Patrick Curtin |
If I have to pay for past sins, I guess I shall have to go on the installment plan. Seeing as I refute the concept of sin as it is presented by the Abrahamic troika , I refuse to pay squat. Possibly I am working off a karmic burden. Who knows, all I know is I am sick of these little mouth bones hurting.
Comrade Anklebiter |
If I have to pay for past sins, I guess I shall have to go on the installment plan. Seeing as I refute the concept of sin as it is presented by the Abrahamic troika , I refuse to pay squat. Possibly I am working off a karmic burden. Who knows, all I know is I am sick of these little mouth bones hurting.
By "sin" I wasn't so much referring to transgressions against religious precepts as I was to a life spent consuming refined sugar. Dental sin, if you will.
Smarnil le couard |
And how are all the dear comrades today, anyway?
And yes, that means you Comrade Le Couard, and you, Wanted for Crimes Against the Revolution Citizen HD, and even you, lurking Comrade Curtin? Wassup!
Well, doing fine, thanks. Played my Age of Worms campaign and finished Blackwall keep last friday. Coming to see the end of major pains in the ass at work, without exceding my 35 hours a week schedule.
Alain Krivine is doing well too, as far as I know.
My heartfelt supporting thoughts to statute-to-be-determined-comrade Curtin for his aching teeth. Ouch.
Patrick Curtin |
Patrick Curtin wrote:If I have to pay for past sins, I guess I shall have to go on the installment plan. Seeing as I refute the concept of sin as it is presented by the Abrahamic troika , I refuse to pay squat. Possibly I am working off a karmic burden. Who knows, all I know is I am sick of these little mouth bones hurting.By "sin" I wasn't so much referring to transgressions against religious precepts as I was to a life spent consuming refined sugar. Dental sin, if you will.
(ORGANIZED) RELIGION IS THE OPIATE OF THE MASSES!
Oh sorry, didn't mean to borrow your shtick =P
Merci pour vos condoléances, Smarnil.
Smarnil le couard |
Comrade Anklebiter wrote:Patrick Curtin wrote:If I have to pay for past sins, I guess I shall have to go on the installment plan. Seeing as I refute the concept of sin as it is presented by the Abrahamic troika , I refuse to pay squat. Possibly I am working off a karmic burden. Who knows, all I know is I am sick of these little mouth bones hurting.By "sin" I wasn't so much referring to transgressions against religious precepts as I was to a life spent consuming refined sugar. Dental sin, if you will.(ORGANIZED) RELIGION IS THE OPIATE OF THE MASSES!
Oh sorry, didn't mean to borrow your shtick =P
Merci pour vos condoléances, Smarnil.
I hope not to come to "condoléances"! They are meant for the grieving family, if you see what I mean. Let's say my "soutien" will suffice.
Robert Hawkshaw |
Dear Members,
There will be an emergency meeting of the Strike Coordination Committee on Monday, April 2nd at 6:00 in the Union Office. All members of the Committee are urged to attend. We will post information on multiple picket captain workshops early next week. We will keep you posted.
#fairnessfromhere
-The CUPE 2278 Executive
Uh oh.... s$~*'s about to get real in TA-land
Comrade Anklebiter |
The one that comes to mind, having not read the book in years, is accusing Lincoln of initiating hostilities in the Civil War. It stands out because People's History is all about telling the stories one does not usually hear in the consensus-driven, white male Christian plutocrat-centric narrative of American history.
The paragraph in question: "So, when Lincoln was elected, seven southern states seceded from the Union. Lincoln initiated hostilities by trying to repossess the federal base at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and four more states seceded. The Confederacy was formed; the Civil War was on."
Nowhere else in the chapter--at least in my, updated 2001 edition--does he "blame" Lincoln for starting the war. It seems like a minor quibble, if you ask me, but I would agree that it is factually incorrect.
I also wonder if he's trying to shorten a pretty complex situation--IIRC, most of Lincoln's cabinet was opposed to resupplying Fort Sumter. In fact, Seward, who had, perhaps (Chase was pretty abolitionist as well) the most abolitionist street-cred was opposed to going to war with the South and was concocting a plan to get the Confederacy to jointly go to war with Mexico!
And, in case you're interested in the fiction recommendations of a communist goblin, Comrade Samnell, may I recommend Lincoln by Gore Vidal? It's pretty awesome.
Samnell |
Samnell wrote:The one that comes to mind, having not read the book in years, is accusing Lincoln of initiating hostilities in the Civil War. It stands out because People's History is all about telling the stories one does not usually hear in the consensus-driven, white male Christian plutocrat-centric narrative of American history.
The paragraph in question: "So, when Lincoln was elected, seven southern states seceded from the Union. Lincoln initiated hostilities by trying to repossess the federal base at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and four more states seceded. The Confederacy was formed; the Civil War was on."
Nowhere else in the chapter--at least in my, updated 2001 edition--does he "blame" Lincoln for starting the war. It seems like a minor quibble, if you ask me, but I would agree that it is factually incorrect.
I also wonder if he's trying to shorten a pretty complex situation--IIRC, most of Lincoln's cabinet was opposed to resupplying Fort Sumter. In fact, Seward, who had, perhaps (Chase was pretty abolitionist as well) the most abolitionist street-cred was opposed to going to war with the South and was concocting a plan to get the Confederacy to jointly go to war with Mexico!
That's actually worse than I recalled the line as being. The notion that Lincoln was seeking to repossess Sumter is flat-out insane. It had never until that point been out of federal possession, and Zinn had to know this. (In fact, Sumter had never actually existed as a part of South Carolina or any other state. It was created by the federal government from the ground up, being an artificial island constructed by federal dollars.) Zinn certainly wasn't otherwise a Confederacy sympathizer, which is what makes the sentence so damned out of place.
Seward trying to get a foreign war going is a classic, though. Neither party of white people thought the other was serious. So any good jolt, like a war with Spain or Mexico or something ought to have resolved it in the mind of the Union and one decisive battle in the mind of Slave Power. Some of that's the influence of Napoleonic thinking, since he really did sometimes finish off wars by smashing an entire army and then having the opposition capitulate, but I think most of them gravely underestimated the vast cultural gulf that had opened up between the South and the less crazy sections.
A war that took land from Mexico doubtless would have actually exacerbated matters. (The chapter on Mr. Polk's war against Mexico in Battle Cry of Freedom, which everyone should read, is titled Mexico Will Poison Us.) More dirt means more states, slave or free, in the future. Forty years of kicking the can down the road only brought the crisis closer each time and shortened the lag between one and the next. If not Lincoln's election, it would have been the next guy. Or the next state that didn't want to come in slave.
Samnell |
And, in case you're interested in the fiction recommendations of a communist goblin, Comrade Samnell, may I recommend Lincoln by Gore Vidal? It's pretty awesome.
And I forgot to say some things. :)
I have mixed feelings about Vidal. He can be really wonderful, but there are times when the fact that he grew up as what amounts to American royalty does not reflect flatteringly on him. Coincidentally, I was just listening to a podcast where he was interviewed for a bit and made claims similar to Zinn's paragraph but went a bit farther with them a few weeks ago.
But I'll keep him in mind when next I'm book shopping.
Have you read Eric Foner?
Turin the Mad |
Dentistry is the opiate of the masses, it is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart in a heartless world. Check out my grill!
I have truly shucked off the opiate of the masses, having had all of my small mouth bones removed!
In all serious, be exceedingly careful of your oral hygiene. I recommend using sterile saline solution as mouthwash multiple times a day just to help keep your mouth as sterile as possible. If you smoke, rinse after each cigarette. A tooth infection can kill you in a few days, especially if you're prescribed the wrong antibiotic. I came VERY close to this last a few years ago. I've never experienced such pain that getting severely blasted didn't "cure" as this. Half an hour at best and it was back in full force, alchohol doesn't deal well with this kind of pain. Take care of your chompers - or have them all ripped out, if they're bad enough.
Comrade Anklebiter |
I re-read the pertinent sections in Battle Cry and it was even worse than I remembered--out of a cabinet of seven, only one, Montgomery Blair of the (IIRC) slave-owning Blairs, was for resupplying Fort Sumter no matter the cost. Chase thought it was worth attempting, but not if it ended in going to war.
Re-reading the chapter (The Counterrevolution of 1861), it's funny how one forgets how byzantine the situation actually was. Seward, as Secretary of State, was actually running around assuring the Confederates that Fort Sumter was going to be surrendered!
Anyway, the point that I'm trying to get across, and maybe Zinn was and maybe he wasn't, is that, in all likelihood, if any Republican other than Lincoln had been president, they wouldn't have gone to war over Fort Sumter.
Back to books: Despite Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution being on every single one of my old comrades' bookshelves, I haven't read much of Foner all the way through. Just the recent one, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. I picked up his book about Tom Paine recently, though.
Re: Gore: I think he's awesome. I like to watch the video of him sparring with Buckley at the '68 Democratic Convention and I was reading the comments which were almost all anti-Vidal. "What a pompous ass" one of them read. Pomposity was his schtick, man!
In, I believe, Palimpsest he claimed that once he turned 18, his parents never gave him a dime and further went on to claim that since he earned all of his money through his literary endeavors, he considered himself to be working-class! Hee hee!
Anyway, I have been a big fan of his for a while now. Lincoln, Burr, Empire are my favorites when it comes to fiction, and one can idly flip through his collected essays for hours and always be amazed.
Besides, he wrote Ben-Hur with a homosexual subtext. Hee hee!
Comrade Anklebiter |
Comrade Anklebiter wrote:Dentistry is the opiate of the masses, it is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart in a heartless world. Check out my grill!I have truly shucked off the opiate of the masses, having had all of my small mouth bones removed!
In all serious, be exceedingly careful of your oral hygiene. I recommend using sterile saline solution as mouthwash multiple times a day just to help keep your mouth as sterile as possible. If you smoke, rinse after each cigarette. A tooth infection can kill you in a few days, especially if you're prescribed the wrong antibiotic. I came VERY close to this last a few years ago. I've never experienced such pain that getting severely blasted didn't "cure" as this. Half an hour at best and it was back in full force, alchohol doesn't deal well with this kind of pain. Take care of your chompers - or have them all ripped out, if they're bad enough.
No offense, but I'm not taking dental hygiene tips from anybody who has "the Mad" at the end of his name.
Turin the Mad |
Turin the Mad wrote:No offense, but I'm not taking dental hygiene tips from anybody who has "the Mad" at the end of his name.Comrade Anklebiter wrote:Dentistry is the opiate of the masses, it is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart in a heartless world. Check out my grill!I have truly shucked off the opiate of the masses, having had all of my small mouth bones removed!
In all serious, be exceedingly careful of your oral hygiene. I recommend using sterile saline solution as mouthwash multiple times a day just to help keep your mouth as sterile as possible. If you smoke, rinse after each cigarette. A tooth infection can kill you in a few days, especially if you're prescribed the wrong antibiotic. I came VERY close to this last a few years ago. I've never experienced such pain that getting severely blasted didn't "cure" as this. Half an hour at best and it was back in full force, alchohol doesn't deal well with this kind of pain. Take care of your chompers - or have them all ripped out, if they're bad enough.
Your call. :)
Samnell |
Anyway, the point that I'm trying to get across, and maybe Zinn was and maybe he wasn't, is that, in all likelihood, if any Republican other than Lincoln had been president, they wouldn't have gone to war over Fort Sumter.
Sure. It would be very strange if he thought he couldn't spare more than a single paragraph to make it clear what he meant, though. Since the main point of People's History is trolling for a cause, maybe it was his BS "both sides do it" portion.
Back to books: Despite Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution being on every single one of my old comrades' bookshelves, I haven't read much of Foner all the way through. Just the recent one, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. I picked up his book about Tom Paine recently, though.
I'm mostly in the same boat, but I figured you'd like him. You know his family history, right? Two uncles were labor organizers, the old man got blacklisted in the 40s for focusing history classes on how black people were people.
Anywho, on Foner he's the historian I always want to read right before some new book that interests me more comes up. I've been three-quarters through Forever Free (Which includes what I consider among the best one-paragraph summaries of the difference between the American Right and Left I've encountered.) for so long I'd have to reread it again from scratch. Reconstruction has been started at least four times. I think I've started The Story of American Freedom twice.
I can't read two books at once. My brain does not work that way. I have a lot of trouble reading comics and a book at the same time. So something I'm more interested comes up and I stop reading one to read the other. By the time I'm done I lack the context to be happy resuming from in-progress.
Re: Gore: I think he's awesome. I like to watch the video of him sparring with Buckley at the '68 Democratic Convention and I was reading the comments which were almost all anti-Vidal. "What a pompous ass" one of them read. Pomposity was his schtick, man!
Vidal certainly had Buckley's number, right down to calling him a crypto-fascist, but I can't even imagine calling him pompous when he's sitting next to Buckley.
Comrade Anklebiter |
The official SG position is:
Separation of church and state; all religions are equally worthless; people's voluntarily belonging to a cult (Branch Davidian, Scientology, the Church of Leafar) is their own business and should be of no concern to the state, either bourgeois or socialist.
That doesn't mean that we don't reserve the right to make fun of them, however.
Comrade Anklebiter |
Speaking of cults, one of the compound-mates has defected.
Father Varnalium, priest of Pharasma, has, irl, decided to move out and become an itinerant Buddhist monk, which is a polite way of saying he's going to be a homeless bum.
From hereon in, we're going to have go trawling the streets of Manchester, NH every time we need a cleric.
Comrade Anklebiter |
[Mean anti-religion stuff]
My friend Omar once pointed out to me (and I'm not saying he came up with this on his own) that Buddhism is the only religion that starts with a truth ("All life is suffering"). In his opinion, though, it quickly went wrong.
And, CC, that first sentence inspires hope and spiritual uplift. Any new developments?
Ambrosia Slaad |
I intend to organize the Church hierarchy into a pyramid, with me at the top (and holding that position by force). Donations/funds/lobbying will flow upward toward the sacred pinnacle to be sanctified/laundered, then trickle back down.
The Church will turn away no one -- Beck, Olbermann, Robertson, Dawkins, or others -- for their beliefs, as long as the checks continue to clear. (However, Olbermann, that means you need to make donations via wire transfer, certified check, or cash... your credit rating has plummeted since you lost your Current TV job.)
Ordination (and being current on dues) grants the privilege of having the priest's views officially entered into Church scripture. Therefore, anyone who attacks/refutes those views -- for example, with documented research and/or facts -- is officially perpetrating a religious hate crime. Rising higher in the ranks (and making greater continued donations) allows one to express even contrary opinions, even flip-flopping between contradictory statements within the same breath.
Samnell |
Ordination (and being current on dues) grants the privilege of having the priest's views officially entered into Church scripture. Therefore, anyone who attacks/refutes those views -- for example, with documented research and/or facts -- is officially perpetrating a religious hate crime. Rising higher in the ranks (and making greater continued donations) allows one to express even contrary opinions, even flip-flopping between contradictory statements within the same breath.
I think I've heard of this religion before.
Ambrosia Slaad |
Ambrosia Slaad wrote:I think I've heard of this religion before.
Ordination (and being current on dues) grants the privilege of having the priest's views officially entered into Church scripture. Therefore, anyone who attacks/refutes those views -- for example, with documented research and/or facts -- is officially perpetrating a religious hate crime. Rising higher in the ranks (and making greater continued donations) allows one to express even contrary opinions, even flip-flopping between contradictory statements within the same breath.
Well, it may not be an revolutionary business model, but it does follow in the established and respected tradition of "F*ck you, I got mine." I also find it is much easier to become a millionaire -- or billionaire {giggles with greed} -- philanthropist if one first becomes a millionaire/billionaire. If that means I have to saw off a few ladder rungs behind me as I climb, then what was good enough for the Rockefellers, Waltons, and Bill Gates is good enough for me.
Comrade Anklebiter |
Anklebiter, that do you think about Chris Hedges? He's rapidly becoming a favorite of mine.
Under prodding from Citizen HD, I've read half of Hedges's Death of the Liberal Class. Good stuff, although hardly, I don't know, what's the word? coherent.
Like in one chapter he pinpoints the death of liberalism to World War I and the Creel Commission, and then spends the rest of the chapter discussing the theater. (Oh, and everything that he says about the theater can be more enjoyably learned by watching the film The Cradle Will Rock.
Despite that, and despite the fact that he doesn't really deal with anything that I haven't read about before (yet) and DESPITE THE FACT THAT HE GOES OUT OF HIS WAY TO SAY BAD THINGS ABOUT ALLEN GINSBERG, so far I'm enjoying the read.
Comrade Anklebiter |
It's time that I start pimping out my Fun-Timey thread.
I'll start with some more liberal hate.
Samnell |
houstonderek wrote:Anklebiter, that do you think about Chris Hedges? He's rapidly becoming a favorite of mine.Under prodding from Citizen HD, I've read half of Hedges's Death of the Liberal Class. Good stuff, although hardly, I don't know, what's the word? coherent.
I've had just that reaction to the exposure I've had to Hedges's thought elsewhere. Someone I know described him as a writer prone to treating emoting as argument, to the strong detriment of whatever he was trying to say at the time.
My main memory is the debate with Sam Harris where Harris cited public opinion polls on just how poorly-informed and illiberal the general populace where in various Mideastern countries and Hedges countered by saying that he had Lebanese friends who were really quite nice. Harris said he was sure that Muslims who befriended liberal American journalists were quite nice poeple, but were not a representative sample of the population.