NSA Back In the News

Young Snowden has been photographed pushing a shopping cart at the Moskva Target (or its equivalent, one assumes) and sailing on the Moskva River with Sarah Harrison (one assumes). Of course they may not be Snowden, just a look alike. They appear to have been taken during the summertime, which doen't mean a whole lot, since Young Snowden was said to have been freed from his airport captivity sometime during the summer, but that these pictures would only now surface, and on what's said to be a sleazy tabloid news site in Russia as opposed to prim and proper FOX News in America, makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Of course this is nicely timed with the story of Greenwald finding  his billionaire and leaving the Guardian for greener -- much greener -- pastures to play in with his buds Laura and Jeremy.  With the addition of Froomkin and Segura, it's a media empire-in-process. All they'll need to add now is Michael Hastings. Oh, wait.

Climate Change -- Everyone is Noticing

And yet still, "nothing" is being done. Of course, "nothing" is not quite correct. A great deal is being done, if only through economic collapse and retrenchment, but whatever is being done is not enough to curb the climate change that has been under way for many years.

I suspect that "not enough" is being done because long ago, scientists determined that at best the period of climate change that we entered into 30 years ago or so could only be slightly mitigated through strategic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, it could not be stopped or reversed.

No one has ever explained what "enough" would be, after all, "enough" to stop or reverse the change that's under way. What actually would have to be done?

No one will explain it, because it is not a pretty picture. Stopping or reversing climate change -- if it were possible at all -- would likely require a substantial reduction in human population around the globe. Like... I don't know... two-thirds reduction, or maybe even more. There is no way to do that... pleasantly.

It would require the survivors to live very simple lives in the few pockets of lush environment suitable for human habitat. Humans would have to vacate the rest or live so lightly on the land they would be barely perceptible.

In other words, it would require a return to a long-forgotten way of life for the survivors.

This fate may come no matter what, simply because the climate change that is under way, and which appears to be irreversible at this point, has already had and quite likely will continue to have increasingly catastrophic consequences, from earthquake, tsunami, violent storms, sea level rise, and so on.

One of the consequences is playing out in Japan right now with the unprecedented destruction of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and the release of large amounts of radiation and radiation products into the nearby and global environment. Exactly what is going on is still something of a mystery, but recent reports indicate that the reactor cores have melted through their containments and into the earth beneath and have reached the water table, contaminating the water and releasing radioactive products into the environment, including into the ocean. So far as can be determined, it will be impossible to even begin to control this situation for another two years, and even then there are no guarantees that control will be effective. It will not, in any case, be permanent. Though something will be tried, in effect, "nothing" can be done.

How many other catastrophic situations have been routinized and regularized is hard to judge, but the levels of destruction from storms and earthquakes alone have been almost unprecedented. It's not simply a matter of unprecedented destruction, either. In addition to all the lives lost and the ruin left behind, there's been a growing resistance to rebuilding beyond the provision of temporary shelter for survivors -- if that. Sections of cities and whole cities are being abandoned, whether due to the consequences of storm and earthquake or due to man-made economic collapse.

Economic collapse and neo-liberal reconfiguration seem to be working in tandem with climate change and other natural catastrophes to reduce the human footprint bit by bit. In other words, what "can" be done is being done -- to the extent that anything is being done about climate change.

The complaints that "nothing" is being done or "not enough" is being done about climate change seem to revolve around the notion that there ought to be a united global initiative to tackle the issue, and there isn't one. The notion that all peoples everywhere around the world can or should be united in common purpose has long been a chimera, an unachievable -- and perhaps quite an undesirable -- goal of some people for many generations. It's never been realized and it is certainly not being realized now, certainly not under the umbrella of Climate Change.

And yet...

It seems that perhaps unconsciously, perhaps quite deliberately, our ruling elites have figured out what has to happen for their own protection if not for the benefit of anyone else. Their goal seems to be to make life as miserable as possible for as many people as possible, let them fight among themselves, and let them perish from the earth in the process. This will inevitably lead to the desirable outcome of a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions; surprise, surprise. While the climate change that is under way cannot be stopped or reversed in the short term, the comfort and convenience of the ruling elites can nevertheless be assured -- with enough money. Enclaves can be prepared and protected and the rich can be taken care of -- no matter what happens to the rest of humanity.

That seems to be what's taking place. It's a rather simple scheme.

The question is will it work? And for whom? And for how long?

On This Labor Day

A video sing along from Wisconsin:



An excerpt from "History of the American Working Class" by Anthony Bimba, revised edition, 1936
CHAPTER XXXIV  Recent tendencies, 1933 - 1936

The following main tendencies characterize this period:

(a) Inability of the ruling class to overcome the crisis.

(b) Contradictions in the ruling class over the uneven distribution of profits under the New Deal

(c) Disillusionment of large sections of workers, farmers and petty bourgeoisie with the Democratic and Republican parties, giving rise to the development of a Farmer-Labor Party movement

(d) The struggle for industrial unionism in the trade union movement

(e) Growing menace of fascism

(f) Inner crisis of the Socialist Party -- widening gulf between left-wing Militants and old-guard reactionaries

(g) The growth and influence of the Communist Party and the development of a movement for a united front.

The glowing promises of President Roosevelt to usher in prosperity through his New Deal did not materialize. The country still finds itself in the depression. The National Recovery Act has been ruled out by the decision of the United States Supreme Court which declared the N.R.A. unconstitutional for the simple reason that it was no longer needed by the uppermost strata of the ruling class. The N.R.A. had accomplished its mission. Prices had soared sky-high, the standard of living of the masses had been lowered, the profits of the big bankers, great corporations, and the trusts had been restored and greatly increased, the illusion of the workers that the N.R.A. guaranteed the right to organize and strike had begun to be dangerous. The Supreme Court had to act according to the wishes of the Bankers' Association and the Manufacturers' Association.

Snowden Who?

All eyes are now on the upcoming American war of aggression against Syria/Iran (they're joined at the hip, dontchaknow) and the NSA Scandal has been all but forgotten. Of course the NSA would have provided all of the necessary signals intelligence for the successful prosecution of this war of aggression because that's what they do, what they're supposed to be doing at any rate, on behalf of the Department of (War)Defense, of which the NSA is a part.

You'd never know any of that from this hysteria over NSA surveillance of you'n'me, for none of that ever entered any of the stories about the agency and its whistleblower, Young Snowden. Of course not.

What the agency is supposed to be doing on behalf of the Department of Defense, of which they are a part, was never at issue. It was all the other things they had the potential to do and sometimes did as an exploit or lark that raised all the libertarian hackles out there. Yes, most of those hackles were libertarian, and most of the story-telling was typical of libertarian propaganda about government, criminal government employees, and potentials for government intrusion into all of our lives, yadda yadda.

I've seen it too many times to count on the internets.

But here we are, literally moments before the launch of yet another war of aggression in the Middle East, and the news cycle will admit of nothing else for the duration.

After Labor Day we will once again enter some vestibule of hell.

Had our attention been focused on the looming new war of aggression, we might have raised a stink about it well before now. But instead, we'll slouch into a killing spree in Syria, which may precipitate further hostilities with Iran, and That Old Man's Hard On may finally find release as he sees yet more brown people blown to smithereens. It's his greatest joy.

"Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran."

Propaganda and its uses have matured since Orwell's day; but the upshot of endless war is the same.

When the CIA Admits to Doing Something Bad, It's Best to Denounce the Secrecy of the NSA

The United States of God Damn has had an abundance of Spookeries for many a long year, sixteen of which -- the last I heard -- are supposed to report to the "DNI," one General James Clapper, Head Spook and Liar.

These reporting Spookeries are said to include the CIA and the NSA, both of which are tasked with surveillance and clandestine operations abroad. Neither, whatever else they do, are supposed to target Americans or conduct operations on the Sacred Soil of the Homeland (I'm sure it sounded better in the original German), but according to the occasional revelation from various whistleblowers and others, sometimes they do.

Bad Agencies!

Well, lately -- very lately -- the CIA (the Spookery that's been mighty silent and on the sidelines during the whole Summer Sharkfest featuring the NSA) has been *coming clean* about operations it engaged in when time was. Such as the Mossedegh overthrow in Iran in 1953 which became the precipitating -- if not the proximate -- cause of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 which led to the, shall we say, tense relations between Iran and the USofGD ever since. Oh. The CIA now, 60 years later, admits what's been known for decades. What about Guatamala while we're at it? Indonesia? Vietnam? Korea? The undermining and dissolution of the Soviet Union? Laos -- don't even get me started -- and so on? Hm?

The Mental Illness Equation and Induced Helplessness

cRaZy

One of the consistent narratives regarding the numerous mass shooting incidents in the United States is that of the "incomprehensible" and "senseless" actions of someone who suffers from some treated or untreated mental illness. In the case of the Sandy Hook School Shooter, Asperger's Syndrome has been brought up.

(Caveat: almost nothing at all reported about this incident or the alleged shooter has turned out to be accurate or true; the level of misinformation is higher in this incident than in some of the previous ones, but misinforming the public about what has happened, who is/was involved, and what factors may have played a role is the common narrative approach. Thus every one of these incidents take on a legendary aspect which is very difficult to break afterwards.)

The idea that "mental illness" is behind these incidents is easily digested by a gullible public, few of whom actually know anything about mental illness and what is -- and isn't -- actually being done for and about the mentally ill in this country.

Some people are subject to what used to be called psychotic breaks, and they can go on uncontrolled rampages. This has been true throughout human history, and by this time, it's not really a mystery that it can and does happen.

Sometimes these psychotic breaks and rampages can be induced by various drugs and medications. The meth monster and the speed freak are well known and mythologized variants of the psychotic break rampager-berzerker, but there are apparently quite a few other illicit drugs and licit medications that can bring on episodes of psychosis and rampage.

Claims that somehow the shooters in these seemingly endless incidents fit into one or another of the mental illness categories that can lead to psychotic breaks and rampages or that they are taking one or another drug or medication that can do it (or that they stopped taking a drug or medication) are fairly commonplace. It may even be true. And there are arguably far too few effective mental health services available in this country.

The problem is that if we know that incidents of mass murder can -- and do -- result from such things, and we ostensibly don't want mass murder as a routine part of our daily lives, it's probably not wise to continue to make guns so easily available to people who might be victims of this sort of mental illness, no?

But somehow that logic step is never taken among our High and Mighty. It simply doesn't register as an appropriate thing to do...

Instead, what we constantly hear about is the need for ever greater levels of "security" in our daily lives, whether it be at school or shopping or going to the movies or church. In other words, rather than dealing with the problems of treated and untreated mental illness, we must position armed guards everywhere, and an ever-expanding surveillance apparatus everywhere, in order to identify and track potential mass shooters and ideally prevent them from acting in the future.

Alternatively, we are told that "arming everyone" would make the likelihood of a mass shooter taking out more than a few people less likely because an armed bystander would then take out the shooter. This is fantasy, but oh well.

Then there is the notion that the problem is not guns or access to firearms at all; the problem is mental illness and lack of treatment. Or the wrong kind of treatment. Or alternatively, the problem is "bad people" and the proper response to bad people (summary execution) is not employed with enough rigor.

Yes, well. In the case of the mentally ill acting out, summary execution is SOP; dozens if not hundreds are killed by police every year. "Bad people" on the other hand often as not aren't dealt with quite as lethally.

The idea that mentally ill or bad people shouldn't have access to firearms is widely accepted, but in practice restricting access is an abstraction. Put another way, it's a good idea with no means of implementation without restricting access to firearms by "normal" people. We don't want to do that because of the all-important Sacred Second and Freedom.

So there's nothing we can do about it.

Just as there is nothing we can do about the unemployment problem. Nothing we can do about the growing economic inequality, either. Nothing we can do about the looming Fiscal Cliff except to "cut entitlements to show we are serious." Nothing we can do about anything that would make life better.

Helplessness in the face of crisis. Indifference in the face of suffering. Violence in the face of misery.

Get the picture?

The current emphasis on "puzzle pieces," heightened security and  "mental illness" provides us with many clues to how this incident will be resolved in the minds of authority and subsequently in the minds of the public. Just like every other mass shooting incident, the shooting will be deemed "senseless," the shooter's motivations will be deemed "incomprehensible." He was a "loner," "mentally ill," "easily picked on," so on and so forth. We must protect ourselves from these people. We will do so by heightening security at schools and all other public places; we will heighten surveillance of everyone, but our specific focus will be on "loners" and the "mentally ill."

There will be little or no effort to restrict access to firearms. Nino won't allow it.

Anglo-American Fascist Forecast

NATO’s Nazi Beginnings: How the West implemented Hitler’s goals  

Over at Willy Loman's Place, there is a link to an illuminating article by Robert S. Rodvik, of the Voltaire Network. Anyone who's familiar with Operation Paperclip and the origins of the CIA and MK Ultra and the rest of the shadow Anglo-American government (much of which we really know almost nothing about even now) will find the story of the origins and international intentions of NATO and other defense alliances and their relationship to fascist and Nazi programs -- indeed, their continuation of those programs -- to be familiar territory.

But the deep seated fascism of Our Governments and its Shadows is not widely recognized or appreciated. The idea that much of the infrastructure and superstructure of governments and international alliances that we take for granted -- or don't think of at all -- today came out of the adoption of Nazi and fascist policies and programs by Western powers after World War II seems bizarre and creepy at first glance.

And yet, there it is.

Not only were policies and programs adopted, so were personnel in many cases.

The outcome of WWII is still with us of course, but what lies behind the almost instantaneous transformation of the West, particularly the Anglo-American axis, into a Cold War with the Soviet Union and an endless litany of little hot wars everywhere to stem the tide of the International Communist Conspiracy is little understood.

That story is yet to be told in detail. It is another curtain still to be pulled back.

A BBC video from 1992 on just a part of it:






And here is The Stimulator on AntiFa and the Greek Thing: (Note: Foul Language and generally rebellious behavior)

Going to Hell In a Handbasket -- Episode Whatever

Sigh.

Just had a rough encounter with our electric company over a past due bill that we had no idea was past due.

They sent a somewhat stern email yesterday about bills unpaid and a balance due of $83.83, and I wondered WTF.  Total balance due: $142.69 including this month's bill. If not paid by suchandsuch a date next week, the Kill Switch will be thrown.

Uhhh. What happened here wondered I. We don't typically avoid paying utility bills. Something went awry at some point. So we go through all the bills received and notice that we haven't received one from the electric utility since March. Ah! That might be why it hasn't been paid, eh?

March, March. Why does that sound familiar? Ah yes, in March, through a miscommunication, we paid the electric bill twice, once by check and once online. And to pay online required setting up an online account. Of course.

So why hadn't we received bills since March?

Curious, I did an email search, and sure enough, there were billing reminder emails in May and June, but no indication in them that one would not receive any other notice or that one would have to pay online.

So I went back to their website, which required re-registering, since the user ID and password I'd used in March were totally forgotten. It was so complicated to register again -- much more complex than registering for online access to a bank account, say, and that takes some doing these days -- I see why I had forgotten the user ID and password.

Once in to the account online, I checked the bills, and sure enough there was March which showed a double credit for February and an $8.41 credit for March. There was April which applied the March credit to a $37.92 bill leaving a balance due of $29.51. There was May which showed a balance due of $54.32 plus the April unpaid balance for a total of $83.83. And there was June which showed an balance due of $58.42 plus a late charge of $.44 plus the previous unpaid balance of $83.83 for a total of $142.69. However, there was a billing summary table that showed completely different totals.

Hm. Well. How about that. We never received these bills, and I couldn't figure out why until I saw a little note under the account name: "Thank you for signing up for paperless billing."

But we never did. There was no intent to do so at all. The only reason for accessing the account online was to be able to pay the bill online when necessary not to forgo paper bills.

Sure enough, when I looked at the "Paperless billing options" on the menu, there was a checkmark for the "Paperless billing only" selection -- which selection I had never made as I had never even been to that section of their website before. It seemed to me that like Wells Fargo, accessing the website at all was sufficient to change billing to paperless.

So I checked around and found another place on the website where one could choose "email and paper bills sent monthly" -- which I did.

And then I attempted to pay the bill online. Which took a surprisingly long time to accomplish because of the difficulty of setting up a one time payment account. I had to do it three times before I was actually successful. The problem was that after the account was set up, there were no instructions regarding what to do from that point, and I kept getting bounced back to the setup sequence. After the third try, I went back a little farther and found a payment button, and sure enough, it got me to another page where I could choose from which account, and thence to an actual pay now screen.

 Since I'm not a total novice at these things -- we pay practically everything online as it is -- the frustrations of this site struck me as being due to extraordinarily poor design combined with an absolute obsession with website hyper-security which struck me a more than a little misplaced. It's a utility company, actually a public utility company, not a corporate one. This is not a national security issue. It's an electric bill.

At any rate, I paid the bill and checked again on the billing options and found the account was STILL set at "paperless." By this time I was becoming enraged, not that it does any good. I went back to the menu and reselected "email and paper bills monthly". Would it take this time? Who knew? I decided to log out and check again today.

Today came, and at about 11am there was a threatening letter in the mail from the utility. "Pay up or else. Immediately. We'll cut your electricity off if you don't pay, we'll charge you an arm and a leg to reconnect your lousy delinquent ass. If you have already paid, call our customer service line and let them know."

So I did.

What a mistake.

First, I checked the credit union, and sure enough, the $142.69 that I'd paid online yesterday had been deducted from our account.

When I called, I listened to the menu of options and chose "check balance"; it showed $83.83 past due and $58.42 due for June. In order to get to a customer service rep, I had to wade through a series of other options.

The person who answered the phone (after a short wait) at first refused to talk to me at all because the account isn't in my name. So? I had paid the bill, and I wanted to be sure that it was accounted for in their records.

No, there was still a past due amount he said. He asked when I paid it and when was it deducted from my account. I told him it was paid yesterday as soon after I found out what had happened as possible and it was deducted today.  "Oh," he said, "it won't show up on our records for another four or five days. We have to make sure the payment clears."

Uh. The payment "cleared" as soon as it was made, I informed him. If it didn't "clear" it would have been rejected by the credit union. They will not pay in the case of overlimit charges or insufficient funds. In other words, I would not have been able to make the payment online at all if it didn't "clear." And the full amount of the payment has been deducted from our credit union account as of today. Ergo, it should be reflected in the utility's records right now.

"No," he said, "our policy is to post online payments four to five days after they are made." I said, "That means that you won't show a payment has been made till after your deadline for disconnection."

"I can make a note that your payment has been made as of June 19th; that will be sufficient to avoid disconnection," he said.

Oh goody, thought I. (How much longer are we going to be at this address anyway? Counting down the days...)

Then I told him that this happened because apparently the account was put on paperless billing simply by accessing the website. And because we weren't getting bills, we didn't even realize that they were going unpaid. There's nothing in the reminder emails that says the bill must now be paid online only.

Yes, he says, he's heard that from a number of customers, and he would make a note of it. I said it was also very difficult to use the website and that even when I selected "email and paper bills" I was still informed that the account was on "paperless."

He would make sure that IT knew that customers were not happy with this situation, but he could not discuss the account with me any more because I was not listed on it.

Oh.

How sad.

I was just getting started.

But it was tiresome and I had other things to take care of. I wished him "Good day," and hung up.

Ordinarily, we don't have to deal with the utility companies at all, which is nice. The few times I've had to deal with ATT (once to get rid of their wildly overpriced cell phone service, and once recently to see if there was something wrong with the phone line again -- much static and slow broadband)  it was a nightmare. It was a long struggle to get them to cancel the cell phone service, as they kept wanting to sell me on keeping it, and I didn't want to. For one thing, it was too expensive, and the cost kept going up month after month, and their service was crappy. I couldn't use the phone inside the house, and there were all kinds of deadspots and no service areas on the routes I traveled. Yadda, yadda.

As for the static on the line, after calling for service, and setting an appointment for someone to come out, I got a call from a really snotty CS Rep who said no one was going to come out, the problem was my crappy old equipment not their lines, and that was that. Oh. Well. Thanks for helping. What are we paying for again?

Yes, well. These stories of dismal corporate and public sector customer service can be repeated endlessly because that's the way it is these days.

Institutional failure pretty much assures these results.

Cadillac Desert -- the Story of William Mulholland and the Making of Los Angeles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkbebOhnCjA&feature=BF&list=PLE7C2A70A8FB767D3&index=1

This is the Real Story behind Robert Towne's brilliant 1974 picture, "Chinatown."

There are nine parts on YouTube, from a 1997 VHS videotape that's not in very good condition, but if you put up with the glitches and watch it all, you'll gain some knowledge about Los Angeles as it was and is, and from that it becomes possible to understand something of why so much of what is seems so far out of whack.

The "Chinatown" syndrome is not the only explanation for the vicissitudes we're facing, but it is a key to understanding.

Concepts

I used to joke that mine was the last generation to actually be "educated" in public school. In California, radical changes in the nature and purpose of public education began in 1967 with the Governorship of Ronald Reagan, the point being to make it impossible for students to rise up ever again.

It seemed fairly clear early on that the objective was to eliminate the teaching of -- and thus knowledge of -- critical thinking. Given the nature of the student uprisings of the '60's, based as they were on the realization that much of what were were being told was lies, a realization driven by the widespread ability to think critically, eliminating that ability understandably became a prime objective.

Today, it seems the very idea of critical thinking is unknown to almost anyone under 60.

Not only that, but there is a nearly universal misperception of the difference between speculation and fact.

There seems to be little or no knowledge of how to evaluate information; it is all a jumble that one sorts through based entirely on principles of Authority: who says the thing determines its factual truth.

During December, for example, an immense amount of "news" -- and hysteria -- was generated over the curious case of Julian Assange and what he might or might not have done to get himself in trouble with the Law. It was widely purported that the accusations against him in Sweden for those "sex crimes" were a set up by the CIA to entrap him so as to make his extradition to the USA for trial on any number of Espionage and other charges possible.

Charlie Savage's December 15 report in the New York Times laid the groundwork for much of the hysteria over what the Department of Justice was doing to build a case against Assange. His reporting was taken as gospel, fact, indisputable, partly because Charlie Savage is a widely trusted Authority, and partly because it was in the New York Times, which -- of course -- is Assange's Media Partner in the United States (except for their spat over the John Burns profile, of course.)

But if you read the article critically, there are no named sources, there is no support for the assertions made by Savage regarding what the Justice Department is or is not doing except for very vague statements and "authorizations" by AG Eric Holder, there is no factual evidence of any grand jury proceeding, and there is extensive speculation about what the DoJ "could be doing."

In other words, the entire piece, which has been taken uncritically as "fact," has very few facts in it, whereas it is filled with speculation, unsupported assertion, quotes from named and unnamed interested parties, and suspected future potentials.

Perhaps it's not an entirely useless story, but it doesn't tell you what is really going on -- because it can't.

All it does is keep a pot stirred -- and likely is a conduit for propaganda. It is the New York Times after all.

But people who don't understand critical thinking cannot look at a story like this that way. They look at who wrote it, they look at where it was published, they look at what is being said. As long as those things fit with their perceptions of "truth", the story is "true" and "factual."

Yes, it's factually speculative. Beyond that? Nothing.

Except that it made the Assange defense go into hyperdrive -- for fear, apparently, that Assange was going to be rounded up and put on trial in the US for Evility -- or something.

That fear and chaos and panic is useful for someone. But who?

Year-End Doom Blogging

Let the Hanky Wringing and "Oh, dear, noes!" continue. Things are going to get worse for the vast majority of Americans in 2011, there's no two ways about it. The question, as always, is what -- if anything -- Americans will do about it but take to their fainting couch and have another Take and Bake while watching the Game on their Big Screen.

As a rule, I'm not into Doom Blogging, one of the most popular genres in the field. The Aga Saga Woman can make me laugh uproariously when she goes off on one of her panics:

"Run for your lives, Children! We're all going to diiiiiiiiie!!!

And we see Doom Blogging everywhere; it was especially prevalent during the BP Gulf Oil Blowout, when it was just accepted as common knowledge that the Gulf was "dead" and could not be restored; there was no point in even considering an alternative.

Now that the Batshit Republicans are about to be restored to power in the House of Representatives, it is widely understood that we're doomed as a nation, as a people, as a self-governing society. That's as may be, but if it is true, the proximate cause of our doom is not the Restoration of the Batshit Party to to power in the House of Representatives. It's been in the cards for quite a while, in other words, and all the political factions have had a role to play.

Yet there is a sense of palpable dread that has been a-building relentlessly since the Impeachment Circus of 1998 and following. That's when the notion of Self-Government in the United States went off the rails, and it has never been restored. Without that mooring of promise and responsibility, the notion that at least some of us are doomed has a growing resonance.

The Impeachment Circus was followed by the casual, lawless intervention of the Supreme Court to install the Court majority's favorite on the White House Throne. This was recognized at the time as a serious breach of Constitutional authority by the Court, and yet, all the Powers That Be acceded to it. Those who were paying attention knew that the lawless installation of George Bush the Lesser and the submission of the entire Ruling Class to this usurpation would not work out well, and most were sure that it would lead to unprecedented levels of corruption, looting, and aggressive war. Sure enough. That's exactly what happened. But it happened on a scale and speed that surprised even the most gloomy doom-sayer at the time.

Now it almost seems as if Doom has been delayed. Repeatedly. And when Doom is delayed so often, one's expectations of Immanent Doom grow greater and greater.

The transition of Congressional power next year will have an influence on everyone's sense of well-being, and because the White House is not about to move off its Hooverite "Progressivism", most people's sense of well-being will go into a further tailspin. On the other hand, it wouldn't have been any better for most people if Democrats had stayed in charge of the House.

The question will be just how bad it will get.

As I've said before, we're likely to see the complete paralysis of regular government function and the substitution of something else again, which most people will welcome as better than what was going on before. In the Koch series, I suggest that we are already living in their future, with the semblance of institutions still functioning, but they don't actually work, and real rule occurring well behind the scenes involving a shrinking cadre of Owners and Stakeholders. But next year, I suspect, what's still somewhat hidden will come out of the shadows, and we will see clearly, perhaps for the first time, that Our Rulers simply have no interest in We the People, and do not intend to gain an interest.

What Americans ever do about it is anyone's guess. The only crypto-Revolutionary movement this country has seen in decades are the TeaBaggers, and they are going to be in power. So... if things get worse on their watch? They'll double down, of course. It's what they do.

For those who haven't seen it, I recommend (Astro)Turf Wars for an idea of who the TeaBaggers are and who runs them -- and what the intent is.

I recommend The Century of the Self to understand how Americans are so easily hoodwinked.

The Year of Julian Goldstein

It really has been remarkable how Julian Assange (aka "Goldstein") has been able to dominate so much of the "news" this year, given especially the rather tepid interest in most of the Secrets Revealed that has been his stock in trade.

The key understanding here is "stock in trade." Julian Assange/Emmanuel Goldstein is no dilettante anarchist by any means. He is a very savvy businessman who acquired -- shall we say -- purloined commodities (ie: "secrets") from the US Government, apparently through the agency of a low-level military intelligence drone, one PFC Bradley Manning, who is now being held in solitary at Quantico on various charges of violating the UCMJ.

The way this is supposed to have worked is that Manning surreptitiously downloaded a huge trove of military and diplomatic reports that had been made available to an extraordinary number of individuals with security clearances (some 3 million) through the essentially unsecured SIPRnet System used by the DoD and State Department to "share" timely and pertinent information on what's going on in the world.

Once downloaded, Manning then cast about for what to do with the information, and finally he gave it over to Julian's business enterprise, WikiLeaks. Then, supposedly, he bragged about it to one Adrian Lamo, an FBI informant, online, and by and bye Manning was arrested and charged with violations of UCMJ Article 92 and 134. He languishes in pretrial confinement awaiting an Article 32 hearing preliminary to court-martial.

According to his lawyer, David Coombs, the defense (ie: Coombs) made a number of unspecified pretrial motions which caused the prosecution to request a delay in the Article 32 hearing until the classification level of the case can be determined. Granted. Article 32 is likely to be sometime after the New Year, Court-martial to follow likely in the spring.

Manning's conditions of confinement have been loudly protested by members of the Libertarian online commentariat -- not so much because of what they are (loudly claimed to be "torture"), but because of who are being applied to, ie: Manning, who, as a Hero, should neither be held at all nor prosecuted.

Meanwhile Julian's antics have been widely covered all over the world, especially the Sex Crimes he is accused of in Sweden, in many ways largely obscuring the content of the purloined materials he received (apparently from Manning) and distributed through his Media Partners (in the United States, exclusively through the New York Times... well, except for the State Department cables, which he withheld from the Times in "retaliation"* for an insufficiently flattering profile of himself by the redoubtable John Burns... well, except, the State Department cables are being released in the United States "exclusively" though the New York Times, as the Guardian UK provided the trove to the NYT, no charge, when Julian refused to.)

Chasing Goldstein/Assange became a huge story for a while, until that is, he was run to ground in England. Well, as the story is told, he contacted Scotland Yard (or was it his attorney) and said he would present himself at the local station after breakfast, on the basis of the INTERPOL warrant, issued by Sweden regarding those Sex Crimes, if that was all right with everyone, pip-pip, cheerio. It was, he did, the law in its majesty took its course, and he his now free on bail, confined, however, to a British supporter's country mansion, forced to wear an ankle bracelet so that his location may be monitored more easily from afar.

While there has been plenty of huffing and puffing from the Inner Party that Goldstein/Assange is some kind of rogue anarchist/nihilist intent on blowing everything up just to see it burn, the evidence is strikingly otherwise.

What we learn from his interviews and statements is that Assange/Goldstein is essentially a standard-issue (if somewhat naive) Anglo neo-colonialist/neo-imperialist who believes, apparently sincerely, that the current course of regenerating the British Empire as a New Anglo-American Empire is being done wrong -- and for the wrong reasons -- largely because of American incompetence, greed, brutality and folly. In other words, the New Empire is not the problem, the Americans are the problem.

In order to hamstring further American troublemaking in the world, Assange/Goldstein and his sponsors apparently believe that their form of "transparency" -- by releasing purloined American documents through selected Media Partners -- will minimize the threat they feel America represents to "getting on with it." Ie: remaking the world the way it should be.

The British, especially, have long complained of American corruption, greed, brutality and incompetence in the Imperial Project that has been under way since 2001. Australians have had their own complaints. What it boils down to is that Americans are "doing it wrong" and if they would just desist, those who know how to do these things would be able to bring peace, light, harmony and democracy to all the benighted peoples of the world, as it is their mission from On High.

The focus on Julian, of course, makes all this high-mindedness of Empire vanish. And we see that though Julian himself is an expert at raising his own profile, he is eagerly collaborated with by nearly the entire global mainstream media. They love this character, and at this point, they will do almost anything to continue to boost his profile.

Meanwhile, whether his efforts are effective in any way -- except for boosting his own profile -- remains to be seen. The Imperial Project continues, under American control and authority, as brutal as ever if not actually more so. The Powers That Be still rule us with a rod and a staff, and if these PTBs are replaced with others, there is no indication whatsoever that the burden on the masses would be in any way ameliorated.

The "knowledge" that supposedly comes from the purloined documents is being used and massaged by the Media Partners to advance particular agendas -- in the case of the NYT, an even more bloodthirsty future than the past. And in the United States, the NYT's spin on the docs, all of them, is the standard narrative for almost all mainstream media.

From the beginning, I've suspected that WikiLeaks being used as a factional player -- if it isn't actually a factional player -- by a segment of our government to force a certain (and not very pretty) future on all of us. So far, nothing has suggested to me anything else. It still has all the trappings of a factional fight within the government for power and control.

Meanwhile, Michael Chossudovsky has an interesting take:

Who is Behind WikiLeaks?

Especially interesting is his notion of "Manufacturing Dissent." I'd go farther. It's not just the manufacturing of dissent, it is the careful manipulation and managing of dissent.

In addition, some people are beginning to realize that not everything in the cables and the other documents dumped by WikiLeaks is factually true. In fact, a substantial proportion is false. Now what is one supposed to do with that bit of knowledge?

Nevertheless, this has been the Year of Julian Goldstein. Will we get a New Goldstein next year? Or has the Permanent Enemy of the State now been settled on?

-----------
*This is how Greenwald put it:

They're [WikiLeaks] trying to train these newspapers with their favors - that's why the NYT was frozen out this time: in retaliation for that Burns article, and it's why the WashPost will never get anything, but they still feel like they need those papers to make a big impact.

To say the least, I laughed out loud. This is exactly what the Government does with its super abundance of "secrets" that are traded as commodities with favored reporters and outlets. In this case, stolen "secrets" are now being traded as commodities by Julian Goldstein and are being used as "training devices" to punish those whose reports on Julian are insufficiently laudatory. Exactly the way the Busheviks treated the press.

Fascinating.

How Hoover Did It

[Click to enlarge]

There was no state/national Unemployment Insurance in 1932 when this ad ran in Good Housekeeping Magazine. And of course, Hoover, et al, were not about to originate any kind of program to assist the masses of unemployed -- without the permission of the corporatists and plutocrats of the time. What they would allow then is pretty much what the Republicans and many Libertarians seek to institute now: a more or less leaky and rickety system of private charity provided through churches, community fund drives, and large charitable institutions, to the "deserving unemployed/poor" only.

Everyone else to fend for themselves.

That's the way it was back in the Hoover era; that's the way it had always been in this country, and that's the way the Hooverites and their corporatist/plutocratic sponsors believed it should always be. After all, only a few had ever starved or died of exposure or untreated disease during previous economic "readjustments." So it would be this time.

But by 1932, the nation was in the grip of a worsening Depression that had begun 3 years before. The situation for the masses was untenable, and there was a real whiff of Revolution in the air. The Hooverite approach to the economic catastrophe was to shower benefits and government pump-priming efforts at the top (hardly Keynesian, but it is not at all true that the Hoover government did nothing) and wait for things to get better "down below."

Hoover was a Progressive Republican, after all. Little understood is Hoover's massive efforts to feed Belgium after its conquest by Germany in World War I, subsequently to run an American food program once the United States entered the War, and then, after the defeat of the Central Powers, to feed all of Europe, including in time the new-born Soviet Union. This was a monumental task under extremely difficult -- and politically fraught -- circumstances which in previous eras simply wouldn't have been done at all. Famines were strategic weapons of the powerful, and millions of starving and dead were a good thing in the eyes of the Powers That Be more often than not.

When Hoover said, "These people will be fed," and fought those Powers he became a hero, not just in Europe but in the United States as well.

That's part of why his reaction to the Great Depression in the United States seemed out of character for him given what he had already shown he could do. In fact, what he had demonstrated already was that he could be far more of a radical on behalf of the People than Roosevelt would turn out to be. Hoover would not let anything stand in the way of his mission.

But in reacting to the Depression, he was slow, he was focused entirely on the plight of the upper-upper crust, and he was almost shockingly indifferent to the increasingly horrifying situation of the poor and the working classes.

It was as if he forgot everything he learned about doing what was necessary to ensure some sense of well-being at the bottom of the pyramid rather than devoting all interest at the top.

The continuing indifference of our rulers today to the expanding tragedies at the bottom of the American Pyramid is only going to get worse as the government transitions from "Democratic" to partial Republican rule. What had been a breathtaking level of indifference to the plight of the masses is about to become a deliberate campaign of demonization, vilification and scapegoating by Republicans, which will undoubtedly be picked up and sallied forth by many Dems as well. It won't stop with the unemployed. The sick and the elderly, the poor, the halt and the lame are all about to get thoroughly bludgeoned by the 2 X 4s wielded by the Marshalls of Austerity, on behalf of the Rich and the Super-Rich world wide.

I can't see at this point any sign that the White House will stand in the way.

We are going back to a much rougher time.

The question remains: how will Americans respond. So far, they have shown no sign at all that they can even conceive of the kinds of actions necessary to reverse the trend.

What Constitution?

[Note: I've been dreadfully ill since returning to California from New Mexico. I hope this episode won't require hospitalization, but if things don't start showing signs of improvement soon, I just may have to buckle under, and where that will lead... I dread to think.]

"And so it begins," as they say.

The Fourteenth Amendment is the one that will be under immediate and relentless assault as soon as the New Model Congress and State Legislatures assemble in January. The rightists and reactionaries have been quite up front about what they have in mind: restricting "birthright citizenship" to those born to citizens.

The opening wedge, of course, will come via Arizona's bizarre rightist brown-people hater, one Robert Pence, author of the execrable SB 1070 that made it a crime to be unable to produce proof of citizenship or legal residency on demand of an Officer of the Law.

The assault on the Bill of Rights (except for the Sacred Second) has been underway since the Founding, and the limitations and restrictions on those "rights" (so-called) have been expanded to such an extent that most are now subject to the interpretation of whomever wishes to assert authority over someone else.

It's that bad.

Anyway, the 14th Amendment has stuck in the craws of many reactionary rightists over the years because it does two impermissible things: it extends citizenship to everyone born on US soil (who is subject to US jurisdiction) regardless of the legal status of their parents, and it:

Protects rights against state infringements, defines citizenship, prohibits states from interfering with privileges and immunities, requires due process and equal protection, punishes states for denying vote, and disqualifies Confederate officials and debts

Every bit of it is hated and despised by the reactionary rightists, and I note with interest that many of the Libertarians are still obsessing on Julian and Bradley Manning and what's to become of WikiLeaks.

The more important consideration for most Americans when it comes down to it is what is to become of the 14th Amendment. If the rightists succeed in weakening it -- which looks like a possibility in these difficult times -- it will open a door they have long wished to have access to:

Restricting citizenship rights in general.

This has long been a goal, not only of rightists and reactionaries as a class but of a significant number of Libertarians as well. They all believe that only the "right kind" of person should be granted the privileges of citizenship, and that doesn't include the masses. They are too ignorant, too lazy, too bone stupid to deserve such privileges. Besides, most of them wouldn't miss their citizenship rights if they were taken away. Most Americans don't use them anyway.

Here's a quick squib from TIME Magazine from 1924 which will give you a little taste of how deeply resented the 14th Amendment has been since its ratification in 1868:

In New Orleans, a suit has been filed in the Federal District Court to oust Walter L. Cohen, Collector of Customs of the Port of New Orleans. Mr. Cohen is a Negro, and the petition, filed by Edwin H. Both of Washington, D. C, and Carl E. McHenry of New Orleans, alleges that he obtained his appointment in the U. S. revenue service by subscribing to an oath that he was a citizen of the U. S. when, as a matter of fact, he was "of African descent and, therefore, incapable of becoming a citizen of the United States." The basis of this contention is that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was never legally ratified by three fourths of the states. It was submitted, it is charged, by a Congress from which the Southern States were excluded. Also, it is said, the six Southern states which ratified it did so "under compulsion" and New Jersey and others withdrew their ratification.

The validity of the 14th Amendment has frequently been discussed as an academic question. This suit, however, marks the first time it has ever been before the courts. Said The New York Tribune: ". . . an engaging attempt at nothing less than the juristic revision of the Civil War. . . . The confidence of these two Southern gentlemen in the Supreme Court is monumental. Not even Mr. LaFollette ever charged that it could remake history."


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,769107,00.html#ixzz18fdH6VsB

Indeed. The whole point of Jim Crow laws in the South was to cancel the 14th Amendment, and it was largely successful for nearly 100 years. But Jim Crow style workarounds to the 14th Amendment were instituted throughout most of the rest of the country as well, the whole point being to limit and restrict the civil rights of citizenship to the "right kind of people."

We've only lived a few decades under a profoundly different regime, which takes the 14th literally, and given the reactionary and rightist make up of today's Supreme Court, we're liable to go back to the way things used to be. The 14th cannot be struck down, but just as legislatures and courts did during the Jim Crow era, it can be relatively easily circumvented. It's not just about citizenship, either. It's the whole ugly notion of "equal protection under the law."

They can't rewrite it, and they can't very well repeal it, but they will try every work around and subversion that creeps into their rotten little minds until the 14th is effectively inoperative once again.

That's the game plan.

Civil Liberties Fanatics, where are you?

It will be interesting to see what positions and actions they take on this issue come January.

My prediction: they'll find something else that is so much more important.

Michael Waldman opines:

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_16880625?nclick_check=1

Nino has his say:

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2010/11/antonin-scalia-14th-amendment-should.html

[You see, it's not just about the Messicans, you people. It's about Teh Ghey, too. Eventually, it will get back around to the Negroes, not to forget the Wimmens.]

As the SacBee puts it:

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/12/19/3268814/arizonas-next-immigration-debate.html

On the Inability to Comprehend the Concept of "Captive Government."

As the WikiLeaks Thing proceeds, it's helpful to keep in mind that the Government -- which is supposedly trying mightily to suppress the Leaks -- is "captive." It is captive to its Owners and Stakeholders, and they are not us: We, the People. The Owners include a shrinking cabal of domestic corporate interests, a substantial number of foreign governments and corporate interests, and a relative handful of Old Line Wealth-and-Power families that have "always" been in influential positions.

The Stakeholders in general include the continuous associations of private interest such as the Military-Industrial Complex, the Medical-Industrial Complex, the Financial-Industrial Complex, the Petroleum-Industrial Complex and the Prison-Industrial Complex among others. They are generally represented by the lobbyists and specific "owned" representatives in the White House and in Congress Assembled.

These are the true rulers who hold the Government captive. The People have little more than an advisory role most of the time. Frequently, they don't even have that.

The media, you could say, "orchestrates" the interplay between Government, its actual constituency and the People.

And this situation is built in to the kind of government we have. It's a feature, not a bug in the theories of Constitutional Self-Government that were fundamental to the founding of the Republic.

The Government exists to protect and fulfill the interests of the Owners and Stakeholders. In effect, the Government is a subsidiary of the rich and powerful and well-connected.

When you internalize the nature of Our Government, many of its otherwise inexplicable actions make sense. Why are the banks constantly bailed out, but not the People? Why are wars continued indefinitely? What is the function of the Empire? Who is being served and why?

And you understand better why the interests of the People are so often completely irrelevant to the interests of the Government and the Interests the Government serves. The Government is not "yours." It is the captive of its Owners and Stakeholders.

I've pointed repeatedly to the "languid indifference" of the White House -- and Congress -- to the plight of the ordinary people in this country, but rarely have I got very deeply into the question of why they are so indifferent, apart from acknowledging their understanding that Americans aren't going to do anything about it. In fact, if anything, most seem to be as indifferent as their government.

When you understand that the Government serves the interests of its Owners and Stakeholders, not the abstract interests of the Constitution (ie: Holy Writ) or the practical and real interests of the People, then much of the Hysteria surrounding the Julian Assange/WikiLeaks episode seems a bit misplaced. To say the least.

The Government has no self-interest -- except, of course, self-perpetuation. If we want to pretend that WikiLeaks is an existential threat to the Government, then we have to wonder just what kind of rank nihilists are behind the outfit and its activities. Unless you are obsessed with destruction for its own sake, you do not pose an existential threat to the Government -- or any other standing institution -- without some kind of replacement vision in mind and widely shared by your cohorts. Cf: Luther, Martin. You just don't.

But are WikiLeaks and Goldstein/Assange an existential threat to the Government? Not likely. From everything I've been able -- or willing -- to learn about the docs that have been released so far, there is nothing -- at all -- Government-shattering in them. And Julian has never been much devoted to the anarchism/nihilism of many of his followers. He seems to me to be a fairly standard issue Anglo-Neo-Imperialist and Idealist who sincerely believes that current regimes are doing it wrong, and that "transparency" as he defines it is the curative.

He seems to believe that a Prissy Puritanism is preferable to what he apparetly sees as the licentiousness of practice.

But what he seems to miss -- and what his followers (especially the Libertarians) completely avoid is the fact that Our Government is not Ours. The actions of this government are not controllable by "us," and bringing "transparency" to its actions on Assange's terms helps not a whit to improve matters. The problem of absurd levels of secrecy in Government is real. But so are the problems due to the captivity of Government by limited company of private interests, and their levels of secrecy.

What I've seen happening from the beginning of the WikiLeaks brou-ha-ha (even prior to the April 2010 release of the "Collateral Murder" video) is what looks like a factional fight within government for power.

Much the same sort of thing was apparent when the Gingrichite bombthrowers were going after the Clinton White House. The difference is that much of what was going on during the Clinton Drama was on the surface. It's not so now.

It's not so much an attack on the White House by a Congressional Faction and its constituency. That battle has already been won. Now it is faction against faction within the Captive Government. The opportunist Libertarians want a seat at the table and a piece of the pie. What happens to every one else is of even less concern to them than it is to the Captive Government. They want to have a turn at the reins.

The Nihilists, of course, just want to destroy everything and piss on the debris.

It is their bliss.

Our problem is Captive Government. That problem is built in to our Constitution and the Government that arose from it and continues to this day. "Going back" to the Constitution as it was simply reinforces the problem, it does not in any way rectify it.

What we need is a complete overhaul of our governmental and economic systems.

What we are experiencing is a consolidation of some of the worst aspects of the system we have. I'm sure in the eleventy-dimensional realm so many gamers live in, that's a Good Thing because it will lead eventually to the collapse of the whole damn thing.

But there is nothing to replace it with. And that is only pleasing to Nihilists.

There is so much work to do.

Mass-steria -- Julian Run To Ground! Boycott Everything!!!!

Good doG.

I've only had time to check the headlines and peer momentarily at the ravings on show among Glenn's commentariat, but from what I can gather, Julian presented himself to Scotland Yard in London today, and at some point, he will stand before a magistrate who will decide whether he should be handed over to Sweden (depending mostly on whether the paperwork is in order, apparently) for disposition on sexual misconduct allegations that have been simmering off and on for months now.

OK.

Because there is some sort of "law" involved here, and something called "courts" are involved, along with a special employment category called "police", obviously Julian has been unfairly "arrested," on the demand of the evil American Central Government which runs everything. In the World. All the Time.

It was agreed that after breakfast, Julian would present himself to the police in London where he would be arrested and held until he appears in magistrate's court in Westminster. [UPDATE: Apparently Julian has duly appeared in "court," and has demanded that charges against him be provided in a language he understands, specifically English. And he denies everything. No disposition has been announced on my radio-machine.]

All very cut and dry.

And of course Rupert Murdoch's "The Australian" today publishes Julian's op-ed regarding his being The Messenger who Should Not Be Shot.

Of course, the ravers are convinced that this is all a CIA set-up. The only charges pending against Julian are the Swedish misconduct ones, and there are claims that one of the women who made claims against him is a CIA-associate.

Could be, who knows?

According to those who follow these matters, the course of events in Julian's case closely mirrors what happened to Scott Ritter when he forcefully and publicly disputed the Bush Administration's claim of "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq.

Suddenly, sex charges against Ritter were uncovered and put into the public square, ostensibly by an intrepid reporter, and the existence of these sex charges was sufficient for many people to suddenly denounce Ritter and dismiss his claims about the lies and deceptions of the Bush Regime.

This was bizarre on its face. But it was widely assumed at the time that the revelations of charges against Ritter was a ploy by some element of the Bush Regime to discredit Ritter, and that it worked.

Much the same is claimed with regard to the charges against Julian.

And it may be, I don't know.

The calls for Boycott!!! are running into an ideological barrier, though. The Boycotts now include Amazon, Mastercard, PayPal, and on and on, all high-profile private companies who are alleged to be "buckling" to American Government Pressure.

But they are private companies; whether or not they are actually "buckling" to the Evil Government, they are acting in their self-interest, which is what companies do, and their actions (whatever the motivation) are perfectly in keeping with their purposes.

The Boycotts are being called almost exclusively by the Libertarian cult fringe, and those who are calling them seem incapable of recognizing the irony of calling for boycotts against the very companies they would otherwise be celebrating if the companies were doing what they are doing on their own, without any government involvement, to an individual or organization that was on the Libertarian cult fringe's shit list.

Pointing out -- as I sometimes do -- that the Government they so despise (and Fear) is the captive of a cabal of private companies, and that the Government serves their interests not yours or mine is really pissing up a rope. These people believe the Government controls the private sector, not the other way around, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

The private sector no doubt would very much like to squash any effort by Julian to reveal confidential information about them. So far, that effort appears to be successful, as the BofA dump that Julian was teasing has not happened.

Whatever the case, it is something of a relief not to be too caught up in the Hyper-Drama of the Saga of Julian.

May head up to Santa Fe today to visit the Native American Museum. There's an exhibit by a deceased friend up there, and the cultural exhibits are outstanding.
==================================

Happy Pearl Harbor Day. Well, not exactly Happy. But you know...

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.

Aux Barricades!

From time to time, I mention that the Government of the United States has retreated behind a security perimeter of walls, gates, guards, surveillance, biometrics and so on, practically endlessly. The Government is actively working on all kinds of new and improved self-protection authorities and weapons, too. This has been an ongoing project for many a long year, pre-dating 9/11 to be sure, but put into hyper-drive in the aftermath of the attacks on that date.

Your Government is now behind its own barricades, and it is on those barricades ever watchful of the Enemy. And that would be whom, exactly.

Yeah. Right. That would be you. And me. All of us. We. The People.

Yes, we are the Enemy which the Government is protecting itself from.

It became abundantly clear during the TSA Uproar that that's what was really going on. There was no pretense at all about it: You -- and I -- we are ALL potential Terrorists in the eyes of the Government as expressed through the probes and scans of the TSA during passenger processing at airports. Not everyone, of course, would ever be in a position to experience the intimacy of the scanning and probing and groping that went into the New Procedures that were instituted just before the Thanksgiving Holiday Travel Rush. Not everybody takes an airplane to their destination. But everyone can relate to those who do, because traveling by air is such a common means of transportation that it is taken for granted.

[I'm so old, I can well remember my first trip on an airplane -- it was a DC-3 flying out of Chicago's O'Hare -- and how very exciting and hoity and toity it was, and how rare it was for most people. Imagine.]

What passengers and crews were experiencing at the airports before the OUTRAGE!!!™ got up full steam was only the tippy-tip of the iceberg of Government fear and surveillance of you and of me. And it was pretty bad.

Imagine what goes on internally.

What is the point of it, you might wonder. They cannot track us all, and furthermore, there are damned few who have any intention of damaging the Government or Overthrowing the Beast. So what's all this Stasi-Business all of a sudden?

Good question.

One of the projects that was attempted after 9/11 -- but as far as I know, it was abandoned -- was a very East German/Nazi style "block watch" program in which neighbors would be recruited throughout the land to literally spy on and report on the "suspicious activities" of their friends and neighbors. People were signing up for it, and there still may be "block watch" neighborhood spies on duty. Who they are reporting to is a mystery though, since I'm not sure there's Office of Neighborhood Spy Results in the Government.* But who knows. There's probably a voicemail number and an email drop. Neither of which is ever monitored. But that's as may be.

The point is that totalitarian-style surveillance policies, programs and projects were put in place literally as soon as Bush ascended the Throne, and they were turbo-charged after 9/11. They've been reviewed and refined ever since. They are still very much in place.

Note the date this started: as soon as Bush ascended the Throne, NOT "after 9/11". The process of barricading the Government behind its walls and gates and surveillance activities merely speeded up after 9/11.

The TSA Uprising was the first real indication that The People had reached their surveillance tolerance breaking point, and you will notice that the TSA -- while blustering that it wouldn't do so -- promptly backed off and put its New Procedures in the cooler for a while. How long this will last, I don't know. There are indications that they are slowly ramping up the scans and probes again, but I can't really say.

The point was that when there was a credible threat of systems shutdown, the Stasi-Nature of the whole thing collapsed momentarily.

That's a lesson to be savored, and the tactic, I'm sure, will make many more appearances after the New Model TeaBagger Congress is seated in January.

It won't be about pulling the plug on surveillance of the People, it will be about who controls the mechanics of it and to what purpose.

The Government is Afraid of You. The Government is Terrified. Of You. I can't begin to tell you how strong the internal Fear level is in Government. And besides barricading themselves and surveilling the shit out of EVERYONE, they really don't know what to do. You see this in the periodic revelations of the military and civilian police agency spying on Grannies for Peace and such. You see it in the continuing -- and pathetic -- roundups of Leftist dissenters, protesters, and -- as they say -- "Eco-terrorists." The focus of Government domestic police action is still largely where it was decades ago, on the Left and on the Druggies. Periodically, there are roundups of slow-witted Muslims who have been entrapped by the FBI or paid informants or whomever to assert an intention to mayhem. Some of them, no doubt, are actually inclined to the terrorist-jihadist path, but most really seem to be patsies, set up -- and then railroaded -- for Show, for statistics.

And in the meantime, everyone is being Watched. With a more and more sophisticated surveillance apparatus.

The main point of this is Government self-protection against You.

The problem is that they seem to be incapable of recognizing the true threat the Government is under. They don't seem to realize the domestic subversives they are protecting themselves from are already well inside the gates, and they are sapping the walls from within.

Sometimes you almost want to scream out like Kevin McCarthy in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Dr. Miles J. Bennell: Listen to me! Please listen! If you don't, if you won't, if you fail to understand, then the same incredible terror that's menacing me WILL STRIKE AT YOU!

Nah.


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[*If memory serves, actually part of this hands-on, field level surveillance is still in place, and I'm a little leery about bringing up what it is. I know that many people are aware of it, but many people are not. And there's been a lot of confusion and denial about it from the local agency and Federal level. Do you know who is spying on you, directly? Someone is.]

Koch Brothers One Stop

It's become clear enough that with the Libertarian focus shifting from Defense of John Tyner to the Defense of the Brothers Koch that the Full-Court Press will soon be under way.

Anyone who points out facts and makes a stab at discovering the Truth about the Libertarian Movement and its long time BFFs the Koch Brothers will be aggressively accused of "smearing" Honorable Dissenters and of being "tribalists" mindlessly parroting the talking points of the the In Crowd. This is how it goes. But we ain't seen nothin' yet.

Wait till little curly-headed Rand takes his seat in the August Body, and promptly becomes the vortex around which the Members twirl. Wait till whatever is left of the tattered Liberal Establishment is evicted from the Public Square to be replaced with Koch-funded Libertarians claiming the mantle of Progressives.

The billionaire factions will have their fights; the Plebes -- even the Libertarians -- will be expected to choose their sides and sacrifice and die for the Honor of their Team. And they'll do it, for the most part willingly.

Down in the cellars, the samizdat authors will be madly cranking their mimeographs to make enough fliers to surreptitiously leaflet the neighborhoods with information about what is really going on, and who is Behind It All, They will no longer be able to do it online, of course, because their "facts" and "truths" do not fit the received narrative of the Internets, and they are too easy to track down in any case if they choose to take a public stand against orthodoxy.

Sigh. But it has ever been thus for political activists, ever thus. There is no easy or long open path for the Righteous (watch the Libertarian Cultists' heads explode!) and the Truthful and the Fearless.

And so, with that, let us begin with

The Kochs and Uncle Joe Stalin and the John Birch Society

Continuing: (all episodes are also linked at the top of the page for review at leisure)

The Kochtopus

What Does the Kochtopus Want?

Kochevik "Liberty"

The Kochevik Future -- Part 1

The Kochevik Future -- Part 2, Inverting 1984

The Descent Into Madness

Over at Teh NooYawkuh, Jefferey Toobin gets into some important territory over why we should care about the abortion of Justice that is the Bush v Gore decision that pushed us all into this maelstrom of chaos and madness.

I'm not usually a fan of Toobin's because, like many legal scholars, he can become way too dry and nitpicky, and at the same time fail to clarify his topic either as to its overall import or its affect on our own sweet selves. On the other hand, he is arguably the best of the legal scholar lot when it comes to it. So while I may not be a fan on principle, given the choices available, he's one of the better ones.

That aside, in the New Yorker piece, Toobin sets up and gets into what went wrong, or rather what was wrong, with the Supreme Court's Majority action in Bush v Gore, and he gets into what the legal consequences have been, in the process illuminating some of the direct connections between the judicial activism represented by Bush v Gore, and the current Court's continuing activism under the guise of "conservatism" and "originalism."

And in his considered opinion:

The echoes of Bush v. Gore are clearest when it comes to judicial activism. Judicial conservatism was once principally defined as a philosophy of deference to the democratically elected branches of government. But the signature of the Roberts Court has been its willingness, even its eagerness, to overturn the work of legislatures. Brandishing a novel interpretation of the Second Amendment, the Court has either struck down or raised questions about virtually every state and local gun-control law in the nation. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, decided earlier this year, the Court gutted the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law in service of a legal theory that contradicts about a century of law at the Court. (Citizens United removed limits on corporate expenditures in political campaigns; the decision is, at its core, a boon for Republicans, just as Bush v. Gore was a decade ago.) When the Obama health-care plan reaches the high court for review, as it surely will, one can expect a similar lack of humility from the purported conservatives.

"A similar lack of humility... "

Indeed. But that is the characteristic of our Government, through and through. It's almost impossible to conceive of how humble, how truly humble, our national government was -- with some very important exceptions -- right through the Clinton years.

And then it changed, it all changed, with the impossibly lawless act of the Supreme Court when it interfered in the election of 2000.

The Government has never recovered from it. My impression is that it cannot.

What happened on December 12, 2000, was a Constitution-shattering event. As ludicrous and theatrical as the Impeachment of President Clinton was, at least it did have a grounding in the Constitution, and Constitutional processes were followed (well, some were invented), and the outcome was an outwardly honorable one. The Nation and the tattered remnants of the Republic could survive the Impeachment.

Not so with the lawless intervention of the Supreme Court into the 2000 election. That broke the contract between the Government and The People, it appears irrevocably.

From then onward, the Government withdrew behind the barricades. No longer did the People matter. And the reason why? Simple: apart from occasional futile outbursts of anger and outrage, the People would do nothing while the Government went about whatever it chose to do.

The Government, its Owners and Stakeholders would make the decisions, and then market them as products to the People. But even if the People weren't buying, they would have no real choice in the matter.

The notion that the TeaBaggers and their sponsors and allies are going to change all that to what it's "supposed" to be is just silly. First of all, they are the bastard offspring of billionaires taking advantage of the vulnerability of very confused and frightened people; and secondly, the TeaBaggers' impulse is to submit to corporatist authority, which of course is the point of the Koch brothers' efforts to control the Government itself.

The nascent imperium that we have as a consequence of Bush v Gore is what the Kochs and their hordes want to seize and operate for their own interests and ends. And they are well on the way to doing so.

They are pushing hard and fast now, and they will brook no opposition. And they are winning.

But this is not the End of America. It is the final nail in the coffin of the Republic. The Government may well become the plaything of the Kochs and their allies and storm troops, but it will never again -- barring revolution -- be humble before the People, never again be more than marginally accountable to the People, and never again be susceptible to the Public Will (again, barring revolution.)

It is a descent into madness. And yet so many people are able to adapt and go on. As if nothing were awry, even many of those who know the truth.

We will survive.

----------------

An hour long lecture by Jeffery Toobin in July 2008 that hits on some of this -- eventually.