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The Fourth Reich???

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The Fourth Reich???

Postby fossilgrom » Sat Aug 28, 2010 8:14 am

Absolutely fuking terrifying.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38891505/ns ... _politics/

The economic situation is ripe for this kind of shite...just like a certain Bavarian nation after WW1.
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Re: The Fourth Reich???

Postby riverjetty » Sat Aug 28, 2010 8:56 am

Civil war redeux.
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Re: The Fourth Reich???

Postby pra_ggresion » Sat Aug 28, 2010 1:16 pm

The character of Glenn Beck knows no bounds; that he being what he advocates and represents, would twist Dr. Kings view of war into "divine providence", a mazes.
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Re: The Fourth Reich???

Postby erzats » Sat Aug 28, 2010 11:58 pm

I just get this deer in the headlights feeling about Palin. I'm the deer caught powerless watching her inevitable rise to become president. It's the same feeling I had when W. was running back in 1999 and 2000. "This can't be happening. This can't be happening. Oh my god, it is happening." Then when he got in "It won't be as bad as we think it wil. Oh my god, it's worse than we ever thought it would be."
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Re: The Fourth Reich???

Postby speelyei » Sun Aug 29, 2010 8:28 am

I once worked out of a yard with about 12 other crews... about 40 individuals. Some were felons, some were skinheads, some were addicts, some were regular dudes, just a little rougher characters than me... We were having a weekly meeting, and I was looking around the circle, and suddenly it hit me. If we were cowboys in a movie, these were the black hat guys. You know, the posse that forms to chase down the hero, the guys who burn the farms and terrorize families, the "red legs" from the Outlaw Josey Wales. I realized I was the odd man out, this kid was doin' his own thing... I applied for a transfer that day.
anyway, I feel like that often.

I see the proclivity for polarization as a syptom of over-population. "Red" and "Blue" designation of states is like a serving suggestion for a fractured Union.
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Re: The Fourth Reich???

Postby Betty » Sun Aug 29, 2010 8:34 pm

I'll believe it when I see it on Bill Maher.
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Re: The Fourth Reich???

Postby bluesilver » Mon Aug 30, 2010 9:28 am

I watched enough to throw up a little in my mouth. Beck certainly hold's himself on a pedestal.
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Re: The Fourth Reich???

Postby pra_ggresion » Tue Aug 31, 2010 11:22 am

If any could fill the shoes of Joseph Goebbels, it would be Glenn Beck. Palin could make for a pretty accurate impression of Heinrich Himmler of SS fame.

Reminds me of an antidote about a mathematician named Kurt Godel trying to get citizenshiphere in the US. He was worried about passing the question portion and essentially memorized the constitution and all of us history including before colonizing. He told Albert Einstein that in reviewing the constitution he found a possible way for a fascist regime to legally take over. Einstein suggested that he not mention this during the exam since it just a formality anyways. So the exam comes months later,

examiner: What country are you from?
Godel: Austria.
Examiner: What kind of government does it have?
Godel: It used to be a peoples republic but recently has become a dictatorship.
Examiner: Luckily that can't happen here?
Godel: No no, it is possible, I can prove it!
The examiner realized he was a space cadet, ended the question portion and let him in.

It looks like we may see how this proof works out. hopefully not. I would like to see on paper though.
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Re: The Fourth Reich???

Postby Ceedog » Thu Sep 02, 2010 11:23 pm

Come on people, its all theater. Beck is an actor. The scary thing is people can't see this and fall right into the left/right trap. Divide and conquer is an old tactic. The powers that be know people are unhappy and figuring out that they are getting the shaft. So in comes Beck with the appearance of representing those with a bone to pick, but he will only manage and attempt to steer that energy into a controlled, mindless dissent. He's just a Sheeple herder. And on the flipside he is trying to cozy up to the tea party movement and will eventually try to poison the well of any kind of real grass roots uprising. Plus he simply diverts attention away from real topics by his controversy. How much tv/radio/internet time has been wasted talking about Beck this last wk?
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Re: The Fourth Reich???

Postby Ceedog » Thu Sep 02, 2010 11:29 pm

And the media will only help to foster/inflame any kind of racial tensions.
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Re: The Fourth Reich???

Postby erzats » Fri Sep 03, 2010 12:16 am

I disagree with you ceedog. I think it's too easy to say that what we are presented in our two party system is just a front to something larger (The "powers that be"). That's just an easy out so you can ignore the politics that are portrayed in the media. I agree that a lot of the motives on each side are the same, but there are real differences between what someone like Glen Beck says and what some of the liberal thinkers that I listen to say. I just never buy into the idea that things are as simple as there being one big machine, one overriding conspiracy and that the only way out is to throw out our government. Anarchy and libertarianism have a lot of followers because they appear to be the easy ways out. They offer some solutions that look nice on paper, but turn out to be untenable in the real world and all the arseholes that lie therein. I guess maybe the political system we have is the only balance possible between the extreme wealth that some people enjoy in this country and everyone else who isn't as wealthy. It could just as easy be compleet totalitarianism. If our system was so effed up, we would soon be made true slaves to the wealthiest.
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Re: The Fourth Reich???

Postby Spent » Fri Sep 03, 2010 8:43 am

i think i'm with ceedog, erzats. the two party system is just a slow plod to our doom with a meaningless jostle every four years. there is no room for meaningful debate within this political context. they both have no interest in looking beyond this unsustainable economic arrangement called, capitalism.

man its too early for this but in no way are anarchism and libertarianism are 'easy ways out' nor do they 'have a lot of followers' b/c most of us can't see beyond the status quo. in saying that there are plenty of examples of how these too 'systems' of thought have worked on small and large scales. the most striking, that people continue to ignore, is 99% of human existence, pre-civilization.

I guess maybe the political system we have is the only balance possible between the extreme wealth that some people enjoy in this country and everyone else who isn't as wealthy. It could just as easy be compleet totalitarianism. If our system was so effed up, we would soon be made true slaves to the wealthiest.


the only balance possible? c'mon mate, you have an imagination. i read a great book recently about how vermont should secede from the union. devolution or de-centralization is a good first step towards people having a tangible grasp of democracy, some say over their own community, a voice of some form.

as for the slaves comment, we already are... for us it friendly fascism, for a garment worker in Taiwan, perhaps a little closer to the real thing.

i do agree that this might not be one big intentional conspiracy... it is what it is now and maybe there is no way out but for us complacent slaves 'the easy way out' is to continue to have faith in this ugly mess and to ignore human potential, a potential we've lived as hunter-gatherers and even had glimpses of within the capitalist/ industrial context: the Paris commune, 1930s Spain, the Zapatistas, your local food co-op... blah blah....

anarchism, libertarianism... personally i don't subscribe to isms... but these aren't pie in the sky ideas used to lazily critique libs and cons while doing nothing. they work on the premiss that human beings get a long a lot better when they are not barked at to do so and that makes a lot of sense to me.
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Re: The Fourth Reich???

Postby erzats » Fri Sep 03, 2010 5:52 pm

I can't believe I just wasted an hour and a half on this post. It probably doesn't make any sense and I think we are probably on the same page anyway. My basic argument is that the system we have is a direct result of how our economy evolved to give us all the things that we own and use and which some of us really like and also the human tendency for greed and self preservation. Here goes...

Spent wrote:i think i'm with ceedog, erzats. the two party system is just a slow plod to our doom with a meaningless jostle every four years. there is no room for meaningful debate within this political context. they both have no interest in looking beyond this unsustainable economic arrangement called, capitalism.


I am not a fan of capitalism either nor am I fan of our current system. But, you have to recognize the irony of debating capitalism when the computer you type on, the surfboard you ride, the cars you drive, the gas you put in them, the food you ate today, and everything else in your life is available to you because of capitalism for better or worse. Sure, the creation of all of those things cannot continue forever on this planet and it really is in humanity's best interest that we stop making all of this crap. But, are you really ready to forgo all of these things? Are you ready to instate population controls (or allow disease/war/famine to play the roles they used to in keeping the population in check) that keep the need for economic growth down? I guess what's at issue here is how we take the offramp, how quickly we leave the freeway, how many come with, and what happens when people actually get out of this stream. My feeling is that the status quo exists because our political system has evolved pretty darn well to make most Americans and people in the developed world as a whole comfortable enough to shut the hell up. We are complicit in the suffering in the world that arises because of our system, because of those possessions, and because of our wealth no matter what your idealogical bent is here on the OSP, bumperstickers, or elsewhere.

man its too early for this but in no way are anarchism and libertarianism are 'easy ways out' nor do they 'have a lot of followers' b/c most of us can't see beyond the status quo. in saying that there are plenty of examples of how these too 'systems' of thought have worked on small and large scales. the most striking, that people continue to ignore, is 99% of human existence, pre-civilization.


I guess I read a lot of viewpoints from people who oppose what we have, and who latch onto things like less government, or lower taxes, or no government at all, but who also make no clear arguments why those are better choices or who fail to recognize that a lot of those systems are equally flawed in the end. They fail to recognize that there is a lot of "wealth" in the world and that the vast majority of people are not going to settle until they have a bigger chunk of it. Grabbing at wealth begets capitalism or corrupt communism.

the only balance possible? c'mon mate, you have an imagination. i read a great book recently about how vermont should secede from the union. devolution or de-centralization is a good first step towards people having a tangible grasp of democracy, some say over their own community, a voice of some form.


So what happens once Vermont secedes? Do you think the democracy suddenly becomes more transparent because you are dealing with a smaller complex? Doubtful. There are still going to be wealthy fukheads who strive to gain and hold power and suppress the politically weaker/financially less powerful right back into happy fascism as you call it. Maybe a less centralized system will better be able to adapt such nations to vagaries of local resources and worker potential but I'm not sure if it would result in a system of government and economy that looks any nicer than what we already have.

as for the slaves comment, we already are... for us it friendly fascism, for a garment worker in Taiwan, perhaps a little closer to the real thing.


yes I know all of this too. You better be ready to stop buying shite (Patagonia etc etc etc) made in taiwan/thailand/and soon Haiti (did anyone else notice how Clinton snuck right in there as an economic development czar and now the people of Haiti will be making our clothes yay! Viva neoliberalism).

i do agree that this might not be one big intentional conspiracy... it is what it is now and maybe there is no way out but for us complacent slaves 'the easy way out' is to continue to have faith in this ugly mess and to ignore human potential, a potential we've lived as hunter-gatherers and even had glimpses of within the capitalist/ industrial context: the Paris commune, 1930s Spain, the Zapatistas, your local food co-op... blah blah....

anarchism, libertarianism... personally i don't subscribe to isms... but these aren't pie in the sky ideas used to lazily critique libs and cons while doing nothing. they work on the premiss that human beings get a long a lot better when they are not barked at to do so and that makes a lot of sense to me.


I'm not saying anyone needs to have faith in this. I think people (myself included) really need to make an effort to understand exactly how our current and alternative systems work within the context of the global economic/technological/social environment that we live in. People should make an effort to understand that throwing out comments like "we should all go back to preindustrial living" needs to be backed up by just as much doctrine and dogma as what we already have for it to actually work. I agree that people probably behave a lot better when they are not being "barked at" but somewhere along the line in the 1% of human existence between the 98% that came before and what we presently have an original sin was committed.

Someone decided that they needed a little more, they decided to be clever and get ahead a little, they probably had their slaves work a little harder and, viola, we were on the road. Don't forget that humans have always oppressed other humans, that the earliest 99% of people being people was full of a fair amount of really god awful stuff too. I guess what needs to happen is humans need to digest this whole pre history and history and then figure out how to plot a course where that really innate tendency of humans to get ahead and to try to make themselves more comfortable is suppressed by rational thought, leadership, and well, love for thy neighbor.

I'd be really surprised if anyone actually read all of this... Luckily I got some sick waves today, so I don't feel like I wasted any time.
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Re: The Fourth Reich???

Postby Spent » Sat Sep 04, 2010 7:52 pm

erzats, i'm also exhausted from an insane dawn patrol session this morning and i'm drunk but i've got enough respect for you not to totally cop out... i apologize in advance for not addressing all your points... over some beers perhaps.

i will say in my defense, i do struggle with the compromises i make by being an active participant in it all. i also try to be a conscientious consumer as possible, for what is worth. i don't take any of this crap for granted and struggle with it daily. hence all the holes in most of my clothes.

Do you think the democracy suddenly becomes more transparent because you are dealing with a smaller complex?
Absolutely. I don't see how any citizen of a country as large as the US can genuinely feel there vote means sh*t.... I feel the immense apathy in the american democratic process is a direct result of people not feeling like they have any meaningful say in changes that can directly change their tangible community.

finally the understanding that humans have always oppressed each other is out-dated anthropology. the 'brutish short, and terrifying' description of pre-civilized life has been challenged by anthropologists for quiet some time. more and more evidence points towards cooperation not competition in primitive man. off the top of my head, a recent national geo article on the Hazda and Kropotkin's "Mutual Aid' offer some compelling evidence for this. i'm not saying life was a bed of roses but its worth contemplating.

i don't know how we put the toothpaste back in the tube but i do think we need to take a deep retrospective look at our species' seeming natural inclination for egalitarianism and cooperation. why we took the wrong turn out of the garden is still the subject of much debate.
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Re: The Fourth Reich???

Postby Doc » Mon Sep 06, 2010 10:33 pm

The garden itself likely had many weeds...

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