Down the Memory Hole?

[lektrode]

Re: The Right to Be Forgotten

woody - while i certainly respect/appreciate the breadth and depth of your knowledge on ALL that is political - since afterall, the thrust of the itulip is navigating the political economy - with EMPHASIS ON MATTERS ECONOMIC

it would be nice and greatly appreciated IF JUST ONCE we could have you do one of your exposez that bashes the left - esp the lib-dem left and what they've done to screw things up for The Rest of US

THEN we might start to thinking that you ARENT still stuck in/on the hard-over-on-the-left-1960s-treadmill ???

because it REALLY does get old/stale...

adding: i mean... chrikie, mate - this IS a site that focuses - or TRIES TO - on INVESTING - so what would you expect, far as comments from an audience that - nears eye can tell - is BUSINESS AND INVESTMENT ORIENTED

Poor Dinesh, hoisted on his own peter. The moral exemplar of the right wing. "Do as I say, not as I do; this is the first commandment" for conservative religious and political entrepreneurs like Dinesh.


He scolds America for its "sexual immorality" and then is caught philandering with a married woman (and at a Baptist revival in Spartanburg, S.C., no less). He's happy to rake in millions selling dull and repetitive books and films to witless conservatives, decrying the pity of our moral collapse while actively engaging in criminal conspiracies that would land any of us in prison for a decade. He blames the "cultural left" for everything from rickets to 9/11 and even his conservative colleagues call him out for engaging in character assassination and peddling pseudo-intellectual claptrap.


I'm not at all surprised to hear his latest book is topping the charts. The right wing echo chamber has perfected their circle jerk marketing machine, and conservative folks take to this nonsense like a dog does to its vomit. Funny thing is all Dinesh ever really wanted was to bed a tall blue-eyed blonde. He landed long suffering Dixie, God bless her. I can't imagine how foolish that woman must have felt to be cast aside for sweet young Denise. Interesting how when Clinton used his power and authority to seduce young women on his staff, this was evidence of moral collapse. But when Dinesh does it, it's political persecution.


But that's how these fellows roll. I've been to CPAC, I've been backstage at the Heritage talks and the after hours hospitality suites. I was privy to the private conversations when everyone felt safe among friends. I can tell you that at least among the conservative luminaries I knew who came up in the 80s and 90s, Dinesh is a dime a dozen when it comes to hypocrisy and cynicism. They laugh at you while they lie to your face and take your money. It used to make me angry, but now I think all of them deserve each other.

[vt]

Re: The Right to Be Forgotten

The point I was making with the Costco fiasco was that political censorship has no place in a free society.

The problem we have with politics is that those who hold the political power at the moment have a profound affect on economic outcomes. Politics is the study of who controls economic policy.

http://economics.mit.edu/files/8741

This is why we have to remove the two existing parties by the electoral process to end the distortions of FIRE. We're not going to see TECI with the current officeholders.

[astonas]

Re: The Right to Be Forgotten

woody - while i certainly respect/appreciate the breadth and depth of your knowledge on ALL that is political - since afterall, the thrust of the itulip is navigating the political economy - with EMPHASIS ON MATTERS ECONOMIC

it would be nice and greatly appreciated IF JUST ONCE we could have you do one of your exposez that bashes the left - esp the lib-dem left and what they've done to screw things up for The Rest of US

THEN we might start to thinking that you ARENT still stuck in/on the hard-over-on-the-left-1960s-treadmill ???

because it REALLY does get old/stale...

adding: i mean... chrikie, mate - this IS a site that focuses - or TRIES TO - on INVESTING - so what would you expect, far as comments from an audience that - nears eye can tell - is BUSINESS AND INVESTMENT ORIENTED

To be fair, 'lektrode, in pure numbers, there are many more posts on iTulip coming from the right than the left, with plenty of red meat in them to satisfy. Having one unwavering voice on the left is not even a full counterweight. As long as everyone is respectful to other posters, people should be encouraged to voice their perspective.

And one might argue that a business-and-investment crowd is precisely the audience that most NEEDS to hear about hypocrisy. After all, it was bankers and their hypocrisy, not the welfare queens in theirs, that crashed the economy recently. People need to know which crooks to avoid most. ;)

So the failings of the nanny state may incite the passions, but what's more likely to sink our portfolios is the currency manipulations of the crony capitalists, and the votes that get hoodwinked into supporting their political servants through appeals to these red-meat "values" issues. Knowing what social arguments are invalid or fabricated helps us all keep our eye on the ball. The more debunking we get, the better. It certainly beats ever-louder shouting of left-right talking points, which is what things devolve into when the debunking stops.

[lektrode]

Re: The Right to Be Forgotten

am with ya 100% on ALL this, Mr A.
and precisely WHY i value woody's input.
THANK YOU for yours - you are also 100% correct that the biz/invest crowd NEEDS to hear what woody so passionately presents - or maybe better to say: confronts us with?

To be fair, 'lektrode, in pure numbers, there are many more posts on iTulip coming from the right than the left, with plenty of red meat in them to satisfy. Having one unwavering voice on the left is not even a full counterweight. As long as everyone is respectful to other posters, people should be encouraged to voice their perspective.

And one might argue that a business-and-investment crowd is precisely the audience that most NEEDS to hear about hypocrisy. After all, it was bankers and their hypocrisy, not the welfare queens in theirs, that crashed the economy recently. People need to know which crooks to avoid most. ;)

So the failings of the nanny state may incite the passions, but what's more likely to sink our portfolios is the currency manipulations of the crony capitalists, and the votes that get hoodwinked into supporting their political servants through appeals to these red-meat "values" issues. Knowing what social arguments are invalid or fabricated helps us all keep our eye on the ball. The more debunking we get, the better. It certainly beats ever-louder shouting of left-right talking points, which is what things devolve into when the debunking stops.

[Woodsman]

Re: The Right to Be Forgotten

woody - while i certainly respect/appreciate the breadth and depth of your knowledge on ALL that is political - since afterall, the thrust of the itulip is navigating the political economy - with EMPHASIS ON MATTERS ECONOMIC

it would be nice and greatly appreciated IF JUST ONCE we could have you do one of your exposez that bashes the left - esp the lib-dem left and what they've done to screw things up for The Rest of US

THEN we might start to thinking that you ARENT still stuck in/on the hard-over-on-the-left-1960s-treadmill ???

because it REALLY does get old/stale...

adding: i mean... chrikie, mate - this IS a site that focuses - or TRIES TO - on INVESTING - so what would you expect, far as comments from an audience that - nears eye can tell - is BUSINESS AND INVESTMENT ORIENTED

700+ posts, lek. For sure you can find at least a baker's dozen where I've criticized the libdemleft. So I got you covered, no worries mate.

In contrast, there are perhaps thousands of posts here from dozens of members over the course of a decade criticizing the leftlibdems and new ones popping up daily like mushrooms after a rainstorm. You want to talk old and stale, most of what I've seen in the past three years is of the "leftists suxs" and "Obama is a socialist" red meat variety. Not very interesting and not at all informative. If criticism of the right seems old and stale to your ears, I'd say it's because the game never changes and most of the characters remain the same. I'm honored that you and others consider me such an effective critic of the right that you'd like to shut me up or redirect me elsewhere. But in truth it's not that hard of a task once we open our eyes and give up on the red/blue team allegiances. Some claim they do, but it's plain to see that's not really the case. I understand and find no fault in the decision. It's a hard thing to do and there is no reward whatsoever for it.

I can speak with authority about the right because I was there; if not present at the revolution, then certainly among the first generation, so to speak. I am an apostate; a recovering right winger. I find most of the politics and the players so loathsome because I witnessed so much of the ugly first hand. And I am guilty, too. I was a participant in the madness of defending life by taking it. I facilitated destroying the country and the planet for cash. I helped shut down schools to build more prisons. That stain is on me until my dying day and there's nothing in the world I can do to erase it. But after much time and study and what amounts to prayer (my feeble efforts, anyway), I have come to understand that kindness and human decency are positive traits to be emulated and encouraged and that these folks offer none of it to us and those like us. I guess what makes me different is that I no longer believe it's possible for government to exhibit those characteristics in any meaningful sense. So in that regard I remain as conservative as ever.

And since there has been no functional left in this country since at least the early to mid seventies, I don't see that there's much to talk about that you can't find by turning on the television or opening a newspaper. I was operating under the assumption that we came here to see and learn things that the usual outlets of information didn't cover. I guess that's another thing I got wrong.

The lumpentarian right loves to carry one about the Overton window moving left, but I understand that as a half-clever misdirection. A plain reading of history demonstrates (to me, anyway) that it was the right who moved the window to the far right starting around the time of the Powell Memorandum. This is one important reason why we find ourselves so very confused about the meaning of words that once were universally understood. It's why we can't tell our butts from our elbows politically in this country on issues that a 12 year old could resolve. It's why we can be tossed around like rag dolls by the likes of Fox News on the lowbrow and National Review on the middlebrow (there is no highbrow right; except perhaps for Hoover before they kicked off Anthony Sutton - but I digress). It's why execrable specimens of inhumanity like the Kochs can go from nutcase far right laughingstocks to mainstream thought leaders in one generation.

I could tell you that it all comes down to cold hard cash, but as a working man you understand that in your bones. I do too, but the egghead in me wants data and primary sources. Through those I came to learn that it was the nation’s elite: the first families sitting on multi-generational black pools of wealth, millionaire and billionaire businessmen, Wall Street brokers and elite bankers, members of the elite national media, and Ivy League scholars who made it happen. They were utterly terrified to discover that their children actually believed the 9th grade civics class view of America that was sold to them. It scared them to death that these kids really intended to make that a reality in this country. And it shocked them that some of their own class were willing to lead them.

So the leaders were systematically eliminated, one by one. Then they turned those exquisite skills of propaganda and political war developed to fight the Cold War internationally and applied them to the Class War domestically. In doing so they have committed crimes that are literally unspeakable and of which I will never speak of because frankly these gentlemen scare me and I have immense respect for their capabilities. And as we now see, this expert and comprehensive organization of the business class succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. When the project began, the richest 1 percent owned 22 percent of America’s wealth. Now they own almost all of it and have taken control of the money and credit creation process itself, establishing levels of inequality unseen since the Gilded Age. And every year they grow stronger and richer while the rest of us grow poorer and weak. And confused, so very confused.

They've shut every window of dissent, closed every peaceful means of opposition, co-opted or neutralized every effective leader. They have normalized torture and indefinite detention and codified them into law. Now we are surveilled and monitored in all our communications, movements and purchases more effectively than the Stasi, the Soviets and the Nazis could have dared dreamed. In due time all we will have left is the space between our ears, and to be sure they will do their damnedest to breach that wall too (cf. Reggie). In such an environment, it is impossible to organize meaningful opposition.

Then they turned to taking away the people's means of support through deindustrialization and the hollowing out of the productive economy so that fewer and fewer have time or energy for anything beyond the struggle for subsistence. They've privatized the commons and created false scarcity to pit us against each other. Soon there will be no need even for the power of muscle and sinew, as many of these tasks continue to be automated and turned over to algorithms and machines. To facilitate this we daily are conditioned to hate the poor and the weak and the losers who fall out of the middle and working class, even if we rightly can count ourselves among them. The right won decisively and we have indeed reached the end of history. All that is left is for idiots like me to tell the story of how it came to pass. Gather 'round children and hear the tale of what once was and could have been...

But all of this is academic. Tell me, though, if I am to be limited to discussing only those matters that fall under business and investment, are you and everyone else going to subject yourselves to the same restrictions?

In any case, I wouldn't fret too much. At the current rate, I won't last much longer. We've all come to learn that there are ideas that cannot be spoken here and that those who persist in speaking them will be eliminated, and if necessary, so too will the medium itself. And no one should pay me the slightest bit of mind, anyway. I am a fool and it seems I've taken to writing every post as if is my last. I expect someday soon it will be.

Forgive the logorrhea, but I wanted to answer your question as thoroughly as I could, lek. It's as honest and as factual as I can make it.

[vinoveri]

Re: The Right to Be Forgotten

Woods, can you provide a definition of right an left as you see it actually existing both today and yesterday, and perhaps compare/contrasts them as well as with their respective ideals?

To me it seems the common man continues to struggle on all sides against power, power and wealth both constituted in the state and big business, the corporatacracy as some other have called it and which have recently seem to become more centralized, monopolized, and over reaching in its pursuit and exercise of more power.

In my experience at least of contemporary politics there is very little overlap between those who seek truth and justice FOR ALL and those with political ambition. After all, with role models of Machivelli's Prince for our political leaders and Gordon Gekko and the Wolf of WS for the financial guys, what should we expect?

Liberalism didn't fail, it was hijacked (or perhaps derailed unwittingly).

Philosophical Idealism and Subjectivism; Empiricism and Materialism; Ethical Relativism and Non-cognitive Ethics; all these are products of philosophical thought since the "Enlightenment" and all have become mainstream in modern thought and they all support the wholesale onslaught of the ideas of objective truth, common sense and cohesive culture based on mutual cooperation to insure that each individual has access to and can satisfy universal human needs IMO

Where is your starting point my friend?

[lektrode]

Re: The Right to Be Forgotten

700+ posts, lek. For sure you can find at least a baker's dozen where I've criticized the libdemleft. So I got you covered, no worries mate.

oh, that i might remember or FIND any of them, o witty one.
i would be forever grateful, thou rapiest of the rapier
;)

In contrast, there are perhaps thousands of posts here from dozens of members over the course of a decade criticizing the leftlibdems and new ones popping up daily like mushrooms after a rainstorm. You want to talk old and stale, most of what I've seen in the past three years is of the "leftists suxs" and "Obama is a socialist" red meat variety. Not very interesting and not at all informative.

wont disagree with this, woody - but again - what would you expect from a bunch o biz/investo types?
i mean, its entirely conceivable that even you might be considered hard-right on some forums
not that i can think of any off the top, but bet they exist.

If criticism of the right seems old and stale to your ears, I'd say it's because the game never changes and most of the characters remain the same. I'm honored that you and others consider me such an effective critic of the right that you'd like to shut me up or redirect me elsewhere.

dont let the ole legend in your own mind phenom get to you, buddy - but NOBODY is trying to shut you up or send you elsewhere... certainly not me.

But in truth it's not that hard of a task once we open our eyes and give up on the red/blue team allegiances. Some claim they do, but it's plain to see that's not really the case. I understand and find no fault in the decision. It's a hard thing to do and there is no reward whatsoever for it.

some of us have given up COMPLETELY on believing what EITHER side of the political class spews forth.
but even you might care to admit that one side seems to promise all sorts of things to (the majority of) The Rest of US, while pandering to ever smaller slivers of the electorate, even as they accept HUGE amounts from certain contributors?

never mind the favors they return - or to whom, once in positions of absolute power - and never mind just whom it was, and when - that put them there?

thats the part that i just dont get/understand - how they can seemingly turn a blind eye to any of this, woody - can/do you?

I can speak with authority about the right because I was there; if not present at the revolution, then certainly among the first generation, so to speak. I am an apostate; a recovering right winger. I find most of the politics and the players so loathsome because I witnessed so much of the ugly first hand. And I am guilty, too. I was a participant in the madness of defending life by taking it. I facilitated destroying the country and the planet for cash. I helped shut down schools to build more prisons. That stain is on me until my dying day and there's nothing in the world I can do to erase it. But after much time and study and what amounts to prayer (my feeble efforts, anyway), I have come to understand that kindness and human decency are positive traits to be emulated and encouraged and that these folks offer none of it to us and those like us. I guess what makes me different is that I no longer believe it's possible for government to exhibit those characteristics in any meaningful sense. So in that regard I remain as conservative as ever.

whoa baybee - do we ever agree - like 100% on that one!
why the clingers-on to the status quo inside the beltway - and that would be nearly every one of the 535+1 that are supposedly there 'fighting the good fight' - when really the only thing that matters is THEIR OWN RE-ELECTIONS - and to hell with whats best for The Majority of The Rest of US (not in some 'protected class' or other 'persecuted' group, both of which have turned into 'industries' in their own right, that have taken on the stature of even the .mil industrial complex - but i too digress)

And since there has been no functional left in this country since at least the early to mid seventies,

that - i'd guess - might (would) be attributed to what happened in the 90's, when their last 'champion' sold out to wall st?
(in return for a 'heros welcome'... to the bronx... and/or chatauqua...)

I don't see that there's much to talk about that you can't find by turning on the television or opening a newspaper. I was operating under the assumption that we came here to see and learn things that the usual outlets of information didn't cover. I guess that's another thing I got wrong.

The lumpentarian right loves to carry one about the Overton window moving left, but I understand that as a half-clever misdirection. A plain reading of history demonstrates (to me, anyway) that it was the right who moved the window to the far right starting around the time of the Powell Memorandum. This is one important reason why we find ourselves so very confused about the meaning of words that once were universally understood. It's why we can't tell our butts from our elbows politically in this country on issues that a 12 year old could resolve. It's why we can be tossed around like rag dolls by the likes of Fox News on the lowbrow and National Review on the middlebrow (there is no highbrow right; except perhaps for Hoover before they kicked off Anthony Sutton - but I digress). It's why execrable specimens of inhumanity like the Kochs can go from nutcase far right laughingstocks to mainstream thought leaders in one generation.

and heres another thing i dont get/understand: why is the 'non-news' network given all the blame for whats happened to the lamerstream media ?
for ONCE there is an opposing POV that actually demands some answers from the political class - on BOTH sides?
and i dont even watch them, woody - on the occasions that eye even watch tv news, its usually PBS and/or listen to NPR - i will admit that i'm more partial to biz-oriented media, however - so do find 'social issue' oriented outlets kinda boring and overwrought at times - not that i dont have concern for the issues they tend to harp on continously, its just when the economy has been trashed (mostly by their patrons + their politix) i just happen to think that other issues are MORE important - mostly since the .gov cant pay for all their fave programs simply by 'taxing the rich' - as they have so painfully become aware of in states like california - it all 'sounds good/fair/equitable' when its proposed, but we all know WHO ends up paying for it all...

I could tell you that it all comes down to cold hard cash, but as a working man you understand that in your bones. I do too, but the egghead in me wants data and primary sources. Through those I came to learn that it was the nation’s elite: the first families sitting on multi-generational black pools of wealth, millionaire and billionaire businessmen, Wall Street brokers and elite bankers, members of the elite national media, and Ivy League scholars who made it happen. They were utterly terrified to discover that their children actually believed the 9th grade civics class view of America that was sold to them. It scared them to death that these kids really intended to make that a reality in this country. And it shocked them that some of their own class were willing to lead them.

So the leaders were systematically eliminated, one by one. Then they turned those exquisite skills of propaganda and political war developed to fight the Cold War internationally and applied them to the Class War domestically. In doing so they have committed crimes that are literally unspeakable and of which I will never speak of because frankly these gentlemen scare me and I have immense respect for their capabilities. And as we now see, this expert and comprehensive organization of the business class succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. When the project began, the richest 1 percent owned 22 percent of America’s wealth. Now they own almost all of it and have taken control of the money and credit creation process itself, establishing levels of inequality unseen since the Gilded Age. And every year they grow stronger and richer while the rest of us grow poorer and weak. And confused, so very confused.

and we can thank the political class - ON BOTH SIDES - for ALL OF IT.

and this is where my bias happens to leak thru - typing as one who had the opportunity to reside in a number of glaringly different states and observing their political machines and/or how they 'get things done' - and i'm still of the opinion that one particular side promises all 'the good stuff' and its usually 'for the children' and how they 'represent the working class' etc etc, yada yada yada - but the reality of it is, that they end up spending their citizens into indentured servitude, if not outright bankuptcy - while the cronies, the unions, the welfare and criminal classes (along with all their lawyers and associated 'advocacy' groups = SPECIAL interests, in the purest sense of the term)
all get fat at the expense of The Rest Of US

and after spending my 'formative years' in The Live Free or Die State and then residing/working/enduring life in several others on both coasts (and beyond) there is NOTHING that could convince me otherwise.

and i've often noted that ones definition of 'corruption in .gov' is influenced by where/what state one lives - and have asked which one you've spent most of your time in, woody - but you've never offered us much of a clue?
(other than sharing your experience in a certain ethinic bar, awhile back)

They've shut every window of dissent, closed every peaceful means of opposition, co-opted or neutralized every effective leader. They have normalized torture and indefinite detention and codified them into law. Now we are surveilled and monitored in all our communications, movements and purchases more effectively than the Stasi, the Soviets and the Nazis could have dared dreamed.

and to that i would say that it might not've ever happened, but for a couple of certain screwups back in the 90's, that allowed certain events to transpire - and THEN our 'guardians of the truth' in the 4th estate chose to frame/blame it all on the next occupant - while they then chose to and continue to IGNORE anything that doesnt flatter the current occupant?

In due time all we will have left is the space between our ears, and to be sure they will do their damnedest to breach that wall too (cf. Reggie). In such an environment, it is impossible to organize meaningful opposition.

Then they turned to taking away the people's means of support through deindustrialization and the hollowing out of the productive economy so that fewer and fewer have time or energy for anything beyond the struggle for subsistence. They've privatized the commons and created false scarcity to pit us against each other. Soon there will be no need even for the power of muscle and sinew, as many of these tasks continue to be automated and turned over to algorithms and machines. To facilitate this we daily are conditioned to hate the poor and the weak and the losers who fall out of the middle and working class, even if we rightly can count ourselves among them. The right won decisively and we have indeed reached the end of history. All that is left is for idiots like me to tell the story of how it came to pass. Gather 'round children and hear the tale of what once was and could have been...

But all of this is academic. Tell me, though, if I am to be limited to discussing only those matters that fall under business and investment, are you and everyone else going to subject yourselves to the same restrictions?

In any case, I wouldn't fret too much. At the current rate, I won't last much longer. We've all come to learn that there are ideas that cannot be spoken here and that those who persist in speaking them will be eliminated, and if necessary, so too will the medium itself. And no one should pay me the slightest bit of mind, anyway. I am a fool and it seems I've taken to writing every post as if is my last. I expect someday soon it will be.

Forgive the logorrhea, but I wanted to answer your question as thoroughly as I could, lek. It's as honest and as factual as I can make it.

and a brilliant job you did, woody.
again, i appreciate your effort and cant say i disagree with (most of) your conclusions
and dammit boy, just wish i could compose, never mind TYPE AS FAST AS YOU DO.
;)

[Woodsman]

Re: The Right to Be Forgotten

...Where is your starting point my friend?

Love

[shiny!]

Re: The Right to Be Forgotten

some of us have given up COMPLETELY on believing what EITHER side of the political class spews forth.

I hear you say this, Mr. Lek, but then you admit to having a bias and contradict the above with statements like these:

but* even you might care to admit that one side seems to promise all sorts of things to (the majority of) The Rest of US, while pandering to ever smaller slivers of the electorate, even as they accept HUGE amounts from certain contributors?

...

and this is where my bias happens to leak thru - typing as one who had the opportunity to reside in a number of glaringly different states and observing their political machines and/or how they 'get things done' - and i'm still of the opinion that one particular side promises all 'the good stuff' and its usually 'for the children' and how they 'represent the working class' etc etc, yada yada yada - but the reality of it is, that they end up spending their citizens into indentured servitude, if not outright bankuptcy - while the cronies, the unions, the welfare and criminal classes (along with all their lawyers and associated 'advocacy' groups = SPECIAL interests, in the purest sense of the term)
all get fat at the expense of The Rest Of US

lek, lek, lek, it's ALL THEATER. They are merely two sides of the same, counterfeit coin. The only difference between the "sides" is that one is going to rob you with a gun and the other is going to rob you with a knife. Given that, why do you still cling to the belief that one robber is better or worse than the other?

I know I showed you a lot of statistics proving that the meme of the fat, lazy welfare queen is a lie, but still you persist in believing it. You hate the "lamestream media" yet somewhere you're finding alternative propaganda sources that feed your confirmation bias. WorldNet Daily, perhaps? I'm not saying this to be critical, but as a friend. Confirmation bias is pervasive, highly seductive and very dangerous, and we all fall for it at some time or another.

so do find 'social issue' oriented outlets kinda boring and overwrought at times - not that i dont have concern for the issues they tend to harp on continously, its just when the economy has been trashed (mostly by their patrons + their politix)

Again with the confirmation bias. Endless wars and credit bubbles, followed by corporate bailouts and free money printing by the Fed for their bankster buddies, all fostered equally if not more by the "better side" for which you're biased, have done more to sap our nation's wealth than Medicaid, food stamps and school lunch programs for hungry children. It's FIRE, not poor people, that is destroying the economy.

While the "better side" (as you see it) is working hard at siphoning off the wealth of the entire country and destroying the middle class in the process, they dangle a shiny lure in front of you that says, "look at all those welfare queens, unionists and criminals getting fat off of your tax dollars! Sic 'em!" ... and you bite. Every. Single. Time. They've hooked you, my friend, and they're laughing all the way to the bank (that they own).

The only ones truly getting fat are the crooks at the very top. They use the media- lamestream and otherwise- to create class warfare between the have-littles and the have-lesses. Divide and Conquer is their game, and you're falling for it.

As long as you cling to the belief that one side is even slightly better than the other and worth defending, you help support the dysfunctional system and perpetuate it. And the system's interests do not include us in any way, shape or form.

* When the word BUT is inserted between two phrases, it serves to negate the phrase that preceeded it. As an experiment, the next time you find yourself thinking, "I've given up on both sides, BUT" ... try removing the "BUT" and replacing it with a period. How does it feel?

[Slimprofits]

Re: The Right to Be Forgotten

The point I was making with the Costco fiasco was that political censorship has no place in a free society.

Oh?

I hadn't heard that Costco Corp. was publicized (is that the opposite of privatized???) and transformed into a federal agency. Thanks for the links.

[vinoveri]

Re: The Right to Be Forgotten

Love

Touche and Bravo, your cynical reply was effective and I feel your LoVe

I suppose I will remain in the dark as do the content or existence of any first-principles you may have

[don]

Re: The Right to Be Forgotten

To live a well-adjusted life in contemporary US society requires the development of rapid memory adjustments and shifting acceptance of corporate and state intrusions into what were once protective spheres of private life. David Price

[Woodsman]

Re: The Right to Be Forgotten

Touche and Bravo, your cynical reply was effective and I feel your LoVe

I suppose I will remain in the dark as do the content or existence of any first-principles you may have

Vino, listen to me.

I wasn't being cynical or snarky or trying to score points. It's honestly what I've come to understand.

Part of your iTulip handle means "truth" and I hope that in our brief and limited interactions you've at least come to understand what truth means to me. Love and truth are inseparable and each aims for the other and requires the other. Love shapes how to speak the truth and truth shapes how to manifest love. And what I write here is truth and I offer it to you and everyone who reads this with love. It's also very likely the last thing I will do here as the following paragraphs will destroy what little iTulip cred I've been able to develop over the years. So be it.

Funny how four letters can cause so much confusion and require so many more words and sentences to explain. But it seems that's the nature of this most powerful force in the universe of man. Just so it's clear to you where I was when I wrote them, I was drained of energy and a fair bit of emotion after writing my response to Lek and I just couldn't face another long exegesis. "The Intellectual Foundations of Woodsman" is not a tome I'm prepared to write just yet, friend.

In reading your note and trying to answer it honestly within the context of where my head was at the time - what I was thinking and feeling at the moment - it occurred to me that the best and most honest way to answer your question was also the simplest. Well, as we are learning it seems like the simplest, but it actually is the hardest thing in the world.

My starting point is love, Vino.

It's the same love a father gives his son, a friend feels for his companion, a wife feels for her husband, a child for her parents - and yet those are the "easy" manifestations that everyone understands. But the "hard" one in terms of my best answer to your question is laid out in John 13:34 where Jesus says:

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

Clearly this is the "wrong" place to speak of love, as we are all - well, you guys are - hard minded people of action and accomplishment. And so I expect those four letters and this explanation will mean the end of whatever small bit of credibility I have with most folks here. Because it marks me as not serious, weak, perhaps even a bit intellectually dull and most certainly pedestrian in my outlook. Most here I expect see love as having no place in business, finance, economics, politics, international relations or any of the subjects important to us here.

And yet I come back to it again and again. I recall a conversation with Reggie - funny how that name keeps popping up - early in my iTulip experience where someone asked him what possible countermeasure anyone could deploy against the ghastly world of cybernetic control he posited. Frankly the guy spoke on a level that confounded me and I struggled to keep up. So I was fairly gobsmaked when he replied simply "love" because I immediately understood what he meant by it.

He said something to the effect that love is the only force that could break this machine of control because those who designed it could never come up with an algorithm to address it. I've always been a fan of science fiction and I immediately recalled the scene in the film "The Matrix Revolutions" (that crashing sound is more of my credibility falling to the floor) where he meets The Architect. He uses the term "hope" and the protagonist Neo expresses it as love in his choice of which door to choose. And he chooses the door that leads to "Trinity" no less.

It's love, Vino, and I understand it best through the words of that Judean criminal and firebrand. I see it expressed politically and economically in the life of men like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and yes even poor and prodigal John and Robert F. Kennedy (now my credibility is completely gone). The problem for us and what makes it so hard to do is that the fullest expression of love as Jesus expressed in John requires us to be willing to climb on the cross or take a bullet to the head for people who hate us, people we never knew and those still to be born. Like the mother who sacrifices her life to save her child, I have come to understand that this is what Jesus was trying to tell us and it's what drove him willingly and in terror to certain death. It's precisely the same understanding that drove Gandhi, King, the Kennedys and countless others unknown to history to their death and its why we still keep these people in our minds, even in our rejection of them. It's love, Vino.

I don't mean to proselytize or preach; I'm not qualified and given the choices I've made and continue to make in my life it would be ridiculous for me to even attempt. And I'm certainly not intending to say that the Christian viewpoint is the sole source of this understanding. All the major traditions have this idea of love being the central theme. I understand it through the life and words of a first century Jewish carpenter who ran afoul of the Romans and the Sanhedrin. But clearly this idea preceded Jesus and came into being at multiple times and places across the world. Wherever it did it attracted a fair number of people and seems to be the primary component of a perennial human philosophy.

It's love, Vino. After all the many years of my life experience, education, study and discussion, I finally learned that it comes down to love. And I think the fundamental difference between as you said "those who seek truth and justice FOR ALL and those with political ambition" is this understanding of the centrality of love - specifically as outlined in John 13:34. "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

As gently as and respectfully as I can put this, perhaps the feeling of cynicism and distancing you might have experienced when you read my reply didn't originate from me? It most certainly was not my intent to engender those feelings in you, Vino. I apologize if that's how you received it.

[jneal3]

Re: The Right to Be Forgotten

It's also very likely the last thing I will do here as the following paragraphs will destroy what little iTulip cred I've been able to develop over the years.

Not.

[vinoveri]

Re: The Right to Be Forgotten

Woods, I thank you for your thoughtful and detailed reply, and no I don't think you've lost any credibility, quite the contrary, and you may find many of like minds here. I applaud you for "coming out" as it were and laying it on the line.

You know once you acknowledge a certain worldview or objective criteria, knaves will attempt to use against it you (as they did to many of the prophets), and it takes courage to take a stand firm in your convictions and courage I know you have brother.

I suppose the rub and the disagreements between the many who may accept Love as the first and highest principle, is the meaning and implementation of "loving your neighbor as you love yourself" - it does seem pretty simple albeit not easy and in reality not truly possible w/o God's grace. How much pain, injustice and downright horror after all has been done in the name of "love". In any case, am delighted to have a starting point for future discussions and thank you again for your candor.

And to your last point, of course we are each responsible for how we receive and react to the words/actions of others, and clearly your initial response did not result in a warm fuzzy. No apology is necessary however; sometimes a slight barb or sharp elbow, even subjectively misinterpreted, is needed to keep us moving forward.