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Reminding us that the US Academic system is in service of the Industrial/Military Complex:
Hey, UC already has Dr. Torture himself -- John Yoo. UC Berkley needs to build a new Dick Cheney wing for all the war criminals they're hiring.
And just think...Berkley was THE hotbed for revolution in the sixties. Now, they can't seem to hire Nazis fast enough. What the fuck happened?
Complete moral collapse.
It was the students who led the Free Speech Movement against the UC Administration in 1964 - the only thing that has changed is that the students aren't paying attention anymore.
When I lived there in the early 80s there was some uproar (at least the alternative weekly covered it) that the Gap had taken over a store front on Telegraph Ave. near Sather Gate. I shudder to imagine how corporate sanitation has Disneyfied the area since.
But I do have my memories....the first time I stepped onto Telegraph Ave the Slits were playing during a street festival. It seemed so perfect and lived up to all my expectations.
The lifeblood of the Livermore Lab always was military money. Now there just won't need any reason to keep up any pretense of it being otherwise.
Sheesh....I thought Ward Connerly as a Regent was bad.
To be honest... I'm kinda feelin for myself right now. So I'm going to go to the Northwooods and brood for a while. Yeah, I could call it "extensive meditation" or some kinda shit... but the Truth is... Yam was kinda my doppelganger. The kids called him "the Old Man." He had nicked ears, a scraggly tail, and plenty of scars. None of the other kritters ever fucked with Yam... at least not where we could see/hear it. I DID see Yam dispense with some of Sid's early-puppy gnawings wid a quickness... and Kismet (at the time) was amused.
Kinda reminds me of this guy. Anyway, I'll be gone for a week or so to read more books and shit. But good choice of threads BO... because hope to address the very question... "who's the enemy?" Today my GP doc and I agreed on one thing... the "healthcare system" is more fucked up than I am... and that's saying a lot. Sure, it was the Southrons... and they are still trying to articulate their "Lost Cause" bullshit... and today, it's "socialism." That;s right... the Southrons now are trying to prop their "Lost Cause" with that red-baiting bullshit.
To be simplistic... it was the "robber barons." That's who "won." But they were already "winning" going in... and in a lot of ways-- that's what the "war" was all about... one group of (agrarian) robber barons vs. another (industrial). The US Civil War was no less then an a preemptive counter-revolution by reactionary forces against the Industrial Revolution. Now I am speculating that Marx was trying to answer the question that all hack-ass editors (and readers) ask... "...yeah we all know what the PROBLEM is... but what's your SOLUTION?"
Sort of like Monsanto vs. GE. Well, maybe back then, but since then they have jumped under the covers together to fuck us all. Few people could conceive of such a thing back then. The idea of "monoculture" was just as alien as "globalization." Even if the words had not been invented yet, both were happening... big time... for thousands of years. "Localization?" Always happens the larger infrastructure breaks down. And "globalization?" Always happens when "technology" manages to cross physical "boundaries."
Who's the enemy? In my opinion-- the "social Darwinists." The ones who see no difference between natural and social systems... because apologists for Darwinism (sorry Herr Dawkins) believe them one and the same. That's crap... because ,monkeys have "technology." Too global. Too monoculture. Not accurate, in my opinion, because it diminishes the importance of the "random element," and yeah... would agree that the "random element" is not so random when you think about it.
And coming on-line right now: "Machine Intelligence." Not "natural?" What's the difference?
My parents are paying about $10K a month at a retirement/assisted living center. At 92 my dad spends his days down with my mom in the Assisted LIving area making sure that she is getting proper care - it is a full time job for him - and this is a "top of the line" health care facility.
Same held true for my hip surgeries - J had to make sure that I was getting proper care. One morning, fortunately, I was clear enough through the painkiller induced haze to challenge the nurse's insistence that I take the (wrong) drugs she was giving me.
$10K a month? They musta been movie stars. Who has that kinda money?
My neighbors up the street (wife and husband) took their own lives just before they turned eighty. She, with sleeping pills, and he, with a rifle (same night). That seems like the better health-care plan. I'd rather my son got our meager savings instead of the death-care industry.
My dad's retirement package as a full professor (with only a MS degree) was based upon a percentage of his highest income. With guaranteed cost of living increases every year for around three decades he is making more from his retirement than J and I ever hope to earn together. That, plus the inflated value of land that they got from selling Grandpa's farm, makes them financially secure. Right now his retirement/investment income is covering their expenses without touching the principal. However, as he points out, if he has to move into the much more expensive Assisted Living center along with my mom and both of them don't die soon, the Old Age Center will get all of their children's inheritance....
Even if Dad's health/death isn't too spendy and leaves me and my four siblings large portions of his investments, it still won't be enough to give us the option of ho$pice for the terminally old. J & I have already talked about killing each other when we become too much of a burden.
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