Zero G.,

I love it when you sprinkle your comments with references to theoretical physics and cosmology! Warm and fuzzy...LOL (No really, it's one of my favorite subjects!)

Specifically, I was referring to "the black hole of the military/industrial/media complex into which all known resources are drawn." Not only that, but this black hole is so powerful that it is emitting "energy jets" that are lethal to anything nearby.

It does seem that mankind can't keep itself from hurtling headlong into oblivion.

I do wish humans were more like the deer in Thom’s story about democracy in the animal kingdom. If enough of us decide which direction to go, we all head off at once, regardless of what the alpha male is doing… - Quark

Well, if we're wishing, I wish we were more like bonobos...

Zero G.,

I'm not worried, either. I think we are already experiencing a black hole.

Carbon Capitalists Warming to Climate Market Using Derivatives
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aXRBOxU5KT5M

Will the carbon derivatives boom destabilize the economy and lead to another crash?

Quark December 8th, 2009, 9:14 am

Zero G.,

I was observing that there always seems to have been a “focal point”, if you will, a so-called leader, who gets the “movement” headed in the same direction. I do wish humans were more like the deer in Thom’s story about democracy in the animal kingdom. If enough of us decide which direction to go, we all head off at once, regardless of what the alpha male is doing…

Re: “On a completely different subject, Is particle spin observed in three spatial dimensions a reflection of momentum of saId particle in a fourth?”

I think there is no way to tell. What do YOU think?

Quark December 8th, 2009, 9:01 am

Zero G.,

I think the sentiment for reform is THERE, on both the left and the right. Who will head the parade?

Quark December 8th, 2009, 8:56 am

Zero G.,

You bring tears to my eyes…

But are you saying that we don’t have leaders, we need leaders, or we can force change without a leader?

From Zero G.:

Zero G. December 8th, 2009, 8:41 am

Abbie Hoffman once observed that “we are all quarterbacks,” and we tend to Disney-fy leaders and history, anyway. Consider MLK, the media would have you believe that he had a dream, won civil rights and then turned over and went back to sleep, not gone on to denounce Viet Nam and economic issues.

Quark December 8th, 2009, 8:01 am

Zero G.,

You echo my sentiments. Millions of people out in the streets around the world didn’t make any difference. I don’t think protests are useful to anyone except FOX Noise. Logistically, what else can be done, though, I wonder? Thom talks about “movement politics.” How, exactly, would this work (or would it?)

From Loretta:

Loretta December 8th, 2009, 3:49 am

Sorry I offered the wrong link to Thom’s article. The one I gave you was a re-post.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0719-15.htm

From Loretta:

Loretta December 8th, 2009, 2:57 am

This terrific 2004 article by Thom on American-style fascism is being passed around Facebook right now.

http://boards.history.com/thread.jspa?threadID=300021037&tstart=0&mod=10...

“Although most Americans remember that Harry Truman was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Vice President when Roosevelt died in 1945 (making Truman President), Roosevelt had two previous Vice Presidents – John N. Garner (1933-1941) and Henry A. Wallace (1941-1945). In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, ‘write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?’

Vice President Wallace’s answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan.

‘The really dangerous American fascists,” Wallace wrote, “are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.’

In this, Wallace was using the classic definition of the word “fascist” – the definition Mussolini had in mind when he claimed to have invented the word. (It was actually Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile who wrote the entry in the Encyclopedia Italiana that said: “Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” Mussolini, however, affixed his name to the entry, and claimed credit for it.)

As the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is: “A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism.”

Mussolini was quite straightforward about all this. In a 1923 pamphlet titled “The Doctrine of Fascism” he wrote, “If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government.” But not a government of, by, and for We The People – instead, it would be a government of, by, and for the most powerful corporate interests in the nation. “

Zero G.,

I guess the daily blog is up now (for Tuesday.) I will cut and paste our previous comments into it again so we can all be on the same page...