AMERICAN EULOGY (Featured Article)

The Founding Fathers described the kind of country they were shaping on July 4, 1776 with the most well known sentence in the English language:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Declaration of Independence

In 1776, America was an idea born of noble intentions. An idea that every citizen had the opportunity to succeed, prosper and achieve based upon their hard work and abilities. The government did not provide advantages or a safety net for its citizens. People were free to succeed or fail based upon their own merits. America had a frontier spirit because it was still a frontier. Individual effort, intellect and willingness to sweat allowed you to move up the socio-economic ladder. The government provided a National Defense, and very little else. In 1794, the country had a population of 4.4 million and a GDP of $310 million. Government spending totaled $7.1 million, or 2.3% of GDP, and was split between Defense and interest on the Revolutionary War debt. Today, Federal Government spending totals $3.7 trillion, or 25% of GDP.

James Truslow Adams in his 1931 Epic of America described the America that once existed in reality, but only exists as a phantom today: 

“The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, also too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

“The American Dream that has lured tens of millions of all nations to our shores in the past century has not been a dream of material plenty, though that has doubtlessly counted heavily. It has been a dream of being able to grow to fullest development as a man and woman, unhampered by the barriers which had slowly been erected in the older civilizations, unrepressed by social orders which had developed for the benefit of classes rather than for the simple human being of any and every class.” – James Truslow Adams – Epic of America

His assessment of the American Dream was made in 1931. He saw signs that the American Dream had begun to die. He was right. The American Dream began to develop a terminal illness in 1913 with the creation of the Federal Reserve and the passage of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, creating a permanent income tax.

Song of the Century

Sing us a song of the century
It sings like American Eulogy
The dawn of my love and conspiracy
Forgotten hope and the class of 13
Tell me a story into that goodnight
Sing us a song for me – 
American Eulogy – Green Day

 

At the outset of the last century America was still a vital, free, growing country on the rise. The song of the century began as a joyous ballad and ended as a funeral dirge. The creation of a Central Bank, which could create inflation on demand, and allowing politicians the ability to buy votes through pork spending, paid for with ever increasing taxation, have sucked the life out of the American Dream. According to the Federal Reserve’s own website, their mandates were clear. Below are those mandates and an assessment of their success.

Conducting the nation’s monetary policy by influencing the monetary and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.

  •  Due to loose monetary policy in the 1920’s, the Federal Reserve created a stock bubble, a stock market crash of 89%, a decade long Great Depression, and unemployment of 25% in the 1930’s.
  • Due to loose monetary policies in the 1970’s, the Federal Reserve created raging inflation that reached 14% in the early 1980’s and needed to raise interest rates to 18% in order to break the back of inflation, resulting in unemployment surging to 9.7% in 1982.
  • Due to loose monetary policies in the early 2000’s, the Federal Reserve created the largest housing bubble in history, with the subsequent collapse bringing the financial system to within hours of collapse, and driving unemployment to 9.9% in 2009.
  • Due to the loosest monetary policy in history, today, inflation has begun to rage across the globe, leading to riots, protests and bloody revolutions, with more on the way.
  • The Federal Reserve has achieved their stable prices mandate by inflating away 96% of the purchasing power of the US dollar in less than 100 years. The price of gold continues to soar, as faith in the US dollar diminishes by the minute. I guess stability is in the eye of the beholder. 

Supervising and regulating banking institutions to ensure the safety and soundness of the nation’s banking and financial system and to protect the credit rights of consumers.

Historical US Bank Failures thru 2010

  •  The Federal Reserve’s supervisory and regulatory expertise can be observed in the graph above. This graph doesn’t do the Fed justice, as it begins in 1934. Sixteen years after its origination, the Fed managed to let 10,000 out of 25,000 banks in the country fail between 1929 and 1932.
  • Their glorious history also includes residing over the failure of 2,800 banks during the 1980’s S&L crisis.
  • While protecting their mega-bank Wall Street masters, the Fed has allowed over 300 small banks to go under so far. There are 900 banks on the troubled list that will eventually meet their maker.  

Maintaining the stability of the financial system and containing systemic risk that may arise in financial markets.

  • Generally, maintaining the stability of the financial system and containing systematic risk doesn’t include allowing the worldwide financial system to come within hours of collapse as described by Rep. Paul Kanjorski:
  • “On Thursday [the 18th], at about 11 o’clock in the morning, the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous drawdown of money market accounts in the United States to a tune of $550 billion being drawn out in a matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up its window to help. They pumped $105 billion into the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks.

    They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts, and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn’t be further panic and there. And that’s what actually happened. If they had not done that their estimation was that by two o’clock that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the entire economy of the United States, and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed.

    Now we talked at that time about what would have happened if that happened. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.”

Providing financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign official institutions, including playing a major role in operating the nation’s payments system.

  • It seems this is the only mandate the Federal Reserve has taken seriously is providing services to its owners, the banks. Did the bankers and politicians that met on Jekyll Island to mastermind this Central Bank envision that those services would include: buying $1.5 trillion of toxic mortgages from the banks; allowing the mega-banks to borrow from the Fed at 0% and reinvest those funds at 2.5% risk free; pumping $600 billion directly into the stock market through their QE2 scam; allowing banks to falsely overstate the value of their mortgage and commercial loans; and never ever enforcing basic risk management regulations.
  • While providing Wall Street banks with billions of unearned risk free profits, 0% interest rates further impoverish the savers and senior citizens of the country. The Federal Reserve has fulfilled their unstated mandate of enriching bankers at the expense of middle class Americans.  

To strengthen U.S. standing in the world economy.

  • The Federal Reserve’s affect on the world economy is best revealed in a pictorial tribute to their policies:

                                    TUNISIA

                                     ALGERIA

                                         EGYPT

The Federal Reserve has not been alone in killing the American Dream. Politicians since 1913 have done their part in suffocating the dream. The tax code consisted of 400 pages in 1913 and tax rates ranged from 1% to 7%. In less than a century politicians of both parties have carved out 70,000 pages of payoffs, entitlements, and bribes for their contributors and constituents. Tax rates now range from 10% to 35%. Those 70,000 pages of rules, regulations and tax breaks do not benefit the average middle class American. They benefit those who had the money and power to buy off a Congressman.

The Federal Reserve and the US Tax Code bastardized the American Dream, created barriers to economic advancement, and supported the accumulation of wealth and power by a select few. The ruling elite have used their power and control over the media to convince the majority of Americans that the American Dream is about accumulating material possessions with debt. The American Dream no longer meant attaining the fullest measure of your capabilities, but living in the biggest McMansion, driving the nicest BMW, watching the biggest TV and wearing the latest fashions, all acquired with debt. America is dying. 

Mass Hysteria

Red alert is the color of panic
Elevated to the point of static
Beating into the hearts of the fanatics
And the neighborhood’s a loaded gun
Idle thought lead to full-throttle screaming
And the welfare is asphyxiating
Mass confusion is all the new age and it’s creating a feeding ground for the bottom feeders of hysteria

Hysteria, mass hysteria!
Mass hysteria!
Mass hysteria!
Mass hysteria! –  American Eulogy – Green Day

 

Green Day captures the essence of America since the turn of the century. The country has been in the throes of mass hysteria since 9/11. The once independent, self sufficient individualists that populated this country have become dependent, government reliant, quivering shadows of the frontiersmen that created this country. In the name of safety and security, the American people have allowed their government to accumulate complete control over every aspect of our lives. Only a country in the grip of mass hysteria would allow their leaders to run the National Debt from $5.8 trillion to $14.1 trillion in less than 10 years. Only a country in the clutches of mass hysteria could believe they could get rich by trading internet stocks and houses to a greater fool. Only a country seized by mass hysteria would allow its leaders to promote democracy at the point of a cruise missile as we continue to fight $3 trillion wars in the Middle East, while nearly tripling the amount spent on Defense to more than $1 trillion per year.

 Defense Budget Breakdown for 2011

Defense-related expenditure 2011 Budget request & Mandatory spending Calculation
DOD spending $721.3 billion Base budget + “Overseas Contingency Operations”
FBI counter-terrorism $2.7 billion At least one-third FBI budget.
International Affairs $10.1–$54.2 billion At minimum, foreign arms sales. At most, entire State budget
Energy Department, defense-related $20.9 billion  
Veterans Affairs $66.2 billion  
Homeland Security $54.7 billion  
NASA, satellites $3.4–$8.5 billion Between 20% and 50% of NASA’s total budget
Veterans pensions $58.4 billion  
Other defense-related mandatory spending $7.5 billion  
Interest on debt incurred in past wars $114.8–$454.2 billion Between 23% and 91% of total interest
Total Spending $1.060–$1.449 trillion  

 

If you had told someone on September 10, 2001 that ten years later America would be running $1.5 trillion annual deficits, fighting two wars of choice in countries that despise our presence, and had not only not addressed the $100 billion of unfunded welfare liabilities but added billions more with Medicare D and Obamacare, they would have thought you were a crazy doomster predicting the end of the world. They would have put you away in a padded cell if you had further predicted that politicians would cut taxes three separate times, that the Wall Street banks that leveraged themselves 40 to 1 and destroyed the financial system were handed $2 trillion of taxpayer funds so they could pay themselves multi-million dollar bonuses, and that the Federal Reserve would triple its balance sheet to $2.45 trillion by running its printing presses at hyper-speed and handing the money to those same Wall Street Mega-Banks. 

What caused the mass hysteria that has destroyed the soul of America? Was it just the madness of crowds? Or was it something more sinister? 

True sounds of maniacal laughter
And the deaf-mute is misleading the choir
The punch-line is a natural disaster
And it’s sung by the unemployed
Fight fire with a riot
The class war is hanging on a wire because the martyr is a compulsive liar
When he said “it’s just a bunch of niggers throwing gas into the ….” – American Eulogy – Green Day

Whenever an act doesn’t make sense and seems irrational, you need to ask yourself, “who benefits?” Who has benefitted from the hysteria? The answer is in plain sight. The moneyed interests benefitted. The military industrial complex benefitted. The Federal Government bureaucracy benefitted. Wall Street bankers benefitted. Mega-corporations and their CEOs benefitted. The top 1% ruling elite gained more wealth and more power. They created the mass hysteria with the assistance of their corporate owned mainstream media and completed their pillaging of the middle class with the cooperation of regulators, rating agencies and their ultimate weapon, the privately owned Federal Reserve bank, that has enriched its owners while impoverishing those whose only aspiration was to do an honest day’s work, raise their families, and live in relative comfort, safety, and happiness.

I Don’t Wanna Live In The Modern World

I don’t wanna live in the modern world!
I don’t wanna live in the modern world!
I don’t wanna live in the modern world!
I don’t wanna live in the modern world!

I am a nation without bureaucratic lies
Deny the allegation as it’s written (fucking lies!)

I want to take a ride to the great divide
Beyond the “up to date” and the neo-gentrified
The high definition for the low resident
Where the value of your mind is not held in contempt
I can hear the sound of a beating heart
That bleeds beyond a system that’s falling apart
With money to burn on a minimum wage
I don’t give a shit about the modern age – American Eulogy – Green Day

 

The modern world in no way resembles the world  James Truslow Adams wrote so passionately about in 1931. Green Day’s version of bureaucratic lies, high definition TVs for the poor, contempt for those who use their minds, and a debt flooded system that is falling apart is an accurate assessment of America today. The modern world is ruled by the few with wealth and power, sustained by government. The misinformation and propaganda dished out by the mainstream media creates a smokescreen that obscures who wields the true power in this country. The corporate mainstream media has done such a good job spreading the Big Lie that a vast number of Americans actually admire and worship the ultra-rich.

Most Americans still believe the fairy tale of the American Dream, that no matter how humble your beginnings, everyone has a fair chance to become rich in America. The truth is that the wealthy ruling class owns the country. The top 1% control 43% of the financial wealth of the nation. The top 10% control 83% of the financial wealth of the nation. There is a  misperception that the ultra-rich earn their wealth. The facts show otherwise. In 2008, only 19% of the income reported by the 13,480 individuals or families making over $10 million came from wages and salaries. Remember the financial crisis of 2008-2009 that wiped out 7 million jobs, cut the value of many homes in half, and required a taxpayer bailout of Wall Street? According to research done by economist Edward Wolff, “there has been an “astounding” 36.1% drop in the wealth (marketable assets) of the median household since the peak of the housing bubble in 2007. By contrast, the wealth of the top 1% of households dropped by far less: just 11.1%. So as of April 2010, it looks like the wealth distribution is even more unequal than it was in 2007.”

Source: William Domhoff

The bottom 90% own less than 19% of stocks and mutual funds in the country. Reality is that the 10% richest Americans own the country. The top 1% control 50% of the investment assets and only 5% of the total debt in the country. The bottom 90% control 12% of the investment assets and are burdened with 73% of the total debt. You can clearly see that the Wall Street bailout and the current Federal Reserve QE2 plan to boost stock prices have only benefitted the top 10% richest Americans. What is good for Wall Street is  not good for Main Street. The American middle class has been lured into debt by the purveyors of debt, the ultra-rich elite who control the financial industry. The further into debt the bottom 90% descend, the greater the enrichment of the ruling class. This is why Wall Street shysters, political hacks and the corporate mainstream media have urged Americans to whip out those credit cards and “Save America” by spending money they don’t have, again. It is reminiscent of President Bush’s heartfelt plea to the American public to defeat terrorism by buying a GM car with 0% down.

The propaganda that is constantly pounded into the brains of Americans about “death taxes” and the rich paying more than their fair share of taxes is part of the Big Lie perpetrated by the powerful ruling class. The “huge” issue of estate tax impacts only the few thousand richest Americans.  According to a study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, only 1.6% of Americans receive $100,000 or more in inheritance. Another 1.1% receive $50,000 to $100,000. On the other hand, 91.9% receive nothing (Kotlikoff & Gokhale, 2000). The richest families in the country provide the funding for the mainstream media propaganda needed to eliminate estate taxes.

 The lies about the ultra-rich paying more than their fair share of taxes are refuted in the graph above. The top 1% actually pays a lower percentage of their income than the next 9%. The tax code isn’t 70,000 pages for nothing. The ultra-rich have used their wealth to great advantage by having loopholes and tax dodges inserted into the tax code by their bought off congressmen. The average American can’t afford high powered tax specialists and lawyers to help them stash their wealth in off-shore tax havens in the Caribbean and Switzerland. The consistent theme in America today is that the middle class gets screwed and the ultra-rich ruling class accumulates more wealth and power.

The Death of America

“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” – John Adams

Two hundred and thirty five years ago, our Founding Fathers declared that we all had the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These rights have been restricted and bastardized over two centuries. Liberties have been severely restricted as your government tracks you through your social security number, is able to monitor your phone and internet communications, and regulates your education, healthcare, business, and a thousand other daily activities. The right to happiness was based upon James Treslow Adams’ view that we were free to attain “the fullest stature of which they are innately capable”. The happiness of becoming a success through your individual exertion, intelligence and efforts has been subverted by the happiness of material goods acquired through the use of debt, peddled by the ruling class.

The American Dream where every person had the opportunity to live a richer and fuller life began to die in 1913. Every generation born in this country had an excellent chance to live a better life than their parents. Relentless progress was the American way. I have three teenage sons. Based on the actions of this country’s ruling oligarchy, I doubt that my sons will live a richer and fuller life than myself. The debts are too extreme, the military overreach too excessive, the looting by the financial class too great, the political corruption too extensive, and the opportunities too few. The dream of a social order where everyone could rise to the highest level of their capabilities regardless of their birth has been systematically squashed. With 66% of households making less than $65,000 and college costs out of reach for 80% of Americans without incurring crushing levels of debt, the chances for most Americans to climb the social ladder through educational advancement are nil. Even if they do graduate from college, the CEOs in corporate America, who “earn” 300 times the average worker, have outsourced their jobs to China and India.

 The ruling class provides their children with private schooling and necessary preparation to keep their place in the social order. Wealth begets wealth. The elite send their kids to the elite Ivy League schools and use their connections with their fellow ruling elite to get them jobs on Wall Street, the prestigious connected corporations or government jobs in Washington DC. The wealth of the few has erected barriers to advancement of the many. America has progressively become a stratified class oriented society that has begun to spiral downward as the ruling class has gone too far. The revolutions flaring across the globe are occurring because the ruling class went too far and took too much. The ruling class in America should take note. They have shattered the American Dream and the retribution from those who have been swindled will be unexpected and violent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bunhVPAXcJA

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howard in nyc

i forgot. i like yves smith’s (susan webber’s) book, econned. and simon johnson’s 13 bankers. but i haven’t read too many of them. taibbi’s griftopia was fun, and he didn’t let the facts get in the way of telling a good story.

Al Falfa
Al Falfa

@Reverse Engineer: Please post MORE images of ideas on how to deal with our politicians & banksters. I find them VERY UPLIFTING!.

llpoh
llpoh

AL Falfa – what say you uplift this:

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Al Falfa
Al Falfa

OK.But I’ll need to wait until you pull that cute li’l finger outta yer azz first.

Reverse Engineer

comment image

RE

Punk in Drublic

Hey, that graph of the value of the 1913 dollar….. See that bump on the left, the part where the value goes up for a little bit… That needs to happen again, so… What ever happened back then to make the dollar go up, we just need to recreate those circumstances and…..Presto!

So that was between 1929 and 1941…. Crap.

Kenneth Lowndes

I am oriented to Solutions that are real, doable, and necessary.
There is a two-step Solution that will fix the uS Economy, and can also be used around
the world to solve the crisis, which is also world-wide, due to the influences of the Federal Reserve, getting Central banks established in every nation.
What they have done is convinced all that money ought to be paper backing still more paper.
Rediculous.
Extreme, but they did suck the whole world into doing it. Incredible!

Now we have a real, solid choice. Rather then waste any of our time trying to figure out how implenetation of the Solution will be done, (as many lose their positions of power, positions they never should have had in the first place), we simply need to just do it.
Billions of human lives depend on it.
Millions of them live inside the USA.

We are presently arrived at a new ground zero: We can choose Life and Blessings, or ….

Please visit the info located here:
http://www.ivamu.com/

— >Enjoy the Ride! — >DEMAND THE SOLUTIONS BE IMPLEMENTED!

Jacspad
Jacspad

Great book’s to read “The Big Short” by Micheal Lewis and “Black Swan” by Nassim Taleb.

All this money and debt is simply a technicality on a screen.

Today’s problem began with black gold, John D. Rockafella, railroads and international monopoly.

Don Murphy
Don Murphy

We’re doomed!

esquimaux
esquimaux

The distance from 1776 to today (235 years) is the distance from 1541 to 1776. In 1541, Henry VIII ruled England as a supreme autocrat while Michelangelo was painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Did the Founding Fathers lament the passing of the power of popes and prelates? The world — and America — is a much different place today than it was when the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed. There’s no point in shedding tears for some American Dream that has long since passed into history. We and the young people who follow us into and then beyond the current Fourth Turning are going to be poor. We/they won’t have and may not aspire to have the freedoms once associated with a dynamic America on the rise. Perhaps we could have prevented this evolution but probably not. Those who pool their meager resources and find ways to live as sustainably as they can while the American standard of living declines are the new pioneers. Those who can’t or won’t will likely suffer. Empires rise and fall. America is no exception. Anger at America’s fall may be understandable on the part of those who yearn for the old days, but it’s a sentiment reflective of those whom history is leaving behind.

Mark

Get your facts right. You are like some radio talk show junkie — garbage and hate in, garbabe and hate out.

First, our founding fathers were selfish devioius bastards like we are today. Sure, some of them talked a great game. Some of you devioius selfish bastards can do that too.

Keep in mind, MOST of our founding fathers were bouncing on slave girls at night, and most looked down upon real work. Slaves did the work, provided the sexual pleasure, and the white rich men got richer from it.

What the founding fathers did that was wonderful, is to provide for free speech. True, the Southern states violently suppressed free speech from 1820s on, providing for torture — yes torture — for those who dared to even own the wrong book. Even white preachers were subject to torture for owning the wrong book.

The Southern states violently suppressed free speech, and the Southern states were dominated by leaders almost as nutty and cruel as any Islamic radical. Lee himself had young girls tortured, and stood by screaming at them. Lee paid six times his normal bounty for the capture of a mulatto slave girl that ran away and took her white -looking child.

Lee was obsessed with getting her back, and when he did, he had her tortured immediately, screaming at her. He then sold her white looking child.

And Lee was a moderate!

Washington, Jefferson, most of these guys not only had slaves, they got rich on them, got massive estates from work the slaves did — and had no problem finding sexual pleasure from slaves.

So spare me this nonsense about our wonderful founding fathers.

We need what we have always needed – free speech, balance, openness, and protection from religious kooks.

http://deathofsoutherngod.blogspot.com/

Paul Z
Paul Z

“The propaganda that is constantly pounded into the brains of Americans about “death taxes” and the rich paying more than their fair share of taxes is part of the Big Lie perpetrated by the powerful ruling class. The “huge” issue of estate tax impacts only the few thousand richest Americans.”

Tell that to the farmers who’ve had to break their farms up to pay inflated real-estate valuations, before passing it on to children who have worked their whole lives on that farm. Your notion is that there are good taxes and bad taxes: “don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree.” The reality is, there are only bad taxes. The evil of the very rich is that they thrust the tax burden on the middle class, not that they avoid taxes. The remedy is to eliminate all taxes. We don’t need to support an empire, it does not benefit us. We don’t need to have welfare, it only degrades us. Actually, what we really need, is to break up this country into several pieces. All 50 states should secede from that hostile foreign power ruling us, Washington DC.

Mark

If you want to discuss what basic things people don’t know about history —

Not one US text book has ever mentioned the Five Southern Ultimatums — all of which were about the spread of slavery against the wishes of the people and states.

Not one US text book shows that Lee tortured young mulatto slave girls, and sold their white looking babies.

Not one US text book shows that the Confederate leaders bragged that they were the first nation on earth to be literally founded on the “great moral truth” that God ordained slavery.

Snake
Snake

Admin – Sadly I think you are wrong. This is not the most well known sentence in the English language. The most well know is “Where is my free shit.”

“The Founding Fathers described the kind of country they were shaping on July 4, 1776 with the most well known sentence in the English language:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – Declaration of Independence”

SSS

Admin

LWES. This guy is more like when it comes to music.

comment image

SSS

Admin

Nope. Mick Fleetwood.

SSS

Admin

I posted comment #100. What’s my prize?

StuckInNJ
StuckInNJ

The story of RE — and how it mirrors America’s woes in 5 easy steps.
.

1 — RE was concerned about the INTEREST RATE — or lack thereof — in what many considered very wordy articles. RE fixes the problem by posting only a picture.

2 — the people responded with massive thumbs up — which, in turn, led to the GREAT DELUSION … that, “Hey! People like me!”

3 — this delusion then led to IRRATIONAL EXHUBERANCE …. that what is good in small doses is even better in large doses.

4 — this false belief led to a MASSIVE STIMULUS of even more pictures with no narrative.

5 — the stimulus because it lacked any substance led to a MASSIVE INFLATION of Thumbs Down.

.
Finally, RE’s inability to understand the data caused him to be stuck in an endless loop of posting ever more pictures in hopes he could revive his initial ejaculatory fervor …. But alas!! … each new attempt led to even greater rejection as the people here send him to the GREAT BEYOND.

howie didder
howie didder

15% do not know the Earth revolves around the Sun !!!–aww fuck !! I thought every thing revolved around ME

Reverse Engineer

@Stuck

That would be a good theory, except for the fact that I posted most of the succeeding execution graphics BEFORE I got all the Thumbs Up for the initial one featuring Marie Antoinette getting beheaded.

RE

JEM
JEM

Lets not forget that the USA is a Democracy. If this country is in fact going over a cliff, it is because American voters spent the past 40+ years voting to send it that way.
The parties guilty of ruining what was once the greatest nation on earth is our current generation of senior citizens. Between the eminent failure of Social Security, Medicare, state Pension funds, other retirement funds, the reverse mortgage industry, etc. it seems our current generation of senior citizens sold out their children’s future to subsidize their own retirements at the expense of their children’s future.
I wish our current senior citizens could be forced to live another 50 years so they could see the tragedy they voted to leave for their children. I

SSS

@ Mark

Take a look at the reception your comments got. How much smack did you mainline before you posted that shit? I hereby bestow upon you the title “Dumbest Fucking Moron Who Ever Visited TBP.” Wear it in good health.

Let’s take another perspective at the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers. First and foremost, it is the ONLY revolution or revolt in history which was led by the WEALTHY, who said in the Declaration of Independence, “we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred honor.” They weren’t kidding. Here’s a snapshot of a few of the signers of the Declaration.

John Hancock, wealthy merchant from Boston.

John Adams, wealthy lawyer from Boston.

Benjamin Franklin, wealthy printer, businessman, and scientist from Philadelphia.

Thomas Jefferson, wealthy plantation farmer from Virginia.

Francis Lightfoot Lee and Richard Henry Lee, wealthy plantation farmers from Virginia.

Benjamin Rush, successful and well-to-do doctor from Pennsylvania.

What about George Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. He didn’t sign the Declaration because he was in the field conducting a seige against the British garrison occupying Boston!!! Oh, Washington at the time was probably the wealthiest man in America.

So what if we lost that war? It is well known and documented that the British would have seized all of the property and executed the top leaders if they were captured. Washington would almost surely have been the first person to mount a gallows in London. Martha would have died a pauper.

Do you get it now, Mark? Well, do you, punk?

Matt
Matt

Mick Fleetwood, aka Marty Feldman.

SSS

JEM

You said, “The parties guilty of ruining what was once the greatest nation on earth is our current generation of senior citizens.” You’re full of shit. But first, the United States is a democratic Republic, not a Democracy. So you’re full of shit there, too.

Take a look who put Social Security (enacted in the 1930s, well before the first Boomers were even born) and Medicare (enacted in the 1960s, when the oldest of the Boomers were entering their 20s) on the path to ruin. It was the so-called Greatest Generation, that’s who.

Lyndon Johnson, a WWII vet, was president when he and Congress decided in 1967 to put Social Security taxes into the U.S. Treasury’s general revenue fund instead of keeping it in a separate untouchable account as had been done since its inception. Same with the Medicare taxes.

Why did Johnson and Congress, overwhelmingly Democrats at the time, do that (besides the fact that they could)? To fund all those costly social welfare programs that sprang up under Johnson’s Great Society proposal and remain an albatross around the neck of our country today. Food stamps. Welfare. Public Housing. Medicaid. All that shit and more came from the Greatest Generation, not the Boomers who are retired and retiring today. Back then, Boomers were getting high at Woodstock and San Francisco and rioting at Cal Berkeley. I missed all that because I was in Southeast Asia in 1968, 1969, and 1972. I suppose you think Boomers started that war, too.

Now, if you want to argue that both Boomers and Gen Xers have done little to correct the situation, I wouldn’t quibble with that. But don’t accuse my generation of starting this downhill slide. That’s just plain bullshit.

jmarz
jmarz

SSS

Thank you for your post in pointing out Mark’s delusional posts. I was about to get to it but you beat me. He is fucking nuts to even say something like that about our Founding Fathers and to have the balls to live in this country knowing how much they sacrificed for this country. I feel bad for Mark. He just doesn’t get it….

StuckInNJ
StuckInNJ

SSS — am soooo glad you put JEM in his/her place! Your post x 1000! Excellent. I can not believe 2 people (so far) even voted thumbs up on his/her post. TBP is being infested by dumbshits.

Smokey
Smokey

Administrator,

I just read your link and I see NOTHING that refutes the fact that Lyndon Johnson was a piece of shit. I agree that the Boomers have fucked over the country. But so did the previous generation, as alleged by SSS.

Whenever SSS sees your post, he will come on this board and annihilate your bullshit with more facts.

llpoh
llpoh

LBJ was an enormous piece of shit. I knew the pilot who flew him when he was VP. LBJ was an absolute piece of work. He could, and did, ruin military careers on a whim. He called advisers in to the aircraft toilets while he was taking a dump to confer with them. He was one foul mother.

llpoh
llpoh

Admin – I have secret information regarding the Boomers that refutes your every argument.

Boomers are in fact the victims of an evil plot to blame them for the countries woes. They are in no way to blame for anything. I cannot tell you who really is to blame, as the information is SECRET, but it isn’t the Boomers.

I am not comfortable releasing this information to you, as I am sworn to secrecy. I have approached Assange, and he is considering releasing it for me. So, please simply acknowledge that I, SSS, Smokey, et al, win, and you lose. My secret information tops your every argument. Please do not continue to argue your absurd case in the face of my very real, but secret, facts.

Smokey
Smokey

Before SSS finishes with you, you’ll be begging for mercy and threatening to ban him from the blog. You’ll come crying to me for help, but HELL no, I’ll just watch the onslaught.

StuckInNJ
StuckInNJ

I read the article you linked Jim as well as many of the comments. Very many commentors said what this Op said ; —— “While many excellent points are made, I take exception to the fact that 1) the author tries to tar all us boomers with the same brush …” I have to agree. I amyself am a boomer and am nothing like what you wrote about.

You mentioned Johnson only once in that article. Nevertheless, I can not believe you would defend that fucker … that cock sucking POS who sent 60k Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese (both sides) to their deaths. Oh God … please don’t say you like that fuckwad.

You also wrote — “I truly hope that President Obama can rise to the occasion and become a true statesman and leader” Fuckme! That didn’t work out so well.

llpoh
llpoh

Shit. I see someone has been leaking some small parts of my secret information to Stuck and Smokey, and the Admin’s arguments are already starting to crumble.

KSM
KSM

I am a product of this bureaucracy of which you speak. My father, and both biological grandfathers are life long military (My step father is also a product of the military-although not life long). I have been educated in the public school system my entire life and am now at a public university on scholarships, loans and grandparent’s generosity.

Let me tell you how that has turned out for me:

By WY divorce laws children over the age of 12 are able to decide (for the most part) which parent they want to live with. I chose my father.
My father, unbeknown to me, has been an alcoholic on and off since he was 16. He was a sergeant when I moved in with him. His commanding officers continually bailed him out of jail and got him out of trouble, when he had had too much to drink, while he was in the military
Even when my step mother left my father and told his commanding officers that he was a violent alcoholic and that she was fearful for herself and me, they did nothing. He was not given any help or reprimands-thus his alcoholism was allowed to continue

I was forced for fear of my sanity, life and future to move out of my father’s house at 17, just before my senior year. My mother would have gladly taken me in and for a while that looked like that would be my only option. However, the differences in public school systems meant that if I had moved up there I would have graduated a year late and jeopardized my college future. Thankfully, my 4H agent was lovely and voluntarily took me in and cared for me.

The military knew full well what was going on in my household as it had been reported to the commanding officers numerous times and yet did nothing. Rather than risking looking bad or losing one of their soldiers (excluding those killed in action) they let a family be destroyed. In fact my father retired with full benefits and his commanding officers were helpful references when he applied for a new civilian contracted firm job.

Secondly, I mentioned that I was educated in the public school system and am now at a public university. My public school did not provide any AP credit, turned away about half a class worth every year from getting any foreign language credit and essentially ran out of academic classes for me by the time I was in my second semester of junior year. In high school, I had a total of about two classes in which I actually had to think and study. The rest of them were essentially prep classes for the standardized testing-even those for which there was not technically a test focusing on those areas. That was my college preparation. I am in an honors dorm and several of my fellow dorm mates are from financially stable and not broken families (very unlike mine). Their parents all have at least one if not two college degrees, own their homes outright and pay for their children to go to private prep schools. Several of these dorm mates came in classified as sophomores and juniors, with full scholarship. They, thankfully are helpful, and are having to teach me to study and even essentially fill in several pre req classes worth of material. I was obviously not prepared for college despite the federal education system saying I had all that I needed and more.

The point of that story is that the rich are keeping even the smart poor down through the public school system. They are telling people that they are ready for college and then laughing in their faces when they fail and yet are still left with the debt from the attempt at trying to better themselves. And it also highlights the fact that the financially well off tend not to have broken families. These top people have, through the welfare state, systematically increased the number of broken families- thus making the inccurrence of debt easier.

Also just on a side note: another problem is that the public school system teaches consumerism and government dependence. “A stitch in time saves nine” is no longer taught-instead we are told to go buy more and more regardless of whether we have it. Living off anything other than chemically made corrupt junk is weird and wrong

llpoh
llpoh

Admin – What – you don’t like my secret info argument?

SSS

Admin

I will destroy you and your preposterous views about Boomers. You saw fit to repost, as an oldie but badie, your puerile article “The Shallowist Generation.”

Meet me over there. Bring the medics.

Clagon

Thank you!

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