Cum Laude

I think you have a deeper understanding of what you let on. I was thinking about narrative framing as well. Notice that MSM News headlines always report things breathlessly as if some mythical “consensus” has already been reached, which only poor, misinformed, ignorant savages would possibly not accept the truth of. It’s really a very subtle and clever technique in the hands of skilled practitioners, so you always have to check your emotions and your willingness to simply “go with the flow” when exposed to it. And it goes without saying that they also make great use of previously well-established cultural meta-narratives – American exceptionalism, terrorism, racism, cultural depravity couched as “sensitivity” and “inclusiveness,” etc. – to further disable people’s critical thinking skills, most of which have been in full-scale atrophy for at least 50 years now. I would say Orwell’s 1984 – long since derided as doomer porn fantasy by many – has fully materialized in the modern world now, and quite predictably, almost everyone under its influence is totally oblivious to it.

This forum is so simple. According to our social arbiters (you know them, people that think it’s up to them to tell us what to think) some hate is acceptable. Like the hate directed at fly-over America in general and towards White American hourly wage-earners in particular. Of course the people and institutions spouting this hate deny it’s hate. They call it truth telling. But it isn’t truth-telling, it’s flat out lies, distortions at best, and it’s hate. The same people spewing this hate are the same people that try to justify the economic destruction inflicted on the objects of their hate. First they ruin these people and then they insult them and denigrate them and belittle them. You’ve heard it so I don’t need to belabor it. It’s hate speech. Thus you get the torrent of media lies. They’re fully on board with this hate mongering. Objective? Dispassionate? The hell. This is no “first draft of history”. This is a sick joke. So I’m sorry, or actually I’m NOT bloody sorry, but the extremist Left is as fucked in the head as the extremist Right. And especially I’m not sorry about this: Trump is right, there wasn’t just a violent contingent from one side. Even reporters from supposed “respectable” news providers didn’t evade and couldn’t evade that truth. They saw it and recounted it even if later some tried to walk back what they said. In broader terms, the people fighting the Right in Charlottesville, the apologists for those people aren’t fighting hate. They’re haters themselves.

I just needed a little warm-up. This is a serious issue, as you are aware. People need to understand real history. Sometimes a Gemini’s Inner Gemini will get the best of him. Trump was standing between two locomotives but the place in-between is simply too narrow. Still, Trump was seemingly trying to invoke purely aesthetic reasons for maintaining the controversial statuary. In fact, the Lee Memorial sculptor was a man named Henry Merwin Shrady, from New York. Shrady was also the sculptor for the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial! What was Shrady doing sculpting both Lee and Grant? Didn’t he have a moral compass? Or was he simply making a living, and being a mere mortal, recognize that the subjects he ultimately portrayed in bronze were also a reflection of his own human fllability and thus not off limits to portrayal? A celebration of humanity, warts and all, if you will. But also a celebration of the good aspects. And although most people are incapable of suspending judgement in order to contemplate context, the fact remains that Robert E. Lee was a very impressive individual on many levels. Oh and that Gutzon Borglum guy, the irascible Mt. Rushmore sculptor who once contradicted/corrected Woodrow Wilson in public: and who was also chased out of Georgia by state troopers because he destroyed his original model for the Stonewall Jackson Memorial on Stone Mountain after basically telling the ever-changing-their-minds project committee to go f#%& themselves in the ###; and who brazenly accepted a two hundred thousand dollar down payment for the Mount Rushmore project even after geological experts predicted/warned him that the project would very likely fail; and who was allegedly aligned with the KKK–should we perhaps start to think about removing his work from the national eye? But be that as it may, what about “artistic autonomy”, invoked with such reverence and passion by those who now urge censorship? For example, Robert Mapplethorpe’s “Piss Christ”, a photo image of a plastic crucifix half-submerged in a container of Mapplethorpe’s own urine. Hey, how about somebody commission a sculpture and title it “Hypocrisy”? What a two-headed monster, multi-figure composition that would be! At any rate, I don’t understand why people just don’t leave it alone and quit picking this particular scab. I mean really, when the top one percent posses nearly all–and they seem to WANT IT ALL–isn’t there more important issues to address that stirring up shit that has no real solution? And speaking of wanting it all, what about a little tolerance or more likely ambivalence, for the monuments in question. I mean instead of making a mountain out of a molehill, just leave it alone and cultivate the paradox. After all, most everybody in this nation doesn’t give a shit about 19th century heroic/equestrian sculpture: ” Look there, the Robert E Lee Memorial !” “Oh wow, what a great horse; it looks so realistic!”

Something inside me says it is a great mistake to try erasing history by toppling statues. Should Time Magazine be destroyed for naming Hitler Man of The Year in 1938? What makes a magazine cover permissible but a statue an outrage? Is it the solidity and permanence of the material used?

As Trudeau legalizes marijuana. let's look at the United States of America and New Jersey. Americans shouldn't worry as the answer to their problems has already been introduced and soon will save the day for us all. New Jersey State Senator Cory Booker has introduced legislation that will not only make marijuana legal in New Jersey, but encourages the entire nation to do the same. I was already aware that the state had sent task forces on two occasions to Colorado last year whose assignment was to gather details to facilitate the legal sale of weed next year once the wealthy democrat governor takes office, which has already been assured. Local PD’s have already been briefed on this fact as well. It is not the effects of a general population being able to get stoned any time they want to that bothers me. What bothers me about this plan is that in a nation that is already too distracted, too drunk, too doped up to care a rat’s ass about anything at all right now, how can getting even more people toasted help the problem? Will Americans, with a good buzz on, participate more in their own government? Will they care more or make more intelligent decisions? And anyone that thinks that giving the political scum even more money to play with will make anything any better is probably already high as a kite. Think Transportation Trust Fund, NJ State Pension System, Social Security, and on and on. We should not be throwing cash at politicians but rotted cabbages and bad tomatoes. Oh well, perhaps the inevitable will be put off for another year or three….

One of the hallmarks that I see of the approaching end of our techno-industrial age are cellphones. Every 6 months one company or another comes out with the latest and most advanced cellphone with faster processors and more memory – along with a higher price tag. The apple iPhone 8 is rumored to cost over $1,000. Talk about unsustainable. Real wages are not increasing so to afford the latest cellphone, or anything for that matter, greatest requires consumers to make sacrifices elsewhere – but where? The pace of the consumer arms race appears to me to be more frenetic than ever. Cars, and car repairs, cost more and so do things like groceries, clothes, kitchen appliances (which no longer last 10+ years), education and all our extra-curricular activities like tickets to sporting events. If wages were keeping up then it could keep going. Convincing people to go back to the days of hand me downs, and companies to return to the days of better and longer lasting won’t happen UNTIL it has to. That day is approaching soon.

I drive quite a bit for work and yesterday was deprived of my blue-tooth device, so I had to listen to rural radio. I picked up CBC and caught a 45 minute discussion by 3 “economists” as to how we could revive continuous 3% economic growth in this country. It was astonishing. They discussed the topic for a full 45 minutes without ever addressing either why we need 3% growth or how we could possibly grow exponentially for eternity. These imbeciles started with the first strategy: increase immigration. That’s right, import a bunch of third-worlders under the presumption that they will have jobs and will produce rather than become parasites on an already over-burdened system of public welfare. By having more people, we would have more aggregate demand. So I suppose this strategy would result in increased aggregate GDP, but likely a decreased GDP per capita, something they never discussed or even considered. The second strategy was to come up with some kind of new technology boom that would require every office in the country to buy this entirely new technology. Recognizing the past silicon valley booms, these numbskulls came up with the brilliant idea of inventing some unanticipated and unneeded technology (electric cars and self-driving cars were bandied about). The third strategy was to increase aggregate worker “productivity.” This would entail doing things like increasing the retirement age and somehow putting everyone to work, regardless of whether he or she wants or needs to be employed. I listened to that brainless tripe for the full 45 minutes and concluded we are soundly................

I had given up on the Canadian people waking up for the longest time. The vast majority of them seemed fine with the whole scam of the system because they all thought that their boat was coming in soon. If they just worked hard enough, they too would be welcomed into the predators’ den with open arms, then they could prey on those beneath them. That carrot was hung out for decade after decade and generations of people bought into it. These days the carrot has rotted away and people are now seeing it’s just a string. Many still haven’t looked up the string then down the pole to see who is holding it. But they are at least realizing that the story they bought was bullshit. Well, many more than in the past. We will see if the realization of the Canadian Dream’s demise reaches a critical mass. Then, if it does reach critical mass, will it turn into anger or apathy. I would venture that if there was a way to just drop out of this parasite-laden system, many would choose that option. But thus far the parasites have a tight hold on their hosts. That hold may slip in the years ahead. I am watching, waiting and trying to stay ahead of, and away from, The Mob. For when The Mob starts moving, that is when things could get really ugly and happen quickly.

You can just feel it everywhere these days can’t you? That feeling of purposelessness is everywhere. Meaningless activities abound and people across the board are feeling it. Nobody gives a shit anymore. You can see it in the quality of products, the service you get at about any business anymore. The cleanliness that is lacking in more and more places. You can feel it as you look into the eyes of many of the people working these low paying, meaningless jobs. Anger lies beneath a thin veneer everywhere. Add in a prime minister whose life work is buttering up people to grease the skids for extracting whatever it is he wants from them, then leaving them behind like discarded trash, and people are starting to realize they are just marks in this whole game of hustling. People won’t change their habits easily. But maybe this will all come down because nobody cares anymore. Nobody is willing to show up to the shit job anymore to be treated like shit while being paid like shit. I don’t know the future, but it sure feels like it’s going to get crappy quite soon.

I was working out as a project engineer myself back in the ’80’s and attended our annual planning meetings for the company that I was employed with at the time. In my third year there, as the market for our systems was clearly trending downward, the plan for next year’s business was being worked towards increased sales and profits. I suggested that perhaps we should plan for decline in business rather than an increase and got the big raspberry from the management who insisted that growth must occur every year and cannot be projected as less for any reason. When our sales took a dive over the course of the next few years (though the projects were always higher) most of the managers were canned, though it did not help sales, but someone must be punished, right? The endless growth model never works and those who do not plan for cyclical economics are always disappointed. When America was at its finest, corporation were run by engineers and salesmen and accountants rode in the back seat. Even the bankers used to be muzzled at least sometimes. Today with the engineers mostly on leashes the fools make the decisions and control the plans. The country is screwed.

Maybe Mr. Trump has the cunning, agility and luck to stay exactly a step and a half ahead of the hounds. Second wish, the hounds will have the strength to mount the chase for four years. With any luck it will be beyond debate that we don not have a government but, may I use our host’s terminology, we have a racket. I feel that we will not even begin to pickup with nation building again until voters put down the idea of term limits and replace the congress completely and often. As long as the majority believe they have something to gain by keeping a congressman we will have “status quo”. Should Mr. Trump cause the status quo to lose it’s shine he will have served well.

The dynamic between spectator and participant has always been interesting, from sports to politics, from psychological projection to the emotional. It’s inherent within the spectator to analyze and criticize. Could the spectator do better, does he really want to be the participant? I’m sure that at times, and to some extent, he thinks he can and he does. I don’t have any real political power besides my vote. I think that Mr. Kunstler has much more than any of us here, and that he exercises it fairly well. Who here wouldn’t like to have his voice? But here, Our voices are also heard, and we become more the participant, less the spectator. We can learn, but we also may be able to teach a bit. Trump is now The Participant in Pandemonium, and we, Spectators in and of the Swamp. To many, his journey has been more emotional than intellectual. What about our comments here? Aren’t many based on bare emotion, clothed in diaphanous intellectual raiment? Who knows what this flawed man foreshadows. Remember, the rich became richer under Obama also. But did he promote our sense of nation and make it safe? The answer is an obvious no. Health care itself is both an intellectual and emotional issue. How do we, the public, fit in? We have become victims instead of participants, also spectators watching ever increasing costs far out in the bleachers. Sure, the free market and profit are the roads to better health care. For the rich, yes. The bullshit coming out of Ryan’s mouth is near intolerable. Is Russia just a stalking horse being used by the Dems? Who knows. But I’d rather strong ties between Trump and Putin than Putin and Xi Jinping, with us left out. The swamp is now above my waders, but I’ve become more than just a spectator to the rising murk, somewhat consoled by the other participants around me.

As usual, you underestimate the governing abilities of Mr. Trump, and more importantly, the abilities of a powerful intellectual center, which works for him. The appearance of quotes around the word “wiretapping” in the Trump’s tweet shows that this tweet was not just thought through to the last detail, but also that the whole unit of that intellectual center have worked on it, the center which I hope Hillary is not capable to eavesdrop on. The fact of presence of such center is clear from the elaboration of this tweet, and the fact that Clintonoids can’t control it is clear from the first reaction of the flying monkeys to this tweet. Trump accused Obama of organizing the eavesdropping, which was ordered not by Obama, but by the Wicked Witch of the West, because only the status of the President acting as the accusation implies can really raise the status of the “wiretapping” case to the level of Watergate in which Hillary Clinton took a significant, if not the main and decisive role. The task of this tweet was to neutralize the attempts of the Clintonoids to create a commission of the Congress or appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the relations between Trump’s election campaign and Russian intelligence, so there is just as much basis for setting up such a commission as there are grounds for setting up a special commission to investigate the new Watergate. But over and above the task of this tweet was the final rout and cleansing not only of Bastinda, but of the whole organization of the flying monkeys. Indeed, such an investigation will undoubtedly begin with the lower-level actors who are experienced and will immediately realize that they are threatened by a “cleanup” on the part of the customer. Therefore, they will undoubtedly cooperate with Trump and the thread will lead to the real customer, and not to Obama. That will allow Trump to raise the issue of the Hillary Clinton’s coup d’état, which happened on the day of Hillary Clinton’s “endorsement” by Obama immediately after speaking at 6 am with Bernie Sanders about the total falsification of the election results in California. And for this it is only necessary to create an Independent Commission of the Congress to investigate the possible wiretapping of the candidate for President Trump, and then this commission will inevitably finish its business.

Where?

Many parents don't have this option. Most can't afford private school, and homeschooling is tough when both parents are at work. But I do agree with you that the system is a complete joke.

So basically you have zero understanding of Deep State. Whadda shame.

Gosthacked, you must learn to read between the lines. What if Putin is in bed with the globalists? Think about it. One of the empirical laws of the current period of transition to a multipolar world is being confirmed – concentration of events to the dates of the change of astronomical seasons, which has symbolic significance in all world religions and civilizations. Even now, a series of events have occurred towards the spring equinox, closing the period of vacillation and disorder after the end of the elections in the United States. This confusion and uncertainties in the elites of big and small Nations was associated with a complete lack of understanding of what is happening, where the curve can turn. On the one hand, Trump is forced to toughen the rhetoric in favor of the Military Industrial Complex and Israel for the approval of his Cabinet by the republican majority. On the other hand, globalists threatened with impeachment, Afro-Maidan, sabotage, external isolation, and McCarthyism turned inside out to prevent the realization of this rigid rhetoric. As a result, the newest status quo was confirmed “neither yours, nor ours”. In the hands of globalists remained such levers as the Fed. The last decision to raise the interest rate with a promise to continue in that direction has no economic basis in the form of any kind of revival of the real economy. It is unlikely that someone takes seriously embellished statistics of unemployment, which the Fed relied on. So the motive for this decision is purely political and is also called upon to restore balance after a forced tilt to the right during the Cabinet approval period. Along with that the Trump’s administration was absolved from most of the responsibility for the failure of promises to support industry and the sharp increase in infrastructure spending. That is, the growth will happen and the return of jobs in the hand-picked management mode of non-economic arrangements with corporations will also happen, but not at all on the promised populist scale. Only very naive observers could have the idea that retired General Flynn, who openly interacted with Putin’s RT, was nominated by Trump’s headquarters for a long time, and not as a bargaining chip in political negotiations. The most interesting in this whole story with Flynn is the exposure of the back channels of communication between the American and Russian intelligence services, which in due time helped to make a decision and implement the Crimea operation. But this same exposure means turning over the page in the relations of the intelligence services after the returned courtesy during the Trump’s election. An exemplary “hybrid” operation on deterrence on the domestic political front was held in Oroville. A sign of this was a massive injection of panic rumors about a possible catastrophe on the background of a disturbing TV picture, but without the presence of a real danger. Meanwhile, for Californian democratic politicians from Sacramento, which lies downstream, and even for saboteur judges of the 9th district from San Francisco, the threat of evacuation and the termination of work for several months was quite real and effective. It seems that after the introduction of the state of emergency by the Feds, the parties to an internal political dispute quickly concluded a deal, and the democrats stopped inserting procedural sticks into the wheels of Cabinet confirmation. At the same time in California itself, protest activity has sharply decreased. Oroville is also one of the centers of the influential Chinese Diaspora. Meanwhile, China was an interested party in restraining Trump and maximizing the delay in the formation of his administration. So deterrence with very rigid “hybrid” methods marked the boundaries of interference of external players in internal political conflicts. That what a small, but urgent intervention in the repair of the concrete spillway, could achieve.

Trump has done a fair bit in 60 days. Delivered President Trump in LESS THAN 1 WEEK 1) Pulled the US out of the TPP. 2) Directed agencies to start to soften and compromise Obamacare initiates and mandates that cause more burdens to states, insurance companies and individuals. 3) Ordered a 60-day review of federal regulations on domestic manufacturing and to offer a plan to streamline and expedite the permitting process for manufacturers. 4) Directed the INS and Border Patrol to stop “catch and release” of illegal aliens caught in criminal activity and to deport them immediately. 5) Initiated a policy to sanction any nations that refuse to accept deported criminal aliens. In addition, Trump has ordered the publication of crimes committed by illegals in sanctuary cities. 6) Initiated a ruling for all US agencies to cut off federal funds to sanctuary cities. 7) Directed that no US funds shall be used to pay for NGO services and counseling related to abortion overseas. 8) Committed to prevent China from exercising new territorial claims in the South China Sea. Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson has said that the US will not allow China to access its militarized artificial islands. 9) Placed a hold on the $221 million that Obama gave to the Palestinian Authority. 10) Signed an executive order restricting Muslim entry into the US from six countries, including Syria. 11) Eliminated Obama’s Climate Action plan. 12) Initiated a federal investigation of voting by illegal residents, and promised to strengthen voting procedures thereafter. 13) Opened an estimated $50 trillion worth of untapped shale oil and gas reserves on federal lands, and use the revenue to support public infrastructure building. 14) Blocked new EPA regulations on water rules, and put on hold all government regulations until further review. 15) Blocked EPA new coal regulations that are killing the industry. 16) Froze all hiring in federal agencies and blocked the last-minute hires by Obama. 17) Ordered agencies to “streamline and expedite … environmental reviews and approvals for all infrastructure projects,” particularly those deemed as “high priority” for the country — like updating the nation’s electric grid or critical bridges and highways.

Merkel wanted to secure Trump’s political and financial support for the Ukrainian issue, thereby confirming Germany’s role in Europe as the main watchdog for the United States, and herself getting indulgence for the next term within the framework of the kanzlerakte. Trump refused it and publicly sent a signal to Moscow (did not shake hands), saying, guys, do what you want with Ukraine (only with Ukraine?). If this interpretation of events is correct, this again confirms the idea that Russia, Britain and the United States form a new Entente against Germany and consciously dump Germany and destroy the prospect of the Fourth Reich in the form of a new project of the European Union. It seems that Europe is on the verge of huge systemic reformatting.

In the New Republic, members are FULL SPEED AHEAD in smashing the corrupt Deep State into a 1000 pieces. And there is not a damn thing that can be done to stop it. The Deep State, in desperation, is failing in the attempt to label supporters of the 4th Amendment as “Russian operatives.”

Trump was elected for several reasons: 1) Hillary is world-class corrupt and a lying psychopath 2) Decent, thinking people were completely FED-UP with the bullshit coming from the Alt-Left Dem party. The shame, guilt, victimhood, etc. they were assigning at will. And plenty of fools accepted it. 3) There’s a good chance that he is the designated bag-holder when this all comes crashing down. If there’s merit to that idea, I figure he’s well aware of his intended role and that Deep State was going to install him no matter what. 4) There are more…if you care to open your eyes and ears…they aren’t hard to discern. IS TRUMP A PUPPET OF DEEP STATE?

I see many of you on this forum are globalists. let's take a bit of a closer look. Trumpism seeks a return to a national identity grounded in an economy that is gone forever. Globalism seeks the gutting of nation-states in favor of regional and global authoritarian monarchies which will dole out the meager crumbs of a post-industrial economy to their favored mascots. Neither is a cheery future, but globalism (which is advocated by the Democratic Party as well as the Republican Establishment) is the more dismal and creepy.