Recent Comments

1. over 13 years ago on Ted Rall

   Deeper in the geological record, it was a Wild, Wild West episode also.

   It was Prof. Friedrich von Hayek who said that the use of politics to plan society (e.g., government regulation of free enterprise capitalism) was “the road to Serfdom” (c.f., Stalin’s Russia). But the application of the Nash Equilibrium reinforced by medical (a Brave New World “gramme is better than a damn”) psychiatry no doubt has Aynn Rand turning in her grave and leads to the anti-evolutionary stasis of adjusting (the) individual(s) to society instead of society to (the) individual(s). Could it be that Sartre’s continual revolution concept was on to something; despite the resulting bloody chaos? …please; no. Or maybe we should just legalize recreational drugs across the board and hope everything works itself out.

2. almost 14 years ago on Ted Rall

   It looks like this cartoon hit a common chord.

   Defending freedom? … let’s inventory this…

   Oil, yes, in Iraq. A show of hands of everyone here who owns an automobile (non-electric, that is). [My hand goes up… well, its a domestic with a 1.6L motor… hey!]. So there’s the economic freedom from expensive gasoline. (What was it you thought to yourself the last time gas topped $3 per gallon?)

   But Afghanistan? …my man! its the Heroin! The Taliban had shut down the poppy fields! Something had to be done or all of those loose cannons in the ghetto may have had a lucid thought. And we all know the trouble that sort of thing can cause! So freedom from worrying about things like October Revolutions.

   And let’s not forget: freedom from having a hungry Chinese economic expansion suck up the world’s supply of oil. And, of course, all the Heroin, too! Thus freedom to make the world safe for a hegemony of International Corporations. Freedom for free-enterprise capitalism to prevail over State Socialism (read: In Your Face Totalitarian Dictation).

   And to go metaphysical… “So… if it is an order of death, like the Skull and Bones, there must be a human sacrifice” (Leo L. Zagami). And we got human sacrifice on a cheap sale for you …have I got a deal on wedding parties today! Step right up. “Cut our wrists like cheap coupons and say death was on sale today” (Marilyn Manson). So there is the freedom to be amazingly creepy. Freedom of religion - hey.

   This is looking more like the defending of American Freedoms as it goes on. (And make no mistake; what’s good for General Bullmoose is good for the USA. Just ask him; he’ll tell you.)

   And another great American freedom - for those who volunteered thinking they’d get an education: the freedom from having to consider moral consequences, the freedom from ethical responsibility (we were only following orders). And I’d like to hear someone argue that those freedoms aren’t some of the most valued of all of our freedoms. “I didn’t do it, nobody saw me do it, you can’t prove anything”, (Bart Simpson).

   Yet another one: freedom to be finally rid of the hellishly repressive regimes puppeted up by Kissinger’s Real Politik plans to keep those darned Commies from competing with OUR weapons businesses. Maybe that over-reaches. I remember being not shocked when US Troops got permission to carry AKs. H’mmm… a gun that works under sandy field conditions - wow! what an innovation. Who would have thought of it”?!

3. almost 14 years ago on Ted Rall

   You could be on to something, Ken Warren.

   My very first reaction was to think, “oh, yeah; like we need some cave-man mentality to express our national psychic - maybe we should instate Cheney as president… he’s got that angry thing down.” That would be sarcasm, by the way.

   Then I thought, well, that’s the thing I like about Mr. Rall’s work. It’s not some knee-jerk, monochromatic reactionary stuff. He’s complex - its like he’s got a fore-brain (as opposed to being a cabbage disguised as a human as so many in the media appear to be). So then he could be exposing those who called for a stronger, more emotionally irrational reaction from Obama.

   I’m not sure what he’s thinking; but it made me think about the whole damned mess and even how BP is only in business ‘cause they serve the demand for product that we collectively wouldn’t do without. And how if you wanted to blame someone you could kick your own backside next time you top-off your car’s tank.

   Before I knew any better I had a job surveying oil deposits and I’ve seen the fields in Southern Illinois and the Eastover coal mines in Kentucky close up. The fact is its a messy business and spills and blow-outs happen all of the time. I’m not trying to excuse BP but… if they have acted like this sort of thing happens every day it is because it does - that they hadn’t mucked up the Gulf before is either extraordinary care or dumb luck.

   Nevertheless; even knowing that it, makes me feel sick to think of the Pandora’s Box they opened when they drilled the Deep Horizon well. Karma sucks, doesn’t it?

4. almost 14 years ago on Ted Rall

   Pretty funny, sure… ha, ha. The comments and all.

   I think Radish makes a point. I mean; doesn’t all of this seem like a badly contrived song and dance routine? And I can understand that one might feel helpless to pull the plug on all of the bullshit; to think of themselves as audience and not as a script-writer. You all have certainly been told as much, that’s true. But, in the end, don’t you think that all of this will have consequences? That ultimately we all will be accountable for what we did or didn’t do? - what we saw through and what we looked away from? - even if only in our own hearts. Somehow I think of the guards at a WW2 German concentration camp sitting around the barracks at night having a drink and a laugh over a game of cards and later being dismayed that “we only did what we were told to do” isn’t being taken as a defense at Nuremberg. Or maybe we’re just whistling as we walk by the graveyard at night. Whatever; I just have a sense of this moral free-fall that has to hit bottom sometime. Sorry, I don’t mean to be a downer.

5. almost 14 years ago on Ted Rall

   sirrom567: You are not wrong; nevertheless, incomplete. There is the way of the P’o Spirits, which you describe, and the way of the Hun Spirits.

   For example: if you pick a ripe apple from a tree, eat the apple and drop the apple core on the ground you are not diminishing the original tree but perhaps assisting the growth of a new tree.

   Or, as the Most Highly Elevated Master Jimmy Page once said:

   “Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run; There’s still time to change the road you’re on.”

6. about 14 years ago on Ted Rall

   The Birthers may be on to something, really. No, wait a minute; just look at the facts. Sarah Palin was put up for VP and anyone can tell that she is a cabbage disguised as a human instead of an actual human. So obviously it is possible that the people behind Mr. Obama’s presidency could well have pulled a fast one too. I’m just sayin’ if John McCain missed that one who are we to say we can’t have been fooled as well? Something to think about, I’d say.

   That is if you had the time to think after trying to set straight all of the nonsense that amazingly gets air-time. I figure that the idea is that the more irrational a position is the harder it is to refute. And while intelligent humans are trying to come up with a way to argue against something that defies argument the people pushing the nonsense positions have plenty of time to pursue their nefarious schemes that they never talk about in public. It’s just that I really can’t believe that the people who said it would take things like “Saddam was behind 9/11” seriously so it must be a ploy to distract the thinking public from whatever else they are up to. It’s our own fault for getting sucked in again instead of having a good laugh about it and going on. But you feel sorry for the fools that come to believe foolish things like that and out of compassion want to correct their misapprehensions. Grrr - people who dream up ways to take advantage of other people’s trust and good nature should be sent to bed without dessert. One can only hope that just being the kind of person who practices to deceive is their own worst punishment. But sometimes one wishes for something a little more direct and timely - Instant Karma is so entertaining and instructive when it happens.

7. over 14 years ago on Ted Rall

   I can see ahab’s comment in a famous John Lennon song…

   Imagine the government working toward a unified goal to help the citizens and no religions too.

   Something like that. LOL.

8. over 14 years ago on Ted Rall

   […waving hand in air over head…]

   I know that one! The Constitution was tossed together after the Articles of Confederation was shown to have failed to create a cohesive enough Federal Government to deal with Shays’ Rebellion. It was kind of an out-of-breath stab at defining a central government that it least could be said to exist. Washington had to be dragged out of retirement kicking and screaming to focus the whole convention and Adams had done a 180 after getting what HE wanted and was yelling for hanging those darned Rebels from the nearest tree. Things turned out OK for Shays - he finally got a military pension payment the year before he died… but all we got was a lousy Constitution. The Bill of Rights is a basic re-statement of the Magna Carta, and “peers” are people who have deserved Knighthood. Of course, the whole thing was only for those who owned (tenanted) land anyway.

   The Congress doesn’t represent the People… it represents the Corporations - the Corporations who’s taxes pay for the Government. Personal Income Taxes go to the “U S Treasury” (which is not a part of the Federal Government, by the way) and go to cover the interest on the national debt only. Wilson gave away everything that Stonewall Jackson had won back. How many presidents have met an ill fate after attempting to regain control of the US money? (Greenbacks? Red-Seal Dollars? hint,,, hint…)

   In 1951 the Supreme Court ruled that “it is not outside of due order for the Federal Government to regulate that which it subsidizes”. But that doesn’t really matter ‘cause we are now the North American Union which is why Bush said that the Constitution is just a piece of paper. If there seems to be a disconnect between the actions of the Government and the interests of the People it is because there is. Let’s just say it this way: they didn’t really think it necessary or advisable to inform you. You probably would of thought that you deserved or had a right to participate in the decision making, and that would have just been a hassle seeing as this whole thing has been worked out for a while now. If you think of this as a really, really bad thing then watch the movie “Hero” (with Jet Li) or re-watch “Network”… what? you think you have a better plan for planetary management? I’ll bet you haven’t even given the whole issue a thought. You all do know what “fly-over country” means, right? Do your part and go buy some duct tape and sheet plastic.

   Oh, no… I assure you that I’m not a cynic. I’m just waiting to see how this all shakes out when the Kali Yuga finally gets over. The Taoist Masters generally advise against attention to politics anyway. I’m beginning to see their point. Geezo.

9. over 14 years ago on Ted Rall

   So the current version has it that you will be punished if you don’t buy private health insurance? …did I get that right? And next I suppose there will be criminal sanctions for bad posture. Talk about slippery slopes. Should we be happy that our big brother cares enough to look after us? Oh, yeah… “it is not outside of due order for the Federal Government to regulate that which it subsidizes”… right… got it.

   And no one is looking at a medical establishment which is all but failed. Last time I was in a clinic waiting room I realized that everyone there was overweight and depressed - something that was apparently thought of as baseline and not as “primary symptom”. The “treatments” were only triage and mostly for symptoms caused by the last prescribed medication. The minute or two that the doctor looks at the cases does not allow him to understand the patients overall condition; assuming he would have the expertise be able to if he took the time. Superficial and futile were two words that occurred to me and in that light it is no wonder that medical care becomes increasingly expensive. I can’t, or don’t want to, believe that all of this is intentionally created to make money from perpetuating disease although it’s a tempting explanation… it’s got to be ignorance. And if it is ignorance then there is the possibility that someone will learn better. For even institutionalized ignorance may be enlightened with time; in spite of Daniel Sennerts observation that “Humanae sapientiae partem esse; quaedam aeque animo nescire velle”.

   No, all of this is just taking advantage of a bad situation to benefit the insurance corporation’s bottom line (it is the primary directive of a for-profit corporation to be profitable, after all) and has nothing to do with good insurance and certainly nothing to do with good medicine. I wonder if it was like this watching [insert your favorite past glory here] fall apart?

   It doesn’t have to be like this.

10. almost 15 years ago on Ted Rall

    Wait a minute… I can’t help but wonder how Freud’s theory of behavior being effected (caused) by the irrational subconscious impulses factors into the determinism argument. If we are predisposed to certain choices by factors of which we are not aware and which may not apply to the current options we are choosing from; can they be considered choices? E.g., I like bleu cheese dressing on my salad because my father always complimented my mom about looking sexy when she wore that blue dress and the word “blue” was operantly conditioned to the feeling of well-being I experienced when my parents were happy and then associated with eating because I was too young to understand sex. I might say I like the taste of the dressing, but why did I associate that taste with the idea of “good?” Of course, the coincidence of salad dressing and my mom’s dress is not un-coincidental; but not a rationally derived association either. What my father might have thought of fressing as a practice starts to make me wonder why it was that I choose this as an example in the first place.

    Sartre finished off God …did Freud & B.F.Skinner finish off philosophy?

    I don’t even know why that question occurred to me… let alone why i posted it.