Happy the man who can endure the highest and the lowest fortune. He, who has endured such vicissitudes with equanimity, has deprived misfortune of its power.
— Seneca The Younger
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You hear the word fascism shouted out by Liberals and Progressives – and the “lamestream” media. It’s mostly used as a tired and dog-eared pejorative against Americans, who stand firmly against the anti-American and often race-based, Leftist ideology promulgated by these sorts.
The ironic part of this is that the Left are the ones supporting a historic Fascist precursor.
What these Leftists either conveniently forget or willfully ignore is the very simple fact that Fascism as a socio-economic model is firmly rooted upon Syndicalism, something that they rampantly and stridently endorse.
While Syndicalism may have started as Anarcho-Syndicalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was a movement meant to destroy both the corporate structures and the State, this revolutionary movement was defeated and proven untenable. The State proved too necessary and too powerful to be supplanted in developed nations with strong interactions and agreements with other nations.
What rose up to replace Anarcho-Syndicalism was National Syndicalism, which sought to supplant or suborn the State actors while maintaining the original political framework of the nation.
This directly led to the rise of Labor Syndicates as power bases in European countries and the regimes of: Francisco Franco in Spain, Benito Mussolini in Italy, and finally Adolf Hitler in Germany.
Does this mean that the rise of labor unions and their entrenchment in the State always results in Fascism? No; of course not. It has, however, regularly, if not universally, done so in the past. Hence, the Liberals and Progressives are vociferously supporting the precursor behaviors of the very thing – Fascism – that they so often accuse Americans are supporting.
Leftists such the Liberals and Progressives often whine, bleat, and/or rant about how the corporations are destroying America and how the labor unions are the heroes of the people.
These Leftists, however, either conveniently forget or willfully ignore the very simple fact that politically, legally, and pragmatically labor unions are corporations as well.
Worse in many ways, labor unions are de facto privately held corporations which allows them to circumvent many regulations and form of oversight that burden and control corporations that are publicly traded.
The only significant current difference between a labor union and what are normally thought of as corporations is that labor unions are often legally allowed to compel individuals to purchase their services, i.e., join the union and pay dues to it.
This is a current difference subject to change. In the event that the SCOTUS finds ObamaCare’s Individual Mandate constitutional, the precedence will be set for other compulsory purchases.
Labor Unions even have huge “holding companies,” each with a plethora of business units and wholly owned subsidiaries; the AFL-CIO, UAW, SEIU, and the USW are examples of such.
And yes, all the same laws regarding “hard money” and “soft money” political contributions, Issue Advocacy Ads, and Bundling apply exactly the same to both labor unions and what are normally thought of as corporations. The sole difference being that labor unions can compel their clients, the workers, to contribute to such.
In essence, Americans can agree with the Liberals and Progressives when they say that corporations are destroying America. We just disagree with them on which corporations are doing so.
As I’ve said before, fandom is not limited to guys. There are geek grrls as well and they’re just as likely to take their love of Sci-Fi to extremes as the guy geeks are. Of course the results are often more pleasing.
The original Star Trek series seems especially with the geek grrls of fandom and Leonard Nimoy’s Spock has always had a strong following among them.
Live Long and Prosper!
The babe in this picture presents us with a choice. Who is better, the classic “good” Spock or the more saturnine “bad” Spock from Star Trek: The Original Series‘ episode #39 “Mirror Mirror“?
This being the Internet and a blog to boot, people must have an opinion on this – so what’s yours?
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This is really part of what’s good about science fiction; there’s a little something for everyone in it. 😉
The ongoing battle in the Badger State between Wisconsin’s Governor, Scott Walker and the public sector union bosses and their paid lackeys in the Democrat party is very much about jobs. It’s about the jobs of those union bosses and nothing else.
Since these “stalwart defenders” of the workers have already agreed to every fiscal concession in Gov. Walker’s bill, it’s certainly not about the state’s employees.
So 14 Democrat Senators in the pay of the unions fled the state of Wisconsin, shutting down the state’s government, and 1000’s of state employees faked illness in order to protest, shutting down necessary public services, so that their union bosses could keep their well-paid, cushy jobs at the taxpayers’ expense.
Having their membership pay 5.8% of their salary toward their pensions and 12.6% of their health-care premiums as Gov. Walker demanded was deemed appropriate “compromises” by the union bosses. Loosing the privilege of collective bargaining on subjects other than wages and having to undergo periodic re-certification to determine if the state’s workers still wanted such a union wasn’t considered acceptable.
Yes; it’s about jobs – the jobs of a few bloated parasites and those of the Democrats that they bought and paid for.
People in civilized, nominally secure nations, most especially Americans, fear, loath and despise the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and it’s officers and agents who provide the visible semblance of airport security.
They really don’t like, and oft times rant about, what they perceive as odious and needlessly invasive screenings at the hands and machines of the Transportation Security Officials (TSOs).
Ah, but that’s here on Earth. On Gor things would be quite different. The TSOs of Gor would brook no defiance from a mere passenger.
I watched as the woman cringed and attempted to draw back from Thargyur, the TSA official. “What gives you the right to inspect me?” she demanded.
“You will be inspected,” said the TSA officer.
“But I do not want to be inspected! I just want to board my plane and leave!” protested the woman.
“You will be inspected,” said the TSA officer.
“Please do not inspect me! I beg you, don’t strip me and place me in that scanning machine and fondle my breasts!”
“You will be inspected,” said the TSA officer.
Verily, the TSA officer moved forward and proceeded to inspect the woman.
“Stop inspecting me!” cried the woman. “I do not want to be inspected!” The TSA officer continued to inspect the woman. “Help! Police! Bystander! Congress! Somebody… stop this man!” she moaned. The TSA officer continued to inspect the woman. She was passenger. She would be inspected whenever the TSA officer desired to inspect her. In other permissive societies such as Earth’s, perhaps the TSA officer and passenger might be prevented from filling their true places in nature; but in Gor, the passenger had no rights. She was passenger. She would be inspected at will.
The woman cried muchly as the TSA officer finished inspecting her. Too, she had been inspected; but this did not matter. She was passenger.
“You have been inspected,” said the TSA officer.
“Yes,” sobbed the woman. “I have been inspected.”
“I have inspected you very well,” said the TSA officer.
“Yes.” sobbed the woman. “I have been inspected very well; I am a passenger and deserve to be well-inspected by the TSA.” And yet, despite her sobbing, the passenger felt more passenger-like than she ever had on Earth. Only here, on Gor, could she truly feel like a passenger, at the capable hands of a Gorean TSA officer who would inspect her whenever he wished.
The next passenger, having seen this, did not protest when the TSA official inspected her. She was passenger. Such was the way of things.
When the TSA official had finished muchly inspecting her, she said to the first passenger, “I have been well inspected.”
“I, too, have been well inspected,” said the first passenger.
“I will be inspected whenever the TSA pleases,” said the second passenger.
“I, too, will be inspected whenever the TSA pleases,” said the first passenger.
“I may now board my plane,” said the second passenger.
“I, too, may now board my plane,” said the first passenger.
“Tal,” said the second passenger.
“Tal, too,” said the first passenger.
I smiled as I watched the passengers depart. I did not figure the first passenger would object to being inspected again; for this was Gor, and over her life, the passenger would likely be touched and inspected by many TSA agents. Such is the place of passengers.
Yes, on the fantasy world detailed in 29 volumes (soon to be 30) by John Norman aka Dr. John Lange, things would be quite different for the passengers indeed. They would be inspected, swiftly learn to accept it, soon learn to like it, and eventually come to yearn for their inspections and to love their TSOs.
It is well known that the Gorean TSO, though often strict, is seldom cruel. The passenger knows, if she pleases him, her trip will be an easy one. She will almost never encounter sadism or wanton cruelty, for the psychological environment that tends to breed these diseases is largely absent from Gor. This does not mean that she will not expect to be beaten if she disobeys, or fails to please her TSO. 😉
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