BS: Living in the village of the mad.

Subject: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 12:05 PM

This is just my personal declaration about how I feel about modern politics as it's happening in North America (and much of the world). I don't expect it to change anyone here. I'm not much interested in arguing with any of you about it either, because that won't change anything. I'm just expressing how I feel about it, period. That's all I wish to do. It gives me some sense of being alive to do that.

If it stimulates the rest of you into having some political discussion among yourselves...fine. Here it is:

If you have a public permanently divided against one another because of the existence of 2 (or more) gigantic propaganda-spewing entities called "political parties" whose very reason for being is to perpetuate division and conflict and to compete against one another....then you can never have a positive, effective government...you can never have a truly united public (except in the case of a temporary dire outside threat such as is posed in a war or a great natural disaster)....and you can never have a sane, rational and responsible form of government.

Political parties are instruments of division, hatred, selfishness, and chaos. They do NOT secure democracy, liberty or freedom, they compromise it and threaten it in every way.

Have you ever seen a film about a Native culture, such as any of the North American Indian cultures....or the fictional culture presented in the film "Avatar"? Do you notice that these natural cultures which are the basic form of natural human development always function around a united council of citizens that represents the collective views of the whole community, with experienced elders usually having the most influence? Naturally, there are always differences of opinion in a community, and in a council, and those differences WILL be debated vigorously every time a matter comes up before council. But they will be debated by many free individuals whose loyalty is not to a political party or to some formalized hierarchical coalition...but to their own intelligence and conscience. Those individuals will not be artificially divided against one another on a permanent basis by party label or political affiliation. Therefore they will be free to think independently on every issue. Their professional future will not be imperilled by "breaking party ranks", no matter how they decide to vote on an issue. Their campaign funds will not come from a "party war chest".

Campaign funds should, in fact, come from a public purse....should be EQUAL for every candidate, and should be quite modest. All candidates should receive EXACTLY the same amount of air time and public exposure during an election, so no one has monetary advantages (which are just a way of rigging the election). A candidate's ideas and character and experience alone should be the only significant factors in getting him or her elected.

What has made everything I'm suggesting impossible in our society is the utterly corrupt and insane tradition that has grown up in relatively recent historical times of dividing a nation's politics up into competing party blocs and setting them AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC against one another in a battle royal where some bloc wins and another bloc loses.

That's stupid. It's destructive. It's entirely unnecessary. It's EXPENSIVE. It has destroyed the legitimacy of our governments and the trust of the public in government. It has destroyed public unity and fractured the public into separate groups who detest one another along party lines.

But you all take it for granted, because you grew up with that ludicrious system already in place around you and you thought "this is democracy".

Well, it isn't. It's insanity.

Now just let me roll it back to that Native tribe with their council. Just suppose that we "modern" idiots managed to convince a Native race like that to take their council system and arbitrarily divide it up into 2 or 3 competing political parties. Every council member would then be expected to work for his party from then on, ensure that his party won the next election, and if he didn't by God work for his party then he'd soon be kicked out of it and lose the professional friends he had there...and either have to join one of the other damned parties or quit politics altogether.

And what would you have happening in that Native tribe in just a few years that had never happened before? Hatred. Permanent division of the community into irreconcilable competitive blocs who couldn't stand each other and who worked from then on to attack each other, discredit each other, and cut each other down. You'd have political warfare such as had never been seen in that tribe before, and it would be enshrined and perpetuated by the party system. In a generation or two they would have forgotten that things had ever been any other way...and they'd be trapped in it.

As we are. We are trapped. We are living in a broken system that cannot function as a government ought to, because it is founded upon the very principle of division, and that leads directly to dishonesty, compulsion, influence-peddling, and graft.

I look at the society I'm living in and I know with no doubt in my mind that it's being run in an insane manner by millions of people who are lost in a dream of their own making. It makes me sick. I feel like an alien being who has woken up on a crazy planet filled with deluded people who have no idea what the hell they are even doing. I despair of it. There's nothing I can do except try not to let it get me down too much, and just attempt to make something of my own private life as best I can in a lunatic society. What else can you do when you're living in the village of the mad?

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: gnu
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 12:19 PM

Well written, except for "...you all take it for granted...".

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 12:23 PM

Sorry! I'll correct that. I should have said..."a great many of you take it for granted. Some do not."

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: GUEST,number 6
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 12:30 PM

We lived for just outside the village of the mad (Orillia) ... that was about as much time we could take of it and it's 'madness' .... we moved after 2 years.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 12:31 PM

I feel like an alien being who has woken up on a crazy planet filled with deluded people who have no idea what the hell they are even doing.

Me too, LH. People just seem to be careening around, crashing into one another without looking where they're going, or even caring.

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 12:32 PM

It might be helpful to go back to USA's beginnings and read what they decided upon regarding political parties.

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 12:36 PM

amen


mixing up the arsenic laced koolaid

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: GUEST,number 6
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:04 PM

"and that leads directly to dishonesty, compulsion, influence-peddling, and graft."

I beleive this kind of stuff was going on long before the idea of democracy was conceived. Kings, barons, warlords, chiefs, generals, caorporals, peasants, princes, queens have always been guilty of this. Even in a socialistic multi party system dishonesty, influence peddling and greed will exist.

Human nature ... take a look around ... here, at work, in your neighbourhood. People will always take sides and the evil ones usually come out the winner.

it's a mad, mad world

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:05 PM

You guys might take some small comfort in the notion that you are not alone. This sort of existential angst in the face of our deeply aberrated group processes is a major theme of every poetic soul going back to the Greeks or before. It is especially salient since the advent of industrial urbanization, where the human interface has been so bruised by mechanisms.

The learning curve we are blindly careening along is systems engineering. Good systems engineering always takes the question of granularity into account because it is understood that if you engineer the small grains of a system correctly, their integration will not produce as many explosions, and the transactions of coordinating them into a system that runs will go more smoothly. In order to do this you have to sort out which rules have to run from the top down (such as defining common interface standards between units) and which rules must be left at the smaller level for the good of the system.

The American system was designed to leave all rights to free choice unhindered at the lowest level of granularity for political systems, the individual human being.

Over two hundred years, this important and under-emphasized principle has been eroded badly by people whose ideal scenario is dictation from the top down rather than evolution from the bottom up.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:07 PM

In the UK... We 'democratically' vote a party in (One of several parties) and from then on, those Members of Parliament who sit in the House of Commons, begin the playground name calling and belittling of others in the name of 'Running the Country'...... They are headed up mainly by Ex-Public school boys consisting of the 'Prime Minister' and his party... challenged in almost all major discussion by what we call the 'The Leader of the Opposition' and his party.... voted on by all parties whose votes tend to reflect loyalty to their own party rather than agreement or disagreement with the matter in hand..... Where is the Democracy now???
I have been saying for many years that we need a group of 'Directors' appointed with a Chairman (Richard Branson or the like) to run the country as a 'going concern' and do their best for it and the people................. They should be paid a salary, rather than expenses (which can be 'adjusted' (fiddled) as they were recently....... and there should be an independent body from the public to monitor their progress...... Maybe that would work better than what we have but what we have has needed changing for too long... Old Tradition dies hard!

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:34 PM

Number 6 - a response to your response to what I said... ;-) as below...

"and that leads directly to dishonesty, compulsion, influence-peddling, and graft."

I beleive this kind of stuff was going on long before the idea of democracy was conceived. Kings, barons, warlords, chiefs, generals, caorporals, peasants, princes, queens have always been guilty of this. Even in a socialistic multi party system dishonesty, influence peddling and greed will exist.

You're absolutely right! And I certainly didn't intend to leave socialist systems out when I denounced the modern political party system. The one key point I wanted to make about parties, though, is how badly they divide the public. This is less true in the case of kings, barons, warlords, chiefs, generals, queens, etc...since the government in those cases is not artificially pre-divided by definition into 2 or more named blocs which are then automatically set against each other.

Not that divisions cannot occur in a monarchical line or any of those others. They can and often did occur, resulting in civil wars in some cases...but at least the very principle OF division itself was not built directly into the existing system from the getgo.

What I was recommending, though, was not a monarchy or a warlord or any of those ancient forms of governance...but rather an elective and representational form of modern democracy that is completely devoid of political parties and their private money funding machines. That would form a parliament composed entirely of free and independent representatives, each elected by their local consitutuents from a local slate of candidates. That results in a government NOT intrinsically divided against itself by prior design.

I believe that's approximately what the USA had in its earliest beginnings. It had a unified council of free thinkers. There were no political parties yet established amongst the men who wrote the Constitution or signed the Declaration of Independence. They were an assembly of free-thinking individuals who thought and voted without the prior influence of a party machine being brought to bear upon them. They were able to function perfectly well as a government, because their differences of opinion were NOT dictated by a party affiliation of any kind.

That's the kind of democracy I'd like to see. It would be radically different from what we have now, and the public would no longer be divided along predetermined partisan lines, but could consider each politician and each matter that came up entirely on its own merits. This would do profound good to political consciousness.

Imagine everyone waking up tomorrow and not even knowing what a "Democrat" or a "Republican" was...and just dealing with reality for a change.

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:58 PM

One point I'd like to make is that in many of the native cultures, the final decisions are left to the elder women who share equally on councils with the elder men. That starting out already with equality makes a huge difference, imo.

You know my other views, LH, on attracting more of what you spend your time, words, and thoughts on...visualising & speaking better, esp. if more and more people would rise above the mass consciousness to do so, can have a positive effect.

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 02:04 PM

It is always going to be about controlling the resources, whatever they may be, land, metals, oil, water, people.

There will always be a few who will happily lead a mob of lazy sumofbitches that just don't want the status quo messed with.

It is individual lazy selfishness that is the root of the problem. It is this that permits the selfish go getters to take over, make war, etc.



tam... thinking about opening a vein

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 03:10 PM

Mayhap, Tam, but hold that blade a moment! Consider the possibility that the laziness and selfishness you bemoan--which do indeed seem to add a lot of sewage to the clear course of the river politick--might, actually, be by products, overlays, and artifacts in the psyche and not the basic nature of the beast at all.

In other words if the basic nature of human critters is essentially high-minded, and low-mindedness is a sad side-effect of trauma, falsehood, emotional abuse, etc., then there might be a way to convert all that entropic energy and negative striving into something more positive, productive, instinctively rational and compassionate....

Wouldn't that be nice???


;>)



A

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 04:45 PM

These words are far better than any of mine on this subject, Little Hawk..


ANTHEM FOR DISSENT
By Ann Onimus, John Boncore and Ron Bankley

"United in fear we trade freedom, our prize for the Patriot Act as united we securitize
United in power over patriarchy, we misogynize
United in self-righteous arrogance, we imperialise
Untied in degenerate genital mutilation, we circumcise
United we consume and spend, and, united, we capitalize
United in greed we exploit, as united we multinationalize
United we commit economic suicide as, united, we globalise
United in beligerent violence, we waste trillions as, united, we militarize
United we massacre millions and think we're so brave, united we fantasize
United we bomb, destroy, maim, mass murder, slaughter and terrorize
United in massive denial we look the other way, as united, we atrocitize
United in 'might makes right', we dominate and, united, we hegemonize
United we pillage the third world and then, united, we moralize
United we covet their resources and, united, we monopolize
United in total denial we deny that, united, we brutalize
United we believe without question the star spangled propaganda our leaders so unceasingly televise
United we, so very obediently, swallow the many fabricated red white and blue lies
United we're so blind, with closed eyes except wide-eyed Ashcroft spies
And in the many resource rich countries that, united, we occupy and we colonize, and united we impoverish and victimize
Yet another corporate billion is pried and yet another heart broken mother cries and yet another star spangled bomb drops
And yet another innocent child heinously dies
Yet another example of united we collateralize
Just U.S. business as usual, as united we privatize
United we stand completely deranged
Global terrorist in our 'freedom and democracy' disguise
As united we stand apathetic and complicit in American terrorism
As united we turn on TV to de-sensitise
As united we stand in massive denial
As united we ignore the innocent pleas of the innocent ones we exterminate
As united we stand inanely pledging allegiance to the flag of facist terrorism
As their blood on it dries
As united we stand, surrendering our freedom to the real 'axis of evil' Corporation, CIA, and Military guise
As united we stand with our heads in the sand, as the American Fourth Reich is born
And freedom dies
As united we stand so comfortably numb and deniably dumb
That united we don't have sense to realise
That united we stand on the brink of the New World Order totalitarian police state
United we are so......Blind"




Just imagine if those words above were about the human race being United in Love....

Anthem for Dissent - Youtube

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Lighter
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 05:04 PM

Voltaire's "Candide" says it all for me, even though itt isn't specifically about politics. If you haven't read it, LH, let's just say you've come independently to the same strategy that V recommends.

Of course, apathy will only make it worse. Yet action will make it worse too.

Get the picture?

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 05:18 PM

" What else can you do when you're living in the village of the mad?"

hmmm...looking for a metaphor....

lessee, the Winter Olympics is approaching.

Suppose that, like the political system(s) we are 'given', you are forced onto a bobsled and pushed onto a treacherous course, hurtling down at umpty-umph MPG. You don't like it, you are not the driver, and you really don't know or trust the driver well....so what do you do? Just throw your arms up and scream "this is a STUPID way to get somewhere!"?....Or do you hold on tight and try to remember what you have heard about leaning a bit in the turns to help the balance and keep from running up a wall?

I'd lean..... (leaning is 'kinda' like voting and reading and listening...)

metaphors only go so far, and maybe you have a better one, but hey.....

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: akenaton
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 05:58 PM

I agree with your ideas LH, but how do we prise their fingers from our throats without instigating a global bloodbath, that is the problem.

Its like the global pollution problem we would have to write off a couple of generations just to get things on the right road...would that be fair....would the cure once again, be worse than the disease(in the short term)

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: mousethief
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 06:03 PM

I think breaking into factions is a way of life. The ancient Byzantines had their Green and Blue parties even under an emperor (and at times a very strong and effective emperor). Parties evolved VERY early in the history of the USA. And any time you have a party structure, it will seek to perpetuate itself. And there you are. The makers' mistake was that they fondly presumed they could stave off parties, and thereby didn't make the structure of our government party-proof.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 06:10 PM

Your metaphor is a pretty good one, Bill. ;-) I have no argument with it. My way of dealing with it is by trying to live an honest, harmless, and modestly productive and creative life. Mostly I just try to do no harm to anyone. I upbraid myself for not doing more...as do most idealists, I suppose.

I cannot espouse belief in any of the existing political parties, so I do not assist them in any way. I have sometimes assisted a specific candidate (regardless of party) whom I genuinely believed in on his or her own merits.

*****

Lizzie - Splitting The Sky and Ann Onimus, John Boncore and Ron Bankley are clearly idealists after my own heart. Splitting the Sky has written a powerful, magnificent statement there that echoes and articulates perfectly everything I'm feeling.

*****

Here's another thought about the multi-party system. Remember when the Fathers of Independence in the USA got together and wrote a Constitution for the 13 colonies? They did it without any political parties to screw up the process. Suppose they had already been divided into 2 oppositional parties...like the Democrats and Republicans...HOW LONG do you think it would have taken them to agree on common principles and ideas and to complete that Constitution? Would they EVER have reached a final agreement and completed it? I wonder.

The multi-party system is based on conflict...on perpetual political and social war. War without weapons, but it's still war. The imperial system is based on more overt conflict...on terrorizing, conquering, and exploiting the resources of smaller nations. Conflict does not produce a better world for people, it produces incalculable suffering and death...for the people, for the animals, for the plants, for entire ecosystems...for the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 06:18 PM

Splitting the Sky made a Citizen's Arrest on George Bush, last year, Little Hawk, charging him with War Crimes....Unfortunately, the Canadian Police arrested the wrong man.

Splitting the Sky making his arrest...Youtube-


The thing is, people are starting to wake up, starting to get angry, losing what faith they had in politicians, as this Corporate World starts to disintergrate...

Of course, all the parties should amalgamate for the common good, but.....

I'm right with you on getting rid of the 'your party' 'my party' idea though. So divisive..

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: akenaton
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 06:24 PM

We need a "populist", but the bastards are all so unpopular   :0(

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 06:34 PM

It's dramatic political theater to confront police with a situation like that...and I won't stand in the way of anyone who dares to do it...but the result is inevitable. The police will arrest the protestor and charge him while most of society looks on in vague momentary curiosity that is soon forgotten. They stopped thinking about their latte drink for a minute or two...

Police and military people are made to deal with such open confrontation and they're unstoppable on that level until you reach a tipping point where the majority of an enraged population takes to the streets and fights them and where their own men start to mutiny. We're nowhere near such a point at this time. The majority of the population in North America and the West is in a consumption-induced trance most of the time.

Police and military have a much harder time fighting ideas. The powerful communication of ideas. They cannot arrest an idea. They cannot prevent it from radicalizing people. They cannot yet make the expressing of a radical idea illegal in either Canada or the USA or western Europes...though some efforts have been made to muzzle some people's ideas...a very dangerous precedent, because when ONE idea can be legally silenced, ANY idea can.

My way of fighting oppression at this point would be the pen, not the sword. It is not yet time for the sword, not unless you're an Afghan or an Iraqi or someone in those occupied lands. If you are...well, then, the "sword" is definitely an option for those willing to risk their lives in using it upon a high tech invader. (I am not speaking of terror attacks UPON North America. I would never support those. I am speaking of fighters who fight on their own national soil to drive out a foreign invader. If they do that, then my heart is with them. This does not mean they're all saints. They're not. But their basic cause of national liberation from foreign occupation is one I can identify with.)

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 06:38 PM

The pen, despite the validity of its writings, has failed the American people in the Supreme court.

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 06:57 PM

Yes. It's darned hard for a public to do much about a bought Congress and judiciary...short of armed revolution.

The pen comes first. The revolution (armed or otherwise) may or may not come later.

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: GUEST,number 6
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 11:46 AM

What amazes me (and sadly) is how the U.S. has evolved into this village much like Fellini's Amarcord where every one is either a communist (Democrat) or a fascist (Republican) ... yup, the village of the mad.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: gnu
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 03:27 PM

Amos... "This sort of existential angst in the face of our deeply aberrated group processes is a major theme of every poetic soul going back to the Greeks or before."

You mean, someone before me said, "The rich subjugate the poor."?

After all, that is what it really is. You might call down the systems of government we have, but why? If they are onerus, it's because of my postulate. Which, of course, is not "mine"... just the way it is.

Irving just announced it will spend $1B to $2B building power transmission lines in NB... this is days after the NB government finalized a deal to sell most of the assets of NB Power to La Belle Province. And Quebec has been screwing Newfoundland over Churchill Falls power for YEARS! They ar gonna do it again with the new deal.

This deal fucks NB, NF, PEI, NS and the eastern seaboard states of US.

The rich subjugate the poor.

We have laws in place regarding the interest rates credit card companies charge. NBEPC charges 19.56% on overdue power bills. How fucked up is that? And now, Irving (like they need more coin) is gonna stick it's claws in the poor of NB, NS, PEI, NF and NE.

We in Atlantic Canada are pissed off living in the village of the mad.

Mad? No... extremely pissed off here in the village of the insane.

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 04:12 PM

There is an answer for the village of the mad be it Candor NY or Paris Texas. ITs called home improvment or makeover.

A town is as strong as its weakest link but the voyage to a better village begins with a single house. Just as a better Hudson River began with a single boat. Ask Pete Seeger.

The make over demands that a constitutional blueprint is sound as as nearly perfect as possible. Then and only then should the makeover proceed.

The next step is the scariest of the entire process. DEMOLITION.
HOO Boy you have to be carefull to not destroy the foundation and supporting load bearing walls.

Reinforce the foundation for twice what you need now.

Rebuild with the finest materials and people possible.

Guard your supplies from thugs and thieves with good security.

When the best season to replace the roof arrives put up a roof that lets in as much sun as possible while using solar panels, film and paint.

Landscape for nature and not just whimsical reasons.


The town will follow suit, one by one if you have done a good job.


PS If you don't have the guts for the Demolition phase, do not attempt any improvement.

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 04:15 PM

Interesting post, Donuel.

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 04:32 PM

Do not despair, folks.

"A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
                                                                                                   —Margaret Mead, Anthropologist

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 04:47 PM

Is the internet not the answer, Little Hawk?

The one government where we are all leaders....

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 04:48 PM

LH
It is like a post from Chauncy the gardener.

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 05:43 PM

Yes, kind of like that. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: gnu
Date: 17 Nov 10 - 04:41 PM

Just heard the news on the TV. A DEAL! The Lower Churchill WILL be developed! 800 MEGAWATTS! The second biggest power plant in Atlantic Canada, and cleaner than the fossil fuel plant that is bigger.

And, it will INCLUDE a feed from Labrador to Newfoundland to Nova Scotia!!!! That is the BIG DEAL... FUCK Uppity and Lowly Canada and the crooks and greedy bastards there and even here that would sell us down the river for corporate and PERSONAL gain. They have been fucking Newfoundland for 40 years and soon they won't, thanks to New Brunswickers who did not let the NB Liberal government and the big money screw over The Atlantic Provinces. United we stand... New Brunswickers, Nova Scotians, Cape Bretoners, PE Islanders and Newfoundlanders.

This is a glorious and happy day for The Atlantic Provinces of Canada.

Not bad for the US eastern seabord states either.

As for Quebec and Ottawa, fuck em, the ignorant bastards. They deserve what's gonna happen to them when the new transmission lines are in place. 40 years of pay back. I can just see it... Joey's ghost flips the disconnect and shuts off the power from Churchill to Quebec and dances a jig with Danny Boy as they give Charest and the big money the finger. I wonder... will NF share the oil and gas money with those pricks or threaten to separate? over and over again?

I's da b'y what transmits da power and ye pricks can go fuck yerselves.

The people here in New Brunswick that were involved in Save NB Power are celebrating and so are a lot of people all over Atlantic Canada. The little guy won this one. YAAAAHOOOO!

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: SINSULL
Date: 18 Nov 10 - 09:33 AM

Reading The Wild Swans about three Chinese women who survived. The chapter on Chairman Mao was horrifying. With no concept of how to manage an economy, he got it into his head that steel production would make China great. EVERY SCHOOL had a vat for melting down metal. Peasant farmers were put to work making steel. Everyone who knew it was a disaster in the making either shut up or was eliminated. And in a matter of a few years thousands starved to death.
Let's all pretend it's not happening, Little Hawk.

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Nov 10 - 12:24 PM

1974
"if something isn't done to fix the broken system there will be a terrible day of reckoning"

1984
"If something isn't done to remedy the growing deficit, this country and world at large will be in big trouble"

1994
"something has to be done to address the enormous deficit problem"

2004
"Deficits don't matter" Dick Cheney

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Van
Date: 18 Nov 10 - 12:56 PM

Logically a country should be governed by the party/parties the majority of the people voted for. Here in the UK that would mean a coalition between Labour and Tory. The system does not allow that as we appear to be obliged to have a party of government and an opposition. So we now have a government which comprises of one party which did well and one which did poorly in the last election and therefore cannot be said to represent majority opinion. Given that the gap between Labour and Tory policies is at its narrowest they could probably have worked together at a time when this would have been handy and the Libdems could have formed the opposion with the other also rans.

I realise that logic and politics seldom mix.

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 12:07 AM

But seriously, I should have first thanked LHawk for sharing a thoughtful and relevant observation of the systematic exclusion of sanity in our society.

There is another way to say what LHawk has said from his heart.
We have excelled in politics while at the same time becoming iliterate and blind to the real goals of goverment which is the common good.

Today revealed several great examples of missing the point of the common good while skipping out to play politics.
Teh Republicans and new republican freshmen were invited to the traditional meeting with the President. They blew him off.
Instead Senator Mitch McConnel held a news conference with 6 reporters to announce his repeal and replace Obamacare program.

But the BIGGEST ISSUE OF ALL took place today when there was a neeting with the President in which all who attended voiced their profound and shocked disgust that a single Republican COngressman is stopping the Preagan born Nuclear Arms treaty which will reduce the number of nuclear weapons and if not ratified will mean that the USA will no longer be able to verify nuclear weapons in Russia.

WHO attended? Henry Kissiger James Baker Madaline Albright, Brent Scocroft and a host of elder Republican statesmen.
IT seems that Senator Kyle smirkingly has said he will never allow the treaty to be ratified. Politicly that puts Kyle in the spotlight but the common good of keeping a nuclear treaty with Russia will be lost. The verification part of the treaty will go dark and cold war policies in place before Ronald Reagan will take its place.

Tday there was also a bill to allow federal emplyees to make policies that would allow empluees in emergencies and special situations to TELECOMMUT" or in other words do their work via computer and blackberry while not being in the office. This saves gas, commute times, and a days work...
But not a single Republican voted for it. ZERO

Again the common good and common sense was discarded while politcs reached new Highs/Lows.

The Common good is lost but politics by means of just saying "no" has reached the summit of Mt. Everest.

On another issue today Senator McCain single handedly sto[[ed the Defense Budget from being passed because a repeal of the dont ask dont tell policy was included. McCain doesn't want a single cut in the ilitary but he will block their entire budget if he can gain a political point among gay haters.


KIlling off the Common good is insane. IT was the whole point of goverment in the first place.

What is not so insane but simply sickening is how cheaply evil can purchase the vote of Senators. $50,000 can buy you 5 billion in redistributing money from the middle class to the richest one tenth of one percent of the most wealthy. When only the wealthy can actually have the law written and simply pay to have it squirted through the system, the system is broken for all but the wealthy.
ITs not broken entirely...
The system works just fine and has never been better for the wealthy.

Subject: RE: BS: Living in the village of the mad.
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 01:36 AM

Also today the common good of extending unemployment benefits through Christmas was stopped by Republicans who did not attend Congress today but opted for photo ops of standing up the president and in its stead , defiantly spewed sound bites about cutting taxes for the rich. In this case it wasn't even good politics but it may have tickled some folks who liked the idea of standing up the PResident. Tommorrow the Republicans will bray that Obama is not intereted in bipartisanship, and if he is serious he should go to them and not the other way around.

Roger Ailes said today that npr was full of Nazis, He went further and said npr was to the left of Nazis, although his intent was probably to say it was to the right of Nazis. He continued to say that npr inflicts its Nazi policies on innocent victims like Juan Williams.

A vote was taken to divest npr of any public funds but the vote fell short which allowed a common good to continue at least until January.

The number of people who are dissatisfied with the political excellence at the cost of the common good is growing larger everyday.
There is reason for hope.


___________________________________!!!


There was a great common good done last week but it was top secret and not subject to Congressional review.

!2 tons of Weapons grade Uranium and 4 tons of Plutonium was safely transported from a nuclear plant 300 miles from Chechnya and moved 1300 miles by special rail to a secure UN site. There was enough material to make over 800 super hydrogen bombs or thousands of tactical nukes. The political advantage for Obama will probably never be exploited.