Archive for August, 2014

Go East, Young Person (August 25, 2014)

Posted in Bureaucracy, Collapse, Education, Military on August 25, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

A          “Horace Greeley advised the young man to go West seeking land and opportunity.  Today the sage advice is to leave the sagebrush and go East.  All the power and all the money is absorbed and consumed by the contemporary Rome, the black hole known as Washington.  Most of the remaining high paying jobs with pensions and health care are at the epicenter of the Empire.”

B          “Town after town after town after town after town after town are now vacant shells with breathing zombies struggling to survive the day.  Those with limited schooling have no recourse except to enroll in the military and fight resource wars for the bankers.  Those with the chance to get some schooling flee and enlist in some institution of higher learning to get certified and credentialed.  They might get a gig with a corporation, yet they will not get a pension or many other benefits.”

A          “I advise kids who have the connections, the moxie and some good luck to get a plum job with the federal government and ride it out.”

. . .

Bumper sticker of the week:

The violin is more sonorous and the fires distant

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Fallujah or Ferguson? (August 18, 2014)

Posted in Ferguson, Iraq, Military, Police, Race on August 18, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

P          “In today’s experiment, we are going to show you some pictures.  Based on your deployments to Iraq and your awareness of recent developments in Ferguson, Missouri, we want you to identify the pictures as either Fallujah or Ferguson.  Ready?”

S          “Ready as ever.  Hit it.  Ferguson.  Fallujah.  Ferguson.  Ferguson.  Fallujah.  Fallujah. . . . Fallujah.  Ferguson.  Fallujah.  Fallujah.  Fallujah, no Ferguson. Ferguson, no Fallujah.  Fallujah.  Ferguson.  Fallujah.  Fallujah.  Fallujah.  Ferguson.  Ferguson.  Fallujah.  That’s enough for now.”

P          “Fifty-five percent correct.”

S          “No kidding.  I had two tours in Iraq and once visited St. Louis.  Is that good?”

P          “We don’t know.”

S          “It isn’t good, is it?”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!

De-militarize the police; police the military

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Watertown? Ferguson? Your Town? Your Son? Will They Allow It In Laramie? (August 11, 2014)

Posted in Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Ferguson, Guns, Military, Oath Keepers, Police, Race on August 11, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “The official response to the Boston Marathon bombing provided a convenient beta test for the imposition of martial law in America.  Systematic house-to-house raids in locked-down Watertown, Massachusetts gave us a glimpse of the future.”

J          “They did not even look like cops.  They did not look like a para-military.  They looked like the military on a mission to search and destroy.  They dress in riot gear and expect to chaperon a cotillion?”

K          “They are now roaming Ferguson as if it is Fallujah.  The foreign policy doctrine that ‘It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it’ may now be a doctrine of American domestic policy.”

J          “A few ordinary citizens in Watertown obtained a few seconds of furtive images on cell phones that were avoided by the major television networks and archived on YouTube.  You too can view and decide.”

K          “In a crisis, the Internet and cell phones in an area could be disabled by the authorities.  Someone may need to capture an event with a Polaroid and celluloid and communicate with cans and a string.”

. . .

K          “Too many citizens think they will make their last stand with their gun in hand.  The authorities will simply vaporize someone who is inconvenient.”

J          “Some folks are fooling themselves.  Any citizen who resists will be secreted away at night or exterminated without seeing the light of day.”

K          “One of the recent challenges is a failure.  The public response by some at the Cliven Bundy Ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada was misplaced and misdirected.  Bundy is a racist deadbeat who owes money to all of us for exploiting our land for years.  The public must fight the right fight.”

J          “When you loot a local business, you lose a local business.”

. . .

J          “Nixon asked if it would play in Peoria to gauge whether Middle America would allow it.”

K          “Some say they may have tolerated it in Massachusetts because the state has strict gun control laws.”

J          “Will they allow it in Laramie?”

. . .

[See the e-commentary titled “Men In Pink: Today’s Sensitive New SWAT Togs (August 20, 2012).”]

Bumper stickers of the week:

The folks in Ferguson, Missouri appear not to yearn to allow it

De-militarize the police; police the military

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Don’t Fight The Fed; Fight The Fed (August 4, 2014)

Posted in Federal Reserve, Society, Stock Market on August 4, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “As an investor, ‘Don’t Fight the Fed.’  The Fed is creating and flooding the market with digital dollars and spawning an otherwise unfounded rise in the price of stocks.  Surf the collective delusion, but gauge when the Fed has played its hand and then beat the flood of funds out of the market.”

J          “Ya gotta know when to fold ‘em.”

. . .

K          “As a citizen, ‘Fight the Fed.’  The Fed is the banker’s private club that profoundly and often negatively impacts the economy and lives of every ordinary American with desperately little public input.”

J          “Ya gotta know when to hold ‘em.  Accountable.”

. . .

J          “So just when do I fold ‘em?”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

Don’t End The Fed, Do Mend The Fed

The Fed:  Lifting the yachts but not the tugboats and rowboats.  Since 1913.

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