I've been the despair and enragement of many who thought they could bend me to their will.
On the other hand, being intensely reactive isn't such a great trait to have infused into the marrow of one's bones. But if they take me down, I will go down fighting.
Maybe we should breed Randi with Peter Toadez and see if Randi's baby is more horrible than Rosemary's baby? Faucho will fund this gain of function experiment for military reasons.
the teachers unions are coming under heavy and increasingly active criticism by parent groups over handing of schools and curriculums.
during covid, many schools and unions tried to have the parents demanding schools open branded as "domestic terrorists." there was too much public outcry and the ploy failed. this looks to me like they are trying to get the machinery in place to make it much easier to make such a claim next time.
it's embattled bureaucracies and guild systems seeking to support and bolster one another. the teachers get freed from accountability and DHS gets new pretext to act like the stasi.
I guess that Randi's bid for a scholastic Quick Reaction Force was denied so she did the next best thing; which was to help set policy for DHS. Nothing screams, "We just want your children to have the best possible education.", than having a pseudo-military governmental organization label parents as terrorists.
As a side note, if anyone doesn't hear from me in a while it's probably because I routinely commit the crime of caring about the mental, physical, emotional, and educational needs of my children. See you all in the gulag!
You'll often find Democratic Party candidate campaigns headquartered at teacher's union facilities across the nation. I've been in them during election season. They are joined at the hip.
They maintain the illusion of bipartisanship by playing nice with a few Republicans who play nice with them. But if those same R's they give awards and contributions to ever face off against a D in an election they will forget they ever supported or liked the R. They're just props.
And the union president in my district, speaking at my school, assured us that union dues were NEVER used to support political campaigns. Unfortunately the fine print on the union magazine (rag) which came to my home mailbox (such an embarrassment!) belied his assertion. I would recommend anyone interested to try to get hold of a teachers' union magazine and read it.
That Day has always been with us. They keep trying, with a lot of success. I homeschooled K-12 starting in the late 80s in one of the (unbeknownst to me) most restrictive states. Naive Me never even dreamed there was A Law telling me how I could educate my child. Thus began a decade plus effort to change our state law with other like-minded parents. Our educational philosophies ran the gamut of Conservative Christian to Radical Unschooler, I’ll leave it to your imagination which camp I’m in. Long story short - we helped draft legislation that would give parents freedom and were told by the majority chair of the Education Committee that it was "one of the most comprehensive well written pieces of legislation" he had ever seen submitted…and he was going to make sure it never passed because - his wife was a teacher and he wasn’t going against the union. And it didn’t pass out of committee. Over the following decade into the 2000s we managed to chip away at some of the most restrictive policies, and it’s eternal vigilance to make sure things don’t slip by us. But, we’re getting old. Our children are grown. Yes, we see a lot of parents still standing freedom strong, but we also see a lot of parents willing to eat the carrot on the stick. No matter how "fair" vouchers, tax rebates, curriculum access, etc., sounds - once you start accepting anything from the government you are their hostage. And it’s insidious. "We would love to have your child participate in the [band, sports team, debate team, chess club, etc.] just submit your weekly schedule/log so we know you are Really Homeschooling and they can join…you don’t mind if we make a home visit to verify do you?"
Great book on parental freedom: Mere Creatures of the State by William Bentley Ball. He was of immense help to us.
Another factor is personal gain. She's garnered significant financial gain and power as a useful and thus entitled member of The Party elite. While it is hard to ascribe motive to the actions of a scio/psycho-path simple greed and lust for power are a bit more obvious.
They are funded by extortionate 'dues' extracted from teachers who do not realize that they are not required to pay or belong. Again, speaking as an insider.
Interesting questions. Of course, after the Republicans rise up and stop election fraud, and then win the Presidency, the IRS will immediately come to heel, and those 87,000 new IRS agents will quickly align with Republican priorities like auditing the unions.
May I suggest a perusal of the UN Agenda 2030 goals to answer this question further? It details some oddly specific aims for educating young children about sex and relationships. Personally I think all of this is cover for that agenda as many parents would probably not go for it if it was transparent. And I am not talking about pedophile rings etc. That is neither here nor there. There are some people who have connected it with social credit scoring, the rise of AI and of course transhumanism. Make of it what you will, but I think it's worth examining at least. Here is a good starter video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhQljTuAAe0
Yep, here in California we have a whole chapter of the Loathesome Bipeds Catalogue with the likes of Lorena Gonzalez, creator of AB5 legislation and now working for the AFL-CIO, along with her philandering weasel of a husband, Nathan Fletcher, who just got forced out of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. They both deserve to be jettisoned into a volcano.
The thing is, it's everywhere, on every level. Small-town life is just a mini version of the passions and power plays and hypocrisies found everywhere larger. At least one can take a little solace in the scenery.
We always err in trying to say some action or behavior or trait is inhuman. The invention of civilization was an attempt at self-taming. It's not the sort of work where an end goal is achievable.
I wasn't trying to denigrate or be mean - just asking aloud if an alternate explanation is these creatures are some separate race that have figured out how to dominate and eventually eradicate the inferior humans that infest this planet.
I understand perfectly well, and I think it's important to recognize the full range of human capacities as *normal.* That fight for power and resources is basic to life.
I read a lot of sci fi as a kid too. The stories I found most chilling didn't feature space creepies.
I’ve thought of making a list. It’s getting so long. Exhausting to think of them all. Like Gato says after one fails miserably in a position of responsibility I start to think rather hopefully, ‘they are done now’--But nooooooo! They are always promoted. The worst of the worst, the liars, the corrupt, the ones with no ethics, they are exactly what the machine is looking for.
It's always been this way though. This is generations of wretchedness colliding with the enfeeblement of society made unusually visible.
Even during the mythical WWII years, plenty failed to rise to the needs of the moment. And I remember as a kid when I learned about the internment of citizens and permanent residents of Japanese descent, and my parents--both children of immigrants who fled the collapse of the Russian empire; both Jews, and my father a veteran--were unperturbed by it and made excuses about why it had been necessary. I'm sure that was quite a widespread sentiment even among people who ought to have viscerally recoiled from it.
Nothing that's happening is some new incomprehensible abomination. It's people getting away with what people often get away with.
I agree, but who, one might ask, is going to shut down this metastasizing machine? Certainly not the Republicans in Congress. All they are apparently capable of is cheap talk and endless "investigations", neither of which have any consequences for anyone. Far too many of We, the People, have been manipulated by years of being told taking to the streets and physically shutting down unconstitutional tyrannical agencies would be "stooping to their level" and so sit at home, tolerating the intolerable. These leftist usurpers, Great Reset zealots, die hard communist unionists are NOT going away peacefully. The violence perpetrated by them has become pervasive and is escalating. To stop them is going to take organized, concerted action, repeat: ACTION, that I am afraid may be beyond the realm of possible. I sincerely hope I am wrong...
It's simple but unexciting. The only elections that matter are the micro-local ones. School boards, library boards, zoning boards, local taxing authorities. All of them are feeders for each political party and where people make the connections that propel the most ambitious--or corruptible--ones higher.
Independents have no power right now because of this. Meaningful change can only happen when independents are a formidable political force.
Conservatives need to recognize abortion is truly a private matter of a woman's liberty until the point of viability--which is a squishy time marker but a compromise at 20 weeks must be made. Then more liberal-leaning independents will make coalitions with conservatives that can break the power of the extreme left and the extreme right.
This means really living by principles of privacy, bodily autonomy and that liberty means tolerating in others that which might be personally repugnant to you but about which you have no right to impose your views.
Let some groups self-eugenicize if they must. It's awful to see, but life is filled with brutal choices. We can't protect everyone. We can't save all children if we believe in the principle of the family having more rights over children than the state. It's a dreadful--a monstrous--dilemma but the alternative is the fantasy of a leftist or extreme rightist religious utopia.
Our esteemed author, this very bad cat, has an uncommon optimism.
He argues that we are turning a corner, that people, normal people, people beyond the deplorables, are now wise to their malfeasance and lies. The narrative matrix is patently and utterly false but moreover, the bad cat suggests it is now broadly seen as self serving clap trap.
Life is a river, and as much as people may try to dam it up and direct it, it always finds a way to break through. It's got its cycles. You have to hope to be born during the beginning of a good one.
We ain't so special that we should imagine we're in some uniquely catastrophic time. It's true that there's a lot of societal weakness right now, but that tends in every sort of way to self-eugenicize. Healthier people left standing will rebuild. And then it will all repeat again.
In truth, I think the bad cats optimism is unwarranted. School teachers are almost completely captured by this safetyism , social justice drivel, and as such they have captured the means of cultural production so they hold the high ground. Tens of millions of children are being indoctrinated.
At the end of the day, whether you believe el gato malo's optimism is premature or whether you share his optimism, the action steps are the same: we keep fighting, we keep getting the word out even if it seems like on one is listening, we keep finding ways to avoid the system (by paying cash, homeschooling, etc.) I believe it is better to lose after putting up a good fight than to not have tried at all.
I am of the firm belief the day they stripped tether-ball and outlawed kickball on recess playgrounds was the first day they started a slow stripping of their souls. At first in trickles...and then all at once.
Just like everything else that is de facto controlled by the state.
During covid they were exposed as hollow, self-serving individuals (and the "guilds") that put their interest over the very children they are supposed to educate and have ready to adjust to the "real world".
Today's kids don't even have recess. It's simply a time when they are allowed to use their smartphones unsupervised.
Yet we wonder why so many children have problems and are on prescribed drugs these days.
When I was a kid I got 3 recesses each day: mid morning, after lunch, and mid afternoon. In my school district today, kids have to quickly eat their lunch in the lunch room in order to have a few minutes of time outside running around, playing on the swings, and breathing fresh air. A healthier time, physically, emotionally, and mentally. And definitely educationally. “Back in my day” nearly all kids were proficient in reading and do math, unlike like today where the standards are abysmally low.
Funny you should mention trees -- my son got in trouble for climbing trees on the playground. That was years ago ... but he didn't get hurt. He got hurt when he was running on the blacktop and ran into a pole. In a public school, I'm sure they would have then removed all the poles or banned running on the playground ...
I understand some safety issues, but it's gotten ridiculous. In California, they banned sand and made all the schools (at their expense) put in that soft padding under play equipment. First day of the school year after the installation, a kid fell and broke her arm. (This was in San Joaquin County about 20 years ago.) Before banning sand, they banned bark (the substance that was my childhood memory of the 70s ...) Every "improvement" has its own problems, but no one in government does a cost-benefit analysis. You can't protect everyone from everything all the time.
Sounds like here. When I grew up it was either just the ground or asphalt under any "official" playground. "Asphalt sandbox" was an early meme for growing up in the projects/council housing.
Now, they might as well just hook the kids up to an SSRI/Ritalin-IV and park them in front of a screen, Wall-E style.
So no-one gets hurt.
They are making people into dodos.
To think we used to joke about the US' obsession with safety for everything, 30 years ago. Now, we're just as bad.
You still have swings? Our school board removed all of that "dangerous" playground equipment from school yards almost ten years ago. You know, things like slides, teeter-totters, roundabouts, and monkey bars. And climbable trees. Now we have soccer pitches, with padded goal posts. Safer, you know.
Sorry. I didn’t make that clear. We had swings when I was kid. Nowadays, swings are too dangerous for kids at school. But they are still found in some parks. Give it another 10 years.
Hear hear! It's slow neutering and neurosis-producing process, to be sure!
Imagine this: in grade 7 (age 13-14) we were allowed to make our own knives, nunchuks and shuriken in metal crafting shop class. We could bring in our bikes and mopeds and rollerskates and skateboards too, to work on and tweak the engine-output to a c*nt-hair's width from illegal (or make soapbox racers, crossbows (which didn't get to take home until after we quit compulsory school). Or using the inner tyre from a bike to make cardboard-tube catapults - you could shoot a lead shot right through 1/4 inch wire-reinforced glass!
In the lower grades, the only thing the teacher on guard at recess would say when they saw us "sword-fighting" with sticks, bats or bits of planks or boards was: "Mind you don't put out each other's eyes!"
Gym class, when we had orienteering, it always included climbing cliffs or wading through bogs - or doing it on skis in the winter. Playing rugby without protection on a gravel soccer field - had to bring a note from home though, signed, the note stating it was understood that nosebleeds and ruined clothes was a risk (as in: certainty).
Kids today, they are being turned into nothing but capons and don't even know what's been stolen from them! What a twist eh, the midle-aged and the fogies urging the kids to strike out on their own...
I still have the "Chinese star" weapon I made in shop class.
My younger brother and me, at age 14 and 12, built a motorized skateboard from odds and ends in my grandfather's shop. It wasn't perfect, but it worked just fine.
Motorised skate-boards and sparkar* were the reason for some interesting court cases in the 1980s.
Due to how the old law defined "vehicle", a skateboard without an engine was not a vehicle, despite having pairs of wheels on axles, so it could be used on sidewalks and in bikelanes, but not on the street. With an engine, it became a "motor vehicle" and had to be driven on the street.
Spark with an old lawn mower-engine made it even trickier. See, the spark must be used on the wrong side of the road (left side, facing traffic) since it "counts as" walking. But with an engine, then what?
To this day, it remains unsolved.
*Spark, sing; sparkar, plural. Full name is "sparkstötting", think you call them "kicksleds" in english?
We had dodge ball in elementary school, as well as softball, and tag. The playground was dirt and worn-out grass. In high school we had many sports including archery with real arrows and straw bales with targets.
"I am of the firm belief the day they stripped tether-ball and outlawed kickball on recess playgrounds was the first day they started a slow stripping of their souls."
You've done it again RG. Your comment triggered an interesting lunchtime discussion at Chez BC.
When my bride and I were much younger, every school in the district boasted one, or more, "skating rinks". These rinks were similar in size and construction. A flat, smooth area 200 feet long by 85 feet wide, surrounded by a tight board fence 4 feet high, with appropriate gates. Suitable, of course, for hockey or figure skating in the winter, and broom-ball or ringette in the summer. The bigger schools, like the high school, even had warming shacks.
Basic maintenance was by school district employees. Volunteers looked after flooding the rink in the winter, painting the appropriate lines on the ice, and mowing the weeds and liming lines in the summer.
We consulted a subject matter expert, the mother of our oldest grand children, who was able to confirm - "It was 1993, when #1 grandson was in third grade, that they bulldozed the rinks. All of them. Everywhere in the district. The kids had to use the municipal rink. With all the organized shit going on, the little kids hardly ever got onto the ice. And they had to join on of the clubs."
The excuses given for depriving generations of kids of the joys of unorganized, unsupervised play, were of course, "safety" and "liability".
Actually, PI, when outdoor rinks were the only rinks, there were six teams in the NHL. But you'll be pleased to know that in our little slice of Paradise, local ranchers still clear parking areas an pastures adjacent to "hockey rinks" on local lakes and sloughs - every winter. We even have "pond hockey" tournaments!
And I did notice the alarming lack of outdoor ice surfaces in Florida. But on every one of my trips to Nevada I was "busy". For some reason, hockey, outdoors or in, was not on the agenda.
School choice is a huge electoral gimme. RFK Jr should pick this issue up.
When I accessed his website (https://www.kennedy24.com/) to see if he already had, Cloudflare forced me to prove I was a human twice before letting me through. Anyone else seeing this?
team donkey hates school choice because they get so much money from the teacher's unions. that, at least, seems understandable as classic pay for play.
but the endless failure of team elephant to pick up this issue is such a searing indictment against them. it's a winner societally, electorally, and morally. and yet they do nothing. it's reprehensible.
Randi is a cross between a donkey and Dolores Umbradge. Never ceases to amaze me that the head of 3 million teachers and tens of millions of students has no children of her own. Pompeo was right that she is one of the most dangerous people in the world.
My fix for school budgets and school choice is to let between 50-75% of the per pupil funding follow the student and the remainder stays at the public school. This is because those that stay are the kids that are more expensive to teach...just having a fraction of the funds allocated for my kids would have made private school attainable for longer for us (switched to homeschool which not everyone can do when we couldn’t afford private anymore). And then the districts can stop saying they aren’t “fully funded” every single year
What you are discovering, I think, is that the differences between donkey and elephant are almost entirely cosmetic. On the critical things they have merged into one with a theatre of contention to sustain an illusion.
There is a Russian comic who escaped the USSR in the 1980s and has a bit of reality based humor:
Excellent comment! Will share your entire article far and wide! Thank you for always making the real issues easy to understand for the layperson! Much appreciated!
The State not only provides neither, but actively threatens both.
'A captured pirate gave a quick and cutting response to Alexander the Great. The king asked him, "What is your idea, infesting the sea?" The pirate answered with uninhibited insolence: "The same as yours, infesting the earth! But because I do it with a small ship, I'm called a pirate. Because you do it with a navy, you're called an emperor!"'
Yet history is replete with examples of inferior firepower overcomes by use of superior tactics and strategy. Which then enables the smaller number to gain superior firepower...and the cycle continues?
When I was a kid in school we learned about the American revolution, another example of a force inferior in numbers and armament that prevailed. By "breaking the rules" of war fighting and breaking with convention. But they didn't do it with goats alone :-). They also had the historical context appropriate version of an M16 or AK ;-)
Ironic that. The truth is that the Patriots learned it from the Native Americans. Without what hey learned the British would have likely prevailed. So acknowledging thus is a compliment.
The actual facts get lost in political correctness which ironically is often based on incorrect use of language and false assumptions. The name "Indians" came from the Europeans who got a little navigationally compromised while on a quest to find a shorter route to India, and like many humans, they chose to see what they wanted to see. Humans haven't changed their nature all that much.
But for some reason that mistaken identity somehow became an insult. While "native" and "indigenous" are less so?
The moral of the anecdote is not that the state is a pirate, but that might makes right.
The ancients did not have our concept of state in the slightest - anyone with the will and the ability could set himself up as king and was one, as long as he by force of arms could enforce his will and keep his territory (such as the Diadochi f.e or Mithridates I Ctistes) his sovereign domain.
That's what the pirate in the anecdote is about, that Alexander justifies his rule and reign not by divine decree or piousness and faith or liturgical tradition, but simple brute force (i.e. something base, secular and profane - consider who the author of the anecdote was).
It is if anything an anecdote emphasising the need for any form of state to rest on ethics and morals and a creed, and not brute force, for said state to have any chance of being fair and just.
I'm going to add this comment as a necessary bit of nasty-tasty medicine : remember who created the DHS monster. "Republicans" and "Conservatives." It was the stunned, thousand-yard stare days after the 9/11 attacks. But - but things were different this time! We *needed* a big giant government to protect us and our children! We had to fight the terrorists! All these people warning "It'll come back to bite you" were just irresponsible libertarian extremists ....
I was among those idiotic conservatives at the time and thought W was a good president. I have difficulty understanding how I could have been so blind. As the war marched on, the bank bailouts, and exorbitant spending continued I started questioning, but family all assured me I was wrong to do so. Fortunately I ultimately saw the light in spite of them.
Bush didn't do it alone. Congress created DHS. Bush didn't veto it. I wish he had. But since there was no opposition in congress, an override would be assured. Had he real integrity he would have vetoed and been on the record as opposition, but had he done that he would have been out faster than yesterdays stale bagels. Which would have earned my respect.
I won't debate the scumbag classification (nor will I debate with the scumbag class). Scum is what scum is ;-). The facts are in the congressional record. Bush did not introduce DHS it was mandated by congress. It was part of the 3 day rush in Congress to be seen as "doing something" that gave us the extension to the war powers act and the patriot act (both unconstitutional in different ways). The extension to the war powers act unconstitutionally gave the president the "any means necessary" capability, expanding on the prior act in which congress redefined the power of congress and the administrative branch. BTW Bush never invoked the "any means necessary" clause despite the widespread narrative that it was "Bush's war": Ever step of the war was approved by congress under the "specific legislative authorization" clause introduced in 1972. The first president to invoke the "any means necessary" clause to bypass congress was Obama (which he did several times).
The constitution provides "commander in chief" powers but requires declaration of war be passed in congress. Korea and Viet Nam were challenged as invalid uses of military force due to lacking such a declaration. It was accepted from inception that the commander in chief had both authority and responsibility to use military resources to respond to an immediate threat. But it was argued sustained war was outside the scope of that authority. The original war powers act circa 1968 (going from memory) clarified that when immediate action was taken, the commander in chief must request and receive specific authorization from congress to sustain action. Also in 1968 (or maybe 1972) the act allowed a "specific legislative authorization" in place of a declaration of war, in part driven by challenges to both "police actions" in Korea and SE Asia. This "clarified" that congress could authorize defacto war without declaration of war based on agreements such as we have with the UN to "police" the mandates of the UN Security Council (which got us into Korea, Viet Nam, and Iraq 2 times).
FWIW the facts are IMO more interesting than the popular narrative though do not well serve a political party preference. My preference is that we abolish political parties so it serves my bias perfectly :-).
You use those words as if they are substantially different from “Democrats” or “Liberals”. For those of us who have been paying attention for the last thirty plus years, the uniparty has been in complete control of everything for a very long time, and has only existed to enrich themselves and their cronies at our expense while simultaneously duping 90% of the population into believing that there are two opposing forces at work, when in reality the objective is singular. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. To paraphrase Thatcher- it all works so well until they run out of other people’s money.
Oh believe me, you're preaching to the choir. I'm mainly sharing the story because there are certainly young readers nowadays thinking "But this is different, we need to save the climate!" Youngsters, government is government. It's brute force. There is no new thing under the sun.
I've been wondering for decades exactly when the word "liberal" was redefined. It is I think not a moment, but rather a slide into false equivalence. An incremental (dare I say progressive) slide into reversal - of making it ok to use the word to mean it's own opposite. Liberal used to mean accepting, open minded, tolerant. To equate that with theories and policies that deny biology, that demonize opposition, that suppress inquiry and are intolerant of any but the "correct" view is to use the word as a antonym of itself. it is like the use of the word "inclusion" to dictate words that must be excluded from conversation or writing ;-).
Some time ago I was accosted for rejecting "they/them" as an individual gender pronoun. Of course the attacker called me "anti-LGBTQW" and "homophobic" and so on. I calmly explained I have no issue with you changing your gender identity. I am not anti anything, I am pro-grammar. You can have your gender without misuse of grammar.
The word was not redefined. The word was applied as a label to a group of people who are long dead and who are replaced by others who no longer fit the definition, but for some reason continue to use the word to define themselves in much the same way that Vizzini kept “using that word.”
The modern civil rights LARPers, for that’s what they are, are for the most part functionally illiterate, with a poor grasp of the English language (as evidenced by their misapplication and misappropriation of the basic rules of grammar), and an even poorer grasp of history. They want to be the protesters on the bridge in Selma (not that they really know anything about that event), but have yet to realize that they are the ones holding the fire hoses.
Notwithstanding my sarcasm and flippancy, agreed. This is an intentional tactic of deception. It is related to the false equivalence. It is coopting the language to control the narrative. There can be no debate as there is no foundation upon which to construct a logical argument. Simply applying centuries old rules of grammar identifies you as the enemy. Of course that makes no logical sense. Just as it makes no sense to equate criticizing someone on-line with physical violence. Go ahead and try it: point out that being ridiculed on social media is not the same as being physically assaulted and see how quickly you are labeled anti- whatever or whomever is claiming victimhood.
In both examples if you claim you had no ill-intent but only pointed out a fact (e.g. "they" is plural or getting your ass beat is different than being called a snowflake on social media) you will meet another mainstay of politics: the false assertion "intent doesn't matter, words hurt!".
Control of education is the means to achieve the state of unawareness that we have reached today: the institutionalized ignorance of replacing fact with submission to authority. History is what you're told. Your lifestyle is how those with power dictate and it's all for your own good.
Bushies like Clintoons and Obamaites are All NWO-UN-USSA. The Buzzard Party has two wings, Quisling rinoRats and Bolshevik democRats.
Inflict a large enough Trauma on a person or a society an unconsciousness of analytical reason ensues and reaction is the reigning thought process. 9/11 or Covid, works everytime.
I would contend that RINO and DINO are in fact purpose of national political parties: to create an identity separate from the self and totally dependent upon a "platform" set by a few and ultimately without real meaning. If we examine the platform of either dominant party we find some apparent differences, but if we compare this to the policies and legislative actions, we find neither party abides by its platform. And both depend upon the false assertion, the false equivalence and the power of "everybody knows". Neither in practice "walks the walk" they talked.
Anyone identifying with either dominant party is therefor "in name only", since The Party doesn't represent your individual values but rather demands you adopt The Party's version. Everything used to differentiate the two are labels devoid of meaning: e. g. "liberal" and "conservative" are used but not to mean what those words mean in natural language; as opposing and incompatible. But if we use the real meaning of the words, one can be liberal, e.g. open minded and broadly accepting of different views, tolerant of other's lifestyles, and conservative in thought, e.g. cautious in practice, careful in evaluating risk/reward, skeptical of action without clear need. So the identities of "liberal" and "conservative" become "in name only" as well.
And that's how we can have "liberals" arguing that free speech must be suppressed, that liberty is counter to safety, and other absurdly inverted (false) assertions as core beliefs.
I objected to the creation of DHS in 2001. I didn’t see how it would help anything. But oh my goodness, how it has hurt and destroyed... And now Clown World is in charge, so... yay?
I particularly like the "safety" that TSA provides........ and the IRS/FIB/DoInJ surely demonstrated the compaSSion Hunter B. needed in his life rehabilitation.
Jeff Epistein was wondering about "his Deal", but was unavailable for comment. Bill Barr is "investigating", Durham is "reporting" rather than "prosecuting" and Huber disappeared after much Hopium, years ago.
If the Current DC Feral Coup Gov is "Clown World"........ What does that make We/Me/You ???
You me and and millions of other people. But none of us were in Congress. There was only one member who opposed: Ron Paul. He was a lone voice in the senate defending the constitution as well expecting the senate and house to abide by their respective rules.
In the house, the war powers extension (that added the "any means necessary" clause) was opposed by one vote: the unlikely move by Maxine Waters. But Max quickly dispelled any notion she was voting on principle, or that she had a conscious (or achieved consciousness) when she spoke, stating she'd have voted yes had then president Bush been a democrat. To your point, failing to consider that the power would eventually fall to "the other side" no matter who was in the chair that day.
This is why our constitution limits the power of governments, based upon an inverted pyramid of power with all powers originating from the people. This was a radical notion when nation was founded, one of several that were logically sound based on the patterns of history (power corrupts people and people given too much power will ultimately do bad things to other people to retain and expand their power).
Will to power is an old term, though its connotations are accurate. I refer to it nowadays as "The Appetite," because of its primary feature of never finding satiety. All things are dynamic, a direction and not a destination. Once limited goals are subverted by The Appetite, then only the desperate compulsive need for more remains. Like a black hole people absent any moral gravity swirl into its powerful attractive force and add to its hunger.
Apparently "like seeks like". This is all true and wickedly awful. Yes, disband DHS, which followed 9/11. We all know that once created, the government seldom reverses, but grows grotesquely.
This is the book with the rabbits finding a tossed cigarette butt at the beginning? I started reading it > 20 years ago.. it still sits on my shelf. Maybe there's lessons in there worth picking it back up for?
It came out when I was a teenager, and was incredibly popular. I read it, but the only part that stuck with me was the chapter about The Shining Wire. As I recall, it was about turning a blind eye to evil in return for the safety of the community. Similar to the 1948 Shirley Jackson story "The Lottery".
I have not revisited rabbits since then, so I can't say how well it holds up. But around the same time another incredibly popular book was Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Nuff said.
And just this morning there was a message on my answering machine from the UFT reminding me of a public town hall hearing/talk featuring Ms Randi W as she discusses the 2024 election and promoting Mr B and Ms H for re-election. As a former teacher all I can do is 🤮!
"an amoral manipulative apparatchik to the core and serves nothing but her team" : a concise word for that is "politician". Politics requires a total lack of empathy for other human beings with the ability to fane empathy on demand. Persons without this ability - who really care about other humans and who can not overcome a moral code to do 'whatever it takes' fall out of politics quickly in most cases. Those that defy team read and blue are generally eliminated. The few exceptions make the point. Those few are isolated and trivialized.
From TV drama, most of us learned the terms sociopath and psychopath. Which describe politicians at most all levels above local dog catcher.
The primary tool of the sociopath is the false equivalence and the wrong debate. The assertion that liberty be compromised to achieve safety is a good example - completely false yet widely accepted. Despite how many times it's proven false. No matter how many times the outcome is less safety, less security, more death and tragedy. The wrong debate is the method of creating an issue out of a non-issue to focus attention away from a real issue (using a false equivalence). Example: making the practice of segregating sports by gender about "transexual rights". It isn't. It is about how to maintain healthy competition and avoid unfair dominance. The false equivalence leads to endless, divisive no-win scenarios.
Or my favorite, the strange, irrational notion that violence can be reduced by disarming those who do not instigate violence nor have any violent intent. It has never worked to reduce violence nor can it. At very best it might change the method used in some specific scenarios (note the combination of explosives and motor vehicles is the number 1 weapon of choice worldwide for mass violence by other than organized militaries). Which a rational person would never accept as "improvement". It makes no sense on any level, yet it is accepted by many.
How is it that the non-sociopaths of our national community are so ready to believe in the false assertion and continue to be distracted by the politicians? 40 years of politically controlled education! Government controlled education has taught that self reliance, critical analysis, challenging authority and self defense are wrong. The escalation in success of the false equivalence can be shown to accelerate as education became more and more controlled by a national party and the NEA with support from federal government via funding (the carrots). This is how 2 generations have come to disregard the wise warning that he who would compromise liberty to achieve security (or safety) will get (and deserve) neither. Such obvious truths are taught as absurdities, radical ideas of tin foil hat wearing conspiracy nuts. Nuts who we must search out and eliminate before they become the next manifesto writing Uni-bomber.
We effectively have a national education curriculum controlled by a single political party. Review the history of totalitarianism and you see that control of education is an essential means to achieve dominance.
So this alignment of NEA with DHS is nothing new. The news is that it's more overt than ever. And that too is a sign of threshold crossing - The Party is now so confident in its dominance it no longer pretends to hide its tactics.
Just when you think it can't get worse and that maybe hell is nearly full....
]
Can anyone explain HOW the public got so stupid and ignores the blatant lying from all politicians? When there was no internet I could almost understand...
but EVERYTHING IS TRACKABLE ANd VERIFiABLE and yet these contemptable people are still in office. Satans minion are seemingly running every branch of Govt now
One theory based on observation of the past is that the trajectory we're on leads to collapse. Collapse leaves a void. Voids become filled. Will we see a repeat of the USSR pattern - essentially the same thing over again - or will we see a new, improved republic emerge?
Yes, that's why education became compulsory in c.1860, but there were some pretty fine minds putting things together, like Edwin Johnson and Manly P. Hall. They 'needed the war' in case too many good men realised the ship was being sunk and tried to do something about it. And I'm not talking about Savitri Devi's muse.
Hard to pick just one from the Loathsome Bipeds Catalogue but Randi should make it into anyone's shopping basket.
Horrible horrible human being. I mean, like, horrible.
And horrible news you post here.
i'm going to steal "loathsome biped catalogue."
nice one
I did want to keep to the spirit here.
I hope someone kept a dictionary on all the fancy words this whole mess created!
I'm simply going to "borrow it", with, of course, accreditation to the author...
Loathsome Bipeds Catalogue. Is that like Hillary’s Basket of Deplorables? I’m in that one.
There doesn't seem to be any basket I can hop into. I'm irretrievably uncategorizable.
It is good to have ambition ;-).
I've worked very hard to be uncategorizable! It's taken decades to shake enough heads to claim success :-)
It's not that I haven't tried from time to time to squeeze into the appealing cardboard box. It just never works.
Yup. I figured out about 50 years ago that trick wasn't gonna work for me.
Spent my teens worried about it Spent my 20s reveling in it. Since my 30s I just let it roll.
Now I'm in my 60s I can reminisce about it. Still form time to time I have to explain it to people: I am not this way on purpose, I just am.
That’s okay, by your 70’s it just becomes expected of you and everyone takes it for granted! I wear it like a badge!
Same
😹😹😹
Sounds almost like ungovernable material 😂
I've been the despair and enragement of many who thought they could bend me to their will.
On the other hand, being intensely reactive isn't such a great trait to have infused into the marrow of one's bones. But if they take me down, I will go down fighting.
I will be along side of you
Don't let them label you!
I'm such a minority I don't even know where to start.
We all belong to multiple tribes.
I am a chameleon. Every time someone thinks they have me pegged, I change
*nods* Redhead? Have we had this conversation already?
We all are a minority of one.
So the leaky gutter of the uncategorizable? Thing is, they do nothing but categorize and often with words that are absurd and hardly descriptive.
I have a really comfy seat in that basket--I love my location.
Venn intersection of those two might be regarded as empty Ø for all practical purposes. No overlap, in other words 🤸
Hilarious thread you got started. 🤪
Maybe we should breed Randi with Peter Toadez and see if Randi's baby is more horrible than Rosemary's baby? Faucho will fund this gain of function experiment for military reasons.
Thank God I haven't eaten yet.
Sometimes I think Randi is a Randall. 🤔
Dude - I'm not going to sleep right for a week!
Very nice.
what is the incentive driving her behavior, root cause analysis is needed
the teachers unions are coming under heavy and increasingly active criticism by parent groups over handing of schools and curriculums.
during covid, many schools and unions tried to have the parents demanding schools open branded as "domestic terrorists." there was too much public outcry and the ploy failed. this looks to me like they are trying to get the machinery in place to make it much easier to make such a claim next time.
it's embattled bureaucracies and guild systems seeking to support and bolster one another. the teachers get freed from accountability and DHS gets new pretext to act like the stasi.
I guess that Randi's bid for a scholastic Quick Reaction Force was denied so she did the next best thing; which was to help set policy for DHS. Nothing screams, "We just want your children to have the best possible education.", than having a pseudo-military governmental organization label parents as terrorists.
As a side note, if anyone doesn't hear from me in a while it's probably because I routinely commit the crime of caring about the mental, physical, emotional, and educational needs of my children. See you all in the gulag!
You'll often find Democratic Party candidate campaigns headquartered at teacher's union facilities across the nation. I've been in them during election season. They are joined at the hip.
They maintain the illusion of bipartisanship by playing nice with a few Republicans who play nice with them. But if those same R's they give awards and contributions to ever face off against a D in an election they will forget they ever supported or liked the R. They're just props.
And the union president in my district, speaking at my school, assured us that union dues were NEVER used to support political campaigns. Unfortunately the fine print on the union magazine (rag) which came to my home mailbox (such an embarrassment!) belied his assertion. I would recommend anyone interested to try to get hold of a teachers' union magazine and read it.
lying sack of poo
A "nice" man, but not very bright. Like far too many of the teachers I encountered. The SAT scores of those entering teachers' colleges......
The best option for education in the USA is home schooling.
https://archive.org/search?query=home+schooling&page=2
the day will come.... soon, that the US government will demand even more control over home schooling.
That Day has always been with us. They keep trying, with a lot of success. I homeschooled K-12 starting in the late 80s in one of the (unbeknownst to me) most restrictive states. Naive Me never even dreamed there was A Law telling me how I could educate my child. Thus began a decade plus effort to change our state law with other like-minded parents. Our educational philosophies ran the gamut of Conservative Christian to Radical Unschooler, I’ll leave it to your imagination which camp I’m in. Long story short - we helped draft legislation that would give parents freedom and were told by the majority chair of the Education Committee that it was "one of the most comprehensive well written pieces of legislation" he had ever seen submitted…and he was going to make sure it never passed because - his wife was a teacher and he wasn’t going against the union. And it didn’t pass out of committee. Over the following decade into the 2000s we managed to chip away at some of the most restrictive policies, and it’s eternal vigilance to make sure things don’t slip by us. But, we’re getting old. Our children are grown. Yes, we see a lot of parents still standing freedom strong, but we also see a lot of parents willing to eat the carrot on the stick. No matter how "fair" vouchers, tax rebates, curriculum access, etc., sounds - once you start accepting anything from the government you are their hostage. And it’s insidious. "We would love to have your child participate in the [band, sports team, debate team, chess club, etc.] just submit your weekly schedule/log so we know you are Really Homeschooling and they can join…you don’t mind if we make a home visit to verify do you?"
Great book on parental freedom: Mere Creatures of the State by William Bentley Ball. He was of immense help to us.
Yup. It'll be "discouraged" through taxation of some sort....or worse entry to university.
But who has the time for this when so many families need 2 incomes just to survive?
Excellent analysis.
Another factor is personal gain. She's garnered significant financial gain and power as a useful and thus entitled member of The Party elite. While it is hard to ascribe motive to the actions of a scio/psycho-path simple greed and lust for power are a bit more obvious.
are the teachers unions for-profit entities? how are they funded? are they non-profits needing an audit?
They are funded by extortionate 'dues' extracted from teachers who do not realize that they are not required to pay or belong. Again, speaking as an insider.
I think every state is different.
Some states FORCE payment into unions
They also have associations with are like unions- similar concept
Interesting questions. Of course, after the Republicans rise up and stop election fraud, and then win the Presidency, the IRS will immediately come to heel, and those 87,000 new IRS agents will quickly align with Republican priorities like auditing the unions.
UCO and Targeting officers could be working on this now instead of denoting concerned parents as "domestic threats" just ideas
May I suggest a perusal of the UN Agenda 2030 goals to answer this question further? It details some oddly specific aims for educating young children about sex and relationships. Personally I think all of this is cover for that agenda as many parents would probably not go for it if it was transparent. And I am not talking about pedophile rings etc. That is neither here nor there. There are some people who have connected it with social credit scoring, the rise of AI and of course transhumanism. Make of it what you will, but I think it's worth examining at least. Here is a good starter video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhQljTuAAe0
Always been lucrative to be a union boss. Same old same old. All mafias are the same.
Yep, here in California we have a whole chapter of the Loathesome Bipeds Catalogue with the likes of Lorena Gonzalez, creator of AB5 legislation and now working for the AFL-CIO, along with her philandering weasel of a husband, Nathan Fletcher, who just got forced out of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. They both deserve to be jettisoned into a volcano.
Also, Gov. Newsome is definitely a candidate for Loathesome Bipeds Catalogue.
He belongs on the cover montage.
There is a hint of the reptile in his appearance.
Lmao. Peel away the hair gel and "plastic" parts and you can find the zipper that would expose the repulsive reptilian under the human "suit".
The thing is, it's everywhere, on every level. Small-town life is just a mini version of the passions and power plays and hypocrisies found everywhere larger. At least one can take a little solace in the scenery.
we need a way to bake integrity into any of these positions which would rule out people like rendi(sp intentional)
You got a way of reinventing human nature?
the scope is filtering for those with moral compass not reinventing humans :D
Whose moral compass? Who controls the filtering?
although, we can start at the children.... 2% inflation is a programmed scam is what I've been telling them.
Pretty sure her wife is already part of this Administration 🤡
💬 Loathsome Bipeds
...are the malignantly malfunctioning subset of 'featherless with broad flat nails' 😁
Quite a number of those Loathsome Bipeds can appear superficially quite attractive in one way or another.
Mimicry is a useful skill 😏
Charisma is a powerful force.
Are we sure she/he/it/whatever is human?
We always err in trying to say some action or behavior or trait is inhuman. The invention of civilization was an attempt at self-taming. It's not the sort of work where an end goal is achievable.
I wasn't trying to denigrate or be mean - just asking aloud if an alternate explanation is these creatures are some separate race that have figured out how to dominate and eventually eradicate the inferior humans that infest this planet.
yeah I read a lot of SciFi as a kid ;-)
I understand perfectly well, and I think it's important to recognize the full range of human capacities as *normal.* That fight for power and resources is basic to life.
I read a lot of sci fi as a kid too. The stories I found most chilling didn't feature space creepies.
I’ve thought of making a list. It’s getting so long. Exhausting to think of them all. Like Gato says after one fails miserably in a position of responsibility I start to think rather hopefully, ‘they are done now’--But nooooooo! They are always promoted. The worst of the worst, the liars, the corrupt, the ones with no ethics, they are exactly what the machine is looking for.
It's always been this way though. This is generations of wretchedness colliding with the enfeeblement of society made unusually visible.
Even during the mythical WWII years, plenty failed to rise to the needs of the moment. And I remember as a kid when I learned about the internment of citizens and permanent residents of Japanese descent, and my parents--both children of immigrants who fled the collapse of the Russian empire; both Jews, and my father a veteran--were unperturbed by it and made excuses about why it had been necessary. I'm sure that was quite a widespread sentiment even among people who ought to have viscerally recoiled from it.
Nothing that's happening is some new incomprehensible abomination. It's people getting away with what people often get away with.
I agree, but who, one might ask, is going to shut down this metastasizing machine? Certainly not the Republicans in Congress. All they are apparently capable of is cheap talk and endless "investigations", neither of which have any consequences for anyone. Far too many of We, the People, have been manipulated by years of being told taking to the streets and physically shutting down unconstitutional tyrannical agencies would be "stooping to their level" and so sit at home, tolerating the intolerable. These leftist usurpers, Great Reset zealots, die hard communist unionists are NOT going away peacefully. The violence perpetrated by them has become pervasive and is escalating. To stop them is going to take organized, concerted action, repeat: ACTION, that I am afraid may be beyond the realm of possible. I sincerely hope I am wrong...
It's simple but unexciting. The only elections that matter are the micro-local ones. School boards, library boards, zoning boards, local taxing authorities. All of them are feeders for each political party and where people make the connections that propel the most ambitious--or corruptible--ones higher.
Independents have no power right now because of this. Meaningful change can only happen when independents are a formidable political force.
Conservatives need to recognize abortion is truly a private matter of a woman's liberty until the point of viability--which is a squishy time marker but a compromise at 20 weeks must be made. Then more liberal-leaning independents will make coalitions with conservatives that can break the power of the extreme left and the extreme right.
This means really living by principles of privacy, bodily autonomy and that liberty means tolerating in others that which might be personally repugnant to you but about which you have no right to impose your views.
Let some groups self-eugenicize if they must. It's awful to see, but life is filled with brutal choices. We can't protect everyone. We can't save all children if we believe in the principle of the family having more rights over children than the state. It's a dreadful--a monstrous--dilemma but the alternative is the fantasy of a leftist or extreme rightist religious utopia.
Our esteemed author, this very bad cat, has an uncommon optimism.
He argues that we are turning a corner, that people, normal people, people beyond the deplorables, are now wise to their malfeasance and lies. The narrative matrix is patently and utterly false but moreover, the bad cat suggests it is now broadly seen as self serving clap trap.
I hope he is right; I fear he is premature.
Life is a river, and as much as people may try to dam it up and direct it, it always finds a way to break through. It's got its cycles. You have to hope to be born during the beginning of a good one.
We ain't so special that we should imagine we're in some uniquely catastrophic time. It's true that there's a lot of societal weakness right now, but that tends in every sort of way to self-eugenicize. Healthier people left standing will rebuild. And then it will all repeat again.
Self eugenicize, perfect!
To be sure, it's quite sad. But children of all ages will insist on jumping off roofs.
In truth, I think the bad cats optimism is unwarranted. School teachers are almost completely captured by this safetyism , social justice drivel, and as such they have captured the means of cultural production so they hold the high ground. Tens of millions of children are being indoctrinated.
Children have been indoctrinated since the beginnings of civilization. Public education is awfully modern in the scheme of things.
At the end of the day, whether you believe el gato malo's optimism is premature or whether you share his optimism, the action steps are the same: we keep fighting, we keep getting the word out even if it seems like on one is listening, we keep finding ways to avoid the system (by paying cash, homeschooling, etc.) I believe it is better to lose after putting up a good fight than to not have tried at all.
Bravo!
Just another Bolshevik, comrade. Nothing special that is "Immune" from a proper cure.
I am of the firm belief the day they stripped tether-ball and outlawed kickball on recess playgrounds was the first day they started a slow stripping of their souls. At first in trickles...and then all at once.
Just like everything else that is de facto controlled by the state.
During covid they were exposed as hollow, self-serving individuals (and the "guilds") that put their interest over the very children they are supposed to educate and have ready to adjust to the "real world".
Today's kids don't even have recess. It's simply a time when they are allowed to use their smartphones unsupervised.
Yet we wonder why so many children have problems and are on prescribed drugs these days.
When I was a kid I got 3 recesses each day: mid morning, after lunch, and mid afternoon. In my school district today, kids have to quickly eat their lunch in the lunch room in order to have a few minutes of time outside running around, playing on the swings, and breathing fresh air. A healthier time, physically, emotionally, and mentally. And definitely educationally. “Back in my day” nearly all kids were proficient in reading and do math, unlike like today where the standards are abysmally low.
There was a study several years ago that showed the children do better in school overall with more playtime. We need to bring free time back.
Today they aren't allowed to climb trees even; not "EU-approved pedagogically correct educational equipment" they say.
And the makers and selller of mass-produced identical confomist and compliant playgrounds rake in the tax-money in payments...
Funny you should mention trees -- my son got in trouble for climbing trees on the playground. That was years ago ... but he didn't get hurt. He got hurt when he was running on the blacktop and ran into a pole. In a public school, I'm sure they would have then removed all the poles or banned running on the playground ...
I understand some safety issues, but it's gotten ridiculous. In California, they banned sand and made all the schools (at their expense) put in that soft padding under play equipment. First day of the school year after the installation, a kid fell and broke her arm. (This was in San Joaquin County about 20 years ago.) Before banning sand, they banned bark (the substance that was my childhood memory of the 70s ...) Every "improvement" has its own problems, but no one in government does a cost-benefit analysis. You can't protect everyone from everything all the time.
Sounds like here. When I grew up it was either just the ground or asphalt under any "official" playground. "Asphalt sandbox" was an early meme for growing up in the projects/council housing.
Now, they might as well just hook the kids up to an SSRI/Ritalin-IV and park them in front of a screen, Wall-E style.
So no-one gets hurt.
They are making people into dodos.
To think we used to joke about the US' obsession with safety for everything, 30 years ago. Now, we're just as bad.
You still have swings? Our school board removed all of that "dangerous" playground equipment from school yards almost ten years ago. You know, things like slides, teeter-totters, roundabouts, and monkey bars. And climbable trees. Now we have soccer pitches, with padded goal posts. Safer, you know.
Sorry. I didn’t make that clear. We had swings when I was kid. Nowadays, swings are too dangerous for kids at school. But they are still found in some parks. Give it another 10 years.
Me too.
Hear hear! It's slow neutering and neurosis-producing process, to be sure!
Imagine this: in grade 7 (age 13-14) we were allowed to make our own knives, nunchuks and shuriken in metal crafting shop class. We could bring in our bikes and mopeds and rollerskates and skateboards too, to work on and tweak the engine-output to a c*nt-hair's width from illegal (or make soapbox racers, crossbows (which didn't get to take home until after we quit compulsory school). Or using the inner tyre from a bike to make cardboard-tube catapults - you could shoot a lead shot right through 1/4 inch wire-reinforced glass!
In the lower grades, the only thing the teacher on guard at recess would say when they saw us "sword-fighting" with sticks, bats or bits of planks or boards was: "Mind you don't put out each other's eyes!"
Gym class, when we had orienteering, it always included climbing cliffs or wading through bogs - or doing it on skis in the winter. Playing rugby without protection on a gravel soccer field - had to bring a note from home though, signed, the note stating it was understood that nosebleeds and ruined clothes was a risk (as in: certainty).
Kids today, they are being turned into nothing but capons and don't even know what's been stolen from them! What a twist eh, the midle-aged and the fogies urging the kids to strike out on their own...
Yup. You nailed it.
I still have the "Chinese star" weapon I made in shop class.
My younger brother and me, at age 14 and 12, built a motorized skateboard from odds and ends in my grandfather's shop. It wasn't perfect, but it worked just fine.
Still one of our proudest days in both our lives!
Motorised skate-boards and sparkar* were the reason for some interesting court cases in the 1980s.
Due to how the old law defined "vehicle", a skateboard without an engine was not a vehicle, despite having pairs of wheels on axles, so it could be used on sidewalks and in bikelanes, but not on the street. With an engine, it became a "motor vehicle" and had to be driven on the street.
Spark with an old lawn mower-engine made it even trickier. See, the spark must be used on the wrong side of the road (left side, facing traffic) since it "counts as" walking. But with an engine, then what?
To this day, it remains unsolved.
*Spark, sing; sparkar, plural. Full name is "sparkstötting", think you call them "kicksleds" in english?
Lol. Brilliant as ever Rikard!
We had dodge ball in elementary school, as well as softball, and tag. The playground was dirt and worn-out grass. In high school we had many sports including archery with real arrows and straw bales with targets.
"I am of the firm belief the day they stripped tether-ball and outlawed kickball on recess playgrounds was the first day they started a slow stripping of their souls."
You can't even play tag anymore.
Ah, but they are "safe".
Them: "Safety First!"
Pi: "I'm not sure it's even in the Top 3."
You've done it again RG. Your comment triggered an interesting lunchtime discussion at Chez BC.
When my bride and I were much younger, every school in the district boasted one, or more, "skating rinks". These rinks were similar in size and construction. A flat, smooth area 200 feet long by 85 feet wide, surrounded by a tight board fence 4 feet high, with appropriate gates. Suitable, of course, for hockey or figure skating in the winter, and broom-ball or ringette in the summer. The bigger schools, like the high school, even had warming shacks.
Basic maintenance was by school district employees. Volunteers looked after flooding the rink in the winter, painting the appropriate lines on the ice, and mowing the weeds and liming lines in the summer.
We consulted a subject matter expert, the mother of our oldest grand children, who was able to confirm - "It was 1993, when #1 grandson was in third grade, that they bulldozed the rinks. All of them. Everywhere in the district. The kids had to use the municipal rink. With all the organized shit going on, the little kids hardly ever got onto the ice. And they had to join on of the clubs."
The excuses given for depriving generations of kids of the joys of unorganized, unsupervised play, were of course, "safety" and "liability".
I imagine y'all used to skate outside quite a bit, back in the days when teams from Detroit, Edmonton, and Chicago hoisted the Stanley Cup.
But WW2 German technology didn't hit 'Merica right away. But now that's why the NHL Finals features teams from Nevada and Florida.
They don't have outside ice there.
Actually, PI, when outdoor rinks were the only rinks, there were six teams in the NHL. But you'll be pleased to know that in our little slice of Paradise, local ranchers still clear parking areas an pastures adjacent to "hockey rinks" on local lakes and sloughs - every winter. We even have "pond hockey" tournaments!
And I did notice the alarming lack of outdoor ice surfaces in Florida. But on every one of my trips to Nevada I was "busy". For some reason, hockey, outdoors or in, was not on the agenda.
To think me and my friends used to jump ice floes when we we're 7-8 years old...
Show that to a safety-fascist and they'll sponatenously combust of righteous indignation (hopefully!).
"Unstructured" play is NOT allowed. The "safety-fascists" have made that very clear.
At this point in our history, I think it's fair to contemplate whether there exists a single federal agency worth keeping.
No
The time to contemplate is speedily ticking out 😏
School choice is a huge electoral gimme. RFK Jr should pick this issue up.
When I accessed his website (https://www.kennedy24.com/) to see if he already had, Cloudflare forced me to prove I was a human twice before letting me through. Anyone else seeing this?
team donkey hates school choice because they get so much money from the teacher's unions. that, at least, seems understandable as classic pay for play.
but the endless failure of team elephant to pick up this issue is such a searing indictment against them. it's a winner societally, electorally, and morally. and yet they do nothing. it's reprehensible.
Randi is a cross between a donkey and Dolores Umbradge. Never ceases to amaze me that the head of 3 million teachers and tens of millions of students has no children of her own. Pompeo was right that she is one of the most dangerous people in the world.
He should know.
"Randi is a cross between a donkey and Dolores Umbradge"
Dag. Chekov never described a bowl of fruit so precisely.
Hey! I just wrote that less than a few minutes ago! More or less.
Total Umbrage.
My fix for school budgets and school choice is to let between 50-75% of the per pupil funding follow the student and the remainder stays at the public school. This is because those that stay are the kids that are more expensive to teach...just having a fraction of the funds allocated for my kids would have made private school attainable for longer for us (switched to homeschool which not everyone can do when we couldn’t afford private anymore). And then the districts can stop saying they aren’t “fully funded” every single year
What you are discovering, I think, is that the differences between donkey and elephant are almost entirely cosmetic. On the critical things they have merged into one with a theatre of contention to sustain an illusion.
There is a Russian comic who escaped the USSR in the 1980s and has a bit of reality based humor:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/2033150937022672
It's funny. And it isn't. One part rule ends this way. Control of education is the mans to control the people in just a few generations.
Excellent comment! Will share your entire article far and wide! Thank you for always making the real issues easy to understand for the layperson! Much appreciated!
This is happening to me more and more while I'm on VPN
not surprised at the human checkpoint, i imagine they (CIA or whoever) are hammering his site with attacks
There is no security without liberty.
The State not only provides neither, but actively threatens both.
'A captured pirate gave a quick and cutting response to Alexander the Great. The king asked him, "What is your idea, infesting the sea?" The pirate answered with uninhibited insolence: "The same as yours, infesting the earth! But because I do it with a small ship, I'm called a pirate. Because you do it with a navy, you're called an emperor!"'
~ St. Augustine of Hippo
"But because I do it with a small ship, I'm called a pirate. Because you do it with a navy, you're called an emperor!"
Peace through Superior Firepower!
Yet history is replete with examples of inferior firepower overcomes by use of superior tactics and strategy. Which then enables the smaller number to gain superior firepower...and the cycle continues?
Something something goat herders with AK-47s.
You are correct. Asymmetric Warfare works.
So I should cancel my downpayment on the F-16 I was told I'd need?
*looks about, assesses situation*
Yeah, go ahead and cancel. We got this.
When I was a kid in school we learned about the American revolution, another example of a force inferior in numbers and armament that prevailed. By "breaking the rules" of war fighting and breaking with convention. But they didn't do it with goats alone :-). They also had the historical context appropriate version of an M16 or AK ;-)
"Today I didn't have to use my AK. I'd say it was a good day.
https://youtu.be/h4UqMyldS7Q
Same. We used to say the Patriots adopted Indian tactics.
You can't say that anymore.
Ironic that. The truth is that the Patriots learned it from the Native Americans. Without what hey learned the British would have likely prevailed. So acknowledging thus is a compliment.
The actual facts get lost in political correctness which ironically is often based on incorrect use of language and false assumptions. The name "Indians" came from the Europeans who got a little navigationally compromised while on a quest to find a shorter route to India, and like many humans, they chose to see what they wanted to see. Humans haven't changed their nature all that much.
But for some reason that mistaken identity somehow became an insult. While "native" and "indigenous" are less so?
The moral of the anecdote is not that the state is a pirate, but that might makes right.
The ancients did not have our concept of state in the slightest - anyone with the will and the ability could set himself up as king and was one, as long as he by force of arms could enforce his will and keep his territory (such as the Diadochi f.e or Mithridates I Ctistes) his sovereign domain.
That's what the pirate in the anecdote is about, that Alexander justifies his rule and reign not by divine decree or piousness and faith or liturgical tradition, but simple brute force (i.e. something base, secular and profane - consider who the author of the anecdote was).
It is if anything an anecdote emphasising the need for any form of state to rest on ethics and morals and a creed, and not brute force, for said state to have any chance of being fair and just.
Let loose the catiquisitors!!
I'm going to add this comment as a necessary bit of nasty-tasty medicine : remember who created the DHS monster. "Republicans" and "Conservatives." It was the stunned, thousand-yard stare days after the 9/11 attacks. But - but things were different this time! We *needed* a big giant government to protect us and our children! We had to fight the terrorists! All these people warning "It'll come back to bite you" were just irresponsible libertarian extremists ....
I was among those idiotic conservatives at the time and thought W was a good president. I have difficulty understanding how I could have been so blind. As the war marched on, the bank bailouts, and exorbitant spending continued I started questioning, but family all assured me I was wrong to do so. Fortunately I ultimately saw the light in spite of them.
Bush didn't do it alone. Congress created DHS. Bush didn't veto it. I wish he had. But since there was no opposition in congress, an override would be assured. Had he real integrity he would have vetoed and been on the record as opposition, but had he done that he would have been out faster than yesterdays stale bagels. Which would have earned my respect.
Bush called for its creation. He is one of the scumbag class of neocons who thrive on endless war.
I won't debate the scumbag classification (nor will I debate with the scumbag class). Scum is what scum is ;-). The facts are in the congressional record. Bush did not introduce DHS it was mandated by congress. It was part of the 3 day rush in Congress to be seen as "doing something" that gave us the extension to the war powers act and the patriot act (both unconstitutional in different ways). The extension to the war powers act unconstitutionally gave the president the "any means necessary" capability, expanding on the prior act in which congress redefined the power of congress and the administrative branch. BTW Bush never invoked the "any means necessary" clause despite the widespread narrative that it was "Bush's war": Ever step of the war was approved by congress under the "specific legislative authorization" clause introduced in 1972. The first president to invoke the "any means necessary" clause to bypass congress was Obama (which he did several times).
The constitution provides "commander in chief" powers but requires declaration of war be passed in congress. Korea and Viet Nam were challenged as invalid uses of military force due to lacking such a declaration. It was accepted from inception that the commander in chief had both authority and responsibility to use military resources to respond to an immediate threat. But it was argued sustained war was outside the scope of that authority. The original war powers act circa 1968 (going from memory) clarified that when immediate action was taken, the commander in chief must request and receive specific authorization from congress to sustain action. Also in 1968 (or maybe 1972) the act allowed a "specific legislative authorization" in place of a declaration of war, in part driven by challenges to both "police actions" in Korea and SE Asia. This "clarified" that congress could authorize defacto war without declaration of war based on agreements such as we have with the UN to "police" the mandates of the UN Security Council (which got us into Korea, Viet Nam, and Iraq 2 times).
FWIW the facts are IMO more interesting than the popular narrative though do not well serve a political party preference. My preference is that we abolish political parties so it serves my bias perfectly :-).
You use those words as if they are substantially different from “Democrats” or “Liberals”. For those of us who have been paying attention for the last thirty plus years, the uniparty has been in complete control of everything for a very long time, and has only existed to enrich themselves and their cronies at our expense while simultaneously duping 90% of the population into believing that there are two opposing forces at work, when in reality the objective is singular. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. To paraphrase Thatcher- it all works so well until they run out of other people’s money.
Oh believe me, you're preaching to the choir. I'm mainly sharing the story because there are certainly young readers nowadays thinking "But this is different, we need to save the climate!" Youngsters, government is government. It's brute force. There is no new thing under the sun.
We're on page 27 of the hymnal :-)
I've been wondering for decades exactly when the word "liberal" was redefined. It is I think not a moment, but rather a slide into false equivalence. An incremental (dare I say progressive) slide into reversal - of making it ok to use the word to mean it's own opposite. Liberal used to mean accepting, open minded, tolerant. To equate that with theories and policies that deny biology, that demonize opposition, that suppress inquiry and are intolerant of any but the "correct" view is to use the word as a antonym of itself. it is like the use of the word "inclusion" to dictate words that must be excluded from conversation or writing ;-).
Some time ago I was accosted for rejecting "they/them" as an individual gender pronoun. Of course the attacker called me "anti-LGBTQW" and "homophobic" and so on. I calmly explained I have no issue with you changing your gender identity. I am not anti anything, I am pro-grammar. You can have your gender without misuse of grammar.
The word was not redefined. The word was applied as a label to a group of people who are long dead and who are replaced by others who no longer fit the definition, but for some reason continue to use the word to define themselves in much the same way that Vizzini kept “using that word.”
The modern civil rights LARPers, for that’s what they are, are for the most part functionally illiterate, with a poor grasp of the English language (as evidenced by their misapplication and misappropriation of the basic rules of grammar), and an even poorer grasp of history. They want to be the protesters on the bridge in Selma (not that they really know anything about that event), but have yet to realize that they are the ones holding the fire hoses.
Notwithstanding my sarcasm and flippancy, agreed. This is an intentional tactic of deception. It is related to the false equivalence. It is coopting the language to control the narrative. There can be no debate as there is no foundation upon which to construct a logical argument. Simply applying centuries old rules of grammar identifies you as the enemy. Of course that makes no logical sense. Just as it makes no sense to equate criticizing someone on-line with physical violence. Go ahead and try it: point out that being ridiculed on social media is not the same as being physically assaulted and see how quickly you are labeled anti- whatever or whomever is claiming victimhood.
In both examples if you claim you had no ill-intent but only pointed out a fact (e.g. "they" is plural or getting your ass beat is different than being called a snowflake on social media) you will meet another mainstay of politics: the false assertion "intent doesn't matter, words hurt!".
Control of education is the means to achieve the state of unawareness that we have reached today: the institutionalized ignorance of replacing fact with submission to authority. History is what you're told. Your lifestyle is how those with power dictate and it's all for your own good.
Bushies like Clintoons and Obamaites are All NWO-UN-USSA. The Buzzard Party has two wings, Quisling rinoRats and Bolshevik democRats.
Inflict a large enough Trauma on a person or a society an unconsciousness of analytical reason ensues and reaction is the reigning thought process. 9/11 or Covid, works everytime.
I would contend that RINO and DINO are in fact purpose of national political parties: to create an identity separate from the self and totally dependent upon a "platform" set by a few and ultimately without real meaning. If we examine the platform of either dominant party we find some apparent differences, but if we compare this to the policies and legislative actions, we find neither party abides by its platform. And both depend upon the false assertion, the false equivalence and the power of "everybody knows". Neither in practice "walks the walk" they talked.
Anyone identifying with either dominant party is therefor "in name only", since The Party doesn't represent your individual values but rather demands you adopt The Party's version. Everything used to differentiate the two are labels devoid of meaning: e. g. "liberal" and "conservative" are used but not to mean what those words mean in natural language; as opposing and incompatible. But if we use the real meaning of the words, one can be liberal, e.g. open minded and broadly accepting of different views, tolerant of other's lifestyles, and conservative in thought, e.g. cautious in practice, careful in evaluating risk/reward, skeptical of action without clear need. So the identities of "liberal" and "conservative" become "in name only" as well.
And that's how we can have "liberals" arguing that free speech must be suppressed, that liberty is counter to safety, and other absurdly inverted (false) assertions as core beliefs.
Expanding my view of The "Buzzard Party, USSA, aka Uni-Party. Thank you.
FYI
https://rumble.com/v2wpxik-living-in-a-coup-with-massive-election-rigging-and-war-martin-armstrong.html?
We should now consider the NHS as terrorists, the killing arm of the WHO terrorist organization.
More here; https://wakeuppeople.substack.com/p/the-nhs-now-means-national-homicide
I objected to the creation of DHS in 2001. I didn’t see how it would help anything. But oh my goodness, how it has hurt and destroyed... And now Clown World is in charge, so... yay?
I particularly like the "safety" that TSA provides........ and the IRS/FIB/DoInJ surely demonstrated the compaSSion Hunter B. needed in his life rehabilitation.
Jeff Epistein was wondering about "his Deal", but was unavailable for comment. Bill Barr is "investigating", Durham is "reporting" rather than "prosecuting" and Huber disappeared after much Hopium, years ago.
If the Current DC Feral Coup Gov is "Clown World"........ What does that make We/Me/You ???
genearly.substack.com
That is the 302 trillion dollar question (federal spending by 2026 using the growth rate from 2019 to 2023). We'd be the bozos left holding the bag.
You me and and millions of other people. But none of us were in Congress. There was only one member who opposed: Ron Paul. He was a lone voice in the senate defending the constitution as well expecting the senate and house to abide by their respective rules.
In the house, the war powers extension (that added the "any means necessary" clause) was opposed by one vote: the unlikely move by Maxine Waters. But Max quickly dispelled any notion she was voting on principle, or that she had a conscious (or achieved consciousness) when she spoke, stating she'd have voted yes had then president Bush been a democrat. To your point, failing to consider that the power would eventually fall to "the other side" no matter who was in the chair that day.
This is why our constitution limits the power of governments, based upon an inverted pyramid of power with all powers originating from the people. This was a radical notion when nation was founded, one of several that were logically sound based on the patterns of history (power corrupts people and people given too much power will ultimately do bad things to other people to retain and expand their power).
You and exactly 1 member of congress.
Let that sink in come primary season. Which party defended liberty in 2001. The list is short...using up no ink at all ;-).
Will to power is an old term, though its connotations are accurate. I refer to it nowadays as "The Appetite," because of its primary feature of never finding satiety. All things are dynamic, a direction and not a destination. Once limited goals are subverted by The Appetite, then only the desperate compulsive need for more remains. Like a black hole people absent any moral gravity swirl into its powerful attractive force and add to its hunger.
Apparently "like seeks like". This is all true and wickedly awful. Yes, disband DHS, which followed 9/11. We all know that once created, the government seldom reverses, but grows grotesquely.
'trading liberty for safety will inevitably and always cause you to lose both.'
See Watership Down Chapter 17: The Shining Wire
This is the book with the rabbits finding a tossed cigarette butt at the beginning? I started reading it > 20 years ago.. it still sits on my shelf. Maybe there's lessons in there worth picking it back up for?
It came out when I was a teenager, and was incredibly popular. I read it, but the only part that stuck with me was the chapter about The Shining Wire. As I recall, it was about turning a blind eye to evil in return for the safety of the community. Similar to the 1948 Shirley Jackson story "The Lottery".
I have not revisited rabbits since then, so I can't say how well it holds up. But around the same time another incredibly popular book was Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Nuff said.
And just this morning there was a message on my answering machine from the UFT reminding me of a public town hall hearing/talk featuring Ms Randi W as she discusses the 2024 election and promoting Mr B and Ms H for re-election. As a former teacher all I can do is 🤮!
Technically, you could go to the public town hall and hand out flyers detailing the... grievances towards Ms. W, and how her actions harmed children.
Just a thought.
Part of me thinks it would be hilarious for a rowdy gang of opposition to attend and shout her down.
why do we still have a dhs or a tsa? they are total failure sunk cost fallacies of ideas, could toss a few more acronyms out there
Because the beast only grows.
"an amoral manipulative apparatchik to the core and serves nothing but her team" : a concise word for that is "politician". Politics requires a total lack of empathy for other human beings with the ability to fane empathy on demand. Persons without this ability - who really care about other humans and who can not overcome a moral code to do 'whatever it takes' fall out of politics quickly in most cases. Those that defy team read and blue are generally eliminated. The few exceptions make the point. Those few are isolated and trivialized.
From TV drama, most of us learned the terms sociopath and psychopath. Which describe politicians at most all levels above local dog catcher.
The primary tool of the sociopath is the false equivalence and the wrong debate. The assertion that liberty be compromised to achieve safety is a good example - completely false yet widely accepted. Despite how many times it's proven false. No matter how many times the outcome is less safety, less security, more death and tragedy. The wrong debate is the method of creating an issue out of a non-issue to focus attention away from a real issue (using a false equivalence). Example: making the practice of segregating sports by gender about "transexual rights". It isn't. It is about how to maintain healthy competition and avoid unfair dominance. The false equivalence leads to endless, divisive no-win scenarios.
Or my favorite, the strange, irrational notion that violence can be reduced by disarming those who do not instigate violence nor have any violent intent. It has never worked to reduce violence nor can it. At very best it might change the method used in some specific scenarios (note the combination of explosives and motor vehicles is the number 1 weapon of choice worldwide for mass violence by other than organized militaries). Which a rational person would never accept as "improvement". It makes no sense on any level, yet it is accepted by many.
How is it that the non-sociopaths of our national community are so ready to believe in the false assertion and continue to be distracted by the politicians? 40 years of politically controlled education! Government controlled education has taught that self reliance, critical analysis, challenging authority and self defense are wrong. The escalation in success of the false equivalence can be shown to accelerate as education became more and more controlled by a national party and the NEA with support from federal government via funding (the carrots). This is how 2 generations have come to disregard the wise warning that he who would compromise liberty to achieve security (or safety) will get (and deserve) neither. Such obvious truths are taught as absurdities, radical ideas of tin foil hat wearing conspiracy nuts. Nuts who we must search out and eliminate before they become the next manifesto writing Uni-bomber.
We effectively have a national education curriculum controlled by a single political party. Review the history of totalitarianism and you see that control of education is an essential means to achieve dominance.
So this alignment of NEA with DHS is nothing new. The news is that it's more overt than ever. And that too is a sign of threshold crossing - The Party is now so confident in its dominance it no longer pretends to hide its tactics.
Just when you think it can't get worse and that maybe hell is nearly full....
]
Can anyone explain HOW the public got so stupid and ignores the blatant lying from all politicians? When there was no internet I could almost understand...
but EVERYTHING IS TRACKABLE ANd VERIFiABLE and yet these contemptable people are still in office. Satans minion are seemingly running every branch of Govt now
Yes I can: control of education.
Control education and you control thinking in 2 generations.
As is obvious. Look around you. In my never humble opinion, we handed complete control over education to the totalitarians in the 1960's.
The question is: Is it even possible to reverse the evil?
That's the key question.
One theory based on observation of the past is that the trajectory we're on leads to collapse. Collapse leaves a void. Voids become filled. Will we see a repeat of the USSR pattern - essentially the same thing over again - or will we see a new, improved republic emerge?
My sincere hope is, "a new, improved republic". But the odds, sadly, are not with us.
https://youtu.be/UDfAdHBtK_Q
I can explain it...
I'm in. Please explain.
TL:DR.
Kali Yuga.
I can reduce it to a simple strategy: control education.
For at least 4 decades and redefine basic ideas, eradicate history, de-emphasize the practical and analytical methods that lead to critical thinking.
Yes, that's why education became compulsory in c.1860, but there were some pretty fine minds putting things together, like Edwin Johnson and Manly P. Hall. They 'needed the war' in case too many good men realised the ship was being sunk and tried to do something about it. And I'm not talking about Savitri Devi's muse.