Lets get one thing straight from the start. I learned these three things not because I followed them, but because I didn't follow them. I learned this wisdom, such as it is, from the pit of despair, not from the pinnacle of success. I am trying to follow them now, at 53 years of age. Kinda late, I know. But, I think most would say better late than never. I think Jesus would say that. One of the reasons I think He lets us suffer is to give us the opportunity to gain wisdom and to share it with others. It is my prayer that this little blog will help some sole in despair somehow, somewhere. Ok, here goes!
RULE NUMBER ONE (THE FUN RULE) Do whatever you want with your life!!! Everyone is going to like this. Follow your muse. Live your passion. Find your vocation. Do your own thing. Insert your own cliché here. Because they're all true. Don't worry about the market. Don't worry that it is hard. Go for it! Want to be an artist, be an artist. Want to be a blacksmith, be a blacksmith. Want to play center field for the Yankees, give it your best shot. Want to be a beach bum, well its a beautiful day. You only go around once in life...and its your life. Be who you want to be.
Wow! That was fun! There's got to be a catch right? You bet your sweet bippy there is!
RULE NUMBER TWO ( THE NASTY RULE). Try to follow Rule1 and the world will make you swallow lots and lots of shit! Shit from your parents. Shit from your spouse. Shit from your family in general. Shit from your friends. Shit from your enemies. Shit from society, which is just a fancy word for all the people who will tell you how to live your life. Guilt will be heaped upon you. You will be made to feel selfish. Irresponsible. Because there will be two forces dishing out the shit. One is peer pressure, because in a way, high school never ends. All those people who never had the guts to follow rule No. 1 will move heaven and earth to make sure you don't either. Because they don't want you to be happy when they are miserable. Because rule 2 shit can be vicious and terrifying. We wont pay for your college if you don't do what I say. Or I'll divorce you. Never be your friend again. You don't need me to remind you of the nasty things that people can do to you. For most people, this is more than enough to keep them in line.
In case that isn't enough, there is "the system". The system needs you to forget about your dreams so you can work to make its leaders richer. The system needs fodder to stuff its cubicles, clean their toilets, and pick their crops, among other fun things.. The system does want people living their dreams. The system wants slaves. Peer pressure works on your fear of being left behind, of being lonely. The system works on your fear of poverty. To follow our dreams, to follow rule 1, is to risk your financial security. There is a weak safety net and that is the way the system wants it. Its not just that the elites don't want to pay for it. The system wants you to be terrified of walking the tightrope of life without a net. Bottom line: live your life your way and malevolent forces will combine to harass and scare the hell out of you. So very few people do it.
Sounds pretty gloomy, right? But wait, were not done! Time for....
RULE NO. THREE (THE WISE RULE). No matter how much you suffer under Rule 2, It will never be as bad as the REGRETS you will suffer by NOT following rule 1!!!.
How do I know this? Because I have suffered oceans of regret in my life. Because like most of humanity, I caved in to Rule 2. Tried to take the safe way. Let other people lead me by the nose. For example, I would have loved to major in history or political science in college. But because I felt that I had to have a "marketable" degree, I majored in.....business. Not only did I hate it, not only did it bore me to death, the stuff I "learned" had no application in real life or is totally obsolete now. It did not make me any more money. Neither that obnoxious blowhard of a marketing professor, nor I, knew that something called the "internet" was coming down the pike and that said "internet" would reduce his words to a pile of gibberish. Like almost everyone else, when I came to a problem, I had to teach myself. I always loved history and politics. Like every amateur blogger worth his salt. I believe that my stuff is much better than a lot of the idiots who get paid for it. Why are they getting paid for it? Because they starting writing out of college. Do I have regrets about not being a writer out of college? With every keystroke on my blog. Rule 3 pain of regret is blistering and blinding. At least I learned this in my early 50's. I still have a shot. At least I am not finding this out on my deathbed like no many other poor souls. Thank you Jesus. Don't YOU wait until you are fifty years old to follow your own personal Rule One.
This is equally true in romance. Ask that guy or girl out! I am happily married now, but it doesn't mean I don't have any regrets. When I was in high school, I had a terrible crush on a girl. I was too shy to ask her out. The regrets still haunt me to this day, even though my rational brain says things worked out for the better. Luckily when I got to law school I had some unconscious inkling of the Three Rules of life. I fell in love with one of the most desired women in our class. I thought to myself, this time I wont let her go by! This won't be high school! So I pulled out all the romantic stops. Even lost a ton of weight to impress her. Know what? She turned me down flat. It really hurt at the time. But it doesn't hurt now! Unlike High School Girl, I barely think of her. Because I tried. Because I gave it my best! Took a big swing for the fences and I wiffed. Big time. But there are no regrets. At least I had the guts, for once in my life, to get in the game and step up to the plate.
One of the favorite tricks of Rule Two slaves is to say that following Rule One is selfish. Don't believe it. Do you want to help our poor, suffering world? Than stand up to all the drones who are ruining the world while their souls are slip sliding away (thank you Paul Simon).If you want to help the world, live your passion, because people who live their passion are exactly what this hurting world needs. Think about it.
Dear people, the biggest lie people believe is that you can live a life without suffering. This is the lie that makes people give up their dreams. People believe they can take the easy path. But its a terrible trick. Folks, in this life you are going to suffer. I wish it were otherwise. But we have the choice of how we suffer. We can suffer the pains of living our dreams. We can also suffer the pain of failure. Nobody likes to fail. But better to fail than not to try at all. Because there is nothing more horrible than the pain of regret. So, Good People, move heaven and earth to find out what your personal Rule 1 is and live it! Bravely prepare yourself for the inevitable Rule 2 heat, as bad as it might get. Because Rule Three is the wisest and deadliest of truths. Dear Jesus, give me the strength to bear the crosses of Life. Help me avoid the pain of regret.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Friday, October 23, 2015
Childhood and Education Changes Not For the Better
High Stakes Testing. Teaching to the test. Forcing children to sit there while you are teaching to the test because some idiot politician makes you teach to the test. Playdates. Your whole day totally regimented, Don't go outside because there is a child molester on every corner! Tons of homework. Soccer practice. Band practice. Karate. Ballet. Activity, Activity. Activity. You need this activity to put on your application to Harvard or Duke or Stanford, because if you don't get into an elite school your life is over. Its a tough world out there and we are just trying to protect you, sweetie. Its all for your own good! Thirteen year old Emily is cracking under the pressure? Give her a freaking Xanax because she needs to go to her SAT prep class! Can't slow down now! This is your future at stake!
Oh, did you hear about Josh down the street? Why would he kill himself? He was only fifteen years old. Guess he couldn't take it. Probably would have been a loser anyway.
It is amazing to me how well meaning parents have become monsters to their own children because of their own creeping terror. We live in a winner take all society, and baby, these adults know it. They know what happens when you lose. So they push their kids to the limit to make sure their kids stay above the ever more demanding machine. But by doing so, they perpetrate the machine's malevolent force. It is a shame that these parents are so bullshit with fear. If they could slow down and think through the fear, just maybe they would teach their children that they could change the system that is making everybody so miserable.
I grew up in the Seventies. There was a lot of things that were crazy about the Seventies. But dammit, we had fun! We would get on our bikes, not put on our helmets, and zip up and down the streets of Norridge and Harwood Heights, Illinois. (two little suburbs pressed between Chicago and O'Hare Airport). We would actually play with our friends. Unsupervised! Unstructured! Heck , if we tried to stay indoors, our patents would kick us out! Go outside! Stop being lazy. Don't get me wrong. I did not grow up in some "Leave it to Beaver existence". If you wanted drugs in Norridge you could find them. Easily. If you wanted to join a gang, you could do so. This was the Seventies, after all. The suburb I live in Florida now is a lot safer than Norridge was in the Seventies. But you know what the big difference is? My parents were a LOT less fearful than people are now. You knew your neighbors. There were 14 houses on the side of my block and I knew the names of all the families. I could write them all down now if you wanted me to. Not so now. I know very few of my neighbors. Some are so paranoid you wouldn't want to know them! I'm sure its the same for almost all who are reading this.
My high school, Ridgewood High, was founded in 1961, the year I was born. RHS (home of the Rebels!) was born in a burst of idealism and creativity. It was even listed as one of the top ten schools in the country by a news magazine in the early 60's. It was proud of following its own unique curriculum, the Trump plan.(no not that Trump!) RHS was born in an era when even working class suburbs could be proud of their public schools.
By the time I got there in 1976, a lot of the bloom was off the rose. Drugs had taken their toll. But the biggest disease rotting good ol' RHS was cynicism. We were the tail end of the baby boom, mostly the youngest kids in our families, more Gen X in attitude than Boomer. Many teachers didn't like the "I don't give a shit" attitude that prevailed among us, so many of them gave up on us. One teacher even sneered at us in a lecture hall "You all are as interesting as bat shit!" It wasn't really anyone's fault. Ridgewood was a part of America and America was just beginning its fall into the Reagan-induced miasma of self centeredness.
BUT.....I got some real benefits too. One of the features of the Trump Plan was a modular schedule. Our schedule was a 6 day recurring cycle, Day 1 through Day 6. Each day was divided up into 20 twenty minute "mods". Every day was different. Courses were divided up in "Large Groups" (lectures), "Small Groups" (seminars where you were seated around a round table) and "labs". Best of all, some mods were reserved for "independent study time" where you could go where you wanted and study. Now like all schools, the quality of instruction varied greatly. RHS had great teachers, lousy teachers and teachers in between. But what really saved school for me was the IS time. I was an obsessive reader and during this time I learned to teach myself. Sometimes I was so into teaching myself that my grades suffered. But in the long run that didn't matter. I wasn't going to Harvard anyway. I had the time to read and explore my love of learning. ( I also did my share of goofing off. Hey, we were kids! Something that is forgotten in 2015) This, not the instruction, was the great gift Ridgewood gave me. The gift of loving learning for learning's sake.
This is another of the reasons I'm glad I'm not a kid today. For the very simple reason that if I attended the typical high school of 2015 I would have gone crazy. Died of boredom. Would have seen right through the cynical lunacy of high stakes testing, like I am sure kids do today. The same thing every day. Teachers terrified to try anything new. Endless drilling in math and science to the exclusion of my favorite subjects. No time for frivolous independent study! OMG we are falling behind FINLAND!! Eeeeeeeeeee! Breaking our kids on the cross of our fears. Thank God I'm not a kid today!
Author William Deresiewicz, in his book Excellent Sheep describes hard working elite educated kids as...excellent sheep. Great at pleasing their elders and getting good grades. Working themselves to death. Stressed out to the max. But not so good at thinking for themselves. Totally unable to apply critical thinking skills to the wreckage of their own lives; to the dark tunnels that society has mapped out for them. There is no room for concepts that don't make money. Love for learning for learning's sake? Finding your own passion? Finding Jesus Christ?? Get real. Get with the program. Its just the way the world works. Could it be that the reason that so called "leaders'" beat critical thinking skills out of their kids is that the brutal winner-take-all society they pimp for cannot stand up to critical thinking? Wonderful country America has become. The 99% is brutally squeezed so the elite one percent can be........miserable. Folks, if this absurdity is going to change, it is going to have to be our kids who will change it. It might be a good idea to stop scaring the shit out of them.
Oh, did you hear about Josh down the street? Why would he kill himself? He was only fifteen years old. Guess he couldn't take it. Probably would have been a loser anyway.
It is amazing to me how well meaning parents have become monsters to their own children because of their own creeping terror. We live in a winner take all society, and baby, these adults know it. They know what happens when you lose. So they push their kids to the limit to make sure their kids stay above the ever more demanding machine. But by doing so, they perpetrate the machine's malevolent force. It is a shame that these parents are so bullshit with fear. If they could slow down and think through the fear, just maybe they would teach their children that they could change the system that is making everybody so miserable.
I grew up in the Seventies. There was a lot of things that were crazy about the Seventies. But dammit, we had fun! We would get on our bikes, not put on our helmets, and zip up and down the streets of Norridge and Harwood Heights, Illinois. (two little suburbs pressed between Chicago and O'Hare Airport). We would actually play with our friends. Unsupervised! Unstructured! Heck , if we tried to stay indoors, our patents would kick us out! Go outside! Stop being lazy. Don't get me wrong. I did not grow up in some "Leave it to Beaver existence". If you wanted drugs in Norridge you could find them. Easily. If you wanted to join a gang, you could do so. This was the Seventies, after all. The suburb I live in Florida now is a lot safer than Norridge was in the Seventies. But you know what the big difference is? My parents were a LOT less fearful than people are now. You knew your neighbors. There were 14 houses on the side of my block and I knew the names of all the families. I could write them all down now if you wanted me to. Not so now. I know very few of my neighbors. Some are so paranoid you wouldn't want to know them! I'm sure its the same for almost all who are reading this.
My high school, Ridgewood High, was founded in 1961, the year I was born. RHS (home of the Rebels!) was born in a burst of idealism and creativity. It was even listed as one of the top ten schools in the country by a news magazine in the early 60's. It was proud of following its own unique curriculum, the Trump plan.(no not that Trump!) RHS was born in an era when even working class suburbs could be proud of their public schools.
By the time I got there in 1976, a lot of the bloom was off the rose. Drugs had taken their toll. But the biggest disease rotting good ol' RHS was cynicism. We were the tail end of the baby boom, mostly the youngest kids in our families, more Gen X in attitude than Boomer. Many teachers didn't like the "I don't give a shit" attitude that prevailed among us, so many of them gave up on us. One teacher even sneered at us in a lecture hall "You all are as interesting as bat shit!" It wasn't really anyone's fault. Ridgewood was a part of America and America was just beginning its fall into the Reagan-induced miasma of self centeredness.
BUT.....I got some real benefits too. One of the features of the Trump Plan was a modular schedule. Our schedule was a 6 day recurring cycle, Day 1 through Day 6. Each day was divided up into 20 twenty minute "mods". Every day was different. Courses were divided up in "Large Groups" (lectures), "Small Groups" (seminars where you were seated around a round table) and "labs". Best of all, some mods were reserved for "independent study time" where you could go where you wanted and study. Now like all schools, the quality of instruction varied greatly. RHS had great teachers, lousy teachers and teachers in between. But what really saved school for me was the IS time. I was an obsessive reader and during this time I learned to teach myself. Sometimes I was so into teaching myself that my grades suffered. But in the long run that didn't matter. I wasn't going to Harvard anyway. I had the time to read and explore my love of learning. ( I also did my share of goofing off. Hey, we were kids! Something that is forgotten in 2015) This, not the instruction, was the great gift Ridgewood gave me. The gift of loving learning for learning's sake.
This is another of the reasons I'm glad I'm not a kid today. For the very simple reason that if I attended the typical high school of 2015 I would have gone crazy. Died of boredom. Would have seen right through the cynical lunacy of high stakes testing, like I am sure kids do today. The same thing every day. Teachers terrified to try anything new. Endless drilling in math and science to the exclusion of my favorite subjects. No time for frivolous independent study! OMG we are falling behind FINLAND!! Eeeeeeeeeee! Breaking our kids on the cross of our fears. Thank God I'm not a kid today!
Author William Deresiewicz, in his book Excellent Sheep describes hard working elite educated kids as...excellent sheep. Great at pleasing their elders and getting good grades. Working themselves to death. Stressed out to the max. But not so good at thinking for themselves. Totally unable to apply critical thinking skills to the wreckage of their own lives; to the dark tunnels that society has mapped out for them. There is no room for concepts that don't make money. Love for learning for learning's sake? Finding your own passion? Finding Jesus Christ?? Get real. Get with the program. Its just the way the world works. Could it be that the reason that so called "leaders'" beat critical thinking skills out of their kids is that the brutal winner-take-all society they pimp for cannot stand up to critical thinking? Wonderful country America has become. The 99% is brutally squeezed so the elite one percent can be........miserable. Folks, if this absurdity is going to change, it is going to have to be our kids who will change it. It might be a good idea to stop scaring the shit out of them.
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Too Big To Fail- Does Hillary Pass TheTest?
America's too big to fail banks are the largest criminal enterprises in the history of mankind, committing fraud on the scale that would make John Gotti blush. To recap what happened: The banks frantically made loans to people who they knew damm well could not pay them back. They got the ratings agencies to falsely declare these safe investments. They then sold these financial devices to unwitting investors all over the world. And when people started defaulting on their mortgages, they got robo-signers to forge signatures claiming that the banks still owed the paper. So the banks were in fact stealing houses after they sold the underlying mortgages. People paying off their mortgages had no idea if their payments were going to the proper holder of the mortgage. Many times they found out that they were paying the wrong people when they got sued for foreclosure themselves.
Then there was AIG and their credit default swaps. This was a fancy term for selling insurance on the banks bad loans . In fact, , the whole term "credit default swap" was to hide the fact that they were really selling insurance. You see, insurance is regulated by the government. Thanks to Bill Clinton and the Republicans (and too many Democrats) in Congress, financial derivatives are not. So party on AIG! They would sell CDS's for virtual pennies, agreeing to pay dollars if the loan went bad. Since the banks were engaging in fraud, the loans were guaranteed to go bad. AIG made a fortune selling these cheap CDO's before the bubble burst. Certain assholes at AIG got their big bonuses. Until the market tanked and they were on the hook for hundreds of BILLIONS in bad loans. This was greed and stupidity on an almost cosmic scale.
So what happened? The big banks and AIG were bailed out. The Democratic administration of Barack Obama went along with this. Were the big, crooked banks broken up? Of course not. Were they temporally taken over by the government so the books could be straightened out and the crooks purged? Of course not! Mustn't spook the marketplace! Almost nobody went to jail. Mustn't spook the market. Never mind that the victims of this epic fraud were "spooked" by the loss of their savings, homes, jobs, pensions, ect. And guess what forks? All these organizations are still around, still Too Big To Fail, still engaging in the same crap that got the world in trouble in the first place. Another crash is inevitable if something is not done. And they will get bailed out again. Because they are still Too Big To Fail.
Folks, this crap has to end. First of all, Glass Steagall must be reinstated. This was a depression era common sense law that said when you deposited your hard earned money in a bank, the bank could not invest that money in something stupid, like chinchilla farms and...credit default swaps. Glass Steagall did this by stating that commercial banks should not be allowed to invest like investment banks or insurance companies. This common sense law held us in good stead for 60 years, until the Democratic administration of Hillary's Husband got in cahoots with the Gingrich led Republicans in Congress and actually repealed it! Why? Mustn't interfere with the Great God Market. Good God. Do NOT forget that a Democratic President signed the repeal of the law that would have prevented the Great Recession. Do NOT forget that a Democratic president supported the bailouts. Do NOT forget that a Democratic president has not even tried to break up the Too Big To Fail institutions. Do NOT forget that a Democratic president has not even tried to put these crooks in jail.
My fellow progressives, we have to get control of the Democratic Party. Yes, I know the Republicans are batshit crazy. But we cannot let fear of the GOP let people like Hillary off the hook. It's because Democrats like the Clintons and Obama have basically accepted the conservative free market ideology that enables the Republicans to go crazy. Snarky Hillaryites smugly think we have no place to go, and so they take the banksters money and put in place 90 percent of the GOP economic agenda, Folks, this garbage has to stop.
So, I propose a simple litmus test for Democratic candidates. You will agree to 1) Reinstate Glass Steagall. 2) Break up the big banks 3) Prosecute banksters for their crimes. 4) Regulate and tax useless transactions that do society no good. 5) No more bailouts! In short END TOO BIG TO FAIL If you do not support this Democratic candidate, we will not support you . EVER.
Enough is Enough.
Then there was AIG and their credit default swaps. This was a fancy term for selling insurance on the banks bad loans . In fact, , the whole term "credit default swap" was to hide the fact that they were really selling insurance. You see, insurance is regulated by the government. Thanks to Bill Clinton and the Republicans (and too many Democrats) in Congress, financial derivatives are not. So party on AIG! They would sell CDS's for virtual pennies, agreeing to pay dollars if the loan went bad. Since the banks were engaging in fraud, the loans were guaranteed to go bad. AIG made a fortune selling these cheap CDO's before the bubble burst. Certain assholes at AIG got their big bonuses. Until the market tanked and they were on the hook for hundreds of BILLIONS in bad loans. This was greed and stupidity on an almost cosmic scale.
So what happened? The big banks and AIG were bailed out. The Democratic administration of Barack Obama went along with this. Were the big, crooked banks broken up? Of course not. Were they temporally taken over by the government so the books could be straightened out and the crooks purged? Of course not! Mustn't spook the marketplace! Almost nobody went to jail. Mustn't spook the market. Never mind that the victims of this epic fraud were "spooked" by the loss of their savings, homes, jobs, pensions, ect. And guess what forks? All these organizations are still around, still Too Big To Fail, still engaging in the same crap that got the world in trouble in the first place. Another crash is inevitable if something is not done. And they will get bailed out again. Because they are still Too Big To Fail.
Folks, this crap has to end. First of all, Glass Steagall must be reinstated. This was a depression era common sense law that said when you deposited your hard earned money in a bank, the bank could not invest that money in something stupid, like chinchilla farms and...credit default swaps. Glass Steagall did this by stating that commercial banks should not be allowed to invest like investment banks or insurance companies. This common sense law held us in good stead for 60 years, until the Democratic administration of Hillary's Husband got in cahoots with the Gingrich led Republicans in Congress and actually repealed it! Why? Mustn't interfere with the Great God Market. Good God. Do NOT forget that a Democratic President signed the repeal of the law that would have prevented the Great Recession. Do NOT forget that a Democratic president supported the bailouts. Do NOT forget that a Democratic president has not even tried to break up the Too Big To Fail institutions. Do NOT forget that a Democratic president has not even tried to put these crooks in jail.
My fellow progressives, we have to get control of the Democratic Party. Yes, I know the Republicans are batshit crazy. But we cannot let fear of the GOP let people like Hillary off the hook. It's because Democrats like the Clintons and Obama have basically accepted the conservative free market ideology that enables the Republicans to go crazy. Snarky Hillaryites smugly think we have no place to go, and so they take the banksters money and put in place 90 percent of the GOP economic agenda, Folks, this garbage has to stop.
So, I propose a simple litmus test for Democratic candidates. You will agree to 1) Reinstate Glass Steagall. 2) Break up the big banks 3) Prosecute banksters for their crimes. 4) Regulate and tax useless transactions that do society no good. 5) No more bailouts! In short END TOO BIG TO FAIL If you do not support this Democratic candidate, we will not support you . EVER.
Enough is Enough.
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
American Politics at the Foot of the Cross
American politics approaching the election in 2016 has reached a low ebb. Potential voters are staying away in record numbers. The miasma of Big Money and the soul-crushing pile of negativity it will purchase will further discourage a weary nation. Why should we even try? The Big Boys will always win. But in reality, the Big Boys were defeated 2000 years ago when our Savior was nailed to a Cross. Our failure to believe this has resulted in two basic political trains of thought, both which fail us. There is Liberalism, which is essentially Christ without the Cross. Then there is Conservatism, which is the Cross without Christ. They both fall short of meeting our crying world's needs. This world can be redeemed only with Christ on the Cross. To many people this is either ridiculous or scandalous. They much prefer one of the two more respectable solutions.
First, Liberalism Christ without the Cross. This reduces Jesus to just a very good man. A teacher. A man who shows us a better was to live. Be kind to your neighbor. Care for your fellow man. Liberals are certainly right when they claim that most of Jesus' ideas dovetail with their ideas. Its one of the reasons I consider myself a liberal myself. But Jesus The Really Good Man dose nothing about the sin that is crushing the world. Liberals almost always lose in the long run because we are always the do gooders. The ones that are always trying to get the voters to eat their vegetables. So we are easy prey for those who would allow the voters to indulge in greed, hatred, and fear. Christ without the Cross is certainly nominally attractive, but he gives us no strength to fight the more attractive enemy. So voters turn to the conservatives. Ah, the Conservatives! The Cross without Christ.
Yes, the Cross without Christ. The Cross of all the worlds problems on your shoulders without no God to help you. Self Reliance! Rugged Individualism! You're on your own baby! What you need help? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps! What, the world's powerful are so ravenous they even took your bootstraps? Quit whining! The Cross without Christ is no Christianity at all. It is one of Evil's greatest triumphs that the majority of American "Christians" have been tricked into a Christless religion. The First Church of Ayn Rand. Its one of Evil's favorite bait and stitch. Here Mr. America, indulge in your favorite cheap sins. All you got to do is carry that huge burden. Alone.
So, in America a Godless despair prevails with the good people of the world powerless to combat it. So what can we do? Embrace Christ on the Cross! Embrace is with all the blood and dirt and sweat. Embrace the suffering. Embrace the suffering needed to bring about a better world. Because God Himself is suffering with us For you! And me! And for the world. Jesus death on the Cross brings eternal life to all. The eternal life should give us strength to combat the forces of Evil who are pressing an unbearable Cross on all of us. The world is being destroyed under the burden of this Christless cross and all the unholy suffering that it brings. Folks, there is no way out of the pains of this world, despite the lies of Evil that tell you can buy yourself out of it. In order to defeat Evil, we need the help only God can bring. What we are doing now sure ain't working. Jesus promises to stand by us bearing the Cross in this world, and giving us Eternal Life in the next. Should we be so quick to disbelieve him without even seeing for ourselves whether He will keep his promises? As for me, I will cast off the Christless Cross the world has dumped on me and embrace the Suffering Servant. Who Died on the Cross. For you. And me.
First, Liberalism Christ without the Cross. This reduces Jesus to just a very good man. A teacher. A man who shows us a better was to live. Be kind to your neighbor. Care for your fellow man. Liberals are certainly right when they claim that most of Jesus' ideas dovetail with their ideas. Its one of the reasons I consider myself a liberal myself. But Jesus The Really Good Man dose nothing about the sin that is crushing the world. Liberals almost always lose in the long run because we are always the do gooders. The ones that are always trying to get the voters to eat their vegetables. So we are easy prey for those who would allow the voters to indulge in greed, hatred, and fear. Christ without the Cross is certainly nominally attractive, but he gives us no strength to fight the more attractive enemy. So voters turn to the conservatives. Ah, the Conservatives! The Cross without Christ.
Yes, the Cross without Christ. The Cross of all the worlds problems on your shoulders without no God to help you. Self Reliance! Rugged Individualism! You're on your own baby! What you need help? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps! What, the world's powerful are so ravenous they even took your bootstraps? Quit whining! The Cross without Christ is no Christianity at all. It is one of Evil's greatest triumphs that the majority of American "Christians" have been tricked into a Christless religion. The First Church of Ayn Rand. Its one of Evil's favorite bait and stitch. Here Mr. America, indulge in your favorite cheap sins. All you got to do is carry that huge burden. Alone.
So, in America a Godless despair prevails with the good people of the world powerless to combat it. So what can we do? Embrace Christ on the Cross! Embrace is with all the blood and dirt and sweat. Embrace the suffering. Embrace the suffering needed to bring about a better world. Because God Himself is suffering with us For you! And me! And for the world. Jesus death on the Cross brings eternal life to all. The eternal life should give us strength to combat the forces of Evil who are pressing an unbearable Cross on all of us. The world is being destroyed under the burden of this Christless cross and all the unholy suffering that it brings. Folks, there is no way out of the pains of this world, despite the lies of Evil that tell you can buy yourself out of it. In order to defeat Evil, we need the help only God can bring. What we are doing now sure ain't working. Jesus promises to stand by us bearing the Cross in this world, and giving us Eternal Life in the next. Should we be so quick to disbelieve him without even seeing for ourselves whether He will keep his promises? As for me, I will cast off the Christless Cross the world has dumped on me and embrace the Suffering Servant. Who Died on the Cross. For you. And me.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Time for the Disruption of........Corporate Capitalism
We are hearing much about how our Corporate Masters of the Universe are into Disruption. Disrupt old industries. Disrupt old ways of doing things. Uber is "disrupting" the taxi industry! Never mind that the poor taxi drivers, who are probably struggling anyway, probably need the work. Disrupt them! Brag about how disruptive your new technology is and see your stock price soar! Get on the cover of Forbes! Never mind that your company might be like Snapchat still wondering how you are going to make money. Snapchat is Disruptive! Never mind that it really does not do anything good for society. Disruption is the new buzzword! Disruption is now! Disruption is wow! If it happens to throw thousands out of work so the elitist idiots can follow the latest fad, oh well.
Actually, Disruption is nothing new for the Godless corporate capitalists. Millions of good people got their lives "disrupted' by when the Masters of The Universe brought down the economy in 2008. Actually, God's creation is in the process of being disrupted. The seas are being drained empty of fish. Pollution has done untold disruption to nature and the people who depend on clean air and clean water. Thousands of lives are being disrupted by fracking, as The Masters Of The Universe are determined to squeeze every drop of oil out of the ground. And of course there is Global Warming. Ya think future generations might think this "disruptive"? Think the droughts in California are disruptive? Was Superstorm Sandy disruptive? Think the people who live on island nations like Kiribati, Tuvalu, and the Maldives seeing their countries disappear under the rising seas might find this just a tad disruptive? Hell, it might even be disruptive if the hipsters on South Beach can't get to Joe's Stone Crab because its under water! A tiny strata of the population gets all the profits. The rest of us get disrupted! Don't like it? Shut up. You are just going to have to "adjust". Again. The creative destructionism of capitalism, you know.
Dear Jesus, I am so sick of this garbage. Its time to disrupt the disruptors.
It is obvious that the politicians will do nothing. The great journalist Thomas Frank got Barack Obama exactly right. Obama won because the people believed his message of "Hope" and "Change". And baby, when he got elected, things needed to change. The stinking rotting edifice that was the system was so out in the open that nobody could ignore the stench anymore. The elites were totally and clearly corrupt. The media was too palsied to report the truth. The middle class was almost squeezed to death. The banks became the largest criminal enterprises in the history of mankind. It was totally clear that things had to change. The Parasite Class was sucking humanity dry. They needed to ne stopped.
They needed to be disrupted!
And.....Nothing.....Happened.
Nothing changed. Nobody went to jail. Obama moved heaven and earth not to disrupt anything. Amazing. Obama needed to buy a new car. Instead he spent tons of money trying to overhaul the old one. Guess what? It runs as bad as before. It runs on the same old bullshit. First it was merger mania. Then it was the dot.com bubble. Crash. Then it was the housing bubble. Crash Again, a really big one this time. Now, the new buzzword is disruption. Their breathless hyping of this lunacy would be hilarious if it wasn't causing the suffering of billions. The elites continue to dance la de da to yet another disaster. With nothing to disrupt them.
Dear people, we have to stop the madness. We have to band together and organize.
This Godless corporate capitalism that has spread worldwide like the plague and made billions of souls miserable around the world has to end.
We have to disrupt them.
We have to stop pretending that things will get better if we just wait it out. It will not. We have to stop pretending that the movers and shakers of the world are decent people. They are not. We have to stop pretending that the gluttonous luxury of a tiny few while the billions of the masses suffer is the natural order of things. It is not. We have to stop pretending that the elites have common sense and science on their side. They do not. All so called classical economic theory. is an attempt to put a scientific gloss on the greed and dysfunction of the world economy. It is not based on any kind of reality. It is mere propaganda. As I have stated in this blog before at length, we are the prisoner of our own bad ideas. Corporations, money, and economic theory are nothing but concepts. We have the power to change the whole stinking system if we just realize that the authority imprisoning ourselves is not legitimate and simply not real.
Finally folks, we have an ally on our side. The same corporate media that pimps for the continuation of this system of madness is the same one that told us that God is Dead. This is NOT a coincidence. It would have you believe that things like economics, corporations and money are real while God is just a fairy tale. A very good thing for evil. For the Jesus depicted in the Gospels was disruptive. Disruptive to the Roman oppressors and the Sadducee elites that got to run the Temple in exchange to sucking up to them. Disruptive to the Pharisee elites who tried to reduce God to a system of laws instead of a God of love. Disruptive to the Jewish masses who wanted a military Messiah to kick the Romans out. Jesus took pity of the starving and miserable masses and died on the Cross to give eternal life for all, rich or poor, Jew or Gentile. Its this hope of Eternity that should give us the strength to take on the corporatist capitalist machine. I know some of you reading this have trouble believing in the divinity of Jesus. The cheap imitation of Christianity that has infested so many American churches has disgusted many. The evil propaganda machine that apologizes for it has done horrible damage to our souls. So has the lie that it is OK for so many billions to be miserable as long as I Got Mine. So has the lie that Getting Yours will make you happy. The faith that I have that Jesus Christ has given me the strength to write this. Otherwise I would have trouble getting out of bed, so overwhelming is the world's evil. It is my prayer that you may find peace and strength in Jesus too. Or at least find strength somewhere. Corporate Evil has had its way for far too long. First it must be disrupted. Then crushed. .
Actually, Disruption is nothing new for the Godless corporate capitalists. Millions of good people got their lives "disrupted' by when the Masters of The Universe brought down the economy in 2008. Actually, God's creation is in the process of being disrupted. The seas are being drained empty of fish. Pollution has done untold disruption to nature and the people who depend on clean air and clean water. Thousands of lives are being disrupted by fracking, as The Masters Of The Universe are determined to squeeze every drop of oil out of the ground. And of course there is Global Warming. Ya think future generations might think this "disruptive"? Think the droughts in California are disruptive? Was Superstorm Sandy disruptive? Think the people who live on island nations like Kiribati, Tuvalu, and the Maldives seeing their countries disappear under the rising seas might find this just a tad disruptive? Hell, it might even be disruptive if the hipsters on South Beach can't get to Joe's Stone Crab because its under water! A tiny strata of the population gets all the profits. The rest of us get disrupted! Don't like it? Shut up. You are just going to have to "adjust". Again. The creative destructionism of capitalism, you know.
Dear Jesus, I am so sick of this garbage. Its time to disrupt the disruptors.
It is obvious that the politicians will do nothing. The great journalist Thomas Frank got Barack Obama exactly right. Obama won because the people believed his message of "Hope" and "Change". And baby, when he got elected, things needed to change. The stinking rotting edifice that was the system was so out in the open that nobody could ignore the stench anymore. The elites were totally and clearly corrupt. The media was too palsied to report the truth. The middle class was almost squeezed to death. The banks became the largest criminal enterprises in the history of mankind. It was totally clear that things had to change. The Parasite Class was sucking humanity dry. They needed to ne stopped.
They needed to be disrupted!
And.....Nothing.....Happened.
Nothing changed. Nobody went to jail. Obama moved heaven and earth not to disrupt anything. Amazing. Obama needed to buy a new car. Instead he spent tons of money trying to overhaul the old one. Guess what? It runs as bad as before. It runs on the same old bullshit. First it was merger mania. Then it was the dot.com bubble. Crash. Then it was the housing bubble. Crash Again, a really big one this time. Now, the new buzzword is disruption. Their breathless hyping of this lunacy would be hilarious if it wasn't causing the suffering of billions. The elites continue to dance la de da to yet another disaster. With nothing to disrupt them.
Dear people, we have to stop the madness. We have to band together and organize.
This Godless corporate capitalism that has spread worldwide like the plague and made billions of souls miserable around the world has to end.
We have to disrupt them.
We have to stop pretending that things will get better if we just wait it out. It will not. We have to stop pretending that the movers and shakers of the world are decent people. They are not. We have to stop pretending that the gluttonous luxury of a tiny few while the billions of the masses suffer is the natural order of things. It is not. We have to stop pretending that the elites have common sense and science on their side. They do not. All so called classical economic theory. is an attempt to put a scientific gloss on the greed and dysfunction of the world economy. It is not based on any kind of reality. It is mere propaganda. As I have stated in this blog before at length, we are the prisoner of our own bad ideas. Corporations, money, and economic theory are nothing but concepts. We have the power to change the whole stinking system if we just realize that the authority imprisoning ourselves is not legitimate and simply not real.
Finally folks, we have an ally on our side. The same corporate media that pimps for the continuation of this system of madness is the same one that told us that God is Dead. This is NOT a coincidence. It would have you believe that things like economics, corporations and money are real while God is just a fairy tale. A very good thing for evil. For the Jesus depicted in the Gospels was disruptive. Disruptive to the Roman oppressors and the Sadducee elites that got to run the Temple in exchange to sucking up to them. Disruptive to the Pharisee elites who tried to reduce God to a system of laws instead of a God of love. Disruptive to the Jewish masses who wanted a military Messiah to kick the Romans out. Jesus took pity of the starving and miserable masses and died on the Cross to give eternal life for all, rich or poor, Jew or Gentile. Its this hope of Eternity that should give us the strength to take on the corporatist capitalist machine. I know some of you reading this have trouble believing in the divinity of Jesus. The cheap imitation of Christianity that has infested so many American churches has disgusted many. The evil propaganda machine that apologizes for it has done horrible damage to our souls. So has the lie that it is OK for so many billions to be miserable as long as I Got Mine. So has the lie that Getting Yours will make you happy. The faith that I have that Jesus Christ has given me the strength to write this. Otherwise I would have trouble getting out of bed, so overwhelming is the world's evil. It is my prayer that you may find peace and strength in Jesus too. Or at least find strength somewhere. Corporate Evil has had its way for far too long. First it must be disrupted. Then crushed. .
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Is The Donald Getting Bored?
In this blog, I have taken Donald Trump seriously. Very seriously. I have called him an American fascist threat. I have accused him of debasing American manhood and debasing American religion. I think Jesus had a good laugh when Trump stated that we in America have our own version of Christianity. No Donald, Jesus gets to say what Christianity is. Not billionaires.
I have also stated that both political parties are so flabby and out of it, and the American public is so frustrated and angry, that a charlatan like the Donald can ride the anger all the way to the White House. After all, the Donald is living proof that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. The media adores the Donald, being that he is a bright shiny thing that the monkeys in the press can't keep their eyes off. But now, it seems like the Donald just might be a giant slobbering orangutan that needs a shiny thing to keep himself interested. Which begs the question: Is the Donald getting bored with the campaign??
There is no doubt that Donald Trump would love to play Prez. The would get all the ego boost that a man can possibly get. He would get to boss people around and blow things up. But Trump seems to think it all should be handed to him. He seems to be getting bored with the torturous path that you have to take to get to the White House. This is one area that I would agree with Donald Trump. The path to the presidency is a path that no sane person would tread. Endless debates with drones like Bush and Rubio? Pretending like you actually enjoy schlepping around Iowa and New Hampshire, flattering the voters inflated perceptions of their own virtue? This is work fit for midgets like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, not for a Master Of The Universe. If Trump is really serious, he is going to eventually have to get out of the helicopter and risk getting pigshit on his Gucci's.
There are signs that the Donald really does not want to do it. He was quoted as saying that if his polls drop, he might drop out. Huh? He really has not spend any money or energy putting together a decent ground game. He is starting to stagnate in the polls. Even a group as brain-challenged as GOP primary voters are eventually going to want to see some elbow grease. You see, Donald, we Americans really don't get the joke. Love you or hate you,we are taking you seriously. We can't help it. The one thing that a Teabagger and I have in common is that we both love this crazy country and don't like it when some egomaniac billionaire messes with it.
So Donald Trump, are you serious? Start showing it or shut the hell up.
I have also stated that both political parties are so flabby and out of it, and the American public is so frustrated and angry, that a charlatan like the Donald can ride the anger all the way to the White House. After all, the Donald is living proof that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. The media adores the Donald, being that he is a bright shiny thing that the monkeys in the press can't keep their eyes off. But now, it seems like the Donald just might be a giant slobbering orangutan that needs a shiny thing to keep himself interested. Which begs the question: Is the Donald getting bored with the campaign??
There is no doubt that Donald Trump would love to play Prez. The would get all the ego boost that a man can possibly get. He would get to boss people around and blow things up. But Trump seems to think it all should be handed to him. He seems to be getting bored with the torturous path that you have to take to get to the White House. This is one area that I would agree with Donald Trump. The path to the presidency is a path that no sane person would tread. Endless debates with drones like Bush and Rubio? Pretending like you actually enjoy schlepping around Iowa and New Hampshire, flattering the voters inflated perceptions of their own virtue? This is work fit for midgets like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, not for a Master Of The Universe. If Trump is really serious, he is going to eventually have to get out of the helicopter and risk getting pigshit on his Gucci's.
There are signs that the Donald really does not want to do it. He was quoted as saying that if his polls drop, he might drop out. Huh? He really has not spend any money or energy putting together a decent ground game. He is starting to stagnate in the polls. Even a group as brain-challenged as GOP primary voters are eventually going to want to see some elbow grease. You see, Donald, we Americans really don't get the joke. Love you or hate you,we are taking you seriously. We can't help it. The one thing that a Teabagger and I have in common is that we both love this crazy country and don't like it when some egomaniac billionaire messes with it.
So Donald Trump, are you serious? Start showing it or shut the hell up.
Keep the pressure on Hillary
Today , we now see that Hillary Clinton has come out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This is after she came against the Keystone XL pipeline. Has Hillary seen the light? Is she really going to turn away from her corporate pals and embrace a fairer deal for the much squeezed middle class? Or is this just too clever maneuvering to stave off Bernie Sanders? Is she just talking a progressive game now, only to pivot back to her corporate ways once she finally gets to sit in the Big Chair in the Oval Office that she seems to feel she is entitled to?
There are a lot of signs that are not encouraging. After all TPP and Keystone XL are both things she supported when she was Secretary of State. There is still many years of doing bidding for Wall Street and her campaign contributors that stain her past. You can pardon us progressives if we are a bit skeptical.
But,it is encouraging too. I think we progressives in general and Bernie Sanders in particular, can take credit for Hillary's leftward lurch. We are obviously scaring the hell out of her. Good. The country cannot take four more years of centrist pap that is really 90% of what the conservatives want. We progressives can take credit for Hillary's changes. We need to keep up the pressure. Look at gay marriage. It did not come about because the politicians handed it to them. No, gays refused to be treated like second class citizens anymore, so they organized and forced change. How ironic. The more we organize, the more we support Bernie, the better Hillary Clinton becomes. We cannot ease up on the pressure. Keep on pushing progressives! If we cannot beat Hillary, at least we can scare the crap out of her.
There are a lot of signs that are not encouraging. After all TPP and Keystone XL are both things she supported when she was Secretary of State. There is still many years of doing bidding for Wall Street and her campaign contributors that stain her past. You can pardon us progressives if we are a bit skeptical.
But,it is encouraging too. I think we progressives in general and Bernie Sanders in particular, can take credit for Hillary's leftward lurch. We are obviously scaring the hell out of her. Good. The country cannot take four more years of centrist pap that is really 90% of what the conservatives want. We progressives can take credit for Hillary's changes. We need to keep up the pressure. Look at gay marriage. It did not come about because the politicians handed it to them. No, gays refused to be treated like second class citizens anymore, so they organized and forced change. How ironic. The more we organize, the more we support Bernie, the better Hillary Clinton becomes. We cannot ease up on the pressure. Keep on pushing progressives! If we cannot beat Hillary, at least we can scare the crap out of her.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)