Generation Stupid

The Dumbest Generation training to be the Gestapo Generation. Of course they wouldn't understand that. We can't expect them to understand that. The sound of guns brings out the budding little fascist in all of them.

Implied Rage

The most profound songs are those where the rage is implied through the use of lyrics instead of the use of excess noise.

Words where the tone is in direct contrast to the meaning are the most powerful. This is why whispered threats are much more serious than blusterous shouting from third-world cranks and dictators.

When the threats are implied and under the table start preparing for a fight.

Pakistan and the Disaster in Afghanistan and Central Asia

A short book review of "Descent Into Chaos: The US and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.

The Danger of the Fulfillment of Political Wishes

The most difficult skill in politics is too see any limitation to the implementation of one's fondest political dreams. First one must see the limitation and then one must actively work to place it upon oneself. It is the equivalent, on the individual level, to the government placing any limits upon itself over time. It is a nearly impossible task and the reason why most polities divide between two radical extremes and tear themselves to pieces.

The Kennedy Management Style

A talk on the Kennedy management style and the transition away from the Eisenhower management style.

Lying Presidents

One often hears criticisms of the President and all Presidents that he and they are liars. I say that I don't mind if a President lies. All human beings are liars.

What I want is a President who lies to the right people. Lie, lie and lie again. To the banker who wants a bailout, to the businessman who wants a subsidy, to the general or more likely the Pentagon paper pusher who wants a war, to the foreign dictator who wants a slush fund or uses your past to blackmail you, to the foreign enemy who has feigned friendship for 22 years but actually wants to turn your cities into glass, to the Saudi Prince who wants his cut, to the Senator who wants to sell out his or her state for a favor, to the corporation that gives a "contribution" for "considerations", to all these rat bastards.....lie, lie lie lie lie and lie some more.

And then turn on them and smash them to pieces, destroy them, hunt them down and slash their throats. (after a fair trial of course :) And then tell the truth to the American people about what you did and why you did it.

Obama and Hu

More on Sino-US relations :)

The Dying World

This is funny as hell.......and its also touching yet exhilarating to know that this counterfeit high tech world that couldn't develop the products it uses if its life depended on it because it is too fucking ignorant and stupid is about to be smashed. The days of using technology in a white picket fence world for entertainment and fun and play are over. The new manichean world is almost here where technology will be wielded by those who created it for the purpose of either bringing and defending life or unleashing death. Pick your side.

Real GDP

Here is an excellent and easy to understand piece on the reality of the GDP in the United States

Obama's Reelection Prospects

Number One..................number two..............

Response to Andrew Sullivan

Belief

In honor of the Baltimore Ravens in another AFC Championship this morning, here is their great linebacker Ray Lewis. We need to remember that courage means doing your duty, but also gaining the wisdom to know what that duty is. This kind of passion and belief is what we need to see more of. (and why the Ravens are gonna kick New England's ass)

(later) Ok Ok, I did not say they would win....hell no one can predict that!! I just said they would kick their ass....you don't think Brady feels like he got his ass kicked about right now :)

Another example of how everything sounds better in French. I hate this song in English. Love it in French. and of course the masterful Mr. Armstrong "playing life"

and another experiement in a youtube post to put you to sleep and here is another one of my "bin laden" videos.....without the ridiculous beard, or the eventual SEAL home invasion....until a President decides to utilize the NDAA :)

The Sorrows of Empire

this is an excellent all encompassing interview, I don't agree with Hedges completely but he's looking at the problem from the right angle.

Using the foreground to cover up the background

Too often, especially in today's entertainment besotted world, we are often distracted by the enticing and the titillating for what is perhaps more interesting and important :)

Romanian and Magyar Oradea and Chopin's Genius

The genius of Chopin, the beauty of a city, the tragedy of the center of a continent trying to recover from the beginning of the end of civilization that is still unfolding.

Songs of Loss

Loss is what the living think of the dead. We sing about it, think about it, talk about it. I wonder what the dead think of the living?? Do their souls interact with each other in a discourse on the living?? For them the living are not lost but are perhaps gained in new and profound ways they never could have known while they were alive as the barriers are too great between the souls of the living. Anyway.....this is an amazing song. For me its about those we have lost who are dead but also those who are still alive but dead for us anyway.

A word is worth a thousand pictures. Thought devoid of feeling is meaningless. Feeling devoid of thought is fleeting. Thought united with feeling is profound and timeless. What is needed in our People in these days is at once fire and fog. The fire to face the test and the fog to recover from and soothe the pain of its aftermath.

Happy MLK Day

Freeman is aptly named. Sometimes one says more when speaking casually than formally.

An excerpt from one of King's better speeches.

Does the Constitution Limit or Enshrine Federal Power?

It is often said by Conservatives and Libertarians and Paul supporters that the Constitution was written to limit the federal government's power. This is only part of the story because the founder's of the country no more agreed on the scope or limit of federal power than today's liberals, conservatives or libertarians.

The original intent of the writing of the Constitution was to increase the power of the Federal government to do CERTAIN things. Madison said that the dilemma was to at once create a government that was strong yet also limited in its powers. In other words, strong and capable in depth but limited in scope.

The purpose of the Constitution then was BOTH to increase the power of federal government while DIVIDING its mechanisms of power while always guaranteeing that its source was the People in their political capacity as manifested in the conventions of the People in each state that ratified the document. This extends to the present day through Article 5 of the Constitution that stipulates that the ultimate way to amend the Constitution is through conventions of the People at the state level. (this is probably eventually going to have to happen on a grand scale. I have a distrust of such a process, but ultimately we must be able to trust each other and ourselves as Americans to forge new amendments and protect each others rights as Americans no matter Conservative or Liberal or any label. we must learn to trust one another again, but that can only be earned over time through honesty and truth which depends upon freedom of speech and justice)

By dividing the mechanisms of federal power I mean instead of just a Continental Congress, as was the mechanism of power under the Articles of Confederation, Congress would itself be split into two houses and would be joined by two equal partners in power, the executive and the judiciary. These two functions had been weak in the former and left to the states in the latter under the Articles from 1781 to 1787.

The genius of the Founders was not some mystical mythical unity in which they all magically and prophetically agreed on a Constitution, like Saints on some mountain. Their genius was in their recognition that the Nation as a whole needed the kinds of mechanisms and divisions of power that the States already had written into THEIR constitutions beginning in 1776. The real geniuses of the early American Republic were those obscure brilliant souls who toiled away from 1776 to 1780 writing the State constitutions and figuring out ways of dividing power that both guaranteed good and strong governance AND Liberty at the same time. If you read the debate on the Constitution of 1787 it is largely an argument about ways of governing that had Already been implemented in many of the State Constitutions, many of which, at least in the North, led to the abolition of Slavery by the way.

The danger today is not really whether the Federal government has too much or too little power. The danger is UNACCOUNTABLE power. That is unaccountable to the People in their political capacity as the sovereigns of the Nation. Congress today largely abrogates authority to the Executive Branch in the form of bowing to the agencies and beauracratic divisions of the executive branch and relying on the Supreme Court for declarations on the unconstitutionality of laws that they pass.The American People are the source of ALL political power in the country PRECISELY because it was we who, through the Constitutional Conventions at the state level ratified the hallowed document in 1788, 89 and 90.

Madison wrote, in 1787, that the great danger to the Constitution at the time was the power of the States to violate it and assume power back to themselves that the constitution did not permit. This was certainly true up until at least 1865. I think a very good case today can be made that a greater danger to the Constitution is the Federal government exercising powers that the constitution does not permit it to. This is not a theoretical danger to Liberty. It is a direct one. It is direct not necessarily because it poses a PRESENT danger to Liberty but because the PRECEDENT it sets of pushing the limits and pushing down the limits of the Constitution can only, over the long run, leave the People stripped of their sovereign capacity to make their own laws and to be tossed onto the not so tender mercies of the whim of any two bit future tyrant. We will no longer be governed by our laws but by the fancies of our fallible men and women.

We must never forget that we are called the United States, not the the United State. It is not only the responsibility of each state to stay within the Union. It is the responsibility of the federal government, as the Union's power, to adhere to the Constitution and the limits that it places on it. Any violation, in that sense, is as much a violation of the principle of the Union as is the violation by a state. It is NOT legal, as many Conservatives now nonsensically argue, for a state to secede from the Union. But it is also not legal for the Federal government to so intervene into the avenues of power that are reserved for the states as to in effect and in principle secede from the very Union it was created to uphold.

This is sublime and superb.

Satire

It is unfortunate now in this malignant culture that takes itself so seriously and thinks it is so "cool" that it is unable to observe its own absurdities of writing to each other in acronyms, barely able to speak in complete sentences and using public trillions to prop up failing parts of the economy. Observe how many jackassinine assholes in this video get angry and can't take a joke. Don't steal, the government doesn't want the competition. In politics and culture it is always the backlash, the reaction, that brings about real advancements. The American Revolution was a reaction to abuses, at least initially. The Renaissance was a reaction, a return, a RE birth. The new renaissance is being born in the ashes of willful ignorance. The Reaction is coming. The earthquake is about here. People are pissed off with the dandies of both parties, the "go along get along, its not what you know but who you know" bastards. Its over for them. Goodnight.

Reagan and Man At Yale

This is a level of engagement that is almost unheard of nowadays between "average" people and prominent politicians. and this this should would have been a great matchup in the 1968 campaign sans Nixon v Humphrey

An excellent interview here

Jane Jacobs, excellent book and author..

Jim Crow Laws

This person rambles a bit, ok alot, but he eventually gets to some damn good points, at least from my perspective. :) Me saying someone rambles and is verbose is a bit like looking in the mirror!

Well, a cogent criticism I have read of libertarian leaning people is that they tend to emphasize the injustice when a government violates civil rights or liberties but have very little to say about private individuals violating others rights. This is most emphasized when discussing "Jim Crow Laws".

One must ask the question about Jim Crow Laws....at whom were these various local and state laws directed for the most part?? It is true they affected Black people in a severe and unjust manner.....however they were enforced against business owners in the South. They were written as codes regulating the conduct of business. They were laws that basically interfered with the fundamental right of a property owner to use his or her property as he or she wished, ie to serve whomever he or she wanted.

One must ask the question whether the libertarians adherence to the inviolability of property rights is not an ignorance of the history of slavery in America and that history must be "corrected."

But I come back to the "law" in segregation. Without the imposition of government, segregation in a broad sense would barely have been possible, and THAT we can argue on. Even on the question of slavery, if we OWN our own labor then what right, on a fundamental level did slavery violate?? The right to one's own labor, a property right. However, on a deeper level, the problem was that society did not acknowledge the slaves right to own ANY property, much less his or her labor. And so, when one is denied his or her property rights one is susceptible to becoming a piece of property themselves. This was the manifestation of the denial of the right of personhood to the slave; the denial of the right to ownership of property or of himself. This is why the right to ownership of property and person is such a fundamental human right. Not because "greed is good" or some narcissistic need to acquire, but because ultimately the right to own is the right not to own. If we have the fundamental right to our labor and our property then our ownership of those things can be a manifestation of our pursuit of happiness. We can choose what to labor at, what to buy, what to sell or not buy and not sell or give away or what, we are free to choose because we are a person born with rights.

Sometimes our views on various topics are shaped by the ways that we shape the questions we ask ourselves when trying to form opinions on them. It is self-questioning that is the essential primary element to rational thought. Before we ask a question to another we ask it of ourselves

we answer it or not and then wonder how another person, a person we respect, would answer and what questions they would ask that we have not thought of. This is how Human Knowledge is created. It is the interaction between the inner life of the mind of the individual and the social interaction that is so necessary to advance knowledge as a whole, the knowledge of the human race.

But it begins with the individual mind and self-questioning. Self-questioning takes imagination. The imagination to see multiple perspectives upon the same question. And now another tangent is gone off on!!! :) how bout some kick ass Tchaikovsky?? good night, more tomorrow....maybe....

The Reaction is Coming-The Revolution will be Smashed

The last century or so in the US, accelerating since 1898, has seen a revolution that has almost seamlessly welded the power of the Federal government, corporations and the military. This has not been some grand conspiracy. But once the logic of Empire, both at home and abroad, is accepted then a nation cannot back down from the pedestal of domestic control and foreign domination for the real fear and reality that its policies of force have created or will create enemies which are more powerful than it. But it has gained a momentum of its own as interests within each of these centers of power have become invulnerable fiefdoms each with interests and pull over policy that are often antithetical to law, the Constitution and always to Justice. Both political parties, over time, have become servants of these centers of power in various configurations.

But new alignments are now being formed around the world, but especially in the US, which over time will either dissolve or rapidly smash this Leviathan, this serpent that twists and turns around the trunk of the tree of Liberty. These new alignments confound both the Left and Right and especially mainline Republicans and Democrats who are blind to the pernicious and insidious undermining and destruction of the basic building blocks of American Liberty that the welding of government, corporate and military power has facilitated.

It should be remembered that Americans were originally extremely distrustful of standing armies and very anti-militaristic. Americans today are largely militaristic as long as they can watch the results of that militarism from the comfort of their living rooms. When we were pacific we won a revolution against the greatest power on earth. When we are militaristic our forces wallow in the sands for decades battling phantoms to a hopeless draw and squandering the wealth and credit of the nation.

There is a reason that the Congress and the Presidency are basically mistrusted. They are mistrusted because they have been derelict in their DUTY to maintain those building blocks of Liberty through the use of their Constitutional authority and instead have yielded this authority to the interests that profess to be essential to the health of the nation but are unaccountable to the People in their political capacity and therefore unaccountable, ultimately to the law and the Constitution.

The American People, guided by a wise and moderate sense of the fallible but broad wisdom of their ancestors, will return the nation to a balance where the three legal branches of government: the Congress, the Presidency and the Courts again wield the authority they are obligated to wield. Law, tradition, and a balanced constitutional perspective will slowly but surely supplant the failing pillars of misplaced power.

If events do not occur in these relatively peaceful ways, the same outcome will occur but in a more violent way. The danger in that event will be the aftermath.

Von Mises' Crack Up Boom

here is an interesting articl.e

Bad Night for Paul

Tonight the biggest loser was Paul unfortunately. He needed to finish at least second. He finished about 3,000 votes behind Santorum and Mittens who basically finished tied. It was definitely a strong third but still a third. There is no doubt the idea that Paul is a "racist" and a "kook" took hold at least to some extent. Also the idea that he could not beat Obama took hold as well. Many consider his ideas on domestic policy and foreign policy quaint and unworkable and "oh so 19th century." They believe that his emphasis on monetary policy and the federal reserve is strange because it is not an important issue. The idea that the Federal Reserve is not important would be quite amusing to its board members and to bond holders who are losing their asses because of fed policies.

In his speech he says "we are all Austrians now" in a reference to Ludwig Von Mises and Friedrich Hayek however to the more casual viewer wanting to "be Austrian" probably sounds like a reference to Hitler and Paul's supporters supposed "Nazi racism" or some rot. The exact opposite is true about the Austrian school of economics which is the antithesis of National Socialism but I doubt the "we are Austrian" battle cry will get him many votes in New Hampshire. And I am sure the silly, hyperbolic reference to Paul as "the new Thomas Jefferson" will be viewed as ironic by the chattering Left who view the author of the Declaration of Independence and the virtual inventor of religious Liberty as "a symbol of rape and racism." To really know the attitude in the Paul camp just view the expression on his son Rand's face for most of this speech. It tells all. He knows what needed to happen tonight and it didn't. That is the bottom line.

One other thing is that Paul needs to emphasize that he wants to keep from entering so many small wars so that the military can prepare and train for a larger one that may be thrust upon us in the coming years. It is only a matter of time before a larger enemy that is militarily capable throws a left hook to our blind side (and no, I do not mean Iran) Right now we are leading with our chin, so to speak, in our military policy. You won't hear this on the news but morale in the military is very low. The troops are committing suicide at record levels and they are coming home sickened from all the depleted uranium being used in the munitions. Nobody will speak for these guys. Nobody. Paul ought to start doing that. I think all of us ought to. Its the 1,000 pound story that no one seems to want to discuss.

But overall it was a bad night for Paul. If he can't win in an Iowa caucus it is hard to see where he can win. He will finish better than expected in some states but it is a long shot now that he will win any. In the end the reality is that Libertarian policies don't garner enough support to win elections. As the year goes on and the economy moves from the current phony "optimism" to the reality of an increasingly rapid decline the electorate will become more polarized but one of the poles will not be a return to a more gentle approach to government at home and abroad. It will be a choice between the phony "toughness" of the Republicans and the phony "Progressivism" of Obama.

My views on Taxation

I prattle away often about taxation so here is an attempt to codify my views on the topic using, as with so many of my views, historical references.

Parliament was often trying to assert its "right" to tax the Americans. But Parliament had not the right to tax the Americans. Legislatures only have the POWER to tax, not the RIGHT. These are separate concepts. The RIGHT to tax resides in the individual citizen because the money ultimately belongs to him or her.

The POWER of the legislature to tax depends exclusively on the RIGHT of the People who are to be taxed to be represented within it. In a real sense, when these conditions exist, the tax is voluntary. The People agree to pay the tax freely through their representatives. Taxation and legislation are fundamentally different; the one being a POWER vested in the legislature by the People, the other being a RIGHT and DUTY of the legislature if it is to call itself by that name. Our Founders understood this. We tend to confuse the two issues. However the residual of the ideas of our Founders is still manifested today in the fact that legislative bills and taxation bills must be passed separately in Congress. This was, on a philosophical level as stated above, to insure the difference between POWERS and RIGHTS and on a practical level to insure at least a semblance of adherence to fiscal discipline in that the amount of revenue available would be calculated and then laws within that amount would be passed. Obviously, it hasn't worked out that way.

Legislation and taxation are different because legislation is a manifestation of the People's will to protect their Rights and Liberty. All legitimate legislation is a protection of individual rights. Laws against unlawful killing, the murder laws, are a protection of the individual's right to life for instance. Acts to generate revenue, generally taxation of various kinds, are the necessary precursors to fund the enforcement of the law in general. They are not to be attached to specific acts of legislation as a part of them. This would lead to absurd situations where each dollar would have to be tracked to make sure it was funding the specific action of government stipulated at the risk of violating the law. Any semblance of government accounting would be impossible, even more so than the current disastrous situation in government accounting.

The power of a legislature to pass laws is inherent in the nature of law and a legislature. The power exists organically stemming from the existing rights of the People as individuals. The Right and DUTY of a legislature is to pass legitimate laws to the end of protecting individual rights. Legislatures do NOT have a duty or inherent right to tax. The POWER to tax onlt stems from the individual's right to voluntarily give his or her money to the government for the protection of his or her liberty.

The voluntary nature of taxation is expressed through the representative of the individual to be taxed. This does not mean that all taxes must be UPON individuals to be legal. The individual gives his consent to various types of taxation through his or her representative. As long as representation exists, taxation cannot be called a violation of Liberty. (however, it may be a violation of common sense, or economics or whatever but that is different) Legislation in the form of penal laws, for instance, violates the liberty of the lawbreaker but even here only as a consequence of protecting the individual liberty of the citizen.

A convicted murderer cannot withhold his consent to be punished and escape the law. The citizens, acting in their political capacity, can withhold their consent to be taxed precisely because the legislature has NO organic, inherent right or power to enforce taxation without consent.

We see then the difference between legislation and taxation. The power for the former exists organically in the form of the inherent rights and duties of a legislature. The power for the latter exists only THROUGH the inherent self-evident right of the individual to consent to the taxation of his or her money.

The Eulogy

This was the eulogy I delivered in my mother's memory on December 10, 2011. It is not verbatim as I had not written it out word for word at the time of delivery. It is written here from memory using the notes and prompts that helped me in the delivery. It is a close rendition of what I actually said. The eulogy seemed to me to have been received well as appropriate and fitting. In preparation to enter the mindset needed to deliver this eulogy and to help me think about it I read Plato's Last Days of Socrates which includes "The Apology", "Crito" "Euthypro" and "Phaedo".....then Seneca's essays and letters, then Plutarch's "In Consolation to his Wife:We Must Not Slump in Dejection or Shut Ourselves Away"....then Artur Schopenhauer's "Essays and Aphorisms" (interesting but I discovered what I already knew about him:a misogynistic, misanthropic bastard)

Well, my name is John O'Grady. I am Karen's youngest son. I asked mom one day when I was about eight, "mom how do you remember all the lines in plays and musicals that you perform in at the Hartnell theater?" She said, "John, when the time comes you remember." About a week before this my brother and I had been talking to my Dad while driving out to our little ranch to do some work. He told my brother and me in his irascible way "whatever brains you boys got, you got them from your mom, you didn't get them from my side of the family!" Remembering this when talking to Mom I asked her how does Dad remember all the lines and songs in the plays and musical he is in? since he told Mike and me that he's got no brains? Mom said, "well, you know John, your father has become a much better actor since he married me."

Well, when the time comes you remember, when the time comes you remember........

A poem I remember mom used to love read to me often is by William Blake, it is only four lines and here it is.......He who binds to himself a joy

Does the winged life destroy

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in Eternity's Sunrise

For my Mom her joy came from music. One of the first memories of I have of her is walking home from school and being still about halfway down the block from my house and hearing this powerful soprano voice rising up to the heavens from the back of the house. I would go in. I would walk to the back and peek through the curtains into a room we called the Music Room. It was a beautiful room with a high, open-beamed ceiling and two huge skylights at the top. There was a full Steinway piano in the middle of the room on an Indian rug and there would be Norma Wylie, mom's vocal coach, or Yvonne Crane, a friend who helped mom prepare for particular roles and musicals, sitting at the piano playing. Light from the skylights would be pouring into the room in visible streams like illuminated water. While singing, mom's face would just be full of elation, peace, joy. It was this....this music that allowed her to live in eternity's sunrise.

My Grandfather, mom's father, Howard Wilson was a very deep influence on mom. He was a Baptist Minister and died much too early....much too early at only 38 in an auto accident. Anyway, he used to give mom one simple admonition, he would say, "Karenina" (his nickname for her) "you will face many challenges in life, many...throughout life....but the key to overcoming this is perseverance.....perseverance." I can't tell you how much just this one simple admonition from her father helped mom not only to cope with Multiple Sclerosis as it progressed but also to fight it, she often told me this.

Well, unfortunately the disease did progress. And over the years we have so many people tell us that it is such a shame about Karen you know, oh such a shame that she just really has no quality of life. I understood what they were trying to say on one level. However, on another level I don't think that one can know a person's quality of life until one knows the qualities that one values.......let me tell you what my mom valued, it was not the physical......she valued strength of Soul and Character and the love of her family.

One incident that really brought all these values into perspective and focus occurred only about a year ago. My dad took a fall off his bed. It turned out to not be very serious but it seemed so at the time. My dad and I were talking and I was trying to figure out how I was going to get him off of the floor and back into a wheelchair and or bed. Dad was concerned mom was worried because she could not see what was happening on the floor from her bed. He assured her he was ok. Mom, at a time she had been scarcely able to move her head much less speak for about a week because her MS had flared up, somehow turned her head and in a clear and loud voice looked down at my Dad and said "Mike, you get up, I love you but you GET UP right now!!" Well, I was able to help get him up, with the help of the Urrutia family. In a few minutes Dad was in a wheelchair next to mom's bed telling her he was fine. She said to him, "see....I knew you could do it!"

After that incident Mom had some good days where she was able to express herself quite well. On days like that the main thing she always wanted to say was "thank you" to everyone who thinks about her and loves her and to tell everyone that she is fighting as long as she can. And to you Dad......she especially wanted to say "thank you." Thank you for all the love and devotion you gave to her throughout the decades....thank you....and God knows the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune did not exactly pass you by either. Mike loves you, we love you, I love you.....Mom loves you.....she loves you to this moment......to this moment.

(this part I had written out and have just found tucked away in the notes I used in the actual eulogy. I paused and then simply read the following two paragraphs before returning to the prompts and notes) For me, Mom showed the power of the human soul. Though broken physically, she opened her eyes that see inward and looked up. That was her path to joy and wisdom. Her life was bound only by the limits of her thoughts. Her thoughts were bound only by the limits of her expressiveness, and these were boundless.

Even when our bodies are bound by afflictions, death or disease our soul transcends all this by singing out in words illuminated by sunbeams brought forth with lightning.

And this, this (hold up mom's Bible) is a very special book for me, very special. This Bible was given to my mom on her 17th birthday by her Grandpa and Grandma Wilson (Howard's parents). And in the front piece my mom wrote out lines from a Psalm.....these words......

"My voice shalt thou hear in the morning O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up."

And I.....I......can only pray that when the time came to remember that these words were in her mind and her heart as she "slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God."