What We Forget About Martin Luther King -- Stumbling Against the Future

I watched parts of the Inauguration yesterday, and because it was also MLK Day, there were plenty of references to the legacy of Martin Luther King and the long and difficult struggle for civil rights for all in this country -- a struggle that continues, of course. Many inspirational words were offered in tribute.

Well. I've pondered -- and participated in -- the civil rights struggle for many a long year, and I cannot for the life of me understand why, after all these years of struggle, civil rights are still in jeopardy, perhaps more now than at any time since the institution of Jim Crow. The success of the movement has led to what?

For many Americans, it means taking for granted the civil rights and liberties at the foundation of the nation as belonging to all of us, not simply a favored few (as they did at the foundation of the nation.) But we find that taking these rights and liberties for granted has meant that they are once more jeopardized as voting rights, especially, are more and more restricted, and rights to privacy, fair trials and due process and so forth evaporate before our very eyes.

During the controversies over "non-violence" within the Occupy movement, I pointed out that rigidly following King and Gandhi in today's environment is bound to fail and for a very simple reason: Our Rulers have learned many lessons since the days of Indian Independence and the American Civil Rights Movement. They will not ever allow that kind of movement and resistance to succeed again. What they will do instead is infiltrate, co-opt and destroy if they can't use the means and methods of the King/Gandhi non-violence principles against the movement directly.

When I pointed out that many of those who were advocating strict adherence to King/Gandhi "non-violence" were actually advocating for the interests of Our Rulers against the interests of the People (I like to use the example of the use of Non-violent Communications by Our Rulers as one of their ways to employ "nonviolence" against the People -- as I was trained in Non-Violent Communications when I was a government employee, and I know all too well how it works...)  all hell would sometimes break loose.

The problem is not that the principles of non-violent resistance are necessarily wrong, it is that they no longer work in the context of modern, supposedly democratic, states, and when they are employed in People's Uprisings and Revolutions these days (and for quite a long time past when you think how long its been since the Soviet Union fell) they almost inevitably lead to a Neo-Con/Neo-Liberal victory.

And that is not what the People rose up to accomplish. Is it?

Both Gandhi and King understood that their use of nonviolent resistance was part of a larger strategy to undermine the power of and eventually force the capitulation of oppressive and intrinsically violent political systems. That overall strategy was not limited to nonviolent resistance campaigns by any means. In both India and the United States, sabotage and armed resistance were taking place simultaneously with non-violent campaigns. The eventual success of the non-violent campaigns was in part due to the presence of -- or the threat of -- violent revolutionary alternatives.

So often in the modern conception of 'non-violent resistance,' however, there is no alternative path; there is only The One, as codified not by Gandhi and King but by Gene Sharp, whose influence on the Color Revolutions of the '80's and '90's was significant. Their success, however, led -- in every case that I'm aware of -- to the establishment of a Neo-Con/Neo-Liberal regime which calls itself "Liberty."

"Liberty" for whom? To do what? This is something that Sharpian 'non-violence' advocates dast not answer, for many of them must know the truth: it leads to "liberty" for the predators to exploit and impoverish the masses.

Both Gandhi and King well understood that economic "liberty" as it was understood by the Ruling Class led directly to the impoverishment of the masses and enormous social destruction. They sought ways and means to counter that sort of "liberty" as they were pressing for independence in the case of India and civil rights and racial integration in the case of the United States.

Just being able to fly your own flag or to vote or to sit at a lunch counter was not enough. And they knew it.

Of course today there is little or no mention of the economic justice programs of Gandhi and King; after all, both were assassinated well before their campaigns for economic justice could even begin to overturn the corrupt and destructive systems they witnessed in their own time.

Gandhi's assassination may have had more to do with the political situation in newly independent India, but it seems clear enough that King's assassination was driven at least in part by his shift from a primary focus on civil and political rights to anti-war and economic justice campaigns that threatened the Powers That Be in ways they could not, at the time, accommodate.

King seemed to understand, too, that his shift of focus would further jeopardize his life.

The tragedy is that the legacies that might have been were violently cut short, and memories of what might have been have been suppressed, replaced with idealized images of what never really was.

King's final book was titled: "Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community?" published in 1967. In it, he acknowledged the progress that had been made in securing political rights for Negroes (the term used in those days) but he clearly focused his attention on the fact that political rights by themselves did not lead to paradise, not by a long shot, and that promise of America would only be secured through the establishment of economic justice. 

Now more than ever, that clarion call from so long ago needs to be heard again, for every year, millions more Americans are forced into poverty, their hopes and dreams destroyed, their homes confiscated, their livelihoods vanished, their future gone. This is the cruel truth of the economic situation since the advent of the Perpetual Recession. The American poverty rate, once on the decline, has been skyrocketing, right along with homelessness and hunger, and for all intents and purposes, nothing is being done about it by the Government except to reinforce policies which ensure ever greater levels of poverty and suffering.

It doesn't have to be that way. It never had to be that way. The increasingly desperate situation so many Americans find themselves in could be reversed in a twinkling, too.

But we have a government that resists any policy solution to the increasing problem of poverty in America, that denies any positive ability to change things for the better, that no longer bothers even to talk a good line regarding the now seemingly permanent and scandalous unemployment problem, let alone providing any sort of household debt relief.

All of these issues could be addressed, should be addressed, and won't be addressed willingly by the Ruling Class -- which obviously is quite unbothered by the economic difficulties of the People, in fact, it seems to enjoy increasing the cruelties the People are made to suffer.

So long as that Ruling Class is lavished with the kinds of considerations, benefits, and literal welfare they receive (and believe is their right), and so long as their own debts are covered, why should they care about the sufferings of the masses? They don't and they won't.

Americans have not lived with this level of routine indifference to their plight by their representatives for generations, and it is not easy to grasp just how destructive current policies are.

King ultimately realized that social acceptance and political rights mean a great deal, but they can be eclipsed by failures to establish economic justice and by a perpetual war making machine. So it was near the end of his life, and so it is once again today.

It's a moral issue. It's the fundamental moral issue of our time.

As we stumble against the Future, we are called on to end the perpetual war making machine and establish economic justice for all. 

Rob Johnson Explains It All For You

Austerity sucks hard, and it's stoopid too:



I've started the clip at the Austerity bit, but it's well worth watching the whole thing.

Does the United States Acutally Have An Economy Anymore?

The latest crash was apparently averted by a hair today yesterday as markets stabilized after yesterday's sell off the day before. But these stock market gyrations and speculative run ups and declines have become the New Normal for the Investor Class.

Down below, we get to watch the show -- not that we actually know what's going on, mind you -- and we are welcome to acquire a queasy feeling that something just ain't right.

For all of us, the economy has lurched along from bubble to bubble for more than a decade. In fact, it seems from appearances that except for the bubbles and periodic speculative fevers, there's been no economic growth in the United States for a very long time.

And we see that statistically, wages have been stagnant for nigh on 30 or even 40 years, and lately -- since the enormity of the Endless Recession settled in -- they've been declining, precipitously for the Lower Orders, not so fast for the working professionals, but trending downward, ever downward, for more and more Americans, until finally wages and benefits cease altogether when the jobs are not there and the unemployment insurance runs out.

Then what do you do?

In the Lehigh Valley, they go to work for the Amazon warehouses, and they say they're glad to have a job, any job, until the required pace of work becomes too much or the heat in the building lays them low. These are working conditions equivalent to a century ago or more, working conditions that scandalized a nation when they were reported and widely known, but now? Enh. Shrug. Oh well. Too bad for them.

These are the kinds of working conditions that would lead to strikes and sabotage and worse back in the day, but now?

I remember reading some material about the Indianapolis streetcar strike of 1913, material which unfortunately I can't easily retrieve now. It was testimony from the arbitration hearings that took place after the strike, and it depicted a situation that at once oppressive and Kafka-esque for transit workers in Indianapolis on both their urban and interurban lines. (As it happens, my mother's father was a streetcar conductor in Indianapolis during the period and was killed in either an accident or deliberately -- "crushed between the cars" -- following the strike. I have always believed it was deliberate because he was a strike leader.)

Working conditions were grossly unsafe, pay was extraordinarily low, hours were very long, there were no benefits of any kind. Workers were subject to arbitrary firing, extended hours, no consideration for on the job injuries, and on and on. The transit company made it a point to forbid workers to unionize. Anyone who joined the transit union was fired.

But this was typical of the era, and were it not for risk-taking labor leaders, workers and strikers, conditions would not have improved. That most working conditions are marginally better now is a tribute to those many workers who took risks a century and more ago, but what of the deterioration of pay, benefits and working conditions since the late-1970's? Is that because workers haven't been taking risks to force improvements or is it something else?

My question can be put this way: "Is there actually an economy -- greater than subsistence -- in this country?"

If not, why not, and how long has it been so?

We're always talking about the Crisis of Capitalism, and it is very real; certainly the period we're in right now is one of constant capitalist crises, crises that are widely seen by capitalists themselves as opportunities for consolidating their positions. Of course the consolidation is happening at the expense of workers and everyone else, simply to ensure that the best off are not discommoded in any way. Their gambling debts are paid off (not forgiven, note; they are paid off) by governments around the world, and they are paid off again and again. With the money, they then inflate more and more bubbles, but after a while, it becomes clear there is no "real" economic activity going on. Yes, commodity prices are inflated over and over again, and the poorest are forced to once again pay or starve -- after a relatively long period when starvation was rare. We've reached that stage again. There is terrible suffering among the very poorest; for the rest, it is a precipitous -- or slow -- decline into poverty and penury. Survivable subsistence for most.

But is that the natural state of an economy without bubbles?

To get through the initial phases of the recession, I and others proposed very simple actions that could be taken to relieve the suffering of the masses: a comprehensive jobs program to put people back to work immediately, and substantial household debt relief. Bingo, the initial phase of the recession would have been tamed right out of the gate. I would have also canceled all derivative contracts -- those were fueling the collapse after all -- imposed a significant speculation tax and halted foreclosures.

That would have halted -- or rather slowed -- the decline for most people, and it would have kept the consumer economy going for a time at a slightly lower level. Credit would no doubt have been restricted even so, and it would be the relative difficulty of obtaining credit that would ultimately slow the economy significantly.

Ultimately we'd wind up at a quasi-subsistence level anyway.

But the route to it would have been different, and forcing tens of millions of Americans into poverty likely would have been unnecessary.

Those tens of millions have been forced into poverty in order to ensure that those on top not only remain there but continue to profit handsomely from their positions and continue to be able to speculate and gamble in the markets at will.

Curbing the urge to speculate and gamble at will at the top is part of what is necessary to contain the effects of the Endless Recession, but what's been happening instead is that every effort is being made by those who set public policy to enable speculation and gambling at the top, with, I believe, an intention to encourage the inflation of more bubbles.

Apparently the financial class believes that is the only way "economic growth" can occur any more.

"Economic growth" in scare quotes because it isn't real growth at all. It is nothing more than gaming by extraction from the Lower Orders and accumulation and hoarding by those on top. There is no "growth."

At best on the whole it's economic stasis. For the Lower Orders, it's perpetual decline. For those on top, it is a scramble for more and ever more personal wealth, but with less and less purpose except to have and hold and gamble with.

Ultimately, it is decline for almost everyone since the upper tier keeps shrinking.

We've long known what this kind of economy looks like. It can be relatively stable for hundreds and hundreds of years but only by keeping the proles subdued through constant murder and state terror. The economy, however, does not "grow." Whatever benefits the economy provides go to the top; for everyone else, nothing. Or rather, in many cases, less and always less again goes to all the rest. The entire Third World was run this way for generations; still is, except we're all becoming Third World as the crises of capitalism compound. Generally the Third World is quite stable -- except for the periodic revolutions, most of which are put down with surpassing brutality.

A few succeed, but most of them are now little more than distant memories. Or they are more and more ridiculous seeming anachronisms.

It's clear that we, the people, have little or no effect on the economic course our rulers choose to follow. Our interests aren't even considered. The simple steps that could be taken to reverse the decline of the masses are ignored. In fact, in many cases, just the opposite steps are adopted.

Every sign suggest that not only has the American economy stalled, it has ceased altogether, much as Europe's has. China and India (among some few others) continue to grow but their markets are more and more domestic rather than export, and the crisis pattern is manifesting there as well.

Marxist analysis tells us what's wrong and hints at what to do about it, but the realization of what it means to really do something about it -- well beyond the half-measures of the revolutionaries of the past -- has yet to dawn.

And could we do it without going through the dystopian Mad Max phase so prominent in lore and legend (and movies)?

At this point, we aren't even trying. That is WE aren't trying. Other are. They haven't quite found a way yet, but the search continues.

I would only add that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with a subsistence economy.

It goes wrong when a handful of economic predators seek their own comfort from other people's more or less futile efforts at subsistence.

Crackpot Economic Theories

[The lecture heard in the video is complete gibberish and crackpottery.]

We are ruled by crackpots, and their crackpot economic theories are devastating to ordinary people's well being and standard of living.

Since the beginning of this Endless Recession, the Crackpot Economists (and their powerful sponsors) -- aka The Chicago School and their friends -- have been been running around trying to use the crisis as an opportunity to undo what's left of the New Deal and impose their neo-Hooverist/neo-liberal economics on all of us as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. They cry about literally everything, and the solution they propose for everything is to cut taxes on the rich, remove regulations, and sell off the public treasure at fire-sale prices.

This will supposedly make life better for the masses. That it does just the opposite is said to be nothing but a perception problem. "Change" and all that. Nobody really likes "change" and they'll use every means they can to fight it. But "change" there must and will be. It is inevitable. You and I have no choice but to submit.

Think of the Industrial Revolution. It was a tough transition for many, but who among us would want to go back to the way things were before the magnificent technological and social transformations that took place (and are still taking place) thanks to the Industrial Revolution? No one. Right?

So there you are. The economic and social transformations going on now are of the same order. People must get used to what's in store, but once they do, they will thank the Powers That Be for having been so generous to them.

Really.

Even though all of our rulers subscribe to this nonsense, for if they don't they will be replaced pronto, it's time for the People to go beyond challenging it politely. The rigors that are being imposed on the "lesser people" to pay for the continuing economic errors of their betters have long since reached the point where struggles are severe for more and more millions all the time. The economic situation of the many is not getting better. It's getting worse.

Statistics, however, have been routinely massaged and manipulated to hide what is really going on. For example, it's only recently been noticed -- statistically -- that Americans' incomes have been falling. Why might that be? Simple: the highest incomes have not been falling; they've been increasing. Ordinary Americans' incomes have been falling. But when you factor the two together, overall income has been "stable" or even from time to time "increasing" -- when for most workers, no such thing is the case. It's just the opposite. And for many workers, incomes haven't fallen a little bit -- like the 5% or 6% that is only now being reported. They have fallen a full 50% and more for many.

Unemployment is much higher than reported (essentially the real unemployment figure is about double the rate reported) because the official figures only include those who fit very strict criteria and ignore most others.

Unemployment insurance is often seen as something keeping millions out of poverty -- but it always represents at least a 50% reduction in income. And at any given time half or more of the unemployed don't qualify for any benefits at all.

And all the time, while incomes are falling and wealth is disappearing from the middle and working classes at an alarming rate, prices for basic goods and services are increasing at an even faster rate. Prices for food and fuel, clothing, utilities and rent are going up quickly, while the ability of Americans to pay increased costs for these essentials is declining. Consequently household debt is increasing as more and more people try to get by as best they can by accumulating more debt. Supposedly, the savings rate is much higher now than it was during the latest round of our Bubble Economy, but those who can save are fewer in number, and their situation is generally much better than those who can't save.

As a practical matter, declining living standards are being imposed, slowly but rigorously on the majority, yet cruelly and swiftly on many Americans nevertheless.

Strangely, the Highest of the Mighty are doing very well for themselves, better in many cases than they ever have. They are showered with money -- which they then hoard -- by the government and the Federal Reserve. They are given every possible tax break and debt relief imaginable. They are curried and favored to a fare thee well by policy-makers, and their demands are acted on with alacrity while the situation of the masses continues to decline, the Chicago Boys continue to say there is nothing that can be done about it, and masses will just have to suck it up.

The policies being proposed and enacted in state houses and the federal government are ensuring that this situation continues indefinitely. Which is of course exactly the program the Chicago Boys have been advocating for decades.

The People, in other words, have no voice whatever in what's going on. And it's not just here. It's around the world.

Never in history have so few been able to steal so much from so many and call it God's Will.

Any conscious observer has got to be sickened by it.

The economic solution is straightforward and simple:

Provide paid work to everyone who wants to work and can work; most employment will be in the public or non profit sector, much of it will involve public works, neglected public infrastructure, and community service.

Provide immediate and substantial household debt relief. (I have recommended $80-100,000 per household) In lieu of debt relief, for those households with minimal debt, provide a substantial sum of money (or subsidy) specifically for the purchase of fuel efficient vehicles, energy efficient appliances, alternative energy equipment, and energy saving retrofitting of residences.

Impose a transaction tax on stock and similar trades and impose a heavy speculation tax to discourage speculators and make stock transactions pay some of their social costs.

Impose a substantial estate tax.

Lift the cap on the Social Security payroll tax.

Reduce the retirement age to 60 and then to 55.

Increase Social Security benefits substantially.

Provide Medicare-like health insurance benefits to everyone.

End the drug war, and reduce the prison population. Forbid private prisons.

Reform public education to control over-administration and provide sufficient funding for public education.

Strictly control the derivatives market.

Nationalize the banks.

End foreclosures now.

End Imperial Wars of Aggression now.
--------------------------------------------
The policies that have been adopted by Our Rulers approximate the opposite course of action with predictable results.

Now, someone is getting rich off the persistence of the Endless Recession, make no mistake.

And the People are being impoverished, by policy from the top.

At some point, they will revolt.

But in the meantime, a lower level of consumption does not necessarily equate to a lower standard of living. We do have to become accustomed to making do with less, but at the same time, that doesn't mean that the people must be forced into poverty so that the rich may continue to enjoy levels of luxury unheardof a generation ago.

We are transitioning from a consumption-driven economy to something else, something like a subsistence economy but with extraordinary levels of technology. It doesn't have to be a bad thing.

But the current regime that essentially hands everything over to those on the top of the heap today cannot be sustained into the future. At least I would like to think that Americans won't stand for it.

Governing Contrary

"Meddy, Meddy, quieet contreddy, houw des uer gahdden gdreuw?

In all the hysteria over the Debt Crisis Crisis and the Deal, one thing is startlingly clear: Washington is so divorced from We, the People that it is institutionally incapable of addressing or even acknowledging the People's Will or the Public Interest -- except inversely.

The fashion is to govern exactly contrary to the People's Will and the Public Interest, and at this point in history, there is no way for governments in the United States or pretty much anywhere in the developed West to do otherwise.

This fashion for governing contrary to the People's Will and the Public Interest seemed to get going in earnest during the premiership of Maggie Thatcher in Britain, and it then became the style of the Reagan Administration in Washington (of course he'd done it to a certain extent previously as Governor of California, but it was actually somewhat subtle and much more deceptive than the Thatcher way. That's another discussion altogether, though.) By degrees, Governing Contrary became the operating theory of government throughout the West: whatever the People wanted or the Public Good needed, Government would do the opposite -- because that's what would inevitably enhance the wealth and power of the favored few.

And so it has been, relentlessly, for decades, so much so that many people have come to accept it as natural.

Since they've known nothing else their entire lives, why wouldn't they?

"Government is the problem, not the solution." And if the Government looks like it might be the Solution, then make it the Problem. Simple.

Make most people distrust government instinctively; make it harder and harder for them to participate in democracy; falsify "democracy" through media; make more and more ridiculous rules; make much more draconian punishments for more and more intrusive and incomprehensible laws; set trade policies that destroy industry and jobs at home; "liberate" the economy so that one bubble after another can be inflated and then deflated, thus providing the periodic illusion of "opportunity" for the masses, while ensuring that each time the bubble deflates, the proles are pillaged more comprehensively for the benefit of the Overclass; conduct wars of aggression overseas, institute an aggressive security apparat at home; put everything on credit.

This is what governments in the West have been doing for decades, led by the examples in the United States and Britain, under both Democratic (Labour) and Republican (Tory) administrations, one of which might be slightly less harsh in its Contrariness than the other, but both of which operate on the same principle of Governing Contrary to the People's Will and the Public Interest.

Nothing at all seems to move them from their course, and one catastrophe after another is simply an excuse to increase the level of Governing Contrariness.

So what do you do about it?

So far, nothing tried has even come close to working. No public argument, tumult, uprising or revolution has managed to alter the course of governments obsessed with operating contrary to the People's Will and the Public Interest anywhere... except, perhaps, to an extent in Latin America for a brief period after the horrors of the Reactionary/Fascist Period and its numerous civil wars wound down.

If we really want to overcome the fashion of Governing Contrary, it might help to understand what gave rise to it in the first place, and why it was adopted by both "liberal" and "conservative" governments throughout the West almost without exception as the General Rule of Government.

That will require a whole other exploration.

And Another Thing.

Prominent "progressive" blogger Steve Benen writes:

On the debt ceiling, Dems are willing to accept a trade-off — they’ll accept spending cuts in exchange for at least a little new revenue. That, to them, seems fair. Indeed, it’s probably too fair — in the last 80 years, no party has ever had to pay a ransom to get a party to do their duty.

Eric Cantor has a very different idea about the nature of the process. They see an alternative trade-off — the GOP will accept spending cuts, and in exchange, they won’t deliberately destroy the economy.

Dems are willing to accept concessions to strike a deal. Republicans are willing to not shoot their hostage in the head in exchange for Dems giving the GOP what it wants.

The former is an example of a party negotiating in good faith. The latter is an example of reckless thugs pretending to be a political party.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_07/cantor_conspicuous_confusion_o030791.php

This whole thing is being argued from the wrong premise. Note the bolded part of the excerpt from Washington Monthly above. "... and in exchange, they [the Rs] won't deliberately destroy the economy."

What's wrong with this premise and argument?

Simply this: the "economy" is already destroyed. For millions upon millions of Americans, more each and every day, there is no going back to an economy that used to be, there are no jobs, there is no security in even the basics and necessities of living. Poverty and homelessness are growing at a time when social services have already been cut to the bone or eliminated altogether.

The Rs, just like the Ds, are captive to the forces that deliberately -- or was it purely an accident? -- destroyed the economy. The Rs are not agreeing to accept massive additional cuts in government spending in exchange for not destroying what's already destroyed. They are demanding massive additional cuts in government spending because they can and because they have a Partner in the White House.

Failure to raise the debt ceiling will most certainly make a very difficult economic situation worse for the vast majority of people -- oh well, too bad so sad -- but it will make the economic situation of those who own and control both political parties and their apparatchiks thrilled and delighted. It will not destroy their economy. Hell no. It will plump up their bottom line. All those hideous consequences we keep hearing about: higher interest rates, for example, don't hurt the bond-holders and coupon clippers, do they? Of course not, don't be silly.

The Rs aren't promising not to make things worse for the masses. The cuts in government spending themselves will make things worse for the masses, guaranteed. There is no question of it. EVERYONE KNOWS things will get worse for the many while they will get better for the few, no matter what is done under any of the current scenarios.

How much worse, and only that, is being argued by the High and the Mighty, not whether more millions of Americans will be forced into poverty. That's a given.

If we really don't want that to happen, then we have to argue from a completely different premise, one that recognizes that both parties are fully on board with the premise that imposing as much hardship on the American People as they can get away with is what they are doing and what they intend to do for the indefinite future. The "economy" is already destroyed for the masses. Nothing either party is proposing can or will restore the "economy" for the masses. Not gonna happen.

If we truly want a vibrant economy to be restored for the masses, we will have to do it outside the political process -- a process that is intent on ensuring that the common people's economy is never restored.

Got it? Good.

The New Normal Ain't What We Thought It Would Be

The local PBS station has been running a BBC series on NASA and the early days of the Space Program called "The Space Age: NASA's Story." (Yes, we're very deluxe here now. We have some broadcast TeeVee, meaning lots of PBS and Religion stations. Amazing.) It's a remarkable series in part because it is so fascinatingly able to evoke the spirit of an Era of Endless Possibility that is now long gone. An era so distant in the past now, it's like it never existed. It's all a myth, isn't it?

As if there never was a Space Program and Mankind never went into space. Or if it happened, it was just a Big Mistake. Never mind.

Isn't that something?

What with millions of Americans being forced into poverty every year of this Endless Recession, and millions of Europeans being forced into poverty every year, and millions of Arabs and other Muslims not only being forced into poverty but being subject to random Death From Above thanks to an extensive American drone program, and millions of Russians long since forced into poverty and on and on, all to pay off the gambling debts of a number of high flying private sector financial interests, the Future Americans and Europeans and Russians once thought would be theirs is now barely even a memory.

Space? Who cares? How about a little more interest in what goes on down here on Earth?

Paying off the gambling debts of financiers at 100% is more important to our governments than anything else in the whole wide world, and they choose to pay those debts on behalf of the financiers at the expense of the People, and without the consent of the People.

Naturally enough, this is a somewhat volatile situation, which apparently Our Rulers are aware of, but for which they seem to have no effective answer apart from outright repression.



What's going on in Greece is very dramatic to be sure, but it is merely a heightened version of what has been going on in much of Europe for months, even years. The public is up in arms -- well, unarmed, but that's another issue -- over the draconian impositions and cutbacks required by the EuroBanksters. The People are up in arms because they know full well that the Banksters are demanding full payment (with interest) from them for losses the Banksters incurred through their own gambling obsessions and addictions. The People are up in arms because their Future is being stolen from them right before their eyes with the full complicity of their nominally "Socialist" governments.

It seems to be dawning on the truly frightfully stupid and greedy Powers That Be that squeezing the People endlessly in order to fill the coffers of the Banksters in perpetuity may have a Downside that ought to be considered. Austerity for the People may not be the answer to the Banksters' dilemma, though they still call for it in unison, not only in Europe but everywhere in the West.

In the East, particularly in India and China, not so much. Not yet, anyway.

The People are seeing all of their governments in total thrall to a handful of financial interests, without the slightest concern for the interests of the People. Governments all over the West simply ignore the People and their OUTRAGE!!!!™ at being constantly pillaged and plundered and impoverished to serve the Banksters and their pecuniary demands.

This is quite a different situation than any of us -- that is, the Common Folk -- could have anticipated even as recently as two years ago. It's certainly not the Future any of us believed would come about through our hard work and dedication.

One of the things I think many of the Common Folk realize is that our hard work and dedication has already paid for the Better Future we... thought... would be ours, and that Future has been... stolen... by a handful of incredibly stupid and incredibly greedy individuals (think Enron on a global scale) who are convinced they are Smart and Generous to a Fault, and that all wealth and the fruits of other people's labors are theirs by right.

The problem, as always, is that the People do not know what to do about it, and they are very reluctant to take on the additional risk of doing anything about it when they are being pillaged.

The people (and dogs!) in the streets of Greece -- and elsewhere in Europe and the Middle East -- are taking those risks in part because they have little or nothing left to lose. Not only is their Future gone, their present is being squandered and shuttered, and their history is being sold off for pennies. All to pay off the gambling debts of a handful of Banksters.

Meanwhile, Mother Nature seems to be knocking on the door. Fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and droughts should be reminders of just how puny our little lives really are in the face of the Omnipotence of Nature.

Then there are the nuclear meltdowns and what have you.

The question is, who will understand what's happening better and sooner?

The Second Bill of Rights

Every now and then I mention that the "left's" approach to the situation we face is out of whack when the primary objective seems to be preserving what can be preserved of the status quo in the face of the Rightist Republican onslaught.

Rather than even think of New and Improved policies of their own, the tendency on the "left"* is to argue the demerits of the Rightist proposals, and then lose the argument in Congress and the media, then repeat the process over and over again, and then complain that the debate is always being moved rightward, and it's just not fair.

Well, no. No it isn't. Fair, that is. But I would suggest that the reason why the debate keeps moving rightward is because so many times the "left" never even tries to move it in the other direction. They always fall into an Argument Trap which requires a dutiful reflection and consideration on the Rightist's proposals which always uses the Rightist's premises as the starting point. There may be a routine denunciation or two thrown in, but nine times out of ten, the Argument Trap the "left" finds itself in is inescapable: the Rightists have proposed something which the "left" is then obliged to argue. The "left" rarely proposes anything but is constantly arguing against the Rightist's proposal and in favor of the status quo.

There is no possibility of progress under the circumstances. Reversion is inevitable.

The Rightists seem to know that -- which is one reason they tend to chortle as much as they do at the antics of the "left."

Democratic leaders and online "leftists" never seem to get it, or if they do, they do so on Rightist terms. Which means going along with the Rightists.

It reminds me a little bit of the Civil Liberties struggles that crop up from time to time. The course of events is moving many primary civil liberties backwards at a furious pace. The Bill of Rights is essentially a dead letter, for example. The Constitution itself is under fierce legislative, executive and judicial assault. No matter; the Civil Liberties crowd sees incremental improvements here and there, particularly in gay rights these days, and that's enough to demonstrate "progress." The overall picture of course shows plenty of progress, just in the wrong direction. While valiantly hanging on to what they can of the tattered shreds and remnants of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the Civil Liberties crowd is losing the overall and long-term battle for rights and liberties for the masses -- which are being canceled wholesale at home and abroad in the name of "Security" -- aka "Freedom and Democracy." One should be stunned...

That's why The Second Bill of Rights is a necessary way of looking at things; otherwise we will constantly be moving backwards on important economic and political matters without even recognizing there is another way to go.



There are two versions of FDR's Second Bill of Rights speech posted here -- the first is his Fireside Chat from January 11, 1944, in which he details the economic issues the world and the nation will face as the Second World War is brought to a conclusion; in the second film version of the speech, he is focused more on the elements of social/economic justice than the larger picture. It's also pretty plain on film that Roosevelt is showing signs of extraordinary strain and stress.

In his radio speech, FDR mentions the "rightist reaction." Indeed, it is always trying to drive us backwards, and he says that going back to the way things were in the 1920's is a sure recipe for the triumph of Fascism.

Sure enough, here we are.

But unless you are prepared and able to think outside the Reactionary Rightist parameters you are doomed to going backwards -- where they want to take you.

It's not so much the elements of FDR's Second Bill of Rights that I'm focusing on (though they are important basics); it is the way of thinking and looking at problems and issues that's important in these times.

Social and economic justice are not side issues to be dealt with on the margins. They are the primary issues for most people. It's fundamental for opinion leaders in media -- new media included -- and in the ruling class to get that.

But nearly all of them have forgotten -- if they ever knew anything about such icky things in the first place.

--------------------------

Note: Republicans and Libertarians tend to go into fits of incoherent rage whenever the topic of The Second Bill of Rights is raised, or for that matter whenever economic and social justice threaten to rise from the dead and become paramount concerns once again.

One might want to contemplate why Republicans and Libertarians are so threatened by economic and social justice issues, and who they actually represent.

The California Experiment

It looks like California will seriously buck the national electoral trend by putting all statewide offices in the hands of Democrats (first time since Gray Davis was re-elected) and maintain the current Dem/R split in the House of Representatives. Even Jerry McNerney, who was long ago written off, is likely to win his conservative district.

The Republican "Wave" didn't even reach the Sierras, let alone the Tehachapis. Harry Reid (another supposed Dead Man Walking) was re-elected in Nevada.

At the same time, Californians should watch their backs. Dems had full control in New Mexico until this election, for example, and they blew it bad by using their power and position to enhance and protect the well-off by putting the majority of the costs of wealth protection on the backs of workers and the poor. Consequently, a lot of Dems were thrown out of office. What a surprise. Dems who act like Rs will be replaced with Rs. The saving grace in NM is that Rs tend not to be the kind of batshit lunatics that infest neighboring Arizona. (Not to say they aren't eccentric...)

California returned Jerry Brown to the Governor's Corner Office, after a hiatus of 28 years, trouncing eMeg so severely I doubt she'll show her false smile in public again. Barbara Boxer did likewise to Carly Fiorina though by not quite so wide a margin. The media made it seem like these contests were much closer than they actually were, but then that's their job, making book on political horseraces and getting the rubes to buy in to the spread.

As for Jerry Brown himself, it would be a mistake to think of him as some sort of kindly (if crotchety) Zen-Master/Liberal. Whatever he does to address the gargantuan and continuing budget mess in California, he won't be nice about it. Nor will he address it in koans. From all appearances, he will address it directly, forcefully, and take everybody to the woodshed for being profligate and fools. Including the Rich.

The Schwarzenegger Experiment has been a dismal failure, despite all the high hopes of his ascension. It didn't work out... at all. Not through lack of trying, except for the fact that Schwarzenegger also had a Protect the Rich at all costs program. Otherwise, Schwarzenegger was as engaged in trying to correct the problems of California as anyone has been. He couldn't figure out what to do.

Brown may not be able to solve it, either. And California may be truly ungovernable from this point onwards. But Californians were clearly showing wisdom to give him the reins rather than eMeg. The last thing California needs at this point is more "help" from the Billionaire Boyz (or Girlz) Club.

If the past is any guide, California will become, by default, the leader in finding and applying solutions to the ongoing political/economic catastrophe that has engulfed the nation.

Whatever the case: Expect the unexpected. It's the New Normal.

Trade-offs

In all the verbiage spilled over the Tedious Little Peckerhead, Rand Paul of Kentucky, one of the things that pops out at me about Libertarians as a class and Puritans in general is a complete failure to recognize that living in a civilized -- or even just a civil -- society involves trade-offs.

As the poet put it:

You can't always get what you want...

People who have adapted to living in a civil society accept that as a fundamental tenet. You can't always get what you want, and there are always trade-offs -- sometimes ugly ones -- in establishing and maintaining relatively peaceful and mutually rewarding civic, social, and economic conditions.

And if you try sometime you find you get what you need...

The example that is the focus of the current controversy over Rand Paul is that of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which no one under 40 is thoroughly cognizant of on the one hand, and people over 60 still remember the struggles over it as if they were yesterday. The measure is that important to the way society in this country functions, and it took major upheavals and some very bold leadership in Washington, in the States, and at the local levels to get from where we were in matters discriminatory to where we are.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the subsequent civil rights and voting rights legislation undid the strange and twisted Apartheid state that Jim Crow legislation and long-time social custom had imposed -- and not just in the South.

It was as radical a transformation of American society as there has ever been, and its effects appear to be lasting and profound. At least so far as we know, most Americans under 40 wouldn't even dream of reverting to the Jim Crow past, not even in the Heart of Dixie. The idea is absurd to them. They've seen a couple of generations of relatively peaceful, more or less racially integrated living, and the genuine liberation of all sorts of groups, including women, from the restrictions of a straight-laced discriminatory and overtly oppressive white male privilege society.

There's no going back.

But we didn't get where we are without some pretty heavy, and to some extent catastrophic, trade-offs.

We should be discussing those trade-offs much more than we are.

Jim Crow wasn't overcome without a massive trade off. The United States is now a prison society, incarcerating and adjudicating the lives millions upon millions of Americans. Approximately one in three black men being ground up in the prison state mechanisms. Liberation for all has meant imprisonment for many.

This trade off has devastated black families.

The liberation of women from the home has come with a trade off: the stagnation of worker wages over generations. It now takes two workers -- instead of ordinarily one -- for typical households to support families in a comfortably modest lifestyle.

We could go on and on with examples of trade offs for liberation, and we should recognize that both "liberated" society and oppressive, discriminatory society involve trade-offs, and we should recognize what they are and evaluate their social, economic, and political worth.

For example, is the trade-off of living in a prison society like we do right or just or necessary in order to implement the "equal rights for all" premise that underlies civil rights legislation?

Do we have to have the Drug War, "fought" primarily against black and brown men, in order to overcome the racial fears and animosities of a shrinking middle class?

Does liberation of women require flattening and eventually reducing household living standards?

Puritans and libertarians don't accept trade-offs in their pursuit of Liberation to do what they want, when and how they want, with no regard for others if they don't choose to have such regard. They are would-be petty tyrants within their own spheres, which they would endeavor to increase as much as possible. They don't accept trade-offs; it's their way or no way. However, adopting their political, social and economic determinism would mean certain very obvious trade-offs that most rational people reject out of hand. Accepting Puritan/Libertarian "liberation" means the vast majority would be subject to outright and potentially very fierce tyranny.

The Puritan/Libertarian Motto: "I demand the Liberty to impose my Authority on you." The only way the tiny faction of Puritan/Libertarians can have their "Liberty" is by imposing their Tyranny on everyone else.

Which is their goal.

No wonder most people reject it.

On the other hand, there is not nearly enough discussion and consideration of the trade-offs that have been made in order to secure the Blessings of Liberty implicit in the concept of Equal Rights for All.

That's where social, economic and political discussion needs to go.

And I went down to the demonstration
To get my fair share of abuse
Singing, "We're gonna vent our frustration
If we don't we're gonna blow a 50-amp fuse"
Sing it to me now...

[NB: I have seen the Rolling Stones... but I have never seen... "Glee" ]

Confidence Game

Now, there will be all kinds of explanations for what has happened to the Financial Markets and Why the Bailout Isn't Working. But perhaps the best explanation I've heard so far has come from "This American Life" on NPR.

The System is a Confidence Game, a Protection Racket, a Ponzi Scheme, and the System failed because it's based on nothing but what can be squeezed from "below." And when "below" ain't got nothin', or it seems like it, Boom Goes the Dynamite, and it all falls to pieces.

That's what happened.

The massive infusion of money from the Treasury in the end will not affect the outcome measurably at all. The Game itself has stopped. Or at least the portion of it that the cash infusion is supposed to "help."

Parts of the Financial System are still working. Loans are still being made, credit is still available and the wheels of industry are still idly turning (not that we have much industry left). Some of the price inflation that has made people's lives so miserable has mitigated. What collapsed was not at the root of the System of Finance and Capital but was on the margins, in all those strange derivatives and credit default swaps and what have you, margins that were pumping lots and lots of essentially bogus and worthless "value" into the System, through a Protection Racket and a Con Game. Lots of workers in the Financial field got rich playing this game, and of course they didn't want it to stop.

But it had to. And when it did, POOF! All that "value" that was never really there in the first place, disappeared. And lots of people in the Financial Industry started screaming. The Bailout/Extortion was designed to prop up the marginal Phony Value sector until the most of the players had a chance to get out of it. It's not just too little too late, though. All these marginal products had become disbursed throughout the System, padding bottom lines here, there and everywhere. All this toxicity needs to be removed through some sort of purge of the System. The Extortion Scheme is supposed to buy up all the toxicity and remove it in an orderly manner. But because of the way things are mixed up in the System, that may be easier said than done. There may be a lot of failures of "fundamentally sound" institutions because the toxicity can't be separated any more.

This may be why the Graybeards and Wise Guys who run the System have been reluctant about or resistant to the notion of actually helping out at the bottom of this teetering pyramid of debt, by helping homeowners who are facing foreclosure. The foreclosure and subprime crisis has been going on for years. Millions upon millions of homes purchased in the last few years have been seized and families forced out of what they thought were their homes. It's tempting to blame them and ignore the elements above them in the System that caused the problem in the first place. But the reluctance of the System to help them in this crisis -- and there is certainly no urgency whatever to assist homeowners in a bind -- seems to have more to do with the fact that the System doesn't see the problem in foreclosures. In other words, it's never been about those subprime mortgages. In fact, the majority of those allegedly "toxic" mortgages are still performing fine.

The problem -- as far as the Wise Guys are concerned -- is well above the individual mortgage level and the value of individual properties. They really don't care what happens at that level. If it mattered to them, they would have called for intervention long ago.

No, the problem is all the "Protection" that's been sold and re-sold based on artificial and inflated values (not just mortgage and real estate values), "Protection" that is essentially worthless.

THAT'S what the problem is, that's what the Extortion is being demanded to cover.

There isn't enough money in any combination of treasuries to do it. Since it was all based on fantasy -- if not outright fraud -- anyway, the notion of covering these bets out of tax revenues (or more borrowing) gets into realms of faith and belief that beggar description.

So.

It seems that the Masters of the Universe are trying to use the Hooverite pre-Great Depression methods to prop up the System, by covering some of the bets at the top of the teetering pyramid, and they will find (like Hoover did) that it doesn't work. It makes things worse. This time, though, the Masters have convinced themselves that it will work.

It's way too late to prevent the Finance System's problems, but it may not be too late to shift the focus from the "top", however.

As has been pointed out, some of the System, the traditional loan and credit portions of the System that don't rely on all the toxic products for "value," are working more or less well. There is some difficulty in some sections, but be wary of the auto industry's plaints, for example. They are claiming they can't get loans to purchase inventory on the one hand, but on the other hand, they're saying their showroom traffic is down by half or more. And they are trying to make out that the customer can't get loans, which isn't exactly true. The dealers can't get loans for inventory purchases. But they can't sell the inventory right now anyway. So what are so fretful about? They don't need the inventory. They can't sell it. Nobody is in the market for a new car right now.

So it is with many of the businesses claiming inability to get credit. It doesn't mean that credit isn't tighter than it was; it's just that things are not necessarily as bad as some of the louder voices want to make out.

Which doesn't mean they won't get much worse.

The focus has to shift from the "top." The Masters of the Universe got their demands met, more or less, but it won't do them much good. If the masses are unable to buy and sell and live relatively decently because they can't get jobs or they don't have homes, or whatever the case may be, then all the fussing over and currying of the Masters isn't going to make much difference. Attention has to shift immediately to the conditions ordinary people are facing -- should have actually been focused there all along -- and efforts to increase employment, fund infrastructure, energy transition, health care and education, and any number of domestic priorities has to enter the equation. Incomes for the masses have to rise, and those of the rich have to fall.

Fundamental to what needs doing is the revival of the notion of Public Interest, and Public Good.

When we get to that point, then we'll know the Reagan Revolution is well and truly over.

Ah, the Pause that Refreshes!

Image: World War I Color Photos

So the Senate passed the Bailout, 74-25, their usual count on Important Issues, and this Christmas Tree of a bill will now go to the House, where something like it will be passed, and then it will go to conference committee, where something closer to the original Paulson Plan will emerge, to be quickly approved by both houses, and thence to the President's Desk, where he will sign it, and append a Signing Statement that will get it right back to the beginning and the Extortion will be paid.

Whew!

We know the way these things go.

Always.

Of course with President Barack they won't go that way, but that's different. All of a sudden, the right wing authoritarians who have been backing every Constitution shredding action of the Bushevik Regime will rediscover that tattered parchment, and amazingly will insist on Adherence ThereUnto, without let or hindrance, and the Dems, being Dems, will say "Uh, OK."

And for years nothing will really get done at all in Congress, and the Presidency will not be used in its current Autocratic Mode, but will be quiet and persusasive and try to convince recalcitrant Republicans to do what is best for the Public Interest.

So obviously, nothing will get done at all.

Despite constant and enormous crisis from every direction. If things continue on their current path, it could well be that the Natives Around the World will commence to throw off the Yoke of Hegemony, assert their own Public Interest with people like Putin and Morales and Chavez -- among many others -- to lead them on their way to Freedom, Justice and Dignity.

It would seem that Osama's Plan is working just fine.

And why in the course of these recent events was the focus once again on the Duality of either going along with the Paulson Plan or Doing Nothing? Have they learned nothing during the disasters of the past eight years? The choice is not limited to something terrible or doing nothing at all. And yet that all our Ruling Class seems to be able to see. Ever.

And so... The Decline continues.

Welcome to America.

[Followup: The House passed the Senate bill without amendment, so there was no conference committee. Bush signed it, so far without a signing statement. Clearly all that Treasury and the White House wanted was authorization to spend the money, and they got that. Everything else was just decor. Something needs to be emphasized: the process in Congress and through to the signing was just the way the legislative process is supposed to happen. Except for one thing: the People were and are deeply, fundamentally opposed to this measure. Consequently, the Congress, though following set procedure, and pretending to act in the interests of the public studiously ignored them, except on Monday when the House rejected the bill. But the conclusion was foregone. There was no chance at all that the Congress would reject the White House demands in the end. No matter what the People wanted. Which, in essence, is about as perfect a deonstration of the corruption and futility of our legislative process as you could want. -- Ché]

Fear! Terror! Pestilence! Panic! -- Holding Pattern

Have a refreshment while awaiting the Senate's pleasure.

As I have repeatedly said, there is not a whit of doubt in my mind that the extortion will be paid in full, probably with interest, and there is nothing whatsoever that the People can do to stop it.

As the WSJ econ reporter said on NPR this morning, it'll only take a call from banker or two from each district where a rep voted against the bail out to convince the obstreperous Congressmember to fall in line. There will be a bail out.

And the common wisdom is that, yes, the bad actors who have been so very bad up till now will get even richer. And there is nothing you can do about it. It's the way the world works. And if you're lucky, you'll be permitted to survive. So suck it up. Keep your trap shut.

Anti-populism is all the rage among the movers and the shakers. They were, apparently, stunned that the Rs -- their reliable servants -- went all populist on Monday and voted against paying the extortion. So now there is a full-court press throughout the media and the Ruling Class to denounce populism in all its forms and to "educate" the public about what's at stake here: your survival, in a very literal sense, not the subsidy to the rich. They're gonna get richer no matter what happens to you. But if you don't go along with the payoff, you can kiss your sorry ass good bye.

The Senate bill supposedly increases deposit insurance to $250,000 per account (for one year), extention of numerous business tax breaks, and a "fix" to the alternative minimum tax. These tweaks are intended to make the bill palatable to recalcitrant Republicans in the House. Meanwhile, Blue Dog Dems are against these proposals because they increase the deficit. So the Senate bill's provisions may force more Dems to vote against it, thus stalemating again.

At no time, whatever, is there any mention or "serious" consideration of the Progressive Caucus' proposal, nor is there any mention in the media of all the warnings and dissents from leading economists.

Our world is ruled by neo-conmen, Republicans and Blue Dogs.

Buddy, can ya spare a dime?

Rise Up!

Yves Larock - Rise Up
Uploaded by Yves-Larock

It's hard.

Americans aren't used to fighting wealth and power. They got out of the habit. They became convinced the rich and the powerful were on their side, and if they worked hard and played the game right, they'd be protected and they'd be taken care of; why they might even get rich themselves. Or at least reasonably well off.

Live like this:



Of course the middle class has been losing ground in the economy since the advent of the Reagan Revolution. Don't even talk about the increasingly desperate state of the poor.

Tent cities are springing up all over the country as those who are forced out of their homes -- or never had homes to begin with -- make do with whatever they can.



Tell me again why America's richest should be "bailed out" -- ie: given many billions more dollars to spend on themselves, now that the good times of endless pillage and plunder they became accustomed to are slowing down? Tell me why.

If anybody needs to be bailed out, it's those who are at the bottom and those who are slipping toward the bottom. NOT those at the top.

And yet our rulers and their media agents can't grasp the notion, it simply doesn't register in their consciousness. Since they have no conscience, never did, the idea of providing for the least among us is alien and bizarre.

The only way to make them understand what we MUST do is to RISE UP.

Labor unions are taking the lead, organizing the Wall Street protest linked in the post below, organizing the Golden Gate Bridge march for health care yesterday. It's a start.

Americans have to shut down Wall Street. Shut down the Golden Gate Bridge. Bring Business As Usual to a screeching halt.

It will happen only if enough Americans become fed up enough with the Powers That Be that they not only yell out that they won't take it any more, but they actually demonstrate by their deeds that they won't.

So far, that's a step Americans are not willing to take, but if the economy continues in its death spiral, we might be surprised...

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE - BULLS ON PARADE
Uploaded by hushhush112

No, It's YOUR Fault!!!!!

Even the wingnuts seem to be recognizing that they can't escape the economic whirlwind -- or is it a hurricane -- on the prowl for its pounds of US flesh. While they are still busy claiming to be blameless, as all Republicans always are for everything, it seems to be dawning on them that they can't run from whatever consequences are on the way. And they can't tax Libruls enough to save their own behinds.

It boils down to a matter of taxation and who will be stuck with the ultimate bill and how. Because we are going into a "socialistic" phase (call it National Socialism, Nazi, if you prefer, since everything is coming from Above, nothing being generated from Below, and to date it is all a matter of fusing government and corporate interests) all these bailouts and all of them yet to come will ultimately be paid for through 1) inflation, 2) taxation, 3) continued seizures of resources domestically and overseas.

If there were any real Socialism involved, of course, the Mighty Rich would be forced to pay a punative level of taxation, basically confiscatory of everything they've gained in the last decade or so. Any income over say a million a year would be taxed at 90% or more. Capital gains over a certain amount likewise. Oh, most of the wealthy would still be wealthy, but they would not be able to profit from the economic conditions immediately preceeding the current mess, and won't be able to profit from what's to come, at least not in the short term.

If there were any real Socialism involved, then the people with mortgages scheduled to "reset" -- ie: increase interest rates -- to an unaffordable level would have their mortgage interest rates frozen until such time as the mortgage could be refinanced through a government program that stabilizes interest rates at a reasonable level (say no more than 6% or 7%) for up to 50 years, and returns up to 50% of any gains in real estate value to the government. That way, at least for the time being, most of the families living in houses which might soon be foreclosed upon will have a reprieve, and those who are able to make reasonable mortgage payments will keep their homes, thus stablilizing the housing market. (Note: It's been claimed that most of the millions of foreclosures so far have been on speculator and investor owned properties and that "real families" haven't been forced out of their homes, at least not in any great number. That's a nice claim. I'd like to see the facts.)

If there were any real Socialism involved, the banks and financial institutions who participated in the gaming of the real estate market would be forced to eat their losses, and yet they would not be allowed to fail without provision of alternative banking/financial institutions. Investors and stockholders would lose their gains over the past decade or so, but that would not necessarily mean they would "reset" to zero.

If there were any real Socialism involved, the services provided by Government (which means through general taxation) would include basics like health care and education, social welfare, utilities, clean water, healthy environment, transportation and communications infrastructure, and so on. It's not rocket science, it's all been worked out in great detail over most of the civilized world long since. Americans need to catch up.

The Masters of the Universe want to make it impossible for Americans to catch up to the rest of the world. Given what they are setting out to do right now -- to save their own asses at the expense of everyone else -- they are likely to succeed in the short term.

Americans show no sign, whatever, of bestirring themselves en masse to interfere with the secret plotting and planning going on now to saddle them with gargantuan debt for many generations to come in order to keep the best off among us in wealth and privilege forever. A permanent aristocracy to rule over them is being established as we speak, about which most Americans are completely oblivious.

What are any of us going to do about it?

Most will do nothing at all.

A few -- very few -- still have their monkeywrenches...

IT'S JAMIE GORELICK'S FAULT!!!!!!

She's a WITCH! BURN HER! BURN HER!

Jesus, people. Settle down.

I guess this latest insult to the system has actually goosed the droolies on the right to minimal comprehension that something is actually wrong, and, oh yeah, it's gonna cost them something.

It might even cost them a lot.

The latest bailout of the financial sector, details of which are not available -- and they may never be available to the public -- sounds suspiciously like an effort to suck up and hamstring every bit of slack there is left in both government and private sectors, essentially fully looting the treasury and what solvent banks there are left to prop up the teetering Big Guys at the top.

It's going to cost trillions of dollars America doesn't have any more, and for all intents and purposes may not be able to get. On the other hand, the bailout is being sold as a "profit-making" opportunity. If it pans out, in other words, Americans (exacly who is not specified) could make a handsome profit. A killing as it were. In all these derivatives that are valuless on paper but could turn out to be worth more than is being paid for them. Then again, maybe not. There, full disclosure.

Meanwhile, as always, nothing whatever is available to help the millions who are being forced out of their homes on the basis of fraudulent mortgages and lines of credit they were sold by slick operators, who only wanted to "help." The mortgage crisis has been under way for two full years, and so far, while trillions upon trillions are being pledged to keep all the banks from collapsing, nothing of any consequence can be found to help The People, nor, if the signs are correct, will there be anything whatever, for generations to come.

There will be no "rescue" of Social Security and Medicare, no infrastructure repairs, no alternative energy commitment, no mortgage relief for struggling households, no Universal Health Coverage, nothing. It will not happen; it cannot. All the money, every dime and then some, is being dedicated, bi-partisanly, to "saving" the financial sector. Nothing is left for you, and you and you, and you never deserved it, anyway, ya scum.

Illuminatingly, the People have no voice in what is going on AT ALL. Let's be blunt. Our Representatives in Congress Assembled will studiously avoid any public discussion of what's planned, they wouldn't do it even if it were possible. No, this deal is being hammered out behind closed doors in the dark, and it wouldn't be surprising if what is approved has many secret provisions that no one knows are there except the Adepts.

Many commenters are suggesting that the Deal will in essence strip the power of the purse from the Congress, though that may be a stretch. The thinking is that the banking system and the executive branch of the government (the Autocracy) will become fused, and the banks and the Treasury will operate independently of any petty "taxes" and "appropriations" the ridiculous "Congress" wishes to implement or impose. Could be. Remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, no help for the struggling masses.

You can be sure of it.

IT'S JAMIE GORELICK'S FAULT!!!!!!

$12 Gas? Could be...

CNBC's report from May 20 is wending its way through the usual channels, raising a few hackles and the hair on the back of more than a few necks, as people begin to ponder how they can afford $4 a gallon to their Monster Trux and SUVs on the road. They were just getting used to paying $120 to fill up, now it's $150, and at $12 a gallon, they're looking at $450 to fill their Guzzler DeLuxe tank.

Lifestyles are changing as we watch.

Well, the price of regualr gas went to $4.17.9 a gallon at the Shell station on the corner, the highest price I've seen so far anywhere in town, and there were plenty of Guzzlers filling up when I passed by this evening. My own discount station down the street is holding the line at $3.99.9 for now, but how much longer will that last? I would bet not through next week, so I'll probably fill up the van, which I only drive once or twice a month, just in case. We have a little Pontiac Sunfire for most driving needs, and I find plenty of excuses not to drive, though I have to do some driving for my job.

Many people have taken to their bikes. So many, in fact, the surface streets are becoming clogged with bicyclists who are fairly unfamiliar with the rules of the road and for the time being are hazards to themselves and others. But I suspect they will sort themselves out quickly enough.

If gas does go to $12, fueled by the collapse of the dollar, massive speculation and bubble fever (because that's what's driving so much of inflation and economic misery right now), what could happen? The strain on the already thoroughly strained economy would potentially trigger a meltdown like we haven't seen since the Great Depression.

There might be no way to prevent that anyway, but the question is, what Americans do about it? For several years now there have been rising rates of foreclosures totalling millions annually, and yet despite some news stories about the plight of foreclosed homeowners, nearly all have simply moved on to who knows where or in what condition. They aren't living on the streets in cardboard boxes or filling the highways in their jalopies. Congress has been loathe and very slow to act. The "housing crisis" gets worse, but nothing really is being done about it (except to bail out the banks) and there is no strong sense of outrage. Not yet. But people have to have some place to live, and I suspect the only thing that's keeping the ranks of the homeless from growing exponentially so far is the overabundance of housing inventory. There's a lot of shuffling going on, but so far not so much complete destitution and dispossession.

Food prices have increased dramatically and are likely to continue to spiral into the stratosphere. People cope as best they can right now by shifting to less expensive foodstuffs, but many have already reached the lower limit, and there is nowhere left to go but to cut back on quantity. That may be a good thing for some folks, but for others it could be deadly.

Household energy prices will continue to rise, squeezing already strapped households even more severely. Something will have to give.

Employment has been flat, wages and salaries flat. In certain sectors, there has been a distinct decline in both wages and employment. This does not bode well for the future.

People on fixed incomes are once again screwed as purchasing power becomes a figment of their imaginations.

Savings -- what savings? -- are wiped out.

So far, our elites have not concerned themselves with this looming crisis because they don't have to. Nothing at all is happening to make their lives any less luxe, and increase in prices so far amounts to little more than the change fallen under the cushions for the rich. Prices rise, prices fall, it makes little difference.

And some prices have fallen so much (such as for homes) that people who have plenty of money are snapping up "bargains" such as they haven't seen in years, decades. Oh joy! Oh rapture!

And the Little People?

Not their time yet.

Not their time.

UPDATE: Whoops! Too late. Went to gas up the van at the discount station down the street this morning thinking they'd still be at $3.99.9 a gallon, regular. But no!

$4.19.9! A 20 cent increase overnight.

The Shell station on the corner is still at $4.17.9 (been there for a week), and the next station down the boulevard is $4.09.9.

UPDATE, LOS DOS: Well. That didn't last long. Regular is now $4.25.9 at the Shell station. Still $4.19.9 at the discount station down the street, and it's now $4.17.9 at the next one further on.

In addition, one 76 station about a mile away is offering diesel #2 at $5.29.9 a gallon.

We're screwed. Way, way screwed.

Toast!

Seems like our perpetually dismal prognosticators (like Uber-Gloom-and-Doomer Bonddad) may get their wish -- or if not a wish, an expectation -- fulfilled. The United States economy may well be headed to a hard landing indeed, perhaps the hardest since 1929-32.

Ooops.

The signs, of course, have long been with us: unsustainable personal and corporate debt, combined with corruption levels not seen since the age of the Robber Barons, combined with war and defense spending that far outstrips anything known during the Cold War, every bit of it financed with borrowed money, borrowed from our friends in China for the most part, paid for with bonds, which now, with the collapse of the dollar on world markets, may be getting close to worthless. Needless to say, our Chinese friends may want some satisfaction.

You know just how serious this economic situation may be when the President Himself is moved to act -- by demanding that Congress pass a Stimulus Package Forthwith, consisting of more tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, and some sort of check or something to the Masses to keep them from revolting outright. You know it is serious when the Presidential Stimulus Package Directive is double that of Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, and almost double that of Populist Presidential Candidate John Edwards. You know it is serious when even Avowed Socialist Candidate Hillary Clinton's Stimulus Package pales in comparison to the Presidential One.

You know it is serious when oil prices have fallen (at least temporarily), and surprisingly and highly uncharacteristically,gasoline prices have fallen somewhat as well. Yes, yes, the claim is made that January gas prices are "always the lowest," though given the way the petroleum markets are manipulated, that's quite an absurd observation. Time of year has been almost completely divorced from consumer petroleum price.

It's serious when banks figure out it is more in their interests to work with mortgage customers than to keep pulling the rug from under them and forcing them into foreclosure.

It's serious when Civil Society in this country begins the process of turning on the predators and looters and plunderers who insist that they have a right to profit no matter what, while the value of Civil Society's holdings plummets.

A 30% drop in real estate sales and values around here (mirrored in many other parts of the country) is starting to cause some sleepless nights among the remnants of the American Bourgeoisie. The report I saw yesterday said that real estate values in California are now about where they were in 2005, before the Boom took off. Those who didn't buy at the inflated prices after 2005 are still sitting relatively pretty, but millions upon millions did buy -- and they were not necessarily fools to do so -- and are now sitting on swiftly depreciating assets.

Unemployment is rising and is expected to keep rising at least through the first quarter of 2008; how convenient for electoral politics. But high unemployment means the economic slump is sent into a worsening spiral. Few people working means less consumer spending, which fuels more unemployment, and so on.

The only bright side right now is that interest rates are not expected to rise. At least not in the short term. They may fall to rates not seen for some time. But the effects of Federal Reserve rate cuts under Bernanke seems to be the opposite of the Greenspan years.

In other words, there may be deeper flaws in the economy than the Usual Actions can remedy.

All of which has long been predicted, but the upshot of the Coming Crash is still a Mystery.

Sara Robinson over at Orcinus has been blogging on the impending 2008 catastrophe since the beginning of the year. She's said quite a bit about it, and the following struck me as key:

The upshot of all this is that we're at a point where it's all up for grabs. When the center fails to hold, the right to define the new reality belongs to whoever can move in their first with a big, compelling idea, and get people to start organizing around it. It's a moment of creative chaos that's bursting with new energy and tremendous potential -- for those who are ready to jump in there and lead.

These have always been the moments when progressives throughout history were able to make their biggest gains -- to seize entire nations, and drag them off in radically new directions. The future belongs to the group that gets there first, with the best plan and the biggest vision. If we miss this one, none of us are likely to live to see another chance like it again.

But, as usual, opportunity comes with the potential for crisis. The churn of change also leads to vast economic and political dislocations that provide perfect conditions for authoritarian movements, too. Alongside all the other problems bearing down on us, that's a very real risk that we need to keep at the front of our minds. If we don't step up and fill that yawning hole with something that brings out the best in people, inspiring them toward hope and progress -- well, then, you can bet that somebody else, selling a very different future, will get there first with something that will bring out the worst, and drive them toward madness and death. Either way, our grandchildren will be living with the consequences a century hence. It's not a moment we can afford to screw up.

As some people have pointed out, the economic mess we're headed into has been predicted for years, and actions to stave off the worst of it have been proposed from the sidelines for as long, but nothing substantive has been done. Awaiting the Presidential Command?

Or is it something else? Some hesitation about getting ahead of any curve, of being out of step with the mainstream, or of not being heard?

Now that government and candidate proposals are out there, they all seem to be too little, way too late, and, unfortunately tilted to saving the rotting asses of corporations and the upper classes while throwing what amount to scraps to the Masses. All dedicated to preserving the Palace Culture and the status quo, even though all of it may be swept away in a tide of Change like we've never seen before.

It's not so much that our Rulers are clueless (which, unfortunately, they are and they demonstrate every day), it is more that they are Rulers, and most of them have no business being in that position.

A Change is [Surely] Gonna Come.



But who will lead it? Or will it come, finally, from The People themselves?

"A Change Gon' Come" is Barack Obama's theme song, and on him has been put the dreams and aspirations of millions of Americans. He speaks such a positive and hopeful message, yet his proposals have a distinctly right wing cast to them, and in that, I see echoes of John F Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt, both of whom ran to the right of their Republican rivals on many issues, won the Presidency, and governed more from the left, especially so in the case of Roosevelt.

Are we about to see it again?