Author: R J Adams

George W Bush and Richard (Dickhead) Cheney are related. They both share the same great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great – grandfather. (I may have inserted one ‘great’ too many, but better more than less!)

William French was a tailor who was born around 1605, and emigrated from Britain to Massachusetts when he was about thirty years old, with his wife, Elizabeth. She bore him ten children before she died at age 63, probably from exhaustion. Not so, our William. He went on to marry Mary Lathrop, when she was 29 and he was nigh on 70! William eventually succumbed some six or seven years later, but not before siring another four children to Mary, who already had five from a previous marriage. So the French household had fourteen children and five step-children. William probably died to get some peace.

Elizabeth’s line went on to eventually produce our beloved Vice President Richard B Cheney, and Mary’s sank to similar depths, ultimately ejaculating George Walker Bush.

Other notables to grace our lives from the French line include Samuel Morse, best known for advocating slavery and inventing the telegraph, and Charles Goodyear who discovered how to vulcanize rubber, but had absolutely nothing to do with the multi-national tire company that bears his name. He was enamored of rubber and spent all his time in a laboratory seeking new ways to use and improve it. In fact, he died owing $200,000.

In conclusion: one Bush/Cheney relative believed slave ownership a Divine Right; the other had a rubber fetish.

Figures!

Filed under: Geneology

The indoctrinal effects of our capitalist society were brought sharply into focus tonight by an NBC Weekend News report on hybrid vehicles. The thrust of the segment was whether hybrid vehicles were an economically viable alternative to conventional automobiles.

As it transpired, the report concluded that hybrids were undoubtedly money-savers, and that continued improvements would make them even more so in the future.

At no time was there any mention of the environmental benefits of a hybrid, which as the writer understands it, was the primary reason for their introduction in the first place – certainly in Europe, where hybrids were relatively common long before one ever set wheels on a US highway.

The concept of the capitalist society, like the communist theory, is all fine and good. Unfortunately, both fail to account for the one great variable: human nature. Human beings are the greediest animals on the planet, which accounts for their success, and the evolution of a society reliant on the amassing of one certain elusive substance will unfailingly result in a few having much, and most having insufficient. Indeed, the success of the system relies heavily on most not having sufficient, and constantly striving for more. It is the striving by the majority that drives the system and fuels the wealth of the few.

The process of capitalism has, over years, been refined to a high degree. Being a patriotic American demands allegiance to the capitalist system. Fifty years ago, capitalism was eloquently portrayed to the people as a benevolent Christian alternative to the evils of communism. The message went out that communism was intent on enslaving the world; capitalism would free the planet.

It worked. People fell for it, hook, line and sinker. The eventual crumbling of communist Russia was displayed as a triumph of Good over Evil.

No-one realized then, and most won’t accept even now, that American capitalism is doomed to follow the same fate as Soviet communism. America, indeed much of the world, is moving more and more towards a USSR-style of communism where total power rests in the hands of a few who control the rest – where they shop, what they eat, the clothes they wear, the vehicles they drive, etc.

This is achieved by the simple process of removing choice. It still has some way to go before arriving at corporate nirvana, but the end is nigh. Of course, nirvana, is only for the few. For the rest of us life will get progressively less satisfactory.

One of the offshoots of America’s ongoing capitalist propaganda is the fundamentally flawed idea that every human need can be resolved by the application of a potential money machine. The sad state of American healthcare alone proves that to be a myth. Yet no matter how serious – even life-threatening – the situation, it is likely to be left unresolved until the day someone can decide how to make a profit from it.

For years our planet has been surreptitiously rebelling against our excesses. Only in the last twenty or so years have some scientists detected changes in the way our global home is behaving. Only in the last two or three years have skeptics from the science fraternity become convinced their cynicism was misplaced. Without doubt, global warming is both reality and a serious threat to the human race.

Once that fact became common knowledge – when politicians, world leaders, finally had to admit to the truth – what was their first reaction?

“How much is it going to cost.”

Their second response, once they stopped reeling from the projected financial impact, was to tell us not to worry, technology would find a way to combat the effects of global warming – and make a profit!

Money has become more important than the fate of our world and ourselves. Such is the greed of the human species.

Purchasing a hybrid automobile as an investment was lauded by the pundits of NBC Weekend News. A capitalist success story. It would be, but only if everyone could afford to scrap their conventional, planet-polluting, automobiles and purchase a hybrid today.

Just like the idea of “equal healthcare for all”, the capitalist system has made that an impossibility.

Filed under: Financial foolishness

Usually, when I arrive at the computer my subject is pre-determined by an item of news, or an interesting factoid previously researched. But there are times when I sit down and have no idea what I am going to write. This is one of those times.

The main topic of blog conversation – the War in Iraq and its accompanying political debate – seems presently exhausted, having been analyzed to death by God knows how many million bloggers, newspaper journalists, and TV commentators. In fact, such has been the intensity that nothing else in the world, short of another tsunami or San Fransisco earthquake, would seem of much consequence.

That is, until last week when China surreptitiously fired a ballistic missile into space and pulverized one of its own weather satellites. That caught the media’s attention, albeit fleetingly.

Now, when North Korea tested its medium range missile last year, closely followed by an indeterminate nuclear explosion, the general opinion was that Kim Jong-il felt left out and ignored, and was having a spoilt-child tantrum in the hope that someone would notice. I personally found this a little hard to swallow. I’ve known a number of highly spoilt kids in my time, but none has ever gone to those lengths to gain attention. Hurling the odd toy across the room – yes; even smashing a vase over great-grandpapa’s bald pate in a moment of unabashed tantrum. But a nuclear explosion – no, definitely not.

Nevertheless, China’s new game smacks of a similar tactic. With the world focused on Middle Eastern chaos, and America’s war funded by Chinese sweat shops, it’s possible Hu Jintao was feeling a bit neglected and decided to reaffirm his presence.

Of course, this assumption is based on the premise that world leaders are no better than immature, spoilt brats, given to tantrum excesses whenever their desires are not immediately met. Certainly, there is abundant evidence to support this thesis without moving one’s focus outside of the United States. George W Bush, presently worried – we are told – about his legacy, will put both Kim Jong-il and Hu Jintao to shame when the spoilt-brat awards for combined arrogance, immaturity, and poutishness are announced. George W Bush has no need to worry about his legacy. It’s already been decreed. Whatever damage control may be exercised within Washington’s political circles, the rest of the world already has George W Bush’s tenure in the White House down as the worst of any American president. He will be immortalized in world history as the most arrogant, boorish, incompetent, unsophisticated, unintelligent, aggressive, war-mongering, genocidal and egotistical maniac ever to be elected to supreme office in the United States – or anywhere else outside, perhaps, of Nazi Germany.

So where does our Chinese ballistic missile launch fit into all this?

Kim Jong-il is a shadowy figure whose character has proved difficult to assess. He rarely gives interviews, and those who have been able to make contact with him vary substantially in their opinions. He’s been described as everything from a madman to an intellectual. Hu Jintau, by comparison, is a personable figure who has gone to great lengths in emphasizing China’s peaceful rise as a superpower. It is unlikely he would allow this ostensibly belligerent action merely as an attention-getter.

It’s more likely China is directly addressing the United States by this action, pointing out to George Bush and his minions that America is not the only power in the world, and may not continue much longer to ride roughshod over less powerful nations without the intervention of others.

It may also be a response to the American president’s declaration last October, that America had a right to deny access to space to anyone “hostile to US interests.” By signing that new National Space Policy, the US was basically stating to the rest of the world that space was American territory, and any involvement by other nations would only be tolerated to the extent they were in partnership with the US.

While there are some Americans – those diseased by arrogant patriotism – who may well agree with such an attitude, there are about 270 other nations outside the US who don’t. China is just one of them.

It seems likely last week’s destruction of a Chinese weather satellite by one of that country’s missiles, was a direct response to George W Bush’s arrogance.

Frankly, if that is the case, this writer doesn’t blame them. Space is no-one’s territory. Like the high seas it remains independent of any conquest. In that sense it is mankind’s only hope, it’s one salvation. If we can learn to work together in our exploration and eventual colonization of new worlds, it is just possible we may survive long enough to evolve into more than the belligerent, tribally-orientated, creatures we presently are.

George W Bush, and those like him, must never be allowed to stifle mankind’s one hope of immortality.

Filed under: Naughty kids