Barry Ritholtz, who I distrust for being a capitalist yet appreciate because he's a generally smart human being (the notion here is that we ought to live in a world where ideas matter, but where no one is willing to utter a lie, or harm or kill another to prove how great those ideas are), put up another interesting post today.
The relevant part:
I ripped into [both Left and Right] as corrupt partisan hacks. I favor the NASCAR endorsement approach for Congress-critters: They should all have to wear on their suit coats the stickers of their “sponsors” and campaign funders — like any NASCAR team...
[A person Ritholtz was speaking with] dances around my party affiliation, and I tell him I have none. Here’s why:
I am not a Democrat, because I have no idea what their economic policies are; And I am not a Republican, because I know precisely what their economic policies are.
Indeed, the entire left/right debate is false, an artificial framework for analyzing policy. In my mind, the real debate is the corporatocracy versus the individual.
And right now, the individual is losing...
Actually, I'd observe that our political structure is as riddled with corruption as some houses are with termites -- and that someday, the whole edifice of our illusory State, being held together by nothing but coats of Whitewash, will collapse on itself.
But, I'm only a Dog, and you know the rest.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Anfang des Öls
So... This Is Why The Rich Want To Get Richer?
According to Der Spiegel, The German Bundeswehr (Know what? There's Google Translate; for those without German, go look it up) performed an analysis of what a Peak Oil crisis might look like.
It had been circulating in draft among various German governmental departments as a highly classified study, until someone leaked the document; it hasn't yet been made available online.
Der Speigel reporter Stefan Schultz noted:
The study is a product of the Future Analysis department of the Bundeswehr Transformation Center, a think tank tasked with fixing a direction for the German military... [and] uses sometimes-dramatic language to depict the consequences of an irreversible depletion of raw materials. It warns of shifts in the global balance of power, of the formation of new relationships based on interdependency, of a decline in importance of the western industrial nations, of the "total collapse of the markets" and of serious political and economic crises.
The study, whose authenticity was confirmed to SPIEGEL ONLINE by sources in government circles, was not meant for publication. The document is said to be in draft stage and to consist solely of scientific opinion, which has not yet been edited by the Defense Ministry and other government bodies...
The leak has parallels with recent reports from the UK. Only last week the Guardian newspaper reported that the British Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is keeping documents secret which show the UK government is far more concerned about an impending supply crisis than it cares to admit.
According to the Guardian, the DECC, the Bank of England and the British Ministry of Defence are working alongside industry representatives to develop a crisis plan to deal with possible shortfalls in energy supply. Inquiries made by Britain's so-called peak oil workshops to energy experts have been seen by SPIEGEL ONLINE. A DECC spokeswoman sought to play down the process, telling the Guardian the enquiries were "routine" and had no political implications.
According to Der Spiegel, The German Bundeswehr (Know what? There's Google Translate; for those without German, go look it up) performed an analysis of what a Peak Oil crisis might look like.
It had been circulating in draft among various German governmental departments as a highly classified study, until someone leaked the document; it hasn't yet been made available online.
Der Speigel reporter Stefan Schultz noted:
The study is a product of the Future Analysis department of the Bundeswehr Transformation Center, a think tank tasked with fixing a direction for the German military... [and] uses sometimes-dramatic language to depict the consequences of an irreversible depletion of raw materials. It warns of shifts in the global balance of power, of the formation of new relationships based on interdependency, of a decline in importance of the western industrial nations, of the "total collapse of the markets" and of serious political and economic crises.
The study, whose authenticity was confirmed to SPIEGEL ONLINE by sources in government circles, was not meant for publication. The document is said to be in draft stage and to consist solely of scientific opinion, which has not yet been edited by the Defense Ministry and other government bodies...
The leak has parallels with recent reports from the UK. Only last week the Guardian newspaper reported that the British Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is keeping documents secret which show the UK government is far more concerned about an impending supply crisis than it cares to admit.
According to the Guardian, the DECC, the Bank of England and the British Ministry of Defence are working alongside industry representatives to develop a crisis plan to deal with possible shortfalls in energy supply. Inquiries made by Britain's so-called peak oil workshops to energy experts have been seen by SPIEGEL ONLINE. A DECC spokeswoman sought to play down the process, telling the Guardian the enquiries were "routine" and had no political implications.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
They Make Commercials
Get Out Your Buckets And Be Prepared To Use Them
I was in a laundromat early this morning; its owners unlock the doors at about 6:00AM, daily, turn on a local TopPop radio station, and leave until 10:00PM. While loading up the washer, I listened to a commercial for a local supermarket chain -- a woman's voice, telling me how certain produce items remind her of her childhood, of "the smell after my dad cut the lawn ... how my mom made lemonade... it all just reminded me of times and things you could count on."
We live in times when Citizens in the trenches are manipulated, daily, for our vote, our support; our money. This commercial was attempting to link buying things at Safeway™ with the idea of safer, more secure times, with childhood fun, mom and dad, and the smell of fresh-cut grass.
Safe And Secure, With The Smell Of Fresh-Cut Grass:
Memories From Everybody's Childhood -- Aren't They?
You know, childhood -- I mean, for those lucky enough to grow up in a house, with both a mom and a dad, and an actual lawn. Not like growing up in an inner-city housing project with Food Stamps, people smoking Rock on the stoop and fifteen-year-olds turning tricks, gang-bangers fighting for the Turf you live on and schools where pat searches happen every day.
I listened to the commercial because I didn't have a choice, and looked around for a bucket to throw up in. Then, on the Intertubes, I found something worse.
Nissan motors has recently released a teevee commercial (see it here) for it's newly-released electric auto, the 'Leaf'.
It features a big and cuddly actual Polar Bear, actual melting ice caps; a long journey, and a knowledgeable Consumer, whose smart "Earth-friendly" choice makes a friend out of Little Knut Of The Berlin Zoo, thereby proving that the motivations of animals are really just as reasonable and well-considered as our own.
Part of me thinks it's a well-made piece of commercial teevee work, knowing something about Maya and 3DMax, alpha-channel and traveling mattes, and I'm impressed with the result -- even more impressed that anyone has been able to train a Polar Bear, the largest land carnivore on the planet -- our 21st Century version of a furry T-Rex in the animal world.
The spot ends with the cute 'n cuddly Polar Bear giving (all right, I'll say it) a bear hug to the Consumer for purchasing a 2010 Nissan 'Leaf' electric car. Another part of me expects that the Polar Bear would rip the Consumer's face off and eat it.
The human being in me thinks this commercial is a typical corporate response: Identify the problem (solutions to which can affect our sales of, uh, 'hydrocarbon-based transportation delivery systems') with something cute and cuddly (therefore making it less 'serious' and more 'managable'). Then, identify the product in the mind of the viewer / listener with 'cute 'n cuddly'. Finally, use catchy images or phrases that will get people talking and go viral, and thereby boost sales, leading to profits, and I want to puke in a bucket.
"How's This? Cute And Cuddly Enough For You? Huh? Huh?
And By The Way -- You Didn't Even Taste That Good!!"
Has Nissan announced that the threat of Global Warming is so serious that they are immediately terminating their production of internal-combustion-engine vehicles, and will now produce nothing but electric automobiles for sale? No? Well, then this is just a cute, imaginative come-on from the propaganda arm of The Capitalist Structure We're Immersed In, and the big problem it references still exists.
Satellite View Of Southeastern Coast Of The United States,
With Projections Of Results Of 15-Foot Rise In Sea Levels
-- But, It's All Hippie Crap, And Anyway We'll Be Dead
(Image Based On 2007 NASA Report By Dr. James Hansen)
I'm only a dog, and no one listens to me. No one listens to the bears, either -- and sadly, they'll go extinct before Nissan does.
I was in a laundromat early this morning; its owners unlock the doors at about 6:00AM, daily, turn on a local TopPop radio station, and leave until 10:00PM. While loading up the washer, I listened to a commercial for a local supermarket chain -- a woman's voice, telling me how certain produce items remind her of her childhood, of "the smell after my dad cut the lawn ... how my mom made lemonade... it all just reminded me of times and things you could count on."
We live in times when Citizens in the trenches are manipulated, daily, for our vote, our support; our money. This commercial was attempting to link buying things at Safeway™ with the idea of safer, more secure times, with childhood fun, mom and dad, and the smell of fresh-cut grass.
Safe And Secure, With The Smell Of Fresh-Cut Grass:
Memories From Everybody's Childhood -- Aren't They?
You know, childhood -- I mean, for those lucky enough to grow up in a house, with both a mom and a dad, and an actual lawn. Not like growing up in an inner-city housing project with Food Stamps, people smoking Rock on the stoop and fifteen-year-olds turning tricks, gang-bangers fighting for the Turf you live on and schools where pat searches happen every day.
I listened to the commercial because I didn't have a choice, and looked around for a bucket to throw up in. Then, on the Intertubes, I found something worse.
Nissan motors has recently released a teevee commercial (see it here) for it's newly-released electric auto, the 'Leaf'.
It features a big and cuddly actual Polar Bear, actual melting ice caps; a long journey, and a knowledgeable Consumer, whose smart "Earth-friendly" choice makes a friend out of Little Knut Of The Berlin Zoo, thereby proving that the motivations of animals are really just as reasonable and well-considered as our own.
Part of me thinks it's a well-made piece of commercial teevee work, knowing something about Maya and 3DMax, alpha-channel and traveling mattes, and I'm impressed with the result -- even more impressed that anyone has been able to train a Polar Bear, the largest land carnivore on the planet -- our 21st Century version of a furry T-Rex in the animal world.
The spot ends with the cute 'n cuddly Polar Bear giving (all right, I'll say it) a bear hug to the Consumer for purchasing a 2010 Nissan 'Leaf' electric car. Another part of me expects that the Polar Bear would rip the Consumer's face off and eat it.
The human being in me thinks this commercial is a typical corporate response: Identify the problem (solutions to which can affect our sales of, uh, 'hydrocarbon-based transportation delivery systems') with something cute and cuddly (therefore making it less 'serious' and more 'managable'). Then, identify the product in the mind of the viewer / listener with 'cute 'n cuddly'. Finally, use catchy images or phrases that will get people talking and go viral, and thereby boost sales, leading to profits, and I want to puke in a bucket.
"How's This? Cute And Cuddly Enough For You? Huh? Huh?
And By The Way -- You Didn't Even Taste That Good!!"
Has Nissan announced that the threat of Global Warming is so serious that they are immediately terminating their production of internal-combustion-engine vehicles, and will now produce nothing but electric automobiles for sale? No? Well, then this is just a cute, imaginative come-on from the propaganda arm of The Capitalist Structure We're Immersed In, and the big problem it references still exists.
Satellite View Of Southeastern Coast Of The United States,
With Projections Of Results Of 15-Foot Rise In Sea Levels
-- But, It's All Hippie Crap, And Anyway We'll Be Dead
(Image Based On 2007 NASA Report By Dr. James Hansen)
I'm only a dog, and no one listens to me. No one listens to the bears, either -- and sadly, they'll go extinct before Nissan does.
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 bysociopathic 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
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.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Read And Watch
Read This:
The Nation, "No To Oligarchy".
Watch This:
Ex-Senator Alan Simpson, Co-Chairman of the President'sCatfood 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?
The Nation, "No To Oligarchy".
Watch This:
Ex-Senator Alan Simpson, Co-Chairman of the President's
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
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
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.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
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:
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.
All the Big Pundits and Punditeers, The Very Serious People, agree:
whose, um... something... cannot be questioned;
that there were some questions about, um, things;
invasion of Iraq and the cost of the war during Lil' Boots'
Sainted War Leadership, but who could have predicted,
et al.;
invaded without any plan for its later administration (except
the one Feldmarschall Rumsfeld dumped into his wastebasket);
interest, collectively, in holding the government responsible
for an utterly unnecessarily invasion and occupation -- but,
no one could have known, etc.
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.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
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,
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.
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.
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