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Police Officer, Davis, CA, Yesterday; Pepper-Spraying #Occupy Protestors In Face

Per Balloon Juice:

[Friday, November 18th] at Occupy Davis, a police officer approached a group of students sitting in a line peacefully on the ground, walked up and down the line and pepper-sprayed them directly in the face—as one would spray pesticide on weeds. What you’ll see in this video is such a callous display of police brutality, I don’t know how this police officer is going to go home and look at himself in the mirror.

As the students cry “Shame on you!” the police arrest a few students; but as the crowd circles them—non-threateningly, but insistent — the police begin to retreat. Then, amazingly, the students ... offer the retreating police a moment of peace:

“We are willing to give you a brief moment of peace so that you may take your weapons and your friends and go. Please do not return.”

And the police do.

It's this simple:

It appears the government of the United States effectively supports the interests of large financial institutions, and of a small percentage of the wealthy as opposed to the majority of the nation's population.

Their answer to the financial crisis is deficit reduction, at the expense of job creation -- which can only end in the curtailment or elimination of the New Deal's compact between America's citizens and government. It would also mean the enforced impoverishment of a majority of The People; while that tiny, wealthy percentage of the population is protected and supported.

The #Occupy movement (and it is one) is in the streets to raise the level of debate on these topics beyond the inbred apathy. They are being ridiculed, demonized, and referred to as dirty hippies, animals, even by the so-called "responsible" media.

And it's been reported that there appears to be an effort on the part of the DHS, and the FBI, to coordinate the activities of police agencies in New York, Oakland, and elsewhere in observing and removing the Occupy encampments -- and that in itself says the movement is being taken seriously. For Government, for either political party, having The People out in the streets is... very inconvenient.

However, they are out there. Nothing more than Business As Usual! seems to be on the minds of the Obama administration, the DNC, or any other part of the Mainstream Left in America, while the Right speaks for itself: Fuck The People.

So, #Occupy is the only political movement directly focused on real issues -- and that's the simple truth. Everything else seems to be pandering, or eyewash; sound bites and posturing. Only direct action on the part of The People seems to be the answer to Business As Usual, since no one else will present one.

And for the Right in America, which could care less about The People, direct action is the only language they understand. Unfortunately, their only response is to up the ante -- to counter nonviolent protest with violent reaction... such as the picture at the top of this post. Law enforcement has become increasingly militarized and even inside commentators agree.

There are a few bright lights in an otherwise dismal landscape: Look at Wisconsin, where voters have found their voice; radical Republicans in the state legislature have been recalled, and 58% of polled voters (including Republicans) want Governor Scott Walker recalled as well. Look at the beginnings of Elizabeth Warren's campaign; no punches pulled.

And, there's #Occupy. At a bare minimum, people watching on the sidelines have to admit that they're willing to endure physical hardship and public opprobrium, even pepper-spraying and arrest, to make a serious point. They're willing to get involved.

What are you doing? Or, don't you think the situation is serious enough?

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MEHR: The Los Angeles Times:

The chancellor of U.C. Davis announced Saturday that she will form a task force to investigate the pepper-spraying of Occupy Davis protesters by campus police this week.

An officer’s spraying of the sitting students, who had locked arms, Friday afternoon in an attempt to clear the last of an Occupy encampment was captured on video and uploaded to YouTube and other social media sites.

...might have something to do with this:

The Faculty Association at the University of California, Davis, is calling for the resignation of chancellor Linda Katehi after a YouTube video surfaced showing police pepper spraying passive Occupy Wall Street protesters.

“The Chancellor’s authorization of the use of police force to suppress the protests by students and community members speaking out on behalf of our university and public higher education generally represents a gross failure of leadership,” the Davis Faculty Association wrote in a blog post on Saturday.

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We Got Nothin'

U.S. National Debt At $15,000,000,000,000


(Illustration © David Dees; See Note Below)

The National Debt Of The United States Of America officially passed the Fifteen Trillion Dollar mark today. Apportioned strictly on the basis of population, that's $48,000 for each man, woman and child in the nation.

Over 40% of it ($6.5 Trillion) was created during the reign of the Weak, Vainglorious, Peevish Dullard, Little Wee Georgie Bush ("The Decider!" "Bigger Than His Daddy"!). Thanks so much, Lil' Boots! Hope you're safe and warm, and have treats, and hired persons to serve you -- because you and others of your ilk are so superior; in every way.

As I'm so find of saying, as long as we have 400-channel on-demand porn and Lil' Rupert's Fox Entertainments; as long as there's Monday Night Football and cheap beer, and some people can barely keep making payments on their underwater homes... well, who gives a damn? Who will make an end and a Change; who will revolt, with enough Bread and Circuses?

The #Occupy Oakland encampment at City Hall Plaza was removed two days ago; my Place Of Witless Labor™ is two blocks away, and directly across from Snow Park, where the remaining Occupy (how do you refer to people protesting in your place?) FellowHumans™. This morning, there were a number of Oakland PD cars -- marked and unmarked -- parked around the park.

In downtown San Francisco (where #Occupy has taken the area I'm assuming might be called South Justin Hermann Plaza, in front of the Federal Reserve Building on Market St. and the Bank Of Aremica on the north corner of Market and Spear Sts.), I saw unmarked SFPD vehicles in the general vicinity at 6:00AM this morning when making it down to BART. At 5:00PM, traffic had been blocked at California and Drumm Streets by the City; there were more unmarked cars parked, and the California Street Cable Car line -- how I normally commute home -- had been shut down.

The Giant Lard Boy:

From Nashville. Headline. Staffer says she was urinated on from occupy protesters. No matter where you go here, Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Oakland, they're urinating on people. What is it, is there a syndrome I missed?... Every day we're getting stories that these Occupy people are urinating on people.

All signs are that the City and County of San Francisco, and the City of Oakland for a second time, will follow what happened in New York and in Oakland two days ago. And as digby points out, it's important for the government and established power structure to reduce the New Bonus Marchers to the level of animals. In fact, it's essential.

The protesters are being accused of being criminals, rapists, drug users and more. It's calumny, but perhaps that's par for the course in our overheated culture. But apparently people also want to believe something totally bizarre and shocking about the Occupy protesters: that they are literally behaving like animals by having sex in public and living in bodily waste. It's so astonishing that I've come to believe that it truly represents a dark psychological need to dehumanize these people. And the purpose of such dehumanization is almost always to prepare people psychologically for the next step:

Psychologically, it is necessary to categorize one's enemy as sub-human in order to legitimize increased violence or justify the violation of basic human rights. Moral exclusion reduces restraints against harming or exploiting certain groups of people. In severe cases, dehumanization makes the violation of generally accepted norms of behavior regarding one's fellow man seem reasonable, or even necessary.**

There's no reason this has to devolve into violence. But it seems to me that some people are getting themselves prepared to mentally excuse it just in case.

** Susan Opotow, "Drawing the Line: Social Categorization, Moral Exclusion, and the Scope of Justice." In Cooperation, Conflict, and Justice(New York: Sage Publications, 1995).

Local news in San Francisco is reporting that traces of a potentially fatal canine virus have been found in the #Occupy SF encampment: Ooo, Ick; Dirty Hippies, spreading disease.

Who gives a damn? These people seem to -- more than most of us, because they're Out There. They are in the streets because they understand there is a worm at the heart of the rose, a structure of lies and manipulation which made this current crisis inevitable.

They're saying (among other things) that to claim American culture is the manifestation of Democracy, Liberty and Justice, when it's more apparent than ever that we live in a Rigged Game, It's Chinatown, Jake, is worse than hypocrisy. It approaches willful evil. They're willing to put up with discomfort and arrest and worse, in recognition of the cognitive dissonance that marks the culture we live in.

And perhaps we all had better be in the streets ourselves -- because the current financial situation here, and around the world, is poised to become worse. Sooner or later we may all be in the streets, whether we like it or not. And while that isn't a certainty, even if everyone may not know that, they can feel it. Neroism is in the air.

In art and politics, culture and commonplace belief, Europe in the last years of peace before August, 1914, was speeding towards... something. No one knew what it was, but people felt it, like a wind that picks up ahead of a thunderstorm: You can see a peculiar light, the darkened and clotted sky, and smell the dust and the ozone. Even the deaf and the blind can tell something is coming.

(NOTE: The illustration above is by David Dees, who does good work -- though his images are more for the David Ickes / antizionist crowd; and while I don't agree with the notion of Acturian Space Lizards and HAARP-induced earthquakes, and absolutely don't agree with the state of Israel being represented by a rattlesnake -- for this image, I'm an equal-art opportunity Dog.)

And, one other thing. I don't look at the character in Dees' illustration above with distaste, or make fun of someone who watches televised football.

One reason it's there is that I found myself looking at the image, and feeling suddenly protective. I didn't want anything bad to happen to this character -- because, Goddamn it, I want things to work out for all of us. I want no one harmed, no one to suffer, no one to be mocked or abused or taken advantage of. I want us all to be safe and happy. Everywhere. I want everyone to have a shot at redemption and everyone to matter.

I know how absurd that sounds; and it continues to be my abiding wish.

But I'm only a Dog, and no one listens to me.

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MEHR: #OWS Twitterfeed Map is here.

The New York Times reports about, and the Guardian UK livestreams #Occupy Wall Street; clashes with police have been reported. I tend to follow events in the [non-Little Rupert] UK media -- it's in English, its coverage is more honest than domestic outlets, and it does report on multiple #Occupy sites across the United States and in Europe...

I recommend following the Guardian livestream / Twitter feed posted by the Guardian's on-scene reporter, Adam Gabbart. Additional video of OWS can be seen here.

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And Sow The Ground With Salt

Jerry Sandusky Is A Fucking Monster


Sign Outside Penn State Stadium Before Last Week's Game (BAG News Notes)

We live in America, where reasonably free speech is permitted, and the comment above is my personal opinion. (Note: I had a much more bitter and nasty screed posted here, but have truncated it -- not for any other reason than Sandusky, Paterno, Cullen and others will either get what's coming to them, or not. My description of what I'd like to see happen -- something involving baseball bats -- I'll leave out. There's a cached version out there in the Intertubes if anyone really feels the need.)

We live in a nation of laws (I mean, laws for some; justice for some, and the protection of the System for others). And Little Jerry Sandusky's attorney says he is not guilty.

Between January 2008 and July 2009, Sandusky called Victim One 118 times, the report said...

"Jerry Sandusky admitted to my face, he admitted it," [The Mother Of Victim One] told the Patriot-News. "He admitted that he lathered up my son, they were naked and he bear-hugged him. If they would have done something about it in 1998 ... they dropped the ball."

The New York Times added,

Sandusky [replied to the mother]: “I understand. I was wrong. I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won’t get it from you. I wish I were dead.” The local district attorney is given material to consider prosecution. No prosecution is undertaken. The child welfare agency takes no action. And, according to prosecutors, the commander of the university’s campus police force tells his detective, Schreffler, to close the case. The case is closed after District Attorney Ray Gricar decides there will be no criminal charges...

McQueary reports what he saw to Paterno at Paterno’s home. In a recent statement, Paterno insisted McQueary did not tell him of the extent of the sexual assault that McQueary said he witnessed, only that McQueary had seen something inappropriate involving Sandusky and a child. “As Coach Sandusky was retired from our coaching staff at the time, I referred the matter to university administrators,” Paterno said in the statement.

And, to a former Law Enforcement Dog, this part is really interesting:

April, 2005 -- Ray Gricar, the former district attorney who chose not to prosecute Sandusky in 1998, disappears. The circumstances are murky: his car is found abandoned, his laptop is recovered months later in a river without a hard drive and his body is never found.

An Assistant D.A. handles a lot of cases; who knows what he might have been working on? But to make someone do a Jimmy Hoffa, to have disappeared for almost eight years... that takes some professional wet work. Someone should pull the Gricar case out of the freezer and take another look.

It took a number of people enabling and protecting a monster for a decade and a half, to allow him to cripple at least eight lives. That we know about.

And the defense the enablers will use will be to say it was done to protect the Great University Of Penn State, and The Great Coach Paterno. They will all figuratively beat their chests and weep for the cameras and say -- as The Monster Himself did above -- they are so sorry sorry very sorry, and say they know nothing can make it better and no one will forgive them but they want the world to know they are so so sorry sorry sorry sorry. On advice of counsel. Please don't sue us and let us keep our jobs; we have kids of our own -- Essentially, the Little Rupert defense.

And there are apparently many, many people who will rise to the defense of the Great University and its Legendary Coach. Many were out in force last week, overturning cars and breaking windows, to show their displeasure in The Great Coach Paterno's firing. They're back in school, making jokes about kids "getting Sanduskied". I'm sure those bright stars feel The Great Coach has no involvement in enabling child rape for over fifteen years, and no reason he should personally apologize and take responsibility, for anything. Because he is, of course, The Legendary Coach.

I'd like to remind Jerry, and The Great Coach Paterno, and others, that police agencies tend to take the rape and sexual abuse of children in a serious and special way.

And this time, given the extreme scrutiny of a case that played out over fifteen years -- and that one of the questions that will demand an answer is, How was this whoreson, this sociopathic predator, able to what he did for so long, given that there was evidence -- and that people knew? The people who protected him won't be able to buy so many people off, or play on their local sympathies towards the Great University. And, they can't make every detective who's working the case disappear.

But, they'll find that out. And we'll get to watch.

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MEHR: Sports columnist Kelly Scarletta in The Bleacher Report weighed in after the rampage of Penn State students over Paterno's firing:

The Joe Paterno story to me is deeply personal. I never told anyone in my life until about an hour ago, when I told my wife before I wrote this article. The reason it's so, so personal to me is that I was molested when I was 11...

I simply held that within me for 33 years until tonight. It's a hard thing to talk about. Nothing I have ever done has left me feeling more precarious. It is a frightening thing.

The people who were victimized are a thousand times more delicate than you can possibly imagine. Every action you take in defense of Paterno is an action against them. How dare you? How DARE you show more sympathy for the man who, through his minimal action, covered it up than the victims?

Don't tell me that your "heart goes out to the victims." If it did you wouldn't be rioting in the streets of State College... Your heart goes out to the victims? Where is their vigil? Where is their demonstration?

These two positions are diametrically opposed. You either support "JoePa," the man who tacitly enabled these rapes to continue to occur, even if just by his lack of more than minimally required action, or you support the victims, the boys who were raped. There is simply no reasonable way to take both positions at the same time.

Any sympathy, any good will I had for Paterno went out the window when he released that deplorable statement, "I am grateful beyond words to all the coaches...who have been a part of this program."

Really Joe? All of them? Even Sandusky?

Sandusky is accused of raping children. Do you get that? At the very least, Paterno had an obligation to at least have some curiosity based on what he knew. Whether it was a legal obligation is semantics. He had a moral obligation as a grown man, a man in leadership and as a human being.

Did he deserve more than getting fired over the phone? I honestly couldn't care less. Did he meet the minimum legal requirement? Yes. Does that mean he didn't do anything wrong? No. It most certainly does not.

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Noch Eimal, Der Schwein: Apparently, Sandusky -- with his attorney sitting next to him -- allowed himself to be interviewed by NBC sports commentator Bob Costas; the interview will air on Tuesday evening, November 15th, reported the Los Angeles Times:

[When] Costas pressed Sandusky in an interviewing airing tonight on NBC News' "Rock Center," Sandusky conceded: "I shouldn't have showered with those kids."

The interview suggests that Sandusky plans to fight the charges contained in the 40-count indictment filed against him, alleging that he sexually abused eight boys over a 15-year-period. The charges have rocked the sports world, resulting in the sidelining or outright firing of several top officials at Penn State for allegedly covering up the crimes or not doing enough to protect children. Among them: the school president, and legendary football coach Joe Paterno...

Costas managed to nab a telephone interview with Sandusky. During the interview, Sandusky said he is not guilty.

"I say that I am innocent of those charges," Sandusky told Costas. When asked by Costas, "Are you a pedophile?" Sandusky responded, "No."

At one point, Costas asks him how such charges could have come about. "I could say that I have done some of those things. I have horsed around with kids, I have showered after workouts. I have hugged them and I have touched their legs without intent of sexual contact," Sandusky said.

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Und Noch Immer Mehr:There's also this post at Balloon Juice:

I’m sure these people are well intentioned, but this talk of moving forward and healing is premature, insensitive and unjust to the victims. There is no forward movement or closure to be had now or anytime in the near future. The story of child rape at Penn State has yet to be told in any degree of fullness, and justice for the victims will be long and painful process.

Today, as Jerry Sandusky is characterizing witnessed anal rape as “I have horsed around with kids”, we learn that the director of Second Mile, a licensed psychologist, had no curiosity when he was told that Sandusky’s actions with a boy in the showers at PSU made that witness “uncomfortable”. That man has resigned, but much more remains to be told about his former employer.

Almost 10 more victims have come forward in the last few days. As more victims look for justice, we will have months of discovery and years of lawsuits. We’re going to learn how two institutions took an eyewitness account of child rape, which is incredibly rare in child abuse cases, and used weasel words and willful ignorance to bury it. We’ll learn what sort of deal Joe Paterno made with Sandusky in 1998, what else the PSU football program covered up between then and now, and who else was abused while Second Mile looked the other way.

When it is over, the reputation of Penn State, its football program, and its finances, will have taken a tremendous hit. It may well be that the institution will be deeply damaged and may never achieve anything like its past glory. That’s OK, because any institution that systematically covers up child rape for more than a decade doesn’t deserve to “move on”.

The victims — not good hearted but ignorant students or alumni of PSU — will decide when and if the healing can begin. And all the prayer in the world will not give those victims justice. The courts will.

In the Sunday edition of The Daily Collegian, Penn State's college paper, there was a notice in boldface: “Saturday’s football game against Nebraska provided a return to normalcy for Penn State”.

There were also articles about a 'Vigil for the victims', ("The Penn State student body is still strong and doesn’t reflect the actions of what one man did and what two men didn’t do,” says one student), alongside articles on bomb threats and sexual abuse of a woman, and photos of students posing beside the life-size bronze statue of The Great Legendary Hero Coach ("Fans gather outside the Paterno house to show their support after the first football game without Joe Paterno since 1949").

Here He Goes Again, Breaking That Law Of The Intertubes, but I feel like I'm reading the Sachsenhausen local newspaper from mid-May, 1945: "Extremely Unpleasant Things Come To Light At Local Konzentrationslager", with articles on how all the good christians of the town held a prayer service for victims ("How were we to know?" asks local resident), and the Bürgermeister proclaims that the healing has begun for their little town. For the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of murdered and survivors -- well, not so much.

What in God's name was wrong with Penn State and its entire local community? What is still wrong with it now?

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They Only Talk To Each Other

Little Karen Tumulty Wants Your Attention. Again.

I just heard Karen Tumulty, five years old, say on PBS's Washington Week that the results of the Ohio vote this week regarding SB5 "were such a mixed bag", and painting it as a muddled set of signals, at best.

After all, the people who voted against it, she implied, were doing so for lots of different reasons; no cohesion in the message being sent to the local Tea Partei.

The final vote in Ohio was: Yes: 37% --- No: %63

Lil' Karen -- who, I must admit, has one heckuva [as they say in Texas] large lower jaw -- also said (and I was typing as fast as I could while she did):

The fact is, the campaign this coming year will be negative. The democrats are saying, 'This year isn't a referendum; it's a choice'. And you get that by painting your opponent [as negative], and the Democrats are going to say, 'The Republicans are [negative].

Karen Tumulty is like nearly every 'journalist' and 'analyst' and 'commentator' in Washington: The conversation around the teevee table isn't really for the Rubes tuning in. It's a televised Kool Kidz Club meeting.

These people have national soapboxes -- the chance to deliver honest observation, real news analysis. Instead, they talk to each other; they believe their own press releases. What they say is a better gauge of what the Washington elite are thinking, their take on an event, than an accurate review and a conclusion based on facts.

Their chatter is of the Washington elite, by the Washington elite, for the Washington elite, and their assumption is that it's true because they've said it.

To paraphrase Neil Young: Karen Tumulty's pissin' in the wind / She don't know it / But she is.

There; now you can go back to whatever you were doing before this Tumulty interruption.

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All In

It's Always Been About Saving The Banks And Their Shareholders

There's been a lot of quick-take summing-up about the way in which Our Great Leaders all around the globe have chosen to deal with the titanic amount of toxic debt created by America's financial whorehouse and casino community, giving the rest of the world so many more reasons to love us and want us to be carpet-bombed have soft lives and treats.

Krug Man did it the other day. He said what has happened in the current European debt situation, "it turns out, is that by going on the Euro, Spain and Italy in effect reduced themselves to the status of third-world countries that have to borrow in someone else’s currency, with all the loss of flexibility that implies."

The Euro represents not just a currency, but also, too, the idea of A United Europe. If the Euro dissolves, everyone goes back to a multi-currency system. There will be chaos in the international markets -- how do you value shares of Grosser Hund Am Tisch GMBH™ In Neues Duetschmarks? In Francs? In Dollars? In the Japanese and Chinese Yen? What are the relative values of all the new (old) currencies? Tourists, on vacation abroad; what are all their British and Irish Pounds worth in Drachmas, or Thai Bhat?

Even more important, what are all those U.S. and Greek and Italian Treasuries worth in this newly-valued world? Ones the Chinese and the Saudis and the Japanese have (in the case of U.S. Treasuries) been buying like crazy for twenty years? What about all the major currencies each country's central bank has purchased; suddenly, what's it all worth? What happens in companies large and small, from Lisbon to Warsaw, who all have contracts with buyers and suppliers, in Euros?

Well, the European Union headquarters in Brussels would remain open ... for a while, before it's sold to Rupert Murdoch; because the political European Union will effectively be broken, and Konrad Adenauer will roll over in his grave.

Therefore, the major players in Europe have gone All In, staking everything (including their own political futures) on the fate of the Euro.

And that is why the Austerity demands, which accompany loans to Greece, and now Italy, and who knows who's next, must be accepted. If the populations in Europe just submit to having the quality of their lives reduced for more than a decade to save rotten-to-the-core financial institutions (and The lucky One-Per-Centers) -- then what Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy and the international Bankster Brigade are doing might work. We'll all be living in yurts, watching our children play with toys made of dried animal dung.

If the people don't submit, and instead complain and protest, and riot, and eventually vote out the governments who are in favor of saving rotten-to-the-core financial institutions -- then the Euro is toast; the global financial structure goes all higgledy-piggeldy; and we will all be living in yurts watching our children play with toys made of dried animal dung.

A lot of people, such as The Krugster, see what all this is about, and have summed it up pretty succinctly -- it's all about saving the banks, their shareholders, and bondholders.

So, too, also The Great Curmudgeon:

Consensus

Well the consensus seems to be we need to just install bankers as the leaders of all the countries, and the only way any of us can survive is if all the richest countries of the world are turned into 3rd world hellholes after the middle class gives all of their money to rich people.

The frustrating thing is that we could just give free money to rich people. Every time banksters light a pile of money on fire, the ECB and the BOE and the Fed can just say, oh, no worries chap, here's another pile. At least try to get down to the dog track this week instead of just having a bonfire with thousand dollar bills. This isn't my preferred option, but it's a better option than making poor and middle class people suffer just because.

by Atrios at 09:00
42 Comments

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El Testa Di Cazzo Di Tutta l'Europa Berlusconi Resigns

Rome Greets Announcement With More Austerity

New Reaches Rome Of The Poco Pene's Resignation

As Italy's people steady themselves to withstand the rigors of Austerity which the EU demands as price for saving the Euro lending German and French banks, really Italy money -- the selfsame Italian people took Winston Churchill's advice on V-E day, and "allowed ourselves a brief period of celebration".

Silvio Berlusconi resigned today as Prime Minister of the Republic Of Italy, after nearly two decades of playing factions within Italy's political parties off against each other, in order to deliver a (sometimes) working coalition in the country's Parliament. This was the real reason he hadn't been gotten rid of earlier, not some indispensable personal ability or sage leadership. He was canny -- what the Germans refer to as Schlau -- but ultimately, not possessed of high intelligence.

He also used his position as Prime Minister to make some deals -- he is a Billionaire, and as a member of the planet's Oligarch class, saw nothing wrong with it. In that connection, Berlusconi was accused of money laundering and witness tampering and bribery, trying to evade the charges by having a law passed through the Parliament, giving the Italian Prime Minister immunity from prosecution for any crime -- only to have it repealed.

He also treated the international public to a flamboyant peep-show of his private life; it was the women he dallied with who passed on details to an ever-hungry Tabloid press. And it was in that connection which made him beloved to a superinteligent parakeet and the four other readers of Before Nine.

Obligatory Photo Of Superintelligent Parakeet In Middle Of Blog Rant

So, as he slinks back to his palatial estates and can return to manipulating the Italian people through what issues from the media empire he owns -- here are a few links to our Roll Of Shame for Silvio! -- Chief Clown Prince Of Europe!

May, 2009: See Naples And Divorce

June, 2009: Comedy Relief: Arrogance So Large It Has Its Own Postal Code

September, 2009: He Thinks With Little Silvio, Which Isn't That Bright. Come To
Think Of It, Big Silvio's Stupid, Too.

October, 2009: Meanwhile, In Downtown Italy

December, 2009: Berlusconi Attacked By Cathedral

March, 2010: Wearing Purple, Seeing Red

December, 2010: Salvato! Silvio Salvato Per Avere il sesso con più ragazze adolescenti!

February, 2011: Oh God; Not Again

Now, Italy will go forward, bravely keeping the Banksters and the rich warm, and safe, and with many treats. Just as our Tea Partei and GOP, and many Democrats, want to do right here in the Good Old Eusa.

Silvio Berlusconi: Auf Nicht Wiedersehen, you Nutter.

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Not That It Matters

All Aboard The Failboat

"R.A." is a writer for The Economist, legendary pro-business and fairly conservative publication based in the UK. R.A. published an article, "Finito?" on Wednesday, which describes the trap the EU and the Eurozone finds itself in pretty succinctly (paragraphing added for clarity):

I have been examining and re-examining the situation, trying to find the potential happy ending. It isn't there. The euro zone is in a death spiral.

Markets are abandoning the periphery, including Italy, which is the world's eighth largest economy and third largest bond market. This is triggering margin calls and leading banks to pull credit from the European market. This, in turn, is damaging the European economy, which is already being squeezed by the austerity programmes adopted in every large euro-zone economy. A weakening economy will damage revenues, undermining efforts at fiscal consolidation, further driving away investors and potentially triggering more austerity. The cycle will continue until something breaks.

Eventually, one economy or another will face a true bank run and severe capital flight and will be forced to adopt capital controls. At that point, it will effectively be out of the euro area. What happens next isn't clear, but it's unlikely to be pretty...

I hate to get this pessimistic about the situation. It feels panicky and overwrought. I can't believe that Europe would allow so damaging an outcome as a financial collapse and break-up to occur. And I still don't understand why, if this is all as obvious as it seems to me, equities aren't down 20% now, rather than 2% or 3%.

But the window within which something could be done to prevent it is closing, and fast. I hope to be proven astoundingly wrong in my assessment, but I'm struggling to see alternative outcomes.

It seems obvious to so many professional economists and analysts that Austerity is not the medicine for the Made-In-USA financial crisis -- that reductions in the spending by governments will only continue to reduce growth, maintain high unemployment, and lead to who knows what potential political upheavals.

A commenter, "LexHumana", to R.A.'s post summed up the "centrist" and "reasonable" opinions of a large number of people:

Not to say that the Kubler-Ross model is applicable in all such cases, but I am continuingly amazed at how this Eurozone crisis (and the comparable U.S. financial crisis) nicely follows the five stages of grief. Europe began with denial ("there is no problem, everything is normal"), then moved to anger ("damn those profligate Greeks"), then to bargaining (which still has not been successfully concluded with Greece), and are now entering the stage of depression ("oh my god, we are doomed").

Eventually, Europe will reach "acceptance", and realize that there is no bloodless way of solving this problem -- the Greeks will accept that the days of wine and roses are officially over and go back to the way Greece was in the 1950s, the bondholders will accept the fact that you can't get blood from a turnip and write-off much of the debt as uncollectable, and the rest of the European citizenry will (via their central banks) accept that in order to avoid a financial collapse by the bondholders some degree of bailout will be required and they will be the ones to foot the bill.

An extraordinary amount of pain needs to be shared among the parties, and this is going to push Europe into a recession, but it is survivable.... as long as they get to "acceptance" sooner rather than later.

The problem is, this argument depends upon the premise that the European citizenry will... accept that in order to to avoid a financial collapse... some degree of bailout will be required and they will be the ones to foot the bill.

Why? the "European citizenry" are already asking why they should have to pay to bail out their own versions of TBTF banks. Unlike the Americans, they found their voices on this subject pretty quickly -- footage of Greeks facing off against riot police in Athens, or in Italy, Spain, and the U.K., proves that. Rather than agree to support a rotten system, they're refusing. They want changes made that benefit the majority.

(The way Europeans are saying "no" reminds me, in spirit, of a scene in James Cameron's Aliens: Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) says the Marines should simply nuke the nest of alien creatures; it's the only way to solve the problem and ensure the safety of everyone. The corporate Yuppie slimeball, Burke (Paul Reiser) says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa; You can't do that. This area has a significant dollar value, and represents a significant investment to the company" [Too Big To Fail, in other words?]. "Well, they can bill me," Ripley snorts.)

Why, Europeans ask, should they assist the same people who created this problem? Why should they do with less, see their children go hungry, to subsidize the lifestyles of the wealthy?

It could be argued that Europeans have a longer history of "knowing their place", and dealing with the whims and excesses of aristocrats and nouveau parvenus, and so can 'take it'. It could also be argued that Europe has a tradition of not taking it. And under the grinding, enforced poverty of The New Austerity (so obvious an arrangement to benefit bad banks, bad actors and bad governments), Europe's Communist political parties could become resurgent. Who knows; they might get it right the second time around.

But we don't have to go there. The current dilemma is all avoidable. But we're still going to be forced to go there anyway, to save the banks and the rich and the hurt fee-fees of The Masters Of The Universe.

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MEHR: The Krug Man explains the entire crisis in one sentence.

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European Debt Crisis, Episode Five: The Empire Strikes Back

More Jenga

The Big Picture provided two very nice infographics by Scott Barber at Reuter's, putting the musical question "Why Italy Matters" into sharp relief:



It's easy to see just who is most exposed in the pending implosion of the Republic Of Bunga-Bunga, and that a total of $400 Billion-plus in "Non-Bank Private" debt is most at risk if Italy defaults. Primarily French Non-Bank -- Alors!

So, as the West slowly sinks into the steaming pile of a Made-In-Good-Ole-USA financial meltdown, others are ready to pick up our fallen standard of civilization -- their standard might be made of a toxic plastic, and not as pretty as the one we had, and it might have been made by convict slave labor -- but, who cares? The East Is Red / The East Is Red / The Bank Of China Comes Out In The East...

Hey, thanks, Lil' Boots! Thanks Larry Summers! And Thanks Little Angelo Mozilo, and "Tiny" Dick Fuld, and Lil' Lloyd Blankfein, and all the other Masters Of The Universe! Thank you, brave members of Congress! And thanks to all of America's One-tenth Of One Percent -- who never allowed ethical or moral considerations to stand in the way of More for themselves and their clans, and Issue! You're all so awesome and wonderful.

I'm sure you'll understand if all of us down here hope you end up in a basement in Ekaterinburg! Buh-Bye!

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Living In The Immaterial World

Falling Cain


Over the past two weeks, it was revealed that Herman Cain -- Right Wing Nut Job former CEO of a pizza company without any prior political experience and candidate for the GOP presidential nomination -- has been the focus of up to four sexual harassment complaints.

One of Cain's accusers (whose complaint, filed while Cain was president of the National Restaurant Association in Washington, D.C.) was paid an entire years' salary by the Association in an out-of-court settlement. Her attorney called a press conference last week to say the woman would not reveal her identity or make any public statement except to affirm that her charges of being sexually harassed by Cain were true. Cain responded by denying a "settlement" had ever taken place, which sounded like a denial of the truth of any harassment charges.

Yesterday, Sharon Bialek, who had also accused Cain while heading the Restaurant Association of "unwanted sexual contact", made public her identity and details about Canin's groping of her.

Today, Cain held a press conference against a backdrop of American flags (see above) and said that her accusations "simply did not happen".

As I sat in my hotel room [Cain said about watching Bialek's press conference] ... my first response in my mind, and reaction was, ‘I don’t even know who this woman is.’ Secondly, I didn’t recognize [her] name at all... I tried to remember if I recognized her, and I didn’t. I tried to remember if I remembered that name, and I didn’t. The charges, and the accusations, I absolutely reject. They simply didn’t happen. They simply did not happen.

Cain then walked back his earlier denial that an accusation of harassment while president of the NRA had led to a settlement, saying it was an "agreement" -- in law, a different outcome than a "settlement".

Finally, Cain blamed "the Democrat machine" for providing information about the sexual harassment cases to the press (disingenuous or not, the media has hinted that campaign staff of Le Gouvernour Placard, Rick Perry of the failed state of Texas, was the source): "“The fact is, these anonymous allegations are false, and now the Democrat machine in America has brought forth a troubled woman to make false accusations, statements... There will probably be others — not because I am aware of any, but because the machine to keep a businessman out of the White House is going to be relentless. And if they continue to come, I will continue to respond.”

Shorter Cain: Charges false. Dirty hippies are behind it -- and even if another twenty women say I touched them, they are big fat liars. Because they are. Move Along; nothing to see.

Cain's stance since the charges were revealed in the press, and have developed since, has been to deny everything. He claims things have not happened. Period. And in one of the cases, rested his denial on a semantical difference between 'settlement' and 'agreement'. He says he does not recognize Sharon Bialek, and that her accusations... simply never happened.

I continue to be astonished when Right-wing Freaks are caught in their lies -- and they do lie; consistently, with terrible consequences ("Lil' Boots" Bush, and the population of Iraq; No?). They lie about the legitimacy of climate change; they lie about their motives in any reduction of America's debt situation. They lie about having affairs, and about their own sexual orientation. They lie about themselves. They have no credibility.

This isn't to suggest that liberals or Democratic politicians haven't lied, or aren't lying right now. But, if you add up all the facts, the Truth, that stands against statements politicians and public figures on the Right have made... it's not only shocking. It's almost unbelievable how huge the lies are.

But, consider: They either do so because they know that they're lying, and believe manipulation of others is acceptable (in fact, it's a show of contempt) -- or they truly live in some place where 'magical thinking' works; where the principal delusion is that with enough repetition, something will simply become true. Remember Fat Karl Rove's 2003 comment to a New York Times journalist that the resurgent Right, in power, "made new realities", by force of will? This is the kind of delusion I'm referring to.

In our new crop of Rightists, that kind of Crazy can be fueled by religion (as with Messr. Le Gouvenour Perry, or Grand TurtleBear Bachmann), or by illogic (Ron Paul), or out of pure cynicism (President Boner).

Herman, like his fellow Crazies, know what he's done. But he believes he can make, by sheer force of his personal will, two and two make five. Just because he really really says so. And if we are good little boys and girls, we should not pay attention to the bad stories and place all our faith in a dime-store Huckster who will eventually have to say he's sorry, kinda, that so many people got sick eating the pizza he passed out -- but that will be the fault of dirty, hippie haters of Teh Freedom™.

And this is why we need to move heaven and earth to ensure he, and no one like him on the Right, or the Left (because there are BlueDog delusions and cynicism, and 'pragmatic' 'centrist' delusions on the Left, too) continue to run the show and rig the game.

I have very low expectations we can make that happen, but...

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Got That Right

Nostalgia

Just a random thought here, but was reminiscing about the good old days back when this blog was not quite as sucky as it is now. It's hard to comprehend now, but there was really something controversial and subversive about the idea that you could just write stuff on the internets and people might read it. There were a few proto-bloggers before cheap-to-free hosting and blogging software, but those two things lowered the entry bar just enough to make it easy for everybody.

by Atrios at 11:23
229 Comments

Before Nine, Proudly Serving You Cheap Food Since 2008, has received precisely 28 comments in 450-plus posts.

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