The Rise of the American Coward- The Sunday Collage

I have been researching all week. My subject is a fantastic whodunit that I think can be solved. Somewhere, someone knows the truth. I just have to find them. Perseverance, never my strong suit, will be needed. This is a murder case. The cowardly actions of a lot of people are on display in this case. That's not to say that retaliation wasn't possible. It was. The biggest cowards in this case- the people who knew the truth- all had a lot to lose.

So today I want to talk a little about the rise of American cowardice. I am going to use a unique perspective. I am not going to debate the existence of national cowardice- that is clearly evident. Rather, what I am going to attempt to do is try and explain how cowardly individuals react to circumstances and then form a herd or collective response and how that damages us. Why do people behave so cowardly?

Can you imagine the courageous individuals that stood up for the Japanese Americans about to be interred into camps in early 1942? No as a matter of fact, you can't. Because those people don't exist. They became part of the coward class. Rather than speak up against something that was quite obviously wrong- they were overwhelmed by the vast majority of cowards who wanted to lock Japanese Americans up and deny them due process. So courageous folks, or at least moralistically free thinkers, simply chose to shut up and in so doing- became part of the coward class.

Very often, history, does not remember cowards.

Human fear is actually quite normal. In many instances- it is what has allowed us to survive. Those real fears or survival instincts are called rational fears. Irrational fears encompass just about everything else we do. It is our irrational fears- that inner need we have to avoid punishment, embarrassment, and isolation that allows people like Hank Paulson to hijack and steal 1 trillion dollars from us. We are afraid to confront people like Paulson. Because of their perceived power, credibility, and inaccessibility- we cower. If we examine our actions- that we allowed Congress and Paulson to steal from us- we have to confront the fact that we acted like cowards. In fact, that's our role in all of this.

Some things worth considering.

We are blessed. We all have something to lose. We don't want to lose credibility, jobs, money. We think very often- that we should shut up rather than voice our opinions. Because we all know what happens. Some asshole is going to make us pay for our opinions. In some cases- that can be career ending. So often when we should speak up- we don't. Undoubtedly, all of us can think of those lost opportunities. If we had nothing to lose-we'd be scary to deal with. So material wealth and comfort it seems- actually breed cowardice. Once we have something to lose and somebody is able to threaten us with that- we find our mute buttons.

All great men of faith have courage. When you are centered on a life beyond this one- you no longer fear the constraints of a single mortality. As faith in the form of religion in this country has waned- so has our courage. In fact- we rely less and less on faith. There has been a corresponding rise in cowardice.

We also practice apathy. We are convinced there is nothing wrong with this. We believe that one person in 310 million cannot make a difference. Unfortunately, 310 million other people also believe this. The herd mentality becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. It is true. If suddenly, 310 million people believed they could make a difference, we'd move mountains. Courage would flourish.

We are plagued with a lack of honesty. The ability to practice individual and rigorous honesty. To consciously admit we practice contempt prior to investigation, that we are some of the most vain and self centered people on the planet, and that many of us don't have an ounce of gratitude or humility in us. We have giant egos with voracious appetites that never seem to be satiated. We are entitled to the good life for no other reason than we lucked out and were born here- rather than the African continent.

Ok, so let's summarize. Fear is largely irrational. Our decisions are directed by our fears. We fear punishment, embarrassment, isolation. We fear the loss of material wealth. We all have something to lose because we all have some level of material wealth. Many of us have no faith in any life beyond this one. We have no faith, so we are scared that this life is all there is. We practice apathy because to show interest means we are vastly outnumbered and we may be ostracized. We have adopted the herd mentality not because it is right but because it looks safe. We lack rigorous and individual honesty. We don't want to examine ourselves. We attack others instead. We lack humility, gratitude.

Generally speaking, I think that is mostly true. I don't think the averages are skewed by the company I keep.

Nothing truly remarkable happens without courage. It takes personal courage to lock up thousands of criminal bankers. It takes courage to invoke and stand behind the rule of law. To give our country confidence that the right thing will be done. It takes courage to tell American corporations that they are done doing business here while still selling out American workers or that it's time they started paying taxes. It takes guts to shut down the whole government until the budget is balanced. Denial is not a river in Egypt. That has been our "leadership" for far too long. Unfortunately, nobody seems to give a shit. Individual courage begins with individuals- then it spreads to the herd.

History gets written by the winners. Mostly, the cowards tend to be forgotten.



 

I.R.S. Loses 5.5 Billion, Oddly Enough, So Does the Post Office

I find it incredible that people have the cojones to defraud the I.R.S. by filing phony tax returns. Who the hell investigates that? Local cops? Or does the I.R.S. just blow it off?

The I.R.S. lost 5.5 billion last year. Hardly chump change. http://news.yahoo.com/irs-missing-billions-id-theft-164707999.html

Oddly enough, the United States Post Office on Wednesday- defaulted for the first time ever- on the exact same amount in the form of a retirement payment. http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2012/08/01/us-post-office-faces-first-ever-default-on-a-payment/

Eleven billion bucks. This is starting to add up. Pretty soon we will be talking about serious money. 

Are Democrats, Moonbats, and the Left, Narcissists?

It's a valid and very interesting question.

Having grown up around hundreds and thousands of self absorbed moonbats, I stumbled onto the following piece a few weeks ago.

I couldn't escape the logic of the thought process employed here. I have lived through everything the author describes. The liberals, including my friend Billy Moonbat, don't just think they are smarter than you- they know they are. 

Conjure up your own personal favorite flaming liberal and as you read this- ask if the 7 deadly traits of narcissists apply to them. Think of Hillary, Reid, Pelosi. http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2011/05/political-left-and-seven-deadly-sins-of.html

It's a shame Dr. Sanity closed her blog to comments. I like it.

Obama: Never Let The Truth Get In The Way Of A Good Story

Where is Billy Carter when you need him?

Did Obama ever have a real job? No. Did Obama ever take an economics class? We don't know because his college transcripts are locked in a vault with the Yeti and the creatures from the Roswell space craft.

Obama, never one to let the facts determine the outcome of a good story, says the economy is just fine. And if it isn't, it's not my fault. http://economy.money.cnn.com/2012/07/27/white-houses-economic-forecasts/ 

Change Is Something I Keep In the Ashtray

Life changes. Anything and everything. Mostly, you cannot control that. All you can do is greet change and develop a strategy for mitigating the ill effects. Ignoring change will leave you at a tremendous disadvantage. In fact, it always has.

I am a big change guy. I am one of those people who will change shit around on a whim just because it bores me. Several years ago, during a job interview, I asked a kid what he thought about change. The kid got this weird look on his face and then said he didn't have any problem with change. Most of the time he said- he threw change in his ashtray. When he had accumulated enough change he explained, he used it to buy gas or something to eat. The man in that interview with me is now the Chief. I thought he was going to split his gut wide open- trying to keep from laughing. I was in some sort of "you've got to be kidding me" moment. WE both burst out laughing. We hired the kid. He turned out be an excellent human being and he will soon be a father- I am told. He will be a good dad.

Some people embrace change, most don't. The people changing the world don't care which camp you fall into.

Imagine a world where the most greedy, ruthless, people have control of your money supply. They have control of the politicians and the media. They are in control of every facet of commerce that relies on credit. They are able to practice deception because they have changed the accounting rules. The rich and the greedy get what they want- and you don't- because their needs and your needs are mutually exclusive. They have the money to get what they want.

In short, you are simply a tool for the controlling elite. You work in their corporations and you do so at a salary that always allows them to get the best of it. People with money have power. They have power because they have something the rest of us need. They carve out the rules to keep money and power and the only time they give you money- is when they receive more money or more benefit in return. It is a huge bonus to them if they can look like charitable, magnanimous bastards in the process and really fuel their image. Enter sponsorships and charitable giving. Please allow a quick detour here.

Do you know why people like Bill and Linda Gates have charitable organizations? Because they have so much fucking money that they don't know what to do with it all. You can only buy so much shit. Eventually, their conscience finally tells them, "Maybe you ought to give some of this back." So like the magnanimous bastards that they are...they select who gets it and who doesn't. They prance around with beaming faces on stages- in front of crowds of desperate people who pray that their shadows cross- if only long enough for the Gates' to write them a check. The rich, like all of us, are trying to make sense of their lives. Philanthropy- if you say so. http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/15/news/newsmakers/Warren_Buffett_Pledge_Letter.fortune/index.htm

Ok, back on track.

In 2007, the rich and elite finally screwed the pooch. The banks and world governments are broke. Enter "Plan B." Plan B is a triage plan. A way to keep things from appearing as bad as they really are. So far it's been working. The workers of the world are all getting hosed. They lost their houses but their peers- convinced them that this was their fault. The bankers, the people that made off with millions and billions, are giggling. All that mortgage money was just make believe money anyway. Those crappy jobs with no benefits- not their problem. That giant debt pile they created? Well, they socialized that liability and gave it to you. Only one prize remains. The last source of real, measurable wealth in this country.

Equities and bonds. Everybody in the United States has a vested interest in keeping our zombie stock market afloat. Everyone. Because if that market flattens- like it should have already- then all hell is going to break loose. Because at the moment of the great flattening- it's finally going to dawn on every working stiff in this country that they've been ripped off. That all of their retirement money is lost. That is why everyone is savagely performing CPR on our zombie markets. Obama, self centered sociopath that he is, can only pray to Allah that things don't deteriorate further.

I believe the chances of my state funded retirement system (invested like every other retirement fund in US markets) going broke in my lifetime is better than 85%. It is all predicated on 8% returns. The bankers have robbed this country of all yield. Last year my fund made 1.5%. In fact, every retirement plan in this country is predicated on appreciating markets. Guess what? Appreciating markets are over. Markets have been topped out for 13 years. The bankers have stolen all yield and all return. Real money doesn't exist. But the people you see, don't understand this. They don''t understand eternal stagflation. Yet. But they will- and they are not gonna like it.

They don't understand that markets will crash and that our money supply will go completely supernova trying to keep markets elevated. Gold and silver and other commodity prices will also go into warp drive. You can't sell gold at 10k an oz. when the following day they are buying it for 20k an oz. Hyperinflation happens fast. There is no other way for the end game to play out.

So with zombie and QE injected markets hovering at 13,000- the hoi polloi and the people that deny change, look at writers like me and say, "Geezus, that dude's left the rails." The hoi polloi can't distinguish the true from the false because they have no vested interest in believing some anonymous writer like me. They see no evidence with inflated markets at these lofty levels. That 16 trillion dollar debt is of no concern to them. If the hoi polloi could distinguish the true from the false- if they had any power whatsoever- we would not be here waiting for the implosion and collapse.

People have been deceived. The last great deception is upon us. Not unlike the myth that house prices grow to the sky- equity prices are not some eternally growing beanstalk either. That truth is about to be revealed. The best way to describe or illustrate the great self deception that is occurring in this country is what I call the marriage myth. It goes like this. 

The idea that people get married and live happily ever after is a myth that is predicated upon life expectancies of 35 years. To a couple wed in 1900 at age 18, you had about 17 years on average before someone died. Thus happily ever after was about 17 years. A "doable" stretch of time. One hundred years later, life expectancies were hitting 80 years. Happily ever after equated to about 62 years or about 4 times what it used to. For most of us, that is not quite so "doable." Putting up with someone's shit for that length of time requires sainthood- and most of us are not willing to do it. So our idea, the myth of "happily ever after" was sent down our family trees and framed with short life expectancies by people who stay married a whopping 17 years.

So why is it some big shock that more than half of all marriages end in divorce? It shouldn't be. Just as it shouldn't surprise anyone that housing prices had to stop climbing. You can't sell a huge over priced supply- into a shrinking demographic.

So it should come as no surprise to anyone that in order for stock prices to rise, (a) there should be a larger amount of people trying to buy and drive the price of equities up which there is not, (b) the supply should dry up- rather than expand (c) wealth creation should be on the rise rather than decelerating (d) there are simply no fundamentals to drive markets any higher beyond that of artificially driving up the money supply. Inflation. (e) we have a 16 trillion dollar debt load with trillions coming due and payable that nobody has a solution for.

All of this is happening now. That is life. It changes. Even if you don't want it to. So if you are some sort of person that thinks this market cannot collapse in spite of the serious problems and evidence all around you- some of which is irreversible- that is ok.

You might be someone who thinks that change is something you keep in the ashtray.

Let's Outlaw Birds!

I have always hated birds. They make stupid noises, shit on everything, and in the case of two lovebirds I once owned...they actually bite you. Mean little pricks. Shoulda been called hate birds.

Quick, call the government. Birds are trying to kill us. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/plane-damaged-colliding-bird-132433038.html

You Didn't Build This Welfare State and Ignore the Rule Of Law. I Did- Barack Obama

Ohhhh how Obama and the left wish this would go away. In all 57 states.

This Is The Year's Best Five Minutes- We Acted Like Men

If I were to end this blog, I'd end it right here. Please cut, paste, forward, and re-use this video from the HBO series, Newsroom. If anything needs to go viral- it's this. Thanks Blurred.

The Sea Hag Squares An Account

You might have a drinking problem if another drunk refuses to give you a beer and the best idea you can come up with is, "I think I will shoot this guy five times in the presence of a witness and wait for the cops to show up."

The Old Hag and the Sea. Didn't Hemingway write that? Meh. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/sea-hag-beer-shooting-murder-florida-keys-155110197.html

The Sun...Err...I Mean Monday Collage

I just got too busy this weekend doing nothing... to put anything up. Please don't cancel your subscriptions. Writing has been hard for me lately...

I think mostly it is because of the weather here in Boise. Every day now, it's a hunnert. Hunnert 3, hunnert 5, it just saps the energy outta me. I feel like I live in Vegas sans the cocktail waitresses and immense cleavage. Thank gawd the Y is air conditioned.

This summer is nasty hot. My lawn is burnt up. The City of Boise has figured out a new way to screw residents on water. I mean, you'd think the city owned the water. One hundred dollar a month water bills in the summer are the new normal.

I remember getting a 900 dollar monthly bill once for water on five acres in California near Santa Barbara. I instantly expelled all of the air from my lungs...

Moonbats love to see the government penalize people for doing such heinous things as using water. Water is a big concern of the statists' nowadays. If they could figure out a way to measure and sell us clean air- they would. They know all about environmental things. Just up the street from me is the Hillcrest Golf Course. I see a lot of blue girl, red state bumper stickers and Volvo libtard mobiles in the parking lot. The golf course uses lots of water.

Statists don't really care how much water they use- they are far more concerned with how much water you use.  

I have finally recovered from the ass blistering heat of the Grand Canyon motorcycle tour. I put new tires and brakes on Elvis. I keep toying with the idea of going to Sturgis this week especially since I have an uncle that lives close by. Sturgis is such a madhouse, I'll probably have to pass. Work gets a little miffed too, when I don't show up. They actually expect some level of performance for that giant salary they pay me. Speaking of which...

I applied for a job as a comedy writer this morning. This crew like all good employers- will want some outrageously witty and insanely humorous writing and then try to pay a microscopic amount for it. The ad called for a female writer. Are you kidding me? When I think of funny writers, authors or columnists, I think of men. Really. Hunter Thompson, Mike Royko, Patrick McManus, Dave Barry, Andy Rooney, Frankenstein Government. I just don't think of women.

Here is how my simple mind works. When I read a story about breastfeeding, I instantly think of women. Men are just no good at breastfeeding. Now that's not to say that some men don't have breasts... or that some man couldn't trick a baby into nursing... if only for just a moment before the howling starts. But the reality is, I just don't conjure up an image of some man with his big hairy boob poking out of his shirt- when the subject turns to breast feeding.

Men should not breastfeed children. Women should not try to write humorous things.

Screw em. I applied for the job anyway. The ad was one of those lame ads that tries to be funny but isn't. Couldn't help thinking some gal must have put it together. So it's only 94 degrees right now. It might not make a hunnert today. I have to take advantage of this cold snap and run to the Y. I hope they have the air conditioning on.