Roger’s note: Here are some more images, which I hope are worth at least a thousand words. But I add a few anyway (here in Ecuador my fruit lady always throws in some extra, it’s called “Yapa.”)
You can always count on those who benefit, always unjustly, from the status quo, to come up with what are supposed to appear to be “self-evident” eternal truths. Of course these are nothing more than verbal slights of hand designed to take the wind out of the efforts of those who struggle for change (justice).
This cartoon was designed for a Clinton victory, but because she lost the civilians of mostly Muslim countries will have to continue to blasted to smithereens by a male president. Well, at least he is white and not a Black Kenyan.
How dare it be suggested that this traditional American value group be considered as terrorist.
Nike has somehow been able to withstand my my many years of personal boycott. When I could only find a baseball cap that fit me with the logo I wanted, for the first time in ages I purchased the slash. Please don’t tell anyone.
Roger’s note: well, today I read that, unlike previous presidents, the Trump Team passed on ethics training. Why does this not surprise me? Reminds me of the report that the Saudis training as pilots in Florida in preparation to strike the Twin Towers on 9/11, passed on learning how to land their planes. In both cases why waste time on unnecessary training? I also read about how George W. Bush (the new century’s first of two idiot presidents) and Michelle Obama have become best buds. Warms my cynical Marxist heart, and I will sleep better tonight.
Here are a few on the lighter side which may help lighten the load we bear:
Just as some paranoids may have real enemies, some conspiracy theorists may have real conspiracies.
Given that the media are America’s greatest enemy, this may be a difficult task.
Roger’s note: I have read a couple of “simple” explanations of the 2008 market collapse, with its subprime loans, etc. One of these explanations talked of selling plastic bags filled with oregano as if it were marijuana. The article below is both humorous and illuminating.
This is a great explanation of what caused our world economy collapse. The banks rewarded poor credit risks by finding ways to invest in junk. For those who have short memories, think of our bankrupt auto companies, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Lehman Brothers, etc.
The mess that Obama inherited was caused by the Financial industry that lives off of commissions and transaction fees, with absolutely no oversight and producing no products. Is there a kinder word for “bottom feeders”?
When you read this amusing story, I am sure you will connect this to our present financial environment for the last 15 years.
Mary is the proprietor of a bar in Dublin . She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronise her bar.
To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later. She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).
Word gets around about Mary’s “drink now, pay later” marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Mary’s bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Dublin.
By providing her customers’ freedom from immediate payment demands, Mary gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Consequently, Mary’s gross sales volume increases massively.
A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognises that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Mary’s borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral
At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities are then bundled and traded on international security markets. Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as AAA secured bonds are really the debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses.
One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Mary’s bar. He so informs Mary.
Mary then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts.Since, Mary cannot fulfil her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and the eleven employees lose their jobs.
Overnight, DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS drop in price by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the banks liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.
The suppliers of Mary’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the various BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.
Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion euro no-strings attached cash infusion from their cronies in Government. The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Mary’s bar.
Roger’s note: what I have put together here is a little photo essay on the subject of democracy in our capitalist world.
Many say that in a democracy you get what you deserve. As if there were meaningful choice.
I had an emotional response when I saw this picture. It is our children who will inherit a world permanently at war. This symbolizes their basic nee for a world free of institutionalized violence.
Those with a cynical outlook along with those who profit from our oligarchy would have us believe that there is nothing better.
The corporate reality.
As feudalism was based upon serf labor, capitalism relies on wage slavery. In both cases those who create value do not share the wealth democratically. Not only capitalists but many on the left refuse to recognize that there is a world beyond capitalism, a world of worker democracy.
The fetishism of elections in capitalist democracy.
There are a few meaningful differences between the two major parties, but on the essentials of war and the economy they are virtually indistinguishable.
Roger’s note: I am a lover of cartoons, puns, politics and psychology. When all four combine in one image, it knocks my socks off. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.
Roger’s note: Divide and Conquer is the world’s oldest political strategy. Get the people that you are screwing to take their mind off you and instead fight amongst themselves while you laugh all the way (often literally) to the bank. The technique most used is that of pandering to fears, selfishness and, especially, prejudice. I remember once in a picket line supporting supermarket strikers in California, talking with a woman who was crossing the picket line to shop. “Why should they have health benefits that I don’t have?” she asked. Wrong question. What she she should have asked is, “Why don’t we all have decent health benefits?” Racism, sexism, homophobia: it all serves the ruling classes, who never hesitate to play the hate card when they need to. That Latino standing in front of Home Depot, desperate for a day’s work in order to feed his family, is not your enemy. Take a careful look instead at the bankers (banksters), the war profiteers, the corporate CEOs, the corporate media, the insurance industry, big pharma, etc. and their lackeys in the Democratic and Republican parties, if you want to know who your enemies are. This is so basic that it is mind-boggling that so many allow themselves to be pandered to. It speaks to Chomsky’s concept of manufactured consent.
Roger’s note: Last week a nine year old girl from New Jersey was on vacation with her family in Arizona where she was taken to a gun range (the Last Stop shooting range) by her parents where she was given a Uzi sub-machine gun to fire at a target. Something went wrong, probably with the weapon’s recoil, and she occidentally shot and killed the instructor at her side. Unlike the article below, I am not making this up.
AUGUST 28, 2014
BY ANDY BOROWITZ
CREDIT PHOTOGRAPH BY SVEN NACKSTRAND/AFP/GETTY
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Across the United States on Wednesday, a heated national debate began on the extremely complex issue of children firing military weapons.
“Every now and then, the nation debates an issue that is so complicated and tricky it defies easy answers,” says pollster Davis Logsdon. “Letting small children fire automatic weapons is such an issue.”
Logsdon says that the thorny controversy is reminiscent of another ongoing national debate, about whether it is a good idea to load a car with dynamite and drive it into a tree.
“Many Americans think it’s a terrible idea, but others believe that with the correct supervision, it’s perfectly fine,” he says. “Who’s to say who’s right?”
Similar, he says, is the national debate about using a flamethrower indoors. “There has been a long and contentious national conversation about this,” he says. “It’s another tough one.”
Much like the long-running national debates about jumping off a roof, licking electrical sockets, and gargling with thumbtacks, the vexing question of whether children should fire military weapons does not appear headed for a swift resolution.
“Like the issue of whether you should sneak up behind a bear and jab it with a hot poker, this won’t be settled any time soon,” he says.
Happy Easter (Dr. Schrodinger) April 16, 2017
Posted by rogerhollander in Humor, Religion, Science and Technology, Uncategorized.Tags: cartoon, easter, happy easter, Humor, jesus tomb, religion, resurrection, roger hollander, schrodinger, schrodinger's cat
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