Crushed under a Ponzi Economy

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Uh, what? Is it New Years yet? ... Wha? whatsdat? It's the 8th already? Of 2009? Seriously?

Shit.

Well, happy new year, folks. Time flies.

I guess I've been so busy working, being sick, celebrating the holidays, working up for sick days, working on a website, practicing with the band, and working some more, that I haven't had time to express my growing rage at the economic situation, which is clearly the work of vile capitalists who know how to make money off the market whether it's going up or falling down.

Bernie Madoff's got nothing on the dollar itself. The whole American monetary system is gigantic Ponzi scheme, waiting to collapse at the slightest provocation. This economic house of cards might just get us all killed -- you remember World War II started from the ashes of the Great Depression, of course. Well, between nukes, bioweapons and chemical weapons this shit could be even worse if we don't get out of this mess. 

Does anybody know how?

From what I can tell the very same people who got us into this mess are being asked to get us out. The people who saw this coming, the Peter Schiffs and the Ron Pauls of the world, they are not being asked for their counsel, strategy or even the time of day. Nope. The Willfully Blind rush feverishly forward, wailing the whole way about how they could never have known. 

Bullshit. They knew. Alan Greenspan can wade eye-deep into technical obscurity on any number of topics concerning money and markets. But you're telling me he couldn't see he was creating bubbles left and right? Bullshit. He knew exactly what he was doing and this downturn was planned long ago. 

They plan to soak us dry, for every last penny we've got. The Ponzi scheme's house of cards crushes the people at the bottom when it falls. That's the whole point. The guys high up the hierarchy escape with the aid of their golden parachutes and insider knowledge; the rest of us get to hold the damn thing on our shoulders until it finally breaks our spines and we die, another generations of slaves beaten, broken and used by their illuminoid masters. We wore ties instead of chains but the end result -- endless work for pitiful rewards -- remained constant. We are a planet of serfs, dutifully laboring away for the guy in the castl-.. er, "mansion" up on the hill because if we don't we don't receive the resources necessary to live. 

Maybe we should just learn to enjoy it. But sometimes these elite assholes like to deny us even the courtesy of a job to slave away at. And so we enter another such time, when you can smell the desperation in the air and wages stay stagnant while business cut back and hope to survive the storm. Desperate men are easy to manipulate; desperate businesses have to cut costs -- the cycle is not a happy one for the wageslaves.

Oh God, I'm gonna go to sleep before I rant all night, typing my fingers off in the uncaring darkness. I gotta let it go; just roll with it. Sometimes I actually hope for the apocalypse (preferably a zombie apocalypse) so we can dispense with the bullshit.

Happy 2009, slaves. Let's hope Master doesn't whip us too hard this year.

Merry Capitalismas!

Express your love for Jesus by buying shit at Walmart! It's capitalism-mass!


Don't forget to worship Satan's Claws, er, ... I mean "Santa Claus", the pagan god of materialism! He gives big, expensive gifts to the rich kids and tiny, crappy gifts to the poor kids... 'cause he's, like, holy or something. Yay! This holiday makes total sense! Nothing strange or satanic about it!

Merry Capitalismas!

I Hate Valentine's Day (a violent plan for retribution)

Did I mention I fucking hate Valentine's Day? It fucking sucks. I didn't set out to be a wet blanket for those of you who enjoy this crappy Hallmark Holiday (e.g. those of you with significant others), but I don't give a flying fuck, and you're too wrapped into each other to notice anyway.

It always starts the same. You meet a girl/guy, who's like "oh I hate Valentine's Day. It's totally lame and wasteful." Next thing you know you're spending hundreds of dollars on your VD gifts to each other. Each of you feels a need to both give and receive gifts because everyone else is doing it. You don't want your partner to feel unloved and left out do you? Corporate America has made it quite clear that you are a bad person if you don't spend half your paycheck on flowers, chocolates, romantic dinners, and more.

No matter how anti-VD you start out, once you've been in a relationship awhile you start to break down. You feel neglectful if you don't get your sweetie something on February 14th (because lord knows there's something soooo different about February 14th. All those other days are for neglecting your lover). Even if you hate the holiday as I do you find yourself cheating a little with flowers or maybe a little something extra.

Because of all the pressure on couples it becomes exceedingly obvious who has a significant other (SO) and who does not. Thus, the real purpose of VD is revealed: Shaming those who don't have SOs. It's pretty obvious who is who. The person without an SO is writing angry, anti-Valentine's Day screeds on his blog while those in a relationship are dipping into their kids' college funds to pay for increasingly elaborate and expensive gifts (gotta top last year!) in order to convince both your SO and yourself that you still love her/him.

Normally, I don't encourage people to burn down flower shops (make sure your firebombs are wrapped in pink packaging), hunt down and eviscerate candy-company executives (despite their hard exterior they're gooey on the inside), or use VD cards to give Hallmark employees a million little papercuts (bind them with caramel so they can't move), but because Feb. 14th is apparently so different (it's the day you actually love loved ones!!!!!11!1), I'm going to make an exception.

I'm working on some candy-themed weaponry for next year, including a railgun that shoots Smarties and a rose-thorn chainsaw that is more fantastically bloody and painful than effective at sawing through limbs. The R&D budget is quite high because of all the money I've saved from not having a girlfriend. This means the Napalm-based chocolate hearts are right on schedule (Agent Orange version coming soon). I'm still working on the engagement rings made out of depleted uranium, but the VX-based chocolates are deliciously deadly. I suggest getting the sampler pack.

You can't say I don't get into the spirit of the holiday. Besides, as Nazareth taught us, Love Hurts. Of course, in this case it also causes 3rd degree burns, internal hemorrhaging, vaporized limbs, blindness, cancer, liquified flesh, post-traumatic stress disorder and some zombie-ism.

But it comes with free gift wrapping!

Welcome to 2007

Keep watch. A monk carries a torch this snowy winter night. Infinite dreams, this one. A nightly ritual with sweet noise awaits. Blessed be this dawn of man. Will 2007 be kind to our kind?

Merry Mithras' Day

We're all familiar with the story of Mithras, right? He was born of a virgin on December 25th and lay in a manger where he was attended by shepherds who brought gifts. He took a last supper with his followers, died, and then rose to heaven. He was worshiped on Sunday and was often depicted with a halo around his head. You know this guy, right?

Mithraism precedes Christianity by as much as 1,400 years. Much of the myth of Christianity appears to have been grafted onto Mithraism in order to make it more palatable to the Roman Empire at large, which had adopted Mithraism as one of many state religions. Roman Emperor Constantine was a follower of Mithras before he added Christianity to the list of religions he ascribed to. It was Constantine who moved worship day of Christianity to Sunday (previously it was Saturday, springing from Christianity's Jewish roots) and declared that Jesus' real, official, because-I-said-so birthday was December 25th. Constantine decided this in 313 AD without any evidence. It was just more convenient to stick it on Mithras' Day, which as already an important holiday in Rome because it corresponded to important days in Sol Invictus and Saturnalia. December 25th is important to pagans because it was clear that the sun was returning by then, after months of the days growing colder and shorter. By December 25th, court astrologers could assure the Emperor that yes, the sun had decided to return. The head priest of Mithras was called papa or pope.

So when you're celebrating Christmas this holiday, don't forget to sacrifice a bull for Mithras. After all, he is the true origin of many of the rituals that Christians celebrate every year. Jesus, it's worth noting, venerated Saturday as his holy day. Jesus was probably born in February or September and he was not born of a virgin. But in order to compete in the crowded marketplace of faith in 300 AD you pretty much had to be born of a virgin. Oh, and Jesus was probably not very keen on the Romans since they had conquered his people and forced them to worship strange gods (like Mithras). In fact, the whole point of becoming a messiah was so he could throw off the yoke of Roman oppression. Something to think about for all the Roman Catholics out there.