Category: Quotes

He said. She said.

The Looking Mirror Avoided

“For example (and thanks to Doug Korty for this point), the total deficits of the federal government from 1950 to 2009 were $6.6 trillion. During those years, three Republican presidents (Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush) accounted for the vast majority of those deficits. All the other presidents (Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton) combined accounted for a small fraction only. The three deficit-happy Republican presidents were the most conservative and subservient to major capitalists interests. They all increased spending (chiefly for military and counter-crisis purposes) while cutting taxes (especially for corporations and the richest individuals). Such policies forced huge federal deficits and rapid national debt hikes. The Obama administration ran very large deficits and boosted the national debt through stimulus outlays and costly wars without offsetting tax increases.”

-From the chapter Capitalism, Democracy, and Elections (2013), Richard Wolff’s book: “Capitalism’s Crisis Deepens”

Keep that in mind the next time you vote for someone on account of your taxes, your debts, Her emails, your general nonsense of living as an #americant soothed by pharmaceuticals and/or Disney and/or the lie of the mind that is your hope and desire of exceptional-ism. And now. Go buy something.

Rant on. And. Good luck suckers.

-T

New & Improved Ten Commandments

By Christopher Hitchens

  • Do not condemn people on the basis of their ethnicity or their color.
  • Do not ever even think of using people as private property.
  • Despise those who use violence or the threat of it in sexual relations.
  • Hide your face and weep if you dare to harm a child.
  • Do not condemn people for their inborn nature. (“Why would God create so many homosexuals, only to torture and destroy them?”)
  • Be aware that you, too, are an animal, and dependent on the web of nature. Try to think and act accordingly.
  • Do not imagine you can avoid judgment if you rob people by lying to them rather than with a knife.
  • Turn off that cell phone.
  • Denounce all jihadists and crusaders for what they are: psychopathic criminals with ugly delusions and terrible sexual repressions.
  • Reject any faith if their commandments contradict any of the above.
  • In short: Do not swallow your moral code in tablet form.

Here, here. And. Hear, hear.

Rant on

-T

Time To Lose Your Holy Ghost

For a man like Cornell West to say that he’s never seen this kind of hate in his life says a lot about #americant, the lost American way, about being played. Indeed. If you still support #Trump or anything GOP you have been played to the hilt. Congratulations sucker.

“So, in that sense, you know, I think what we’re really seeing, though, Sister Amy, is the American empire in decay, with the rule of big money, with massive militarism, facilitated by the scapegoating of the most vulnerable, of immigrants, Muslims, Jews, Arabs, gay, lesbians, trans and bisexuals, and black folk. The white supremacy was so intense. I’ve never seen that kind of hatred in my life. We stood there, and nine units went by, and looking right in our eyes. And they’re cussing me out, and so forth and so on. They’re lucky I didn’t lose my holy ghost, to tell you the truth, because I wanted to start swinging myself. I’m a Christian, but not a pacifist, you know. But I held back. But that kind of hatred—but that is just the theater. It’s big money. It’s big military. And it’s the way in which this capitalist civilization is leading us toward unbelievable darkness and bleakness. And the beautiful thing is the fightback. It was a beautiful thing to see all the people coming back. But they had more fascists than anarchists, more fascists than fightback.” -Cornell West

Source: https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/14/cornel_west_rev_toni_blackmon_clergy

Good luck suckers.

Rant onwards.

-T

The Parable Of The Haths And The Hath Mores

as right as rain

For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.

-Matthew 13:12 KJ

Just gettin’ my kicks this morn, dear worst-reader. Woke up to the rain shimmering across the Flensborg Fjord and dabbled in what is known as the “Matthew Effect“. A fine endeavour, indeed, before one starts his or her day reading about the downfall of the western world caused by mindless consumerism (yours truly) and inept democracy (my beloved #americant). But don’t worry. Have a bite of cookie or juicy kernel from biblical pomegranate. You’ll feel right as rain as soon as you do.

“Now what I observe in ethnographic studies is that people actually can become proud of their ability to exhaust themselves in this struggle. So that they say we are coping, we’re good, and others are less good or bad at coping. So it becomes a matter of pride to subject yourself to this rigid discipline imposed on you by the market.”

-How Will Capitalism End?, Wolfgang Streek

Rant on.

-t

Links that motivated this worst-post:

Some DFW Genius: The Answer Is In Quebec Or In Stars Above USA’s Blue

“But what of the freedom-to? Not just the freedom-from. Not all compulsion comes from without. You pretend you do not see this. What of freedom-to. How for the person to freely choose? How to choose any but a child’s greedy choices if there is no loving-filled father to guide, inform, teach the person how to choose? How is there freedom to choose if one does not learn how to choose?”

-David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, 30 April/ 1 May, Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment

Rant on.

-T

Speculators Be Hanged?

Speculators at megabanks or investment firms such as Goldman Sachs are not, in a strict sense, capitalists. They do not make money from the means of production. Rather, they ignore or rewrite the law—ostensibly put in place to protect the vulnerable from the powerful—to steal from everyone, including their shareholders. They are parasites. They feed off the carcass of industrial capitalism. They produce nothing. They make nothing. They just manipulate money. Speculation in the 17th century was a crime. Speculators were hanged. -Chris Hedges

Source: Truthdig

Hyperlink in quote from moi.

Some DFW Genius 2

“Like most North Americans of his generation, Hal tends to know way less about why he feels certain ways about the objects and pursuits he’s devoted to than he does about the objects and pursuits themselves.”

-David Foster Wallace – Infinite Jest