By The Last Boy In Line
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Dear National Debt:
Sincerely,
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Dear National Debt
Dear National Debt
By The Last Boy In Line
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Dear National Debt:
Sincerely,
By The Last Boy In Line
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Dear National Debt:
Sincerely,
Sunday, July 21, 2019
Patriotism, Law, and Allegiance
Patriotism, Law, and Allegiance
By James Rothenberg
Information Clearing House
Sunday, July 21, 2019
Patriotism (noun): love for or devotion to one’s country
— Merriam-Webster —
Let’s go a little further with this and break it down.
ism (noun):
1: a distinctive doctrine, cause, or theory
2: an oppressive and especially discriminatory attitude or belief
— Merriam-Webster —
This opens things up — as a practice, who uses it, why and how
is it used, and what are the ramifications of its use?
Patriotic slogans, closer to shibboleths (…a word or saying used by
adherents of a party, sect, or belief and usually regarded by others
as empty of real meaning) such as, freedom isn’t free, support the
troops, honor our veterans, and God bless America rely on a certain
set of assumptions.
Namely, that the state is benevolent, that it is moral, and that it
acts as a whole to represent the goodwill and common interests of
ordinary people.
The purpose of a marketing slogan is to create, in the target host,
a suspension of the critical thought process.
Its success as a strategy is complete when the host is unable
or unwilling to seek an alternative.
The tethering of the host to the sloganeer presents an imbalance
of power, creating a vulnerability.
Patriotic sloganeering makes the citizen into a host,
tethered to the state.
When the citizen is sufficiently prepared through propaganda,
the state has enormous leverage.
The dissident view on patriotism is that the state exploits the
goodwill of its citizens into a double cross, rallying them into
battle and support for war and vilification of whistleblowers
and refuseniks while concealing its true purposes.
This is beyond politics and generalizes to all states.
States are, by degree, adversaries to the people in them.
Big Brother is not a relative.
The universe works well as a metaphor for the state, a cold amoral
entirety with a few warm spots here and there.
The warm spots are necessary to appeal to the benevolent and
altruistic side of humankind, without which the state as a ruling
body would lose legitimacy.
The job of the state is to keep the double cross operative by
throwing in those exploitable warm spots amidst the cold
amorality.
So goes the step of the capitalist imperialist state baiting its
young men and women to fight continuous war, prepared to
sacrifice them while hiding behind the figurative skirts
of, “support” and “honor” and for those not paying the
ultimate price in, “freedom isn’t free” thanking them for
their service with 10% off.
Another shibboleth: Nobody is above the law
(Aside) Some laws are beneath all of us
Used to keep ordinary people from breaking the law under
the pretense that all are subject to it.
We’re all in the same boat.
The “law” is presented as a rigid body when in practice it
is infinitely flexible.
Since this flexibility is everywhere evident, for instance,
some people clearly being over and beyond the law, there’s
nothing left for the state to do but lock up small people
as continuous examples.
We can derive a general principle here:
The higher your station, the more you get away with.
The lower your station, the less you get away with.
In this case, station is not only associated with wealth
and social standing.
The police and the military enjoy special status as agents of
the state, as are those that act in other capacities as agents.
The special principle is:
The higher your value to the state, the more you get away with.
The lower your value to the state, the less you get away with.
The expression, “we are a nation of laws” is low on content
because what arrangement of society has ever been without
them, even transmitted orally?
The continual harping about this is more an indication of
its disproof in much the same way as privacy promises were
unnecessary when it existed.
We pledge allegiance to the flag for two reasons.
So we remain that way, and so that we can be prosecuted when
we don’t.
What is supposed to happen when the republic is not allegiant to
its people?
The answer lies in our history.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51938.htm
By James Rothenberg
Information Clearing House
Sunday, July 21, 2019
Patriotism (noun): love for or devotion to one’s country
— Merriam-Webster —
Let’s go a little further with this and break it down.
ism (noun):
1: a distinctive doctrine, cause, or theory
2: an oppressive and especially discriminatory attitude or belief
— Merriam-Webster —
This opens things up — as a practice, who uses it, why and how
is it used, and what are the ramifications of its use?
Patriotic slogans, closer to shibboleths (…a word or saying used by
adherents of a party, sect, or belief and usually regarded by others
as empty of real meaning) such as, freedom isn’t free, support the
troops, honor our veterans, and God bless America rely on a certain
set of assumptions.
Namely, that the state is benevolent, that it is moral, and that it
acts as a whole to represent the goodwill and common interests of
ordinary people.
The purpose of a marketing slogan is to create, in the target host,
a suspension of the critical thought process.
Its success as a strategy is complete when the host is unable
or unwilling to seek an alternative.
The tethering of the host to the sloganeer presents an imbalance
of power, creating a vulnerability.
Patriotic sloganeering makes the citizen into a host,
tethered to the state.
When the citizen is sufficiently prepared through propaganda,
the state has enormous leverage.
The dissident view on patriotism is that the state exploits the
goodwill of its citizens into a double cross, rallying them into
battle and support for war and vilification of whistleblowers
and refuseniks while concealing its true purposes.
This is beyond politics and generalizes to all states.
States are, by degree, adversaries to the people in them.
Big Brother is not a relative.
The universe works well as a metaphor for the state, a cold amoral
entirety with a few warm spots here and there.
The warm spots are necessary to appeal to the benevolent and
altruistic side of humankind, without which the state as a ruling
body would lose legitimacy.
The job of the state is to keep the double cross operative by
throwing in those exploitable warm spots amidst the cold
amorality.
So goes the step of the capitalist imperialist state baiting its
young men and women to fight continuous war, prepared to
sacrifice them while hiding behind the figurative skirts
of, “support” and “honor” and for those not paying the
ultimate price in, “freedom isn’t free” thanking them for
their service with 10% off.
Another shibboleth: Nobody is above the law
(Aside) Some laws are beneath all of us
Used to keep ordinary people from breaking the law under
the pretense that all are subject to it.
We’re all in the same boat.
The “law” is presented as a rigid body when in practice it
is infinitely flexible.
Since this flexibility is everywhere evident, for instance,
some people clearly being over and beyond the law, there’s
nothing left for the state to do but lock up small people
as continuous examples.
We can derive a general principle here:
The higher your station, the more you get away with.
The lower your station, the less you get away with.
In this case, station is not only associated with wealth
and social standing.
The police and the military enjoy special status as agents of
the state, as are those that act in other capacities as agents.
The special principle is:
The higher your value to the state, the more you get away with.
The lower your value to the state, the less you get away with.
The expression, “we are a nation of laws” is low on content
because what arrangement of society has ever been without
them, even transmitted orally?
The continual harping about this is more an indication of
its disproof in much the same way as privacy promises were
unnecessary when it existed.
We pledge allegiance to the flag for two reasons.
So we remain that way, and so that we can be prosecuted when
we don’t.
What is supposed to happen when the republic is not allegiant to
its people?
The answer lies in our history.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51938.htm
Friday, July 19, 2019
Dear Minnesota
Dear Minnesota
By The Last Boy In Line
Friday, July 10, 2019
Dear Minnesota:
Sincerely,
By The Last Boy In Line
Friday, July 10, 2019
Dear Minnesota:
Sincerely,
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
America
America
By Claude McKay
July 17, 2019
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life I will confess,
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate,
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet, as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred,
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.
By Claude McKay
July 17, 2019
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life I will confess,
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate,
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet, as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred,
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.
Thursday, July 11, 2019
Dear Pledge of Allegiance
Dear Pledge of Allegiance
By The Last Boy In Line
Thursday, July 11, 2019
Dear Pledge of Allegiance:
Sincerely,
By The Last Boy In Line
Thursday, July 11, 2019
Dear Pledge of Allegiance:
Sincerely,
Monday, July 8, 2019
O, Say, Can You See
O, Say, Can You See
By Paul Edwards
Information Clearing House
July 8, 2019
All rise! It is the anniversary of this conflicted, sclerotic, blind,
self-destructive country.
There will be celebrations.
Glitzy extravaganzas of flash and fireworks providing the
shimmering eye candy to camouflage the corpse of the myth
that is centerpiece and theme our national shivaree.
A nation built on genocide and slavery, with a Constitution
launched with sanctimonious pieties never meant to be honored,
ranking property over people, with blood-and-guts Capitalism--
wealth and privilege--enthroned to rule an emasculated citizenry
concussed by propaganda: this is the, “exceptional” America we
swarm on this day to extol.
From infancy we are indoctrinated with the fairy tale of our own
magnificence; inoculated with the toxic serum of race arrogance;
infected with the poisonous virus of violence.
And what noble wonders has America wrought behind
its hero story?
We’re told we won two World Wars.
In fact, we barely showed in the First, after Europe cannibalized
itself; and we stalled until Russia, at staggering human cost,
pulverized the Wehrmacht to win the Second.
We made the world safe not for Democracy, but for Wall Street
Capitalism, which made a killing on both bloodbaths, and on
destroying and nukeing Bushido-addled fascist Japan.
Hey, but how about the job we did on Latin America?
We turned that entire continent into a ghastly vivisection lab for
psychotic military monsters, paid to run their countries as Dachaus,
gulags, for American Capital.
What we could not buy, or steal, we raped.
Where we couldn’t install our native murderers and US-trained
military brutes to crush their people we did our own crushing--in
Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba--and where rebellion lived, we funded the
murder of generations of defiant young idealists in Chile, Argentina,
Brazil.
The dead hand of our “intelligence” vampires is at its grisly
trade now, bleeding Venezuela, Cuba, Honduras.
And what of our notorious “Nation Building”, seeding our lethal,
“freedom and liberty” wherever there is some wealth we have
not pirated, or some native eccentric that won’t sell his soul to
our IMF ganefs.
This is best exemplified by the sickening, barbaric massacre of the
simple, guiltless peasants of Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and
Libya.
According to one sick US Harpy, “we” feel that killing their children
is, “worth it”.
The depraved Hillary, queried on our Libyan gorefest, cackled:
“we came, we saw, he died”.
Ah, well, you will say, even if all that is true, you leave out the
many grand, humane things America has done for its own people.
Yes... And what are those things?
Social Security! Medicare!
True, in 1935 the U.S. passed the Social Security Act and in ‘66,
Medicare, programs that now rank below those of every developed
nation on earth.
It has rued them ever since, damning both as unjustified,
“entitlements” vowing that inadequate, inflation-devoured rates
and benefits will not increase, but rather must be abolished as
immoral.
Their doctrinal fantasy, “invisible hand of the market” exists only
as a fist to smash the people, never to care for them, though they
are the state.
Under both duller, dumber Republican, or slick, bullshitting
Democrat presidencies, there has been total stagnation in workers’
wages for fifty years, jobs eliminated or exported, obscene profits
only to the Super Rich.
The gap between the .001% and the rest of us was not so vast
even under J.P. Morgan and the Robber Barons.
Four men now have as much wealth as the lower 50% of the
country.
But if you are fairly well off, have a soul and all this appalls
you, you will retreat to the defensive posture you know:
No matter the evil and falsity of America, it has provided you
a decent life, a home, a job, some comfort and safety.
And there’s the cognitive rub.
Americans are comfortable enjoying every privilege available at
their level, from Bud Lite and food stamps, to Romanee-Conti
and Kobe Beef.
There is nothing inherently evil or even remarkable about this.
It’s what humans do.
What is disgraceful is to do it out of willful ignorance of how
such privilege is possible.
What is unforgivable is to know it is due to the rape and looting
of the world and celebrate it... because it’s for you.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51862.htm
By Paul Edwards
Information Clearing House
July 8, 2019
All rise! It is the anniversary of this conflicted, sclerotic, blind,
self-destructive country.
There will be celebrations.
Glitzy extravaganzas of flash and fireworks providing the
shimmering eye candy to camouflage the corpse of the myth
that is centerpiece and theme our national shivaree.
A nation built on genocide and slavery, with a Constitution
launched with sanctimonious pieties never meant to be honored,
ranking property over people, with blood-and-guts Capitalism--
wealth and privilege--enthroned to rule an emasculated citizenry
concussed by propaganda: this is the, “exceptional” America we
swarm on this day to extol.
From infancy we are indoctrinated with the fairy tale of our own
magnificence; inoculated with the toxic serum of race arrogance;
infected with the poisonous virus of violence.
And what noble wonders has America wrought behind
its hero story?
We’re told we won two World Wars.
In fact, we barely showed in the First, after Europe cannibalized
itself; and we stalled until Russia, at staggering human cost,
pulverized the Wehrmacht to win the Second.
We made the world safe not for Democracy, but for Wall Street
Capitalism, which made a killing on both bloodbaths, and on
destroying and nukeing Bushido-addled fascist Japan.
Hey, but how about the job we did on Latin America?
We turned that entire continent into a ghastly vivisection lab for
psychotic military monsters, paid to run their countries as Dachaus,
gulags, for American Capital.
What we could not buy, or steal, we raped.
Where we couldn’t install our native murderers and US-trained
military brutes to crush their people we did our own crushing--in
Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba--and where rebellion lived, we funded the
murder of generations of defiant young idealists in Chile, Argentina,
Brazil.
The dead hand of our “intelligence” vampires is at its grisly
trade now, bleeding Venezuela, Cuba, Honduras.
And what of our notorious “Nation Building”, seeding our lethal,
“freedom and liberty” wherever there is some wealth we have
not pirated, or some native eccentric that won’t sell his soul to
our IMF ganefs.
This is best exemplified by the sickening, barbaric massacre of the
simple, guiltless peasants of Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and
Libya.
According to one sick US Harpy, “we” feel that killing their children
is, “worth it”.
The depraved Hillary, queried on our Libyan gorefest, cackled:
“we came, we saw, he died”.
Ah, well, you will say, even if all that is true, you leave out the
many grand, humane things America has done for its own people.
Yes... And what are those things?
Social Security! Medicare!
True, in 1935 the U.S. passed the Social Security Act and in ‘66,
Medicare, programs that now rank below those of every developed
nation on earth.
It has rued them ever since, damning both as unjustified,
“entitlements” vowing that inadequate, inflation-devoured rates
and benefits will not increase, but rather must be abolished as
immoral.
Their doctrinal fantasy, “invisible hand of the market” exists only
as a fist to smash the people, never to care for them, though they
are the state.
Under both duller, dumber Republican, or slick, bullshitting
Democrat presidencies, there has been total stagnation in workers’
wages for fifty years, jobs eliminated or exported, obscene profits
only to the Super Rich.
The gap between the .001% and the rest of us was not so vast
even under J.P. Morgan and the Robber Barons.
Four men now have as much wealth as the lower 50% of the
country.
But if you are fairly well off, have a soul and all this appalls
you, you will retreat to the defensive posture you know:
No matter the evil and falsity of America, it has provided you
a decent life, a home, a job, some comfort and safety.
And there’s the cognitive rub.
Americans are comfortable enjoying every privilege available at
their level, from Bud Lite and food stamps, to Romanee-Conti
and Kobe Beef.
There is nothing inherently evil or even remarkable about this.
It’s what humans do.
What is disgraceful is to do it out of willful ignorance of how
such privilege is possible.
What is unforgivable is to know it is due to the rape and looting
of the world and celebrate it... because it’s for you.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51862.htm
Thursday, July 4, 2019
Dear Fourth of July
Dear Fourth of July
By The Last Boy In Line
Thursday, July 4, 2019
Dear Fourth of July:
Sincerely,
By The Last Boy In Line
Thursday, July 4, 2019
Dear Fourth of July:
Sincerely,
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