New Mexico’s Pride!
I know this is old news. But life and the need of sustaining it have kept me pretty preoccupied for the last month or two. As readers of this blog (provided they exist), my real blog, and my Forum can attest.
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.
You Can’t Afford Him
That's the one thing you need to take away from today's investiture of the new Führer: you can't afford him. Not you, not me, not your family, not your friends. Certainly not the American people.
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.
The New Definition of Change
"More, and harder."
And, after all, how were the Clinton years anything but an extension of Bush I? While Bush II's policies - expanding war, the USA PATRIOT Act (HR 666 recycled!), burgeoning wealth transfers to the power elite - were nothing Clinton hadn't done or tried to do. And Obama has made it clear "change" means "the same, only more and harder."
He's blatantly planning a massive expansion of US military assaults on the rest of the world. There's no money for this. The military is broken. It doesn't matter: this "administration" - or what we probably should call the power elite's new management team - is no more reality-based than the one about to be flushed.
Clearly, The O-Bomber's a stooge; clearly, the same people pull his strings as did the two Bushes and Bush Sr.'s smarter, adoptive son Slick Willie. And who'd've pulled McCain's if voters had decided to elect an overtly mad, evil old reptile instead of a handsome young demagogue (with a Nuremberg Rally-friendly constituency!)
Meanwhile the Mad Christers who wanted to set the world ablaze so the demon they imagine is Jesus could return to assert dominion are on their way out - well, except for right-wing fundie Hillary Clinton, who belongs to the Mad Christer DC insider group called the Fellowship. (See also here.) But bizarrely the secularist nuts who were equally responsible for executing the mad US-vs-the-World program are still firmly entrenched.
After all, how did Clinton's overtly fascist "neoliberals" differ from Dumbya's overtly fascist "neocons? " Barely if at all, in rhetoric or policy. Just the switching-in of meaningless syllables: "conservative" for "liberal." And now back.
Of course the same people are still in charge. At the top, as well as in the lower, public ranks. People who possess real power may lose it through accident, incompetence, or action by their rivals. They do not suffer themselves to be displaced by majority vote of their livestock. Why in Hell should they? In what way is it rational to imagine that they would?
Why settle?
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.)
Daylight Stupid Time
As if it weren't annoying enough to have to deal with my sundry computers automatically changing to reflect the end of Daylight Savings Time - which doesn't happen this year until November 2 - my notebook keeps changing back to the wrong time, thanks to synchronizing automatically with time.nist.gov. Hey, thanks!
So here's another reason to question the judgement, if not the sanity, of those who - like all my liberal friends, Sarah Palin, and Stalin - believe whole-heartedly in the "power of government to do good." We need these people to manage every aspect of our lives when they can't, in its second year of operation, make the simple software fix to adjust to their own stupid law? What a great idea!
Even if there were some reason to believe government has, does, or ever will act with the primary motivation of making you or me safer, freer, healthier, or richer - and why should they? - this also reminds us to ask: what would make us believe they could if they wanted to?
“We owe it to ourselves.”
For all those who like to believe that people today are dumber than they used to be, the above statement ought offer fairly compelling counter-evidence.
Once upon a time otherwise intelligent (and educated, which isn't the same thing) people apparently believed that statement, uttered decades ago by John Maynard Keynes, among others, in reference to the national debt.
But what does it even mean? On the face of it, isn't it transparent nonsense? Let's see you borrow $100 from yourself. Does that mean you suddenly have $200?
Ah, but let me explain how it really works.
I take from you $100. That shouldn't bother you, because "we" - necessarily including you and I - owe it to "ourselves." Yes?
Now, to pay back that debt, I take from you $100. Because you and I are still part of "we." And we owed that $100 to ourselves, yes?
So now we're square. The debt has been repaid. Only a greedy bastard could possibly complain. Gitmo for you, Gordon Gekko!
Isn't that simple?
Not convinced? I give you the "bailout" - the largest single wealth transfer from the proletariat to the wealthy in known human history. In this case, the transaction above works out as $100 (plus a whole lot more) borrowed from you, and repaid to J.P. Morgan.
Which cosmic larceny, of course, is heartily supported by both presidential candidates.
Our slogan for the day
The European Union - because Napoleon and Hitler just didn't try hard enough!
Fighting to lose
One thing that Neocon A (McCrazy) and Neocon B (O’Bomber) agree on, along with almost everything else of import, is that the US needs More War. Especially in Afghanistan.
It strikes me that it isn’t sufficient simply to point out (what should be) the blazingly obvious truth: the US has no sensible strategic military reasons for its occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
It’s not just that those occupations are militarily pointless. "Pointless" isn't value-neutral: it’s a very bad thing. Any pointless military action is an invitation to disaster.
Aside from the fact that they drain the US defense complex of the ability to defend the US against actual enemies – strongly suggesting no one in charge of US defenses believes any exist – and laying aside that the grotesque costs of the two pointless horror-shows have broken the economy to the extent that over a quarter-century of inflation-fueled boom has busted, probably beyond repair, we all seem to be overlooking one very important fact.
In the real world, successful pack alphas are never aggressive. They don’t go looking for fights.
Why? Because they can’t win anything.
If you’re the Alpha, that’s it. You’re top of the stack. What benefits can you gain by fighting?
None. There isn’t anything left. All you can do is keep the status quo. Or lose.
Three basic possibilities exist for the rewards to fighting for an Alpha:
Parlous times for parodists
You can't parody such times as these.
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.