Kitchen Vernacular and ASMR

 [Once again a diversion from the multiple crises afflicting our fair globe and nation, crises I believe we can do little about. The pandemic still keeps me mostly at home; if I go out it's for groceries and supplies, or to various medical appointments. So I spend at least some of my time exploring the YouTubes and reading glossy magazines where I make discoveries.]

Kitchen design has evolved somewhat during my lifetime. Above is a picture of a typical kitchen in what I suspect is a farmhouse c. 1930. It's large and square and "unfitted." Ie, without built in cabinets. This means the house and kitchen probably date from around 1900, but the equipment is newer. The stove is probably from the mid-1920s or even 1930, and the refrigerator is a 1930 or later GE Monitor Top. 

Though I don't remember it clearly, this is probably similar to the kitchen in my father's house in Iowa where I only lived a few months after I was born and returned to for a few months in the summers of 1961 and 1962. The house was old, parts of it very old (c.1845-50), but the kitchen was an add-on around 1900 when my grandfather bought it and had it expanded. When I visited in the summers of 1961 and 62, the kitchen was modernized somewhat. I remember there was one of those steel cabinet sinks under the bank of windows on one side and a newer stove and refrigerator but beyond that, I don't remember much.

The first house we lived in in California was built in 1930 and had a very plain and simple kitchen. It was a narrow corridor along the back of the house (actually it was a duplex). There was a black stove up on legs (c. 1930) and a small refrigerator (flat-top c. 1935) on one wall. The other side was a built-in cabinet with sink under the tiny window and tile drainboards on either side. There were upper cabinets for dishes and dry foods. And by the side door, there was a broom closet. There wasn't room for much else, though there might have been a "California Cooler" on the same wall as the sink and the broom closet might have been on the wall with the stove and refrigerator. There was a single overhead light (might even have been a bare bulb), and I remember the room seemed dark and cramped -- even when I was just a toddler. The flooring was varied gray linoleum with a small figure and a border.

We moved from there to another bigger house when I was three. I don't remember the kitchen or much of the interior of that house at all. The house itself was practically new, built as Post War housing on a lot next to a high water Victorian. I remember the kitchen in that Victorian house better than the one next door where I lived. The Victorian one was plain and unfitted except for the steel cabinet sink -- those seemed to have been ubiquitous for a while -- and had a round table and chairs at one end, newer stove and refrigerator at the other. There was a dish cabinet, too. It wasn't a Hoosier, but was simpler, with an upper section with glass doors and a lower section with drawers on one side and a wood-doored section next to the drawers. I believe the cabinet was on wheels. There was one electric light on a dangling cord in the center of the room and there may have been another one over the stove but I'm not sure. 

After that, we lived in a succession of pre-and-post-War houses in Los Angeles County, only one of which left much of an impression on me. It was a very cozy and homey house in West Covina built around 1939 or so, with a corridor kitchen. Built in cabinets, sink under the window, blue and white tiled counter tops, an older but functional stove and refrigerator, both dating from about the time the house was built, and an eating area in a bay window at the back. There was ivy-decorated white wall paper. The room was light and bright -- I remember the sunlight in the breakfast area well -- and I liked it. 

We moved from there to a brand new house a few miles away. It also had a corridor kitchen, but without the charm of the one we'd left. There was the usual sink and tile drainboard built-in cabinet on one side with the usual upper cabinets on either side of the window over the sink and a stove and refrigerator on the other side. We went through a succession of used refrigerators dating from the mid-thirties to the late forties, none of which lasted very long (the longest lasting was a Servel gas refrigerator) before getting a new Kenmore refrigerator which we kept for at least ten or even fifteen years and hauled around to a number of different houses. The stove, however, was an indestructible Wedgewood that had been purchased with the house, and which stayed with the house when we moved again five years later. 

At the far end of this corridor kitchen was an eating area with a window (no bay window) that also served as a laundry area. We had a Kenmore automatic washer but no dryer, and there was no room for a dryer anyway. Laundry was hung on the clothes line out in the side yard or on one of those folding wooden racks indoors when the weather was bad.

The flooring was linoleum with an overall pattern, no border, and I think it was green like the tile border on the countertops. There was a cabinet next to the stove that held the water heater and some brooms and such.  There was one overhead light in the kitchen proper and one in the eating/laundry area.

As the Toll Mounts

Very strange. I went on an expedition yesterday to collect enough cat food to hold us for a week or so. I usually buy it at the Walmart in the next town over because they have the large bags (when they aren't sold out) and the kind of canned food the house cats like. But yesterday I got to the parking lot and turned around. The place was mobbed -- after weeks of lower than normal traffic through the store. So much lower that sometimes kids were skateboarding in the aisles.

What happened? I dunno. New Mexico is still on semi-lockdown, Gallup is shut completely. Most people have been unhappy about the restrictions, but they're unhappier about the virus, especially now in Indian Country where the virus seems to have free rein.

So I came back to our little town and pulled into the Dollar General parking lot. I can get cat food in smaller quantities there, and usually there's not a crowd. On the way, I passed the hardware store, and its parking lot was full -- the first time I'd ever seen that. There was a social-distancing line out the door. My doG, what's going on?

At the Dollar General, the parking lot wasn't full, but there were few carts outside, and when I went in, there were more people inside than I think I've ever seen. Only one was wearing a mask, and it was nearly impossible to "social distance." There was plenty of cat food, so I loaded up and waited interminably to check out. There were so many people. Most were buying just a few things but some had full carts of groceries and sundries -- as if they'd finally run out or hadn't bought much for weeks. Maybe that's what had happened. We and folks we know have mostly been getting groceries and supplies once a week, sometimes once every two weeks if we don't need anything fresh. But this was a case where people, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in groups (saw one group of teens numbering five or six) just out for a lark, picking up soda or sweet rolls, were jamming the store.

Very few wore masks or kept their distance.

So. We know that this thing is far from done and that the restrictions on businesses and social life have slowed the infection rate significantly. But still. Tens of thousands are dead -- officially up around 70,000; likely double or triple that given the deficiencies in testing and reporting. And the numbers are not declining. Expectations are for another spike as states "open up." And our rulers don't seem to care as long as the illness and deaths are confined to the old folks' homes, the prisons and jails, the Indian reservations, immigrants, the working class schlubs and so on. Herd culling. As they say.

We like to think of what's going on as some sort of accident, act of God, or what have you, but in fact deliberate policies are being implemented, though often badly. Some observers have pointed out that because of those policies, the ultimate death toll a year or two from the start of the Outbreak is liable to be in the million plus range in the US alone.

Given the way things have been going, that is widespread policy. "Let them die." The activity and business restrictions were put in place to control the spread of the virus, and they've pretty much worked. But if you listen carefully to R pols, they're nearly of one voice: "You can't stop the virus. You've got to learn to live with it." And studies have apparently shown that 80% or so of those who get it do "live" with it. Only 20% die, you see. And the deaths have been concentrated within the Lower Orders. As long as that's the case, what's the problem? Right?

It's interesting that the rightist activists clamoring for the re-opening of business are a relatively small bunch of loudmouths -- almost all white, some strutting around with their guns and camo -- and practically everywhere they appear, summoned by rightist media and organizations, states "re-open" almost immediately, or at least parts of the business and recreation sectors do. Yet over the years we've seen massive popular movements and demonstrations, literally millions in the streets over and over, be ignored (ie: anti-war, women's marches, March for Our Lives, etc) and/or be violently suppressed (ie: Occupy, Black Lives Matter, etc,)  by our rulers. Get the picture yet?

In December of 2000, the Supreme Court yielded the presidency to the same radicals who are out yelling at capitols today.

The rightist demonstrators are not our rulers, but our rulers inevitably yield to them, no matter what they want.

So in effect, their demands are policy, while the people's righteous demands, no matter what they are, are routinely ignored or denied.

That in a nutshell is how this nation operates.

Clarifying, no?

The Russia Thing

I don't think I've addressed The Russia Thing more than peripherally on this site. It always struck me as stupid to be blunt about it. Russians certainly had a hand in shaping some opinions about candidates in the 2016 election, particularly Hillary, but so what? So did a lot of other interests, national and corporate, and it shouldn't matter in the larger scheme of things that Russia and Russians were also involved. That's part of the political game in this country and it has been as long as I've been alive. And no doubt it has been true as long as the US has been a nation.

When you look at it from a historical perspective, the focus on Russia's involvement to the exclusion of just about every other national and corporate involvement is distinctly odd. Not only were they not the only ones attempting to gain advantage from the election (of Trump, but it's more complex than that), they weren't necessarily the main foreign interest in the outcome of the election. Oh no, far from it.

But in order to understand what happened, we need to understand what was going on. Trump wasn't expected to win. Not even he expected to win. The outcome was a surprise and a shock to the entire electoral system including the funders, media, and candidates. The voters were largely appalled. How did this happen?

It's not easy to sort out what was happening that led to such an unexpected outcome, but among the things I was aware of was a very concerted online effort to influence the influencers. This is tricky; it isn't self evident that influencing the influencers had much of an effect, but I think it did.

"Stop Hillary" was a really big thing online. Bernie was the great white hope, but he failed miserably. Whether or not he was robbed by the DNC and Hillary's partisans is a question I choose not to get into. I'll just say from personal knowledge that the Democratic Party apparatus is tailor made for selected outcomes, and there isn't a whole lot insurgents (or Bernie) can do about it. In a lot of ways, the Party has fossilized around a set of rules and requirements that almost always ensure that a selected candidate achieves the presidential nomination, no matter what. And who does the selection? A committee of old timers, in effect a Politburo. Hillary was the foregone nominee, despite the fact that she was opposed a large minority of party voters. Realistically, so was Bernie. If they'd had their druthers, I'm not sure who the Democratic primary voters would have chosen. The problem was that none of the 2016 primary candidates really represented the interests of a majority of the party's voters. The factional split between Hillary partisans and Bernie partisans was unbridgeable. The Party apparat went with Hillary and the rest is history.

The factional split left a wide opening for "influencers" to do their thing, and I saw it happening in real time online.  Of course it had happened before, but not to the extent I was witnessing during the 2016 election. What I saw was a relatively limited anti-Hillary drumbeat -- from somewhere, initially I thought domestic, but it turned out to be generated in Eastern Europe, with a source apparently in Russia -- hammering away at her many flaws and being picked up and amplified by all kinds of online sites and eventually by the mass media. I noticed it seemed to start with apparent Bernie partisans, particularly the canard that Hillary was going to start WWIII -- which to this day is repeated as an article of faith.

I say "apparent Bernie partisans" because I don't think they really were. I think they were using Bernie's campaign as a launch pad, but they had no interest in his winning the nomination or the election. They wanted to stop Hillary. Whatever it took to do so.

When I started seeing "Macedonian teenager" memes showing up on a number of supposedly "progressive" sites, and not long after that in the mass media, I really questioned what was going on. Obviously these kids in Macedonia (which was initially where these memes were thought to be coming from) had a more or less direct line to the internet backchannels which in turn led directly to mass media backchannels. And then right out to the public.

It wasn't just the "$100,000 in Facebook ads" that the St. Petersburg Internet Research Agency purchased. Oh my no. Those ads probably had no effect at all. What was having an effect was the meme generators, wherever they were located, trouncing Hillary for "starting WWIII", for Libya, for Syria, for Iraq, for "super predators," for her devotion to neo-liberalism, for her supposed illnesses, for Bengazi, for those damned emails, etc.

Here's the thing. It wasn't coming from the Trump campaign (which was just riding a little bitty wave), and it wasn't coming from the Bernie campaign, either. There had to be some other source. It was relentless and repetitious to the point of complete predictability.

Hillary, the Arch-Bitch, had to be stopped at any cost.

By whom? Why? I think those questions are yet to be answered. "Russia" is not the Answer, though it may be part of it.

Trump of course benefited from an enormous amount of free publicity, but it was widely thought that was OK because he would come across so badly. That kind of thinking was critically in error, but it seems to have been the underlying thought process of those who were giving him so much free airtime.

On the other hand, Hillary was given no quarter, she was criticized relentlessly for everything, and she got much less airtime, even as she spent wildly to buy ads and positive coverage -- or any coverage. She was thought to be the uncatchable frontrunner. Trump was being boosted to make it a horserace, but Hillary was going to win, hands down. Everyone was certain of it. Absolutely certain.

And yet she didn't. What happened? Officially, what happened was that less than 80,000 votes in three states meant that Trump won the Electoral College while Hillary won millions more popular votes. Yet again, the Electoral College handed the presidency to the candidate with fewer popular votes.

Among the factors that led to that outcome were voter suppression in Wisconsin and Michigan, to the tune of several hundred thousand eligible voters who either not permitted to vote or whose votes weren't counted. Pennsylvania had some very hinky voting machines that could not be audited. A recount was tried in all three states, and it was shown to be impossible. Jurisdictions refused to cooperate, machines could not be audited, votes could not be verified; in some cases there were no paper trails or any trail at all. You had to take the results on faith because there was no way to verify the counts.

Then there was the issue of "interference." Prior to the election we were told that the Intelligence Community and DHS would be closely monitoring the election for any "interference." Uh oh. To me, that meant they intended to interfere. I wouldn't put it past them. They could certainly do it. As I pondered that possibility, it occurred to me that a faction of those entities would very much prefer a jocular, macho racist idiot in the White House to Hillary, no matter what we might think. Indeed, there was an obviously strong anti-Hillary streak among the macho agencies, plain as day. Particularly true of DHS, but I wouldn't say that the other three letter agencies were much in favor of her. If they were going to monitor, there would be little or nothing to prevent them from jiggering the results themselves if they wanted to.

And when the tiny number of votes in three states made the ultimate difference, I nodded sagely. When it proved impossible to fully recount or verify those votes, I figured it was obvious.

But my thinking about it is distinctly in the minority.

"Russia!" was announced as the culprit. OK. Russia and Russians did do things, yes, and Trump is in thick with Russians and (especially) Russian money, things that were almost never mentioned during the campaign. But did Russia cause Trump's success? Uh, no.

No, what was happening was much more complex. What Russians and Israelis and many other foreign interests were doing -- and are still doing as far as I can tell -- is using every tactic they can to influence the influencers, hoping to set public policy in the US favorable to themselves. The people -- we -- have almost nothing to do with it.

And I suspect the focus on Russia! is part of an influence campaign itself.

We've been in a very decadent phase of the Republic, and realistically, we're near the endgame. Trump won't be Emperor, any more than Julius Caesar was. But his successor likely will be. The Republic will become extinct. And you know what? Most people will say "Good riddance."

The Cars

I had a skill when I was very young. I could identify year and make of cars by their badging, shape and trim. It was considered cute that I could do this almost perfectly at the age of three, and it's a skill I've sort of kept over the years. Well, newer cars are difficult for me. They tend to maintain their appearance over several years, and there are a lot of brands now that didn't exist in the '40s and '50s.

I'm trying to keep a list of the cars we had through the years. I've done a post on this topic before, but I'll try to do a list without referring to it.

1. 1942 Packard Clipper. It was Hunter Green, but the paint was very faded. There was a big dent in one rear fender -- did my mother back into something, or did the car get hit by another? I don't know. The interior was ratty. Upholstery worn and torn, stuffing coming out of various places. It had an odd smell, might have been burning oil. My mother got the car in the divorce settlement from my father, and I think she hated it. Finally, the clutch or transmission gave out and she traded it for another car.

2. 1950 Plymouth. This was gray, four door, a Deluxe model. It was a pretty nice car all things considered, but it was a base model, so it had no radio or heater. My mother drove it until 1957 when she was in a wreck coming back from her late call at the hospital where she worked. The car was pretty much totaled. She was injured, broken ribs and wrist, and a nasty knot on her forehead. So she bought a Ford.

3. 1957 Ford Custom 300. This was also a base model, but it seemed to me to be very advanced compared to the Plymouth. Being shiny and new of course was the main thing. But it had fins and chrome and a low and lean look to it, whereas the Plymouth was high and rather staid.

4. 1959 Hillman Minx. An oddball car to be sure. I don't remember why my mother traded the Ford for a foreign car so soon, just over two years, after she bought the Ford. My sister was driving a French Simca at the time, so that may have had something to do with it. Anyway, I thought the Hillman was pretty deluxe, though it was smaller than any car we'd had up to then. It had a radio and heater and green leather upholstery. It was a little difficult to get used to because the shift pattern was different, but otherwise it was quite fine in a British sort of way. It was the first car I drove on my own, badly.

5. 1961 Ford Galaxie.  Well. This one was kind of spectacular. It was black with a red interior. It was a "hardtop convertible" which meant there were no pillars between the front and rear doors. It seemed huge compared to the Hillman, and I think that's why my mother liked it.

Video below of a similar car.

5. 1965 Mustang. She couldn't resist. The minute the Mustang was introduced, she wanted one -- and she got one.This one was green with a black interior. It was pretty basic, but it was sharp looking and she loved it. When the clutch or transmission went out, though, she traded it in.

6. 7. 8. A series of used Thunderbirds. There was a 1959, a 1961, and I think a 1963. My mother bought these cars for herself and didn't keep any of them very long.

9. 1969 Dodge Coronet. This was not a success. Her step-father had worked at a Dodge dealership when she was young, and he had given her her first car, a 1934 Dodge Coupe. She hoped that a new Dodge would be as much of a thrill. It was a disaster. It was too plain after the luxury of the Thunderbirds, and for some reason, it didn't "sound right" and it was hard to drive. Within a month or so she traded it for a...

10. 1969 Pontiac LeMans. She loved this car. She kept it for at least another 10 years, maybe longer. I don't know that she ever bought another car -- but we were estranged toward the end of her life and I have only sketchy knowledge of her after about 1977. She died in 1987.

Because her step-father was a machinist who became the service manager at a car dealership before he went on mercurial adventures as the owner of his own filling station and auto court, eventually losing all his money in a bogus mining venture in Nevada, my mother always had an interest and fascination with cars. My infant skill in identifying makes, models, and years cars from the '40s and '50s was widely admired, but eventually, I didn't really share her auto interest.

I've had many cars on my own over the years, starting with a 1950 Packard convertible (the one pictured below may actually be it):

Imagine a high school kid driving something like that around in 1965. My god. Just looking at the picture gives me a strange sensation, part thrill, part horror.

That was followed by a 1951 Buick Roadmaster, which was followed by a 1958 Cadillac, then a 1967 Ford Fairlane, then a 1970 Chevelle Malibu, then a 1980 Ford Escort, then a 1988 Toyota Corolla, then a 1992 Subaru, then a 1998 Pontiac, then a 1997 Chevrolet Astro van (which I still have) and then a couple of 2008 Subarus purchased in New Mexico, one purchased in 2013 which was wrecked, the other purchased in 2016 which we still have. 

I Used to be 1/4 Irish

But now Ancestry DNA says I'm more than half Irish -- including Scottish and Welsh -- and less than half "British" -- Britain, including large parts of France and Germany, and all of Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg. There is no other DNA heritage in my updated DNA scan.

Well. The initial DNA scan was 1/4 "Irish", 2/3 "British", and the rest an amalgam of "Iberian," "Eastern European," and "Scandinavian."

My father's paternal grandparents emigrated from Ireland in 1850 or so; his maternal grandparents emigrated from what had yet to become Germany a few years later. This we know from extensive records and tales told by firelight. We know where our immigrant ancestors came from and I've been able to trace their ancestors into the 18th century. They're not quite who/what I thought they were, but close enough.

On my mother's side, it's more complicated. Her father was killed when she was very young, and she knew almost nothing about him. I've been able to trace her mother's ancestors pretty well, though, and almost all of them are deep-rooted in America, some going back to the 1600s in New Jersey, and then further back into the deep mists of time in England. Yes, almost all her ancestors on her mother's side are English. There are some exceptions. There's the Indian Princess (well she might be, it's hard to say; some of her descendants vigorously dispute it) in the 1700s; there are one or two Irish or Scottish folks who married into the family in the 1800s. But apart from them, it's all English ancestry on my mother's mother's side all the way down.

On her father's side, from what I could find out, it's a good deal more ambiguous. Her father's mother superficially appears to have been of New England English stock, thoroughly English but long time in America, with no Scottish or Irish admixture. But I wonder... One of her great-grandmother's last name was Scott.

My mother's father's paternal ancestors though... I could not trace his ancestors back farther than 1798 when his paternal grandfather was born in Virginia. Frontier Virginia. His paternal grandmother was Irish. They moved to frontier Kentucky, then to frontier Indiana where they settled and some of their descendants still are. So according to an ancestry chart, my mother's father's father was half Irish, my mother's father would have been 1/4 Irish; my mother would have been 1/8th and a little bit (allowing for Irish and Scottish ancestors on her mother's side), and that contribution to my ancestry would have only slightly increased my "Irish" from 1/4 to maybe 27-30% -- if that, since the way DNA works, my mother's "Irish" contribution might not show up at all, and my father's could be less than 1/4.

So. How did I get to be more than 1/2 Irish all of a sudden? It should be impossible. I don't have enough Irish ancestors, nor am I aware of more than a few distant (possibly) Scottish ancestors. (Ancestry DNA lumps Irish, Scottish, and Welsh ancestry into one glorious Celtish mass not three.)

I've been puzzling and puzzling this dilemma for months, and I just can't make it work. I even tried the proposition that my father wasn't my father, than one of his cousins was, a cousin who would have had 100% Irish ancestry. I even had a candidate in mind. Trouble was, I share abundant DNA markers with descendants of my father's sister and brother who have done the DNA tests. So many markers that we are from DNA evidence alone first and second cousins. If one of my father's cousins (the son of his aunt) were my biological father (possible though not probable) I would be more "Irish" but I would not be as closely related to my cousins as apparently I am. I would be third or fourth cousin rather than first and second. And if another (100% Irish-ancestry) man, not my father's cousin, had been my biological father, I would be half or more "Irish," but my cousins would not be related to me at all.

So it's still insoluble.

I tried to prepare this post a month ago for St. Patrick's Day, but I got caught up in research and other things and never finished it. The dilemma has spurred me to look ever closer at my mother's ancestry and at the people and places in Ireland that my ancestors must have known. The story I'm piecing together is pretty amazing. Not quite what I thought, but not that different either.

And in all my DNA results -- originally and updated -- there is no sign of German ancestry at all. The "British" in my DNA includes the western quarter of Germany which is where my German ancestors lived, but my cousins -- descendants of my father's sister and brother -- show definite specific German markers. I don't. It's a mystery...


-------------------------------
The church on the road in Ireland near where some of my Irish ancestors lived:

And here is the church in Galisteo, not far from where I live now:

Both were constructed c. 1810.

Why All the Lies?

I haven't been following the Russia Thing closely. It doesn't resonate with me. I see it more as Get-Back for previous politically motivated "investigations" over nothing much that is intended to cripple the serving administration. We've seen it over and over again, from Watergate -- which was never all it was cracked up to be (except for the lies, of course) to now.

That said, I really wonder why the Trump crew believes it is necessary to lie about their Russian contacts. So far, nothing more than modestly rotten has been revealed, and what has been unearthed seems more like "biznez" than anything else.

That doesn't mean I approve of any of it; it's mostly gansgster bullshit, and that doesn't please me at all. But it is not materially different than the way the government has long operated. Sadly.

I suppose in that context, the lies are part of the normal process. If something that stinks is going on in government or biznez then you lie about it, pure and simple. It's the way the game is played, and it doesn't much matter what the truth really is. The game is to lie and get away with it.

From appearances, the Trump regime isn't doing very well except with their most devoted supporters. Their lies are transparent.

How does it end?

The Coup Intensifies

I dunno.

This Russian Thing is getting more and more bizarre by the hour. The supposed "dossier" has had some effect, but just what it is and will be, who can say?

The intent seems to be more of a warning than a serious effort to undermine/overthrow the President-elect, *quote unquote*, as if to say, "Look, we can do this, and you can't do anything to stop it."

Yes, and? Are they trying to bring him to heel? Or is it something else?

I've been pretty clear that I don't think Trump should take office. His faction of the ruling clique was always small, and from appearances, its core seems to be shrinking. They clearly have a personal interest in seizing the government's levers and dials, and they are being opposed by a much larger cohort that doesn't want to yield. That doesn't mean Trump can't overcome the obstacles being placed in the way of his rule, but each time he has to do something to overcome the obstacles, authoritarianism and rule by diktat are solidified. This may be the intent of the factions of the ruling clique that are facing him down, I don't know.

What I have little doubt of is that these things have been long since gamed out and prepared for. People tend to have very naive notions about how incompetent our government is or how ultimately benign it is. In fact, its operations are quite strictly controlled and internally they are remarkably competently implemented for long time and long term interests and goals. It's not perfect, but on the whole, it's highly organized and well-conducted. And yes, the possibility of someone like Trump arising and being "elected" and what to do about it has probably been one of the scenarios of what could come since before I was born.

The Rabble can certainly affect outcomes, but what's going on is essentially an internal struggle between factions of the ruling clique.

Something like it happened at the outset of the imposed Bush-Cheney Regime when elements of the ruling clique set out to control the incoming regime's scope of action. It worked for a while. Certainly Bush-Cheney was far more publicly benign from its installation in January until the events of 9/11/2001. Once the attacks occurred, however, everything changed fundamentally. Within a month, the government was transformed, and nearly all controls on the actions of Bush-Cheney, domestically as well as overseas were lifted. Opposition within the ruling clique all but disappeared.

And we had one catastrophe of bad judgment after another.

Was that because there was no coherent opposition within government, or was it because a previously prepared game plan was being implemented? I'd say it was a bit of both, plus the effects of whatever spontaneous elements appeared.

It was undeniably catastrophic for millions upon millions of Americans, millions upon millions of people overseas.

And that catastrophe was only partially mitigated in the US, not mitigated at all in the Middle East and elsewhere under the calming rule of Obama and his faction.

Now the Incoming is set to transform government top to bottom (or so they say) and impose catastrophic rule domestically and on a somewhat different set of targets overseas. The permanent government and its ruling clique allies are responding with one grenade after another. I don't think we've ever witnessed anything like it.

It's a kind of a coup. It could turn into a real one. As I said in November, what might come is interim rule by a military figure. But if so, it isn't publicly being prepared for.

Delegitimization of the Incoming is proceeding apace, but beyond that? What? At this point, it's impossible to tell.

The Congress is totally out of control. The Incoming is fighting and flailing. The spectacle is getting more and more chaotic.

What next?

One week before the Inauguration.

Strap in.

The Nuclear Annihilation Gambit

One of the most frequently retailed "truths" during the presidential campaign was that Mrs. Clinton would surely get us into a nuclear war with Russia -- and Mr. Trump would save us from it.

I find that this "truth" is still being widely retailed as a defense of Trump. Some commenters maintain that this "truth" alone was sufficient reason to vote for him and to cleave loyally to him, come what may.

It's completely irrational. It's still being promoted as if it were established fact, but there never was any truth to it. It is no more true that Mrs. Clinton would get us into a nuclear war with Russia than Mr. Trump  saved us from it.

I've tried to briefly explain why that is so in other fora, but it's not an easy concept for some people to grasp. They are so convinced of the "truth" they've been fed about the certainty of Mrs. Clinton's nuclear warmongering and the salvation of Mr. Trump's lack of belligerence toward Russia  that they  simply can't wrap their minds around the idea that neither of them were advocating or trying to start nuclear war with Russia, and that there is a constant and inherent risk of nuclear war regardless of who is in the White House. It's simply a fact that the United States and Russia are not the only nuclear players on the face of the earth.

It is particularly difficult for those who didn't live through the Cold War to recognize what was going on with all the Putin-bashing and Russia blaming from the Clinton campaign. Its devolution since the election is frankly bizarre.

First: based on their campaign rhetoric, neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. Trump was likely to launch a nuclear first strike against Russia.

Second: there was no sign whatever that anyone in the Kremlin, least of all Tovarich Putin, was in any way inclined to launch a nuclear attack against the US.

Third: the anti-Russia/anti-Putin campaign rhetoric and propaganda used by Mrs. Clinton and her surrogates was transparent, often ridiculous, over the top, ill-advised and potentially very dangerous.

Fourth: on the other hand, it was a tried and true tactic directly out of the Cold War play book. It's called Brinkmanship. Dr. Kissinger was one of its chief practitioners back in the day. Dr. Kissinger and Mrs. Clinton were/are buddies.

Fifth: Brinkmanship was practiced throughout the Cold War. The threat of instant incineration and mutually assured destruction over both the Soviet Union and the United States was used as a negotiating tactic in order to establish and sustain a certain dynamic tension and world order. So long as the Soviet Union was able to project strength and wisdom as a counter to US imperialism and greed, neither side was able to fully dominate the other. It was in the interests of both to find accommodation. They did so, over and over again.

Sixth: Mrs. Clinton was not about to launch a nuclear first strike against anyone; Mr. Trump showed no interest in launching a nuclear first strike against Russia.

Seventh: if there is a nuclear first strike, it would more likely be launched by Israel or Pakistan, both of which are under increasing social, political, economic and emotional strain and both of which have governments that perceive an existential threat to their national existence -- from both internal and external forces.

Eighth: if a nuclear attack is launched by one of the other nuclear armed states, it would present a clear and present danger and an almost insoluble dilemma for both the US and Russia. I'm sure it's all been gamed out by both governments, but what would be done in the actual event is an open question.

Ninth: a US president does not have independent authority to launch a nuclear first strike. It would be incumbent for anyone receiving such an order to disobey. Mrs. Clinton could not launch a nuclear first strike on her own, and she knows it. Mr. Trump may or may not know it. He may not care.

Tenth: Brinkmanship as practiced by the Clinton campaign and as is still being retailed by neocons, parts of the government intelligence community and the media is stupid, counter productive, and borderline insane. But it never meant that Mrs. Clinton would launch a nuclear attack or that Mr. Trump would prevent one.

The idea that she would and he wouldn't is an article of faith. It has no basis in reality or truth.

Here's part  of the reason why:

Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump and I all grew up during the Cold War. Mr. Trump is two years older than Mrs. Clinton and I, and his educational and social experience during the 50s and 60s particular is very different than those of us who were students in public school -- like Mrs. Clinton and I were.

Public school students all over the country were conditioned to fear and loathe the Soviet Union and Communism and to anticipate nuclear annihilation at any time. Because the Soviets were Evil, we were told to believe that they wanted to conquer and exterminate us. Were it not for the strength and resolve of our leaders in Washington and our firm belief in our system of capitalism and democracy, they would win.

Of course this was all propaganda. My fifth grade teacher essentially said as much after we were exposed to yet another anti-Soviet propaganda film in the cafetorium. He was, of course, investigated for Communist sympathies and other purported crimes... that's the way things were then.

We weren't told and we weren't supposed to know what was actually going on in the world. But as we got older, we learned more and more of what lay behind the curtain.

Our rulers were playing a game with the Soviet Union, a game which the Soviets were playing as well. It was a game of dominance, but the intent was stalemate. In other words, the point was to keep a certain level of threat and tension between the two superpowers without leading to nuclear holocaust.

When the Soviet Union dissolved, that game of necessity stopped. Without a Soviet threat, without a Communist enemy, the US governmental premise itself came close to collapsing. There was no purpose to much of the US government anymore.

It took the designation of Iraq and Iran and ultimately most of the Muslim Middle East, South Asia and North Africa as Enemies du Jour to restore in confidence in the intelligence and military sectors that they had some purpose and meaning.

And it's been a shit - show ever since.

When the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia were sufficiently wrecked, attention turned to Russia as the next target for the wrecking crews. There have long been plans in the MIC/Intelligence community to dismantle the Russian Federation and loot whatever remains of state and private wealth, in order -- they say -- to prevent the rise of any rival to US hegemony. I understand that China is also on the list for dismantlement.

Supposedly any potential rival will face the same treatment in the by and bye.

While some of our ruling clique are convinced that a nuclear war is desirable and survivable, most clearly are not. Mr Trump and Mrs Clinton both have nuclear survivalists in their policy shops, but there never was any sign that those men and women were in charge of policy.

A complicating factor with Russia is Edward Snowden's asylum there. Until that happened, Russia and Putin were at least nominal "partners" with the US in world affairs. Maybe it was at arms length, maybe it was a tense relationship, but it was not overtly hostile most of the time.

When Snowden was granted asylum and provided a highly public internet platform by his hosts, all that changed.

And so here we are.

If the Ukrainian Nazis had access to nuclear weapons, I have little doubt they would have glassed Moscow and Leningrad long ago. Provided of course that Kiev hadn't been turned into a radioactive ruin first.

The danger of nuclear annihilation is a constant. We are not free of it no matter who is in the White House, but the likelihood of either Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton launching a nuclear first strike against Russia -- or provoking the Kremlin into launching a first strike against the US -- has always been next to nil.

That Was More of a "Debate" Than I Thought It Would Be -- Snurf, Sniffle, Cackle

[Cross Posted at NC and Ian's Place]

To the extent I watched — I do have what’s known as a “life” after all — I thought the thing was less surreal than, say, Chuck Todd declared it to be.

As long as you could cut through the posturing and bullshit, it was easy enough to see that Trump’s criticisms of Hillary’s policies were mostly on point as were her criticisms of his practices (just “business”). From that perspective, it was all very polite and genteel. After all, these people travel in some of the same circles, know and admire many of the same people, and work for similar political and economic objectives. Their “debate” is more about mechanics and process than it is about goals.

Trump clearly is out of his political league, but that’s hardly news. That’s a known quantity that some consider to be to his advantage. If the polls are correct, something is obviously working in his favor — and would be, I think, even if the Clinton Hate weren’t so strong.

The closest comparison I can think of is the Reagan phenomenon of 1966 when it was axiomatic that this actor/spokesmodel for GE didn’t have a chance against seasoned pro/master politician Pat Brown, incumbent Governor of California.

The shock waves that ran through the state the morning after the election and tsunami that overwhelmed the political establishment in California is hard to grasp today. Nearly sixty years of Progressive rule in California was set to be dismantled, beginning with public education and not stopping to this day.

The shock was that Reagan was elected at all. It was widely considered to be impossible. Yet it happened in part because of the rise of the hippies, the riots in the ghettos, and the nascent student rebellion against the war and so much else that had gone wrong in the country.

The election of Reagan was seen by the voters as a slap in the face to a failed (Progressive) status quo, and it didn’t matter who was harmed as voters lashed out at their rulers.

Much the same dynamic took place in the 1980 election for president which Reagan won handily — but not so shockingly. The antipathy toward Carter’s failures was enhanced by media such as nightly “America Held Hostage” reports on the teevee.

Will a similar dynamic lead to a Trump election this year? I don’t know, but I’ll say this: the dissatisfaction with the establishment is almost as strong today as it was in 1966 in California and 1980 nationally. The reasons for it are different, but the dynamic can’t be denied.

Trump would be a disaster on many levels for many Americans, and his stable of neoLibCon warmongers and looters would be let loose to spread their misery and destruction far and wide.

Clinton’s ascension, however, would mean no improvement in the lives of most Americans, and her stable of neoLibCon warmongers and looters would have a festival of misery and leave their own trail of destruction in their wake.

How voters choose between them, I have no idea. They are both ultimately monstrous. And that is emblematic of the government they seek to oversee.

Strap in, it’s gonna be a rough ride…

As More Is Reported...

[Caveat: Who knows whether the reporting is truthful or accurate? Reporting on the American tradition of mass murder is typically/traditionally sketchy at best, and it is always, always driven by narrative...]

So the Orlando killer, they now say, was a conflicted gay man who regularly went to a gay bar in Orlando two hours away from his home on the east Florida, where on Sunday during Pride Week he slaughtered dozens of patrons and wounded dozens more just after last call. Speculation is that he knew any number of those he shot; at any rate, quite a few survivors have come forth and said they knew him. Oh yeah. They knew him all right, and from what's been reported, it seems they did not like him at all.

But he was a regular nonetheless. It's a four hour round trip between Port St. Lucie and Orlando. They say he drank heavily at the bar, and he would get raging drunk while he was there, so the drive home must have been challenging to say the least. Or did he spend the night in Orlando? Did he spend the night with anyone he met at the bar? Or...?

Some observers and commenters have been skeptical about this whole self-loathing gay theory, not so much because it's not plausible as there seems to be so little evidence that he was actually a gay man, and not simply someone who was... curious -- apparently lethally so.

They want evidence that he ever had sexual relations -- or even a casual encounter -- with another man. So far, there's been none.

All that's been reported is that he was married twice. He was very abusive to his first wife, and she left him within a few months. His second wife apparently did not suffer that way. He fathered children. He frequented the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. He used gay-oriented online chats. There is a report that he asked a fellow student at the police academy out on a date but the fellow declined.

And fairly consistently the reports suggest that nobody liked him, not at his job (as a security guard at the local courthouse) and not at the gay bar.

They didn't like him because he was volatile, mercurial and filled with anger. Among other things no doubt.

In other words, he was a frightening character that many people wanted to stay well away from.

He was reported to the FBI by his co-workers because of some of the things he said about being involved with terrorist groups. The FBI interviewed him several times over a period of over a year and determined there was nothing  actionable about what he had said or done.

He went to the Pulse bar in Orlando on Latin Night, the culmination of a week of gay pride celebration in Orlando. Somehow he got past the uniformed off-duty policeman working security at the door, got past him with his guns and ammunition. Reports suggest that he had a few drinks, chatted with some folks, and then... started shooting. He somehow shot more than 100 people before retreating to a restroom where he holed up with hostages and started an hours-long "negotiation" with authorities, using his cell phone for communication.

Ultimately, the "negotiations" failed, and the authorities decided to blast their way into the restroom where he was holed up, but that failed the first time they tried. They sent in a robot bobcat (IIRC) to knock a hole in the wall. The wall was breeched, and the hostages, according to reports, escaped. The killer emerged after the hostages and engaged in a gunfight with the police. He was killed in the gun battle.

End of incident.

During the "negotiations" the killer apparently said he had explosives and was prepared to blow himself and the hostages up, and that was the excuse given for taking aggressive action.

He is also said to have declared his loyalty to a number of Muslim terrorist groups.

He was born in New York, the son of Afghani parents who emigrated to the US after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. From appearances at any rate, his parents were/are very well off, and one would assume he grew up comfort or even luxury. From reports, it appears he was not religious.

Reports suggest he had fairly severe mental health issues, specifically "bi-polar disorder." Given his age and behavior, he may have had incipient or full-blown schizophrenic issues. Anger management was apparently not his forte.

The question then arises, how was he able to get and keep a security officer job with one of the nation's premiere mercenary contractors (G4S -- ask Jeremy Scahill about it) for nearly 10 years, despite his apparent record behavioral and psychological issues? How was he able to get all the clearances and gun permits and so forth? This is odd, it seems to me, unless it is somehow typical.

This was a man who should not have been allowed around any weapon at all, and yet he was a long-time employee of one of the top mercenary outfits, working as an armed guard at a fricking courthouse, even though he was recognized as a... potential danger to himself or others by his own co-workers who reported him to the FBI. The FBI that investigated and claimed to find nothing "actionable."

Well, I'm sure the conspiracy theorists will have a field day with this one.

Something isn't right.

By doG no.

In Other News -- The Rise of the Racist Right (Again)

The Summer News Cycle is winding down -- the shark and missing white people stories are being put away (this summer it seemed to be white boys going missing rather than the usual white women), and the presidential campaign for the 2016 election is being given the media's main spotlight.

Bernie, The Donald, Herself... and the wild card of Ol' Joe (Biden)... seem to be sucking out all oxygen from the newsroom.

The Bernie campaign is the one with the most populist energy in that the campaign is drawing large crowds practically everywhere. Some of those crowds are immense. They seem to arise spontaneously. In some ways, the Bernie campaign reminds me of the Howard Dean phenomenon when time was, and I cannot help but recall the real shock the single digit vote results in the primaries were. How could that be, we all wondered, when he had been drawing such enthusiastic crowds? Why could he not even break into double digits -- except in Vermont?

Well, I think Bernie is going to be faced with a similar situation. How such large and enthusiastic crowds translate into such a small vote result is something for a scholarly study I haven't seen yet, but I suspect it will happen to Bernie (though he might do better than HoHo did.)

The #BLM interruptions of his campaign speeches and his subsequent acknowledgement of and policy program to redress structural and institutional racism has been taken as a marker of Bernie's civil rights and progressive cred. But what he doesn't say is the same as every other politician on the national stage. He won't endorse or repeat the principal demand of the protesters: "Stop Killing Us."

Nor will any other politician on the national stage.

Not one.

The killing is apparently something to deal with in the future, the distant future preferably, once the problem of structural and institutional racism is solved. Or maybe the killing isn't to be dealt with at all. It's really hard to say.

The killing, though, is the immediate, emergency problem, and the rate of police killings keeps climbing despite all the protests, inconveniences and interruptions of routines that the protesters engage in.

The message here is that the political class as a whole -- Bernie included -- is not particularly troubled by the killing. Nope. I've seen arguments that it is actually quite a rare thing for someone to be killed by the police (despite a higher rate of police killings than just about anywhere else in the world) and those who are killed for the most part "needed killing" anyway, so the problem of police killings is not really that much of a problem when you really look and sort it all out.

Racism, though, is something else again.

At least that's the political message.

Racism is the issue that we must tackle with all available resources and from every angle. Structural racism, institutional racism, historical racism, personal and private racism, overt and public racism, all must be tackled and dismantled, or we will forever face an intractable, socially destructive  problem of racial injustice and discrimination.

And we're better than that. Or something.

So I was cruising around the interwebs and found a story that said the Prairie View, Texas, city council had voted to rename University Blvd to "Sandra Bland Drive Parkway," and I thought, "well, isn't that something?" Not necessarily progress -- that would be expecting too much -- but at least it was an acknowledgement that her life mattered. And that's something.

The story I read was from Channel 2 in Houston, and the comments on the story were filled with racist invective, literally in every comment I read. Oh my. I've seen this before on the internet. In fact, I see it pretty frequently. Racist invective seems to be a feature of the internet, not a social bug at all. It's built in to the structure of internet commentary somehow, but every time I see it, it's a shock. I thought I was fairly sophisticated about these things, but the sort of racist animosity I've been seeing for the last several years -- and sheer amount of it -- is both bewildering and shocking.

I regard it as specifically an internet phenomenon and not particularly representative of the general feelings and beliefs of Americans, but I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it is just the tip of a racist iceberg...

What I saw and read in the comments on the Channel 2 story about renaming the street on which she was manhandled and arrested for Sandra Bland was appalling, but it's not unique.

Apparently since the removal of the Confederate battle flag from places of honor in several Southern -- and some not so southern (ie: Albuquerque) -- places, a certain variety of white racist, incensed at the disrespect for their flag, have taken to arms and are prepared to fight the nigra tide that is sweeping over them... yadda, yadda, yadda. It's just ridiculous, but there you are. OK then. So be it.

The problem with this kind of white racism is that even though it may involve a relatively small minority of white folks -- though I can't be sure of the size of the current racist rise -- it can be very powerful because it taps in to America's original sins -- black chattel slavery and Native American genocide. Both were fundamental for the nation's creation and sustenance. There could be and would have been no United States of America without them.

Every effort to overcome those original sins has been fiercely resisted by some white folks for generation upon generation, and so far, while there has been progress -- chattel slavery has been largely eliminated, genocide renounced if not ended in practice -- these sins are still inherent in the nation's very being. The current level of racist internet trolling may be shocking to me, but apparently there are plenty of white folks who live this racist reality all the time.

It's powerful and it's dangerous.

I suppose that so long as it is largely confined to internet trolling, it's not really a serious problem, but I don't know that the internet actually confines it.

The #BLM movement has forced the issue of disparate justice and violent racist policing into public consciousness (again -- it's really always been with us) but so far has been ineffective in reducing the level of disparate justice and violent racist policing. In fact, the rate of police killings has substantially increased this year over last, and courts will still cheerfully charge, try and sentence black and brown folks far more severely than whites for the same offenses. Those same courts will also overlook police violence and killing.

In other words, nothing has yet positively affected the problem which has long since been identified.

At least superficially things are getting worse, not better.

There are some hopeful signs which I will try to get to in another post. But for the time being, the white racist trolls are having a field day.

Not a pretty picture.

What the Actual F*ck??!!

This video has been making the rounds today. White cops in suburban Dallas going ape-shit on black pool-partiers, a particular example being that of the sergeant on duty, hurling a bikini-clad partier onto the ground, hauling her around by her arm, and kneeing her on the back until another cop comes along with handcuffs to truss her up.



Apparently the big-bellied fat fucks are plainclothes officers, though it's hard to say.

The story I've read is that a white female resident of the housing development objected to black pool partiers in her community pool. She got into a fight with a black girl -- who is apparently also a resident of the development -- when the white woman said the others should go back to the "projects". The white woman, according to what I've read, initiated the physical struggle. Another white woman intervened to break it up. Others called 911 claiming that there were all kinds of black people using the community's pool uninvited. Still others called saying there was a fight. A dozen police responded, the little pissant sergeant (now referred to as piss ant Police Supervisor Cpl Eric Casebolt).

Supposedly the pool party was advertised as "open to the public" on social media, and from what I've been able to glean, those who objected to the presence of black people in the pool were adult white people. From the video, it's not apparent that white kids have a problem with the presence of black people at the pool party.

The little pissant corporal, the one who savages the girl in the bikini, is out of control and he has to be restrained by his buddies when he pulls out his gun to threaten youngsters who come to help the girl he's thrown to the ground.

"Failure to obey" quickly and completely enough is the trigger for his actions -- at least so far as I can tell.

It's been pointed out that the police are only interested in the black kids. But the other issue -- which I think is a key -- is that they are responding to repeated 911 calls.

In too many situations, callers to 911 are a menace, as are dispatchers and responding officers. Something is dreadfully wrong with the flow charts that are used and the protocols of dispatch. Too many people are killed and injured and wrongly arrested/harassed by police sent in response to ambiguous or hostile calls to 911. Something has to be done. Further, police in this instance chose to escalate where there was no need. They did it because... they knew nothing else? I don't know. But what they did was wrong.

And too typical...

"... training its officers to be more efficient killers.”

The Letter

David Correia posts about it at La Jicarita


Meanwhile in Omaha:

Cops TV show Soundman killed in police shooting. The suspect, apparently armed with a BB gun, was also killed.

In Ottawa, Kansas:

Teen shot 16 times by police.

Whereas in Chicago:

Protests Erupt as Chicago Police Department Kill Again: #Roshad McIntosh

While John Cook Vacations...

Once again, things are getting weird at the "Intercept" where, from its launch in February, the hype is not matched by the content and the comments generally provide more actual news -- even if only aggregates from other outlets -- than the rare published items.

John Cook, who claims to be "editor-in-chief", whatever that means, has been on vacation according to reports and cannot be bothered. He's had nothing to say for months about his editorial obligations, assuming there are any.

One doesn't know.

Greenwald made an apparently ill-advised announcement that the long-awaited story he was (he said) "working on" would be published at midnight one day. It wasn't. Instead, there was a breathless announcement that the story would be held until a new government objection was investigated.

OK. So the WaPo publishes an extensive story that doesn't name names but does reveal the kinds of "inadvertent" collections of information the NSA deals with all the time, pretty much stealing Greenwald's thunder in any case. If he ever does publish his grand finale fireworks show -- looking less and less likely by the day -- will anyone care?

Greenwald continues to defend himself and hurl insults and invective via Twitter -- so at least we know he's alive. And according to reports, he's still on book tour and doing teevee appearances, so there is that.

As for the other staff at the "Intercept," with the exception of Ryan Gallagher, they have been mighty quiet since they nestled under the Omidyar wing. They have been remarkably quiet given their prolific output prior to becoming "Intercept" staff. It's almost as if shutting them up was part of the deal. The only one who hasn't been shut up is Marcy Wheeler, who just keeps cranking stories out like sausages, though she's been mighty quiet about why she left the cozy confines of OmidyarLand back in May.

Turns out Omidyar's people have been busy bees at the White House, however.

No surprise there, I suppose, given the Omidyar penchant for global power plays.

It's been my pet theory that someone at the WH called Pierre, just as the missing Jeremy Scahill teasingly suggested might happen, and asked politely that Greenwald's story -- naming names -- be held for the time being. Pierre, being the power player he is, said "Sure, why not?" and had one of his lieutenants convey the message that there might be a "problem" with one or more of the names so... would Glenn kindly look into it? 'Kthnxbai.

Greenwald's defense has largely been one of "protecting the innocent." So he can't name names without revealing the names of innocents, and that would be wrong. Unless they want their names to be named. And then it would be right. So in order to name the names all 10,000 or 100,000 names he has have to be contacted one by one, and that's ever-so-hard, and it takes a long time, and many of them may be indisposed or otherwise unable or unwilling to respond, so what are you going to do? It's such a terrific responsibility, after all. So maybe the best thing is not to name the names, just remark on the categories of those swept up in NSA collections, but we're already pretty certain of what those categories are, so is there even a story here? One that could qualify as fireworks? Maybe so, maybe not. Well, the WaPo thought there was a story, and they managed to get one out, but Greenwald's story is so much better....

-------------------------------------------------
It is Summer Shark and Missing White Woman season once again, and the Missing Greenwald Story fits right in with the season. The Absent Story is a Summer Story its own self, with dozens of mentions over the last week or so. Google it. And then there's Cryptome's cryptic non-announcement that the whole Snowden trove will be revealed by the end of the month. Or not.

It's Summertime...

Who Is Really In Charge -- Of What?

Uhhh.... guys...

T've heard rumblings that the "Health Care Rollout Cockup" was an act of sabotage deliberately staged by certain interests -- either in the government or in the contractor sector, or by both working hand in glove -- for some nefarious purpose, testing, perhaps, the levels of anxiety and endurance the public can be subjected to over basic matters like access to something.

In other words, how difficult/impossible can we make something a significant portion of the public will be compelled to do before they snap? I hate to use Nazi allusions, but this is was something the Nazis were masters at in their conquests of Europe. They would institute orders for compelled actions by selected populations that could not be obeyed rationally, but only in a kind of mindless stupor could part of an order be complied with. This had profound psychological effects that helped enable the mass murder to come. People went on command -- and essentially willingly -- into the ghettos, the cattle cars, the camps and the gas chambers, in part because they had been pre-conditioned to do irrational things and to follow irrational orders simply to survive. They believed sincerely that if they didn't do what they were told, or they unimaginably rose up against this madness, they wouldn't/couldn't survive for even a moment longer. At least they had a chance if they complied...

Well, yes, some did survive all of it. A handful.

During Occupy Wall Street actions in New York, I saw (via livestream) people herded onto the Brooklyn Bridge and corralled there, arrested, hundreds of them, maybe more than a thousand, and I saw how they willingly submitted themselves to the authorities who had basically tricked them and trapped them in this pen over the East River, and I was gobsmacked and horrified at what I was witnessing. It wasn't so much what the police had done -- though that was itself horrifying and inexcusable -- it was the immediate and instant compliance of the crowd. Oh. My. God. When I saw a handful of people escaping the trap by climbing up to a higher level of the bridge and slipping away, I was momentarily cheered. Some knew not to comply. But for most? Jesus. They should know deep in their bones where this sort of thing leads.

And thankfully, later, it was clear that many of them did know. And they weren't about to fall into this kind of mental trap and follow these sorts of orders and commands again.

So. Is the Rollout something of the same sort? Perhaps. I don't know. I have some knowledge of relatively huge government projects and how they go "live" and how badly they can be bolloxed initially. If there is sabotage involved, it appears to be the result of contractors (sometimes with the assistance of government functionaries) figuring out how to squeeze as much more money as possible out of the system before it either works or collapses. That's what this cock-up looks like to me from the outside. It wasn't ready, the hundreds of millions poured into it already were not nearly enough to satisfy the contractors who built it -- they want double the money, triple or more -- and so it will be "difficult" for as long as it takes to satisfy them, which could conceivably mean forever.

At least in Iraq they were shipping over pallets of hundred dollar bills, as well as seizing all the hundred dollar bills stashed away in the Republican Palace villas along the Tigris (said to be about a billion and change worth) for the grand par-tays being conducted by the military contractors, some of whom turned around and carried the loot home in sacks and suitcases.

We do these things a little differently in the Homeland, yes?

So from my view, the cockup is deliberate, but it's a money issue, not some nefarious scheme to pre-condition the population to OBEY. On the other hand, we've been immersed in that conditioning for generations, haven't we? We are being conditioned all the time, in addition to being spied on and exploited and everything else.

But then I saw part of the Sebelius hearing on "what went wrong" -- and it was so scripted, I thought, "Wait a minute, this is just for show and sound bites. We are finding out nothing, nothing at all from this hearing. It's just show business."

Oh. So something IS going on. OK. What?

The only thing I could come up with was that the Rollout occurred during the Shutdown, when much of the federal government that the People would ordinarily deal with -- like the parks and such -- was inaccessible (something made plain on the teevee at the monuments in the Mall). The Shutdown was something planned months in advance, a cooperative venture, not spontaneous at all, and I wondered... why?

The Rollout was planned, months (actually years) in advance to occur simultaneously. This was no accident.

It was a coordinated bollox. Was it intentionally planned and coordinated to show the government as useless, incompetent and ultimately "not there" in any case? Had somebody really been thinking things through like this? Oh please.

Who? Who is fucking in charge here, and what exactly are they in charge of?

During the Shutdown and the Rollout, the NSA stories seemed to go on hiatus. But as soon as the government reopened we were told that Glenn had found himself a billionaire and he would be leaving the Guardian to establish a new media venture that he would be in operational and editorial control of, funded by Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay. Oh. Well. Isn't that special. (My reservations about that are another story altogether...)

After all the hoo-hah in Yurp and particular parts of Latin America over spying on the people and the political leaders, we were treated to the information via the WaPo and a little pencil sketch that the personal/private information held by Google and Yahoo (one assumes others)  is accessible by the NSA (one assumes other agencies as well) through various "sekrit" means, and oh, my isn't it a terrible thing, though! And of course Google and the others had no idea, OMG! We are being spied upon!

Jesus. This is such complete bullshit.

The pencil sketch was the tell, if it wasn't for all the other signs that this was yet more "conditioning" to accept the previously unknown/unacceptable.

 Please.

 I'm sorry, if this is how Our Rulers are conducting their business, on the back of a napkin, then it's a wonder anything works at all, isn't it? Well, isn't it?

Who is in charge of this muddle? What are they really in charge of?

Not only are we pretty fully through the looking glass, we're deep in outer space without a pressure suit.

Wheels within wheels is putting it mildly.

Celestial Wheels

In the WTF Department

All the hysteria about the NSA Spying Thing got a major boost yesterday when a Long Island writer posted her story of a raid of her home and questioning of her husband by police and sheriffs deputies over internet searches on terms like "pressure cooker" and the always suspicious "backpacks" and "bombs."

This story was all over the internets, of course, and it was heavily rotated by the Guardian, bless their heart, as a sort of spook-joke diversion because supposedly the raiders asked "What's quinoa?" when they were told that the household cooks quinoa in their rice cooker.

Because of all the hysteria ginned up over the NSA Thing, everyone assumed that the raid was triggered when the internet searches by this household on Long Island were flagged in the NSA's super-warehouse of internet data as "suspicious activity" to be analyzed and followed up on promptly -- or the terrorists would win.

But apparently it wasn't so.

Not  a bit.

Now I was skeptical of this thing from the get, simply because it was way too convenient a Summer Shark Story and it was being promoted by a rather well-known writer on the internet. The fact that the Guardian, of all outlets, was not only featuring it but making a joke of it, was the obvious tip off that this story was not at all what it seemed to be and one would be wise to simply let it marinate for little while for it to come to full flavor.

Sure enough.

The Horsemeat Saga

Sappington shoots a horse for show

 (I would rather not link to this or any other video of horse-slaughter)

Living in rural New Mexico, one is around livestock -- including horses -- all the time. We don't have a ranch, but there are good-sized ranches all around here, some of them running cattle, others fallow because of the drought. Lots of people have horses, whether they are ranching or not.


Given the drought and the cost of feed, it's getting tougher to hold on to any livestock these days, though some ranchers are managing. They say that this is the worst drought since the 1950's, and that was the worst since the Dustbowl in the '30's; it could get a good deal worse before it gets better. Climate change and all.

Meanwhile, outside of Roswell, a fellow named Rick de los Santos has been trying to get USDA approval to re-open his shuttered (cattle) slaughterhouse as a horsemeat slaughterhouse, and it's been just one thing after another for him. Trouble. Compounded recently by the now-viral video of his one employee shooting a horse -- just because he can -- and saying "Fuck you, animal activists!" as he does so.

Slaughtering horses for human consumption was banned in the US in 2007; the EU has banned the importation of US slaughtered horsemeat in any case. Supposedly, de los Santos intends to sell his horsemeat to Mexico, but there is little likelihood of it happening, given the fact that the meat of horses slaughtered in Mexico is sold to the EU. There is no foreign or domestic market for US slaughtered horsemeat, and yet for some time there has been a strenuous push to revive US slaughtering of horses for meat, and the saga of Valley Meats out of Roswell has become the showpiece of the story. (The ban was lifted by President Obama in 2011.)

Valley Meats used to slaughter cattle but apparently got into some difficulty when the USDA inspector became aware of cruelties to livestock and unsanitary conditions and suspended inspections, thus shutting down the plant in February of last year. Supposedly, there was a plan to correct the problems, but it was never put into effect, and the plant stayed closed. So far as I've been able to find out, de los Santos decided to switch to horse-slaughter instead of cattle and has been trying to get inspections and a permit to operate since last April. The permitting and inspection process has been delayed time and again.

There has been plenty of political pressure to deny any permits for horse slaughterhouses in New Mexico, and there is surprising unanimity by state officials against opening the Valley Meats plant outside of Roswell for horse-slaughter. Of course, as always, the counter-argument is that those against horse-slaughtering for human consumption are "just being emotional," and shouldn't be listened to.

After all, "emotions" mean nothing...

What will happen ultimately is anybody's guess, but at the moment, both the Sappington video and the many death threats against him and de los Santos are being investigated by the FBI.

It's out of control.

And of course this situation provides plenty of grist for the civil libertarian and propertarian mills, as Sappington's statement ("Fuck you, animal activists!") as he shoots the horse is both condemned and defended, while his right to shoot the horse -- and say anything he wants to -- is highlighted and declared quintessentially "American". De Los Santos's right to slaughter horses or cattle or any other livestock he wants to without interference from the Nanny State will be debated ad nauseum, while safety and legal issues will be nit-picked to death (so to speak) ad infinitum. This is the way these things tend to go. Even in New Mexico.

But there's another layer to all of this. Sappington seems to have some real power issues which he gives vent to by killing a horse on camera and posting the video on his Facebook page, while cursing and denouncing "animal activists" -- who have done what to him, exactly?  They've interfered with the re-opening of the Valley Meat Co. slaughterhouse to be sure, and they've made a big deal over resumption of horse-slaughter in the US -- including New Mexico. But there is no prohibition -- that I know of -- against horse owners slaughtering their own horses for food for themselves, nor am I aware of "animal activists" interfering unless the situation is egregious. In this case, it is egregious because of the video which was clearly intended to provoke, shock and enrage. So Sappington is taking shit for it. Gee. Who'd a thunk? He's demonstrated for all the world to see that he has the power to kill at will, and he seems to want to have that power confirmed to him without consequence or responsibility. He wants the absolute right in other words, apparently to do anything he wants with his property and then put the video on display for anyone to see.

De los Santos seems to following a somewhat different script. From what I've seen of him, he seems to be more interested in the profit potential of slaughtering horses and selling the meat than anything else, but there is no real market in the US or abroad. US slaughtered horsemeat is banned in the EU, and there is so little domestic demand for horsemeat outside the EU that it is hard to imagine that there really is a profit potential. So I can only assume that he and the other advocates for the resumption of horse slaughter for food in the US intend to create a market, probably domestically since restrictions abroad are so severe. Who would want US slaughtered horsemeat? Few people would eat it, though it might wind up in pet food or...

What happened in Europe could be instructive. Horses were being slaughtered in Eastern Europe, and somehow the horsemeat wound up in the commercial beef supply chain. Hm. How could that have happened? It wasn't sold as beef, it was incorporated into beef used for commercially prepared food such as frozen lasagne and such. In other words, it was like "pink slime" -- an extender of sorts, though apparently in some cases, all the meat was horsemeat. Controls were lacking, it seems, and without sufficient regulation and inspection, there is nothing to prevent horsemeat -- or any other "surprise" meat -- from being used this way. If it's cheaper, commercial preparers will buy it, no? Profits! 

I tend to doubt that US slaughtered horsemeat would be cheaper than beef, but you never know. The point is to have a market and exploit it to the hilt. If that means creating a market for horsemeat -- even a fraudulent one -- that's what will happen.

So far as I'm aware, there is no humane way to slaughter horses in a slaughterhouse environment. They panic and fight, and the whole process is gruesome and dangerous for both horses and workers. Horses are not like other livestock commonly slaughtered for food -- which probably has more to do with why they aren't commonly slaughtered for food than any other issue, such as "emotions."

The push to revive commercial horse-slaughtering in the US now that the ban is lifted seems to be driven by something other than a market need -- there isn't one in any realistic sense. Is it more a power-thing? Sadism? Or something else? I've heard the complaints that it has become so expensive to keep horses that there is a need to have some way to dispose of surplus or unwanted -- or unaffordable -- horses that doesn't cost an arm and a leg itself or lead to unnecessary cruelty or neglect, but this argument fails miserably as a rationale for reviving horse-slaughter. The treatment of horses being held for slaughter is appalling, and what happens to them at the slaughterhouse is worse. The fact that a kill-buyer will pay a small amount for a horse to be taken to slaughter shouldn't compensate, but maybe it's enough for those who can no longer maintain a horse. I don't know.

It typically costs an owner several hundred dollars to euthanize and dispose of a horse that's sick or injured or can no longer be cared for, so it may be that being paid a small amount by a kill-buyer instead is worth it.

On the other hand, horses are not raised for food in this country, and simply selling them off to a slaughterhouse is a dead end. Someone winds up paying... Unless, of course, that market for horseflesh is created.

So that's what I think is behind the current push. The viral video of Sappington killing his horse will quite likely delay -- but probably not prevent -- the development of that market.

Shedrow Confessions is a good resource to follow the saga. There is much more to it than just the New Mexico story...

Black Ops

Strange encounter during one of my testy exchanges with Glenn today. It had to do with WikiLeaks, a topic I wrote about on Monday.

I had responded to muddy thinking's question about a video WikiLeaks has of a massacre in Afghanistan. I pointed out essentially that this was a video that Julian Assange claimed in April would be released "soon," but it has never been released. And I proposed a number of questions I thought journalists should ask Julian about WikiLeaks and the various materials they say they have.

Strangely enough, Glenn responded to my post to muddy thinking, and he did so in the spirit of the testiness we had had with one another since yesterday, but with what I thought was an odd twist. Comme ça:

Che Pasa

[Quoting me to muddy thinking:]
He kept claiming WikiLeaks was going to release the video of the Afghan murders "soon." They never did.

Julian needs to be asked what's the hold up.

[Glenn's response:]

They haven't yet, but will - there are issues with encryption and verification that take time.

It is interesting that so much of our propaganda media has been so eager to put out just about any story Julian wants to tell.

What's "interesting" about it? Are you one of those people who think WikiLeaks is some sort of government-run operation - like they were eager to have that Apache attack seen by the world?

Besides, wasn't Julian in hiding somewhere in Australia because the Pentagon and the drones were after him? His passport seized?

His passport has been returned. And it's not Julian who claimed the Pentagon was after him - that was reported by a former NYT reporter who now writes for The Daily Beast, and it was Daniel Ellsberg who speculated that he feared for Julian's safety - but they all probably are controlled by the Pentagon, too.

Curious to say the least.

The slothful, dishonest way of spreading innuendo: ominously pronounce things "interesting" and "curious" without ever actually saying anything.

Now wait, I thought. "Are you one of those people who think WikiLeaks is some sort of government-run operation...?"

Hold on. Glenn does not read my blog posts here; so far as I can tell, he has not been here any time in the past year. And apart from some casual references, I have not mentioned WikiLeaks at Glenn's Place. He would not have seen my post on the topic yesterday.

Nor was there anything in my questions about WikiLeaks today that indicated I wondered if it was a black op -- something I have in fact wondered since the first time they made a media splash, but I have only mentioned it here. And it's something any skeptic should wonder.

I've never seen any evidence that it is, and I certainly have no knowledge that it is. There are just too many "curious" things going on -- from the wall to wall coverage in the propaganda media and the endless loop showing the extermination of the Iraqis in the April "Collateral Murder" tape to the increasingly ludicrous cat and mouse routine Julian revels in to the curious cases of the leaker and the hacker that turned him in. And all those hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables.

Anyone should be skeptical of this continuing drama, but I don't know what's really going on. Nor, at the time I wrote did I have any idea that there was a whole "WikiLeaks is Black Ops" conspiracy theory subculture. I had no idea that was the case when Glenn responded the way he did.

I didn't even look into it until after I'd let the question settle: "Are you one of those...?"

And behold.

Oh, there's a lot of skepticism and elaborations on theories of conspiracy about WikiLeaks out there that I had no idea existed.

I'm just now starting to sort through it. And the first source cited is Wayne Madsen Report, a site I do not link and I do not read. I have probably only seen it a couple of times, and the only thing I can recall about it was that it seemed to be a black op itself! Hm. Spy v Spy indeed!

So they are claiming WikiLeaks is CIA? That's rich.

I will have to investigate further and report back. This is fascinating.

===============================================

Haven't really found much that is useful, but a good deal of speculation is out there, and it seems to center around the notion that Julian, an "ex-hacker", is using WikiLeaks as a way to, let's face it, make money. He would collect "secret" information from anonymous individuals in the field and then sell it to eagerly awaiting news organizations.

Only they weren't so eager, apparently. So, runs the speculation, he was "flipped." Rather than make him into an Enemy of the State, the spooks turned him into a useful ally. The figure of $2 million came up in one speculative missive. Problem is, he's still trying to raise money. But that's all part of Spookery 101, so we'll let that go.

Australia, according to one account, is full to bursting with CIA, and it is widely believed there and elsewhere that Julian -- who is WikiLeaks, there is no one else in point of fact -- is a spook.

Manning seems to be regarded as an impressionable and not very stable young man who was befriended (on the internet?) by Julian; supposedly, there is an extensive email archive between them, but much of it has been scrubbed. Lamo, another ex hacker who turned Manning in to the FBI, is also rather unstable, was arrested for computer hacking, and according to the McClatchy report, he was flipped and is now essentialy a useful tool in Cyberwars. How he related to Julian is not entirely clear, although Lamo and Manning have an extensive online archive with one another, like Manning and Julian are said to have.

However all of these speculative threads sort out, the theory I kind of like is that WikiLeaks is -- or was -- a "honeypot." I say "was" because there are hints out there that for all intents and purposes, with the arrest of Manning, WikiLeaks started evaporating. Thus Julian's apparent indisposition and disappearance.

It's all speculation and yarn-spinning, though. Nothing may be as it seems, and the stories being spun are mostly almost certainly figments. There are wheels within wheels in the spook business, so I wouldn't put anything past anyone in this whole affair.

I highly suspect that the truth, whatever it is, will never be known by the public.

Ever.

I haven't linked to any of the information I found. Just Google "WikiLeaks Black Op" and see what pops up. I'm sure there is plenty more.