O.K., we can piss and moan all we want about how both political parties are in corporate America's hip-pocket and they are. And we can stomp up and down, thump our chests and yell we're not going to vote or we're going to vote Green, libertarian or socialist.
And it won't do a bit of good.
Why? Because for the last sixty years or so the "free market" school of economic thought has been in the ascendancy and it doesn't look as if it is about to be totally discredited at any time in the immediate future. Oh, sure we've just had this "great recession," but the coordinator class fucks who got hurt by it the least are already seeing an up-tick in their stock portfolios so no biggie. Right? Newsweek magazine says "we're back" so it must be true.
And the Investor class bastards who were the root cause of the "great recession of 2008" are reaping even greater financial rewards than their coordinator class employees, life is good again.
So what if a bunch of unwashed, Jesus-loving working class schnooks are unemployed? Keeps the cost of labor down. And through years of clever and not-so-subtle propaganda the dumb fucks of the laboring middle classes are at each other's throats and in the mood to burn down Washington, D.C. Life is great for the Investor class and its coordinator class lapdogs. They are after all modern America's philosopher-kings.
And as all good philosopher-kings they have concocted a noble lie that a "free market" economy is something akin to a force of nature. To the four forces that hold the universe together, gravity, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces, add the "free market." As I interpret this noble lie, the "free market" economy works independent of human control much like gravity say. Its effects can be observed and quantified but human intervention to change the course and behavior of the "free market" are doomed to failure. The best way for mere humans to interact with the "free market" is to let it work its magic with as little human intervention as possible.
At least that's what these fuckers tell us. They know its bullshit. They know that the economy does not work like a gigantic farmers' market. They know that their profits go up when competition--that catch phrase of the capitalist catechism which if we groundlings chant it enough will produce low, low prices-- is stifled.
And it has come to pass, as blowback from the Cold War, that our university schools of business are now mere seminars for the ordination of priests to the "free market." Look at recent US Treasury Secretaries from the current Tim Geithner and Bush's Hank "Wall Street Bailout" Paulson to Nixon-Fords' William Simon whose quotation, "There is only one social system that reflects the sovereignty of the individual: the free-market, or capitalist, system[,]" could have come from the pen of Ayn Rand.
America's middle classes are just fucked until we can demystify and demythologize the "free market" and its high priesthood.
Unfortunately the any ideas of an alternative to the "free market" from the ideologically pure left comes down from a gaggle of tenured university fine arts and language professors, trust fund babies, the true leisure class of the Investor class, and a semi-repentant Reagan-era Assistant-Treasury Secretary, himself the architect of "Reagan-omics!" For the most part it is warmed over sophomore year "Radical Students Brigade" Marxism, sans dictatorship of the proletariat.
The tea bagger far right is even more dismal as it is stupid in calling for even fewer federal regulations over corporate power then is already the case.
Look, I have no problem with capitalism if it is kept small and manageable. Nor do I have any problem with aspects of socialist economic principals operating in industries and services which effect the lives of the vast majority of the public, i.e. the electric grid, medicine, education, basic transportation and communications. What I do have a problem with is the "free market" ruling our lives as if it were religion. Economies are neither forces of nature or divinely inspired. They are the most human of inventions after religion itself.
We need to steer a middle course between the Scylla of the marshmallow-Marxism of the ideologically pure left and the wild "free market" Charybdis of the Randian tea bagger right.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Found in the email inbox
This is an email I received from an otherwise nice lady. They only real thing we have in common is our heart conditions, cardiomyopathy, and certain cardiac drugs we take. I've never met her in person though I do know she is a few years older than I, is not college educated, is on Social Security and Medicare and was in sales and marketing before retiring.
THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER(No the original moral is :"It is best to prepare for the days of necessity.")
This one is a little different ...
Two Different Versions ...
Two Different Morals
OLD VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE OLD STORY:
Be responsible for yourself!
I think the racist and classist subtext is clear. Ants are suburban white boys and girls, grasshoppers are every one else, especially blacks since "spiders" seems code for Mexicans.
MODERN VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.
CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green...'
ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, We shall overcome. Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray for thegrasshopper's sake.
President Obama condems the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight.
Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of
the summer.
The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ants food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house,
crumbles around them because thegrasshopper doesn't maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.
The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it.
MORAL OF THE STORY:
Be careful how you vote in 2010.
Ive sent this to you because I believe that you are an ant not a grasshopper!
Make sure that you pass this on to other ants.
Dont bother sending it on to any grasshoppers because they wouldnt
understand it, anyway
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
The whipped American worker
Mr. Lambert works for Massey Energy at the Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, WV, the site of a suspected methane explosion that killed 25 of Lambert's fellow workers.
Mr. Lambert was interviewed by Harry Smith on CBS's "Early Show" this morning. Here's what he had to say:
"We know it's gassy coal," he said. "We know that when - you're gonna hit methane. You don't know where it comes from. Could come from a crack. Could come anywhere. All it takes is a spark. I can't see how they can point a finger at just anybody. It's just methane."
Does he feel Massey, whose safety record has come under scrutiny, is a safe operator?
"They treat me alright," Lambert replied. "There's no safe mines. I don't care where you go. You're not gonna find a safe mine. They could do whatever they want - make all the laws.
"When a man goes (into a mine), he knows that could be it. … You stick your head between two rocks to make a living, you know you're taking a chance. These 25 guys … they died for a cause. Every time you turn your lights on at home … you should think about them guys.
"Everybody overlooks West Virginia. They never think about coal. We need coal. We gotta have coal. Ya gotta have it. Gotta have it. Bottom line - gotta have it."
The printed word cannot convey the impression of the contrived nature of Mr. Lambert's statement: These 25 guys … they died for a cause. Every time you turn your lights on at home … you should think about them guys. Wanton disregard for worker safety is the price we Americans pay for electric energy, eh, Mr. Lambert? Are your 25 dead co-workers martyrs for the American way-of-life, heroes of free market capitalism, not victims?
Mr. Lambert spoke quietly and resignedly when there should have been outrage. But the company, Massey Energy, that owns the mine in which he works and where 25 of his co-workers died was cited 458 time last year for safety violations. Thanks to Massey CEO Don Blankenship's political connections those were ignored, fines never paid. And yet according to Mr. Lambert, "They treat me alright."
I am sure Mr. Lambert is a patriotic American. Perhaps he is a veteran. I am sure he goes to church on Sundays, owns a pick up, maybe a fishing boat. His wife probably works and they have a mortgage to pay and young'ums to feed, cloth and school. I am also certain Mr. Lambert considers himself a rugged individualist who does not need a union boss leeching dues from his paycheck. So he kisses the hand that holds the whip.
What a sad commentary on the American worker. Not far from Montcoal, in 1921, 7,000 miners rose in rebellion against greedy mine-owners, their hired goons and corrupt state officials in the Battle of Blair Mountain for the right to unionize. Mr. Lambert may even have ancestors who fought at Blair Mountain but he is whipped, broken. He, like so many American workers, has accepted his fate as a fungible commodity, a thing to be thrown away like broken tool when it is no longer useful.
And so, once the dust is settled and all the bodies are brought to the surface and after all the funerals, Mr. Lambert and his whipped co-workers will put their heads between the rocks knowing full well they too could be free market martyrs.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
LTE: Des Moines Register
It is too bad the delicious irony of the up-coming fall elections is lost on the majority of Iowa's registered voters.
If polls are to believed Iowans, like Americans everywhere, are in an anti-incumbent, throw the rascals out mood. Yet if the Des Moines Register's Iowa poll is to be believed Iowans are ready and willing to return Republican Charles Grassley to the US Senate. Grassley is the consummate professional politician admitting in a viral Internet video that he has in fact suckled at the public's breast nearly all his adult life. Yet every six years the ultimate Washington insider since 1976 transforms himself into the Washington outsider while accepting the generous donations of pro-Republican lobbyists.
Of course Iowa Democratic Party chairman Michael Kieran, after a long and laborious search, has done boosted Grassley's chances by resurrecting the political career of the feckless Roxanne Conlin, she of 1980s Tax-Ann fame. To date neither Iowa's Green Party or Socialist Workers' Party or Tea Party activists of a libertarian bent have announced any candidates for US Senate. Iowa's voters are left with the usual choice between a Tweedle-Dee Democrat and a Tweedle-Dum Republican.
Paraphrasing Jimmy Carter's apt observation that America deserves government as good as its people from where I sit we are a very sorry lot indeed.
If polls are to believed Iowans, like Americans everywhere, are in an anti-incumbent, throw the rascals out mood. Yet if the Des Moines Register's Iowa poll is to be believed Iowans are ready and willing to return Republican Charles Grassley to the US Senate. Grassley is the consummate professional politician admitting in a viral Internet video that he has in fact suckled at the public's breast nearly all his adult life. Yet every six years the ultimate Washington insider since 1976 transforms himself into the Washington outsider while accepting the generous donations of pro-Republican lobbyists.
Of course Iowa Democratic Party chairman Michael Kieran, after a long and laborious search, has done boosted Grassley's chances by resurrecting the political career of the feckless Roxanne Conlin, she of 1980s Tax-Ann fame. To date neither Iowa's Green Party or Socialist Workers' Party or Tea Party activists of a libertarian bent have announced any candidates for US Senate. Iowa's voters are left with the usual choice between a Tweedle-Dee Democrat and a Tweedle-Dum Republican.
Paraphrasing Jimmy Carter's apt observation that America deserves government as good as its people from where I sit we are a very sorry lot indeed.
Response to op-ed "Barack Obama, I Want a Divorce"
Response to op-ed "Barack Obama, I Want a Divorce", by Clancy Sigal posted March 20, 2010 at Alternet.org.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, haw...We are truly fucked.
Dumbass leftists, progressives, liberals, Greens or what have you who stand in opposition to the corporatist evil personified in today's Republican Party, like the Judean rebels squabbling among themselves when Titus was at the gates of Jerusalem, are prepared to commit elective hari-kari in the fall and hand control of the federal legislative branch back to a cadre of anti-government used car salesmen.
Boy, that'll teach'em.
Look at the polls, dumbasses. In California the corrupt Republican eBay ex-CEO Meg Whitman has pulled even or ahead of Jerry Brown, née Governor Moonbeam, in the race for the governorship. Generic polls show Republicans in many competitive races leading or tied with incumbent Democrats http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dcnow/2010/03/polls-show-gop-gaining-in-election-year.html.
And yet the ideologically pure left is ready, willing and able, in the name of ideological purity, to hand Congress to these Reagan-worshiping, corporate ass-kissers. I do not understand the left's suicidal tendencies.
I mean, sure I'm as fed up with Democratic sell outs as much as the next guy. But I fear the Republican used car salesmen even more. The used car salesmen of the GOP are a threat to our democracy. The Republican used car salesmen are a danger to the republic! And yet the small-d democrats of the ideologically pure left are ready to hand the keys to the US Capitol over to Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.
That's really fucking smart.
That'll solve everything! Look, leftist dumbasses, if you intend on running insurgent third-party candidates in why not do so in "safe" Republican US Congressional districts? Quite running spoiler candidates in close Congressional and Senate races. What the fuck does that prove? Your leftist shit don't stink?
I'll take the lesser of two evils any day. Sorry.
To me it only makes sense to kill, to destroy, to annihilate the great evil first then pick off the lesser evil at one's leisure. Evidently that logic doesn't register with America's ideologically pure left.
In spite of the polls now there is a real opportunity to irrevocably hurt the Republican Party in the fall elections. What Greens or Socialist Workers or whatever must do is support and vote for progressive Democrats in primary challenges in "safe" Democratic district and take on reactionary Republicans head-on in "safe" Republican US Congressional districts where the establishment Democratic Party usually offers only token resistance.
But the usually knee-jerk leftist reaction is: "Holy shit! Dennis Kucinich voted for the pro-corporate HCB! Let's get a real progressive in there." So the Greens or some other leftist outfit runs a spoiler candidate and when a used car salesman of a Republican ousts Kucinich we're all wondering how that could happen.
Unfortunately since the ideologically pure left refuses to pull its head out its ass the only thing I can do is hold my nose and vote Democratic.
Like I always say, paraphrasing Jimmy Carter, America deserves government as good as its people. And from my perspective we're one sorry lot.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, haw...We are truly fucked.
Dumbass leftists, progressives, liberals, Greens or what have you who stand in opposition to the corporatist evil personified in today's Republican Party, like the Judean rebels squabbling among themselves when Titus was at the gates of Jerusalem, are prepared to commit elective hari-kari in the fall and hand control of the federal legislative branch back to a cadre of anti-government used car salesmen.
Boy, that'll teach'em.
Look at the polls, dumbasses. In California the corrupt Republican eBay ex-CEO Meg Whitman has pulled even or ahead of Jerry Brown, née Governor Moonbeam, in the race for the governorship. Generic polls show Republicans in many competitive races leading or tied with incumbent Democrats http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dcnow/2010/03/polls-show-gop-gaining-in-election-year.html.
And yet the ideologically pure left is ready, willing and able, in the name of ideological purity, to hand Congress to these Reagan-worshiping, corporate ass-kissers. I do not understand the left's suicidal tendencies.
I mean, sure I'm as fed up with Democratic sell outs as much as the next guy. But I fear the Republican used car salesmen even more. The used car salesmen of the GOP are a threat to our democracy. The Republican used car salesmen are a danger to the republic! And yet the small-d democrats of the ideologically pure left are ready to hand the keys to the US Capitol over to Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.
That's really fucking smart.
That'll solve everything! Look, leftist dumbasses, if you intend on running insurgent third-party candidates in why not do so in "safe" Republican US Congressional districts? Quite running spoiler candidates in close Congressional and Senate races. What the fuck does that prove? Your leftist shit don't stink?
I'll take the lesser of two evils any day. Sorry.
To me it only makes sense to kill, to destroy, to annihilate the great evil first then pick off the lesser evil at one's leisure. Evidently that logic doesn't register with America's ideologically pure left.
In spite of the polls now there is a real opportunity to irrevocably hurt the Republican Party in the fall elections. What Greens or Socialist Workers or whatever must do is support and vote for progressive Democrats in primary challenges in "safe" Democratic district and take on reactionary Republicans head-on in "safe" Republican US Congressional districts where the establishment Democratic Party usually offers only token resistance.
But the usually knee-jerk leftist reaction is: "Holy shit! Dennis Kucinich voted for the pro-corporate HCB! Let's get a real progressive in there." So the Greens or some other leftist outfit runs a spoiler candidate and when a used car salesman of a Republican ousts Kucinich we're all wondering how that could happen.
Unfortunately since the ideologically pure left refuses to pull its head out its ass the only thing I can do is hold my nose and vote Democratic.
Like I always say, paraphrasing Jimmy Carter, America deserves government as good as its people. And from my perspective we're one sorry lot.
Monday, March 01, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Trento’s Take: Fox News Can’t Upset Murdoch’s Saudi Prince
Last month I appeared on Fox News Network’s morning show, Fox and Friends, to talk about airline security. Normally such appearances end up as clips on the Fox News Web site. Granted, the Steve Doocy interview was hardly groundbreaking, but that is seldom a criterion for feeding the beast that is a major cable network news Web site. Curiously, I was quoted in a written piece on the site that got a fair amount of pick-up, but no video.
It was not until a few days later that I learned what may have been behind the absence of a video clip on the Web site. I had said to Doocy that Saudi Arabian money was still financing Al Qaeda. Doocy did not react to my comment. But ten days later I learned that Fox’s parent company, News Corporation, was, at the time of my interview, negotiating with a Saudi prince to vastly increase his stake in the company.
Posted using ShareThis
It was not until a few days later that I learned what may have been behind the absence of a video clip on the Web site. I had said to Doocy that Saudi Arabian money was still financing Al Qaeda. Doocy did not react to my comment. But ten days later I learned that Fox’s parent company, News Corporation, was, at the time of my interview, negotiating with a Saudi prince to vastly increase his stake in the company.
Posted using ShareThis
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Monday, February 08, 2010
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Monday, February 01, 2010
Move Your Politicians
In the Nineteenth Century populism was characterized by first anger and then legislative action against banks, monopolies and the railroads. Among the leaders of the populist movement were Democrat William Jennings Bryan, socialist Eugene V. Debs and Republicans Robert La Follette and Theodore Roosevelt.
The true evil genius of today's banksters, monopolists and investors is that through organizations they bank roll, Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, The Cato Institute and so on, and especially their control of the "mainstream media" featuring right wing mouthpieces like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh populism has been turned on its head. Through decades of propaganda, beginning as far back as the Nineteen Fifties, working class resentment at the inherent unfairness and inequality of the capitalist system has been refocused and reframed on the one institution which has the power to control the excesses of Wall Street, the federal government.
Moving accounts from one of the "too big to fail" maga banks into community banks and local credit unions will send a message to Wall Street, especially if the Wall Street investors see their profit margins decline. However this will be only a temporary palliative for the banksters will merely alter their method of doing business for a time to recapture business lost to CUs and small community banks, then it will be back to business as usual.
The reason governments exist at all is to control the economy. This government has shirked that responsibility for far too long.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
The true evil genius of today's banksters, monopolists and investors is that through organizations they bank roll, Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, The Cato Institute and so on, and especially their control of the "mainstream media" featuring right wing mouthpieces like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh populism has been turned on its head. Through decades of propaganda, beginning as far back as the Nineteen Fifties, working class resentment at the inherent unfairness and inequality of the capitalist system has been refocused and reframed on the one institution which has the power to control the excesses of Wall Street, the federal government.
Moving accounts from one of the "too big to fail" maga banks into community banks and local credit unions will send a message to Wall Street, especially if the Wall Street investors see their profit margins decline. However this will be only a temporary palliative for the banksters will merely alter their method of doing business for a time to recapture business lost to CUs and small community banks, then it will be back to business as usual.
The reason governments exist at all is to control the economy. This government has shirked that responsibility for far too long.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Friday, January 29, 2010
New Osama Bin Laden Tape: Blasts US For Climate Change
You know, the guy's right that the US and the rest of the industrial nations are responsible for global warming.
That being said, however, Osama's latests statement feeds right into the teabaggers' paranoid and xenophobic feed-back loop that global warming is a hoax dreamed up by Al Gore to fleece patriotic Americans out of their hard-earned money.
And this many be paranoid on my part but I'm beginning to think Osama, al Qaida, the Saudi royal family and the Republican Party are all part of a conspiracy to keep the world hooked on oil.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Consortiumnews.com
Consortiumnews.com
Posted using ShareThis
Highlights:
Posted using ShareThis
Highlights:
From Nixon’s debacle, the Republicans learned important lessons, including their need to build a media infrastructure of their own to protect future Republican presidents from “another Watergate.” Nixon’s former Treasury Secretary Bill Simon took the lead in pulling together wealthy conservatives to invest in right-wing media and think tanks. [For details, see Lost History.]
The Left extracted an opposite lesson from Watergate. Feeling a false confidence that the mainstream news media would continue performing a watchdog role, progressives mostly dismantled what had been a thriving “underground” media of newspapers, magazines and radio stations, which had grown up amid the youthful opposition to the Vietnam War. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “The Left’s Media Miscalculation.”]
In the 1980s, the American Left followed a different path, ignoring the importance of having a media infrastructure that could get out its message, instead favoring vague concepts like “organizing” and “going back to the roots.” The Left embraced the bumper-sticker slogan, “think globally, act locally,” and abandoned the front lines of Washington's information wars..
What money the Left did spend on national politics was devoted heavily to “campaign finance reform,” pushing for laws and regulations that supposedly would limit special-interest donations given to political parties and candidates. While well intentioned, the logical flaw of this approach was that it limited what could be spent by politicians on campaigns but ignored the Right’s unrestricted – and unmatched – investment in media.
After Bush prevailed, Nader and his followers refused to accept any blame for the outcome, claiming instead that it was Gore’s fault for not winning his home state of Tennessee, or having a lousy recount strategy, or any number of other excuses.
It had become a trademark of the Left’s purists to almost never take responsibility for anything, but rather to assume the role of critic. They would typically find fault with whatever compromise the pragmatists judged necessary while pretending that the American people were ready to rally to the banner of radical change if only the Democrats would blow the bugle.
The reality was that many middle- and working-class Americans were now identifying with the Right’s anti-government “populism” -- as promoted by the pervasive right-wing media -- not with the Left’s unheard explanations for why government intervention was needed to address social ills.
Ironically, Ralph Nader, whose candidacy helped make the Roberts and Alito appointments possible, stepped forward to denounce the ruling, saying it “shreds the fabric of our already weakened democracy by allowing corporations to more completely dominate our corrupted electoral process.”
Nader’s solution was to propose a constitutional amendment that would “prevent corporate campaign contributions from commercializing our elections and drowning out the civic and political voices and values of citizens and voters.” However, Nader presented no practical way for such a constitutional amendment to be enacted.
Another irony of the expanding power of corporate money is that it will surely be disguised in “populist” garments meant to deceive simpleminded Americans who will think they are joining a movement to free the Republic from the threat of Big Government, when they will actually be handing the Republic over to corporate titans, including some fronting for foreign money.
And to top off this past week, Air America – after many stop-and-go moments – finally came crashing to earth, declaring bankruptcy and closing up shop.
Its demise was interpreted by some liberal pundits as a sign that progressives shouldn’t bother to invest in talk radio because progressives supposedly are too nuanced in their viewpoints, while talk radio is all about simplistic bombast.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
