To understand the American mind~~understand this~~These are victims of war, but the Americans do not care because the victims are from the wrong social class~~Start blowing up some people from the right social class~~and the wars will all end~~
~~
You guys are too young to remember the riots==and i do mean riots– I grew up dead center in the middle of it all–worse than any civil rights upheavals– that took place right in this city on a virtually weekly basis over Vietnam and most particularly the draft–pretty rich boys were in the line of fire~~
~~
~~. The war machine adapts–it is infinitely adaptable–the trouble with Vietnamese war was not dollar cost or the righteousness of policy but rather the exposure of pretty little rich kids to the battlefield.
~~
War Machine Solution–end the draft–end the protests, end all opposition–
~
After that, fight wars whenever and wherever the machine wants to dine–endless possibilities–no criticisms~~
~~
Further solution–reinstate the draft–and the war in Afghanistan– and all the others– are over by this weekend–and there won’t be anymore of them started either.~~
~~
If you want to end a war~~simply anger the wrong social class~~draft their sons~~they will end your war for you~~
The rich man ought not be taxed at all~~he ought be compelled to employ and train the poor man~~directly~~
~~In sunshine and in shadow~~I hold tight to the Republican view of time and money~~I write night and day~~yet~~while impecunious~~I am vastly overpaid~~in that taking pay to do what I love is unfair~~to my employer~~in a fair system~~under such circumstances~~I should pay him~~not he me~~I am far, far too old a man to be sexually confused~~praise Jesus~~but I am yet young enough to be politically confused~~is anyone not~~in an absolute sense~~I am a Catholic Royalist~~in a practical sense~~I am a Classical Liberal~~a Gaullist~~a Bonapartist~~an American Nationalist Republican~~in either sense~~my head is soon for the chopping block~~to hasten my interlude with Madame La Guillotine~~I write without fear~and without favor of~any man~~
~
Non Sibi~~
Finis Origine Pendet~
~~Κύριε ἐλέησον~~
Rejoice and Glad!!
Amen~~
~The Original Angry Bird~~The Catholic University of America Screaming Red Cardinal Mascot~~
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=122865699&trk=hb_tab_pro_top
"Jean-Marie Le Pen is a friend. He is dangerous for the political set because he's the only one who's sincere. He says out loud what many people think deep down, and what the politicians refrain from saying because they are either too demagogic or too chicken. Le Pen, with all his faults and qualities, is probably the only one who thinks about the interests of France before his own."~~
French actor~~Alain Delon
CONCEPT OF THE CATHOLIC AND ROYAL ARMY OF AMERICA (CRAA)
Mr. David Simon and I have never met~~but he and I listen to the same wire for news of America~~today Mr Simon speaks about the brick~~that may soon~~very well hit the Americans~~
Mr. Simon and I both seem to have arrived~~via rather different train lines~~at this rail platform~~America is in catharsis as to how best rid Herself of the surplus poor~~I have concluded that we do live a modern Tale of Two Cities and that the problem of the poor is to be solved by either bleeding them to death in the Arabian deserts or putting them up forever in massive prison complexes~~built mainly to house petty drug criminals~~there simply is no place for the poor~~and there never will be~~absent perhaps~~the arrival of Mr. Simon’s~~Brick~~
The creator of The Wire, David Simon, delivered an impromptu speech about the divide between rich and poor in America at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney, and how capitalism has lost sight of its social compact. This is an edited extract~
America is a country that is now utterly divided when it comes to its society, its economy, its politics. There are definitely two Americas. I live in one, on one block in Baltimore that is part of the viable America, the America that is connected to its own economy, where there is a plausible future for the people born into it. About 20 blocks away is another America entirely. It’s astonishing how little we have to do with each other, and yet we are living in such proximity.
There’s no barbed wire around West Baltimore or around East Baltimore, around Pimlico, the areas in my city that have been utterly divorced from the American experience that I know. But there might as well be. We’ve somehow managed to march on to two separate futures and I think you’re seeing this more and more in the west. I don’t think it’s unique to America.
I think we’ve perfected a lot of the tragedy and we’re getting there faster than a lot of other places that may be a little more reasoned, but my dangerous idea kind of involves this fellow who got left by the wayside in the 20th century and seemed to be almost the butt end of the joke of the 20th century; a fellow named Karl Marx.
I’m not a Marxist in the sense that I don’t think Marxism has a very specific clinical answer to what ails us economically. I think Marx was a much better diagnostician than he was a clinician. He was good at figuring out what was wrong or what could be wrong with capitalism if it wasn’t attended to and much less credible when it comes to how you might solve that.
You know if you’ve read Capital or if you’ve got the Cliff Notes, you know that his imaginings of how classical Marxism – of how his logic would work when applied – kind of devolve into such nonsense as the withering away of the state and platitudes like that. But he was really sharp about what goes wrong when capital wins unequivocally, when it gets everything it asks for.
That may be the ultimate tragedy of capitalism in our time, that it has achieved its dominance without regard to a social compact, without being connected to any other metric for human progress.
We understand profit. In my country we measure things by profit. We listen to the Wall Street analysts. They tell us what we’re supposed to do every quarter. The quarterly report is God. Turn to face God. Turn to face Mecca, you know. Did you make your number? Did you not make your number? Do you want your bonus? Do you not want your bonus?
And that notion that capital is the metric, that profit is the metric by which we’re going to measure the health of our society is one of the fundamental mistakes of the last 30 years. I would date it in my country to about 1980 exactly, and it has triumphed.
Capitalism stomped the hell out of Marxism by the end of the 20th century and was predominant in all respects, but the great irony of it is that the only thing that actually works is not ideological, it is impure, has elements of both arguments and never actually achieves any kind of partisan or philosophical perfection.
It’s pragmatic, it includes the best aspects of socialistic thought and of free-market capitalism and it works because we don’t let it work entirely. And that’s a hard idea to think – that there isn’t one single silver bullet that gets us out of the mess we’ve dug for ourselves. But man, we’ve dug a mess.
After the second world war, the west emerged with the American economy coming out of its wartime extravagance, emerging as the best product. It was the best product. It worked the best. It was demonstrating its might not only in terms of what it did during the war but in terms of just how facile it was in creating mass wealth.
Plus, it provided a lot more freedom and was doing the one thing that guaranteed that the 20th century was going to be – and forgive the jingoistic sound of this – the American century.
It took a working class that had no discretionary income at the beginning of the century, which was working on subsistence wages. It turned it into a consumer class that not only had money to buy all the stuff that they needed to live but enough to buy a bunch of shit that they wanted but didn’t need, and that was the engine that drove us.
It wasn’t just that we could supply stuff, or that we had the factories or know-how or capital, it was that we created our own demand and started exporting that demand throughout the west. And the standard of living made it possible to manufacture stuff at an incredible rate and sell it.
And how did we do that? We did that by not giving in to either side. That was the new deal. That was the great society. That was all of that argument about collective bargaining and union wages and it was an argument that meant neither side gets to win.
Labour doesn’t get to win all its arguments, capital doesn’t get to. But it’s in the tension, it’s in the actual fight between the two, that capitalism actually becomes functional, that it becomes something that every stratum in society has a stake in, that they all share.
The unions actually mattered. The unions were part of the equation. It didn’t matter that they won all the time, it didn’t matter that they lost all the time, it just mattered that they had to win some of the time and they had to put up a fight and they had to argue for the demand and the equation and for the idea that workers were not worth less, they were worth more.
Ultimately we abandoned that and believed in the idea of trickle-down and the idea of the market economy and the market knows best, to the point where now libertarianism in my country is actually being taken seriously as an intelligent mode of political thought. It’s astonishing to me. But it is. People are saying I don’t need anything but my own ability to earn a profit. I’m not connected to society. I don’t care how the road got built, I don’t care where the firefighter comes from, I don’t care who educates the kids other than my kids. I am me. It’s the triumph of the self. I am me, hear me roar.
That we’ve gotten to this point is astonishing to me because basically in winning its victory, in seeing that Wall come down and seeing the former Stalinist state’s journey towards our way of thinking in terms of markets or being vulnerable, you would have thought that we would have learned what works. Instead we’ve descended into what can only be described as greed. This is just greed. This is an inability to see that we’re all connected, that the idea of two Americas is implausible, or two Australias, or two Spains or two Frances.
Societies are exactly what they sound like. If everybody is invested and if everyone just believes that they have “some”, it doesn’t mean that everybody’s going to get the same amount. It doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be people who are the venture capitalists who stand to make the most. It’s not each according to their needs or anything that is purely Marxist, but it is that everybody feels as if, if the society succeeds, I succeed, I don’t get left behind. And there isn’t a society in the west now, right now, that is able to sustain that for all of its population.
And so in my country you’re seeing a horror show. You’re seeing a retrenchment in terms of family income, you’re seeing the abandonment of basic services, such as public education, functional public education. You’re seeing the underclass hunted through an alleged war on dangerous drugs that is in fact merely a war on the poor and has turned us into the most incarcerative state in the history of mankind, in terms of the sheer numbers of people we’ve put in American prisons and the percentage of Americans we put into prisons. No other country on the face of the Earth jails people at the number and rate that we are.
We have become something other than what we claim for the American dream and all because of our inability to basically share, to even contemplate a socialist impulse.
Socialism is a dirty word in my country. I have to give that disclaimer at the beginning of every speech, “Oh by the way I’m not a Marxist you know”. I lived through the 20th century. I don’t believe that a state-run economy can be as viable as market capitalism in producing mass wealth. I don’t.
I’m utterly committed to the idea that capitalism has to be the way we generate mass wealth in the coming century. That argument’s over. But the idea that it’s not going to be married to a social compact, that how you distribute the benefits of capitalism isn’t going to include everyone in the society to a reasonable extent, that’s astonishing to me.
And so capitalism is about to seize defeat from the jaws of victory all by its own hand. That’s the astonishing end of this story, unless we reverse course. Unless we take into consideration, if not the remedies of Marx then the diagnosis, because he saw what would happen if capital triumphed unequivocally, if it got everything it wanted.
And one of the things that capital would want unequivocally and for certain is the diminishment of labour. They would want labour to be diminished because labour’s a cost. And if labour is diminished, let’s translate that: in human terms, it means human beings are worth less.
From this moment forward unless we reverse course, the average human being is worth less on planet Earth. Unless we take stock of the fact that maybe socialism and the socialist impulse has to be addressed again; it has to be married as it was married in the 1930s, the 1940s and even into the 1950s, to the engine that is capitalism.
Mistaking capitalism for a blueprint as to how to build a society strikes me as a really dangerous idea in a bad way. Capitalism is a remarkable engine again for producing wealth. It’s a great tool to have in your toolbox if you’re trying to build a society and have that society advance. You wouldn’t want to go forward at this point without it. But it’s not a blueprint for how to build the just society. There are other metrics besides that quarterly profit report.
The idea that the market will solve such things as environmental concerns, as our racial divides, as our class distinctions, our problems with educating and incorporating one generation of workers into the economy after the other when that economy is changing; the idea that the market is going to heed all of the human concerns and still maximise profit is juvenile. It’s a juvenile notion and it’s still being argued in my country passionately and we’re going down the tubes. And it terrifies me because I’m astonished at how comfortable we are in absolving ourselves of what is basically a moral choice. Are we all in this together or are we all not?
If you watched the debacle that was, and is, the fight over something as basic as public health policy in my country over the last couple of years, imagine the ineffectiveness that Americans are going to offer the world when it comes to something really complicated like global warming. We can’t even get healthcare for our citizens on a basic level. And the argument comes down to: “Goddamn this socialist president. Does he think I’m going to pay to keep other people healthy? It’s socialism, motherfucker.”
What do you think group health insurance is? You know you ask these guys, “Do you have group health insurance where you …?” “Oh yeah, I get …” you know, “my law firm …” So when you get sick you’re able to afford the treatment.
The treatment comes because you have enough people in your law firm so you’re able to get health insurance enough for them to stay healthy. So the actuarial tables work and all of you, when you do get sick, are able to have the resources there to get better because you’re relying on the idea of the group. Yeah. And they nod their heads, and you go “Brother, that’s socialism. You know it is.”
And … you know when you say, OK, we’re going to do what we’re doing for your law firm but we’re going to do it for 300 million Americans and we’re going to make it affordable for everybody that way. And yes, it means that you’re going to be paying for the other guys in the society, the same way you pay for the other guys in the law firm … Their eyes glaze. You know they don’t want to hear it. It’s too much. Too much to contemplate the idea that the whole country might be actually connected.
So I’m astonished that at this late date I’m standing here and saying we might want to go back for this guy Marx that we were laughing at, if not for his prescriptions, then at least for his depiction of what is possible if you don’t mitigate the authority of capitalism, if you don’t embrace some other values for human endeavour.
And that’s what The Wire was about basically, it was about people who were worth less and who were no longer necessary, as maybe 10 or 15% of my country is no longer necessary to the operation of the economy. It was about them trying to solve, for lack of a better term, an existential crisis. In their irrelevance, their economic irrelevance, they were nonetheless still on the ground occupying this place called Baltimore and they were going to have to endure somehow.
That’s the great horror show. What are we going to do with all these people that we’ve managed to marginalise? It was kind of interesting when it was only race, when you could do this on the basis of people’s racial fears and it was just the black and brown people in American cities who had the higher rates of unemployment and the higher rates of addiction and were marginalised and had the shitty school systems and the lack of opportunity.
And kind of interesting in this last recession to see the economy shrug and start to throw white middle-class people into the same boat, so that they became vulnerable to the drug war, say from methamphetamine, or they became unable to qualify for college loans. And all of a sudden a certain faith in the economic engine and the economic authority of Wall Street and market logic started to fall away from people. And they realised it’s not just about race, it’s about something even more terrifying. It’s about class. Are you at the top of the wave or are you at the bottom?
So how does it get better? In 1932, it got better because they dealt the cards again and there was a communal logic that said nobody’s going to get left behind. We’re going to figure this out. We’re going to get the banks open. From the depths of that depression a social compact was made between worker, between labour and capital that actually allowed people to have some hope.
We’re either going to do that in some practical way when things get bad enough or we’re going to keep going the way we’re going, at which point there’s going to be enough people standing on the outside of this mess that somebody’s going to pick up a brick, because you know when people get to the end there’s always the brick. I hope we go for the first option but I’m losing faith.
The other thing that was there in 1932 that isn’t there now is that some element of the popular will could be expressed through the electoral process in my country.
The last job of capitalism – having won all the battles against labour, having acquired the ultimate authority, almost the ultimate moral authority over what’s a good idea or what’s not, or what’s valued and what’s not – the last journey for capital in my country has been to buy the electoral process, the one venue for reform that remained to Americans.
Right now capital has effectively purchased the government, and you witnessed it again with the healthcare debacle in terms of the $450m that was heaved into Congress, the most broken part of my government, in order that the popular will never actually emerged in any of that legislative process.
So I don’t know what we do if we can’t actually control the representative government that we claim will manifest the popular will. Even if we all start having the same sentiments that I’m arguing for now, I’m not sure we can effect them any more in the same way that we could at the rise of the Great Depression, so maybe it will be the brick. But I hope not.
~~In sunshine and in shadow~~I hold tight to the Republican view of time and money~~I write night and day~~yet~~while impecunious~~I am vastly overpaid~~in that taking pay to do what I love is unfair~~to my employer~~in a fair system~~under such circumstances~~I should pay him~~not he me~~I am far, far too old a man to be sexually confused~~praise Jesus~~but I am yet young enough to be politically confused~~is anyone not~~in an absolute sense~~I am a Catholic Royalist~~in a practical sense~~I am a Classical Liberal~~a Gaullist~~a Bonapartist~~an American Nationalist Republican~~in either sense~~my head is soon for the chopping block~~to hasten my interlude with Madame La Guillotine~~I write without fear~and without favor of~any man~~
Non Sibi~~Finis Origine Pendet~~
~~Κύριε ἐλέησον~~
Rejoice and Glad!!
Amen~~
~~The Original Angry Bird~~The Catholic University of America Screaming Red Cardinal Mascot~~
~~EX LIBRIS~~
~~THEOS EK MĒCHANĒS~~
Wednesday, 11th Decembre, Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, 2013
"Jean-Marie Le Pen is a friend. He is dangerous for the political set because he's the only one who's sincere. He says out loud what many people think deep down, and what the politicians refrain from saying because they are either too demagogic or too chicken. Le Pen, with all his faults and qualities, is probably the only one who thinks about the interests of France before his own."~~French actor~~Alain Delon
CONCEPT OF THE CATHOLIC AND ROYAL ARMY OF AMERICA (CRAA)
This photo shows Princess Elizabeth, who later became Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.
Marcus Adams / AP
Infanta Elizabeth With Papa~~later to be King George VI~~and Mummy~~
Young Princess Royal Elizabeth at her wedding day~~
With Her children as a young Wife and Mother~~
On Her Coronation Day~~July 12, 1953~~Elizabeth II holds the symbols of Her Office and formally ascends the throne~~
Queen~~with Her growing family~~fond, protective and solicitous of Her subjects~~as they are likewise of Her~~
Nov. 20, 1972
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip are seen with their family in Buckingham Palace on the occasion of the royal couple’s silver wedding. From left are Prince Charles, Prince Edward, the queen, Prince Philip, Prince Andrew and Princess Anne.
AP
As all the English~~a fan of the racing~~Queen~~in Her later years~~cannot contain a smile around the ovals~~
Her Majesty in the autumn of Her Reign~~although~~in truth~~she may just bury us all~~
I wonder what our Founding Fathers would make of the remarkable life of Queen Elizabeth II of England~~direct, lineal heir~~to the war-mongering despot George III~~whose tyrannical rule~~our founders bled and died to escape.
~~
I think~they might just want to rejoin The Empire~~
It is a tellingly sad paradox that the very embodiment of the Founding Father’s dream for the perfect American President is:
~~
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 11 of England~a dutiful, friendly, benign, sober, attentive, solicitous and powerless~Head of State.
~~
Meanwhile, American Presidents themselves are gaudy, boorish, imperialistic, rapaciously grasping after both power and gold, preeningly and personally selfish, egotistical, tyrannical, war~mongering despots~a tellingly sad paradox.
~~The principal need in America is the promotion of the possibility for the average man to get and keep a good job with good benefits paid by the employer~~as was done not very long ago.~~
~~~Bene Nati, Bene Vestiti, Et Mediocriter Docti~~
~~La crema y nata~~~~Artista de la conquista~~
~~In sunshine and in shadow~~I hold tight to the Republican view of time and money~~I write night and day~~yet~~while impecunious~~I am vastly overpaid~~in that taking pay to do what I love is unfair~~to my employer~~in a fair system~~under such circumstances~~I should pay him~~not he me~~I am far, far too old a man to be sexually confused~~praise Jesus~~but I am yet young enough to be politically confused~~is anyone not~~in an absolute sense~~I am a Catholic Royalist~~in a practical sense~~I am a Classical Liberal~~a Gaullist~~a Bonapartist~~an American Nationalist Republican~~in either sense~~my head is soon for the chopping block~~to hasten my interlude with Madame La Guillotine~~I write without fear~and without favor of~any man~~
Non Sibi~~
Finis Origine Pendet~~
~~Κύριε ἐλέησον~~
Rejoice and Glad!!
Amen~~
~~The Original Angry Bird~~The Catholic University of America Screaming Red Cardinal Mascot~~
~~EX LIBRIS~~
~~THEOS EK MĒCHANĒS~~
Monday, 2nd Of Decembre, Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, 2013
"Jean-Marie Le Pen is a friend. He is dangerous for the political set because he's the only one who's sincere. He says out loud what many people think deep down, and what the politicians refrain from saying because they are either too demagogic or too chicken. Le Pen, with all his faults and qualities, is probably the only one who thinks about the interests of France before his own."~~French actor~~Alain Delon
CONCEPT OF THE CATHOLIC AND ROYAL ARMY OF AMERICA (CRAA)
I’d a very small top-secret I was hoping to retire to the country and raise race horses on selling up~~but fate dealt a dastardly turn~~my secret it seems is very small~~and lost amidst all the other secrets~~today everything is so secret~~but nothing is kept quiet~~and my retirement secret has lost all valuation~~heavens~~
John Begg~~It’s funny~I have many friends who like to think they can live completely under radar but I tell them–kid–in 10 seconds the right guy can find out anything he wants to know about you–the truth is–nobody cares enough about you to bother–flip side is–when everybody knows everything about everybody else–it ceases to have any particular meaning~~
~~ Secret, secret~I’ve got a secret~but it seems to have lost its valuation~dear me~
Secret, secret~I’ve got a secret~but it seems to have lost its valuation~dear me~
In sunshine and in shadow~~I hold tight to the Republican view of time and money~~I write night and day~~yet~~while impecunious~~I am vastly overpaid~~in that taking pay to do what I love is unfair~~to my employer~~in a fair system~~under such circumstances~~I should pay him~~not he me~~I am far, far too old a man to be sexually confused~~praise Jesus~~but I am yet young enough to be politically confused~~is anyone not~in an absolute sense~~I am a Catholic Royalist~~in a practical sense~~I am a Classical Liberal~~a Gaullist~~a Rockefeller Republican~~in either sense~~my head is soon for the chopping block~~to hasten my interlude with Madame La Guillotine~~
~~Κύριε ἐλέησον~~
Rejoice and Glad!!
Amen~~
EX LIBRIS
~~THEOS EK MĒCHANĒS~~
JOHN DANIEL BEGG
At
Washington, District of Columbia
United States
Tuesday, 5th Novembre, Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, 2013
"Jean-Marie Le Pen is a friend. He is dangerous for the political set because he's the only one who's sincere. He says out loud what many people think deep down, and what the politicians refrain from saying because they are either too demagogic or too chicken. Le Pen, with all his faults and qualities, is probably the only one who thinks about the interests of France before his own."~~French actor~~Alain Delon
CONCEPT OF THE CATHOLIC AND ROYAL ARMY OF AMERICA (CRAA)
~~Have you seen my little secret~~it’s gone missing~~
~~I’d a very small top-secret I was hoping to retire to the country and raise race horses on selling up~~but fate dealt a dastardly turn~~my secret it seems is very small~~and lost amidst all the other secrets~~today everything is so secret~~but nothing is kept quiet~~and my retirement secret has lost all valuation~~heavens~~
Secret, secret~I’ve got a secret~but it seems to have lost its valuation~dear me~
Today, brethren~~our own Mr. Jefferson puts to us a question~~what~~if any~~is the difference between a rough, savage, thief in the dark of night and a swarmy, greasy, politician in a dark suit in the morning hour~~and if no difference~~what to do~~and if~~a wee bit of difference~~what to do then~~and Mr Jefferson~~always a hoot~~suggests we answer his own question thusly~~
“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”~~
~~Thomas Jefferson~~
~~Our Own Most Romantic One~~
Our Mr. Jefferson~~as rendered for us today by~~Mr. Rembrandt Peale: (c:1805)~~
In sunshine and in shadow~~I hold tight to the Republican view of time and money~~I write night and day~~yet~~while impecunious~~I am vastly overpaid~~in that taking pay to do what I love is unfair~~to my employer~~in a fair system~~under such circumstances~~I should pay him~~not he me~~I am far, far too old a man to be sexually confused~~praise Jesus~~but I am yet young enough to be politically confused~~is anyone not~in an absolute sense~~I am a Catholic Royalist~~in a practical sense~~I am a Classical Liberal~~a Gaullist~~a Rockefeller Republican~~in either sense~~my head is soon for the chopping block~~to hasten my interlude with Madame La Guillotine~~
~~Κύριε ἐλέησον~~
Rejoice and Glad!!
Amen~~
EX LIBRIS
~~THEOS EK MĒCHANĒS~~
JOHN DANIEL BEGG
At
Washington, District of Columbia
United States
Monday, 4th Novembre, Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, 2013
"Jean-Marie Le Pen is a friend. He is dangerous for the political set because he's the only one who's sincere. He says out loud what many people think deep down, and what the politicians refrain from saying because they are either too demagogic or too chicken. Le Pen, with all his faults and qualities, is probably the only one who thinks about the interests of France before his own."~~French actor~~Alain Delon
CONCEPT OF THE CATHOLIC AND ROYAL ARMY OF AMERICA (CRAA)
Mr Jefferson’s lovely home in Virginia~~Monticello~~to which he would~~on the infrequent occasions that he could~~repair to drink of the fine wines and read of the great books~~two full ships of which he’d brought back from 10 years at Paris~~and to there also contemplate today’s question he puts to us~~
Today, brethren~~our own Mr. Jefferson puts to us a question~~what~~if any~~is the difference between a rough, savage, thief in the dark of night and a swarmy, greasy, politician in a dark suit in the morning hour~~and if no difference~~what to do~~and if~~a wee bit of difference~~what to do then~~and Mr Jefferson~~always a hoot~~suggests we answer his own question thusly~~
“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”
~~Thomas Jefferson~~
~~Our Own Most Romantic One~~ever concerned about~~
Clash of interests~~Police and Thieves~~frightening the nation~~with their~~guns and ammunition~~
It is a singular propensity of the Americans to grow embarrassed as they age about their being rich~absolutely nowhere else on this earth~or at any other time in history has this strange phenomenon been observed–
Today Billy Gross of Pimco~earlier a sensible fella~ joins that long gray line of rich men~but takes things much further and dangerously so~as~rather than deciding~as is his want~what to do with his money~Billy wants to dictate how all men be robbed of theirs~by the government~oh great~that will sure help the poor man, Billy~stealing my money and sending it to be wasted at Washington~
There is a discernible clinical ailment called Old American Rich Man’s Disease~and today we read that Billy Gross of Pimco has a tragically fatal bout of it~
Billy Gross of Pimco~~kindly listen~~have you grown old and soft in the head~explain to your audience precisely how raising taxes helps the poor class~if you want to help the poor~give them jobs or simply gold coins~don’t steal the money from the rich to send to Washington to be wasted~that does not help poor people~~
Moreover–if Billy Gross and friends are really motivated to help the poor–why not give the poor man money hand to hand–from your pocket to his–the poor beggar needs the money–the government does not need the money–and if–as my aunts would argue–the poor bum on the street will just waste the money on cheap wine–so what–giving the money to the government is wasting it on nothing at all–at least the poor bum can get his head up for a bit on the wine–what do any American citizens get from sending money to the government–no high of any kind–just 100 percent waste–not even a taste–of cheap wine?
Pimco’s Bill Gross: America’s Privileged 1 Percent Should Pay Higher Taxes
Thursday, 31 Oct 2013 09:11 AM
Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Bill Gross said that wealthy Americans, having reaped the benefits of favorable tax treatment, should be willing to pay a greater share to bolster the prospects of the working class.
“If you’re in the privileged 1 percent, you should be paddling right alongside and willing to support higher taxes on carried interest, and certainly capital gains readjusted to existing marginal income tax rates,” Gross wrote in his monthly investment outlook posted on Newport Beach, California-based Pimco’s website. “Stanley Druckenmiller and Warren Buffett have recently advocated similar proposals. The era of taxing ’capital’ at lower rates than ‘labor’ should now end.”
Gross criticized a growing trend of large U.S. companies retaining earnings or buying back shares at the expense of labor, as expenses were cut along the way. Companies need to be reinvesting in plants and equipment rather than focusing on cost cutting and equity buybacks, he said.
Gross’s public pronouncements can rock the markets. After he rebuked General Electric Capital Corp. in March 2002, saying the finance arm of General Electric Co. was amassing too much short-term debt, the stock of GE tumbled 6 percent in two days.
Gross said today that his criticism in past years was supposed to be indicative of the growing use of leverage rather than to be company specific. Companies continue to increase earnings while revenue remains flat, he said.
“Never have American companies sent a greater share of their sales to the bottom line,” Gross wrote in the outlook today. “Even when S&P 500 companies have witnessed a decline in corporate earnings” at the same time “they have still experienced earnings per share gains.”
Wealth Distribution
Gross’s personal wealth is estimated at $2 billion. The 69-year-old Pimco co-founder has endowed a foundation with $293 million in assets and raised money for Doctors Without Borders, a medical charity, by selling parts of his stamp collection.
Gross, who was urged by billionaire Carl Icahn to give at least half his wealth to charity, said yesterday that he and his wife, Sue, are committed to giving away all their money before they die. Gross, speaking in an interview on the CNBC television network yesterday, said he’s following a pledge by steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who called it a disgrace for a wealthy person to die with money.
Apple Dispute
Icahn and Gross, in a public exchange of Twitter posts over the past week, have prodded each other to devote more effort to helping people. Gross, who started the discussion on Oct. 24, said Icahn should stop pushing Apple Inc. for a stock buyback and instead spend more time on philanthropy like Bill Gates, the Microsoft Corp. co-founder, and his wife, Melinda.
“Developed economies work best when inequality of incomes are at a minimum,” Gross wrote. “By reducing the 20 percent of national income that ‘golden scrooges’ now earn, by implementing more equitable tax reform that equalizes capital gains, carried interest and nominal income tax rates, we might move up the list to challenge more productive economies such as Germany and Canada.”
The share of private-equity managers’ profits in buyout deals is known as carried interest. President Barack Obama’s 2014 budget proposal released in April had proposed taxing carried interest at ordinary income rates rather than preferential rates provided to long-term capital gains.
The $250 billion Total Return Fund managed by Gross has gained 0.93 percent in the past month, outperforming 58 percent of comparable funds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The fund has returned 8.4 percent on an annual basis in the past five years, placing it in the 77 percentile.
Pimco, a unit of the Munich-based insurer Allianz SE, managed $1.97 trillion in assets as of June 30.
Billy Gross of Pimco~~kindly listen~~have you grown old and soft in the head~~explain to your audience precisely how raising taxes helps the poor class~~if you want to help the poor~~give them jobs or simply gold coins~~don’t steal the money from the rich to send to Washington to be wasted~~that does not help poor people~~
In sunshine and in shadow~~I hold tight to the Republican view of time and money~~I write night and day~~yet~~while impecunious~~I am vastly overpaid~~in that taking pay to do what I love is unfair~~to my employer~~in a fair system~~under such circumstances~~I should pay him~~not he me~~I am far, far too old a man to be sexually confused~~praise Jesus~~but I am yet young enough to be politically confused~~is anyone not~in an absolute sense~~I am a Catholic Royalist~~in a practical sense~~I am a Classical Liberal~~a Gaullist~~a Rockefeller Republican~~in either sense~~my head is soon for the chopping block~~to hasten my interlude with Madame La Guillotine~~
~~Κύριε ἐλέησον~~
Rejoice and Glad!!
Amen~~
EX LIBRIS
~~THEOS EK MĒCHANĒS~~
JOHN DANIEL BEGG
At
Washington, District of Columbia
United States
Thursday, 31st Octobre, Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, 2013
"Jean-Marie Le Pen is a friend. He is dangerous for the political set because he's the only one who's sincere. He says out loud what many people think deep down, and what the politicians refrain from saying because they are either too demagogic or too chicken. Le Pen, with all his faults and qualities, is probably the only one who thinks about the interests of France before his own."~~French actor~~Alain Delon
CONCEPT OF THE CATHOLIC AND ROYAL ARMY OF AMERICA (CRAA)
It is a singular propensity of the Americans to grow embarrassed as they age about their being rich~absolutely nowhere else on this earth~or at any other time in history has this strange phenomenon been observed–today Billy Gross of Pimco~earlier a sensible fella~ joins that long gray line of rich men~but takes things much further and dangerously so~as~rather than deciding~as is his want~what to do with his money~Billy wants to dictate how all men be robbed of theirs~by the government~oh great~that will sure help the poor man, Billy~stealing my money and sending it to be wasted at Washington~
Billy Gross of Pimco~~kindly listen~~have you grown old and soft in the head~explain to your audience precisely how raising taxes helps the poor class~if you want to help the poor~give them jobs or simply gold coins~don’t steal the money from the rich to send to Washington to be wasted~that does not help poor people~~
There is a discernible clinical ailment called Old American Rich Man’s Disease~and today we read that Billy Gross of Pimco has a tragically fatal bout of it~
Moreover–if Billy Gross and friends are really motivated to help the poor–why not give the poor man money hand to hand–from your pocket to his–the poor beggar needs the money–the government does not need the money–and if–as my aunts would argue–the poor bum on the street will just waste the money on cheap wine–so what–giving the money to the government is wasting it on nothing at all–at least the poor bum can get his head up for a bit on the wine–what do any American citizens get from sending money to the government–no high of any kind–just 100 percent waste–not even a taste–of cheap wine?
Published as~~1949 Poem – “Ode To The Welfare State”~~
Oh~mais oui~~OH~mais me~~bebe~~plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose~~
An epigram by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr in the January 1849 issue of his journal Les Guêpes (“The Wasps”). Literally “The more it changes, the more it’s the same thing.”
In sunshine and in shadow~~I hold tight to the Republican view of time and money~~I write night and day~~yet~~while impecunious~~I am vastly overpaid~~in that taking pay to do what I love is unfair~~to my employer~~in a fair system~~under such circumstances~~I should pay him~~not he me~~I am far, far too old a man to be sexually confused~~praise Jesus~~but I am yet young enough to be politically confused~~is anyone not~in an absolute sense~~I am a Catholic Royalist~~in a practical sense~~I am a Classical Liberal~~a Gaullist~~a Rockefeller Republican~~in either sense~~my head is soon for the chopping block~~to hasten my interlude with Madame La Guillotine~~
~~Κύριε ἐλέησον~~
Rejoice and Glad!!
Amen~~
EX LIBRIS
~~THEOS EK MĒCHANĒS~~
JOHN DANIEL BEGG
At
Washington, District of Columbia
United States
Wednesday, 30th Octobre, Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, 2013
"Jean-Marie Le Pen is a friend. He is dangerous for the political set because he's the only one who's sincere. He says out loud what many people think deep down, and what the politicians refrain from saying because they are either too demagogic or too chicken. Le Pen, with all his faults and qualities, is probably the only one who thinks about the interests of France before his own."~~French actor~~Alain Delon
CONCEPT OF THE CATHOLIC AND ROYAL ARMY OF AMERICA (CRAA)
Oh~~mais oui~~OH~mais me~~bebe~~plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose~~
An epigram by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr in the January 1849 issue of his journal Les Guêpes (“The Wasps”). Literally “The more it changes, the more it’s the same thing.”
In sunshine and in shadow~~I hold tight to the Republican view of time and money~~I write night and day~~yet~~while impecunious~~I am vastly overpaid~~in that taking pay to do what I love is unfair~~to my employer~~in a fair system~~under such circumstances~~I should pay him~~not he me~~I am far, far too old a man to be sexually confused~~praise Jesus~~but I am yet young enough to be politically confused~~is anyone not~in an absolute sense~~I am a Catholic Royalist~~in a practical sense~~I am a Classical Liberal~~a Gaullist~~a Rockefeller Republican~~in either sense~~my head is soon for the chopping block~~to hasten my interlude with Madame La Guillotine~~
~~Κύριε ἐλέησον~~
Rejoice and Glad!!
Amen~~
EX LIBRIS
~~THEOS EK MĒCHANĒS~~
JOHN DANIEL BEGG
At
Washington, District of Columbia
United States
Friday, 25th Octobre, Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, 2013
"Jean-Marie Le Pen is a friend. He is dangerous for the political set because he's the only one who's sincere. He says out loud what many people think deep down, and what the politicians refrain from saying because they are either too demagogic or too chicken. Le Pen, with all his faults and qualities, is probably the only one who thinks about the interests of France before his own."~~French actor~~Alain Delon
CONCEPT OF THE CATHOLIC AND ROYAL ARMY OF AMERICA (CRAA)
Of Great Falls, Virginia died on September 23, 2013 surrounded by his loving family and some of his closest friends.
Dr. Lauerman was born in New York City on December 27, 1954 and was the son of the late Sidney and Veronica Lauerman. He graduated from Ridgewood High School in Ridgewood, NJ in 1973, received a Bachelors of Science degree from The Johns Hopkins University in 1977 and received his medical degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1982, where he also completed his orthopaedic residency.
After completing a fellowship in spinal surgery at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Scoliosis Center, he served as a Major in the US Air Force based at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX.
He practiced at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center prior to returning to Georgetown University Hospital and School of Medicine where, for almost 20 years, he specialized in spinal surgery, most recently as the Chief of Spinal Surgery and Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery. He served as Chairman of the Admissions Committee of the Georgetown University School of Medicine prior to being named Dean of Admissions in July, 2012.
He is survived by his devoted and loving wife, Cynthia Tull Lauerman, and children, Kathleen Marie Lauerman and Kevin Crowley Lauerman, his sisters, Kathleen Lauerman Commins of Ridgewood, NJ and Colleen Marie Lauerman and her husband, Keith Chmiel, of Arlington, VA, his brother, Stephen D Lauerman of Tampa, FL, and nieces and nephews, Meghan Commins Blattner, Ryan Commins, Conor, Patrick and Kelly Chmiel, Cameron Maser, Kimberly Willis, Emily, Abigail, Seth and Ivy Anne Genshaw.
Arrangements by Joseph Gawler’s Sons, LLC Funeral Directors. A visitation is planned for Thursday, September 26, from 10 a.m. until Noon at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, 3513 N Street, NW, Washington, DC, immediately followed by a Memorial Mass at noon.
The family has requested that, in lieu of flowers, donations be sent in Dr. Lauerman’s memory to The Georgetown University School of Medicine, Office of Advancement, 3300 White Haven St NW, #4000, Washington, DC 20007.
In my remembering William Crowley Lauerman, MD~I look down the list of the men my contemporaries~and the list past History Herself~hold as great men~I remark more how often it is that the truly great men one encounters in one’s life are not on the list of the flamboyantly famous~but instead are noted and remembered by very few~friends, family, brothers in the fraternity of medicine, patients he helped so miraculously well~and I wonder how it could be that these men are not more highly heralded~
In sunshine and in shadow~~I hold tight to the Republican view of time and money~~I write night and day~~yet~~while impecunious~~I am vastly overpaid~~in that taking pay to do what I love is unfair~~to my employer~~in a fair system~~under such circumstances~~I should pay him~~not he me~~I am far, far too old a man to be sexually confused~~praise Jesus~~but I am yet young enough to be politically confused~~is anyone not~in an absolute sense~~I am a Catholic Royalist~~in a practical sense~~I am a Classical Liberal~~a Gaullist~~a Rockefeller Republican~~in either sense~~my head is soon for the chopping block~~to hasten my interlude with Madame La Guillotine~~
~~Κύριε ἐλέησον~~
Rejoice and Glad!!
Amen~~
EX LIBRIS
~~THEOS EK MĒCHANĒS~~
JOHN DANIEL BEGG
At
Washington, District of Columbia
United States
Thursday, 24th Octobre, Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, 2013
"Jean-Marie Le Pen is a friend. He is dangerous for the political set because he's the only one who's sincere. He says out loud what many people think deep down, and what the politicians refrain from saying because they are either too demagogic or too chicken. Le Pen, with all his faults and qualities, is probably the only one who thinks about the interests of France before his own."~~French actor~~Alain Delon
CONCEPT OF THE CATHOLIC AND ROYAL ARMY OF AMERICA (CRAA)
Scott Fitzgerald was a reasonably talented writer who managed being the quintessential American novelist and his work, The Great Gatsby, is the quintessential American novel. There is little not in the book that one need know of the Americans.
We ask~~why then, is Gatsby so critically panned~~times now seven times~~ by the librarian class? Librarians mutter that there “is nothing to this book~~beyond money and ostentatious display!”
But girls, girls~~that is what America is~~money, quickly, and sloppily acquired, and its ostentatious display~~that is America.
Despite what school marms might tell you~~the story of Gatsby is the story of the Americans~~a people insatiably thirsty for more money than they can count and an opulence that Kings would envy.
Willy Maugham, a writer more adroit than myself or even our thirsty Scotty, said of the Americans~~ “The Americans are so terribly successful principally because they know who they are~~something most people do not know~~the Americans are a people feverishly devoted to the twin lusts of~~~ big business and fornication~~and very, very little else.”
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Scott Fitzgerald was a reasonably talented writer who managed being the quintessential American novelist and his work, The Great Gatsby, is the quintessential American novel. There is little not in the book that one need know of the Americans.
We ask~~why then, is Gatsby so critically panned~~times now seven times~~ by the librarian class? Librarians mutter that there “is nothing to this book~~beyond money and ostentatious display!”
But girls, girls~~that is what America is~~money, quickly, and sloppily acquired, and its ostentatious display~~that is America.
Despite what school marms might tell you~~the story of Gatsby is the story of the Americans~~a people insatiably thirsty for more money than they can count and an opulence that Kings would envy.
Willy Maugham, a writer more adroit than myself or even our thirsty Scotty, said of the Americans~~ “The Americans are so terribly successful principally because they know who they are~~something most people do not know~~the Americans are a people feverishly devoted to the twin lusts of~~~ big business and fornication~~and very, very little else.”
In sunshine and in shadow~~I hold tight to the Republican view of time and money~~I write night and day~~yet~~while impecunious~~I am vastly overpaid~~in that taking pay to do what I love is unfair~~to my employer~~in a fair system~~under such circumstances~~I should pay him~~not he me~~I am far, far too old a man to be sexually confused~~praise Jesus~~but I am yet young enough to be politically confused~~is anyone not~in an absolute sense~~I am a Catholic Royalist~~in a practical sense~~I am a Classical Liberal~~a Gaullist~~a Rockefeller Republican~~in either sense~~my head is soon for the chopping block~~to hasten my interlude with Madame La Guillotine~~
~~Κύριε ἐλέησον~~
Rejoice and Glad!!
Amen~~
EX LIBRIS
~~THEOS EK MĒCHANĒS~~
JOHN DANIEL BEGG
At
Washington, District of Columbia
United States
Wednesday, 23rd Octobre, Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, 2013
"Jean-Marie Le Pen is a friend. He is dangerous for the political set because he's the only one who's sincere. He says out loud what many people think deep down, and what the politicians refrain from saying because they are either too demagogic or too chicken. Le Pen, with all his faults and qualities, is probably the only one who thinks about the interests of France before his own."~~French actor~~Alain Delon
CONCEPT OF THE CATHOLIC AND ROYAL ARMY OF AMERICA (CRAA)
I discovered very, very early in life that the most precious thing in the world and the most nauseating thing in the world is~the same thing~champagne~simultaneously, I discovered that~good champagne and piles of money and stupendous girls is all anyone needs to know of the wants, needs and desires of the Americans~there really isn’t much more complicated about them~so why all the fuss~one hears today at Washington~my dears~
In sunshine and in shadow~~I hold tight to the Republican view of time and money~~I write night and day~~yet~~while impecunious~~I am vastly overpaid~~in that taking pay to do what I love is unfair~~to my employer~~in a fair system~~under such circumstances~~I should pay him~~not he me~~I am far, far too old a man to be sexually confused~~praise Jesus~~but I am yet young enough to be politically confused~~is anyone not~in an absolute sense~~I am a Catholic Royalist~~in a practical sense~~I am a Classical Liberal~~a Gaullist~~a Rockefeller Republican~~in either sense~~my head is soon for the chopping block~~to hasten my interlude with Madame La Guillotine~~
~~Κύριε ἐλέησον~~
Rejoice and Glad!!
Amen~~
EX LIBRIS
~~THEOS EK MĒCHANĒS~~
JOHN DANIEL BEGG
At
Washington, District of Columbia
United States
Wednesday, 23rd Octobre, Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, 2013
"Jean-Marie Le Pen is a friend. He is dangerous for the political set because he's the only one who's sincere. He says out loud what many people think deep down, and what the politicians refrain from saying because they are either too demagogic or too chicken. Le Pen, with all his faults and qualities, is probably the only one who thinks about the interests of France before his own."~~French actor~~Alain Delon
CONCEPT OF THE CATHOLIC AND ROYAL ARMY OF AMERICA (CRAA)
When the enemy occupation of our nation ends~~and it will end~~Then~~Let the dark cloud that today hangs above us lift~~Then~~Let’s do this again, America~~only this time~~far, far deeper cuts and~~permanent ones~~we’ve only 3 years to be brave, hang on, work hard and elect the right men~~and keep in touch with God and His Better Angels all the while~~
In sunshine and in shadow~~I hold tight to the Republican view of time and money~~I write night and day~~yet~~while impecunious~~I am vastly overpaid~~in that taking pay to do what I love is unfair~~to my employer~~in a fair system~~under such circumstances~~I should pay him~~not he me~~I am far, far too old a man to be sexually confused~~praise Jesus~~but I am yet young enough to be politically confused~~is anyone not~in an absolute sense~~I am a Catholic Royalist~~in a practical sense~~I am a Classical Liberal~~a Gaullist~~a Rockefeller Republican~~in either sense~~my head is soon for the chopping block~~to hasten my interlude with Madame La Guillotine~~
~~Κύριε ἐλέησον~~
Rejoice and Glad!!
Amen~~
EX LIBRIS
~~THEOS EK MĒCHANĒS~~
JOHN DANIEL BEGG
At
Washington, District of Columbia
United States
Wednesday, 23rd Octobre, Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, 2013
"Jean-Marie Le Pen is a friend. He is dangerous for the political set because he's the only one who's sincere. He says out loud what many people think deep down, and what the politicians refrain from saying because they are either too demagogic or too chicken. Le Pen, with all his faults and qualities, is probably the only one who thinks about the interests of France before his own."~~French actor~~Alain Delon
CONCEPT OF THE CATHOLIC AND ROYAL ARMY OF AMERICA (CRAA)
Seal of The Catholic University of America
JOHN DANIEL BEGG 