You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
Time for true conservatives to weigh in.
Take back the GOP.
(From the super-rich.)
(From the off-the-chart far-right-wingers.)
(From the anarchists masked in their midst.)
We’ve already paid enough.
Just run the numbers. The full cost of everything, far beyond war and taxes.
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one
international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the
losses in lives.
Maj. Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler, USMC
— from War Is a Racket
Woodpecker had been wondering, How would it feel to get in a right-wing tone of voice, but coming from the left? Not the content, just the … invective? Or at least the wild emotions, instead of continuing to attempt reasoned discourse with the unruly classroom.
That’s what Woodpecker asked me.
Conservatives who don’t know history are dangerous. What are they conserving, anyway? If there ever was a golden era in American history, just consider the years after World War II when the New Deal direction really kicked in. (The “socialist” programs they’ve always derided.) And we’re seeing all of its downsides, as well – sexist, racial, environmental polluting, smug.
As for solutions? It’s safe to bet their ideology would lead to yet another banking meltdown. As I said about history? Bush I and Bush II, or even Harding-Coolidge-Hoover, illustrate that point.
Without banks, there’s no modern economy. (What would you barter for a computer, for one thing?)
Oh, but if you’re truly conservative, what would you need a computer for, anyway? Or anything more than a mattress?
When I see this …
… I think of this.
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In the World War, we used propaganda to make the boys accept conscription. They were made to feel ashamed if they didn’t join the army.
Maj. Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler, USMC
— from War Is a Racket
America – and the world – needs a Congress that can solve problems.
Not make them. And not pretend they don’t exist.
The public needs to take back the House and Senate and stop marching to the tune of the One Percent. Or the lunatic fringe. Or the National Rifle Association. What kind of Congress runs scared in the shadow realm as this one does? Denial is not an option when it comes to the real issues before us. (All of us.)
One man can’t do the job alone. No matter how valiantly he’s done in the face of such ill will and obfuscation.
Selecting the examples of historic architectural styles that are running in the Red Barn’s Strolling Dover series on Wednesdays, I have to admit one thing.
Often, more impressive houses can be found in some of the neighboring cities and towns, meaning those a bit closer to the ocean.
Unlike more prosperous settlements around nearby Atlantic harbors – Portsmouth, New Hampshire; York, Maine; and Newburyport, Massachusetts, all spring to mind – Dover was essentially a blue-collar mill town. Or, as the ditty went,
Portsmouth by the sea;
Dover, by the smell
referring to the tanneries needed to keep the mills supplied with leather belts that conveyed power from the falling water to the looms and related machinery above.
Rich merchants and sea captains didn’t retire here, and even though we were a seaport, we were a dozen or so miles from the open ocean downstream. As a result, our housing was more modest, less refined than some of the magnificent specimens found clustered overlooking the prime wharves and customs houses of our tonier neighbors.
That doesn’t take away from my pleasure of strolling through Dover or of sharing details observed along the way. Just want to put it all in perspective.
Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the “war to end wars.” This was the “war to make the world safe for democracy.” No one told them that dollars and cents were the real reason. No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United State patents. They were just told it was to be a “glorious adventure.”
Maj. Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler, USMC
— from War Is a Racket
How many of those scoffing at climate change also think Darwin was all wrong?
Even while planting hybrid seeds or taking medicines developed through application of an understanding of evolution?
For that matter, speaking honestly, they’d probably still have the world flat rather than global.
It’s not all that they’d flatten.
Jnana's Red Barn 