Irritable farmer, how did you manage to open a bank account to show the 800k baht? It feels like a chicken and an egg problem - need a non-o visa to open a bank account but need a bank account to get the non-o.
The only way I have seen is to get an attorney - the green grease seems to make the banks change their minds quickly.
Dear Mr. Irritable Farmer, (I apologize; my entire post bellow is irrelevant to this discussion because I now see you are writing from Thailand and are referring to Thai immigration laws, not American! My error. That notwithstanding, I'll leave my comment below because it says something I've long wanted to get "off my chest" about that lying US establishment propaganda outlet, Fox News.)
From one irritable person to another: You are being facetious about U.S. immigration laws, right?
Recently, against my better judgement but ultimately to my edification, I was compelled to watch several hours of Fox News. As anyone who watches that propaganda outlet for the American establishment knows one of their big scapegoats is the vilification of undocumented migrants coming over the southern U.S. border. The irony is lost on most Fox News watchers that these very people demonizing the "undocumented" in reality love them because the provide cheap, cowed labor for the capitalists owners of America that Fox News shills for. The undocumented "illegals" can't ask for a wage raise, can't go on strike, can't organize or unionize and can't complain in general otherwise their capitalist masters will deport them back to the hell-holes they came from; usually made into hell-holes by the intervention of -- yes, that's right! -- U.S corporations, again. Interfering in the politics of places like El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to run the campasinos off their land and force them to flee in desperation to...where else?!... the United States to pack meat in the Hormel meat packing plant in Iowa or some equally dismal place for a few dollars an hour.
These unfortunate pawns, uh, I mean undocumented migrants, are loved by the U.S. establishment.
The Fox News talking heads (as well as the provocatively dressed and usually officiously opinionated anchor women) know that the U.S. could put up an impenetrable border wall between San Diego and Matamoros, Texas in 48 hours if they wanted to. But they adamently don't want to. They love the undocumented as cheap, cowed labor (virtual wage-slaves).
The ugly thing (at least one of the ugly things) about Fox News is they both lie to and at the same time pander to the sentiments fears and emotions of their gullible viewers. These same folks(Fox News and the corporations they shill for), in addition to welcoming the undocumented while vilifying them also ship many off the better paying American manufacturing jobs overseas thus inducing fear in the American working-class that a) their jobs may be "off-shored" and b) they'll have to compete for the increasingly scarce jobs with immigrants of whom Fox News vilifies never informing their viewers (Fox News viewers) that's it is the same capitalist masters who welcome undocumented migrants, ship American jobs overseas to low wage countries (to increase their, the capitalists' profits) and then use outlets like Fox News to pander to viewers and lie about the whole scam so the American working-class can never quite figure out why their standard of living keeps declining and conditions keep deteriorating for the working class in this country. "Don't blame your capitalist masters, folks; blame those dirty 'illegal aliens' coming over the southern border. Nothing to see here, folks, just keep the line moving...".
If Fox News were honest (which they aren't) they would say something like: "Look folks, we really don't give a sh* t about you, your family and the entire working and middle-class of America. All we care about is maximizing OUR profits. Period.
If every literate American (what's that about 40% of the population?) would read Marx and Engels they would learn about the class structure of capitalist societies and how they, the working class will be "immiserated" by capital. Marx foresaw all this way back in 1848. But Americans are too busy being hoodwinked and bamboozled by the likes of Fox News to understand this.
It is interesting how landlord-tenant law has been exploited by some homeless (please let us avoid that idiotic euphemism "the unhoused" as if that somehow mitigates the misery of the situation )in an effort to obtain shelter here in America. Apparently in some states if a dwelling is unoccupied and a "squatter" moves into the property and claims it and then the rightful owner returns, say, for example, from a two week vacation, the squatter may be recognized by the law as a tenant now and the legal owner must go through legal process to evict the squatter; the rightful owner can't simply tell the squatter to leave. They have to go to court and get a notice to "pay or quit" and then a thirty day notice etc. I've seen a video (the veracity of which I can't be certain) in which the owner of a home is being arrested and put in hand cuffs for trying to remove a squatter from her home without formal legal procedure.
Another interesting phenomenon is de facto legalized shoplifting in California. I've seen videos of commercial stores being ransacked by roving groups of young thieves while security personnel simply watch and do nothing. Apparently there is a policy among some retailers in the state to let the theft of less than $1000 of merchandise to simply go. Apparently a number of retail stores have simply closed down certain outlets due to rampant shoplifting. The last time I was in Sacramento a Rite Aid pharmacy I would often shop at had closed apparently for that reason. https://www.hoover.org/research/why-shoplifting-now-de-facto-legal-california
It seems the proletariat are starting to find ways, however perverse, to fight back against a system here in The States that they recognize as increasingly unfair and unjust in which the poor and poverty are increasingly viewed by the establishment as a de facto crime. The proletariat see the unholy triumvirate of Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos with almost a trillion dollars between them while the proletariat have their food stamps cut-off without the Constitutionally required procedural Due Process of a notice and hearing. Something is indeed "rotten in [the United States of] Denmark."
They (the masters) want 15 minute cities and shopping carried out online only. Bankrupt the present day business first with hoards of scum, goal achieved. All designed by the shameless fascists.
Common' Linh! Americans admire "bold" people who "take the initiative"; (sounds like some platitude out of a business administration class or "How to Win Friends and Influence People" I know you're being sarcastic). It's just that when one is homeless in America (or "unhoused " as the Woke idiots apparently euphemistically say perhaps thinking this disgraceful problem will just go away quietly if they just give it a new name) one is invisible to society .
When you're homeless (pardon me! "unhoused" and perhaps unhinged, too) the only "bold initiative" one can resort to is consuming the limb of some dumb schmuck who apparently was too stupid (or stoned or drunk which is something I have to be careful of) to get out of the way of a barreling freight train.
I spent a number of months "unhoused" under the powerful California sun (they don't call it the "Golden State for nuthin'!) and at the end of that time I was ready to start gnawing on a few disembodied or dismembered limbs myself. What else could I do?! Everyone in America just wants the homeless to dry up and blow away. The idea of actually finding them housing (or making affordable housing available) is way too complex. And besides, there's no money in it. "Show me the money!", man. And when one is homeless, there ain't no money to show, bro. (Why am I talking like this? I hate people who talk like this, bro!)
I recall one time riding public transport in Sacramento (can't recall if it was a bus or the Light Rail) when a driver was being trained. I overheard the trainer say to the trainee something to the effect that, "Eventually it's going to happen; someone will be on the tracks and you won't be able to stop in time; so be prepared in advance..." It seems some of the considerable homeless population in California prefer the quick death of being struck by a train to the slow death of homelessness. Oops! Sorry, "unhousedness." Now if that isn't "boldness" and "taking the initiative" then I, for one, don't know what is!
As aside to the last post and something I was thinking about, four months working at an Amazon warehouse while staying in shelters and rented hovels did more to burn my body, mind and spirit than twelve years of public school or four years in the military.
I busted my butt as a temp for ninety days chasing prompts on a scanner and got hired in as an "Amazonian". At the corporate "onboarding" course, the HR lady showed us a picture of Jeff "Lord" Bezos and (this was in Lexington, Kentucky) said, "Y'all know who that is?"
I headed to Applebee's after that to "celebrate" and ended up on a multi day bender that required two days in a hospital detox before clocking a minute as a real "Amazonian". I limped back to the fulfillment center over a week after the orientation, worked some fifty and sixty hour weeks during holiday "peak" and then just stopped going in. I couldn't take it anymore.
As the women on the bus say "The struggle is real." Gotta grin and bear it. What's the alternative?
Since I got out of the Army, I've been in four different shelters for periods of a week to three months. The Army really was "a home, a home, a home away from home." which we would chant in cadence as we marched. I came out of the Army relatively unscathed I believe, but due to personal inconsistencies revolving specifically around mental health (despair) and addiction (all of it), couldn't maintain housing.
One thing that I noticed about every shelter and the more I understand homelessness from personal experience, is that each shelter, whether evangelical or municipal, was "on the take" and connected to local government in some way shape or form. Almost as if it's not a bug, but more of a feature. Reflective of basic capitalism (or organized crime).
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate every night that I had a bed, meal and shower and encountered some truly caring and principled employees within the shelter system, but it was still a system and there was always some form of corruption at the administrative level. My guess is that it's like this everywhere or very common, part and parcel of the problem itself. I don't have any concrete or comprehensive answers as a whole other than I expect the situation to worsen. Sadly, more money thrown at "homelessness" , the more corruption we can expect.
The churches handing out food is the closest to "grassroots" assistance that I've encountered.
You, Mr. Skaggs are like Mr. Dinh. You both have the courage to look reality in the face and call it out for what it is.
Me? I'm way too timorous. That's why I read Mr. Dinh. He sees the world for what it is and writes about it so people like me who can't take it can at least read about it. It's only from a second-hand removed perspective that I can endure it. Reality in modern America that is.
Thomas, you had the courage to leave America and try living abroad on your own dime. That's something that I have only considered and may never attempt. Many people sit around and wish that they were somewhere else, you took the initiative to do something about it based on your knowledge and convictions like Mr. Dinh.
It's hard to see a sliver of reality somewhere else and then return to the "panopticon". The perspective can hurt. You got out there and tried. That matters.
Two thumbs up for that last photo. The frill on the shorts; the purse; the flowers on the flip-flops. That's a contest-entry pic! "Yeah, I'm slaving away under the mid-day sun of Phnom Penh, but I'm doing it in style, baby!"
That little girl is the one that had to carry the tub of lotus pods on her head. Exhausted, she whined, got whacked and then had to be quiet to avoid another whack.
I doubt she was thinking about "doing it in style".
You sometimes post this kind of stuff but other times marvel at places you enjoy where people are going about their lives relatively normally (in spite of the various issues going on all over the world).
Do you think people should NOT be enjoying calming normalcy (of sports or whatever) and just dreading the incoming nuclear war?
How exactly should people be living in these times if not trying to get by?
As normally as possible is the best answer that I've been able to come up with. It's the normal part that's been a struggle when my normal, the freedom to live unmolested in body and mind, comes up against the "other normal", the new normal.
On bad days, it chafes to the point of madness. On good days, I brush it off and keep going.
Sometimes it strikes me as fairly astonishing that one half of the human race hasn't enslaved and/or killed off the other half. To my way of thinking (as morbid as it may be) it is interesting that we can more or less assume a right to "... life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in much of the world now. The acquisition of such "rights" was hard fought for and slowly won over centuries.
Thomas Jefferson famously wrote in 1776, "We hold these truths to be self evident.. that all men [at least white men who owned real property] are created equal..." The oligarchs and plutocrats of the world hate that statement and I'm quite sure wish they could go back in time and strangle Jefferson before he had a chance to write it with his quill pen.
In other words I think it rather insouciant or "pollyanish" to blithely assume we will always have such rights and freedoms; history is replete with injustice and exploitation of the weak or unfortunate by the strong or the psychopathic. I would even go so far as to argue that the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a surviving vestige of exploitation and slavery. Most people accept it because there is the common belief in The States that "if you don't like it, just get a better job." But for many there is not that option.
I would argue that "...the freedom to live unmolested in body and mind..." had best not be taken for granted. Such freedom may not always be there. Have you seen an Amazon warehouse lately?
Those two aren't ones that I look to any manmade institutional source like the Holy Bible, Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights or U.S. government for for allowance or enforcement. Anglo Saxo jurisprudence is so easily corrupted (what isn't) like the papier mache outer shell of a pinata which contains a cornucopia of financialized servitude for the vast majority of people, most of whom don't like being hungry and will follow the master dujour to the kitchen where they might end up the lunch.
My right to live unmolested in mind and body is basically my own "natural" freedom. Only I can guarantee it. That's a pretty tall order and one that I can't guarantee on any day to day basis for myself, it's simply how I view my relationship with myself and my fellow humans, many who I am sure aren't in agreement with my point of view and might even want me dead for such insousance. Kind of that Scots-Irish, "They can try, but..." attitude.
By my thinking, the American Revolution was a power shift and change of accounts based on a common mythology that didn't change the architecture of the common person of that time's life much. They gave my hillbilly ancestors some free land in Kentucky so that they could subsist and colonize new territory for the "new masters". George Washington was a relentless land speculator, a tidewater oligarch of his time who didn't waste time showing who was boss in the Whiskey Rebellion, the federal government of course. The Who said ,"We won't get fooled again.." Shucks Pete, we've always been fooled.
You mention the Scotch Irish. Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that group had origins in the south Scottish-north English border country were there was a considerable amount of social disorder and clan warfare or at least skirmishes. Many Scotch-Irish (it is my limited understanding) fled the region for Ireland and then eventually the "back country" of the Appalachian mountains in America thus bringing with them the Hatfield vs. McCoy feud (not to mention the "white lightning" of the legendary Snuffy Smith).
And speaking of Scotland and psychopathology I am reminded of the scene in the very good Mel Gibson movie, "Braveheart" in which William Wallace returns to his ancestral home in Scotland from Europe to find his entire family hanging from the rafters of his house, all dead; killed by some petty English noble. This act inflames William Wallace to seek to liberate the Scottish people from the criminal over-lordship of the combined English/Scottish nobles who conspired to essentially enslave the Scottish clansman who, like Wallace, only wanted to be left alone to live in peace. As Wallace learned to his consternation, if you don't fight back, the powerful will bring harm to you. You will perhaps recall the end of the movie when the merciful executioner of Wallace beheads him before he has to endure having his limbs torn from his body as he is executed for "treason" against his Scottish/English overlords. Perhaps an object lesson to Americans who think they can escape the clutches of their capitalist masters?
Yes, I believe George Washington became one of the richest men in the Colonies based on his land speculation. The practice of land speculation continues in modern America with landlords of too scarce low-income housing in the country constantly raising rents on the limited low-income housing available which is a significant cause of homelessness and a profound black spot on this country. I have lived in both Mexico and the Philippines for short periods of time and I never saw the kind of rampant homelessness that is on open display in places like San Diego and Sacramento in California. And recall the Philippines especially is still part of the "Global South" what, during the Cold War used to be called "the Third World." The Philippines are an almost desperately poor country compared to the U.S. (where "productivity" and wealth creation is squeezed out of the working class like water squeezed out of a sponge by the "capitalist masters" to borrow a term from Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels). Yet the Philippines and Mexico (unlike the U.S.) respect the 1949 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which holds housing to be a "human right" for everyone and not a source of speculative income for greedy landlords.
And in regard to Washington, Jefferson, Madison, John Adams and other wealthy founders of the U.S., many of the colonists in the hinterlands and backwaters like western Massachusetts and Appalachia didn't want the powerful central federal government that Hamilton, Madison and John Jay argued for (and obviously obtained in 1787 when the U.S. Constitution was promulgated) in the "Federalist Papers." That said, some western colonists in America chaffed at the British Crown's prohibition on moving west of the Appalachian mountains. Once the Revolutionary War was won by America the colonists, now citizens of the new country of the United States began to move west pushing the frontier into the land acquired by Jefferson with the "Louisiana Purchase." I think of the likes of Danial Boone and Davy Crockett. (Not to mention the nascent genocide of the Native American which we are seeing repeated today by another colonial interloper state against the native Palestinians.)
What many Americans don't know (and I'm no expert historian so bear with me) was that it was the great migration westward that began under the populist presidency of Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) that REALLY brought democracy to America. Not because the Constitutional founders of America wanted democracy in 1787 (having meet in Mr. Dinh's city of Philadelphia) but because the vast wave of westward migrants simply couldn't be controlled from the east coast federal capital in Washington D.C. So, in the sense the western migrants brought themselves democracy; it wasn't granted to them by the wealthy merchants (such as John Adams)and slave holding plantation owners (such as Thomas Jefferson) on the east coast who penned the Constitution. (James Madison is always credited with being the main author of the Constitution but I'm quite sure he had input from many others. Jefferson, Franklin and Hamilton come to mind.)
Finally upon first reading your above comment I thought your reference to. "Shucks Pete, we've always been fooled..." (a sentiment I agree with, by the way) was a reference to Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigig in regard to that rather bizarre bridge collapse in (was it) Maryland? There are conspiracy theories running rife that the ship that collided with the bridge was hijacked by a cyber attack and intentionally driven into the bridge. What struck me as strange about that (if one views the video of the event) was how virtually the entire bridge came down instantly like the proverbial house of cards. Some commentators even pointed out what looked like controlled explosions on the superstructure of the bridge as it was coming down -- shades of 9/11 and the collapse of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center! (Perhaps those explosions on the bridge were transformers blowing up? Who knows?)
But alas, when I read your final line again I saw that you are referencing Pete Townsend the author of The Who's "We Won't Get Fooled Again" which, of course we will. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss..." Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me... . We indeed WILL get fooled again.
I don't want to inundate you with a Sunday of frontier pontifications Thomas, but after reading your comment with regards to westward American settlement, this bit from Cormac McCarthy's Cities of the Plain came to mind.
( I pulled the quote from reddit, so kudos to the original copy/paste McCarthy reader),
Page 184, 1999 Vintage edition.
'Mr Johnson tells John Grady about the last time he was in Juarez, where a man was shot in the head standing right next to him in the bar: '
“Mr Johnson passed the tips of his fingers across his jaw. Well, he said. I think the people mostly come from Tennessee and Kentucky. Edgefield district in South Carolina. Southern Missouri. They were mountain people. They come from mountain people in the old country. They always would shoot you. It wasnt just here. They kept comin west and about the time they got here was about the time Sam Colt invented the sixshooter and it was the first time these people could afford a gun you could carry around in your belt. That’s all there ever was to it. It had nothin to do with the country at all. The west. They’d of been the same it dont matter where they might of wound up. I’ve thought about it and that’s the only conclusion I could ever come to.”
Thanks for that information, Mr. Skaggs. Coincidentally I've been watching recently some good Western genre movies and your informed comment helps me to understand that era better. "The Long Riders" about the James brothers and Youngers is particularly good.
I've read just one novel by the recently deceased Cormac McCarthy and I was impressed. (The title "The Spotted Pony" comes to mind but I may be off). McCarthy had a way of writing sparely that was nevertheless full of unspoken or implicit meaning.
Yes, by my understanding, the "Scots-Irish" were undesirables from lowland Scotland and northern England who were shipped to the Ulster Plantation in Northern Ireland in order to essentially ethnically cleanse the land of the native Irish who, beyond intermarriage with the new neighbors weren't Scots-Irish. Basically, Scots-Irish aren't traditionally Scottish or Irish and many left for the colonies when things became intolerable on the Ulster Plantation. I've read that their particular brand of Presbyterianism and general manners weren't popular in places like Boston and Philadelphia so they gravitated towards the Appalachian fringes. From what I know of my paternal family history, indentured servitude followed by service in the Revolution led to some land in Kentucky.
The book "Born Fighting: How the Scots Irish Shaped America" by Jim Webb really helped me to understand some of this history. John Knox and William Wallace are key figures.
The "Shucks Pete..." is in reference to Pete Townsend who wrote The Who's song 'Won't Get Fooled Again' about the ridiculous nature of popular revolution. "I'll pick up my guitar and play, just like yesterday..."
Speaking of Pete Buttigeig, I'm from South Bend and saw the smarmy little dude give a speech at the opening of our local V.A. facility. No affect, completely flat. Someone on another website of dubious nature that I won't mention was convinced that he was Jewish. My response, "...lapsed Catholic turned Episcopalian turned Deep State Satanist. So basically a Jew, but still a Shabbos Goy." Secretary of Transportation is a nice job for a literature major who's father was a Gramsci expert.
Thank you for that information, Mr Skaggs. I don't mean to trivialize your comment but when I hear the name "Jim Webb" I can't help but think of the musician Glenn Campbell's great song-writer collaborator Jimmy Webb who wrote (I'm pretty sure) many of Mr. Campbell's great hits like "Wichita Lineman", "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "Galveston."
Jimmy Webb was also a fine pianist and he sometimes provided accompaniment to Mr. Campbell and Mr. Webb even sang his own songs himself. He was overshadowed by the fame of Glenn Campbell and as a result not fully recognized as the talented artist and musician that he was. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8qsYsG3aQY
There is also the James Webb space telescope named for the physicist Dr. James Webb but that, as they say, is a whole 'nuther story.
Appropriately this happened just before Easter Sunday when many good and pious Catholics go to Easter mass to partake in the physical metaphor of eating the body of Jesus as represented by the Holy Communion wafer. (My mother always told us boys, "Don't chew it! Just let it melt on your tongue!) Not unlike the late, great George Carlin's mother (Carlin was great, I don't know anything about his mother other than that she too was Catholic) sternly warning him as a child, "Get your hands out of your pockets!"
You've got to love those Catholics. They're always good for a laugh or two.
On the downside, I don't think I'll ever be able to sit down to a dinner of leg of mutton again. Seeing as how California often sets trends for the nation perhaps this will become a trendy form of dining: train wreck el fresco with severed limb de jour. Ummm, delicious!
"Similarly, Americans can’t imagine Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Jose or El Paso as being anything but red, white and blue. History, though, is a process, and it’s accelerating."
Unfortunately, Los Angeles no longer fits the description of red, white and blue.
Maybe if we "anglosized" those names to The Angels, The Sacrament, Saint Joe and The Pass that might help?
Do Americans even know that President James Polk, an ardent proponent of the Monroe Doctrine, provoked Mexico into War in order to execute an enormous land grab of New Mexico, Arizona and California in the south to the Oregon border, Utah, Nevada, southern Wyoming and Colorado in the north? Texas, originally a Mexican outpost-border state, rebelled from Mexico (remember the Alamo!) and eventually joined the U.S. on its own initiative after existing as an independent country for just a few years. ("Don't mess with Texas"!)
Linh, just apply for a NON-O immigrant visa here in Thailand. No more border runs! .. just a visit to the immigration man every quarter 😉
p.s. thank heaven for strict immigration laws in these parts 🙏
Irritable farmer, how did you manage to open a bank account to show the 800k baht? It feels like a chicken and an egg problem - need a non-o visa to open a bank account but need a bank account to get the non-o.
The only way I have seen is to get an attorney - the green grease seems to make the banks change their minds quickly.
Dear Mr. Irritable Farmer, (I apologize; my entire post bellow is irrelevant to this discussion because I now see you are writing from Thailand and are referring to Thai immigration laws, not American! My error. That notwithstanding, I'll leave my comment below because it says something I've long wanted to get "off my chest" about that lying US establishment propaganda outlet, Fox News.)
From one irritable person to another: You are being facetious about U.S. immigration laws, right?
Recently, against my better judgement but ultimately to my edification, I was compelled to watch several hours of Fox News. As anyone who watches that propaganda outlet for the American establishment knows one of their big scapegoats is the vilification of undocumented migrants coming over the southern U.S. border. The irony is lost on most Fox News watchers that these very people demonizing the "undocumented" in reality love them because the provide cheap, cowed labor for the capitalists owners of America that Fox News shills for. The undocumented "illegals" can't ask for a wage raise, can't go on strike, can't organize or unionize and can't complain in general otherwise their capitalist masters will deport them back to the hell-holes they came from; usually made into hell-holes by the intervention of -- yes, that's right! -- U.S corporations, again. Interfering in the politics of places like El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to run the campasinos off their land and force them to flee in desperation to...where else?!... the United States to pack meat in the Hormel meat packing plant in Iowa or some equally dismal place for a few dollars an hour.
These unfortunate pawns, uh, I mean undocumented migrants, are loved by the U.S. establishment.
The Fox News talking heads (as well as the provocatively dressed and usually officiously opinionated anchor women) know that the U.S. could put up an impenetrable border wall between San Diego and Matamoros, Texas in 48 hours if they wanted to. But they adamently don't want to. They love the undocumented as cheap, cowed labor (virtual wage-slaves).
The ugly thing (at least one of the ugly things) about Fox News is they both lie to and at the same time pander to the sentiments fears and emotions of their gullible viewers. These same folks(Fox News and the corporations they shill for), in addition to welcoming the undocumented while vilifying them also ship many off the better paying American manufacturing jobs overseas thus inducing fear in the American working-class that a) their jobs may be "off-shored" and b) they'll have to compete for the increasingly scarce jobs with immigrants of whom Fox News vilifies never informing their viewers (Fox News viewers) that's it is the same capitalist masters who welcome undocumented migrants, ship American jobs overseas to low wage countries (to increase their, the capitalists' profits) and then use outlets like Fox News to pander to viewers and lie about the whole scam so the American working-class can never quite figure out why their standard of living keeps declining and conditions keep deteriorating for the working class in this country. "Don't blame your capitalist masters, folks; blame those dirty 'illegal aliens' coming over the southern border. Nothing to see here, folks, just keep the line moving...".
If Fox News were honest (which they aren't) they would say something like: "Look folks, we really don't give a sh* t about you, your family and the entire working and middle-class of America. All we care about is maximizing OUR profits. Period.
If every literate American (what's that about 40% of the population?) would read Marx and Engels they would learn about the class structure of capitalist societies and how they, the working class will be "immiserated" by capital. Marx foresaw all this way back in 1848. But Americans are too busy being hoodwinked and bamboozled by the likes of Fox News to understand this.
It is interesting how landlord-tenant law has been exploited by some homeless (please let us avoid that idiotic euphemism "the unhoused" as if that somehow mitigates the misery of the situation )in an effort to obtain shelter here in America. Apparently in some states if a dwelling is unoccupied and a "squatter" moves into the property and claims it and then the rightful owner returns, say, for example, from a two week vacation, the squatter may be recognized by the law as a tenant now and the legal owner must go through legal process to evict the squatter; the rightful owner can't simply tell the squatter to leave. They have to go to court and get a notice to "pay or quit" and then a thirty day notice etc. I've seen a video (the veracity of which I can't be certain) in which the owner of a home is being arrested and put in hand cuffs for trying to remove a squatter from her home without formal legal procedure.
Another interesting phenomenon is de facto legalized shoplifting in California. I've seen videos of commercial stores being ransacked by roving groups of young thieves while security personnel simply watch and do nothing. Apparently there is a policy among some retailers in the state to let the theft of less than $1000 of merchandise to simply go. Apparently a number of retail stores have simply closed down certain outlets due to rampant shoplifting. The last time I was in Sacramento a Rite Aid pharmacy I would often shop at had closed apparently for that reason. https://www.hoover.org/research/why-shoplifting-now-de-facto-legal-california
It seems the proletariat are starting to find ways, however perverse, to fight back against a system here in The States that they recognize as increasingly unfair and unjust in which the poor and poverty are increasingly viewed by the establishment as a de facto crime. The proletariat see the unholy triumvirate of Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos with almost a trillion dollars between them while the proletariat have their food stamps cut-off without the Constitutionally required procedural Due Process of a notice and hearing. Something is indeed "rotten in [the United States of] Denmark."
They (the masters) want 15 minute cities and shopping carried out online only. Bankrupt the present day business first with hoards of scum, goal achieved. All designed by the shameless fascists.
Common' Linh! Americans admire "bold" people who "take the initiative"; (sounds like some platitude out of a business administration class or "How to Win Friends and Influence People" I know you're being sarcastic). It's just that when one is homeless in America (or "unhoused " as the Woke idiots apparently euphemistically say perhaps thinking this disgraceful problem will just go away quietly if they just give it a new name) one is invisible to society .
When you're homeless (pardon me! "unhoused" and perhaps unhinged, too) the only "bold initiative" one can resort to is consuming the limb of some dumb schmuck who apparently was too stupid (or stoned or drunk which is something I have to be careful of) to get out of the way of a barreling freight train.
I spent a number of months "unhoused" under the powerful California sun (they don't call it the "Golden State for nuthin'!) and at the end of that time I was ready to start gnawing on a few disembodied or dismembered limbs myself. What else could I do?! Everyone in America just wants the homeless to dry up and blow away. The idea of actually finding them housing (or making affordable housing available) is way too complex. And besides, there's no money in it. "Show me the money!", man. And when one is homeless, there ain't no money to show, bro. (Why am I talking like this? I hate people who talk like this, bro!)
I recall one time riding public transport in Sacramento (can't recall if it was a bus or the Light Rail) when a driver was being trained. I overheard the trainer say to the trainee something to the effect that, "Eventually it's going to happen; someone will be on the tracks and you won't be able to stop in time; so be prepared in advance..." It seems some of the considerable homeless population in California prefer the quick death of being struck by a train to the slow death of homelessness. Oops! Sorry, "unhousedness." Now if that isn't "boldness" and "taking the initiative" then I, for one, don't know what is!
As aside to the last post and something I was thinking about, four months working at an Amazon warehouse while staying in shelters and rented hovels did more to burn my body, mind and spirit than twelve years of public school or four years in the military.
I busted my butt as a temp for ninety days chasing prompts on a scanner and got hired in as an "Amazonian". At the corporate "onboarding" course, the HR lady showed us a picture of Jeff "Lord" Bezos and (this was in Lexington, Kentucky) said, "Y'all know who that is?"
I headed to Applebee's after that to "celebrate" and ended up on a multi day bender that required two days in a hospital detox before clocking a minute as a real "Amazonian". I limped back to the fulfillment center over a week after the orientation, worked some fifty and sixty hour weeks during holiday "peak" and then just stopped going in. I couldn't take it anymore.
As the women on the bus say "The struggle is real." Gotta grin and bear it. What's the alternative?
Hi Thomas,
Since I got out of the Army, I've been in four different shelters for periods of a week to three months. The Army really was "a home, a home, a home away from home." which we would chant in cadence as we marched. I came out of the Army relatively unscathed I believe, but due to personal inconsistencies revolving specifically around mental health (despair) and addiction (all of it), couldn't maintain housing.
One thing that I noticed about every shelter and the more I understand homelessness from personal experience, is that each shelter, whether evangelical or municipal, was "on the take" and connected to local government in some way shape or form. Almost as if it's not a bug, but more of a feature. Reflective of basic capitalism (or organized crime).
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate every night that I had a bed, meal and shower and encountered some truly caring and principled employees within the shelter system, but it was still a system and there was always some form of corruption at the administrative level. My guess is that it's like this everywhere or very common, part and parcel of the problem itself. I don't have any concrete or comprehensive answers as a whole other than I expect the situation to worsen. Sadly, more money thrown at "homelessness" , the more corruption we can expect.
The churches handing out food is the closest to "grassroots" assistance that I've encountered.
You, Mr. Skaggs are like Mr. Dinh. You both have the courage to look reality in the face and call it out for what it is.
Me? I'm way too timorous. That's why I read Mr. Dinh. He sees the world for what it is and writes about it so people like me who can't take it can at least read about it. It's only from a second-hand removed perspective that I can endure it. Reality in modern America that is.
Thomas, you had the courage to leave America and try living abroad on your own dime. That's something that I have only considered and may never attempt. Many people sit around and wish that they were somewhere else, you took the initiative to do something about it based on your knowledge and convictions like Mr. Dinh.
It's hard to see a sliver of reality somewhere else and then return to the "panopticon". The perspective can hurt. You got out there and tried. That matters.
Two thumbs up for that last photo. The frill on the shorts; the purse; the flowers on the flip-flops. That's a contest-entry pic! "Yeah, I'm slaving away under the mid-day sun of Phnom Penh, but I'm doing it in style, baby!"
That little girl is the one that had to carry the tub of lotus pods on her head. Exhausted, she whined, got whacked and then had to be quiet to avoid another whack.
I doubt she was thinking about "doing it in style".
You sometimes post this kind of stuff but other times marvel at places you enjoy where people are going about their lives relatively normally (in spite of the various issues going on all over the world).
Do you think people should NOT be enjoying calming normalcy (of sports or whatever) and just dreading the incoming nuclear war?
How exactly should people be living in these times if not trying to get by?
It's a good question, one worth asking daily.
As normally as possible is the best answer that I've been able to come up with. It's the normal part that's been a struggle when my normal, the freedom to live unmolested in body and mind, comes up against the "other normal", the new normal.
On bad days, it chafes to the point of madness. On good days, I brush it off and keep going.
Advice to myself, "find solace and continue."
Sometimes it strikes me as fairly astonishing that one half of the human race hasn't enslaved and/or killed off the other half. To my way of thinking (as morbid as it may be) it is interesting that we can more or less assume a right to "... life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in much of the world now. The acquisition of such "rights" was hard fought for and slowly won over centuries.
Thomas Jefferson famously wrote in 1776, "We hold these truths to be self evident.. that all men [at least white men who owned real property] are created equal..." The oligarchs and plutocrats of the world hate that statement and I'm quite sure wish they could go back in time and strangle Jefferson before he had a chance to write it with his quill pen.
In other words I think it rather insouciant or "pollyanish" to blithely assume we will always have such rights and freedoms; history is replete with injustice and exploitation of the weak or unfortunate by the strong or the psychopathic. I would even go so far as to argue that the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a surviving vestige of exploitation and slavery. Most people accept it because there is the common belief in The States that "if you don't like it, just get a better job." But for many there is not that option.
I would argue that "...the freedom to live unmolested in body and mind..." had best not be taken for granted. Such freedom may not always be there. Have you seen an Amazon warehouse lately?
Those two aren't ones that I look to any manmade institutional source like the Holy Bible, Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights or U.S. government for for allowance or enforcement. Anglo Saxo jurisprudence is so easily corrupted (what isn't) like the papier mache outer shell of a pinata which contains a cornucopia of financialized servitude for the vast majority of people, most of whom don't like being hungry and will follow the master dujour to the kitchen where they might end up the lunch.
My right to live unmolested in mind and body is basically my own "natural" freedom. Only I can guarantee it. That's a pretty tall order and one that I can't guarantee on any day to day basis for myself, it's simply how I view my relationship with myself and my fellow humans, many who I am sure aren't in agreement with my point of view and might even want me dead for such insousance. Kind of that Scots-Irish, "They can try, but..." attitude.
By my thinking, the American Revolution was a power shift and change of accounts based on a common mythology that didn't change the architecture of the common person of that time's life much. They gave my hillbilly ancestors some free land in Kentucky so that they could subsist and colonize new territory for the "new masters". George Washington was a relentless land speculator, a tidewater oligarch of his time who didn't waste time showing who was boss in the Whiskey Rebellion, the federal government of course. The Who said ,"We won't get fooled again.." Shucks Pete, we've always been fooled.
Hello Mr. Scaggs,
You mention the Scotch Irish. Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that group had origins in the south Scottish-north English border country were there was a considerable amount of social disorder and clan warfare or at least skirmishes. Many Scotch-Irish (it is my limited understanding) fled the region for Ireland and then eventually the "back country" of the Appalachian mountains in America thus bringing with them the Hatfield vs. McCoy feud (not to mention the "white lightning" of the legendary Snuffy Smith).
And speaking of Scotland and psychopathology I am reminded of the scene in the very good Mel Gibson movie, "Braveheart" in which William Wallace returns to his ancestral home in Scotland from Europe to find his entire family hanging from the rafters of his house, all dead; killed by some petty English noble. This act inflames William Wallace to seek to liberate the Scottish people from the criminal over-lordship of the combined English/Scottish nobles who conspired to essentially enslave the Scottish clansman who, like Wallace, only wanted to be left alone to live in peace. As Wallace learned to his consternation, if you don't fight back, the powerful will bring harm to you. You will perhaps recall the end of the movie when the merciful executioner of Wallace beheads him before he has to endure having his limbs torn from his body as he is executed for "treason" against his Scottish/English overlords. Perhaps an object lesson to Americans who think they can escape the clutches of their capitalist masters?
Yes, I believe George Washington became one of the richest men in the Colonies based on his land speculation. The practice of land speculation continues in modern America with landlords of too scarce low-income housing in the country constantly raising rents on the limited low-income housing available which is a significant cause of homelessness and a profound black spot on this country. I have lived in both Mexico and the Philippines for short periods of time and I never saw the kind of rampant homelessness that is on open display in places like San Diego and Sacramento in California. And recall the Philippines especially is still part of the "Global South" what, during the Cold War used to be called "the Third World." The Philippines are an almost desperately poor country compared to the U.S. (where "productivity" and wealth creation is squeezed out of the working class like water squeezed out of a sponge by the "capitalist masters" to borrow a term from Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels). Yet the Philippines and Mexico (unlike the U.S.) respect the 1949 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which holds housing to be a "human right" for everyone and not a source of speculative income for greedy landlords.
And in regard to Washington, Jefferson, Madison, John Adams and other wealthy founders of the U.S., many of the colonists in the hinterlands and backwaters like western Massachusetts and Appalachia didn't want the powerful central federal government that Hamilton, Madison and John Jay argued for (and obviously obtained in 1787 when the U.S. Constitution was promulgated) in the "Federalist Papers." That said, some western colonists in America chaffed at the British Crown's prohibition on moving west of the Appalachian mountains. Once the Revolutionary War was won by America the colonists, now citizens of the new country of the United States began to move west pushing the frontier into the land acquired by Jefferson with the "Louisiana Purchase." I think of the likes of Danial Boone and Davy Crockett. (Not to mention the nascent genocide of the Native American which we are seeing repeated today by another colonial interloper state against the native Palestinians.)
What many Americans don't know (and I'm no expert historian so bear with me) was that it was the great migration westward that began under the populist presidency of Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) that REALLY brought democracy to America. Not because the Constitutional founders of America wanted democracy in 1787 (having meet in Mr. Dinh's city of Philadelphia) but because the vast wave of westward migrants simply couldn't be controlled from the east coast federal capital in Washington D.C. So, in the sense the western migrants brought themselves democracy; it wasn't granted to them by the wealthy merchants (such as John Adams)and slave holding plantation owners (such as Thomas Jefferson) on the east coast who penned the Constitution. (James Madison is always credited with being the main author of the Constitution but I'm quite sure he had input from many others. Jefferson, Franklin and Hamilton come to mind.)
Finally upon first reading your above comment I thought your reference to. "Shucks Pete, we've always been fooled..." (a sentiment I agree with, by the way) was a reference to Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigig in regard to that rather bizarre bridge collapse in (was it) Maryland? There are conspiracy theories running rife that the ship that collided with the bridge was hijacked by a cyber attack and intentionally driven into the bridge. What struck me as strange about that (if one views the video of the event) was how virtually the entire bridge came down instantly like the proverbial house of cards. Some commentators even pointed out what looked like controlled explosions on the superstructure of the bridge as it was coming down -- shades of 9/11 and the collapse of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center! (Perhaps those explosions on the bridge were transformers blowing up? Who knows?)
But alas, when I read your final line again I saw that you are referencing Pete Townsend the author of The Who's "We Won't Get Fooled Again" which, of course we will. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss..." Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me... . We indeed WILL get fooled again.
I don't want to inundate you with a Sunday of frontier pontifications Thomas, but after reading your comment with regards to westward American settlement, this bit from Cormac McCarthy's Cities of the Plain came to mind.
( I pulled the quote from reddit, so kudos to the original copy/paste McCarthy reader),
Page 184, 1999 Vintage edition.
'Mr Johnson tells John Grady about the last time he was in Juarez, where a man was shot in the head standing right next to him in the bar: '
“Mr Johnson passed the tips of his fingers across his jaw. Well, he said. I think the people mostly come from Tennessee and Kentucky. Edgefield district in South Carolina. Southern Missouri. They were mountain people. They come from mountain people in the old country. They always would shoot you. It wasnt just here. They kept comin west and about the time they got here was about the time Sam Colt invented the sixshooter and it was the first time these people could afford a gun you could carry around in your belt. That’s all there ever was to it. It had nothin to do with the country at all. The west. They’d of been the same it dont matter where they might of wound up. I’ve thought about it and that’s the only conclusion I could ever come to.”
Thanks for that information, Mr. Skaggs. Coincidentally I've been watching recently some good Western genre movies and your informed comment helps me to understand that era better. "The Long Riders" about the James brothers and Youngers is particularly good.
I've read just one novel by the recently deceased Cormac McCarthy and I was impressed. (The title "The Spotted Pony" comes to mind but I may be off). McCarthy had a way of writing sparely that was nevertheless full of unspoken or implicit meaning.
Another shucks Thomas, I also forgot to mention "Happy Easter!"
Slow and overcast here, but the grass is getting greener and the birds are chirping!
A relaxed afternoon, wishing the best!
Hi Thomas,
Yes, by my understanding, the "Scots-Irish" were undesirables from lowland Scotland and northern England who were shipped to the Ulster Plantation in Northern Ireland in order to essentially ethnically cleanse the land of the native Irish who, beyond intermarriage with the new neighbors weren't Scots-Irish. Basically, Scots-Irish aren't traditionally Scottish or Irish and many left for the colonies when things became intolerable on the Ulster Plantation. I've read that their particular brand of Presbyterianism and general manners weren't popular in places like Boston and Philadelphia so they gravitated towards the Appalachian fringes. From what I know of my paternal family history, indentured servitude followed by service in the Revolution led to some land in Kentucky.
The book "Born Fighting: How the Scots Irish Shaped America" by Jim Webb really helped me to understand some of this history. John Knox and William Wallace are key figures.
The "Shucks Pete..." is in reference to Pete Townsend who wrote The Who's song 'Won't Get Fooled Again' about the ridiculous nature of popular revolution. "I'll pick up my guitar and play, just like yesterday..."
Speaking of Pete Buttigeig, I'm from South Bend and saw the smarmy little dude give a speech at the opening of our local V.A. facility. No affect, completely flat. Someone on another website of dubious nature that I won't mention was convinced that he was Jewish. My response, "...lapsed Catholic turned Episcopalian turned Deep State Satanist. So basically a Jew, but still a Shabbos Goy." Secretary of Transportation is a nice job for a literature major who's father was a Gramsci expert.
Thank you for that information, Mr Skaggs. I don't mean to trivialize your comment but when I hear the name "Jim Webb" I can't help but think of the musician Glenn Campbell's great song-writer collaborator Jimmy Webb who wrote (I'm pretty sure) many of Mr. Campbell's great hits like "Wichita Lineman", "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "Galveston."
Jimmy Webb was also a fine pianist and he sometimes provided accompaniment to Mr. Campbell and Mr. Webb even sang his own songs himself. He was overshadowed by the fame of Glenn Campbell and as a result not fully recognized as the talented artist and musician that he was. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8qsYsG3aQY
There is also the James Webb space telescope named for the physicist Dr. James Webb but that, as they say, is a whole 'nuther story.
Appropriately this happened just before Easter Sunday when many good and pious Catholics go to Easter mass to partake in the physical metaphor of eating the body of Jesus as represented by the Holy Communion wafer. (My mother always told us boys, "Don't chew it! Just let it melt on your tongue!) Not unlike the late, great George Carlin's mother (Carlin was great, I don't know anything about his mother other than that she too was Catholic) sternly warning him as a child, "Get your hands out of your pockets!"
You've got to love those Catholics. They're always good for a laugh or two.
On the downside, I don't think I'll ever be able to sit down to a dinner of leg of mutton again. Seeing as how California often sets trends for the nation perhaps this will become a trendy form of dining: train wreck el fresco with severed limb de jour. Ummm, delicious!
"Similarly, Americans can’t imagine Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Jose or El Paso as being anything but red, white and blue. History, though, is a process, and it’s accelerating."
Unfortunately, Los Angeles no longer fits the description of red, white and blue.
Hi Elaine,
Maybe if we "anglosized" those names to The Angels, The Sacrament, Saint Joe and The Pass that might help?
Do Americans even know that President James Polk, an ardent proponent of the Monroe Doctrine, provoked Mexico into War in order to execute an enormous land grab of New Mexico, Arizona and California in the south to the Oregon border, Utah, Nevada, southern Wyoming and Colorado in the north? Texas, originally a Mexican outpost-border state, rebelled from Mexico (remember the Alamo!) and eventually joined the U.S. on its own initiative after existing as an independent country for just a few years. ("Don't mess with Texas"!)