For now, Argentina is lost and Venezuela is deeply wounded, divided and frustrated. Virtually everywhere in socialist Latin America, well-orchestrated and angry protests are taking place, accusing our left-wing governments of mismanagement and corruption.
Nations are made up of people. Nations are only as strong as the bonds between the people. Strong social bonds, strong nation; weak social bonds, weak nation. Social bonds have many elements; the most important element is how much people care about each other. If people do not care about each other, if they have a “screw you, I got mine” attitude and are not willing to help others in need, then a nation is ready to topple at the first sign of significant stress. If people have a strong social bond, they will work together during difficult times and solve all problems.
First of all I know many of you must be doing some soul searching right now. I’ve spent the past two years retracing my steps and trying to understand the nature of the Bolivarian project I once supported and why I supported it.
No-no-no more Bill McKibben, please. He is capitalism lite, loving each climate change bubble of CO2, nitrous oxide and toilets a flushing as part of COP 21. Can he stay home and teach? Do we need parading after parading of the usual suspects – Naomi Klein, Billy-boy, Prince Charles, Mark Ruffalo, Björk, David Bowie, Coldplay, Yoko Ono, Iggy Pop, Colin Firth , Emma Thompson Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz, Gwyneth Paltrow ou encore Nathalie Portman Sean Penn, Leo Dicaprio.
Running around for that continental breakfast, in old Paris, a bizarre follies bergere of people shouting at the SWAT-Legionnaires teams, holding hands and placards defining some climate change demands lite, and the legions of illegitimate world leaders (sic) prancing and all the convulsing media from those mighty first worlders staging and all the NGOs and their followers making money off of “activism” and “on-line” organizing (sic) and getting a trip to Paris, to boot.
In one of the most astounding works of the history of Western Literature, Plato’s Republic Book V details one of the deepest secrets of the elite and how it relates to mathematical mysteries. In this free half of the audio I touch on one of the deepest secrets in all of political history, and decode its relationship to the mysteries of numerology and the ideational realm of the forms. This is the free half of the paid lecture subscribers get full access to for $4.95 a month at the PayPal link to the right.
Roots
I remember ageism striking me right between the eyes, in Oaxaca, while I was climbing a pyramid at Monte Alban. Running, really. A silly sight from afar, trying to beat the veronica of the sun so I could get the “perfect” dusk shot with my Nikon.
Two elderly ladies on the side of the steps were selling beautiful weavings, something for which the Zapotec Indians of that region are known.
There's a crackpot version of this video courtesy of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)This isn't the kind of video meant to give right-wing ideologues a warm, fuzzy feeling. It's scary to think about what does though.
Unlike the Republican carnival sideshows masquerading as debates, the first Democrat Party presidential nomination candidates debate was actually significant and historic (yes, yes, you’re right, it was a highly choreographed, staged event and it was in no sense a real debate, but it was historic nonetheless). All the five candidates presented themselves a social-liberals, the first time that has happened in more than four decades.
Here I go again – the at-will piece of human detritus that I am, according to Oregon’s great employers, twice now, non-profits, sacking me because I pushed the state’s vocational rehabilitation careerists outside their pathetic Little Eichmann lives by pushing for my clients – adults with developmental-intellectual-psychological disabilities – to get as much out of the state’s bureaucracies that are filled with middling folk who do not give a shit about people.
