My new American vacation destination … Intercourse, Pegsylvania

Armstrong … stretching the limits of being an actual douche

“Governments don’t want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.”
― George Carlin

The quote is about governments … but in this day in age, this can be applied to corporations, the godfather of modern governments

This just shows how dumb our entire world is … that a single man could win or lose so much imaginary money in a single moment, just because enough of us collectively willed it.

It’s another example of why I see modern finances, stock markets and ultra wealth as just our modern day religion.

It’s like ancient civilizations … Babylonians, Sumarians, Egyptians … we look back at their cultures and see them as backwards for believing in sun gods, god kings and divine entitlements

We’re doing the same thing, we just call it the ‘stock markets’, ‘investments’, ‘corporations’ … and it all only exists because enough of us believe in it. And just like the ancient cultures, if enough people stop believing in it … then it means nothing and it loses all its power.

The fact that overt fascism praise is being normalized should be disturbing to everyone.

We’ve gone from Nazis, Hilter and Fascists are evil and should not be tolerated at all … to …

let’s fantasize about praising an imaginary fictional fascist authoritarian family that wins over the galaxy and rules as a dynastic family over every living being.

The conversation is constantly moving from the right, to moderate right to far right to extreme right and back again on a regular basis … the fact that we even allow this level of conversation to happen should be worrying to everyone everywhere.

A neat way to think about it is that we are carrying water molecules that have passed through millions of other people, animals, insects, plants, waterways and landscapes over billions of years.

I (or you) could have water molecules that were once part of Caesar, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Jesus of Nazareth, the guy who first discovered cheese, the lady of the lake, Elvis Presley or Adolf Hitler.

I’m in Canada and I have this debate often with my friends. One prime example is our federal governments Westminster system of government … where we have a house of parliament filled with elected officials from across the country, who can draw up, debate issues and pass laws … but then those laws are sent to a senate that provides ‘a sober second thought’ to everything … the senate is filled with unelected officials that are placed there by appointment.

Historically, the senate was just filled with friends and associates by the ruling government at the time … basically it meant that every democratic law in the country was first given over to unelected elites and business friendly people to water down anything that went through government … in recent decades, they’ve modernized the system and now it is still appointed people but appointed through a system disassociated with individual political parties or political leaders - apparently senators are appointed by committee

But its still filled with heavily influential people with money and monied interests … they keep arguing that any canadian citizen can be appointed but it never happens because you have to be a fairly wealthy individual, have influence and know lots of people before you could ever be considered for appointment … one of the prerequisites they point out is that individuals considered for appointment must own a minimum wealth of $4,000 (or something like that, I forget the actual figure but it was only a few thousand dollars), which most will argue is not a barrier to many in this day in age. What they don’t point out is that $4,000 in 1867 when the country was founded was equivalent to saying someone should own roughly almost a million dollars in wealth. It was always geared and built into the system to have wealthy overseers watch over the country and protect the wealth of the most powerful people.

Which makes you question, like I do with America, whether we ever did have a democratic system here in Canada

It’s known as a plutocracy … a political system based on money and wealth

As compared to a democracy … a political system based on the will of the people.

America has always worked like the first and it’s debated as to whether or not it ever was the second.

I’ll believe it when I see it … over the past few decades, the US has shown potential but seldom done anything to change how their government is elected and held in power.

And between the two parties … they are just Lite-Conservatives and Ultra-Conservatives supported by those with the most money and monied interests

Eliminating the Electoral College is a nice idea but that’s like asking your elderly grandfather who can still drive his car to give up driving because he’s too old. Personally, I don’t think major change won’t start happening in the US, if it ever does, until about 20-30 years from now when all these ancient political dinosaurs have died off and newer generations of people start stepping in. America first has to shrug off the stench of 70-80 year old ghouls who want to hold to power for as long as possible.

Yeah America has a habit of generating hope … and then crushingly disappointing everyone

I’ll believe it when I see it … otherwise I’m not holding my breath

The Emperor’s new clothes

Hey! … I’m OK! … Me and my arthritic body, I’m OK!

I think it has more to do with wanting the bread warm in any way … so that you can melt butter on top of it. Nothing like fresh baked bread and melting butter over it. The next best thing is to take cold bread, toast it and melt butter over it.

I grew up poor and I remember being a kid and craving melted butter on warm toast but we seldom had any … so we often opted to using just lard instead. Same sensation but the taste wasn’t as good.