Life obligations are pressing on me, so I’ve never finished my new diary on factory farming poisons, GMO ‘food’, etc.
My offerings:
‘Republican repeal of Obamacare fails as healthcare bill pulled from House vote; Weeks of negotiations over American Health Care Act fail to create GOP consensus around replacement bill in stunning defeat for Donald Trump’, the Guardian
“Asked how Republican members could now go back to their constituents having failed to keep their promise, Ryan replied: “That’s a really good question. I wish I had a better answer for you.”
Separately, a Washington Post reporter described a call with Trump in which he said the president did not blame Ryan for the ignominy and said the bill would not return any time soon.
Ryan also conceded that Republicans would now move on to other priorities – securing the border, rebuilding the military and tax reform. “Now we’re going on to move on with the rest of our agenda because we have big, ambitious plans to improve people’s lives in this country.” [snip]
” Many moderates in swing districts were wary of supporting the legislation, which included major cuts to Medicaid and was estimated by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office to lead to 24 million fewer Americans having health insurance over the next 10 years.
Conservatives also objected to the legislation for keeping too much of the architecture of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), frequently referred to as Obamacare. Although the Republican leadership made a major concession to them on Thursday by removing the federal mandate that health insurance plans cover “essential health benefits” such as maternity care and mental healthcare, this was not enough to win them over.”
and: ‘The Dog-Whistle Racism of the Neoliberal State’, (UK and US-style), roar magazine
“With the rise of neoliberalism, the state — and especially the police — has developed new, more subtle articulations of racism while entrenching existing racial inequalities.”
Shorter: racialized criminals: black muggers, now gansters by media, government and the po-po equals: they deserve what they got, if killed by police, stopped and searched in any event.) The suspect Class.
“The latest permutation of this black folk-devil is the gangster, and it has shaped the anti-crime rhetoric of government and the increasing power of police in Britain over the last decade. Like the racist trope of the mugger, this has been intensified by comparable moral panics around gangs in the US, where the term is also used to criminalize black people and articulate a dog-whistle racism. This was put to use following police killings of African Americans, such as the case of Antoine Sterling, who was identified as a gangster with a criminal history by police and the press.”
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
O my prophetic soul! I think it may have been in these fine pages where some time ago I predicted that ACA would not be repealed, that Republicans would go thru a song & dance & a dog & pony show and…pffffft. way too much money just handed over to the insurance industry.
you did indeed, O prophetic J! and rather recently, i’ll add. if my inbox is correct, there were multiple pushes to phone R critters to gripe and warn, not that that always…bears fruit. i’ve seen it said, as well, that many Rs are not happy with ryan, but as usual, i’ve forgotten why.
oddly, as i was pasting in another offering to the open menu, i got an email w/ your delightfully crowing remembrance. and good on you, j, you brilliant mofo.
on edit: as your reward:
I will finish that reply today. hope to.
well, seems clear the war elephants are stamping their feet & blowing the trumpet to do what every project in D.C. is aimed to do: shovel a greater percentage of the national wealth up the food chain. the valiant fighting donkeys & enough savage Dumbos were like, “Hold, monsters!” on jettisoning a 7 year program that has done marvels & wonders for the cost of health care & the life expectancy & general well-being of the populace. Indeed, it is most marvelful how one can skyrocket while the other plummets.
probably more intrusive drug testing of SNAP benefits recipients would help w/the life span thing. I mean, like 1 in 800 of ’em is snorting coke, and that can’t be good for the national health.
mornin’ mama didn’t love me. sorry to ask, but: are you sure you wuz a luvvable babby? but did daddy luv ya?
pretty funny how so many of those railing against obamaDontCare got religion w/ trump-ryanDontCare, eh? the numbers were malleable, but i just checked, and something close to 30,000 million still had no friggin’ insurance in 2016, w/ all the caveats about states refusing medicaid expansion. but yeah, life expectancy is down, for better or worse, if that included the party of wall st. but sadly no.
read some stats recently on the insane numbers of working poor who still had been eligible for food stamps, medicaid, etc.: before herr T. now? let them eat breast of squab! (on a stick)
this slayed me; file under delusional partisanship:
march 23, trnn: ‘New Provisions Eliminate Healthcare From GOP ‘Wealthcare’ Bill’; As fighting between Trump and the Republican Party leads to a delay of the vote for the GOP health care bill, Moral Mondays leader Rev. William Barber and Bernie Sanders call for the US to adopt a single-payer system
thing is, bernie hasn’t joined the single-payer bill nor introduced it, and it was only the interviewer who’d said “Bernie Sanders call for the US to adopt a single-payer system”. hey, bern: calling is not introducing legislation.
mama didn’t love me: the tattoo the evil biker dude had in H.I.’s foreboding dream in Raising Arizona.
and b/c it’s open thread & laughter & kitties are good for the soul
http://beckittns.tumblr.com
gads, i’d forgotten the tat, and it’s one movie i’d even seen. ;-) okay, not a fan of cute kitties, but sheesh: black humor and existential kitty/racoon angst, ay yi yi. and okay, a few of them almost made me chuckle.
i’ll add: remember this story? well, the essay is not only about the UN fukkery, but how the new yawk times covered it, never mind nikki haley’s delightful prose around the issue.
‘Moral Failure at the UN’ by Lawrence Davidson, CP
“On 15 March 2017 the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) published a report on Israeli practices and policies toward the Palestinians. Using international law as its comparative criterion, the report came to a “definitive conclusion” that “Israel is guilty of Apartheid practices.” The term Apartheid was not used in the report merely in a “pejorative” way. It was used as a descriptor of fact based on the evidence and the accepted legal meaning of the term.”
ah, yes the trots are on it! TdontCare will kill the undeserving moochers among the rabble class more quickly, but:
““While the collapse of the bill is a significant setback for Trump, the claim by Democratic leaders that it is a “victory for the American people” is a lie. The failure of the Republican bill leaves in place the scheme largely devised by the insurance and health care corporations and implemented by the Democrats under Obama, which has already dramatically cut health benefits for millions of working people, increased their out-of-pocket costs, and imposed deductibles so high as to make it impossible for many workers who have policies to see a doctor or obtain prescription medicines.
Obamacare is a program to slash costs for the corporations and government, undermine employer-paid insurance, and impose the burden of extending bare-bones coverage to some 20 million previously uninsured people on the working class as a whole. The split in the Republican ranks over the Trump-Ryan bill mirrored the split within the corporate elite.”
in other words:
http://alturl.com/kj386
The following opinion piece might clear up a few points about the latest military scandal down under, whilst for me it was important in clearing up at the end of it, how to pronounce Nicky Hager’s name. (I myself wish he’d run for PM; now that would be something!)
http://werewolf.co.nz/2017/03/gordon-campbell-on-the-hit-and-run-book/
thanks, ww. ‘creeping callousness’ was good. but when he wrote: “True enough, the nature of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan – and the habitual use of drones, aerial bombing and military convoys – make civilian deaths and injury inevitable. That’s why we need to question the validity of our presence there in the first place – since our presence renders us complicit – and then demand that the highest possible standards if and when our troops get sent into combat”…i wish he’d gone out to say that it’s a known known…that occupying afghanistan, drone killing anyone, much less civilians, bombing wedding parties, whatever…radicalizes more and more muslims against the Imperium and its friends.
i assume this isn’t the same gordon campbell of longtime canadian politics? and note to self: “not ‘hay-grrrr’, but ‘hahh-grrrr’.
here ya go, juliania. ;-) ‘They can’t get away with it,’ author of book on NZ ‘revenge’ raid in Afghanistan tells RT’ interview (and text) w/ nicky “haay-grrr”, lol, posted today at RT.
Thanks, wendye, sorry to be late. I can’t view the video but have been following the developments RT describes. One thing that is pertinent to add is that in the radio interview I listened to, the two authors made the point that equally important and perhaps more so is that there was an official coverup after the fact when the attack happened, up to the highest level, though Hager in that previous interview excuses Bill English, commenting that he seems to be a good hearted guy – but now there is this:
***New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English said on Monday that he had no reason to suspect the NZDF of misleading the public on the allegations.
“Certainly [we have] enough of the picture that the allegations of war crime seem to apply to some other place and not the place where the New Zealand operation was carried out. So it is unlikely we would have an inquiry into those war crime allegations,” he told Radio New Zealand.”***
Who is there to take up the reins in the approaching electoral season? We may see a repeat of what happened here, with two very dubious characters being fronted, in an effort to keep the neoliberal ball rolling.
Come on in, New Zealand, the water’s got plastic in it and it’s lapping at your doorstep, but we’ll still say it’s fine.
wow, billy english’s weasel words. yes, only too familiar, eh?
it’s likely you’ve seen this inspiration news, but anyway, others may not have: ‘World’s First River Given Legal Status as a Person’ ecowatch.com
Spoiler alert: “On Wednesday, New Zealand Parliament passed the Te Awa Tupua Bill which states that the river is “an indivisible and living whole,” making it the world’s first river to be given this special designation.
The river has been granted the ability to represent itself through human representatives, one appointed by the Whanganui Iwi (Maori people) and one by the Crown…”
since it’s an Open Menu i have a strange weather event to describe (at least in my lifetime and various locations).
three nights ago the rainstorm that had switched from snow to rain and back again over several days hinted by the silence just at bedtime…that it was snowing again. softly falling snow often has the additional feature of muting other sounds, as well, likely due to the muffling effects of low stratus clouds.
we switched on the light outside the bedroom door, and were agog at what was falling through the air: thin wafers of snow, maybe an inch and a quarter or more in size, perhaps squares, perhaps rectangles, but bent a bit like the playing card servants and soldiers in ‘alice and wonderland’. an hour or so later, still awake, there came big plops of sound on the roof, as though large, soft snowballs were falling. no branches overhang the roof, so, no, not snow falling from them. maybe the mystery is better than knowing, but it was all captivating.
Yes, thanks on that river designation story, wendye. In a larger context, the maori have an ongoing struggle to have a similar designation put on the foreshore of the country (paramoana) that has always interested me. Perhaps this move is an attempt to compromise? ‘We’ll give you this river; you stop berating us about the coastline…’ Though I would think this does establish a precedent, and after all at sporting events now the Maori version of the national anthem precedes the English one – I don’t have it memorized yet, but the final line very nicely matches the syllables of ‘A-o-te-a-ro-[o]-ha’.
it might be a compromise, but let’s hope not. still, i loved this:
“”The tribes of Whanganui take their name, their spirit and their strength from the great river which flows from the mountains of the central North Island to the sea. For centuries the people have travelled the Whanganui River by canoe, caught eels in it, built villages on its banks, and fought over it. The people say, ‘Ko au te awa. Ko te awa ko au’ (I am the river. The river is me).”
…so like the water protectors at standing rock.
buying (sic) my genetically fortified daily bread at the Safeway I’ve frequented in D.C. for years, I noticed that the security guard is now packing. seems recently there was a tussle w/some young rapscallions (“super predators”), cops involved, even a contusion or two. who says guns don’t solve things?
I was trying to be given to pleasure, but on a sudden a commie thought struck me:
the insurance payout* to keep an armed guard in Safeway per year is more than the food needs of all the hungry people in district ward 6, in which zone, till very recently, this Safeway was the only easily accessible grocery store. maybe even more than the hunger needs of a lot more than that. (*i’m not saying this lone Safeway store has this kind of cash on hand, nope, just food. but their insurer has a hell of a lot more than that. just lying around.)
it takes a staggering amount of work, inculturation, indoctrination, education, discipline, punishment to habituate people to the idea that they or any & all of their neighbors should not be able to walk into any grocery store & just take whatever they want.
heavy things to contemplate so early in the morn, j. but see, everyone taking what they want…would be anarchy! (the first mega-class-fear in the 1800s, no?) ‘power to the people’: no, no.
but srsly, just tracing the origins of police as protecting property, as in escaped slaves and wild induns on the loose being bad for capitalist expansion, clearly it’s how the system was designed. then later, pinkerton police as strike-breakers, train and bank robbery dicks, yes, the populace was ‘educated’ over time.
on edit: i’d meant police as “protectors of personal property”, of course.
but i take it the armed guard was in response to some shoplifters?
that the food in safeway is prolly 85% unfit for consumption by even single-celled organo-zoa is in the same vein: a staggering amount of wealth being intentionally corrupted & destroyed as such wealth is being spotlighted blindingly in everyone’s faces, while access to such resources, necessary for survival, is withheld under threat of death & imprisonment.
see, as you walk down the aisle the forbidden fruit, untouchable, ignore the gnawing in the stomach, though. or else. you can only get it, though there is no lack of it, under certain constraints you yourself have no say so over.
yes, there was a shoplifting incident. oh yeah, in the CVS next door. aw fuck it safeway, might as well man up w/some guns yourself before security gets kicked in the shins & some kids run out w/some hostess cupcakes & ding dongs. they skipped the taser phase & went straight for the bullets. they should just put a gun turret at the central customer service counter. “hey kids! buy something before I blow your head off.”
hope more of safeway food’s fit for consumption, cuz mr. wd shops there and city market, the slightly more posh SW chain. wow; did someone try to steal some medicine? no taser, though, just skip to full metal jacket, my stars. how ugly. will they start armin’ wall mart greeters, meaning: no longer a geezer/geezerette job?
took me a few ticks to get ‘a staggering amount of wealth being intentionally corrupted & destroyed’, but i assume you mean hollowing out pensions, not writing down impossible debt, compensation for houses lost w/ subprime mortgage and deed robo-signing, tra la la?
steal a loaf of bread, go to jail as there are existing warrants (12 to a family); steal $20 billion, be celebrated, but if prosecuted, get fined a day’s profits. but please don’t engage in rioting; it’s not nice, nor is it legal.
Matt Taibbi “Trump the Destroyer”
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-on-trump-the-destroyer-w473144
Robert Parry has a companion piece, “How US flooded the world with psyops”:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/03/25/how-us-flooded-the-world-with-psyops/
And Michael Hudson weighs in, “Trump is Obama’s legacy. Will this break up the Democratic Party”
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/03/105083.html
Not only is are the 1% and 10% in a cage match; they are totally out of touch with the 90%. And that has a geographical reality as well. What is happening in local communities is totally unknown to the representatives of either part representing them in Washington and their state capitals. Two different worlds. And that conflict shows up now in local precinct meetings, Democratic and Republican. They are becoming knock-down, drag-out affairs in this part of the world. That speaks to me of closed doors for new leadership.
Is Hudson right? Is the failure to provide an alternative to the duopoly the left’s failure?
ye gods and little fishes: the parry and taibbi pieces are soooooo long! please folks, talk to each other on Open Menus; it’s one of the main reasons i stuck a new one up so soon. i just don’t have the time to read all of your links, but i hope others will, if curious.
thd, i’d read the hudson question piece at CP earlier, so i just had to scan it a couple times (lol) to refresh my memory. he made some very pithy points, but a few things bothered me quite a bit. first, he seemed to buy into the early polling that sanders could beat herr hair; ah, perhaps. second, as for beating ‘the donor class’, i know it’s impolite to say so, but months ago i’d grabbed a link showing the actual donors to bern’s campaign, and many, many individual donors gave the magic small donations…day after day after day. how clever.
his finale: “As Trotsky said, fascism is the result of the failure of the left to provide an alternative.”’ democrats’ are not ‘the left’, that’s for certain, just another wind of the wall street duopoly. but as to hudson’s contention that the bern might try to revive that party, then quoting michael harrington, who was NOT a socialist, mr. hudson, but another DSA, which organization cum party is largely about reforming capitalism, not subverting it…hopefully for good, imo.
i was taken aback at this: “Instead, the Women’s March on Saturday led even the pro-Democrat New York Times to write a front-page article reporting that white women were complaining that they did not feel welcome in the demonstration. The message to anti-war advocates, students and Bernie supporters was that their economic cause was a distraction.”
because the times penned that? i’ll add that all of this was exactly contra jason’s experience at the march. but allow me to add that many bernie supporters scored themselves avatars denoting close to: “no more war! bernie!” but he was in no way anti-war, and is/was a believer in having the largest, bad-assest military on the planet, etc. and yep: his guy brana (?) is very bullish on the bern making a new people’s revolution party. (i’d put the trnn link up somewhere or other.)
but sure, a party that were truly leftist, anti-capitalist, based on true democracy, economic and social justice…could be just the ticket. but choosing the figurehead beforehand is often a very bad idea, imo. as for bern, his glowing endorsements of the red queen would sink him, i’d guess.
They were there for whoever to read (or no one) as I am busy outside this week. I don’t agree with everything I link; I just think they are important perspectives to talk back to.
But over the weekend, the new looser rules of engagement against ISIS started creating the Trump war Presidency. Unleashing the military on the people we said we were “liberating” — for the fourth time in 14 years. U-S-A..U-S-A…. The march of folly continues pretty much across the entire political spectrum.
I’m still of the opinion that the Democrats lost their brand in 2014 and lost their base in 2016. The only way they come back is with a massive change of direction like Repubicans did after 1964. I’m not seeing that happening yet. I keep seeing the slippage of the Whigs.
So where is the opposition movement in all this? That’s where Parry’s Trotsky quote struck true. It is the job of the left to create alternative vision and politics. Even in the midst of suppression. I see too much depending on a Trump collapse creating a political collapse. The billionaires are ginned up for that one with a Constitutional Convention primed to rubber-stamp their ALEC-like rewrite of the US Constitution. Get what gets the ax? Those troublesome amendments.
goodness, i wasn’t trying to fault you for putting up the links, just trying to encourage others to talk to one another, especially on open menus.
if parry said the same thing, and because i like his work, i hope to t least make the time to read his essay.
i tried parry’s piece again, bogged down. but i think jason might like it a lot. here’s a bit of analysis on a two versions of a constitutional convention (i hope it’s close to correct, at least):
‘Kochs Bankroll Move to Rewrite the Constitution’, By ExposedByCMD Editors, march 23
single payer action writes that contrary to popular opinion, bernie won’t bring the senate version of the house’s single payer, but is hell-bent on shuffling along the road.
‘Single Payer Sanders Morphs Into Public Option Dean‘
The Cost of Survival via a Trade War with Mexico, and Pegged at 20 Percent
For those among us and who have yet to get a handle on the myriad details of the next crafting of the federal budget, one important item to consider, is the Border Adjustment Tax that will be imposed on all products manufactured in Mexico and imported into the United States.
To date, not much has been written or talked about in political circles, but that’s about to change now that the Republicans failed in the loutish behavior to “repeal and replace” Obamacare and with a severe cost to the elderly and poor, while creating extra dollars for their “rightful” tax cuts being demanded by and doled out to our nation’s super wealthy.
And this border adjustment tax will have a severe impact on the economy of our wonderful Sonoran Desert, and yet, our Elected Officials are starting to speak out in opposition to the Trump/Ryan/Republican support for “the Wall.” And that has to be paid for and that “someone” is you! Further, if one is “listening” carefully, the two Senators from the respective states of California, New Mexico and Texas, will taking the path of least resistance in their respective opposition to President Trump’s and House Majority Leader Paul Ryan, and thusly, joining with Arizona and in widespread opposition, as well.
To wit, the following in the soon-to-be-failed effort to raise the needed revenues for the last and final brick to be laid at the base of “the Wall” speaks for itself.
From Arizona’s Republican Senator John McCain: In a joint op-ed piece with Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake, they said, “Imposing new barriers and levying punitive tariffs against our closest neighbors could threaten our trade relationship, cost Arizona millions of dollars and thousands of jobs, push our state into a recession and undermine our security cooperation with our southern neighbor.”
More from McCain: “It’ll destroy Arizona’s economy. That’s my only concern…The first thing that will happen is that retaliation will happen… You think the Mexicans are going to sit still for it?”
From Republican Senator Jeff Flake and said in a floor speech and on which he focused his attention of the impact on the American middle class by increasing cost for U.S. consumers:
“I am certain that I’m not the only one hearing that this approach could make everyday consumer products more expensive at the very places that middle-class families shop the most…From the aisles at the big box stores to the check-out lines in grocery stores, household staples could be pushed out of reach for those who could least afford it.”
And from the newly-created Americans for Affordable Products, in their opposition to this Border Adjustment Tax (BAT) has concluded that the annual cost to each consumer could reach as high as $1,700 for what is termed ‘basic necessities.’
And the executive director of the Arizona’s Retailers Association has written the following: “If a BAT is adopted, many businesses will forced to raise prices, lay-off staff or close up shop altogether.”
In closing, the same will be spoken of and by our Elected and Appointed Officials in the surrounding states of California, New Mexico and Texas. As such, trade wars will decimate both the U.S. and Mexico, and particular the former middle class, the elderly and the poor, even further.
Our Tip of the Hat to Dan Nowicki, the national political reporter for the Arizona Republic!
Jaango—posted on March 27, 2017
sorry, jaango. imo, it’s just another capitalist con for buy low, sell at kinda affordable prices, rep more profits. i was curious, given the known known of mcCrankypants and flake, but in the end, it was at az central, but the ‘republic’ tab, apparently. but srsly, when were they ever “for the people”? in this case, “consumers”, but do give a good goddam for the living wages or benefits for those working in the big box stores either inside, or in the supply chains? no.
does mccain care about the apaches whose holy lands he’d trying to sell off at ‘the apache stronghold’ site? hell, no.
but oh, my, they are big on nafta! (no, T’s team won’t likely renegotiate it.) they doesn’t care a fart what nafta’s done to the working/peasant class in mexico, do they?
‘Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake defend U.S.-Mexico trade deal from President Donald Trump’; Dan Nowicki, azcentral.com
oh, phooey; now it’s griping abut my adblocker, so can’t clip portions… anyway, stir in ‘the keep amurika affordable coalition’. lol, the coalition is a who’s who of nationwide Big Bidness, just check out even one of the ‘about us’ drop-down menus.
sorry to so heartily disagree, though.
Imagine a photograph sitting on your desk and of the Oval Office, where 21 Talking Sticks are “standing tall” and in its salute to the Stars and Stripes?
Or perhaps, a discussion on “mercenary” Capitalism versus a “tender” Capitalism. Or a “brown buck” versus the American Dollar. Or another version of an Indigenous Federal Reserve that competes with today’s Federal Reserve System?
Jaango
sorry again, but i’m not getting your first paragraph; explain please? but now as to ““mercenary” Capitalism versus a “tender” Capitalism”, you’re asking the wrong person, methinks. you might be thinking of ‘reform capitalism’ again by the democratic socialist of america, or DSA: bernie, kshama sawant, et.al.
but if you’re thinking of fdr’s strong safety net, and far higher marginal taxes, well…kinda. but the social safety net, as i understand it, was by way of a gift to the wobblies, et.al., for not striking mines, etc. during WW II, and he also likely knew that true democracy might break out under workers of the world and allies.
now your brown buck indigenous fed is a very romantic idea. it would face some chartering issues, i’d guess. the first being: can a federal bank be so race/culture specific? ;-) but public banking might be an alternative, or in many mainly global south bolivarian nations: state owned federal banking. the other beginning difficulty would be capitalizing the bank, as the BRIICS bank discovered, and a couple other alternatives to the IMF and world bank have discovered.
but yeah, that’s an interesting idea. i remember reminding you of rodolfo acuna, my favorite “seditionist” not long ago, and he’s up at CP with ‘What We Don’t Want to Know’, his opening graphs on liberalism coupled later w/…never mind, i’ll quote him. he then goes on to lament privatized Us, especially his own, and remembers (it was reagan who ended the policy) free college for CA residents back in the day.
“When in college, I learned that liberalism that was partially based on a political philosophy or worldview founded on liberty and equality. It melded into the drive to secularize modern states in the 19th Century. Liberals believed that individuals should have the freedom to use land and other resources in the ways they wanted, and that they should not be limited by government. Accordingly, communal properties hampered progress.
This philosophy again melded into the positivist belief of the survival of the fittest. Liberals believed in the secularization of Church property and abolishment of communal property. The individual should public properties and profit from the land and resources of a society; the individual’s freedom to exploit the land should not be limited.
I have always believed that micro-history better informs us best of the lessons and definitions in history. In the mid-1990s Bill Clinton spread the cult of neoliberalism. It was a blend of 19th century and modern liberalism that favored free-market capitalism. It was based on the policies of Ronald Reagan; Clinton triangulated it.
Neoliberalism was also nurtured by the 1970s the ideas of Milton Friedman and Chicago University economists who popularized the myths of the free market. Under Augusto Pinochet, Chile became a proving ground for neoliberals who spread the phenomenon worldwide; this same neoliberalism is today destroying Mexico where people are getting poorer and the number of billionaires is increasing.”
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK1703/S01028/outbreak-of-typhoid-confirmed-in-auckland.htm
Can’t be good for the housing bubble.
wanted to post a comment proving Jesus’ fav color was pink. not getting into whether any of this actually happened or any of that, but this story occurs in all 4 gospels of the Xian bible. it’s the story of the moneychangers & the temple and it is that incident that leads to his death.
now you have to think really hard about this: sacrifice, as practiced in the Jewish temple or elsewhere, originates from one’s abundance. whatever the reason for the offering (thanksgiving, etc., see the snooze fest book of Leviticus), sacrifice is waste. now if it’s wrong to charge usury in a matter involving another’s abundance & prosperity, which is what the moneychangers were doing, why isn’t wrong, more wrong, to charge usury for people’s needs, like food?
in my reading of this story, the religious & political leaders understood exactly this point, that driving the usurers from the temple was a revolutionary gesture, so they killed him.
I told this to a couple of my evangelical friends. they said I was nuts. must mean i’m on to something.
hmmmm. this is a bit beyond my ken, but i did talk it over w/ mr. wd. his understandings of this week in jesus’s life is informed by the bible, plus his readings in the urantia book (in which christ is called ‘michael of nebadon’, nebadon being…our planet).
his take is that yes, the money changers incident was part of the larger story, but that jesus was also preaching that no blood sacrifices (is that what you meant by ‘sacrifice’?) were needed, and that each person could come to god as they would.
i read around the wiki a bit, but in the ‘money changers’ entry was this:
““David Landry suggests that “the importance of the episode is signaled by the fact that within a week of this incident, Jesus is dead. Matthew, Mark, and Luke agree that this is the event that functioned as the “trigger” for Jesus’ death.”
there were some competing versions of the history, as well. but that jesus called them out for essentially desecrating the temple and blocked commerce was actually revolutionary, wasn’t it? and yes, usury for food-buying would be more evil that usury for currency transactions to jewish money (no graven images) or purchasing a cow to sacrifice.
but so many artists have depicted the even; i guess of the ones i found, this one by el greco is my fave:
on edit: do you know what your evangelical friends think about ‘prosperity doctrine/theology’?
Ah yes, the “black brute” stereotype. It was so telling when no one in the MSM brought up the “stranger danger” trope we tell our children to protect them: the assumption that Trayvon Martin was a black youth and therefore a putative “thug” carried the assumption that he should have deferred to the white man. So, here’s Zimmerman, dutifully referred to in corporate media as a “neighborhood watch” guy in spite of the fact that he violated just about every rule for Neighborhood Watch Associations: partolling alone, armed, ignoring advice from the dispatcher. I pointed out to deaf ears at the time that one of Ted Bundy’s favorite tricks was to impersonate a cop to gain his victims’ trust. Not to mention the many flaws in Zimmerman’s story, his prior and subsequent record of violence, the leaks to the press about Trayvon’s minor troubles in school. So how did he know Zipperhead was not a serial killer or a child molester? Because he was white, of course.
I still grind my teeth in disgust at the unmitigated glee with which white commenters reacted each time they discovered a new unsubstantiated rumor about Trayvon’s brushes with authority as if that had any bearing on the matter of whether the shooting was justified. Grrr. Makes me see the with anger just to think about it. And the judge so pompously declared, “I’m not allowing this case to be about race.” Riiiiight.
On a similar note, I read recently where there is new video evidence showing that Mike Brown may have been in the convenience store earlier selling weed to the clerk, and the second visit was probably him taking his pot back after not being paid.
The injustice, the illogic, the infantilism whites use to demonize people of color is one of the biggest triggers for my anger…..
But since this an open thread, I realized yesterday that I am very uncertain about my own overarching political philosophy. I have strong beliefs on many issues, and many concrete ideas on what should be done (overturning Citizens United is imho woefully inadequate; we need to go all the way back to 1886 and overturn Eastern Pacific vs. Santa Clara County). Public financing of elections, ranked choice voting but my question is: is capitalism capable of being reigned in by these measures with a strong safety net and universal healthcare? Is bottom-up anarcho-syndacalism feasible? Or are the tankies right that the Spanish civil war proved that fascists will come in and destroy these communities? (I just recently learned what “tankie” means). I am so confused about these things and seem to get more confused the more I read and study. I like to justify my confusion with Yeats (“the worst of us are full of passionate certainty…..) That definitely isn’t me!
Any thoughts?
hi, just a thought: the environment is it. global planetary health.
the biggest obstacle to doing anything about anything is the USG. if you want to save the buffalo or the wild sage grouse or the coral or the children in Flint or Yemen, it’s Uncle Sam.
ergo, everything starts with overthrowing the USG.
won’t happen thru tinkering w/elections or election financing.
not gonna happen thru guns either.
so how does it happen? I don’t know.
j, yes.
and i did try my best to answer your thoughts and questions on ‘the money changers in the temple’ above. do you sign up for emails for comments on threads you join? hope so…makes life easier. or something.
i did see your comments. thank you.
I really enjoyed this review of the zookeeper (though Jessica zero dark thirty Chastain? I cringe when I hear her name.)
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/04/05/zook-a05.html
movies, like free state of jones, that offer some models for actual resistance beyond assertions of essentialist identities (race, gender), get trounced by critics?
anyway, while thinking about one critic’s comment, quoted in the review, that the movie treats animals as important as people (oh the horrors), & having been bombarded on facespace w/ people posting crap about robots & coming automation, (oh no! one MIT prof wants to impose taxes on the robots! will the robots get to go on strike then? some ron paultards went apoplectic in the comments) I tho’t: why shouldn’t all animals & “sentient” AI lifeforms be treated w/a goddam modicum of respect? if the owners treat people & cows like garbage, why expect them to do anything else w/robots?
we need to be ahead of the curve here people and stand up for robot rights! ok, j/k. but I think this line of thinking illustrates the total issue: to what use will robots be put? and doesn’t the use itself create the problem? people who aren’t enslaved don’t crow so much about their rights. neither will the robots.
a’ight. back to the RL!
I can agree with that. General strike, mass demonstration s based on Gandhian ahimsa, but that would require unity, and the powers that shouldn’t be are so good at divide and conquer, I don’t see that happening in time to save the planet. And even if we could, then what? How do you prevent the new boss from becoming the old boss?
just a quickie cuz i’m down for the count tonite. i keep the yeats on a (blogging) help word document:
‘The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.’
the imagery just bowls me over. more anon. sleep well, dream well, and love all those you’re able to love…in solidarity. we are one (and yes, exceptions seem to pop up.) ;-)
edited by wd to reflect: to cynical seeker:
I enjoyed this article
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/05/love-and-western-nihilism/
except his solution seems to be get the hell out of the west.
gah. it’s hard to believe that TV is still the number one source of entertainment for USAians.
turn off the tv.
turn off the car (to the degree one can.)
stop eating meat (to the degree one can, and certainly then only local, farm-raised.)
the deadness of western imagination & emotion can be seen in the shocked looks of confused horror if you suggest these simple acts. revolutionary answers are not difficult to find at all.
how conditioned to be stupid we all are. and docile. I was at a little dinner w/a bunch of over-educated types last night and I mentioned a recent study suggesting that a cup (sic) of ice cream at breakfast is as helpful to mood control for depression as Prozac et al.* the heavy brain power around me in one accord chimed in: IT’S THE SUGAR!!!
hahahahaha. you can’t control for sugar! such is crazy talk.
I wanted to mock their stupidity but held my tongue from saying this:
but they did repeated double blind studies w/mice. they blinded two mice and put them in the middle of a simple maze. at one end of the maze were Hostess snack products, Ding Dongs, Twinkies, Ho Ho’s, etc. at the other end of the maze was the most awful ice cream in the world: Baskin Robbins. among mice showing a preference, they liked the ice cream better. [lol. that’d be all the mice, mr advertiser. funny how simple things like this can show how full of crap Big Pharma is.]
*Homer: [stirring a bowl] Aw, Marge, this is so depressing, my only hope is this homemade Prozac. [tastes it] Mmm, needs more ice cream. (from the episode “homer badman,” airing about 1995.)
do you reckon that vltchek is right that westerns are as he described? the images he painted of parisians were downright hideous. consumer zombies w/ plastic or gauze masks.
but at any rate, i did read it, and was drawn to this part:
“But no progress, no evolution is possible without entirely unconventional ways of thinking, without the revolutionary spirit, without great sacrifices and discipline, without commitment, and without that most powerful and most daring set of emotions, which is called love.
The demagogues and propagandists of the Empire want us to believe that ‘something ended’; they want us to accept defeat.
Why should we? There is no defeat anywhere on the horizon.”
which is part of the reasons i’d offered both ‘time dreams’ and ‘strong hand of love’ to cynicalseeker on (maybe) davidly’s thread.
and lo-bleeping-l on the ice cream, meeces, and anti-depressants. ;-)
it’s the sugar! you can’t control sugar!!!! there’s an army of old folks trampsing in front of the church where I work every day now, going out on the rather meh Potomac river cruises very nearby. I see consumers, specifically, of medical m.j., dispensed by this church. employ (or “employ”) a doctor to write scripts on the spot. sell it to these out of towners w/some bux, and, you know…w/at least some of it, do as the good lard said and…give it away.
omg! I might as well have stuck a dirty lollypop in the baptismal holy water. thought I was going to have to perform an exorcism from the way the priest rolled her eyes.
if your “non-profit” isn’t putting itself against the gears of the machine, very likely meaning, you know, confrontations w/the law, it’s probably part of the perception management operation of the State.
and weed is legal in the district! but it’s unseemly.
did you notice how libs screeching & shrieking about trump applauded nikki Haley’s “let’s bomb Syria more” UN speech? “wow! you really must listen to this powerful speech to really truly understand what’s really, really going on in Syria. truly. this time they are telling the truth.”
i’m w/Andrew vlchek. let’s get the eff outta dodge.
lol on the exorcism, but i’m lost. the church of your employ sells scripts or cannabis? and you told the priest she/they should be giving what, both? away?
no, i missed nikki necon’s speech. i assume it was on the teevee? but i did catch up a bit this a.m. since i’d mainly been virtually in VZ most of the past two days.
yeah, v arnold agrees w/ you and vltchek about gettin’ outta dodge. not quite so simple for those of us w/ granchirren, etc., or without the wherewithal.
no, I suggested distributing mother nature & using an MD as needed to make it legit. but these people aren’t ever going to get so much as a parking ticket in any kind of remotely oppositional activity. respectability is everything.
yes, unfortunately you can’t ever leave hotel California, not even on the moon, b/c, (h/t Eddie Izzard), our flag still waves there. the urge to flee should perhaps be resisted cuz Uncle Sam Wants You and he is most definitely coming to get you. anywhere, everywhere. “Your new world is here, or it’s nowhere.” Goethe.
I haven’t yet seen nikki Haley’s speech, I just noted the libtard morons positively glowing over her it. “She is so smart.” “She is an anchor in the Trump madhouse.” “She is presidential.” (poor Hilary). i’m not talking about the MSM, from whom nothing can be expected, but those to whom the NYT/Economist wing of the MSM is aimed at. they don’t fucking know anything. at least the teatards know something is wrong. Leslie Moonves came out & said CBS promoted Trump cuz it’s good for ratings & screw the country. but that’s no excuse. if they had gone to Duke like me the Trump Trogs would know better!
Oh, say it ain’t so! The libs admire Nikki Haley and cheering for war with Syria? Disgusting!
There is a feminist blog I used to like called We Hunted the Mammoth. They do (did) such a good job mocking the frightening misogyny of the ” manosphere” which I discovered to my horror after the Elliot Rodger shooting. I can’t go there anymore. It’s too triggering. Since the primary, it’s all been pro-Hillary and denigrating the Bernie “Bros” ( a David Brooks not operation). Not Hillary as lesser of two evils, but open admiration. And of course they are all over the Russian hacking bandwagon. But I had no idea they have stooped to cheerleading wars of aggression! Before it was “elect Hillary and move her to the left, away from these hawkish positions. Now apparently they have come full circle to drink the Kool aid.
I so want to make a heartfelt post there to attempt to bring them to their senses. Do you think that would stand any chance? Or would it be a colossal waste of time?
Thanks for posting this article and your kind prayers. Yes, I think Vltchek is absolutely right, as I expounded on poorly, with many corrections above. I often post too quickly without proofreading, because posting can be a giant time suck and I don’t have time to spare. Making corrections is difficult on this phone and often causes me to lose my post. My apologies for the many “P.S.” corrections and clarifications. Thanks to j. as well.
good to see you. seeker. i made a couple edits and corrections. no, it’s great that you’ve shared your personal experience w/ your friend, hopefully lover, mate. i’ll read it again in a bit more closely soon, muse a bit… for now: bless your heart, and hers as well.
Thank you for sharing this spot-on, if somewhat depressing and frightening article by Mr Vltchek. I have been a fan of his for many years, but did not read this article until you so graciously posted it.
And it’s so prescient in light of the sadness and incomprehension that has been swirling around my brain these past few days, as well as throughout my entire life.
After losing a trial last week, in which I performed to the best of my ability and clearly proved my case even though in the trial I clearly proved my case], but the magistrate ruled for the bank anyway. I’m confident I can win this one on exceptions., I spent a wonderful weekend with the woman I love. She is the antithesis of the kind of Western people Andre describes in his article. She is an adorable little ball of positive energy. Always laughing, never negative about anything, she is the kindest, most thoughtful, compassionate human being I’ve ever met in my lifetime. She treats even those who have treated her badly with forgiveness and kind consideration. She is a giving person. When I had cancer last summer, she was at my house every single day taking care of me, doing my laundry, cooking for me, and raising my spirits with her intoxicating presence. Her little daughter adores me and is a joy to be around herself. We both ‘get’ each other in a way I have rarely experienced. We have been friends for five years and have been dating for two. Taking our friendship to the next level was entirely her idea.
And yet…..She is terrified of intimacy. She is afraid to make love or even kiss with passion. I have composed several classical symphonies for her. She was very moved. I wrote a folk-rock song about her, and a heartfelt poem for Valentine’s day. She liked the poem, but I could tell it made her a little nervous.
From talking to her, I think that I’m the only non-abusive boyfriend she has ever had. They were all nice to her in the beginning too. I think she’s just being extremely cautious. I’ve given her lots of chances to opt out and go back to just being friends again.
I want to marry her and get a house together and live with her and her mother and 9 year old daughter. I think we could all be so good for each other, but it’s close to two years now and I can’t help but wonder what’s going on. I have had girlfriends in the past who have been abused and have had similar experiences. But not with someone so positive in Outlook, with no apparent mental health or substance abuse issues. I trust her; I don’t think she’s using me and not just because she’s never asked me for a thing. I can just tell by my experience and intuition. This has happened to me more than a hundred times. I have no problem with the initial attraction, but can’t seem to form a lasting relationships, unlike the vast majority of my friends and family. For years I thought it must be me, but Mr. Vltchek’s article makes me feel somewhat vindicated. But I remain optimistic. I don’t want to “give up” and seek the dubious comfort of someone else. I don’t have this slot called “girlfriend” or “wife” I’m desperate to fill. The only thing I can do is continue to be patient. Someone with these qualities is so rare, and the more I get to know her, I see more to admire. I have to take a chance. My humanity demands it. And if it doesn’t go the way I want, so be it. It would be a disappointment, but I’ve long ago learned that my self-worth is not dependent on whether a particular woman reciprocates my feelings.
[editing help from wd to reflect]: One more correction. I keep giving her the chance to go back to being friends, but she says no, that she sees in me the potential for a long-term relationship, but I’m so different from anyone she’s ever known that she has no frame of reference, doesn’t know how to evaluate, and doesn’t want to screw things up by getting intimate too soon. But it’s been two years! I guess we all have different timetables.
Lest you think I’m making this all about me and embodying the failings of individualized atomization and selfishness Mr. Vltchek describes, I gave up my TV in 2011. I keep shouting from the rooftops about injustice ( yes, j. I have found educated “liberals” to be increasingly insufferable snobs who ridicule my calls to action. These people scare me even more than the most ignorant Trump supporter. Because they should know better.
And I do believe this is the result of intentional social engineering by the Powers that Shouldn’t be. Didn’t the Powell memo emphasize gentrification of the liberal class, to neutralize radical academics and such? And the adjunct system goes hand in hand with this, imho.
Thank you for sharing this article with me, and for your patience in tolerating this exposition of my personal life. I’ve never heard Vltchek write about the dearth of romance and had to get my thoughts on paper, because it answers questions I’ve been asking myself for a lifetime. I dimly suspected this was the case and now I feel much more confident that what he says is so.
One more correction. I keep giving her the chance to go back to being friends, but she says no, that she sees in me the potential for a long-term relationship, but I’m so different from anyone she’s ever known that she has no frame of reference, doesn’t know how to evaluate, and doesn’t want to screw things up by getting intimate too soon. But it’s been two years! I guess we all have different timetables.
fwiw, c seeker. not likely bloody much, but…there it is.
miz ball of delightful energy sounds as though she exemplifies love in action in so many ways, c seeker. it’s simply incredible what she did for you while you were getting the cancer out of your throat. i suppose that she does sound like the antithesis of what you understand andre to have said, and yet i do wonder about people who never get dispirited, angry, weep, hiss or spit at times, then roar back to at least some optimism, even if their glasses are only half full. for me, the full panoply of emotions need to play off each other, as in: without experience great grief, one can never know true joy’, and so on.
you say that you ‘get each other’; does she share your politics? do you talk about them? is it possible that she’s buried her abusive relationships with men, thus left them unresolved, leading her to being so positive all the time? not to argue w/ vltchek, but sometimes getting help with issues like that can lighten one’s burden, yanno? perhaps she carries some measure of guilt or shame for not extricating herself (and her daughter?) from the abusers?
i respect your patience, i suppose, but her fear of intimacy after two years, coupled w/ your desire to even include her mama in a household: whoa; if that’s not a signal to her of your safety, what is? kinda kidding, but not really. when mr. wd’s mother was diagnosed with ALZ and we were trying to find care home for her, i joked (not really) that if she came to our house, i’d likely smother her w/ a pillow after a couple weeks. she abhorred my ass, though when her dementia increased to some point, she forgot that she did. worked for me! ;-)
but andre had also written: “In those unfortunate places, fear of great emotions has already been deeply rooted. Originality, courage and determination are now evoking fear. Great love, great gestures and unorthodox dreams are all observed with panic and mistrust.. and what you want is a passionate love, no? as in when making love, two become as one for that time, anyway? could you be satisfied w/out passion? could she? had she had it in the past? or have you spoken about that together?
as i read his piece again, i noticed this:
“Not far from me, a couple of ageing lovers was holding hands, reading cheek to cheek from an open book. They were so close that they appeared to be forming a simple and totally self-sufficient universe. Above them were the shining verses written by Ernesto Cardenal, one of my favorite Latin American poets.”
yes, their love made them close, perhaps not as physical passion, but a closeness perhaps as ‘two as one’. (cardinal was a liberation theologist. i.e., socialist priest)
jason and i were talking about love songs some time ago. i’d forgotten this one, but it’s the bond that lasts even tho passion grows old that the old scottish (from the 1600s) song speaks to. best to you both. and as a heads-up, if you check the ‘notify me of comments’ under the comment boxes, comments will be sent to you at the email you sign in with. i’d emailed you, shoot that arrow, a couple others lately and never heard back. it turned out w/ arrow that he has multiple e-accounts, so it may be that you never got them. if you did get them, believe me when i say i’m not in need of another e-friend, and am a crap correspondent at best, no answering was fine. ;-)
Well, I need to set up a new personal email account. The one I signed in with is so overrun by spam, and I’ve forgotten the password so many times, I never check it anymore. So I apologize if I didn’t get your email. When I have my paralegal set up a new account (I can’t seem to figure out how to do it) I’ll let you know.
I oversimplified about my quasi-girlfriend for sake of brevity. She has come to me upset about arguments she has had with her mother, sister and brother in law. The way she described these situations, she seemed to me perfectly justified to get angry. But she vents for a short time, I give her my perspective, she feels much better and thanks me for understanding her. And that’s it. She doesn’t dwell on negative events, but they do touch her life. Unlike past girlfriends who blow them up into huge dramas and nothing I say or do comforts her.
And it works both ways. When I get upset or depressed she’s right there to comfort me….
Another reason I’m totally in love with her.
I do need passion and physical affection. It’s been almost five years since I had sex, and I don’t even remember what it’s like. In fact, I did a calculation. I’ve been sexually active for 38 years but out of those, there were only six years in which I actually had sex. So I guess I could live without it but I need kissing and some sort of physical affection. I’m an artist, musician, songwriter poet and (recently) became a classical music composer. It kind of goes with the territory.
Maybe in a past life I treated women bad and broke a lot of hearts, so this life is a karmic debt where I have to experience rejection and loneliness for the progress of my soul….
on edit:
Oh and yes, she does share my politics, to the extent I’ve shared them. I haven’t gone into great depth, because this has scared some women away in the past, but I know she reads even the most radical articles I post on Facebook and she tells me they are the best ones in her feed. It’s quite possible that she feels guilty about her past relationships and their effect on her daughter, though there was only one other man in her daughter’s life, and he was very nice and acted as a father figure. To her credit, she got rid of him as soon as he turned abusive.
Like me, she has experienced tragedy. Her two brothers died young of muscular dystrophy. Then her father committed suicide when she was twenty, and left a note blaming it all on her. Like me she dealt with these tragedies in unhealthy ways at first. Without getting into too much confidential information, both she and I have been free from substance abuse for many years (though we do partake of the herb). The biological father wanted nothing to do with his daughter and has never been involved in her life. Our mutual victory over these demons was one of the first things we bonded over.
I hope this is not inappropriate to expound on these things…But it takes years of weight from me to get these things off my chest before a community I feel safe with. If I’ve offended anyone my sincere apologize. Thanks for listening. I feel so much lighter in my soul.
thanks for expanding on…everything. no apologies are necessary; it’s just life, and it deserves discussion. i need to sign off for tonight, but i’ll read all of this again in the a.m. sleep well, dream well….
just to get ‘bidness’ out of the ways first, if your paralegal sets up you new account, don’t give him/her your password. ;-) re: jacksonville: ‘5 Jacksonville anti-war protesters released after posting $157,000 dollars for bail’. fightbacknews a grisly story of abuse by the po-po.
good to know that your gf can get upset, and is okay with your various emotions, as well. which reminds me that for me, one key part of healthy long-term relationships is learning how to ‘fight’ fairly. couples who swear they never fight or argue really bother me, but i needed go into my ‘WTF?’ beliefs or responses. but i will say that early on mr. wd was so flipped out about my anger over whatever, he’d figured the next step was divorce. this stemmed from the fact that his parents only disagreed behind closed doors, but that was a metaphor for never expressing *any* honest emotions. it was generational on both sides, but all the sibs and cousins stuffed everything, and some acted out more weirdly than others. oh, and mr. wd learned how to argue fairly in the end. ;-)
whoosh, though; how infinitely sad to have lost her brothers to MS. and fuck her evil father for his blaming her! i do so hope she found ways of working through that; those are the sorts of things that left unresolved that are apt to gnaw away at one, especially subconsciously. but yeah, one might see why she’s fragile as to intimacy and has trust issues. i did misunderstand what you’d written earlier, but now you’re saying that you’ve never made love at all, not just ‘not passionately’? again i’d say that i hope you are talking to one another about her past in that regard. partially, i suppose, i’m wondering if she’d ever been able to surrender herself in trust to have orgasms? and whether or not she has sexual needs, or envisions, as you kinda mention, marriage without sex? just ‘committed companions’, maybe in the way andre vltchek wrote of the old couples reading cheek-to-cheek in the park? hard for me to imagine, but i guess whatever my work satisfactorily for both of you…dot, dot, dot.
the advice “marry your best friend, passion fades eventually” is kinda true: shared beliefs, ‘processes’ if not goals, shared ‘spirit’, and of course…love. but i’d think that’d include a great measure of trust. but after seven years? yikes, i can’t begin to imagine your patience. but as i’m not a believer in reincarnation, i can’t begin to comment on that theory. two rather awkward things to mention are that i hope you find self-pleasuring somewhat helpful, and the other is that i assume you’ve ruled out the possibility that your gf isn’t totally heterosexual? no need to answer either, of course, esp. on the boards.
but i’m glad that you feel that this is a safe place for your confidences, and how amazing that it was andre’s essay that provoked you to ‘write it all down’ and find relief, eh? bless your heart for saying that your soul feels lighter now.
Thank you for your kind words of support, Wendy. I’m replying up here because the lines are getting
T
H
I
N
Again.
It hasn’t been seven years. It was two years of casual friendship, one year of close friendship, and it will be two years of dating, at her instigation, in July.
Hope you don’t hate me for this, but we have never had a fight. In fact, she has never gotten the slightest bit angry or upset with me, nor have I with her. Unlike my last gf, a PhD. who spoke three languages, former Vogue model, talented musician and songwriter. We had a kind of John and Yoko thing going, writing songs together, the sex was passionate and tender and lasted for hours each day. Except she had borderline personality disorder and dissociative identity disorder. At least three distinct personalities who didn’t remember the actions of each other. She smashed my windows, wrote graffiti on the walls, grabbed the wheel and ran my car off the road, got violently angry at me for no reason. The first five months were bliss, the sixth was hell. I was a battered domestic partner. I had to end it even though I still loved her. I wept harder than I did the day my mother died.
Years of abuse made her like that. I don’t blame her or think she was a bad person. In fact, we’re still friends. She’s doing much better, has a new boyfriend who I like, and we stay in touch.
Speaking of patience, I had another relationship that was ten years of no sex. Though we did at the beginning. We also never spoke a cross word to each other, until seven years after we broke up, when one day she decided she hated me and never wanted to see me again. (Her attitude softened somewhat when I got cancer, but we still haven’t been in contact, and I have mixed feelings about that).
Love is a crazy thing in my life.
My current gf and I have fooled around and experimented a little, but have not gone “all the way” to use a 1950s expression.
I am optimistic. I have a good feeling about it. (That’s what I always say, though). I think the sexual issue will resolve itself one way or another. I told her from the beginning, it’s totally up to her where this goes and I don’t want to put any pressure on her at all. I am secure in my masculinity and I have nothing to prove. And I will not play games, PUA types be damned! I know those techniques by massive dating experience, but I refuse to be manipulative. I’m not afraid to shout my love from the rooftops and damn the consequences.
Re Jacksonville….In the 90s the cops were arresting people for SUI. Swimming while intoxicated, believe it or not, until a judge told them to stop doing it. If you ask them, why am I being arrested, that’s resisting arrest. They have a 20 foot statue of Heinrich Himmler at headquarters. (No, I made that one up! But the rest is true).
I almost typed “Heimlich Himmler.” Exterminated millions, but at least made sure they didn’t choke to death.
I lost a hearing this morning that was a Kafkaesque tragedy. Unbelievable. This will not stand, I will appeal it to the supreme Court. The magistrate allowed the bank to reopen the case in a trial I won, 12 days after the fact, because their lawyer “forgot” to introduce some evidence after presenting demonstrably false evidence to the court. We are ruled by ever more blatant criminals.
Here I must sign off. Blessings to you Wendy, and all the commenters on your blog (who must be getting very weary of my endless exposition on my personal life). Could I email you maybe when I get the new account? Peace out :)
well i sure wouldn’t hate you for it, but i confess i kinda find it ‘abby-normal’ (h/t mel brooks). but what do i know except my experiences? i’ve had a lot of bodywork clients who don’t argue with spouses, bosses, anyone, and their bodies reflect the tension of stuffing it all for so long. yeah, i could theorize all day about why, and still be wrong, yes? picking fights/arguments is a whole ‘nother thing, too, we hear about, as the making up is The Thing.
wow, you have had some out of the ordinary relationships, haven’t you? ten years no sex? you have stinky feet or somethin’? Vogue model w/dissociative identity disorder? no, i shouldn’t tease; it’s all so just outta my ken is all. but given that you have great expectations by intuition, i’ll just say i hope the best for both of you in solving the dilemma.
oh, fie on the magistrate re-opening the case for forgotten fake evidence. ya thinkin’ $ changed hands? my email address is toward the top of the categories on the right sidebar, but i’m a crap correspondent, save for emergency stuff. oh, and yes; you’d indicated that jacksonville’s pretty fascist….
and peace and solidarity to you, as well, amigo. and ‘wd’ is fine. ;-)
Hello again we. I posted on your other thread today. What you said about your parents arguing only behind closed doors got me thinking about my own childhood. My parents seldom argued – it was a pretty serene household. When they did, it was in front of us and usually little spats that involved my dad raising his voice a single time, my mom replying in a slightly derisive tone, and they would quickly come to a compromise, and things would go back to being serene. The “spats” were mostly about minor points of domestic policymaking, proposed expenditures, things like that. Yet my sister and I reflected with irony on the fact that we never had ANY IDEA WHATSOEVER of what our parents’ marriage was like. They kept some things private for sure, but it was in the nature of “unknown knowns” rather than “known knowns” (Rumsfeld – what a gas he was literally).
Only two exceptions. One weekend in July 1969 where they didn’t speak to each other for two days. Something mysterious I was not privy to. I didn’t see the actual fight so I had no idea. It finally ended Sunday night when the thickness of the tension made me snap and I threw the Sears catalogue across the room and said “That’s it! I’m leaving!” and they both rushed to stop me from running away from home. This was followed by a 15.minute or so heated dialogue in the basement, which I tried to listen to without being seen, but could only pick out a single phrase. Years later I asked them about it and typically, they didn’t remember (and they weren’t making that up, I’m sure). Everybody’s long term memory is freakishly bad except mine. But then again I have an unusually good memory for details that happened years ago, so maybe that’s just my perception. Anyway, I’m still burning with curiosity after all these years as to what it was all about? Did my dad get caught cheating? That’s all I can come up with but I don’t think he did it on a regular basis. But he was an extremely good looking man (women were still swooning over him in his seventies), he traveled a lot and my mom was a repressed Catholic girl who almost became a nun. So if he succumbed to temptation on a single occasion I could forgive him.
ooof. my eyes and brain are to frazzled to comprehend, much less contemplate all of this, seeker. miles more of chores to go before i sleep, as well. tomorrow then. sunday is usually a slow day at the café, although not at home. ;-) i’ll do my best.
ha ha on the eddie izzard quote; dunno quite what geothe’s means. but thanks for what you’d meant about the church and mother nature’s bounty.
as to your final paragraph, it reminds me of this, of course:
well, that quote is from around 1800, when germanians were fleeing to the US, not w/o reason. but self-exile clearly doesn’t solve everything & may be an act of cowardice & avoidance. the vampires are coming. might as well start staking ’em thru the heart where you are, not run to where you think they aren’t. though life w/o advertising does sound awfully appealing.
Yes, I couldn’t afford to move, especially since my income depends on a law practice I have spent years bulding in my home town. And running away is not the answer anyway. Is there any place on earth to escape the disease of Western “culture”? Especially when the missiles start flying….
“though life w/o advertising does sound awfully appealing lol, tell me where that is! but shorter?: all resistance is local”? reminding me once again of the folks who want to ‘kill all the bad actors’; there are so many everywhere, always another to take one’s place, and anyway: how do you kill end-stage capitalism inverted totalitarianism? kill ‘citizens united’, lol and ha ha ha?
but srsly, thanks for learnin’ me whence came the goethe quote.
yeah, the vampire metaphor breaks down too….esp. since all my neighbors are zombies.
yikes. “all my neighbors are zombies”; was it you then, who wrote that book?? i swear, though, that may be the first zombie thing i’ve ever watched. loved the “excellent if used in the service industries’. zombies will take our jobs along with AI creatures?