During Cornell’s 1979 fall semester, I took a fifteen-student class labeled The American Supreme Court. The instructor, a thin, bearded, thirtyish, wire-bespectacled, leather-jacket and business-casual-wearing attorney/PhD candidate with longish, flaxen blonde hair introduced himself as Mark Silverstein.
A recent experience as I am serving as support person/advocate to a loved one who had major surgery (overnight hospital stay, opioids and other medications which make the person vulnerable; I stayed in the room the entire time to be able to step in as/if needed to protect my relative, and yes, I DID need to speak up at various times as nurses kept trying to push more and more doses of harmful and unnecessary medications):
1. My relative, high on opioids which loosened his tongue, confronted the nurses wearing masks (not required, but recommended and pushed by the hospital): he told them with conviction that the masks were ridiculous and ineffective and dehumanizing (to the patient, not being able to hear/understand them, read their lips, see their smiles, who they are, etc.). The nurses and nursing assistants pushed back weakly, murmuring, "we are supposed to wear them..." well, about 10% of them did not. So there appears to be continued brainwashing and pressure on trained medical people one would think might know the reality vs. ridiculousness.
2. Once released and in the home environment, the PT evaluator came to the house.... and asked my relative about his vaccinations. Here is where my relative did not feel safe in telling the truth, so he lied and said he had indeed received the flu AND COVID shots, "totally up to date" -- did not want being unvaxxed on his medical record. (I have heard that people might be vaccinated while under anesthesia for a procedure at some hospitals, if they state that they have not received these shots -- is that true? I don't know. But COVID has made me distrustful and paranoid).
In one of these examples, my loved one was able to speak up and be assertive about the insanity of masking (though he was under the influence of opioids at the time -- yet is normally a very outspoken, fearless person), but in the other example he did NOT feel safe in revealing himself to be an unshotted individual.
We do consider the individual short- and long-term consequences of speaking up. Even if we know that "honesty is the best policy," what are the costs?
Honesty is the best policy usually. When someone I've never met in my life comes to the door, hand in pocket, and says, by the way, are you alone? LOL I wouldn't recommend answering that truthfully before slamming the door. I don't blame your relative for lying to the PT evaluator. From what I can see in my neck of the super vaxxed-up woods people are not talking about vaxxes anymore, but in 2021-2023 people were oftentimes incredibly viscious towards the unvaxxed.
And the Chinese have shared insights about fooling smart people during Mao's reign using infectious disease to fundamentally transform the nation from nationalist into communist. "Disease politics":
Rural Health Care Delivery
Modern China from the Perspective of Disease Politics
Chapter 13.2 “The Higher the Education Level One Has, the Sillier He Is”
I learned about this book while reading the Council on Foreign Relations in March, 2020 tell the world to follow CCP China's authoritarian lead for the pandemic:
Yes. Tyrants, totalitarians of all stripes know the "smart" are the easiest to fool. It's why they hire magicians with words to prop up their regimes and edicts. Propagandists using linguistic deceit to gain the support of "smart" people in the bourgeoisie class that runs things.
No one owes any info to lockstep govt or medical industry invading a private home. Of course, maybe that's just me. (I wouldn't invite them in.) Such a dangerous 🤡🌎
Like you both did... you've got to play it by ear. Major surgery for an unvaxxed person seems to indicate that the blood plasma he received was from the standard blood supply, which is a transporter of Spike Proteins and nanotech by being taken from fully vaxxed donors. Wishing your friend well...
Mark, your penultimate paragraph should be required reading for the masses (They still might not get it). Rote learning is the bedrock of our education system. Memorization and regurgitation is all that is required. As a product of one of the most elite private schools in the nation, I am only aware of one other schoolmate who opposed and refused the “vaccines”.
As an aside, I originally posted the below comment on your previous post yesterday, but realized it was Wednesday and you’d likely have a fresh post today. I hope you don’t mind me sharing…
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family, Mark! You have been a needed voice throughout the past 5 years and I appreciate your friendship even more. We’ve shared some great meals and conversations. Thank you and Ellen for your generosity and hospitality.
Until this week, reading your stack always made me feel grateful that my family and I largely avoided any life-threatening health issues. That said, my father suffered a (2nd) stroke on Sunday. He is 87 years old. Born and raised on a Mississippi cotton farm, he became the first African-American to graduate from the University of Kentucky’s School of Dentistry and was only the 2nd African-American Orthodontist in the city of Philadelphia. He practiced for nearly 55 years, retiring at age 85.
I would appreciate as many prayers, light, love, and positive energy sent his way as you and this community can muster. He is an amazing man. A devout Christian. The kind of man they just don’t make anymore. I am so blessed to be his son and cannot imagine navigating this world without his steady hand and guidance. If interested in his story, please purchase his memoir here: https://a.co/d/6Vx7iko and leave a review after you’ve read it. We are also producing a documentary that should be released some time in 2025.
I know this is not the end of his story. But, it will be a difficult road to get back to baseline. I appreciate you all. Thank you in advance. 🙏🏾
Praying for you, Ino, and your father. May God grant him years of life and improved health, and if that is not His will, that you face your inevitable loss, whenever it comes, with the courage to carry on his legacy. A good father is an incredible blessing.
The exact same framework has been operative in the “Biden is mentally competent” scam that has been perpetrated on the American public since he was running for his first term in 2019. Now, finally, when it doesn’t matter, after 4 years of complete destruction, are publications like The Wall Street Journal “breaking” the story, and everyone is pretending they couldn’t see that the Emperor has been wandering around naked for the past 5 years.
The SILENCE was deafening. What an excellent example you provided that played out a million times, every day, for two years.
I still can't believe ALL of the other business owners I know failed to stand up. I knew we were fucked once Trump allowed the "15 days to slow the spread" to happen. At that point I pretty much knew how things would turn out, except for two things.
It did not occur to me how awful (and for how long) our society would treat children. Why would would I? Never in the history of mankind have we allowed children to sacrifice so much of their future for those short for this world. It goes against everything a decent society knows and would never let happen. I was also just shocked at how easily business owners who, are some of the most free-thinking risk takers amongst us, just laid down by keeping their head down.
Mark, everything was just as you say. Much like Nazi Germany, where unjust power ends up terrifying the public and eventually terminates with a degenerated society where the odious methods of servitude manifests itself in abject sycophancy and blind submission as the only way to ensure their "safety"...or their own relative preference over the general public. When the only vehicle to ensure safety is to keep your mouth shut and flatter unjust power the population becomes de facto slaves.
What annoys me to this day is most people have no idea how close we brushed with the abyss. You would think this would be apparent now that people have had a chance to look backwards. How many brushes with evil do you get before you or your neighbor are wearing "star of David" patches?
And that to me is just as scary as the deafening SILENCE of how we got into that mess....because it means it will happen again...plandemic or otherwise.
All of this that you experienced is so very true, but typical. Most people, in particular, institutional/academic types, are highly conformist and submissive to those up their food chains that have similar backgrounds. That's why it is so hard to bring to justice the miscreants and murderers who knew what the injections could do (all bad) yet pushed them anyway.
I don't know what the process is in NJ but maybe you can get your license updated and help bring some these criminals and cowards to justice. Lots of lawsuits coming. We need good lawyers who are honest and knowledgeable and not part of the establishment to represent the victims.
Its 1938, we are in Germany on the outskirts of Berlin. In a leafy Bourgeois suburb. You are a Christian German lawyer with a nice house a couple of kids and a nice law practice. I am your German Jewish neighbor a door down or across the street. I own a small textile factory. We are both literate educated men who enjoy opera, theater, cigars, discussing philosophy. One night at 1 am a few vans and cars arrive at my house. You hear the commotion and wake up. You peer out of the window. You see me and my family be lead out of the house into one of the vans. You are sad and terrified. You say nothing. You never see me again. You survive the war and continue your law practice. You live another 30 years with the knowledge that the state murdered you friend and his family. You carry this to your grave.
This was what coronomania was. The founders of the US understood this dynamic and warned about it.
The leaders of this country, those in academia , public health failed completely and utterly.
Allopathic medicine is a hierarchical system of obedient practioners given delusions of god-like power over life and death. Making it especially susceptible to commiting mass murder. Genocide, iatrocide, democide. Individuals and armies of soldiers could never kill as many as the allopathic medicine industry does. Individuals lack the capacity for volume and armies lack the god-like delusions that medical doctors have. Most soldiers have a conscience. Something most medical doctors are unburdened by.
How frustrating it is to see even at the small scale the bribery in our government! What a mess! And how the country has flipped, where now the young people follow the government and the older people are now the rebels. Good article.
Mark, you just get better with each essay. Thanks for explaining the pension scam. Where I live, near Hilton Head, it seems very damn Yankee is a member of the ‘check of the month club.’ It’s galling as they shove up our real estate expenses. I know a NJ detective who drives between his home here and his job in NJ. What the hell? Finally, I wish I could hear the ‘austere nun’s’ lecture!
You shouldn't be baffled at how blind people are. It's simply how the overwhelming majority of people are. Period. Like the sky is blue, water is wet, birds fly. Accept it, they ain't changing.
You so eloquently stated how and why so many pandered to the COVID scam. It takes bravery to speak up. We witnessed a cowardly population eager to go along to get along and not lose their jobs, but willing to sacrifice their health and integrity. Sad reflection on our society and to those who did speak up, we owe a huge gratitude.
This article perfectly summarizes the mass psychosis prevalent during covid
Its was a civilization wide breakdown. It was the facilitated and enabled by the very organizations that have been charged with protecting our rights and freedoms.
I have two sons. One, 20 is in college and the other is applying to college now. The younger guy is 17 and very brights. He is under all this pressure to go to the “best “ college”. My wife and i however have lost our enthusiasm. Bc the educational establishment was complicit in the covid madness. That coupled with all this “woke” insanity and the cost ( a typical private lib arts college is 50+ k a year in tuition alone) has soured us on the who process
We have had a hard time guiding him and the GOVernment school in our town has been useless.
Excellent article and thank you for posting it. Whether it serves to change the conduct of the "sheep", we can only hope. On an unrelated note, I have always found it intriguing that Cornell grads (I was class of '85) seem almost compelled to name their alma mater whenever an opportunity arises. Rather than "while enrolled in a freshman seminar during my first year of college", it is written as "during Cornell's 1979 fall semester". Always found that an oddity. Thanks again for a thought provoking and necessary piece.
My apologies if I came across as critical. I do appreciate the details, but your intro just happened to remind me of the Be Sure To Name Cornell phenomenon. I wasn't aware of the fact that there was Ivy envy out there in the ether, but that certainly doesn't surprise me.
It clearly was--didn't just "come across as--" critical.
I also went to Indiana University for two years and have said so in other posts. If you read my posts, you know that I often include details b/c they make the accounts more vivid.
There's no Ivy envy on my part. I know plenty of stuff most Harvard and Yale grads don't. For example, I knew Covid was a Scam and the shots were unnecessary and dangerous.
Whoa. Looks like I may have struck a nerve without intending. I didn't intend to accuse you of Ivy envy (as shown by my phrasing of "in the ether") and was affirmatively responding to your point that there are people (again, not a reference to you) out there who apparently run a comparison between Ivy schools. It's great that you have seen through the COnVID scam and that gene therapy isn't required for a passing mild virus. Not looking for a quarrel nor was I trying to cast you in a poor light. As it seems my composition style is misinterpreted, it might be best if I try to stick with reading and not responding. Best regards to you and your good work.
Agreed. As a diff but related example, I once dated a guy who always referred to his transportation as his Jaguar (which it indeed was) rather than just his car. Drove me crazy, lol.
Yet another great essay, Mark. I feel so blessed that I was raised with and applied the worldview that I should love people, not things. I should love experiences, not things. Of course nice things are, well nice, but I'll take a great conversation with a stranger on a bench in a park over riding around town showing off in a fancy car any day. Most of the people you describe are missing out on the meaning of life in my opinion. Just sad.
My wife makes meals as good or better than most restaurants. And a good session of basketball with a bunch of good players beats any day on any golf course. But then, I'm a bad golfer.
Same with vacations. My wife and I have been to some fascinating low budget countries and lodgings. More interesting and fun than 5-star hotels. (I once stayed in one on a work trip).
It was embittering and showed the clubby nature of the court system. If I was part of the in-crowd, I would have been paid 10x as much. What I got paid was far less important than making the town pay for what they so arrogantly did. I tried to settle it before litigation but they wouldn't even meet with me b/c I wasn't a member of the "right" ethnoreligious group or party. Winning that case required me to do hundreds of hours of work, for which I was paid less than $25/hour. Not a terrible wage but not age/training/experience appropriate.
I worked in the clubby political world for decades. Going to the posh fetes and galas, fundraisers and community leader awards ceremonies, the house parties in mansions with valet parking. Welcomed into the homes that US presidents would stay in as guests when in town, boardrooms where visions for the next two decades of community development and economy were discussed.
My work led me to creating judicial nomination panels for my state's highest courts. Have worked directly with presidential cabinet members and with SCOTUS law clerks. Been in the back chambers of a SCOTUS justice as a final death row appeal came in; the condemned was executed five minutes after the denial was faxed back.
I know these people. I had a front row seat to the rent-seeking process. Glad-handing and ego-stroking in a dance of evaluating who can do what for who as they build their empire and loyalists. It is a big club that very few are truly in. Most confuse their proximity and utility to those truly in the club with actual membership in it.
And having met and worked with them I know enough to know that most are complete idiots. But very good at playing "the game." Judges the same. Rarely picked for their intellect or being titans of jurisprudence philosophy. All picked for their ability to play the game and the role of high priests in black robes. For their fealty to the 'team' that picks them and The System both teams are partners in. The number of King Solomon-like wise jurists in the entire nation can be counted in the tens. Though nearly all will bluster, bully, thunder and ordain, appropriating honorifics as though they're earned and worthy of them. 99% are just kiss-asses with decent vocabularies who pass a loyalty test. Loyal to The System. Not the US Constitution.
Note: As much as I had access and influence in The System I was always enough of an independent operator and thinker that I didn't gain benefit of the lucre of it. I was comfortable enough, but never enriched to luxury or ease. I watched many colleagues, peers make their negotiations and play the game, acquire vast wealth and status. I couldn't make those types of negotiations. Which liberated me to become the dissident I've become, and protect my life and health and the lives and health of those I love and care for most...at least the ones who were open to my ideas.
A recent experience as I am serving as support person/advocate to a loved one who had major surgery (overnight hospital stay, opioids and other medications which make the person vulnerable; I stayed in the room the entire time to be able to step in as/if needed to protect my relative, and yes, I DID need to speak up at various times as nurses kept trying to push more and more doses of harmful and unnecessary medications):
1. My relative, high on opioids which loosened his tongue, confronted the nurses wearing masks (not required, but recommended and pushed by the hospital): he told them with conviction that the masks were ridiculous and ineffective and dehumanizing (to the patient, not being able to hear/understand them, read their lips, see their smiles, who they are, etc.). The nurses and nursing assistants pushed back weakly, murmuring, "we are supposed to wear them..." well, about 10% of them did not. So there appears to be continued brainwashing and pressure on trained medical people one would think might know the reality vs. ridiculousness.
2. Once released and in the home environment, the PT evaluator came to the house.... and asked my relative about his vaccinations. Here is where my relative did not feel safe in telling the truth, so he lied and said he had indeed received the flu AND COVID shots, "totally up to date" -- did not want being unvaxxed on his medical record. (I have heard that people might be vaccinated while under anesthesia for a procedure at some hospitals, if they state that they have not received these shots -- is that true? I don't know. But COVID has made me distrustful and paranoid).
In one of these examples, my loved one was able to speak up and be assertive about the insanity of masking (though he was under the influence of opioids at the time -- yet is normally a very outspoken, fearless person), but in the other example he did NOT feel safe in revealing himself to be an unshotted individual.
We do consider the individual short- and long-term consequences of speaking up. Even if we know that "honesty is the best policy," what are the costs?
Honesty is the best policy usually. When someone I've never met in my life comes to the door, hand in pocket, and says, by the way, are you alone? LOL I wouldn't recommend answering that truthfully before slamming the door. I don't blame your relative for lying to the PT evaluator. From what I can see in my neck of the super vaxxed-up woods people are not talking about vaxxes anymore, but in 2021-2023 people were oftentimes incredibly viscious towards the unvaxxed.
I spike the no-vaxx ball on the vaxxers every chance I get.
I like your T-shirt!!
https://transcriberb.substack.com/p/time-out-for-mask-memes
Did you get one? Wearing it angers many who see it, but those who like it come up to me and shake my hand.
I feel like these should be widely worn.
Never forget.
Harry Houdini shared insights about fooling smart people.
In "Houdini Exposes the Tricks"
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-brooklyn-daily-eagle-houdini-margery/4691118/
he said, “the more highly educated a man is along certain lines, the easier he is to dupe."
And other insights about smart, powerful people, even occupiers of the White House believing tricksters. More developed at:
https://freedomfox.substack.com/p/foxes-know-magicians
And the Chinese have shared insights about fooling smart people during Mao's reign using infectious disease to fundamentally transform the nation from nationalist into communist. "Disease politics":
Rural Health Care Delivery
Modern China from the Perspective of Disease Politics
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2013
https://library.lol/main/DB87C08A174B849E1EB0476138787AED
('GET' .pdf download)
Chapter 13.2 “The Higher the Education Level One Has, the Sillier He Is”
I learned about this book while reading the Council on Foreign Relations in March, 2020 tell the world to follow CCP China's authoritarian lead for the pandemic:
Past Pandemics Exposed China’s Weaknesses
The Current One Highlights Its Strengths
Foreign Affairs, March 27, 2020
https://web.archive.org/web/20200328050913/https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2020-03-27/past-pandemics-exposed-chinas-weaknesses
More in this Stack on gems in that book:
https://freedomfox.substack.com/p/the-devious-use-of-infectious-disease
Yes. Tyrants, totalitarians of all stripes know the "smart" are the easiest to fool. It's why they hire magicians with words to prop up their regimes and edicts. Propagandists using linguistic deceit to gain the support of "smart" people in the bourgeoisie class that runs things.
No one owes any info to lockstep govt or medical industry invading a private home. Of course, maybe that's just me. (I wouldn't invite them in.) Such a dangerous 🤡🌎
Like you both did... you've got to play it by ear. Major surgery for an unvaxxed person seems to indicate that the blood plasma he received was from the standard blood supply, which is a transporter of Spike Proteins and nanotech by being taken from fully vaxxed donors. Wishing your friend well...
Mark, your penultimate paragraph should be required reading for the masses (They still might not get it). Rote learning is the bedrock of our education system. Memorization and regurgitation is all that is required. As a product of one of the most elite private schools in the nation, I am only aware of one other schoolmate who opposed and refused the “vaccines”.
As an aside, I originally posted the below comment on your previous post yesterday, but realized it was Wednesday and you’d likely have a fresh post today. I hope you don’t mind me sharing…
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family, Mark! You have been a needed voice throughout the past 5 years and I appreciate your friendship even more. We’ve shared some great meals and conversations. Thank you and Ellen for your generosity and hospitality.
Until this week, reading your stack always made me feel grateful that my family and I largely avoided any life-threatening health issues. That said, my father suffered a (2nd) stroke on Sunday. He is 87 years old. Born and raised on a Mississippi cotton farm, he became the first African-American to graduate from the University of Kentucky’s School of Dentistry and was only the 2nd African-American Orthodontist in the city of Philadelphia. He practiced for nearly 55 years, retiring at age 85.
I would appreciate as many prayers, light, love, and positive energy sent his way as you and this community can muster. He is an amazing man. A devout Christian. The kind of man they just don’t make anymore. I am so blessed to be his son and cannot imagine navigating this world without his steady hand and guidance. If interested in his story, please purchase his memoir here: https://a.co/d/6Vx7iko and leave a review after you’ve read it. We are also producing a documentary that should be released some time in 2025.
I know this is not the end of his story. But, it will be a difficult road to get back to baseline. I appreciate you all. Thank you in advance. 🙏🏾
Praying for you, Ino, and your father. May God grant him years of life and improved health, and if that is not His will, that you face your inevitable loss, whenever it comes, with the courage to carry on his legacy. A good father is an incredible blessing.
Thank You, Double Mc!
Praying you get more quality time with him. I just purchased the Kindle version and look forward to reading it!
Thank you, ICI.
The exact same framework has been operative in the “Biden is mentally competent” scam that has been perpetrated on the American public since he was running for his first term in 2019. Now, finally, when it doesn’t matter, after 4 years of complete destruction, are publications like The Wall Street Journal “breaking” the story, and everyone is pretending they couldn’t see that the Emperor has been wandering around naked for the past 5 years.
True.
A friend of mine said, after the June debate, that Biden wasn't senile, "he just choked."
People are stubborn about their politics.
The SILENCE was deafening. What an excellent example you provided that played out a million times, every day, for two years.
I still can't believe ALL of the other business owners I know failed to stand up. I knew we were fucked once Trump allowed the "15 days to slow the spread" to happen. At that point I pretty much knew how things would turn out, except for two things.
It did not occur to me how awful (and for how long) our society would treat children. Why would would I? Never in the history of mankind have we allowed children to sacrifice so much of their future for those short for this world. It goes against everything a decent society knows and would never let happen. I was also just shocked at how easily business owners who, are some of the most free-thinking risk takers amongst us, just laid down by keeping their head down.
Mark, everything was just as you say. Much like Nazi Germany, where unjust power ends up terrifying the public and eventually terminates with a degenerated society where the odious methods of servitude manifests itself in abject sycophancy and blind submission as the only way to ensure their "safety"...or their own relative preference over the general public. When the only vehicle to ensure safety is to keep your mouth shut and flatter unjust power the population becomes de facto slaves.
What annoys me to this day is most people have no idea how close we brushed with the abyss. You would think this would be apparent now that people have had a chance to look backwards. How many brushes with evil do you get before you or your neighbor are wearing "star of David" patches?
And that to me is just as scary as the deafening SILENCE of how we got into that mess....because it means it will happen again...plandemic or otherwise.
Yes, it will happen again. It takes a lot of rose-colored glasses to think otherwise.
What happened to question authority? Guess that went in the back pocket with everything else.
I wrote a post about that old slogan a while ago.
It's ok to question authority when your group isn't the authority. But you don't question your own.
All of this that you experienced is so very true, but typical. Most people, in particular, institutional/academic types, are highly conformist and submissive to those up their food chains that have similar backgrounds. That's why it is so hard to bring to justice the miscreants and murderers who knew what the injections could do (all bad) yet pushed them anyway.
I don't know what the process is in NJ but maybe you can get your license updated and help bring some these criminals and cowards to justice. Lots of lawsuits coming. We need good lawyers who are honest and knowledgeable and not part of the establishment to represent the victims.
Danny Huckabee
Its 1938, we are in Germany on the outskirts of Berlin. In a leafy Bourgeois suburb. You are a Christian German lawyer with a nice house a couple of kids and a nice law practice. I am your German Jewish neighbor a door down or across the street. I own a small textile factory. We are both literate educated men who enjoy opera, theater, cigars, discussing philosophy. One night at 1 am a few vans and cars arrive at my house. You hear the commotion and wake up. You peer out of the window. You see me and my family be lead out of the house into one of the vans. You are sad and terrified. You say nothing. You never see me again. You survive the war and continue your law practice. You live another 30 years with the knowledge that the state murdered you friend and his family. You carry this to your grave.
This was what coronomania was. The founders of the US understood this dynamic and warned about it.
The leaders of this country, those in academia , public health failed completely and utterly.
As we jews say:
NEVER FORGET
NEVER AGAIN!!!
Same story. Different decade.
Why did so many German doctors join the Nazi Party early?
International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, October 3, 2012
https://sci-hub.se/http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlp.2012.09.022
Allopathic medicine is a hierarchical system of obedient practioners given delusions of god-like power over life and death. Making it especially susceptible to commiting mass murder. Genocide, iatrocide, democide. Individuals and armies of soldiers could never kill as many as the allopathic medicine industry does. Individuals lack the capacity for volume and armies lack the god-like delusions that medical doctors have. Most soldiers have a conscience. Something most medical doctors are unburdened by.
How frustrating it is to see even at the small scale the bribery in our government! What a mess! And how the country has flipped, where now the young people follow the government and the older people are now the rebels. Good article.
Public pension costs are way too high.
The example I gave is common. I heard a cop brag about how they all work tons of overtime in their last three years to juice up their pensions.
Judges get 2/3 of their salary.
Etc.
Mark, you just get better with each essay. Thanks for explaining the pension scam. Where I live, near Hilton Head, it seems very damn Yankee is a member of the ‘check of the month club.’ It’s galling as they shove up our real estate expenses. I know a NJ detective who drives between his home here and his job in NJ. What the hell? Finally, I wish I could hear the ‘austere nun’s’ lecture!
I think the cops get 2/3 of salary after 20 or 25 years. Suburban cop is not a tough gig.
🎯
Thanks for another great article detailing of how things are. It still is baffling to me how blind people still are.
Here in IL we have the same pension problems.
I know several that retired from state jobs that did the same thing before retiring.
You shouldn't be baffled at how blind people are. It's simply how the overwhelming majority of people are. Period. Like the sky is blue, water is wet, birds fly. Accept it, they ain't changing.
You so eloquently stated how and why so many pandered to the COVID scam. It takes bravery to speak up. We witnessed a cowardly population eager to go along to get along and not lose their jobs, but willing to sacrifice their health and integrity. Sad reflection on our society and to those who did speak up, we owe a huge gratitude.
This article perfectly summarizes the mass psychosis prevalent during covid
Its was a civilization wide breakdown. It was the facilitated and enabled by the very organizations that have been charged with protecting our rights and freedoms.
I have two sons. One, 20 is in college and the other is applying to college now. The younger guy is 17 and very brights. He is under all this pressure to go to the “best “ college”. My wife and i however have lost our enthusiasm. Bc the educational establishment was complicit in the covid madness. That coupled with all this “woke” insanity and the cost ( a typical private lib arts college is 50+ k a year in tuition alone) has soured us on the who process
We have had a hard time guiding him and the GOVernment school in our town has been useless.
Excellent article and thank you for posting it. Whether it serves to change the conduct of the "sheep", we can only hope. On an unrelated note, I have always found it intriguing that Cornell grads (I was class of '85) seem almost compelled to name their alma mater whenever an opportunity arises. Rather than "while enrolled in a freshman seminar during my first year of college", it is written as "during Cornell's 1979 fall semester". Always found that an oddity. Thanks again for a thought provoking and necessary piece.
I always provide as much information as possible to make the story more real. I use peoples' names, too, though some would say they're irrelevant.
If it helps, some people look down upon Cornell b/c it's not Harvard or Yale.
My apologies if I came across as critical. I do appreciate the details, but your intro just happened to remind me of the Be Sure To Name Cornell phenomenon. I wasn't aware of the fact that there was Ivy envy out there in the ether, but that certainly doesn't surprise me.
It clearly was--didn't just "come across as--" critical.
I also went to Indiana University for two years and have said so in other posts. If you read my posts, you know that I often include details b/c they make the accounts more vivid.
There's no Ivy envy on my part. I know plenty of stuff most Harvard and Yale grads don't. For example, I knew Covid was a Scam and the shots were unnecessary and dangerous.
Whoa. Looks like I may have struck a nerve without intending. I didn't intend to accuse you of Ivy envy (as shown by my phrasing of "in the ether") and was affirmatively responding to your point that there are people (again, not a reference to you) out there who apparently run a comparison between Ivy schools. It's great that you have seen through the COnVID scam and that gene therapy isn't required for a passing mild virus. Not looking for a quarrel nor was I trying to cast you in a poor light. As it seems my composition style is misinterpreted, it might be best if I try to stick with reading and not responding. Best regards to you and your good work.
Agreed. As a diff but related example, I once dated a guy who always referred to his transportation as his Jaguar (which it indeed was) rather than just his car. Drove me crazy, lol.
Sounds like you wisely dodged a bullet when you got rid of him and his Jaguar. Bravo!
Yet another great essay, Mark. I feel so blessed that I was raised with and applied the worldview that I should love people, not things. I should love experiences, not things. Of course nice things are, well nice, but I'll take a great conversation with a stranger on a bench in a park over riding around town showing off in a fancy car any day. Most of the people you describe are missing out on the meaning of life in my opinion. Just sad.
Thanks, ICI.
I agree re: experiences over things.
My wife makes meals as good or better than most restaurants. And a good session of basketball with a bunch of good players beats any day on any golf course. But then, I'm a bad golfer.
Same with vacations. My wife and I have been to some fascinating low budget countries and lodgings. More interesting and fun than 5-star hotels. (I once stayed in one on a work trip).
The article no one wants to read unless you are not a follower.
You write so beautifully!
Thanks, Spartacus. I wish I could say these are all first drafts.
You make it look effortless.
Excellent musings. Spot on.
Happy Holidays to you and yours.
Respectfully
Thanks, David.
Yes, tell the teachers and bosses what they want to hear. That's the ticket.
I must have missed, or already forgotten, that "sidewalk" article. Got to go to your archive and read it!
found it: https://markoshinskie8de.substack.com/p/courts-will-not-protect-you if anyone else wants to check it out.
What they awarded you was a small fraction of a McDonald's salary. What a bunch of crooks.
It was embittering and showed the clubby nature of the court system. If I was part of the in-crowd, I would have been paid 10x as much. What I got paid was far less important than making the town pay for what they so arrogantly did. I tried to settle it before litigation but they wouldn't even meet with me b/c I wasn't a member of the "right" ethnoreligious group or party. Winning that case required me to do hundreds of hours of work, for which I was paid less than $25/hour. Not a terrible wage but not age/training/experience appropriate.
I worked in the clubby political world for decades. Going to the posh fetes and galas, fundraisers and community leader awards ceremonies, the house parties in mansions with valet parking. Welcomed into the homes that US presidents would stay in as guests when in town, boardrooms where visions for the next two decades of community development and economy were discussed.
My work led me to creating judicial nomination panels for my state's highest courts. Have worked directly with presidential cabinet members and with SCOTUS law clerks. Been in the back chambers of a SCOTUS justice as a final death row appeal came in; the condemned was executed five minutes after the denial was faxed back.
I know these people. I had a front row seat to the rent-seeking process. Glad-handing and ego-stroking in a dance of evaluating who can do what for who as they build their empire and loyalists. It is a big club that very few are truly in. Most confuse their proximity and utility to those truly in the club with actual membership in it.
And having met and worked with them I know enough to know that most are complete idiots. But very good at playing "the game." Judges the same. Rarely picked for their intellect or being titans of jurisprudence philosophy. All picked for their ability to play the game and the role of high priests in black robes. For their fealty to the 'team' that picks them and The System both teams are partners in. The number of King Solomon-like wise jurists in the entire nation can be counted in the tens. Though nearly all will bluster, bully, thunder and ordain, appropriating honorifics as though they're earned and worthy of them. 99% are just kiss-asses with decent vocabularies who pass a loyalty test. Loyal to The System. Not the US Constitution.
Note: As much as I had access and influence in The System I was always enough of an independent operator and thinker that I didn't gain benefit of the lucre of it. I was comfortable enough, but never enriched to luxury or ease. I watched many colleagues, peers make their negotiations and play the game, acquire vast wealth and status. I couldn't make those types of negotiations. Which liberated me to become the dissident I've become, and protect my life and health and the lives and health of those I love and care for most...at least the ones who were open to my ideas.