Chop it Down and Sell It

Most people look at a natural landscape, a mountain, a forest, a river, and see beauty. We enjoy looking at beauty, and we enjoy being in places that are beautiful or naturally unusual. A walk through the Grand Canyon brings us much more pleasure and satisfaction than walking down a city street.

Some people do not see any beauty in nature. They do not understand why people will line up and pay a fee to visit a national park or nature preserve. These materialists look at a landscape and think about its potential to be used for monetary gain. Can the trees be chopped down and sold for lumber? Can the hills be scraped away and mined for precious minerals? Can the river be diverted for sale to farmers, or used as a dump for factory waste?

This inability to value or appreciate nature's beauty and wholesomeness is often accompanied by an inability to appreciate the arts. These guys don't read books, attend concerts, or visit museums. Most of us derive pleasure from beautiful and interesting creations, contemplating works of art, listening to music, reading engaging stories, seeing a skillful performance. The materialists are strangers to emotional or intellectual pleasure. For them, there are only two kinds of pleasure. One is ego gratification, which may be derived from receiving other people's attention, admiration, and obedience, or from acquiring material possessions, which they see as the only real measure of human worth. The other pleasure they recognize is physical: sex or goal-oriented sporting activities that emphasize individual achievement rather than teamwork, like golf or trophy hunting. Those activities also provide ego gratification.

These materialists do not perceive human beings as having value, except to the extent that they have wealth or can be used to create wealth. Workers, as a group, have value because their labor generates wealth for the employer. The individual worker is not of much value, but is disposable and replaceable. People who are unable to generate wealth for the master class, such as retired or disabled persons, are seen as completely valueless. Young children are valued for their potential as future workers. More and more, the materialists look for ways to turn children into workers at younger and younger ages, setting up systems to remove kids from school and place them in physically demanding jobs.

The materialists' ideal world is one in which they are universally recognized as superior beings and they have complete dominion over everyone and everything they see.

 

Because MONEY is more important than anything else.

"Avarice" (1904), James Ensor

National parks are popular! They actually bring in more money than it costs to run them. Yet the Republican regime wants to kill them. Why? They want to trade the public good for private gain. The plan is to sell our natural resources to ruthless industrialists, to be torn apart, mined for minerals, drilled for oil, and stripped of lumber. Creepy rich guys will pay a lot to be allowed to shoot all the animals. The Grand Canyon is huge. It would be a great place to dump toxic waste.

None of the money generated by destroying our parks and other agencies will be used to benefit Americans in any way. Old people will still be robbed of Social Security and Medicare. Research to cure diseases will not be funded. Disaster relief will not be provided after storms and fires. Laws that protect our food, water, and air will not be enforced. Schools will be closed. Children will not be fed. Medicaid will disappear. Even weather forecasting will be stopped.

Where will all that money go? Will it be refunded to taxpayers? No. Will some helpful programs be re-opened? No. Instead, there will be more ad campaigns praising Dear Leader. An irresponsible billionaire will get more government contracts. Dear Leader and his buddies will spend even more time using government-owned planes to fly off to resort vacations. They will hire more private soldiers to guard them from contact with the public. Wealthy Republican donors will buy more yachts, do more golfing, and have more fancy parties.

The sole purpose of the Republican regime is to create permanent damage in exchange for the temporary gratification of the oligarchs. A billionaire's lifestyle will not be improved or harmed if his net worth goes up or down by hundreds of millions, but seeing it go up on paper makes him feel better for a little while, and that's a good enough reason to make sure our grandchildren never walk in a forest or see an eagle.

• Parks Are Being Dismantled
• Trump Targets National Parks
• Cuts to U.S. National Parks

 

But What's In It For Me?

Every chance they get, Musk, trump, and their closest buds try to demonize "NGOs". NGO just stands for Non-Government Organization, or what we Americans usually refer to as a "nonprofit", like the Red Cross, Samaritan's Purse, or Save the Children.

These guys claim that nonprofits are all corrupt and are stealing money to enrich their leaders. Musk has even claimed that organizations feeding starving children are criminal. This is because Musk and trump simply cannot believe anyone would want to do good things for other people. They believe the only reason to do anything in life is to make money. Healing the sick, feeding the hungry, making the world a better place in some way -- these ideas just don't make sense to them.

Whatever they do, they're only in it for the money, and they assume other people are just like them. "Those charities must be stealing the donations," they think. "That's what I would do."

Telling them that they should support a program that cures disease is not persuasive, unless there is a way for them to profit from it. Telling them that cutting a program will cause suffering and death is not persuasive, because they do not believe human lives (other than their own) have value beyond the ability to generate profits. Once you understand this about them, the bizarre-seeming things they say and do are easily explained.

 

The Greater Good

Photo by Duncan Kidd on Unsplash

I turned on the TV this afternoon and saw the last 45 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan".

It occurred to me that most of this movie is probably incomprehensible to Comrade Krasnov, who simply can't understand why people would sacrifice themselves for the greater good. To him, there is nothing greater than the fulfillment of his own desires, the accumulation of wealth, the exercise of power in the service of petty grievances, the feeling of nasty satisfaction obtained from being able to destroy an entire nation.

A film like that is no doubt also meaningless to Musk, who is ignorant of American history, oblivious to patriotism, and unable to identify with people who want to help others.

After his life is saved, Private Ryan is advised that he should try to deserve what his comrades did for him, and he takes that to heart, striving to live a righteous life, to be a good man. Krasnov and Musk don't feel obligated to make such an effort; in their minds, they are entitled to have all life on earth sacrificed for them, simply because they have "good genes".

 

Would You Let This Guy Hold Your Lunch Money?

In 2022, Elon Musk paid 44 billion dollars for the social media platform Twitter. Under Musk's management (or, some would say, mismanagement), the company, inexplicably renamed "X", lost nearly 80% of its value within two years.

At the start of 2024, Tesla, Musk's electric vehicle business, was valued at $58.3 billion. By the end of the year, its value was estimated at $43 billion, a drop of nearly 26%. Although Tesla's decline may have been partly fueled by Musk's reputation as a bullying goon involved in right-wing extremist politics, the ugliness of the Cybertruck, along with a series of vehicles fires and explosions, didn't help.

Musk also owns the Boring Company, a tunnel construction service notable for impractical proposals and failed or abandoned projects.

SpaceX is another Musk business, a space exploration technology company. Although the company's failed launches and rocket explosions have attracted attention, it has also succeeded in many of its ventures, which include cargo delivery to the International Space Station. SpaceX's rapid success was built on financial support from the U.S. government, in the form of lucrative federal contracts and grants.

Another Musk venture is Starlink, an Internet satellite service, hated by many astronomers for blocking our view of the stars. Starlink has had many satellite malfunctions and failures. As an Internet service, it is expensive, and has a reputation for poor customer support. Musk has also been accused of using Starlink in attempts to manipulate global politics by making it either available or unavailable in different areas. As a proponent of vicious and disproportionate revenge, Musk used his influence with America's Republican administration to terminate funding for USAID, an independent agency of the United States government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance, thus cutting off food, medicine, and shelter for millions of needy people, apparently as punishment for the agency's questioning its relationship with Starlink.

Neuralink is a company attempting to build implantable brain-computer interface systems. The company has been criticized for the deaths of primates used in its experiments. Following false statements about the deaths, a national physicians group asked the SEC to investigate Musk for possible securities fraud.

Musk formed a supposedly temporary organization known as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which masquerades as a U.S. government department. The formation of new departments requires the approval of Congress, which DOGE did not receive. Although its stated purpose is to find and eliminate government waste, DOGE's most visible activity has been the infiltration of government agencies and departments for the purpose of gaining access to computer systems and allegedly harvesting cititzens' financial and medical data. Despite consensus that DOGE's activities have been illegal, there has been no intervention by law enforcement. Musk has been accused of staging a coup and attempting to completely destroy the U.S. government.

Elon Musk was born to a wealthy family in South Africa in 1971. In 1989, he emigrated to Canada, where he became a citizen. In 1995, he and his brother Kimball moved to California. Kimball has publically admitted that they were illegal immigrants. Somehow, Elon acquired U.S. citizenship in 2002.

• NASDAQ on X/Twitter’s Valuation Decline
• Tesla Fire lists 232 incidents.
• A Forbes contributor compares the Cybertruck to broccoli
• Can we please let the Boring Company die already?
• How Federal Grants and Contracts Helped Elon Musk Reach New Heights
• Alleged USAID Probe Into Starlink Raises Elon Musk Conflict Concerns
• Neuralink faces federal inquiry after killing 1,500 animals
• Physicians Group Asks SEC to Investigate Elon Musk for Securities Frau
• What will it take to stop Elon Musk and DOGE?
• Wikipedia article on Elon Musk

 

He Wants More

A unimaginably wealthy businessman has so much money, he could give a million dollars to every person in the country, and he'd still be the richest guy in the world. Yet this person wants to reduce the resources available to the rest of us. Why? Why would someone who has everything want to take away the relatively small amounts others have?

The answer is greed. Most of us can understand ordinary greed, the desire to have more than you've already got, the wish to be rich and to have fancy things. But few of us can comprehend the special type of ultra-greed that drives the oligarchs. They are NEVER satisfied. Five yachts aren't enough, if it's possible to get one that's fancier. A fleet of private jets isn't enough, if there's a chance a new one would be faster or more luxurious.

While we can, on an intellectual level, comprehend that someone might feel driven to improve upon his already excellent situation, what we can't understand is why someone who already has everything desperately wants to take the little we have away from us.

The problem with the never-satisfied, ultra-greedy oligarchs is that they don't just want a lot, they don't just want more, they want EVERYTHING. Anything you have, no matter how small, is something they don't have. They want it. This is why they don't care if we die of preventable illnesses, or starvation, or nuclear holocaust. Only if we are dead can they feel sure that we have nothing and they have everything.

As they build their doomsday bunkers, they fantasize about a world in which more than half the population is annihilated. Unfortunately for them, they need workers for a few things, so they can't quite wish for everyone but themselves to vanish.

 

What Are We Paying Them For?

One time, my husband was really sick with a respiratory infection. The doctor had prescribed some medicine to relieve his symptoms, and he had used it all, so the doctor called the pharmacy with a prescription for more. Later, I called the pharmacy to see if the medicine was ready, and I was told they hadn't filled the prescription because insurance declined it! The insurance company's position was that it was "too soon" for Hubby to get more medicine, even though his doctor thought he should have it.

I told the pharmacy to forget insurance, I would pay. It wasn't actually a lot of money. Overall, there are probably many cases where it costs the company more to deny a claim (paying the drones who do the paperwork and deal with the patient's complaints) than it would to just go ahead and pay for it.

Costs aside, I don't understand why office workers who have never even met the patient are allowed to overrule his licensed physician, who has firsthand knowledge of his illness and is trained to treat it.

We think we are paying these companies to provide for our health care. We think their purpose is to help us pay medical bills. They think their purpose is to just collect our money and dole it out to shareholders and millionaire executives.

 

Everything Belongs to Me!

trump and his minions may not be fascists, but they have the attitude of fascists. In their minds, the rules, norms, and laws of a civilized society simply do not apply to them. They are entitled to do what they want and take what they want, at any time and place they want.

We saw this when trump boasted about kissing or grabbing women without permission. We saw it when he refused to pay contractors and workers at his properties. We've seen it many times when his campaign has used music without getting the owners' permission, even when the owners have explicitly told them to stop. We saw it when trump insisted that he could own and possess (and, it seems, display, share, or dispose of) confidential and classified government documents.

Again and again, he and his associates have shown their arrogance, their insistence on privileged status, their contempt toward others, and their disdain for the behavioral norms that make it possible for society to function. Like many fascists before them, they have succeeded in bullying, intimidating, and litigating people into submission.

Most recently, we saw trump and his entourage violate federal law and all expectations of decency, when they chose to film a campaign video at our most sacred national cemetery. Further, members of the group may have assaulted a cemetery official who informed them they were not permitted to film.

And now, in true fascist fashion, they do not admit to being in the wrong. They posted the illegal video they made at the cemetery. Instead of apologizing or simply claiming they were in error due to a "misunderstanding" or "mistake," they are angry at the news organization that first reported the incident. Fascists do not like public scrutiny of their actions.

A trump spokesperson has made a statement accusing the official who was assaulted of being mentally ill, and triumphantly declaring trump "the real Commander in Chief." Fascists are never subtle. Their message is clear: journalists who mention issues that make the boss uncomfortable are "bad reporters" asking "stupid questions." Anyone who tries to get in their way is unfair, crooked, mentally ill, or a liar.

They are above the law - in fact, the boss IS the law. He cannot be restrained or criticized, no matter what outrage he chooses to perform. The rest of us and our expectations of lawful behavior, our hopes for good manners and public dignity, our desire for accountability, are just irritating obstacles along the boss's path toward complete domination.

 

The World is Never Enough

This story is a smaller version of what has been happening and is still happening throughout our country and the world.

A wealthy couple living in a very nice house above Camden Harbor in Maine noticed that their potential ocean view was blocked by their neighbor's big, beautiful trees. They decided to poison the trees. The plan worked, and the trees died.

In the meantime, the herbicide they use leached into a nearby park and contaminated the town's only public beach. The product that was used, Tebuthiuron, does not break down, so it continues killing plants for years. The only way to get rid of it is to remove the soil (tons of soil) or to try waiting for it to be diluted over time. The couple ended up paying a $1.5 million settlement to the tree owner and around $214,000 in fines and fees related to the environmental damage. They haven't been jailed, and apparently are still members of the Yacht Club. And they got the view they wanted.

It seems like just another story of people with too much money and a sense of entitlement arrogantly taking whatever they want with no regard for anyone or anything else. The same thing happens on a much larger scale, too, and it affects everyone. Big corporations do this to us regularly. By "big corporations" I mean the greedy, short-sighted rich people who run them. Assisted by corrupt politicians, they eagerly poison our air and water and contaminate our soil, just so they can make more money.

Like the tree poisoner who didn't care that marine life would be killed for years to come as long as he could get a little more pleasure from his mansion, the oligarchs and robber barons are willing to destroy the future in exchange for the temporary gratification of acquiring more and more paper profits. A CEO might be able to buy another $20 million yacht or another private jet, while workers and their children can't afford the drugs the oncologist prescribed. It's not just that they have so much while others have so little. It's that they are never satisfied, and getting more, always more, requires them to take away the very little those others have.

Read the orginal story here: Poisoned trees

Read about another pollutors' triumph here: Court supports pollution

 

They Want it All, And They'll Take it From You

The oligarchs have more wealth than they can possibly use, and even if they never made another dime, they, their children, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren would still be incomprehensibly wealthy.

They can have anything they want or need: Big houses, big vacation houses, spare apartments in cities around the world, nice cars, designer clothes, the best food cooked by private chefs, whatever medical care they need at top hospitals with famous doctors, multiple yachts, private hunting ranches, hairdressers who travel with them on their private jets, secret bunkers (underground mansions) in case of nuclear war, their own private security force, private schools and top-notch universities for their kids, lawyers on retainer, ownership of TV stations, newspapers, and tech companies, and the hired help needed to acquire and maintain all their possessions. In summary, they have everything. ^@themrswest

Yet, somehow, that isn't enough. Not only do they constantly want more, they want to make sure that everyone else has nothing. They crave a world where they have absolutely everything, whether they need it or not: All the power, all the means of production, all the necessities, all the luxuries. And they want that world to be populated by impoverished serfs who have nothing and live short lives of sickness and pain. Why? I truly don't know why. It's very hard to get into a mindset where other people's misery is perceived as making your life better. But there it is.

Link: The Koch brothers' political activism and its damage to America - "The Kochs' Ayn Rand–inspired hellscape has yet to completely come to fruition, but the ideas the duo promoted are now part of the regular discourse—and have been for a while."

Link: While the Planet Burns: Billionaires Are Busy Hunkering Down for the Apocalypse - "Many of the wealthiest people in the world have decided that Earth is a Titanic heading for an iceberg. As a result, they have decided to create luxury lifeboats for themselves."

Link: The Koch Brothers Are Even Worse Than You Think - "Koch was found guilty of criminal conduct in many cases.... The workplace is becoming more dangerous under this constant pressure to produce profits."

Link: Robbing the poor to pay the rich - "Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor is increasingly popular as we leave the 20th century, especially in this country"