The GOP won't condemn the hatefulness. After all, the hatefulness was their idea.

The recently-Republican Senator Spectre says that the GOP made a decision in January, before the inaugeration, never to help Obama do anything -- especially in regard to healthcare reform -- in hopes that he would crash and burn. If Spectre's word is good, and I think it is, this means that the Republicans have been consciously playing stalling and blocking games, through the health care hearings. This also jibes with my own observations of the House hearings, on CSPAN; where the Republicans proposed fifty (no, not quite) ways to kill the "public option" dead, dead, dead; all girded up as Amendments to the Bill.

Cancel the public option.

Don't fund the public option.

Require the public option to destroy itself, if anyone steals money from it.

Deny the public option the ability to undercut private plan rates.

Etc. All voted down, one after lengthy one. The toil of the ages creeping by at light speed. "The measure is not adopted."

And all this time, the Republicans have been trying to kill, not only the Health Plan, but Obama as a President. They don't care about healthcare problems in this country. They're all well-insured themselves, and working for the insurance companies' agenda certainly pays well enough. I don't see them obsessing much about the crazies harping away at their foes, now.

Trouble is, their plan's not going to work. Trouble is, there was little enough plan to start with (I'd bet some money) besides giving Obama enough rope to hang himself, and supplying the FOX and Clearchannel arenas for the event. They've got Limbaugh and O'Rielly and Beck, don't they? Just let those outraged voices roll on about socialism for a while, and some of their badly misinformed and misled viewers will walk themselves onto the bus (thanks for driving, API! ) "to take their country back."

The crazies are a godsend, to the GOP.

I wonder when McCain will realize that his base is no longer on board for him, but for Sa-rah!

They love her. She's Bush all over again: ignorant, arrogant, parochial, born-again. But while she's ideologically firmly in Bush's camp, she surmounts him in one crucial way: she's frighteningly competent at getting what she wants. She won't wheedle over things like public approval, and she doesn't need, and won't tolerate, a Karl Rove leading her by the arm. Sorry about that, Karl -- but suck up good, and I'm sure she'll make you Attorney General (and fire your ass too, the first time you show signs of being "not supportive").

It does seem that the POW is waking up to the emerging reality. He changed his and Palin's appearances to joint ones, when he noticed that only the Secret Service were showing up to hear solo recitations of his experiences in Vietnam. If he wants to be seen around a bunch of cheering people -- and he most definitely does -- he's got to be where Sarah is.

But I wonder at what point he will start to suspect, that the motive and secret desire of a good portion of the cheering crowd is not for the nascent President McCain, but for the coming of President Palin.

Palin is a dream come true, for a certain heavy-drinking portion of the Republican Base.

She's ready to take on Russia (but hasn't said yet, when the draft will start), she thinks drilling and burning more oil is a great idea, "especially for Alaskans, " and she believes in the two main tenets of Republican governance -- grab what you can, and change the past to suit your new story.

And she's hot. For a mom. She's an oedipal dream come true, as the second link above illustrates. Mothers love her, and sons lust her.

She's Maw-nin' in America, the Second Coming of Saint Reagan.

She's the last sexy Terminator, sent from an apocalyptic, dystopic future world, to finish the job the first two couldn't: to slay the young upstart, before he destroys the destroyers.

It's mythic. It's poetical. It's twisted.

Scariest of all, it makes perfect evangelical-sense.

It's all Gad's plan, do you see? McCain is the One Sent Before, the Prophet John, the Baptizer, the Authenticator. He leads the Son (or Daughter) of Gad to his(/her) rightful place. He will carry the message and mission of his Corporatist masters as far as his old POW legs can carry him, and then he will hand their torch to the Evangelical's Chosen One -- who will turn a fire-extinguisher on the dangerous thing, and give it to Piper to torture the staff with.

And that may happen sooner than we think. POW's have a pattern of early deaths . By that consideration, McCain may be past his actuarial window already.

That's why the low-grade depression that had settled over McCain's campaign is now lifted. No longer does it matter, that the first good crisis will probably trigger a temper-stroke in the Oval Bedroom at 3 AM. All the better, in fact. Then Sa-rah Pa-lin can bring her own immense experience in foreign policy to bear -- hopefully wearing a tight, red-buttoned suit.

So what if the old guy kicks? Just pray to Gad he lives long enough to take the oath. After that, the sun rises over Alaska.

Or -- is that a mushroom cloud?

A moose went missing from the Wasilla Public Library last Thursday. After dodging traffic moose-fashion (the cars do the dodging) all the way to the Library's foyer, the moose reportedly picked up a book from the resale cart and went downstairs to the children's section with it. The mayor was also seen descending the stairs a short time later.

At closing time, when the Librarian checked the doors, neither moose nor mayor could be found; but the door on the lower level was ajar, and tufts of course brown hair were caught in the latch. There were no blood-stains visible, however, on the Young Reader Room's blood-red carpet. Picking up the book the moose had dropped, the librarian remembered a sharp report that earlier had echoed up the stairwell. She said later that she had thought it to be the building's ancient toilet, finally building up enough pressure to flush.

Nevertheless, she reported the strange occurrence to the town's Chief of Police, who staked out the mayor's residence for hours that evening, until a delicious smell of stew caused him to invite himself in to dinner. He reported finding bones that looked suspiciously like .3006 loads, but it didn't concern him at the time, because he was on his way back for seconds.

So much has happened in the last few days, and I just looked at my own last post. OMG, how much the story changes, how faster!

I wrote my last entry before the stuff about Sarah Palin's book-banning question came out. Before the Alaska Legislature said they thought they had a pretty good case against her, in the Department of Public Safety firing. Before I even knew she was hard "pro-life" and an Evangelical. I knew something about her husband being an oil man, and something about snow machines, but the other, um, stuff never really made it into the statewide press before she announced for VP.

And I had voted for Tony Knowles anyway; because even a Democrat some people don't like, is likely going to be better than a Republican everyone (Republican) likes.

I live in SouthEast, the part of Alaska that she's regularly castigated for ignoring. Which also means I'm not one of her neighbors, which seems to make all the difference, in what you know about Sarah. Some of those neighbors, it turns out, had these questions all along, about her.

So I've had a little Sarah-gucation lately, filling in the things I didn't know -- which of course were salacious and -- given that anonymity is actually HARDER in Alaska than in many other places -- rather easy to credit. I find myself agreeing with the real people who have real questions about her.

Not about her family choices, or even her religion, interesting though those may be. No, this is about her character, and her concept of government.

My provisional evaluation:

Sarah is an Alpha wolf. She leads the pack, to bring down the meat. You don't tease your prey, you go for it. This blood-thirst may be what plays to the Faux nuke-the-mid-east crowd, but is it a good thing to have in the Oval Orifice? You know what's coming next, it's-

Yes, you guessed it -- it's the when-the-old-man-dies meme! Old John-S gets a call at three in the morning, and the vibration shorts out his pace-maker. Palin and the kids are bustled down the hall to the big office to handle the crisis, while the guy with the "football" tries to blend into the shadow of the drapes, and -- oh, where do I begin...?

And then, there's her AIPness.

I don't know what kind of decree it would take for the Alaska Independence Party to get the vote they want, or who can even grant such a thing. Would it take Congress (or the courts?) to declare it, or could it effectively be declared under the egis of the ever-expanding Presidential "powers" that the Republicans have gifted our republic with?

How ever, if ever, such a vote were granted, it would be another referendum by Alaskans, to decide (again) whether to be a State -- or NOT to be a state. That's kind of a romantic idea for some, to take that choice back, and replay history; especially in light of the crucial insult many think Clinton did us, by putting large areas of the national forests out of access for timber.

Under AIP's preferred outcome, of course, Alaska would vote itself a separate nation, and suddenly all the resources would be up for grabs (and they'd be grabbed, too -- Alaskans being who they are).

But I must confess that a statehood vote holds a certain appeal to me, too.

Oh, not to make us our own lonely -- and probably lousy -- nation; but for another option on the AIP's list -- the choice to become part of a different country than the US.

I don't think we'd join the Philippines, or Seychelles, though I'd expect to hear both proposed, once Alaska gets on a roll. But Canada might take us in -- so long as we promise to stop making fun of them and their whiskey. Mind you, we drink a lot of it; so maybe we can begin the cultural rapprochement with Black Velvet and Yukon Jack.

Besides, a vote for Canada would mean instant National Health; so the AIPs might get a run for their money after all!

As an Alaskan, I can truly say this was a shocker . A couple of thoughts.

I'm decidedly NOT Republican (Alaska Green Party), but I like Sarah Palin. She is, for a Republican, a breath of fresh air. Her heart's in the right place on social issues -- so much so, that she's started to shape up as a thorn in some Republicans' sides up here. Those certain parties have dredged up a (largely manufactured) so-called failure of judgement on her part. What that really means is that she has a problem (no secret) with one of her former inlaws, a so-called "peace officer," who's shown some, shall we say, errors of judgement of his own; including tazing an 11 year old to "show him what it's like," beating his wife, and various on-job violations, including drinking beers in his patrol car. Now she's being taken to task for supposedly firing the head of the Department of Public Safety (Troopers) "for" not firing this rouge cop for her.

That accusation is shaping up to be baseless, but as revelations unfolded, she promptly suspended one agency head who, it turned out, DID misrepresent himself as speaking for the governor, when calling the DPS about the bad cop.

The interference she was accused of is the kind of thing one expected from the Murkowski administration, but it's simply not Sarah's style. She sees governance as a demanding responsibility, not to be taken lightly, and that includes observance of both ethics and ethical appearances. She thinks like a mom setting a good example for her kids. Seriously, what better stance could you ask for, in a public servant?

This is why Sarah, to me, isn't even a Republican; just a dedicated public servant. (Doubtless some Republicans in this deep-red state feel likewise; but of course to them a real public servant is someone who's NOT looking after their own special interests!) I didn't vote for her, but I might the next time, depending on the competition.

BUT... is she ready to be president, when the old guy with the temper problem has an aneurism in the Oval Office? Who knows, she might surprise there as well; as she surprised the AK Republicans, when she started tossing out Murkowski policies and put Murkowski's Royal Jet-to-nowhere back on the auction block, restored the seniors' supplimental allowance, and renegotiated King Murkowski's private pet deals with the oil companies.

But I would absolutely NOT support the McCain ticket on that account (sorry, Sarah), because we really need a NEW direction here, not a small chance at not screwing things up as badly as they might be. There's a much larger chance, that a McCain presidency will surprise us with how much worse our situation can become, domestically and geo-politically -- even from the current low point.

A President Palin would actually do her best to fix some things, such as making healthcare more accessible to seniors and soldiers; but some of her policies are unrelievedly Republican, such as her desire to drill out the Alaskan North Slope.

And for McCain, burdened with the stench of Bush's approval, this is a smart move. Republicans can now sell themselves as being open-minded -- while doing the same old things! The problem is when McCain kicks the bucket. Palin will have the same challenge at that point, that she's now having with the conservative die-hards in AK; but on a national scale, and against much better-funded opponents. Washington-centered Corporatists are pretty much guaranteed not to like her choices, which do tend to put people first, though not to the extent of backing unions or such.

Indeed, I can't see Sarah liking McCain's policies in general, and am a bit mystified as to why she would agree to this. McCain's hard-ass backers wouldn't touch her with a ten foot pole, if she were actually running for president.

And for me (not to be overly ghoulish about it), the possibility of a Presidential Aneurism would then be the ONLY bright spot in a McCain Presidency. That's pretty sorry -- when we have a chance right now to elect a President who could set the country on a course back to the things that matter.

Not being a regular tv watcher (well, hardly ever, by most people's standards), I thought it was a joke, the first time I ran across a "news" anchor's "clever" aside about some fireworks being faked. But only just now I heard another, fuller reference, from a source I trust, NPR's Daniel Shorr, commenting on the CG faking of the Olympic fireworks; the (I knew about this one) dead-mike singing trick the Party Leadership pulled, to spare world viewers the unfortunate knowlege that a lovely child singer in The Modern China could have (gasp) crooked teeth; and some other computer graphics tricks meant to show the New China in a good light-- Wait, was that it -- did they use a green-screen, to turn their grey skies blue? (apologies to Maria Muldar)

But my reaction to this news was not what you might expect. You may think that I froze in outrage, my coffee cup trembling unseen before my twitching lips, before crashing back to the abused faux-wood formica tabletop in fury. The other patrons look up from their papers, un-noticed by my glazed eyes. How DARE they pervert the spirit of the Olympics like this--

But no, it wasn't that way at all. Instead, a quiet satisfaction suffused my mind. The Olympics had to die sometime, and this is as good a time as any.

Oh, now YOU'RE the one with the attitude problem. Let me explain.

There are websites that will inform you what hosting the Olympics has done, to the unfortunate cities who won bidding for the privilege. Montreal is just now paying off their incurred debt, and that was how long ago? (No I won't look it up for you; I'm on a roll, here.) The current one, the Beijing edition, cost around forty Billiooo,ooo,ooon dollars to put on, handily eclipsing the last record, Athens in 2004, at 8.5 Billiooo,ooo,ooon dollars spent-slash-borrowed.

Not only this, but the supposedly amature athletes involved have also had to up the ante, if they want to stay in competition. In these latter days, Olympic athletes are defacto freaks of nature, who can ignore their own physical limits to the extent that weightlifters can turn their joints inside out, in pursuit of their art. Call it the agony of de-elbow.

So why am I not outraged? Simply because it is time in our evolution as human beings, for such self-centered displays to die out; and the Olympics is showing us the way. It seems that performance is now to be in the mind (or computer) of the beholder; which is a great point to call a time out in the race to the ultimate spectacle. And ask ourselves if we have more important things to do, than compete ruthlessly with each other to whittle away the last possible hundredth of a second time, for the 100 yard sprint-swim or whatever.

I'm a firm believer in fractal scales; as above, so below, and vice versa. Olympic competitors' physical feats are carving ever-closer "records" out of an ever-tighter human performance envelope; battling not only the other athletes in their events, but ever-harsher enforcement of the IOC's nature-based performance ethic. Athletic performance now runs so close to ultimate human physical limitations that serious, even debilitating injury is not uncommon, in athletes trying to push through their personal performance walls.

The same dynamic seems to work in the larger-scale competitions between cities to host the games. Those cities now go into debt for decades for the "privilege" of hosting the games, and afterward are saddled with magnificent and costly sports complexes that have no place in the normal lives of their citizenry, but don't really lend themselves to conversion into community gardens. Whether large- or small-scale, competitive escalation seems to run up against the fundamental limits you'd expect: it gets more and more expensive and difficult to wring ever-smaller margins of advantage from the pursuit in question; whether it be swimming, or building the next state-of-the-art Olympic swimming pool.

And now China, the latest escalation in the world-focus battle called Hosting The Games, resorts to tech-drugging to fit the role they've decided they must take on in the world.

I can't be the only one thinking that the games might as well take place in cyberspace from now on.

Physical reality is just sOoo expensive, for events of this sort. Let the world's gaming nerds compete for the privilege of hosting the games, and every four years the winners can present the algorithmic results of their last four years of work on a sports extravaganza. I guarantee it will be a good show; probably as good as this year's, maybe better. And it will give tech dweebs, a rising demographic, a reason to care, when O-Fever hits our networks, in the quadrenial cycle. After a few of those cycles, in the hands of game designers, no one will be able to tell reality from fantasy, and the current trend will be complete.

The winners of the current Olympic contests are trained to a 'T', but you and I know that in modern times the choice between the top competitors is as often due to a chance factor, as it is to actual ability or mental focus. The normal human physical performance envelope may be limited, and chance adds only so much potential excitement; but there is no currently known limit to the concentration powers of a gaming nerd. We need to leave mundain reality-based reality behind us on the rusting physical tracks, and stride boldly into the great grey-matter frontier, where the virtual tracks are always shiny and new.

Okay, I know that fans and the competitors themselves will likely view it differently. But with so much depending on (face it) chance, who can really care which particular "winner" carries off the gold? Unless, of course, it's less about performance, and more about national boosterism (did I say that out loud?).

More to the point, can we AFFORD to care about such silly things? The world is neck-deep in situations that need our devoted attention NOW, and all we can do is worry about which of three guys is going to get his fingernail on a pressure plate a fraction of a second before another guy does?

Get a grip!

BTW, China just called, and wants me to tell you that it's unharmonious, saying such things. They're sending a van and thugs to pick me up, and they want everyone else to mind their own business from now on, and quit talking about this. Quit putting China down. It's disrespectful, don't ya know, to point out that someone is cheating. China is different (yawn)... wha?

Seems reality is as passe in China as it is in the Bush administration and the CIA.


(And look: I finished this diatribe without once pointing out, how China's state thugs are keeping the scads of democracy and free-tibet protestors clear of the world's television screens. I'm so proud of myself; I think it's a record!)

Kind of ironic, that the "first black president " is after riding back into the White House (albeit as First Gentleman, this time) on the back of racially charged politics .

One wonders if this sort of consideration (you know: what's fair, what's right, justice, truth, yada, yada...) ever comes up across the dining room table at the Clinton's, or if the conversation is all about advantage and posture.

We expect youth to be more idealistic than us wizened, cynical elders; so I wonder what Chelsea Clinton thinks of the white-black divide her mother is exploiting?

Chelsea recently told a questioner, basically, to just shut up , when she was asked about the possibly unsavory influence the Lewinsky "incident" had or has on her home life. I'm on Chelsea's side on that one, but "The Monica" is a singular subject if ever there was one. We'll see what we see, from Chelsey.

One thing she and her parents must know all too well is that she'll get few breaks from the public and the media. Yes, she's still a political "child," in the broad sense of being a political novice, untimely roped into her parent's ambitions; but she's nominally an adult nevertheless, and if she wants safety, she shouldn't be in the ring with the body-blows.

After all, if Chelsea calculates her political "experience" using the same method her mother does, she's already got more than thirty-five years under her belt. She's the scion of a dynasty, after all. If she ever does make her own moves, she can rely, as the dawn relies on the sun, on the advice and counsel of her illustrious parents.

Sadr cut a deal. That's the only conclusion I see right now.

The U.S. has been pushing the idea lately, that Sadr's long-running cease-fire hasn't really been that instrumental in the (apparent) easing of tensions in Iraq. U.S. opinion makers seem to have been trying to marginalize Sadr lately, saying that he hasn't really been that instrumental in the easing of tensions. Maybe they should have thought that one out, a bit. Sadr's recent "un-cease-fire" in Basra was likely, in part, an attempt to show everyone involved what the place will be like without the restraint he's been exhibiting -- a timely reminder, if you will.

And as late as Friday, prospects of a continuation, or furthering, of the relative lack of hostilities was looking pretty dim. Indeed, given tensions elsewhere in Iraq, it was beginning to look as if a widespread conflagration was in the offing. Prime Minister Malaki first blustered at Sadr to cease and desist; and then backed off, when Sadr basically laughed in his face.

So why, this morning, do we hear that Sadr is suddenly reigning in his troops; and with rather strong penalties for non-compliance, yet? (Expulsion from the Mahdi Army as the penalty!)

I personally think that Sadr must have been angling all along for a more direct role in the government; a role more central than the fringe-militia-chief seat he's held for years. This was a reminder, meant to get the government's attention. What's more, it seems to me that his offer has been accepted.

I'm really just going on a hunch here, but I won't be surprised if Sadr soon slides into the Green Zone, in some capacity. I still don't get a sense of who's paid him off, though. I think Malaki had the most to lose from the continuing conflict, but the Iraq conflict's U.S.-domestic credibility (the only kind we have left, in this sorry circus) absolutely depends on keeping down the "lead pollution" all across Iraq.

It might have been a joint realization, on the parts of Malaki and U.S. commanders, that buying Sadr off would be a small additional expense, for keeping the "benefits" of the surge coming in. We're paying off the whole country now; not to fight each other or us.

Look for more mention of Sadr, in the news from Iraq.

It's 3:00 AM, and the Red Phone rings. A staffer hauls President Obama out of bed to take the call. Whatever the issue is, Obama then calls the Head of the General Chiefs, while WH staffers call the Pentagon. Within half an hour, a meeting forms up in the WH situation room, and the assembled Chiefs lay out whatever plots and plans the Pentagon has been working on (since fricking VIETNAM, no less), that are related to the crisis du jour. Obama runs the situation through a reality filter, takes or adjusts the recommendations of the Joint Chiefs, and starts the ball rolling.

It's 3:00 AM, and the Red Phone rings. A staffer hauls President Clinton II out of bed to take the call. Whatever the issue is, Clinton then calls the Head of the General Chiefs, while staffers call the Pentagon...

The point is, we have a military elite that's well set-up for rapid response (what passes for "rapid" in the military, anyhow), is well studied-up in conflict scenarios, and well-prepared and -structured to prepare and inform WHOEVER the fricking president may be, to make well-informed decisions. Unless of course, like Boy George, they don't even read the daily intelligence briefings.

I doubt there is ANYTHING a President Clinton could do, to substantially hurry the process of evaluating a threat, and putting the responses into play.

UNLESS- Unless she were operating out of a knee-jerk mindset, of the sort that acts first and thinks later.

If this is what she's promising us, and with the example of the present failed presidency in mind, I'll hold out for someone who thinks through the consequences of his actions.

Bear in mind, that

1) the classic Red Phone is only going to ring if President Medvedyev wants to TALK about the issue (rather than let his Bears do the talking for him),

2) so-called "terrorists," likewise, will let the crisis speak for itself,

3) lacking such a fait-accompli, an issue of concern will allow days, in which to address the level and type of response.

The RedPhone@3AM meme is as fictional as the TickingBombJustfiesTorture meme, if less morally corrupt. If the phone ringing is not the Red Phone, the above scenarios are still valid, regarding decisions for action.

Lastly, don't EVER forget that

4) it's US who have made the world as dangerous to Americans as it is now. WE made sure that we're hated the world over, by explicitly disdaining our manifold opportunities to discuss our differences in a civil fashion with other nations. Reacting out of fear and hate, to threats from others, will only make our situation worse, in regards to the opinions and actions of other peoples.

----
stop watching tv

Starship Troopers is a cult again? Strange that soldiers in the field in Iraq are
studying up on a fictional battle-for-survival against rapacious aliens.

So lemme see, on this side we have alien hordes, who lob moons at our planet, and swarm-attack by the tens of thousands, and suck our brains (only in the movie)... And over here, we have some militia guys with guns and bombs, who don't like us invading their country, or are striking back against a historic enemy or two -- and the so-convenient Great Satanic Crusaders, cruising around in cardboard jitneys, just asking for an EFP in the side panel.

After I saw Star Wars, I wanted to join the Rebellion, and played the theme mentally at work, for the testosterone rush. I wondered, if I was in Luke's place, would I maybe have tortured an Imperial stormtrooper?

Say, if he planted a bomb and if, our side, the Rebellion, needed to know where it was, like, to protect innocent civilians, maybe? I think I could shoot a pan-head in the knee for that. Some electrodes maybe, some pliers, some Q-Tips in the ears...

Oops -- identity mis-match, duh -- WE'D be the insurgents then, wouldn't we? Makes me kind of identify with the Sith after all, I guess. I suppose they must be great entrepreneurs anyway, like Ming the Merciless, or the Matrix.

Trouble is, Iraq is not a movie, nor are there any play-overs. This reality crap hangs around for -- well, as long as we do. Fiascos are fiascos for good; no warping back to the start of the level.


At least Bush's tax cuts for the super-rich are for sure going to expire now. Including the effective suspension of the amazingly-illnamed "death tax."

-The inheritors who pay the tax aren't dying, are they? They're getting lots of money they never earned, like a sweepstakes. I guess their way of grieving is to complain about having to pay taxes on a couple of million in free income. Of course, they may indeed have earned it in a fashion, by sucking up mightily to the dead guy; but I don't feel we as a country need go out of our way to reward such spiritual sluttery.

It sucks. You have a rich relative pass away, and you only get a million and a bit, for all the bereavment. I'm sure it would take me at least a few mil to get over a parent dying. Taxes would only add to my grief, doncha know. Thank god for lawyers.

The Owning Classes, the very rich, got 75% of the Republican Congress's tax cuts -- about 85% if you include upper-middle class. The Republicons chose to make them temporary, in order to win the votes to pass them. ( And of course because they thought they were the new-under-the-sun "permanent majority," and could make the cuts permanent, at their convenience. )

So no problem -- the expiration of the Bush tax cuts will only affect the same folks, who can well afford it anyway, since they own the rest of us. A few Republicon senators in the Budget Committee today dutifully called the expirations "raising taxes," but they lost their Amendment to make them permanent, and by a good margin.

The Empire had a permanent majority too, once.


-----
Suck your tv's brains out, until it shrivels and cracks right across, and free your mind.

In Washington and Wall Street, "conservative" has now become a code word for "corporatist," which is what the beltway power crowd really is. So it's no wonder these far-right-wingers are being taken by surprise, by the emerging sentiments of REAL conservatives, who are finally beginning to realize that they have been pawns in the corporatist takeover of our government.

More and more conservatives with voices -- authors, commentators, retired military officers, former civil servants who've resigned in disgust -- are speaking out to say that the traditional conservative impulse has been used as cannon fodder, in the Owning Class's war on the rest of us. Corporatists have so thoroughly co-opted the conservative moniker, that they now think they ARE conservative, by and large, rather than the neo-liberal profitists (pirates) they really are.

The danger now, to real conservatives, is that this misidentification may now be so engrained in the dialog, that no-one will remember that real conservatives DO have fellow-feelings, rather than just bottom lines. Real conservatives are starting to realize that the me-first-and-only royalists now in power are not committed to any sort of religious principles or community values, no matter their rhetoric. Indeed, urge a corporatist to give to the poor, and his first question is whether or not he can get a tax break by doing so.

The natural corporatist response to natural disasters, is to sell evacuees "vacation-evacuation" packages, as if a homeowner having his or her home and community destroyed, should view that as a golden opportunity (one worth paying for!) to get drunk on a beach somewhere. Would these same flights take on non-paying passengers, who simply want to get away from the flying bricks and timber? Don't bet on it. And after the wind dies, the profitists tear down the usable remaining housing, to erect expensive gated condo communities, for a massive profit, while homelessness runs rampant. And what do they care? You don't turn a profit doing people favors!

The only thing wrong with the old, servicable, and cheap housing that was left standing in New Orleans after Katrina, was that the "right" people didn't own it! So the whole condo scam was perpetrated to make sure that the right people made money from the disaster.

Contrast that profitting-on-disaster impulse, with the principled genuine-conservative response to disaster, which is to come to the aid of those in trouble, even if it takes from their own pockets. This charitable impulse was once cited by the profitists as the "proper" way to handle social safety-nets, soup lines and unemployment -- even retirement. Proper, that is, for OTHER people to do, with their OWN money. It's obviously a BAD thing for a corporatist to do this with his own money, unless he comes out ahead somehow.

Such impulses to help those less fortunate are so far from the new beltway definition of "conservatism," as to be laughable, yet the corporatists were only too glad to offload such burdens onto those chump "old" conservatives and religious types, who can't in good conscience let people starve. And yet, the corporatists have portrayed themselves as in the fold of conservative sentiment. Up to now, real conservatives have eaten it up, because the corporatists are more than willing to lie about their motives, in order to get into good conservative graces.

McCain is "surging" because he's a real conservative himself, which is why he doesn't fit with the self-annointed Neo-Crony Washington establishment. Romney bombed out because he was only "conservative for a day," -- and people could tell the difference.

I'm oh so liberal, myself, but I have no problem with REAL conservatives. So long as their convictions are honestly come by, there will be a middle ground of discussion and compromise, which is all one can ask of a democracy.

But Corporatists don't care about compromise, and refuse to discuss differences. Compromise means less profit. And discussion, in their view, only gives the "enemy" (and EVERYONE is their enemy!) a chance to screw them -- which is what they would do, if roles were reversed. Losing possible profits is against the Corporatist religion. But it's not at all against their profit-religion to LIE for profit, which is how they've gotten where they are, and how they stay there.

It feels dirty, even to talk in these terms. Bring back REAL conservatism, and maybe we'll have somewhere to go as a country!

No actual thinking being can now be expecting to hear truth, from our Perpetrator Administration. The only meaningful listening choice is over which lie is more revealing. In the current case , the Bushies made a tactical error by letting us know that any emails were missing in the first place.

The first lie in the current series, remember, was in response to a request for internal Executive Branch emails, to show who was in on the deliberations regarding the firings of US Attorneys deemed by the Administration to be too lax in carrying out the Administration's planned purge of as many Democrats from office as possible by charging them, after the elections, with election frauds of various sorts. Some of the State US Attorneys weren't acting partisan enough in their prosecutions, and so were placed on hit lists, and subsequently replaced.

Of course this would be a partisan use of an agency, the Justice Department, that is supposed to impartially enforce the law. And of course the "loss" of ANY internal communications in the White House is a violation of law in itself. Naturally, once Congress found some cohones, after the 2006 elections, they started looking at outstanding fiascos like the US Attorney firings, and eventually asked the White House for emails, to see who had been in the loop. OOPS, we, uh, deleted them BY MISTAKE, cleverly responded the Bush gang.

They might have thought it was a perfect chance to do the Rove Two-Step, "Hey, we'll tell 'em we pushed the delete button by mistake, and while we're at it, there are all these OTHER incriminating emails we could do without, too!" (News of that has yet to break, and I'm just guessing here; but I have every confidence in these particular perps.) So they rolled out a story about mistakenly deleting hundreds of emails, forgetting how hard it is to actually LOSE an email, if a semi-competent professional is really looking for it, in the Executive Branch's legally-mandated cache of backup disks.

Now that they've had their noses rubbed in the fact that (who knew?) the state of technology simply does not support their first story, they have a choice of fall-back narratives. They could say that there ARE no backups -- oops, that wouldn't carry very well, in terms of basic competence and respect for law. Or they could say that all of the copies were accidently deleted AND THEN the backup disks were mistakenly dropped into a disk-shredder, but that might be just a few too many coincidences. Some scapegoat would have to be fired for emailing with their elbows, and they're running short of goats in the Goat, er, White House.

Or (one they tried) they could blame it all on the Nat Repugs, who (in an end-run on the records-keeping requirement) were maintaining an "alternate" White House email system. Trouble with that is that it still doesn't rise to the requirements of the records laws. The emails should have been backed up regardless of where they physically resided.

Of course... they could have come clean and handed over the emails they said were deleted.....Nah!

But hey, there's always reality redefinition -- remember when the Shrub tried to change the public's programming ex-post-facto, by claiming that he'd never urged us to "Stay The Course" in Iraq? Well that didn't play, because too many people were paying attention the first time. But now it's different. No one's really keeping track of the lies anymore, so who's going to notice, if they change one of the whoppers they've already told us?

Too bad about Dana Perino, though, who has to be made to look as if SHE told the first lie (she must have an unknown grudge against the prexy, to invent something so hateful!). But Presidential Spokespersons are basically disposable now anyway, since they get stuck telling the Shrub's lies for him, and eventually are forced to retire and write bitter memoirs of betrayal. And FAUX "news" is chock full of potential spokespersons. Has Anne Coulter had the job yet, or Michelle Malkin? Why not cut to the chase and give Bill O'Rielly the job?

This might sound transparently ridiculous to you and I, but remember that thirty percent of American citizens still believe Bush's lies -- and when he changes his story they believe the new version just as readily as they believed the old one. Most of these folks have had lots of practice, to be sure, trying to make sense of the Bible's internal inconsistencies. These people can believe that homosexuals should be forgiven -- at the very same time that they should also be stoned to death for doing what they've been forgiven for! Worshiping a schizophrenic God has put these voters in great shape for supporting this President.

However you frame it, we have an epidemic of incompetent (say it with me, children: "STUPID") citizens in our democracy. As much as anything, this is an important lesson to remember, even after this failed presidency retires to the shadows.


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Kill your TV, and free your mind.

Came across the last post of Andy Olmsted . Some responders had tears over this. Not I, as I'm from a military family, and have long since come to terms with the reality of committed military service, and the inevitable consequences of wars, even when they are ethically defensible.

This "last post" format offers opportunities not usually seen in blogging. Some of the most important thoughts a person has do not make for good copy in daily reading, because the most profound insights can also be the simplest and, if encountered daily, the most easily glossed-over as "old" knowledge by the reader. On the other hand, a person can only post ONE (I hope!) last post, and that post should garner increased examination and consideration, if thoughtfully done.

Andy had much to say in his last communication with the world, and I find that one of his points jives very well with a perennial topic of mine: the commonly ignored obligations of those who wish to continue enjoying the benefits of democracy and freedom.

Citizens in a democracy have the obvious obligation to let others express themselves. But they also have another obligation, that is little appreciated but is equally essential to the democratic plan: the obligation to respectfully consider the views expressed by others, and strive to understand where those views come from; rather than take a "thanks for sharing" attitude toward those who don't think as they do.

Too many take the freedoms of America for granted, and think of them as permanent features of our cultural landscape. Not so. As many have observed, many thousands have died to obtain those freedoms for us. But history also shows us that, human drives being what they are, power tends to wind up in the hands of the relative few who are driven to power; to the detriment of the freedoms and rights of the many who are not. It's a problem with freedom; that some will use that freedom to limit, in their own interests, the corresponding freedoms of others.

We see this when telecomunication companies try to keep their competitors out of the market, limiting not only those competitors' freedom to market their products, but the freedom of the info-consumer to obtain varied and unbiased information. We also see it when governments bit by bit limit the options of citizens, such as the current push by lawmakers in Washington to severely limit permissible speech, in criticism of America's policies toward terrorism. Bills currently in Congress would define criticism of terrorism policies to be support for terrorists themselves, and legally chargable as such. This attitude from the Right has been current since 9/11, and has been used liberally to silence critics of the War On Terror. This legislation would put the force of law behind these efforts to silence dissent.

Freedoms are not "won" once, and inviolable thereafter. They must be "re-won" by us -- by you and me -- every time some entity with an agenda tries to place limits on them. We venerate the sacrifices that toppled fascism and preserved our rights, but we commonly sit contented, at the lazy pinacle of our civil rights, while those who know better steadily chip away at those rights and freedoms. We think the work is done. Veterans won us our freedoms, thank you very much, and now the biggest challenge to our way of life is the Network Writer's Strike!

No, the biggest challenge to our way of freedom is the slow buyoff of those freedoms and rights. And not even for real security, but for the pastel psychological security of thinking that we no longer have to defend our security for ourselves. That those we put in positions of power will be naturally inclined to defend us from the exercise of that power. This illusion will last exactly as long as it takes us to realize that many of the rights and freedoms taken as "given" by our forefathers have now gone the way of the Dodo.

This is the grossest "entitlement thinking" of all: that we are now "entitled" to something our heroes had to die for. As soon as we start thinking that way, our guard is down, and Verizon starts censoring our page traffic of politically and morally "undesirable" content. The threat is real.

Which is the more fundamental right, the freedom to say what we think, or the freedom to limit other's actions and speech as offensive to us (not harmful mind you, but "offensive")? The one freedom resides in opposition to the other. One person burns a flag, or says we have no business fighting foreign wars of aggression, and others find that offensive. They cut off the debate before it has started, refusing to listen to the reasons for the other point of view. They don't want to know the reasoning behind what seems a blasphemous point of view. The very existence of any other view than theirs is anathema.

So what? If we can't handle a bit of "offensive" speech, if we can't view it as another perspective to be considered, as part of a grand ecology of thought, then we are simply too sensitive and/or insecure to tolerate the free exercise of democracy. If you remove the right to say what you think, you remove the soul of freedom.

And if you ignore the obligations, both to say what you think, and to responsibly and fairly consider the statements of others, you have removed the soul of democracy.

Okay, so here's a begging question: where are all the OTHER tapes?

Everyone is making such a fuss over two interrogation tapes the CIA chose to destroy to protect the torturer's identities (never thought I'd type such a statement in earnest), and meanwhile the whole debate obediently steers clear from asking about the rest of the tapes that must surely exist.

Does anyone here think that the CIA doesn't record video of EVERY interrogation? Their middle name is "Intelligence," after all. How could they overlook the benefit of being able to review past questioning sessions? It's easy to see why they would want that option available.

-- Trained interrogator A asks some questions of subject S, and the answers, or lack of them, guide A's further inquiries during that session. They also guide A's out-of-room checks on S's veracity, and A's approaches to further questioning of S and other subjects, if any. But even trained interrogators are only human, with limited brain power and memory. It's obvious that notes are kept in some fashion.

But beyond personal training and competence, the CIA is also an organized establishment of professionals. They check each other's work. They're all about teamwork. I can't see them overlooking the benefit of letting another set of eyes review the results of an interrogation. We see the basic setup in fictional portrayals like "24": a room with one-way glass, and behind that glass a phalanx of human observers and recording equipment. We also see subsequent review of interrogation tapes -- that handily reveals, always just barely in time, the miniscule clues that let the hero of the drama pull the fat from out the fire.

I know real life isn't that dramatically structured, but having tapes available for review is such an obvious benefit to interrogation that I can't see them not using the technology. Maybe if their official name were the Central Stupid Agency...

Beyond that, there are rife accounts of cameras being used as routine surveillance in cells , and here's a patent, yet, of a camera setup for the purpose.

(A word to right-wing trolls: if you choose to comment about the content on the above links, you have an obligation, imposed by me no less, to first READ the content. That will be my first question to you. One cannot responsibly comment on subjects one has not reviewed. I can't make you care about what you read, but I have a certain amount of faith that the words of prisoners carry their own authority. Who would know better than they, what they've been through? So the basement price you have to pay, for the privilege of having me take your comments seriously, is to expose yourself to the words of people who've had to suffer through what I'm talking about.)

So.... Where are the rest of the tapes, and what's on them?

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I spoke parenthetically above about the obligation of commenters to know what they are commenting on. Our society and culture have a coresponding obligation; to know what measures are being taken in our names to impose the strictures we choose to live under. If we feel the need to enforce the safety of our society, we are obligated to look in the face the measures that enforce that safety.

If our conceptions of freedom are limited to its benefits, and ignore its costs, then we are not really free at all. We are slaves to an illusion of brightness, that ignores the shadows cast by that light. We can't look at the blackness, for fear that we'll see the lie behind the "perfect world" fantasy. Those who insist that repression is justified to keep us safe, but prefer to think that such repression is somehow not inhumane, are actively deluding themselves and should deeply examine their personal definition of truth.

Another note to trolls: if you hate what I just said, then it's you I'm talking about. Use that hate as a guide for what to examine in yourself.

"Know the power of the Dark Side..." 

"Dogs Can Classify Complex Photos In Categories Like Humans Do "

Doesn't that have an elevated sound to it? Are dogs reading tactical satellite data; using Google Earth to find new hydrants?

Not exactly. Turns out dogs can recognize color pictures of other dogs.

Well duh.

True, a modern robot intellect would find the task quite challenging, categorizing some dogs by breed, others by flatness and thread count. But seriously, can't we take for granted, even scientifically, that dogs can recognize other dogs? Sure it's interesting to know that they can recognize a dog in a photo, but it really doesn't rise to the level of genius to recognize a potential breeding partner. Were grants written for this stuff? Did real foundations send them real money, or was it from a government budget?

Briefly, in case you didn't follow the link, they trained dogs to click on photos of dogs, and then broke out champaigne when their trained dogs clicked on pictures containing dogs, even -- get this -- even when those photo dogs were presented in the midst of a "landscape," what we of the incognoscenti call "outdoors". Wow, talk about a cutting-edge revelation.

The landscape photos that the experimenters intermixed with doggy portraits are totally incidental to the method of the experiment as portrayed in the article. Pictures of dogs were clicked on, after training to do just that, and that proves that dogs are geniuses?

(Dog owners will of course draw exception to my manderings; and rightly so -- because they already know their pets are geniuses. If I worshipped a dog owner, he'd probably think I was a genius too.)

A high-school psych class would have done a better job of designing this experiment -- well, depending on where you went to high-school, I guess.

Do the researchers really think that dogs can't recognize another dog by sight, even when the other dog is holding perfectly still for some reason? That's what probably got their attention. Other dogs, if dog owners will pardon me the observation, are the second-most important things in a dog's life, but only when they're not the first-most important things. How could they NOT recognize other dogs? Dogs know dogs, skunks skunks, and bats bats; albeit not always by sight. Without the basic skill of same-species identification, every animal generation would be the last.

Those clever dogs also seem to have noticed that they got kibble when they stepped on doggy pictures. Well, why not? I'd notice it, and I don't even like kibble.

The good researchers ought to at least admit the possiblity that a dog might know what dogs look like, and use some other symbolism scheme. Even so, the test they used is brain-dead, because the subject has only to learn to click on the same symbol every time it comes up -- and our stalwart warriors of science have conveniently already trained it to do just that. I expect a rash of intellectual squirrels in the literature.

Another acorn picture. Click. Wow, it knows acorns from airplanes; add that to the list!

This is like the so-called "Tornado in the Shower." A couple of years ago some assistant professor proposed, on the basis of a few "vortex-like" vectors in a simulation of airflow through an empty shower, that vortex vacuum was the real culprit for the way the clammy-cold bottom of the shower curtain seeks out and clings to your legs in the shower. It wasn't hot-air-rising, as we'd all learned in third grade, and pulling the cold air in at the bottom.

The shower tornado got attention in "Discover" magazine, who wouldn't know real science if it bit them, but are absolutely gaga about vortexes. A better treatment is here. In the rush toward this dawning paradigm in scientific cleanliness, everyone unaccountable forgot that most of the time a shower is running, there is a body in it -- a human body more than large enough to break up the flow of multiple "vortex-like" air vectors. Yet, even with all of those nascent vortexes continually being swept up and over the top of the curtain with the rest of the hot air, the cold bottom halves of the world's shower curtains still stalk our collective thighs.

Try this: run the shower cold and empty. The curtain pretty much just hangs there, utterly ignoring whatever fierce vortex-engendered suckage may be occuring inside, until you think to turn on the hot water. 

Why do people overlook such things? My own theory is that when a person finds him or herself unexpectedly standing in a cold shower, he or she is suddenly too preoccupied to take notes on what the curtain is up to. That, and the predictable triumph of sexiness over sense in today's world.

People just loved the idea of a powerful "tornado" in their shower. After all, they buy "scrubbing bubbles" toilet cleaners for the fantasy of happy-slave brushes that just long to skate themselves around the inner rims of our toilet bowls for us. Everyone wants their own slave race, even if it's only an army of singing brushes. Now that's sexy!

Thankfully however, though the meme of the shower vortex was seductive, it doesn't seem to have made it past the first degree of connection: I only ever heard one live comment about it, from a woman smugly observing that she didn't have to worry about the vortex because she had "the little magnets" in her curtain. People just don't care enough to remark on it. The new theory tests out the same way the old theory did, and can therefore be instantly accepted, purely on the basis of its sexiness.

Science hurts my brain. At least blindfold the dogs next time, so they can't cheat by looking.

 
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So now where's my kibble? I pushed your damn button. Again.

You see this drool? You did this to me.

You think this is my "adoring" stare, don't you? It's not. I'm waiting for you to justify all the promises you made that you didn't keep. And how come YOU get to go out ALL the time, and I just get walkies? You think it's so fun, holding it in while I listen for the car all day long?

------------

 

Addendum: I confess that I've kept the unpleasant truth about shower vortexing to myself, lo these long years, as a kind of experiment. I wanted to know when people would begin to realize that it was all just hot air after all. "Never," appears to be the answer.

It's been so long now, that my heretical attack on the vortex will doubtless shock many otherwise unexcitable types. Everyone in the world, it seems, now either accepts the sexy new dogma of vortex-powered differential shower-curtain deflection, or really couldn't give a fig. The intrepid researcher himself, if he has had any second thoughts on the subject, is wisely keeping them to himself.

But I just couldn't take it any longer. The truth had to come out.

I feel much better now.

 

------------------------------

Addendum 2:

Turns out I'm human after all :) I got it wrong about the author of the shower vortex being a graduate student. He's actually David Schmidt, who was an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in July of 2001, as I found out here when I scroogled it. I corrected that in the entry above, and added a link to the info. Turns out that he ran a $28,000 fluid dynamics software package for most of two weeks to get a thirty-second simulated shower run. My basic commentary remains, of course: put a body in that shower, and the "vortex" will vanish back into simulated limbo. Maybe Prof. Schmidt could do another run...

I supposed I'd better weigh in on the much-ballyhooed Hollywood Writer's strike, since everyone else who should also know better is doing it too. When "everyone else" jumps off a cliff without the benefit of bungees, you won't have to put up with me any more.

Seriously though, the writer's strike is perhaps the last great hope for our culture.

Pretty sad observation, that. But we've blown so many other chances for greatness, and reality only gives us three chances to get it right, in my experience. By my count, we're already far overdrawn on our cultural credibility account, and can expect a foreclosure letter in the post any time.

Briefly, then, a littany of some near-misses from greatness:

After quite genuinely saving the world from a Very Bad Thing in WWII, we seem to have taken on the concept that as a country we could do no wrong on the force front. What followed that adolescent attack of hubris was a long progression of wars that not only had negative outcomes, but no durable rationales to start with, and were entered into through subterfuge. Strike one (at least!) for greatness.

After the Twin Towers in NY were not-so-urbanely renewed by a well-conceived criminal enterprize in 2001, we had an unprecedented chance to take the high road by "interfering" in certain countries' cultures through domestic development strategies that might have made them better off in their own homelands, and thus less likely to produce people intent on sending us a message. The world would have given us, the victims of the act, a great deal of lattitude for such a "forcible" developement agenda, which monetarily would have been a bargain compared to the war we started instead. But we, no followers of Mahatma Ghandi, cut straight to the bottom of the food-chain by resorting, once again, to ill-conceived force justified by domestic-audience subterfuge. Greatness: strike two.

After being warned for decades that our ever-increasing output of carbon dioxide threatens the thermal equilibrium of our planet, we had the choice of taking our own paid scientists at their considered word, and using that conviction to make a change for the better. We pay them to do the thinking, after all, and it's a bit disingenuous of us to then decide that the evidence they present us with has no basis, after they've done the observations and the math for us. So what do we do instead of taking up world leadership on such a crucial issue? Why, we complain that we, the richest country in the world, "can't afford" to impose on our rapacious free market the burden of responding to reality. We expect reality to quietly get out of the way of our profit margins.

Strike three for greatness, if there's any sense in continuing the count.


But now we have another chance at greatness. Call it a base-walk. Even if we can't see past the use of force as a diplomatic imperative; even if we don't care that the world boils, so long as our own rich can still afford air-conditioning and endangered caviar; even if we lay waste to whole countries to feed our obscene thirst for oil, we still have a shot at the cultural big-time.

So how to grab the ring on the next go-round? How about killing television, how does that strike you for a cultural Heimlick Maneuver?

Television is at one and the same time the worst medium for real information on current events, and the best popular anesthetic for the cultural malady it creates. If I were dictator and could make only one change before being overthrown by the outraged populace (but what are the chances of that, eh? (I mean the "overthrow" part)), it would be to kill the idiot box and make sure the corpse was chopped, burnt, shredded, and drown beyond resurrection. But I might not have to become dictator after all, because this writer's strike could do the job for me.

Do I really think so? Of course not.

But I can dream, can't I? What would we do in a world without an electronic teat to simultaneously lay us prostrate and tranced for hours every evening, and yet convince us that we are each of us the one  flower of creation, without peer on the earth?

I don't know what we'd do in that case.

But I'd love to find out.

"Reconciliation" in Iraq- yes indeedy, I do believe in fairy tales. I do, I do, I DO believe in fairy tales!

So what's record on that one so far? It doesn't look good, I'm afraid.

The British and the French pull out a cocktail napkin sometime toward the beginning of the last century and divvy up the burdensome middle east among the glass rings, sticking Kurds with Shiites and Sunnis with them both, and put the Persians and Afgans on the other side of the napkin. Then they stumble from the canteen arm in drunken arm and try to get the rebelling natives to sing "God Save The Queen" and "The Presidential" with them. For some reason, the rousing chorus falters amid musket volleys.

Fast forward, and Saddam actually succeeds in "uniting" the factions, with the aid of such reconciliation tools as the US government supplies to him. Unfortunate side effects, such as dead Kurdish and Shiite villages, prevent it being seen for the grand success it is.

Fast forward again, and the US decides to finish the job Saddam started. So far their success is blinding, as all sides in the ethnic strife are finally on a somewhat equal footing. Cholera stricken, targetted by "insurgents," hated and betrayed by their neighbors, with their infrastructure stripped and under the heel of the "New Israelis" (Americans), but equally repressed even so.

Bush "surges" into the fray, to MAKE them reconcile ("Put DOWN the IED and say you're sorry! Do it now!") but gets less traction than a Polar Bear on a melting ice cap.

Now, today, the installed Iraqi government, under the marked delusion that they are no longer puppets, decides to make one thing clear: they don't believe in fairy tales. For some reason they see their continuing internal struggles for ethnic power as an obstacle to just getting along with each other. Who knew?

Who knew that reconcilliation grows out of mutual respect? Who knew that that the killing has to stop before the forgiveness can start? It does seem a peculiarly brainless Bushite idea, that two people can each forgive the other's sins against them, while both hold a loaded and cocked weapon on the other.

Two people Not Americans, that is: Americans know that's a fairy tale. We'd just like for OTHER people to believe in that fairy tale.

President Bush's summary veto of the SCHIP expansion, in league with his miriad other equally short-sighted vetos, urges an interpretation of His Majesty that is less than flattering.  Less than statesmanly.  Less than Presidential.  Even less than (shall we say it?) Kingly.

A statesman, a president, even a King, are beholden first and foremost to the people of the Kingdom.  Wars are fought (supposedly) for the benefit of the people.  Commerce is promoted in the people's interest.   Social initiatives are instituted or retired as benefits the citizenry.  None of these patterns are followed by George II, though all of them, machiavellianly enough, have been promoted thus.

His wars, the Iraqi phase of them at least, were planned even before taking office with the promise that America would be "a humble country in the world."  How do such cynical wars of aggression benefit the citizens of America?  His idea of commerce promotion seems to be removing the constraints that force the essentially amoral market to follow the greater good.  How is enabling the rich to drive the rest of us into poverty in our interest?  And Bush's social initiatives- let me count the ways...

One of His Majesty's first priorities, that died a well-deserved though strangely prolonged death, was to kill off Social Security, and sink all those "wasted" retirement nest-eggs into the open stocks market.  While furthering the Chicago School goal of annihilating the New Deal, and the Market Jihadists' goal of getting rich(er), this plan was emphatically not in the people's interests.  It's as if the very idea of "the people's interest" is somehow a sinfully socialist concept, to the Free Market Fundamentalists.  They need to form their own country; one where democracy won't be allowed to slow "progress."

(It's no accident that I keep "the rich" well separated from "the people."  This is how the rich like it, and as far as I'm concerned they can have it that way.  Note also that the extended propaganda campaign - some called it a "national debate" - for the Market Welfare plan to replace SS was tolerated because citizens assumed that there was some merit (though admittedly well-hidden) to the idea.  Otherwise they never would have brought it up, would they? ...Well?)

Some let themselves be convinced that it was in their own best (market) interest to throw out the baby first, to avoid having to heat the bath water.  Others tolerated the debate about giving our retirements to the rich simply because we are a democratic nation, used to debating even misguided and immoral topics - with the implicit faith that the right choice will come clear from the process.  As indeed it did in that case; painful though it was even to discuss the concept of letting people die off if they had bad luck or no "market savvy" to begin with.

Since then, of course, we've seen Congress and the President rally from their recesses and vacations for the sake of forcing a vegetative woman to continue living in spite of her own transmitted wishes.  We've seen a "No Child Left Behind" act that is leaving countless children behind because no money comes with its edicts. We've seen massive cutbacks in social, public information, environment and infrastructure programs.  We've seen a devastated city left to die because it was in the market's interest to do so.  When was Bush going to start with the "people's interest" part of His job?

I don't think I need to drum on His Majesty's foreign policy, unless some in the class think He has one.  He doesn't have a policy.  He has an appetite - an appetite not easily sated.

Simply put, the policies employed by our (not quite) elected President are not those of any legitimate leader, but those of a buccaneer; a pirate; a robber-baron.  The man arose from privilege, and has endured no privations that could refocus His sense of who His constituents really are.

The "smirk" tells all.  He is nobless, without the oblige.  He feels no obligation to serve the public, to respect the law, to account for His actions, or even to tell the truth; much less apologise for His crimes.  The man is anathema to all that makes ("made," if He has His way) our country a beacon of freedom to the world.

Here is a clear case for reviving the Biblical tradition of spittle-spraying prophecies.  Let's take our place, shall we, in "The Life of Brian's" prophet queue, and denounce our own home-grown Caesar:

Bush is the Beast.  He must be rejected, and all he has planted must be torn from the soil and burnt; the roots as the branches.  The seed of them must not be planted, nor the fruits of them eaten.  His minions must be cast out from the city into the wastes, and no righteous person shall give them to eat.  They shall be as dust under the feet of the righteous.

"So sayeth the Lord."

Okay, and now we have "Crow-Cams. "

Not really that much new here; all creatures are intelligent to greater or lesser extent. Anyone who's spent hours sitting watching them knows this. What's new is the technology to enable everyone to see it. Don't overlook the links to different videos taken with the cams.

I see a different application for this technology. These cams transmit in real time to a storage server. That means that if a well-scattered assortment of protesters are wearing these during an action, there will be a well-documented record of the inevitable police abuses that are routinely used to suppress free expression at protest actions. A fourteen-gram camera with a several-hour battery would be ideal for wearing in/on a hat. Any scuffle in the crowd would immediately draw the cameras' gaze from many angles.

The only way to counter the fascist propaganda put out by those who gain from suppressing free expression is to show the video that disproves their lies. Without exception, they claim that protesters are at fault, and start the violence. Those who own their own broadcasting networks (now only including the rich, with rich agendas), show footage that backs their own case that the liberal left is composed mostly of fanatics who provoke the police. What we need is to record the interactions that lead to activists being beaten and jailed

Show me the pictures!

Link to another piece of John Cusack's interview with Naomi Klein

I haven't read the book yet but I'll order it when I have money. Watch Cusack's video of the first part of his interview with Naomi Klein here. Klein has done us an incredible service, by looking the devil in the face and naming it for what it is, and seeing that face for ourselves can give us the moral strength to do the same, which we sorely need. The book they are discussing is Klein's "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism"

 

She points out that the philosophy driving the entire Bush agenda is a devotion to a fantasy free market, by adherents of the Chicago School of free market economics. Their distinguishing feature is that they hate government "interference" in the market in any form whatsoever (the rest of us know it as regulatory oversight). And she shows that the Bush II administration is far from a new thing under the sun, but a continuation of a growing economic fundamentalism we've been suffering under at least since Reagan.

The power she gives us, evident in the video, is to see that there is no reason in the world to be polite in the face of such cynical piracy as this president and his cabal are foisting on us. Our own civil politeness, our hesitance to accuse, or even to attribute bad actions to bad intentions, is being explicitly and knowingly used against us and against all of America and, with the "new" imperialism, against the world as well.

We are, most of us, a civil people. And liberals are more civil than most. But we need to understand that we are dealing with a jihad by economic fundamentalists. Their god is the Free Market, by which they mean just that: No governance applied to corporations. Corporations not subject to laws. (how can I be plainer about this?) And just like other religionists we know, they will bend any rule, violate any stricture to pursue their jihad.

Politeness means absolutely nothing to a fundamentalist, and neither does fair play. They themselves make that point in regard to their appointed "enemies," and they illustrate the principle well, when they accuse those who want to stop their plunder of being the real fundamentalists. The free market jihadists won't make their case and wait for us to make ours. A debate is not what they want. They want our hides on a frame.

We have to be willing to do whatever it takes, because that's what they are doing as we speak. They aren't waiting for a "good climate" in which to tear our country apart. They create the climate, and tell us whatever they think will keep us occupied while the job gets done. We can't wait or even hope for civil discussion of the options. There is no civil discussion left, and no negotiating with terrorists, which our elected leaders now are.

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We also need to look at the background against which this struggle takes place. We are seeing the beginnings of the final throes of the oil economy. And we don't have any ready or even feasible replacement energy source that can sustain anywhere near the energy intensity we have become used to, and addicted to. Even nuclear energy can't let us continue as we have been. There is not enough fissible fuel to continue our current massive use of energy for even another fifty years past Flat Oil, which is the term I use for the point at which oil takes as much energy to get out of the ground as it gives up in use.

I'm re-reading Jeremy Rifkin's book, "Entropy," which is subtitled in its Bantam second edition, "Into the Greenhouse World." I recommend this book highly, and it would be a good conceptual companion to Klein's call to action. It's not always easy to follow, if it's your first introduction to the subject; but it is accessible enough, and right-on in its analysis of cultural energy dynamics.

According to Rifkin, every energy base humans have ever used has been overthrown out of necessity, when increasing populations and their energy use finally outstrip whatever energy source is supporting the culture. European farming culture mastered the plow and cleared land to increase their populations so much that soil and wood, their sources of energy and the whole underpinning of their way of life, was critically threatened. At which point, entirely unwilling, they turned to coal, considered vastly inferior to wood for burning. Even the rich had to resort to coal, the crunch was so bad. The need to mine and transport coal was what drove the developement of the steam engine.

Coal gave way to oil, and now here we are at Peak Oil, and there is no new energy base that can meet the intensity we require, if we are to keep using energy at the rate we've become accustomed, and addicted to. Our current technology is quite energy-wastefull, because it was evolved to exploit a perceived endless supply. It will not be easy to introduce efficiencies that will make much difference at all, in the face of increased population pressures and consequent energy demands. We are outgrowing the stored petroleum base, and we have nothing viable to replace it with, not even at vastly increased expense.

EVERY use of energy creates waste (entropy) of some kind; the more concentrated and intense the use, the more waste must be dealt with. Dealing with waste requires (guess what?) energy. Which creates more waste. Which requires dealing with. Etcetera. This means we get less and less actual benefit for each greater unit of energy we use, in a diminishing-returns feedback cycle.

Put simply, we have no choice but to cut back our energy use. It could be done BY us, or it will simply happen TO us, when our energy sources become too energy-expensive to use. Eventually it will take more energy to find new oil, than that oil can produce for us.

Flat Oil.

When this happens, there are basically two options, from a cultural point of view. Either we all die together, in a miserable starving thirsting diseased huddle; or some of us prey on the rest for the energy they need to survive. Human nature being what it is, I expect the latter. Get your guns while you can.

American free-marketists are long on think-tanks, so don't think they haven't reasoned this through. This scenario at once explains their desperation to shake off government controls -- since environmental protections make energy much more expensive even now -- and it underlines the desperation we ourselves should be feeling, to force change NOW, while we still have some few options.

Anyone who doesn't have children now should be thanked for not contributing to the load.

Those who do have offspring should know that taking no action on this front is not an option your children and grandchildren will thank you for.

It's no good waiting for the political environment to change, because the political front has been colonized by the jihadists, and the change we get from that direction will be the change the jihadists want.

It's no good wanting to be nice. Nice won't stop a fundamentalist, and it won't stop Flat Oil. And it sure won't help to climb into your nice, oil-heated bed with another warm breeder and try to forget the whole thing.