The Kraken Resurfaces

I apologize for my absence gentle readers. Without going into boring details it has been a crazy, hectic month. I have only been able to briefly follow all of the confrontations and protests in Ferguson, MO. And barely keeping up with the outlines of these ISIS clowns and rest of the world's response to their blood-soaked antics. I simply cannot believe there are grownups in this country seriously considering getting involved in yet another Middle Eastern conflict. Scott Walker continues to be the worst plague ever inflicted upon the people of Wisconsin, he is ahead in the current gop gubernatorial contest of who can harm their constituents the most. I wonder if I can still vote absentee?

Anyway the biggest contribution I have made (and it is next-to-nothing at that) lately is a comment thread on an article Bob Cesca wrote on Sept. 11 of the by now usual shtick. Michael Moore Thinks Obama Will Only Be Remembered for Being the First Black President Because what is really important is for the pragmatic left to police the far left, not beating back the authoritarian right and the real harm they do to people for spite and profit.

The Gloomy Historian • 4 days ago

I don't want to be the contrarian here, but what do we remember about presidents from a century ago? Do we popularly remember the Harding administration's establishment of a federal budgeting process or that it was spectacularly corrupt? Bob is a civil war buff, does he champion reconstruction as a far-sighted program of modernizing and enlightening the south? Or a spectacular failure of idealism into corruption and power-grabs? In a way it falls to professional historians to shape whether the Obama administration is remembered as James Buchanan, standing by as the union is ripped apart by reactionary monsters; or Lincoln, trying his best to fix an impossible situation; or something else entirely. There is a reason historians allow twenty years to pass before seriously studying events, passions need to cool and cranks with an agenda need to be rooted out before history can approach the past with anything like objectivity.

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  ChrisAndersen The Gloomy Historian • 4 days ago

  Ask yourselves this: if Lincoln had survived his second term would he be remembered as fondly? The Lincoln we know was the Lincoln who died right after winning a war. The Lincoln we know was not sullied by the inevitable compromises that would have come from Reconstruction.
  Lincoln accomplished great things before he died, but anyone who studies him knows that he was as much a compromiser and "sellout" as any President who ever lived.

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    The Gloomy Historian ChrisAndersen • 4 days ago

    "Sellout" is a very strong word. Yes, Lincoln compromised and changed his mind when situations changed and facts came to light. Lincoln's core value never changed though, he was going to preserve the Union no matter what. The surprising thing is, as the only sitting president to encounter a large-scale armed insurrection, how lenient he was toward the traitors. You make very relevant points. I was mostly speaking about popular history, how we regular folks know history. Reconstruction, in particular, was hijacked for over half a century by southern apologists who wrote the history many of us learned about Carpetbaggers and Scalawags and Redeemers. The right already has an infrastructure in place to destroy any Democratic President's legacy,

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      ChrisAndersen The Gloomy Historian • 4 days ago

      I used "sellout" in the sense that many people use when really what they mean is "he didn't do what I wanted him to do". I used it loosely to describe Lincoln because it is so often used loosely to describe Obama.

I am not even sure what he is arguing with me over. But boy, do people like to argue with historians.

Then I left this gem from my own intellectual history research on one of Chez' regular media criticism columns. No replies though but Chez' treatment of WFB shows how much the pragmatic left longs for a conservative opposition that will play fair.

One aspect of this phenomenon, one of many for sure, is that the current mouth-breathing populist front men for corporate power use the intellectual foundation WFB built and propagated to "shorthand" any argument. No one on fox, for example, needs to explain why liberals are bad, or why conservatives are good. Buckley and National Review established all of these preconceived notions 50 years ago or more and they just continue on zombie-like, without ever being challenged. And do not give Buckley too much credit for intellectualism, his books and articles are filled with cheap innuendo, ad hominem attacks, and every other logical fallacy around. In "Up from Liberalism" for example, he goes on a diatribe against Eleanor Roosevelt that must be the template for every subsequent hit job ever undertaken.

Robin Williams didn't commit suicide. That's what the illuminati wants you to think.

I guess I should provide some context to this conversation. After Mork's death made headlines I saw Chez from The Daily Banter post about how no one believes in discernible reality anymore. Then I saw this whacktastic exchange between a bunch of known conspiracy theorists and decided to follow it for a little while. I just wanted to record it and show Chez that yes, there really is evidence for his idea even away from the coasts. The Illuminati reference as title really was what Brian posted as his status.

Matthew Mattyg Gutoski I'm not the only one who believes in the possibly of this then..

Brian Fieldhouse Yup

Tim Dolfin Here, let's distract you from what's really going on.

Chad Larson Shut the fuck up.

James Lex Nice conspiracy theory s I love it lol

Kevin Richter Yes we do!

Roger Ugarte conspiracy theory is a slide used by those who do not want you to realize some truths. A slide is a psychological pre conditioning towards a certain event. Television has preconditioned people in this society to believe that any theory presented that go against the "norm" or the accept offical story, are conspiracy theroists and wear tin foil hats and all that other nonsense. This was done on purpose due to the volume of lies that were told to steer society in a certain direction decades ago, and here we are now. Just google the term slide in intelligencce terms. As far as not believing the guy offed himself, I thought it odd too at first. I think he was murder too, at least my intial thoughts were. It is possible he was depressed and all. So many people killed and made to look like suicide you can hardly tell anymore. Regardless might be best to wait and see what other details are proven to be true first. You want a dead celeb that reeks of foul play that was ruled suicide, look into David Caradine who Auto erotic affixiated himself in a place where he could easily of stood up and not died... just saying his feet could touch the floor...how could you hang yourself... As far as Robin Williams goes, I do not know any of the details, just seemed odd because the man was in comedy and he did make jokes sometimes that most people did not get, but it would piss those who are in power off because he said things that are "frowned" upon in media.

Brian Fieldhouse I can have my own option and not be told to "shut the fuck up" so if you don't like my options please delete me off your friends list.

Roger Ugarte right man, to each his own. Suppose to be a free country...

Andy Hermann My dad and I were just saying it's probably cuz we are arming or funding Isis or Hamas.....or both. Nothing to see here, look over here a celebrity died.

Politicizing the United Negro College Fund

Saunders and One of the Fucking Koch brothers

Life must be tough for Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Saunders is African-American, as are many members of AFSCME, so his support of such an important institution as the United Negro College Fund is entirely relevant and not "charity" but solidarity, exactly what labor unions do. Charles Koch and his brother however, are not. Recently, the Koch clowns splattered $25 million all over the UNCF, triangulating an abandonment of the charity by AFSCME. In the endless politicization of public life, this is a win for Koch and a loss for the labor movement, AFSCME in particular, working people in general, democracy, and America as we know it.

While Koch-connected contributions to the UNCF are charity in a strict sense, these descendants of a founding member of the storied opponent of civil rights for African Americans and viciously right-wing John Birch society are not known as good-hearted philanthropists. The Koch's have a lot of money and a great deal of their spending goes strictly toward enhancing their ability to make more money. But in the "I have a deadline to meet" and "both sides of any story are equally bad/good" 24 hour media environment, the Koch chump change buying allegiance from desperate young African-Americans is a wonderful change of heart. Not only have Koch and Koch finally come around to the idea that black people are people too, the mainstream media will allege, but the nation's largest public sector union showed how petty and superficial they are in abandoning these needy students What is the real story behind the Koch brothers giving $25 million to allow underprivileged black kids to go to college?

If Charles and David have ever done a decent thing with all of their wealth, I have not heard of it. So plain altruism is probably not the answer here. Here is, I believe, a clue from UNCF's own press release. "The overarching goal of the UNCF/Koch Scholars Program is aimed at broadening educational opportunities so that aspiring African American students can better understand how entrepreneurship, economics, and innovation contribute to well-being for individuals, communities, and society." Similar to corporatespeak, charities use language designed to manipulate definitions to death and make words basically meaningless but lovely-sounding. Given the Koch's history of cynical self-serving behavior that corrupts anything they touch, undermining and rotting the republic's institutions in their wake, it is safe to interpret meanings to those words for their sincere intent.

In a word, this money is going to go toward reorienting any kind of solidarity in what UNCF calls "the 37 UNCF-member Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)" from the African-American community to the corporate world and it's values. It may be subtle and over a long time-frame, but the faculty, operating procedures and policies of HBCUs will gradually align more compatibly with the "devour everything for short-term profit and establish absolute power over society" ethos of the business community. Turning what has been a somewhat reliable source of Progressive power in the black middle-class into just another weapon against working people, democracy, economic security and opportunity, etc.

The side benefit of throwing this chump change at the UNCF is the wedge it drives with AFSCME by putting the sincere but less significant contributions to higher education for African-Americans by labor on par with what is essentially the evil empire of Koch. Oh my how mustaches must have twirled when this scam was thought up. UNCF is not ACORN, a group working to empower the disenfranchised to organize and help themselves claw toward decent living conditions, and therefore public enemy number one to the right wing. Therefore, UNCF cannot simply be destroyed; it must be co-opted to serve the interests of power.

Just another cynical calculation and power play by two of the main drivers of American decline.

Even Mythical Sea-Monsters do not like Spam.



 

I have been spending a little bit of time blogging at our local gaming store, yes The Kraken plays Magic: The Gathering, and have come to appreciate the spam guards that Blogger.com provides. I used to scratch my head at some of the weird referral URLs on the GH's stats page. It is only with a little comparison that I can now take my hat off to Google for all the work they do keeping spammers at bay.

I do not claim to be any kind of computer expert, or even especially proficient with things digital but dang. The difference between a DIY Word Press site and a little page within the Google umbrella is very stark. I wrote a few entries about MTG, theory and memories of the game in its early days, and not a day goes by that I don't get a notification for some comment that needs moderation. EVERY DAMN ONE is some spam bot with a canned, poorly written compliment and enticement to "optimize my SEO performance" or some other crap.

Computers are amazing machines, I can state that without qualification. But why does every good idea get perverted into a money-sucking scheme? I know Americans generally are not super smart, and everyone is looking for an angle to get rich or just get something for less than the price. That cannot be helped really, our society has only one value... dollar signs. Spam must be cost effective at finding suckers and bilking them, otherwise the scumbags running these schemes would try something that did separate morons from their money more efficiently.

Anyway, I just found a bunch of referrals from a site called "cure diabetes" or something. Yeah, obviously that one is a joke. But then I saw a second one called "Halloween Witch" and thought maybe there could be a legitimate link there as I have written about my favorite holiday and some related topics like The Misfits. Alas, no. The diabetes site and Halloween Witch are two sides of the same scam. Bummer.

These are just some observations without much of a larger point. If I had one I guess it would be that writers like me who are not computer experts should appreciate that there is a place like blogger where we can express opinions, or just share what is on our minds without having to navigate the digital jungle.

Not shown: Me [The Kraken] reaching up from the depths to sink the Viking ship and its spam-loving crew in the next scene.

Insult

I just opened my mail and among the various credit card offers and other solicitations to waste my money there was an offer from some "financial company" I had never heard of. Like most people I get probably a dozen of these phishing expedition kind of scams a week. This one was especially insulting though, and really hurt my feelings. Many moons ago when I had a decent job and accompanying good credit (and before the financial crash when it seemed like these hustlers actually had to try) the offers I received had good terms. So has the world tracked with my personal fortunes so much that now I am being scammed for 29.96% interest? Don't you go to hell for this kind of usury?

Worse, this railroading theft was only for $4,250. How do the grifters come up with these numbers? I mentioned a few days ago how Mr. K and I were discussing Capital in the Twenty-First Century and what possible ways working people could fight back against the financial pirates. AlterNet just ran a story about the next scheme of bundling the revenue streams of renting out the same properties that exploded when wall street bundled them as mortgages. As always, heads they win, tails they get a bailout and we pay for the scheme twice. In any decently run state, where the masters of the universe on wall street actually suffered losses for their failures, I doubt they would be going back to that well a second time so soon, if ever. But since the only bipartisan thing our Federal government can do is bail out the financial casino when ever the gamblers get in trouble, it is no surprise. This is called moral hazard, the only thing that changes is that the opposition party gets to whine and complain about the bail out to their members but the fix is in.

Labor Theory of Value

Greetings Kraken,

I am still practicing making Khan Academy style lectures. These are a little better, let me know what you think.

P.S. I do not know why it flashes at the beginning of some of them.

Hate, Conspicuous Consumption, and the Pathetic Display of Epic Fail that is "rollin' coal."

Are there even words for this (hopefully short-lived) fad? If you asked some regular people at the grocery store, or a coffee shop, even at a ball game to come up with something more ridiculously counterproductive than simply making a bonfire out of dollar bills I doubt they would think of the despicable act of nihilism that is 'rollin' coal.' As many befuddled functioning human beings have pointed out, this is the phenomenon of modifying vehicles to dump lots of diesel into the engine and have it spew out of after-market (and illegal) smoke stacks as black soot. There is cutting off your own nose to spite your face, then there is rolling coal, which spites everything. And unfortunately, when these bastards hit their switches or whatever it is, they are driving forward, out of the carcinogenic cloud and are only as affected by it as people miles away. So they won't be dropping dead of pollution-related causes anytime soon. We have reached a level of hate, conspicuous consumption, and nihilism among the 15k plus members of the rolling coal cult which human stupidity is rarely capable of obtaining.

As the above links indicate, the phenomenon (meme? hobby? collective descent into madness?) definitively entered the zeitgeist over the Fourth of July holiday weekend. I admit to never having heard of it before then. I suspect that while we have lots of rednecks around here who drive pickups and hate the president, people here are just too frugal (or cheap) to waste money by spewing fuel all over the place. In my neck of the woods it is more an aggressive display of indifference as preferred protest. And Harley-Davidsons with loud tailpipes as opposed to dirty, sooty ones tend to be vehicles (no pun intended) of rebellion. And make no mistake, in their own words this is what coal rolling is about; flipping a giant middle finger at the supposed liberal environmentalist scourge that runs our country. And a larger display of misdirection for the sake of profit has not been seen since the gun manufacturers realized the incredible boost in sales possible in reaction to possible public safety legislation. It is as though every snake flag-waving hick suddenly discovered the Dead Kennedy's song California Uber Alles and mistook it for a fox news headline.

"First they came for the coal rollers..."

At the dawn of industrialized consumerism, companies inspired the well-to-do in Europe and America to buy expensive luxury apparel and accessories simply to display them in public. Conspicuous consumption was meant entirely to inspire jealousy in observers, it gave the wearer of expensive furs, jewelry, or custom-tailored suits a sense of superiority. Restaurants built window seating and hotels constructed lavishly decorated lobbies with comfortable chairs all for the benefit of the conspicuous peacocks and their displays of finery. To give this analogy a splendid Buzzfeed/Upworthy twist, YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT! A number of anarchists took issue with rich assholes flaunting useless crap in public simply as a display of status while the majority toiled in poverty and started bombing areas of downtown where the peacocks mingled. While this violence was met with a crackdown on dissent by the ruling classes, conspicuous consumption as a lifestyle faded from public view as well.

Are coal rollers the new peacocks and dandies simply displaying conspicuous consumption of diesel as a status symbol? No, of course not. The correlation exists, these rednecks are performing in public and wasting untold amounts of money but the causation is 180 degrees south, as in towards hell. The performances are recorded for display on YouTube basically to show off how badass they are to each other. But they also perceive themselves as rebels, protesting... clean air? Why, please for the love of God, can't these rebels without a cause protest President Obama's clear stand against suicide?

Conversely, and I know this is going to cause a lot of pushback, what is demonstrated here is the futility of individual action. However noble, efforts by conscientious thinking individuals to go green will accomplish little while coal rollers, chick-fil-a patrons, wal-mart shoppers are able to abuse their freedoms by working ever-harder to dirty our nest. This is a subject for another day however.