Long, Strange Trip

Nine-Eleven



On November 22, 1963, I was on the playground for 10:00AM recess at my elementary school when teachers called classes back inside prematurely. After a few minutes, the school's public address system was broadcasting the carrier for CBS' radio network, announcing the shooting of JFK in Dallas and, ultimately, the audio portion of Walter Cronkite on CBS television announcing the President's death.

Where were you when John F. Kennedy was shot? was a fixture in the cultural landscape for a large number of people (now referred to by the Younger Set as 'Bloodsucking Useless Boomers') for a long time, due to the magnitude of the event and because it was shared in real-time by the cutting-edge media of the early 1960's.

So, September 11th, 2001: Where were you on 9-11? I had gotten up to go to work around 5:30AM PDST, and as usual turned on KQED-FM's NPR news. After stepping out of the shower, I heard a report that a plane appeared to have crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers in New York -- I've been in Manhattan and had seen how huge those buildings were. To me, "A plane" meant a Cessna, or similar light aircraft.

I remembered seeing a 1945 film newsreel about a B-25, flying through dense fog, directly into the Empire State Building. A similar incident at the WTC would be tragic, I thought; but it was an accident, for crying out loud, on the other side of the continent, distant. No one in their right mind would deliberately kill themselves, I sighed, and I shaved.

At some point the report was updated; I heard the words "jet airliner", which moved the entire event in my mind from 'Cessna-going-off-course' to the category of Did-You-Call-The-Coast-Guard-About-This?-It-Was-No-Boating-Accident.

Turning on CNN, I sat on the edge of an armchair, watching an image of the WTC towers from CNN's Manhattan headquarters, and other shots from a helicopter hovering over the Hudson. A few minutes after I sat down, I watched as the second airliner slammed into the second WTC tower.


Images Like This, and Worse, Were Broadcast And Published
In Europe, But Not In America (Photo: UK Guardian, 2001)

No joke: Aside from Holy Fuck, the only thing I recall thinking was, This is what standing at the curb in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, watching the Archduke Franz Ferdinand being shot, must have been like. I knew immediately that what I was seeing was another line in the sand being crossed, an event with consequences that would be immense. The dice were in motion in the Crapshoot that is our Universe, and what I was watching on my television was the proof.

It also seemed unreal, a Hollywood special effect -- as if CNN would break for a commercial at any moment; the joke would be on us; and it would turn out to be this generation's War Of The Worlds broadcast.

I sat watching as the South and North towers collapsed (Wikipedia's timeline of the events puts that at 6:59 and 7:28 AM PDST, respectively), flipping back and forth between networks for coverage of the airliner plowing into a wing of the Pentagon. Finally I left to make my way to work on mass transit.

In a BART car, I was amazed at the languid attitudes of the crowd of commuters -- reading books and newspapers, a few tapping on laptops -- as if it were just another Tuesday morning. No one appeared stunned; there was no animated conversation about current events.

Finally, I turned to a woman sitting opposite me, reading a folded copy of the (pre-Little Rupert) Wall Street Journal, and asked if she was aware of what had just happened that morning. "Yes," she replied, adding in a please-pass-the-salt voice, "There are supposed to be more of them [i.e., airliners] in the air to hit other targets."

Had anyone estimated how many? "No," the woman shrugged, and went back to her WSJ. I don't know what surprised me more, her matter-of-fact attitude, or her piece of news.

---

That was September 11th -- a red line on the American calendar in so many ways, the culmination of a large number of threads in our history, and the pacts and choices successive administrations have made since America decided to follow an Imperial course.

The attack on the Trade Center towers could have been another kind of defining moment for America. Our government and institutions could have taken it as an opportunity to press for a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy; we could have opened a dialog with others, rather than dictate to them.


Lil' Boots, 2004 Republican Convention:
Feared And Bigger Than His Daddy, At Last

I'm not suggesting it coulda been a Kumbyah moment; I am saying that it was a crossroads moment, and that our choices mattered. But, the government was run by men who had no interest in anything except power (personal, partisan, and financial) and policies that meant the use of force in furthering that power. What else could we have expected from the likes of Lil' Boots, President Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld? From the PNAC crowd, Fat Karl Rove, Little Tommy DeLay, and Lard Boy?



(And remember, these geniuses had been discussing how to invade Iraq just days after Lil' Boots first inauguration. September 11th was simply an excuse.

And, they believed it would be simple, 'Roses All The Way', 'Greeted As Liberators' ... so no one planned for occupation, or fighting an insurgency for seven years; or for the effect on the U.S. military of multiple redeployments and 'stop-loss' denials of separation. They never conceived of failure; therefore, it wouldn't happen.)

So what followed from 9/11 shouldn't have been a surprise: An utterly unnecessary, even illegal invasion of Iraq, supported by intelligence about WMD's invented by right-wing operatives to create a causis beli, and pushed in the national media by sociopathic egos 'journalists' like Little Judy Miller, and pundits like David Brooks and William Kristol, and Little Tommy Friedman, to name but a few.


Palettes Of $100 Bills, Baghdad, 2003 (Photo: UK Guardian)

And let's not forget the $12 Billion in cash (at least; no one really knows), piles of U.S. currency shrink-wrapped and paletted and airlifted to Iraq. Some $9 Billion in cash cannot be accounted for. And all the cool new powers used by that dry-drunk, Frat-Boy younger son of an American ruling-class family; or all the power available to President Cheney.

There was plenty of money to put in C530's and airlift it: 363 Tons of it. There was plenty of money being made from the war, and tax breaks to the wealthy which reduced taxed income to the government; but there was no money to cover special health care, and Lil' Boots wanted to privatize Social Security because there's just no money.

Let's not forget Guantanamo, 'black airlines' flying suspected terrorists to secret CIA prisons, and the extra-legal, secret program of 'renditions'. Let's not forget Abu Ghirab. Let's not forget people like John Woo, whose written suggestions created what he still claims is a "legal" basis for torture as national policy.


Civilian Casualty Of Baghdad Suicide Car Bomb, 2007

And what followed wasn't just prisons and a lack of due process for terrorist suspects, but the development of a matrix of information -- based on the unprecedented data-mining of domestic email and cellular and telephone traffic, of banking records and public record databases; the rise of a government/corporate State surveillance and intelligence apparatus that outstrips the wildest dreams of the Gestapo and the KGB.


Obligatory Cute Small Animal Being Interrogated At
Undisclosed Location By CIA In Middle Of Blog Rant

And, very little seemed to be about defeating Al-Qaeda, capturing Bin Laden and Al-Zwahiri -- otherwise, we would have finished the job in the mountains of Tora Bora in October of 2002, and Iraq would never have mattered. We would have kept Lil' Boots' promises to the Afghans about rebuilding their country, instead of ignoring it -- at least half the reason the Afghan Taliban were able to come roaring back, and are now as strong as they were in 2001, if not stronger.

The 'Go-Go', Lil' Boots Bush years were about a larger Rightist agenda; it was about deregulation, defense contractors, and higher profits; and it was about Fat Karl's dream of rigging elections for permanent Republican rule of the United States.

Victory, to these clowns, had a very different meaning -- and little of it was military.

But let's not forget, too, how dissent or criticism of that unnecessary war, of more power given to people with poor impulse control, was looked upon in the immediate aftermath of September 11th.

Andrew Sullivan (9/16/01) -- The middle part of the country--the great red zone that voted for Bush--is clearly ready for war. The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead--and may well mount a fifth column.

Robert Stacy McCain (9/27/01), columnist for the All Perfect Great Father Moon Washington Times -- Why are we sending aircraft carriers halfway around the world to look for enemies, when our nation's worst enemies--communists proclaiming an anti-American jihad--will be right there in front of the Washington Monument on Saturday?

Robert Horowitz (9/28/01), Los Angeles Times -- The blood of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and tens of thousands of Americans is on the hands of the antiwar activists who prolonged [the Vietnam War] and gave victory to the communists... this country was too tolerant toward the treason of its enemies within.

Those who dissented, who believed the country was manifestly on a wrong track, were helping the enemy, a 'fifth column' for Islamic fundamentalism. "You are either with us, or with the terraists", as Lil' Boots so bravely told other governments of the world in the week after the World Trade Center attack.

It all sounds like standard Tea Party rhetoric, now; from their point of view, to dissent and criticize is really only permissible when you're attacking the Left; a socialist, the illegitimate ruler; dirty hippies; those "in rebellion against god".

Our economy continues to implode, and it has never been clearer who is benefiting from the policies of the Right; but, then, it's been a long, strange trip from September 11th, 2001. Few things should surprise us any longer.

I remember another Lil' Boots quote:

We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen
their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous
ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to
serve their radical visions -- by abandoning every value except
the will to power -- they follow in the path of fascism, and
Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path
all the way, to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave
of discarded lies. (Applause)

>> George W. Bush, Address To Joint Session Of Congress, 9/01

Is it appropriate as an epitaph for those who wish to do America harm -- or does it speak to how we have allowed ourselves to be lied to, and led; will it end up being our epitaph, a closing quote for the United States Of America?

There is no ‘populist’ version of a world where some few
are born booted and spurred, and the many are born saddled,
and ready to ride, and that's precisely the world which
conservatism is trying to conserve.

---

Random Bark

To express a Great Curmudgeon manner of thought, I'm so old that I can remember when a rough average of half a million people a month losing their jobs for over thirty months wasn't considered a good thing and in fact was a sign of something else.


(Graphic: Calculated Risk; New Jobless Claims Since 2000)
[Note: CR uses Treasury data when showing the 'Recession' as
beginning in 2007 and ending in June 2009. And if you believe
that, I suggest you do some sniffing around on your own...]

But, on the lighter side, President Boner and President-Elect Beck remind us, along with Lard Boy in his New Wedded Bliss, that they know best, and that 'Tough Love' is exactly what Americans need in their Time Of Trial.

---

Read And Watch

Read This:

The Nation, "No To Oligarchy".

Watch This:

Ex-Senator Alan Simpson, Co-Chairman of the President's Catfood Gutting What's Left Of The New Deal Commission, talks candidly about what he and other Commission members actually feel about Social Security.

The video above has poor sound -- but the transcript is here.

Hey; does anyone in the room not believe that within ten years, the United States, on one hand, will be a mass of people in varying states of poverty; and on the other, a tiny layer of Oligarchs who own or control both society and government and literally don't give a fuck about anyone but themselves?

Anyone?

---

Random Barking

Mongo Went Forward Into The Future, Filled With Teh Hope™,
But Ended Up Experiencing Politics As Usual, Again

Wouldn't it be funny if the Rethugs block every attempt by the Democrats to do anything to solve our economic crisis (if such a thing is even possible), so that people will become more frightened -- and scared people vote more conservatively?

Then, after those scared people vote more Rethugs in this November, and we have a Congress controlled again by the party of More and Jesus™ -- those same Rethugs pass some of the same legislation the Democrats proposed... only, the Right will trumpet through its media that these are new ideas, and that they saved the day?

Only, a lot of people are going to get hurt in the year or so before that happens. And, when the Thugs go after Social Security and the Health Care Bill, and the NEA and NEH and Public Television as all too immoral and expensive, more of us will get hurt.

And then President Terry will get to pick another few Supreme Court toadies and reverse Roe v. Wade; President Mitchell will make sure the DOMA is enshrined as a Constitutional Amendment; and President Gingrich will raise money -- some of which will even go towards building a shrine to Ronald Reagan in his beloved California hills. Oh, and we'll bomb Iran, too.

In 2008, I thought we'd gotten rid of these abschaum-saugen Schweinehunde for a while (Perhaps this is what they mean by Karmic Redemption). Well; you get the government you deserve after exporting death and greed to the rest of the planet vote for, I guess.

But, all these are just random thoughts. President Barbour and President Boner say they're really good people, and that of course they care, so there you go.

---

Econowonk

This is interesting:

The [International Monetary Fund] estimated a series of probabilities regarding the amount of increased debt a country might be able to sustain without hitting its projected point of no return.

That seems reasonable. International financial institutions like the IMF, and the World Bank, crank out "what if" scenarios all the time. The strategic planning groups within large corporate banks, and major non-bank corporations, do so, too -- or, hire outside firms to provide those same projections.

In the case of the U.S., the [IMF] said the odds were roughly three out of four that the country could increase its total debt to some degree without being penalized by investors -- logical considering that the debt is steadily increasing and interest rates remain low and steady.

However, that probability falls to an even 50-50 if the amount of new borrowing were to exceed fifty percent of GDP - or about $7 trillion given the current, $14 trillion size of the U.S. economy.

What this says, publicly, is that there is still room for the U.S. government to spend modest amounts of money (borrowing it from the Treasury at very low interest, meaning we don't have to sell more Treasury Bonds to the Saudis and Chinese to pay the interest on it), which might provide additional economic stimulus, without creating a real problem. It's a signal from the International monetary community: Do something.

The problem is, the Rethugs are resurgent, and intent on destroying the current President so that we can have a Huckabee-Palin team running the country in 2013; they will never allow any further stimulus spending, no matter how much it hurts large numbers of people -- 'cause it's Tough Love, and that's just what America and Americans need.

---

Teh End

The President spoke last night, and The Potemkin Village which is Our Kapitol chittered and buzzed, and squeaked and grunted with party talk and bedroom and bathroom talk by Very Serious People.

All the Big Pundits and Punditeers, The Very Serious People, agree:

No One Could Have Predicted it was going to turn into a Cluster;

Our Former Sainted War Leader, Lil' Boots, is a patriot,
whose, um... something... cannot be questioned;

If Only Boyz and Girlz of Teh Media had known and reported
that there were some questions about, um, things;

Yes, Our National Debt Tripled because of the
invasion of Iraq and the cost of the war during Lil' Boots'
Sainted War Leadership, but who could have predicted,
et al.;

If Only Teh Senate and Teh House had known Iraq was
invaded without any plan for its later administration (except
the one Feldmarschall Rumsfeld dumped into his wastebasket);

If Only The American People™ had shown the least
interest, collectively, in holding the government responsible
for an utterly unnecessarily invasion and occupation -- but,
no one could have known, etc.

Anyway: The Boys 'N Girlz Who Controlled The
Government from 2000 - 2008 could not have known
or predicted anything, and anyway are not to blame
because they are patriots anyway. This is beyond
any question. They're people too.

And, over four thousand Americans died. Also 100,000 Iraqis (but that was just during the March, 2003 invasion).

Anyway, it's all over now. President said so.

---

House Of Ship Of Fools Cards

Collect 'Em All



RIPLEY: ..because just one of them managed to kill my entire crew in less than twenty-four hours.

LUELYN: Thank you; that will be all!

RIPLEY: God damn it; that is not all! Because if just one of those things gets down here, then that will be all -- and all of this, this bullshit you think is so important -- you can just kiss all that goodbye!!

-- Sigourney Weaver, Aliens (1986)

At Firedoglake, another dirty hippie terrorist supporter website, commentator Ruth Calvo makes a few observations about our teensy little economic problems.

Calvo relates (new paragraphing only added for clarity):

One example of academics gone terribly wrong... is a relative who swallowed whole the teachings at Harvard’s School of Business about creative debt, a.k.a. ‘deficits don’t matter’. Now underwater in a huge mortgage, his retirement funds and borrowings against a house, invested in the market, disappeared, as did so many other retirement plans.

Now, he’s struggling to keep his home from foreclosure while his wife is working in retirement to manage their living expenses. Like all too many of our generation, under assurances that economic theories he’d paid dearly to study, combined with the siren call of living high and paying later, this business school believer went over a cliff of controlled and rational planning sold widely by the purveyors of debt. Those credit card companies and financial houses are living high, even now, on those outdated theories’ effects.
...

An economy consisting almost entirely of hyper-extended households ‘having it now’ suddenly had to cope with twice and more the amount budgeted for that ‘controlled debt’. The paycheck-to-paycheck majority got into more debt than it could afford. The first card in our national house of cards toppled.

After that, each incremental share of our overextended house of cards began an inevitable tumble that is barely above depression level nationally, while personally the tragedy in many households is at depression level.
...

That your debt is their profit is as far as [the financial sector] can see. That is the lowest and last layer in the total house of cards our economy had become. If they can’t let go, and become part of the functioning, REAL, economy, that last layer is on the verge of tumbling.

Believing in myths, and putting a balance on their books that ignores investments in bundled "toxic" mortgages – which include a preponderance of debt that will go unpaid – means that REAL value has been wiped out. Holding tight to a blind faith in outmoded and wrong theories has led to a whole system based on a ground floor that is gone.

"Mark to Market" – the term for accepting actual monetary reckoning on all those bundled bad mortgages – is the sound of that last row of cards beginning to believe in gravity.

As I said the other day, the amount of bad debt held by the financial industry is like nuclear waste: We can't eat it, launch it into the sun, or transform it into cute stuffed animals and sell them at airports and County Fairs.

This is what the efforts of the Obama administation, the banks, Secretary Timmeh and Gentle Helicopter Ben have been about since the beginning of 2009: Shore up the banks and investment houses to prevent complete collapse; keep people thinking everything will be just the way it was. Hope that no one notices the truth, and that the Banksters can find some way to, you know... fix things ... except, that isn't possible.

Now do you understand why the banks won't lend money? Do you see why those who have the capability of increasing their wealth are doing so, with tooth and claw?

This is what's behind the curtain, boys and girls; this is what the last question on The Final will cover. Or, as The Great Curmudgeon puts it,

...I think Ruth has it about right. The financial system is like a house of cards that is teetering on the brink of collapse. Sooner or later all the assets held by the banks will have to be valued at market rates instead of the inflated values currently assigned to them.

I suppose our betters are hoping that either the housing market will re-inflate or that they can spread the losses out over several years for a soft landing. Either way, it's not very comfortable knowing that we're so close to having the whole house collapse.

All it will take is a severe shock, or a series of them -- and, not even here in the United States; which is why the problems of economies outside our own really do matter.

But, another New Orleans, another 9-11, or imploding financial giant... and the time that TARP and the Obama stimulus package bought for the Old World we all grew up in, financed by debt and greed, will run out.

And that's why buffoons like Beck or Palin, and the kind of theocratic politics they represent, are worth watching -- because in the worst of times, the Worst can rise and seize the day.

---

Never Mind The Center

At Calculated Risk, the site that's catnip for financial and economic data wonks like myself operated by Bill McBride, I spotted a post entitled "Foreclosures: Movin' On Up!" about the increasing number of mortgage defaults in the "million-dollar and up slice of the [real estate] market" as reported by the Los Angeles Times.

The number of homes in the $1-million-and-up slice of the market that have become bank owned has tripled in the second quarter compared with the same period three years earlier in Los Angeles County, which has the majority of Southern California's high-priced REO houses. And the trend has shown little sign of slowing, according to data from ForeclosureRadar.

"We believe the high end is ready to fall apart," [Bryan Ochse of Media West Realty in Burbank, which works with 11 lending institutions and specializes in REO sales] said.

The freefall continues. We've plunged into a cloudbank; it's difficult to say whether you're falling at all, when you can't see the ground. People around us are shouting that we're hovering now, that everything's fine.

Yeah; right, good. I'm only a Dog, and if I can't get a parachute, I'll settle for a really big tablecloth.

---

In The Beginning Was The Word

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

 

Glenn Beck, At Lower Right Surrounded By Private Security Guards, Waits To Begin The Rally behind A Poster Of A Native American (Photo: Brendan Smialowski, New York Times Online, 8/28/10) 

It isn't really important that someone staged a religious rally in Washington, D.C.; that's been done before. The Moral Majority and Christian Coalition have staged them, and the 'Million-Man March' comes to mind. But this is the first religious rally that is overtly political, a demand to link or merge church and state, organized by evangelical christians with the general theme of turning America back to god -- through the general emergence of a new political force, the vaguely-defined 'Tea Party'. And it is happening at a time when the mainstream media continually portrays the state of National politics as confused at best and governing against the will of the People at worst. 

And, this rally is happening at a time when many people are out of work, angry and vulnerable, and ready to listen to a "new message". The Times stated that NBC news estimated 300,000 people lined the Mall between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument; the event's spokespersons said it was half a million. "But," said the Times, "by any measure it was a large turnout," which to me is disturbing.

 

The Rally (Photo: New York Times / Jacquelyn Martin - AP) 

 It was organized by Glenn Beck -- an eager entertainer who has the backing of Little Rupert's News Corp., the most powerful media conglomerate on the planet. Ten years ago, Glenny was just another drive-time talk jock. Now, he's standing with the Lincoln Memorial at his back, believing he speaks for god and preaching a mixture of biblical interpretation and Rightist garbage.

   

The Most Something Name In News: Reflecting Beck's Penchant For Truthyness And Factitiousness (Screencapture: CNN)

It's a Meaglomaniac's dream come true. However, the phrase, "Jesus wept," is invoked for a reason. There are a large number of people who see Beck attempting to equate his little monologue with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech in the same place, on the same date -- an address of hope and a demand for equality and justice, that has nothing to do with the ego of a tubby con man enabled by a media oligarch. And they're not happy. 

"For too long, this country has wandered in darkness,” Beck said to a nearly all-Caucasian crowd in a long, rambling speech that repeated themes from his Fox television program, his Clearchannel radio show, and his Web 'University', all of which push a bizarre amalgam of half-truths and boldfaced lies about American history. "This country has spent far too long worrying about ... and concentrating on scars," Glenny went on. "Today, we are going to concentrate on the good things in America, the things that we have accomplished, and the things that we can do tomorrow.”

   

"Under God": Tea Party Attendees Recited The Pledge Of Allegiance; Find A Black Person In This Photo And I'll Pay You 1,000 Quatloos (Photo: Brendan Smialowski, New York Times Online, 8/28/10)

Speaking of something many of the other tubby white men in the crowd would do, Sarah Palin spoke immediately after Beck; "We must not fundamentally transform America as some would want," Palin said. "We must restore America and restore her honor." The themes were consistent: America is on the wrong road; we need to regain our honor; we need to look to our glorious past; we need to turn back to religion as the basis for governing the country; and as Beck has been spouting for several years, the Federal government should be reduced in its power, and get out of the lives of its citizens... and all citizens should accept god, and live by godly principles.

 

Obligatory Cute Dead Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Rant 

...the important thing is that all signs are that the next few years will be a combination of economic stagnation and political witch-hunt... This is going to be almost inconceivably ugly. -- Paul Krugman, "Failure To Rise"; NY Times, August 28, 2010 

 I believe a large number of people will snort out a laugh about Beck's rally, and his performance, today (even David Niewart, who has kept as close an eye on the totalitarian leanings of America's Right as anyone). After all, they'll say, we've heard all his themes before; nothing new there -- and they'll make fun of him. 

 But I also think people are uneasy at what they're seeing; all sniggers aside, the rally had a moderately respectable turnout (Definitely not half a million, and not 300,000; but respectable). And, because Beck wants nothing short of a revolution -- he's as much as said so. His enablers and investors (monkey-gland-fueled oligarchs like Little Rupert, and the Billionaire Boyz Club) think the Tea party will disappear, sooner or later -- but intend to make Progressives spend capital and resources fending it off ...and get something out of it for themselves.

 

And if it does become something; if the country ends up being ruled by nut jobs like Palin and Bachmann and Paul... well; it's nice to be on the right side of people who believe god speaks to them, isn't it? Because those people usually take a Dairy Queen full of people hostage and then demand money, a fueled jet, and "complete release". 

 Unless revolutions are seriously non-violent (as Dr. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, or Mahatma Gandhi's long effort to win independence for India, were) and truly have justice and history on their side, they end in two ways -- a coup d'etat, because in order to survive, a government has to share power with the revolutionaries (Germany in 1933); or a seizure of power by force, (the French and Russian Revolutions), usually with some involvement by part of a country's professional military officers.

 

Who Wants To Swear Allegiance To Anything We Say, Or End Up In The Gulag? Soviet Citizens During The Purges Of The 1930's

In either case, the revolutionaries need scapegoats. In moving from the Old Order to the New, there will have to be punishments, a comeuppance. And, since it's a Revolution, the old notions of civility, fairness and justice won't apply. The revolutionaries suddenly in power will do whatever is necessary to keep it -- and to survive, people will have to swear allegiance to whatever those in power want them to. Because in the end, it is all about power; "Where the broom does not sweep," Mao Zedong said, "The dust will not vanish of itself." 

In order to bring about revolutionary change, the new leaders won't ask a society to do what they want -- they have to demand it, and behind that demand is always the barrel of a gun. In a political revolution, that's bad enough; ask the Czechs, the Romanians, the Bulgarians and the Russians; the Spanish and the Germans. 

But in a revolution created by religious True Believers, they will not only want you to agree that two and two make five; you will have to prove to them that you believe it with all your heart. Or else. The only way religious revolutionaries can build consensus is by attacking 'heretics' and 'unbelievers' as defined by their leaders, who claim to speak for god.

 

Francisco Goya, Inquisition; Prado Museum, Madrid 

 For example: Non-christians, agnostics or atheists may be identified by others in their neighborhoods to the authorities. They may be ostracized, their businesses boycotted. Eventually, they will be marginalized legally -- at first, laws may be passed requiring only recognized christians to hold public office or civil service jobs; then, to hold any job. Then, to own certain kinds of property. 

 And while all this is going on, the media is broadcasting the message that since the new leaders are informed by god, directives of the new government are directed by god as well -- in fact, will be equated with god's will. Those against the government, and certain non-christians, are evil; "in rebellion against god"; agents of Satan.

 

Nazi Auto-Da-Fe In The Operaplatz, Berlin A.R. Moritz, 1938

And, the things these evil people have made -- art; literature; scientific studies; architecture and design and theater ... all of it will become objects of official ridicule and discarded (even, burned in public) as evidence of moral degeneracy.

 

Exhibition Of 'Entartete Kunst' (Degenerate Art); Münich, 1937 -- An Exhibition Of Art Declared Against The Principles Of German Culture And Society As Defined By The Government (Wikipedia)

It's inevitable; at some point, witches will have to be be tried. There will be forced confessions (as with the Inquisition, or Soviet Purge trials, or Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge). If the accused don't recant, and accept whatever interpretation of religion the leaders direct as orthodox -- then, it ends in executions and anonymous graves.

 

Cambodian Teacher, Photographed Before Execution By The Khmer Rouge.

If you think this is science fiction, substitute the word "Jew", or "Homosexual" "Communist" "Monarchist", or "Liberal" for 'non-christian', 'atheist' or 'agnostic', and remember your history (only, recanting an unpopular opinion, or changing religious affiliation did nothing to help the Jews). If you spend even an hour listening to 'christian' radio, its broadcasts are long, ranting monologues about fire and sin that build slowly to a frenzy -- and always delivered by men, shouting, about seeking out and recognizing the devil and the ungodly, about punishment to come. 

Those who punish others out of a claim to know wickedness are blind to it in themselves. I'm a long way from saying we're on the cusp of a Rightist takeover of the government. More likely, the Teabaggers can try and ram god down the country's throat, and at some point the society will begin to choke.

Until then, it will look and feel like the McCarthy era, as incompetent evangelicals run the United States onto the rocks and brand everyone who blames them as agents of Teh Satan. However, make no mistake: any change of government in this country from its current, secular democratic Republic would have to end in the repression, imprisonment, and murder of anyone whom the new leaders saw as a threat. That is the nature of revolution; there are no exceptions. There never have been.

If Little Glenn Beck has another rally, and more people show up than there were today -- if this is pushed as a "populist" uprising by Right-wing media like Fox and bankrolled by billionaires with revenge on their minds -- then I would take note, and be afraid, because the days of living in a pluralist, secular and diverse society may be numbered.

All that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. [-- Quotations: Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797); Taste The Irony ]

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Culture Of More: Helicopter Ben, Part 8

(Original Photo: NYT; Courtesy Mongo Network)

Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin S. Bernanke, in a strongly anticipated speech to other shape-shifting Acturian lizards open the Fed's annual conference, offered the same soothing, bullshit denial of reality that the “preconditions for a pickup of growth in 2011 appear to remain in place,” and added that “We have come a long way, but there is still some way to travel.”

Despite the collapse of personal net worth for the vast majority of the peasantry the recent slowing of growth in the economy after a period of GDP increases which allowed Secretary Timmeh! to claim the Recession was over, Bernanke laughing in the reptilian fashion of his alien people said "It is reasonable to expect a minimal amount some pickup in growth in 2011 and in subsequent years,” then covered all his bases with a handy disclaimer added that “the economy remains vulnerable to a takeover by Republicans who will start another war and line their pockets unexpected developments.”

Finally, Benny rammed his snout towards the microphone and hissed said to the other members of the Fed, For a sustained expansion to take hold, growth in private final demand--notably, consumer spending and business fixed investment--must ultimately take the lead. On the whole, in the United States, that critical handoff appears to be under way.

What Bernanke means is, any actual Recovery has to be led by regular people, buying things, and businesses investing in capital purchases. The problem is, consumer spending between The Crash (September, 2008) and today actually peaked in the Third Quarter of 2009 and has declined ever since.

Without jobs, no one can buy anything. People will not be able to pay their mortgage loans and car loans and credit card debt. As people don't buy things Businesses lose revenue. They will fire more employees. Unemployment rises, and the cycle continues. I mean, it actually is just that simple.


Helicopter Ben! Look Behind You! (Photo: Mongo, And Adobe)

However, the focus of the Obama administration, the Fed, Secretary Timmeh, and all the other Shape-Shifting Reptoids has not been to reduce unemployment. The Republican's TARP program went directly to the banks and investment houses. The majority of the $787 Billion-dollar "stimulus" package (which Obama and the Democrats moved heaven and earth to get through Congress) also went to the banking and investment industry.

The theory was, if banks and brokerage firms were stabilized, banks would begin to lend money to businesses, and everything would be just as it was. Only, the banking and investment industry doesn't give two fucks what happens to the rest of America, and so has not made loans available as expected...

... because the banking and investment industry is also holding billions (possibly trillions) in bad, mortgage-backed securities, sold to them by other investment houses. The government gave money to the banks to counterbalance those losses -- but all the TARP money under Bush, and the bulk of the $787 Billion under Obama, isn't enough to cover all the bad paper the Banksters are holding.

And here's the, uh, "money shot"; pay attention: The entire Derivatives industry depended upon creating mortgage-backed securities with no independently-established value. Banks, pension plans; investment houses which purchased these CDO's count them as part of their paper assets (as in, "Fifty billion dollars strong!"). But what they paid for them was based on an industry estimate which was overstated, and benefited the originators of those securities.

Someone, uh..."made bank" on all this. A relatively low number of middle-aged and older white males, to be precise.

If the "financial industry" were to do a solid analysis and re-value these securities at their true worth, the banks and investment houses, hedge funds, pension plans... all would lose billions, each, in assets. No one knows how much, but it's likely that many institutions would fail overnight, and that would start a global financial firestorm.

That couldn't be allowed to happen, so attempts by the Federal government to reverse damage done by the Banksters, has gone to the Financial industry. It has not been to help People. As long as helping the Banksters, and not Citizens, is the focus of government, this crisis will drag on for years, perhaps decades -- because the overvalued securities created a mountain of debt -- like intensely radioactive waste that can't be destroyed, only stored.


Obligatory Cute Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Rant

Japan still is being affected by its "Lost Decade" (which really began with its own Real Estate bubble in the late 1980's); and the Great Depression, for America, lasted from 1929 until 1942 -- it took the Second World War to bring it to a close.

And, whether anyone wants to acknowledge it or not, This is not over. We are still in economic free-fall. Nearly a half-million people each month lose their jobs, and nothing is going to be the way it was, again, ever.

However, the entertainment industry, the teevee, media on the Intertubes, has been working overtime helping us deny the reality of our circumstances (I'm not suggesting we stop listening to Lady Gaga because there's an economic crisis; heaven forfend). And, the financial 'reforms' being discussed are all of the allowing Republicans to finally destroy the last vestiges of FDR's New Deal 'shooting Social Security in the head', and 'keep the Bush tax cuts in place for the wealthy'; 'make The People pay for what the Banksters have done' variety.

The teevee isn't reality, and the crap being spewed by politicians isn't reform. It's Chinatown, Jake.

As Paul Krugman noted ahead of Benny's speech, "... we can safely predict what [Bernanke] and other officials will say about where we are right now: That the economy is continuing to recover, albeit more slowly than they would like. Unfortunately, that’s not true: this isn’t a recovery, in any sense that matters."

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