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The Potemkin Village of the left.

I’m ADHD and I posted something that I thought made sense but when I looked at it later it didn’t. I deleted it because it was a bit confusing to hear what I was really saying.

The Potemkin village, the phony village that tyrants show to visiting diplomats and tourists who come to their land, is a diversion. It is the pretend village that hides the torture and murder really going on behind the scenes of totalitarian governments, the mass murders and the likes that dictators try so hard to hide. These cities are shown to visiting dignitaries to show that the citizens of these regimes are happy and prosperous, when in truth they are starving and destitute, imprisoned and tortured.

Remember what Hitler did concerning the cities where the Jews were kept until they were shipped to the death camps? Hitler made Potemkin Jewish villages where he would invite dignitaries to come and see how well the Jews were being treated. The Nazis would take the healthiest looking Jews and set them around a dining table. They would take visitors to houses at suppertime and see the families with plates of plenty. They were lacking nothing. The visitors would report back to their respective governments how wonderful the Nazis treated the Jews.
Then they might invite you to see another prosperous Jewish family that was enjoying life to the fullest. And you would be shown how wonderful their lives truly were. But when the Nazis left the room for a moment, some of those who were starving would take a piece of bread from the table and eat it, and later be shot by the Germans for doing that. Surly the Jews in these cities clearly weren’t people awaiting the train ride to the death camps.

That’s what this Utopia promised by your politicians is, the “Potemkin City of the Left.” Get rid of guns, and society will cease to kill one another. But when they do, and everybody sacrifices, and there are no more guns, people will still kill people. The same people killing people now will still have their high capacity magazine guns, for they buy them on the Black Market. Only law-abiding citizens who are background checked and registered will loose their right to own guns. But regardless, it sounds good to the politicians and the brain dead. Even though it tells the lawless that they can now rob and kill and do whatever they wish with out resistance or threat of guns in the good guys hands.
But we can still feel good about ourselves for this giant step on the path to Utopia.

If we shut down the coal operated power plants we will all have less polluted air. Nice idea if air just stayed in one place. But China would still pollute the air even if no one else did. We must live in a stupid dome or something. Yet we will have sacrificed and we will have done without, so we can still feel good about ourselves.

But the greenies will say that we still pollute too much.. So we will need to get rid of the automobile to get our cities pollution free. That should stop “Climate Change” formerly known as “Global Warming” until scientists showed that the earth has been cooling this last 10 years. I realize that those who live in the cities would readily give up their cars and use public transportation. In fact I believe some mayors had debates and made proposals concerning that. So just exactly how many cars do we need anyway, people who walk to work get healthier. That’s less need for healthcare.
But we would still have radical weather. So the problem must lie with people breathing and producing the methane gas that humans find so humorous.

Yes the air would still be too polluted to satisfy the Greenies. Perhaps we could get rid of the non-productive, the infirm, the elderly and the misfits and dissenters. So now the air would be cleaner and we would also live without murders by legal gun owners and the likes. Only the criminals would commit the murders then, thereby causing a great 0.19 of one percent reduction in gun crimes by legal registered gun owners. And we could feel better about ourselves.

Still medical attention costs so much we should all have free healthcare. That would make life so much better in Utopia. Yes, everything would be just fine. Oops. It cost more now, people are denied, taxes went way up to pay for it, it became inefficient and the good doctors quit, and we can’t afford to operate those state of the art diagnostic machines anymore so people who could have lived now die. But that isn’t all bad. Less people exhaling means less pollution. We can feel good about ourselves after all. More people dying = cleaner air! Now we are close to Utopia! Well, maybe not. People don’t work hard enough or pay enough taxes so others can stay at home and get as much free stuff. There must be a solution for that.

Unfortunately the earth will still go through climate change, as it always has. So something else must still be causing this “Global Warming”,,um errr “Climate Change” (That’s still just called weather, by the sane people) The Greenies will now come up with a new campaigns to target other unrelated thing that you enjoy. I know, they can make a campaign for banning everything. A campaign against everything would put so many people to work that it would almost be like Utopia right off the bat!. Except for the weather and the Green house gas that the trees use to make oxygen that we breathe.

So when all is said and done, and the community is living in perfect harmony, you will look for something fun to do. You could watch a movie about the dating habits if the chimpanzee or something like that since all the violent movies have been banned. Naturally they would be PG thirteen only because of the sex. You could play solitaire, since all the violent video games were banned. Maybe you could watch Sat morning cartoons where Elmer Fud doesn’t shoot at Buggs Bunny, or the road Runner doesn’t push the Wiley Coyote off the cliff… no, those have also been deemed too violent. Maybe you could watch some sports… but they were all banned because they were so violent. Besides that, they made the losers feel bad about themselves. Maybe you could watch propaganda on your big screen TV, if those hadn’t been banned since the “new smaller” inefficient power grid couldn’t take the strain. After all, who needs a big screen when families used to gather around a 5” TV in the days gone by. Well, maybe you could go on a luxurious vacation by rickshaw to a nearby park and just sit under the trees in the shade on a folding chair. Wait a minute trees generated greenhouse gasses so they had to be cut down. And folding chairs used plastic. That comes from the oil we banned, besides it pollutes because it never decomposes. But you can still feel good about yourselves.

This Utopian world. Where no one need work, where there are no legal guns, where healthcare is free (to some), where everyone is paid the same amount, where there aren’t any cars to pollute, where politicians watch out for us for our own well being, and the air is cleaner. This is the Utopian vision of the left for you. The left has truly brought Utopia to America. And that is the “Potimkin city of the left”, the city you helped fight to achieve. Isn’t it wonderful? And all you had to do to make it happen is to let politicians ban the rights of your fellow citizens one at a time to get there. And when all of your freedoms disappear one law at a time, one word at a time, you can sit back and feel good about yourselves.

But I would bet that you still don’t get the big picture. You don’t understand that this Utopia of the Left is simply a Potimkin city used to take the remaining freedom from you that you still have left.

That's why most people end up asking the question,,, Why did this happen? Or the derivative,,, How did this happen?

Could it have anything to do with the lack of personal responsibility?

Good post Slacker,,, Do your self a favor,,,, Stop wasting some good words, on few that will only learn when they are asking the question.

Can you say hyperbole, children?
If you honestly believe all of that, then just let that old age dementia run its course, and call it a day.

Two reasons that nothing so extreme as that will come to pass - militias, and hacktivists.

Although... I just have to mention that what you laid out was vet well written, Slacker.
I think you're slipping off the edge, but I appreciate the work you put into that.

Potemkin villages are fakes, on purpose. The ideals of a more progressive utopian society are all-encompassing, not fake, and would ideally be exactly what they claim- But we all know a true Utopia is not possible and I don't know a sane person who would argue that. In my mind, a fair utopian society would have ample food, clean water, clean and safe shelter, and full healthcare for all, regardless of wealth or ability to contribute. People can still amass wealth or live meagerly, but nobody in a country this wealthy should be homeless, hungry, and perpetually sick.

Comparing them like you did does not add any value to discussion other than to serve the purpose of why it was written in that fashion: To invoke fear by using ideals and propaganda from the past and attaching them to ideals of today (or tomorrow). It's like trying to connect two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that don't match.. but rather than accepting it, you've chosen to forcibly mash them together, ignoring that the picture isn't accurate.

As far as climate change.. well, WE are the biggest polluter in the world. Who cares about china? We need to worry about our house and stop citing our neighbors' problems. The whole concept of us being the leaders in the world is that other nations would follow our example and join in. So far, other nations are doing the opposite- creating better policies on almost every level, because we won't do ANYTHING if there isn't private profits to be realized. GW doesn't support profiting.

None of us are climatologists, but I will go with my gut that the majority consensus is correct:

The main conclusions of the IPCC on global warming were the following:
The global average surface temperature has risen 0.6 ± 0.2 °C since the late 19th century, and 0.17 °C per decade in the last 30 years.[6]
"There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities", in particular emissions of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane.[7]
If greenhouse gas emissions continue the warming will also continue, with temperatures projected to increase by 1.4 °C to 5.8 °C between 1990 and 2100. Accompanying this temperature increase will be increases in some types of extreme weather and a projected sea level rise.[8] On balance the impacts of global warming will be significantly negative, especially for larger values of warming.[9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific ... ate_change

Kramerguy wrote:
As far as climate change.. well, WE are the biggest polluter in the world. Who cares about china?

None of us are climatologists, but I will go with my gut that the majority consensus is correct:

The main conclusions of the IPCC on global warming were the following:
The global average surface temperature has risen 0.6 ± 0.2 °C since the late 19th century, and 0.17 °C per decade in the last 30 years.[6]
"There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities", in particular emissions of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane.[7]
If greenhouse gas emissions continue the warming will also continue, with temperatures projected to increase by 1.4 °C to 5.8 °C between 1990 and 2100. Accompanying this temperature increase will be increases in some types of extreme weather and a projected sea level rise.[8] On balance the impacts of global warming will be significantly negative, especially for larger values of warming.[9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific ... ate_change

Common misconceptions Kramer and the kind of stuff you read on the wacko websites all the time. It simply ain't so. China is the leading CO2 emissions country by a wide margin and that margin is growing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... _emissions


The fundamental science in IPCC AR4 WG1 is sound "Increased CO2 emissions must cause warming at some level" but the "how much warming?" is the tricky part. The conclusions you refer to were written by politicians, not climate scientists. In fact there is growing evidence to suggest that these conclusions are wrong. Warming will likely take place, but more like 1 degree C per century. This changes everything. Catastrophe over. In fact, historical and paleo evidence tells us that in prior eras when the earth was warmer and the seas were higher, mankind and nature thrived:

"The most recent glacial retreat is still going on. We call the temporal period of this retreat the Holocene epoch. This warming of the Earth and subsequent glacial retreat began about 14,000 years ago (12,000 BC). The warming was shortly interrupted by a sudden cooling, known as the Younger-Dryas, at about 10,000 - 8500 BC. Scientists speculate that this cooling may have been caused by the release of fresh water trapped behind ice on North America into the North Atlantic Ocean. The release altered vertical currents in the ocean which exchange heat energy with the atmosphere. The warming resumed by 8500 BC. By 5000 to 3000 BC average global temperatures reached their maximum level during the Holocene and were 1 to 2 degrees Celsius warmer than they are today. Climatologists call this period the Climatic Optimum. During the Climatic Optimum, many of the Earth's great ancient civilizations began and flourished. In Africa, the Nile River had three times its present volume, indicating a much larger tropical region. "

http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7x.html

Examples of Potemkin Villages
A view of the North Korean village Kijŏng-dong.

* Following the Manchurian Incident, and China's referral of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria to the League of Nations in 1931, the League's representative was given a tour of the "truly Manchurian" parts of the region. It was meant to prove that the area was not under Japanese domination. Whether the farce succeeded is moot; Japan withdrew from the League the following year.[6]
* The Nazi German Theresienstadt concentration camp, called "the Paradise Ghetto" in World War II, was designed as a concentration camp that could be shown to the Red Cross, but was really a Potemkin village: attractive at first, but deceptive and ultimately lethal, with high death rates from malnutrition and contagious diseases. It ultimately served as a way-station to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
* Kijŏng-dong, built by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) in the north half of the Korean Demilitarized Zone.[7] It is an uninhabited village built at great expense during the 1950s in a propaganda effort to encourage South Korean defection and to house the North Korean soldiers manning the extensive network of artillery positions, fortifications and underground marshalling bunkers that are in the border zone.
* In 1982, Mayor Ed Koch of New York City covered the windows of abandoned buildings in The Bronx with decals of plants and Venetian blinds to hide the blight.[8]
* In 2010, 22 vacant houses in a blighted part of Cleveland, Ohio were disguised with fake doors and windows painted on the plywood panels used to close them up, so the houses look occupied.[9] A similar program has been undertaken in Chicago[7] and Cincinnati.[10]

Thejohnny7band wrote:
Common misconceptions Kramer and the kind of stuff you read on the wacko websites all the time. It simply ain't so. China is the leading CO2 emissions country by a wide margin and that margin is growing.

Well, I stated that we are the biggest polluter, not the biggest emitter of Co2.. (which is true, see below), but clearly you missed my overall message that even though China is an obvious problem (as is India too), that WE need to stop pretending we're not a major part of the problem, just because someone else is actually worse. Do you realize how narcissistic that is?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution# ... and_causes

About 400 million metric tons of hazardous wastes are generated each year.[17] The United States alone produces about 250 million metric tons.[18] Americans constitute less than 5% of the world's population, but produce roughly 25% of the world’s CO2,[19] and generate approximately 30% of world’s waste.[20][21] In 2007, China has overtaken the United States as the world's biggest producer of CO2,[22] while still far behind based on per capita pollution - ranked 78th among the world's nations.[23]

Slacker G wrote:Examples of Potemkin Villages
A view of the North Korean village Kijŏng-dong.

* Following the Manchurian Incident, and China's referral of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria to the League of Nations in 1931, the League's representative was given a tour of the "truly Manchurian" parts of the region. It was meant to prove that the area was not under Japanese domination. Whether the farce succeeded is moot; Japan withdrew from the League the following year.[6]
* The Nazi German Theresienstadt concentration camp, called "the Paradise Ghetto" in World War II, was designed as a concentration camp that could be shown to the Red Cross, but was really a Potemkin village: attractive at first, but deceptive and ultimately lethal, with high death rates from malnutrition and contagious diseases. It ultimately served as a way-station to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
* Kijŏng-dong, built by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) in the north half of the Korean Demilitarized Zone.[7] It is an uninhabited village built at great expense during the 1950s in a propaganda effort to encourage South Korean defection and to house the North Korean soldiers manning the extensive network of artillery positions, fortifications and underground marshalling bunkers that are in the border zone.
* In 1982, Mayor Ed Koch of New York City covered the windows of abandoned buildings in The Bronx with decals of plants and Venetian blinds to hide the blight.[8]
* In 2010, 22 vacant houses in a blighted part of Cleveland, Ohio were disguised with fake doors and windows painted on the plywood panels used to close them up, so the houses look occupied.[9] A similar program has been undertaken in Chicago[7] and Cincinnati.[10]

Yes, I've read that on Wiki too. I fail to see what that has to do with my response and the obviously flawed comparisons you've made.

Kramerguy wrote:

Thejohnny7band wrote:
Common misconceptions Kramer and the kind of stuff you read on the wacko websites all the time. It simply ain't so. China is the leading CO2 emissions country by a wide margin and that margin is growing.

Well, I stated that we are the biggest polluter, not the biggest emitter of Co2.. (which is true, see below)

Weasel words again Kramer? Shame on you. This is what you ACTUALLY said:

"As far as climate change.. well, WE are the biggest polluter in the world."

As far as climate change, manmade CO2 emission is the pollution scientists are concerned about. Clearly you have never been to China so I forgive your ignorance. You probably need to go in order for your eyes to be fully opened. You know not what you speak of.

Kramerguy wrote:

Slacker G wrote:Examples of Potemkin Villages
A view of the North Korean village Kijŏng-dong.

* Following the Manchurian Incident, and China's referral of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria to the League of Nations in 1931, the League's representative was given a tour of the "truly Manchurian" parts of the region. It was meant to prove that the area was not under Japanese domination. Whether the farce succeeded is moot; Japan withdrew from the League the following year.[6]
* The Nazi German Theresienstadt concentration camp, called "the Paradise Ghetto" in World War II, was designed as a concentration camp that could be shown to the Red Cross, but was really a Potemkin village: attractive at first, but deceptive and ultimately lethal, with high death rates from malnutrition and contagious diseases. It ultimately served as a way-station to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
* Kijŏng-dong, built by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) in the north half of the Korean Demilitarized Zone.[7] It is an uninhabited village built at great expense during the 1950s in a propaganda effort to encourage South Korean defection and to house the North Korean soldiers manning the extensive network of artillery positions, fortifications and underground marshalling bunkers that are in the border zone.
* In 1982, Mayor Ed Koch of New York City covered the windows of abandoned buildings in The Bronx with decals of plants and Venetian blinds to hide the blight.[8]
* In 2010, 22 vacant houses in a blighted part of Cleveland, Ohio were disguised with fake doors and windows painted on the plywood panels used to close them up, so the houses look occupied.[9] A similar program has been undertaken in Chicago[7] and Cincinnati.[10]

Yes, I've read that on Wiki too. I fail to see what that has to do with my response and the obviously flawed comparisons you've made.

Yes Kramer. And the reason for that is that you can not think or reason for yourself. You are the chicken that is encouraging the hiring of a fox to guard the chicken coup honestly believing that foxes are smarter than us chickens so they should be the ones protecting chickens.

Thejohnny7band wrote:

Kramerguy wrote:

Thejohnny7band wrote:
Common misconceptions Kramer and the kind of stuff you read on the wacko websites all the time. It simply ain't so. China is the leading CO2 emissions country by a wide margin and that margin is growing.

Well, I stated that we are the biggest polluter, not the biggest emitter of Co2.. (which is true, see below)

Weasel words again Kramer? Shame on you. This is what you ACTUALLY said:

"As far as climate change.. well, WE are the biggest polluter in the world."

As far as climate change, manmade CO2 emission is the pollution scientists are concerned about. Clearly you have never been to China so I forgive your ignorance. You probably need to go in order for your eyes to be fully opened. You know not what you speak of.

I said POLLUTER, I don't see how proving that I said it and then proving IT'S TRUE is "weasel words". AND SO FUGKING WHAT? We're #2 STILL no matter WHAT I SAID. The contribution the USA makes is no less because you need to feel smug attempting to thwart me on a discussion forum.

You still never got the message, and instead are trying to cross swords over semantics. I don't have a program that can draw it out in extra large crayon for you, sorry. Here's the 1st grade level summary:

We pollute.
We pollute excessively
ARGUABLY the worst in the world
and we need to change that,
regardless of profit motive.

Slacker G wrote: Yes Kramer. And the reason for that is that you can not think or reason for yourself. You are the chicken that is encouraging the hiring of a fox to guard the chicken coup honestly believing that foxes are smarter than us chickens so they should be the ones protecting chickens.

If you don't want to discuss things and just hurl insults, there's much better places than here to do it. The underlying issue is that you see government as the foxes. It's not just foxes and chickens. The foxes are the corporations, the henhouse the is government, and well, the government is necessary. You would rather free the chickens and arm them with frickin laser beams on their heads, and destroy the henhouse, rather than just shoot the foxes.

Is it too late to hurl insults? I wanna throw mud too.

"If we have a war, it'll be with the Chinese".

Just wait and see...

gtZip wrote:Can you say hyperbole, children?
If you honestly believe all of that, then just let that old age dementia run its course, and call it a day.

Two reasons that nothing so extreme as that will come to pass - militias, and hacktivists.

Do you remember the Farm Aid Concerts? The plan was to ship food to poor nations.
Quite a few years later, I personally saw for myself, what a big lie the African govt were spinning about the distribution of that food. , I saw a chunk of that food sit in a depot, rotting, moldy just one mile outside of Djbouti Africa, where people were thin as rails, and doing certain things to stave off hunger. (Look up 'Qat leaf' or Khat )

Here's the kicker... Djbouti wasn't a starving village, So guess what 3rd world pictorials got their cameos... The Govt officiasl leveraged their economy by with-holding shipments to Somalia and Ethiopia...

My point is its very real, and i seen it for myself...