Fix The Sidewalks Party

** A comment was added, April 17, 2014, and this
Soapbox View of Ukraine

Okay the deposed Ukranian president was thwarted from consolidating Russian influence through a months-long, 24/7, street demonstration. A Tiananmen Square-like police/military action failed to stifle protestors and superficial concessions provided temporary cover for Yanukovych to abscond to Moscow, leaving a palace, but taking an as yet undisclosed fund as, after all, Moscow's business supposedly isn't providing charity to their fellow ruthless as neither Europe nor America would want to have their own positions slanted as well.  

Granted, Crimea was Russia's by virtue of centuries-old imperialism and despite rural-Khrushchev's gift of the territory to Ukraine a Russian majority has remained planted there thanks to the Soviet Union's previous jingoistic enforcement of Ruissian-ism over their entire domain. State-Capitalism remains the name of the game despite ALL claims otherwise throughout the planet. Just as the Russian Congress is the domain of millionaire-access, the U.S. Congress, rightfully so, is made up of millionaires representing billionaire-ish access. 

THE POINT: Though we want an easy to understand defined common public knowledge, what we have is a commercial interests' crafted networked public sphere. Consequently making it too easy to thrust complete blame on either Western influence OR a Putin dictatorship. While neither are merely tips of the ruthlessness iceberg - The elitist commercial structure moving trillions and quadrillions of dollars, rubles, pesos, pounds, euros and assorted negotiable banknotes a few feet a day from one account to another while claiming only hard-work separates the poor and less poor from a greater share of the wealth that's NOT COMPLETELY CIRCULATING in anyone's dreams - yet. 

MY POINT: In a world where public opinions are craftily bought, the public is not even receiving a minimal compensation for OUR attention. As the American-ism rubber stamp Sean Hannity once publicly voiced on his television show, with his fellow poll-taker/watcher, the truth doesn't matter. The message only has to cover what the public has already been convinced to believe. Hence Russia's television hypnotized public and America's jingoistic exceptionalism.

FIRST: Let's get further than the excuse of Russian corruption. Just as China's mass pollution resulted from mimicking American automotive success when China already knew how to ride a bike, America itself hasn't evolved out of its' own corruptive roots. From a 6-figured salaried Congress that could debatably ALL survive without the personal salary and a lucrative publicly financed Socialized (insurance) Medicine for themselves, to a business environment that minimized actual work while manipulating the account books to preserve inflationary elitist wealth, progress is, and has been, actually slow. Another example is the tradition of Democrat Party politicians access to wealth through graft and Republican "business" connections i.e. mass arrests of local Democrats in New Jersey the day before former Federal Prosecutor Republican Chris Christie won the New Jersey governorship is evidence corruption, legal or illegal, is and always will be an activity among friends and or, at the least, convenient acquaintances. FAVORS. Hence Russian police curtailing open street journalism and street vagrants being the problem rather than just a symptom of the actual problem of poor financial circulation that's cursorily dealt with through extravagant charity organization dinners awarding comfort for the charity-givers substituting for actual circulating economies benefiting - EVERYONE.

SO? A good place to start is to consider every legacy, as currently portrayed, a shame. Top to bottom, no one, corporation, state or nation, is worthy of their current images as they are being sold. Sycophants are not creative but creations and only Allah/God has any business being even slightly satisfied with a devotion, result, such as that. While the Divine Creator really has no business being accused of harboring so many human frailties/prejudices as the world's religions try portraying. There's just so much smoke and mirrors when, obviously, the technology already exists for the least among us to be living closer to more comfortable lives. It's time they weren't the excuse and power the only thing the powerful believe in. President Putin et. al. ?

OR: We are tectonically moving toward George Orwell's prediction of hemispheric alliances diametrically opposed for the sheer thrill of THE GAME. Turn on the consoles, the children of the world are primed and ready to play.

Okay. Redress has finally been achieved over Khrushchev's short-sighted anti-Russian nationalism. The path is clear for the backwoods revitalization of Stalinist disguised statism. Secret Police For Everybody? As with Wal-Mart, drinks are on the house until market-share domination is secure then prices rise as per convenience. Because surfing inflation has never been or ever will be - for everybody.
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SPHERES OF INFLUENCE?

Putin (phone call) throws ball to Kirchner in Argentina for Argentines or for the United States to play more in that court and therefore divide to conquer? Dominoes again? If only anyone ever really stopped playing that game. Because business is supposed to consist of quality rather than the current certain amount of actual disrespect for the customers' interests. 

And so it was in my personal experience that seven years ago on my first trip to Argentina I sprained my ankle on a portion of cracked sidewalk. It doesn't matter where, though I remember, because the sidewalks throughout the country are broken except in the most exclusive or recently constructed neighborhoods. It was back then in this country of multi-political parties tugging this way and that for influence changing nada that I thought a Fix The Sidewalk Party would be apropos. But be a business that only fixed sidewalks as in my seven yearly visits to Buenos Aires I've only twice seen three-person crews working on small portions of sidewalk. A structural laziness co-personified by dog-poop lying everywhere and drainage gutters that cause flooding rather than hinder it during storms. With dogs' natural function thought of as their fault when the irresponsibility is that of the dogs' owners. Reminding me of how a former New York City Mayor is credited with ridding New York City of indoor tobacco smoke when all along tobacco smokers should have been politely smoking responsibly outside already themselves before their claiming to have been picked on when it's obvious now how much more comfortable indoors has been made for everyone. A law concerning picking up pet refuse should be unnecessary where people appreciate being polite. No? I'd also wager broken sidewalks are chronic all over the world except where prosperous economics made it possible for land owners to be held responsible for paying for their own portions of sidewalk. 

Needless to say Buenos Aires is experiencing road improvements for the most successfully subsidized industry in the world? 

Oh well? Rhetoric is everywhere you turn, ya know?
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** April 17, 2014 Facebook Post
comment that highlights my frustration over Ukraine. 

Tony Gillings - I'm supporting the Ukraine in their fight against Russian-backed tyranny and Putin's empire-building covert military actions. I am sad that when we all thought including Russia in the global market place and opening our markets to trading with them, would be a way to embrace them and building political trust, this is how they respond - grabbing land, ignoring the sovereign integrity of neighbours and throwing the world into chaos and fear. Way to go Putin!

• 

  Charles M. Fraser - The dude needs to create a whole other role for himself or his powerful legacy will just mean that. Which explains their almost casual reviving of respect for Stalin, anticipating how extreme the leaders might have to go to enforce control. It's all a bunch of bs until certain dudes learn to lighten up. 
  

  Word Search Soapbox View Comrade Putin

  + Power Is Tenuous?

  
  

  PEACE
  

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The Women of The Masters' Augusta National

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Pete Seeger died Tuesday, January 28, 2014 outliving his persecutors?

Testimony of Pete Seeger before the House Un-American Activities Committee, August 18, 1955

Austin Horse - "I've got a ‪#‎PeteSeeger‬ story to share- Quite a few years back I was at Clearwater with Times Up! doing the bike valet. Pete came up and told me a story from his youth. Apparently he had spent summer riding his bike all over New England. He'd ride until the late afternoon and then look for an idyllic farmhouse or barn. Then he'd stop to paint it with watercolor. When he was finished he'd go down and knock on the door, show it to the farmer and offer it to him. They'd be very curious about what he was doing riding around and then he'd allow that no, he didn't have a place to sleep for the night and yes, he was hungry, and they'd usually take care of him afterwards. Always dug this memory of him. Peace!"

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Circle The Hysterical Wagons? 

Nancy Grace on Pot Chris Christie is morally against.
How much sense is it making believe we can all be civilized then insist we'll always be at war over people's taste in stimulants? 

Moral Totems Should Be Risen To, Not Fallen From?

Brought to my attention by Mark Marone of Occupy Astoria - Long Island City.
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The History Rhyme

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” – Mark Twain

Good News For Modern Management?

Issues Are Resolving and Power Is In Check?

Before President Obama's, relatively cohesive, September 10th, explanation of the Syrian chemical gas crisis, ritualized public debate was already off to the races over how much or little influence the president has left in his second term.

Monday morning quarterbacking abounded before last Tuesday night's speech and will, of course, continue such that, as a political opponent, the president's days are depicted waning, as if tunnel-visioning American opinion wasn't the most despicably shallow commercial act feasible. Hardly. But there's (been) a virtual chantlike cacophony that to do the right thing and negotiate political compromise is nothing compared to the power to do what one wants anyway as the only true definition and test of what wielding presidential power is. Forget just getting people to understand there's no such thing as a holy war for Allah/God. Hands, anyone? Soapbox View!

Focusing on the manner in which people are led by cock and bull, the more amusing and tawdry jokes tangentially evolve (freedom fries) into the irrelevant re-paraphrasings of public perception that are as much or more focused than polling's serious punchlines. Because the consuming public is indoctrinated into what's optimal, infotainment moods, rather than open questioning that values discernment. For that reason it has been assumed for generations that mass communication is a poisoned well of propaganda such that no one can be told what they don't want to know. In spite of the smiling serious show faces of newsreaders.

So we really can democratically joke it's not just emperors who're not wearing clothes anymore? Why even serious News is so heavy-laden with sugar and sappy that the taint drips off of us onto the voting booth floor where, as an electorate, we're slipping and sliding to the polls on one or only a few well worn-out tracks the in-crowd is content with for political expedience. 

Amnesty for Alexei Navalny? Everybody?

On the surface what appears amazing about Syria is, outside of Syria, it's almost as if everyone is on the same page? Though Washington's The Hill documented congressional reactions that were relatively correct perceiving slights to American Interests, smoke rings aside when I finished last Wednesday's editorial printed by The New York Times, A Plea for Caution From Russia, What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria by Vladimir V. Putin, I was struck wondering if President Putin, or even their stand-in speechwriter, can write so relatively well, why was it so necessary to stockpile such a huge personal fortune to fall back on in active retirement?

Though according to the Public Editor Margaret Sullivan in The Story Behind the Putin Op-Ed Article in The Times in The New York Times, Russia's president didn't collect a fee for the editorial submitted by his Moscow Public Relations firm. So it's probably naive, as usual, to question why federal funds anywhere seem to have to go missing from off the top since everyone must get paid? Ba dump bump. And an oh well.

Whatever's true or politically true isn't the point. True or not in negotiations positions aren't given up unless something is gotten in return. But in light of innocents dying every day, you'd think there'd be more pride in accuracy than knee-jerk diplomacy. After all history sweeps it all up after the victors and victims are gone and this world's heavy-hitters should care more about how they'll be written up than how well the world's honorable PR professionals are paid to depict them to a consuming rather than active public consciousness. 
Already, of course until Syria heatens, the world doesn't stand still as we're all overwhelmed by the many diverse personal tragedies associated with daily survival. Last week's Colorado flooding as an example that dominated the next day's news after President Obama's speech and President Putin's written public statement. But imagine war as apparently not hard to wish upon others?

When we should just be shaking our heads and smiling because we're truly thinking we're turning corners pursuing loftier horizons than ever endeavored upon before? While the public is led to think of itself as what the centers of power want? But in this one decision not to categorically strike is a deeper meaning than what, in not enough retrospect, was a rash decision to expand American participation in the cycle of revenge. All because the military industrial complex was ready and rar·in' to go? All Hail A Complaining Congress! Go Navy!

Life Is The Performance Or Actual Act Of Getting Our Acts Together?

Every Major Military Strike Has Advance Warning?

War Tard

Still The Precipice, Again?

Is there literally no one safe in their own homes who doesn't know war is an easy way out for enemies to have not to compromise? The real game of life. Push and shove and now in Syria's case what do they mean, jumping line? Feigning having little idea that the use of chemical weapons betrays this advantageous strategy shared by nations whereby wealth is military hardware distribution that has nothing to do with preventing acts of destruction since we're all, after all, so mature, smart and civilized? 

But crackpots released the gas? And why did idiots believe it was just the right stuff to have lying around waiting to be cracked open? Because enemies don't compromise? That's the deal? Death and zealotry define us, win, lose or draw? Spelled out the facts aren't so cute, huh? While we're all just standing in virtual awe of the absolute power of corruption.

Yet everyone's expected to be intelligent with the dangerous toys only used for honorable wars that, guess what, is the problem to begin with as honor is in the defense, not the war. Signals are crossed then, if ends justify lethal means? 

So it would be nice if referees just stepped in between and said, "stop fighting. The cycle of revenge has to end." 

But that's comic book superhero mythology. Where ultimate warriors of objectivity just drop in on warring neighbors and beat everyone up that needs destroying. However ridiculous, the cycle of revenge be damned. Uh huh. That life exists under the ultimate might of military right is reality. As is the problem also of Syria's Assad thinking like everyone else that he's not just a pawn too?

ALL ANYONE CAN SAY IS GIVE PEACE A CHANCE?

 Justice Is Not Revenge  

No not Pontoon. Pawn too. Soapbox View 

President Putin, The Last Word?

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Are Politics Just Standing On Our Acrobatic Heads?

Politics are essentially mental calisthenics that don't take actual Einsteins to figure out how much shrewd ruthlessness is rewarded above all else? Only paling in comparison to the indignity life is by being both bought and sold out for no other reason than the same ole song and dance my friend? 

Turns out that the staunchly labelled and well tailored liberal Bill Moyers, who conservatives wanted whitewashed as a poison inside Public Television where William F. Buckley, Jr. planted the Conservative Firing Line flag a generation back, continues enacting his revenge on the political game on his show, Moyers & Company. For instance this past week, except for his closing editorial, Mr. Moyers  interviewed Mark Leibovich of The New York Times Magazine, for the entire show, about Mr. Leibovich's book This Town.  

Their discussion cut to the nitty-gritty basics of how Washington D. C. is finally the place to grow rich for the reasonably young and successful entrepreneurs this country is already supposed to be thriving on. Now.

"all it's about is bein here"

On the other hand this literary review episode actually copies an April 27, 2012 Moyers & Co. softball presentation of the tainted money in politics issue with the writer of Eddie Murphy's The Distinguished Gentleman, Marty Kaplan of The Norman Lear Center. *            Solutions?

* Both Moyers and Leibovich had huge grins during the distinguished film satire's rendering on their episode.

"Son the system ain't perfect. The fleas come with the dog."

And you know what they say about sleeping dogs? You let 'em lie.

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We Know What's Happening?

There's not much to be confused about. Money is a simple enough system. Yet corruption is just the surface of what the real problems are with power that generally makes people seem outright mean. Our generation has learned to make a lot of money mean a lot and a little not enough. But it takes money to accomplish anything and that's for the best. Cut to the chase,

Then Corruption For Everyone Is The Real Test? *

The Soapbox View Satirical Twist in pursuit of the Twin Legacies

Andy Rooney and I.F. Stone?

* Russia's Kremlin is used here to represent the entire world's Institutions of Authority. Merely historical coincidence this ideal structure is so intricately beautiful.

Mad Enough To Hurt Innocent People?

Angry Enough to Hurt Anyone?

Fulfilled by Revenge or 
Just Plain Pissed Off? 

There's a Solution? 

As Time Slips into the Future 

Our era's baffling questions handed-down from the bad intentions of everyone's forbears is such that extracting justice through the nightmare of terrorism

means there's no end to how angry people are never satisfied? 

As if the dispute isn't over injustice, just revenge? 

Because however big, bad or evil  Americans are, Americans try to make a difference. Hopefully with an independent spirit and not just an obligation to nationalism. P e o p l e shouldn't feel obligated to reenacting violent revenge when everyone with a clue knows revenge won't produce a better world. Just revenge. 

Americans had thought it was an every day feature of life now,

going back over a decade, but again a violent statement wakes our collective memory of dread. Patriots Day. During our mourning the major news media doesn't seem to want to sound so macabre by labeling this bombing the Second Boston Massacre. Because this was a major tragedy. As horrific as anywhere in the world the sanctity of the public square is destroyed. The tragedy of course is everyone doesn't share our losses the same. Either way claims to be after justice are impossible if innocence is gone.

Are? We? In a dimension? Priced out of reality? Where all the ruthless need is good timing? 

Where despite logic? 

Money isn't filtering through smooth enough?

 To finance Peter's bankruption of Paul anymore?

So the surviving on Nickels and Dimes Folks get

Penny Pinched to Death and Resentful? B. S. 

The Human Race: As Corrupt As We Can Afford To Be?

4/19, News the bombers are Chechen hits the who to hate why instinct differently. Supposedly this would be about America’s involvement with regimes suppressing Muslim nationhood. The tragedy remains the same. People stewing in bitter resentment  that should be having real fun. Once again, another generation on, a nineteen year-old had long enough to grow this hate but not enough time to mature out of it. What's your excuse?

Margaret Thatcher