Imagine by John Lennon.....
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Imagine by John Lennon.....
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I figured I'd leave this here.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching Ben Shapiro take a dump all over this song.
It really is all mathematics.
Turn on to Daddy, Tune in to Nationalism, Drop out of 
10-07-2017, 02:46 AM
(10-07-2017, 12:08 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: I figured I'd leave this here. Hmmm... "Private property" is an idea that needs to be expanding. I think everyone should be able to copyright stuff like their genes/their internet tracks/ and make Facefuck, GooGulag, and especially idiots like Equifax pay up. This is an idea that Republicans and Democrats should love.  Except for of course those who are in league with Neo-liberals.
---Value Added
10-07-2017, 04:52 AM
Well as to private property....
Yes one's own genes should be their property. I'm a firm proponent of self-ownership. I don't know what you mean by internet tracks...do you mean their browsing history? Yes that should be private individual property too. As for Faceplant and Goolag both are on my boycott list. I never really was on faceplant to start with, with goolag I went back to firefox and now use duck duck go. As for Equifax, they should be taken down entirely--instead the IRS has hired them to do some contracting. Yeah, government bureaucrats really are that incompetent. Those who know how to do things do them, those who know nothing go and work for the government regulating those who know how to do things. https://www.mintpressnews.com/irs-hires-...ta/232864/
It really is all mathematics.
Turn on to Daddy, Tune in to Nationalism, Drop out of  (10-07-2017, 12:08 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: I figured I'd leave this here. OK, Imagine better fits an attitude than it expresses great musical value (it is melodically simple and the lyrics have no philosophical depth), but is it as evil as Ben Shapiro says? For real evil in a song there is the infamous Horst-Wessel-Lied of the Nazi SS, praising the enforcers of what many considered the worst political order to have ever existed. I could imagine a Klan group (because of increasing affinities between Ku Kluxism and Nazism) adopting it, replacing the (Nazi) banner raised high with a cross raised high and burning bright. Themes in the song outlawed in Germany, Austria, and some other places since 1945 include allusions to marching as an objective and the trivialization of the tragedy of death even for a heroic cause. So what is so bad about Imagine? Imagine that there is no Heaven or Hell? That is an atheist position. In a feudal or capitalist order of thorough nastiness, Heaven is a reward for people who comply with their own repression and exploitation, accepting misery in This World on behalf of entrenched elites in return; Hell is punishment for any sign of rebellion. In effect, God becomes the enforcer of selfish, rapacious elites who deserve ... to burn in Hell. I'm not saying that the concepts of heaven and Hell are without their utility; it might be reassuring to the loved one of a good person who loved to golf that after that person died, he is enjoying much golf. You can imagine what sort of behavior I can imagine leading one to Hell. Living for the day? I question whether Lennon really meant sacrificing all future bliss for the immediate moment. No, that does not mean committing crimes for some drunken, doped-up debauchery. The really-satisfying happiness, the sort that one can recall frequently, involves planning, scheduling, budgeting, and even exertion. There is a next day and there may even be 'fifty years from now'.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
10-07-2017, 12:07 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-07-2017, 12:20 PM by Eric the Green.)
"Imagine" is a landmark song that has become one of the most popular oldies, despite or perhaps because of its lyrics that challenge our assumptions of how life has to be. I never thought it was such a great song, musically. In the late sixties, though, many of us "imagined" and "dreamed" many of the same things John wrote about, and probably some people still do. That's why the song remains popular, and why he said he's not the only dreamer.
What does the first verse mean? No religion? Given John's interest in spiritual matters, as exemplified in his and The Beatles' best piece, "Tomorrow Never Knows," which quotes the Tibetan Book of the Dead, he didn't mean no spirituality. He meant no traditional religion, with the false myths of heaven and hell, and the promise of pie in the sky when you die. Above all, he meant how religion is used to divide us, the same way the idea of nations is used. Our identification with national and religious groups causes wars, which if we realized we are one people, we wouldn't fight. This seems a practical idea, although it will take time. But what about his last vision, no possessions? He certainly didn't mean all possessions should be owned by the state. He meant something like what the hippie communes were trying. It's possible it might happen someday, but for now, I "imagine" that the idea of possessions helps us to take responsibility for what we own. As a vision though, if we learn to identify all the world as the possession of each one of us, and that we all share the same world, this might come true someday too. It doesn't mean we can't be entrepreneurs, but it would change how we think about what we earn; that we are working for the good of all. That's a tall order, I'm sure. But worth imagining. And today, the excessive greed of those who possess the most capital and own the most property, and those who to preserve that greed impose trickle-down economics on us in the name of Reagan, Ayn Rand, Mises, Hayek and Milton Friedman, is the main cause of hunger and poverty in the world. Imagining a better world, is how we get there. We don't have to have the same visions as John Lennon, but the more we imagine, the more we can create. And the more we can be free of philosophies that discount the power of imagination to change the world, or those who promote the power of fear to keep it the way it is.
10-07-2017, 12:37 PM
(10-07-2017, 11:00 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(10-07-2017, 12:08 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: I figured I'd leave this here. Good to know that your signature fits you PBR. This entire post demonstrates you did not even watch Ben Shapiro's arguments. I'm fairly certain being a practicing Orthodox Jew he is neither a Nazi nor in the Klan.
It really is all mathematics.
Turn on to Daddy, Tune in to Nationalism, Drop out of
10-07-2017, 02:44 PM
(10-07-2017, 12:37 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Good to know that your signature fits you PBR. This entire post demonstrates you did not even watch Ben Shapiro's arguments. I'm fairly certain being a practicing Orthodox Jew he is neither a Nazi nor in the Klan. I saw a little of it... enough to realize that barking up the wrong tree, so to speak. There are plenty of bad songs from "Enery the Eighth" to "In the Year 2525" on musical grounds, and from the Horst-Wessel-Lied to Cop Killer for content. For a mismatch between words and music, there's the Marine's Hymn. I'm not disparaging the USMC; the right thing to do as an enemy soldier if you are facing the Marines is to raise your arms high and surrender.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
10-07-2017, 05:39 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-07-2017, 06:16 PM by Eric the Green.)
I'm glad Kinser agrees with Shapiro that he would not have a conversation with someone who believes the ideas in "Imagine," so I am relieved of having a conversation with kinser
 It's funny, so fun to refute. And he knocks Bieber too, which shows his lack of taste and his being swept up in the faddish adolescent male paranoia about a young male musician ("Pray" is indeed not only comparable to "Imagine" in its lyrics, but to Mozart symphonies musically). And music is good only if the musicians can read music. That lets Irving Berlin out too. And how do you know John couldn't read music? What's your evidence? The Beatles created the classic music of their time, and it has lasted. I see you have the talent Mr. Shapiro for throwing records out the window. Let's see you top The Beatles then, and avoid someone saying that YOUR piano riffs are "pretentious." How did you qualify to say what is pretentious, and what isn't? And John shouldn't use his music to create a mood that matches his words? Too funny! What should he have done, play Chopsticks? Or a Hungarian Rhapsody like Bugs Bunny danced to? He thinks it's "immoral" to "live for the day" without rewards and punishments. But all Lennon was talking about was religious beliefs about heaven and hell. Living for the day is much better than living for a false myth and using it as an excuse to forget that all we have is this moment, even if it includes the ability to plan and remember and in fact all the past and future too. And since it does, I think the song has as much "philosophical depth" as any apt and short poem that says something succinctly and memorably (like "Pray" does also) and thus is as deep as a song can be. Shapiro reveals his absurd prejudice by knocking the Democrats and the European Left. If he knocks them, what could he possibly say about morality? The Republicans are the most immoral political party in the world today. If Shapiro doesn't KNOW this, then that is itself too funny!!! And anyway, Lennon's imaginings, it could be argued, go well beyond any politician's program today; these are things anyone of any party can imagine, and still belong to any party. Lennon did not announce a political platform in this song. To deceive oneself so completely as to think so, implies that he could relate anything he hears to partisan politics, and that means that he has partisan politics on his brain and nothing else lol. And so Shapiro wants to kill and die for his country? He's welcome; go suit up and go to Iraq! Hey, if China didn't exist, neither would all their murders! All people are not good? So we shouldn't imagine the human potential to be good? It's saying "people are not good" that's the excuse for treating people badly. And did John say "imagine no civilization and culture"? No, he didn't. He contributed to civilization and culture. As Yoko summed up her husband's life, "he loved." And he should be dismissed for marrying Yoko Ono! Now now, she was a very nice lady. I know you Republicans want to tell us who we can marry, and whom we can't, but telling John not to marry Yoko? Hey, Yoko isn't even transgender! Save your breath, fella! I think you should throw yourself out the window, as you offered to do, instead of the record! And you don't even know which year he was killed by some bozo like you. And you claim to know about civilization, when you don't even know history? "Brotherhood never existed and never will." Well, it won't with enough people like you around who think it can't happen. And "ownership" is the greatest thing in human civilization, and get this, in "Western" civilization. Ahh, here we go again. Civilization is only Western. How narrow minded. As I said, the right wingers like him use fear to keep things as they are. That's what he peddles as "reality." "Life isn't fair, and people do bad crap." Hey, it's the people like you Shapiro who do the bad crap and make things unfair! If we allow the right to win, we perpetuate unfairness and the bad crap! And even though he's a breitbart editor, he's not even for Donald Trump! He couldn't even say who he was for. That's because there wasn't anybody else in the GOP worth voting for. Just for fun. And.. remember what Justin said, hey see below!!! click on it!!!
10-07-2017, 07:14 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-07-2017, 08:22 PM by Eric the Green.)
Ben Shapiro is an interesting fella, more coherent in his interviews online than in the video kinser posted. He's very articulate and a good talker, and a man of principle, although I disagree with most of his principles. On the videos of his interviews on the Rubin Report, a couple of people said he should run for president. He has some presence as an editor of publications (including breitbart) as well as his you tube channel, so that's my cue; I ran his chart (birthtime unknown) through my horoscope scoring system to see how he would fare if HE ran.
Not well! He has the same score as someone quite opposite to him politically, Sen. Kamala Harris, 4-14. He has some aspects that I fully expected: Mars sextile Mercury, a sharp quick talker, and a very outstanding "handle planet" Moon in Gemini, which again emphasizes his ability to communicate. A handle planet dominates a chart because it's on one side of it while all the other planets are on the other side. And in 1984, the planets were clustered quite closely. So he gets 4 points for his communication ability (Mercury also conjunct Jupiter), so what's wrong with him as a would-be candidate according to his chart? Well believe it or not he has the same conjunction as me and just as tight: Mars conj. Pluto, and in Scorpio yet. Hillary has this conjunction too, and Al Gore, as well as Ben Carson, Rudy Guiliani and a few others. It indicates acting on strong principles, but it can be over-the-top passionate and just a bit pushy or ruthless. You know, like Hillary and Al. And he has Mars sextile Neptune too (which automatically accompanies Mars conj. Pluto in these times), which has the name of a crusader. Again, like that other Ben, but also Hillary and Al and also Nancy Pelosi, Tulsi Gabbard and a lot of other folks on the left that he doesn't like. But he's a crusader on the right, and he has Mercury sextile Pluto (that goes along with sextile to Mars, of course), which Bernie Sanders has, which I surmise makes a candidate too outspoken and radical. In other words, all these aspects show that Ben Shapiro is just too outspoken and forthright about his opinions to be a good politician. He might be a good spokesman for his beliefs, but politicians usually have to be more "politic" about what they say. And he has Moon opposite Uranus too, like Trump and Hillary; too unconventional in his approach, and perhaps emotionally unstable. Of course he's a Capricorn like Ted Cruz, which is a sign that inclines strongly conservative, and Sun square Mars and Pluto too, and he believes in war and fighting generally, as is evident in his Imagine rant as well as his interviews. Sun sq. Mars, although it shows warlike aggressiveness, does not have a negative score for a candidate, but he gets more negative points from his pessimistic and paranoid Saturn-Neptune semi-square. He lacks discipline too, strangely enough, with Moon opposite Venus in Sag, but again that shows he does not stifle his mouth. Oh well, conservatives; better try someone else Of course, his score might improve if it turns out he was born late in the day; his Moon would oppose Jupiter then, which is good, but he would acquire more negative points too with Moon opposing Neptune and Mercury, so even then that's not much improvement, if any. That very-outstanding Moon in Gemini really seems typical, though, given his communication ability and involvement with the media.
10-09-2017, 12:03 PM
(10-07-2017, 07:14 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Ben Shapiro is an interesting fella, I find him to be somewhat intreguing though he and I differ politically on some yuge issues. Daddy chief among them. Israel being an other. Quote:more coherent in his interviews online than in the video kinser posted. Probably because it is a short clip from his youtube channel on a topic on which he isn't particularly well versed. Quote: He's very articulate and a good talker, and a man of principle, although I disagree with most of his principles. Well I suppose it isn't required that one have principles to oppose the principles of an other. Quote:On the videos of his interviews on the Rubin Report, a couple of people said he should run for president. He has some presence as an editor of publications (including breitbart) as well as his you tube channel, I think that Ben could potentially win a presidential bid but he would definitely be a 1T president as he was born in 1984 and it is unlikely that he'll pull off a JFK and be elected in his early 40s. In the unlikely event he runs for president I don't foresee him doing so before 2032, but if he tones down his pro-Zionism rhetoric and plays up his America First views he could make a decent showing. As for his work with Breitbart, he resigned back in 2016 and has been doing his own radio show as well as his various online content. I'm not going to bother with Eric's astrology since it is nonsense.
It really is all mathematics.
Turn on to Daddy, Tune in to Nationalism, Drop out of (10-07-2017, 02:44 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(10-07-2017, 12:37 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Good to know that your signature fits you PBR. This entire post demonstrates you did not even watch Ben Shapiro's arguments. I'm fairly certain being a practicing Orthodox Jew he is neither a Nazi nor in the Klan. You obviously didn't listen to it long enough because he was talking specifically about the content of the lyrics. Largely speaking he was exposing the song as the communist propaganda it is. I find that anyone who feels to need to say they aren't disparaging the USMC usually proceeds to disparage them. There is nothing wrong with the Marine's Hymn.
It really is all mathematics.
Turn on to Daddy, Tune in to Nationalism, Drop out of
(Kinser)
You obviously didn't listen to it long enough because he was talking specifically about the content of the lyrics. Largely speaking he was exposing the song as the communist propaganda it is. I find that anyone who feels to need to say they aren't disparaging the USMC usually proceeds to disparage them. There is nothing wrong with the Marine's Hymn. [/quote] The lyrics fit the USMC. The musical meter does not fit the norm for song of one note per syllable (opera and choral works of religion are exempt from that standard, of course). In theory the music could be altered to fit the words, but that would violate a tradition. A tradition that works well is not to be cast off without compelling reason. But in criticizing the Marine Hymn I am acting as a music critic. There's the odd case that the anthem of the old and discredited DDR Auferstanden aus Ruinen fit the meter of the national anthem of the German Federal Republic, and there was some short discussion of grafting the anthem of the German Democratic Republic into the Deutschlandlied, using the music of the Deutschlandlied. But back to Imagine. Hardly an entity has been more frequently used as a pretext for economic exploitation than Almighty God, particularly in the demand by economic elites that the rest of Humanity suffer economic deprivation on behalf those elites so that God will reward those who suffer for a rapacious, cruel class of exploiters and punish anyone who falls short of or rebels against the demands of those elites will spend an eternity in Hell. I can't speak for God Almighty, but I have an interpretation of the commandment Thou shalt not steal (Exodus 20:17) seems to have a corollary in a deprecation of economic exploitation in the sense of making someone dependent and helpless to change his lot so that the exploiter can profiteer from the victim's helplessness. An exploiter is a thief, even if more subtle in his stealing than the sneaky or forceful grabber of others property. Normal commerce is not theft, but peonage and outright enslavement are theft. Whether God exists or does not, people have presumable responsibilities to others.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
10-12-2017, 08:23 PM
(10-11-2017, 10:59 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The lyrics fit the USMC. The musical meter does not fit the norm for song of one note per syllable (opera and choral works of religion are exempt from that standard, of course). Assuming that this "norm" actually has any baring in musical theory, a topic of which I'm no expert--and doubtful that you are either--is in place. The exceptions for choral works (being for a religion is not a requirement) would apply to the Marine's Hymn. It is a hymn and its most famous incarnations is in fact choral. Quote:There's the odd case that the anthem of the old and discredited DDR Auferstanden aus Ruinen fit the meter of the national anthem of the German Federal Republic, and there was some short discussion of grafting the anthem of the German Democratic Republic into the Deutschlandlied, using the music of the Deutschlandlied. No one gives a shit. Literally no one, not even you. Quote:But back to Imagine. Hardly an entity has been more frequently used as a pretext for economic exploitation than Almighty God, particularly in the demand by economic elites that the rest of Humanity suffer economic deprivation on behalf those elites so that God will reward those who suffer for a rapacious, cruel class of exploiters and punish anyone who falls short of or rebels against the demands of those elites will spend an eternity in Hell. I can't speak for God Almighty, but I have an interpretation of the commandment Back to your old standby canned statement that all those who favor free market economics are rapacious thieves, yet are generally reluctant to vote themselves other people's money from the public purse. Good to know that your understanding of the entirety of Shapiro's statements about that travesty of communist propaganda (seriously I thought it was horribly ultra-left even as an ML) is essentally the same as your understanding of economics. Nonexistent.
It really is all mathematics.
Turn on to Daddy, Tune in to Nationalism, Drop out of |
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