Welp, I can no longer continue to recommend Morris Berman's blog. I've been essentially kicked off for using the fine, working-class term "you guys".
This turned out to ruffle a lot of Chardonnay-sippers' feathers, or more importantly, Morris Berman's.
I'd been submitting my daily experiences on there, and since I believe the crowd there skews about 10 years older and $1 million more in assets (not that hard these days if you're a Boomer and own a house, 2nd house, etc you get the idea) and property-owning Boomers don't change their own oil, maintain their own bikes (trust me they don't, I see the simplest things being done for them at bike shops) or provide for their own defense.
Trust me there's no way Mr. Berman is living in Mexico City or thereabouts and experiencing it as the idyll he claims it is unless he's living like a Baathist general in Iraq with plenty of "security".
People of that level of wealth are creeped out by working-class people who (a) can't hire private security guards when they need them and (b) have the capability to operate the kind of equipment providing one's own security requires. An armed working-class is flat-out dangerous to them and they know it.
So I was told I'm not a "real" WAF'er (what people on that blog call themselves) because in Amerikkka, it's black or white. With Us or Not One Of Us. And since I'm not a chardonnay-sipper, I must be a member of the enemy; a Trump supporter or something. Which I'm mot emphatically not.
In any case, sooner or later, if you're working-class they'll sniff it out, and you'll cease to be welcome. These are people who are wealthy, retired, jetting around to Europe or Asia or wherever the drinks are cold and strong, buying $40 books on a whim, etc. Someone who might sip slowly on the $2 Pabt that's their treat for the week and rode there on a bicycle, will just be scary and unwelcome to them.
Well his hatred of BLM and going on about political correctness seems to leave him in the worried about "Marxism" boomer camp no matter his misgivings about Trump. That alone marks him to me as an out of touch wealthy type, where Trump is too crass to be acceptable but who still supports the core part of the system. I have faced classism like this too, so I know exactly what you mean. I once told someone locally to stop trying to force me to talk in corporate "formal register" and it wasn't going to happen. I get the feeling his life in Mexico is a privileged one too.
What is a WAF? I kind of missed the memo on that term
WAF is the acronym (he loves acronyms) for Why America Failed, one of his books. The book is better than his blog, as blogs, as we both know, are one-pass writing at best.
He doesn't hate BLM so much as seeing it being used as a tool, as a plaything for middle-class whites to feel good about themselves for having gone to demonstrations etc., but in the end a few streets will be re-named and everyone will forget about it (happening now) and life for blacks in the US will not improve. I agree with him on this. However, some of the comments about LGBT people ...
In the end I think you pegged it. Middle or upper-middle class liberals. I've never seen anyone on there talking about work they did in their garden, or how they fixed something. They have "help" to do those things.
The blog is just too shrill; they sit on their hilltops sniping at the proles doing idiotic things like calling 911 when the KFC runs out of chicken or something, and yes, proles do idiotic things because everyone does idiotic things from time to time. But that's all they do. They just point and laugh. Nothing constructive; nothing about what they did toward their purported ideal of being "NMI" or New Monastic Individuals.
Being an NMI apparently is edgy and daring to them, but it's simply how people are increasingly forced to live now. Living simply, having goals that will probably not result in any kind of wealth, etc.
Of course he lives in some kind of an armed compound in MX city. It's like the Philippines. Americans retire there, but you've got to have lots of money to have a defensible place and to pay for the loyalty of peons to defend it. That's how radio host Art Bell lived, and the Philippines having plenty of available underage girls didn't hurt either, in his case.
I should check out the book, I do find his blog interesting but yeah got annoyed by a lot too. Did you ever read that Ian Martin one....he seems to be right about a lot but has the classist edge too.
I am a BLM supporter sick of violent cops, brutality and racism but I keep getting bothered about one thing, how class and economics is never mentioned and almost feel like BLM is being used as a diversion from class and economic issues. Remember when I talked about going to that antiracism meeting bringing up economic justice and they shut me down it's kind of like that. I don't see real changes for black people either unless there are complete changes to the economic system or economic injustice. I am sick of the conservatives who keep blaming protesters too, supporting all the brutality.
So yeah I feel like a few streets will be named some gestures and core things won't change. I have the same concerns about the middle class liberals. Covid too is adding a layer too that many people are having the economic bottom fall out, and that's not being talked about and disturbing me.
He does seem homophobic, that bothered me too. There's a few red pill edges on these blogs.
I see middle class and upper middle class liberals as allies on many causes. Even in my UU, I know I kind of stand outside the typical class status. There I do discuss a few of the things related to class quite openly so hope I have opened some eyes, but yeah I know generally I grow impatient with centrist middle class to upper middle class liberals who don't admit the basic structure of the system is destructive. I am too poor to even have the garden...LOL but know what you mean, they depend on the help.
I see a bit of academic white tower elitism there. I enjoy intellectuals but they got a little bit of looking down on the "poors" there, kind of like non-racist Charles Murray's who believe that more effort and better morals would make everyone rich like them. So yeah, also Morris is elitist enough to be one of those "elite" jetsetters whose orientation is globalist, if a place goes bad, he just whips out his money and goes to the next. He's a connected aman, reading all his awards and more. Would probably guess he was born into some of those connections.
Since I dabbled in conspiracy, all those writings against Dominionism as a Christian, I am more then familiar with the "both parties are bad" Zero Hedge/alt-right/red pillers with less religion and some trump hate blended into the special mix. So I have seen types like Morris before.
Ive even heard of the New Monastic movement. Though more in a religious context. Rod Dreher etc. These richy rich types think if everyone homeschools and grows their own gardens [they ignore the privilege they have in their large homes/land/health making such "sustainable" living viable. They truly see the "peasants" stuck in their small apartments as truly below them.
Be wary of those who speak of redoing the moral order.
I have nothing against living simply [LOL I am a follower of involuntary simplicity] and wish I had more land and a closer to the land lifestyle but have been unable to pull it off but people like this have an agenda.
I have seen too much of the red pill world. I actually used to write against the Alt-right world while still a fundie. I see them as "useful idiots" to the power holders who want to make billions while the peasants live in enforced "simplicity". Even being a progressive now, I still have feelings of wariness about Agenda 21 and the perceived extreme social engineering they are pushing through Covid 19.
Ian Martin seems to be an engineering dweeb supporting nuclear energy so ... no thanks.
Most BLM people have hearts of gold and it goes without saying that their complaints are legitimate. I've been to demos, I've shouted and played my trumpet. I could go on and on about George Floyd ... yes he dipped a toe into crime, so did my older brother. In both cases it was not a fit and they moved on. And the matter isn't whether Floyd was good or bad as a person, it was that the cops knew they could do what they did because he's black.
But as you say, some streets will be re-named and that's about it.
I'm living in an industrial area in what's called an "R&D" unit. Office, loft above office, large cement-floor space with a big roll-up door. Officially the loft is my living space but it gets really hot up there so it's my storage space and I do my actual living in the office. So I can't have a garden. I've been learning the local plants though, and recently decided to not buy veggies at the store if I can gather or scrounge them. It's worked out pretty well so far. More recently, I've started to learn to make cider using scrounged or gathered fruit. I'm drinking some of my first batch right now. It's a useful apocalyptic skill and it's nice to drink hard cider for $2 a gallon.
Sounds like Morris Berman isn't as unique as he'd like to think he is. I believe I've seen the "New Monasticism" meme around too.
Morris is Jewish, but he seems to take the stand that he's one of the "cool" ones and takes a dig at Israel from time to time. This is where I really differ. I am very pro-Israel. I don't think, and history backs me up, that you can get away with being a "cool" Jew who is anti-Israel and you'll be welcomed. Not when things get tough. That everyone should have a nation but the Jews not have theirs, is the height of double standards.
I don't think "Agenda 21" is a real thing, and all anyone at the UN who wishes to enact such a thing has to do is kick their feet up, get out the popcorn, and sit back. As for "extreme social engineering", in first-world countries there's this weird thing, the idea that we live in a society and should care about the good of society. Crazy, I know. Are you an anti-vaxxer?
Yeah my beliefs about agenda 21, have changed in general. The fundies taught me the UN is evil, I don't believe that way now. With social engineering with the virus, I worry about the wiping away of small business, the social distancing now becoming the norm, where people are shut off more from each other--I agree with the precautions--. Maybe we will have UBI, better development.
No I am not an anti-vaxxer. I have some fundie baggage there about Bill Gates, but I think the people refusing vaccines are nuts, and they have spread measles, mumps and are bringing back diseases. I think we should put the good of society as a high priority too. Considering the evangelical Christians are spreading Covid19 at Super-spreading events, I wonder if there will be a backlash.
With Israel, I am kind of in the middle, don't like how Palestinians are treated. I question the extreme Zionism from my fundie days. I don't think Hagee and his sort care about the fate of Israel either. They deserve a nation like everyone else--agree.
Agree about BLM, there needs more discussion of the social economic end of things, though some are TRYING like Barber.
Yeah Morris disturbs me, he's probably trying to please his fellow red pillers with the Israel digs. Glad you have an office and industrial space to live in, that's a good idea with the vegetables.
I did some research and apparently Agenda 21 is a real thing. However it seems so high-level and bureaucratic that I doubt it's anything to worry about. What really needs to happen is a drastic decrease in population, evenly enacted across all nations and social classes, and the chance of that happening is just about zero.
Yeah maybe my agenda 21 worries are left over fundie baggage. The fundies/evangelicals all seem to want everyone to die of Covid, and have destroyed the USA with it, and their support of the Orange Sociopath. Agree about overpopulation, child-free is a growing thing in some Western nations but too many nations, the populations are skyrocketing. One reason I stopped believing in a God is what kind of God would put a species on a planet, where it could over-run the planet and destroyed it. The supposed planner could have made childbirth only possible every 5 years or something. There are times I am relieved I did not have children to bring into this dying world.
The problem with Christianity is their strong belief in Heaven. It's OK if your life sucks here, in fact it's better if your life sucks here, because it'll be all that much nicer in Heaven. Jews kind of leave the idea of an afterlife up to whether the individual wants to believe in it, but what matters is life here on Earth, and what you do in your life - deeds speaking louder than words etc. Buddhists actually believe in each speck of awareness surviving through not only many lifetimes but many "kalpas" which are the lives of Universes!
But a hell of a lot of Christians literally want the world to burn. There has to be tons of death and pain and suffering, a real wringing-out, so the few, the beautiful and good, by which they believe themselves however much they may actually be awful and ugly, will go to their Heaven.
It's pretty much the Taliban and 72 virgins... In fact "Crusade" and "Jihad" I'm pretty convinced have the same root word and they mean the same thing of course.
Before we left the garden, when we were hunter-gatherers, we did in fact have children only every 3-4 years.
Palestinians are a problem, pretty much self-created. Yes, a bunch of 'em left Israel when the State was founded. But a larger number of Jews were forced out of surrounding nations where they'd lived for ages and ages, often leaving behind houses, businesses, money, anything but literally the shirts on their backs and maybe a baby carriage to walk, yes walk, to the newly born Israel. Dunno you you define a "fair" trade here but it was certainly an unequal one, the Jews getting the short end as usual.
Now the Pals have been breeding as many kids as possible to try to overcome with sheer numbers. And most are not originally from that area, they're from Arab nations like Jordan. But they like living and working in Israel better than in their original shithole countries so there you have it.
It's really feeling like 1930s Germany out there though so "da jooz" are seeing the writing on the wall and hopefully will continue in the re-settlement of their own damn country. TL;DR: the "Pals" can suck it.
And before someone goes crying to me, Oh the poor Pals, yadda yadda, their native land is not Israel. There are eleventy-seven other countries where they can live and be full citizens. I grew up in Hawaii and although I feel "native" to Hawaii, I am not. And they fucking hate me there. It might not be "fair" but I would always be the hated outsider there. I may have Hawaiian friends, but would always run the chance of being killed randomly for Existing While White. It's that bad there, it's just covered up because of tourism. So I got the fuck out. I was born here in California and living here is a huge, huge weight off of my shoulders. Not being a hated outsider is a wonderful thing.
Besides the vegetables, I'm learning to make what you could call hard cider but honestly, it's better described as "hooch" at this stage. I randomly find all kinds of fruit so I cook it down, add sugar and yeast, and well, my first batch, a simple apple juice and brown sugar recipe, came out great. I'm mentioning this because this might be a good hobby if you're interested in such things.
I agree heaven is a problem, like a carrot on a stick. It's turning this earth into hell as the conservative Christians want dystopia for their last days fantasies. More and more if there is any divine force I believe today's conservative Christian fulfill the tenets of any spiritual darkness.
They claim suffering helps too, though the Catholics go a bit further with that. Yeah Jews don't believe in heaven or hell, kind of off the table. Weird how Christianity developed them both. Wow with kalpas, I never knew that, they seem far closer to true science, where universes are born and die, like planets in the massive scope of time. I don't consider myself a Buddhist but have interest in segments of it. That is something I definitely want to read up on.
There is a death cult aspect to today's conservative/evangelical Christians, they want the world to burn, crash and disintegrate for their "savior" to return and fix it all. And they want to take the rest of us all down with them. When one sees them holding crowded events during a plague, that says the death wish is very strong. I don't know the psychological reason for this. Some kind of break down upon the growing complexity and disconnection of society? Christianity in conservative forms breeds magical thinking. I am more then familiar with this process. Some of them are so full of hate, maybe they think God is only going to make all the non-believers suffer and God is going to make them all magically virus-free, and that their Rapture will spare them all pain.
Christian Taliban is a term that describes these people and they really are no different from Muslim extremists who want to stamp out education, science, rights for women, etc etc.
Yeah Palestine was a newly created "state" and you are right, Ive read about the breeding programs though they are digging a hole, for themselves, like the American Quiverfuls? Extreme religion destroyed their countries so they went to modern Israel? I can see that happening. If the religionists win here, the USA is going to become a shithold, it basically is well on it's way. Journalists are already calling it a "failed state". Palestinians sound like they would do better to return to other countries. I don't know all the ins and outs here. I do feel for the kids and others who seem to go hungry and live in extreme poverty. All the violence in that region of the world is insane.
Wow that surprises me about Hawaii....are white people a minority there where natives are most of the population? They are seriously discriminate that badly there? I've been a minority white person in former neighborhoods but never got treated that way. Did they see you as a person out to oppress them or do they see whites as racists or invaders?
I am sure most see Hawaii as the tourist brochures. Isn't it expensive as hell there, where a normal apartment is something like 4,000 a month and a 2 bed room house like a rancher costs like a million?
Yeah hard cider would be easy to make. LOL Ive had cider turn hard in my fridge before and drank some and probably got tipsy for first time in years. I kind of have to avoid sugar but normal people probably could enjoy. Even cider is too sweet now to really drink for me.
I got a chuckle out of this one (dark humor), but I can relate to why rebellion is necessary when bad attitudes take over.
ReplyDeleteYeah me too.
DeleteBeautiful. And yeah, take your average full-of-themselves American WASPS and you've got those kind of people to a T.
ReplyDeleteYes exactly and sadly they can be on the left too. I have noted that I have been deemed "too radical" by some "liberals" [mostly wealthier ones] too.
DeleteWelp, I can no longer continue to recommend Morris Berman's blog. I've been essentially kicked off for using the fine, working-class term "you guys".
ReplyDeleteThis turned out to ruffle a lot of Chardonnay-sippers' feathers, or more importantly, Morris Berman's.
I'd been submitting my daily experiences on there, and since I believe the crowd there skews about 10 years older and $1 million more in assets (not that hard these days if you're a Boomer and own a house, 2nd house, etc you get the idea) and property-owning Boomers don't change their own oil, maintain their own bikes (trust me they don't, I see the simplest things being done for them at bike shops) or provide for their own defense.
Trust me there's no way Mr. Berman is living in Mexico City or thereabouts and experiencing it as the idyll he claims it is unless he's living like a Baathist general in Iraq with plenty of "security".
People of that level of wealth are creeped out by working-class people who (a) can't hire private security guards when they need them and (b) have the capability to operate the kind of equipment providing one's own security requires. An armed working-class is flat-out dangerous to them and they know it.
So I was told I'm not a "real" WAF'er (what people on that blog call themselves) because in Amerikkka, it's black or white. With Us or Not One Of Us. And since I'm not a chardonnay-sipper, I must be a member of the enemy; a Trump supporter or something. Which I'm mot emphatically not.
In any case, sooner or later, if you're working-class they'll sniff it out, and you'll cease to be welcome. These are people who are wealthy, retired, jetting around to Europe or Asia or wherever the drinks are cold and strong, buying $40 books on a whim, etc. Someone who might sip slowly on the $2 Pabt that's their treat for the week and rode there on a bicycle, will just be scary and unwelcome to them.
Well his hatred of BLM and going on about political correctness seems to leave him in the worried about "Marxism" boomer camp no matter his misgivings about Trump. That alone marks him to me as an out of touch wealthy type, where Trump is too crass to be acceptable but who still supports the core part of the system. I have faced classism like this too, so I know exactly what you mean. I once told someone locally to stop trying to force me to talk in corporate "formal register" and it wasn't going to happen. I get the feeling his life in Mexico is a privileged one too.
DeleteWhat is a WAF? I kind of missed the memo on that term
WAF is the acronym (he loves acronyms) for Why America Failed, one of his books. The book is better than his blog, as blogs, as we both know, are one-pass writing at best.
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't hate BLM so much as seeing it being used as a tool, as a plaything for middle-class whites to feel good about themselves for having gone to demonstrations etc., but in the end a few streets will be re-named and everyone will forget about it (happening now) and life for blacks in the US will not improve. I agree with him on this. However, some of the comments about LGBT people ...
In the end I think you pegged it. Middle or upper-middle class liberals. I've never seen anyone on there talking about work they did in their garden, or how they fixed something. They have "help" to do those things.
The blog is just too shrill; they sit on their hilltops sniping at the proles doing idiotic things like calling 911 when the KFC runs out of chicken or something, and yes, proles do idiotic things because everyone does idiotic things from time to time. But that's all they do. They just point and laugh. Nothing constructive; nothing about what they did toward their purported ideal of being "NMI" or New Monastic Individuals.
Being an NMI apparently is edgy and daring to them, but it's simply how people are increasingly forced to live now. Living simply, having goals that will probably not result in any kind of wealth, etc.
Of course he lives in some kind of an armed compound in MX city. It's like the Philippines. Americans retire there, but you've got to have lots of money to have a defensible place and to pay for the loyalty of peons to defend it. That's how radio host Art Bell lived, and the Philippines having plenty of available underage girls didn't hurt either, in his case.
I should check out the book, I do find his blog interesting but yeah got annoyed by a lot too. Did you ever read that Ian Martin one....he seems to be right about a lot but has the classist edge too.
DeleteI am a BLM supporter sick of violent cops, brutality and racism but I keep getting bothered about one thing, how class and economics is never mentioned and almost feel like BLM is being used as a diversion from class and economic issues. Remember when I talked about going to that antiracism meeting bringing up economic justice and they shut me down it's kind of like that. I don't see real changes for black people either unless there are complete changes to the economic system or economic injustice. I am sick of the conservatives who keep blaming protesters too, supporting all the brutality.
So yeah I feel like a few streets will be named some gestures and core things won't change. I have the same concerns about the middle class liberals. Covid too is
adding a layer too that many people are having the economic bottom fall out, and that's not being talked about and disturbing me.
He does seem homophobic, that bothered me too. There's a few red pill edges on these blogs.
I see middle class and upper middle class liberals as allies on many causes. Even in my UU, I know I kind of stand outside the typical class status. There I do discuss a few of the things related to class quite openly so hope I have opened some eyes, but yeah I know generally I grow impatient with centrist middle class to upper middle class liberals who don't admit the basic structure of the system is destructive.
I am too poor to even have the garden...LOL but know what you mean, they depend on the help.
I see a bit of academic white tower elitism there. I enjoy intellectuals but they got a little bit of looking down on the "poors" there, kind of like non-racist Charles Murray's who believe that more effort and better morals would make everyone rich like them.
So yeah, also Morris is elitist enough to be one of those "elite" jetsetters whose orientation is globalist, if a place goes bad, he just whips out his money and goes to the next. He's a connected aman, reading all his awards and more. Would probably guess he was born into some of those connections.
Since I dabbled in conspiracy, all those writings against Dominionism as a Christian, I am more then familiar with the "both parties are bad" Zero Hedge/alt-right/red pillers with less religion and some trump hate blended into the special mix. So I have seen types like Morris before.
Ive even heard of the New Monastic movement. Though more in a religious context. Rod Dreher etc. These richy rich types think if everyone homeschools and grows their own gardens [they ignore the privilege they have in their large homes/land/health making such "sustainable" living viable. They truly see the "peasants" stuck in their small apartments as truly below them.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/new-monasticism-benedict-option-wilson-hartgrove/
There is a religious agenda undergriding this stuff, a desire for neo-feudalism. Do you know what religion Morris is specifically.
I guessed I am not surprised to see a "Lost Cause" Confederacy supporter supporting his book.
https://coyoteprime-runningcauseicantfly.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-dying-civilization-moral-order.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CA%20Dying%20Civilization%3
Be wary of those who speak of redoing the moral order.
I have nothing against living simply [LOL I am a follower of involuntary simplicity] and wish I had more land and a closer to the land lifestyle but have been unable to pull it off but people like this have an agenda.
I have seen too much of the red pill world. I actually used to write against the Alt-right world while still a fundie. I see them as "useful idiots" to the power holders who want to make billions while the peasants live in enforced "simplicity". Even being a progressive now, I still have feelings of wariness about Agenda 21 and the perceived extreme social engineering they are pushing through Covid 19.
DeleteIan Martin seems to be an engineering dweeb supporting nuclear energy so ... no thanks.
ReplyDeleteMost BLM people have hearts of gold and it goes without saying that their complaints are legitimate. I've been to demos, I've shouted and played my trumpet. I could go on and on about George Floyd ... yes he dipped a toe into crime, so did my older brother. In both cases it was not a fit and they moved on. And the matter isn't whether Floyd was good or bad as a person, it was that the cops knew they could do what they did because he's black.
But as you say, some streets will be re-named and that's about it.
I'm living in an industrial area in what's called an "R&D" unit. Office, loft above office, large cement-floor space with a big roll-up door. Officially the loft is my living space but it gets really hot up there so it's my storage space and I do my actual living in the office. So I can't have a garden. I've been learning the local plants though, and recently decided to not buy veggies at the store if I can gather or scrounge them. It's worked out pretty well so far. More recently, I've started to learn to make cider using scrounged or gathered fruit. I'm drinking some of my first batch right now. It's a useful apocalyptic skill and it's nice to drink hard cider for $2 a gallon.
Sounds like Morris Berman isn't as unique as he'd like to think he is. I believe I've seen the "New Monasticism" meme around too.
Morris is Jewish, but he seems to take the stand that he's one of the "cool" ones and takes a dig at Israel from time to time. This is where I really differ. I am very pro-Israel. I don't think, and history backs me up, that you can get away with being a "cool" Jew who is anti-Israel and you'll be welcomed. Not when things get tough. That everyone should have a nation but the Jews not have theirs, is the height of double standards.
I don't think "Agenda 21" is a real thing, and all anyone at the UN who wishes to enact such a thing has to do is kick their feet up, get out the popcorn, and sit back. As for "extreme social engineering", in first-world countries there's this weird thing, the idea that we live in a society and should care about the good of society. Crazy, I know. Are you an anti-vaxxer?
Yeah my beliefs about agenda 21, have changed in general. The fundies taught me the UN is evil, I don't believe that way now. With social engineering with the virus, I worry about the wiping away of small business, the social distancing now becoming the norm, where people are shut off more from each other--I agree with the precautions--. Maybe we will have UBI, better development.
DeleteNo I am not an anti-vaxxer. I have some fundie baggage there about Bill Gates, but I think the people refusing vaccines are nuts, and they have spread measles, mumps and are bringing back diseases. I think we should put the good of society as a high priority too. Considering the evangelical Christians are spreading Covid19 at Super-spreading events, I wonder if there will be a backlash.
https://anewscafe.com/2020/07/30/redding/know-jesus-no-mask-how-a-charismatic-worship-leader-bamboozled-his-way-to-the-sundial-bridge/?fbclid=IwAR08IkjLTGuXH4r4_pV8H4ujDRpYRFT5FvnAIkSaRw9k24XKYaiwWbvnMkQ
With Israel, I am kind of in the middle, don't like how Palestinians are treated. I question the extreme Zionism from my fundie days. I don't think Hagee and his sort care about the fate of Israel either. They deserve a nation like everyone else--agree.
Agree about BLM, there needs more discussion of the social economic end of things, though some are TRYING like Barber.
Yeah Morris disturbs me, he's probably trying to please his fellow red pillers with the Israel digs. Glad you have an office and industrial space to live in, that's a good idea with the vegetables.
I did some research and apparently Agenda 21 is a real thing. However it seems so high-level and bureaucratic that I doubt it's anything to worry about. What really needs to happen is a drastic decrease in population, evenly enacted across all nations and social classes, and the chance of that happening is just about zero.
ReplyDeleteYeah maybe my agenda 21 worries are left over fundie baggage. The fundies/evangelicals all seem to want everyone to die of Covid, and have destroyed the USA with it, and their support of the Orange Sociopath. Agree about overpopulation, child-free is a growing thing in some Western nations but too many nations, the populations are skyrocketing. One reason I stopped believing in a God is what kind of God would put a species on a planet, where it could over-run the planet and destroyed it. The supposed planner could have made childbirth only possible every 5 years or something. There are times I am relieved I did not have children to bring into this dying world.
DeleteThe problem with Christianity is their strong belief in Heaven. It's OK if your life sucks here, in fact it's better if your life sucks here, because it'll be all that much nicer in Heaven. Jews kind of leave the idea of an afterlife up to whether the individual wants to believe in it, but what matters is life here on Earth, and what you do in your life - deeds speaking louder than words etc. Buddhists actually believe in each speck of awareness surviving through not only many lifetimes but many "kalpas" which are the lives of Universes!
ReplyDeleteBut a hell of a lot of Christians literally want the world to burn. There has to be tons of death and pain and suffering, a real wringing-out, so the few, the beautiful and good, by which they believe themselves however much they may actually be awful and ugly, will go to their Heaven.
It's pretty much the Taliban and 72 virgins... In fact "Crusade" and "Jihad" I'm pretty convinced have the same root word and they mean the same thing of course.
Before we left the garden, when we were hunter-gatherers, we did in fact have children only every 3-4 years.
Palestinians are a problem, pretty much self-created. Yes, a bunch of 'em left Israel when the State was founded. But a larger number of Jews were forced out of surrounding nations where they'd lived for ages and ages, often leaving behind houses, businesses, money, anything but literally the shirts on their backs and maybe a baby carriage to walk, yes walk, to the newly born Israel. Dunno you you define a "fair" trade here but it was certainly an unequal one, the Jews getting the short end as usual.
Now the Pals have been breeding as many kids as possible to try to overcome with sheer numbers. And most are not originally from that area, they're from Arab nations like Jordan. But they like living and working in Israel better than in their original shithole countries so there you have it.
It's really feeling like 1930s Germany out there though so "da jooz" are seeing the writing on the wall and hopefully will continue in the re-settlement of their own damn country. TL;DR: the "Pals" can suck it.
And before someone goes crying to me, Oh the poor Pals, yadda yadda, their native land is not Israel. There are eleventy-seven other countries where they can live and be full citizens. I grew up in Hawaii and although I feel "native" to Hawaii, I am not. And they fucking hate me there. It might not be "fair" but I would always be the hated outsider there. I may have Hawaiian friends, but would always run the chance of being killed randomly for Existing While White. It's that bad there, it's just covered up because of tourism. So I got the fuck out. I was born here in California and living here is a huge, huge weight off of my shoulders. Not being a hated outsider is a wonderful thing.
Besides the vegetables, I'm learning to make what you could call hard cider but honestly, it's better described as "hooch" at this stage. I randomly find all kinds of fruit so I cook it down, add sugar and yeast, and well, my first batch, a simple apple juice and brown sugar recipe, came out great. I'm mentioning this because this might be a good hobby if you're interested in such things.
I agree heaven is a problem, like a carrot on a stick. It's turning this earth into hell as the conservative Christians want dystopia for their last days fantasies. More and more if there is any divine force I believe today's conservative Christian fulfill the tenets of any spiritual darkness.
DeleteThey claim suffering helps too, though the Catholics go a bit further with that. Yeah Jews don't believe in heaven or hell, kind of off the table. Weird how Christianity developed them both. Wow with kalpas, I never knew that, they seem far closer to true science, where universes are born and die, like planets in the massive scope of time. I don't consider myself a Buddhist but have interest in segments of it. That is something I definitely want to read up on.
There is a death cult aspect to today's conservative/evangelical Christians, they want the world to burn, crash and disintegrate for their "savior" to return and fix it all. And they want to take the rest of us all down with them. When one sees them holding crowded events during a plague, that says the death wish is very strong. I don't know the psychological reason for this. Some kind of break down upon the growing complexity and disconnection of society? Christianity in conservative forms breeds magical thinking. I am more then familiar with this process. Some of them are so full of hate, maybe they think God is only going to make all the non-believers suffer and God is going to make them all magically virus-free, and that their Rapture will spare them all pain.
Christian Taliban is a term that describes these people and they really are no different from Muslim extremists who want to stamp out education, science, rights for women, etc etc.
Yeah Palestine was a newly created "state" and you are right, Ive read about the breeding programs though they are digging a hole, for themselves, like the American Quiverfuls? Extreme religion destroyed their countries so they went to modern Israel? I can see that happening. If the religionists win here, the USA is going to become a shithold, it basically is well on it's way. Journalists are already calling it a "failed state". Palestinians sound like they would do better to return to other countries. I don't know all the ins and outs here. I do feel for the kids and others who seem to go hungry and live in extreme poverty. All the violence in that region of the world is insane.
Wow that surprises me about Hawaii....are white people a minority there where natives are most of the population? They are seriously discriminate that badly there? I've been a minority white person in former neighborhoods but never got treated that way. Did they see you as a person out to oppress them or do they see whites as racists or invaders?
I am sure most see Hawaii as the tourist brochures. Isn't it expensive as hell there, where a normal apartment is something like 4,000 a month and a 2 bed room house like a rancher costs like a million?
Yeah hard cider would be easy to make. LOL Ive had cider turn hard in my fridge before and drank some and probably got tipsy for first time in years. I kind of have to avoid sugar but normal people probably could enjoy. Even cider is too sweet now to really drink for me.