Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Amazon: the Oligarchs, not the Rain Forest

Amazon.com. under my microscope today.

 

First, read this article:

 

Now having digested the article (about a six-minute read), what does it say about Amazon's BUSINESS MODEL?

 

Amazon's business model is based on inflating huge HYPE balloons, primarily to keep the stock inflated, but then translating just enough of the concepts behind the gasbag-ideas to reality to keep the hype rolling.

 

Okay, so far. The auto companies have been known for this type of commerce for years, haven't they? They are still here, and they regularly trot out new models with lots of hype (Land Rover). Some of the new models are spectacular failures (Chevy Volt). Some are giant successes (Ford F-150).

 

So, the article says invest in Amazon shares and you won't lose money. End of story?

 

HELL NO!

 

This morning, the wiff was NOT watching Faux News as I stumbled into the kitchen to fire up my first cuppa joe, she was watching HGTV. I ignored the "Oh, Wow Show" as I call it and poured my cup of Life and started to sip the nectar. Time for ads, and an ad came on for a new medical service called "PillPack". They stole an idea from hospital pharmacies and went public with it. It's a good idea. They take all your prescriptions, pack them in a package of packages, and label each one well as to when the little envelope must be opened and the pills taken. Very useful when memory is fading. I had seen this ad for maybe six months. It now has an icon attached to it:

 

"PillPack.com is an Amazon company."

 

Back to my youth: I was a HUGE fan of Sci-Fi as a teen. In fact, it was the biggest thing in my life (not chicks, until I was about 17). A recurrent sci-fi theme in the Fifties was Oligarchy, or the planet being run by mega-corporations. Part of this was just-plain Communism, but part was intelligent warning. IIRCC, A.E. Van Vogt was big on this theme. Arthur C. Clarke as well.

 

Taking Amazon's plans out even farther than their hype-motor can power them, what do we see?

 

Amazon NOW has captured 49% of Internet commerce dollars. When they get much past 70-80%, they OWN commerce, just like in the sci-fi stories. When you OWN all the commerce, what do you get into next?

 

GOVERNMENT. You BUY Government! When you own Government, what do you do? You FORCE the folks to buy your products, that's what you do. We are just about there, my friends.

 

Still don't believe me? Ask China's President Xi Jin Ping about HIS "social credit" system. It fits Amazon.com to a "T".

 

That "T" stands for Trouble.

The USA vs the New World Order

(Same old conflict, different era)

Our Federal Constitution is anti-New World Order. By DESIGN.

 

When our Constitution was promulgated, there WAS a New World Order, the British Empire. Their Navy ruled the world's seas, their armies vanquished all they faced. It was His Majesty's Way or no way at all.

 

The Founders rejected the hegemony of the British Empire, formed a SEPARATE government with ELECTED, not ENTITLED leaders, and fought the King's armies to a standstill and ultimate victory at Yorktown.

 

The Founders did one more thing though. Knowing that Royalist feelings still ran high on these shores, and deducing that their new Popular government would eventually have to face Royalists again, the Founders gave that new American population the right to possess arms for DEFENSE AGAINST GOVERNMENT, should our Government try to go back to Royalism (the NWO).

 

The Second Amendment to the Constitution is NOT an anti-crime law, crime as we know it today was unknown in the Founders' day. The 2A was a check on the power of the Government, purely and simply. If that Government caved to the NWO, it was to be REMOVED. As such a bulwark, it was VERY anti-New World Order.

 

It still IS anti-NWO, and THAT is why the NWO, through all their proxies (D-Rats, Antifa, global Marxism in general), CONSTANTLY tries to weaken and remove the 2A.

 

This is just my opinion, but I do not believe we have budged the NWO on their opposition to the 2A at all. They will keep trying to remove it and grab all our guns, because they KNOW that they can't take over in this Nation until they do. Furthermore, following my logic here, the ONLY way the NWO will ever be defeated is like it was 241 years ago, on the field of battle.

 

Sorry to burst your bubble(s), but there is NO peaceful way out of this. We either face the NWO and defeat them utterly, or we accept them as our lords and masters and give up all our freedoms.

 

There is no middle ground that will work for us. It's us or them.

 

Shields up, double-front! We're going in!

We're at WAR, Mr. Trump, fight and win it for us!

Re: The Democratic Party: What you have here is a POLITICAL PARTY tying to overthrow the legitimate government of the USA with acts of force and violence. I don't know what YOU call that, but I call it WAR. The USA is at WAR with the Democratic Party and their sycophants, and the USA seems unable to properly fight back. THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE USA CONSTITUTION WAS NEVER INTENDED TO BE A COVER FOR REBELLION VS USA GOVERNMENT.

 

President Trump, the "shrug and hope it goes away" strategy has failed. For starters, the Democratic Party needs to be sued out of existance as a Racketeer-Influenced Corrupt Organization, and doing so would be a slam-dunk court case. If this fails to stop the Democrats, then bump it up: POTUS can, as the legitimate Head of State, declare in the United Nations that the USA is in a state of violent armed rebellion. POTUS uses Article 51 of the UN Charter for that (self-defense of members allowed).

 

If the riots, etc, persist, the President can call out the Militia, and order the Armed Forces to support it. Can you see Pantifa standing up against a Well-Regulated Militia trained and equipped to use deadly force and commanded by officers with ONE order only: Restore Order and end the leftist predations? I can't see that happening.

 

At some point, the POTUS will need to ask the SCOTUS to remove the jurisdiction of the lower Courts in favor of the Militia's use of the Universal Code of Military Justice during the Restoration period. Yes, that would be the dreaded "martial law", but the USA has already had Martial Law four times that I can read about in the History books: War of 1812, Civil War, World Wars One and Two, each time applied in varying degrees to keep the USA safe from it's sworn enemies.

 

It's WAR, Mr. Trump. It's not fun, it's not nice, but we have it now, deliberate WAR brought by the Democratic Party. Please, Mr. President, REMOVE THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY UTTERLY FROM OUR POLITICS, CULTURE AND MIDST.

 

We are close to having to rise up in our own counter-rebellion, start a Civil War and do the job ourselves. That would be ugly, and leftists from outside of our borders would probably try to get involved on the Democrats' side. Follow my plan to take out the Democrats, Mr. President, and you have no worries about exterior forces coming into play.

The FISA mess - a Long View

Long time no blog, so I will make up for that:

 

It is now apparent that the Obama Administration criminally interfered in an election to determine it's successor. It's unknown whether Obama himself was involved, but the optics aren't good. This conspiracy is nothing less than an attempted Coup D'Etat.

 

Now the USA faces a dilemma: do we go though the national angst, the sturm und drang, of flashy show trials to send a few of the worst malefactors to prison, or do we not, and just proceed with M.A.G.A.?

 

Are there any alternatives? Let's look.

 

Why can't the SCOTUS take this bull by the horns and on it's OWN MOTION, decide that the legal process it presides over was badly abused, and make the Court's own corrections, which would likely include Contempt citations?

 

It DOES seem fairly obvious that the Congress will do little, if anything, in the way of remedies. The GOP is badly split, with FAR too many of it's members habitually siding with the Left on these matters, and of course, since the Left ARE the bad guys in all of this, they can be expected to offer only a worsening of the situation.

 

President Trump, of course, is in command here, but Mister President, you need to SHOW us that you are in charge. Make a decision on the direction this is all going to go, implement your decision, and we will back you up.

 

The goals and method are simple here: the election system is badly compromised. The Left has done 98% of the compromising. The voter rolls must be purged of dead voters and illegal aliens, a better system of designing Congressional Districts MUST be put into place to prevent the Left's use of "gerrymandering", and while we're at it, we need to bring the entire voting system into the 21st century technically.

 

When these election reforms are done, the evil that is the Criminal Left is emasculated, and will no longer have the influence it does. Just an example: the rise of "dynasties" such as the Clinton Dynasty has to be ended. No one family is ever born with the genes to make them the perfect leaders, and that idea is sold by the Left with a whole lot of bullcrap when it has happened, most recently in the case of the Kennedys and then the Clintons.

 

I would favor a new set of term limits: One, each and only, six-year term for a President, and two, four-year terms for Senators and Representatives. I might even consider abolishing Standing Committees in the House and Senate, as they have proven that they are simply nests of vested political power.

 

This is NOT a shot at President Trump, but in present circumstances, I don't think we can actually Make America Great Again unless we permanently root out the criminal evil that is the entrenched political system. If that requires a Second Revolution, so be it.

A lesson for the Socialists

,,,if they will listen.

It's a time-honored lesson in European politics, but since the advent of the European Union, one which hasn't been seen much.

Part of Spain is seceding.

It's simply secession. Yep, in most political unions, some would say ALL political unions, there lies a process for breaking up a nation into subordinate parts. If the process is followed carefully, which it usually isn't, the parent nation has to go along, or get sanctioned by the larger union for breaking it's constitution. If the process isn't delineated in a political union, armed revolution will arise to serve as the process for political change.

This has happened before. World War One happened because the make-up of the Austria-Hungarian Empire, composed of smaller states allied under an Emperor. Some of the Empire's smaller states decided that they had had enough of Empire, and two of the populations rebelled (Serbia and Montenegro). In an attempt to hold everything together, the Austria-Hungarian military empire was stressed past the breaking point, and all the delicate treaties with the other Empires of the day fell apart, with the geopolitical situation devolving into war.

Democratic Socialism, as an organized movement, was born in the populist sweeping-aside of the old Empires of Europe. It has had a century to establish itself as the model of politics in Europe, but it has never gotten a popular hold on the Continent. The European Union, the Socialist super-government which was supposed to hold all the various Socialist nations together, has utterly failed to stamp out the nationalism of and in the individual countries, and the economic demise of several of the weaker members has accelerated the process of EU decline. Some members, such as Greece, are happy with cradle-to-grave Socialism and are determined to keep it, even at the cost of their economies, and some members, like Spain, seem to be okay with re-drawing the borders and letting the recalcitrant regions slip away.

Neither of these two approaches is logical. The smart play would be for the EU to hold a convention of members, agree to end the first Union, and draw up another. The Second Union would have to give new nods to member nationalism, and it would have to allow members to establish their own currencies again. The next Union would become more of an alliance than a super-nation which it is now. The Europeans are good at Conventions. They love to design them, hold them and will usually agree to be bound by their diktats, so an EU2 is easily doable.

Okay, that is the lesson for today, Students.

Here is your homework: prepare a short paper to compare and contrast the devolution process now underway in Europe, to the American political process. Opinions of conclusion are encouraged in your summaries.

Thank you for your attention in today's class.

Dismissed.

/the Perfesser closes his books, loosens his tie and sits back for his usual, enjoyable five minutes with the brighter students who hang around after lecture/

Trumped out?

For me, Donald Trump has been the "Anti-PeeCee", and that is his sole value as a candidate. Quite frankly, I care not if he ever gets to the GOPe primary, it's what he is accomplishing NOW that will make a difference. He is showing, without a doubt, that the GOPe base is fed up to here with the party acting like a bunch of Democrats, and being indistinguishable from them. Of late though, he has slipped a bit in the polls, most likely due to a decent performance by Carly Fiorina in the dee-bate last week. Carson is also up, and between Carson and Fiorina, both of them are trashing PeeCee mightily.

Political Correctness is nothing but thought control, and through thought control, speech control and behavior control. PeeCee depends for it's very existence as a concept on the idea that none of it's core precepts is ever challenged. Concepts such as the perceived "right" to take offence at anything and have that perceived offence translated into political action (or riot, which then must be overlooked regardless of the crimes involved), or political lying of the most blatant order (see the Climate Change death cult), none of which is ever challenge-able, you get the idea.

Our political system works if, and ONLY if, people are free to speak their minds, and when a political movement arises that runs against the very idea of free speech, that MOVEMENT MUST DIE!

Trump, Fiorina and Carson are killing PeeCee, bit by bit. Now, if we could only get the rest of the candy-dates to take up these cudgels, the GOPes might be able to present a real difference to the Left in next year's Election.

Buying Votes

Consider the title of this post. It describes what is going on in the current polarized stalemate between the Left and the Right. The Left wants to be able to continue Buying Votes, and the Right wants to stop that practice (at least untill they get into power, then it will resume, in a changed form). This stalemate is somewhat of a wonder to me, because despite having the Executive, the Judiciary and half the Legislative branches in their pocket, the Left can't break the stalemate.

Buying Votes.

Some History first:

When the Democrats first came into being as a political party, Andrew Jackson was their first hero, and, unarguably, the first President to run a corrupt Administration. Government favors were openly bought by anyone who could carry enough cash into the Official Residence. Those favors included military contracts, Federal jobs, Cabinet positions, pretty much the whole gamut. It was an open situation: anyone could buy favors from Andy Jackson's Administration. There was no attempt to hide it. It even got an historical name: the Spoils System. The only thing that has changed since is that whichever party is in power does it now, but in retrospect, the Democrats were there first, and have maintained the lead in creative ways to do corruption.

The current way to do the Spoils System is to fund "programs" with Federal cash. The creativity comes in when the "need" for a new program of Federal giveaway is proposed. Most of them are NOT needed, e.g.; there are other ways to help the unfortunate, compete for military contracts, etc, other than giving and receiving money, but, when you are as lazy as the politicians of both the Left and Right are today, you don't even bother to think up new ways - cash under the table always works. If you REALLY want to parse the definition of corruption, you divide it into naked corruption and dressed-up corruption.

For example, Naked corruption would be Clinton's giving away nights in the White House as an Official Guest to anyone who could come up with a half-million bucks for his campaign fund. Dressed-Up corruption would be "Immigration Reform", which proposes to make citizens of, and therefore eligible for Federal Welfare, some 12-17 million illegal aliens now hiding in this Nation. Of course, those illegal aliens are already being brainwashed to be "good" voters and vote Democratic, and if they ARE brought in with voting rights, we will have the same situation as from where they came from, a permanent, one-party Government for multiple generations. Think of the PRI in Mexico, another supposedly-democratic Republic.

Yes, it's all about Buying Votes. If you are a "competent-corrupt" leader, you accumulate cash like Clinton did, AND you twist Congress' arm into setting up programs to buy votes with Federal cash. An "incompetent-corrupt" leader like Nixon was or Obama is, will not be able to handle the mechanics of both naked corruption AND Dressed-up corruption.

We were smart enough to toss Nixon. Will we now be smart enough to toss Obama?

It won't be Obama's war

...when the Congress signs on to it with the open-ended Authorization for Use of Military Force.

It will be the USA's war, in Syria, and probably Iran. Russia will be involved too, maybe shooting, maybe not. They can REALLY put the screws to Europe by cutting off most of their natural gas, all in the face of what is predicted to be a very cold Winter. 

I still won't support this war.

WE WEREN'T ATTACKED

WE WILL STRENGTHEN OUR ENEMIES

WE WILL RUIN OUR ALLIANCES

THE "LIMITS" ARE PHONY

THE OBJECTIVES ARE FUZZY

VICTORY IS NOT EVEN PLANNED FOR THIS WAR.

The GMO "war" is genocide

The Left's most ardent "grass roots" movement, now that they have their grass, seems to be the fight against GMOs, Genetically Modified Organisms. In that group must go ALL the food grains and ALL the farm-raised animal protein, both livestock and fish.

Here's a clue for the Left, and their hippoids (combination of a hippie and a hemorrhoid) who are advocating to remove GMOs from the world's food supply:

There won't BE any food supply without GMOs.

That means famine. Planned famine is genocide. You anti-GMO whackos are advocating for genocide, same as if you advocate for tribal warfare in Central Africa, or Jewish Pogroms in the Middle East.

You people need to lower your anti-GMO banner NOW.

I'm not so sure that GMO isn't a Socialist stalking horse. The anti-GMO fanatics seem to want to make an apples-and-oranges argument by slipping into their GMO screed something about evil profit-making in agribusiness. Is this their REAL motive? Removing GMO seed grain or veterinary medicines to help livestock and farmed fish thrive doesn't seem acceptable on ANY level, so will they then just fall back to their pre-planned position and demand socialization of all agriculture?

Here's the Rivrdog position: Do you want all GMO food labeled as such? Easy. Just put a sign on the front doors of all grocery stores, "All food sold here is GMO, unless otherwise labeled" That accomplishes this boneheaded movement's goal, doesn't it? Even if you go into the most expensive vegan hippie food boutique, you will find they sell, at outrageous prices, almost all-GMO food, because there has been NO non-GMO seed produced for at least a century, save for a few small test plots that are hand-cultivated. Even if food is "organically-grown", it is still GMO because of the genetically-modified seed it was grown from. "Organic" does not mean "non-GMO".

The only food grains that are non-GMO are such grains that grow without cultivation in the wildland, such as millet or wild rice. Good luck on gathering enough of that to make into food for more than a handful of people. The Native Americans couldn't do it very successfully, and their population was ALWAYS limited by famine and starvation (until the white people limited it forever by disease and bullets).

Nope, the anti-GMO Movement (google that) is a Socialist farce, like the war on fossil fuel, which is in plentiful supply, but cheap energy promotes capitalism, and the Socialists can't have that, can they?

You must read...

Mike Reagan in Newsmax today. His message is like a shot over the bow for the GOPes. Essentially, he says that as un-organized as the GOP is right now, the Democrats could elect the Devil in 2016, and might just.

Go there and read. This article tells me it's time for some butt-kicking in the RNC.