"... abstract knowledge ... and imaginative methods ...."

Dear Dr. Bones,

Another day, another dolourous (and dollarous) kiddiemaster wannabe! [1]

(( Though I believe this particular neofish has floated downstream past us once before. How often does one get stumped by a John Hancock [1] like "Arnit Ghate' that obscures the gender of a neospecimen and its ethnicity simultaneously? Strictly, one should speak of "its former ethnicity," the racial or tribal quiddity of a neospecimen prior to its presumed recent removal to Arizona Major, where all us albino dhimmies, at least, are déracinés alike. ))

However bad this renewed affliction may prove considerrd in isolation, nobody can sensibly complain that it wastes our time or its own neotime addressin’ peripheral topics. Nothin’ could be more central to life at Rio Limbaugh as we know it than the topic of which AG burbles, for consider: if "unearned income" ain’t real income, why, then probably "life after death" will prove not to be real life, and ... and so on down the slippery slope from there. Father Zeus forbid that the Muses and you and I take a single unnecessary step in that direction, sir! Far be it from!!

So far, so good, but you must have noticed that things never (well, hardly ever) stay good for long with kiddie selfservatives in the back seat hollerin' "Why the R**g*n aren’t we THERE yet?"

One should bear in mind, Dr. Bones, that right down until September 2008 when the Crawford Crash became undeniable, and even G.O.P. geniuses like the late Bennett of UT felt called upon to wrap themselves into a TARP about it, the KSM kiddies more or less thought the WERE there yet. True, the Social Ponzi Administration could not be put out of its misery, yet if kiddies and neokiddies even half-believed in the numerical tripe and baloney that Party paymasters and AEIdeological AstroTurf™baggers slung at them, its doom could not be far off. [2] The good ship ‘Wingnutette’ had almost arrived in the safe harbour of The Speculation Society (also known in the Language of Gods as "The INVESTMENT Society") , when suddenly, lo!, a cloud no large than a man’s hand swelled and swelled and ....

Oh, dear, What Went Wrong? , Neorabbi Bernie?

Well of course Freelord Kiddiemaster Lewis is no economist. More to the point would be to consult that other neo-Bernie, Citizen Madoff, but at the moment it is difficult to communicate with him.

In any case, Neocomrade (Fifth Class) A. X. Ghote is stuck with neodefendin’ a proposition that is under a bit of a shadow just at the moment. Despite the headline on top of his scribble, this proposition is not exactly that bucks and doits and sh'qálîm and euros procured by the speculative sweat of one’s brow constitute "earned income." The banner around which the Kiddie Selfserative Movement must now urgently rally is better conceived as bearin’ the inscription "She also serves who only sits and e-speculates." [3]

NC5 AXGh suffers from a slight (?) case of swollen brainpan, bein’ neobound an’ determined to fight things out mano a mano with the late Dr. Marx:

Certainly physical labor is often required to convert the raw material of nature into the specific forms we need to live. Yet increasingly, productivity stems from our abstract knowledge of the world (science) and our imaginative methods of putting this knowledge to use (technology). The value of inventing a transistor or discovering a polio vaccine simply cannot be measured in labor units. But this doesn’t mean that the years of dedication and the unyielding independence of spirit that such accomplishments demand should somehow be discounted. On the contrary: doing so is patently unjust.

Not very neo- is that ideoproduct, I fear: you can let AEIdeologues and Heritagitarians and Catoholics run until the tub overflows with such stuff, should it happen to be your preferred wallow.

To be sure, this is the first slave of Lord Mammon I ever came across who expects a pension for his "unyielding independence of spirit." Unfortunately, the reason why the rest of His Lordship’s apostles and visionaries and seconds and bottlewashers never talk like that is that it is flagrantly inconsistent with the Mammonite system as a whole. I believe I might invest, say, 28.12½ USD to back my guess that NC5 AXGh is not just a wannabe but a notgonnabe in addition.[4]

You have heard of "vulgar Marxism," no doubt. Neocomrade A. X. Ghote may conceivably be out to flog a new ideoproduct that aspires to be worthy of the monnicker "Vulgar Antimarxism." Which strikes me as much like that proposal to patent a gizmo that turns clean knives into dirty ones -- but never mind me, sir!

At the moment the thing is to see if we can’t help the poor little rich lad out of the sandtrap he has dug himself into. Look at the peroration, or "bottom line" in the language of Gods. Evidently the spirit of his shtyk was original-intented to be somethin’ like "Mind is to matter as Viagra Falls is to that stupendous cataract at Crawford TX.

Now in that conjunction, is not the obvious plan to point out that nowadays very little that can be badmouthed and swiftboated as ‘material’ or ‘physical’ happens this side of China. Here in the holy Homeland™ have we -- ¿‘we’? -- not become so thoroughly neodevoted to Ghotean "abstract knowledge ... and imaginative methods" that all of Arizona Major looks like a resort spa?

Wherefore we mun alle singen, "Better fifty op-eds of Rio Limbaugh than a ’cycle from Cathay!"

And I wish you, Dr. Bones,
Happy days through health-care affordability!

___
[1] Our common friend Paddy is keening in the fœtal position behind me as I keyboard. Perhaps I was unduly blunt when I explained to him why one cannot replace the generic "John Doe" and "Richard Roe" and "John Hancock" with something more misty and Pseltic like (his suggestions) Andy O’Sullivan or Piggy McNoonan.


[2] ’Tis tempting to suggest that Wally Wombschool and Cindy from Wasilla take SSA checks for the TRUE "unearned income." Though true in a general way, I think, one must qualify the proposition a little to achieve better accuracy. Wallies and Cindies younger than (approximately) thirty-four years five months, those hatched in the year of religionism 1395/1975/5735 or before, can mostly be classified as proposed.

Their older siblin’s and neosiblin’s, however, have been robbed at bayonet point of enough FICA funds to start reflectin’ that after all it is their own money that Uncle Sam Ponzi has swiped, and so they’d like to have it back, preferably at once and with thirteen percent interest patriotically compounded on a lunar-monthly basis.


[3] The Gods would say "invests on line" or the like. That unpleasant S-word on which I keep harping is scarcely to be found in the neovocabulary of the Godly -- except when They fall out intramurally. In that case the verb is irregularly conjugated as follows:

We invest You speculate They [*] *&^%$# [*] E.g., Ch. Ponzi and B. Madoff. Plus naturally The Wicked State most of all!

Very incidentally, I was tempted to formulate the Ghote Neodogma (Pat. Pend.) as "She also serves who only sits and clips coupons," which wording would involve the sliderule-and-buggywhip type of anachronism, even withou a ‘neo-’ around to make things even worse (as neos generally do).

Similarly, over at Fox-on-15th’s Slate.com, prose-challenged patients or victims of Prof. MacL@@han are expected to take their idols and icons for Finanzkapitalismus from the board game Monopoly, first consigned to the tender mercies of Mlle. de la Main Invisible "some years after" "1903." Before top hats went out, obviously. Long before.

I doubt NC5 AXGh stands high in the inner councils of Hooverville, but those Gods who do are to be commended on Their neocleverness at first swipin’ the iconography in question from Lefty, and then stickin’ with it whole decades and generations after the "use by" date came and went. This is not quite as good a trick as that of H. R. H. the Prince of Darkness -- "La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu'il n'existe pas." -- yet to convey a false impression that one’s own species of predator must have gone extinct long ago is bound to put one’s mark-and-dupe species at a considerable disadvantage. Pretty nifty!

It follows that if NC5 AXGh is anythin’ like reasonably bright and better, he will never let any of his brokees catch him more than semidressed. I mean, how could a guy with ugly legs who insists on wearin’ shorts and flipflops and that flashy-trashy Hawaiian shirt possibly be out to con you? He does not look the least bit like the Parker Brothers idea of Daddy Warbucks and William Howard Taft.


[4] Really makin’ it in the agitprop line requires (he speculated) that the maker not fall for his own spin as soon as he spins it. Presumably the minor pajamatarian neocomrade has noticed how his Party-an’-Ideology betters prefer almost infinitely to talk about the GOP Brand True Freedumb (®) product -- ¡GOPT®UF! -- rather than about Finanzkapitalismus. Obviously NC5 AXGh is attemptin’ to imitate them, but the trouble is, he does not fully grasp what he apes.

Miss Stein thought It is so flattering to have a pupil [E. M. Hemin’way] who does it without understanding it, but I believe she was pretty nearly all alone in so thinking. At any rate, I am not with her.

Notice, moreover, how if one reckons this infelicitous amateur’s neoïnnovation in conjunction with the rest of his stuff, the part of the Ghote Neodogma (Pat. Pend.) mainstream Mammonites and Hoovervillains do in fact bark an’ bellow all the time, it makes itself look even worse. One can imagine the Sorcerer’s Apprentice in the fable wanting, once the spillage had been capped and mopped up, to be commended at least for his "unyielding independence of spirit." (It would take a lot of that just to ask Merlin for a report card, under the circumstances!)

But for the little laddie to expect any bonus points for "abstract knowledge of the world and imaginative methods of putting this knowledge to use" would be laughable.