There are but two types of politicians these days, those who lie and those who lose. And the chief lie politicians tell you is that they can make your life better. And how do you know they are lying when they say that? Because that isn't even in their power to do. They don't know who you are, they have even less idea what your means and needs are and likely that's just as well, and they haven't the least idea how to help you and are about as likely to destroy as succeed in helping you, even if they are so inclined. The sooner you figure out that the only one can help you have a better life is you the better off you will be. And the first thing you should try to figure out for your self what a better life for you amounts to. One thing to bear in mind as you try to figure it out, having a lot of stuff, isn't necessarily going to mean you have a better life. No matter how much stuff you have if you cannot be content with what you have your life will always suck, and no merely politician can change that.
While I agree with everything you said, after reading it I was wondering if I'm supposed to try and grab the pebble out of your hand now.
I'm beginning to believe that the only way to really understand things now is to go completely batshit insane. Ultimately, the dominant force now is the manipulation of symbols and language to alter consciousness, and I don't know if any preexisting school of thought can accurately assess such a scenario.
I'd have to be holding one first. There is no crime in trying to acquire your own stuff. Taking form others however is just nasty. The world at large is no different than it's ever been, it just moves faster is all. There are people who make things people who sell things and people who hire people to do those things for them. And those people who hire them to do it for them often started out doing those things themselves. And of course there are those who want what everyone else has without having to go to the bother of actually doing anything at all. I've been a working man my whole life. I've done everything form teaching school to running rides in an amusement park. I spent two years sending up weather balloons for the US army and about not fifty percent more college credits than I actually needed for my degree in elementary education. I read history in my spare time and scifi. Just finished an interesting work on the last Spanish invasion of the British Isles. The world is easy to understand it people that screw everything up often with the best of intentions.
you're never going to be part of the upper class you ******ned rube. it doesn't matter how good you are. i'm 100% convinced that the essential truth of the universe is that we're all making everything up as we go. fact is, there's no logic behind the ruling order. just post-hoc justifications. there's no path you follow to success, only paths you lay out for other people to get lost on. recognizing that we are all controlled by networks of ideas that can be manipulated by symbols and language, and that there is no inherent power in anything, that's the first step towards stepping out between the bars of ideology.
I never had any desire to be part the elite ruling or other wise. I've seen what it takes to get there, for my money it's much more trouble than it could ever possibly be worth. All that illusory control over everyone else's life? A third think you a tyrant, a third think you a buffoon, a third just don't give a damn, and if anything goes wrong no matter how small they all want to blame you. And the really weird thing from a historical perspective is that countries seem to do best economically when their governments practice a sort of benign neglect when it comes to things economic.
The tricky thing is that the people who define "the best" and do all of the measuring are also the ones who get to control how the world turns. Things can be great on wall street without any change in the lives of ordinary people.
And nd Sorry the notion that they in anyway control how the world turns out is an illusion, one they in fact share with you. There are plenty of historical examples showing this to be true. The power elites of 1914, with the possible exception of Rasputin, the mad and according to some sources oversexed monk, thought the war would be over in six weeks which is why in October 1914 active military operation came to an abrupt halt because they had already run through their prewar ammo stocks that were supposed to last six months. And then there was the on again off again Hitler Stalin bromance of the thirties and forties in which the Nazis traded German technological expertise for the space in which to design, develop and and train the troops in the blitzkrieg tactics that devestated their foes in the early years of WWII. Then the falling out over the Spanish Civil War, the Molotov von Ribbentrop rapprochement which gave Hitler a free hand in the west and almost immediately resulted in yet another dismemberment of Poland. And of the final grand break up that was Operation Barbarosa. All the way through each side thought they got the better of the deal. And for course you can't mention the elites going astray in the 1930's without mentioning Neville Chamberlains disastrous attempt to secure peace in our time Swapping Czechoslovakia for Hitler's signature. I suppose we can't blame him for not knowing that along with Czechoslovakia went enough tanks -and very good tanks at that, easily as good as anything in Germany's order of battle at the time - to equip two more armored divisions.
The people who control the world are also morons, which is one the key realizations required to understand modernity. There is no experts or technocrats, only people who are as blind and stupid as anyone else. Folks like you and I absolutely have no power or influence, but the people who do are incompetent and selfish about it, which is why we need to change that.
They aren't stupid. The problem derives from the fact that like all the rest of us they are not omniscient, omnipresent or omnipotent, though at times seem to be near omniannoying. Combine that with the fact that they seem completely unwilling to admit that they have such limitations or that such limitations actually exist and you have ready made recipe for unintended and more than occasionally disastrous consequences.
It was predicted in books like 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, and Animal Farm, but it really didn't get started until the 1980's with the birth of political correctness.
I agree with you, except I'm sure we disagree with what "political correctness" means. To me, the ultimate politically incorrect figure is Hunter S Thompson, a man who loathed the powerful, the rich, spoke the truth, and a vulgar drug addict who understood the importance of insanity and subjectivity. To me, political correctness describes Roy Moore imposing his religion through the legislatures as much as it represents Sam Seder getting fired because he tweeted a vulgar joke about how awful it is that people still support Roman Polanski that people confused for rape apologia. When I think of political correctness, what I ultimately think of is the equivocation of politeness and correctness.
To conservatives, political correctness is a tool used by the left to shut down the right. Politically correct thought involves support for affirmative action, radical environmental measures, income redistribution, gun control, abortion rights, eliminating international borders, and expanding federal micromanagement over lives. Anyone who takes a position opposite of a politically correct position is branded "politically incorrect" and "socially unacceptable". The Founding Fathers (with their support for small government) are politically incorrect in the extreme. They have been mocked as DWM's (dead white males).
okay so it just means anyone you disagree with because you're upset that people feel strongly about things
Yeah, we have a country of complete idiots and frankly deserve all the hardships and to go down in tubes. People are allowing the politicians and the rich to rob us blind while they are distracted by "illegals! ABortion! Muslims!" and other nonsense while the politicians rob us blind. ANd those that don't vote are equally complicit. If more people voted, republicans wouldn't be winning by pandering to the lowest of the low, the ignorant, hateful and racist. Dems have to start cheating like the republicans. I wouldn't put it past them that the entire Franken think was a hit job. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, russian trolls Look what the North Carolina state GOP did, they changed the rules when they lost majority so that the majority dems wouldn't have the power to do anything. Absolute scumbags
