“Be a man of vision, Palamedes. A lookout and a statesman who perceives the whole of the politics that forms the needs of our people.” -The Lost Muse of Justice

Programmatically, both the Republican and Democratic parties exist to advance corporate economic and political interests.

People lose their ability to describe oppressive relationships with power when they use terms like “socialist,” “fascist,” “communist.” These terms have been hijacked and reinterpreted for us so that the original meanings are misunderstood by most. To use such a term interchangeably for “bad” belittles the original meaning and demotes whatever message you’re trying to share. I see these terms used incorrectly all the time.

Nationalism and patriotism, not ideology, suffice to control the American population and gain its support. Patriotism requires no collective self-examination. It needs only a spontaneous response to whatever threat is sold to the population

When did the people delegate “most powerful force in the world” to the government? Our founding fathers and their documents did not delegate power over our lives, over the lives of people in Syria and Palestine and Lebanon, or over the time and resources of people in Venezuela, Nigeria, Turkey, etc. Such power is antagonistic to the concept of democracy.

As long as Bitcoin uses the RIPEMD160 hash function, there are 2^160 Bitcoin addresses. That number is: 1,461,501,637,330,902,918,203,684,832,716,283,019,655,932,542,976

I notice that all teaching about Adam Smith invokes a mythical yearning that unrestrained competition will somehow lead to a world of morally relevant economic interactions, rather than to a world of unrestrained monopolies growing ever larger. Smith’s “invisible hand” was his imagination, and was only used once or twice within his works. His clearer message was about the dangers of monopolies.

The amorphous character assigned to the new world of terrorism justifies an ever-enlarging power of state. Don’t fear enemies; fear those who tell you about enemies

Real patriotism is a commitment to the wellness of all fellow creatures. Commitment to a flag, to a piece of paper, or to a myth of exceptionalism, is a cognitive trap sold to you, that you may dance in the game of global domination, and hate your brothers whose wellbeing stands in the way of wealth for the few

We live within an economic system that is designed to allow the exploration of the many in the service of the few. Yet we are surprised that we have mediocre healthcare, the greatest private debt in the world, longer working hours than any other civilized nation, 3.5 million people in prison, 850 military bases around the globe, decaying infrastructure, and millions of poor, hungry, and undereducated citizens. The glory of a civilization should be measured in its benefit to the populous, not in its willingness to step upon the people in the service of the masters.

A normie gets a paycheck for doing his job all day. **Proof of work** A 1%er receives rents for controlling the means of production. **Proof of stake**

Chris Hedges: Journalists Abandoned Julian Assange and Slit Their Own Throats

MintPress News

Chris Hedges: Journalists Abandoned Julian Assange and Slit Their Own Throats

The failure of journalists to mount a campaign to free Julian Assange, or expose the vicious smear campaign against him, is one more catastrophic a...

Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. — George Orwell, 1984

“This is how the financial sector operates. It tricks the host economy’s brain—the educational system and the government as planner and lawmaker—to make it think that the way to grow is to promote a financial oligarchy.” Finance Capitalism and its Discontents. Michael Hudson #bitcoin erodes the financial oligarchy

Let us question all the establishments that are so ingrained in our lives that their existence is assumed to be normal, rather than parasitic.

“the West faces the dreadful prospect that it could become the standard-bearer of a new regime type: a socially totalizing, surveilling, information-monopolizing, biopolitical, and martial regime disguised in the feel-good casing of liberal democracy”

The Crisis of Liberal Modernity and the Totalitarian Response

The paradox of freedom galvanizes modernity’s despotic tendencies.

The way to sell a book: 1. Find an eager audience 2. Find an audience with a minimal understanding of the topic 2. Tell them what they want to hear 3. Appeal to emotion 4. Never mind that your tenets do not support your conclusion. #Saif. #Read better books.

I lived in NY during the Occupy Wall Street movement. At the time, I did not appreciate how participatory democracy has essentially vanished. It has been replaced with a mere ceremonial form of democracy that relies on voting as a tool of legitimation, but that so effectively fragments the public and stifles and replaces any mass sense of civic responsibility, that the public has been removed from its role as grantor of power to a servant government.

It is self-subverting for the managers of democracy to subordinate egalitarian convictions to the pursuit of expansive politics

The most dangerous myth is to believe that the United States, in its foreign policies, means well.