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George W Bush and Richard (Dick~~head~~) 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