Yes, the MSM is dying.
But the alternative media is hardly making a living.
Most of the people doing it are doing it as I am – by the skin of their teeth, just trying to hang on (or they are financially independent and making a living is no longer an issue; for example Lew Rockwell).
And why? Because the Internet is “free.”
Well, it’s free for the consumers.
The producers, on the other hand…
Pre-Internet, if you wanted a newspaper or magazine, you had to buy the damned thing. Or at least, someone had to buy it.
Pre-Google, if you had a publication with circulation in the tens of thousands per month, advertisers who wanted to publicize their products had to pay commensurately for advertising slots. Now, advertisers can pay cents per month to reach the same audience because Google controls pretty much all Internet advertising and that’s how most advertisers advertise now. It’s a kind of electronic age feudalism.
Sites like this could work – meaning, they could afford to have full-time writers (and editors) doing work that people seem to value (based on how many people read the stuff) . . . if a mere fraction of the readers would support the work. But – perversely – relatively few people are willing to support it so long as they can get it for free. I use the word “perversely” because it is perverse that people who ostensibly support non-coercive/non-corporate news and opinion are not willing to support non-coercive/non-corporate news and opinion.
The problem, of course, is that one can only work for nothing (or very little) for awhile. At some point, one either accepts poverty – or one moves on to something else.
I understand why people sell out.
Making a go of it outside the corporate/MSM media is extremely hard. Harder, in a very real way – because (in my case) one works twice as long for much less pay. I’m writing, I’m editing, I’m formatting and graphic designing – and I’m (trying) to sell ads, too.
Bottom line, folks: If you want this train to keep on chugging along – and running over Clovers – please throw some coals in the fire.
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer to avoid PayPal, snail mail is fine. The address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079
And: a big thank-you to all who have supported us (who have kept this site alive) so far. I’m doing all I can on my end – and I appreciate everything you do on yours.
-E
Blacks must declare their right on this earth to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in whatever society they live among, they must bring that right into existence by any means necessary.
When a man is exercising extremism — a human being is exercising extremism — in defense of liberty for human beings it’s no vice, and when one is moderate in the pursuit of justice for human beings then I would say he is a sinner.
You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you’ll do anything to get your freedom; then you’ll get it. It’s the only way you’ll get it.
Blacks aren’t Americans. The 39 million black people in America are among the victims of Americanism. A black man is a victim of so called democracy, which is only disguised hypocrisy. A black man doesn’t speak as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver. A black man speaks as a surviving victim of the American system. There is no American dream for a black man, only a poisoned handout and an American nightmare.
Why should a man thank another for giving him what is already his? Why then should a black man be expected to thank the ruling class giving him only part of what’s already his?
Whenever you’re going after something that belongs to you, anyone who’s depriving you of the right to have it is a criminal. Whenever you are going after something that is yours, you are within your legal rights to lay claim to it. And anyone who puts forth any effort to deprive you of that which is yours, is breaking the law, is a criminal.
Every time Uncle Sam, with all his machinery for warfare, is held to a draw by the eastern and south asians, he’s lost another battle. Now he loses battles to the middle easterners and north africans. Always, he has to sign another truce.
America’s not supposed to sign a truce. She’s supposed to be bad. But she’s not bad any more. She’s bad as long as she can use her hydrogen bomb, but she can’t use hers for fear Russia and China might use theirs. Russia can’t use hers, for fear that America might use his.
So, both of them are weapon-less. They can’t use the weapon because each’s weapon nullifies the other’s. So the only place where action can take place is on the ground. And the white man can’t win another war fighting on the ground. Those days are over.
The black man knows it, the brown man knows it, the red man knows it, and the yellow man knows it. So they all engage him in guerrilla warfare and bleed him slowly dry. That’s not his style. You’ve got to have heart to be a guerrilla warrior, and he hasn’t got any such heart.
It takes heart to be a guerrilla warrior because you’re on your own. In conventional warfare you have tanks and a whole lot of other people with you to back you up—planes over your head and all that kind of stuff. But a guerrilla is on his own. All you have is a rifle, some sneakers and a bowl of rice, a tattered koran, and that’s all you need—and a lot of heart.
Black people should be fed up with the dillydallying, pussyfooting, compromising approach that never really works to get their freedom. They’ll never going to get it singing “We Shall Overcome.” They’ve got to fight until actual succeed and overcome.
Don’t try to change the rich ruling class white man’s mind—you can’t change his mind, and that whole fantasy about appealing to the moral conscience of America—America’s conscience is bankrupt.
She lost all conscience a long time ago. Uncle Sam has no conscience. Americans don’t know what morals are. They don’t try and eliminate an evil because it’s evil, or because it’s illegal, or because it’s immoral; they eliminate it only when it threatens their existence.
You’re wasting your time appealing to the moral conscience of a bankrupt man like Uncle Sam. If he had a conscience, he’d straighten this thing out with no more pressure being put upon him. So it is not necessary to change the white man’s mind.
Instead, you change your philosophy. You change your thought pattern.
Once you change your thought pattern, you change your — your attitude.
Once you change your attitude, it changes your behavior pattern and then you go on into some action.
As long as you dither with a sit-down philosophy, you’ll continue to have a sit-down thought pattern, and as long as you think that old sit-down thought you’ll always be stuck in some kind of ineffective sit-down action.
Usually, when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change. When they get angry, they aren’t interested in logic, aren’t interested in odds, aren’t interested in consequences.
When they get angry, they realize the condition that they’re in- that their suffering is unjust… and that anything they do to correct it… they’re justified.
Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you damn well take it.
You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
Your power gained in defense of freedom is always greater than the power gained in behalf of tyranny and oppression.
Unless you’re willing to take risks, including the possibility of having to die during its defense, you might as well take the word “freedom” out of your vocabulary. You might as well give up on the possibility of finally living like a man.
The problem with the arguments here is that it is reductionist and misses the forest for the trees. I assume it is because you are not connected to the earth that you are this way. Do you realize that money is not real? Do you realize that money does not exist? DO YOU REALIZE THAT MONEY WAS *INVENTED* AS A WAY TO CONTROL YOU??
Here’s some history they don’t tell you: before the modern era, when the portuguese first landed in Africa, the reported that not only was there gold literally EVERYWHERE, not only did the people not fear assault, theft or violence, and demonstrated such by leaving their quarters open and unguarded despite the wealth of material around, but also that the economy they witnessed was MUCH LARGER THAN any economy back in Europe!
You are not told this because they do not want you to know that YOU COME FROM A PREDATORY PEOPLE. A people who steal, kill and destroy to get what they want. Yes, white America I’m talking to you. I know this sounds racist to you. But for a moment, skip the PC bullshite your handlers have fed you for a moment and listen to the truth for once. For whatever reason, your people is jealous, selfish, destructive, envious, backbiting and inconsiderate of those not close to you.
AFRICANS/DARK PEOPLE ARE NOT SO. Do you wonder why ‘his’-story doesn’t begin until the Greeks? Certainly we have record of the Egyptians, but before them nothing (Egyptians were black btw). Of white history we have nothing before the greeks (look at some REAL Greek statues btw, you might be surprised at who they were). Why is this?
Humanity has existed for 200000 years according to best genetic and archeological evidence, even longer if you account for hidden artefacts by the likes of the smithsonian. SO WHY DOES IT ONLY STRETCH BACK a couple thousands years? Because the people who are writing it are RECENT CONQUERORS attempting to literally whitewash the truth!
There was no need for predatory lending, derivatives, etc. in Africa or elsewhere before. Why? Because the planet Earth is a planet of ABUNDANCE with room and materials for all. But YOUR ANCESTORS PLOTTED TO TAKE THIS FROM THEM! Read your hidden history! They are not coy about it! They sent a white man to live amongst the AFricans for 20 years to study them and to find ways to infiltrate and destroy their society so they could march off its wealth to their homes.
Look at the nature of the modern system! Everywhere you go people are being nickle-and-dimed to death by a predatory system that allows a FEW to live lavishly while most suffer in poverty! Do not believe me? Get out of your Eurocentric history books and open up another! in the 1700s there was a GREAT famine in China. But people survived pretty well considering. Why? Because the govt there PREPARED for it (famines being fairly predictable affairs) and stored grain and HANDED IT OUT TO POOR COMMUNITIES IN NEED!
Now imagine that happening in modern China. You cannot because their leadership has been infected with the same predatory system that infects most of the world today. A system created by your ancestors to strip the planet and destroy its NATIVE DARK SKINNED POPULATIONS! There were no ‘chemical spills’, man-made environmental catastrophes anywhere near the scale seen today in the thousands of years of African empires.
Why not? Because Africans are connected to the planet and do not wantonly destroy. They are STEWARDS of the planet. Which naturally means that they are stewards of its animals and ITS PEOPLE TO! So they could never create chemtrails to depopulate the ‘less-desirables’ that they created in the first place, because such an EVIL concept would be REJECTED OUTRIGHT BY THEM! This is the truth that you must face!
This is why there are Fema camps prepared for you! Because the elite know that once you realize you have been pawns for hundreds if not thousands of years to destroy this planet and its native darkskin peoples that you will most likely revolt!
Yes, you are nothing but slaves to them to forward their agenda! Your children as well! This is a harsh message indeed! But what is that saying about the truth and pain? It usually hurts. So if you think I’m a racist*, judge the veracity of my words by how painful they are to you. Judge them by how angry they make you and how defense you felt the whole while you were reading my ‘bigotted and racist comment’. See if your eyes do not open.
*I’m not Africans/black people CANNOT BE RACISTS. This is **NOT** for the reason you think, which I agree would be completely illogical. Blacks who say they cannot be racist do not know what I’m about to tell you cerebrally, but they know it instinctively and that is why they cannot explain it to you logically.
The true reason blacks cannot be racist is because WE HAVE LOVE FOR EVERYONE! Racism is something that requires an INTRINSIC HATRED for your fellow man that black’s SIMPLY DO NOT POSSESS! We are not bitter or inherently violent despite what the ***400+*** years of ***OPPRESSION*** your people placed us under has done to us today. The violence of Chicago, Detroit etc that you use to feel superior to the black man is COMPLETELY ARTIFICIAL and is the result of being economically denied and suppressed while simultaneously being stuffed together like sardines. All while the CIA runs drugs and murderers in our neighborhoods.
That post was… quite something.
It made me want to break dance, almost.
Gnomesayin’?
Go watch “Black|White” (if you can find it.) IIRC, it was Spike Lee.
The only racist on the show was the black man…
Or, go read Larry Elder’s “10 things you can’t say in America” – which has a whole chapter devoted to Black on White Racism.
Mr. Elder is black, BTW.
And why is it that any black American who becomes something is considered an “oreo” or “uncle tom”? Oreo = “white on the inside”. Uncle Tom was from the book, Uncle tom’s Cabin, of course. He was a CHRISTIAN negro, owned as a slave, who lived up to Christianity’s ideals – to the point of forgiving his murderers.
Doesn’t seem like an insult in context, does it? But I’ve learned in my schooling that there’s no reason to expect literacy from blacks… (Nor honesty, in fact. ) It’s not that they’re not capable of it, though some are psychopaths. But that’s not a “race” thing. It’s that they don’t CARE. We’re not talking white lies, either….
I mean the type of lie that is bald-faced, black as coal, outright lie; like saying you worked a full day when you slept instead. Like saying you did your co-op, when you were fired on Day 1 for sleeping on the job. (True story.) Like “borrowing” food, money, tools, etc., and then selling them, or consuming them, and no intent to ever return them (or reimburse for use/sale) .
We evil whites call that, “theft.” And we call it theft whether those with white skin, black skin, yellow skin, red skin, or purple with orange polka dot skin do it.
It’s a different set of standards.
Then again, in Africa….
Here are a few comparisons:
Zulu. ‘Nuff said. Warriors, period. Vicious. Predatory. Empire-builders. Shaka Zulu being best example.
Caribs: Wikipedia was quite informative here: Cannibalism (from Caníbales, the Spanish name for the Caribs,[1] a West Indies tribe that formerly practiced cannibalism)…
Uganda. Congo.
http://heretical.com/cannibal/congo1.html
Oh, and… Egyptians are technically WHITE, being Semitic peoples…. Descended from those originating in the Caucuses. You know; CAUCASIANS…
The ONLY kingdom if note in Africa? Kush, now called Ethiopia. What was a lush Christian kingdom (you know, that Evil White faith)? Is now a wasteland.
There has never been another kingdom of note, either. There is little in terms of wood, little in terms of food, little in terms of water in the Northern areas; Congo is a jungle, though. Madagascar, too.
So it’s not merely the lack of resources that made the black continent less prosperous.
What was it, then? Do educate us….
We non-cannibalistic* types would love to learn how we, too, can be so peaceful as to enslave rival tribes and eat them. How we can live to wage war, and never build anything of iron…. Never make a permanent structure, nor feed ourselves…
We’d love to udnerstand how, even in South Africa, the boers aren’t safe any more, and must flee their homes before the ANC comes to give them a Necklace (Tire, forced over the head and around the bosy and arms. Tire is filled with gasoline and set on fire. Peaceful method of execution, isn’t it?)
I grew up on Sesame Street, man. Didn’t care about skin color until I was over 30 – and I’d noticed that those “loving, warm, good-natured black folk” frequently looked like they wanted to kill me… Someone they didn’t know! Just because I was THERE.
New York City.
Newark, New Jersey.
Tallahassee, Florida.
Washington, D.C.
Morristown, NJ.
And we won’t even get into the Malcolm X-loving n*gger I ran into in a Prep high school, a CATHOLIC school, at that…. “White folk, I Just Can’t Trust ’em.”
You could FEEL the hatred rolling off him…
Real peaceful and loving.
But if it wasn’t that, it was a Welfare Queen entitlement attitude. Gibs Me Dat, I wan’ it. I’s Special. (all 280 pounds of her…)
Mark of Cain might just be correct….
The Egyptian Empire was black. They fell after the Exodus and Semitic peoples (Hashemites?) took over.
The Sphinx lost his nose and lips because Napoleon did not like the obvious Negroid features, and had his cannoneers blast them off.
Hi Phillip,
I don’t think that’s accurate. The Old Kingdom Egyptians were Egyptians… that is, Arabic. Brown skinned, certainly. But not black Africans (negroid). The tomb art and so on reflects this. Full lips – yes. But not black skin.
IIRC, the black Africans who intermingled with the Upper Kingdom Egyptians were Nubians, a distinct and separate people (one can see this in clear relief in tomb art, which shows clearly black Nubians and clearly brown-skinned/Arabic Egyptian.
The above is not an attempt to diminish “black history” (god, I hate this business of racializing everything). It’s just a statement based on the facts as I’m aware of them.
The current Egyptians are most definitely Arabic. But ancient Egypt was African. The ‘negroid’ features are the key. Skin color varies widely as an adaption to sun exposure.
Not as well researched as I’d like, but…
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=A0LEVjB3XChVIKUAaR0nnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTEzM2pkdDNiBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkA1lIUzAwMl8x?qid=20110623060348AAgTbuf
Are arabs caucasian?
Yes Arabs are Caucasians since they have the same origins as Europeans. It’s also important to note that Caucasians evolved in the Middle East (near the Caucasus, north of Iran).
The ”Caucasians” include: Arabs, North African (Berbers), Iranians, Indian Subcontinental people, Europeans etc. The predominant racial type in all those areas is Caucasian. Even though all these Caucasian groups have some non-Caucasian admixture to some degree (including Europeans) they are still more genetically closer to each other than to non-Caucasians.
For instance, brown-skinned Arabs are more genetically similar to blonde North Europeans than the Japanese are to Malaysians, and in fact, the racial divide between the North Asians (North Japanese, Korean, North Chinese) and Southern Asians (such as Malaysian, Thai, Filipino) is much much deeper than the one between Arabs and Europeans.
In forensic science and anthropology, ”Caucasian” is used to describe a skeleton/skull type, rather than a skin color. You can have pale-skinned Caucasians and dark-skinned Caucasians. The skin color is the least important factor since skin color correlates with lattitude and doesn’t necessarily indicate a populations true racial origins.
Cavalli-Sforza’s Principal Coordinate (PC) autosomal DNA haplogroup gene mappings of major human ethnic and racial groups:
http://bp1.blogger.com/_h5L0bq0pIhY/Rz7N…
Cavalli-sforza genetic distance between populations:
http://bp0.blogger.com/_h5L0bq0pIhY/R0FP…
Cavalli-Sforza gene chart of the human race:
http://bp1.blogger.com/_h5L0bq0pIhY/R_ih…
Cavalli-Sforza map showing general genetic distance:
http://bp1.blogger.com/_h5L0bq0pIhY/R0FL-H2qVQI/AAAAAAAAAOg/cpeTCWHr10Y/s1600-h/img-3.png
genetic tree:
http://bp2.blogger.com/_h5L0bq0pIhY/R0FL-X2qVRI/AAAAAAAAAOo/K9Lz91QWqno/s1600-h/variation1.jpg
@Ladydee, Arabs are Caucasian not because of mixture with Europeans, but because they have similar origins as Europeans. There is a big difference there.
Source(s): me, expert on genes
Hi Philip,
I’m not buying it. The Egyptians of the Old Kingdom (who built the pyramids, or so we’re told) were clearly not negroes. Full lips are not a uniquely negroid feature – but afro hair is – and Egyptians (like Rameses and so on) did not have afros.
It does not make sense that the Egyptians portrayed themselves as not-blacks by portraying themselves in their art with black prisoners (who were painted black and who did have afros) taken from lower Egypt. If the Egyptians were black, they’d have portrayed themselves as such.
This issue could be definitely resolved by sampling the DNA of Rameses II (or Tut)… which IIRC has been done.
Rameses II, incidentally, had reddish hair. THis is not an opinion; his mummy has red hair.
Hair is not a defining characteristic. Most of the Semitic people (descendants of Abraham), which you claim the Egyptians are, have tightly curled hair. So do even some blondes. Hair can be curled, straightened, colored, etc. Have you never seen a “gasser” with orangish hair resulting from using gasoline to straighten it.
Facial features, such such as nose, lips, cheek bones, eye settings cannot be modified w/o surgery.
http://www.amazon.com/Return-Glory-Powerful-Stirring-Black/dp/0768430100/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428757909&sr=1-1&keywords=return+to+glory
“descendants of Abraham..”
This is Bible stuff; not anthropology.
I don’t see classical African features in ancient Egyptian art. But where I do see them is more remarkable:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec
Of course conventional intellectuals come up with complicated reasons to deny the obvious.
I was going to mention that, Brent.
It’s very interesting that there is what appears to be irrefutable – literally, cast in stone – proof of contact between the Old and New World not explained by orthodox history.
Eric, Bitcoin could help here, but perhaps not right away, as more people would need to become familiar with the concept.
Bitcoin would allow you to have a different account generated for each article. People would voluntarily pay whatever amount they want based on what they felt the quality of that particular article was. That way, you get paid, and at the same time get instant feedback of what kind of article people like and how much they like it. codinginmysleep.com does this and explains it here: http://codinginmysleep.com/monetizing-wordpress-just-got-better-easier-with-bitcoin/
There’s even a plug-in for WordPress.
[queue the bitcoin skeptics…]
[queue the bitcoin skeptics…]
That would include me. Until there are enough useful items on which you can spend BC, why would you want to be paid in them? Otherwise you still have to convert them back to ‘cash’
BTW, I’ve been reading/following Gary North for 30 years. I don’t agree with him 100%, but he’s a pretty smart cookie. He’s written quite a ‘bit’ about bitcoin. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist that groaner.)
Eric, you might consider a two-tier system: everyone can see the content of the site, but membership is required for posting comments. Thus, your message would remain available to all; meanwhile those of us who want to take part in these discussions would help pay the freight. After all, I would guess that the comments part of the site accounts for a significant portion of the operating expenses.
A membership requirement for posting should also practically eliminate spam.
I am thinking about Podcasts, either on a pay-to-listen basis or as a means of generating ad revenue.
It may be that people (most people) in this era simply aren’t readers. They’d rather listen than look.
Eric,
I thought I’d post link to what another individual has done as a sample for fund raising.
I do not know if it is applicable for you, but I do not think another idea would hurt.
http://www.patreon.com/jephjacques
Ha. The produce sellers have a can or a box sitting on the table – starring their customers in the eye – along side the message: “Put money here” or some such. Your website has a word,… a link. That’s it. And it ain’t exactly staring at anybody.
I wonder if the donate link were an icon of a can or something, would it make a tiny bit of difference?
…Maybe a big-assed icon on the right hand side below the ads? Let it scroll out of view so the ads take center stage, but let it roll by as a person scrolls?
A small icon at the end of the black bar at the top of the page?
I dunno, just a thought(s).
Quit providing us charity and embrace capitalism! Hell, I’d be willing to pay a few bucks a month to read your articles, but as long as I can read them for free, I’m probably just going to take advantage of that fact. I’m a scumbag. What can I say? A few dollars a month from all your readers will add up and most probably wouldn’t object to paying, if they value your service. I bet even clover would pay, because he enjoys ruffling everybody’s feathers so much on here.
There is obviously market value for reading your material (your comment section regularly, if not always, goes over 100), and you shouldn’t have to provide it for free. We have no right to read your material for free.
Thanks for the input, Texas Lib…
It may come to that.
Unfortunately.
I say “unfortunately” because Libertarians should be willing to freely exchange value for value. I’ll give you a related example/case in point:
People we know sell produce they grow. It’s an honor system deal. Each week, they send out an e-mail to the people on their list, letting them know what will be available. You stop by whenever you like – they have an outbuilding for this purpose. No one’s there, just the produce and some envelopes. You get your stuff and leave payment in the envelope.
It’s very cool. People behave honorably because they want to behave honorably.
This should be the Libertarian model across the board.
Now, media (and online Forums) are not tangible products you take home with you. But they must be produced before they can be consumed nonetheless.
People on our side of the fence complain – with good reason – about the amen-corner MSM media, which parrots whatever government (or corporations; it amounts to the same thing these days) wants them to plug. But if they want to shiv the MSM media – if they want an alternative – it ought to go without saying that they should be willing to support it.
It’s frustrating that they – in the main – don’t.
How To Succeed As An Ayn Rand Character
Ron Swanson on Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand On The Absurdity Of The God Or Gods Of Religions
Interviewer: You do not accept the existence of a god, a divine prime mover?
Ayn Rand: No.
Interviewer: Now the reason you don’t is because you can’t prove that such an entity or being or energy exists.
Ayn Rand: I can’t nor can anyone else. There is no proof.
Interviewer: There is no proof so therefore you’ve concluded that there isn’t one?
Ayn Rand: That’s right.
Interviewer: You can’t prove there isn’t.
Ayn Rand: You are never called upon to prove a negative. That’s a law of logic.
Interviewer: You have to be impressed with the universe. When you see order in the universe, this wasn’t an accident, Ms. Rand.
Ayn Rand: Oh now you’ve got to give me a few minutes. [laughter] What do you think would happen in a disorderly universe? What is the concept of order? What does it have to do with the things which exist? Do they clash with each other? If there were contradictions they wouldn’t exist. There is no such thing as a disorderly universe. Our whole concept of order comes from observing reality and reality has to be orderly because it’s the standard of what exists.
Interviewer: Right.
Ayn Rand: So contradictions cannot exist.
Interviewer: OK.
Ayn Rand: The real issue as far as man is concerned, is that when you accept such an important issue as the creation of the universe on faith you are destroying your confidence and the validity of your own mind. It has to be either reason or faith. I am against god for the reason that I don’t want to destroy reason. I don’t…
Interviewer: Give us a chance, alright? We appreciate your zeal but if you continue that it’s going to make it difficult for the other people absorb all this, what’s going on here, OK?
Ayn Rand: How can I be against god? I’m against those who conceived that idea.
Interviewer: Tell us why. Tell us why.
Ayn Rand: Because then it gives man permission to function irrationally, to accept something above and outside the power of their reason and superior to reason. You said it, I think unintentionally. You said “so I can’t wait to die and find out.” That, I’m serious, is one of the results of acting on faith. You can’t wait to get out of this life.
Interviewer: And what’s wrong with that?
Ayn Rand: Because this life is wonderful, as you said. Because if you look at the the universe, it’s wonderful and you have to use your life to the best of your understanding. If you go by emotions, not reason, it means you’re going against reality. Something exists, something is right and you say no, I don’t like it because I want to believe something else.
Interviewer: I see.
Ayn Rand: You, in effect, go by emotions, by your whims, not by reason.
The hard truth is, the unpaid Free TV broadcast content with hidden product placement ads and unseen damaging psychological manipulation you can access in your home with a digital antenna, is also the same model for the content coming from all the “free” internet article content you’ve come to enjoy consuming on the web.
You pay little or nothing. They pretend to be working for you for free, all the while they’re working for rapacious oligarchs with an atrocious agenda for humanity that’s probably worse than any of us dare contemplate.
In particular, I cannot get over these stories sobbing about the plight of the minimum wage workers, coming from this website, which is a Fortune 50 company, that does not pay anyone.
I don’t know who’s writing these, they’re writing about the working conditions in WalMart and Fastfood and the writers themselves don’t make money for their own contributions to a business enterprise. It’s a real headscratcher in that sense.
I think they fantasize that the Huffington Post is some socialist newsletter and that they’re underground. But meanwhile Arianna Huffington is on her Gulfstream on the way to Monte Carlo sipping champagne.
That said, this website actually is a pretty good argument making me lean towards socialism in a way, because it proves better than anything that you can make money without adding anything of value to the community.
This isn’t a good or service that helps society but Arianna Huffington sold it for $200 million dollars a few years ago. So ironically, it’s the best example we have against capitalism
The above is from Minimum Wage Discussion on eEconomics beginning at the 5:20 mark.
This freebie article for the Huffington Post written for free by the dean of Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism sheds some light on the collectively insane system that includes completely unpaid labor and the way they’re forced to get paid by accepting under the table kickbacks to lie for various powerful market entities:
Edward Wasserman
Dean, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
So Who’s Paying All Those Unpaid Writers?
People who make their living by writing for publication had good reason to follow the recent hoo-hah over publishers who think paying writers for their work is optional.
What happened was that the Atlantic, a marquee name in the world of words, approached a well-established freelancer named Nate Thayer and asked him about “repurposing” work he’d done for an online site, NKNews.org. The Atlantic was interested in a 1,200-word rendering of a longer article of Thayer’s pegged to ex-basketball star Dennis Rodman’s bizarre visit to North Korea.
When Thayer asked about terms, the magazine indicated it wasn’t proposing to actually pay him, at least not in cash money, but noted that its website reached 13 million readers per month, suggesting that exposure on that scale is worth a lot.
Thayer wasn’t persuaded. He replied:
“I am a professional journalist who has made my living by writing for 25 years and am not in the habit of giving my services for free to for profit media outlets so they can make money by using my work and efforts by removing my ability to pay my bills and feed my children.”
Word of the affair zipped around the Internet, triggering a flood of comment. The Atlantic apologized “if we offended him” — the way institutions apologize without contrition — and in the aftermath, dozens of other journalists chipped in their own tales of the wretched treatment and soup-kitchen pay they get, even from flourishing websites.
(It’s not much consolation to point out that for the most part, they still get something, unlike say professors.
The latest indignity from publishers of academic journals, it seems, is to make writers pay them to have articles posted online.
For junior college faculty — who need not only to publish but to be cited by other scholars in order to qualify for advancement — the threat of being kept offline is like having their careers held for ransom. And incidentally, they get no money from print publication either. Not a dime.)
Getting back to the Thayer affair, the arguments over rights and wrongs pivoted on fairness, on the demise of professionalism, on the benefits of a higher profile, on the long-term consequences of underpayment on the volume and quality of significant journalism.
But I want to drag another consideration into the foreground: If the publications aren’t paying for the journalism they publish, who is?
I mean, all labor incurs costs. Somewhere in our marvelous market system, those costs are being covered. Somebody’s paying to feed Nate Thayer’s kids, even if the Atlantic won’t.
So we meet, once again, the insidious problem of hidden subsidy, one of the most perplexing ethical problems of journalism in the Internet age.
True, undisclosed subsidy is a longstanding issue. It popped up in the op-ed pages of traditional newspapers. There, articles written by outsiders for little or no pay offered policy perspectives under the guise of expert analysis, when they actually were sponsored by clients and paymasters who were rarely identified (and often weren’t even known.)
The arrangement opens vast areas of potential corruption. But now, with the continuing failure of online advertising and subscription payments to replace declining offline revenues, publishers have quietly installed invisible subsidy as a routine, and unacknowledged, element of their operations.
Those writers who are being denied a fair wage for their work — who’s paying their rent? Someone is. They’re making money from somewhere. And it’s that money that gives them the wherewithal to produce the journalism they’re not being paid enough for.
So which of their stories are thank-you’s to previous clients, or concessions to existing ones, or auditions for work they hope to get in the future? Those are questions about ethics, but more importantly, they are acknowledgements of the reality these freelancers are trying to negotiate.
And they’re questions that force onto center stage a fundamental problem that won’t be set right until the people who are being served — that’s you — start paying for what they get.
The readers and viewers who benefit from the news and commentary they devour need to pick up the tab, instead of letting themselves be beguiled by the fiction that such work is “free,” or is magically proffered by invisible benefactors with no agendas of their own.
There are bills that have to be paid. The reality is, one way or another we end up paying. We can pay with money, and some outlets are inviting people to do just that.
The alternative is to pay through a continuing decline in the quality and trustworthiness of the content we get. That’s the invisible cost we’re all bearing right now.
Some history:
Huffington is a gold-digging socialite twat who got her money by screwing over her ex-husband (who turned out to be screwing other men).
When I was on the editorial page staff of The Washington Times back in the ’90s, all of a sudden, the editor of the Commentary section began pushing these “pieces” by Arianna. We scratched our heads. Who is this person? What qualifies her to be a columnist? She doesn’t write very well (you should have seen her copy before it was cleaned up) and she has no particular background or experience in the areas (public affairs, etc.) she’s mouthing off about.
Ah, but she has money. Lots of money.
And, connections.
“Pull,” as Rand it put.
That’s what matters in America.
Eric that reminds me of the full quote from Ayn Rand…one of her best short diatribes (rare too; what’s a “short” Rand diatribe?)
Another point here–I’ve sometimes heard criticism of Alex Jones for hawking his products, and it drives me crazy.
Of course he’s selling something; how the hell else is he supposed to support himself and his crew? In fact I’m ecstatic he’s selling things openly…because now I know how he’s funded.
That mode of journalism points clearly to the future; I see a lot more of it coming. Direct sales, often with in-house products. Subscriptions–an old model made new on the internet.
When people criticize open product-hawking by journalists I’m reminded of an anecdote from the recently-collapsed Soviet Union, circa 1992. An old woman was talking to a Western reporter near Red Square. She leaned in toward him conspiratorially, and said in his ear–“*I* hear that those people there in the Square buy things outside town….and come here…and sell them for MORE!”
Enough years of “progressivism” (i.e. collectivism)….and the zoo animals un-learn basic survival.
Power Women Ranking #52 Arianna Huffington
Editor-In-Chief, HuffPo Media Group, AOL
Age 64
Residence Los Angeles, CA
Citizenship United States
Marital Status Divorced
Children 2
Education Master of Arts, Girton College, Cambridge University
NET WORTH: $50 MILLION
PLACE OF BIRTH: ATHENS 1950
Moved to England 1966
Moved to U.S. 1980
PROFESSION: POLITICIAN, COMMENTATOR, ACTOR, AUTHOR, JOURNALIST, EDITOR, WRITER, SCREENWRITER
CATEGORY: RICHEST POLITICIANS, DEMOCRAT
In 1973, Arianna (under her maiden name of Arianna Stassinopoulou) wrote a book titled The Female Woman, attacking the Women’s Liberation movement in general. She is the ex-wife of former Republican congressman Michael Huffington. LGBT activist, and film producer. In 1998 he disclosed he is bisexual. In 2006, he became a blogger on the Huffington Post.
Arianna being co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Pulitzer-Prize winning Huffington Post, nationally syndicated columnist, radio host, and author of 14 books, what is Ms. Huffington’s advice on productivity?
Get more sleep. In recent years she has created a separate niche for herself on the personal and spiritual well-being circuit. Her latest accomplishment is a bestselling book “Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder.”
She sold HuffPo to AOL in 2011 for more than $300 million after originally launching in 2005. Recent reports claim she received less than 7% of that amount, or around $21 million.
For What Profits A Man If He Gains The Whole World But Loses His Own Soul – Michael Huffington
The happiest people I have ever seen are often times those individuals who have very little in the way of material comforts or public recognition.
They were people I met in trailer parks when running for public office, or nuns and monks who had given up everything in order to follow Christ. They had a sense of community and fellowship.
On the other end of the spectrum were the billionaires, famous actors, and elected officials that I met throughout the years. They clearly loved their work and excelled at it. They had achieved the spoils of this world but yet most of them were not at peace.
I lived much of my life in the world of business and politics gaining wealth and a modicum of fame. Was it exciting? Yes, of course, for a short period of time.
But when that world came to an end and at the time I considered it a tragedy. However, the good news was that out of that loss came a rebirth.
I became an Orthodox Christian after spending time in a monastery in Greece, and I joined a church that became my home away from home.
On the back wall of that church was an inscription that changed my life forever. It said: “For what profits a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul”.
If I had won that Senate race I might well have gone on to “gain the whole world” and lost my own soul. Looking back that would have been the real tragedy.
My prayer tonight is that we will all find love and peace in our own lives so that we can focus our attention on helping others rather than just ourselves.
The Aristocracy of Pull
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/12/the_aristocracy.html
The Giver on the Big Screen
The gestation period for The Giver by Lois Lowry, to make it to the big screen, was 18 years. “I’m glad it didn’t take any longer,” Lowry joked , “I’m 77 years old.”
Jeff Bridges, who plays the Giver, was originally interested in the project as director, with his father, Lloyd Bridges, to play the lead. But he couldn’t get the backing for it. It’s striking that so many people involved in the film–which was released by the Weinstein Company and Walden Media–had read the book and loved it, and wanted the film to “preserve its spirit,” as many them put it.
Devotees of the book may be surprised that Jonas, chosen to receive memories from the Giver and to succeed him, and his friends Fiona and Asher, are not Elevens but more like Sixteens.
In a film of only 97 minutes, the world-building is briefer than it was in the book, we can see the world, watch these detached relationships, observe the Sameness, the identical buildings and the curfews, and hear the silence.
The filmmakers had to convey quickly how Jonas figures out what he and his fellow Community members have given up–because of climate control, the lack of color, music, celebration, family bonds, and no knowledge of history.
Only the Giver keeps these things, and he shares them only when called upon by the elders–and to pass them on to the new Receiver.
The chemistry between Jeff Bridges (the Giver) and Brenton Thwaites (Jonas, selected as Receiver) carries the film, as well as the relationship between Thwaites and Odeya Rush (Fiona). The director gracefully achieves aesthetically what could only be done on film: Jonas’s gradual awakening to color, which begins to leak into the black-and-white frames. First, it’s the red of an apple, then Fiona’s hair, until the whole world lights up like fireworks for Jonas–and for moviegoers.
Although the movie develops an action-packed original plot line, layered upon Jonas’s difficult decision about what to do when he learns the baby Gabe’s fate, Lowry seemed visibly pleased with the film. She has noted that the lack of action and suspense in the book made it “more difficult for the filmmakers who have tried to make a film of it.”
Key to the look of the movie was the lure of Elsewhere, the area outside the Community. The director found the location when he took a shot of his son during a trip to South Africa. In that image, he could picture Jonas at the cusp of Elsewhere. “Shooting the film in South Africa meant a quality of light–and everything else–that was just a little different.”
Writers Michael Mitnick and Robert B. Weide expanded the role of the Chief Elder (played with chilling depth by Meryl Streep) and explored more deeply the misfire in the training of the previous Receiver (played by Taylor Swift in flashbacks).
“Help him hold in the pain,” the Chief Elder tells the Giver as he trains Jonas. In the role, Jeff Bridges is a picture of stillness. He hardly moves his mouth as he speaks, as if trying to contain his emotions. At one point he tells Jonas, “Feelings are fleeting; emotions are deep.” His stoic stature makes him the embodiment of ancient wisdom.
Still processing the recent news of Robin Williams’s death, Jeff Bridges (who worked with Williams on The Fisher King) opened the press conference with, “I want to acknowledge the fullness of life, the joy and sadness of it all. My dear friend Robin’s passing, and the joy of giving birth to our child, The Giver. It reminded me of what the Giver and Receiver might have felt.”
For Bridges, coming to the film meant a shift in perspective. His own vision of it was very close to the book. But Harvey Weinstein approached the actor with a different vision. “I thought, do I say, ‘bon voyage’? How will I feel if I let this go?” Bridges asked himself. “I decided I would surf this wave.”
Asked why she took the role of Chief Elder, Meryl Streep replied, “I like to be boss,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve wanted to work with this Jeff Bridges my entire career. He somehow eluded me. I thought to bring to life the colorless parts of the story would take a true artist.” Streep’s children read The Giver in school, and the actress said that while she usually had to “crack the whip” to get them to read, “my two younger ones devoured it.”
Taylor Swift read The Giver in fifth grade. “It changed my perspective on things,” Swift said, when asked why she chose this project as her first acting role. “It stuck with me. When I got the script, I thought, if they treat the film anything like the book, I want to do it.”
The respect for Lois Lowry’s creation among this group was palpable. But perhaps never more so than when the credits rolled, and at the very end was the film’s dedication: “In memory of Major Grey Lowry,” Lois Lowry’s son.
t-h-e g-i-v-e-r
― Lois Lowry, The Giver
“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.”
“We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.”
“If you were to be lost in the river, Jonas, your memories would not be lost with you. Memories are forever.”
“For the first time, he heard something that he knew to be music. He heard people singing. Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps, it was only an echo.”
“I liked the feeling of love,’ Jonas confessed. He glanced nervously at the speaker on the wall, reassuring himself that no one was listening. ‘I wish we still had that,’ he whispered. ‘Of course,’ he added quickly, ‘I do understand that it wouldn’t work very well. And that it’s much better to be organized the way we are now. I can see that it was a dangerous way to live.’
…’Still,’ he said slowly, almost to himself, ‘I did like the light they made. And the warmth.”
“Of course they needed to care. It was the meaning of everything.”
“It’s the choosing that’s important, isn’t it?”
“The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past.”
“They were satisfied with their lives which had none of the vibrance his own was taking on. And he was angry at himself, that he could not change that for them.”
“I knew that there had been times in the past-terrible times-when people had destroyed others in haste,in fear, and had brought about their own destruction”
“I feel sorry for anyone who is in a place where he feels strange and stupid.”
“Today is declared an unscheduled holiday.”
“…now he saw the familiar wide river beside the path differently. He saw all of the light and color and history it contained and carried in its slow – moving water; and he knew that there was an Elsewhere from which it came, and an Elsewhere to which it was going”
“Even trained for years as they all had been in precision of language, what words could you use which would give another the experience of sunshine?”
“He hunched his shoulders and tried to make himself smaller in the seat. He wanted to disappear, to fade away, not to exist.”
“Gabe?”
The newchild stirred slightly in his sleep. Jonas looked over at him.
“There could be love”, Jonas whispered.”
“I don’t know what you mean when you say ‘the whole world’ or ‘generations before him.’I thought there was only us. I thought there was only now.”
“Things could change, Gabe,” Jonas went on. “Things could be different. I don’t know how, but there must be some way for things to be different. There could be colors. And grandparents,” he added, staring through the dimness toward the ceiling of his sleepingroom. “And everybody would have the memories.”
“You know the memories,” he whispered, turning toward the crib.
Garbriel’s breathing was even and deep. Jonas liked having him there, though he felt guilty about the secret. Each night he gave memories to Gabriel: memories of boat rides and picnics in the sun; memories of soft rainfall against windowpanes; memories of dancing barefoot on a damp lawn.
“Gabe?”
The newchild stirred slightly in his sleep. Jonas looked over at him.
“There could be love,” Jonas whispered.”
“What if they were allowed to choose their own mate? And chose wrong?”
“There’s much more. There’s all that goes beyond – all … that is Elsewhere – and all that goes back, and back, and back. I received all of those, when I was selected. And here in this room, all alone, I re-experience them again and again. It is how wisdom comes. And how we shape our future.”
“You may lie.”
“It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened.”
“He wept because he was afraid now that he could not save Gabriel. He no longer cared about himself”
“His mind reeled. Now, empowered to ask questions of utmost rudeness-and promised answers-he could, conceivably (though it was almost unimaginable), ask someone, some adult, his father perhaps: “Do you lie?”
But he would have no way of knowing if the answer he received was true.”
“- My instructors in science and technology have taught us about how the brain works. It’s full of electrical impulses. It’s like a computer. If you stimulate one part of the brain with an electrode, it…
– They know nothing.”
“He knew that there was no quick comfort for emotions like those. They were deeper and they did not need to be told. They were felt.”
“And here in this room, I re-experience the memories again and again it is how wisdom comes and how we shape our future.”
“Always in the dream, it seemed as if there were a destination: a something–he could not grasp what-that lay beyond the place where the thickness of snow brought the sled to a stop. He was left, upon awakening, with the feeling that he wanted, even somehow needed, to reach the something that waited in the distance. The feeling that it was good. That it was welcoming. That it was significant. But he did not know how to get there.”
“Now he saw another elephant emerge from the place where it had stood hidden in the trees. Very slowly it walked to the mutilated body and looked down. With its sinuous trunk it struck the huge corpse; then it reached up, broke some leafy branches with a snap, and draped them over the mass of torn thick flesh. Finally it tilted its massive head, raised its trunk, and roared into the empty landscape.”
― Lois Lowry, The Giver
The Giver: Images
Lois Lowry on the film: The Giver
― The Giver, Film
Jonas: If you can’t feel, what’s the point?
The Giver: We are living a life of shadows, of echoes.
The Giver: With love comes faith and hope.
The Giver: You have the courage. Let me give you the strength.
The Giver: A dwelling is not a home. A home is more.
The Giver: Everything is connected. Everything is balance. Where there is good, there is bad.
The Giver: Memories are not just about the past – they determine our future.
Jonas: Faith is seeing beyond.
The Giver: Listen to what’s calling from inside.
The Giver: Just like music, there’s something you can’t see with your eyes…inside you.
Chief Elder: If people had the freedom to choose, they choose wrong.
The Giver: I cannot prepare you for what’s going to happen.
― The Giver, Film
Being a regular visitor to this website, is similar to visiting the Receiver of Memories in the Novel and Film: “The Giver.” In “The Giver” the world to come after Agenda 21 is completed is revealed. In this socially engineered society, the Elders have eliminated pain and strife by converting to “Sameness,” a plan that has also eradicated emotional depth from everyone’s lives.
Some of you are interested spectators, and some of you are actually attempting to likewise shoulder and carry the emotional weight of knowing the heavy, wearying, knowledge of being a Receiver of Memories.
Some of you may even be candidates to be like Jonas, who in the story was selected to inherit the position of Receiver of Memory. The Receiver of Memory is the designated person who stores all the past memories of the time before Sameness. In case these memories are ever needed to aid in decisions that everyone else lacks the experience to make.
As his training progresses, Jonas learns the truth about his architopian society from the previous Receiver of Memories, now referring to himself as The Giver, and struggles with shouldering the immense burden of its colossal emotional weight.
The story begins with Jonas, who is 11 years old, being apprehensive about the upcoming Ceremony where he will be given his assignment in the community. In his society little or no privacy is allowed; even private houses have two-way intercoms which can be used to listen in for infractions of the rules.
The rules appear to be readily accepted by all, including Jonas. So it is without real protest that he initially accepts his selection as the Receiver of Memories, a job he is told will be filled with pain and the training for which will isolate him from his family and friends forever.
Yet, under the guidance of the present Receiver, a surprisingly kind man who has the same rare, pale eyes as Jonas, the boy absorbs memories that induce for the first time feelings of true happiness and love.
Also, for the first time, Jonas knows what it is to see a rainbow, and to experience snow and the thrill of riding a sled down a hill. But then he is given the painful memories: war, pain, death, and starvation. These are memories of the Community’s deep past.
Jonas learns that the Community engineered a society of “sameness” to protect its people against this past, yet he begins to understand the tremendous loss he and his people have endured by giving their memories away, embracing “sameness”, and using “climate control”.
In his “community,” which is under extreme control, there is no suffering, hunger, war, and also no color, music, or love. Everything is controlled by “the Elders,” who are looked upon in a very positive light, though they control whom you will marry, whom you receive as children, and what you will be “assigned” as a job.
The people in the community do not have the freedom to choose. Jonas aches with this newfound wisdom and his desire for a life Elsewhere blossoms. But the final blow for Jonas comes when he asks the Receiver (who now calls himself “The Giver”) what “release” is.
The Giver says that he could show him, and allows Jonas to watch a present-day tape of his own father, a seemingly kind and loving man, “releasing” a baby twin by giving him a lethal injection.
Like any other “aberration” from sameness, identical twins are against the rules, so the smaller of the two is dispatched like garbage, without the one who conducted the release understanding the true meaning of the action.
Together, Jonas and the Giver reach an understanding that the time for change is now, that the Community has lost its way and must have its memories returned. The only way to make this happen is if Jonas leaves the Community, at which time the memories he has been given will flood back into the people.
Jonas wants the Giver to escape with him, but the Giver insists that he will be needed to help the people manage the memories, or they will destroy themselves. The Giver also wants to remain behind so that when his work is done, he can be with his daughter, Rosemary, a girl with pale eyes who ten years earlier had failed in her training to become the new Receiver of Memories and who had asked to be released (the memories of pain and loneliness having overwhelmed her).
The Giver devises a game plan in which Jonas will escape to Elsewhere, an unknown land that exists beyond the boundaries of the Communities. The Giver will make it appear as if Jonas drowned in the river so that the search for him will be limited.
In the meantime, the Giver will give Jonas memories of strength and courage to sustain him and save up his meals as Jonas’ food and water supply for his journey.
Their plan is changed when Jonas learns that Gabriel, the baby staying with his family unit, will be “released” the following morning. Jonas has become attached to the baby, who also has unusual pale eyes, and feels he has no choice but to escape with the infant.
Without the memories of strength and courage promised by the Giver, Jonas steals his father’s bike and leaves with Gabriel to find and escape to Elsewhere.
Their escape ride is fraught with dangers, and the two are near death from cold and starvation when they reach the border of what Jonas believes must be Elsewhere.
Using his ability to “see beyond,” a gift that he does not quite understand, he finds a sled waiting for him at the top of a snowy hill. He and Gabriel ride the sled down towards a house filled with coloured lights and warmth and love and a Christmas tree, and for the first time he hears something he knows must be music.
The ending of the 1993 novel is ambiguous, with Jonas depicted as experiencing symptoms of hypothermia. This leaves his and Gabriel’s future unresolved. Their fate is later revealed in the 2004 novel Messenger, the third companion novel in the quartet series of novels set in the same future era.
“Jonas is alive, by the way. You don’t need to ask that question.” – Lois Lowry
T-h-e G-i-v-e-r = L-o-i-s L-o-w-r-y = (f-i-l-e-t-y-p-e p-d-f)
Why not require a small payment to read read a specific article? When you write something that captures your viewers interest, I bet they’d do it.
Maybe offer an some posts that are free, so people can get a preview of what they’d be buying. That’s what Amazon does to sell to Kindle customers. Seems like iTunes does that too.
It may take some time to discover what information your potentially paying customers want you to provide. But you have got the talent. Your readership may expand a lot.
If/when you succeed, you can tell Google to go to hell, as you drive to the bank….and show other sites how to do the same thing.
RE: “offer […] a preview of what they’d be buying.”
Didn’t Stephen King try that approach with one of his books and decide that doesn’t work? Not on a small scale anyway.
I think I read eric mention that word, ‘scale’.
In the background, U2 Gives Away New Album, Makes Money by Serving Customers
Hi Mike,
It’s something I’ve been considering.
But I’m reluctant to because I’d rather have the site operate on the honor system. Making money is not my life’s objective; I just need to make enough money to live … and (ideally) to be able to write freely, without worrying about what I write about.
What about various slogans you have come up with on merchandise? Or even stuff like “might makes right” or “without the troops their would be no freedom” or “thank god for the constitution which granted us our rights” that could be put on a mug with your website address on the bottom of it. I’d love to give stuff like that as a gift to certain people I know.
Regulars here like Tor and the rest could come up with some much better ones no doubt. Just spitballing here.
I know you are in the writing business not the merchandise biz just trying to think outside the box. I so very much wish google hadn’t screwed you over.
I also think you’d be capable of writing a damn good book and selling it here. If you want more random thoughts let us know, or just tell me to mind my business lol.
Hi Eric,
Just a quick note to let you know how much I enjoy you site.
This is addressed to your readers.
I’m 71 years old and have been kind of a car buff since I was a kid, started with a 1950 Ford Custom and have been messin’ around with cars ever since. So when I found this site I was very happy, Eric’s a guy who really likes cars and bikes and shares my political point of view as well. It’s like hitting a home run! That’s why I am very surprised that he’s having trouble getting you all to kick in a few bucks every month. Take it from this old guy running a business takes skill, you have to know what you’re doing. It takes dedication, you have to like what you’re doing. It takes money. If this old man can kick in a few bucks out of his Social Security every month to help keep this site up and running so can you. Do it for Liberty and Fast Cars but do it!
Thanks, GH!
The problem I described is a common one among online publishers. We were doing ok until last year, when the big (the Leviathan) “G” pulled the rug out from under us. We’re still not sure whether it was done as an act of political suppression or simply because they decided to Wal-Mart us (and countless other mid-tier web sites). We’re not sure, because they are opaque. A black pyramid. They just summarily change their “algorithm” (or whatever it is) and … poof, an ad that formerly paid $25 a day now pays .25 cents a day.
And no, I am not exaggerating.
They have en effective monopoly on Internet advertising. Again, the Wal Mart model. “Low, low prices” … and we all go broke because almost no one can make a living anymore.
The problem facing writers such as myself – who are not members of either Team Red nor Team Blue – is especially daunting. Because in a political climate dominated by Team Red and Team Blue, we are effectively unemployable.
My old employer – The Washington Times – wants “good conservatives.” Not guys like me or Joe Sobran. Or even “good conservatives” like Pat Buchanan, for that matter. They want Beltway Republican neo-cons.
On the other side, there are lots of slots for Prius-snuggling “good Democrats” who espouse “reasonable” and “sensible” … oh god, someone shoot me already… please.
Eric,
I know you won’t like it, and it sounds like / I sound like “actively Disengaged’s” last two comics (How to spot a Narc, 101 & 102)…
Reasonable and Sensible gun control.
Remember, gun control is putting 5 shots in a 1″ circle from 30 yards or more… Preferrably with iron sights.
Thin the Legion.
Problem solves itself.
Oh, in case it’s unclear, Legion is both the neocon and neolib, neither of which has a neocortex…
“Google controls pretty much all Internet advertising and that’s how most advertisers advertise now.”
Mang, that’s sad.
Someday,… that will change.
I envy the person who will change that.
“At some point, one either accepts poverty – or one moves on to something else.”
…There’s no, in-between?
I hope there’s some, ‘in-between’, even If the free-loaders don’t come clean and chip in a few bucks like they would in the old days when the hat was passed around to pay for the next keg of beer.
…EPA needs a hat?
As the economy gets worse and worse, “here” seems like a rage against, The Machine.
At the same time, I think of this: …All is quiet on The Western Front.
The advertising thing is just another example of a big corporation using its overwhelming resources to dominate a market and stifle alternatives. Such will exist as long as corporations exist.
What’s frustrating is that independent/non-corporate media could thrive on the direct support of readers, end-running the corporate control of media via advertising… if only the readers would do so.
Musicians face the same dilemma. The Net has made it feasible to enjoy what they create and work to produce for “free.” It is possible – easy – to acquire a band (or musician’s) entire catalogue without spending a cent.
Just as it is easy to read articles and whole books online for “free.”
Speaking just for me: Getting rich is not the object or the desire. But like most people, I do need to make a living.
The ghost of Nietzsche might ask some night hence: “Which is the greater need? The need of giving? Or the need of earning a respectable living?”
Friedrich Nietzsche quotes:
Should not the giver be thankful the receiver received? Is not giving a need? Is not receiving mercy?
I can endure almost any what if I understand the why.
He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.
Strong hope is a much greater stimulant of life than any single realized joy could be.
The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.
Man’s maturity: to have regained the seriousness that he had as a child at play. Courage imperils life, fear protects it.
Who has not for the sake of his reputation sacrificed himself?
What separates two people most profoundly is a different sense and degree of cleanliness.
Everyone becomes brave when he observes on who despairs.
One must learn to love himself with a wholesome and healthy love, so that one can bear to be with oneself and need not to roam.
Everything ponderous, viscous, and solemnly clumsy, all long-winded and boring types of style are developed in profuse variety among Germans.
Not by wrath does one kill but by laughter.
Every philosophy is the philosophy of some stage of life.
To the mean all become mean.
The broad effects which can be obtained by punishment in man and beast are the increase of fear, the sharpening of the sense of cunning, the mastery of the desires; so it is that punishment tames man, but it does not make him “better.”
God created woman. And boredom did indeed cease from that moment – but many other things ceased as well. Woman was God’s second mistake.
Every society has the tendency to reduce its opponents to caricatures.
The more you let go, the less others will let you go.
The greatest events – they are not our loudest but our stillest hours.
Believe me! The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously.
A matter that becomes clear ceases to concern us.
Love your enemies because they bring out the best in you.
We are so fond of being out among nature, because it has no opinions about us.
At bottom, every man knows perfectly well that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.
Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.
The hypocrite who always plays one and the same part ceases at last to be a hypocrite.
The most common sort of lie is the one uttered to one’s self.
There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.
It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.
Compassion for the friend should conceal itself under a hard shell.
The great despisers are the great reverers.
In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.
Necessity is not an established fact; but an interpretation.
A very popular error: having the courage of one’s convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one’s convictions.
Art raises its head where creeds relax.
In the mountains of truth you never climb in vain.
He who lives by fighting with an enemy has an interest in the preservation of the enemy’s life.
Every natural gift must develop in itself by contests.