Tuesday Open Thread ~ 11 JUN 19


“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

― Frank Herbert, Dune

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It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

― Frank Herbert, Dune

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All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.

Dune -Chapterhouse: Missionara Protectiva, Text QIV (decto)

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"I'll miss the sea, but a person needs new experiences. They jar something deep inside, allowing him to grow. Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken."

- Leto Atreides I

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I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

― Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Invitation TC mark

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“You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind." - Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohaim

Dune

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"Major flaws in government arise from a fear of making radical internal changes even though a need is clearly seen."

- Darwi Odrade

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"Show me a completely smooth operation and I will show you someone who is covering mistakes... real boats rock."

- Darwi Odrade Dune

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Most of these quotes were found in a hilarious novel "Last Tango in Cyberspace" by Steven Kotler

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This thread is open, so please add something about your minds below the fold.
Cheers!

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Trump and Biden campaigning in Iowa today. Lots of things Biden has said about Trump; nothing Trump has said about anything; Biden is the frontrunner, Warren has the biggest operation in Iowa; and she and Buttgeieg have made many visits there/ She and Buttgeig are "surging" there.

No mention of Bernie Sanders.

IMO, Trump is crap and I am not as huge a Sanders fan as I once was, though I am still rooting for him or Gabbard to win the Democratic Primary. This post is not pro- or anti-any candidate. It is about mass media, which ought not be trying to influence how you or anyone else votes. And clearly, that is what it is trying to do.

Again.

What sustains me from the inside when ALL else is gone? Family and friends are "outside," no?

Inside, it may be genetic. As I have posted here, gratitude and laughter are my drugs of choice. But would I have either when ALL else is gone? Family, friends, health, home, etc.?

Geez. I hope I never have to find out.

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smiley7's picture

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@smiley7
Enjoyed your vignette too!

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Lookout's picture

I tried watching the movie once but didn't like it nor finish it.

I enjoyed the quotes...guess the sand worms ate my memory of them. Probably should re-read it. I do remember thinking we're addicted to oil the way they were addicted to spice.

I'm gonna get out and enjoy this beautiful morning. Hope you're all having a good one too!

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUNgQ03D2qA]

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout
Dune was one of the first social Sci-fi stories I read. Thanks for the White Bird song. Fly or die, not unlike our spirit life.

Cheers!

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GreatLakeSailor's picture

https://twitter.com/hashtag/DeportaGreenwald?src=hash

Deport Greenwald hash. Those supporting the powerful corrupt have a commonality across language & countries.

Stay safe, Glenn
Shok

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Compensated Spokes Model for Big Poor.

enhydra lutris's picture

Informational quotes. They got me thinking about how truly inspirational statements must convey real, meaningful information about the world we live in, the one we hope to see come to pass or the one we fear, if not all of the above.

It was a somewhat debilitating 103 here yesterday and is headed for at least 92 today. I, unfortunately, have beaucoups outdoor work to do, so had best ramble on out pretty pronto.

Have a great one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

witness the bubble

Indeed, this argument implies that if Trump had used less racialized rhetoric, without changing his positions on trade and immigration, he might have won more easily and not had to rely on the electoral irrationality of those who voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. Had the Stein voters supported Clinton instead, she would have carried Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

What could Clinton have done differently? Her campaign, either because it was hemmed in by Bernie Sanders or because it employed a poor strategy, undermined its chances by failing to craft an economic argument with sufficient populist appeal. It would not have been hard to argue that a debate on appropriate levels of immigration was just as important as a debate on a citizenship pathway for Dreamers, those brought to the country as children. And it would not have been hard to embrace the idea that it was time to reassess the North American Free Trade Agreement, more than two decades after its passage. The battleground states Clinton lost were engines of prosperity until the 1970s. The passage of Nafta in 1994 did not reverse the precipitous declines in labor demand for lower-skilled workers that began in the 1980s, and increased trade with East Asia since then hasn’t done so, either. Global trade has generated many benefits, but too few of them for high school graduates in the Midwest, or elsewhere.

The greatest risk Democrats face in 2020 is nominating a candidate who does not appeal to the economic interests of voters in the middle of the ideological spectrum, who have revealed that they have populist economic impulses.

IOW, hurray for the status quo! Biden 2020.

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@gjohnsit

As if our votes would have gone to Hillary had we not voted for Stein!

As if we hadn't warned Democrats Hillary could not win a general.

Stephen L. Morgan, the author of that Bloomberg article, can't possibly be that stupid. This is intentional disinformation. The man should be mocked soundly.

"Deport Greenwald" reeks of astroturf. I hate that smell.

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Shahryar's picture

NBC has announced the panel that will ask questions of the candidates. Night Two is Rachel Maddow and Chuck Todd.

I can already hear the prejudice in the vocal tone.

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@Shahryar @Shahryar

a leftist. (She says "liberal," but, in context, it's clear she doesn't mean neoliberal or merely "Democrat.") A liberal, who favored Hillary over Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary? Suuuuuure. A liberal who crossed a picket line? Suuuuuure.

(All the MSNBC hosts crossed that picket line, btw, even the late Ed Schultz who, IMO, got fired because he refused to go along with MSNBC re: Bernie Sanders and was otherwise too far left for MSNBC and was therefore, also IMO, the best of that crappy lot.)

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Anja Geitz's picture

Loved the quotes. Especially the one about power. Hope everyone is having a good Tuesday!

Thanks for the OT Smile

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

janis b's picture

I had to look for more quotes from Oriah Mountain Dreamer …

“And I found that I can do it if I choose to - I can stay awake and let the sorrows of the world tear me apart and then allow the joys to put me back together different from before but whole once again.”
― Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Invitation

“I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.”
― Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I’m sure it would be fun to be at one of Jimmy Buffet’s very informal concerts. Thanks for that and the quotes.

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