ralis

Exactly what is your point? Sounds like more nationalistic BS rah rah rah, with everyone in lockstep.

This essay on neoliberalism was far too long to paste in it's entirety. http://www.alternet.org/investigations/united-states-awash-public-stupidity-and-views-critical-thought-both-liability-and "America has become amnesiac - a country in which forms of historical, political, and moral forgetting are not only willfully practiced but celebrated. The United States has degenerated into a social order that is awash in public stupidity and views critical thought as both a liability and a threat. Not only is this obvious in the presence of a celebrity culture that embraces the banal and idiotic, but also in the prevailing discourses and policies of a range of politicians and anti-public intellectuals who believe that the legacy of the Enlightenment needs to be reversed. Politicians such as Michelle Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich along with talking heads such as Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and Anne Coulter are not the problem, they are symptomatic of a much more disturbing assault on critical thought, if not rational thinking itself. Under a neoliberal regime, the language of authority, power and command is divorced from ethics, social responsibility, critical analysis and social costs. These anti-public intellectuals are part of a disimagination machine that solidifies the power of the rich and the structures of the military-industrial-surveillance-academic complex by presenting the ideologies, institutions and relations of the powerful as commonsense. For instance, the historical legacies of resistance to racism, militarism, privatization and panoptical surveillance have long been forgotten and made invisible in the current assumption that Americans now live in a democratic, post-racial society. The cheerleaders for neoliberalism work hard to normalize dominant institutions and relations of power through a vocabulary and public pedagogy that create market-driven subjects, modes of consciousness, and ways of understanding the world that promote accommodation, quietism and passivity. Social solidarities are torn apart, furthering the retreat into orbits of the private that undermine those spaces that nurture non-commodified knowledge, values, critical exchange and civic literacy. The pedagogy of authoritarianism is alive and well in the United States, and its repression of public memory takes place not only through the screen culture and institutional apparatuses of conformity, but is also reproduced through a culture of fear and a carceral state that imprisons more people than any other country in the world. What many commentators have missed in the ongoing attack on Edward Snowden is not that he uncovered information that made clear how corrupt and intrusive the American government has become - how willing it is to engage in vast crimes against the American public. His real "crime" is that he demonstrated how knowledge can be used to empower people, to get them to think as critically engaged citizens rather than assume that knowledge and education are merely about the learning of skills - a reductive concept that substitutes training for education and reinforces the flight from reason and the goose-stepping reflexes of an authoritarian mindset."

Instead of the corporate media engaging in real journalism to inform the public as to the real problems we face, the royal baby is focused upon. I have never understood the fascination with the 'royals'.

Believing in such things as karma is nothing but being a slave to an ideology.

More Tosin Abasi.

Full of sweeping generalizations and cynicism.

This could easily be put in the Zimmerman thread or here but I chose here. More divisiveness from LImbaugh which is not needed nor welcome in this culture. Another example of poorly educated ignorance. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/07/22/limbaugh-on-white-guilt-its-preposterous-that-caucasians-are-blamed-for-slavery/ Virginia attorney general promoting anti-sodomy law. When will these people stop? http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/cuccinelli-looks-to-go-on-offense-against-mcauliffe-over-virginia-sodomy-law/2013/07/16/da514daa-ee5e-11e2-a1f9-ea873b7e0424_story.html?hpid=z2

Wall Street banks hoarding commodities in order to drive up prices. I doubt the CFTC will do anything about it. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/21/wall-street-metal_n_3632428.html?utm_hp_ref=business

Instead of following some ancient religion, why not make up your own mind.

Are you asserting that Germany was benevolent in the holocaust and invading Russia?

That is a small sample of playing time. Hardly enough to see the variance. Were you playing limit or no limit? 8 hours a day or more?

For weeks or months?

Becomethepath, Have you played much poker? Or is this just a fantasy? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx-rwkSvIDE

If you feel this way, then don't play the game. Just as simple as that. I guarantee that if you have such an attitude playing the game, you will be a loser! Most people don't have the emotional stability, knowledge of math, or the patience to sit in a game for 50 hours a week for years. Bankroll variance with the unexpected bad beats, can take an emotional toll in holdem poker. Having a fantasy of being a big time player is quickly eroded by the daily variance. Poker is a grind! As far as bluffing is concerned, the one bluffing may not have the best hand but is wanting the opponent to fold. From what you are writing, you seem to have very little knowledge of the game.

It usually requires massive amounts of pain for change to happen.

Not following you on that one.

I can also hear influence by Alex Lifeson the guitarist for Rush.

Some Jeff Beck influence also. Just missed seeing Mahavishnu at the Spectrum in Philly in 71.

My nephew introduced me to Tosin Abasi's fabulous guitar work last night. This guy is very accomplished.

Can you possibly explain this statement? What does that have to do with the OP?

If you care to read, William Shirer's account of the rise and fall of Nazi Germany goes into detail as to why Hitler hated the communists and Jews. It all began in Munich Germany. You have derailed this topic from the OP. Why not participate? http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Third-Reich-ebook/dp/B005Z57E18/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374420988&sr=8-1&keywords=rise+and+fall+of+the+third+reich

Your statement proves that you have no concept or understanding of history. E.g. "the Germans had a just cause". Do you even realize why Hitler attacked Russia? Here is a hint; Munich. There is no Communist threat except one created by fear mongers who need an enemy to hate. There are plenty of academic documents that utterly refute your statement of errors.

I agree. In a democracy or what is left of it, we can still try to elect better representatives. Social nonviolent activism. When I see posts such as the ones by NAJA it reminds me how ignorant so many are of history and social dynamics. To quote from a 'Tale of Two Cities' "IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

Governments are composed of people. What is your point?