While we were all asleep, the Tunisians (Barberry Pirates) set about having their own version of a Prague Spring. Let's hope the Tunisian version lasts longer than the Czech rebellion of 1968. But, the Tunisians did not reckon with the shock wave that they have sent across the Middle East.
It is obvious that the local conditions in the individual country dictates the shape of the expression that protest will take. Still, it is just plain fun to watch the people take to the streets and express their grievances in a mostly peaceful way: remarkable given the brutality of the regimes themselves.
The United States has been supportive of corrupt regimes in the region for most of the post WWII era. Together with the French and British, we have played the divide and rule game ; now we find ourselves looking for some way of getting on the side of the people in the streets. Wonder what our friends in Mossad are thinking?
We should not be naive and think that Egypt will go the way of a western style democracy. Remember, the best organized political force in the country besides the military is the Muslim Brotherhood. They are keeping a low profile. However, when the smoke clears the Brothers will be a major force in any government. Lots of luck to our State Department buddies working the crowds in Cairo!
Friday, January 28, 2011
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Violence There's Violence in America?
Dear Blogosphere:
I came out of my trance the other day to find the media chimps up in arms over the senseless shootings in Arizona. So, I sat back and turned the tube off and saved myself thousands of dollars by not putting my foot through the flat screen. There was also the consideration of the NFL playoffs coming along.
I guess I just asked myself about the "sensible" violence" that national leadership is dispensing around the world, the two wars in progress, the many covert operations going on in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. to say that politicians are self-serving and deluded is too obvious; the more entertaining spectacle is the media asking soul searching questions about the rhetorical climate of hate filled political speech...bla, bla, bla.
This country is at war with tens of millions of people around the world; our Congress funds a machine of violence to the tune of 600 plus billions of dollars a year: not counting the spooks, the additional monies for wars in supplemental appropriations and other monies disguised as foreign aid.
The chattering class is having a field day; after all, the Arizona shooting came at a low point in the weekly news cycle. There is a god for low ratings. So, we will be faced with the media condemning bad speech by bad politicians while the media virtually ignores Iraq and the other little wars we are in around the world. What utter self serving hypocrisy. The United States is the most violent advanced industrial society on earth. Have a nice day. Go Jets.
I came out of my trance the other day to find the media chimps up in arms over the senseless shootings in Arizona. So, I sat back and turned the tube off and saved myself thousands of dollars by not putting my foot through the flat screen. There was also the consideration of the NFL playoffs coming along.
I guess I just asked myself about the "sensible" violence" that national leadership is dispensing around the world, the two wars in progress, the many covert operations going on in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. to say that politicians are self-serving and deluded is too obvious; the more entertaining spectacle is the media asking soul searching questions about the rhetorical climate of hate filled political speech...bla, bla, bla.
This country is at war with tens of millions of people around the world; our Congress funds a machine of violence to the tune of 600 plus billions of dollars a year: not counting the spooks, the additional monies for wars in supplemental appropriations and other monies disguised as foreign aid.
The chattering class is having a field day; after all, the Arizona shooting came at a low point in the weekly news cycle. There is a god for low ratings. So, we will be faced with the media condemning bad speech by bad politicians while the media virtually ignores Iraq and the other little wars we are in around the world. What utter self serving hypocrisy. The United States is the most violent advanced industrial society on earth. Have a nice day. Go Jets.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Goldman Strikes Again
The apocalypse may be diverting your attention from the likes of Goldman Sachs. So, is it any surprise that Lloyd Blankfein's Black Amex Card was found near the broken pipe of the BP rig in the Gulf. Mo Dowd, a columnist for the NYtimes, said her sources at the White House told her that the President was really pissed about this revelation. "The President does not have a Black American Express card and he is THE Black American!" the aide pointed out.
No one seemed to care that the card was found at the disaster site. It is now pretty much taken for granted that Goldman Sachs will continue to be associated with world case calamities of all sorts well into the decade. The close correlation between government attacks on Goldman and various global catastrophes has been document by us. Haiti, the Icelandic volcano, and now the Gulf of Mexico is caput. Interesting timing, don't you think. The theological implications seem clear to me...Lloyd is doing the work of god. Lucky the Vatican doesn't have this kind of juice with the Chairman of Chairman in the shy. I may apply for a Templeton grant to work through my proof for the existence of Goldman Sachs.
No one seemed to care that the card was found at the disaster site. It is now pretty much taken for granted that Goldman Sachs will continue to be associated with world case calamities of all sorts well into the decade. The close correlation between government attacks on Goldman and various global catastrophes has been document by us. Haiti, the Icelandic volcano, and now the Gulf of Mexico is caput. Interesting timing, don't you think. The theological implications seem clear to me...Lloyd is doing the work of god. Lucky the Vatican doesn't have this kind of juice with the Chairman of Chairman in the shy. I may apply for a Templeton grant to work through my proof for the existence of Goldman Sachs.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
After a Long Winter's Nap
Say it isn't so! Al and Tipper are going their separate ways. Our heads spin, our hearts race...what's for dinner? Do to the miracles of public health and a healthy diet (look at Al) the Gores were in danger of mummifying after forty glorious years. There was no end in sight, no flu strain to help in the near future....They bit the bullet and separated the pets and the gold fish. Tipper gets the Pat Boone albums and Al gets the photos of himself in various phases of enlightenment. The official cover story is that they have just grown apart.
Yeah, I can buy that: as Al gets fatter and fatter, Tipper is farther and farther away. Who knew that saving the planet might require eating it a chunk at a time. The rumors about Al being attacked by a Japanese whaling ship remain unconfirmed at this moment. But, we have not seen Al in any swim suit photo ops lately. Could be waiting for the scars to heal or he is just sparring us the horror, the horror.
Well, enough of that. Oh yeah! Did you see that Dr. Krugman had himself quite worked up in his last column "the Pain Caucus"in the NYTimes.com May 30, 2010? Krugman lays out the very likely possibility for a double dip recession based upon the mutterings coming out of the mouths of various people at the IMF, OECD and other drab financiers. He can't believe his eyes and ears as there is a substantial call for putting the breaks on fiscal stimulus to fight a non existing problem at this time, inflation.
Krugman gives all the rational reasons why restricting growth now is a very bad idea for the world economy in the short and medium term. The inflicting of massive pain across many national boarders to solve a non existing issue raises the question of what is behind this rush to the edge of depression. This is an opportunity for finance capital to further weaken it's enemy the regulatory and welfare regimes of the EU, and other activist state players. The steady play on fears of inflationary pressures has produced panic in the halls of Congress and odd behavior on the part of the Germans (I guess that is not surprising) and the European Central bank. It appears that the Chinese are not playing the game that would reinforce the power of the markets to dictate terms to the EU. Still, Krugman doesn't see or he refuses to call it for what it is: financial capitalists trying to provoke a collapse of the welfare state system across the globe. The Krugman might warn them to be careful of what they wish for. Without the state in control, there is no guarantor for markets or peace. Fascinating, isn't it!
Yeah, I can buy that: as Al gets fatter and fatter, Tipper is farther and farther away. Who knew that saving the planet might require eating it a chunk at a time. The rumors about Al being attacked by a Japanese whaling ship remain unconfirmed at this moment. But, we have not seen Al in any swim suit photo ops lately. Could be waiting for the scars to heal or he is just sparring us the horror, the horror.
Well, enough of that. Oh yeah! Did you see that Dr. Krugman had himself quite worked up in his last column "the Pain Caucus"in the NYTimes.com May 30, 2010? Krugman lays out the very likely possibility for a double dip recession based upon the mutterings coming out of the mouths of various people at the IMF, OECD and other drab financiers. He can't believe his eyes and ears as there is a substantial call for putting the breaks on fiscal stimulus to fight a non existing problem at this time, inflation.
Krugman gives all the rational reasons why restricting growth now is a very bad idea for the world economy in the short and medium term. The inflicting of massive pain across many national boarders to solve a non existing issue raises the question of what is behind this rush to the edge of depression. This is an opportunity for finance capital to further weaken it's enemy the regulatory and welfare regimes of the EU, and other activist state players. The steady play on fears of inflationary pressures has produced panic in the halls of Congress and odd behavior on the part of the Germans (I guess that is not surprising) and the European Central bank. It appears that the Chinese are not playing the game that would reinforce the power of the markets to dictate terms to the EU. Still, Krugman doesn't see or he refuses to call it for what it is: financial capitalists trying to provoke a collapse of the welfare state system across the globe. The Krugman might warn them to be careful of what they wish for. Without the state in control, there is no guarantor for markets or peace. Fascinating, isn't it!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The Sky is Falling!
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
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, 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.
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