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Where Do We Go From Here
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The Biden administration resembles the ineffectual German government formed by Franz von Papen in 1932 that sought to recreate the ancien régime, a utopian conservatism that ensured Germany’s drift into fascism. Biden, bereft like von Papen of new ideas and programs, will eventually be forced to employ the brutal tools Biden as a senator was so prominent in creating to maintain social control – wholesale surveillance, a corrupt judicial system, the world’s largest prison system and police that have been transformed into lethal paramilitary units of internal occupation.

Chris Hedges

It was Friedrich Ebert and the Social Democratic Party of Germany, siding with the conservatives and nationalists, that created the Freikorps, private paramilitary groups composed of demobilized soldiers and malcontents. The Freikorps ruthlessly crushed left-wing uprisings in Berlin, Bremen, Brunswick, Hamburg, Halle, Leipzig, Silesia, Thuringia and the Ruhr. When the Freikorps was not gunning down left-wing populists in the streets and carrying out hundreds of political assassinations, including the murder of Walther Rathenau, the foreign minister, it was terrorizing civilians, looting and pillaging. The Freikorps became the antecedent of the Nazi Brownshirts, led by Ernst Röhm, a former Freikorps commander.

Chris Hedges


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My Home Town right now...
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[video:httpshttps://youtu.be/eLTV2gv3VA4?t=38]

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REPORT ALL INJURIES
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Unheard Immunity?
Sub q Report All Injuriesjpg.jpg
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The next step?
[video: https://youtu.be/q4AiTSXjxio?t=1041]
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It's your open thread, now...

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magiamma's picture

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

...a picture of the author grinning from ear to ear like a dork.

What, Me worry???

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6 users have voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

magiamma's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat
Yep. A nightmare indeed. A perfect storm. It’s exponential and humans are ill suited to cope with or understand things exponential.

We stand on the cusp of a frightening authoritarianism. Social unrest, given a continuation of neoliberalism, the climate crisis, the siphoning off of diminishing resources to the bloated war machine, political stagnation and the failure to contain the pandemic and its economic fallout, is almost certain. Absent a left-wing populism, a disenfranchised working class will line up, as it did with Trump, behind its counterfeit, a right-wing populism. The liberal elites will, if history is any guide, justify state repression as a response to social chaos in the name of law

Eyes wide open. Be well moonbat.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@magiamma Now, I don't see how I'm ever going to be barring a miracle. It's gotten to the point where investing in people trying to develop time travel technology (https://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0516/p12s02-stss.html) sounds at least as likely to pay off as sacrificing any more blood, sweat, and tears to politics. Everything just keeps getting worse....

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11 users have voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

magiamma's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat
I’m pretty done myself. It looks dark to me. I say be well bc there is beauty in the world still; dichotomy I know but it’s what keeps me sane.

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@magiamma It feels like my country has been occupied by 2 opposing armies, and we're just either obstacles or cover depending how the battle rages.

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magiamma's picture

@Snode
cynic or realist. I say realist. Take care, buddy.

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lotlizard's picture

of the highest, VIP tier! Or $1 million to be a corporate VIP sponsor!

https://twitter.com/kenvogel/status/1339264210325413890

https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20428535-joe-bidens-inaugural-c...

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/12/200pm-water-cooler-12-16-2020.ht...

[Commenter with handle edmondo:] Just out of curiosity, why does Joe Biden need $100 million for an inauguration? Doesn’t the government pay for the Chief Justice to show up and swear him in? Isn’t the whole thing virtual? A hundred million for what? A Zoom subscription costs $59.95 a month. Is the rest for Hunter’s hookers and blow? Beau’s mausoleum and Cancer Center?

Nothing did change, did it?

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@lotlizard Ball's back in your court, Colbert....

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

magiamma's picture

@lotlizard
We could use that money here for the homeless. Right? It just doesn't stop.

Is the rest for Hunter’s hookers and blow? Beau’s mausoleum and Cancer Center?

Nothing did change, did it?

oy

Thanks. Take good care.

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travelerxxx's picture

@magiamma

And to think I was pissed at our Texas governor Abbott for showering nearly $2 Million on country singer George Strait for Abbott's 2019 inauguration. Biden makes Abbott look like a cheap penny-pincher by comparison. Plus, George Strait brought the band and played live, not on Zoom...

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what we do here, report. Report, show, tell, see, witness, take notes, notice, and check in with our different perspectives. The whole thing is an interesting document and work of art. Smile
Thanks for your ongoing 'report all injuries'.

If we were to look at all the the posts here over these several years, I think it would be a document that oozes contempt for tptb (not deserving of caps). They are truly reprehensible, shameful, repugnant, criminal forms of life. OK, I can't think of enough nasty words.

It's interesting that Hedges makes the comparison between our era and the time between the two world wars in Germany. Politically and in the culture itself, it was a weird, desperate, poverty stricken moment in time. The arts were reflecting the strange, almost surreal milieu in the Weimar era. It was an interesting artistic moment. Among all the other artists, there was the soundtrack of catchy but dissonant and somewhat disturbing tunes by Kurt Weill set to words of scathing mockery and derision of the playwright Brecht.

Brecht used burlesque and parody, to describe the society around him, Weill put it perfectly to music. It seems to me to fit perfectly in our era.

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magiamma's picture

@randtntx
Report. Yes, I think that is accurate. We gather and report on the ongoing demise of our society. It a good ongoing compendium. One I am thankful for. And it is cathartic at times. I learn a lot from it all. Where else to get such a wide swath of current events. I keep looking. Not so many places.

Good to see you. Thanks for your insights. Take good care. Thanks for the Brecht and Weill. It is palpable.

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smiley7's picture

@randtntx

Passion drives art. Wonder if a 'new' Aquarius rises from these hard political and starving times?

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@smiley7 . I looked up the plot though and in that process came across some pictures of szechuan food. Szechuan chicken, Szechuan beans, Szechuan eggplant...hmm they all looked so good.

The play sounds interesting...might see if I can find a version to watch while I cook.

Hope you're doing well, take care.

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Lookout's picture

I keep wondering what the elites are planning for "the great reset". I'm betting it will extend their control and domination. They are currently pairing AI with the surveillance machinery that has been accelerating with the spread of COVID.

While the current pandemic is being used as a justification for the movement, the agenda has nothing to do with health and everything to do with a long-term plan to monitor and control the world through technical surveillance. In other words, the world will be reset to depend on digital technocracy run by self-appointed elitists.

It’s a power grab of unprecedented magnitude, and involves the restructuring of social classes to dismantle democracy, erase national borders and allow for the governing of communities from a distance by a group of unelected leaders. What was in the past referred to as the “new world order” is now known as “the Great Reset.”

This Great Reset not only ties you to it through an electronic ID linked to your bank account and health records, but even gives you a “social credit” ID that can run every facet of your life. This isn’t a lofty conspiracy theory — it’s real. It’s happening now.


More here

The Great Reset is a massively funded, desperately ambitious, internationally coordinated project led by some of the biggest multinational corporations and financial players on the planet and carried out by cooperating state bodies and NGOs. Its soul is a combination of early 20th century science fiction, idyllic Soviet posters, the obsessiveness of a deranged accountant with a gambling addiction—and an upgraded, digital version of “Manifest Destiny.”

They know capitalism has failed and are desperate to hang on to control.

Like my old buddy used to say, "It ain't gonna get better, cuz."

Sorry about the homeless situation in CA and across the nation. Thanks for the OT. Everyone take care. Think about growing some food - word is our crops are going to China.

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

enhydra lutris's picture

@Lookout

be well and have a good 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 --

magiamma's picture

@Lookout
the great reset... a lot to unpack. Worth reading.

Plant more food. Folks, best advise around. Best to get started now bc there will be a learning curve no matter how much you know bc we will need to plant more grains (amaranth? etc.) and sources of protein. The climate is changing as well.

So lo, I just planted some self sowed celery starts. They are about the third generation growing in my yard. I use the leaves for flavoring and save the seeds for the same. Celery is a bit of a remedy and maybe will go into that later. Question. ? How far apart should they be at their closest as in vertical gardening? I planted them about 8" apart and that may be to close. Could still thin them out.

Thanks for the Great Reset links.

from the second link - The ‘Great Reset’ for dummies…

Traditional America, now, is very much in the way of this. Its habit of generous consumption and free expression, its self-centered foreign policies, its sense of entitlement, and its big suburban houses are a no-go. A traditional, independent, strong America is an obstacle. In that light—and with a disclaimer that I don’t think that there is such a thing as a just empire, I feel like there is an active effort to “even America out,” to co-opt its government, to destroy farms and small businesses—especially the ones that are not consistent with this all-digital future—and to bring down the entitled middle class, especially in “outdated” career paths. It feels like we are currently in the middle of a “color revolution,” a soft coup. Usually, American elites do it to other nations—but now it’s happening on the domestic soil. It feels like the Great Reset agenda, through its messengers and through its money, is shaping both the schizophrenic “COVID response” and the suddenly mainstream and well-funded, super corporate “social justice / climate” movement, which are all at this point intertwined in terms of messaging. Both pretend to promote pubic good, and both skillfully weaponize real issues and get a rise out of people who have a real love of fairness in their hearts—all to clear the way for the financial goals of the “great resetters”—such as a complete erosion of privacy (see contact tracing), moving all human activities online (see, well, everything), AI-based law enforcement and precrime (see “defund the police”), and so on. And yes, America has many honest problems. But it’s not like the current structures are being replaced with a council of spiritually grounded, wise indigenous elders who are deeply connected to Earth and who will not hurt any innocent life. What’s being attempted—however fuzzy the marketing coverup—is far worse, far less humane, and far more destructive than what we have today. I don’t like it.

from WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ‘THE GREAT RESET’

By now, you’ve probably started hearing world leaders speak of “the Great Reset,”1 “the Fourth Industrial Revolution”2 and the call to “Build Back Better.”
...
But what do the terms “Great Reset,” “Fourth Industrial Revolution” and “Build Back Better” actually mean? What do they refer to? In the October 16, 2020, Corbett Report5 above, journalist James Corbett breaks down the new social contract planned for the world, otherwise known as “the great reset.”

“The Great Reset not only ties you to it through an electronic ID linked to your bank account and health records, but even gives you a “social credit” ID that can run every facet of your life.”
...
But what do the terms “Great Reset,” “Fourth Industrial Revolution” and “Build Back Better” actually mean? What do they refer to? In the October 16, 2020, Corbett Report5 above, journalist James Corbett breaks down the new social contract planned for the world, otherwise known as “the great reset.”

“The Great Reset not only ties you to it through an electronic ID linked to your bank account and health records, but even gives you a “social credit” ID that can run every facet of your life.”
...
The Great Reset is NOT the end of globalization — On the contrary, it is globalization turbo-charged. As noted by Schwab in the policy book, “COVID-19: The Great Reset,” co-written with Thierry Malleret and cited in Corbett’s report:

“If no one power can enforce order, our world will suffer from a ‘global order deficit.’ Unless individual nations and international organizations succeed in finding solutions to better collaborate at the global level, we risk entering an ‘age of entropy’ in which retrenchment, fragmentation, anger and parochialism will increasingly define our global landscape, making it less intelligible and more disorderly.”

Thanks lo! Take good care

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enhydra lutris's picture

@magiamma

“If no one power can enforce order, our world will suffer from a ‘global order deficit.’

And what type of order do they prefer to the disorder of free choice, free will and free association? Well, look at the order they are perpetually trying to impose throughout history; control, stratification, from autocracy to oligarchy, it is invariably authoritarian with privileged elites and oppressed masses, designed to separate the workers of all kinds from the fruits of their toil for the enrichment of said elites.

be well and have a good 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 --

TheOtherMaven's picture

@enhydra lutris

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

enhydra lutris's picture

@TheOtherMaven

be well and have a good 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 --

Raggedy Ann's picture

I know it doesn't mean much to anyone here, but let me just say that we are going into air. We are moving out of earth and going into air. We are going to move toward a more unity consciousness, but this is going to take time. Until Pluto moves into air, in 2024, we will be in the struggle.

The great reset that Lookout refers to is real, but the universe is in charge and its will will be done via the people on earth who are raising their vibration. The people will overcome but not without a struggle. Power doesn't give up easily.

Keep the faith. Be present, be grateful for all, recognize humanity and become/live the love that you are. We are all love, so let's exude it.

Enjoy the day! Pleasantry

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Lookout's picture

@Raggedy Ann

The failure of the system is obvious...the stock market at record highs as unemployment and homelessness grow. You've got to be blind to miss the disconnect.

The people's reaction to the great reset may just be the straw that breaks the back of this corporate oligarchy. That is my hope.

I also like the idea of "be the change", live in harmony and love with the planet and others. No revolution needed for that to happen.

All the best!

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

magiamma's picture

@Raggedy Ann
I for one am on the same page. I think it's going to be rough ride for many. As you say power doesn't give up easily. Raising vibrations and digging the Earth, literally. Moving forward into the light as we are grounded in dharma. Chop wood carry water.

Peace.

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snoopydawg's picture

Biden's cabinet picks are exposing Washington's total decent into corruption. We have known that politics is a way for wealth to transfer hands once again at the our expense. Obama's tenure started lifting the lid for me on this, Trump's added to it and now Biden has put the finishing touches on the swamp. The author asks: "If the DC swamp was drained what would be left of it?" Total corruption. Here's one except.

With nothing left to do but plunder, Biden administration embraces loyalty over competence... just like Trump

Without competence, though, even the most unquestioning loyalty is all but meaningless. Mining his former boss’ personnel files to fill important roles may seem like the noble thing for Biden to do now, given Obama’s central role in getting his former vice president elected commander-in-chief, but when it comes time for these nepotism beneficiaries and glorified back-benchers to actually govern, the country will be effectively screwed.

In a country still wrestling with the Covid-19 pandemic, one wonders how the Biden campaign can justify appointing California Attorney General Xavier Becerra – a man with no expertise in medical matters – as head of the Department of Health and Human Services. The bar for “medical expert” has been disastrously lowered with the enthusiastic tongue-baths given to Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates by the media establishment, but Gates is paying his worshipers handsomely – Becerra’s sole credential seems to be his performative courtroom “resistance” to the Trump administration, whose own HHS director hails from one of the most corrupt pharmaceutical firms in the US.

Yesterday a report came out that the Trump admin was going for herd immunity because big businesses told them to get people back to work regardless the toll it took on our lives. We do not matter. Cannon Fodder.

Plunder indeed.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

magiamma's picture

@snoopydawg
It's a power struggle at the top and we ain't part of it, just collateral damage.

Yesterday a report came out that the Trump admin was going for herd immunity because big businesses told them to get people back to work regardless the toll it took on our lives. We do not matter. Cannon Fodder.

Thanks for all you do. Take good care and give your new pup a hug for me.

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enhydra lutris's picture

by Buffy & Tanya - a keeper for sure.

More homeless on the way rsn, to be accompanied by a vast oversupply of empty homes and apartments. What's wrong with this picture? We all know the answer.

one word -

HUELGA!

"Change Politics, not the Climate"

What else to say, "Gears and Levers", "Monkey Wrenches"

dunno

It is important that labor self-organize and not follow leaders, read Mussolini's bio.

be well and have a good 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 --

mimi's picture

@enhydra lutris
become much nicer.

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magiamma's picture

@enhydra lutris
right on bro. fuck yeah. HUELGA!

As far as I can see there is no other choice.

Can it happen in time?

One hopes. We need a che.

Be well and take good care.

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mimi's picture

my own Open Thread. I had no idea and had no memory anymore having written it. So, I conversed with Triv33. Oh boy, It's not easy to get old and lose your memory.
Open Thread - Books is my boxes

ok, the books are out of my boxes (took me a couple of years), but now I think I should read them too.

I might try and when I have read one of those books, I write you about them. How about that? Would keep me busy and finally do what I should have done all those years carrying them with me no matter where I ended up living, but unable to unpack them.

Just chatting along here, nothing to see. Have all a good Thursday. Hope you have a place to stay warm and not too alone and stay healthy.

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magiamma's picture

@mimi
Your chatting along is the best. So many pages of life to turn and look at. Please read one of those books and write about it. Looking forward to it. Take good care.

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enhydra lutris's picture

@mimi

be well and have a good 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 --

enhydra lutris's picture

don't know when it stopped but everything is very wet.

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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 --

magiamma's picture

@enhydra lutris
Good solid soaking. Nice for it to come in batches and hopefully not wash out the fire zones. We got about .5 inch.

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big time in the nor' east
the wet, heavy stuff
took a lot of work to get a path dug to the road
so the wife could go to work?
temps are dropping, so will give a crust of ice
on top. gotta go back out and make some paths
before it all turns to ice scream

thanks for the OT
triage the report all injuries

holy moly

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@QMS

we'll be there

Wink

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@QMS

more early Motown funk
on a roll to kill the blues

tanks magi!

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@QMS

hands down
by far

back out to clear snow..

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@QMS

can't stop

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magiamma's picture

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magiamma's picture

@QMS
lots to triage. Lol

onward, bc why not and what else. heh. Take good care and thanks for the tunes.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V92OBNsQgxU]

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https://dnyuz.com/2020/12/16/pandemic-leaves-more-military-families-seek...

instant approval for huge Military spending while military families are food insecure

Collapse of empire becomes evident when the money to pay soldiers who are deployed runs out and they return home to nothing.

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NYCVG

mimi's picture

@NYCVG
free to Veterans. It's a most greedy bunch. They haunted my son for paying back part of his bonus he got when they successfully 'convinced' him, he could be a good soldier and get a free education, but we were not prepared for having been ordered to kill civilians and busting their homes in Iraq. None of that he could have imagined before he joined. Me neither. He joined because after my separation from his father, he was just wasting his life and felt lost and emotionally abandoned. His father told him to go to the military, if he can't do something better in life. Great for someone to say to his kid, who could have paid easily for his education, having a frigging diplomatic status (that gave him money for his kids education) and nobody could touch him for alimony payments or child support. Greed. Power.

Anyway he got out of the military (with honors) 6 or 7 months, before his original contract ended So they were after part of the bonus they gave him. He got a bonus for joining six years, not for five years and eight months. Of course they offered him citizenship for having killed Iraqi civilians. Thank You so much, guys. Diablo

He has still contacts with his VA comrades from that war. Several of them killed themselves, many are homeless, and I am certainly not the only mother who is pissed like hell. I have nothing against the military per se, but I am dead serious against the wars they conducted as of 2001.

Out of this furious mood I happened to run into Dailykos. Oh well, one fucking bad thing leads to the next bad thing. That's just so.

The Germans withdrew my son's German citizenship for having joined a foreign military. (We didn't know that (being in the middle of Montana) and how we could have avoided that. Now, if he were to return to Germany, he would have to beg for asylum. Though he lived his first nine years in Germany and was born there.

Forgive me if I have no respect for any of this shit.

I guess I had to vent this out once. Sorry.

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@mimi
The mafia treats its button men better.

(No criticism of your son intended) Re the mideast wars.

Last year my brother-in-law was in the hospital. two friends from the VA clinic were visiting him.
Bob is a lifer, triple VietNam veteran. John, gray-haired, is an Iraq war veteran. Ryan, black hair, obviously young is a Syria veteran. Ryan told me he has PTSD and doesn't want to talk about it.
Three working class men from three generations, bound by the shafting they got from Uncle Sam. Bob did 18 years then they wouldn't let him re-enlist to get his pension. Demobilization. I heard the same from many embittered vets in the Postal service. At least they could apply their time to their civil service time. (Bob did too, he has a pension from working as a lab tech for the VA).

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

mimi's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness
be well yourself.

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magiamma's picture

@mimi
to apologize, mimi.

[video:https://youtu.be/yR-1v-Si7bs?t=67]

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Pricknick's picture

@mimi

The VA clinics don't even offer covid tests for
free to Veterans.

Both my local clinic and the regional hospital in Ann Arbor are giving free tests and vaccinations.
Others that I have talked to in other states are also telling me they're getting free service.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

mimi's picture

@Pricknick
It is possible that I misunderstood what I heard. I will come back on that. It is possible that I mixed it up. The employees where my son works, got notice per text on I think Saturday night night to get tested for covid, as supposedly someone in the company had been infected. (they did not say who it supposedly was in the company). They were asked not to return to work on Monday without the test results. (There are different tests apparently and not all qualify to be accepted and recognized for work permissions, if I understood that correctly(.

My son got tested on a Sunday at the VA clinic, I understood. May be it was just a copay.

A coworker did not know where to find the testing centers, had no working car and no money for gasoline to get to a testing center. This is an ongoing story with lots of raw nerves exposed by many. The conditions in different states and locations could also be different. And I could be a little too worried.

When phones or cars are not working properly, it is getting a little stressful and misunderstandings over a frigging distance of several thousand miles makes it even more so.

But for some reason, I think I am not worried too much.

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magiamma's picture

@NYCVG

Unreal. Eat the rich. Right?

According to a recent study from the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University, nearly 40 percent of active-duty families had food and nutrition support needs since the pandemic hit.

While rent forgiveness and unemployment insurance claims covered other basic costs, food has leapt to the front of the line of needs. “In nearly six years of supporting coordinated care networks around the country, food assistance has never cracked the top three requested services over all,” said Nick Armstrong, the senior director of research and data for the institute.

On a recent Wednesday, the food pantry at Fort Bragg was buzzing with business. “It’s been eye-opening to see the families that do struggle in the military,” said Rachel Szabo, who was recently laid off from her job in industrial design.

Her husband, who is stationed at Fort Bragg and is on the lower end of the pay scale, and Ms. Szabo, who is pregnant, have been getting help from the Y.M.C.A. at the base, which began its food program a year ago and has seen explosive growth in need. “I had never needed to reach out for assistance,” Ms. Szabo said. “When I did lose my job, we still had bills. I have a lot of student loans still, so being able to reach out to the Y to make ends meet has really been a lifesaver.”

Thanks. Take good care.

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lotlizard's picture

https://www.unz.com/chopkins/year-zero/

The point of the lesson is that GloboCap — the entire global-capitalist system acting as a single global entity — can, virtually any time it wants, suspend the Simulation of Democracy, and crack down on us with despotic force. It can (a) declare a “global pandemic” or some other type of “global emergency,” (b) cancel our so-called “rights,” (c) have the corporate media bombard us with lies and propaganda for months, (d) have the Internet companies censor any and all forms of dissent and evidence challenging said propaganda, (e) implement all kinds of new intrusive “safety” and “security” measures, including but not limited to the physical violation of our bodies … and so on. I think you get the picture. (The violation of our bodies is important, which is why they love “cavity searches” in prison, and why the torture-happy troops at Abu Ghraib were obsessed with sexually violating their victims.)

And the “pandemic” is only one part of the lesson. The other part is being forced to watch (or permitted to watch, depending on your perspective) as GloboCap makes an example of Trump, as they made examples of Corbyn and Sanders, as they made examples of Saddam and Gaddafi, and other “uncooperative” foreign leaders, as they will make an example of any political figurehead that challenges their power. It does not matter to GloboCap that such political figureheads pose no real threat. The people who rally around them do. Nor does it make the slightest difference whether these figureheads or the folks who support them identify as “left” or “right.” GloboCap could not possibly care less. The figureheads are just the teaching materials in the lesson that they are teaching us.

And now, here we are, at the end of the lesson … not the end of the War on Populism, just the end of this critical Trumpian part of it. Once the usurper has been driven out of office, the War on Populism will be folded back into the War on Terror, or the War on Extremism, or whatever GloboCap decides to call it … the name hardly matters. It is all the same war.

Whatever they decide to call it, this is GloboCap Year Zero. It is time for reeducation, my friends. It is time for cultural revolution. No, not communist cultural revolution … global capitalist cultural revolution. It is time to flush the aberration of the last four years down the memory hole, and implement global “New Normal” Gleichschaltung, to make sure that this never happens again.

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magiamma's picture

@lotlizard

pend there, how many friends we are allowed to meet there, whether and when we can spend time with our families, what we are allowed to say to each other, who we can have sex with, where we have to stand, how we are allowed to eat and drink, etc. The list goes on and on.
...
From now on, when the GloboCap Intelligence Community and their mouthpieces in the corporate media tell you something happened, that thing will have happened, exactly as they say it happened, regardless of whether it actually happened, and anyone who says it didn’t will be labeled an “extremist,” a “conspiracy theorist,” a “denier,” or some other meaningless epithet. Such un-persons will be dealt with ruthlessly. They will be censored, deplatformed, demonetized, decertified, rendered unemployable, banned from traveling, socially ostracized, hospitalized, imprisoned, or otherwise erased from “normal” society.

his conclusion

Or … I don’t know, this is just a crazy idea, you could turn off the fucking corporate media, do a little fucking research on your own, grow a backbone and some fucking guts, and join the rest of us “dangerous extremists” who are trying to fight back against the New Normal. Yes, it will cost you, and we probably won’t win, but you won’t have to torture your kids on airplanes, and you don’t even have to “deny” the virus!

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smiley7's picture

Powerful OT, thanks you for stirring the brain cells.
Though of this tune as i often do.

Les bourgeois
Your heart feels so right
Your eyes swim in the beer
Where the barroom lights are hung
With your friend Jojo
And with your friend Pierre
You drink a toast to being young
Jojo thinks he's Voltaire
And Pierre, Casanova
And me, who proudly did not care
Me, me, I was a lover
And at midnight
We watched the lawyers pass
Coming out of hotels which had real class
We showed them our good manners
And we showed them our ass
And, oh, how we sang:

[Chorus]
The middle class are just like pigs
The older they get, the dumber they get
The middle class are just like pigs
The fatter they get, the less they regret

[Verse 2]
Your heart feels so right
Your eyes swim in the beer
Where the barroom lights are hung
With your friend Jojo
And with your friend Pierre
Holding on to being young
Voltaire danced like a vicar
And Casanova, he was too stout
And me, who proudly did not care
Me, me, I drank 'til I passed out
And at midnight
We watched the salesmen pass
Coming out of hotels which had real class
We showed them our good manners
And we showed them our ass
And, oh, how we sang:

[Chorus]
The middle class are just like pigs
The older they get, the dumber they get
The middle class are just like pigs
The fatter they get, the less they regret

[Verse 3]
But your heart slows down
Your eyes do not flash
The hotel bartender sings our praise
Jojo's no clown
Pierre pays in cash
Among the bookkeepers we pass our days
Jojo now speaks of Voltaire
And Casanova is just a book on the shelf
And, me, I proudly do not care
And me, I talk only of myself
And everybody knows
That we've got real class
There is not a night that we can pass
Those lousy kids who always show us their ass
And, oh, how they sing:

[Chorus]
The middle class are just like pigs
The older they get, the dumber they get
The middle class are just like pigs
The fatter they get, the less they regret

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magiamma's picture

Thanks for the tune

back atcha -

gary snyder

O Wave God who broke through me today
Sea Bream
massive pink and silver
cool swimming down with me watching
staying away from the spear

Volcano belly Keeper who lifted this island
for our own beaded bodies adornment
and sprinkles us all with his laugh—
ash in the eve
mist, or smoke,
on the bare high limits—
underwater lava flows easing to coral
holes filled with striped feeding swimmers

O Sky Gods cartwheeling
out of Pacific
turning rainsqualls over like lids on us
then shine on our sodden—
(scanned out a rainbow today at the
cow drinking trough
sluicing off
LAKHS of crystal Buddha Fields
right on the hair of the arm!)

Who wavers right now in the bamboo:
a half-gone waning moon.
drank down a bowlful of shochu
in praise of Antares
gazing far up the lanes of Sagittarius
richest stream of our sky—
a cup to the center of the galaxy!
and let the eyes stray
right-angling the pitch of the Milky Way:
horse-heads rings
clouds too distant to be
slide free.
on the crest of the wave.

Each night
O Earth Mother
I have wrappt my hand
over the jut of your cobra-hood
sleeping;
left my ear
All night long by your mouth.

O All
Gods tides capes currents
Flows and spirals of
pool and powers—

As we hoe the field
let sweet potato grow.
And as sit us all down when we may
To consider the Dharma
bring with a flower and a glimmer.
Let us all sleep in peace together.

Bless Masa and me as we marry
at new moon on the crater
This summer.

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smiley7's picture

@magiamma

The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction

the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.

Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human—
looks out of the heart
burning with purity—
for the burden of life
is love,

but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.

No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love—
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
—cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:

the weight is too heavy

—must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.

The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye—

yes, yes,
that’s what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.

Haven't googled, but, imaging they were friends in San Fran.

Always a great notion and conversation, thank you.

Smile

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magiamma's picture

@smiley7
Country superstar Charley Pride dies aged 86

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/dec/12/country-superstar-charley-...

His publicist confirmed that Pride died on 12 December in Dallas, Texas from complications related to coronavirus.
...

Pride was born in Sledge, Mississippi in 1934, to sharecropper parents, and went on to work on cotton fields, play professional baseball and serve in the US army before moving to Nashville in 1963 to pursue a career in music.
...
Pride made 52 Top 10 country hits, including 29 No 1s, and was the first African American performer to appear on the Grand Ole Opry stage since DeFord Bailey made his debut in the 1920s. Pride became an Opry member in 1993.

Dolly Parton was among the first to pay tribute to Pride on social media, writing: “I’m so heartbroken that one of my dearest and oldest friends, Charley Pride, has passed away. It’s even worse to know that he passed away from Covid-19.

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beautiful thought

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