From: Les Carpenter Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth Time to shed the right -vs- left, socialism -vs- capitalism hyperbole and purchase Thomas Piketty's new book " Capital in the Twenty-First Century. " PARIS — Thomas Piketty turned 18 in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, so he was spared the tortured, decades-long French intellectual debate about the virtues and vices of communism. Even more telling, he remembers, was a trip he took with a close friend to Romania in early 1990, after the collapse of the Soviet empire. “This sort of vaccinated me for life against lazy, anticapitalist rhetoric, because when you see these empty shops, you see these people queuing for nothing in the street,” he said, “it became clear to me that we need private property and market institutions, not just for economic efficiency but for personal freedom.” (emphasis mine) But his disenchantment with communism doesn’t mean that Mr. Piketty has turned his back on the intellectual ...
A Wry Memorial
ReplyDeleteThe Swarthy Ones took over;
And made weapons of four planes.
The riders had no cover;
They suffered dreadful pains
That ended once their deathtraps
Burst into roaring fires
Turning instantly to mere scraps––
Cinders––made of former flyers.
The burning towers crumpled,
And fell into the street.
New York was more than rumpled;
Briefly, it knew defeat.
The nation drew together;
We felt collective grief.
Anger broke its tether;
To express it gave relief.
But only ten years hence
We're at each other's throats;
We've built ourselves a fence
Over which the Devil gloats.
We've failed to give the orders
To build a proper wall
Sealing off our borders
To the fiends who’d have us fall.
Instead, we've made division––
Went to war against ourselves––
And are mired in derision
Sparked by partisan elves,
Who forget this blessed land
In pursuit of powers lost
In close elections manned
By fraud. So, tempest-tossed
The country is in turmoil.
The enemy's our own.
He says it's all for Big Oil,
And he'll soon usurp the Throne.
The heap of twisted rubble
Raising toxic fumes for weeks
No longer gives us trouble
Because of media leaks
Designed to throw us off the scent
Of whom we need to blame
And encourage ruinous dissent
That hopes to break the frame
That holds us all together
And preserves our liberty,
So many now doubt whether
We really should be free.
And each rabble rousing louse
Should 'neath these words be pinned:
"He who troubleth his own house
Shall inherit–––the wind"
~ FreeThinke
A well written and insightful, yet wry memorial indeed. There lies truth in those words so welled penned.
DeleteAnd as we speak, the extremists are attacking our Embassy in Egypt - again, over free speech. This, I'm afraid, is going to generations long battle.
ReplyDeleteIf you show weakness the enemy will attack, if you display strength they will hide, plot, and wait. They thought Bush was an idiot and so they attacked, boy were they wrong. Obama shows that he is no leader and they continue to attacks us and we apologize for free speech. You want to change things, you have that opportunity in November so take that into account as you pull that lever. More of the same or change or protest, those are the choices. Will it be significant change or enough change, don't know and can't say but it won't be more of the same which at this point is about all we can hope for in November.
ReplyDeleteI remember 9/11 well because on that day I was on the National Airborne Operations Center and on the 5th anniversary I was in Iraq, so I do remember and know what happens when you project weakness.
Obama is not so much the idiot as you think. I fully support the drone policy, and the savage apes who murdered these heroic Americans might full well find a drone looking at them soon. Or so I hope.
ReplyDelete