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Posted by sigismund on September 25, 2011, at 14:05:15
In reply to Business as usual and Michael Moore video, posted by floatingbridge on September 25, 2011, at 12:32:03
I am particularly interested in Ayn Rand and those influenced by her.
There is a kind of kid (not all boys, but mostly). By the by, I have a theory that many are closet gays. (The room goes quiet when I type that. It must be forbidden to say it.) Many of these kids may have been bullied, or they may have felt dragged down in some way, and so there is a denial and rejection of mutuality, the kind of mutuality ordinary people sure of their unimportance give to each other routinely. People like this are our rulers. They are so sure of everything.
This is a generalisation, of course.
Posted by sigismund on September 25, 2011, at 14:16:08
In reply to Re: Business as usual and Michael Moore video, posted by sigismund on September 25, 2011, at 14:05:15
We have parliament half full of private school boys, trained in debating and law, to whom the desire to rule the world came easy when they were young.
Posted by floatingbridge on September 25, 2011, at 14:16:10
In reply to Another day on Wall Street, posted by floatingbridge on September 25, 2011, at 1:52:47
Let's skip the cordoning off and pepper spraying of women. That's available you tube. Here are some eloquent speakers discussing the project of reclaiming the democratic process.
(BTW, ABC news here begins to acknowledge the scope of these occupations.)
Posted by sigismund on September 25, 2011, at 14:20:00
In reply to Re: Another day on Wall Street, posted by floatingbridge on September 25, 2011, at 14:16:10
At 1:35 there are LOTS of people.
Posted by sigismund on September 25, 2011, at 14:24:13
In reply to Re: Another day on Wall Street, posted by floatingbridge on September 25, 2011, at 14:16:10
I can not forget Lloyd Blankfein from Goldman Sachs saying when asked about the bonuses 'We are doing God's work'.
Posted by sigismund on September 25, 2011, at 14:32:18
In reply to Re: Another day on Wall Street, posted by floatingbridge on September 25, 2011, at 14:16:10
That was very interesting.
What is the scope of this occupation?
Is it just a few thousand people on a march? It isn't, is it. It's more than that?
Posted by floatingbridge on September 25, 2011, at 14:41:25
In reply to Re: Business as usual and Michael Moore video, posted by sigismund on September 25, 2011, at 14:05:15
> I am particularly interested in Ayn Rand and those influenced by her.
>
> There is a kind of kid (not all boys, but mostly). By the by, I have a theory that many are closet gays. (The room goes quiet when I type that. It must be forbidden to say it.) Many of these kids may have been bullied, or they may have felt dragged down in some way, and so there is a denial and rejection of mutuality, the kind of mutuality ordinary people sure of their unimportance give to each other routinely.
People like this are our rulers. They are so sure of everything.
>
> This is a generalisation, of course.I have not read Rand, but my husband has and we have
discussed it in context of the Tea Party. (How odd it is to write that name out, Tea Party.) I think I kept saying things like, "Really? Really? But that's misanthropic...."It's o.k. There is already lots of silence. Why not speak out into it if only for the thrill of a child throwing his voice in a cave and hearing it echo. What is interesting is the gay activity you speak of would be refrained from being labeled gay by those engaged. The word 'gay' would be saved for
'the other' as an epithet against them.I have no idea what binds the champagne sipping sadists together. I have never been to a private boys school.
I am pleased the news is finally forced into aknowledgement and the protesters are not being made to look like idiots and the police are on record all over the web for their unprovoked
acts of violence. F*ck*rs.I need to stop reading or I might think about taking my daytime dose of Xanax which I have been successfully forgoing. Need to do something with my hands.
Posted by floatingbridge on September 25, 2011, at 14:46:56
In reply to Re: Another day on Wall Street » floatingbridge, posted by sigismund on September 25, 2011, at 14:32:18
> That was very interesting.
>
> What is the scope of this occupation?
>
> Is it just a few thousand people on a march? It isn't, is it. It's more than that?I there is a site, Occupy Wall Street. They hope to take it national.
When a handful of tea party members are televised and thousands ignored in NYC, what can I even begin to say?
But I am upset right now, not fit for conversation.
Do they have a death penalty in Australia?
Posted by sigismund on September 25, 2011, at 15:00:11
In reply to Re: Another day on Wall Street, posted by floatingbridge on September 25, 2011, at 14:46:56
>Do they have a death penalty in Australia?
No. I think the last man hung was in 1960 something.
Posted by sigismund on September 25, 2011, at 15:45:39
In reply to Re: Another day on Wall Street, posted by floatingbridge on September 25, 2011, at 14:46:56
Since you are upset.........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hhFiSrsU6A&feature=player_embedded#!
Posted by sigismund on September 25, 2011, at 15:47:03
In reply to Re: Another day on Wall Street » floatingbridge, posted by sigismund on September 25, 2011, at 15:45:39
This link won't work for you, hey?
It is called 'The Monk and the Moon' on youtube.
Posted by floatingbridge on September 25, 2011, at 16:07:30
In reply to Re: Another day on Wall Street, posted by floatingbridge on September 25, 2011, at 14:46:56
Thank you. It was the Trappist monk one? It was peaceful. I am lying down and did give into a Xanax. I might nap if possible, but my husband is brewing chai....
You were right about the link not opening. Funny, huh?
Here is the site I mentioned. I think it's a beautiful idea. If my son wasn't in school, I'd visit my sister there and go.
Thank you.
Posted by sigismund on September 25, 2011, at 17:54:35
In reply to Re: Another day on Wall Street » sigismund, posted by sigismund on September 25, 2011, at 15:47:03
That is the kind of China I respect. Not the new China.
Posted by floatingbridge on September 25, 2011, at 22:35:36
In reply to Re: Another day on Wall Street, posted by sigismund on September 25, 2011, at 17:54:35
Thank you for the video. I feel much better. The news had hit me like a brick, but I feel much better now.
I'm sending some music in return. The words seem dire, then pivot into liberation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJtjqLUHYoY&feature=youtube_gdata_player
My links open?
Posted by sigismund on September 27, 2011, at 2:33:02
In reply to Carlos Gesualdo » sigismund, posted by floatingbridge on September 25, 2011, at 22:35:36
Your links open for me.
I even read St Genet once, on the subject of sexuality as a choice. The style of that book is perhaps attributable to the litres of alcohol and many Corydranes a day Sartre took while writing it. I tried to find out more about this OTC med...
Du médical au récréatif
Il y a 50 ans, une minorité détudiants et de créateurs absorbaient des excitants pour accroître leurs performances intellectuelles. Le prolifique philosophe-auteur Jean-Paul Sartre pouvait engloutir un tube entier de corydrane par jour, soit un mélange daspirine et de 144 milligrammes damphétamine, relate sa biographe Annie Cohen-Solal (Sartre 1905-1980, Gallimard, 1999). La corydrane, classée produit toxique en 1971, est interdite depuis.
I too could be recreatif if not prolifique with that.Perhaps I hoped for some bitter and liberating irony. I chose to be straight when I realised gay was the province of ........on no no no no no, I can't say that.
I should just try to settle down and ask myself who annoys me most.
I'm with Margaret Thatcher....the nanny state annoys me most. Christopher Hitchens (I think) confessed to having sexual fantasies about her. Well, maybe. Let's forget Thatcher and Reagan. It's so hard to have any fun. Such hard work.
Posted by floatingbridge on September 27, 2011, at 14:53:44
In reply to Re: Carlos Gesualdo » floatingbridge, posted by sigismund on September 27, 2011, at 2:33:02
You want bitter and liberating irony and I send music of redemption. Oh well. In the context of Gesualdo's life, redemption might be thought ironic. It was certainly worked for. I hope he won.
Why is there so much silence in the world? Yet so much flippin' noise.
I don't know what a nanny state is.
Power is a great aphrodisiac.
Can one be both a Puritan and a hedonist? I suppose I am the former now, living through my son's nearly unbridled
involvement in living. But he is beginning to catch on. I try to slow the process down a bit, that waking into the reigning social reality. Let him dream a little longer. Why hurry towards the inevitable? Let it come.That is the definition of having grown up: pleasure takes work.
I have forgone coffee. Too much tea now.
Satre used to give me a stomach ache. Really. I used to read Camus. He loved his illiterate mother. He knew he was an irrational being. He felt uneasy with the existentialists that adopted him. There. The full and subjective extent of my knowledge of French philosophy.
I wish I had had that little video when I first taught. It was a backwater state school. The big insult was to say something or someone was gay. The almost equal insult was to call someone a pussy. All about who was the f*ck*d and who was the f*ck*r. I tried a direct dialog with the students to my own ridiculous failure. It was at that school that eagles formed within the essays.
Had I been skilled at questions, there might have been better results.
Posted by floatingbridge on September 27, 2011, at 15:05:45
In reply to Bitter substances » sigismund, posted by floatingbridge on September 27, 2011, at 14:53:44
Did you ever read Peter Pan to your children? It is wonderful. Just enough danger to make it delicious and just enough social commentary to keep a grown up amused but not beleaguered.
Posted by sigismund on September 27, 2011, at 15:20:02
In reply to Bitter substances » sigismund, posted by floatingbridge on September 27, 2011, at 14:53:44
>The big insult was to say something or someone was gay.
Of course, and it was when I was at school. Back then it was (and it had to be said with a tone of angry contempt) 'You are a f*ck*ng p**ft*r'.
Now that puts me in time and place. We don't have p**ft*rs any more. They have vanished. But it was much more threatening than being told you were gay, which, it has to be said, could also be said in a tone of angry contempt.
When my kids used that expression I took issue with them once or twice. By the time they used it they had forgotten where it had come from and they felt I was being pedantic. I did of course say things like 'I'd be delighted if you were gay', which led them to say things like 'You're weird'. Later I could see that the terrible Australian homophobia had been moderated. In my son's muck up athletics day the gay boy wore a dress and they all played together happily enough. I know because I saw the videos they made. This would have been inconceivable 45 years ago. But we made a point of not sending our kids to the kind of 'good' school I went to and chose a humane catholic school instead where they took community values seriously.
Posted by sigismund on September 27, 2011, at 15:26:42
In reply to Re: Bitter substances, posted by floatingbridge on September 27, 2011, at 15:05:45
No I didn't, but I tried to read The Happy Prince which we had listened to as kids on bakelite records read by Bing Crosby. But it was hopeless. I am in tears with the Happy Prince almost from the beginning.
We were little when we used to listen to it. It was a big thing for me.
Posted by floatingbridge on September 27, 2011, at 16:08:52
In reply to Re: Bitter substances » floatingbridge, posted by sigismund on September 27, 2011, at 15:20:02
Well, things are better here and they are not. I mean, they are a lot better. Yet....
The way gay was said only ten years ago in that East Coast school carried a bit of weight. Maybe not that of p**ft*r (I first heard that on Monty Python). But enough to make me pity the theoretical and silent 10% of the class who had best remain quiet if they did not want their car tires slashed or deal with other such playful high spirits. Plus that pussy term sends me over the edge every time. Or the West Coast
version: stop crying, you sound like a girl.I don't know. We have Hollywood here. Everything is cool, right? Like we are so over that. Maybe there will always be some excuse to beat the daylights out of someone else.
I can't wait for the first, you're weird mom. That will be akin to losing a first tooth.
My son plays with children with 'two mommies', and that is the way it is. We live in a very liberal area, so much so that it is sometimrs as oppressive being politically correct as it is for me to be 'positive' or upbeat 24/7.
Posted by sigismund on September 27, 2011, at 19:07:46
In reply to Re: Bitter substances » sigismund, posted by floatingbridge on September 27, 2011, at 16:08:52
Posted by floatingbridge on September 28, 2011, at 1:35:10
In reply to Re: Bitter substances » floatingbridge, posted by sigismund on September 27, 2011, at 19:07:46
That was interesting; the comments especially. Some went over my head in their references. I am paranoid so try to steer clear of the deeper conspiracy theory. I am more comfortable with terms like anti-social sociopaths and psychopaths rather than believing those in power are Satanists as one commenter suggested.
I live here. What can I say that hasn't been said? And all that money poured into such inhumane ends, our infrastructure collapsing while the home team keeps cheering onward.
Still, I take humor when it comes. I liked this comment:
____________
"It also did irreparable and perhaps permanent damage to the economic capability of the United States to wage imperial wars. "
Good Freaking God, I hope so.
_____________
Posted by sigismund on September 28, 2011, at 12:03:10
In reply to Re: Bitter substances » sigismund, posted by floatingbridge on September 28, 2011, at 1:35:10
Well yes, but only at terrible cost at home.
I was speaking to an old fashioned Scottish socialist, almost a Marxist (they can be like that in Scotland) and he had done some work with the Americans in one of the intelligence agencies, and I asked him how he felt about doing it, and basically he said 'They're our family'.
Posted by floatingbridge on September 28, 2011, at 12:39:24
In reply to Re: Bitter substances » floatingbridge, posted by sigismund on September 28, 2011, at 12:03:10
Thanks sigi. My husband and I were talking about the cold war and how mother Russia wrecked herself keeping up. China is doing the same. So are the States. It's a shame because of the insustainabilty of it, and all the other life forms going down, the oceans and deep forests. Those are the last refuges, and I think of them as the last refuge of human wonder.
The default Buddhist (maybe Catholic?) perspective of one big boat we row together. Even with the flippin' psychopaths.
Of course, when my husband can no longer work and we have no health coverage, my posts will have a different tenor. There is a terribly steep rise in methamphetamine sales here. There is the war on terror and the war on drugs. Twin catastrophes.
Posted by sigismund on September 28, 2011, at 14:41:21
In reply to Re: Bitter substances » sigismund, posted by floatingbridge on September 28, 2011, at 12:39:24
Back then I mocked that Norman Rockwell world I knew from growing up in a similar one, but I don't feel like that now.
I think instead 'These people had MORPHINE available OTC and they didn't radically abuse it, they had HEROIN available in unit doses for HANGOVERS, now they are talking about banning Seroquel in jails.'
Human society has always had its awful aspects. We went through a very positive time here in the late 70s where the government of Malcolm Fraser (who famously lost his trousers in New Orleans) let in a quarter of a million (I think) Vietnamese refugees after the end of the war there. No attempt was made by either party to turn this into a nightmare from which they would save us. That is inconceivable now. Nothing good will come of it. It's all spin and focus groups and fear. The lies are so deep and the positioning to cast blame on the other so complex you have difficulty working the truth out about anything.
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