| |
World of New Genesis
About
- Moloth – The Believer is Happy; the Skeptic is Wise
Friends
Projects
Site Content
|
|
 Suck it, Glenn Beck. |
Just a heads up… The first decade of the 21st century is almost over.
It’s almost the year 2010. Let that sink in for a moment. Two-thousand and ten. Twenty-ten. We should be diddling with black obelisks in orbit around Jupiter, but instead, we’re stilling trying to figure out if a modern, progressive, technologically advanced nation should be concerned with the health care and well-being of its own citizens.
We’re unlocking new vistas of science and human knowledge, literally blasting apart the very fabric of reality with the Large Hadron Collider. We also still have entire populations living in dirt huts, wasting away on treatable, curable diseases.
The same people voting against the rights of an oppressed minority were once themselves, a mere generation or two ago, oppressed and unable to vote or marry outside their ‘race’.
Obesity is an epidemic on side of the globe and starvation an epidemic on the other.
Does anyone else feel a weird sense of both pride and guilt when looking at the current state of the human condition? I’m incredibly proud of some of humanity’s accomplishments, yet i am still shocked at our failings. The fact that both can be seen right next to each other, in such a stark comparison, leads me to question the true value of all of our bleeding edge advancement. What good is a particle accelerator when there are still people starving in the world?
Yes, we each have our camps, our teams, nations, groups and tribes… and we’re all getting along as best we can with the cards that circumstance has dealt us, but shouldn’t we be more circumspect in our views? Will we ever see the Earth (or, at least our species) as a unique whole?
I mock the “Mega-Churches” in my Southern town… “wow, how many poor people could they have fed with the millions of dollars it took to build that monstrous alter to ego and ignorance?”. Whereas i do not believe the LHC to be an “alter of ego and ignorance” (quite the opposite, actually), i am still forced to apply the same scrutiny and examination. What other (better?) good could have 3 billion Euros done for the world? How many improvements to the infrastructure of our poorest, our most desolate? Before forging ahead, should we stop and help the others that are lagging behind catch up a bit? Which would be the greater good and will have a greater net effect on humanity, as a whole?
I guess i just expected that ALL of humanity could be as impressed with living in 2010 as I am. I understand that i am in a privileged few… barring some catastrophe, i will not starve to death, be killed violently or die due to a common disease. I have my own climate-controlled living space, internet access, video games, all the food i could ever want and unlimited clean water. Fuck, i have an iPhone.
Deep inside, it bothers me that my lifestyle is not really sustainable and that it is built upon the back of the environment and people lower on the socio-economic food chain than me. But what can i do? Play my part, enjoy what circumstance has given me? To deny that is to throw away a good thing, though, right?
I like to think that all of advancement is for the common good, that the end goal is that ALL of humanity can enjoy the cushy lifestyle that i am accustomed to. Maybe by 3010 EVERYONE can be impressed with the arbitrary number of the date as i am now, of 2010.
|
“Even without religion, people would still kill each other”.
Well even if we cure cancer people would keep dying but I don’t see anyone using that argument in favor of cancer.
|
I’ve GOT to stop reading the news… Seeing all of the hatred, violence, injustice and idiocy in the world actually drags me down. It really does destroy my faith in humanity.
But, what am i to do? I like to consider myself an informed individual.. because i really DO care about what is going on beyond my immediate observable universe. I am forced to wonder if that’s healthy, though. Perhaps my psyche is merely too fragile (or too able to more fully comprehend the consequences) to handle this stuff without being effected.
Would one be a coward or weak to ‘get away from it all’ by avoiding the horrors of the world (that dont effect one directly anyways)? I suppose its one thing if you’re an individual who can or does make a difference in the world. No one would miss a fry cook, but a scientist working on a cure for cancer or a philanthropist who organizes aid for African refugees might get a backlash if they suddenly abandoned their life and went to go while away the hours in a cabin in the Blue Ridge.
What does it matter if a low-level programmer were to stop caring about the world at large? What would the overall effect BE? There wouldn’t be much of one, i suppose. Perhaps my lack of FOX News would lower my blood pressure. Perhaps not ruminating on the selfishness and lack of respect for human life of corporations and governments would help me sleep better at night. Perhaps NOT getting Jon Stewart’s jokes, and the uncomfortable, dark-humored chuckle they elicit form me, would be something i could get used to.
After all, ignorance is bliss… right?
|
yeah, i know most of you may have already seen this, but i still get a kick out of it:
—————————-
I am a conservative.
This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.
I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.
After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level
determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.
On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.
After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its
valuables thanks to the local police department.
And then I log on to the internet — which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration — and post on Freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can’t do anything right.
|
This precisely described my own feelings on the nature of the cosmos and our place in it. No Gods, no magic, no objective morals, meanings or destiny. Nothing is ‘meant to be’. There is no divine plan.
We are, indeed, the crafters of our own fates.
|
Just watched the recording that someone in an adjacent building from the WTC made…
http://revver.com/video/59686/september-11-2001-what-we-saw/
yes, they edited out some of the critical parts, like the plane hits and people jumping (which im not exactly happy about). the emotional impact is still gut wrenching.
Im not someone who freaked the fuck out over 9/11 or someone who called for sweeping changes to our country (or other countries, for that matter…), but i am someone who feels the historical and all-too-human resonance of the events of that day.
My fear is, and was, that the aftermath of 9/11 would be more horrendous and memorable than the day itself. My fear has been more than justified, which is why videos like this are so crucial to history. Its true… we mustn’t forget. What we must not forget is what lead up to that day and how we, as Americans and human beings reacted to that day, immediately, in the inferno of the crisis and later, as our leaders used our rage and sorrow to alter our country and the world at large.
Remember the horror. Remember the sacrifice. Remember the confusion. Remember the bravery.
Just for one day. Thats all.
|
Did you hear??
Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990!
When he be held accountable for his heinous actions?? When will he prove that he didn’t rape and murder a young girl in 1990??
FACT: Glenn Beck tapes his show in New York.
FACT: There are roughly 150-200 unsolved killings in NYC every year.
FACT: Glenn Beck has never provided a “believable” alibi for any of these killings.
EDIT (9/3/2009):
So, a lot of people are saying Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990. I have no evidence to either confirm or deny this, but should he be a little more forthcoming? … What is the deal here?
The first thing is to determine whether or not his alibi is valid. And what I don’t understand is why that has not been released and given over to the public record.
Something about this doesn’t smell right and the way to get rid of those odors is always just open the windows and let the sun shine in. And all we need here is a doggone alibi, but for some reason Beck doesn’t want to release that.
There are real questions here that need to be answered. Reasonable people should be interested.
|
http://progressivenation.us/2009/08/19/the-republican-party-is-turning-into-a-cult/
Here’s an excellent article that highlights more of the craziness of “‘conservative” thought.
an excerpt:
These claims have become so detached from reality that they often seem like black comedy. The right-wing magazine US Investors’ Daily claimed that if Steven Hawking had been British, he would have been allowed to die at birth by its “socialist” healthcare system. Hawking responded was a polite cough that he is British, and “I wouldn’t be here without the NHS.” Frank Laffer, the right-wing economist lauded by David Cameron, claimed on CNN that it would be a disaster if the government got its hands on Medicare, the program providing healthcare for the elderly, paid for entirely by… the government.
This tendency to simply deny inconvenient facts and invent a fantasy-world isn’t new; it’s only becoming more heightened. It ran through the Bush years like a dash of bourbon in water. When it became clear Saddam Hussein had no Weapons of Mass Destruction, the US right simply claimed they had been shipped to Syria. When the scientific evidence for man-made global warming became unanswerable, they claimed — as one Republican congressman put it — that it was “the greatest hoax in human history”, and all the world’s climatologists were “liars”. The American media then presents itself as an umpire between “the rival sides”, as if they both had evidence behind them.
|
But, remember, protesting against an unjust war that has cost $3 Trillion and tens of thousands of lives is Un-American, left-wing, liberal nutbaggery…
…and protesting against giving poor people the right to basic healthcare and the regular working American the OPTION of having said healthcare is your patriotic, Christian duty! (Jesus would never have just GIVEN AWAY is magical healing powers. look it up! Its in da Bible!)
Seriously: if anyone out there actually has a GOOD, TRUE reason why the public option healthcare (or healthcare reform in general) is bad, i’d sure like to hear it. ALL of the objections i’ve heard so far have been based on lies, propaganda and ignorance (sorta like all of the defenses of religion i’ve ever heard, come to think of it…).
What truly strikes me funny are things like old people railing against government run healthcare… as they use Medicare.
Or, this gem from Craig T. Nelson and Glenn “Crazy Eyes” Beck. yes, he actually says, with a straight face, “I’ve been on welfare and food stamps…did anyone help me out? No. They gave me hope, they gave me encouragement and they gave me a vision.” … and free money from the tax payers, by way of the government (welfare) and free food, paid for by taxpayers (food stamps). But no.. no one helped you out, man. You did it on your own.
THIS is the manifestation of delusion, ignorance and Double-Think that is required to be a ‘conservative’ in America today. This level of ..insanity? dishonesty?… has reached farcical levels. Poe’s Law has become strong enough to bend the fabric of our civilization… When satire is indistinguishable from reality, where do you go from there? What can you do? There is no reason and no sense to what is going on any more.
|
Dear fat, sloppy-drunk, bug-eyed blond at the bar,
Thank you for the compliments on my appearance. Yes, I do actually kinda realize that i’m more attractive than the other scuzzy barfly dudes in here. No, i will not be calling you. I took your offered phone number only to be polite. I’ve already deleted it out of my phone. I’m at this bar, on a Monday night, not to drink and cruise for cheap sex (as is customary, i understand), but to support a friend having a very bad day. Sorry.
Keep livin’ the dream,
-Moloth
|
This post is as close as i can come to my feelings about the current state of the government of the United States of America.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/23247
The events of recent decades have been ominous.
The events of recent weeks more so.
It’s not so much, I guess, the visage of obese, over-fifty, white men angrily wrecking even the tattered remnants of the democratic process in this country that is most disturbing. We’ve seen that before.
I think it’s the willful ignorance translated into incoherent, and in fact ironically self-defeating, rage that I find most discouraging. Can we really live in a country populated by so many fools, people who can so readily, proudly and belligerently be made into tools of their own destruction? Can the greatest political, economic, cultural and military power on the world’s stage possibly be so incredibly backward at its core?
|
|
|
|| No Comments »