Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Covering One's Ass with Legislation

From The Times Ledger (QNS):  In wake of Amazon collapse, Kim announces legislation to end company-specific subsidies

What is truly puzzling is if you really didn't want them here in the first place, why the continuous sniveling about it? You won so "Victory is ours! Strike the tents and let's go home!" End of story. Well, no. There's probably more here than meets the eye and I have an idea of what it might be.

In Summary:
Really, who knows. Maybe Amazon HQ2 would have been more trouble than they're worth and their job creation claims would have been grossly over-exaggerated, had been mostly Team Jeff transplants or H1-B imports. So good riddance. Lessons learned by all. Then there is elected accountability. If Governor Cuomo's actions really did piss off the voters, then they will vote him out next election cycle. No need for this legislative assholery. Just let it go.

On the other hand, some other state will see some jobs created and their coffers richer by more than $1 billion per year. So did we really win or lose? We'll never know for sure but if some feel we've lost, if there is legitimate polling data that supported Amazon HQ2,  then this piece of legislative grandstanding serves to cover certain politicians' asses and get other states to agree to a non-aggression pact as to not take jobs away from hapless, tax crazy, New York.

The details
Let's unpack some of this (if your stomach is up to it):

“When municipalities and states bend over backwards for the chance to give billions to mega-companies, we all lose,” Kim said. “It is time to end the practice of subsidizing multinational corporations without transparency, accountability, or results under the guise of economic development, and to start investing in the working families and small businesses that represent the lifeblood of our country.”

No Ron, anybody with an IQ above room temperature can see a butthurt gamma male who either can't handle rejection or is just running scared. A schemer who overplayed his hand and got beat at his own game. Someone who is as clumsy as he is stupid. He trips over his own two feet as his pants drop around his ankles then falls face first into a large cake. Who then gets up, cake dripping from his face, to give an hour long dramatic oration about how great he really is. And further how he meant to trip like that in the name of some half-assed noble cause like saving some orphans from killer unicorns.
Yeah, it's that obvious.

By the way, what exactly does this practice of subsidizing multinational corporations and the rest of that blah, blah really mean? What is this subsidy thing or are you just mouthing word salad platitudes as feelz triggers for the benefit of liberal emoters?


"Kim and Brooklyn state Senator Julia Salazar have been communicating with state legislators across the country on ways to end the practice of offering company-specific subsidies, especially given that no studies have shown a correlation between such “economic development” programs and meaningful economic growth.
The bill would enact a collective agreement between all states that join, an interstate compact, to end the costly Race to the Bottom between different cities and states, which has cost many of them billions annually in taxpayers’ money for several decades."  
[other states: *chuckle* yeah, sure NY, we'll join you in your little suicide pact. Go on and pass that legislation, pull the trigger, we'll be right behind you ! Hehehe]

Once again more questions than answers in this trigger laden diatribe. How does offering a tax break cost the taxpayers anything? How does paying some taxes equal a negative cash flow? Cover up your failures with lies, you sorry excuse for a bullshit artist.

So are you going to offer small businesses tax breaks and lift some of the regulatory burdens off them? Or will you just keep skinning them to pay off your crony capitalist pals, client voter blocks and favored pet identity groups with moar freestuff? My bet is on the latter. Progs never learn.

But there's more to this absurd piece of legislation, isn't there. A New York whose political and bureaucratic establishment is so bad controlling spending, at reducing taxes, fees and whatnot enough to where businesses can just survive let alone flourish. You're all nothing more than parasites who can't keep their collective paws out of other people's pockets. What business owner in his right mind would move into New York without any incentives offered if only in the form of ripping them off in taxes less than usual?

So, let's get other states to be as short-sighted and imbecilic with their economic policies as we are so we don't look so bad after all in comparison. Then also, maybe the voters will forgive us for this Amazon debacle because they'd be so stupid to as to be beguiled by all that insipid, boilerplate marxian rubbish. They'll be fooled into thinking that we did it for the voter's own good.

"...to end the costly Race to the Bottom..."
Yeah and New York is only going to race to the bottom of failed third world nation-states if we keep listening to progressive leftists.



Donald Cavaioli


Monday, February 25, 2019

The Crime of Success

In Summary:

I've noted before that criminalizing success was a useful tool for the old order ruling class to prevent challenges from upstarts and the nouveau riche who slipped past the gatekeepers to kick the ladder down behind them. I've also noted the price the nouveau riche agree to pay for admittance not only in their sworn loyalty to the ruling class's objectives but as well in the form of playing the villain for the disgruntled prole masses. The evil robber baron villain figure is a necessary mythos to maintain a rigid class caste system with a place for everyone and everyone kept firmly in his place. This is manipulation of the masses plain and simple to achieve whatever goals and agenda the ruling class wants. It is done with the cooperation of the billionaires and corporations who, as loyal vassals play the role of the malevolent robber barons as an example of what the peasantry must never aspire to.

The message here is stated loud and clear: Don't be like that evil rich guy, start a business, succeed and then morph into demonic entity to be publicly flayed as a plague upon mankind. Staying poor or in the lower middle and working class is far more virtuous. Boo the villains and cheer the managerial state, NGO and Social Justice Warrior heroes who wage a holy war against the amorphous crimes of corporations and billionaires all for the sake of you, the virtuous "little guys".  Now don't that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

Makes one proud to be an insignificant and utterly incompetent  "little guy" who is not intelligent enough to make his own decisions or have his own opinions, doesn't it. Aren't you glad that your managerial betters along with self-appointed activist community leaders and NGOs are here to tell you what opinions to have and decide what is best for you?  Master loves us and protects us from evil!

A Case in Point:

We can see this process at work with the recent Amazon HQ2 imbroglio with the heinous Jeff Bezos, although what evils he had done is not clear, being stopped in his wicked schemes to do some sort of bad stuff by our righteous local politicians, unions and self-appointed activist community leaders. In all of this, none of the aforementioned do-gooders focused on any real problems this Amazon HQ2 deal would have on the community. Oh, no. Instead they focused on incessant ad hominem attacks in the tired old cliches of mean, rich capitalists who by getting rich, somehow made everyone else poor and Amazon HQ2 would make us all poorer still somehow. That Amazon was some sort of 21st century version of a Dickensian slave labor sweatshop and torture chamber because no union. And the blatant lie of how a $3 billion tax cut was somehow the New York State treasury writing Bezos a $3 billion check from the taxpayers that Bezos would then put in his own pocket.

So why oppose Amazon on the basis of  nonsense arguments, exaggerations and outright lies instead of actual issues? There are several reasons for this and chief among them is that the do-gooders did not really have the best interests of us, "the little guys" at heart. Theirs was tawdry self-interest cloaked in the mantle of the righteous champions of the common good. None of these actors gave a shit about the community because it was all about what they themselves wanted to get from the deal masked by a smarmy concern for the good of the community. This stifled legitimate debate and disregarded what we the people would have actually wanted. So aside from the elected politicians involved, who were the unions and malcontent left-wing activist to speak for the rest of us? Who elected these people? Nobody. However, they play a useful part as the cat's paw of the ruling class establishment and their goal was to shake Bezos down plain and simple.

Let's be clear. Jeff Bezos is a loyal vassal of the ruling class and its agenda as demonstrated in his Washington Post blog every day. If he has to play the malevolent billionaire in some leftist morality play once in a while, it's all good as he knows Phaemon's dog was right after all. In return for an occasional public beating, he gets to eat his fill. In the case of Amazon HQ2's location, the ruling class apparatchiks and their factotums were of low enough rank that he could safely conclude that New York needed him more than he needed New York so off he went. In the end, it was no skin off his ass but for us, maybe we shouldn't have been so hasty and let SJW activists talk for us and tell us what to think.

So despite the triumphal braying on a few other blogs, it was no awakening of the sleeping giant of 'we the people' speaking out here, Mitch. Just few demagogic politicians, union bosses and a gaggle of self-appointed "community leader" SJW leeches looking to wet their beaks in some corporation's wallet.
Absolutely nothing to be proud of and something to be ashamed of: Being led around by the nose for the benefit of others and possibly to our own detriment like a herd of dumb animals off to the abattoir.

In Conclusion:

In the end, whether the local political and activist establishment was right for all the wrong reasons or just plain wrong, it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that successful people are shown to be a maleficent force of greed and evil whose example of starting a business is one that the proles must never follow. Even without a big corporation for the ruling class to leech off of, life goes on and there are other sources of other people's money for them to feed on. 

Even when our rulers lose, they win. An important lesson is still taught.
The ruling class and their minions will tell us what to think, give our opinions to us and we have no choice but to follow. Peasants must remain pure in their lowly station and live in the virtue of subservience or else face burning at the stake of negative public opinion. One is born a peasant whose life is dedicated to the state and one will die a peasant and the established social order is maintained.



Donald Cavaioli











Monday, February 18, 2019

The American Right: The Russian White Army Redux

I've written at some length about 'progressive liberalism', or rather the weird far left cargo cult that has co-opted the term and now wears it like a skin suit as they have done with and thoroughly polluted the term 'liberalism' before it. This is because the left is the ruling paradigm here in New York and there exists no version of the right here including non-neocon, right of center conservatives, at least not openly.

I do not count the Republican party to be on the right as their detractors allege as really, they are more of a mushy, moderate, "me too, I think what you think" bunch of sophists whose politics today, including neocons, would have been more a comfortable fit with the mainstream liberalism of the 1950's to 1970's. To call the red junior faction of the bi-factional uniparty, whose role it is to play the meanie bad guys who always somehow lose to the blue senior faction Democrats, a real opposition party is an insult to the legitimacy and honor of professional wrestling.

As an aside, neocons were in fact mainstream liberal Democrats until they were either purged from the party for being the warmongering, sophistic punks they were or opportunistically began larping as conservatives in the wake of the Reagan revolution in their classic tradition of me too-ism.

And why even bother talking about Republicans at all. Here in New York City as they are as rare as a bigfoot sighting and when seen, are little more than the walking dead and just as devoid of thoughts and ideas of their own as any zombie. These two sentences sum the New York City Republicans up for all intents and purposes so I needn't write any more about those mealy-mouthed finks.

Now that the palmy preliminaries have been dispensed with we can get on to the subject at hand, American right.

The primary problem with the right is the right itself. From Russel Kirk on rightwards through the libertarians, it is not really a formal ideology as much as a series of positions on issues, postures and critiques of the left and of each other.

This is a fundamental aspect of individualism that there is no formal dogma or canon to describe it beyond "leave me alone". Individuals usually will not gravitate to a single, central ideology as a collectivist leftist would but would be followers of a number of smaller factions and sub-factions such as libertarianism, the alt-right, the dissident right, et al. All these groups have differing philosophical focus, goals, and prescriptions for society including disagreeing whether there should be borders or not. In addition to this, the further rightists are often more often than not attacking each other and conservatives of any sort (their favorite targets in fact) than they will attack the left. In fact, libertarians and alt-righters will typically be openly sympathetic to the left when protesting wars, assorted government policies and any controversy with the police as both loath the very idea of government and all its functions.

Further, for the different groups within the right, each pundit, blogger, commentator, etc. who may use the same title such as alt-right, libertarian, dissident right and assorted conservatives, will each have his own interpretation of what that title is about and have his own courtier of followers. The right is so individualist that it doesn't even have a standard definition of each sect or title. This is what constitutes some of the infighting within the right. Who is who and who is, or is not what.

So how is the right side of the political spectrum going to field an effective opposition to the left if they can't agree with each other on much of anything other than they oppose (or sort of oppose) the left and refuse to outline what program or policy they would implement after the left is defeated? They decry the death of the U.S. Constitution and endlessly criticize it and rip conservatives (boomercons in tricorn hats) who support it for the mess we are in today. But they never offer any fixes or alternatives.

Much of the right either predicts or deeply desires the United States to fragment into smaller countries although, again, they have no idea along what lines they will split, what these countries will be let alone how they will be organized and run. "Let's win first then decide principles later" is all they have to say but unfortunately they have no coherent plan of how to win either.

Much of the further regions of the right have already decided that it is impossible to even try to vote our way out and mocks anyone else who offers plans to try and take the Republican party and turn it into a genuine opposition party. Their view is that the country will eventually suffer financial collapse and fall into civil war and then somehow, the right will come to the fore in the aftermath, clean the mess up and start again. Sort of like being on a runaway train and waiting until the train crashes and wrecks, then jumping out of the wreckage and building a new train from the debris. Let's decide how to rebuild the train, or if it should be a train or some other type of vehicle, after it crashes. What could possibly go wrong?

In summary, as the situation stands at present, the right will not be able to really unite around one leader or group of leaders to oppose the left. Any attempt to do so will be as ineffectual as herding cats. Even if some kind of coalition of the right could be built from its current constituencies, they would agree on little more than they oppose the left and would agree less on how they will do it or what will be done if they win.

Very much reminiscent of the Russian White Army opposing the Bolsheviks, yet spending more time fighting themselves, and at this point, just as likely to succeed. The White Army redux.



Donald Cavaioli







Sunday, February 17, 2019

The Tenth Man

I'm sure some readers would recognize the tenth man from either Max Brooks novel, World War Z or the movie of the same name. But this concept is a real thing developed by Israeli intelligence following the findings of the Agranat Commision, 1973-74, which established of a control unit known as 'the devil's advocate'. The purpose of this control unit is to question the consensus of a group to ensure that the group does not fall into the fallacies of group think and confirmation bias by overlooking information which would call into question the accuracy of the group's assessments.

The tenth man or devil's advocate's purpose is to be a contrarian to test any ideas, theories, concepts or assessments against falsification thus insuring these are either proven correct or shows that they must be either modified or discarded as incorrect. This is not to say the devil's advocate is always correct or never correct or the percentage of accuracy is necessarily the goal as the purpose is to question consensus to force its advocates to defend their position and prove it correct.

It is then necessary for the devil's advocate, in order to be effective, needs to be somewhat above average intelligence and be self-sufficient enough to not feel the need to be part of a group and to be able to consciously stand outside the group. The tenth man would have to be very much of an individualist and smart enough to hold his own as such.

I would submit that the Israelis noticed a certain type of personality trait, realized its utility, and simply formalized it as a methodology under the devil's advocate or tenth man concept.

Here I must emphasize that this is purely a speculative hypothesis based on my own observations and information that I have read. At this time, I have reason to believe I am correct in this but it may be that later on, I will come across new information that would negate this theory which I would then discard. So stay tuned.

Just as I've speculated on the inherent nature of human beings to exhibit what I called the peasant mindset, a natural tendency to follow established leaders and conform to group think. However, I further speculate that there is also a rather small percentage of the population which is the natural tenth man type that would approximate the sigma male personality. Perhaps not necessarily a male per se,  and in this case, a general personality archetype rather than the posited socio sexual hierarchy from which the term was derived and whose purpose is to innovate and question consensus, not simply to get chicks.

I would postulate that this tenth man sigma type was through our evolution as hunter-gatherers, for one a check against mistakes in group think that would be potentially disastrous for the tribe. He would be more individualistic and prone to think differently than the group, curious about things the group may consider irrelevant or inconsequential. This would lead to a certain inventiveness and innovation, the primary driver of technological evolution that would benefit the tribe.

Perhaps that one time the devil's advocate would be right about the chief's bad decision, or be crazy enough to pick up a burning stick, invent the wheel or fashion a better spear tip would make up for all the other tumult and aggravation he would otherwise cause to the alpha male chief and make him worth keeping in the tribe. This allowed him to mate and pass his genes on to latter generations.

But the tribe could only afford one such type otherwise it would dissolve into pandemonium or simply stretch the patience of chief and tribe to the breaking point. So most likely, they would only keep the smarter one, the one crazy enough to pick up the burning stick, use it to chase away predators, then put it on the ground, use it to cook meat, and keep the tribe warm. The one who could at least be sometimes useful. The rest, well...

Expanding on this, it would also conform with my theory from an earlier post that the original ethnic Americans of the colonial era had a much higher than average percentage of these tenth man/sigma type people. Look at the tumult of the revolutionary war and early in U.S. history with the Articles of Confederation, Shays' rebellion and later the civil war for a brief example. This is counterbalanced by the inventiveness of individualism characteristic of American "git 'er done" ingenuity. But the tenth man/devil's advocate/sigma type was gradually diluted to their near normal percentage of the population through later waves of immigration.

So it seems that despite the frustrations to alpha leaders and the peasant masses the tenth man can cause, the American example would demonstrate that it is possible for devil's advocates en masse and at times to agree on an overall goal and cooperate in achieving it. Just because someone prefers to stand outside the group, it doesn't mean that he is a complete sociopath that has no interest in, or would not identify with the group or have no stake in the group's success. He just asks too many inconvenient questions of the leaders to their chagrin and challenges the leader's assumptions. A nuisance but a necessary and useful one. We could use a lot more of them today.




Donald Cavaioli







Friday, February 15, 2019

Whither Amazon

From The Queens Chronicle, Amazon announces it will not come to Queens, Feb. 14, 2019
From The Queens Chronicle, Gianaris may be able to veto the HQ2 deal, Feb. 7 2019

I hadn't come to any conclusion as to whether I would support Amazon HQ2 in Long Island City or not but it no longer matters and so I never will.

Since Amazon has announced that they are pulling out of the Long Island City deal, this is all a moot point. But since I started writing this post (and just about had finished it) before the announcement, I may as well finish it as a postmortem examination of some of the reasons to support the plan and reasons to oppose it. But what stands out as most inexplicable is how the opposition, instead of sticking to the facts, which were persuasive enough, veered off into emotion laded diatribes, outright lies and downright nonsense to unnecessarily pad the opposition case.

In the case of the rank and file progressive NPCs, it's all emotion based on their conception of who are the "good guys" and who are the "bad guys". For an emoter, it cannot be lying because that implies first having reason and a knowledge of facts then to make a conscious effort to distort the facts and reason to knowingly manipulate others for one's own gain. The rank and file progressive emoter really gains nothing here and their reactions are all based on how they are triggered. Besides, it's not a lie if you really believe it.

But there are others with logical, if sordid reasons for lies and distortions.
Just spitballing here but it may have been that the opposition was designed to shake Amazon down for local political and special interests. This is New York, you know. You gotta pay to play and certain people have to get their beaks wet too. I have to wonder if the political opposition wasn't playing the "bad cop" to Governor Cuomo's "good cop" to attempt a shakedown. Lure the sucker in the door with a sweet deal then stick him with concessions and payouts. Like I said, I'm just spitballing here and maybe this scenario is totally wrong.

Whatever the case, Jeff Bezos knew that New York needed Amazon more than Amazon needed New York and he wasn't the dumb, easy to be played rube that the New York sharks thought he was. It's hard to imagine a New York politician kicking money out of bed so if the political establishment really wanted Amazon to set up shop in LIC, they very stupidly overplayed their hand.

End of this new post.

Anyway, Here is the original post as I was thinking the controversy through.

I haven't any firm opinion on the subject of the proposed Amazon HQ2 in Long Island City. There are positive aspects and some possible negative aspects. But much of what I have read in opposition is little more than boilerplate "big corporations bad, run by mean people" which goes to show how well the early 20th century demonization of successful entrepreneurs has worked. It was based on lies then and it is based on lies now.

But there are real reasons to question or oppose the Amazon HQ2 in Long Island City that are serious enough that it makes no sense to hide behind lies and leftist propaganda. But whoever said emoters made any kind of sense?

When NYC Councilman Van Bramer and NY State Senator Gianaris (who incidently supported Amazon HQ2 before they opposed it) claim that the people of New York are giving Amazon $3 billion in tax subsidies, they make it appear as if the money is coming directly from the state and city coffers going directly into Jeff Bezos pocket. This immediately sends bad feels triggers to all the bottom feeder liberal progressive parasites and associated activist groups, already in the public trough, who somehow think that they've lost $3 billion to some rich guy that otherwise would have somehow gone to them thus setting them off on mindless screeches of disapproval. Appealing to the basest of human instincts such as greed and envy still works wonders when manipulating the non-thinking emoter crowd.

Usually if a cadre of venal and rapacious leftist activist groups are against something, knowing them to be typically liars of such dismal character and low intelligence, I would tend to initially look favorably on it even knowing little or nothing else about the subject. On a closer look at the subject, this has proven to me over the years to be a good rule of thumb and to be usually a safe bet to take like assuming a politician is lying when making campaign promises.

However, to say Amazon will cost New York $3 billion is a blatant lie. The truth is that Amazon will still pay taxes but just not as much which as I understand would be about $1.2 billion per year instead of $3 billion per year for the next 10 years. So New York would see an extra $1.2 billion in its coffers that it did not have before instead of $3 billion. I'd say this is a positive thing about Amazon HQ as $1.2 billion and the income taxes from workers hired by Amazon (as well as the money they would spend in the local economy) is better than the nothing we would have without Amazon but I'm still not fully swayed to support Amazon HQ yet.

Some other issues I've heard (read actually) being bandied about are somehow Amazon HQ2 in LIC will threaten local mom and pop shops. This is utter nonsense as Amazon is an internet company which does business online and will continue to do so wherever Amazon locates its offices. It changes nothing as far as the local mom and pop shops are concerned.

Enough of the nonsense. Let's look at the real problems.

First up would be the additional traffic on the streets and increased ridership on the trains. Yes this is a problem that should be weighed against the benefits of more tax revenues and the number of employees that would be hired who in turn would spend money on the surrounding local businesses. Will the extra revenues be used to alleviate these problems, would the proposed solutions be real, practicable solutions that really solve problems rather than another dog and pony show.  My issue here would be exactly how many people would be employed by Amazon HQ2, the real number, as the number being bandied about might well be exaggerated. Further, how many would be hired locally and not just imported Team Jeff people.

Next up would be the effect on real estate prices. Increased demand means increased price which usually has a ripple effect on surrounding neighborhoods. This deal works well for the lords of tower town and would pave the way for more towers to be built which as I see it, is a bad thing. High density populations need a lot more services like fire, police, ambulance, hospitals and schools then there already are. How good can the standard of living really be with people living packed in like sardines in big, glass boxes. This depends, of course, on how well paid Amazon employees will be to afford to live in tower town and how many of them in that income bracket will choose to live there.

Did anyone ever think what might happen with a Grenfell Tower event of how well a serious communicable disease would spread through such a densely packed mass of people into an epidemic?

I don't trust wing and a prayer plans. Too many assumptions that may not pan out with the possibility of unforeseen problems making an inconvenient appearance and no plan 'B' as a backup.

Finally there is the issue of the Amazon HQ2 deal being worked out behind closed doors with the governor and bureaucrats negotiating with Bezos. Even with the best of intentions, this is a bad look as it appears our executive and managerial ruling class betters believe the citizens are incapable of understanding the issues and are not competent to decide what is best for them. The citizenry, the local communities should have been asked their opinion and had some input into the plans as it is they who must live with the consequences of the decisions made in regards to Amazon's location.


Donald Cavaioli
















Thursday, February 14, 2019

Comments on the Newtown Pentacle post: fundamentally suspicious, posted Feb 14, 2019

From the Newtown Pentacle, Feb. 14, 2019
In addition to my original comment on the post.

The new BQX trolley line will be nothing more than a very expensive boondoggle of a real estate advertising gimmick and crony capitalist feeding frenzy. And all because suburban transplants to NYC consider riding on a bus to be beneath their dignity. Suburbanites view the bus as transportation for lowest classes of people as well as people of color. No SWPL would be caught dead on a bus. So there are no good reasons for this BQX trolley line.

A waste of time and money but a project we plebs have no power to put a stop to.

There's a reason the trolleys were abandoned in the late 1940s through early 1950s and no, it wasn't a conspiracy involving GM, Firestone, National City Lines (which never operated in NY). All that is nonsense. As something of a rail fan, I like the old trolleys, have and read a number of books on the subject, and they're my favorite subject for colorizing old black and white photos. But I'm not a foamer or 'trolley jolly' and I understand that there were real reasons the trolleys were replaced with buses. Bear with me as I explain.

Among other things, it was cheaper to run buses than trolleys which required power houses to supply the voltage and current necessary. Trolley tracks required constant inspection, especially curves and switch tracks, and needed replacement after a while. Overhead catenary wires sag over time and need to be tightened or replaced as well as their insulators. Trolleys occasionally derailed or split switch tracks requiring cranes to set them back on track. In addition to derailments and split switches, accidents would shut down that part of the line. Other trolleys would then be stuck until the problems are resolved. Buses, however, had none of the infrastructure needs and not being limited to rails can be re-routed on the fly when there's some kind of obstruction on the route.

And accidents? There's a reason why the city banned ground level subway cars and street grade railroad crossings around 1920.

Trolleys are in fact railroad cars, much heavier than buses and with the increased mass comes increased kinetic energy in the event of an accident. Even at slow speeds, a trolley cannot swerve and cannot stop on a dime and will completely demolish whatever vehicle they hit. Even trucks. Good luck to the vehicle occupants surviving the collision. Forget what those heavy steel flanged wheels can do to human flesh. All in all, think about the liability issues.

Just as electric trolleys replaced horse drawn streetcars because they were more efficient and cost effective, the bus replaced the trolley for the same reason.

I have to wonder at this progressive liberal obsession with old, obsolete technologies.

Folks, some technologies became obsolete for good reasons such as they were inadequate to changing needs, were replaced by more efficient technologies or they didn't work as well as had been hoped. As any honest mortician or grave digger would tell you- if it's dead, then leave it buried to rest in peace.

Shared bus and bicycle lanes isn't a good idea as it presupposes people will generally use common sense and exercise due caution. These qualities are in woefully short supply in the general population so this idea won't work. If implemented, this would promote natural selection by imbeciles eliminating themselves and earning Darwin awards in the process. Think of it as a kind of participation trophy. So maybe this cloud would have a silver lining after all in cleaning out the shallow end of the gene pool. Perhaps our Humble Narrator is in fact thinking along these lines?

This whole vision zero thing is ridiculous. If people are not obeying the first set of laws, then why would they be any more inclined to obey even more laws added. The problem is first, people are not perfect and will make mistakes. You cannot legislate perfect humans. The second problem is a general decline in manners and courtesy. Blaming one group, say motorists, and demonizing them isn't helping. Marginalizing and antagonizing other people never helps in a situation where mutual cooperation is necessary. It's the human element at fault here, motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians all acting like pompous, entitled, assholes. Not a dearth of laws, dedicated bicycle and bus lanes or such.

In summary, the real problem is with progressive liberals who simply cannot understand human beings. They cannot see the forest for the trees because they have their heads shoved too far up their ideological asses and try to ram the square peg of human nature into the round hole of their cult-like beliefs.


Donald Cavaioli

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Another Propositional Nation/Nation of Immigrants Fail

From the Times Ledger

Meng reintroduces Lunar New Year resolution to be recognized in the House, Feb. 10 2019

There are certain common traits and behaviors that people from anywhere on earth will exhibit. Among these are tribalism, a preference to live among others who share a common bond of history and culture and a preference to live in a traditional social and political system like that they have lived in for generations that works best for them.

Man has a transcendent nature of sentience and moral agency but likewise, Man's physical nature shaped through millions of years of natural selection and adaptive evolution must also be acknowledged.

No narrative can alter the hard facts of physical reality nor make them disappear on command as much as we may wish it. Nature does not care what we think, feel or what we want it to be because nature cannot think or feel. Nature is what it is and what we lack the power to alter to our own design, we can only accept as it is.

That being said, I do not blame or even condemn Congresswoman Meng for advancing this Lunar New Year resolution in congress. Even though it is a conscious attempt by a group of unassimilated immigrants, who having reached a large enough population size, will attempt to alter the political and cultural landscape of their new country to better suit themselves as I have pointed out in a previous post. Congresswoman Meng is just doing her job by representing and advancing the interests of her constituents who are largely Asians even if it a display of colonialism and imperialism.

Neither Congresswoman Meng nor the Asian residents of Flushing can be blamed here as this is simply human nature at work. The fault can only be laid at the feet of our ruling class of elected politicians, their advisors and managerial bureaucrats who have embarked on this mad policy of multiculturalism in which American culture abdicates its position of primacy and leaves a cultural vacuum that another culture will inevitably rush in to fill. By extension, the blame must also be placed upon us today and past generations of Americans who have mistakenly bought into the notion that we are a nation of immigrants and the delusion that in a multicultural society, there will be some kind of egalitarian cooperation between the different cultures living within it. Let this Times Ledger article serve as proof of the lies of multiculturalism and civic nationalism. There is no magic dirt here in New York or anywhere else in the United States or the rest of the world for that matter.

We must reconsider our immigration policy and ensure new Americans will assimilate otherwise we no longer have a nation, but an empire. Recall what history teaches us about the fate of empires.


Donald Cavaioli




















Monday, February 11, 2019

Look Who Ventured into Woodhaven!


Pictured above is the inestimable Mitch Waxman, the learned Humble Narrator of the Newtown Pentacle blog at Nier's Tavern. It is indeed a rare event for the Wizard of the Pentacle to venture outside the environs of his beloved creek and Astoria but recent news of the possible demise of the oldest continuously operating bar in New York brought him hence to show his support. 



The pose struck, as he is cunningly photographed here by this author, is Mitch's reaction to the news of my completion of the above infernal devices that he bade me construct to his specifications. Such devices are to be used when the stars align right for the purposes of subduing that impossible thing which dwells in the cupola of the sapphire tower and those nameless, blasphemous, eldritch horrors that slumber beneath the Newtown creek. Do be careful with the portable black box disintegration ray device and the unspeakable green eye of horror machine.

And before I forget, Mitch, I recently ran into an acquaintance of yours with an unusual skin condition of the hands, Gilman, he said his name was, who asked me to say hi to you for him.


Donald Cavaioli






Friday, February 8, 2019

The Five Borough Homeless Crisis Summit or How to Convince Yourself It's Possible to Lose With Grace and Beauty

Edit: I originally hadn't given the title too much thought as I wrote it and looking at the original, it inadvertently gave a more negative, personal tone than I had intended. The revised title more accurately reflects the main idea of the post. Again, I meant only to critique the methods and rhetoric  used, not to cast aspersions on any individual or group.


From the Times Ledger article: Ozone Park civic group hosting five borough civic summit on homeless crisis, February 8, 2018

This post should not be taken as personal criticism of any individual or group but rather an analysis of the strategy and the effectiveness of the rhetoric used. No aspersions are being cast and any humor used is to illustrate the point. Good people may be trying to do good work but sometimes, they just go about it wrong.

It is, however, my opinion that even with a good strategy and persuasive rhetoric, the issue of increasing number of homeless shelters built and where they will be located is too far along, as the concept and belief in its necessity is entrenched too deep in the public psyche and is therefore a lost cause.

Now that the homeless shelter protests have failed as predicted, the borough civics and sundry community leaders have moved on to the negotiating the terms of surrender phase. They may or may not see it this way but there can be no other outcome from this latest series of proposed meetings. What exactly is the goal of these meetings is not made clear. That this meeting referenced in the article is closed to the public and only one leader from each community group, community board and civic is invited is somewhat troubling. Why can we, the residents that this issue affects, not be present at this meeting? No clear reason is given and this is a bad look as it looks like there may be something to hide with perhaps some shady business afoot.

In summary, this can only be a situation of either failure or surrender involves using the New York City premise of a "homeless crisis", read: Feeding a stray cat crisis as ever more and more strays show up for a free meal and they're eating us out of house and home. But we won't stop feeding them even when more strays show up come hell or high water. Accept the morality and necessity of your opponent's premises and you've lost before you've even started because you've already kneecapped yourself. Game over, man, game over!

So there's nothing else left to do but to beg our managerial overlords for mercy and try to pretend it's a calm, reasoned, summit to work towards some kind of win-win solution with the homeless shelters going where DHS designates as to where they ought to be rather than commands as to where they ought to be. Most likely a change of verbiage or flowery legerdemain without change of policy. At best the shelter site will be moved a few blocks away.

Or maybe our civics and self-appointed community leaders are negotiating a deal with the city to benefit their own interests behind closed doors and away from public view. NO NO NO! I take that back! I apologize! I will not fall prey to conspiracy theories!

I've noted a certain mistrust hereabouts regarding the Queens civics for some reason. Well, not that any of the borough civics were ever know for a strong, independent defense of their neighborhoods' interests. Or known for their vigor in protecting the character of their neighborhoods from predatory developers building Soviet bloc style worker barracks or gargantuan ugly buildings. Nor are they known for protecting old, historic buildings either. Not to mention currying favor with local politicians in return for funding... I'd rather not dabble in dark conspiracy theories but can't help from wondering that even an utter incompetent will occasionally err in favor of success.  STOP! So sorry for the conspiracy thinking. Won't happen again, I promise.

Let's now have a look at the article.

"The Ozone Park Residents Block Association (OPRBA) is calling on every leader of a community group in the city to join the forum on Feb. 8 and help find a solution to the city’s plan to place 90 shelters in residential communities and discuss legal action, such as a class action suit, to stop the process."

City officials: Oh, noes! Not the class action lawsuit! Uh, so on what grounds? What are the damages being claimed?
Yeah, okay. One thing I learned over the years with city apparatchiks is if you have a weapon to use against them, don't threaten, use it. Offering not to use it if they give a concession in return won't work as the apparatchik will either think you're bluffing or sense weakness. They'll simply press their advantage and make you give the concessions. The only solution that will be offered, if we're lucky, is that we can specify which part of the neighborhood the shelter will be located. An evil whisper comes unbidden: I'm sure that it will be as far as possible from the homes of the civic leaders. Hold on, no conspiracy theories here. I'm sure shelter locations will be purely coincidental and based on the best location available. Seriously. Just kidding.

"Sam Esposito, the OPRBA president, said the meeting is not open to the public. They are asking for one representative from every civic, organization, block association and community boards to come to the meeting at the DESHI Center at 83-10 Rockaway Blvd. in Ozone Park on Friday at 6 p.m. Interested leaders are asked to register online at ozpkba@aol.com to receive credentials to attend."

Closed to the public. Makes sense after all we just live here and we can't have the great unwashed masses being irksome to their managerial betters. Seriously, this is a bad look as it looks too high-handed and will foster mistrust in the process and promote unnecessary conspiracy theories

“Please be respectful as our Ozone Park elected officials, as week as others, who have supported us from the start will be present at the meeting,” the OPRBA said in an email. “We will not allow for disrespect or bashing. This is strictly to discuss two things and that is it. Please be ready and prepared to … fight together for a better NYC.”

Specially invited Plebs shall not put on insufferable airs deeming themselves above their station nor show such unseemly hubris in the presence of their betters. So by "fight together for a better NYC" beyond being meaningless rhetoric and an empty gesture when contrasted to the previous exhortation to respect before our electeds can be translated as slaves will politely moan and gently rattle their chains for an extra teaspoon of gruel in their iron rice bowl or beg for a favor.

I mean it's not like our elected politicians are people we hire in elections and pay with our taxes to represent us. It would be wrong and utterly unconscionable to view elected politicians or bureaucrats whom we also pay, as our employees and somehow answerable to us. Or to speak to them as adults with grievances or to criticize them for not being responsive to our wishes.

We should not have to walk on eggshells around our electeds. They're adults and public servants so if they can't take the heat for policies we do not want, then maybe they should find some other, more genteel form of employment better suited to their delicate natures.

 However, criticism has a point where it can go too far being unnecessarily loud and vulgar but the organizers should let those limits be known beforehand and enforce those limits by ejecting anyone who goes too far,

After the call for a kinder gentler meeting next comes the ready and prepared to fight threat.
Pick a tone and stick with it. If we start off with the meek, polite respectful groveling to our betters (and yes this is a tacit acknowledgement of electeds being our betters) then the threat to fight afterwards can't be taken seriously. We've positioned ourselves as subordinates and supplicants so talk of fighting comes off as weak sauce.

"The organization will also provide pizza and bottled water."

Gosh, bottled water too? My cup runneth over (or would if I were worthy of attending).
Okay, maybe that was a cheap shot but I couldn't pass it by.

“We will discuss having this summit in each of the other boroughs and moving around the city as we are welcomed but in order to change the narrative, we need to show the administration, the City Council and the elected officials we can and will mobilize our people if we are not treated with the respect we deserve,” the email continued."

Change the narrative from what to what? What is the narrative in the first place? If we've accepted the premise of a "homeless crisis" and do not dispute the necessity of the program (wouldn't want to tarnish our good liberal street cred) then there can be no narrative to change. Besides, the word "narrative' used in a similar context by media people and government apparatchiks is typically little more than a fancy word for whatever lie they are trying to promulgate. We should avoid using this term for that reason.

But no matter, we've placed ourselves in the position of explaining why a homeless shelter shouldn't be located in a specific place. This is a supplicant asking a favor of one in undisputed authority over us. "...we can and will mobilize our people if we are not treated with the respect we deserve,..." And when mobilized, what are we going to do? Stand around holding placards decrying how unfair this is? Maybe go to the rough stuff of saying rude things to politicians at meetings? Supplicants cannot make any credible threat. Respect is earned, not given, and supplicants are more objects of pity than respect. Once again we cannot start off with a milquetoast nice guy opening than try to end it breathing fire. We've shown our hand, ready to talk nice, negotiate, so more empty fight talk will not impress in the least any city official or any reader with an IQ above room temperature.

That is, unless this is just tough talk as cover for any behind closed door deals made at this secret, members only meeting. Uh-oh, sorry, I apologize, gotta stop this conspiracy theory thinking.

But seriously, not to put too fine point on this, openness in this situation is a good thing to allay any fears anyone else might have about being sold out. There's enough negative talk about borough civics and community councils and these should be more open and responsive to their neighbors. In opaque places and in the shadows are where mistrust and conspiracy theories are born. It would be a shame if good people doing good work were to have this hanging over their heads.


Donald Cavaioli









Thursday, February 7, 2019

New York City Magic Dirt Failure

I had previously written about the fallacy of civic nationalism and the propositional nation of immigrants here. In short there is no such thing as a melting pot in a multicultural society and never really was. There's no magic dirt here to make this happen. And I touched on the topic of politicians who, in this situation, would attempt to jump out in front of the multicult parade and try to lead it here.

Well, here's this article in the Times Ledger and gosh, I think I might be a psychic with a HD crystal ball running on 5G or something! Hogwarts should be dropping me an acceptance letter any minute now.

Alas, I have no psychic powers otherwise I wouldn't be wasting my time writing here when I could be breaking the bank at Monte Carlo, cleaning up at the track, making football picks and hitting the lottery. Really, it's all down to determining true basic premises, recognizing patterns and correctly predicting the proceeding steps. It doesn't always work perfectly but if I can average 75% or better then I'm doing well enough to lay money on.

Back to the Times Ledger article. First of all, how is the Korean community being held down or held back from assimilating? It's contradictory to intimate that the Korean community is isolated and hint at it being somehow marginalized then to talk about how they "make incredible contributions to our city both economically and culturally". Two opposites cannot be true at the same time. What exactly are these contributions and what makes Korean culture so indispensable to this city? What's wrong with our own homegrown culture and are we so economically inept that we must have these people otherwise this city would whither and die?

From my own observations, the Korean community appears to keep to themselves both economically and culturally in what could be best described as a self-contained colony with apparently little or no use for outsiders. And from the statements made by Councilman Paul Vallone and Council Speaker Corey Johnson would confirm this observation with no mention of integrating them into the native city culture.

Really, how stupid does Vallone and Johnson think we are as to not recognize the verbal fellatio they gave the Korean community as mere, pandering for votes and the $11.5 million as a vulgar bribe It's all pretty lies as a thin veneer over shabby political machination and gross troughing.

I don't blame the Korean community for any of this as it's human nature to prefer the company of your own people when living among people foreign to yourselves. Nor do I blame the Korean community for acting in their own best, self interests as again, it's human nature to do so. Past generations of immigrants from various European countries have done, and their descendants still do, the exact same thing. I have no quarrel with any immigrant group past or present as none of our policies are their fault. It is our collective fault as Americans for allowing these policies.  I do not blame any ethnic or racial group for gaming a system intentionally set up by the powers that be to be gamed as bribery for their support. I blame us for not putting a stop to it. My quarrel is with the ruling class and their self-centered, misguided and short-sighted policies that may end badly for all of us and the mainstream media people who will lie or unthinkingly write political nonsense to carry the water for the ruling class for their own benefit. But if we take no action, if we do not even try, we, ultimately, are to blame.

Now I shall gaze back into my HD crystal ball to see the future for Paul Vallone. Fear not, Paul, I shan't ask you to cross my palm with silver first as there isn't enough bleach on the planet to clean off the political sliminess. Dark clouds in the future and I foresee that sometime in the near future, the Korean community reaching a critical mass will run their own people for elected offices. As it's human nature to prefer their own people and culture who will better look after the interests of their colony than some white guy and secure for themselves more than a paltry $11.5 million from the public trough for their own benefit. People dislike being ruled over by foreigners and they shall one day succeed. Tis the way of identity politics and pretty lies and bribes change not your race or ethnicity. Do not count on the continued support of the white millennials or gen Z as they have a pronounced generational dislike of boomers and shall support people of color for goodthinker brownie points or one their own age group candidates. Don't get too comfortable in that council seat or suffer the fate of Joe Crowley you will.
And to Jenna Bagcal who wrote this piece, learn to code.


Donald Cavaioli







Tuesday, February 5, 2019

The Bi-Factional Big Government Party: Why the Government Does Not Change Part II

Another reason for why policy does not change in addition to what was posted in The Rule of the Managerial State and Why the Government Does Not Change. Now a look at the political parties and elected politicians and what part they play in the managerial state. Understand that the solution to this problem remains the same as in the previous post.

If you're honest about it, no matter who you vote for from either the Democrats or Republicans, over all, the direction of government policy never seems to change. From George H.W. Bush 39 through Bill Clinton, George W. Bush 41 to Barack Obama, it was the same globalist economic policy of off-shoring manufacturing jobs, importing cheap immigrant labor while turning a blind eye to illegal immigration and wars of intervention in Bosnia, the middle east among other places. The names change, the party affiliation changes, the rhetoric on the surface sounds different but the policies stay the same. I still can't find a dime's worth of difference between Mario Cuomo and George Pataki. Just the verbiage was different consisting largely of "I'm not the other guy". Whatever differences they do have in actual governance amounted to little more than changing the color of the curtains.

The reason for this is quite simple: Both parties fundamentally agree on the concept of the big government managerial state. Both parties are advised by people who were educated at the same Ivy, members of the same round table groups and did stints in the same tax exempt foundations and NGOs. Members of both parties pass their respective gatekeepers and adhere to the agendas formulated by the aforementioned foundations and NGOs. The only point of disagreement they have is how fast government should grow and how much should be spent on it. They are a de facto single party consisting of a blue faction and a slightly more moderate red faction.

In this bit of Kabuki theater, the blue faction Democrats play to their fans the role of the "good guys" who are all big warmhearted friends of the oppressed and "the little guy" against the "mean and coldhearted" red faction Republicans who are on the side of  "evil, ruthless corporations" and "angry white supremacists". The red faction Republicans, on the other hand, play the part of the "good guys" friend of the middle class, low taxes and "free enterprise" to their fans against the insane "commie" Democrats who want to tax everyone to death and redistribute the money to their pet constituencies.

But it's all as theatrical and as rigged pro wrestling. The fans cheer their heroes and boo their villains then after the elections, wonder why their elected failed to deliver on their promises. Lame excuses are offered or the other party is blamed for blocking changes. It's all a game for the benefit of the party fan boys, fan girls and assorted rage heads who then get all fired up for the next election cycle, rinse and repeat. And they never learn.

The only real competition between the two factions is over who has more seats in the legislature or have the executive in order to have their hands on the levers of power as to benefit themselves and their friends. Like the upper level bureaucrats, the elected political class are members of the ruling class and are increasingly socially isolated from the people over which they govern as they move up from local offices through state and federal offices. What we the people want are of no concern to them as they, our rulers, know what's best for us and will implement their agenda whether we like it or not.

Samuel Francis wrote that in the managerial state, the citizens may have a vote but they have no power. Francis only got it half right as today we don't even have a real vote after all. Something that would appear to be understood well enough by my fellow New Yorkers considering the overwhelming percentage of voters who stayed home during the last two Mayoral elections.


Donald Cavaioli


Friday, February 1, 2019

The Rule of the Managerial State and Why the Government Does Not Change

You can vote for a Democrat or Republican, switching between the parties even and find that no matter what the candidate promises, those promises are seldom fulfilled or at best only partially delivered. You may notice that promises that appear to be fulfilled have so many loopholes and exceptions that they are in effect void. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

There a couple of reasons for this but here I will discuss one of the reasons.

If you've ever wondered why government policy on a city, state or federal level never seems to actually change no matter who you vote for and what they've promised to do, the reason is that elected politicians, no matter whether legislative or executive do not actually operate government functions on a day to day basis. The real work of this sort is carried out by the people who work in the managerial bureaucracies (see the 8 Laws of Bureaucracy).

Bureaucrats are unelected and unaccountable to the citizens, despite legislative oversight and being at least technically beholden to the elected executive. Due to being tenured, it is difficult, if not impossible to fire, a bureaucrat for failing to implement policy changes they disagree with and will serve out careers longer than many electeds, thus outlasting the elected's policies. Government policy can therefore not change unless the managerial bureaucracy permits it or unless the electorate elects to office enough legislators and executives who will actively work to bring accountability to policy and control the bureaucracy.

Bureaucrats, who on the average adhere to a certain political dogma or are of high enough rank, who disagree with policy changes have ways of thwarting these changes ranging from dense, jargon laden testimony before legislators and the media highlighting their unquestionable expertise to dragging their feet in implementing or simply refusing to implement policy changes. Bureaucrats tend to be liberal but civil service also tends to attract leftist social justice warriors looking for a venue through which they may implement their agendas and actively thwart conservative agendas with the protection of tenure and unions.

All bureaucrats, ideological or time serving civil servants, have since the New Deal taken on a vision of themselves as the caretakers of the American people who are but little more than idiot dependents. The bureaucrat therefore believes that he knows what is best for the country and must act against the popular will to protect the people from themselves.

This means that the managerial state must lie to the people to placate them and quiet them down as one would with a noisy child while the technocrats enact policies that in their opinion is the best thing for all concerned. If the American people disagree and want something different done, then tough shit kid. We know best, we are in charge so sit down and shut up when your betters are talking and stay out of your better's way when they're working. As Sam Francis noted, in the managerial state, the American people may have a vote but they do not have any power.

As it stands now, managerial bureaucracy in at least the upper-middle, upper management and like the elected political class have become a de facto ruling class increasingly socially isolated from the average American citizen over which they govern with few newcomers admitted without the proper Ivy League credentials and proof of loyalty to the ruling class agenda. Isolated to the point where they no longer view the average citizen as their fellow countrymen as they now belong to a cosmopolitan ruling class whose only concern is promoting their own class interests.

The solution to this should be to think heuristically. If the only power we have is the vote then we must use that vote to support insurgent candidates who will promise to curb the power of the managerial state even if they are not perfect. If the Overton window is forced further right, away from the ossified collectivism of the left, it will break the stranglehold the social justice warriors have over free and open debate and pave the way to taming the beast. Not to completely kill the beast as some degree of managerialism is necessary to operate a modern government but to compel the managerial bureaucracy and elected politicians to abandon their ruling class pretensions and act in the best interests of our country and her citizens.


Donald Cavaioli





Fear Response

On the internet, there is no end to conspiracy theories on any topic imaginable and there is no serious or concerted attempt made to censor ...