constant enforcement

“the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people.”-- grover Cleveland in 1887 in response to request for drought relief from texas. “for that matter, it never occurs to apian that his class as such needs defending, rome is imperiled by plebian violence. likewise when the dictator sulla give fortuitous birth to himself, saving rome from herself, by means of easy bloodshed, his tools demand ‘that the voting should be controlled by the well-to-do and sober-minded rather than by the pauper and reckless classes; there would no longer be left any starting point for civil; discord.’ sulla and apian do not conceive of mass revolution, only of mass disorder.”__william t. vollmann from rising up, rising down. "the convention...have directed the president to be chosen by select bodies of electors to be deputed by the people for that express purpose; and they have committed the appointment of senators to the state legislatures. this mode has, in such cases, vastly the advantage of elections by the people in their collective capacity where the activity of party zeal, taking advantage of the supineness, the ignorance, and the hopes and fears of the unwary and uninterested, often places men in office by the votes of a small proportion of the electors." the federalist LXVI ( john jay)_____________ most politicians have distanced themselves from “the demos”…”the mob”…never fully trusted it not to turn on them like a pack of jackals half-starved by b f skinner for one of his twisted experiments in “operant conditioning” ( a form of behavioral amendment and control that lures elites like moths to flame…skinner is still a very popular man in some circles…and starvation is a useful tool when it comes to behavior…from the potato famine to the great depression [ with some truly gruesome refinements by stalin] it had its uses )…oh they are more than happy to divide “the people” and turn a well indoctrinated and controlled “mob” loose on real or perceived threats to their hegemony…but a populist mob with a reform from below agenda scares the crap out of them...so from apian and sulla through john jay and grover Cleveland the elites have cloaked their interests in the guise of national interests”…make resistance to those interests tantamount to treason and allowing them to bring down the full weight of the legal system and a group of raging “patriots” down on anyone who might have thoughts about a “different way” or some sort of alternate distribution of wealth and power…violence isn’t always necessary and, usually, isn’t really productive…indoctrination ( we are back to skinner again ) can be more effective and less costly and if violence is deemed a necessity it will ensure a nob of properly aimed and controlled goons who won’t question their handlers too closely…at least at first…those three guys in the photo…they are hegemons…don’t let the bubbaness of two of them ( one an ivy leaguer and the other a rhodes scholar ) or the hopeful ethnicity of the other ivy leaguer fool you into thinking they were any less bent on a class oriented agenda than the current denizen of the white house ( who has displayed some skill at energizing a mob of dilatant thugs but seems oblivious to the mood of a seeming majority of the nation…he is also, i might add, a profound devotee of the ideas expressed by Cleveland…”the government” and the elite he surely comes from are on in the same...in his mind [ oddly much like the attitude of richard Nixon] we owe him unstinting loyalty and the recognition that he is above the law and can do what he pleases)…the history of the interests of wealth as the national interest have a long and fabled history…all that neo-classical kitch in the nation’s capitol is an indication that the early republic and its later celebrants saw themselves as the true heirs to rome..in many ways they still do…a close reading of gibbon or tainter might be illuminating for them…one presumes they are not interested in anything emanating from “neo-mathusian nay sayers”…well…denial will bite you on the ass every time…i have to wonder what hunter would have made of all this.

reading the n y times ( sort of )

today's n y times weighs in at a hefty three pounds twelve and three-quarter ounces...who knew there was so much news? i mean i knew there were climate related issues ( i talked to my brother in florida yesterday and will try to do so again today ) and the assorted tererorists and diplomats and batshit crazy north koreans ( well complimented by the current swamptown crop of loons cast in ideological concrete...where is the lake of fire? ) but an almost four pound newspapaer? then i opened it and things began to gain perspective...lots of inserts..the usual sunday magazine and the quarterly "style" magazine ( more on those soon enough...patience )..additionally there is a "special offer from the economist to n y times readers ( i can, if i act quickly, save $321.87 off the twelve week regular subscription rate of $333.87 by claiming the unheard of low price of a buck a week...that's right...twelve weeks for twelve bucks because i am a n y times reader...astonishing...you can see my response in, i believe, the sixth photo...the only people who believe economists anymore are other economists and "free market" geeks with their heads up their asses )...there is an entire brochure for wonderful cruises and another for "eight exceptional days" of $9590 sofas and $7180 dining room sets...a pattern was becoming discernible...so...armed with the latest times advertising rates for color and black and white advertising i began to look at the magazines..the "style" magazine (http://nytmediakit.com/uploads/rates/CRS-9040_2016_Rate_Cards_TMag_EC3.pdf there's the price list url ) had advertising worth $7,200,322 and, as a side note, turned an article about the travel writer and novelist bruce chatwin into a vehicle for selling outdoor clothing...everything is for sale at the times...while the sunday magazine "education issue" ( educating whom to what i wonder ) had a measly $1,927,350 (http://nytmediakit.com/uploads/rates/CRS-9040_2016_Rate_Cards_Magazine_EC2.pdf )...interestingly enough milton hershey, fordham, uc davis, ucla, nyu, harvard medical school seton hall, adelphi, pace, and loyola marymount universities accounted or $1,177, 825 of that total...you have to spend money to make money...every university bean counter knows that...my news is distorted and my desires are engineered ( at least that is the hope )...we all live in the memory hole now and everything is spun to the point of unrecognizability...i never looked for "truth"...it is too subjective...sifting through all this blather and self-serving crap for fact is a tedious business...i keep trying though...everyone has an agenda and the world is replete with liars, grifters, and swindlers...america in the 21st century has tapped into the main nerve of that...the "hog butcher to the world" is turning into a nation of gated communities and flea markets...we passed the crossroads a ways back and i wonder if the street us wide enough for a u-turn.

pharmakon

being neither a logician or an academic will not deter me from thinking: 1.) humans are tribal and territorial by nature. 2.) that being tribal imparts a sense of security and “belonging. 3.) that belonging is not universal…it is exclusionary…it is a pharmakon and, eventually, it poisons…there is always “the other”. 4.) that any treaty promulgated by the united nations banning nuclear weapons is irrelevant to those who possess nuclear weapons. 5.) because of an evolutionary predisposition to tribalism the hegemons who control their various socio-political system will not surrender what they see as an ultimate defense of “us” against “them”. We have a multitude of ways of disposing of ourselves as a species that we actively engage in on a daily basis because it is structured into the institutions we were born into…whether it is me recklessly using resources and emitting carbon dioxide ( despite the carbon offsets of the coniferous trees and deeply rooted perennials in my yard ) or kim jong un and his increasingly unstable counterpart unleashing a nuclear exchange and a general war ( and don’t doubt there are those here who would favor a “first strike”…the military mind is the uber-tribal mind )…are we doomed? may be…perhaps not…humans are adaptable too…we may find a way to live with our destructive ways ( we have always been deleterious to the environment ) but I wouldn’t expect idealism to trump weaponry…if you have it the impetus is to use it…add in the ascendancy ( or, perhaps, their assumed ascendancy ) of life-hating christian nihilists and you have a dangerous and lamentable combination of human hubris mixed with flat stupidity…trump and kim may dispose of themselves as they see fit…I care for neither…they should leave the rest of us out of their puerile posturing.

a 99% possibility of distortion

"hello, just a question someone can answer if they can find the time...are the photos you publish in in your newspaper ( as opposed to on line ) derived from digital or analog cameras? thanks for your time and attention."__________that is an email i sent off to my friends ( as long as i am a subscriber anyway ) at the n y times asking about the photos they use in their print edition ( obviously the photos in the on line edition are all digital )...i have been reading a lot of philosophy recently and there is a lot of verbiage in that discipline devoted to discussing how we know what we know and why we believe what we believe and i was wondering about the sources of what i was looking at in the media...a couple of days later this arrived in my mailbox..."Good Morning Fred, Thank you for contacting the New York Times. The Photographer has the choice of digital vs. analog. But I would say that 99% of the time they end up being digital. Have a great day today! Chuck Arnold III"__________this was not comforting news...i have something of a distaste for the digital ( i know...i know...this is digital...everything i do here is digital..my cameras [except the vivtar] are digital..i know...i know )...partly because i was born near the middle of the last century i suppose...however there is reason to be a bit concerned...with analog photography there was a mechanical transference of light to chemically treated film that created the negative for the image...things like a flaw in the chemical coating could occur or double exposures, however whatever image was transferred to the film had to be there...it had to be physically present...true photos could be "retouched"..flaws smoothed or removed...stalin had a passion for that and it is part of what inspired orwell's "memory hole" and his conceptualization of the mutability of history ( and his stint at the bbc in the second world war sensitized him to propaganda as news )..some efforts were exceptionally crude ( see photos ) and even yezhov's becoming an unperson was not perfect...you could discern the changes..it was clear things were not as they seemed...digital images and photoshop have rendered the "memory hole" obsolete...images can be seamlessly altered by editing the digital code that is the basis of the photos...you can remove or insert anything and there is no real way to tell...distortions of perception can be had easily and, given the fact that media outlets are, in the end, corporate entities, i don't doubt that some manipulation in the interests of the editorial board ( read advertisers ) or the politically motivated ( all politics are an extension of economics...why do you suppose the "dismal science" began its life being called "political economy"? )...so..what media do i trust? none i am thinking...i can no longer be sure if what i am seeing is real ( if you can manipulate digital photographs one supposes digital video is not immune )...so? so i continue reading the times..and philosophy...and orwell...and i compare what i read and hear with what i see and hear in my own locality ( trust me, the news about the economy is pretty much fiction )...and i make my own judgements.

you will be surveilled

"you see how it is...wherever you are, you always have to work. there's never any excuse for idleness. there are also no wine-taverns, no ale houses, no brothels, no opportunity for seduction, no secret meting places. everyone has his eye on you, so you are practically forced to get on with your job, and make some proper use of your spare time."_____"this ensures that everyone's conduct in public is watched by those who are responsible for their discipline at home." thomas more, from utopia.________and one supposes to think properly as well, no? thomas more was under sheriff of london so his desire to watch everyone all the time is understandable...rule crazy control freak...and it is no surprise that those outstanding teleologies in human history ( so far ) the catholic church and every authoritarian state to date embrace more as one of their own...much of our lives are led under surveillance these days...cameras are everywhere and they claim there is workable facial recognition software out there...my phone is tapped...my emails and texts read..i have no intention of hiding my blog and fucking facebook is trying to hijack my life..so? today's n y times sunday magazine has a two page color advertisement ( something like $214,000 for that ) for nest's iq home surveillance camera you can connect to your smart phone and see what the help is up to while your busy extorting money with yet another wall street ponzi scheme...just because it's legal for you to fleece the public doesn't mean the goddamed help can slack...an electronic overseer...digital simon legree..i don't have a web cam...i don't need some government funded hacker watching me type this...that doesn't mean i am not seriously observed on a daily basis...my gut feeling is this is not going to get better...have a shufti at my last post in "death of the real"...you will be surveilled.

deep shit

i am inclined to agree regarding the reliability of information available in the media...but not because i believe in any sort of "deep state" conspiracy paranoia...the media have always been mouthpieces for elite worldviews that present he interests of wealth and power ans the "national interests" and label anyone who takes umbrage with that as a brain-dead slug or a worthless traitor engaging in "class warfare"...one of the points i was trying to get across about last year's circus of a presidential election ( a clown won with his side-show freak running mate ) was that the divisiveness and scurrilous attacks that partisan media mounted against one candidate or another was nothing new...they are and have been commercial entities created to turn a buck so the naturally gravitate to the partisan views of some segment of the population and the advertisers who are trying to reach them...they tailor content to fit a general worldview and use specifics to manipulate that opinion...fox...msnbc...cnn...( and let's not leave out the n y times or that home of yellow journalism the wall street journal...talk about unrestricted class warfare ) all that news is distorted and you can almost always read someone's political views by what outlets they choose to patronize...none of them are trustworthy because they all have a corporate agenda and a need to manipulate your thinking to maximize their profitability..it isn't about objective news..it's about the share holders...so...you could characterize media as stenographers regurgitating the current vogue of agitptop emanating from elite centers that breitbart wants me to believe is a cabalistic "deep state" instead of the "business as usual" system that has been in place since 1789..or you could just turn your back on it...maybe read a few books...and just look around and think about what is going on in your neck of the woods and how it relates, or doesn't, to what the doyens, doges, and pundits have to say...don't let them confuse you.

all they needed was the beer

"mr.carol replied that the people of america were enlightened. information and knowledge would be the support of it. mr. adams replied, information and knowledge were not the source of obedience; that ignorance was a much better source."__________________"the first business was the report on what was called the stephen moore's bill. this man is the owner of the land on which the old fort of west point stands. he is got in debt in town to the amount of two thousand or some such sum. he has nothing but the rocks of west point. the secretaries of war and treasury and other influential characters have interested themselves in getting this bill passed to buy the land from him, to pay his debts, under the notion that the ground is necessary fro a fortress. barefaced as this business is it was carried in the senate by a great majority. am i mistaken or has the spirit of prodigality broke loose...?" william maclay 's journal of the first congress 28 may 1789 and 24 june 1791_______________just a quick post to point out that generations of american politicians have mystified, confused, dissembled, and outright lied to keep "the mob" in ignorance of what they were really up to which, in the end, is doing their best to protect the privileges and prerogatives of wealth at the expense of the rest of us...clearly john adams loved "the uneducated" long before don trump blustered his way into the white house by playing on the fears and deepening the ignorance of the polity...the pure venality we see in the acts of congress ( and their celebratory pounding down of brewskis like the aged frat boys they all are ) are nothing new...it may be that the media of the day was a hindrance to the exposure of the venality in 1791...news traveled slowly and was received long after the deed was done...the act was complete...we suffer from instantaneous news now...more rapid reception seems to be no guarantee of better or more public spirited behaviors...the whores are bought and sold...traded like stocks..or securities better still...their true constituents are unconcerned with "the voter"...we are ciphers tot hem...one wonders how long the fog of ignorant obedience will linger...fuck these people.