Another Endless Theme

“It is the doom of men…that…they…forget.” Merlin, in ‘Excalibur”

The Flailing Sick Giant With No Memory

We live in a culture that continually emits the undercurrent thought that history is not important. That culture, and the society and country that house it, suffer so because of that lack of valuing, and worse, suffer in ignorance and arrogance, losing so much as so much spins away.

“A country losing touch with its own history is like an old man losing his glasses, a distressing sight, at once vulnerable, unsure, and easily disoriented.” George Walden

Calling All Cassandras

I was thinking of the frustration of those out there who understand, who are not fooled by the vaporous channeling of the media, or “leaders,” or “experts.” Who see complication, and deeper truths, not polarized absurd simplistic parochialism.

Sympaticos brothers and sisters, sympaticos.

“The worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing”
-Herodotus

“It’s not easy you know…to know too much. Lacrimae mundi, the tears of the world.” Merlin, in “Excalibur”

Symbol Ick

America on Sunday took down the human symbol of its enemies.

Something lost in its jubilation is respect for the intelligence and abilities of its enemies.

That is a mistake.

This human symbol evaded the concentrated efforts of the supposed superpower for 10 years (actually longer, but at top of the list for the last 10 years certainly). Evaded a superpower with truly impressive electronic, satellite photographic, and other highly advanced spying techniques.

America, your enemies understand your weaknesses far better than you realize. You, in arrogance, dismiss their intelligence and abilities too much. Even if you don’t want to try to understand them and why they feel the way they feel (which will require you to understand yourself), you should at least respect that their planners aren’t backward or illiterate. They are educated, trained (we should know, we trained a lot of them directly or indirectly), and incredibly dedicated. It might help, for our sake, to know why.

Otherwise, “kicking ass” will be meaningless in anything but the short-term.

Corp(se)

Ever seen the documentary "The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power"? It's about 7 years old now, but still very relevant, and the book it is based on is excellent. Since the Supreme Court insists that we treat the corporation as a person when it suits them, this documentary shows us well how, when examined from a behavioral point of view, corporations are often sociopathic or even psychopathic.

An interesting side note is that last year’s comedy, “The Other Guys,” had a few masked jokes in it, yes, but the really interesting part came in the end credits. They gave all these statistics about how Wall Street, corporations, etc. have done criminal damage to the U.S.

Ah, that sort of hiding truth in comedy would warm the hearts of Aristophanes and Plautus. :)

Poor Nation's Standard Almanac

Standard & Poor (S&P), who showed it was way too cozy with Wall Street in the near financial meltdown of just a few years ago, today said the Emperor might be becoming a bit nakey: Within 2 years, it remarked, the situation could deteriorate to the point where the US government bonds, etc. would be lowered in their quality rating from their present highest rating to something else. S&P said the outlook has gone from “stable,” to “negative,” and their detailed remarks show NO faith that the US fiscal process will show sanity or sustainability. Meaning, no sufficiently hard decisions will be made, and the problem kicked down Unsustainable Street for a little while longer, until the day of reckoning really arrives.

Bells Will Be Wringing

So much rot, decay, weakness, excess, and illusion, it may take a Depression to wring it out, assuming it can be wrung out. If we can’t wring it out, even more severe calamities may await (Revolution? Foreign Control? Occupation? Continual and Cascading Ecological Disasters? Military Dictatorship? Neo-Feudalism?).

The young aren’t going to save things in their present state of illusion, delusion, escapism, and denial. Case in point: many of them did not know (or care) there was any government budget problem, let alone have an idea of what it is all about.

And why are people so easily twisted into ignorance or believing their prejudices? Because they value things other than being informed. They may know everything about their favorite sports teams or celebrities, for example, but little about their government, and often what they little they think they know is wrong. So they are easily manipulated pawns for those who carefully (and often anonymously) plant disinformation and misinformation to emotionally inflame them.

Often this manipulation comes in the guise of “we’re all in the same boat” sentiments of what is really false solidarity. I was warned about this long ago:

“The rich had their money, Jimmie. They didn’t suffer in the Depression. Don’t let all this talk about ‘everyone was poor and in it together’ fool you. I was there.”

My grandfather and his son were so much smarter than I ever thought.