I’m watching another Adam Curtis documentary and also reading the headlines. The documentary is “The Century of Self”. You can watch it on youtube, or download it for free from archive.org. The headlines are the same spooky, bizarre, crap as always. It’s kind of nice, because now instead of just shaking my head when I see people doing sick and twisted things (like comparing the option of public healthcare to Hitler) I have some idea of why they are doing this. Reassuring… sort of…
You can see the way the corporations, who have real interest in making sure that there is no public healthcare, have adopted a logo (the swastika) a spokesperson (Palin) and a product (death camps?). They’ve even got an army of salespeople brainwashed into thinking that free healthcare will kill their grandma.
Aw, forget it, I’ve been living outside the US long enough to have an open mind. I have used NHS healthcare and wasn’t sent to a death panel. I have no real interest in joining the debate, and I am freaked out by the right.
It is just amazing and sad that so many Americans are so insane.
Archive for the ‘p0l1t1x’ Category
Healthcare.
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009December Grudge Match.
Monday, December 15th, 2008Put up your dukes Bernard Madoff.
November Grudge Match
Thursday, November 13th, 2008In keeping with my new monthly challenge, I hereby challenge Hank Paulson to a vale tudo / cage match.
If he excepts the challenge, I would like the winner to receive 800 billion dollars of U.S taxpayer money. If he is victorious, he could use the money to bail out his larcenous buddies at Goldman Sachs… oh wait, he did that already…
“Let’s get it on!”
Barack Obama
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008I’m really happy about this for a lot of reasons. Maybe the opinion of America in the eyes of the world will improve.
I’m also curious about what will be Bush & Co.’s evil swan song. Just keep following the money, I guess.
Back from the beach.
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008We just returned from a week travelling in Ilha Grande and Rio De Janeiro. It was a lot of fun, with some walks in the woods and beach going, oh and I got to dive, as well. I rained a bunch, but now it is raining here as well. I’ll put up some photos at some point.
In other news, I am extending my October challenge to a cage match. The lucky winner is … Sarah Palin. The same terms apply as the Matt Damon fight, you get to chose the rules. And before anyone protests the current challenge, I think this will be a much closer fight than Matt Damon and myself. Sarah looks pretty tough.
Hooray, the bailout didn’t pass!
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008Hooray, the bailout didn’t pass!
The market dropped yesterday, and today is recovering.
No big deal.
For the record, I’m not just a single crazy conspiracy theroist. There a lot of people thought it was a stupid idea to bail out the rich, including 200 economists who sent a letter to Congress saying it was a bad idea.
It was “rewarding greed and stupidity” or “The Great Bank Robbery of 2008“
Bailout.
Monday, September 29th, 2008Just for the record, this bailout plan sucks.
It is just going to help a financial elite of bankers that have already hidden the billions of dollars they received when they gamed the system. The entire thing is a con. The bankers convinced the politicians to hollow-out the Glass-Steagall Act, which paved this nightmare. Now, the people who are most harmed by the meltdown are going to have pay for it: the average American taxpayer. You can’t just print up 700 billion dollars without inflation.
Personally, I believe any bailout plan should start with the bankers giving back their bonuses. Step two, should be to let the chips fall where they may.
It’s like that saying, if you lend me a hundred dollars and I can’t pay you back, I’ve got a problem. If you lend me 100 million dollars and I can’t pay you back, you’ve got the problem.
The banks have the problem. Let them go out of business. That is what the FDIC is for, to pick up the pieces when banks fail. So let them. Let the “free markets” cull the herd of sick financial institutions.
This is another example of socialism for the rich, with the bill going to the poor.
Another Oil War?
Sunday, September 21st, 2008Something weird is going on in Brazil, and I hope it is just saber-rattling. The President of Brazil is claiming that they need to protect themselves from people stealing their offshore oil. This announcement comes as the U.S. Navy is reestablishing the U.S. Fourth Fleet, a fleet that will patrol the Caribbean and Latin America.
“The (Brazilian) Navy plays an important role in protecting our subsalt reserves, because the men of Fourth Fleet are almost there on top of the subsalt areas,” Lula said in a speech inaugurating a new oil platform in southern Brazil.”
“Our Navy has to be the guardian of our offshore oil platforms to protect our patrimony, because before you know it some wise guy will come along and say: ‘This is mine, it’s at the bottom of the ocean anyway, so it’s mine.’”
Please let’s not have another war, and not have it been over oil… again! I thought we were finished with this crap.
(That said, I like the use of the phrase “wise guy”, it hearkens back to an age when gangsters at least had snappy lingo.)
Steinbeck
Monday, March 10th, 2008John Steinbeck is “da man”. I am reading “The Grapes of Wrath” and am very impressed. He is incredibly skilled.
This book was written during the Great Depression in America. Specifically, he talks about the rise of big business as well as a the merchant banking class, mass production and the consolidation of small farms and small business. This book is about the end of the American Dream. At least, so far… I’m not finished with it. But I have a feeling that this book is going to be one of my favorites. Which is really nice. It is a treat to be reading a book that is so good, that you know it will be a book you will tell others to read.
Here is a quote:
In their lapels the insignia of lodges and service clubs, places where they can go and, by a weight of numbers of little worried men, reassure themselves that business is noble and not the curious ritualized thievery they know it is; that business men are intelligent in spite of the records of their stupidity; that they are kind and charitable in spite of the principles of sound business; that their lives are rich instead of the thin tiresome routines they know; and that a time is coming when they will not be afraid anymore.
(Ch 15)
There is also a great deal of well executed symbolism and metaphor. But it isn’t forced and it isn’t high-fallutin’. It just seems to be an extension of the story.
Candidates
Monday, December 24th, 2007I spent the afternoon trying to figure out to vote for and I can’t tell the candidates apart.