Sunday 22nd of December 2024
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a familiar place .....

"What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap between the government and the people. And it became always wider.....the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it provided an excuse not to think....for people who did not want to think anyway gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about.....and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated.....by the machinations of the 'national enemies,'  without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us..... 

 

Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted,' that unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these 'little measures'.....must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing.....Each act is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. 

 

You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even talk, alone.....you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.'  But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes.  

 

That's the difficulty. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves, when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. 

 

You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father.....could never have imagined."  

 

Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1938-45

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955)

the knackery beckons .....

‘No matter what you think of George W. Bush, he is staking out his claim as a bona fide Horseman of the Apocalypse.  

 

With his Hand of Hell in Iraq already yielding countless dead, $200 billion wasted and a global war against Islam well on its way to Armageddon, Bush has definitively established his ability to wreck unparalleled disaster on a global scale with zero positive outcome.  

 

By drowning New Orleans and turning its alleged rebuilding plan into a sinkhole of corruption and disarray, he has shown he can lay waste to an entire American city.  

 

And now he is visiting disease and death on tens of millions of our elderly and ill with a botched Medicare/Medicaid drug plan that has plunged the nation's pharmacies into total chaos while driving the states even closer to bankruptcy. As you read this, millions of Americans are without medications that may be life-sustaining because of what Bush has done to "improve" their pharmaceutical plan.’ 

 

Not Happy George

 

 

 

butchering the blind lady .....

Evidence, witnesses, lawyers, juries, judges, the truth . . . what frightful nuisances they are  

 

‘Tony Blair likes to throw in impressive references to Hobbes when he is addressing questions of social justice and the law. But what he really prefers is the kind of talk the man in the street can understand. Like - what’s wrong with the law today?  

 

Here’s an example: let’s say someone spits at an old lady. The police catch him, but because it takes time and resources to prosecute, and the only result in the end will be a fine, they don’t bother to pursue it. Or as Mr Blair puts it: “The result is the police don’t think it worth it, and it doesn’t happen.” (This is his story, not mine.)’  

 

Your Right To A Fair Trial? Whatever

 

 

 

class dismissed ......

‘OK, everyone who has studied the Unitary Executive Theory of the Presidency, raise your hand. Anyone? Anyone?  

 

If you are not raising your hand, you're not alone. As regular readers are aware, only recently has the world received notice that President Bush's "I can do anything I want" approach to governance has a name: the Unitary Executive Theory of the Presidency.’ 

 

The President Does Not Know Best

on the foibles of rulers .....

‘A big crisis occurs when the schemes of multiple rulers create an impasse. It’s as if a knot of ropes connects them all. They are all swimming in a strong sea trying to save themselves, but the connecting ropes make this very difficult.  

 

They are pulling and hauling in all directions. They find themselves in grave danger. They feel under time pressure to act, or else they may drown or lose out. This reduces their rationality.  

 

Their personalities and memories, ideas and interests, hate, greed, anger, pride and other affections and emotions influenced how they got into this mess and now they unduly influence how they are trying to get out.  

 

Some rulers may still have cards up their sleeves, like a knife to cut themselves loose, and they continue scheming, trying to win. Others may think they can still win and they keep struggling.’ 

 

When Rulers Err

capitalism creates poverty .....

Globalization is an attempt to extend corporate monopoly control over the whole globe …..  

 

Over every national economy …..  

 

Over every local economy ….. 

 

Over every life ….. 

 

Terrorism, Globalism and Conspiracy