Reprint Heaven: Hope? What Was That About?

(Hopey-Changey, Sorta: I keep watching the antics of our current President [his defense of the excesses of the NSA, and his sudden about-turn-support for completion of the Keystone Pipeline, just to name two recent examples]. I continue to be disappointed and wonder why I am at all surprised.

(The financial structure which helped create the 2008 Crash is still largely unregulated -- it's true that some financial institutions have been slapped with fines and exposed for price-fixing LIBOR, insider trading, and malfeasance in using investor funds to shore up losses and cooking the books. But the shadow market in derivatives, for example, is opaque to all but the people who benefit from it, and chugs on unabated and largely unfettered by oversight or common sense.

(I recently saw an estimate [sorry, folks; do your own research] that the amount of derivatives globally is now in excess of $100 Trillion. Should we ever have another Bad Day At The Race Track as we did in September, 2008 (Or October 29, 1929), that part of the iceberg of international finance we can't see will make things very interesting.

(And, I keep watching the antics of the wealthy and privileged -- a bit like running down a two-lane blacktop towards a pickup truck that's driving on, slowly picking up speed. Our Lords and Masters Of The Universe are in the back of the pickup, watching all of us try and catch up to the truck as it pulls away... and the truck just keeps getting father and farther out of reach, no matter how hard any of us run.  From October, 2009.)

(Margaret Bourke-White, Soup Line, From The 1937 Book

[With Erskine Caldwell] 'Have You Seen Their Faces?' )

All right; move along. Nothing to see here. Go on, or I'll run ya in.

According to Glen Greenwald this morning, Adam Storch, VP of Goldman-Sachs' Business Intelligence Group, has been appointed the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the United States' Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division.

Let me repeat: A Vice-President of Goldman-Sachs, the investment firm which participated in ruining the nation's economy, benefited hugely from the Bush TARP program and the Obama continuing bailout; and has current former employees in key positions in the current administration; will be in charge of enforcing securities and trading regulations for the financial industry in the United States.

( MEHR, u. SPATER: And the 29-year-old Storch is only one of quite a long list of former Goldman employees in the administration.  That people in finance take positions in government isn't unusual --  but past a certain point the numbers alone are surprising.)

Uh-huh. I've broken up a larger paragraph of Greenwald's post below to make a point:

In October of last year [Greenwald writes], a Goldman-Sachs Vice President, Neel Kashkari, was named by former Goldman CEO and then-Treasury Secretary Hank Pauslon to oversee the $700 billion TARP bailout.

Bernanke; Ex-Goldman CEO Paulson; Lil' Boots (Photo: MSNBC)

>> In January of this year, Tim Geithner hired a former Goldman-Sachs lobbyist, Mark Patterson, to be his top aide and Chief of Staff.

>> In March, President Obama nominated Goldman-Sachs executive Gary Gensler to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates futures markets, even though (or "because") Gensler confessed to lax regulation during the Clinton administration over the very derivative instruments that caused the financial crisis.

The National Debt As Percentage Of GDP (Matt Yglesias, 10/3/08)

>> In April, Goldman hired as its top lobbyist Michael Paese, the chief aide to Rep. Barney Frank on the House Financial Services Committee, which Frank chairs.

Of course, only an irrational, raving conspiracy theorist would believe that any of those events have any connection at all to this, from today's Washington Post:

"The nation's largest banks, preserved from failure by federal aid and romping in markets revived by federal aid, are racking up vast profits even as the broader economy struggles to emerge from recession . . ."

"Goldman said it earned $3.19 billion between July and September, nearly the most it has ever made in three months, a record it set earlier this year."

(Billboard, Connecticut Ave. and Morrison St. NW, Washington D.C., 2009)

Worldwide economic collapse was avoided after the Fall of 2008. It should surprise no one that after the U.S. Government transferred trillions of dollars to the banking and investment sector, then that sector's performance improved.

But if the surviving banks are bigger and more powerful than before the crisis and crash (which is not over), if they are not subject to greater, independent scrutiny and regulation... then one of the primary stated goals of the government -- to eliminate the risk and ensure that circumstances which caused the economic meltdown would not happen again -- well, that's just a complete failure.

This was one result of the Crash of 1929, through New Deal legislation -- creation of the SEC, a regulatory agency which had never existed before. It was part of a sweeping reform of both the securities and banking system, which we need now, badly -- and won't get. Because the fix is in.

(Source: Contexts.org; Data through mid-2005)

What's occuring isn't free-market Capitalism. It's gaming the system for a narrow group of players which benefits them, enormously, while the remainder of the population suffers and struggles.

It's trickle-down, Supply-Side, We-got-ours-and-fuck-the-rest-of-you Darwinism that favors the top one-tenth-of-one per cent of the population. I'm sorry to disappoint the Teabaggers, but this isn't 'Socialism' at all. It's theft.

Why is the President allowing this to occur? Like any crime, you ask Who has motive? Who benefits? and, Who can get away with it?
...

The Financial Services Committee in the House -- Representative Barney Frank's committee (remember Michael Paese? Frank's former top aide; who now works for Goldman?) -- yesterday passed a bill to regulate derivatives which Greenwald says "is so filled with loopholes it may end up exempting most industry players" -- an absolute benefit for Goldman-Sachs.

Greenwald concludes, That the administration continues, so brazenly, to place Goldman-Sachs executives in the very government positions with the greatest power over the financial industry illustrates how little effort is devoted to hiding what is really taking place.

Our political circus -- the 'Birthers', 'Teabaggers'; Limbaugh, Beck and Bachmann -- only keeps our eyes off the People Behind The Curtain. Those sparkly, shiny, noisy advertisements on teevee beckon us on, to a future filled with consumer goods and elite access that can never be ours. 99% will live in prefabricated dwellings, while the %0.10 live in the sort of safety and comfort, for themselves and their children, that we will never even see a photograph of in one of Rupert Murdoch's Fox Tabloids.

Better Than The Goddamn Reds! -- ad campaign of the American Industry Council, 1935,
showing all three major billboards in a series (The central one appeared in Bourke-White's photo,
Soup Line) Life, however, was much harder for most people than these ads portrayed.
For those running the show, it always pays to promote cognitive dissonance.

Meanwhile, the same groups of players, more or less, manage to benefit year after year and generation after generation. Does anyone believe that 'former' employees of Goldman-Sachs, now in government, won't make decisions which protect their friends? And after four or more years on small government salaries, where will they go? Back to work at Goldman, of course.

In 2001, it was a huge tax cut for the upper 2% of America's population. This time, in 2008 and 2009, banks and investment houses are being handed our money directly, and with little oversight as to how they use it. They certainly aren't lemnding more money -- which was the point of the bailout, to free up capital to lend, stimulate the economy and create jobs for the millions out of work.

But, no. Instead, they're holding on to the Bush-TARP and Obama-bailout funds. They're paying out huge bonuses to their executives. They're continuing to squeal that things are hard, and that they may need more money.

Didn't we just have an election, which in part was about a corrupt, incompetent, Rich, Frat-Boy leader who dragged the country into debt and an utterly mismanaged war, while he and his "Have and Have Mores" friends did so very well?

Who was all the Hope you spoke about for, Mr. President?

Everybody knows the dice are loaded,
everybody rolls with their fingers crossed;
everybody knows the war is over;
everybody knows the good guys lost
-- Leonard Cohen

Speak, America -- Speak! Good Boy.

Mongo Is Listening

_______________________________________________________________________

Turning

Pete Seeger (1919 - 2014)

©Andrew Sullivan / New York Times

I think he would want us to sing. And to resist -- not fight -- but to sit down in a place not far from Wall Street and decline to be moved; to stand in front of the tank; to call things that are happening by their right names -- and remember a lesson that The Few would like The Many to forget: That we are all family, trying to do the best we can, and that the highest thing we can do is make the journey easier for each other.

Now he knows what we do not. Stand up, and sing.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Reprint Heaven: This Is Your Universe

Try Not To Screw It Up
(From August, 2012)


(All photos © NASA/ESA)

NASA and the European Space Agency recently released some of the all-time greatest hits of the Hubble Space Telescope. TPM has posted a slideshow of many of these images (see it here). They're breathtaking; amazing. Stunning.





We live inside of all this -- but our perspectives aren't normally wide enough to take it all in. And the universe is, you know -- a lot to take in. As we stumble on into what I fear will be a Little Mitt presidency, and as the majority of Americans are forced to "feel the pain" of Little Paul Ryan's Austerity plans so that Our Lords and Masters can have a wonderful, comfortable life with vacations, servants and treats. They are, as they believe, 'Masters Of The Universe'.

But, not. So we should try for the larger perspective, and keep images like these in mind -- because I'm greatly afraid that the fix is in, Boyz 'n Girls. Herr Obama had his opportunity -- and in his desire to play fair and become the Great Conciliator, was knocked down and curb-stomped by the Rethugs because that's all they understand or know how to do -- that, and buying or fixing elections. And my sense is they're about to do just that.

But even if that's not what comes to pass, and Obama manages to hold on by his fingerprints -- the perspective is the same. The Universe doesn't recognize election cycles or nationalism or religious bigotry and violence. It simply exists, and it's very beautiful.





All the swirls and blobs of light in the exposure above are individual galaxies. Whole galaxies. Hopefully on at least one of them, there are life forms who have determined how to live without doing as relatively poor a job as we've done in the past 50,000 years, and particularly in the past 5,000.

---

MEHR: Saturday, August 25th; It was just announced on The New York Times online edition half an hour ago that Neil Armstrong, first human being to set foot on the surface of Earth's moon, passed away at age 92.

As The Great Curmudgeon says, I'm so old that I can remember watching Armstrong do it, on a black-and-white television in the long-ago, Tricky-Dick, Vietnam war, rock-and-roll summer of 1969.

Now he knows what we do not. Sail on, Neil.

---

Even More Annual Reprint Heaven: Is The Wonderful Is This Life

By I. Rabschinsky

[Hoo boy; you are being lucky today. From two years before, we have The Good film history for you, now being the annual every year repeat. And as Great-Uncle Yehudi to be saying, "Don't Stand In Way Of The History!"]

George Bailey Guy Making The Panik

So always in the America there is at this time the fooding, and also the Sports Produkt on the television. Many people filling themselves with Holiday as if they about to be told, "Next year, you cannot eat!". I am thinking they are the hostage of their Hindbrain, which is still Neanderthal and wishes to fight with Mastodon. But, still.

And, I am noticing specific films which is only appearing on Amerikanyets television at these months between like maybe September and the time of your New Year.

My examples: At Passover, some of the television is showing The Ten Super Big Mitzvah Rules, with Charlton Heston Guy -- you know, movie where Moses stop making fooling around to pretend he is Big Guy of the Egypt, and decides to get real job saving People Of Israel.

This requires lots of people walking around, always saying "Oh, Moses, Moses, Moses" -- like, if they say this three times, they will be teleported by magik into better movie. Navarone Kind Of Big Guns, maybe, or Socialist-Colored Panther.


Place Which Is Gone Forever: Amerikanyets Driving To Movies:
"Moses, Moses, Moses -- What is happening with our Drive-Ins?"

At another time in year, they are showing same Heston Guy what is Moses in Big Mitzvah Rules in another movie, Ben Of Her. However this is basically film of Jewish guy who becomes like early Jesus guy, but by accident.

Movie is good; he is Number Forty-One guy in slave ship, rowing like animator for the Disney; there are becoming big boat battle, and he gets to be some kind of honorary Goyim, with big ring and parties with the Girls, and other Guys clasping him on the arms frequently.

Later, there is an exciting thing with horses and carts -- but it is not the porn film, so too bad for you. Go to web sites where they have not blocked you.


Charlton Ben Heston Making The Ramming Speed, 1959

At finally, with the Christmas, every year since somebody discover the Secret Of Fire there is this broadcasting this movie, It Is Wonderful This Life, made by Frank Capra Guy in 1947, showing the kind of place which everybody wanted to believe was the Amerika. Small town, everybody knows everybody; values is good and everybody work hard and knows their places.

Just like village in the Moldova, except animals do not leave defecation in the street, everyone is speaking English, and most people have job. Plus concrete used in apartment buildings is better quality.

Every single year they are showing this film. It is now a classic also, like Wizard Of Odd and Potemkin Kind Of Battleship and Mister Hulot Goes To Beach Place. It is as big movie as The Tanks Know The Truth (Very popular Great Patriotic War movie made in the Russia. My Great-Uncle Yehudi claims he is in this film as Extra, but still we love him).


Big Scene From Tanks Knowing The Truth: Are They Knowing?
Well, They Are Tank; You Are Person. You Want To Be That Sure?

It Is Wonderful This Life story is maybe simple: Guy, George Bailey Guy, living in small town wants to die, because he thinks his life is shit. And there are the angels, who show us life of this Guy in the little town, and how he is The Good, and there is the Rich Guy who is The Bad. And George Bailey Guy never gets to do things in the Life because the Fate is not for him.

Then there is mistake with money (a problem made from the Rich Bad Guy), for which he is blamed, and he runs from family and goes to place of Publik Alkohol; finally he goes to bridge to jump in freezing water so his family will get small piece of Insurance money. Very Sad (There is also squirrel in another scene which is sad, but never mind). Also very Petit-Bourgeois.

So, Angel Guy comes to the Earth and shows this George Bailey Guy his life is maybe kind of okay, not so much the shit; and boom boom boom, problem with the money goes away in big scene at end when everyone gives him their money, and everyone sings. So happy, little bells on tree and big bells of church ring; America wins the World War Two and future is filled with television and freeway. The End.

But this is too simple, my friend. No way is actual life like this. So, maybe some of me thinks this is kind of the Propaganda about America, to keep us from seeing the Truth of the Things.

And, there is forbidden version of this film, which is other kind of the Propaganda. Please -- allow me to introduce.

---

борьбе за построение социализма во время Угнетение
(также называется "Любовь и революция" после 1991)
("Love And Revolution", Directed By Frank Kapronovich [1949]; Starring Pytor Chost, Gravnik Bolodorin, Irina Valutin. Special appearances by the Spirit Of Revolution, also Che Guevara, Samuel Beckett, and entire 12th Guards Motorized Infantry Regiment)

SO, movie opens with Guy, Georgi Edwardovich Bailey Guy, at the Bridge. He is unhappy, this Guy; boy oh boy he is like making the panic. He goes to public alkohol place and tries to think, but he only finds himself between the forces of dissent and confusion!


TROTSKYITE GUY: River not so bad, after five minutes.
EXISTENTIAL GUY: Wait, but no one comes. No one cares.

Hoo boy; Georgi is in big fix. This guy has family with SmallChilds, and tiny Policy Insuring The Life -- and he is believing everybody would be better off if he would jump and get it over with, already.


GEORGI: My life is steaming pile of animal things,
because the Rich Guy will always win. Now I am jumping.

But, Georgi is being watched at Bridge. Not by some angel Guy (none of this reliance on things which cannot be proven by good Socialist science!) -- but even better -- is Spirit Of Revolutsya!


(Spirit Of The Revolution Watches Georgi)

And, The Spirit saves Georgi! He takes him to place where they can speak of things, of the Truth -- and slowly, Georgi's eyes are opened to not only the forces of historical determinism, but the inevitability of struggle against the oppressor classes!


GEORGI: So you are saying that when the consciousness
of the People is raised sufficiently, that armed struggle
is not only necessary but inevitable?
SPIRIT: You got it, Comrade.

So, Georgi, now with eyes opened thanks to the words of the kindly Spirit, is seeing that the world is filled with inequality and criminal things so big your head feels like kicked soccer ball. It is like understanding that, not only are you living as Dog, lapping up the vomit of the Rich Guy, but you work in factory to make guns to force others to live like this (Also, the Rich Guy pays you in fake dog vomit and those X-Ray glasses which do not work).

For Georgi, this is whole bunch of dried fish to eat in one night (Like story by that Guy, Dickens Guy, Carol Burnett Christmas, or something). This is the Life? He is asking himself.


A World Of Things For Them, But Not Food For Children


Economy And Bad Fate For Peoples Means Nothing To Them


For Them, The World Is Something To Carve Up, Like Beef


While The Many People Lose Everything To The Illegal Foreclosure

So now Georgi is filled with indignant and bad feeling for The State Of These Things. He feels the pain of the oppressed, working masses, and is being filled with Revolutionary Fervor -- and he goes to talk with the People in his little village, to tell them what the Spirit had revealed to him -- and the Spirit sends along friend, Che Guevara Guy, to help.



GEORGI: We don't have to live under the heel of Potter's boot!
He's just some, bloodsucking animal! Feeding on all of us -- and I'm
tired of living on fake dog vomit! We have to run things!
CHE GUEVARA SPIRIT GUY: Ay, Yi Yi! You listen to this guy.

The People, moved by Georgi's words, march with him to the place of the Bad Rich Guy, to demand Justice, the chance to make something other than guns, and to be paid in actual money instead of rubber dog vomit and X-Ray glasses which do not work.



BAD RICH GUY: You realize that the manufacture and sale of
weapons around the globe is the backbone of our nation's industry?
GEORGI: You don't understand -- the days of taking your rubber
dog barf are over, Potter! We're going to run things!
MOB: No fake dog barf!! No fake dog barf!!


BAD RICH GUY: My family has run this town for fifty generations.
All I have to do is close the factories. How long will it be before
your little rag-tag mob starts to starve? They'll come crawling back
to work -- and for half the rubber dog barf I gave you before!

Then, Georgi takes the Big Step -- the one which all oppressed people are taking in these movies when faced with Oppressors who pay them with rubber dog vomit: He crosses line from intellectualizing his oppression to active revolutionary.

Otherwise, we would have no resolution of all this rising action; and only ending for this film possible is that everyone would go for Pizza. This is unsatisfying from view of the Socialist imperative.


GEORGI: You're wrong, Potter -- you, and people of your
class are finished. Now you're going to face Justice for your
crimes -- because the People own the means of production!

And so The Bad Rich Guy is taken away by the People; his house later becomes hospital, day-care center, and place where revolutionary theater troupes practice before going into the streets.



And, of course, there is a proper celebration at the Georgi Bailey house, with the Revolutsia Spirit and the SmallChilds.


GEORGI: Gosh, Spirit, I don't know how we can thank you.
SMALLCHILD 01: Spirit, can't you stay and have some Fair
Trade™ coffee with homemade whiskey with us?
SPIRIT: No, SmallChild; I must go. There are so many oppressed
peoples in a world beset by unspeakable monsters of Capital.
But I will take a shot of that whiskey -- neat, please.

Finally, after long discussion between Rich Bad Guy and the Organs Of State Security, he faces Revolutionary Justice and the verdict of The People.


RICH BAD GUY: Long live International Capitalism!
PEOPLE'S MILITIA LEADER: Fire!

And, of course, Georgi and his lovely wife are pausing in their labor to build a New Socialist Future to share a moment's reflection on the plight of The Peoples, and also to suggest some hygienic sexual activity between them which may occur later.



...and in the background, The Internationale swells on the soundtrack, sung by the Sad Vlad Orphans Choir Of Greater Moscow! Please to show the credits!

This film has not been shown since its original release; big shame, also, because it is at least as good as movie with Bert Landcaster in it but of the name, just now, is escaping me.

Great-Uncle Yehudi likes Revolutionary Love. He thinks it is wonderful comedy, but still we love him. If you can find this film on DVD, then okay. If not, well then it is big world out there! Be That Guy -- go find!

I, Rabschinsky, say this -- to Moldavish Guy; you also.

Seth MacFarlane -- A Reasonably Flatulent, Reasonable Human

Family Guy's Stewie Saves Brian -- Free World Rejoices, The Taliban
Mutters Threats; China Goes To Defcon-Bozo

The UK Guardian reports that

After the [episode where Brian is run over by a car and killed] aired, Family Guy ... creator Seth MacFarlane told his followers on Twitter that they would have to be "f***ing high" to think they had killed off Brian for good. He tweeted:

"Oh and hey… thanks for caring so much about the canine Griffin.  He is overcome with gratitude...  I mean, you didn’t really think we’d kill off Brian, did you? Jesus, we’d have to be f***ing high...  And thus endeth our warm, fuzzy holiday lesson:  Never take those you love for granted, for they can be gone in a flash."

“You’ve given me a beautiful life,” He told them before flatlining. “I love you all.” 

"Brian has been reunited with the Griffins in time for Christmas... after Stewie staged a daring rescue. Fans of the... show were up in arms after the beloved canine was killed off in a car accident last month. But Brian was brought back from the dead in last night’s episode, entitled 'Christmas Guy'.

"The miserable one year-old goes on a trip to the mall with the Griffin family’s new dog, Vinnie and tries to bring Brian back by asking Santa for his return. He sobs:  'I want my friend back. My best friend, my dog, Brian; he’s dead. It’s our first Christmas without him and no one has even mentioned his name! I don’t care about this stupid carnival, or Christmas; I don’t care about anything but Brian ! '
 
"Stewie spots himself from the past in the mall and remembers that there is a time machine in his backpack ... steals it as Vinnie distracts past-Stewie, and goes back in time to the moment just before Brian gets hit by a car.

 "He tells him: 'You’re alive, my friend! I couldn’t live without you, so I came back from the future to save your life! '  Brian replies: 'Thank you for saving my life. A lot of other families would have just gotten another dog and moved on.' "

(In completely unrelated news, Nelson Mandela, Joan Fontaine and Peter O'Toole have actually died, and unfortunately are not anticipated to be rescued by a time machine.)

___________________________________________________________________

Reprint Heaven: Seth McFarlane Is A Flatulent Sociopath

Or, You Know, Not.  Thanks for ending one of animated America's better creations:
Brian Griffin, 2002 - 2013
(Below, from 2009)

Family Guy - Episode 85, "Barely Legal": (12/17/2006) The Outrage Thus Far: Brian has been given a pie and a container of Cool Whip by Meg -- whose infatuation with him following a brief, drunken moment necking after a High School dance quickly turns to obsession, much to Brian's discomfort ("You know, Brian; I had no idea how flat and wide your tongue was").

Meg has baked some of her own hair into the pie ("That means some of me is in that pie, Brian -- that means some of me is inside you. Can you feel me? Can you feel me inside you, Brian?").

... but for now, The Set-Up For the Humorous Bit: Meg leaves; Stewie enters the living room, spots the tray with the pie, and the Cool Whip, and sits on the couch next to Brian.

Stewie: Ooh, some pie! Can I have a piece?

Brian: Uh -- okay.

Stewie: Ummm. Let me have some of that Coo Hwhip.

Brian: What'd you say?

Stewie: You can't have a pie without Coo Hwhip.

Brian: 'Coo Hwhip'?

Stewie: Coo Hwhip, yeah.

Brian: You mean, 'Cool Whip'.

Stewie: Yeah, Coo Hwhip.

Brian: Cool Whip.

Stewie: Coo Hwhip.

Brian: Cool Whip.

Stewie: Coo Hwhip.

Brian: You're saying it weird.Why are you putting so much emphasis on the’H’ ?
Stewie: What are you talking about? I'm just saying it. Coo Hwhip. You put Coo Hwhip on pie. Pie tastes better with Coo Hwhip.
Brian: Say ‘Whip’.
Stewie: Whip.
Brian: Now say, ‘Cool Whip’.
Stewie: ‘Coo Hwhip’.
Brian: Cool Whip.
Stewie: Coo Hwhip.
Brian: Cool Whip.
Stewie: Coo Hwhip.
Brian: Cool -- You're eating hair !!

Much as I like the antics of Family Guy, I suddenly remembered this broadcast episode (and so many others; this bit was nothing) is now part of the rich electronic heritage of our species -- a cloud of signals, expanding into the Cosmos at hundreds of thousands of miles an hour.

If alien civilizations are able to pick these broadcasts up, in deciphering our culture they will not know whether to give more weight to Brian's conversation with Stewie, or FDR's First Inauguration ("Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself") speech.

Any episode where Stewie tries to take over the Earth could mean the difference between aliens who decide to annihilate us just to end The threat of this tiny pink creature with the huge braincase, and aliens who think he's someone they could cut a deal with.

Problems could occur if they arrive and demand to speak with him. Alternatively, we could have problems if they appear and demand to speak with FDR:

"We wish to speak with the Franklin Roosevelt. Failure to allow us to do so will mean the elimination of your species. Oh, and several egg creams while we wait. And xeno-interspecies sex with Sandra Bullock. You know what they say -- 'Once you've had Zxgnarrgnnnn, you never go back' ."

So I was a little concerned -- but, how worried should we be? No aliens have contacted us (Yet. That we know about.); and, it's also true that when compared with the spewing of Michael Savage; Jim Lehrer's vegetative droning; anything having to do with Gossip Girl; or old episodes of Hee Haw, Brian and Stewie come off like a couple of Nobel laureates.

Plus, I like to laugh. I don't know about the aliens.

Reprint Heaven: Unspeakable

Packaging The Crazy
 (From July, 2010)

Yes, Virginia; there are sandwiches in a can -- joining the noble canned ham, the Schlitz and Rolling Rock and Budweiser; the deviled ham, and even the little Sardine as items sealed with a shelf life for future generations to wonder at, and bring to Antiques Roadshow.

EXPERT: Well, what you've got here is, obviously, an item known as a 'Candwich', manufactured at the beginning of the century and is -- well, it's a sandwich, in a can. What can you tell me about it?

WOMAN: My father received this in exchange for some work he did during, you know -- 'The Unpleasantness' -- right before the aliens and all that. I don't remember it very well, but when the government came through during the mutant roundups, my father was taken away and we kept his belongings but never looked through them.

EXPERT: So you've had it all this time?

WOMAN: Yes. And we don't do anything with it except sniff it a little.

EXPERT: Okay. Well, this is really quite an item -- I was showing this to some of my Roadshow colleagues, and we were all quite excited. Most material manufactured prior to the alien incursion and the mutant wars either didn't survive, or was heavily contaminated and had to be destroyed. But this one stayed in your family's possession, and we have to presume you were in a Federal shelter? And it was scanned, of course.

WOMAN: Oh, yes.

EXPERT: So this one is quite safe to bring to the Roadshow. And in almost pristine condition -- a little oxidation there around the top, but that's normal; it doesn't affect the value, and we wouldn't recommend cleaning it. The colors are bright and clear; a few, small dents on the rear near the bottom -- but, again, for something this unusual, that's not an issue. We were shaking it carefully a little while ago, weren't we, and --

WOMAN: We could hear the sandwich inside!

EXPERT: Yes, we could! (Laughs) I wouldn't want to eat it, though. So, do you have any idea of its value? Have you ever had it appraised?

WOMAN: No, not really. My sister thought we should have it placed in one of the memorial ships that are fired into the Sun, but we never did.

EXPERT: Probably a good idea that you didn't. Now, I know of only three Candwich cans in existence -- and only one of them still has the sandwich inside! Another thing is that this appears to be the only Peanut-Butter-And-Strawberry Jelly Candwich anyone has ever seen.

WOMAN: My Beck! For fun, now; no; really?

EXPERT: Really really. Two of the three sandwiches in a can are in museums in Paris and Jerusalem, and the third was sold at auction just after the 25th of Cunegonda this breeding period -- for six point eight Trillion Quatloos!

WOMAN: Oh! Oh! Oh!

EXPERT: Yes; and I would estimate this, in a retail setting, if it were sold, to be worth at least that much, probably closer to nine or even ten Trillion. I would use that figure for insurance purposes, and it easily qualifies for Class Two security coverage as a cultural relic.

WOMAN: I'm just so thrilled. I had no idea.

EXPERT: Yes. Not every day you find out you could buy yourself whaling rights in the Sea Of Japan, eh? Well, we're just so happy you brought this to the Roadshow. We'll provide you with an armored car to take this back to your breeding compound.

WOMAN: Thank you; now I can buy my sister back. All praise to the Leader!

EXPERT: All praise to the Leader.

---

System Response

____________________________________________________________________________

Annual Reprint: Long, Strange Trip

(Originally posted September 11, 2010)

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 was the proof.

It also seemed unreal, a Hollywood special effect -- as if CNN would break for a commercial at any moment;  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.

On a BART train, 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 conversation about what had just occurred.

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 happened that morning. "Yes," she replied, adding in a please-pass-the-salt voice, "There are supposed to be more of them [i.e., airliners] in the air to hit other targets."

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

---

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

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

Lil' Boots, 2004 Republican Convention:

Feared And Bigger Than His Daddy, At Last

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was plenty of money to put in C530's and airlift it: 363 Tons of it. There was plenty of money being made from the war, and tax breaks to the wealthy, which reduced tax income to the government; but there was no money  and Lil' Boots wanted to cut health care, cut social programs that continue the ideas of the New Deal, and privatize Social Security... because there's just no money to pay for it.

And there's 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 developing a matrix of information [Note: This was posted before Edward Snowden's revelations about the extent of surveillance performed by America domestic and foreign intelligence agencies] -- 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 or killing 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 assclowns, had a very different meaning -- and little of it was military.

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

• Andrew Sullivan (9/16/01) -- The middle part of the country--the great red zone that voted for Bush--is clearly ready for war. The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead--and may well mount a fifth column.
• Robert Stacy McCain (9/27/01), columnist for the All Perfect Great Father Moon Washington Times -- Why are we sending aircraft carriers halfway around the world to look for enemies, when our nation's worst enemies--communists proclaiming an anti-American jihad--will be right there in front of the Washington Monument on Saturday?
• Robert Horowitz (9/28/01), Los Angeles Times -- The blood of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and tens of thousands of Americans is on the hands of the antiwar activists who prolonged [the Vietnam War] and gave victory to the communists... this country was too tolerant toward the treason of its enemies within.

Those who dissented, who believed the country was manifestly on a wrong track, were smeared as '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 after the World Trade Center attack.

The chittering hatred all sounds like standard Tea Party rhetoric, now. From their point of view, to dissent and criticize is only permissible when you're attacking the Left -- and that socialist, illegitimate ruler in the White House; the dirty hippies; all 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.

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

Is that 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 preserve.