Year End Review

Ha!

Wrech.

What a goon show.

And yet, all the signs say it is a show and the show is obscuring what's really going on. We see that behind the scenes our neoLibCon rulers are accelerating their plunder of the common rabble. Death and destruction beyond measure has filled their many war theaters with blood and ruin (rarely acknowledged let alone mourned unlike the relatively few drone murders of the Obama regime), and climate change is wreaking havoc while the ruling clique celebrates.

The world of hurt is growing and spreading, and they are laughing. "They" as in Our Rulers.

Something might have been done about it before the inauguration, but nothing was done. The Russia Thing is silly but it keeps attention away from the decisions and effects of the ruling clique. As long as that's the case, and as long as it works, so long will it continue. The spiral down becomes a slide, and there appears to be nothing We, the Rabble can do about it.

We need to consider our options.

The Franken Thing

This is one reason Show Business personalities should not be elected to public office.

You'd think Minnesotans would have learned their lesson with Jesse The Body Ventura.

But no.

Actually, I'm given to understand that Minnesotans weren't consulted about whether or not Mr. Franken should become a sacrifice, it was pretty much entirely a matter of Senate Democratic colleagues demanding and getting his resignation, but the fact that he stood for election and was elected twice despite a rather marked unsuitability for office -- something he even alluded to -- is what's telling.

Minnesotans, though, didn't have much of a choice.

That's a deep seated problem for our faulty and anachronistic electoral system. Franken shouldn't have had to run, but he did because at the time there were few viable options.

But isn't that the case in most elections? Indeed. It is so by design.

Meanwhile Franken's forced resignation over things that a low comedian like him would be expected to do as part of a gag or not was happy-making for some people, definitely not so for many others. The backlash against Gillibrand and the dozens of other Senators (not all of them Democrats) who participated in the mob action against Franken has been pretty intense. What were they thinking?? That they would gain cred among women in general or among a specific demographic (suburban white women) who they long to appeal to? Don't know. I'm not sure they do.

If this were really about ending sexualized aggression against women (and men) by the rich/powerful men who rule us, then Franken would not be a likely target given what he was accused of.

No. What he was accused of was pretty much what almost any low comedian would be expected to do when he's "on." Viz: the Marx Brothers as historic (and very randy) examples. There are many more.

Some women now claim they were offended/assaulted by Franken when he was being a low comedian, and their claims were too much for a significant portion of the Senate to handle and they called for his ouster.

Go back in time and look at the Marx Brothers in action with the many Sweet Young Things and Margaret Dumont in their movies or watch Groucho ogling and even touching girls and women on his television show. Was that sexual harassment or assault? Well, some people would certainly think so.

Times change, and that sort of thing certainly isn't allowed now.. Or it shouldn't be. Particularly among high government officials. Ergo, Franken had to vamoose.

Right?

Well, he said he would step down, so I guess so. Make an example of him. Right?

(As for Conyers, he's old and needed to retire anyway, right?) (Who?) (Another target of the witch hunt, that's all.)

But what I keep going back to is that Franken should never have been in office, should never have felt he had to run. The fact that he really did believe in the necessity of his candidacy and service -- while still being a comedian -- put him and the people of Minnesota in a jam.

Much the same has been the case with other show business personalities who have run for office and won, including Ronald Reagan, Jesse Ventura, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Donald Trump.

All have some kind of sexual indiscretion in their backgrounds, and none of them were/are particularly suited to office.

I've noticed that show business executives ("suits") rarely if ever stand for office, but performers rather often (too often in my view) do. I think about that and the absurdity of it and I ask myself what kind of reflection that is on the electoral system itself.

Oddly enough, actors and performers in the Show Business are not autonomous individuals who are free to do as they wilt on stage or screen or in the ring. They are more like product shaped and socialized by many others behind the scenes including those suits who most of us never see.

Oddly enough, the show business environment is highly (some might say "hyper") sexualized. The notion that show business personalities are somehow (or should be) monk-like in probity is silly. On the other hand, I've been informed that elected government officials are even less monkish.

Ultimately the issue is consent. The women complaining about Franken's behavior claim that they didn't give their consent for what he is accused of doing, including holding one by the waist during a photo op. Indeed, it's credible. It's likely he didn't even think to get permission before acting in a touchy-feely or even boorish way toward these --and no doubt other -- women during his long career as a comedian. Permission was implied.

To say now that they didn't give or imply their consent is jejune to say the least and they are now Outraged!®. On the other hand, Franken was clearly targeted for other reasons than his alleged misbehavior, and once targeted, he had no means to escape punishment. 

If this is about ultimately getting to Trump and forcing him out of office, I don't think it will work. It's already backfiring. Trump's sexual improprieties have "already been litigated," and it's not likely that any accusation of sexual impropriety against him will cause his removal in the future. Maybe some women will think twice about reelecting him, but what -- if anything -- will get him out of office in the meantime remains to be seen.

If on the other hand the objective is to ensure that going forward there will be no physical or sexual contact between individuals without express permission and consent and none at all between adults and minors with or without consent, then it's possible we'll enter into that New Society more or less soon. We've been painfully inching toward it for a long time.

If the objective is to precipitate general equality between men and women, then nah. This isn't the way.

But maybe in the short term show business personalities will think twice or three times before standing for office, and that might be a good thing.

About Those Exemptions...

As I think the whole wide world knows by now, Glenn Greenwald's Fireworks Extravaganza, "Naming Names" of those surveilled by the All-Knowing All-Powerful Government through the NSA... fizzled out.

Reminds me of the time we were in Anchorage and stood out on the balcony of our apartment to witness the grand fireworks show that was to culminate the 25th Anniversary of Statehood. Just as the show was to get underway, a fog bank moved in from the bay. The show went on as scheduled. We could hear the booms and from time to time, the fog lit up a little bit, but for the most part... nothing. To say it was somewhat anti-climactic was to be generous.

And so, from Greenwald, et al, there's nothing but fog, not even a glimmer of fireworks, to cap the anniversary of the Snowden NSA revelations.

After more than a year of revelations, there is no legislation worthy of the name that will rein in the surveillance agencies, most people have no idea how extensive the surveillance they're under is and those who do know largely don't care, and people like Greenwald and his sponsors and collaborators are content with demanding exemptions from surveillance for themselves -- the rest of us can pound sand for all they care. Their vaunted "principles" of privacy are only valid among their own kind, a kind to which the vast majority of people do not belong.

Even as anticipation grew regarding the naming of names of those under NSA surveillance, Greenwald was backing off, substituting the kinds of people under NSA surveillance for the names of individuals.

Well, I think most people already know the kinds of people who are subject to scrutiny by governments: they are mostly leftish-wing dissenters from the established order, no? Anyone who might pose an immanent or eventual threat to the powers that be is automatically included. The usual suspects, in other words. For the most part, that does not include right-wing critics at all. It generally doesn't include those who profess libertarian leanings. It usually doesn't include religious wack-jobs either, not after the Waco disaster.

It does include anarchists, liberationists, communitarians, communists, socialists, peace advocates, and practically anyone opposed to fossil or nuclear fuel use/expansion, anyone in favor of animal rights, lgbt rights, or civil or human rights beyond those already provided by Our All-Knowing and All-Powerful Government. Any of the groups that these people may belong to or support are of course subject to routine, intrusive surveillance including infiltration and provocation to violence. Mustn't forget the Muslim hordes, either.

We know this. It's been true for all our lives. The left -- so called -- has always been subjected to intense scrutiny and infiltration by government in this country, for the simple fact that leftist ideology has long been considered a threat to the established order and must therefore be surveilled and when necessary it be suppressed.

The same is true of black folk and brown folk in general, especially when not enfolded into the dominant culture. Black folk and brown folk who get uppity about their place are a problem to be confronted and controlled as are economically deprived white folk. Color matters, but so does wealth and status.

Those who are of sufficient wealth and sufficient status generally -- though not always -- are immune from routine surveillance, arrest, prosecution and conviction, depending on their position within the hierarchy.

Elected representatives of the people, for example, face continual scrutiny by the security apparat, and they can be subjected to criminal arrest and prosecution for even the slightest legal transgression -- though it remains somewhat rare. The more "left" they are, the more likely they are to be rounded up and detained. They know this.

The issue with Greenwald and his sponsors has always been about those exemptions, though. Certain categories of people are typically exempt from surveillance and the potential consequences of surveillance. Exemptions depend largely on wealth and status of individuals and tie-ins with the establishment for groups.

This has been a truism since the founding of the republic.

Greenwald goes on and on about the sacredness of privacy, but it has only ever applied to a few and only to the extent that those few choose. It is not an innately sacred principle, certainly not of the United States of America.

"Privacy" for the masses is a relatively new idea which wouldn't have occurred to the Founders. It would have seemed bizarre and anti-social.

What Greenwald et al demand are exemptions from surveillance to be extended and confirmed for themselves, their friends, family, colleagues and peers. This idea of exemption is based more on theories of lawyer-client privilege, it seems to me, than it is on anything else, and it doesn't really apply to most people, nor would it ever.

In other words, People Like Greenwald -- and those he chooses -- should be exempt; others must fight their own battles, good luck, suckers.

Even if Greenwald does produce a list of NSA targets eventually, the moment has passed for his fireworks display. By the time he gets around to it, maybe at the end of this season of sharks and missing white women, the news cycle will have moved on.

Cryptome is cryptically claiming a complete Snowden Document Dump -- one assumes including the Names -- is coming before the end of July, with or without Greenwald's involvement. It could happen.

Breath holding, however, is not advised.

And Another Thing

I watched the opening pageant of the Sochi Winter Games -- and I was mesmerized. Of course it was all propaganda on an enormous scale, but wow, what a show. Breathtaking.

What was so interesting to me about it, at least in the abstract, was that it had been preceded by days, perhaps weeks, of negative news coverage of Russia, Sochi, and Putin, just on and on and on about how dismal and threatening and incomplete the situation was, over and over and over and over. Everything negative possible about Russia, Putin, and Sochi was highlighted in the American media on a pretty much continuous loop, in every imaginable outlet.

The underlying theme was "Terra! Terra! Terra!" -- because, after all, Sochi is in that strange borderland on the Black Sea where Russian Terra!™ lives. You know? Like the Boston Marathon Thing? The point of all the propaganda -- apart from ritualistic denunciations of the Enemy (which Russia is, according to many pundits who apparently never heard about the collapse and disappearance of the Soviet Union) -- was to make Americans disgusted and afraid of the Games' host country, terrified in fact, that something AWFUL would happen to our valiant athletes in such a dismal, horrifying, disgusting place.

And so the Russians put on this opening pageant, and it was stunning, absolutely astonishing -- and it was surprisingly informative and entertaining as well. It's propaganda, of course, as the Olympics are and have been for most of their history. But even propaganda can hold one's attention or be extravagantly artistic, even gorgeous. Much of Soviet propaganda strikes me that way. So it's no surprise that the successors to the Soviets can do it, too.  American propaganda, by contrast, tends to be overtly false, when it is not ugly and pessimistic. The contrast is striking.

Well, now the propaganda narrative about Russia, Putin, and Sochi has apparently changed. The opening pageant was so impressive, it seems, that the current narrative is focused on Russian art and culture, achievement, can-do attitude, etc. Almost like Russia and the US are siblings of different mothers, unified in many more ways than we ever knew, yadda yadda yadda, and Putin ("for all his faults") is the one who made it so. He is being fluffed far more than denounced, for having masterminded such an "incredible show." Indeed. Sochi's incomplete and inefficient aspects haven't been forgotten, to be sure, but they are quickly fading from the narrative, and all the neat things about the venues and the city are being highlighted and promoted.

It's quite a turn about.

But these whip-saw changes in narratives and attitudes are part of the practice of propaganda.

It's something to be aware of, but knowing about it doesn't actually do you any good!