Judas Goats and Southern Gothic

He sweated and fidgeted. The pudgy little potbellied white man poked at his sweaty upper lip and a mosquito bit at his forehead while he made remarks before assembled media flanked by roided up white men in uniform, his "force." In the morning, he said there had been some kind of strongarming reported at the Stop and Rob down the street from the burnt out Quik-Trick where he was holding forth in the parking lot. It was on the day, he said, a few minutes before that young Negro was shot and killed in the middle of Canfield Street, too bad for him, we're so sorry for his loved ones. Sure we are. Really!

There was a strongarming reported from the market, a 911 call, and one of our officers was sent out to investigate, and our other officer was just leaving a sick call, the pudgy little sweaty little fidgety man said in the broiling sun out front of the QuikTrip ruin, and he came upon these Negro boys out walking in the middle of the road and he...

Something, something, fidget fidget, and one of the Negroes got shot and then he was dead. Some cigars were reported stolen from the Stop and Rob, and then the Negro boy was dead. Here are some pictures; here is the police report.

Oh, and the officer who shot the Negro boy was named something-something, what was that? Oh yeah, fidget fidget, Darren, Wilson, something something, but don't forget the robbery. The Negro boy and his friend were the prime suspects. The one that got dead. In the middle of the street. Fidget. "'Bye!"

 This one:

Fuckfuck fuck pic.twitter.com/UpPNMEzuwf
— Bruh. (@TheePharoah) August 9, 2014

But later on, the fidgety little sweaty man would come out with his phalanx of white cops, all bigger and roider and stoic and shit, and say, "Well, you know that robbery that we reported to you at your request had nothing to do with the encounter Our Brave Officer had with those Negroes.  What would make you think it did? A-henh." Fidget. "Oh, and you know that Negro boy who got shot? He was holding the box of cigars he stole from the Stop and Rob..."

Pan-de-monium.

Ron Johnson, the Highway Patrol Captain appointed by the Governor to calm things down in Ferguson, was blind-sided by the pudgy little sweaty man, and he knew it. In fact, everybody was blindsided. That was the point of his fidgeting, that and incitement. Get those Negroes riled up and then see what happens. Show you a thing or two, just watch.

Sure enough.

Overnight, according to reports I'm just checking out, there were protests in the rain, and then everybody went home and the police withdrew, and then... just like clockwork, the looters arrived and struck the store where Michael Brown is said to have stolen those cigars, and they struck nearby businesses, and they made off with plenty of loot. Armloads. And then they went down to the WalMart, so it's said, and took more loot.

The people of Ferguson have been going around town cleaning up the mess and hauling away the trash and expressing their outrage to the local FOX station -- which has been doing a good job covering the situation in Ferguson, much better and more fairly and honestly and directly than most of the other St. Louis media -- at what these "outsiders" are doing to their community.

Self-protection.

We've seen this pattern so many times before.

The word is that the police "withdrew" last night when the crowds of protesters were gone -- 4am? -- and that left an opening for the looters to swoop in. It sounds almost as if it were arranged...

Knowing the duplicity of the players and the nature of the game being played, with the people of Ferguson as pawns, it wouldn't be at all surprising if the events have been as carefully arranged as on a chess-board for the purpose of achieving a particular outcome.

Even I sometimes forget the Southern-ness of Missouri, and particularly of St. Louis, and the Gothic rotting nature of it all. The story is playing out as if it were a Southern Gothic novel, and no one seems able to stop it...

I worried that Ron Johnson might be a Judas goat, and he might be, but more likely he's being played like one of the pawns in somebody else's game.

As for the sweaty little fidget man? He, too, might be a rook in someone else's game.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio...

Permanent Deficit Hysteria --> Permanent Recession

That's the way it is.

I'm not one to accept the notion that Deficits are somehow Apocalyptic Now when they Didn't Matter At All a decade ago during the Bushevik Gung Ho Period. Government spending deficits are now what they have always been, useful and necessary for the conduct of private and government business. In fact, the United States Government has nearly always run a deficit, and when state governments are forced to run deficits contrary to their charters (more and more common thanks to the lootage they've experienced at the tender mercies of the financiers and plutocrats) somehow the sky doesn't fall.

Deficit hysteria is a crock, but it has become a permanent fixture of our Ruling Class, and the permanence of deficit hysteria ensures that Americans will endure a permanent recession.

It's the strangest recession, though, isn't it? Corporate profits and the remuneration of the High and the Mighty have never been better, ever, in the entire history of greed and capitalism -- so they say. Yet the puny salaries and benefits of the workers whose toil ensures the privileges of their masters continue to fall. Tens of millions of Americans are forced into poverty. Homelessness and hunger stalk the land.

Hm. Maybe there is a connection of some sort? Ya think?

From appearances -- and from hearing the rhetoric of doom all the time -- Americans are coming to recognize that there will probably never be a return to a growth economy. The Powers That Be are intent on asset and wealth stripping from what remains of the middle class -- the working class and the poor having already long ago been looted of anything of value they once may have been able to accumulate.

The major mass media (and much of the new media) is practically giddy at the imposition of the latest kabuki, the so-called sequester, and they look forward to the re-allocation of the sequester cuts from the defense ledger to the social spending side. This makes them so happy, they can hardly stand it.

The high-stepping and baton twirling has only just begun.

THIS is what they have been waiting for.

How We Got From There To Here

Catastroika -- in Greek with English subtitles.


CATASTROIKA - ENGLISH SUBTITLES by infowar

The key factor was the collapse of the Soviet Union. The key failure has been the inability of the People to find a working alternative to the counterweight the Soviets provided to capitalism run amok.