Henry Ford, for all his faults, once stated that he needed to pay his workers enough that they would be able to buy the cars they manufactured. I guess globalists thought such laws don’t apply when you ship the jobs to a foreign land.

Now I hear people say that a cheaper dollar will make American products more competitive to foreign buyers. Who exactly is going to buy these “cheaper” American goods? Some Chinese guy earning $2 a day? Now out of a job because there’s an ongoing depression in the United States?

Rather than bring the rest of the world’s workers up to some sort of decent living standard, global financial players and manufactuers raced toward the lowest common denominator: workers earning slave wages, receiving no benefits, toiling in unsafe conditions, exploited to produce a bunch of cheap disposable products then sold in our big box stores.

Read and weep.

Consider two turkeys. One is a wild turkey, part of a flock that lives in our pecan bottom along the banks of the Guadalupe River. She finds food, shelter, water, protection from predators and all the other things she needs to survive in her environment.

The second turkey lives across the road, not more than a mile from the first, in a house full of domestic turkeys being fattened for market. This turkey has a roof over her head, climate controlled air, is never too hot, never too cold. Food and water is automatically dispensed at all hours of the day and night for her consumption. The walls keep predators at bay.

I've created a new blog site. A first for me.

Not much there at the moment, but there will be as time goes by, good Lord willing.

A few weeks ago, I watched Ryan Bingham play Whitewater Ampitheater near New Braunfels. General admission tickets were $10, preferred seating tickets $20. I opted for preferred seating.

When we arrived, the crowd was much smaller than I anticipated. A bouncer checked our wristbands and let us into a small roped-off pen of sorts near the stage. We took our seats and watched as Johnny Burke performed an opening set. I remember the days when Johnny hustled empty beer bottles at Gruene Hall. Somewhere along the line, he grew into a handsome young man.

Then Sean McConnell took the stage. The crowd began to swell. By the time Sean finished his set, a growing mass of people strained at the ropes that kept them at bay. I surveyed the group of people in the preferred seating area. Nearly all of us were ageing boomers. Only half the seats were taken; there may have been fifty of us within the ropes; the rest of the chairs remained empty. The rows were well-spaced, providing ample room for us to stretch our legs. Most of the people behind the ropes were young, Ryan’s age or younger, and I’d guess there were a thousand or more of these. They stood, packed tightly together, vying for a place where they could see their favorite son.

I debated whether I should go see Dustin Welch and Sean McConnell play tonight at Sam's Burger Joint in San Antonio.

Dustin, I've written about; Sean, I recently discovered at Ryan Bingham's last foray through these parts. The dude is impressive. I count Dustin and Sean among the best young guns in the business; getting both for one ticket near irresistible.

But the show does fall on Sabbath eve and I don't like being out at that hour. Never can tell what might happen to a fellow. So KNBT announces two free tickets to the fifth caller this morning to the fifth caller. I decide. If I win, I'm going.

Sean Paul Kelly asked a number of Agonist readers to predict what the world would look like in 30 years. I am hesitant to comply. For me, to predict events in the future is to prophesy. To prophesy incorrectly makes one a false prophet. So I am very cautious with even the simplest statements regarding the future.

I rarely say I will do anything tomorrow without adding, good Lord willing, as a qualifier.

To be honest, I have had mental images, glimpses if you will, of events I think may be part of this country’s future and they are quite scary. I don’t know if these images are divinely inspired or just creations of my own mind.

Opens today.

NY Times review.

In case you missed it, video after the jump.

Educate yourself.

Mike Ruppert is distancing himself (or trying anyway) from the 9-11 "truth movement", despite the fact that he wrote a book (Crossing the Rubicon) that laid out a scenario of means, motive and opportunity that points in the direction of a false flag event.

I understand his position. And I am glad to see him do this. We've more important matters at hand. Here. Now.

While we're at it, I'm distancing myself from the legalize drugs so we can all get high and save the economy movement.

Damn these guys are good. At fucking us over, that is. Remember when the public rose up and rejected the TARP bail-out? Congressmen were flooded with calls, did their duty and voted against the bill. Then the propoganda machine went to work. A few meaningless concessions were made, the bill was repackaged and passed.

Not only are you going to eat shit, you're going to like eating shit. Got it?

Now it appears Ron Paul's audit the fed bill is doomed to similar fate. Congress can't ignore public outcry for tranparency so they're busy removing teeth from the bill. They'll pass some meaningless drivel that allows the powers that be to continue fucking us over and claim victory on behalf of the American public.

Ain't democracy wonderful?

Earlier this week, Ed Vulliamy of the Guardian came up for air after a number of months of immersion in the Mexican border scene. Julian Cardona, a mutual friend, suggested that he visit me. I suppose Ed figured I might provide additional insight into the murky world of Mexican gangs, violence and drugs, but he knows more details about the current wave of madness than I would. And, this is a subject of which I am tired of addressing. Drugs, violence and the rest of that crap are symptoms of the disease, rather than the cause, although at some point all of these contribute to each other in a seemingly endless feedback loop. The drug trade doesn't exist in a vaccuum.

I came across an article via Matt Savinar's Peak Oil breaking news page called America's soul is lost. For those that say capitalism is dead. Things are going to get one hell of a lot uglier before the final throes. And I shudder to think about what waits on the other side. Here's a little anecdote closer to home, from my diary.

The Saga of Lolo

October 26, 2009. Once again I have failed to stay current on this diary of sorts. Today’s a Monday. It’s raining again. We got about 3,000 bales of good horse quality hay cut, baled and stacked in the barn between waves of rain. But I have fifty acres of hay grazer on the ground here at Belmont and today is the second rain we’ve had since we got it cut. I also have coastal grass cut down at Gonzales and grass on the ground at Seguin and all of it is soaking wet.

Four horses stand in a trap with no shelter, rumps to the cool north wind. Fifty degrees isn’t cold to a horse, but fifty degrees with wet and wind is cold to just about any warm blooded mammal. I need to build a walk-in shelter. I have stalls I could put them in but the forecast calls for clear weather by morning, so they’ll just have to tough it out. As it stands the cows have access to the one small shelter available and this is where I milk Smiley. There’s no good way to allow access to the horse and the cows at the same time and I’m not inclined to sit out in cold wet weather while milking a cow. I don’t think most people want to drink milk mixed with brown water dripped from a cow's hide. I know I don’t.

continue reading after the jump

I have free weights, a squat rack and a bench press in a stall of a horse barn near my house. As recently as five years ago, I competed in powerlifting competitions. But I haven’t lifted weights with any regularity in the five years since and haven't lifted a barbell at all in over two years. We have a mirror in the house, now that we got moved in, and I made the mistake of looking at a reflection of my naked ass the other day. Not a pretty site, I’ll assure you.

And then a couple of hands had a throw down the other day and I got to thinking the day might come, once again, when I’m faced with a physical confrontation. I’m of the school of thought that being physically prepared for conflict is in and of itself a deterrent to getting in fights. I don’t want to be in a fight; sometimes fights find me.

OK. So if you watched Alex Jones' movie and have relegated me to the trash bin for having brought it to your attention, here's a trailer from a soon to be released film that's much more in line with my thinking.

That won't provide much in the way of salve to your wounds with some of you. But neither would what I believe.

Mike Ruppert does believe humans have affected our climate, that we have depleted half of the world's oil, and that getting rid of a few elitist bad guys won't fix the world's problems. Movie trailer after the jump.

I don't figure I'll endear myself with the editors or the viewers this site with the following post. But I'm not here to make friends. Last night I watched Alex Jones most recent movie at youtube. Fall of the Republic is a hard-hitting wide-reaching film documenting the demise of our nation. I don't agree with all of Jones' points, in particular, those concerning climate change.

Nonetheless, good points raised in this film outweigh points of contention to the degree that I think it worthy of your time.

Watch it here for free.

Here.

Have you had it with the scams, frauds, "mark to myth" and lies?

Tired of this sort of garbage - being punished for being responsible?

You may believe that your exemplary behavior shields you from unexpected credit card fees. Sadly, that is no longer the case.

You can stop it.

Yes, you.

All 330,000,000 of you.

Here's how.

Go withdraw all your money and business from the following institutions:

Bank of America
Wells Fargo/Wachovia
Citibank
JP Morgan/Chase

Those four.

Place your business with a local community bank or credit union in their place, and tell the above four institutions to "piss off."

I've resisted doing this, but the idea that banks are now going to try to penalize those who do not carry balances or pay late fees is the last straw.

This is a call for a boycott.

I quit doing business with those guys a long time ago. Read the rest at the link

I turned on Good Morning America. Diane Sawyer began an interview with Karl Rove with the following words: We all know that almost one in ten Americans is currently unemployed…

Excuse me? I know no such thing. John Williams of Shadowstats.com says the unemployment number is over 20% when calculated by the method employed previous to Bill Clinton. That’s one in five Americans, not one in ten. Even the government’s own U-6 figures now list the number at 17%. And they under-report the fact.

Your statement excluded tens of millions of people, real people with bodies needing food, water and shelter. They have bills to pay, kids going to school, health issues. Your statement is a lie. The question is: Do you know that you told a lie? Or do you just read the words you are given without question?

Leah and I went to see Michael Moore’s movie about Capitalism last night in Austin. As you might expect, the movie will not be showing in small town Texas. Attending the show became worthy of a story in and of itself. We arrived late but were able to park near the entrance to the 14 screen theater complex because there were almost no cars in the parking lot. A single security guard stood in front of the facility; he looked to be a bored off-duty policeman earning a few bucks on the side. A sign at the ticket booth said, buy tickets inside.

All but one set of doors at the entrance were locked. Two employees stood behind the refreshment counter. One sold us tickets and then moved over to sell us popcorn and a soft drink. Between the cost of admission and our refreshments the toll came to $37.

Saturday evening, October 11, 2009.

I came across an article written by Richard Heinberg today called Dilemma and Denial. Richard articulated things I’ve been feeling but couldn’t quite address. I’ve grown disgusted with arguments of both the left and the right, simply because they spend all their time pointing fingers at each other, arguing over minutia while we are headed into a serious time of crisis and the real issues killing us aren’t even allowed on the table.

Being an ex drug addict, I know that the first step in changing is an honest evaluation of your situation. Where are you? Why are you here? How did you get here?

Lying pieces of shit:

Denninger.

Ilargi.

Once again, James Howard Kunstler has written an insightful piece describing the condition of our condition.

Read it here.

Wonder if that's far enough removed to no longer be considered incest? (Just kidding of course. Kinda. Great grandma was hot.)

From the automatic earth, a real look at our economic situation.

More from Denninger, here and here.

Here’s the numbers. I sent five men out into the field. They harvested 16 cabbage sacks of fresh green black eyed peas. I paid each of the five $60 for their effort. The men harvested the peas as I directed—the way we would harvest them for home consumption—mostly semi-ripe peas for shelling with an occasional snap or green pea in the mix. $60 X 5 = $300.

I'd been told that fresh black eyed peas are selling for $28/bushel. But they’re not. They’re selling for $28 per cabbage sack and right on the sack it says each bag contains 1-3/4 bushel by volume. $28 a sack is what vendors at the produce stands in Luling sell them for. They pay $24 per bag from a man in San Antonio. My guess is that those peas come from Mexico where labor is cheaper. And the men at the produce market rarely if ever sell a whole bag at a time. They’d make no money if they did.