Basics...

Today we want to improve the legibility of the posts.

Yesterday the fonts were too small and there were no paragraph separations for reading comfort. Let's see what we can do here!

June 2014: "We the Living" Speaks Compellingly and Prophetically

VERBALIZE the Core Contradiction in Collectivist Thinking I first read this close to 50 years ago. I was too young, naive, and ignorant to appreciate it as I do now. This 'stirring to the bone' fictional depiction of 30's Soviet Russia rings dead true to what we see, hear, and feel around us today... Ever longed for the words and situation that would expose the fatal contradiction in the infatuation with Statist Morality? Ayn Rand set it up in her novel, "We the Living", which is of interest today not only for its historical context of individualism vs. collectivism, but also it's insight into the nature of the system for State Medicine which eventuates from nationalizing the medical industry in the very fashion "Obamacare" proffers... The following is a reprint of a reprint. Originally from Ayn Rand's 1936 novel, "We the Living", this segment was reprinted in Rand's book, "For the New Intellectual", published 1959. ---jg--- ---This novel was published in 1936 and reissued in 1959. Its theme is: the individual versus the state; the supreme value of a human life and the evil of a totalitarian state that claims the right to sacrifice it. The story takes place in (1930's) Soviet Russia. The excerpt is from a speech of Kira Argounova to Andrei Taganov, in the following context: "Kira had been having a love affair with Andrei to obtain money to save the life of Leo Kovalensky(ed. note, he was dying of tuberculosis) the man she loves; Andrei, an idealistic young Communist, who is profoundly in love with her, was beginning to discover the importance of personal values, when, in the course of arresting Leo for a political crime, he learns the truth about Kira's relationship to both of them.--- "No, you didn't know. But it was very simple. And not very unusual. Go through the garrets and basements where men live in your Red cities and see how many cases like this you can find. He wanted to live. You think everything that breathes can live? You've learned differently, I know. But he was one who could have lived. There aren't many of them, so they don't count with you. The doctor said he was going to die. And I loved him. You've learned what that means too, haven't you? He didn't need much. Only rest, and fresh air, and food. He had no right to that, had he? Your State said so. We tried to beg. We begged humbly. Do you know what they said? There was a doctor in a hospital and he said he had hundreds on his waiting list... "You see, you must understand this thoroughly. No one does. No one sees it, but I do, I can't help it, I see it, you must see it, too. You understand? Hundreds, Thousands. Millions of what? Stomachs, and heads, and legs, and tongues, and souls. And it doesn't even matter if they fit together. Just millions. Just flesh. Human flesh. And they---it---had been registered and numbered, you know, like tin cases on a store shelf. I wonder if they're registered by the person or by the pound? And they had a chance to go on living. But not Leo. He was only a man. All stones are cobblestones to you. And diamonds---they're useless, because they sparkle too brightly in the sun, and it's too hard on the eyes, and it's too hard under the hoofs marching into the proletarian future. You don't pave roads with diamonds. They may have other uses in the world, but of those you've never learned. That is why you had him sentenced to death, and others like him, an execution without a firing squad. There was a big commissar and I went to see him. He told me that a hundred thousand workers had died in the civil war and why couldn't one aristocrat die---in the face of the Union of soviet Socialist Republics? And what is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the face of one man? But that is a question for you not to answer. I'm grateful to that commissar. He gave me permission to do what I have done. I don't hate him. You should hate him. What I'm doing to you---he did it first!... "That's the question, you know, don't you? Why can't one aristocrat die in the face of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics? You don't understand that, do you? You and your commissar, and a million others like you, like him, that's what you brought to the world, that question and your answer to it! A great gift, isn't it? But one of you has been paid. I paid it. In you and to you. For all the sorrow your comrades brought to a living world. How do you like it, Comrade Andrei Taganov of the All-Union Communist Party? If you taught us that our life is nothing before that of the State---well then, are you really suffering? If I brought you to the last hell of despair---well then, why don't you say that one's life doesn't really matter?...You loved a woman and she threw your love in your face? But the proletarian mines in the Don Basin have produced a hundred tons of coal last month! You had two altars and you saw suddenly that a harlot stood on one of them and Citizen Morozov on the other? But the Proletarian State has exported ten thousand bushels of wheat last month! You had every beam knocked from under your life? But the Proletarian Republic is building a new electric plant on the Volga! Why don't you smile and sing hymns to the Collective? It's still there, your Collective. Go and join it. Did anything really happen to you? It's nothing but a personal problem of a private life, the kind that only the dead old world could worry about, isn't it? Don't you have something greater---greater is the words your comrades use---left to live for? Or do you comrade Taganov? ... "Now look at me! Take a good look! I was born and I knew I was alive and I knew what I wanted. What do you think is alive in me? Why do you think I'm alive? Because I have a stomach and eat and digest food? Because I breathe and work and produce more food to digest? Or because I know what I want, and that something which knows how to want---isn't that life itself? And who---in this damned universe---who can tell me why I should live for anything but that which I want? Who can answer that in human sounds that speak for human reason?...But you've tried to tell us what we should want. You came as a solemn army to bring a new life to men. You tore that life that you knew nothing about, out of their guts---and you told them what it had to be. You took their every hour, every minute, every nerve, every thought in the farthest corners of their souls---and you told them what it had to be. You came and you forbade life to the living. You've driven us all into an iron cellar and you've closed all doors, and you've locked us airtight, airtight till the blood vessels of our spirits burst! Then you stare and wonder what it's doing to us. Well then, look! All of you who have eyes left---look!"

Up Against the Wall, COKE

Am forwarding recent correspondence between myself and the Coca-Cola PR Department regarding their new "Polar Bear" conservation cans. I'm a little over the top here, but am compensating, or trying to, for the many times I've said nothing...

Hope you approve...

Jack

Subject: Good-bye to COKE


Dear Coke Zombies,

Shame, shame, shame on you for defiling the great American tradition
embodied by Coke. Like most every other third generation management team,
you're denigrating the spirit of your ancestry for 'easy' PC prestige that
is at best ephemeral, at worst evil. I, for one, will not help prolong
your picking the carcass of Americana by buying your product in the white
cans that fund enviro-fascist causes.. Take your support of hoax's,
sanctimonious losers and frighteners of children elsewhere. Enjoy your
temporary captaincy over the once-proud vessel that was Coca Cola. Like
most spiritual and material parasites, your reach will exceed your grasp
and you will perish in a sea of honest competition aboard the corpse of
your once proud host. Other than that, have a nice day. It's the real
thing...

Jack Greene
Cape Elizabeth, Maine

----- Original Message -----
From: Coca-Cola Support
To: jgreene2@maine.rr.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 3:25 PM
Subject: RE: Good-bye to COKE


Dear Jack,

Thank you for contacting The Coca-Cola Company regarding Arctic Home. We appreciate the opportunity to assist you.

The focus of this campaign is on the habitat of the polar bear, and how we can protect these bears in a moment when their habitat is significantly degrading, regardless of the reasons. This program is about protecting the home of the polar bear. Look, we recognize the impact climate change is having on the Arctic, but this program does not specifically address climate change. Instead, we have designed it as a way to raise awareness and funds to help the polar bear. We believe we can use our reach and marketing expertise to bring the issue of Arctic conservation to the forefront of consumers’ minds. So, that’s what we’re doing. “Arctic Home” is about supporting new conservation efforts that will help polar bears in the Arctic. This includes funding research, supporting education and partnering with local communities. The polar bear has been part of Coca-Cola advertising for decades and our support for WWF dates back more than four years. This program takes both commitments to a new level.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact us again.

Sincerely,

Joshua




----- Original Message -----
From: Jack Greene
To: Coca-Cola Support
Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 5:23 PM
Subject: Re: Good-bye to COKE


Dear Joshua,

Thanks for your prompt, if boilerplate and inappropriate, response. I truly feel for you. I think you believe the climate hoax drivel and are totally non-cognizant of the incredible damage this fraud has wrought on the human community. Besides, you are engaged in trying to earn an 'honest' living, which is to your credit in a culture of mythological entitlement.

I believe that one day a fundamentally earnest person like yourself will truly regret the error of your complicity in this worldwide fraud. When that day comes, as it will, give yourself a little slack. You're merely one of millions of victims/inadvertent perpetrators. Take solace in knowing you will have the rest of your life to rectify in small ways the wrongs you had steadfastly upheld. That will be your blessing and the cross you will bear.

Sincerely,

Jack Greene,
Cape Elizabeth, Maine




Original Text From: jgreene2@maine.rr.com
To: coca-cola.support@p67ix100.na.ko.co
CC:
Sent: 11/01/11 15:00:15

A Letter to an Ol' School-Mate

Front Porchers---you may enjoy this email sent to an ol' school mate of 45 years ago. I enjoyed writing it...

--------------

Norris---Thanks for getting me off my butt to write this! If by "Americanism" you mean your high school alma mater taught you how you were property of the State, then I agree.

As you recall, it was my high school too. But if your definition of "Americanism" involves liberty, private property and self-reliance, well, unless you solely attended Del Driver's history class, I'll wager you were never asked to read the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, The Wealth of Nations, The Road to Serfdom, Economics in One Lesson, The Federalist Papers as a school assignment.

For sure, we weren't asked to understand them.

You never heard God and Man at Yale mentioned, Atlas Shrugged, Henry Hazlitt, Ludwig von Mises, Lysander Spooner. But you did hear about Karl Marx, if guardedly. Castro was a a hero. We were told "Communism" was ideal in a perfect world, but human greed had prohibited it from fully flourishing. If you said the pledge of allegiance in high school, they didn't teach the meaning of the words. You never heard the term "free markets", and were never taught the meaning of individual rights---all of which made America what it was. We were all either learning lies about America's past, or nothing at all.

It's no reflection on you, other than perhaps a kodachromed memory. Progressivism was burrowing its way into America's fabric back then. and before. It's merely more in your face now.

I was in the class behind you---maybe things all changed in one year. But you'd be surprised at the group of counselors, coaches, teachers and students in our class and yours that literally put our money where our mouth was to try to get the message to our poor parents, "The Greatest Generation," about what was happening to our school system. At least one is a another friend of yours on FB whom you dated, another was your coach and mentor. And I can tell you had no idea what transpired and culminated on June 7, 1967. (Yes, that's an invitation to inquire under separate cover).

Speaking of American history, you probably do recall "Join or die." If we don't stop bickering amongst ourselves, whether we call ourselves libertarians, conservatives, free market advocates, 'Americans,'we will be consumed by a united, focused alliance of tyranny: socialists, race-baiters, communists, progressives, jihadists, fascists, parasites of all descriptions, all of whom despise us and our freedom more than they value their own lives. With the world literally on the brink, the time for hair-splitting, handwringing about the nuances between ourselves has past, don't you agree? Now if we can find out what Bren's been sniffing and take it away from her, she can go back to doing the work of any 10 of us mortal activists... :)

The College 'Education' Scam

This issue infuriates me. It's a double-barrelled whammy of colossal proportions. (1) ALL citizens are compelled to support, by various subsidies, taxes, etc. unconconscionably priced 'education' in the US (2) the 'education' is really indoctrintation, turning the impressionable clients ('students') into willing accomplices in the destruction of American civilation. We ignore this at our peril.

-----------------------


America's College Bubble Next to Burst

The National Inflation Association (NIA) is pleased to officially announce that it will soon be releasing its hour long documentary 'College Conspiracy', which will expose the U.S. college education system as the largest scam in U.S. history. NIA has been producing 'College Conspiracy' for the past six months and plans to release the movie on May 15th. NIA members will be given the first opportunity to watch this must see documentary, which we hope will change the college education industry for the better.

NIA expects 'College Conspiracy' to take college education by storm and expose the facts and truth about tuition inflation to prospective college students. Almost everybody applying to college has heard the oft-repeated statistic that Americans with college degrees earn $1 million more in lifetime income than high school graduates without a degree. This is one of those statistics that gets repeated so many times that just about everybody accepts it as fact, but nobody actually does the research to confirm whether or not it is true. 'College Conspiracy' will prove once and for all if indeed this so-called statistic is true or just a myth.

If 70.1% of high school graduates enroll in a college or university, how does a college degree give you an advantage over the rest of the population? Back in the early 1960s, Americans didn't need to go to college. We were a creditor nation with a strong manufacturing base. With an unemployment rate of only 5%, jobs were available to almost everybody. Less than 50% of American high school graduates enrolled into college. For those who did attend college and graduate with a degree, it was actually something special that made you stand out from the rest of the field, because not everybody had one.

American college tuition inflation has been out of control for the past decade. During the financial crisis of late-2008/early-2009, almost all goods and services in America at least temporarily declined in price. The only service in America that continued to rise in price throughout the financial crisis, besides health care, was college education. Despite real unemployment in America reaching 22%, students were brainwashed into believing that if they were lucky enough to be blessed with the privilege to get half a million dollars into debt to obtain a college degree, they will be on a path to riches and have a guaranteed successful career; whereas those who don't attend college are destined to be failures in life.

The current college education bubble is one of the largest bubbles in U.S. history. The college bubble has been fueled by the U.S. government's willingness to give out cheap and easy student loans to anybody who applied for them, regardless of if they will ever have the ability to pay the loans back. Student loan debt in America is now larger than credit card debt, but unlike credit card debt, student loan debt can't be discharged in bankruptcy.

During the 1970s, college students were able to afford their own college tuition without getting into any debt, simply by working a part-time job year round or by working a full-time job during the summer. Not only that, but most college students were also able to afford their own car and a small apartment. However, since 1970, Americans have experienced a 50% decline in their standard of living due to the Federal Reserve's dangerous and destructive monetary policies. You never heard of parents setting up college savings accounts for their children 40 years ago, but thanks to the Federal Reserve, this has become the norm.

The biggest competitive threat to Wal-Mart today in terms of market cap ($192 billion) is not Target ($35 billion) like you might think, but is actually Amazon.com ($89 billion). Wal-Mart is able to offer the lowest prices out of all brick and mortar retailers, because of the size and scope of the company, which allows them to be profitable even at extremely low gross margins. However, while Wal-Mart's stock price is only up 16% from where it was exactly 5 years ago, Amazon.com's stock price is up 470% during this same time period.

Amazon.com's stock price has risen by a 29 times higher percentage than Wal-Mart due to the fact that they sell their products over the Internet with substantially less overhead costs. NIA believes that the future of college education is over the Internet and that Americans in the future will be able to receive a better quality education from the best professors from all around the world at only a fraction of the cost of a traditional brick and mortar college education.

For the vast majority of college courses, there is absolutely nothing that students can learn in a huge multi-million dollar lecture hall with hundreds of other students that they can't learn at home listening to that same professor on a computer. The only reason online colleges haven't taken off yet in America and still have less than a 1% market share of U.S. higher education is because America has a college-industrial complex that cares only about profits and not educating students. The people who control the system simply don't want the system to change, because they are making way too much money by turning American students into indentured servants.

Back in the 1980s when Americans graduated high school, they would get hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt to buy a house. Today, millions of Americans have mortgage-sized debts, but still live with their parents. All they have is a piece of paper called a college degree, that is rapidly declining in value even faster than tuitions are skyrocketing in price.

'College Conspiracy' was made possible by the personal stories that were submitted to us by thousands of NIA members. NIA's staff spent the past six months traveling across the country, interviewing our country's top expert guests in nine different states. Please tell all of you family members and friends to become members of NIA for free immediately at http://inflation.us so that they along with you can be among the first to see 'College Conspiracy'.

"The Dog Returns to His Vomit..."

Welcome to Spring on The Front Porch! Many of us find ourselves asking "Why?" when we observe, dumb-struck, the incredible suicidal tendencies of the human race. A hundred or so years ago, Rudyard Kipling viewed the very same insanity we think is new today. Here was his answer. I'm not sayin' we're so pre-ordained to implode, but it is more than a little thought provoking; besides being a an eloquent, haunting piece of poetry...



Rudyard Kipling: THE GODS OF THE COPYBOOK HEADINGS

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,

I Make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn

That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:

But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,

So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,

Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place.

But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come

That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch

They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch

They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.

So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.

They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.

But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,

And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life

(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)

Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,

And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true

That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four –

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

* * * * *

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man –

There are only four things certain since Social Progress began –

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,

And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire –

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

----

Re-printed in part in THE OVERTON WINDOW by Glenn Beck.

Catch-22

Reprinted from Sunday, October 31, 2010
Catch-22
Welcome to the Front Porch. Say 'hello' to Yossarian. If you haven't read CATCH-22, you've missed out. If you haven't read it in 10 years or more, treat yourself!!

If you didn't read the book or see the movie(read the book), Yossarian is a WWII Bombardier who has tired of his "job". So, like many of his mates, he wants a way out. Doc Daneeka could certify him insane, which could send Yossarian home. There's just one catch:



----------------------

..."You're wasting your time," Doc Daneeka was forced to tell him.

"Can't you ground someone who's crazy?"

"Oh sure. I have to. There's a rule saying I have to ground anyone who's crazy."

"Then why don't you ground me? I'm crazy. Ask Clevinger."

"Clevinger? Where IS Clevinger? You find Clevinger and I'll ask him."

"Then ask any of the others. They'll tell you how crazy I am."

"They're crazy."

"Then why don't you ground them?"

"Why don't they ask me to ground them?"

"Because they're crazy, that's why."

"Of course they're crazy," Doc Daneeka replied. "I just told you they're crazy, didn't I? And you can't let crazy people decide whether you're crazy or not, can you?"

Yossarian looked at him soberly and tried another approach. "Is Orr crazy?"

"He sure is," Doc Daneeka said.

"Can you ground him?"

"I sure can. But first he has to ask me to. That's part of the rule."

"Then why doesn't he ask you to?"

"Because he's crazy," Doc Daneeka said. "He has to be crazy to keep flying combat missions after all the close calls he's had. Sure, I can ground Orr. But first he has to ask me to."

"That's all he has to do to be grounded?"

"That's all. Let him ask me."

"And then you can ground him?" Yossarian asked.

"No. Then I can't ground him."

"You mean there's a catch?"

"Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."

There was only one catch, and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed...


-----------------------

Hope you had as much fun reading this as I had re-telling!! Pass that jug over here....