WSJ Piece Easily Explains The Confidence, Media Savvy Of Parkland FL Students

"We are coming after every single one of you and demanding that you take action, demanding that you make a change!"  The words of Delaney Tarr, a senior at Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland FL.


Let's admit that the Right's screechy knotheads  - twisting themselves into knots at the media savvy of the Parkland  FL students,  still convinced they're all "paid crisis actors"-  need to get a life, or learn more.  I am convinced their cockeyed "theories"  arise because: a) they don't know enough about what they're criticizing, and b) they too often sell fellow humans too short, or at least give them no more credit for brains or talent than they themselves possess.  They pretty well did the same thing a year or so ago when protesters appeared at numerous town halls in Red states to protest the GOP plan to overturn Obamacare  The Right's troglodytes blamed the  massive assemblies and outspokenness on "paid protesters."   As if anyone seriously had to be  paid to protest in Trump's Amerikka.

So it was really no surprise to see these clueless yahoos come out again to accuse the articulate students of Stoneman Douglas, including the brilliant Delaney Tarr (who really IS Mensa member material), David Hogg, Cameron Kasky and Emma Gonzalez (another Mensan in waiting) of being paid crisis actors.  Collectively the posts questioned the honesty and credibility of the grieving students as they spoke out against gun violence.  For example, online media sites including Gateway Pundit, Reddit, 4chan and YouTube swelled with false ­allegations that Hogg was ­secretly a “crisis actor” playing the part of a grieving student in local and national television news reports.

Another troll  (Kelley Campbell) responded sarcastically to one of Delaney's appearances, bellowing: "FAKE NEWS!  You can't just walk into a building with $130 and walk out with an AR -15".   But if this turd had thought a bit more, assuming he had the brains, he'd have perceived that Delaney couldn't possibly have been an actor.  This is because any professional actor (actress) would not have made the error of citing the too low cost of an AR purchase as $130, when it actually runs upward of $1200.  My point? It showed these kids really are....just kids...they have media savvy but when they're passionately speaking out their hearts tend to lead their heads and  they don't always have all the friggin' facts in tow. Give 'em a break, for god's sake.

Same thing with senior Sam Zeif when - in the midst of a passionate speech at the Trump "listen in"  last week  -  misspoke, i.e. saying that the Australians changed their gun laws after a "school shooting" in 1999. It was after a tourist massacre in 1996.  But again, these are errors of fact  a kid would make, but I'd argue not a professional "crisis actor" who'd have his or her script well prepared and double checked.  (Of course, there is a species of hyper cynical skeptic who'd assert a kid woud deliberately include erroneous claims ,...to present themselves as an unknowing....student.)

But anyway, we can thank two beat writers (Arian Campo-Flores and Nicole Hong)  on the staff of The Wall Street Journal for scuttling these stupid memes with a piece that gives a prosaic account ('From Shooting To Gun Control Movement')  of why these Stoneman  Douglas students are so good in their media exchanges.   As we learn from the piece- and this ought to be required reading for all the loopy naysayers at Reddit, 4chan, Gateway Pundit and other blogs:

"The students at Stoneman aren't like those who witnessed previous mass shootings at Columbine High School in 1999, or Virginia Tech in 2007. They are digital natives, at one with the language and power of smartphones and social media.  That is one reason why the movement they started, dubbed #NeverAgain, has become a nationwide phenomenon in barely a few days, and shows signs of becoming the kind of campaign success that a company or politician can only dream of."

 Adding:

"In particular they have used Twitter to build a grass-roots network of activity leading to school walkouts around the country by students protesting violence."

The kids know no fear, i.e. they are also "tweeting directly at Donald Trump".  You can also thank the Stoneman Douglas kids for mounting a successful boycott social media campaign - under the hashtag #BoycottNRA - for already getting 17 companies to no longer honor NRA member discounts. These include:  United Airlines, Delta, Best  Western Hotels,  and assorted car rentals (Hertz, Avis), MetLife as well as computer security company Symantec.(WSJ, Feb. 23-24, p. B4) 

 As the piece put it, companies "are reacting to the social media pressure ....energized by the emotional calls for gun control from the survivors of the shooting rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida."

And why not? If Diaper Donnie Dotard can tweet profusely with so much balderdash content and stir up division and upheaval in our nation, why can't intelligent kids create their own social media firestorms? Including slapping the imp down and getting companies to abandon the NRA.

Another key aspect showing these are not professional actors as the Right's trolls seem to think:

"The messages are expressed in genuine teenage voices   alternating between lighthearted selfies and posts about how they are coping with the trauma."

Even more impressive, in four days these kids have raised $2.2 million in an online fundraiser for a rally next month (March 24th).  Much of this action was mounted by the students themselves meeting at one of their homes with personal computers, smartphones etc. at the ready. `

What makes these Stoneman Douglas kids so damned smart? Delaney Tarr explained it in a nutshell in one answer to a VOX interview (see link at bottom):

"So many of us are in politics clubs. So many of us are in AP government. We dedicate ourselves to this. We dedicate ourselves to learning about this. So we are in a place where we are lucky enough to know what to say, to know what to talk about, and to know what changes need to be made."

So - to the consternation of the Right's trolls - it's not like any of these youngsters need coaching from us liberals. They already have the academic and other wherewithal to succeed on their own  - and the social media aptitude to organize huge marches (like on Mar 24th) as well as to get large companies to boycott the NRA.

Still, their optimism and actions have opened up even darker forces on the net to pump in more fake news than ever. As reported in The Sunday Denver Post ('Incidents Show Dark Online Battle', p. 10A):, trolls have now taken to using software tools to create Twitter posts and a phony Miami Herald story  - including copying the paper's font and masthead - to scare the bejeezus out of already fretful citizens.

In one incident the software was used to create two fake twitter posts - from a Miami Herald reporter (Alex Harris) asking "Where are the photos of the dead bodies?" Again hearkening back to the Sandy Hook episode, in which  Reich trolls deemed "no one really died", the victims were just actors playing a role in a gov't false flag operation..

In the second incident, a full Herald story was created under the byline of Herald columnist Monique O. Madan, claiming that a "Miami-Dade middle school faced threats of potentially catastrophic events on upcoming dates."- indicating a new mass shooting was imminent.  Screenshots of the fake story were then passed along Twitter and Snapchat.

Aminda Marques, executive Herald reporter quoted in the piece, said:

"This is hampering our ability to cover this terrible story in our own backyard because we're having to deal with the backlash"

But WHY is there a backlash to genuine  news accounts of human tragedy on the scale of this school massacre? What manner of human swine or reptile resorts to such perfidy? Author Susan Jacoby has provided many answers in her book, 'The Age Of American Unreason In A Culture of Lies',  forcefully arguing that too many are responsible for their own ignorance  and have also fostered - by their anti-intellectual attitudes and bias ignorance at the highest levels of government. In other words the ascension to power of a dangerous, degenerate ignoramus like Trump reflects on that segment of the electorate responsible.  Much of this due to "junk thought" that makes no effort to separate fact from opinion or deliberately faked news such as circulated by trolls that generated the  mock Miami Herald stories.

Yes, the trolls and fake news generators definitely merit a measure of blame for attempting to distract and mislead people. But, citizens also share part of the blame if they lack the critical thinking skills to separate trash from truth and reach a stage (as the Post article describes) where "they are unsure what to believe.". That development of critical thinking - and specifically a "nose"  for truth - necessitates reading widely and critically,  from diverse sources - especially to cross check stories purported to be true but which are fake to the core.

To see the transcript of a recent interview with Delaney Tarr go to:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/20/17031050/florida-shooting-parkland-advocacy-gun-control-delaney-tarr


See also:


http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-reich/77915/the-moral-movement-against-violence

And:


http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/camillo-mac-bica/77918/i-am-a-teacher-not-an-instrument-of-violence

Most 'Muricans Want Ground War With ISIS - Falling Into the "ISIS Trap"

 " Why of course the people don’t want war...But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they’re being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.” - Hermann Goering, Nuremberg, 1946

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." -Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, Americans are full of raging war 'roids and ready to dispatch tens of thousands of ground troops to fight ISIS. Specifically, 62 percent of registered voters - who are supposed to be a tad smarter than rocks - want U.S. ground troops committed to another failed combat effort sure to inflate the ISIS rats and their recruits more than achieve any victory. Elias Isquith, noting the figures in a recent salon.com piece,  actually asked: "Are we insane?" 

Well, yes "we" are -  at least those of us who get the bulk of our "news" from the corporate media and especially from the propagandists at FOX (who can't even 'fess up to Billo O'Reilly's multiple lies - from being in the Falklands war zone, to being present when a key HSCA Kennedy assassination witness was murdered.)

But this is what one can expect when a people are half-educated, ignorant and lack critical thinking skills, in which case they become malleable tools to be molded by the PR and propaganda machines.   And we've seen this dog and pony war beat show before, about a year and a half ago when neocons were clamoring for a Syria intervention.

Most cooler heads at the time were able to see through it and as they saw the polls climb for intervention some even noted a "herd mentality" taking root. One of these was Hillary Mann Leverett, professor at American University, who on one Steve Kornacki 'UP' show, observed we had no business barging into Syria - which effects would arguably be even more catastrophic and dunning than those from barging into Iraq.

Prof. Leverett compared that drumbeat  " to the lead up to the war in Iraq" and she ought to have known as she was in the Bush White House and also dealing with Congressional Democrats, and with members of the media. She went on:

"The herd mentality which took over to buy into the Bush administration's narrative that Saddam had to have chemical weapons of mass destruction and was determined to use them, was something unquestioned. ....it was not only a mistake, it was based on manufactured evidence. "


In  the case of Iraq, too many citizens played along by being cowed, afraid to speak out lest we be deemed "unpatriotic" or  "terrorist sympathizers".  Many of us also allowed ourselves to be too uninformed, even ignorant of the issues, thereby allowing ourselves to be played. Susan Jacoby, for example (in 'The Shock Doctrine'), referenced “two thirds of us can’t find Iraq on a map and many members of Congress don’t know a Shiite from a Sunni”  In a nutshell, too many Americans had “become too lazy to learn what we need to know to make sound public decisions."

 

This is tragic, and what has led to the operative herd mentality that comes up every time our  collective consciousness is hijacked by overwrought emotions.  Because if Americans can’t or won’t exercise their minds to think critically, especially concerning our national history and consequences of our actions, then we stand to be led into more reckless wars.

 

This thing with ISIS is no different, and as a recent (Mar. 9) highly excellent piece in TIME noted (yes, they do have a few) Americans would be making the biggest error ever in falling for the ISIS trap.  As the authors write (p. 31):

 

"ISIS is taunting the world to run the cycle (of war) one more time....As bad as these people are, there is room for things to get much worse. And they will unless the U.S. and its coalition has the discipline at last to think all the way through to the end. The question is not beating ISIS. It's what comes after that. More than ever the question needs an answer."

 

What comes after that? The multiple authors aren't afraid to broach their views, with which I wholeheartedly agree (ibid.):

 

"The U.S. showed in 1991 and again in 2003 that it knows how to take down enemies in Iraq. What it has never shown is an ability to leave something better afterward."

 

But until it does, ever new crops of terrorists will emerge. From the region's overall degradation of civil society, leading to: "mass unemployment, resentment, suspicion and sense of victimhood" .  These are the human factors that need addressing in the Middle East, especially the conflict -torn regions like Iraq, Syria and Libya. Sure, it's easy to treat all inimical problems like a "nail" and wield a "hammer" to solve them  - but that only leads you back to more conflicts, i.e. that require more "hammers".

 

This again takes us back to State Dept. spokesperson Marie Harf's recent comment which I cited yesterday:

"We cannot kill our way out of this war" 

 

Referring to the current conflict with ISIS.  Well, we certainly cannot if that means once more committing tens of thousands of ground troops - especially after we beheld how that worked out before with Iraq- an intervention that laid the path for ISIS.

 

And let's go even further back in the mists of time to how all these terrorists managed to manifest thanks to our stupid manipulations during the Reagan era.  As the TIME authors remind us (ibid.):

 

"It's true that some of the same mujahedin trained and armed by the U.S. to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan went on to be the founding fathers of modern jihadist terrorism - men like bin Laden and Mullah Omar, creator of the Taliban."

 

Ouch! The truth hurts, doesn't it? The authors go on with even more truth:

 

"No thought was given to what would become of these battle -hardened fanatics after the West was done using them."

 

Yes, indeed. We were too smart by half. Believed we could create this 'Frankenstein' monster to sic on the Russkies but never dreamed it would stay alive and come back to wreak havoc....on US! Hubris anyone?

 

Americans, as fearful as they are about ISIS beheadings and having ISIS zombies appear at Malls, need to get a grip and not allow  themselves to be converted to a drooling, mindless herd. This is exactly what the ISIS bugs want, and they're hoping they can taunt us enough to force our weaker politicos and leaders into precipitous action.

 

But if we do we will prove once more we are indeed insane. As Einstein put it: "insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result."

 

 

See also:


http://www.salon.com/2015/03/05/americas_war_fever_is_rising_how_fear_bloodlust_are_bringing_americans_together/

IRAQ WAR An Unnecessary Waste? Of Course!

It was sad yesterday morning watching the CBS Early Show to see a number of former American troops bemoan what's been happening in Iraq - with apparent "terrorists" and "al Qaeda" affiliates re-taking towns such as Fallujah. They decried the current events, and what they were seeing and even expressed some reservations about the value of invading in the first place. It is indeed good that they did so, because the entire operation was a sham and illegal from the get go.

As I observed in previous blog posts, evil predicated on an intent to "do good" is one of the mot virulent forms. It is virulent because it can operate as evil under the guise of a good cause, or a moral crusade. Such was the basis for the whole sordid Iraq invasion.   Bush and his minions truly believed they were doing good at the time they demanded congress vote on The Iraq War Resolution in 2002, never mind what we later discovered[1].

Bush’s aggressive foreign policies also exposed unsavory aspects about the U.S. as a nation.  For example, one willing to violate Nuremberg Article IV to actually launch a pre-emptive war by invasion as the Nazis did when they invaded Poland in 1939.  In the case of Fallujah, just over nine years ago, in November 2004, the United States military carried out an atrocious war crime at the behest of its civilian leaders. Having already committed what America's chief jurist at the Nuremberg trials called "the supreme international crime" -- aggressive war  (under Article IV)-- the American military now declared a whole city full of innocent civilians to be a "free fire zone" and proceeded to pulverize the town with bombs, missiles, chemical weapons and finally a ground attack by thousands of troops.

Is this anything to be "proud" of? On the contrary, it's enough to make a sober observer and true patriot  ( as opposed to the paper variety) - VOMIT.  Especially as the orders came  after the American military had cut vital supplies of food and water to the city -- another brazen war crime.  And by the way, let us bear in mind here that any given soldier has as his duty to FIRST follow his conscience rather any orders or commands from superiors. This was in fact, one of the higher injunctions in Article IV and was applied to all the Wehrmacht troops, as well as SS riff raff rounded up after World War II. They were informed in no uncertain terms that "following orders" could not be used as an excuse for what they did because they had the higher moral  duty to disobey those unlawful orders and heed their consciences.

But in the case of the Iraq "war" (actually an occupation, as contrasted with WW II which was a REAL war, the one my dad fought in, including several REAL battles such as the Battle of Buna (New Guinea) all the above applied with special force.

The rich humor of it all is that at the time the Bushie PR actually compared Saddam to Hitler! Never mind that Saddam was the one being pounded by the most devastating shock and awe attack since the Blitzkrieg launched by Hitler on Poland in 1939. But this sort of human evil had been strenuously reasoned and formally justified by Bushie Neocons like William Kristal, Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney! In addition, the U.S. corporate media acted as a willing accomplice, fully complicit in spreading the hysteria that led to the Iraq invasion on March 17, 2003.  Hence each and every one of these actors, agents share blame in manifesting human evil, including the devastating costs exacted on Iraqi civilians. Far from malignant human evil emerging without rationality or reason, it instead erupted as if from multiple cancerous cells becoming malignant.


We the citizens also played along by being cowed, afraid to speak out lest we be deemed unpatriotic or even "terrorist sympathizers."  Many of  us also allowed ourselves to be too uninformed, even ignorant of the issues, thereby allowing ourselves to be played. Susan Jacoby, for example, references “two thirds of us can’t find Iraq on a map and many members of Congress don’t know a Shiite from a Sunni[2]”  In a nutshell, too many Americans have “become too lazy to learn what we need to know to make sound public decisions.[3]”

Back to Fallujah: So many of the former grunts seen on the CBS segment saw it as their stellar, singular "saving" battle,  in a glorious crusade against them terrible 'terr'ists  - and in addition, the
"most iconic moment" of their righteous , god fearin' campaign (now tainted because heir conquest hadn't held). But  they might want to attend to the facts of the event  - ass opposed to the Pentagon pushed PR and malarkey. So it is well that they see these facts detached in time from all the bravado and hype of the moment. In this case, they'd do well to pick up on  an eyewitness report of the attack from a BBC reporter in the city at the time:

Excerpt:

"There are more and more dead bodies on the streets and the stench is unbearable. Smoke is everywhere. It's hard to know how much people outside Fallujah are aware of what is going on here. There are dead women and children lying on the streets. People are getting weaker from hunger. Many are dying are from their injuries because there is no medical help left in the city whatsoever. Some families have started burying their dead in their gardens."

Is this something to be proud of? No, not at all. No more than the Nazi mass killings of Polish Jews in Warsaw and other ghettoes, or the slaughter of Russian Jews during Operation Barbarossa. The sad fact, and it's a brutal one for many of these troops to process - is that Iraq was a totally useless and wasteful exercise. Not only that, it was illegal under Article IV of the Nuremberg laws. It was another sordid example of what transpires when a people are driven by ideology and militarism into a conflict in which they have no business. Much like LBJ used the pretext of the Gulf of Tonkin incident to drive the country into Vietnam and the loss of 58,000 lives.

True, Saddam was no angel, not one bit. But the Bushies' exploitation of the false "al Qaeda" narrative to justify an American invasion actually back fired, because now the real al Qaeda likely has taken up residence in the chaotic vacuum left behind. What the invasion did, which had been controlled up until then, was unleash the sectarian strife between Sunnis and Shi'ites which Saddam had neutralized by his anti-religious, secular power. Once Saddam was removed from power, the Sunnis and Shi'ites were free to go at each others' throats - and all the American occupation did was delay it.

Of course, there's no going back now. We already wasted $4 trillion there, which we could have better used to repair our crumbling infrastructure here at home. What one does hope is that in the case of both Iraq and Afghanistan - we finally re-learn the lessons we ought to have learned after Vietnam. That is to stay the fuck out of places where our immediate domestic security isn't threatened.  Were all those troops" fighting for my freedom"? Hell no! They were fighting for Wall Street, the Bushie opportunist Oil imperialists and their privateer companies (like Halliburton) and the advance of Amerikkan Neoliberalism.

It's about damned time future troops understand what they're getting into before they enter some hyped- up "crusade" - and they also understand that when they sign onto a "volunteer army" (even for later supposed "benefits")  they become de facto mercenaries in the service of war capitalists.

To that end, all citizens also need to understand how Bush is now trying to whitewash his crimes using the venue of his Bush Library. To see Rachel Maddow's  take down of this nonsense, go to one of my previous blog posts here:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/05/rachel-maddow-exposes-bush-library-for.html

 

---

[1] We now know an Iraqi (codename ‘Curveball’) made the whole WMD baloney up in order to trigger regime change to replace Saddam, oblivious to the human costs.

 

[2] Jacoby, Susan, The Age of American Unreason., 310.

[3] Ibid.

Americans' Ideal Age to Live to? 90! WHY?

The recent Denver Post article (Wednesday, Aug, 7, p. 13A) on Americans preferred desire to live to 90 has me scratching my head. According to this Pew Research Center longevity study and the prospect of a "fountain of youth" (scientific goal) to get us to at least 120 years, most Americans aren't totally buying. That's good because it is pure poppycock to talk about any such life extension until the problem of Alzheimer's dementia is solved. Right now, as Susan Jacoby notes in her book 'Never Say Die',  on aging in America, the rate of Alzheimer's DOUBLES every five years past the age of 65.  Is that a form of age roulette you really want to play?

That means any person who does manage to live until 120 will likely have this horrific disease which in its ultimate form,  "turns you into a living cabbage".  Right now, as Jacoby points out, the extent of Alzheimer's research is stuck on neutral in terms of reducing those neuron-destroying tangles and beta amyloids. The degree of care basically halts at palliative.  Jacoby documents that nearly all the so-called measures and meds used to try to control its progress (such as displayed in HBO's 'The Alzheimer's Project) , don't really help.

Yet Americans, true to their delusional pie-eyed optimism, somehow believe in dramatic exceptionalism. That in fact they will not be brought down by a disease that took out one of the greatest minds in history, Isaac Newton.

According to the DenPost article:

"Pew took the public's pulse and found that most Americans wouldn't want a treatment that would let them live to 120. Fifty-six percent said 'No thanks' - although two -thirds expected that most other people would want to try such a step, said the report issued Tuesday."

That perception is downright frightening and weird, given that current financial -retirement  information collected from diverse sources on Americans' saving shows barely anyone has enough moola to survive to such a ripe age via self-support.  According to a recent report issued by the National Pension Rights Council, the median amount a family nearing retirement has saved for their post-work lives is a measly  $12,000. As for the magical 401(k)? If a household where the earners are between the ages of 55-64 does have a retirement account, they barely hit the six-figure mark at $100,000—a far cry from $1 million we’re told we need.

Even if these people somehow managed to find a company that'd hire them to work at least until 90 or so, it's still doubtful they'd amass enough. Given increased health care costs, the fastest rising aspect of the national budget - and no end in sight - most people would probably need to at least win a state lotto of ten million to be able to live to 120 without being in penury. (Fortunately, 51% in the survey said that living to 120 would be bad to society. Well Duh! Given Social Security and Medicare are already under attack.)

In any case, "few expect such a radical idea to become reality, at least by 2050", although most expected "more gradual medical advances could extend life expectancy".

Well, let's see: By 2050 at the rate the ice caps are melting and global temperatures increasing, we are very likely to be in the maw of the runaway greenhouse effect.  Blistering heat that will make the recent heat waves look like a walk in the park, power grids crashing from over use, storms of such magnitude no one can now imagine their ferocity, floods that will drown whole towns and cities, invasions of  insect, parasite vectors with exotic diseases not seen for a long time, including  schistosomiasis, cholera, dengue fever, malaria. DO people really want to live with that shit? I don't.

Thankfully, the same 51% who said living to 120 would be bad for society also add in the obvious threat to natural resources, given you're going to have 9-10 billion people on this little orb as it is, then add increasingly more numbers because of life extension? It's nuts! But in reality, 2050 will - for example - likely see mass loss of life from multiple mammoth natural catastrophes the worst of which is the runaway greenhouse.

 What's the ideal life span? To most Americans, according to the Pew study, it's between 79 and 100. The median answer reported was 90, Pew reported. But those who gave those results may have failed to process that only 14% of those over 90 are free of Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia. That's not a terribly promising stat.  It means the odds of you're being a person needing serious care soar and you'd better have a ton of money (for a nursing home) or, alternatively,  a loving -caring family to assume the burden of care or pay for the care.

The Post piece does note that "given concern about the growth of Alzheimer's disease and an overburdened Medicare system, caution about the idea of one day living longer may not be surprising."

But longevity researcher Cynthia Kenyon of the University of California - San Francisco (where I received my prostate cancer treatment) "wonders whether the public understands the real goal of this research which is better health."

In other words, if the extension is predicated on better health then peerless aging in good form ought not be a problem To quote Kenyon: "It would be the equivalent of a 90 year old person looking like a 45 year old."

Maybe, but the Alzheimer's problem remains, given that as Jacoby shows (op. cit.) no research has found anything that positively works to stave off Alzheimer's, whether a vegetarian diet, special supplements, or doing 1,000 Sudoku puzzles a week - or working out 100 differential equations. Many think they know, or have the magic formula,  but no one really does. So again, until the Alzheimer's issue is first resolved, and yes - it could be as part of a health first paradigm, it is useless to try to push life extension significantly beyond what it is.

Again, the other point is no matter how healthy these advanced people are, what kind of economy can support them? We already have tens of millions of Millennials - new college grads- who can't find work because many seniors are still working either from having not saved enough (after being down sized) or to pay for added health care costs. So now you're going to add tens of millions MORE healthy elders to the work force which,  as it is,  can barely grow 200,000 jobs a month? This is  perhaps 25% above the population replacement level when you'd really need to have at least some 500,000 jobs added over population replacement level! But given the structural infirmities of our Neoliberal market economy, which sees workers as added liabilities-  costs, that ain't  gonna happen!

The idea portends a rolling demographic and economic disaster for the young - who will either have to fight for an even fewer pool of jobs, most of which won't pay duck squat, or help support these added advanced age healthy elders - say if they themselves don't have jobs.

In any case, from where I sit, radical life extension even in a 'healthy mode' is a fool's errand. Besides, we have too many other pressing problems and issues to turn our resources, minds and energy, as opposed to increasing the human population even further beyond carrying capacity!

Of Course Sanford Wins in SC: Can You Spell G-E-R-R-Y-M-A-N-D-E-R?

“The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1837


As usual clueless pundits across the 24/7 “news” spectrum are scratching butts and pontificating this morning on exactly how the Repuke Ratbag Mark Sanford could “come back from the scrap heap only four years ago!” In the end, they tap danced all around the central core reason, blabbing instead about his ingenuity, or pluck, or resourcefulness and yes…..political savvy. All of which is balderdash!  In truth there’d have been no Sanford redemption except for: a)The fool claiming to be “saved by God’s grace, b) Having enough stupid voters (mostly Rs ) believe it, and c) rampant gerrymandering of key districts to award any GOOpr an automatic nearly unbeatable margin in any contest.

Sanford, as we know, caroused and cavorted with a Brazilian hottie  gf some 4 years ago – running up SC deficits on the taxpayer dime with trips to Brazil, even as he cheated on his wife. Did the SC voters remember this? Of course not - given most ‘Muricans have the memories of gnats.


Susan Jacoby, in her book ‘The Age of American Unreason’ has noted the profound lack of American historical memory. It’s actually a pathological deficiency. She ties this (Ch. 11, ‘Defining Dumbness Downward’) to an erosion of basic civic literacy that spans the political-economic spectrum. One of her most stirring quotes (from historian Arthur Schlesinger) on p. 319 refers to our deplorable memory regarding wars fought over the last four decades. As she quotes Schlesinger :


“Thirty years ago we suffered military defeat- fighting an unwinnable war against a country about which we knew nothing. Vietnam was bad enough but to repeat the same experiment thirty years later in Iraq is a strong case for national stupidity”


Well, so is the electoral "resurrection"  of Mark Sanford, despite his personal history. But maybe too many evangelicals – of which there are many in the state- really did believe this rat’s claim of “saved by God’s grace”. (Of course, mass killer/ rapist Ted Bundy made the same claim in FLA hours before his execution, but he still got fried by Old Sparky.)


Anyway, Jacoby reinforces Schlesinger’s take on American stupidity, noting (p. 310) "“two thirds of us can’t find Iraq on a map and many members of Congress don’t know a Shiite from a Sunni".  [1]”  In a nutshell, too many Americans have “become too lazy to learn what we need to know to make sound public decisions".  This is tragic, because if Americans can’t or won’t exercise their minds to think critically, especially concerning our national history, then we stand to be led into more reckless wars- not to mention make more terrible political decisions.

Ms. Jacoby also exposes the political cretinism of our leaders. On p. 284, for example, she cites the classic example of the dummy’s retort,  when during Bush Jr’s second term NBC correspondent David Gregory posed a question at a dual press conference, to French President Jacques Chirac.  The Bushster, a congenital idiot, was standing alongside Chirac, and grew vexed when Gregory posed the question in French. After a few seconds, the Texas Turkey snarled:


“Very good! The guy memorizes a few words and he plays like he’s intercontinental!”


The Bozo actually believed Gregory memorized his question in French!!

As Jacoby correctly observes, this is the classic case for intellectually- stunted people. Because they themselves lack the wherewithal to learn a foreign language, they interpret others’ correct use as an instance of “memorizing”. Of course, the very same applies to any other complex subjects – whether calculus or advanced physics – to which the generic dummy is exposed. He will always give the knee jerk reaction that anyone who is into it or uses it is “memorizing”. He simply can't believe, his pea brain is too astonished to admit it- some people can actually LEARN this material and apply it!


But would that more Americans - even if deficient in many intellectual areas- would strive to memorize at least their recent history more, then we’d have fewer political and economic tragedies. Including thoughts of attacking Iran, OR putting a tool like Mark Sanford back in office. Now, would I - if a South Carolinian- FORGIVE Sanford his trespasses? Of course! But having done that I’m not going to reward him with a frickin’ Senate seat!


Finally, only one person named the central reason that Sanford would likely win the special SC election: Rachel Maddow. She pointed out the extreme gerrymandering that’s transpired since 2010 when the Repuke Tea Partyers seized control of state legislatures. In the case of the district where Sanford competed against Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the original highly Democratic areas were gerrymandered out of the district. This meant that a cakewalk was almost certain barring Sanford being caught in a restroom with a dog doing the nasty.


So, what does it all show? That Americans aim at low objects, and as Emerson noted (see top quote) this leads to the nation consuming itself and its own seed corn. Jacoby offers the solutions, but one doubts very many will accept them. They start with reading books (serious nonfiction, not just light fictional fare) and ….Voila! Newspapers! As she notes the typical newspaper reader is light years ahead of his non-reading compatriot in being familiar with national issues, policies, as well as more likely to be a critical thinker.


College students also need to cease “aiming at low objects”. Jacoby’s examples on pp. 314- 15 are telling. She observes “courses in popular culture are extremely popular”. Why? Probably because it’s easier to snatch an ‘A’ than taking a physics course! But as she implies, for any student to waste time “deconstructing” Stephen King is a waste of their college dollars. They’d instead be more justified reading Dostoevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’ and subjecting it to a deep analysis, not merely cartoonish barf based on Derridian “Postmodernism”.


Very likely , even given the gerrymandering, Mark Sanford never would have won last night’s election had more South Carolinians aimed higher, and not at low objects, and low expectations. On that score Alex Pareene's observation this morning at salon.com is very cogent:   “The truly disturbing thing is not that Mark Sanford won a special election in 2013, but that he was ever considered a viable running mate option in 2008 or a 2012 presidential hopeful. There’s really no hope for us, if the country insists on dividing its votes almost equally between the center-left party and the party of people who still think there’s any redeeming quality in “'Atlas Shrugged'.”

But then, as "low objects" go, Ayn Rand's books are near the bottom of the totem pole.  Well, at least they're a tad above Stephen King's novels!

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[1] Jacoby, op. cit., 310.