The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 3,800 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.
True Progressives - CLICK IMAGE for the other side of the story.
True Story:
I shared this story before, but people couldn’t hear it. It seems preposterous. Things as they are, let’s try again.
In 1991, a senior assistant from President Bush Sr.’s office met National Association of Counties (NACo) President Michael Stewart (R – Salt Lake Co.) at a cocktail party at the Annual Conference in Salt Lake City. I overheard them discussing the “best” form of government, ever. They agreed that it was Medieval England around the time of King John. Its benefits?
In the medieval model stability is created through divine hierarchy. The king rules all, the church facilitates obedience of the mass, the military protects the property of king and “state”, and the peasants work to feed everybody. It’s a simple model, which allowed it to last for several hundred incredibly stultifying and repressive years in which most of humanity subsisted on the level of cattle, or swine, and wars were fought at personal whim of a vainglorious, and occasionally religiously demented elite. Does this ring bells?
The important men at the 1991 cocktail party didn’t intend to install a king or a single church in America (at least right now), but in variation, updated and recycled form, favored state identification and alliance with a majority religion and a CEO working with a board of directors (perhaps preserving a hint of representative government – old habits, even bad ones such as participative management, die hard). Call king and court president and cabinet, or rose and garden, they envisioned a tyrant working with an oligarchy of the privileged elite that they believe is, of course, best suited to govern, operating above government and for the privileged elite. They think they’re nobility.
They were deadly serious and not amused when I asked if they had heard of Robin Hood or the Magna Carta. They looked at me as if I’d shit their shoes, then ignored me.
“Americans deserve the government they elect,” my father used to say, but we didn’t elect G.W. Bush, or the Koch brothers. Kings, as I recall, are divinely chosen – in our case, by fat cats and a corrupted Supreme Court. Kings and aristocracy represent the elite status quo, which presently resides in Wall Street. Wall Street wants to govern everything by itself, without any interference from the rest of us. Father knows best. Or, would that be “brothers?”
Koch Brothers Buy Their Way Into, Then Breezily Skew, Civic Discourse
Community Can Look Like This
Following a strategy of ignoring the facts and killing the messenger, the billionaire Koch Brothers have responded to the Center for Public Integrity’s report on Koch lobbying activities by mounting a smear campaign against the Center – complete with the real “Koch facts” – while refusing requests to speak with them. In the last elections, though, the Kochs did tell 50,000 employees who to vote for and what disasters would befall them if they didn’t. Citizens United rendered such corporate politicking marginally legal, though still, of course, supremely sleazy. -Abby Zimet More… 4-20-11 TruthDig.com
KINGS KOCH [The ultra rightwing Koch Brothers are - PUBLIC ENEMIES 1 and 2]
Poor Beleaguered Billionaires
The rich have created and retain dominance in an amoral, or consciously immoral world of corruption, thievery, and violence, instead of trying to eliminate or improve conditions that would remedy or heal it. They would leave us with a permanently dysfunctional, and therefore, easier to manage wingnut government. The dog-eat-dog social consequences are devastating to consider. The cynicism is appalling.
The rich don’t expect any retribution or punishment, for it is the culture. They are so highly placed that they expect to tiptoe through the tulips while the rest of us fry in the ozone hole. See also: ORGANIZED IRRESPONSIBILITY .
Corporate Coup d’état Coming Soon to a City Near You. Rania Khalek Wednesday, April 20, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein demonstrates how wealthy elites often use crisis and chaos to impose unpopular policies that restructure economies and political systems to advance their interests. She calls these orchestrated raids, “disaster capitalism.” Disaster capitalism is on display around the country, as legislators use the debt crisis afflicting their states as an opportunity to hollow out the public sector.
This so-called financial emergency is really a democracy emergency. Local governments are NOT corporations. The true purpose of emergency financial management is to convert a democratically elected government into a hierarchal business entity through economic “shock therapy”, which would be impossible if workers, elected representatives, and residents had any say. If we allow what is taking place to continue, disaster capitalism will find its way to a city, town, or school district near you. READ MORE: Rania Khalek blog at http://raniakhalek.com.
All U.S. Prime
GOP Wave Reshapes Nation’s Agenda State by State. Ann Sanner and Calvin Woodward Monday, April 18, 2011 by Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio – State by state, Republicans are moving fast on a conservative agenda they had no hope of achieving before the big election gains of November. The dividends go beyond spending cuts. Republicans are restricting abortion, expanding gun rights, imposing polling-station photo ID laws and attacking public sector unions.
Democrats find themselves cowed or outmaneuvered, hoping that voters will see these actions as an overreach by the Republicans, an accidental revolution to be reversed.
It’s not all coming up tulips for rightwing extremists. New Mexico and Utah are among Republican-led states where governors are bypassing the GOP playbook; and the tea party movement is in tatters in Colorado and not much better off in Alaska. READ MORE: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/18-2
Final words: Keep on keepin’ on. We, the people, need each other. We can win this fight against the self-styled elite. We outnumber them. Vote Progressive as if your life depends upon it – it probably does, and cliché or not, every election is the most important election since our Constitution was ratified. Best regards and good luck to us all, j
Oops!
Did you ever notice that a lot of the religious conspiracy stuff clouds the water so that you can’t see the political conspiracy stuff as well?
Here’s my take on Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons, the Illuminati, so forth: AW, C’MON!
Lincoln’s, et al Holy Blood, Holy Grail (predicating a pregnant Mary Magdalene) is based upon Pierre Athanase Marie Plantard’s Priory of Sion legend, by which he claimed from the 1960s onwards that he was a Merovingian dynast and the “Grand Monarch” prophesied by Nostradamus. Plantard played along with this story for a while, but in 1986 parted ways, dismissing Holy Blood, Holy Grail and his own documents as false and irrelevant. In October 1993, a judge had Pierre Plantard’s house searched. The search turned up a hoard of false documents, including some proclaiming Plantard the true king of France. Plantard admitted under oath he had fabricated everything. He was threatened with legal action and therefore disappeared to his house in southern France. He was 74 years old. Nothing more was heard of him until he died in Paris in February 2000.
Holy Blood, Holy Grail authors maintain that only through “speculative synthesis can one discern the underlying continuity, the unified and coherent fabric, which lies at the core of any historical problem.” To do so, one must realize that “it is not sufficient to confine oneself exclusively to facts.”
“Mike Hockney” [the pseudonym of a ghostwriter engaged purportedly by the Illuminati to reveal in coded fictional form, various esoteric mysteries with which they are concerned - giggle, snort, LOL] says he’s got the real skinny. “Mike Hockney” writes confusingly enough in The Armageddon Conspiracy: “There are intersection points between the three mysteries , certain key facts that all three have in common [it really doesn’t matter for our purposes which three mysteries]. Even if a seeker has become entrapped in one of the fake mysteries (both of which are as highly compelling as the real mystery), he will still have opportunities to switch to the real mystery if he makes the right choice at an intersection point. He will make the right choice only if he has the strength to abandon all of the work he has performed on either of the fake mysteries. This, in fact, is part of the test. Virtually no one makes the right choice because abandoning years of hard work is simply too difficult for most to contemplate, especially when they believe they have been making good progress. There is another trap: it is possible to move from one fake mystery to the other fake mystery, bypassing the true mystery. Several seekers have encountered this misfortune.” – oh, la. Mysteries for days.
My favorite founding father Thomas Paine [who was a deist, believing god gave everything a jumpstart but was thereafter hands off] writes in the Age of Reason:
“Mystery is the antagonist of truth. It is a fog of human invention that obscures truth, and represents it in distortion. Truth never envelops itself in mystery, and the mystery in which it is at any time enveloped is the work of its antagonist, and never of itself.”
“When men, whether from policy or pious fraud, set up systems of religion incompatible with the word or works of God in the creation, and not only above, but repugnant to human comprehension, they were under the necessity of inventing or adopting a word that should serve as a bar to all questions, inquiries or speculation. The word mystery answered this purpose, and thus it has happened that religion, which is in itself without mystery, has been corrupted into a fog of mysteries.”
“As mystery answered all general purposes, miracle followed as an occasional auxiliary. The former served to bewilder the mind, the latter to puzzle the senses. The one was the lingo, the other the legerdemain.”
The Illuminati (“enlightened”) is a name given to several groups, both historical and modern, real and fictitious. Historically, it refers specifically to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded in 1776 that only lasted until 1784. In modern times it is used to refer to a purported conspiratorial organization which acts as a shadowy “power behind the throne”, allegedly controlling world affairs through present day governments and corporations, usually as a modern incarnation or continuation of the Bavarian Illuminati. In this context, the Illuminati are believed to be the masterminds behind events that will lead to the establishment of a New World Order.
However, as David DeGraw, Alternet, writes: “It has now become evident to a critical mass that the Republican and Democratic parties, along with all three branches of our government, have been bought off by a well-organized Economic Elite who are tactically destroying our way of life. The harsh truth is that 99% of the US population no longer has political representation. The US economy, government and tax system are now blatantly rigged against us. Current statistical societal indicators clearly demonstrate that a strategic attack has been launched and an analysis of current governmental policies prove that conditions for 99% of Americans will continue to deteriorate. The Economic Elite have engineered a financial coup and have brought war to our doorstep. . . and make no mistake, they have also launched a war to eliminate the US middle class.”
At the center of this group is the Business Roundtable, an organization representing Fortune 500 CEOs that is also interlocked with several lead elite organizations. Most Americans have never heard of the Business Roundtable. However, it is the most influential and powerful Economic Elite organization. READ MORE: http://www.alternet.org/economy/145996/the_business_roundtable%3A_the_most_powerful_corporate_business_club_most_americans_have_never_heard_of
To hell with bunk mysteries. It isn’t some jury-rigged Jesus-freak conspiracy group that has declared war on the rest of us, it is the corporatists. It is time to fight back against them, clear-minded and with full vigor from every side. Let Freedom Ring!
RELATED LINKS:
Tea Party Target
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 3,300 times in 2010. That’s about 8 full 747s.
In 2010, there were 60 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 117 posts. There were 131 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 62mb. That’s about 3 pictures per week.
The busiest day of the year was August 14th with 71 views. The most popular post that day was YOUR ENEMIES ARE UP.
The top referring sites in 2010 were allhatnocattle.net, zazzle.com, mail.yahoo.com, statistics.bestproceed.com, and stumbleupon.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for it’s not fascism when we do it, iww, thomas paine, international workers of the world, and republican fascists.
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
YOUR ENEMIES ARE UP August 2010
REPUBLICAN INSURANCE NAZIS August 2009
1 comment
EASTER ISLAND BLUES February 2010
3 comments
DENIAL NO LONGER AN OPTION September 2010
“THINK MANCHURIAN CANDIDATES” January 2010
2 comments
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
BOOM!
For the first time in history, the U.S. government approved corporate censorship of the Internet, putting the future of online free speech at risk. Unbelievably, the person leading the charge was Obama appointee Julius Genachowski.
This violates President Obama’s campaign promise to protect Net Neutrality, but some media are reporting the corporate spin that this is a “Net Neutrality compromise.” It’s not — there’s no such thing as half a First Amendment. We need to set the record straight.
If you’re on Twitter, please click to share this: NEWS: @FCC breaks Obama promise, allows corporate censorship – no Net Neutrality rules. 3 things to know: no such thing as half a first amendment, bit.ly/eVKyWH @ceciliakang
If you’re on Facebook, click here to spread the word.
By sharing, you can help us spread the top 3 reasons the rules passed today are a giveaway to big corporations and break Obama’s promise:
A more detailed explanation is here. Please pass this email to your friends so they know not to believe the corporate spin.
And click here to share on Twitter and here to share on Facebook.
Thanks for being a bold progressive, Jason Rosenbaum, Adam Green, Stephanie Taylor, and the PCCC team. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee PAC (www.BoldProgressives.org) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Contributions to the PCCC are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.
SOME SORT OF GLITCH – MOVE CURSOR OVER TEXT TO FIND HOTLINKS. THANKS.
Feeling Christmasy? What better place to celebrate than Orlando’s Holy Land Experience, a 15-acre theme park adorned with “HE IS RISEN” shrubs where you can sing Christian karaoke in the Theater of Life, buy 1st-century gimcracks in the Old Scroll Shop, get automated tours through the Bible in the Scriptorium, walk on water with Jesus, share the Last Supper with Jesus, and, twice a day, watch a bloody Jesus get dragged through the streets, and crucified. Yes. On Christmas
Master and Turd Blossom
Speculation is growing that Karl Rove is a key player behind the move to prosecute Julian Assange in Sweden, where Rove is a longtime friend of and adviser to the conservative Prime Minister. More here.
Twice Daily - No Standing
