Celebrate fascism!

What passes for the mainstream media these days is a joke. The microscopic intelligences of the so called "journalists" that pass for media professionals is in such evidence daily as their trends of thought only follow those insipid, well trod ends that in all inevitability support the State as lord and master. The media is to a man (save the brave John Stossel) in favor of the police state, of government control, of our Leaders imposing random terror upon the populace, of manipulation of the economy to favor the few at the expense of the many (though it is sold otherwise).

Witness the average evening "breaking" newscast. Virtually every item involves some State depredation or another. The news is filled with stories of the destruction of lives, careers, livelihoods by State mercenaries. The foolish, braindead "reporters" all along simply cheer for the State, favoring the edict and the pronouncement of the bureaucrat over the real hardship of the powerless.

A certain top rated network affiliate in this city is an especially egregious offender in this regard. It is an open secret that the popularity of its newscast is due to its intense focus on the community's "war" against the criminal element. The news staff seems to obtain a sort of orgiastic wish fulfillment through the participation in the destruction of other peoples' lives. They offer generous amounts of airtime to chronicling and otherwise extolling the "good works" of the police, the bureaucratic authorities, and other thugs with badges who predate on those who harm no one, but have run afoul of one of the State's numerous traps and dragnets. All along, the entire business only produces positive benefits for the careers of the talentless half wits - almost to a person, all young, barely educated, and ready at a moment's notice to catch the next train to the next biggest market when it departs - who comprise what the station laughingly considers journalists. Imagine what can be said for the guiding minds, unseen behind the cameras for the most part, who operate this sordid show.

To-night, this station's evening newscast had a lengthy special feature entirely devoted to the work of the police in rounding up perpetrators of victimless "crimes." The reporter, always at the ready with "story ideas" made a big show of humiliating these hapless dregs of the underclass before the television cameras. It is the bread and circuses of our age, the celebration of a clawing fascism, the kind which is smug and self satisfied in passing a crude and unrelenting judgment upon those powerless nonentities at the bottom for which degradation and despair is simply a byproduct of their "natural" tendencies.

Oh how the elites would tremble if the thugs with shields would break their skulls about as the ghetto refuse experience daily. But the State power is aware that it must not become too rapacious lest those who matter become offended.

The journalistic inclination toward the State always manifests itself naked and perverse; we do not see because many, too, are wont to wax insipid at the sight of a badge and State power. It is a mutually beneficial relationship, of course; the State receives good press while eager sources in government bureaucracies make life easy for lazy journalists who would rather not bother with such details as investigation or checking one's facts.

But such an outcome is written. Indeed, when most journalism students claim that their reasons for entering the profession is to "make the world a better place", then you know they are fresh duds for the hook line and sinker of fatal fascism. 

And indeed, it is always fatal, as we are soon to discover once again.

The truest shit there is

Simply because this cuts so deeply to the heart of the present predicament of the undertrodden masses, it must be reiterated here:

The competition for jobs at the top is becoming intense. This is not going to change. It is a permanent condition. The era of sustained long-term economic growth relied on private capital. The governments of the world are now competing for this money. There is no way that the private sector will be able to compete with governments. They promise safety. They pay whatever interest rate they must to roll over their debts. Then their central banks intervene and buy.

Capital formation is the source of private-sector jobs. With percentage decreases in private capital formation, good jobs will become increasingly scarce. 

This creates a career roadblock to anyone wanting to move up. It creates an even bigger roadblock to anyone who has lost his job and who wants to keep both his career and his salary. 

When you are fired, you are stigmatized. You are regarded as a loser. This should not be the case, but it is. The person who is seeking a job after being fired is considered to be defective goods. To get a similar job, unless you have personal contacts in the hiring firm, you will have to take a pay cut. Employers are trying to save money. They will not pay a newly hired person what his predecessor was paid. They know they don't have to. The firm will use that money elsewhere in the system.

It is a matter of the division of labor. He who has money has the most marketable commodity. A firm has money. A laid off worker doesn't. The worker wants to exchange a less marketable asset -- specialized labor -- for the most marketable commodity: money. In this competition, money talks. The person offering money can offer less than before because of the intensity of competition for money by workers.

Your #1 safety net is your job. That net is being tattered by the rise in unemployment.

Mass impoverishment, here we come. I will list the various problems related to the rise of tombuckery and other gangsta lifestyles which follow from this in a future post.

The reve-noo-ing regime

It is evident that the great apparatus of "traffic safety" which the State imposes through its statuatorial series of fines, penalties, and other depredations on productive folks are but a gigantic farce, a game played by law enforcement officials and their unwitting victims alike both in full knowledge of the futility of it all, a game which the police know has nothing to do with making the roads safer and all about generating revenues for the gleaming State monster through the backdoor taxation of selective enforcement.

Case in point:

EBR Parish has instituted red light cameras at major intersections, ostensibly for the purpose of increasing traffic safety and reducing accidents. This arrangement is conducted through one of those wonderful "public private partnerships" which are supposed to make the State more palatable for us.

The firm is based in Cincinnati, and receives a cut of every fine incurred through this program. They allow easy payment through mail or the web so it makes it that much more convenient for you to happily sign away your extraction to the State.

Cheery does it, eh?

In a few months the traffic engineering folks at the EBR public works department are supposed to "evaluate" the program to measure its "effectiveness" at curbing traffic accidents, or whether it is simply working as a revenue raising tool. Take one guess at what they will find, and take another guess as to whether this will make any impact towards the continued existence of the Orwellian eyes of the State.

Real life scenario:

It's 8:30 am on a Saturday morning and the freeways are bare and bereft of traffic. The newly modernized Interstates have been widened and made more efficient for your driving convenience. The speed limit is set at the 85th percentile of average speed, so it is inevitable that it will be exceeded. There is no danger posed as traffic on this limited access facility is minimal, and otherwise engaged in proceeding at the same speed you are for the most part (unless you happen to find a welfare cow in a used Cadillac cruising the concourse after a long night of binge consumption of various harmful substances).

The state troopers make their nests in hidden crevasses along the freeway. Every now and then they select a passing motorist for their undue exaction via the magic of the radar gun. How the process of selection is undertaken is unknown given the similarity of speeds amongst all motorists that day. The state trooper is disarmingly polite, to the point that one wonders if one has stepped inside a restaurant or other service business. The entire business proceeds in a surreal state, as both parties recognize the pomposity of it all.

The hapless motorist knows damn well that the time and money spent defending oneself from all these matters exceeds the level of exaction at hand. So he inevitably gives in, pays the fine, and accepts the massive increase in his auto insurance rate that follows.

Is traffic safety the end product? Tens of thousands continue to die in automobile accidents. The problems revolve around the inadequacy of government maintained and constructed roadways and the arrogance of a tiny proportion of reckless drivers who for one reason or another are inexplicably ignored by the State to process endlessly through the cycle of inebriation, drunken driving, accident, and tragic "accidental" death caused by negligence.

Private roads in private hands which held a reputation for danger would quickly lose patronage. Entrepeneurs would thus have a vested interest in removing the potential for accidents and the attentions of the reckless moronic set.

But such a easy option is of course verboten amongst the priests of subsidy for which every life problem can be solved by increasing costs and paperwork, so that all are impoverished and no one is benefited, save the fat civil service protected sows whose comatose carcasses warm the seats of the vast Bureaucracy. 

The king is dead

On this very morbid day, many celebrity bodies dropped, notably that of the King of Pop and Perversion who now lies dead in his perfidy. Like his predecessor in that office, Elvis, his passing created a great hullabaloo. In due time we will likely see conspiracy theorists, claims that "he's alive" and cheap Las Vegas impersonations, no doubt. 

Almost makes me feel sorry for poor Farrah Fawcett, whose legitimate suffering and bravery in the face of terminal cancer (which I know something about, my dear departed grandparents succumbing to the same disease) has been regrettably overshadowed by this bloated, gleaming, shiny celebrity death by the dark hands of drugs, gluttony, and perversion.

It is always sad to see real talent squandered for the glory of the present. With MJ's debts to the tune of hundreds of millions, it remains to be seen whether there is even one red cent left for his children to inherit, the entire fortune frittered on luxury and trysts with little boys.

I am guessing his cause of death was either cardiac arrest caused by excessive drug ingestion, or his face finally fell off. The coroner's inquest shall enlighten us presently.

--

Another Rethuglikan has fallen as Mark Sanford, SC governor, has regrettably dashed my slight hopes for him and turned out to be a turncoat perverted adulterer like all the other occupants of the executive suite. Like his predecessor in fornication, our 42nd Dictator, he has disgraced his office and his family, all to satisfy some evident mid-life emotional obsession with some Argentinian dickheadess.

While the man appears to possess a conscience, the fact makes it worse, as he was totally aware and understanding of what he was doing, and chose to proceed anyway.

Another resignation should be forthcoming, as the moral law demands. If a man should lie to his family, he shall lie to those in his trust.

The seven habits of highly ineffective people

For this the 400th poast, I will step into Doctor Phil mode for a while and ruminate on the habits which render even decent individuals ineffective and lead to futility and life failure. Even the most good minded souls may develop habits which are effectively self defeating and destructive to the well being of the self. These habits are greatly amplified when picked up by the cretinous mobs of the petulant and subsidized for which failure is a way of life.

In no particular order:

Live in constant fear - If you want to be ineffective, let fear rule your mind. Let it affect your life decisions and your social comportment. Always consider that something gleaming and terrible might happen to you at any time. Therefore don't think outside the box, don't innovate, live in the conventional manner, and above all...

Don't take risks - Because risk exposes oneself to the potential for failure, and thus they should be avoided at all costs. Of course, risks also open up the potential for reward. No pain, no gain. 

Sell yourself short - To be ineffective, you must constantly belittle yourself and hold a great deal of self-loathing. Feeling like a failure goes a long way toward actual production of failure.

Procrastinate - Procrastination is the ultimate hallmark of ineffectuality and failure. Putting it all off until the last minute ensures that the end product will be slapdash, subpar, and above all a steaming pile of failure.

Disregard the rights of others - The successful live by the maxim of the Golden Rule. But if you care to eschew that route, it is supremely important to antagonize, discredit, and otherwise rub the wrong way as many folks as possible. In doing so, you make no friends and gain many enemies. And with few friends and enemies galore, it is certain that your life efforts will terminate in failure.

Fail to make and attain goals in life - Because bouncing from situation to situation in life is important to establish your failure cred.  Without a concrete outcome in mind for your future, the trends of life ultimately turn toward sloth, squalor, and moral decreptitude.

Demand a subsidy - In the end, your quest for failure will lead to this end. It is not a pleasant end, since it equates descent into bovine sickness and assured moral and emotional destitution. But fear not! The teat of the welfare State will be your succor for a time. Just don't become too inconvenient in your animal bleats of starvation when your Imperial Leaders decide to cut off your "long bread" when the collapse comes.