It's getting a little messy?

The politics of the Outsider

Another primary cycle is about to end.  The Republicans have opted to take their party off the cliff.  It is an indication of how disaffected their electorate is regarding the establishment.  Trump, a man of little substance, integrity, and intelligence, has captured the hearts and minds of those who generally deny science and subscribe to principles that reflect racism and elitism.   Thus, a perfect choice for this party that has made it a practice to stand for those principles that have no value to humanity or the country.  Disagree?  Fine find you nearest grouping of troglodytes and bemoan the statement.  I ain’t changing it, nor do I wish to argue the point.  I, like you, am not susceptible to change.

My focus is a comment made by Gregory of CNN who with the air of condescension suggested that the Sanders Campaign needs to own up to and denounce the actions occurring at the Nevada Caucus.  This is the irony of the times we live in.  A somewhat overbearing and rather superficial bloviator moving from reporting the news to orating on it and assuming the role of a moral arbitrator.  Given the fact that the heavy machinery of the established press had short shifted the Sanders campaign to a footnote of the 2016 cycle, one must look beyond the noise and assess the state of affairs.

First and foremost, the Sanders campaign is composed of the young who have been thrown into a system that is clearly inequitable.  They have watched the real income of their parents decline.  They have been told how important it is to be educated and undertake this challenge with a debt that in previous times would mean a house, a car, and a place in the world.  Now, they look into a sea of anxiety as they prepare to navigate an economy that is so weighted to the top that the best they can hope for is a studio apartment near where they work.

Second and equally important are the older crowd of Bernie supporters.  Take note of how many sport grey hair.  These are the baby boomers who have lived through one of the greatest wealth producing era in human history.  Some have done well.  Many are now receiving a pension, and many of those worked in public service.  Union folks are in those clamoring multitudes shouting,  “Bernie.”  Many of them have been carrying a sign or wanting to carry a sign that reads, “I can’t believe I’m still protesting this shit!”  This is a coalition of the disenfranchised.  This is coalition of those who have been wearing their hearts on their sleeve and who came out of the sixties cloud of smoke still believing in change.  That some of these folks would get pissed off and express their frustration at a system that was created to keep power where it is, in the hands of those who hold it is understandable.  

Let’s face it the apologists for this rigged system only regurgitate talking points that are as arrogant as they are hollow.  Gregory again, “This is the system and the Sanders folk need to play by the rules.”  Not said, but equally conveyed, “Shut up and get out of here; this is our game not yours.”  Democracy, freedom, principles, one person one vote.  Please play the game the way it is designed.  When translated from ethereal to reality, it comes across best in some line from the Who, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”  The truth is this coalition of folks are not going to buy into it.  They refuse to be fooled again.

Let’s face facts, no meaningful change has occurred without things getting a little messy. It’s easy for those sitting on the dung heap that this society has become to decry the actions of the youth.  Sure the young are angry, they have been forced fed on anger all their lives.  They have watched as children were mowed down and slick lawyers talk about importance of the 2nd Amendment before the blood has dried.  They elected a black man to the White House, holding signs that said “Hope and Change” only to see racists do little to help bring change.  They watched their monthly statements of student loans marginally reduced as the interest added years to indebtedness.  They watch swindlers bankrupt the banking system made whole in the name of the economy, while their loans received no considerations and were set at rates that surely made the holding companies profitable.  They were forced to buy health insurance from companies that did nothing for health care yet reaped rewards for being a middle man.  Let’s not even talk about the ignorant and arrogant governors who preferred to adhere to some bullshit principle then to see their citizens get decent coverage.

What is amazing is these bloviators puff themselves up and decry expressions of anger.  Really?  Wow, what a pleasant world it must be to stand so far away from reality and live in a cloistered place where civility reigns, a place where opposing folks both get a paycheck and sleep in luxurious homes.   How utterly out of touch must you be to not understand why a Mexican Flag is being waved outside a Trump rally.  How extremely dull must you be to not comprehend why a rock would be thrown or a young lady shoot the bird and yell “Fuck Trump!.”  The exasperation of the entrenched at the disenfranchised is a reflection of how far the two are apart from each other.  Sanders arrival on the 2016 cycle is the culmination of decades of watching a nation careen out of control while the drivers of the madness claimed all is well.  That Trump emerged on the Right showed the disaffection with the status quo.  That there is a Sanders speaks to the resilience of a movement born out the honest desire to bring positive change to a country that was founded on principles far superior than the people who formulated them.  From Thomas Paine to Abraham Lincoln to Teddy Roosevelt to FDR, the spark of freedom has finally caught hold again.  Outsiders are winning because insiders have ruined everything they controlled.  That things get a little messy, well, hell the American Revolution wasn’t a tea party.  The civil war was not so peaceful.  The only hold out in this scenario of change is Clinton who has no credibility no skin in the game.  The rest of us realize that nothing changes if nothing changes.  We don’t need another four years of a Democratic Presidency.  We need a new system, one not beholding to anything or anyone save to the people, all of the people.  

Post Debate Rant

The Republican Party

If there was ever any doubt that the Republican Party has dissolved in anything but a farce, last night’s debate should have remove that doubt.  That the field of candidates has whittled down to five left no doubt there is absolutely no substance whatsoever left in this once grand party.  Let us not forget that Lincoln rose from its ranks.  It is interesting that not one of the candidates would even allude to this icon of American politics.  Why, because it is now populated with charlatans and pretenders, scoundrels and fools?  It is a party that has subscribed to the basest of human emotions leaving no doubt that the path to their lofty mantle rest on the assumption that the electorate only wants more and more totalitarian practices and policies.

That it has come to this begs the question, why would a party dissolve into this anti American, anti Christian state?  Of course, to even postulate that question one assumes that this country is the land of the free and the home of the brave whose borders have always been open to the oppressed.  That a vast majority of Americans avow an unshakable belief in Christian principles merely underlines the importance of the aforementioned.  But alas, beliefs and actions often conflict with reality and history tells us this country is far from its ideals.  In fact, if one scans the public square, one often sees expressions of beliefs contrary to human decency let alone the American Principles.  Any doubt, googled recent KKK and neo Nazi photos.

That an entire party is about to be consumed by this malady of authoritarianism is a direct result of a concerted effort by a party to promote the basest of human motivations for the right to secure elections and the spoils that go along with a corrupt system of governance.  These Machiavellian saboteurs past and present have literally reduce the election process into a race to the cesspool of human endeavor.

It all began way back when a senile dimwitted actor got off his white steed, took off his black hat spray painted red white and blue and “aw shucked” his way into center stage.  Fact is Reagan’s brain was already beginning to unravel.   Both Nancy and Michael Deaver saw to it that he never answered a single question because his lack of knowledge on pretty much anything would be abundantly clear.  That he could perform well in debates and speeches, well, he was an actor, not a very good one but still an actor and besides a B actor was good enough for the American electorate.  You see, it is all about cadence and humor and of course a good smile.

To hear a Rubio cite the greatness of Reagan is to hear a boy talk about his father.  While it is admirable for a young boy to talk about his father, we must appreciate that admiration is not one based on anything but fealty.  Let us pluck a few ripe cherries from that Reagan legacy.  He made a deal with murdering fascists in South American and jihadists in Iran.  Under his watch one of this country’s embassies was destroyed.   His trickle down economics and deregulation began the great undoing of the middle class.  As if that wasn’t enough, he emptied the treasury to the military industrial complex.  And even more, his actions in the political realm let the worst of the south into the decision making.  Unbelievable, that any American would look at this president and conclude his term was anything but an unmitigated disaster.  Ironically, the things this group of candidates rail against are the things that Reagan did.   So much for knowing history and its value in not repeating mistakes.

In a world where success is measured by winning and only winning.  The Republicans began a systematic campaign to attack fact and science with beliefs and distorted religious teachings.   The Southern Strategy emerged showing that a solid block of racist states and few northern ones were enough to secure the brass ring.  The pandering reached epic proportions. Code word and outright attacks on civil liberties became the guiding principles.  Fear promoted misadventures and the military was all too ready to squander money and lives on death and destruction.  Democrats went along with this as well, seeing that it was only way to get their greedy hand into the spoils.  Republicans turned to the bigots who were ascending to pulpits and preaching hate to bolster their position with the electorate.  A grand confluence of opportunists produced the Moral Majority and then the Tea Party.   

But back to politics, there was a time, when the South was all in with the Democrats.   Why?  Well perhaps, it was Lincoln and the 13th Amendment.  Of course, there is only one thing to know about the South,   It loves history.  That that history is steeped in the abject debasement of life is really not a problem is it?  Well, look at the biggest obstructionists if not advocates for insane positions on science in our government and where they are from.  One thing for certain to be a modern day Republican you can’t be too smart nor too Christ like.  Let’s just drop Christian for that has come to mean something other than the Sermon on the Mount teaching.

The latest debate in this travesty of a primary demonstrated one thing about the Republican Party.  There isn’t even a scintilla of truth in anything any of the candidates have to say.  Carson comes out of his coma and utters phrases that seem to have been formed in his dream like state .  Suffice it to say it can be summarized fairly easily, I am a Christian and believe in beliefs.  Kasich is but another double talking new Republican who attempts to come across as a moderate and the rational one  who is anything but, preferring to swing the right wing ax of superficial efficiency while denying human rights while the Governor of Ohio.  Cruz, well, now there is a slimy duplicitous egomaniac whose only goal is to promote himself with the rhetoric of the Tea Party.  Rubio is whiz kid, that being Cheese Whiz, and a politician without substance, one wonders whose hands are making this puppet move about the political stage.  Then there is Trump, if you can’t figure him out, I suggest you watch re-runs of All in the Family and the Simpsons.

Trump the Savior

Trump the savior

Many will look at the title and turn their heads and wonder what the hell is this fool writing about.  Certainly, if there is one thing we have all learned is that Trump is about as deep as a rain puddle.  He is without a doubt a man without anything but an ego and a loud mouth.  He is all bluster, a clown who will say anything as long as the lights and the camera are on him.

He talks of being a businessman with the acumen of a savant.  He is little more than a silver spoon product of a magnate who happened to be a successful land owner in Manhattan.  In fact, there was one report if he had done nothing with all he had inherited, he would have more assets than he currently possesses.  He is nothing short of a product of a system that rewards wealth.  His TV show was perhaps the best example of how absolutely absurd this economic system has become.  The mixture of celebrities and silly enterprises was an excursion into banality.

That he could take that platform and bring it to the political circus shows that our country has fallen into the hands of idiots.  The irony is that his tribe of pampered rich assholes can be paraded in front of us after a primary election brings out just how gullible people are.  Can’t people see that not a single person in the Trump clan has any connection with the average American.  From his trophy wife to his children, they are all of a different class.  Look at their designer clothes, and the smiles upon their faces, while average schmucks, in their beer stained t-shirts and worn out jeans cheer and shout USA.  Trumps gave a few chorus, but stopped as soon as he began; his wife’s face was a picture of incomprehensibility and his daughter has an all too bored look.

But how can I postulate that this guy is a savior of this country.  First and foremost, he is so far out of the mainstream and possesses so much power, he can with bear like efficiency swipe at and destroy a dynasty of political icons.  Swipe! Bush is back in Florida looking for another brain dead victim to infuse his moral sense of absurdity.  He shouts down a Texan charlatan, in the vein of Elmer Gantry, and exposes his duplicitous if not nefarious tactics.  He takes on Fox News and throws Ailes and his operatives to the side.  Hell, he even takes on the Pope’s moral authority.  All the while the Republicans look at this Frankenstein and wonder if this is the devil demanding his due.  After all, they, the establishment Republicans, had sold their collective soul to get the masses to revere Ronald Reagan and allow one election to be stolen.  Of course, Cheney was the devil’s emissary promising to scorch the earth and promote hatred.  A job the devil himself looks on with some astonishment.

So hopefully Trump will so fracture this sad excuse of a party into two segment with someone like Bloomberg entering the fray in an attempt to bring some sense of morality back to a party that once choose Lincoln to carry its banner.  That was when the south and its bigots and slave owner flocked to the Democrats.  Of course, the Democrats soon brought change to the fetid states of bigotry and Nixon and then the rest of the greedy politicians began to pander to all those racists looking to keep people in their place and fly the flag of stars and bars.

So Trump can certainly fracture the party which is a good thing.  But the Democrats need to splinter as well.  A two party system is easily manipulated by moguls.  All the tycoons need to do is split their money.  Sort of like betting on two sides of a football game.  Meaning one doesn’t really care who wins because all that concession money goes to the operators.

It is time we have a far left, a center left, a center right, and a far right.  Then jerks like McConnell will need the support of rational people to hold on to his lofted seat.  Compromise between at least two or three parties will result in a system of government that was how ours was designed.  This current travesty of democracy lets a minority game the system.  Fools armed only with silly beliefs who promote hatred and ignorance prance about exercising their authority like bullies in the playground.  Trump can take the country to new arenas of compromise.  Surely something he could never fathom or even understand.  

Trumps KO's Bush

I am a liberal, no, a socialist.   Government exists to insure that its citizens have inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Regardless of what you have been told Capitalism doesn’t adhere to this fundamental principle.  Capitalism is about greed and exploitation.  If it were such a sterling example of good government, there would have been no need for Child Labor Laws, Social Security, Medicare or any other program that protects individuals from greedy bastards who will lock a door regardless if it would kill women workers inside their factory.  Any argument for less government offered by scoundrels on the dole of corporations is pure unadulterated bullshit.

That said, I cannot help but smile with some sick satisfaction that Trump is stomping his way through the Republican Primary.  For a long time, the scoundrels who drape themselves in flags and Bibles engaged in code words to signal their bigotry and outright disdain for the common man.  As for their ignorance, they were more than happy to shout it out to the masses who, like them, preferred to keep their head in the sand as to demonstrate a holy allegiance to some arcane thought that had long ago proven to be nonsense.  

That another Bush would come forward to run for the office, and to have the audacity to roll out his mother and brother demonstrates an arrogance that is truly unfathomable.  So Trump calls out his asinine and feeble attempt to garner favor.  The only Bush with a modicum of credibility is the old man but his connection with Lee Atwater puts him in a moral and ethical pit worthy of disdain.  That Trump would assail the Iraq War of W and Cheney is laudatory.  For too long Republicans have covered this most base ineptitude with a smoke screen that attempts to put the trouble of the Middle East on Obama while the real culprits either hide or blatantly offer revisionist history.  Oh, by the way, the same band of clowns and fool hardy neocons who were ankle deep in W’s incompetence are on Jeb’s team.

Rubio and Cruz are classic punks.  They speak as if they know when every utterance is steep in the bull that the new right has gleaned from the empty heads in the far right media.  To hear Rubio state Obama is basically not a true American is to listen to a fool, a first generation fool who can't even appreciate that benefit that accrued to him by immigration.  As for Cruz, well in this instance, Trump hit the nail on the head, no one likes this pompous duplicitous ass.  Not only he is a liar and a cheat, he is also a reprehensible pseudo intellectual who uses guile to demonstrate how viable he is as a candidate.  

So there you have it, Trump, the main event, is goose stepping his way to the nomination calling out the cabal of moneyed interest and double talking fools.  The effort to sell the collective Republican soul to the ignorant, the racist, the evangelical, is now coming full circle.  It is indeed a circular firing squad, and all I can say is “fire!”

Clinton as a Boxer

She stands oblivious to the toll time has taken on her credibility.  Never a popular politician, she somehow believes it is her time to ascend to the presidency.  She cites experience and “know-how” though all her credits can be read in a number of interpretations.  She says she can get things done, but here persona inflames the Republican party to a such a degree that if elected impeachment proceedings will probably begin the day of her inaugural.  On what grounds?  Does the disloyal opposition need a reason?  Not really, since the opposition proceeds forward on the flimsiest of evidence.  Needless to say gridlock follows.

But the Clintons soldier on citing all their concerns and the accomplishments of Bill, excluding, of course, a discussion of anything that may pin prick the bubble of dubious if not questionable ties to Wall Street.  The two of them Bill and Hillary stand center ring and swing wildly at any suggestion of Bernie Sanders.  Funny, this flaying is doing little but the tiring out and already tired effort to regain the White House.  Why?  Might I suggest that they are punch drunk on power.  They want what it because; they think they are entitled to it.  

Let me suggest, just like the aged boxer, the two have lost their ability to really think things through.  They can’t see that the Sanders campaign is a chance for the Democratic Party to infuse its ranks with those who have been loyal but have been sold a bill of goods in the form of cheap talk for bold ideas.  Obama rode into office on a wave of a super majority.  What we got was a watered down Health care with the insurance companies right in the thick of all transactions with their greedy hands on every dollar spent.  We got Bush’s war and the outright obscene expenditures on arms, we got Wall Street Wolves guarding the Hen House, and an Attorney General who was always anticipating his next job.  Where?  On Wall Street.  Discouraged?  You bet.  

That everything is better than when Bush left is testament to the fact that Republicans have nothing to offer the country other than bullshit, anger, fear,  and tax breaks for the wealthy.  The powers to be on the right sold their party out to bigots and ignoramuses.  That a buffoon can take the reins and run the chariot off the cliff is nothing less than poetic justice.  

Hillary would like us to believe she is one of the common folk.  That she and her husband have accumulated for than 100 million dollar is testament to how common folk can overcome their humble origins, provided of course, you can grease the skids for some slimy bankers and heads of states.  That this humble couple can visit their daughter in a ten million dollar apartment shows that public service is not such a bad deal.   What is behind all this accumulated wealth?  Hard work? It would take a village of hard working stiffs a lifetime and still they wouldn’t get there.

Hillary and Bill talk of Sanders’ campaign promises as too far fetch.  See Bill understands how important it is to deregulate Wall Street and promote Welfare Reform.  Hillary knows what it is like to talk to heads of state especially when they are connected with Bill’s foundation.  More importantly all she is offering us is more of the same.  If she thinks that she has a better chance of working with the disloyal opposition than Sanders, she is suffering from serious head trauma.

The key to reform this country’s body politic is to get more people involved in the election.  For too long the two party system has been whoring itself out to special interests.  Both sides curry the favor of the well heeled because money is the lifeblood of politics.  The country needs bold new leadership.  This business of big money guys sitting down with elected officials has resulted in nothing less than a corrupt system.  Only Sanders is talking about reform, revolution.  The rest don’t really want to change a system that they know how to play and win it.  

Time for the Clintons to throw in the towel and go away.  They certainly have enough money to do that in a style that common folk will never know.

Trump: The Monster Who Came Home to Roost

Trump: The Monster Who Came Home To Roost

It is ironic to see Fox News resort to outright name calling on someone of their making.  For years, they have peddled bullshit using glib bloviators.  The alternate reality they created permitted anyone from saying anything about nearly everything.  They have taken populism to a new low, though when it comes to American Politics that was no mean accomplishment.  Fact is, years of creating a false reality wherein every decent and effective attempt to bring reason to any political action or discussion was reduced to panels where to a one the participants were  bigoted shills advancing positions that were quite frankly Un American.  Of course, given the 1st Amendment the powers to be were shielded from any action.  Thus stupid anti scientific positions were pronounced as “reasonable alternatives”  to prevailing findings.  Sitting behind the screen of this charade was the wizard himself, Roger Ailes, who climb the ladder of success by working for Richard Nixon, a man who was steeped in the politics of bullshit.

Ailes is the man behind the scene --  often touted as a genius but perhaps more accurately describe as a manipulator, a prevaricator and a pawn in the Murdoch Evil Empire.  That Trump would challenge the authenticity of this sham of a news station is so karmic as to reaffirm one’s belief in “just deserts.”  Fox has enjoyed for the longest time its minions of “Know Nothing” politicians kowtowing to its every whim.  They parade before the camera spouting spin designed to reinforce in the mind of the great masses the outright misrepresentations and lies advanced by the station.  Day in a day out the noise is unending, from those with English accents telling us what is good for the economy to pompous bullies interrupting guests with their asinine bravado.  Blonde babes hired to better entice the testosterone deficient old men, not unlike the nudes in the British tabloids (Murdoch marketing ploy), who read the news and the ticker tape on Wall Street.  There are even black commentators who carry the water.  It was all so neatly designed to produce neo conservative policies -- cause the rich need their safeguards.

Enter “The Donald.”  The reference itself speaks to a blazing egocentric maniac.  A supposed billionaire, which is undocumented, stomps on the scene to “make America great again.”  At first, the wizard and his band of merry men aren’t worry.  Somehow one can hear the discussion that “he is not our candidate.”  Of course, having reigned over all those years controlling and fashioning news, one could almost understand their unwarranted delusion that Fox was in control.  But alas, the atmosphere created by this manipulator of news, that one could say damn near anything and have a large contingent believe, was ripe for someone to step in and take the reigns of this out of control team of wild horses.  The Donald was good at that, wasn’t he?  His popular reality show was an example of how gullible the masses were and hungry they were for entertainment.  That this bombastic, pretty much ignorant, buffoon could appeal to a Republican base is not surprising since that base were primed and treated to a daily barrage of bullshit.  Fox wasn’t worried in the beginning for they actually thought they had the power to determine who would be king of their mountain of crap.  They could for example hold a debate where the questions are designed to one promote the foolishness that they hold to be undeniable truths and two begin to cull the field to get “their” candidate ready to cajole the country into believing in red white and blue bullshit.  The blonde was dispatched to dismiss the interloper.  Then boom, the bombastic never filtered narcissist fired volley after volley of insults.  Rather than die an ignominious public death, the monster grew.  And like Frankenstein, he moved beyond the laboratory and flayed at all in site.  And his numbers rose to the chagrin of all those who supposedly “knew” what was best.  

Hopefully, this incident will be the beginning of the end for this erstwhile purveyor of hate and bullshit though it is unlikely given the American appetite for this type of nonsense.  Fox exists where ignorance prevails.  It grows where there is bigotry and hate.  It thrives on an audience who looks for affirmation of their biases.  Hopefully, it is a monster of their own making that will begin to crack their foundation of lies and misrepresentations.  It was reported that the Fox core audience is old white guys in advanced age.  Therein lies, perhaps, the ending for this farce.

 

A Naive Look at Economics

Wall Street or the Bullshit Economy

Let’s get this straight.  I am not an economist.  The closest I ever came to understanding this field was a reading of Veblen’s “Theory of the Leisure Class.”  From my observation, limited as it maybe, wall street is just another casino where scoundrels and thieves come to pursue gambles that make them obscene amounts of capital that allows them to pursue their personal fetishes.  It is a den of inequity.  Some modern works confirm this rather vulgar if not naive assessment.

It came to me how utterly useless this institution is when watching, briefly -- I can’t listen too long because my head would explode -- a financial news report that the market was going down and fears arising that the US economy and even the world economy would tumble.  Again, we await with bated breath while the brokers begin their frenzy.

The reason for this volatile situation.  Dropping oil prices, a slowdown in China and fear the Fed will raise interest rates.  For the average Joe like me this means absolutely nothing but for the first thing: dropping oil prices.  What?  The fact that I will be paying less at the pump will hurt the economy.  Why?  Because the oil scoundrels won't be making obscene sums.  I can understand the oil workers losing their jobs and all that but that condition can be remedy easily by having the “roughnecks” (I think that what they call oil workers) fix the crumbling infrastructure and roads of this country, maybe even laying tracks for a high speed rail system.  As for the oil companies and their shareholders, they can all go to hell.  They stolen enough.  

This is the modern world we live in -- a completely useless enterprise, Wall Street can through their own internal machinations dictate what the average joe’s life will be.  Interesting to a one, these wall street's moguls, don’t care about the average joe.  How else does one describe how they lied, cheated, stole, cajoled and generally raped the economy with their false instruments designed to do little but enrich their earnings.  Hell they even paid the auditors to sanction their lies.

This is why this election is so important because we have one person who is actually talking about the criminals and their actions.  Clinton is using some horseshit reference to 9/11 to justify her talking millions from bankers.  Really?  That is audacity that is beyond definition.  When a thug (that being a big banker) gives you money it is not because of some tug at the heart sadness over 9/11.  No, he wants protection for his scheme.

Another thing is to keep an eye out for in the insane world of bigness and oneness is abnormal growth in an enterprise.  It is a fact that anytime a corporation profits skyrocket into the economic stratosphere there is some type of fraud going on.  Case in point the beloved airline industry (or better described as the monopoly infused world of air travel).  The prices of the past decade rose precipitously because of rising oil prices.  That is how these thieving executives got to charge you for nearly everything dispensed on a plane.  How they got to charge for baggage and even put an added cost on the ticket for rising fuel prices.  Question is, have any these increase been done away now that oil has fallen?  Yeah right.  See once you open the door to a thief he won't leave till he takes everything or you arrest him.

There is a scam perpetrated by government and business that the stuff they concern themselves with are important.  For example, the GNP is a driving index in this economic game yet it only measures new goods which for the most part is shipped from distant shores and all of the crap comes wrapped up packaging -- much of it plastic -- to be carted away to landfills contributing to waste -- a big time waste.  This idea that only new counts is the magic wand of the capitalist that does nothing but pillage and cajole.  That capitalism is sacrosanct and needs to be preserved to insure all the benefits of freedom is unadulterated bullshit.  It is little more than a con game created by those who profit off of the labor of people and subject them to the tyranny of currency which makes them forever enslaved to the ruling class.  True freedom can only be achieved when no one profits more from labor than those who sweat produces it.  As for this period of ignorance when business was supposed to usher in the Golden Age, well we have seen the havoc wreck by this outdated belief on the environment and the world.  As for those who would argue that less government is the only way to true freedom, I suggest they order some water from Flint Michigan.