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I work at Beaver Creek, Colorado. People do not see how the 1% live. They have a 12 million dollar home behind secured gates. This home may be one of two or three other homes. Many of these homes are empty except for a few days a year. They have private security. Heated driveways. Think nothing of paying $800 plus tip for a ski lesson for the 6 year old grandchild. They socialize in private clubs and private restaurants where the $100,000.00 initiation fee is probably tax deductible. They are not concerned about infrastructure except where they live. They fly in Private jets. They shop in exclusive stores, not malls. They live in their own world and do not care about what is outside. The majority of the population does not see this. There are several enclaves like this in Colorado. Vail, Aspen and Telluride are others.
What else is new? Privatize profits, socialize liability... Seems like basic fairness and common sense that these companies should pay for cleaning up their own messes, but our society isn't based on fairness or common sense... so here we go again. Taxpayers = suckers. - AIW
"bobbler"- Thom has talked about socialism many times. If my memory is correct ('cause it's been awhile), Thom's understanding of socialism matches my own. A socialist system does not translate to state-manufactued consumer goods. Socialism is about protecting and maintaining what should comprise the commons: education (schools, libraries), healthcare, energy (utilities), the postal service, fire department, law enforcement, road maintenance, etc. Nobody's suggesting things like fast food, comic books or tennis shoes should be provided by the state. - AIW
That would be good if the numbers of people voted Green and if it influenced the Dems to swing back to representing the people instead of the piggish ruling elite.
Anyway, I agree with you that it is not capitalism nor socialism that is the problem. A good mixture of both would be good. Too bad it has become so lopsided in favor of lassez faire or crony capitalism. The problem with relying only on working within the system...ie: voting..and/or constantly writing, emailing, or calling our so-called "elected" representatives...is that the system is rotten to the core...corrupt! The representatives are far more moved by lots of money and influence from the ruling elite, in fact frightened of them, than they are from the "riff-raff" who are constantly fooled into playing their stupid "bait and switch" voting games. And I'm afraid it is going to take a lot more to actually change things. But they know that we are all too cowardly and could never organize enough and risk getting ourselves hurt so they bet on our fear. They feed us fear constantly to keep us in our place. They feed us fear to steal our money. And many of us fall right into line just like they want us to. Communists, drug wars, terrorists...what next? ET? Ronald Raygun tried to suggest that already but they may not be done with that ploy. But there may be an element of truth in it.
Socialism would certainly be better than what we have now., but like the animal farm story, where the pigs lied and took over, likewise in capitalism the 1-percent took over..
The problem isn't the system (socialism or capitalism), its the power hungry nut jobs like the cartmann caracter in south park, because they are the ones driven to attain positions of power (then abuse that power).. The best system is a combination; certainly fire, roads, military, medical, schools, etc, should be run like socialism. Selling burgers, comic books and TV's would work best with the capitalist system.
The keywords that would fix everything are ethics, social justice, free press (informed rather than boondoggled electorate).. Then let an informed electorate decade.,
Palindromedary,
I doubt the green party would ever actually win, because the democrats would notice and change from within before they lose power (therefore i see voting green being the only way to drive politicians back towards resenting the people.. The saying goes; "If the people lead, the leaders will follow)".. We the good guys, are locked in an eternal fight against power hungry nut-jobs.. The other saying gies "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
Socialism: An economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production....cooperative management of the economy.....a system organized to directly satisfy economic demands and human needs....instead of for private profit which is driven by the accumulation of wealth.
Share the wealth in a moral and fair manner!
While I certainly agree, I must say that I must hold open a little bit of possibility that some of these things may be true. There may be other dimensional beings...the earth may have been visited...or have even existed here for hundreds or thousands of years...but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence otherwise it all amounts to unsubstantiated blind faith which is something that is often used by charlatans for exploitation purposes. And although many have made some extraordinary claims...they have not yet provided extraordinary evidence to support their claims.
I have been watching some of those videos:
I wonder, though, how many people would even view any of these videos and then say that the people interviewed were not being honest...that they did not believe totally in what they were saying.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb9pzfckUc8 Son of an Area 51 Technician.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzGYNJEA4Ag Bill Uhouse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSCzddYA4GY Roswell Revisted-Col. Philip Corso
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkwxuHE03aM Astronaut Gordon Cooper.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeMT7ieiYR4 Don Phillips
And there are a whole lot more videos of witnesses on this subject at http://www.youtube.com/user/csetiweb/videos?view=0&shelf_id=1&sort=dd
But, of course, even if they believe what they are saying is true, it still does not "prove" anything. But it is very entertaining for sure...at least it is for me. I'm glad you find it entertaining as well. I guess I have "wasted" time and a little money on this over the years as I've gone to Gulf Breeze, Florida...Roswell, N.M on the 50th anniversary of the 1947 crash...camped out at Area 51...and visited the Car Barn in Georgetown (Washington, DC). "La Plume de ma tante. ay, Dimme?"
Palindromedary ~ Well said! I must agree. One thing for certain, whenever money changes hands the idea of spreading a message from an advanced race takes a dump. Nevertheless, there is always a little truth in any con. I'm not too sure if I'm willing to completely dump the idea that extra dimensional forces don't exist. The problem I have is the known law of physics and how these "alleged" crafts are described in motion. In our "known" laws of physics, an object traveling the speed of sound cannot come to a complete sudden stop without imparting infinite force on all passengers. Also, one object cannot be in two places at the same time. Essentially the pilot and passengers would be liquified. The existence of a "fourth dimension," where time doesn't exist, would explain this unknown mathematically.
There are three theoretical scientific possibilities the way I see it. First, somehow third dimensional extraterrestrial creatures have developed a technology that enables them to temporarily create a fourth dimensional bubble that enables zero point energy, anti gravity and extreme propulsion to occur temporarily. If the government has perfected such a technology it's game over.
The second possibility is that we are experiencing creatures from a fourth dimension who are just messing with us. The same way we mess with an ant by putting a finger down in front of him. He only sees an obstacle appear out of nowhere. He isn't capable of perceiving any more than that. He avoids it. You then put a finger down in front of him again. Now he sees the same object rematerialize in front of him again. The object appears to be in two places at the same time. The ant freaks out. If this theory is true then high technology may not even exist. What is being witnessed is merely the intersection of the natural laws of both universes. If creatures or technology exists in such a fourth dimension, the laws of physics would ensure that such technology would only work in that universe; and, not ours.
The final theory is combination of the two. Third and/or fourth dimensional creatures use unknown technology in order to manipulate physical laws of both dimensions to their advantage. This one by far is the most intriguing potential theory of all. It would also explain why all the sightings and encounters have never proceeded beyond that. Fourth dimensional technology and beings are only viable in the fourth dimension; and, visa versa.
All three theories would theoretically explain the eyewitness testimonies of the UFO witnesses. Unfortunately, I'm not the sort to place any belief on any theory without proof. At this point even the credibility of the theory rests upon the validity of the eye witness testimony. Like you said, it falls within the purview of the government as well as con artists to spread disinformation on UFO's for a plethora of reasons. The mere fact that a large amount of these "witnesses" are ex government employees does nothing to reassure my faith in their testimonies. Furthermore, I personally have never witnessed any of these phenomenons. To me, they are nothing more than hearsay, urban legend, and mythology. And finally, If any of the first and third theories above were true, I think that by now we would have experienced the government using such technology in our everyday lives.
As a result, I must agree with you 100%. Until there is concrete solid proof of the existence and origin of such creatures and their technology, all these stories, testimonies, and sightings are no more than fairy tales designed to amuse, distract, and generate revenue; while, the real predators rob us blind. I don't buy the idea that all our technological advances came from extraterrestrial sources. And, finally, the entire idea that an advanced extraterrestrial race would have a message to deliver to mankind that they were incapable of communicating themselves is preposterous. A waste of time to be sure; however, as you know science fiction and mythology are two of my favorite hobbies. Like you, I just can't get enough of it.
By the way, you might like to know, even Mr. Collier is a former government employee. He used to work with the IRS.
Which is why they run out of markets...
And I certainly agree with you about old Maggie Thatcher...Reagan with lipstick! Very funny and very true.
Back in the good ole days when that union-bustin' bitch was Prime Minister, I always used to characterize Margaret Thatcher as "Reagan with lipostick".
The proplem with capitalism is that eventually, you run out of poor - and working class - people's money to steal. - Aliceinwonderland
P.S. - Hey Palin, your reply to my last post was exactly what I wanted, 'cuz nobody says it better than you!
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
― Margaret Thatcher
"The problem with capitalism is that you eventually run out of markets (also...other people's money)."
---me
Sorry, I couldn't resist...I caught that Margaret Thatcher quote from reading some of the Star Sneech reviewers of Thom's book on Amazon. In fact, the few detractors are such right-wing disinformation specialists that it would be fun, but a waste of time really, to take them down a peg or two.
One idiot bought Thom's book by mistake and was now complaining because he found out Thom was not a right wing blow-hard like he wanted. He said that "other countries have passed us in manufacturing and design". Well, who's fault is that? But, in fact, the Japanese long ago surpassed us in manufacturing and design...because they designed and manufactured things to work right the first time..while American designers and manufacturers were more interested in maximizing short term profits while sacrificing reliability.
Who was it that sold out American workers by squeezing wages and benefits and sending our jobs to those other countries in order to maximize their profits in the shortest amount of time.
Whose fault was it when they made it easy for those other country's workers to come to the US, for less pay, taking away our jobs, picking up trade secrets, and going back to implement them in their own countries?
Whose fault was it that "declaring we were a 'service economy' rather than a 'manufacturing economy' years ago..." implicating, of course, that we were psyched into accepting our doom by someone other than the ones who actually did the psyching...the capitalists who gravitated to the F.I.R.E. economy for fast looting of everyone who bought into it.
The (F.I.R.E) Finance-Insurance-and Real Estate scams created by the capitalist pigs who knew they could morph everyone else's wealth into their own...a "giant sucking sound" of wealth from our pockets into theirs. And now the capitalist pigs and their toadies want to make the argument that the fault was ours, the working man and woman, and.... the evil Chinese.
And now, see, it was fun...but I wasted my time rebuffing these hopeless right-wing, capitalist-pig, disinformation, propagandist toadies.
bobbler: I certainly agree with you on all counts! I am certainly going to vote green, as I did in the last election. I believe that if the greens won...they would, at least, shake up the good ole' boy two party cesspool we've been swimming in. But, unless, the green party winners (President and Congress) act as they were elected to act then not much will become of it. If they are bribed or threatened to stay the course on siding with the ruling elite then we will still be in the same predicament. Stacking the Presidency and Congress with lots of Green Party members is our next to the last opportunity to change things. If that fails, we only have one thing that will work, it will be horrible for sure! But it will be necessary unless we all want to suffer greatly under the fascist ruling elite regime that controls us. I believe that unless the ruling elite realizes that unless they relent and repent they will see a massive revolution and they will lose all they've worked so hard to steal. Nothing will really change until then. But, at least, voting Green, is worth a try. Maybe we won't even last until the next election?
Aliceinwonderland: No, some are "crazy like a fox". They are, like some in "thumper land" or "ET land", finding it quite lucrative in convincing people to buy their books or pay for seminars that they lecture at...especially the so-called "workshops" that you have to pay even more for once you've paid the general admission to see their "teaser" lectures. It's a bit of a fuzzy line between "crazy" and being taken in by hucksters with incredible tales.
Yes, I remember those people who were taken in by incredible (actually..incredulous) tales of Hale Bopp. I remember people like Rev. Jim Jones who trapped people with his non-sense. I remember David Koresh and his Branch Dividians. I remember the 2000 Rajneesh followers in Oregon who didn't exactly die for stupidity but did stupidly lose a lot of their "worldly goods" to old Rajneesh and who put some nasties on salad bars...poisoning people. I remember the Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attack in the subway in Japan. These examples, and many more, are reasons why people shouldn't "believe" in, and should be very wary of, incredible things.
And yes, casting demons out of people into swine, walking on water, bringing dead people back to life, feeding the multitudes, dying on the cross then resurrecting 3 days later, a God in heaven who answers prayers, Satan in hell and all of the demon stories, along with ridiculous also manipulative stories of extra dimensional aliens who replicate the more ancient Ahura Mazda/Ahriman...God/Satan (good/evil) are all total Bullsh!t.
There's good aliens and bad aliens don't you know! The good aliens, the Nordics, look more like us......the bad aliens look more like giant grey ants or lizards (no offense to the cute little Geico lizard). And not to be out done, the whole panopoly of extraterrestrial creatures tend to mirror our more ancient mythological inventions...just like Christianity plagiarized those more ancient myths to create their new cult as well. They are all new mythological stories invented by people to control and manipulate other people...the suckers who fall for it.
It's one thing to be entertained and another to be taken in to the point where you lose all your worldly goods...your house..your savings...and often, your life and the lives of your loved ones. Besides, believing in such nonsense can make you crazy...do crazy things...like performing exorcisms on children who die from it..or taking poison as a way to get to the next dimension before the world is destroyed by Hale Bopp. That warm and friendly preacher may just one day be your executioner as the followers of Rev Jim Jones found out.
"I'm not going to claim all contractees are crazy..." says Palin. How about all Bible thumpers; are they crazy? And how about those clowns who all committed suicide together twenty years ago, so they could boogie to la-la-land on that Hale Bop comet and live happily ever after? I once watched a talk show whose guests all claimed to have been abducted by extraterrestrials. Yep. Sounds about as believable to me as those old tales of Jesus walking on water and rising from the tomb, or Muslim martyrs with their 75 virgin sugar mamas.
I suppose I shouldn't claim all religious people are crazy either, right Palin? Different schtick, same old pap... - AIW
I cannot vote for democrats as the lesser of two evils., I remember being so very disappointed in president Clinton for pushing reagans NAFTA., then years later in retrospect, the Phil-gram, and kass-steal deregulation happened on Clinton's watch. Today i feel this same disappointment with obama. And neither democrat admin even went after republicans for war crimes (no small thing to be sure).. Reagan for selling weapons to the enemy, bush/cheny for lying to start a war. All this stuff is what republicans do; everything to benefit only the 1-percent.
Because democrats are only 10-percent (if that) to the left of republicans (this makes democrats, moderate republicans). In this case the philosophy of voting the lesser of two evils, assures big money will stay in control (rather than the people).. Whereas Voting your conscience for the green party (actually the party of the people), will force change in the democratic party (if the peope lead, the leaders will follow).. Democrats only talk like liberals to get elected. Think in terms of big money controlling both parties like puppets, and this will make sense (Big money wins either way).
DAnneMarc: Thanks for that link. I have not yet watched it...it is rather lengthy...but I intend to watch it shortly. So, I did a search at wikipedia on Alex Collier: "Alex Collier is an alias of American citizen Ralph Amigron.[1] As "Collier," he claimed to be a contactee. He alleged that he has been in contact with inhabitants of the Andromeda constellation[2] and purported to have messages to relay from these supposed visitors. "Collier's" Andromedans are of the Nordic aliens type."
I am not going to claim that all "contactees" are crazy...there may very well be such occurrences. I'm not a believer nor an absolute skeptic on the idea that some people may have been not only "contacted" but "abducted". But, in the past, most of the people that I've listened to that have claimed to be "contactees"... I'm not convinced. There are a lot of kooks out there that know how to get attention to make a buck or two or just enjoy the attention.
I also believe that the government is behind some of the kookiest stories done for the purpose of discrediting all of it. When these people claim to have been singled out to carry an "important message for mankind"...then I begin to doubt the veracity of their claims. I also don't believe in extra-dimensional aliens. A lot of this can start to take on a "religious tone" that I just cannot accept.
Many years ago, I read a book by United States Army Colonel Philip J. Corso who claimed that while he worked for a higher up General in the Pentagon, he was given some artifacts of the Roswell Crash and his task was to contact various high tech companies in order to develop technologies based on these artifacts..ie: reverse engineer them. This was before the transistor and before fiber optics and Corso's description of these artifacts fit the description of what we now know to have been developed. Corso died shortly after writing the book and after interviews on video.
I put a lot more belief in many of these people who worked in the government and military or even when many civilians, en masse, witness things. They are much more believable than many of these "contactees".
Ok, so I was relieved that the beginning speaker was not the main speaker, Collier. Had to skip over 11 and a half minutes to get to him. The first guy sounded like he was trying to hypnotize everyone.
And now, at about 16 minutes when he starts talking about spiritual dimensions, and before that the Andromedans come from the 5th dimension...then he starts talking about God the creator...that does it for me....I'm outta here! Pure garbage as far as I'm concerned. This guy is nothing more than just another manipulating preacher with a different schtick!
Considering the mess on your desk right now, I'm impressed at the length to which you've answered. Mind over matter!
Anyway Loren, while I believe some form of regulations are justified regarding firearms, that's not to say that I assume they are established and/or enforced the right way, or (just as importantly) with the right motive behind them, given our current socioeconomic freak show. Your concerns are well justified. Regarding access to guns, I'd say Washington's law would be justified against perpetrators in cases of domestic violence; especially repeat offenders. But this simple minded, arbitrary exclusion of anyone who "ever saw a mental health professional even once and for any reason" is of course, ridiculous.
Far as mental health is concerned, I don't know which problem is worse: the lack of funding allocated to public mental health services in our society, or the barbaric, out-dated techniques used to treat it... not to mention those quack pharmaceuticals! At the dawn of 21st Century America here we are, still stuck in the dark ages when it comes to mental health. I don't have facts or figures in front of me, so I'll just say that it wouldn't surprise me if, upon examination, embarrassing statistical contrasts were to emerge between mental health treatments & outcomes here in the USA, compared to, say, countries like France or Norway. In all likelihood it would parallel the discrepancy with healthcare between us and them. Such comparisons always leave the U.S. looking like shit, as well it deserves to.
A few years back, I read a book titled Mad In America. Can't remember the author, unfortunately. But it was a real eye opener about mental health care in America over the past century. Seems that mentally ill individuals don't fare much better now than they did a hundred years ago. What really blew me away was learning that schizophrenics with the best odds for recovery are those receiving no "treatment" at all!
Well Loren, as always it's been a pleasure chewing the fat with you... even if the subjects under discussion aren't always so pleasant!
Enjoy the weekend. - Aliceinwonderland
Palindromedary ~ Have you seen this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kUG6Iw7uHA
We have set before us today an economic system that can be described as “Conspiratorial Capitalism”. The economic conspirators of today have morphed into a destructive force entity prophesized by Thomas Jefferson: "In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate and improve. Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositaries. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree." - Notes on the State of Virginia, 1782, Thomas Jefferson
At what point is greed enough said Senator Ted Kennedy in his 2007 assault on Congressional Republicans, demanding: “When does the greed stop?” The greed has spiraled into an ugly destructive force entity. The Rich can be defined as a contrast to the poor, and the greater the contrast, the greater the Rich.
Profit over people must be revealed and stopped by participation of every American getting involved; e.g.” Tag your it” (Thom Hartmann’s phrase). I suggest a fantastic book! A must read! Thom Hartmann takes you through a history of cataclysmic episodes, and juxtaposing them to happenings of today with only one foreboding conclusion: a crash. Just like a doctor can diagnose cancer, see the diagnoses of the coming Crash of 2016.
Hello, Alice; hope you are well and safe from the arctic vortex.
Can't give you a long answer with links just now because my desk is in workbench mode -- an electric motor disassembled for bearing replacdement and small parts and tools everywhere, which makes typing a real chore -- but the short answer is the Washingtin State Democratic Party goes wild about every four years and tries to sneak New York City/New Jersey-type regulations into law that would permanently disarm anyone who ever saw a mental-health professional even once and for any reason including grief counseling or marriage counseling.
This strategy is based on the statistic that 50 percent of all USians will at some time be afflicted by mental problems; the reasoning -- already turned into law in NYC, NJ, Illinois [and maybe now in NY state too after Newtown] -- is that by permanently outlawing firearms possession by anyone who has ever been in therapy or counseling, the legal-firearms-ownership demographic is thus cut in half.
The first such effort in Washington state, hidden in the 1994 Youth Violence Act, was item-vetoed by a very brave Democratic governor. Then there was Initiative 676, a "gun safety" measure in the late '90s that would have disarmed most of the state's firearms owners by an impossible labrynth of fees and regulations, which was rejected by about 75 percent of the voters.
In subsequent years there were many other such efforts up until Obama ordered the party to desist its forcible disarmament efforts in rural states so he could get on with the deceptions that won him the presidency.
Now with that done, all bets are off, and the Democrats are at it again, attempting to parlay the death toll that results from the worst mental-health care in the industrial world into new schemes for forcible disarmament.
Plus there's what Marc said -- registration as the (intentional) precursor to confiscation, as has already happened in NYC and California and is now happening elsewhere including NY State.
I'll post some telling examples later, when I don't have to reach across two feet of tools and parts to get to my keyboard, which I'm sorry to say may not be until tomorrow.
Aliceinwonderland ~ We've already discussed this issue and for the most part I believe we fully agree. I hate finding my back against the wall on such an obviously rational position. However, that is what the media wants to do--pit like minded people like ourselves against each other. They do a great job at that. Know that in my heart I would proudly advocate the registration of anything that can do any substantial harm to another human being, be it guns, automobiles, pepper spray, or, even baseball bats. Unfortunately, the current world paradigm makes that impossible.
Back to Loren Bliss. I reread his post and discovered that it may be also likely that his statement meant to convey that gun control in these urban areas is being used as a wedge issue in order to artificially pump up the membership of the Republican party; thus, perpetuating the myth that a two party system that is almost equally divided in this country actually exists. Just a though, I thought I would share. Peace!
ErinRose...
Why are Americans just standing by, one is they're too busy just trying to servive, the other is...well...see post #55
Palindromedary ~ A most fascinating idea. I just got that link and am watching it now. I haven't yet seen "Sirius". However, I have heard lots of stories and theories that might explain your statement, "...that our leaders are actually selling us out to these extraterrestrials in exchange for advanced technology..." I'm curious as to exactly what you meant by that.
What I understand is that these little Greys are actually genetically engineered slaves of a more dangerous reptilian race called the Draconians. The Greys want to use us for genetic enhancement of their own dying race. The reptilians want us as slaves, entertainment, and a food source. At least that is what I gather from listening to Alex Collier; and, some others. Of course, in this extraterrestrial research one must be very vigilant due to the persistence of an abundance of misinformation. You appear to be much more experienced in this matter, and I trust your wisdom. I'm particularly interested in hearing how you respond to this post... Thanks for a most engaging conversation.
Not extending unemployment is extending the vicioius cycle.
Marc- The sad state of mental health in this country, and the lack of resources made available to care for the mentally ill, has not escaped me. It's very much a part of the problem feeding into gun violence. Obviously registering & licensing alone are not enough. This real-life fascist backdrop behind Loren's comments make them understandable to say the least. I'm not ready to give up on registering & licensing as part of the solution, altho I empathize completely with his concerns. I even share them. - AIW