Random Speculation

Now that the Outbreak is shutting down New York City, hub of the Universe, and is actively spreading through the Hallowed Halls of Congress and even the White House staff, you would think it would concentrate the minds of Our Rulers. Oddly it doesn't seem to. Instead, they dither the way they always do, and they come up with one Rube Goldberg contraption after another to pretend to do something but actually do nothing but make a ball bounce around in a maze. Entertainment, in other words.

The idea that there has been no preparation for an Outbreak of this potential scale and lethality is silly. Of course there has been, and we're seeing the plans --- such as they are --- implemented day by day. That's where the lockdowns and shelter in place orders come from. The cessation of most business comes from long made plans. The demands of the overclass for MORE MONEY!!!! are all planned in. The lack of medical equipment and supplies has been known for years, and how much time it would take to "ramp up" production is also well understood.

What's happening is no mystery to most of those in charge, and they expect it to get much worse until and unless there is a concerted and sustained effort to reverse the situation. Which may -- or may not -- come in a year. Or more.

In the meantime, tough luck suckers.

The die off so far is interestingly not as high as expected. So far, we're nowhere near the 1% thought likely, let alone the 4% considered probable given the lethality of the virus elsewhere. It's early yet, but not that early, so there must be something mitigating the overall death rate in the US, whether it is under reporting or different treatment or what. The progression of infection seems completely exponential, but not -- so far -- the death rate.

Are we dealing with a mutated virus, one somewhat different than the one ravaging Europe? Maybe.

Has anyone tracked down the US Patient Zero and traced travel and contacts? How many Patients Zero were there? The Outbreak was first noticed in the Seattle area and it was grotesquely lethal as it spread through skilled nursing facilities, carried it seems by a single staff member who worked through a number of them. But though it was first noticed there, was that the original US infection site? Maybe not.

I can look at the way the virus has spread in New Mexico and notice that the first cases were among travelers -- some to Egypt, some to Washington state and New York, and that at least some future cases, not related to the first ones, seem to have been transmitted through Interstate Highway routes.

Then there are some that have mysterious origins. They just seemed to pop up out of nowhere. Could there be a simultaneous domestic origin? Could the virus be something that exists commonly in the background and spontaneously mutates into a more or less lethal version of the Outbreak virus? I don't know. But the theory that all cases have been the result of spread from Wuhan may have some holes. It may take years to find out.

Then there's the question of treatments. Plaquenil, which I take, has apparently disappeared from the market scarfed up like toilet paper and being hoarded. It supposedly can be an effective treatment, and maybe it is, but it has side effects that can be worse than the disease.  I've had to cut back my dosage because I can't get any more, perhaps for the duration, and if I run out, oh well!

There are other treatments being speculated on and tried, and maybe, just maybe, something will be found that's widely effective before the virus mutates again into something else.

Our ruling class is affected perhaps more so at this point than the Rabble, as the virus has spread widely through the Upper Class resorts and hideyholes. So far, I haven't found any reports of death among them, but who knows? Would they tell us?

The Hallowed Halls of Congress are starting to look pretty empty. First they bar tourists and the general public, and then Members started testing positive. Community transmission is going on as they grind the sausage of some kind of bill to give much money to the High and the Mighty, and by the time they get to a compromise, there might not be a quorum. Who would have thought?

Meanwhile the Daily White House Follies and Freak Show continues, the lockdowns spread across the nation, and people continue to get sick.

Failure is more  than possible. Our rulers are following a pattern we've seen over and over again. The question is whether they will get away with it this time.

Maybe not.

Those Who Rule Us

They are really foul creatures.

I've long maintained that Trump and his cabal of gangsters, thieves, white supremacists, and "disruptors" are representative of their class; they are not the highest of the mighty -- far from it -- but they ape them, admire them, want to be like them, and they have been able to seize many of the mechanisms of the government the High and the Mighty control, without more than token resistance from within.

Trump may be a gold-plated con man, but so are many of those of his status and  so are many of those above him.

It is an identity thing with those people.

They thrive on making life miserable for others, looting them, plundering their pelf, tricking them. It's a con, you see. In many ways, it always has been.

It's all well and good to say, "We are many; they are few," a truism if there ever was one. But damb, it's useless without employing the strength of those numbers. We don't do that; we can't, not yet.

Our rulers -- including the Trump cabal -- ensure we cannot unite in strength against their depredations. They are highly, highly skilled at the principle of Divide and Rule. Keeping us at one another's throats over some damb thing or other is a game to them, and we're seeing how effective social media is in maintaining those divisions. The Twitterverse and the rest of the media are ever-useful manipulators of public attention and opinion. Decoupling from it hasn't happened and likely won't.

Not in my (shortened) lifetime, anyway.

Those who rule us are monstrous. Some may once have had the inkling of a social conscience, but none do now. Some of their absence of conscience may have to do with the fact that they understand the consequences of global warming, and they have prepared to protect themselves, not us.

There you have it.

One of the Very Few Times ...

...that the High and Mighty have been targeted by the American Lone Gunman happened in Alexandria, VA, this morning at a softball practice involving congress members and staff.

Details are sketchy -- to say the least -- but apparently one congressman was wounded (Steve Scalise) as well as a couple of cops on protective duty. The suspect is said to be in custody.

Some wag said, "Well, he must be white then."

This wouldn't be the first time a congressmember was shot and wounded by the Lone Gunman, and it will be interesting to see what kind of outrage emerges from this one. Gabby Giffords was shot and critically wounded in 2011 and had to leave congress on account of her injuries, but all the outrage her shooting provoked had zero effect on her former colleagues who rather ostentatiously and arrogantly refused to consider legislation that might further restrict access to firearms for people with mental illness. As I recall -- but my memory is failing -- congress actually passed legislation easing access to guns in the wake of Gabby Giffords' shooting.

How much bigger a "Fuck you!" could they have engineered?

Shootings by these Lone Gunmen are commonplace, of course, but they almost never target people with money or power. That's why the Giffords shooting was so odd. Today's incident is also odd.

Ah, but  we've been in this chaotic matrix for some time now, and these sorts of oddities are bound to become more and more common. The question is not whether they will happen -- they will -- but rather what the response of the Powers That Be will be.

If as I suspect the shooting today can be labeled "terrorism" -- even better if the shooter is brown, black, or Muslim(!) or better still a "damn dirty librul"*-- then we will see a prompt response from Power and Authority to tighten the ratchet on all sorts of irritating people and behavior.

This isn't a Reichstag Fire type incident, but given the hysterics of Our Rulers (well, some of them) over the Terrorist Threat (to themselves, of course, they don't give a shit about the rest of us) the reaction is liable to be similar.

As if we didn't have enough of that already.

It's the world we live in.

Gak.

UPDATE: * And so, here we are:

His Twitter profile shows that Hodgkinson is a left-wing supporter of Bernie Sanders who has also posted several memes on his Facebook page critical of President Donald Trump. He also called Georgia Republican congressional candidate Karen Handel a “b*tch” for saying she didn’t support a living wage during a debate with Democratic rival Jon Ossoff.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/gop-baseball-practice-shooter-identified-as-66-year-old-james-t-hodgkinson/

The Hillary Speeches Hoo-Hah

I've held off saying much about the Hillary Speeches Doc Dump because there isn't really a whole lot to say about it. I have read a few of the docs that have appeared or been linked from elsewhere. It's all but impossible to search WikiLeaks' archives itself (I tried "Podesta emails", for example, and came up with 62 of supposedly thousands of hacked emails.)

Anyway, what's in these emails and the partial transcripts of speeches Hillary gave to the High and Mighty for Big Bucks strikes me as pretty benign. She even tries to inject a modicum of social conscience into people and institutions that have none. No wonder this isn't getting a lot of traction in the media or much of anywhere else. Despite the headlines, there's very little there there.

There's so little there there that Lambert over at NC, always one of the most inciteful (heh) analysts of Things Clinton ("Clintoooon!"), had to say: "Reading these, I’m thinking the $675,000 had nothing to do with the actual content…."

We know from endless prattle of the likes of Lambert and many others that all things Clinton ("Clintoooon!") are the definition of corrupt. There is no political corruption on the face of the earth unless it is smeared with Clintoon shit. None. And these emails, according to Julian Assange would be filled with smoking guns of Clintoon corruption that would, somehow or other, destroy her campaign.

Well. No. Not so far anyway. 

They show her getting along with the Mighty-Mighty titans and malefactors of great wealth to be sure, but in every one of the ones I've seen, she's telling them to their faces that they need to get a soul and start treating the rest of humanity -- like all the millions who've been harmed by their shenanigans --  better. Sometimes there are details of what she expects of them -- such as lending to Main Street to get the economy going again -- and sometimes there aren't, it's just a moral(ish) declaration. "It's your obligation to do better for the Little People."[Paraphrase.]

So the question has been raised, "Why the hell didn't she just release this stuff when Bernie asked? 'Cause it sure doesn't look like there was anything worth hiding in what's been hacked."

Of course these aren't the whole transcripts, they're excerpts, but there's nothing shocking or more than modestly ear-grating in them. She doesn't have a way with words, let's put it that way. She's no great orator to the Great and Worthy or to the Rabble. But there's an inner coherence to what she has to say, and gets across her points relatively well. One of which is, "I'm your friend, and I want you to behave better."

Gee. Alert the media! Get this to Olbermann, stat! (An old joke, but sometimes it's fun...)

Her positions -- so far as I can make out -- are pretty much the same as Obama's when it comes to those people. Which has been arm's length but relatively friendly. Enough so that they're rolling in money while the rest of us have continued to struggle with little or no help from Our Betters.

I think it's Greenwald who has proposed that though the emails are not particularly damning or devastating, they do show how She (Who Must Be Obeyed) would govern, and it's not pretty. 

Well, no. It never is.

With Hillary it is perhaps less pretty because of her nature and background and her absence of oratorical power -- particularly problematical is her legal training and experience. I'm convinced it destroys otherwise good people who want to do right, but once they learn about the Law, they're lucky to do anything unless it conforms to custom and can be parsed to mean what it doesn't.

I come from a family of attorneys. I don't recommend their ways as a general thing. It's nuts making.

Big Dog has had many of the same problems of excessive legalism as Hillary does. 

I think it's interesting that it's called "corruption" when it is really something else again. Let's call it an excess of moralism based in flawed understandings of law and propriety. Or maybe it's inner defiance....

Anyway, it's gotten the Clintons in trouble more than once.

These emails don't show the kind of corruption that Hillary is incessantly accused of. The accusation of "pay to play" quid pro quos between Herself and the myriad High and Mighty interests she's dealt with don't fly in the end because there's no direct sign of a quid let alone a pro quo. Well, I should say, there's more than a few quid, in that many tens of millions of dollars have gone into hers and Bill's pockets and into the Clinton Foundation, but other than a "fair hearing" it's not clear that anything has been delivered to those interests that they wouldn't have already received anyway.  They didn't have to pay her for what they got on the other end. They would have gotten it anyway.

In other words, the charges of "corruption" are based in a fantasy understanding of how government is supposed to work.

Not an understanding of how it does work.

So what did they pay her for?

It's always a question, isn't it? Why do ex-officials, it doesn't matter who they are, cash in so heavily on the speaking-lecture circuit or gain multi-millions from legal partnerships or from sitting on boards of directors once they leave office? How does that work, exactly, and what are the parameters?

What do the speakers-partners-board-members provide the payers?

You can't get a clear understanding of this System from all the yapping going on about it, particularly not from all the puerile insults being thrown around: "Clintoooon!!!!" Etc.

Yes, it is a System, fully formed long ago, by which those who once served in high government office (and sometimes not so high) can profit mightily and legally once they leave the marble halls of government, and by which they can thence return to the Hallowed Corridors of Power, rich as Croesus, to start the cycle over again. It is the custom of the tribe. Dick Cheney, anyone?

We may disagree with it -- I certainly do -- but it is legal, and it is all but impossible to prove a direct pro quo for the quid, so legally it's not corruption. No, not really. Really!

It's especially so the higher you go up the ladder of the System. Lower ranks can and do get in trouble or sometimes go to jail for relatively minor indiscretions in squeezing the teats of the System, but the higher the rank, the less likely one is to have one's tits put through the wringer.

The System itself is corrupt, but we don't hear about that, and passions rarely rise over the whole damn thing. No, it's individuals like Hillary who are pilloried for working the System to their advantage, for profiting legally (or sometimes not) from the opportunities on hand.

That someone else does likewise, say Colin Powell or Condolezza Rice to pull two names at random out of a hat, is not a problem -- they're not running for office of course -- but they're profiting from the same System Hillary has. The list of profiteers is almost endless.

That Hillary has worked the System better than many must be galling to her rivals who are convinced she's just not that smart, but the emails show her with a clear grasp of issues and the interests of the people she's speaking to, and the interests of those who have been left behind, a fuller grasp than I would have expected. She may not express herself artfully -- far from it -- but she's no slouch or dullard when it comes down to it.

I suspect she suffers from being "too smart for her own good."

What she seems to lack is good judgment. This has led to some catastrophic misjudgments and utter horror for millions of people in the Middle East, North Africa, Central America and elsewhere. Her husband suffered from some of the same problems of poor judgment Hillary has though perhaps on a different plane...

Yet strangely, or perhaps not, Hillary's poor judgment seems to be right in line with the theories of how things ought to be as they are the accepted consensus among the Ruling Class. In other words, even her moral scolding -- and moral failing -- is taken by them as right and proper.

They should be doing better by the Lower Orders. But they don't. Aww, such a Pity so many have to suffer...

All the Hag-Hate in the world is not going to change that. It will have no affect on the System at all. It's a diversion. Perhaps even an engineered one to ensure that nothing will interfere with the System as it is.

Trump, too, seems to be a diversion.

Keep the Rabble entertained enough and at one another's throats enough, and Wah-Lah! Their impotence for another cycle is assured.

That is key to keeping the Overclass on top and the Rabble incapable of doing anything about it.

Part of the President's job assignment is to soothe or tame the Rabble. Obama is a master at it; there hasn't been anyone as skilled at it since FDR. Hillary is not skilled at it, not at all, and Trump's apparent goal is to rile them up so much they commit mayhem or even a Revolution from the Right.

TPTB cannot tolerate that, of course, but they must be disappointed in Hillary's failure to connect with, let alone tame the Rabble who might well rise up on their own against what they see as an inappropriate continuation of an unacceptable status quo.

The situation puts the Overclass on the spot. Clearly they have decided on Hillary for the White House, but as she is incapable of properly taming the masses, something or someone will have to supplement her rule. I don't see Mr. Kaine being much help in that regard. Certainly Bill will face the same sort of difficulty he did when he was president. Nor would Democratic control of one or both houses of Congress do her any favors. In fact, given the historic fecklessness and misrule of the Democrats, and their lack of interest in progressive policy solutions to domestic and international problems, I can easily imagine a Democratic majority in either or both houses of Congress would be even worse for Hillary than it was for Obama when he had a Democratic majority.

If the Rs keep the House -- likely but not certain -- who would be surprised if articles of impeachment are filed within minutes of her taking office? Who would be surprised with endless "investigations," scandal mongering, hysterics even greater than when Bill was in office? The media will eat it up, just as they have with the sex-accusations against Trump.  They don't care about other aspects of his history, though, do they? The man is a gangster and a con man, and he is a representative of his class, but none of that matters when there is sex on the table.

Nothing matters except The Sex.

It strikes me that there's a revenge drama running through all this nonsense, "get back" for past slights and mistakes. How all that works is a topic for another day.

Right now, though, the Hillary Speeches Hoo-Hah is a lot of sound and fury signifying almost nothing.

Hillary?? Hillary. Hillary! (We're supposed to say Yay!)

The way I understand it, Hillary was not to have serious/significant primary opposition. She was to be granted the Democratic Party Presidential Nomination by Right, on a Silken Pillow, after a not-too-strenuous primary season that would be abbreviated thanks to all the other primary candidates dropping out by mid-March if not sooner.

It would be a cakewalk for her compared to the brawl on the Other Side.

Bernie was either not to run at all, or if he did run, his numbers would be so low (cf: O'Malley -- who?) that he would see the writing on the wall and disappear back to the nether reaches of the People's Republic of Vermont and the Senate where he came from.

Didn't work out quite that way. Not quite that way at all.

I voted for Bernie here in New Mexico, and my county's Democrats went for Bernie over Hillary ... two votes. I don't know whether anybody will call for a recount. Interestingly, the more rural counties tended to favor Bernie while the more urban counties were Hillary strongholds. Hmmm.

Same thing seemed to happen in California.

Hillary won New Mexico's Democratic Primary by a small margin, less than 7,000 votes state wide out of 215,000 or so cast (turnout was pitiful.) In California, the margin was greater, but still.

Bernie was not supposed to do so well. He wasn't really supposed to run at all. He's a crabby old man, after all, and who wants that in the White House? Yuk.

Not just old and crabby, but a fricking Socialist to boot. Eeek! Run away!

But no. He piled up victory after victory defying expectations and the polls, and toward the end his rallies seemed to get bigger not smaller.

Herself had the Machine and Wall Street and the Dem Party backing; Bernie only had the frustrations of the masses backing his campaign -- and that little birdie, of course.

It was remarkable in every way that Bernie could come as close as he did to the nomination given the political disabilities he started with. I'm sure he was as astonished as Hillary was.

The depth of anger and despair at the shenannigans of the high and the mighty is much greater than Our Rulers ever imagined. As Bernie's numbers grew and grew, the Overclass got more and more alarmed ... and pissed off.

Don't let's fool ourselves. There will be hell to pay for this mini-rebellion. Hell, I say.

I've never had a great deal of regard for the Bernie campaign, for the simple reason that you can't conduct a genuine revolution from the Left from within the Palace. Ain't -- ever -- gonna happen. That Palace is so locked down and securitized, and the Left is so marginalized, even to the point of complete absence, that there cannot be a Leftish rebellion/revolution from within. It's designed that way. It works to prevent the Left from acquiring power and implementing policies and programs on behalf of the People. It's always been that way, even during the supposed hey-days of the supposed Left in government (FDR, LBJ, etc.)

Nothing that Bernie proposed was radical or particularly Socialist. In fact, to Old Farts like me, a lot of it was pretty familiar. What he proposed was basically a restoration of the social and economic trendlines of the pre-1980 era. Ie: Before Reagan dismantled all that.

While I wouldn't object, the problem with his program was that it was locked in the past. And we can't go back, much as we might like to. We can't pick up in 1980 and go forth as if the intervening eras never happened, but that was what I was feeling Bernie was offering in his stump speechs and campaign.

We need something new. And that is not what Bernie was offering. He offered a kind of reversion to Better Days -- which is nice to hear -- and specific relief to suffering segments of the population, but there wasn't enough in that program to attract the Dems in sufficient numbers to gain the nomination -- something I don't think he ever in his wildest dreams thought he could do anyway. It was a campaign of ideas to be sure, but not ones that he thought would get him the nomination.

Hillary's campaign has been predicated on motto "No you can't," Many people are comforted by what  they and others are prevented from doing. If the Left is prevented from acting and the Rightists are confined to a narrow set of actions, then the status quo is mostly preserved; the only real political movement under those circumstances is ever-further rightward, and that's always pleasing to the NeoLibCon Masters of the Universe.

Those are the people Hillary serves. Everyone knows it. Bernie, on the other hand, does not serve them, not directly, but because he has been inside the Belly of the Beast for as long as he has, he doesn't -- and can't -- separate himself entirely from them. He is, as part of the government, their creature just as much as anybody else inside the gates.

That was the other problem I had with Bernie's campaign. He was asserting a kind of fantasy of what you can do from "within" as it were. You can, it's true, get a lot done when you're in charge of the government or even just have a seat at the table. But what you can get done will always be restricted and constrained by the nature of the institutions you are within or part of. That means that you cannot ultimately do anything that the institutional framework (of government in this case) does not enable or foster. In our country, the institutional framework of government is abusive and preventional. It is set up to and operates efficiently to foster and excuse some of the worst actions and abuses we've seen over the course of our long history, and to prevent the People from doing much of anything about it.

The government of the United States serves an elite coterie, not the People. It is institutionally and functionally unable to serve the People without the permission of that coterie. That permission is rarely granted, and when it is, it is often enough temporary and subject to alteration or revocation at any minute. The People have very little or no say in what is allowed, and the only times they have a say is when they object so loudly or rebel so strenuously that the High and Mighty cannot ignore them anymore.

Bernie, even if he had been nominated and elected to the Presidency would have been able to do almost nothing that he proposed/promised unless the PTB agreed and granted permission. That would be unlikely to say the least. So the stalemate-gridlock of the past several years would have continued or worsened.

Hillary, on the other hand, as an annointed representative of those High an Mighty Ones, would be able to do their bidding with relative ease ("Getting things done") and probably would be able to sell it as "Good For You!" even though it's crap.

That's what I think is the next part of her audition: can she sell a Shit Sandwich to the ravening masses and keep them in line the while?

We'll see.

It depends on a number of factors: how much worse things will get for the majority before the election in November, how bad for most Hillary's NeoLibCon policies will be -- assuming they are recognized in the first place; how deceptive her campaign will be in selling this horseshit.

We'll see.

As for Trump, I'm more and more convinced he's a ratfuck. My god in heaven what a political disaster.

This IS "Justice" -- as the High and Mighty See It

There's been a great deal of angst and handwringing over the selective leaking of information favorable to Mike Brown's killer Darren Wilson apparently from information only available to the prosecutor's office and the Grand Jury so leisurely "considering" whether to indict the Brave Officer Wilson over the incident.

The leakage is seen as corrupting and specifically intended to influence the grand jury proceedings and public opinion with the upshot being no indictment of the Brave Officer just trying to protect himself and others from the big-scary black man. Or something.

So when the riots come, there will be justification for shooting into the Angry Mobs of Agitated Negroes. And so forth.

This is all being bruited about as the likely outcome of the leisurely proceedings in St. Louis by all and sundry. It has become the Standard Narrative.

The thing of it is, the people of Ferguson and St. Louis have not been playing to script. They have their own ideas, no matter how the Powers That Be try to shape the narrative to present a defense of the System As It Is, Things As They Are, and the justified suppression of the Natives.

It's amazing to witness. Now we're coming close to the dénouement, and people in the news -- apparently -- are getting themselves all worked up over the "impeding riots," when Young Officer Wilson isn't indicted.

Jebus. If I recall correctly, the killers of John Crawford in Ohio weren't indicted by the Grand Jury, either. They declined to indict, so the story went, because the Officers, Brave and True to Their Calling, genuinely thought the Negro With A Gun was an Active Threat To Themselves and/or Others, and when that is the Genuine Belief of Law Enforcement, there is no legal basis for indictment. Or so we are to believe. Grand Juries generally don't have the option of indicting on "no legal basis." The purpose of turning these cases over to a Grand Jury is to give the appearance of public accountability to a process that is basically a rubber stamp of internal decisions already arrived at.

So. John Crawford's killers were not indicted. Police officers who use deadly force on innocent and guilty alike are almost never indicted so long as they use the magic phrase: "I feared for my life and/or that of others."

That's all they have to do to get away with murder.

It happens all the time, and there are no riots, rarely is there more than a demonstration and march or two. There were no riots in Ohio, despite the egregiousness of the killing of John Crawford III. There were no riots in New York, despite the egregiousness of the killing of Eric Garner. There were no riots in Los Angeles, despite the egregiousness of the killing of Ezell Ford.  The idea that there will be riots in Ferguson when Officer Wilson is not indicted for the egregious killing of Mike Brown is an expectation based on a fantasy of what Ferguson residents see as justice.

The Ferguson police and other authorities in the area have been trying for months to incite riots in Ferguson without success. They've consistently accused the crowd of violence against police and property, but the crowds of protesters have not been violent. A handful of individuals -- widely regarded as provocateurs -- have engaged in arson, looting and vandalism periodically, but these people have been denounced by most of the crowd, a crowd which on the whole has consistently been determined and nonviolent. The contrast between police statements about the crowds and the protesters and the reality could not be more acute.

The police have repeatedly claimed -- without evidence -- that members of the crowd have thrown rocks and fired weapons at police lines. The only thrown objects that witnesses have testified to are bottles, plastic bottles, often empty plastic bottles, water bottles in other words. Even they are widely thought to be the result of provocateurs within the crowd trying to incite violence.

From the day of Mike Brown's execution on Canfield Drive, the police have behaved as if they are at the scene of a riot when there has been no riot. The burning of the QuikTrip two days after the killing is seen by Ferguson residents as an aberration, something not in character with the community, and likely not done by anyone in the community. The burning of the QuikTrip was the sole act that might be called 'rioting', but who did it? The answer to that question is still unclear.

There are many other questions left unanswered or muddled by events, including questions about a number of shooting incidents that did not involve members of the crowd of protesters but which were elided into the protests by police in a rather pathetic effort to smear the protesters and justify the highly inappropriate deployment of military-style force against the demonstrators.

The police were in effect the rioters, not the crowd. And this was clear to anyone who was witness to events in Ferguson. It was so clear, in fact, that the police were forced to step back and stand down. They simply looked absurd.

But it's clear they are determined to suppress a riot no matter what.

A riot they incite once the Grand Jury refuses to indict, an indictment that has been demanded but never expected by the protesters. Huh.

The refusal to indict is seen as genuine Justice by the Powers That Be. As long as they feel they are being protected by the police, they're satisfied with whatever the police do to those scary people in the streets, including shooting them down in cold blood. It's part of the job police are expected to do to maintain a sufficient level of fear among the Rabble. That's how Justice is supposed to work in the eyes of the High and the Mighty, no matter what we're taught in school or what the foolish Rabble believes about it.

Justice serves the Mighty.

Everyone else gets what they deserve.

The Venezuelan Thing Abides

Venezuelan protesters being hosed down in Caracas

In all the hoo-hah over the "Crimean Crisis" (right, whatever), the ongoing sabotage and subversion situation in Caracas and much of the rest of Venezuela is often forgotten, not even a sideshow in the pageant of world events.

But we shouldn't overlook it.

The protests by the Prada and Gucci set in Venezuela against the Bolivarian Revolution and the Maduro government have not stopped, not by a long shot, but participation seems to have declined significantly. This may or may not be due to official repression -- which has sometimes been reported to be severe. More than likely, it is due to the protesters' lack of unity and coherent policy prescriptions.

I've said, and I'll say again, these people just want their power back. The protesters are mostly middle and upper income Venezuelans, mostly white, and mostly of the former ruling class. Their power was diminished or eliminated by the Bolivarian Revolution, and they are still resentful and determined to restore their position and status in order to once again be able to exploit and oppress the lower orders, the poor people, the zambos, indios, and negros who have seen their condition improve and their situation advance under Chavismo.

More than likely, the protests in Venezuela will resume their intensity once the situation in Crimea stabilizes -- if it does -- and the various NGOs and government agencies in Colombia and the US can once again focus their attention on detaching Venezuelans from their Boliavarian Revolution, and detaching Venezuelan oil from the clutches of the Revolutionaries.

Returning things to the status quo ante in Venezuela, when the right kinds of people ruled the unruly masses with rod and staff and they could loot the treasury at will is only just, amirite?

But these things take time in the Modern World; no longer is Gunboat Diplomacy manifested throughout the uncivilized parts of creation, no longer does Washington just dispatch the Marines any time the natives get restless under the thumb of their overlords.

The hubris that led to the bloody debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to many other interventions and drone wars against "suspected militants" -- (Good doG in Heaven, suspected? That could be anyone, for any reason or none at all. What are they thinking? Or is thinking no longer allowed among the High and the Mighty?) -- has somewhat tempered the urge to send the troops much of anywhere these days. Their fights against peoples struggling to be free -- as they interpret the term -- haven't turned out so well.

But Venezuela is being "done" nonetheless, through internal subversion and sabotage, directed from the palatial suburban spreads of the wealthy in Caracas as well as the fincas in the outlying regions, as well as from Bogata, as well as from Miami, and I think there is no doubt of consideration and direction from the think tanks and strategic centers of Washington, DC, as well.

When the time is right, and the situation is ripe, Venezuela will be returned to its rightful place among nations, subservient to the will of the Grand Pooh-Pahs in Washington, and once again, its people impoverished, embeggared, ragged and starving, under the let and authority of some of the very people who are causing so much ruckus in the streets.

At least that is the scheme, that is the plan.

Please note: This Plan, which was circulated by RT in Spanish last November, in advance of the Venezuelan municipal elections on December 8, 2013, has not been authenticated. There is no proof in other words -- none that I've seen, anyway -- that the plan as it was published by RT was ever actually created, developed and implemented in toto or in part by the actors and elements named.

And yet, rather shockingly prescient, many of its aspects have been part and parcel of the demonstrations and their string-pullers since the latest wave began right after the elections in December. There has been a mounting level of violent protest, sabotage, interference with supplies and deliveries of electricity, food stuffs, and basic supplies (the Toilet Paper Revolution, this one is) and to favorably propagandize the rebels everywhere. Whether or not the plan is authentic, in other words, it is being carried out almost to the letter.

As far as I know, no one has attempted to discredit the Plan, either. There have been ritualized denials by the State Department that their personnel have had anything to do with the uprisings, but they are as creditable as this unsourced document, maybe less so, given the fact that the State Department has a somewhat sketchy relationship with the truth now and then. So I don't know. I can't vouch for the authenticity of the document that RT circulated, but it is certainly interesting that some parts of it are being implemented in Venezuela.

Once the Ukraine Thing is stabilized and Moldova is folded into the EU's Far Periphery, I'm sure attention will once again be turned to Venezuela, where all eyes will be on that bus driver in Miraflores Palace, and getting his ass out of there.

Until then, Venezuela abides.

Give It Away

Ordinarily, I don't watch '60 Minutes,' haven't for years. Problems with their coverage have been noted many times in other venues, so I won't go into them here, but I happened to catch a rhapsodic segment featuring billionaires and their 'giving' in a previous episode that has me gobsmacked. It was an episode which included a piece on the Recycler Orchestra of Paraguay. Simply bizarre, and really, why should we care?

I know that these days the billionaires who own our governments and rule us with rod and staff are looked to as near-divinities by many of the Rabble, just as many of said billionaires expect groveling and supplication by their inferiors. It is their due.

It is a strange and disorienting circumstance for someone who grew up as I did, a rebel, who came to understand that no human, let alone any 'god,' was owed a god-damned thing simply for being. This attitude, which I still hold, didn't sit well with my Betters, of course, but there you are. There simply is no situation in which I find that anyone is intrinsically worthy by reason of wealth or status -- or for that matter religiosity.

Thus it was with some amusement at first that I watched the segment about billionaires and their 'giving pledge' hoo-hah, a commitment to give half their fortune -- at least -- to... erm... "charity".

Furloughed

New Mexico relies heavily on Federal spending, and before the Shutdown, there was a lot of speculation about how bad it was going to be. Of course, being out in the Empty Quarter as we are, it doesn't seem like the Feds are either welcome or ever-present, but then there is an Air Force base just over the spine of the mountains to the west, and we hear that almost all their civilian employees are furloughed, and the essential civilians are not being paid. I guess the uniformed personnel are being paid, though, so that's good. I guess.

IHS is operating, they say, but with a skeletal staff, and with many routine services unavailable. The Indian Health clinics will continue to operate until the Service runs out of money to pay them, and then... who knows? They have contingency plans in place and ready to go. It's not as if health care is readily available to rural residents of New Mexico in any case.

Bosque del Apache is closed -- well, anything you might need there, like the visitors center and such, is closed, but you can still drive through much of it. They're getting ready for the Crane Festival in November, but the Shutdown has made it difficult to do preparation work.

Trinity Site has announced the cancellation of their October Opening, one of only two Openings they have a year, so thousands of people from all over the world who were intending to make pilgrimage to the site of the first nuclear bomb explosion will have to make other plans. Oh well.

It's not really clear how the nuclear labs are faring, but I'm sure the furloughed employees are pretty antsy about their projects and all. On the one hand, putting some of those projects on hold might be a good thing for all mankind as they say; on the other hand, the labs are not exclusively dedicated to blowing shit up. So there is something to ponder there...

IAIA is canceling/postponing some of its scheduled programs apparently due to the Shutdown; but there have been financial problems for some time thanks to the Sequester as well. The Sequester has sort of faded into the background of consciousness, but there are real and ongoing consequences from it as well.

Chaco Canyon is closed. As are all the other National Monuments in New Mexico. We were planning on going to a Night Sky Party in Chaco Canyon this October, but maybe not. Well, I'm sure one can still drive that washboard dirt road out to Chaco, maybe even make it to the edge of the Monument (I believe there is a gate where the dirt road changes to pavement at the entrance) and so see the stars from there, but the Night Sky programs they present are really good, and they have very nice telescopes to peer through. But not for now.

I could go on and on, because there are so many things people in New Mexico have taken for granted that simply aren't functioning or available right now thanks to the Shutdown, and many things were suffering thanks to the Sequester.

I was kind of flip in saying "no one would really notice" the Shutdown, just as they haven't really noticed the consequences of the Sequester (unless they're Federal workers or their work is funded by the Feds), but in this case, it's really not so. People are noticing, and thousands are sitting home wondering when they'll go back to work -- or of if they will.

I don't know how to explain it, but there is a growing sense of finality regarding this Shutdown, as if many of those furloughed suspect they will never go back to work, at least not at their former jobs. Could be, I don't know. I have long sensed that the makers of this mess are intent on transforming the government come hell or high water, and they will do it by any means necessary, whether it be by coup as in the SCOTUS usurpation of the 2000 election, or by compression through the Sequester, or by what they are doing now, simply cutting off a fifth of the government through the Shutdown. There is an obvious intent to re-make the government entirely, to serve only the interests of the Highest of the Mighty. The Shutdown serves those interests just fine.

The piece-by-piece restoration of funding the Rs are attempting on behalf of favored interests is an example of how they and their puppetmasters see the situation resolving. The government will be "destroyed" and then those parts of it which serve the Interests will be restored piecemeal, and no one can say a damned thing about it.

Whether this is the End Game or not, I can't be sure. But it is obvious to me that the current engineered crisis is being used as yet another opportunity to further those Interests at the expense of everyone else.

We live in interesting times...

Apocalypse Diverted?

A Wounded Elaine Dang is led out of Nairobi mall (Reuters)

The Nairobi Thing seemed to come out of nowhere, and suddenly it was all over the "news" and being flogged mercilessly (in a manner of speaking) to "mean" something or another (at first, it was flogged as a "mass shooting" then as a "terrorist attack" then as "an act of war," and we'd better get ready, because just this sort of thing could happen here, right here In the Homeland, at any minute.)

Yes, it could. We're sitting ducks, every one of us, and it is a wonder it hasn't happened already. Er... maybe it already happened, it was just routine...

Why the holy hell didn't the Panopticon pick up on it -- or any of the recent mass shootings -- is one of the many wonders of the modern age.

Of course that's not what the Panopticon is for. It's never going to pick up on potential mass shootings or domestic or foreign terrorist actions against the common people for the simple reason that the Panopticon exists to surveille and assess the common herd for threats to the High and the Mighty. The rest of us are not being surveilled and categorized and classified for the purpose of preventing mass shootings and terrorist attacks against us. Our Rulers long since accepted those as useful tactics -- along with many other cruel and unusual tactics typically involving the arbitrary imposition of authority -- to keep the Rabble in line.

The Nairobi Thing is useful in much the same way. The stark horror of the attack, in a shopping mall for cripes sake, is a universal. The fact that the shopping mall was in Nairobi rather than Neosho makes it even worse. It is obvious that the Westgate Shopping Mall is essentially identical to every other consumer paradise, and it was apparently full to bursting with Kenya's Best and Brightest out for an afternoon of relaxation and shopping joy. This is what life is all about, isn't it?

I've heard tell that a famous Ghanaian poet, a British architect and his girlfriend, and the nephew of the Kenyan President and his pregnant girlfriend were among those killed in the massacre, along with many others. A teacher who was well-known and said to be beloved in New Mexico's Navajoland was wounded. Elaine Dang is also connected to UC Berkeley and , San Diego, CA. There are so many connections, some of them surprising, with so many places and people around the world, even such out of the way locations as Crownpoint. Apparently, a list of six(?) Americans involved in the attack was read off by the gunmen during the operation. Americans! Think of it! Apparently, they were Somalis from Minneapolis, the very definition of the American Heartland -- which the Somali connection makes. A British woman was also listed among the attackers. British? OMG!

What's going on?

According to official reports the attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi was in revenge for Kenya's crackdown on Somali militants who are active in both Kenya and Somalia, a crackdown which apparently is quite bloody and indiscriminate. I don't know much about it, except that Somalia-Kenya tensions have been running high for quite some time. Kenya is apparently becoming highly neo-liberalized (thus the Westgate Mall, fergawdsake) while neighboring Somalia is Warlord Country. The Alshabaab outfit has apparently been trying to create an Islamist Emirate amid the rubble, whereas "the world" -- as in the neo-liberals -- has been doing whatever is necessary to prevent it. Thus Kenya has taken a leading role to suppress and in some cases exterminate the Alshabaab insurrectionists wherever they are found. Thus, it's War, don't you see.

And yet it was initially reported as another "mass shooting," this time in Nairobi, but involving people from all over the western world.

All by itself, that seemed odd in the extreme. Only somewhat later did the Alshabaab connection come to the fore. And now it seems that Alshabaab has suddenly become a global terrorist threat. How these stories evolve is one of the fascinating aspects of modern propaganda media. But that's another issue for another day.

The question for the moment is how this attack will be used to impose and enforce ever more restrictive policies on the everyone, for the benefit of Our Rulers -- who never let an opportunity like this go to waste.

The Four Horsemen never rest, do they?

The Freakout Over "Chained CPI"

For years now, I've advocated increasing Social Security benefits -- by doubling or even tripling low-end benefits, 50% increase at the mid-range, maybe even a 25% increase at the top. This is not rocket science, it's basic consumer economics.

Social Security benefits are cripplingly low for many retirees as well as for many of those who would retire, except they can't afford to.

It's a ridiculous situation that any rational society would not have allowed to occur, especially not during the worst economic depression since the 1930's. A rational society would have pumped up retirement benefits promptly and would have made retirement possible for many more people at an earlier age. I've advocated 55 or 60 as the proper retirement age for full benefits, rather than 66 or 67 as is now the case, and of course, I advocated something like "Medicare for All" as opposed to the titanic insurance company and medical-industrial subsidy that is Obamacare.

Doing those things: substantially increasing SS benefit amounts, reducing the retirement age, and instituting single payer health care/Medicare for All would have made a huge difference in the course of the now-Permanent Recession and would have alleviated a lot of suffering.

Instead we get cuts and talk of more cuts to come.

This is insane.

Apparently the White House is really, really pushing to institute "Chained CPI" for calculating COLAs for all kinds of benefits, especially Social Security. The beauty part, according to those who have looked into it, is that Chained CPI also functions as a mid- and lower-class tax increase because it adjusts tax brackets ever so subtly, gradually forcing lower income people into higher tax brackets while leaving those already in the highest brackets where they are. Brilliant!

With the specter of raising Medicare eligibility age to 67, the impoverishment of ordinary working Americans is set to continue until Doomsday.

This is absurd.

There is now a full-blown freakout on the so-called 'left' over the Chained CPI proposal out of the White House, and all leftish internet effort is being marshaled to put a stop to it. Yes, well. Good luck with that. It's not that it is impossible to do; it's that it's the wrong crusade.

The effort should be focused on increasing benefits, lowering the retirement age and instituting single payer/Medicare for All.

All the Freakout does is try to maintain the status quo. It doesn't advance anything. It simply tries to keep things as they are for as long as possible.

I've made this criticism of Digby more than anyone, but the tendency on the so-called 'left' is almost universally to preserve the civilized status quo against the assaults by the barbarian 'right.' Typically, it fails. And the 'left' falls back to the next barricade until it, too, fails, and so, backwards we slide, constantly. The nation becomes more and more rightist because the rightists are the ones who keep pushing against the status quo, while the defenders of the status quo are the supposed 'left.'

Didn't anybody learn anything from the failure and fall of the Soviet Union? The tragedy of the Supreme Soviet making its last stand against Yeltsin's tanks was not that they were wrong. They weren't -- at least they wouldn't have been if things weren't so out of whack. The tragedy wasn't even that they failed. The tragedy was that they had nothing to offer beyond preserving the status quo, and they were incapable of recognizing that the status quo... sucked. (Well, it could have been worse, and it got worse, but that's another issue.)

So now the American 'left' uses all its energy to preserve what it can of the status quo and calls it "Victory!" -- and that's just crazy, especially as the status quo keeps moving rightwards. Preventing Chained CPI doesn't stop the impoverishment. It's not at all certain that Chained CPI can be stopped at this juncture. So if it is instituted, the impoverishment of the American People will be accelerated somewhat, but that impoverishment will take place anyway if the current COLA formula is maintained.

Do people realize that there were no COLA adjustments for two years during the darkest period of the Permanent Recession, despite the fact that the basic cost of living was skyrocketing at that time? Food, housing, utilities, medical prices etc. were all going up, some at double digit rates, and people on fixed incomes were being battered by these increases, but they were ignored by those calculating COLAs, one of the excuses being that beneficiaries had received a large COLA previously due to fuel cost increases, and since the cost of fuel was (temporarily) lower, they didn't need COLA increases to cover other rising costs.

Maintaining the current COLA formula, in other words, is effectively backsliding. Shifting to Chained CPI calculations accelerates the backsliding.

Neither is an improvement, neither stops the impoverishment of the People for the benefit of Our Betters.

It's part of what drives me nuts about what passes for the 'left' in this country.

Those who actually want to and try to make like better for the masses are dismissed as crackpots and worse, while those who are singlemindedly focused on preserving things as they are are hailed or condemned as some kind of 'leftist' heroes or villains (depending on ideological perspective), and the rightists claim the "center."

There's an uncompromising level of cruelty among Our Betters and an utter lack of empathy for the victims of their policies that could be highlighted much more -- and much better -- than it is. A real Left might do that, but given the lack of enthusiasm for using terms like "cruelty" to describe the policies being inflicted on the rest of us by those in power (for fear of offending?) it's going to be an ever lengthening row to hoe to enlighten the suffering and reverse the cruelties of the High and the Mighty.

Of course the entire political culture is complicit and both major political parties are deeply involved in demonizing and impoverishing the masses. There is no better solution from either party, merely a pendulum swing from bad to somewhat less bad. Nor is there is a chance of forcing "change" by either boycotting elections or voting third party. We've already seen how -- and how effectively -- authority and "interests" will interfere with any election that doesn't produce acceptable results. If you doubt just how far Our Betters will go, look to the astonishing replacement of elected prime ministers in Europe with compliant technocrats whenever the austerity interests declare it desirable.

We mustn't allow ourselves to be fooled into believing that elections will get us anywhere. They won't. They will not be allowed to.

Chained CPI may or may not be implemented. We the People will have no effective say in the matter. But by ensuring there is a complete freakout over it among the so-called 'left', Our Betters ensure that there is little effective opposition to their overall scheme. It works beautifully. For them.

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UPDATE: Young Ezra has cogitated the matter and decided not to get too worked up about Chained CPI, it's the whole damned thing that's too mingy as it is, and behold: increasing SS benefits and instituting a public option or Medicare for All actually -- wait for it -- benefits the economy.

Who. Duh. Thunk?

Maybe. Everyone knows Young Ezra is a complete and total tool of powerful interests (particularly in the White House, doesn't matter who's occupying said House) and he doesn't take stands or advocate policies on his ownself.  What he does is push whatever line his most recent Power Contact pitched to him. In this case, it appears there is someone at the White House who's had a dawning, a come to Jesus moment. A realization: the economic policy makers are going about everything backwards, no wonder it doesn't work! Ah ha! Yes, well.

Having the realization and doing anything about it are two different things. Ezra is just a vessel, much as Brooksie is; a great deal of their work in the media is designed to palliate the masses, quiet their grumblings, by declaring that this or that position that the People may (or may not) favor is being discussed by the High and the Mighty, who are considering every possible argument before inflicting a policy on the rest of us. You see. That is why they are called Our Betters.

I would go so far as to suggest that Young Ezra has had no dawning at all. He'll cheerfully put the notion out there that, say, maybe it would be cool to increase rather than shrink benefits and put in place a rational public health care system. There. It's been said.

Now let's get on with the screwage.

I am so cynical.

Austerity for Thee

More and more people seem to be coming to the realization that Our Betters in Washington are selling us a bill of goods regarding the viability of various social programs, specifically Social Security ("if we don't do something right now, now, now! we're all gonna die!"), that is plenty familiar -- and wrong.

Of course it will still be a while before many of those who are opposed to -- say -- pilfering Social Security revenues for -- say -- yet more tax cuts for the rich, but even they'll come around after many more years of pounding.

Social Security is not really off-budget like Our Glorious Wars, not at all. As I understand it, until the recent payroll tax "holiday," it was paying out about as much as it brought in, so it was at least revenue neutral. Prior to The Permanent Recession (which happened simultaneously with the start of Baby Boomer retirements, isn'tthatinterestingthough) Social Security was collecting a substantial surplus, all of which was secured by (I wouldn't say "invested in...") special Treasury bonds.

Since the payroll tax "holiday," however, and even now with full payroll taxes being collected in incomes once again (which amounts to a 2% tax hike on working people) Social Security has been paying out somewhat less than (or quite a bit less than, depending on your point of view) it has been receiving in revenues.

This has meant "tapping the Trust Fund" -- except it doesn't really. The people who say the Trust Fund isn't real are right in that sense. There is no special place where the Trust Fund Trillions are stored for safekeeping. Payments from the Trust Fund come out of the government's General Fund -- which means they are either taxed or borrowed into being.

Because of the incessant jiggering that's been done to the Fund and the budgets and such, it ultimately means that all the money that's being paid out to Social Security beneficiaries comes from the General Fund, though SS continues to maintain nominal independence, what with its dedicated revenue stream and so on and so forth (the law, as it were).

Social Security is no more "going broke" than the Government itself is "going broke" or the Imperial Storm Troopers are "going broke." The Federal Government has a highly creative ability to keep itself from "going broke," as well as the ability to determine who will actually go broke in the Casino of Life.

Thus all the yakking and yabbering about Social Security being unsustainable or what have you is really little more than rhetoric for the yobs and entertainment for the Higher Ups as they decide (on Our Behalf, of course) who will and will not benefit from this or that decision or action they take and implement.

In the case of Social Security, the High and the Mighty have decided they want to cut Social Security payments to beneficiaries "going forward." And they have decided they will do it, no matter what the People think about it, though they will sell it as a "strengthening" or "improvement" or what have you, "to ensure that Social Security is there for the next generations, yadda yadda," as if they actually care one way or another about you and yours. (For the record, they don't.)

They have decided in their Wisdom to re-prioritize Government spending; they don't want to spend so much on the old, the halt, the blind, and the lame as they would otherwise be spending given the priorities set a generation or so ago. They aren't seeking to reduce the amount of Government spending in the aggregate -- no, they'll increase it into the dim mists of the Future Unknown. They just don't want to spend as much on you for the well being of you and yours.

This is still somewhat abstract for Americans, because it's not altogether obvious how this re-prioritization is supposed to work. A lot of people seem not to realize that many benefit payments have been severely cut as it is, that eligibility for benefits has been restricted, and that millions and millions of people have been cut off from benefits altogether. This has come at the cost of a stunning increase in poverty, hunger and homelessness in this country -- yet it's largely invisible or goes unrecognized.

It's happening not because of any "lack of money" -- there's plenty of money. It's happening because Our Betters see their opportunity and they are taking their opportunity to ensure their perpetual happiness while incrementally enmiserating everyone else. What could be better -- for them.

If they are not actually going to reduce aggregate government spending (don't be silly, they won't) but they are insistent on reducing the amount spent for "benefits" -- or anything else that doesn't provide an immediate bottom line enhancement to them and their cronies -- what do they want to spend the money on?

Well, wars, for one thing. Another one -- could get nasty -- brewing on the Pacific horizon involving Korea. Oh, that's the ticket. Let's blow things up Over There, and let's use some Nukes, too, eh? But see, that's how Our Betters think. If you take a moment to ponder what's going on Over There, it's hard to escape the notion that L'il Kim the Bad Boy got his ideas about How To Deal with the Rest of the World not from Mao or Stalin or his Old Man but from Gee Dubya and the ilk he surrounded himself with -- whose ideas and ideals still infest the Government. (Of course, my theory has long been that the Busheviks were the very subversives we, as little ones, were incessantly warned about in the routine Anti-Communist Propaganda lectures we were exposed to. But that's another topic for another day...)

Wars can be extremely profitable for certain connected interests, as was demonstrated in breathtaking fashion in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, it was partly a matter of literally looting the people and the country of anything of value and destroying the rest, and partly it was a matter of looting the American Treasury, some of it in the form of billions of dollars (shrink-wrapped $100 bills) airlifted over on pallets, never accounted for. Endless defense spending for warriors and materiel, endless no-bid contracts, amounting to trillions more in money for nothin' -- not to pay for anything blown up or killed or conquered, not for repairs and maintenance, not for anything at all, except for the contractor's being. The closest parallel to what was happening might have been during the American Indian Wars in the 19th Century, an extraordinary period of handing out favors and payments -- often for nothing at all in concrete terms -- indeed ensuring that favored recipients would enjoy endless Government rewards for... being. All charged to War. What a racket.

The bloated National Security State has proved immensely profitable to certain connected interests -- sometimes the same ones who profit from War, sometimes others -- and they want to see those profits continue and increase until hell freezes over if they have their way. State security is a byproduct, if it occurs at all. The point, after all, is not to secure the state, it is to secure the profits of connected interests, and Americans have only the slightest glimmer of recognition that these enormous profits are actually coming at the People's expense. But that's the point.

One of the cleverest favored interests is the Medical-Industrial Complex that profits in myriad ways and seeks to ensure the perpetuation of that profit through the tender mercies of Obamacare and the forced extractions from The People that go along with it. It's not just a matter of ensuring profits for the insurance industry forever, oh no. There is more, much more, including all the many ways the Complex can profit directly from the many extractions yet to come, such as higher (and ever-higher) Medicare co-pays, premiums, and potentially the privatization of the entire program. There is no thought -- at all -- of reducing the scandalously high medical care prices in this country (another source of looting and profit). No. All the thinking among policy makers is about how to get more money out of the pockets of the old, the halt, the blind and the lame to pay for ever-growing medical costs. Clearly, the M-I Complex is one of The Most Favored Interests.

Of course the Banking Interests seem to be the most favored of all. Whereas War, the National Security State, and the Medical-Industrial interests have managed to extract trillions from the People during the last decade and a half or so, the Banking Interests managed a heist of hundreds of trillions practically overnight. Nothing like that has happened before in human history. It's a stunning achievement. Even Enron couldn't do it.

One of the little noticed factors of both the boom and the bust that has led to the current Permanent Recession (for the rest of us, not for Our Betters) was that there was an enormous amount of theft going on (much of it out in the open) and that the bulk of this theft was by the rich from the rich. That's where the money was after all, and in some ways, it was surprisingly easy for clever dicks to get.

Once that easy money was "redistributed" (among the rich) however, many of those who lost in the game wanted -- demanded -- their losses be made good from you and me. In other words, "austerity" for the rest of us, profits without end for the High and the Mighty.

The banks were the first in line, and their banditry was and is stark and stunningly successful. Not only were they made whole for their casino losses, they were apparently granted what amounts to a permanent subsidy to not only cover any future losses but to ensure an endlessly growing profit stream.

"Austerity" is perhaps the purest form of theft from the People to enhance the revenues and profits of favored interests, but in the United States, as I mentioned earlier, "austerity" is still something of an abstraction. The connections between cuts in benefits and services that have already been enacted, together with those to come, and the concomitant rise in poverty, hunger, homelessness among all sectors of the Lower Orders, along with the decimation of the middle class, aren't yet clear enough for widespread recognition.

But overseas, in Europe and Britain, those connections couldn't be clearer, as one after another, the peripheral countries and marginal population segments are quite openly looted and impoverished for the benefit of the "core" -- but more specifically for the benefit of the rising European Bankers and the Neo-Aristocracy. Parasites, in other words.

The already too meager benefits of Social Security in this country must be further reduced in order to ensure that the favored few receive the endless profits they believe they are entitled to.

But as we've seen with the banks most clearly, nothing -- at all -- need be reduced to provide the Entitled Class with endless profits. No pallets of $100 bills need be airlifted, no extractions need be taken from the pockets of workers and the elderly. All it takes is jiggering a few numbers on a screen, and Voilà: beaucoups de bucks! It's magic!

Wars and the National Security State, all the social benefits one could want, infrastructure spending out the wahzoo, all of it and more can be funded and more, with merely a jiggering of the numbers on a screen.

This tells us that the point of all the benefit cuts and austerity measures is simple: to inflict pain and suffering sadistically, because it can be done and the victims can do nothing about it.

Power.

For the sake of it.

Monstrous.

The Plutocrats On A Rampage

Oh my, this is getting fun.

After setting up one of their own (if only a Legacy Hire) to sit on the Throne and being soundly rejected by the electorate, the American Plutocracy is throwing the Mother of All Hissies, now including the reject himself, "Mitch Wromley" (h/t Letterman, Crowley.)

After declaring 47% of the country's voters to be firmly in Obama's pocket because they're dependent on government handouts (ie, they get fed behind the Big House by the Head Darky) and they don't pay income taxes (never mind that little matter of being too poor to pay the income tax), Romney renounced himself and claimed he didn't really mean it. Of course not.

Comes now the very same Mr. Wromley claiming that the field hands and the house negroes alike put Mr. Obama in the White House (as it used to be known) instead of Wromley his ownself because the Head Darky bribed them with student loan forgiveness, Obamacare, and immigration amnesty -- among other things.

Wromley's runningmate, the execrable little turd Ryan (yclept "LyinRyan" by the wags), claims that Obama won because of the "urban" vote (Darkies for Darkies, in other words).

And the Plutocrats are going ballistic, insisting that the only way to get control of this little situation is to make the field hands and house negroes pay. They will suffer for this betrayal of all that's white and holy, oh yes.

First it was the fast-food and restaurant magnates who insisted that providing health care insurance to their staffs was a brutal burden too far, and they would retaliate by firing people and cutting back hours as well as by raising customer prices to compensate for expenses they would refuse to incur. This is much like the Plutocracy's adamant refusal to pay taxes, not even the mingy little bits they are assessed these days. No! they holler. We will not pay! You can't make us!

They've been able to get away with that one for many a long year now, and they've essentially doubled down on their insistence that they be held harmless and immune for the well-being of anyone but themselves. They will not pay! 


The field hands and house negroes shall pay for everything on this Plantation America, and in addition shall be made to pay an assessment, a fee, a tribute to their Lords and Masters, simply for letting them live and sometimes eat.

That's the way it is supposed to be, né?

Now the Aetna CEO is all on a rampage because of  the illusory Fiscal Cliff and all the rest of it. "You will all suffer!"  he screams. "We will make you pay till the end of time for this betrayal!" Oh dear.

So now we're seeing a bit more of the Ol' Tumbrils and Guillotines metaphor being trotted out, to -- shall we say -- help focus the minds  of the Plutocracy.



And to think, it was only a month or so ago when offering such [ahem] metaphors was considered too outré for words in the haute blogosphere. It was [quelle horreur!] "advocacy of violence!!!!" EEEEEEE.

No. It's an illustration. A challenging one, perhaps, but an illustration just the same of what can happen when the plight of the People is ignored or exacerbated. In other words, it's a metaphor.

Oh, and then there's this: something called "Fix the Debt" -- which is nothing but a scam by Bowles and Simpson on behalf of Pete Peterson and the Plutocracy to eviscerate what's left of the social safety net and plump up the bottom lines of every CEO and corporate raider in creation. The Romneys come to mind in that regard for some reason.

It's all about the entitlement mentality of a handful of sadists and crooks who deign to rule us -- by persuasion if they can, by force if necessary.  It's on full display like it hasn't been since the days of the Robber Barons of yore. It didn't end well for them then; it's not conceivable that it will end well for them now.

Well before the outbreak of the Soviet Revolution, however, there was something called the Progressive Revolution in this country which followed hard on the heels of the Populist Uprising that put the Fear of God into the Plutocracy of that era.

Any realistic assessment of Obama's confirmation in the Big Chair, of course, is that he will go along with the demands and outrages of the Plutocracy in the end, for that is his way; the High and the Mighty know that very well; much of their display is posturing for effect.  On the other hand, if the stories of Wromley's delusions about the election are correct (was he really convinced he would win right up to the last call?), they tend to believe several fantastic things before breakfast and they act on them as if they were true, too.

They have no social conscience whatsoever and they defy the very gods themselves.

The more they have their tantrums, the more lunatic they appear.

The Race To the Bottom -- and What To Do About It

The economic and political race to the bottom continues with remarkable energy and speed. It appears that the Governor -- and now the Government -- of Wisconsin is simply ignoring the injunctions and restraining orders of the courts and barreling ahead with the Koch-funded ALEC-Walker "budget repair" provisions passed by the Republicans in the legislature.

They don't care what you think or what anyone else thinks about it. They are going to do what they want -- and they dare you to do anything to stop them. Double. Dog. Dare you.

This is part of the process of "reform," don't you see. It is the way :Leadership: should be practiced.

In California, we don't know how much worse the budget atrocities are going to get. We just know they are going to get exponentially worse because the rump Republicans in the Legislature adamantly refuses to allow the People to vote on the extension of higher taxes to fund essential services. Absolutely refuses, that is, unless the Governor and the majority Dems in the Legislature adopt the Republican policy program in its entirety and then agrees to govern as if Republicans had won any statewide office at all.

In all of the wrangling over state budgets and their "repair", one thing seems to be universally agreed on: there can be no increase in taxation on the rich, on corporations, or on wealth whatsoever, and in fact, taxation on the well-off must be reduced.

This is Doctrine.

Everywhere and for all parties.

And it is, of course, a leading factor in the race to the bottom.

Wages and pensions of workers must be cut; prices must rise. But absolutely nothing whatever can be allowed to take even one feather from the comfortable nests of the High and the Mighty. It cannot be contemplated. The idea is verboten. Don't even think about it. (This was also a problem in the 1930's -- despite higher tax rates on wealth then than now -- and it is one reason the Great Depression went on so very long.)

Economic policies must be adopted to foster another series of bubbles, because that's how the High and the Mighty get so High and Mighty -- the only way, in fact, for most of them to continue to accumulate their riches and their power.

The untermenschen must be made to pay more for the privilege of being ruled by these ever fattening predators.

What is so striking about it is that the Overclass is literally offering the proles nothing in compensation for the pillage. Their program is simple: reduce everyone else's standard of living to -- or below -- the barest minimum so as to ensure the continued comfort and convenience of the merry Masters of the Universe. What do the proles get? They get to "live." If they can. "Freedom!" Don't you see?

They get the "Freedom" to support their betters or to starve. Genius.

It's a masterpiece of reactionary bullshit.

Seemingly no one knows what to do about it, despite the fact that there is a spreading grassroots world-wide revolt-revolutionary movement against this sort of garbage, some of it taking place right here in the United States, that has captivated attention.

The success or failure of the Revolutions remains to be seen, but it is clear that the Ruling Class, no matter where they are, is not giving up without a fight, and in the United States, they are not giving up at all. They are if anything doubling down on their demands and they are simply ignoring the People's Will and the Public Interest in their quest for ultimate Victory.

There's plenty of opposition, but they don't care, and they will not yield. They want what they want and they fully intend to get it, regardless of any and all opposition.

It's interesting that some observers seem to recognize and to diminish the importance of the truth of the matter by asserting, for example, that the Koch Brothers -- among others -- are not really all that powerful or all that important in the larger scheme of things, and that whatever they are doing is not really making all that much of a difference in the long run.

Um. Sure. Whatever.

The implacable Will to Power of the MOTUs doesn't really make all that much difference. Never did, never will. If you believe that, there are any number of poorly maintained and dangerous bridges on the market... cheap.

Even Sweet Baby Ezra seems to have caught on to the notion that an Opposition that is predicated on Preserving Remnants of What Used To Be, ie: keeping the Looters from Taking Everything, is simply inadequate to deal with what is really going on.

Even he sees that trying to maintain Social Security as it is is a losing strategy, when the crying need is for critical and systemic improvements to a system that is set up to barely cover the most minimal retirement and disability costs of those who rely on it. In other words, the Social Security system is not even remotely adequate as it is, yet all the talk is about making it less so.

This is, in a word, stupid.

So. What to do?

Of course the first thing is to recognize there is a problem.

Our political class does not recognize it.

But the key to reversing the trend toward declining living standards for the masses so as to ensure the continued comfort and convenience at the top of the pyramid is for the proles to come up with their own demands, not to "preserve" the status quo but to significantly improve the condition of the masses. This should be simple to understand, but apparently it is not.

Instead, the opinion leaders of the proletariat seem to be content to await the pleasure of the political class to tell them what is important and what to think about it.

Whenever actual improvements of programs and services to the masses are brought up, actual methods of improving the economy or putting people back to work, or whatever, the political class says, essentially, "No. Nothing like that can be done. We will be lucky if we can preserve this, that, or the other aspect of What Used to Be, and we can consider that a Victory."

This is where we've been for years. And years. And years.

As conditions get worse and the race to the bottom accelerates, even the idea of making improvements in the conditions of the majority is lost.

Restoring that idea and developing it further and further is the key to bettering conditions for the Many.

I've talked and written about it frequently. I'm still waiting for anyone else to pick up the thread.

We want Better.

It's that simple.

"Uncertainty"

One of the constantly repeated mantras of Our Overclass has been to call on "uncertainty" to explain everything -- including all their many crimes and abuses. "Uncertainty" is asserted as the reason for lack of lending by the banks, for the continuing high unemployment rate, for the stockpiling of enormous amounts of cash by obscenely profitable corporations, for the "necessity" of continuing to pay vast bonuses to the very individuals who crashed the economy several years ago, for the failure of foreclosure prevention programs, for the requirement by the Overclass that the plebes and proles be forced to pay for all the many programs under way to prop up the High and the Mighty, and to see social programs on behalf of the Underclass wither and die.

"Uncertainty" is said to be the underlying reason for the many known and unknown Imperial wars the United States is engaged in, for the rendering, disappearing and torturing of terrorism suspects, for the continued operation of the nation's many gulags at home and abroad, including Guantanamo, for the failure of courts to intervene in the ongoing assault by the Overclass on the political and civil rights and liberties of the American People.

"Uncertainty" rules. Everything.

But ask yourself. Are you ever "certain" of anything? Do you ever take a risk of any kind? If you don't, why not? And if you do, how have you survived?

The corporate (and general Rightist) fear of and invocation of "uncertainty" has become very nearly a religious experience for them. By invoking it as the primary cause of all the problems they -- and we -- face, they are essentially setting up a Golden Calf, an idol to worship.

There will be consequences. If they understood the uncertainty principle... ah, but the key is that they do not and cannot.

And that, my friends, is an opportunity for everyone else.

Thus, we might say, the uprisings we're seeing more and more of, and the complete inability of the High and the Mighty to control, or even predict, the outcome.

Hm.

Fascinating.

Don't even need a tinfoil hat for this one... ;-)