Stay Woke My Friend

Happy Mutt Day. Tell me that this little man, seen here with his best childhood friend, doesn’t look like he was destined to grow up to be a captain of industry.

I don’t know whether he did or not but can’t you picture him behind a solid wood desk, smoking a stogie? He looks as if he’d always be his own man, rolling the dice, calling the shots, running his business. Of course he’d be retired, or dead, by now which is probably just as well as you need to be “woke” in order to run a big business today. This little bloke doesn’t look the sort who would grow up to be “woke.”

Vivek Ramaswamy’s book explains everything you need to know about the new cynicism of business leaders which has led to the kind of crap you see everyday from Big Business: from their ads to their “mission” statements.

WOKE, INC. begins as a critique of “stakeholder capitalism,” it attacks the hypocrisy of corporations and their management teams and provides an informative and insightful analysis of the “woke” ideology.

Specifically, he explains why people like me are having such difficulty wrapping my head around this new woke business climate: it seems antithetical to everything I know about how business should operate. The simple truth is the “free market” economy we knew, believed in, worked under and defended simply doesn’t exist anymore. It has been replaced to a large extent by a government/corporate corruptocracy that we have precious little say in.

I don’t think Ramaswamy directly addresses how this happened but I can tell you. I watched its progression from the front lines during my “productive” years. It is the result of decades of progressive policies that corrupted businesses the same way it corrupted black families: via welfare programs. With business it began with special tax breaks that favored certain businesses. Tax breaks morphed into direct corporate welfare programs such as LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) that paid the utility bills of low income customers. Everyone from the recipients to energy companies CEOs and black activists lauded this taxpayer funded welfare program as a win-win so naturally such programs proliferated. Now we have government subsidies for agriculture, health insurance, solar panels, electric vehicles and everything in between that any large industry/corporation cares to hire enough lobbyists to “promote” to lawmakers. It’s legalized bribery and it’s destroyed the capitalist system. It should have been banned decades ago.

But that’s not really the focus of Vivek’s book. He’s concerned with shedding light on how cultural dogma is being used to fundamentally transform every sector of our lives; how the uneasy relationship between business and politics has been reformulated by “woke” companies who have figured out they can get richer from division than unity. As it turns out “get woke, go broke” is not the actual long-term outcome after all. If it were, companies would not be pursuing it. On the contrary, wokeness has remade American capitalism in its own image.

This new woke-industrial Leviathan gains its power by dividing us as a people. When corporations tell us what social values we’re supposed to adopt, they take America as a whole and divide us into tribes. That makes it easier for them to make a buck, but it also coaxes us into adopting new identities based on skin-deep characteristics and flimsy social causes that supplant our deeper shared identity as Americans.

In the end Ramaswamy’s book is intended to  offer hope for how America can reclaim her soul and identify a path back toward a more free and prosperous society. Of course people will actually have to read it, internalize it and act on it in order for that to happen. And that’s not terribly likely amongst our ruling class. They are too busy creating new welfare programs.

Soup Of The Day

It looks like we’re in for an all day rain.

While it still looks very much like summer it feels and - more importantly - smells of fall.

I would like to leave it at that as it is Sunday but too many other things are also assaulting my sense of smell,  as in “doesn’t pass the smell test.” Starting with the sitting President: his stench of sedition, treachery, criminality and corruption of the soul are becoming quite overwhelming. Not that anyone in the media would notice of course.

Bagram Lights Up – Chinese Military Land At Bagram Airbase Sources have just reported that the Chinese military has landed and occupied Bagram Airforce Base.

But it certainly does smell, and look like Joe Biden is a made-man: China’s made-man, in case that is not yet clear to the imbeciles who portent to tell us what’s going on in the world.

Not that it’s any of our concern; if it’s not concerning enough for the MSM to cover, why should we waste our time worrying? It’s not as if it that would explain why the sitting President appears to want to crash the country’s economy via ongoing labor shortages due to COVID restrictions while other countries – like Japan – are getting rid of all COVID restrictions in order to let their economy recover. It’s not as if overwhelming all social systems with illegal aliens and de-staffing hospitals by firing unvaccinated staff would play into China’s hands. It’s not as though further supply chain breakdown due to lack of dock workers and long-haul truckers due to COVID restrictions and/or handouts could cause civil strife when it reaches the point where food is in short supply. I mean, that’s not going to happen, right?

I don’t honestly know what to do about any of it so I think I’ll just make some soup.

But what kind? Chicken noodle? Mushroom beef barley? Loaded potato?

Nah. I think I’ll go with one of these:

Or maybe both.

Was It the FBI…Or A Sleeper Cell?

Does anyone even remember when the FBI was one of the good guys?

Whitmer Case Exposes Pattern of FBI Misconduct – wait, what? You mean the plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Whitmer from her cottage and leaving her adrift in the middle of Lake Michigan wasn’t masterminded by a bunch of backwoods hicks from Michigan? It was actually the brainchild of the FBI Brainiacs?

As the first shoe related to the FBI’s involvement in the breach of the U.S. Capitol dropped—the New York Times last week reported at least two informants tied to the Proud Boys were working with the FBI before, during, and after January 6—another high-profile case continues to expose the bureau’s corrupt role in what the government also considers an act of domestic terrorism: a concocted plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer from her vacation cottage in October 2020.

In fact, Joe Biden’s Justice Department has tied the two events together in an attempt to convince the public that right-wing militiamen, ostensibly loyal to Donald Trump, pose a looming threat to the country. In a recent sentencing memorandum for one man who pleaded guilty in the Whitmer case, government prosecutors wrote, “as the Capitol riots demonstrated, an inchoate conspiracy can turn into a grave substantive offense on short notice.”

Especially when at least a dozen FBI agents and informants take charge.

All of which makes one wonder: How is Tucker Carlson still alive?

I for one am shocked that Tucker Carlson is still alive. I cannot believe that Tucker Carlson has not "committed suicide" with three bullets to the back of the head.  I'm stunned that a drunk hit-and-run driver (who was never found) did not kill Tucker Carlson in a car crash near Carlson's home.  And I'm a little startled that child porn wasn't "just found" on Carlson's laptop.

In other words, I am very, very surprised that the Deep State has not taken Tucker Carlson out. 

It is indeed surprising that Tucker hasn’t accidentally come in contact with polonium. The very fact that we’re even discussing such a possibility points out how badly America has been tilted off its axis by a deeply criminal and corrupt Deep State, doing the work (real) Americans won’t do. At the rate we’re going, who even knows how much longer I’ll be “allowed” to print such things.

Perhaps I need to set up my own sleeper cell.

Welcome October

And all at once, summer collapsed into fall.  - Oscar Wilde

October runs hot and cold; sometimes as warm as a summer day in technicolor, other times gunmetal gray and stark. But mostly what we remember of October – indeed, what’s etched in perpetuity on our soul – is the glorious luminosity of its clear days, the rustle of crisp leaves on the wind and the musky-sweet smell of leaves piling up.

As sure as it is the end of summer it is the beginning of something new – winter. Whether you love it or hate it is beside the point, it begets a new year as our planet hurtles around the sun. God willing we will all be here to witness another great awakening come spring as miracles never seem to cease on this wondrous planet.

Here’s a minor miracle:

Sen. Bernie Sanders, standing outside Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office, told CNN that the infrastructure deal should be “defeated.”

The Vermont senator also railed on tonight's late-night dealmaking effort.

"It is an absurd way to do business, to be negotiating a multi-trillion-dollar bill a few minutes before a major vote with virtually nobody knowing what's going on. That's unacceptable. And I think what has got to happen is that tonight, the bipartisan infrastructure bill must be defeated," Sanders said. - CNN

Imagine that: we no longer have to pass a bill in order to find out what's in it.  

I do declare, that requires a sit-down to contemplate.

Throwback Thursday

A Throwback Thursday challenge:

Fill in the blanks: “If (blank) were a fish, I’d throw (preferred pronoun) back.” Can be either a person or an inanimate object, or both, as in “If Biden were a fish I’d throw it back.” You can also choose a specific site to throw it back, e.g. the swamp, sewer, shark-infested waters, etc.

And to get you in the mood why not start throwback Thursday off right with some coffee and a proper laminated pastry, in this case a croishark.

It looks like somebody had way too much time on their hands during the lockdown.

OK Pepperidge Farm, the ball is in your court. You’ll need to raise the cuteness level a bit to win this round.

Good luck!

Chicken Feathers Wednesday

  

After you’ve enjoyed your chicken, here’s some food for thought from the great Victor Davis Hanson: The Symptoms of Our Insanity.

What explains these insanities that are insults to the people’s intelligence? Did Americans go mad because of the perfect storm of COVID-19, the quarantine, recession, riots, looting and arson of 2020, the wild November election, the post-election hysterias and riot, and the Biden-socialist Faustian bargain?

Or do these symptoms of long-standing illnesses arise from the media and university, where the twins of incompetence and ideology ruined the critical consciousness of an entire generation of young minds?

Or is the culprit the affluent, bicoastal woke professionals, who, as both narcissists and projectionists, feel the consequences of their own ideology should never apply to themselves, while fobbing off their own sins onto others as a way of squaring the circle of their own illiberality?

Squaring the circle? They were told there would be no math! This is so unfair. If it all makes your head hurt you may be in need of even more emotional support. Thankfully there’s an enormous bucket for such days.

Jolliebee: providing giant buckets of emotional support for over 40 years.

Taco Tuesday: Health Danger?

Is it just me or does anyone else share my fear of street tacos?

The authorities assure me they are not a menace to my health so perhaps my fear is irrational. Nevertheless,   I find them scarier than COVID, and so far there’s no vax to protect us from them and masks don’t work.

But perhaps we could, oh, I don’t know…build a wall?

This Week Is On You…

We are headed into a week of fair weather and pleasant temperatures. As I have many tasks that require my attention I’m using this fine week to tend to them. That means open thread days for much of the week.

Please carry on in the manner to which you’ve become accustomed and I’ll check in as I can.

If you cannot be the stone then be the ripple…or the reflection