BACK IN BLACK, SOMETHING JUST 1% OF AMERICANS CAN SAY.

I just love getting PRE-APPROVED, I AM SPECIAL notices from idiotic financial institutions. Today it is the BLACKCARD from VISA, made of carbon composite and the mailing a thick, slick, velvety teaser that drips opulence and flavor for the feeble minded.


Just 1% of US residents are offered this ultra credit card.

That means, only 1% of Americans are stupid enough to think this is a great deal. 14.99% APR and a whopper of an annual fee.


Yes, you can enjoy airport lounges everywhere for this $495 annual fee credit card that will melt a hole in my cheap faux wallet.

Thank you VISA BLACKCARD for my laugh of the evening. We now return to our regular delusional programming.
MisterWriter

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Class Conflict Awareness Rose Significantly From 2009 To 2011: Report

While it may appear that cultural class difference­s are more predominan­t, in my opinion the major difference­s which will pervade this country will be the economic ones that transcend skin color.



We will have a few elite rich and the rest of us will be the labor pool. When you look at the landscape of the country, all-the-sa­me malls and strip centers across the land, you quickly realize that there is no need to leave your turf as it looks just the same as the next, which is good because you cannot afford to leave it anyway. The uniformity of the "experienc­e" is quite well rooted.



Anyone wanting a glimpse at the future need only watch any science fiction movie out there. They all resonate with the urban grit of the mass of humanity oppressed by corporate domination while a puppet government tries to convince you that all is still within the American Dream. Blue pill or red pill - you can choose but they are both the same.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

SOMETHING OBVIOUS, SOMETHING TRUE

It ought to be obvious, but is not. It ought to be true, but is not so easily decided. These are two statements that seem that've no place in our society, in this age of indecision, confusion, mixed sentiment and bias.

What is right and wrong? There is no answer because opponents and proponents each push an agenda that leaves no directly tangible answer, at least not on a societal level. Take abortion as an example. Pro-life is absolute, Pro-choice is absolute. Even cases where a pregnancy arose from rape garners much debate on the subject of aborting the resulting fetus. Is it alive? When does life begin? Should a victim of rape have to carry the resulting baby to term? What is fair? What is right? Without the perspective of objectivity one cannot make a rational decision because subjectively everyone is right and wrong at the same time.

What is the baby born grows up to be a beloved actress on par with say Meryl Streep? What if the genes of the rapist contaminate the nature of the baby? How would you know? And what of faith? Would God forgive an abortion or expect the faithful to at least carry it to term and give it up for adoption? I remember in the movie "Ghandi" when during the civil conflict between Muslims and Hindus, a Hindu man approaches the now starving, anti-war fasting Ghandi to confess his sin of killing the parents of a small Muslim boy and how God will condemn him to Hell. Ghandi tells him "I know a ways out of Hell," and says he must raise the boy as his own, however he must raise him as a Muslim, not as a Hindu.

We like to say that things are, or should be, obvious, but to whom? Like truth, we look for universal truths in a world where only subjective truths hold as valid. The problem is that we cannot run society on subjective truths and as a result we find disappointment when such obvious truths like the guilt or innocence of a prisoner is at stake. We often are in dismay as a contrary verdict is pronounced, shaking our faith in a legal system which seems arbitrary at times despite its complexity.

And even the Declaration of Independence states " We hold these truths to be self-evident..." when in fact there are so many Concstitutional Ammendments to imply that those truths may not have been so evident after all.

And finally, at the end of the day, when we face our maker, or nothing at all, depending upon what you believe, we may learn that there were no truths, only pieces of enlightenment, and only faith to interpret and determine a subjective fate, a way to govern our own lives rather than wishing a standardized set of rules to be imposed in society as a whole.

We live in the "...land of the free and the home of the brave," only to find that last week the President signed into law an act that allows for unlimited detention of Americans merely on suspicion of terrorism, and without cause or due process of law. That is hardly based on Democracy, although is now obviously true. Sadly.

MisterWriter

READ THE JANUARY 2012 DIGITAL CONCORDIAN HERE

The January 2012 issue is available HERE.

BIG BROTHER IS FEEDING YOU

I was reading the back of the dog food bag, all fine print save for a few bold headlines promising the best of canine nutrition and backed by all kinds of scientific data, when I realized that dog food or people food, we are all subject to the same commercial brainwashing.



Our food promises health, low fat, low sugar, low salt, while really offering low value filled with artifical nutrition. How sad is it that we have to fortify everything? Milk fortified with Vitamin D. Sounds good but for the fact that the quantity of Vitamin D is negligible, not unlike the false promises of low fat and low sugar, usually resulting in the "other" being added; low fat means it is high in sugar while low sugar means it is high in fat. You cannot win.



So when will our government start sending us home with large bags of Soylent Green-like pellets that will satisfy our basic needs ensuring that no American goes hungry? How long before the information that is disclosed on labels proves to be so much a fairy tale, unregulated by an overburdened and under funded FDA that is more a pawn for the pharmaceutical company than it is a true regulatory body? After all, how many drugs, after a trial of a few hundred people, are sold to the millions as beneficial only to be yanked after a few hundred deaths occur? Too frequently, I am afraid to say. The general public have become the guinea-pigs for the drug industry. Well, I guess we all wanted them to stop using animals!



I watched the latest Apes movie - Rise of the Planet of the Apes and frankly I was rooting for the apes. We have empowered ourselves with the God cloak that we frequently entertain delusions of grandeur wrapped up in science, with too few safeguards and a willingness to deal with consequences after the fact. And this is where the notion of food pellets returns.



We always hear how lucky we are to live in America, and to a large degree that is true. America has always been the light of promise, even though these days, like the Internet, it offers the best and the worst all wrapped up in the same box. We have the weirdest of the weird, the most depraved of the depraved, yet fight an idealistic fight, such as the drug war where we struggle to catch violent multi-nationals (including Americans), only to see them continue to operate from within the jails, and, after getting a "fair shake" in the American judicial system, released, deported, or more simply, back in business despite the body count of innocents left behind to pick up the pieces.



With the vast number of people inhabiting this planet it is foolish to think that the liberties we had, and long for; the personal freedoms and the unbridled dreams of a sound financial future for our children, can continue without an ever increasing cost.



Just the other day President Obama signed a controversial piece of legislation which, while intended for aiding in the capture of terrorists, allows for American citizens to be arrested and detained for an unlimited period of time without charge. Visit http://alturl.com/jznpr for more on that.



Like the dog food, it is all DESIGNED to be good for us. Eaten properly, it will supply an adequate amount of nutrition to sustain our bodies while the vast media conglomerate develops new brain numbing shows like "The Kardashians" to keep us entertained and away from literate investigations into what is really happening.



Like the fish in the pan of water slowly heated, we swim around, noting the odd weather patterns, noting the headline news of global tensions that could, at any minute, snap into a nuclear exchange between two nations wishing to obliterate each other, and there are many such nations, many loose nukes, and our foreign policy has shown that diplomacy now means turning a blind eye, advice we would never give a parent on raising their children. Then again, we are seeing legislation about how we are to raise our children as well.



George Orwell was so off the mark.



"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free," Thomas Jefferson wrote, "in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."



And that was not written on the bag of dog food. Eat well, my friends.



-Misterwriter



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TALK ABOUT GETTING FRACKED!

Yes, the idea of sucking out the gas and replacing it with brine is akin to swapping land for beads with the native Americans; somewhere it comes back to bite you, or in this case, to shake you up. I smell lawsuit here! Anyone else smell lawsuit? Don’t worry – trust them – they know what they are doing!

MisterWriter

MERRY CHRISTMAS WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT

Wishing the readers of this blog a very Merry Christmas, free of political correctness or flacid intent.

Yes I know that our government has limitations on staffers using the term "Merry Christmas" instructing the PC Happy Holiday-ism so as not to offend anyone else, even though we put "In God We Trust" on the coins and printed currency which surely offends some cultures out there; however, since I do not work for the government, let me wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS.

MisterWriter




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POOR, DUMB AND DOWNTRODDEN; WHAT WOULD THOMAS JEFFERSON SAY? I’LL TELL YOU!

Just a glance at the headlines of the day makes you wonder why we allow the people in charge (congress) to be in charge when they are apparently lacking in skills required. Click the pictures to read the stories behind them.

It is a sad reflection on our country when you throw in the insanity of the Republican primaries where potential presidential candidates show how little they really know, how much less we really know and how the system is dysfunctional.

“When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.” - Thomas Jefferson.  A shame that our politicians make far more money than the average “poor” American, and for what end? What have they achieved? Iraq: 9 years, nearly 4,500 soldiers died and untold billions of dollars (I believe the figure is around $800 billion). You decide if it was worth it! Of course we still have Afghanistan and Iran looks promising for the future.

Jefferson was no fool to corrupt politics and the dangers that lay ahead for this country. “I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country,” he also said. And: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

Reading the headlines it appears we have fallen into the very clutches Jefferson warned about. Big corporations run this country explaining why the pharmaceutical industry can use people as guinea pigs for drugs that later get pulled. Sure they are entitled to profits but when those profits are in the billions of dollars and the American people are not improving from their ailments, something is wrong. It explains why our air and water and soil is getting more toxic by the day and why the industry likes to offer platitudes about “naturally occurring levels” of toxins to offset their damage. Do we hear about the Gulf oil spill? Nope old news.

We hear about testing in schools and yet, according to the headline above, our schools are failing and how No Child Left Behind left every child behind. If you know me you know that I have been harping on this subject for about a decade. The testing is stupid because that is all they do. It was designed to be one of many measures but because lazy bureaucrats and politicians (politats) like quick fix numbers it became the ONLY measure.

Soon we may find ourselves tranquilized as a nation. Forget Orwell’s “1984” because reality proved that novel tame at the best. I keep thinking of Charlton Heston in the movie “Soylent Green” yelling out the discovered truth about the future food of humanity; “Soylent Green is people…”

The presidential debates appear to be about incompetencies and lies, something that smiling make-up faced politats like to pretend does not exists until some zealous media person digs up old tapes and pictures, hookers and arrest records, lawsuits and more. It seems like the bottom of the barrel has been scraped and what we have on the spatula is a mound of rancid fatty oil that offers no value, no sustenance and can be itself labeled toxic. That is not how a presidential campaign should be run. It is not a Kardashian’s night out. It is not a cousin of Lindsay Lohan. But it sure is close.

Jefferson was no fool. Neither was he perfect. “Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”  We rely on talk-everything. Talking political heads. Talk-therapy. “Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have. The course of history shows us that as a government grows, liberty decreases.”  Sound familiar?

“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” Another Jefferson quote.

And for the current Republican candidates, another Jeffersonian tidbit: “I never told my own religion nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change another's creed. I am satisfied that yours must be an excellent religion to have produced a life of such exemplary virtue and correctness. For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be judged.”

And as for our current $15.12 Trillion in National Debt, Jefferson said: “To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.” By the way each taxpayer owes $134,176.

Offhand I would imagine the founding fathers if this country would be pissed off right about now!  Click the below image for an eye-opener. It might explain why we are poor!

-MisterWriter

SOPA: Washington Vs. The Web

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." Thomas Jefferson. There is a strong erosion of the foundation­s of Constituti­onal rights going on, but as usual, the country sits complacent to the changes taking place one drop at a time!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

MAYANS AND THE END OF THE WORLD IN 2012 – DO YOU HAVE YOUR TICKETS YET FOR THE BIG EVENT?

Here we are a mere stone’s throw from 2012 and I’ll bet none of you are ready for the end of the world. We have Mayan’s with their faulty calendar, and we have asteroids, and we have a Presidential election –maybe the next president launches a nuclear attack, and we have terrorist threats, Nostradamus’ cryptic predictions, Biblical end times, economic collapse as the dollar loses its place as the currency standard, and much, much more.

I can’t lie in bed and watch TV anymore without some show focusing on the end of it all, and that is not including the dearth of reality shows that plague us like a case of the shingles. Is it the end? Does it really matter? We all die sooner or later! Is it fiction? How do we know?  At least Harold Camping now shuts his mouth having failed in 3 of his end of world predictions.  And like that old cartoon of the seer wearing a sandwich board with the words “The End is Nigh” on it, people like to point to the Book of Revelations as proof that we are in the end times.

And maybe we are, but hardly from any of the above aside from terrorism or economic collapse.  If you want an explanation then I direct you HERE to NASA which explains it all somewhat rationally.

So why the fascination with the end times? It could well be that we are fed-up with the societal decay that we long for something cleaner, safer, more optimistic. It could be that we are starting to recognize the self-indulgent generation that used credit like cocaine only to wind up struggling to make the bare minimum standards of a halfway decent life. Things have changed for the 99.5% of the country; the hard workers who get little beyond sustenance.  Certainly the Occupy groups are correct in their assessment of the situation even if they have no plan of attack beyond squatting and littering. Those future movies about the big, bad corporations ruling the world are not far off. Especially in this capitalistic society where the right to make a buck supersedes everything else.

I was watching the total eclipse the other night and today the near full moon in the morning sky, and I thought how easily it could be gone. We talk about asteroids hitting the Earth but never do we talk about it hitting the moon. How would the loss of the moon affect our planet? We rely on the gravitational pull for our tides, and even the effect it has upon us. But that was not the main thought; the main thought was how much we assume it will all be there; the moon, our country (still young on the scale of countries), our lifestyle, our families. In fact we wrap ourselves in a blanket of blind faith because we do not want to face the negative possibilities, including those of the country as a whole.

It made me realize that even now, in our vast civilization and history, we forget that we are our own worst enemy, a species split with the ability to be great, creative, inspiring and helpful, while also able to be ruthless, merciless, corrupt and beyond salvation.  The Mayan mystique with their long cycle calendar tells you nothing of their primitive aspects; their savagery which included child sacrifices toward the end time of their civilization.  Likewise Romans believed their empire would prevail; the gods demanded it, after all. They did not clue in to the same belief with the Egyptians, as well as other great empires that, at one time, thrived before being relegated to the history books.

2012 – it has a nice sound to it until I remember that it means I have aged another year and that the years ahead are fewer than those behind me. One thing that I do believe is that we have lost the ability to be more than just some statistical number used in an illusionary economics statistic. We have become so enamored with the illusion of substance that we have allowed it to be taken from us. Shopping malls, Black Friday sales, holiday spending and debts, we forget that all the crap we import comes cheaply and at a price; that being loss of local jobs to lead contamination. We forget that we have allowed arsenic in apple juice, and potentially dangerous industrial chemicals in our drinking water – you know you can no longer drink from streams without boiling the water; that is a development in this lifetime.

Schools talk about dumping lessons in handwriting, while math facts do not need to be memorized. And yet we still cannot advertise at schools in order to raise funds to offset state government’s rape of the system even as we dumb down the learning while claiming it has been toughened with those idiotic testing standards. And the kids that go on to college and get their $15,000 - $140,000 student loans wind up working at K-mart for minimum wage, certainly no longer experiencing that former glory of working hard for advancement. Twenty-somethings are moving back with their parents while older workers are getting laid off and well on their way to ever lower social security benefits.  And so on.

So we do not need the Mayan calendar to tell us the end is nigh; we just keep doing what we have been doing and we’ll take care of ourselves far quicker.

MisterWriter