Frustration With Trump

The Cable Guy came by our place the other day while I was out in the back tending the tomatoes. We don't have cable -- partly as a defense against cable "news" -- so I thought it was odd. Dude says he needs to get to a pole, can he come through our place. I say the pole isn't on our property, it's on the neighbor's. Wouldn't it be easier to go through their place?

"Oh no, that's all right, I can get to it just as easily from your side." OK, I said. How long is it going to take? "Ten-fifteen minutes. Just have to check something. Do you have Comcast?" Noooo, I said. Cable teevee is not allowed in our home.

"Oh. That's interesting." And he goes about his business. No doubt wondering about out sanity.

Practically everybody out here has cable or satellite teevee. Many of our friends and neighbors wouldn't dream of living without it. It's one of the basic utilities like electricity and water. Gots ta have it.

Well, we never have. Even though we're out in the wilderness, we're not that far from Albuquerque and it's a straight line from Sandia Crest where the broadcast towers are to our place, so an outside antenna works fine to bring in local broadcast stations. We have about thirty right now, and more are being added all the time. Many of them are "Christian" -- or some bizarre interpretation of it. Ranting and raving mostly. We pass those stations by.

Since we aren't exposed to cable "news" we aren't exposed to the kinds of hysterics that are apparently typical of the genre. Apparently, too, Mr. Trump drives the cable "news" hysterics into hyperdrive each and every day (almost) with his rage-tweets and attack-tweets, much of it ridiculous, which sets off yet another round of hoo and haw, and obsessive coverage of "Twitler" on both cable "news" and all over the internets.

It's frustrating to the cable "news" specifically and to the news media in general because Trump just won't shut up, and he won't behave like a "normal" president.

The Rules are out the window and news media in general, cable "news" in particular, don't know what to do.

From outside, this situation is interesting in part because it seems quite deliberate -- I'd go so far as to say staged in some respects.

Twitler's attacks on cable "news" especially seem calculated to drive traffic. He's been a godsend to the bottom lines of many a media mogul throughout his campaign and "presidency," and losing him and his tweets would  be horrendous, no? They need him, and by golly, he comes through. Doesn't he?

Remember before the election (that he was supposed to lose to Herself) how Trump was planning to set up his own cable network -- or maybe it would be a YouTube channel, or something... -- to defy the gatekeepers and speak directly to the public regarding matters mundane and important and keep his ugly mug in front of the Rabble all the live long day? He would use the platform to counter the lies and deceits of the Clintoon II Regime, but not only them. Oh, no. From his media perch, he'd take 'em allllll down. Remember? Sure you do.

Well, here we are now, 6+ months into his own regime (that wasn't supposed to happen) and sure enough, he's behaving just like he planned to if he had lost (as he was supposed to), only now he doesn't need to set up his own network, because the presidency is a media platform in its own right.

All he has to do is tweet or say something outrageous on mic or camera, and it's off to the races.

Ka-ching. Every utterance of his is money in the bank.

So it's in their interests to keep him around and twit-storming like mad, but it "diminishes the presidency" which will have repercussions anon. It's having repercussions now, of course.

The president of the United States of America (LLC.) is an international laughing stock, not just because of his idiot tweets but because he demonstrates a total lack of self control on the one hand, and complete disinterest in the issues others deem important. He doesn't care if it doesn't mean the spotlight is on him and glory surrounds him.

But that isn't how the world works, is it?

Or is it?

There were a number of opportunities during and after the election and then after the inauguration to prevent him from taking office or to remove him, but all of them were whiffed. What happened instead was that the presidency itself was progressively diminished and as I call it, "jokified." This sets precedent. We should be aware that Trump is being normalized (despite all the cries that "this is not normal!") day by day, and the normalization will become a kind of standard reference for regarding any subsequent presidential behavior. But you can't run a country or an Empire this way.

The King-Emperor must therefore become a figurehead at best, an unimportant cypher, placeholder, or entertainment figure.

I've often pointed to the fact that the neoLibCons who rule us take advantage of every crisis to consolidate their wealth and power (h/t Naomi Klein who detailed the  process a decade ago in "The Shock Doctrine.") We've seen it used over and over and over again, and it is very successful in accomplishing the goals of concentration and consolidation of wealth and power in the neoLibCon elite.

There is little doubt that the Elite saw and see Trump's election victory as an existential crisis. It was not supposed to happen. But as always we're seeing the crisis turned to the advantage of the High and the Mighty while the Rabble are being distracted and confused as always.

Trump himself appears to be a willing -- if addlepated -- participant in the game.

One may not like it, but there is little or nothing one can do about it.

So I'll continue to not watch cable "news," continue to grow my tomatoes (watching carefully the spread of the hatching hoppers) and keep monitoring my condition for improvements and deteriorations.

Alarm is warranted, as our idiot rulers are constitutionally unable to do the right thing. But that's nothing new. On the other hand, we are not entirely powerless.

Stay tuned.

Shock Doctrine in Reverse? [Updated]

As thousands of US military veterans assemble in North Dakota to protect the Water Protectors from the pipeline protectors, we're witness to a phenomenon I don't think we've seen before, at least not in my lifetime.

Essentially, it's a form of shock being applied to those who have always before been able to shock their adversaries without accountability or consequence. Now, all of a sudden, there will be witnesses who matter in the context of what's colloquially known as "law enforcement." And for once, the adversaries "law enforcement" is facing down -- and perhaps brutalizing as they have brutalized the Water Protectors -- will be their own peers, their own tribe, their own kind.

"Law enforcement" has been trying to squirm out of their self-created dilemma, first by issuing commands and orders for the protesters to leave their camps or face dire consequences; ordering supporters not to deliver essential supplies or they will face fines of $1000 or more; ordering emergency services not to provide emergency services to the camps without prior authorization from "law enforcement;" and so on.

And then, within hours, countermandering their own orders, denying they ever intended them to mean what they say, yadda yadda.

And when the vets started arriving and staring down "law enforcement" on the other side of police barricades (oh, how evocative, but I may not explore that in this post) the sound cannon is used to command a vet with a backpack to separate from the crowd and because "protesters have brought weapons..."

What do the vets do? They turn their backs and walk away.



Issue of the 'backpack' starts about 6:50 but the whole confrontation is worth watching.

Heh.

They turn their backs and walk away.

It was brilliant.

When there are thousands of vets there staring down "law enforcement," I can well imagine that the officers behind their barricades will literally pee their pants.

It would be nice to think that many more of them will quit on the spot and at least some of them will join the vets with the Water Protectors, but that's not likely. Apparently the pipeline protectors are making a lot of money in overtime and other compensation (partly paid by the pipeline company? This isn't entirely clear.) and they can't afford to lose this added income. But we'll see.

Michael Woods and Wes Clark Jr are the instigators of this action, and so far, it seems to be going really well. They've raised about a million dollars to cover their own expenses, more than 3,000 have signed up to protect the Water Protectors, and 2,000 + are expected on scene by tomorrow.

That's apparently the maximum number the Standing Rock tribe thinks they can host at one time.

I'm finding I really like Standing Rock chairman David Archambault II and his steady, calming, and very positive approach to all this. He knows what he's doing and what needs to be done and he's become a wonderful counselor to those who sometimes let their anger or fear run away with them.

Something is definitely coming.

It's probably not what any of us expect.

Ho.

-------------------------------
UPDATE: A delegation from the Veterans group and the various Native groups  met with representatives of "law enforcement" on Backwater Bridge (the scene of the notorious attack on Water Protectors on November 20) and apparently reached a tentative agreement to avoid further police assaults. According to a news conference given by the various sheriffs and the National Guard commander, "law enforcement" agreed to pull back from the north side of the bridge where they have erected their barricades and strung their razor wire in front of their military vehicles to protect the pipeline. They will do this, they say, in the interests of peace and harmony (bless their hearts) so long as the Water Protectors do not pass beyond the south end of the bridge, do not make any "aggressive" moves toward the police lines (wherever they may be), do not try to make a water crossing or pass over the land on either side of the bridge toward the north, and do not fly any drones over or beyond the north end of the bridge.

They are particularly annoyed with the drones that the Water Protectors fly over the scene documenting what's going on below. They've tried to shoot them down. It's really one of the more overtly cowardly responses that "law enforcement" has shown toward the Water Protectors.

Meanwhile Dave Archambault and the Governor of North Dakota (a newcomer named "Dalrymple") have agreed to meet face to face sometime in the future (no date set) to help resolve some of the outstanding issues surrounding the pipeline and the continuing opposition of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe to it.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has bestirred itself from its rather remarkable months-long slumber and is sending "mediators" or "arbitrators" and community policing representatives to the scene to help defuse and deescalate conflict. That's nice. The Water Protectors have been asking DoJ and the White House to intervene for months, but their pleas have gone largely unheeded. Now that the Vet contingent is almost fully assembled, it appears that The Powers That Be have awakened to a new reality.

While the "law enforcement" officials (particularly the sheriffs) tried to puff their chests and strut around like banty roosters, it's clear they are feeling somewhat chastised in the face of the resilience of the resistance, especially after their lies about the November 20 assault on the Water Protectors were revealed within minutes of their statements that night. (One reason they don't want drones or journalists documenting what's going on). The arrival of the Veterans standing with Standing Rock, as well as many, many others in support of the Water Protectors -- in the middle of a growingly harsh winter -- has demonstrated to them better than most anyone could have imagined that they are... wrong.

They've tried to make the Indians and their allies go away, and every time they try out some new brutality, more Indians and allies come. There are now perhaps 10,000 people gathered in the camps and more are arriving by the hour. I saw a report -- can't find it now -- that the women had gone over to Turtle Hill, a sacred site of ancestor burials, which "law enforcement" had been guarding against Indian intrusions. The women had removed the razor wire and other impediments to access and reclaimed the Hill.

Of course Trump has declared that the pipeline should go ahead and be finished as planned. After all, he has investments in it.

That's the important thing, isn't it?

Shock Doctrinaire

[I have a juvenile black cat sprawled across my lap, so it's a little hard to type. Oxygen is flowing into my nose from my chair-sized concentrator though, so that's good. I think. We'll get to that -- maybe -- another time...]

It seems to be dawning on the political class and Our Rulers -- even to some extent to the wider-spread media -- that the elevation of Trump to the White  House is a classic Shock Doctrine move intended to produce classic Shock Doctrine effects. The Ratchet ratchets down another few clicks and there is no going back. [Shock Doctrine link. Be warned, 565 pg pdf.]

Regardless of what happens with the recounts and efforts to persuade the Electoral College to do the right thing and not elect Trump.

The shock(s) to the system(s) was calculated and deliberate, it has been delivered with a good deal of force, and whatever happens from this point will be in consequence of it, not in consequence of what the People want or need or voted for. It has nothing to do with the People except to the extent they can be further exploited, abused, and disposed of.

It has much, much more to do with the wealthy and powerful amassing more of the same at the expense of the People everywhere.

All of this seems to have come as a Shock to the Trumpians, too. They didn't expect it, and they have been wrong-footing ever since the (s)election.

Soon enough, it will dawn on the Exploiting Class -- if it hasn't already -- that Trump and his band of thieves and mountebanks are a god-send, their deliverer from the burden and annoyance of the People. That seems to be the point of all this hooey more than anything else.

The No-Brakes Regime the Trumpians are getting ready to impose begins in Chaos where it will stay till the Bitter End. In operation it will make the Bush2 Regime seem calm, restrained and rational (it was anything but).  Can you imagine being nostalgic for the Bush-Cheney Madhouse of Mis-Rule and Ruin? That's the kind of dissonance that's typical of imposed Shocks.

And this is being hailed and marketed far and wide in media, politics, and academe as if it were a Good Thing. Well, it's a Good Thing for those who profit from it, isn't it? It's not such a Good Thing for those who don't and can't and won't.

There is at least a chance, slim though it may be, that the operators of this madness will pull back from the brink and that there will be another shock, equal or greater than the first, and Trump will not become the president.

Personally, I think he will be allowed to sit in the Big Chair at least for a time -- maybe a few months -- before he is voluntarily or forcibly removed from office. The ways and means of that removal I'll leave to the imagination, but there are many options available, always have been. Presidents serve at the pleasure of the factions of the permanent government. Just like the rest of us, they are disposable. Trump is no exception. It looks to me like the factions are lining up on his side, though. They are getting used to the idea of a man-boy in the Big Chair again, and it looks like they like it.

I've noticed the atmospherics, the visuals he's been utilizing and the media has been aiding him with during this so-called "transition." There's a lot of Show Business, it seems to me, and less revealed substance than might be expected of someone else.

The backdrop of a White House-like doorway through which Trump and his interviewees retreat, and before which they pose for the cameras upon emerging from their interviews is interesting. This is a Bushian move, one the Busheviks employed effectively during the recount follies in 2000, though they tended to pose in front of a fireplace just as Oval Office photo ops are traditionally arranged. An expectation of inevitability was being induced through the use of White House-like sets, props, and decor. It was never entirely clear where these sets were, any more than the location of the Trumpian White House-like set is clear, but it doesn't matter for marketing purposes as long as it looks right. And it (more or less) does. Of course these posed shots on or in front of evocative "presidential" sets mask what's really going on effectively too. That's one of their main purposes.

Trump's pre-presidential pronouncements are clearly intended to soothe both his loyalist followers and the majority of voters who chose someone else. Because the situation is chaotic, thanks to his campaign rhetoric -- which was purpose-designed to alienate the majority of the population while appealing to a partisan minority -- and his and his cronies' statements and actions since election day, "soothing" noises are necessary to keep the masses from doing anything untoward prematurely. None of it makes any sense, truth to tell, and it's not supposed to. His congressional allies are causing even more disruption and chaos with their Grand Smash and Burn Plans to "overhaul, eliminate, and destroy" various programs and policies that they've been targeting for years if not generations.

They have declared, in no uncertain terms, that This Is The End of... well, Everything.



They now have unfettered Power. The rest of us be damned.

The rest of us be damned.

I recall that when the Busheviks were installed against the will of the People in 2000-2001, they were incredibly weak. Had there been any united and broad-based opposition, they could have been thwarted, maybe even prevented from taking office. But the shock was so great, it seems to me, that the political class simply gave up, did nothing but accommodate their New Overlords, and went on as if nothing was wrong. They stuck with the Busheviks out of a false sense of loyalty till the very end, and even in the midst of the shock of economic collapse, they did not repudiate the Busheviks. And now, of course, many -- including Bush 2 himself -- have been rehabilitated, and some of them are being integrated into the Trumpian Regime-to-Come.

The cycle repeats.

Obama's regime has been a necessary interlude, relatively peaceful and calm (I know, I know) compared to the utter Chaos of Bush2's reign and the even more chaotic Trumpian rule in preparation.

Shocks of this kind are intended to grease the skids for even more suffering and dislocation and death and destruction than we witnessed or felt or experienced from 2000 onward. According to the Doctrine and the way these things work, there is now nothing to stop it, nothing to stand athwart the barricades. There are no barricades. It's now a complete free for all. Yahoo! Advantage must be taken fast and furiously.

No brakes! Wheeeeee!

In many ways, it's Chaos for its own sake. Yes, exploitation, death and destruction are part of the program, part of the plan, but keeping things crazy is also pleasurable to the Ruling Clique regardless of anything else. They like seeing the untermenschen scramble in fear and despair. It gives their lives meaning. Our Rulers are, after all, the Masters of the Universe, are they not?

The pleasure of seeing others' suffering is sufficient unto the day for many of them. Monsters that they are. One day, we might want to explore how that happened. How did these Monsters arise? Have they always been among us, or is this something new?

At the moment, the Chaos is such that much of what could become the effective opposition to Trumpianism is disoriented and disunited. Whether it can shake free of the Chaos and become a stake in the heart of this vampirism and madness remains to be seen; I'm hopeful, but the signs aren't that encouraging at the moment. The only ones who seem to be able to carry the torch and stand firm appear to be the Water Protectors in North Dakota and their many, many allies around the world. They are the core of the Resistance.

Jill Stein's efforts to clarify through recounts what happened in three "battleground" states are being disputed and dismissed by political operatives on "both" sides of the aisle acting in common cause to prop up the Trumpian "victory," no matter what the facts of the matter are or may show.

They are denouncing Stein and the Green Party in full-throated fury, and many are claiming that this recount madness is a Clintonite Plot to steal the election for The Hag. It would be funny if it weren't so stupid. And of course, Soros-the-Devil MUST be behind it all, because everyone knows he owns the Clintooons.  Or even funnier, they are denouncing it as a Green Party Plot to enhance their public profile. Really? Well, who'd a thunk. And this is supposed to be a Bad Thing. I see.

As I've pointed out in several fora, it doesn't matter to the winning faction how the winning results are obtained. Election integrity mattered not at all to the Clinton faction during the primaries, and all the complaints of irregularities -- some of them stunningly obvious -- were simply dismissed as irrelevant because Hillary WON the nomination. Much the same has been happening with regard to Trump's narrow and unexpected Electoral College win -- or potential win, it isn't settled yet. Any irregularities or -- as in Pennsylvania -- the complete inability to verify the vote are just too bad; it doesn't matter how he got there, what matters is that he WON!!!! USA! YAY!

Ok. The Shock has been administered, and the experiment is under way. There is scrambling to be sure, but there is something more. What it will lead to, I don't know. But it is interesting to witness who is linking up and lining up behind the Trumpians and who is refusing. When the institutional players start refusing -- say if California does go ahead with autonomy (not secession) -- then I think we'll start to see the outlines of a less dismal future.

On the other hand, if enough of the institutional players go along with  the New Boss, it's Game Over.

We'll see, won't we?

The Kennedy Assassination -- Fifty Years On

Official Portrait of John F. Kennedy

Yes, I remember where I was and what I was doing when the word came over the high school loudspeakers that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, and then, a little while later, that he was dead, and we would be sent home for the rest of the day.

Though it was quite a distance, I walked home because they said the buses wouldn't come for several hours -- at the regular time. I was in a daze pondering the meaning of what had happened, pondering, too, whether it could be true.

At the time, the very idea of assassination was almost beyond comprehension. Oh, in the dim and distant past, there had been a number of presidential assassinations, but to hear of one now was simply out of the question. We Americans didn't do those sorts of things. Not any more. We were too advanced for such crude and shocking methods of political change.

Capitulator!!! Destroyer!!!! LIAR!!!!!

Good God. The hysteric reporting is almost overwhelming.

Yes. Well. Apparently the Debt Crisis Crisis Deal is just about done, and assuming it gets through the House and the Senate in some form, it is likely the President will sign it, and the screwage of the People will recommence in earnest this time, as if the monumental spikes in poverty, hunger and homelessness aren't already payment enough from the People for the titanic economic catastrophe engineered by Their Betters.

Not tying what's already happened into what is to come has become one of the blogospheric conventions during the Crisis Crisis Negotiations, and it has been infuriating. It's not just insisting that "there could be cuts" -- without the least recognition that there already have been cuts, in some cases massive cuts -- to social programs, it is also the failure to tie the Crisis Crisis Negotiations to the post-modern style of Governing Contrary -- in almost all things -- to the People's Will and the Public Interest.

Instead, the Crisis Crisis Negotiations are, by convention, seen as independent of anything else, seemingly sui generis of Congress and the President, and by convention, these Negotiations have been deliberately whipped to a frenzy out of Nothing At All, and Everything Was Going Just Fine before the Crisis was made manifest Out of Nothing.

Horseshit. Complete and utter horseshit.

Those who are able to make connections typically see the Debt Crisis Crisis Negotiations as an application of the Shock Doctrine to our peaceful and bountiful land, which is true enough, but by convention, it is widely thought that only NOW is the Shock Doctrine is being applied, whereas alert observers have seen a continuation of the Shock Doctrine through the entire economic catastrophe, with previous periodic applications of the Shock devices beginning well before the Collapse.

Enron, anyone?

And of course by convention, all responsibility for the Debt Crisis Crisis is put on the Shoulders of the Throne, occupied by the Capitulator in Chief, who simply gives away the store to those mean old nasty hostage takers, booooo! When he could have done something else.

Yes, he could have, but he didn't. And he said he wasn't going to do anything different. He said quite clearly what he wanted to do, and he laid out the parameters of an agreement on the Debt Crisis Crisis, and it was clear from the Get Go that the Deal, once it came, would be essentially what is being finalized now: the few High and the Mighty will not be assessed any more income taxes than they already pay; soon enough, those tax rates will be reduced. Government services, social programs, and income support provisions for the many will be cut, in some cases substantially, in order to reduce the Federal Budget's share of the economy to an arbitrary percentage set by... well, now, that's the question, isn't it?

Who is actually running this pop stand, anyway?

Focus.

Isn't it actually the same handful of International Financiers who have been cheerfully ordering the looting and trashing economies all over the Western World to satisfy the pecuniary interests of an even tinier handful of grossly bloated Global Oligarchs and Plutocrats?

This is not to absolve the Debt Crisis Crisis Negotiators of their own culpability. They have plenty of it. After all, they are supposed to represent the People, and they do not do so, they seem utterly incapable of doing so. But that has been their institutional failure for many a long year; it did not "suddenly" appear in consequence of the current backstage Deal Making. Not at all.

The post-modern ethos of Governing Contrary to the People's Will and the Public Interest goes back a long way in this country; it's just been sharpened to a fine point in the last ten or fifteen years or so. Which all by itself is quite a while.

So the fact that the negotiators of this Debt Crisis Crisis Deal have pretty much ignored the Public in their high minded contest of wills (ha) is simply par for the course. It is what they do. It is what they have done for a long, long wearying time.

Hello?

Another of the conventions of our post-modern age is to see everything in isolation. Each and every thing is just "starting" in other words, and any connection with anything else is tenuous at best and subject to endless nitpicking and dispute. The notion of "continuation" is all but absent. The connections, such as they are, become the focus of endless and typically circular Argument. What's actually going on is seen through a foggy lens indeed, and it is often ignored in pursuit of whatever is new and shiny -- and of course, the Argument.

So.

We're going to get screwed by Our Betters some more than we already have been, and this time it will be relatively mild at first, getting harsher and harsher as time wears on, until by the end of what looks like a ten year process, fading into a longer thirty year process, which in turn is faded into a 75 year process (these people think long term, don't they?) we won't recognize either our nation or the kind of productive economy we once knew. It's not coming back. Ever.

Our Betters have decided what they want done, entirely at our expense, and that is what will be. Period.

The Imperial Wars of Aggression will continue without surcease, possibly automated for convenience and requiring far fewer personnel than currently. The insolvent financial sector will continue to be propped up indefinitely. Unemployment will continue inordinately high, and quite likely is going to go considerably higher. Social Security will continue to be drained of resources, at a faster and faster clip, while benefits already earned will be expropriated for other purposes -- such as Imperial Wars of Aggression and propping up the insolvent financial sector. "Health Care Reform" will become a bad joke, as will "Democracy." Ha ha. Foreclosures and impoverishment will accelerate.

All of this and more was "written" well before the current Negotiations got under way. There has been no lack of telegraphing of Our Betters intentions here.

What has been odd, really odd, is that there has been general acquiescence by the proles and the near-proles throughout. Yes, there have been objections raised, but even in Wisconsin, scene of the most protracted demonstrations against the New Austerity Overlords this year, there was prior agreement by the workers' representatives to almost all the demands of their governmental employer for reduced pay and benefits. In other words, the workers had already acquiesced to the major economic demands and the struggle was over "rights." Further, that struggle was lost, utterly, and there is little sign that the current effort to recall a number of state senators will result in any fundamental restoration of the status quo ante or in the institution of any better public policies.

It's simply not in the cards. Our Betters are winning every battle in a rout, while Russ Feingold and his ilk consider their next move -- or whether to "move" at all.

The hysterical accusations being thrown around against Obama and all the other Negotiators of The People's Plunder remind me a lot of the hysteria and wild accusations being thrown around about President Clinton and his dalliances with various women. It was all just insane of course, but I came to the conclusion that the hysteria and the insanity was the point of the exercise. It served as a wonderful distraction while other -- far more important -- matters were dealt with, such as financial dereg and various new forms of warring on undisciplined nations and peoples and so forth.

Ah well, it isn't completely resolved. We must await events. Sometime today, perhaps? Or will there have to be one more round of the contest to play out?

Oh, the Gnashing of Teeth; the Rending of Garments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ahem.

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

I suppose.

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

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

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

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

Strangely, that's kind of how it goes.

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

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

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

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

Naomi Klein described and predicted it in detail years ago.

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

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

Nothing at all.

Why Is The "Left" So Deeply Invested in Republicans?

For a little while, I thought the rather absurd focus on Republican candidates, characters, office holders and policies on the "left" had abated. But I was wrong. The "left" is entirely invested in the Republican Party, Republican candidates and Republican policies, and can consider and talk about almost nothing else.

It doesn't matter that the "left" is often critical of or mocking Republicans. So long as they are the center of attention -- "all eyes on them" as it were -- Republicans rule.

As if they held complete power in a one party state verging on totalitarianism.

The United States has long been an authoritarian society -- often much more severely so than it is now -- but it has generally resisted totalitarianism. Now, I'm not so sure. As the economic situation continues to deteriorate for the millions, while those on top prosper as never before, a kind of home grown totalitarianism may be inevitable.

For quite a while, each political party was eager to pick the other party's presidential (and sometimes congressional) candidates, or at least to have a significant influence on the selection. It was a game of sorts, sometimes involving dirty tricks, but typically revolving around "chatter" and where possible, voter limitation and suppression. By controlling what was said and heard and who voted, each party sought to dominate the other. The People had little to do with it -- except to the extent they could be manipulated to go along with the program of the political consultants.

But what I see going on now is qualitatively different. Yes, of course, controlling what is said and heard is still important, as is voter suppression -- which is now quite deliberate and out in the open. But now it is no longer a matter of choosing the other party's candidates or influencing the choice. For all intents and purposes, it appears that the Democratic Party has collapsed as a political entity. It has become a pseudo-oppositional subsidiary of the dominant Republican Party, much as Congress and the courts became appendages of the Executive Branch during the Bush Years, something the Obama administration has only partially reversed.

A vestigial Democratic Party is simply uninteresting to observers. Democrats have no power or authority as a political party since they seem to be in complete thrall to their Republican Overlords, indeed more and more Democrats appear to be Republicans themselves -- perhaps Rockefeller Republicans, but Republicans nonetheless.

And as this One Party State develops, what you can do and what you can say and what your future will be diminishes.

You either conform to the will of a tiny minority of primarily banking interests (a totalitarianism of Banksters?) that insists on impoverished drudgery for those who can continue to be employed (ah, shades of Orwells Proles!), and irrelevance for everyone else.

The political Parties are nothing but Show, and not a very good Show at that. Meaningless elections can continue, but Rule is closely held and more and more personal among a diminishing handful of Favorites at the Top. We the People have nothing whatever to do with it.

The "Left" (so-called) is so deeply invested in Republicans and what they do and all their clowning and bizarre antics because the Republicans are the purest expression and face of the Rulers over us. The Dems are not even putting on a good show anymore.

There is a vestigial Real Left in this country, but you would never know it from appearances. In time it may reemerge, but for now, it is essentially underground. In the meantime, more and more Americans are simply withdrawing from the Perpetual Show that has taken the place of the Public Interest in the political realm. They are turning their backs and developing alternatives.

The Government may be in total thrall to the Banksters and their determination to extort the last dime and drop of blood from the masses, but the People themselves have long been strategizing ways to thwart them. If Government really does descend into a kind of neo-Feudal totalitarianism -- the direction its headed -- "opting out" will become more and more common. Our Rulers won't care, at least not until their extortion payments are no longer forthcoming.

And then?

Well, "Hello Greece!"

This is True

Long, so here's the URL: http://youtu.be/KWVsK5QIbEE

As far as it goes, this film is interesting and illuminating, pulling back the curtain on the ways of Our Betters. Of course, it only goes so far, and it is interesting that it only goes up to the pinnacle of the Consumer Society; it doesn't deal with the Crash (though it had already happened when the film was put together) and it doesn't deal with the End of Consumerism, the era we're living in now. Nor, interestingly, does it deal with the primary economic endeavors of Our Rulers, which is to say: Gambling, stealing from one another, stealing from us, stealing from the rest of the world, and War. Our Rulers, in other words, do not operate within the context of that Consumer Society/Economy the rest of us once did -- until it all fell to pieces. They are instead parasitic upon it. And now that it is largely gone, they're just parasites. Why do they continue to rule us then?

Other films in the series are also available at the YouTube link.

There is a problem, though. "Pulling Back the Curtain" -- which these films seek to do and actually do do relatively well -- becomes an end in itself. Potentially a very rewarding one. But knowing what goes on behind that curtain isn't even necessarily useful information if your aim is actually to change things for the better. In fact, knowing how the High and the Mighty "really are" and what they "really do" is pretty useless unless it is combined with or superseded by determined and relentless forward movement toward a Better Future, and that is not really a part of the package being sold as "Pulling Back the Curtain," no matter who is doing it. When curtain pulling becomes its own entrepreneurial industry -- as it has -- then what we're really dealing with is Show. Spectacle. Entertainment.

And who controls that? To what object?

You see how this goes? Wheels within wheels, ne?

(Picked this up at Willyloman's Place. Always an intriguing resource. And no, I'm not in to Truthing... ;-)

How Fares Teh Revolution?

The Raiders and Reactionaries are sure throwing one titanic hissy fit over the Debt Ceiling "issue." The Rs have dug in their heels and asserted that there will be no lifting of the debt ceiling on their watch (ie: in the House), no sir, no way, not unless there are massive cuts in the 2012 budget -- approximately cutting a third of total expenditures, with no cuts to the military, in fact, increases to the military.

The only way to do that, of course, is to eliminate Federal programs, shut down agencies, bureaus and whole departments, and have a "Closing, Going Out of Business" sale. The Raiders and Reactionaries would actually require cuts in the neighborhood of 50% to 100% in domestic non-military spending.

THAT is Revolutionary. Even talking about it is wildly Revolutionary. The Markets are threatening dire consequences if there is a Default on Debt obligations, or even if there is consideration of defaulting. The Raiders and Reactionaries are saying there will be no default. But if they get their way, of course there will be a default on Treasuries, just not the ones that bond coupon clippers hold. The default, apparently long planned, is to be on the Social Security and Medicare Treasuries, thus forcing cuts in funding of those programs and forcing additional costs (with no additional income) onto seniors, the disabled and the poor.

Sounds like a plan, eh?

The Democrats, liberals and "progressives" simply wring their hankies and say, "Oh dear, no!" as one draconian Rightist Revolutionary proposal after another is enacted. "Oh dear, no!" is considered a brave and bold (and deeply Realistic) approach to the Revolutionary Demands of the Raiders and Reactionaries, the purpose of which is to preserve what can be preserved of the Status Quo while the Revolution reverts the nation's government to some kind of fantasy of what it was supposed to be had there been no Civil War.

Radical, reactionary, and Revolutionary, all wrapped up into one. And in the Modern World, it's a grossly anachronistic vision.

It's as if there were a revival of the Soviet Union under Stalin. The world has moved on, yet there are former Soviets who pine for the days of Stalin just as there are Americans who pine for the Antebellum Era when Everything Was Beautiful.

Except it wasn't, of course.

The key here is that the world has moved on, and the reversionaries, the reactionaries, the raiders and the (actual) Revolutionaries in our midst -- not from the Left -- don't want to move on because they can't keep up. They see the Past -- or at least their little version of it -- as a fine and permanent space to be in.

If they can only get rid of the devilish 'programs' that force us Forward, what a Paradise it would be! Except it wouldn't be any such thing.

Meanwhile, The Man in the Chair, Mister Brother Harold Camping, Loon, has declared the End of Time to occur tomorrow (well, actually, it begins today in New Zealand with earthquakes and rending the Earth asunder, just you wait).



So what's to worry?

"And shall we take Our Next Call Please, WELcome to Open Forum."

That's all for now!

Question: Are We On the Edge of Another Economic... Shock?

I ask because there appears to be some shuddering in the Economy due to the sharp rise in commodity prices, ie: food and energy. Things that people need, you see.

Just like 2008, when gasoline prices last got this high -- and predictions now are for $6 a gallon by summer, with continuing rises in food prices -- people cut back, stop buying, bring the economy more or less quickly to a halt, and if factors are dire enough, put it in reverse.

Of course an economy that relies on bubbles for "growth" is one that cannot be sustained for very long. Unfortunately, the American Economy has been relying more and more on the Bubble to carry the load ever since the days of Reagan, and it doesn't seem to be working any more.

So are we stuck? Are we going back into reverse? And is there anything to be done about it?

What happens when gas is too expensive and food is too expensive? What do people do?

Millions upon millions of Americans have been forced into poverty since this Endless Recession began and Disaster Capitalism became the operating principle of our rulers. Most of them will never get out of poverty again. Most have already adapted to their new, reduced circumstances, and they've already cut their spending back to the nub. They don't have anything more to be pillaged and plundered by the High and the Mighty.

The effects of higher energy and food prices on them will be severe, because for most of them, there are no options: it is either pay the price or go without, or both. Both is what is happening: they pay for what they must and they go without for everything else. Their physical and emotional situation deteriorates. Their lives become more and more cramped and crabbed, and their sense of despair for the Future becomes consuming. Faith may be some comfort in their distress, but there will likely be no relief for their suffering from the material world.

But there is still a large middle class to plunder, large enough anyway to make the Powers Who Rule Us salivate with the contemplation of the opportunities before them. Thus the persistent and concerted efforts -- rather successful efforts even in the face of massive opposition -- to "curtail" pay and benefits for the largest blocs of the remaining middle class, that is public employees.

And of course we can't neglect to mention the assault on the benefits for the elderly and disabled. Raising the retirement age, when it should be lowered, and cutting Social Security benefits, when they should be substantially increased, is a form of pillage by the Owners. Transformation of benefits that have been pre-paid by their users into partial subsidies to the Marketplace is a form of plunder.

The irony is that this assault on what remains of the social contract and the American Way of Life, if you will, doesn't help the Owners in mid and long term. In fact, it does just the opposite.

They've been busy stealing from one another as a kind of sport for years. Now they're plundering the rest of us, and so far, as each sector has been depleted, they've been able to move on to the next. It's all quite mindless. While there is some actual cruelty involved, mostly it's just automatic behavior. But they are running out of sectors, and once they have taken everything they can grab from everyone else -- including their peers and rivals -- they are left in the condition of Latin American grandees in the 19th Century. "Rich" by comparison to the poverty they have created all around them, but as rotten and backwards as any aristocracy there ever was.

Or think of what happened to Rome when the system of plunder and impoverishment had run its course.

That's the path we're on.

And another Economic Shock will do nothing but accelerate the process.

Individuals will have to take matters into their own hands to stall or reverse the process, and that's a task more and more Americans seem willing to take on.

The results from this application of the Shock Doctrine just might surprise us all. I know I've said that before.

Optimism!

[Traveling today and tomorrow, going back to California after a very active couple of weeks in New Mexico]

Stochastic terrorism

This article by dKos writer G2geek is getting a lot of coverage or at least exposure, and it seems to fit in with my notion that these routine killing sprees are actually "triggered," in G2geek's view by cultural and media contexts, they are not the accidental outcomes of "lone wolves" or "psychotic nuts" gone inexplicably rogue.

They are "triggered."

G2geek doesn't discount the possibility that the triggering may be intentional, but seems to shy away from it nonetheless. In such a toxic cultural and media environment, one can assume that some people will be triggered to act out their fantasies and kill. One doesn't have to trigger them intentionally; it happens automatically -- and regularly. And yet, if those who do the triggering are aware of their power to set the killers in motion, why not do it intentionally, at particular times and places, if it's possible to do so?

I can understand shying away from the Tinfoil on a topic like this, but often enough the conspiracy you suspect is actually real, or some version of it is.

One of the aspects in Loughner's case that I find very intriguing is that he really does seem to be trying to communicate (in those videos) what is happening to him. All the talk about mind control and how it is being done may not make sense on the surface but if you think about it in the context of Stochastic Terrorism, you start to realize, "OMG! He's trying to tell us!" I think we'll see that with a lot of the other Shooters out there, too. They understand that they are being "driven" by a force or forces completely beyond their control, and in so many cases, they can point to something in the media that has triggered their rage.

I've noticed who's been out defending the "vitriol" and denying that it has anything to do with the creation of these shootings, each of which, of course, is a singular event with no connection to anything else.

It is the entire Republican political establishment. It is the entire Rightist media complex. It is most of the Mainstream Media plex. It is almost all the Libertarian media -- including the "progressive" blogosphere (Jane and Glenn have become especially shrill in defending the vitriol.) And I noticed last night with a kind of horror that Ezra Klein has taken to defending the vitriol too. Though he rattled on at great length, he was not making a coherent argument; he was all over the map, flailing. And when he was confronted, by another commentator, he practically had a meltdown right there on the teevee.

A case can be made that he wasn't actually defending the vitriol, only the freedom to be vitriolic without being blamed for shoot-em-ups, but the case being made for Stochastic Terrorism is that shoot-em-ups are the inevitable consequence of the kind of media vitriol that Americans are soaked in.

I'm reminded of something from years ago. I think most people who read this little corner of Cyberspace know that I live in Sacramento -- when I'm in California! -- and have lived here for quite a while. Most people know that Rush Limbaugh got his major media start here when he was given a regular show on KFBK Radio. It was at the time a very provocative, even shocking show, but not a whole lot different than his national show now. One of the targets for his vitriol was gay people. It was early in the AIDS epidemic, and he railed against gay people day in and day out. All of a sudden, "incidents" started happening. Gay men -- and suspected gay men -- were being attacked all over town, some badly injured, and I believe one was killed. People were horrified. The police were stymied. The mayor, however, recognized that these attacks stemmed from Limbaugh's constant raving against gay people on his radio show, and she called on him publicly to desist. Of course he denied any mal intent -- as he always does -- but he did tell his followers that he never wanted any of them to attack anyone and if any of his followers were involved in the attacks, he wanted them to stop.

Sure enough. They stopped. At least for a while.

In this case, it wasn't "unstable" people who were being influenced to attack targeted outsiders mindlessly. It was pretty ordinary folks exposed to a constant diet of media rage and outrage, with the implication, always, that they had "permission" to act out their rage violently. This is little different than the talk radio influencing, aiding, abetting and enabling the genocide in Rwanda.

At some point, Americans and their media have got to come to grips with the pervasiveness of hatred and rage and gun violence as the "solution" that they purvey and absorb all the time. People ARE triggered to act. And the outcome gets worse and worse.

What's Just Being Called "The Shooting"

[From the Arizona Star]


Yesterday in Tucson, some young fellow with a gun went Medieval on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and shot her in the head. Then, according to witnesses and news reports, he opened indiscriminate fire on the people who had gathered at the Safeway store to see her and killed a Federal Judge, a little girl, assorted bystanders, and one of Giffords' staffers and injured a dozen more.

Just another shooting in America; they happen every day. Of course, like all the other political shootings in this country, there is now a Big Fight over who -- whether the "Left" or the "Right" -- is responsible, and endless calls for "all sides" to tone down The Rhetoric. It goes this way every time. And the next time it will go this way the next time, too, for it is taken for granted that there will be a Next Time. There always is.

Political shootings and assassinations are as American and Mom's Apple Pie to the horror of most of the rest of the world, but that's the way it has always been in this country. Frustrated Americans, sane or crazy, from time to time take their frustrations out by violently assaulting or assassinating political figures.

And the rhetoric of violence and political assassination is so deeply rooted in the United States, though often denied or sublimated, that it is hard to imagine an America without constant allusions to gun play to satisfy one's anger, frustration or hatred. It's not just political rhetoric that's the problem. Gun play and killing is the foundation rock of so much American entertainment. No one remembers "The Sopranos?" Sure.

[Note: I only saw "The Sopranos" once, during which episode who knows how many poor sods were tortured and killed. I was horrified and disgusted that this television program had become the television program for all with it people to watch and enjoy and discuss endlessly. It was considered such a wonderful metaphor for Our Times, and so very well done. To my way of looking at it, "The Sopranos" was a celebration of violence, murder, torture and gangsterism and a relentless attack on any and all countervailing sense of morality or even common courtesy. It was monstrous. And it was a form of "permission" to those who wanted to behave that way.]

The Government will respond as it always does: retreating further behind its barricades and security apparat and expanding its surveillance of the rest of us. The media will go through its endless routine of "blaming both sides." The public, by and large, will go on as if nothing happened at all.

It's not unlike a scene I saw the other day of a security guard (an off-duty policeman) clubbing and pepper-spraying a citizen before dragging him off to a police substation (?!) in the gas station while the victim's friends (?!) watched placidly or stepped around the violence to retrieve things from the car beside which the beating and pepper spraying were taking place. They were simply too self involved to be concerned with what was happening right in front of them.

So it will be with this shooting.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but one of the things that Nazis did (and it wasn't just them, but it was more common with them) in Germany and especially in conquered territories was the spectacle of the public shaming, public beating, public summary execution or what have you. There were incidents of random summary executions on the street, of accused partisans being beheaded as passers by went about their business, of people being strung up to gallows or tied to posts and whipped or forced to parade around with signs around their necks describing their multitudes of crimes. This was one of the tactics used to frighten ordinary people into submission and compliance. And it worked remarkably well for a remarkably long time. The atrocities weren't just in the camps. They were on constant show in the streets. And people went right on with their business as if nothing was happening. But of course, they had witnessed what could happen to them or anyone if Authority so desired. So they kept their heads down and noses clean so as not to gain the notice of Authority.

That's very much what the American penchant for violence, shootings and assassinations is all about. Inculcating a herd mentality in the majority, while predators run free.

Still More Shiny Objects -- And It's Coming to a Head

It's hard to tell -- and it's not so hard to tell -- what's going on these days.

The WikiLeaks Leaks initially seemed benign enough, certainly nothing (much) in the Leaks that would raise more than momentary domestic ire, regardless of what was happening in the embassies, presidential palaces, and sultans' seraglios overseas. Not exactly a tempest in a teapot, but really, not-that-bad either, unless you were intent, like some Libertarians who wear the Masque of "Progressives" -- Greenwald being one -- to cripple and if possible bring down this Government and substitute it with something else; if Jane were in her Kali-phase, I have no doubt she'd be slashing away with her scimitar at all the "lies" and "phoniness" and "corruption." But she's seemed to be almost somnolent through this latest set-to. Another dog that doesn't bark? I dunno.

When it is realized what the information is, how it was obtained, how lax -- actually absent -- security for the system was, and how mostly benign the cables are, one sees or should see that while it's never wise to have all diplomacy conducted in the open, what's been going on (at least from the perspective of the levels of confidentiality these cables deal with) is pretty much to be expected given widely understood assessments of the World As It Is.

So the relative languidness of The Powers That Be toward the Revelations seemed fitting. What was curious was that apparently nothing (much) was done to secure the Information Retreival system these documents were from until just recently. Clearly there was no intent to do so, until...

All of a sudden, something happened. The usual bluster and threats had been coming out of the Government bunkers, but then all of a sudden, CyberWar got under way in earnest. Strenuous efforts are being made for the first time, so far as I can tell, to shut down not only WikiLeaks ability to disseminate classified information (no matter how benign) but to prevent government workers and the general public from accessing the documents, world-wide if possible. There is apparently "hot pursuit" of Julian under way as well, the lack of which had always puzzled me before, as his peripatetic wanderings on public airlines and his widely advertised public appearances made his whereabouts extraordinarily easy to track.

Now it looks like full-on panic mode from the Government. And like the lack of response to the massive security breach that the doc dumps represented, the New Panic Response isn't normal.

It all seemed to come to a head when Julian announced the upcoming dump of internal memos and documents from a large financial institution widely assumed to be Bank of America. That's when all hell broke loose. And Holy Joe got up in his pulpit and demanded retribution.

OK then.

So does my early impression that WikiLeaks might be an aspect of a factional war within Government still stand? Truly, that is still mysterious to me. It could be. During the Clinton interregnum between the Bushes, there was a battle royal going on between Gingrichites and Clintonites, in other words, factions of the Governing Class, which Clinton ostensibly "won" -- by beating the Impeachment rap -- but which ultimately led directly to the installation of Bush II on the Throne, and all the wild and crazy shit that followed. The Bushevik reign went down in flames when their Imperial Project crashed on the rocks and it was torpedoed by the collapse of the economy. It was a pretty serious situation.

The Busheviks were replaced by cold blooded technocrats whose job it was to consolidate the gains of the Bushevik era, correct the errots, right some of the furniture, keep the masses tame, and leave things in good order for the next round of lootage and bloodshed.

It was going well until the TeaBaggers popped out from under their rocks, funded by KochPelf and whipped to a frenzy by FOX"News". Oh my. The furiosity of the antagonism toward the cold-blooded technocrats in office took them by surprise, to say the least. The effectiveness of the Furies, driven as they were by mindless contempt and rage, and constantly threatening domestic insurrection, was striking.

The Lesson Learned for the leaders of the TeaBag Uprising was that if you want to have your way, you better go balls to the wall. And so... they did. And the technocrats recoiled in horror.

There's been one insurrection after another, and now the technocrats are bunkered down, seemingly as much as the Busheviks were toward the end.

This will not end well.

The Panic from the Bunkers is not good. Arsonists intent on Burning Down the House may think it is Wonderful, but that is merely a sign of narcissism (heh) and nihilism. For them, it's destruction for its own sake, not "creative destruction" at all. (This is what the Kalis among us never seem to comprehend. There can be moments of creative destruction, but mostly it's just... destruction. And then what? Nihilists have no answer, and Kali doesn't care.)

The Panic is a sign that something seriously dangerous has been uncovered or unleashed. It may actually have nothing to do with WikiLeaks per se; it may be something else altogether. The fact that directives would go out to the federal workforce not to access WikiLeaks -- even if they had access to the documents leaked -- was absurd. Some of the efforts to prevent access by the public are bizarre. the directives coming from Holy Joe ordering (suggesting) that private companies stop hosting WikiLeaks OR ELSE are seriously whack. What's worse is their compliance. The repeatedly bungled "manhunt" for Julian looks like an exercise in futility and powerlessness. Panic is a sign of weakness, not solely of the Leader, but of the Government as an Institution, and when we get to that point, we should all be very... uh... nervous.

A panicked US Government is unpredictably dangerous. Not just to itself. But to everyone. Not just at home, but everywhere. This is quite a step up of the Shock Doctrine.

And that's what's got me puttin' on the tinfoil today.

Hoo-boy, batten down.

On the Deficit Hawkery Fraud

From New Deal 2.0:

Memo to Deficit Hawks: Let’s Get the Facts Right
Wednesday, 06/9/2010 - 10:53 am by Henry Liu

Think the deficit hawks have it all right about ‘entitlements’, spending cuts and the debt crisis? Think again.

A Panic Wave of Demand for Fiscal Austerity

The sovereign debt crisis in Greece has sparked a panic wave of radical policy demands for fiscal discipline throughout the European Union from a perverse coalition of neoliberal public finance ideologues and anti-government conservatives. Proponents of fiscal discipline argue that the EMU and its common currency, the euro, would not be sustainable without the drastic restructuring of public finance in all eurozone member states through a combination of tax increases and deficit reduction through fiscal austerity. But creditors, mostly transnational banks, will be protected from having to accept “haircuts” on their holdings of sovereign debt.

[snip]

Fiscal deficits across the eurozone are to be reduced by cutting public sector wages and social benefit and subsidy expenditures so that transnational bank creditors will be paid in full while turning a blind eye to blatant tax evasion and avoidance by the rich with non-wage income that contribute to loss of government revenue and fiscal deficits. The dysfunctional disparity of income and polarization of wealth between the wage-earning masses and the financial elite with income from profit and capital gain, are the main causes of overcapacity in the economy. In past decades, the neoliberal response to overcapacity was to shy away from the obvious solution of raising wages, turning instead to flooding the economy with huge mountains of consumer and corporate debt that eventually resulted in a tsunami of borrower defaults that turned into a global credit crisis. Yet repeating the same response to the current crisis will lead only to another global crisis down the road.

And it goes on like this. It's worth reading the whole thing as yet another reminder, straightforwardly told, of what is really going on, all over the world, as the banksters consolidate their holdings on the backs of the poor, working, and middle classes.

It is the very definition of "Shock Doctrine/Disaster Capitalism" and we are well into it. The question is, how can we get out of it?

Huh, Interesting

Just did a search on 2008 Presidential campaign donations in my two zip codes.

In my California zip code, there were 298 donors who gave a total of $212,332 to Democratic candidates (in the primaries and general election) and $14,002 to Republican candidates. So far as I can tell, these are all individual donations.

In my New Mexico zip code, there were 23 donors who gave a total of $25,275 to Democrats and $723 to Republican candidates.

Huh. I never would have guessed.

My zip code in California is pretty solid, established, upper middle class, populated by lots of professional-types, including a lot of lawyers, perfessers, doctors, upper level government managers, and -- yes -- lobbyists.

In New Mexico, on the other hand, the area is rural, dominated by ranching, with small to very small towns, and pretty significant levels of unemployment and/or financial struggle.

Yet both donate overwhelmingly to Democratic candidates.

The votes in the counties (which don't correspond to zip codes, but are interesting in their own right) went something like this: in my California county, Barack Obama 58%, McCain 40%; in my New Mexico county, McCain 54%, Obama 44%.

Since I maintain the candidates we're allowed to choose from are merely different shades of the same Corporate color, the outcome is not necessarily all that important -- except on the margins, and the margins are growing in importance as the economy continues to collapse on the working and middle classes.

And the question still remains, why are the masses so passive?

It's the Fear

"People are scared of the poor." -- Gen Russel Honore (Ret) to CNN regarding the evacuation of Belgian medical personnel from a makeshift clinic in Port-Au-Prince

I don't have cable teevee, so there is no 24 hour news cycle to keep me in a constant state of agitation and OUTRAGE!!!!!™, but the stories out of Haiti are getting more and more outrageous, even in the print and online versions of the news I do see.

Many times, it's been pointed out that the survivors of the earthquake have no access to food, water, emergency medical attention and care, and that they are doing for themselves what they can while aid pours into the airport and sits there.

It is said to sit there for two reasons: "There's no infrastructure" for transport and distribution of the pallets of supplies, and "There's no security" for those doing the distribution.

In other words, "It's not safe," and "We couldn't get it to Those People anyway."

Huh.

Just like Katrina.

The aid agents, even Our Dauntless Armed Forces, are scared to death of the Natives running wild, and they have no idea how they can possibly get supplies to the survivors anyway, not having clear, smooth access roads and convenient helipads and distribution nodes around the suffering city.

This is disgusting.

But it has become the Status Quo thanks to the "success of the Katrina Exercise" in which the suffering survivors were made to suffer further while political campaigns continued (seeing President Clinton stumping for Coakley in Massachusetts the other day, though he's supposed to be UN Special Envoy to Haiti, more than chapped my gizzard, let me tell you) and everyone who could provide immediate assistance to the survivors was belayed from doing so for Fear of the Native Hordes and what they would do to their rescuers.

"Force Protection" was the most important thing of all, and until that was sorted out completely, no one could either enter or leave New Orleans except under very special circumstances.

For days on end. And many people suffered needlessly and some died because of it.

So it is now in Port-Au-Prince.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who led relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said the evacuation of the clinic's medical staff was unforgivable.

"Search and rescue must trump security," Honoré said. "I've never seen anything like this before in my life. They need to man up and get back in there." -- Gen Russel Honore, Ret.

Yes, well, sorry General, the VouDou is gonna getcha if Les Noirs don't do it first. {{{{{{{shudder}}}}}}

Priorities.

And for poor Haiti, the priority appears to be applying even more of Le Doctrine de Choc through fear and neglect because doing anything else is simply outside the parameters of Good Practice.

Peoples of the World arise. This is your fate, too.

Shock Doctrine: California

As my last post indicated, the fallout from the impending California state and local budget cuts will be immense, and for some populations, they will be devastating.

Almost the entire social safety net (such as it is) is proposed to be cut by the governor in order to just begin to meet the looming deficit. The destruction will commence on July 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year, and it won't stop until... who knows.

Of course the Doctrinaires are salivating. There has never been an opportunity like this in their lifetimes, and there probably never will be one again. California state government is effectively bankrupt, and though it will not exactly cease to exist, its services to citizens will start to disappear, and in some cases will be terminated forthwith.

Of course the main cuts are going to fall on the poor, the old, the sick, and the demented, the way they always do, only this time in too many cases, there will be nothing at all to cushion the blow. Too bad, so sad. Bye bye.

Democrats and Republicans will collaborate in this endeavor. Democrats of course will say they just HATE to do it, sorry, sorry, while Republicans as one will say, "Tough luck, suckers!" and will laugh at the suffering left in their wake.

And who is on the sidelines?

Silent?

Disinterested?

Otherwise engaged?

Our President, of course.

Simply can't be bothered right now. GM, Chrysler, and the Financial Sector have sucked up all the money; the Congress stripped out much of the state stabilization funding from the stimulus; Californians, so sorry, are on their own.

And so, the domestic Shock Doctrine laboratory, the Demonstration Project if you will, gets under way in a little over a month. Hope everyone has stocked up on popcorn.

This ought to be good.

rocky horror - sweet transvestite
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Shock Doctrine

[Note: I'm still on a restricted blogging schedule. Currently in New Mexico where internet service is spotty at best. Besides it's summertime! Enjoy while you can!]

Naomi Klein is deservedly well-known for her exegesis of The Shock Doctrine as it has been used by [Milton] Friedmanites and various and sundry neo-cons and their fellow travelers to dismantle the Republic and destroy the Constitution while financially profiting from their perfidy.

True enough. And we see it in full cry with the current DRILL!!! DRILL!!!! DRILL!!!!!™ hysteria.

However, the shock doctrine works both ways. Like the flag and like religion, it's not the sole property of the spittle flecked wingnuts.

Seems to me there's an opportunity for our side to use it as well.

Just saying.