Guest Post by Alex via Ammo.com
Church attendance in the United States is at an all-time low, according to a Gallup poll released in April 2019. This decline has not been a steady one. Indeed, over the last 20 years, church attendance has fallen by 20 percent. This might not sound like cause for concern off the bat. And if you’re not a person of faith, you might rightly wonder why you would care about such a thing.
Church attendance is simply a measure of something deeper: social cohesion. It’s worth noting that the religions with the highest rate of attendance according to Pew Forum have almost notoriously high levels of social cohesion: Latter-Day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Evangelical Protestants, Mormons and historically black churches top the list.
There’s also the question of religious donations. Religious giving has declined by 50 percent since 1990, according to a 2016 article in the New York Times. This means people who previously used religious services to make ends meet now either have to go without or receive funding from the government. This, in turn, strengthens the central power of the state.
It is our position that civil society – those elements of society which exist independently of big government and big business – are essential to a functioning and free society. What’s more, these institutions are in rapid decline in the United States, and have been for over 50 years.
Such a breakdown is a prelude to tyranny, and has been facilitated in part (either wittingly or unwittingly) by government policies favoring deindustrialization, financialization and centralization of the economy as well as the welfare state. The historical roots of this breakdown are explored below, along with what concerned citizens can do to mitigate its impact on their loved ones.
What Is Bowling Alone?
The urtext of this topic is Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by political scientist Robert D. Putnam. He uses the decline in league bowling as a sort of shorthand for the overall decline in American participation in social life.
The local bowling alley was known as the blue-collar country club, and it was the invention of the automatic pinsetter that changed the game, making it faster and more accessible. The first million-dollar endorsement sports deal was Don Carter receiving a million dollars to bowl with an Ebonite signature ball designed for him in 1964.
Business was driven by league play. People would sign up to join a league, which had them in for 30 weeks of once-weekly play. In the course of doing this, they would rub elbows with teammates, opponents and whoever happened to be hanging out in the bowling alley at the time. Between 1940 and 1958, the United States Bowling Congress’ membership exploded from 700,000 to 2.3 million. The Women’s International Bowling Congress’ membership climbed from 82,000 to 866,000, with the American Junior Bowling Congress ballooning from 8,000 to 175,000. In their heyday, bowling leagues brought in a whopping 70 percent of all bowling alley income. Now they bring in a paltry 40 percent.
Again, the point here is not that there is something magical about bowling, which acts as a social glue in the United States. Rather, it is that the existence of bowling alleys as a third place in American life was the symptom of a vibrant and healthy civil society, not its cause. People preferred to socialize with others in a place outside of home or work. Putnam is quick to point out that the number of people who bowl in the United States has actually increased since the golden age of bowling – the problem is that they’re all doing it alone.
The decline in bowling league membership parallels the decline of memberships in a number of other civic organizations including the Knights of Columbus, B’Nai Brith, labor unions, the Boy Scouts, the Red Cross, the Lions, the Elks, the Kiwanis, the Freemasons, parent-teacher organizations, the League of Women Voters and the Junior Chamber of Commerce to name only a few examples other than bowling leagues and churches.
What this means is that there are significantly fewer connections between people and fewer civic-minded discussions going on now than there were in the past. It also means the loss of identity tied to something other than work and consumer goods (see the explosion of adults spending their money on Star Wars or Harry Potter knick-knacks).
Putnam lays the blame at the foot of technology. Television, and to a much greater extent, the Internet, individualized how people spend their spare time. Still, there is a solid case to be made that the decline of civil society and the resulting loss of social capital is not simply the result of new technologies. It is equally the result of government policies which, through design or through negligence, further erode civil society.
The Destruction of the Rust Belt
It is difficult to talk about the decline of civil society and social capital in the United States without looking at the destruction of the Rust Belt. The decline of the population in Rust Belt industrial cities over the last 50 years is worth a cursory glance before delving further into this topic:
- In 1940, Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh were all among the 10 most populated cities in the United States.
- By 1980, Cleveland and Pittsburgh had dropped off.
- While Detroit hung around in the top 10 until the 2010 census, it was also the first city to have its population drop below one million.
Cities outside of the top 10 in 1940 paint an even starker picture:
- Between 1960 and 2010, Buffalo lost over half of its population, plummeting from 532,000 (20) to 261,000 (71).
- Cincinnati was hit about this hard during the same time period, with its population dropping from 502,000 (21) to 296,000 (63).
- Gary, Indiana is perhaps the most extreme case of Rust Belt depopulation. It lost over half its population between 1960 and 2010, going from 178,000 (70) to 80,000 (unranked).
Most of these massive depopulations are tied closely to deindustrialization and the financialization of the economy. While other factors cannot be ignored, such as central air conditioning, which makes living in cities like Phoenix (439,000 in 1960 and the 29th largest city to 1.4 million and the 6th largest by 2010) much more palatable, a conscious set of policies contributed to the destruction of America’s manufacturing base.
If one sees the United States as nothing more than a group of consumers, there’s nothing to fret about here. If, however, one sees the United States as a nation with a value beyond its simple GDP, the replacement of civil society with the marketplace is a disastrous scenario.
The Destruction of Black Business Districts
Another place where this can be seen is the destruction of the black middle class. A frequently untold story of American life is that by the 1950s, the United States actually had a thriving black middle class. Black business ownership peaked during the years between the end of the Second World War and the Great Society. Every city with any significant black population hosted a black business district where a primarily black clientele spent their money within their own community. Black home ownership was likewise high at this point.
This is all very much a thing of the past.
The per capita number of black employers declined by 12 percent between the years 1997 and 2014. An article by Brian S. Feldman in Washington Monthly notes a significant decline in certain sectors of black business ownership as well, namely grocers, insurers and banks. Black-owned insurance agencies declined by 68 percent between 1989 and 1999 in what Black Enterprise magazine called “a bloodbath.”
The article in question lays this at the feet of not specific government policies, but at the doorstep of a more general trend toward market concentration.
It’s worth looking at the question of wealth and market concentration (separate from the question of so-called “wealth inequality”) from a freedom-minded perspective. The massive amounts of government handouts to big business, in the form of both direct subsidies as well as favorable legislation for regulations and taxes alike, creates an environment favoring those most capable of purchasing influence – namely, big business.
This is not the half-baked conspiracy theory of a college Marxist. No less an authority than the Foundation for Economic Education correctly identifies that the wealth concentration that made the destruction of black small business possible is choking the American economy at the expense of Main Street. Likewise, licensing regimes in a number of states choke the pipeline of small business competition by making it more difficult for people to enter fields, from nail tech to brain surgeon. The FEE likewise identifies health insurance requirements and increasingly rising minimum wage laws as government intervention raising the bar to entry into the market and crushing small business.
There is another, highly unlikely and ironic, culprit behind the decimation of black business and the black community – integration.
This is a position championed by Clay Middleton of the South Carolina House of Representatives. Basically, under segregation, black consumers were limited in their choices of business. They could not, in many cases, go to (for example) white hamburger joints. Instead, they had to patronize the equivalent business for black customers. In many cases, these businesses were owned and operated by fellow black Americans. Black hotels are another example of this phenomenon.
The point is not that Southern states should reintroduce segregation to prop up black businesses, but simply to give a broader and more complete picture of how and why black business districts have disappeared. It also offers some insight into the destruction of small business in America in general.
While cheap, imported widgets from Walmart benefit consumers with lower prices, they also create an intangible and difficult-to-quantify social problem. When big business replaces small business, wealth is not only centralized, it is also centralized outside of the communities that it serves. While larger businesses are arguably more “efficient” economically speaking, the loss of small business (most acutely seen in the black community) provides an illustrative example of how lost economic capital and lost social capital are often closely tied. Without black business, there is less of a “black community” than there is a “black marketplace.”
Strictly speaking, small business (black or otherwise) is business, not civil society proper. However, greater economic leverage of big business in the nation means an economically impoverished civil society.
Civil Society, the Welfare State, and Mutual Aid
While direct connections are difficult to establish, it is worth noting that there is a chicken-egg effect of the welfare state, which began during the New Deal, but accelerated under President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Great Society.
What did people do before the advent of social welfare programs? This is a question that even few libertarians can answer without stammering something about private charity. And indeed, private charity did play a role in meeting social needs for the less fortunate. However, there is a hidden story in how communities met social needs prior to the advent of the welfare state.
Mutual aid in the 21st century is largely a nonprofit form of insurance, particularly life insurance – a sort of analog to the credit union. However, in earlier days they oversaw a number of social welfare programs.
Mutual aid societies, also known as benefit societies (or friendly societies in the United Kingdom and Ireland) date back to the Middle Ages. Medieval guilds were effectively mutual aid societies organized within skilled trades. In the United States, they were popular with black Americans during post-revolutionary times: the Free African Society dates back to 1787.
One of the key differences between mutual aid and benefit societies and the welfare state is the role of civil society and accountability. Mutual aid societies presented a counterweight to both the state and big business. They offered services such as healthcare, unemployment benefits, disability insurance and other services now provided by big business or state and federal governments.
What’s more, the mutual aid societies generally had a set of values tied to their services. Social values were advanced and an ethos of moral character and self-improvement underpinned membership in a mutual aid society. For example, the Ancient Order of United Workmen forbade its members from selling liquor on penalty of forfeiting their death benefit.
Finally, it’s worth noting the primary difference between mutual aid societies and the welfare state. Members who wanted to collect had to look a peer in the eye and request aid. This had a twin psychological effect: First, it diminished spurious claims. Let’s say “Jim” needed some unemployment insurance. His neighbors are also members of his mutual aid society. They know if Jim actually needs help or if he’s just goldbricking. The flipside is that Jim is also receiving aid from his friends and neighbors. This inspires him to look for work so that he can pay everyone back in his own way, in addition to providing a source of social solidarity during his hardest times.
According to A Life of One’s Own: Individual Rights and the Welfare State, in the year 1890, 112,000 Americans were living in housing provided by private charitable organizations. Compare this to 73,000 residing in publicly funded almshouses. What’s more, benefit societies were decentralized. The spirit was one of fraternity, not of paternalism. Reciprocity was a driving ethic, which in turn removed the stigma of receiving charity. People were not receiving handouts, they were receiving support from the very same people whom they had supported in the past.
Additionally, belonging to a mutual aid or benefit society was a lot cooler than receiving welfare. They had secret handshakes, among other secret symbols of membership. What’s more, the humble house-call doctor was a feature of mutual aid society membership. Society locals frequently hired a doctor to service a membership area. They have since been regulated to the point where they provide little in the way of services, except for life insurance and annuities, making them effectively non-profit financial organizations.
In addition to accountability, assistance beyond simple financial support and decentralization, private assistance carries other benefits. For example, philanthropic organizations tend to operate leaner and to be more innovative in how they tackle problems. Such organizations tend to tailor their assistance to the individual in need, rather than offering a one-size-fits-all approach. This is true of individuals and communities alike. Finally, philanthropic and mutual aid societies seek to treat the underlying cause, rather than just the symptom of need.
Such organizations are now limited by the federal tax code 501(c)(4), which greatly restricts the activities such organizations are allowed to participate in. Many of them, such as Mutual of Omaha, underwent demutualization and handed out stocks in place of membership. They are now for-profit financial organizations.
A Decline in Family Life
2
One of the main pillars of civil society is the nuclear family. Any discussion of the decline of civil society in the United States would be incomplete without a discussion of the decline of family life in the United States.
Perhaps the best numbers to look at with regard to the American family are from the 2010 Census. These are, admittedly, a bit old. However, there is no reason to suspect that the trend has reversed itself and that the nuclear family has experienced some kind of resurgence in the years since that census. If anything, the opposite is probably true. So what does the last United States Census say?
- Non-college graduates are more than twice as likely to be single parents.
- Affluent families are more common than poor ones.
Pew Research likewise has good data on the state of the American family:
- Americans who have never been married reached an all-time high in 2012, with 25 percent of all adults over the age of 25 having never been married. In 1960, this figure stood at 9 percent.
- Men were significantly less likely to have ever been married than women.
- 24 percent of never-married adults were cohabiting with their partner.
- For black Americans, the percentage over 25 who had never been married was 36 percent.
- Pew Research indicates that it expects this trend to continue and that, while people are getting married later in life, it does not expect a significant increase in marriage as the population ages.
- Financial security was cited as the main hurdle to marriage by one third of all those polled who wanted to get married.
- 67 percent of Americans under 50 who are married are in their first marriage, compared to 83 percent in 1960.
- 46 percent of children live with two parents in their first marriage. In 1980, this number was 61 percent. In 1960, it was 73 percent.
The above-cited figures point toward two conclusions: First, the nuclear family is in sharp decline. Second, it is far more common for educated and affluent Americans to form traditional families.
It’s difficult to assign direct blame to any one factor. The centralization of the economy cited above plays a role, as does the financialization and deindustrialization of the economy. In the 1960s, from where our earliest data comes, it was not difficult for a high school graduate or even a high school dropout to earn a living at a stable job that was effectively a career for life. With this job came a defined benefit pension, healthcare, etc. The wages and benefits made having and raising a family easier.
The welfare state is another significant driver of the decline of the nuclear family. Unsurprisingly, the black family is massively impacted. In 1965, 25 percent of all black children were born out of wedlock. In 2016, that rate had increased to 70 percent and even topped 80 percent in certain urban areas. In the 1940s, this number was five percent, which was comparable to that of white children. The Hispanic out-of-wedlock birth rate in 2016 was 52 percent, while for whites it was 30 percent.
The rise in children born out of wedlock cannot be separated from the massive expansion of the welfare state under Johnson’s Great Society. In a report from the Mises Institute, the basic argument is that welfare disincentivizes marriage. In times past, when women had children out of wedlock, it meant an incredibly difficult life balancing whatever work and charity they could get. It also carried a social stigma (from our old friend civil society), which further disincentivized single motherhood.
Today, however, there are a host of social programs specifically for single mothers. A partial list of programs assisting single motherhood includes:
- Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) commonly known as “food stamps”
- Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC), another food assistance program
- Child Care Assistance Program, Head Start and Early Head Start, all daycare assistance programs
- Section 8 housing assistance
- Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps single mothers pay their utilities
- Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), health insurance assistance programs
- Supplemental Security Income, often called “disability,” but accessible to those without bona fide physical disabilities
- The Emergency Food Assistance Program and the National School Lunch Program, two more food assistance programs
These programs act as a disincentive toward family formation. Benefits are means tested, meaning that if one’s income is low enough, one qualifies. This means that it is advantageous in many cases for couples to remain unmarried so that only one income is counted for the purpose of benefits. Such programs, when coupled with a diminishing stigma against single motherhood, further incentivizes promiscuity and poor mate selection – why not have a child with a man who can’t support it when the welfare state is there to pick up the slack?
The impact of single-parent households is far further reaching than you probably think: In the most extensive study ever done on single parenthood (in permissive, tolerant and liberal Sweden), it was found that children in single-parent households were twice as likely to suffer from psychiatric disorders and addiction. This figure might be conservative, as it only includes hospitalizations. Some other striking statistics about fatherless households include:
- 63 percent of youth suicides take place in fatherless homes.
- 90 percent of all homeless youth and runaways are from fatherless homes, which is a whopping 32 times the national average.
- 85 percent of all children with behavior issues come from fatherless homes, 20 times the national average.
- 80 percent of rapists with established anger issues come from fatherless homes, 14 times the national average.
- 71 percent of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes, nine times the national average.
- 70 percent of those in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes, nine times the national average.
- 85 percent of all juveniles in prison come from single-parent households, 20 times the national average.
- 90 percent of adolescent repeat arson offenders are from fatherless homes.
- Fatherless children are nearly twice as likely to be victims of abuse or neglect.
These striking statistics are a serious indictment of the decline of the nuclear family. If, as is common of behaviors, single parenthood is heritable, we have not yet begun to see a crisis.
The End of Civil Society in the United States
The big takeaway is that in the United States, civil society has declined. While the blame cannot entirely be laid at the feet of big government and big business (individual actors are involved), there is strong evidence to suggest that the crisis in American civil society is driven primarily by the welfare state and government policies favoring deindustrialization, financialization and centralization of the economy.
There is a reinforcing quality about the destruction of civil society. As the size of big government and big business increases, they become more capable of taking greater power. Smaller communities become increasingly reliant upon each, making it harder to resist further growth and greater disempowerment. It’s a vicious downward spiral.
So what’s the solution for a concerned individual or family? It’s not political. Instead, the best one can do to counteract these trends are to become as financially independent as possible, make durable local connections in the community, and learn to think critically in order to insulate oneself from the more pernicious effects of social decay and the power of the state.
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I grew up in Detroit and can relate to the “changes” that occurred during my residency.
Blacks WERE a major problem in 1970s and beyond Detroit.
I was able to keep up my property with no difficulty, painting the house (outside) on a regular basis, mowing the lawn and keeping the shrubbery trimmed-normal maintenance for any homeowner.
Contrast my maintenance efforts and results with my black “neighbors” who did not keep up their property. You see, in the 1970s HUD had “special programs” to move blacks into single-family housing, without requiring these blacks to have any “skin in the game”.
Of course, being white, I did not qualify for any of these programs.
The liberal “urban studies” folks at Wayne State University have always made excuses for blacks and their inability to maintain their homes due to lack of “upkeep” (normal everyday maintenance) on their homes. Their main excuse was that “the homes were old”…never blaming the black residents themselves.
On almost every block, whites (mostly elderly Polish) who could not afford to move STILL kept up their homes–freshly cut grass, well-maintained exteriors, etc. despite their homes being just as “old” as those owned by blacks. No matter where you went in Detroit, one could always tell where whites lived. Neatly manicured lawns and well-kept-up houses were the norm.
I finally left Detroit after a number of burglaries and little or no police response. The police KNEW who the criminals were but did nothing about it. You see, blacks were “oppressed” and were “untouchable”.
Another situation was the “code enforcement” harassment that us whites endured. We always used the city-supplied trash containers (one for every two residences). Our black “neighbors” were too lazy to put their trash in the containers, strewing their trash throughout the alleys. Guess who got repeatedly ticketed for “improperly disposed of trash”? It wasn’t the blacks who improperly disposed of their trash–it was us whites. It was as if they (the black-run city government) wanted us to move…
No, the old liberal excuses that poverty was instrumental in the destruction of Detroit is totally false.
All one has to do is ask the party (liquor) store owners why they put up with the likes of blacks. The Detroit “ghetto” was (and is still) quite a “gold mine” for businesses that sell liquor, lottery tickets and junk food.
I grew up in Detroit and personally witnessed the marginalization of whites along with the destruction by blacks.
It’s CULTURE, not “poverty”.
The “elites” need to stop making excuses for black culture and black aberrant behavior.
Please do not call The Evil Fuckers “elites”; they are The Malignancy that has caused this.
If I could up-vote more, I would. Race has little to do with the problems we’re facing, except in the minds of the leftist Dems. The broken culture of the black race, particularly in the US, is driving the dissolution of of our country. LBJ is largely credited with saying about his Great Society, “I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for 200 years”. I don’t think we’ll be voting at all for 200 years, but he made his point and destroyed the black culture.
Don’t worry, the problem will be fully solved once they are able to purge such “racist” remarks from the web. Yes, that will solve everything.
I grew up in Detroit, and personally witnessed the destruction of a once-great city. There are a number of reasons for Detroit’s decline that have never been explored or discussed.
1. “Blockbusting” by greedy real estate agents. Real estate agents would send out postcards with the following: “A new family is moving into your neighborhood. If you want to sell your house, please call me at xxx-xxxx”. A “new family” was a euphemism for black families, and was used to “encourage” whites to sell their homes.
2. HUD (Housing and Urban Development) speculators and real estate hustlers conspired to “buy up” and raze the best houses on every block, in certain sections of the city. Quite often, “shacks” were left standing while decent housing was purchased by HUD and razed. This was done purposely to depress property values, to make it easier for speculators to purchase properties at “bargain basement” prices.
I realize that items 1 and 2 counteract each other and are at cross purposes, but they were a reality in 1960s Detroit.
3. The 1967 riots did much to push whites out of Detroit. A little-known aspect of the Detroit riots was the application of spray-painted words on the exteriors of black-owned businesses. The words “soul brother” was spray-painted on businesses owned by blacks so that the “angels of death” (actually rioters) would spare them from destruction. Whole business districts around the city were destroyed, never to regain their former selves.
4. The election of Coleman Alexander Young, Detroit’s first black mayor, who was overtly racist to Detroit’s white citizens while “getting along just fine” with the “movers and shakers” (big business people) of the day (as long as the campaign contributions kept coming in)….
5. The abolition of the STRESS (Stop The Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets) program. This anti-criminal program was put in by mayor Young’s predecessor and was quite successful in “cleaning up the streets” of criminals. In this program, police officers would disguise themselves as vulnerable old people and walk through neighborhoods as “decoys”. Predatory criminals would attempt to rob these elderly citizens and quite often, were dispatched to “the great hereafter”. One of Young’s campaign promises was the abolition of the STRESS program as too many of “his people” were being eliminated. Upon the election of Young, the program was disbanded.
These are 5 reasons for this once-great city’s demise.
Just how many times and places have you posted that very same comment? You must write, and save, these things and search for places to paste the comments in. A quick search shows you have been pasting that comment in various sites for a long time. You must keep a database of comments to dredge up and paste in.
That is very unusual. Strange even.
Are you a moderator? If not, it is not your place to question discussion threads that are relative to the topic.
Regards,
Anal Cyst, get a bible, maybe LLPOH will swear on it that he’s a moderator.
I was reading the comments on this thread during a brief visit. Your question to LLPOH brought a Wallace Stevens poem to mind. The Emperor of Ice Cream. It is a somewhat strange little strand of words used in odd ways which occasionally comes to mind when I am around enigmatic people comfortable in their own authoritative position. The Emperor of Ice Cream.
It is worth reading and criticizing or critiquing, depending upon your linguistic traits.
I discovered I had read and memorized a single line incorrectly, which altered my grasp of the whole damn thing.
What does it mean, in this context, to declare near the end of the first stanza “Let be be finale of seem.”?
Well, here’s the CRUX of it! I thought it said “Let Be THE Finale of Seem. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.” But the real wording changes everything.
I thought it meant “It Is What It Is, therefore the best guy to obey is the guy in charge of the ice cream.” I guess we know why I got volumptious to the point of double dee. I did love the ice cream. Now, I make my own yogurt and it is better, I am thinner and I might live beyond age 60, God willing.
However, just like “Bowling Alone” is a concept that requires a bit of cognitive exercise, so also does “Let be be finale of seem” require some brainiactivity.
From the link below:
It’s one of those lines that “resist[s] the intelligence”—as Stevens said poetry must do—“almost successfully.” A literal paraphrase might read “Let artifice and illusion give way to plain reality.” According to critic Milton J. Bates, “the speaker of the poem insists that the naturalistic ‘be’ replace the religious or romantic ‘seem,’” thereby rejecting the myths surrounding death and the afterlife. In other words, let realism take over idealism. To Judith Christine Brown, “the line suggests that only in death does seeming end. … In life, however, there is only seeming” because people filter the world through the distortions of imagination and language. This reading jibes with the parallel command in the second stanza—“Let the lamp affix its beam”—which evokes an atmosphere of autopsy or interrogation, the harsh light of reality illuminating only what can be seen, not imagined. The embroidered sheet with birds (“fantails”) on it, leaving the corpse partly exposed under the lamp’s glare, seems a symbol of the inadequacy of artifice.
But why the emperor of ice cream? It’s an odd combination: an absolute, imperial power and a benign, sweet treat. But look closer—scoop deeper—and its meanings multiply. Ice cream is a sensuous delight, eagerly anticipated and gleefully consumed. If you wait too long to eat it, it’ll melt. It’s an ephemeral pleasure, like sex, flowers, the daily newspaper, life itself. And it’s cold, though “cold” appears in this poem only as a description of the woman’s body. By linking the chill of death with a frozen dessert, Stevens seems to imply that death and the sensuous pleasures of life have something in common: detachment or isolation, perhaps. dawdling girls don’t seem very concerned with her either.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70138/wallace-stevens-the-emperor-of-ice-cream
You might recognize my recent visit with adademic intellectuals has improved my writing a bit. For a short time, anyway. I wouldn’t hold my breath and expect it to continue now that I’m back in the hills with the billy goats gruff.
Post Script… I am not sure now what the “Emperor of Ice Cream” refers to now that I’ve grasped that I read the whole damn poem WRONG.
Hollywood would be so confused, M G.
If that is the version I watched, it is macabre indeed!
Anarchyst – I post whatevrthe fuck I want to. Unlike you, each post is original. I do not keep files of long posts on disk, hunting around sute to site looking for a place to resurrect old posts. You post the same long pieces place after place, year after year. Content NEVER changes one word.
I wonder if it is even your stuff? Is it given to you to troll around with by some anarchist organization? Sems more and more likely.
I am betting those pieces are not yours, and were never yours. They are all pre-made and sorted into topics on a disc, ready for you to copy and paste around the internet.
What organization are you with, and/or who is paying you?
People just do not save comments in files for repasting elsewhere. That is too unusual to be just a quirk.
Really, keeping posts on your computer, copying and pasting them on many different sites = = paid troll.
Everything I post, I have authored and written myself and have NEVER been paid for my works. I am not a member of any organization. I post for those who may not have been on other sites. My posts get people to THINK for themselves. You don’t like it? Too bad. Get over it. GROW UP, ALREADY.
Your name-calling exposes you as either a hasbara, IDF unit 8200 member, or jew who doesn’t like the content.
By the way, what the hell is a Llpoh?
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit Of Hapiness
You are clearly a paid troll. No one saves comments for years, and repeats them on multitudes of sites, unless they are being paid. That you have saved these long comments, one after another, and post them on multitudes of sites, over the course of years, is highly irregular.
You are a paid troll. I have an uncanny ability to discern this stuff. I am not wrong here.
You are so full of sh!t, I can smell you from here…
Shalom, jew…
I keep several of my favorite posts at the ready for quick use:
That guy’s a fag.
That guy’s a total fag.
Don’t be a fag.
What a bunch of fags.
and my favorite… (from Archie Bunker)…
England is a fag country.
But do you save them on your hard drive? To repeat verbatim? I think not.
Concentration and centralization is destructive. This includes wealth. It is why the socialists will win. Blame it on G.R.E.E.D.
The writer asked…
“What did people do before the advent of social welfare programs?”
Now you can’t even give a homeless person a sandwich without getting fined or arrested.
I was born and grew-up in Allentown, Pa. Talk about the destruction of the rust belt, in the 1970’s: Bethlehem Steel closes, Mack Trucks closes, AT&T (Bell Labs) closes, Lehigh Structural Steel closes. All the downtown stores closed. So bad was the decline that Billy Joel wrote a song about it.
Allentown was turned into a shit-hole. Invaded by Puerto Ricans, and other assorted criminals from nearby New Jersey, looking for cheap rents. Last year the mayor was convicted of 43 counts for ‘pay to play’ He’s in prison for 15 years.
My cousin who still lives there, reports hordes of SPICS, and Kneegrows (from NJ) invade the Lehigh Valley each week end – and ruin the parks.
Invasion is unavoidable. It happens in LA neighborhoods and it happens in cities around LA. They always come looking for cheaper rents. You can’t have something nice before a horde will find it and swoop right in. It is a veritable mad hatter’s tea party where everybody has to keep moving to stay in place. If you don’t move, you end up surrounded by an entirely new and dissimilar community.
My husband’s cousin Richey co-edited this one…
It is sad what happened. They made at least a decent effort in Cleveland to revitalize a few years ago. I don’t know how it is going these days?
Anyone who visits downtown Cleveland these days? My husband and I visit the Middleberg Hts area, but don’t go to the “city” proper.
Dutch,
I was born in Bethlehem & spent a lot of time in Allentown ’60s & ’70s. Western Electric, GE plant on Lehigh St, lots of others went tits up too. Zappa also mentions A-town in a song after an unhappy experience at his ag-hall show.
The malls (Whitehall, then Lehigh Valley & 100 other smaller strip malls) slowly strangled the downtown shopping district. Mid 60s my buddy’s dad had a chance to buy all the land (corn fields) east side of 145 from 22 past Mickley Rd. to almost where the Army surplus store was (minus City-Vu Diner) for like $50/acre & passed on it.
Unions killed Beth Steel, Mack, etc. Remember when that billboard was on the PA side of the bridge to Joisey on the east-west turnpike that said “Welcome to PA… America starts here”? The advertisement worked.
It’s funny, most of the PRs I knew worked at the Steel or Mack or somewhere else & were responsible folks if a little cliquish. Mexicans were more acceptable back then too, better food & weed than PRs.
I got out in 1980 but still worked in the Lehigh Valley for too many years. My youngest still lives in the area & has a decent job (working for a foreign owned co.) but dislikes going anywhere near the downtown shithole. Somehow Bethlehem kept it’s head above water. It’s full of yuppie scum these days (Lehigh U. detritus?) Most of the smaller outlying towns are OK to varying degrees too. Hellertown is quickly degrading due to the I-78/Joisey corridor & Easton was always pretty much a shithole, likely due it’s proximity to Joisey. Notice the constant here?
It was a George Will editorial about Putnam’s original essay which convinced me I should study journalism and political science.
http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/content/paper/putnam-r-d-1995-bowling-alone-americas-declining-social-capital-journal-democracy-6-1-
Putnam’s article was written my FIRST full year at the University of Oklahoma, 1995, when I was very recently out of the military and was shocked to see students sitting on the lawns where there were “Stay Off the Grass” signs clearly posted. I was obsessed with rules and standards for a good couple of years after leaving the military environment.
So, the article was an assignment by a “new” political science professor there named Cindy Simon Rosenthal, who marched into that classroom and saw the “old lady” in the second row immediately. She and I became good friends that first class and I took every class of hers I could manage to take from that point on. She almost convinced me a Masters degree in Political Science was worth pursuing. Hahaha! Almost. I lacked a single class being able to declare a double major for the undergraduate degree. I just didn’t want to PAY the extra money. Just because you have the hours and the credentials does NOT mean the college will give you the diploma.
Sigh… So, I picked up three minors because that’s just lines typed on the diploma, not actual Calligraphy. Haha! Calligraphers Cost Big Bucks!
Nobody ever has to bowl alone… not really.
She’s retired but still a good colleague and friend, long-distanced.
Life’s little coinky dinks continue to amaze me.
Putnam, R. D. (1995). Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital. Journal of Democracy 6 (1), 65-78.
I’ve always had a thing about bowling.
I am going to compare the “new, improved” thesis of Bowling Alone with the critical analysis I did for my old “boss” and friend, CS Rosenthal and see how Putnam’s opinion has changed.
Is what us anal retentive linguistic types do to find out who is updating old copy to make a buck and who actually has an original new idea.
I’m quite often unsurprised.
George Will is a fag.
That was about 25 years ago and I thought Will should retire THEN!
Baseball was so very OVER. I married a hockey fan.
Probably not actually a homosexual, but who cares?
At any rate, a nancy boy in the old sense.
The bow ties were an odd affectation, I admit.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/a-florida-cop-planted-meth-on-random-drivers-police-say-one-lost-custody-of-his-daughter/ar-AAEaPtR?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=iehp
Nice paper, but we still have a very civil society in NH.
Every other person has an AR or a hand cannon on their coffee table or their back seat.
Just don’t walk alone on the east side of Manchvegas.
The “Divorce Industrial Complex” is Americas most failed social experiment.
Marriage for a man makes no realistic points and does not address the societal ills of the CIA sponsored program known as feminism. Until men have equal protection under the law, men will always go their own way and avoid western women like the plaque. If you want to pinpoint the cause of fatherlessness, you should first start looking at the legal construct, a very punishing construct for a man.
Marriage should not be a legal institution in the first place. That’s the argument you should be having. If legalized marriage didn’t exist would you invent it?
If you are a man, would you go “Baby! This shit we got together, it’s so good, we gotta get the government in on this shit!! We can’t just share this commitment between us. We need judges and lawyers involved in this shit so they can incentavize the woman to take half your shit later?
plague
incentivize
You have the start of a great 60’s pop song by the Turtles:
“Baby! This shit we got together, it’s so good, we gotta get the government in on this shit!! We can’t just share this commitment between us. We need judges and lawyers involved in this shit …”
@You are a slave: Marriage for a man makes no realistic points
Do you sit around and think this twisted shit? Maybe you’re a loser. Loser in life, with women?
@Dutchfuck
Are you a fucking retard?
A loser with women? When the government and the women tag team the man because he doesn’t have equal protection under the law as women have superior protections, that makes EVERY American man a loser with women that is subject to trust in her to do the right thing or not.
I gotta tell ya Dutch, it’s got to be real difficult to be that fuckin stupid!
slaveboy, you are addressing a TBP veteran, a little more respect would help. You sound like a person who doesn’t listen to experience; to wit, a dumbfuck.
El, come on man. This is a place where all have a voice. Veteran or not.
Liberty and truth first. No seniority here.
Why don’t you go take a shit in the street Street Shitter. You must be a communist fag from San Francisco .
Why not have your boyfriend tie you up and put a gag ball in your mouth, slaveboy?
Just don’t mention assfucking shitlicking dicksucking faggotfucking birds. The ones around here don’t like that term.
So, I just say “birds” and we know who I probably mean.
Coonta is busy writing to admin asking for a refund on his $10 doantion to TBP. Mouths off to old Dutchman and thinks he shut the old man down. Dutchman doesn’t need to reply to assholes, that’s what me and LLPOH are here for, to take feral noobs aside and wise them up. You’ll note how tame and civil Hollywood behaves now; another successful launch. Yay, team!
EC, I think you turned LLPOH into a real potty mouth. I used to admire him for his profanity free comments. Until someone called him a jew lover. Then the gloves came off.
LLPOH’s a Jew-lover?
…
Maggie doesn’t do so bad herself. LLPOH has mellowed since moving to Oz. He hardly ever fires up noobs like he used to do. I will say, I don’t like to use foul language too much, it messes with my English practice. I don’t care what Rat Dawg says, a potty mouth is not indicative of intellect. All it means is your surrounded by morons.
It is why my old Navy pal and I sat side by side facing other diners when we went to her favorite Mexican restaurant, Chelinos, in Norman. We hoped if we could see the other decent people eating there with their children, we could prevent one or the other of us from using foul language.
I even consulted our waiter, Alejandro, about the matter. He assured me most of their customers did not understand English anyway. The restaurant is a REAL family owned restaurant in “old” Norman, not trendy OU Land.
Hey beany baby and salty old cunt. Just because I don’t bother to respond to retarded morons does not mean that I can’t. You know when you pussied out and ran home after a little shaking it was real nice around here, but you came back. You always come back. The two of you are the turds in the punch bowl of TBP. I realize that you revel in your trolling, and maybe it makes you enough money to live in that hell hole of a desert that you call home. Maybe you just do it because you are too stupid to get a job. We all know that maggie does it because she is losing her mind, and we feel sorry for her in her dementia, but you don’t get a break. If you had any skills at all you would go out and get a job. I hear that Andy Gump is hiring. You would be well qualified for shit pumping. It is all you have ever contributed to the world.
Here is EC’s apartment complex in the desert.
Looks like prime real estate developments on the Jersey Shore.
I noticed this earlier and came back to see how it went. I see, below, how it, um, did go.
Dutch, You have obviously never been thru divorce court; domestic relations (child support enforcement) proceedings. Slave is right. It sure as shit made me want to avoid ever getting married (legally involved) again. It was an 8 year long nightmare of the 1st order that continued, turned down a notch, until the kids turned 18.
I was waiting for this to be mentioned, it was feminism that destroyed the nuclear family. period, full stop. All those bra burning wack jobs, who divorced their families, not just the husband, and then became serial divorcees, married two, three times, with step kids and kid inlaws, etc. it just is not natural.
The converse of this is the dysfunctional family that stays together, because economics create the circumstances, after love has clearly left the building.
let me tell you, growing up in a dysfunctional family, has as deep and impacts on a kids, as divorce. Both situations makes children think:
“fuck that, I will never get married”
who is to blame?
who produces the shows that are literally referred to as programming?
I’ll take ((them)) for $200 Alex
I love the new short hand, everyone knows who is inside the double parenthesis.
Yes, “people” (by which I mean “men”) did indeed invent it and maintain it as an institution for many thousands of years.
The whole point of legal marriage is to establish paternity (to the extent feasible). It’s all about property and who ends up with it. It’s much more important as a State institution than as a religious one.
In the days before the social-welfare state, bastards and single/spurned mothers had a harder time of things. It was also convenient for men to have their wealth conferred to official heirs.
The current attitude that men just come on by and spew some milt in a woman’s direction is only compatible with a generally-zero-investment society.
Not only Western women. East Asian women are becoming feminists as well, unfortunately.
Not trying to “knock” anyone here (pun intended), but I find it interesting how the article points out that certain denominations (JW’s, Mormons, etc…) have “notoriously high levels of social cohesion”. Of course they do… They will completely SHUN your ass if you ever decide to go your own way. Scientologists should be included in that list as well…
I was raised in an extremely devout JW family. Long story short, after a years of questions and doubts, as well as some tough life experiences, I decided to walk away. But let me tell you, not WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES. I lost my entire life-long social circle, as well as most my family (except for my youngest brother). My decision to think for myself cost me EVERYTHING, but I wouldn’t trade it for ANYTHING.
Fortunately, I’ve been able to move forward in life without bitterness in my heart. I still have fond memories growing up despite everything, and hold no resentment towards no one.
Although I’m mostly a listener here, I can’t help be feel I’m amongst a community of friends and peers who value and hold the same core principles that I do.
Thank you all for being here…
I hear you. I have several friends in the Mennonite community who left the Amish Way. Is a similar sort of thing, I believe.
There is that real sense of community and fellowship here. Am glad you sense it in spite of some of the rancor we indulge ourselves in. Out here in the hills, we refer to Family Feuds as “Exercises” for the coming war against Tyranny, but I hope when the day really comes, most of us will indeed stand on the same side to fight a Common Enemy.
Hey Maggie,
America is not the rest of the world. What I mean is that we tend to see the planet as being the same social order that we have adopted which is increasingly anti-family.
Countries where your survival depends on a very close knit family unit are alive and well in Mexico, the Philippines, South American countries, Pacific Rim and Asian countries etc. Places where the Catholic Church is still very dear to the people, you see close families.
White people for some reason tend to dismiss the need for close family ties, why is that? Why are whites losing the insight that close families ARE security against the pitfalls of the world and TPTB? Amish and Mennonites being an exception.
Well, I am supposed to get off here and continue to unpack, but I do enjoy chatting with you, Bea. So I will tell you at least what I saw on this recent trip. It was a new way of looking at something, which I’ve really been focused on doing since reviewing some ideas offered in the writings of Paulo Frierre.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/30023905
The Pedagogy of the Oppressed is a sort of inward look through the Johari Window, for those of you of the Worldview Psychological bent.
https://psychcentral.com/blog/the-johari-window/
Imagine your view focused upon all that is influencing your decisions from OUTSIDE.
For instance? Do you find yourself wondering when you see a Latino on the street whether or not they are related to El Coyote?
Or, gasp? If it is indeed El Coyote in person?
So, I stay off TBP to spend more time outside now that I am healthier, but during this trip to Oklahoma, I noticed a greater homeless presence in the surrounding surburbs (libraries which offer “senior reading centers” for air conditioning are overwhelmed in some areas.)
I tried to get onto the Air Force base where I worked both in service and as a contractor for almost thirty years and it almost caused a national crisis (sarcasm… closed the gate for an “attempted” unauthorized entry.)
There are some serious problems with societal breakdowns in our communities. They are no longer “communities.” They are clusters of homes.
The neighborhood in which I lived as a young airman longagoandfaraway? It was upscale then.
Now, there are basketball goals facing one another on my old street where a cluster of young black kids play in the street. And sullenly move for the white lady from Missouri in the Jeep. If my old friend’s daughter wasn’t dating one of the black boys, they might have busted my windshield, I think. It is a good thing I pulled into the right house.
It is a strange thing to be on a street I spent so many years unafraid, walking or driving, and suddenly realize I am a stranger in a strange land.
It is now a Block approaching Squalor. I filmed it. I am a serious journalist.
Lots of things are breaking down in our world, BL. It is all about isolation.
Mags- Of everyone here, EC is one person I would like to talk to face to face. I had no idea he was 80, did you? After all these years I find that he is actually a senior up there with ragman and a few others. He writes like a younger person don’t you think? This community is tight until a real shitfest breaks loose.
YT better learn to hold the family/community together.
Bea, I look like Chuy Bravo so don’t waste your time wondering if some illegal is me. As for speaking in coded language to a stranger, one time I went to the antique store in Lancaster (there were a few on the block) and the old lady came up to me, instead of asking if I needed help, she started speaking to me in a familiar manner, she said she was glad to see me come around. I looked surprised and she asked me if I was so and so’s son. I said no.
Then a couple of years later, I happened to be at the same store and I asked the young white girl about the old lady. She asked how I knew her and I told her. She said the old lady was her mom and she had passed away. I felt bad, for a second or two on a particular day, I had felt loved by a complete stranger, somebody’s former teacher. On second thought, go ahead and talk to the illegal like he was me, I certainly have the habit, acquired from my first wife, of talking to people as if I knew them already.
EDIT!!! This is the 100th comment. I’m apparently back in the saddle, at least for the moment.
This is the truth. Really. On a visit to my mother’s home for Thanksgiving twenty or more years ago, she sent me to the grocery store for something. At the register line, I came face to face with my old Sunday School teacher from childhood, with her daughter, much older than I, but still possibly younger than I am NOW. YIKES.
I couldn’t help talking to my beloved old teacher. I even hugged her, with her daughter Nelda’s approval. She didn’t know who I was, but I finally just said “Aunt Hazel, some of my favorite church memories are because of being in your Sunday School class! You were a wonderful Sunday School teacher and I try to teach my son’s class just like you taught us!”
She started to cry and said “Oh, Nelda… it is one of my Sunday School kids, isn’t it?”
For me, that was close enough. I’m pretty sure she could pick me out of a lineup with EC and Bea Attitude. Neither of them can lay claim to being one of her Sunday School kids, so as long as she made it into Paradise, I consider myself “In Like Flynn” regardless of foul language.
That, above, was 100.
EC- Chuy Bravo is only 4’11” and round as he is tall, not buying that story. HehHeh
In real life I’m nice to strangers, even if they look like Chuy.
Do you remember that hilarious GIF I had, at one time, of the little Mexican dude dancing in the tutu? EC claimed it could have been him or maybe, I suggested that. I was a bit out of it some days and didn’t realize.
It is only recently I’ve accepted the truth, which has set me free.
A quick search found this, which is actually better!
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/hairy-ballerina-25894954
Maggie- I do remember that gif, it was just awful. For the most part I think of Beaner males as very macho types void of pink tutus.
Is why it is so awesome!
I thought EC might be a bit older, but his mind is obviously still functioning better than most of the people I talk to on most days.
My old friend in Oklahoma is 71 now and showing signs of, um, being set in her ways. I arrived home (to her house) one night at 8:45 p.m. and she was a nervous wreck because she goes to bed at 9 p.m. on that night because she volunteers at the Heart Hospital as a greeter on Friday morning.
I moved into my Navy pal’s apartment, kicking her college age son out onto the couch. Yikes! If you ever come visit me and I lecture you for staying out until 8:45 p.m. at night, tell my husband it is time.
Nice story! Sounds a bit like Driving Miss Daisy. I;m sure old people hate to be forgotten, my mamacita said her father in law described himself as a zero to the left. Of course, the stories she tells of him don’t shine a great light on the old man.
Is there a way to simplify seemingly disconnected narratives that I totally get but leave Hollywood Rob yelling at clouds?
My evil plan is to totally ignore him until or unless I actually post an article of my own. I did send a link to a few old pals who may or may not comment, as they choose. They being adults who be able to be making their own beauteous and bounteous decisions.
Just imagine if this song were “Let Be Be.”
I tried to upvote you but I was informed I’ve already voted for your comment. Methinks there be be a problemo with that little widget thingy.
I am setting up a whole new virtual network here soon. My old friend in OKC suggested it as a good idea for us flyover folks dependent upon dish networks. She suggested thinking of our little community here as a battle group at sea in flyover country.
I like her simile. Or is it a metaphor?
Aha!!! Proof that The Man With No Name can rig votes as well as anyone!
How can I have already voted when there are zero votes up or down?
You are not a journalist. The deeper you descend into Alzheimer the stranger your ramblings become. Please get back on your medication before you do real harm to yourself.
You are vicious with the Alzheimer’s jab. My father died of Alzheimer’s and, if you had any couth at all, you would realize a beloved member of this blog is coping with the issue ongoing. That you would use it to insult proves to me what I believe most about you.
That should read;
—- “….. religions with the highest rate of attendance … have almost notoriously high levels of social cohesion which is often accomplished via Force, Peer Pressure, Brain Washing, and Fear.”
That being said, both of the following statements are true;
—1. Religion is very helpful in producing social cohesion.
—2. You do not need religion to produce social cohesion.
Force, Peer Pressure, Brain Washing, and Fear
You obviously were not raised Country Hick General Baptist in the Missouri Bootheel where circuit preachers playing “pass the offering plate” could convince any church in the area to hold revival meetings for days on end in the summer to keep us country hick kids from having any fun whatsoever.
Dancing? Sin.
Cards? Sin.
Drinking? Duh… Jesus turned the water into grape juice, don’t you know? Jesus would NOT have made “real” wine. That is of the Devil. Shudder.
Sex? Only for procreation. No, we were not Catholic. Catholics are forced to sin and use condoms. Baptists are just taught the St. Paul method of birth control. Only have sex if you absolutely want a child. Otherwise, hand jobs all the way.
[BTW? The herbal remedies are doing wonders for the libido. We be happy campers around here. Just sayin’… and we continue to ask for blessings for you from strangely interesting religious sects. I have not heard back from my cousin in the ashram in India, but I did send her the email. Let me know if you find a genie in a bottle or some weird shit like that…
So, in addition to Force, Peer Pressure, Brain Washing, Fear, I would add…
Guilt (How could you have done this to Jesus… it is like you nailed him there yourself!)
Self-loathing (Do not put your hand on that! Obviously, Stucky was not subjected to this one.)
Spiritual Inferiority (Why can’t you be as good as your brother/cousin/neighbor/etc.’s kid? If only you were a little smarter/slimmer/prettier/less stinky — haha gotcha–)
I could come up with others and so could you. It was a good point, Stucky, which could be fleshed out. But there is a limited amount of time for limited amount of projects.
AND… LUST… what kind of a religion insists I kneel at an imaginary cross to pray for Eternity with the Lover of my Soul and then tells me every single way I might fulfill that desire is evil and sinful unless I have a damn rugrat less than ten months later.
Assholes.
(I am lost with the formatting tools. I hope I got rid of the “bolding.” If not? Oh, well…)
I took this picture of my female Pyrenese, Little Miss Melisaa. I put it on my desktop and my husband saw it and yelled at me.
“She does NOT look like a penis!”
She really does.
Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences and insights MG….
Regards,
You as well, Wolfie!
Here’s me, my main squeeze and the Big Dog!
(Laser treatment for Big Jake’s knees! Is a WONDER treatment!)
Why not bjs or anal?
Well, duh? Would you pray with that mouth after where it has been? and as for anal… same same, eh?
Besides, in my recent readings (I really have tracked the origin of the LGBTXYZ and then some movements back to some interesting Biblical times teachings via some weird comments about a book I own called The Bible’s Sexiest Book, or the Song of Songs) I came across interesting viewpoints on sexual issues and none of them lead me to want anyone assfucking me and although oral sex has never been off limits for me due to religion, it is now off limits due to digestive limitations.
But, the anal (or is should that echo true redundancy and say “But, Butt?”) thing is a no-go for most of us straight gals, I am betting. The other? Digestive preference.
Too much information old friend?
I’ve always found religious girls to be very mouthy.
And the devoutest of preacher’s sons were often the handiest!
You can’t spit?
You can’t hold it?
That was funny!
since this post just took off on a tangent of self love,in the interests of public safety i am posting this–
you guys might not go blind or get hairy palms but you can give yourself gangrene on your privates if you abuse yourself too much–
https://headlinehealth.com/use-lube-not-soap/
“…notoriously high levels of social cohesion: Latter-Day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Evangelical Protestants, Mormons and historically black churches top the list.”
The author neglects to mention the ((special people)), especially the orthodox, arguably the most notorious of all the cohesive sects….though their mention, I suppose, would not pertain to the theme of his article.
I do wonder why not, Lars, son of Emil. Nordic?
Welcome to the “Brave New World” folks, they gave you a heads up right along with Big Brother in “1984”.
Was that fiction or a blueprint for our future and how do you like it? Animals remain in family units, we are told to live contrary to nature which begs the question, why are humans such dumb f’n sheep that they follow the narrative to their own demise or detriment? In BNW the mere thought of a mother is met with disgust, TPTB have a twisted opinion of how we should live but take heart, the destruction of the family unit DOES NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN.
Reject non-human thought, reject the social order of these elite POS.
I took a really gruesome photo of my husband killing a dying opossum. I didn’t mean to, but when I snapped the photo, I noticed there was something squirming around the animal caught in our trap. (We lost chickens and had to get really nasty with the predators… racoons and opossums along with the other ones we won’t mention around what’s his name these days)
So, I go closer to the animal, which is barely alive but ready to tear into me if possible. And the damn opossum was giving birth to her young and nursing them while she was dying. She had TORN A HOLE IN HER GUTS to get those babies out.
It isn’t a photo most want to see. But, having taken it? I can’t UNSEE it.
Think of the young girls lined up for abortions. Then think of that dying opossum trying to save her unborn.
Never heard of something like that. How do you know?
I took this photo of Grooch killing the thing and then, through the camera lens, saw that she was pulling babies from her stomach. I took another photo, close up, but am reluctant to post it.
Gruesome is a kind word. I think, if you zoom in here, you might see the babies she is pulling out. It was bizarre. Three of them were NURSING off her as she was pulling the next ones free.
As horrifying as it was, I had to turn away and admit that Nature’s Way is a most amazing way.
We drowned them immediately. Best and kindest for all.
I’m almost ashamed to have been mistaken for you.
Because of the opossum?
Yeah. I asked myself, What Would Hollywood Do?
EC- He would eat the ‘possum and shoot Maggie.
Not if that enraged bitch got to him first. The closeup I took of her was a bit scary. She was trying to lurch off the ground to attack me. A more vicious and gruesome predator caught in the trap I’ve NOT seen. The raccoons are pretty bad, but this opossum was overwrought with a natural instinct to produce her young and protect them. It was scary enough to shut me down.
We shot her then drowned the young.
Another former Detroiter here- I graduated from High School in 1972 , the city was a safe nice place until around 1975 . Coleman Young and Busing, destroyed this once great city.
I still the see the Father of one of my High School friends. He is 93, retired from the Detroit Police Force in 1976. He told me in 30 years of service he never fired his gun. Said he took more people home than he ever arrested.
If you’re still in the mitten, you, me and narc ought to find a pub somewhere in a mutually agreeable location. I’d extend the invite to card, but I think he’s up north near the Mac.
If I were looking for a double dog secret message in the mix, yours would be a candidate for suspicious word usage.
One time, when in Luxemborg, our Mission Crew Commander, a former high school History teacher, walked up to a man and said, “Excuse me but I was told to meet you here and ask you if you knew whether or not it will rain today?” The man looked confused and later, when Major Staub was at dinner with the crew, he explained he’d always wanted to do that to a man on a streetcorner in Luxemborg wearing a trenchcoat and Fedora.
And I was there to witness it.
So, Suds? Your comment looked a bit Spy versus Spyish to this old Cold War princess.
Sudsy was asking if anon was still in Michigan, you know, where Detroit be. As for role playing, I recall an old WAF saying: Let’s not and say we did. It’s a variant on being and seeming.
as in “let be be finale of seem?”
Because that has blown my entire self-actualization schema regarding my ability to read and reveal the meaning of the “Finale of Seem!”
It only made sense if it reads “Let be THE finale…”
Believe it or not, I read and memorized this little poem’s stanza when I was 22ish. I took a 3000 level American Literature Class with an Indian Princess named Dr. Rainwater, who taught me the more ridiculous the emotion you could infuse into banal poetry, the higher praise she would lavish on your nonsensical analysis of the poem or written prose.
She did NOT notice I had misquoted the poem in my analysis. And, until this came up, neither did I.
I thought I was smart. Turns out I can’t read or write right.
Doc Pangloss once said (perhaps after having read up on verbal and sexual harassment) ‘it’s not what you meant but what the other person understood’.
The doc also said writers don’t always have the same or all the ideas you suss out from their writing. That makes sense, if they did, then it wouldn’t be writing, it would be propaganda.
I wondered if you would consult Doc Pangloss on that one. Am glad you did so.
I remember a favorite scene from a profound theatrical performance, where an author of great esteem is given a failing mark by a college professor on a critique of his own work.
(If you recognize the Rodney Dangerfield/Kurt Vongegut scene in “Back to School,” you must agree it was profound in a brief, understated way.)
Kit Kat Klub in Macomb Township?
Anon-KKK- Iz dis raycis?
Nope- like Trump the Kat does not have a racist bone
Busing. Or was it desegregation as a general “public policy” worthy of pursuit?
Who managed to install that as a national policy? Was it really a natural and logical following from the Brown versus Board of Education decision, which I believe to be a valid and good decision following the long legal battles won by the likes of the real First Supreme Court Justice of Color, Thurgood Marshall. He was a true hero of the civil rights community and deserved the honor bestowed upon him, in my humble opinion.
The busing issue is what led to the Quota issue… Busing to create equal opportunity via equal outcomes was bogus in the school and became bogus in the economy as well. It is still bogus, but it is now the law.
Indeed.
Equal rights under the law does not trump freedom of association.
Well, the thing is that the freedom of association thing seems to go just ONE way.
For instance, I made a recent sojourn to Oklahoma, where Native American Tribal Lands (and Casinos) are quite visible to the traveler’s eye, especially if one takes the old Route 66 highways. I like to do so on most trips, since I traveled to and from Missouri on I-44 for 30 years, at least twice a year if not more. This trip through the territory was especially interesting since I am now sort of related (by stepson’s marriage to his mother) to a young half-Cherokee lad, aged 16. He is autistic, but high functioning. It was interesting to see myself through such a pair of eyes. When, finally, he grinned at me, I decided I was not at coyote ugly through and through. Not yet, anyway.
So, to investigate what sort of benefits the young man should become aware of once he is 18, I made a special effort to learn as much about the Indian registration role process and what, exactly, those benefits might encompass. The young man’s mother, my new step-daughter-in-law has NOT applied for ANY assistance on his behalf. I will not go into details, since that is/was her decision and she has done a wonderful job with the kid. He is much better behaved at dinner in a decent restaurant than my own son was at 16. And a lot quieter. So, I want to make sure she is not preventing him access to benefits which might help him.
I was shocked to discover what benefits the young man is eligible for (via the success of the Cherokee Casino Funds) and, while I hope that the annual payment from Tribal Funds (this year it “would” have been $7,700+ and I assume the father got that money? OR perhaps the young man isn’t eligible until 18? Either way, he turns 17 this fall. Did you know the tribal members get payments from the casino funds?)
However, now that she is aware what her son is actually “entitled” to as a fully registered member of the Cherokee Nation, I am hoping she makes sure he at least stays in contact with some members of the tribe.
I plan to do so. I’m really proud to be his new step-granny! I think it is cool as beans.
Which, by the way, I still have several cases of which need to go…beans, that is. Haha…
Racially diverse societies are low trust societies.
We’re under no obligation to practice alienation, we make our own social circles and build our own communities whoever and wherever we like.
I reject The Narrative.
Long live community!
At a recent gathering of old military crewmates we discussed the idea of there being a true silent voting block which could change history, if it could indeed be activated as a voting block. I’ll be succinct.
I returned to college at one of the oddest periods in American Political Theater, I suspect. (1994/95 into journalism where Bill Clinton’s Boxer shorts were the news of the hour. There was a cluster of Moral Majority types in Congress which helped fuel the Newt Gingrich fever for the Contract with-on-or-for America and while a lot got accomplished via legislation, can anyone tell me what really changed for the better with all that hooplah?
http://www.wiu.edu/cas/history/wihr/pdfs/Banwart-MoralMajorityVol5.pdf
Remember Algore and the dumptrucks full of federal legislation which were supposed to disappear with Reinventing Government principles instituted? What a crock of crap!
It has been said that ten percent in Congress will sway almost any vote. So, if you have a cluster of votes that will guarantee to hold together on almost any vote because of ONE issue, you can change the outcome. It has to be a real bond, though. Most people vote “their pocketbock” but that only means “in their self-interest” which, as most of our Founders would agree, comports nicely with the ideals of liberty and self-reliance. There are some issues on which a man of moral character will stand against what appears to be his own interest. Some of us may have faced those issues and recognize the dilemma between the horns. Others, like Quixote, continue to grasp the horns.
Of the old comrades at the table, seven total, four believe Veterans, as a sum total in this country, might be the largest and most useful voting block of all time.
Hear me out…Think of all the people who have served in one or another branches of the services for at least a long enough period of service to get an “Honorable Discharge” and be eligible to be a “registered” Veteran with the VA ID card. (Just because you haven’t doesn’t mean you can’t… that DD214 paperwork is important for a reason!)
So, with those from WWII passing away at rates too sad to think about, how many tens of millions of men and women have served in uniform and are now older, wiser and ready to come together and make a difference?
Personally? I was one of the 3 people of the 7 present (old AF pals) who said it wouldn’t work. Too much division after the military service. Just because we were pals with the black dudes in uniform… is different now they be homeboys on the street, eh?
Mags- Who are you going to vote for?? The puppets are owned girl.
Keep voting, it will save us…..riiiiight!
Not voting… just finding issues to bond a community together across space and timelines.
Every debt based monetary system has an expiration date. The writing-on-the-wall for the U.S. dollar was 1971. Our dollar failed in 2008… we’ve not had an economy since, just bubbles. How long the current stock market bubble last is anyone’s guess. Is there another bubble being groomed when it fails??? who knows!
Those reasons stated in the article are consequences of the smart money moving elsewhere. This means it’s only a matter of time before the U.S. ceases to be. Just because we’re here now is no guarantee the U.S. will come out of this 4th turning a victor.
I’m convinced that the she-devil was supposed to put the final nail in the coffin so that Asian powers could assume leadership roles. It’s why the deep state has pulled out all the stops(government, media, Hollywood, etc) to defeat Trump – he’s thrown a shoe into their plans.
At 72 I may still be around when circus begins.
Mark B- How do you feel about 25% more debt spending under Trump since 01/2017? How do you feel about the 1, 072, 000 illegals settled in to states around the country with a ticket for free everything compliments of Uncle Sugar/US taxpayers under Trump? How do you feel about Trump giving Israel the green light to loot our treasury and the ability to dictate our military to their advantage and not that of the people who pay the bill? You are blind, I hope your sight is restored.
I started having custom work boots made due to a wide foot. After my
3rd pair I ended up talking with the boot maker and I stated I like his
boots and it is worth the extra price as they last longer than any other
boot I have used in the past.
I continued to state that when I
wore Timberlands my feet would STINK>>>>BAD. He proceeded to
tell me that the corporate manufacturers decided that they would use
swine skin to cut costs. These pigs are not even fit for eating he
stated.
He continued to explain that the pigs hormones mix with
yours in the boot and produce that “Garbage Smell”. I said “exactly” it
smells like garbage! My feet don’t smell like that. He stated that pig
and human hormones don’t mix.
Cow leather boots it always smells like leather until they have served their useful life.
Corporate boot makers have descended into making you pay premium money for pigs feet!
Pay the extra money for well designed stitched soles (not liquid nail glued) and long lasting leather workwear.
You also employ your fellow American!
I notice more and more items (like pig feet and pig ears) being sold and promoted as alternate forms of protein for dogs, as well as items being sold which I used to just throw into the trash to burn.
I read something that suggested high fructose corn syrup was a waste product from the cornmeal production process. Someone tasted it, discovered it could make stuff sweet and it got approved for sale. Turning a waste product into a profitable by-product.
Kind of like they do “manure” in China. Fish will eat it, you know. That is exactly why I am headed back out to help my husband place my new fishpond. We raise our own fish here.
big jim ironworker, This is a repeated comment, are you related to Anal Cyst?
And the prediction of when it will flip all the way into a very uncivil society ?
Soon!
It happened here long ago. You have ec and maggie discussing anal sex and blowjobs and maggie posting pictures of penis dogs and possum murder. How much more uncivil could you expect it to get.
Wait until Payola shows up to harass you… You will NEED that safe space on the platform I suggested for you.
You are so precious maggie. Do you hear echoes inside your head as you type?
I would like to personally thank you for taking a break with the constant harassment. It doesn’t matter to me if you were being kicked off a military base or locked up in jail for soliciting to get enough money to buy gas to get home. Either way, TBP was a much more pleasant and civil place with you gone.
Rob is like the bully who is caught beating up a smaller kid. He suddenly loses all his anger and starts whimpering as if he had been the one being beaten. It’s a good act, has it worked for you all your life, bully boy?
Sucking the limp noodle hasn’t helped much, has it?
I don’t know maggie, it seems to have gotten you home with some of those quarters to spare. Now I don’t put much store in it, but HSF is hard over on the Physiognomy stuff. Of all the pictures that I have seen displayed in his articles and your comments I can find not one single person with a more warped visage than yourself. So if he is correct, and Physiognomy is a thing, then your face reveals your personality. Warped, contorted, dishonest, untrustworthy. At least, that’s according to the existing literature on the subject.
Now let’s have another of those pithy rejoinders that you have become so well known for.
CAESAR
(aside to ANTONY) Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.
It worked for you beaner baby. You snuck across the boarder to sit in your hovel in the desert getting free money for doing a shit job. You took stuff from people who worked with your gang members and you killed people with the guns that you stole. You and your ilk turned a quiet desert community into a hell hole of crime. So don’t come crying to me about being bullied. You and your brothers have done more bullying than anyone here can conceive of and all you got for it was a shit hole in the desert.
You are a bigot! I’m shocked.
You are stupid. I am shocked. Not up to your usual standards maggie. Give it some effort. Where is the foul language? Where are your colorful witticisms? Where is that down home in the log cabin wisdom? We expect more.
Beats living in Simi Valley and trapping squirrels for entertainment.
You would have a really hard time convincing anyone of that. Nobody wants to move out into the desert. It snows in the winter and it blows hurricane force dust storms all summer long with temperatures that rarely drop below 100 even at night. The only people who move there are either the ones who can’t afford to live near the coast, where it is pleasant most of the time, or the ones who think that ICE won’t want to come out to pick them up in their black SUVs and their bullet proof vests, which they need because your brothers are all packing heat.
Maybe Ron Paul’s knows,
“We will know that day is approaching when oil-producing countries demand gold, or its equivalent, for their oil rather than dollars or euros” we will know when the dollar collapse is imminent.”
Create jobs. Grow GDP. TAP is the solution.
Explain ark-hive please.
I remember when malls used to be gathering places but, now, they more resemble the dead shells of something once alive. Yesterday, I met someone for lunch at a restaurant housed on the exterior of a once-bustling mall. I remember the place in its heyday and it was thriving. Just out curiosity, I checked it out afterward was sort of shocked at what I saw. Entire wings vacated.
Welcome to Ocean County Mall in Jersey where retail got killed by real estate and Amazon Prime.
I disliked the mall concept from the beginning, not being a shopper, I never jumped at the chance to stroll around a mall. What a waste of heating and A/C energy, the greenies never picket malls, now do they? Millions of retail square feet where the sheep go to get in on a 70% off sale or they don’t buy.
They want to measure my carbon footprint but malls are still OK…..really?