Posts Tagged → capitalism
Now Greta Thunberg makes sense: Climate Fuhrer
Not until I had sat under a hemlock tree overlooking a quiet ravine with a flintlock rifle across my knees for two hours in the morning cold did it occur to me: In the context of angry liberals, abrasive hypocrite Greta Thunberg does make sense.
Thunberg is the carefully manufactured Hollywood and mainstream media creation from Norway, or Sweden, whichever it doesn’t matter, whose mental health her wealthy and abusive parents sacrificed on the altar of gaining political advantage and notoriety. She is a 17-year-old high school drop-out, with apparent learning disabilities that normal, loving parents would try to heal, not enhance. Her message continues to be that everyone else in Western Civilization must cease using fossil fuels and abandon capitalism while she flies in jets and other capitalist-created transportation all over the planet making sure that we all feel her rage and judgment, and do as she says. Like some sort of malevolent angel.
And though for the longest time I kept wondering how trying to shame people into submission was really going to work in this day and age, it’s her angry judgmentalism part that turned on the light bulb in my head this morning.
“Yes, we can ride together, but you must not mention The Name That Cannot be Said,” said a long-time dear friend of mine about an east coast fishing trip we were planning. His sore feelings about the 2016 election result were still evident, and the other old friend whom we were planning to see on a certain leftwing island enclave felt the same. Even though we had not discussed the election, no, we avoided it, when we did talk, the anger and judgmentalism were tangible.
No, I would not wear a MAGA hat, I said. No, I would not get drunk on the beach late at night and begin dancing around the campfire “Trump! Trump Trump! USA USA USA!”
“I could not vouch for your safety if you did that,” said the tender islander.
“But I would not do it in any case, knowing that it would bother you. I love you guys, and I do not live to bother my friends,” said I, allowing images of hungry bluefish and striped bass and screaming fishing reels to cloud my thoughts and thereby unwittingly admitting to my support for The Name That Must Not be Said, and then feeling his judgmental words cut deep into a relationship decades old and already tested by many trials together.
So it seems that while Thunberg is probably not necessarily designed to cast a wide net and gain new adherents to the climate religion and big centralized government control thingy she is so angry about, her role is probably more to rally the faithful. To give them a fresh new figurehead. Someone through which today’s young people – totally devoid of life experience – can channel their inner despot and ignorant judgmentalism.
These ever-angrier young people haven’t a clue about life, making a living, paying rent, making an economy run, science, climate, etc., but if there is one thing they will be good for, it’s shock troops. The western equivalent of the cruel and merciless children of the Chinese cultural revolution. Young people to defiantly harm their own parents and elders in the name of some greater good.
And so now Greta Thunberg makes sense to me. She is a deliberately unhappy cheerleader, not searching for solutions, but for sacrificial scapegoats upon whom her anger must justifiably be poured in a cleansing action that will bring holistic stability to all humankind.
She is the climate messiah, the climate Fuhrer, beginning a jihad, bringing unholy fire.
Climateland uber alles
Greta Thunberg holding a Jewish caricature in one hand and the usual puppet in the other. At the bottom of Leftist beliefs there is, ironically, always anti-Jewish hatred
The purposeful comparison is undeniable between ol’ Adolf and child actor Greta Thunberg. She means to emulate him
I am so post-socialism now
Socialism and its sisters communism, collectivism, authoritarianism, mass murder, and tyranny have never proven fun or beneficial for anyone but a chosen tiny handful, who lord it over the unfortunates below. Venezuela is the latest example of what socialism really is, no matter how many college professors tell you how wonderful it is: Violent poverty and no human rights. Socialist Russia and communist China have the worst environmental records and situations, because under socialism, there is no incentive to clean up the environment.
For the occasional Millennial who may accidentally be reading this essay, the words written above mean that under socialism, you don’t get to pick your healthcare system (like Obama promised when selling his not-free-for-all centralized healthcare system snake oil), you don’t get to keep your doctor (also like Obama promised), you don’t get to choose your friends (most will be carted off to jail and then disappeared), and you certainly don’t get an iPhone and a five dollar latte, ever. In other words, everything you take for granted right now is stuff you will never ever see in a socialist country.
And so, dear Millennial, you should know that after eight years of Obama’s effort to implement socialism at every level of America, which required him to lie a lot, and after three years of Trump’s fantastic economic revival, I find myself feeling so, so post-socialism.
I say this, even though it puts me at odds with a fad that has recently emerged on the left, where people loudly proclaim they are “post-capitalism.” While they simultaneously and shamelessly use capitalist medicine, drive capitalist cars, wear capitalist clothing, live in capitalist buildings, drink capitalist five dollar lattes, endlessly text on capitalist smart phones, and eat capitalist food.
So OK, aside from the clean abundant food, the best medicine, the nicest buildings, the clean water, the clean air, the clean environment, the fuel efficient vehicles, and the best clothing, yeah, I guess capitalism sucks…like that old Winston Churchill line that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others…or like that scene from The Life of Brian, where Monty Python’s cast members recite a litany of popular improvements the Romans brought to Judea…”but what have the Romans ever done for us?”
The fact is, capitalism creates the best situation for the most people out of all the alternative forms of government (free choice). Capitalism has its weaknesses, but compared to all the alternatives, it is the best arrangement. We have seen this proven over and over. And it is proven by the fact that none zero nada of the “post capitalism” advocates are actually living socialist lives.
And that is why this bizarre “post-capitalism” posturing and virtue signaling has always mystified me; you know, the Che Guevara tee shirt wearers using their parents’ credit cards to pay for everyday things that no socialist or communist country ever had or ever will have. Or the socialist child climate activist barking at adults about the choices they make, while herself jet-setting around the world using capitalist planes trains automobiles and boats, and leaving a one-week carbon footprint bigger than my entire lifetime will be.
So I am over it, that socialism thing. Too much hypocrisy, too many lies.
Socialism sucked during the Obama administration, and watching newly socialist Venezuela crash and burn now is painful. As we learned during the Obama years, it is not cool or hip to say you are socialist, it is actually very stupid. And if you have a college professor or three who tells you socialism is great, then ask them to prove themselves correct by immediately living the socialist lifestyle. You know, give it all up, practice what you preach. Push come to shove, when those beret-wearing fake educators are put on the spot, you will find that deep down, those Che-lovin’ professors are actually so, so post-socialism, too.
It’s natural to be post socialism, because socialism is naturally bad for you.
Photo of Chinese military summarily executing an unarmed civilian who has not had a fair trial, for some imagined crime that only threatened the power of the state. This is socialism, and you should be post-socialism
In a socialist country, you can earn the death penalty by simply speaking your mind, by disagreeing with the official government positions
Strangely, China makes pretty young women about to die get dressed up before they get on their knees and are shot in the back of the head. Who knows what this unhappy young woman did to earn such a violent death, but we know she had zero due process. Socialism
socialism
same lady who is kneeling in front of the soldier above. Socialism is cool, right? No?
Nice ladies in a socialist country about to be executed on their knees. Is this what young Americans think is just fine? Do you drink $5 lattes and watch your friends get executed for fun?
this is the lady kneeling above and then with her head blown in half, as she is being taken off the truck to her execution. In socialist countries, you can easily earn the death penalty for simply disagreeing with a leader’s opinions. Not in America! So why is America supposed to be turned socialist?
Giant Food’s punishing self checkout
Does Giant have self checkout to punish its customers? To prove that loyalty takes a long time to undermine?
It’s miserably time consuming, it never works, it hangs up, people standing in multiple lines waiting for help from a single clerk. Giant thinks they’re saving a few pennies in labor cost. But the truth is that Giant is following a traditional path to failure.
By building up customer loyalty, and then giving them less and less, many businesses have milked quality, alienated customers, and then crashed.
Another sign of cheapness is Giant’s slow conversion of name brand foods for its own generic label. But I don’t want Giant’s mediocre quality food. I’m willing to pay for better quality.
Capitalism 101 says our family begins shopping at the Wegman’s on the West Shore.
Curious things afoot in our American republic
Some time ago, actually not too long by the measure of human history, Communists, Capitalists, and Fascists fought each other in the streets of Weimar Germany.
Each fought for what they believed in. What the Fascists and the Communists believed in was equal amounts of totalitarian evil, served up slightly differently. Only the capitalists had a track record, and it was a successful one that had led Germany to a place of such prominence and financial success that human nature and poor judgment had then sought to use those riches for imperial gain and human subjugation.
Weimar Germany was bad for every German. What naturally followed on its heels – Nazi Germany’s National Socialism – was bad for the entire world.
Capitalism creates such great wealth, across such a large number of people, that like bees to honey, the evil inclination of human nature is drawn to it with bad intentions.
Politicians of all stripes cannot keep their hands off of the private money created through capitalism. Whether it’s high taxes to fund government grants to preferred political allies, or outright confiscation/ theft and wealth redistribution, politicians always seek to appropriate capitalist success for their own careers and their own ends.
Yesterday I had the unfortunate experience of watching New York City’s new mayor, Bill deBlasio, get sworn in. De Blasio is a kook, a radical whose communist views are well known. No one can predict for certain what will befall the Big Apple after one term of his management, but it probably won’t be pleasant to watch from Pennsylvania (he is first-off aiming to end the handsome cab business, where tourists get pulled around in horse-drawn carriages in Central Park). And my New York friends will probably suffer significant losses to their home values, businesses, and other investments they have made in the area. Wealth would naturally flee de Blasio’s presence.
One cannot help but be intrigued by the similarity between Weimar Germany’s otherwise unremarkable circumstances, and those America is sliding into today: High unemployment, sliding currency value, inflation, and increasingly hot friction wherever mutually exclusive political interests collide.
Human history repeats itself so often that it’s both kind of silly to even suggest that America will become another Weimar Germany, and it is also silly to blow it off and pretend it isn’t happening.
De Blasio has his sights set on other people’s private wealth, and he is likely to lose a great number of wealthy people from NYC as a result. What is more worrisome is the friction that will arise and ripple out as he presses forward and is met with the natural resistance reasonable people expect to greet thievery.
“Income inequality” is his byword, and it’s just another way of saying he’s going to steal from the makers and give to lazy takers, using the coercive power of government force and threat of loss of liberty for dissenters. Other politicians are watching de Blasio, and they have already signaled their inclinations to follow his lead in their local venues.
It is difficult to imagine a more explosive arrangement or set of circumstances. Once again, one is reminded of either the 19-teens and 1920s, or even the 1850s in America. Such incompatible political philosophies are afoot, banging into one another, and one must win, and one must lose.
I hope de Blasio loses. I hope. To think otherwise is to be against the very American republic that first created the wealth he is now after.