The Riots This Time

They say it's different this time. The uprisings in the cities over the last few days show no signs of abating any time soon. Much damage and destruction so far, but observers say it's just the beginning. The rage has been building for years, the outlets are few, and a lot of people aren't going to take it any more. Well...

Those of us who have been down this road a few times aren't convinced yet that these uprisings will accomplish much in the end, at least not much that we could call positive. You never know, though. We live in interesting times. And chaos has reigned in this country for years. The riots are inevitable given the conditions and situation so many Americans endure. I think our rulers knew, too, that any spark could set off a conflagration.

Well the spark came in Minneapolis with the police murder on video of yet another black man, George Floyd. It was so egregious, I sometimes thought it was a deliberate provocation. The officer knew his actions were being recorded. He knew the video(s) would go viral. He knew he was killing his captive as he witnessed George Floyd's life slipping away beneath his crushing knee. He should have known, and I believe he did know, that his actions would trigger outrage and likely insurrection and riots.

Add in the widespread burden of the virus and economic collapse on marginal communities -- young people, non-white people, poor and near poor people especially in cities, etc -- and the wonder is that it hasn't happened before now.

But it is happening now.

Where and how it will end is anyone's guess.

I could speculate but for now, no. There will be time enough for that.

Be Careful What You Wish For-- the After Labor Day Dread

The media trope that nobody pays attention to much of anything till after Labor Day may be true, I can't say. Summer has never been that much of an "I don't care" season to me, never that much of a vacation, either.

Media's attention, however, is dulled, even absent during the summer. News organizations tend to take weekends off, too, which is why the Friday Night News Dump is so popular among political operatives. Release news on Friday night and no one will see it goes the rationale, and it used to be pretty much true. Something that would be news on any other day of the week isn't all that important news on Friday, Saturday or Sunday because news rooms are shuttered and only a skeleton staff is on duty.

The Russia! Russia! Russia!! Thing has mostly faded away this summer in part, I think, because it hasn't polled well. It's become something of a running joke. I don't doubt there's a there there, and we've already seen a boatload of smoking guns, but they haven't caught on as something to care that much about because ... well, why? Are we just so used to corruption in high places that the in-your-face old-line gangster corruption of the Trump Organization and its collusion with a foreign power for political (and financial) gain in simply taken for granted? Or is it something else.
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I've long been of the opinion that Trump and the Trump Organization are not anomalies. They represent a class of people and enterprise that is common among the High and Mighty. This is who they are, this is what they do, and Trump is not categorically better or worse than any of them. They are gangsters, thieves, mountebanks and con artists.

Our political class has always intersected with them, and sometimes -- like now -- has largely been them. There is little or no moral separation between them.

This is true of our political/ruling class in general. It's no better on one side of the aisle than the other.

We, the Rabble, have little choice in the matter. Voting doesn't really change things, though it can accelerate or retard the rate of looting, pillage, and destruction by the Powers That Be, and it can change the personality of the looters ruling over us.

We're in a situation now where the Looting/Ruling Class sees the looming catastrophe from climate and other environmental changes before them and they... worry.

The Rabble may be pretty well contained by their squabbling among themselves over this and that, everything really, that doesn't really matter (eg: the Nazi/Antifa street theater among so many other Things) but the forces of Nature marshal themselves time and again, and they can't be escaped even by the Highest of the Mighty.

The South Texas Disaster is yet another object lesson among so many this season. The floods there are mild compared to elsewhere. And yet it's a disaster nonetheless with long term consequences as well as short term misery.

What will be done about it? Largely nothing. Not for the Rabble, at any rate. But there will be a sorting and selection process among the People Who Matter, many of whom -- if they haven't already - will abandon the region for somewhere higher and drier, where they can put their bunkers and Be Safe.

I expect to see more of them moving to my area of Central and Northern New Mexico. We already have plenty of The Type. I expect we'll get more.

There are plenty of other nicer -- and safer -- places they can go, and I expect they will, but we won't know about it because it won't be reported by our intrepid media. It's not a Thing like Russia! Russia! Russia!! (Sharks and Missing White Women! Nazis and Antifa!! Oh my!) and media moguls and personalities are making their own survivalist preps anyway.

They'd rather not be caught in either fire or flood, yanno?

People who continue to claim that "nothing has been done" about climate change or population control or whatever are silly. Of course "something has been done," it's just not (quite) enough to make that much of a difference. It never is. In some ways, it can't be "enough" no matter what is done.

The thing is, humans aren't totally in control of the situations they (we) face.

Desire for that control is part of the problem.

There is a greater power than we ourselves.

Oh.

When "we" wish to have power over climate change or population control (of "them" of course, not "us") we're asking for something we can't -- and shouldn't -- have. At least for their part, Our Betters seem to subliminally understand that. However much they see themselves as Masters of the Universe, they self-limit their mastery to money and governing, and they seem to be losing the thread of government.

They don't know what to do. They're too self-obsessed. Ignorant. Uncaring. Mad.

We have to be careful what we wish for. I don't want these monsters ruling us, but at the same time, I haven't seen a better alternative. There are no good monsters, they're all bad each in their own way, and there is no one in the ruling clique that gives a shit about the rest of us. On the other hand, I haven't seen anyone emerge from Below who is capable and brilliant enough to overthrow the ruling clique and do any better.

It's classic rock-hard place dilemma.

Because no one has found a Better Way yet, I'm facing After Labor Day when things get Real again, with an uncommon dread. Our rulers -- especially Himself in the White House -- are itching to prove their bravery -- much as Bush/Cheney back in the day --- and that could only mean war. We're involved in so many of them as it is, and so many die every day under our Imperial Benevolence that adding more death and destruction would seem to be a waste of resources and energy, but it's a target rich environment out there, so Pyongyang or Tehran or wherever better watch out. The itchy trigger finger is on the button, you know?

The street brawls might intensify, though it seems that for the moment, the Nazis are in retreat. We'll see. Meanwhile the mess in Texas gets worse and worse, as flood waters retreat for the moment, and the gawd-awfulness of it all becomes clear. The pollution alone will take generations to clean up -- if it ever is.

And much much more is in store.

If I sometimes go off on seemingly tangential issues, particularly comforting domestic ones, there's a reason. Given everything else that's going on and likely to come, we take comfort where we can.

Be safe, y'all.

On Opposing the Trump Regime

This is getting interesting as various elements and branches of the sitting government go rogue on the President Known As Shit-Gibbon. Apparently a state legislator has used the term on the Twitter Machine, so I guess it's official now. My my. How quickly things have devolved.

I've been paying attention to the permanent and sitting government's response to the chaos and lies of the Trump regime. It matters. They will set the tone for the coming overthrow. I have little to no doubt now that the overthrow will come and it will be greeted with cheers and dancing, and things won't necessarily get better for we the Rabble. I had pegged the end of this regime by the end of the month. May be. We'll see. At the rate things have been moving, however, somewhat more slowly than I figured, the end of the Trump regime may not come until the first of May. But that's just hedging. I don't know, and my ability to predict the future isn't so hot.

The court situation is mirrored in the congress where radical Republicans are eager to emplace a raft of punishment laws that comfort the comfortable and further impoverish or suppress everyone else. They can't help themselves. It's an identity thing with them.

It appears the Trump regime has got a different and far more apocalyptic agenda which will have to be opposed by the congressional Republicans or their own punishment agenda won't be possible. What to do, what to do?

I think Trump is foreshadowing an apocalyptic outcome vis a vis the "travel ban." It was a deliberate provocation, but it's backfired so badly that the Plan B is to engineer some kind of "terror attack" or even falsely declare one has happened (a la the "Bowling Green Massacre" or the "Atlanta Terror Attack"). I don't think these are accidental stumbles. I think they are deliberate and cynical "preparation" for what's to come.

One of the key factors of tyrannical rule is that the rulers dissemble and lie all the time, and they don't care whether you believe them or not. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that enough doubt is generated about what's true and what isn't that the opposition exhausts itself trying to figure it out.

It appears the permanent government has had just about enough of this bullshit and is about to put the hammer down.

Refusing to reinstate the Muslim ban is the opening salvo. But Trump also lost a court challenge to his diktat regarding the fiduciary rule.

Of course these are not final-final rulings, but they are signs that the courts will not be intimidated by this regime.

The opposition in the streets is still plentiful but rather formless. There is a strong sense that the People must "do something" in these grave times, and they are doing something, but because there are so many outrages piling up, what is done lacks focus. On the other hand, calling for opposition to too many specific items is probably counterproductive at this point. A simple NO! will do for the time being.

No!

So simple. So right.

There's been a call for a general strike, something that is all but unknown in the US though it's fairly common in Europe and elsewhere. One of the ways it's been chacterized is "A Day Without Women." 

If it happens, it will be a Day Without a Whole Lot of Things. Old line Socialists are saying, Feh, but that's what they do, and nobody should listen to them any way.

Apparently congressional reps have been taking a whole lot of heat from constituents who are demanding and loud and really, really scary to these nincompoops. Oh well, make your bed, better lie in it.

In all this, where are the Dems?

Oh they're out there trying to wrangle the Resistance, but I don't see them succeeding. Not now at any rate. They may yearn for a Bourbon Restoration, but if it happens, it won't work out well for them. They've been chastised, but I don't know that they have been chastened. Their best bet is to maintain a low profile and be quiet. We'll see.

We'll see.

Something's Going On [With A Follow Up]

Um. I saw that little worm Reince Priebus on the Sunday Shows, George and Chuck. Hm. It looked like he did George's show first. When he got to Chuck's gabfest, he was clearly rattled. Of course, it's unusual for Our Fearless Media to tangle with high ranking Republicans, even if they are worms. So when George lit into Reince and then Chuck skewered him over the reports of the CIA report and Trump's now familiar insults in response, the little worm was taken aback. Sputtering and spluttering, he flailed away, to the point that I almost felt sorry for him.

The subtext is that things are not what they seem and something is very much going on.

Is it a coup?

I think it might be...



[OT: I  think Ms Ché knew Stephen Stills back in the day. I'm not sure. He wasn't one of her primary interests that I can recall. That would have been the likes of Jim McGuinn Who-Became-Roger of the Byrds, and various other noted rockers and folk rockers and ravers of the British Invasion and such like. There were so many of them. Only recently, though, did she get together with Buffy St. Marie, one of her favorites and idols from way back. They acted like a couple of elder Indian women recognizing one another as relatives, sisters, cousins. Their mutual laughter is still ringing in my ears. I'm just a white guy on the edge of all this of course. She, Ms Ché, is now recruiting a whole new generation of Indians and non-Indians alike to go out and be themselves, enjoy life and liberty and grow in spirit, don't let the fuckers get you down. Listen, learn, be.]
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A coup?

I don't know. My spidey sense was sure tingling in the morning, but around evening it went more or less quiet. Nothing to see here, move along, move along.

What is clear enough is that one faction of the ruling clique is contending with another for power.

This does not involve the Left or even the 'left.' This is between a conservative faction and radicals among those who have ruled us in and out of government for generations.

That's as obvious as sin, and the question is whether the contending factions will reach an accommodation with one another. It's not clear whether they will at this point. Furthermore, if it is a coup, we don't know who the golpistas really are. It's almost certainly not the Clinton camp. They may or may not be involved, but if they are, it is unlikely that She Herself will be installed as Queen-Empress should the conservative faction prevail.

That would be a trigger after all. Our Rulers may not have many smarts when it comes to their responsibilities and obligations, but they're not that stupid. They couldn't be. Could they? Please.

Unfortunately, yes they could. It is their culture, after all.

It occurred to me that Saturday today December 10th12th was is the anniversary of the last coup,[h/t lea-p for the  correct date] when the Supreme Court lawlessly intervened in the 2000 presidential election and handed the presidency to GWB. That was an unmitigated disaster, but perhaps it was inevitable given the instabilities already apparent in government and the private sector at least since the Impeachment Follies of 1998. Instabilities that had been building for a generation before that.

That coup anniversary may have been a trigger in itself for the actions underway to overcome apparent election results which would hand the presidency -- and the future of the United States -- over to a gang of "unindicted co-conspirators," some very successful con artists and mobster-wannabes. This is as serious as it gets.

At the time of the previous coup, the losing faction handed the government over to the golpistas out of a misplaced sense of formalism and duty under the rubric: "How bad could it get?" Yes, well. We found out, didn't we?

Certain formalities were observed, even though they were quite outside the Constitutional framework -- for example, the Supreme Court has no constitutional authority or jurisdiction in election matters they were asked to decide; it is specifically up to state governments and legislatures, and they should not have taken the case. Once they did, and once they decided in favor of the Bush-faction, it rent the fabric of the national project, and we are living with the consequences.

And too, the Bushevik faction was a "known quantity" to The Powers That Be. They brought back some of the well-known operators from times gone by, all the way back to the Nixon regime, Bush Jr. was the son of the CIA head, vice-president, and president previous to, under and after Reagan, and Cheney was... well, Darth Cheney, but whatever else he was (Evil), he was a known quantity in the corridors of power. Same with Rummy and so forth. It was initially like Old Home Week. And then it went south, even before the attack on 9/11.

They may have been mostly familiar faces but they were acting like teenagers lolly-gagging around the pool and their media handmaidens were making utter fools of themselves trying to recreate the atmosphere and revenues of the Clinton Scandals around the disappearance of Chandra Levy.

It was a goon show that ended abruptly with the events of 9/11/2001.

While the coup of December 10, 2000, was an example of the political aspect of the Shock Doctrine, the events of 9/11 went way beyond mere politics; it was Shock Doctrine that literally consumed and transformed the very nature of US government, as well as destabilizing the cobbled together social, economic, and psychological agreements that had kept the nation whole through thick and thin.

There was an immediate unity after the attacks, one that very quickly fell apart as the Busheviks demonstrated an almost unbelievable lack of wisdom in the face of crisis. That's not to say they didn't do some things appropriate and right. But their military response and targets were wrong-headed in every way, and the conduct they permitted and encouraged their agents to engage in was criminal.

Their war of aggression against Iraq had the effect of blowing apart whatever fragile stability there had been in the Middle East and North Africa, while their pig-headed Afghanistan adventure is still a major destabilizing factor in South Asia. What were they thinking?

Well, it's obvious they weren't. Thinking that is. They were exploiting opportunities.

It was and still is all reactive and self-feeding crisis. And it's a failure on any rational or public interest plane. But some people got very, very, very rich off of it, so they're all for more, more, more.

Henceforth the world would work in a different way. Well, part of the world...

Now comes Trump. Well, it's obvious he wasn't supposed to win. It's still a question -- that will probably never be satisfactorily answered -- how or whether he pulled off the Upset of History. As we know, there will be no verification of the vote. We've seen sufficient evidence so far that it's literally impossible to verify the vote in critical areas. One must accept the election results on faith because there is no way on earth to be sure the results accurately recorded and reflected the wishes of the voters. Our electoral system is purpose-designed to be opaque in critical areas. We don't know, and we can't know, what actually happened. Intentionally so.

Given the overall results reported so far, however, it's reasonable to assume that the voters did not want Trump and his gang of thieves and mountebanks in the White House; neither did they want Hillary. Ergo, trying to force either one on the People is risky business to say the least. Uncertainty is certain to follow.

Thus the moves to prevent Trump from taking power. Or to circumvent him and his gang if he does.

There was a similar kind of instability until some time after the inauguration of GWB. But it was tamped down by the capitulation of the Democrats on Capitol Hill and the concerted efforts of the media to ignore, discredit and denounce the many protests against the coup.

Combined, the efforts to prop up the Bush Regime both within and outside the government were partially successful. The protests never stopped, and those surrounding the preparation and initiation of the Iraq War were unprecedented. Enormous.

Yet millions upon millions of Americans never considered the  Bush Regime to be legitimate, no matter the efforts of media and Democrats to make it so.

Obama calmed things down -- that was his assignment after all -- but without really changing much of  the internal dynamic of a corporatist government run amok. It is still what it was under the Bushevik Regime, it simply has softer and calmer public face.

Many people understandably felt betrayed by Obama, the longed-for Redemption from centuries of Error.

He hasn't fulfilled his promise. Not even close. But he kept the lid on the growing rage of the discouraged and dispossessed. And that was all that was necessary for him to do in the eyes of the Ruling Clique. Just keep the Rabble tame.

Hillary was supposed to continue the Obama program, maybe with an added bone or two thrown to the Rabble to keep them mostly quiet over the next few cycles of rapine and exploitation by Our Betters.

Trump was supposed to be a sideshow to keep the potential hostiles and trouble makers in line. Oops.

Now that they're planning to take over and install rich and self-righteous rebels in positions of extraordinary power to do harm domestically and internationally, regardless of any "good" they might also do, the High and Mighty are awakening to a clear and present danger to them -- they care not about the Rabble -- should Himself ascend to the throne.

Right now, they're making out like bandits themselves as the stock market soars in anticipation of Trumpian profits without end.

The anticipation of the immense profits to come from the Trumpian crony capitalist pig troughs, and the fortunes to be made from the dismantlement and privatization of Social Security and Medicare, among other public programs slated for the ax, are about the only things that Our Betters are looking forward to with regard to a Trump Regime. The downside of all that money making is collapse. The strain has already built to unsustainable levels -- that was fast. Now what to do?

Whatever is to be done has almost nothing to do with We, the Rabble. We have to be honest about that. This is not our fight. Bluntly, we, the Rabble chose neither of the candidates we were offered. A record percentage of voters stayed home. Millions, of course, were deliberately disenfranchised.

But the overall turnout was pitiful, and the majority of those who did vote, voted against each candidate. That is a majority voted against Hillary, and a similar though somewhat larger majority voted against Trump.

The Trump EC victory may or may not be up and up. We don't know, we can't know. We can take it on faith or not but there is manifestly no way to verify the vote in the crucial states -- nor for that matter can the vote be verified in many jurisdictions all over the country. Our elections are therefore easy to manipulate for the desired outcome.

This one, however, was not the desired outcome. Something went bad-wrong. Whether it is due to "Russian" interference or simply that enough of the voters made the "wrong" choice, I can't say. It isn't up to me in any case.

Nor is it up to any of us. This will have to play out at a higher level. As it apparently is doing.

Stay tuned...

A little Billy Idol to lift our spirits...

Rumors Abound [With Some Follow Up]

A couple of hours ago Reuters reported that Dave Archambault II, Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman, had told the non-Sioux Water Protectors to go home:

"I'm asking them to go. Their presence will only cause the environment to be unsafe," he said of the non-Sioux protesters, adding that he hopes to meet with incoming-president Donald Trump to educate him about the decision made and the future of the pipeline.

At the time, thousands of Water Protectors,  Veterans and allies were assembling at Backwater Bridge in a fierce blizzard for morning ceremony. "Going home" in weather conditions such as are current at the camp is unwise to say the least.

I have a hard time imagining that Dave Archambault would think let alone say such a thing under the current blizzard conditions.

So far, this report is only on Reuters and the Reuters report is referenced by others.

Live streams from the ceremony at the bridge have made no mention of it, and so far, I've found no confirmation from any other source.

Until and unless I see/hear the words from his own mouth, I will consider it nothing but a rumor or fake news.

[Follow up: In fact there has been a kinda-sorta confirmation from Dave Archambault's own mouth. Apparently on the afternoon or evening of December 4, after the announcement that the ACE would not approve an easement under the Missouri River, Archambault said that the people in the camp could go home to their families and enjoy the Holidays. He was convinced that nothing would happen with the pipeline before January, and perhaps not even then. If people wanted to stay, they could, but they would be more comfortable at home. I don't know whether he was quoted accurately by Reuters, but nothing I have seen so far of what he said at the camp or to the people in the camp was in any way comparable to the Reuters quote. And meanwhile, a blizzard came in which made it essentially out of the question for anyone to leave yesterday.

Archambault's video statement made yesterday:



Defiance from Water Protectors:

Chase Iron Eyes responds:



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/06/standing-rock-protesters-asked-to-go-home-by-sioux-leader

Hate to say it, but this is a typical corporate-government divide and conquer tactic. As solid as he has been throughout this struggle, one does wonder if he's been bought off.]

Rumors abound that Energy Transfer Partners is ignoring the Army Corps and has continued drilling under the Missouri River in order to complete the pipeline. Again no confirmation, but the rumor mill insists it's true.

Fake news? I don't know.

[Follow up: there have been numerous unconfirmed reports that ETP has continued drilling under Lake Oahe in defiance of the ACE. It may be true. But I've found no proof. A suggestive indication, however, is that the FAA forbade drone flights over the drilling platform that's set up by the river had quite a lot of activity to and fro a few days ago. That suggests to me that something is going on there that somebody doesn't want seen. On the other hand, the way the drilling platform is set up, it would be difficult to tell if there is active drilling going on.]

And in that regard the story of the Pennsylvania recount has become such a muddled mess, it's almost impossible to sort out truth from... something else.

It was reported on Friday that Jill Stein had abandoned the Pennsylvania recount effort by withdrawing from the Commonwealth Court petition to compel a statewide recount.

Reporting was sensational and inaccurate, but what else is new. In fact, recounts are and were going on in some election districts, but the petition was filed -- by "100 or more" Pennsylvania voters, not Jill Stein or the Green Party -- in order to meet Pennsylvania legal requirements to contest the election as a whole.

The petition was withdrawn when the Court imposed a $1 million bond simply to hold a hearing and required full payment by today. The petitioners said they couldn't pay the excessive bond. This was inaccurately reported as the Green Party/Jill Stein refusing to pay the bond, when they weren't the petitioners, "100 or more" Pennsylvania voters were as was required by Pennsylvania law. And they didn't have the money.

By Friday evening, Jill Stein and her attorneys stated they would be filing a federal court complaint for injunctive relief to compel recounts where possible and require forensic examination of electronic voting machines where recounts were not possible. Most Pennsylvania voting machines have no paper trail or any other way to verify their count and results. Thus a recount of those machines -- in the sense of verifying the vote -- isn't possible. This was not reported at all by some outlets, whereas others garbled it. A few got it right, but the initial false "abandonment" report was already out there, and updating or correcting it was... slow or nonexistent.

Jill Stein did in fact file for injunctive relief in federal court this morning.

And as always, the Trump Trope that she's scamming the public with this recount jaggoff was inserted everywhere possible.

What a whirled, what a whirled.

[Follow up: The story is mostly comprehensible in most of the media now, but things are moving so fast that the Pennsylvania recount is more of a sideshow. Apparently problems with the initial Michigan count have surfaced which are so severe that the Michigan vote could be challenged in its entirety. Developing. And from what I've seen so far, the Wisconsin recount is almost exactly the same as the initial count. Hm. Interesting.]

Time for some Springfield:

Historic Political Realignment?

The backstory of what is going on with the Trump campaign must be absolutely fascinating for political junkies of all stripes. This year's elections will be fodder for political scholars for decades to come. Nothing like this has happened in our lifetimes, perhaps ever. We're in a political never-never land. A circus. A goon-clown show. A WTF moment every day. Hunh? You've got to be kidding!

Something's happening here, but we don't know what it is.

Time to dredge up the Buffalo Springfield for the umpteenth time...



Yep, here we go again. We're living in Interesting Times.

I read in some newsfeed that Trump was lustily cheered yesterday when he made an appearance at the front entrance to the Trump Tower. He is mighty-mighty and his loins are heavy with seed. I mean come on... And his partisans have flooded the Intertubes to tell us all how mighty-mighty he is and how heavy his loins must be. This is the Man who ought to be King! Yay!

Something similar followed on revelations of Bill Clinton's infidelities, so I'm not at all surprised at Trump's partisans standing with him today. Of course they will; they must. They do not see the randiness of Boss Men as a fault. They see it as an Attribute. A Good and Necessary Thing. It is one of the ways to separate the Strong from the Weak.

But the Trump campaign, such as it is, appears to be falling apart. Rs of all stripes are "distancing" themselves from the candidate for his indiscretions, not his actions. They've never had a problem with his actions, nor in fact, so far as I can find out, have the members of his class, the Billionaire and Would-be Billionaire Boys Club, ever had a moment's problem with Trump's personal or business behavior.

Why should they? It's standard for men of his status.

Standard.

Maybe he's a bit cruder and ruder than many of those in his class, but what he does -- never mind what he says -- is what nearly all of them do. They are no friend to the weak or downtrodden. They have little use for women except for what they can get from them. They are exploiters and oppressors. It is their emblem of Strength.

The pro-forma denunciations we're hearing are just that -- pro-forma. They don't mean anything but they are meant to bamboozle the weak-minded, to shift the story from one of outrage over what he said (never mind what he does) to one of Puritanical holiness on behalf of everyone else of his status. Bollocks and Bullshit. They're all like this. All of them. Every one. Well, nearly...

I've said many times that Trump is a particularly boisterous representative of his class; he is no aberration, he is an avatar of who they all are. For whatever reason, that insight has gained no traction, in part, I think, because most people simply don't want to believe the worst about Our Betters. They can't be that bad. Well, they are.

Many others see Trump's badness for what it is and celebrate it. Whoop dee doo, we're goin' to the Rodeo now! He liberates the badness in others. That kind of liberation, the removal of any requirement for restraint, leads to violence of course, but more than that, it redirects social energies.

He's been called a fascist, and in a classic sense he is. But our governance has been inwardly fascist for a long time, and every now and then it is outwardly and openly fascist as well. He is not, therefore, aberrant. He fits right in. Where he diverges from the right and proper way of doing things is in his demagoguery, his populist cant and rhetoric. No, no, no, no, no. This is not the way things are supposed to be done. A leader doesn't whip up populist sentiment -- you never know where it will go after all -- one suppresses the urges of the Rabble, and convinces them that their Betters know better, and in the end, the right and proper Leader governs contrary to the interests of the Public and disregards the People's Will. That's how it's done.

Trump violates these principles over and over again, and that -- to the oligarchs and kleptocrats who rule us -- is unacceptable.

However...

Trump's campaign may indeed fall to pieces, and Herself may indeed be installed in the White House come January, partly because she is more acceptable to the oligarchs and kleptocrats, but also because her world-view is more in line with the conventions of the neoLibCons who have been so right about everything over the post-modern course of history (save me), and she has made clear she will follow their lead over the cliff if so ordered.

But... Trump has shown there is a future in his way of whipping up sentiment. There is no ultimate need to mask it. Our Betters can be just as bad as they want to be without the necessity of Bernays-ian bamboozlement and enough of the Rabble will go along with them, cheering them on, that the Others, sticks in the mud, won't matter. The mild form of populism, represented by St. Bernie (bow down) is simply too weak, you see, for consideration.

That's the lesson of Trump. A billionaire being openly bad is hailed a hero by enough of the Rabble to be electable. Ah ha! The light bulbs are going off all through the political class, make no mistake.

I've said he's a gangster and a con-man -- which he doesn't even try to hide, btw -- and I've been shocked that so many people want that kind of rule, but I can see how frustrated many people are with the status quo. Of course.

Millions upon millions of Americans have been forced into poverty by the economic unpleasantness of the last decade. No one who should be held responsible for it has suffered in the least let alone been brought to justice. In fact, they've been rewarded over and over again, while Rabble continues to be oppressed and looted. The status quo, represented by Herself, Ms. "No You Can't", will ensure that the way things are will continue without let up. And indeed, will ensure that conditions will worsen for the Little People indefinitely.

That's the post-modern, neoLibCon way. There is no alternative.

I'm not so worried about her warmongering. I see most of it as pretense. The implicit threat against real and imagined foes runs throughout the ruling class -- Trump and his familiar Pence express it just as strongly though against slightly different targets -- and it is part and parcel of their approach to global domination.

Hillary ("The Hag") is probably less likely to act on her warmongering than her opponents want you to believe, in part because the Obama Wars have been such complete clusterfucks, following as they do the regime-change pattern set under the Bush-Cheney regime, than which no clusterfucks have been greater. While it seems that neoLibCons are incapable of learning (they're worse than the Bourbons in that regard) as the misrule and anarchic "liberations" pile up, they've eased off adding more bungling and disregard to their litany of horrors. What they've done doesn't work for long-term imperialist gain in any case. The Hegemon suffers too much to keep doing the same things over and over. On the other hand, you never know...

What she's doing though, is perhaps more important in the long run. She's consolidating political power and the parties under her (or rather her owners') purview. The Republican Party elite is being absorbed by the borg of the Dems. I've never seen anything like it in the open, though it's been obvious as sin that the Democratic Party is for all intents and purposes a Rockefeller Republican Party in every way but name. This transformation has been going on since Clinton I. Perhaps it started under Carter but was temporarily aborted by Reagan's intervention. At any rate, the Dems are nothing at all like a leftist party. They are a "less evil" rightist party, whereas the Rs, to escape, have become the "most evil" rightist party. There is no genuine Left in American politics.

But Hillary is going much farther than I've seen any politician in my lifetime toward bringing in the opposition (supposed) under her wing. And it's working spectacularly. Her ostensible Republican support is essentially greater than her nominal Democratic support. At least it's more powerful.

She's in the process of transforming the Democratic Party into a consolidated Democratic Republican Party (of Unity?) that can be something like a permanent ruling party, serving the interests of Oligarchy against the popular will.

It is a historic political realignment.

Of course all the attention on Trump and his follies obscures it.

Of course.

Le sigh.

From The Stimulator

This was last week's episode. It gives you an idea of how the news and images from Ferguson and elsewhere were being seen through the anarchist lens of Frank Lopez (aka The Stimulator) and what plans are being made for the coming year.

Ferguson Redux from the stimulator on Vimeo.

The efforts to bring justice to so many cases of police violence and murder has inspired a huge outpouring of creative energy.

Once again, there's something happening here...

Let Us Reason Together -- the Panopticon (5)

The Panopticon was Jeremy Bentham's 18th Century enlightenment notion of how it would be possible for a very limited staff of keepers to control a large population of inmates by making it possible for one keeper to look into any cell simply by turning around. The beauty of it was that the inmates would never know whether and when they were being watched, and that fact would work with innate human nature to enforce proper behavior within the prison. Rebellions and uprisings wouldn't occur. They couldn't. None could be organized without detection. There would be less need for brutality and the usual cruelties prisoners were subjected to. Harmony would reign.

Well, there was more to it than that, of course, but the general idea of the All Seeing Panopticon seemed perfectly rational at the time, and in due time, versions of Bentham's vision were tried with varying results. Part of the rationale for the Panopticon, in addition to the ability to watch prisoners at will, was the isolation of inmates, each to their own cell, rather than being held en masse in cages in the dungeons. A way to control unruly types through isolation was long known and understood, but employing it in general was considered too expensive. But the Panopticon made isolation economically reasonable because it reduced prison staffing requirements substantially.

Ultimately it was understood more or less widely that the simplest way to keep prisoners and reduce rebellions was to hold them in isolation and keep watch on them in ways they could never fully know while severely punishing any infraction of increasingly arbitrary and draconian rules.

Harmony would reign.

Then it was realized that the same principals that underlay the Panopticon for Prisons could be applied to the general population, thus curbing non-conformity and rebellion among the Rabble. The only problem was that there was no technology to do it efficiently and broadly until very recently. But even with more or less inefficient and primitive tactics, the principles of the Panopticon were employed in all sorts of social and political situations The watched actually become the watchmen and women and enforce conformity of mind and body without the necessity for an overly large and intrusive surveillance apparatus. Sure enough, it worked.

Until it didn't.

Harmony reigned temporarily, sometimes for quite a long time, and then it broke down.

Studies have been going on ever since to figure out why that breakdown occurred and to ensure that it never happens again, at least never again in that way. Our Chinese friends may be furthest along in figuring out how to suppress rebellion and enforce conformity on a more permanent basis. But that remains to be seen. As China undergoes as thorough a remaking of its social economy as it has ever endured, rebellion is constant. At the same time, there seems to be a level of relative harmony and peace, in the midst of fierce competition, that is unprecedented. From the perspective of many social engineers, China is obviously doing something very right. But what it is and exactly how they are doing it isn't entirely clear.

The recent hoo-hah around the world about the NSA and to a lesser extent (much lesser extent) about the more or less pervasive corporate and lower-level law enforcement surveillance of entire populations is related directly to the notion of the Panopticon and the principles of its operation. What we have learned is that the keepers now have the technology to keep an eye on every one of us essentially all the time or whenever they want, and we can never know for certain whether we are being watched at any particular moment. Thus our behavior is controlled in theory and largely in fact just by our knowing that we can be watched and any deviation from accepted norms in our behavior noted -- and can be used against us at any time our keepers choose. Even if we don't necessarily deviate from the norm (whatever that is declared to be at any given time), patterns of behavior can be manipulated to create false "deviations" which can then be utilized for prosecution or persecution -- or to sell you something you neither want nor need but which your "pattern" suggests you are susceptible to purchasing with the right persuasion.

It's a wonderful thing from the point of view of those who make and operate these surveillance/marketing/and population control systems. As for the general public, what I've taken to calling the Rabble, it's not so wonderful, but as long as it is not too intrusive, it seems, most people don't much mind that it is going on. Many may actually appreciate it on a visceral level.

Think Facebook, Twitter, and the endless devices of our modern world which make instant communications possible and inevitable and which for the most part provide the user with no privacy at all. Anyone can observe anyone else, and many, many people want to be observed in practically every aspect of their lives pretty much continuously. They can easily get their wish, more easily than ever before in human history. Nearly the entire world can vicariously participate in nearly anyone's life through modern technology.

That includes governments and their private sector sponsors. (Increasingly, "government" and "corporate" are distinctions without a difference as they subsume one another.)

The Panopticon principle as it is today is a versatile and useful tool of population control employed by corporate-governments on a broader scale than ever before in history. Because so many people are eager to share their lives with others through social media and the like, it is remarkably easy to get people in general to adopt technology which utilizes the Panopticon principle for control.

The notion that one can have privacy under the circumstances is absurd. You can't. No matter what you do, you cannot opt out of the technology of observation and surveillance that is built in to the devices, hardware and software of our lives, and even the loudest "privacy advocates" know this full well. There is no "secret place" within our devices where we can whisper secrets to one another without being overheard, any more than inmates in Bentham's Panopticon Prison could ever be sure they were unobserved.

The Revelations we've been exposed to the past few months are the details of a surveillance regime that is pretty much universal at this point and cannot be undone.

Where did the idea that electronic communications were somehow private come from?

It came from marketing. Marketing which obscured the facts.

One was sold the idea of encryption and secure communications, but it was never real in the sense that your online communications were ever truly private  and inaccessible to interested parties -- as we're finding out with more and more detail. A few adepts may have been able to temporarily secure and privatize their own communications, but for most internet users, there never was a time when the bulk of communications couldn't be accessed either by the carriers or by governments whenever and however desired. And there's never been a time that I was aware of that carriers weren't eager to sell their bulk information on their customers to government. The architecture of the internet is purpose-designed for this very practice, as most of us once knew but seem to have forgotten.

The ability to surveil the activities of users online -- constantly and automatically -- is one of the key industry ideals and motivations, both to be able to sell something to them and to be able to keep tabs on their potentials for disruption and rebellion (what's generally called "criminality.")

This has always been true of the intranets that gave birth to the internet -- which itself has never ever been either "free" or "private." Marketing myths that have long been sold to the public promise otherwise, of course, but they are simply false and always have been.

The notion of "privacy" itself is actually a recent social development that is in many ways tied to marketing ideas of the early 20th Century ("Blame Bernays.")  What I think the idea of universal privacy and the right to privacy came out of was the understanding that the Overclass of the 19th and early 20th centuries used their position to live private lives out of the view of the Rabble and more importantly to develop products and policies in secret from the public, policies and products which were then imposed often by main force, without consultation with or approval by the public. The idea was that if the public didn't know (at all or very much) about how their Betters lived their lives and what was being planned, they wouldn't be able to object or rebel before the policy was instituted, and they could be induced to admire rather than object to the lives of their Betters.

The idea of "privacy" as a general matter turned that understanding of what was being done to the public by the Overclass on its head by proposing a general right for everyone to the same sort of private lives their Betters had long enjoyed.

That's where I think the idea of "privacy" as it is commonly understood in the western world came from. It was heavily marketed as something desirable and necessary to a full and rewarding life -- because Our Betters had it. And you want to be like them, don't you?

Which is not to say that personal space of some sort ("A Room of One's Own" as it were) has not always been with us. It is the fetishization of privacy as the defining characteristic of what it means to be "human" that simply never existed before very recent times, and for most people, it doesn't compute at all.

Most societies exist under forms of formal and informal surveillance. The discovery that Our Own (Exceptional) Society is also under surveillance, and that our corporate-government is a -- or perhaps the -- leading purveyor and employer of surveillance technology is much less of a surprise than our media is making it out to be. We knew, but we made less of it, for the most part, than apparently we are supposed to now that we really know.

Yet there is no plan or movement to reduce or eliminate mass surveillance, quite the opposite. Instead, we are seeing any number of calls to restrict surveillance activities of government while leaving in place or even expanding corporate surveillance -- on the false premise that corporate surveillance is benign. It is not. It is extraordinarily invasive and potentially more dangerous to individual liberty ("") than anything the government might be able to do. Which is of course why corporate surveillance gets a pass.

The current drive for online privacy has many components, of course. One of them is intended to make it difficult or impossible for government to have access to certain aspects of one's life online, akin to the constitutional restrictions placed on government regarding reasonable search and seizure of one's home, papers, and effects requiring a warrant issued by a competent court before any such action can be taken. This is the Fourth Amendment restriction -- which unfortunately has been so riddled with holes and exceptions that it's all but moot in today's world. If some court actually wants to return the 4th to something akin to its original intent, I'm all for it, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

Meanwhile, it's hard to imagine real online privacy unless the whole architecture of the internet is reconfigured to provide it, and I don't see that happening any time soon, either. Well, at least not on the "free" internet that most of us use.

There could well be another, "secure" internet established for use by "members," say by subscription -- and I'm not so naive to imagine such a thing doesn't already exist in some respects, I'm just noodling for the moment. This is where I see the "privacy" movement (such as it is) headed. We'll have a two-tier "public access" internet, part of which is "free" -- in that use does not require payment (whereas access still will) and which is essentially open to corporate-government surveillance, and there will be another, more costly, internet (parts of which already exist) that is not quite so open -- though still not entirely secure -- for use by those who choose what we might call a higher level of service, and there will be a multiplicity of proprietary, highly secure, internets not available or accessible to the public at all, which will be used by the High and the Mighty. All of these things are essentially already in place, they just need some tweaking to become the standard.

When the Snowden Thing first broke, Naomi Wolf expressed some reservations about it based on her personal knowledge of whistleblowers and how they had approached their duties and actions in the past. The Snowden Thing was a distinct outlier compared to previous episodes of whistleblowing. She noodled for a bit wondering why it might be so, and she suggested that there might be an ulterior reason for exposing the doings of the NSA in the way it was being done: when people know they are being watched -- or rather, can be watched at will -- they tend to modify their behavior, "conform" in a word, almost instinctively. Letting people know that the NSA was "watching" them was, she thought, a useful way to ensure conformity. It's based on human psychology and the principles behind the Panopticon.

Snowden partisans immediately denounced and smeared Wolf for daring to raise questions about the true nature of the Snowden Thing. It was done in a manner that formed the template for denouncing and smearing anyone who expressed reservations about Snowden's motives or authenticity. These denunciations are a form of propaganda -- quite obvious to anyone who has made a study of propaganda and its effects -- a form that was raised to practically an art form by previous totalitarian regimes (Stalin, Hitler, Mao...) and it's effective, at least for a time.

And then it isn't.

Let Us Reason Together -- Year End Edition (1)

This has been quite an exciting year, hasn't it?

Nothing quite like it has come down the pike in quite a long time, and how all the various elements fit together, providing they do, is yet to be seen.

The highest profile "news" story was of course the Summer Splash of the Snowden Thing. Pssst: The NSA is spying on you..." Yes, it is. Well, maybe not on you personally, but then again, maybe yes, on you.  Personally.

We already knew that practically anything we did on the Internet was an open book to spooks and marketers, we've known it for years. Sometimes we've even made use of that knowledge to freak out both the spooks and the marketeers, sometimes with hilarious results. So it was passing strange, in my book, that the Summer Story of the Century became such a cause célèbre throughout the latter half of the year. Of course, the drama of it all, the cat-and-mouse, the jajaja, the personalities of the players, and the government response all made for an excellent narrative, and that's what media sells these days, so it will probably continue for quite a little while to come.

The entry of "Pierre" Omidyar into the fray, by setting up a high profile media shop specifically for Greenwald's continued... erm... pleasure ... added a whole other layer to the frolic and frenzy. (I should note that I use "Pierre" in air quotes because of a wonderful interview (the interview has been reclassified "unlisted," so sharing is discouraged) Alexa O'Brien did with Stanley Cohen regarding the PayPal 14, who plead out on really nasty charges brought by "Pierre's" PayPal against them for interfering with their work product.  Or something. Cohen uses air quotes throughout when mentioning "Pierre" and given the fact that the man himself doesn't have much of a public persona or profile, it seems appropriate to follow in the tradition...)

This media firestorm (which I indelicately called a "Summer Shark and Missing White Boy Story" throughout its summertime incarnation) led to a rather remarkable Study Group and Report by insiders commissioned by the White House and released the day after the President invited the highest ranks of the Silicon Valley nobility to meet with him and reason together on what should be done now with regard to the Surveillance/Security State under which we are all privileged to live. Praise Be and Bow Down.

After reading the Report, I came to the conclusion that much of it had been pre-prepared and that the upshot of it all is to move the discomforting aspects of mass surveillance out of the purview of the NSA and put them into other cubby-holes where they can be better monitored or at least left to fester. Or something . 

Whatever the case, there is no indication whatsoever that any of the powers usurped by the Surveillance/Security State will be curtailed let alone abolished. 

Now it should be noted that in all the firestorm and frenzy over the Snowden Thing, there has never been even a hint of interest by the principals, Snowden, Greenwald, Poitras, et al, of loosening the grip of the Surveillance/Security State on the masses. Hardly. All they EVER wanted, they have said over and over, was an "informed debate" over the issue of mass surveillance, and having now had that debate, Snowden now asserts his goal has been accomplished. 

All righty then.

That was quick and efficient, wasn't it? Don't you feel better? I sure do. /s

Whew!


"One Nation, Under Surveillance...." ♫That's America to Meeeeeee....♬

Surveillance of the whole population is not going away, no matter what; who controls it and what is done with the data will be adjusted to better comport with the interests and desires of the SV nobility. You -- and I -- will have nothing substantive to say about it. Have a nice day. Terms and conditions apply.☺

Assuming for the moment that I am correct and the Surveillance/Security State will not be compromised or go away in our lifetimes, but that it will be reconfigured for the comfort and convenience of Our Betters -- as all things always are -- how would one prefer to be surveilled? Would you prefer surveillance conducted by and for the government or by and for corporate interests?

That's the choice, the only real choice, we're being offered.

Myself, I don't much care for either alternative, but as in the case of elections, we don't really have an option, and unlike elections, we can't really opt out -- without completely altering one's lifestyle and location, and essentially disappearing. Well, that may be the option many choose in the not too distant future, but so far, we're not quite there yet.

The upshot of the Snowden Thing, it seems to me, is that in the near-term surveillance of the Rabble will be undertaken by and on behalf of corporate interests (and let's not forget that "Pierre's" eBay and PayPal are huge and global players in this endeavor) with ever greater restrictions put in place on government access to this data. Basically, the idea will be that the private sector will track and compile data on everyone (as they do now) and that only when the private sector interests suspect evildoing by an individual will their data be turned over to government for pursuit and prosecution. This is pretty much the current eBay/PayPal model as it is, though according to Mark Ames, eBay/PayPal is quite amenable to turning over user data when governments suspect the evildoing by users. It's all very merry. And according to some eBay/PayPal users, part of the business model for these outfits is routine closure of accounts and theft of assets. Oh my! Could it be? Apparently it is, but my accounts with PayPal have long been empty, so I wouldn't exactly know.

Now I say that "no surveillance" is the correct approach, at least as an interim measure, but my Betters tell me that is not on the table for consideration. The only thing we get to choose from is whether the dominant party in the Surveillance/Security State shall be the "government" or corporate interests. With the intent of diminishing "government" participation to the extent possible, to be involved only at the beck and occasional call of the corporate sector.

As handmaidens to corporations, we already know how useless to the People our governments have become. There is no sign at all that this will change, and there is no sign at all that either Snowden, Greenwald, or "Pierre" have any interest in changing it. If anything, the signs are they wish to ensure the continued diminution of "government" in the face of corporate power. 

So.... what do we do about it?

That question will have to wait for the New Year for deeper consideration...

Mark Ames Explains It All For You

"Yeah, but... what do we do about it?"

One of the most often heard complaints about Greenwald's longstanding rage against government -- almost never corporate -- abuses of power is his determined failure to provide any course of action or recommendations for effective remedy.

Which is not to say he hasn't provided any outlets for frustration, far from it. He's been instrumental in setting up or participating in all sorts of supposed political action outfits, and is always encouraging donations to them as a means of Being Effective Against The Man, but exactly what they accomplish is subject to dispute. Certainly the very expensive efforts engaged in to bring down Blanche Lincoln and Joe Lieberman didn't accomplish what was being touted by a long shot. For the most part, Greenwald simply demurred when asked what he thought should be or could be done about all the many things he was OUTRAGED!!!!!™ about.

Mark Ames now at Pando.com has few qualms about either raging at The Man or suggesting remedies for the many OUTRAGES!!!!!™ We, the People endure at the whims of Our Betters.

In his latest, he runs through some of the less-known history of the NSA and previous revelations about its, erm... overreach.

Actually, I knew a bit of it, but he goes into much more detail than I was aware of previously. It's not so much surprising as it is confirmational and disheartening.

These agencies are rotten to the core, steeped in their own Original Sin and so far as can be determined, they cannot be reformed.

The Report I read in the days leading up to Christmas makes many, many recommendations about how to reform the NSA and other agencies that have overreached but it never suggests that the powers which have been assumed by them should be abolished. Instead, the recommendations are to transfer them to more appropriate locations within the surveillance state apparatus or outside it to a private entity.

This, as Ames points out, has been done before, only to later discover that the Hydra has regrown its heads and is more powerful and invasive than ever.

So, what to do about it?

Unfortunately, this time Ames has no solution -- nor much snark about it, either.

He's as stumped as anyone else.

So what happened to the abolitionists?

Byzantium

They Might Be Giants - Istanbul (Not Constantinople) from They Might Be Giants on Vimeo.

Complex systems and the need to stampede...

As I got near the conclusion of "The Report," visions of the Nature of Government began swirling in my brain, and the very Byzantine nature of the Intelligence Community was most definitely highlighted.

If the various elements of the National Security/Surveillance State have been running roughshod and rogue, it's plain to see why. It is in the nature of the beast. Without appropriate and rigorously enforced restraints, they will run wild, there is no way around it.

After 9/11 what minimal restraints they had been under were released, and we now live with the consequences. Reining them back in may prove to be more difficult and problematic than even the panelists on the Review Committee, all of whom have plenty of Deep State experience, recognize.

The key recommendation of The Report is the overhaul and reform of the NSA, essentially re-creating it from the ground up.

Clearly, from this recommendation alone, it's obvious that the Agency has seriously overstepped its bounds and authorities. What Snowden revealed, which seems now to be barely the tip of a very deep bottomed iceberg, barely scratched the surface of what this rogue agency has involved itself in. From the evidence in The Report, it appears that the NSA has violated the trust of the highest levels of the Government itself, and thus must face the consequences.

Seemingly it got that way almost by accident, but it was driven by ethos of the Cheney Faction within government, a faction that recognizes no bounds to its authority in law and custom and which seeks to impose as complete a system of quasi-dictatorial rule as possible. It would appear that the NSA has been seeing itself as the lead agency in that quest. This ethos, such as it is, all goes back to Nixon. Sigh. Will we never be free of it?

But make no mistake. It is in the nature of governmental systems to be this way, especially the more complex they become. It's almost unavoidable. Thus, of course, the key recommendation is to break up the NSA, to curb its tendency to overreach and to apply more rational control over its activities.

A good thing, right?

In a sense, sure. The problem is that once a system like the NSA is allowed to run free as it apparently has been for more than a decade, and once that system has developed extensive tentacles into both the government and the private sectors, as apparently the NSA has, it becomes nearly impossible to reform or remove it without affecting and perhaps damaging the rest of government.

The Report provides a roadmap forward, but it may not actually be possible to follow through. This is due in part to institutional inertia which can become self-perpetuating. Barring a serious and potentially devastating power play within the government (which may indeed be taking place), it may be too late to intervene in the metastasizing Surveillance State.

We may be stuck with what we've got.

I have a few more pages to go before get to the end of The Report, but I'm neither reassured nor hopeful given what I've read so far.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 This logo/graphic appears on page 269 and 270, Appendix B, "Overview of NSA Privacy Protections under FAA 702/EO 12333"

As an aside, could the Target hack be related to the NSA lashing out at the idea of being curbed? Ohhhhhh......

Compiling Some Hastings Thing Things

This Corbett Report compilation aired on July 6; it gives a good overview of what was/is known and unknown about Michael Hastings and his untimely demise.



We should recall that there was immediate pushback on the notion that Richard Clarke put out there that yes, indeed, cars could be 'easily' hacked and control, including brakes, steering, and acceleration, could be remotely controlled. Clarke, it was said, was deliberately spreading disinfo in order to cover up.... something... for... someone.

Then here's the interview with the witness that is referenced in the Corbett video but not shown:



His testimony is slightly different than what he said in broken English to the Loud Labs guy who talked to him at the scene of the crash shortly after it happened, but it's essentially the same. What is striking to me is that he said the car was burning -- or at least there were sparks coming from beneath it -- as it crossed Melrose a couple of hundred feet before it crashed.

In this extended interview, he says he was never interviewed by LAPD. Typical. The only witness to the entire crash, and the LAPD doesn't see fit to ask for his statement.

[Note: I wouldn't have been able to sleep for weeks either if I'd witnessed something like that. Sheesh. Now imagine what it is like for our overseas victims who witness the sudden annihilation brought on by our Imperial Drone Squadrons.]

Here's a description of what was recorded by a video surveillance camera at the pizza restaurant at the corner of Melrose and Highland. For some reason the video itself has not been released, nor, so far as I know, have any of the surveillance videos taken along Highland that early morning been released. It being Hollywood, there must be many of them. Yet nothing has shown up on the tubes.

Hastings remains were apparently sent to be cremated by the LA Coroner, against the family's wishes, but this story, though widespread, has not been confirmed by Hastings' wife, who is said to be working on completion of his final project (she's a journalist, too). But she was also National Security Council Spokesperson from 2008-2009 and served as speechwriter for Condoleezza Rice in the Bush Admin. Let's not fool ourselves here. In other words, she seems to be pretty keyed in to the RW/Bushevik/Cheneyite Apparat. Which may have some bearing on what's going on.

Given the timing of this incident, shortly after the beginning of the Snowden Thing, but quite a while after the start of the Obama Triple-Scandal Thing -- and its subsequent unraveling, though Michael was still pushing the Benghazi Thing and the IRS Thing almost up to the moment of his death -- it would be irresponsible not to speculate (as Peg Noonan used to say) about whether there are any dots to be connected here beyond the obvious ones about Michael having a target on his back for the Stanley McChrystal Thing.

Just who or what is running this pop stand, anyway?

Corporate Defenders: Are They Necessary? And What -- Ultimately -- Do They Want Anyway?

In the recently released second segment of Glenn Greenwald's interview with Edward Snowden, recorded in Hong Kong in June, Snowden used a couple of locutions that I found instructive as to his motivations.

Quoting from the interview, Snowden says:

(3:03)…they [the government] are applying it [surveillance authority] to the whole society by basically subverting the corporate partnership…

(3:57) …US Government co-opts corporate power to its own ends…

[My emphasis]

I alerted on this kind of talk immediately because it's the kind of thing you hear from Libertarians and their fellow travelers all the time, and this particular way of speaking about the relationship between corporations and government -- that is, "subverted" and "co-opted corporate power" -- may as well be from the Koch Cookbook for Corporate Liberation. 

When I posted about this here and elsewhere, I made the point that he's got it completely backward, essentially inverting reality. The government -- Our So-Called Government -- serves corporate interests and is the creature of its corporate partners, not the other way around. The Government of the United States has long been effectively a wholly owned subsidiary of extremely powerful transnational corporations, and none of us are ever allowed to forget it.

"Step out of line, the man come and take you away..."

Make no mistake, Our Government was serving corporate interests then (in 1968), nearly as much as it is now, as anyone who was aware of the profits being made on the meatgrinder of the Vietnam War knew.

And yet here we see that in SnowdenWorld, it's just the opposite, The All-Powerful Government makes the corporations its bitches and slaves by "subverting" them and "co-opting" their power. That view, in my view, is seriously warped, but it gives us an insight into what's motivating Snowden and what his objectives may be. Snowden's views are aligned with those of Greenwald, who showed himself to be a Corporate Libertarian quite some time ago with his awkward and ham-handed defense of Citizens United and corporate personhood, and -- I would come to learn -- Snowden is aligned with quite a few other Corporate Defenders on the internet and in the digital data industry who apparently really do see themselves and their companies as "subverted" and "co-opted" by government, rather like kidnap or rape victims forced to engage in icky behaviors they otherwise wouldn't do if not for the coercion and imposition of authority upon them by nasty, evil government.

I see.

No. Wait.

This notion of government-evil/corporation-good is bullshit. Complete, utter bullshit. Corporate interests run governments at every level, top to bottom, practically everywhere around the world. There hasn't been an era of greater consolidated corporate control of government in history. Nothing even close to it has been encountered in this country since the Gilded Age, yet here's Snowden and other Corporate Defenders claiming against plain evidence to the contrary that corporate partners don't have enough independence and power, and that they are forced, somehow, to abide by icky government command and control, indeed that they are subverted and co-opted to the will of this Alien Government Thing, and here's proof!

Dude needs to get a grip.

He appears to be caught up in a Corporate Libertarian mindset -- and fantasy -- that I'm surprised to find is shared by so many otherwise rational and even progressive individuals who apparently see government as a kind of Ultimate Evil and corporations -- to the extent they "exist" at all -- as Benign Entities who would Rule Over Us with Loving Grace -- if only they were allowed to do so without the interference of ... (ewww!) government. [And that's only a little bit of hyperbole.]

In arguing these points at FDL yesterday, the Corporate Libertarian separation from reality became quite clear to me, as did the underlying authoritarianism of those who hold this viewpoint.

As I frequently ask of Libertarians: "Liberty for whom? To do what?" They never have an answer, because if they start answering it, the real repugnance and ugliness of their ideals would be revealed. Based on my own experience with Libertarians and their fellow travelers over many years, it has always been part of the Libertarian program to obfuscate and deny their real intentions and to propagandize the ignorant masses into believing in and acting on ideals of "liberty" and policies contrary to their own best interests.

My version of the Libertarian Motto: "I demand the liberty to impose my authority on you."

But this post is not about that. I have written many others that are. This post is about what I see as the end game of Corporate Libertarians, and what is driving Snowden in particular. This post is about the objectives of Corporate Defenders and whether their ideal world is really the world we want to live in now or in  the future.

Greenwald and Snowden said all they wanted was a debate about the kind of world we want to live in; their partisans have ordered the rest of us to confine that debate to the issue of the NSA's surveillance, which has -- not surprisingly -- almost nothing to do with the real debate we need to have.  Which is not to defend NSA's domestic surveillance activities in any way. It is merely to point out that NSA's surveillance activities are hardly the most important matter in the debate over the kind of world we want to live in.

I would say unfettered corporate control of that world is a far more important matter in the debate we should be having, and that is the debate that Corporate Defenders and Corporate Libertarians are anxious to avoid or prevent.

Instead, they aver that there is too much government control of corporations, and that NSA's domestic surveillance activity is the case in point.

In fact, for all intents and purposes, the US Government particularly, and governments throughout the world generally, are the creatures and the servants of corporate interests -- to the exclusion of the public interest at almost all times, almost everywhere.  This is a main reason why so many people are so enraged and rebellious in so many places so much of the time. Hello?

There is not too much government control of corporations, if anything there is far too little. Corporate interest runs roughshod over the public. Corporate interest is the principal business of most governments most of the time. Corporate interest comes first and foremost, and we are near the point where corporate interest is the only interest of government.

But, but, but, but Secret FISA COURT ORDERS!!!! Ayiee! Snowden proved it, did he not?

As I and others have pointed out, FISA court orders to companies providing data to the Surveillance System are functionally eyewash and ass covers for those companies to immunize them from lawsuits by the public for ongoing privacy violations and violations of terms of service.

And here it's important to realize that the Surveillance System is a joint partnership operation by an essentially fused corporate-government. It is not something that has been imposed on an innocent corporate sector by an evil government despite the arguments of Corporate Defenders to the contrary.

So with the Corporate Defenders' premise (of too much government control of corporations) undermined, what is the point of all this hoohah, anyway?

It is, in my view, to so diminish the power and authority of "government" that it literally ceases to exist as an independent entity and becomes entirely -- not substantially, but entirely -- the creature of a global, implacable, and unassailable Corporate-State.

In other words, the end-game, as I see it, is the full privatization of government everywhere around the world, in perpetuity, without let or hindrance, forever and ever, world without end, amen.

And the contest, such as it is, is over which corporate interests will have control of this ideal privatized government, and to some extent how soon it can and will be implemented, with the digital companies demanding primacy and the liberty to extend their reach and power immediately and indefinitely.

That's what this is all about. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Is the coming Corporate World, masterminded and controlled by a handful of digital Super-Corps the kind of world we want to live in?

Let's have that debate.

"All watched over by machines of loving grace."

"And the Rockets Red Glare..."

Fort McHenry, Baltimore, MD flies a replica of the Star Spangled Banner

We went out to Ft McHenry -- about ten years ago -- on what may have been our last visit to Baltimore, in fact on what was probably our last day there on our last visit.

What I remember was how damned hot it was, blazing hot, and the humidity was high as well. It was in September, too. Despite spending several Septembers in Florida -- where the weather seems to be pretty damned hot and wet pretty much all the time -- I had never experienced heat and humidity like that at Ft. McHenry before and I'd really rather not do so again. This from someone who lived in California's Central Valley for decades. Summertime temperatures in the Valley are often over 100 and can on occasion be over 110 -- up to, say, 115 or so. Not pleasant, to be sure, but survivable because "it's a dry heat." Well, usually. Sometimes it's not...

I understand that at the "Restore the 4th" gathering at the State Capitol in Sacramento yesterday, the temperature was 109. Hot, hot, hot. Those kinds of summer temperatures are normal in Sacramento; it's not due to global warming. The irony is that the lingering rains and actually cooler temperatures in the Valley are more symptomatic of global warming there, whereas here in the East Mountains of New Mexico, it's the heat and drought.

But we've had rain here every day since June 30, apparently the Monsoon is coming in right on schedule. Actually, the weather people say this daily rainfall is not the Monsoon, because the storms are mostly coming from the north and east, and the Monsoon comes up from the west and south and the Gulf of Mexico. So the rains we've been having on a Monsoon schedule are considered anomalous because there is so little moisture coming up from the south or crossing over from the west. Bad as the drought has been here, I understand it has been worse in Mexico proper. I can only imagine.

What I saw of the "Restore the 4th" rallies showed somewhat muted and sparse crowds that weren't really crowds at all. They were hand fulls. A dozen or so in Albuquerque, a few hundred max in some other places, a few scattered 4th Amendment Supporters here and there; that leads me to believe there may have been no more than a few thousand demonstrators in all the land yesterday. How disappointing.

Well, what can I say. We ourselves went out to the Route 66 Casino and had us some fun. We came back through Albuquerque as the multiple fireworks displays were under way -- which made for quite a spectacle given the lightning that was flashing over the mountains. It was really quite a show, and as we crossed over the mountains ourselves, the rain came down in buckets. Day before, there had been much hail, so much that it looked like a heavy snowfall in places like Santa Rosa, and Meadowlake out in Valencia County was mostly flooded. The folks there raised quite a stink when the county told them they'd get no help till after the holiday. Priorities!

The 4th Amendment has never been all that operative when you think about it. If one is a member of a targeted Out Group, the 4th barely applies, and then only under certain tightly confined circumstances. No knock and blanket warrants are common, no warrants in emergencies (ever more broadly defined) is not unusual, and warrantless digital searches have always been part of -- indeed, features of -- the intertubes. Given the way the 4th has been ignored or sidestepped routinely over the past few centuries, and especially how it was all but voided during the conquest of the continent, the various labor uprisings and Red Scares, and more recently the Existential Terror Threats, it seems to me that getting all worked up over it now is a day late and a dollar short.

What is anyone going to do about it?

This is where the hysteria over NSA spying is strikingly dissonant, at least in my view. There have long been big problems with it in part because it is mostly being done by corporate partners like Booz Allen Hamilton, for which Young Snowden worked at the last. (I'd be careful making too much of that, though, because it looks like much of the documentation he collected and gave to the Guardian and possibly others was acquired in 2009 and 2010 rather than recently, which leads to a whole other set of questions about it -- and him.)  But ultimately the NSA portion of the Domestic Surveillance Apparat is that of the aggregator, not so much the instigator, and because it is "above the fray" if you will, the attacks on the NSA for violating the 4th Amendment strike me as jejune. Yes, they are violating it, but so what? What are they doing with their accumulated data? Nobody really knows, do they? Has any of it been used to persecute Americans or "US persons"? Again, nobody knows. Has the NSA been engaging in this persecution -- if it has happened at all -- on its own account? If anybody can testify, please, come forth.

What about the daily violations of the 4th by the FBI, and local and state police forces? Do those suddenly not matter because the NSA has a vast data collection and storage capacity? Because the NSA is in violation of the 4th Amendment, we should forget about all the rest?

That's the message the hysteria communicates, whether or not that's the intent of those undertaking the revelations.

Didn't we fight a revolution in order to secure these rights? No, actually we didn't. The concept of the Bill of Rights comes from an earlier era, and from a prior "revolution" in Britain, the so-called Glorious Revolution that deposed the Stuart monarch James II, and put in on the English throne his daughter Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange. As part of the deal made with them by the insurgents, they were required to accede to the Declaration of Right of 1688 and English Bill of Rights of 1689, which they did. Bless their hearts. Most of the provisions of the English Bill of Rights were already a part of civil and criminal law in the English Colonies that revolted from the Crown c. 1776, and they continued to be part of the post-colonial legal framework of the now independent states. The United States Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, became an issue rather later, when a national government under the Constitution was instituted c. 1789, due to the perceived necessity to control the power of the new government just as the power of the Crown had been partially controlled previously. The American Revolution was not fought to secure these rights, for they were already as secured to American subjects as to the British, though it was often in the breach rather than in practice -- due to exigent circumstances, dontchaknow.

"Exigent circumstances...." Well, here we are again, n'est pas? Come to think of it, have Our Rulers ever not been operating under "exigent circumstances?"

But, but, but, but, surely we don't want the NSA spying on us innocent Americans, just as we don't want the TSA fondling our junk as it were. We must put a stop to it!!!! Well, I won't fly any more if I can avoid it, partly because of the invasive and officious behavior of the TSA. I de-Facebooked and de-Twitted partly because of the utter lack of privacy they entail though it had more to do with their utter time-wasting and hyper-marketing, but that's another issue.

Of course I still use Blogger and Hotmail. And I've never been much for heavy-duty encryption, or any of the other means of dancing around and sidestepping the Surveillance State. For a time, I even had a Carbonite account! OMG! As I see it, you can't really live in the Modern World and avoid all forms of surveillance, given the multitude of ways the private sector tracks your every move and the myriad ways the private sector shares and sells that information to the Perfidious Government. Unless you choose to live as a hermit in the wilderness, you're not going to escape it -- and even then, you probably won't as there are many means most of us don't even think about to keep track of and surveille hermits in the wilderness.

The NSA hysteria is in my view a sideshow and distraction from the very real issues involving day-to-day surveillance by the private sector on behalf of government or on their own account,  and the increasing levels of economic injustice that pervade our Land of the Formerly Free and Home of the Constantly Fearful. In my view, those who are most vocal about the NSA and its data capture and storage don't care in the least about the kinds of invasive ground-level surveillance most of us are subjected to from the private sector and they tend to ignore or actually support the economic injustice that has been eviscerating the middle classes and crushing the poor in this country for years.

This story will be told one day. And when it is, may we come to realize just how badly we've been had...

Does the United States Even Have a Government Anymore?

I noticed that the current crop of Obomba Scandals!!!!! opened up almost immediately after the Correspondents' Dinner in April, almost on cue, and that the leading Obomba Scandals!!!! (Benghazi, IRS, Spying on the AP) had been in the hopper for quite some time. They were not "news," they were rehashed previous stories, pumped up to Frenzy Level 12. All of them had been reported on previously -- some, like Benghazi, becoming memes.

Suddenly, we saw the spectacle of Washington, particularly the White House, scrambling and babbling and doing its level best to both inflate and deflate these Scandals!!!! -- depending on which political team was being played for at any given moment. Polling the rabble was constant. Interestingly, none of these Scandals!!!! were resonating much with the public, so another one was introduced, Spying on a FOX reporter!!!! That got a momentary rise, but then even it seemed to settle into the background noise.

These Scandals!!!!! were not catching fire with the unwashed masses, and the White House seemed to be handling each one deftly. Rope-a-Doping Issa was easy. Calling for heads to roll was easy. Some sacrificial heads were offered up, "reforms" were launched, the Frenzy died down.

Then there came the Snowden Thing from the Guardian, and All Holy Hell broke loose -- at least for a time -- as the Nation's Sekrits!!!! were Exposed!!!! EVERYONE WAS BEING SPIED ON ALL THE TIME, AIYEEEE!!!! Run for your lives, Children, we're all going to DIEEEEEE!!!!

Yes, well. When the AP Surveillance story was being pumped up, I, among others, pointed out that everyone was subject to intrusive surveillance, had been for a long time, and now it seemed the AP was demanding an exemption. Why should they be exempt when the People are not? At what point do we turn this around and demand that the universal and blanket surveillance that everyone is under be curtailed?

I thought it was interesting at the time that quite literally no one was paying any attention to the fact that universal surveillance had been institutionalized thanks to the abrogation of responsibility by Congress, and it had been going on for years. Supposedly anti-terrorist, the surveillance was obviously in place to protect and defend the Overclass from interference by the Rabble. The obvious proof was in the OWS surveillance revelations that never got a lot of media but which are really quite shocking, especially for the granular level of surveillance of OWS and the coordination of surveillance and suppression by government and corporate interests throughout the land. This indicated that when it comes to perceived threats to the Ruling Class, the 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendments to the Constitution are essentially inoperative. And there is a vast ground level surveillance apparat in place, coordinated out of Washington, to ensure that it is so.

And nobody pumping the Scandals!!!! seemed to care. The only thing that mattered to them was that the media was being spied on: OUTRAGEOUS!!!! Except the Public didn't care about that. The Big Media had so little credibility with the public that whether or not reporters were being tailed by gumshoes was utterly irrelevant to most people. The public indifference toward the media's whining about being spied on seemed to come as a shock to the insular Big Media Club. How dare the rabble not care!!!?

Yes, well. That's how it goes when you betray the public's trust over and over and over again, which was how the Big Media had been operating for the entirety of the last decade and more -- at least since the Judicial Coup of 2000, and many would say since well before that, given all the phony Scandals!!!!! the Big Media < cough NYT cough > manufactured and marketed during the Clinton Apocalypse. The Post-Modern Media was as thoroughgoing an embarrassment to the concept of a Free Press as had ever seen the light of day, and that was saying something, considering how appallingly bad media had been in previous eras.

But just as that Scandal!!!!! was dying down thanks to public indifference, the Snowden Thing popped up at the Guardian and it was like manna from heaven to the parched and starving Big Media. Finally! Something to catch and hold the interest of the masses! Hurrah!

And of course what it was about was exactly what the previous failed Scandals!!!!! were not: the universal surveillance of everyone all the time, something that most people can actually relate to, though they may not be particularly opposed to it  -- depending on whether or not people they know are caught up in the Programs.

Yet the Snowden Thing is faltering, partly because of the somewhat bizarre nature of the skip tracing that's (apparently) taking place to apprehend the culprit. Much the same thing happened with Julian Assange, as I was reminded last night when Frontline re-ran their "WikiSecrets" program from 2010. The similarities between the Assange/Manning Thing and the Snowden Thing were remarkable. I was reminded of a lot things, including own my minor involvement in the story. Oh dear, what had I done?

At any rate, in looking back, not only on that but on the HBGary Thing that would come up not long afterwards, I felt the kind of disorientation I sometimes feel when things seem to be entering the Twilight Zone. Or is it Chinatown?

In this case, I'm asking, "Does the United States have a government anymore, or are Our Rulers just winging it?" And if they are, just who are they?

Obama and his Team? Uh, well, that's been debatable from the outset, as we saw when he set out to do certain things, like shut down the Guantanamo Gulag, and immediately he was beset by harpies, led by the contemptible daughter of One Dick Cheney, Ruler Imperial Forever or Something.  Every time she -- or he, now that he has someone else's heart -- opens their piehole, all of Washington, and particularly the White House, trembles. It is obvious as sin that they are, literally, in charge. But on whose behalf?

They -- House Cheney --  are able to publicly order Obama around like a string puppet. It's shocking. Congress is supine in the face of their bluster. WTF? As for the courts, ha. It's not simple corruption with the courts, it's something orders of magnitude worse, for We, the People have neither standing nor influence over issues like law and justice and so forth. At least in a corrupt judicial system, the People have some say, some of them even have some control, and if you know who they are, which you probably do, you at least have a chance.... in the current system, though, the People are kept completely in the dark, it's all a Big Secret.

Is there a government in the sense the public understands the concept of "government" any more? Or has what once was the Government become entirely a matter of certain private interests contending with one another to operate the levers of power on their own -- private -- behalf, either ignoring or exploiting the People in the process?

Is there really any question about it any more?

When I see the devolution of these issues into hatred for one or another of the political actors in the drama -- whether it be Obama or any other -- I shake my head in disgust. Obama and Bush were strolling around Africa together the other day, as if they were old buddies, much as Clinton and Bush stroll around together these days, and what's necessary to see here is that it -- the Presidency at the least and the governing class the Presidency serves is a continuum, not a discreet series of individuals to be hailed or excoriated in turn. Banging on about how wonderful or awful whoever sits on the Throne of Office may be simply gets nowhere. It's a form of venting to be sure, but beyond that, what good is it?

If, as seems to be, government is out of the People's hands altogether, and our public-private-partnership surveillance state fully intends to keep it that way forever and ever, amen, what, then, must we do?

That is the question for which we have no universal answer as yet, though many, many answers are being sought and experimented with. Sometimes the answer is right there in front of us, sometimes it has to be the product of struggle great or small, sometimes there is no answer -- or as is often the case, the answer is "no."

Submission and compliance and required economic extractions are all Our Rulers really want from us in any case.

As long as they believe they have that, we are, of course, free.