Gun stuff...

I read the *Guardian* online--a UK newspaper described as "centre left" (socialist-Communist by U.S. political standards--prolly milquetoast by any other). In any case, the Guardian seems willing to give the other side an occasional voice. In the wake of the Colorado shootings, one such voice was that of someone named Tammy Bruce, who affirmed the necessity for a well-armed, law-abiding polite citizenry. I have heard this sickening argument on this side of the pond so much, I nearly dismissed her argument w/o further ado. But then she cited evidence--per Ms Bruce, in *another* Colorado shooting a few years ago at a church, an armed civilian with a concealed gun permit took out a gunman before he was able kill no more than two church members in his efforts at random mass murder. I have argued in the past that I did not know of any incident in which an armed civilian who happened to be present had ever stopped or limited a mass killing with firearms--but here was contrary evidence. But then I wondered-- why haven't the gun lobby folks made more of this incident? I googled and it turns out that much has been made of it--but not as unambiguously as Ms Bruce did. The "civilian" was an ex-cop named Jeanne Assam & she was acting as a volunteer security guard that day. There were also two volunteer male security guards, also armed, who drew their weapons but who froze for some reason... I wonder what would have happened if, say, there had been 20 armed civilians present...Good chance the gunman would have been stopped all right...an equally good chance that some would have frozen & that some would have shot wildly and killed or wounded many in the crossfire... Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android

Going dark on email & FB & my new bumpersticker

The computer I normally use has problems.  This computer & my mobile are slow and/or unstable.  So little from me until I get an overhaul.  Erndure as best you can.

I like my new bumpersticker:  Compassion is the best revenge.

So.  Be nice to me or I will feel compassion for you.

R.

 

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

Re: Nerd joke...

Ha ha. I actually get it! 

On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 7:11 PM, Roy Griffin <roygg9@yahoo.com> wrote:

So a Higg's walks into a church. The priest sees him and screams, "Blasphemy! Get out!"
The Higg's replies, "If you don't let me in, you can't have mass" 

---Stolen from a fellow named Mark Banister from somewhere on the Internet...

 

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

Nerd joke...

So a Higg's walks into a church. The priest sees him and screams, "Blasphemy! Get out!"
The Higg's replies, "If you don't let me in, you can't have mass" 

---Stolen from a fellow named Mark Banister from somewhere on the Internet...

 

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

So far out he scares even me--but he knows lotsa math

Jack Sarfatti also strongly advises us to read *How the Hippies Saved Physics*

http://www.starpod.us/2012/06/29/stealing-warp-drive-from-the-gods-the-men-who-would-build-prometheus-starpod-us-interviews-jack-sarfatti/#.T-9ZoHBu3ce 

There may be a smaller subset of the already small set of genuinely Unidentified Flying Objects that actually are alien craft, but by and large they behave rather more like gigantic poltergeist phenomena--or maybe the playful ghosts of great sulphur bottom whales or even brontosauri (no reason why astral cetaceans & dinosaurs couldn't fly, is there?)...

I'm just sayin'

R.  

 

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

"Chavismo" and right wing backlash in Paraguay

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/bre85o07u-us-venezuela-election-chavez/ 

Per the headline in the above article:  No and yes.  Political leaders always disappoint their followers and so  also political movements.  But it doesn't necessarily mean the gains of "Chavismo" won't survive, nor does it necessarily mean that the Movement won't continue in one or more various forms, perhaps merely as influence or under another name.    The Movement may also be considerably less tied to the fate of one man than the name "Chavismo" suggests...Tying the fate of the "Bolivarian Revolution" to the fate of Chavez the individual may be the result of wishful thinking on the part of its opponents...

I continue to be irritated by how mainstream media casually refer to Chavez as a "strong man" or a "dictator."   He has repeatedly won election after election--elections that were judged by international observers as fair and free--and certainly as fair and free as any held south of the U.S. border in recent historical memory--and mebbe fairer than a couple just north of the U.S. border  (Interestingly, George W. Bush observed that just becuz somebody wins an election don't mean he aint' a dictator, or words to that effect) 

Questions have been raised about the Chavez government's "clampdown" on the media, particularly with regard to some of the TV stations.    An informed opinion on that issue should first require a viewing of the movie, *The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"   An Irish film crew was making a documentary about Chavez that would have consisted largely of their following Chavez around in the course of his daily routine as President.  But they got caught in the middle of the abortive coup by right wingers and were for a time trapped in the Presidential palace with Chavez and members of his government.  If you think Fox News is bad, you oughta see what the anti-Chavez TV stations were doing leading up to and during the coup.  In this country, the bigwigs of *any* TV station that did that stuff would be (and should be) put on trial for treason--losing their broadcast licenses would be much less than a tap on the wrist. 

---Roy G. 

And Russ T. cites this story (his comments follow):  

Click here: Paraguay's new president starts naming Cabinet, tries to avert diplomatic backlash - The Washington Post 

Yeah, you might remember Fernando Lugo from the Oliver Stone DVD "South of the Border".  As in the case of the 2009 coup in Honduras, it appears to have been triggered by what we call land reform, but which the ruling families call an attack on the Hacienda System, the bedrock institution of society.

Presciently, in the early years of this century when Populist governments came to power all across Latin America, Fidel Castro predicted that within ten years half of them would revert back to the Conservatives.  Here's what set the Paraguay coup in motion, as per WAPO:

"Lugo's impeachment trial was triggered in part by an attempt by police to evict about 150 farmers from a remote, 4,900-acre (2,000-hectare) forest reserve, which is part of a huge estate. Advocates for the farmers said the landowner, a politician, used political influence to get the land from the state decades ago, and say it should have been put to use for land reform.

Six police officers, including the brother of Lugo's chief of security, and 11 farmers died in the clash last week." 

--Russ T. 

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http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

Re: Greek Fascists et al

As for "independents," it is my belief they don't exist, but are actually just attention-seekers. I have yet to meet an "independent" who hadn't already made up their minds. They get completely catered to and even interviewed on television: their 15 minutes/seconds. . . I'm just wondering what phenomena causes them to congregate more in some states than in others.  :)

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 15, 2012, at 12:01 PM, Roy Griffin <roygg9@yahoo.com> wrote:

Below are several responses to "Greek Fascists et al" 

Below some I have responded to the responses

 

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

---

From: Francis Yates <kate_the_petal@yahoo.com>
To: Roy Griffin <roygg9@yahoo.com>
Sent: Friday, June 8, 2012 1:02 PM
Subject: Re: Greek Fascists et al

I have no difficulty at all believing that poor houses will someday exist. 

Foodlink used to deliver hundreds of pounds of food to low income highrises like the one I call home and they did so twice a month.  Over the course of a year it dwindled to one delivery consisting of rotten fruit and veggies and a few expired cans of this and that.  Now no food arrives.

Several local churches used to have monthly drop offs of clothes that were in amazing condition and many still had price tags attached.  With the ongoing spread of bedbugs in high rises, the clothing is no longer allowed.

We used to have charitable groups arrange for blood pressure checks once a month, diabetic counseling and yearly flu shots.  That, too, is gone.  If I live another ten years, I expect this place and others like it to effectively become poor houses.  HUD money that once poured in is diminished and consequently so is needed maintenance.  Ceiling panels are missing  in spots throughout the building and rather than being repaired in reasonably good time, buckets are now placed under the leaks for weeks at a time.  Mildew is becoming an issue.  I was told that kitchen fans are no longer being replaced and though rain and snow come in through the windows, no plans are being made to replace them.

At the moment only one of our two elevators is operational with 15 floors to accommodate.  By law only one is required to be operational.  Imagine how long the wait must seem if you need an ambulance crew to get to you.

But all is not lost.  We still have a big screen TV and WII games galore.  I guess that takes some peoples' minds off the fact that they are hungry. 

Yes, there will be poor houses disguised as low income senior buildings.

Did you know that many folks who deal with mental illness are allowed only $20 cash a month?  The last week of every month my next door neighbor borrows $5 to get through the month.  He likes to ride the bus to the downtown library to get a stack of free DVD's and then have a Big Mac.  I give him $10 so he gets fries and a shake too.  He always pays me back and always borrows again. 

There will be poor houses and work houses.  Maybe making minimum wage at WalMart with no benefits and 12 hour shifts is just one step away from ye old work house!  Many, many folks are working 12 hour shifts.  Illegal alien farm workers have done so for decades and their children work right along with them.

Kate

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Wiki has entries on "poorhouses" and "workhouses" that provide detailed information about those institutions.  I believe Kate is right in that the spirit of "lesser eligibility" continues to haunt modern efforts to ameliorate the condition of the poor and the disabled.  "Lesser eligibility" was the principle that any recipient of public aid or resident of a poorhouse would receive less than whatever the lowest prevailing wage was.  In practice,  parishes and local governments found that it was often necessary to go beyond this principle to avoid actively starving people to death--at least in those places where people cared about starving the poor.  

There is a proposal in Congress to raise the minimum wage to $10 per hour on the grounds that the minimum wage in 1968 had the equivalent purchasing power of a $10/hour wage today & was sufficient to raise the recipient above the poverty line--which the current wage of $7.25 does not...In many places, I doubt $10 an hour would do the trick.  

It is clear to me that whatever the minimum "living wage" is, it should also be the floor for income-assistance programs such as social security and disability & should be tied to a realistic cost-of-living index.  

In Texas I believe it is also true that residents of state MHMR facilities only get $20 in spending.  The elderly and disabled who live in the community, and who are not their own payee,  often are also limited in what monies they get for personal care, but they at least have a clearer path for appealing for relief through Adult Protective Services.  

R. 

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Response from Russ Taylor: 

And here's another little noticed story:
(Do the Chilean people know about this?)

What's behind Obama's new military base in Chile?  

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Nevertheless,  when I think about Romney and I want to defend Obama.  What I would like to think is that to the extent that Obama ratifies such expansion, he is doing so to pre-empt attacks from the Right & probably *welcomes* attacks from the Left because they help make his case with the so-called Independents (whom I think are mostly either a) completely mythical  b) unavowed and/or undecided Republicans and Democrats,   c)  really don't know their *ss from a hole in the ground, or d) all of the above (somehow).   

But building such a base, however  innocuous in appearance, continues the long term trend of the U.S. expansion of global military power that has been going on since WW2--I believe Rachel Maddow's book, *Drift* deals with this.   Chalmers Johnson in his work on U.S. imperialism makes the point that U.S. foreign policy since WW2 is de facto expansionist.  It doesn't matter which political party is in power or who is President.  There is some kind of institutional drift toward one sort or another of imperialism and the official centers of power are unable or unwilling to stop it.  I'm not sure the struggle against this tendency can be combated at the level of national electoral politics.  Seems to be a matter of the dark side of the American political id expressing itself through the military bureaucracies...

One difficulty is that the people of the U.S. continue to be convinced of either a)  the consistent moral supremacy of every act taken by the U.S. vis a vis other counties  b) the realpolitik necessity of whatever the U.S. does, or c)  both a and b    (For a "Christian" nation, the people of the U.S. seem oddly unconvinced that the doctrine of Original Sin applies to them...

As far as the Presidency goes, right now I just can't see any alternative to "lesser evilism"--unless you reject electoral politics altogether.   But building a grassroots movement at the level of local government and in some Congressional districts seems possible and practical.  (That is to say, a movement for economic democracy and what I would express as non-imperial internationalism, such as is practiced by the Scandanavian countries...) 

R. 

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