Electoral Messiah Complexes

Self-Delusion Enacted

Sometimes I wonder why I continue to watch some television programs; one such program is Law & Order: SVU.  Tonight I was reminded why I still do.  Ellen Burstyn made a guest performance, as Elliot Stabler's bipolar mother, that was a perfect portrayal of a person in complete denial and self-delusion.

I encounter people constantly who are suffering from real-life versions of that complete self-delusion.  Worst of all is when the delusions pervert people's ethics and become a justification for all sorts of ethical trespass, both major and minor.  I wish I could force those people to sit down and watch Burstyn's performance; hopefully holding that mirror up to their own behavior would help them finally divorce themselves from it.  It's my conclusion that the human race will not be able to progress or evolve further until it can leave such bizarre and irrational neurology behind.  I'm accused of being "disordered" myself, and it's true that I seem incapable of making a success of myself in this particular screwed-up illogical world; nevertheless I often feel like the only sane person standing, like Burgess Meredith in an old Twilight Zone episode. They call me crazy merely because I'm too damned sane to fit into the insane world in which I have been unwillingly thrust.

I'm just a Vulcan tourist who desperately needs to find that return ticket home that was taken from me.

Compact Audio Discs All Over Again

Some geniuses as Boston University are experimenting with technologies that would allow creation of a localized but ubiquitous digital network using strobed LED lighting, rather than wireless RF broadcasting.

If this actually becomes a reality, there will be something akin to the Compact Digital Audio disc backlash all over again. It will be spearheaded not by audiophiles but by photophiles, who will insist that persistence of vision is a myth and that any strobing effect, even measured in millionths or billionths of a second, is dangerous and will cause mental illness or cancer!

The Truth About Recessions

I suspect that there aren't many people who truly understand a so-called "recession", its dynamics and what causes one.  It's really very simple, much more so than any economist would have us believe:

A recession is nothing more than a decline in the ability of the wealthiest minority to further concentrate wealth and resources at a rate to which they are accustomed.

Why does that matter to common folk?  Why should we care?  There's only one reason:

Far too many people are employed by the weathy minority, rather than working independently for themselves, and are the means by which the wealthy minority concentrates its wealth.

The truth is that wealthy people wouldn't be wealthy at all without the willing cooperation of thousands or millions of people to be disadvantaged by them.  A "recession" actually describes a victory by the working class, a successful effort - however un-conspiratorial - to put a crimp in the plans of their economic oppressors.  That should be a Good Thing, shouldn't it?  The only reason it's not is because the working class has placed itself - willingly - in a position of dependency upon, and subservience to, this wealthy minority; thus when a crimp is put in their plans, they promptly return the favor by causing that crimp to trickle down through the ranks of the working class, through lower wages, layoffs, and other tactics.

The current "Wall Street Bailout" legislation, and by extension the earlier "economic stimulus package" and the tax rebates that most Americans received earlier this year, is nothing more than our alleged government-of-the-people helping this minority retain its economic advantage.