"It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well." ~ Rene Descartes
"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it." ~ Henry Ford
"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." ~ John F. Kennedy
"The most fundamental attack on freedom is the attack on critical thinking skills." ~ Travis Nichols
When I read 1984 as a senior in high school, I felt bewilderment and slight terror at the possibility of abject state control. Now we are here. The only recourse is to be true to our convictions. People will notice. I believe it.
I’ve heard Ford’s, but not the Giampietro. It’s like, just get started on that job you don’t know how to do. You’ll make mistakes, then you’ll figure it out, but you have to get started.
Since 2022, Zelensky has been lauded as the most perfect man and a defender of democracy. That's why he campaigned for Democrats in 2024. In 2019 he was seen by the same people as a crook and a liar by the same people. Only one thing changed here in America.
A gentleman using the pseudonym Eugyppius has a great Substack called The Plague Chronicle. Anyone really interested in German society and politics should check it out.
The recent election really changes nothing for the German people. Under Germany's complicated parliamentary system, the "winner" has to form a coalition government to actually govern. That is how Germany has been governed for at least 15 years, with only the coalition members changing as parties rise and fall in favor. The AfD, the party under investigation, received over 20% of the vote, yet WILL NOT BE A PART OF THE GOVERNING COALITION. AfD is populist and anti-immigration, alleged "Nazis", and of course they must be investigated and destroyed.
And so the degradation of Europe continues. This will be the US when the Democrats regain power.
Though like all Germans, dislikes when you remind them that they've all been raised to hate Der Volk. Which can be said about most Europeans. Especially the British.
I stopped following him over 2 years ago when he inadvertently revealed his views on autistic people in a comment thread (I'm an autistic mum to two autistic boys). Unforgivable.
I've probably mentioned this before, but there's this term called "demokratur" in Swedish and German.
Demo- from democracy (demokrati), and -kratur from dictatorship (diktatur). The meaning is simple. The people get to vote, for whichever party they like, but since all parties share ideology to at least 90% the vote matters very little in reality.
Furthermore, the constitution is written in such a way it makes it virtually impossible for challengers to actually change this into real democracy, something reinforced yet again by various treaties on the supra-state level.
For example, if the AfD in Germany or the Sweden Democrats up here wanted to make it possible to revoke citizenship from criminal migrants, it'd take (in Sweden) a minimum of eight years. In the USA as I understand it, as long as the Constitution (and Bill of Rights?) aren't violated, and the Supreme Court agrees, a president could make it law by executive order that a criminal conviction equals loss of citizenship for a migrant?
The really sad part of it, in Germany and here too, is that the initial idea of having such a slow system was to prevent what is now happening: if the system was slow, it would give people time to mobilise against various attempts at subverting the democratic process and the values it is supposed to embody.
But no system can endure when those set up to safe-guard it sees it as an instrument for them to wield to cement their rule, rather as a writ of duty to their fellow members of the people.
I think a change of revoking citizenship, once granted, would require a Constitutional Amendment or change to the one concerning citizenship, which is an act of Congress. I don't believe a Presidential Executive Order would be lawful, and the Supreme Court would rule against that action. Not positive, but I don't think that would be Constitutional as once you're a citizen you have all the rights of citizenship regardless of how you came here (birth or immigration).
Would that still be true if the citizenship was found to have been granted thanks to fraudulent means, such as a false claim of asylum seeker status f.e.?
I have my concerns about both sides. I wasn't happy about either choice in the US elections. Many of the things said on the right and done by Trump are just as dictatorial as those of Biden's Administration over the last four years. I have hoped that the people advising Trump and some of the conservative representatives in Congress would contain the more pushy ideas that he has regarding changes to return this country to one with less progressive socialist-leaning policies.
For example, I love the audits of each Federal department. But suddenly letting go of a set number of employees before knowing exactly what each does, why they may work away from an office setting during "office hours", and requesting an accounting of work achievements last week over the weekend shows neither Trump nor Musk understands not all Federal employees have access to work computers at home, some may be on leave or vacation or out sick thus not responding for legitimate reasons. They seem to be up late at night brainstorming - "You know what we should do next?!!" then sending out a memo before thinking through the actual logistical pros and cons. Such planning would keep them from firing and then rehiring people of consequence and looking foolish.
I also disagree with Trump asking Federal employees to report on others who continue the use of DEI programs, which is no different than Obama asking citizens to report on neighbors who said something "fishy" about his healthcare plan (I reported myself immediately, the beginning of my active resistance online). The government has no place asking employees or citizens to report on others' behavior or speech.
I do think there should be a Department of Education so we have some
sort of national educational standards since kids often move from one state to another. There needs to be some basic set of standards at each
grade level so kids aren't clueless when going from one school system to another, or graduating to move on to college. DOE doesn't have to become such an oppressive or influential regulatory governing body.
The same is true of almost all other government agencies. Looking at the function of each and the actual power they have in terms of Constitutional Law would be refreshing. Knowing how many people have had their freedom and personal rights violated by individuals from these government agencies (ATF, FBI, CIA, ICE, DEA, IRS) the scope and legal/lethal power they have without repercussions should be seriously reconsidered.
I think a genuine concern is that they move too fast in the next two years in order to accomplish their DOGE agenda before the mid-terms. It needs to be done well in order to keep the country on board with his agenda. If he goes at the government with a hatchet and makes a mess of things, people will not support continued reform.
To your point about the relative benefits of these agencies, I think those are valid concerns and can be debated. Unfortunately right now it seems like the main problem is bringing these agencies to heel so that they are actually accountable to the president. It doesn't matter how much we as a country discuss these trade-offs if the person we elect has no power to enforce those changes.
Looking from the outside, I can say politicians here are scared britchless at the thought of a national audit of where money are being spent.
And that alone is reason enough to have one.
Sometimes a dawn raid is the only method - kick the nest and see who squeals the loudest. Crap for the ones made an example of, if they're innocent of wrong-doing of course. On the other hand, there's no right to continued employment if what one's been doing isn't something deemed necessary or desired.
DoE I feel is something that needs to be more basic the larger and more culturally diverse a nation is. A place like China or Russia or Saudi, being ethnically and culturally homogenous, can have a "drainpipe"-approach to it, while a multicultural state such as the US needs more flexibility, so any national curriculum or system of level needs must be very basic to function.
The alternative is to have classes segregated based on ability-tests, both IQ and studiousness, and I think that's a real no-sell in the USA.
But it is of course fully do-able. "Must know X amount of English grammar, must be able to perform list of mathematical operations, must know xyz in geography" and so on, and have that as the ground floor. That, plus a hard ban on any school - private or public - being politically partisan when it comes to anything student-related.
Trump is at heart a carny barker, and is good at it too. What he needs is people he trusts to do the job right, without him having to know everything in detail, and I think that's largely what he learned last time - who not to trust, and who is so inveigled in the machine they can't look at it from the outside and see where it's broken.
Musk is an ideas-guy, that's all. His skill is finding loop-holes he can profiteer from and manipulating people into acting in a way he profits from, and as such has learned how to pick people who can make his ideas become reality, as far as hard limits to tech/physics allows. What he's doing with DOGE is applying those skills, finding people and organisations who have set themselves up to profiteer from the system while not giving anything of (greater) value back.
Trump and Musk work well together, and they have Vance to keep them grounded, and to handle the more demanding stuff; I doubt either Musk or Trump will last four years going forward the way they have started. One year from now, the initial enthusiasm will have ebbed as the dreariness of business-as-usual sets in. If they can re-ignite public outrage at government theft of means, they might win the mid-terms but don't bet on it: currently their opposition is scrambling in frantic media-displays. This is a smoke-screen to cover the behind-the-scenes shuffling. Old guard is being quietly moved from positions of power, new guard is allowed to step forth, and a general re-alignment is taking place, rhetorically speaking. By Summer, the counter-strike will be in full swing in the media as they start digging deep into team Trump & Musk, to try and find real stuff to make headlines from.
But that's me looking in from outside, so caveats galore, you know.
Excellent insight. I realize this is a lot of shows to let people working behind the scenes do their jobs while keeping the press and public distracted. I hope Trump has learned from his first term so he’s selected better people and ones who won’t interfere as much with his goals. And that is even more true with the Republicans in Congress who were not his supporters last time. This has been a desperate bid to save this country, on a scale I don’t feel many citizens or politicians understand, and if these four years don’t work there will never be another four again. Vance has to continue this process for another four years to change things. If we had two more terms of conservatives our country would be in great shape, but that’s so unlikely.
I agree about DoE. Education reform is difficult to do on a national scale and if I had kids of my own now I’d home school until at least high school and then allow them to experience real life by helping at home. I had two years of excellent church schooling in junior high that prepared me for high school. It taught me how to stand up for my moral and political beliefs even if I was the only one with those views which helped a lot living in California in the 70s.
There’s no telling how this will all go, I hope Trump and Musk aren’t doing all this to screw people in a different way than the Progressives have been doing. I have my doubts and would like to ask them a few questions about their projects and beliefs, but I doubt they’d come to dinner if invited (we keep inviting politicians, so far no takers!)
Fabulous explanation, Miz Debbie, of why the apparatchiki non-responses to the "five things you did last week" DOGE wake-up call are perfectly reasonable. Now let me take out my tiny violin.
How do you respond by 8am Monday to an email sent to a work computer after 5pm Friday that you never saw? I'd expect there was some understanding that not all employees have 24/7 access to work email. That's the point. Allowing them, what I understand as of this evening, a 2nd chance to respond was all I was suggesting, as they seemed to barge ahead without thinking.
BTW - I lost my job to Republican budget cuts in the 1990s. I worked for the County Fire Marshal's Office teaching Fire Education to the public. Our director used non-mandated jobs as bargaining chips every year during budget meetings. The County Commissioners had cut his budget for several years so to be able to hire more paramedics, and dispatchers, and buy more ambulances he had cut a public CPR program. The following year my program was cut and after more than 30 years has never been reinstated, although newer programs have been added.
My five bullet points:
- Designed Monthly Fire Education Program for 1st, 5th, and Special Needs Classes in County Schools
- Scheduled Classes for every 1st, 5th, and Special Needs Class in County School for each month of school year
- Sent emails to City, County, and Businesses offering night and summer Fire Education classes
- Sent emails to daycare and aftercare offering Fire Education
classes in afternoon and summer
- Contacted County fire departments for assistance during program months during school year
The program did get state recognition for accomplishing achievements above set goals. There were documented cases of families saved from house fires and individuals rescued from burn injuries as a result of the program. During the 8 years of the program and several years after, there were no lives lost to fire in our county. About 5 years after it was discontinued that trend changed.
I found the 5 point task not difficult but I can understand the annoyance. I find that my annoyance at being asked to take a non-essential ‘vaccine’ or lose my job far more annoying. Although it’s natural to want to understand the reason why “our bosses” demand things of us, I don’t think it’s the right question. The better question is “does this fit with my integrity to follow this order”. For me; 5 points, yes. Vaccine, no.
I just posted the 60 Minutes segment about this "protection of democracy by surveillance of social media, cell phones, and all speech" by the German government. It was astounding.
I'm starting to think they know all this censorship, lying, etc, then gaslighting people about it is counter-productive, but they don't care... Because the alternative is irrelevance, which people who make a living sucking on the public's tit just can't have.
They're just creating justifications. The fact they are absurd justifications isn't even really material to their objective - continuing to dine on the warm slop in the public trough is their objective, which has fuck all to do with dead Ukrainians or anything else.
“ Traditions are actually very useful for progressives, because people care about them and therefore corrupting them packs a huge psychological punch. So you don’t abolish a tradition; you pervert it.” - stolen quote from millennial woes Substack.
Not to worry, Blackrock Fritz will impersonate a chancellor long enough that German industry can be bought up at fire-sale prices. The Ukraine can be used as a misdirection for at least six more months.
Canada's about to anoint Blackrock Carney as PM to finally beat our economy into the ground because something something Trump mean... YAY HOCKEY! Blackrock heads of government: complete the whole set!
You realize we’ve gone full upside down world ? Walter Kirn was writing about Point Reyes this morning. I told him to read your Substack. I hope he does.
You could see the mental disordered existence during the fake pandemic, people were convincing themselves they were in the midst of a deadly infectious disease. I know the governments propaganda output was overwhelming for many at the beginning but the brain should self correct and drag you back to what is real and in front of your eyes. What I saw was a pandemic derangement syndrome where people were unwilling to face reality they turned from it and acted out the pandemic theatre, it was quite astonishing and frightening how committed everyone was to it despite the evidence in front of their eyes. This wilful insanity has not stopped, we can see it everywhere and like all delusions it is very destructive.
I've long leaned more to Brave New World, and our tendency to accept convenience without regard to consequences. But our elite keeps insisting on following 1984, as a how-to, not a cautionary tale.
Right? I mean, way too important to mention details. As far as I can tell, the AfD mostly gets tired of being asked about the Holocaust as an active issue in contemporary German politics over and over again, performatively, the way Trump was asked to condemn white supremacy every eight minutes. But I'm willing to be corrected, if someone has better information.
"It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well." ~ Rene Descartes
"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it." ~ Henry Ford
"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." ~ John F. Kennedy
"The most fundamental attack on freedom is the attack on critical thinking skills." ~ Travis Nichols
https://drp314.substack.com/p/critical-thinking
The modern leftist….. almost pitiful:
• Offensive, yet thin-skinned
• Loud, but averse to unwelcome voices/statements
• In your face, or cowering
• Authoritative, but averse to facts
• Academic, with no interest in learning
• Elite, but slimy
• Educated, but would rather show a certificate than prove it
• Seemingly self-assured, but insecure about it, in constant need of reassurance
• Public servants, with no interest in serving the public
When I read 1984 as a senior in high school, I felt bewilderment and slight terror at the possibility of abject state control. Now we are here. The only recourse is to be true to our convictions. People will notice. I believe it.
When I read it many years ago, I felt good; because I smugly assumed that could never happen. Boy, was I wrong.
This nails them perfectly,.....right against the wall.
...and my two favorites are:
I have to be wrong a certain number of times
in order to be right a certain number of times.
However, in order to be either I must first
make a decision. --Frank N. Giampietro
and
Whether you think you can, or that you
can't, you are usually right. --Henry Ford
I’ve heard Ford’s, but not the Giampietro. It’s like, just get started on that job you don’t know how to do. You’ll make mistakes, then you’ll figure it out, but you have to get started.
This is the key. And why it's so important to let children learn how to calculate and weigh risks.
Risk calculation is the number one predictor of success.
Yes. This.
Henry must never have thought he could birdie the #1 handicap hole.
I’m almost always wrong when I do!
Don't you understand how important it is for world peace to escalate a war between two kleptocracies?
Since 2022, Zelensky has been lauded as the most perfect man and a defender of democracy. That's why he campaigned for Democrats in 2024. In 2019 he was seen by the same people as a crook and a liar by the same people. Only one thing changed here in America.
A gentleman using the pseudonym Eugyppius has a great Substack called The Plague Chronicle. Anyone really interested in German society and politics should check it out.
The recent election really changes nothing for the German people. Under Germany's complicated parliamentary system, the "winner" has to form a coalition government to actually govern. That is how Germany has been governed for at least 15 years, with only the coalition members changing as parties rise and fall in favor. The AfD, the party under investigation, received over 20% of the vote, yet WILL NOT BE A PART OF THE GOVERNING COALITION. AfD is populist and anti-immigration, alleged "Nazis", and of course they must be investigated and destroyed.
And so the degradation of Europe continues. This will be the US when the Democrats regain power.
I recommend eugyppius for everyone here. He's level headed, witty and hella smart.
He's the Chris Bray or gato on the other side of the pond.
Stud
Agree. Was going to mention also.
Though like all Germans, dislikes when you remind them that they've all been raised to hate Der Volk. Which can be said about most Europeans. Especially the British.
I stopped following him over 2 years ago when he inadvertently revealed his views on autistic people in a comment thread (I'm an autistic mum to two autistic boys). Unforgivable.
SITREP deep dives into Ukraine battles most days. Latest is a banger (no pun).
I've probably mentioned this before, but there's this term called "demokratur" in Swedish and German.
Demo- from democracy (demokrati), and -kratur from dictatorship (diktatur). The meaning is simple. The people get to vote, for whichever party they like, but since all parties share ideology to at least 90% the vote matters very little in reality.
Furthermore, the constitution is written in such a way it makes it virtually impossible for challengers to actually change this into real democracy, something reinforced yet again by various treaties on the supra-state level.
For example, if the AfD in Germany or the Sweden Democrats up here wanted to make it possible to revoke citizenship from criminal migrants, it'd take (in Sweden) a minimum of eight years. In the USA as I understand it, as long as the Constitution (and Bill of Rights?) aren't violated, and the Supreme Court agrees, a president could make it law by executive order that a criminal conviction equals loss of citizenship for a migrant?
The really sad part of it, in Germany and here too, is that the initial idea of having such a slow system was to prevent what is now happening: if the system was slow, it would give people time to mobilise against various attempts at subverting the democratic process and the values it is supposed to embody.
But no system can endure when those set up to safe-guard it sees it as an instrument for them to wield to cement their rule, rather as a writ of duty to their fellow members of the people.
I think a change of revoking citizenship, once granted, would require a Constitutional Amendment or change to the one concerning citizenship, which is an act of Congress. I don't believe a Presidential Executive Order would be lawful, and the Supreme Court would rule against that action. Not positive, but I don't think that would be Constitutional as once you're a citizen you have all the rights of citizenship regardless of how you came here (birth or immigration).
Thank you for explaining.
Would that still be true if the citizenship was found to have been granted thanks to fraudulent means, such as a false claim of asylum seeker status f.e.?
Rikard, I am not a lawyer but my hunch is that citizenship gained fraudulently could be rescinded.
You are correct
I have my concerns about both sides. I wasn't happy about either choice in the US elections. Many of the things said on the right and done by Trump are just as dictatorial as those of Biden's Administration over the last four years. I have hoped that the people advising Trump and some of the conservative representatives in Congress would contain the more pushy ideas that he has regarding changes to return this country to one with less progressive socialist-leaning policies.
For example, I love the audits of each Federal department. But suddenly letting go of a set number of employees before knowing exactly what each does, why they may work away from an office setting during "office hours", and requesting an accounting of work achievements last week over the weekend shows neither Trump nor Musk understands not all Federal employees have access to work computers at home, some may be on leave or vacation or out sick thus not responding for legitimate reasons. They seem to be up late at night brainstorming - "You know what we should do next?!!" then sending out a memo before thinking through the actual logistical pros and cons. Such planning would keep them from firing and then rehiring people of consequence and looking foolish.
I also disagree with Trump asking Federal employees to report on others who continue the use of DEI programs, which is no different than Obama asking citizens to report on neighbors who said something "fishy" about his healthcare plan (I reported myself immediately, the beginning of my active resistance online). The government has no place asking employees or citizens to report on others' behavior or speech.
I do think there should be a Department of Education so we have some
sort of national educational standards since kids often move from one state to another. There needs to be some basic set of standards at each
grade level so kids aren't clueless when going from one school system to another, or graduating to move on to college. DOE doesn't have to become such an oppressive or influential regulatory governing body.
The same is true of almost all other government agencies. Looking at the function of each and the actual power they have in terms of Constitutional Law would be refreshing. Knowing how many people have had their freedom and personal rights violated by individuals from these government agencies (ATF, FBI, CIA, ICE, DEA, IRS) the scope and legal/lethal power they have without repercussions should be seriously reconsidered.
Ok, I'm done.
Went to school in the. 40s and 50s
No dept of education. Got a better education than they do now!
I think a genuine concern is that they move too fast in the next two years in order to accomplish their DOGE agenda before the mid-terms. It needs to be done well in order to keep the country on board with his agenda. If he goes at the government with a hatchet and makes a mess of things, people will not support continued reform.
To your point about the relative benefits of these agencies, I think those are valid concerns and can be debated. Unfortunately right now it seems like the main problem is bringing these agencies to heel so that they are actually accountable to the president. It doesn't matter how much we as a country discuss these trade-offs if the person we elect has no power to enforce those changes.
Looking from the outside, I can say politicians here are scared britchless at the thought of a national audit of where money are being spent.
And that alone is reason enough to have one.
Sometimes a dawn raid is the only method - kick the nest and see who squeals the loudest. Crap for the ones made an example of, if they're innocent of wrong-doing of course. On the other hand, there's no right to continued employment if what one's been doing isn't something deemed necessary or desired.
DoE I feel is something that needs to be more basic the larger and more culturally diverse a nation is. A place like China or Russia or Saudi, being ethnically and culturally homogenous, can have a "drainpipe"-approach to it, while a multicultural state such as the US needs more flexibility, so any national curriculum or system of level needs must be very basic to function.
The alternative is to have classes segregated based on ability-tests, both IQ and studiousness, and I think that's a real no-sell in the USA.
But it is of course fully do-able. "Must know X amount of English grammar, must be able to perform list of mathematical operations, must know xyz in geography" and so on, and have that as the ground floor. That, plus a hard ban on any school - private or public - being politically partisan when it comes to anything student-related.
Trump is at heart a carny barker, and is good at it too. What he needs is people he trusts to do the job right, without him having to know everything in detail, and I think that's largely what he learned last time - who not to trust, and who is so inveigled in the machine they can't look at it from the outside and see where it's broken.
Musk is an ideas-guy, that's all. His skill is finding loop-holes he can profiteer from and manipulating people into acting in a way he profits from, and as such has learned how to pick people who can make his ideas become reality, as far as hard limits to tech/physics allows. What he's doing with DOGE is applying those skills, finding people and organisations who have set themselves up to profiteer from the system while not giving anything of (greater) value back.
Trump and Musk work well together, and they have Vance to keep them grounded, and to handle the more demanding stuff; I doubt either Musk or Trump will last four years going forward the way they have started. One year from now, the initial enthusiasm will have ebbed as the dreariness of business-as-usual sets in. If they can re-ignite public outrage at government theft of means, they might win the mid-terms but don't bet on it: currently their opposition is scrambling in frantic media-displays. This is a smoke-screen to cover the behind-the-scenes shuffling. Old guard is being quietly moved from positions of power, new guard is allowed to step forth, and a general re-alignment is taking place, rhetorically speaking. By Summer, the counter-strike will be in full swing in the media as they start digging deep into team Trump & Musk, to try and find real stuff to make headlines from.
But that's me looking in from outside, so caveats galore, you know.
Excellent insight. I realize this is a lot of shows to let people working behind the scenes do their jobs while keeping the press and public distracted. I hope Trump has learned from his first term so he’s selected better people and ones who won’t interfere as much with his goals. And that is even more true with the Republicans in Congress who were not his supporters last time. This has been a desperate bid to save this country, on a scale I don’t feel many citizens or politicians understand, and if these four years don’t work there will never be another four again. Vance has to continue this process for another four years to change things. If we had two more terms of conservatives our country would be in great shape, but that’s so unlikely.
I agree about DoE. Education reform is difficult to do on a national scale and if I had kids of my own now I’d home school until at least high school and then allow them to experience real life by helping at home. I had two years of excellent church schooling in junior high that prepared me for high school. It taught me how to stand up for my moral and political beliefs even if I was the only one with those views which helped a lot living in California in the 70s.
There’s no telling how this will all go, I hope Trump and Musk aren’t doing all this to screw people in a different way than the Progressives have been doing. I have my doubts and would like to ask them a few questions about their projects and beliefs, but I doubt they’d come to dinner if invited (we keep inviting politicians, so far no takers!)
Fabulous explanation, Miz Debbie, of why the apparatchiki non-responses to the "five things you did last week" DOGE wake-up call are perfectly reasonable. Now let me take out my tiny violin.
How do you respond by 8am Monday to an email sent to a work computer after 5pm Friday that you never saw? I'd expect there was some understanding that not all employees have 24/7 access to work email. That's the point. Allowing them, what I understand as of this evening, a 2nd chance to respond was all I was suggesting, as they seemed to barge ahead without thinking.
BTW - I lost my job to Republican budget cuts in the 1990s. I worked for the County Fire Marshal's Office teaching Fire Education to the public. Our director used non-mandated jobs as bargaining chips every year during budget meetings. The County Commissioners had cut his budget for several years so to be able to hire more paramedics, and dispatchers, and buy more ambulances he had cut a public CPR program. The following year my program was cut and after more than 30 years has never been reinstated, although newer programs have been added.
My five bullet points:
- Designed Monthly Fire Education Program for 1st, 5th, and Special Needs Classes in County Schools
- Scheduled Classes for every 1st, 5th, and Special Needs Class in County School for each month of school year
- Sent emails to City, County, and Businesses offering night and summer Fire Education classes
- Sent emails to daycare and aftercare offering Fire Education
classes in afternoon and summer
- Contacted County fire departments for assistance during program months during school year
The program did get state recognition for accomplishing achievements above set goals. There were documented cases of families saved from house fires and individuals rescued from burn injuries as a result of the program. During the 8 years of the program and several years after, there were no lives lost to fire in our county. About 5 years after it was discontinued that trend changed.
I found the 5 point task not difficult but I can understand the annoyance. I find that my annoyance at being asked to take a non-essential ‘vaccine’ or lose my job far more annoying. Although it’s natural to want to understand the reason why “our bosses” demand things of us, I don’t think it’s the right question. The better question is “does this fit with my integrity to follow this order”. For me; 5 points, yes. Vaccine, no.
Sounds like Canada...
“We must kill democracy in order to save it.”
More and more, after the fall of the Berlin Wall it seems as though East Germany absorbed West Germany, and not the other way around.
Except that AfD is the strongest in the former East Germany. The people who know Communism from direct experience have the least tolerance for it.
How DARE their lived experience trump the hopes and delusions of the West's socialists.
Well the Turd Reich sure does know how to run a shit-show...
Nothing like trying to defeat folk devil Nazism with actual communism.
"We know nozing!"
I'm reminded of President Muffley's admonition to please not fight, this is the war room.
That's where we are. I can think of some jokes involving Germany, propaganda, and violations of language, but I'll refrain.
Germans and humor, two things that...go together?
German Live TV. Presenter: So, Robin, why don't you think we Germans have the humour? Robin Williams: Because you killed all the funny people.
In a perverted way, yes.
Speaking of Germans & humor...If you haven't seen it...South Park's "FunnyBot" (S15, E2)
I will seek this
FYI - currently, every season of South Park is available on HBO/MAX...
I'm not going to refrain:
I HATE THESE FUCKING PEOPLE.
I just posted the 60 Minutes segment about this "protection of democracy by surveillance of social media, cell phones, and all speech" by the German government. It was astounding.
https://youtu.be/NltEp2uxL9Q?si=WyOQ9AwBAsw1y5pv
Astoundingly good or astoundingly bad?
Astoundingly stupid.
I'm starting to think they know all this censorship, lying, etc, then gaslighting people about it is counter-productive, but they don't care... Because the alternative is irrelevance, which people who make a living sucking on the public's tit just can't have.
They're just creating justifications. The fact they are absurd justifications isn't even really material to their objective - continuing to dine on the warm slop in the public trough is their objective, which has fuck all to do with dead Ukrainians or anything else.
YES. You have them figured out.
“ Traditions are actually very useful for progressives, because people care about them and therefore corrupting them packs a huge psychological punch. So you don’t abolish a tradition; you pervert it.” - stolen quote from millennial woes Substack.
Not to worry, Blackrock Fritz will impersonate a chancellor long enough that German industry can be bought up at fire-sale prices. The Ukraine can be used as a misdirection for at least six more months.
Canada's about to anoint Blackrock Carney as PM to finally beat our economy into the ground because something something Trump mean... YAY HOCKEY! Blackrock heads of government: complete the whole set!
"The lives of others".
Great film, I believe it was Ulriche Mühe's last before passing away.
Stasi training before breakfast?
The Stasi makes us FREE!
You realize we’ve gone full upside down world ? Walter Kirn was writing about Point Reyes this morning. I told him to read your Substack. I hope he does.
The inversion you’re noting is unironically satanism. Inverting shit and gaining power by doing so is satanism’s whole thing.
You could see the mental disordered existence during the fake pandemic, people were convincing themselves they were in the midst of a deadly infectious disease. I know the governments propaganda output was overwhelming for many at the beginning but the brain should self correct and drag you back to what is real and in front of your eyes. What I saw was a pandemic derangement syndrome where people were unwilling to face reality they turned from it and acted out the pandemic theatre, it was quite astonishing and frightening how committed everyone was to it despite the evidence in front of their eyes. This wilful insanity has not stopped, we can see it everywhere and like all delusions it is very destructive.
You vill use ze proper Newspeak! Schnell! War is Peace! Ignorance is Strength! Freedom is Slavery!
I've long leaned more to Brave New World, and our tendency to accept convenience without regard to consequences. But our elite keeps insisting on following 1984, as a how-to, not a cautionary tale.
“its members routinely trivialize the Holocaust”
Man, that’s a casual, unsupported throwaway accusation. Do they really/ How many? How often? Who, exactly?
Right? I mean, way too important to mention details. As far as I can tell, the AfD mostly gets tired of being asked about the Holocaust as an active issue in contemporary German politics over and over again, performatively, the way Trump was asked to condemn white supremacy every eight minutes. But I'm willing to be corrected, if someone has better information.