On 1/10/16, juan wrote:

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now USA in a state of perpetual war,

It has always been. So what the fuck are you talking about.

Juan, let me return your incredulity with clarity, i know i'm old, but that also means i remember a time we were not actually at war (except drug war! in hindsight, that counts as war well enough...)

dude the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. What the fuck are you talking about.

incarceration rate alone doesn't tell the tale. part of this problem is a "success" in prosecution and consistent(sorta) sentencing. speaking of ending endless wars, drug sentences will reduce this a fair amount, but significant reduction will require significant reduction in sentences... which is ok, as anything beyond 5 years is just punative;isolationary - not rehabilitation.

DUDE! Are you trelling or what??

Narcos a local example of serious threat, vs. annoyance. "" - https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/censor-or-die-the-death-of-mex...

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when people are being killed for exposing corruption or injustice,

speechless

i don't fear accidentally eating polonium, ever, for example. ;)

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all of which made me wonder, what did the every day German or Italian citizen see before fascism ravaged sanity? what did they see that felt

they laughably thought, exactly like you, that they were morally superior to the rest of the world.

is this where you advocate direct action to inhibit the machine? with unlicensed molotovs and conspiracy to congregate? ;) in seriousness, a detailed and accurate picture of this experience would be interesting to read. there are historical references from this period, of dry edification, but actual accounts from this perspective hard to come by, presumably because the minds behind them were extinguished... key aspects which stuck out: - economic malaise, squeezed lower class. - theology in service of power, rather than separate. - business and government collusion in war making. - nationalism coupled to racism. then ultra-nationalism to mass murder purges. - willing populace mistaking blunder for boldness, polemics for persuasion, and ever more cowed into total subservience...

has become corrupt? How much to you get paid to troll this list?

the "justice system" is not total farce; completely devoid of all credibility. extra-judicial summary killings are not common place. secrets laws don't ^H^H^H ... ok, part of it quite fucked. but beyond redemption? this is what i intend by "completely corrupt" - unable to dispense justice; only deceit on the scales.

No it's acutally propagandists like you who are to blame.

propaganda! skillful use of this another key factor for thriving facism. i meant to add that to the list above... though perhaps it is your feign of forceful repudiation which is the facade? i enjoy your consistent and copious criticism Juan. one day i hope to enjoy your suggestions, too :) best regards,

On 1/10/16, Rayzer wrote:

... In summation, you must be ooooolllllld. Older than dirt. Older than electricity.

(~_~;)

On 01/10/2016 07:24 PM, juan wrote:

On Sun, 10 Jan 2016 11:36:43 -0800 coderman wrote:

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On 1/10/16, juan wrote:

...

...

now USA in a state of perpetual war,

It has always been. So what the fuck are you talking about. [snip]

...

...

...

all of which made me wonder, what did the every day German or Italian citizen see before fascism ravaged sanity? what did they see that felt

they laughably thought, exactly like you, that they were morally superior to the rest of the world.

is this where you advocate direct action to inhibit the machine?

Looks like a sensible and practical solution, so yes.

Coderman? Re: "What did the every day German or Italian citizen see before fascism ravaged sanity?" [ They or some fration saw the Reds ] There were labour, socialist, soviet communist, and anarcho-syndicalist movements up to and including the 1930s and the Spanish Civil War. And there was the October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and subsequent Civil War between Reds and White Russians, plus foreign interventions in Russia/USSR. My interpretation is that the Fascism in Europe (in Belgium 1939, for instance) was at least in part a reaction to the movements and activities of the Communists, Bolsheviks, Marxists, Socialists and Anarcho-syndicalists. David

On 1/13/16, juan wrote:

... So, yes. I'm waiting for coderman to make some updated political comment after hopefully having updated his knowledge of american wars.

Guantanamo is closing! (that's not nothing, right? :) regarding american wars, this is a tale longer than time to tell it... instead, this treatise which i enjoyed for through provocation, regardless of how your view its correctness: "On the Moral Superiority" - http://www.gatchev.info/blog/?p=1017 --- On the Moral Superiority There are a lot of news about the leaked Afghan War documents. And a lot of descriptions of Wikileaks as a threat to the US national and military security. Which reminds me a lot of things. The Cold War Most Westerners are convinced that Ronald Reagan won it, by raising the military expenses of USA to a level that the Soviet bloc could not afford. This is not the first gross Western misconception about the communism – but is a very important one. Every single penny in the cost of everything, be that a toaster, tank or ICBM, is eventually spent on someone’s salary. If you can pay peanuts, you can produce tanks and ICBMs for peanuts… That was the case in the Soviet Union. The head of an ICBM project there was paid about one tenth of the salary of a floor sweeper in an US ICBM project. And, living in the Soviet Union, he could not run away for a higher salary. In fact, the Soviet Union could push the military spending to a level that USA would not be able to afford, just because they spent so much less per a result than the Americans. (A hint for the future: watch China.) Why, then, the Soviets did not win the Cold War, if it was so easy? Because they could not achieve moral superiority over USA. An unrealistically sounding answer – if you haven’t lived in a communist country, and don’t know the situation from inside. Immediately after the WWII we, who remained in the Soviet bloc, saw our stand against the Western bloc as a patriotic one. We saw that the Soviet order was horrible, but the order in the Western bloc was also not very nice. We had Lavrentiy Beria etc., but the West had Barry Goldwater etc. The Soviet Union orchestrated aggressions and coups all around the world, but the U.S. did the same. Where there is no clear “good” and “evil”, there is only “us” and “them” – and, of course, everyone is with “us”, not with “them”. Things changed drastically under John Kennedy, and even more under Lyndon Johnson. The censorship and the anti-communist witch hunt in the US disappeared. The civil liberties were strengthened. And despite the Iron Curtain, this was noticed in the Soviet bloc. Suddenly, “them” ceased to be about as bad as “us”. We saw that “them” is the Good, and “us” is the Evil. We started believing that “them” means freedom, sincerity, truth, decency, while “us” means lies, hypocrisy, and life in a prison. The West had achieved a moral superiority. But how this translated into a Cold War victory? You can’t run away from a Soviet country, no matter how much you despise it. However, if you are forced to remain there, you lose your initiative, inventiveness and desire to work, create and win. And, most of all, you lose your trust in the system, and your hope for a better future… The most important engine of the economics, the impulse of the people to work and create, went dry. The economics continued going for some time, supported by the effect of the scale, but eventually stuck. And to our perceptions of the West added one more – “wealth”. Actually, a “deserved, decently obtained wealth”. Even the top Soviet functionaries had lost their trust in the communist system. Publicly, every time they spoke, they acclaimed the Soviet superiority. Privately, they didn’t believed a word from what they said. They regarded everyone who believed that the Soviets can be superior in any way as idiots, brainwashed by the lies they themselves fabricated. When told: “We can beat the West in the arms and space race”, they didn’t believed it, despite the calculations they were shown, and despite that they had nearly done it during the 60s. “If you believe one thing, and the Western experts believe otherwise, then it is them who must be right. There is no way you can be right, there is no way for us to be the better. It is them who speaks the truth, and us who cheats and lies.” This is what everyone was convinced in – even the Party core and top. The military buildup and the “Space Wars” of Ronald Reagan merely coincided with the final stages of the Soviet economic deterioration. The rot was clearly seen from inside even before Reagan, and many people understood it is a matter only of time before the Soviet system falls apart economically. (Most of us expected this fall to come later, but to be a catastrophic one: happily, we were wrong.) The military race could have speeded it up a bit, but I doubt even this – the Soviet bloc practically didn’t tried to increase the military spending in order to counter Reagan. There was no use in doing this. The Cold War was already won by the West, and not in the arms race. It was the moral superiority that won it. That rendered the Soviet “army” unwilling to fight – in fact, willing to desert at first opportunity, and expecting and hoping to lose… The result was the only possible one. The Soviet bloc simply disappeared into the thin air, without a single gunshot against the West. Al-Qaeda As a student, I saw once a man who was bent on organizing a crusade against the evil capitalism. He tried to recruit for it every single person he saw. And always failed… Instead of on the top of some government body, the system had placed him in a mental clinic. Despite that this obsession was his only peculiarity. This is how much the Soviet system believed in itself, facing the Western moral superiority. In a country where everyone publicly called for the fall of the capitalism, this man hadn’t seen in his life a single person who would actually fight the capitalism. Or even believe that this is a sane idea… If Osama bin Laden was in a situation similar to the Soviet bloc, he shouldn’t be able to find a single follower. And the Arab countries are not as anti-Western as the Soviet bloc was, so his task should have been even tougher. How is that he found thousands of followers? Some people believe this to be an effect of the Islam. However, the communism is a religion also, and one that is much less tolerant of everything decent than even the darkest sects of the Islam. In addition, 15% of my country’s population is Muslims, and that madman could not recruit among them, too. Also, before Osama there were many other militant Muslims who went on a jihad against the West, and none found a significant number of supporters. Despite that the US were supporting then Israel as firmly as now, etc… Obviously, it is the situation that changed. The people from Western Europe would not go on a jihad. However, during the last decade their opinion on the USA plummeted, too. Twenty years ago, if you were an American in Berlin, you would be revered, and more honored than the Berliners around… Not anymore. Now, you can often hear: “The country that lied to the entire world about the Iraqi WMD? That created and still maintains the Guantanamo gulag? That ran the Abu Ghraib prison? That bombed to destruction the civilians in Faluja? That shot the Italian hostage resque mission? That killed the Reuters journalists in Baghdad? That photographs, fingerprints and tracks every visitor like a criminal? That created the ECHELON system? That is killing in Afghanistan maybe more civilians than terrorists?… If it is decent, then Stalin is, too. This country is a blemish to the humankind.” Of course, the real criminal is the war itself. In a war, no involved army can avoid such things. The war always de-humanizes the people. And sometimes you can’t avoid wars… However, a moral country is expected to not lie to the other countries, in order to involve them, too, in a non-justified war. To not organize gulags. And when its soldiers perform some nasty crime, to not try first to cover it. Otherwise, this country starts being considered by the entire world as an immoral, cheating and lying one. If it is bigger and stronger, it earns the “Evil Empire” nickname, and deservedly. All of its moral superiority, earned with bitter, painful and long-lasting sacrifices, and often paid with the lives of many of its best people, quickly evaporates. The worst comes when this country continues to pretend that it is the mainstay of the world decency, morality and human rights. These pretensions make me, who has lived twenty-odd years in a communist country, instantly remember another country. One that pretended that it is the source of all human rights in the world, but actually was a big prison. The Soviet Union… Yes, there are differences. But not ones that matter when it comes to moral image and leadership. What about Wikileaks? What Wikileaks does is exposing the indecent and immoral things done, in this case, by the US army. When Adm. Mike Mullen says that this risks the lives of American soldiers or Afghan informants, he surely doesn’t believe himself – the leaked documents do not contain enough info to endanger them. Few people, if any, will believe him… What he actually achieves is to remind me (and not only me) of another kind of people, who also said what neither they nor anybody else believed. The Soviet functionaries. I don’t know if Pfc. Manning is the person who leaked those documents (and the “collateral murder” video on which the US copter pilots killed the Reuters journalists). If yes, he reminds me of another person – Hugh Thompson Jr, the officer who stopped the My Lai massacre, and leaked the info about it. He was sharply criticized by the US Congressmen for this. He was sent to missions without adequate cover and supply until he was gunned down and nearly killed. However, he was awarded a medal by the US government, because of his humanity. Will the same happen with Pfc. Manning? I doubt it. Given the current situation, it is more like he will get a sentence, and the medal will be preserved for those who will succeed to shut down Wikileaks. Which is another proof that the things in USA have changed – and a proof which direction they took. … Remember the great support Obama had among the ordinary people abroad before the president elections? Especially in Europe? There is a reason for this support. The ordinary people hoped that he will restore the US moral superiority, by bringing moral to the US politics… He failed to do it. The Guantanamo gulag stays. Some measures are taken to prevent the worst things the US Army does abroad – however, the “culture of concealment” is stronger than ever. Slowly, but surely one trend emerges and grows in the thinking of the people outside US. Namely, that this state has gone too far on the Evil Empire road. That it cannot be stopped anymore, even by a good-intended President. And that it is better late than never to say openly: “Things changed. This is not anymore the moral leader of the world – this is just another evil empire. One that the decent people must hate, loathe and oppose to.” What will happen if this trend of thinking prevails? Easy guess. Al-Qaeda will grow and attract more and more people, and will probably obstruct more of the US activity abroad. In fact, it may gain enough support to carry its fight on American soil. The support for US in Europe and the rest of the world will gradually diminish, to the extent that even the pro-US politicians will have to become blind and deaf to the USA needs. And very surely there will be new “cold wars” – economic, cultural etc. – between USA and some other countries, but it will not be possible anymore to win them through moral superiority. Know Thy Enemy USA is still the strongest military power in the world. However, even it cannot afford a major war against a decently strong enemy on its soil. And an union between some of the other top countries might prove as strong militarily. Not speaking that USA is not the world biggest exporter since quite a lot of time, and relatively soon is going to be dethroned from the first place in the economics, too. (In fact, the EU already did it.) So, a question arises – how USA is going to maintain its influence in the world? Typically, influence is maintained by what you export, in the broadest sense of the word. Currently, USA exports almost only military power and economic size. In not a long time these will diminish, compared to other countries. Unless USA finds something else to export, and to be the top exporter, its influence in the world will be lost. Which carries a lot of problems for it, and for the world, too. The single thing that USA is uniquely positioned to export is exactly the moral superiority. Its long-standing culture of freedom, compassion and civil liberties is still unmatched anywhere in the world. If properly extended to the people outside USA borders, it can restore this superiority, to the extent USA can become its overwhelming exporter. However, the freedom and the civil liberties inside USA are seriously eroded during the last decades, and it seems that this trend will not be reversed easily. And the growing tendency to treat the non-US citizens as second-class people doesn’t help too much. Still, it is worth trying to do what can be done to preserve the moral superiority. The history has clearly shown that every bit of it is worth more than an army of tanks, even in a war. Unless USA choose this path, they are headed where the decadent Roman Empire was headed – to internal corruption, weakness and ultimately disappearance. This is the road down that every evil empire takes, sooner or later. To preserve moral superiority, the US must first learn what is the correct move in situations like the current one. Whether Wikileaks is its enemy, or the best friend they can find – one that is brave enough to tell you you have a nasty problem, and to press on you to solve it on time. And whether people like Mike Mullen are its best servants, or its best enemies – the ones that tell you “There is no problem, continue this way, people will never learn of the crimes, truth never comes out”. If you are still not sure which is the correct position, ask one truly outstanding soldier – Gen. David Petraeus. He will surely be able to tell you the truth… Actually, you can tell it yourself, by using his simple principle – which action decreases the number of your enemies, and increases the number of your friends.

On 1/13/16, juan wrote:

On Wed, 13 Jan 2016 10:32:52 +0100 coderman wrote:

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"On the Moral Superiority" - http://www.gatchev.info/blog/?p=1017

Browsed that. It mostly contains commonplace bullshit and cliches. What's your point?

Just one sample : "Twenty years ago, if you were an American in Berlin, you would be revered" Sure. And pigs fly.

I find that polemic to be very good - not for the cliches of course, but for two things: 1) an insight from a non American of how America was viewed leading up to the end of the cold war (originally just "us vs them, we can do it cheaper" eventually "us evil vs them higher moral ground"); (This itself might be nothing more than a cliche, but I appreciate the insight from a post- Communist block human) 2) a proscription for "saving" the United States of America - find the moral high ground, "export" that moral high ground (in action, not in propaganda words); [s/moral/ethical/ as you will] I am a "Western" non-American (Australia) and when I read the " founding fathers' " words of the USofA and of Australia, I actually find some of them to be genuinely worthy to strive for, to hold as worthy in general for future generations. The overt corruption, blatant violation of foundation (constitutional) principles and basic human rights by the various "Western" governments is enough to draw out the cynic in the best intentioned individual and send the rest to some beer and TV soma. I agree with the proscription of this polemic of "live/ action the higher moral ground". That is clear, unambiguous, allows for the personal/ conscience (Juan, I'm keeping a firm open mind to political anarchy :) , and thankfully proscriptive. In a world where almost every proscription is shouted from tall poppy hills and nearly every cry for sanity is met with bottomless cynicism (the latter of which I am entirely guilty as charged), this simple and dare I say unassailable "solution" might be something we can work with (propagandise, educate about, demand from our "elected authorities"). "Embrace your inner control freak - demand ethical government!" perhaps? Short of a benevolent (ethical) dictator (head of government), perhaps the only ethical government is No Government - just can't seem to shake this thought these days... damn you Juan! ;)

By the way, in what sense did russia lose the 'cold war'? I think they still have enough missiles to teach the americans a leason or fifty.

Yes they have the firepower to easily win a hot war. The cold war is that war for the hearts and or minds of the people - and Russia did not lose this war to America per se, they lost it due to their own leadership ( / their manifestation of "communism") - even though, as the apparently Russian cold-war experiencing blogger said "America won because they had the higher moral ground".

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On the Moral Superiority

null pointer

Frankly re the current Subject: "Self Preservation and Irreversible Decline", "Moral Superiority" is I say the most practical answer yet - if we trust that in principle humans are basically righteous/ ethical/ moral/ good, this seems a solid foundation for justifying political anarchism yes? Likewise direct democracy. Before anyone jumps in to ask "surely the same applies to 'democracy'", note that democracy devolves to power ultimately wielded by a very small cadre of individuals, in the case of USA and executive orders, just one individual it seems, which is particularly problematic since sociopaths are by nature attracted to such positions or to controlling i.e. compromising or puppeteering those in such positions; - whereas with direct democracy 'the people' only have themselves to blame, since they vote for/against every single law and executive order, and in political anarchy, well who knows since we haven't seen a large anarchist community AFAICT - perhaps anarchy would be more practical and or long lasting than 'western (two) party democracy', perhaps it would devolve to a modern tribal type thing... I doubt any system will achieve a long lasting utopianism given the average state of consciousness of humans on our lovely blue planet. Perhaps s/moral/ethical/ ? I have never quite understood why people get hung up on these terms - perhaps past experience of religionists ramming "Godly morals" down the throat? - if so, take control of the word and smite those who would blaspheme the one true definition of "moral" according to the god of your own sensible mind! :) ("Smite" as in, use words to cut them and slice them to size.) Z A couple of definitions: Ethics \Eth"ics\ ([e^]th"[i^]ks), n. [Cf. F. ['e]thique. See {Ethic}.] The science of human duty; the body of rules of duty drawn from this science; a particular system of principles and rules concerting duty, whether true or false; rules of practice in respect to a single class of human actions; as, political or social ethics; medical ethics. [1913 Webster]

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (20 July 2014) [foldoc]: computer ethics ethics

<philosophy> Ethics is the field of study that is concerned with questions of value, that is, judgments about what human behaviour is "good" or "bad". Ethical judgments are no different in the area of computing from those in any other area. Computers raise problems of privacy, ownership, theft, and power, to name but a few.

From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]: ethics n 1: motivation based on ideas of right and wrong [syn: {ethical motive}, {ethics}, {morals}, {morality}] 2: the philosophical study of moral values and rules [syn: {ethics}, {moral philosophy}]

juan:

Well, yes, a political system based on real, individual consent is the only system that can claim 'moral superiority'.

Funnily enough, western political rhetoric/propaganda is based on the ideas of 'government by consent', 'self-government' 'social contract' and the like. All that stuff logically takes political anarchy (the abilty for individuals to *actually* 'govern' themselves) for granted. And of course, the members of the western political mafia/state don't believe or apply a single word of their own propaganda. Which makes them so morally un-superior...

"In this article, I’m going to argue that the U.S. government, in particular, has been overrun by the wrong kind of person. It’s a trend that’s been in motion for many years but has now reached a point of no return. In other words, a type of moral rot has become so prevalent that it’s institutional in nature. There is not going to be, therefore, any serious change in the direction in which the U.S. is headed until a genuine crisis topples the existing order. Until then, the trend will accelerate. The reason is that a certain class of people – sociopaths – are now fully in control of major American institutions. Their beliefs and attitudes are insinuated throughout the economic, political, intellectual, and psychological/spiritual fabric of the U.S." ~Doug Casey, The Ascendance of Sociopaths in U.S. Governance http://kickass-cookies.co.uk/the-ascendance-of-sociopaths-in-u-s-governance/ -- RR "You might want to ask an expert about that - I just fiddled around with mine until it worked..."

juan:

On Sat, 16 Jan 2016 20:48:10 +0000 Razer wrote:

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~Doug Casey, The Ascendance of Sociopaths in U.S. Governance

Are you quoting casey at face value or as an example of hollow libertarian rhetoric? I think the latter may be closer to the truth.

(though the bit about the US government being corrupt to the point of no return is correct)

Casey is supposed to be some kind of anarchist, yet the idea that a government(american or other) has been taken over by 'bad' people instead of being originally created by bad people, and being ineherently bad, is hardly in line with anarchist political analysis.

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http://kickass-cookies.co.uk/the-ascendance-of-sociopaths-in-u-s-governance/

I'd like to think his point is the sociological balance is past the tipping point, 'crossed the rubicon' so to speak, where it's no longer possible to repair the society to some globally normal state, or get the sociopaths out of power, if one thinks a capitalist society can be free of psychopaths and sociopaths in the first place. Ps. I'm not anal about sources. ANYONE can feel free to note and analyse the intrinsic problems of society and have their own solutions which I don't have to accept. In other words, punch holes in his premise, not his politics. -- RR "You might want to ask an expert about that - I just fiddled around with mine until it worked..."

On 1/16/16, juan wrote:

On Sat, 16 Jan 2016 20:48:10 +0000 Razer wrote:

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~Doug Casey, The Ascendance of Sociopaths in U.S. Governance

Are you quoting casey at face value or as an example of hollow libertarian rhetoric? I think the latter may be closer to the truth.

(though the bit about the US government being corrupt to the point of no return is correct)

Casey is supposed to be some kind of anarchist, yet the idea that a government(american or other) has been taken over by 'bad' people instead of being originally created by bad people, and being ineherently bad, is hardly in line with anarchist political analysis.

Damn it Juan! I was just about to post a "Thanks Razer, evidently there's no new thought under the sun" (and Razer, thanks regardless), then in true form, you point out a fundamental limitation in (in this case Casey's, and what I thought was my own) presented position. This highlights for me personally how programmed I am in my think, and how useful it is to be perpetually reminded of at least one or two of the limitations of said think. But shit, it's embarrassing how programmed I am... I sure f-ing hope -one- of these days I can give "the Juan clarification" (at least to myself/ in my head) before you yourself do so. Wow. (Still there's no new thought under the Sun, but how hard is it to shake one's programming.)

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http://kickass-cookies.co.uk/the-ascendance-of-sociopaths-in-u-s-governance/

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 01/17/2016 03:51 PM, juan wrote:

On Sun, 17 Jan 2016 12:05:34 +0000 Zenaan Harkness wrote:

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This highlights for me personally how programmed I am in my think, and how useful it is to be perpetually reminded of at least one or two of the limitations of said think. But shit, it's embarrassing how programmed I am...

Well, once you realize you are programmed, then you are not programmed anymore =P

I so VERY much wish that was true! I have worked on 'deprogramming' myself since age 17 or 18, with some degree of success - but only in proportion to the amount of effort expended X the amount of time spent pushing, pushing, pushing. Have I moved off 'square one' yet? I think so, but sometimes I have my doubts. Early on I arrived at the conclusion that "Knowing better changes nothing." Identifying a self defeating mental complex only indicates a need to start programming its replacements. Without effective tools in hand, "knowing better" only leads to denial and rationalization: The higher one's verbal IQ and the broader one's general information, the faster and better defensive self deception works. The Zen aphorism "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water" may apply here. Even a fundamental, revolutionary change in perceived personal identity does not magically flush out a lifetime of beliefs, habits, and information belonging to some hypothetical "old self" that has supposedly been overturned. Enlightenment does not stop the flow of incoming propaganda, nor does it cancel the established relationships and dependencies with the external world that define a person as a social and economic entity. That thunderous, world-shattering AHA! moment, if it comes, will at best present a series of new and more difficult mountains to climb.

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I sure f-ing hope -one- of these days I can give "the Juan clarification" (at least to myself/ in my head) before you yourself do so.

I don't want to claim more credit than I deserve, which is basically...none.

Wow. (Still there's no new thought under the Sun, but how hard is it to shake one's programming.)

Bob Wilson got on that particular bus sometime in the 1960s. By the 1980s spreading the gospel of self-deprogramming became his major mission in life. I have gotten a lot of mileage out of the cognitive tools presented here: http://www.principiadiscordia.com/downloads/04%20Prometheus%20Rising .pdf Yesterday someone asked me for a "Cliff Notes" version of Wilson's video Maybe Logic, itself a condensed / introductory gloss of his written works on self deprogramming. I had to advise him that "Cliff Notes" approaches to political and existential problems can only make them worse...

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http://kickass-cookies.co.uk/the-ascendance-of-sociopaths-in-u- s-governance/

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I like to define politics as the process flow of power relationships in a society. In this context, blaming systemic political failures on broken State institutions or malicious actors wielding State power can not produce practical solutions. These problems arise mutually; neither can do its nefarious work without the other, so repairing either allows the other to undo the repair job - and creates an institutional memory to immunizing the State against repetition of those repairs. :o/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJWuDtSAAoJEDZ0Gg87KR0L5QEQAOZBQSR4bum5N9I8tV0mta6f /lZoexRAAklQ9IFH8NxDFtbQHl7BB5EKMn9puMdIG4zzr93HCMwvBn8UUAjBlOwd QFF6bprPnb8IX415GjtVlD5jlp6x+vsmCiKog2uJHr4Quu1TQi6r8g5Y7nqdWlAT Szuif5G6kGdH/hrCYPiZZJ2sPKhMuWCjZ0tw1nkYfrt/cVKpi1t0aXgQPHi9wVue OVD+LWYEMHSZ0iKlb9nP3nOkzVrcNE8U4ZcvRUFQnxsi6ZDwsFzxpBJYUKvzyCso GVsTnsRZXmNI1Z4h09KEh5PBzmAW1qmptYuHzeudA/IeBSqnCK+scCUdrz4eqWaI OD0sVhgrXeZmnRL2KO37eUBA2AAaE/TdtLlpb+k5wAITMf5wNaPPeLln1XAkoQ8Z pC9mBxCMai0NfxpkcL4UgXuNkn91VRs0QKpPtEb8l6NFVPy7COev2qDUyId79NoJ YLAyrfeWiAF5BMLffAv5umBhQWImQ3gon28zLTuS/GGw67dWA4peSlP3BW6aIFAl GSn1etq1LqB4PrCBm/6CYGsbyxoJ77rBhH5/1rO8oDhXWkgjOBmnR5zEwXmSr1a9 arSHQMlhGFrB2LuIbVc1dg8C9yPxmzR8XemKX105f24f7c7keBP8qDoa/nYfJ636 OxsGtFQokidBiz+jSx8k =wHlU -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On 1/16/16, juan wrote:

On Fri, 15 Jan 2016 03:33:49 +0000 Zenaan Harkness wrote:

...

- whereas with direct democracy 'the people' only have themselves to blame, since they vote for/against every single law and executive order,

Well, that would be at least more interesing and honest than the system we currently have. The problem remains though, some people seem to believe that whatever a majority votes for is automatically good or legitimate.

Yes that's a problem with (most) people it seems. That's where the right to individual objection, non-consent or "political protest" would perhaps have a far better chance of survival in direct democracy -> where an individual demonstrates an issue which a few handfuls of other people consider valid, then hi ho, hi ho, it's off to the ballot we go -> which is what I thought (when I was young, which was at least a few dozen moments ago) democracy was supposed to be.

On Fri, 15 Jan 2016 02:22:01 +0000 Zenaan Harkness wrote:

I guess that's the ultimate propaganda success really - not being aware that your country is always at war, and pretty much always has been.

Yep. I'm not sure if I already linked this http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0705933/ http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s07e01-im-a-little-bit-country It's probably the best analysis of the 'american political system' (and history) that I know. (funnily enough. it's way better than anything that professional political 'philosophers' say, including statist 'libertarians')

War is the ultimate rejection and domination of the sovereignty of other nations and individuals. So a government having their nation's people thinking they're not at war, and most of the time have not been, is the fundamental delusion of and successful propaganda of despotism.

Your 93% link is eye opening - I knew it was coup after coup (war after war) since WWII, but was not aware of how similar this was to pre-WWII. And it seems most 'Merrycans don't quite see it (yet?) either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Stick_ideology

Z

PS If anyone can get/ leak the real/ original British Queen Elizabeth II's (alleged) Christmas message from December 2015, that would be freakin punk! (That would be the one where she says "enjoy your last Christmas" if the allegation has any truth to it.) Any good high-brow British cp's round here? Onion links acceptable...

On 1/15/16, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

... I guess that's the ultimate propaganda success really - not being aware that your country is always at war, and pretty much always has been. War is the ultimate rejection and domination of the sovereignty of other nations and individuals.

next question: can you have nation states without war?

PS If anyone can get/ leak the real/ original British Queen Elizabeth II's (alleged) Christmas message from December 2015, that would be freakin punk! (That would be the one where she says "enjoy your last Christmas" if the allegation has any truth to it.) Any good high-brow British cp's round here? Onion links acceptable...

paging TheCthulhu... paging TheCthulhu to information freedom dept... if anyone can get it, he's got a good shot! ;P

related: ''' In Stayin’ Alive, his powerful history of the “last days” of the working class, the historian Jefferson Cowie describes how the proud blue-collar identity of previous generations disintegrated during the ’70s. “Liberty has largely been reduced to an ideology that promises economic and cultural refuge from the long arm of the state,” he writes, “while seemingly lost to history is the logic that culminated under the New Deal: that genuine freedom could only happen within a context of economic security.” As working-class solidarity receded, an identity built on racial tribalism often swept in. ''' - https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/01/white-working-class-pov... The Atlantic All Hollowed Out The lonely poverty of America’s white working class Eric Thayer / Reuters Victor Tan Chen Jan 16, 2016 Business For the last several months, social scientists have been debating the striking findings of a study by the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton.* Between 1998 and 2013, Case and Deaton argue, white Americans across multiple age groups experienced large spikes in suicide and fatalities related to alcohol and drug abuse—spikes that were so large that, for whites aged 45 to 54, they overwhelmed the dependable modern trend of steadily improving life expectancy. While critics have challenged the magnitude and timing of the rise in middle-age deaths (particularly for men), they and the study’s authors alike seem to agree on some basic points: Problems of mental health and addiction have taken a terrible toll on whites in America—though seemingly not in other wealthy nations—and the least educated among them have fared the worst. Meanwhile, other recent research has piled on the bad news for those without college degrees. A Pew study released last month found that the size of the middle class—defined by a consistent income range across generations—has shrunk over the last several decades. In part, this is because high-paying jobs for the less educated are vanishing. The study builds on other recent research that finds that almost all the good jobs created since the recession have gone to college graduates. The workers I interviewed after the recession for my book on unemployment—less-educated factory workers—offer some tentative clues about what might be driving the disquieting trends described by the Case and Deaton study. This is one of the groups hit hardest by the rising inequality and greater risk of unemployment and financial insecurity that have become features of today’s economy, and their experiences put in concrete terms how the economy and culture have become more hostile to workers not lucky enough to be working in posh offices on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley. One man I talked to was 47 years old, the son of a Detroit factory worker who headed into the plants himself. (As is standard in sociology, my interviewees were promised confidentiality.) He told me how he recently lost his $11-an-hour job: He was driving a forklift at his company’s plant when he accidentally crashed into a ladder. No one was hurt and nothing was damaged—but he was an at-will worker at a company with no union, and he was fired. Shortly afterward, his wife, who was making $8 an hour at a cleaning company, decided to leave him. The stress of failing to find a job and being alone made him too depressed to eat, and he started taking antidepressants. When it comes to explaining American economic trends, it is important to remember how critical a role manufacturing and unions have played in the building—and now dismantling—of a strong middle class. For generations, factories provided good jobs to people who never went to college, allowing families—first white ethnic immigrants, and then others—to be upwardly mobile. Bringing together large numbers of people under a single roof, factory jobs were also relatively easy to organize. As the sociologists Bruce Western and Jake Rosenfeld have argued, unions at their prime helped create a “moral economy” in which wages rose both in firms with unions and those without them, and in which the average worker had a notable voice—however compromised back then by nativism and other exclusionary tendencies—lobbying on their behalf in Washington. But in the late ’90s—the beginning of the crisis period that Case and Deaton identify—the number of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. dropped dramatically. Intensified by free-trade deals such as NAFTA, the hollowing-out of American industry then was much greater, in terms of the absolute number of jobs lost, than what the country experienced during its first wave of deindustrialization. Twenty years ago, union membership—in decline since the ’60s—fell to a level not seen since the Great Depression. For various reasons, it became much harder to pursue the sorts of collective action that unions once cultivated throughout the economy—that is, banding together to convince companies and governments to treat employees better. Free trade and automation undercut the bargaining positions of the working class. Political leaders, bankrolled by the wealthy, rolled back the interventionist policies of the New Deal and postwar period. Corporations, once relatively tolerant of unions, tapped a cottage industry of anti-union consultants and adopted unseemly tactics to crush any organizing drives in their workplaces. As organized labor in this country has withered, an extreme individualism has stepped in as the alternative—a go-it-alone perspective narrowly focused on getting an education and becoming successful on one’s own merit. This works well for some, but for others—especially the two-thirds of Americans over the age of 25 who don’t have a bachelor’s degree—it often means getting mired in an economy of contract work, low pay, and few, if any, benefits. These prospects suggest that this is an age of diminished expectations for the working class. Certainly, it cannot be said enough that African Americans and Latinos continue to fare significantly worse than whites in terms of their overall rates of death and disease, even if the racial gap has narrowed. Indeed, the broader story that many commentators seem to have neglected in recent months is the decline of the working class as a whole. In the decades after World War II, racial minorities were denied many of the jobs, loans, and other resources that allowed the white majority to buy homes and accrue wealth. If the gains of economic growth have gone largely to the rich in recent years, in that earlier period the white working class could count on hefty rises in living standards from generation to generation, and they grew accustomed to that upward trajectory of growing prosperity. When the labor market turned against them, they had the hardest fall. Many in the working class are going without marriage—a form of social support. Any explanation of the ominous trends in the Case and Deaton study is, at the moment, speculative. More research is needed, as social scientists like to say, and there are numerous caveats. For example, while the disappearance of high-paying jobs for those with little education is a large part of the overall story of a shrinking middle class, it can’t wholly account for the uptick of mortality identified in the Case and Deaton study. After all, other countries have not seen similar hikes in deaths, even though manufacturing and (to a lesser extent) union membership have crumbled abroad as well. Likewise, the groups that have been affected most viciously by these market trends in the U.S., African Americans and Latinos, have not suffered the dramatic increases in death by suicide or substance abuse that whites have. It may be that changes in the economy have affected these workers in different ways. For instance, whites are more likely to be employed in the declining manufacturing sector than African Americans or Hispanics—and for that matter, they’re more likely to live in the rural communities devastated by this most recent, post-NAFTA era of deindustrialization. Furthermore, whites are less likely to be union members than African Americans (though not Asians or Hispanics). Yet there is clearly more to the despair of the working class than empty wallets and purses. Patches of the social fabric that once supported them, in good times and bad, have frayed. When asked in national surveys about the people with whom they discussed “important matters” in the past six months, those with just a high-school education or less are likelier to say no one (this percentage has risen over the years for college graduates, too). This trend is troubling, given that social isolation is linked to depression and, in turn, suicide and substance abuse. Related Story Middle-Aged White Americans Are Dying of Despair One form of social support that many in the working class are going without is marriage. I’m reminded of another worker I interviewed, a jobless 54-year-old white woman who used to work at a Ford plant. Her husband left her, she says, when the paychecks stopped coming. “Jesus Christ,” she told him once. “I didn’t think that our relationship was based on the amount of money that I brought in.” Unable to pay her mortgage, she lost her home and had to move in, as she puts it, with a “man friend.” She is depressed, unable to sleep at night, and constantly worried about falling into poverty. “I’m a loser,” she says. As scholars of family life as politically distinct as Andrew Cherlin and Charles Murray have stressed, college graduates and the less educated have greatly diverged in terms of when and how they partner up and have kids. Nowadays, well-educated couples are much more likely to marry, stay married, and have children within marriage than those with less schooling. The white working class in particular is seeing sharp drops in these indicators—again, not to the levels of nonwhites, but a drastic reversal all the same, and one that has intensified over the last few decades. A large part of the explanation for this must be that society’s attitudes about the sanctity and permanence of marriage have changed. But it’s important to note that there is an economic dimension to these trends, too—as the frequent separations and divorces I saw among the long-term unemployed made plain to me. Those struggling financially are less likely to follow the traditional path of first comes marriage, then comes a baby. And if they do choose to get married, there is little room for unemployment. As the Detroit man who lost his job told me, he and his wife split up “because she’s working, and … I don’t have any money coming in.” They had been fighting over finances even before he lost his job, he points out, but the arguments grew more heated afterward. In a lone-wolf economy, as sociologists Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas have argued, why take a chance on a partner down on his luck when you’re just barely surviving yourself? The waning of religious belief may be another trend aggravating the modern malaise of the white working class. Since the ’90s, the number of Americans who declare no religious preference on surveys has almost tripled—from 8 percent at the beginning of that decade, to 21 percent in 2014. Whites fall disproportionately into this camp. The religiously unaffiliated are not necessarily secular in their outlook. Many of them are spiritually inclined but skeptical of organized religion—especially its intrusion into politics. However, in the absence of any other source of social support and collective meaning (say, unions), there’s less in the way of psychological protection from the slings and arrows of American society. This sort of isolation was common among the people I talked to. Many said their faith was helping them get through their ongoing troubles, yet they rarely or never went to church. Some felt ashamed to be around people because they were out of work. For others, their religious belief was somewhat a source of self-help, rather than a source of community. For example, one of the workers I interviewed said that being out of work for so long had filled him with a constant rage. To calm his mind, every night he would pick up his Bible and read a dozen verses. He had given up on the church and what he described as its superficial ways. “I want to go to hear the Word—I don’t want to go to see what you’re wearing,” says the man, 53 and from Flint, Michigan. The other way he copes is going outside for a smoke. For this man and many like him, there is no one to talk to, no one to rely on. “Nowadays, you got people you really can’t trust, man,” he says. “You can’t call everybody your friend.” As the ties that bind them to others have unraveled, the working class has become an ever lonelier crowd. Policies to keep people from sinking into poverty and long-term unemployment could make a huge difference. The larger context of this isolation and alienation is America’s culture of individualism. It, too, can worsen the despair. Taken to an extreme, self-reliance becomes a cudgel: Those who falter and fail have only themselves to blame. They should have gotten more education. They should have been more prepared. On this score, too, the U.S. deviates from other wealthy nations. America’s frontier spirit of rugged individualism is strong, and it manifests itself differently by race and education level, too. White Americans, for instance, are more likely to see success as the result of individual effort than African Americans are (though not Hispanics). The less educated, particularly less-educated whites, also share this view to a disproportionate degree. In Stayin’ Alive, his powerful history of the “last days” of the working class, the historian Jefferson Cowie describes how the proud blue-collar identity of previous generations disintegrated during the ’70s. “Liberty has largely been reduced to an ideology that promises economic and cultural refuge from the long arm of the state,” he writes, “while seemingly lost to history is the logic that culminated under the New Deal: that genuine freedom could only happen within a context of economic security.” As working-class solidarity receded, an identity built on racial tribalism often swept in. With that in mind, it’s interesting that Americans tout the importance of getting an education—an inherently individualistic strategy—as the pathway to success. This view was the ideological backbone of the Clinton administration policies put forth in the ’90s, with their individual training accounts and lifetime-learning credits. To this day, the supreme value of education remains one of the few things that Americans of all persuasions (presidential candidates included) can agree on. But this sort of zeal can lead to the view that those who have less education—the working class—are truly to blame for their dire straits. While many of them will go on to obtain more education, many others will not—because they can’t afford it, aren’t good students, or just (as some of my workers said) prefer working with their hands. But if they don’t collect the educational degrees needed for today’s good jobs, they are made to feel that they have failed in a fundamental way. Some of the analysis of the Case and Deaton article has focused rightly on recent developments in this country’s drug crisis—namely, the surge in abuse of prescription opioids, and the resurgence in heroin use, notably among whites. There is clearly a pressing need to deal more vigorously with this drug problem and the epidemic of fatal overdoses and liver disease that has affected the poor and working class in particular. At the same time, it should be said that risky individual behaviors are shaped by broader social conditions. As the researchers Bruce Link and Jo Phelan have argued, effective health interventions need to consider the underlying factors that put people “at risk of risks”—specifically, socioeconomic status and social support. Seeing this big picture is important because blocking one pathway to disease or death—say, opioid abuse—may just lead to people to opt for another deadly means of coping with the pain of their poor life prospects. One parting observation, then, is that policies to keep people from sinking into poverty and long-term unemployment can make a huge difference. In advanced industrial nations that have stronger social safety nets, the working class is not experiencing the rising death rates that Case and Deaton identified. Abroad, many of the working-class unemployed benefit from a financial backstop of sorts that keeps them from hurtling into the deepest forms of desperation. Here in the U.S. they would too, if only there were such a thing. * This article originally named one of the co-authors of this paper as Susan Case. We regret the error.

On 1/10/16, juan wrote:

On Sun, 10 Jan 2016 04:50:35 -0800 coderman wrote:

...

now USA in a state of perpetual war, It has always been. So what the fuck are you talking about. executive power at record levels, surveillance staggering in breadth and invasiveness, censorship and suppression of speech creeping ever further into the centralized systems dominating over our way of life, it's not good... and yet we're not rounding up foreign-born citizens and their families for incarceration at detention camps dude the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. What the fuck are you talking about. (like Japanese during the war). not to mention that much of the rest of the world would be killed or imprisoned leading my kind of life in another jurisdiction! DUDE! Are you trelling or what??

This reminds me of one of the Putinisms (courtesy wikipedia): "Russia is not the kind of a country that extradites human rights champions." (Россия не та страна которая выдаёт борцов за права человека.) – This Putin's comment on Snowden during the Q&A session with CNBC at the SPIEF on May 23, 2014 was followed by a storm of laughter and applause.[88][89] Kommersant described the reaction as follows: "A tempest of elation and applause erupted, and a howl of laughter and weeping hung over the hall" ("Поднялась просто буря восторга, аплодисментов, над залом застрял стон из хохота и плача"), and commented that not everybody grasped the full meaning of the utterance.[90]

On 2/8/16, Sean Lynch wrote:

... During WWII it was not permissible to speak out against the war; you'd be considered to be aiding the enemy. I think it was worse in Europe than in the US, but still. There was a time when a majority of American men in a certain age range were veterans. Now they're a tiny minority. It allows a much greater diversity of thought.

true! last week i got back FOIA documents from DHS. it was the first page of every classification guide they authored within the department, guides which explain to those working with sensitive information (even TS/SA, TS/ECI :) how that sensitivity should be determined. the front page also contains a list of superseded classification guides and other deprecated materials - in turn useful for tracking the lineage of surveillance and military programs within the intelligence community. and, the courts slapped down the FBI's refusal to hand over processing notes for FOIA requests. this fabricated denial through a creative interpretation was soundly rejected by the judge as outside scope of FOIA statute itself. the Meta-FOIA lives on! funny that FOIA restores faith in humanity, if ever so briefly... (^_^;)

... revolutions seem to happen when they are closest to being unnecessary, otherwise they wouldn't be possible. So I think the answer is that for corruption to spread that far, it must be pervasive throughout society, not through some separate thing called "the State." Which means if the State is really that corrupt, revolution may well be impossible, and the only solution may be war by other states.

first to global netwar win retains ever-after dominance? perhaps an ever more empowered individual gives world time; need only wait for fight by the right watermeatbag to fill the role demanded...

... Instead, revolution will happen not because the State is extremely corrupt, since that would require a corrupt society, but because it is weak and the people perceive it as corrupt.

i get what you're laying down. i'm voting for Bernie too... *grin*

Hmm. I think the notion that the State and the public are not truly separate applies here as well. So it's not so much that it wouldn't be detected as that the corruption would encompass all of society.

there was a recent FOP leak, showing how union contract agreements with municipalities and states force destruction of records indicative of police misconduct. certainly undetected corruption in rampant - who watches the watchers conveniently empowered fully outside the legal constraints facing every other citizen?

This is kind of my worst nightmare; that my optimism has been misguided all this time. I wrote a post on liberty.me about how to deal with an invincible adversary that may be relevant here: https://undergroundeconomist.liberty.me/dealing-with-an-invincible-adversary...

"Fighting a far more powerful adversary requires a completely different way of thinking than dealing with one who has similar capabilities to yours. " ^- this is also true! however, you don't continue with a full explanation of how to resolve this complication... :)

In the forward of an obscure book I've started reading, The Omega Seed by Paolo Soleri, the forward author talks about how the Christians, instead of continually trying to fight ineffectual revolts against the Romans as their Jewish forebears had, instead focused on building communities. I think we need to focus not only on building communities where we're connected to one another, but where we're strongly connected to people around us who may not share our exact beliefs.

indeed. i've enjoyed great conversation with people across every corner of the political spectrum. there's more than enough common ground to go around, if we can get past the habit forming narcotic of outrage pr0n on media propaganda lambdas... one side effect of such ideological purity purges in intelligence community is the erosion of technical talent and capability. drunk twice over on offensive suites too sweet for non-discreet, now is reckoning with interest past due! best regards, [ maybe the forthcoming DoJ leak will shed more sunshine? ]

...

that for corruption to spread that far, it must be pervasive throughout society, not through some separate thing called "the State." Which means if the State is really that corrupt, revolution may well be impossible, and the only solution may be war by other states.

first to global netwar win retains ever-after dominance? perhaps an ever more empowered individual gives world time; need only wait for fight by the right watermeatbag to fill the role demanded...

...

... Instead, revolution will happen not because the State is extremely corrupt, since that would require a corrupt society, but because it is weak and the people perceive it as corrupt.

i get what you're laying down. i'm voting for Bernie too... *grin*

.... hrrm .....

...

In the forward of an obscure book I've started reading, The Omega Seed by Paolo Soleri, the forward author talks about how the Christians, instead of continually trying to fight ineffectual revolts against the Romans as their Jewish forebears had, instead focused on building communities. I think we need to focus not only on building communities where we're connected to one another, but where we're strongly connected to people around us who may not share our exact beliefs.

indeed. i've enjoyed great conversation with people across every corner of the political spectrum. there's more than enough common ground to go around, if we can get past the habit forming narcotic of outrage pr0n on media propaganda lambdas...

one side effect of such ideological purity purges in intelligence community is the erosion of technical talent and capability. drunk twice over on offensive suites too sweet for non-discreet, now is reckoning with interest past due!

Well, doesn't this really mean we should be voting for Trump to really get the purges going?

dan@geer.org wrote:

...

Well, doesn't this really mean we should be voting for Trump to really get the purges going?

Lenin would (heighten the contrast)

--dan

Break it! 'Mericans never fix anything until it's totally broken, so just fucking BREAK IT! Ps. Nowdays 'Mericans don't fix ANYTHING... They just throw it away. Buh-Bye Democracy, you were just a mythrepresentation (snigger) anyway. -- RR "Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to pinpoint potential trouble-makers ... And neutralize them, neutralize them, neutralize them"

Troy Benjegerdes wrote:

On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 09:31:58AM -0800, Rayzer wrote:

...

dan@geer.org wrote:

...

...

Well, doesn't this really mean we should be voting for Trump to really get the purges going?

Lenin would (heighten the contrast)

--dan

Break it! 'Mericans never fix anything until it's totally broken, so just fucking BREAK IT!

Ps. Nowdays 'Mericans don't fix ANYTHING... They just throw it away. Buh-Bye Democracy, you were just a mythrepresentation (snigger) anyway. "Cpunks for Trump: Make Murica Break again" This message paid for by the Putin/Snowden alliance

It's already broken. AAMOF from any perspective other than the "Rich White Male" perspective, It was stillborn, disposed of in a garbage pit, and doused in lime to aid it's decomposition. This message brought to you by ME, the 40+% of American Black Males who have been imprisoned, and what's left of the indigenous people of the continent... For a start. -- RR "Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to pinpoint potential trouble-makers ... And neutralize them, neutralize them, neutralize them"