"I'm the biggest sucker who ever walked the face of the Earth."-- Eric Roth, screenwriter, on losing all his retirement money (along with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg) in Bernard Madoff's $50-billion Ponzi scheme, in The Los Angeles Times.
Hey, NewAgers, see that quote? That's what you should've been saying a looonnngg time ago. And if you haven't yet, you will:
Trust me. (LOL)
UPDATE: I've got to add that, just like my Aunt Alice, I've been consistently telling you guys you're stupid. But you don't believe it. Meanwhile, everywhere you look, things are falling apart - and it sure ain't guys like me in charge.
My foster mother, Johnnie Mae Hubert (who I've quoted before - "The Devil talks pretty" - regarding following gurus) used to say "a hard head makes a soft behind" and, I'm telling you, the Baby Boomers (and the kids they raised) have the unfortunate luck to be, both, the largest generation - with the hardest damn heads - ever seen in the history of the entire world. It's long past time for them to grow up, and - if they don't want to completely destroy where they live - "grow up" means getting out of the way and letting the truly knowledgeable people you can trust, who actually know what they're doing, do what needs to be done. Just get out of the way. Sit down. Shut up. Practice being humble - as you Buddhist types are always arrogantly admonishing others to do.
I know, I know - you have no idea who those "truly knowledgeable people you can trust" are, right? Here's a hint:
They're the ones who have been telling you you're stupid.
Baby Boomers – the self absorbed, whining, entitled swarm of voracious termites eating their way through society disguised as hippies, yuppies, progressives, “open-minded” NewAgers and Save the Planet specialists. The masters of appearing concerned and committed, yet unable to control their own debauchery, greed, avarice and gullibility.
ReplyDeleteAnd in the greatest and laziest feat of all, as this pig passes through the snake as an indigestible bulge, is the devised way to repackage their own short-comings as a virtue and sell it into the pop-culture. No fuss, no muss, no effort that wasn’t fun.
But in a recess of the inward focused, infantile mind, a tiny bit of guilt sneaks through. It’s not strong enough to be corrective, so it’s hijacked into feel good, arrogant and grandiose ideas - “I know, let’s save the planet”, amongst others.
We may now consider ourselves Globally Warmed
Madoff's real victims were not "new agers" but the various Jewish charities and donors (e.g., Roth, Spelberg, etc) who were disproportionately invested in his funds.
ReplyDeleteYeshiva college for example lost an estimated $100 million - that's crippling.
On a more optimistic note, the SEC has not been very well regulated these past 8 years so hopefully this latest outrage will see a return to some kind of real oversight.
So the people who 'really know what they're doing' were the generation before the Baby Boomers? The ones who told you to 'duck and cover' if the Bomb was dropped, who made all those films about how marijuana would turn you into a sex-crazed killer, the ones who had half of Hollywood blacklisted for being Reds. We may never know such wisdom again.
ReplyDeleteBerko,
ReplyDeleteI take it you have a better idea for surviving the bomb?
Haven't heard of killers and rapists who are high?
And from all the evidence (including the current look of things) they had Hollywood nailed.
I told you before: you're too ungrateful (immature?) to appreciate what's truly good.
Wow. The worst reply you've ever given to one of my comments and you round it out by calling me immature. A truly WTF moment.
ReplyDelete1. The radiation would kill you instantaneously. Just ask the denizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki how much good ducking under your desk and covering your head does when an atom bomb is dropped.
2. Man, I wasn't talking about ice or PCP angel dust (which weren't around then). If your handle was the Teetotal Emcee, I'd give you a pass but that's just silly. Stoners sit around and watch Reefer Madness and laugh their asses off. It's stupid. Really really stupid.
If I was planning a crime (we're being very hypothetical here!) then the very last thing I would do is get stoned beforehand. Your fuckup quotient goes up significantly, it makes you either paranoid or mellow - neither state conducive for committing a murder or a sex crime. I'm mentioning all this not for your sake - cos you know damn well that what you've said is bullshit - but for the innocent reader whose never smoked pot and has the kind of skewed perceptions that no drug user should ever foster.
Why do crims claim they were high when they committed their crime? Plea mitigation. I was in an altered state, I "couldn't help it", I "didn't know what I was doing" Pure bullshit. I'm not giving these scum a free pass at the expense of harmless potheads and neither should you.
Furthermore, we're talking about causation here. If a literal handful of people, happen to have toked on something when they committed their crime, that's a long long way from stating that toking that something will lead you to commit those crimes. It would make as much sense to claim it was the Budweiser he was drinking, the cigarettes he was smoking, the over strong coffee he'd bought at Starbucks earlier on. Logic 101.
3. That's right. Because Oliver Stone is a wet liberal he should have his career ruined and be hauled in front of the Inquisitor to rat on his pussy friends. Pass.
The last time I looked, having a better argument didn't constitute being either 'ungrateful' or 'immature'. But I guess when you've been caught spouting crap, baseless insults are a last resort.
Damn it, Berko, you make me so tired:
ReplyDeleteI'll ask again: you got a better answer for the bomb, genius?
And I've not only done drugs but been around more than my share of drug users - most of which ain't the sharpest knives in the drawer - and many of whom ARE dumb enough to let drugs talk them into things. To contend that drugs don't have an effect on the mind is to ignore why people do drugs. And, once high, some people can't tell the difference between their thoughts and reality - and act on one to the detriment to the other. In your case, they've made you ungrateful and immature, which ain't the worst thing in the world but there you are.
And, last but not least, mark my words:
Joe McCarthy not only was right but will rise from his grave.
Berko Wills
ReplyDeleteThe destruction caused by an atomic blast is largely the same as a conventional explosion. The blast, and heat.
The bombs dropped on Japan produced total destruction at 1 mile, severe damage at 1.25 miles, and moderate to light damage from 2.5 to 4 miles from "ground zero".
Getting under our desks was prudent for the majority.
Reefer Madness was a product of it's time. And anyway, it's no more stupid than than actually seeing stoners just sitting around. A film depicting open heart surgery from the same year would probably seem funny today. Especially if the surgeon was stoned.
I would think most crimes by people under the influence were not planned but impulsive. And yes, paranoia can easily trigger a murderous impulse.
Toking something may not lead to crime for the hell of it, but many crimes have been committed for money to get the next toke.
Oliver Stone, with or without his money and career, is a pimp for paranoia and stupidity.
Your claim for having a better argument needs a plea mitigation. You were in an altered state and couldn't help it.
Crack, it's kind of mutual. Having to go to exhaustive lengths to establish how and why I'm not a NewAger, only to have you forget again the next time, can get pretty old.
ReplyDeleteWhy are you talking about drugs? Nobody who actually uses, talks about 'drugs' because it's like talking about 'beverages' or 'food'. They all have different potencies, they all have different positive and deleterious effects. And one man's meat is another man's poison.
The two best and wisest things I've ever heard against 'drugs' is the aforementioned "Don't take the brown acid man" (a specific warning) and this from Bill Cosby (paraphrasing):
I had somebody say to me the other day "Cocaine in-ten-si-fies your personality" and I replied "Yes, but what if you're an asshole"
I loved that. Drugs can only do with the brain they've got to work with. Should us creative geniuses suffer because there are schizophenics and psychopaths in the world? yeah, but only if you also ban everything else that is going to set them off. Let's all retreat to caves and subsist on roots and berries then, shall we.
What would I recommend re education on the Bomb? Well I'm not the one sending people into the jungle armed with a flyswatter but I guess I'd promote fallout shelters, lead lining, the effect of contamination on the water supply, genetic defects for the children's children of those subjected to the highest radiation readings.
There's a perfectly good substitute for McCarthyism. It's called rational debate.
I can think of a dozen good reasons to pin certain conservatives to the dartboard for their crooked self-centered abuses but I don't think that ultimately helps. Someone somewhere has to be the first to recognise their brain and their mouth are there for more than just performing basic functions.
Ungrateful and immature? No, I'm very grateful for the good things - and the good people - in my life. It doesn't mean I accept everything they believe as that would be an insult to both of us. I spend a long time coming to terms with an issue and I make my decision on that basis. That makes me more mature than most people I know. The majority accept one orthodoxy or another, replacing one with the other but never really going it alone.
I'm doing pretty well by any objective standard.
JRN, I'll get to you next time.
JRN, your final paragraph is witty riposte. Untrue but amusing.
ReplyDeleteBoth 'duck and cover' and 'reefer madness' were products of their time. But it's difficult to discern what was innocence/ignorance and what was deliberate obfuscation. It's also hard to then say "if it hadn't been for the Baby Boomers - and all the drippy hippy yippy variants - we would have had that good ol' conservatism but just been better informed".
I think that, given that both drug education and bomb education were being driven by conservative forces, there is no guarantee as to how much better informed we would be as a general populace without those countervailing forces.
I have no problem with criticism of the more loony liberal thought but it always seems to me that conservatives are all too ready to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
The most unflinchingly accurate assessment on both - to the tune of reams of documentation - is on the left.
Talking about maturity, the most unsophisticated and infantile approach to any issue is on 'drugs'. No contest.
Politicians of all stripes will be relied on to play to the (ignorant) crowd, rather than making an honest assessement and legislating accordingly. It's entrenched bad faith and I don't expect that to change in the near future.
But I've no quarrel with straight edgers. They walk the talk. It's the alcohol drinking, cigarette smoking hypocrites that get me enraged. Just because booze makes you stupid and violent instead of introspective, and both have fatality and addiction rates that put most narcotics to shame, is no reason to privelege them. Quite the reverse.
I would think most crimes by people under the influence were not planned but impulsive. And yes, paranoia can easily trigger a murderous impulse.
Not only would you not rape someone if you were really stoned, it's doubtful you'd look them in the eye! The paranoia isn't of the speed/amphetamine variety that gets you all jumped up and punching walls. It's the 'I don't want any trouble man' kind of paranoia. Keep your head low and scuttle off back to your apartment. It's not a great social tool, you're right. But it's not dangerous either.
Toking something may not lead to crime for the hell of it, but many crimes have been committed for money to get the next toke.
You're thinking of heroin. And it's not toked (usually) it's injected. It's an addictive substance like tobacco and (in large quantities, or with the 'wrong genes') alcohol.
Because of its contraband nature, it's hard to get hold of, and expensive. Hence criminal junkies.
Which is not advocating that it be available. Just establishing a significant difference.
And, yes, there's been plenty of smalltime assaults committed over a pack of cigarettes.
Finally (CMC), on that 'ungrateful and immature' jibe. I had to pull myself up by my own bootstraps. I wasn't born into some political or corporate dynasty. But neither do I harbour a resentment. I love people who become rich by their own efforts and use that money for worthwhile purpose. Just because we disagree philosophically, is no reason to get me all wrong.
For me, rejecting the conservatism of my childhood was an act of maturity. Perhaps we've just travelled in opposite directions.
"Not only would you not rape someone if you were really stoned, it's doubtful you'd look them in the eye! The paranoia isn't of the speed/amphetamine variety that gets you all jumped up and punching walls. It's the 'I don't want any trouble man' kind of paranoia. Keep your head low and scuttle off back to your apartment. It's not a great social tool, you're right. But it's not dangerous either"
ReplyDeleteI'm calling bullshit here - and I'm not anti-drug - but I've been in a room with a group of men, with one (beautiful, sleeping) woman, and - doing nothing stronger than pot - they decided to pull a train on her.
I stopped it, but I also never forgot it.
So what exactly is “bomb Education”? Do you really want to debate the value of children taking cover from flying glass, ceiling tiles and lights? Are you also going to politicize not stepping out in front of a speeding bus?
ReplyDeleteAnd if you would like to add to your reams of documentation, the bomb was a product of the left.
Actually, you may be right. Bomb and drug education may have been driven by conservative forces, while the bomb and drugs themselves were driven by liberal forces.
So it would seem to me the liberals are all too willing to drown the baby in the bathwater.
I don’t really care if someone drinks or does drugs, but I do think most are better off without it, as they are with the bomb. But if you have to drink or do drugs, stay home. When faced with the bomb, get under your desk.
For bomb education, see above. Look, I'd have no problem with education that minimises harm but if it leaves out vital information - like the fact that the Bomb will do considerably more than hit you with shards of glass - then I find that very suspect.
ReplyDeleteRemember, I didn't launch an attack on our conservative forebears, rather I was pointing out the fact that a one-sided attack on the Baby Boomers for downgrading the debate falls far short of the truth.
And, yes, I was aware that, in the US, it was a Democrat who was responsible for the first hostile use of nuclear weaponry.
I guess that shows how many shades of left (and right) there are, and how pointless it is pigeonholing a whole group of people according to which side of the fence they line up on.
I'm nominally of the left but find myself in complete agreement with far right groups who are vehemently opposed to foreign ownership. Go figure.
"yes, I was aware that, in the US, it was a Democrat who was responsible for the first hostile use of nuclear weaponry.
ReplyDeleteI guess that shows how many shades of left (and right) there are, and how pointless it is pigeonholing a whole group of people according to which side of the fence they line up on."
Bullshit - it shows how far the Democrats have moved from being a responsible party with an interest in protecting what's right.