Curious Carl's Corner

That goes back to the old adage from the Jesuits: and I paraphrase,   "Give  us a child from the cradle to age 12 and no matter where, or how far  they  wander they will always return to Mother church. "  Claude Everett  "First of all:  what is work?   Work is of two kinds:    first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface  relatively to other such matter;   second, telling other people to do so.    The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and  highly paid."  >From The collection of essays "In Praise of Idleness" by Bertrand Russell      -----Original Message-----  From: blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org  [mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org] On Behalf Of ted chittenden  Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 7:42 PM  To: Blind Democracy Discussion List  Subject: RE: Dick Cheney: Son of the New Deal    Claude:  The situation is actually more complex, because while many children rebel  against their parents, not all of them stick with rebellion. In fact, most  children, though they seldom recognize it, wind up behaving as their parents  did when the younger ones reach their parents' age. The whole truth is that  most people ultimately don't leave the boxes in which they were raised,  despite any youthful indiscretions and rebellions that may have taken place.  --  Ted Chittenden    Every story has at least two sides if not more.  ---- Claude Everett <ceverett@dslextreme.com> wrote:   That is one good reason that liberals should not have many children, and  conservatives should!       Claude Everett  "First of all:  what is work?   Work is of two kinds:    first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface  relatively to other such matter;  second, telling other people to do so.    The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and  highly paid."  >From The collection of essays "In Praise of Idleness" by Bertrand Russell      -----Original Message-----  From: blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org  [mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org] On Behalf Of Miriam Vieni  Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 6:47 PM  To: 'Blind Democracy Discussion List'  Subject: RE: Dick Cheney: Son of the New Deal    See, kids revolt. And your kids are to the right of where you are  politically, as are mine. But my parents were basically FDR Democrats and if  we still had an FDR, so would I be.    Miriam     ________________________________    From: blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org  [mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis  Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 9:25 PM  To: Blind Democracy Discussion List  Subject: Re: Dick Cheney: Son of the New Deal      My dad came from a Bible Thumping den of Republicans.  His mother dragged  him to church by the ear.    He joined the Communist Party, proclaimed he was an Atheist, and went forth  to organize workers.       Carl Jarvis    	----- Original Message -----   	From: Miriam Vieni <mailto:miriamvieni@optonline.net>    	To: 'Blind Democracy Discussion List'  <mailto:blind-democracy@octothorp.org>    	Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 2:44 PM  	Subject: RE: Dick Cheney: Son of the New Deal    	Well, many of the neo cons came from leftist families. You know,  kids rebel  	against their parents.  	  	Miriam   	  	-----Original Message-----  	From: blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org  	[mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org] On Behalf Of ted  chittenden  	Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 5:24 PM  	To: Blind Democracy Discussion List  	Subject: Re: Dick Cheney: Son of the New Deal  	  	This is about as ironic as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence  Thomas' votes  	to dismantle affirmative action when affirmative action helped him  get where  	he is today. I wonder if in both cases the movement to the right was  a  	reaction to their parents' support of leftist political ideas.  	--  	Ted Chittenden  	  	Every story has at least two sides if not more.  	---- Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:   	   	Parry writes: "It is ironic that as an adult, Cheney has contributed  as much  	as almost anyone to dismantling the New Deal, the social compact  that pulled  	his family into the American middle class and opened extraordinary  	opportunities for him."  	   	Former Vice President Dick Cheney speaks about national security in  	Washington, 05/21/09. (photo: Reuters)  	   	  	Dick Cheney: Son of the New Deal  	By Robert Parry, Consortium News  	20 August 12  	 Former Vice President Dick Cheney would agree that he is about as  	right-wing as an American politician can be, openly hostile to the  federal  	government's intervention in society. But one surprise from his  memoir, In  	My Time, is that Cheney recognizes that his personal success was  made  	possible by Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and the fact that Cheney's  father  	managed to land a steady job with the federal government.  	"I've often reflected on how different was the utterly stable  environment he  	provided for his family and wondered if because of that I have been  able to  	take risks, to change directions, and to leave one career path for  another  	with hardly a second thought," Cheney writes.  	In that sense, Cheney's self-assuredness may be as much a product of  the New  	Deal as the many bridges, dams and other public works that Roosevelt  	commissioned in the 1930s to get Americans back to work. By  contrast, the  	insecurity that afflicted Cheney's father was a byproduct of the  	vicissitudes from laissez-faire capitalism.  	So, it is ironic that as an adult, Cheney has contributed as much as  almost  	anyone to dismantling the New Deal, the social compact that pulled  his  	family into the American middle class and opened extraordinary  opportunities  	for him.  	In sketching his family's history, Cheney depicts the hard-scrabble  life of  	farmers and small businessmen scratching out a living in the  American  	Midwest and suffering financial reversals whenever the titans of  Wall Street  	stumbled into a financial crisis and the bankers cut off credit.  	After his ancestors would make some modest headway from their hard  work,  	they would find themselves back at square one, again and again,  because of  	some "market" crisis or a negative weather pattern. Whenever there  was a  	financial panic or a drought, everything was lost.  	"In 1883, as the country struggled through a long economic  depression, the  	sash and door factory that [Civil War veteran Samuel Fletcher  Cheney]  	co-owned [in Defiance, Ohio] had to be sold to pay its debts,"  Cheney  	writes. "At the age of fifty-four, Samuel Cheney had to start over,"  moving  	to Nebraska.  	There, Samuel Cheney built a sod house and began a farm, enjoying  some  	success until a drought hit, again forcing him to the edge. Despite  a solid  	credit record, he noted that "the banks will not loan to anyone at  present"  	and, in 1896, he had to watch all his possessions auctioned off at  the  	Kearney County Courthouse.  	Samuel Cheney started another homestead in 1904 and kept working  until he  	died in 1911 at the age of 82.  	His third son, Thomas, who was nicknamed Bert (and who would become  Dick  	Cheney's grandfather), tried to build a different life as a cashier  and part  	owner of a Sumner, Kansas, bank, named Farmers and Merchants Bank.  But he  	still suffered when the economy crashed.  	"Despite all his plans and success, Bert Cheney found that, like his  father,  	he couldn't escape the terrible power of nature," Dick Cheney  writes. "When  	drought struck in the early 1930s, farmers couldn't pay their debts,  	storekeepers had to close their doors, and Farmers and Merchants  Bank went  	under. ... My grandparents lost everything except for the house in  which  	they lived."  	Bert Cheney's son, Richard, ventured off in a different direction,  working  	his way through Kearney State Teachers College and taking the civil  service  	exam. He landed a job as a typist with the Veterans Administration  in  	Lincoln, Nebraska.  	"After scraping by for so long, he found the prospect of a $120  monthly  	salary and the security of a government job too good to turn down,"  his son,  	Dick Cheney, writes. "Before long he was offered a job with another  federal  	agency, the Soil Conservation Service.  	"The SCS taught farmers about crop rotation, terraced planting,  contour  	plowing, and using 'shelter belts' of trees as windbreaks -  techniques that  	would prevent the soil from blowing away, as it had in the dust  storms of  	the Great Depression. My dad stayed with the SCS for more than  thirty years,  	doing work of which he was immensely proud.  	"He was also proud of the pension that came with federal employment  - a  	pride that I didn't understand until as an adult I learned about the  	economic catastrophes that his parents and grandparents had  experienced and  	that had shadowed his own youth."  	Like many Americans, the Cheney family felt it had been pulled from  the  	depths of the Great Depression by the New Deal efforts of Franklin  	Roosevelt, cementing the family's support for the Democratic  president and  	his party.  	"When I was born [on Jan. 30, 1941] my granddad wanted to send a  telegram to  	the president," Cheney writes in his memoir. "Both sides of my  family were  	staunch New Deal Democrats, and Granddad was sure that FDR would  want to  	know about the 'little stranger' with whom he now had a birthday in  common."  	After growing up in the relative comfort of middle-class, post-World  War II  	America, Dick Cheney would take advantage of the many opportunities  that  	presented themselves, attaching himself to powerful Republican  politicians,  	most notably an ambitious congressman from Illinois named Donald  Rumsfeld.  	When Rumsfeld left Congress for posts in the Nixon administration,  he  	brought the hard-working Cheney along. Eventually Rumsfeld became  White  	House chief of staff to President Gerald Ford and - when Rumsfeld  was tapped  	to become Defense Secretary in 1975 - he recommended his young aide,  Dick  	Cheney, to succeed him.  	Cheney's career path through the ranks of Republican national  politics, with  	occasional trips through the revolving door into lucrative  private-sector  	jobs, was set. He would become a major player within the GOP  Establishment,  	establishing for himself a reputation as one of the most  conservative  	members of Congress and a foreign policy hawk.  	Now in his 70s, Cheney is widely recognized as a right-wing  Republican icon,  	inspiring a new generation of conservatives to dismantle what's left  of  	Roosevelt's New Deal and shrink the federal government.  	It doesn't seem to matter that those were the two social factors  that  	created "the utterly stable environment" which gave Dick Cheney his  chance  	in life.  	  	________________________________________  	Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for  the  	Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, "Neck Deep: The  Disastrous  	Presidency of George W. Bush," was written with two of his sons, Sam  and  	Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books,  	"Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to  Iraq"  	and "Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth'"  are also  	available there.  	  	Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not  valid.  	   	Former Vice President Dick Cheney speaks about national security in  	Washington, 05/21/09. (photo: Reuters)  	  http://consortiumnews.com/2012/08/20/dick-cheney-son-of-the-new-deal-2/http:  	//consortiumnews.com/2012/08/20/dick-cheney-son-of-the-new-deal-2/  	Dick Cheney: Son of the New Deal  	By Robert Parry, Consortium News  	20 August 12  	ormer Vice President Dick Cheney would agree that he is about as  right-wing  	as an American politician can be, openly hostile to the federal  government's  	intervention in society. But one surprise from his memoir, In My  Time, is  	that Cheney recognizes that his personal success was made possible  by  	Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and the fact that Cheney's father  managed to  	land a steady job with the federal government.  	"I've often reflected on how different was the utterly stable  environment he  	provided for his family and wondered if because of that I have been  able to  	take risks, to change directions, and to leave one career path for  another  	with hardly a second thought," Cheney writes.  	In that sense, Cheney's self-assuredness may be as much a product of  the New  	Deal as the many bridges, dams and other public works that Roosevelt  	commissioned in the 1930s to get Americans back to work. By  contrast, the  	insecurity that afflicted Cheney's father was a byproduct of the  	vicissitudes from laissez-faire capitalism.  	So, it is ironic that as an adult, Cheney has contributed as much as  almost  	anyone to dismantling the New Deal, the social compact that pulled  his  	family into the American middle class and opened extraordinary  opportunities  	for him.  	In sketching his family's history, Cheney depicts the hard-scrabble  life of  	farmers and small businessmen scratching out a living in the  American  	Midwest and suffering financial reversals whenever the titans of  Wall Street  	stumbled into a financial crisis and the bankers cut off credit.  	After his ancestors would make some modest headway from their hard  work,  	they would find themselves back at square one, again and again,  because of  	some "market" crisis or a negative weather pattern. Whenever there  was a  	financial panic or a drought, everything was lost.  	"In 1883, as the country struggled through a long economic  depression, the  	sash and door factory that [Civil War veteran Samuel Fletcher  Cheney]  	co-owned [in Defiance, Ohio] had to be sold to pay its debts,"  Cheney  	writes. "At the age of fifty-four, Samuel Cheney had to start over,"  moving  	to Nebraska.  	There, Samuel Cheney built a sod house and began a farm, enjoying  some  	success until a drought hit, again forcing him to the edge. Despite  a solid  	credit record, he noted that "the banks will not loan to anyone at  present"  	and, in 1896, he had to watch all his possessions auctioned off at  the  	Kearney County Courthouse.  	Samuel Cheney started another homestead in 1904 and kept working  until he  	died in 1911 at the age of 82.  	His third son, Thomas, who was nicknamed Bert (and who would become  Dick  	Cheney's grandfather), tried to build a different life as a cashier  and part  	owner of a Sumner, Kansas, bank, named Farmers and Merchants Bank.  But he  	still suffered when the economy crashed.  	"Despite all his plans and success, Bert Cheney found that, like his  father,  	he couldn't escape the terrible power of nature," Dick Cheney  writes. "When  	drought struck in the early 1930s, farmers couldn't pay their debts,  	storekeepers had to close their doors, and Farmers and Merchants  Bank went  	under. ... My grandparents lost everything except for the house in  which  	they lived."  	Bert Cheney's son, Richard, ventured off in a different direction,  working  	his way through Kearney State Teachers College and taking the civil  service  	exam. He landed a job as a typist with the Veterans Administration  in  	Lincoln, Nebraska.  	"After scraping by for so long, he found the prospect of a $120  monthly  	salary and the security of a government job too good to turn down,"  his son,  	Dick Cheney, writes. "Before long he was offered a job with another  federal  	agency, the Soil Conservation Service.  	"The SCS taught farmers about crop rotation, terraced planting,  contour  	plowing, and using 'shelter belts' of trees as windbreaks -  techniques that  	would prevent the soil from blowing away, as it had in the dust  storms of  	the Great Depression. My dad stayed with the SCS for more than  thirty years,  	doing work of which he was immensely proud.  	"He was also proud of the pension that came with federal employment  - a  	pride that I didn't understand until as an adult I learned about the  	economic catastrophes that his parents and grandparents had  experienced and  	that had shadowed his own youth."  	Like many Americans, the Cheney family felt it had been pulled from  the  	depths of the Great Depression by the New Deal efforts of Franklin  	Roosevelt, cementing the family's support for the Democratic  president and  	his party.  	"When I was born [on Jan. 30, 1941] my granddad wanted to send a  telegram to  	the president," Cheney writes in his memoir. "Both sides of my  family were  	staunch New Deal Democrats, and Granddad was sure that FDR would  want to  	know about the 'little stranger' with whom he now had a birthday in  common."  	After growing up in the relative comfort of middle-class, post-World  War II  	America, Dick Cheney would take advantage of the many opportunities  that  	presented themselves, attaching himself to powerful Republican  politicians,  	most notably an ambitious congressman from Illinois named Donald  Rumsfeld.  	When Rumsfeld left Congress for posts in the Nixon administration,  he  	brought the hard-working Cheney along. Eventually Rumsfeld became  White  	House chief of staff to President Gerald Ford and - when Rumsfeld  was tapped  	to become Defense Secretary in 1975 - he recommended his young aide,  Dick  	Cheney, to succeed him.  	Cheney's career path through the ranks of Republican national  politics, with  	occasional trips through the revolving door into lucrative  private-sector  	jobs, was set. He would become a major player within the GOP  Establishment,  	establishing for himself a reputation as one of the most  conservative  	members of Congress and a foreign policy hawk.  	Now in his 70s, Cheney is widely recognized as a right-wing  Republican icon,  	inspiring a new generation of conservatives to dismantle what's left  of  	Roosevelt's New Deal and shrink the federal government.  	It doesn't seem to matter that those were the two social factors  that  	created "the utterly stable environment" which gave Dick Cheney his  chance  	in life.  	  	Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for  the  	Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, "Neck Deep: The  Disastrous  	Presidency of George W. Bush," was written with two of his sons, Sam  and  	Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books,  	"Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to  Iraq"  	and "Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth'"  are also  	available there.  	  	  	  	_______________________________________________  	Blind-Democracy mailing list  	Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org  	http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy  	  	  	_______________________________________________  	Blind-Democracy mailing list  	Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org  	http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy  	  	_______________________________________________  	Blind-Democracy mailing list  	Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org  	http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy  	      _______________________________________________  Blind-Democracy mailing list  Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org  http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy    _______________________________________________  Blind-Democracy mailing list  Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org  http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy      _______________________________________________  Blind-Democracy mailing list  Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org  http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy    _______________________________________________  Blind-Democracy mailing list  Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org  http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy    

Curious Carl's Corner

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Pablov's theory in humans

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