I watched Real Time with Bill Maher last night, always good for a laugh. But it was the 50th for JFK and I hoped there’d be some discussion. Understand that on American TV it is not possible to have a full discussion complete with evidence and skeptics. Only official truth is allowed, but Maher occasionally pushes the line, since HBO is less susceptible to advertiser pressure.

It was all predictable except:

  • Maher said the Magic Bullet theory was a little suspicious!* He then stopped in his tracks, having hit the wall.
  • Paul Begala said that he sat around a table with John F. Kennedy, Jr. And others at the time that he was launching George Magazine. Begala smuggled some truth into the show: He said he asked him if he was going to use the magazine as a platform to find out what really happened to his father.

(JFK Jr. Told him that he viewed it as pointless, that no matter what happened that day, he grew up without a dad.)

The art of assassination has gotten so much better over time. No one questions whether JFK Jr.’s death was murder. Most likely it was. Even the smart ones don’t know to wonder about that. We’re deep, deep into thought-controlled environs, much more so than in 1963.

Paul Begala offers all we can hope for on mainstream TV, a little bit of smuggling. Katty Kay, a fearless BBC news journalist, also a guest, was oblivious. She offered wisdom about the nature of conspiracy theorists and was clueless about the assassination. She obviously has never exposed herself to any evidence. But what can we expect? If she did so, and if she internalized the implications, she’d soon be out of work, either voluntarily or by force.

This is key to journalists who work in the US: They are not disingenuous. They are not dishonest. They are simply incurious by nature, and deep into group-think. Those who do not exhibit those traits don’t advance. There are no ticking time bombs in these folks. The right questions never occur to them.
*The Magic Bullet Theory is not suspicious. It is merely ludicrous.

37 thoughts on “Oblivionville

  1. We’re deep, deep into thought-controlled environs

    Yes: White privilege is bad; MLK is a hero; Democracy is good; Homosexuality should have state protection; Women should rule men.

    You are pretty much gold star material. So you go on about how you can break out of the box, see more than others, are not shackled by political correctness, etc. This is just bragging, and rubbing our noses in the fact that progressives have steamrolled the reactionaries.


    This guy lost his job for speaking the truth. What hope do the rest of us have?


    1. in all your incarnations here, you’ve consistently hinted at your support regarding theories of racial superiority.

      I do have a few questions. why are there so many stupid white people? is it because we’ve tainted the gene pool with nigger genes? will inferior races get smarter as they fuck white women and make half breeds? and how did those Persians come up with smart shit, like math? are Persians also genetic inferior to the enlightened Caucasian race?

      just curious.


      1. I repeat, repeat, repeat: it is not about superiority. If a race of space aliens superior to humans in every way lands on Earth, we don’t surrender to them. We keep and take care of our own.

        why are there so many stupid white people?

        The bell curve has a left and right side. Check into it.

        is it because we’ve tainted the gene pool with nigger genes?



        There are no inferior races. That is your projection, and what you feel inside. That is your problem. I hope you get help.

        Selective breeding can increase a population’s mean intelligence. There is a thing called reversion to the mean, which no one understands, apparently.


        ’cause they’re smart. No one said they weren’t.

        are Persians also genetic inferior to the enlightened Caucasian race?

        No. Who said that? I see I’ve touched a nerve here, and all these bottled up emotions and beliefs come spilling out. Therapy is needed.


        1. yeah, because I’m like totally seriously asking. I’m sure stuff like poverty and access to nutritious food has nothing to do with neurological development.


          1. I see that you are fully vested in the current thinking that is fed to you by the politically correct progressives that are in charge. And so you admit that you want no discussion. It is just you telling me how it is, and if I dare to suggest otherwise, I get the full wrath of whatever you can bring down. So like any muscle, you need to exercise your hate so it gets stronger and you can slay even more enemies.


          2. Hey Fred, poverty, nutrition (especially the mother’s during pregnancy), being introduced into fearful and angry household at birth all negatively impact neurological development. You could look that up. There’s evidence.


          3. Yes, the nature-nurture debate is in full swing; in a few places. We control for this sort of thing by looking at twins raised apart; by biologically different people raised in the same home; etc.

            The tentative conclusion on my side is that nature-nurture is a 50-50 split. Your side wants to argue that nurture is 100%.


          4. Pretty snarky reply.

            My point remains: you blather on about honesty and evidence when it is apparent that you are not all that objective.


          5. Until you give me evidence you’ve looked at evidence, I will not take you seriously. You use this blog to relieve boredom, a worthy pursuit. But you do not venture outside the confines of your self-satisfied world view. I don’t mind exchanging snark with you, but time and again you chime in and obviously have’t taken time to do even a Google, much less read a book or expose yourself to the big, big and complicated world. that’s so typically American, to run on the fumes of answers supplied to you in formative years, never going beyond the simple explanations and pleasing slogans.


  2. Scapegoats seem to consistently appear when self-loathing can no longer be kept secret. Ever notice how the weakest among us always end up being targeted — almost always in a knee-jerk-like fashion — by fearful, paranoid types for a good old-fashioned beat down? Perhaps just another byproduct of budget cuts for mental health care, topped off with a (new normal) depression caused by neoliberal, white bankers who will never spend a single day in prison fro their crimes. Politically correct, or what, Fred?


    1. So crushing all the neo-liberal White bankers solves the problem? Scapegoats, indeed.

      I guess some subjects are taboo. The point here is that the host goes on too much about how he is dedicated to the brutal truth; he is willing to face whatever is out there; when I find he is shackled more than most. I bring up the racial aspect of things because it is glaringly obvious he won’t touch it with a ten foot cattle prod because he is totally in the tank with the politically correct progressive Boulder cafe culture.


      1. well fred, this is why I wouldn’t touch your pet issue with a 10 foot cattle prod. let’s say there is some genetic edge when it comes to the intelligence of Caucasians. what have “we” done with that intelligence? I’ll tell you, we have pushed a corrupt form of capitalism on the world’s population and it’s driving our entire species to extinction.

        I also think there has been selective breeding, and it’s produced a sociopath ruling class that dominates the world’s resources.


        1. It is not just intelligence. Northeast Asians consistently score higher in that category, yet not too many copy what they have, or want to move there and live next to them. There is a suite of traits like altruism, rule of law, tolerance, and others, that make societies created and run by people of northern European extraction desirable places. I would like to conserve some of that. Or at least not have public policy actively destroy the thing.

          Asians and Africans score plenty high in the sociopath category. Don’t think you are doing anybody some favors by extinguishing Caucasians in hopes of eliminating sociopathy.


          1. Study of sociopaths by Martha Stout at Harvard indicated that they are more prevalent in the US due to colonial seeding, countries sending their misfits here. We were especially well-stocked with religious eccentrics.But I have not seen agreement among scientists on the rates in various societies.

            The key is that when they come to power, they grip it firmly and slowly infect the whole of a governing apparatus, installing one another in pivot points. This is what happened in the Soviet Union under Stalin, Germany under Hitler, Florence under the Medici, the the US since the end of World War II (with various coups at times, JFK and 9/11 being the major ones, but even the election thefts in 2000 and 2004 qualifying as minor ones).

            You could also check this out. Ponerology and Pathocracy will lead you to interesting work on the subject. Of course, it’s a big subject and complicated world, but there does appear to be a disease in our ruling class, as they are hell-bent on conquest and have inflicted amazing suffering on places that are not as nice as the ones they live in. It often seems that people who live in places we bomb want to emigrate after.


          2. You tend to grasp one trait (such as sociopathy) and stretch it to explain a lot of things.

            There is also ambition, greed, lust for power, narcissism.

            Clinical sociopaths tend to self destruct before they get too high in the ranks.

            Political decisions often require some sociopathy: we decide to build a highway knowing full well many people will be killed on it. But we calculate that the utility is positive. In some ways our political leaders aren’t sociopathic enough. Many foreign adventures you decry are undertaken on marginal humanitarian grounds. Assistance programs are increased heedless of the moral hazard. We let all manner of negative utility immigrant into this country under the guise of human rights, economic growth, diversity, blah blah blah.


          3. Again, you just make shit up. “Clinical” sociopaths? WTF? They exist in broad society and are hard to spot. My particular focus was not on that, but on Ponerology and Pathocracy, specific instances when sociopaths get hold of power and over time, body-snatcher style, get hold of all pivotal power points. That happened in the USSR, Nazi Germany, and here, but not everywhere.

            You’re stuff about needing them, not enough of them, etc, is rambling nonsense.


          4. You don’t appear to know much about sociopathy. In the spirit of things here, I should yell at you to go out and look at the evidence until you agree with me.


            Ahh. So you agree that such things are…genetic? Inheritable? I sense a crack here in which I could insert a crowbar and open your closed mind a little bit more.


          5. It’s a subject of great interest to me and I’ve read quite a bit about it. Most recently I learned that sociopaths can indeed develop an emotional response to a situation if instructed to do so – that is, they can do more than just mimic. That’s a real curve ball.

            But take two examples of people I believe to be sociopaths – Bill and Hillary, and the Bush family.

            B&H spotted each other and naturally saw in the other enough of themselves to form a union, each cunning and ruthless, and he especially good at mimicry while she excelled at strategy and positioning. They are both intelligent and high-functioning. They are a fine pair and they selected one another for breeding, but have so little feeling for one another that he is free to engage in sexual conquest without any objection from her. They don’t exist on the human emotional spectrum even as we like to judge them based on our own makeup. She sees him bagging women from coast to coast and views it with detached interest, as far as I can tell.

            The Bush’s breed kids who seem to exhibit some basic human traits like compassion – I find it hard to believe that W is the cold bastard his father is. But their environment is not one where such traits are rewarded, and so the cold and calculating ones develop. These might be the ones who can develop genuine feelings when instructed to do so. But they were raised for success without regard to emotions, and so exhibit those traits.

            It’s very hard for me to grasp. Humans are never that simple, but there to exist a small percentage of us who exhibit no human emotion, and they breed and select one another but they also dominate their own children and force development of of those traits over others. So given that they are a problem, and you select a number of them and put them in one place such as the US or Australia, of course you’re going to find a higher prevalence. That would be true of all of us of all skin color and feature. It don’t see how that in any way supports your racist outlook.


          6. That you admit behavioral traits are inheritable is a huge step. Soon you will have a red light saber.

            You make it sound like sociopathy is a highly desirable trait in today’s society. By the breeder’s equation we will soon be overrun. Hide the kids.


  3. LIzard,
    Understated perhaps, but an uninhabitable planet could indeed lead to human extinction, along with many, many others. Sociopath, phychopath, close enough. And close enough to a compare it to a repeat of the problems created by inbred Royal stock of pre-industrial Europe. And Rightsaidfred, yes, start with the bankers — always chop at the top.


      1. Indo-America? Native Asian Indians and descendants living in the US? Not clear what you mean there.

        China has a long rich history, has suffered through attempts at conquest, misguided rulers and has a rigid structure and religious system that makes it very difficult to accumulate wealth, but it is a bubbling cauldron now with extremes of wealth and poverty, mass exodus from countryside to city, so there is both good and bad in their development. There has always been a shortage of westerners who spoke the various dialects, and so a shortage of cultural interchange. There were a few here in government, children of missionaries and such, but they were purged during the McCarthy era. There does appear to be an emerging middle class there even as ours is submerging. The key to China (and Russia) is that it is so large and is self-sufficient in resources so that foreign powers, even having tried, have never conquered it. The Brits, mutherfuckers as always, used opium as their access point.

        The whole of the African continent is slow in development. Outside meddling and colonization have hindered the process as well.

        Ain’t nothing simple. the US and Europe are not the cause of every problem on earth, have fought bitterly among themselves causing untold death and destruction, but Europe settled down some after WWII. Overall, they have some some good and much bad.


      2. Indo-American = native South American (Inca, Mayan, etc).

        Northern Europe and Japan are kind of unique in that they grew and supported large corporations; whereas in Southern Europe and elsewhere such organizations never get much larger than a family affair: there is just not enough trust of others.

        Our current world is much driven by large groups: we want big consortiums to build airplanes; fabricate large ships; organize trade routes; etc. There is much to complain about in the resultant financial industry to service this (or vice versus), but I’m not sure we want to cast our lot with a new breed of banker.


        1. Japan subsidized their domestic corporations, otherwise Toyota would still be a washing machine company. They lack raw materials, and so import them. Their lifeblood is manufacturing, applying human skill to materials imported from elsewhere, so their government invested heavily to make it work.

          Not really getting your point here. Mostly you just make things up as you go, it appears. Southern Europe does not lack for large corporations, but you’ll find that as cooperative entities that labor and the public affected by operations have broad seats. All modern countries allow for large corporations to achieve large projects, as it can be done no other way than by government, which is very good at some things, not others, visa versa. So we need large companies to make cars, and government to run health care.

          There are two drawbacks: One, large corporations aggregate capital from a wide arrange of investors, but place management in just a few hands, giving management immense power, and two, in the US, corporations are given personhood rights (as was done in Nazi Germany) giving them virtual carte blanch to exert power over government via campaign contributions, dark money, lobbying and revolving door entrance and exit from regulatory posts, giving them such power that they virtually run this country.

          That’s a problem because they are not accountable. Before you say that we can always choose not to do business with them, remember that we are a corporate-socialist system on one side, and monopoly capitalist on the other, so our choices are extremely limited.


        2. Not really getting your point here…make things up as you go

          When in Rome…

          I was responding to Kelly and Lizard’s contention that we need to extinguish the evil White bankers. The structure of the modern world, for better or worse, is largely a European invention via large groups working together in a cooperative way. This model is copied everywhere, or people move to places with this model. You point out well the pros and cons, but I wanted to emphasize that things don’t necessarily improve when it is run by Chinese bankers or Indian bureaucrats.

          The post here was about obliviousness, and it seems cosmically obvious that there is a lot of pretend obliviousness about racial matters. It’s been 50 years since the civil rights stuff, and the characteristics and status of the protected groups haven’t changed or have become more pronounced. So the answer seems to be to double down: more diversity, more programs, more punishment of White people in particular, as if pushing them out of the way makes things better.


          1. sorry fred, but I think the class war is more important to pay attention to than the “characteristics” of negroes and mexicans.


          2. Give me a metric for measuring the results of paying attention to class vs. paying attention to biological features.


          3. Those scientists who say that race is an illusion are not tools of the left – there are no characteristics that do not exhibit completely across all humans in all places. Given your home life and opportunities, people of other skin colors and facial characteristics would develop on a similar path, as the brain is adaptive as well as programmed.

            On the other hand, take you and put you in a home where ancestors had been conquered and imprisoned or enslaved, and have you observe from early impressions that there is a status among your friends and family of submissiveness to a ruling culture, and your own development goes a completely different direction. And if you were born in a Muslim home you’d be praying their prayers and condemning European imperialism, but you would find support and friendship among people of your own kind, as most of us are kind and enabling and supportive on one another. Everyfuckingwhere.

            You seem a kick-the-ladder after to reach the top kind of guy, having had success and privilege as a white male in a white-male dominated society, you shift the reason for your success (I don’t have a clue about anything about you but am just speaking your language here) from access and support to superior talent. That’s our debate.


          4. Of course, personally I’m a basket case, but the argument here is taking an average cross section of a population cohort. Characteristics are indeed distributed broadly, but the means are different.

            You worry about the White guy who was born on third base. But his great great grandfather was born on third base; his great grandfather was born on third base; his grandfather was born on third base; his father was born on third base; he was born on third base; his kid was born on third base; his grandkid had third base taken away from him and given to someone else who blew the money and is now back for more.

            Why are you so anxious to destroy third base, and the tradition of maintaining third base for one’s posterity?


          5. I don’t get that at all. Sometimes by wizardry and talent, as often by sheer luck, most often by inheritance, vast fortunes are assembled and maintained. By the nature of the existence of those vast fortunes, the political system is corrupted. We used to have very high tax rates that served to a degree to break up those pools, and estate tax too. Keep in mind I don’t give a shit if you think it is unjust to tax away someone’s fortune. It’s only about preservation of democratic governance.

            SK and I and others are aware of how the Pew Trusts have undermined just about every environmental group in the country. How did they come to be? A vast pocket of wealth was assembled, and to escape estate and income tax, was put in trusts. 65 years later, they still undermine democratic movements. The mere existence of these pools of wealth is a social detriment. They come about naturally and all that, and once broken up they reform, but the continual act of breaking them up is good for all of us.

            As Bill Maher mentioned the otehr night, three of the richest people in US are heirs of the WalMart fortune. At this time employees of that company are taking up food drives for each other for the holidays, and qualify for food stamps and Medicaid and now insurance subsidies. If you think that something is wrong with that picture, then we are not that far apart.


          6. I was too oblique. Let me try again.


            Twin and adoption studies argue otherwise.

            On the other hand, take you and put you in a home where [bad stuff happens] and your own development goes a completely different direction.

            Nature-nurture is about 50-50, so yes, things go different. But modal me does better than modal ghetto child all else equal, such as when raised in an eighteenth century French orphanage.

            And if you were born in a Muslim home…

            …I would be burdened by the dysgenic effects of cousin marriage.


            Mainly on those familiar to us. Except for White people, who get a little too much kick from out-group altruism. Which does not end well; kind of like drawing down the local oil supply: fun while it lasts, but such posterity handed down to us is a finite resource. Meanwhile, it is a neat way to punish the in-group members we don’t like, but the “new-caught, sullen peoples” will be around soon enough.

            You seem like a kick-the-ladder after reaching the top kind of guy

            One way to put it. But like an environmentalist clamoring for more wilderness areas, or a union man clamoring for more restrictions; I understand that most things in life are finite.


            And what is so wrong with such a place, and maintaining the thing in a constructive way for the occupants, considering it discovered and commercialized the industrial world everyone clamors to emulate? So what if an Ethiopian had success and privilege as a Black male in a Black male dominated society? Where is the requirement that he give it up to some other race? Where is the requirement that a Mestizo who had success and privilege as a Mestizo in a Mestizo dominated society give it up to the Other?

            you shift the reason for modal White man success from access and support to superior talent.

            I guess Southern Rhodesia ran out of access and support. Tsk.


          7. Round and round we go, endless rinse and repeat. There lies at the base of your spin cycle a couple of lasting impressions: One, by your own words, you are not an accomplished person, and two, there is within you deep-seated resentment. You don’t have much charity towards others in you.

            Just to break the cycle, if you haven’t, read Guns, Germs and Steel. It is not the final word by any means, but at least breaks the race-based development mold that you are in. One point not lost on me, which I also picked up from Norman Davies, is that warfare hones our skills. The European continent has been mired in bloody internecine warfare since people have been writing things down. Even today, most of our advances in science and technology are for warfare. Europeans had a leg up on the rest of the world as a result, and have inflicted untold suffering on the rest of the planet. Never take that boot off the neck, as the victim might kill you if he can get up.


  4. I have read Guns, Germs, and Steel and have quoted from it favorably here. Geography is important, and I in no way discount it. But there are other factors, and one wonders why Tijuana and San Diego are next to each other, yet one has more “cargo” than the other. Maybe there are other things involved.

    I try not to personalize things here. It’s a bit unsavory to have Max Bucks bragging that he is rich and gets laid. But along those lines, do you have any compunction to justify your station? You travel and have more leisure than most: shouldn’t you be giving that away to the less fortunate?


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