The Bank of North Dakota has NOTHING to do with Socialism. If it did, then why wasn’t it copied freely back in the day when Socialist governments ruled half the world?

The BND was a creation of the Non-Partisan League. As such, it was a Populist idea. Of course, this is USA and people confuse Populism almost as much as they do Socialism. But Wall Street is right to worry about BND. It was invented by folks who hated Wall Street—something that cannot be said for most Socialists.

This one is hard—because far too many of us believe the BS that bankers have special skills that justifies their ridiculous pay scales.

The truth is that bankers as a group are easily the LEAST skilled, most over-rated folks in the economy. Folks who design computer chips and medical devices are smart. Folks who learn how to dress to please the boss and quote his favorite business rag are not.

Moreover, this bubble was in real estate. Since everyone except first-time buyers has an interest in rising real estate prices, you saw absolutely NO ONE who didn’t believe the real estate bubble was a fact of nature AND a sign of their own personal virtue. As Veblen once said, “The laws of the land were written in the interests of the petty real estate speculator.” Not much has changed.

Let’s get some historical facts straight. This guy is a Jesuit. This order was instituted to roll back the Protestant Reformation by any means possible—including burning them alive for heresy. They swear their allegiance to the Pope. They have long been considered the storm troopers of the church. But mostly, they have decided that the most effective way to run things is to educate the future leaders and get their ear when they gain power. They are MASTER schemers. A Jesuit who cannot discuss politics effectively isn’t much of a Jesuit. This reputation has kept a Jesuit from becoming a Pope until now.

Now let us assume that Bergoglio wanted to stand up to the Junta but was prevented from doing so by fear or expedience. This is certainly understandable for MOST of us who would rather not be tortured by pros who learned their skills of SOA. OK. So why hasn’t he cooperated with the mothers who are still trying to find out what happened to the children. They are the ones accusing Bergoglio of being complicit with the junta. After all, Bergoglio has no trouble finding his voice when it comes to criticizing Ms. Fernandaz-Kirchener.

Self-grow is critically important. With it, you will always have the possibility for boutique, farmer’s-market, microbrewry options. Otherwise, pot will eventually become the new Budweiser.

Besides, pot is one of the more amazing plants to grow. Pot growers risk becoming like the guys in the orchid clubs. And it is surprisingly difficult to do (of course, many of the problems come from is growing without good information, electrical constrictions, odor control etc.)

I am hoping to see the day when greenhouse supply houses have pot wings, and nursing homes have grow rooms for their patients who like to putter with plants and want to grow for their neighbors.

Time for “disaster capitalism” in reverse. Time to use this catastrophe to advance OUR agenda. I mean, this is the PERFECT opportunity to rebuild our shitty infrastructure. Call it “hardening our life support system” if you want to get all testosterone about it. Pick an easily identifiable symbol like wooden power poles and shout “Never again!”

And then spend the goddamn money. If all this costs $20 Trillion but also cuts our need for imported oil by 80% and reduces coal burning by 95%, while engineering a fell-employment economy, why in the name of…don’t we spend the freaking money?

Oh, I know, because we put the big financial decisions in the hands of dullards who believe their goal in life is to play games with video money. And in that crowd, H. Ross Perot was considered a deep thinker. And Ross was worried about the debt, so that’s what all the serious people in Washington now believe with the help of even “deeper” thinkers like Peterson. These guys are so stupid they make Jerry Falwell look like a philosopher king.

And we know there is no progressive alternative because we hear NOBODY in DC arguing that the freaking debt is irrelevant. Bring back Marriner Eccles. And yes, Eccles monetized the debt as Fed Chairman!

in 1862, when the US government was finally rid of those damn southerners, passed some of it most enlightened legislation in history including the Homestead Act and the Morrill Act. Now we in places like Minnesota get to subsidize the yahoos down south while we watch places like Texas take our hopelessly stupid textbooks and make them worse.

So while there MAY be a few progressives in Texas (and no, I don’t believe that 10 million estimate for one second) my political life would be MUCH easier if we could just lose the south. We would have single-payer health care. We would have MUCH better schools. But mostly, we could have a sane foreign policy.

If Texas and the rest of the south wants to leave the country, I have only one question—what can I do to help?

The USSR lost 300,000 in the Battle of Berlin fighting kids with WW I weapons. One wonders if the rumors aren’t true that the Germans really did invite USA in from the west to avoid some of the revenge they expected from the Red Army. As for the Brits, Montgomery was so inept, he made Doug Haig look like a military genius.

I often wonder what would have happened on D-Day if Von Paulus and the 6th Army had been in charge of the western defenses. My guess is that the Allies would have never made it off of Omaha Beach.

@ stewartm
Damn! If you are ever near Minnesota, let’s have lunch!

When I was finally beginning to get my arms around the history of the Great Patriotic War, the battle that just flat blew me away was the fight for control of Budapest. Here was a battle I had never even heard of and yet the USSR lost more troops in this “unknown” battle than the USA lost in all of WW II in both theaters.

I must also admit that I didn’t even know USSR had even been in WW II until I visited Leningrad in 1972. We were taken to this enormous cemetery where newly married couples came to lay flowers. We were there only about an hour and in that time, at least 50 couple showed up. I got back on the bus utterly determined to learn the real story of WW II. I feel like I have barely made a good start in the 40 years since then.

Thank you for this.

I must ask, what does the typical American you know do if you ever describe the Battles of Stalingrad or Kursk? I mean, considering what most folks believe about WW II, can they even imagine that such battles happened?

There is only one way to describe the historically illiterate—pathetic. People who don’t know history cannot understand their place in the world because they have left unchallenged their infantile notion that the world was fully formed when they achieved some sort of consciousness and they have no reason to understand why it is like that.

Of course, if you do know some history, you can spend your life looking at a lot of blank stares. Recently, I was at a party and I made the “mistake” of describing the 18-hour traffic jam that followed the 200th anniversary re-enactment of the Battle of Borodino on September 2. I thought it was an incredible story. My listeners actually asked me why I thought anyone would want to know this.

So while I applaud Stone and company for trying to raise the historical literacy of the typical American, I must ask after a long life of trying—why bother? This is a country where people are actually proud of their historical ignorance and have no intention of changing. It’s too much work and it makes them uncomfortable. And the fact that historical literacy allows them to actually think as an adult is not attractive AT ALL.

Norway is losing its mind.

Norway has for centuries been a land of miserably poor people hanging on for dear life to some of the colder rocks in the north. Now she is absurdly rich—thanks to North Sea oil. So now the new rich are busy trying to impress Europe’s old rich. Her citizens soundly rejected both EU membership and the Euro—much to the horror of the strivers who want into the various “clubs” of Europe. So this insane award is mostly a way for the “important” Norwegians to show their contempt for the “hillbillies” who are keeping them out of a club they dearly want to join.

The Norwegians were MUCH more interesting when they were poor!

Hey, it’s great fun to beat up on Witless Mitt, but Obama and Hillary are not exactly covering themselves in glory either.

This is from their prepared statements:

“It’s especially tragic that Chris Stevens died in Benghazi because it’s a city he helped to save. At the height of the Libyan revolution, Chris led our diplomatic post in Benghazi…he built partnerships with Libyan revolutionaries and helped them as they planned to build a new Libya,” Obama said in a statement.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also firmly denounced the attack: “How could this happen? How could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction?”

{sheesh}

I have NO problem with you folks who think the Democrats have become a nasty right-wing party. I agree. I also am old enough to remember when the Democratic Party was NOT like this at all. Yes this is Minnesota where Republicans used to be considerably to the left of, say, All Franken. So in my heart, I see a guy like Griego as a throwback to when Democrats were really Democrats. I understand he isn’t going to get support from the party bigwigs, but shouldn’t we support efforts to take our party back from the right-wing hacks.

Just asking.

I think we should make a VERY BIG POINT of letting the corporate Dems that we will not support them because they are evil heretics. Or something like that.