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Thursday, April 24, 2014

Populist Demand For Public Land. In America, Privatization Ends As Oligarchy


Dear Fred,

As Revelation unfolds, The Ungodly Rich are revealed as people of limitless piggishness. 

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"Inside Job"

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G.K. Chesterton: "The Anarchy of The Rich"


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In light of wealthy anarchists' unchecked greed, I consider all land in federal and state hands to be The People's Patrimony, land that could -- at any "ripe" socio-political moment -- be imbued with "rights of usufruct" so that every commoner might have a place in the world.

Anyone who wants "40 acres and a mule" will get it for as long as s/he uses it productively. (Here's how usufruct works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usufruct)

Above all, I do not want to exacerbate the following territorial inequality which is what Capitalist Pigs would do if given the chance. (It's what they've done and what they're constantly getting better at.)


The 1% has mastered every skill necessary to vacuum resource unto themselves.

They are the worst possible predators to be turned loose on national land. 

They want the poor dead.

And they want democracy -- whether "direct" or "representative" -- destroyed.

The Hard Central Fact Of Contemporary Conservatism

The hard, central "fact" of contemporary "conservatism" is its insistence on a socio-economic threshold above which people deserve government assistance, and below which people deserve to die. 

The sooner the better. 

Unless conservatives are showing n'er-do-wells The Door of Doom, they just don't "feel right." 

To allay this chthonic anxiety, they resort to Human Sacrifice,  hoping that spilled blood will placate "the angry gods," including the one they've made of themselves. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/09/harvard-study-45000-americans-die.html 

Having poked their eyes out, they fail to see  that self-generated wrath creates "the gods" who hold them thrall

Almost "to a man," contemporary "conservatives" have apotheosized themselves and now -- sitting on God's usurped throne -- are rabid to pass final judgment. 

Self-proclaimed Christians, eager to thrust "the undeserving" through The Gates of Hell, are the very people most likely to cross its threshold. 

Remarkably, none of them are tempted to believe this. 

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"The United States Is An Oligarchy And Privatization Of Public Land Will Only Make It Worse'
The 1% are f______ us in the ass  
and we feel responsible for supplying the KY.



"The Commons and Happiness"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/06/httpwww.html

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"Americans are fucked. They've been bought off. And they come real cheap: a few million dirt bikes, camcorders, microwaves, cordless phones, digital watches, answering machines, jet skis and sneakers with lights in 'em. You say you want a few items back from the Bill of Rights? Just promise the doofuses new gizmos."  George Carlin

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"There is just enough bullshit to hold things together in this country. Bullshit is the glue, that binds us as a nation. Where would we be without our safe, familiar, American bullshit? Land of the free, home of the brave, the American dream, all men are equal, justice is blind, the press is free, your vote counts, business is honest, the good guys win, the police are on your side, god is watching you, your standard of living will never decline… and everything is going to be just fine— The official national bullshit story. I call it the American okie doke. Every one, every one of those items is provably untrue at one level or another, but we believe them because they're pounded into our heads from the time we're children. That's what they do with that kind of thing—pound it into the heads of kids, ‘cause they know the children are much too young to be able to muster an intellectual defense against a sophisticated idea like that, and they know that up to a certain age children believe everything their parents tell them. And as a result, they never learn to question things. Nobody questions things in this country anymore. Nobody questions it—everybody is too fat and happy. Everybody's got a cell phone that'll make pancakes and rub their balls now— Way too fucking prosperous for our own good. Way too fucking prosperous, Americans have been bought off and silenced by toys and gizmos. And no one learns to question things."
George Carlin

Pax on both houses,

Alan

On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 9:57 PM, Fred Owens <froghospital911@gmail.com> wrote:

The Bundys have a point -- they have a terrible way of expressing that point -- but they do have a point, which is that the federal govt owns too much of Nevada -- way more than 70 percent. True, it's been that way since statehood, but that 70 percent figure is just too much -- the federal govt, even if benign, is an absent and distant landlord and I support any measure that would fairly sell land to ranchers like the Bundy and reduce the federal foot print. Local culture would flourish with more ranches in private hands  --
But how can I say this without endorsing their means which are bizarre and destructive?

-- 

Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens
My writing blog is Frog Hospital

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001



Follow-up correspondence:

Dear Fred,

Thanks for your email.

Your suggestion is entirely reasonable.

The trouble, as I see it, is that "conservative" Americans are entirely unreasonable - as Bundy himself demonstrates.

What, exactly, is this "America the Beautiful" that "conservatives" drool on about, simultaneously slagging the United States as The Epicenter of Apocalypse and Satan's Own Workshop, a "fallen" nation, a "darkened city on a hill" led to slaughter by Anti-Christ Barack HUSSEIN Obama, a Kenyan-born Muslim socialist, anti-American, job-killing  quisling, whose goal is to surrender the United States to a One World Government headed by Arab shieks.

By my lights the ugliness in America is almost solely attributable to the gun-slinging yahoos who have gathered around Bundy, people who would not only prefer to see poor people dead, but who secretly pine to see poor people dead.

***

I am fully prepared to make common cause with Bundy's range warriors if they are serious about restoration of The Commons which is what their rhetoric would have us believe.

Every organic market gardener/farmer who wants free "usufruct access" to 40 acres gets it.

But the Big Guys like Bundy get nothing else. They've already gotten more than they deserve.

At bottom, Cliven is a wealthy rancher who has made himself the current standard bearer for a long tradition of agribusiness mooching.

"Usufruct accss" to public land is an entirely reasonable solution to the pruported problem and one that would benefit millions of people whose socio-economic profile is very much like yours and mine.

Does my description of radical decentralization appeal to you?

It has always been the case that anyone who really needs a loan can't get one. 

So loan them "the land."

On the other hand, anybody rich enough to run up a million dollars in "rangeland debt" is someone who neither needs -- nor deserves -- additional support.

You do. 

And I do.

And all the other chicken-raising, orchard pruning, market gardeners do.

But not Cliven Bundy.

Pax on both houses

Alan


On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 10:42 AM, Fred Owens <froghospital911@gmail.com> wrote:

My suggestion is entirely reasonable -- that western states with a large percentage of their land under federal control might be less enthusiastic about the common good and the public patrimony. One can surely find some sense in that attitude and one can surely find groups and individuals who act on it in a responsible way.


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