There Is No Plan

Forget Buyer’s Remorse – We’re Suffering From Seller’s Remorse Too

The rise of materialism that has metastasized into a religion over the last 30 years has a number of oddly pagan side-effects, not least of which is obsessive hoarding. That  has led to the rise of that eyesore of American life known as storage facilities. It’s well known that the ancient Egyptians would entomb the dead with their cherished belongings in the hopes of making their after=life as comfortable as possible. We’ve gone one step further. We simply entomb the chattels we don’t want to make our current lives more palatable. Bizarre.

The truth is that in these hard times, those unwanted impulse purchases that once seemed so central to who we were at that moment still have value to others. They can be sold, traded or given away. They can be given new life, rather than being buried at great cost to the owner. So go into your storage facilities and turn them into wannas. Because it’s almost certain they’re on another user’s got list.

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Wannagot
Barter is Back. Buy less this Christmas and barter more! Spend your money for the long term! Add your email on our home page to join our Private Beta. Welcome to Wannagot. Wannagot is a free site that…

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First of all, let’s bring back the more precise description for what the world is experiencing. Yes, it’s “climate change”, but more specifically, it’s “global warming”. If you remember, “climate change” is a creation of the Bush spin team – it has the mark of Luntz on it ‘cos it’s so darned seamless, simple, insidious and clever – to offset the growing concern about how hot it’s getting here on Planet Earth.

Turns out he won. We need to point out that ‘change’ can be small, big, good or bad. So the term is about as useful as the, I don’t know, United States Congress.

Now onto the body of this post.

It’s pretty simple.

Global Warming isn’t just possible. It’s almost certain. The chances that we can reverse the onset of negative feedback that will lead to catastrophe are slim. Not because they’re not possible to avert, but because for us to stop them, we have to do stuff that requires all of us to change the way we live, eat, buy, sell, heat our homes, get around, power our electronic stuff, and make stuff, and make serious sacrifices in the process.

Not going to happen.

So what we need is to start creating agencies within say the UN (or a new world body that’s actually useful), and between national government, trading federations, and all the way down to communities, that start planning for the onset of disaster, and helping to mitigate and manage it Sea walls, insulation for homes, agricultural advances, national security planning, resource management, disease control. You name it.

And if we do that, people might actually respond.

If they see all these preparations for catastrophe, humans – being the funny contrarian bods they are – might say, why prepare for disaster? Why not try and avert it instead? Seems like the best way to deal with the problem before it’s too late.

Woof woof.

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Chaotic General Assemblies, Stewed sleeping bags, Sodden cardboard signs and an awful lot of rent-an-outrage young people does not a modern revolution make.

But imagine this. With Medicare and Social Security under threat, and the fabric of the social contract fraying badly from abuse, willful ignorance, and financial starvation, it’s really time that there was a Senior’s Revolt. If enough seniors On Social Security occupied parks, served blue plate specials and hot tea by respectful hippies, the Koch brothers and their dark hordes would back down faster than a coyote facing a rabid rooster.

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The rich get richer because we keep buying crap from the companies the rich invest in which makes them richer. If we stop buying crap from companies that make the rich richer the rich won’t get richer. Bing!

Wannagot is coming. Barter is back.

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Much of the work of Democratic Political Consultants is done for them by the GOP penchant for cannibalistic frenzy during its primaries. All the President’s political team has to do is sit back and watch the endless debates to get more than enough ammunition with which to lay low the unlucky winner of this slamfest.

By the time the GOP anoints its winner, he (or still vaguely possible, she) could be carrying around so much dirt that their room for maneuver against the President would be severely hampered. Not only that, but each candidate’s attempt to win the “I’m more conservative than you” pissing contest means they have to endlessly contort themselves into even more bizarre and thoroughly other-worldly pronouncements that will leave all but the reddest of red-meat crackers utterly cold.

The latest fun is to be had at the expense of Herman Cain’s economic “plan”, a cockamamie platform so utterly devoid of any connection to reality as to be the work of a madman and a pretty dumb one at that. Rick Perry’s side-stepped the proposal entirely, while Michelle Bachmann implied that a 9% income tax rate was actually too high and that going back to the 7% rate when income tax was first levied in 1913 would be the way to go.

Next up. Ron Paul swings for the fences with a plan to repeal the tax code. Period. After all he is a Libertarian.

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Excellent advice from the dark side for OWS and other ‘movements’.

Reshared post from +Lauren Weinstein

You’re Going to Get Steamrolled – At an Internet-related conference I hosted some years ago, one of the attendees — an older, rather distinguished looking gentleman dressed informally but completely in black — pulled me aside to chat. He wanted to offer me some advice. In essence it was this: “Learn how to play the game in Washington the way the “big boys” play it, or you’re going to get streamrolled, crushed, destroyed, on every issue that you care about. Pleasant thoughts and intellectual purity are no match against well-heeled lobbyists. ‘In the streets’ protest movements typically play into the hands of the other side, since most people fear instability more than virtually anything else.” 

Later, I learned that he was one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington, long affiliated with what I consider to be one of the most evil industries in the history of the U.S., responsible for the deaths of untold vast numbers of persons. I felt like I had been offered advice by Darth Vader. But in the years since, everything he said has proven demonstrably true.

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Jon Huntsman, clearly the most electable candidate among the current GOP line-up is lucky if he breaks 3% support among primary voters. The campaign of Newt Gingrich, once seen as a GOP powerhouse with the brains and wit to out-debate even the President, is in zombie mode. Flatlined, but still walking. Meanwhile the only voice of reason in the line-up, Mitt Romney, who’s bizarrely managing to shake off charges of outright insincerity is being buffeted by the latest flavor of the month – if they last that long. Bachmann, Perry and now Cain have shown that in the eyes of the GOP faithful at least, Romney is a man in whom they have little faith.

Why is the GOP so incapable of choosing someone to take on President Obama? After all, the economy is in the toilet, and the White House has played its political cards so cautiously that now there’s out and out rebellion on the far left and right, which both crave an economic populism that Obama is only now, belatedly, beginning to deliver.

The answer is that the leadership of the GOP has become utterly decoupled from its voters, both in the mainstream and the ‘base’. There’s been a headlong flight to independent status among voters, which it looks increasingly likely – after a shaky summer – that Obama will be able to control.

For all its messaging skills, the GOP’s is no longer the once vaunted election-winning machine it was. And there’s not much that Rove, Luntz, Fox and other sundry messaging gurus can do about it.

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Jon Huntsman campaign nearly broke – Political Hotsheet – CBS News
Former Utah governor’s campaign vows to continue despite having just $327,000 on hand and $890,000 in debt Read more by Brian Montopoli on CBS News’ Political Hotsheet.

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The most sobering element of all this is the blow-back from fifty years of insitutionalized anti-semitic and anti-Israeli propaganda designed to distract a restive, no-hope society from the failures of Arab nationalism and subsequently Neo-liberalism.

The Army doesn't want hostilities renewed against Israel, which Egyptian society is clearly hot for in their socially engineered naivete. The Army has lots of toys – mostly courtesy of the US, and the last thing they want to do is waste them on a war with Israel. So the Army brass has decided – in its gilded wisdom – that the only way to prevent hostilities is to maintain control of the levers of government and make no bones about it. Their long term plan is simple. To emulate, in their own small way, the Chinese People's Liberation Army, probably the single most powerful force for economic imperialism known to man.

A hoped for, if secondary, by-product of the officer elite feathering its nest will be an adequate stream of wealth to the uniformed soldier, and a tiny trickle down to the unwashed mass. Just so they can eat. Maybe

Repression, sectarianism and terror is coming to Egypt.

It will soon by the new Pakistan.

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Egypt’s Military Expands Power, Raising Alarms
A growing number of lawyers and activists are questioning the willingness of the Egyptian military to ultimately submit to civilian authority.

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With Obama's decision to send a small force to help turn the tied against the Lord's Resistance Army, we must commend the White House on an excellent move that's both humanitarian and strategically important. Committing US forces, even such a low strength level and in an advisory capacity, throws a harsh spotlight on possibly the most despicable guerilla group in Africa today, and one that is devastating the host nation, and destabilizing Central Africa. Not only will this move save lives, but it will show that American power can be used for good, and will greatly increase our positive influence in the region, combatting China's ever increasing klepto-colonialism throughout Africa. Kudos.

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The Occupy Wall Street Crew have been absolutely true to the total equality and leaderlessness of their cause. In fact, over time, I'm guessing it will probably be the only thing they can agree on. But attempting to emulate what was, and continues to be, a profound weakness in the fabric of the "Arab Spring" seems to be taking their flattery a little too far. Drilling a little deeper into their dogmatic rejection of hierarchy can lead to only two conclusions. 1. They all want to be leaders, and can't bear the idea that they might not be. 2. Nobody wants to be leader because then they'd have to have a plan.

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