The Would Be Once and Future Tsar of Some of the Russias

I was cruising around the interwebs yesterday, doing some research on the Ukrainian Thing and The Evil That Is Putin, and I came across RT's coverage of the Inauguration of Vladimir Putin as President of the Russian Federation in 2012, and I was struck with how strangely it resembled the Coronation Pageant of the Tsars, and yet how much it differed as well.



There are movies of the Tsar Nicolas II's Coronation Pageant in the Kremlin, which utilizes some of the same locations as Vladimir's inauguration, prominently the Grand (Red) Staircase beside the Faceted Palace adjacent to the Grand Kremlin Palace where the Inauguration and parts of the Coronation Pageant took place.

The difference, however, is that in Vladimir's Pageant, he is either alone or accompanied only by Dmitri Medvedev whom he is to replace as President. He and Medvedev are driven in huge Mercedes limosines through empty Moscow streets accompanied only by guards on motorcycles and in SUVs, they walk through the squares of the Kremlin by themselves, they pass through the vast and elegant halls of the Grand Palace alone, not even their ceremonial guards accompany them. As they pass through the halls of the Palace, the crowds of well-wishers are kept behind stately velvet ropes. Vladimir doesn't notice them or acknowledge their applause. The guards pose like toy soldiers in elaborate Tsarist get ups at every gilded doorway and along all the expansive stair cases, and they cock their heads becomingly as Vladimir passes by, very much as one imagines the Tsar's ceremonial guards must have done in times past.

The inaugural ceremony itself is very simple, and it takes place on the podium where the thrones of the Tsars once were (and will be again, once this pageant is done). The ceremony includes speeches by Medvedev and Putin, an oath taken on a bound copy of the Constitution of the Federation, and the singing of the (Soviet) anthem (with new words, of course, written by the same man who wrote the Soviet anthem in 1944 during the Great Patriotic War. Continuity, you know?)

After a few handshakes, it's done. (Which, if I recall correctly -- and who knows -- was pretty much the inaugural ceremony of the Soviet era, a very simple ceremony that, however, did not include Tsarist trappings or pageantry.)

During Tsarist times, the Tsar was accompanied by hordes of family, relations, courtiers, priests, and military functionaries where ever he went. During the Coronation Pageant of Tsar Nicolas II, the Grand (Red) Staircase beside the Faceted Palace was filled with so many of these people, it is nearly impossible to pick out the Tsar if you don't know what to look for. The squares of the Kremlin were also filled with people, whereas during Vladimir's inauguration, there are only a few ceremonial troops to greet him.

By contrast to the Tsar's Pageant, the whole city of Moscow itself -- let alone the Kremlin -- is made to appear empty, as if it were a stage set, for the inauguration of Vladimir Putin. There is no one in the halls at the White House from whence he departs for the Kremlin, there are no crowds on the streets cheering the passage of his limousine, no one is assembled in Red Square to sing his praises. In fact, apart from a handful of guards and a small detachment of military personnel, Vladimir encounters no one else at all until he is well inside the Grand Palace, and he does not acknowledge those assembled in the Palace to witness his inauguration until after it is done.

So Vladimir does not exactly emulate the coronation of the Tsar, though he does utilize some of the same locations and imagery. What he does, by making the city and the Kremlin appear to be empty for this pageant, though, is psychologically more profound. He focuses the attention on him alone, rather than on the pageant of which he is a part -- as well as apart from. There are very limited aspects of Tsarist pageantry: the ceremonial guards, the crowds in the Palace, the small assemblies of troops passing in review. None of these elements of pageantry, however, is allowed to overshadow the star of the show, Putin himself. Thus, if anything, he outdoes the Tsars, not by overdoing but by underplaying the pageantry and by focusing attention on himself rather than on the pageant.

It's slick.

Until I saw it yesterday, I didn't know that's how he did it. Now that I've seen it, it seems clear enough that the idea that he is "Hitler" or "Stalin" reincarnated is even more absurd. No, this is not someone trying "desperately" to revive the Soviet Union, as I've heard so often on the teevee. He is certainly not someone seeking to conquer new territory and wipe out the subhumans for the benefit of the Race. (Good God, anyone who believes that is insane.)

No, from what I've seen of him -- admittedly superficial -- his mission is more like that of Peter the Great, to bring his country into the Modern Era, integrate it with the West to the extent that can happen without destroying the cultural and historical uniqueness of Mother Russia, maintain control of its borders and protect its people at home and nearby, and to be respected and taken "seriously" by other world leaders -- because he is worthy, not because he demands it like a petulant child.

In this respect, what he's doing with regard to Ukraine and Russia's interests therein are obviously not the acts of a "madman" "desperate" to become the New "Stalin-Hitler." Those who are saying so are looking more and more foolish. Putin, almost alone among world leaders, comes across as resolute and responsible, somewhat weary to be sure, but not at all the "madman" acting out of "desperation" he is made out to be by the incessant and relentless anti-Putin/anti-Russia propaganda machine. No wonder he is regarded so highly by Russians themselves, and no wonder he seems to have earned the respect of Western European leaders, though some still wish to rail against him and Russia (Cameron, Hague, eg).

This is not meant to express any love for Putin or his ways and means. Rather, I'm trying to inject some reality into the consideration of the Ukrainian situation and its relationship to today's Russia -- instead of focusing on some image of the Soviet Union and Stalin-Hitler which seems to be dominating the media in the US and elsewhere.

Even Bob Gates on Charlie Rose was saying in essence, "Chill the fuck out." What we may think is going on is probably not what's going on, and Russia has valid national interests in Ukraine and Crimea and all along its borders. To assert otherwise, as some in the American and European power elites have attempted to do, is what's "crazy," not Putin. Figure out what Russia's real national interests are. Don't just dismiss them as if this were some bad movie replay of the Cold War.

Of course the Ukrainian People are caught in the middle, benefiting not at all from any of it. When will someone think of their welfare? Or are they simply disposable?

If only the Tsar knew....!

(Money quote: As always, the Tsar has known, and approved, all along...)

We're On the Wrong Side Here -- Ukraine Goes To Hell in A Breadbasket

There are times when the situation abroad reaches such a fever one can no longer be a bystander observing events dispassionately.

The situation in (the) Ukraine appears to be deteriorating by the minute as the various players puff themselves up and double-dog dare their rivals to do anything about it. In the background lurk some truly monstrous figures, individuals who have been eager to engage in full on nuclear annihilation for decades and see their chance now, as forces build up on either side of the borders and troops casually show themselves in the Crimea.

War and rumors of war are in the air. Nobody knows what is actually going on in the corridors and parlors of Power, but the signs and portents on the ground are ominous.

And we, the United States of America (Inc.), are on the wrong side.

We have had our lot thrown in with the Ukrainian Nazis and Fascists, unbeknownst to most Americans -- simply because they are so submersed in propaganda -- but it was a calculatedly strategic move by the operators of this game console.

The Nazis and the Fascists may represent a modest number of Ukrainians (it's far more complicated politically and socially in Ukraine -- and Russia for that matter -- than merely black and white) but they were used as shock troops against the constituted government of Ukraine. And the shock of their actions had extraordinary -- and clearly hoped for -- repercussions.

The Yanukovych government was shocked by the attacks and sabotage of the Nazis and Fascists; the shock destabilized the government; the government reacted late and with extraordinary ineptitude; shortly, the government fell. All according to strategic plan. Yanukovych fled Kiev, no doubt at the urging -- or was it command? -- of his oligarchs and Vladimir of Russia, and that, as they say, was that.

Out with the old, in with the... well, wait a minute. Who? New? No. No, the ones installed to run the tattered remnants of the Ukrainian government were re-treads, set up to serve the interests of Angela Merkel and her bankers. Which they immediately set out to do, pledging fealty and submission within minutes of taking power.

Meanwhile, on the borders and in the Crimea, the Russian bear stood firm and proud, biding time, knowing, probably, that this coup -- for that's what it was -- had little public support and less likelihood of survival. Yanukovych may have been inept and incompetent -- never mind corrupt, they're all corrupt -- but this new crew of re-treads is laughable.

Our bloodthirsty neo-cons (the Nuland-Kagan team running the Soviet Desk at State among others) really, really want to get their war on. Provocation is the name of the game with these freaks, and they'll do what it takes to provoke a confrontation with the Russian bear. They've been itching for it, they want it, they need it.

They can rile up their Nazis and Fascists any time they want to -- money talks, you know. If things don't move fast enough toward confrontation and conflict, there is always the false flag and the black op to touch off the conflagration. They will stop at nothing. They are monsters.

Did Washington and the White House get played or were they players? Was Nuland-Kagan running her own shop on the Periphery? I don't know; at this point, it hardly matters. What matters is that the situation is insane, and it is because the Ukrainian Nazis and Fascists were adopted by the funders of the Ukrainian uprising -- funders which included Pierre Omidyar, let's not play games here -- and sent out as shock troops to destabilize, undermine and precipitate the overthrow of the constituted Ukrainian government, a task which they performed successfully. They will demand --they are demanding -- their payoff. And if that means the Apocalypse is nigh, so much the better in their view.

We are on the wrong side here, not that there is a right one any more.

Blind obedience and blind obliviousness, both lead to that handbasket we've heard so much about.

Will the main disputants stop before they fall off the cliff and take the rest of us with them? So far, it doesn't look like it.

Let us pray they come to their senses.

Repost: "Incrementalism"

Excerpts from a post entitled "Incrementalism" originally posted

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

....
All through the Bush years, Incrementalism was touted on the so-called Progressive Internets as the Only Appropriate Response to Bushevik Radicalism. The very fact that the Busheviks were Radical and (counter)Revolutionary, especially in their foreign policies and their overthrow of the remnants of Constitutional law and so forth, was frequently denied or obscured by prominent Lefty bloggers ... so as not to stir up the masses too much about what was going on. Or one supposes the rationale behind the Incrementalist fervor during the Bush years was simple self-protection.

After all, the Stasi was watching, and at any time, so the thinking went, the round ups could begin, starting with anyone and everyone spouting off against the Regime and calling for Revolution Now! There was one incident over at [Greenwald's] that highlighted what THAT was about when [a frequent commenter] freaked over something I said: "Who should be first against the wall when the Revolution comes?"

O. M. G. You'd think the "Marxist Cell" that is the Greenwaldian patch of the Internets had been discovered. I'd used the quote before (it's from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 1972, and it has a long history in geeky comic lit. The quote from Hitchhiker's Guide runs as follows:

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes," with a footnote to the effect that the editors would welcome applications from anyone interested in taking over the post of robotics correspondent.

Curiously enough, an edition of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that had the good fortune to fall through a time warp from a thousand years in the future defined the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came."

And this has been making the rounds for decades. Yet both times I used the quote/idea in postings on the internets the proprietors and/or their agents ... have gone ape shit in fear that someone would break down their door at midnight and drag them and their family away to the Konzentrationslager forthwith.

For advocating "Revolution."

Honestly. The mind boggles.

The Roadblock

Interesting developments on the Syria Front. Indeed, it makes one wonder if there isn't some other game being played here than simply wars and distractions and palace intrigues.

The Obama campaign to send Sadda... erm, Assad a "message" ground to a halt as the week came to a close. The British Parliament had said "no" to Blighty involvement in the operation; Hollande in France said he was eager to participate, but the French People said "non!" The Saudis suddenly put on the brakes. Even the always belligerent Israelis were skeptical of a Syrian operation at this time...

Obama went before the cameras -- once the protestors were removed from beyond the West Wing of the White House -- and said he was still ever-so-firm and ever-so-resolute, and he would put the question of further actions against Sadda... err, Assad to a Congressional vote, and the Congressional leaders said, "OK, we'll get back to you after our vay-kay, mkay?"

Yeah. Right.

Something -- ooou my, what could it be -- occurred between the Kerry Speech on Thursday and the Obama Apparition in the Rose Garden on Friday Saturday. There was an intervention of some sort by someone.

The very kind of intervention, if I may be so bold, that I and many others longed for to put the brakes on the misbegotten Imperial adventures of the Bush/Cheney Regime. The very kind of intervention that never came.

But last week, at the last moment, Somebody Who Matters said, "No. We're not going to do this thing now, maybe not ever."

Huh.

Who'd a thunk?

Of course many sabers were being rattled during the run up to the Aktion. Among them were Russian and Iranian sabers, direct threats to our client states of Israel and Saudi Arabia. If we were to "do" Syria -- at this time at any rate -- then there would be more than Hell to Pay, capice? Of course it's gangster business, but we've known that all along. The whole world has become a gangster world, hasn't it? Maybe it always was one.

Someone must have said, "You know, this could be serious."

Yes. Well.

So are all these Imperial aggressions. So are they all.

I guess we can return our focus to the NSA now.

Carry on.

Surely there will be a good story about Greenwald any minute now...
---------------------------------------------------

UPDATE:  This is what they're saying happened to forestall the Syrian Aktion. Make of it what you will.

The Red Flag In Kerry's Speech

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, it's a big red flag.

Speaking of Privilege: Obama Addresses His Constituency

Right. I got this.

It can be interesting to watch and to parse Presidential Press Conferences especially as they have become rarer and rarer.

His Serenity doesn't much do the formal Press Conference routine, preferring appearances on teevee gabshows and one on one interviews to get his message across, no matter how imperfect, muddled or irrelevant that message may be.

I've long been of the opinion, of course, that His Serenity is the willing tool of others, particularly those who own his ass. Which means the banks and Wall Street together with a shadowy group of corporate execs and government "retirees."

For example, it was obvious that Obama became a tool of House Cheney right quick, as soon as Miz Liz started yapping about whatever it was her father was telling her to yap about. The clue was that Obama yielded almost instantly and has never deviated from his assigned course, for he is corrected promptly.

Exactly what command and control House Cheney has over The Government would be interesting to learn, especially what agencies they use to accomplish their nefarious ends (many say they operate directly through the CIA, which gives some perspective on the whole NSA Thing... but that's getting ahead of myself.)

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.

The President Problem and the Chinese Connection

Now that we know who Our Leaker is, we can begin to sort the situation out a little bit better.

Edward Snowden (This is his real name? So British, so peripherally royal, so... apparently benign. At least he's no Muslim!), a Booz Allen employee, former NSA and CIA employee, former Special Forces military trainee, former... well, what hasn't he done... outed himself in a lengthy but not terribly informative interview published over at the Guardian yesterday.  He's certainly a very well-presented young man, easily the most articulate spokesman for The Cause that was likely to be found. That the interview took place in a Hong Kong hotel, and indeed, so far as I was able to figure, the Revelations from him have all emanated from his perch in Hong Kong where Young Snowden has sought refuge if not asylum is more than a little interesting, given the visitation of China's Premier Xi with the President at the Annenberg spread in Rancho Mirage over the weekend ostensibly dealing with such matters as... cyberwarfare.

Go figure.

The Cause is what, exactly? Remind me again.

Oh yes, according to Young Snowden and his interviewer Glenn Greenwald, The Cause is The Debate. That's all they say they want, The Debate. "What kind of country do we want to have?" Snowden claims that he has not revealed anything that would compromise either any individual or the National Security State itself. All he has done, he says, is let people know something of what's really going on in that National Security State.

Message: You are being spied upon, and at an analyst's whim, you can be investigated and destroyed, with no recourse or appeal. Domestic surveillance is that penetrating and that pervasive. Is this the kind of country we want to have?

That's not The Debate that's under way, however. Far from it. The Debate that is underway is almost entirely a matter of Getting Obama, as seen in the inordinate number of blame-casting anti-Obama screeds that this and the other "scandals" promulgated subsequent to the Correspondents' Dinner have triggered.

It's all about the Persons of the President and those around him, not so much what's been going on -- something we're still only vaguely aware of. Domestic surveillance per se is certainly not the issue, as neither Snowden nor Greenwald -- among many others -- are intrinsically opposed to it. What they seem to be railing against is not the surveillance itself, it is instead a matter of how the surveillance is carried out, by whom, under what controls if any, and to what use the information is put. As far as I can tell, universal domestic surveillance is fine in their view as long as a) we know it is going on; b) it is done according to clearly stated and enforceable rules and regulations with adequate public review and oversight; c) certain categories of people are exempt from scrutiny (ie: media, perhaps the highest levels of corporate leadership, elected officials, maybe some others).

Because that is (apparently) not the way the various surveillance programs work now, revealing them is the surest way to engage The Debate that will lead to the proper sort of domestic surveillance. Or so it would seem.

The Obama Administration is to blame for the current faulty surveillance programs, and (of course) for lying about them to the public. It's what Presidencies do, after all. But in this case, it is worse than any ever in the history of the world, because Obama campaigned on Hope and Change, and he has Betrayed Us!!! Obama is personally to blame for this. No President has ever been as deceptive and deceitful as this one, ever.

Of course, this is all politics, the same sort of factional war-gaming that's been going on forever in the halls of power, but with the added thrill of potentially being able to Get yet another President, and that's always fun.

The first President who was Got in my lifetime was President Kennedy who was shot in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and we have had a President Problem ever since. No President since then has been able to get through his term(s) of office unsullied if not actually driven from the Throne by forces arrayed against him. Johnson was forced to issue his famous, "I shall not run and I shall not accept" statement from the Throne after the nation erupted in disobedience and riots over the war in Vietnam and aspects of racial discrimination. After more assassinations in 1968 -- MLK, Robert Kennedy -- Nixon won the Presidency, which he held onto barely into a second term before he was forced out of office due to overt criminality which he, bless his heart, claimed was not criminal because the President was doing it. Ford, who followed Nixon, was our first unelected president, as Nixon's vice president had been forced out for his own corruption and criminality, and Ford was chosen by... lot? Who knows? At any rate, he was appointed to the position of Vice President when Spiro Agnew was removed from office, and he stepped in to the Presidency when Richard Nixon resigned. Ford was essentially a nonentity placeholder -- except for this: both Donald Rumsfeld (as SecDef) and Darth Cheney (as Chief of Staff)  became national players under Ford, and we would be privileged to witness the result of their decades of public service (or what you will) under Bush II. Monstrous. Ford was followed by Carter, a highly moral man but deeply flawed President, who couldn't seem to get his act together at any time during his brief tenure, primarily because -- I've always thought -- he was popularly elected as a cleansing agent and the Washington Establishment (Digby's "village," my "Palace") would have none of it. Out he went. Then it was Reagan's turn to hold the office, though what he actually did in it is still somewhat of a mystery, especially after he was shot, and it appeared that a formerly shadowy cabal (Haig, Bush the Old, others) took over. At any rate, Reagan's term(s) of office were transformative to be sure, economically terrifying and disastrous for many Americans, and genocidal for millions abroad. He left office under a cloud of suspicion over the grotesquerie of the Central American campaigns, the Iran-Contra monstrousness, the routine corruption and corporate favoritism that was a feature of his regime, and his personal problems with Alzheimer's. He was followed by his apparently sane Vice President, George Bush the Old who promptly got us into a monstrous war with Iraq that left hundreds of thousands dead and who otherwise led the nation into unprecedented levels of instability. Of course, the minute the Presidential Throne was taken over by the Clintons, the Apocalypse drew nigh. The Clinton years were an endless round of "scandals" leading to the revelation of sexual peccadilloes leading to a ridiculous failed impeachment. It was certainly a Show, but as for the rest? The Clinton years consolidated the Reagan Revolution... from a political standpoint, it was the final stand -- and final rout -- of what little of a "left" was left in politics and government. While the Clintons are riding high now, the Clinton years had some really disastrous political aspects, many of which would be brought to the fore by the Clinton successor, George Bush the Lesser, who was installed in office under as dark a cloud as had ever hung over the Presidency, elected by a majority of the Supreme Court, contrary to law and the Constitution, because they could. The Bush II regime was perhaps the most gawd-awful in American history (I'm not familiar enough with the Bad Presidents of the 19th and early 20th Century to say with certainty) leading to millions dead and made refugee as a result of wars, economic collapse, terrorist attacks and so on. The Bush years were an unprecedented nightmare for the nation and for much of the world, a nightmare from which there has been no recovery, despite the intention of redemption with the election (twice now) of Barack Obama and the nearly complete disappearance of Bush the Bad.

In my view, this record of presidential disaster following the murder of President Kennedy should be seen as part of the problem of the presidency itself, an anachronistic quasi-imperial position that should never have been instituted, but once it was seen to produce such imperious problems (which was almost immediate with George Washington) should have been abolished. But it wasn't and we are now where we are.

The efforts to blame particular presidents for whatever is wrong miss the point: the presidency itself gives rise to wrong on a massive -- and apparently increasing -- scale, and attacking or replacing the person who sits on the Presidential Throne does not change that. After so many essentially failed presidencies, as enumerated above, it should begin to dawn on observers that the presidency is itself the problem, and until that is dealt with, nothing else will be resolved.

Constitutionalists, of course, will never get that because of their worship of the Holy Writ that provides for the Presidency. So long as the Constitution is considered sacred, the Presidential Problem will remain.

What's been going on lately with the various "sudden" scandals of the Obama Administration, all of which have been known of for months if not years, strikes me as a deliberate and calculated move by a certain faction within the Shadow State if you will to either bring this particular presidency to an end or to so hamstring it that there is no internal choice but to follow the dictates of that faction. I call it the continuation of the Cheney regime.

But what of the China Connection? I don't think we can totally ignore the coincidence of the domestic spying revelations and the visitation of the Chinese Premiere together with the hightailing of the leaker to Hong Kong -- which is part of China, no matter the apparent efforts to give it some kind of Libertarian gloss.

This will shake out in ways we can't completely anticipate, but I'd say we can expect to see little of The Debate, and a great deal of stomping around and bombast. It's hard to imagine that any of the factional players are in any way interested in overturning or reversing the American slide into authoritarianism. Instead, they are still competing among themselves over who will have the reins of the Security State going forward.

China is likely to be the model.

But then we knew that, didn't we?

Meanwhile At the Imperial Display

His Serenity Sprach

"The State of the Union is Strong."

Whew!

So...?

It appears that the upshot of the "election" is that the masses will be further ground down to satisfy the insatiable appetites of the metastasized financiers, their handmaidens and their hangers-on.

Word has it that the president will go out on the hustings to sell his plan to reduce benefits for the poor, the sick and the old in an effort to get the "other side" to agree to a minute increase in the tax liability of the highest of the mighty.

Of course the H & M won't agree. This has been made clear over and over again: Our Betters simply refuse to pay any more taxes. They refuse to pay the absurdly low taxes they are obligated to even now; all they will pay is what they choose to pay, and they will direct the use of that tax money as they see fit. Period. End of discussion.

The social contract has been broken, irrevocably.

The question is, what do we do about it?

The key to understanding is that elections are not how these matters are resolved. Elections may or may not provide a modest amount of guidance to the ruling class about how to proceed with programs and policies they have already determined to implement, but they are not the way those policies and programs are determined in the first place.

In our case at the moment, the ruling class has decided that it will implement policies and programs which will further squeeze the poor, the sick, and the old, while simultaneously reducing the living standards of the working class and significantly reducing both the numbers and the living standards of the middle class.

This is now Doctrine, agreed to by all the "serious" political factions, regardless of party identification or ideology.

Those least able to will be forced to pay. Forever.

We see the results of the implementation of this policy and these programs in Europe, starkly and with a kind of awful ugliness we didn't think was possible even a few years ago. People are going hungry in Europe's "periphery." They lack many basic services and care. They are unemployed and unemployable in their own countries because their economies have been looted for the sake of a handful of a financial sector run completely amok. The results are painful and obvious, and Europe's elected leaders do not care. They see their future is secure only through adherence to the dictates of the out-of-control financial sector. The People and what happens to them do not matter.

The People, for their part, have complained more or less loudly, and massed and marched and carried signs, sometimes even battling with police, but they have not reached the point of rising up to overthrow their exploiters and oppressors. No, it appears that that phase of human response to adversity is gone, vanished into the mist.

What we see instead is a response tailored to the People's immediate needs for succor and sustenance, sidestepping the apparat that has been deployed for their suppression. Much as has happened in the United States in response to the calamity of Hurricane Sandy -- "The Storm" -- the People have spontaneously adopted the practice of Mutual Aid, and are acting on behalf of one another quite apart from the bureaucratic mills of the corporate state.

It's a wonder to behold.

In addition, there is a surprising awakening to the fact that certain limited interests are profiting mightily -- and expect to profit much more -- from the nearly universal governmental obsession with austerity policies in the midst of an economic disaster of global proportions.

Some people are getting far richer than even their wildest dreams through the implementation of economic austerity programs and policies, and that is why they are being pushed so strenuously in the corridors and halls of Power.

So in the midst of this, there's one of the most magnificently tawdry sex scandals in our long history of of them. Hm. What could be going on? Certainly not a  distraction from what is important? Certainly not that!

Sex scandals tend to be ginned up to distract the Palace courtiers from otherwise productive tasks. In this case, the tawdriness of the cat-fight over the General(s) is matched by the delicious irony of the rightist "moralists" (apparently) doing in not just one of their own but the very star of their ongoing Morality Play. Of course what's apparent may not be what's true, so I'll withhold any judgement about what's really going on. I don't know. But for now, it looks like the Scandal has the media courtiers and not a few of the governmental and military ones fully engaged.

The fact that this is happening just as the Pretend Liberal Candidate was re-elected and plans to go on a campaign to sell his version of austerity programs and policies leads me to wonder whether there isn't some design and intention behind the events.

In other words, by keeping the courtiers engaged in Scandal Watch all sorts of mischief can take place under, around, and over the radar. The mischief of which I speak, of course, is the economic sales-job that is underway as we speak.

My prediction is that this Mother of All Sex Scandals will last just as long as it takes to implement the economic policies that have been waiting in the wings for just the right moment. And then it will be over as if it never happened at all.

Don't be too surprised if His Divinity St. David Petraeus winds up on the Throne just the same.

Oh what a tangled web...

So Actually, We're In The Same Place We Were Before the "Election"

An interesting result, to say the least.

We still have a chaotically gridlocked Congress, with the House in the hands of the renegade radical Republicans, the Senate in the hands of their Democratic enablers and a re-elected centrist-compromiser in the White House -- who is ritually disparaged as a Socialist by his rightist political opponents.

In other words, nothing has changed.

That of course doesn't mean that nothing will happen. In fact, all the signs point to some serious squabbling behind the scenes regarding how best and how quickly to extract more from the groaning masses through benefit cuts, tax and fee increases, and required expenditures for governmental and private services (ie: ACA).

There is no debate about the objectives themselves, only how quickly and how unmercifully to enforce them.

Rs want to go balls to the wall, forcing as much pain and suffering on the masses as possible in the shortest possible time while the Ds want to take it somewhat slow and easy, but there is no faction in among the Power Elite which was re-confirmed in office to abandon this program of mass suffering and try something else.

That means we are so screwed.

And that's what the People voted for -- well, some of them. Looking over a sampling of statistics, the turnout for this election was shockingly low in many precincts, under 50%. Was there a boycott? I'd like to think so, but without a public statement regarding such a thing, it's more likely people just weren't interested in the long lines and the hassles on voting day as well as the fact that neither candidate was offering anything substantive to the common people, only more benefits to the rich and well-connected.

I noticed this in the summary of political ads on the news. Rob-me had a definite program in mind which he mentioned in many of his ads, focusing on jobs (but he wouldn't say how he would increase employment), lower taxes for the rich, and reducing or eliminating regulations on employers, resource extractors and financiers.

You may not like the policies, but it is a policy program. Obama on the other hand seemed to concentrate on abstractions, what might be possible one day, and how to set the stage for the New America of the Future. He did not offer a policy program as such but instead focused his attention on ideas for doing something someday.

Obama's approach was rather soft and soothing but it lacked definition. Romney-Ryan on the other hand were cold and harsh -- though defined.

Neither appeared to be the least bit interested in the real issues the public faces, though both put on game faces of pretense. Romney for his part at least made "jobs" the centerpiece of his campaign. Obama barely mentioned the j-word.

They were both focused on the needs and demands of the Plutocrats.

That's where we were before the election, that's where we are now.

Nothing has changed.

Maybe after Barry and Mitch sit down together and have a good long heart to heart...

LONG LIVE THE STATUS QUO!

The Storm -- Redux

The Storm from overhead via NASA

Found a link to this stunning slideshow of The Storm over at dKos and I'm reposting it here so that we'll have it available for further contemplation as time goes on. (It's from NASA but it's not that easy to find at the NASA site.)

Despite claims to the contrary from some officials, it does not seem that response to The Storm has been in any way appropriate to the needs of the devastated areas and people, most of whom are not rich and don't have the means to escape the worst effects.

Unfortunately, Our Betters have a privileged claim on government services both in times of peril and times of peace and plenty. The Masses are left, as always, to fend for themselves -- or die. We saw this clearly in New York and parts of New Jersey where the tony well-to-do were provided with practically everything they needed almost immediately after The Storm passes while those many thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of Americans who faced the full wrath of The Storm and particularly the storm surge were ignored for days by official relief agencies (such as FEMA and the Red Cross) as was reported from Staten Island, the Rockaways, Coney Island and elsewhere in the New York/New Jersey area.

Occupy Wall Street brigades stood in the breach, helping where no one else did, stepping in where all the other "helping organizations" seemed to be tied up with currying favor with the High and the Mighty. They did heroic work under trying circumstances and are to be commended, but of course, because OWS is nothing but a bunch of DFHs, they will get little or no recognition from On High, in fact, they might be arrested for their temerity to go where angels fear to tread.

Oh, and there was an "election" yesterday, too.

Turns out those of us who predicted that the Romney campaign would forcefully try to steal the election were wrong. I wasn't alone in the view that Romney et al would do just about anything to have their way, but I was surprised when I heard that Obama was declared the "winner" and that shortly thereafter, Romney had conceded.

No fight in them, or what? Is it something else? Is it that the Rs know full well, and have known from the get go, that Obama is really one of them (well, except for his complexion and kinky hair)? And that they would rather someone like him, somewhat closer to the Masses, execute the Program?

It was never possible for me to imagine someone like Romney -- or Romney himself -- sitting in the Big Chair in the Oval Office except as a joke. Of course I felt the same way about addle-pated (But Ever-Saintly) Ronald Reagan. See where that got me. Given the polling consistency, I doubt that Romney actually thought he'd get there, but the Horserace was as always the most important thing to sell to the unwashed, and so it was, right down to the wire.

The game was called by shortly after 11pm EST, rather shockingly early given all the uncertainties in  places like Ohio and Florida and whatnot. Obviously, it could have been strung out much longer than it was, but apparently the mathematicians at the networks wouldn't have it, and so they did their noble thing and let the Kenyan Socialist continue to sit on the Throne.

But who will control him and to what object?

We'll have to see, won't we.

Interestingly, there has been little change in the Senate and House, meaning the idiocy of the last two years will continue. But look at this, the GOP has retaken the Wisconsin State Senate, so that all the sturm and all the drang over the Walker/Koch Brothers take over of the Wisconsin State House will either have to be repeated on a bigger scale, or it will have to dissipate into the mists of time. There's a level of absurdity in these things (anomalies abound in state and local election results) that simply defy rational consideration.

It is what it is.

[Note: Meant to mention the Nor'easter that is now visiting the East Coast, but this post was written early in the morning, before I was fully awake... not the first time, not the last.]

Gaming the "Election"

 

[Note: the truck trailer is now unloaded; the buildings are chock full of schtuff that we're now wondering why we brought out here, there's a new bed in the north bedroom (and we sleep like coddled proverbials), and the cat is loving it all...]

More and more it looks like the Rs are going to go ahead and try to steal the "election" tomorrow outright. They want the Big Chair even though they are proving their incompetence to do anything positive with it day after dreary day of the Long Campaign.

Of course I realize that all this was set up years ago, and that two years ago, the Ds essentially conceded the Congressional mid-terms by not carrying out policies that would actually be beneficial to the public, and by not mounting a serious campaign at the state level -- where the Democratic wipe out was practically total.

This allowed numerous radical Rs to get into office in statehouses and legislatures all over the country, not simply in those infamous "battleground" states like Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. They promptly set about radical rule and the delegitimization of democracy. For the most part, they were not seriously opposed by Ds though there was much pro-forma sturm und drang to be sure. From appearances, at any rate, this was a rather obvious Let It Happen series of events.

Radical rule and delegitimization of democracy included the infamous acts of Scott Walker in Wisconsin, but more importantly for the future, they involved gerrymandering districts and emplacing often severe restrictions on voting and voting rights, unlike any seen since the days of Jim Crow. The objective, of course, is to make it difficult or impossible for Ds to be elected in many disctricts, and to ensure that millions of otherwise qualified (and largely D) voters are prevented from voting, and if they do somehow manage to vote to ensure that their votes aren't counted.

The scheme was pretty obvious from the outset, and yet there was very little pushback from those who actually could have done something about it. By the time these radical measures were in place, it was too late to do much but complain about it and go to court over it. Courts that generally defer to elected officials.

Under the circumstances, this failure two years ago, to hold on to or even make gains at the state level meant that the High Pooh Bahs among the Dems were either guilty of gross political malpractice, or they were in on the deal from the get, and they let what happened happen for their own purposes.

There is a conventional wisdom in Left Blogistan that the Dems are just so seriously incompetent, they do not know what they are doing, yadda yadda, and if they'd only "listen" to certain bloggers-cum-political consultants, everything would be fine. I don't believe this.

The Democratic Party is the oldest political party in the country, and they absolutely do know what they are doing and and they also know how to win elections. They're masters at it. They are numerically the predominant party and if they chose to, they could predominate in office (as they have done frequently). From time to time, however, they choose to play dumb and let the Rs run rampant, as we've seen them do for the last 20 years and more -- at least since the election of Bill Clinton to the White House.

I have no idea what their reasoning is, but they have been quite determined to let the Rs do pretty much whatever they want, with predictable disastrous results for the rest of us.

And it looks like they are doing it again. If the "election" is stolen, I have no illusions that the Dems in office will fight. They will do what they did in 2000 and accommodate the thieves. If by some chance Obama is declared the winner (these things are largely determined by media "calls" after all) the Rs will fight tooth and claw to take it from him, going so far, I don't doubt, to initiate another coup.

The strange thing is that Obama is really one of them (an R is D clothing) and they know it. He's no  model of any Dem that I could recognize. I was willing to put up with this "R in D clothing" business with Howard Dean because it was important to me that the imperial warriorism of the Busheviks be ended and he served as one of the loudest voices against the Iraq nonsense. But I had no illusions that somehow Dean was this Big Progressive - Liberal he was being made out to be. He was and is essentially a Rockefeller Republican. Better than the radicals, but still an R at heart.

It was pretty clear the same was true with Clinton and then Obama. But Obama is tending more toward Reagan Republican than Rockefeller (it's his youth, don't you know) and his constant accommodations with the Rs are dispiriting to say the least. It means there is currently no major party that represents the interests of the People; it means that there is no Democratic Party in the ideological sense. Only two versions of the Republican Party -- radical or Reaganite. (Compared to today's radical Republicans, Reagan was practically a full on Communist).

The radicals see their main chance, and I suspect they are going to take it unless there is some sort of high level intervention.

Tomorrow will be interesting....

"Uncertainty" -- Will the Vote Actually Matter?

 

Americans have been trained to accept finagled and fudgy outcomes of elections for quite a long time, much longer than we think. Election chicanery is built in to the mechanisms of politics and voting in this country, and it always has been. We have never had truly free and fair elections, not even close, and the lengths to which campaigns and their owners and sponsors will go to steal elections outright is breathtaking.

Of course the 2000 election is the benchmark for election jiggering for most of us. I have called what happened when the Supreme Court decided the outcome -- by one vote, let it be said -- a "lawless intervention," because the Supreme Court is not tasked with electoral decisions. The Constitution gives that responsibility to the states, and in the case of a disputed outcome, the legislatures of the states determine the winner of the presidential election, not the Supreme Court of the United States. In other words, the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction but seized it anyway in as bold a move as we had seen taken by government up to then.

That was followed by an appallingly undisciplined move to electronic voting machines which are easily compromised -- with no possibility of audit or detection. All election outcomes conducted with such machines are by their nature suspect, and in 2004, it appeared that chicanery of many kinds were engaged in to ensure that Bush won the presidency, regardless of anything else.

This year's election has been primed and pumped to be a "cliff-hanger" right down to the wire. No matter what the polls indicated, the campaign horserace was always "tied" in the eyes of many mavens of the media -- because that's the narrative: they have to have their tight race or they have no story, and if they have no story, they don't make money. So while Obama was far in the lead through most of the campaign, there were always stories that the race was "tied" or that Romney was gaining or what have you.

All that changed with the first "debate," of course: the Very Game Changer that Chris Christie predicted happened. The stats turned sharply in Romney's favor as if by magic. The narrative is that Obama turned in a dreadful performance while Romney was keyed up and on point. Actually some who watched, like me, thought he was on a performance enhancing substance, oh like speed to name one. I wouldn't be surprised at all if that was the case. Obama, on the other hand, was clearly not into it, but he did his standard "workmanlike" performance, "Get through it and go home," which -- compared to Mister Hyper -- was interpreted as sleepwalking. Whatever.

But wait. How did Christie "know?" That is if he knew in advance what would happen, who told him? If he was just out on a limb, you could say it was a coincidence, but I don't think so. When the after-"debate" chatter started, chatter that seemed completely hysterical at dKos, for example (always a Republican spin palace, after all) I actually wondered if Obama was intentionally throwing the game. I would not put it past him, given the way our political class operates. He was giving it away in any case. Whatever else might have been going on Obama was not on top of the situation on stage, and he appeared not to care, either. Given Romney's "shambles" up to then, I thought his attitude toward the "debate" and his opponent was appropriate, but in the end, Obama gave me and pretty much everybody else no hope at all. His vision for the future was "stay the course." No matter what. After five years of an Endless Recession, he would continue it pretty much as is indefintely.

Sigh.

But hyped-up Romney wouldn't do much different, he'd just be more of a salesman about it and be meaner and more overtly bloodthirsty besides. This, to me, did not bode well for the future for most of us. Not well at all. Either things stay as dismal as they have been for many more years, or they get worse. And more wars. There is no "better future" in either man's vision. None.

We are doomed if we rely on the political class and the candidates for office to do something positive and productive on behalf of the People -- because they won't do it. Period. End of discussion. They don't work for us.

Which means that the election is not really in our hands in any case. Whatever we vote is what we vote. The outcome, on the other hand, is what the vote counters decide, or if the Supreme Court so chooses, what a handful of Robed Ones decide, and we don't have much to say about it one way or another. Given the nearly identical positions of the major candidates on nearly everything (certainly apparent in the Third Round) no matter how we vote, the outcome will be almost the same no matter who is installed on the White House Throne.

The only real question is how fast and nasty will the advent of the New America be.

Given Obama's propensity to accommodate Republicans and actually seek to enact their programs, even the brakes Obama has been using are no longer operative in any case.

There are only two weeks to the election, and given the current "uncertainty" narrative, I would speculate that even if Obama receives a resounding electoral victory at the polls (he won't, though), he won't take office for a second term. "Uncertainty" has been the narrative of the fattest of the Fat Cats for years now, and Romney is himself one of them. That could mean that the "uncertainty" meme is a foreshadowing of what is to come.

The choice has most likely been made; we await the reveal.

Life At Versailles, In Sum: the Final Round

Versailles

Well. Wasn't that refreshing?

Himself and The Other One seemed to really get into it for once. The Other One looked to me to be pale and sweaty and even a bit blotchy under the intensity of the teevee lights and the penetrating gaze of Himself. The Other One even seemed to be "out of his depth" as they say on the all-important topic of Foreign Policy, unable to dent the rather gory record of the President of the United States even while bringing up a string of disasters and failures of this or that importance "on his watch."

"Commander-in-Chief" was the oft-repeated phrase, and as far as I could tell, Wromley (h/t Crowley) didn't really want that bit of Presidential Prerogative. This Killing of Brown People that Obama seems to relish these days appeared to make Wromley somewhat queasy. In a sense that's a good thing I guess. Presidents -- at least the way we are expected to regard them -- should not really be into the slaughter game. It hasn't been a celebrated characteristic in White House residents since TR, and he was always careful to make it clear that he "deplored" the slaughter he was (of course) forced to engage in (particularly in the Philippines)  and he loudly condemned the troops who went too far in their extermination of the Natives so as to secure that piece of American Empire.

Much of the "debate" -- which was closer to a real debate on substantive issues than previous forays -- focused on domestic issues and policies, particularly with regard to the economy, rather than foreign affairs. Good enough. There's not much to be said about America's foreign policy that isn't a factor of the rotten economy for the masses. Obama pointed out time and again that Romney would simply reinstate the same economic policies that crashed the economy under the Busheviks (true), but what he didn't say was that the Obama economic policies are almost identical. There has been very little positive change under Obama, and everybody knows it. As a rule, most of Romney's main criticisms of Obama economic policies are spot on: the economy is "sputtering," unemployment and underemployment is way -- way -- too high, ordinary people are struggling while the government lavishes money and favors on the rich, and so on. These things are not accidents, they are policy. And the Obama Administration proposes to "stay the course," essentially making no changes in the policies that are causing so much misery for the millions.

Meanwhile, Romney's prescription borders on insanity: he would return to the Bushevik Era free-for-all, crony-capitalist loot-fest, only now with the targets being Social Security and Medicare and whatever else is left of the social safety net and piddly middle class wealth, and he would call it a Good Thing.

Obama would do the same only with a few more controls on the looting and who gets first dibs.

Hm. Some choice there.

The "First Dibs" issue is basically all that the candidates are contesting. Their policies -- both foreign and domestic -- are all but identical in every important way (which is the way our political/governmental system is designed to operate in any case). The choice before the voters is not between policies, it is between personalities, styles, and who among the Highest of the Mighty has First Dibs on government and the benefits flowing therefrom.

It's not "tribal," it's inner-tribal. In other words, the political class is all the same tribe. The struggle, to the extent there is one, is between factions within the political class itself, and between factions of the Overclass that owns and controls the political class. But they are all, every single one, of the same tribe.

They are all denizens of Versailles. They all live in the bubble of a palace culture; and their realm is not that of the People.

For them, holding the keys to the Throne and the Treasury for the benefit of themselves and their friends is what it is all about; "First Dibs." The People don't factor in, or if they do, it is as an afterthought. Or sometimes, very rarely, because they are restless and throwing things.

At the on stage meet and greet after the "debate" the fact that these candidates were on the same side was made manifest what with all the Hale Fellow Well Met backslapping, hugs and handshakes. Even Tagg and the President had a good guffaw over something or other (Gee, I wonder what?) and the plethora of Romney children and grandchildren practically mobbed Obama ("Gee, can you be Our Dad?")

As for The Winner? I would give it to Obama because he didn't look like he was going to faint.

But who will win the election -- at this point -- I have no idea. The Rs have been diligently setting up their plans to steal the election outright if need be. Ds have done little or nothing about it, so even if Obama has a strong plurality at the polls, it won't necessarily lead to victory. I wouldn't be surprised if we had another Election 2000 situation, something that our Overlords seem to relish.

On the other hand, many have come to the conclusion that it will be a run-away Obama victory, that Romney will be thoroughly trounced, and that this has all been carefully planned for a very long time. What we see is just the Show; what's going on behind the scenes is what matters, and the result is to be a resounding Obama victory. He, after all, institutes Republican policies far better than Republicans ever did.

We'll see.

Meanwhile, an inside look at the Secret Rituals of the Mormon Temple is making the rounds. I watched the hour and twenty minute full version the the internet, embedded and linked below, because I'm into science fiction sometimes, and the whole thing seemed like it was straight out of a 1950's science fiction movie. Which makes me wonder how many science fiction authors and movie-makers were/are Mormons either current or ex. Anyway, it's an interesting -- if somewhat creepy -- diversion. Some of those who have watched it or the shorter version have claimed that "all religions" are creepy like this. Well could be, but this is on a whole nother plane.



http://youtu.be/5VrsFEiTpsQ

Life At Versailles, Or "At It Again;" the Presidential "Debate" Round 2

Versailles

It was all "Mitch Wromley" (h/t Letterman and Crowley) could do to refrain from referring to President Obama as "You there, boy."

Jeebus what an arrogant prick. I'm sure that's why other arrogant pricks love him so.

Meanwhile, Obama seemed to have recovered somewhat from whatever it was that threw him off his game in the first "debate" with Willard.

(I heard Tavis Smiley and Cornell West speculating on the radio that it was likely "something personal" that we will "never know." The likeliest scenario is a domestic squabble, but I dunno.)

At any rate, Obama's performance was rated more than adequate by the critics, so that's all that was necessary.

Someone who should know better (but since he's an entertainer, we're prepared to imagine he doesn't) claimed that Crowley was -- somehow -- a dyed in the wool Obama Supporter, what's the word, "Obamabot?" Surely anybody who has seen Crowley's performances in the past would think just the opposite of her, but I will say, she was fine last night, not favoring either of the candidates and pressing on generally substantive issues, trying to get them both to at least address the questions being asked by the heavily washed and perfumed masses who were allowed in.

The fact that neither candidate chose to actually answer the questions they were posed is telling.

No answer on jobs, no answer on gas prices, no answer on much of anything, let alone a straightforward answer on pay equity for women.

"Binders full of women" is nearly the sole take-away.

That tells us all we need to know about the priorities of the Palace and its handmaidens.

Life At Versailles, or The "Debate"

Versailles

I watched most of last night's fol de rol with the candidates in Denver and listened to some of the post-game analysis on NBC. What a rollicking good time Chuck Todd was having: "Oh what a horserace we have now!" Because, it would seem, by consensus "Mitt Won!"

And Oh, the keening and garment rending over at dKos in the aftermath of the "Debate" between the two candidates for the Presidency of the United States of America, aka "The Big Chair."

At Versailles, they called it The Throne, and during the Bush Regime, that's just what I called The Big Chair, the Presidency itself. The Throne.

Our Government operates on Royalist lines, that is its way, it's nature. Internally, it's not a democracy at all. It is for all practical purposes a full on monarchy/dictatorship. Let's say a serial monarchy, to be sure, since there are periodic changes in who occupies The Throne, but the Institution carries on no matter what. And the Institution is monarchical, based rather closely on that of 18th Century Britain -- or "Fraunce" for that matter. Thus it is anachronistic as hell.

What we saw last night was an elderly, powdered, bewigged aristo, with very little class, try to sell the People (or at least that part of the People who cast ballots) on a series of bogus premises: that he's competent, that he "cares," that he's full of vim and vigor and energy, and that he has a Plan to "help" the Middle Class. None of this, of course, is true. He's old, he cares not for the Lesser People (and has repeatedly said as much), he's running on nearly empty, and his Plan has nothing to do with "helping" anyone not in his class of looters, predators, and mountebanks. That's just the way it is.

He was "styling" as we used to say in the Circus.

He was a straightforward, obvious hustler and huckster, which tells us something about our Ruling Class, I think, that might help in sorting the wheat from the chaff.

Many people believe they were deceived by Obama in 2008, claiming they didn't know he was a corporatist imperialist warmonger. I find that odd, because Obama was running somewhat to the right of Hillary Clinton, and she was obviously a corporatist imperialist warmonger, so how did it come about that Obama was seen through such a radically different prism -- when he wasn't campaigning as a Man of the People and a Populist or particularly Liberal Peacenik?

I don't know where the image came from because I never saw it. But that's me.  I sometimes see things others don't, sometimes not for years.

Last night, Obama was the Wonk to "Mitch's" (h/t Letterman) hyper-Aristo. Sanity, you might say, in the face of loopieness.

So of course "Mitch" won. It couldn't be any other way. What with "Mitch" hopping around like a string-puppet, and Obama plodding along with his "facts" and his "figures," how could it be?

"Mitch" talked airily about all the "jobs" he was going to "create" as President, but any sentient being  should know by now that he has never had any interest in creating any jobs for you. It's simply not in his portfolio. The fact is he will eliminate your job or ship it to some foreign land in a heartbeat if it will increase his bottom line and the bottom lines of those he serves. He simply has neither the time nor the inclination to fret about you. You, for the most part, don't exist in his world, the world of Versailles.

You might from time to time "exist" in the abstract in Obama's World at Versailles, but only to the extent that you and yours can be motivated or manipulated to go along with something that's already been decided as Policy by the Governing Class. Romney doesn't acknowledge that you exist at all, and his rhetoric about "jobs" is nothing but a sales pitch; Obama only acknowledges you to the extent you are... useful.

Thus, rationally, because you and I exist (if only as tools and abstractions) in Obama's World of Versailles, Obama is the better candidate. But because "Mitch Won!" last night, it's a horserace once again. Obama will not be allowed by the media to run away with the election (which he looked fair to do until last night.)

Many of the points "Mitch" made in his pitch were valid complaints the People have -- about high-end Government beneficence  and low-end despair, which he called "Trickle Down Government" which was interesting -- but he clearly doesn't intend to do anything positive about those complaints, any more than Obama and the Democrats will.

Interesting, too, was the fact that Obama proposed nothing for the short term improvement of the condition of the Masses, any more than he did from the outset of his tenure on The Big Chair. For what it's worth, the Masses are expected and required to pay for the Government beneficence to the High and the Mighty and not get uppity and not complain too much about it, either; rule from Versailles will be imposed, and the People will comply. Period.

"Mitch" on the other hand will promise all sorts of things to the Masses and not deliver anything that would change that fact. He lies. He's a huckster.

Obama is too, but he is in a different category; he's -- dare I say it -- "The Help." Romney and his allies see themselves as the Prime Movers, the Landlords, the rest of us, including Obama himself, being tenants or vermin.

Many of those keening and rending their garments last night were obvious plants, Romney supporters bent on sowing Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt among the Obama partisans. It was obvious. It was also surprising to see how easily FUD is sown through ostensibly liberal online communities. It's a cinch. Of course, I've seen it happen many times, so I shouldn't be surprised, but I still am.

Romney brings up all the things that Obama isn't doing for the People, or isn't doing well. He promises to do something exciting and positive to fix things, but he won't. He's a liar. On the other hand, Obama essentially promises nothing but more of the same, which isn't very good, but at least it's believable.

We have an electoral choice of Versailles or Versailles.  And it really can't be any other way given our anachronistic and balky system.

The only way to change it -- if the People really want to change it -- is through rebellion.

The Obama Problem (Repost)

[I wrote this during the Debt Crisis Crisis. While I usually don't repost things from the past, it seems to me that Mr. Obama is struggling in the political arena once again, largely because people are dissatisfied with his performance on economic matters. The problem is his continued devotion to Hooverite economic principles. That's not to say that FDR and the New Deal were necessarily all that much better in an academic sense. They were far better in a political and popular sense. FDR understood the necessity of politically popular programs and policies, regardless of whether they were scientifically or academically sound; Hoover not so much, and not because he was such a bad man, or because he believed in "doing nothing" with regard to the economy -- neither was true about him.

No, the difference between Hoover and FDR, I think, was largely due to the fact FDR spent his entire adult life in politics and he came from a politically well connected and highly astute family. Hoover, not so much. Hoover was more of a bloodless technocrat, and the difference showed.

In the present case, of course, Romney has got Obama beat in the bloodless category. But Obama is obviously flailing as he goes around the country promoting economic policies that have actually resulted in an astronomical increase in unemployment and poverty. The People's answer is going to be, "NO!" There's no way around it.

The following essay written last July speaks of Obama as man of Principle whose primary Principle is that of Transcendence. And he will stick with it no matter what.]

The Obama Problem

I have from time to time offered both criticisms and defenses of His Serenity, Barack "Hoover" Obama -- mostly critical observation of what he is doing and why I think he's doing it. I don't think he is particularly evil or smart for that matter, but I do see him as increasingly self-possessed, self-actuated, and increasingly rigid in his core principles and beliefs.

President Carter with better looks and no Southern accent.

Well, yes. The Carter comparison has been raised since forever, on the presumption that Obama would be a one term president -- which he might well be, and I don't think he really much cares about that.

But lately, the fashion mavens in the Blogosphere have decided to push the notion that Obama is somehow The. Worst. President. Ever. (Excuse me, no.) Aware observers are more than willing to point out that the premise itself is stupid and unworthy, but it's hard not to succumb to the silliness because it is based in a human need to be on a "team" and support or defy the conventional wisdom.

Someone who supports his team feels validated, especially if his captain wins the game. And one thing I can say about Obama -- which I have in other fora -- is that he is a true believer in his own principles and his abilities to institute them through his agency as President.

His primary principle is that of Transcendence. He believes, truly, that it is his role to transcend the partisan divide, to bring the parties together, if not in harmony at least in agreement that something must be done and can be done, and to help hammer out whatever deal is necessary to Make It Happen.

That's what this Debt Crisis Crisis is all about. And it is -- sort of -- looking like he might pull it off.

Meanwhile, I came across a couple of considerations of The Obama Problem today that I think help clarify the picture. The first, via Digby, is by Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast, and it is very good. The upshot is that Obama is doing what he is doing -- which often seems incomprehensible to observers -- because he really believes in the principle of transcendence and he is determined to stick with his principles no matter what.

He apparently really believes—still!—in civic-republican notions of government as an arena for reasoned deliberation. That he could still think this is akin to a child believing in Santa Claus until he’s 15—but apparently he does. The journalist Alec MacGillis captured this conviction well in a profile he did of Obama for the British New Statesman back in 2008. Barack Obama, he wrote, “was running not on a record of past achievement or on a concrete program for the future, but instead on the simple promise of thoughtfulness.” From this perspective a unilateral action would be almost impious—or at least, if you’d rather aim a little lower than God, anti-Madisonian. Obama would be giving up on his ideal. Of course he should have long since given up on it. I was with him at the beginning—his conviction that politics could be better and more deliberative was one of the things I found appealing about the man. But that ship sailed long ago, and Obama’s position has declined from admirable principle to indefensible fetish. Politics simply isn’t going to get better and more deliberative any time soon.
The third reason the president probably won’t do it is related to the second, but it’s more personal. Unilateral action would be at odds with Obama’s image of himself. In his article, MacGillis defined thoughtfulness Obama style as “the notion that the leadership of the country should be entrusted not on the basis of résumé and platform, but on the prospect of applying to the nation's problems one man's singularly well-tempered intelligence.” This is pretty obviously a dead-on description of Obama’s view of himself and his potential as president.

I think it is really a good description of what is going on. Of course Tomasky, like many others, is OUTRAGED!!!!™ and wants Obama to Stop This Nonsense Right Now!!! Yes, well. Good luck with that. At no point during his reign on the Throne has Obama shown even a hint of giving up his principles -- though he will cheerfully give up just about everything else.

The other Worst. President. Essay I read today was by Sterling Newberry via Ian Welsh. Sterling, gosh, goes back a long way, into the mists of Internet times, and he's always been an acute observer and analyst of what's happening. In today's essay at The Sorcerer's Apprentice he examines what is wrong, desperately wrong, with the Obama Reign, and I think he gets it mostly right.

I especially like his historical notes and this part:

The President who Obama most resembles is Herbert Hoover, another one of those chief magistrates of government who became inflexible and iron willed. His idea of compromise is that he cuts out what he thinks is a compromise, and then relentlessly grind on it. He's dealing with people whose idea of compromise is a woman having an orgasm while she is raped. Neither of these two sides have actually compromised very much, other than compromising on extending the Bush tax breaks for the wealthy.

Hoover was a malfortunate president. Unfortunate is not a sufficient adjective to describe it. He inherited an economy that was about to explode. He takes office in March of 1929, the move to January would, to no small extent be because the long gap between election and inauguration paralyzed the country when later he would lose the Presidency, and in October of 1929, the stock market plunges in what is know as "The Crash." In reality such a crash was essentially inevitable after the Olmstead Break in August. In effect he had 5 months of Presidency. The rest was a long grind and heavy flail. His response was not without compassion and, within his understanding, he worked hard to do what was right. He simply was a mammoth in a lake that had been swamped by a breaking glacier dam, to be found, frozen, as an oddity. His failure was that as his policies failed, he doubled and tripled down on them. In essence, he turned a single large downturn, into three back to back downturns, and left the very faith in capitalism and democracy bruised behind him.

FDR and Hoover had once been political friends, but his rants and threats, the most famous being his offer to let FDR be President early, if FDR would scrap the "so-called New Deal." FDR replied tartly that he was still a private citizen until inauguration, his term as Governor of New York having ended.

Like me and a number of others, Newberry is relating Obama to Hoover's presidency, and he explains why very well.

On the other hand, when it comes to the Debt Crisis Crisis, I think he is somewhat off the mark in that he doesn't seem to be able to relate it (or actually much of anything Obama has done) to Obama's principle of transcendence.

That's why I highlight both articles today: the one by Tomasky which gets into the underlying reasons why Obama is doing what he is doing -- though Tomasky is calling it wrong in all kinds of ways -- and Newberry's, take which relates Obama's actions with those of other Worst Presidents and takes him to task for missing so many opportunities to please The People (and his more leftward critics) by taking bold(er) and more authoritative/authoritarian action.

I honestly don't think Obama is doing what he is doing for political gain. He is doing it both because he can, and because he must. He is a believer, in other words, and a man of Principle. Unshakable Principle.

This is what Principled Governance looks like. It isn't pretty. And I don't think it is what we really want.