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Author Topic: Power Structures in Human Society: Pros and Cons Part 1  (Read 14697 times)

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AGelbert

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Quote
The elephant that is missed and it is a big elephant is that it is a universally recognized truth that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Since power is the ability to control people then it follows that the larger any organization becomes the more likely it is corrupt as the controllers has the ability to control a larger pool of people. This phenomenon applies to private AND public institutions yet it is largely only public institutions were this corruption is recognized and scrutiny applied. This is one of the fundamental problems.


I'll go further; I'll say it IS the problem. WHY? because it is CFS that society benefits from cooperation (I.E. A GOVERNMENT) to foster group health and a harmonious co-existence with fellow humans ONLY as long as everybody has equal voting power (That includes the government AND the corporate fascists that are allowed to run roughshod over the people by said bought and paid for "government"). We know the elite don't want that so they lie and push propaganda that disguises the obvious theft of power and resources that is the daily bread of the bastards in power. All this blah blah out there about the poor being a "drag" on society and a threat to communities has always been a bait and switch to avoid saying who the REAL DRAG on society and a threat to communities are (the rich = the parasites  that hate democracy and work day and night to keep us from having it while claiming they "support" it in true Orwellian speak. ).

The inane, illogical claptrap that passes for reasoned speech in the public airwaves of the U.S. is 100% BS to avoid actually talking sense.  >:( The Libertarian Liars are number one on my list of prevaricators but they aren't the only ones; they are just more brazen about their callous disregard for their fellow man.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

alan2102

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It's really an Occam's razor type problem (a principle urging one to select from among competing hypotheses that which makes the fewest assumptions). Because the 1% are our leaders, the masses of humanity always attempt to imitate what the 1% do, period. When the 1% stop their massive piggery, the small scale piggery of the masses will stop as well. Claiming that the 1% only "do what they do" because the 99% are a bunch of sheep is a half truth. True, we sheep are unfortunately permitting the 1% to parasitically prey on us. But putting the onus on the sheep is "blame the victim" illogic.

Yes. And neo-Malthusians specialize in just that sort of illogic: victim-blaming. Malthusianism is the close kin of elitism, feudalism, fascism and other skanky fetid social ideas -- added to its reflection of personal pathology (depression, nihilism, defeatism, misanthropy, etc.).

Quote
It's not the 99%'s biomass (e.g. ants have more than humans) that is destroying the biosphere; it's the 1%'s carbon footprint by a huge margin despite their tiny biomass. A detailed study of per capita footprint which includes resource ownership by wealth would conclusively prove that.

I don't think it needs to be "proven" so much as simply mentioned. It is obviously true. Which is not to say that (mass) population pressure does not have an effect; it does. But first things first.

If you were not aware of this work, you should be: How the Rich are Destroying the Earth, by HervΘ Kempf. Below are links to reviews, and snippets.  You'll love the bit about how "oligarchs vie with one another in sumptuary competition and EVERY SOCIAL STRATUM BENEATH DOES THE SAME".  Ha.

The book is from 2008. I posted this stuff to a bunch of fora at that time -- energyresources on yahoo, savinar's joint, etc., etc. I don't think it did any good. Malthusians are too stuck in their ideology and too anxious to blame the common people -- if not actually relish the prospect of mass dieoff (get rid of all those low-class "useless eaters") -- to see the obvious for which Kempf is arguing. The real primary issue, as Kempf makes clear, is profligate consumption, not profligate reproduction.  The common people have actually done very good at controlling their reproduction over the last 50 years, what with fertility dropping off drastically almost everywhere. How much better could they be expected to do? That is, could it be reasonably expected that everyone CEASE reproducing entirely, reducing fertility to ZERO? No, of course not. Whereas, it IS reasonable to expect the wealthy to cease their wild profligate overconsumption (but instead, they'll gone in the opposite direction). I argued this point at length, but to no avail. The misanthropic Malthusian mind cannot grasp such an idea.

Anyway...

SNIPPETS from reviews and excerpts at these links (hopefully the
links are still good; they are from 2008):
http://www.forewordmagazine.com/reviews/viewreviews.aspx?reviewid=4337&rssref=20080927
http://thepanelist.com/Opinions/Opinions/Book_Review:_How_the_Rich_Are_Destroying_the_Earth_200809151182/
http://www.truthout.org/article/how-rich-are-destroying-planet
http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=555

"The book's central thesis [is] that the 'oligarchy,' a global stateless class composed of the hyper-rich and the 'new Nomenklatura,' is responsible for our species' headlong rush to environmental destruction, both indirectly, through the rest of society's attempts to imitate and emulate their wasteful habits of conspicuous consumption, and directly, through their control of the levers of power, all presently fixed at the 'Catastrophe' setting'."

"[Kempf depicts] a predatory, self-perpetuating elite that has become wealthy 'not through success in production, but through constant redistribution of collective wealth'  (think Halliburton or Blackwater senior executives and shareholders) and that lives '...separated from the plebians. They are not aware of how the poor and wage-earners live; they don't know and don't want to know.' No sense of the public good or civic virtue moves 'this predatory and greedy controlling class, wasting its rents, misusing its power, (it) congeals as an obstacle on the way. It bears no proposal, is animated by no ideal, delivers no promise ... is blind to the explosive power of obvious injustice. And blind to the poisoning of the biosphere that growth in material wealth provokes, a poisoning that means a degradation of the conditions for human life...'"

"None of this would matter so much, Kempf suggests, were it not for insatiable human rivalry in ostentation. Globally, wealth is an indicator of status and the social stimulus of emulation and imitation creates limitless 'needs.' Drawing on Veblen's 'Theory of the Leisure Classes,' Kempf suggests that production is adequate, but consumption is excessive as oligarchs vie with one another in sumptuary competition and EVERY SOCIAL STRATUM BENEATH DOES THE SAME." [emphasis added]

"ince justice demands that the consumption of the poorest be increased, 'the rich have to consume less.' That last requirement would appear to apply to me and to almost anyone reading these words online."

"Since the collapse of the former USSR, it appears that capitalism no longer needs democracy -- so antithetical to the oligarchy's objectives. Terrorism is the latest alibi to tighten security, criminalize dissent, expand surveillance and imprison the poor. 'The hyper-rich will attempt to maintain their excessive advantages by force as they did after Hurricane Katrina, when armed forces were sent -- not to help the drowning poor -- but to hunt down looters."

"There is hope, Kempf says, but not in the measures people think. Sustainable development is pointless. The technology that supposedly will save us won't develop in time. To stop the inertia of destruction, society, particularly the hyper-rich, need to soberly rethink their lifestyles."

Kempf: "To achieve [our] goals, it is not enough for society to become aware of the urgency of the ecological crisis -- and of the difficult choices its prevention imposes, notably in terms of material consumption. It will further be necessary that ecological concerns articulate themselves as a radical political analysis of current relationships of domination. We will not be able to decrease global material consumption if the powerful are not brought down and if inequality is not combated. To the ecological principle that was so useful at the time we first became aware -- 'Think globally; act locally,' -- we must add the principle that the present situation imposes: 'Consume less; share better.'"

"The book seems to me an incredible tour de force. I could not imagine it possible to lay out systematically, with sentences of classical limpidity and concision, such a complete, as well as completely persuasive argument for what ails the world and what needs to be addressed. The dense connections between all the disturbing phenomena of recent years -- ecological degradation to the point of habitat destruction for our own species, increasing social inequality and unemployment, the new totalitarianism (government snooping, torture, the percentage increase in prison populations), and the disappearance of a seriously contentious press are simply and powerfully delineated."

guest17

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Whoops!  made a coding error on the snippets above (strikeout of last several paragraphs), and no way to edit.

Here's the corrected text:

"Since justice demands that the consumption of the poorest be increased, 'the rich have to consume less.' That last requirement would appear to apply to me and to almost anyone reading these words online."

"Since the collapse of the former USSR, it appears that capitalism no longer needs democracy -- so antithetical to the oligarchy's objectives. Terrorism is the latest alibi to tighten security, criminalize dissent, expand surveillance and imprison the poor. 'The hyper-rich will attempt to maintain their excessive advantages by force as they did after Hurricane Katrina, when armed forces were sent -- not to help the drowning poor -- but to hunt down looters."

"There is hope, Kempf says, but not in the measures people think. Sustainable development is pointless. The technology that supposedly will save us won't develop in time. To stop the inertia of destruction, society, particularly the hyper-rich, need to soberly rethink their lifestyles."

Kempf: "To achieve [our] goals, it is not enough for society to become aware of the urgency of the ecological crisis -- and of the difficult choices its prevention imposes, notably in terms of material consumption. It will further be necessary that ecological concerns articulate themselves as a radical political analysis of current relationships of domination. We will not be able to decrease global material consumption if the powerful are not brought down and if inequality is not combated. To the ecological principle that was so useful at the time we first became aware -- 'Think globally; act locally,' -- we must add the principle that the present situation imposes: 'Consume less; share better.'"

"The book seems to me an incredible tour de force. I could not imagine it possible to lay out systematically, with sentences of classical limpidity and concision, such a complete, as well as completely persuasive argument for what ails the world and what needs to be addressed. The dense connections between all the disturbing phenomena of recent years -- ecological degradation to the point of habitat destruction for our own species, increasing social inequality and unemployment, the new totalitarianism (government snooping, torture, the percentage increase in prison populations), and the disappearance of a seriously contentious press are simply and powerfully delineated."


guest17

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PS: Agelbert, you're doing a great job! I respect your tenacity and willingness for fight the good fight, even creating your own zone on the diner. I only wish your good work were in a venue more likely to get serious traffic/exposure.  As long as you're associated with the diner you will never get the audience that  you deserve, and that's a shame.

AGelbert

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Thanks Alan,
I'm done with the DD. As a matter of fact, I don't plan to post too frequently here either. Things are not going well for me. I don't want to depress people. If you are willing, I'll make you an Admin on this site too. Then you can play around with the features and fine tune the place to your taste by possibly adding a board for special subjects or whatever. Perhaps you can attract more readers. For now, it's more of a reference library for videos and rants than a forum. Now that my Hispanic islander  heritage (commonly known by people of Golden Oxen's and Snowleopard's "caliber" as a SALT WATER N I G G E R - I was called that now and then while I worked in the FAA even though I could think and talk rings around most of the good old white boy/bigots there) is common knowledge, most bigoted wasps or was(whatever) like the Karpatok nut case aren't interested in a anything I say. That's life. I've got some good sci fi reading and viewing to catch up with.  8)

By the way, you didn't make a mistake on your post. The problem is that when a piece has  an "S" in brackets, the forum code jumps up and assumes you want to cross out something:P Just go to your post and put [ S ] spaced out and the forum code won't try to cross anything out.  ;)

Be well.   
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

Surly1

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AG, sorry to hear you are not doing well.

While I enjoyed Alan's post in re Kempf's book, I disagree with what he says about DD. The current trend is that the DD is gaining in Alexa rankings every week. It stands to reason that your own traffic would benefit from association with something being seen by more eyes every week.

Sincerely hoping for better times ahead.

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While I enjoyed Alan's post in re Kempf's book, I disagree with what he says about DD. The current trend is that the DD is gaining in Alexa rankings every week. It stands to reason that your own traffic would benefit from association with something being seen by more eyes every week.

Yes, Surly, I saw R.E.'s chest-beating about Alexa rankings. It was amusing. He is all excited about  going from being a guppy to being a minnow. Get your Alexa ranking down to under 50,000, or better under 25,000, and then you'll have something to beat your chest about.  Going from 300,000 to 200,000 (etc.) is meaningless. You're still in the sea of minnows.

I'm not "anti-diner".  I'm just amazed that you guys seem to have squandered the opportunity to build a great community that could help you GET those high alexa rankings. The very people that you've systematically insulted, estranged and marginalized are the ones, for the most part, that are the best brains, the best writers, the ones with the best insight, etc.; i.e. the ones that could really help build  traffic.  Too bad you could not see that.  The hell of it is: these people that you hate (that you feel the need to censor, denounce as "trolls", shove off the main forum, etc.)  WERE WILLING TO WORK FOR FREE!  What a deal!

Yes, I know you have your side of the story, too. I know it has been a mess, and unpleasant for you. But there is really no excuse for "moderators" behaving as you guys have behaved toward participants on this forum.  Most of the [fecal matter] that you got, you deserved. Maybe not all, but most.  IMPIO.  (In My Partially-Informed Opinion.  I did not read ALL the endless litany of crap; only maybe 1/10th of it all. I think that was enough to form an opinion. Maybe I'm wrong.)

So now that you've insulted, alienated and chased-away everyone who was consistently putting up interesting content, what are you going to do? Of what will the Diner consist?  R.E.'s podcasts?  Neo-malthusian re-tread/re-prints from here and there? If that is all, then the minnow status is all you deserve, and all you will ever have. If you want more than that, then you have to attract and build a vibrant intellectual/conversational community of smart, interesting people who post smart, interesting stuff.  You can't insult them, censor them (much), allow your sysop to spy or appear to be spying on them, etc., etc.  You have to behave respectfully, in other words.  Or if you cannot be respectful, at least learn to FAKE respect.  Copische?

"The secret to success in business is honesty and sincerity. If you can fake those, you've got it made."  -- Groucho

 

Surly1

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Perhaps you are correct. But I doubt it.

The only person I denounced as a troll was MKing, who judging from behavior and imputed objective clearly is. A competent oil geologist with a penchant and financial incentive to coax hydrocarbons from the earth, but otherwise morally reprehensible. And I can back this up if you require.

No regrets whatsoever in re MKing.

As for the others who have left, it's a free country. But I miss them. I visit this forum to partake of AG's immense insight in re renewables, and to breath in his optimism at the possibility that we might be able to envision and create a better future. Not to spar about the Diner. If you want to **** about DD, the Antidiner forum has been created just for you. I have far too much respect for AG than to pollute his forum with this sort of comment in re a Form he left, so this will be my last on this matter here.

As with Occupy, it is really easy to tear down what others create through hard work and sustained effort.

But then every body is a critic.

AGelbert

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUPzr2MGKMs&feature=player_embedded

100% Of Kids DID Share 


 The organization Action Against Hunger wanted to know if sharing is a natural instinct.

 They conducted an experiment in Madrid, Spain to study human behavior when faced with the injustice of hunger.

 Of the 20 children under study, all 20 shared their food even though as far as they knew, no one was watching.

 When are the grown ups going to catch up?

 --Bibi Farber

 This video was produced by Action Against Hunger
- See more at: http://www.nextworldtv.com/videos/inspiration-1/the-sharing-experiment.html#sthash.t5AjwJjd.dpuf

Forgive me Surly, but I do not see any way that the mindset prevalent at the DD is anything but the exact reverse of the above. All the work I did there for free was rewarded with WHAT? I didn't ask for money but wasn't I entitled to RESPECT?  WHERE was RE when people started rattling my cage for NO REASON? WHY didn't he treat the Golden Blasphemer the same way? WHY didn't any of you listen to my valid statement that the LACK of censorship constituted CENSORING (defaming, undermining my message, etc.) my message? BECAUSE OF BIAS on RE's part for PRO-DOOM "THERE IS NO HOPE" type people, PERIOD.

And YES, Surly, this has a LOT to do with the price of peaches in Denmark (i.e. SHARING). The continual and very predatory and sick meme that RE backs and Lucid tried to defend when I criticized his willingness to kill people labeled "zombies" is SERIOUS BUSINESS. It's a SERIOUS ERROR. It is NIHILISM justifying WHATEVER so a FEW MIGHT LIVE for a better day. IT's the MASTER RACE CRAP all over again. The DD is DEAD WRONG pushing this Scarcity meme which wrongly justifies NOT SHARING and a population cull. It's all addressed with a bit of polish but it's WRONG MORALLY.

Do you remember Endisnigh? RE almost killed him with his brainiac logic about the ASSURED collapse of civilization and the biosphere. And RE DOES NOT GIVE A **** because RE has so much UBERMENCH self delusion that he justifies ANYTHING he says, no matter how coarse or insensitive, with "SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST" because HE thinks HE is the BE ALL, END ALL of HUMAN EVOLUTION. "Hey, looky here, I went to Columbia and a read and did math at 3 years old!" WTF do you think his message is, HUH?

Surly, when people lack humility they CANNOT LEARN; they cannot even envisage themselves as being wrong. When they have a gifted vocabulary like RE does, it can lead to megalomania. Get out of there, Surly. RE and his mind set and followers are IMORAL NIHILISTS. Their God is their STOMACH, PERIOD. Despite all the BS about how bad greed is among the rich, the plethora of STUPID "It's my pigman roots" jokes and talk about making money is way too prevalent to make the complaints about the rich seem like anything but envy.

Mark my words. You will observe the inertia of the DD go farther towards intolerance of those who wish to share with those who have nothing material to the point of labeling them useless eaters, zombies or trash to be killed and composted. Consider me hysterical if you wish. RE never offered me a NICKEL to stay, despite your claim and Monsta's claim that I brought readers. I KNOW MONEY is ALL IMPORTANT TO HIM despite his talk of a gift economy (gifts for for him, that is). When somebody is as stuck on money as he is, you can ONLY weigh their commitment to ANYTHING by how much they are willing to invest. He wouldn't invest a NICKEL in me because he really DID NOT like what I wrote, period. His incredibly patient behavior towards the epitome of hypocritical, blasphemous and greedy wealth worship exemplified by Golden Oxen (Psalm 106:19-20 The people made a calf at Mount Sinai; they bowed before an image made of gold. They traded their glorious God for a statue of a grass-eating bull.) PROVES that RE is ONE in the spirit with GO. To these people, it's ALL HERE and it's ALL NOW. They will, as the Scarlet O'Hara character from Gone with the Wind vowed, do ANYTHING to keep their bellies full of food, a roof over their heads and job security. I WON'T go against the will of God to justify hurting people that have hurt me (and there are LOTS of them!) just because they are destroying my future and the earth.

Surly, it has BEEN OVER for mankind since the fall! Christ gave us hope. There IS NO OTHER HOPE. And J.C. can do whatever He wants. Some dumb **** human like RE that wants to judge J.C.'s behavior is worthy of disdain, no matter how entertaining and florid his vocabulary. I know you don't agree but don't pretend I didn't warn you as the UBERMENSCH at the DD go further towards gleefully awaiting mad max and killing zombies. THEY DON'T DO MORALITY at the DD. I CANNOT CONTINUE to be associated with the irresponsible mind sets that DOMINATE there.

The enormous disrespect shown to Alan when he posted much serious commentary on China is a small example of the DE FACTO censorship that goes on day in and day out at the DD. My days of being a punching bag at the DD are over. I might return someday to copy all my articles and posts before deleting my presence there. Right now I am busy.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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An Occupy founder says the next revolution will be rural

By Amber Cortes


   
Micah White

In a boarded-up hotel along a windy country road, a couple dozen activists are gathered for a workshop. They are mostly women, and mostly over 40. The workshop is being held by Micah White, one of the instigators of Occupy Wall Street.

After the dust settled from Occupy, White packed up his bags in the Bay Area and moved here to Nehalem, a small town in one of the poorest counties in rural Oregon. Nehalem sits on the Pacific Coast, in the shadows of popular vacation destination Manzanita. But White isn’t here for a vacation, and he came to town with a mission.

The demise of Occupy left everyone with one question: “Now what?” Almost three years later, White is helping the founders of Occupy, US Uncut, and others to launch The After Party, a new political party on “a mission to restore democracy” and occupy the ballot box in time for the 2016 elections. How? By organizing statewide ballot initiatives, ousting corrupt officials, and encouraging everyday people to run for local and county offices.

Inspired by the success of Occupy Sandy organizing efforts, The After Party also seeks to turn communities into self-sufficient hotbeds of social action. White and the After Party team want to create what they call “mutual aid flash mobs,” citizen gatherings where people can do things like start a time bank, plant urban gardens, fix local roads, organize free healthcare clinics, and build tiny houses for the homeless. Nehalem, population 267, will be a test lab.

Could sleepy Nehalem, Or., be ground zero for the next social change revolution?

White calls Occupy a “constructive failure.” Urban street protests, he says, only have a life cycle of about a month before their time is up. The encampments, the People’s Library, and the spirit of the general assemblies are all fun and games until everybody gets kicked out of the park. “It was magical thinking,” he says. For White, Occupy Wall Street challenged the core assumptions that activists have about how to achieve social change. “We believed that people’s assemblies were enough to gain political sovereignty. This turned out to not be true. To gain political sovereignty we must win elections.”

Micah White says small towns like Nehalem are the best places to seed a social change revolution.


Micah White says Nehalem is “all about resilience and sustainability.”

White chose tiny Nehalem as his home base because, he says, social change movements like Occupy are too focused on urban environments: “I mean the urban areas, they coddle you and you become this large, comfortable child-egg baby. One of the things that’s nice about living here is that it’s terrifying to move here. People hunt; they have guns. They have floods here where you cannot leave for five days in a row. This place is all about resilience and sustainability.”

Rural towns are where it’s at for White, “a clean slate” for building real social change in places still reeling from the economic and environmental impacts of exactly what people were protesting during Occupy. Among his plans for Nehalem, White wants to start a food bank for veterans, convert vacant properties into housing for the elderly, and start a loyalty card program that keeps local prices low for residents and high for tourists.

And then there’s the boutique activism firm White’s started. The idea is to train activists and galvanize support for causes similar to online social and political movements like Avaaz.org and Purpose.com. But the difference is, his new venture is unabashedly for-profit. “Occupy Wall Street generated tremendous money,” says White. “This whole idea that activists should do it for free and all that bullshit is over. Like somehow I’m supposed to be a full-time activist and have zero income from it? It’s ridiculous.”

Ideally, though, he thinks everyday people can come up with their own solutions for big problems like climate change and access to local, healthy foods, not so-called experts. 
In Nehalem’s case, the locals already have a head start: The town is home to an innovative recycling and reuse center called CARTM, an off-grid farm, and a thriving farmers market, plus a land trust for young farmers is in the works.

The region is also rich with resources like timber, which is being trucked out every day by logging companies. Part of White’s plan is to take back these resources and give them to the people. “The people here are land rich and money poor,” says White. “We’re actually sitting on value and money and natural resources. We’re the rich ones.”
 

Amber Cortes is a Grist fellow, radio producer, and a digital media grad student at the University of Washington . Follow her on Twitter.



http://grist.org/politics/an-occupy-founder-says-the-next-revolution-will-be-rural
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

guest17

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youtube.com/watch?v=VUPzr2MGKMs&feature=player_embedded
The organization Action Against Hunger wanted to know if sharing is a natural instinct.
They conducted an experiment in Madrid, Spain to study human behavior when faced with the injustice of hunger.
Of the 20 children under study, all 20 shared their food even though as far as they knew, no one was watching.
When are the grown ups going to catch up?
--Bibi Farber
 This video was produced by Action Against Hunger
- See more at: http://www.nextworldtv.com/videos/inspiration-1/the-sharing-experiment.html#sthash.t5AjwJjd.dpuf

Forgive me Surly, but I do not see any way that the mindset prevalent at the DD is anything but the exact reverse of the above. All the work I did there for free was rewarded with WHAT? I didn't ask for money but wasn't I entitled to RESPECT?  WHERE was RE when people started rattling my cage for NO REASON? WHY didn't he treat the Golden Blasphemer the same way? WHY didn't any of you listen to my valid statement that the LACK of censorship constituted CENSORING (defaming, undermining my message, etc.) my message? BECAUSE OF BIAS on RE's part for PRO-DOOM "THERE IS NO HOPE" type people, PERIOD.

And YES, Surly, this has a LOT to do with the price of peaches in Denmark (i.e. SHARING). The continual and very predatory and sick meme that RE backs and Lucid tried to defend when I criticized his willingness to kill people labeled "zombies" is SERIOUS BUSINESS. It's a SERIOUS ERROR. It is NIHILISM justifying WHATEVER so a FEW MIGHT LIVE for a better day. IT's the MASTER RACE CRAP all over again. The DD is DEAD WRONG pushing this Scarcity meme which wrongly justifies NOT SHARING and a population cull. It's all addressed with a bit of polish but it's WRONG MORALLY.

Do you remember Endisnigh? RE almost killed him with his brainiac logic about the ASSURED collapse of civilization and the biosphere. And RE DOES NOT GIVE A **** because RE has so much UBERMENCH self delusion that he justifies ANYTHING he says, no matter how coarse or insensitive, with "SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST" because HE thinks HE is the BE ALL, END ALL of HUMAN EVOLUTION. "Hey, looky here, I went to Columbia and a read and did math at 3 years old!" WTF do you think his message is, HUH?

Surly, when people lack humility they CANNOT LEARN; they cannot even envisage themselves as being wrong. When they have a gifted vocabulary like RE does, it can lead to megalomania. Get out of there, Surly. RE and his mind set and followers are IMORAL NIHILISTS. Their God is their STOMACH, PERIOD. Despite all the BS about how bad greed is among the rich, the plethora of STUPID "It's my pigman roots" jokes and talk about making money is way too prevalent to make the complaints about the rich seem like anything but envy.

Mark my words. You will observe the inertia of the DD go farther towards intolerance of those who wish to share with those who have nothing material to the point of labeling them useless eaters, zombies or trash to be killed and composted. Consider me hysterical if you wish. RE never offered me a NICKEL to stay, despite your claim and Monsta's claim that I brought readers. I KNOW MONEY is ALL IMPORTANT TO HIM despite his talk of a gift economy (gifts for for him, that is). When somebody is as stuck on money as he is, you can ONLY weigh their commitment to ANYTHING by how much they are willing to invest. He wouldn't invest a NICKEL in me because he really DID NOT like what I wrote, period. His incredibly patient behavior towards the epitome of hypocritical, blasphemous and greedy wealth worship exemplified by Golden Oxen (Psalm 106:19-20 The people made a calf at Mount Sinai; they bowed before an image made of gold. They traded their glorious God for a statue of a grass-eating bull.) PROVES that RE is ONE in the spirit with GO. To these people, it's ALL HERE and it's ALL NOW. They will, as the Scarlet O'Hara character from Gone with the Wind vowed, do ANYTHING to keep their bellies full of food, a roof over their heads and job security. I WON'T go against the will of God to justify hurting people that have hurt me (and there are LOTS of them!) just because they are destroying my future and the earth.

Surly, it has BEEN OVER for mankind since the fall! Christ gave us hope. There IS NO OTHER HOPE. And J.C. can do whatever He wants. Some dumb **** human like RE that wants to judge J.C.'s behavior is worthy of disdain, no matter how entertaining and florid his vocabulary. I know you don't agree but don't pretend I didn't warn you as the UBERMENSCH at the DD go further towards gleefully awaiting mad max and killing zombies. THEY DON'T DO MORALITY at the DD. I CANNOT CONTINUE to be associated with the irresponsible mind sets that DOMINATE there.

The enormous disrespect shown to Alan when he posted much serious commentary on China is a small example of the DE FACTO censorship that goes on day in and day out at the DD. My days of being a punching bag at the DD are over. I might return someday to copy all my articles and posts before deleting my presence there. Right now I am busy.

WHEW what a great post!

I hereby volunteer for the position of Chief Choir-Boy and Bottle-Washer at the First Church of Agelbert, wherever it is. No pay required. My pleasure.

"NIHILISM justifying WHATEVER so a FEW MIGHT LIVE for a better day. IT's the MASTER RACE CRAP all over again."

Yep, yep, yep. Bad stuff. The only reason I don't get more exercised about it is that it seems (SEEMS) that this nihilism and elitist crap is embraced by such a vanishingly-small number of people that it does not make much difference in the big scheme.  But again: seems.  I might be wrong about that. I recently asked, in a post on the diner to Uncle Bob, about the empirical basis of claims having to do with society's prevailing memes or paradigms. How do we know? As I said there, this is an empirical question. Maybe the nihilism runs deeper than I'm now acknowledging. Maybe it requires serious attention, and opposition. I don't know. I'll look into it.

Regarding this: "the hypocritical, blasphemous and greedy wealth worship exemplified by Golden Oxen".  I don't know G.O. very well. I've read a few score of his posts, but I did not pick up blasphemy or wealth WORSHIP. The guy is obviously a gold bug, and is concerned about preserving his wealth -- but that's not bad of itself, IMO. We all have to make our way in the world and pay our bills, and there are real risks upcoming. There are much worse things than being a goldbug and wanting to pay one's bills. So, what is it that leads you to conclude that G.O. is such a hypocrite and greedy bastard?
 


 

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