"The Deal" is going down - a look into the near future

[arendt]

I was saving this for AFTER the Dems had pulled a Munich.

But it dawns on me that people really ought to look into
the abyss BEFORE they are pushed into it. It might generate
some kind of self-preservation response.

In the 1970s, environmentalists discovered that they got more
support showing bad results (clear cut forests) and asking to
stop that than by showing good results (beautiful natural places)
and asking people to preserve them.

So, don't call me a defeatist. I'm trying to wake people up
by scaring them to death.

arendt

----

The Deal
by arendt

There is an unspoken deal by which two intolerant reactionary forces have made an alliance
to carve up something they both want: America. Its the same kind of alliance that Hitler
and Stalin made when they carved up Poland and Eastern Europe. The two forces are
corporate feudalism and fundamentalist theocracy, and the deal is as follows.

1. What the corporate fuedalists get

The corporations get to loot everything in America that isn't nailed down, and many things
that are. They get to loot our industrial infrastructure and ship it to East Asia. They get to
loot our government trust funds, by any excuse they can find: defunding the contributions
to the Pension Guarantee fund, privatizing Social Security. They get to exempt themselves
from paying any taxes at all for any reason. Only little people pay taxes, and corporations
are not little.

When the corporations get done, America will be a plantation economy. We will produce raw materials;
and we will do menial service jobs, like distribution and retailing for products produced in those Asian
sweatshops. All the intellectual property produced by generations of working professionals, all the genetic
inheritance of the world will be the private property of 500 or so obscenely wealthy corporations.
They will have monopoly control of all resources, locked behind walls of encryption, license keys, private
networks, patent lawyers, and government regulators. It will be "hydraulic despotism" with a vengeance.

In short, America is to be rendered into economic and political slavery to the multi-national
corporations. It is to be just another plantation economy to service the needs of the corporate overclass.
Those few ultra-talented individuals who are worth paying halfway decent wages will be offered
house-nigger status in some gated corporate community - the same way things are run in India
and China today. The same way things were run in the Roman Empire.

2. What the theocrats get

The theocrats get to be the plantation overseers of Plantation America. They get to
torment and punish any slave who gets uppity. They get to force ignorance, superstition,
and fear onto the slave class so that the next generation will have never heard anything
about democracy, education, or a genuine middle-class economy.

They get to be totally incompetent and corrupt, but supported financially by the corporations
whose bidding they do. Like Catholic priests in the dark ages, their job is to support the
authority of the state, not really to save souls. The Catholic church invented simony, and
lives with sodomy and pederasty to this very day. Religious hypocrites are very good
at keeping the focus on women and thinking as the agents of Satan. These guys will
laugh all the way to whatever sleazy motel they get caught in banging the faithful women
or young boys of their flock of sheep.

Of course, the corporations will play the good cop in this phony game. You see it today, as
Yahoo and Microsoft say "we were only obeying the laws of our host country". What's
ironic is that it really is a "host" country, because they are bloody parasites.

3. Why both sides accept this deal

This is a much better division of labor than Adolf and Uncle Joe could work out, because those
guys wanted the same thing: political and miliary power. But the alliance of feudalists and
theocrats is more asymmetrical. Corporations want your money; fundies want your soul.
Corporations want the people's regulators out of their accounting books. Fundamentalists want
their regulators in women's bedrooms. No conflict of interest there.

The corporations don't care what kind of medieval nonsense the fundamentalists impose on
the slave class, because the corporate elite has no intention of being controlled by the theocrats.
If the corpses don't demand complete extra-territoriality (i.e., diplomatic immunity) for all
their high-level apparatchiks; they will simply find ways to bribe the local authorities. I mean
that's what they have done in places like South America and Africa for decades. And, America
will just be another banana republic.

As soon as the theocrats wipe out the last vestiges of democracy, there will be one of those
"four legs good, two legs better" moments. Low and behold, they will decide that the Rapture
isn't coming soon. Instead, they will just start burning witches and gays and intellectuals. Just
like Taliban Afghanistan, the football stadiums will be turned into auto-de-fes, the Inquisition
will be re-established, and religious gulags will be opened in Montana, Alaska, New Mexico,
and West Texas.

The corporations will tolerate this nonsense because they will control theocrats of other denominations
and play them off against each other in endless wars, which will swell the profits of their arms
dealers and give all governments involved an excuse for not delivering any kind of social services
or economic progress. It will be a world full of warlords, all with god on their side. Of course,
women will be returned to their role as baby factories, to keep churning out the cannon fodder
for all those wars.

4. The end result: stagnation

....It is customary for people living in developed economies to treat constant economic progress
....as natural and self-evident. Yet, if one looks at the human record since, say, the neolithic
....revolution, growth is the exception and economic stagnation is the rule. Indeed, for thousands of
....years prior to the industrial revolution, all regions of the earth experienced virtually no discernible
....change in the everyday life of their people. Empires came and went, and so did the prosperity
....of merchants and aristocrats in Venice, Vijayanagar, Beijing, and Timbuctu, but the livelihood of
....the mass of the population remained essentially the same...

........"Engines of Growth and Africa’s Economic Performance" by Marcel Fafchamps
.........Department of Economics, University of Oxford, UK (1998)

A school of honest economists holds that successful economies are an exception to a dismal rule of stagnant, dead-end economies. They claim that modern, mass consumption, middle-class economies are as rare of an emergent phenomenon as the rise of multi-cellular life on earth. As some wag put it: if all there were to economics was buying cheap and selling dear, the ancient Romans would have been modern capitalists. (The Roman emperors actively rejected labor-saving machinery in order to keep the slave class employed, and therefore controlled. Today's economic statistics show that cheap labor America uses more minimum wage labor and less labor saving machinery than it did in its supposedly less technical past.)

According to this school of emergence, it is the political leadership that creates the conditions necessary for economic "takeoff". If that is true, our current leadership is creating an economic "crash landing". Of course, the claim that democracy fuels economic progress is vehemently opposed by corporate propaganda that tries to insist that economic well-being creates democracy. But, even with that theory, we end up with
stagnation and authoritarianism.

Suppose that the state of government follows the state of the economy. Then, to institute dictatorship, all
you have to do is wreck the middle class economy. And that is exactly what the GOP and their corporate
sponsors have been doing to the USA. With a wrecked economy, we can't afford education. With theocrats
in charge, we can't run sophisticated programs to support the middle class. We will stagnate.

5. Political Blitzkrieg

America today is about as screwed as Poland was in 1939. The devastation resulting from the second consecutive theft of a national election will be to the first as the Polish blitzkrieg was to the Austrian anschluss or the peaceful, if shameful, partition of Czechoslovakia. The pitiful defenses of the hapless Democratic Party - about as ineffective as Polish Cavalry officers attacking tanks with swords - are hopelessly outmatched, regardless of the patriotism of their rank and file.

The corporate media leads the attack, wailing like Stuka bombers to spread panic and fear of terrorists amidst civilians. The GOP armored phalanxes of rubber-stamp legislators switch from easy penetration to encirclement and elimination of the quaintly-named "loyal opposition", impervious to any flesh-and-blood political arguments. Bush arrogantly places himself above the law. Hanging Judge Elito demonstrates his open contempt for the Constitution with his "unary executive" and "signing statements". The Congress pulverizes middle class entitlements while increasing tax breaks for the rich. Any investigation against the ever-increasing scandals and crimes of the GOP is smothered in its crib, while the Justice Department investigates Quakers and other "terrorists". The run-up to the aggression against Iran gathers steam. Total victory for The Deal is within sight, and there is nothing left to stop them.

If you are a member of the middle class, you had better cash out and get out before they tatoo a number on your wrist and put a yellow armband on your sleeve. Kristalnacht 2 is coming. But, the beauty of religious dictatorship as opposed to racial destiny is that you can always just convert. You can find Jesus, burn all those science books, get a slave-wage job at WalMart, put your wife in a burkha, and send your kids to that religious feeder school for US Army cannon fodder. You always have a choice in the new theocratic America: martyr or slave. Love it, or we'll kill you - slowly and painfully. Because our god is a sadist.

The Christo-fascist zombie death cult is victorious, and we let it happen on our watch. I have no remedy to propose. I can only hang my head in shame at my ineffectiveness and the gullibility and cravenness of the American people.

[Vincardog]

1. You are right on until the last line. We have to stop them. NOW

[arendt]

2. The last line is the "closer"...

you should FEEL how it would feel if this happened.
When you FEEL how sick at heart and mind and body you are,
you should DO SOMETHING.

No last line, no feeling.

Kapisch?

arendt

[Hestia]

3. Giving voice to fears...

As soon as the theocrats wipe out the last vestiges of democracy, there will be one of those
"four legs good, two legs better" moments. Low and behold, they will decide that the Rapture
isn't coming soon. Instead, they will just start burning witches and gays and intellectuals. Just
like Taliban Afghanistan, the football stadiums will be turned into auto-de-fes, the Inquisition
will be re-established, and religious gulags will be opened in Montana, Alaska, New Mexico,
and West Texas.


You know, this whole article has given voice to my fears. Through Operation Paperclip (and another I cannot remember the name of) the Nazi's just came to the U.S., were given gov't jobs, and went to law school in order to change laws and the constitution. The reason we are going through all of this (history repeating itself) is that the problem was never eradicated to beging with. Our parents and grandparents didn't do a 'final solution' to make sure that Nazism, Facism, etc. would never happen again. TPTB in Germany, Italy, et al, were just spirited out to other countries and protected. A lot of them came here. We Are The Ones Who Have To Elminate Them and Disempower Them. Ain't no two ways about it. It comes down to us. This is why we have all of these laws hidden and buried, to make sure that we don't have the power do it. We just have to take the power back, screw it if it is a law written down somewhere.

The only check to the article is the 2nd Admend. WAY too many people have been discussing the above, are scared, and have been stockpiling. Rumor on the street corner is, that a LOT of doctors, lawyers, bankers, etc., have their own silent militias in reponse to this. They are on our side. They too see the handwriting on the wall and are doing something in their own way.

[arendt]

6. Good point about inviting in the Nazis after WW2. What is this rumor?

Are the bankers/doctors arming to fight against the working class mob
they fear or against the fascist government? (You say the bankers are
on our side???)

Where do you hear this rumor? Can you point me at a URL?

arendt

[SupplyConcerns]

14. Yeah, I don't believe it

Maybe in the future, when people start generally feeling more urgency.

[bvar22]

16. Importing NAZIs wasn't really necessary.

There were already plenty of Fascists and Corporatists homegrown in the USA.
Hitler and the fascists may not have been able to dominate Eurpoe without the Fascist/Corporatists here in the USA.

[Hestia]

41. True they were here

and Prescott Bush was definitely implicated along with IBM, etc. But remember -- Operation Paperclip brought in the one's who implimented it! The paper-pushers, bean counters, lawyers, middle clerks who made sure the trains ran on time. (Man! What is the name of the other Operation? Just can't remember). In getting these people's children in the right clubs, society's, think tanks, foundations, etc., THEY are the one's who've been trained. It is said we are now living with 3rd generation Nazi's and/or Nazi's sympathizers. They are the one's who need to purged.

[arendt]

45. There was the guy who started the "Prayer Breakfast"...

some Norwegian Nazi-sympathizing priest. But, since Norway was occupied,
no one gave him a close look, him spouting Christianity and all.

But Operations? You've got my brain jammed with Paperclip.

arendt

[Hestia]

40. No, sorry can't

No, sorry, it was in a conversation with a person who is DEFINITELY in the know about the higher paid professionals. They sell at gun shows...

[cyberia]

61. That sounds more than highly unlikely:

"Rumor on the street corner is, that a LOT of doctors, lawyers, bankers, etc., have their own silent militias in reponse to this. They are on our side."

You are hanging your hopes on a savior. That's what one does when one feels impotent to change things oneself. That's how we got stuck with the Christianity crap.

[smirkymonkey]

4. Kicked & Recommended

:kick:

[maxsolomon]

5. handmaids tale looking like a realistic possibility

once a country starts walking down the road to fascism, it has to walk to the end of that road. when the no-energy future arrives, america will elect an out & out fascist.

[AndyTiedye]

7. Kicking, Bookmarking, and Recommending

Everybody says there won't be a theocracy
because the robber barons wouldn't want to live under a theocracy.

The robber barons would never live under a theocracy.
They would live above it, like the sheiks of Saudi Arabia.

The filibuster that isn't happening may have been our last chance to stop them.

:cry:

[Angry Girl]

8. I'm with you 100% except for that bit about education

"With a wrecked economy, we can't afford education" might be taken to imply that the rulers would want to educate the masses if they could. (I'd misread that bit earlier. Sorry.)

However, it is in their best interests to dumb down the masses. No math education? You don't need it, because we'll count the votes and make sure it's fair. No knack for critical analysis? Don't worry, our newspapers will do that for you. No understanding of human psychology? Oh, sit down and watch your TV! You can't read? Well, this factory will take good care of you and your family if you don't complain about the hours.

There was reason why the punishment for American slaves getting caught reading was death. And in Europe mass used to be conducted in Latin so that the common folk would be unable to understand, for only the aristocracy and theocracy could have the privilege of understanding the divine words.

[toymachines]

9. They are making it so we can't afford education

Middle class dwindles away, and college education goes with it

[Angry Girl]

11. Tell me about it!

My husband is going full-time! And we're not talking Harvard, just a community college. It's really tight and without a lot of help from friends and family, it just wouldn't be happening. We consider ourselves very lucky.

[hatrack]

10. "Ordinary people should be taught to follow simple instructions . . ."

" . . . and count to 100". - Adolf Hitler

[arendt]

23. great quote - do you have the context or, better, the whole speech? n/t

[hatrack]

29. Let me dig a bit - back at you soon

:toast:

[hatrack]

31. Couldn't find the exact quote - but did find these gems

I have to go and make dinner in a second!

“Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith… We need believing people.”
~ Adolf Hitler

“By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell — and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed.”
~ Adolf Hitler

“We stand at the end of the Age of Reason. A new era of the magical explanation of the world is rising.”
~ Adolf Hitler
“Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction.”
~ Adolf Hitler

“Who says I am not under the special protection of God?”
~ Adolf Hitler

And, of course, the timeless classic:

“What luck for rulers, that men do not think.”
~ Adolf Hitler

http://mindprod.com/politics/bushismshitler.html

[arendt]

32. Un-effing-believable!!

Put them on the web, and attribute them to George Bush. I'm sure they will
be approved. Then show the source.

Great stuff.

arendt

[Hestia]

42. Or

what education is allowed will be like the system in North Korea. Keep 'em too busy to think, constantly reward those who excell in the indoctrination...oh, wait, aren't we doing that now?

[donsu]

75. yes, but I've been saying this could be the golden age for tutors

you want to know more? want your kid to know more? think tutor. Tutors are everywhere.

[hatrack]

12. You forgot to mention professional sports, "reality" shows & Brangelina

- the new Opiates of the Masses.

[arendt]

22. Thanks for mentioning them...

but, you just have to draw the line somewhere if you want a tight essay.
And I wanted this one tight.

Also, in this climate, quoting Karl Marx is a great way to shoot yourself
in the foot.

arendt

[Hestia]

43. the New Rollerball..

[arendt]

46. do you mean that Rollergirls dreck on A&E? n/t

[mzmolly]

71. Christine Amanpour talked about how the OJ trial was a distraction from

Rwanda, and how the MEDIA failed people during that time.

We have got to find a way to separate tabloid journalism from REAL news again?

[Lars39]

13. We thought we were past all the barbarianism and power plays

of the past.
Hanging on to our latest electronic toys, we thought we were sophisticated, evolved.
It's pretty unsettling to realize what has and will come to pass.
Nice to see you posting again, arendt.

[corkhead]

15. I feel like a member of the Polish Calvary right now

ready to bang on some repuke tank with my mighty sword.

unfortunately today, I feel like the result will be the same

[bonito]

18. I haven't heard of that story

did it happen for real?:-)

[arendt]

21. It was reported at the time. I will have to check some source material...

to see if was either Polish (we're brave) or German (they're stupid) propaganda.
But it was reported.

arendt

[bonito]

24. Well I did some searching

And found this. http://doublespeak.blogstream.com/

[arendt]

25. Funny and supportive, but hardly primary source material. Thnx n/t

[al bupp]

50. Here's the Wikipedia Entry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_invasion_of_Poland

Experience in the Polish-Soviet War shaped Polish Army organisational and operational doctrine. Unlike the trench warfare of the First World War, this was a conflict in which the cavalry's mobility played a decisive role. Poland acknowledged the benefits of mobility but was unwilling to invest heavily in the expensive and unproven new inventions to make that a major part of its armed forces. In spite of this, Polish Cavalry brigades were used as a mobile mounted infantry and were quite successful against both German infantry and tanks.

[arendt]

51. Very interesting. Thanks n/t

[arendt]

27. Yes. According to the West Point Atlas of American Wars...

A useful source:

Compiled by: The Department of Military Art and Engineering
at the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY
with an introductory letter by Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Seems credible to me.

"Polish resistance had been tough and desperate, some of their
cavalry riding at German tanks with lance and saber. (Unofficial
contemporary reports suggest these troopers had been told that
the German tanks were fakes, "armored" with canvas or paper-mache.)"

- text of Map 5: World War II


arendt

[Kablooie]

17. Yeah, but we'll still have Paris.

[Hestia]

44. LOL - Great!

[Jacobin]

19. I always dread Arendt's posts

They put the state of things in such stark relief that it is hard to delude myself into thinking that maybe we aren't headed that way.....but of course we are.

[arendt]

20. Thanks for the "compliment", Citoyen...

but this time I really can feel the deck of the Titanic starting to tilt.
The band is playing, and the ship is going down. The gates to
steerage are very strong, and no one from down below is getting
out.

I'd rather drown in the freezing Atlantic than be slowly exploited to death
in a US run by this bunch of ignorant, murderous whackos.

arendt

[PDittie]

26. Well written.

[bonito]

28. I for one will not go with less than I came here with

and what any man coverts in between is just spoils, just as holding on to one's passing bowels for the sweet but dead yesterday, I'll see them in the future should they wake up, but in the meantime my ship is not sinking, climb aboard. Peace

[DemoTex]

30. I have not fired a weapon since Viet Nam. There it was only for M-16 qual.

I have never owned a gun. However, tomorrow I am going to the gun store (where the hell is it?). I'm buying an expensive 9mm and a pump-action 12 gauge shotgun, while my money is still good for something. In fact, I think I'll put them on my AMEX platinum card. As fast as things are spinning toward total de-solution of the state, I'll never have to pay it off! What say you, Vern?

BTW: When the shit hits the fan, and Bu$h takes over (citing certain laws, trampling most others; and I do think it will be very soon), I'll be on the HAM bands at 1000 watts, broadcasting. Let's say 20 meters as a base. Let's say 14.14mHz, 14.28mHz as universal political emergency freqs.

[arendt]

33. I'm not sure that was exactly the response I was trying to get :-) n/t

[DemoTex]

36. Damn you are quick!

No, but you hit me in a bad, bad frame of mind 2-nite. I think Bu$h might push the button, soon. I just hope we are out here at the mountain house when he does. I smell desperation and fear from the White House. I also smell total disdain for the electorate (and apathy from the electorate). And I smell disdain for the law-of-the-land. The level of hubris is unbelievable. We are in deep, deep shit.

Mac

[arendt]

37. I'm not quick. Will Pitt is quick...

I understand about bad frames of mind. I live in one half the time.
Writing is my way of exorcising it.

Peace in the mountains. Stock up good. You may be right.
I've been thinking of going off grid, but I can't come up with
a steady source of electricity that doesn't require paying the
oil barons.

arendt

[DemoTex]

39. Good luck, arendt.

But not quite good night. Yet!

Mac

[kalibex]

72. hydroelectric. n/t

...spelling edit...

[donsu]

77. yes, I suggest to people to stay prepared as for a cat. 6

nt

[Hestia]

47. I just saids the same thing to DH tonight

this shit they keep throwing at us is relentless! It never, ever stops! The more you read, the more you realized that we are in deep shit and trying to wake up your friends -- phah! Been talking to a friend who has land, that believe it or not, is not google satellite maps. Too rural? We've been talking and talking about moving there, everyday it seem like it will be a need to, rather than a want to...

[CrispyQ]

76. Seeds & a gardening book would be a good investment too.

You'll need that gun to protect your garden from the roving, starving masses.

There's gonna be a whole lotta pain in our future.

[byronius]

34. I agree with everything you say. I think we're going to throw them back.

And I think things get better for basic human lives in the long, slow cycles of the painful teacher -- history. I think they desperately need us to stop them. We're not quite ready, yet. Something good is going to happen, though. Something wonderful. (2010) And it will get better. For awhile. I think we will probably spread to the stars locked in this ideological combat cycle -- and where the free thinkers go, will go all the commerce, and technological advancement, and true cultural power. I don't think space will permit soul slavery to spread. I think technology will lessen its economic necessity, and reduce it to ideological smoke and mirrors only, easily swept aside, in time. I think we are changing, and will change radically when we get out there.
That's the thing. They have the minds of children. They have no discipline. It is all a facade. They are all more frightened than we are. They need us. Like Captain Kirk, getting split into two personalities during the transporter accident -- they're an internal mess. Suicidal, fatalistic, numb, pathologically removed from contact with their environment -- without us, they all die. We'd be fine on our own, I think. Not them. It sucks to be them. They are genetic dross, and failing.

Poland. You know, Poland was always a rabidly Anti-Semitic state prior to WWII. They were more ruthless with their Jewish populations than the Germans, until the 1930's. Royalist Luddites, with a smattering of distrusted intellectuals.

If Hitler couldn't do it, if Stalin couldn't do it, these Dorks for sure can't hold this up too much longer.

Besides -- I exist. Therefore they are most certainly doomed. Boosha!

There. I've responded, sorta.

[arendt]

35. I laughed, I cried. You are a mensch. Great response.

But can we get to the stars before we literally run out of gas?

Can the rest of the world wreck our currency before we wreck
the planet?

Are the Chinese being very smart? Or just old-fashioned Chinese
too clever for their own good?

So true about the Polish. What weird karma those people have.
So smart and so dumb at the same time. It was that handful of
distrusted intellectuals that gave the Enigma to the British.

Reality has got to be a joke. No intelligent designer would make
such a mess unless he were kidding.

arendt

[EVDebs]

53. Check out Kevin Phillip's book Wealth and Democracy

Which shows all economic empires, like Spain Netherland Great Britain and now US, when the concentration of wealth becomes so great that it becomes top heavy, the empire then goes into decline.

'We can have great wealth or a democracy, but we cannot have both'-- Louis Brandeis

[Hestia]

48. Are you talking about 2012?

I've almost brought it up, but thought everyone would think it is too far out there. In reading a lot of Ascension writers, it has been brought up that We are the one's to correct the past of the late 19th & 20th centuries, why? Because we have the knowledge. The internet was implimented for us, to be able to discern the truth. I really don't think TPTB every really thought it would take off, now the genie is out of the bottle, how do they stop it? I know, virus', trojans, worms, spyware, etc.

Anyway, it us up to us to bring the pendulum back to center, we can't wait for 'others' to do it for us.

[bloom]

52. art

theirs is a world with little or badly made art.

That's what you reminded me of. Like the singers who support Bush - Ted Nugent, etc. - they can have him.

Who would be their painter? Thomas Kinkade, I imagine - they can have him too.

The closest thing to American culture to them is McDonalds - according to an essay at the "Heritage Foundation" (oh, the irony).

http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/hl917.cfm


Some of them might be able to afford good art - but are any of them artists?

[Nostradammit]

57. 'Zactly So!

Little or badly made art, yes, yes. And mean humor.

Great thread.

But I'm not giving up hope, I think they have to expend so much energy maintaining
their fabrications. Truth has a way of being immovable, and perceptions are ever changing.

[AX10]

38. negative images are very effective

[Clara T]

49. This Seems

Consistent with the historical patterns



Of the American Experience



It's called kindergarten for a reason



How many votes were we from German as the official language? One?



And could those same characteristics from Nazi Germany manifest themselves



In a uniquely Amerikkan way?



Is this just a fiction of the paranoid mind?



Or is it history repeating itself in new forms?

[arendt]

54. Bedtime for me. Enjoyed speaking to you all. Feel free to x-post this n/t

[Zan_of_Texas]

81. Glad I saw this. Um. I think!

Oh hell, it was already in my mind, but you expressed it so well, damn you.

At some point, instead of trying to persuade those who are on their knees on the railroad tracks, bowing to oncoming trains, you have to just get off the railroad tracks yourself. Too bad the tracks go just about everywhere, eh.

[Beam Me Up]

55. Oh, my dear boy, I'm afraid it is far, far worse than you've imagined.

Speaking of Springtime for Struass (Leo), take this quote, for example:

LEO STRAUSS: BACK TO THE STONE AGE

What will the nihilist revolution look like? Strauss writes: “Someone may object that the successful revolt against the universal and homogeneous state could have no other effect than that the identical historical process which led from the primitive horde to the final state will be repeated.” (Strauss 209, emphasis added) The primitive horde or primal horde refers to the human communities of the Paleolithic hunting and gathering societies, to the foragers and cave people of the Old Stone Age. Strauss is endorsing a nihilistic revolt that will have the effect of destroying as much as 10,000 years of progress in civilization, and in hurling humanity back to its wretched predicament in the Paleolithic. Here Strauss finds a momentary common ground with Rousseau, who also had a liking for the Paleolityic; here we are close to the ideas which animated the reign of terror in the French Revolution.

Strauss comes as a Job’s comforter to those who have been thrown back into the Old Stone Age: “But would such a repetition of the process – a new lease on life for men and humanity – not be preferable to the indefinite continuation of the inhuman end? Do we not enjoy every spring although we know the cycle of the seasons, although we know that winter will come again?” (Strauss 209) Springtime for Leo Strauss has thus acquired the idiosyncratic meaning of a cataclysmic return to the horrors of the Old Stone Age.

Short of turning back the clock to the Paleolithic, Strauss sees one promising possibility latent in Kojeve’s universal homogeneous state. This concerns the opportunity for political violence, yet another form of terrorism: "Kojeve does seem to leave an outlet for action in the universal and homogeneous state. In that state the risk of violent death is still involved in the struggle for political leadership. … But the opportunity for action can exist only for a tiny minority. And besides, is this not a hideous prospect: a state in which the last refuge of man’s humanity is political assassination in the particularly sordid form of the palace revolution?” (Strauss 209) Such sporadic and limited violence is not enough for Strauss.

Marx and Engels had written about the realm of freedom which would result from higher stages of economic development in the form of a communist utopia. Strauss transforms their communist slogan into an invective against middle class progress and middle class values in general when he concludes this passage with the call: “Warriros and workers of all countries, unite, while there is still time, to prevent the coming of the ‘realm of freedom.’ Defend with might and main, if it needs to be defended, the ‘realm of necessity.’” (Strauss 209) Putting aside the superficial polemic against communist utopia, Strauss’s goal here is to argue that peace, progress, and prosperity are destructive to oligarchy, and anything must be preferred to such an outcome.

Here we have a blanket endorsement of forms of violence and mayhem, including terrorism and war, in doses large enough to send world civilization back to the Stone Age. This implies genocide on a scale far beyond Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. Today’s world population is about 6.25 billion, and barely subsists on the basis of realized technological and industrial progress. But under hunting and gathering conditions, the demographic carrying capacity of the earth would be reduced to 25 to 50 million. If implemented today, Strauss’s program for dismantling the universal homogeneous state would mean genocide of something approaching 6 billion victims. Two whole orders of magnitude beyond Hitler and Stalin together.

And even this must be put into perspective. Strauss notoriously feared to write what he really believed; the public could never face the full truth of his doctrines. Therefore, what we find written in On Tyranny is very likely a somewhat diluted view of his real views. So if Strauss Lite, the exoteric version that he felt comfortable publishing at the height of his career, spells up to 6 billion victims, God save us from the full fury of Strauss’s esoteric version as it may be transmitted among the neocons infesting and controlling the United States government under the Bush regime.

The most urgent anti-terrorist measure of them all would thus appear to be a purge of neocons from all branches of government (including the Carl Schmitt disciples, Scalia, Renquist, and Thomas on the Supreme Court), and a general quarantine of neocons as what they really are, neo-fascists and neo-Nazis.

Excerpt from 9/11 Synthetic Terror; Made In USA by Webster Griffin Tarpley

[PATRICK]

56. So it is a gut reaction

to the coming inevitable evolution of mankind and history which will leave the "elites" and the Strauss's in the garbage bin along with all their beliefs and "values". Better murder and suicide than the future they fear most.

Would that the good people had been more aware and forward thinking about the future. Only it doesn't seem as much a threat since peace, prosperity, unified and just societies are required for a successful transition to a better humanity to truly make a better world that will keep this natural progress alive. Anything short of trying siimultaneously to be better than we are means enormous suffering.

Going back is about death and fear. It means the death of nature and the abortion of history and the still birth of humanity. The monsters are like us, insufficient to the progress we ourselves have been diligently, imperfectly working toward because such INTELLIGENT evolution is inevitable. None of us can be part of that future in our current insufficiencies and flaws, but letting the WORST of mankind at the controls means annihilation not transition. The worst of us see a better world as a threat, just the reverse of what nature enforces in the rise of reason.

Strauss is only talking of human polity running amok into murderous bloodletting and forced starvation, an apotheosis of our warlord past. The implications of bungling the ecology, the health system and modern WMD's mean extinction as a side effect of the Superman's fate.

[Beam Me Up]

68. They're afraid of losing control and would rather end human civilization

through manufactured terror and violence than allow it to be free.

Here is a vision from the late Sixties, as expressed by Katner, Slick, Balin, Blackman, et. al.,
that I believe expresses the opposite of the neo-Nazi nihilism:

Sunrise!
Surprise
Civilized Man
You were keeper to me
Now your animal is free
And you're free to die

Die!

You're old and your hands are gray
You'r old go home and
We've all heard you dirty stories

Two thousand years
Two thousand years
Two thousand years
Of your
God damn
Glory!

...

Only the sun knows what we really need to know
Only the sun holds the secret
And more than human can we be
Cause human's truly locked
To this planetary circle

You gotta ride said the Doktor of space
I have lived here once before
The lites in the nite are a village of stars
Of stars that I have explored
Beyond the idea of beyond the void
And beyond that and more
Parallel lines in this village of stars
Will lead you to the second door
And time won't wait for the Doktor of space from the city of the sun to come

WHERE DO YOU GO FROM HERE

CHAOS OR COMMUNITY?

CAN'T YOU SEE - ON THIS AND FUTURE SUNDAYS!

7000 Gypsies swirlin together
      Offering to the sun in the name of the weather
            Gonna Hijack - HIJACK THE STARSHIP

...

We come and go like a comet
We are wanderers
Are you anymore?
The land is green and you make it grow
And you gotta let go you know
You gotta let go you know
You gotta let go you know
Or else you stay
MANKIND GONE FROM THE CAGE
ALL THE YEARS GONE FROM YOUR AGE!

At first I was irridescent
Then I became transparent
Finally (Finally!) I was absent

Can you believe it?

Ah, can you believe it?

--Jefferson Starship Blows Against The Empire, 1970

[davekriss]

86. I remember that song!

And I was always impressed with its lovely lyrics. :)

[Karenina]

83. They've prepared the LOCKDOWN

for anyone who crosses their twisted view:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2062553

[autorank]

58. OK, so here's what I think.

I believe that there is a civil war going on in "management." There is the goof ball faction which is aligned with the religious zealots. Considering that the zealots are about 20% of the population, dripping wet, and the Texas-Neanderthal "management" faction has about 10 thousand members, we're talking about a small group. There are other players here, those who fail to accept the self limiting assumptions based on economies that were based on stagnant technologies. The Gates clan which requires "growth" or "prosperity" to continue selling premium items. Say what you want, but we're on a roll in "improving things"--better living through increased RAM!

So we've got the fossil-fuel cult and the theocratic/zealot faction, on the one hand, and the forces of "better stuff" and "reasonable living" on the other. Who wins? Why do you pick the screw balls. They can't even occupy Iraq, 26 million people. What will they do with 260,000,000 people, well armed, and somewhat paranoid. Not much if they're smart. If they think Iraq was less than amenable to a take over, try Chicago, Eastern Tennessee, Miami, East LA, Northern California, all of Oregon, Washington, Montana...that's just for starters.

We're missing the essential truth here. Americans are awake to the take over bid. The only thing preventing jail a year or two from now for the Neanderthals is our lousy voting system. But the truth is out on that and "the machines" will be intimidated into cooperating soon (really counting votes). Then we get to face the impending eco-catastrophes together, eyes wide open, with a slight chance of survival.

Rejoice, we will soon be free...able to understand the total mess we've made of things and the tremendous odds against remediation.

[EVDebs]

65. Religion and the Presidential Vote polling

"According to the National Election Pool exit poll, Bush received 78% of the vote among white evangelicals, up 10% from 2000, according to Pew's final pre-election poll that year. (The 2004 exit poll cannot be directly compared with the exit poll in 2000, which did not include a measure of evangelical identification)."

http://people-press.org/commentary/display.php3?AnalysisID=103

and voter turnout
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html

which says 55.3% turnout...

and at

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/25/AR2005052501965.html

which says 64% turnout...

What is important in all of this are the Religious (PEW polls) data didn't give total numerical data, just percentages. Plus the voter turnout is said to be over 50% in the infoplease article, while while at 64% in another.

So, either 44.7% of potential voters didn't show up or 36% of potential voters didn't show up; this data from what I assume to be reputable data sources, WashPost and infoplease and PEW.

With a disputable 8.7% (44.7 minus 36) of potential voters who 'didn't show up', Karl Rove certainly had an ample amount of votes to 'play with' it seems. Voting irregularities for 2000 and 2004 provide leads to these amounts. Otherwise the MSM still has some explaining to do.

But Bush's Base is still very much tied to the evangelical movement that Rove has tapped into. On that there can be no doubts.

[autorank]

67. I'd go with the US Census, 122,000,000 figure from

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0508/S00186.htm

That's what we've worked with all along. I'll try to figure out what's with infoplease. I suspect they're probably just wrong.


There are a lot of votes to play with even amongst those who turn out. Just just re arrangen them...or you set your tabulating machine to show "zero" before it starts counting optical scan ballots. What's zero 2000Republican, -2000Democrat = Zero. Slick huh. One of the many methods of stealing votes.

The actual vote count in any year is of interest because there's a history of 1-2% spoilage for ballots cast. What's spoilage...well it occurs in predominantly Deocratic/minority districts (studies to the contrary don't hold up). So you take the 122 million, ad 1-2% and you've go the real vote. They throw out ballots for stupid reasons or because the precincts have crappy equipment.

The varieties of election fraud!

[FULL_METAL_HAT]

85. The census data was certainly another real nail in that coffin

On top of the exit poll analysis pointing to an actual vote very close to the census result.

You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to realize that an explanation so strong vs. NO explanation is no contest!

p.s. thanks TIA! :>

[autorank]

92. Strong explanation vs. NO explanation...

But what about the poor nihilists! Don't they have feelings too! Think of them, all alone in their basements, listening to the Fugs classic, "Nothing, nothing, nothing" over and over. It's not easy offering nothing. As Brecht said in Baal, "Nothing lasts forever." or at least it seems that way.

[PATRICK]

74. The ladder in hell

In a Christian fantasy book the villain hides and then keeps going down an infinite ladder, it becoming ever more difficult to go back up to the shrinking dot of light. True to his nature and stubborn beliefs he must descend though it is always possible, even necessary to return. Impossible to escape the shrinking hole above. Impossible to rest on the bottom.

But in this life, surrounded by the fruits of temporary victories and fleeting wealth, sycophants and the power to hurt better people the naked reality is not easier to deny, but is done with bands and cheerleaders.

We had a class where a teahcer misinterpreted a speech by a German Nazi character in a French short story who made himself a glorious tragic, sympathetic figure in defeat. Another teacher, an ex-resistance fighter brought in for historical depth cleaned his clock on that one, but he still didn't get it. There was nothing redeemable or admirable in the heroic fantasy of the Nazi nor did the author mean it that way(being another Resistance fighter himself). But if I just had my teacher's opinion back then I would have taken most of his appreciation. There should be no room for sympathizing with that pose, no forgiveness for a gilded, sentimental lack of remorse as the soldier strides away to destruction. Was she biased for having lost her love in that fight? In this case she saw the thing in absolute clarity. Only those who hadn't been where it happened had the wool of sentimentalism pulled over their eyes that we brought into the story ourselves.

And it happens here in America. And we have the same wool. And I forgot most of the class was split on the obvious rightness of the person of experience, accepting the embarassed teacher's rationalizations of the simple textually irrefutable contradiction. Bias? She was right. The reader's mistaken bias? Utterly wrong. And not only in misreading the author, but scarily misreading the Nazi character as a blinding factor.

[autorank]

79. Perfect...

"Only those who hadn't been where it happened had the wool of sentimentalism pulled over their eyes that we brought into the story ourselves." The sad truths are we will never have a day where enough people have "been where it happened" and we lack the respect for real authority guiding us and prefer symbolic superficialities. "Sentimentalism" is, on occasion, just an excuse (aided by "cheer leading") to be "contrarian," which in turn masks an underlying antisocial philosophy.

What an instructive experience!

[Dunvegan]

59. In other words, a New World Dark Ages.

[tomreedtoon]

60. Yes, you ARE ineffective, and here's why.

The people who claim to be intellectuals and educators had the job of trying to teach children what it meant to be a citizen. How to use their minds, how to reason, how to accept responsibility.

They didn't. They sat back on their butts, listened to classical music and watched PBS, debated articles in the New York Times Review of Books, and pondered the state of the world. They didn't care about teaching children or advising adults that were less literate and poorer than they were. They didn't care what the lower and middle classes' problems were, since the problems of finding a decent wine for that night's dinner was a much more daunting dilemma.

As a result, when a Republican came along who (however untruthfully) seemed to show some interest and concern for these abandoned masses, they flocked to him. Of course they didn't listen to anything the intellectual-educational complex said afterwards; the public knew that they had been abandoned by these supposedly brilliant people and they refused to listen.

So, go ahead and bail. You probably have the money and wherewithal to do so. You can probably load all those issues of NYTR of B with you as well, so you have reading material. Then you can find another country with an entire new underclass you can ignore, abandon and lose to another right-wing group. You really shouldn't be too bitter, since with a little forethought you might have seen this result.

[arendt]

63. You don't know who I am and you have no right to such blanket condemnation

Why didn't you just call me a Volvo-driving, sushi-eating, surrender monkey?

What a spew of right wing caricatures.

And, I never said I would "bail". I said I failed. Nice try at putting words in my
mouth.

Have you read anything I've written? I've been criticizing the NYT for ten years.
They are an absolute tool. Long ago, I agreed with William F. Buckley that
"the NYTR of B is the last court of appeals for highbrow screwballs".
My church runs a drop-in center for drug addicts, and a soup kitchen and a food
pantry for the homeless. I serve hot meals to homeless children. There are people
in my church with spouses in Iraq. I canvas for voters in grimy trailer parks, where
I do not get a warm reception.

You neglected to inform us exactly what actions on your part give you the high
moral ground from which you are strafing us.

You have no business criticizing me or DU. You are extremely mistaken if you think
DU is the exclusive club of limousine liberals. However, you do appear to be completely
misinformed, and proud of it.

Liberals have been sabotaged. But not because they walked away from the
problem. That was the techno-libertarians and all the rest of the smug, self-
satisfied children of the rich who got those jobs. The campaign to screw
America is run by ex-CIA psych war people and Madison Ave ad execs.
It is the politicians who failed to adopt these nasty tools to defend the liberal
position that you should be criticizing. Not the mere footsoldiers at DU who are
getting slaughtered.

You can take your supercilious sneering over to the nearest mega-church,
where I'm sure you can cash it in for a free hymnal and a place in the
choir.

arendt

[Greyhound]

66. Well said. This guy(?) is just an ass as well as an obvious product

of the amerikan educational system, functionally illiterate with no comprehension.

[tomreedtoon]

73. What about YOUR blanket party, fellow?

You create this fictional apocalypse that George Orwell would have problems accepting, then you say you have given up on the United States as a democracy. I call you on your pretensions and that's supposed to make me a right-winger?

I don't know you personally, but I know what you wrote. You might want to go back and read it. Before you write such things, you might want to sleep on them overnight before you post them.

I'm not a defeatist, and I'm not a cappucino liberal. I'm a lower-middle-class guy who has voted for progressive causes all my life. I've voted for Democratic Presidential candidates since I could first vote, even though the last two candidates were wimps who ended up selling out to the Republicans. I voted for Gore and Kerry because they were the best possible choice I could make.

And now you're telling me America is dead, and that you, I and every other person who voted for left-of-center candidates are failures and dupes? Well, bon voyage, fellow. I'm staying in America and I'll continue to fight for justice and democracy, because I have no alternative choice - either financially, morally or spiritually.

[arendt]

84. I do not know what is up your nose.

> You might want to go back and read it. Before you write such
> things, you might want to sleep on them overnight before you post
> them.

I went back and read what I wrote. I called nobody a
defeatist.

The only entities I slammed in my "fictitional apocalypse"
were corporations and theocrats. I despaired of Democratic
politicians as being outgunned. In fact the only non-right
wing person I criticized was myself.

Up front, I declared my purpose to be to scare people.

I fail to see the pretentiousness in any of that.

> And now you're telling me America is dead, and that you, I and
> every other person who voted for left-of-center candidates are
> failures and dupes?

I said I was a failure. What you read into that is your problem.
You got a serious chip on your shoulder, and that is also not
my problem.

I've seen your style of argument before. I'm only supposed to
defend myself against your righteous outrage. You never give
me any points for my defense; you just start in with a new
attack. Sorry, I'm not going to play punching bag any more.

I don't get what I said that makes you think I'm some kind
of elitist. My parents never went to college. I went on
scholarships. I've been a waiter, a butcher, and a lab tech.
I worked my way up. You got a problem with any of that?
Its supposed to be the American dream.

---

My statement is that if we keep doing things the same old way,
we will get the same bad old results. The GOP will win, legally
or illegally. Because our guys are playing with boxing gloves
on, while they are playing with knives.

If recognizing that corporate/theocrat fighting is wishful
thinking and that our side's politicians are clueless is
defeatism, then we should all go get a lobotomy and charge
into no-man's-land screaming "hoorah". Is that your strategy?

Me, I'm looking for a new strategy. If that means drumming
the DLC out of the Democratic Party, are you going to call
me a latte-drinking wimp?

Since I don't expect you to change your tone or show any
insight into my side of this, I bid you good luck with your
one-man crusade as a liberal-hating progressive.

arendt

[Bluesplayer]

62. I read this a second time with a banjo background

and it was only less depressing.

[Le Taz Hot]

64. LOL!

OK, that was good. "Oh grief, oh hunger, oh death . . . "

Sorry, Arndt . . . I've enjoyed and agree with the read but this was a nice reality breakaway -- just for a second.

[arendt]

88. No problem...

even the guys in "The Wild BuncH" took a time out
at a whore house.

You need to kick back from time to time.

arendt

[spun_in_montana]

69. Thank you so much for your hard work

and insight in this post, I duly put the whole mess up at my blog, hope its ok-just had to spread this far and wide.

[mzmolly]

70. The American people are "gullible and craven" because our media is

now an extension of the fascist mafia. Taking back the media is essential.

[donsu]

78. and hurricane season will be soon upon us

and human fertility is down and degraded

[nashville_brook]

80. as always -- bravo!

[Uncle Joe]

82. Kicked and recommended, but

can't we just call him Joseph Stalin?

:kick:

[arendt]

87. Sure. Sorry about that. n/t

[stevietheman]

89. I'm staying "uppity" no matter what these clowns do. n/t

n/t

[Blue_Tires]

90. spot on n/t

[Warren Stupidity]

91. So what is tomorrow's essay going to be?

You can't stop now, you're on a roll! Keep 'em coming.