critical consumptive mass

It's the CCM folks; that point at which the theory of supply/demand dies. The whole system cascades in on itself burying former consumers under mountains of 'supply' that cannot be paid for......

gun porn

Bring it, fools. Come and try to take my legally purchased guns. I double-dog dare you to come to my house and attempt to violate my Constitutional rights. It’s won’t be nearly as easy as Beta O’Dork thinks. (Def-Con News)

It’s the gun, an assault weapon that animates the fantasy and arms the reality. It’s the gun, an assault rifle that provided a means to kill 58 people in less than ten minutes; it’s the gun used in so many mass shootings; the gun solely designed for the efficient killing of human beings; the gun with no essential legal purpose; it’s a supremely lethal gun and it’s still in the hands of three million adolescent adults with comic book fantasies.
    -- Vern Loomis

hell-yes-take-them-away

the "real" thing

we should be wary that a faux “movement” may be manufactured on the backs of real movements that have sought to upend that political and economic arrangement. And without a doubt, they see Greta Thunberg as the perfect icon for this movement because she presents a genuine, passionate concern for our fate and that of the next generation; but her presence, thus far, is non-threatening to the powers of capital and the military establishment.    -- Kenn Orphan

uprising-or-the-faux-real-thing?

ed hamell, why go half-way?

da blues

jayhawks

stealing patriotism back for the weird people

the planet doesn't care

Question Authority

Socrates famously quipped, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates’ Golden Rule is built into the foundation of American democracy. A life that is not examined is one controlled by the thoughts of others — open to deception, propaganda, and subterfuge. An examined life is built into Thomas Jefferson’s notion of a “well-informed public.” Augmented by the mission of the Fourth Estate, which is to keep the citizenry informed and the Bastards Honest, well-informed, self-examining people are in control of their representative government. Ideally. But there are a lot of Ee-yores, assorted horses arses, and serial ignoramuses out there. Even a Ralph Nader can only do so much.

towards-a-more-mature-democracy

ed. note update

We here at GeezerNation, from time-to-time- and in light of the serious nature of time itself not to mention the future editorial content of this blog- feel that we don't do enough to clarify our message, which is simply;  "We Are So Fucked" or more accurately, "We Are Totally Fucked". 

Now, you can quibble over the differences between WASF and WATF and perhaps even be put off a little by the "tone" of our message, but in the process, you will miss the big picture!

tash

there goes the neighborhood

the next strike

“If in the next wave of drone attacks 18 million barrels a day of Saudi crude are knocked out, it would represent a catastrophe of epic proportions. The US does not want the Houthi to believe that they have such power through such fourth generational warfare as drones that cannot be defended against. But they do. Here is where a tiny country can bring down not only a Goliath such as the US, but also the whole world.”
    -- Persian Gulf energy trader

how-yemens-houthis-are-bringing-down-a-goliath

Tedeschi Trucks

borderlands

“The Guatemalan border with Chiapas is now our southern border.”
Alan Bersin, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary, 2012, 

...this country’s borders have, in a sense, undergone a kind of expansion not just into southern Mexico...but also into parts of Central America and South America, the Caribbean, and other areas of the world. As Bersin put it, there had been a post-9/11 shift to emphasizing the policing not just of the literal U.S. border but of global versions of the same, a massive, if underreported, “paradigm change.”
    -- Todd Miller

trapped-in-an-empire-of-borders

Yemen strikes back

....what happens when you bomb the shit out of a country for 4 years

Ten drones controlled by Yemeni Houthi forces hit two major Saudi oil installations last night and caused several large fires.....The Trump administration is preparing to initiate negotiations with Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in an effort to bring the four-year civil war in Yemen to an end, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

attacks-on-major-saudi-oil-installations

rails

the reverend

photo

“There are too many images, too many cameras now. We’re all being watched. It gets sillier and sillier. As if all action is meaningful. Nothing is really all that special. It’s just life. If all moments are recorded, then nothing is beautiful and maybe photography isn’t an art anymore. Maybe it never was.”
    -- Robert Frank (November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019)

capitalism

the Agreement

How can one breach an agreement that the other key party, the US, had already pronounced dead, pulling out and reimposing sanctions whose lifting had been part of the deal, despite outside inspectors and other nations party to the agreement insisting that Iran has been adhering to the agreement?
    -- Dave Lindorff

the-us-media-war-machine-kicks-in-against-iran

bob

a day of remembrance

“You should know in the last 10 days we’ve killed over a thousand Taliban. And while this is not a war of attrition, I want the American people to know that President Trump is taking it to the Taliban in an effort to make sure that we protect America’s interests.”
    -- Secretary of State Michael Pompeo

I remember the disbelief so many US residents felt on September 11, 2001 after the bloodshed blamed on Al Qaeda. I also remember the anger and calls for revenge. It was this combination of factors that made it very easy for the US war machine to begin its global war on terror. Those events were the excuse the war machine was waiting for. Eighteen years later, the world is not safer, not freer, and not peaceful. Instead, millions of people are refugees from countries affected directly and indirectly by the US-led wars on people and places in Washington’s way. The military and homeland security establishment sucks the homeland dry while building a police and surveillance state that locks up innocents and kills them in their homes. Its stretch is broader and deeper than at any point in human history. There is no apparent end to any of this. Local wars like that in Afghanistan go on forever. The strategy for these wars is unclear to almost everyone, including those fighting it. 
    -- Ron Jacobs

is-killing-peasants-protecting-americas-interests?

western electric

everything hides

 “For nomads the notion of past and future is perhaps subservient to the experience of elsewhere. Something that has gone, or is awaited, is hidden elsewhere in another place. For both hunters and hunted hiding well is the precondition for survival. Life depends upon finding cover. Everything hides. What has vanished has gone into hiding. An absence – as after the departure of the dead – is felt as a loss but not as an abandonment. The dead are hiding elsewhere. ( ) The Cro-Magnons lived with fear and amazement in a culture of Arrival, facing many mysteries. Their culture lasted for some 20,000 years. We live in a dominant culture of ceaseless Departure and Progress that has so far lasted two or three centuries. “
John Berger (Portraits)

a-cannibal-in-the-dumpster

Bill Callahan

Florida

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE YOUR HAZARD QUOTIENT HERE. Fools continue to underestimate the threat matrix Florida provides on a daily basis for even the simplest of activities. You set out to rob a house, you flee into the woods, you assume that the alligator that killed you was really the first and most obvious danger you didn't account for, and not any of the following:

• any of the citizens, all armed to the teeth and legally cleared to ventilate your person if they feel threatened
• the driver you didn't see narrowly miss you on the road, who could have been old, drunk, or old and drunk
• the private plane overhead that didn't crash into you, probably also flown by a drunk old person and/or a drug smuggler
• any variety of poisonous snakes you stepped over, or that were in the pockets of the residents
• the police, who are pretty liberal with their gunfire
• lightning
• an uninspected building falling on you
• sinkhole swallowing you
• random bear attack (new, but growing in popularity)

Florida: it will kill you, if you give it time. Do your robbery planning accordingly

--Spencer Hall, EDSBS
(and a craft brew salute to R. Beatty)

No, Joe!

The best alternative [to Joe Biden] from an electability standpoint would be for the Democrats to run Sanders, an authentically progressive, social-democratish neo-and green-New Dealer running without and indeed against Big Business sponsorship and (imagine) in accord with majority left-of-center public policy opinion. But the Democratic Party isn’t primarily about winning elections, much less advancing social justice and environmental sanity. It’s about serving elite corporate and financial interests and those interests would prefer to see a creeping fascist and eco-exterminist Neanderthal in the White House over a genuine “populist progressive.”
    -- Paul Street

morning

I think I’d prefer that boot in the face

Meanwhile, up where the air is clean, Western consumers will sit in their cubicles, or stagger blindly down the sidewalk like zombies, or come barrel-assing at you on their pink corporate scooters, staring down at the screens of their devices, where normal reality will be unfolding. They will stare at their screens at their dinner tables, in restaurants, in bed, and everywhere else. Every waking hour of their lives will be spent consuming the all-consuming, smiley, happy, global capitalist Spectacle, every empty moment of which will be monitored and pre-approved by DARPA.
    -- cj hopkins

the-future-of-the-spectacle