Dell locates source of cat pee smell in laptops after four months ars technica (Carol B)
กลียุค — Thailand’s Era of Insanity ZenJournalist (Lambert)
Why Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment Isn’t in My Textbook Psychology Today
Blackstone and Goldman Come to Spain’s Rescue, Sort Of Bloomberg (furzy mouse)
Finland’s gold and central bank manipulation Futures Magazine
Macro Alert: Europe heads towards disinflation Trading Floor
Congress versus Obama on Iran Asia Times
“Disorder” In And “Saving” Iraq Moon of Alabama
Racism, Occupier and the Occupied – Blumenthal Pt5 Real News Network
Gulf nations, weary of waiting for U.S. on Syria, move to boost aid to rebels Washington Post
Big Brother is Watching You Watch:
No Morsel Too Minuscule for All-Consuming N.S.A. New York Times. Lambert warns that this is prolix and has little in the way of news. Is that due to New York Times self-censorship?
Marcy Wheeler on NSA theft from Google and Yahoo Corrente
Anonymous Aide Pushback Strengthens Case that DiFi Bill Supports Backdoor Searches Marcy Wheeler
Obamacare Launch:
HealthCare.gov: How a start-up failed to launch Washington Post
Obamacare Birth Control Mandate Ruled Unconstitutional Bloomberg. Huh? It’s freedom of religion to impose your beliefs on other through insurance plans? By the same logic, I shouldn’t be able to work on Saturday because it offends Jews and Muslims and on Sundays because it offends conservative Christians.
Unnecessary Surgeries? You Bet! Doctors Treat Patients as ATMs; US Healthcare System Explained in Six Succinct Points Michael Shedlock
More News From Double Down: Obama “Luckier Than a Dog with Two Dicks” Gawker
1 shot at North Carolina university CNN
GOP ‘extremist movement’ prompts NC candidate to switch to Democrat Charlotte News Observer
Wisconsin Transparency Force Corrente
First evidence of invasive Asian carp reproducing in Great Lakes ars technica (Carol B) :-(
The FBI’s Bitcoin address Aljazeera (furzy mouse)
LESSONS FROM OCCUPYING HURRICANE SANDY | PAMELA BROWN Acronym TV
You Can Go To Jail For An Overdue Library Book Consumerist
Daily Meme: Congress Hits America’s Poorest While They’re Down Beat the Press
Who Supports SNAP Cuts? Menzie Chinn, Econbrowser
What Was Inside that Red Pickup Truck? Dan Kervick, New Economic Perspectives
Waking Up at the Walmart, Flagstaff, AZ Nolan Conway (Lambert)
Attention Must Be Paid: Loving Petey Arthur Silber
Antidote du jour. Furzy mouse says the dog is a Tibetan mastiff.
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Great news – junk debt issuance is at 2X last cycle.
skippy… Australia’s ANZ banks CEO said securitization is back and A-OK if quality is good. Stick sharps in eyes~
jail time for a 3 year overdue library book doesn’t seem all that outrageous to me. but jail is expensive for taxpayers — three hots and a cot along with guard compensation, the room and adiminstration costs. If it’s a private prison, then multiply everything by three.
It seems like this only adds to cost of replacing the book, which might be about $29.95 roughly, resulting in an all-in cost to the taxpayer of about $200,000.
Of course, you could try to place a value on the deterrent effect — there might be 10 other people who’d lazily avoid returning their books on time (I will confess I did that once years ago and never returned the book out of laziness, distraction and flagrant immaturity). That might cost 10 x $29.95 or $299.95. That’s versus $200,000.
YOu also have to factor in the cost of the arrest and court proceedings. Maybe that’s $10,000.
So if you’re the taxpayer, you’re looking at $299.95 versus $210,000. But maybe justice is priceless. It’s hard to tell with the math alone.
I think the quote “let justice be done though the heavens fall” was meant for crimes on the scale of the banksters… not for missing library books. And why don’t you give yourself up for the books you never returned? If it was more than two maybe they will throw the book at you.
A guy like Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, Richard Fuld, Henry Paulson, Larry Summers, or Tim Geithner can lie, cheat, steal, file false tax returns, wreck the global economy and cost humanity untold trillions of dollars. Y no pasa nada! (Nothing happens!) All those offenses are hunky-dory — morally and intellecutually justifiable — under laissez faire economic doctrine.
But let some poor schumck be late on returning his book to the library, well that’s a horse of a different color. That’s a hanging offense. Punishment, you know, isn’t cost-free. The mere pittance of $210,000 is a small price to pay in order to maintain public order and morality.
Charles Dickens had the drill down pat:
All of the misery is entirely avoidable but for the greed of some men’s (and women’s) hearts.
And whatever disorder it is that causes people to supplicate themselves before the worst of the lot.
From other accounts, Dickens vignette of fiction was no stranger than truth. It’s no wonder at all what triggered the nearly unquenchable bloodlust drawn to the gullotine and the axe.
We must all fight the rising tide of non-compliance. That’s all that holds society together now. We can’t have any non-compliance.
Yes, heaven forfend we should all pick a day when we bring the machine to a halt.
I think it’s probably because the vacancy rate in “country club” prisons has gone way up in recent years.
If we want to keep our non-violent prisons open, we need new sources of laid back, non-violent, almost non-criminal (for lack of a better word) criminals.
Adding library abusers to pot heads in our more upscale corrective institutions makes for a pretty good mix of inmates. I see them discussing French philosophy or renaissance art and be completely rehabilitated in a few short years.
No doubt TPP will add potential opportunities to further add to the mix of inmates. Consider people that bought generic aspirin on a Indian pharma website without a prescription, or illegally downloaded a Pink Floyd mp3, or still use the dog park to walk the dog even tho signs clearly stated “Do not trespass. Under new ownership – fracking site”.
It all makes sense. If we are going to have private prisons, corporations will decide who goes there. I see this as a major area for merger and acquisitions, as large banks and multi-nationals scramble to buy up our existing prison resources.
your solution is sensible.
therefore, that will never happen.
not in this country.
James Corbett has a nice mini-doc on the historical background of our medical system — how it was shaped by Rockefeller interests, the 19th century battle between allopathic vs. homeopathic medicine, a similar dispute in China between Western vs. Chinese medicine, etc. Includes clips of Eustace Mullins who wrote books about the mechanisms by which Rockefeller interests controlled (and control) the AMA and pharmaceutical companies:
http://www.corbettreport.com/episode-286-rockefeller-medicine/
Have to say I do agree with preznit here:
—Obama meditating on drone strikes and telling his aides that he’s “really good at killing people”—
Quote is about midway down the page.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/review-double-down-on-the-2012-election-by-mark-halperin-and-john-heilemann/2013/11/01/8bf4f050-3fdd-11e3-a751-f032898f2dbc_print.html
You Can Go To Jail For An Overdue Library Book Consumerist
If the title of the book was “SPEEDREADING FOR BEGINNERS”, the sentence should be Life. Time to crack down on these Perps.
Just noticed:
“The list is dominated by triple-A-rated International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) bonds as well as triple-A-rated Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) bonds and Israeli sovereign debt. KfW debt is backed by the German government, and the Israeli zero-coupon bonds I came across are backed by the U.S. government.”
Israeli sovereign bonds are back by US. There seems to be no limit to our subsidies.
Scott Shane wrote the No Morsel Too Miniscule piece on the NSA. Shane is the quinessential courtier journalist. So if Obama has lost Shane, it goes to show how he has lost the whole NSA debate. Indeed the flurry of NSA “reform” activity from the Feinstein bill to White House reviews indicates the Administration feels the need to appear to be taking the NSA scandals seriously. Of course, its efforts to date are all cosmetic BS and Obama has no intention of curbing the NSA. But this damage control looks to be no more successful than the original strategy of making it all about Snowden. I don’t think the Administratio is capable of acting in good faith on any of this, but two barometers to keep an eye on are whether the White House will end the NSA’s blanket “collect everything” programs and what it does about Snowden.
Hugh said:
What is the Administration capable of acting in good faith on?
“It is true that Obama has sold his soul, but at least he has one,” claims the Iranian sociologist Hamid Dabashi at a conference he recently gave in Mexico. “That is not the case with McCain.”
Well I’m not so sure about that. It seems to me that with Obama we have to suffer through not just one sin but two: not only his soulnessless but also his hypocrisy.
Maybe the proximate cause of all the bad slates of candidates for office is looking for soul, rather than not looking for it. True believers can’t be controlled, which is exactly what you *don’t* want in an official (see Feinstein, Dianne).
If the center-right (aka Democratic partisans) would stop sucking their thumbs and diddling their feels for a minute so as to see power as it is, we might get a Machiavellian type who knows who he works for and isn’t deferent to comity. You know, another Grayson before he got fixed by the Party.
Or Putin, maybe?
How good a thing would that be?
Not sure of the point of the Moon over Alabama piece. Maliki has always been a Dawa hardliner. Saddam Hussein was executed for the reprisal killing of about 140 people after a failed Dawa assassination attempt and not for the deaths of 180,000 Kurds in his Anfal campaign.
A lot of the so-called success of the Bush-Petraeus “surge” came from paying the anti-al Qaeda Sunni Sons of Iraq a couple hundred million a year to stay quiet. In the great scheme of things, that’s peanuts. Rather than continue such policies, Maliki has pursued vendettas against Sunni politicians and leaders. Blowback was inevitable, and Maliki has only himself to blame.
Thomas Sheridan on Russell Brand:
“..For me, this amazing and interesting last few days is not just about Russell Brand, he is just a part of the game plan – this is HUGE. Mark my words. In time, the full Pandora’s Box of what they are up to at the top are up to will be revealed.
Essentially the PTB are purposefully creating a rift or a Reformation/Civil War within the Alternative Movement. This serves many purposes, but the main one is to get people who have opted out ‘back into the system’ – have them voting for ‘Socialist Egalitarian’ candidates (in reality, traditional Left Wing Fabian Socialist parties such as Labour). Have them forget their anger at the system. Get them meditating, and not raging against the system, have them voting once more and all set for Agenda 21. Allow them their ‘silly conspiracy theories’.
I can literally smell a massive plan behind the scenes unfolding, and causing a gigantic rift in the alternative movement is key to the success of the next stage of the ‘Great Work of the Ages’. I am not the only one seeing this game plan either. A lot of people are rightly concerned at how big this BBC Newsnight spectacle got in such a short time. Not since Occupy has something gone so viral, so fast.
The PTB got their civil war started within the Alternative Movement. The ‘peace plan’ which they will present us with in due course is what we really need to be concerned about. The Builderburg Fringe Festival which was a carefully orchestrated scientific experiment by the ‘change agents’ presented to us last Summer may well indicate their plans to deal with the growing anger at the system. Kill your concerns with entertainment and faux spirituality within a party atmosphere.”
http://thomassheridanofficialblog.blogspot.jp/2013/10/the-purple-pill-cometh.html
And Tom Secker (skeptical) podcast on Brand:
http://www.spyculture.com/clandestime-episode-008-the-russell-brand-revolution/
Thomas Sheridan in a link at NakedCapitalism…will wonders never cease! Awesome. Coincihinkidinkily, I listened to Thomas just yesterday on Red Ice Radio. You know he is getting to The Psychopath Powers That Be when they come at you with a pedophile faux-scandal, which they tried to pull on Mr. Seridan about a year ago. They failed, I see. A good thing, too.
And coincidentally as well, Jesse at jesses cafe americain just wrote a post about narcissism this morning. He quoted Sam Vaknin, a self-described psychopath, who explains psychopathology on a couple dozen youtube videos.
Interesting times, indeed.
the powers that be are sending mind messages through my walls and into my head probably using advanced telepathic technologies developed with a DARPA grant at Fort Meade. I now know where this is all heading and it’s going to shock people. I’ve gotten the message from the signals I’ve received that Russell Brand has already signed a contract to be the next Captain Jack Sparrow in PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN and the interview was part of an elaborate PR campaign. This is my belief but I can’t say it’s an authoritative fact as of yet. Mr. Brand doesn’t even need a costume! he already looks exactly like Captain Jack and Jesus at the same time. Have you noticed what a perfect fit he is with this role? It’s beyond any kind of questioning or skepticism. If the Powers the Be can pull this off they’ll have my full support, on this one issue anyway, because I suspect they don’t quite know what they’re getting themselves into. Once the plot unfolds and Captain Sparrow rescues the amazingly bodacious Ms. Wright-Principal’s brother from the stockade so he can institute a progressive agenda and rule of law then there might be better regulation of the island’s financial services business. At that point it could be time to go short stocks and long volatility. But don’t put the trade on quite yet.
Thanks for the insider trading tidbit. Will be keeping my powder dry, as Capn Sparrow might say.
The same thing has been happening to me, but I think it may be ultrasound or sub-sonic waves, because I read somewhere the DARPA telepathy program is running behind schedule and way over budget. It was just a subliminal message I picked up while reading the Guardian, and Google has to be given credit for shutting it down quick. So I can’t even be certain I did read that. But anyway, that’s why I think it’s ultrasound or sub-sonic waves.
The flash I picked up was Jessica Simpson is being cast for the voodoo goddess role where she appears in Jack Sparrow’s dreams and orders him on to his quest.
I thought, sure, that happens to me all the time too. But then I wonder if the audience will take Jessica Simpson seriously as a voodoo goddess, seeing that she’s a blonde and all?
vaknin cannot be trusted. as far as I can tell, aside from SOME form of characteropath, he is a disinfo agent.
he has multiple names, identities, and even passports last I looked. none of the stories he tells about himself seem to pan out. there are a few stories of other individuals that come to mind that clearly speak of ‘criminal with an in’ where people like him are able to get away with a string of frauds, crimes and even murders over large geographical distances and never suffer a day in jail over it. a few months ago, there was even a post up about one I believe here on NC where a gentleman who was, at first glance, the co-owner of a gas station was involved in some heavy level frauds and crimes which appeared to have something to do with terrorism or somesuch, and even involved in a murder, and yet he waltzes out of jail with only a fraud charge. can’t remember the specific details, so I could be mangling them.
vaknin’s ‘story’ stands out as another one of these types.
I think this is false causality and narcissism among those within what passes for the left in the US and the UK. They are pissed that the success of his vid makes them look like pikers.
They don’t threaten ANYONE. The idea that they are some sort of nascent or actual power that has to be disrupted by a dude like Brand is conspiracy thinking (when we have actual legitimate objects of conspiracy theories, like the NSA and the banks in their dealings with government).
We had a ONE NIGHT 17 city paramilitary crackdown of Occupy. One night was all it took eliminate it as a source of protests. It was a paper tiger of a protest movement. One poof and it was over.
That isn’t to say that the groups now doing various types of work under the Occupy banner aren’t advancing social good, but in no way, shape or form are they a threat to TPTB. Ditto with any of the other leftie groups in the US, UK, and EU. There are large scale protests in Greece and Portugal over austerity. Are those having any impact? No. The left needs to wake up and look in the mirror and recognize what a complete and utter failure it as been as the neoliberals and neocons have marched from triumph to triumph.
Brand has been writing about politics intermittently but from what I can tell very well for a while. HIs short-lived TV show in the US was about politics. He’s appeared before Paraliament. Someone associated with New Statesman had an extremely clever idea and it was outrageous enough to work. And people are pissed off about the right wing noisemakers they’d like to hear something different, but the people who are taken with Brand were never going to go to the streets anyhow (and I like what Brand said, but he’s absolutely not going to deradicalize someone radical). All this hectoring of Brand is an astonishing display of childishness and jealousy. Someone actually might succeed in moving the Overton window to the left a hair, and they get all upset with them because he falls short of their tribal loyalty tests?
You could just as well blame the success of Brand’s video on astrology. Aren’t we having an eclipse today?
Yves, what you say is true, as to the fact that the Left is totally ineffectual. But what Thomas Sheridan has been investigating previously, and outing openly, is the inner working of the predatory psychopathic mind and the personality traits that go along with that. He has done a great deal in educating regular humans about it. He had a forum for victims of abusive psychopaths, where they could tell their stories and try to understnad what happened when their lives were forever destroyed by a psychopath becoming part of it. There is healing in that.
He openly says that he has no problem with Russell. He is just suggesting that there might be more behind the curtain than what we see right now. I don’t think there is anything wrong with questioning Everything.
Also, you might think that the Psycho PTB have no reason to defend themselves by undermining the left, but they do have a soft underbelly when it comes to being outed as to their true psychological nature. It pains them no end, and they are not rational when it comes to overkill (the messenger).
Personally, I fully support Russell and hope he keeps on keeping on. And like Benjamin pointed out below, “Agenda 21”? Benjamin, I was hoping he was being facetious, but what do I know?
ohmyheck says:
Sheridan claims he has “no problem” with Russel?
And yet he alleges Russell and “the PTB are purposefully creating a rift or a Reformation/Civil War within the Alternative Movement,” of getting “people who have opted out ‘back into the system’ – have them voting for ‘Socialist Egalitarian’ candidates (in reality, traditional Left Wing Fabian Socialist parties such as Labour).”
And if this weren’t enough, Sheridan repeats his charges against Russell once again, alleging he and TPTB’s intention is to “Have them forget their anger at the system. Get them meditating, and not raging against the system, have them voting once more.”
And again: “I can literally smell a massive plan behind the scenes unfolding, and causing a gigantic rift in the alternative movement….”
And again: “The PTB got their civil war started within the Alternative Movement.”
The behavior Sheridan is exhibiting is typical of those with an abusive personality. It’s called “denying the abuse.”
Six types of “denying the abuse” have been identified by those who study these things, and I would say Sheridan engages in the first: “Total outright denial: ‘It never happened, or it was not abuse, you are just imagining it, or you want to hurt my (the abuser’s) feelings’.”
How do we know Sheridan is an abuser? We know he is an abuser because he charges Russell with things that are false. The most blatant of these false allegations is when he accuses Russell of trying to “get people who have opted out ‘back into the system’ — have them voting,” to get them “voting once more.”
Of course if one takes the time to listen to the BBC interview, we see Russell did no such thing. In fact, he did the very opposite. He encouraged people not to vote, since he considers it to be a waste of time in our rigged “democracy.”
So let’s take tally here. Sheridan is:
Now while those may not be traits which qualify one as a psychopath, they certainly are the hallmarks of a characteropath.
Another place where Sheridan gives himself away is when he accuses Russell of “purposefully creating a rift or a Reformation/Civil War within the Alternative Movement.”
Reinhold Niebuhr in Moral Man and Immoral Society debunks this argument, and concludes that:
If you listen to the entire 2 hour video, you will find that Sheridan does not say that Brand is doing this consciously. He thinks he is being played as a pawn, unknowingly.
Did you know that Brand is involved with Jenny Goldsmith, editor of The Fabian Socialist Magazine, daughter of billionaire Sir James Michael Goldsmith, and both brothers are married to a Rothschild?
George Bernard Shaw was a big supporter of the Fabian Society, now editied by the illustrious daughter of Sir Goldsmith. GBS, who said this:
“You must all know half a dozen people at least who are no use in this world, who are more trouble than they are worth. Just put them there and say Sir, or Madam, now will you be kind enough to justify your existence?
“If you can’t justify your existence, if you’re not pulling your weight [garbled], if you’re not producing as much as you consume or perhaps a little more, then, clearly, we cannot use the organizations of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us and it can’t be of very much use to yourself.”
Rather Malthusian if you ask me.
So, ya, I am going to question why the Beeb is making such a big deal out of Russell Brand, since those with whom he is now socializing with, have their own agenda.
If you were to listen to the entire video that I have posted, you might be surprised to find that you and most NC-er’s actually agree with about 80-90% of what these two men are saying. Yes, scoff all you want, but then go and listen. The only thing they add to the discussion is the qualities of human compassion and spiritual integrity, things that diptherio and a few others might toss about.
Their combined point is, what Brand is talking about is not new at all. It is the same push-back points to TPTB that have been used against, and co-opted by TPTB time and time again. Instead of using arguments that TPTB can easily manipulate and marginalize, as they always do, these 2 are saying that it is time to stop playing into that paradigm and wake up.
They point out that that Socialism, as practiced in Europe, where they both live, has controlled and subjugated the citizens just as much as the capitalist system in the US has. They don’t believe there is any difference between the Left and the Right politically, and that economic socialism was created to pacify and entrap people, simply in a different way than capitalism. The outcomes are the same.
They say that we have finished up 1984 and have moved on into Brave New World. Orwell got it right.
TPTB are afraid of us, the Rabble. Why else would they create these political and economic systems? So they can keep their status quo the same, Consolidate power and remain control.
They co-opted Occupy. Now they are taking a different tack, by tossing out a shiny new object, to guide us Rabble into the Left corral, which is centralized and they already control. All this outrage by those who think that Brand is being attacked, is being used against them, because all those who are so upset, will join in to their herd mentality, instead of individually observing all the facets of that shiny new object and coming to their own conclusions.
Nothing that Brand said is wrong, he is in fact, correct and you can say what you will about Sheridan. He says in the video that everybody knows the entire system is corrupt and that most everybody wants it to serve the people and not the 1%. The complaint is that Brand may be unwittingly complicit with undermining true Alternative Movements that actually are new, and might be the best path for humanity.
If this makes Sheridan a bit grumpy towards Brand, well, I can understand that. If you choose to nail him to the cross as an abuser, feel free. He doesn’t care.
But you may want to look at your own complicity….
excellent points. paranoia is a rational response when you KNOW that you have an enemy out to get you.
just because they may not be out to get YOU in particular, in this instance, because YOU in particular are a penniless, powerless raving person on the left, means nothing if there are a few million just like you.
unfortunately, shared values and identities are in danger of being co-opted. how can we live our values and not allow this to happen? bargaining will be attempted–“we’ll give you a little of what you want, if you give us a LOT of what we want” and then you can walk away feeling like you made some necessary, vital compromise.
you’ve said exactly what some of my feelings are. I should just shut up now.
What you are writing is astonishingly strained.
In the US, TPTB are NOT afraid of Occupy. The people they might be afraid of are the people with guns. Occupy died as a political force with astonishing speed. And frankly I don’t see them even in its heyday as afraid as much as offended. Remember, the biggest encampment was in NYC. Bloomberg is a proto-fascist, you can’t have assemblages here of more than 50 people without a permit. The fact that Occupy had accidentally found a loophole via the ambiguous status of Zucotti Park (not a NYC park, this never would have happened in a NYC park, he’d have been able to clear it immediately) drove him nuts. And he was further enraged because 1. He really really really identifies with Wall Street (as in he thinks people who attack the industry are jealous losers) and 2. He thinks Manhattan should belong to the rich (he has literally said if you make less than $1 million a year you have no business living here).
As for the other 17 cities, the only place where Occupy was a serious threat to order was Oakland, which separately has a super bad history of police relationship with the community. And I have separately been told from people who were involved in Occupy Oakland of how utterly disfunctional it was.
So I think the 17 city crackdown was not a function of the perceived threat level, but that it gave the Administration a great excuse to advance its agenda of increased Federal control over local policing.
As for the conspiracy theory you are alleging, it makes no sense. Brand’s loud advocacy of not getting people to vote is to get them to vote? You might as well argue that his in passing mention of meditation was to get them not to meditate. And meditation has hardly led to political inaction in the case of Brand. I’ve meditated daily for 12 years and I’m still hugely interested in politics. The idea that “meditation = SOMA/withdrawal” is really nuts. If anything, over time it forces you to deal with emotions you’ve been suppressing.
And FYI the New Stateman is respected but way way way outside the power structure. We don’t have an exact analogue here, since New Stateman is intellectually respectable and old, but it comes out of the Fabian Socialist tradition, then New Labor, and is casting about for what to do. The UK’s left political wing is more left than the left of the US Democratic party, but I would see the closest analogy as a more intellectual version of The Nation, that it anchors the left end of respectable discourse. The idea that anyone would regard the New Statesman as part of the power structure is daft.
Yves, If TPTB are not concerned with or feel threatened by the Left, We the People, The Rabble, and whatever else one uses to descibe the 99% of us, then why do they spend hundreds of billions of dollars to have the NSA spy on all of us, even down to the last tidbit of silly texts, which they store en masse, for who knows what purpose?
So I guess we just don’t know what the purpose truly is, but it is not because they fear us, or are concerned about what we might do.
All I can say is that with friends like Sheridan on the left, who needs enemies?
You say “If you listen to the entire 2 hour video, you will find that Sheridan does not say that Brand is doing this consciously”? Well if that’s so, why does Sheridan not say that up-front and explicitly in his post? Instead, he leads us to believe the very opposite. Evidently you and I have very different ideas about what burying plausible deniability deep within the fine print amounts to.
And I notice you just glossed over Sheridan’s false empirical claims about what Brand said. These are not only spun out of whole cloth but are so blatantly mendacious that their untruthfulness is exposed by merely listening to the BBC interview. I’m talking about where Sheridan accuses Brand of trying to “get people who have opted out ‘back into the system’ — have them voting,” to get them “voting once more.” Brand advocates the very opposite. Sheridan, as anybody who is paying attention can see, speaks with forked tongue, and not just a slightly forked one.
And all the stuff about Brand being “involved with Jenny Goldsmith, editor of The Fabian Socialist Magazine, daughter of billionaire Sir James Michael Goldsmith” is pure ad hominem. Also ad hominem are the attempts to tarnish Brand (by using some pretty astonishing leaps of guilt by association) with some rather select statements by George Bernard Shaw you’ve zeroed in on.
And I’m not buying into your condemnation of Shaw or his advocacy of socialism, not in the slightest. When it comes to this, you and I are like night and day. As the historian Jacques Barzun explains:
The condemnation of Shaw, of course, requires some pretty serious historical fiction, which you are of course quick to furnish us with. To wit:
I suppose why folks like Sheridan who hail from the New Left hate the Old Left so viscerally is because the political programs of the Old Left actually worked. They actually delivered the material goods, brought the bacon home. What Shaw helped usher in was the golden age of the working stiff, which probably reached its apogee somewhere between 1945 and 1970, after which liberalism (aka neoliberalism), like the Phoenix, or more appropriately like Freddie Krueger, rose from the dead.
The New Left doesn’t concern itself with such trivial and unimportant matters such as the material well-being of the workers. That’s for those tired old socialists like Shaw. As Robert Huges puts it,
And I have to give you New Lefties credit. You certainly don’t suffer from any dearth of self-confidence or self-righteousness. There are no doubts on your part, for instance when you throw this zinger out:
Anybody who doesn’t march in lockstep with New Left fundamentalism is obviously either stupid or gullible, or both.
And when you counsel that “But you may want to look at your own complicity…,” that’s actually very good advice. You might want to try taking that piece of advice under your own belt.
All fascinating comments.
Personally, I think it would be much more constructive and beneficial to one an all, if we could halt the criticism “full-stop”.
Whether we agree with Brand or not, he has thankfully ‘switched on’ a far wider audience (which still needs broadening), talking about the genuinely increasing inadequacies of life lived by many today, and indeed, an audience who would otherwise not normally take a minute to stop and think and talk about it themselves.
This has sorely been necessary and long overdue. If it takes a Jack Sparrow lookalike to wake up a sector of the population who normally direct their focus elsewhere , then so what? Criticizing within the left or indeed against the right is a waste of our precious lives. It truly is.
We can always distract ourselves holding on to resentment and bitterness, or by finding others lacking, undermining one another, creating enemies, etc. as it is much, much, easier to do so, than hard-laboring to find both constructive and productive solutions through practical compromise & balance. Both have been awol too long, with obviously devastating results in America.
Though I am not a subscriber to TM (too much creativity in the stats/maths they present in their material as one reason), I do think that part of their message advocating the practice of more love, kindness, giving, peace, respectfulness etc. is an important one. We don’t have to believe in a God either to do this.
The US will only be repaired through nurture. That is the number one priority to not lose sight of, and which should dictate how we all move forward.
Well I suppose every personality type has their role to play in society, including the unconditional altruist.
But when it comes to cooperation, the “can’t we all just get along” unconditional altruist types are as worthless as the teats on a boar hog. It is the strong reciprocators, or moralistic/altruistic punishers, who enforce moral and societal norms.
It is most unfortunate that Christianity has elevated the unconditional altruist to a stature that is not merited:
As Dan M. Kahan explains, punishment is key:
Peter Turchin brings this down to plain English:
Yves,
Many thanks for once more coming to the defence of Russell Brand who’s been castigated rather unjustly by supposed forces of the left who are no such thing. The Labour Party in the UK as it currently stands, its policy prescriptions, its leadership and many of its sitting members of Parliament are in no way leftwing – the Labour Party has not been a leftwing socialist movement for change since Michael Foot lost the 1983 election to Margaret Thatcher and was replaced by the Welsh idiot Neil Kinnock – and I’m Welsh by the way and originate from where Neil Kinnock originated.
All those pouring scorn on Brand for whatever reason are seriously undermining the message he gave eloquently on the BBC’s Newsnight programme, this despite efforts by Jeremy Paxman to make him out as an idiot or pampered fool. He’s neither, I’m glad he’s achieved success and glad he’s now able to articulate an honest message on behalf of all the dispossessed the world over. If only more left-of-centre American’s would do the same, rather than align themselves with Democratic Party interests.
Further, and I hope Yves will not censor me, its just been announced that the 2014 NATO Summit will be held on my home turf here in Wales, namely, the Celtic Manor Resort, Newport, Wales, United Kingdom. Now, I smell a rat with this announcement by the UK government, one that is presently trying to deny the Scot’s their independence from the Union that is Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England.
Our Prime Minister was in our country this week dishing out bribes left, right and centre, namely funds to extend one of our most problematic freeways, extended powers to the Welsh National Assembly, and of course the supposed wonderful news that the warmongerers, among them your President will be descending on Newport next year – Newport by the way being much like Detroit and other major US manufacturing centres in being destroyed by neoliberalism, with all the attendant social issues.
The strafe thing is this, Cameron does not desire to see the dissolution of the UK Union, even though the very policies he espouses actually undermine the very fabric of the Union itself – as such, all the largesse heaped on Wales, another country with aspiration to be independent, and one who’s economy has been laid bare by 36 years of neoliberal economic prescriptions. We are folks the poorest part of the UK, with the highest rates of poverty and social welfare dependency – much of this occurring under the direction of the wicked witch of the east herself, one Margaret Thatcher.
Now, Cameron wishes to utilise divide and conquer tactics to place wedge between the Celtic fringe and thwart Scotland’s move towards independence – which I very much support. And the awarding of the NATO Summit to Wales is very much part of this process, particularly given such huge international gatherings would be held in Scotland at Glen Eagles.
Those interested in the local sentiment to news of this gathering can do so by visiting this website:http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk
I’m posting as usual under my real name and urge any reading this post and interested in peaceful protest at this gathering to connect with me via LinkedIn. For far too long I have sat back and done nothing, I have allowed those with beliefs similar to mine to engage on my behalf whilst standing on the sidelines too scared to participate. The time is now to exhibit my true mettle and combine with others to protest against NATO, US Imperialism, neoliberalism epitomised by TTIP/TTP and the destruction of our environment by multinational corporations and our complicit politicians and media.
So, there you have it, Russell Brand’s clarion call has infused me, my nation Wales has a proud history of dissent, fighting oppressors and fighting for human rights, I want to celebrate King Arthur, I want to celebrate all those involved in the Rebecca Riots – the so called Daughters of Rebecca, and I want to celebrate the fact that the last insurrection against UK governance occurred in Newport in 1839 under the banner of the Chartist movement.
I and my people are proud, we have a proud heritage, a proud industrial heritage and a beautiful country laid desolate by neoliberal economic prescriptions that have destroyed our communities.
Its time for pushback and to learn from the mistakes of the Occupy movement, and all this just for once is happening on my own doorstep.
The supposed left-of-centre types may sell out for coin, and as such have no principles or morality, I for one have no want of Coin, but yearn for community instead – I shall never sell out or abandon all the dispossessed the world over.
Brands words were inspirational and the supposed left are running scared, exposed for what they are: WHORES!
The first 22 minutes makes the point. It is not giving Russell the bum’s rush. It is taking a look at the historical perspective. Do you really want to run with the herd, or are you willing to look at all sides of the issue? This first 22 minutes brings up very interesting points about “Socialism”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHkonQS82r8&feature=c4-overview&list=UUFUC7NaTxZanB_FVOJN92eg
I penned a reasoned riposte to you, pulling on my own background and lack of access to middle-class intellectualised texts Sheridan refers too – I utilised “bollocks” within my post and some how after pressing “post” its lost in the ether. This is a shame, suffice to say I do not concur with Sheridan and by own upbringing actual undermines completely his libertarian views.
We don’t really do “new left” over here, thankfully. New Labour was bad enough, but at least it didn’t fall into the Identity Politics chasm of stupidity.
Chris
What is the sentiment like in Wales and Scotland
on independence? Does the Majority support it?
What would the break up of the U.K mean for England?
@John Jones,
If you wish to gauge sentiment in South Wales towards independence, then visit Walesonline, or the South Wales Argus, I’ve been personally posting on the subject matter and its a uphill task to convince my fellow countrymen in the South to give up “suckling on an English teat”. The further North you move, the more a desire for independence is notable, we see this in the electoral votes for each constituency within Wales – interesting stuff to read, particularly the support for what are fascist parties, namely the BNP.
As for Scotland, well here’s my take, first and foremost reportage in English media on the whole has been negative towards the “yes” campaign, basically a true picture is not being painted and you need to read Scottish media to get an handle on the issue. If the vote were this week, the “No’s” would win, however, the vote is in September 2014 and highly influenced by events in Westminster and the presupposed outcome of the UK’s 2015 General Election. I have a sneaky feeling that if the Scots electorate believe David Cameron and the Tories are likely to win in 2015, it may influence many to move from an “undecided” position to one of actually supporting the “Yes” vote – the “No” campaign certainly is not assisted by the extreme rightwing utterings coming from Tory minister, nor a sense of economic recovery in London and the South East that is passing the rest of the nation by.
As a betting man, I’d put my money on the Scots actually voting for independence, and this is good news for Wales and good news for England where growing regional disquiet is apparent – see for instance views on HS2, the recent rises in energy bills and concerns over Chinese and French involvement in our Nuclear Energy infrastructure.
As for me, I’ve aligned myself with Plaid Cymru after more than 30 years support for the Labour Party, as Russell Brand indicated, the three legacy parties are much the same, support the same neoliberal crud and are all keen on putting down the victims of more than 30 years of free market shite, that is anything other than actual “free market”. i’m actually meeting with leading Welsh Assembly politicians shortly and the leader of Plaid Cymru – not bad going for someone stuck in Hong Kong presently.
Sometimes the best critiques of the New Left emanate, of all places, from the right.
When I look at the mandarins and paladins of New Left fundamentalism like Thomas Sheridan, I cannot help but be reminded of the criticism which Richard Bernstein leveled at them in Dictatorship of Virtue.
What distinguishes them, Bernstein charges, is “a political ambition, a yearning for more power, combined with a genuine, earnest, zealous, self-righteous craving for social improvement that is characteristic of the mentality of the post-1960s era in American life.”
As he goes on to elaborate: “This bureaucracy, made up of people like Robespierre, are convinced that they are waging the good fight on behalf of virtue.” And this is exactly where the effectiveness of their dogma lies, “precisely in its ability to appear to be the opposite of what it actually is.”
“It is an ardently advocated, veritably messianic political program,” Bernstein adds; “and, like most political programs that have succumbed to the utopian temptations, it does not take kindly to true difference.”
it’s not heaping scorn on Brand for speaking for what may be true in his heart.
it’s realizing that there is a horde of the powerful behind him asking how they can capitalize on such feelings within the populace to their own advantage.
don’t be a tool.*
*not saying you are, just a warning.
the left doesn’t have to be a threat. the crackdown of occupy proved that it isn’t one, and yet the fact that a crackdown of any sort was necessary shows something.
those people involved with Occupy and those sympathetic to it didn’t just bow down, put their tail between their legs and shuffle off. they’re still out there–a segment of the population that needs to either remain in the ghetto of an apathetic minority, or co-opted back into the fold somehow.
but yeah, I don’t buy Brand as the shill everyone wants to make him out as. if he comes out with a slick documentary on the political power of transcendental meditation within the next year, ala Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio and countless other celebrity-shills, then we can basically say quite obviously that he is the dog of his master. but that doesn’t mean he isn’t in danger of unwittingly becoming one.
just look at that political rally that was held a few years ago by Stewart and Colbert. if that wasn’t ‘the left’, or at least ‘progressive’ class laughing at their own political disempowerment, I don’t know what was.
I’m sorry, did he just say Agenda 21 was a thing that mattered?
Let the games begin.
From this past week: Hillary Clinton Rakes in Big Money from Two Goldman Sachs Speeches in One Week and Schumer Endorses Clinton for President in Iowa Speech .
Possible negative:
HillaryCareHeritageCareRomneyCareObamaCarePossible positive: Sheldon Adelson hasn’t checked in yet.
The Biggest Insurance Scam In History: Everything you need to know about the ACA. In Amerika, profit trumps people, period.
Friends;
The “Red Pickup Truck” piece gets my endorsement. I don’t feel quite so lonely living here Down South knowing that the general insanity is ‘Live and Coast to Coast.’ The comments below the piece are good too.
Got me too. See misplaced comment one step down.
Excellent take down of the Zimbardo prison experiment. I have often been suspicious of that widely cited piece of psychology after taking a class with Zimbardo in the late 1980s. He admits some flaws with the experimental design when he speaks of it (mainly that he put himself into the experiment as the superintendant) but what grated on me was just what a mincing self congratulatory clown he seemed to be in real life. He did some ameturish theater and called it an experiment; it went badly but he was able to turn it around and present it as a career making success. Great role model for the future MBA’s in that classroom who later left Stanford and went directly to Wall Street to invent the derivatives mess. I could sense it all coming down the pike but could do nothing about it.
“The coming of the Lord is in the hearts of those children at my door, and they will still be beating no matter what forces destroy me, and no matter when those forces come – as they inevitably will”
There are many ways to intellectually and emotionally cope with life and events, to construct that mental framework within which we deal with the challenges and phenomenon the buffet us as we attempt to pilot whatever course we think we should navigate. Mine is probably not the same as yours, and some have a narrow scope or perhaps we can say a sharper focus, while others are broad, widely encompassing or selecting ideas from many others. Since Sunday morning seems to be the time that those in Christian-influenced cultures elect to contemplate and review where they are and want to go, this seems a very appropriate item to share and contemplate. It overlaps my perhaps fuzzier vision in areas that seem important to me.
This was intended as a response to ambrit’s red pickup note. I am pretty sure I clicked the correct link. Perhaps I missed, or perhaps the gremlins inhabiting the tubes had their fun. No matter, please make allowances and consider this to be associated with ambrit’s thought.
Dell locates source of cat pee smell in laptops after four months
I was so hoping to see a picture of a cat when I clicked on the link…”Mr. Snuggles has apparently been hiding in the factory for some time now…”
Re: Antidote–what kind of parent lets their kid stand next to a lion?
can’t zoo visitors pretend it’s a baby lion?
some people just have to complain.
“Obamacare Birth Control Mandate Ruled Unconstitutional” — Just wait until a Jehovah’s Witness organization sues for mandating blood transfusions. Or a Jewish / Muslim organization sues for use of a porcine derived medical product / procedure. If you allow one religions wacky belief system to corrupt the system, all wacky religions have the potential of corrupting the system.
Talking to my sis the other day, she told me that the pharmacy at the local Catholic hospital does, in fact, dispense birth control. I wonder if that is going to change now….oh, and did I mention that the only other hospital in town is getting ready to merge with St. Pat’s? Woopee! So glad the Pope is going to have a say in 80,000 people’s healthcare options, whether they’re Catholic or not! (and really, what’s more catholic than that?)
My So-Called Housing Cooperative ~Faire Op
OMG Funny! Anyone who’s ever lived in a non-trad arrangement will recognize a lot of this.
It’s not the amount of work that’s making you crazy, it’s the conditions of your work:
http://sciencenordic.com/boss-not-workload-causes-workplace-depression?utm_content=buffer40db9&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer
they needed a study for that?
they avoided handily the issue, which could still come in the back door, of employers unfairly expecting employees to put up with a ton of unnecessary procedural crap over which they have no control, and for which they are blamed even though they do not have control.
‘unfair’ is just one element in a constellation. having no ability to have control over what one does or even improve working conditions in any way is a big part of that ‘unfair’.
True, the article is somewhat milquetoasty. I did, however, come across it on twitter while doing a #coops search…one more small piece of evidence of “our” side.
I think you hit the nail on the head when you talk about control. It reminds me of a behavioral economics paper I read awhile ago (and which I can’t find now) in which an experimenter determined that people put out more effort the more control they have over work processes. Some people, however, care more than others. The conclusion of the article was that businesses needed to screen their employees to select only those with a high tolerance for no control over their work. Typical…
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/10/31/things-you-shouldnt-pay-attention-to.aspx
perspective on causality
Who Belongs in Fremont, Nebraska? Ted Genoways – Harpers
The city of Fremont reopens debate on its anti-immigration ordinance
I am now ready to make my telepathic forecast of interest rates for 2015-2016. They will go up. (MacroAlert – Europe Tends Toward Disinflation). Because inflation will finally return. Really? How is that going to happen? All the Fed’s efforts with ZIRP to create inflation have not just failed, but failed impeccably. Why doesn’t any of this make sense?
Sometimes I think I’m related to Arthur Silber. This morning I was discussing rich people with my husband; specifically the rich who own and race horses. My husband likes to bet on the ponies. A few times a year I join him in the action. Yesterday was “The Breeders’ Cup” where rich people bring their best horses from all over the world to try and win gobs of money and get lots of prestige in a win or two. One rich guy rented a whole 737 to transport just one horse. This in the same week they refused to extend the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program of 2009.
In yesterday’s comments there was a link to a video called “The Four Horseman”. In it a scholar mentions that one of the marks of the end of empire is the raising up of the chef to celebrity status. That happened in the Roman empire. And yesterday, as I watched chef Bobby Flay interviewed about his race horse, I commented that the end might really be nigh. I like Bobby Flay, by the way, and use a lot of his recipes. He’s really good at what he does and came from the working class, so I’d rather see him with a fancy schmancy horse than some rich fracking heiress. But the whole bread and circus aspect of it coupled with poor folks betting in the hopes of sitting in the box seats is just too much for me to enjoy the day.
My rancher husband just scratches his head at me and says he doesn’t begrudge the rich guy his money. He said that he must deserve it or have done something right. And here is where I let out a large moan. “Did you get a look at some of those owners?” I said. “Some look like old money which means that one of their ancestors was a thieving capitalist pig and others actually look like they belong to some crime organization. They are all crooks, my love.” He sighs, “You may be right”.
So I wake up today and read Arthur Silber’s piece on how the “rich are much much better than everyone else”. Well that couldn’t be a more timely piece since I discovered yesterday that my husband was buying into this malarkey except for my intervention. The rich are better and the rest of us are slugs. This also fits neatly into a piece by our own Diptherio on the Hindu Caste system and why we too have one here in the U.S. http://threadingthepearls.blogspot.com/2013/11/cooperatives-counteract-contemporary.html
“Know your place” has been around for centuries, but resurfaced with a vengeance in the last thirty years in retaliation for the upstarts of the 1960s who dared to challenge the caste system. With it came the marketing of knowing your place by imitating your betters. So “Look to your betters” for advice on clothes, food, wine and what is newsworthy, Silber points out. Actually the clothes part is where my husband has me beat as he is certainly no fashion horse. And most of the time he takes the news with a grain of salt, so I was surprised when even he somewhat bought into the “rich are better” meme. It is an insidious invention and needs to be called out. Glad Silber is still around.
Thanks for the link, glad you found something useful in it.
From watching the Wire I discovered that one of the ways police try to figure out who’s engaged in criminal activity is just to look and see who has too much money. If some guy has gotten super-rich and it’s not clear exactly how, that’s just about probable cause for an investigation right there. I think it’s quite conceivable that someone might get millionaire- or multi-millionaire-rich legitimately, but anyone sitting on billions has almost assuredly been engaged in shady dealings somewhere along the line (or one of their ancestor’s was).
There was some commentary here recently on Mr. Buffet’s (Warren, not Jimmy) insider-trading that allowed him to become a titan of the stock-market. Without conclusive proof to the contrary, I assume that any massive fortune has been acquired through illegitimate means (is that prejudicial of me?).
Thanks for the inspiration to get me writing again. I have a longer version that asks the question about why all of us shouldn’t have the leisure time that the 1% ejoy. It’s an ongoing theme that I like to write about and have been inspired in that by David Graeber. http://themontanamaven.com/2013/11/03/look-to-your-betters/
having some limited experience in the drug-crime world, I would say that the police know who the crims are. and the crims usually know they know.
being busted depends upon whether you stepped out of line in some way that day, or whether the cops need to redeem themselves if something happened in the community that could in any way be construed as emanating from your group.
in other words, everyone will get their time to be busted. and even though the cops know who you are and what you’re doing, you won’t be busted for it everyday. just keep your head down and keep your people under control, and take your raps when you get ’em.
and that is from, not a street-level dealer perspective (because white-trash urban types tend to not be that blatant. either that, or they’re more prosperous and thus have an actual ‘home base’ that they own) but one level above that.
all ‘good’ examinations of the Zimbardo study in school examine directly just how flawed that study was.
so, her lack of mentioning it in her book (and possibly classes) is refusing to provide the students with a learning opportunity.
any teacher in favor of the truth and developing the abilities of students to sniff out the truth should welcome such things.
all the hubbub-rhubarb above about Brand and the ‘plot’ to co-opt us disenfranchised radicals back into the fold.
as I say, i’m not politically astute. I dont’ get the sense that Brand himself is just shillin’ for the massah. but we have to realize that the powers that be will do ANYTHING, and will use ‘cool’ to co-opt Anything, and will use our best intentions against us. as long as we were opting-out or sitting and bitchin’ on the sidelines, that was fine with them because there’s always going to be ‘complainers’ and ‘whiners’. the danger is exactly as someone has posted repeatedly that message from one of the original TeaParty members about how their movement was co-opted and drowned out in a sea of corporate stage-craft.
the danger is, these stirrings actually causing motion. the predator class is astute at seeing this motion and using it, aikido-like, for its own benefit. we need to beware, not of Brand but of becoming a party to a branded revolution whose only concern is ‘a seat at the table’, because that way lies a few breadcrumbs being tossed and the whole game being lost. the survivors of the 1960’s should be the most aware of this danger. they actually ‘got’ some of what they wanted—cultural change. loosening up. more ability to be ‘you’ and not conform to some straightlaced ideal. the situation there was obviously, from the overclass’s point of view “if this can be turned to our benefit, why stand in the way? actually, now we can get EVEN RICHER selling them all ‘individualized’ products to appeal to their fantasies of self-distinction. just sell the preppy version, the hippy version, and so on…”
they will do this to anything. as ya’ll were just commenting the other day, capitalism is able to turn anything into a weapon. even something that was originally meant to be a weapon against itself. don’t tar that Sheridon with the ‘conspiracy nut’ brush simply because he’s tying the wrong ends of the shoelace together. his warning is what we need to pay attention to. because ‘now we have someone speaking for us’ means we can be subject to branding, co-optation and the rest of the PR/advertising tricks.
anon y’mouse says:
Sheridan doesn’t warn us that Brand might be “co-opted” or that “because ‘now we have someone speaking for us’ means we can be subject to branding, co-optation and the rest of the PR/advertising tricks.”
For the life of me I don’t understand why you can’t understand what Sheridan is saying or doing here. To repeat, here’s what he said:
He is accusing Brand of being part of a “HUGE” game plan to “purposefully create a rift “within the Alternative Movement.”
He is not accusing Brand of incompetence, naivite or being co-opted. He is accusing Brand of malicious intent.
as I said, he’s tying the wrong ends of the shoelace together.
just because the details of what he’s saying are incorrect doesn’t mean that it is not a danger. getting people re-invested into a failing system thinking that they can ‘change things’ and then having them put in years of effort to do so only to fail and say ‘we just weren’t strong enough’, and so on just soaks up energy.
that is the basic paradox of the age, as far as I can tell—the need to come together as a group to get anything done and realization that once that occurs, it will be just be beginning of our problems. you have been a part of this conversation about ‘ideology’ and so on, right? what is that, if not a way to identify a segment of a market?
I just worry about co-optation. we are all susceptible. most people I the country (world?) are not really aware of how they’re manipulated. just because NC readers and others so-inclined ARE aware doesn’t make them fully immunized.
that is all. just niggling worries. I like what Brand said, and how he said it. but my fear begins anytime I like someone, because I do quite obviously become less willing to carefully scrutinize what they say. the first defense wall is down, by that point. sometimes all of the others are down, too.
should’ve been “scrutinize what they say, and their motivations for saying it.”
hopefully that’s obvious, though.
Motivations, as such, are essentially unknowable with any degree of accuracy without an fMRI scan or other physiological monitoring. I don’t think it’s too valuable to consider them unless one is deliberately committing the fundamental attribution error in order to speak to the vernacular language and ideology.
It’s more interesting to me to concentrate on incentives. Motivations follow the officeholder out the door, but incentives are approximately stationary and provide more room to consider “If you were them, wouldn’t you?” as part of a problem and solution. But maybe the trail to where logos matters (and where the problem under consideration is more clearly the stated problem to which solutions are offered rather than some hostile cultural tenet to which solutions are offered) runs through a lot more pathos and ethos than I can stomach in one sitting.
“The details of what he’s [Sheridan’s] saying are incorrect”?
The “details”?
anon y’mouse, whenever someone, like Sheridan, has to accuse someone of saying something which that person never said in order to make his argument, we are not talking “details.”
Face it, Sheridan is dishonest in his argumentation. There is no way of getting around that, and that is no “detail.”
anon y’mouse says:
How is it you’re so all-fired sure it’s Brand who is co-opted or doing the co-opting, and not Sheridan?
dude, read.
I have no idea whether Brand is speaking truth as he knows it and feels it, or is being deceptive. instinctively, I think he’s speaking what he feels. but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out the opposite. the man, after all, is an entertainer.
as for whether he has been co-opted, knowingly and willingly or not, I don’t know that either. and i’m not advocating for that view.
what I am saying, in my confused fashion, is that his words resonated ALL AROUND THE WORLD. when something like that happens, the powers that be stand up and take note. they wonder if there is something in it for them, and if not, how it can be used to turn it towards something that can be used for them.
we have a very large amount of people in this country and world who apparently feel that the system does not work (else Brand’s statement would not have resonated) for them, and is not interested in working for them. as a marketing person (i’m not, but playing on on TV this minute) I would be saying that this is a segment of the population whose political needs are not being met by the market, and wondering how I can sell, or appear to sell something to meet that need.
that is all i’m saying. I don’t know about Brand’s motivations. I don’t know if he’s tied to the Bilderburg group, space aliens, Timothy Leary, the Yellow Submarine, or any of that hooha crap, or much worse…the real things that these conspiracy-theory, covert control type memes overlay (the real powers). all I know is, we are highly malleable to the message that he gave voice to.
i don’t even necessarily think he wants to be the face of ‘the movement’ or whatever. right now, he’s just another guy with an opinion that appears to match mine in some ways. i just really want to avoid becoming the left-leaning version of the Koch Teaparty, thankyouverymuch. i don’t have the energy to invest in something that is not real, and has no true intention of at least making the crazy attempt of a quixotic charge, in some minute way, against this system we’re trapped in.
also, if you have a problem with what Sheridon wrote, believes or puts forth, take it up with him.
i think he has a hyperbolic writing style, and perhaps some wacky beliefs. dunno, never seen or heard of him before this very day on this very website.
i take his warning as potentially a good one, in line with fostering a bit of critical thinking at least.
the rest, you have to decide upon for yourself. i’m not here to defend him, Brand, or anyone else. i’m not even really here to defend myself. just my right to try to determine the truth, in order to form a few more truthful beliefs. i find the arguments against being at least cautious about some things highly suspect. that is not the same thing as saying that there is absolute proof that XYZ is happening, or Brand is in Cahoots with MI5, or whatever.
if you want to play rhetorical pin-the-tail on the donkey deconstructing everything i say, and everything Sheridon says, and how what each of us says belies or backs up each other, have fun with that.
anon y’mouse says:
You say that, but your comments are so biased and one-sided that they say something very different.
Here, let me fix that for you:
petty word transposal games prove nothing.
you address none of what i say. you merely play childish games with what i say trying to make it sound like i’m a fool, and/or a shill.
you are transparent.
“Petty word transposal games prove nothing”?
I think they do. They very deftly illustrate how biased and one-sided your arguments are.
You play this little hide-and-seek game where you claim neutrality, as if you’re some impartial judge. But it’s a sham.
Thank you, from Mexico.
Only a nincompoop or someone who wanted to believe Brand had Impure Motives (whether out of jealousy, as I suspect, or because they were misled by someone they figured was smarter than they were) would believe Brand was up to something sneaky and pretending to mean what he says.
There’s a righteous vitreol in him that is refreshing. I have only come across him in the past few months, and am really impressed.
If only people purporting to be liberals in the US were not so prissy about who they consort with they’d see he’s got more sense than anyone they have fielded for a very long time.
It’s been said that sleepers may not even know they’re sleepers until they’re activated.
Thailand’s Era of Insanity–Utterly fascinating! (and long).
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/11/10-corporations-control-nearly.html
Well, at least we have a clear and definitive choice in our political parties, and therefore the decisions made in governing the country…
What with the republicans always voting for balanced budgets…except for funding the Iraq war and Medicare part D and never actually putting forth a balanced budget…and guardians of the Capitalistic PROFIT and LOSS, except for the LOSS part, bailing out the very richest…
And the Democrats protecting our civil liberties…except for the Patriot Act…And guardians of equal justice under law, except when they can’t figure out if there was any control fraud in the banks….
Uh, gee, maybe we don’t have much choice with our Demopublican/Republicrat political system after all…
If Dread Pirate Roberts really cobbled together Silk Road, “which through a user-friendly, Amazon-like interface” was able to process tens of $millions in ilicit transactions, maybe the Obama Administration ought to make a deal with him to fix healthcare.gov.