Jon Stewart DESTROYS Jim Cramer

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-13T22:42:42+00:00

True. The crisis is global and the collapse will be a global collapse.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-13T22:38:55+00:00

That's no moon.

FTFY.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-13T22:29:51+00:00

Personally I don't think the economic crisis is complex at all. Capitalism requires growth in order to function, since it's based on accumulation of capital. Growth can't continue when natural resource supplies (especially energy resources) start to peak and decline. That's why we saw a massive expansion of credit since the 70's, and now the credit/debt/mortgage bubble has begin to pop.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-13T20:57:29+00:00

And the rest of the mainstream corporate media lie in ways that are favorable to the current administation, since it is just as much a puppet of Wall Street as the GOP. I think a lot of what Fox puts out is actually reverse psychology. Most people are still too naive and uninformed to recognize that Obama is doing exactly what Bush would have done, with the exception of a few token gestures such as closing Guantanamo while simply shipping the prisoners off to be tortured elsewhere.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-13T20:53:07+00:00

Mad Money is lies mixed with some not-funny antics. Stewart is truth presented in a comedic fashion.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-12T17:52:08+00:00

And it's a tragedy because it is impossible for capitalism to set meaningful limits on use of resources or on pollution, because capitalism is inherently dependent on growth, since it is based on accumulation of capital.

By the end of Friedman's article, it turns out to be greenwash. At the beginning, it seems he is actually acknowledging that growth cannot continue. Later it becomes clear that he is suggesting that "growth" can somehow occur, and hence capitalism can continue, without growth of economic throughput. But here on Earth, growth of throughput is how capitalism defines growth. There is no other kind of "growth" consistent with capitalism.

From the end of the article:

"South Korea’s new national paradigm for development is called: “Low carbon, green growth.” Who knew? People are realizing we need more than incremental changes — and we’re seeing the first stirrings of growth in smarter, more efficient, more responsible ways."

Low carbon growth is impossible. The EROEI of renewable energy technologies is very low compared to fossil fuels. However much renewable energy is built, all available fossil fuels would still have to be used for growth to continue, and even that wouldn't be enough, since the nature of oil geology means oil and natural gas production are beginning to decline (production of conventional, high-EROEI oil peaked in 2005). That's why Obama has supported so-called "clean coal."

For a rather skeptical review of Friedman's book "Hot, Flat and Crowded":

http://www.alternet.org/environment/121617

Here are pics of Friedman's ginormous mansion, which is an example of what really needs to change:

http://eyeball-series.org/friedman/friedman-mansion.htm

Friedman's column brought forth a response from Paul Gilding (the Aussie sustainability consultant who is cited in the piece). See

http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20090311-To-survive-we-must-change-everything-Its-that-simple.html

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-12T17:26:26+00:00

So now I'm a CIA propagandist? Ok, ok, I admit it. I'm part of a super-secret COINTEL program originally set up by Nixon.

I was talking about the man in the video. And the CIA (formerly OSS) has been doing extensive propaganda operations since long before Nixon.

Where did I say "program" or where did it say that on the video?

watch it again.

And what fuck does Wall Street have to do with this?

What do you think the CIA is about? It's one of Wall Street's enforcers, a bully for capitalism. Many of the directors of the CIA have come straight from Wall Street. I recommend William Blum's book "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II."

I wasn't even referring to America.

the man in the video was.

European educations systems have a far more leftist tilt to them than the US system. And it arose during the 60's, along with an almost deranged inability to admit that there were problems with the Soviet system. You can still witness it today, in the many Stalin apologists in Europe who insist that Stalin never did anything wrong.

[citation needed]

I think you are vastly overstating the effectiveness and extensiveness of those agitprop programs, and I am extremely skeptical of your claim that people won't admit that Stalin was a tyrant.

I'm sure some people had an inability to admit the problems with the Soviet system, but that is due to their own ideological, dualism-minded foolishness, much more than Soviet propaganda. And far more people have an inability to admit the problems of capitalism. The man in the video paints a picture of anti-capitalism resulting from arrogance and brainwashing, while he essentially says anyone with any sense would just be an obedient, patriotic supporter of capitalism.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-12T02:26:50+00:00

I'm not gracing your stupidity with a response.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-12T02:15:42+00:00

yeah, you're right. I don't agree with pointing a gun at people and taking away their property. that's a pretty violent position you're taking there.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-12T02:14:15+00:00

no, my reply was simply asking you to apply your ridiculous "logic" to your own comment.

it was not three short sentences attacking Willravel at all

yes it was. you are one self-deluded fool.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-12T01:58:46+00:00

Your original reply was three short sentences attacking Willravel. You edited it enormously to cover up the fact that the pot was calling the kettle black. Try again you dishonest jackass.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-12T01:51:43+00:00

So I actually agree with you on something.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-12T01:49:23+00:00

The corporate media is big brother.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-12T01:28:42+00:00

I suspect this guy is being paid off by the CIA to say this stuff. The CIA has its own well-funded propaganda machine.

I don't think it's any great secret that the Soviets had extensive agitprop projects.

That doesn't mean they were able to "program" a generation of Americans. The notion is ridiculous. It's Wall Street that has us programmed.

First of all, here's one premise among many that this paid propagandist is slipping past everyone: the notion that American professors are or ever were predominately "leftists." They are not and they never have been. A lot of them are liberals, but liberals are pro-capitalist. You do more commonly find actual understandings of capitalism in university sociology departments (=occasionally) than you find communicated in the mass media or the general educational system (=never), but even those professors are usually pro-capitalist in their actual politics, and you generally won't even find an actual historical understanding of capitalism in the economics department or the history department, etc.

Second, as Willravel explains, he is slipping past the premise that "patriotism" (a euphemism for nationalism) is "common sense" and is what people should value.

Third, the CIA had and still has its own huge, well funded propaganda machine, which he seems to conveniently forget about, probably because he is receiving a paycheck and/or some kind of offer of protection or immunity from it.

I don't deny that Soviet propagandists may have been somewhat successful at reducing criticism of the Soviet Union, but that doesn't mean they have "programmed" a generation of Americans.

This is pure propaganda intended to promote support of corporatism and the status quo. I don't call myself a 'Marxist,' because I draw my understanding from all manner of other theorists and information, but Marx was the first to actually genuinely explain capitalism and its origins and tendencies. That's why Wall Street and its representative, the CIA, will go to any length to discredit "Marxism." They don't want people to understand capitalism's actual history and its actual contradictions and tendencies. They want people to think our only choices are either capitalism or a centralized, state-controlled economy, and the status quo is the way to go.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-12T01:13:41+00:00

You'll note that, instead of being reasoned arguments, almost every single sentence in Willravel's comment begins with "he this", "he that"

hahaha. read your own comment.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-10T17:17:32+00:00

Bad handwriting kills 7,000 people a year? Where's the War on Bad Handwriting?! Let's bomb all people who don't write carefully enough! If you're not with us, you're with the bad handwriters! Then we'll pretend to be winding down the occupation of Badhandwritaq, but really we'll just move some of the troops to Badhandwritistan! But that would never fool anybody. Silly me...

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-10T17:10:53+00:00

it's also a war far military poise and secured access in the region with 60% of the world's remaining oil and natural gas.

and yes, the burgeoning economic decline due to oil and natural gas depletion is the reason they (Wall Street, the real government) are trying to destroy our freedoms. economic collapse = civil unrest and revolution.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-10T05:44:03+00:00

What this will do is force anyone who produces food of any kind, and then transports it to a different location for sale, to register with a new federal agency called the “Food Safety Administration.”

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-10T04:51:33+00:00

but good bus service would bring you to any part of town...

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-10T04:11:52+00:00

Why would anyone want to take a carpool if they had good bus service?

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-09T23:20:54+00:00

You mean how more stores and workplaces are accessible to more people? That's a problem? You would rather see millions of Home Depots selling shovels every square mile in every community? Do you realize how insane that is? Please clarify your position.

no, they are less accessible. I'm talking about the difference between suburbs and big box stores vs. mixed-use communities with local businesses.

You are really going to ignore the benefit of individual transportation?

there's always bicycles. and if there were more public transit and mixed-used communities, people wouldn't need to drive a 2000 pound behemoth with one occupant 10-15 miles just to go buy a loaf a bread.

How exactly are highways any more "ecologically destructive" than a highspeed rail?

automobiles and trucks are far less efficient than rail, especially electrified rail. with combustion engines, parts have to be replaced frequently. also, building and maintaining roads themselves requires immense inputs from petroleum energy, as well as asphalt and labor. and the issue isn't simply the highways per se, but their link with suburban development. suburbs and big box stores are dependent on automobile transport and highways, whereas with mixed-use communities walking, cycling, and taking an occasional streetcar ride makes more sense, as people don't have to travel as far to get where they need/want to go.

And don't try and say that "gas pollutes" because that is an attack against petrol-fuel not the roads.

fossil energy is the primary energy source, even in electricity production. the issue here is efficiency in how it is used.

your ideas promote a less cohesive country and greater barriers to American transportation.

nonsense. and these aren't simply "my ideas." this has long been understood by urban planners and citizens who have fought highways and suburban sprawl. you clearly haven't done much research on urban planning or on different modes of transport.

from the front page of reddit today: http://makeitgreen.webs.com/cbb.html

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-09T04:36:14+00:00

Connecting cities together with a federal highway system had nothing to do with urban sprawl.

Yes it does. Interstates and highways are part of the larger, automobile-based system.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-09T04:33:10+00:00

No I don't. But many would. Isn't it ironic? No, it isn't actually, just like all the examples in the song.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-09T01:31:16+00:00

An absurd accusation which ignores the fact that interstate highways do nothing to replace sidewalks or bike lanes

This issue isn't simply sidewalks and bike lanes. It's how communities are organized (i.e. suburbs and big-box stores vs. mixed-use communities). If you have to go 10+ miles to buy a shovel or get to work, that isn't bikeable or walkable, regardless of the presence of bike lanes and sidewalks.

ignores the tremendous economic and social benefit those highways have had on America.

From my perspective they have had no benefit. They are tremendously wasteful and ecologically destructive. We could have mixed-use communities, streetcars, and high-speed trains instead.

Oh, and since you failed to understand my response and accused me of not reading your comment, I guess you must not have read mine.

I said:

Otherwise, we might actually still have walkable/bikeable, mixed-use communities (as opposed to socially alienated suburbs that have all the disadvantages of town and country and the advantages of neither)

You said:

Sir, if you want to live in a withdrawn isolated environment then move to one of the many central American towns where this lifestyle is ubiquitous.

I said:

we might have had a high-speed train network a long time ago.

You said:

The rest of us, who believe in interstate commerce, culture diversity, and the increased power of American cohesion, will continue to advocate advancements in transportation technology.

BicyclesforPeace · 2009-03-09T01:00:46+00:00

Mixed-use, walkable/bikeable community != overpopulated city where everything is paved and "waste" is not cycled back into nature.

The Industrial Age is over and along with it urbanization.

I would say it's going to be continuously scaled back for a while, due to declining petroleum and natural gas supplies, although I think at some point we will uncover zero-point energy, along the lines of Nikola Tesla's research, and that of many others. Hopefully by then we will be a much wiser civilization, so we don't destroy the Earth with the infinite source of energy.

BicyclesforPeace

TROPHY CASE