It's painfully well established that the freer the market is, the more wealth it produces. Thus, the more loot for the rulers. Thus Sweden is richer than North Korea (although, granted, heedless exploitation of abundant natural resources has a lot to do with  Sweden's "success" as well.)

But socialism provides a far more efficient means of extracting that wealth from the many for the benefit of the few - conducing to outright looting, all while actually convincing many if not most people that it's being done (why would it be?) for their own good.

One thing I've seen for years has been that the people who really rule us have long been caught in a manic-depressive frenzy:  swinging from wild-eyed optimism, that they'll soon exert total, unbreakable control over the populace and the planet; and utter, bleak despair that they're about to lose their power, privilege, and profits for good. Let's just say that for at least the last ten years I've seen nothing to contradict that.

Oddly, those opposite states promote the same behavior: our rulers getting all they can as quickly as they can.

Now the bipolar crisis has reached extreme frequency and amplitude. One sign of our rulers' rising madness is that they've now switched the dominant political rhetoric to socialist. Meaning they want to grab everything they can now. Because even the dimmest of them see the disaster they're steering us for.

It's not coincidental that "defense" spending, already bloated beyond reason, is actually increasing under the new sock-puppet administration: "social programs" and war (and what could be more socialist than war?) being the proven fastest conduits whereby wealth can be piped to the plutocrats.

That's also at the same time that, while generating plenty of smoke with "debate" over a penny-ante "bailout," the Federal Reserve has shipped trillions more dollars to the needy ultra-rich and powerful.

A personal observation: despite unprecedented highs in "defense" spending, none of my many friends in that industry seem to be benefiting from it. They're almost all facing cutbacks if not getting laid off themselves. Wherever all that loot's going, it isn't to them.

While I lack real evidence I suspect that might soon be seen across the board:  the money's bypassing the middlemen ("employees," "the poor") and going straight to its intended destination:  the pockets of the truly powerful.

Meanwhile, the greatest ripoff by the elite of everybody else - hyperinflation - is probably launching.

What can we do? Dig in. Stock up on non-perishable necessities: food, meds, water. Buy silver and ammo. And start figuring out what you'll do when government quits even pretending it provides services to the governed.

If you get nothing else from this screed, please absorb this:  the sole purpose of all government, everywhere and ever, is to centralize benefit and socialize cost.

This is your idea of "anti-government?"

What is Fascism - and its brain-damaged butt-baby Nazism - about if not complete and total worship of the State?

I see how the "left" and the "right" in this country are engaging in a slap-fight because certain "right-wing" commentators have pointed out that fascism is a form of socialism. Guess what? It is. As is Nazism - no, "National Socialism" is not some kind of false front. It was what the Nazis were all about. It still is.

The concept that "socialism" and "fascism" are somehow opposites is just World War II propaganda bullshit.

You want to read anti-capitalist screeds? Try The Turner Diaries. Or the writings of Francisco Franco. Or, hey, Joe Goebbels.

So the "right-wing" sock-monkeys are right, for once. Then again, it's becoming so piteously obvious that the whole Left/Right thing is a scam I'm starting to read about it daily online. The "Right" is anti-government? Then where were they while George W. Bush was expanding everything about government - spending, scope, and power - at a nearly unprecedented rate?

Oh, that's right: with their noses firmly clamped between his asscheeks. Where the Left is with Obama now that he's doing the same thing and telling different lies about it.

Here's what it looks like.

It has so many faces.

It has some figures, too. Like the upwards of a quarter billion people it killed in the 20th Century. And that doesn't even count wars - in many ways the ultimate expression of government doing good.

It is the slogan, the motive, and the means for history's greatest murderers: Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot (socialists all.) And for the last US president, and the current one, and their admirers and apologists.

It's what those who rule us intend to come to your block soon.

So ... what part of government is evil were you having trouble understanding?

Hat tip to Radley Balko for commemorating the 20th anniversary of the above iconic image.

As you may be aware, toward the beginning of the month NM governor Bill Richardson withdrew from consideration to be the new commerce secretary because of allegations of influence peddling.

My question: how total a fuckup do you have to be to get caught acting so corrupt a Chicago politician won't hire you?

Update: Maybe it isn't such old news after all.

Also, a good point made.

The good news is, the United States - the Empire - can't afford him either.

Of course the O-Bomber is a "post-partisan uniter," as reason puts it, snarkily and correctly. That's because there's no difference between the parties - not in practical terms. Not in terms of what they actually do.

Both parties do what governments are instituted among men to do: to preserve and increase the power, privilege, and profit of the ruling classes. What rational reason is there to suppose government would do anything but serve the interests of its proprietors?

And as if there was any doubt that, as I've told you before, "Change" means "More of the same, only harder and worse," recall that the newly anointed Dear Leader has voted for or otherwise endorsed pretty much all of the evil things his predecessor did - when he hasn't outdone him in militaristic zeal, as when he proved himself far to the right of even the rabidly anti-freedom Sarah Palin on issues like killing brown people in Afghanistan and Iran to make them better.

He endorsed war, torture, spying, and the real war which is being waged against American liberty - not to mention American property and American lives.

And most of all he, like his mentally-deficient sock puppet of a predecessor, vigorously supports a "bailout" of 8.5 trillion dollars, and rising. Which constitutes history's greatest known transfer of wealth to the very wealthy.

Make no mistake about it: under O-Bomber's management the US will become even more overtly fascistic: more madly avid to with impose the will of the Empire's rulers not just on foreigners, but on their American cattle. It's every bit as messianic and non-reality based as the last team.

That's why none of us can afford it. The plutocracy's icy grip will touch us, every one, in adverse and probably terrible ways.

But here's the good news - and granted, it's highly qualified. Dear plutocrats: you can't afford him either.

The government is beyond broke: it's tens of trillions in the hole. It can't afford the mad schemes it's carrying out now. And the plutocracy and its current puppet are deranged enough to desire to try doing far, far more of what they already can't.

We are witnessing the fall of Empires. Not just this one, but of the possibility of Empire. There's real hope.

Audacity too, if you like.

But it's going to hurt. Aside from the fact that our rulers and their overseers will do as much as possible to shift the pain to us - what is now called concentrating benefit and socializing loss (which is a thumbnail of what government does, after all) - the only arrow the State has left in its quiver now is hyperinflation. Which means: Zimbabwe here we come.

This will hurt. A lot. But it also means that the government cannot fulfill the promises it's made in the past, whether it's to enrich the rich and powerful under the guise of stimulus, to extend hegemony to the entire world, or to monitor our every action in real time. Much less the even more grandiose agenda of aggrandizement the plutocrats are going to announce through their shiny new mouthpiece. And are probably beginning to implement as I write. (I predict some hideous surprises right quick.)

They can't do it. They will only fail faster.

Prepare to duck.

And then prepare to live in a world which, while it will not be perfect, will be better: the world of freedom.

That, ultimately, is why the ruling class cannot afford their gaudy new front man: by carrying out their will he will cost them everything.

Here's a safe prediction:  by tomorrow a devout fascist will have been elected president.

Because that's all that's running. Of the two who have a chance, anyway.

Much may be made of election shenanigans: "rigged" votes, "stolen" votes. No doubt they'll happen; and no doubt fraudulent accusations will be made. It's crooks squabbling over the proceeds of crime. What different should we expect?

The national elections are a lot like the World Series:  there's vast money and perqs riding on the outcome, serious enough that people will kill and die over it; and you have no influence over the outcome, and the outcome means nothing practical for you.

Of course the elections are rigged. Long before the herd gets allowed to make its hoofmarks on ballots. Because by the time a candidate is anointed by one of the allegedly distinct parties, they've already been thoroughly vetted by the people who really rule us, whoever they may be. It literally doesn't matter to them who gets elected.

Either way, they win.

Guess who loses.

You don't believe me? Don't believe in "conspiracy theory"? (Ooh, do you have a mocking coming for that nonsensical non-thinking!)

Hope you loved the bailout. Both "bitter rivals" for Presidency did. So did the plutocrats who received the greatest single transfer of wealth from the many to the few in human history. And are continuing to reap more by the supertanker load. It's the gift that keeps on giving! And taking.

You've heard the bad news:  more fascism ahead (although it'll only be called that if McInsane wins the toss.) Now hear the worse.

It's being smugly predicted by the Government/Media Complex glossfaces that this'll be the biggest voter stampede in history. That's tragic. It'll mean people continue to buy the lie - when that spurious legitimacy is, functionally, all that government has. Remember:  no matter who you vote for, even if it's for a third party, a write-in, or a blank, you're voting for More of the Same. And you shall assuredly get it, good and hard. And so will the rest of us.

If you're actually still thinking about whether to go and endorse your enslavement, impoverishment, and quite likely physical destruction, here's a link to a last-hour plea for you not to be a wool-bearing even-toed ungulate from Alex Ryan's Fear of Freedom blog, entitled, tellingly, "Please don't vote". (Hat tip to the invaluable Wendy McElroy.)

Just say "bah." Instead of "baa."

This one's marketed as "the most important election in history." Which it is.  The winner's going to have a chance to preside over the implosion of the US empire.

And all he'll really have is a front row seat.

Sanctify Yer Slavery Day Update, 3:03:53 PM MST: Big corporations are bribing people to vote, regardless of whom for.

Still think your vote means anything?

Update, 8:03:56 PM: here's another perspective.

Judging from the evidence on his "Hooligan Libertarian" blog, Kent McManigal is another New Mexican, who lives in Clovis.

Our second hat tip to Wendy McElroy for this one.

Why, indeed?

Really, could he be any worse than McInsane or O'Bomber? How?

They both stand four-square for war, torture, domestic spying, and massive welfare for the rich. Or hadn't you noticed?

Anyway, click on the link to buy the swell shirt. I'm happy, at least, to be able to plug my pals Ray and Barb van Tilburg and their wonderful Offworld Designs. Ray's an excellent artist who does tee-shirt designs for a lot of Midwest cons, including Archon. Plus they have tons of non-con specific designs, such as the above, which are nifty and wicked clever.

Even if they're distressed by my usage of their design, if, like most people, they cherish the belief there's an actual difference between the sock puppet on Leviathan's left claw, and the one on His right.

But relax. It's nothing to the pain that your guy will cause if elected. No matter which he is.

(And then again ... not even a Great Old One can prevent the implosion of the Unitedstatesian Empire.)

A few days ago I was out walking with my dog (whose innocent name I won't sully by mentioning in such a foul and murderous context as politics) when it struck me that, for a lark, and since the two entities in question can't seem to muster any actual disagreement with one another, I ought to publicly propose that Obama select as his running mate John McCain.

Then he went and did.