Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
Being grateful boosts your happiness. Ten wonderful things I’m grateful for.
Since every volume on the nearly endless shelf of pop psychology self-help books recommends working up some gratitude as the key to happiness, I’ve conjured up a list of what I’m grateful for. (Please turn your irony setting on.)
1. I’m grateful that our choice of president has been reduced to two equally detestable dynasties or their proxies. This greatly simplifies the process of selecting a warmongering figurehead for the Empire and its bankers.
2. I’m grateful that I can watch a full spectrum of entertainment, ranging from depraved to dreadfully unfunny on any device at anytime. This white noise helps block out any troubling clarity of thought or urge to ask what I might feel if I wasn’t constantly distracted.
3. I’m grateful that there are so many opportunities to borrow money, because if I couldn’t borrow more, I might miss an astounding opportunity to consume more of something I don’t really need.
4. I’m grateful that every food item in the store now contains sugar in one form or another, or a sugar substitute. This simplifies the process of maintaining my addiction to sugar, as all I need to do is eat anything produced by Corporate America’s food sector.
5. I’m grateful I live in a country where the government can trample on the rights of its citizens behind a thin veil of legitimacy. After all, what terrible thing might happen if the government couldn’t arrest those horrible people tearing up their front yard lawn to plant a vegetable garden?
6. I’m grateful for our national obsession with fostering phony self-esteem that has no basis in accomplishment, dedication or sacrifice for others, as the self-absorbed, entitled populace will still feel good about themselves as the bloated, dysfunctional status quo implodes.
7. I’m grateful that we have institutionalized moral hazard as the unspoken law of the land, so financiers can gamble billions of dollars without worrying about the potential losses, as they know the taxpayers will foot the bill while they get to keep any gains.
8. I’m grateful our financial markets are now dominated by Federal Reserve manipulation, high frequency trading and dark pool shadow banking. This guarantees that all we commoners need to do to make a lot of money playing the stock market is to buy the dips.
9. I’m grateful that money can buy political influence so transparently, as this informal auction is open to anyone with tens of millions of dollars who wants to protect and expand their wealth and power.
10. I’m grateful that our mainstream media is owned by a handful of corporations, as the homogenized message they broadcast is reassuringly uniform. If every outlet is repeating that unemployment and inflation are low and the rising stock market is making us all wealthier, it must be true.
I am greatful to Billy for bringing to my attention that by blood I am part of the greatest group of people to walk the face of this earth. I am by blood and Name British or English. You do know we developed everything from the Constitution to the automobile to the Apollo program. We put America on the map.Yes it was the White Protestants from England that did all the heavy lifting. Therefore I can’t help but feel superior to all the Neanderthals of the North especially the ones from Germany and Austria ,The French , The Russians ,the Spanish or any of the other mud people……Thank you Billy ….As a WHITE PROTESTANT who descended from ROYAL ENGLISH BLOOD I thank the Lord God in Heaven for making such A WONDERFUL CREATURE as I.Thank You JESUS.
You had to go full Derp, didn’t you bb?
You try to use the term WASP – White Anglo Saxon Protestant, claiming to be one – but you still don’t understand that the Saxons (which means “Sons of the sword” – their swords being called the “Seax”), prior to the migration period, were Germans.
That’s right bb. Saxons – the original Saxons – lived just south of what is now Denmark and Norway, inhabiting the upper and middle parts of what the Romans called “Germania”.
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Some migrated West, across Frankia, invading and inhabiting what is now England. Why do you think the English are referred to as “Anglo-Saxons”? (As opposed to the original inhabitants of England, called the “Britons”).
You try to make me look stupid, yet you only succeeded in showing your own stupidity by admitting your pig-ignorance of your own fucking people.
You refer to other Northern Europeans as “Neanderthals”, not knowing that the WASP – including YOU – is directly linked to them by blood.
It’s one thing to be an arrogant asshole when you can back it up with education, knowledge and experience. It’s a completely different thing to run your fucking mouth when you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
I’ve got the first one locked down. I’m an asshole, but a very well educated asshole.
You’ve got the second category sewn up… congratulations.
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LOL! See? I’m not the only one that recognizes bb’s affliction.
Here.
The “First England”… meaning “Land of the Engle”. 4th Century.
Notice the bottom of the map… see those pesky Saxons again? Know what that is? It’s fuckin’ GERMANIA, asshole…
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Suck it.
IS,
Normally, I’m content to let bb just run off the leash… sort of like a dog that hangs around the farm, but generally does no harm and actually does something useful now and again… live and let live.
But he made two mistakes.
– He ran his mouth without knowing Jack Shit about the subject at hand.
– He fucked with me.
Now I get to bitch slap him around until I get tired of it, and there’s nothing he can do about it. He’s my little fuckin’ chew toy for the day…
Need more coffee… the day is young.
Enjoy! I just ignore his dumb ass unless he gets quoted.
I worked with a volunteer team that excavated an Saxon burial in Suffolk, England. Less than a mile from my front door was the Anglo-Saxon burial site called Sutton Hoo. I loved living in Europe!
At the time of the late Roman empire, the Germanic Saxon tribes could be found occupying a large swathe of territory between the North Sea coast of northern Germany, bordering on Frisia to the west, Angeln to the north, and what became the eastern march counties, such as the North March. It was from the North Sea coast that many Saxon groups emigrated to Britain in the fifth to early seventh centuries while a loose Saxon state began to form behind them. However, Saxons had been emigrating to Britain for some time, being settled by the Romano-British authorities as laeti. In some instances these groups later formed their own small kingdoms in Britain, or merged with newly arriving groups of Angles and Saxons.
http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsEurope/GermanySaxons.htm
Here ya go, bb, you stupid, pig-ignorant motherfucker. If you can read, that is.
You want to fuck with me, you best know your shit and come loaded for bear, you dumb bastard.
IS,
That must have been awesome! Burial sites like that, I can’t imagine what it must be like, looking at those things that haven’t seen the light of day for a thousand years or more… it’s a touchstone to who we are. A tangible link to our ancestors. Frankly, I envy you the opportunity you had…
I was reading about sites like that across Europe… I think the most fun ones must be the old junk piles and garbage piles. I’m thinking of a site in Norway, I believe, that someone discovered in a river – it was just where everyone threw their shit when they didn’t want it anymore. Fascinating stuff being found, including hundreds of old shoes and boots – the very low oxygen content of the water and soil at the river bottom prevented decay, so all that stuff was literally preserved as if it were the day they were first tossed in… like a peat bog.
Very, very cool stuff…
Way to go bb.They really rose to the bait.
Billy ,you were the one who told me about……my people…. dumbass. I was just agreeing with you .!!!!!!The truth is Hitler thought the English where were the superior race.He lied to folks like you and even talked you fighting a war on two fronts. You showed me how superior I am just because I GOT THE BLOOD now I thinking you’re envious.
Anyway thanks for the history lesson.
I do enjoy playing around with you.Have a great day. bb
Overciff , what’s wrong ? You having a bad day ? Tell something really good about yourself.
Billy
Reaming bb a new chocolate starfish is like beating up a ‘tard. It’s too easy … and he’s still a ‘tard afterwards.
But, God bless ya for trying!
bb,
You’re a dumbshit.
You and your attitude is what creates division between everyone, when what we need is unity.
It’s because of dumbshit’s like you, the West will fall.
I might pick on folks from time to time, might even hate some folks’ guts. But that won’t stop me from defending them. Each day, the number of people of European blood diminishes, while the numbers of the invaders grows…
If you follow the path backwards, we are the same people, directly related to each other via common ancestors. Some stayed, some followed a different path.
It’s dumbfucks like you that will spell our end. The sooner you pull your head out of your 4th point of contact, the better.
Stucky,
Like I said, I usually leave the little Derp alone. He just had to fuck with me, didn’t he?
Cliff thinks that bb was trolling me and got a rise out of me. If you read bb’s response to cliff, you’ll see that bb wasn’t trolling me – he actually believes what he writes and cliff just gave him way, way too much credit…
Trying to teach anything to the little Derp is like trying to teach a horse to deal cards…
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Billy
Got it.
Just remember one thing … mmkay?
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Billy, it was pretty damn cool. You’ll get a kick out of the Sutton Hoo burial site. There was a completely intact ship burial belonging to an ancient king known as Raedwald. Most excavations in that part of England are of “ghost remains”. The soil is so acidic that it consumes almost everything and all you are left with is a positive “ghost” of what was once there. There are exceptions and I saw gold artifacts, swords, pottery and some textile fragments. All that remained of the people was a dark, 3D stain.
At the site where I volunteered (advertised at the base Rec center) they dug a couple of test holes to try to determine the extent of the site. In one of the holes the found a man and woman buried side by side, face down with their heads chopped off and placed upright between their shoulder blades. It seems this was customary for those guilty of adultery.
The native soil was a lighter color than the bodies or wooden artifacts so basically they removed all the lighter color soil and what remained was the perfect 3D positive of a person. Once that was done they “sliced” through the body (dark dirt) with trowels starting at the feet working toward the head and recovered jewelry, weapons and the occasional textile fragment. No bones or even teeth remained.
Like you mentioned, the biggest kick was seeing things come out of the ground that had been there for 1500 years. I saw something like this cloak clasp come out of the ground at a place called Iken. It was as bright and shiny as the day it was made.
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This sword is from the Sutton Hoo site but I saw some fery similar come out of the ground at Iken.
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Billy ,Stucky ,Card ,Is …..God bless you guys and Admin.I really enjoy this site. Thanks for letting me hang around. Got to go back to work. I’ll have some time off tomorrow.
IS,
I’m familiar with the Sutton Hoo site. Read a few articles about it a couple years back.
The cloak clasp you saw dug up is called an “Omega fibula”, since when worn, it resembles the greek letter Omega. There are other types of fibulas (not the leg bone) other than the omega. Finding one as bright and shiny as the day it was made leads me to believe that it was some alloy of gold. Bronze would have long ago turned dark, then green. Iron would have probably rusted away. Copper would also turn dark, then green. Silver would probably be black by that point.
I have a few bits I’ve collected over the years. Mostly beads. But, it’s still cool knowing that I’m wearing something that was last worn 1000+ years ago.
Different types of fibulaes…
https://www.google.com/search?q=viking+fibula&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=RTg4Vf3pGpLmoATH1YHABw&ved=0CB4QsAQ&biw=1346&bih=600#imgrc=_
The author was being sarcastic, bb followed through. The three stooges, Stucky, Billy and I-S totally missed that. You guys have some real synergy going; individually you guys are smart fellers but when you come together, dumbness reigns.
This glorification of Germanic people is getting old. Is this a German blog? Did Germany win the last world wars? Cooking themes were bad enough.
Last I heard, they were bb’s ancestors that founded America, you go, bb!
Billaaaaaaah
Odin called and was askin why the handle on that axe you borrowed smells like anus. I tried to explain about Billah Jr but he was super pissed. Later
EC
Truth is there are survey stones written in Hebrew that date to 1,100 years ago and I believe Nordic explorers were also here about that time. So if bb is a Nordic Joo, you may be right.
Bea, that is Billy’s claim. I meant the founding of America, regardless of who set foot here first.
It just burns me up that some folks think they are the only people who can comment here. One Idiot claimed he has a secret revelation as to what Admin is trying to accomplish with this libertarian blog and actively tries to chase away people who don’t conform to his narrow views.
Billy, when I was a kid back in ’79, my dad got transferred from Malmstrom AFB in MT to Shaw AFB in SC. Since we have friends and family scattered from one end of the country to the other we spent almost a month traveling across the USA seeing the sights and visiting people. Dad had a friend from his early days in the AF that lived in Murfreesboro, TN. He was a commercial fisherman running trotlines on various rivers in the area and dad arranged to spend a few days camping on the river where he was working during our trip. That was the first time I ever saw a paddlefish too!
I got bored with all the fishing that we were doing so dads friend said he knew of something in the area I would enjoy. He dropped me off on a river bank and told me to look for arrowheads in the particular spot. Turns out he dropped me off right in the middle of a large kitchen midden. I was freaking hooked! There were all kinds of stone tools including knives, scrapers and arrowheads including some sweet bird points. It was filled with ancient coiled pottery, animal bones, animal teeth and huge numbers of fresh water mussel shells. They had to drag me away from that shit when they came back to pick me up. Dad’s friend mentioned that that site and many others in that area were somehow connected to Cahokia in east St. Louis and the mound builders. I had never heard of Cahokia until that day and I was pissed that we had driven right through east St. Louis and didn’t see it. There is the remnants of a pyramid there that nearly equals the Great Pyramid in Giza.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monks_Mound
People think North America was this great, empty land just waiting for whitey to show up and install highways and cable TV but this land had one hell of a history long before whitey showed up.
I’ll have to ask my dad exactly where we were when I found that stuff. I’m certain we were on the Tennessee River just below one of the dams. I know it was an area where fighter jets flew because we saw a pair of F-4 Phantoms flying so low they were actually churning up the water behind them.
Oh yeah, that fibula I saw come out of the ground was gold and probably rather pure considering how bent up it was. There were also some large (long) gold pins that were used to pin garments closed. Those graves at Iken were just below the surface and were discovered when a farmer turned up a sword with his plow.
When we lived in Spain my dad used a metal detector to find gold and silver coins around old ruins. As I recall they were predominantly Roman.
You can take archaeology vacations where you work with a team of scientists on various digs and projects. If any of your local colleges have archaeology departments you might be able to join the fun with them as they are always short handed.
People think North America was this great, empty land just waiting for whitey to show up and install highways and cable TV but this land had one hell of a history long before whitey showed up.
the USA was born on third base and the exceptionalists thought they’d hit a home-run
http://www.cracked.com/article_19864_6-ridiculous-lies-you-believe-about-founding-america.html
The Indians were so good at killing trees that a team of Stanford environmental scientists think they caused a mini ice age in Europe. When all of the tree-clearing Indians died in the plague, so many trees grew back that it had a reverse global warming effect. More carbon dioxide was sucked from the air, the Earth’s atmosphere held on to less heat, and Al Gore cried a single tear of joy.
One of the best examples of how we got Native Americans all wrong is Cahokia, a massive Native American city located in modern day East St. Louis. In 1250, it was bigger than London, and featured a sophisticated society with an urban center, satellite villages and thatched-roof houses lining the central plazas. While the city was abandoned by the time white people got to it, the evidence they left behind suggests a complex economy with trade routes from the Great Lakes all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico..
The Indians were so good at killing trees that a team of Stanford environmental scientists think they caused a mini ice age in Europe. When all of the tree-clearing Indians died in the plague, so many trees grew back that it had a reverse global warming effect. More carbon dioxide was sucked from the air, the Earth’s atmosphere held on to less heat, and Al Gore cried a single tear of joy.
One of the best examples of how we got Native Americans all wrong is Cahokia, a massive Native American city located in modern day East St. Louis. In 1250, it was bigger than London, and featured a sophisticated society with an urban center, satellite villages and thatched-roof houses lining the central plazas. While the city was abandoned by the time white people got to it, the evidence they left behind suggests a complex economy with trade routes from the Great Lakes all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico.
“The three stooges, Stucky, Billy and I-S ….. glorification of Germanic people is getting old ….. Cooking themes were bad enough. ” ———— El Coyote
In one fell swoop you 1) insult my character by calling me a stooge, 2) insult my heritage, 3) insult some of my posts — my love for good food, and sharing it with folks.
Nice to know who your real friends are.
People think North America was this great, empty land just waiting for whitey to show up and install highways and cable TV but this land had one hell of a history long before whitey showed up. – IS
Oh, no kidding. There’s been shit going on in NA for at least 13 to 15,000 years. Much longer, more than likely. You look at some of the chert spearpoints and arrowheads we’ve found – the very earliest ones – and they are pretty technologically advanced for being a chipped piece of stone.
The interesting thing is that the sophistication of the points seems to have regressed as time went by. The earliest ones were fish-tailed, to prevent them from falling out and to give a place to lash them to the shaft, and had a flute on either side to make room for the shaft itself. And absolutely razor sharp – sharper than a scalpel. Even today they’ll easily cut you. You hold them and it’s weird – such a small thing, but you can feel the weight of ages on it…
It’s my personal theory that human civilization has risen and fallen many times over the millennia. Humanity – meaning Homo Sapiens Sapiens – is supposed to be between 100K and 200K years old, depending on whom you talk to, but “civilization” is only supposed to have started in the Fertile Crescent some 6,000 years ago or so?
Nah… ain’t buying it. What happened during the previous hundreds of thousands of years? We were just throwing spears at our dinner, living in caves and eating berries for all that time? Nah…
I think there’s whole forgotten epochs of humanity that we will never know about…
Stucky,
It is as I have said about Frijo.
You take the time to explain to someone a bit of history – that the Saxons were north Germans, the Angles were Danes (another germanic people), who invaded the island of Briton and, together with the Celts and Britons, eventually founded These United States, and you get accused of “glorifying” people.
I suppose that to someone who’s people have accomplished fuck-all, telling the history of one’s own people might seem a little intimidating… makes the other people’s history look a little shabby and threadbare.
And so, he lashes out – insulting everyone involved, friend and foe alike.
I don’t particularly care if he’s butthurt or insults me. I stand on the shoulders of Titans, so far above him I cannot even see him.
With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice, that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country, to one united people; a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established their general Liberty and Independence. – Founding Father John Jay, Federalist No. 2, 1787
This country was founded by us, for us.
Including “others” only courts chaos and disaster… as shown by the very butthurt Frijo above…
Oops… misquoted IS… credit goes to Flash.
My bad. Carry on.
Billy @11:24
Well spoken!
I would just like to add to Billy’s 11:24 post that most people are not aware that the Brit royal family is of German lineage and their real last name is Saxe Coberg Gotha. King Edward changed the name in 1917 if my memory serves me to hide their German roots.
Bea,
To the best of my knowledge, most of the royal families in Europe are all related in some way, mostly to the old Hapsburg’s. Intermarrying was supposed to prevent war, since if you were King So-and-so and had a problem with the next country over, you couldn’t just attack, since it was ruled by your brother-in-law, his wife being your sister. Not good to beat up on family members…
When I was stationed in Europe and doing that protective services gig for a certain flag-rank officer, he hosted big muckity-mucks at his home from time to time. Got to meet some seriously important movers and shakers. Including the son of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, Manfred.
One of the other cool people I met was a genuine Hapsburg. A countess. A woman of small stature in her late 60’s, nevertheless she commanded attention. Of course, her title was ceremonial only, but she was still worth some serious bucks – all of it old money.
Bea,
Another thing about the Brits that most people forget is that prior to WWI, they hated our guts.
Seriously. They despised us.
Then, about 1880 or so, they decided that self-preservation was an instinct they actually did possess. They looked around and saw how the powers were shaking out and that another war was on the way. They realized they would be on the short end of the stick and would lose – badly – if they didn’t scratch up some friends, and quick.
So, they cultivated a friendship between us and them. Just in time too, because shortly thereafter, WWI broke out.
They weren’t overtaken with the spirit of brotherhood or sentimentality or overcome with a wave of civic virtue by being our buddies. They were gonna get their asses kicked, and they knew it.
Stucky says:
““The three stooges, Stucky, Billy and I-S ….. glorification of Germanic people is getting old ….. Cooking themes were bad enough. ” ———— El Coyote
In one fell swoop you 1) insult my character by calling me a stooge, 2) insult my heritage, 3) insult some of my posts — my love for good food, and sharing it with folks.
Nice to know who your real friends are.”
Don’t be too harsh Stucky. Just ignore and move on. El Assclown and bb are high functioning assclowns. They are the “Rainman” of the assclown world. That’s not saying much I know but compared to assclowns like Obama and Biden, they don’t even need a teleprompter to parrot the assclown party line at every opportunity. It’s primal instinct for them.
For them, taking a shit on everything is the equivalent of you or admin making one of your well thought out and researched posts.
High-functioning….the equivalent of you or admin – I-S
Well thank you, I-S for that comparison, glad somebody appreciates my efforts.