The Faith & Religion mega Thread

A wannabe activist* (like we) got some good ones (NSFW): http://www.trueactivist.com/disturbi...ety-gallery/6/

Although this is not "the Politics mega-thread," I find it very interesting that, for the first time in a very long time, "the other two" Presidential candidates are actually getting interviews on the national press that they didn't pay for.

Since the 1940's, the USA has been ruled by a pragmatic (non-)choice of "exactly two" 'candidates.' (Pick your poison ... if you even want to bother ...) Both of whom are quite-unabashedly PWN3D.

It didn't used to be this way:

[Abraham] Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes, Douglas 1,376,957 votes, Breckinridge 849,781 votes, and Bell 588,789 votes. Turnout was 82.2 percent, with Lincoln winning the free Northern states, as well as California and Oregon. Douglas won Missouri, and split New Jersey with Lincoln. Bell won Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, and Breckinridge won the rest of the South. Although Lincoln won only a plurality of the popular vote, his victory in the electoral college was decisive: Lincoln had 180 and his opponents added together had only 123. There were fusion tickets in which all of Lincoln's opponents combined to support the same slate of Electors in New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island ...

A state of state-affairs in which bribery has been transformed from "the high-crime that is named alongside Treason," to an ersatz "Constitutional Right" granted to an entity that said Constitution does not even mention, is an impossibly untenable situation that is begging for serious reform ... as is the "council of nine eight Monarchs" which now creates "law such as this" from their never-elected-and never-removable "divine right of kings" (self-appointed) position. (A position that the Constitution also neither mentions nor grants.)

We have also swallowed the notion that "international treaties" grant businessmen the prerogative to usurp a nation's sovereignty, its rule of law, and even its identity. We call these treaties "Top Secret" because we know that the people of the country would never accept them. Only the UK has finally(!) stepped-up to challenge this notion on the international stage, and to refuse to go along with what they were told (by corporations) "was the way it Had To Be."

But, that's the real moral of the Parable of the Prodigal Son: that people will drive themselves downward until they finally reach the point where there is no place further down that is left for them to go. (The Son could have easily been killed by that hungry pig ...)

For many, many decades, "We, the Sheeple of the United States" have sat passively by as one vital thing after another was dismantled, until we're now sitting by the side of the a road full of potholes, in a car with no wheels, still imagining that we feel the wind in our face and that the rest of the world is craving to follow "U.S.".

Only now does a generation ... faced with more(!)-than quarter-million-dollar debts as the price for going to school, and finding themselves unable to go to a doctor even as corporations have turned the US Government into a bill-collector, and so on ... finally display the faintest glimmer of waking up to what their parents and grandparents' generation has done to them, and to their homeland.

The corporations scream louder than before as they present to us the usual slate of "two candidates" who are bought-and-sold. They continue to pour millions of dollars a day into the mouths of leaders who have never heard of "Marie Antoinette," and who have no idea how her fate (and, her attitude) could have anything at all to do with them. "There are none so blind as those who will not see."

It is precisely when people say, "That's just the way it is. Some things never change," that they ... do.

After all, "an international corporation" cares nothing about any "nation." It's all about the money ... for the very few. Sustainability means nothing: "if it's 'corn,' then we should eat all of it right now, so that Next Quarter's Numbers will look really good." The Bible's "Joseph" never would have made it as a management consultant.

Very interesting, sundialsvcs. While it is my opinion that you sometimes leap to unwarranted conclusions (9/11 conspiracy for example) this most recent post I find to be a quite accurate assessment of the trajectory of life in the US (and possibly elsewhere as well) and the signs that support it abound, even in odd places. I have read articles in which writers despair at the lack of Classical Education that either disallows phrase recognition where one word or a few instantly conveys chapters or whole stories to those who have been exposed to those stories and how that has been replaced by some sort of Pop Culture that effectively divides the population into many tight little niches, or reduces them to writing inane pablum.

My record collection dates from the 1930s to the present but even some younger musicians I've met own nothing nor have heard anything older than 10-15 years before "their time". "New and Improved" has become an axiom in direct opposition to the forces that lock people into what they lived with and through during their particular High School and College years which only fuels such fragmentation and division. On YouTube recent Pop Stars, even the most superficial with tiny, vapid bodies of work that will disappear within just a few years receive millions of hits while the originating masters who actually studied and left a legacy of hundreds of works of Art that have, until now, weathered 50-70 years of change now are lucky to get 1000 hits. So it follows that each subsequent generation has less and less understanding of what has been lost just to gain jeans with some recent designers name on them.

A propos to this Faith & Religion thread I can't help but wonder at the net affect of "the opiate of the masses" as to whether it has helped create such narrow view apathy and fragmentation or been more of a victim of it, or both. Possibly it is all a shakeout from a massive paradigm shift, but certainly we now live "in interesting times" and it does seem to be fomenting alienation which is always fertile ground for the very rich and powerful.

Note - Before anyone in the upper Middle Class gets too offended at "rich and powerful" please understand that extremely few people ever even hear about let alone meet people who can drop a million dollars without batting an eye, but they do exist and they can afford to protect their privileges and even whims. In this view, Michael Jordan isn't "rich" but the guy who owns the team or the network that broadcasts the playoffs, might be.

Actually, I consider my conclusions about "9/11" to be entirely "warranted," even though, yes, they point to an interpretation that is drastically different from "the official story."

It wasn't pleasant to realize that the President of the United States was "caught in a crossfire" in 1963, but no other conclusion ... like it or not ... can be credibly sustained. However, it is also understandable why (especially, "at that time") "the official story" would focus on "a lone gunman." (A gunman who, in a bloody bit of closure intended to satisfy the blood-lust of the masses, was gunned-down on national TV.)

Likewise, it isn't pleasant to consider what must have actually happened to those three buildings on that horrible day in September. The public wanted to "blame it on those airliners, and nothing more," and the "official story" obliged.

(And, in this case, I actually understand why the truth would be "State Secret." This was effectively military. This was a type of war that our present 'armies and navies' do not yet know how to fight. Therefore: "loose lips sink ships." Feed the public something to believe, and tell 'em to "just believe it and not ask too many questions." Bury and obfuscate anything that the enemy might possibly use, so as to utterly deny him any clear picture of what you do and do not know, because "knowledge is power." There's actually logic to that...)

- - - - -

Veering back, however, to the subject of my previous post: I personally suspect that we are on the cusp of a more-lasting political change. "The Two-Party System, Inc." has lost its way. The "grand social experiments" that started appearing in the late-1980's and beyond have all turned out to be stupendous failures. But... the "contended pigs" that represent Power in this country have de-evolved into ... Marie Antoinette. When you have all the money you want, all the power you want, and you are surrounded by "yes men," and you know that votes are "counted" by computers that leave no audit-trail, you are no longer connected in any way to the public that supposedly elected you.

"The best that the two-party system can come up with," now, is: a spectacularly colorless woman who can absolutely be counted-on to do nothing more than her husband did, and ... a fool that is, at best, "good for a laugh."

It should come as no surprise to anyone that "there actually are 'concerned voters' out there," and that they demand to know "what's behind Door Number Three (and Four, and ...)"

Actually, I consider my conclusions about "9/11" to be entirely "warranted," even though, yes, they point to an interpretation that is drastically different from "the official story."

I concur.

I raze you

capitalism trumps dehipmocracy,,, if playing in a broken system makes you feel better by all means, sheep on...

I'd like to point out that

1) We don't live in a Capitalist economy because Big Business hates competition and buys legislation through the Lobby System. We officially live in an Oligarchy.*

Business Insider

Princeton Study

2) Theoretically, at least, Capitalism as per Adam Smith is effectively democracy in economy where the votes are dollars and there are no guaranteed terms of office.

* Basically we've been fighting that ever since Alexander Hamilton's Haymarket "Revolution" propaganda campaign, closely studied by many including William Randolph Hearst, elitist con men all. They worshiped at the Altar of the Modified Golden Rule.

Originally Posted by enorbet I'd like to point out that 1) We don't live in a Capitalist economy because Big Business hates competition and buys legislation through the Lobby System. We officially live in an Oligarchy.* Business Insider Princeton Study 2) Theoretically, at least, Capitalism as per Adam Smith is effectively democracy in economy where the votes are dollars and there are no guaranteed terms of office. * Basically we've been fighting that ever since Alexander Hamilton's Haymarket "Revolution" propaganda campaign, closely studied by many including William Randolph Hearst, elitist con men all. They worshiped at the Altar of the Modified Golden Rule.

Duly noted!

* Though I'd say longer::: http://classicalwisdom.com/plato-and...-of-democracy/ ...

1) We don't live in a Capitalist economy because Big Business hates competition and buys legislation through the Lobby System. We officially live in an Oligarchy.*

Very accurate statement. I concur to this opinion.

There's nothing new about any of these things. The question is simply whether-or-not people still want to believe things about their country that they were told in school.

And, there's a very interesting characteristic about the United States: its people have a stupendous power of self-denial and self-absorption. They've been described as an aimless school of fish that ... suddenly, unexpectedly, and when you'd resigned yourself to the thought that it just wasn't going to happen this time ... snaps together "as one" and crushes its opposition. (But, then, disbands and goes back to nibbling on grasses again.)

Health care ... Education ... the entire "middle class" ... Banking and Finance (since Glass-Steagall was repealed) ... really, we're running out of social institutions to destroy, and we're running out of excuses for having done so.

The Brits started a big ball rolling when they refused to continue to participate in a European Union that flew in the face of their national interests. American capitalists, having shoved through a NAFTA treaty that so-far has benefited no one, have wrapped their negotiations on a "Trans-Pacific Partnership" treaty in a level of secrecy higher than that used to conceal war-plans ... but, "the jig is up." 650 people can't keep making promises to 324,203,500 million people which don't come true. Those 324.2 million people in America, just like the people of Great Britain, realize that they have been screwed but that they do still possess the power of change.

"The Two-Party System, Inc." hopes to capture this discontentment and squash it once more, and they've adopted the most radical (desperate?) strategy they have ever yet used: "the conservative's conservative," under the Blue Brand, and "the radical's radical," under the Red Brand. Vote for either color you please, but don't vote for anyone else. (Better yet, just don't vote at all, because, "y'know, your vote really doesn't matter anyway ..." Yeah, yeah, just don't vote. "It's going to be one or the other, you know ..." And we PWN both of 'em.)

But there are four nominees on the ballot, and, for the first time in a very long time, "the other two" are looking good to a lot of people. Probably because these "other" politicians think that they've not got a chance in hell of ever being elected, they're speaking plainly about problems. And these messages just might resonate loudly-enough this time.

Yes such things do indeed tend to be cyclical. If one reads up on the Stock Market Crash of 29 and what the causes were, all engineered by a cooperative consortium of the extremely rich and powerful to buy changes in the stock market, and then cash in and break it, one will see what the Fed enacted to prevent a recurrence but it is happening again as destruction of or loophole exploitation of those laws again make it possible to artificially inflate even stock in non-existent entities, sell off, and bail.

Some people just cannot bear to play a "friendly game of poker". They MUST cheat partly since it is often equally important to destroy competitors as it is to win for these to whom greed literally has no boundaries and who consider cheating eminently clever. It is also interesting that such people have historically been staunch supporters of "law 'n order, family, and religion" as long as it is for the masses and doesn't apply to them. Just make suffering a virtue and offer reward after you die, put the rest in jail or to death, and they're in business...literally.

I tell this true story every chance I get and am astonished that people don't seem to get the incredible import of it, but here I go again. Some years ago there was a TV show, iirc on PBS, that was titled something like The Twentieth Century (I have forgotten the exact name and can't find it} which had as it's "gimmick" in reporting on historical events, actual interviews with people at many levels who lived through the event. Much like a Ken Burns documentary they fleshed out the interviews with deep research backstory on the interviewees.

One episode that literally dropped my jaw was about the '29 Market Crash in which one huge factor allowing the rich consortium to "dragnet" even deeper was the concept of "buying stock on margin". Look that up for a deeper understanding. In any case one woman interviewed had been born to a large, poor farming family in upstate New York and at the age of 17 she left home with a neighboring girlfriend after they had responded to a corporate search by the Bell Telephone Company to recruit employees, in their case, switchboard operators.

Both girls had attended a one-room schoolhouse (all classes 1-9 in one room) and not graduated any version of High School.... and also don't forget these were females and in 1920s, paid far less than men, especially not having even a GED (not invented until after 1940). For our purposes it is not only unimportant but misleading to quote their exact wages in 1920 dollars. What does matter is relative value to the market place and human needs, and the percentage of discretionary income.

The two, then 18 year old girls, shared an apartment basically creating an equivalent to what was a bit unusual then, a two income "family". Since that is quite common today it should be easy to relate the following numbers. Each month on the 7th workday the girls had earned ALL of their basic living expenses - rent, food, clothing, commute transportation, etc. - so that just slightly shy of 75%, 3/4, of their income was discretionary... could be saved or spent at will. !!

Whichever direction you work it, whether you take your present family income and calculate how low your bills would have to be to free up 75% as discretionary, or calculate your living expenses and multiply by 3 to see what your income would be (remembering you are extremely likely to be vastly more marketable than low education females in the 1920s) for a comparison and a measure of what has been legislated away. Freedom to make decisions without the power to implement is not only meaningless, but frustrating, even depressing in the extreme.

Alexander, Caesar, Hitler and Stalin were naive children compared to "Noble" Families like the Rockefellers, Rothchilds, and now the top 10% like the Hunt and Koch families, who are multi billionaires entirely above the law but manipulating legislation to grow richer while also making everyone else poorer in every way - finances, education, healthcare... everything, and all easily accomplished when the vast majority of US families have little or even no discretionary income.... no power at all beyond the vote which is easily manipulated, especially to the ignorant masses, made so by the degradation of the education system. Leave no child behind, indeed! Pfffft!

That WAS the American Dream in action and it has been eroded to the point of extinction.

Note - It is impossible to entirely extricate Religion from State in the real world since Organized religion wields immense wealth and political power, and most politicians find religion politically "useful".

However ... indeed, however eloquent ye might be, Good Sir ...

I, for one, prefer to adopt a visual image of "Defiance" which, although it is perhaps not quite so appropriate as "the last-century image that (you-and-) I undoubtedly remember, nevertheless consider to be sufficient for the present circumstances ...

"The Hunt brothers?" The Koch brothers?" Are these names to be regarded as anything-more or anything-less than <<pick-a-20th-century-mogul>>'s name was supposed to be, "in their day?"

"No, I think not."

One of the very-best quotes that I've ever heard about such things came from Franklin D. Roosevelt: "I agree with you. Now: make me do it."

"If you can somehow be persuaded to vacate the battlefield without a fight, then the battle is already lost." However, if you determine to stick to your guns and to your principles, the outcome cannot be predicted in advance.

Originally Posted by enorbet Each month on the 7th workday the girls had earned ALL of their basic living expenses - rent, food, clothing, commute transportation, etc. - so that just slightly shy of 75%, 3/4, of their income was discretionary... could be saved or spent at will. !!

If so, but then they had no:
- Cars
- 50 inch color TVs
- Internet flatrate
- Iphones and ipods
- Gaming PCs and laptop
- they had porridge for breakfast and night, like they were used to
- they had a bowl as a toilet and another bowl as a shower
- were drinking leaded water
- had no health insurance or any insurance and probably no entitlement for a rent
- no lobby, union or good working contract and when something went wrong it was hire and fire and they would wash dishes and they would have their basic needs payed on the 25th working day
- And probably it was not nine to five, but five to nine
- Not to forget: of course they put back legendary amounts of savings, but on black thursday '29 it was all gone nontheless

But still their life in the city probably seemed more attractive to them, than what they were used to from at home.

@ alberich - All that you listed may be true but it was what they were used to and I don't mean just the 2 girls. With a few exceptions nobody with any amount of money enjoyed or paid for those things. Since flush toilets were invented in ~1600 well here's what wikipedia says

Originally Posted by wikipedia-History_of_Water_and_Sanitation USA The first sewer systems in the United States were built in the late 1850s in Chicago and Brooklyn.[28]:43 In the United States, the first sewage treatment plant using chemical precipitation was built in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1890.[22]:29

By 1920 the sanitation in much of NYC was above par and widely spread. Although admittedly not mentioned it is at least likely that they had running water and flush toilets in NYC. I seem to recall a picture showing their kitchen having a sink with faucets but I can't swear to it. Both London and NYC, as examples, had considerable percentages of the city enjoying electric service by 1900 and although quite dangerous by today's standards, less dangerous than candles or gas lighting. This I am certain of - they did have electric service as they enjoyed lighting and radio both of which were in photos from her collection. They didn't have health insurance but medicine was relatively cheap and readily available and doctors commonly "made house calls" well into the 1950s.

It is only possibly true that they didn't have a Union. Once again from Wikipedia

Originally Posted by Wikipedia-Communication_Workers_of_America History In 1918 telephone operators organized under the Telephone Operators Department of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. While initially successful at organizing, the union was damaged by a 1923 strike and subsequent AT&T lockout. After AT&T installed company-controlled Employees' Committees, the Telephone Operators Department eventually disbanded.

.

It was in the late 1930s that Unions began a rapid rise, and NYC was one of the initial battlegrounds, but all of this little matters when you really consider over 60% of your income as discretionary. Wealth IS power and 60% discretionary is a huge lever. It is a hard struggle for most modern people to continually save even 10% of what they earn. Even the potential to save 60% is astounding to me, as I expect it is to most here, again especially when adding in minimally educated single females to the demographic.

Ask yourself if today 2 brothers lacking a High School diploma who own a bicycle shop or it's equivalent would be likely to have the time and money to fund research and development of the equivalent of something as revolutionary as the first powered flying machine? In the latter 20th century in the US, 50% of small businesses fail in the first 4 years because they can't pay their bills. By 10 years 9 out of 10 have failed, gone broke. Does this sound like a high percentage of discretionary income to you? Don't forget that those who are inclined to start any serious business are at least a class above 2 single farm girls since they already have a marketable skill and show willingness to take calculated risks. In case you are unaware, the Wright brothers in this example were a middle class family at best, part of a family raising 7 children in suburban Indiana and Ohio.

Since you are likely more familiar with Lilenthal, Euler, Fokker, Junkers and Whitehead perhaps you can tell us if these men all came from "the upper crust" or were just "working stiffs". Then maybe consider the likelihood of such ventures today.

The point is simple - Yes we of the 21st Century enjoy many technological advances made commonly available, some of which are actually important. However I contend that during any and all ages the single most important attribute is discretionary income. Whatever norm you were born into, discretionary income is THE means to any end. It is the raw power to realize one's dreams. It is the fuel for "pursuit of happiness". I'm not saying that money is more important than friends and family. What one considers as important is up to the individual, but without a means to any end, one is a leaf on the ocean subject to the vagaries of all other forces, including government and the governing class who most often control the economic environment into which you are born.

Being born, even to a poor family in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, possibly up until the 1960s finds a high percentage of families upwardly mobile. That has become exceedingly rare. Here (after Nixon and especially Reagan's "trickle down") began a systematic erosion of the middle class and autonomy of anyone in the bottom 50-70% income bracket. Those lower have been largely brushed aside and marginalized, having nowhere near the ability to improve their circumstances as even a simple farm girl in the 20s.

From what I've read of History, being born into any system other than one even marginally Capitalistic, however comfortable one might be, the odds are high you will die in the same circumstances into which you were born and so will your children.

I am unable to analyse the prerequisites for a broad high income in society. And I think you brought only a few plausible arguments that in the past, or twenties, personal income that was free to spend, was higher.

The complexitiy of social and economical reciprocities in societies at a given time and compared to each other are huge!

And you picked an example of the 'golden twenties' (that didn't last very long...). I don't think that that should be a representative example for something like 'the greater wealth or personal freedom in past times' compared to today.

The brothers Wright were competent and experienced entrepreneurs. And you know they were protestants to come back to topic we need to mention the clichee here: sparse, ever hard working, brave. - And they were most definately idealists considering flying. The were set out to make it happen out of personality.

Look at this guy of today, he is a plumber 'only', too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soxxPyaAT1k

But: I find it hard to make a decent living in this capitalist society (luckily in Germany it has social aspects still) of too many people and passively aggressive people. In my opinion crucial treats are selling oneself, covering up personal weaknesses, being good at scheming and brown-nosing, great resistency against harrassement. And I don't think that is a good direction in that things are heading. But maybe it was ever so?

By the way, I have a final degree and it has helped me nothing. But for the most part that's my personal problem. Nevertheless I would work better if offices would not be a single room where one or two dozens of people maul each other on any given day. But I guess that was just ever so. It's survival of the fittest. And I am unfit