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in the course of surfing idly yesterday i found something called 'what would $611 buy?'  http://boston.com/news/nation/gallery/251007war_costs


the $611 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world's poor for seven years

At published rates for this year, $611 billion translates into almost 14 million free rides for a year at Harvard University.

Tuition and fees at the University of Massachusetts-Boston could be paid for over 53 million years.

With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over.

TheBudgetGraph.com estimates that converting the 136,568,083 registered cars in the United States to ethanol (conversion kits at $500) would cost $68.2 billion.

US drivers consume approximately 384.7 million gallons of gasoline a day. Retail prices averaged $3.00 a gallon in early November. Breaking it down, $611 billion could buy gasoline for everybody in the United States, for about 530 days.

[ENOUGH!]

   Once again I'm confronted by the false choices of abject poverty.  I'm grasping at nearby detritus to build a lifeboat.  Sure, its mainly my own fault.  I had the temerity to not learn the finer points of my craft from the 'trade school' i attended.  And I'm an idle dreamer as well.  I went to 'trade school' to be a commercial driver.  I use citation marks because that school doesn't make any profit from the students.  They get industry subsidies.  I got a valid CDL but the "finer points" involve backing trailers into slots in the real world.  (Versus between lines on the pavement.)  I had three incidents.  None were serious, but now no company will even test me because of insurance rules.  So I'm delivering pizza and living in a motel, because its too cold to live in my car anymore. 

   Being poor is not that bad so long as you don't mind STAYING poor.  All the money you make is spent to stay alive.  You can't get a bank account because you have no stable address,  you have no stable address because you have no bank account.  Because you have no place to save what little dollar and change might be left falls out of your pocket for some 'wasteful trinket'.  You can't get a decent job for the same reason.  My situation was very similar to this in Texas.  Coincidentally, ACORN started their canvas operation about that time.  The ad said; "Tired of Reaganomics and want to do something about it?"  I spent the next ten years canvassing for various justice, peace & environmental groups.  Canvassing is OJT on human nature.  One never convinces anyone of anything.  Although you can occasionally have meaningful dialog what you're mainly doing is convincing those who already agree to do something about it.  (Apologies to Robt Greenwald.)

   Then the curiosity (dreamer) entered.  I started reading about the Farmer Populists and The Grange movement.  And reading Noam Chomsky,  Saul Alinski, (sp?)  Mother Jones,  Howard Zinn, Big Bob Hayward, &ct...  Desperation like I've outlined here is an integral part of the capitalist model.  The great huge mass of humanity have no interest in acquiring large piles of things.  They'd rather have enough food, adequate shelter, and something interesting to DO with their time.  (Finding that 'something interesting', then finding more of it,  may well be the "pursuit" of happiness.)  Now, when the 40 hour week and the single income household are unrecognizable,  where are the tirades against wage slavery?  Where are the 'Eat the Rich' barn burners?  I've continued reading.  And ya know what?  DailyKos got NUTHIN on the IWW!  Eugene Debs got a million votes for President while he was inside a prison cell dammit!  The Democratic Party would've been a footnote to the Civil War but for co-opting and diluting the issues of the REAL populists. And they're doing it again.  All this compromise is killing us, sometimes literally.

   ENOUGH!     I say forget 'impeach Bush/Cheney'  I say impeach Reid/Polosi

i don't have anything more to say,  i just wanted to be comment #13

and i've just learned that the house is about to pass a resolution condemning moveon.  go here to find your state's con-men/women.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/26/breaking-senate-passes-liebermankyl-amendment-house-vote-to-condemn-moveon/

mechanically,  i never saw that someone else was asking the deathbed question.  i thought the man,  in each of the cases,  was asking that question of himself.


philosophically i thought that none of the men had any singularly different experiences.  more that they all had the "get by with whacha got" experience in three hues of variation.  which of them could've knownπ∏ that there was another life pathway available to them.

Can someone indent this into a readable format so I can read it later please? 

is this easier?

        i had to talk to a flat-earther the other day.  i'm sure you know the type i mean,  i coin that phrase in honor of the woman on 'the View' who,  after saying she didn't believe in evolution and then asked about whether the world is flat,  said; "i've never thought about it". no kidding?  what a surprise.  we can see that you literally never thought about it because even the most cursory faade of thought would tell you that,  whatever it is you think,  saying you "never thought about it" about whether the world is round or flat on national television may not be the best plan.

           so; i was working on a temp labor job.  you'd be surprised how often sophisticated political discussions happen on construction sites.  a man i was working with claimed that President bush has not done anything illegal.  i tried telling him about how the FISA disembowelment didn't come till 4 years after the spying started,  that all (that is; ALL, as in EVERY SINGLE ONE) all of the claims made to the public and to congress about reasons to attack iraq have been shown false,  that there are laws about keeping presidential records,  and on and on and on...  no matter, his mind was made up.  ya gotta envy that kind of certainty.  no sparkling wit or charming charisma.  no amount of brilliant debate or preponderance of evidence will ever have an effect.

        we (most of us) we know they were lying.  we've always known.  who doubts that the 30% off sale was  preceded by a 50% price increase?  who thinks that the price of the gasoline that's already in the underground tank at the gas station is affected by the broken pipe in asia?  i mean,  really,  do they expect we think they'll look out for us?  look how long it took for atm's to penetrate the market,  versus how long it took to get airbags.  now here we are at long last,  dancing on the cliff edge of total annihilation.  and they still want to call the fiddler's tune.  and they're doing it too.  and we're still dancing.

           by "they" i mean the so-called captains of industry, or,  more colorfully,  the bosses.  some bunches of folks had it right before.  they were called populists, although they were pretty unpopular at the time.  farmers who thought it was just a little more than an odd coincidence that the price of their truck came so near to exactly the amount they were forced to borrow to raise it.  there were 'wives and mothers'  who were so upset at the filthy working conditions that they wanted to sweep the streets clean, of scabs.  then, most eloquent of all, (and most unpopular)  was that one bunch that said; "The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life."  http://www.iww.org/culture/official/preamble.shtml.  the inexorable drive toward full citizenship.

           then NAZI happened.  nobody was thinking about much of anything else till that was over.  (and rightly so)  but everything got so fractured after that...  women tossed on their NON-collective keisters.  men returning to a new planet with a new condition that wasn't even called PTSD yet.  the cocooning of america,  while our captains and barons commanded their petty fiefdoms.  Korea doesn't count for much because (politically) it was under the aegis of the United Nations.  but we had ongoing strong-arming in the middle east and elsewhere in asia.  as well as multiple 'chiquita-cheata'  invasions in central america.  it seems no one really noticed.  until the 'Dirty Fuck'n Hippies were threatened with danger and inconvenience in Vietnam. 

           i am so GOD DAMNED tired of hearing about the DFH crowd.  all their hoopla about 'paradigm shift'.  and regardless, almost in spite of, the positive things that came of that time.  what happened after?  once the immediate threat of personal danger in southeast asia had passed.  the DFH bunch forgot their paradigm entirely,  and obediently took their places in the corporate hierarchy.  even DURING the height of the protest era,  they "couldn't strike every time a black student was killed".  (i can't attribute that but i'm pretty sure its a quote.)

           which brings me to the real subject of my rant;  quotes.  top to bottom front to back and on all sides the entire world is up and shouting about general betray-us,  not the lies.  not the skewed statistics. not the fact that he's become a patsy for the administration.  everyone's yelling cause someone SAID he's lying, using false numbers, and acting as a patsy.  i don't take the new york times,  so it took me over a week to find someone who'd discuss what the moveon ad actually said.  (nod@ cenk unger)  it all seemed pretty spot-on to me.  but it wasn't the substance of ad it was the headline that made such a stir.  five words.  and it wasn't even all that nasty.  cute,  eye catching,  clever, if a bit sophomoric. but not particularly nasty.

           i'll tell ya this camel's got an I-Bar spine.  all the revile-i-cans pontificating on the dangers of hamhoSECKshuals,  most of them talking with their mouths full.  all the dramatic-rats whimpering and mewling.  and tweety singing love songs to the aqua velva man.  its a wonder we haven't broken the camel's LEGS by now.  its long past time to be loud.  like the kid at U of FL...  whatever else, he was loud.  do you remember the quaker who immolated outside macnamara's window?  BURNED HIMSELF TO DEATH,  to say "stop it".  and we can't bring ourselves to say "gee whiz general sir, are you sure about those numbers?"

           our brothers and sisters are being killed and maimed by conscienceless men. STOP IT