Friday, February 24, 2012

Democratizing China? Or China-izing the World?

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Tonight I wrote up this little essay up at MacDailyNews, of all places. It was in response to what has to be the single most bizarro event of 2012 so far:


My initial response to this event was this bit of satire:
I nominate this article for The Surreal World Award of 2012.
Can it get more weird in 2012? Well, there is that ‘end of the world’ thing on December 21st. That’s going to be a contender! 
For those interested, the award for 2011 went to Reverend Campling for his two failed predictions of ‘the end of the world,’ in both May and October. No Rapture for you Reverend. 

Then I typed:
Thinking about this further, it struck me that maybe something is happening in the world that we had not expected. Let’s review some history: 
1) Nixon visits China in 1972, shakes hands with Mao. The Slave Wage Labor Movement becomes a glint in they eye of The Corporate Oligarchy. 
2) In 1998 China was given ‘Most Favored Nation’ status by the Clinton Administration. The ball was rolling. The Corporate Oligarchy began to abandon the USA and move their manufacturing to China. The public spin statements explained this situation as an opportunity to transform China into a democracy via capitalism. 
3) Later in 1998, China’s government began the consolidation and employment of what became the Red Hacker Alliance for the purpose of hacking all world government computers, especially those of the USA. China’s motto became “The Rest Of The World Are Suckers.” 
4) In 2007 the effects of The Corporate Oligarchy treating everyone as suckers resulted in The Subprime Mortgage Crisis, erupting worldwide into ‘The Great Recession’ of 2008. Capitalism effectively died, transformed by the Corporate Oligarchy into socialist Corporate Welfare. 
So, here we are today with the attitude of China, not the USA, having transformed the world. China has not moved any closer to democracy. It remains the hub of crime, abuse of human rights and totalitarian dictatorship it has consistently been since ‘The Great Cultural Revolution’ occurred. Meanwhile, the rest of the world has been transformed into China where everyone is abused by their government, the world has increasingly become a totalitarian police state, human rights have been consistently curtailed and removed, and everyone is treated as a sucker begging to be sucked dry by the parasitic party leaders. 
IOW: The tables were turned. Oops. No democracy for China, just mutant bastard communization for the rest of the world. The Chinese win. 
Just a thought! :-D

After I posted this little diatribe, I read through it and wondered if I was just having a bipolar moment. It certainly has my usual sarcastic persona embedded in its expression. But I think I've actually hit on a valid point, albeit a bit clunky in presentation at this point. Because of the USA getting all pals with China, the world really has changed. But it has clearly been in the opposite direction than was stated or expected. The Spirit of the Age is abuse of customers and citizens by 'the powers that be.' Define them as you like. Call them the 1%, The Corporate Oligarchy, RIAA, MPAA, Chamber of Commerce, EvangeLoons, ConservaTards, Neo-Con-Jobs, TardParty, DemoCraps, LibTards, whatever. The abuse against anyone in a perceived weaker position in the world has been consistently ratcheting up year after year. 

I have to wonder if this is the early phase of what I expect to be an era of desperation as we head into what I call 'The Late Dark Age', or 'Last Dark Age'. I see this as an era where all the people who play the finance / money / mammon game are scouring out every last source of opportunistic cash they can find while they watch their end game approaching them. They scoured out the real estate market after everything else had disappeared. Their scour job left real estate in ruins with the recession of property values continuing on into 2012. Now they're cleaning up the crumbs as they can find them, squeezing the 'sucker's ever harder for what real value is left in the world.

Then there's the question of what will be of 'real value' once the financial game has died the death and all the playtime papers, the money bills, the bank and promissory notes  are worthless. Check out what has happened to the price of rare metals and gems over the past 20+ years of sucker exploitation. What is of lasting value when there is no longer a working financial game system and we have to fall back on good old human system of SHARING

What of value to you have to share with someone else? What will they share back with you? There's what's left of value when the games have all ended and the fake stuff has been stripped away.

Then the real bottom line question: Knowing that sharing is required for human survival, (it really is!), is what we have to share enough for us, as a social group, culture or species, to survive?

What do we all require to survive?

That question is beyond the scope of my little blog. There are books on the subject to check out.

Meanwhile, I suggest learning about desperation behavior. Learn about fear and its resulting effects upon our physiology and thinking. Learn how to be, what I call 'Offensively Positive' despite the inflicted garbage. I've been working on this concept and behavior for a few years now and will hopefully be writing a bit about it with time. But I can tell you that when I use it, it's transcendental to both me and those upon whom I use it. I love it as a concept and a practice. It lets me SEE the worthless FUD in the world (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) that people use to manipulate one another and that they throw out in to the world as an expression of panic as well as of course desperation. It lets me LAUGH at all the human foolishness that consistently abounds within human behavior. It lets me APPRECIATE those kind and caring people who are always there, quietly behind the scenes, doing that wonderful do gooder stuff that keeps the world going around in spite of the negative anarchists, the berzerkers, the psychopathic and the lost. They are the heart and soul of the brilliant aspects of mankind. They are the sharers of what is 'god' in all of us. I love them and they love me. (Well usually. I can be a mean and snarky old snot head when I get lost). No wonder I love the Friends (aka Quakers)!

Enough of that manic expressive rant. 

May you live with an offensively positive spirit during interesting times!

;-Derek
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The Son of The Cold from Hell, Part II

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Following up on Part I:

My regiment of aspirin, Triaminic (yeah, the 'child' antihistamine) and Robitussin DM (or whatever they call it now) got me through. If you can get your hands on the yellow Triaminic with expectorant, that's the best! I continually took 1 aspirin about every 4 hours to keep my blood chemistry acidic. That is the principle. This kills off the opportunistic bacteria. Undoubtedly, there are other methods to obtain the same result. This may well include drinking lots of citrus or citric acid, etc. (I love limeade!) But aspirin works for me. The danger here is that aspirin can have other effects on people that may not be good for them. Aspirin thins the blood in that it causes blood clotting to occur more slowly. This can be good or it can be bad. Always consult with your doctor about all medications before you take them. That's the safe thing to say and do.

One variation from the above proved to be very useful. Usually I have Hall's cough drops handy for sore throat and coughing. But this time I used the much harsher and numbing Chloroseptic throat lozenges and was grateful for them. they were particularly effective during the five days of ultimate hell cold attack. I will get them again should I ever again have to deal with the CFH. However, for regular old colds, I still like my cherry Halls cough drops. Yummy num.

As with previous recent versions of The Cold from Hell, this one took longer than the usual five weeks. I no longer sensed any symptoms by the end of six weeks. What was very unusual about this version was, as stated previously, its general lack of mobility up and down the nose, throat, chest pathway. Instead it consistently attacked all three all the time, like old colds used to do. Another unusual aspect was that there was never a prickling feeling at any time in my throat or nasal passages. All previous CFH I have had were prickly. Despite the fact that this version knocked me out for five full days, it was kind of a relief to have the worst of it over within that time. What followed was, as usual, annoying. But because it was not doing the up and down traveling routine, it was in effect more subdued and actually less of an overall annoyance.

There were the usual periods when I was fooled that it had abated, then it swept right back. However, my many years of training had me ever at the ready for these events and I always had aspirin with me to bomb the cold back into submission. I love aspirin. I also love willow trees. That they are essentially one in the same is no surprise to me. Thank you willow trees!

Anyway, the stupid cold ended and I was happy.

Just recently I caught a good old fashioned cold, by the books, that took all of five days and died. My regiment worked well usual, keeping the little bastard from giving me any bacterial infection of major distress.

I wrote this two part diatribe in hopes it will help others. Note the medications I used and note that using them requires a strict regiment. If you mess up, the cold will notice and get you good. Therefore, the key word for survival is vigilance. Hopefully, with time, we will learn how to actually control the cold viruses themselves. But for now, we at least have the means to curtail the opportunistic accompanying bacterial infections, a great leap forward from when I was a little kid, thank goodness. And surprise, you don't have to take anything weird or expensive or dependent upon some parasitic drug company.

Willow,
Oh willow,
You sooth my mind and ailments,
Ever my friend and companion,
In good times and ill.

;-Derek
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