The Old Hippie's Groovy Blog
Thoughts & Observations, on Sociological, Environmental, And Political Happenings (Best View = 1024x786)
 | The Great American Bank Robbery. |
posted by The Old Hippie @ 1:57 AM
0 comments
posted by The Old Hippie @ 10:02 PM
0 comments
posted by The Old Hippie @ 11:39 PM
0 comments
 | Totally Corrupt TV: Corporate Lobbyists Are Disinterested Experts? |
posted by The Old Hippie @ 12:31 PM
0 comments
Sam Harris, who is currently completing a doctorate in neuroscience to research the neural foundation for belief, talked about his first book The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, published in a new paperback edition by W.W. Norton and Company. Mr. Harris argued that religion played a major role in an increasingly dangerous world. He criticized the influence of religion in both the United States and across the Muslim world, saying that for peace to exist, reason must replace faith as the driving force in society. Following his remarks, Mr. Harris responded to questions and comments submitted by members of the audience. Ms. Jacoby moderated the program. The talk, presented by CFI-Metro New York and cosponsored by the New York Society for Ethical Culture, is the second in the 2005 - 2006 Voices of Reason series.
posted by The Old Hippie @ 1:47 AM
1 comments
| - “Goldman Accused of Rigging ‘Robin Hood Tax’ Vote” It’s really unbelievable. The way that Goldman Sachs keeps sticking its... - Trying to Infuse Schoolbooks with Ultraconservative Ideology. . . “We are a Christian nation founded on Christian principles.” (Uh... No we’re not.) - It Would Not, Could Not, Happen In Any Other Industrialized Nation. Because their healthcare is not controlled by corporatists’ greed, like ours is. |  |
 {-The Way Many Picture Me-} |
|
And one last thing, just for you proudly ignorant Christians out there. . .As I have often said. . .
The simple complexity of the complex simplicity is beyond most Americans.
The problem with the stupid and ignorant among us, is that while they “proudly and patriotically,” allow their own self-destruction by fighting among themselves, as they were programmed to do... is that they are destroying much more than just their environment, their livelihoods, their lives... They are destroying us all.
Ignorance is curable, stupidity is forever.
Fight the stupid - Educate the ignorant. Or stupidly pay the price.
Oh, wait... We already are.
“The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality. Today Christians stand at the head of our country. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in the press — in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of LIBERAL excess during the past years.”
— Adolph Hitler - Taken from The Speeches of Adolph Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1, Michael Hakeem, Ph.D. (London, Oxford University Press, 1942), pp. 871-872.
Seriously - What the fuck are you going to do about It?
Fox is simply a propaganda outfit for the corporatists, manipulating, and misinforming the people of America at a level unseen in our Constitutional Democracy's history - Blatantly - Sneeringly.
The the-very-few are on a buying spree, as the majority of Americans are going under - America has gone under before, but not with the robber barons being so openly and sneeringly blatant about their take from their successful theft, and the thieves, the-very-very-few, purposeful, but profitable to them, destruction of “the American Dream.”
Goldman Sacs is giving out over $30-Billion dollars in bonuses to just a few of the-very-few. Can't get more blatant - It is so blatant that even some of the staff are arming themselves in fear of a retaliatory uprising.
Climate... The denial is impossible to deny. The danger inherent in the denial is undeniable also. The ability of the corporatists to openly manipulate the fodder-units into supporting their own self-destruction is also undeniable, and the danger of that manipulated self-destructive denial is beyond blatant - All for the very short-term profits to the-very-very-few among us.
Yet, America continues to “allow” it all, and much more that is destructive to our own needs... But extremely profitable to the-very-very-few among us.
Seriously - What the fuck are you going to do about it?
posted by The Old Hippie @ 7:06 AM
0 comments
I’m with Simon Johnson here: how is it possible, at this late date, for Obama to be this clueless?
The lead story on Bloomberg right now contains excerpts from an interview with Business Week which tells us:
President Barack Obama said he doesn’t “begrudge” the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay.
The president, speaking in an interview, said in response to a question that while $17 million is “an extraordinary amount of money” for Main Street, “there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.”
“I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,” Obama said in the interview yesterday in the Oval Office with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- market system.”
Obama sought to combat perceptions that his administration is anti-business and trumpeted the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies. He plans to reiterate that message when he speaks to the Business Roundtable, which represents the heads of many of the biggest U.S. companies, on Feb. 24 in Washington.
Oh. My. God.
First of all, to my knowledge, irresponsible behavior by baseball players hasn’t brought the world economy to the brink of collapse and cost millions of innocent Americans their jobs and/or houses.
And more specifically, not only has the financial industry has been bailed out with taxpayer commitments; it continues to rely on a taxpayer backstop for its stability. Don’t take it from me, take it from the rating agencies:
The planned overhaul of US financial rules prompted Standard?&?Poor’s to warn on Tuesday it might downgrade the credit ratings of Citigroup and Bank of America on concerns that the shake-up would make it less likely that the banks would be bailed out by US taxpayers if they ran into trouble again.
The point is that these bank executives are not free agents who are earning big bucks in fair competition; they run companies that are essentially wards of the state. There’s good reason to feel outraged at the growing appearance that we’re running a system of lemon socialism, in which losses are public but gains are private. And at the very least, you would think that Obama would understand the importance of acknowledging public anger over what’s happening.
But no. If the Bloomberg story is to be believed, Obama thinks his key to electoral success is to trumpet “the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies.”
We’re doomed.
Paul Krugman is professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University and a regular columnist for The New York Times. Krugman was the 2008 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics. He is the author of numerous books, including The Conscience of A Liberal, and his most recent, The Return of Depression Economics.
Perspective is an evil task-master - Right?
Yes - Reality does truly suck sometimes, way too many times of late.
posted by The Old Hippie @ 6:27 AM
0 comments
{-The Way Many Picture Me-} |
|
And one last thing, just for you proudly ignorant Christians out there. . .As I have often said. . .
The simple complexity of the complex simplicity is beyond most Americans.
The problem with the stupid and ignorant among us, is that while they “proudly and patriotically,” allow their own self-destruction by fighting among themselves, as they were programmed to do... is that they are destroying much more than just their environment, their livelihoods, their lives... They are destroying us all.
Ignorance is curable, stupidity is forever.
Fight the stupid - Educate the ignorant. Or stupidly pay the price.
Oh, wait... We already are.
“The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality. Today Christians stand at the head of our country. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in the press — in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of LIBERAL excess during the past years.”
— Adolph Hitler - Taken from The Speeches of Adolph Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1, Michael Hakeem, Ph.D. (London, Oxford University Press, 1942), pp. 871-872.
The following is reprised, because not much has really changed as far as the ongoing denial of the insane “allowing” of the theft by the-very-few is concerned... And I will continue to reprise this... as long as the 'citizens' fodder-units of my nation continue to “allow the allowing.”
It, the insanity, of the “allowing,” is getting worse, in fact it is much worse already.
Go look at all of the MSM’s headlines, at their websites, then compare what you see there with the reality as rationally reported by reality based independent news sites.
If that simple comparison doesn’t open ones closed eyes of denial, nothing will.
To help you remain sane, and not too deeply depressed, you should end your “session of reality” by stopping in at some of the better editorial humorists’ websites - It couldn’t hurt.
That is my main personal method of doing research for this blog - Check in with the right and the right’s insane, then study as much of the reality-based news sites as possible, then check in with the humorists. I then sleep on it, do it again, and then post what I have learned, observed, or was stunned by, to first, share it, and second, to get it off my chest so that I can remain sane myself. All the while, trying my best to keep a reality-based perspective in these historically insane times.
posted by The Old Hippie @ 7:18 AM
0 comments
| (Ala the Supreme Court’s Decision:) Wealthy CEOs Conspire to Influence Elections for GOP |
posted by The Old Hippie @ 7:45 PM
0 comments
Journalist, (and a senior fellow at The Nation Institute,) Chris Hedges says we live in two separate Americas.
In his new book, Empire of Illusion, Hedges argues that the country is divided. On one side is a minority that lives in a literate world, able to discern deception from truth. On the other is a detached majority, coasting on the distractions of celebrity, spectacle and simplistic thinking.
Vermont native Chris Hedges lives in Princeton, N.J. He spoke by phone with VPR's Neal Charnoff.
posted by The Old Hippie @ 11:04 PM
0 comments
posted by The Old Hippie @ 3:24 AM
0 comments
posted by The Old Hippie @ 6:11 AM
0 comments
67, over-educated tree-hugging music-loving deadhead retired old-happy-hippie
My blog is worth $10,161.72.
How much is your blog worth?
For anyone that cares...
My Google Page Ranking
Also note that between 8/1/08 and
8/9/08 this meter was completely
non-functional to the point of
blocking the page from surfers.
