Ten Years -- And The Apocalypse

[Today marks the tenth anniversary of the start of this blog.]

[Props to lea-p who's been commenting here from day one and with whom I've had some fine conversations. Yay!]

A couple of months ago I was thinking about doing some kind of commemoration of the tenth anniversary of this corner of Blogtopia (h/t Skippy) but somehow it passed my mind and I forgot all about it as often happens the older and not necessarily wiser I get.

Yes, ten years ago, 21 Dec 07, I wrote and posted my very first ChéWhatYouCallYourPasa entry, and thousands of posts later, I'm wondering if "progress in the face of the Modern American Imperium" is possible any more. Or if it ever was.

Have we been fooling ourselves all this time? What a question.

Before I started this blog ten years ago, I was an occasional commenter on a number of sites, at the time primarily at Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory, now archived somewhere on the farthest corner of the intertubes, and later his postings at Salon. If I had to say anything, I attempted to approach it with humor, not very well executed, but not in a hurtful or negative way. Sometimes -- well, often -- I had a contrary opinion to this or that, but I looked at it as merely adding to the ferment and froth of the topic, not trying to take away from anyone else's point of view.

Ah, the Old Days!

Glenn hosted an interesting group of regulars. I see that some are still with him at The Intercept, but most have long since departed for whatever reasons. Because Glenn tends toward Libertarianism (and denies it, or used to) many of his regulars were Libertarians spouting Libertarian cant while presuming to take on the mantle of the weakened or absent Left. It was in that environment that I realized a political Left no longer existed in the United States, and the rhetorical or philosophical Left was so weak it probably should have been put out of its misery.

To me the idea of Libertarians presenting themselves as The Left was appalling.

But it was a needle Glenn wanted to thread back in those days, and some of his "regulars" wanted to go along with him.

I had chosen an ironic online name Ché Pasa some time before I started commenting at Glenn's Place, and some wag had appended "what you call your" between the Ché and the Pasa, and I liked it. At least he or she seemed to get the irony. I've tried to explain it as reference to something that is happening and yet has passed. Che is an icon of the Left, of course, but he's gone. Murdered in Bolivia ages ago. Ché itself is a Belgian "men's magazine" (do they still have those? I don't keep up.) more ironic, humorous, and biting than Playboy or what have you.

But what's in a name anyway?

I didn't see myself as an avatar of The Left, but that's how I was interpreted by some of Glenn's regulars and by Glenn himself. We'd tussle now and then, but mostly from my perspective I was pointing and laughing in both directions, at The (so-called) Left and at the often very rigid Libertarianism trying to claim the "unclaimed territory" of the disintegrated Left.

Someone suggested I "start my own blog." This is typically the online equivalent of purging a commenter whose point of view isn't welcome at some site, but in this case, it wasn't like that. My comments tended to be infrequent but they were often long, and in some ways they were more suited to stand alone posts. I had so little free time in those days (work and travel kept me very busy in meat-world) that I couldn't see making enough time to blog more than intermittently, but during December of 2007 I had a break, and thought why not try it?

The Blogger software was free and relatively easy to navigate. Both Digby (where I occasionally commented) and Atrios (where I had sometimes commented but stopped when the comment section became a surreal pudding bath) used Blogger as did Glenn's Unclaimed Territory, so it couldn't be too hard, and sure enough, it was pretty simple to put something together and publish it. Whoo-hoo!

Why this blog launched on the winter solstice, 21 December 2007, I don't remember. I know I had two, maybe three weeks off that December (whew!) and the time off may have begun the week before. Whatever the case, it launched with a generally positive perspective on what was possible in the face of what had become a soul-crushing empire and the farcical politics of the day.

We were living in interesting times. Bush2 and Cheney had put us and many others through several roiling nightmares.

I had had a couple of previous blogs starting back in the mid-'90s (oh my, dial up was the best, wasn't it?) but I couldn't stick with them due to the press of other responsibilities. One dealt with Mars exploration, another was a sort of Random Notes type thing. I don't think I realized how dedicated you have to be to keep a blog going. I found out to my chagrin, and blogging on dial up was a pain anyway.

DSL made it easier and faster, but it still took more time than I had available.

In 2007, while I was still working and traveling a lot, I had periodic breaks, and so it was possible to think about blogging again, and once I started up this little corner of Blogtopia (h/t Skippy), it was easier to keep up than I thought.

So here we are, ten years on, and what's changed?

Personally, I'm retired now, so I have plenty of time -- or so it would seem. We moved from California to New Mexico in 2012, which for us was a very positive change in environment. We still have lots of connections in California, but New Mexico is very definitely our home-place now, and we're glad it is.

Ms. Ché and I often remark on how this part of New Mexico is very evocative of our more or less rural California childhood homes (me on the Central Coast, she in the Central Valley.) California was very different then and much less crowded and crazy-making. We live in the country now. Well we're a couple of miles from a very small town that was founded as a railroad pit stop around 1900. When Route 66 went through in the '30s, the town relocated north and today is an Interstate pit stop, with three truck stops, and plenty of ancillary hoo-hah, but at heart this is farm and ranch country, like we knew when we were young, the kind of environment we were initially socialized in.

Cowboys, ranchers and farmers are our soul-kin.

This is a portrait of former NM governor Bruce King at his ranch not far north of our place. It's really evocative of where we are and of people who inhabit this region. Tip o' the hat, ya ol' galoot..

We're an hour from Santa Fe, forty-five minutes from Albuquerque so we can, when we want, share in their urbanity and sophistication -- if you want to call it that. We don't have a ranch or farm ourselves, in fact our place is more like a quirky suburban (without the urb to sub) outpost. We're two miles from "town" -- such as it is -- but our house is in a cluster of residences built mostly in the 1950s when 'progress' came to the area. Our house (started around 1900) was originally a hand-built two room adobe ranch house on about 160 acres but the land was sold for development, and so here we are. We have views of the mountains when the trees are bare on the west and north and there are mesas on the east and south. The Interstate is a few miles north and we're only a half-mile from the state highway that runs north and south and connects us with Santa Fe, Taos, and so on.

Rural living is simpler, much simpler, and it's taken us some time to de-compress from the hurly-burly of urban California. But we've done it. At least I think so.

Living where we do and associating with the kinds of people we do has had an effect on my perspective. I no longer have that much interest in changing/reforming things, nor of making headway against the Imperium. I'm more convinced than ever that if Progress is to be made -- if it can be -- it will be small scale, localized, and to the extent possible, independent of the national government.

Putting Trump on the throne and protecting him there has, I think, irredeemably sent the national/imperial enterprise off the rails and perhaps directly into the long-awaited Apocalypse.

How that happened is something to be pondered, but the details are not as important as the bigger picture. The Despairing White Working Class is not the reason why. Something else is going on, and I doubt it is healthy for children and other living things. We are ruled by nihilists who seek the End, and they just might get it.

I've always tended toward optimism, but it's harder and harder to maintain a positive point of view. We (collectively) haven't been able to reverse the trajectory of the Empire since the failure of the anti-Iraq War demonstrations in 2002-3. I think that failure was a turning point, and I think it was an engineered failure as well. It was meant to shatter what was left of the anti-war movement and to inspire hopelessness and despair among a wide range of activists who thought they were getting somewhere against an implacable foe. It worked to some extent.

As time has gone on, it is more and more up to the Black Clad Anarchists (who get themselves arrested) and the Pussy Hat wearing WimminFolk (who don't), the disabled, the disadvantaged, and the persecuted to take to the streets against the depredations of the High and the Mighty, but even they are tiring of this game. The victories are few and far between, and the prize turns out to be tin.

During the last several years, I've had some serious health problems (primarily rheumatoid arthritis) that caused me to be less and less active due to intense joint pain. Only in May of this year was I given treatment that seems to be working to relieve the worst of the symptoms and pain. I have infusion treatments every six months or so and I take heavy doses of immunosuppressants in addition, The combination seems to be effective. I'm grateful for that, but it was a long road to get to this point, and I'm pretty sure the medication has affected more than the pain. Of course some of the changes I've noticed are clearly due to age as well.

What a drag it is getting old...

During the worst of the Period of Pain, I wasn't prescribed any serious pain medication at all. Prednisone was supposed to be sufficient, but even in high doses it was not. The situation was getting worse and worse, and just after I started infusion treatment with Rituxan, I was given a prescription for Tylenol-3 -- hydrocodone and Tylenol -- to have on hand if the Rituxan didn't work. I've never taken it, and I'm not sure it would have worked prior to Rituxan treatment anyway.

This is as close as I've gotten to an opioid treatment for pain. And I had to be in extremis for my doctor to prescribe it at all. I only mention it to note that despite the hoo-hah over opioids these days, at least in my experience, doctors are extremely reluctant to prescribe opioid pain relief if there is any alternative -- even if the alternatives clearly aren't working.

It often seems like the last ten years, indeed the last twenty or more, have been catastrophic for the nation and its people and for far too many people around the world. I think of the devastation that's been wrought in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia -- but not just in those places -- as a consequence of the Imperial hubris with which our governing classes have been afflicted for far too long. Dozens of cities have been destroyed, millions of people have been displaced and at least hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed in the Forever Wars undertaken against the ever-present and ever fluid "terrorist threat." In some ways Vietnam may have been worse, but this new-ish Forever War has led to so much murder and destruction with no end in sight. Blowback has been constant (not so with Vietnam) and I can't help but think that the consequences have only begun to be felt domestically. The destruction wrought abroad is bound to circle back to its source. We''re in for some nasty times ahead.

Why haven't we been able to stop it? What impels Our Rulers to such slaughter and destruction?

Millions of Americans were forced into poverty by the Financial Unpleasantness of 2007-10. Many of those who survived are still in poverty, and there they shall remain until the End. While we are supposed to hail the "booming" economy today and the historically low unemployment statistics, that won't solve the problem of those too old or too beaten down to take advantage of it.

Our Rulers truly don't care. It doesn't matter which team they're playing for. We are as dust to them.

And so one of the worst examples of the type has been sent to the throne to rule over us in majesty, and it's an ugly thing to witness, but that's where the recent past has led us. Maybe it was inevitable. I don't know. But I don't think it can end well.

I'm not as optimistic as I was. We can still learn to live simpler lives, advocate for peace and the downtrodden, lift up the good and shun the worst, but the road forward is rough and potholed. New Mexico hosts many examples of those who have tried alternatives to whatever disaster/horror has confronted them. Most have failed, some spectacularly. But there are survivors.

The Pueblos, for example, derive directly from the collapse of the Anasazi era signified by the Chaco Canyon and other ruins that dot New Mexico and the Southwest. They not only survived the collapse, they survived Spanish invasions, conquest and massacres, and later American ones. They aren't what they were, they've adapted and grown in wisdom, but despite all, they're still here, and their influence is profound.

A few of the hippie communes that were established in the late '60s and into the '70s are still functioning though on a somewhat different basis than previously. They are not communes so much as business enterprises derived from communitarian ideas and ideals. But that's how they've survived and in some cases flourished.

"Alternative lifestyles" and artistic interpretations of being here are constantly tried, and some survive for the long haul.

Those survivors will be around long after whatever happens to the Imperium.

In another ten years, I'm pretty sure we'll know what that will be.

Strap in, the wild ride continues.

Cheers,

Ché

"Let the Sunshine In"

We starve, look at one another, short of breath
Walking proudly in our winter coats
Wearing smells from laboratories
Facing a dying nation of moving paper fantasy
Listening for the new told lies
With supreme visions of lonely tunes
Somewhere, inside something there is a rush of
Greatness, who knows what stands in front of
Our lives, I fashion my future on films in space
Silence tells me secretly
Everything
Everything

Manchester, England, England
Manchester, England, England
Across the Atlantic Sea
And I'm a genius, genius
I believe in God
And I believe that God believes in Claude
That's me, that's me, that's me

We starve, look at one another, short of breath
Walking proudly in our winter coats
Wearing smells from laboratories
Facing a dying nation of moving paper fantasy
Listening for the new told lies
With supreme visions of lonely tunes
Singing our space songs on a spider web sitar
Life is around you and in you
Answer for Timothy Leary, dearie
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
...

The California Fires

Some truly outrageous wild fires have been burning through northern California continuing a pattern established over the last several years of drought and then a super-abundance of rain.

We didn't live in the affected areas, but we are certainly familiar with them. Santa Rosa, the Napa Valley, burned areas in Yuba Country (Loma Rica), Mendocino, Nevada County, Calaveras. Oh yes, all of them hold emotional connections either through people we knew or the many places we became familiar with.

They say 23 are dead from the fires, hundreds missing, thousands of homes and other structures destroyed so far, and there is no end in sight. For many, it's an Apocalyptic situation, one that has become all too familiar in this era of climate change.

To be caught up in it is almost impossible to imagine, though we haven't been spared firestorms in our area of Central New Mexico. The backside of the Manzanos burned spectacularly a couple of years ago, dozens of homes burned and many people left refugees. The fire scar is still slashed across the mountains.

When I was a kid, as I've mentioned, I would sit on my back fence and watch the slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains north east of Los Angelesburn almost every year, and one year, the fires came up the east side of the hills by our home, crested the hilltop, and were starting down our  side. Panic ensued, but the fire department arrived just in time to stop the progress of the fires a few hundred yards from the border of the housing development. I did a Google street view tour of the area not too long ago and saw those hills were now covered with houses. I thought, "Uh-oh" but people there didn't and don't much care about the intrinsic hazards of earthquake and fire I think. It just goes with the territory.

I remember my mother was horribly fearful of fire, and I never quite understood it until she told me that when she was just a little girl, three maybe four years old, she witnessed the family home in Indianapolis burn to the ground. She couldn't shake the memory and she was terrified of fire ever afterwards.

I don't have quite that fear of fire, but when she told me what had happened when she was a child, I understood her fear.

These visions of fires in California are disturbing, there's no doubt. Ms Ché is somewhat less disturbed -- more for the animals than the people, whom she refers to as "rich white people" -- which not all of those affected are by any means. But enough of them are that her sympathies can sometimes lie elsewhere.

Is this something like the Trump regime's disinterest in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands? I don't know. But for the most part, the "rich white people" affected by the fires in California can and no doubt will  take care of themselves while the poor black and brown folks in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands can't very well, can they?

They were mostly impoverished by colonialism to begin with and have few resources to fall back on. How many of us are actually in the same leaking boat?

I mentioned to someone the other day that we are one, maybe two, catastrophes away from the Apocalypse and there isn't a lot we can do about it.

I'm not into Doom Blogging, but..

It's always darkest before the dawn. Or something.

OT: Domestic Affairs

Well, the charger came from Los Angeles -- still waiting on the one from China, and figure it's best to have two anyway since the one that died was destroyed by my heavy foot getting caught in the cord over and over again... so I have my computer back and can start to get caught up, but at the same time, I have so many more domestic chores to take care of since Ms Ché started back to school, and there are routine fall things to do -- bulb planting, garden clearing, etc -- and (or maybe that's AND) I'm still doing a lot of sketching, etc. Days are more than full. Nearly forgot, the skunk man is coming tomorrow. Have to get ready for him, too. Ah, the skunks. So beautiful they are, but so stinky!

Domestically, well.

It's 2-2 1/2 miles to the post office; we don't get mail delivery out here, have to pick it up at the PO. Some of our neighbors walk, which is fine if you're up for it or into it, but I can't -- still struggling with aftermath of sciatic lameness from a couple of years ago, and now the onset of arthritis (boo!) has given me additional joint issues to deal with. Actually, when I joined the march against the Killer Kop Kompetition in Albuquerque last month, it was the first time I'd attempted that kind of extended hike since before my left side gave out and laid me up a couple of Januaries ago. Didn't quite make it -- many thanks to the kind soul who picked me up and drove the last few hundred yards -- but almost did. That was about 2 1/2 - 3 miles round trip. Good gauge of what I can/can't do.

It's about the same distance to the nearest grocery store. Maybe a little farther. It's a nice little independent store, though selection is somewhat limited. It's not fancy or high-end-foodie, not at all, but they have a real butcher, decent prices -- though much higher than we were used to in California -- friendly staff, and are open early and late. Since I have to get the groceries these days, it's nice to know there's someplace that close.

There's a Smith's and a WalMart the next town over, and I sometimes go to one or the other if there's something the local market doesn't have. I boycotted the WalMart for years until the local Pick-n-Choose closed (it was called Alco). Then, certain gardening, household items, clothing, and such like were simply not available locally. Actually, quite a lot of things weren't available locally any more. Some we could do without, but others....

So, it was off to WalMart now and then. Gaa. Not only is the store far larger than is necessary in this area (fewer than 5,000 people live in the store's shopping area -- say within 15 miles or so) but it's got some really... interesting... ways of doing business. For example, items are frequently (routinely?) shelved in the wrong slots so that it appears from the shelf price that such-and-such will cost X-amount, but no. Get to the check out and it's -- whoops! Oh, but it's worse than mere mis-shelving. In too many cases to count now, the items are shelved correctly, but the item rings up at a different -- sometimes much higher -- price than the shelf price, and unless you're eagle-eyed you're probably not going to know. In fact, it's pretty much impossible to keep track of the prices being scanned and rung up because you're still unloading your cart as the checker does his/her job. So the only way to know whether you've been overcharged is to scrutinize your receipt after the fact. And have a sharp memory for the shelf-price.

Alco used to do it too, but they closed. Smith's has taken to doing the same thing. They take it a step further, not pricing certain items on the shelf at all. One doesn't know until one gets to the checkout what the price is. Sometimes the surprise is a shock.

WalMart also has these bagging carousels, and by golly, how often is one (or more) of the customer's bags conveniently left behind? Oh, if my own experience is any guide, fairly often. One is not likely to notice one is missing a bag or two until one is home and unpacking one's things and notices that something one thought one bought is not there. Hm. Wha? In my dottage, it's not unusual for me to forget this or that, so I'm likely to be puzzled about missing items rather than certain that I left them behind. Maybe I didn't pick them up to begin with? But one time, I was sure, and I went back (another 10 miles from home, 20 round trip) and found the items had been re-shelved already. They gave them to me without objection, but still...

I figure these fairly common merchant practices can easily add 15%-20% to a customer's charges every time they shop. Quite lucrative, so lucrative merchants can happily refund overcharges brought to their attention and replace missing items the customer complains about because so often overcharges aren't noticed and missing items are "just forgotten" especially by the elderly... clever.

I wonder just how common this practice really is? I hadn't noticed it before, but it seems to be widespread in these parts nowadays. Initially, I thought I was imagining things but not any more. Now I think it really is a commonplace merchant policy.

I would have had no idea were it not for the fact that I have to take care of a lot more domestic chores now that Ms Ché has gone back to school. Oh, by the way, she got her midterm grades the other day. All "A" -- except for the two "A+". My my!

There is still much fall planting and year-end outside clean up to do. I managed to clear out the gutters and get those on the front of the house to work for the first time (they were installed wrong to begin with but I hadn't been able to tackle the project to fix...) I'm trying to clear out one of the sheds so I can bring the stuff we still have in storage in California. BUT as I was doing that chore, I saw the news about the mudslides closing highways in Southern CA. Thought little of it until I saw that one of the highways was Highway 58 that I take from Bakersfield to  I15-I40 in Barstow. 6 feet of mud for a mile or more outside of Tehachapi(e). Oh. Brother. I would have taken the plane in November, then rented a truck to bring the stuff in California back to New Mexico, but Highway 58 is my route to get from there to there (the alternatives are much longer) so... maybe not. Better wait till spring.

They say this El Nino is shaping up to be the most intense since 1988. There have been certain signs of course. Our local drought is broken (thankfully. It went on way too long...) We've had plenty of rain and they say there will be pretty heavy snow this winter, but so far temps have been mild, balmy, even warm. No frost at all. May not be any till mid-November... wow.

Of course the situation in California becomes more and more Apocalyptic, seemingly by the day. Our friends who still live there insist things are not really as bad as the news is making it out to be, but I'm somewhat less Panglossian about it. The fires were terrible and raged through areas we're pretty familiar with around Clear Lake and in the Gold Country. No one we know was directly harmed, but still... Floods and mudslides of course will be more widespread than ever. The persistence of drought in the midst of these catastrophes compounds the misery. After a while, it becomes too much to bear...


Though I will probably always be a Californian deep-down, I realized I had become a "real" New Mexican the other day when it occurred to me that I routinely get offended by the most unlikely or innocent things that people say or do. This is a very New Mexican trait I've discovered, taking offense being something of a core value it would seem. It doesn't usually last more than a little while, but it's pretty frequent, and sometimes it makes me laugh at the pettiness and silliness of it.

Now to get back to getting stuff done...

The Freaks Who Rule Us

It's not just the constant pounding on the War Drums and the persistent low-level clashes around the world, it's the constant victim-blaming and the reversal of responsibility, the ridiculous levels of evidence-free accusations, the myriad lies, the falseness of the overall narrative of rule.

The protection of force means that any lie or action is acceptable as long as those in power are protected from the wrath of the People -- or from attacks by enemies. More and more, of course, the People themselves are perceived as the Enemy.

The corollary here is that when a powerful interest crosses another greater power,  all holy hell can -- and will -- be unleashed on the lesser power, no matter the consequences. This is the rule of warlords. This is the rule of chaos and misery.

There seems to be no way to prevent this descent into madness, no way to avoid the calamity that is sure to ensue. We are witness to the disintegration of sane governance and its replacement by ruin and rapine.

And somehow, we -- the victims -- are to blame ourselves for not doing something we should have when we might have, and for doing -- affirmatively -- that which we shouldn't have and wouldn't have if we had known what our actions then would lead to now.

Only thing is, I think that's wrong. The victims are not culpable for what the perpetrators do. Often enough, the victims have no idea what the perpetrators are doing until it is too late, and even then, the knowledge necessary for an intervention is often lacking clarity, and what to do in an intervention is ever a mystery.

For the past few weeks, we've been watching events unfold in Ferguson, Missouri, for example, that seem to make no sense, though they are all too familiar.

A young black man is shot down in the streets by police so often it's routine, and yet this incident was different. The callousness of the killing and its aftermath, the immediate sequestration of the killer (no one knows or is saying where he is), the barking dogs and assault rifles brought out within minutes to "control the crowds," the weeks of protest, the strange events surrounding the looting and burning of several businesses in Ferguson, the violent, uncoordinated reaction of the armored police, the media frenzy, the Celebrity Negroes hustled in to calm the situation, though Jesse Jackson was booed lustily when he tried to raise money off the crowd, all of that and more was more and more bizarre as it unfolded.

Something very odd was happening. It's still happening, though the events in Ferguson are dying down, the embers banked for the next time.

But we still don't know quite what it is, what is really going on.

We need to figure it out somehow.

What happened to get us to this point. What can we do to change things?

Or is it too late? Will the freaks who rule us simply run wild?

Often throughout the summer it's looked like there could and would be no end to the bloodshed, and then something happens to pull back from the brink.

This seems to happen over and over again in connection with the Ukraine. Episodes of mass death and destruction seem to be leading directly the nuclear apocalypse we've dreaded for decades, and then it doesn't happen. The bloody conquest of the Donbass falters and halts for a moment, and the freaks who rule us yell at Russia, then scratch their heads and try to find another way to achieve their objectives of surrounding, destabilizing, and eventually picking apart the remnants of Mother Russia. The death tolls continue to mount in the cities and countryside of eastern and southern Ukraine, but despite all the horrors unleashed, the toll is modest compared to what it could be. A few thousand dead, it would seem, out of the many millions who could have been exterminated. 

"It would seem," I say, because reports out of the region are sketchy at best. And they are often wrong or deliberate fabrications. We don't really know what's going on, except for the fact that it must be nasty, brutal, and cruel.

You would think the freaks who rule us have an accurate assessment, but given history, more likely they don't. They have their driven points of view, their creation of enemies, their fears and loathings, and that's about it. They see what they want to see. Nothing more or less.

We may have a better view than they do.

Meanwhile, in the other abattoirs mostly of their own making, they seem to think there is nothing to be done but ratchet up the bloodletting. That always calms the situation, no?

Monstrous.

This summer has been a grotesque gore-fest, and the future looks grimmer than ever. Without a positive sign of any kind, the freaks who rule us seem intent on precipitating catastrophe.

Oh don't ask why...

Getting Closer To Labor Day and the End of Summer

The closer we get to Labor Day and the End of Summer, the more apprehensive I become. It's a form of conditioning, I guess, driven by an understanding that the first week of September has turned into the pivot of the year, and what follows is often horror almost beyond comprehension.

Summertime events can be bad or they can be foolish, but after Labor Day, things get real. Real and often harsh.

This year seems to be soaked in the blood of innocents and the somewhat off-kilter. It's a matter of police killings by the great gross, one after another, all over the country, now well over 1,000 dead at police hands -- don't believe the "400 annually", it's a deliberate deception to make you think that "well, it's not so bad". But it's much more than that, too. The US has been engaged directly or peripherally in numerous bloodlettings in hotspots all over the world, pushing, pushing, pushing the edges of neo-imperialism in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, and (apparently) in the Americas as well. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, have paid for this neo-imperial expansionism with their lives and it looks like many, many more must do so before this phase is done.

What did we do to deserve this? "We" in the sense of the global non-elite, the ordinary people who seem to get blown up and blown away willy-nilly and who have little or no say in the march of this or any other empire.

It is not for us to say they tell us. Not for us to say.

As we get closer to the year's pivot, I become more and more apprehensive as there are so many potential explosion-points, far more than I can recall in any previous year. Many observers have seen parallels to the outbreak of World War I or the outbreak of World War II, and many have seen madness in the eyes of Our Leaders. They are careening out of control, and without some form of intervention, they will almost inevitably lead us into apocalypse and catastrophe. They seem to want it desperately.

The question is whether there can be an intervention before the end.

I don't know.

But I shudder to think where the madness is headed.

Mark Morford Explains It All For You

Doing something about Climate Change has been the terrestrial general directive for decades. From time to time, something is done, but it's never-ever enough, not even close. The atmosphere continues to fill with carbon dioxide, the global temperatures and sea levels continus to rise, and crippling droughts, destructive storms, ice and snow, and heat waves beyond measure bombard us relentlessly.

I understand this is the third year of crippling drought in parts of California (after quite a few years of higher and higher rain and snowfall in many other areas). The situation is perilous for the farming areas, not much better in the cities.

Mark Morford has been writing an often hilarious and biting column at the San Francisco Chronicle for quite a few years now, while teaching yoga and other flexible body arts on the side. He's offered a commentary on the drought situation in California, and I'll just excerpt the following:

Which is to say: dramatic climate change is no longer even remotely preventable. It’s here. It will be here for centuries. And yes, most of what’s happening is very much our fault. It’s now only a question of severity, adaptation and survival.

Indeed.

That's where we are. There's no preventing any more, no going back. The open question is how bad it will get, what sort of adaptations will be necessary, and who among us will survive.

Welcome to the Future. 

Armageddon Delayed

Or so it seems. The Congress is still styling for the cameras, but for all intents and purposes, the latest Debt Crisis Crisis is put off for another few months, the government will limp along somehow on austerity rations thanks to the continuing sequester, and Football will once again become the highlight of the season.

The attempt to fund government services one by one depending on their notoriety or popularity didn't get very far, but I have no doubt the tactic will be revived sooner rather than later. And we'll see the "reorganization" of government that the Kochs and all the other plutocrats and mountebanks have been angling for.

Sigh.

We did see sandhill cranes wheeling in the sky a little north of our place today, so there is that.

Apocalypse Averted? How Can This Be?

Oh, I don't know that I'm going to hold my breath over the latest developments in the Syria Thing, but there are signs and portents that indicate we may have barely averted catastrophe once again.

It could be that the military solution to the Syrian Crisis is for the moment set aside while furious efforts are under way to secure whatever chemical weapons the Syrian government has from use, misuse, theft and dispersal.

Might-could-be. Hard to say.

I watched Charlie Rose's interview with The Devil Assad last night, and it seemed to me that the soft-spoken Assad was running rings around Rose, literally tying him in knots and forcing numerous errors as Rose was exposed again and again as simply acting as the spokesman for the Obama Regime, not as a journalist at all. He was clearly ignorant of anything about Syria that he hadn't been fed by the White House, DoD, and State Departments. Assad easily exposed Rose's ignorance and hypocrisy as he pointed out repeatedly that the US has presented no evidence whatever that the Syrian government used chemical weapons on August 21, the date of the alleged sarin gas attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. None. Zero. And he offered a plausible explanation for what happened: there may have been an accidental release of home-made sarin by the rebels. His point was that with current information, there is no way to tell for sure, but in any case, there is no compelling evidence that the Syrian government -- rather than some other interest involved in the Syrian civil war -- was responsible. There is only assertion. And in the end, even so-called "evidence" -- such as that presented by Colin Powell at the UN to justify attacking Iraq, can be false.

The US has no credibility in these matters in other words.

Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts, triggered by John Kerry's "rhetorical" offer to withhold missile strikes on the Syrian government if it agrees to turn over all its chemical weapons to "international control" within the week, are apparently underway in earnest as the Russians and Syrian government have agreed to attempt to comply. Oh my, who would have thought?

Some people are saying this is Obama's brilliance in action; I will withhold judgement on that. It's obvious to me that preparations for direct military intervention in the Syrian civil war by the United States have been under way since spring at the latest and were probably in work well before that. I recently read a series of stories in the Economist published in May that explored the possibilities and potentials of direct US military intervention in Syria, stories that indicated that preparations to intervene had been made long before.

The notion that the whole Syria Thing is nothing but a distraction from the NSA revelations has been taking hold among some of those who see the NSA Thing to be Bigger Than God. Well, I don't see it quite that way.

I'll put it this way: the government operates on numerous parallel tracks all the time. While it often seems to be responding to various pressures -- whether driven by the media or by its corporate partners or what have you -- in fact, the government is juggling a bunch of shit all the time, and it is quite capable of asserting and acting on its own interests as chosen (at the top) from a menu of options at any given moment.

In other words, the government can easily use something that's in the to do list pipeline to overwhelm something else that has been captivating the media -- especially captivating summer stories.

And so it is with the Syria Thing. Is it a "distraction"? Hardly. It's serious as fuck. It's Post Labor Day now, and the Summer Shark and Missing White Boy stories would have faded on their own -- because that's how the media works. Now the news cycle is dominated by the White House and the Serious Matters that the White House has to deal with. That would have happened with or without the Syria Thing.

Of course, the White House and whatever Spookery has been running the summer con (I say it's likely to be the CIA) are going to use Syria and whatever else is in the offing to tamp down the NSA story or at least make it a minor issue rather than a major one. Of course they are. How much the Congress gets its panties in a collective wad over domestic surveillance remains to be seen, but I suspect the only real upshot is that certain categories of the Overclass will be granted the exemptions and immunities they seek while everyone else will be subjected to ever more intrusive surveillance. That's what the indications have been since the opening salvos of the Story of the Century. Or Summer. Or whatever.

We should understand that the CIA has been operating in Syria at least since last year and probably well before that, attempting to undermine the Syrian government enough to enable their favored rebel factions to march into Damascus and take over. It's not been going well, and I wouldn't be surprised if the CIA didn't blame the difficulties they're having in Syria on bad intelligence from the NSA. And it would be surprising if they'd try to cripple the NSA and run their own intelligence operations as they've done in the past (to often disastrous results.) These sorts of Inner Party squabbles have been commonplace for many decades. What we can see of them is usually only a tiny portion of what's really going on.

Keeping the public focus on Syria or the NSA or what have you is useful to those who are squabbling over their prerogatives and powers behind the scenes. We won't be likely to know for years what this whole thing is really about -- if we ever find out. But what we are allowed to see is rarely more than a glimpse of the whole picture.

If the Apocalypse has actually been averted and the diplomatic solution to the apparent crisis is implemented, we can breathe a sigh of relief -- at least temporarily. But never forget, as the Bard once put it:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

And that's putting it mildly.

The Red Flag In Kerry's Speech

As performance art, SoS John Kerry did a remarkable job yesterday laying out the government's "case against Syria." Just so, and in much the same way, David Cameron and the rest of the British government laid out their "case against Syria" before Parliament earlier.

Of course we're told that "stunningly" Parliament "rejected" going to war -- or indeed, taking any action -- against Syria (though if I understand the arcana of the Parliamentary game correctly, they weren't actually voting for or against a "Syria Campaign, " they were voting on whether to proceed toward such a vote... but never mind.)  The "stunning rejection" was fairly easy to predict once the debate got underway. It was clear that the Honorable and Right Honorable Members were not inclined to take the word of the Government on this matter. "Trust us" wouldn't do. They wanted to see the evidence, and they wanted time to evaluate it. They had been burned by previous demands based on purported evidence, and they were in no mood to comply this time. The level of fraud the British Government had perpetrated on the Parliament and People of Britain over the Iraq Invasion (and much else besides) still rankles, though the perpetrators will not have to face Justice. The Honorable and Right Honorable Members have decided, though, that they won't get fooled soon again. Not soon again.

Meanwhile, we are told that the President is pressing ahead with his determination to "send Syria a message" that the Assad regime cannot "gas its own people" without serious consequences.

Leave aside for the moment that there is no conclusive evidence regarding who was responsible for the attack on the 21st in the suburbs of Damascus. The Assad regime denies culpability. The UN has not made a report. And witness testimony is all over the map with claims and counterclaims flying. Who did what to whom in a civil war is frequently impossible to sort out until long after hostilities have concluded, and they may still be disputed into eternity. Cf. Srebrenica among so many examples in the civil wars concomitant on the break up of Yugoslavia.

John Kerry gave one of his better performances yesterday as he laid out the US Government's "case against Syria" for the public. He has tended to be mealy-mouthed and confused when publicly speaking for the last many years, but yesterday he was firm and coherent and stentorian. This is important for credibility, dontchaknow.

But the red flag for me was his precise figure of "at least 1,429" dead in the attack on the 21st, a number that had never previously been heard or reported. He also listed a precise number of children killed, a number never previously heard before as well.

These figures are far, far higher than any independent source had reported up to that time, which made Kerry's repeated statement that "we know" this or that more than a little problematical. If "we know" something that no one else on earth does, and those who are there "know" something quite different, then somehow someone isn't telling the truth or there is something else is going on that we, the Rabble, are simply not privy to.

Where did Kerry's numbers come from, and how have they been so precisely determined in the midst of the chaos of the attack and its aftermath? How is it that the US Government can so precisely determine what those on the ground cannot?

Yes, it's a big red flag.

The Syria Thing, NSA, CIA and That Old Man's Hard On

I've been pretty strident about the NSA story that has dominated so much of the political media throughout the summer. I saw it and see it as a Summer Shark and Missing White Boy story that has been purpose made to obscure something else, something much more immediate and consequential -- and probably dreadful.

We now know what it is: A planned US attack on Syria which may well turn into an apocalyptic conflagration.

Jeebus Dancing Christo.

What the Holy Hell is wrong with these people?

While it's fun to make a whipping boy of the NSA -- or any other spookery -- the issue of domestic surveillance and the concomitant police state is far too serious for far too many people to let the singular issue of "NSA" surveillance overwhelm the reality of how deep-seated and pervasive the surveillance state really is in this country. It's far too serious to let NSA surveillance be seen as the only or even the most serious threat to privacy in the whole wide world -- as it has been promoted throughout the summer.

It's not. It's simply not. It never was. Other threats however...

We don't know what happened in Syria, nor do we know who was responsible. Because of the consistency of the falsehoods that emanate from our government and our spookeries, let alone the falsehoods that come from the Israeli "intelligence" (the source, apparently, for the claim that intercepted phone calls among Syrian officials were the "smoking gun" that "proved" the Assad regime was responsible for the CW attack), people must be skeptical of any pronouncement from On High about what they are doing, or anything they say about what anyone else has done.

They lie.

It's in their nature, and in the nature of the agencies and operations they have nominal charge of.

They lie, and they will do what they wilt, and they will do it without let or hindrance from We, the Rabble.

That Old Man's Hard On will have its release, no matter what.

Our government has now fully divorced itself from We, the Rabble.

The "intelligence" services will have their way. The MIC will have its way.

And that, as they say, is that.

Sharks!!! Missing White Women!!!! The Summer Driving Season Comes Early This Year!!!!

 

The recent trio of Scandals!!! at the White House remind us just how desperate the media can be when ginning up something -- anything -- to keep the masses distracted for the Summer.

This Summertime Distraction is an Absolute Tradition and Iron Law among the ink stained wretches who ply the media trade. You got to have a hook. That's all there is to it. And because the media is largely on hiatus during the summer, the thinking is that certain tried and true stories, particularly of Shark Attacks!!! and Missing White Women!!!! and Summer Driving (as gas prices go through the roof, again)!!!, will do the trick. They always have in the past, why not again?

But what if the media doesn't want to play that record again? The summer of 2001 was the most notorious one for these sorts of distractions, really quite shameful when you think back on it. Bush cleared brush, White Women went missing, and sharks, sharks, sharks patrolled the waters eating whomever they chose, and then, right after Labor Day, bam. 9/11 happened. Putting the kibosh on frivolity, at least until the next summer, when of course, WAR was all the rage, and the occupation of Iraq was getting all the news.

It took some time to get back to the distractions of Shark Attacks and Missing White Women, but eventually things seemed to settle down enough to fire up the old tried and true stories once again. And so it has been for a while now.

But there is another summertime media tradition that goes back to Nixon at least, and probably farther.

I'm always amazed when I read historical political material to discover that everything old is new again, and that the political cycle and the scandal-mongering that goes with it has been churning unrelentingly all my life, since well before I was born in fact, cycling through the same, same, same things over and over and over again.

The White House Scandal (!!!!!) is part of the traditional cycle, but it doesn't come around every year like Missing White Women and Shark Attacks are supposed to do. No, the White House Scandal is periodic, but not annual. It typically begins when Someone Who Matters takes offense at something someone in the White House has said or done, much as Katherine Graham took offense at something Nixon said or did (or simply because she didn't like him) and launched the Watergate Thing. The Thing  that eventually took him down.

It was a Summer Scandal that ultimately went on for a couple of years, but it was based not so much in the crimes of the Nixon Administration -- gawd knows, there were plenty of those -- as it was in the animosity of the Press (ie: Katherine Graham of the Washington Post) to Richard M. Nixon, President of These United States of America.

Somewhat similar was the media attack on President Clinton, for everything it seemed, until something stuck, ie: Monica. Leading to his aborted impeachment -- which itself was a full-on Summer Scandal (!!!) though the impeachment itself was delayed until fall.

The Media Summer Distraction Machine was fully on during the summer of 2001, and many observers at that time seemed to sense that something was up. The 2000 election was an abomination decided through the lawless intervention of the Supreme Court, and the People were not happy about it, not on a bet. Bush himself was shortly revealed as a stumble bum fool once installed on the Throne, with that eminence grise Cheney skulking about in the shadows doing who knew what mischief? Meanwhile, Bush cut brush on his phony ranch in Texas, and the mighty White House press corps suffered through the heat and humidity of a Texas summer. Bush ponderously pondered stem cell research, and he would give a Speech From the Throne about it, with bats zipping around in the night sky behind him, that left everyone scratching their heads and saying "Whatttt????"

But Chandra Levy was Missing (!!!!!) and Congressman Gary Condit was just like Clinton!!!!! and the likeliest suspect in her disappearance, obviously a murderer, just like Clinton!!!,  and he would not be allowed to get away with it, the way Clinton was, not if Nancy Grace had anything to say about it!

Yes, well.

And the sharks were biting up a storm. Chomp. Chomp, Chomp.

It was Such a Beautiful Summer. Then it was spoiled by the Nasty Mooslims.

Now that we are deep into White House Scandal Stories that have prefigured what the Summer Stories will be like -- All Scandal, All the Time, with one or two Missing White Women and a Shark Bite Story thrown in for good measure -- we might want to think about what is not being covered in the "news" and what sort of Holy Horror is being worked up for the fall.

Apparently, the more rabid of the Rightists are intent on forcing the impeachment or resignation of the President, though what the point of it might be is anybody's guess. They want Happy Joe on the Throne instead? I seriously doubt it. No, this is Show Business and the political motive is to keep the common people distracted and entertained while... what?... is going on in the background?

The Correspondent's Dinner seemed to mark the point at which the White House Press Corps turned on the President, and from that point their sole (pack) interest was focused on what damage they could help the Rs do to the White House.

Beng[h]azi was the key to the process in that Congressional Hearings were in the offing, and they would heat the Scandal Pot to a boil, no matter what was revealed. But then to find out that the IRS had been targeting conservative political groups!!!! OMG!!!. Actually, this had long been known, the 'Baggers had long been fuming about the delays in approving their non-profit status, and there had already been official look-sees over it. In other words, the story was old, it just hadn't been made a Scandal(!!!!) yet. But you see, anything can be turned into a Scandal(!!!!). And so it has been with the IRS Thing. Notice that with this one, the White House has gone fully along with it, too. Something in the background will likely not be done because of this, and I wonder what it might be. Some people seem to think it could mean that Obamacare subsidies would have to be scrapped (because they are administered by the IRS.)  That would be interesting. It would effectively blow up the whole Rube Goldberg contraption, and there are plenty of Americans who would not have a sad over that. On the other hand, we may be looking at the imposition of "Tax Reform" sooner rather than later. "Tax Reform" as in "broadening the base and 'lowering the rates.'" What it really would be is a massive tax burden shift from them that's got onto them that's not, and though I've been pointing this out for many years, the notion still hasn't firmly penetrated the conscious understanding of many of those who write about these things.

That's what I see as the likely upshot of the IRS Thing.

The Beng[h]azi Thing appears to be little more than endless face-time opportunities for that execrable Darrell Issa, and I say, dayum, if Dude wants to get his ugly mug on the teevee that bad, let him. He has always come across as a maroon of the first water, and the more people see of him, the more they loathe him and everything he "stands" for -- which is more face time.

The Beng[h]azi Thing is going nowhere as a Scandal (!!!!) except on FOX, and they don't have any idea what to do with it. In due time, it will simply evaporate as if it never was.

On the other hand, the Beng[h]azi Thing could be serving as a mask -- or an excuse -- for preparations for yet another warrior foray into the Heart of Darkness, ie: the Mooslim World. The various wars, after all, have not been going well, and clusterfucks (like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya) that have resulted from unleashing the Dogs of War among Those People have created a level of uncontrollable chaos that gives the willies to anyone who observes it and leaves tragedy and bloodshed throughout the region. Shock Doctrine principles (which seem to be the rule among Our Rulers) require an even bigger shock than the daily bombings and dronings and catastrophic living conditions that have become routine in the Middle East and North Africa. Something much bigger must occur to bring Those People into line. I would guess that's a joint American-Israeli attack on Iran, something lusted after by the already blood-drenched Ruling Class for many a long year.

Perhaps the Beng[h]azi Thing will prove to be the catalyst for doing it. I hope not, but that's the way these things tend to go. They take on a life of their own.

The AP Thing is another one that was a story but not a Scandal(!!!!) sometime back. It involves a key aspect of the National Security State, the essentially universal surveillance of the public that's been going on for years.

Apparently, the AP (along with other news outlets) think they should be exempted and immune from the surveillance everyone else is routinely subjected to. There's a lot of history of press freedom in this country, and there is the tattered remnant of the Constitution to fall back on, but there are certain court rulings that essentially cancel those privileges in the face of National Security, and so as much as Gary Pruitt and the AP want to make this into some Big Deal, it's unlikely they will succeed. For one thing, the public has little tolerance for media preening and complaining, and for another, the AP has long sucked. They have been the ones promoting the Summer Scandal/Summer Distraction stories for years and years, and the AP wire is filled with trash like this (though Pruitt, to his credit has tried to clean it up a little).

The AP is trying to make a case that they are somehow above you and me, and it's just not going to fly among the public. Whether it will have an impact among the High and the Mighty remains to be seen. And it will depend on what the real objection is -- and who is making it. Nobody really cares if the phone calls of reporters in the field are looked into by the Security State. But if the Government goes "too far" all hell could break loose, with the press going fully rogue against the State. So I'd look at this as a shot across the bow, a warning to the Government to stay within bounds, which will be set by the High and Mighty to protect the High and Mighty.

Surveille the public all you want (and please share the information with the press!!) they seem to be saying, but stay within strict bounds when it comes to surveilling the establishment press or pay the price. This is a periodic issue. It's always been resolved one way or another, but it crops up again and again.

So Summer has come early. I don't know where all these White House Scandals are headed, but there were signs on the "news" last night that the media isn't going to go all the way with them -- depending on how well they are able to control these things of course, and how much the White House is willing to play.

Now that the White House is paying attention to the plaints of the media, they seem to be happy enough.

We'll see.

If the Missing White Women and Shark Attacks start bubbling up to the front pages again, we'll know that the plug has been pulled on these Scandals(!!!) -- at least for the time being. On the other hand...

The AP Thing, The IRS Thing, The Beng[h]azi Thing...

Whoo boy, the Roller Coaster is in overdrive now boys and girls. Did somebody offend somebody? Or is the situation behind the scenes just too unstable to keep the ship of state aright?

This is primarily a media scandal-fest, something like the ones that went wilding during the 90's leading to the Impeachment Circus and all the rest of it. Which led, of course, directly to the Supremes' lawless intervention in the 2000 election to put the majority's candidate on the Throne. If we think back, it's easy to see how media driven this all was, from the get-go to the miserable end of the Bushevik Regime.

How many millions paid with their lives and fortunes for this political misadventure? Did the media gain from their scandal mongering? Ask Roger Ailes, maybe he'll tell you. Maybe he won't. Maybe he'll lie.

The AP Thing is a doozy; they're all panty-wadded because their counsel got notice that phone records of certain reporters had been scrutinized by the DoJ, apparently as part of a leak investigation by the gov't. Hm. Yes, well. At least they got notice.

I mean, this sort of thing really galls me. Ever since the imposition of the Patriot Act back in the day, warrantless domestic surveillance has been essentially universal. But now AP is calling foul, stomping its little feet and screaming, "You can't do this to MEEEEE!!!!" Everybody else is fair game? But not the AP? Bullshit. The problem is not surveillance of the press; the problem is universal domestic surveillance. Period. And that's not something the Mighty-Mighty Press has ever had the least bit of concern about. Was it assumed that the Press would be immune?

This is not unlike my annoyance at the nearly hysterical response to the "torture" of Bradley Manning by members of the blog-o-tariat, with nary a nod to the fact that what was happening to him was relatively  mild compared to what goes on in American detention facilities to tens of thousands of Americans, every. fucking. day. And which has been going on for YEARS. What happened to Manning shouldn't have happened, but in my view, you cannot separate out his treatment from the gross brutality -- and yes, torture -- that is part and parcel of the entire American detention system.

Just so with the surveillance of the AP reporters. Yes? And? This is 'Merika. This is what goes on, has been going on for YEARS, "it's the Law," and this is what has been done to millions and millions of Americans on a day-in and day-out basis. What has the AP had to say about that? Nothing, right?

The AP is demanding -- now -- special treatment for itself, to be free of "this sort of intimidation!" Great, fine. They should be free of it -- so should everyone else. But you are unlikely to ever hear that from the AP or any of those marching around with their chins thrust out in AP's defense these days.

No, they want their own special dispensation, just as many of the advocates for Bradley Manning wanted his dispensation, ignoring the thousands and the millions who faced the same sort of intimidation/torture under the color of authority every day. For whatever reason, in the minds of so many people, the masses who suffer don't matter, only the individual -- or institution in the case of the AP.

To my way of looking at these things, it's nonsense.

Separating out an individual or one institution and demanding recompense for their suffering while ignoring everyone else who is facing the same sort of thing or worse is not even a simulation of "justice."

It's grotesque.

But that's how very far we've fallen under the spell of the Individual.

As for the IRS Thing, the notion that the IRS uses its power and authority to go after certain targeted individuals and institutions, and it sometimes oversteps its authority in doing so, is hardly news. The notion that some of their scrutiny has the appearance of a political motivation again is hardly news. What's news in this case is apparently that the agency was inclined to use its clout to look into nonprofit status of TeaBagging and other rightist political organizations, something that simply is not done in this country, rightists being Free and all. Well, Patriots, you know.

Scrutinizing Leftist outfits is only right and proper, but dare the IRS -- or anyone else in Gubmint -- to probe the  behavior of a 'Bagging interest and all hell breaks loose. Again, we are dealing with demands for special exemptions and dispensations for certain (perhaps momentarily) favored individuals or groups, leaving everyone else who has the same or similar difficulties to fend for themselves. This is not "justice." I can't put it any plainer than that.

To my way of looking at it, the IRS should be abolished for cause (along with quite a few other government department and agencies) and its functions should be reformed from the bottom up. The notion of non-profit, religious, or charitable tax exemptions should be re-thought. Just what is the purpose of these exemptions, and why should certain industries and individuals be exempt while others must pay and pay more, with the tax burden being shifted more and more onto the backs of those least able to pay?

But that's not what the hoop lah is about. No, it's about "targeting" rightist outfits, purely and simply. The whole system is rotten, but as long as it doesn't "target" rightists, it's OK? Leftists can be targeted -- and have been for generations -- but not rightists? What utter crap.

 Finally The Beng[h]azi Thing. It's as if no one involved in the many "investigations" has ever heard of or utilized (deceptive) Talking Points before. Yes, of course, the talking points were not accurate. Yes? So?

How often are talking points used by anyone fully accurate? How often are they intended to spin and how often are they intended to deceive?

In this case, the whole thing appears to be a mighty clusterfuck. It's not the first time. And until the AP and IRS Things, it seemed that the "investigations" of the clusterfuck were going to be taunted and dismissed by the media as so much political posturing by the Rs (which they are), but now, with the other "scandals" on the table as it were, Beng[h]azi will loom large on the topic list for some time to come.

I assume all this is coming to a head now (even before the Summer Driving and Shark and Missing White Woman Season gets going) because someone who matters in the media was offended by someone in the White House, possibly even by the President Himself. The media skin is sometimes very thin, and the least insult, or even an accidental one, can open the gates of Hell on an otherwise unsuspecting officialdom.

It's happened before. I would just remind readers that the Watergate Thing happened largely because A Person Who Mattered in the Media (Katherine Graham) took offense at the White House, and took personal offense at Richard Nixon for some insult or slight or other, and she vowed to have his ass in a sling or know the reason why. She got what she wanted.

A lot of people tend to think the Watergate story reporting and the subsequent investigations leading to the resignation of Richard Nixon was somehow a high point of public and media integrity. I would suggest it was nothing of the kind. It was instead an act of gross and deliberate revenge for... an insult. There were crimes committed, lord knows, in the course of the Nixon administration, monstrous, horrible crimes, compared to which the Watergate burglary was small potatoes. The point, which got completely missed, is that it is in the nature of our system of governance for the government itself to operate lawlessly, criminally, and often murderously. It is in the DNA of the institution, and the only way I know of to change things is to start over with a different institution.

Thus, as criminal as the Nixon administration was, it was by no means uniquely criminal. It was typically criminal. Decapitating the operation doesn't change its fundamental nature. But in the course of events, someone who mattered in the media demanded and got revenge against Richard Nixon, thus in effect decapitating the government, yet not changing it in any important way (she didn't care about that, after all), and here we are, forty years down the line, and guess what?

Nothing has really changed but the optics.

But at least the media now has its summer shitstorm laid out. What will happen to the Sharks and the Missing White Women?

And what of the Summer Driving Season?

False Statements

Isn't it something that the SBSD and the LAPD can issue a tissue of lies, a veritable festival of them when it comes to it, regarding Dorner and his last few hours -- and get away with it, while Dorner himself quite likely told the truth about misconduct he witnessed within the LAPD and got his ass fired for it, his life ruined and finally ended, in one of the most gruesome and yet inevitable endings we've seen since Waco.

It's pretty much the definition of the era we live in.

The Russian Meteor -- Run For Your Lives!

 

Time for something completely different. This meteor exploding over Russia puts a sort of punctuation on recent events, I'd say. Of course, the official word is that it has nothing to do with anything, it's just one of those things that happen, coinkydink that there's an asteroid barreling through Earthspace and whatnot, and boy aren't the videos grand!

This site has collected most of them (can't vouch for its security, though, being Russian and all.)

When I saw the first one, I thought, "Holy fuck!" I've seen plenty of meteors while driving at night, so it's not an unfamiliar sight at all -- though it always surprises. Especially when they are bright and seemingly very close. I have seen a couple of them appear to explode as well, but I've never heard a sound like the sonic boom recorded in some of the videos. I've heard a somewhat peculiar hissing sound associated with a meteor fall, but according to experts, "it can't be."

Yes. Well.

Bad Astronomy will fill us in on expert opinion. As skeptical as the pros and experts are about something outside their specialty, it's always wise to be skeptical of their pronouncements about what "we now know" and don't know, too. Knowledge in the sciences and especially in astronomy and planetology is always changing. What is pronounced as fact or truth with utter certainty today will turn out to be startlingly wrong tomorrow, almost guaranteed. At any rate, the Bad Astronomy article is useful as an example of how astonishing things are handled, and what kind of thought processes go into that handling.

The Guardian is keeping tabs on things. Wish I understood Russian better so I could keep tabs on their reports. Oh well.

Yikes!

Apocalypse New Mexico

After the horrible fires last year, this year's fires in Colorado and New Mexico -- which have so far burned far more square miles -- seem almost routine. Not for those who are nearby them, of course, but in the broader scheme of things.

Now Ari LeVaux writes from Placitas for Alternet about the continuing drought and the consequences for New Mexico farmers and everyone else.

The problem of water in New Mexico is constant. Even in "wet" years, there isn't much, and in dry periods, there is far too little for comfort, sometimes not enough for survival. The Anasazi society supposedly collapsed due to a decades-long drought. What really happened, though, is still something of a mystery to the scholars and archaeologists. There is no lack of Anasazi descendants. Droughts there have been, and much worse besides, but the People abide. Somehow.

How much of the current drought is a unique phenomenon is hard to say. I can testify that the unrelenting HEAT is unusual, for I have never experienced so many days of consistently high temperatures since coming to New Mexico for the first time over 30 years ago. It's been a good deal hotter here than in the notorious oven that is California's Central Valley and for a longer period, too. The discomfort is mitigated somewhat by the fact that it's (usually) a drier heat here, but it's coming on Monsoon time, and afternoon showers are incipient if not yet regular. The humidity will rise.

The farms in the area where I am are irrigated by ground water, so they seem to be doing OK, but the grazing land is all dried up, so there are few or no cattle and other livestock on the range. The idea that people are trying to maintain inappropriate landscaping -- lawns and such -- is largely false. There are exceptions, of course, but most people long ago adapted to the desert conditions and generally try to maintain xeriscapes or just leave things to Nature. When there's water, things are green. When there's no water, things dry up.

The basic challenge is to resist the urge to panic which can be difficult as drought conditions intensify. Are we going to have water? Where will it come from? What if there are no rains this summer? What if the aquifer is pumped dry?

And is this drought the permanent drought predicted by climate change experts?

We don't know.

Maybe.

But it's been this bad, or maybe worse, before -- at least according to the memories of the Peoples who have so long endured...

The Apocalypse may be here, but if it is, it's not for the first time; it's here again.

Oh, the Gnashing of Teeth; the Rending of Garments

As the Debt Ceiling Deliberations plod on, the levels of mass hysteria increase exponentially. Just what the parties to the secret discussions are prepared to agree to is always a bit of a Mystery -- by design to be sure -- but the outlines are always clear enough:

The current cuts to entitlements and social programs will be continued and extended; taxes -- such as the payroll tax intended to pay for Social Security -- will be cut or cuts currently in place will be extended; the rich and their corporations will not pay any more tax no matter what, no way, no how.

This has been the outline from the beginning of the "negotiations," and nothing at all has come up to suggest there's been any change whatsoever in the closed door deliberations.

A thing to keep in mind is that this is the way all the Big Things the Palace wants to do get done:

• a basic Plan is put forth from the Throne
  
  
• the details of that Plan are not revealed to the Public, but they appear to be known to the principals from the get-go
  
  
• there is much sturm und drang from all parties who issue pro-forma anathemas and denunciations of all other parties
  
  
• deliberations continue behind the scenes and in secret
  
  
• the basic Plan the Throne has issued is adopted by the principals in secret
  
  
• many more anathemas and denunciations are issued, many more lines in the sand are drawn, the End of Civilization is declared repeatedly, passionate gnashing of teeth and rending of garments is de rigueur all around
  
  
• the Plan is circulated among the Opinion Leaders and Congressional Chairs; tweakage occurs here and there to address "issues" identified by favored constituencies
  
  
• the Plan is passed to much huzzah and denunciation, but nobody knows what has actually passed until well after the deed is done
  
  
• the poor, the working class, and the middle class are once again screwed; the upper 1% -- and especially the upper .01% -- are showered with even more benefits and largesse
  
  
• rinse and repeat
  
  

This process has been going on for years without let up. It's been relentless. It is mirrored in the astonishing behavior of a clutch of Republican Governors -- most notoriously Scott Walker of Wisconsin -- who have been applying Shock Doctrine tactics in state after state to restrict the rights of workers (particularly public workers) and limit the ability of the People to redress grievances while savagely cutting social programs and education, and heaping ever greater benefits on the upper 1% and ever greater costs on everyone else.

It is a "Pattern" as it were. It is going on almost everywhere simultaneously, and despite all the gnashing of teeth and the rending of garments, absolutely NOTHING is standing in the way of its successful implementation. NOTHING.

Hundreds of thousands have marched in public protest of whatever the Republican Governors want to do, but it doesn't matter; what they want to do is enacted, period. End of discussion.

Eternal arguments go on over this or that Pronouncement from the Throne, this or that policy adopted by the Congress, this or that Big Thing enacted and/or implemented. But just like the protest demonstrations, the Arguments have a stunning lack of effectiveness; nothing changes for the better in other words.

Oh, but same sex marriage is now the law in New York! Haven't you heard! Yay! Celebrate!

Ahem.

If that's your most important thing, then I suppose all the rest of it doesn't matter.

I suppose.

The real question we should be asking is: "Why has nothing at all been effective in stopping this March Over the Cliff?" It's almost as if we are living through a period of Predestination. Or some one else's Plan. I can see why Apocalyptic visions and religious fervor are at an all time high.

The People and the Public Interest literally have no effect on events whatsoever.

Oh, but there was Egypt! Oh, but there was Tunisia! Where Twitter and WikiLeaks and Popular Will overthrew Rotten Dictatorships in a twinkling! Yay! Celebrate!

Well, except that isn't quite what happened. Other than that, everything is now fine in those Happy Lands. Just ask the residents. They will tell you: "Strangely, all is not fine; strangely, we gained almost nothing."

Strangely, that's kind of how it goes.

Strangely, as the Murdoch Media Empire shudders in Britain, the Murdoch Media Empire's machinations world-wide continue unabated. Corrupt as sin, they still rule without let or hindrance.

Strangely, while the Peoples of the World groan under an ever greater burden of debt and penury, the upper crust of the upper crust counts every greater profits.

Strangely, while Everyone Knows that the draconian austerity economic policies being adopted globally will crush any hint of economic recovery everywhere, nothing at all can or will stop their adoption and implementation, no matter the consequences.

Strangely, what the People say and what the People know is broadly and consistently ignored throughout the Ruling Class in order to ensure that that class receives all the benefits and none of the responsibilities of Success. What is happening in the United States is happening everywhere.

Naomi Klein described and predicted it in detail years ago.

But strangely, seeing it in action, everywhere all at once, is more numbing than activating.

Strangely, nothing at all stands in the way of the Four Horsemen riding roughshod over the land.

Nothing at all.

Bad Signs

The Libya Thing -- what an unholy nightmare. Much worse, apparently, than the Bahraini nightmare.

The Christchurch Earthquake (again) -- It's the second one in five months. Shock. And. Awe.

The Wisconsin Thing -- "The People United Will Never Be Defeated". Trouble is -- as always -- when the leadership sells them out, what are they going to do? As I pointed out earlier, potential Bad Signs were in reports that union leaders had conceded the "need" to cut pay, benefits, and retirement for public sector workers. Apparently, they did this long ago, but still the issue came back to the fore when the People United went ballistic over the end of collective bargaining contained in the measure Walker has ordered be passed. The problem is the advance concession by the leadership. That means the Rightists have already won. They won before there was a Public Uprising.

There are other disgusting and horrifying aspects of the budget measure Walker has ordered the legislature to pass, all of them having to do with giving the governor or the state government unilateral and unaccountable power to act to harm the interests of the majority of Wisconsinites to the advantage of a handful of plutocrats and oligarchs, most of them named Koch.

But from my perspective now, this war is already lost. What we have left is "show."

So it will be throughout the Midwest. But not just there. California will set the standard for handing over the keys to the Overlords once and for all.

And -- as always -- the Movement fractures. We have national Solidarity actions all this week organized by SEIU; but then this coming weekend, USUncut -- modeled on UKUncut actions in Britain -- will be holding their own demonstrations. These interests should be united, and they are not.

We are stumbling toward the Apocalypse.

The Unraveling Ain't Gonna Be Pretty

So far, the White House has floated or proposed a Domestic Spending Freeze, which ought to be popular with TeaBaggers; an increase in Security spending, including the bloated Pentagon; cramming the worst aspects of HCR down the throats of the unwilling public right away and "considering something better" later on... eventually... well, maybe not, since we can't afford it; setting up a commission to recommend cuts to Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid; and -- oh yes -- a handful of minor programs to ease the burden of childcare expenses and student loan repayments for those who are still employed and can remain employed. Good Luck. Suckers!!!!!

Willakers. This is getting worse by the minute.

It's all a sham? A shell game? A con?

Take that for granted. Please.

The point is that for whatever reason, the White House is bound and determined to carry out the Corporate "Destroy America" Agenda they were -- apparently -- put in office to accomplish, since Bush and Cheney couldn't, and they are using the same mindless bull tactics to do it.

With a slightly better message. Sometimes. When there is any message at all.

It's the New Normal. Conditioning the masses to accept their further downgrading; currying favor with the Powers That Be.

But as they go after their Corporatist Prize, they're coming apart, and as they come apart, so do the rest of us.

It is the Unraveling.

History doesn't quite know what happened to Akenaton and his Revolution, only that... it failed and the Amarna Experiment was destroyed and plowed into the sands of Egypt. Tutankhamen was a near relative and successor; all that survived was his tomb. Exquisite remains with neither past nor future, just frozen in the moment.

And Obama isn't even a Rebel.

Sad.



[Note to add: this is what was under all that gold and jewels and wrapped in fine linen]

Chickie Run

July 1 is here. California is now officially off the precipice and plunging down to the rocks below. It's been a swell ride.

I'm a longtime Californian, though almost by accident, I was born in Iowa. My mother and her parents came to California from Indiana when she was only five. Before the US joined WWI. She always felt herself to be very deeply rooted in California, living in various parts of the state but always hooking up with salt of the earth, pioneering farm and ranch folk, people whose people had been here since the Gold Rush or just after, people close to the land, people for whom "newcomers" were a best a nuisance.

We lived on the coast near Santa Barbara when I was very little, but we were very poor, and we did not live well at all. We barely got by until I was five or so, and the hardships of earlier times are still with me in some odd way. I can remember things and places and people from when I was two or three years old, and even, it seems, before that, though how I would even have language to remember things with is hard to say. I can remember being in the backseat of the old Packard Clipper my mother drove hell-bent-for-leather out of Iowa and back to California when I was nine months old...

Being very poor and barely getting by in California in those days was a challenge, yes, but not an impossible one. There were no "programs." Well, actually, there might have been some, but I don't recall them if there were. We got by somehow, though in the process of getting by, my family, such as it was, was shattered to pieces and never entirely got itself back together.

And bit by bit, poverty was relieved. A relatively stable middle class life took the place of hard-scrabble "existence." The fact was that California had entered its most prosperous period, Post WWII, when everything seemed possible, indeed probable, and the whole state was being remade from top to bottom with finest public education system, the finest highway system, the finest water distribution system, the finest research and development resources, the finest... well, you name it, the Future was ours and it would be Grand! So even someone who started out very poor and disadvantaged could do well in California in time, and millions did.

And now it is all unravelling. Oh, my personal situation hasn't deteriorated too badly in the recession -- yet. But the signs are not good. It would not surprise me at all to learn that household income has peaked and is not likely to return to previous levels ever again. Potentially not even close.

For many millions of Californians, though, the situation is very rough and is about to get much rougher. I have no idea what sort of deal the legislature and the governor will eventually hammer out to address the growing deficit, and at this point, I doubt many Californians really care. The failure of California's government to deal with the crisis that has been apparent for more than a year now is frustrating to be sure. But the fact that they keep going round and round the same mulberry bush again and again and again, with apparently no consciousness nor any concern for what they are doing and the consequences of their actions (or inaction) on millions of people is revolting.

Millions of Californians are out of work, and many of them will never go back to work again. That's what I've been saying for months now, and what all the talk about the "Jobless Recovery" is confirming. Many of the jobs that have disappeared in this recession will never return. Many of the workers who used to have a steady income and could participate in the California/American Dream will never again do so. It is over. Fini. Kaput. And all the indications are that nothing is going to take its place.

Millions of poor Californians will shortly be faced with a stark choice: tough it out here with few or no resources, or leave. Imagine it, an outmigration from California to parts unknown, that will make the Dustbowl/Depression migration into California seem tame by comparison. Where is today's John Steinbeck to document this reversal of fate and fortune? So far, there isn't even an acknowledgement of what's in store.

Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Mexicans and Central Americans have already left, the vast hordes of "illegales" brought in by the carload to build the miles and miles of suburban wastelands that crept inexorably over California during the Bubble but now being demolished forlorn and unsold, unsaleable.

Others are leaving, too. Not just the poor and dispossessed. California's jobless rate is officially pegged at 11.5% but it is much higher in many counties, and the official rate undercounts the unemployed by not including those who have given up looking, those who are underemployed, etc. Only half of those officially counted actually qualify for benefits, so there are many millions of Californians who have already faced a stark choice: stay and figuratively or literally starve on the streets, or leave and hope to find something better... somewhere. Pioneering spirits have already decamped for somewhere else.

Only, things are tough all over. There really isn't any place to go where things are particularly better.

The federal stimulus may be preventing things from getting worse, but there is no sign that is so. California is supposedly eligible for about $80 billion in stimulus funds, but there are no signs that the empolyment picture is improving (there are no jobs programs, after all, in the stimulus package), and California's government is going to wrack and ruin, effectively bankrupt, no matter the stimulus. I've said it is unconscionable that the federal government has played deaf, dumb and blind during this massive restructuring of California for the benefit of the rich and well connected, but there you are.

It seems to be going according to someone's plan.

Much like the Enron looting and disaster of some years back. Many of us could see quite clearly what was happening; nothing could be done, and when Gray Davis spoke out and tried to do something about it, the Hate Machine went into full gear and threw his skinny white ass out, replacing him with someone Orange and Waxy and -- we now know -- as fucked up, and not even remotely as genius, as Jim Morrison.

Lucky, eh?

We stumble on through the Apocalypse.

Toward whatever the crabbed and forlorn Future holds.

It wasn't supposed to be this way....




[One day I should do a post on Jim Morrison. Don't tell me he isn't fucked up in this video, but fucked up as he is, he's still brilliant.]