Why is humanity so corrupt?
spiritual energy
really so corrupt?
Several nice responses were generated to this question:
1. People wanna be on top at all costs
2. Maybe because we were made by microsoft. But honestly its becuase
of Darwin's theory of evolution, where everything is based on
SURVIVAL
OF THE FITTEST (also called natural selection). We have traits that
are required for our species to survive.
3. I guess it is because we see ourselves as creatures of free will,
we were taught this all our lives, and still the human race can not
escape the fact that we are animals, and as all other animals we have
the same basic instincts and desires.
Sadly we are also able to think of ways to get to what we desire,
morals and ethics are taught by the place we stem from in the world,
but they do not replace the basic instrincts, when these collide
morals and ethics have a high chance of getting the boot.
Oh on top of that we have to remember genetic imperfections insanity
and personality disorderes, these are usually partly genetical (to
say
the least). ALOT of people have mental problems, these come in a wide
array and are rarely purely negative tho.
Last but not least... Humans are far from as Intelligent as they think
they are, if you try to study them, and their behavior it shows quite
fast, the
Human mind is lacking! It can not comprehend alot of "wrongs". It has
rarely foresight, humans are stupid by nature, they really are.
4. I don't think that humans are inherently self-destructive. But I
would see SOME possible merit in the idea that we're "too smart for
our own good". More specifically, in the idea that our technological
development has so immensely exceeded any changes to US.
Humans have changed very little over the many thousands of years.
We're essentially the same as the people who hunted woolly mammoths
and wrote on ancient cave walls. But the way we innovate
technologically and utilize the stored knowledge of past generations
has recently led to an INSANE amount of technological innovation that
has drastically changed the way people live. And the result is this
kind of disconnect between what we are, and the world in which we
have
built for ourselves. Many of us still think as if we were living in
early history, except that instead of spears and rocks we have AK-47s
and atomic bombs.
Luckily we are a highly adaptable species, so we adapted to live as
things changed at an insanely fast rate. But adapting to a new
environment doesn't really make us different people. I think that
today's racist is someone who (in a long gone time) may have been
praised by his tribe for mercilessly defending the tribe against
outsiders. But the same attitudes that worked thousands of years ago
in a small tribal setting may not work so well in a huge society such
as the ones we have today. The racist is exercising a totally natural
need to hate "the other guy". He simply has just failed to adapt his
concept of "the other guy" to fit in with modern society.
Have you ever read David Wong's article about "The Monkeysphere"?
Well, I think that a lot of that is going on. We simply were NOT
mentally designed to live in societies consisting of millions of
people. Or god forbid, a global society of six billion people. We're
still slaves to our biology, and our biology sort of directs us to
seek out small groups. Once we have to start dealing with thousands
of
strangers on a daily basis, we sort of just go a little bit insane.
It's just that some people handle this insanity better than others.
Some people get stressed out and relieve their stress by shooting
people in a videogame, while others dress up in hoods and go out to
kill blacks and gays.
Les Hellawell
<solid...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
>In another forum some teenage kid asked the question: Why is humanity
>really so corrupt?
I blame it on reliigion especially the baleful Trinity that orginated
in the Middle East. Judeaism, Islam and Christianity in particular.
The harm these three have done to humanity is immense.
>
>Several nice responses were generated to this question:
>
>1. People wanna be on top at all costs
Yes this desire to control the lives of others is probably the reason
these nasty religions were invented.
>
>2. Maybe because we were made by microsoft. But honestly its becuase
>of Darwin's theory of evolution, where everything is based on
>SURVIVAL
>OF THE FITTEST (also called natural selection). We have traits that
>are required for our species to survive.
>
>3. I guess it is because we see ourselves as creatures of free will,
>we were taught this all our lives, and still the human race can not
>escape the fact that we are animals, and as all other animals we have
>the same basic instincts and desires.
Darwin did not invent evolution nor was he the first to realise
it was taking place. He did realise how to occurs but even then he
told us like it is. If you are one of those who believe a some kind
of god created everything (a bit increduous a notion of course) then
you must regard it as being responsible for the way things are.
>
>Sadly we are also able to think of ways to get to what we desire,
>morals and ethics are taught by the place we stem from in the world,
>but they do not replace the basic instrincts, when these collide
>morals and ethics have a high chance of getting the boot.
Nonesense. We are a societal animal that thrives best in a cooperative
environment and our instincts are to support this. We know it is
wrong to kill, it is not something that needs to be taught. Most
crime and destruction is carried out by a selfish few.
What a strange bleak picture you paint. Reality is much better but
I do not live in a selfish dog-eat-dog culture as applies in the USA.
--
Les Hellawell
Greetings from: YORKSHIRE
The White Rose County
lorad
wrote:
> Why is humanity so corrupt?
Simple...
Because the sheeple are so stupid.
Lars Eighner
<82fb6fa6-ff59-4431...@p32g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>, the
lovely and talented spiritual energy broadcast on alt.atheism:
> In another forum some teenage kid asked the question: Why is humanity
> really so corrupt?
> Several nice responses were generated to this question:
> 1. People wanna be on top at all costs
> 2. Maybe because we were made by microsoft. But honestly its becuase of
> Darwin's theory of evolution, where everything is based on SURVIVAL OF THE
> FITTEST (also called natural selection). We have traits that are required
> for our species to survive.
Human beings are a social species. That means humans have the best chance
of survival in groups that cooperate. The fittest human beings are those
who cooperate best and get along with others. "Survival of the fittest"
refers to the species, not the most buff individuals. Evolution ain't a
Levi's commercial.
> 3. I guess it is because we see ourselves as creatures of free will,
> we were taught this all our lives, and still the human race can not
> escape the fact that we are animals, and as all other animals we have
> the same basic instincts and desires.
Species differ in their requirements. Animals' instincts differ according
to the niche the species occupies and the requirements for the species'
survival. Human beings have very few instincts.
--
Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/> Warbama's Afghaninam day: 14
347.5 hours since Warbama declared Viet Nam II.
Warbama: An LBJ for the Twenty-First century. No hope. No change.
Jimbo
> In our last episode,
> <82fb6fa6-ff59-4431-b6e4-45d7da229...@p32g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>, the
> lovely and talented spiritual energy broadcast on alt.atheism:
>
> > In another forum some teenage kid asked the question: Why is humanity
> > really so corrupt?
> > Several nice responses were generated to this question:
> > 1. People wanna be on top at all costs
> > 2. Maybe because we were made by microsoft. But honestly its becuase of
> > Darwin's theory of evolution, where everything is based on SURVIVAL OF THE
> > FITTEST (also called natural selection). We have traits that are required
> > for our species to survive.
>
> Human beings are a social species. That means humans have the best chance
> of survival in groups that cooperate. The fittest human beings are those
> who cooperate best and get along with others. "Survival of the fittest"
> refers to the species, not the most buff individuals. Evolution ain't a
> Levi's commercial.
Darwin clarified the "survival of the fittest" later in life to mean
"survival of the most adaptive". It's not always the strongest of
the species that adapts and survives. I agree that the most adaptive
of the human species are those that are best equipt to cooperate and
get along.
Uncle Al
>
> In another forum some teenage kid asked the question: Why is humanity
> really so corrupt?
Open any business school casebook. On its very first page, in big
black san serif type, is the essence of all managerial success:
TAKING IS BETTER THAN MAKING
Do the DCF/ROI yourself. Religion has known that almost from the dawn
of mankind, and prostitution starting several weeks before that. A
big fat sweating bald guy beating the drum has a flotation device when
the ship sinks. Fools chained to the oars will drown to a man.
Who is more successful than a high school bully? Who has the
financial leverage, one Muslim semi-moron with explosive-laden
sneakers or Homeland Severity smelling your airport shoes for a cool
$1 billion/year incremental cost?
Organized crime had loansharking and usury; credit cards have 30%
APR. Organized crime had protection rackets: Pay up each month or
your store has a fire. Pay up your $1500 healthcare insurance each
month or you land in the hospital. Pay up your mandatory car
insurance, mortgage insurance, Social Security and Medicare. Yeah,
we'll give some back, someday, maybe.
Did you see the Public Option for Stalinized - I mean, socialized, er,
Obamanation healthcare? Failure to buy "suitable coverage" causes a
tax of 2.5% on gross income. If you don't cough that up it is a
felony: 5 years in prison and $250K fine.
Now we ask ourselves... how could Obamacare possibly squeeze $250K out
of somebody who cannot pay $1000 extortion/month? Easy! Organ
harvest.
Yeah, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He's got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Afghanistan,
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Afghanistan;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Follow the money, honey.
TAKING IS BETTER THAN MAKING
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz4.htm
MarkA
> In another forum some teenage kid asked the question: Why is humanity
> really so corrupt?
>
I don't agree that humanity is corrupt. Every day, we have to balance
altruism against self-interest. In any large group, there will be
"outliers": a small percentage of people who will exploit the group with
no altruism, and a small percentage of people who will be generous and
giving beyond reason.
What you consider "corruption" is just a large population of hairless apes
trying to get by.
--
MarkA
Keeper of the Butter Dish of Balshazar
G=EMC^2 Glazier
their food stamps. They can have water and electric turned off. Its so
very sad. They will get Tang to drink in the end because they let the
government become fascist. Our founding fathers had brave hearts. There
are no brave hearts in USA. Statue of Liberty should be sent to China so
they can use its copper. We are fighting in Afghanistan to save the
poppies for the Godfather bert
spiritual energy
human nature and it keeps us alive. Humans are driven by self
interest, and when that self interest conflicts with another, that's
when conflicts happen.
I can start a huge discussion about everything that is corrupt in our
society- war, primitive beliefs (racism, sexism, discrimination...),
mentel illnesses, pride, inability of some people to find a loving
partner... the point is no matter what u do people are all selfish. We
all care about ourselves MORE than about others and we all ruin our
society.
Bert Byfield
> black san serif type, is the essence of all managerial success:
> TAKING IS BETTER THAN MAKING
This is simply not true. It is your own fantasy.
> And it's one, two, three,
> What are we fighting for?
> Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
> Next stop is Afghanistan;
> And it's five, six, seven,
> Open up the pearly gates,
> Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
> Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
> Follow the money, honey.
> TAKING IS BETTER THAN MAKING
You really shouldn't post while drunk.
alie...@gmail.com
> spiritual energy wrote:
>
> > In another forum some teenage kid asked the question: Why is humanity
> > really so corrupt?
>
> [snip crap]
Wrong question anyway; humanity isn't "corrupt" any more than a
shark harvesting a floating fat guy is a "murderer".
> Open any business school casebook. On its very first page, in big
> black san serif type, is the essence of all managerial success:
>
> TAKING IS BETTER THAN MAKING
Up to a point. You have to leave something for the makers or they
stop making. Not necessarily because they revolt, but because they
starve. Maybe not right away, but if they have to eat the seed corn...
> Do the DCF/ROI yourself. Religion has known that almost from the dawn
> of mankind, and prostitution starting several weeks before that. A
> big fat sweating bald guy beating the drum has a flotation device when
> the ship sinks. Fools chained to the oars will drown to a man.
Oh, come on, the fat guy is his own flotation device; the drum is
for the owner-aboard with the sword. The Drum is only useful if
another ship comes by before a shark does. If all ships are sink-
prone, the likelihood of rescue drops significantly.
Not to mention the fact that "rescuees" were very likely to be
chained to an oar to pay for passage.
> Who is more successful than a high school bully? Who has the
> financial leverage, one Muslim semi-moron with explosive-laden
> sneakers or Homeland Severity smelling your airport shoes for a cool
> $1 billion/year incremental cost?
Bullies eventually have to leave high school and go to work for the
skinny geeks, and idiots that strap bombs to their kids eventually run
out of kids.
Homeland Severity thugs get laid off when no-fly lists get too long.
> Organized crime had loansharking and usury; credit cards have 30%
> APR. Organized crime had protection rackets: Pay up each month or
> your store has a fire. Pay up your $1500 healthcare insurance each
> month or you land in the hospital. Pay up your mandatory car
> insurance, mortgage insurance, Social Security and Medicare. Yeah,
> we'll give some back, someday, maybe.
Extreme example, any banana republic, but they are not stable. The
top slots therein, I mean. Do you seriously see US Congresscritters
organizing personal bodyguard armies and going that route? I don't
know that Blackwater et. al. have enough freshly laid off ex-employees
available...
> Did you see the Public Option for Stalinized - I mean, socialized, er,
> Obamanation healthcare? Failure to buy "suitable coverage" causes a
> tax of 2.5% on gross income. If you don't cough that up it is a
> felony: 5 years in prison and $250K fine.
Again, too hard on the many and there just ain't enough GDP to
support the few.
> Now we ask ourselves... how could Obamacare possibly squeeze $250K out
> of somebody who cannot pay $1000 extortion/month? Easy! Organ
> harvest.
But who can afford the parts? Who's gonna do the replacing?
<FISH song redux\>
Not really relevant; SEA was more to demoralize the kids' WWII vet
parents. It wasn't unwinnable because we were doing it wrong, it was
for the same reason Toyota and Hyundai took over from Ford and GM.
Disillusionment of the unused crop was a purely bonus side-effect
amplifying the ongoing reeducation extent at the time. Notice nobody's
yelling "baby-killers" this time around...
The Middle East is a rather different game. Hint; there's no local
equivalent of Red China.
> Follow the money, honey.
Money is not power.
It is a symbol of power.
> TAKING IS BETTER THAN MAKING
Until the takers run out of makers to take from. The real question
is, is the current crop of takers smart enough to grok this?
Mark L. Fergerson
Siobhan Medeiros
Humanity as a whole, isn't that corrupt. The problem is that it takes
only one prick in ten to make life miserable for everyone.
What the other nine need is a way to figure out a way to figure out
who the prick is, and keep him on a tight leash.
Androcles
"Siobhan Medeiros" <sbm...@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:5708d80b-7867-4399...@z10g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
====================================
How hard is it to figure out who Gordon Brown is?
L.Roberts
Well, you old sprite thingy, it's all on account of a couple of
atheists who together had faith the size of a mustard seed that they
could get prayer banned in public schools. After suckseeding there,
and whilst the country started spiraling down the shit pipe, the
government pushed it's democracy, and religion (capitalism) onto the
world, and part in parcel with, that the liberal western ways, mostly
by force.
And there you have it, two atheists corrupted the world. At least,
that's what some jackasses will try to tell ya. Truth is, religi-
idiots failed to replace that little bit of religious instruction time
lost at school with more time spent teaching their kids about it in
their homes and in their churchs, as a results their kids didn't buy
into their shit. Well, but you know. The ignorant bastards were too
busy trying to tell everybody else what they just had to believe, give
their own kids proper moral instruction, and in most cases they
themselves did the worst of the damage with the piss fucking poor
examples they set. You know. And anyhow, it's all fucked, ain't it?
Christopher A. Lee
<Headm...@Hogwarts.physics_q> wrote:
>How hard is it to figure out who Gordon Brown is?
Is that Gordon the brown nosed reindeer? Second in line pulling
Santa's sleigh behind Rudolph, but could never stop in time?
Androcles
"Christopher A. Lee" <ca...@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:ff2ji5hmbgv60jesh...@4ax.com...
It wasn't Rudolf that pulled Santa's sleigh, it was Tony Blair
who jumped out of the way when the sleigh started to slide
downhill into the present depression. When asked what he
was going to do about the recent piracy and kidnapping off
the coast of Africa, Brown said the pirates shouldn't do it. If
he'd been PM in 1982 there would have been no Falklands
War, Argentina would own the islands. As it is he's going to
buy 22 Chinooks for Afghanistan to be delivered in 2013,
so he's planning for a long war there. Perhaps he's hoping
to be re-elected.
OP
> In another forum some teenage kid asked the question: Why is humanity
> really so corrupt?
Not sure - you should probably ask on sci.logic or sci.math, they
tend to be better with these non-math-or-science related off-topic
questions. Or, wait - comp.lang.c! They'll definitely know.
raven1
<solid...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
>In another forum some teenage kid asked the question: Why is humanity
>really so corrupt?
It's a pretty stupid question until you define your terms. Feel free.
Yap
wrote:
> In another forum some teenage kid asked the question: Why is humanity
> really so corrupt?
>
> Several nice responses were generated to this question:
>
> 1. People wanna be on top at all costs
But there is no neutral position when the cost is not at others'
expense.
>
> 2. Maybe because we were made by microsoft. But honestly its becuase
> of Darwin's theory of evolution, where everything is based on
> SURVIVAL
> OF THE FITTEST (also called natural selection). We have traits that
> are required for our species to survive.
of survival by killing another living thing as food.
Is the world built to accommodate this orginally?
Shouldn't this world give rise to human like cows living on grass or
vege?
We are no different from the animals.
>
> 3. I guess it is because we see ourselves as creatures of free will,
> we were taught this all our lives, and still the human race can not
> escape the fact that we are animals, and as all other animals we have
> the same basic instincts and desires.
reasoning power.
>
> Sadly we are also able to think of ways to get to what we desire,
> morals and ethics are taught by the place we stem from in the world,
> but they do not replace the basic instrincts, when these collide
> morals and ethics have a high chance of getting the boot.
>
> Oh on top of that we have to remember genetic imperfections insanity
> and personality disorderes, these are usually partly genetical (to
> say
> the least). ALOT of people have mental problems, these come in a wide
> array and are rarely purely negative tho.
it degrades the value of well being.
>
> Last but not least... Humans are far from as Intelligent as they think
> they are, if you try to study them, and their behavior it shows quite
> fast, the
> Human mind is lacking! It can not comprehend alot of "wrongs". It has
> rarely foresight, humans are stupid by nature, they really are.
contended with average performance.
It is these average people that lends stability to a society.
>
> 4. I don't think that humans are inherently self-destructive. But I
> would see SOME possible merit in the idea that we're "too smart for
> our own good". More specifically, in the idea that our technological
> development has so immensely exceeded any changes to US.
Look at the WW1 and II, they killed millions of people.
And we don't know when the III will come....there are WMD waiting to
finish this world off.
This is apart from the ecosystem inbalance, carbon warming, enormous
pollution, etc.
>
> Humans have changed very little over the many thousands of years.
> We're essentially the same as the people who hunted woolly mammoths
> and wrote on ancient cave walls. But the way we innovate
> technologically and utilize the stored knowledge of past generations
> has recently led to an INSANE amount of technological innovation that
> has drastically changed the way people live. And the result is this
> kind of disconnect between what we are, and the world in which we
> have
> built for ourselves. Many of us still think as if we were living in
> early history, except that instead of spears and rocks we have AK-47s
> and atomic bombs.
More subtly, we invented comfort such as mobility using car, heater
for cold, junk cola and food Macdonald.
Then there are those TV, and computers when one can stick to them for
a whole day, in and out.
>
> Luckily we are a highly adaptable species, so we adapted to live as
> things changed at an insanely fast rate. But adapting to a new
> environment doesn't really make us different people. I think that
> today's racist is someone who (in a long gone time) may have been
> praised by his tribe for mercilessly defending the tribe against
> outsiders. But the same attitudes that worked thousands of years ago
> in a small tribal setting may not work so well in a huge society such
> as the ones we have today. The racist is exercising a totally natural
> need to hate "the other guy". He simply has just failed to adapt his
> concept of "the other guy" to fit in with modern society.
weapon research is not for any purpose?
And the Serbian ethnic cleansing is not a racist intolerable
aggression against minority?
>
> Have you ever read David Wong's article about "The Monkeysphere"?
> Well, I think that a lot of that is going on. We simply were NOT
> mentally designed to live in societies consisting of millions of
> people. Or god forbid, a global society of six billion people. We're
> still slaves to our biology, and our biology sort of directs us to
> seek out small groups. Once we have to start dealing with thousands
> of
> strangers on a daily basis, we sort of just go a little bit insane.
> It's just that some people handle this insanity better than others.
> Some people get stressed out and relieve their stress by shooting
> people in a videogame, while others dress up in hoods and go out to
> kill blacks and gays.
There are a lot of mixed society like Thailand, Malaysia, and China
where different minorities live happiky tgether.
After all, those minority made up what a nation is. The governments of
those nations have to take care of each and every person.
It is encouraging that racist america elected a black to be the
president.....largely due to the bigotry failure of Bush.
Raymond Yohros
> really so corrupt?
>
SpiritualEnergy:
d problem is smart people r not getting any jobs???
sports guys are making billions?
is not that i have anything agains sports, i love a bit of exersise
but
where's d sense of proportion.
regards
r.y
jmfbahciv
Massachusetts has an intermediate step; they have their DoR attach
your assets first for not paying income tax.
>
> Now we ask ourselves... how could Obamacare possibly squeeze $250K out
> of somebody who cannot pay $1000 extortion/month? Easy! Organ
> harvest.
Nah. The first asset acquisition will be IRAs, Roths, and other
pension funds.
/BAH
Jimbo
Exactly, humans being humans as they've done for thousands of years.
Each generation somehow believes that the next generation is more
corrupt than the last.
alie...@gmail.com
Again, they "lead the nation".
> > Now we ask ourselves... how could Obamacare possibly squeeze $250K out
> > of somebody who cannot pay $1000 extortion/month? Easy! Organ
> > harvest.
>
> Nah. The first asset acquisition will be IRAs, Roths, and other
> pension funds.
Good catch; those will all be "folded into" Social Security since
they're blatantly "unearned windfalls".
The Unions might complain a bit, but they're about to have their
teeth pulled.
Mark L. Fergerson
MarkA
> On Dec 16, 1:15пїЅpm, MarkA <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, 16 Dec 2009 02:53:54 -0800, spiritual energy wrote:
>> > In another forum some teenage kid asked the question: Why is humanity
>> > really so corrupt?
>>
>> I don't agree that humanity is corrupt. пїЅEvery day, we have to balance
>> altruism against self-interest. пїЅIn any large group, there will be
>> "outliers": a small percentage of people who will exploit the group with
>> no altruism, and a small percentage of people who will be generous and
>> giving beyond reason.
>>
>> What you consider "corruption" is just a large population of hairless
>> apes trying to get by.
>>
>>
> Exactly, humans being humans as they've done for thousands of years. Each
> generation somehow believes that the next generation is more corrupt than
> the last.
It has been WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too long since I threw my feces at someone.
Does anyone have Glen Beck's home address?
--
MarkA
Keeper of Things Put There Only Just The Night Before
About eight o'clock
RichD
> What a strange bleak picture you paint. Reality is much
> better but I do not live in a selfish dog-eat-dog culture as
> applies in the USA.
> --
> Les Hellawell
> Greetings from: YORKSHIRE
You live in a culture with 20% lower income,
higher crime rate, and delapidated infrastructure.
But you're lucky, you don;t suffer a selfish
dog-eat-dog culture as USA...
--
Rich
Siobhan Medeiros
> On Dec 16, Les Hellawell <l...@fakeaddress.com> wrote:
>
> > What a strange bleak picture you paint. Reality is much
> > better but I do not live in a selfish dog-eat-dog culture as
> > applies in the USA.
> > --
> > Les Hellawell
> > Greetings from: YORKSHIRE
>
> You live in a culture with 20% lower income,
> higher crime rate, and delapidated infrastructure.
>
Got an actual cite for that, idiot? Or are you just pulling facts out
of your ass again?
> But you're lucky, you don;t suffer a selfish
> dog-eat-dog culture as USA...
>
Enjoying your financial crisis, retard? You know, the one you guys
started?
> --
> Rich
tj Frazir
jmfbahciv
Not at all. Massachusetts appears to be the first field test site
used by Congress for income tax law.
>
>>> Now we ask ourselves... how could Obamacare possibly squeeze $250K out
>>> of somebody who cannot pay $1000 extortion/month? Easy! Organ
>>> harvest.
>> Nah. The first asset acquisition will be IRAs, Roths, and other
>> pension funds.
>
> Good catch; those will all be "folded into" Social Security since
> they're blatantly "unearned windfalls".
I haven't looked at the those funds recently. If they haven't been
transformed into insurance policies but are real assets, the
Dems will sniff around them for fodder. To get a feel for what they
intend to do, you need to look at the details of the tax laws which
reinstate the death taxes.
>
> The Unions might complain a bit, but they're about to have their
> teeth pulled.
The medical insurance fiasco includes dental plans? ;-)
It all depends on how, who, and the money flows of administrating
the edict.
/BAH
BradGuth
> In another forum some teenage kid asked the question: Why is humanity
> really so corrupt?
>
>
> 1. People wanna be on top at all costs
>
> of Darwin's theory of evolution, where everything is based on
> SURVIVAL
> OF THE FITTEST (also called natural selection). We have traits that
> are required for our species to survive.
>
> we were taught this all our lives, and still the human race can not
> escape the fact that we are animals, and as all other animals we have
> the same basic instincts and desires.
>
> morals and ethics are taught by the place we stem from in the world,
> but they do not replace the basic instrincts, when these collide
> morals and ethics have a high chance of getting the boot.
>
> and personality disorderes, these are usually partly genetical (to
> say
> the least). ALOT of people have mental problems, these come in a wide
> array and are rarely purely negative tho.
>
> they are, if you try to study them, and their behavior it shows quite
> fast, the
> Human mind is lacking! It can not comprehend alot of "wrongs". It has
> rarely foresight, humans are stupid by nature, they really are.
>
> would see SOME possible merit in the idea that we're "too smart for
> our own good". More specifically, in the idea that our technological
> development has so immensely exceeded any changes to US.
>
> We're essentially the same as the people who hunted woolly mammoths
> and wrote on ancient cave walls. But the way we innovate
> technologically and utilize the stored knowledge of past generations
> has recently led to an INSANE amount of technological innovation that
> has drastically changed the way people live. And the result is this
> kind of disconnect between what we are, and the world in which we
> have
> built for ourselves. Many of us still think as if we were living in
> early history, except that instead of spears and rocks we have AK-47s
> and atomic bombs.
>
> things changed at an insanely fast rate. But adapting to a new
> environment doesn't really make us different people. I think that
> today's racist is someone who (in a long gone time) may have been
> praised by his tribe for mercilessly defending the tribe against
> outsiders. But the same attitudes that worked thousands of years ago
> in a small tribal setting may not work so well in a huge society such
> as the ones we have today. The racist is exercising a totally natural
> need to hate "the other guy". He simply has just failed to adapt his
> concept of "the other guy" to fit in with modern society.
>
> Well, I think that a lot of that is going on. We simply were NOT
> mentally designed to live in societies consisting of millions of
> people. Or god forbid, a global society of six billion people. We're
> still slaves to our biology, and our biology sort of directs us to
> seek out small groups. Once we have to start dealing with thousands
> of
> strangers on a daily basis, we sort of just go a little bit insane.
> It's just that some people handle this insanity better than others.
> Some people get stressed out and relieve their stress by shooting
> people in a videogame, while others dress up in hoods and go out to
> kill blacks and gays.
"Why is humanity so corrupt?"
Religion and politics that fails to police their own kind, or rather
has a policy of not policing their own kind.
~ BG
.
BradGuth
> Because you dont have the ballsto do anything about it
>
> http://community.webtv.net/GravityPhysics/WhaleSteamEngineA
Now you're talking just like all those crazy "seans".
What about religion and politics policing their own kind?
~ BG
Raymond Yohros
wrote:
why are you posting all this bullshit here?
all that selfish crap its the fault of politicians not scientists?
and what?, inability of some people to find a loving partner?
please, you don't think anybody wants to find love?
some people are just not that lucky and sometimes because
of the bullshit of others.
_...@jeff_relf.seattle.invalid
If you can't find a “loving partner”, join the crowd;
it's not your fault, per se, that's just how it is.
If the economy were to pick up, oil would top 100 dollars a barrel and
interst rates would soar ( i.e. the dollar would free·fall ).
The powers that be would never allow that... would never allow you.
Day Brown
bear them more sons who they think will be allies. Might makes Right,
always has, always will. To that end, the elites have sought ever more
powerful weapons.
Which resulted in nukes and WMD, so that they can no longer even defend
themselves, much less the rest of us. Also, the power of personal
weapons is such that the brave heart, strong right arm, sword in hand...
no longer cuts it.
Smith & Wesson guarantee superior might and right to smart women, who
know how to use cunts to get more male allies.
Conversion from a world ruled by alpha male warriors to women has been,
and will continue to be chaotic. But its clear that the more
misogynistic a culture is, the less it develops, while those where women
have more economic and political power develop new technologies.
Technologies which include primate research- which gave us the term
"alpha male", revealing it is the alphas who commit all the violence,
and the biochemistry of the mind, revealing alphas have higher levels of
adrenalin (which speeds reflexes, but causes impulsive attack) and lower
levels of dopamine and seratonin (which sharpens senses, but makes for
restless sleep, grouchy wakening, and addiction to alcohol and other
drugs that act on the dopamine level.
The mythic narratives are full of men who want women to understand them.
Now women do, and are thus replacing men in power. Which will end the
corruption because women do not need to control men to be sure their
progeny are theirs.
Benj
> spiritual energy wrote:
>
> > In another forum some teenage kid asked the question: Why is humanity
> > really so corrupt?
<snip Al crap>
> Did you see the Public Option for Stalinized - I mean, socialized, er,
> Obamanation healthcare? Failure to buy "suitable coverage" causes a
> tax of 2.5% on gross income. If you don't cough that up it is a
> felony: 5 years in prison and $250K fine.
Come on Al, you are a genius, but you can't understand this? Look!
We are all liberals here. We all CARE, right? Well, there are millions
of Americans out there who don't have health insurance. SOMETHING
needs to be done! No problem. You just make it a crime not to pay for
health insurance! Bingo. Now everybody is insured! Problem Solved.
Dems get reelected!
> Now we ask ourselves... how could Obamacare possibly squeeze $250K out
> of somebody who cannot pay $1000 extortion/month? Easy! Organ
> harvest.
Nice try, Unc. but there is another option. Prison. Point is that in
prison, the public takes care of your health care expenses so once
again, no matter what, all those unfortunate Americans without
healthcare coverage are still COVERED! What can we say? This is
BRILLIANT! Obama and company for the first time ever SOLVES the
problem of all those Americans without health insurance. EVERYBODY
WILL BE COVERED! Total Genius!
"We live in the greatest nation in the history of the
world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it." -- Barack
Obama.
> Yeah, come on all of you, big strong men,
> Uncle Sam needs your help again.
> He's got himself in a terrible jam
> Way down yonder in Afghanistan,
> So put down your books and pick up a gun,
> We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.
>
> And it's one, two, three,
> What are we fighting for?
> Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
> Next stop is Afghanistan;
> And it's five, six, seven,
> Open up the pearly gates,
> Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
> Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
>
> Follow the money, honey.
>
> TAKING IS BETTER THAN MAKING
Hey "Al", Any fan of Country Joe is a pal of mine! Gosh, I sure hope
you are of draft age. As for me, I was there for the original lyrics.
Sorry.
Benj
> "Why is humanity so corrupt?"
>
> Religion and politics that fails to police their own kind, or rather
> has a policy of not policing their own kind.
Interesting and valid question. And Brad even hints as the correct
answer, though the question of "policing" isn't really relevant. The
question of "policing" has to do with forcing people to behave as you
want them to rather than as they naturally would.
So if we ask why is humanity so "corrupt" FIRST we must actually
define what we mean by that and next we must ask if indeed humanity
actually is "corrupt".
We can assume several things here. One is that by "corrupt" we mean
behaves in certain ways in their dealings with life. And we can assume
that the universe is governed by certain principles or equations or
law that determine the structure of ALL things including behavior of
species.
Animals we know behave in certain ways. They kill to survive. If they
want something they take it. If you threaten them they kill you. If
you represent an advantage (a good meal) they kill you and eat you. If
they are strong enough to beat out all other suitors they pick the
mates they want. They defend their territory over other intruders and
the intruders try to steal the territory for themselves. It's a big
"might makes right'" system that we've codified and enshrined as the
"theory of evolution". [often referred to these days as the "fact" of
evolution for political purposes] Some say that behavior comes from
animal instinct, or survival desire, or simply because it happened by
chance and all other systems were unworkable and therefore
disappeared. What is clear, based upon our assumption is that all this
is determined by the laws of nature and that even the workings of
"evolution" are determined by those at the fundamental level.
Humans have an animal heritage. We don't have to say that humans
"evolved" from animals to say that. We know from our DNA that even if
we were seeded here after being created in an alien genetics
laboratory, the heritage is still present. So naturally one can see a
propensity toward animal behavior.
But there is another side to the coin. In fact it is the side that
raised the original question in the first place. Note that if animal
behavior were "normal" it wouldn't be called "corruption". It would
simply be called rules of life! The other side of the coin is what we
shall term "revelation of advanced science". Religion is pretty much
based on this. At some point, someone or something demonstrated
abilities so advanced that the humans around them were mightily
impressed! They were so impressed they formed it into a religion even
if they didn't understand it. And oddly, all these revelations seem to
be singing the same song!
The song is one that opposes animal behavior. It's what we now term
ethics and morality. Since this has been taught as religion the
reasoning behind it showing the behavior to be desirable hasn't been
explained. But one must have the presumption (based upon the advanced
effects demonstrated at the time of the revelation) there is an
advanced understanding of the laws of nature behind it that reveals
that animal behavior is somehow self-destructive.
The universal laws alleged to be operative are things like Karma,
polarity, and higher dimensions. The concept is best summarized in a
generalization of Newton's laws. Karma is really a statement that for
every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The idea is that
if you kill your neighbors, that the act somehow goes into time and
eventually returns as some kind of negative reaction. You love your
enemies and Lo somehow it returns to you as something positive. The
law that events proceed in a straight line unless deflected by a force
is really a statement that mankind can deflect events by his will. And
the amount of deflection is proportional to the amount of will.
So now we again ask the question: Why are humans so corrupt?
The answer is:
1. they are ignorant of higher laws of nature and thus see immediate
advantage as positive gain and ignore the law that reaction is
inevitable.
2. they follow their animal heritage without giving the slightest
thought or effort (will) to trying to discover is there might be a
more advantageous behavior that is better in the long run.
3. Even if they ponder higher laws, as herd animals they tend not to
resist the tendency to go along with animal behavior even if they have
your doubts about it. Monkey see. Monkey do. "But mom! Everybody is
doing it!"
4. Given that the demonstrations that created the belief that
initiated religions are now long gone, there is no way that the
principles revealed can be shown to be advanced or even true without a
lot of self experimentation which nobody wants to bother with.
Hence humans are so corrupt because they don't know better and because
such seems the path of lest resistance in life even if in the long run
it may actually be self-destructive.
Firepoof�
deserve is the only reason for a corrupt humanity you'll EVER need...goes
double for religious zealots, especially the ChrisÝSÝains...
--
*IF*, and that's *IF* Jesus was, he *WAS* MOST CERTAINLY a "Liberal"...
fAitheism
Ýhe ÝruÝh always hurÝs Ýhe deepesÝ ...
> No one has been kill-filed, either for being boringly stupid, repetitive,
> unfunny, ineducable, repeatedly posting politics, religion or off-topic
> subjects to a sci. newsgroup, attempting cheapskate free advertising
> for profit, because you are a troll, because you responded to George
> Hammond the complete fruit cake, simply insane or any combination
> or permutation of the aforementioned reasons; any reply will go unread.
>
> Boringly stupid is the most common cause of kill-filing, but because
> this message is generic the other reasons have been included. You are
> left to decide which is most applicable to you.
>
> There is no appeal, I have despotic power over whom I will electronically
> admit into my home and you do not qualify as a reasonable person I would
> wish to converse with or even poke fun at. Some weirdoes are not kill-
> filed, they amuse me and I retain them for their entertainment value
> as I would any chicken with two heads, either one of which enables the
> dumb bird to scratch dirt, step back, look down, step forward to the
> same spot and repeat the process eternally.
>
> This should not trouble you, many of those plonked find it a blessing
> that they are not required to think and can persist in their bigotry
> or crackpot theories without challenge.
>
> You have the right to free speech, I have the right not to listen. The
> kill-file will be cleared annually with spring cleaning or whenever I
> purchase a new computer or hard drive.
>
> I'm fully aware that you may be so stupid as to reply, but the purpose
> of this message is to encourage others to kill-file fuckwits like you.
>
> I hope you find this explanation is satisfactory but even if you don't,
> damnly my frank, I don't give a dear. Have a nice day and fuck off.
rofl .. thanks for playing and keeping the thread alive ; ) moronlover lol
--
At the RNC incest is PRIORITY-1 because that's how the GO'Pukes got started,
all the way back to the Virgin Birth of the Jesus Liberals ;)
jmfbahciv
> On Dec 16, 2:29 pm, spiritual energy <solidst...@rocketmail.com>
> wrote:
>> No matter what we try to do..people will always be selfish - its the
>> human nature and it keeps us alive. Humans are driven by self
>> interest, and when that self interest conflicts with another, that's
>> when conflicts happen.
>>
>> I can start a huge discussion about everything that is corrupt in our
>> society- war, primitive beliefs (racism, sexism, discrimination...),
>> mentel illnesses, pride, inability of some people to find a loving
>> partner... the point is no matter what u do people are all selfish. We
>> all care about ourselves MORE than about others and we all ruin our
>> society.
>>
>
> why are you posting all this bullshit here?
<snip>
It demonstrates the answer to the question. The number of
people who are willfully stupid, ignorant and ineducable
is increasing exponentially. That allows the corruption
to be unchecked in all areas of society and trade.
/BAH
Uncle Al
This Saturday's "Los Angeles Times," front page, "L.A.'s hands not on
Deck." To shore up a disintegrated multi-$billion city budget (and
offer a lot of Brown friends access to the pig trough) 3000 Baby
Boomers were offered early retirement - fat bonus and full pensions up
to five years early. That purged White boys and girls from Los
Angeles city employment, starting with most senior positions and
working down to librarians, 9% of overall employ going hasta la
bye-bye.
Somebodies discovered the remaining 91% are remarkably incompentent.
"remaining employees won't receive training needed to keep city
departments running." The folks Officially doing the work cannot be
trained to do their jobs absent the folks who really did them. One
might wonder whether this is the New Orleans model, wherein 1/3 the
police force was fictional (and drawing massive overtime). Hell, it's
nothing a lot of cumshaw can't patch on a daily basis (the Chicago
model).
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigoso (you pronounce it) is already
making noises about "reform." Hey Mayor, the economic path to reform
is to present you with a gibbet, a hempen rope, and a personal
training demonstration. Be elevated.
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz4.htm
RichD
> > The number of
> > people who are willfully stupid, ignorant and ineducable
> > is increasing exponentially. That allows the corruption
> > to be unchecked in all areas of society and trade.
>
> not on Deck." To shore up a disintegrated multi-$billion
> city budget (and offer a lot of Brown friends access to the
> pig trough) 3000 Baby Boomers were offered early retirement - fat
> bonus and full pensions up to five years early.
>
> Somebodies discovered the remaining 91% are remarkably
> incompentent. "remaining employees won't receive training
> needed to keep city departments running." The folks Officially
> doing the work cannot be trained to do their jobs absent the
> folks who really did them.
>
> is already making noises about "reform."
There was a Wash. Post headline a few months
ago, amidst a dispute over school vouchers
(the juvenile detention center guards, er I mean
the teachers, union opposes them): "Poor children
learn, teachers union upset"
--
Rich
Nickname unavailable
Ayn Rand was a high functioning, manipulative and cunning
sociopath:her writings are expressions of Borderline Personality
Disorder and therefore appeal to a certain borderline type:Galt's
Gulch and face the facts:Mental illness is real:the Sociopath Next
Door
http://blogs.myspace.com/psychorand
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
I get email.
Category: Blogging
I live in a neighborhood that has a small homeless population. One
such person within that homeless group is known to the rest of us by
her first name only. I can hear her now, outside my apartment. I'm
told she lives in a kind of dilapidated garage of some sort, where she
sleeps in a pile of blankets and debris. She often walks my street,
collecting bottles and cans for the cash deposits. Whilst on her
journeys, she often stops abruptly, plants both feet firmly to the
ground and launches a kind of "external dialogue" with the world. She
doesn't scream, but rather projects her voice with a powerful force.
Her chanting can literally be heard for blocks as she speaks directly
to phantoms that only she can see. Sometimes she appears to be
"lecturing" passersby with a hostile, throaty tone. It all comes out
in a weird staccato rhythm, like a drill sergeant. Mostly, she's
harmless and her monologues, indecipherable. This is the kind of
obvious mental illness we can all recognize. But there are other forms
of psychosis. And books such as "The Sociopath Next Door" by Martha
Stout illuminate that fact clearly. Still, as I write this, the sound
of our homeless inculcator strikes me as familiar. I am reminded of my
first Ayn Rand girlfriend ARGF1, who's moods would alternate between
states of overblown confidence and abject misery from time to time.
When she was on one of her transient "highs", she would ad lib her own
monologues, paraphrasing Ayn Rand's vituperative critiques on modern
society with a bratty, flippant demeanor. ARGF1 was crazy too. She was
a borderline.
I'm surprised that my little corner of Myspace gets the modest
attention that it does. However, to my critics and others who would
send me email defending Ayn Rand: let me be clear.
The main topic of this page is Borderline Personality Disorder and the
reasons why the belief system of Ayn Rand appeals to certain
individuals who exhibit traits of that psychological malady. The main
topic of this page is not – I repeat NOT about the merits of Ayn
Rand's "philosophy". Take a psychological perspective on what she said
and how she acted in life. The available research on BPD is extensive,
so I suggest that Rand's defenders who don't understand the disease
should first read "Stop Walking on Eggshells" by Paul Mason and Randy
Kreger. For a different take on the psychology of Objectivism, read
Ellen Plasil's autobiography "Therapist", in which she chronicles how
she was sexually molested by her Objectivist father when she was 11
years old and other horrific events that took place in the Randian
subculture of her time. It is my opinion that Plasil's book is
essential to understanding the cult-like phenomenon of Ayn Rand.
In so far as Rand's "philosophy" is referenced here, it serves mainly
to reinforce the established and substantiated opinion that Ayn Rand
probably did suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder. Her black &
white / all or nothing / love & hate beliefs (including her narrow
views on art and music) reveal her as a borderline pretty quickly to
any person who has experienced a close relationship with a BPD
partner. Apart from Rand's own tawdry personal story, it's also
distinctly evident to me that her writings are expressions of BPD and
therefore appeal to a certain borderline type, as my experiences and
those of others have demonstrated. (I've been contacted by supportive
readers who shared their stories of relationships with Randian
borderlines.) It's very clear to me that Ayn Rand was a high
functioning, manipulative and cunning sociopath (see: gaslighting, as
the term relates to borderline pathology). She was also severely
narcissistic and imperious. She was afflicted with multiple
personality disorders (co-morbidity) and psychologically abused people
within her social group, perhaps most cruelly her own husband.
Evidence of her unbalanced psychology appears early in her life, as
Michael Prescott has observed. This is not a case of a person "losing
it" in her old age, although her psychological problems were magnified
during that later time period.
I suggest that my critics crawl out of the fantasy world of "Galt's
Gulch" and face the facts: Mental illness is real. Borderline
Personality Disorder is real. Now take a fresh new look at your
precious guru.
Currently reading:
The Sociopath Next Door
By Martha Stout
Release date: 2006-03-14
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Wednesday, July 16, 2008
THERAPIST: A book that is testimony to Rand’s destructive legacy.
I purchased a used copy of Therapist from Amazon. It deserves to be
reprinted and perhaps someday a new edition will be published.
It's an engaging read, but disturbingly so. I actually had knots in my
stomach while getting through it. In Therapist, author Ellen Plasil
recounts in detail her experience as a patient with the Objectivist
psychiatrist, Dr. Lonnie Leonard. Over the course of several years,
Dr. Leonard psychologically manipulated, controlled and sexually
abused the author and other women in his care. Years later, legal
action was taken against Dr. Leonard, and some justice was procured
for the victims.
Many of the doctor's patients were students of Objectivism, and it's
unsettling how immured they were, as a group. The doctor's sex
theories were highly informed by those of Ayn Rand, especially in
regards to his interpretation of the so-called "ideal man" that Rand
championed. Plasil says that she, along with other "students of
Objectivism" were all blinded by the mechanism of Objectivist culture,
where leaders of the movement possessed unchallenged authority, much
like a cult. It was this culture that enabled the abuse.
"Whatever their source, there seemed to be rules of right and wrong
for everything in Objectivism. There was more than just a right kind
of politics and a right kind of moral code. There was also a right
kind of music, a right kind of art, a right kind of interior design, a
right kind of dancing. There were wrong books which we could not buy,
and right ones which we should. Wrong books were written by "immoral"
people whom we didn't want to support through our purchase; right
books never were. There were plays we should not see, records we
should not listen to, and movies we should not pay to watch. There
were right ways to behave at parties, and right people to invite to
them. And there were, of course, right psychotherapists. And on
everything, absolutely everything, one was constantly being judged,
just as one was expected to be judging everything around him. And if
one was not judging everything that was around him, one was judged on
that, too. It was a perfect breeding ground for insecurity, fear, and
paranoia."
"The numbers of these blindly devoted went beyond coincidence. There
was more to this than just a chance meeting of several dozen sheep all
willing to follow their hero, their ideal man anywhere. Maybe the
"hook" was in the lesson that if Objectivism was the right way, then
being a student of objectivism made us more right than others. And for
those of us who were not certain of our value to begin with, such
superiority helped us ignore our self-evaluations and feed our
egos.... Or maybe it was in Ayn Rand's incorporation of "hero-worship"
into her representation of romantic love; show an Objectivist a hero
and the hero has but to take command."
Therapist reveals the dark side of Objectivism like no other document
can.
Currently reading:
Therapist
By Ellen Plasil
Release date: September, 1986
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Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Why I created this page.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder;
how I wish I had never heard of these two things!
And how I wish that I'd never heard of a person named Ayn Rand.
Actually, I'm reasonably confident that I never would have heard of
that name until recently, if it were not for one person: I will call
her Ayn Rand Girlfriend Number One, hereafter referred to as ARGF1.
I met ARGF1 about 1 year after graduating from college. I was in my
first (and last) corporate job at the time, making decent money and
trying to figure out what to do with myself. ARGF1 was slightly
younger and had a troubled life. Her father was a recovered alcoholic
and her parents were long divorced. I guess when she was about 15, she
dropped out of high school and ran away to the state where her father
lived. She slummed around, used drugs and ran with a group of punk
rock kids. But when she needed money or food, her father's place was
not far. Indicatively, she had very poor relations with both of her
parents, especially her mother, whom she often spoke of in disparaging
tones. Somewhere along the line, ARGF1 suffered from some kind of
abuse. Parts of that dimension within her history were known to me,
and others I surmised were either missing or suspect, because ARGF1
was a chronic prevaricator. Lies of omission were especially
problematic with her. However, it was certain that something terrible
did happen to ARGF1. I witnessed her trauma as she would break down in
tears, unpredictably on several occasions. Other times she raged and
her face morphed into the most ugly countenance I have ever seen,
before or since. I realized that those incidents occurred because of
triggers (unknown to me) that would cause her to act out. Those
moments were frightening and unsettling. I didn't know it then, but
ARGF1 had Borderline Personality Disorder. Clearly though, I did
perceive that she had Narcissistic Personality Disorder and was
unmistakably antisocial. My friends couldn't believe I was dating her.
Nobody liked her, including my parents.
What was I thinking? Well, I have my own problems too! I'm working on
those issues now. But, let's just say that in the past, I've taken on
the role of the "rescuer" in certain relationships. Also, I honestly
saw the good in ARGF1, even if others did not. Perhaps most
significantly, at that time I was very young. During college, I never
took a proper psychology class. I regret that now.
I mentioned before that ARGF1 was a high school drop out (she later
earned her G.E.D. after she ran away). In this regard, she was low
functioning and characteristically she also had trouble keeping jobs.
The false identity that she fostered, both as a brash punk and an
intrepid runaway appeared outwardly to indicate that she was
independent. The opposite in fact, was true; she was needy, insecure,
petty, histrionic and childish sometimes to the point of caricature.
Somehow, she cultivated an image of herself that equated independence
with intelligence. Her bookshelf was packed with second hand copies of
things I knew she could not possibly have read, including books on
complex subjects such as physics and mathematics. In actuality, when
she enrolled at the local state university, she had to drop out of
basic algebra because she was failing. She was intelligent on a
certain level, however she was not book smart. Revealingly, she only
really finished one specific group of books on that shelf. Indeed, she
read and reread these particular books thoroughly and memorized her
favorite passages from them, underlining the important sections for
good measure. These were the books of Ayn Rand; The Fountainhead,
Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, The Romantic Manifesto and lastly, a
title so sensationally vulgar that it virtually insures book sales to
the publisher – The Virtue of Selfishness.
I don't remember at what stage of the relationship I was introduced to
them, but Ayn Rand's books were obviously important to ARGF1, so I
reluctantly agreed to consider some of them. I wasn't a huge fan of
fiction at the time, so I first chose to read The Virtue of
Selfishness, since it was supposedly a summary of Rand's "philosophy"
and it contained long passages from her fiction anyway. Now let me
declare from the outset that I was immediately suspicious of this
work, since ARGF1's behavior was already troubling, and if these books
were informing her actions at the time, there must have been something
weird about her exaggerated enthusiasm for them. Besides, as a recent
graduate from an elite university with its subsequent required course
work in English literature, I found it strange that I had never heard
of this supposedly important author. My suspicions correctly reflected
the general academic position on Ayn Rand: She was a prodigious hack
who would never have been able to stand up to any kind of rigorous
academic peer review process. This work was nothing more than pop
philosophy and more importantly, it was dogma. To any reasonable
sentient human being, the first few pages of The Virtue of Selfishness
reveal the author as what she was: a hateful, pedantic, patronizing
and arrogant pedagogue.
But people with Borderline Personality Disorder are not reasonable
human beings. They are narcissists. When I tried to explain my
objections to Ayn Rand's "philosophy", my concerns went right through
one ear of ARGF1 and exited out the other side of her skull. It simply
did not register. To ARGF1, Ayn Rand was good, all good and nothing
but good. This hostile dichotomy of things that are either all good or
all bad is in fact, a hallmark of Borderline Personality Disorder.
Moreover, I think the ideas contained in The Virtue of Selfishness
were interpreted by ARGF1 to justify her destructive behaviors. At
times, Rand reads like a teenager who just discovered Friedrich
Nietzsche. It's crass, unsophisticated and simplistic. But that's why
it's so appealing to borderlines: It has often been written that
borderlines stop their emotional development at an early age. While
they may appear to be adults, emotionally, they are frightened
children. Rand dresses her arguments in a kind of pseudo-intellectual
aura, but really she appeals to ugly, base emotions. One of her
favorite words repeated continuously in Atlas Shrugged is contempt.
And contempt is what Ayn Rand exuded in virtually everything she
wrote.
With welcome relief, I ended that relationship within a year. I heard
through a mutual friend that ARGF1 had shacked up with another punk
and consummated an even more turbulent relationship with him. They met
at a punk club. It's my understanding that she cased after him when
she caught a glimpse of the Ayn Rand quote he had scribbled on the
back of his studded leather jacket. Sometimes borderlines are just
like cartoon characters. It would be funny if it weren't so
horrendous.
That was 17 years ago. I'd hoped to have forgotten Ayn Rand. But in
later years I would meet another person that would throw me for a
loop. Unlike ARGF1, she was extremely intelligent, talented and
beautiful. I was in love. In the beginning, it was wonderful. But Ayn
Rand and Borderline Personality Disorder would once again intrude upon
my world. Thus begins my tale of Ayn Rand Girlfriend Number Two.
To be continued…
Update: For personal reasons, I have decided to post only minimal
information regarding my former relationship with ARGF2. There is a
post regarding Ayn Rand tattoos that covers the topic with brevity.
11:57 AM
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Thursday, June 14, 2007
Mental illness is REAL.
They call them "invisible borderlines".
These are people who are "high functioning" and outwardly, they appear
normal.
Inside however, there is emotional turmoil.
Control is what they need; control over their own feelings of inner
shame,
control over their significant others and family members.
Outwardly, they might exude self confidence, but during times when
"the
mask" is off, they often reveal an unusual and irrational fear of
abandonment.
It is this constant fear of abandonment, always churning in the
background
that makes the whole thing so tragic and pernicious.
What this all has to do with Ayn Rand becomes clear when you get
involved
with one of her borderline fans.
Ayn Rand's books are MADE FOR BORDERLINES.
Let me explain. And may I submit that I am not jumping to conclusions
here,
but I am now convinced that there is a quantifiable, tangible
CONNECTION
between Ayn Rand's ideas and the characteristics of borderline
personality disorder.
Twice in my life, I have been involved with BPD women that
"discovered" the
writings of Ayn Rand. The similarities of these two relationships, set
years apart
from one another are frighteningly striking. The cold, social
darwinism championed
by the hateful Ayn Rand appeals to the narcissistic side of the
borderline. Also, the
simplistic black and white solutions to EVERYTHING would seem
perfectly necessary in the BPD's mind. Ayn Rand's portrayal of human
beings as being either "all good" or "all bad" is 100% consistent with
their views of all others and themselves. And a lack of empathy
towards other people, so similar to what Rand preaches is a hallmark
of borderline personality disorder.
Not convinced yet? If your BPD girlfriend has ALL THOSE BOOKS on her
shelf, take a look at them closely, especially if the spines are worn
(evidence of repeated readings). Look for the parts that she
underlined. These passages are frightening glimpses into the mind of
borderline. Remember, Ayn Rand herself was a diagnosed NPD and current
research suggests that she had BPD also.
If you meet someone who claims that Ayn Rand has inspired them to new
heights of
philosophical awareness, be very, very concerned.
Currently reading:
THE AYN RAND CULT
By Jeff Walker
Release date: 1999
3:52 PM
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Monday, June 11, 2007
Why did Ayn Rand use Dexedrine?
This is interesting.
Consider this description of Dexedrine from Wikipedia:
"Dextroamphetamine is a powerful psychostimulant which produces
increased wakefulness, energy and self-confidence in association with
decreased fatigue and appetite."
Self-confidence?
Why did Ayn Rand need a drug to boost her self-confidence? She
apparently held a negative view of her own body image. But her fans
claim that she was the most confident person who ever lived.
Question: Did Ayn Rand even like herself...?
Currently reading:
THE AYN RAND CULT
By Jeff Walker
Release date: 1999
3:46 PM
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Sunday, June 10, 2007
This is how Borderlines talk...
An exaggerated form of hero worship is one of the many hallmarks of
BPD.
Consider these examples of quotes from Ayn Rand's most famous
disciple, Nathaniel Branden.
"I had come to Ayn out of the void - and I imagined that without her a
void was all that awaited me."
"I am in the first place I have ever felt at home in my entire life...
a place where only good can happen and no harm can possibly come."
Borderlines often speak about their lives as being "voids"... They
have a chronic feeling of emptiness. They attempt to fill that void by
virtue of idolizing their significant other (for certain amount of
time) until they "split" and devalue that person.
--------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.amazon.com/Sociopath-Next-Door-Martha-Stout/dp/0767915828?...
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
[Dr.] Stout says that as many as 4% of the population are
conscienceless sociopaths who have no empathy or affectionate feelings
for humans or animals. As Stout (The Myth of Sanity) explains, a
sociopath is defined as someone who displays at least three of seven
distinguishing characteristics, such as deceitfulness, impulsivity and
a lack of remorse. Such people often have a superficial charm, which
they exercise ruthlessly in order to get what they want. Stout argues
that the development of sociopathy is due half to genetics and half to
nongenetic influences that have not been clearly identified. The
author offers three examples of such people, including Skip, the
handsome, brilliant, superrich boy who enjoyed stabbing bullfrogs near
his family's summer home, and Doreen, who lied about her credentials
to get work at a psychiatric institute, manipulated her colleagues
and, most cruelly, a patient. Dramatic as these tales are, they are
composites, and while Stout is a good writer and her exploration of
sociopaths can be arresting, this book occasionally appeals to
readers' paranoia, as the book's title and its guidelines for dealing
with sociopaths indicate.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier
Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
> Rich
Androcles
"Nickname unavailable" <Vid...@tcq.net> wrote in message
news:335793b6-8c97-4236...@o19g2000vbj.googlegroups.com...
http://blogs.myspace.com/psychorand
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
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Wednesday, July 16, 2008
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Wednesday, July 11, 2007
To be continued�
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Thursday, June 14, 2007
Translate
Monday, June 11, 2007
Self-confidence?
Translate
Sunday, June 10, 2007
http://www.amazon.com/Sociopath-Next-Door-Martha-Stout/dp/0767915828?...
===================================================
You spelt your name wrong. It's "Brain unavailable".
alie...@gmail.com
Heh heh heh.
> >>> Now we ask ourselves... how could Obamacare possibly squeeze $250K out
> >>> of somebody who cannot pay $1000 extortion/month? Easy! Organ
> >>> harvest.
> >> Nah. The first asset acquisition will be IRAs, Roths, and other
> >> pension funds.
>
> > Good catch; those will all be "folded into" Social Security since
> > they're blatantly "unearned windfalls".
>
> I haven't looked at the those funds recently. If they haven't been
> transformed into insurance policies but are real assets, the
> Dems will sniff around them for fodder. To get a feel for what they
> intend to do, you need to look at the details of the tax laws which
> reinstate the death taxes.
Why bother? It's not as if such laws can't be rearranged at need.
It's obvious to be there'll be such a need seen as soon as "how are we
gonna pay for this"
> > The Unions might complain a bit, but they're about to have their
> > teeth pulled.
>
> The medical insurance fiasco includes dental plans? ;-)
Sorta. Have you noticed the union "figurehead" of the day is no
longer the AFL-CIO or the UAW but the SEIU? Something to do with the
"shift of America's economy from the manufacturing sector to the
service sector".
Check their website:
http://www.seiu.org/a/ourunion/fast-facts.php
"The Service Employees International Union is the fastest-growing
union in North America...2.1 million members...in three service
industry "divisions"..."
This is my favorite bit:
"SEIU is the nation's most diverse union. Fifty-six percent of SEIU
members are women, and some 40 percent people of color. SEIU
represents more immigrant workers than any other union in the United
States."
I don't have to translate "immigrant workers" for you, do I?
I'm thinking they don't know enough to complain.
> It all depends on how, who, and the money flows of administrating
> the edict.
Well, of course, but was that ever in doubt?
Mark L. Fergerson
jmfbahciv
Library is closed today.
>
> "The Service Employees International Union is the fastest-growing
> union in North America...2.1 million members...in three service
> industry "divisions"..."
Do they include the medical workers?
>
> This is my favorite bit:
>
> "SEIU is the nation's most diverse union. Fifty-six percent of SEIU
> members are women, and some 40 percent people of color. SEIU
> represents more immigrant workers than any other union in the United
> States."
>
> I don't have to translate "immigrant workers" for you, do I?
>
> I'm thinking they don't know enough to complain.
ermm...the medical service biz is a service group, too. All those
people are union even if they don't know it.
>
>> It all depends on how, who, and the money flows of administrating
>> the edict.
>
> Well, of course, but was that ever in doubt?
If the states are allowed to make the decisions, then it may work
out well. If not, we'll have fascism (that's the Mass. model at
the moment).
/BAH
jmfbahciv
Sounds like that country in Africa which removed everyone who knew
how to grow stuff. Now they have no agriculture left and it was
their biggest product.
<snip>
/BAH
alie...@gmail.com
Yeah. Without the ellipses:
"The Service Employees International Union is the fastest-growing
union in North America, focused on uniting workers in the key service
sectors to improve their lives and the services they provide. The 2.1
million members united in SEIU across the United States, Canada, and
Puerto Rico work in three service industry "divisions":
"Health Care - With over 1 million members in the field, including
nurses, LPNs, doctors, lab technicians, nursing home workers, home
care workers.
"Public Services - SEIU is the second largest union of public
service employees with 850,000 local and state government workers,
public school employees, bus drivers, and child care providers -
49,000 of which joined SEIU in early 2005 in one of the largest union
elections in U.S. history.
"Property Services - SEIU is the largest property services union,
with 225,000 workers who protect and clean commercial and residential
office buildings, and is the largest security union, with 50,000
private security officers and public safety personnel."
Oh, the SEIU also touts itself as "the nation's largest and fastest
growing union".
> > This is my favorite bit:
>
> > "SEIU is the nation's most diverse union. Fifty-six percent of SEIU
> > members are women, and some 40 percent people of color. SEIU
> > represents more immigrant workers than any other union in the United
> > States."
>
> > I don't have to translate "immigrant workers" for you, do I?
>
> > I'm thinking they don't know enough to complain.
>
> ermm...the medical service biz is a service group, too. All those
> people are union even if they don't know it.
Yep. Educated people can be fooled too, though. Consider this:
http://www.seiu.org/a/ourunion/green-contract-provisions.php
"Green Contract Provisions
"Every day, working people are suffering from environmental factors
that are contributing to global climate change. From the high
incidence of asthma among our children, to the contaminated air, land
and water in our neighborhoods, to the increasingly high cost that we
are paying to heat our homes and fuel our cars.
"Climate change itself--the gradual warming of the planet due to too
much CO2 production--is an environmental crisis that will affect
millions of workers' communities and workplaces, potentially for
generations to come.
"SEIU members have a unique opportunity to be part of the solution
to climate change. Through our considerable collective bargaining
power, we have the capacity to negotiate for provisions that will
benefit us, our children, and the environment. We call these "green
contract provisions.""
Whose agenda does that sound like?
And this:
http://www.seiu.org/a/ourunion/global-partnerships.php
"Global Partnerships
"Making Globalization Work for Workers
"Uniting Across Borders
"On every continent, in virtually every country, the story is the
same. Corporate power is on the rise, and the power of workers is in
decline.
"The promises of globalization have yet to materialize for most
workers and their families. Increasingly, around the world, workers'
incomes are shrinking, forcing them to live with greater insecurity,
while social safety nets are being dismantled.
"While multinational corporations are amassing even greater
strength, unions--formed to help working people improve their lives--
are shrinking in power and influence. In most countries, the labor
movement is getting weaker at the time when it needs to be the
strongest.
"Coming Together in Global Partnerships
"SEIU is committed to ensuring that the benefits of globalization
are shared with workers and their families--not just corporate elites.
Increasingly, service sector corporations are becoming multinational
employers, with branches and partnerships that employ workers around
the globe.
"SEIU's Global Organizing program works with partner unions and
global union federations to organize these workers across borders.
"Our counterpart unions in other countries are also committed to
arresting the decline in the power that unions have experienced around
the world. We are sharing the same campaigns. We're sharing best
practices, and we have committed ourselves to checking this decline."
Haven't we heard this before? "Workers of the world unite..."
> >> It all depends on how, who, and the money flows of administrating
> >> the edict.
>
> > Well, of course, but was that ever in doubt?
>
> If the states are allowed to make the decisions, then it may work
> out well. If not, we'll have fascism (that's the Mass. model at
> the moment).
What do you call a Federal system with provision for fines and
imprisonment for failing to buy insurance?
Mark L. Fergerson
RichD
> Sounds like that country in Africa which removed everyone
> who knew how to grow stuff. Now they have no agriculture left
> and it was their biggest product.
In other words, they booted the evil white rich,
and now no one exploits the poor, so it's utopia....
--
Rich
Raymond Yohros
> >> I can start a huge discussion about everything that is corrupt in our
> >> society- war, primitive beliefs (racism, sexism, discrimination...),
> >> mentel illnesses, pride, inability of some people to find a loving
> >> partner... the point is no matter what u do people are all selfish. We
> >> all care about ourselves MORE than about others and we all ruin our
> >> society.
>
> > why are you posting all this bullshit here?
>
>
>
talking of corruption and politics is like saying "i love you".
its bullshit. unless you really mean what you say.
now, is this a science group or ???
jmfbahciv
Thanks for cut/paste....but now I'm really worried ;-}
>
> "The Service Employees International Union is the fastest-growing
> union in North America, focused on uniting workers in the key service
> sectors to improve their lives and the services they provide. The 2.1
> million members united in SEIU across the United States, Canada, and
> Puerto Rico work in three service industry "divisions":
>
> "Health Care - With over 1 million members in the field, including
> nurses, LPNs, doctors, lab technicians, nursing home workers, home
> care workers.
>
> "Public Services - SEIU is the second largest union of public
> service employees with 850,000 local and state government workers,
> public school employees, bus drivers, and child care providers -
> 49,000 of which joined SEIU in early 2005 in one of the largest union
> elections in U.S. history.
>
> "Property Services - SEIU is the largest property services union,
> with 225,000 workers who protect and clean commercial and residential
> office buildings, and is the largest security union, with 50,000
> private security officers and public safety personnel."
>
> Oh, the SEIU also touts itself as "the nation's largest and fastest
> growing union".
Sounds like the Teamsters moved on.
Al Gore. Is he on the BoD?
>
> And this:
>
> http://www.seiu.org/a/ourunion/global-partnerships.php
>
> "Global Partnerships
>
> "Making Globalization Work for Workers
>
> "Uniting Across Borders
>
> "On every continent, in virtually every country, the story is the
> same. Corporate power is on the rise, and the power of workers is in
> decline.
What bullshit. This is the 1900 all over again.
>
> "The promises of globalization have yet to materialize for most
> workers and their families. Increasingly, around the world, workers'
> incomes are shrinking, forcing them to live with greater insecurity,
> while social safety nets are being dismantled.
>
> "While multinational corporations are amassing even greater
> strength, unions--formed to help working people improve their lives--
> are shrinking in power and influence. In most countries, the labor
> movement is getting weaker at the time when it needs to be the
> strongest.
>
> "Coming Together in Global Partnerships
>
> "SEIU is committed to ensuring that the benefits of globalization
> are shared with workers and their families--not just corporate elites.
> Increasingly, service sector corporations are becoming multinational
> employers, with branches and partnerships that employ workers around
> the globe.
>
> "SEIU's Global Organizing program works with partner unions and
> global union federations to organize these workers across borders.
>
> "Our counterpart unions in other countries are also committed to
> arresting the decline in the power that unions have experienced around
> the world. We are sharing the same campaigns. We're sharing best
> practices, and we have committed ourselves to checking this decline."
>
> Haven't we heard this before? "Workers of the world unite..."
Anarchists.
>
>>>> It all depends on how, who, and the money flows of administrating
>>>> the edict.
>>> Well, of course, but was that ever in doubt?
>> If the states are allowed to make the decisions, then it may work
>> out well. If not, we'll have fascism (that's the Mass. model at
>> the moment).
>
> What do you call a Federal system with provision for fines and
> imprisonment for failing to buy insurance?
That's how the Nazis acquired the wealth of the middle and lower income
classes.
/BAH
jmfbahciv
how to grow stuff out, too.
/BAH
Nickname unavailable
actually what is beginning to happen in africa, is that they are
kicking out a crank ideology (free market economics)that has destroyed
the worlds economy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/world/africa/02malawi.html
Ending Famine in malawi
But this year, a nation that has perennially extended a begging bowl
to the world is instead feeding its hungry neighbors. It is selling
more corn to the World Food Program of the United Nations than any
other country in southern Africa and is exporting hundreds of
thousands of tons of corn to Zimbabwe.
In Malawi itself, the prevalence of acute child hunger has fallen
sharply. In October, the United Nations Children’s Fund sent three
tons of powdered milk, stockpiled here to treat severely malnourished
children, to Uganda instead. “We will not be able to use it!” Juan
Ortiz-Iruri, Unicef’s deputy representative in Malawi, said
jubilantly.
Farmers explain Malawi’s extraordinary turnaround — one with broad
implications for hunger-fighting methods across Africa — with one
word: fertilizer.
Over the past 20 years, the World Bank and some rich nations Malawi
depends on for aid have periodically pressed this small, landlocked
country to adhere to free market policies and cut back or eliminate
fertilizer subsidies, even as the United States and Europe extensively
subsidized their own farmers. But after the 2005 harvest, the worst in
a decade, Bingu wa Mutharika, Malawi’s newly elected president,
decided to follow what the West practiced, not what it preached.
Stung by the humiliation of pleading for charity, he led the way to
reinstating and deepening fertilizer subsidies despite a skeptical
reception from the United States and Britain. Malawi’s soil, like that
across sub-Saharan Africa, is gravely depleted, and many, if not most,
of its farmers are too poor to afford fertilizer at market prices.
“As long as I’m president, I don’t want to be going to other capitals
begging for food,” Mr. Mutharika declared. Patrick Kabambe, the senior
civil servant in the Agriculture Ministry, said the president told his
advisers, “Our people are poor because they lack the resources to use
the soil and the water we have.”
The country’s successful use of subsidies is contributing to a broader
reappraisal of the crucial role of agriculture in alleviating poverty
in Africa and the pivotal importance of public investments in the
basics of a farm economy: fertilizer, improved seed, farmer education,
credit and agricultural research.
Malawi, an overwhelmingly rural nation about the size of Pennsylvania,
is an extreme example of what happens when those things are missing.
As its population has grown and inherited landholdings have shrunk,
impoverished farmers have planted every inch of ground. Desperate to
feed their families, they could not afford to let their land lie
fallow or to fertilize it. Over time, their depleted plots yielded
less food and the farmers fell deeper into poverty.
Malawi’s leaders have long favored fertilizer subsidies, but they
reluctantly acceded to donor prescriptions, often shaped by foreign-
aid fashions in Washington, that featured a faith in private markets
and an antipathy to government intervention.
In the 1980s and again in the 1990s, the World Bank pushed Malawi to
eliminate fertilizer subsidies entirely. Its theory both times was
that Malawi’s farmers should shift to growing cash crops for export
and use the foreign exchange earnings to import food, according to
Jane Harrigan, an economist at the University of London.
In a withering evaluation of the World Bank’s record on African
agriculture, the bank’s own internal watchdog concluded in October not
only that the removal of subsidies had led to exorbitant fertilizer
prices in African countries, but that the bank itself had often failed
to recognize that improving Africa’s declining soil quality was
essential to lifting food production.
“The donors took away the role of the government and the disasters
mounted,” said Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University economist who
lobbied Britain and the World Bank on behalf of Malawi’s fertilizer
program and who has championed the idea that wealthy countries should
invest in fertilizer and seed for Africa’s farmers.
Here in Malawi, deep fertilizer subsidies and lesser ones for seed,
abetted by good rains, helped farmers produce record-breaking corn
harvests in 2006 and 2007, according to government crop estimates.
Corn production leapt to 2.7 million metric tons in 2006 and 3.4
million in 2007 from 1.2 million in 2005, the government reported.
“The rest of the world is fed because of the use of good seed and
inorganic fertilizer, full stop,” said Stephen Carr, who has lived in
Malawi since 1989, when he retired as the World Bank’s principal
agriculturalist in sub-Saharan Africa. “This technology has not been
used in most of Africa. The only way you can help farmers gain access
to it is to give it away free or subsidize it heavily.”
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Ending Famine in Malawi
The harvest also helped the poor by lowering food prices and
increasing wages for farm workers. Researchers at Imperial College
London and Michigan State University concluded in their preliminary
report that a well-run subsidy program in a sensibly managed economy
“has the potential to drive growth forward out of the poverty trap in
which many Malawians and the Malawian economy are currently caught.”
Farmers interviewed recently in Malawi’s southern and central regions
said fertilizer had greatly improved their ability to fill their
bellies with nsima, the thick, cornmeal porridge that is Malawi’s
staff of life.
In the hamlet of Mthungu, Enelesi Chakhaza, an elderly widow whose
husband died of hunger five years ago, boasted that she got two ox-
cart-loads of corn this year from her small plot instead of half a
cart.
Last year, roughly half the country’s farming families received
coupons that entitled them to buy two 110-pound bags of fertilizer,
enough to nourish an acre of land, for around $15 — about a third the
market price. The government also gave them coupons for enough seed to
plant less than half an acre.
Malawians are still haunted by the hungry season of 2001-02. That
season, an already shrunken program to give poor farmers enough
fertilizer and seed to plant a meager quarter acre of land had been
reduced again. Regional flooding further lowered the harvest. Corn
prices surged. And under the government then in power, the country’s
entire grain reserve was sold as a result of mismanagement and
corruption.
Mrs. Chakhaza watched her husband starve to death that season. His
strength ebbed away as they tried to subsist on pumpkin leaves. He was
one of many who succumbed that year, said K. B. Kakunga, the local
Agriculture Ministry official. He recalled mothers and children
begging for food at his door.
“I had a little something, but I could not afford to help each and
every one,” he said. “It was very pathetic, very pathetic indeed.”
But Mr. Kakunga brightened as he talked about the impact of the
subsidies, which he said had more than doubled corn production in his
jurisdiction since 2005.
“It’s quite marvelous!” he exclaimed.
Malawi’s determination to heavily subsidize fertilizer and the payoff
in increased production are beginning to change the attitudes of
donors, say economists who have studied Malawi’s experience.
The Department for International Development in Britain contributed $8
million to the subsidy program last year. Bernabé Sánchez, an
economist with the agency in Malawi, estimated the extra corn produced
because of the $74 million subsidy was worth $120 million to $140
million.
“It was really a good economic investment,” he said.
The United States, which has shipped $147 million worth of American
food to Malawi as emergency relief since 2002, but only $53 million to
help Malawi grow its own food, has not provided any financial support
for the subsidy program, except for helping pay for the evaluation of
it. Over the years, the United States Agency for International
Development has focused on promoting the role of the private sector in
delivering fertilizer and seed, and saw subsidies as undermining that
effort.
But Alan Eastham, the American ambassador to Malawi, said in a recent
interview that the subsidy program had worked “pretty well,” though it
displaced some commercial fertilizer sales.
“The plain fact is that Malawi got lucky last year,” he said. “They
got fertilizer out while it was needed. The lucky part was that they
got the rains.”
And the World Bank now sometimes supports the temporary use of
subsidies aimed at the poor and carried out in a way that fosters
private markets.
Here in Malawi, bank officials say they generally support Malawi’s
policy, though they criticize the government for not having a strategy
to eventually end the subsidies, question whether its 2007 corn
production estimates are inflated and say there is still a lot of room
for improvement in how the subsidy is carried out.
“The issue is, let’s do a better job of it,” said David Rohrbach, a
senior agricultural economist at the bank.
Though the donors are sometimes ambivalent, Malawi’s farmers have
embraced the subsidies. And the government moved this year to give its
people a more direct hand in their distribution.
Villagers in Chembe gathered one recent morning under the spreading
arms of a kachere tree to decide who most needed fertilizer coupons as
the planting season loomed. They had only enough for 19 of the
village’s 53 families.
“Ladies and gentlemen, should we start with the elderly or the
orphans?” asked Samuel Dama, a representative of the Chembe clan.
Men led the assembly, but women sitting on the ground at their feet
called out almost all the names of the neediest, gesturing to families
rearing children orphaned by AIDS or caring for toothless elders.
There were more poor families than there were coupons, so grumbling
began among those who knew they would have to watch over the coming
year as their neighbors’ fertilized corn fields turned deep green.
Sensing the rising resentment, the village chief, Zaudeni Mapila,
rose. Barefoot and dressed in dusty jeans and a royal blue jacket, he
acted out a silly pantomime of husbands stuffing their pants with corn
to sell on the sly for money to get drunk at the beer hall. The women
howled with laughter. The tension fled.
He closed with a reminder he hoped would dampen any jealousy.
“I don’t want anyone to complain,” he said. “It’s not me who chose.
It’s you.”
The women sang back to him in a chorus of acknowledgment, then
dispersed to their homes and fields.
alien8er
> Thanks for cut/paste....but now I'm really worried ;-}
You ain't seen nothin' yet.
> n...@bid.nes wrote:
(snip to SEIU's "Green"ness)
> > Whose agenda does that sound like?
>
> Al Gore. Is he on the BoD?
As far as the website reveals, no; it only lists seven lifetime
labor organizer types.
However, from one of their press-mentions brag pages:
"Blue Green Alliance Releases Principles for Cap-and-Trade
Legislation Necessary to Put Americans Back to Work
"MINNEAPOLIS--Four labor unions and two environmental organizations
today announced their support for comprehensive cap-and-trade climate
change legislation in 2009....
"..."We have a unique opportunity to be part of the solution and to
improve the lives of working people and their families for generations
to come," said Gerry Hudson, International Executive Vice President of
SEIU. "It is our duty to ensure that legislation develops a cap-and-
trade system that connects environmental justice to economic justice
in a way that supports communities across America and creates good,
green jobs.
"...BGA is also an initial partner in the Alliance for Climate
Protection, founded by Vice President Al Gore."
"Good, green jobs" meaning forget reviving the manufacturing sector,
I guess.
Mark L. Fergerson
jmfbahciv
And I was guessing. :-) if you really have a need to know, now
follow the money.
>
> "Good, green jobs" meaning forget reviving the manufacturing sector,
> I guess.
Of course. All production is supposed to be given to the Chinese.
Why this appears to be the hidden agenda, I don't know.
/BAH
RichD
> > > What a strange bleak picture you paint. Reality is much
> > > better but I do not live in a selfish dog-eat-dog culture as
> > > applies in the USA.
> > > --
> > > Les Hellawell
> > > Greetings from: YORKSHIRE
>
> > You live in a culture with 20% lower income,
> > higher crime rate, and delapidated infrastructure.
>
> Got an actual cite for that, idiot? Or are you just
> pulling facts out of your ass again?
OECD
DoJ
UK Justice
Socialism and gun control will wreck a society
faster than hell or high water.
But cheer up, dildo - we're following close
behind you, down the collectivist urinal...
accelerated greatly by Obamarxism...
> > But you're lucky, you don;t suffer a selfish
> > dog-eat-dog culture as USA...
>
> Enjoying your financial crisis, retard? You know, the
> one you guys started?
It's the result of socialism, dipshit.
--
Rich