Monday, May 31, 2010

Ratcheting Up My Beef Against The Industrial Powers

Oodles and oodles of ire is what I have against them, frankly. Maybe it seems like I've tried to hide my anger in the past, but today I feel like I'm full to the brim with invective and rage against them.

It feels good to blow off a little steam. Because I've been corked up, stoved up for too long, much too long. If I were a boiler room, they'd need to check my governor, because certain elements of my apparatus would be white hot or worse.

This is -- you probably guessed it -- part of my "Drive for Viability" that I've been on for the last few weeks, all except for the name just given it. I've tried these two things thus far: 1) The biblical principle of taunting; and, 2) Some of the techniques of sympathetic magic, specifically, portraying an effigy of them and setting out to burn it. The third in this series is what I've got going on today, just letting it all hang out. Such as this, if I'm angry, let my anger pour out in torrents.

My big thought on anger is that we hurt ourselves by trying to contain it. And of course there are lots of reasons to contain it: your reputation, trying to get along with others, and the many regrets that go along with letting it out. Some of that is good to be concerned with, say, if you're dealing with friends. But there are other times in life when it's better just to let it all go, a total prolapse of your emotions.

One of the times in life to just let it go is in the political sphere. You may notice our representatives in Congress don't care about the public's opinion on anything, because they've simply let go of their concern. They are cool as a cube and they know they'll be reelected without any trouble. To respond to that with anything less than seething rage is going to get you exactly nowhere. Actually, even with seething rage, you're likely to get nowhere. But my philosophy has always been if you light a firecracker you may as well wait around till it pops. It doesn't do a bit of good to light a firecracker then try to put it out halfway. It'll only injure you.

Another time to just let it go is, similarly, any kind of agitation. Now, there is viability and there is viability. If you want viability of a certain sort, such as the ability to get a job, to get a girl, to get a promotion, etc., you need to be socially viable. But that's not the kind of viability I've been talking about. The viability I've been focused on is the viability it takes to agitate, then to agitate some more, then to remain standing when you are beset upon by an opposing force.

As for me, when I went against the industrial powers -- which has all been well documented on my blog -- I did OK until they responded. But once there was a response, it was a landslide response. Me as an ordinary individual had a hard time standing up to the onslaught. And so, to get back in the game, I need to increase my viability. It's like putting on a shield, then remaining viable to attain some real progress in the struggle.

So ... here goes ... the anger chutes are all open! The anger is spilling out everywhere. I have so much invective -- potential and realized -- spilling out ... I can't even type it, because, to tell you the truth, there's a lot of adult language mixed in with what I'm saying. And that, being blue, is something I want to keep off the blog.

I'm seething, I'm spilling over with rage. Right now I am white hot, steaming, very, very upset, completely ratcheted up against the industrial powers.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Industrialism's Dirty Little Secrets

I suppose we all have our own dirty little secrets. These would be the individual and conglomerate pieces of dirty laundry, hidden practices and behaviors, and various sullied yearnings and longings we all have. To confess my own, I secretly lust to drink more root beer than I do.

Then naturally there's all the behaviors, practices, yearnings, and longings associated with human reproduction, the quest for personal and corporate fecundity, that keeps us busy checking out one another's derrieres and cleavage. I could write a very juicy book full of memories on this subject, but the fact that I restrict the publication of anything blue keeps me from it.

Besides these dirty little secrets -- the stuff Hugh Hefner's into -- there are other dirty little secrets, like what you get in financial dealings, backroom deals, what goes on at the Vatican, and, last but not least, the dirty little secrets that are part and parcel of the business of industrialism.

The industrial powers, in their unceasing quest to dominate all of society, to snowball us, to roll us, to subjugate and overpower us, and to make a dirty buck at the expense of everything good in society, have dirty little secrets and plenty of them. They must have, because you can't realistically carry on the kind of relationship they have in our communities -- spoiling and despoiling -- without a lot of hanky panky of the worst sort taking place. You just know it's there!

What exactly their dirty little secrets are, I confess I don't know. As for myself, I have a hard time descending into the muck and mire where these guys dwell. I'm up here, on a higher plane, with most of my thoughts and imaginings being very innocent. So I have to really work at it to imagine the fullness of their scurrilous dealings.

But I can descend somewhat, if I really truly set my mind to it. I see the various rings of reality on my way down: Divine Union, Angelic Bliss, Yogic Identification, Spiritual Hunger, The Altruism of the Moose Lodge, The Youth Retreat Where A Young Man Notices His First Cleavage On A Non-Old-Woman -- Circa 1965, Her Name Was Peggy -- And Suddenly Understands What The Myth Of Forbidden Fruit Is Really All About, Man's Daily Intercourse, Increasing Conflict, Lust, Carnality, The Vatican's Morals, Unclean Spirits, The Industrial Powers, Demons, The Devil, and, finally, The Devil's Mother-in-Law. So you can see, the industrial powers are very low. And it's hard for most of us to get that far down.

What I believe goes on with them is something like this: They have evil designs on the world and our communities, while sugarcoating it. For example, they'd love to close down the schools, knowing that education will make kids aware of environmental truths, among other things. But they sugarcoat it by giving a $5,000 check to the school every once in a while. But if they could close the schools, kids would grow up not knowing anything, then the industrial powers would be able to run amok at will, as they already do. And they'd save all the $5,000 checks.

It's a vicious circle, you see. Education would teach us what we need to put an end to the industrialists' ways, but we have plenty of education, yet the industrialists' ways go on and on without check. Say what you will about it, to me that's pretty vicious. But just imagine how it would go: If they got rid of the schools, which presently aren't helping that much, think how much worse it might be if they weren't there to at least give us false hope.

That's devious, that's vile!

And I could go on, multiplying the dirty little secrets that these blasted industrial powers have. It's disgusting -- as disgusting as anything I've thought of in quite a while -- and I hate it. Let me repeat that: I hate it!

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Burning The Industrialists In Effigy

I've been thinking a lot lately about my viability as it relates to the industrial powers.

For a while there I was basically sunk, for many reasons. Of course there's more of them than there is of me, they have a broader and deeper power base, and the resource differential between us is massive. But one thing I got they haven't got, that's spunk and determination. In school I outlasted several teachers, so obviously I don't go down without a fight.

Spunk and determination. But that's not to say I haven't had some luck too, some extraordinary shaking out of the dice of life. For instance there was no way to predict the Krugman connection of a few weeks ago, when the famous columnist shamed the industrialists (I wrote about it), meaning they withdrew from me in a substantial way. That helped immensely. Add that kind of luck to my spunk and determination, and that's a force that's hard to reckon with.

What have I been doing lately to regain my viability? The other day, you may recall, I used the biblically-based science of taunting, taunting the industrial powers by calling them clowns. I felt a lot of regained viability from that exercise, more than what I would likely have felt simply by chance. Chance alone usually pays off moderately, but conscious exercises have a way of building on themselves.

Now I've been thinking of some of the techniques of sympathetic magic, a biggie of which is coming up with a representing image upon which to operate. It's a lot like doctors practicing on cadavers. If they're dead, it's hard to mess up, and the benefits are great, discovering your way around a human body. If I can represent the industrial powers, the representation itself is not living, so the actual industrial powers don't know what's going on. But the benefits within my own mind (as with the doctor) would be very real.

So what if I came up with some effigies of the industrialists? That would surely be a major thing for pumping up my viability. Then, as we all know, once I get the psychic viability I feel I need, I could be back out nosing around the industrial section, accruing evidence and slanting it in such a way as to be justify my case against them. Then I might set them on fire!

The blasted industrialists! Clowns!

Friday, May 28, 2010

An Industrial Park?

This is one I've heard of and have never quite been able to believe, calling the industrial section of town an "industrial park."

To me that's like them rubbing our nose in it. One, it's a sham that we even have to suffer an industrial section in our town. But it's rubbing our nose in it to try and confuse the facts by calling it a park!

My own town doesn't have an "industrial park," but I'm talking about another place I visited. My own town's industrial section might be worse than this other town's, because they're not even trying to disguise the fact that they're an industrial section. But they're better in this sense, that at least they're admitting they're simply an industrial section and aren't trying to confuse us into thinking they're a park.

We all know what a park is. They have a slide, a swing set, a jungle jim, and a big hollow turtle kids can crawl under. The industrial section has things that mimic the park but with lots more danger. There are big augurs that look like a slide, chains with flat signs hanging from them that might remind you of a swing, and enough electrical scaffolding to look like a jungle jim. As for the turtle you could crawl under, there might be a few mutant turtles in the vats of runoff.

I personally am not confused in the slightest. I've seen the scam from day one. But there a lot of innocent kids who might hear this place referred to as a park and think they could go play there. Then they're up on the scaffolding and they could get shocked, then fall into a vat of turtles and runoff. It's not a healthy environment for children and other living creatures.

Of course I hate every industrial section I happen to see, but there's a special place in the hell of my mind reserved for an industrial section that calls itself a park!

Thursday, May 27, 2010

I'm So Proud Of My Industrialist Posts

This must be some kind of world's record, all my posts on the industrialists, the industrial powers, and the industrial sections of our towns and cities. Woo hoo!

Really, how many other blogs do you suppose there are who can say they did this, had over 50 posts on this one subject? And even if you could find one somewhere, what's the chance of him being from the same town as me? The odds are getting smaller all the time! Then what would be the odds of him being on the same block or even my next door neighbor? Not good at all!

I can know this much: I'm the one who did it! I'm the one!

Even if the industrialists came by with a heat-yielding blunt instrument and tried to take me out right now -- and let's say they did take me out -- my store of over 50 posts on this one subject would stand the test of time. They can't destroy my work or my legacy. Even if I could not write another word -- like if they took me out, or for some other reason -- people could study my over 50 posts on this subject and never quite exhaust the subject or the insights they would stand to glean.

I've laid it out there, like a surgeon, like a doctor making a scalpel cut, then folding back the flaps of skin, just before I dive in and take out the fat or whatever the guy's problem is. I did it and it's all so amazing.

But think back 50-some days, what was going on with me: I was stewing about a little something called "The Industrial Section," the terrible things that go on out there. I went on to expound on the subject from 50 different points of view. I was very practical and specific about problems with the industrialists. Then we were in a confrontation and things were very bitter. Then Paul Krugman stepped in and shamed them, causing them to back off. From that point on I became much more philosophically oriented, while still keeping the practicality of focusing on my psychic viability, so that in the future I will be viable enough to take them on in their area of town once again. That day is coming!

But today is not a day for regrets -- or stewing over the future. Today is a day to celebrate and lift up my great pride for what I've achieved.

No other blog in the world has done what I've done, at least none in my state or town or block. I stand alone!

We'll be checking in after the next 50 to see how it's going. If I should falter between now and then, that would be terrible. But we shall try our best to prevail ... against those blasted industrialists!

Over 50 of them.
Over 50 times I've stood up to these blasted industrial powers.
Over 50 times I've set my face like flint against them and their power.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

After The Industrialists Till The Bitter End

I know this is going to be a bitter pill for the industrial powers, what I'm about to say. And it will be just the opposite for my friends out there and those who are telling me to "Keep up the good work," those who are encouraging me to keep on the industrialists until the bitter end. For them, this will go down sweet.

It'll taste sweet to those who are on my side, but like I said, it'll taste bitter to those who are opposed to me and all my efforts. But that's just the way it is. You makes your choice and you takes your medicine! Like Grandma always used to say, something about sugar makes the medicine go down more sweetly, something like that.

Back then, when Grandma was giving me medicine instead of the other way around, medicine was very bitter. That was before Flintstones chewables and cherry cough syrup. Back then medicine was medicine, not candy, and it was very bitter to swallow. I remember getting several doses of this scurrilous stuff called Castor's Oil. Whoever Castor was, he must've been a sadist. We used to fake wellness to keep from getting it, because, regardless of what she said about sugar making the medicine go down sweetly, she never actually put sugar in the stuff.

As far as pills went, I just swallowed them, with no taste. Except they might find a ledge in your throat once in a while and just hang there for dear life. The little boogers. Pills were neither sweet nor bitter, but the other medicine she gave us, as mentioned above, plus other odd substances, went down very bitterly, and if it came back up -- let's say -- it only got worse!

OK, getting back to the industrial powers. I'm going to remain on these guys' case incessantly -- that is my vow! -- until the bitter end. Until their bitter end! There can be no ties. There can be no consolation prize. There can be only one victor. We shall end industry and the industrial powers as we know them. They shall go down the tubes!

I'm an optimist. This is something I must've mentioned before. I will prevail, I will not be defeated!

So it's going to be very bitter medicine for them to take. But it's going to be very sweet for me myself, and for you -- and all men who are on my side.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Come On, Industrial Powers, It's Only Right

I've always been a believer in the goodness of men, that men everywhere have within them that special something, call it something nebulous but very present. Goodness? Would that be a good word for it, what I believe men have?

This of course makes me naturally a very optimistic person, someone who always expects and tends to think the glass will be completely full one day. And this I see as being true for each and every man, that when the final tally is reckoned, with the final score is posted, we'll all be winners, every man a winner.

But being optimistic, that doesn't mean I can't see the other side. When it comes to optimism we have the full history of man hitherto to date, at least what we know of man's history since the time he began keeping records. A lot of the records were lost back in caveman days simply because they didn't have dehumidifiers and all the files rotted. It was the Egyptians who perfected a climate dry enough that dehumidifiers were rendered unnecessary. Warmer, drier air flowed forth then to every man, giving us enough records with which to draw definite conclusions.

Among our conclusions, like I said refuting optimism, we have man's history as being Man vs. Man for the full extent of it. Man has never found a way to get along with his brother. Having once committed fratricide, he kept right on committing it, to the point that nearly everyone died. In those days if you were an only child, there was a very good reason for it.

Then we have the sacred writers writing of man's heart being wicked above all things (Jer. 17). They inform us of ever increasing sin, both original and knock off sins. Cain and Abel got the whole fratricide ball rolling. And from there it all went downhill. There really is no reason to be optimistic about man, according to these well placed authorities. The great history of wars since then also bear terrible witness to man's perversity and worthlessness. It's a complete mess!

Still, call me naive, I'm optimistic. In spite of everything that history, psychology, religion, and personal experience have to say, I still believe -- crossing my fingers here -- that man is fundamentally good.

It's just a matter of him recognizing it, then deciding to be good. If only he will!

In that spirit, I call upon the industrial powers -- those blasted industrialists who I've been railing against now for over a month -- to turn from your wicked ways ... and be good!

We see the fruit of their evil ways everyday, but we don't think it has to be that way. They are among the most willful and shortsighted of men. But if we can turn them, then there's no telling what we will be able to do with everyone else. So I'm calling on them, imploring them, and saying, "It's only right! Give up your evil and try to live in the world as good people!"

The big companies that are currently exploiting resources and despoiling the environment, that are currently living like the devil even in the face of the folly of their ways ... these are the very ones I sincerely believe can even now turn and become good.

 Please -- if you're reading this -- do as I say!

Monday, May 24, 2010

The Slumps Vs. The Industrialists


I've been watching "Family Feud" on TV a lot lately, thanks to the Game Show Network.

What's Richard Dawson up to these days? He lives on in reruns, that's what, still kissing all the ladies from the '70s or '80s, whenever that was.

The later hosts aren't quite as affectionate, the guy from "Home Improvement" and the guy from "Seinfeld." But they're on there everyday too, carrying on the same game, two families or two associated entities who are playing for the big money, $20,000.

I could really use $20,000, if only there was someone in my family I could really count on if we could get on that last part they have on the show. And if we failed to get 200 points, still $5 a point sounds pretty good. Just not as good as $20,000, of course.

Since I'm so opposed to those blasted industrialists, the industrial powers, wouldn't it be a great fantasy to have the Slumps on one side and the Industrialists on the other? They have that needlepoint font that spells out the names of the families, and that would look interesting. Although if we were going by the spirit of the families (entities) in this case, the Slumps would best be represented with the needlepoint font, but the Industrialists by the Impact font, which is on most computers today. It's very cold and machine-like.

Anyway, there we'd be, the Slumps, the true representatives of feeling humanity, and the Industrialists, like aliens from some other planet, having a snake like texture under a thin veneer of fake skin. The Slumps would be playing for the world's honor, the Industrialists for the money alone. The Slumps would confer among themselves about the answers, seeking consensus. The Industrialists, true to their evil nature, would be arguing among themselves, then stabbing each other in the back until they only had one representative of their entity standing on the corpses of the others. We Slumps would come with shotguns, meaning we would survive.

I myself would definitely be playing for keeps, like I do everyday in regard to these blasted cretins. Because I would know there's much more than money up for grabs, there's humanity's interests and our family's honor. We haven't given in to these miserable creatures yet, and -- with God's help -- we never will, we won't.

It'd be two teams playing for all the marble. Just like we already are doing in real life, them, the bad guys ... and us, nothing but good. And wanting that $20,000.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

My Revulsion Against The Industrialists Is Palpable

That's right, my revulsion against the industrialists is palpable. I think something being palpable means it is immediate, real, and indisputable. But if the word includes some other definition, then that also is no doubt true.

At this point, for me, it's not just the local industrialists and industrial powers who are giving me heartburn and a queasy stomach. It's all of them. I hear about the troubles with our environment, oil spills, other pollution, and I think of how trucks speeding by suck grass and weeds down into the mud, and it gives me that sense of disgust.

I can barely stand to watch the news on TV, because I hear about how these powers -- these disgusting industrialists -- so hate the world and everything in. It's like they secretly think they have somewhere better to live.

We need a better plan of action as we stand against them than simply watching the news and ruing what's going on. There needs to be others to get out there and nose around the industrial sections of our town and document what's going on.

Like I said, I have a great deal of revulsion, but presently my viability levels are depleted. I'm trying to regain them so that my impact on the world will be for good instead of for naught. But you tell me, how can one man do it on his own?

The disgust is real, but getting something done about it is going to take a lot of effort. I mean a lot of effort.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

The Industrialists' Secret Hotline

That really worked, yesterday, what I did yesterday. It really did the trick. At least it got the trick going and I'm assuming the trick will be completely done very soon, if not imminently.

You may recall, depending on how diligently you're hanging on my every word, that I began building on my viability vis-a-vis the industrialists by some very focused taunts.

This is biblical, my friends, so I think there's something very essential about it. Taunting and name-calling is an ancient means of personal positioning, helping you position yourself back in a place of power. You can think of two very similar passages of taunting from the Bible, Isaiah 14, Isaiah's taunt against the king of Babylon, and Ezekiel 28, Ezekiel's prophecy against the king of Tyre. In each passage we have things that relate to our imagery about evil in its most essential form.

The conclusion I will draw is this: That it is indisputable that I'm in very good company indeed when I taunt the industrial powers as "clowns" and "clownish." And I would draw other conclusions as well, including, that whatever power the prophets and other writers in Israel derived from these highly sourced taunts is the same kind of power we can share today.

The basic way to go about it is to make sure you start from a righteous position. Check! Then you proceed, letting it all hang out. I speak the word of power, then take my defensive position like a junkyard dog. A junkyard dog has all the instincts of a normal dog, but he knows he has an entire junkyard to guard. That's big! He's got all the viability he needs.

And that's what I'm looking to regain. I really need (and needed) to supplement my viability deficiencies, and now I can see I'm well on the way. And taunting is such an easy method, with there being others as well. Stinking clowns! Ezekiel and Isaiah went for those very essential images of evil at their heart of their tradition. Today, think about it, we basically have industrialists and clowns -- I know, along with politicians. But nobody likes clowns. Even clowns hate themselves, there being no one as self-loathing as them!

Industrialists, on the other hand, love themselves. So who knows? Maybe in addition to increasing my viability -- giving me greater power to nose around the industrial section of town with impunity -- I can shift their self-perception from that of the self-loving industrialist to the self-loathing clown. It's worth a shot. I hate these clowns!

Now, and this should be obvious, they're not going to go down without a fight. So what I'm assuming is that they're all over this blog, looking for clues as to my next move. And so forth. So I can well imagine there's a lot of hotlines glowing and buzzing in their various quarters and precincts today -- stretching at least into this evening. They're doing a lot of conferring, sharing conference calls for that very purpose. They keep their hotlines like pheasant under glass, red and quivering when a call is placed or comes through.

But they need to save the color red for the little ball on the end of their nose! The clowns!

Friday, May 21, 2010

Wherein I Taunt The Industrial Powers As Clowns

I was talking the other day about my viability, hoping to increase my viability, so that I would be able to get back out to nose around the industrial section of town. I still don't think I'm quite there yet. But I feel my levels increasing seemingly every day, to the point that parts of me feel like they're full while other parts feel like they still have a ways to go.

Of course part of the whole psychic make up that we have is dependent upon testing and being aware of our various levels. We may have subjective insights (and hope for the best), but in the real world we have to deal in objectivity and that means putting things to the test. I'm only reluctant because sometimes if you test too early you can lose the viability that you have and so you have to wait that much longer for something that's not just a test or a drill but the actual mission.

In my case I might not really have the luxury of waiting. For one thing, the offenses of the industrialists are so heinous that the world becomes worse every day. And two, I just don't like waiting that much; I am a man of action who doesn't like sitting on his big fat duff.

Anyway, the industrialists are so powerful that they can zap your strength even if you wait forever. Sometimes you just have to strike and hope for the best. Like maybe they're not watching. Or maybe you've caught them off guard. Or they're napping. Or they're on vacation. Or somehow they themselves have been zapped. It could happen, say if all of us stood against them at the same time. But as it is, it's basically me, the local man, all on his own, with no help.

So as part of my "testing" of my viability, I thought a good way to do that would be to post a few things on my blog, such as lashing out at them verbally, calling them a few names. Now in the past I believe I've only referred to them as the industrialists or the industrial powers. I have used the word "blasted" a few times to describe them. I think that's called an adjective. Today, though, my tactic will be invective, also putting to the test the old line about sticks and stones hurting me...

You guys are clownish! What a bunch of worthless clowns! I wouldn't think people who are as supposedly "powerful" as you would be such pathetic clowns ... but you are and so we're laughing at you. All you're missing, it seems, is a big red nose and maybe some shoes two feet long! If you're going to be a clown, shouldn't people be laughing at you? Ha, ha, ha, ha! Clowns!

That felt good ... but it's not the feeling in the moment that makes the difference, it's the sense of viability that goes with it. And you know what? I'm feeling very viable!

With this kind of viability, and let's say I multiply it many times over the next few days, there's really no telling what kind of effectiveness I might have against the industrial powers, those clowns. I might be back out and nosing around before you know it. Any day now! Literally, any day now.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Breaking Our Dependency On The Industrialists

We've been talking about how powerful the industrialists are, and that's true, they are very powerful. But when we examine the issue more closely and when we come to more honest conclusions, we can easily see that much of the power that they have is the power that we give them.

In short, I am suggesting that our dependency on the industrialists is the source of much of their power.

Of course it wasn't always this way, such as before the Industrial Revolution. Back then we had a more humane system of tinkerers, cobblers, and craftsmen. They were more like neighbors. If we needed someone to tinker with our well, someone to cobble our shoes, or a craftsmen to do his crafty work, all we had to do was pick up the phone and a very neighborly man was there to help. We depended on them because in a community you depend on one another. But unlike today, it's not the same as what we call a dependency.

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, we've looked to the industrialists to give us one new product after another. And along with each new product came a dozen new headaches. In more modern times -- such as with computers, big-screen TVs, and dishwashers -- the headaches have been multiplied. You always hear of 3G, 4G, and 5G, and you have no idea what they're talking about. So we need help from the virus scanning people, professional installers, and even a talking paperclip on most Microsoft products! If we're really dependent on a paperclip, God help us!

And you know the industrial powers have to love this! The vast network of help providers that they've spawned they've made is, as it were, a buffer zone between themselves and us. So they are that much more removed while keeping us in thrall just as much or more! This is terrible. Take the virus scanners for example. You can't tell me they want to get rid of viruses... because that's their bread-and-butter. They create these dependencies, and quite frankly they're probably part of the original problem!

At this point, though, it might seem hopeless. How can we break our dependency, especially when our dependency has so many aspects to it, many hidden? One thing, it's obviously not easy. Most of us don't even know the nature of the problem.

A part of my task here on this blog has been to point out the many layers of the problem as I see it. Because the way I see it, education is part of the key. Whether the issue is teaching against gambling, or an easier problem to defeat, such as fighting premarital sex and the teenage libido, education is where it starts. It's easy to talk teenagers out of their lust; just tell him it's not a good idea and usually they'll do something else.

I know I can't break the dependency on the industrialists and the industrial powers for everyone in a split second. I know it might take an hour or two, because at this point we're talking about the whole world. But to get the job done you have to start somewhere. And so that's what I advocate. I am trying to help you.

To me it's obvious we'll all be happier when we break our dependency, and beyond that, when the industrialists, their power, and industry itself are no more. Until that glad day we need to educate, to advocate, and to agitate. Because otherwise the problem will never go away. And that old-fashioned system of tinkerers, cobblers, and craftsmen will remain simply a part of the past. But we can bring it back if we do what it takes to make it happen. Because that's what we want.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

My Own Interests In Industry

There's been a few naysayers among my readers, those who wait for and read my posts on a daily basis, about the truth of my convictions against the industrial powers and industry in general.

Yes I do hear from numerous of you, mostly telling me how much you enjoy the Google ads and click them for the information that you get as far as bargains and products that you can't get anywhere else. But then there's a few of you who feel it's your duty to criticize and take me to task now and again.

Part of this I can understand, the gentle nudging that I get, which pushes me to make improvements and even to hone some of my opinions. But then of course some of it is suspect -- real criticism, some very tough -- that probably, if we are being honest probably comes from the industrial powers themselves. It's in their interest to push me as hard as they can. And so of course I would suspect that, being also just naturally a very suspicious person.

Some of the criticism takes this tack, that I myself have interests in industry. This is one of the oldest criticisms of the book. That basically boils down to this, if you yourself have any interest in something you have no right to criticize. But of course when it comes to industry all of us have some interest in it, some history. They've even taken me to task for having a computer, which itself is a product of industry. Honestly, I've tried to make my own computer apart from industry, out of peach crates and silicon bags, but it just didn't work.

In my defense -- as to my interests -- my interests don't rise to the level of complicity, such as having a job down at the monster truck tire company or investments. I will admit to this, because I know someone would dig up the truth if I didn't: I did enjoy free free barbecued pork burgers at Fourth of July picnic last year, which were provided by this local industry. That said, I didn't think they were that great.

But whatever interest I have in the industry myself, and my interests are meager, I have a greater interest in the environment and in the living standards, the quality of life in my community and in the world. If all we do is breathe in the black smoke from the blast furnace of this mammoth industry, simply for the sake of monster truck tires, I believe it's going to do us more harm than good. Then multiply that concern by all of the industrial sections in the world and all of the people who want a higher quality of life. Someone has to stand up and be counted.

So I appreciate my readership, and I'm happy that you are here today. And I hope that you find some terrific bargains through the Google ads that I display. And I hope that you find my opinions, and the important news you read here, as valuable as I myself find it. But not just to fulfill your curiosity or that you can take in information for the sake of information, but that you would use it in this important fight against industry and the industrial powers.

All of us have some interest in industry -- unless you've figured out the secret of peach crates and silicon bags -- but we also have an interest in living, free from the black smoke of these blasted companies.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Summary Of My Struggle Against The Industrial Powers

I just want to summarize where we are, me and the industrial powers. It's been a tough month or more, and yet the struggle goes on.

How did I get in this position?

I went nosing around the industrial section of my town. One thing, I've never really liked that part of town. It's unsightly. It's unsanitary. And it's full of industry, noise, pollution, and it seems to be uncontrollable. You have a million different big fences. You have buildings with garages big enough for trucks. They have lights burning throughout the night, and enough steam coming out of their vents to spawn a cloudy day.

With all my nosing around, I started responding to what I saw, because I didn't like it. That put us at odds, me and the industrial powers, the powers that be who dwell in that district.

The industrialists have not taken kindly to what they see as an intrusion on my part, coming into their industrial zone, the section of town in which they feel that they can exercise their will without undue oversight.

What they call intrusion I would call necessary oversight. And they probably wouldn't mind it so much if they were used to oversight, but as it is they've had free reign for too long.

If the government or governing authorities were to demonstrate some responsibility and oversight over the industrial powers, and do it in a consistent way over the years, everything would be in place and the industrial powers would know that as the normal way things are.

But lacking that, they get set in their ways, with no oversight, and so when someone calls them on their offenses they react poorly. Especially if they perceive that the person -- in this case an individual who is not part of the governing authorities -- could be easily put off.

When there is such an individual, in this case me, they believe they can wield their power against him with impunity. I don't really have connections with governing authorities who would help me or be a natural ally in any sense of the word. Basically, that leaves me at the tender mercies of the industrial powers, which can obviously be a bad position to be in.

I've seen some of the results of their tender mercies, such as when they were doing heavy duty surveillance of my house, and of course my comings and goings. Acting against me with impunity, they assumed, I would be a pushover. I guess they wee more or less right, because when push came to shove I was pushed, but somehow I was not entirely pushed over.

I owe some of my resilience to my natural resiliency, and I also had some unwitting help from unexpected quarters. Not to recapitulate entirely, one of my allies was Paul Krugman. (And it seems like I had another high level ally, but who it was now I'm forgetting.) As to my resiliency, I just don't like to buckle. I don't like giving in. I wouldn't apologize. And they didn't make me.

So where we stand now... I'm still standing. The industrial powers are still standing. The best you can say is we're in a standoff.

Monday, May 17, 2010

My Viability Vis-A-Vis The Industrialists

I've been "good" lately. You'll notice, just reading my posts, that I haven't been out nosing around the industrial section of my town recently. I've restrained myself, which has been very hard to do, but it's been done.

I would love to be out there, nosing around, getting the scuttlebutt, observing what's going on, the various offenses and shortcomings of the industrial powers. It's the easiest thing in the world -- going out, looking around, and letting your imagination run wild. What you can't see behind closed doors, you can easily imagine.

At one time I had all kinds of viability, free rein. But that's been over a month ago. It's like political capital, or financially like a bank account. Before you spend it you have it. Then you spend it and it's depleted, and you spend a little more and finally it's gone.

What happened with me has been well documented, and it's been the talk of the town here on my own little half acre of earth. It's about all I've talked about. It's constantly on my mind. I can think of little else. I can't think of anything else. Just this.

In short, it's this: The industrial powers have reacted, have responded. They didn't take kindly to my intrusions, to my research, then the posting of my findings. Because they're used to being insulated. They're used to society turning a blind eye to their ways. In general we take it for granted that we're going to "need" industry and an industrial section. So, like adult entertainment establishments, we cordon off a piece of the town and let them "have at it" out there.

So far so good! But when a vigilant citizen starts seeing all kinds of flagrant violations -- things that should not be done being done -- pollution, workers falling into vats of poison, weeds and grass being sucked into the mud by speeding trucks -- that's what they cannot stand. They don't want any accountability, and so their reaction is anything but kind.

For a while they were demanding that I apologize, which I refused to do. I dug in deeper, even though I had the resolve to pull back and try to defuse the situation. Then they stepped up their demands even more insistently. I was suddenly helped, quite out of the blue, by a line in a Paul Krugman column. He shamed them and I've had it pretty good for over a week.

Still, I haven't felt like I've had my viability renewed sufficiently as to venture out and nose around their district at this time. One thing, viability is not eternal. It's very temporal. When I get out there I need to make it count, because it will quickly be depleted. And yet, think of it this way, I still have my memories of what I saw before. Add to that a renewal of my viability, and when I get out there, even if it is temporal, I will be able to build more quickly and effectively on what I experienced before. That means, in short, that I will need less viability to get the same amount (likely more) research accomplished next time.

Everyday I'm getting stronger in my position vis-a-vis the industrial powers! It's just a matter at this point of letting my viability level increase. Then we'll see who has the last word ... and the last laugh!

Sunday, May 16, 2010

The Anti-Industrialist's Very Orderly Life

There's a conflict of two very orderly worlds, that of the industrial powers and that of the anti-industrialist. You might say it's a conflict that will go to the bitter end, while remaining very neat and tidy.

Now that the industrialists' world is neat and tidy, at least not the effulgence and influence that comes from it. Within their world, I'll grant it, there must be a lot of neatness and tidiness. Such as in the offices where the executives dangle the world's fate by a string over a candle's flame. There, I'm sure the surroundings are very sparse and tidy, having tables with very sparse arrangements of things.

My own neatness and tidiness doesn't extend to the arrangements on tables or bookcases. As for myself, I am a sentimental collector of things, so I have things everywhere. The neatness and tidiness that I have is my ability to compartmentalize life and experience and keep it orderly in that way. That's one of the things that makes me such a crusader and an anti-industrialist. I and the industrialists, you might say, are two sides of the same coin. I'm the good side, the heads, the tails being the evil side.

I see pictures of bookcases in newspaper ads or catalogs and I'm amazed. The people posited in the arrangements, the faux families who appear to own the bookcases, have about five books, then a clock, a couple knickknacks and maybe a flower. They don't need a bookcase. They need a coffee table.

The neatness of the industrialists -- who spew such filth and toxicity into the air, the streams, and make such a mess of the world and people's lives -- takes place in their offices and maybe in their homes. As far as they're concerned, the runnings of industry is a lot of very orderly cylinders and sprockets working like a symphony. Getting to the base of it, there's a lot of orderly plinking, clanging, machines operating in harmony.

If I could regain my viability -- presently lost by the reputation I've garnered as a vocal anti-industrialist -- maybe I could ride in on one of the bus tours and see it with the others. Then I could witness what they want us to see, the drills, the sledge hammers, and the automatic welders, pounding, boring, and sealing. You might visualize or imagine it audibly to The Cars' song, "I'm In Touch With Your World."

Then there's me, the anti-industrialist at home, leafing through my files, my photos of pallets, broken fences, and piles of tires and rusty castoffs. Each one is numbered. Each detail is studied for further evidence of industry's wayward spirit. It's all so neat and tidy, they're already indicted. As far as I'm concerned, they don't need to wait for judgment day to be judged; they're already judged.

I can hear that Cars' song in my mind's ear right now. It makes up part of the soundtrack of my life. It's a great song for filing. Too bad there isn't an extended version.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

I'm On The Industrial Powers' Watch List

This should come as no surprise to anyone, but I both suspect and know that I'm on the industrial powers' watch list. They may have more than one, in which case I both suspect and know that I'm on them.

I'm saying this in response to some of your questions as to why I haven't been out at the industrial section nosing around, as I was very bold to do over a month ago. A lot has changed in the last month. The truth is that the industrialists have taken notice, leading to all their surveillance and threats against me in the last half month or more.

My car has been flagged. I suspect and know this. Where I go is under scrutiny. Someone somewhere, perhaps at the highest echelons, is monitoring my comings and goings. I suspect and know that were I to get anywhere near the industrial section that it would be suspected and known.

It's terrible -- take it from me -- to live your life on a watch list. One, you have people watching you. And in this case, it's all very subtle, much like it'd be to have an eye in the sky watching you that you yourself couldn't see.

Of course we're all being watched. You go in a Walmart, the library, the grocery store, a church, and you can see the camera aimed at you. They're very blatant about it, putting a monitor right at the entrance so you can see yourself as you go in. They have signs around the parking lot, that the premises are being recorded. Someone calls you as a courtesy call from the utilities and they are required to tell you the conversation "may be recorded for quality control." I was in the Hobby Lobby store the other day and I suddenly heard them say on the speakers, "Please record Zone 4." I looked right above my head and saw a pennant fluttering that said "Zone 4" and "Enjoy your hobbies." When the voice ceased I could hear an instrumental of "There Shall Be Showers of Blessing" playing.

There have to be hours and hours of video footage of me all over town, every time I get gas or groceries. I would love to have a DVD of it all, because it'd be fun to put it on and watch myself shop. If you could see yourself shopping on a DVD for a few hours it'd give you some incentive to cut back your spending. But just because I think it'd be fun, you can't imagine the store manager would like it if we all showed up at the store with a camera of our own. Just video everything and everyone, a little mount on the shopping cart for your camera. They'd freak if the shoe was on the other foot.

And the same thing with these blasted industrialists. If I mounted about a dozen cameras on my car and drove through the industrial section, I'm sure I'd catch all kinds of flagrant violations out there. But I'm already on the watch list, so anything I can do to pull back now could save my viability later. Then if I hear of greater violations I could show up, with my renewed viability, and catch them red-handed. Let them feel safe now and sorry later.

Everyone have a great day! Remember, you're being watched, but enjoy yourselves!

Friday, May 14, 2010

Homage To An Anti-Industrialist

(This post is inspired by the "extras" on the "North By Northwest" DVD, the film by Alfred Hitchcock. In the various "Making of" and "Appreciation of" features, everyone kisses Hitch's butt royally, time after time. He was a lucky guy, in that he could speak softly and lethargically yet depend on everyone else to praise him manically at 100 mph. Of course he deserved it. If I was there I'd be kissing his butt too, so it's all good.)

Lately it seems I've been expressing a great deal of paranoia about the industrialists, the bosses and brains, those blasted powers behind the industrial sections of our cities and towns.

I think paranoia is a pretty good response to their ways and their wiles, in that they wield a great deal of power, of sway, for their interests. And if their interests conflict with the interests of society as a whole, and if someone dares to stand up to them, to take them to task for it, their position of power allows them to respond with a heavy arsenal.

So what we would have in that daring person is a person who has at least partly set aside his fear and self-interest, except the self-interest of doing the right thing, of speaking for the others who aren't speaking for themselves. You've got the millions, then you have the one. The one raises his fist, maybe. The one dares to take a stand against the powers that be.

Since I am that man, and since no one else seems to be doing an homage to me, the local man who is an anti-industrialist, I'd like to offer one myself.

It seems that in my stand against the industrialists, the industrial powers, that I've done all things well. These things include my descriptions of the industrialists, the industrial sections of our cities and towns, and the sprawling blight that is the result. Like the great movie director, let's say, I've illustrated these things with the very big -- as we think of industrial sections as being very big. I've featured the giant smokestack of the monster tire factory. You'll remember those terrible scenes. Then I've gone with the very small -- which also is part of the whole mosaic of the sprawling blight and just as essential as the very big. The scenes have included things like the grass and weeds sucked down into the mud by the speeding trucks.

It's been a brilliant production, I'll say so myself. I'm very moved by the intrinsic, such as the obvious factories, conveyor belts, garages, the weird lighting, the steam vents, etc., that would have to be part of the picture. Then I'm equally moved by the seemingly incidental details, like the deer I wrote about a few weeks ago. If you look back, you'll notice there was an unresolved tension, whether the deer was real or decorative, whether it moved itself out of the scene or some nefarious force moved it, and whether, if it was real if it ever found water to drink.

When you start thinking of those scenes you can see a larger framing, as we're portraying even nature itself as threatened by industrialism and those powerful interests. The mud, the weeds, the grass, the unresolved questions about the deer, all these things contribute toward making the interests more nefarious than if we just saw them (the interests) isolated in their immediate environment. It's quite a stunning set of images. It seems I can do more with just a few mundane images -- weaving them into a grand metaphorical tapestry -- than most people could do with a cast of thousands.

Then behind all this, getting beyond the techniques per se, you have a mind, a purpose, something at stake, such as the well being of the whole world against these forces. The way it's presented, it seems like the rest of the world is oblivious to the danger, willing to accept industrialism as an ongoing reality, but you have the one who recognizes the danger and stands up to it. That makes me seem very heroic, yet with an edge, because it shows me facing scorn and even ridicule for my stand. I really have to be made of something to go on with my purpose. It suggests something like we see in the crucifixion scenes of the Bible, big stuff. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Someday, then, one has to assume that whether I actually prevail against the industrialists, or I die trying, that I will have a vindication, and ultimately the acclaim of the world. Even the industrialists, who have no soul and no hope, I could almost picture as coming around, giving me in the end at least a grudging respect, that I was a worthy opponent. They may not respect me today, but one day ... they will!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

The Red Tape I ImagineThe Industrialists Could Cause

I'm letting my mind have a free run of the place tonight, using my imagination.

This is like in the old Superman comics I used to read, where they would explicitly say on page one that this particular story is "imaginary." In the sense that in Superman's actual life it didn't really happen. I used to think there was a double bind there since Superman's entire existence is imaginary. But the idea was that given we suspend our disbelief long enough to read the comics, what we're reading is actual, yet sometimes the writers wanted to write something that was out of their imagination, beyond the given, suspended-disbelief "facts." It's confusing.

I'm using my imagination tonight, so this is an "imaginary" story, or episode in the ongoing factual (more or less) posts I've had in the last month or so.

I'm just imaging things tonight about the red tape the industrial powers could cause me if they really decided to clamp down. Let's set aside the actual fact that they're sidelined presently and that they were shamed into leaving me alone by a column Paul Krugman wrote. What if they came back? What if they did?

If they came back, I'm imagining they could cause me all kinds of further problems, including plenty of red tape. The way I define red tape is the ability to gum up my life, entangling me in bureaucracy or by legal shenanigans. They could get government on my case, since they're all in league with one another. They could get a team of high priced lawyers on me, turning my life into a Kafkaesque nightmare, worse than it already is.

I might go to get a driver's license -- let's just imagine things beyond normal experience -- and I would need two or three forms of ID, including a birth certificate, a marriage certificate (if I was married), my original Social Security card, my high school diploma, my 5th grade report card, and the cast that was on my leg in 4th grade. All of that. And guess what? I actually do have the cast that was on my leg in 4th grade -- who wouldn't keep something like that? But some of the other stuff, it might be tough to come up with. Like a birth certificate.

I might show up at the grocery store, in this little red tape scenario, and things wouldn't work. My debit card, my checks, gift cards, even cash ... none of it would be any good. Because they have an in with the distributors and with the store's chain itself.

Then the same kind of red tape would be awaiting me everywhere else, at the doctor, the dentist, the swimming pool, even at church. I'd put my check in the plate and it'd pop back out. I'd try to put it in the minister's hand, only to have him cross himself and scurry up the bell tower. Nothing would go right. The industrialists would be looking in the church windows, Jesus' eyes being hollowed out for that express purpose.

I'd come home and Grandma might be a different person, Underbrush a different dog, my house moved and a different one on the foundation. Maybe even a different foundation!

The industrialists. They're a dreaded enemy, a terrible opponent. The ancient wisdom says you want your opponent to always be at his best. But these guys, their best might be a lot better than what I can counter with. If they're at their best and I'm still at my average everyday level, that would be a problem for me.

But no matter, I'm ready for the red tape. I'm ready for their best ... or their worst. I will not back down. I will take these guys on day after day, as long as I'm in the mood for a good fight. And I haven't flagged from it yet.

My imagination ran wild, that's true. But I hope that's the way it stays, just in the imagination. If everything goes even half of what I've imagined, it will be bad. So I'm going to be hoping for a lot less than half. And maybe I'll get it!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

An Anti-Industrialist Reflects

Looking back over the last month, I've been very busy. It's remarkable how really concentrating on something, like I have with industry, the industrial sections of our towns, and the industrial powers, can make you an expert on it, and perhaps the leading expert. But it's true!

I did just a cursory search around the internet, limiting my searches to my own blog, and I've frankly been amazed at how many hits I'm getting that take me to my own writings on the subject, including various pronouncements and opinions.

Just looking over some of my writings has revealed a lot even to me, the writer of them! One, I'm a very good speller. I'm not seeing many spelling mistakes. Two, I tend to be precise, not using a lot of ambiguous terms or allowing my sentences to be ambiguous. Three, I have a laser-like focus on whatever my subject is. That comes out of a certain discipline I've always maintained. I would've made an excellent dog, since I would have the focus it takes to chew the same bone for a month or more or until it was gone, whichever came first.

Then getting into the meat of the goodie -- one of Grandpa's old phrases from his hickory nut cracking days -- what I've written on the actual subject, industry, etc., has set a new standard for tackling a particular topic and tackling it well. I can look back and see that I have tackled it from different points of views, all of them good, and that once I got it thoroughly tackled I haven't let it elude my grasp. There have been no false starts, no detours, no swaying, no veering away, either to the left or to the right.

None of this just happens. And so I've felt that it would be a good idea to reflect on what's happened and what's still going on to this day. It's taken a lot of determination to get the job done, or, to see it through on an ongoing basis as the job is still being done. There's still a long ways to go, whether it's a matter of exhausting the topic, becoming bored with it, or what have you. I fully intend to defeat industry, that's my full intention. But whether I do or I do not, industry will know it's had a nemesis like none other! As already expressed, I would've made an excellent dog.

Today I'm reflecting -- and tomorrow I might reflect a little more. Then, once the time of reflection is through, it'll be "Back to Work," lambasting and taking to task those I feel are destroying society and the world, those I feel must be themselves completely destroyed, industrial interests, the industrial powers, and industry itself.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

A Reliquary Of Anti-Industrialist Antipathy

My blog has fast become the world's reliquary of anti-industrialist antipathy.

I'm hosting it, archiving it, watching it stream in from its broad spectrum in the world and zero down to the vanishing point of a single light (or sometimes, a dark spot.)

We're trying to keep it virtual, because there's no room for storing big relics. Like if we find a tree limb down at the edge of an industrial section somewhere, the result of industrial sprawling blight, we will be content to have a digital photo of it. The tree limb itself, it probably should go without saying, would be too much for us to handle. Not one tree limb, especially, but one implies there could be more than one. Even a printed photo takes up room, filing space, however valuable it might be for study involving a magnifying glass. Digital photos take a little room, but you can get quite a few on a hard drive.

The same principles are going to be true for the other relics of industrial blight. We can't bring in a speeding truck and put it in the reliquary. That's going to need to be digitized somehow, so thank you for understanding.

The other thing -- beyond the relics of industrialism per se -- is what we are able to produce by way of study, making proclamations, speeches, slide shows, news articles, and blog posts, expressive of our concerted antipathy toward industrialism and the industrial powers. A lot of this starts out digitally. We could then print it out and scan it, making it digital again in a circular process. But why we would want to do that would be anyone's guess.

Please, anything you contribute to the reliquary, keep it digital, or as small as possible. If you can't produce a digital likeness of the object, something small with a description will be accepted. Perhaps the pointed tip of a leaf, just as an example, in the case of a downed tree. Or a single blade of grass if you find grass sucked down into the mud and wish to document it.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Local Man Sissifies Industrial Powers

Now that would be a headline! I dare the Daily News to run that headline! Chickens! Buck, buck, buck! Ha, ha, I got ya there!

I love to taunt these so-called journalists, who are so busy feathering their nest with industrial kickbacks and payoffs that they can't be bothered to cover a story any more in depth than the Garden Club's latest plantings. Oh, I take that back. There was a really hard hitting story the other day (more like a puff piece) on the "Employee of the Month" out at the local monster truck tire factory. As many peons as bite the dust out there on a daily basis, mucking out the blast furnaces, they should rename the award the "Surviving Employee of the Month." Everyone has a chance to win it by process of elimination, and I mean that literally.

But what if I were to sissify the industrial powers, or to have the newspaper describe my agitating actions as such? That'd be great, to illustrate the article with a few pictures of the head honchos out there in little dresses and girly shoes, LOL! With a flat codpiece -- is that what you'd call it? -- covering up their lower quandrants! It makes me laugh!

There could be some major shriveling going on, or cutting down to size, to get these blasted powers into their little dresses, with their little purses, and their little shoes, walking down the lily path all the way to music lessons. That's quite a picture!

A guy can dream, can't he? A big strapping industrial chief with his little purse and mincing steps headed for music lessons! LOL!

Local Man Takes On Industrial Powers

That's the headline that should be in the Daily News but isn't, something like, "Local Man Takes On Industrial Powers," "Local Man Challenges Industrial Powers," or "Local Man Sissifies Industrial Powers." Anything would be better than nothing, but nothing is about what I have.

I could use some help here! How is one local man, without the benefit of publicity and a public rallying around him, supposed to bring down the entire industrial complex and restore the world to its proper dignity? I'm starting to think maybe they're all in this together against me, just like they're against us all.

Surely someone in the media knows about my struggle by now. I've been going at it incessantly for a month or so. I've had the industrial powers breathing down my neck for a good two weeks. I've stood against them even as they've stationed both chiefs and underlings in my pussy willow trees, and as they've shot fireballs over my roof, which thankfully wasn't made out of thatch.

Of course just looking through the pages of the paper tells part of the answer, the advertising the paper gets from the various industries, or the other civic positions these vipers have wormed their way into. When the upper crust gets together, the rest of us suffer.

I do have my worldwide outreach here at the blog, which is great, but still, a few hits from France, Sweden, Russia, and Mauritius really isn't going to bring these cretins to their knees, no matter how much I wish otherwise. There's power in numbers, and numbers I haven't got.

Still, there's been plenty of other do-gooders in history who've had to stand alone. Then after they've been crucified, hung, or shot to death, after a few decades or centuries they're vindicated. So maybe that's what I have to look forward to, a quick death, then in years to come they'll make a holiday for me. They could get rid of Columbus Day, which is an idiotic holiday, and replace it with mine, and that'd be OK. I like October, just as an aside.

I would love to see some more publicity for this worthwhile cause. How is my assassin going to know about me if he doesn't read about me in the paper?

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Do The Industrialists Know About Mauritius?

It's conceivable that there are places on Earth that are so obscure that even the industrial powers haven't heard of them, or if they have heard of them, maybe they're too far from the mainstream to tempt them to establish themselves there.

I know it's that way with small towns that are far from an interstate highway. The industrialists don't especially want to go there and put in a big factory or plant. Even though they may have a railroad, they're still thinking of all the stuff they're going to need to transport by truck. And they want more "bang for their buck," which you can only get with a decent interstate highway. On the smaller county highways, or on gravel roads, or even minimum maintenance dirt roads, they can't get up to speed, and "time is money," to coin a phrase.

The same thing probably goes for entire countries. The United States of course is one of the "major players" in the world. And there's a few other countries like that, behemoths when it comes to being a country, which the industrialists immediately notice and latch on to. Then there are the countries you literally have to look up to find out even where they are. That's what I was talking about yesterday when I referred to Mauritius.

I had a man visit the Grandma Slump blog who was from Mauritius. And I'll probably get lots more now, because I imagine people there are constantly Googling the name of their country to see who may have mentioned them. That and dodo birds, which were from there but became extinct 400 years ago. Still, that doesn't keep them from having Dodo Days, with a big parade and a grand marshal.

Anyway, this man visited my site. And I've been giving this a lot of thought since yesterday, wondering why. Could he be an industrialist looking for obscure countries to exploit, that heretofore have been left alone? Could it be a turncoat Mauritian who's looking to sell his country out for 30 pieces of silver by bringing big industry in? Could it be -- and I hope it is -- a local man from that land who's educating himself about the dangers of industrialism and looking for ways to keep his country safe?

Anyway, friend or foe, let me address him: We in the United States and the other major players have been overrun by industry. Industrial sections have taken over large parcels of land in our cities and towns. They act like they own the place, and that the rest of us are peons on their plantation. They're no reasoning with them, because their power is so great it's their way to simply roll over the rest of us.

You will do well to steer yourselves far away from this fate.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Men Everywhere Stand Against The Industrialists

It does my poor heart good to check out my traffic at this blog once in a while. Because it's great to see, despite the appearances here on the half acre, with it being just me and Grandma, that I actually don't stand alone.

Somehow my internet signal is being beamed out to the entire world, at least to a selective few out there who have just the right aerials and other receiving devices. The statistics seen above prove it, that one here and one there, and a few in other places are getting their news right from the horse's mouth, here on the Grandma Slump blog.

The chart shows my worldwide outreach from April 7 through May 7, 2010, this year. And that's the last month, during which I have been doing a lot of teaching -- nothing but -- on the industrial powers and the industrial sections of our towns. All these people have been getting the straight scoop on what's going on, and, like I said, that does my poor heart good!

I'm greatly encouraged, because, going by the "birds of a feather" rule, it is my assumption that all of these men from around the world agree with me. Yes, I know a few of the hits had to come from the industrialist enemies, many of whom were monitoring my blog locally, who then staked out positions in my yard and trees and oppressed me for the last couple of weeks. That is, they were oppressing me until Paul Krugman shamed them the other day. With that shaming, the chiefs and underlings all abandoned their stations in my pussy willow trees, and I haven't seen them since.

Of course the hits from the enemies had to come by and large from the United States, since that's where I'm currently stationed. Our house has been in the United States ever since I can remember, from before the time I was born. I'm very sure it's indigenous to these parts, with the foundation apparently made of bricks made with American clay. There's definitely no other records that I know of, and with Grandpa's death in the late '70s, some of the history will never be fully told. Certainly, whatever the other facts are, the chiefs and underlings were here in America.

Look again at that list. It's impressive! 18 from the United Kingdom! I mention it especially because that's where the Industrial Revolution was discovered. A bunch of industrial revolutionaries got together and caused a violent overthrow of the previous system of tinkerers, cobblers, and craftsmen. I believe it was the tinkerers who became depressed and killed themselves. And if memory serves, the cobblers were the ones who fell into a vat of something and were liquefied. A few craftsmen remained to tell the tale.

So think of how important my outreach is to the men of the United Kingdom. They're on the front lines of this despicable history, so of course they're hungry for information. Along with the other stuff they eat, mostly fish and chips.

The Netherlands is represented on the list by four men. That's a good start and very heartening, because I've always had a great respect for that country, if it's the one I'm thinking of, with the finger in the dike and all that.

Then there's Russia, who used to get their false information from Pravda, but now fortunately are able to peek under the Iron Curtain and tap into the truth I present. I've got three hits from Russia.

Canada has three. India two. I believe I heard this was the big year for the Kumbha Mela, so I'm happy that two men (or one man twice) took time out from the ritual bathing and guru-following long enough to read my posts.

There was one man from Pakistan, and I sincerely hope it wasn't the New York terrorist or any of his henchmen. There's got to be normal men in Pakistan, too, right?

The Philippines is represented by one man. So with 3000 islands making up that nation, I need quite a few more to get one from each island. That'd be wild, wouldn't it? To live in a country that's 3000 islands! I'd guess 5th grade geography would be tough, having to memorize that many places.

The Swedes, the Aussies, and the French have been here one, one, and one times, respectively. To whom I'd love to say "Hi" in their native languages.

The last ones on the list include one man from Saudi Arabia. Maybe a very rich oil sheik. The Saudis have the right idea about where to get oil, under the sand. It's certainly a lot cleaner than getting it from the Gulf of Mexico.

The very last one on the list is Mauritius. This one I'm going to have to look up. Cool, Wikipedia says it's an island nation off the coast of Africa in the southwest Indian Ocean, about 560 miles east of Madagascar. I guess that's cool. It sounds very far away, but it's still cool, especially because at one time this was where the dodo bird lived, last in the 1600s.

It's a good thing it went extinct back then, because the industrialists would've definitely killed them off anyway in more recent times if they'd had half a chance! The fact that I have a man from Mauritius reading my blog gives me the hope we might find some dodo DNA and be able to reconstitute one in a laboratory, if we can make an egg, find a male dodo to fertilize it, then determine the exact incubation time needed to hatch it.

The world and all its men are rising up against the industrial powers, with me leading the way! Thank you for standing with me in this important work!

Friday, May 7, 2010

The Railroads And The Industrial Powers

Yesterday I examined, preliminarily, the industrial powers and the railroads. But there's also the subject of the railroads and the industrial powers, involving the same parties but looking at things from the opposite point of view.

Whether they are legitimately paired or not is still up for debate. But the circumstantial evidence is at least compelling, even if after further examination the surface appearances do not lead to anything that bears up under greater scrutiny.

Still, there's this side and that side, looked at from this side. Then there's that side and this side, looked at from that side. And that's the way I want to do it today, because I'm as fair as a person can be.

Just to review, from what I can remember from yesterday, there seems to be something of a pairing, of the railroads together with the various industrial sections of our towns. Unless it's simply a coincidence that industrial sections just happen to be next to railroads and conversely railroads just happen to be next to industrial sections.

I really could wonder which came first, although I think I know the answer to that. The railroads came first, when the first engineer was looking for a job. He said, "How can I have a job as an engineer when there aren't any trains?" So the train companies set out some tracks and the railroads were born. And because the circular tracks are only good for toy trains, they extended the tracks so they would reach across the country. I remember hearing about it when I was a kid. They were so glad the tracks were in place they pounded a golden spike to celebrate it.

Then, the way I believe it, towns were formed along the railroads. And because tinkerers, cobblers, and craftsmen needed a way to get their goods to market, before the invention of the truck, they put their little shops next to the railroad line. I'm assuming it happened this way.

Later, the first industrialist, who thought about consolidating the tinkerers and cobblers, then went about buying out their interests, hiring them to work for his company, he likewise needed the railroad to move his goods. It wasn't long after that that the industrial section sprawl, all that blight that we know so well, got underway. The tinkerers were depressed and killed themselves. The cobblers fell into a vat of something and were liquefied. The industrialists crushed everyone in sight, keeping a big grin on their blasted faces.

So, we can assume the railroads were innocent enough at first, although to make money of course they needed business along the tracks besides passenger travel. So they weren't entirely innocent. In fact, we might say that innocent is the last thing they were, because if it weren't for the railroads, it's arguable the tinkerers and cobblers would still be our manufacturing base. To get their goods to market, they could've figured out some other way, maybe a pedicab, especially the cobblers.

There definitely seems to be a real synergy there between the two, the industrial powers and the railroads ... although I should have said the railroads and the industrial powers, today especially, since that's the angle I'm looking at the whole subject from. I want to keep it real.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

The Industrial Powers And The Railroads

I was down at a big railroad terminal today nosing around, trying to ferret out the connection, if any, between the industrial powers and the railroads.

We tend to have a romantic view of the railroads, because that's the way we're indoctrinated. My parents, and even my grandparents, were a part of this, I'm guessing unknowingly. They like to give Baby a "choo choo train," to push or pull it around the room while going "Choo choo" in that silly, yet excusable, baby voice. One time I saw a baby who pulled his "choo choo train" around the room, oblivious to the fact that it wasn't rolling on its wheels but he was pulling it on its side. That was one very stupid kid! On the other hand he was only one, so I'll be merciful, I guess, and say, "Live and learn."

And yet ... and yet ... who were the stupid ones? Was it the kid, or could it have been his parents? Here I need to cut a little slack, because if I go down this track all the way, I'll be implicating my own parents. Which I refuse to do this close to Mother's and Father's Day. Any other time of the year, yes. It wasn't the kid's fault that he was pulling a "choo choo train" around the room in the first place; it was the parents' fault! They're the ones who were so uninformed and unthinking about the possible relationship between the industrial powers and the railroads.

So like I said, I was down at this railroad hub, this gathering spot for trains of all sizes and types, doing a little nosing around, some investigating, trying to determine if there is indeed any relation between the industrial powers and the railroads. What I found was amazing.

I found that there are railroad tracks going along the edge of the industrial section of town, then in places there are tracks that veer off from the main line actually into the industrial section. I would love to see it from the air, because then my study and conclusions would probably be accomplished quicker. As it was, I was still able to discern that there does truly appear to be a relationship, or, to be more accurate, there was at one time. As there were no trains coming through in the time I was there, I can't be sure that the relationship is ongoing.

Still, think about it, there are trains that go through town everyday. And the industrial section, of course, is always there. The track goes right by the industrial section, meaning at least -- and this is a major point -- the trains definitely have to go that way, being that close to the industrial section.

Going a little further, I examined the tracks. I noticed that the main line, what appeared to be the main line, was a very shiny iron, with very little rust. Then some of the side tracks also presented the same sheen, barely any rust. Then there were other side tracks, adjacent to buildings that seemed to be more or less abandoned, that were much more rusty. I let these facts soak in for a while. I went back to my car and gave Underbrush a doggie biscuit. I myself had a Triscuit and a Thermos cup of cold water.

While munching, I thought it over long and hard. Rust or no rust? Buildings that seem to be in daily use and buildings that appear to be abandoned? What could be the relationships involved? How much easier it would be if about a dozen trains all showed up at the same time? Or if someone had some time lapse films of the deed being done.

I munched on the Triscuits until my jaw was sore. Underbrush looked at me intently, making me feel guilty for leaving her Thermos at home. Still, you're a dog. Drink out of a ditch or something. As I munched I started thinking about the relationship of rusty and non-rusty tracks to the Lord. You can spiritualize it like this:

Lord, I've been going over the tracks of my life as it's been lived thus far. There were many times I was going along in a good way. And the tracks of my life were very shiny, no rust at all. Then there were other times, hard to explain, when I expected them to be rust-free, yet when I look back on them I see they were very rusty. Why is it that in those toughest times I had to endure all that rust? When you, Lord, certainly know that I would've preferred the better, shinier tracks! I felt like I was offended. It was just then that the Lord appeared unto me, and He said, "My son, I never abandoned you to the rusty tracks of life, but they were there. When the tracks were shiny, you were going along very well. But, my son, when they were rusty, those were the times I was carrying you on my flatcar!"

So the message there is that there are metaphoric railroad tracks, which are good ... and there are literal railroad tracks, which are not necessarily good, because the industrial powers appear to be using them, with the intent being the ruin of the world. The railroads, if this is true, are in cahoots with the industrial powers, ultimately going toward their own destruction.

I will be watching. When it's least expected, I will be there, to see if some of my assumptions (and fears) are true, that there is an ongoing relationship between the industrial powers and the railroads. If there is, I will examine it and what it means.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Industry Cannot Be Allowed To Self-Regulate

There's a lot of big time media voices joining their voices with mine in an attempt to take down industry. Speaking only for myself, I'd love to whittle down the industrialists to size, to pay them back for the years of misery that society has endured at their hands.

It seems like an impossible task, when you drive by the industrial section of town and see the blight, the sprawling blight that they've caused. And that's just on land. In recent weeks we've been reminded that these blasted so-and-so's are busy polluting, despoiling, and defiling the waterways too. There's nothing they won't damage in pursuit of the almighty dollar!

A couple days ago, media giant Paul Krugman made an excellent point when he said, "[M]odern technology and industry can all too easily inflict horrific damage on the planet." He was speaking about the planet. That's a pretty wide view of things. They don't just inflict horrific damage on a few well-screened, fenced off acres in the bad part of town, though that would be bad enough. They are busy ruining the entire planet, the only planet we have to live on!

Today I was watching "Hardball" on MSNBC and Chris Matthews asked the question whether we could allow industry to self-regulate. Even Pat Buchanan, one of the biggest sticks in the mud in the history of sticks and mud, agreed that industry needs to be regulated. That they can't be allowed to do it themselves, because obviously they're incapable of governing their affairs in any way, shape, or form with an interest toward the public good. They're just after money, and they'll cut any corner in the process.

Now, a great question would be, after they ruin this planet where they plan on spending their big money. We've barely made inroads into outer space, and some of the ins and outs of the various economies up there are still among the things we don't know. Whether they take Earth's currency in their trading deals is still seriously open to question. So it's something of a big gamble to both be ruining the Earth and hoarding money for transactions in outer spaces communities. Let's just say they don't accept our money. The industrialists will have a fortune that proves to be worthless.

The only conclusion is that industry needs to be regulated -- and it's just my own personal opinion that they ought to be regulated right out of business. Then we can go back to kinder, gentler times, when men called tinkers, cobblers, and the like made things for sale. A cobbler, just as an example, might have a vent leading out of his bathroom, to vent off the normal everyday smells from the toilet. But they didn't have a smokestack venting black smoke from blast furnaces. Nor did tinkers ever ruin the Gulf of Mexico for a thousand years with an oil slick the size of Asia.

Our media giants are seeing the light. And it's about time. I welcome their voices to this discussion, even as I continue to carry the banner.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

I'm Kind Of Lonely Without The Industrialists

Like I said yesterday, Paul Krugman came out with a column, lambasting the industrialists.

He said, in part, and I quote:

modern technology and industry can all too easily inflict horrific damage on the planet.

That's powerful stuff. Coincidentally it's exactly what I myself have been saying for the last few weeks or month. That "modern technology and industry can all too easily inflict horrific damage on the planet." There's not a syllable in that phrase that I couldn't have said myself.

Indeed, you put the two together, modern technology and industry, and you've got a lethal combination. Because each one of these eschews a leash. Modern technology just rolls on. It's no accident that you can't buy the same thing twice, whether it's a computer, a radio, or a toaster. Two weeks after you buy it, that's model's been retired and they've gone on to something else. Just like Beanie Babies from a few years back, always "retiring" them. We've got a million Beanie Babies retired and on Social Security, and that's what's bankrupting our country.

Modern technology, simply put, is on a tear. Because we have so many people involved in it, making a killing. There's no holding it back, and no one's trying.

Then the other thing in Krugman's (and by extension, my pairing) is industry. Industry is entrenched. That's a basic fact. It's like thistles in a field, once rooted and spreading it's hard to kill. It becomes entangled in the affairs of each community, then too big to kill. Industry becomes very old, in the sense that it gets established. Then it's hard to regulate it because regulations seldom affect it, thanks to grandfathering provisions. So industry has many reasons why it can thumb its nose at us.

We've gone beyond the industrialists' demand that I apologize to them, and in part, I'm thinking, this is thanks to Krugman's column. Because they have felt something that they don't usually feel, which is shame. So they've pulled back and retracted their tentacles, at least temporarily. Out of shame, because Krugman has a voice that people listen to, even making presidents quake in their boots.

Anyway, all I know is that as soon as his column came out, the industrialists and their underlings were gone from my yard. And it's definitely true, there was nothing I could do to root them out previous to that. They were literally sleeping in my trees and monitoring my every move. They were shooting fireballs over my house, making me glad I didn't have a grass thatched roof.

Now, though, and I know this sounds crazy, I'm a little lonely for them. I was having some good times sneaking out and thwarting them. Now, though, just to step out in my empty yard and see nothing in the trees except leaves and tree sap, there's a real empty feeling to it.

But do I want to be terrorized by industrialists? No, of course not. Still, sometimes you get used to certain conditions, good or bad, and when they're changed, it's something to adjust to.

Monday, May 3, 2010

NY Times Guy Also Laments Industrial Section

My cause, rallying all mankind against the industrial sections of our cities and towns, got a welcome boost today from New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.

That's big stuff! He writes for one of the biggest papers in the world. Thousands of avid opinion readers hang on his every word. When he says something, even presidents quake in their boots, as well they should. Because he has a lot of moxie on the ball when it comes to writing. I agree wholeheartedly with his opinions, especially when he's in agreement with me, as he was today.

Check out the following little paragraph, from a little column called "Drill, Disaster, Denial":

For the gulf blowout is a pointed reminder that the environment won’t take care of itself, that unless carefully watched and regulated, modern technology and industry can all too easily inflict horrific damage on the planet.

He's writing about an actual event, something that happened the other day and is still in the process of happening, since they haven't gotten it cleaned up yet. A big oil derrick or oil boom or gas station down there in the Gulf of Mexico blew itself all to smithereens, leaving a lot of spewed oil everywhere, which is proving that oil and water don't mix, since it's spreading far and wide, hither and thither, and making a gigantic mess.

What's the basic problem there? That industry is a rapacious monster, seeking its way at our expense, with no expense spared. The key part of that paragraph, in my opinion, I shall repeat: "modern technology and industry can all too easily inflict horrific damage on the planet." That's what I've been saying for the last (almost a) month!

Industry is bad enough on dry land. We get up in the morning and look out the window. And what do we see? In my town, the smokestacks of a monster truck tire factory, belching out black smoke so much that it blocks out the sun. Then at night they lower the entire works down into a hole in the ground, while men, looking like ants, scurry around mucking it out and getting it ready for the next day. Men are lost on a daily basis, but it's all in a day's work. So that's bad.

Just imagine if we turned over the seas to these greedy, heartless so-and-so's! They'll gladly chew up the land and the sky. You can just imagine what they'd do with the waterways. Well, we don't have to wonder, because it's already been done. They're down there with a big tottering oil derrick. A couple of guys get drunk. They're twisting knobs, taking knobs entirely off the apparatus, and in their drunken condition, they're skimming them across the ocean, seeing how many bounces they can get. Then they go off duty, the next guys come on, the knobs are missing, the thing is overheating, then they can't turn it off, and it blows.

So what do we get? An oil spill the size of a continent, all out of one or more mistreated spigots.

And to think these blasted industrialists have been trying to get me to apologize for "insulting" them! Well, they deserved it! And some of them know it! The ones who've been guarding my house and harassing me, even sleeping in the tress, they've retreated, probably out of shame. So I'm back home, back posting, and feeling quite free to state my mind.

That's what happens when a guy with a massive soapbox like Paul K. starting spreading the gospel of anti-industrialism. People start listening, heads roll, presidents quake in their boots, and I'm back in business!

Sunday, May 2, 2010

The Industrial Revolution

There was a big revolution in the 1800s, called the Industrial Revolution.

This is a revolution that we could've very well lived without. Because it brought in all the decay and dismal dealings that made up the proto-industrial section of the world. The proto gave way to the present, so now, out of those despicable roots, we have one industrial section after another.

How great it must've seemed to the people at the time, not knowing the bitter fruit that would result from this revolution. They suddenly had a way of turning out finished products without lifting a finger. Just turn on the machine, sit back and watch.

But I can well imagine how it went, the first little whiff of pollution that escaped that first factory. They said, "How quaint, a little puff of dirty smoke just went out the window. We need to open the window further." Everyone laughed and that was it. Next thing they had a bigger puff of smoke and someone said, "We need a pipe to carry it above our particular building." That is, it was a very localized problem, not even a problem, really, but a source of pride, "Our puff of smoke is bigger than yours." Finally, of course, the whole city was so overrun with pollution that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, and all the white moths turned black. Which is why we have black moths to this day, as a testimony to the filth in the air in that day,

If someone, perhaps a prophet, would've stood up and decried it all, it might not have made a difference, for the heart of man is deceitfully wicked, but at least we would've had it on record, the realization that I have today, that there is terrible evil in the industrial sections of the world.

And just like today, the prophet would've been ridden out of town on a rail, which they were just in the process of inventing, so they'd have one to ride people out of town on. I have to be careful. The industrial powers are sleeping in my trees and clogging up my internet today. But back then they would've been sleeping in the other prophet's trees and clogging up his telegraphy system. So that he'd be reduced to the stratagem of dressing like his grandmother and riding to the outskirts of town to send a simple telegram! It's the same story with me, writing this blog post at the college in Grandma's discarded dress!

Well, the cat's out of the bag! The toothpaste has left the station! And we have only ourselves to blame, in addition to the millions of people all along the way since the Industrial Revolution, who put their own convenience and lusts ahead of the common good. They dropped the ball in their day, just as we continue to drop it in our own. Except for me, the prophet who eschews everything that the industrialists put forth.

If I could go back in time and nip the Industrial Revolution in the bud, I would, in a heartbeat. Then I would wake up with the satisfaction today, perhaps unknown to all but myself along, that I made a way for the world to go back to craftsmanship and tinkers and spared it all the pollution we suffer from the industrial sections, as well as sparing weeds and grass everywhere the indignity of being sucked down into the mud by speeding trucks passing by.

There'll never be another first chance to destroy the Industrial Revolution. That train left the station a long time ago! But we can make up for lost time, if only we will, and destroy the bitter fruits of that terrible revolution in our own town, then perhaps the whole world.

God being our help, we shall!