Rush Limbaugh’s real purpose

RushI remember the date, November 7, 2016 because it was the day before the presidential election. I was driving down into Denver, and turned on the radio. When the other channels are nothing but ads, and it is between 10 A.M. and 1 P.M., I often tune into Rush Limbaugh.

On this particular day, Rush was going on about oddities in the election campaigns. He said the Trump rallies were always full and enthusiastic, while Hillary Clinton’s were not. He went on and on about that and other signs, and I did not know what he was doing or why. Like most people, I assumed Clinton was the anointed one. After all, we had a black president, so it was time for a woman.

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My business plan: I will kill you with my smug

Just a brief note in passing to discuss two things that on the surface might seem unrelated. That is because under the surface they are unrelated. They are smugness, and business plans.

First, business plans. If you were to go to a bank seeking financing for your business, be it nail grooming or dog bathing or plumbing and heating, the bank will ask to see a written business plan. Stripped of its jargon – things like market dimensions and depth, rate of return, maximized cash flow … all real to a degree but also inside baseball talk, the simplest way to understand a business plan is to answer the question: “What’s your gimmick?”

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The radon game

If there is one ‘truism’ – something obvious and neither new or interesting – it is that the vast majority of people rely on authority figures in forming their own opinions. What else can we expect when our education system at its core (the tests) punishes students for being wrong. The SAT and ACT regimes are long lists of things to be memorized, statements by authority figures that students must regurgitate to land in a good college. It instills students with fear of being wrong even as mistakes are the best teachers around.

I long ago read a book (I should stop right there) by Edward Bernays called “Propaganda.” I would imagine at a website like this many others have read it as well. It was an interesting book in that Bernays, writing in the 1920s, came right out and said things that were known to be true among insiders, but were rarely spoken outside of the club (the men of his time who managed public opinion). I cite here a passage that appears right at the opening:

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Quiet, Please! The Latest Threat to the Big Wild

It was another long summer of smoke-filled eyes in the West. An early snow storm in the Northern Rockies ushers in a season of peace and solitude. Wildfires frighten tourists, excite the media and reacquaint homeowners who built in the forest to Mother Nature’s laws.  Hey, I get it, fires are deadly and sexy – good ratings. But after decades of kicking the environmental can down the road, at the first sign of smoke most politicians want someone else to blame for their pathetic past performances.

Three of the last four summers (2015, 2017, 2018), Glacier National Park erupted in a fury of smoke and flames. Tourists scampered away to Yellowstone, “inholder” homes were evacuated, some incinerated. But that’s not why I picked up the pen today. Let’s talk about quiet, yes quiet.  Where has our quiet gone? Continue reading “Quiet, Please! The Latest Threat to the Big Wild” →

The Great Sagan

BookI am reading again of Immanuel Velikovsky, this time of his public interactions with Carl Sagan, widely regarded as a go-to source in the field of astrophysics. I am reading a book by Charles Ginenthal, who apparently had low regard for Sagan. I have read much of Sagan’s popular work, and would not call him a fraud. However, he did not put actions behind his words, and that is Ginenthal’s complaint, as will be apparent below.

Ginenthal published Carl Sagan & Immanuel Velikovsky in 1995, and so knew of the transparency of the Sagan figure long before I even knew of Velikovsky. I take heart that Sagan, who died in 1996, must have known of Ginenthal’s work, published a year earlier. But of course, being Sagan, he would have smugly set it aside. (Ginenthal has also written Stephen J. Gould and Immanuel Velikovsky and Newton, Einstein and Velikovsky. Hallelujah! I’ve been dying for fresh reading material.)

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The Self Fulshilling Prophecy

This will be a shorter one compared to the Peculiar Plot series. I can understand people lack the attention span to read long pieces, but at the same time do not want to fall for that “Twitter 140 character soundbite” culture where 6 second attention span seekers with the patience of a ferret on crystal meth seem to rule, up to even people who are accustomed to read long pieces or listen to hours of talks, like people in their 50s and above, half or a full generation older than me.

The idea I want to share is the self fulshilling prophecy. It is one of my many neologisms; I like to invent new words to use because the language given to us is scripted to a large extent. By using our own ability to form language, we are humans after all, we can pinpoint what we mean much better without being compromised by agenda pushers.

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Smell the Coffee.

Every once in a while I try to explain critical elements of global debt-slavery.  It’s not a popular topic, I suppose, because we all — excluding the ruling elite — live the same lie.  Democracy.  Freedom.  Justice.  Equality.  You get the picture.  All giant lies.  The following comment over at Moon of Alabama this morning may help bring reality into greater focus for some who either deny, or cannot, for one reason or another, bring themselves to accept what simply is.  Thank you “donkeytale.”  Enjoy! Continue reading “Smell the Coffee.” →