"No, Libertarianism isn't fine.
It's based upon the delusional mythology of Rugged [White] Individualism building America. It makes a lot of noise about The Pioneers 'doing it themselves' and ignores any facts that run counter to that notion, like the railroads being both Corporate Entities and Federally funded. Or the need for the US Army in dealing with the Plains Indians, the finest light cavalry in the world. Without the former most of those Rugged [White] Individualists would have wound up as bones bleaching upon The Great Grass Plain. Plus it's traditional heroes tend to be violent, alcoholic, gambling addicted, whore mongering sociopaths.
And this is not even getting into how much of American's economic foundations were built upon the scarred black back of slavery.
So fuck that Libertarian bullshit...and you can quote me on that shit, baby!" *raises clenched fist*
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Today We Are Seven
~There are a number of calender events that are important to The Temple.
May 27th, 1996, Memorial Day of that year, when I saw The Craft and was inspired to create the stories of the Vēkkan Sisterhood's Universe, the key element in leading me to the actual Craft itself and to calling myself Witch.
January 31st, 1997, the evening when the mad and lovely Sarah L held open the portal that E came through, a Being who informed me that She was now going to be my Spirit Guide and then began to tell me in no uncertain terms just how that was going to work.
Those few days in mid October of 2001 when E first dictated The Pentavalent to me, the Precepts that are shaping and guiding The Temple into becoming The New Matriarchy, that Global Amazon Republic I'm so fond of promoting. We shall date the Anno Sororitas [Year of Sisterhood] beginning from that time when the actual Path itself was first Revealed. AD 2001=1 AS.
September 16th, 2005, when Le-Le was Initiated as a Sister of The Temple, Sister One as I titled her, and the thing transformed from a 'singular vision' to become an actual 'organization', albeit a 'mom and pop' one. [humble beginnings are a Good Thing]
These are all important dates. But...
Today is The Most Important Date, The Temple's actual birthday, August 30th, 2004. On that day, late in the afternoon, I first set the words The Temple of The Pentavalent upon paper and then wrote a brief outline of what it could become. I still have that thin spiral notebook.
As I have said in The Explanation, the idea for a 'house of women' had been put forth to me back in the previous March by Kat K, my oldest friend and the Sister who began this Path with me when were teenagers.
Note that I do not include my own birthday here. I am merely a vehicle for this Work. Today shall become a Festival Day, the day that celebrates not the birth of the guide, but The Birth of this New Matriarchy.
Today marks The Birth of Our Future.
Note: In 2004, August 30th was the 243rd calendar day, as '04 was Leap Year. So while the present calendar is in use, we shall use 8/30, which is usually the 242nd calendar day, as The Temple's Birthday Festival.
But the calendar will change.
I do not see a Matriarchy using months named after Roman male gods and autocrats. Then, whatever day of that calendar is 243rd, that day shall be designated for The Temple's Birthday Festival.
Also See The Temple's Flag Here
May 27th, 1996, Memorial Day of that year, when I saw The Craft and was inspired to create the stories of the Vēkkan Sisterhood's Universe, the key element in leading me to the actual Craft itself and to calling myself Witch.
January 31st, 1997, the evening when the mad and lovely Sarah L held open the portal that E came through, a Being who informed me that She was now going to be my Spirit Guide and then began to tell me in no uncertain terms just how that was going to work.
Those few days in mid October of 2001 when E first dictated The Pentavalent to me, the Precepts that are shaping and guiding The Temple into becoming The New Matriarchy, that Global Amazon Republic I'm so fond of promoting. We shall date the Anno Sororitas [Year of Sisterhood] beginning from that time when the actual Path itself was first Revealed. AD 2001=1 AS.
September 16th, 2005, when Le-Le was Initiated as a Sister of The Temple, Sister One as I titled her, and the thing transformed from a 'singular vision' to become an actual 'organization', albeit a 'mom and pop' one. [humble beginnings are a Good Thing]
These are all important dates. But...
Today is The Most Important Date, The Temple's actual birthday, August 30th, 2004. On that day, late in the afternoon, I first set the words The Temple of The Pentavalent upon paper and then wrote a brief outline of what it could become. I still have that thin spiral notebook.
As I have said in The Explanation, the idea for a 'house of women' had been put forth to me back in the previous March by Kat K, my oldest friend and the Sister who began this Path with me when were teenagers.
Note that I do not include my own birthday here. I am merely a vehicle for this Work. Today shall become a Festival Day, the day that celebrates not the birth of the guide, but The Birth of this New Matriarchy.
Today marks The Birth of Our Future.
Note: In 2004, August 30th was the 243rd calendar day, as '04 was Leap Year. So while the present calendar is in use, we shall use 8/30, which is usually the 242nd calendar day, as The Temple's Birthday Festival.
But the calendar will change.
I do not see a Matriarchy using months named after Roman male gods and autocrats. Then, whatever day of that calendar is 243rd, that day shall be designated for The Temple's Birthday Festival.
Also See The Temple's Flag Here
Monday, August 29, 2011
Class Genocide [cross posted from "The Recession"]
...I felt it time to re-post this piece from April 29th because of the depressing exchange between 'Badnewswade' and 'Gwendally' in this post, one which I likened to 'a pair of peasants fighting over a bucket of pigshit', hopefully to remind them both that The Rulers are laughing at their antics...
From What Is To Be Done
By Tom Wellington
The thirty year long subterranean class warfare of rich and the super-rich against the middle class is entering its final phase – Class Genocide.
Until now, the top 1% has appropriated to itself the benefits of the country’s economic growth, while the middle class stagnated. While making the tax code more regressive, the wealthy have also cut programs that helped people out of poverty and into the middle class. In part they rich were enabled by the American middle classes’ dreams of moving up. Particularly during the booms, entering the top 10% seemed just one stock pick or house flip away for many people, so with a little luck that low-upper bracket could soon be theirs. Since the first government programs cut helped move poor people into the middle class, cutting them did not hurt already middle class Americans. There was always a racial and ethnic component to shutting down entry into the middle class that the politicians subtly played off of.
That was the old class warfare. It unfolded so slowly that for years it just seemed coincidence that the rich always won and the middle class always lost. Even then, the middle class was at least running in place and not losing ground, it just wasn’t gaining. The rich were getting more, but the middle class remained stable and reasonably secure in their ability to remain in the middle class, and they had reasonable confidence that their children and grandchildren would also enjoy middle class status. That is what made it a class – a status that could be maintained for your lifetime and passed along to your descendants.
Now everything that defined the middle class is being dismantled. In America, you are middle class if you have a white collar job requiring a college education, or a union blue collar job, own your own home, are secure in retirement and able to pass along at least a little something to your kids. It’s pretty much what most of us grew up expecting.
With the Ryan budget, and the radical actions Republicans governors are taking in the various states, the GOP is destroying the foundations of middle class security and its ability to ensure that middle class children can become middle class adults. Starting with the land grant colleges of the nineteenth century, public schools, the GI Bills and student aid, the state and federal governments have built the middle class through access to education. When I attended the University of California, a world class education cost $750 a quarter in in-state tuition. My father was the first in his family to attend college and the GI Bill paid for it. I hesitate to think of the state of education and student aid in ten years, when my kids are ready for college, if Paul Ryan has his way.
The Ryan budget put a fear into me, for the very first time in my life, that in retirement I could go broke from medical bills. This is a real fear for those of us on the downside of the baby boom who are not grandfathered into Medicare as we know it. It is also a fear for those in Medicare, or soon to be, because they would be one line of legislation away from being swept into fending for themselves in the insurance market – where insurers will not fall all over themselves to offer good coverage at reasonable prices to eighty-year old diabetic cardiac patients.
It is so much more than the “safety net” that is currently being lost. The continued fallout from the housing bubble/mortgage crisis is going to end the 30 year mortgage for good. Along with the bottomless cup of coffee, the 30 year mortgage is one of America’s great contributions to civilization. The 30 year mortgage exists because of Federal support and regulation. The 30 year mortgage turned America into a nation of homeowners. It also turned every home into a piggy bank where each mortgage payment represented a deposit, and this increasing equity provided an emergency fund, a college fund, retirement savings and the ability to pass something along to the next generation. Think what losing all of that will mean to what we now think of as the middle class.
Without home-ownership, retirement security and college education, what then is left of the middle class?
The effect of all these changes cumulatively ending the middle class as we know it is not an accident. As they say about software – this is not a bug, but a feature. In some of my next posts I will look at why changing the nature of America’s class structure (what we lulled ourselves into thinking was a practically classless society because the middle class seemed to embrace almost everyone) is not a byproduct of what is happening, but the purpose of what they are doing.
The cumulative effect of all of these changes is not simply that millions will be moved out of the middle class, it is the end of the middle class as we have known it all of our lives. There simply will not be a middle class – there will be haves and have not’s. It will not be the America we want or knew.
From What Is To Be Done
By Tom Wellington
The thirty year long subterranean class warfare of rich and the super-rich against the middle class is entering its final phase – Class Genocide.
Until now, the top 1% has appropriated to itself the benefits of the country’s economic growth, while the middle class stagnated. While making the tax code more regressive, the wealthy have also cut programs that helped people out of poverty and into the middle class. In part they rich were enabled by the American middle classes’ dreams of moving up. Particularly during the booms, entering the top 10% seemed just one stock pick or house flip away for many people, so with a little luck that low-upper bracket could soon be theirs. Since the first government programs cut helped move poor people into the middle class, cutting them did not hurt already middle class Americans. There was always a racial and ethnic component to shutting down entry into the middle class that the politicians subtly played off of.
That was the old class warfare. It unfolded so slowly that for years it just seemed coincidence that the rich always won and the middle class always lost. Even then, the middle class was at least running in place and not losing ground, it just wasn’t gaining. The rich were getting more, but the middle class remained stable and reasonably secure in their ability to remain in the middle class, and they had reasonable confidence that their children and grandchildren would also enjoy middle class status. That is what made it a class – a status that could be maintained for your lifetime and passed along to your descendants.
Now everything that defined the middle class is being dismantled. In America, you are middle class if you have a white collar job requiring a college education, or a union blue collar job, own your own home, are secure in retirement and able to pass along at least a little something to your kids. It’s pretty much what most of us grew up expecting.
With the Ryan budget, and the radical actions Republicans governors are taking in the various states, the GOP is destroying the foundations of middle class security and its ability to ensure that middle class children can become middle class adults. Starting with the land grant colleges of the nineteenth century, public schools, the GI Bills and student aid, the state and federal governments have built the middle class through access to education. When I attended the University of California, a world class education cost $750 a quarter in in-state tuition. My father was the first in his family to attend college and the GI Bill paid for it. I hesitate to think of the state of education and student aid in ten years, when my kids are ready for college, if Paul Ryan has his way.
The Ryan budget put a fear into me, for the very first time in my life, that in retirement I could go broke from medical bills. This is a real fear for those of us on the downside of the baby boom who are not grandfathered into Medicare as we know it. It is also a fear for those in Medicare, or soon to be, because they would be one line of legislation away from being swept into fending for themselves in the insurance market – where insurers will not fall all over themselves to offer good coverage at reasonable prices to eighty-year old diabetic cardiac patients.
It is so much more than the “safety net” that is currently being lost. The continued fallout from the housing bubble/mortgage crisis is going to end the 30 year mortgage for good. Along with the bottomless cup of coffee, the 30 year mortgage is one of America’s great contributions to civilization. The 30 year mortgage exists because of Federal support and regulation. The 30 year mortgage turned America into a nation of homeowners. It also turned every home into a piggy bank where each mortgage payment represented a deposit, and this increasing equity provided an emergency fund, a college fund, retirement savings and the ability to pass something along to the next generation. Think what losing all of that will mean to what we now think of as the middle class.
Without home-ownership, retirement security and college education, what then is left of the middle class?
The effect of all these changes cumulatively ending the middle class as we know it is not an accident. As they say about software – this is not a bug, but a feature. In some of my next posts I will look at why changing the nature of America’s class structure (what we lulled ourselves into thinking was a practically classless society because the middle class seemed to embrace almost everyone) is not a byproduct of what is happening, but the purpose of what they are doing.
The cumulative effect of all of these changes is not simply that millions will be moved out of the middle class, it is the end of the middle class as we have known it all of our lives. There simply will not be a middle class – there will be haves and have not’s. It will not be the America we want or knew.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Nebs Sez
"I confess to be utterly unprepared for even the smallest emergency. We're a pair a fat old gimps on welfare living in a mobile home park. I suspect we'd be among the early dead aka The Grateful." ..comment upon Winter is Coming
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Nebs Sez
"He's not the first Young Firebrand to become a cranky altakaka. Remember most of the Neo-Cons started off as Trotskites. It seems a special affliction of Jewish intellectuals, their heritage steeped in Talmudic thinking. Such can produce genius as if from an assemble line, yet its relentless parsing can lead to endless conflict. Golda Meir once said, "If the Arabs really wanted to destroy us, they'd leave us alone." I suspect Mr. Mamet has internally painted himself into a corner and it has driven him mad." ..comment on Say it isn't so, Mamet?
Friday, August 19, 2011
Random Lite
~I am substantially improved today. After being up for about six hours or so, I took another 'nap', roughly another six hours. Now I actually feel perky. Sleep is The Great Cure...as I am so fond of saying. And the world is still insane and full of fools, as I once said in a poem. *shrug* Who ya gonna call?
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Random
~After I posted my lil missive this morning I ate some more, watched The Social Network and then went to sleep for ten and half hours. That has generally improved my state of mind. I'm still certain that Most Humans Are Vile Ignorant Scum [MHAVIS..pronounced Mavis lol], but right now I really don't care much. It's the Ability to Detach that is Key.
I had slept poorly the day before. That tends tax my emotional resilience. Combine that with my interaction with this crazy bitch and The Proof of MHAVIS seen in The Futility of The Hoi Polloi and I spiraled inward quickly once I descended to another level of tiredness.
I'm 'okay' at this point. Not 'back in the saddle', but not staring blankly at the walls either. And so it is...
I had slept poorly the day before. That tends tax my emotional resilience. Combine that with my interaction with this crazy bitch and The Proof of MHAVIS seen in The Futility of The Hoi Polloi and I spiraled inward quickly once I descended to another level of tiredness.
I'm 'okay' at this point. Not 'back in the saddle', but not staring blankly at the walls either. And so it is...
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