Yeah I have to wonder why Obama (and European leaders are pushing this and I have my theories). No we can't take everyone in nor should we. Is it coincidence that this all happens in the talk of stricter gun control? Reminds me a lot of what happened before WW2.
Give me your poor, your tired, your weak. These words ring true today as they did when our country was founded. So we don't accept immigrants any more, eh, former_stripper?
Many of the things that Trump said about immigrants have been proven true in the following months. It's like Trump had a crystal ball to know exactly what issue to raise that was going to soon explode in the national news.
Vince, that's just a poem that some woman wrote in the early 1900s. It's not in the constitution or any document of any substance. And the quote was written at a unique time in American history where the influx of migrants was the lifeblood of the country. In sad contrast, immigrants today often pose a direct threat to the continued peaceful existence of western society. Put differently, we can no longer afford to take in the poor huddled masses when some of the people in those masses have committed their lives to our destruction.
"We can no longer afford to take in the poor huddled masses when some of the people in those masses have committed their lives to our destruction."
Very well put
Omfg I read about all the new sexual assault cases that are rising like a pandemic in Germany cause Mid Easties don't know how to behave themselves and real women who go out at night. It's fucking disgusting. When I was in Paris, and saw these fuckers damn near rape a girls who was walking with her boyfriend. Unfortunately these fuck need to be dealt with very harshly as the only language they speak is violence
This conversation needs some balance, there needs to be some line between ignorance and fascism and unlimited,wholesale open borders. This country was founded on immigration and it is the cornerstone of our democracy, and standing for the underdog is in our DNA. We have fought wars to protect others and most likely we will again but we need some sanity about how we allow people in to our nation. The world has changed and any sane person will recognize this but still there is no perfect solution to the immigration problems we are having. My own personal belief is that we should not isolate ourselves from foreign born people coming here, rather we should be welcoming those that are here to make a contribution and there needs to be a way to sort out the ones that want to cause problems, that to me, would be a better direction for this debate.
I'm not afraid of immigrants, and I have faith our security agencies will keep us relatively safe from organized plots. Yes, there will be failures, but the alternative is to live in a police state like N. Korea, which has the safest streets in the world (as long as you don't get arrested by that very same government).
I'm more afraid of the gun nuts next door getting automatic weapons to "defend" themselves, and shooting me by accident. The probability of me dying at the hands of a legal (or otherwise) gun owner are way, way higher than any terrorist attack.
"there needs to be a way to sort out the ones that want to cause problems"
There is no way to sort them out. Many Muslims, if we let them in, will only get serious about their faith (and therefore serious about killing us) after they move here. How can we possibly predict which Muslims will become devout after they move here. At best, we could only filter out some of the ones who have already become murderous thugs.
This is the sort of stupid stuff that happens when you are more afraid of the weapons used to defend against criminals rather than the criminals themselves:
[view link]
Just out of curiosity To former stripper not meaning any disrespect were you the person that came from Russia or was it Dancer95 ? If it was you why would you shut the door ? If not I understand where you are coming from, I don't agree but I respect your right to feel that way.
No, I didn't come from Russia. I do have recent immigration in my family but we just can't take everyone in. We don't have the jobs for Americans, let alone anyone else. We also can't keep throwing money at problems. Most importantly, we live in a world of terror and we can't let in people who might kill us.
More terrorism here is done by Angry White Males, than by any other group.
There are more Whites on welfare than minorities or immigrants.
Usually immigrants do the jobs no one else wants to do, and then they are also consumers. People at the bottom spend their money, they don't find ways to take it out of circulation.
Donald Trump, the New George Wallace?
[view link]
SJG
Yes but there are more whites than anyone else. Here's an article that states more than half of all immigrants are on welfare. [view link]. Then there is this that states 90% of Muslim refugees are on welfare: [view link]. The only group I believe who doesn't use welfare that much are Indians (from India)but that makes sense.
Well if someone is white and on welfare then they aren't privileged are they? I'm not on welfare and knew people who were but they were American, not immigrants.
SJG put in his place by simple and blatantly obvious statistical concepts. Better go back to misstating the evidence about marihuana instead my favorite gravy consuming liberal.
Very unlikely that immigrants will be on welfare. I live surrounded by immigrants all the time.
The people that are on welfare are the ones who have grown up here and been exploited as children and denied a place in the world. A very few are able to fight back, but most end up on alcohol, drugs, born again Christianity, and psychiatric medication. At least by being on welfare, they are resisting and fighting back in the limited way they can.
Immigrants tend to take our society at face value. So they do the jobs no one else would ever be willing to do.
SJG
"Very unlikely that immigrants will be on welfare."
Hate to confuse the issue with actual facts, but immigrants use welfare in far greater numbers than others. Here are a bunch of statistics although I know that SJG won't be deterred just because of what the actual facts show.
[view link]
SJG please go back to telling us about the evils of Mary Jane. I heard that it makes people into sex starved zombies.
51% of house holds use at least one welfare program in a year? That is nothing! That is just people trying to stay alive. Often they will be homeless or near homeless. Immigrants come to where I am and end up shift sleeping 10 per room. So I think we should raise all of these welfare benefits by a factor of at least 4x, just to give them a chance. Immigrants are the hardest working people we have, and the jobs they do are the most necessary. Also, what is being called welfare here is extremely broad.
Now those who have been born here, products of the middle class American family, they are the people most likely to do the jobs that serve zero social good, and sometimes pocketing a great deal of money out of it. And public money goes far more to help the middle class than the poor. They may not call it welfare, but that is still what it amounts to. Far more public money goes into providing things which help people who have money, than those who have not.
Then those who are the rejects of the American middle class family. the scape goats, they are the ones who lead destructive lives, alcohol, drugs, born again Christianity, and psychiatric medications. At least if they are on welfare they are not making the situation any worse by getting huge amounts of money for doing jobs that would be better not done!
Sex Starved Zombies? No, that would actually be a step up. What Mary Jane makes people into is tuned out numbed out wasted lost buffoons who have no idea which way is up.
SJG
To SJG if you actually paid some taxes it would be a great idea, but since you don't pay any taxes stop trying to think up new uses for my tax dollars. Let these poor folks figure out a way to pay for their own shit, I worked hard enough and I am tired of having mine used to support everyone except for me.
twentyfive, I don't know what this 'work' you do is. But with the majority of forms of paid employment, our society would be better off if we just paid people their full salary so long as they promised not to drive their cars. Very little paid employment is really worth the gas people burn up driving to and from work.
It would not surprise me in the least if you are a person employed in a manner which contributes nothing to our society. And it does not surprise me at all that you complain about paying the very taxes which recirculate to provide you with your salary.
People must think the government just piles up the tax money, crams it into vaults in Fort Knox, or something like that.
Do you really know what the government does with the tax money?
It SPENDS IT!
This is what keeps the middle tier of our employment market afloat. The money recirculates. It pays your salary. You might not be getting a welfare check, but you are getting money from the same tax base that pays for welfare. But you are probably taking a bigger slice of the pie.
So if people will accept welfare instead of trying to create more unnecessary and wasteful jobs, that is an extremely cheap solution. If you know anyone on welfare you should thank them for not trying to get your job.
Welfare is not actually intended to provide for the needs of the poor. If it were, it would have to pay a great deal more money. The reason it exists, going back to the beginnings of Capitalism in the 1600's, is to put the poor through a series of ritual humiliations in order to regulate them and also to frighten wage workers into submission.
So twentyfive, if you want to quit your job and stop accepting the recirculating tax money which makes for your pay check, fine with me. Do it. Our society will be better off.
Francis Fox Piven, Welfare Rights Movement
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SJG
Ruby Tuesday
[view link]
I own a business in the construction industry we build shit does that contribute enough to society for you. Some of the buildings that we have been instrumental in building are high rise dwellings, retail developments, hospitals, a few schools, some dormitories for several colleges I believe we have been contributing members of society what the fuck do you do specifically, that allows you to spout off in such an idiotic fashion. Unlike you I pay both ends of the withholding taxes that you get a refund from every year, I also contribute to social security both the workers portion and the employers portion that allows you to receive an annuity once you reach a mandated retirement age along with contributions to employee health insurance and many other programs. So just shut the fuck up about shit you know nothing about and thank god that you live in a country where there are actually people doing meaningful things, instead of acting like you leeching off of their hard work and forming half assed theories about leading a sex worker revolution, you are as my grandfather and father would have said, a major dumb ass, I am through responding to your silly senseless totally baseless opinions.
But there are also other people who would like to do the same type of construction industry work. So while you may indeed be very good at what you do, there are others who would like the chance to do the same sorts of things, because they also have such skills. They just have not been able to work themselves into such a position.
And now there are lots of women who are sex workers. They need to be able to earn a living too, just like you do. Every mouth needs to be fed. Everyone needs to be housed. And if you were to ask me, every cock needs to be drained dry regularly.
These taxes that you speak of, the ones all employers pay, these are what keep the middle sector of our economic hierarchy in place. Without those taxes, our society would go like all others before it and split into the very rich and the very poor. Your spot would be wiped out. I know you wouldn't want that.
You explain about all the taxes you pay, but it is actually those very taxes from which your own money to pay those taxes with comes.
Ours is not the most simple sort of an economy, but as you take money from it, you do have to follow its rules. Tax money recirculates and goes back into the hands of people like yourself, who then pay some of it in taxes and then it also recirculates.
Money recirculates the most and the fastest when it is in the hands of those with the least. Like for example Food Stamps, when Obama increased that at the start of his Presidency, he did a tremendous good in stimulating and improving our economy, as well as just staving off problems. Giving money to the people at the bottom does the most good. But in fact most government expenditure helps those in the middle and those at the top more than it helps those at the bottom.
About tax refunds, it depends upon whether you pay more than you will need to or less during the year. Usually people who just have wage income from an employer will get a small refund. People who have other income will often need to pay estimated taxes. Depending on how much they pay, they may get some more back in a refund, or they may still be owing some.
Understand, its all left pocket and right pocket. Your left pocket gets income from people recirculating the tax money that the government spends. Then out of your right pocket you pay all sorts of taxes, which the government will spend so that you can keep on receiving income in your left pocket.
Probably the guy who got this all figured out first was John Maynard Keynes. When the stock market bubble broke in 1929, and then when the auto makers shut down and unemployment skyrocketed, the ideas of Keynes came into favor. The idea is that government has a huge role to play in stabilizing the economy. The way it does this is by collecting tax money, and then spending it.
It worked from about 1933 till 1980. Then Ronald Reagan got elected and it all went to shit. Now we have booms and busts regularly, and who gets blamed for all our troubles? The poor and immigrants.
Dougster, even though there is much you and I disagree about, WE NEED YOU BACK to help explain this stuff!
SJG
I'm probably one of the most intense and driven people you could ever meet. I've worked hard to make it so that there is no separation between work and play for me. Everything I do has purpose. And because of this, because I want some initiatives to be successful, I am strict about keeping my TUSCL life and my face to face life separated.
But I am not someone who works to spend or works to recreate. I work to make things I value real. And when one does this, money just rains down from the sky in whatever quantities it is needed.
SJG
My affairs enjoy operational security.
But one thing I have disclosed is that I helped put a Pentecostal Daughter Molester into San Quentin.
I've made allusions to an organization I am making go which will involve starting a number of companies with our own money, and which will be expanded across the US and Northern Mexico.
But beyond this, its still got be operational security. Much that I do does involve public responsibility and publicly visible conflict.
SJG
One other thing I can say. Sure I'd like to believe that my paycheck is actually money for me to keep. But I know that it is nothing of the sort. Before that check was issued, some of that money was obliged to go to taxes. This is just how it works. I am part of our system, and this is why I get money.
Very stupid to believe that the amount on the check actually ever was mine.
And even more stupid to start blaming immigrants, refugees, or the poor, as they have nothing to do with it.
SJG
You are full of shit and proven that time and time again. There is zero proof of you doing anything you just say a lot of shit you can't prove. Just shut the fuck up you fucking blowhard.
Though i suppose if i had a low paying menial job like you i would create an alternate reality. Yiu are constantlt proven wrong when facts are brought up but to stupid or stunborn to admit it.
ime, I don't really know what sort of a land you live in. Mostly it sounds like you are always intoxicated.
Low paying menial job? Well more often than not that is what immigrants and refugees end up doing. They do the jobs no one else would be willing to do, but which still need to be done.
About the only people who are able to live on less are people who are on welfare. Either way we should recognize that these people are displaying both virtue and intelligence in being able to function on so little.
Alternate reality? Well that would be the one where immigrants and refugees are someone a problem for our economy. Do you know any refugees who are getting multimillion dollar bonuses on Wall Street? Very rare.
Constantly proven wrong? Again, how high is your blood alcohol right now? Oh I know, its those sausage fingers on the little cell phone buttons. I understand now.
I mean if you talk with people like Paul Ryan of Wisconsin or Phil Graham of Texas, and probably Ted Cruz of Texas too, then any benefit a poor person enjoys is going to be considered welfare. Makes no difference that rich people enjoy far more of things paid for by tax money. They just want to criticize poor people, who on the whole live much harder lives.
IME, I think you need to sleep it off.
SJG
Fuckface i never mentioned immigration you can't deal with being called out because you are a pussy and a coward, who can't get along with anyone. You make wide and ill informed judgements and post incessant nonsense not based on facts.
You also make shit up to try to make yourself feel better like someone is wrong if they smoke pot or have a drink you have some fucked up moral high horse and of course are wrong per usual. You want a nanny state because you can't compete. I at least figured you had a job but 25 is probably correct, you probably collect unemployment and live with your parents.
No one is screaming you can pretend to be whoever you want on the internet but maybe you should go for pretending to be remotely likeable, you are a joke.
IME,
Still screaming at yourself in the mirror I see. And no, it would be so much better if everyone smokes as much pot and drinks as much alcohol as possible. I mean that way, immigrants and refugees would come here and see what a screwy place this is and turn right around and leave.
And then of course as immigrants from the third world come here with intact families where the people actually like each other and get along with each other and live with each other, we need to teach them that that is wrong. We need to teach them that they have to rely on themselves and consume as much as possible. This is America.
And so they need to learn how to conform to all social expectations, so that they can be individuals, until finally they also end up drinking and smoking weed and standing in front of the bathroom mirror screaming at themselves.
And then of course our government is right to keep unemployment and welfare payments low. That way when immigrants come here they will see right away that the worst thing ever is to be accepting such payments. This way they'll be too afraid to try and unionize or ask for livable wages.
Tell me ime, how much money would we have to offer you each month to get you to agree to live on just welfare payments? And until you are willing to live on what little is offered, don't make fun of the people who do.
SJG
So IME, do you record the stuff you say and then play it back to yourself? I guess that way is better than just using the bathroom mirror.
And do marijuana and alcohol actually help you do this?
SJG
Are you really that stupid? I never once mentioned immigration or welfare or those who receive it and never judged those on it. You clearly are trying to force a subject with the wrong person in this thread. I would never live on welfare because i dont need it and i earn and pay my way, maybe you should try it.
Also you mentioned how family is bad and marriage is evil so many times, now all immigrants are perfect little families who just give and give, stop it go home SJG you're drunk.
Like I said answer the fucking question or shut the fuck up you cant make outrageous statements without backing them up, you are a liar and a leech, BTW I said nothing about immigrants or welfare, all I said was quite simply that you don't have a clue about what you are saying, if you don't drink or take drugs you must be fucking nuts.
"Your affairs enjoy operational security"
Additionally you are a plagiarist you copy sentences from Ian Fleming without any attribution and I have seen other statements you have lifted from many other authors you are real a sicko.
Answer my simple question
What the fuck do you do to contribute to society? Name one verifiable thing that you do, before you make your evil fucked up judgements about everybody who doesn't humor you, you lazy liar.
These immigrants are coming from the third world. So as these countries are not very industrialized yet, they have not accepted middle class values. These are traditional societies. This is why in Mexico they look at America and think that Americans are all loners, psychopaths really.
Now I am sure that because of NAFTA, Mexico is changing. But today, immigrant families come here and they are nothing like American families.
And then some come from Europe, where they have very little church attendance, but great cradle to grave social benefits. So when someone is sick, they take them to the doctor. When someone losses a job, there is retraining and relocation money, and also straight welfare.
But in the US, they still go to church when someone is sick. And so in churches like the one which was supporting the Pentecostal Molester, most of the people there have their stories about alcohol, drugs, and spousal abuse. They don't talk about child abuse, because from there perspective children exist for parents to use. Even more than the drug and alcohol stories, they all have their blacksheep child.
So no, I am completely opposed to the middle class family. But one has to have endured real pain, and done so while straight and sober, before one can understand this. And it has nothing to do with those who live in traditional societies where honest work is still respected and parents don't try to use their children to obtain a social identity.
So in Europe it doesn't seem to work this way, family blacksheeping and alcohol and drugs. At least not after the lessons of WWII.
And then the difference is even more pronounced as in just about every industrialized country except the US, it is close to impossible to disinherit one's child.
Welfare? I could never possibly live that cheap. I don't have the mental and spiritual discipline. I want a 12 cylinder McLaren F1, just like the one Elon Musk drives around in. I want to turn the heads of hot looking girls.
And I plan to be doing paid lingerie modelling / extended GFE-FS sessions with strippers from all over California, the US Southwest, and Northern Mexico. The only limit will be how many loads I can pump out.
I don't think the welfare office would give me extra money to cover this.
Besides, I do have some dignity. I would kill and steal, but there are some sorts of indignity and denigration I would never submit to.
I think it is the same for most immigrants. The welfare office is designed to degrade and humiliate. They must see this right away. So instead they work for low wages and without union representation. This is the real reason for welfare, to humiliate and degrade in order to control the poor and the working poor.
If we wanted to provide for the needs of the poor, the payments would have to be much higher. And then we would have to accept the fact that no one would be willing to work on unlivable wages any more.
SJG
twentyfive, Ian Flemming, that's a good one.
Well if you can read him then you know what operational security is.
I can talk about all sorts of things here online because I know where to draw the line to protect ongoing obligations and commitments.
Just so you know, I consider the Pentecostal Molester to be my first scalp. But I am looking to be taking others. But there can't be anything said which would compromise operational security in the interim.
I used to mostly do what I was expected to do. But today I do what I believe most needs to be done, and usually this involves public matters.
SJG
"You have do many issues andyou need serious help, you are a waste of time."
IME, remember that when you are making these tapes to play back to yourself, when the first side gets full, you have to turn the cassette over before you continue.
SJG
You have never even addressed the question you were asked.
I gave you the benefit of the doubt over and over, yet you refuse to answer a direct question, you are a fraud and a charlatan go crawl back under the rock you came from.
twentyfive, I can see the veins bulging around you scalp.
Hey, I had an asshole of a father. You think I could have lasted this long if I didn't know how to stand up to assholes just like him?
I helped put that molester in San Quentin, not because I had any independent knowledge that he was guilty, but because I saw how intently he was black sheeping his three daughters, trying to blame it on them.
So a cadre of police, prosecutors, journalists, and a couple of judges learned that the public cares greatly about such cases and does understand them and is willing to get highly involved in them. It was better this way.
But it would have been a hell of a lot more fun if I'd of handled him myself. I'd of taken a nice big circular patch right out of the top of his head. This guy had hair too.
So now, I am following on, working on bigger things. As I get results, I will be able to share some of them. But others will go into the organization I am building. Either way, there still has to be operational security for now.
SJG
IME,
If I was on welfare, or if I used marijuana, or if I used alcohol or that 9am New Wine of Born Again Christianity, then I'd always be surrounded by friends. But like I've already told twentyfive, I am one of the most driven people he could possibly ever know. I don't have a single spare moment when I could possibly ever get lonely.
SJG
Yet you are posting over and over, without answering a question, you must be so busy. Its a tough job you have watching grass grow under your feet or is it from your basement window ? I hope for the sake of passers by that there are bars over the window I would hate to think you might get loose and hurt some one.
SJG, what do you mean that it's better to be on welfare than working a "worthless" job. First off, no job is worthless if it means tax dollars. I'm having a hard time understanding this logic that it's better to be a leech than work. This sounds like my worthless cousin who claims disability though he's not disabled. My aunt (also a class act)got her lawyer friend to claim that he was suicidal but the only time he's depressed is when he's out of cigarettes and booze. Meanwhile people who need disability get rejected because there isn't as much money because of bums like him. Please explain why it's a better idea to receive welfare than to work? I'm not talking those who need it talking those who take and a recent immigrant shouldn't take because they shouldn't be here if they can't support themselves. See, the more people on welfare, the more taxes go up because the money has to come from somewhere.
You guys just don't understand. SJG will never stop. He's like the every ready battery of [view link]. He just keeps going and going ....... Not only will it never stop but it will never be responsive or make sense. Or even if it does make sense you'll fall sound asleep reading before you ever get to the relevant part. Face it, the gravy drinking basement dweller is the ultimate troll.
@former_stripper wrote,
"SJG, what do you mean that it's better to be on welfare than working a "worthless" job. First off, no job is worthless if it means tax dollars. I'm having a hard time understanding this logic that it's better to be a leech than work. "
I didn't say that it is "better to be on welfare", I said that when people are on welfare then at least they aren't taking more money out of the system, as they would probably be if they were getting a pay check, and at least they aren't burning up gasoline driving a car to work, as with most paying jobs, what people do is societally of little of no value; where as that gasoline is extremely valuable.
As far as what is best for any given individual, it is best to be politically aware and fighting back in any way you can. For some this might mean welfare, for others it might mean political activism, for others it might mean trying to build new kinds of organizations, or just using what ever talents and skills they may have to break the system.
As far as paying tax dollars, yes most any paying job does that, but that is only important if you are looking at this simply from the POV of trying to make gov't accounts balance. I say that this is far to narrow of a perspective.
There are lots of angles to this, some just pertaining to money itself, others pertaining to societal good, and then others pertaining to situations like your cousin and all of those at the bottom.
"This sounds like my worthless cousin who claims disability though he's not disabled. My aunt (also a class act)got her lawyer friend to claim that he was suicidal but the only time he's depressed is when he's out of cigarettes and booze. Meanwhile people who need disability get rejected because there isn't as much money because of bums like him."
Trying to keep my reply at least some what moderate in length, I'll try to speak to each of these.
First of all, everyone wants to do well. They want to win the admiration of friends and family.
So if they are not doing this, then somehow they have been broken, marginalized, or delegitimated.
So what no one needs is someone assuming a parental voice and lecturing to them about the self-reliance ethic, or about pulling themselves up by their own boot straps, or about personal responsibility, or anything like that. All it amounts to is further marginalization, and blaming our society's problems on its victims.
Like I say, everyone wants to do well. If it ain't happening, then something has gone wrong. There is no need for lectures or for Recovery. But there is a need for restorative justice.
Actually this brings to mind something I have the highest regards for, Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco.
[view link]
Their position is that poverty is caused by social marginalization, not by moral failings. The poor are not any less moral than the rich. Actually it takes a great deal of smarts to live poor.
Now as far as money, understand that what keeps the middle sector of the jobs market afloat is government expenditure. If the government did not collect taxes and then spend the money, and that money recirculate, then United States would become just like the millennia of societies which have preceded it. It would break into the very rich and the very poor.
This is Thom Hartmann's main point,
[view link]
If the government did not collect the tax money and then spend it, the middle class would vanish.
The years of greatest economic growth and improvement in standard of living for working people were the Eisenhower-Kennedy years, when the top personal income tax rate exceeded 90%.
So if I want to be like twentyfive I'll be crying "Boo hoo boo hoo, I get lots of money, but then I have to pay lots of it back in taxes, and that's because there are too many people on welfare!"
Well he is missing something's. That money he gets exists because the government collects taxes and then spends the money. He gets money in his left pocket, but then out of his right pocket he has to pay much of it back in taxes. If his right pocket were not making those payments, then there would not be money coming into his left pocket.
And then as far as people on welfare, that has actually never been more than 3% of the federal budget, though to listen to people like Ronald Reagan, you'd think it was 90%. But that welfare money is coming from the same public coffers that provides the middle class paychecks. It is not that everyone works directly for the government. But the money does recirculate, and it is a huge factor in keeping middle class wages from sinking, huge huge. Without that, the middle class would vanish, and our economy would disintegrate big time.
And actually, money paid to the people at the bottom recirculates the fastest.
Welfare money is not intended to provide for the needs of the poor. If it were the payments would have to be many times greater in amount. Welfare is intended to regulate the poor, to keep the poor in line. And in fact it has always been intended this way, since the earliest days of Capitalism, the 1600's.
[view link]
Capitalism creates unemployment and poverty.
I have a friend who insists Capitalism is not bad, so long as it is not Crony Capitalism
[view link]
I explained to him that Capitalism works by getting control of markets, materials, and the labor force. So there is no Capitalism which is not Crony Capitalism. And there never has been. I suggested that he consider the British East India Company as the proto type of this, finding markets and materials in East India and North America, and then slave labor from Africa, and then keeping its own manufacturing plants running. It always works like this, getting control of resources and markets.
The first one of these global recessions was in the 1870's, like I think 1873. What it was caused by, as these are always caused by, was over production. In this case it was steel. So steel plants in England started closing down and then you get a clogged up labor market and then banks start buying up the steel mills and so you get concentrated ownership.
So in the United States what happened was pressure was applied to the lame duck Grant administration to end reconstruction ( the federal occupation ) in the South. Though this was most definitely ill advised, it was done in order to turn the South into a market for manufactured goods, a kind of internal third world. And then the West was used as a raw materials base.
And so it goes, Capitalism works by gaining control of the government and then arranging policy to go its way. It never solves problems, it makes problems, and then it exports them. It is a crazy system and it never possibly could work.
So it was in the post Civil War US, but so it also is today on a much larger scale and effecting far more areas of life.
In traditional societies, not being subject to any form of colonialism or neo-liberalism, there usually won't be anything like unemployment. There really couldn't be.
The Roman Empire had unemployment and welfare, but that was a very structured society, where it's own policies caused this. And they recognized rightly that welfare, though not really solving much, it is the cheapest way of ameliorating at least some of the problems.
In traditional societies labor is not in surplus. People do what they know how to do, and they are compensated for this, at least to some extent. People don't necessarily need to retire ever, as they can just work slower, or do that which they are still able to do. And then the main sort of social support is the family.
Okay, but to end this and transition to Capitalism, people had to be driven off land at gunpoint. In England and the Netherlands this is referred to as The Enclosure Movement, the fencing off of common lands. People usually had to be both starved and driven off at gun point, so that they would end up in cities and have to take starvation wage jobs in factories.
And then so you always have people who are forced out too. Frances Fox Piven writes about how in the 1600's a version of welfare was invented just to stop people from pan handling. Pan handling is socially disruptive.
And then in the large cities in the US, like Chicago, in the 50s and then the 60s, welfare roles did start to rise.
Welfare, specifically AFDC, had been part of the 1935 Social Security Act. It has never been popular, always causing controversy. But it has also always been only a small part of public expenditures.
Welfare roles started rising in the post war ear because you had people being driven out of share cropping arrangements, in the South, because of mechanization and increasing concentration of land ownership. This was indeed very much like England's enclosure movement, people being driven off of the land, and driven into cities just so that they might survive.
There had been a couple of recessions during the 1950's. Always racial minorities and people not tied in with organized labor or other supportive social power networks are going to be the most vulnerable.
So welfare started to become highly controversial during Richard Nixon's Presidency. But at the beginning Nixon was not actually trying to cause this. But later he did realize the political value of it, and so he did work to intensify it.
Still trying to moderate the length of my post, let me now about persons on the bottom.
First, Capitalism, and the neo-liberal doctrines, work to destroy families. And so instead you get the middle class family, The Family, which always was designed to exploit children.
I've talked about putting a Pentecostal Daughter Molester into San Quentin.
Well the reason I did this was not because I held some evidence which would prove his guilt. I did it because I was blown away by the amount of energy he had invested in black sheeping his eldest daughter. He was jumping up and down and telling me about how the whole thing was caused by "The problem she has with Alcohol, with Drugs, and with *SEX*".
Well I knew that it was always like that in their church. Most of the people have their stories of alcohol, drugs, and spousal abuse. But even more than that, they all seem to have their black sheep child.
And always its alcohol, drugs, and jail. And then if the black sheep is female, then it is also *SEX*"
It is whatever it takes to discredit the black sheep and to let the parent enjoy pats on the back over how Christian they are being in their pitying of their black sheep.
In fact, this daughter was a straight as they come, straight like an air traffic controller. It was the father who was a screwball.
This is the type of family Capitalism creates, the middle class family. This is the only type there is in the United States. It is a machine for exploiting children.
So maybe now it is starting to become clear why I am so opposed to alcohol, drugs, and tobacco, as well as to born again Christianity and psychiatric medication. It is simply a practical necessity, if the poor are to organize and start to fight back, they have to refuse these things.
It is interesting too, as the new Mayor of San Jose, Sam Liccardo, is behind two only quasi religious corporate funded programs which are designed to humiliate the homeless. By promoting such, Liccardo is able to maintain labor discipline, and particularly among those in the public employee unions.
The biggest issue in San Jose is the City trying to renege on Police and Fire Fighter pension contracts. So are these workers going to strike, so that they can get what they are contractually entitled to, or are they going to keep quite?
Well much of that depends upon how much social shame could be associated with job loss. It takes guts for employees to organize and stand up for fair wages, or even for the honoring of contracts.
And after Liccardo was sworn in, his first act as Mayor was to fire the City Manager and have security escort him out of the building. This City manager was making good progress in making peace with the Police and Fire Fighter unions. San Jose has a huge police deficit too. Coming down from around 1300 police down now to about 900, and losing fast. ( This is probably why AMPs have made a come back :) ).
So Liccardo sends a big message by firing this City Manager. This is not just to Police and Firefighters, but to everyone who works for the City, and to everyone who is in a union, and to any workers who might want to strike for fairer wages or working conditions.
And then Liccardo is behind programs designed to humiliate the homeless. San Jose has a huge homeless population. And I would say that many are victims of the psychiatric system, and its abusive therapy and its mind destroying medications.
But the homeless are also about the only anti-gentrification force around.
So the real estate industry would like to incarcerate the homeless, and with this Christian thing, City Team Ministries, you have something which is not that much different from a prison and brain washing camp.
But what Liccardo is behind is the Recovery Café and this City Team Ministries.
For the first City Hall was able to achieve the closure of an excellent church based free meals program. Not that much unlike what I wrote about in San Francisco, Glide Memorial. What has been put in its place is run by someone who is a former administrator for a private outsourcing firm that specializes in the privatization of government social services programs. They brought her all the way out from Nebraska. Now she runs a program which basically is devoted to promoting the idea that poverty and homelessness are caused by alcohol and drug addiction, and moral failings. And anyone who wants food now has to submit to case management.
And the other, Downtown Street Teams, is run by someone from the dot com boom era of venture funded startups, and it is devoted to the premise that the homeless and the poor need work readiness training. Notice I did not say jobs. I did not say jobs that pay minimum wage. I did not say jobs that pay minimum wage, or a living wage, or have basic benefits. No of course not. What she offers are "work readiness programs".
And some of these are actually quite dangerous too. She is expecting people who often do have medical conditions and disabilities to do things which real city workers would have a hard time doing.
And of course, what this also does is weaken the city worker unions.
So we have Mayor Liccardo working to renege on union pensions and to weaken public employee and labor unions, while at the same time he is using the homeless as a symbol, and putting out the message that the homeless are so because of their own moral failings.
But this is how it always has worked, from the earliest days of Capitalism, 1600's, until now. The poor are used a as a symbol, to keep the only semi-poor in line.
So people are willing to take shit jobs, just so that they don't end up on welfare, or homeless where they will be presumed to be morally defective.
Now I do attend meetings of some of the church groups which are involved in homelessness issues. They don't really like this idea of Lumpen Proletariat, as they see it as a weapon used against the homeless. But I see it as useful, because I am coming from a much more radical, or revolutionary POV.
What Marx said was the lumpen proletariat ( class below the working class, more of an under class ) was that it was "alcoholics, drifters, and those only occasionally employed."
He said that what made it different from the working class was that its people "lacked revolutionary consciousness".
I have thought about this much and I agree.
See, even the working class is provisional, dependent on class consciousness. But when it exists it depends upon people who know that the world is unfair and who don't see hardship as indicative of personal failings. With this understanding they can do hard jobs for low pay, and they also can stand up for themselves via strikes and political organizing, and by revolutions.
But without this revolutionary consciousness, people probably will end up on alcohol, drugs, and tobacco. And then they will listen when they are told that Jesus has pity on them, and that they need psychotherapy and psychiatric medication. They will end up in Sam Liccardo's pity programs, and they will be objects of scorn he can point to maintain labor discipline. And they won't understand that the way welfare programs are set up is to use them as a symbol and submit them to ritual humiliations. The will seek tune out, via intoxicants, via the 9am New Wine, and from the pharmacy. This is what our system is designed to do. This is what Capitalism depends on.
And then their family members will of course see them as the black sheep.
Now, writing one hundred years after Marx, Frantz Fannon, in "Wretched of the Earth", takes a bit of a different view.
He describes Lumpen's as those ejected by family and clan, because of colonialism / Capitalism. He describes them as living in shanties outside of cities, and he is referring to Drug Dealers, Pimps, Prostitutes, and Petti Criminals. Fannon says that they can indeed have revolutionary consciousness, and that their actions can be very disruptive.
This is the interpretation which the Black Panthers took, when Fannon was first published in English. And his work was on the short list of mandatory reading for Panthers.
So just to summarize, what we have is the middle class family which was always designed as a way to further Capitalism by encouraging people to have children in order to use them as props to give themselves identities.
And then when this doesn't work smoothly, you have the black sheeping. And it is always alcohol, drugs, tobacco, and criminality. Except for when the black sheep is female, then it is also sex.
Capitalism Plus Dope Equals Genocide
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I say, "Alcohol and drugs plus Born Again Christianity Equals Total Subjugation"
The Intelligence Paradox
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Mostly this guy just wants to discredit political liberalism. But he defines political liberalism in the most narrow of terms, willingness to raise taxes to better provide for the needs of the poor.
I see political liberalism as the enlightenment impulse to overturn oppressors, as in the American, French, and Russian Revolutions. Oppression had meant oppression by monarchs, and then by slave masters. But today it seems to be oppression by Capitalism, and it works via a parental voice which is saying that the poor are the reason for our society's problems, and that it is the poor themselves who are the cause of their own plight.
SJG
Panther ( 1995 ) excellent movie
part 1
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part 2
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All Power to the People ( excellent documentary )
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Tupac Shakur
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Afeni Shakur
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Jon B. - Are U Still Down?
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You haven't answered any questions all you are doing is hogging the microphone so you can prattle on that is why everybody has stopped listening. Just to be clear you addressed me in your long winded soliloquy yet for all of the words used you have not made a single point that anyone here agrees with.
I leave you to it enjoy the sound of one hand clapping !
Well I'm not going to be interrogated, in case you need to have that explained to you. I post on this, but I still have a firewall protecting my personal life.
But as you do seem to have strong feelings about this thread and the issues it raises, I'm trying to make some way to further open up the discussion.
One of my points is that a political position based on saying the poor are at fault for their own plight, is very closely related to the kinds of black sheeping which does go on in a large percentage of families.
SJG
Huh? so people on welfare are using less money from the system than working people? That makes no sense because if they aren't working, they aren't paying taxes. My cousin doesn't care to do better, that side of my family don't care. He could work, he chooses not to. He's had good jobs but found a way to get fired because he does that with a payout in mind.
former_stripper wrote,
"Huh? so people on welfare are using less money from the system than working people?"
You Got It!
I mean no they don't pay any taxes. Or you could consider it as 'pre-taxed'. Really its just that the welfare money is so low that a recipient is below the filing and paying thresholds. When twentyfive gets his pay, the taxes are usually deducted, and there will still be a final reckoning 4/15. People who get investment money or other proceeds usually have to pay estimated taxes. People on welfare don't have to deal with this. But if they do at some later time during the year get other income, then they will have to file on 4/15 and welfare money is taxable.
But the point is that the money, for the middle range of the jobs market, is coming from the recirculation created by the same government funds which pay for welfare. And if you are giving the money to low or zero income people, it recirculates the fastest.
We need Dougster back. Even though he and I disagreed on so much, he did affirm the gist of what I am saying.
@former_stripper, do you remember when Ross Perot ran for President in 1992. Oh, well you might not be old enough to remember that. I lose track of how old I actually am now, and how much of what I see as recent history is just completely alien to young people today.
Before the election Perot was a strong critic of G.H.W. Bush. But after the election he remained a critic of the Clinton Administration. He talked about Clinton's promise to create jobs. Most of G.H.W. Bush's term had been a recession continuing from the 1986 stock market bubble burst.
Perot said, "Do you know what that means, for them to have created a job? It means one job for one person for one year. And do you know how much that costs them to create just that one job? It costs $90,000! It would be better to just cut that check up 6 ways and then pass it out and say, go have fun for a year."
Well, Perot didn't really want that to be done. But he seems not to have realized just how true what he was saying actually was.
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Well back in the late 60's Moynihan studied all of these matters and concluded that welfare is actually the cheapest solution. Anything else, like trying to create jobs, is much more expensive and much more problematic.
And I think you can see, most of the long term jobless really have been beaten down until they are unemployable.
Here in San Jose we have a huge homeless population, and the real estate industry just hates them. The homeless are our main anti-gentrification force, and they are our only rent control.
So the homeless are symbol and a huge political issue. So this is why Mayor Sam Liccardo got in by referring to the homeless as, "the most difficult to employ", and then by getting behind programs designed to humiliate and regulate them
I would say that they are completely impossible to employ. Actually with most of the long term unemployed and long term welfare recipients, employment for more than a brief interval is just about impossible. And if paying a living wage, there is a super abundance of people better qualified to perform those jobs.
So Liccardo was involved in getting an excellent church based meal program run out of town, and replacing it with a program designed to blame the homeless and subject them to case management.
And then he is also teamed with a corporate funded program which gets the homeless to subject to case management and also puts them into "job readiness programs". This is also designed to make the homeless into a public spectacle.
Is this immoral, unethical, and illegal, given that these programs not pay the minimum wage? Of course it is.
It is also designed to weaken the public employee unions and frighten their members into passivity.
Welfare recipients take less money, and so they consume less. And in particular they consume less of something very critical, fossil fuels. These fuels will be very expensive to replace, if not impossible. And using them creates air pollution.
So it is like Buckminster Fuller said, with most people working a job, it would be far cheaper as a society if we would just pay them their full salary so long as they promised to stay at home.
He means that very few of the paid jobs people do are really worth the environmental costs of having them drive their cars to work each day.
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If you have a car, would you be willing to stop driving it if the government agreed to pay you your full present salary?
Would you be willing to give up your job and let someone else have it and live on what welfare recipients live on?
Fuller explains that the reason we don't now live in a total paradise is simply that we demand that people prove that they can earn a living.
And I know this is true. No one "earn's a living". There is no such thing. Rather, they just have contractual agreements by which they get a cut of the circulating money.
And especially with welfare recipients, there would no shortage of people to do the jobs they might do, except that the jobs pay so little. So we need immigrants and refugees to do these jobs, until we can make them pay more or set it up so there are fewer divisions of labor.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that welfare is a good solution to anything. It is just the cheapest solution and the easiest way of regulating the poor.
To have a real solution we need to dismantle Capitalism and The Family, and these have always been two sides of the same coin.
The book I place the most credence in:
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You show me a poor person, and I'll show you how there are moralistic justifications being used to rationalize why they deserve to be poor. Without these justifications, they would not be poor.
And as far as keeping the government afloat, there are all sorts of variables here. Remember that deficits only started with Jimmy Carter, and his were small. It was Reagan who started the big deficits. Prior, Keynesian economic policies kept the government in black ink, or even in surplus, going back to the Great Depression.
The government controls interest rates, and the government controls the green ink and the printing press. What we have not done very much at all in this country is set up government run for profit industries.
Mostly when government money is used, it is being fed back into private industry, when it could be used to expand government run industries.
Back when our economy was growing the fastest and when material standards of living where rising the fastest, the Eisenhower-Kennedy years, top personal income tax rates exceeded 90%.
And then there are also more private solutions, like communal systems. These attack the problem from both sides at once. They attack Capitalism, and they attack The Family. And these are always closely coupled.
When you can do this, communalism, changing the rules for sex / money, then you'd better be ready to pass out snow shovels to try and keep pathways open. The heavens will open and that manna will come down in all denominations. The two main examples of this were Oneida and LDS. Because they had some limited degree of communalism, always meaning in both sex and money, they became rich. And then because of this they became persecuted.
Let me though jump back to more personal issues, as you have talked about your cousin.
As far as I can see, most of it just comes down to having been made the family blacksheep. It is not a matter of lax morality or of addictive chemicals. It just looks this way.
As I am involved with various community groups, and opposed to Born Again Christianity, I am always telling people, "When someone has been treated with dignity and respect and allowed the chance to develop and apply their abilities, then it is very unlikely that they will develop a serious problem with drugs or alcohol."
And this what Gabor Mate, running the only legal heroin injection clinic in North America, is saying too.
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And people are starting to understand this:
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I mean, its The Family and it is Capitalism, which not only cause chemical addictions, but which destroy someone's chance at having a place in this world.
And usually the scape goat is the one who just can't live the denial systems, because of the role they've been cast into. Their moral failings, as far as I've ever been able to see, are just in all the myriad of ways in which they are like their parents.
The Family is designed to turn future Einstein's, Mozart's, and Elon Musk's, into Homer Simpson's.
I helped put a Pentecostal guy into prison because he was doing that to his daughter, and we was making his denigrations even more effective because he was supplementing them with sexual molestation. That he would then be apologizing to the daughter the next day only served to increase the level of culpability the girl would feel. And you better believe that I explained this in the greatest of detail to both the DA and the Court.
But then everyone in his church does stuff like that. This is the reason they have children.
So like, Recovery, Getting Saved, Rehabilitation, and Self-Reliance, are just ways of blaming the victim and concealing child abuse.
Oh well, just remember what Abbie Hoffman wrote way back in, "Steal This Book", "Anyone who can't get himself up off his ass and get down to the welfare office and apply is just a good for nothing lazy bum."
This is where it has to start too. If one can't fight back in any other way, then get yourself down to that office and apply.
And as post Clinton-Gingrich, welfare has become much more restricted, even though nothing has been done to try and remedy the problems it addresses, the authorities are often steering people onto disability.
And then their are lawyers to help people try to get some fairness too:
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But no welfare or disability payments, or even a Rolls Royce, a luxury apartment, and pocket money, will ever constitute giving justice to someone who has had to grow up in an environment which denies them a place in this world and the chance to use their talents and abilities to do things of value.
SJG
discussion about the highest possible mileage dives
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Ed Kemper
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in Vacaville, a correction
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KEMPER, EDMUND EMIL B52453 67 11/09/1973
•1600 California Dr., Vacaville, CA 95696
Have You Seen the Saucers
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Hey moron WTF do you keep including me in your manifestos go back into your proxy server you fucking virus. I keep paying taxes in the hopes that the government will do the research necessary to develop a cure for you, or at least a vaccine so that other people don't come down with whatever illness you have.
I mentioned you because you continue to make such an issue of the fact that with the recirculating money which gives you your pay, the same money which pays for welfare, you also have to give some back in taxes because your pay is high enough to obligate this.
Poverty and chemical addiction will start to go as we can dismantle Capitalism and the Family.
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SJG
Not all long term unemployable are on welfare. Two different things and the group I am talking about never worked because they had welfare but keep crapping out more leeches. Long term unemployable are usually educated people who saw their decent jobs go overseas or replaced by machines or foreign workers.
@former_stripper wrote, "Not all long term unemployable are on welfare."
I think maybe you meant to say, "not all those on welfare are long term unemployable" ?
I think the term I used was "long term unemployed". and my observation is that such persons are usually also quite unemployable.
I have regular contact with such persons here on the ground. Many of our basic kinds of jobs which still pay a livable wage require driving a motor vehicle. Once people have had enough trouble with alcohol or drugs, they lose their driving privileges. I know this does it for many.
Then also, most jobs require a fairly high degree of tact and decorum in dealing with co-workers and customers. Usually the long term unemployed completely lack this, and so even if they did somehow manage to get hired, they'd last about 20 minutes. I know someone recently fired on account of this.
And then also, many of the long term unemployed don't look good because their teeth are falling out, or they are overweight. And then many really do have more serious health problems. After a point, if one has been on the sidelines for a while, their chances of getting back in diminish.
One local guy, someone everyone liked, including police, an alcoholic and public drunk of 30 years, just decided to drink himself to death. The police got tired of writing him tickets, and judges got tired of letting him have jail space which was more needed to deal with wife abusers. He was taken to the hospital by paramedics a couple of times. And it would take him a while then to panhandle and make blood alcohol content sustenance purchases at liquor stores before he was back to his usually grounds.
But the last time, everyone saw that he was already dead when they were loading him on to the gurney.
@former_stripper wrote, "crapping out more leeches"
Well, breeding is one of the only ways the poor have of fighting back.
Problem though is that usually the poor do not have political consciousness and so they abuse their own children in the same ways they were abused. So instead of a revolution we have more people on alcohol, drugs, born again Christianity, and psychiatric medication. I am doing everything I can to expose this.
As far as educated people, we are not educating enough people, and so continued leadership in some fields does require special visas to get the educated people from other countries.
As far as machines, well that is how the industrial age works. If you want to make more jobs, just outlaw farm machinery. Otherwise learn from Buckminster Fuller and see that we have to now make a world based on cooperation and everyone doing well, instead of requiring people to prove that they can "earn a living", and hence consuming scarce resources and doing immense environmental damage.
As far as jobs going overseas, we do need more innovative corporations here at home, not people like Bill Gates and Microsoft who engage in monopolistic practices which have destroyed many startups, while claiming to be "innovative"
SJG
It can be the other way too as I know long term unemployed not on welfare. We need more education but at the early stages and instead of crap like PC classes, they need classes in math and English.
PC classes? Do you mean "Politically Correct Classes"?
People need political consciousness. This is the main difference between the working class and the under class. And this only makes sense. Once someone has political consciousness, they will want to start educating themselves, as well as abandoning all chemical addictions.
When it came to my Pentecostal Molester case, one of my biggest jobs was to show the Prosecution just how endemic family blacksheeping was to his church. A very large portion of his church members had their own histories with alcohol, drugs, and spousal abuse. Now this was before they got Saved, of course.
But even more universal in their church is the family blacksheep. Most have at least one child who is the designated blacksheep, the one who doesn't measure up. So its alcohol, drugs, and criminality. And if the black sheep is female, then its also sex.
And then many of them also have a sibling who is also a blacksheep. What this means of course is that they have accepted the view of their parents about this person.
So we need to stand up and show how these are abusive families, and that everyone wants to do well, and then hold the parents accountable. And this was the reason I got so heavily involved in that case. And to this day, I am still telling police patrol officers about it when ever I get the chance. All the more important as this Pentecostal Molester case dovetails with a more serious family violence case which they have not forgotten.
SJG
The Communist Internationale
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Billy Bragg - Internationale, updated lyric
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Billy Bragg - The Internationale
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Did you know that in just about every other industrialized nation it is nearly impossible for a parent to disinherit a child?
I am convinced that this has a huge effect on the family blacksheeping ( psychological child abuse ) problem.
SJG
former_stripper,
At this point I'm not sure what you are referring to. Every sort of class is trying to communicate something to its students, so then you could say that it has an agenda. Maybe in the best of cases it is just trying to help students learn to continue to educate themselves and to think critically. Perhaps you would like to be more specific about what you are referring to.
But in general, I would say that one of the reasons that so many people have no place in this world is that the world does not want to face the truth. The Family is designed to inflict harm, to turn future Einstein's, Mozart's, and Elon Musk's into Homer Simpson's. But instead of facing this, we romanticize it and exonerate the parents.
People have children to give themselves a legitimated adult identity, so that they can try and avoid facing their own pain. So then some children end up being used to live for the parents, and then others are used as the scape goats. Usually the family scape goat is the one who can't live the denial systems.
So I again refer to my Pentecostal Molester. He had started out in adult life on Alcohol and Street Drugs. Then he was approached by campus evangelicals.
Now if someone was selling a commercial product, they'd get kicked off the campus. But so many are afraid to tangle with Bible Brandishers, and so in complete disregard for the U.S. Constitution, religion often gets treated like it is above the law. So the evangelicals operate on campus.
This guy went for it. He never learned why he was drinking or using, but he found that by advancing his addictions to Born Again Christianity, he no longer needed Street Drugs.
Now a decade later he would find that by advancing his addictions to Psychiatric Medication, he no longer needed Alcohol.
So he started with Alcohol and Street Drugs, and he ended up on Born Again Christianity and Psychiatric Medication. He never found out why he was drinking and using, but he found that with the more serious addictions, he no longer needed to drink or use.
And then of course once he took the four word pledge, "I am a Christian", just like she were a prized pig, he was introduced to the woman he would marry, and so soon they were making babies.
He had just started in his education. He had no idea what he wanted to do or be. And the process of finding out why his life was already so screwy had not even started. But for a Born Again Christian none of this makes any difference. They've already got all the answers handed to them.
But still, it all came out later, in a mid life crisis, mis-interpreted as some sort of a brain chemical imbalance. It came out in abuse of one of the sons, and of the three daughters. And the wife was helping him in every way possible. I told the DA that if it were up to me, she would be in prison too.
The problems the parents were unwilling to deal with, were foisted upon the children. And it is always like this in their church.
And their church has an outreach ministry, working with those at the bottom who have lived the most crazy lives, and who often live on the street. Their lives revolve around Alcohol, Drugs, Born Again Christianity, and Psychiatric Medication. It is particularly the women whom the authorities like to keep on Psyc Meds.
So with the outreach ministry, most of the volunteers have black sheeped children of their own, as well as a black sheeped sibling.
They run their ministry and they try to convince people that all of their problems come from their own "rebelliousness". Anyone rebelling against their parents or any other authority is considered to be rebelling against God, just like Adam and Eve did.
So the ministry tries to show people what amounts to, "Jesus has so much pity for you that he wants to give you a second chance. All he wants you to do is admit that you are at fault for screwing up your first chance."
And then of course doctrines like self-reliance, personal responsibility, and the entire Recovery Movement and the entire edifice of Psychotherapy, are nothing but secularized versions of this.
No one is standing up and saying that the children are not wrong, that it is the parents who are using them, and that the parents are wrong and that they will be held accountable on this side of the grave.
Well, except in this one case, as I helped put the guy into San Quentin. I'd of had more fun dealing with him by myself. But this way was better as it educated police, prosecutors, judges, and journalists.
So the outreach ministry pooh pooh's any and all discussions of child abuse. It is all just these rebellious children who refuse to forgive.
So I told them about someone trying to put an initiative on the ballot to lift all Statutes of Limitations on child sexual abuse. She froze and then said, "Oh that would just open up a whole can of worms".
And then, "You have to forgive, you have to!"
And then finally, "God can make you clean again like a virgin".
So in my last communication, to the DA, and also to the Court to try and influence sentencing, I emphasized the functioning of this outreach ministry, and how they deny child abuse, and how they promote exactly the same kind of fatalism which underlies drinking and using, and how them and their group of people is a constant safety problem in public parks, because the people are crazy and they are being taught that anyone who refuses to go along with them is damned.
I explained that if these three girls had yielded to their church and not come forward and told the truth, then who knows what could have happened. In some years, failed attempts to get an education and build a career, failed marriages, following the church's approach of feeling no pain and doing so with chemicals, these 3 girls could become targets for that very same outreach ministry, being told that all their difficulties are the results of their own rebelliousness.
And then I suggested that that church should be considered a hate group, something akin to the KKK. The difference though is that it is not based on prejudice based on race, it is based on prejudice against children.
So I am counting this molester as my first scalp, which basically means bragging rights. I don't give out his name because his name is the same as the daughters' names. But f2f I never stop talking about his church.
SJG
Buddy Guy, Knock on Wood
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