This article was first published in Alternet
What happens when Americans plunder America and leave it broken, destitute and seething mad? Where do these fabulously wealthy Americans go with their loot, if America isn’t a safe, secure, or even desirable place to spend their riches? What if they lose faith in their gated communities, because those plush gated communities are surrounded by millions of pissed-off Americans stripped of their entitlements, and who now want in?
We finally have the answer, and you’re not going to like it: a new fleet of castles that float in the oceans. The super-wealthy are already building their first floating castle, a billion-dollar-plus luxury liner that offers permanent multimillion-dollar housing with the best protection of all: moats made of oceans, keeping the land-based Americans they’ve plundered at a safe distance.
The first such floating castle has been christened the “Utopia“–the South Korean firm Samsung has been contracted to build the $1.1 billion ship, due to be launched in 2013. Already orders are coming in to buy one of the Utopia’s 200 or so mansions for sale--which range in price from about $4 million for the smallest condos to over $26 million for 6,600 square-foot “estates.” The largest mansion is a whopping 40,000 square feet, and sells for $160 million.
It’s the first of its kind to offer permanent housing units to buyers, and there’ll be plenty on board the Utopia for the global elite inhabitants to keep themselves entertained: an outdoor movie theater, casino, miniature golf course, nightclubs, restaurants, shops, and a water park for the elites’ heirs (featuring a “Lazy River,” rock-climbing wall and water slides). At nearly 1,000 feet, the Utopia is almost as long as a nuclear-powered Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.
The floating castle is a longtime dream of libertarian oligarchs — a place where they can live their lives in peace free from the teeming masses of starving losers and indebted parasites and their tax demands. Since they’ve grown so rich off of America, they have enough spare change to fund projects like the Seasteading Institute, run by Milton Friedman’s grandson, Patri Friedman, and financed by the bizarre right-wing PayPal founder, Peter Thiel. It couldn’t have come a moment sooner for Milton Friedman’s grandson, who was best known until recently for running a grotesque advice blog for married swingers, PUA4LTR (Pick Up Advice For Long-Term Relationships). Actually, Patri Friedman ran that pick-up advice blog with his wife–the two of them are apparent big-time cyber-swingers, apparently–posting blog entries saying things like “Why Should Husbands Become PUAs? Because otherwise, your wife will talk like those wives on the blog My Husband Is Annoying.”
Both Thiel and Milton Friedman’s grandson see democracy as the enemy–last year, Thiel wrote “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible” at about the same time that Milton Friedman’s grandson proclaimed, “Democracy is not the answer.” Both published their anti-democracy proclamations in the same billionaire-Koch-family-funded outlet, Cato Unbound, one of the oldest billionaire-fed libertarian welfare dispensaries. Friedman’s answer for Thiel’s democracy problem is to build offshore libertarian pod-fortresses where the libertarian way rules. It’s probably better for everyone if Milton Friedman’s grandson and Peter Thiel leave us forever for their libertarian ocean lair–Thiel believes that America went down the tubes ever since it gave women the right to vote, and he was outed as the sponsor of accused felon James O’Keefe’s smear videos that brought ACORN to ruin.
Genius at work: Various designs for billionaire-libertarian escape pods
While Thiel and Friedman are busy cooking up their libertarian dystopia, the Frontier Group investment firm — an offshoot of the Carlyle Group — has already entered the realization phase with the Utopia floating castle. Frontier Group, was founded by some of the same big names from the notorious Carlyle Group–the private equity firm that brought together right-wing oligarchs like George H. W. Bush and other top American officials with their billionaire pals in Saudi Arabia like the Bin Laden family, who together raked in enormous profits thanks to the War on Terror that their kids Dubya and Osama launched.
While neither Bush nor the Bin Ladens are principals in the Frontier Group, its founding director, Frank Carlucci, is a name they know well, and you should too. Carlucci ran the Carlyle Group as its chairman from 1989 through 2005, right around the time that the wars started going undeniably bad, and floating castles started to look like a viable plan. But Carlucci’s past is much weirder and scarier than most of us care to know: whether it’s his strangely timed appearances in some of the ugliest assassinations and coups in modern history, or serving as Carter’s number two man in the CIA, and Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of Defense, if Frank Carlucci (nicknamed “Creepy Carlucci” and “Spooky Frank”) is the founding director of a firm that’s building floating castles, it’s a bad sign for those of us left behind.
I’ll get into Carlucci’s partners in the Frontier Group in a moment, but first, let’s reacquaint ourselves with Frank Carlucci. From an early age, Carlucci learned the importance of getting to know the right people in the right places. He studied at Princeton in the mid-1950s, where as luck should have it, Carlucci roomed with Donald Rumsfeld. Both Carlucci and Rumsfeld shared a passion for Greco-Roman wrestling at Princeton, and both went on to serve in the Navy after Princeton. Their paths would split and merge several times over the next few decades, even as they remained close personal friends throughout their lives. In the late 1950s, Carlucci briefly served as an executive at a lingerie manufacturer, Jantzen (the Victoria’s Secret of its day), but quickly left to join the State Department.
At age 30 Carlucci was named vice consul of the U.S. embassy in the Congo–just in time for the colony’s independence from Belgium. Of all the European colonies in Africa, Congo suffered perhaps the worst, at least that we know about: the Belgians exterminated up to 10 million Congolese between 1885 and 1908, and introduced the now-widespread punishment of hacking off Africans’ forearms to scare everyone into submission. All of this was done in order to strip the Congo of its lucrative rubber, ivory, and later, precious metals, as quickly as possible, and send the riches back to Belgium.
Naturally the Belgians didn’t want to let go of their colony, so they held out until 1960, when the Congo finally was granted independence and democratic elections. Unfortunately for the Congo, America didn’t like way they voted–so two months after Patrice Lumumba was elected president, he was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup, taken out into the jungle, murdered, chopped into little pieces with a hacksaw, and then dissolved in sulfuric acid by Belgian goons and their local collaborators. Carlucci has been accused of green-lighting Lumumba’s assassination by multiple investigative reporters.
The dictator who replaced Lumumba was a CIA asset named Joseph Mobutu–the notorious dictator who brought the Congo to ruin after embezzling more than any dictator in Africa. Mobutu was finally deposed in 1997, but the wars since then have claimed roughly six million lives, the bloodiest conflicts since World War II.
After his success in Congo, it was all uphill for Carlucci: he moved to the Brazil embassy just in time for the military coup in 1964, then went to Washington to serve as deputy to his buddy Donald Rumsfeld in Nixon’s Office of Economic Opportunity, where the young Dick Cheney was making his name. The first thing they did upon taking control of the OEO was conduct a purge of “subversives” firing up to a quarter of the staff. In 1974, Carlucci was named ambassador to Portugal just in time for the overthrow of the dictatorship–Carlucci saw to it that the communists who led the overthrow were themselves overthrown by IMF-friendly “moderate” socialists, and a few years later, he was back in Washington serving as the number two man in the CIA under Carter.
Once that agency was sufficiently gutted, he moved on to other forms of destruction: In 1974, Carlucci was named ambassador to Portugal just in time for the overthrow of the dictatorship–Carlucci saw to it that the Communists who led the overthrow were themselves overthrown by IMF-friendly “moderate” socialists, and a few years later, he was back in Washington DC serving as the number two man in the CIA under Carter. In 1981, Reagan named him deputy Defense Secretary; Carlucci left in 1983 to head up Sears World Trade, a trading company involved in shady arms deals that was once described by Fortune magazine as a front for US intelligence ops. Once that collapsed, Carlucci moved back to the Reagan Administration as National Security Advisor and then Defense Secretary.
In 1989, Carlucci left to become chairman of the fledging Carlyle Group, which subsequently morphed into the monster we remember it by: using its highly paid A-list of public officials to lobby big government for lucrative contracts, profiting off of privatized rest stops and unnecessary arms contracts, leaving the public to foot the bill while guys like Carlucci run around preaching the benefits of private enterprise.
Creepy Carlucci
Carlucci may be the scariest of the Frontier Group bunch building the floating castles, but he’s among his kind. Other Carlyle Group directors who joined Carlucci at Frontier include David Robb, who headed up Carlyle’s investments in defense and aerospace; Sanford McDonnell, the former CEO of McDonnell Douglass and onetime head of the Boy Scouts of America; and Norman Augustine, another ex-president of the Boy Scouts, another Princeton alum, and former board director at the scandal-plagued Riggs bank.
Riggs bank became one of those dark unsolved mysteries of the Bush-Cheney War on Terror. After the attacks on 9/11, the FBI discovered that Saudi government officials used accounts at Riggs bank to wire funds to at least two known associates of the Saudi hijackers who crashed Flight 77 into the Pentagon. Riggs was also implicated in the Britain-Saudi $3 billion bribery scandal, in which British Aerospace bribes were wired through Riggs accounts to Saudi officials in return for lucrative contracts. One of Riggs bank’s top executives was Jonathan Bush, the brother of George H. W. Bush, after Riggs bought out Jonathan Bush’s bank in 1997, and appointed him as a director. In 2005, with Riggs embroiled in investigations and scandals–Riggs pled guilty to money laundering Augusto Pinochet’s stolen funds, and the funds of various Equatorial Guinea officials– it was taken over by PNC bank, with the approval of Fed Chair Alan Greenspan. Even after the Washington Post revealed that Riggs’ billionaire chairman flew Greenspan’s wife, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell, on the Riggs company jet.
But the weirdest of all the Frontier Group directors has to be founding director Danny Pang. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Pang embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars from his private equity firm PEMGroup. Pang claimed he was investing money in “Dead Peasants Insurance” (life insurance policies for people considered likely to die), but in secret, Pang confided to PEMGroup’s ex-president that he ran it as a Ponzi scheme. That sparked a fresh FBI investigation into Danny Pang’s crimes–which led back to the unsolved murder of his wife, Janie Louise Pang, a 33-year-old ex-stripper who was shot to death execution style in their Irvine, California home in 1997, the same year Pang was accused of embezzling three million dollars from another fund he worked at. There was plenty of reason to suspect Danny Pang of murdering his wife: he beat her so often (breaking her nose on one occasion) that police were called in on at least four occasions before her murder. She’d had him tailed by a private detective who discovered Danny holding hands with another woman shortly before she was murdered. Danny had known ties to the Taiwanese Triad mob, he took the fifth and refused to cooperate in the murder trial, and reportedly threatened Janie’s friends after her murder, demanding to know what Janie told them about his business activities.
Janie Louise Pang
Here is a description of Janie Louise Pang’s murder, from the L.A. Times:
According to the family maid and two of Pang’s children, a clean-cut man with a pencil-thin mustache arrived at the door asking for her husband. The pair talked casually for a couple of minutes, until the man drew a semiautomatic pistol. Pang began running and the maid, terrified, spirited Pang’s children out the back door. Within minutes, the killer caught up with Pang, who tried to hide in her bedroom closet. The killer fired several .380-caliber rounds and left her to bleed to death as she lay in a fetal position.
Somehow, the trial ended with a hung jury, and Danny Pang went on to join Frank Carlucci and the Boy Scouts presidents to start building the world’s first billion-dollar floating castle to spirit away all that stolen money in luxury. But Pang was apparently too careless for them. He was outted last spring in the Wall Street Journal, and you can probably guess what happens to guys like Pang who become a liability to the right-wing oligarchy: In September 2009, Danny Pang was found dead of unknown causes in his Newport Beach home.
Danny Pang
After a three-month investigation, Pang’s death was ruled a suicide:
John C. Hiserodt, a private forensic pathologist in Cypress, Calif., reviewed the toxicology report released by the coroner. He said it showed that Mr. Pang had roughly five times the typical fatal levels of both oxycodone and hydrocodone in his blood, plus the equivalent still in his stomach of about 30 oxycodone pills of 10 milligrams apiece. “You don’t get this level of drug accidentally,” he said. “It’s pretty clearly a suicide.”
Indeed. Meanwhile, plans to launch the Utopia are moving ahead on schedule.
This article was first published in Alternet
Mark Ames is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion from Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine.
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108 Comments
Add your own1. Lavrentij Lemko | June 2nd, 2010 at 7:38 am
There is a great epigraph for someone willing to take it in the opening paragraphs of William S. Burroughs’ _Nova_Express_, where elites, isolated from the consequences of their decisions, decide to bolt from the planet altogether.
2. S. Chadenfreude | June 2nd, 2010 at 8:03 am
Have fun living on a cruise ship, rich bastards!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norovirus
3. Juan Carlos perez | June 2nd, 2010 at 8:29 am
Big ships for the wealthy could be a good thing.
There was a story about a big ship that had three decks: one for all millionaires of the country, another for all the military and another for all the priest. The ship headed for the Antarctic sea, where it was torpedoed and went down into the deadly cold water in five minutes.
The question: Who gets saved?
The answer: The country.
I wish the meaning is not obscured by my translation. Regards
4. techno | June 2nd, 2010 at 8:35 am
Oh what a dandy idea. Proof positive that idiocy runs in families.
We’ll just need Mr. Brecher to specify which of his favorite anti-ship missiles would work best, and the world could rid itself of some of its biggest assholes in one blinding flash.
Yeah, put all of them on something as vulnerable as a ship.
5. thomas callahan | June 2nd, 2010 at 8:40 am
damn, ames. i can only imagine the amount of research that must go into a piece like this. i hope someone’s paying you your due.
6. Doug | June 2nd, 2010 at 8:49 am
Okay Ames, I’ve said it before I’ll say it again. I’ve heard a lot of bitching about point A, maybe a little description about what you’d like to see in point B, now how do we start getting from A to B.
At least Patri has some sort of plan for his libertarian fantasies. What the hell is your plan? Assume you had an army of loyal cadres at your back, where do you go from here?
Revolution? No country with cable television has ever had a revolution. Who’s going to support you. American proles are addicted to consumer culture and celebrity gossip, and have about as much class awareness as a golden retriever. The people who would be sympathetic, the politically conscious and liberal Stuff White People Like crowd are nowhere close to forming the hardass revolutionary intelligentsia like Che or Mao. Williamsburg, Brooklyn has many things, but a latter-day Trotsky it does now.
The one group of people in America who would be willing to go guerilla in the wilderness for stretches of a time, apocalyptic Christians/Mormons, are, well how do I say this… probably not sympathetic to your viewpoint.
So revolution is out. How about mass democratic political movement? Maybe a little bit more hope. But I think this was tried two years ago and the results were at best mixed. I don’t see you as thinking the Obama administration has been an unmitigated good. I doubt we’ll ever see such a spontaneous and broad political movement that swept up the nation like that in our lifetime.
And that was after 8 years of a massively unpopular president, and a Republican strawman opponent whose running mate was Miss Alaska. Since Obama’s election public opinion has swayed hard right on a range of issues from abortion to taxes to climate change. Obama’s electoral and cultural success in retrospect looks more like a penance for white people to relieve their conciseness of the guilt of slavery, rather than the start of broad social change.
I’d say Ames your efforts would be better spent trying to make small marginal changes, like those liberal do-gooders that got DC to make grocery stores charge for plastic bags. Because at least they got something done, at least a couple of activists got laid by hippie chicks after that passed.
What have you accomplished? Do you think after the bajillionth tweaked-out rant about “oligarch billionaires” that the “people” are finally going to wake up and start seizing estates and put backs against the wall? Americans will never turn against their aristocracy because 1) the rich have about 15-20 IQ points on the underclass (so the battles are going to be a little one sided) and 2) the underclass genuinely likes the current consumer culture. Yes, yes we get it Theil and Carlucci are giant assholes, but PayPal’s pretty sweet and everyone’s addicted to cheap energy.
At this point things are just starting to get pathetic here. I feel like everything I come here I just read the same article with the names and places slightly changed (where the f is new War Nerd btw?). Did some private equity guy steal your girlfriend at one point or something?
7. goat_farmers_of_the_CIA | June 2nd, 2010 at 8:51 am
Happily, just like everyone else, including the most humble slum dweller, or the dirties bum in Calcutta, they all will die of old age, and anyone with a brain and a conscience will know them as the sick parasites they always where.
8. XS | June 2nd, 2010 at 9:27 am
Well, sending the rich people off on huge cruise liners draws pity rather than envy. Sounds like luxury prisons or something. Same deal with golf course housing and 5-star hotels. To hate the people living there one should badly want to be one of them.
The rest of the article was too long to bother reading it.
9. DarthFurious | June 2nd, 2010 at 9:27 am
What the fuck would anyone expect from the kind of dickheads who take Ayn Rand seriously?
The upside to this story?
Poor people have boats too. Just ask the somali pirates.
10. Fissile | June 2nd, 2010 at 10:11 am
I don’t believe for a second that the principals behind this floating castles scheme really believe it’s a viable escape plan for TEOTWAWKI. Seems like just another scam to separate the Petit-bourgeois — retired cops and teachers collecting their $100K pensions — from their cash, through fear mongering. If things really get that bad in the USA, how will you fuel such a behemoth? How will you provision it? How will you keep away the RPG armed Somali pirates? Worst than that, how will you keep away guided missile armed Balkan pirates? Sure looks like a lot of retired low level bureaucrats are about to lose their cash, and possibly their lives.
11. Durumdog | June 2nd, 2010 at 10:11 am
As The War Nerd pointed out in one of his columns, giant floating ships like aircraft carriers and cruise ships are almost impossible to defend against a swarm of small inflatable rafts full of explosives. I say let the thieves flock in one place…easier to send them all to hell via the ocean floor.
12. ramona | June 2nd, 2010 at 10:22 am
These slow floating behemots will make for easy targets.. just enlist the Somali pirates.
13. Rubicon | June 2nd, 2010 at 10:22 am
I saw another of these hell holes, “The World” cruising residence (ugh). The first images were striking because you didn’t see anyone around, it comes off being empty. The people who spoke about their ‘lifestyle’ were the horrid botox babes and their (usually decrepit) husbands, living the life courtesy of years of vampiric behaviour on the mainland. The height of conspicuous consumption, these idiots are paying thru the nose for groceries, in-room chefs and other ‘amenities’. All to parade around in front of other botox-laden twats. I suppose there are a few ‘peasants’ by way of the crew, but they are having the last laugh by spitting or jacking off into their suppers.
If they had to remain at sea for very long, I’d imagine they’d end up eating each other in short order.
14. motorfirebox | June 2nd, 2010 at 10:40 am
You know, after thinking about this, I’m not so sure it’s a bad idea. I mean, think about it: sure, the superrich are sucking the lifeblood out of their fellow citizens and then literally getting away with it. But they’re also stacking themselves like cordwood in one giant target. When AQ flies a plane into this monstrosity, the only tragedy will be the loss of thousands of hey-we’re-in-international-waters-so-they’re-not-really-immigrants.
15. james | June 2nd, 2010 at 10:56 am
well, I guess this situation is what Chinese ballistic missiles are for.
16. G. Johnson | June 2nd, 2010 at 11:06 am
Wow, literally a sitting duck. I hope some of our ex-presidents, senators, et. al., and most of Goldman Sachs’ formers hope to find solace from care here.
Imagine all of the dissidents and renegade nations who have airplanes, bombs and even nukes. And there is this huge boat, alone in a great big sea……… Should we be so lucky. What a break for the world.
17. David | June 2nd, 2010 at 11:56 am
China Mieville wrote a bit about this, last line is pretty good:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3328/floating_utopias/
18. mr. mike | June 2nd, 2010 at 12:00 pm
The “artificial Libertarian island-state” concept has been around since the 1990s; there was a lot of talk among Libertarians for building such a sea-going Libertopia but the project remained on paper. A better scam with an actual coral reef* as a “nation” was the Dominion of Melchizidek, which was all about selling passports to people who wanted immunity and banking fraud. The DoM actually had its own embassy offices in Washington D.C.!
________________________________
* Which was under 30+ feet of water at high tide…it was off the coast of S. America or Africa, though they now claim land on the Marshall Islands.
19. Chas | June 2nd, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Hey Doug
I haven’t said it before yet, but I’ll say it again: Go Fuck A Cow !! And Afterwords, Fuck Yourself !! What Ames does is maintaining the level of resentment and hate simmering in the “underclass” that DO have more than a half a brain. There are more of those than you might have imagined based on your experiences hanging around in Hard Rock Cafes 24/7. Leave a kettle over that low flame long enough and something lip-smacking tasty will be bound to come out after a while
20. brian | June 2nd, 2010 at 2:41 pm
well hopefully the Dear Leader in PDK keeps his submarine in good order
couple of torpedos should do nicely
preferably in shark infested waters
21. Necronomic Justice | June 2nd, 2010 at 3:37 pm
@17 China Mieville is totes awes.
22. George | June 2nd, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Saying we intend to kill the bastards when they’re altogether without saying it, nice.
23. General Foods | June 2nd, 2010 at 5:15 pm
This proves once again that rich, powerful people have the best ideas.
24. ChrisC | June 2nd, 2010 at 5:44 pm
I don’t see why a real libertarian would want to live on a glorified cruise ship, reliant on supplies of fuel and food and labour, with no legal protections or rights, no land or nature or anything that a real lover of liberty would want.
25. Doug | June 2nd, 2010 at 8:03 pm
@19
Ok, let’s see what the upcoming class war will entail. On the proletariat side we have:
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/
On the bourgeoisie side we have, well let’s see… Pretty much anyone who’s scored above 1400 on their SATs is co-opted into the “system” in one way or another.
Really come on who do you think is going to win in the long run? Show any statistical evidence that the poor excel at anything more than the rich. Study after study shows that the rich are more intelligent, less impulsive, more forward time oriented, less criminal, more educated, harder working, better organized and even more attractive. There’s a reason the underclass is under the jack boot of the aristocracy.
For what really happens when the underclass tries to uprise without some international backing power just look at every peasant, slave and redneck rebellion from the Roman empire food riots right on down to Waco, Texas.
Feudalism, hierarchy and aristocracy is the natural state of man. To not recognize it is to be ignorant of history. The relative egalitarianism the West has experienced in the past century is a historical anomaly that’s disappearing, and there’s nothing that can stop it.
26. vortex | June 2nd, 2010 at 8:19 pm
They shouldn’t have called it “Utopia.”
They should have called it “Rapture.”
Can’t wait for the Splicers to show up!
27. President Brown | June 2nd, 2010 at 9:34 pm
Seems like another investment bubble scam. I say the whole scheme collapses and it is converted into a prison.
New Mexico-based investors? Who are they? I call BS.
28. motorfirebox | June 2nd, 2010 at 10:11 pm
Doug, you’re an idiot. Correlation != causality. Your logic is bad and you should feel bad.
29. Tayjan & Marvene | June 2nd, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Marvene and me went over to the ReMax person last week and signed up for a awesome 80k sf timeshare on Utopia. It has got your musical jacuzzi, vibrating bidet that plays MP4 AND Merle Haggard 8-trks, and worldclass sleeping stuff direct from Cabelas. Marvene has the hots for the fire pump water feature in the main entry, and I myself cannot wait to hit the jai alai court we are making from what going to be the captain’s bridge. We hear Sarah Palin (a former governor of one of the Dakotas) is going to give onboard self-confidence lectures … with slides of Todd and some Russians in a boat. Marvene got that settlement from that big hospital chain? Well, as long as the money holds out, we are going to live like rajahs.
30. Necronomic Justice | June 2nd, 2010 at 10:55 pm
The D in Doug is for douchebag. True story.
31. mr. mike | June 2nd, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Doug by any chance are you an ex-member of the World Power Foundation or maybe the Warlords of Satan? If not, then maybe a Synarchist? Those guys always sounded like stoned Dungeons & Dragons players wanting to live in some midaeval shithole because their own lives (as supermarket shelf stockers, convenience store clerks, and other dead ends) were so fucking boring. However because you don’t bring up “Black Fascism”, Julius Evola, or Opus Dei I’m guessing you are a hardcore Renaissance Faire actor or the operator of one of those Arthurian jousting and pizza restaurants.
32. mmmm | June 2nd, 2010 at 11:16 pm
As far as “revolution” goes, we might be looking at things the wrong way. Perhaps dealing with oligarchs could be made into a sort of game, tied in with anonymous social networking.
A low level “alpha” (say, upper management types working for regional insurance agencies, high-profit real estate agents) would be worth X number of points. A Mid-level target(maybe a mediocre real estate mogul, or successful investment banker) would be worth five low-levels. You get the idea.
Something organized along the lines of a criminal syndicate would be much more effective for taking care of these useless individuals than a silly guerilla style uprising or hopeless democratic approach. The deaths would appear extremely random, and people would catch on real quick that having too much wealth = big chance of sudden death. Keep your net worth or annual income below a certain level and you’ve got nothing to worry about.
And if you think people wouldn’t commit murder solely to gain prestige for an online identity… brother, you ain’t been keeping up with the news.
33. Zhu Bajie | June 3rd, 2010 at 3:15 am
These are just big targets for pirates.
34. Zhu Bajie | June 3rd, 2010 at 3:17 am
“the rich have about 15-20 IQ points on the underclass”
Two words: George Bush
35. Zhu Bajie | June 3rd, 2010 at 3:23 am
Who is going to do the work on these ships? Richy Richkid isn’t going to stand watch, take turns cooking, cleaning, etc., like in the Navy. They’ll have to hire poor people, and will end up at their mercy.
36. Fissile | June 3rd, 2010 at 4:20 am
@Doug
Having been around poor people most of my life, I’ve observed that many of them are their own worst enemies. It’s also true that inequity has existed in this world from the very start, and will always be with us.
On the other hand, you’re kidding yourself if you believe that the majority of bright, hardworking, college grads have it good under this system. Superficially this seems to be the case — most have nice homes and cars, etc. When you start digging, you find the truth. Most are in debt up to their eyeballs, and will be in debt until they die. Most are only one major illness away from bankruptcy and total financial ruin.
The American “middle class” has been destroyed/enslaved by the Carlucci’s of this world. When/if these people stop supporting Carlucci and his ilk, things may change. You are correct, however, it’s not going to be “The People of Walmart” who makes a difference.
37. tazio | June 3rd, 2010 at 5:17 am
can’t you war nerd groupies move on? dolan clearly does not want to play petty fascist for you children anymore.
38. Bartleby | June 3rd, 2010 at 6:38 am
“Show any statistical evidence that the poor excel at anything more than the rich.”
I don’t have the statistics in front of me, but it’s relatively safe to say the real working class is much better at fucking and reproducing. Of course, their greater numbers predispose them to cheap labor, clawing and scratching for those cash register jobs, rather than any sort of unified class consciousness.
“The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.” –Adam Smith
39. Emmett Smith | June 3rd, 2010 at 7:50 am
This is what happens when you let a bunch of violent, reactionary South Italian peasants immigrate to your country: they make it big, and they end up in positions of power where they enjoy fucking with those in the same position they were in when they first immigrated here (see: Giuliani, Rudolph). The same goes for the Irish.
40. platitudes | June 3rd, 2010 at 9:39 am
@ Doug
Here in North Carolina, after three NC Democrats voted no on health-care reform and reams of evidence that our state party is a corrupt joke, the pro-worker “North Carolina First” party came up short on the 85,000 signatures needed to get on the ballot. That’s right: even with double-digit unemployment, they couldn’t convince 1% of the population to back them. Libertarians do a better job of organizing.
Most of my friends moved to Brooklyn straight after college. I used to be bitter about that, but it was really just because my retard ass decided I was going to work for a living. Dumb! Our parents all paid for a car and a college education, the basic currency to survive in America, so why not work in a bar and get laid by some trust fund hottie?
Especially when the average teacher I work with is in her late 30s-40s, divorced, overweight, arrogant, selfish, hates her job and especially the minority pisspants who don’t show her an ounce of respect, and spends her free time getting shitfaced alone or, worse, reading People magazine and dreaming of a life that has very clearly passed her by.
Back to “revolution”: Said teacher is in the throes of one of the clearest scams of all, a charter school push designed to cut her wages in half, remove any health-care benefits, and the ability to fire her for no reason. Guess what? They’re rolling over and taking it without a fucking word.
I love Ames for bringing Megan “Miss Zeitgeist” McArdle to my attention. I still get a laugh at her bragging about her sexless dating life to her readers.
41. Iok Sotot, Eater of Souls | June 3rd, 2010 at 10:02 am
Right, so you got my email after all?
It’s not like I wanted a blowjob or anything. Just a “thanks for the tip, bro”.
That’s all.
Maybe next time I see something I know you will be interested in I’ll write the article myself and you can pay me money.
42. DV | June 3rd, 2010 at 10:57 am
This is hilarious. Thanks for the read.
43. Dennis Redmond | June 3rd, 2010 at 10:58 am
Just two words: “9M80E Moskit” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moskit).
44. 2broke2buyAtent | June 3rd, 2010 at 12:05 pm
we are fucked. how are those brecher’s carrier destroying missiles coming along?
45. ABC123 | June 3rd, 2010 at 2:32 pm
“As The War Nerd pointed out in one of his columns, giant floating ships like aircraft carriers and cruise ships are almost impossible to defend against a swarm of small inflatable rafts full of explosives. I say let the thieves flock in one place…easier to send them all to hell via the ocean floor.”
To bad that plan fails on account of Americans being complete cowards. The first of a ship like that could be sunk by a small boat filled with fertilizer and a suicide bomber, after that security will go up, but it’s still just a question of how many small boats filled with fertilizers you need.
The problem being that Americans would never die for any cause.
46. auhsoJ | June 3rd, 2010 at 2:58 pm
@ vortex
Haha. Rapture. Rapture! Yes!
47. Necronomic Justice | June 3rd, 2010 at 3:54 pm
@45, I don’t think Al Quida would be opposed to providing useful idiots for the operation.
48. Shelby the Foote | June 3rd, 2010 at 6:15 pm
” I say let the thieves flock in one place…easier to send them all to hell via the ocean floor.”
Bingo. A couple of Somali pirates could send the whole boad of directors of Goldman Sachs straight to Davy Jones locker.
49. roflcatz | June 3rd, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Ames, you’re a fucking comedian trying to equate oligarchs with libertarians. Did you pick that particular juxtaposition out of your armpit this morning?
Apart from that riot, a decent exposé.
50. Emmett Smith | June 3rd, 2010 at 9:48 pm
“more forward time oriented” @ Doug; that’s a term I frequently read about in the rising “scientific racist” community you see on the web.
51. ABC123 | June 4th, 2010 at 1:39 am
@47 Al-Qaeda would help a bunch of poor americans to get revenge. They are also not idiots and would not be fooled into helping the cowards who cannot help themselves.
It’s so funny because it’s so incredibly easy. No matter how poor you are you can sell everything you have, take a loan and buy a boat and do a quick course on how to operate it. Buy some explosives and have someone rig them up.
This luxury cruisers are already floating the oceans and carries the super rich, waiting for the “libertarian cruise ships” are just excuses, since it will be just like any other ship, except there will be more crazy randians onboard and less super rich who know what they do (avoid taxes etc.) are doing is wrong.
The fact is that everything is already there. You can get the small ships and explosives you need, the luxury cruiser is already cruising.
The only reason it isn’t happening right now is that Americans are cowards and completely without values.
52. ABC123 | June 4th, 2010 at 2:43 am
Even in countries like Sweden, which has a long tradition of non-violence the workers get out and violently protest until they get what they want.
In USA workers just complain and do nothing, and the so called “liberals”, stutters and get abused in debates and act more like victims that anyone who actually stands up for anything.
They call themselves “liberals”, which really means the same ideology as libertarianism. In other words, the American socialist are to much cowards to call themselves “socialists” so they adopt the name of the exact opposite ideology since they don’t actually have to stand up for anything then. When the word liberal has been used up and is associated with socialism then they change again to “progressive”.
All of this name changing and hiding is then blamed on the hate towards leftist ideas. Guess what? In Europe there is a lot of hate towards socialism, in every European language there is a word that translates roughly to “socialist pig” or some variety of that and guess what? The European socialist soldiers on and keep calling themselves “socialists” despite the haters.
Imagine if an american “progressive” would have been on the O’reily factor and he had refered to them as “socialist pigs”, the “progressive” would have stormed out crying “I’m not a socialist!”.
Even the supposedly brave Mark Ames stuttered and embarrassed himself when debating against a right winger.
And do not try to claim it’s the opposite in Europe, we have libertarians protesting against socialism on THE INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY with 20 libertarians in the middle of 1000 socialist protesters! USA doesn’t even celebrate the international workers day, since it’s to socialist.
The american left have always been, and will always be, completely without testicles. The only thing that could change that is if one of you cowards sunk a cruise ship. Hell, even the French killed of the aristocracy.
53. ABC123 | June 4th, 2010 at 3:51 am
First you cowards ask for anti-ship missiles, which is pure fantasy. Then when it’s obvious that what is needed is a suicide bomber, then you cowards debate who will fight your fight for you.
Al-Qaeda? Do you retards think for one second Al-Qaeda would want to destroy the people that are destroying America? Hell, they probably love the idea, the globalists ruining America for them and then leave the country so moslem extremists can take over.
Fucking pathetic
54. tim | June 4th, 2010 at 4:33 am
@ Emmett: I googled “forward time oriented” and came up empty-handed.
55. Sleazy P | June 4th, 2010 at 1:28 pm
I’ll just leave this here…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjRfWDTk1mY
56. Necronomic Justice | June 4th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
@51, I get sea sick real bad.
@52, I marched on Mayday – with a hell of alot of other people. I even wore my Haymarket Martyrs shirt.
@53, The Internet is serious business.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0VQEfbMwb4
57. Zhu Bajie | June 4th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Any of you guys ever been to sea? Can you imagine what even a small storm would do to these tubs? Let alone a hurricane?
58. Zhu Bajie | June 4th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
“Show any statistical evidence that the poor excel at anything more than the rich.”
The rich cannot live without the poor doing the real work, but the poor can live easily without the rich.
59. Zhu Bajie | June 4th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
“For what really happens when the underclass tries to uprise without some international backing power just look at every peasant, slave and redneck rebellion from the Roman empire food riots right on down to Waco, Texas.”
Yes, the rich end up with their heads on poles.
60. Zhu Bajie | June 4th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
“Al-Qaeda would help a bunch of poor mericans to get revenge.”
Al-Qaeda doesn’t need to do anything more than they have already.
61. Zhu Bajie | June 4th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
“To not recognize it is to be ignorant of history.”
I suspect you get your history from the History Channel, not Thucydides, Herodotus, Tacitus, Ammianus Marcellinus, et al.
62. Zhu Bajie | June 4th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
“Ames, you’re a fucking comedian trying to equate oligarchs with libertarians….”
A lot of Libertardians are wannabe oligarchs, but didn’t chose the right parents, somehow.
63. Zhu Bajie | June 4th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
“No matter how poor you are you can sell everything you have, take a loan and buy a boat and do a quick course on how to operate it. Buy some explosives and have someone rig them up.”
A motorboat, a Kalashnikov or two, an RPG or two are a living for a lot of people and not just Somalis. Piracy has boomed in Indonesian waters since 1997 (the year of the Asian Currency Collapse).
64. Zhu Bajie | June 4th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
“Show any statistical evidence that the poor excel at anything more than the rich.”
Imagine Bertie Wooster without Jeeves. Then imagine Jeeves without Wooster.
65. Zhu Bajie | June 4th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
You know, modern day pirates mostly hold commercial vessels and their crews for ransom. Who would pay for these people? Anyone? So what would the pirates do next? The other mainstay of pirates historically has been supplying slave markets, which are far from gone from the modern world. These soft-handed geniuses might well find themselves staffing low-level sweat-shops and brothels, sweeping floors and cleaning toilets in far-off countries, getting their asses kicked/fucked regularly.
66. john smith | June 5th, 2010 at 12:57 am
Does it mean the movie 2012 was simply an advertisement for these boats?
Is it yet another scheme to squeeze money out of whoever still has it?
67. ABC123 | June 5th, 2010 at 4:35 am
Zhu Bajile:
“Al-Qaeda doesn’t need to do anything more than they have already.”
Al-Qaeda wants to make the world moslem, not play revolutionary with a bunch of cowards who complain all the time. If you had seen how the taliban and Al-Qaeda operates you would know they despise cowards like you.
“A motorboat, a Kalashnikov or two, an RPG or two are a living for a lot of people and not just Somalis. Piracy has boomed in Indonesian waters since 1997 (the year of the Asian Currency Collapse).”
Yeah, good luck a fucking chink trying to buy weapons from somalian pirates. Also, do you seriously expect to get out alive after having sunk a ship and killed possible 1000 people?
The facts remains, what is needed are suicide attacks against oligarchs all over the US and US working class are too cowardly and would rather buy another tv and further in-debt themselves.
“A lot of Libertardians are wannabe oligarchs, but didn’t chose the right parents, somehow.”
Libertarians are just people who have read Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman and got sold on the ideas, most real oligarchs and people with great power over their fellow man do not really care about politics, just what they can squeeze out of their fellow man, they call themselves communists in Russia and conservatives in the US, but it’s the same god damned people.
68. az | June 5th, 2010 at 7:07 am
Hey Ames, can you write about fucking old whores while coming down from ritalin again? This stuff about Abramovich penis envy is really boring.
69. ABC123 | June 5th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Zhu Bajie: You fail to realize two things. One is that these rich assholes have enough money and intelligence to arm this ship to the greatest extent possible. Two is that any group that sinks a ship like this will take an enormous amount of heat for it.
Conclusion, no pirates, Al-Qaeda or anyone else will do the job for you, regardless if you pay them or not. The fact remains that these rich bastards will roam the oceans while your children starve and you will remain to much of a coward to do anything about it.
70. Puck T. Smith | June 5th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
What do any of these well positioned welfare queens have to do with libertarianism?
BTW I’ve never read Rand or Friedman. I’m an Albert Jay Knock fan.
http://voluntaryboundaries.blogsome.com/2009/08/23/our-enemy-the-state-contents/
71. Ryan | June 5th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Hopefully, some Bioshock-esque tragedy will befall this libertarian paradise. That’s what I think of when I hear crazy billionaries living in the middle of the ocean to get away from us normals.
Or maybe this is why they developed ICBMs.
72. ABC123 | June 6th, 2010 at 4:48 am
@71 Ryan: Another pathetic post by a docile domesticated American. Sitting around hoping a miracles will happen. How does it feel to live your life without any testicles?
In the event of a global revolution against capitalism the workers of the world would probably kill the American workers just out of despise for how they are.
Cowardly, docile, domesticated, arrogant and phlegmatic is how you describe them.
Now that I think about there is really not a single group or person from USA that I like, death to America!!! Fucking nuke the shithole!
73. roflcatz | June 6th, 2010 at 5:02 am
@62: “A lot of Libertardians are wannabe oligarchs, but didn’t chose the right parents, somehow.”
Anybody with an ideological chip on their shoulder is a wannabe oligarch, take your pick. Duh.
74. Necronomic Justice | June 6th, 2010 at 10:08 am
@72 In the event that anyone gives a fuck about who you do or don’t despise we will let you know.
@73 You miss the point, really it’s all in that China Miéville article linked to in comment 17 above,
75. ABC123 | June 6th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Necronomic Justice: The difference is that I can choose not to care and it will not affect me, you however, are doomed to a life of being used, all fuelled by your own cowardice.
76. Necronomic Justice | June 6th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
@75, Obvious troll, is obvious. Get some better bait.
77. Mr. Raven | June 6th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
I was going to write a big ole rant, but this say it much more succinctly:
““the rich have about 15-20 IQ points on the underclass”
Two words: George Bush”
If we strafe the passengers with 9 millimeter pistols can we use the Zionist excuse and write the rich fucks off as “terrorists” if they attack us with folding chairs?
78. Carolyn | June 6th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
Thank you, team eXiled, for keeping me angry, sharp, and skinny. If I’m a decent human being, then it’s you who are responsible.
I don’t know which came first when I look at my co-workers: the sad cow eyes or the bovine hips. I only know that the quickest way to acquiring a bad reputation in my office is to express a strong opinion or skip a meal.
Your articles never fail to stoke the flames of my hate and remind me to stick with the moral high ground.
Regards,
Carolyn
PS: Please continue posting pics of Yasha holding his gun. Your small but enthusiastic female fan-base appreciates it greatly! Most of the men who express interest in me look like this: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1240/1094911119_c82dbf8454.jpg?v=0
…so let a girl dream.
79. Zhu Bajie | June 7th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Mr Raven, I suggest that you 1) sign on as a Marine on one of these rust-buckets; 2) take control of your employers, like the Mamelukes did Egypt; 3) fatten them up and sell them to cannibals.
80. roflcatz | June 7th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
@74
That’s silly. What you qouted and #17 linked to is an attempted equivocation of neocons with libertarians, in effect saying that the unsuccessful neocons become libertarians. That really is very old hat, recycled arguments from the left-anarchist crowd that feels that the libertarians et al are intruding on their turf.
About as silly as saying that the unsucessful welfare queens are those who become anarchists.
81. Zhu Bajie | June 7th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
“in effect saying that the unsuccessful neocons become libertarians.”
Real Neocons are an old boys’ network of perhaps 50 people. Like-minded lunatics, who knows? By contrast, Dispensationalis Fundies, expecting Jebus to Rapture them away from their troubles after a couple wars in the Middle East number in the tens of millions.
82. Zhu Bajie | June 7th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
“Al-Qaeda wants to make the world moslem” — ABC123
You’re confusing them with US Born-agains. Muslim conquerors want subjects paying taxes for protection.
“Yeah, good luck a fucking chink trying to buy weapons from somalian pirates.” — ABC123
Who do you think sells them their guns and boats?
Zhu Bajie
83. nampa1 | June 7th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Platitudes:
I’m really sorry to hear about the complete inaction of the teachers in the face of assault. I’ve covered this story extensively because after been through the hazing-for-nerds that is medical education in this country and it not working out, I always thought teaching would be a good fall-back. When I was a kid, the teacher’s union got everything. It looks like the sell-out union tards that survived the red-baiting (which catapulted them into position)in the 50s rolled over and the low-end faculty level group is too dense to organize. I remember the arrogance of a social studies teacher that hadn’t read a book in years lecture my 7th grade class that the teacher’s deserved a large raise because they had a master’s degree (completely out-of-context with my rust belt city).
The faculty has the balls to whine, but their mild education and ignorance of history, culture, anything around them prevents them from fighting back. Education was the last easy job in America (post office was privatized in the 90s). This is a sad day.
84. Juan Carlos perez | June 9th, 2010 at 4:26 am
These projects smell just many others published over decades in Popular Mechanics. and should be taken.Take a look at them and have some fun.
85. Michael | June 9th, 2010 at 4:36 am
No doubt somebody’s already said this, but: Bioshok. Wonder how it’ll happen…
86. FrankMcG | June 9th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Dammit, five hundred people beat me to the Bioshock comments.
It really is the inevitable outcome of Libertarians finally setting up their dream country.
87. Zhu Bajie | June 9th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
As Ames has noted, loonitarian enterprises mostly live by begging, not selling anything anyone wants.
88. bobinator5000 | June 10th, 2010 at 5:43 am
That’s funny, actually.
In a crowd you are anonymous and unseen.
On a boat, you are a sore thumb on the ocean with nobody to protect you.
How long before one of these things is sunk by an A1 warthog or hijacked by pirates?
89. FrankMcG | June 10th, 2010 at 11:05 am
The ultimate irony would be pirates from a “country” with no central government (Somalia) hijacking a floating Libertarian utopia and ransoming it according to free market values.
The next most ironic fate would be the whole boat collapsing and killing everyone due to shoddy construction thanks to no pesky government safety inspectors.
90. kreg | June 12th, 2010 at 5:45 am
It’s funny hearing libertarians talk about democracy being the enemy of freedom. I think most of them know damn well that democracy is as inescapable as gravity. All that economic infrastructure that they rely on is built and run by the masses of workers, who could simply leave in a heartbeat. Their precious rights only exist because the mob hasn’t decided to kill them and take their shit. What they really mean when they say they want to do away with ‘democracy’ is to do away with its cultural foundation. They want to move from an enlightenment-style humanist perspective to a nihilist one where everyone respects and rewards those they deem strongest and most worthy. The problem then is in bullshitting the masses just enough to accept this without them taking it too far and the whole system collapsing into law of the jungle anarchy which is really just the flipside of the democracy coin.
91. Phil | June 12th, 2010 at 7:38 am
@Doug
So you think Ames should concoct a plan like that little pillock Friedman, eh? So instead of working on producing interesting stories about the real world he should give himself over to nerdy sci-fi fantasising. I’ll tell you what, I’ll step in here. Here’s two plans:
(1) We construct robots out of bio-systems and micro-circuitry – how? I dunno, ask Patri, he’s a ‘transhumanist’. Anyway, when the robots are finished we teach them how to swim, right? Then we attach implosion devices to them – but, like, implosion devices that transport money to poor people. Then we swim them up to the rich-people ships and presto! socialism.
(2) We build this moon-base, right? And the moon-base has special killer-lasers that incinerate people who are greedy. Then we build a big rocket shaped like a worker and transport the poor to the moon-base. Then we invent machines that make goods appear out of thin air and feed and clothe everybody. Finally, we make robots – these one’s don’t have to swim, so it shouldn’t be too hard – and these robots serve everybody. Cool!
92. El | June 12th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Check me out… I like gargle oligarchs’ balls. Yep, that’s me. Give me a oligarch testicle and I’ll gargle it right up, gently of course. You communist sub humans make me sick. You will never revolt against superior capitalists, because you are at heart, lazy, jealous, stupid animals.
You will achieve nothing, you will always be poor, exploited serfs, simply because you are stupid. You will never revolt, because people like me, REAL workers, will gladly form death squads and put you bastards into concentration camps.
93. Greg | June 12th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Another oligarch testicle to gargle, why sure thing boss! Why can’t you fucking communist bastards leave people be? How does them having their society in the middle of the ocean hurt you? You’re nothing but evil, jealous little children.
Communism failed, capitalism won. You are dinosaurs. Get over it.
94. zhubajie | June 13th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
@92, 93, your loony-tardian oligarchs are Eloi at the mercy of their Morlocks.
95. ralldrittvsa | June 17th, 2010 at 9:19 am
I am a suck-up to rich people who despise me. That’s all I do–suck and suck and suck-up. I was about to post a comment attacking looters and parasites and in praise of those whose shoes I spit-shine with my tongue, but then I realized, why not just kill myself instead? But I’m too afraid to do that. In fact, I’m too afraid to do much of anything–even to post my own name on a comment on a blog or site. That’s what suck-ups like me are like, we can’t help it–we’re just scared to do anything we’re not told to do. I hope everyone understands that.
Oh, by the way, some total dumbshit asked what did socialism ever invent? Because everyone knows the government invented the Internet, which is the only reason I can go here and post an anonymous comment sucking up to my masters. Duh!
96. ralldrittvsa | June 17th, 2010 at 11:16 am
A government of publicly-funded scientists invented the internet on a not-for-profit basis. Yes a free thinking society can exist without capitalism-dick-suckers like myself, socially-funded researchers are free to invent whatever he or its inhabitants want to, based on whatever their motives might be, not the profit motive, which stifles creativity and crushes innovation. Whether it was social-democratic funded CERN or the US Government’s socially-funded programs that first invented sharing info through computers is still being debated. Either way, it wasn’t some genious inventor from a private company who was told through his command CEO or shareholder structure to invent something brilliant just to sell, because then he wouldn’t invent anything. No, there was a need to quickly share information–socialism is about sharing–and somebody (or a team) decided to do so electronically. Fucking genius, these socialist-funded programs.
Cearly, I couldn’t handle the answer to the question “what did socialism ever invent” because the answer is painful. Whereas these evil capitalists invented… well, the penises that I suck.
97. ralldrittvsa | June 17th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
A few things invented under capitalism:
Suckups, Tea Party, lickspittles, libertarians, lackeys, foot-lackeys, servants, butlers, bellhops, knee-scraping mandarins, billionaire groupies, gullible idiots who post comments, to name a few.
Think of a modern invention. 0% chance it was invented by someone who posts anonymous comments. Also, China is communist. Also, the more libertarian America got, the more we started getting our asses kicked in wars. We should have stuck with the New Deal, when we kicked the shit out of the entire world. But libertards like me had to fuck it all up.
98. ralldrittvsa | June 17th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
Dear Myself,
I should get a fucking job and stop posting comments like a goddamn deadbeat.
99. zhubajie | June 18th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
“Also, China is communist.”
Ex-Communist, and in a smarter way than the Russians. Before you know it, you’ll be doing the triple kowtow to beg the Son of Heaven to accept your presents.
100. Pb | July 10th, 2010 at 11:07 am
I would favor sinking the ship filled with tinfoil leftists and Hollywood cranks.
101. Reb | July 25th, 2010 at 9:59 am
LMAO!!!! These inbred mongrels hate one another and can you imagine the hell on earth they have created for themselves by thinking all will be rosy when they are stuck out in the middle of the ocean with people they can’t even trust?
From all reports they are all perverts/pedophiles and will soon run out of fresh meat so they will begin to use the children of the other elite, you know, the real forbidden. I know I would rather be dead than to face life living among the dreggs of humanity and watching them grow more demented every passing day. Could these loonies even get any crazier?
OMG, what if there should be a delay in their next botox delivery. Imagine that brood of aged bitches when their faces start dropping like a bunch of bloodhounds. Most of the so-called men may well begin to jump overboard than face that sight every morning or perhaps they will toss the old hags overboard. At any rate they are not filled with love, compassion or loyalty to anyone so these ships of luxury and escape might become fodder for the next series of ‘who done it’ mysteries but the setting will be billion dollar castles instead of the old spooky mansion. They will all most likely go rip roaring insane from paranoia their kind of lives bring about.
Hey, goofballs! Enjoy your adventure at sea, just watch your back and keep one eye open at night. Your wife, best friend, child or even your spirtual guide may be your worst enemy.
This kinda reminds me of the title of an old old movie The Ship of Fools.
102. ricpic | August 10th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
The rich get the best twats!
103. zhubajie | August 14th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
“The rich get the best twats!”
What, do you think these floating puke tubs are going to pull into Hong Kong and Patthaya so the *bosses* can go carousing? If they do, they’ll end up robbed and killed, or at best, poxed, by cleverer poorer people than themselves!
104. mentos | August 22nd, 2010 at 6:41 pm
To the person who mentioned Ayn Rand. She would have never supported such insanity. The point of the philosophy of objectivism is that there is a supreme moral code and that there are objective truths in this world. At least 50% (an conservative estimate) of the billionaires in this world came to be billionaires not through their own intelligence, but through luck and opportunity. Once again Ayn Rand would not support this.
Carlucci is a human parasite who does not abide by even a single aspect of objectivism. It is disgusting to even imagine people who come into wealth through manipulation, fear mongering, and murder.
That said, their are objective truths in this world and one of them is that Carrluci and the rest of those rag tag billionaires (at least most of them) are evil.
105. crazy inventor | August 29th, 2010 at 11:44 pm
@97
“Think of a modern invention. 0% chance it was invented by someone who posts anonymous comments.”
I’m an inventor and post anonymously. Most of my inventions are illegal however (phone boxes, cable TV descramblers, transmitters mainly) so it goes without saying notoriety is undesirable.
A few legal designs you might have seen however are smart fans and audio power amps based around OP amps.
As far as these floating mind prisons go, notice what amenities they offer – all things and activities I have no interest in at all – being one of the “lower IQ underclass” in a world where intelligence is measured by standardized test scores and value of a person measured by money. This sort of framing is the only real advantange “the rich” have over us – and only to the extent that people accept it (which I do not)
106. Bumsfi | February 25th, 2011 at 8:35 pm
Wow, that’s surpremely awesome. I hope if I become multi-millionaire someday I can buy a house on one of those. Thanks for telling me about these.
107. Jim | June 22nd, 2012 at 6:08 pm
I’m all for a Rich Man’s Floating Fortress. That puts ’em all in one place so that Divine Justice can send them all to Hell at once.
Even Divine Justice needs some mortal support to make it happen. All we need is an old Soviet-era boat that’s still in service in some 3rd world navy. I’ll put up a big contribution towards buying and outfitting it.
I’d be honored to be a crewman who will make that fateful voyage to finally dispense long-overdue Justice. Not only to the elites but to the very ideas that enabled them to destroy centuries of hard-won progress.
108. James Smith | October 25th, 2013 at 12:59 pm
It isn’t as if any rational person still believes the USA is a free country. Think about it. No-warrant wire taps, indefinite detention of citizens without charges, approval of rendition of prisoners and torture, stop and frisk without probable cause, search and seizure without a warrant, no-knock entry, confiscation and destruction of cameras that might have been used to film police acting illegally, police brutality, police shootings that go without investigation, managed news, and the civil-rights destroying “Patriot” Act.
Acts of police behaving illegally, with shootings, Tasers, and unwarranted violence now appear almost daily. Rarely are these offenses punished. Most often “an investigation” is claimed, but soon forgotten.
In addition, the USA, with 5% of the world population, has 25% of all of the prisoners in the world. That means the USA has the most people in prison of any nation in history. Even by percentage of residents incarcerated, not just sheer numbers. USA is # 1! Does any of that sound like a free country?
As Dwight D. Eisenhower said about communism, “It’s like slicing sausage. First they out off a small slice. That isn’t worth fighting over. Then they take another small slice that isn’t worth fighting over. Then another and another. Finally, all you have left is the string and that isn’t worth fighting over, either.
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