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Page added on August 24, 2015
Kunstler: Worse Than Hitler
Even the formerly august New York Times grants that Donald J. Trump has ignited a voter firestorm of grievance against a dumb show election process that rewards a craven avoidance of real issues. Immigration is actually a stand-in for the paralysis, incompetence, overreach, and bloatedness of government generally in our time — but it is a good doorway into the larger problem.
Immigration is a practical problem, with visible effects on-the-ground, easy to understand. I’m enjoying the Trump-provoked debate mostly because it is a pushback against the disgusting dishonesty of political correctness that has bogged down the educated classes in a swamp of sentimentality. For instance, Times Sunday Magazine staffer Emily Bazelon wrote a polemic last week inveighing against the use of the word “illegal” applied to people who cross the border without permission on the grounds that it “justifies their mistreatment.” One infers she means that sending them back where they came from equals mistreatment.
It’s refreshing that Trump is able to cut through this kind of tendentious crap. If that were his only role, it would be a good one, because political correctness is an intellectual disease that is making it impossible for even educated people to think — especially people who affect to be political leaders. Trump’s fellow Republicans are entertainingly trapped in their own cowardliness and it’s fun to watch them squirm.
But for me, everything else about Trump is frankly sickening, from his sneering manner of speech, to the worldview he reveals day by day, to the incoherence of his rhetoric, to the wolverine that lives on top of his head. The thought of Trump actually getting elected makes me wonder where Arthur Bremer is when we really need him.
Did any of you actually catch Trump’s performance last week at the so-called “town meeting” event in New Hampshire (really just a trumped-up pep rally)? I don’t think I miscounted that Trump told the audience he was “very smart” 23 times in the course of his remarks. If he really was smart, he would know that such tedious assertions only suggest he is deeply insecure about his own intelligence. After all, this is a man whose lifework has been putting up giant buildings that resemble bowling trophies, some of them in the service of one of the worst activities of our time, legalized gambling, which is based on the socially pernicious idea that it’s possible to get something for nothing.
I daresay that legalized gambling has had a possibly worse effect on American life the past three decades than illegal immigration. Gambling is a marginal activity for marginal people that belongs on the margins — the back rooms and back alleys. It was consigned there for decades because it was understood that it’s not healthy for the public to believe that it’s possible to get something for nothing, that it undermines perhaps the most fundamental principle of human life.
Trump’s verbal incoherence is really something to behold. He’s incapable of expressing a complete thought without venturing down a dendritic maze of digressions, often leading to an assertion of how much he is loved (another sign of insecurity). For example, when he attacked Jeb’s (no last name necessary) statement that we have to show Iraqi leaders that “we have skin in the game,” Trump invoked the “wounded warriors,” saying “I love them. They’re everywhere. They love me.” In the immortal words of Tina Turner, “what’s love got to do with it?”
Trump’s notion that he can push around world leaders such as Vladimir Putin by treating them as though they were president of the Cement Workers’ Union ought to give thoughtful people the vapors. It doesn’t seem to occur to Trump that other countries could easily get pugnacious towards us. He would have us in a world war before the inaugural parade was over.
The trouble is that it’s not inconceivable Trump could get elected. Farfetched, perhaps, but not out of the question. The USA is heading for a very rough patch of history — as those of you with your eyes on the stock indexes lately may suspect. The country stands an excellent chance of waking up some morning soon to discover it is broke and broken. When that happens, all the anxiety and animus will be focused on looking for scapegoats, and they are likely to be the wrong ones. World leaders considered Hitler a clown in the early going, too, you know. But the Germans were wild about him. He pushed a lot of the right buttons under the circumstances. Trump is worse than Hitler. And the American people, alas, are now surely a worse lot of ignorant, raging, tattooed slobs than the German people were in 1933. Be very afraid.
56 Comments on "Kunstler: Worse Than Hitler"
Hello on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 7:53 pm
Illegal immigration I not a problem.
Mass immigration is a problem.
It has the power to annihilate whole communities. It is no fun to become a foreigner in your own town.
Makati1 on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 8:11 pm
“The USA is heading for a very rough patch of history — as those of you with your eyes on the stock indexes lately may suspect. The country stands an excellent chance of waking up some morning soon to discover it is broke and broken … Trump is worse than Hitler. And the American people, alas, are now surely a worse lot of ignorant, raging, tattooed slobs than the German people were in 1933. Be very afraid.”
Anyone who knows Germany’s history between the world wars understands this article and can see the similarities between the Germany then and the US now. If Trump is nominated, he has a very good chance of winning. At this point, I think he has that possibility. Imagine! The Donald in the White House! LMAO
Davy on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 8:26 pm
Mak, at least many of us will have food here in the states. You are looking at some serious overshoot on an island that climate change has in its crosshairs. Your neighbors are no better than the American counterparts you are trying to cut down. You yourself needs to take care you don’t end up stew meat. I will take my local over yours any day. Overshoot is the big danger and you are in the middle of the worst.
apneaman on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 8:53 pm
Mak, the Germans were maybe the most educated and technologically advanced people on the planet then, yet look at how hard times can bring out the worst in the apes. Everyone will feel the pain sooner or later. May be they can find a way to kick the can for a bit more, but it’s inevitable. I noticed the plunge protection teams are in full combat mode. Noticed a handful of “news” articles telling folks not to sell. Full court press on the propaganda.
Boat on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 9:22 pm
apeman,
The normal way to invest is not to put in any money that you might need for at least 10 years. This has been the advice for decades. I have not seen anything that would change the #1 rule for investing.
Boat on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 9:26 pm
Davy you are very confusing about the crash. There will be no food. Nuke plants will have melted down. Reservoirs will have collapsed and flooded. At best there will be pockets of people killing each other because there will be no law. See, I can doom with the best of you.
Davy on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 9:40 pm
Boat, what crash? The fun just started we may have a ways to go yet. It could be long and painful. Someone like you that is totally invested in BAU without alternatives could be in for a rude awakening. Start prepping Boat it is just plain smart risk management. I am sure you buy insurance.
Your above doom is typical Hollywood Boat. Real doom is likely going to be very boring with the occasionally interspersed nasty moments. We are going to see less with less. Things will break with no spare parts. Our favorite food will not be available. Death and mayhem on the talking head shows with no one with any money to send them.
Boat when it gets to the Nuk plants going critical then we are getting close to the Stone Age. That could be a while. Then again this could all unfold very quickly. Boat do you want to know how to lessen the possibility of a quick collapse? People like you that are cornucopian need to sober up and get real about the decay and descent of globalism. So many poor attitude and lifestyles need to end to make way for adaptation and mitigation of future adversity. Join us Boat. Begin your journey to reality. Boat, leave denial behind and look forward to honesty and real living.
GregT on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 9:41 pm
“The normal way to invest is not to put in any money that you might need for at least 10 years.”
Tell that to the millions of people that have retirement funds and pension plans. You don’t take those funds out of the markets until they are needed.
Once again Boat, not a clue.
apneaman on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 9:49 pm
Thanks boat. Thanks for telling me the same shit my grandpa told me back in the 1970’s. As per usual you miss the point. What’s next? Are the media/propaganda machine going to tell us when to take a shit? I invested for many decades and completely cashed out in 2012. Early? We shall see about that. If fools want to panic sell, should not that be their right as free citizens of the capitalist paradise? Caveat emptor? One big reason we are 20 years or more farther along in our inevitable overshoot is because the stupid and reckless stopped getting punished. The ones that aren’t panic selling are still panicking and praying for another Big Government intervention.
Boat on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 10:00 pm
How anybody can compare the leader of the country that started WWII that lost 72 million lives versus a candidate is crazy.
apneaman on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 10:04 pm
Didn’t read it slow enough boat – missed the point again. Let me know which passage specifically you’re having trouble with. I’m here to help.
apneaman on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 10:31 pm
boat it looks like some folks think our beloved capitalism is the biggest problem – not illegal immigrants. Maybe it’s capitalist illegal immigrants?
The Evidence Keeps Pouring In: Capitalism Just Isn’t Working
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/the-evidence-keeps-pouring-in-capitalism-just-isn-t-working
Boat on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 10:35 pm
apeman,
Legal immigration is a much bigger problem than illegal. Do you ever look at the numbers?
Makati1 on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 10:35 pm
As if:
“The Raping Of America: Mile Markers On The Road To Fascism”
“Indeed, not only are we developing a new citizenry incapable of thinking for themselves, we’re also instilling in them a complete and utter reliance on the government and its corporate partners to do everything for them—tell them what to eat, what to wear, how to think, what to believe, how long to sleep, who to vote for, whom to associate with, and on and on … Americans must break free of the apathy-inducing turpor of politics, entertainment spectacles and manufactured news. Only once we are free of the chains that bind us—or to be more exact, the chains that “blind” us—can we become actively aware of the injustices taking place around us and demand freedom of our oppressors.”
Ah! The rest of the world is shit, but not America, the sheeple proclaim! If the sheeple don’t soon revolt, they will be sheered and eaten for dinner by their masters. LMAO
Makati1 on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 10:37 pm
Oops! http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-24/raping-america-mile-markers-road-fascism
or: http://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_raping_of_america_mile_markers_on_the_road_to_fascism
Heil Trump! LMAO
GregT on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 10:49 pm
“Legal immigration is a much bigger problem than illegal. Do you ever look at the numbers?”
That’s right Boat, if the indigenous peoples of North America had have clamped down on ‘legal’ immigration, we wouldn’t be in such a mess.
apneaman on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 10:52 pm
Boat, I don’t actually give a shit anymore if you haven’t figured it out yet. The apes are going to scapegoat whoever the idiot box and the black rectangles tell them to. It’s TPTB best ever propaganda machine. Orwell would be embarrassed by how much he underestimated just how far it would go.
“War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength”
“It’s the illegals”
“It’s the Blacks”
“It’s the MIC”
“It’s the Gays”
“It’s the 1%”
“It’s the Jews”
“It’s the Republicans”
“It’s the Democrats”
“It’s the Chinese”
“It’s the Russians”
“It’s the UN”
“It’s the Deniers”
“It’s the Environmentalists”
“It’s the Capitalists”
“It’s the Socialists”
“It’s the Atheists”
“It’s the Christians”
“It’s the Muslims”
Boat
“It’s the Apes”
Boat on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 10:55 pm
Capitalism is just regulations. True we could debate the cost and benefit if hundreds of regulations.
Dictators have their own form of rules. Mostly more unfair and draconian. So tell me apeman, what kind of society doesn’t reward greed and promotes fairness. I don’t know any. Capitalism is the closest thing going and it is far from perfect.
Boat on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 11:03 pm
As you should know by now I don’t like racism or gender trashing. I believe in fairness and inclusiveness. 7 billion and nobody is any better than another. I don’t blame anybody, it is what it is. Any quality of life improvements takes cooperation. The human endeavor.
Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 11:18 pm
Trump has been a Democrat for decades. Bill and Hillary were at his wedding. He’s a pseudo candidate. A caricature. The only person benefiting from his campaign is Hillary Clinton. If Trump runs as an independent he’ll take half the Republican vote and ensure a Denocrat win. He’s destroying the Republican Primary from within. It works because most Republicans, most Americans in fact but especially Republicans, are really really stupid. A view held by Trump, otherwise he wouldn’t be doing this stunt.It’s a synical plot. And it’ll work.
GregT on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 11:21 pm
” So tell me apeman, what kind of society doesn’t reward greed and promotes fairness.”
Many of the indigenous societies that our ancestral ‘legal’ immigrants destroyed in their quest to capitalize on the Earth and their fellow human beings.
GregT on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 11:22 pm
“The only person benefiting from his campaign is Hillary Clinton.”
^^^This^^^
Makati1 on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 11:23 pm
Boat, the human ape was never designed to ‘cooperate’ with more than it’s tribe/group/family. Survival meant that you took advantage of EVERY advantage and didn’t leave any for another tribe or whatever. Seven or seventy billion are NOT going to EVER agree to share equally. The West got the jump on the rest long ago and have been plundering the rest for centuries. That will only end when everyone is forced to the lowest level possible for survival. Not a minute before. The race to the bottom has begun.
Boat on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 11:56 pm
Mak,
Using that logic means the end started at the beginning. How profound. As in the beginning survival is partly a competition which always creates some types of conflict. Nothing has changed but the complexity.
Many voters like Trump because of his political incorrectness. The blame of immigration has a lot to do with bringing in millions of workers when there is high unemployment which is at the very least unsympathetic to the unemployed and under underemployed. Politicians have been playing games with this issue for decades.
Boat on Mon, 24th Aug 2015 11:58 pm
GregT,
Living in the past does nothing for today. There was no great past and no great future. But there are always ways to improve. I try to focus on that.
Boat on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 12:04 am
I will vote on the stance of immigration, military spending/anti hawk and wall street regulations. Hillary will probably not get my vote. I will hold my nose, vote and do the best I can but no candidate matches my views. Can’t believe the US still flares.
GregT on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 12:16 am
The only future that we ever had Boat, was to live in harmony with nature. We blew it, and are now beginning to pay the consequences. Up to, and most likely including, our own specie’s extinction.
apneaman on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 12:24 am
Boat what do you know about other societies? Ever live in another country? Study cultural and/or social anthropology in university? On your own with books and lectures?
What classification of society is Norway? Look at their stats VS the US for the average person. Sure they have elites, but everyone has access to health care, higher education etc. The elites have more but they don’t shit on others and make them feel like they deserve it. IOW they are not sick in the head. Imperfect, but they have proved a more just society is possible by putting some restraints on greed. Of course centuries ago the European malcontents headed for the new world and here we are today. Rapacious apes boat and America is the worst of a bad bunch – you just happen to be the empire of the day. If it could go on long enough, you would be replaced by the next up and comer and the cycle would start over again. If you study empires they all have a sense of entitlement as part of their national myths and America transitioned smoothly from the old school ordained “manifest destiny” to the secular “exceptional” to keep up with secular sensibilities. The very boldness and arrogance that made them great is usually what leads to their destruction. There is a ton of research documenting them and the US clearly is following the pattern. Boat ask yourself, where did all the great empires go? Why? Want to take a look at a brutally honest critique of your country? Don’t listen to me, I’m a foreign devil, try one of your own –
Morris Berman American historian and social critic.
Pirate Television: Morris Berman – Why America Failed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzgY20d2MtU
GregT on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 12:27 am
CHIEF SEATTLE’S LETTER
“The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.
We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.
The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father.
The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the rivers the kindness that you would give any brother.
If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.
Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.
This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.
Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted with talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is to say goodbye to the swift pony and then hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.
When the last red man has vanished with this wilderness, and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?
We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it, as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children, and love it, as God loves us.
As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you.
One thing we know – there is only one God. No man, be he Red man or White man, can be apart. We ARE all brothers after all.”
HARM on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 12:43 am
“The Evidence Keeps Pouring In: Capitalism Just Isn’t Working”
Oh, capitalism is “working” alright. Hint: contrary to popular misconception, it was just never meant to work for most of us. Most people don’t know that, of course, because they cannot think for themselves. Something the moneyed elites have skillfully exploited for decades, with an extraordinarily sophisticated and relentless propaganda campaign.
I don’t know how bad it is in other countries, but here in the U.S., the elites have most poor people convinced that the rich are the working man’s “friend” and that programs that help poor people are evil (s-s-s-s-ocialism *gasp*!). As one Republican-branded marionette recently said to a rapt crowd of slack-jawed idiots: “We are a nation of haves and soon-to-haves.”
Yup, we’re all going to be rich someday. The truth never stood a chance in the face of the infinite human capacity for self delusion and greed.
GregT on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 1:00 am
I’m sure that most North Americans can remember sitting around with the family playing the game of Monopoly. Capitalism is much the same, except that the people that lose don’t simply sit it out for an hour waiting for the rest of the group to finish. They live their lives in abject poverty, while the ‘winners’ live their lives with more than they could possibly ever want, or need.
Disgusting really.
Davy on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 1:19 am
Ape, nottin gonna work but you are right capitalism is a failure. Any modern system here on out has no chance of success. We are in overshoot at the two most important levels of population and consumption. We now have a global ecosystem decline, earth climate change, vital resources depletion, and systematic destabilization of our vital global support system because of this.
This is irreversible and has only one outcome and that is a new species narrative. This may or may not include civilization and could involve extinction. It will involve descent either gradual or abrupt. It will involve the rebalance of consumption and population. The time frame is wide open but the direction of descent is certain. We can make this better or worse but we cannot stop the pain, suffering, and death.
Population will have to drop to 1Bil in a generation with a minimum of 200Mil a year excess deaths over births. Descent of a complex system is never an average. It will likely be a jagged and dangerous rebalance. The 1st thing for us to do is to quit thinking we have another modern “ism” or “system” to take its place. We need to quit the blame game.
What we will have is a hybrid of new and old in a world of salvage and adaptation. We will cobble together whatever works. This is why it is so critical we create monasteries of knowledge of the best of the modern and the pre-industrial now. We have lost many of the skills of the pre-industrial but we still have knowledge of it. We will lose much of our modern skills but we will still have some of the knowledge. There are some very important aspects of both that can make this descent and likely bottleneck less severe. Those of us that care should do our part.
This does not have to be the mad max century although that will be part of it. There are far too many people and dangerous technology but after the bad blood has been purged we will have those who survive that will rebuild that is if we are lucky enough to have that opportunity. The time frame dictates we may have a few years yet of normal albeit likely a new normal of descent not growth.
The real collapse is hopefully 10 or more years down the road when the chances of an industrial civilization driven by complexity and technology is no longer possible. That day is quickly approaching. 10 years is very little time in the big picture. For our daily lives a decade is a significant time frame but per our modern history it is far too short. Far too short to prepare and adapt to an epic fall.
GregT on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 1:37 am
The misery, the misery, the misery.
apneaman on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 1:55 am
Davy, I never even read it. I was just poking young boat. I saw that capitalism was failing 25 years ago, but I thought it would not happen until I was an old man or dead – same as making the biosphere uninhabitable to apes. Plus I was younger, busier and less reflective then. Knowing changes nothing.
Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it and those who do are doomed to sit back and helplessly watch it repeat.
BobInget on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 10:09 am
Kunstler has lost his mind. “Worse then Hitler” is the kind of headline one comes to expect from adolescent hippies or ignorant racists who have only the foggiest ideas on anything political.
Some months ago I compared Trump to
Benito Mussolini, founder of modern Fascism
in Italy just after WW/1.
I take it back.
Trump only looks and speaks like Mussolini.
D. Trump is harmless, wealthy clown, nothing worse. His followers, confused angry white guys whose interest in football exceeds knowledge of nitty gritty politics.
Fascists, Communists, Anarchists in 20th Century’s first third, were intellectuals bent on
taking control over Europe during the terrible depression that followed WW/1.
No one should ever accuse Trump of being an intellectual.
Trump’s issue, mass migration, is in fact, next to climate change our greatest, most important issue facing humanity.
Europe’s Right wing parties are running with this ball.
Here in US in migration is almost zero sum gain. Mexicans move in and out with little change in the number of illegals.
America’s middle class didn’t crash because of
Mexican drugs smugglers.
HARM on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 11:40 am
“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it and those who do are doomed to sit back and helplessly watch it repeat.”
I wish I had a cheery rebuttal to this, but all I’ve got is, “History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes”.
John on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 12:23 pm
“Illegal immigration I not a problem.
Mass immigration is a problem.
It has the power to annihilate whole communities. It is no fun to become a foreigner in your own town.”
Since no one acknowledged your comment, just a note to say I read your note, and agree. I suppose the same can be said for “gentrification” of inner city communities.
Boat on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 2:42 pm
In the US the immigration debate doesn’t even ask the right questions. Like how big a population is sustainable. Are we past this number or do we want another 100 million. If we as a nation want a bigger population problem then why the argument. If our population is to big then why are we using legal immigration to add 2 million per year. How fast can we absorb new people in a changing economy. If unemployment is up from 5% to 10% should we hold off immigration till the economy recovers. The biggest question. Why is none of this discussed by politicians.
apneaman on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 3:19 pm
Yabut boat, mass migration is the story of humans – so why don’t you give it that same shoulder shrug argument like you do to so many other things? You seem to really like to use the Naturalistic Fallacy arguments selectively.
Plantagenet on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 9:47 pm
Bob is right—– yes Trump is a clown but kunstler’s claim that he is worse than Hitler is just jumped up sophomoric silliness.
GregT on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 10:53 pm
So how was your cultural immersion in India planter?
Must have been tough on you without electricity, running water, and generally acceptable hygiene practices. Did you get used to eating dal bhat three meals a day, and how about gastrointestinal disease. No true cultural immersion would be complete without some complications. I know that everyone I backpacked with in India got sick.
Or did you do the American equivalent of Indian cultural immersion?
antaris on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 11:01 pm
The gift that gives for a while. Traveller’s dysentery.
GregT on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 11:02 pm
Oh, and by the way, what date does elementary school start up again this year?
apneaman on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 11:04 pm
Trump is worse than Hitler?
How many fucking retards can we get in one thread taking one simple statement out of context?
Or maybe it’s a reading comprehension problem. Maybe it’s true that the internet makes people stupid or stupider.
GregT on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 11:04 pm
“The gift that gives for a while. Traveller’s dysentery.”
Yes, the 13 hour flight back was memorable to say the least. The added bonus, rapid weight loss.
GregT on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 11:06 pm
Maybe it’s true that the internet makes people stupid or stupider.
Nah, you can’t make people stupider than they already were.
Makati1 on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 11:58 pm
GregT, obviously he did the tourist route. Never been to India, but it is likely to be like any place in the world if you venture off of the tourist track into the real country. Educational and different. You can find poverty and squalor everywhere. (north and western Philly anyone? ^_^) In my youth, a lot of America was like that. Now we seem to be returning to it. Turn off the electric and see how fast we move into the 3rd world. At least Indians know how to cope. Americans won’t.
GregT on Wed, 26th Aug 2015 12:32 am
Every country that I have visited so far does the Americanized tourist route Mak. Air conditioned buses and hotel rooms, flush toilets, and meat on the menu are the norm. I have to laugh, after reading planter’s previous comments about how she could tell who the real world travellers were, that she doesn’t have the slightest fucking clue. Typical exceptionalist attitude. You don’t learn jack shit about any culture, unless you spend time far away from the large population centres, do your best to learn the local languages, and respect local cultural practices. Three things that most first worlders do not do.
More like looking at other animals on the other side of the glass in a zoo, as opposed to actually getting into the enclosure with them.
Boat on Wed, 26th Aug 2015 2:38 am
apneaman on Tue, 25th Aug 2015 3:19 pm
Yabut boat, mass migration is the story of humans – so why don’t you give it that same shoulder shrug argument like you do to so many other things? You seem to really like to use the Naturalistic Fallacy arguments selectively.
Well apeman,
Times have changed and population densities around the world have grown a bit in case you haven’t noticed. The word sustainability comes to mind.
Ending immigration as we know it and promoting less children by not giving tax breaks for having them is just a couple of steps the US could take.
Unlike you I don’t think we need to kill off the middle class and mass migrate immigrants to solve overpopulation problems.
Davy on Wed, 26th Aug 2015 2:40 am
Makster is an idiot anti-American bigot that is unfairly generalizing. Mak said “At least Indians know how to cope. Americans won’t”. Bull shit Mak, I know many poor Americans and they are coping. This is a continent size country with a wide range of socio economic conditions. You are a fool Mak. Fuck anti-Americans that do not use fairness and balance when they cut down America. They themselves and their countries are dumb ass many times. It is a sign of poor academics and poor personality to focus negativity on one people. In Mak’s case it is a desire to be inflammatory, mean spirited, and divisive. He is a poor old man with an agenda. He had a failed life in America. I doubt his family gives a shit about him. What family would care having their so call patriarch moving away and being hostile of their culture and their home?