The Kleptocratic Empire

[pan]

Stealing us blind.

[waldopaper]

There's no problem with visibility... and if they hit me, they'd hit a bridge.  I could see them (in the rear-view) moving over at least a half-mile behind.  This thing is visible.  (but i do have a nice orange flag... just hafta figure out how to mount it...  

Today is overcast... unusual in the high desert (I'm told)... and I caught a nasty cold.  Didn't stop taking a morning ride until legs turned to rubber-- came back to sniffle and blubber.  Meanwhile, "West Jordan's plan to dole out nearly a quarter-billion dollars in tax breaks ("W. Jordan considers a $240M incentive for Facebook facility," Tribune, Aug. 9) is a classic case of corporate welfare run amok. Under this deal, the city would spend more than $1 million per job "created." Additionally, it would require a commitment of 5.3 million gallons of water per day."   (37,100,000 gallons per week.
159,530,000 gallons per month.
478,590,000 gallons per quarter.
1,914,360,000 gallons per year.)    And I thought Indy-nanny was "business friendly."  Kleptocracy even in a fucking desert.   

[BO]

Kleptocracy is everywhere now. Especially, those enclaves that were once considered liberal. As Chris Hedges pointed out several years ago, the liberal class is dead and gone. Everywhere.

I like your new thing. Can you carry extra batteries and switch 'em as needed? I know lithium batteries are pretty expensive, but it'd be cool if you could source some/one? from a Prius or Nissan Leaf. Or a fried Tesla.

[waldopaper]

I have thought of that.  Yes, the batts are are switchable etc.  But they are clearly inadequate to deliver a 100 mile range.  I specified two.  They delivered six.  I drained 3 getting 30-40 miles- granted, mostly uphill-- and the rest of the trip would have been mostly downhill.  But most of that would been on 4-lane mad busy heavily traffic high-speed main drags. Not really concerned with my safety... mostly backing traffic up.  With the big fat wheels, it gets really twitchy approaching 30 mph.  On the shoulders of high-speed roads I heard pop pop snap and looked down and thought o shit- broken glass.  Guessing the wide (4") profile and low pressure (10 psi) saved getting a flat that any 45+psi bicycle tire would get going thru such Walpurgisnacht.  No glass beads ever embedded... let alone punctured.  It's just what I need in the city... but a cross-country machine- it ain't.  

 

[stonefruit]

trump banner ads at the jerking shrimp? wtf?!

[pan]

Haven't seen those - and, being in Florida I would think that I would get targeted for Trump ads.

[waldopaper]

Dig it-- some footage of the quad on YouTube... 

[pan]

Cool beans!

[stonefruit]

America, you have had so many magnificent moral exemplars.  You have killed or ignored most of them.  America, I am from and not from America, so I have the right to care or not care, to belong or not belong. But this is reaching an absurd pitch.  Why do so many simple things seem so hard to understand by the general public?  JFK? Shit howdy and goddamn.  Zapuder film.  Shit howdy and goddamn.  Blasted from the front.  Oswald?  Allegedly blasted from the back.  It is just too silly to even begin to comprehend.  Then move forward to next conspiracy hiding in plain sight.  Dear god.  Do you not want to know?  Perhaps – no especially – you don’t.  I used to preach on the forensic and geopolitical and financial evidence.  I don’t any longer.  Those who know, know.  Those who don’t, don’t – and never will.  I just say “World Trade Center 7” at this point and leave it at that.  Most people say “huh?”

 

Listen, people. Universal basic income.  It is easy compared to the trillions Amerikkka spends on the endless war.

 

Amerikkka I want this war to stop.  Can’t we stop this war, endless war with so many countries?  I would like to play with the refugees and survivors. Kick a ball around.  Make some stuff out of scraps of paper and twigs.  Tell stories and sing songs.  I think this would be a good start.  I think this endless war is a bad start.  WE have so much to gain as  species.  So much hope to aspire to.  Why do we continually piss it away?

 

It would make me angry if were not such a recognizable pattern.

 

Look, Amerikkka (and the first world metropolis ---and the aspiring second or third or whoever world --- I have been there and know you too --- your guilt in aspiring to conform to the consumption patterns is full of guilt too).

 

Let us find the way out!  Can’t we?  Fuck, we can put a humyn on the moon.  We can make a computer.  Clearly we are not stupid.  But we are stupid.  In the most tenderly heartbreaking ways.

 

Why are those refugees on that hard road?  Why did they roast in their very shadows in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?  Why do we obliterate every last thing of every last value in every last corner of every last corner of every last ecosystem?

 

I would weep and I would weep and moan.  But we brought this on ourselves.  First off, let us be clear.  Fuck humans.  It is not about the humans.  We were given a weird duty to protect our single spaceship.  First and foremost.  That we are fucking up quite catastrophically.

 

Weep and moan. Not for the children.  For the rocks, for the dirt, for the fishes and birds for every living creature, animate and inanimate on god’s green earth.  Cry.  Cry for them.  Now cry with a suffering that gives you courage.  Cry to be better person.  Cry to live up to yourself.  It is not impossible.  It is not to much to ask of your yourself.  But it can be done.

 

First of all, have the fucking courage to know.  JFK and 911 official conspiracy theories an absolute obvious sham?  Have the courage to know.  Learn, and then – where do you take this knowledge?

 

I don’t know.  So many cultural processes are ingrained, not only in to making us stupid but into keeping us from any meaning expression of our wisdom once we have attained it.

 

I can’t go on.  I will go on.

 

One answer is death, often suicide.  These are often those of the most moral sensitivity and true courage that most need to be kept alive.

 

One answer is death, often willful action – to bravery? To where?  Jesus H. Fucking Christ – some ridiculous and painful mass shooting?  A coward’s lot.  Think of those guileless victems.

 

Think instead of true bravery.  Painful bravery.  Bravery few of us has.  Virtually none of us has if you examine the evidence.

 

Here is the evidence, people.  I can tell you who murdered JFK and it was not Oswald.  I can tell you who engineered 911 and it was not Bin Laden.

 

Or ISIS…Or…Wait…Who is Amurikkka at war against this week.

 

It will bend your mind.  It will cause you to behave differently.  But to understand that the two greatest conspiracies of the last century actually MEAN SOMETHING AND NEED TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY is worth knowing.

 

And acting upon.  How?  I have no idea.  Therefore, will it be easy?  No.  Well fucked if you act.  Well fucked if you don’t.  Simple agenda action plan?  Jam it up your ass because it doesn’t exist.

[pan]

Thank you for sharing your beautiful words about the ugly.

Dogs are set on the First Nation Peoples as they dare to defend their Mother, telling us that She is our Mother too. That you can't drink oil. But Marx was right in diagnosing the problem: we have met the Enemy and he has Capital. How can we go on squeezing more profits from a rock? Get blood from a turnip in Dakota. Pipe it under the wide Missouri.  Too bad we don't have any more smallpox blankets to give them....

[waldopaper]

Dangit Doktor Stones...  didnt have the heart meself to put nothin up yesterday ("911") but got piled on anyway for bringing up "inside job" but even if it weren't ye kin still the falling dominoes clanking like old bones in every cupboard.  But hallelujah im a Utahn.  Where the cops all have wooden legs and the jails are made of tin... 

 

[waldopaper]

When you think about it: there is only one "party," and it has two right wings. The "Democrats" are now the new republicans and the "Republicans" are now the new fascists. 
The "elections" are for entertainment purposes only. The "choice" is between unisex bathrooms vs. climate change... abortion vs. wealth inequality. We choose the singers on "American Idol" who sing about climate change and economic justice. 
In reality, we will decide which chorus is more harmonious, which course will take us home.

Tax cut your way to prosperity. We must grow every quarter. Forever.  Gosh folks. How naked do we want that Emperor to get? Yechhh.  love your swallowing the emperors wurst.  And it's time for us hirelings and slaves to sit out the circus. Time for the 99% to show solidarity. Time to think about who was vanquishing the hirelings and slaves and why. When you parrot the dogma you get dog talk, trivializing bark for boner power to add or detract.

[waldopaper]

"Won" what? The "debate?" No. That was "entertainment." Bla bla emails. Yakkety yak tax returns. Who cares? Nobody... except partisan hacks who get paid to write tripe like Pence "won" the "debate."

Take, for example, Pence's oft-repeated talking point: "...we need to rebuild our military." Oh. Really. Because the USA has had a "war economy" since 1942... and spends more than... oh never mind. It really does not matter.

Since we privatized elections and corporations became people and money became speech... we became the peanut gallery that screams and giggles at the puppet show. Hey kids- what time is it?

Planet is still cooking. Oceans still dying. Capitalism still collapsing. Mikey wants a 1981 do-over. St. Ronzo is president and trickle-down works. Pleasantville stays black-and-white and the past 35 years never happened.

Make America Grate Again.