Competence

Greetings good citizen, as life becomes more complicated we can only wonder who is minding the more basic issues as 'hard learned lessons' are 're-thought' in order to streamline processes and boost 'profitability'?

Some point to 'short-termism' as the root of our modern dilemma but is it really? While nobody is paying attention the treasury is being picked clean yet you're worried if your shoes match your suit/dress...

Like some bizarre carnival, the 'barkers' tell you what to do and you stroll along ignoring them, it's their carnival, you're just visiting. What you don't realize is the morons running things handed the carnies your wallet when they agreed to set up the show in your town!

Not responsible? When was the last time you visited 'the Kitchen Table' to discuss the future with the family?

For most of you the answer is never.

Now you keep your own council on where you are and where you hope to go, the rest of 'em are 'on their own', which is precisely how the Libertarians want it! [In case you were thinking a 'third party vote' would soothe your conscious.]

Do you have any idea what 'competence looks like? What SHOULD you be concerned about?

Besides global warming there is a huge population problem that mysteriously 'went away' right around the time the so-called 'conservatives' seized power and turned the electoral process into the circus we have today.

How many of you have noticed the world has evolved into a eight hundred thousand dollar playground while you're still trying to squeak by on $25 K a year?

Do you seriously think this is 'an accident?'

The 'we're all in this together' boat sailed over the horizon a long time ago, this is now the land of the Haves and the Have Mores...and YOU'RE TRESPASSING!

[Should I challenge Trump for the presidency? It's his championing of issues like this that have cinched the Republican nomination for him! SOMETHING IS RADICALLY WRONG WHEN A REPUBLICAN ONE PERCENTER CAN RUN AS A DEMOCRAT AND NOBODY NOTICES!]

But that's not ALL.

Back in the heady days of early Seventies, when we were protesting the Vietnam War [more the draft than anything else] and the message 'Make Love, not War' became our battle cry [ever wonder what happened to that in this era of 'Islam-o-fascism'?] we were confronted with two very genuine concerns, concerns that have been ingored because our 'betters' are still expressing confidence they can 'solve' the issues.

Actually A. is connected directly to B. so if you solve one the other becomes moot.

The (what we used to call the 'population explosion') is driving a rapid depletion in fossil fuels.

Solve the population explosion and the fossil fuel issue becomes moot.

So how do we 'reduce' the excess population?

Is it beginning to look like war is the answer after all?

Don't want it to be 'birth control'! What would GOD say?

So it looks like killing is our only alternative...or maybe they chose 'infertility' [price/cheat enough people out of their child-rearing years and the problem takes care of itself...in first world nations.]

The less fortunate second and third world nations are faced with the choice between disease and famine to keep their populations in check.

So, who put these dunderheads in charge?

Rhetorical question, THEY DID!

We didn't elect them, they elected themselves! [It's not how 'we' do things, it's how THEY do things!]

Why would they do such a thing? Because they knew if they didn't 'seize control' then they would be facing decisions they wouldn't like at all and the 'adults' would make them abandon the 'more for me' system their parents created for them.

Given the choice between systemic collapse and sanity, they are choosing systemic collapse...because they believe they can survive a systemic collapse.

Once the dust settles they plan on re-asserting their dominance once again.

In the most brutal of fashions, naturally...it's all we understand [don't even get them started on what we 'deserve'!]

If there is a 'hell' good citizen, we are being trained quite thoroughly on how to survive it.

But I digress, the one thing you can be assured of is there isn't anything 'worse' coming after this plane of existence.

But you'll have to die to prove me wrong...

Let's recap, shall we?

We are living in a world that we've been 'priced out' of by our 'betters' who elected themselves to run things while we jump through hoops trying to 'pretend' we govern ourselves...

Not for the last time will I ask YOU 'Where are the ADULTS?'

I don't expect an answer and I don't care if your 90, I already know YOU aren't ONE OF THEM!

Because if YOU were, we wouldn't be having this conversation!

Population crisis and Energy crunch...take action NOW!

You see, these are 'non-problems for the super rich, if they need more of either all they have to do is price YOU out of the market.

Let the 'hired help' [Read the morons with the guns and badges] deal with the riots and civil unrest that threatens to burn our civilization to a cinder...so a few can be 'rich'.

Problem solved.

Naturally, they've got another thing coming if they think this is how it ends.

They underestimated their foe on too many levels, starting with the foolish level of 'trust' they have placed in their 'protectors'.

But hindsight is always 20-20 and no 'good deed' goes unpunished.

That's all for today good citizen. Are you ready to be counted as one of the Adults?

Good, I'll let you know what they say.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Suicide [whether you want to or not!]

Greetings good citizen, as is my custom I have just come from my morning visit to Some Assembly Required and there I found a snippet attributed to Larry Summers that states by mid-century that 25% of men between the ages of 25 and 54 will NOT be in the workforce.

So listen up ladies, the 'lottery' to select a life partner capable of assisting you in bringing your offspring to maturity just got exponentially tougher!

Naturally, most of you don't intend to 'breed'. Neither of my kids are of a mind [now] but it's vainity to think what YOU want is how things are going to work out in life! (Especially if you're even a modestly good-looking female.)

99% of all sexual activity is NOT done to perpetuate the species. Most of it is 'recreational' and more is done out of 'boredom' than any other reason.

Don't even go there [how many pregnancies are 'accidental'? Most of 'em] although there are the 'deadly serious' who wait so long to 'get settled' that what used to be 'natural' now has to be bought at great expense...in many directions.

But I digress [a full quarter of my nieces and nephews came from the tip of a needle so I'm not throwing stones.]

I haven't taken a poll but I'm willing to bet most of those who endured IVF originally expressed their 'lack of interest' in bearing progeny when they were younger.

It's one of our most basic drives, it could truly be called 'the meaning of life' if we were honest with ourselves...but who is honest with themself?

Pretty much NOBODY.

What am I driving at?

The older you are [especially if you're making that journey into the uncertain future alone] the easier it is to grasp.

Our 'economic system' isn't just unsustainable, it ignores our most basic need!

The supporters of our current system claim the 'competition' for the 'best mates' is in perfect alignment with natural selection...but what is the single most useful trait to a capitalist?

They are excellent CHEATS and LIARS! [Sadly, their second most, er, 'prolific' trait is self-delusion, they can certainly convince themselves that the Kool-Aid is both tasty and refreshing...the fact that it's also deadly is completely besides the point!

The widespread 'unrest' [an understatement if there ever was one] felt by a vast majority of our species is directly related to a world that uses an operating system that DOESN'T NEED THEM!

In a world where you have NO FUTURE, calling a suicide prevention hotline is an exercise in futility!

YOU really don't have a 'reason to live'.

Is this why the capitalists have sic'ced their dogs on the poor?

How DEMENTED is our 'operating system' if we can hire one half of the workforce TO KILL THE OTHER HALF?

[Even more disturbing, given the current situation, you wouldn't have a difficult time at all finding people willing to go through with it, so put that in your Christian pipe and smoke it!]

Understand good citizen, I can go on INDEFINITELY providing you with the multitude of reasons why we should abandon predatory capitailism this very minute but until YOU take up the banner and join the cause our species is doomed!

Think about it.

Thanks once again for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Why is it so dark in here? Hey! Who turned off the lights?

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh my!

Greetings good citizen, like a lobster, slowly being boiled to death, most of you are completely oblivious to the fact you have been the victims of a relentless ATTACK by the One Percent!

Understand, most billionaires were merely multi-millionaires before the attack started...but then life got 'more expensive'...and you whipped out your new 'zero interest for six months' credit card and proceeded to use that to stretch your shrinking paycheck.

Well, the next thing you know you owe a ton on your credit cards and the payments are preventing you from buying food...so you take out a HELOC to pay down the cards with...but the HITS just keep on coming!

Well, Lady Luck to the rescue once again, now your home has (magically) ballooned in value so you re-fi at a much lower interest rate and pay EVERYTHING OFF...except your paycheck which STILL doesn't cover your expenses.

Between automation, off-shoring and CHURN...[remember churn? the practice of replacing highly paid employees with cheaper trainees? (usually displaced workers from other industries.)The 'typical' Boomer has been churned more than once!]

So your paycheck remained at 1990 levels while prices continued to accelerate into the stratosphere!

Worse, many of you adopted the attitude of 'at least I have a job!'...but what you failed to recognize is your job is driving YOU to the poor farm while Mr. Employer is driving a car worth six figures and his wife and kids vacation in Europe!

When you finally DID get a raise, it was LESS than the current rate of inflation! [Mostly thanks to increased co-pays and increases in your contribution to your health plan!]

Did I mention 'mismanagement'?

Should I have pointed to EXTREME Mismanagement? [Not that you'd ever find a court willing to hear the case never mind convict despite overwhelming evidence...]

Ever wonder how they could afford to GIVE MONEY AWAY without going broke themselves?

Now when I tell you 'all money is funny' it doesn't sound so ridiculous, does it?

Ready for the coup de grace?

ALL OF THIS has happened since 'Morning in America' when the One Percent pulled off a 'palace coup' and enthroned an ACTOR as president!

WAKE UP PEOPLE! What you have accepted as 'inevitable' is actually your being cheated out of your share of what there is!

Worse, the 'infamous they' aren't about to give it up OR give it back because they figure if you are TOO STUPID to stick up for yourself, you don't DESERVE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Pretty soon that's what the cops are going to tell us about their victims, 'Well, if they thought they were gonna get shot, they shouldn't have pulled over in the first place!' [The implication being it's 'their fault' they got shot/tased to death by complying 'too readily'.]

As we all well know, Justice ISN'T a 'natural state of affairs'.

The 'willingness' to stand up for justice is what makes civilization possible. Without Justice we may as well obey our baser instincts and kill one another on sight!

We live a LOT better co-operatively than we do singularly, if you don't want to crawl into a hole and pull the dirt in over yourself, you have to be willing to FIGHT those who would cheat you out of what's yours!

If not for yourself then for the rest of us!

You may not care what happens to you but you HAVE TO CARE About those to small to fend for themselves.

It's not a law of man but it is a law of nature!

Fail to obey nature's laws and face EXTINCTION!

Now we shall see if I'm right and we remain neck deep in STUPID

Well, am I right?

For all of our sakes I pray I'm wrong!

Thanks for letting me inside your head, [you'll never hear that from a capitalist, he wants to be paid to share what he thinks!]

Gegner

Showstopper!

Greetings good citizen, first I salute whoever it was at MSN that 'mated' the review of last night's debate to the footage of an 8 year old girl in tears over the...national crisis of thugs wearing badges murdering unarmed citizens because they can!

Not a lot of people were interested in learning who the talking heads thought 'won' last night's debate but the testimony of that poor child really struck a chord.

I didn't watch the debate so all I saw were the 'highlights' provided by MSN...and the only one to bring up the topic of sanctioned murder was Donald, who, true to form, called for 'Law & Order' which most voters would construe as 'more of the same!'

Chances are, a Trump presidency would result in more of the same. When Black officers start gunning down unarmed White people will the nation's DA's suddenly start prosecuting?

Hasn't happened yet but it's only a matter of time...when the pendulum swings the other way and this crisis enters the final stage it will be one of high speed police chases followed by shoot-outs because it will become a certainty that if you 'pull over' you will have the 'reasonable expectation' that you are going to get murdered!

Understand good citizen, we are running critically short of a 'precious commodity', that commodity is 'mental stability'...

How UNFORTUNATE for us all that we can fill a person's head with a considerable degree of nonsense and they are still capable of functioning well enough to murder you?

Naturally, if ALL mental illness resulted in catatonia, we'd be calling this place the 'Vegetable Garden' instead of the Looney Bin!

Worse, those in charge of 'monitoring' the nation's mental health are aware that we are experiencing a crisis but since we can only 'repair' ourselves, there isn't much they can do.

Nor is there much you can do except keep your head down and pray this stops before it gets out of control! Damn, where are those adults when you need them!

See, that's the 'other' part of the problem, this 'not my job' crap has become Sooooo pervasive that we all expect someone else to lead the charge...and while we all play, "Not Me!" the situation spirals out of control.

How 'Sick' is our civilization? Much sicker than you'd imagine. What's the problem? Those in charge of 'THE SYSTEM' KNOW it's headed for a brick wall and they have NO CLUE what to do about it!

In case you haven't noticed, capitalism HAS failed [not an opinion but a statement of fact] and those who have 'buttered their bread' with the 'screw you, pay me!' system, don't know what to do about all of the money that is permanently STUCK at the top of the system!

If 'debtors' can't pay the whole system falls apart. I don't need to tell you that. Worse (the other shoe, as it were) is those who have no credit also don't have jobs/money so goods sit/spoil because nobody can afford them!

The (truly) Crazy Train has been scraping against the walls of the long dark tunnel for a few billion miles now, in some places the sides of the car are worn away entirely and nobody is doing anything about that...[comfort on the Crazy Train is YOUR problem and no problem IF YOU CAN PAY!]

Which is hilarious because all money is funny! The best way to get your hands on tons of the stuff is STEAL IT!

Feeding an already bad situation, instead of spending what they have the thieves simply steal MORE!

Proof of what I say came in the form of last night's debate, where 'alternative' candidates were escorted out of the forum and both mainstream candidates parroted 'politician speak'/empty platitudes that ignore not just most but all of the problems facing our species.

In this respect, good citizen, last night's debate was in fact a 'showstopper' in as much as we need to ask ourselves what will happen once 'the Crazy Train' jumps the rails?

Crash & burn pretty much sums it up.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

If nobody steps up I should probably tell you now that it's been nice knowing you! I'm not looking forward to fighting what comes after alone but it is what it is.

Good Luck!

STRIKE!

Greetings good citizen, time is short so today's topic is one I have covered before but is essential to 'the common human's hopes for a more equitable future'!

How ironic in our 'nothing for nothing' society that it seldom occurs to anyone to stop working as the most EFFECTIVE form of protest?

Is it because of the 'you will be 'replaced' bluff?

With who?

I pointed out in my last post that while nobody can do it like you do it, almost everybody CAN do it...but experience makes us 'good' at it! The system suffers mightily if EVERYONE IS A 'trainee'!

So what they're really counting on is that they will never really have to terminate EVERYBODY! The LEADERS jobs remain secure! [The guys and gals who know the job and can train others how to do it properly...]

There are not enough of them and re-training an entire workforce is a nightmare beyond belief...so why do we keep putting up with this useless BS? [Killing citizens and sending our children to become murderers for oil?]

But remember WHO we are talking about here...these people already have MORE MONEY THAN THEY CAN SPEND!

They aren't about to 'roll over and play dead' because their trucks sit abandoned in parking lots across the nation!

AND THAT IS THE SINGULAR WEAK LINK!

The nation/world's truckers hold the fate of our species in their hands!

If stuff isn't where it's supposed to be when it's needed, the whole thing comes to a screeching halt!

Making YOUR desire to STRIKE moot!

Not an easy job nor is it a forgiving one. You can't pluck people off the street and throw them in the cab of a big rig and expect them to drive from point A to point B SAFELY! [We'd have to shut down the interstate system if it ever came to that!]

Depserate times will call for desperate measures and the 'ante' for truckers willing to brave the streets during the strike will be TREMENDOUS...should it ever come to it.

United we stand good citizen and it's unfair to point at the lynchpin of the entire system and place our hopes on the livelihoods of the few [but it wouldn't be the first time it's come to that!]

If we are to put an end to 'Morning in America' and abandon predatory capitalism, the truckers are our 'best bet'!

Pilots of the open road, hear our appeal! [Nov 9th, it's strike on!]

You hold the key to tomorrow, only you can insure it is better than today!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

The Shadows

Greetings good citizen, art may imitate life but when we see shows like 'Designated Survivor' we can't help but wonder if the former star of '24' is being groomed in the public's mind for a potential future run as Meat Puppet-in-Chief?

An 'actor' as president you scoff? Tell that to Ronnie Reagan's fans [and he wasn't even a 'good' actor!]

Now our current 'constitutional scholar' is going to veto legislation that would permit US citizens to sue foreign governments for damages under that all encompassing refuge of scoundrels 'National Security'.

Do you think he has a 'choice' or is Mr. Obama just doing what he's told/ordered to do?

We note that most people were rather disappointed that Our Sitting President lost his back-bone upon entering the White House and failed to prosecute either the Banksters or the War criminals, causing us all to wonder what happened to the Democrats and just who are these 'imposters'?

Now the corporate OWNED media expects us to choose between a crackpot who entered the race on a lark...and found himself trapped when the people running against him were even less credible and a former First Lady who evidently thinks familiarity with the White House is all it takes to run this nation.

That said, if you can follow a script, YOU can be president too!

Some will take encouragement from the idea that 'Dumb or Dumber' would be on a 'short leash' but a patsy is still a patsy and we all know the One Percent's next move is liable to be a lulu!

Some of you might remember, back in my Conceptual Guerilla days, [the years I posted on CG] that I 'predicted' our current situation, one of the public becoming 'fair game' in the global witch hunt THEY are calling 'The Global War on Terror'.

With the enactment of the Patriot Act and the suspension/elimination of Habeas Corpus you too can be 'detained' without warrant and held indefinitely without access legal counsel or the ability to notify kin of your fate.

In a word, 'disappeared'.

Wake up and smell the coffee good citizen, THIS IS THE WORLD WE LIVE IN! Welcome to the post 'Morning in America' reality of a world that exists so 'a few can be rich'...

If you ever wondered who Scrooge was referring to when he raged against the 'surplus population', find yourself a mirror and have a peak, you'll see 'surplus' looking back at you!

Consider, if you can wrap your head around it, the idea that those currently in charge of this world regard you as a 'potential liability' [waiting to happen] as it were...

While we all have 'unique' skill sets, it is vanity in the extreme to consider ourselves 'irreplaceable'. There may be no one who can do what you do like YOU do it BUT almost everyone CAN do it.

Remember, when you remove your fist from the buck of water, you leave no trace!

Libertarians and Republicans are both wired to think in 'absolutes' and this is NOT a healthy way to make decisions for the 'greater good'.

Our current mess is due to the prevalent belief that the 'strong' will subdue the weak and the results will speak for themselves. It's a 'let the bodies land where they may' approach that is neither equitable nor just but those who 'pretend' they are strong are fine with this.

Until they turn the dogs on them, then suddenly their lack of compassion is driven home and they quickly learn that they don't like being on the short end of the stick. [Not that this does ANYTHING to alter their reprehensible attitude!]

How sad is it good citizen that this 'personality type' is dominant with one in four being afflicted? [There are 4 personality types and the 'type A' is the most prevalent...[the 'judger' who doesn't THINK!] The rest of us are divided, rather unequally, among the other 3 types.

Can you guess which one is 'rarest?'

Since the answer is obvious I'll let it slide (and you should too!) You can train yourself to become a thinker but it won't 'fit' you well, we are the type we're most comfortable with and, again, the only ones who have a problem with this are the Class A types [who frequently get 'lost in thought' because they don't go there very often...]

I belabor the obvious when I point to this trait as being the primary reason why STUPID is so prevalent on this planet but you work with the population you've got, not the population you WISH YOU HAD!

While not all Class 'A' types are morons, not all intellectuals are compassionate.

There is a saying that goes, 'To a thinking man this life is a comedy and to a feeling man, a tragedy..."

I laugh all the time (at the many 'absurdities' we encounter every day) so I guess we know which way this twig is bent...

Thought I'd share that for no particular reason but to help better illustrate where I'm (and all of this) is coming from.

Not helpful? Oh well.

Do I Digress (madly)? Absolutely.

But sometimes you have to go screaming off the reservation to understand how we came to be where we are. You have to admit, the 'usurpers' aren't forthcoming about either their origin or their intent [because the truth would spark a full scale revolt!]

If we skip back to the beginning of today's piece, the part about life imitating art, which is said to imitate life we have to wonder what our 'artists' have been trying to communicate to us over the past three decades?

Does anyone else find the sudden resurgence of country music 'disturbing'?

Whether you notice or not, we're moving backwards and that's NEVER a 'good thing'...unless you're an 'A' personality type and fondly pine away for a past THAT NEVER WAS!

To put it more bluntly, we have already passed the intersection of Liberty & Tyranny and I think most of you know what path we're on.

Do we let the 'morons' choose which idiot will lead us further down the rat hole that has been chosen for us?

Ironically, the system being what it is, it only takes the vote of a single moron to seal our fate!

November is coming up quick good citizen, what are you going to do given that meaningful change ISN'T IN THE CARDS?

Do you honestly believe the choices will improve 4 years from now?

Not if we do NOTHING, and that's a fact!

Thanks once again for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Rinse & Repeat...and don't forget to prepare for a STRIKE come Nov 9th! If this doesn't go viral you can forget about it, just you and I will alter nothing!

Charity, need vs practice...

Greetings good citizen, had an incident this morning that unexpectedly threw me onto one of my other 'hobby horses', charity and the need for such 'organizations'.

After 911 the Red Cross collected over $250 million dollars in donations and expended a fraction of that in 'aid' to the afflicted.

Their 'rationale' was simple, when something big hapens people are right there to chip in but when something small happens, it doesn't 'rain money' and people still need assistance.

Well, this morning I was asked by a passerby [while I was at the hospital] if he could use my phone to make a call, the people at the outreach program refused, threw him out or so he said!

I listened as he called his Mom to come get him, her told her he was stranded and needed a ride.

Okay, a lot of these charitable causes don't have the facilities to provide you with transportation so getting there and back is on you, I understand this.

Didn't get into specifics but from what I could gather the poor guy [kid, comparitively] was trying to seek help with addiction and they turned him down for some reason.

Guess that's the privilege of 'charity', you get to pick and choose who you will or will not help...

Helping people in need is something we all do instinctively because we all understand what it's like to be without recourse and have no place to turn. [This kid still had his Mom but he had no way to reach her.] I'd like to think if my son were in a similar situation that some stranger would take pity on him and help him out.

But I'm silly that way because I am confident that most people are both sympathetic and willing to help when someone gets 'stuck'.

In fact, it is this instinct to help that forms the basis for many 'cons' so people are wary of those seeking help; because 'desperation' is a terrible thing.

It drives people to take advantage of people's better nature against their own better judgement [the karmic cost can be hellacious so nobody 'dupes' people lightly!]

But I digress, my 'target' is in fact the Charities that double as 'tax shelters', where 90 cent on the dollar goes toward 'administration', paying salaries that most of us only dream of and gifting the public with edifices named after the founder in a vainglorious attempt to 'immortalize' them.

Which is to opine that most charities do much more for the founder than anyone else while cheating society out of tax revenue...that isn't needed in the first place but the thieves don't want YOU to know that...

We endure enough 'needless privation' due mostly to mismanagement than is caused by mal-administration [although if someone were to track it, it would be close.

First we come to the 'need' for charity in a society where NOTHING is for NOTHING, the rule is, 'if a price can be exacted, it WILL be!'

Bordering on charities is Insurance companies who only pay what they can't weasel out of...making you wonder why so many forms of insurance are 'compulsory'.

Life is fraught with mishaps, some within our control and many are beyond it...but either way, that which is lost must be replaced, somehow.

Now charities exist to, er, 'lift up' those left berift by unfortunate (and uninsured) losses. Most of us have homeowners insurance as well as relatives we can rely on to take us in should our primary residence be lost due to unforseen circumstances...so most of us don't NEED charity.

So why do they exist?

Truth be told good citizen, Mother Nature doesn't have a cash register so why would ANYONE pay for Insurance? If society needs the item lost (including your domicile) it WILL be replaced regardless of cost!

But I'm only talking sense, much of what we experience is senseless and stupidity keeps us from questioning it...

We all know the drill,"Don't blame me mister, I don't make the rules, I just work here!"

Well good citizen, here we are staring another election in the face and by gosh, by gum we STILL don't make the rules! We are expected to put up with the decisions of the inept and the shiftless [who never lift a finger to do for themselves, never mind anyone else!] and stick it to the rest of us every chance they get?

Naturally they will ask, "Who are you complaining about now?" and the answer is the idiot pretending not to know we're talking about HIM!

Guess it really frosts my cookies, so many 'charities' and so much NEED!

Ironically charities with enough 'cash on hand' to advertise on Television NEVER advertise to aid the HOMELESS, THey're always trying to guilt you into saving puppies and kittys or cute orphans from foreign countries...making you wonder what's wrong with THEIR GOVERNMENT?

Ironically, in many instances, THEIR GOVERNMENT is too DEEP IN HOCK TO OUR BANKING SYSTEM to help their own people...(so a few can be rich!) [no shortage of national leaders who have pauperized their nations just so they could line their own pockets with gold!]

I guess I've made my point, good citizen. The whole 'charity' thing just sets my teeth on edge because MOST OF THEM exist as jobs programs for the families that established them, a perverted 'twist' on 'trust fund babies'...

Once again, when it come to actual help when help is needed, the nearest human you can find is often your best bet!

Thank you once again for letting me vent,

Gegner

Patriots and Terrorists

Greetings good citizen, many things are 'glossed over', particularly who did what to who, when and why. Still, it's a little incredible to consider the whole world went to war over the assassination of a minor royal in Hungary almost a century ago and millions died.

As most politically motivated crimes, this act was laid at the feet of 'terrorists' looking to assert their 'own agenda'.

If we turn our attention to the Middle East it's difficult to determine which came first, the chicken or the egg, nor can we make sense out of how beating the wasps to death, one at a time, is doing anything to end an obviously 'open-ended' war?

The 'consensus' [the sum of our national sentiment] is that what calls itself our government is 'Out of Touch and Dangerously Out of Control!'

Which is what has led us to our current political quandry of having two unqualified candidates to choose from for the leadership of the nation.

What has EVERYONE worried?

If dumb and dumber are our choices...what do the self-centered have up their sleeves this time that they need to insure a moron is in the White House to pose as a whipping boy?

Will a 'woman in the White House' be blamed' for the world's first global thermonuclear incident? On the other hand, nobody has any difficulty imagining the caustic Mr. Trump ordering a nuclear strike on whoever pisses him off at any given moment.

To hell with MAD!

Again, to be clear, those 'pulling the strings' [literally 'making history'] don't care how many they kill because those deaths will NEVER be laid at their feet, the judges are too afraid of them to even suggest they had anything to do with it.

Damn, where are those adults when you need them?

Seriously good citizen, our civilization is being 'managed' by psychopaths! If we hope to save ourselves we need to remove them and all they have corrupted from power.

So yeah, it's looking like a purge and a none too pretty one at that.

Job keeps growing, doesn't it?

However, the choices are limited. Either we take the bull by the horns or millions [if not billions] will die as the 'social clock' turns back a thousand years!

And this is just an opinion but I strongly suspect those who have been handed 'a broken world' want to take us back to 'a simpler time' when people who asked questions or resisted authority were dealt with as 'examples to the rest'. [shouldn't use euphemisms because the none too bright won't understand it means killed in a horribly brutal fashion, quite publicly too.] Worse, in the begininning they'll do it because they can...and they'll keep doing it until the 'blowback' becomes too severe.

How screwed up is that?

Did I mention we're dealing with people who take pride in the fact that they're a few fries shy of a happy meal?

A 'normal' person would want a better world for us all but these 'freaks' were taught that there is no pleasing people, better to beat them down [hard] at every opportunity...that way they become thankful when misfortune misses them by a few inches...

These are NOT the people you want in charge!

What they NEED is a giant sized dose of their own medicine, something EXILE will provide because they will go there with their peers/underlings.

So let's see if you got anything out of this, Patriots support the 'status quo' and Terrorists want change...what does that make YOU, good citizen?

If the answer is 'conflicted' you need to have a stern talk with the man in the mirror because he's even more screwed up than the people 'creating history' are!

Face facts, you AREN'T going to 'live forever' or even remotely 'happily ever after' because your ever after glows in the dark!

If you're gonna 'bite the dust', do so for the right reasons!

It's time to 'nut up' good citizen!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Slippery slope

Greetings good citizen, I was intending to blast yet another 'failed' aspect of our cheating civilization and had an epihany...I too have slid down that slippery slope of pounding home the message, the WRONG message, the message of 'humanity is evil'.

It's a message that makes EVERY murder committed by police a 'good shoot'.

[Left to our imagination is the question of whether or not the police have formed a club and the price of admission/initiation is shooting a black male...]

Sure looks that way...but I digress.

Our dirty/biased media maintains the philosophy that if it bleeds it leads, and if it smells, it sells...so it is small wonder the ONLY news involving the average citizen WE get to see is BAD, painting a dark picture of an EXTREMELY TOLERANT AND FORGIVING SPECIES!

Being a steady consumer of corporate owned bullshittery, you generally maintain a 'bad opinion' of your fellow citizens, one they do little to dispel as they jostle for position, cutting you off every chance they get.

THIS is the 'competition' we all face in nature and it is natural not EVIL.

Nobody likes getting 'beat' to their objective but it's a fact of life...and it happens all the time which is why we don't 'lose it' when it happens for the umpteenth time, we simply bear down and try harder the next time.

But again I digress, my 'target' if you will is one of the aspects of A Simple Plan that might frighten those of you that have become accustomed to having Law Enforcement scrutinizing your every move, under A Simple Plan there won't be 'cops' per se.

The civilization set up under A Simple plan is 'self-policing'...because people [mature ones] know life is about cooperation, not confrontation.

Ever wonder why we, er, 'endure' so many different police agencies? Because Law Enforcement is more of a 'jobs program' than it is about ensuring compliance.

Which brings us to one of this morning's headlines from today's NY Times, Hillary is promising 'Mo, betta jobs!' to lift the poor from their wretched circumstances.

FULL STOP!

Wait a minute slim. Is she or The Donald trying to tell us that they can 'undo' DECADES of automation and off-shoring just by saying, "When I'm in charge of the government, I'll make more jobs, good jobs, that pay good too!"

How sad is it that the same people who swallow this tripe don't have a clue where FOOD comes from never mind jobs!

SO they certainly don't know why government exists in the first place.

Doesn't help that the popularity contest run by our school systems don't provide the kids with any insight into either the purpose or the rationale behind why a government is necessary to the smooth operation of a functioning civilization.

Again, A Simple Plan does away with 'popularity contests' for determining the 'faux' course of the nation.

Where are these jobs both candidates are promising going to come from?

While Republican's like to call themselves 'job creators', they have overseen the dismantling of this nation's manufacturing base that put tens of millions out of 'good paying jobs'.

Sadly, the only reason those jobs 'paid well' was due to the war footing we maintained after WWII ended.

Yup, the government can create work when there is none but the work isn't 'necessary'...nor does it improve anyone's circumstances.

Humans need surprisingly little to get by on...and our economy is always squeezing everything it can out of that lower limit. Ever notice the more you make, the worse your circumstances?

If I had a time machine and made what I made now AND could travel back to when I was a kid and invest, I'd be as rich if not richer than my birthday buddy, Warren Buffett.

And no, the point here is I made significantly less when I was young but it went A LOT further than money does today.

So how do we 'create jobs' for everyone that needs them AND pay everyone a 'living wage'?

We do the things that need doing but can't be done 'profitably' under capitalism.

The bridges in this nation along with most of the rest of our centuries old 'infrastructure' badly need replacing...and the rabid pace of inflation makes it impossible to replace even a fraction of what is rapidly becoming a public menace.

Worse, the highly skilled craftsman need to do the work no longer exist. We'd literally have to 're-invent the wheel' all over again!

[However, the good news is A Simple Plan operates under the 'apprenticeship' model where EVERYONE not already a master craftsman would be obliged to undergo 'on the job training' until they were certified.

So yes, good citizen, jobs for all is possible but not via a 'magic wand'...or worse, flapping of jaws and paying the self-serving to do a sloppy job then point to 'a lack of oversight' as the cause!

We, as a species, can't tolerate this 'exploitation' any longer.

Like alchoholism, I can't save us 'single-handedly', YOU have to want to save yourself/children from a fate worse than death.

Like cattle to slaughter, first you have to wake up to the fact you're already in the chute!

Today's food for thought is not A Simple Plan, where ALL will prosper because civilization doesn't need 'profit' to operate...or 'profit' is more than dollars and cents, it's the education, clean air and pure water that makes life wonderful and people are wonderful too if you stop trying to make them put both of their feet into ONE SHOE!

Consider if you will how I, ever the pragmaist, came to design a civilization that is 'self-policing'?

When was the last time you NEEDED a cop? [Short answer for most of us is NEVER...think about that one too.]

Thank you for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

PLEASE don't fall for the lies of lying politicians, they DON'T have Your/OUR best interests at heart.

Their 'masters' want what we don't, more of the same...

Adults? What adults???

Greetings good citizen, as today's headline indicates this post deals with whether or not we turn over the reins of our society to the next generation 'too soon'.

A rhetorical question for sure because we've all encountered the aged 3-year-old throwing tantrums because things weren't the way he likes them...

Don't you wish we had a, er, 'better measure' for (mental) maturity? Many of those in charge seem to have never progressed past kindergarten [and even then we are being 'kind'.]

But wishing for change produces nothing useful so how do we, er, 'disarm' the children on the playground?

Again with the 'wishes'...'theory has it' we can achieve responsible behavior by holding the perps 'accountable'.

Who are these perps? Usually high ranking military personnel with zero concern for the 'blow-back' their actions create.

Today's Some Assembly Required runs down a random list of acts of foolishness that occur regularly BECAUSE NO ONE IS HELD ACCOUNTABLE!

Isn't the 'theory' accountability enforces responsibility *still the benchmark we use in this nation? [*Was it ever?]

So where are the adults? Who is 'monitoring' the playground and who is punishing those who commit heinous acts with impunity BECAUSE THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT?

If there is an elephant in the room, this one's name is JUMBO!

It's upsetting enough that cops [who should NEVER be soldiers too] come back from overseas with their 'trigger fingers' set to 'shoot with impunity' because the uniform will protect you!

Do we REALLY need to craft 'zero tolerance laws' so cops don't shoot kids for being kids?

Accidents happen and situations spiral...we all know Murphy's law, if it CAN go wrong, it will but seriously good citizen, lately we have to ask ourselves what the F is wrong with the people charged with holding their underlings accountable...and more importantly, where is 'corrective action?'

While the perps are victims of policies born of wartime philosophy, these days the 'war' is against CIVILIANS, a war that can NEVER be successfully fought without damaging your soldiers IRREPAIRABLY!

Who NEEDS too be PROSECUTED for their crimes against humanity? Those overseeing the military!

Now where do you suppose EITHER candidate stands on reining in our attack dogs?

Now do you see the foolishness of voting for people instead of voting directly on the law? People can change their mind about the law but the law doesn't change!

[eg: the 'candidate' can campaign in support of a particular piece of legislation but 'change their mind' once they are in a position to 'profit personally' from a decision. Voting on the law itself prevents this...although weasels will try to 'amend' an offending law after it passes...which is a crime but the weasels don't care.]

If we can't/don't make those charged with overseeing processes and procedures accountable we will continue to suffer from out of control policing and a military that is a menace to friend and foe alike.

All because 'Mr/s. 'political appointee' never graduated sandbox 101!

The people making these choices need to have their feet held to the fire! For far too long the word 'chairman' has been 'held harmless' for the actions of THE PEOPLE HE/SHE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR! WTF!

Ignorance is one thing good citizen but putting up with STUPID is UNFORGIVEABLE! [and guess 'who's responsible'?...good job, right in one!

If YOU can accept reality here, why can't those in charge?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

What did I say? it's all dark in here...who turned out the lights?

Bad Guys

Greetings good citizen, is anyone else shocked to learn we live in such a dangerous society that our police forces feel compelled to shoot whoever they encounter?

Stop loss and endless 'rotations' in the Middle East have put a considerable strain on our law enforcement agents as many 'double dribble' serving both in the military AND as cops on the beat.

You don't suppose this is starting to take it's toll on the already fragile psyche of those who volunteer to wear a badge and risk their lives in the service of...who knows what?

Because they sure didn't take the job to 'protect' the rest of us.

To look at recent events you'd think these guys reported to Mosul to go to work every day!

Lost is 'friend or foe', they now will shoot anyone who doesn't comply instantly or perfectly...and this is a real hazard. Some people are a little slow on the uptake, stress slows down their responses and that's real bad when the guy who has the drop on you also has an itchy trigger finger.

ALTHOUGH NOT AS GREAT A HAZARD AS HAVING MORONS ON THE BENCH REFUSING TO PROSECUTE PEOPLE WHO SHOULDN'T BE WEARING BADGES IN THE FIRST PLACE!

What do we do with political appointees that don't know their butt from a hole in the ground making biased and uninformed decisions?

They don't care about justice! They care about appearances!

So where are all the 'bad guys' our police forces have to be on the lookout for? [So much so that they shoot first and ask questions afterwards...]

Is the typical city street such a cesspool of crime that officers are forced to walk with their weapons drawn everywhere they go?

No, but more often than not where is a cops hand 90% of the time?

If you pass them on the highway during a traffic stop you can SEE where that hand is, it's on the butt of his weapon...[who the heck does he think he pulled over, Dillinger? (considering Osama Bin Laden is dead)]

No irony should be lost that the world we live in is indeed a veritable cesspool of crime but it's not 'criminal gangs' harrassing the general public, it's con men, clip artists and grifters [none of whom are violent unless cornered.] and the biggest criminals of all, 'businessmen'.

Yessiree! Those criminal capitalists are everywhere, gouging their customers and shortchanging their employees but the cops don't seem to notice those guys...and we can only wonder why?

Naturally, we then arrive at the 'real criminals', the drug dealers and the thieves that make their living 'outside' a system that doesn't need them, thus are they prevented making money through 'legitimate' channels.

Yup, that dark underbelly of society has a curious cause, and that 'cause' is an operating system that isn't capable of providing jobs that pay a living wage for everyone that needs one.

WHY IS IT NOBODY acknowledges this glaring deficiency?

Could it be because the people running things like it this way?

Instead we are TAUGHT that those who can't find jobs are LAZY or DON'T WANT TO WORK instead of the truth, THE JOBS AREN'T THERE AND THEY NEVER WILL BE!

A Simple Plan fixes this but YOU have to WANT TO CHANGE!

The cesspool we live in is the way the, er, 'well-born' like it and THEY certainly don't want change!

One thing is certain, things can't go on like this much longer and when 'change' comes, and it will, you most certainly aren't going to like it...because none of this is about YOU, it's about them! [And they aren't ashamed to admit it!]

Late night followed by an early morning...time to wrap it up because it's time to make the donuts again!

Until next time, thank you for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Two Americas

Greetings good citizen, the idea of 'two Americas' is not new and some would rightly argue there are many more than two, probably closer to two dozen as each major ethnic group clashes with each lifestyle choice, which butts heads with each racial sector and let's not forget the sexual divide where all of the other divisions 'repeat'.

How sad is it that for EVERY adjective you can think of, there is a subdivision?

United we stand but increasingly, united we AREN'T!

How does 'our America' get divided in two? Well, the US operates on the basis of a 'two party' political system, the batshit crazy Republicans and the other ones...who are also batshit crazy. But that's not where the real 'dividing line' is, when we speak of 'two Americas' we speak of the rich and the rapidly becoming destitute and most importantly, the two 'justice systems'.

Let's be clear good citizen, we are ALL one thing first but the good for nothing media spares no effort convincing us otherwise...underneath all of the 'subcategories', we are ALL HUMAN!

You'd think I'd save that for the end but but last thing I offer is probably the ONLY thing you'll remember, how sad is it that most of you don't have half the memory I do [which, trust me, is a curse...]

In an attempt to save themselves the 'wealthy' have turned a blind eye to the actions of their 'attack dog', the reationale being discipline the dog and it will be confused when you sic it on 'the rabble'.

Better to the let the police get a taste for their true function, where shooting defenseless children will be the least of their attrocities, in a world that is going to fly apart at the seams any minute now.

Which is to belabor the obvious, the police DON'T EXIST TO PROTECT YOU! Their primary responsibility is to the ONE PERCENT!

The report wasn't there's a 'gun-toting youth' in the vicinity, the report was bank robbery...and the cops were responding to that so when the 13 year old revealed his BB pistol, they shot him dead.

Did you ask yourself, what if the kid had been white?

[How ironic that had it been a white kid, the odds of the gun being real increase geometrically!]

Our civilization will not survive 'chicken cops' who shoot first and let the judge pardon them right, wrong or indifferent.

The truth of the matter is we have a cop that never should have received a badge and now he has murder on his soul. The judge may pardon him but karma won't!

What comes around, goes around.

One of the 'problems of Royalty' was their 'I can do what I please and there is NOTHING you can do about it' way they lived [usually contributing to their early deaths...which did zero to correct things but you know how it goes.]

With the, er, 'capture of civilian government' by those who fancy themselves our 'betters' we have returned to a 'two-tiered' justice system, one set of rules for the elite and a harsher set for those who displease the elite.

While 'Morning in America' is forty years in the rearview mirror and many of you have grown up believing 'it's always been like that'...and you'd be right. You were more likey to see a camel fit through the eye of a needle than you were of seeing a wealthy man do prison time, it didn't become 'blatant' [like it is today]' UNTIL 'Morning in America', the 'unofficial' palace coup. Before that, things were handled more on the 'down-low'...

Corruption, especially pervasive corruption like we have now will tear a civilization to shreds because nobody believes there is anything worth saving.

To an extent, they're right. The question is how long to we have to 'dwell in the wilderness' until we become 'pure' enough to try again?

The answer is ZERO!

[At least in this case, because we already have a replacement for the corrupt system!]

TO be clear, any system that treats different segments of society differently, is by definition, 'CORRUPT'!

None of us we born to be a certain class of people's punching bag or their servants. Until the 'self-impressed' get over themselves they have NO PLACE in civil society.

What am I trying to 'educate' you towards today? That while there are many different 'kinds' of people and ways to be, the factor we must all remember is that we are HUMAN FIRST! More alike than not and with more in common than not.

Upon THIS ROCK we shall [re]build our world!

[Don't forget to Rinse & Repeat come November 9th!]

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Your Vote [what it means]

Greetings good citizen, watching Bill Mahar last night [he always has Republican's on so what does THAT tell us?

Anyway, as the show progresses the topic turns to VOTING and how many voters are refusing to 'hold their nose' and vote for 'the turd sandwich' rather than 'the giant douche'! [hat tip South Park season 20 opener]

Well, the panelists opined that not voting was a vote for the other side but it's worse than that.

When you 'hold your nose' and vote for the 'lesser evil' what you're really saying is YOU'RE OKAY WITH A PROCESS THAT PRODUCES CRAPPY CHOICES!

ISN'T THAT ONE OF THE THINGS THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE?

Vote, don't vote...doesn't matter because your continued participation in a process that CAN ONLY PRODUCE BAD OUTCOMES condemns you to perpetually being given choices that produce 'more of the same'!

Money in politics produces leader/decisionmakers who are beholden to their, er, the innocent word is 'backers' but it has become more like they have 'sold' themselves so they behave as if they have 'Masters!' It wouldn't be inappropriate to carry that idea one step further and use the more repulsive term 'owners'!

What the hell, they OWN everything else!

Worse, since Morning in America you have batshit crazy Republicans on one side of the fence and unidentified meatpuppets who don't even call themselves Democrats anymore on the other side that NO ONE knows what they stand for...because they don't stand for anything except pretending to oppose the Republicans...until they don't.)

Some genius hung the progressive label on them but the last political party to identify themselves as 'progressive' was the Nazis!

Um, not necessarily 'rinse & repeat' time but the question remains, how do we effect change when the ballot box remains beyond our reach?

What are you going to do to give your children something you never had?

SOMEBODY told you a STRIKE is the answer. It is the ONLY (peaceful) way to send them a message they will understand.

The same 'somebody else' told you yesterday that it was your responsibility to rid yourself of a society that wasn't just and equal when such a place has NEVER EXISTED.

Gegner apologizes for that but the goal here is a world at peace because without peace there can be no prosperity!

A society that is constantly girding itself for war [or is always AT war] is more concerned with 'victory' than the prosperity of its people.

What do you suppose 'victory' looks like in the GWOT? 6,900,000,000 dead?

TO understand the answer you need to switch gears and play 'billionaires and terrorists'...if you're not a billionaire, you're a potential threat! [A game that only gets more intense once trillionaires enter the scene!]

Don't you WISH wealth and intelligence were 'proportional', then our species would stand a ghost of a chance!

If we can't alter the process because the process is beyond our reach AND the process continues to produce 'bad outcomes', how will we restore justice?

Short answer is we WON'T!

Who is responsible? [YOU ARE!] What can be done? [STRIKE!] What do we want? [A Simple Plan!] Why do we want it? [TO END THE EXPLOITATION OF MANKIND!] When do we want it? [NOW!]

Not to throw stones at my audience but if this stuff is 'apparent' to me then what's wrong with the rest of you?

Those are your Choices good citizen,

Choose Wisely!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Read Error! What the hell does THAT mean?

And Justice for All...

Greetings good citizen, I'm sure some of you have heard of the recent kerfuffle surrounding the desire of the surviving families of the 9/11 attack on NYC to sue Saudi Arabia and the sitting president's vow to veto the legislation that would allow those families to seek justice?

Left to our imagination is whether or not cracking this 'seal' wouldn't open the US up to liability/wrongful death lawsuits regarding those who were...[um, pick your own euphemism here] 'executed' by US drones as alleged 'enemy combatants'?

You know the guys I'm talking about, Al Quieda's number 2 man, twice removed? He's been killed 147 times this year alone!

We are left with a few questions here good citizen. When is it 'appropriate' to let ANYONE'S government operate 'above the law' and why would we allow those whose job it is to enforce the law the ability to pick and choose which ones they will enforce and WHO will (or will NOT) receive justice?

*One Nation [something something, think the crackers inserted something about Spirit in the Sky in there] With Liberty and Justice FOR ALL!

[*From the now outdated Pledge of Alligeance, US version.]

Did I mention this planet is screwed up beyond belief? [Probably not, no point in telling you what you already know!]

We COULD lump this in with the 'All men are created equal' blarney and all of the other noble but meaningless platitudes we are expected to hold dear...[but not as dear as eating regularly or the freedom to slip down to the corner for a pint if the feeling moves us.] I won't even start on how the largest segment of our species population is treated!

So it is that we enter the realm usually preceded with 'The Dream isn't the same for everyone' speech. Where we are 'reminded' that we have to be 'flexible' and let some 'garbage' slip through the cracks or the system wouldn't work at all!

So we arrive at that place where the SAME PEOPLE keep getting a 'free pass' while everyone else gets the shaft!

Funny thing about the law, the ones most willing to take on the tickilish task of 'administering' it, thereby risking getting caught up by the inherent conflicts the task presents; are usually the very ones you DON'T WANT having that kind of authority!

Life's 'rocks and hard places' need to be confronted so the prevalent 'It's OKAY if I do it!' is NEVER the answer.

Actually the 'crafty' administrator will try and create the illusion that 'the state' IS 'above the law'...and back that up claiming the creator [who allegedly blesses AND created the State] agrees that the State is NEVER 'in the wrong' [regardless of what its minions do in its name!] See why you don't want those who seek these positions to possess this kind of power?

This little 'doe-see-doe' translates to 'If you don't like the outcome, take it up with the Creator...and let us know how you make out with that cuz he's a tough guy to get a hold of!'

In the end good citizen, NOBODY is 'Above the Law'...but the weasels would have you believe otherwise.

Now that we have chased this little B-tard all around the Mulberry bush we arrive at perhaps the most important issue of all.

Since the foundation of every 'sound and rational' civilization is Equality and Justice, what is YOUR 'responsibility' as a citizen of a society that is neither?

[Rinse & Repeat!]

Ask yourself, is all that, er, 'madness' you witness everyday just part of the 'beast' in action or are they signs of a society in a 'death spiral'?

Did I 'prejudice' your perception by calling it 'madness' or IS THERE a better term for it? What we might call 'people being people' today can't be compared to people fifty years ago...two entirely different things.

You can only 'turn a blind eye' until it's your day in the box...then what?

Will you wait til that day comes and deal with it then?

Nobody would blame you because its exactly what THEY intend to do too!

Not my problem, not my job...until it is

Anyway, none of you should be surprised to learn your day is coming...likely a lot quicker than you think!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

[What's it like in here? You don't want to know...]

Monopolized!

Greetings good citizen, the global economy has slowly become monopolized via aquisitions and mergers. Since there is no...um, 'official' global government, a body that lays down and enforces rules on a worldwide basis it is a small matter to bribe the government of a tiny nation [like the banking industry, er, 'bought' the government of South Dakota] to find/create a place where global monopolies AREN'T illegal.

Why ban monopolies you ask? What part of you will pay it and like it don't you understand? without competition a monopoly has absolute control over your access to a good or service and can demand whatever they want in exchange for whatever their reasoning.

If they want you to live on the shop floor [in order to keep your job] you won't have any choice...you'll either do it or hope your 'lack of enthusiasm' isn't used against you at the next monopoly you apply for work with.

Because this monopoly BS has already manifested itself in the job market. If you WANT to work you have to DEMONSTRATE YOUR WILLINGNESS/commitment by accepting (gratefully) whatever BS they decide will cement their authority over you.

If you won't comply, they won't force you...but your hand is forced on the other side. Without income you can't acquire and if you can't acquire you won't be able to build a life or enjoy a 'legacy' [read family] that can only come by 'conforming'.

MAYBE you can 'get lucky' and get your own reality show on Fox TV but you know that fad is already fading into reruns...truth be told nobody really cares about people who scramble six months out of each year only to 'hibernate' the other six.

Live Free or Die is the New Hampshire state motto but it doesn't have much to do with anything in our go along to get along world. When you think about it, our civilization really is just an overgrown Jonestown where the 'kool-aid' stands ever-ready to do our overlords bidding.

Like RUSH said in the tune 'subdivisions'...conform or be cast out!

Sort of quick good citizen but sometimes 'organic opportunities' present themselves and it is suddenly time to 'rinse & repeat'.

Who is responsible? [YOU] What can we do about it? [STRIKE] What do we want? [A SIMPLE PLAN] Why do we want it? [TO END EXPLOITATION/TYRANNY!] When do we want it? [NOW]

Um, in case you're wondering why A Simple Plan is superior to our capitalistic system, it is because NOBODY has a monopoly on ANYTHING! Under ASP nobody 'owns' anything! [It may shock you to know nobody owned anything before KINGS came along either...just making a point, ya know?]

If we are to return to a natural, sustainable state the first order of business will be to eliminate the frivolous claims of the self-interested few.

You KNOW who you are self-proclaimed 'JOB CREATOR' [Job DENIER is much closer to the mark!]

Nothing beats a monopoly if you want everything your way, that's why the foolish (and more than a little STUPID) do it.

With the resultant 'lack of choice' and stagnation also becomes the breeding grounds for phenomenon like The Terror.

What do you suppose they will replace the guilottine with? It will be difficult to devise a more brutal device but we can rest assured they're up to the challenge!

I'm speculating it will be a variation of the food processor...will it shred them quickly or will the machine purposefully work slowly to maximize the pain?

Dunno and ropes and light poles are fine with me but never underestimate man's brutality to his fellow man! [If such a device exists/turns up it will be because THEY intended to use it on US!]

Um, sort of went raging off the reservation there again...sorry.

Where were we? Oh yeah, monopolization and the 'go along to get along' [comply or die] environment it fosters.

Given humanities propensity towards brutality you really don't want to 'encourage' such behavior and this is probably a large part of the 'national angst' we are experiencing today.

How do we dial this back? [Rinse & Repeat!]

Your 'inner savage' is clamoring for a little payback but your intellectual self knows it's a 'zero sum' game, tit for tat never evens things out. You only 'WIN' when you put a stop to the inequity!

That concludes today's, er, 'parable' [although I shouldn't use religious terms because spirit in the sky is just as responsible for the kings and their brutality as its followers were.]

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

WOW, it's glowing in here! Remind me not to 'feed' your inner savage so much. Just the idea of exacting revenge is really revving you up!

Lying with statistics...

Greetings good citizen, today's topic is self-evident...although once again the timing of such a proclamation is suspect as well as the quality of the data used...although the rich getting richer only makes it APPEAR that all boats are rising!

The 'average household' the fifty percent point in the payroll data remains where it was two decades ago, hovering around $25,000 but the 'median household income has risen 5.2% to the vicinity of $52,000 for the 'median' household.

The first number is arrived at by adding up the numbers of workers to find the halfway point and add up what each decan makes until you equal the number of people.

The second figure is what you get when you divide down ALL the money in the economy by the number of households are two very different animals, don't you agree?

The other puzzling factor is the timing of this revelation, is the current POTUS trying to enhance his legacy or are Republicans fearful of an angry public?

The cannon has been pointing at the One Percent for quite some time and our two frontrunners are card carrying members of that club. Do they have anything to worry about?

We have seen the damage 'meat-puppets can do, hell, Bill Clinton, running as a Democrat, single handedly DISMANTLED THE 'NEW DEAL' AND SCRAPPED WELFARE WHILE HE WAS AT IT!

Here, a kid from Arkansas nobody knew from Adam yet he managed a Rhodes scholarship before becoming Governor of a poverty-stricken state. He then used it as a springboard to the presidency! [How curious is it that despite being the home to America's largest single employer, Arkansas remains poverty-stricken?

How suspicious is it that things like Rhodes Scholarships and Ivy League degrees serve more as a 'pedigree' than proof of excellence?

How odd that you can learn the EXACT SAME body of knowledge at a Community College and all it will do is open the doors to the world of convenience store management while the IDENTICAL degree from an Ivy League school opens the doors to the corridors of power.

You come out with the same knowledge but the difference is the COST!

Well, good citizen, look at what electing IVY LEAGUE MORONS has cost the nation!

I have long advised that our entire political process is nothing more than the 'illusion of participation'...sure, you're allowed to vote for the 'candidate of your choice' but did you notice that lately is doesn't matter WHO we elect to the White House, the outcome remains unchanged...

And the current two aren't even on the SAME PAGE as the rest of us regarding the issues facing this nation/world!

Rinse & Repeat time good citizen...you know what to do.

You may have noticed for a number that is approaching a hundred TRILLION, the $52K per household number appears a little low but, like the mid-point in the income distribution, a lot of what the 'fat cat's' get isn't considered 'income' and a few Fortune 50 CEO's take only $1 as a salary, sort of skewing their real take by an order of magnitude!

This is how they get to claim things are getting better [and for them they are, a lot better than what they tell you in fact! But the 'median' has zero basis in reality. How pitiful is it that household income of $52K puts you in the seventy-th percentile? True median household income remains in the $37K range (assuming two wage earners)

I'm hip-shooting here, did research on the subject a decade ago and these figures are based on that. If you use the workers divided by the income level you'll find these numbers have hardly changed and that's what we're up against.

You are continually being tasked to do 'more with less'.

Well, we all know what happens to prices after the inauguration, don't we?

Now reflect for a moment on what your life would be like if the 'income distribution' was more 'equitable'?

The only thing stopping you from getting what's yours is YOU!

Thank you for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Failure to plan

Greetings good citizen, most of you are familiar with this phrase mostly because you've been stiff armed with it personally! The expression that goes, "Failure to plan ahead/follow procedure on your part does not constitute an 'emergency' on mine."

While we'd all like to think that today's 'rudderless' youth are an 'oversight' by some functionary, somewhere but it's beginning to look like the 'failure to plan ahead' is falling on those of us who foolishly brought children into this world that 'weren't needed'.

Which makes us all a little crazy because it's not like there is a lack of things that need doing. What's missing is 'the will to do them!'

This is Mismanagement on an entirely different level! It is here that we collide head on with the 'we don't have the money' argument when all they're going to do is whip up the funds out of 'thin air' like they do for their BS 'defense budget'

All MONEY is FUNNY because MOTHER NATURE DOESN'T HAVE A CASH REGISTER! [So the 'we can't afford it' argument is BS!]

We have countless members of society living in abject poverty and why is that?

Seriously, there is absolutely NO reason for this yet its happening every day, all day!

Worse, we can't hold 'the government' responsible. As soon as we...well, it isn't really 'we', is it? The most 'we' can do is have our congress-critters look into things and 'poof' out of nowhere the 'excuse shirt' appears.

And the excuses are as nebulous as the causes, anything from sunspots to a lack of washing machines!

NEVER is a POLITICIAN held responsible for what is so clearly THEIR FAULT!

IF YOU did as poor a job as your typical politician does at their job you'd be FIRED in a heartbeat! Tens of millions of homeless and nobody held accountable!

WTF!

Don't question the math, good citizen, someone YOU KNOW is homeless as you read this. EVERYBODY knows at least one homeless person personally.

Wanna know what the Occupy Movement was really about? It was about those kids winding up homeless in a world that didn't have a place for them!

UNDERSTAND, [*now universal] CAPITALISM doesn't provide a solution for this! [But A Simple Plan does!]

The capitalists will 'house you' all right, but they have a different name for it, it's called 'prison'. Where you will work for your 'room & board' and you can't leave or do what you want to do but there isn't much difference between being in prison and being penniless, is there?

When we all get to hell at least we will know what to expect...

Did I mention the conventions that prevent us from killing one another on sight are wearing thin?

Keep your head up and your eyes peeled, you never know what's waiting for you around the next bend! Needless to say some of us have already dropped the pretense of 'live and let live'...

Once again we arrive at the 'Rinse & Repeat' portion of our essay: Who is responsible? [YOU] What can we do about it? [STRIKE] What do we want? [A Simple Plan] When do we want it? [NOW!]

Now tell me, Bunky...it this what's keeping you awake at night? If it isn't giving you NIGHTMARES, it SHOULD BE!

Thank you once again for letting me inside your head,

Gegner


* Nominally capitalist countries are fed the BS that there are still places on the planet that are communist, this is not 'true', per se. Those places that claim to be communist are in fact dictatorships that participate in the global economy albeit on a limited basis.

Capitalism is 'universal' and those who run capitalism for their personal benefit [I sincerely hope you aren't stupid enough to think they're doing this FOR YOU as opposed to TO YOU, we wouldn't be here if this wasn't a game of US vs THEM!]

So for the sake of this blog, capitalism is 'universal' and that universiality seals our species doom.

Stagnation

Greetings good citizen, Happy Monday! Today's topic is related to the theme of this blog and how technological innovation sort of 'dried up' after all the 'low hanging fruit' was picked.

Pshaw, these days the brainwashing commitee of the media tells us that we have people acting in Hollywood that are smarter then Einstein.

So where are their discoveries?

Now, have you seen any evidence at all acting has reached a higher level? Subject matter and the retreads have gotten darker, much darker but it's considerably debateable if this is in fact an 'improvement'.

Same stuff just sicker [if that is actually possible.]

But I digress, at issue is not 'where are the geniuses?' but where are the geniuses that will make the next great leap forward possible?

Given the, er, 'erratic' nature of genius [being a genius is sort of like having a super power, not EVERYTHING is clear to you but some things are remarkably 'well-defined'.] Einstein could 'see' how the universe works mathematically but he 'theorized' that the universe had a speed limit despite evidence to the contrary...and he didn't see or even acknowledge it.

So what revelations are those who are measurably 'smarter than Einstien' witholding from us?

Short answer, nothing. Those 'avenues of research' are patented, you can't go there without 'permission'.

Did I mention that we have a CRAZY legal system, especially commercial law?

You'd think the improvement of life for all members of our species would take precident over the enriching of a patent holder but no, that's not how our laws work.

And we put up with all this implies because when WE discover the next great breakthough, we'd want to have full and protected rights to it too! Not that this did Edison any good, everything he invented belongs to J.P. Morgan!

But thems the breaks, right? Them who has, gets and thems that don't settles for what they're given.

Edison's NAME is on power plants across the nation but those plants (and the revenue they generate) BELONG to J.P.

But again, I digress...a tiny bit.

So our civilization 'stagnates' as nobody pursues the possibilities hinted at by the original wave of discoveries made back at the turn of the 20th century.

Um, one COULD opine that this 'stagnation' is what's responsible for the, er, 'deterioration' of our civilization, a decay that can't be seen from the top but is more than a little evident from below.

Um, with that said we arrive at the 'rinse and repeat' segment of the post...

Who is responsible for this? [YOU] How do we fix it? [STRIKE] What do we want? [A Simple Plan] When do we want it? [NOW!]

Sorry for pointing the cannon at you but your acceptance of your circumstances is the reason why things don't change [for the better, you've seen PLENTY of CHANGE...for the worse!]

Things haven't collapsed yet and there's still time to head off an implosion...but not a lot of time.

And trust me on this one, heading them off will be enormously easier than trying to rebuild from scratch...because starting over pretty much insures we'll end up right where we left off.

Notice I-phone 7 does LESS than it's predecessors...and it's still 'old tech'! Like color television, this stuff existed before WWII, it just wasn't 'commercialized' until much later.

If we are to conquer the universe, we'd better get a move on while the resources still exist to do it...

Just saying.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Crumbs

Greetings good citizen, start unravelling history and it becomes apparent things started going sideways all the way back to Eisenhower's now famous 'Warning'.

For those of you too young to remember I will paraphrase it here: Upon concluding his term as President he rather cryptically warned of the 'rapacious' Military-Industrial complex, a group bent on extracting wealth (for themselves) by building a 'strong military' to...protect the nation from enemies both real and [mostly] imagined...or worse, perceived.

Which, in retrospect, makes us wonder just how many Nazis escaped Nuremberg only to be embraced by the war profiteers on the side that won?

Our current set of woeful circumstances has its roots in the Nixon presidency and his [at the time inexplicable] opening of the 'trade doors' to China. But in order to get there some 'groundwork' had to be laid first.

Neither of us has time for a novel [although I'm sure it would be a best-seller if it ever saw the light of day but some truths will remain concealed for as long as it takes, thus the speculation.]

If you REALLY want to get technical, the whole revolution thing went sideways right from the beginning when the founders allowed some of their number to remain slaveholders...while expounding BS like "All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights"

First thing wrong with that statement...MEN?

I don't think we need to go into ALL the 'exceptions' that were made within such sweeping appeals to an already downtrodden public to rise up and fight so a few could be rich.

Needless to say, four CENTURIES later and we're still scratching our heads trying to figure out just who the founders were talking about and it appears the answer is it wasn't anyone A.) here and B.) still alive.

Now we arrive at an observation that few even take the time to acknowledge, never mind contemplate. War, even the tiny brush-fire ones, are EXPENSIVE...

We have already spent more on the War on Terra than we did on WWII! [What's up with that?]

While tens of millions died in WWII, the GWOT has been a windfall for the prosthetic limb industry!

So who goes around starting all these wars?

What was Eisenhower trying to tell us?

Worse, was his warning more than a teeny bit 'too little, too late.'

War profiteers have been with us since the beginning of 'kingdoms'. [Usually located in a nearby, neutral country, clever huh?]

So it is that we as a nation are forced by the media to once again pick at the scab of 9/11; we have to take a step back and wonder if whoever marooned us here didn't have a valid point?

Just how STUPID do you have to be to keep letting these morons push our buttons?

Naturally, knowing that its happening and having a choice in the matter are two entirely separate issues but still, NOBODY can put a stop to this?

Once again the spotlight shines on what a 'small world' it is that we live in and how phony the whole political process is.

Is keeping the population in check really the 'purpose of government?'

Just something to think about while you watch everybody boo-hoo over 9/11, the question remains, Cui Bono?

Thank you for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Hey, we got a fancy new Police State out of the GWOT! [but so did everybody else...]

Just how much more are you going to put up with?

[Rhetorical question...the only one who cares about the answer is YOU!]

The lesser Evil

Greetings good citizen, every election cycle we are basically given the choice between a 'bad candidate' and a 'worse one', a phenomenon we have come to call 'the lesser of two evils'.

How ironic this cycle's match-up is between to great evils and it is impossible to decide which is 'less' because they are BOTH 'unacceptable'.

Sadder, even the acceptable [marginally] candidate turned out to be a 'shill' in disguise.

How many times are we going to let Karl Rove get away with this?

But I digress, the lesser of two evils IS STILL EVIL!

So it is, good citizen that we are faced with yet another 'stolen election'...one where knowing the results ahead of time isn't any comfort at all.

Left unanswered is 'what are YOU going to DO about it?'

By yourself, probably curl up in a quiet corner somewhere and whimper for your mommy...collectively, well, that's another story, isn't it? We sort of have a 'historic precedent' on our hands, don't we?

The one too many stolen elections and here we are, once again being offered a 'historic first' instead of the trusted leadership we so desperately need.

We don't NEED a 'Woman in the White House', we need Wall Street BEHIND BARS! [Along with those running the current judicial system!] We NEED banks to cease preying on the public...they're 'accountants' for Pete's sake, when did they turn into hitmen?

YOUR MONEY IS FOR YOU! Paying a banker for what they don't own in the first place is ridiculous...in fact, paying ANYBODY for what belongs TO US ALL is downright CRAZY!

Understand good citizen, your children's children's children are so far in hock they will be obliged to pay off the mortgage YOU took out to repair the leaky roof on that catastrophe you call a 'house' ten years ago.

All thanks to our 'out of control' financial system.

[Sidebar: Credit cards are less than a hundred years old...and look at where we are? We can safely lay our homeless population at the feet of the credit card companies...but does the media share this fact?]

A FEW have had a wonderful time (at our expense) but now it's time for them to DO TIME for their crimes...how unfortunate for them that we won't have 'nice warm prisons' to serve out their 'life without parole' sentences in?

UNDERSTAND good citizen, the choice facing us this November is NOT between an egotistical attention whore and some guy that can't keep his facts straight

It's the choice between SAVING HUMANITY from global financial collapse OR sucking our thumbs as the world we once knew vanishes behind the cadence of marching feet sent to trample the poor out of existence.

The warning I'm sending you is this: either wake up and fight to take our world back or prepare to be vanquished.

We are literally being drown in a cesspool the oligarchs created to kill us with.

First they created easy debt traps and then you were herded into taking the bait...now the whole Ponzi scheme is set to collapse under it's own weight.

What you're not seeing is 'what comes after'.

After YOU have been rendered 'penniless', yes good citizen, the Devil you know will still reign supreme! YOU will be enslaved, for real this time...and if Massa doesn't have any use for you...he'll have you KILLED!

So if you're over fifty and a little pudgy around the middle, fight like your life depends on it BECAUSE IT DOES! You're 'no good' to someone who wants brute physical strength.

Forty with a heart condition? Better be a good shot because it is unlikely they will 'waste ammo' on you. They will also be 'cost conscious' when it comes to 'thinning the herd', don't want to feed 'useless mouths'.

And YOU WON'T be the one deciding which ones are and which ones aren't...

Horrors await, probably why the eye that never blinks serves up an endless stream of them, so you'll be conditioned for what's coming.

The lesser of two evils is STILL EVIL...and before you dismiss this as 'prepper nonsense' and those managing our civilization 'wouldn't do that to us'...well, history says you be WRONG...and you're likely to learn you're 'DEAD WRONG'!

Man's inhumanity to his fellow man is legendary...and it's probably high time the general public is reminded of this.

Not because they have to but because THEY WANT TO!

Is my 'intent' to frighten you? Quite frankly YES! Am I making stuff up just to frighten you? NO...it's really going to go down just like I say.

If you wait, you won't be able to turn aside the 'juggernaut' they plan on unleashing.

We need a 'FULL DEAD STOP' [A strike across the board that halts EVERYTHING in its tracks] and we need it NOW!

The election may be too late, they KNOW they're playing with fire! Neither candidate is 'playing right' and the public smells the blood in the water, we may well 'stampede' before the election!

But they [damn auto-correct!] the eye that never blinks is keeping a lid on things...for now.

IF YOU haven't put aside a months worth of non-perishables aside, DO IT NOW, TODAY! Leave work NOW and go to the store! Screw the bills, nothing will be more important than food in the coming weeks!

We really can't afford to screw around here good citizen because (third time's the charm) The lesser of two evils is still EVIL!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

What? You're going to ignore this? Well, don't say I didn't warn you!

Keeping up

Greetings good citizen, you are under attack, a brutal, relentless attack on your senses. You are being hammered with an endless stream of disinformation intended to make your mind shut down just to find relief from the 'sensory overload' it keeps being hit with.

Why I point this out is the same reason they do it. You are confused, have a million things to think about and don't know where to begin. One of the darnedest things about this is you have no idea 'why' [when the answer IS 'sensory overload'.]

One of my favorite hobby horses [longtime readers will remember this] is my admonishing readers (repeatedly) that they couldn't make rational decisions without accurate information.

Take the GWOT, still raging some fifteen years after the fact, a senseless campaign that began with non-existent 'weapons of mass destruction'. A war started by a president that took office thanks to a Supreme court decision...

Beginning to see the puppeteer's strings more clearly now?

Welcome to 'Morning in America' good citizen! A place where you hustle to and fro, doing your best to do as your told with as little thinking and even less questions...because the one lesson they hammer into you is 'go along to get along and if your 'stuck' (confused) just do what everybody else does.

DON'T THINK, it's beyond your pay grade!

So when you DO have a spare moment to ponder why they had you do this instead of that, your inner pervert takes control and you slip into a fantasy about whatever caught your eye instead of why you were made to alter your routine without explanation.

Yeah good citizen, we are more than just a tiny bit 'obsessed' with sex. Not that there is anything 'wrong' with that, it is our strongest drive, it's the underlying reason behind everything we do...so when our 'betters' send us off to do things for them we don't usually focus on the why behind it, we normally just concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other until the task is finished...and our id 'entertains us' by sizing up everyone we meet for their potential as a sexual partner.

I mean there's more than a little truth to the observation that many of us get 'lost in thought' because WE DON'T GO THERE VERY OFTEN!

So, what drives the average individual into that place where you boss told you to NEVER go? [He may have mentioned 'when you're on the clock' except he is also expected to NOT 'use his own judgement' without first consulting HIS BOSS so THINKING isn't HIS 'strong suit' either!

What drives the average individual to ignore repeated commands and to start keeping his own counsel? Usually a good ass chewing for stepping out of line [even accidentally!] Remember, thinking isn't your bosses strong suit either!

So who IS thinking? Well, if they're smart they won't admit it because the few running the show want as few people thinking as possible!

If people THOUGHT about what was happening around them there'd be riots and pandemonium everywhere!

Bringing us full circle to the widely know but seldom acted upon fact that it is extremely fortunate for the people in charge that their followers are incapable of independent thought.

Naturally not YOU good citizen but you know what I mean...

What brings this on you might ask?

Well, one thing leads to another...Verizon 'gifted' me with free Showtime until November and I was taking advantage of my gift when I came across one of Michael Moore's old documentaries I hadn't seen before...Sicko.

Arguably his best work, it basically framed the screwing the public has taken at the hands of the 'privatized' Healthcare industry since Morning in America.

Compared to other countries WE are getting what we've always gotten from our out of touch, beyond our control government.

A situation made worse because the oligarchs KNOW there isn't a damn thing we can do about it!

We're not about to revolt and we certainly can't used the ballot box to fix this mess...worse, the only two 'parties' in existence are both under the control of the oligarchs...who are constantly trying to play the 'you don't have it so bad' card!

Um, confused good citizen? Don't feel bad, it is not an accident. If you stopped and thought about the few that have so much while you struggle to get by on so little you'd only hurt yourself...or maybe you'd finally understand why some people go on shooting sprees.

Sort of frightening to realize we [our civilization] is dominated by the self-centered who only care about THEIR enjoyment.

Then the meatheads blame guns for the killing spree!

Bringing us full circle once again to the how fortunate is it that the world's followers don't dare to think?

But that's not you good citizen, you're here because you DO think and you want to know YOU'RE NOT ALONE!

Understand, we need to keep a 'low profile' because those running things know what they do doesn't bear close scrutiny. Doesn't take much to bring their house of cards crashing down so they're on the lookout for people that 'think'.

Don't worry, they already know you're not fooled. What they're counting on is your inability to unite with the likeminded.

Alone you are not threat. In large numbers the jig is up!

There isn't much chance of us 'uniting' against the self-serving, not while they control EVERYTHING you see and hear.

YOU need to be aware that THEY are in control of what you perceive...and act accordingly.

Thank you for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Wow! You sure don't like not being told what to do! Red lights EVERYWHERE!

Let me tell you again, it is not my purpose to tell you 'what to think', it IS my purpose to give you something to think about!