Monday, March 23, 2009
Blogday 4!
Author: Happy Blogday!
Polistra: Oh! This is, what, our 4th year?
Author: Yep. A few days late. We started March 15, 2005. I'd been writing for a few months in a different place, but 3/15/05 is when we started on Blogspot.
Polistra: I remember my first appearance here:
Author: You were still dressed in your store-bought outfit at that point. Most of that first month was devoted to the Terry Schiavo case.
Polistra: Still think that was a tragedy and a disaster. And as usual the forces of death won, by the old Orwellian gambit of making the good people look crazy.
Author: Even though the facts of the case were not quite as simple as I thought at the time, the point still stands.
Polistra: You know, one thing changed rather suddenly in the middle of these four years. At first we were going along with the war effort; in fact we were unhappy that the war wasn't being pushed harder.
Author: It was the lack of push that finally opened my eyes, caused me to look at the basics. Where did the attackers come from? Arabia. Who helped them? Lots of countries, including Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Germany. Where was Sheikh Osama? Probably Pakistan. Given that pattern, why were we working half-heartedly toward the futile goal of setting up democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, while treating Arabia, Pakistan and Germany as allies? It simply made no sense. The friends and foes were wrong, the goal was pointless, and we were scrupulously avoiding the most obvious responses to an attack.
Polistra: A cautious war is one thing; could be attributed to Bush's old-rich Episcopalian heritage. Wouldn't be prudent and all that. But a completely misdirected war goes beyond weakness.
Author: Lots of other things happened in these years. Another turning point, I think, was Hurricane Katrina.
Polistra: That was more or less the last straw. After that, I couldn't fool myself into thinking that our government was only sloppy or incompetent. Around the end of '07 I tried to time-travel, but it didn't work. I disappeared for a bit, came back dressed in 1939 style, but I still don't know what happened. Apparently I had to get totally heartbroken before the ... gate or whatever it is would open. And that happened in June of '08.
Author: When you came back from your '39 vacation, you observed that McCain was the direct equivalent of Hoover, and Obama seemed to be parallel to FDR, in that he had the same teaching ability, the same morale-boosting ability.
Polistra: Yes, but he clearly doesn't have the same willingness to use the power of his office. I've said it a lot, but it bears repeating. Roosevelt closed down the banks on his SECOND DAY IN OFFICE, and a week later the banks were sorted out. Insolvent ones were closed, solid ones back in business. Now we're in Obama's SECOND MONTH and he's just today SUGGESTED a program for dealing with the bad banks.
Author: And the Wall Street Mafia cheered, which tells us that the program is a gift to the syndicate, not a punishment or abolition of the syndicate.
Polistra: We'll never know what's really going on. No newspaper will ever do the equivalent of a "Pentagon Papers" to expose the underlying blackmail or whatever it is.
Author: And the papers wonder why people stopped reading them.
Polistra: But some information does come through. While all that noise is holding our attention, Robert Reich has actually REPORTED a few actual FACTS that we aren't hearing from either brand. He points out that all of Obama's efforts to get more revenue are blocked by the Wall Street Mafia, and the administration is unwilling to overrule the Mafia.
Author: The Mafia's cute little pet "government" occasionally whines when the Mafia pulls the choke-chain too hard, but it always obeys.
Polistra: Okay, back to the question: we still have full-strength Hoovers, clinging desperately to their obscenely wealthy masters, screaming NO NO NO NO NO DON'T TAX ME MOMMY WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! like spoiled two-year-olds. And we have Obama behaving like an adult but without any force. He's a weak diluted shadow of Roosevelt. But we don't have Father Coughlin, and we don't have a Bonus Army or violent laborites. FDR was forceful and effective because he knew that Coughlin and the Bundists, and various Red factions, were active and growing. He knew that the country would fall in one direction or the other, red or brown, if he didn't get it right.
Author: Hmm. Yes, you'd think the situation would be even more ripe for a Coughlin type now. In 1933 the elites were mainly Episcopal Wasps like Mellon and Morgan. Now the people who caused this mess are mainly Jewish, and the people who are SUPPOSEDLY fixing the mess like Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner, are mainly Jewish. But they aren't solving anything, just handing over the entire economy to their Jewish friends. So, why don't we have those factions yet?
Polistra: For one thing, we haven't really lost much wealth yet. This recession is still patchy; some regions and occupations are hopeless, while others are untouched. Mostly, we've been through 50 years of Communist control of culture and information. In 1933 most people were in touch with common sense and observed the world directly. They were better able to smell a lie or a scam. They got fooled, of course ... people can always be fooled ... but they didn't stay bamboozled as long as we do now. In 2009, most of us have been through at least 12 years of the public indoctrination system, and the elites have been through graduate super-indoctrination, all designed to confuse and stupefy the normal processes of logic.
Author: The elites believe in global warming and free trade.
Polistra: Says it all. And we get our information mostly through TV, which is carefully filtered. Facts that would expose the Wall Street Mafia do occasionally pop up, as with Reich ... or just this morning, Eliot Spitzer, but they are quickly swamped by the Mafia's own disinformation.
Author: I feel bad that I didn't spot what they were doing to Spitzer. The old honey-trap, catching him with a prostitute to ruin his reputation. I certainly know how that works, but I didn't think about it when they did it to Spitzer. I fell for it.
Polistra: Well, we can't always catch everything. You did go to college, after all ... and no matter how hard you try to resist, the confusers are always around us, always trying to overwhelm common sense.
Author: It's depressing. Orlov has it right: We're in the same condition as post-Soviet Russia. Nominal democracy, actual Mafiocracy.
Polistra: See the pattern?
Author: Huh?
Polistra: We expect the government to be somewhat competent. We expect it to respond to a military attack by punishing the attackers, and we expect it to respond to an economic attack by punishing the attackers.
Author: Oh. Yes, I see. In both cases the response is misdirected and puny. In both cases it looks initially like incompetence, then as more facts become available it looks like something worse than incompetence.
Polistra: Yep, that's the pattern.
Author: Well anyway, we've made it through 4 years here; we've been trying to observe the world as accurately as we can, trying to see facts and use logic. Nobody's stopped us yet.
Polistra: Yet. ¶ 9:10 PM
Author: Happy Blogday!
Polistra: Oh! This is, what, our 4th year?
Author: Yep. A few days late. We started March 15, 2005. I'd been writing for a few months in a different place, but 3/15/05 is when we started on Blogspot.
Polistra: I remember my first appearance here:
Author: You were still dressed in your store-bought outfit at that point. Most of that first month was devoted to the Terry Schiavo case.
Polistra: Still think that was a tragedy and a disaster. And as usual the forces of death won, by the old Orwellian gambit of making the good people look crazy.
Author: Even though the facts of the case were not quite as simple as I thought at the time, the point still stands.
Polistra: You know, one thing changed rather suddenly in the middle of these four years. At first we were going along with the war effort; in fact we were unhappy that the war wasn't being pushed harder.
Author: It was the lack of push that finally opened my eyes, caused me to look at the basics. Where did the attackers come from? Arabia. Who helped them? Lots of countries, including Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Germany. Where was Sheikh Osama? Probably Pakistan. Given that pattern, why were we working half-heartedly toward the futile goal of setting up democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, while treating Arabia, Pakistan and Germany as allies? It simply made no sense. The friends and foes were wrong, the goal was pointless, and we were scrupulously avoiding the most obvious responses to an attack.
Polistra: A cautious war is one thing; could be attributed to Bush's old-rich Episcopalian heritage. Wouldn't be prudent and all that. But a completely misdirected war goes beyond weakness.
Author: Lots of other things happened in these years. Another turning point, I think, was Hurricane Katrina.
Polistra: That was more or less the last straw. After that, I couldn't fool myself into thinking that our government was only sloppy or incompetent. Around the end of '07 I tried to time-travel, but it didn't work. I disappeared for a bit, came back dressed in 1939 style, but I still don't know what happened. Apparently I had to get totally heartbroken before the ... gate or whatever it is would open. And that happened in June of '08.
Author: When you came back from your '39 vacation, you observed that McCain was the direct equivalent of Hoover, and Obama seemed to be parallel to FDR, in that he had the same teaching ability, the same morale-boosting ability.
Polistra: Yes, but he clearly doesn't have the same willingness to use the power of his office. I've said it a lot, but it bears repeating. Roosevelt closed down the banks on his SECOND DAY IN OFFICE, and a week later the banks were sorted out. Insolvent ones were closed, solid ones back in business. Now we're in Obama's SECOND MONTH and he's just today SUGGESTED a program for dealing with the bad banks.
Author: And the Wall Street Mafia cheered, which tells us that the program is a gift to the syndicate, not a punishment or abolition of the syndicate.
Polistra: We'll never know what's really going on. No newspaper will ever do the equivalent of a "Pentagon Papers" to expose the underlying blackmail or whatever it is.
Author: And the papers wonder why people stopped reading them.
Polistra: But some information does come through. While all that noise is holding our attention, Robert Reich has actually REPORTED a few actual FACTS that we aren't hearing from either brand. He points out that all of Obama's efforts to get more revenue are blocked by the Wall Street Mafia, and the administration is unwilling to overrule the Mafia.
Author: The Mafia's cute little pet "government" occasionally whines when the Mafia pulls the choke-chain too hard, but it always obeys.
Polistra: Okay, back to the question: we still have full-strength Hoovers, clinging desperately to their obscenely wealthy masters, screaming NO NO NO NO NO DON'T TAX ME MOMMY WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! like spoiled two-year-olds. And we have Obama behaving like an adult but without any force. He's a weak diluted shadow of Roosevelt. But we don't have Father Coughlin, and we don't have a Bonus Army or violent laborites. FDR was forceful and effective because he knew that Coughlin and the Bundists, and various Red factions, were active and growing. He knew that the country would fall in one direction or the other, red or brown, if he didn't get it right.
Author: Hmm. Yes, you'd think the situation would be even more ripe for a Coughlin type now. In 1933 the elites were mainly Episcopal Wasps like Mellon and Morgan. Now the people who caused this mess are mainly Jewish, and the people who are SUPPOSEDLY fixing the mess like Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner, are mainly Jewish. But they aren't solving anything, just handing over the entire economy to their Jewish friends. So, why don't we have those factions yet?
Polistra: For one thing, we haven't really lost much wealth yet. This recession is still patchy; some regions and occupations are hopeless, while others are untouched. Mostly, we've been through 50 years of Communist control of culture and information. In 1933 most people were in touch with common sense and observed the world directly. They were better able to smell a lie or a scam. They got fooled, of course ... people can always be fooled ... but they didn't stay bamboozled as long as we do now. In 2009, most of us have been through at least 12 years of the public indoctrination system, and the elites have been through graduate super-indoctrination, all designed to confuse and stupefy the normal processes of logic.
Author: The elites believe in global warming and free trade.
Polistra: Says it all. And we get our information mostly through TV, which is carefully filtered. Facts that would expose the Wall Street Mafia do occasionally pop up, as with Reich ... or just this morning, Eliot Spitzer, but they are quickly swamped by the Mafia's own disinformation.
Author: I feel bad that I didn't spot what they were doing to Spitzer. The old honey-trap, catching him with a prostitute to ruin his reputation. I certainly know how that works, but I didn't think about it when they did it to Spitzer. I fell for it.
Polistra: Well, we can't always catch everything. You did go to college, after all ... and no matter how hard you try to resist, the confusers are always around us, always trying to overwhelm common sense.
Author: It's depressing. Orlov has it right: We're in the same condition as post-Soviet Russia. Nominal democracy, actual Mafiocracy.
Polistra: See the pattern?
Author: Huh?
Polistra: We expect the government to be somewhat competent. We expect it to respond to a military attack by punishing the attackers, and we expect it to respond to an economic attack by punishing the attackers.
Author: Oh. Yes, I see. In both cases the response is misdirected and puny. In both cases it looks initially like incompetence, then as more facts become available it looks like something worse than incompetence.
Polistra: Yep, that's the pattern.
Author: Well anyway, we've made it through 4 years here; we've been trying to observe the world as accurately as we can, trying to see facts and use logic. Nobody's stopped us yet.
Polistra: Yet. ¶ 9:10 PM
