a class war, but it is the wealthiest 1% who are attacking everyone else and frankly winning every single battle handily. Other than obscene greed what is the motivation? The fact is, the gap between the rich and the poor is a better measure of the health of our economy than the S&P 500 or the Dow. Today, the concentration of privately held wealth at the top is at its highest peak since 1929, the year the financial markets crashed and gave rise to the Great Depression of the 1930s. At that time, 25% of the population was out of work. Despite our economy being mired in the deepest recession since the 1930s, people in the top 1% continue to prosper and own as much wealth as those in the bottom 90%. This is all well and good for the extremely wealthy, but a disaster for the vast majority. Of course there is a plan, and it was set in motion in 1980 and continues to drain the wealth of the middle class today - Trickle Down Economics, the idea that letting the greediest and most morally bankrupt among us do whatever the hell they please will somehow benefit all eventually. History demonstrates this scheme cooked up by Donald Regan (Goldman-Sachs), who hired Ronald Reagan as their spokesperson simply concentrates wealth at the very top while removing it from the vast majority of people. The economy is great for a handful of billionaires who know the best way to rob banks is to own them. After the great depression, the economy grew and prosperity was shared, the middle class grew and so did the fortunes of the wealthy.
But a different course was set in the 1980s and has been adhered to ever since...to hell with the peasants in the middle class, make the aristocracy richer. And they certainly did just that. The disparity between the haves and have nots grew algorithmically. The top 1 percent incomes captured half of the all economic growth over the period 1993-2007 while household incomes for non billionaires shrunk dramatically due to outsourcing, layoffs, and closings. The "globalization" plan is simply a scheme to turn the American workforce into a cheap workforce able to compete with a Vietnamese sweatshop.

Government is FOR-SALE, 99.7% of all 200 million eligible voters are vastly out-spent by a tiny 0.3% of all 200 million voters who make 83% of all federal campaign donations (of $200 or more). How can the remaining 99.7% of all 200 Million eligible voters hope to out-spend the vastly wealthy who abuse their wealth to control and influence government? The bought-and-paid-for incumbent politicians are merely carrying the water for their wealthy donors. As a result, corruption, gross hypocrisy, corporate welfare, graft, pork-barrel spending, subsidies for activities contrary to the public interest, waste, and other manifestations of unchecked greed are rampant. We now have a government of, by, and for those that abuse vast wealth to control and influence government.

And while many voters know this, the voters do a very strange thing. They complain about corruption, give the President and Congress dismally low approval ratings, but then still reward incumbent politicians within Congress with a 85% to 90% re-election rates which empowers and rewards corrupt incumbent politicians to grow more corrupt and irresponsible. It also saddles the President with a dysfunctional Congress. It is no mystery that things continue to deteriorate, and the nation's problems continue to grow in number and severity.

What can we do to stop this downward spiral? Demand democracy. Democracy is the greatest fear of the plutocrats. They are after all small in number, there are 99 of us for every one of them. We must demand politicians act on our behalf. We must NOT reward them with votes when they don't. We MUST change the SCOTUS decisions that have declared money is free speech, and the recent decision that as free speech the amount of influence that can be bought has no bounds. Frankly, before the rise of the robber barons, corporations were not permitted to influence elections under threat of having their charters revoked. K street and lobbyist peddling must be shut down entirely. The vulture capitalists need to be brought to justice, and their ventures once more regulated. The middle class needs to stand up for itself.
No we will not be serfs, we will not be indentured slaves, our work is valuable and we should be paid fairly in exchange for it. The alternative is too bleak to consider.

FDR- Fireside Chat -January 11, 1944

2010-07-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

“We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence,” “Necessitous men are not free men. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.”

If only we had listened, if only we had not allowed the regulatory tools he gave us to be dismantled our economy would be booming and for one and all not just a meager handful .

230 Reasons Why You Should Be Cynical

2010-05-30T23:36:00.001-07:00

If you still have any illusions after considering my list, the bitter pleasure of cynical commiseration may not be for you...but for everyone else....sharpen those barbs!

230 random reasons YOU should be cynical!

leaders
followers
outlaws
lawyers
backstabbers
brown-nosers
yes-men
middlemen
Men who try to be"alpha" males
women who try to be "alpha" males
good ol' boys who become president
bimbos who become celebrities
celebrities
prima donnas
dictators
people who take dictation
hypocrites
charlatans
MBAs
mindless drones who get promoted to management
conformists
poseurs
bores
boors
borscht
weasels
barracudas
pedophile priests
leeches
internal parasites
investment bankers
old-money snobs
new-money snobs
fine print
overbooked flights
planned obsolescence
$500 electronic handheld organizers that are almost as efficient as $8 loose-leaf organizers
computer literacy replacing literary literacy
computer viruses
software bugs
bugs
the values instilled by video games (if it gets in your way, nuke it)
thinking about a future society run by people nurtured on video games
spam! spam! spam! spam!
losing most of our day to meaningless work
the term "superiors"
the term "subordinates"
cubicles and other sensory deprivation cells
people who thrive in cubicles
"It takes money to make money"
"It's not what you know, it's who you know"
staying at a job you detest because the alternatives are even worse
executive bonuses that exceed your annual salary
the "fast track"
the "glass ceiling"
watching everyone rise to the level of their incompetence
the annual incomes of CEOs
the writing ability of CEOs
multimillion-dollar "golden parachutes" awarded to dismissed CEOs
the practice of terminating veteran employees a year before retirement
the term "terminating"
"leveraging"
"targeting"
"impacting"
downsizing profitable companies for the sole purpose of wooing investors
the fact that investors reward companies for downsizing
the fact that companies now exist only to woo investors
self-infatuated bodybuilders who know all their muscles by name
gated communities
$900,000 yuppie MacMansions
the growing gap between haves and have-nots
professional jargon: the Tower of Babel revisited
the fact that people expect you to understand their jargon
"newspeak"
"groupthink"
totalitarianism
mass movements
mass media
mass murder
mass marketing
special offer exclusively for Mr. Occupant
lawsuits by people who spill coffee on themselves
lawyers who encourage lawsuits by people who spill coffee on themselves
the absurd amounts of money awarded to people who spill coffee on themselves
the absurd amounts of money awarded to lawyers who prosecute lawsuits by people who spill coffee on themselves
your death will be referred to as a "negative patient healthcare outcome"
health insurance as a capitalist enterprise
the effects of age and gravity on the human body
drugs whose side effects are worse than the disease
dandruff
gout
flatulence
herpes
psoriasis
Alzheimer's disease
Tourette's syndrome
St. Vitus' dance
hemorrhoids
chronic sinusitis
yeast infections
athlete's foot
gum disease
crotch rot
mad cow disease
elephantiasis
crabs
male-pattern baldness
irritable bowel syndrome
having to worry about your blood pressure and cholesterol
the fact that worrying about your blood pressure and cholesterol will probably raise both of them
argumentative angry people who hate progress, decency , and spelling
movie critics who give rave reviews to bad films so their names will appear in newspaper ads
celebrity authors who earn more for a ghostwritten book than 100 editors make in a year
the state of music today
the state of Florida
used-car dealers
chain letters
pyramid schemes
people who refer to pyramid schemes as "multi-level marketing"or "instruments"
lawmakers mesmerized by people who refer to pyramid schemes as "multi-level marketing"or "instruments".
oxymorons like "corporate culture"
millionaire sports players who grumble about their salaries
boxers who bite off their opponents' ears or any other body parts for that matter
sports teams made up of wealthy convicted felons
sports parents who browbeat their kids for screwing up on the field
asinine chants of "We're #1!"
sports fanatics who live vicariously through their teams
anyone who lives vicariously through a soap opera
eulogies delivered by clergymen who didn't know the deceased
the worldwide triumph of American pop culture
the profitability of bad taste
disco
velvet paintings
the fact that the majority of autographed sports collectibles are fakes
the need to purchase separate shoes for walking, jogging, tennis and basketball
selling advertising space on anything that doesn't move and some things that DO (buses, stock cars, Olympic athletes, politicians)
people who spend an hour clipping coupons so they can save 87 cents
the licensing of dead celebrities
people who gain an identity by wearing t-shirts with commercial logos
"As seen on TV!"
the fact that the entire economy of the free world is in the hands of gamblers and flim flam men.
pop music after 1970
life after 1970
prejudice
the plethora of con men claiming to speak for Gods.
the perverse intelligence of inanimate objects that roll just out of reach
price labels or packaging that won't come off without wrecking the product
phones so small and complicated that despite their remarkable capabilities are useless for anything but a doorstop.
500 channels of mind erasing intelligence insulting bullshit
man's treachery toward his fellow-creatures
killing rhinos for their horns
killing elephants for their tusks
killing baby seals for their fur
killing employees for their productivity
the fact that it's easier in the U.S. to obtain handguns than Cuban cigars
oil cartels
the term "human resources" (we are not BAUXITE!)
billion-dollar sportswear companies that increase profits from exploiting child labor
clear-cutting the rainforests to make room for McDonald's beef cattle
war
street gangs
rapists
carjackers
slumlords
racketeers
muggers who shoot you for a pair of sneakers
people who but 300 dollar sneakers
capitalism
communism
fascism
commericialism
terrorism
antidisestablishmentarianism
chauvinism
Calvinism
cannibalism
corporatism
plagiarism
institutionalism
optimism
evangelism
careerism
industrialism
mammonism
materialism
religionism
rheumatism
alarmism
consumerism
aneurysms
Freudianism
psychoanalysts who keep their patients coming back for 20 years
patients who still hope for a cure after being psychoanalyzed for 20 years
finding happiness only after getting a lobotomy
brainwashing
anyone associated with the O.J. Simpson trial who wrote a book
sequels
bad movies based on old TV shows
the fact that those bad movies become blockbusters anyway
blue-eyed Nordic Jesus
motivational seminars that promise easy success
people who pay to attend them
the success of writers, musicians, and artists who sell out
the wretched abject poverty of writers, musicians, and artists who don't
obfuscation
what the Spaniards did to Montezuma
the fact that Tom Cruise is more famous than John Adams or Charlemagne
MTV
the fact that nobody reads literature anymore
the fact that Walt Disney World is the biggest single tourist attraction in the U.S.
the disappearance of independently owned radio stations
the disappearance of independently owned everything else
the perplexing success of the ugliest pop music
the unlamented demise of Western Civilization
the survival of tuberculosis bacilli and political parties
Washington insiders
dinner parties for Washington insiders
buying an ambassadorship
foreign ambassadors with 137 parking tickets who claim diplomatic immunity
backslappers and palm-greasers
politicians who sell out to lobbyists
lobbyists
photo opportunities and sound bites
spin
Rupert Murdoch
The legal right to lie, fought for and won by a news organization
mudslinging as viable campaign strategy
the stock market soaring on news of higher unemployment
knowing that all your knowledge and experiences will evaporate when you die
Reading 230 excuses for being a skeptical, cynical, sarcastic bastard.

Irony Deficiency And Wry Bread

2010-05-30T00:02:00.000-07:00

Without Shoes editor Benjamin New

Irony Deficiency
What Is The Nature Of Cynicism?

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." - Mark Twain

Worldly evils, blatant acts of goofy sub-normality, and petty vexations drive us to distilleries faster than a Taco Hell burrito washed down with a Red Bull goes through your system. We are cynical and sarcastic, having concluded that though money cannot buy happiness, it can be used to rent it. We realize that people who describe themselves as "middle of the road" are in denial of the 18 wheeler bearing down on them at 70 miles an hour loaded with rubber chickens. We are overworked to the point that we must make clones of ourselves to handle the workload. The clones are identical to us in every way, except they shout obscenities all the time. This upsets everyone which forces us to dispose of them by pushing them off a bridge inevitably causing a policeman to arrest us for making obscene clones fall. Now if you aren't overworked then you are unemployed or underemployed. Offers for pre-declined credit cards are pouring into your mailbox. The "jobless recovery"? The mob is laying off judges and CEOs are reduced to playing mini golf. And if you are working it's a crap job that has ruined lives. Of course there's the demise of Western civilization, the triumph of degeneracy, barbarism, evil, and MBAs, moronic cheesy books that stay on the bestseller list for 189 weeks, general chronic disappointment, and eternal damnation.

Merely a few causes for cynicism.

You understand there are no smug certainties of any kind... that all the world is a stage and it's littered with product tie-ins. You my friend, are a fellow cynic. We are kindred spirits, brothers and sisters under the skin. whether you are a disgruntled idealist, a subversive wit, a professional misfit, a skeptical jester, curmudgeon, social reject, misanthrope, or a secret sentimentalist who longs for a simpler, sweeter life...we are a tribe.

Were you born cynical? Or has cynicism been thrust upon you? Either way, we here at the Without Shoes blog say "give us your tired, bitter, alienated, underappreciated & overwhelmed because chances are you'll fit right in!

History Of Cynicism.

Cynicism is a Greek invention, like the Doric column or the gyro sandwich.
The first Cynics (for some reason when we refer to the ancient ones, the word is capitalized) were the students of a philosopher named Antisthenes, who in turn was a student of the more popular Socrates. Like Socrates, the Cynics believed that virtue was the greatest good. But they took it further than the old master, who would merely challenge unsuspecting folks to
good-natured debates and let their own foolishness cause their fall.

The Cynics were far more blunt when it came to exposing foolishness. They'd hang out in the streets like a pack of dogs ("Cynic" actually comes from the Greek word for dog), watch the passing crowd, and ridicule them for their pomposity , pretentiousness, materialism or downright wickedness. Fiercely independent, they led disciplined and virtuous lives. The most famous of the ancient Cynics was Diogenes, who reportedly took up residence in a tub to demonstrate his freedom from material wants. This cranky street-philosopher would introduce himself by saying, "I am Diogenes the dog. I nuzzle the kind, bark at the greedy and bite scoundrels." He'd use a lantern by daylight, explaining that he was searching for an honest man. Even Alexander the Great didn't escape mockery. When the young conqueror found Diogenes sitting in the marketplace and asked how he could help him, the old philosopher replied "you can step out of my sunlight."

As you might expect, the ancient Cynics' habit of ridiculing their fellow citizens didn't win them many friends. People generally don't like to hear the truth. Truth is after all rare but demand for it is much rarer! Who wants to hear unflatterng truths about themselves, especially in public? But the Cynics, like the Blues Brothers; were on a mission from Zeus. As the Stoic philosopher Epictetus wrote "A Cynic is a spy who aims to discover what things are friendly or hostile to man; after making accurate observations, he then comes back and reports the truth."

The ancient Cynics have turned to dust, but their successors have carried on quite nobly.
Juvenal, Rabelais, Swift, Voltaire and Mark Twain have all used the classic Cynics' tools -- bitter irony, biting sarcasm and mirthful ridicule!

It is up to us, my fellow cynics, to expose the follies & timeless foibles of humankind.
If you consider yourself a cynic, take pride in your heritage; as the world needs you now more than ever. Cynicism gives us the often painful power to behold life without its sustaining illusions.
We simply can't pretend the emperor is dressed in splendid finery.
We are compelled to shout "Hey buddy your sorry ass is naked!"

Cynics are not prone to activism. You'd think we'd do something constructive about our discontentment. But we're smart enough to know that we won't prevail, and probably a little too jaded to attempt any labor that's predestined to fail.
What we do is retaliate with our personal brand of wounded wit. Truly, inside every cynic is a disillusioned idealist. Though we can't defeat oppressors, we can mock them!
That's about as much justice as a cynic can expect.

"If crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight?"
--George Carlin...Cynic

White Noise, Red Threats, Blue Monday

2010-04-19T00:39:00.000-07:00

Static!
Jumbled collages of random frequencies.
Cacophony.
No coherency whatsoever. An incomprehensible splatter on an indecipherable medium.
An inharmonious din.
A stench to the ear.
This is not a discourse.
This is not an exchange of ideas.
The methods and devices we use to communicate ideas may have progressed a bit in the last century, yet the ability to jam the signals has also improved exponentially as well.
And as with most everything, it is all a purchasable commodity.
Own the static, and you can control what messages may be heard in the din.
I'm talking about our experience of life in this pre-modern world we exist in, but particularly about it's politics.
Like all social movements great or small through history, the "tea party" is not homogenized.
According to recent polling it has been stated throughout mainstream media that people who identify with the tea party movement are made up of a quite different cloth than the typical images of these public protests with the misspelled signs and blatant racist undertones.
There are the hard-core libertarians, white supremacists and partisan Republicans that are not interested in any type of discourse. But there are also good people, with whom in reality, common ground can be reached. ( If the cognitive dissonance could be ceased).

No I'm not insane, and my views have not changed in the least. Here is why I suggest this is the case. The reasonable people in this movement are largely those who like most of us, have seen their personal economic security laid to waste by the economic meltdown. They are worried about being able to pay their tax bills and the economic future of their children. Like many of us, they are disaffected, feel they are not represented and other than this "tea party" no one has engaged them. The community offers a respite from the isolation and ineffectiveness they are experiencing.
Here is that common ground-

The fork in the road, it's time to turn off the noise and find a way forward for all of us.

The middle class IS overtaxed, they are correct. After the last half century of "tax reform" by both political parties, the middle class pays the same percent of income in taxes today as it did in 1960. The very rich (with incomes over $2 million) pay half as much as they did in 1960 and the very richest 400 households pay two-thirds less. Big corporations like ExxonMobil and General Electric have gamed the system so that they pay zero or little taxes.

We are borrowing recklessly from our children's standard of living. In a complete bastardization of Keynes measured and sound economic philosophy of borrowing to invest in a future that returns that investment with interest and improvements when private interests can't or won't, we squander and loot. And I suggest this as someone who firmly believes in a mixed economy, that some things are best accomplished by private concerns while others are best achieved through collective effort.

Instead of using capital to approach full employment or stimulate domestic production, we have borrowed to give the obscenely rich and global corporations (whose only interest in our country is milking it dry and accessing it's resources and wealth for exploitation) tax breaks and fight two wars.

In the last eight years, we borrowed $700 billion to give tax breaks to people with incomes over $250,000. Remarkably the economic burden is dumped on the people who can least afford to bear it.

The standard of living for the middle class has been under attack for generations. For thirty years real wages have been flat and our economic security has declined significantly. This has been disguised by people working more hours and forced to take on unprecedented amounts of personal debt to maintain the appearance of stability. The economic crisis unmasked how our security was built on a bubble of debt. A job is no longer a source of health insurance or retirement security. You are on your own, go ****yourself.

Wall Street squeezes the middle class at every turn. In addition to the government taxes, corporations are also "taxing" us, with fees, charges and monopoly control over markets. The more power they gain over citizens, the more difficult it becomes to constrain them.

Where The Tea Party Is Wrong

President Obama is not the enemy. Both the Republican and Democratic parties have been hijacked by corporate overlords whose priority is to protect Wall Street financiers and greedy multinational corporations. President Obama is pushing back more than President Bush did, and he had an enormous mess to clean up (he inherited two wars, the Wall Street meltdown and a $10 trillion national debt). If we demand a government that protects Main Street and ordinary people against organized greed, he will respond.

Scapegoating vulnerable people is a dead end. Our economic problems were not caused by immigrants or low-income people. They were not caused by educators or firemen being paid decent wages or having decent health insurance. Wall Street greed in high places is what drove the economy over a cliff. The plan of the powerful elites is to divide and conquer by having us fight among ourselves, with racial divides, hate mongering, and bogus scapegoating. The hate mongering and blaming that is oozing from the TV's and radios is to distract from the real villains. Weak government is not the answer. If we shrink government, who will defend us against Wall Street and the corporate looters? The parts of government that should protect us against Wall Street greed, speculation and the assaults on the middle class have been weakened under both political parties. Sarah Palin and David Koch are no leaders and are using your movement to bilk it for personal gain. ignore the likes of them.

OK Then, What is the answer?

A fair accountable tax system. Wealthy people and corporations must pay their fair share and reduce the bite on middle-class taxpayers. Tax dodges that create one tax system for the privileged and another for everyone else must be eliminated. National debt must be addressed though at the same time investments must be made in our future.

Oversight of Wall Street. The financial sector is incapable of policing itself. We need strong public institutions to oversee the financial markets so that the reckless, unregulated financial activities that wrecked our economy never occur again.

Giant corporations must be reined in. We need a constitutional amendment to limit the power of corporations to dominate political processes including elections, campaigns and lobbying. Without this; democracy and liberty will not prevail. This is the root cause of virtually all social ills. And the true source of everyone's frustration with the political process.

Musical Metaphysics- Ben New's Collapsed Light

2010-04-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

Music Reviews - by Art Sabot

At Last! The long anticipated release of Collapsed Light became a reality of sorts in April.
The new CD features 15 songs which offer quite a bit of variety, everything from swampy to cosmic with just about everything in between. The CD opens with a 15/8 Mahavishnu inspired theme called Cactus Juice, that explodes into a southern swing sort of groove which celebrates celebration itself. The second offering is called EVERYBODY NEEDS A LITTLE MAGIC,
it is an ode to Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band. A heartfelt thanks for Don Van Vliet's uncompromising musical visions. The swamp guitar stylings recreate the mood of the good capt. in the verses, and refer to some of his work lyrically as well.
"Dr. Dark and me" for instance, refers to the song Dr Dark found on Lick My Decals Off.
The magic is of course the Magic Band.
Make a shamanistic gleeful noise! Alchemy! Music!

ALIEN SUN, the next number on the album,
asks the musical question "what if you woke up in an alternate universe"?
One in which you found yourself in a Sergio Leone film shoot
whose location was possibly in an unknown galaxy?
One in which you were the same but everything around you changed?
Tuco: "Hurrah! Hurrah for the Confederacy! HURRAH!
Down with General Grant!
Hurrah for General... What's his name? Lee! LEE! Ha ha.
God is with us because he hates the Yanks too. HURRAH!"
Blondie: [spits]" God is not on our side because he hates idiots also".

The 4th tune, TO GO ON, draws some inspiration, guitar wise, from Pete Townshend's work.
In general, the album is a collection of songs that share two traits,
one is they were done in the same time period of roughly all of 2009.
The other is a duality of some kind. Quantum Physics and the artistic spirit.
Possessing opposing qualities in some sense.
Light and dark. Yin and Yang, Joy and Melancholia.
Contrast is the 1st law of art as they say. And Ben is an artist who paints with musical colors both subtle and vivid.

MATEWAN is a song dedicated to Coal Miners everywhere, and the tireless efforts of the organizers who fight for fairness. It is simply about one of the seminal conflicts in American labor's struggle against economic tyranny.
Listen for the Appalachian dulcimer!

The musicianship throughout is superb as is the production. The material is artsy without really being noticeably so. If I had to make a reference, I'd say Peter Gabriel meets Depeche Mode with more focus on guitar work than either of them. Overall this is certainly one of the best releases of the year. Highly recommended.

Other standout songs include "The Somnambulist", a funk oriented piece about sleepwalking through life and "Osiris Awakes" which features ancient Egyptian funerary texts as a texture as well as the vocal talents of EVRiM .

Visit The Ben New Files for more information.

Or buy the CD today (you won't regret it!) at CD Baby.

Go to the Ilike site for full listens to over half the songs and grab 3 FREE downloads!

Become a fan on Facebook. There will be giveaways and exclusive music downloads.

Get Collapsed Light at Amazon.com

John Maynard Keynes - In his own words.

2010-02-22T21:23:00.000-08:00

Bertrand Russel said "There are still many people in America who regard depressions as acts of God. I think Keynes proved that the responsibility for these occurrences does not rest with Providence.... Keynes's intellect was the sharpest and clearest that I have ever known. When I argued with him, I felt that I took my life in my hands, and I seldom emerged without feeling something of a fool. I was sometimes inclined to feel that so much cleverness must be incompatible with depth, but I do not think that this feeling was justified."

Mention the name of John Maynard Keynes to a conservative, and something close to an epileptic fit will ensue. Yet in reality, I suggest it was Keynes and his out of the box thinking, along with that other fellow whose name elicits rabid foam from the mouths of conservatives; Franklin Delano Roosevelt (who implemented many of Keynes economic ideas), that saved capitalism by taming it, regulating it, and molding it. (Had they not done this, communism or fascism would have likely been implemented to escape the Great Depression. Many of America's wealthy believed in Fascism and supported Hitler both in ideology and in financial arrangements). And frankly, if Keynesian economics and the Roosevelt controls on capitalism hadn't been overthrown in favor of a return to deregulated "Lazy Fairy" markets, (which caused the great depression), today's economic collapse could not have occurred. Keynes was essentially about full employment and the belief that capital was a means to an end...not and end in itself.
Deficit spending as investment in the future. Not to give wealthy tax cuts. Not to wage wars of choice for corporate imperialism. We can rest assured that his view of deficit spending for these purposes during times of relative prosperity would be a dim one. I for one, raise a glass in honor of his wisdom, courage, and indeed his wit which is in evidence in this small collection of my favorite quotes of his. Speaking of which, here they are!

One reason FDR was able to pass his ambitious agenda was he had massive support in the Legislature.

“Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.”

“It is better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong”

"The disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy."

“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.”

"Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind that looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than 10 000 years ago. "

"They offer me neither food nor drink — intellectual nor spiritual consolation... Conservatism leads nowhere; it satisfies no ideal; it conforms to no intellectual standard, it is not safe, or calculated to preserve from the spoilers that degree of civilisation which we have already attained. "

“The love of money as a possession - as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life - will be recognized for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propens”

"Perhaps a day might come when there would be at last be enough to go round, and when posterity could enter into the enjoyment of our labors."

FDR Fireside Chats

"This is a nightmare, which will pass away with the morning. For the resources of nature and men's devices are just as fertile and productive as they were. The rate of our progress towards solving the material problems of life is not less rapid. We are as capable as before of affording for everyone a high standard of life...and will soon learn to afford a standard higher still. We were not previously deceived. But to-day we have involved ourselves in a colossal muddle, having blundered in the control of a delicate machine, the working of which we do not understand. The result is that our possibilities of wealth may run to waste for a time—perhaps for a long time." -(1930), Essays in Persuasion

"The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn't deliver the goods. "

The Keynesian Cross

“Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become 'profiteers,' who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.
Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose..” - The Economic Consequences of Peace

“The power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas”

"The classical theorists resemble Euclidean geometers in a non-Euclidean world who, discovering that in experience straight lines apparently parallel often meet, rebuke the lines for not keeping straight—as the only remedy for the unfortunate collisions which are occurring. Yet, in truth, there is no remedy except to throw over the axiom of parallels and to work out a non-Euclidean geometry. "

"The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems - the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behavior and religion."

“The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future.”

“Regarded as a means, (the businessman) is tolerable; as an end, he is not so satisfactory”

“Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older”

"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" -Reply to a criticism during the Great Depression of having changed his position on monetary policy

“For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.”

“The engine which drives enterprise is not thrift, but profit”

"We reach a condition where there is a shortage of houses, but where nevertheless no one can afford to live in the houses that there are."

"When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues".

“The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future.”

“It would not be foolish to contemplate the possibility of a far greater progress still.”

“Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking.”

“Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be...”

"For my part I think that capitalism, wisely managed, can probably be made more efficient for attaining economic ends than any alternative system yet in sight, but that in itself it is in many ways extremely objectionable."

"If I am right in supposing it to be comparatively easy to make capital-goods so abundant that the marginal efficiency of capital is zero, this may be the most sensible way of gradually getting rid of many of the objectionable features of capitalism."

"The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes."

"In the long run, we're all dead."

John Maynard Keynes (1883 – 1946)

"I should have drunk more champagne." These were his last words. (according to Ben Trovato's Art of Survival (2007) by Ben Trovato, p. 196)

Tied To The Mast, Sailing On A Ship Of Fools

2010-02-21T01:58:00.000-08:00

Over the past fifty years the Republican Party, and some of their key supporters, have been waging a long-term "total assault" not just against the Democratic Party, but the Democrat's main financial backers, the American people, and the U.S. Constitution. The recent SCOTUS decision regarding the wholesale purchase of elections proves this beyond the shadow of a doubt. Sadly most of the American people are unaware of the nature and goals of this war and, as a result, the GOP has been winning. During these past fifty years the Republican's main supporters (giant corporations and a handful of mega wealthy individuals) have gotten much richer and the Democrat's main supporters (labor unions, trial lawyers, and middle class workers) have gotten poorer. This fact is reflected in each party's fundraising totals and in who is giving them money.

Fundraising 1977 -2000

This situation has forced the Democrats to seek funds from many of the same people who support the GOP, and as a result the Democrat's ideology has shifted to the right and has become much more conservative. The Republican Party's ideology has also shifted more to the right and has become so extremely conservative that it can only be described as fascism.

The vast majority of the American people (99%) now have no representation whatsoever, the two political parties are no longer responsive in any sense to the people who live here. The modern sad reality is that the Democrats represent the very rich and now pursues a conservative ideology, and the Republicans represent a few obscenely rich families and they support these family's fascist ideology. As a result of both parties shifting to the ideological right their tax legislation has shifted the tax burden away from the rich and down to the middle class. The social programs and social legislation are being re-designed to benefit corporations more than the people they were intended to benefit, look at the corporate pork filled Medicare prescription drug benefit bill, look at who writes any bill these days...lobbyists. The legislators often don't even read them. They just pass them. The GOP has won their "total war" against the American people. They have forced the Democratic party to become irrelevant. With their victory in hand they wanted to lock-in their concentrations of wealth and they want to eliminate their competition, both in politics and in business. They also want to free themselves from any form of accountability or legal liability. These efforts are clearly visible in all the legislation the Republicans have passed. The legislation they want to pass, the judges they nominate, and the distractions and obstructionism they have been exercising. With the outright corporate purchase of BOTH parties, the sheering of the sheep has become institutional. As FDR said, nothing happens in politics that isn't planned. The financial meltdown was not an accident. And notice that those who caused it have benefited greatly from it. With 2 conservative parties in tow, we are well down the road to the complete fascist takeover of the U.S. Government. These teabag groups are merely a way for the fascists to keep a lid on dissent and control it until they can absorb it into their own fold.

It's beginning to look like we might be entering the final stage in the GOP's all out war strategy and it may be the last chance the American people have to save their government from these ruthless lying fascist criminals. It requires absolute and total removal of ALL corporate influence. (Originally a corporate charter was revoked if they interfered in an election). It requires that elections are publicly funded, eliminating the obvious graft. If we can do this, the march to fascism stops. If not,mass protests in public, and at the private homes of the politicians and the private homes of their key financial and media backers. If they leave follow them. If they run, run after them. And if they fight,then fight back even harder. The key is to make them extremely uncomfortable until they realize that their cause is no longer winnable because their risk/reward ratio sucks.
The corporatists have claimed our only choice is their way (fascism) or anarchy and chaos will prevail...only THEY can save us from this anarchy...I say CHOOSE THE ANARCHY.

Our government is not really broken, it's been purchased illicitly. Remove the ability to purchase it and it actually works pretty damned well.

Bannanas

2010-02-19T11:32:00.000-08:00

Horses Ass Behind Our Modern World

2010-02-09T02:01:00.000-08:00

The Space Shuttle sits on it's launching pad, a marvel of modern technology. Look closely and you will see there are 2 Solid Rocket Boosters that are attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These boosters are manufactured by the Thiokol corporation in Utah. The engineering team who designed the boosters had to lower the width of these rockets, because these rocket boosters were to be shipped via train from Utah to the launch site. The railroad line runs through a tunnel in the mountains, and the Boosters had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the tracks are 4 ft. 8.5 inches in width.

The US Standard railroad gauge (the distance between the 2 rails) is in fact 4 feet, 8.5 inches. Why was that particular gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates. Why did the English use that gauge? It's kind of an odd figure. Isn't it? Well it seems the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and this was gauge they used.

Why was that gauge used on the early tramways? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that same spacing for distance between wheels.

Wagons used that odd wheel spacing because any other size wouldn't fit in the ruts in the old long distance roads. (That's the spacing of the old wheel ruts.)

Who built these old rutted roads?

The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts? The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by Roman war chariots. A Roman military specification that is based on the space needed for 2 horses to pull the cart side by side. So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass. So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may have hit the nail right on the head.

Horse's Asses Rule The World.

Gullibles Travels

2010-02-08T08:24:00.000-08:00

How Gullible Are We?
Is "marketing" the most powerful force discovered since nuclear fission?
Or is idiocy? The bottom line folks is this.
Be skeptical. Be very skeptical. Do not believe anything unless you have looked into it yourself and have arrived at your own conclusion.

A student at Eagle Rock Junior High won the first prize at the Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair, last year on April 26. In his project he urged people to sign a petition demanding strict control or total elimination of the chemical "dihydrogen monoxide."

Dihydrogen Monoxide Must Be Banned!

1. it can cause excessive sweating and vomiting
2. it is a major component in acid rain
3. it can cause severe burns in its gaseous state
4. accidental inhalation can kill you
5. it contributes to erosion
6. it decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes
7. it has been found in tumors of terminal cancer patients

He had asked 50 random people if they supported a ban of the chemical.

* Forty-three (43) said yes,
* six (6) were undecided,
* and only one (1) knew that the chemical was water.

The title of his prize winning project was, "How Gullible Are We?"

The conclusion is obvious.

FDR - Those Who Are Ignorant Of History Repeat It

2010-02-01T23:00:00.000-08:00

"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob." -FDR

The corruption of justice perpetrated by the Supreme Court, the very people sworn to protect the constitution of the U.S.; ushers in a new era of absolute corporate totalitarianism. Untethered and unrestrained from any reasonable safety constraints, free speech is drowned out by money.
Those who spend the most will be amplified. Those, regardless of their numbers, who can not drop millions on campaigns will be silenced. The intent of the constitution, obvious even to an 11 year old, was not to give "monied corporations and banking institutions" (as Jefferson referred to them...saying they were more dangerous than standing armies to democracy) the ability to freely purchase government itself. "Sure, Mr. Jones, Exxon would like to help you become a Senator, but we need those restrictions about drilling under the Washington Monument lifted, and we sure would like a crack at those Iranian oil reserves..."

History Repeats Itself

Like Bill Murray in the movie "Groundhog Day", time and time again the same loop is run again and again. The forces of sociopathic greed convince leaders greed is good; that restraining it in any way is harmful. Because history dims, or perhaps is simply ignored, anti-trust acts are repealed and monopolies flourish. Speculators inflate market prices until they burst. It's nothing new. The events leading to our current economic woes are identical to the events that lead to the great depression. The solution is remarkably simple in theory.

"People want peace that comes from security in their homes: safety for their savings, permanence in their jobs, a fair profit from their enterprise." -FDR

Any policy that encourages the realization of these desires is a good policy, any policy that erodes them is bad policy. Let's have a look at what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said about this in his speech at Madison Square Gardens on October 31, 1936-

Transcript -
Senator Wagner, Governor Lehman, ladies and gentlemen:

On the eve of a national election, it is well for us to stop for a moment and analyze calmly and without prejudice the effect on our Nation of a victory by either of the major political parties.

The problem of the electorate is far deeper, far more vital than the continuance in the Presidency of any individual. For the greater issue goes beyond units of humanity—it goes to humanity itself.

In 1932 the issue was the restoration of American democracy; and the American people were in a mood to win. They did win. In 1936 the issue is the preservation of their victory. Again they are in a mood to win. Again they will win.

More than four years ago in accepting the Democratic nomination in Chicago, I said: "Give me your help not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people."

The banners of that crusade still fly in the van of a Nation that is on the march.

It is needless to repeat the details of the program which this Administration has been hammering out on the anvils of experience. No amount of misrepresentation or statistical contortion can conceal or blur or smear that record. Neither the attacks of unscrupulous enemies nor the exaggerations of over-zealous friends will serve to mislead the American people.

What was our hope in 1932? Above all other things the American people wanted peace. They wanted peace of mind instead of gnawing fear.

First, they sought escape from the personal terror which had stalked them for three years. They wanted the peace that comes from security in their homes: safety for their savings, permanence in their jobs, a fair profit from their enterprise.

Next, they wanted peace in the community, the peace that springs from the ability to meet the needs of community life: schools, playgrounds, parks, sanitation, highways—those things which are expected of solvent local government. They sought escape from disintegration and bankruptcy in local and state affairs.

They also sought peace within the Nation: protection of their currency, fairer wages, the ending of long hours of toil, the abolition of child labor, the elimination of wild-cat speculation, the safety of their children from kidnappers.

And, finally, they sought peace with other Nations—peace in a world of unrest. The Nation knows that I hate war, and I know that the Nation hates war.

I submit to you a record of peace; and on that record a well-founded expectation for future peace—peace for the individual, peace for the community, peace for the Nation, and peace with the world.

Tonight I call the roll—the roll of honor of those who stood with us in 1932 and still stand with us today.

Written on it are the names of millions who never had a chance—men at starvation wages, women in sweatshops, children at looms.

Written on it are the names of those who despaired, young men and young women for whom opportunity had become a will-o'-the-wisp.

Written on it are the names of farmers whose acres yielded only bitterness, business men whose books were portents of disaster, home owners who were faced with eviction, frugal citizens whose savings were insecure.

Written there in large letters are the names of countless other Americans of all parties and all faiths, Americans who had eyes to see and hearts to understand, whose consciences were burdened because too many of their fellows were burdened, who looked on these things four years ago and said, "This can be changed. We will change it."

We still lead that army in 1936. They stood with us then because in 1932 they believed. They stand with us today because in 1936 they know. And with them stand millions of new recruits who have come to know.

Their hopes have become our record.

We have not come this far without a struggle and I assure you we cannot go further without a struggle.

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.

The American people know from a four-year record that today there is only one entrance to the White House—by the front door. Since March 4, 1933, there has been only one pass-key to the White House. I have carried that key in my pocket. It is there tonight. So long as I am President, it will remain in my pocket.

Those who used to have pass-keys are not happy. Some of them are desperate. Only desperate men with their backs to the wall would descend so far below the level of decent citizenship as to foster the current pay-envelope campaign against America's working people. Only reckless men, heedless of consequences, would risk the disruption of the hope for a new peace between worker and employer by returning to the tactics of the labor spy.

Here is an amazing paradox! The very employers and politicians and publishers who talk most loudly of class antagonism and the destruction of the American system now undermine that system by this attempt to coerce the votes of the wage earners of this country. It is the 1936 version of the old threat to close down the factory or the office if a particular candidate does not win. It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them.

Every message in a pay envelope, even if it is the truth, is a command to vote according to the will of the employer. But this propaganda is worse—it is deceit.

They tell the worker his wage will be reduced by a contribution to some vague form of old-age insurance. They carefully conceal from him the fact that for every dollar of premium he pays for that insurance, the employer pays another dollar. That omission is deceit.

They carefully conceal from him the fact that under the federal law, he receives another insurance policy to help him if he loses his job, and that the premium of that policy is paid 100 percent by the employer and not one cent by the worker. They do not tell him that the insurance policy that is bought for him is far more favorable to him than any policy that any private insurance company could afford to issue. That omission is deceit.

They imply to him that he pays all the cost of both forms of insurance. They carefully conceal from him the fact that for every dollar put up by him his employer puts up three dollars three for one. And that omission is deceit.

But they are guilty of more than deceit. When they imply that the reserves thus created against both these policies will be stolen by some future Congress, diverted to some wholly foreign purpose, they attack the integrity and honor of American Government itself. Those who suggest that, are already aliens to the spirit of American democracy. Let them emigrate and try their lot under some foreign flag in which they have more confidence.

The fraudulent nature of this attempt is well shown by the record of votes on the passage of the Social Security Act. In addition to an overwhelming majority of Democrats in both Houses, seventy-seven Republican Representatives voted for it and only eighteen against it and fifteen Republican Senators voted for it and only five against it. Where does this last-minute drive of the Republican leadership leave these Republican Representatives and Senators who helped enact this law?

I am sure the vast majority of law-abiding businessmen who are not parties to this propaganda fully appreciate the extent of the threat to honest business contained in this coercion.

I have expressed indignation at this form of campaigning and I am confident that the overwhelming majority of employers, workers and the general public share that indignation and will show it at the polls on Tuesday next.

Aside from this phase of it, I prefer to remember this campaign not as bitter but only as hard-fought. There should be no bitterness or hate where the sole thought is the welfare of the United States of America. No man can occupy the office of President without realizing that he is President of all the people.

It is because I have sought to think in terms of the whole Nation that I am confident that today, just as four years ago, the people want more than promises.

Our vision for the future contains more than promises.

This is our answer to those who, silent about their own plans, ask us to state our objectives.

Of course we will continue to seek to improve working conditions for the workers of America—to reduce hours over-long, to increase wages that spell starvation, to end the labor of children, to wipe out sweatshops. Of course we will continue every effort to end monopoly in business, to support collective bargaining, to stop unfair competition, to abolish dishonorable trade practices. For all these we have only just begun to fight.

Of course we will continue to work for cheaper electricity in the homes and on the farms of America, for better and cheaper transportation, for low interest rates, for sounder home financing, for better banking, for the regulation of security issues, for reciprocal trade among nations, for the wiping out of slums. For all these we have only just begun to fight.

Of course we will continue our efforts in behalf of the farmers of America. With their continued cooperation we will do all in our power to end the piling up of huge surpluses which spelled ruinous prices for their crops. We will persist in successful action for better land use, for reforestation, for the conservation of water all the way from its source to the sea, for drought and flood control, for better marketing facilities for farm commodities, for a definite reduction of farm tenancy, for encouragement of farmer cooperatives, for crop insurance and a stable food supply. For all these we have only just begun to fight.

Of course we will provide useful work for the needy unemployed; we prefer useful work to the pauperism of a dole.

Here and now I want to make myself clear about those who disparage their fellow citizens on the relief rolls. They say that those on relief are not merely jobless—that they are worthless. Their solution for the relief problem is to end relief—to purge the rolls by starvation. To use the language of the stock broker, our needy unemployed would be cared for when, as, and if some fairy godmother should happen on the scene.

You and I will continue to refuse to accept that estimate of our unemployed fellow Americans. Your Government is still on the same side of the street with the Good Samaritan and not with those who pass by on the other side.

Again—what of our objectives?

Of course we will continue our efforts for young men and women so that they may obtain an education and an opportunity to put it to use. Of course we will continue our help for the crippled, for the blind, for the mothers, our insurance for the unemployed, our security for the aged. Of course we will continue to protect the consumer against unnecessary price spreads, against the costs that are added by monopoly and speculation. We will continue our successful efforts to increase his purchasing power and to keep it constant.

For these things, too, and for a multitude of others like them, we have only just begun to fight.

All this—all these objectives—spell peace at home. All our actions, all our ideals, spell also peace with other nations.

Today there is war and rumor of war. We want none of it. But while we guard our shores against threats of war, we will continue to remove the causes of unrest and antagonism at home which might make our people easier victims to those for whom foreign war is profitable. You know well that those who stand to profit by war are not on our side in this campaign.

"Peace on earth, good will toward men"—democracy must cling to that message. For it is my deep conviction that democracy cannot live without that true religion which gives a nation a sense of justice and of moral purpose. Above our political forums, above our market places stand the altars of our faith—altars on which burn the fires of devotion that maintain all that is best in us and all that is best in our Nation.

We have need of that devotion today. It is that which makes it possible for government to persuade those who are mentally prepared to fight each other to go on instead, to work for and to sacrifice for each other. That is why we need to say with the Prophet: "What doth the Lord require of thee—but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God." That is why the recovery we seek, the recovery we are winning, is more than economic. In it are included justice and love and humility, not for ourselves as individuals alone, but for our Nation.

That is the road to peace.

It should be noted that the man historians regard as the greatest modern president (he was elected 4 times as president, & I imagine had he not passed on in office, he would have been elected yet again and again) was certainly one of the strongest American presidencies, yet he personally suffered from debilitating polio. He attempted to downplay his handicap in public, keeping his agony private. He suffered not only immobility but searing pain from the affliction. For those who are interested in the Roosevelt presidency, the FDR monument in Washington D.C. is quite an experience. The monument is spread out, offering several statues, trees, waterfalls, and seclusion. This monument is one of the newest,it was built only in 1997.In the stone work are many quotes to ponder and the memorial offers four outdoor galleries. The first depicts FDR’s first term, when he launched the New Deal programs. The second and third rooms remember his term, which included WW II. The last room offers a reflection of the life of FDR. There is a huge statue of Roosevelt sitting with his dog.

I recommend seeing the monument lit up in the moonlight. The bronze statues greet you as you enter the outdoor monument. One depicts him in his wheelchair; another statue is him talking in a radio for his "fireside chats." Large, oversize building blocks and water with multicolor lights make this an enchanting spectacle. It includes a maze of fountains with stepping stones to stand on behind a waterfall. You can later walk to the Tidal Basin and see Jefferson's Monument at night and cherry blossoms (In Spring, just around the corner...) drenched in shadows. A breathtaking experience.

Top Dogs Of Class War

2010-01-31T20:57:00.000-08:00

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” - Warren Buffet

Few would argue that Warren Buffet is a very smart fellow. And his statement is not as condescending as it sounds...he was commenting on the fact that his employees pay around a third of their net income in taxes while he, one of the wealthiest men in America; pays less than 13%. He said he uses no tax planning and makes no efforts to weasel out of paying such as hiding money in tax shelters etc. but this unfair tax situation is simply evidence of class warfare...the war of the outrageously wealthy against everyone else. And They are indeed winning, if they have not already won.

Welcome To The Dog And Pony Show
An American businessman who recently moved his manufacturing operations to Mexico was standing at the pier of a small coastal village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The Globalist complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.

“How long it took you to catch them?” The globalist asked.

“Only a little while.” The Mexican replied.

“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” The globalist then asked.

“I have enough to support my family’s immediate needs.” The Mexican said.

“But,” The American globalist then asked, “What do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, señor.”

The American capitalist scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and I could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds you buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats.”

“Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own can factory. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But señor, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “15-20 years.”

“But what then, señor?”

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”

“Millions, señor? Then what?”

The American said slowly, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your grandkids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos…”

Get the picture?

Most of us see success in life as having enough to be comfortable, have some degree of security, and experience life's joys. Some, and I suggest this is a sociopathic quality, can't get enough. They can't experience happiness. They want it all, yours mine and ours. These sociopaths already own most assets and coins on earth, but it's not enough. It will never ever be enough.

Now allow me to interject at this point that I'm not suggesting that all wealthy people are sociopaths, Warren Buffet for instance has every right in my view to make profit from his smarts, at least he has some grounding that makes him understand he too should be taxed for services at minimum, the same rate as his housekeeper. He, and people like him are not really the issue, (though I also understand the logic of the argument that anyone who has more than a fair share, ultimately takes it from someone else.) But that is not the focus of this article. This is about Global Class War waged, not by the poor, downtrodden, or trampled underfoot; but by sociopaths and their sycophants who can not rest until every drop of blood is wrung from every stone.

"We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all."

Huh? Really?

Those were the words of Lord Brian Griffiths, a former adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. And why the hell wouldn't Griffiths feel that way? After all, he's vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International. He personally experienced much, much "greater prosperity"thanks to record bonuses the banking giant paid out at the end of this year. So the "recession" is over, it's over for the world's obscenely wealthy. And no one else matters.

Goldman--along with plenty of other financial institutions--is in the midst of a bonus orgy, with end-of-year payouts to financial executives worth billions of dollars--allegedly for a job well done in 2009. Of course Goldman is one of the firms bailed out, allegedly saved from it's own extinction from U.S. taxpayers. Goldman isn't alone. Overall, Wall Street firms have paid out $140 billion in bonuses this year, according to a Wall Street Journal survey of 23 banks, investment firms, hedge funds and other institutions. That's $10 billion more than in 2007, the year before the financial meltdown and the high point of Wall Street's balloon. How on earth is this justifiable? It just isn't, and it doesn't matter, you'll subsidize this and like it! That's right you peasants, take it like a chump. Don't put up a fight, don't even whimper.

How did Wall Street recover so quickly that the banks could be wiping their asses with money again? To hear the banks tell it, their boffo quarterly earnings reports and the coming tidal wave of bonuses are the result of their financial skill--proof that the Wall Street Wizards are a cut above the rest of us. Certainly it's only fair that they should be showered with cash while the rest of us get hosed with layoffs, wage cuts, foreclosures and bankruptcies.

But that picture is a vile and pernicious fraud. The Banking Pirate's profits are being subsidized heavily with your money. Remember, these firms were given this money to make loans so credit didn't freeze up. It was for creating new jobs, restructuring mortgages and "trickling down" to Main Street.

That didn't happen did it?

Trickle Down Economics

So what did Goldman and other firms do with this free money? No, they didn't lend it out. Instead, the last quarter shows that almost all of Goldman's revenue in those months--$10 billion out of $10.8 billion--was from trading. Goldman posted its $3 billion in profits based largely on gains from trades and fees from customers. Goldman, in other words, is a bookie, and a gambler and little else.

The bottom line: Goldman didn't create a single job or stop a single foreclosure.

Responding to public anger at the size of Goldman's bonuses, the firm's Chief Financial Officer, David Vinar scoffed, "I do think it's too big a focus. I would prefer people to be focused on the success of our business, how well we're doing, and how well our people are performing."

Con men like Vinar think you are too stupid to understand the swindle they're operating. But it's obvious. As Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard professor and chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the Wall Street bailout, commented:

"So let me understand this. They can take taxpayer money and go out and make investments--gambles. These are not loans. This is not from lending activity, which is what I thought the banks were in the business of doing. Instead, they can go out and make short-term profits in investing and be rich, and that's the healing of the financial system? I'm sorry, I don't think so."

As for the bonuses, Warren said:

"I not only don't think it's appropriate...I am wordless over this. Speechless. I do not understand how it is that financial institutions can think that they can take taxpayer money, and then turn around and act like it's business as usual...I don't understand how they can't see the world has changed in a fundamental way. It is not business as usual when you take taxpayer dollars. But all I can say right now is that they seem to be winning this argument."

The unmitigated audacity of Wall Street was so over the top as to make even the Economist magazine blush. "Worst of all, bonuses are being paid in part from subsidies: this is not a free market, but a perversion of it." The magazine further wrote that banks "enjoy laxer accounting, loose collateral rules at central banks, explicit debt guarantees and asset-purchasing schemes. And critically, they can borrow cheaply because they are deemed too big to fail. All of them--from comparatively healthy Goldman to the nationalized weaklings--are being subsidized by the rest of us."

Warren Buffet has said he paid 13% of his income in taxes, this is without efforts to shelter or weasel out of paying through lobbying, cooking books, or offshore tax dodges like we have seen so many do . His housekeeper has to give 33% of her income. And yet the call from conservatives is to cut the tax rate for the wealthy even further.

Mention to conservatives or Republicans that we should consider some mode of equity in the tax system, that maybe these "Wizards" should contribute to their own subsidization, that the wealthiest men, as Warren Buffet says, should at least pay their fair share... and free marketeers and conservatives will purvey several arguments. The first argument is that this mere suggestion constitutes class warfare. I think Mr. Buffett already answered that one. Resistance is futile. The mere concept of resistance is taboo.

The other argument is that raising taxes actually lowers tax revenues. "Huh"? That's right, total revenues will increase if they aren't paid, so only cutting taxes stimulates federal revenue. They claim this is proved by the history of tax receipts during the George W. Bush presidency. But, in fact, the federal government collected roughly $1.004 trillion in income taxes from individuals in fiscal 2000, the last full year of President Bill Clinton’s merry presidency and actually after the tech boom bubble burst (we won't use figures during the tech boom because that might be unfair and assailable by believers in the miracle of trickle down economics). It fell to a low of $794 billion in 2003 after Mr. Bush’s tax cuts (but not, you understand, because of them, his supporters like to say). Of course I like to say the economy completely derailed under Bush economics, which were of course good old fashioned Voodoo, Trojan horse, Trickle Down, Bullshit. It wasn't until 2006 that revenues broke the trillion dollar mark again. By this time, Republicans had added a $2.7 trillion to the national debt.

So much for tax cuts adding to revenue.

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Happy New Year?

2010-01-01T16:53:00.000-08:00

Cape May N.J. Jan.1,2010
By Benjamin New

Ok, the glasses have been raised. The cups of kindness have all been consumed. The old year given a swift boot. The new one viewed through blinkered bloodshot eyes. New Year as a holiday is an interesting one because it is celebrated globally. Most holidays are recognized only in some cultures or within the confines of a political map.
(Britain has no fireworks on July 4th.) Now such novel global cooperation must have roots in some great cosmic or astronomical truth, right? I mean we can't agree on which side of the road is best for driving on so it's remarkable to have universal agreement on a holiday. How did this happen?

The new year has been celebrated since man's prehistoric days, ( we know this because cave dwellers painted pictures of hunting, fire, and the recently discovered "Happy New Year" pointed hats, a likeness of Dick Clark, and a boulder being dropped on Pre-Times Square....incidentally archeologists have determined that this boulder seems to have been inscribed with the words"Elect McCain"). But back then it was celebrated on the vernal equinox rather than what we now consider the first of the year.

The Romans were the first to recognize New Years Day on January first. Rather than mark the day of some significant astronomical or agricultural event, in 153 BC the Romans selected it because it was the day after elections in which the newly elected assumed their positions. (And ever since, those who elected them "assume the position" as well!).

Years later, Julius Caesar ( No relation to Sid) wanted to change the date to a more logical time, but that particular year on January 1, 45 BC it happened to be the date of a new moon. To change it would have been considered bad luck. He did, however, change the calendar system from the astronomically founded Egyptian solar calendar to the "Julian" calendar, named of course for himself. July, the month of Caesar's birth, was also named after him to memorialize him for his remarkable calendar reform! Yet right on up until 1582, Christian Europe continued to celebrate New Years Day on March 25. ( Holidays were not something to be "rendered unto Caesar"apparently).
Pope Gregory XIII instituted the additional calendar reforms bringing us the calendaring system of the day. The Gregorian calendar was adopted by Catholic countries immediately while the reformists, and most of the world were suspect of any papal policy, only adapted it after some time. Today most countries around the world have adopted this calendaring system. After all no one wants to be brought before the inquisition.
From primitive man to today's contemporary fashion conscious groups of individuals, regardless of the arbitrary date, the New Year's Day has been recognized as a day in which rites were performed to abolished the past so there could be a rejuvenation for the new year. Rituals included purgations, purifications, exorcisms, extinguishing and rekindling fires, masked processions (masks representing the dead), and general imbibing of intoxicants. Often exorcisms and purgations were performed with much noise as if to scare away the evil spirits. In China, Ying, the forces of light fought Yang, the forces of darkness with cymbals, noisemakers, and firecrackers.

I tried this on Dick Cheney but it only succeeded in annoying him.

Of course the ubiquitous New Year's Resolution is a tradition very much associated with purging the past and hoping for an improved future free of Tom Cruise. Personally I made one New Year's resolution many dropped balls ago and have kept it. It was to never make any more resolutions. Though here are some I would have made if I were inclined to do so. (If your looking for some, feel free to use these.)

Let go of your feelings of guilt. Get more in touch with your inner sociopath
Assume full responsibility for your actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
Be yourself! Probably there is some culture that considers what you do normal.
Use intuition! It sometimes makes up for lack of judgment or the absence of reason.
You are one with your duality! Right or wrong!
Honor and express all facets of your being regardless of state or local laws!
Share your advice and experience! What's better than saying "I told you so"?
Concern yourself not with solutions when a scapegoat will suffice.
Don't waste time thinking of the past. Waste it worrying about the future!
Procrastinate more! ...starting tomorrow.

U2 - New Year's Day
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Give Peace A Chance - Remembering John Lennon

2009-12-07T20:11:00.000-08:00

John Lennon

( October9, 1940 – December8, 1980),

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

by DC Magazine music editor Ben New

It was 20 years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught his band to play......

It is now 29 years ago today that the recondite voice of a generation was silenced for eternity by an assassin's bullet.

It was 2 years and 203 days ago that a piece I wrote about John and my remembrance of this tragic day called "Strange Days Indeed" was first published by Duly Consider. I had asked on a thread of comments if people would share their thoughts about John Lennon and what he, and his work meant to them for a future article. I received quite a few replies from you.

As many of us reflect today on the life and death of a man who gave us so much music and stood steadfast for the cause of peace in the world, I can't think of a better time to share these beautiful thoughts with our reading community. I am posting the comments only, but perhaps you will recognize your own story here. I thank each and every one of you for sharing these with me and now with many others who also miss John on this day. There is also a link at the bottom of the these comments which I have received from so many of you via e mails and social networks to "STRANGE DAYS INDEED" which I hope you will visit. It remains my personal favorite of all the writing I've done for Duly Consider and couldn't be more poignant on this day. Without further delay, here are OUR stories:

REMEMBERING JOHN LENNON

Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. R.I.P. John.

What I always liked best about John is he always remained "one of us", using his fame for good causes instead of ego bolstering or "cashing in".

I have heard that when a new beatles album was coming out, it was an event like the Super Bowl back in the day. The versatility in the song writing, the 'differentness' of many of the songs strikes me as somewhat unique. There was[and is] a range there that just isn't there with so many artists. with many groups you heard one or two songs, you heard them all. these guys were different, often surprising. That unpredictability[except for an emphasis on vocals, that was pretty much across the board] may be why each album was so anticipated

I was 8 years old when I first saw the Beatles (1964) at the old Ed Sullivan theater downtown. I saw John Lennon playing live on stage. Thank you for those wonderful memories John.

"For the other half of the sky..."

All we are saying..... is give PEACE a chance.

Love you and miss you, John.

Rest in peace.

There will never be another.

I was in High School when I bought Mind Games on 8 track... Wore it out.... Free the people now, Do it, Do it, Do it now ! When you are caught with your hands on the kill, You still gotta swallow that pill, As you slip and slide down that hill, On the blood of the people you killed ! Yes, I was a wild, hippie child... Regrets....SOME !!!

Lennon traveled around the world. He got to experience these many different religions. He wrote his music on how he saw it, as most musicians do. He shared his point of view. With him two and two always made four. Today's society does not think before it leaps and four is ignored. That is why we have a hard time having peace in this world.

Lennon was a man who believed what said. He was a man who walked the walk of his rhetoric. He was a man of the people, who was simply a person and not some cardboard, glad-handing, smiling, fluffed hair imitation of a person. We will be unlikely to see his kind again any time soon.

Give Peace A Chance - if only we could hear that now...........

I'll always remember Mind Games.

I guess it's almost true to say that John Lennon's death really did shock the world. (I recall photos of Russian teenagers in Moscow with placards saying "Lennon, not Lenin"). And while BoxMonkey, above, is correct, that there are always new heros to be sought, the nature of the hero changes as does the nature of the times. John Lennon was the perfect embodiment of his times.

I was checking out of a hotel in Honolulu, going to the airport, when a desk clerk told me of Lennon's death the previous night -- and mentioned that the killer had once worked in Honolulu, at a nearby hotel. I was on a flight to San Francisco, where most people I met were quite shocked. A few days later, in New York, I went round to the Dakota, where flowers were still piled in the street. It's weird, but those memories seem from so long ago, but the magic of Lennon's music is very much here and now.

I believe that those who truly love freedom are naturally brave. John was a fearless freedom fighter.

A few of my German friends urged me to go to Hamburg to see this new British group that played fantastic music. At that time, I thought that the only music worth listening to was by Americans such as Buddy Holly and Elvis. I relented and drove to Hamburg with a few of my German friends. We went to this dingy strip bar in Hamburg's notorious red-light district, the Reeperbahn (from Cabaret: heute gehen wier bumelm auf der Reeperbahn). That was my first encounter with the Beatles. Even then, John Lennon stood out in my mind even though all my friends thought McCartney was the leader. Lennon's 'Give Peace a Chance' was my mantra during the Vietnam years and his 'Imagine' is still my all time favorite.

Thank you Dr. Winston O'Boogie.

A true working-class hero. I ran into him one nite/morning in the late seventies in Greenwich Village, he was just a regular guy.... Warm memories

.... John was passionate about a simple concept - peace and equality. I always did and I always will admire him for that. The world has never been the same since his death.

WORKING CLASS HERO

It was a weird warm night that December in 1980. I got off work and got to my friend’s house and was told by him, John had been shot. Everyone had something go through their head when they heard the news. Some thought, well there goes one of the true voice of the people. Others thought, a Great Voice in music is now gone. And here I sat on the step to the front door. The tears running down my face, unashamed for showing this emotion. And all I could think of is that, I will never get to jam with this man. I will not get to talk to him and get to know him better. He would have taken the time to do that if I would have met him. He was that kind of a man.

I would love to have John around at this time.

I guess you had to live in the 60's to really understand the power this man had.

I was in college when I heard about it.
Went directly from Providence to New York City,
where I paid homage outside the Dakota.

Thanks for bearing witness today, Ben. I learned the news in a curious and weird way.. Hitchhiking down the Pacific Highway with my partner, we got an early-morning ride, squeezing into a car with some guys who virtually filled it and looked like they'd been driving all night. "Did you hear the news?" one asked. "One of the Beatles got shot". My flash, silent, response was "I hope it wasn't John". "Which one?" I asked. "Oh Paul, I think".. AAAARRRGGH! I learned to think more highly of Paul later but never to love him like I did John. He was the man! Sarcastic, opinionated, obnoxious, didn't suffer fools gladly, a real pain-in-the arse to all authority figures and the leader of the pack! A survivor on his life, a survivor today in the memory of untold millions. Time for a few tears.. [First typing attempt produced Tome for a few rears]

Miss him and his music....

I miss the hope he represented

John was a peaceful being. It would be interesting to see how his music would have been influenced by today’s violence. Clearly not all that different then Viet Nam.

Imagine!

Thank you, John Lennon for living a peaceful life. Our lives have forever been touched because you brought the world the music that was locked inside such a calming soul.

This is about a great man, & talented artist, who was taken away from us much too soon!

There are those moments burned into the psyche that I remember as if they had happened a second ago. The Beatles appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show was one of them. The positive energy that exploded off the screen that night inspired so many future musicians including myself to pick up a guitar. The opening riff to "I Want To Hold Your Hand" just jumped out of the radio in the early days of 1964. It was impossible not to sit up and take notice of the song and it's difference from the other songs on the radio at that time.

I remember a David Frost show in a New York studio with John and Yoko. At the time John would not talk to any journalist as he didn't like them but he got into a argument with the audience as he sang a song about the 43 people that had died in the Attica Prison riots; 39 convicts and 4 guards. He made no distinction between them just 43 useless deaths, but some of the audience took exception to them all being lumped together. I believe that would be his view today about Iraq, All the useless deaths not just one side. As I said an extraordinary man.

John & crew performed in Dallas, one year. A girl I went to High School with, went to see the performance. The glass front of the hotel shattered from the fans pressing against the glass to catch a glimse of John. The girl was cut pretty bad and was hospitalized. After she return to school, with scars all over her, all she kept talking about, was the visit she got while she was in the hospital and how it was all worth the pain. Yes, John & his crew stopped by to see how she was doing. "We all live in a yellow submarine...", one of many songs, I remember from those days.

I remember when I heard that he got shot. I wore a black armband for a week.

"Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans."

February of 1964. The Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan. All I wanted to hear them sing was "I Wanna Hold Your Hand", which I'd been hearing on the radio. Nobody had any idea how talented these guys were or what prolific writers they would become. I had just begun dating my wife. We've been married for 40 years. Ah, the Beatles and at a time when I was finding the love of my life. The happiest of memories.

The night John Lennon died. I had a photography show years ago and a few of the images bore that title. Some how my friends and neighbors collected together and ended up in downtown Philadelphia. First in Rittenhouse Square under the WMMR window. And then on the steps of the Art Museum. Someone brought a big parachute to play with. We all needed each other that night and long into the next day. The poet had a huge effect on the way I think about things... Tears again.

To John...a hero of mine and many...Remember watching Monday Night Football which they interupted to announce the shooting..."No, no, nooo...paced about our trailer at the time...punched hole in bedroom door...then cried...I include John Lennon in my prayers to this day...Quite a guy...Peace...

This remembrance made me cry. Great great article. Goodnight sweet prince. And thank you....

Statue of Lennon at Havana Park, Cuba

John had the ability to express what the collective consciousness of his generation yearned to hear.

He was an original, never again will we see the likes of John Lennon.

One windy cold night in New York I wondered in to a little Italian Bistro to escape the weather, and there seated at the table no more than 3 ft. away, sipping an espresso, was John Lennon. I wanted to speak to him but really didn't wish to disturb or hassle him. So I sat there kind of like a deer staring into the headlights. John glanced over and smiled. I guess he'd seen this look of befuddlement more than a few times before. I wanted to speak but nothing came out. John laughed and said "Hey mate, you should try this chocolate, It does wonders for ya, they make it right here in the back" He broke off a piece, handed it to me and said " the owner is a bloody magician!". I managed to thank him and exchange a few words. For being one of the most recognized faces on the planet, he was remarkably comfortable in public and a "regular guy". Goodnight John,
I 'd like to believe you have found the peace you gallantly sought in this world.
And thank you, you were right about the chocolate. It was delicious.

Continue ....
STRANGE DAYS INDEED
CLICK HERE FOR BEN'S ORIGINAL ARTICLE at DULY CONSIDER
A comforting read on this day.

Contending Sex Is Bad Because It Leads To Dancing

2009-11-03T22:58:00.000-08:00

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church." -Thomas Paine, Patriot, Rationalist.

And of course, dancing is far worse!

The Yellow Brick Road Of The Subnormal

Religion is like the Wizard of Oz.
There's some guy behind the curtains your not supposed to pay any attention to, operating the machinery, duping Tin Men into believing they alone can fix their absence of heart. Religion has nothing to do with creators, sky dudes, dudettes, or morality in any plausible sense. It has everything to do with power. Power to manipulate others. What, after all, is more powerful than claiming a supernatural ascendancy of some kind? It can't be questioned, it has no basis in logic and proudly proclaims so, and has authority above and beyond mere mortals. Once logic is suspended, it is no problem to manipulate followers into drinking Jonestown Punch, killing themselves to get on some imaginary space ship, invading sovereign nations of "heathens" or burning themselves and their children to death to protect a megalomaniac with a private army from indictment.

Freedom Of Speech Does Not Indicate Freedom From Scrutiny
I believe that every person on the planet has a right to believe in any religion, no matter how ridiculous it is, simply because I also believe that every person has a right to free speech...which also means we have the right to talk about ridiculous religions and why they are ridiculous. The "people of faith"are offended by scrutiny, that's too bad. The lack of desire for honest inquiry is far more offensive than any factual information that one might encounter. Because I respect the right to practice ridiculous religion doesn't mean that I have any respect for it, nor should we be expected to pretend it isn't ridiculous. History tends to prove religions are dangerous and destructive cults.

Ridiculous religions are based as much on culture as dogma. The culture is rooted in the belief that you're superior to everyone else. You are chosen, going to a Nirvana of some kind, while the rest of us are going to suffer some horrid torture of one type or another.

Evangelism, Fundamentalism, and World Domination

We are right and everyone else is wrong. Zealots are mandated to expand their cult to everyone in the world. They want ridiculous religions to control governments to enforce their way of life on the masses and have the authority to punish dissent. The idea of personal rights and liberties is contrary to surrendering your life and free will to the Wiz and doing "Wiz work" as dictated by the "Wiz Biz. After all, if you're not serving Wiz, you're serving the Anti Wiz, and you are evil. So the idea of personal liberty and free thinking is the same as giving rights to Satan or some other boogieman.

Abominis Nabisco
Who burned the Great Library at Alexandria, destroying 600,000 volumes of knowledge of the ancient world--the greatest property crime of all time? The mad monks led by Saint Cyril, the patron saint of arsonists!

Who delivered the first trainload of Jews to Auschwitz?
Monsignor Tiso, head of the Slovak State.

Who inspected the naked bodies of women, claiming to be looking for "witches marks" so they could light them on fire, in a sacred celebration during the Middle Ages called auto de Fe (act of faith)? Hint - It wasn't Atheists, deists, or the dreaded rationalists.

There was that dust-up with Luther and the wars that followed wherein Germany lost half its population in a generation. And of course the slave trade...Yes the Church was quite involved in that endeavor.

How about the destruction, plunder, rape and papal pillage of the peoples of the Americas and the eradication of their culture?

The "Donation of Constantine" was a forgery, Adrian IV really didn't own Ireland and therefore had no right to give it to England. And who castrated young boys to sing in choirs? How about the Third World, which is kept in hunger due to the Vatican's ideas on birth control?

Now, in no particular order...

Great Moments In Papistry

It was said that Pope John XII (955-64) invented sins that had not been known since the beginning of the world and whole monasteries spent days and nights praying for his death. He turned his home, the Lateran Palace, into a brothel. He used the papal treasury to pay off his gambling debts. He died on May 14th 964 aged twenty-four, after he was caught in bed by the husband of one of his mistresses in 'the very act of adultery'.
Pope Innocent VIII (1484-92) sired eight illegitimate sons and probably as many daughters, of whom he openly acknowledged. His reign as Pope was known as 'The Golden Age of Bastards'. He authorized an inquisition against those thought to be witches. On his death bed a wet nurse was found for his final craving - woman's milk.
Pope John XXII (1316-34) excommunicated fellow clergymen for not paying their taxes.
In 1932, Pope Pius XI (1922-39) as well as condemning contraception, ordered German Catholics to drop their hostility towards Hitler. He also backed Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia.
Pope Celastine II (1143-44) had a certain Count Jordan condemned to a horrible death, he was strapped naked to a scalding iron chair while a red-hot crown was nailed to his head.
Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) instituted the approved method of interrogation of suspected sodomites. In order to make them confess, suspects were lowered naked onto a red-hot spike. This method was kept until the year 1816.
Robert of Geneva was well known for his ability to decapitate a man with a pike. He became Pope Clement VII (1378-94) and was 'much given to fleshy pleasure'. He surrounded himself with page boys, whose jackets, it was noted, shrunk from being knee length, to mid-buttock for his pleasure and easier access.
Pope Benedict XIII (1394-1417) gave a dispensation to the twenty-nine-year-old Richard II of England to marry Isabella, the seven-year-old daughter of the King of France.
The child-pope Benedict IX (who became Pope at the age of 12!) was bi-sexual, sodomised animals, ordered murders and dabbled in witchcraft and Satanism. He loved to throw wild, bi-sexual orgies. Benedict IX held the post of Pope in the years 1032-44, 1045 and 1047-48. He was described as "A demon from hell in the disguise of a priest...", and St Peter Damian said of him: "That wretch, from the beginning of his pontificate to the end of his life, feasted on immorality". Dante estimated that under Benedict IX the papacy reached an all-time low in immorality and debauchery. When he was 23, he survived an assassination attempt (strangling at the altar during Mass). Benedict went on to marry his cousin and sell the papacy to his godfather, Gregory VI.
Pope Boniface VII (974; 984-85) was described as: "a horrid monster" and "a man who in criminality surpassed all the rest of mankind".
In the year 440 Pope Sixtus III (432-40) was tried for the raping of a nun.
Pope Leo I (440-61) was a warped and sadistic torturer. He made his victims confess that they mixed semen with the sacrament and used young girls at the altar for the purpose. He was the first Pope to claim the right to put anyone who disagreed with him to death.
Pope Pius VII (1800-23) comdemned bible societies as "a most abominable invention that destroyed the very foundation of religion".
It was widely rumored that the ex-pirate Pope John XXIII (1410-15) was an Atheist. He tortured his own cardinals and was said to have "had wicked company with two of his own sisters". Robert Hallum, Bishop of Salisbury said that he: "ought to be burnt at the stake".
The homosexual Pope Paul II (1464-71) liked to see naked men being racked and tortured. He died of a heart attack whilst being sodomized by one of his favorite boys.
Pope John XIII (965-72) { yes, I know there was more than one John XIII } was condemned as an adulterer who "defiled his father's concubine and his own niece". He was said to have died at the hands of an enraged husband, caught in the act of adultery - just like his dad, Pope John XII.
Pope Sergius III (904-11) enjoyed sex with underaged girls. According to the historian Baronius, Sergius III was "the slave of every vice". When he was 45, Sergius took a 15- year-old mistress - the affair produced a son who went on to become Pope John XI.
Pope Stephen VI (896-97) had the body of his predecessor, Pope Formosus (891-96) dug up, dressed in papal vestments, set on a throne and tried for perjury and coveting the papacy.
Pope Benedict XII (1334-42) was such a hardened drinker that the expression "drunk as a pope" became popular in his lifetime.
Pope Anacletus (1130-8) committed incest with his sister and several other female relatives. He enjoyed raping nuns.
Pope Clement VI (1342-52) was described by Petrarch as "an ecclesiastical Dionysus with his obscene and infamous artifaces". Clement VI slept with prostitutes and had dozens of mistresses. When he died, fifty priests said Mass for the repose of his soul for nine consecutive days, but it was generally agreed that this was not going to be nearly enough to prevent the dead pope from going directly to hell.
Pope Pius II (1458-64) had been a well known author of pornography, and had fathered about 12 illegitimate children.
The Sistine Chapel was built by Pope Sixtus IV (1471-84). He had six illegitimate sons, of which one was the result of an incestuous relationship with his sister.
Pope Julius II (1503-13) who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the the Sistine Chapel, was a pedophile and spent much of his time with small boys and male prostitutes.
In the year 1095 Pope Urban II introduced the callagium, a sex tax which alllowed the clergy to keep mistresses, provided they paid an annual fee to the papacy. This had the immediate effect of reducing the use of concubines and hugely increasing clerical homosexuality. Which has resonance well into modern times.
Pope Paul III (1534-49) enjoyed an incestuous relationship with his daughter. To gain control of his family inheritance, he poisoned several relatives, including his mother and niece. He killed two cardinals and a Polish bishop to settle an argument over a theological point. Paul III was probably Rome's biggest ever pimp - he kept a roll of about 45,000 prostitutes, who paid him a monthly tribute.
Pope Julius III (1550-55) sodomized young boys, of which one was his own, illegitimate son. He appointed several handsome teenage boys as cardinals. Cardinal della Casa's famous poem In Praise of Sodomy was dedicated to Pope Julius III.

Yes, Catholicism takes the brunt of critique here, it's like shooting fish in a barrel....Piranhas.
But all so called Christian religions share this history to some point. Those that invented their own versions of the already corrupted Paulists and murderer of his own wife and son (boiled his wife to death...) Constantine have no more legitimacy. The protestant witch burnings both in Europe and here in the New World killed far more people than any demented leader of inquisitions could have dreamed of.

The big three are by far the worst because they wield influence over the largest amount of people. Put faith in yourself friends, as anytime you delegate it to someone else, the wine your poured will be sour at best. Power. Power corrupts...infinite power corrupts completely.
If your willing to believe things are so without any shred of evidence, because some guy wearing a purple dress, wearing a pointy hat, or turning his collar around, said so; you are shirking your responsibility to the rest of humanity who direly needs the rational to survive. Not the ridiculous.

If invisible friends are talking to you or your "leader"...please see a mental health professional immediately before the inevitable malfeasance occurs. The future of humanity lies not in the childish beliefs in the Wizard of Oz's emissaries. Now that's a horse of a different color!