Better Dead Than Red!\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nYou know, I was just with a client of mine \u2013 major Autism Spectrum Disorder. He has a job at a fish processing plant. I mean, like sometimes 70 hours in a week. He\u2019s almost 30, and his mother is his paid personal support worker. That\u2019s cool, for sure. Something like 80 hours a month she is paid above minimum wage to get things done for her son. Things like banking, personal hygiene other things.<\/p>\n
Obviously, I work with him and her, and with a non-profit which gets paid through the county and state for our services. This mother is also a military veteran. In any case, the person I work with is amazing, knows a thousand species of sharks and fish and other by-catch that comes in with the nets during certain harvest seasons, and, well, this man needs more men in his life.<\/p>\n
They live in cramped quarters, and for the most part, they seem happy.<\/p>\n
The problem is, this mother, with sort of hippie like ideology, still, she can\u2019t even imagine socialism. \u201cI don\u2019t even want to hear that word, socialism.\u201d Imagine, military (purely socialistic) veteran (socialism a la health care) and the feeding troughs from the Joints Chief of Staff on down the Raytheon line, and then add to that, everything she gets now is based on a form of socialism \u2013 socialized health care for her (VA) and him (ACA); the money she gets paid is from the government, and all those special education schools and programs over the years? Well, again, government-financed, as in public schooling and public commons.<\/p>\n
This is why I believe Americans are really more than stupid and perverse, but they are the enemy of earth on so many levels. \u201cIt\u2019s easier for an American to imagine a world depopulated, dead and dying from calamities, climate change, war, resource shortages, than a world without capitalism.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This is a continual conversation I have, daily. Sometimes in the community, other times personal. Just the other night, at a solstice gathering with another couple, well, more of the ugly side of Americans who Have, and those who Do Not Have (And why don\u2019t they have? Easy answers to be gathered).<\/p>\n
Paranoia on Steroids (or on MSNBC)<\/strong><\/p>\nWe had already fought about what solstice means, and I like fires outside, breaking shared bread, candles, talking about some crazy pagan and even farther back rituals and thinking. But because of Covid-19 Paranoia, and all the mask fever, all the complete lunacy of our times, well, no fire outside, no swapping of recipes.<\/p>\n
We were told not to bring food, and the idea is that food from anywhere outside this couple\u2019s house might have the militarized bat virus lurking on it. Forget about the fact that this fellow served condiments and some other food items prepared outside of the house, packaged and sent to his local Fred Meyers.<\/p>\n
The bone of contention was that the husband started talking about how troubled he was about his next investment fandango, and that is the crypto-investment, the post-bit coin realm. Blockchain madness. He pleads Marxist in his belief system, but like so many broken people, he is out for himself and his wife. Life is all about fear and loathing, and listening to Rachel Maddow and the other titans of stupidity on mainstream Democratic Party TV. One day you can love listening to Richard Wolff, but the next day it\u2019s all about the Motely Fool.<\/p>\n
My discourse was around the fact that a) I am not well off and therefore I am not in any investor class, and b) that a majority of the world should be paid in cash, in the coin of their realms, not enslaved by some digitized scam called cryptocurrency. That the USA greenback\/dollar may collapse (his prediction); therefore, blockchain bit coins are the way to hedge those bets, again, more than 80 percent of Americans have no ready cash to invest in Crypto Bullshit Currency.<\/p>\n
We have tens of millions who are food insecure NOW, and unable to feed their families. We have hundreds of millions of Americans with huge debts \u2013 from school, to mortgages, to just paying for the daily living, on credit. Of course, medical debt is a trillion dollar albatross around the necks of millions. Once you get taken into a hospital with \u201cFort Detrick\/DARPA virus,\u201d you might come out alive owing several hundred thousand dollars.<\/p>\n
No jobs, bad jobs, failing jobs, and alas, the language of investors infected the Solstice. The lexicon of crypto-mancers, well, I was not in the mood, so I was snarky and, well, showed my communistic colors. Sure, it gets frustrating!<\/p>\n
All of which leads to the same soft shoe song of \u201cI can\u2019t see how we can stop this technology, this digital currency … I don\u2019t know how we can stop Russia and China from exploiting fossil fuels and resources, while we are supposed to be green, so, therefore, we should be the first at the takings …\u201d<\/p>\n
Cynical, Skeptical, Jaded: Part of the Problem, not the Solution<\/strong><\/p>\nMainstream media and the mush that is what Americans consume in TV and in la-la land movie-ville, well, that has colonized and co-opted the minds of people who were once friends with a shared and dynamic lexicon and language.<\/p>\n
It is now, them against us. More and more, this is the relationship between friends, sometimes good friends.<\/p>\n
Giving up, throwing hands in the air, just saying, \u201cyou do good work … you should be compensated for that\u201d is just not enough to move a conversation forward.<\/p>\n
We ended up talking about movies, and I said that Steve McQueen\u2019s five movie brilliance, Small Ax<\/em>, was worth the time. The fellow recommended, The Art Dealer<\/em>, and alas, I reminded him that my glass was more than filled up with World War Two themed movies, Holocaust-themed flicks, flicks about grandkids looking for stolen loot or artifacts. I said, \u201cHey, try some different stuff than just the chosen people\u2019s produced, or directed, or financed, or scripted shit on cable TV.\u201d<\/p>\nThe language of friendships are daily getting more and more cross-wired. <\/p>\n
Here is another doozie \u2013 so, a fellow I helped over the years, a veteran, homeless, well, he put me into his will. I did not want that, and the funny thing is he came into some money from a father, and, well, nothing to shake a Trump or Clinton stick at, but the money would have been enough to make his amputated leg\/ diabetic\/ depressed life into something more than sheer homelessness, when I first met him.<\/p>\n
I got him set up into an apartment, and they put him in the only ground floor unit that made it impossible for him to navigate his wheelchair safely. They were saying they\u2019d hire someone to put in a special walkway\/path to the tune of $5,500 charged to the veteran.<\/p>\n
I tried my damnedest to get the largest apartment rental property management service (sic) in the USA to respond to empathy, logos, pathos, ethos, and, not one of my dozen emails got even a response. Pinnacle Property\/Real Estate Management, look them up.<\/p>\n
Property management investment corporations, and Pinnacle charged him for a sidewalk feature we had the local boy scouts, Rotary and a construction company all ready to put in for, well, supplies, at the tune of $500, which would have been paid by some charities (this was before he came into a few thousand dollars inheritance).<\/p>\n
He then went from apartment to assisted living, quickly — and that nightmare, again, in a local facility that is part of national chain, and alas, $4,000 a month for a single room, and then another $2,000 a month they charged for special services? Weekly, when he was still cognizant, my friend complained about the lack of food, the small portions. He did not have a caseworker for more than two months. Then he started to fail. This is America, and, alas, this veteran died due to isolation, Covid-19 insanity, and the threads of assisted living where the workers treat the inmates like scum.<\/p>\n
He had outstanding ambulance bills, Comcast would not shut down his phone, the banks froze his assets, the apartment complex previous to this assisted living joint had a bill for breaking his lease, the assisted living outfit had $250 late charges here and there, and alas, this is how America and capitalism runs \u2013 middle man, person x and y, corporation a and b, sticking it to you.<\/p>\n
He had a newish friend as his executor, and she had to pay the state of Oregon $350 to take a four hour online mandatory class on being an executors (this is the society of nickel and dimes, fines and taxes, fees and surcharges, add-ons, late fees, service charges, hidden fees, surtaxes, forced certifications, levies, and more).<\/p>\n
She had him cremated, and again, the deal is, lucky for her, she has some disposable income, so she had the finances to pay for the death certificates, the filing charges, the body burning, the moving fees, the late fees, all of that. Eventually she got the death certificates, and still she had to fight months to stop Comcast. Imagine, the hundreds of millions of dollars companies like Comcast get for phone and cable services and wifi services for the dead.<\/p>\n
The lawyer working with the executor, for the few shekels in my friend\u2019s investment account, needed an my W-9, for tax purposes, and I let out my disgruntled ire to him, \u201cthat, alas, capitalism and the rules written by the banks and the lawyers, demand my social security number and my name and address be given to the IRS for a paltry sum, an inheritance?\u201d Obviously, it was a point of contention, not an attack on him personally, but surely it must have been an attack in his profession (lawyers, hands down, YUK).<\/p>\n
What are 20,000 Lawyers at the Bottom of the Sea? Answer: a start!<\/strong><\/p>\nThese conversations go nowhere, because, a, lawyers do believe their lies and the game they play because they set the rules of the game minute to minute. I ended up saying something positive about the USPS, and he called me on his cell phone. All things looked like he was an agreeable liberal, though he said in his field, investment law, he was a rare democrat.<\/p>\n
Again, the dreaded \u201csocialism\u201d came out of my mouth, since I am not and never have been a dedicated Democratic Party proponent, and alas, this country tis of thee needs the new MAGA hat \u2013 Make America Go Away.<\/p>\n
That crossed the line for this quasi-liberal lawyer. He texted me saying \u2013 \u201cI think I need to ask you not to overshare your politics w\/ me, I don\u2019t agree on all accounts, but support your right to believe what you want. I try to minimize my cell phone usage for work purposes, and certainly don\u2019t want to have it be a medium for political or religious debate.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is how the dimwit smart lawyer types who love democrats think. Just the fear factor, too, of his ultra-conservative partners finding out his liberal leaning ways. On his cell phone. One he used to contact me with, including many texts.<\/p>\n
This is how these $300,000 a year gutless wonders work, man. \u201cI have mine, I get mine anyway I can, I will follow the rules, toe the line\/tow the line, and alas, I make my money money money while I give a few shekels to the WWF, United Way and some democratic candidate for president. But SOCIALISM? You are worse than Trumpies! Do not contact me again!\u201d<\/p>\n
Oh, the level of discourse is so bastardized, so broken with mainstream and idiotic-stem media, all the barking and wailing, the pure shit coming out of the internet, the blogs, the podcasts, and more and more. There are no rational conversations with a broad mix of perspectives, that\u2019s for sure.<\/p>\n
Until we live in a world where any narrative, any science, any doubts, any humanity pointing against fascism, digital platforms for crypto-currency, for universal butthole\/basic income, any discussion about how bad Zoom doom is for the K12 and post K12 crowd, but now, for the people who embrace working from home, never having to step foot in the office again.<\/p>\n
Join, Believe, Comply, Be Coerced, Obey, Lock-step or DIE!<\/strong><\/p>\nAny level of pushback against Facebook or Musk or self-driving cars or forced vaccinations, forced closures, forced kettling during protest, forced shut downs, forced evictions, foreclosures. Any level of going against the bullshit libertarian-Ayn Randian-Neoliberal-Lords of War narrative, and we are dead meat, literally or figuratively. Forget about having a smart discussion about sea level rise, anthropomorphic causes of global heating, global resource collapse, global pandemics, global pollution, global cancer rates, global hell!<\/p>\n
I have so-called lefties denying the whole thing, even making up some shit about Covid-19 isn\u2019t real when the evidence is that it IS real, really manufactured REAL, really perfectly Phase One of a Many Phased\/Headed Hydra of Hell.<\/p>\n
As if all those bioweapons by USA and Israel and the like are not historically Real. As if the poisons meant for humanity, as in Agent Orange, isn\u2019t really REAL. Phosphorus bombs, Napalm bombs, Smart bombs, the mother of all bombs, nope, not real. Stealth drones and mini-poison delivery systems by CIA-Mossad. Nope, not really REAL at all.<\/p>\n
These are subhuman, the murderers of MLK, Kennedys, Malcom, and on and on. So, no, these pieces of human scum would never ever really create REAL biotoxins. Nope. No PR-spinners saying a pack of cigarettes a day pushes the blues away. Nope, not those people, those Salvador Allende plotters. Not those Henry Kissinger types, and Dulles Brothers, and COINTELPRO, and the entire profit system that would have Tyson Foods rule the lives of not just the workers, but the fetuses of workers, the land, the very ecology where the Eerie Lake worth of Blood and Offal and Guts and Shit drain off.<\/p>\n
No, the virus is not really a REAL invention of these murderers and experimenters. NOPE.<\/p>\n
Imagine, here in Oregon, there is a mink industry (sick sic), where the purveyors of Auschwitz for Animals pack in minks, and they have outbreaks of not just SARS-CoV2, but other pathogens. Imagine that this is an industry? And it isn\u2019t locked down, closed for good.<\/p>\n
Imagine that, the democratic Governor Brown, and the lunacy of a country led by leeches and piranha and the almighty power of the imperial president and all the president\u2019s Military-IT-AI-Banking-Medicine-Pharma-Big Ag-Prison-Chemical-Real Estate-Surveillance Complex Men\/Women, messing with lockdowns, ICU\u2019s 110 filled up, no PPE, no nothing, and this is what we have. No screaming at the top of their lungs from the NPR pundits. All those worthless millionaires and multimillionaires that are part of the medium is the message pukes.<\/p>\n
The character Howard Beale gave the following speech in Network<\/em><\/a> that still resonates today.<\/p>\n\nI don\u2019t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It\u2019s a depression. Everybody\u2019s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel\u2019s worth. Banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there\u2019s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there\u2019s no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that\u2019s the way it\u2019s supposed to be.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Oh well, the lying lefties who think it is all a Greta Spin or Bill McKibben muse, they too are right about green as the new black, how the greenie weenies want capitalism to save the planet,\u00a0 but these same lefties are wrong wrong wrong about the reality of how messed up the world really is, and will be due to a WORLD without ICE<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nJohn Englander is a co-author of the paper and author of the books “High Tide on Main Street” and the soon-to-be-released “Moving to Higher Ground: Rising Sea Level and the Path Forward.” He says this paper is a reaction to a “chorus of concern in the scientific community that the projections for rising sea level were understated.”<\/p>\n
He said the research team hopes their work can inform the next major IPCC report, since that’s the most widely cited document on climate change. “With the next report now being prepared for release in 2021-22, our intent was to make the case to the IPCC leadership to explain the reality of Antarctic potential melting better, as it might significantly add to sea level rise this century.”<\/p>\n
Since the last Ice Age, which reached its maximum extent about 20,000 years ago, global temperatures have warmed about 18 degrees Fahrenheit and sea levels have risen 425 feet; that’s greater than the length of the football field.<\/p>\n
Historically speaking, simple math reveals that for every degree Fahrenheit the Earth warms, sea-level eventually rises by an astonishing 24 feet. There is, however, a sizable lag time between warming, melting and consequent sea-level rise.<\/p>\n
Considering that Earth has already warmed 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s, we know that substantial sea-level rise is already baked in, regardless of whether we stop global warming. Scientists just don’t know exactly how long it will take to see the rise or how fast it will occur. But using proxy records, glaciologists can see that as we emerged from the last Ice Age, sea level rose at remarkable rates \u2014 as fast as 15 feet per century at times.