...The More They Stay the Same
Not that many years ago a Canadian mining firm proposed an open pit, cyanide heap leach gold mine in the headwaters of our famous Blackfoot River. A broad based citizens initiative campaign was able to defeat it ( and managed to get all cyanide processes banned) because we had powerful ,privileged people on our side, ranchers, sportsmen, celebrities and the Non-Profit NGO Complex.
In Latin America the process is much less gentile. The corporations hire para-military killers to terrorize any resistance, they buy local police and politicians to thwart investigation and they utilize right-wing elites, local ranchers and developers who stand to gain financially for cover. This story is so old it is being turned into Hollywood action films ( like the new blockbuster Avatar). It is currently playing out in Ecuador, Honduras, Chiapas Mexico and El Salvador and in many of these cases it is the Canadian corporations who are the most ruthless.The Stock Exchange and many large pension funds are involved. Canada, who reneged on their Kyoto obligations, is also producing huge quantities of filthy crude from oil sands. They must be stopped.
On the health care front, I watched an interesting report on Americans going to Mexico for cheap, quality health care. State provided insurance is $300 a year if you have no pre-existing conditions and they still take gringos. One man had a hip replacement priced at $85 to $115,000 in the states. Including airfare and hotel it was $13,000 in Puerta Vallarta. I see where the US Senate Bill would impose a 10% excise tax on indoor tanning services which would mean Minority Whip John Boener would fund the entire Head Start program himself.
Speaking of Avatar, wowser.that was a trip. I haven't been to an action/adventure film in years and had no idea what they were capable of, technologically speaking. With the 3D it is seat-gripping eye candy and in how many post 9/11 films has the rugged Marine been the bad guy? Scientists versus military is also provocative. I wonder if kultur locates the natives in a pre-civilized, ecstatic terrain? If I can ride a giant velociraptor count me in.
posted by troutsky @ 9:58 AM
26 comments
26 Comments:
I see where the US Senate Bill would impose a 10% excise tax on indoor tanning services which would mean Minority Whip John Boener would fund the entire Head Start program himself.
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Be nice.
"I wonder if kultur locates the natives in a pre-civilized, ecstatic terrain?"
Why do you assume the natives of Pandora were not civilized … no unions? … no machines? … no buildings?
"I wonder if kultur locates the natives in a pre-civilized, ecstatic terrain?"
I have no answer, because I do not watch movies of this ilk.
Kultur does not need fiction as his
life is dedicated to the subject. No doubt he thinks that Mazzola commercials are higher art forms
Ha! Troutsky is found out!!
Speaking of Avatar, wowser.that was a trip...With the 3D it is seat-gripping eye candy...
http://iamyouasheisme.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=3834
Wow, Kultur, you really are a snob aren't you? Or do all of your ilk go around calling others ilk to fit in?
How do you maintain ecstasy so far removed from its source — the oneness of us all?
Yodood
This may be funny, but what pre industrial man was is a serious topic. The problem with Kultur is that he venerates preindustrial man in a Neo Noble Savage comedy bit.
The truth is that how man lived before the dawn of civilization was likely quite diverse. We can not even make sweeping generalizations about Native Americans as each tribe had its own way of life. There were some tribes that were peaceful alongside
those that practiced slavery and human sacrafice.
Man just faced different challenges
to survive. The idea of tribal folks living an idealistic life would probably amuse the people who knew hard work first hand.
The essence of radicalism is the disdain for the present. However, in the case of Kultur it is Paradise Never Was. People worked hard and lived very short lives.
yodood - it's a struggle; but somehow i manage
Yodood
BTW. Ilk means type, sort, kind. Sorry about your hypersensitivity.
I do not like SciFi/Fantasy movies. It is my choice!
Beak - as for you... you seem to be willing to sleep with any girl who looks your way. BTW, that is a reference to you taking advantage of any comments here to make your brownie points, whether or not you really agree with someone's position.
If you are interested Beak on an American Indian's perspective read Columbus and Other Canibals. by Jack Forbes, or Red Earth, White Lies, by Vine Deloris, Jr.
The second rate academic hack with a degrees from a rectal thermometer is in God mode again. What makes Kultur interesting is that he is so ignorant but proclaims himself an expert on every subject.
If people flee Marxist tyranny well it is because they are just not as enlightened as the clown of Academia.Shall the clowns of higher ed quote Mental Ward Churchill who passed himself off as a Native American but possessed
not one drop of Native American heritage. He merely wore sunglasses and a pony tail and repeated Marxist cliches for decades.
As stated earlier tribal people lived in many areas. Your infantile fetishization of their lives is a product of your dementia. There were tribes that were peaceful and those who were not. Even the tribes themselves varied in different time period. When we speak of tribal people this includes non Native American tribal people as well.
Stick with slapping around anarchists Kulture Klown. You too inbred intellectually by life in your vocational Marxist gulag.
As for Tribal People they had the same weaknesses we have. They exploited resources and when given advanced technology killed their tribal enemies, not Euros.
Europeans did not invent colonialism. While Kultur is in a fog he defines tribal people within his own demented framework. Who and what tribal people were like is not defined in your terms. To simply think that they lived communally is an over simplification as tribes also traded extensively and many had slaves.
I want that to point out that commies who think they own the injustices of tribal people are guilty of theft. Then again the Sandinazis butchered Indians while folks like Renegade Lobotomy made excuses.
Your knowledge appears to be based on Mazzola commercials and wishful thinking.
Yodood, I don't have enough knowledge of anthropology to know how this category is arrived at. In kulturs book it is related to the experience of time.His account of this feral,ecstatic nature involves the lack of historical conciousness but I don't suppose we know enough about the tribes of Pandora either.
Beak, the fetishization / romanticize argument is different. Read his book then debate him.I think we all accept that tribal people had weaknesses, even on Pandora.
Uh...Beakerkin, why is it that every other word you type is an insult or a global generalization? Why don't you pretend that you're talking to your friends here, then you might get a more serious hearing. Or is this how you talk to your friends? Do you have any..?
Lichanos
I am not amongst friends with the exception of the Duck. Communists are the sworn enemies of Americans and the Jewish people. A Jew views a Commie in the same manner a Black man views the KKK. Given their history of crimes against humanity, deception and treason they are the equals of Nazis, racial power kooks and Jihadi lunatics. I do not indulge death cultists, but that is your choice.
If you want to talk about sweeping
generalizations you need to speak to Mazzola Man. Sorry, but the real world is more complex than his cartoon world.
Troutsky
Kultur Klod is nothing more than a pompous hack. His amoral views are
the product of dementia. Tribal people were not Saintly all knowing types.
Any works produced by Marxists are worthless.
Beak, TAKE BACK THE MEDICATION ! THEY SCREWED UP THE DOSAGE AGAIN.
Beak:
Pretty weird...
I don't like to get into identity stuff, but I'm Jewish, and I don't view communists the way a black man views the KKK. I'm sure you think I should, but that's another story. I'm also sure you're very aware of the large representation of Jews in the Bolshevik faction that took over Russia in 1917. Trotsky, among them, of course.
Not sure what that proves, other than that a lot of Jews disagreed with you, and continued to do so.
So, your statement is another global generalization...
Lichanos
Communism is a surrogate religion and we not consider converts to be Jewish. This view was presented by a real scholar Toynbee, not to be confused with Kultur Klown.
when one signs onto the death cult they have lost their identity as Jew. Trotsky was a butcher on a par
with Saddam Hussein. Even Enema Goldman who was a moron saw through
his self serving lies. My family knew his butchery first hand. My grandfather was a man of Peace and had no love for Poland, but he recognized evil when he saw it. He fought with the Poles against the Bolshevik worms. Both sides of my family fought for Poland. The one relative who fought for the Bolsheviks was treated as a pariah
for the next 50 years. He was sent to Siberia which cured him of his Communism, but he was not forgiven.
Real Jews have a low opinion of commies. They have a history of siding with our enemies and trying to get us killed.
Renegade Lobotomy is an actual apologist for a stridently anti Semitic government. Those pesky Jews fleeing Hugo's crack den have nothing better to do than make up stories about kidnappings by government thugs to impress US government officials. Of course the Renegade Lobotomy call these people liars who just tell identical lies.
Those Bolsheviks you describe were not considered Jews by their fellow
Jews. The situation was comparable
to the division in the USA in the Civil War. Those who practiced the faith viewed Commies as pariahs.
As far as scholarship produced by Commies being worthless, how many papers would you care to read claiming the Rosenberg's (Ren's Role model) were innocent? Would you care to view papers that claimed the Communist Party in the
USA was independent of Moscow? How
about papers that claimed that the Communist Party in the USA had nothing to do with treason? This record of knowingly producing
fiction remains a fact. Any work produced by a communist is worthless.
We do not place pedophiles in day
care centers. We do not employ bank robbers in banks. Similarly
Communists should not be employed
in education or journalism.
I understand Beak's problem now; he is consumed as an internet blogger. Manages four sites from his mom's basement in brooklyn. Hasn't changed his dirty underwear in a month; and sits there eating fruit loops from a box.
Do yourself a favor Beak; stay in the hole you have dug for yourself, with the beleif that you are now "connected" to the world through your IT box.
At least the Internet gives you the illusion of community, power and relevance, To make up for what you have not!!
with love and rage!!
KK
Kulture Klown
The hack scholar read by nobody points has no points. He is a loser whose degree came from a rectal thermometer. Were it not for Bolshevik domination of higher ed he might be qualified to flip hamburgers.
The Kulture Klown has never held a real job. When he leaves his amen corner in the higher ed gulag he has no answers. He is just a mindless moron with delusions of grandeur.
His fetishization of tribal people
on behalf of Marxist morons represents a cultural theft and abuse of history. Tribal people
should be portrayed as they are without political agendas.
FYI You could have asked Junglemom
who has spent years living amongst
South American tribes her opinion.
However, Renegade Spleen's henchman
thinks it is funny when his henchmen threaten people's family.
The tribal people have no love for communists.
The Klown has no answers. He is just a Toady who repeats whatever his Marxist Masters tell him. His next original thought will be his first.
Sing the mazzola theme and you get
the extent of his idiocy.
BEAK
Obviously your diatribe was meant to make you feel better, not about facts.
"The Kulture Klown has never held a real job."
But this one is grand. You know nothing about the careers I have had. And it is not something I care to share with you. We all know fairly well that you don't care about facts, only about your myopic view of the world!!
I wouldn't be too angry, kultur. He thought you could be confused with Toynbee, a pretty respected historian, something Beak is unlikely to experience.
Any comment on Rosa Luxemburg or Alfred Doblin, Beak?
You might want to give "Karl and Rosa" a try. Solid book but I hear that Doblin guy palled around with Brecht a bit so take it easy.
Beak, don't you think it's curious that you try to compartmentalize world history according to a portion of your family history and the experience of the posters on your blog who aren't actively hostile to you?
Makes for a bit of tunnel vision , no?
My great uncle escaped from the Gulag but I have digested that a little differently than you have processed your personal experience. Why is that? (ad hominem in 1, 2 ...)
Kultur Klod
You have nothing but hot air and BS.Your degree is worthless and your theories are bunk. If we had real scholarship instead of gulags you might be lucky if you were flipping burgers. There is no thought in your pompous BS attempt to steal the history of tribal people on behalf of death cultists.
You might try to rehash the noble savage bit that goes back to France. Thomas Jefferson had quite
a good laugh at that idiocy. You just add some death cult crap and rehash a stupid idea that is centuries old. No doubt there were
probably people in Sumeria with the same ignorant ideas minus Marx.
Man did not tiptoe through the tulips and commune with nature. He hunted and exploited whatever resources he could. When possible
he sometimes enslaved his neighbor
and made war. This is not to say that they were any better or worse
than the rest of us, merely they were just as human.
Correction, tribal man probably never deliberately starved members
of his own community, so Marxists
are the ultimate savages.
Regale us with your mediocrity as only a gulag lackey can.
Duncy
You gained no wisdom from your relatives experiences. Mine almost to a man fought for Poland. Trotsky was considered an apostate
and an embarrassment. Communists were not considered Jews by those who practiced the faith. They were correctly perceived as traitors.
That one relative who fought for the wrong side was a pariah for 50 years long after a stint in Siberia cured him of Communism. His own words were "it would have been better to die in a concentration camp than to serve Communists". His reward for fighting on the wrong side was a quick trip to Siberia.
You live in a fantasy world Duck.
History has pronounced its verdict
on Communism. All we hear from the death cultists is excuses that they
need the entire world to be one great gulag. These fantasies of global conquest of a bad idea and dividing the world into classes is very similar to that of Jihadi lunatics.
My relatives knew evil where they saw it. Who do you want to talk to about life under Marx, Poles, Chinese, Cuban, Cambodians? How do
such disparate people tell the same identical story?
No doubt KKKulture KKKartoon will
make up some BS about false consciousness. Sorry, but the facts
speak loudly and clearly even as you remain deaf to histories verdict.
Beak, your relatives were TKRP, it's okay. Stop the guilt trip.
Duncy
My Grandfather was a decorated Cavalryman who was well known for his marksmanship. Many a Bolshevik worm was given social justice via his skill.
My uncles all fought proudly for Poland with one exception. We had a cousin who fought for the wrong side. He was never forgiven and was
shunned for 50 years. To be a communist was considered betraying
the Jewish community.
These people were otherwise peaceful and gentle and against war. However, communists were correctly viewed as a menace. Even after the Holocaust, Communists were viewed on a par with Nazis.
Sadly we are not invading Venezuela because I would sign up for that one.
Duncy
As for my relatives, they would point out that the Communists invaded Poland with their Nazi allies. They were not grateful to
the Soviet army for their liberation as their treachery and
local massacres before the Nazis
got there are facts. The only reason we do not discuss the local
massacres were because they were eclipsed by the Holocaust.
Actually Beak the case can be made that the story of World War II is the extermination of Poland, Belarus and Ukraine.
Most of the Holocaust victims came from these areas and a huge percentage of the deaths in WW II were here.
Now, at times you are a real punk and you might take this as a Holocaust denial. Don't go there.
I was moved by the scene in Wajda's "Katyn" with the two groups of refugees meeting on a bridge as one tells the other "the German's are coming" and the reply is "the Russians are coming".
To this day I can recreate the feeling I had when I visited Poland in 1975 and realized what was so troubling ... there were no old men.
But don't try to make your experience the touchstone for human suffering through the ages. That's extremely dishonest.
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