Random Ramblings & Miscellaneous Musings

Random thoughts that almost became blog articles but, you know, didn’t:

The only truth is the one that conforms to reality.

• • •

Any society that puts a higher value on dead trees than it does on live ones deserves its fate.

• • •

Human beings became stewards of the planet largely because the fuckin’ polar bears and whales wouldn’t stand up and do it. Well, okay, I can understand why the whales didn’t stand up, but the polar bears? C’mon!

The irony is that we humans, despite our supposed superior intelligence and opposable thumbs, have been spectacular failures as planetary stewards; polar bears (and whales) could have done a better job.

Of course, polar bears (and whales) lack a profit motive.

• • •

"Senate Democrats haven't passed a budget in a thousand days even though the law requires it," McConnell said, ignoring the fact that Senate Republicans have blocked every budget proposal put forth by Senate Democrats. Were it not for lies, damn lies and really insane lies, Republicans would operate in total silence (as would many Democrats, come to think of it).*

*My comments (highlighted) added to the original quote.

• • •

Government is not the problem; intellectually challenged morons that think government is the problem are the problem.

• • •

Maybe the best way to end abortion is to transplant an unwanted fetus from a woman that would otherwise opt for abortion into the uterus of a right-to-lifer. Think win/win.

• • •

When right-wing trolls post comments on lefty blogs accusing lefties of being on a mission to discredit Republicans, they confirm my suspicions that right-wingers are incapable of rational thought. C’mon, it doesn’t take a genius to recognize that Republicans are perfectly capable of discrediting themselves (as their track record amply demonstrates) and probably wouldn’t accept help from Democrats were it offered.

• • •

The rest of humanity is doing to the planet what Haitians did to Haiti. Just as Greece is the microcosm of the global economy, Haiti is the microcosm of the global environment. Both countries prove that when your position is untenable, you’re basically fucked. Do we really need to prove it on a planetary scale?

• • •

The powers-that-be and the bastards-that-are, are one and the same.

• • •

The problem is not a job shortage; the problem is too many people. With population numbers, climate change, environmental degradation and non-renewable resource depletion all in conflict, business-as-usual no longer works. Unless we transform our economy into something that is steady state and sustainable, we can expect the economic decline of the middle and working classes to continue its downward spiral in stages punctuated by brief intervals of perceived economic “recovery.”

• • •

Capitalism’s major fatal flaw is its absolute lack of sustainability; no system that consumes its resources to satisfy a profit motive can endure over the long term. Eventually, market saturation sets in, or environmental thresholds are breached, or consumer-demand changes, or critical resources become scarce, or some other limiting factor kicks in, and suddenly reality gives the economy a kick in the teeth. Yo, dumbass, you’re about to exceed the limits of physical reality. Abort! Abort! Having no other recourse, the economy aborts. Economic collapse is inevitable when delusions of endless prosperity through unlimited growth collide head-on with the limits of physical reality; the lesson here is that unrestrained growth cannot sustain in a constrained environment. 

Q >>>

Payback is a Bitch

The Supreme Court’s ruling (Citizens United v. FEC) essentially gave corporations, in the name of free speech, the right to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence the outcomes of public elections and dictate legislative agendas. In effect, the Supreme Court affirmed that money is equivalent to speech.

But if one buys that argument—that money is equivalent to speech—then one must also buy that speech is equivalent to money; what’s fair is fair. Equivalency is a two-way street.

With that in mind, I want to notify my corporate creditors that, beginning with the next billing cycle, all future payments will be made in the form of a short speech. The current exchange ratio of 1:1 (one word = one dollar) will apply. Subject of speeches is limited to a single issue, the evils of corporate greed. Creditors may choose either telephone or e-mail as the vehicle for payment delivery. 

If the 99% got on board with this by midnight tonight, we could end the global economic crisis by noon tomorrow.

Q >>>

Appointment in Samarra

Yesterday, Population Media Center’s daily e-mail contained a link to an excellent .pdf, by Doctor William E. Rees, on issues of sustainability. It boasts lots of fun facts and more than a few interesting parallels that suggest the golden age of unbridled capitalism, unlimited economic growth and mass consumption is about over.

This excerpt―especially the highlighted portions, which are particularly relevant to current economic and environmental conditions―imparts a sense of urgency and fairly demands that people start taking this shit seriously:

 “To stabilize GHGs at even 650 ppmv CO2e, the majority of OECD nations must begin to make draconian emission reductions soon (by 2015).*

650 ppmv CO2e implies a catastrophic four degree C mean global temperature increase.

Unless we can reconcile economic growth with unprecedented rates of decarbonization (in excess of 6% per year), avoiding this increase will require a planned economic recession.”*

Wait! We’re in a recession, aren’t we? Well, okay, then; now it all makes sense.

Still, it seems the prudent thing for us humans is to take immediate steps to ensure that we miss our appointment in Samarra.

*Highlighting/bolding mine.

Q >>>

Get a Brain, Morans!

Quoted from George Monbiot’s article in The Guardian (as posted on AlterNet):

“Perhaps it is in the same spirit of liberal constipation that, with the exception of Charlie Brooker, we have been too polite to mention the Canadian study published last month in the journal Psychological Science, which revealed that people with conservative beliefs are likely to be of low intelligence.”*

No shit! Sure makes me want to jump aboard a clown car careening along on wheels that are about to fall off. That people cheerfully and proudly identify as conservative Tea Party Republicans is proof enough of their low intelligence. These same people always double down on stupid, which is one of the main reasons why things always get worse.

*Highlighting mine.

Q >>>

Smoke and Mirrors

Politicians, media pundits, economists and business leaders are blowing a lot of smoke up society’s collective ass in their attempts to perpetuate the myth of economic recovery. Almost no one understands (or pretends not to) that this time around there won’t be one. Even the so-called economic experts, from Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman and Robert Reich on the left to John Boehner, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin on the right, seem to miss the big picture; the global economy is on the verge of collapse because of a growing scarcity of cheap energy and other vital resources that fuel economic growth. Industrial Capitalism is dying, as inevitably it must, and the economy we once knew is never coming back.

What does the future a decade hence look like?

If the future you visualize is filled with flying cars, cheap gasoline, frequent air travel to exotic destinations, lavish lifestyles for the masses, vast domed cities and all the other claptrap favored by futurists of the corporate class, you’re in for a big surprise. And bitter disappointment.

Ponder this:

When today becomes yesterday, it will be tomorrow.

If (having pondered) your vision of the future is still distorted by wishful thinking, perhaps a change in perspective can help you see things as they are. Juliet Schor’s Yes! Magazine article, Less Work, More Living, describes her vision* of a future that could become reality, providing we survive the current round of Democratic cowardice and short-sightedness and Republican stupidity, intransigence and obstructionism. Oh, alright—and rampant greed.

When today becomes yesterday, it will be tomorrow. Exactly what does this mean? It means that when our present—our now—looks more like the 1890s (with certain social, fashion and technological improvements) than the 1950s, we can be certain that our sustainable future has arrived. Ms. Schor presents a pretty clear vision of what our future could be like.

As it turns out, it’s not so scary after all.

*Her thinking on the subject of building a sustainable society closely mirrors mine.

Q >>>

Dream On, America

If you haven’t yet seen Van Jones’ “Rebuild the Dream” speech, I urge you to at least take a look at the highlights; I think you’ll find it worth your while. Jones, aided and abetted by MoveOn.org and other influential progressive groups, is starting a movement designed to bring about a more balanced and more just society that meets the economic needs of all its members.

Campaign for America’s Future has the full video accompanied by an article, by Robert Borosage, documenting American Dream Movement’s launch. Another high-profile progressive organization, Common Dreams.org, hosts a WaPo article written by Rachel Weiner that provides additional insight. 

To accomplish its goals the American Dream Movement needs (and wants) your input. If you’ve got any ideas at all on how to undo the damages done to working- and middle-class American society by our corporate-run government and Wall Street financiers, now is your chance to pitch them to people who might actually listen to you. Join the movement. Get involved!

While the American Dream Movement is an example of grassroots activism at its finest, and while the movement seems to have gained a lot of traction in a relatively short time, its success is not guaranteed. To succeed, this movement needs popular support on a national scale, and that means getting the message in front of as many people as possible, by every means possible, as frequently as possible. Blog about it, write about it in letters-to-the-editor, tweet it, text it, talk about it, chat it up to everyone you know. Help it go viral. Help make it part of the public discourse.

Republicans tell us, disingenuously, that America is broke. Van Jones tells us it’s not broke, only broken, and that it can be fixed. The American Dream Movement promises to show us how.

Q >>>

Here's a thought:

For the greater good of preserving our nation’s sovereignty, solvency and sanity, we should rewrite Constitutional laws, tax laws and civil laws in ways that show the 2 percent what it’s like to be the other 98 percent.

Q >>>

Paradise Lost?

Engineering economic disasters is one of the few things the GOP leadership is really good at. Another is their ability to shift the blame for the destruction they cause to the Democrats. They’ve proven, over time and beyond all doubt, that Republicans have the requisite skills necessary to lead the nation’s working- and middle-classes to financial ruin and, possibly, to something far more dire. Doesn’t mean they’re stupid or incompetent, mind you, it only means they’re sinister.

What motivates Republicans to put business interests ahead of human interests or environmental interests or sustainability interests or, apparently, having-any-kind-of-a-future-at-all interests? Why are Republicans trying to remove all the safeguards that were put in place to protect the public from corporate excess? Is it, as most pundits claim, only that corporate entities want to cut expenses and maximize profits for their investors, or is there something far darker and more ominous  (but, perhaps, more necessary) lurking in the shadows of public perception?

The answers to these questions, I suspect, are known only to the authors of GOP policies that intentionally harm, by way of disenfranchisement, multitudes of people from the middle- and working-classes and everyone from the south pole of the leisure class. However, I do have a theory—supported by mountains of evidence, but no rock-solid proof (yet)—that the GOP’s real intention is to implement policies that result in depopulating the planet.

Assuming that depopulation is the Republican’s ultimate goal, how might it be accomplished in the least amount of time with the least amount of opposition? Would marginalizing vast segments of the redundant population prior to its culling be among the initial steps? You’re damned right it would (as amply demonstrated by the fascist regime of Nazi Germany during the run-up to WWII).

Stay tuned for further discussion.

Q >>>

Furthering the Corporate Agenda

Republicans bleed the poor and the middle class every chance they get.

“The corporatists have been waiting for this day.  When Americans are struggling to survive, when their homes are being swept away by Wall Street bankers, when their jobs are going South of the Border and elsewhere to poor countries that have no environmental regulations and no workers' rights, it's the perfect time to kick 'em when they're down, which is exactly what Governor Walker is doing to unionized public workers. He's joyfully kicking them as hard as he can to wreck the equal protection and environmental laws that men and women have fought and died for to establish in this country. The Koch Brothers, the oil and industrialized polluters that make close to $100 billion dollars a year in profits, are cheering Walker on.  If the industrialists win this battle, predictions are that the earth will be unrecognizable by 2050.” —Jacqueline Marcus

No shit! But then, I’m pretty sure Earth looked quite a bit different in 1970 than it does today; a lot can happen in 40 years. Too early to tell if whatever’s coming will turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing. However it shakes out, there’s a high probability that by 2050 the global population will be much smaller—not larger—than it is now. But that’s not what the above quote is about.

Or maybe it is. Read Jacqueline Marcus’ full commentary at Buzzflash.

Q >>>

Farmer in the Dell-emma

Attention farmers: Monsanto is not your friend, your buddy, or your benefactor. Using Monsanto’s GM seeds is not going to save you money, nor will using them make you money over the long haul. In the end, using Monsanto’s GM seeds will likely cost you everything you own and put you on the liability hook for millions more. Use Monsanto’s Frankenseeds at your own peril. You’ve been warned!

Of course, if you like being fucked so hard you'll never see straight again, then go right ahead.

Read the article at Truthout.

Q >>>