I don't especially like vulgar language in writing but at this point I think that it is appropriate. Well done!
I've posted numerous comments about a national boycott of consumer goods as a means of getting Corp Americas attention and never received a positive response. "I don't think it will work" is typically the answer. The funny sad part is the sites are all ones where the readers are bitching that corporations are the problem. Give up Walmart? NEVER!
I wonder how many homeless people could be housed for each cop city built? 57 bullets in one unarmed person in a tent? And excessive force wasn't used?
The new automatic registration for the draft is probably going to be another waste of a government program. The way things look we'll all be drafted when the fusion bombs go off. Of course if they do start the draft again they'll be able to track everyone with the RealID, your cellphone, car, facial recognition or gait recognition and send the press gang out to pick you up. Forget any form of federal controlled transportation. Fascism is already here.
November will be interesting to say the least.
Maybe they'll announce that we have a fascist democracy!
Keep up the good work. It's nice to read someone who thinks like me.
I agree about vulgar language, and generally find the F bomb tiresome and ineffective from sheer overuse. The irritation I felt in writing this was real. How difficult is it to move your money out of banks funding death? Yet, how many actually will? I'm all in on boycotting. However, my effort would be unnoticed, because my lifestyle is basically a boycott, lol.
What happened to Manuel Esteban Paez Terán is unforgivable and predictive of what we face as the economy crumbles from climate change and the homeless population grows. The inflated housing and rental market has people barely getting by, or falling behind month after month, without the additional pressure just now getting under way, and the system that has yielded Biden and Trump speaks for itself. November is scary for sure. Get your popcorn ready for the shit show.
I loathe JP Morgan Chase🤬 An absolutely reprehensible "bank". They bought out my bank, Washington Mutual, which was a brilliant bank. They weren't involved in the housing market bullshit. I now bank with Comerica because their hands are clean too. Jamie Diamond is a fucking robber barron.
JPMC is the worst of the lot, with a few others not trailing far behind. Truly, we need to cut their money off. I am not the originator of this idea, but I want it to be spread far and wide. Voting has become a supreme joke. While we must vote to hold back the fascist Project 2025, that's not nearly enough. We're entering a period of climate change driven unrest, a profound threat to free society in itself, even if we were reasonably united.
Yes we are and the overlords have been preparing for it. They've totally militarized the cops and cop cities are a thing😬 It doesn't matter who wins this election because we're in peril either way. Even though they made and are still making massive profits off of Covid, even during the lock down, they still pushed opening everything up with vax and relax🤬 Covid cases, amongst other illnesses are rising and they aren't telling anyone. H5N1 could be airborne but nobody knws for sure😬 The stock market is a massive bubble. Bubbles burst. We've got more soldiers in Jordan and were bombing Yemen. The George Floyd protests and now the peace protests have scared the fuck out of our masters. When shit hits the fan, they're going to crack down hard😔
I wrote on Cop City in Atlanta a couple of years go. I have little doubt about what the militarization of the police is about. You are correct, either party is a slide into a fascist state. The election in just months is about hanging on for a little longer with a flicker of hope versus a death dance. Covid is instructive, and H5N1 appears a new, inevitable. destruction, poised. The billionaires will be just fine when the ludicrous stack market implodes. Thanks for the link, Cop City is something I want to get back to in relation to climate change and suppression of our most basic human rights.
I've read a few articles on it. Scared the fuck out of me. I dearly wish I wasn't😕 What really gets under my skin is the fact that we were walked right into it. After all voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil. Our country was founded with malicious intent and genocide. That intent never left. I'm still practicing all the Covid protocols watching numerous people taking unnecessary risks to get back to normal😔 Oh, you got that right! They figured out how to gamble with our money so they wouldn't lose theirs. You're welcome😊 I do appreciate your work. Thank you 🌷
The only election I participated in where I felt I wasn't voting for the lesser of the evils was for Carter. Had a part-time gig in a liquor store during Covid. People masked because they had to, but the idiots in InforWars T-shirts seethed. One guy came in the store in a full face motorcycle helmet. I had to explain to him that didn't count as a mask. He threatened to "come across the counter at me." I told him to have at it, pointing at all the cameras in the store. I also had his credit card in my computer. You can't put a price on stupid...
Carter was our last truly progressive president. I cried when Reagan won. I knew he was going to awful. He was. Then I figured out that he meddled in the hostage crisis by telling the captors to keep the hostages until after the election 🤬 Then the Iran Contra crimes. Clinton repealed Glass-Stegall leading to the housing market crash and he signed NAFTA which decimated blue collar areas nationwide. I don't remember voting for that shit. Obama allowed Shrubs Sr. and Jr. and Cheney get away with their crimes. He also allowed all the corrupt Wall Street bankers to get away with their crimes and bailed them out. I certainly didn't vote for that either. I voted for Biden in 2020 because he was going to secure voting rights, raise the minimum wage, and protect Roe. None of that happened🤬 I've voted Democrat my entire voting life and things have only gotten worse. They did not defend my rights. I'm sorry that happened to you🫂 People can be such assholes.
Eye-opening article. I think most people instinctively don't like big banks, and it's good for us to know why these banks are a bad idea.
One small thing people can do: if you have credit cards, as most of us do, always pay off the entire balance well berfore the due date, if you can. Banks make a tremendous amount each year in interest and late fees. Don't give them your money!
Also, we have transferred all of our checking and savings dollars to a credit union, owned locally by the account holders. (We did verify that deposits are federally insured.)
On a side note, I just finished reading Rachel Maddow's book, "Prequel". It is a history of fascism in the United States during the 1930's and 1940's. I had no idea that our government was nearly overthrown. It is impossible to deny that it is happening again today; and that would make all of the other problems much much worse!
Obama should have nationalized the banks IMO. They are even bigger and more powerful than before the crash in 2008. What are you going to do? Goldman Sachs was in his cabinet. I had bones to pick with him from day one.
I use a credit union too, and a regional bank for checking, no oil involved. If enough people moved their money, it could make a difference, but I'm not naive enough to think that's going to happen, hence my deliberate devolvement to coarse language (sorry, thanks for putting up with that). Not my typical style! I tend to prefer little shots of sarcasm, and know making readers feel attacked is not an approach I should take often. Three years into this and what I sense is passivity, which we can ill afford.
Fascism is a real possibility now. I would argue we've been living in a system of corporate fascism for a long time now. The next flavor should it come to pass will be far worse.
Thank you. Full disclosure- my mortgage is with Chase. This happened when refinancing made sense with very low interest rates. The low interest feeds the bank. This is a dilemma many face- living on monthly cash flow to survive when feeding the system. Now refinancing is a non-starter. I agree with your analysis- MONEY is the only language. Since I don't have the option to refinance- I will look into the investment side of my savings. I have homework to do. I fear the hidden investment feed will be a convoluted search. I appreciate the "system" being addressed in your article. This is where the biggest impact will make a difference.
Geoffrey, I feel like your heart really is in the right place. But, to say that we have power, that we can vote with our money, that we can make any effective change just feels, and forgive my bluntness, naive. Is it theoretically possible? Sure. So is fusion energy, too cheap to meter. Won't happen though. You and I both know that.
So where does that leave us? Well,I only see two options. The first, you won't like. I'll just say it in the form of a book recommendation: "The Failure of Nonviolence," by Peter Gelderloos. Remember, power only has power because it presumes monopoly on violence. If you honor that presumption, you're giving it validity, and thus you are indeed powerless. I'm not condoning anything here. Just saying that I see that as one potential option in the entire range of all options.
The second... well, you probably won't like it either, but it's the one I'm going with. Allow collapse to take its course and try to survive. Rebuild a new society not only in the shell of the old, but in the rubble of it. This one requires acceptance and a massive grieving process, because billions are going to die, purely due to the planet's reduction in carrying capacity and our inability to continue artificially boosting it.. This will happen whether you choose this option or not, but it might be better if you get a headstart on processing everything.
Divesting just makes their stock prices look more attractive to other rich bastards. All that accomplishes is continued neo-feudalization.
Hi Patrick. Yeah, I know my call for yanking money out of banks will largely go unheeded. That's why I let this post get heated, not usually my style. I'm irritated by the lethargy that has led to this path of collapse. I mean, we have evil on one side, and for the most part complete inaction on the other. There is also the element of sheer denial. People are still picking up and moving west, where water is running out. Just crazy.
I agree, nonviolence on its own gets little done. When you're dealing with bullies, at some point you have to overcome your fear and punch them in the face. I learned that as a boy, a male on the small side and often the new kid on the block, and I've turned to lessons of the Civil Rights movement a few times in my writing. MLK was righteous and poetic, but the movement needed Malcolm X as well. Of course, here we are so many decades later, with cops mostly able to execute black men with impunity. Can Homo sapiens ever become wiser? That will be an interesting question to be answered in your rebuilt world.
You are a younger man than I am. It changes your strategy. 10 or 20 years ago, I may have chosen your path. At 62, in spite of taking care of myself, I have a few health issues that make the fight now or never. I wouldn't be able to compete as a survivalist anymore.
I think it's going to be about the tribe, my friend. Were you near me, I'd be thrilled to have you in mine. I'm still young enough (40) to fight, but I also recognize the need of diversity in the tribe. That includes ages. Thanks for responding. I appreciate your work.
I don't especially like vulgar language in writing but at this point I think that it is appropriate. Well done!
I've posted numerous comments about a national boycott of consumer goods as a means of getting Corp Americas attention and never received a positive response. "I don't think it will work" is typically the answer. The funny sad part is the sites are all ones where the readers are bitching that corporations are the problem. Give up Walmart? NEVER!
I wonder how many homeless people could be housed for each cop city built? 57 bullets in one unarmed person in a tent? And excessive force wasn't used?
The new automatic registration for the draft is probably going to be another waste of a government program. The way things look we'll all be drafted when the fusion bombs go off. Of course if they do start the draft again they'll be able to track everyone with the RealID, your cellphone, car, facial recognition or gait recognition and send the press gang out to pick you up. Forget any form of federal controlled transportation. Fascism is already here.
November will be interesting to say the least.
Maybe they'll announce that we have a fascist democracy!
Keep up the good work. It's nice to read someone who thinks like me.
I agree about vulgar language, and generally find the F bomb tiresome and ineffective from sheer overuse. The irritation I felt in writing this was real. How difficult is it to move your money out of banks funding death? Yet, how many actually will? I'm all in on boycotting. However, my effort would be unnoticed, because my lifestyle is basically a boycott, lol.
What happened to Manuel Esteban Paez Terán is unforgivable and predictive of what we face as the economy crumbles from climate change and the homeless population grows. The inflated housing and rental market has people barely getting by, or falling behind month after month, without the additional pressure just now getting under way, and the system that has yielded Biden and Trump speaks for itself. November is scary for sure. Get your popcorn ready for the shit show.
I loathe JP Morgan Chase🤬 An absolutely reprehensible "bank". They bought out my bank, Washington Mutual, which was a brilliant bank. They weren't involved in the housing market bullshit. I now bank with Comerica because their hands are clean too. Jamie Diamond is a fucking robber barron.
JPMC is the worst of the lot, with a few others not trailing far behind. Truly, we need to cut their money off. I am not the originator of this idea, but I want it to be spread far and wide. Voting has become a supreme joke. While we must vote to hold back the fascist Project 2025, that's not nearly enough. We're entering a period of climate change driven unrest, a profound threat to free society in itself, even if we were reasonably united.
Yes we are and the overlords have been preparing for it. They've totally militarized the cops and cop cities are a thing😬 It doesn't matter who wins this election because we're in peril either way. Even though they made and are still making massive profits off of Covid, even during the lock down, they still pushed opening everything up with vax and relax🤬 Covid cases, amongst other illnesses are rising and they aren't telling anyone. H5N1 could be airborne but nobody knws for sure😬 The stock market is a massive bubble. Bubbles burst. We've got more soldiers in Jordan and were bombing Yemen. The George Floyd protests and now the peace protests have scared the fuck out of our masters. When shit hits the fan, they're going to crack down hard😔
https://communityresourcehub.org/resources/cop-cities-usa/
I wrote on Cop City in Atlanta a couple of years go. I have little doubt about what the militarization of the police is about. You are correct, either party is a slide into a fascist state. The election in just months is about hanging on for a little longer with a flicker of hope versus a death dance. Covid is instructive, and H5N1 appears a new, inevitable. destruction, poised. The billionaires will be just fine when the ludicrous stack market implodes. Thanks for the link, Cop City is something I want to get back to in relation to climate change and suppression of our most basic human rights.
I've read a few articles on it. Scared the fuck out of me. I dearly wish I wasn't😕 What really gets under my skin is the fact that we were walked right into it. After all voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil. Our country was founded with malicious intent and genocide. That intent never left. I'm still practicing all the Covid protocols watching numerous people taking unnecessary risks to get back to normal😔 Oh, you got that right! They figured out how to gamble with our money so they wouldn't lose theirs. You're welcome😊 I do appreciate your work. Thank you 🌷
The only election I participated in where I felt I wasn't voting for the lesser of the evils was for Carter. Had a part-time gig in a liquor store during Covid. People masked because they had to, but the idiots in InforWars T-shirts seethed. One guy came in the store in a full face motorcycle helmet. I had to explain to him that didn't count as a mask. He threatened to "come across the counter at me." I told him to have at it, pointing at all the cameras in the store. I also had his credit card in my computer. You can't put a price on stupid...
Carter was our last truly progressive president. I cried when Reagan won. I knew he was going to awful. He was. Then I figured out that he meddled in the hostage crisis by telling the captors to keep the hostages until after the election 🤬 Then the Iran Contra crimes. Clinton repealed Glass-Stegall leading to the housing market crash and he signed NAFTA which decimated blue collar areas nationwide. I don't remember voting for that shit. Obama allowed Shrubs Sr. and Jr. and Cheney get away with their crimes. He also allowed all the corrupt Wall Street bankers to get away with their crimes and bailed them out. I certainly didn't vote for that either. I voted for Biden in 2020 because he was going to secure voting rights, raise the minimum wage, and protect Roe. None of that happened🤬 I've voted Democrat my entire voting life and things have only gotten worse. They did not defend my rights. I'm sorry that happened to you🫂 People can be such assholes.
Eye-opening article. I think most people instinctively don't like big banks, and it's good for us to know why these banks are a bad idea.
One small thing people can do: if you have credit cards, as most of us do, always pay off the entire balance well berfore the due date, if you can. Banks make a tremendous amount each year in interest and late fees. Don't give them your money!
Also, we have transferred all of our checking and savings dollars to a credit union, owned locally by the account holders. (We did verify that deposits are federally insured.)
On a side note, I just finished reading Rachel Maddow's book, "Prequel". It is a history of fascism in the United States during the 1930's and 1940's. I had no idea that our government was nearly overthrown. It is impossible to deny that it is happening again today; and that would make all of the other problems much much worse!
Obama should have nationalized the banks IMO. They are even bigger and more powerful than before the crash in 2008. What are you going to do? Goldman Sachs was in his cabinet. I had bones to pick with him from day one.
I use a credit union too, and a regional bank for checking, no oil involved. If enough people moved their money, it could make a difference, but I'm not naive enough to think that's going to happen, hence my deliberate devolvement to coarse language (sorry, thanks for putting up with that). Not my typical style! I tend to prefer little shots of sarcasm, and know making readers feel attacked is not an approach I should take often. Three years into this and what I sense is passivity, which we can ill afford.
Fascism is a real possibility now. I would argue we've been living in a system of corporate fascism for a long time now. The next flavor should it come to pass will be far worse.
Thank you. Full disclosure- my mortgage is with Chase. This happened when refinancing made sense with very low interest rates. The low interest feeds the bank. This is a dilemma many face- living on monthly cash flow to survive when feeding the system. Now refinancing is a non-starter. I agree with your analysis- MONEY is the only language. Since I don't have the option to refinance- I will look into the investment side of my savings. I have homework to do. I fear the hidden investment feed will be a convoluted search. I appreciate the "system" being addressed in your article. This is where the biggest impact will make a difference.
Geoffrey, I feel like your heart really is in the right place. But, to say that we have power, that we can vote with our money, that we can make any effective change just feels, and forgive my bluntness, naive. Is it theoretically possible? Sure. So is fusion energy, too cheap to meter. Won't happen though. You and I both know that.
So where does that leave us? Well,I only see two options. The first, you won't like. I'll just say it in the form of a book recommendation: "The Failure of Nonviolence," by Peter Gelderloos. Remember, power only has power because it presumes monopoly on violence. If you honor that presumption, you're giving it validity, and thus you are indeed powerless. I'm not condoning anything here. Just saying that I see that as one potential option in the entire range of all options.
The second... well, you probably won't like it either, but it's the one I'm going with. Allow collapse to take its course and try to survive. Rebuild a new society not only in the shell of the old, but in the rubble of it. This one requires acceptance and a massive grieving process, because billions are going to die, purely due to the planet's reduction in carrying capacity and our inability to continue artificially boosting it.. This will happen whether you choose this option or not, but it might be better if you get a headstart on processing everything.
Divesting just makes their stock prices look more attractive to other rich bastards. All that accomplishes is continued neo-feudalization.
Hi Patrick. Yeah, I know my call for yanking money out of banks will largely go unheeded. That's why I let this post get heated, not usually my style. I'm irritated by the lethargy that has led to this path of collapse. I mean, we have evil on one side, and for the most part complete inaction on the other. There is also the element of sheer denial. People are still picking up and moving west, where water is running out. Just crazy.
I agree, nonviolence on its own gets little done. When you're dealing with bullies, at some point you have to overcome your fear and punch them in the face. I learned that as a boy, a male on the small side and often the new kid on the block, and I've turned to lessons of the Civil Rights movement a few times in my writing. MLK was righteous and poetic, but the movement needed Malcolm X as well. Of course, here we are so many decades later, with cops mostly able to execute black men with impunity. Can Homo sapiens ever become wiser? That will be an interesting question to be answered in your rebuilt world.
You are a younger man than I am. It changes your strategy. 10 or 20 years ago, I may have chosen your path. At 62, in spite of taking care of myself, I have a few health issues that make the fight now or never. I wouldn't be able to compete as a survivalist anymore.
I think it's going to be about the tribe, my friend. Were you near me, I'd be thrilled to have you in mine. I'm still young enough (40) to fight, but I also recognize the need of diversity in the tribe. That includes ages. Thanks for responding. I appreciate your work.
Thank you, Patrick. Conversation here helps keeps me going, much appreciated.