Consciousness Capitalism: Corporations Are Now After Our Very Beings

 
Because “They Rule.”

The simple complexity of the complex simplicity is beyond most Americans.

Duh. . .
 

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And The Powers That Be doubtless know this, and know it as their own weakest link.

The 'tipping point', whatever and whereever it will be, may well be for our politicos, believe it or not. I don't find that believeable my own self, but the sense of the notion is there to happen -and likely too late.

Conflicting matters of self-preservation 'upstairs/backrooms' may be our only hope. Timing gets more critical every day meanwhile. I wouldn't doubt some weird 'false flag/black op' will happen to precipitate change on top, with a sort of upper tier schism then ensuing.

...With all concerned meanwhile trying to ensure the non-involvement of the meddlesome helplessly-watching citizenry...

And may God help us all.

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It's a central part of the concepts of "business" and "enterprise" themselves. Economic theories in the West can't be completely understood without this component. It's woven right in there along with all the calculations, claims, logical processes, etc. that make up these theories and practices. Weber was one who addressed these things directly.

Corporate "marketing campaigns", "sales efforts" and advertising have long used models and techniques perfected many, many centuries ago by the various religions (not only the Christian). It's always about "bringing and spreading the Word, the News, the Gospel"; the Vatican developed the Propaganda project way back in the 1640's to actively carry these kinds of things forward into the various parts of the world (and those parts include the internal, personal consciousnesses of all those "backward, ignorant, primitive and 'lost souls' that needed to be 'saved' for a God or for the 'glory of a God').

It doesn't take a great effort to behold a kind-of "parallel" thing taking place when watching that "Sham-Wow" commercial, for instance -- and many instances there are! On the one hand, the Seller is bringing information on a particular product that is going to clean, wipe, and soak-up and otherwise make floors, cars, cabinets, table-tops etc ever so clean and pure. On the other hand and at the same time, the pitch, tone, tempo and "innocent zeal" with which the Seller offers you this product conveys the impression that obtaining it will bring you the highest of bliss, blessing and closeness to the "holy spirit" or "God" or something. A Sunday preacher presents not too much different a figure delivering his sermons to the flock regularly.

And the first thing a missionary, an evangelist or a "bringer of The Word" needs to conquer is, precisely, the 'soul', 'self' or consciousness of the backward and primitive ignoramus who can only be saved by this Word. And it's a relentless, intense, and zealous undertaking indeed; in many cases, it is a duty to persist until "success" is achieved-- whether it be Denomination X or Corporation X or Entrepreneur X or Non-Profit X... . The ultimate aim and goal is the same: to "profit and prosper and grow" for the "glory of God".

So all our economic talk includes incentives, rewards, sanctions, missions, deservings, etc. etc. etc.

So buy ---- or you'll run the risk of being a heretic or a Lost Soul that needs a laying-on of hands.

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the goddess got sick, had a fever, and started to break out, ridding herself of the vermin.

It's the seventh day.

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Democracy and the Civilizing Process.
Using Humans to Feed Being To The Machine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRO8CjzFIh8

In MY reality, I'm Crazy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s64x3yAm410

It's a MINING civilization.

Now they're Mining the Being part of human.

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Near the end of Page 2 he mentions the game "Second Life" which I'm not familiar with but I assume is not a free game. And if that was one example, after that I didn't see any more examples.

Joe Bageant is usually pretty good, and I assumed his premise would be interesting. But I can't figure out what the premise is. Is he saying we spend too much time on the computer and not enough in real life? (Uh, if that's it, isn't this the wrong place for the article?)

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Not that I agree with all of the premises of this link - the religious, and products like your soul, but...

THEY WANT YOUR SOUL PART 1

THEY WANT YOUR SOUL PART 2

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What the author is not saying is that the only way out of this global corporate strangulation mess, and yes, Monsanto and Bechtel, as well as Halliburton, and many others are global, is a good old Marxist get together where in one night the serfs pick off the corporate troops one by one before they know what hit them, and then storm the gates! Or perhaps something on the order of the French revolution. Maybe the guillotine is a bit archaic, but something public and ghastly would be just the ticket. Simultaneous TV and Blackberry broadcasts of hangings of corporate executives in stadiums around the country.

Even though I am not big on Capital Punishment, for the bastard CEO's and their boardroom minions, I would be happy to look the other way.

But on the other hand: It may just happen that things may just right themselves. It's a law of the universe, i.e. just the way things go, as symbolized in the Chinese diagram of the flowing of Yin into Yang and Yang into Yin, that one tiny part of white is always in the middle of the black and vice cersa. Even as we are moving into corporate domination of our very psyches and the patenting of our every thought, that is all part of the old paradigm; we are also moving into something else, which, although I cannot say what it is, I know it is anathema to corporate dominion. I won't call it FREEDOM because we have tried FREEDOM and it just doesn't work. Some ignorant fool is always pissing in the soup. Or else sucking up to Health Care Insurance lobbyists.

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"We the People" = Socialism.

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DEMOCRACY IS A JOKE

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Well, sure, they've been doing it for thousands of years - the most powerful living off the backs of those below.

But it's a bit different with the available technologies, when our own genes become corporate property (or the manipulation of a gene sequence for an intended effect). It's a bit different when the quality of air, the quality of water, and quality of earth become determined by corporate values instead of by human needs. It's a bit different when they will be able to remotely scan and read your brain and determine what are thinking and feeling...
==========
The article lacks something, not sure what, but the idea is excellent. Thanks for the no-cost, low-cost, awareness. It sounds like some brutal aspects of marketing and advertising theory.

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"Heres lord Astor Rockerchild the eleventyteenth gloating over our stupidity and lack of organised opposition well We couldn’t be happier with the way things have worked out , I personally thought it would be much harder to saddle all you peasants with trillions and trillions of toxic liabilities – that’s debt to you and me, ensuring your children and our children’s children’s , get born, work ,shop and die, for myself and a few other wealthy banking families, but you live and learn. Its a source of great pride and no little entertainment to me and my cohorts, that you have been royally fucked , not that you weren’t before, but the scale of the economic lie, the audacity of the proposition and the end result is mind boggling , gut wrenchingly funny..Not only were you forced by law to give up currencies based upon precious metals some time ago, leaving you deluded paupers. Not only were you chaperoned into an economy based on debt by the very people who stood to profit from your debt , but when the shit hit the fan you were quickly persuaded to take on the losses of the failed make shit eat shit economy, so we could carry on regardless hahahaha , hahahah , ahahaha hoohohoh......"

WORK THEN DIE SUCKERS
By FKN Newz

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Corps are responsible for everything "except Babies"- surely you jest at that exception.
OctoMom? Kate? Who benefits from this Fertility Gone Wild? Not only do they get the big bucks for impregnating these women creating 'Super Ovulators'- they get the additional Revenue from the offsprings future healthcare needs. Even without immediate medical issues, the health corps have increased their customer base.
And let's not be so naive as to forget who funnels money into these grassroot "Pro Life" Groups. Interesting the "proLifers" stop their protests and rants when it comes to medial services after birth (SCHIP), are the first to demand our Kids be sent somewhere to Kill the 'Infidels', wage all out war when millages are on the ballot to increase school funding. In fact this Group fights every aspect of Improving "Life" beyond Birth.
From a Corp perspective- how do you lower the price on an exepnsive commodity- flood the market with an oversupply. Not only does the cost go down dramatically on any type of 'expensive'resource, the added benefit when it's labor is that it increase the competition between the masses which aids in lowering their expectations. Thus more people will accept a job at a lower wage, no bennies, no safety considerations....And who wins again? The Corps who have been working diligently to drive down the Ameircan Income to 3rd world levels for decades.
What is even more Tell tale is the fact that the Pharms are (willing ) and able to run constant Ads for "ED" medication- but the Ads for Birth control meds are basically non existent.What happened to the Trojan, The "Plan B", The Patch, the Once Weekly Pill (Zap?).So what's the mesage- sex good- as long as you don't use a contraceptive. Apparently only those who use Birthcontrol methods are having 'dirty sex' while those letting 'nature take it's course' are morally acceptable.And who is it they 'Religious Right' has the biggest tizzy fit about having easy, affordable access to birth control- the poor. The ones who's educational system is subpar at best. Who's ability to meet their childrens basic daily nutritional needs constantly in jeporady. Both a major detriment to cognitive abilities and career opportunities in the future. So they not only want a bundant supply of desperate workers, they want workers who will less likely be able to mount a 'coutner attack' against the system through organized revolt. I'm not saying the poor are stupid- jus they have more stacked against them- economically, socially,environmentlaly and metabolically (malnutrition & stress).
So your Exception, Is not an exception- just a more cleaverly veiled ruse.The Corps have buried their "3rd World Economy and labor market' aspirations behind one line in the Bible "Be Fruitful and multiply"....it increases profit margins.

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An Open Letter to Britain's Establishment

The Norman-English Empire [sic] has enjoyed a better reputation than it has deserved, but it should be credited, at least from the time of Edward VII, with having a sensible regard for public opinion.

Crown immunity has long been used to secure and preserve that reputation by keeping inconvenient facts from the public. Because so much corruption has accumulated at all levels, the government cannot afford to be honest.

The first charter of his dynasty was granted by William the Conquerer in 1067 to the Corporation of the City of London, making it self-regulating. The current royals, his direct descendants, have had little choice but to continue to placate associations of powerful self-serving men.

Sir Kenneth Cork (deceased), a City insolvency practitioner and government 'fixer', was the driving force behind the creation of 'instant' livery companies in his term as Lord Mayor (1978-79). His autobiography makes it clear that the intention was not just to increase the influence of the City, but to make that influence impossible to resist.

William the Conquerer and King John had to defer to the combined might of City men and their own barons by granting them charters setting out privileges which were not granted to ordinary people.

Royal charters are anti-democratic. They almost always concentrate power at the top. Most of them (if my survey is at all representative) place the powerful above the law, even specifically excusing fraud ('non-recital' and 'mis-recital').

The government has never been a democracy, but as a weak monarchy it can plead duress and belief in a greater good.

The plea of duress carries substantial weight. Readers of the attached documents will see that men acting in association have semi-covertly dictated government policy for their own financial gain and, in all too many cases, to the detriment of the common good.

If the government's belief that it was serving a greater good (stability) by allowing self-described 'wealth creators' to drive public policy might have been defensible in the past, this is no longer the case. A government which has enabled privileged people to ride roughshod over others will struggle to be respected.

Walter Bagehot's 'middle and lower orders' are angry. We are angry that bankers were bailed out while small businesses have been allowed to fail and people have lost their homes through no fault of their own.

We are angry that MPs not only gave themselves allowances to cover both luxuries and necessities, but even then cheated the system.

We are angry that we have no economic security, long and often unsocial hours of work, an environment under constant threat and countless petty restrictions on our everyday activities.

The British people will now come to understand how their basic rights have been disregarded, not just through Crown immunity, but through royal charters which have been exploited by specific professions and commercial interests. At public expense. At great cost to the environment. Adding to the sum total of human misery.

The perceived greater good--based upon the greatest gain for and the least damage to the established order--is inferior to the common good which benefits everyone.

The revelations in the attachment are no threat to the monarchy. To the contrary, they can liberate it from its powerful supporters, allowing a new social contract. [continued below]

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What Can Be Done Now?

1. Our common goal should be increased security for everyone regardless of status. This can be done by forgiveness of debt and the secure possession of a primary residence.

2. People in positions of power should conduct themselves from this time forward to qualify for mitigtion in any amnesty or other resolution.

3. Amnesty can be based upon the admission of wrongdoing and appropriate expressions of remorse.

4. Restitution of or compensation for property which was obtained by fraud or other unconscionable manipulation can be decided by lay allocation boards.

5. Common law should be established as superior to statutory law and issues of 'right and wrong' settled by juries charged with giving reasoned decisions.

6. Never again should corporations be allowed to profit from activities which are detrimental to human life and the environment.

7. A progressive land tax would, over time, reduce inequality and increase everyone's well-being without causing major disruption.

Our common fears have been based upon (1) the assumption of scarcity and (2) the knowledge of our personal vulnerability. The former can be shown to be false. The latter may best be dealt with by understanding that, despite every wrong and disaster we see in the foreground, the human race has become ever more concerned, more principled and more determined to address what is wrong.

Terrible damage has been done. There is now a fortunate opportunity and a moral obligation to mend and heal.

Suzon Forscey-Moore, BA, LLM
Cambridge

1 July 2009

N.B. This open letter and the documents in 'The Corporation 1067-Present' are being distributed in the public interest to academics, office holders, journalists, campaigners and (separately) other individuals in the UK and elsewhere. Along with the full research, it has also been circulated in hard copy and on CD-Rom.

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It's not an "Anglo-European" tradition, but rather an Anglo-American one. Wherever, on this planet, Anglo(+Scot) and American traditions are most prevalent, so is the misery. The continental Europeans have some values and traditions that helped to countervail the toxicity of A-A corporate imperialism. The European countries that got closest to adopting the A-A model are the worst off; best off are those that contained the trend or avoided it altogether.
There is a strong chauvinist or racist element to all this, too.
Moreover, the corporations have been after our very beings right from the start, stripping away our experiences, structuring our perceptions and emotions, and replacing whatever is genuine about our existence with commercial pap via media and advertising.

I agree with the writer otherwise. I'm going through the same nightmare. Reading the news is a hazard to health and sanity these days.

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What an amazingly confused article. I suppose it will be considered nitpicking to say that there is no such place as 'Seville Row' it's Savile Row, but it serves to show how speculative and ill thought-out this piece is.

William the Conqueror and the Corporation of London? What Corporation of London? It didn't exist in the late 11th century.

Bankers were not the all-powerful people you seem to imagine. The Dutch invented the idea of modern banking, but it took the US, as usual, to come up with the notion of fractional banking so as to invent 'money' out of thin air.

You're right, of course, about the multinationals and major conglomerates having too much power, but we've allowed it to happen - for money.

The most corrupt country in the world is the US, in that regard. Any and all politicians are bought by the lobbies, and crimes of the highest order are perpetrated by the likes of Monsanto and Big Pharma, the 'defense' industry and the farming, gun and other lobbies.

So of course they own the people. You sold yourselves to them, why wouldn't they own you?

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Congratulations Mr. Joe Bageant. You have joined Mr. Christ Hedges to compete for the best article I have read in AlterNet. It is for me so stimulating to read AlterNet as it is depressing to watch TV. And when someone like you adds a little humour, even better.

But don’t get angry, it is not good, think that after all the bastards are not going to rule our world (sorry, their world) for long, at least individually, as most of them are pretty old and already have one foot in the graveyard. Their power obsession may be considered senile dementia.

And even as a group or institution they will not last forever, because nothing is forever. It is neither our world nor their world, it is somebody else’s world, who, yes, has a plan, but if the whole plan were immediately evident for all of us, then this world would be so boring that God would stop creation immediately.

I believe in the explanation of the yugas, or spiritual cycles of mankind, lasting some 24,000 years, explained by Sri Yukteswar in “The Sacred Science”. It will take a looong time, but we are slow but sure going up now in the upward half of the cycle. If the cycle were a clock, we are now around 7 o’clock, going upward towards the highest point, 12 o´clock, and the lowest point was the Middle Ages. So I think some day in the future no one except a few historians will know the names of the best known corporations of today. But most people will know names like Jesus, Babaji, Yogananda or Prem Rawat.

Yogananda said the US has an important role to play in mankind’s progress. This was evident until about 50 years ago, and now seems rather a joke. But again, nothing is forever. Just like it happened with Christianism, women’s vote, abortion, etc., it may start with a few, like Alternet writers and readers, and then start growing, and growing, and growing…

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Consider the Connection to:
The Economic Pyramid CTC3
Please Google Search:
CTC123GREEN

Consider the Connection to:
The NEGATIVE Economic Pyramid "comment on"
Corporation X__________.

Great article, Joe Bageant

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First of all I’ll start by saying I’m no advocate for “capitalism” as some kind of perfect or balanced system. In fact, unless “capitalism” is strictly regulated it inevitably games and rigs nations into the merger of state and monopoly corporate power with corporate power in full command of government (Fascism).

That leads to the most important point I make on these threads in that “capitalism” DOES NOT EXIST. What does run the west through constant extortion is Organized Corporate Rule better known as Fascism.

“Capitalism” by definition requires real competition and freedom of thought and human endeavor to operate let alone exist. That definition also holds true for democracy.

The system we live under is – by clear definition – Fascism that destroys both “capitalism” and “democracy” making them impossible to survive. What is left in the U.S. is a Fascist state relentlessly advertising itself as “democracy” out of a fully monopoly corrupted media and Washington propaganda circus.

People like Denise Kucinich, Elisabeth Kucinch, Cynthia McKinney and Ron Paul have been as much as saying this for years now.



Democracy
the free and equal right of every person to participate in a system of government, often practiced by electing representatives of the people by the people
Encarta® World English Dictionary ©
(also republic - free markets and self-determinism required)

Capitalism
an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods, characterized by a free competitive market and motivation by profit
Encarta® World English Dictionary ©
(free market democracy and self-determinism required)

Fascism
any movement, tendency, or ideology that favors dictatorial government, centralized control of private enterprise, repression of all opposition, and extreme nationalism
Encarta® World English Dictionary ©
(free market democracy, self-determinism and free market capitalism all eliminated)

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"Malcontent that she is, Mother Earth has been unhappy with man's behavior for a long time."

Newsflash: she tried to kill everyone from day one.

The fact that you can relax in your appartment with a bowl of noodles while listening to antiwar news on the radio as opposed to dying with smallpox in a wooden shack under old deerskin while wondering what those lights in the sky are at the age of 25 is not "natural" - it's a consequence of man's ingenuity coupled to, yes, capitalism.

But I agree we need to get some grip on the externalities.

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Not that I watch the media much but since I understand what the media tries to delude the audience into believing the lies and is often successful, it would not surprise me to run into wackos who'd think that the economy is flying even if I told them that it is not.

What we need is a mixture of socialism and regulated capitalism just like Europe. Unfortunately, even in the supposedly progressive/liberal circles, bringing this idea up means that we somehow risk getting labelled a "commie" or whatever crap. As I see it, socialism is great for the basic safety net while regulated capitalism actually offers choice unlike unfettered capitalism which is choice only for the very well to do and little choice for everyone else. That said, maybe we need to make sure that we do not allow regulated capitalism to be overtaken by unfettered capitalism. Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" is a great book to read on this matter.

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The first rule if you want to make money in anything except money.
"If it works too well kill it."

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because it leads to the truth.

QVC used to be a channel or two on cable, now we are surrounded by sales people hawking their goods to us, 3-4000 times a day. It started when they convinced people to where logo labeled clothes, Adidas T-shirts and Converse high tops.

There were already bill boards and TV ads, but now we are connected internally, because advertising is not trying to sell you a product; the bastards are trying to sell you a soul, an image of what life will be like, if you just buy this contraption or that newfangled gadget.

"Simplify, Simplify, Simplify! Let your accounts be no more than you can count on your ten fingers and lump the rest."

"The mass of men [sic] lead lives of quiet desperation."

"Business corrupts everything it touches, even the business of religion."

H.D. Thoreau

Peace

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Confused? Historically inaccuate? Likely to induce cynical acceptance not only of the status quo, but of the inevitability of the status quo?

Yes, these are all legitimate (though not fatal) criticisms. As a rant from someone who's admittedly and rather amusingly lost his "moorings" (and is ecstatic about it), however, Joe Bageant's offering is certainly no worse than most.

Still, there is one little caveat that needs to be entered. Apologists for authority and ideologues in support of the powerful may not always have good arguments in support of ruling elites, but they do well when they can label dissenters psychologically unstable if not clinically "crazy."

Whether taking their cues from Freud or some other dabbler in the psychic arts, it is not unusual for them to be able to find some "explanation" for political dissent in the personal experience of the dissenter. So, opposition to tyranny may be interpreted as an unresolved Oedipal fixation. Or, less melodramatically, demands for equity may be seen as nothing more than the "projection" of personal envy or frustration upon the socio-economic system as a whole.

Whether such claims have credibility in each particular personality profile is, however, irrelevant to the analysis of political economy. None of us are exempt from psychological tensions and, no doubt, each of us carries our own emotional burdens. What we need not do is contribute to the arsenal of those seeking to dismiss social criticism as a token of individual crankiness.

Besides, when we examine the mental states of those in positions of corporate power, the frequency of sociopathic attitudes and actions is more noticeable than the levels of chronic anxiety and instances of intermittand psychotic episodes among their opponents. Even so, war, environmental degradation, poverty and oppression in all its forms are not certifiable personality disorders. Their amelioration - if not their ultimate elimination - are matters of political importance that must not be trivialized by the discovery that Marx was accidentally locked in a dark closet as a child or that Nietzsche was inappropriately
"potty-trained."

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a video game, a computer, the newest DNA designer pharmaceuticals, the fastest and most gizmo laden cell phone, the sales pitch commercials for a 'healthier' but cheaper food imitation (to fit these 'trying times') and dreams???

funny thing happened last year with a blackout that lasted 4 days after a wicked windstorm took down power lines and shuttered businesses... people began to talk, cooperate with each other, share what they had, helped each other out with little 'help' from social structures that were supposed to jump in during emergencies... even the linemen who got the power up and running were included in this generosity...

now, the corps are screaming that we are not buying but saving what little $$ we do have and that includes our own imaginations and humanity... they're not done fleecing us yet, the only thing left is our consciousness...

or we can turn our backs and walk away from the sales pitches...

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It's as if underneath it all, too many AGREE that corporate capitalism is the only game in town, and you either go along or fight it directly, attempting to accumulate power.

But all over, we're seeing victories in completely different directions. I see it all over metro Detroit. We now have farmer's markets EVERYWHERE. I'm about to go there and get our groceries for the week. We can get all our food there now, meat, eggs, cheese, bread, granola, yogurt. We can get all our gifts there: soap and other toiletries, plants, antiques. There are also community gardens popping up all over, with their own sales and events, and restaurants that have their own gardens outside, or nearby. Want to know the effect this has had? Every grocery chain and store advertises Michigan products. They saw the writing on the wall and are providing what is being demanded.

The cheapness of Detroit real estate has allowed funky urban homesteaders to take over entire blocks and revive them. Blighted areas that used to be dangerous are now destination points, and are charming.

WalMart gave up hormone-infused milk because enough people ASKED. No coalitions, no "power", no corporate takeovers. Monsanto saw the writing on the wall and dropped that division. The people didn't know each other, didn't sign online petitions that I know of, just asked.

These things are the best way to fight back for two reasons: they actually show successes, and in the event they didn't, you've opted out. You're not participating. Your money is not contributing. Your life is what you want it to be. Unfortunately, we don't have total control over this. And mostly we do seem to want to outline the problems and for some reason expect that someone else is going to pick up OUR ball and run with it.

If you want to CHANGE things, run for office, beginning today. If what you want is to topple this corporate system, boy, do you have your work cut out for you. But there is no point in thinking someone else or some group is supposed to do this, while we all go to our more-or-less corporate jobs and buy our corporate stuff and hope that things will change by someone else's hand so our lives are corporate no longer. We always knew what to do. We do now. If you don't want to get directly, powerfully involved in making direct change, begin with your life and don't stop still it's removed from what you abhor. If you want actual direct change, you must YOURSELF get directly into the system. Everyone who has done this has had to quit their other job, find funding or deplete their own riches, work 18+hour days, suck up, fight, take punches, deliver them, try to hold onto their convictions, maybe sell out, COMPROMISE, fight, etc, over and over, day after day, year after year.

Aren't we ready to move past this stasis? We all know what we all think. Why NOT run for office? Someone is going to. (Of course, some aren't, and some will pointlessly avoid offices they can win and only try for ones they can't). Wherever you live, you will have candidates on every level in the next election. If you need political change to affect corporate change, it's time to step up and be one of the ones. If you are willing to go slower and affect change on a different level, it's time for that as well. But both need a beginning today.

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As I see it, the problem is not capitalism, but curruption. The most successful social system I have seen is social-democracy Scandinavian/Dutch style, which is still based on capitalism. They have practically no illiteracy nor poverty, though no system is perfect. Just tax the rich more and give the same good education to every one. It's a matter of education and a Dutch/Scandinavian sense of solidarity. What about asking Obama to hire a few Scandinavian/Dutch advisors?

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Thanks for letting me know that there is another person out there who not only thinks exactly as I do, sees exactly what I see, and expresses it in the same language I would, but also has a forum in which to express it all. By the way, I'm a girl. You are not crazy and your wife is lucky to have you. The challenge remains to better our soul (being) in spite of these creeps and to bring the herd (all of us) back to the basics of life and pursuit of happiness. It is a daily ponder of mine and I try to make sure that my actions are true to my mind. Perhaps that is the answer, actions true to one's spirit, but we would have to make sure that at least 6 billion souls are on board to over come the powerful thousands. Best to you and please keep writing.

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Who said that when fascism arrives in the US it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross? Upton Sinclair, I think. Add to that axiom 'brought to you by' and supply any corporate name you want.

As Noam Chomsky has said, we have one political party in the US--the business party. Of course, the corporate media have sidelined the US's most important public intellectual because they don't like his message.

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Just the right amount of cynicism for my taste in this, the age of rancor.

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One significant aspect of all of this that I didn't see mentioned in the article or comments is how most people have abandoned their own lives and given them to the entertainment industry. Or, more accurately, they've paid the entertainment industry to take over their lives. Consequently, the older generations have mostly forgotten how to live their own lives and the current upcoming generations have never learned how to live their own lives so they're beyond forgetting.

And within the entertainment industry, I also include the news and advertising industries. It's also no stretch to include the toy and fashion industries. But, as I'm thinking about it, perhaps most industries have become part of the entertainment industry, either directly or by being primarily in support thereof.

People have lost touch with their own sense of values - real values - because their role modeling comes from the questionable and ever changing images and examples that are provided by the entertainment industry. So much of what passes for entertainment is simply the appearance of novelty. And novelty quickly wears off, so there is a constant supply of - along with a corresponding craving for - endless attempts at providing more novelty, simply for the sake of more novelty.

Because of our lack of real inner values, we struggle and strive and even fight each other for ownership of this novelty, even though there is really nothing there to own. It is all a stream of passing fads and illusions of ownership. Of course, we never really own anything anyway. Even our bodies are simply borrowed material for the short while we are here in this world, yet we feel as though our bodies and our minds are "us" as we cling to the impermanent under the illusion we are somehow in control of it.

Having, in practice, given ourselves (as well as everything we think we own) over to the entertainment industry, we hardly have a clue as to who we really are, let alone who we really could become, as individuals and as families, communities, tribes, cultures. The only way we can begin to discover who we are and who we have the potentials to become, is to own our individual life experiences for ourselves - and then to share our life experiences with each other.

The only way we can really learn to do this is by learning to be still and quiet - often called meditation - and start listening to the inner voice of our hearts, and also by practicing being of service to one another and to all beings and to planet Earth. From this will arise a real understanding of what Life is all about. This is the only kind of change that can really make a difference - the only kind of change we can really believe in.

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We must face the truth, read this:

http://americaspeaksink.com/?s=sell+out

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Thank you for this great article. I have worked for corporations for years and wondered why I didn't fit in and what on earth was wrong with me? The corporations do some really bizarre, unethical, exploitive and downright mean things. Is this why I worked so hard to get my engineering degree? After 15 years I am starting my own small, community base business, and I think I have finally escaped the corporate shackles once and for all. I now can see what is going on from the outside in. It's like watching a movie and it's all so clear to me.

I have made one observation that I have not heard anywhere else yet. I recently contracted to a very large corporation. They hire interns from prestigious universities and newly minted PhDs. The focus of their education is very specifc. It appears that the universities are grooming students for corporate life.

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1% own 21% of individual wealth
10% own 71%

HAITI here we come

1-2-3rd World Power

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"Essentially, we're talking about stripping the human experience from life, then renting it back to humans."

Reminds me of fucking wonder bread. Stripped of all nutrients in the process of processing and then enriched synthetically before it's baked, packaged and sold.

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back in about 2003, read an article in the times about this marketing exec at time-warner who had been told to start a group to begin studying how best to snag the minds OF BABIES! TW asserted that it needed this as its competition had been dong this for several years and TW was running behind as this was a selling point for advertisers and gaining more customers... the man decided he couldn't live with himself if he did that and refused. this of course led to his firing. next time you see a baby screaming at the grocery store...

btw... it's a rare day i don't need to use this quote... mussolini said, "fascism should more properly be known as corporatism, as it is the merger of governmental and industrial powers." from beijing to brainwashington, london to lima...

don't know if yall are keeping up with emerging tech, but for the past 20 years and now accelerating, is thought-reading technology, with two major devs in the past year, one of which actually images human's thoughts in the process.

wanna see the future? (probably not, really) read some recent ray kurzweil. MITs 45 year inventor and the man kubrick went to in 1967 to consult about the future for '2001;' ray's cognoscenti, if fascist by mussolini's definition... he says soon we'll be getting brain implants for web and communications – finally get to read the library of congress in an hour? then onto 2040 when we start uploading consciousness into presumably NSA servers for faux-immortality sans body... its wish is your command...

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30 years ago I was jeered at and called a wing nut for my analysis of the fascist changes occurring in American government. Now that people have begun to realize what is happening it is simply too late. Nothing will change because the hold of the corporations on all aspects of life is just too pervasive and too all encompassing,and citizens are still far too unaware and apathetic. I do believe that humans will cease to be the dominant species on earth as a result of our inability to alter the disastrous course which corporate greed and short-sighted pursuit of profits has set us on.

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while i was loading this page, i saw that one of the items the page was including was a connection to "trafficing.outbrain.com.' not to worry, we're just compiling a database on your every move and whim. do you use your right or left hand mostly for masturbation? we see from your RFIDs that you haven't bought any cheetos in the ordained time limit. the subliminal police are on their way. "resistance is futile"

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or else we should not be talking about this, i think that some day there will be a turning point, history proves it, look what happened to the roman empire it owned more than half of known world, but it started to rot from inside out, same will happen here, once they have everything from us they will eat one each other.
Their greed for power have no limits and that will be their perdition.
And after the storm the sun will shine again.

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From the article:
"Manufacture artificial scarcity, even of human consciousness and experience by redefining and reshaping it. The tools here are legal means such as intellectual property rights, patents softwares ..."

>Corporations are already patenting the genes of humans who have genetic disease-fighting ability. These people no longer own those parts of their own bodies, so if these people should give blood to, say the Red Cross rather than to the patent-holding corporation, they and the Red Cross can be sued for patent infringement. On their own bodies ...
. . . . .

"We will no longer 'own' anything, much less attempt to own everything we can lay hands on." "Life as a paid-for experience, with none of the hassles of ownership."

>I have never in my life seen as many expensive cars, BMW's, Mercedes', Cadillac SUV's etc., plying the streets as today, most of them driven by ordinary people. Very economically intimidating. Granted, some are driven by drug dealers, but most, if not all, are not owned; they are leased –– rented. These people think they "own" those cars, but when they have to give them back (paying exhorbitant penalties for wear-and-tear ... GOTCHA!), they have nothing to show for it. Great deal for leasing agencies, terrible deal for the leasees –– but, hey!, they sure LOOK rich driving those high-roller cars!
. . . . .

Ernie: "Now tell me this perfessor, didn't we bring all this on ourselves? Ain't we got some personal responsibility for what happens to us?"

>Yes and no. Humans are suckers for bright, shiny objects and self-elevating fantasy; but we are also a Skinnerian lab rat population which has been Operant-conditioned for a half century by incessant, wall-to-wall now 24/7, advertising, designed by brilliant but immoral Machiavellian minds to turn us into unquestioning consumers. This level of conditioning has overwhelmed even our most powerful higher brain functions, because it takes hold down in the primative, limbic region of the brain. We have done it to ourselves only insofar as we have LET the more powerful do it to us. But we were outgunned from the start.
. . . . .

For all you fundalmentalist, Darwin-denyers out there: We have found the "Missing Link"; it is us. WE are the missing link –– between ignorant killer apes and civilized human beings.

Pogo: "We have met the enemy and they are us."

When the epitaph for the human race is eventually written, it should read: "They were too clever for their own good."

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sounds familiar... in 1973 in a history class discussion in college, the topic was whether hersh and ellsberg were heroes or traitors. this 'liberal' class mostly thought they were traitors. the woman next to me said flatly that "if the government doesn't want me to know it; i shouldn't know it and don't want to know it."

i said i believed that the USg was doing experiments on its own and other publics with radiation, CBWs and mind control. i was ridiculed as a crazy paranoid conspiracy theorist.

among many i could reference since then... in 1978, the USg finally admitted to the 1940s 'tuskegee syphilis experiment' applied like germ warfare to many blacks. then all the stuff came out about CIA's MK Ultra program demonic mind kontrol tech which was later found still going strong by amnesty international, though outsourced. then in 1994, the DoD finally admitted its 'department of human radiation experiments' since 1945, having impacted millions here and in such places as the pacific paradise where nukes were tested in open air...

in 1993, after 150 years of secrecy, all the details of the andrew jackson 'smallpox-saturated blanket campaign' for native extermination was released. it wound up on a back page of the times as a squib... delivered by good christian missionaries, no less, millions murdered for the love of jesus...

crazy paranoid conspiracy theorist, eh? shall we discuss AIDS? HAARP? prozac? 911? goldsacks or WTO? hey, wanna wind up renditioned to a concentration camp called gaza, somewhere east of ryker's island?

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Capitalism is an idea with an objective. The objective is total control and the winning of everything that is available to be won. Think of the game Monopoly and when you were just like a capitalist yourself - you wanted to win and to control everything.

Well, in the modern context there are the success stories of capitalism and we all know who the winners are. While we know who these people are we simply do not know what they are going to do next to maximize their position in society.

All we can do is to protect ourselves in the best way that we know how. Unfortunately, some of the traditional methods available to us are now gone. The politicians do not work for the little guy anymore so the game is somewhat off balance at the present moment. You and I are left to our own devices in order to survive the capitalist game. The bankers are controlling the bank and almost everything associated with it.

Survival is the name of the game. But, is that good enough? How long did you last in your Monopoly game once you noticed your resources disappearing in front of you? And, your losses were the simple act of the roll of the dice as well. You should be so lucky my friends to have dice at your disposal while you are playing your capitalist game, because now, the modern banker even controls how the dice are thrown as well.

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the control machinery here is actually quite ancient... like burroughs said, "language is a virus from outer space." and in 2003, his thesis was validated. it was discovered that between 10-15,000 years ago, our kind was almost wiped out by precisely a language disease. we survived solely because pathology developed a gene to enable our survival-use of these complex symbol systems.

occult from the word go, sanskrit sorcerors would go to their spot, conjure a sound into their midst til all agreed on it; establish the innate meaning of that sound and envision the symbol for it. how many essentially misunderstood symbols does it take to run billions of humans for ages? 26, plus numerals and a handful of punctuation and mathematical marks.

again burroughs... in the 1950s, he got off of heroin for a while via dr. john dent's apomorphine cure. while much more successful than any other treatments; it was yanked from usage by governments due to unspecified 'disturbing mental effects."

what effects were those? according to burroughs and others, when given apomorphine, symbols and words literally vanished from the mind and for the first time, persons existed without a word or symbol in their minds. suddenly, the inner workings of the control machinery were not there, but could be seen falling away like microscopic parasites.

think words are just a tool we developed and control? you can always put aside a tool. try to set aside all words from your mind for a day, an hour, a minute. notice the resisting force... ever have a hammer refuse to be put down?

watch the news from this perspective. riddled with this infestation; words pull the strings on people far more than people pull the strings on words. this planet needs a huge dose of apomorphine. maybe a dose of LSD, too. then maybe we'd see some change. hey, while we're at it, throw on some of the pentagon's aphrodisiac weapon they call the 'gay bomb.'

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Isn't confined to churches, temples, or mosques.
Just take a look at the vampires sucking the life's blood out of us. They steal us blind and command us to worship them as a means of validating their evil and insulating them from JUSTICE.
Just as in the religion racket, they're always right, never wrong, and mustn't be scrutinized or criticised.
As long as our people look up to greedy cretins for inspiration and as role models, worthy of emulation and adoration, we'll be on the short end of things.

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For a handle, try Neil Postman's book, Technopoly. For a remedy, at least when it comes to consciousness, I recommend Derrick Jensen, especially Endgame (2 volumes) and (with George Draffan) Welcome to the Machine.

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"A Peoples' History of the United States" by Howard Zinn, that tells what "Corporate" America is capable of.

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n/t

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....for you grotesque christian zombies.

All you Judeo-Christians can go and fuck yourselves. You don't even have enough value as fertilizer to justify harvesting and grinding you up.

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Really hits the nail on the head about Jesus’ message and what kind of an example He set for all those with a kind, gentle,loving message and how to live in harmony. First, PP was a bully, just like corporate America. How did Jesus deal with bullies? He gave in. Gave up his power and submitted to them. “Pick up your cross on the way out” And He did. By doing this He surrendered His power. Swell. But why? PP was lording it over kind souls everywhere and this is what the kind souls can look forward to if they try and buck the system, nailed to the cross. I think Jesus sent the wrong message here.

For heaven sakes the Man raised Lazarus from the dead, changed water into wine, walked on water, multiplied a couple of loaves and fishes to feed the masses. He had power and could work miracles. When push came to shove what did He do with all this power? He showed us how to deal with bullies, not by working a miracle and changing PP’s mind about what being kind can do, not by showing us that good will triumphant over evil, murder, lying and cheating, not by showing us we all have the power to work miracles, oh no not that. He showed us that the kind and gentle have no power over evil on this earth. That the here and now is not important, that the good are all destined to suffer, be tortured, humiliated, and must be willingly die to get to heaven. Yea, I don’t think so. I am here. It is now. And so are the bullies. It is about the here and now.

Jesus had me right up until this, “I’ve rather die than fight thing.” Liked the story but the ending doesn’t work for me. Corporate America is PP. So how do you deal with bullies? What are my choices? I’m not going to turn into a PP and fight fire with fire, but I sure am not going to roll over and play dead either. How would I rewrite the Jesus story and give it a happy ending? It needs to be a win-win and no body dies. What could He have done differently to show us all how to deal with the Pontius Pilates of the world? A nice little miracle is always good. He could have popped those nails out, picked Himself up, dusted Himself off and said, You can’t hurt me cause I am doing good stuff here making life a little better for everyone. Bringing out the best in people by being kind and thoughtful trumps big, mean, bad and nasty. Now, would that have been so hard to do for someone who could walk on water? I don’t think so.

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Voters in the European Union are fed up with discredited socialisme from the past and todays rapaciuos capitalisme from the USA.

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The true genius of capitalism is that it has successfully distracted, confused and misdirected the very guys and gals who are getting fucked by it the most, all the Ted Nugent-fans, Rush Limbaugh-listeners, Sarah Palin-skirt sniffers and Glenn Beck-acolytes I bitch about all the time.

These poor dumb schmucks, many of'em walking about in Nike or Budweiser Tees or Realtree cammies, hoot and holler about how the guv'munt's and Lib-Rules are fucking them; taking away their freedoms to smoke, drive like a maniac and die in county general's emergency room because they don't need no fucking socialized medicine!

What these poor idiots haven't figured out is, the guv'munt is owned by the very corporations whose logo T-shirts are coving their backs. Do they ever stop and think that the Busch family or the Coors family give a rat's ass if they get affordable health care?

Even their coordinator class NASCAR heroes, autos and jumpsuits covered in corporate logos, are part and parcel of this grand fucking. There hasn't been a moonshine-running stack car driver since Junior Johnson quit the circuit. The punks who pass for good-ol' boy NASCAR drivers are nothing but a bunch of suburban pansies whose parents paid their tuition Bob Bondurant driving school in Phoenix, AZ because they couldn't score high enough on the SAT to get into an Ivy League school. But the poor deluded jerks flock to the tracks and buy the made-in-China, NASCAR-licensed Dale Earnhardt crap like religious relics.

And worse of all these same dumbasses, isolated in their dilapidated tract homes, semi-trucks hurtling down the socialist Interstate Highway system, or cars on that same socialist Interstate, traveling from one sales appointment to another, all listen to their FoxNews heroes and heroines telling them that the Lib-Rules, the N******, the Mexicans, the girl-mommas on welfare are all fucking them. In short the Glenn Becks, Michael Savages and Rush Limbaughs of this world tell these poor deluded fucks that anyone and everyone except the corporate pricks on Wall Street are fucking them. And the poor hallucinating schmoes eat it up with a spoon they just bought at Walmart along with a lifetime supply of ammo--'cause Obama's going to stop the manufacture of small arms ammunition as of yesterday!

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The United States of Haiti, the bestest third world shithole in North America!

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I think it is more direct than that. We are going to have the patent to our genes taken away from us.

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There are many things that we worker ants can do to throw a major wrench into their machine if we wanted.

Stop paying taxes, mortgages,loans.

Start bartering for things you need.

Start a garden to offset what you would normally buy and trade any surplus for other items you need.

Buy local and even better from farm stands not at national chain stores.

Carpool or take mass transit and or buy a bike to cut down on the use of a car.

Make your own lunch at home.

Buy things second hand when you can instead of buying new.

Try not to buy processed food and start actually cooking again.

Do not celebrate the corporate holidays by purchasing things. Spend time with your family.

Turn off the TV and start reading used books on subjects that are of interest or use.

Start getting to know who lives around you again to form communities which look out for each other.

Get involved in political issues and let the useless in DC know your opinion and ask them repeatedly why they do not follow the will of the people. Learn about the ways the taxpayer is being robbed and tell others,form networks.

Start being an individual again but one who is a member of a larger community. Try going door to door to get others to help clean up your town or other things that you feel have not being done and should be done.

As long as we all live in our little shell it is easy for the corporations to pick us off.

Imagine how impressive it would be for tens of millions to march on Washington to show them they still have to deal with "we the people".

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Well said. Yes the "Corporate, Government, Media Complex" is a soulless, greedy, democratic devouring BEAST!

Only Divine Light can overcome such an EVIL!

Divine Light...
It comes beyond the sky
Images of the god we know
Mortality makes us all the same
Love is the doorway beyond

Life the way the universe listens
Life is a reflection that glistens

A mystery wisdom lets us control
A breath with a thinking soul

Colors so many colors of creation
Colors that give us imagination

Divine Light...
It takes us beyond the why
Darkness is eternally aglow
Solaris, life giver, the flame
Love is the doorway beyond.

Corporatism vs Divine Light this is THE struggle.

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That's what happens to you when you go to college these days. No price is too high, and the loan terms are easy.

My father got a graduate degree by selling door to door, not by taking out loans. My nephew will probably have to pay off his $50,000/year for college by taking out big loans. Congress made this system because they didn't want the government to pay for public education, so they put it on the backs of the 20 year olds, who of course don't ever vote so that makes it all right. Get to work, slave!

As for owning your soul, the military has made it their top priority for the last 50 years. In the Civil War, maybe 10% of soldiers on both sides actually aimed their guns directly at the enemy, instead of over their heads. By WWII this was 25%. By Vietnam, 50%. By Iraq, 75%. So soldiers come back all traumatized inside by their having killed people on instinct, and they don't speak about it all of their lives.

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Gerry Spence and Jerry Mander are two of the most recent writers to expose the intent and management of the corporate world. our so-called leaders are nothing more than bridesmaid of corporations, to include the president. Mander's most recent book talks about how the use of nano technology will be the method used to completely rob us of the human experience. Spence helps us to understand how to take bake our freedom from corporations.

William

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I would have edited away half of the article.

Either you are preaching to the choir, or you don't care who loses interest at the name-calling and just keep going, which is the same thing.

I was interested enough in the topic to cut and paste, and dropped fully half of it as distracting attitude.



May I remind you of AlterNet's stated policy, at least on the comments entry page:

* personal attacks on our writers or readers
* excessive profanity
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Like Finland Does

Rather than cool the powerstation's excess heat by venting it into the air, The Fins warm peoples homes up and provide Free hot water - even in summer

Why waste the energy?

You might as well warm up cold human beings than warm up the air...

Who was the idiot who said - but their is more profit - in wasting the energy - and then making them pay to get warm

What about the fucking planet?

Tony

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True, but you left out each individual's inner intention - we're not powerless receptors only. We don't have to choose fear, guilt, and narcissism.

I've got six famous words for you, now reinvented in an Integral holon, (see Ken Wilber's later writings AQAL ), not to make the same mistakes and be overtaken by Rovian / Sciafe / Bildersberg Group / Norquist et al reaction, since the real deregulation and worship of phantom "unregulated free market is rational and beneficial" myth, and undoing monopoly protection, so that single corporations could monopolize and grow bloated and "omni-present" including swallowing media, started with Reagan and Thatcher in 1980.

6 words: Turn on, tune in, drop out!

We did it from the homogenized flatland culture of the fifties (and early sixties), and we can do it now with the corporate seamless colonolism of postmodernism - rise above it - transcend it - it takes "higher" consciousness that sees it as small as it is, within Big Mind and Big Heart, and political understanding of what and who is behind the curtain(s) - then action and living beyond it, if we can.

But, I confess that given Global Heating seemingly past the tipping point and this last financial rape of 99% of the Earth's population by the corporate plutocracy-financial wing, and the disappointment that Obama is serving them (which I've known since Nov. when he appointed Geithner and Summers), I've been depressed, too.

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That would've been treason on Ponty's part: as soon as Caesar'd heard he'd said that he woulda lost his head…

Ponty was eventually persuaded to participate in the three-way conspiracy to kill Jesus– the Religious Right and the Religious Liberals among the Jews, and the Romans representing the rest of us Gentiles– because of my Lord's refusal to deny his Messianic kingship as opposed to Ponty's master Caesar's rival claims to be king of the world, not because of any Jewish accusations.

So, were Jesus' claims legitimate? We shall see…

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Hosea 4:6 - "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge..."

Good Citizens in the 1940s rationed essential commodities (such as scrap metal, butter and nylon) to fight, and beat, the enemies of WWII. It should now be every Good Citizen's duty to learn to use a computer system as efficiently and responsibly as possible. I do not mean that every PC user must
become a proficient hacker; but that one SHOULD be computer literate enough to run a non-buggy, fully operating PC on one's own. This will free up our valued (and too-few) hacker talents to focus on more serious matters of securing cyberspace for Western Civilization, rather than be bogged down defending green recruits from enemy attack that SHOULD be easily defeated by said recruits.

And, we are in such a state as to now require cessation of help for the low-level problems that wouldn't crop up were it not for mass PC/Internet illiteracy. The Good Citizen should no longer expect such exorbitant application of cerebral power required to assist the illiterati...or as I prefer to call them: "Anal Ogs". In fact, we will soon ban such Citizens from access to ANY computer whatsoever, as well as the Internet.

--
Gays are key to the global revolution
http://www.gay-bible.org

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Doctors benefit over the deaths of patients, from being a "manufactured scarcity." For many years, the AMA has limited the number of new doctors that can be created - making each of them artificially more valuable. 200,000 Americans die each year from preventable medical mistakes - 8% of all deaths, and more than twice the rate at which Germany and Japan combined managed to kill our GIs during WWII. The bad apples, the dishonest or incompetent doctors and nurses, don't get kicked out of the profession - they get shielded by their profession. I now hold medical people in very low esteem. They've earned it. The dysfunctional health care financing system gets all the press, but the profession itself is also dysfunctional. Medical people are too arrogant to see it clearly. There are some good ones, but medicine is a field where many people have to work well together. The group is no better than its weakest link, and the chance that one of those weak links will be on the team doing work for you is unacceptably high. Any doctor or nurse who doesn't acknowledge this, and seek to change and improve it from inside their professions, is NOT a good doctor or nurse.

The other has to do with corporations taking over our consciousness. We've seen a number of train accidents lately, where innocent people died from engineers whose consciousness was being rented by corporations to do other things like texting while they were driving the train. It's also been recently revealed that studies showed long before we knew it, just how much cell phone usage created hazardous drivers. The studies were kept quiet. Whenever I hear someone who isn't strongly opposed to corporate power, talking about how precious every human life is, I see a hypocrite.

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On a related note, what happened to the counterculture, such as it was, of the late 60s/early 70s? That's a long story with internal problems within the culture like contradictions and pre-trans fallacies and reaction against it and its most progressive ideas by the power establishment Right that prevailed finally with Reagan/Thatcherism, and I believe the day that Reagan was inaugurated, or not long after, Abbie Hoffman committed suicide, which I still consider as I did then a bit melodramatic and decidedly unhealthy.

Beyond that, why not a new counterculture - is it even possible now that the sobs have wrecked the world economy?

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This is news? I can appreciate certain aspects of your rant, but these are not new thoughts . . .


Going back to the days of Imperial Rome, and the pax Romana protocol, these sorts of arguments and observations were made, and written about.

Rome was the first real example of a major "corporate" government, an empire with relentless expansionistic ambitions, and shrewd fiscal imperatives designed to force any and all who "volunteered" to become part of the Roman empire to pay their share of "protection money", and provide other resources to further the empires interests.

While your rant was a bit long, and rather meandering, I got the point after the first paragraph.

I would gently suggest studying a bit of history, and engaging in a more realistic and detailed examination of economic systems past and present, before launching into a 4 page diatribe that rehashes the absurdly obvious with painfully redundant dialogue and personal anecdotes.

As for the corporate entities that are the real governments of the world, yes, you are correct.

Now, if have anything more original to add, I'll gladly check out your next posting.

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Now, it's the evil corporation down the street, who kicks in for health care and employs people.

Jeez folks. At least your religious analogs (nuts) put horns on their devils.

The corporate taxrate in the U.S. is ________ in the Western world?

Huh?

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Most corporations are in bed with the Federal Reserve cartel. They are scammers who, while you've had you head buried in your mashed potatoes, have perfected the art of the scam and passed their scams into law.

We need to realize, over and over, that we are suckers. Stop whining and pay attention to what is going on around you. That's the first step.

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The Long Term Effects of Genetically Modified Food on Humans
Scientific Tests Must Be Approved by Industry First

"One of the great mysteries surrounding the spread of GMO plants around the world since the first commercial crops were released in the early 1990's in the USA and Argentina has been the absence of independent scientific studies of possible long-term effects of a diet of GMO plants on humans or even rats. Now it has come to light the real reason. The GMO agribusiness companies like Monsanto, BASF, Pioneer, Syngenta and others prohibit independent research.

An editorial in the respected American scientific monthly magazine, Scientific American, August 2009 reveals the shocking and alarming reality behind the proliferation of GMO products throughout the food chain of the planet since 1994. There are no independent scientific studies published in any reputed scientific journal in the world for one simple reason. It is impossible to independently verify that GMO crops such as Monsanto Roundup Ready Soybeans or MON8110 GMO maize perform as the company claims, or that, as the company also claims, that they have no harmful side effects because the GMO companies forbid such tests!

That's right. As a precondition to buy seeds, either to plant for crops or to use in research study, Monsanto and the gene giant companies must first sign an End User Agreement with the company. For the past decade, the period when the greatest proliferation of GMO seeds in agriculture has taken place, Monsanto, Pioneer (DuPont) and Syngenta require anyone buying their GMO seeds to sign an agreement that explicitly forbids that the seeds be used for any independent research. Scientists are prohibited from testing a seed to explore under what conditions it flourishes or even fails. They cannot compare any characteristics of the GMO seed with any other GMO or non-GMO seeds from another company. Most alarming, they are prohibited from examining whether the genetically modified crops lead to unintended side-effects either in the environment or in animals or humans.

The only research which is permitted to be published in reputable scientific peer-reviewed journals are studies which have been pre-approved by Monsanto and the other industry GMO firms.

The entire process by which GMO seeds have been approved in the United States, beginning with the proclamation by then President George H.W. Bush in 1992, on request of Monsanto, that no special Government tests of safety for GMO seeds would be conducted because they were deemed by the President to be “substantially equivalent” to non-GMO seeds, has been riddled with special interest corruption. Former attorneys for Monsanto were appointed responsible in EPA and FDA for rules governing GMO seeds as but one example and no Government tests of GMO seed safety to date have been carried out. All tests are provided to the US Government on GMO safety or performance by the companies themselves such as Monsanto. Little wonder that GMO sounds to positive and that Monsanto and others can falsely claim GMO is the “solution to world hunger.”

*~*~*~

I highly recommend to also read the author's book "Seeds of Destruction" (by F. William Engdahl) Quite an eye-opener!

Bon appetit!

B.

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ABetterFuture needs to study the past more closely - the Corporation predates both rock 'n roll and marijuana prohibition.

Here is a link to the entire movie, a scary 3 hr ride if you have the stomach:

The Corporation

Joe, otherwise writing from a brilliant state of altered consciousness that I can only applaud, omitted mention of the two current leaders of alternate reality: online porn and online gaming. We are losing our youth. For a more old-fashioned user set, the internet is a marvelous equalizer where anyone with a modest digital camera and an internet connection can broadcast to the world.

The music of the Grateful Dead is published by the Ice Nine company, named after Vonnegut's fictitious water molecule that froze everything it touched. The name is a play on the similar properties of LSD which was researched for medical and also military reasons, before 'infecting' the good youth of Amerika.

Similarly, control of the internet (religiously practiced in schools, of course) is belatedly being wrested by corporations in attempts to limit bandwidths or allow email survelliance, for example. Do not expect advanced reading skills or critical thinking to be added to school curriculums any time soon!

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The Abstract Private Individual has married the Abstract Public Emperor -- and the Empire is indeed striking -- back; forward; up; down.

The newest renewable resource to be exploited is the Mass of Actual, Living, Human Individuals who make up the Actual, Real, Society. The general name of this new project is: Bio-Capitalism, and the material to be used to develop this newest and most promising and profitable of Industries is said Actual Individuals. Brain and Mind; Body and Soul. Ego, Super-Ego and Id.

The New Imperial Couple is perhaps gay; perhaps it's hetero-sexual; perhaps they are just living together. It is a relatively Equal Partnership in any case and, oh, boy!!, do they believe in God and all the blessings he has bestowed upon them and the good fortune past, present and future that he continues to bestow upon them. They have Allies and fellow Imperial, Royal, and Despotic Abstract Singles, Couples, Republicans and Democrats all over the planet who are enthusiastically joining in the New Enterprise under their direction, control and governance. They have a vast layer of the Mass who has enthusiastically and slavishly joined with them in providing funds, investments, assets, skills and talents and other capital. They are well-"compensated" for these Services.

This particular God of theirs has abundantly Blessed and Sanctioned them in this Humanitarian Intervention for Progress and Prosperity.

Bow to the advent of the new imperial family. The knowledge, profits, scientific advances and the glory of the eternal soul has been saved and many blessings await us all -- jobs, research, lab-work, experiments....

Finally!! A New, Great, and Completely determined Society can be created as a perfect and reproducible service to the Great Imperial Family and their heirs.

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observations and ideas...

the article argues that our own sense of self is being re-packaged and resold back to us... true... turn it off... pull the plug... be aware but reject manipulation as much as you can...

how many folks who actually looked at this page actually clicked on the ads??? few to none I bet... not to mention, the advertising crawler is quite a bit off on locating keywords that match ads to content...

computer software have been so dumbed down that all you have to do is click on an icon... no reading required and that is the power of what is pulling young people to this medium... games, fantasy, even college instruction on line... get a book, do some hard time in a rigorous college course in the classroom, or kids go out and play...

there may be little we can actually do at this point because we're not sure who the actual players are, but by following advertising and print, look with a jaundiced eye and evaluate the message with 'why???'...so be aware, don't fall for every gimmick and reject... wait to see what shakes out in the end before making personal decisions...

as an example...look at all the problems creeping up from pharmaceuticals... unforeseen or unpublished complications surfacing and now people are suffering or dead from this and that being 'fast tracked' past the FDA... not to mention changing drugs from first use where they flopped to second use where they are flourishing...

our sense of 'sensible time' to digest information has been sped up to instant gratification at the peril of common sense... sorry, humans don't respond as fast as technology is discovered, so use your time with a calloused eye...

the louder and shriller they become, the more you will know you (and folks like you) are winning...

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Money and its cartels create the fiber of human motivation. Love and religion are just sub-sets. Winners in this scheme of things are blessed by Lady Luck and Mother Nature. The losers are cast offs of the Devil.

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Why? Can we talk about a corporate police takeover in this context? This is quite dangerous... Will make revolution very, very difficult.

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No one has been screwed by capitalism or freedom. You were tricked into thinking corporations and capitalism are the enemy. Corporations are not the issue except that the law shouldn't give them the status of a legal person. That amendment was meant for the former slaves to give them full status as citizens.

Capitalism and corporations are not the problem. It is the few psychopaths that run some, not all but some corporations.

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I watched ‘Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull’ on TV last night. Harrison Ford has certainly aged and put on weight. I kind of got the impression that the actors all now speak their lines in front of a dark background and leave it to the digital imagery wizards to fabricate the ones we see on the screen.

I reckon that nearly every single scene in modern day movies is a digital creation using clever software that enables the actors to be merged into the background to give the illusion that they are there.

One day, the actors themselves will be digitally created clones, and one day there will be no need to employ real people as the quality of the digital images will have acquired 100% perfection.

This will almost certainly be true of the creation of popular music which will have no need of real musicians, since the entire sound will be created using highly sophisticated music software that can reproduce real human voices perfectly, and so bring an end to real people making music.

So, it’s all down to image and illusion. The money making machine wishes to see an end to human participation in making anything. After all, people usually want to be paid for their labour, and this always means a reduction in the bottom line of company accounts.

3-d movies means we can now see an end to actual human participation in pornography. Eventually, the animations will become so life like that you won’t be able to tell the difference anyway.

Online dating websites were a wonderful invention. The software designers developed a tool to allow you and me to enter our personal details, photos etc, and then you had to pay to send an email to someone you fancied, money that went into a bottomless pit. The designer’s job was then finished, apart from ensuring there was enough disk space to hold all the information. Loosely speaking, this was creating a fortune out of absolutely nothing.

Programming wise, online dating websites are relatively easy to construct. Getting them noticed and subscribed to, however, is quite a different ballgame.

So, USA has now become a nation of yard sale sellers with no buyers. The intelligent and savvy human has to discover the value of, and the joy, from owning nothing. Given what I now know after living 63 years on this planet, I am planning on living out my retirement astride a beautiful young woman in Ghana in a room containing nothing but a bed, a cup of coffee, a pack of cigarettes, and a laptop that we can watch movies on, and get up at 6 am in the morning and laugh and joke with the families that live around us, walk with the kids to school, and then spend the rest of the day lazing around playing the guitar and taking lots of cold showers together, all polished off with a superb meal in the evenings.

A brilliant article Joe Bageant.

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Marx wrote and described this in the 1850's in a short piece called "ON MONEY". It describes our cuurent sorry a** capitalist culture perfectly. It also proves that regardless of how the capitalist media proclaims "Marxism is dead" (because they are also too ignorant to know the USSR had nothing to do with "Marxism") Marx in fact was right and his analysis continues to play itself out. The contradictions of capitalism will still bring it crashing down!

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Having now just read some of his other articles, I would say this:

o stop watching the news on TV
o stop reading the news in newspapers
o only read Alternet.

Alternet is good because we can read nearly every shade of opinion from the responses to the main articles, plus we get to respond to what everyone else has to say. Occasionally we get some new information or actual facts. We also get to see just how brainwashed some people are, while from others we may even see an enlightened approach to how we might deal with the complexities modern life throws at us.

I would like to think that the authors of the main articles do actually read what their readers have to say, and whether or not any of what is written ever gets to the people who are responsible for the mess that we are in.

For example, I wonder if Obama knows about this website? What about the Rockefellers or the CEO of Goldman Sachs?

I think Obama should be invited to write an article. Then he could really exercise his skill and knowledge because he would have entered into hyperspace dialogue with his staunchest critics and potentially greatest admirers.

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Wow, is anyone actually surprised by this?

RT
Online Privacy when it Counts

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Look at all the advertising on this site. Without all that corporate cash, where would this site be? Ain't it rather hypocritical for Alternet to be posting this article even as it relies on corporations? And ain't Alternet and most other progressive sites enabling corporations to mug the people?

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Joe,

Good to see you playing in the comments field. If you read this, know that the image of you under the palm fronds in Hopkins Village often lightens the load on a given day.

Meanwhile, reading the essay and the voluminous comments, the little mp3 player that is my brain had this flash through:

"And far away, across the fields,
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spell."

Yep, Roger Waters, it sho' do!

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We must stop fearing that our being can be taken. this fear of loss is based on the belief that being is not here. it is always here, there and everywhere. you cannot take something that is everywhere, because taking can only occur in time and space. Relax, being is off limits to evil. Being is what good and evil appear in. We can only escape being through denial, yet even denial cannot escape being.

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Great article! Corporations do have us now and they are getting more. They are after everything we have and are. They will, with our help, kill the planet. Joe's friend Ernie is wrong about science; it won't fix us, their are limits. Science fixing us is magical thinking.
Read William Catton, Jr.'s book "OVERSHOOT". It is terrific and will give you a good picture of the future and the predicament we are in. We are not likely to get out of it. The book was written in 1980 and was well ahead of its time. You will find out all you need to know about our predicament, resources, planet limits, and wine making!

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is how much they can pay to own their own politician.

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tHE BABY BOOMERS MAKE UP THE BIGGEST POPULATION IN THE NATION AND WE HAVE PAID INTO SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE AND MEDICARE ALL OUR WORKING LIVES - THESE ARE PROGRAMS THAT ARE PUBLIC AND WORK - NOW WE NEED A SINGLE PAYER SYSTEM - DON'T LET THE BLUE DOGS SELL TEN'S PF MILLIONS OF LIVES DOWN THE RIVER FOR THEIR OWN PROFIT!!!

The Blue Dog coalition has played a central role in combating a public option and pushing the House version of health reform legislation in an industry-friendly direction. Their votes will be critical to passing legislation in the house. Blue Dogs have also been rolling in contributions from health care-connected donors.

"The typical member [median not mean for accuracy] of the Blue Dog caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives has received $10,300 more from insurers than the typical non-Blue Dog Democrat in the House (including health and accident insurers, HMOs and other health services) and only $3,625 less than the typical House Republican," according to a report from the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, a group that specializes in tracking money in politics.

The Blue Dog political action committee (PAC), the fund they can use to help the campaigns of fellow conservative Democrats, has raked in over $1.1 million this year through June. Over half of these dollars came from health and financial services-linked industry according to the report.

"This is not really primarily a health care debate. It is a debate about the health care industry and the drug companies spending a huge sum of money to try to get their way," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), a avid backer of public health care, recently told reporters.
After watching Pelosi being
Fri, 07/31/2009 - 18:44 — mysterioso (not verified)
please call your representative now. The good news is that the utterly disgraceful conduct of those politicians accepting bribes to betray us all is becoming hard to ignore and hard to deny. Even at the intellectual level of the most ardent FOX devote. The bad news is that these same people who clearly recognize what is happening will, for the most part, absolutely refuse to get off of their soft, fat, . . .
The Blue Dog members - get
Sun, 08/02/2009 - 02:51 — Anonymous (not verified)
The Blue Dog members - get on your phone ASAP. Blue Dog Leadership Team Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Administration Rep. Baron Hill (IN-09), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Policy Rep. Charlie Melancon (LA-03), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Communications Rep. Heath Shuler (NC-11), Blue Dog Whip Blue Dog Members Altmire, Jason (PA-04) Arcuri, Mike (NY-24) Baca, Joe (CA-43) Barrow, John (GA-12) Berry, Marion (AR-01) Bishop, Sanford (GA-02) Boren, Dan (OK-02) Boswell, Leonard (IA-03) Boyd, Allen (FL-02) Bright, Bobby (AL-02) Cardoza, Dennis (CA-18) Carney, Christopher (PA-10) Chandler, Ben (KY-06) Childers, Travis (MS-01) Cooper, Jim (TN-05) Costa, Jim (CA-20) Cuellar, Henry (TX-28) Dahlkemper, Kathy (PA-03) Davis, Lincoln (TN-04) Donnelly, Joe (IN-02) Ellsworth, Brad (IN-08) Giffords, Gabrielle (AZ-08) Gordon, Bart (TN-06) Griffith, Parker (AL-05) Harman, Jane (CA-36) Herseth Sandlin, Stephanie (SD) Hill, Baron (IN-09) Holden, Tim (PA-17) Kratovil, Jr., Frank (MD-01) McIntyre, Mike (NC-07) Marshall, Jim (GA-03) Matheson, Jim (UT-02) Melancon, Charlie (LA-03) Michaud, Mike (ME-02) Minnick, Walt (ID-01) Mitchell, Harry (AZ-05) Moore, Dennis (KS-03) Murphy, Patrick (PA-08) Nye, Glenn (VA-02) Peterson, Collin (MN-07) Pomeroy, Earl (ND) Ross, Mike (AR-04) Salazar, John (CO-03) Sanchez, Loretta (CA-47) Schiff, Adam (CA-29) Scott, David (GA-13) Shuler, Heath (NC-11) Space, Zack (OH-18) Tanner, John (TN-08) Taylor, Gene (MS-04) Thompson, Mike (CA-01) Wilson, Charles (OH-06) .Email this comment
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Interesting piece. It's true that "they" (the bastards) rule, in that "they" reap the benefits of the system.

But it's also true, as the author says, that no one can really comprehend the whole any more, and I think that includes the bastards too. At a certain point, "the system" takes on a life of its own. We'd like to think that at least SOMEONE is at the helm--the Illuminati, the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, someone--but I don't know if they're even really in charge any more. Certainly the corporate bastards all have their own domain in which they try mightily to screw over everyone and everything within their reach. But I don't think that the overall effect of complete domination is in any way orchestrated from the top down. It comes at least as much from the bottom up. As the author says, we all create our own domination by performing just as all of our corporate masters want us to, and without their having to exert any direct or overt compulsion. We just think we're being "normal."

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to money. That is the problem.

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we can get to Zeitgeist, Star Trek type democracy and existence but the social relations of production, the CAPITALIST SOCIAL ORDER, needs to be overturned. By whom? By the Ernie's of the world who come to realize that support of the status quo in NOT in our own personal best interests. You cannot get less "baser" than that. If your thesis is correct and human being act mainly in their narrow self interests then they should realize that capitalism does not serve these interests and that another form of economic system is needed. That would be socialism! Thanks to the Republicans who argue that every measure that seems to meet the interests of the ordinary person is some form of "socialism bad" it could then be argued that see it must be good or they would not be saying it is bad-since nothing they say is reliable and people have had and are experiencing this on a very real visceral level. Every day brings us one day closer to transformation-or complete destruction or a millinia of dark ages, however, I do not think that we will escape destruction of humanity if we do not supersede capitalism along the lines suggested here-in other words the dark ages would be the lesser of two evils if we continue along our current trajectory.

Cheers,
RR

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.
.
. . . free podcast: The Jeff Farias Show - Wednesday, 5.August.2009
in a fantastic conversation with Joe Bageant

the show streams FREE & LIVE Mon-Fri, 6-9pmEDT
taking YOUR calls @ 1800.385.1566

Spread Love, not corporate dependence...

BlueBerry Pick'n

"We, two, form a Multitude" ~ Ovid.

"Violence can only be concealed by a Lie, & the Lie can only be maintained by Violence." ... "Any man, who has once proclaimed Violence as his Method, is inevitably forced to take the Lie as his Principle" – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire.

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Guess what, "The American People", "The Public"??

WE are the New Plantation!!

For "organic" crops.

For GM crops.

For "patented seeds"

For "Identity Brands".

.............etc.

The Corporate-State has a new, 'emergent technology' and philosophy; "Grow Your Own".

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DVD To Blackberry Converter allows you to edit output video/audio parameters including Video Encoder, Frame Rate, Resolution, Video Bitrate and audio Encoder, Frame Rate, Audio Channels, Sample Rate, etc. MKV to MP4 Converter

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Well that is true with respect to credit card companies, and how we can certainly need credit card debt relief

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This tragicomedy is first-rate! (My inner capitalist bastard must judge all, or die.) By the middle of your piece I began pouring the Shiraz, and polishing my gun. (Don't even go there!)

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Why not shop for a low mortgage rate and if you find one, you can refinance your mortgage

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Mac Video Converter helps you convert video files on Mac OS. AVI to DVD Converter helps you burn AVI to DVD disc.

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Joe, you are gifted with the obvious. I wish I could argue with what you say here but unfortunately, I cannot.

You hit on the head the very thinking I've been going through with my own "wife" and family for years now... and the thinking is the same as the way you put it in this article.

Surely we must be capable of something different, something worthy of a true Humanity.

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Corporatism is NOT Capitalism. Capitalism is not fraud, embezzlement, racketeering, or any other form of criminality.

However capitalism does often get blamed for the actions of criminals. And after capitalism gets vilified enough, we end up with something far worse. State-controlled crony corporatism. Or some "power to the people" type of movement where it is anything but "power to the people". (Or "change we can believe in.")

It takes people to stand up and demand that the fraud cease. Capitalism fails the moment that someone fails to stand up for the rule of law. I guess people were too busy cashing in on the housing bubble... like flies on fly paper...

It isnt capitalism that fails. It is the rule of law that has failed. Banksters operate with impunity. Yet the author attacks capitalism. Havent we seen this script before? This is where fascism comes from. The people are tricked into believing complete nonsense by a massive propaganda campaign funded by the very same banksters that did the robbing and the looting.

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I thought I was the only one who felt this way. My wife has looked at me in the same way as well, when I talk to her about health care. yesterday I had to hit the bottle after watching the "Heil Hitler" go on about health care.

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