closed

as a retirement job ( and as a hedge against the greedy bastards in whoretown whom no one with any rational sense would trust not to take everything they can ) i am working for a "retail giant" that refers to itself as the "omnichannel retailer" in a decaying and slowly dying suburban mall...which just died a little deader on the last day of march when...

the local forever 21 closed its doors for the last time...

it looks rather empty in there as a bastion of "fast fashion" seems to have found the limit to the genre...should i be saddened by the death of a retailer...hardly...there are others...i work at one...and then there is the wealth of on-line shopping to take into consideration...and that is the crux of the issue...i have to consume to survive...and even if i refuse to make purchases from one particular vendor or another...either out of preference or some political or social issue ( dei for instance ) i am still making them somewhere else and so still supporting a corporate entity and as a function of that, capitalism which seems to be a source of many issues...embedded in the system and aggrandizing it though need and, on occasion, desire...framed as much by its needs ( we're here to help you help us ) as much as by any of my own even by working supporting it...work is as much about consumption as it is earning ( what am i "earning" for ? )...work demands food, fuel, transport, clothing, time and effort to sustain...how much of my consumption is geared towards "work"? do i work to sustain myself or do i sustain myself to work? and while we are talking costs let's look at some stemming from "fast fashion"...trendy cheap-assed clothes that are discared readily...where does all that end up?

well...ghana imports a lot of used cothing from the west...and, from what i have been reading, about 40% of it ends up in landfills and along the shoreline as unsaleable...so the environmental costs ( who knows what went on during the production of said clothing? i do not allthough i do hear of workers in california earning well below minimum wage affixing labels to garments...one presumes [however cannot prove ] sweat-shops all alnong the processes ) extend to various parts of the world, developed and un...who could rationally call any of this elements of a sustainable system?

what has this accomplished II

an "unconditional discharge"...and do you suppose this makes a difference in any way...at no time did i expect donny to serve jail time...he is of the elite and they will protect their own...they are, after all, extrotionists to an individual and if one goes down there could be a cascade of criminal comeuppance...there is a long hisory of elites bending morality to suit their purposes...hypocrisy is a common weapon of power...aaron burr was indicted for murder in new jersey for killing hamilton...that was quashed as he was a sitting vice-president...donny is an incoming president and he ostensibly skated because of that...nah...just another self-promoting entitled rich ( allegedly ) guy whose base, for whatever twisted reason, thinks he is an answer to their problems rather than part of the cause...do they have a right to be angry? i'd say yes they do...it is simply anger that is misdirected, or, rather, not fully directed...missing the point somewhat in thinking that any part of the elite could possibly have anything beyond their own interests in mind when grabbing for political power...they will be disillusioned soon enough and then the need for a police force to ensure loyalty to the maga dogma will become a necessity...interesting times ahead.

another post that would have offended the facebook arbiters of the acceptable

today's mail was fairly nondescript in anyone's assessment ( and, particularly, mine )...it did, however, contain one piece of junk mail that held some interest on a number of levels...

first of all it is a brazen invitation to usurp the letter of the law of this godforsaken state ruled from downstate by a legislature with a supermajority of trumpist, bible thumping, covertly racisit, and homophobic atavistic relics from the ninteenth century ( at the very latest ) who would never undermine the whiskey lobby in the state capital by legalizing marijuana sale...and, even more to the point, indivdual recreational use...sloppy drunk was good enough for garandpa and by god it's good enough for them as well...right and true recreation for all decent citizens...marijuana is simply a tool of subversive elements used to corrupt youth and, much like socrates, needs to be suppressed...secondly, any attempt on my part to post any of this on my facebook page would result in a stern warning from what are doubtlessly robotic sensors about its unacceptability on the grounds that i would be promoting something illegal ( in this behavioral sump of a state anyway...clearly a different philosophical and legal out look across the state line )...so i came to this bastion of free speaach just to say "fuck these people"...which group ( or groups ) of "people" i have in mind is up to you to divine.

taxes, whore politicians, and contingency

my not going to the court house in the county seat ( "what will happen if this does not happen"...begins to sound like a descartes square ) today would have been contingent on several events occurring which did not...first i would not have gone if i could have paid my property tax on line...unfortunately when i filled out the "payment" page with all the rquisite details such as routing number, account number, address, email, phone number and clicked on continue to go to the confirmation page nothing happened...same with a debit/credit card...technological failure...second...i could have mailed it ( i have eighteen days left to pay in ) if i trusted the post office...however since just yesterday i received mail addressed to someone in a different city i had no faith in their abilities...third...there was a list of banks that would accept my payment on the bill...i did not want to hassle with finding directions to branches of unfamiliar banks and trust issues cropped up here yet again...so i got in my vehicle and drove to the county seat...the treasurer's office is in "building A" in the complex which is fine except there were large signs on the windows stating "entrance sr-1 is closed ( this being the door to "building A" ) the public should use entrance sr-2 " ( why the "sr" designation eludes me ) which was a nuisance but what to do...unfortunately "entrance sr-2" is the entrance to the building with the courtrooms so i had to empty my pockets in a plastic tray and walk through a metal detector which my metal belt buckle and the rivets in my jeans set off so i had to be frisked and scanned again with a hand-held scanner ( " boy you sure got a lot of metal buttons in here"...no they're rivets but that is beside the point )...after that adventure i had to walk down the hallway connecting the buildings...which was festooned with signs saying "detour for entance sr-1" and walk up the stairs ( the deputy at the door said i should "take the elevator" so i defied authority ) to the treasurer's office which was surprisingly empty so that transaction was quick if not painless...coincidentally enough early voting was set up just outside the treasurer's...

so i voted against that orange haired bozo...which won't actually matter in this yahoo state however i voted my opinion of that clown officially...whore politicans ( from the county level grifters on up ) are all whores...some are simply less vile than others

antness

so i am one of doubtlessly a significant number of people to receive this...

email informing me that there are changes coming to the way i log into my social security account and i had best get on with conforming my account with said changes or i won't have access and then there will be extensive paperwork just to prove i am me so we can fix this...they seem unable to leave things be...why did a user name and password on one page need to be shifted to another? one possibility is that one subset of bloated bureaucrats had to find a way to justify their existence and making changes to "streamline the process" into a more "efficient interface" was just the ticket...or...they could simply be intensifying what the dutch writer geert mak calls "antness"...the feeling of being small in the face of institutional archetecture...both physical and in the processes involved in maintaining your identity "inside"...change keeps people off balance and provides them with something to occupy their attention and thoughts...an effort to prevent them from thinking about why we should need to pander to a bureaucracy and their top down imperatives to change the way things are done for instance...either way, my thoughts are this is not likely to improve until the entire edifice collapses from its own weight

political discourse 101 summer session 2024

i saw any number of these flying from pick-up trucks on the fourth of july...not surprising since the next county over in this trupy state is a crypto-fascist enclave of white rural rage...amazon sells them at a reasonable price so even the land poor can pick one up to vent their spleen at everyone in eyeshot...and, given the condition of some pick-ups, earshot...

given that capitalism is consequentialist, amazon sells these as well...it's what old jeff has not how he got it that matters...a system lockean to the bone that focuses on property not ethics...i cannot truthfully say i have seen one of these in the flesh even though there are pockets of anti trump voters dotted around the environs...i also notice that they are three dollars more in price...somewhat unfair pricing as one correspondent to this blog has pointed out...another has pointed out that the pricing may reflect that the socio-economic status of those who might consider flying a "fuck trump" flag would likely be of a higher standing and so could be afforded...both sensible positions...they do, however, leave out the sacred economic principle of supply and demand...the greater the demand the higher the cost because the "good" is in scarcer supply...there may be more "fuck trump" minded people about than white rural rage is taking into consideration...or, conversely, old jeff is trying to discourage purchase by jacking up the price and giving us a glimpse of his political position in 2024...either way, political discourse has sunk to a rather low level in my experience...politics is always emotional and fear based to whip up the mob ( politicians love a rally because of group-think [ think "two minutes hate" ] and the attendant lack of thought that they entail...in the documentary "confessions of a hitler youth" the subject discusses being at a party rally where hitler spoke...at one point the crowed rose to its feet screaming "heil hitler" in which the protagonist joined and then said, after the noise had died down, that he truned to his neighbor and asked "what did he say?" politicans on both sides of the aisle are pure slime...past, present, and future ) so it's no surprise people aren't really thinking...takes too much work...and the incessant drone of political falsehoods alienate anyone who might...fuck these people.

2025

2025 i have listed at least three distinct groups that likely see donny trump as a vehicle to furthering their agendas...these would be people of wealth...religious fundamentalist/theocrats...and white nationalists ( aka racists )… wealth wealth does not want to be taxed...wealth wants more since wealth is never satisfied...wealth wants it all and as a result debt will become more central to the national political agenda than it already is...in an effort to reduce as much of the population to a state of debt penury, unable to do more than survive and service the interest on the debt while never paying down the principle i can see a sharp reduction, if not the outright elimination, of social security benefits ( which are NOT an entitlement...i have paid for them all my working life and continue i pay into the fund while collecting benefits...politicians, of course, see a different reality ) rendering the aged submerged in debt to survive... credit card interest rates are already usurious yet one could see there being no legal limit set on where they may raise to...economic life may become one national payday loan store to a greater extent than it already is… fundamentalist/theocracy oklahoma seem to be leading the way here as the bible is introduced into public schools blurring a constitutional separation of church and state which is the agenda of any number of sects as a start towards some sort of compulsory church membership or, possibly if there is some residual tolerance ( although to be tolerant is to be lukewarm ) a non-attendance tax melded into say the income tax like the wonder of obamacare leading to something akin to Edinburgh in the 1750’s...”the Sabbath was a day in which every moment was under surveillance. Work, the smallest recreation, ‘vaguing’ in the High Street or on the Castle esplanade, all invited punishment from Kirk-session or a fine from the magistrates. ‘Seizers” patrolled the streets during sermon-time to ensure attendance...or patrolled the streets in the evening, pursuing suspicious passers-by down the steep, dark wynds...visitors from England were crushed by the gloom of the Edinburgh Sunday.” (Crowded With Genius: The Scottish Enlightenment. James Buchan p. 60)...something to look forward to and, no doubt, something dreamed of by theocratic wannabes….in my estimation freedom of religion would include freedom from religion...or, at least, organized religion...i do not need some cleric to tell me i am part of cycles larger than myself...all i need to do is look at the sky at night...i can achieve that without allowing someone to remove my existence from the here and now to some imagined eternity...i will live my life in the present, thank you without the benefit of clergy or slimy televangelist impostures. racists Native-n. A person born in a place; a person connected to a place by birth whether subsequently a resident there or not. b. A local resident of a place. c. One of the original or usual inhabitants of a country as distinguished from strangers or foreigners. Adj. Belonging to or connected with one by the fact of one’s having been born there; that was the place or scene of one’s birth; belonging to by right or reason of the place or country of one’s birth or of that nation to which one belongs. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary i am thinking there will be a redefinition of what it is to “belong” and that it will follow rather a strict nativist adherence to the “by birth” portion of this definition with, however, some added limitations of what it is to be “born” here...not everyone born here is gong to be “native” and donny’s avowal to deport 15 to 20 million people will come with some updated version of the alien and sedition act of 1798 ( we will get to the sedition part soon )...that act stated, “...it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, at any time during the continuance of this act, to order all such aliens as he shall judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States, or shall have reasonable grounds to suspect are concerned in any treasonable or secret machinations against the government thereof to depart out of the territory of the United States...and if any alien so removed or sent out of the United States by the President shall voluntarily return thereto, unless by permission of the President of the United States, such alien on conviction thereof shall be imprisoned so long as, in the opinion of the President, the public safety may require.”...someone needs to define “reasonable grounds”...that is considerable judicial power vested in the executive... the argument was and would be now that it is wholly unconstitutional...except the present court would likely turn a blind eye to the constitution much less say habeas corpus… considerable power donny would covet and, likely, acquire...and to borrow one from vonnegut, once the barbed wire at those detention camps along the border goes up when do you suppose it will come down? one can see a subset of the polity that would use them for a wider ethnic cleansing which would also refer back to the above definition of native and what interpretation it might be given...those camps may have an additional use as well, which we will get to in the sedition section below...detention camps have as foul a history a ghettos...there is no justice in them...my thoughts are the republican party, as it is now constituted, has no interest in justice, only power and expanded wealth…and once the maga promise fades ( and it surely will as it becomes kleptocracy ) a police force will become necessary to enforce belief...since there can be nothing at fault about the philosophy of the wonderful new order there must be some of those “secret machinations” going on...internal enemies...good thing that barbed wire is still there sedition i do not believe there is any media source for unfiltered information...from fox news to the new york times editors and news producers keep close watch on information that might offend advertisers...this still does not keep criticism of public officials out of the news, even though that criticism is thoroughly partisan in nature, depending on the media source, and may not reflect reality in any real sense...still i can see that there would, of necessity, need to be a means to make the “news” more supportive of government policy and less able to critically analyze what is going on...confuse the polity with distortions about the raising and lowering of the chocolate ration and leave policy and policy decisions in the dark...section 2 of An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes Against the United States...a section of the alien and sedition act mandated, “ that if any persons shall write, print, utter, or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered, or published..any false, scandalous, and malicious writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame said government, or either house of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them, or either of them into contempt or disrepute...then such person, being thereof convicted before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.”...an individual was brought to trial for saying he wished a cannonball would strike the president’s posterior...free speech died dead in 1798 and it seems ripe to do so again in 2025...”false”...i could accept that as libelous if proved...scandalous? what if true? and “malicious” seems to be altogether too subjective to be brought as evidence...in 1973 i may have said “fuck nixon”...i would probably not have flown a flag that said so yet I have seen “fuck biden” flags more than once...malicious seems to be the lexicon of political discourse in the maga era...wondering where the “fuck trump” flags are...so...wealth, religion, and racism coming together to attempt to impose viewpoints and rationalize actions through a false pose of populism, and willing to do so with legislation backed up by a biased supreme court...which will do its best to aid a full bore assault on the twenty-second amendment and institute “president for life”...all possible, not yet reality...at least not for a few months...and the maddening thing is i have no particular interest in seeing either of these self proclaimed leaders be elected...there is no positive choice here and i cannot find the lesser of two evils...either way this will not end well.