As the nation sits transfixed by the disasterporn coming out of Haiti, the facts on the ground here in the good old USA aren't too good either. Still, one can always say that Americans are so much better off than, say, Haitians. No argument there. But we aren't a third world country, with some exceptions. The New Orleans fiasco was a major embarrassment and still goes on....but it's not Haiti. Bob Herbert in the N Y Times, January 22, 2010 quoted a Brookings Institution study that points out that 30% of the population of this blessed nation lives at less than twice the poverty level for a family of four...$21,834. The fastest growth area for poverty is in the suburbs. What about Ozzie, Harriet, Rick and Dave? Forty thousand lives are lost each year due to lack of health insurance, and our infant mortality rate is that of Albania's. Still, we are not Haiti!
The recent decision by the Supreme Court to allow the outright buying of candidates by coroprate America will further reduce the risk of popular government's becoming a reality anytime soon. The marvelous legal fiction of the corporate person's free speech rights will most likely kill any attempts to stay the buying of the political system. Not since the Gilded Age has the prospect of wholesale political corruption been more likely. Where is Upton Sinclair now that we need him?
Poor O-man, he tries to save the elites from themselves and they don't get it. The last shreds of legitimacy of the political system have been buried by the supreme irony of the Supreme Court's enabling the corporate elites to bury the notion of a level playing field in terms of political contributions. This may have the beneficial effect of allowing the peasantry to suspect both major parties of being the same...bought. It now becomes a question of how to maintain the fiction of voter and citizen input into the process. O-man seems to perceive the threat of mass disaffection on the part of the voters, and he is rapidly mobilizing the circus team that got him elected in an effort to make it appear that he is ready to stand up to the malefactors of wealth...like the guys in his cabinet and at the Treasury Department.
The problem that O'man has is reality: the unemployed and the mortgage foreclosures and the lack of job creation and the wars and the corporate bonus pools announced by his friends on Wall Street and in hedge fund land. Still, it isn't Haiti. I feel so blessed that I am not in....
I am gratetful to the Urban Dictionary for the term Disaster Porn.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/opinion
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Saturday, December 26, 2009
End of Year, World Still with Us
From within the observation tower atop my massive physique, I was startled to realize that I was still with the world too. Unlike choosing my daily sartorial splendor, facing the unknowns of economic, political and existential crisis almost excites me (perhaps, a call for help). I have no doubt that the ongoing collapse of the American empire and the disarray that portends for all aspects of American power will impact me personally....no more cheap Mongolian Cashmere sweaters...just one of the unthinkable shocks to my sense of well-being. Then there is the terrorist media/ entertainment noise machine that tells me that H1N1 and various flesh eating strep infections are waiting for me. I have watched friends turn into infectious medical commentators, Johnny Appleseeds of disinfection...gaily spraying Lysol as they go about their daily routines. The pharmacy has become my new library and armory. I read every sign posted for my benefit: "H1N1 shots here," Yes, they care about us. It is comforting and I wonder how much my pension plan has invested in drug companies and Kleenex. We must soldier on!
Since I have turned 65, I now see myself as a profit center for the health care industry. I am worth more alive than dead to a host of health care providers and related businesses so long as I have Medicare and am showing vital signs for medical billing. This realization has given me a sense of empowerment. I am worth millions...sort of...like, if I were to have to replace some hips, maybe do a computerized hearing aid or two and have a couple of knee replacements. See what I mean? So, staying healthy has become the perverse way of sticking it to the ghouls of the heath care industry. I hate to think that moderation may have a place in my life. So it goes.
I have given up on mental health and I am saving a ton of money. My neurosis and I have become one. Let that sink in. It is not enlightenment that I have achieved, just looking the realization that I , like Popeye, am what I am. Uhmmmm.
These warm fuzzy feelings in no way release me from the obligation to rage that the excess of moral cowardice, greed and reckless evil that works it way through the political system. I hope you will join me and enjoy another year of chaos and venality in living color....the world as it spins.
Since I have turned 65, I now see myself as a profit center for the health care industry. I am worth more alive than dead to a host of health care providers and related businesses so long as I have Medicare and am showing vital signs for medical billing. This realization has given me a sense of empowerment. I am worth millions...sort of...like, if I were to have to replace some hips, maybe do a computerized hearing aid or two and have a couple of knee replacements. See what I mean? So, staying healthy has become the perverse way of sticking it to the ghouls of the heath care industry. I hate to think that moderation may have a place in my life. So it goes.
I have given up on mental health and I am saving a ton of money. My neurosis and I have become one. Let that sink in. It is not enlightenment that I have achieved, just looking the realization that I , like Popeye, am what I am. Uhmmmm.
These warm fuzzy feelings in no way release me from the obligation to rage that the excess of moral cowardice, greed and reckless evil that works it way through the political system. I hope you will join me and enjoy another year of chaos and venality in living color....the world as it spins.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
The Audacity of Nope: Now More Than Ever
Nope, we are not going to drink the Obama cool aid. The delusional quality of the surge speech, 1 December, was masked by a supremely well delivered address (all the more frightening as the style covered the lack of logic and substance) harkening back to the rhetorical heights of the Kennedy presidency. Obama is no George W. Bush and yet he calls us to national unity after he acknowledges the apparent lack of consensus about his proposed expansion of the war in AFPAK lands. He stated the obvious: we have a weak economy, an over-stressed military, and a very sceptical public, tired of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So he calls for that which he has just admitted doesn't exist and cannot as long as people assess the facts in the real world.
We were not told how he would pay for the expanded war while he also needs to pay for health care and rebuilding the national infrastructure. The states are collapsing under the weight of lost revenues and unemployment numbers not seen in a quarter of a century.
He and his advisors have conveniently put aside the counterinsurgency doctrine manual written by the very generals running the two wars currently under way. The numbers of allied troops needed to clear and hold a country the size of Afghanistan would be in the range of 630,000. The doctrine did not fit the political situation so the doctrine mysteriously changed. Just as the numbers that were presented to the Bush administration by the Joint Chiefs in the run up to Iraq were deemed too high: ergo, the numbers change and the strategy is built on rosy projections of allied and indigenous troops joining the fight to hold key cites and choke-points along the southern border with Pakistan.
The idea that the enemy will react to this incremental pressure with a number of counter moves has seemed to escape those in Obamaland. Winter is upon the mountainous regions of Afghanistan, and military operations will be at a virtual standstill until the spring of next year. It would be especially ominous if the insurgency continue the fight during the winter. We are still seeing plenty of fighting and it is December. With more Americans to shoot and material to loot and blow up, the opportunities for high profile attacks go way up....remember the Tet Offensive....of course not. Force protection, i.e. soldiers protecting soldiers, becomes an ever bigger issue as the U.S. military presence is enhanced. The Taliban know that the American public is sceptical about the war...A Tet-like offensive in several areas at once could see our casualties go from eight a week into the hundreds. The enemy has patience; it is their land and their tribal networks we seek to overcome. Obama did not address any of the possible options of a counter attack by the Taliban...at a time of their choosing.
The speech Tuesday night was a classic of imperial newspeak. Obama stated that America is not an imperialist power in the classic sense. With over 450 major bases and hundreds more installations around the world, with a navy that is larger than the next three navies combined and a military budget that is larger than that of the entire EU, Russia, and China's defense budgets combined...why would anyone think that the United States posed a potential or actual threat to them? Stephen M. Walt in Foreign Policy has added up a conservative score card for American causalities versus Muslims killed by American actions. The numbers for the past 30 years are 10,325 Americans killed and 288,000 Muslims killed (see http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/11/30 ). You want to know why they hate us? Read this piece and think about the kind of firepower and carnage that is about to descend upon Afghanistan.
Obama is going to be a one term president for all the wrong reasons. Had he withdrawn the troops and lost the next election, he would have a place of honor in American history; this move will mark him as just another spineless political opportunist who played at being a leader without truly being one.
We were not told how he would pay for the expanded war while he also needs to pay for health care and rebuilding the national infrastructure. The states are collapsing under the weight of lost revenues and unemployment numbers not seen in a quarter of a century.
He and his advisors have conveniently put aside the counterinsurgency doctrine manual written by the very generals running the two wars currently under way. The numbers of allied troops needed to clear and hold a country the size of Afghanistan would be in the range of 630,000. The doctrine did not fit the political situation so the doctrine mysteriously changed. Just as the numbers that were presented to the Bush administration by the Joint Chiefs in the run up to Iraq were deemed too high: ergo, the numbers change and the strategy is built on rosy projections of allied and indigenous troops joining the fight to hold key cites and choke-points along the southern border with Pakistan.
The idea that the enemy will react to this incremental pressure with a number of counter moves has seemed to escape those in Obamaland. Winter is upon the mountainous regions of Afghanistan, and military operations will be at a virtual standstill until the spring of next year. It would be especially ominous if the insurgency continue the fight during the winter. We are still seeing plenty of fighting and it is December. With more Americans to shoot and material to loot and blow up, the opportunities for high profile attacks go way up....remember the Tet Offensive....of course not. Force protection, i.e. soldiers protecting soldiers, becomes an ever bigger issue as the U.S. military presence is enhanced. The Taliban know that the American public is sceptical about the war...A Tet-like offensive in several areas at once could see our casualties go from eight a week into the hundreds. The enemy has patience; it is their land and their tribal networks we seek to overcome. Obama did not address any of the possible options of a counter attack by the Taliban...at a time of their choosing.
The speech Tuesday night was a classic of imperial newspeak. Obama stated that America is not an imperialist power in the classic sense. With over 450 major bases and hundreds more installations around the world, with a navy that is larger than the next three navies combined and a military budget that is larger than that of the entire EU, Russia, and China's defense budgets combined...why would anyone think that the United States posed a potential or actual threat to them? Stephen M. Walt in Foreign Policy has added up a conservative score card for American causalities versus Muslims killed by American actions. The numbers for the past 30 years are 10,325 Americans killed and 288,000 Muslims killed (see http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/11/30 ). You want to know why they hate us? Read this piece and think about the kind of firepower and carnage that is about to descend upon Afghanistan.
Obama is going to be a one term president for all the wrong reasons. Had he withdrawn the troops and lost the next election, he would have a place of honor in American history; this move will mark him as just another spineless political opportunist who played at being a leader without truly being one.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Ray Charles, Health Care and the Spiral Downward
Our recent absence from the blogosphere is over. I have been catching up on my growing irritation with the Bama and his travelling circus. Cornel West put his finger on it ( Ray Charles coming up) in a New Yorker interview with David Remnick this week (Nov.2,2009). West said that he was impressed by the "spectacle" mastery of the President, Brother Barack. West loved the spectacle, but warned in Yoda like tones,"...in the end, even spectacle has to deal with the darkness. That's where the Blues man comes in." Of course, when talking about The Brother, with brother West, allusions to Jazz are never far away. But, it is hard to grove to anything in a bulletproof vest. Had West talked about being "black and blue" it might have made more sense given the state of the President's political agenda and the policy misfires that have been as frequent as a July 4th celebration on The Mall.
When think about our first Black/White President, I have been guided by a Ray Charles "Anthology" CD that resonated with the words of brother West. The track,"I Don't Need No Doctor" and "That Lucky Old Sun" were buzzing around in my brain as the non-health care, opt out-public option for almost no one bill was put forward by the Senate Majority Leader ( a misnomer of the first order). Ray needs love to heal him in his "I Don't Need No Doctor." If the insurance industry gets its way, that is the only thing any of will have to rely on for health care...
Plans to tax health acre benefits are in the same bone headed and heartless category as was the taxing of tuition remission benefits...socially regressive and put forward by Democratic administrations. Brother West has got to be singing the Blues over this one. As the screws are tightening on the poor and the middling classes, the endless work Day is accelerated by technologically niffy productivity tools. There's no place now that one may not work with the help of the electronic yoke around one's neck.
The compulsion to work, to check to response to check yet again and empty the emails....Sex offenders only wear ankle bracelets. The rest of us are faced with Blue Tooth, I-Pods, net books, notebooks, thumb drives and ten's of thousands of helpful applications that we do not have time to learn how to use because we are just trying to keep up with the storm of real tie info that may be useless anyway do to the push to get news out there 24/7. So Ray's critique of the work world of the sharecropper has morphed into the electronic sweatshop. The lash unemployment and global competition now substitute for the overseers whip....lose the family heath plan and have to go home and announce that. It is terrifying and almost universal in keeping the worker bees buzzing. Mr. Sun is lucky just playing in that sky all day...for sure.
I feel for Cornel West as he tries to stay honest while the show is already over and the failure is across the spectrum of domestic and foreign policy issues. Two wars, domestic "recovery" without employment, and the states cutting programs and services. The blessing is that people are stunned, scared and drugged...if they have insurance.
Have a groovy day,
Mr. Sun
When think about our first Black/White President, I have been guided by a Ray Charles "Anthology" CD that resonated with the words of brother West. The track,"I Don't Need No Doctor" and "That Lucky Old Sun" were buzzing around in my brain as the non-health care, opt out-public option for almost no one bill was put forward by the Senate Majority Leader ( a misnomer of the first order). Ray needs love to heal him in his "I Don't Need No Doctor." If the insurance industry gets its way, that is the only thing any of will have to rely on for health care...
Plans to tax health acre benefits are in the same bone headed and heartless category as was the taxing of tuition remission benefits...socially regressive and put forward by Democratic administrations. Brother West has got to be singing the Blues over this one. As the screws are tightening on the poor and the middling classes, the endless work Day is accelerated by technologically niffy productivity tools. There's no place now that one may not work with the help of the electronic yoke around one's neck.
The compulsion to work, to check to response to check yet again and empty the emails....Sex offenders only wear ankle bracelets. The rest of us are faced with Blue Tooth, I-Pods, net books, notebooks, thumb drives and ten's of thousands of helpful applications that we do not have time to learn how to use because we are just trying to keep up with the storm of real tie info that may be useless anyway do to the push to get news out there 24/7. So Ray's critique of the work world of the sharecropper has morphed into the electronic sweatshop. The lash unemployment and global competition now substitute for the overseers whip....lose the family heath plan and have to go home and announce that. It is terrifying and almost universal in keeping the worker bees buzzing. Mr. Sun is lucky just playing in that sky all day...for sure.
I feel for Cornel West as he tries to stay honest while the show is already over and the failure is across the spectrum of domestic and foreign policy issues. Two wars, domestic "recovery" without employment, and the states cutting programs and services. The blessing is that people are stunned, scared and drugged...if they have insurance.
Have a groovy day,
Mr. Sun
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Kennedy Still Dead as Press Corps Perspective
Yes, it's true that Teddy was never involved in the assassination of a foreign leader like brother John was with Diem of Vietnam or Bobby and his hit men going after Castro. He had a mishap with Mary Jo. Still, she was not a head of state and it didn't seem to be intentional.
The "liberal lion" stayed within a party that played along with the destruction of the regulatory system that protected the financial system, allowed for the worst disparities of income since the 1920's and couldn't get a decent health care bill through the Congress for 50 years.
I know I'm missing something here. The bullshit being shovelled by everyone from George Will to Keith Obermann just stuns me. Had Kennedy lead the fight for a real democratic party as in social democratic party, we might have someone to miss. As it is, he was just another player on the team that rules this country and ruins it; the torch is passed to one or another party hack: what is the difference to the average citizen?
The "liberal lion" stayed within a party that played along with the destruction of the regulatory system that protected the financial system, allowed for the worst disparities of income since the 1920's and couldn't get a decent health care bill through the Congress for 50 years.
I know I'm missing something here. The bullshit being shovelled by everyone from George Will to Keith Obermann just stuns me. Had Kennedy lead the fight for a real democratic party as in social democratic party, we might have someone to miss. As it is, he was just another player on the team that rules this country and ruins it; the torch is passed to one or another party hack: what is the difference to the average citizen?
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Obama and His Advisors
You just have to wonder: what planet do these fools live on? recent news story reported that Obama and advisers were surprised by the course of the health care debate. Why would you admit to be that stupid or naive or both.
The strength of the Obama aura was it 's glow of calm confidence and competence. "Yes we can," was the short version of, " We are so smart and well meaning and cute that we can't be stopped. We have truth and justice on our side." Anyone who was watching as Obama's transition team started to play the old game of going to the same golden Rolodex for candidates for political appointments, saw the early signs of trouble in Camelot II.
The reality that now faces us is the following: There is no new Democratic coalition around any shared agenda. Obama has alienated his loyal liberal base and shown a total lack of understanding of how to drive a democratic agenda to reshape the nation after the chaos of the Bush years and the lawless plundering of financial system by Wall Street and it's Congressional helpers.
To say that there is an exhaustion of ideas is to miss the point; there is a pervasive fear of systemic change so strong that a minor reform needed to stabilize the health care system is seen as the road to socialism: when it is the road to reestablishing the legitimacy of the two party system; the political leadership on both sides are too stupid to see that; worse, they see it and can't make it happen.
What now? The irrationality of the debate around health care shows how fragmented and disorganized are the elites in this country; there are economic, national security and elites preservation issues here and there is nada in the way of focused and managed debate. If the Democrats fall apart over health care and the mob mentality created and managed by the Republicans fosters more anxiety and disorder to further destabilize Obama's Office, we will see citizen activism that may not be pretty...Just in case you need to have an image of not pretty, see clips of Congressional town meetings.
Currently, the press is hoping that the mini bubble of the stock market will make us all feel better and wish ourselves out of this depression we are in. There is absolutely nothing to the numbers that gives any indication that consumers will start any kind of rebound...ergo, there is no recovery on the horizon. The massive number of resets on home mortgages and commercial properties in distress make any "green shoots" argument sound just plain stupid. The Fed. Reserve has been manipulating the markets to prop up the faux rally and some financial journalists have actually noticed that fact.
So, go to your A/C machine and sit in front of it; try not to melt down with the empire.
love always
The strength of the Obama aura was it 's glow of calm confidence and competence. "Yes we can," was the short version of, " We are so smart and well meaning and cute that we can't be stopped. We have truth and justice on our side." Anyone who was watching as Obama's transition team started to play the old game of going to the same golden Rolodex for candidates for political appointments, saw the early signs of trouble in Camelot II.
The reality that now faces us is the following: There is no new Democratic coalition around any shared agenda. Obama has alienated his loyal liberal base and shown a total lack of understanding of how to drive a democratic agenda to reshape the nation after the chaos of the Bush years and the lawless plundering of financial system by Wall Street and it's Congressional helpers.
To say that there is an exhaustion of ideas is to miss the point; there is a pervasive fear of systemic change so strong that a minor reform needed to stabilize the health care system is seen as the road to socialism: when it is the road to reestablishing the legitimacy of the two party system; the political leadership on both sides are too stupid to see that; worse, they see it and can't make it happen.
What now? The irrationality of the debate around health care shows how fragmented and disorganized are the elites in this country; there are economic, national security and elites preservation issues here and there is nada in the way of focused and managed debate. If the Democrats fall apart over health care and the mob mentality created and managed by the Republicans fosters more anxiety and disorder to further destabilize Obama's Office, we will see citizen activism that may not be pretty...Just in case you need to have an image of not pretty, see clips of Congressional town meetings.
Currently, the press is hoping that the mini bubble of the stock market will make us all feel better and wish ourselves out of this depression we are in. There is absolutely nothing to the numbers that gives any indication that consumers will start any kind of rebound...ergo, there is no recovery on the horizon. The massive number of resets on home mortgages and commercial properties in distress make any "green shoots" argument sound just plain stupid. The Fed. Reserve has been manipulating the markets to prop up the faux rally and some financial journalists have actually noticed that fact.
So, go to your A/C machine and sit in front of it; try not to melt down with the empire.
love always
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Counting Words and Slow News Day at Politico
What gives with the kids at Politico? My eyes landed on an article"Obama's words downplay wars"(8/13/09). Okay, true enough and let's talk about that issue...Noooo, instead we get this bean counting, well word counting nonsense that reads like a term paper from a graduate school linguistics seminar.
Guess what kids, Obama is leading the nation into an endless war, a grave yard for every empire that has tried to control the tribal groups of Afghanistan. We would be better off dropping money on them....it would be cheaper than sending troops. Gary Schroen's book, First In is a model for how to deal with Afghanistan and it warlords...it's all about family and feuds and funds.
Meanwhile, the polysyllabic men of Politico refine their their software programs to reveal that Obama has talked more about domestic issues than he has about foreign wars we are losing. Dah...wonder why that could be...as he about to get the bad news from his new military team...ie, this is going to cost you (us) big time. It is pretty obvious that Obama is about to end any chance for reform at home when he expands the war overseas. The Dogs, blue and otherwise in Congress will use the expanding war requirements as a way of strangling reform on every front at home....the real war is against the poor and uninsured, the unemployed and others who seek aid from their government...financial Taliban for sure!
E are about to get a kick in the teeth from this President that will lay to rest any notions of serious intent on his part to pull back from imperial adventures overseas. So, dudes at Politico put the grad. seminar papers away, cover the story, save some lives maybe.
http://www.politico.com/
Guess what kids, Obama is leading the nation into an endless war, a grave yard for every empire that has tried to control the tribal groups of Afghanistan. We would be better off dropping money on them....it would be cheaper than sending troops. Gary Schroen's book, First In is a model for how to deal with Afghanistan and it warlords...it's all about family and feuds and funds.
Meanwhile, the polysyllabic men of Politico refine their their software programs to reveal that Obama has talked more about domestic issues than he has about foreign wars we are losing. Dah...wonder why that could be...as he about to get the bad news from his new military team...ie, this is going to cost you (us) big time. It is pretty obvious that Obama is about to end any chance for reform at home when he expands the war overseas. The Dogs, blue and otherwise in Congress will use the expanding war requirements as a way of strangling reform on every front at home....the real war is against the poor and uninsured, the unemployed and others who seek aid from their government...financial Taliban for sure!
E are about to get a kick in the teeth from this President that will lay to rest any notions of serious intent on his part to pull back from imperial adventures overseas. So, dudes at Politico put the grad. seminar papers away, cover the story, save some lives maybe.
http://www.politico.com/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
