Democrats appear poised to take a page out of FDR’s New Deal promotional tactics with a media blitz of their own, pushing a “Green New Deal.” Sorry, no fireside chats. There will be an impressive electronic/digital media blitz. Soon we will all hear the story. It has been playing nonstop for a while now. The trick is to gain consent. By hook or by crook commoners will be taught to sing a single chorus line in harmony – all from the same green-energy/climate-change hymnal.
Is
it time for a real shift toward conservation and protection of nature? Or are we
– most of us passively – sitting on the sidelines, witnessing yet another clever
ploy to coopt “the left” and once again, save capitalism and the two-party
system (how many times is this now?) from recurring fatal flaws: Greed, wage and wealth inequality (slavery)
and ecological destruction. In order to
fully understand the implications of the Green New Deal, one must be familiar
with the New Deal. We only think we know
what happened in the 1930s.
“…I think the Catholic Church was too much blamed in the case of Galileo – he was just a victim of peer review.” (Eric J. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened, 1991)
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” (Upton Sinclair)
I stumbled on the Lerner quote this morning, and thought it would be a nice way to introduce a subject in need of examination, PSA, or the prostate specific antigen, discovered by Richard Ablin in 1970. It has been his life’s work to inform the public on the true nature of the PSA test. Peer review, or enforced mediocrity, plays a large part in preventing the truth about various forms of quackery from seeing light of day. Ablin’s work against PSA does not stand the withering criticism of his peers, who are in it for the money. PSA testing, followed by unnecessary biopsies and prostatectomies, is big business. Ablin doesn’t get it.
This dynamic duo does “big-picture” stuff very well. This time they bite deeply into the progression we’re all living– the collapse of (the latest version) Empire. It was, of course, like all others before it, built to be looted and destroyed by the same mobsters that have been at this for 6,000 years, give or take.
They have a pretty sizable head-start, but every now and then I get the feeling they can hear the footsteps getting closer and closer, closing the gap.
I hope some of you will take a moment to read what they have written. Cheers.
Say what you will about politics in general, or Montana politics in particular, but don’t put your popcorn away just yet.
Yesterday in Great Falls a federal district magistrate breathed new life into Montana Green Party’s chances of rising from the ashes of defeat by the Montana Supreme Court. The Supremes upheld the District Court’s Opinion, which removed Greens from the 2018 ballot over a small number of “irregular” signatures in several voting districts.
If Greens win in federal court, look for them to return stronger and a little wiser, appearing on the 2020 general election ballot with a fresh slate of candidates, including the Governor’s race.
A newsfeed came across our inboxes that promoted a notion that China was somehow misbehaving regarding the use of CRISPR to create edited humans. The dialectic was a non-sequitur because earlier press releases on the efficiency of CRISPR read like a high school newspaper writing about the success of its stageplay being a success because it was over, yet was a total train wreck of a production. CRISPR can indeed edit a genome for the target mutations, however there can be a hundred downstream changes that were neither intended or predicted or controllable. That used to be called: The Operation Was A Success But The Patient Died.
What is CRISPR? CRISPR (/ˈkrɪspər/) (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a family of DNA sequences found within the genomes of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria and archaea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnYppmstxIs
WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WE ARE DOING BUT WE ARE DOING IT WITH GUSTO
“We have managed to transfer religious belief into gullibility for whatever masquerades as science.” (Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan)
Via the Internet and a blog, now called the Montana Post (formerly called Intelligent Discontent), I got to know a man named Don (who goes by the nickname Pogie.) Don frequently assailed critics by quizzing them on their use of sources. If something came from the New York Times, OK. If not, if from something less ‘reputable,’ Don would smugly dismiss both the person and the opinion.
Don’s blog posts repeat one theme only, that Democrats are splendid public servants and Republicans scoundrels. It is unnerving to see this as a “thoughtful” outlook on our landscape. I have traveled only sparingly to his site in these past few years, and only bring it up now to make this point: Don doesn’t think for himself. He relies on authority figures and sources.
It is time now to release the prisoners. If you were banned here recently, and your name is not Skink, you are welcomed back. I know on your end it feels like an injustice. It is. I had a private email exchange with B Muller, and told her that I was not comfortable banning her, so I just asked her to deal with the injustice, as we adults often must do, and she would soon be back in business. I saved her quarantined comments, and will release them now. What harm?
Saturn Devouring His Son, Francisco Goya, 1819-1823
U.S. Presidents issue Executive Orders. The following 2018 EO is a doozy, which, if carried out by affected agencies, will bring more bulldozers and more clearcuts (“active management”) into untrammeled national forests than former Pres. Ronald Reagan could ever have dreamed of. Just another chapter in man’s never- ending quest to turn forests into deserts. The narrative, of course, sounds nothing like the actions planned. However evil, we must “work together.”
An excerpt: “By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to protect people, communities, and watersheds, and to promote healthy and resilient forests, rangelands, and other Federal lands by actively managing them through partnerships with States, tribes, communities, non-profit organizations, and the private sector.
For decades, dense trees and undergrowth have amassed in these lands, fueling catastrophic wildfires. These conditions, along with insect infestation, invasive species, disease, and drought, have weakened our forests, rangelands, and other Federal lands, and have placed communities and homes at risk of damage from catastrophic wildfires.
Active management of vegetation is needed to treat these dangerous conditions on Federal lands but is often delayed due to challenges associated with regulatory analysis and current consultation requirements. In addition, land designations and policies can reduce emergency responder access to Federal land and restrict management practices that can promote wildfire-resistant landscapes. With the same vigor and commitment that characterizes our efforts to fight wildfires, we must actively manage our forests, rangelands, and other Federal lands to improve conditions and reduce wildfire risk.” – DONALD J. TRUMP, THE WHITE HOUSE, December 21, 2018
I will not go into the details of this planned escalation in the federal government’s war against forests, and national forests in particular. Suffice it to say, privatization and deregulation – fundamental elements of neo-liberal economic fantasies – are alive and kicking in the Trump Whitehouse. You can think of it as “austerity” for forests.
Only a psychopathic, fictional mind could be behind the design of such folly. Now, I’m not singling out Pres. Trump, actor-in-chief. This science-fiction portrayal of Nature is but one example of how our vast, man-made, legal matrix of artificial reality is designed for maximum extraction and extortion of wealth from the dumbed-down, physically-weakened masses. Trump is just the successor to a long line of forest rapers and scrapers extending back to the Cedars of Lebanon, which built King Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. Solomon reigned from 970 to 931 BCE, according to some historians. So, let’s just round it off to around 3,000 years ago – a long time to be whacking down forests by one exalted leader or another.
Like all “fearless leaders,” empathy and good sense is not a prerequisite. What’s needed is a perfect actor to carry out orders from upper-level management – orders ALWAYS handed down by the ruling elite. Exploit and enslave. Repeat. You’d think this would at some point get terminally old for the enslaved masses.
Obviously, we are not acting as Nature intended, in perfect harmony with our God-created surroundings. Instead, we are determined to be Nature’s #1 enemy. What is our destiny if it is to not to protect and revere all of existence, which we are a part of? Man’s world today is a hollow shell, a corporate structure represented as an ever-increasing “Ponzi-scheme” of bets against our health and well being as part of Nature. Our house of cards is an illusion that can only fail. Fear not, for the very old (probably tracing back to King Solomon) bloodlines always have their hand on the “reset button.” The destruction of this version of the dystopian nightmare is certain. Planned obsolescence IS THE PLAN.
Forests are just a part of the grand, master (mining) plan. But when forests are gone, so goes the water that sustains life. No water, no life. So, as I see it, the “Twin Towers” spectacle was a warning shot across the bow. It’s ALL coming down, liquidated for one last gasp to save this latest variant of Empire, based on the “green-back” with the words “IN GOD WE TRUST” centered perfectly on each piece of paper we’ve been conditioned to love and worship, instead of the land and water stolen from us by these immoral, corporate imbeciles. We must make way for the new empire, or not.
One last quote from Clint’s book, Strawman, before we flip the page from 2018 to 2019.
“For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For TO BE CARNALLY MINDED IS DEATH; BUT TO BE SPIRITUALLY MINDED IS LIFE AND PEACE. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: FOR IT IS NOT SUBJECT TO THE LAW OF GOD, NEITHER INDEED CAN. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” – Romans 8: 5-8, KJB, http://www.strawmanstory.info/, p. 1097
Happy New Year, all you POM readers and commenters. The Chinese fire drill is over, won’t somebody turn off that hand-held gadget, gather your wits, take the wheel and drive?
Immediately below is one of the finest posts ever put together for this blog, actually a book that Tyrone McCloskey had written and then allowed us to publish. I am not going to publish anything of my own for a while, and while glancing over JFKTV this morning thought, man, this is good writing.
If you’ve never read it before, read it now. If you have read it before, follow me in reading it again. It is long … and gripping.
And Merry Christmas to all who support, write, comment, sneer at, criticize and critique POM. We need you all. Well, maybe not the sneering.
I have instituted a number of bans on commenters. Please take time to read this, especially if you are one of the ones affected.
In the commenting policy you will note that bans are not permanent. I will lift all bans on January 1, 2019, with the following caveat: There are no longer “comment threads.” Instead, we will have “discussion threads.” The rules are simple: Be firm, fervent, thoughtful and polite.
I stumbled on the Lerner quote this morning, and thought it would be a nice way to introduce a subject in need of examination, PSA, or the prostate specific antigen, discovered by Richard Ablin in 1970. It has been his life’s work to inform the public on the true nature of the PSA test. Peer review, or enforced mediocrity, plays a large part in preventing the truth about various forms of quackery from seeing light of day. Ablin’s work against PSA does not stand the withering criticism of his peers, who are in it for the money. PSA testing, followed by unnecessary biopsies and prostatectomies, is big business. Ablin doesn’t get it.
Piece of Mindful 