Category Archives: Unemployment

Obama supporters resemble Eloi of HG Wells “Time Machine”, Ask no questions and be fed, Morlocks represent government, Eloi like Obots and sheep led to slaughter

“If the party could thrust its hand into the past and say
of this and that event, it never happened–that, surely,
was more terrifying than mere torture and death.”…George Orwell, “1984″

“The question had come into my mind abruptly: were these creatures fools? You may hardly understand how it took me. You see I had always anticipated that the people of the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand odd would be incredibly in front of us in knowledge, art, everything. Then one of them suddenly asked me a question that showed him to be on the intellectual level of one of our five-year-old children”…HG Wells, “Time Machine”

“We control life, Winston, at all its levels. You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable.”…George Orwell, “1984″

Two days ago I caught part of 2 shows, Mark Steyn substituting for Rush Limbaugh and part of the movie “Time Machine” by HG Wells

A caller from Washington State began chastising Mark Steyn for being so negative about the economy and Steyn simply replied food stamps usage has skyrocketed. That really does tell the tale. Home prices going up some means very little since they had no where to go but up and the housing market will continue to stagnate as long as the core economy falters.

The unemployment situation is much worse than the stated unemployment rate. Labor Force Participation Rates are at historic lows and if one reads the Labor Dept. reports a clearer picture emerges.

“The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending December 8 was 5,475,708, an increase of 73,279 from the previous week.”

http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/ui/current.htm#.UN2vzW_7LhJ

From the Guardian December 26, 2012.

“US markets take hit from poor Christmas spending figures”

“Retailers pulled stocks lower Wednesday as US markets reopened following the Christmas holiday.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 49 points to 13,090 as of noon. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell seven to 1,419 and the Nasdaq composite lost 19 to 2,993.

Trading was quiet. European markets were still closed.

Major US retailers fell following a glum report on US holiday sales. Macy’s and Urban Outfitters lost 3%. Sears Holdings fell nearly 5%.

The MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse report found that sales of electronics, clothing, jewelry and home goods increased just 0.7% in the two months before Christmas compared with the same period last year.

That’s well below the growth of 3 to 4% growth that analysts had expected and the worst performance since 2008, when spending shrank during the Great Recession.

Last year sales climbed 4 to 5% during November and December, according to ShopperTrak.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/dec/26/christmas-spending-figures-markets-down

I read HG Wells’ “Time Machine” many years ago and have seen the movie several times. I was sitting at my desk and turned on the TV to find the movie playing on TCM. The part where the Eloi were being interacted with was playing. In the past I viewed them as a frightening spectre of what could play out in human history. However, this time, especially after hearing the Mark Steyn caller in denial, I was struck by how much the Eloi resembled Obama supporters, Obots. Don’t ask questions and expect to be fed. The movie in this case, more so than the book, provided the stark imagery.

From the “Time Machine” by HG Wells.

Chapter 4

“As they made no effort to communicate with me, but simply stood round me smiling and speaking in soft cooing notes to each other, I began the conversation.”

“For a moment I was staggered, though the import of his gesture was plain enough. The question had come into my mind abruptly: were these creatures fools? You may hardly understand how it took me. You see I had always anticipated that the people of the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand odd would be incredibly in front of us in knowledge, art, everything. Then one of them suddenly asked me a question that showed him to be on the intellectual level of one of our five-year-old children – asked me, in fact, if I had come from the sun in a thunderstorm! It let loose the judgment I had suspended upon their clothes, their frail light limbs, and fragile features. A flow of disappointment rushed across my mind. For a moment I felt that I had built the Time Machine in vain.”

“However, I felt like a schoolmaster amidst children, and persisted, and presently I had a score of noun substantives at least at my command; and then I got to demonstrative pronouns, and even the verb “to eat.” But it was slow work, and the little people soon tired and wanted to get away from my interrogations, so I determined, rather of necessity, to let them give their lessons in little doses when they felt inclined. And very little doses I found they were before long, for I never met people more indolent or more easily fatigued.”

“Looking round with a sudden thought, from a terrace on which I rested for a while, I realized that there were no small houses to be seen. Apparently the single house, and possibly even the household, had vanished. Here and there among the greenery were palace-like buildings, but the house and the cottage, which form such characteristic features of our own English landscape, had disappeared.

“Communism,” said I to myself.”

Chapter 5
“I wasted some time in futile questionings, conveyed, as well as I was able, to such of the little people as came by. They all failed to understand my gestures; some were simply stolid, some thought it was a jest and laughed at me. I had the hardest task in the world to keep my hands off their pretty laughing faces.”

“Going through the big palace, it seemed to me that the little people avoided me. It may have been my fancy, or it may have had something to do with my hammering at the gates of bronze. Yet I felt tolerably sure of the avoidance. I was careful, however, to show no concern and to abstain from any pursuit of them, and in the course of a day or two things got back to the old footing. I made what progress I could in the language, and in addition I pushed my explorations here and there. Either I missed some subtle point or their language was excessively simple – almost exclusively composed of concrete substantives and verbs. There seemed to be few, if any, abstract terms, or little use of figurative language. Their sentences were usually simple and of two words, and I failed to convey or understand any but the simplest propositions.”
“I must confess that my satisfaction with my first theories of an automatic civilization and a decadent humanity did not long endure. Yet I could think of no other. Let me put my difficulties. The several big palaces I had explored were mere living places, great dining-halls and sleeping apartments. I could find no machinery, no appliances of any kind. Yet these people were clothed in pleasant fabrics that must at times need renewal, and their sandals, though undecorated, were fairly complex specimens of metalwork. Somehow such things must be made. And the little people displayed no vestige of a creative tendency. There were no shops, no workshops, no sign of importations among them. They spent all their time in playing gently, in bathing in the river, in making love in a half-playful fashion, in eating fruit and sleeping. I could not see how things were kept going.”

“The great triumph of Humanity I had dreamed of took a different shape in my mind. It had been no such triumph of moral education and general co-operation as I had imagined. Instead, I saw a real aristocracy, armed with a perfected science and working to a logical conclusion the industrial system of to-day. Its triumph had not been simply a triumph over Nature, but a triumph over Nature and the fellow-man. This, I must warn you, was my theory at the time. I had no convenient cicerone in the pattern of the Utopian books. My explanation may be absolutely wrong. I still think it is the most plausible one. But even on this supposition the balanced civilization that was at last attained must have long since passed its zenith, and was now far fallen into decay. The too-perfect security of the Upper-worlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration, to a general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence. That I could see clearly enough already. What had happened to the Under-grounders I did not yet suspect; but from what I had seen of the Morlocks – that, by the by, was the name by which these creatures were called – I could imagine that the modification of the human type was even far more profound than among the “Eloi,” the beautiful race that I already knew.”

http://www.online-literature.com/wellshg/timemachine/4/