My Own Personal Version of the "Two Americas"

I've written numerous posts on this blog about my hometown of Freeport, Illinois, a small manufacturing center in the northwestern corner of the state that interestingly peaked in population (according to the U.S. Census Bureau) in 1970, the same year as conventional U.S. crude oil production. By the 1980s, Freeport was already hurting economically before NAFTA, GATT and the the economic crash of of 2008 really kicked it in the balls. The former Goodyear tire plant where my dad served most of his working life as a middle manager now employs roughly one-tenth the number of workers it did when he retired in the mid-1990s, and as I wrote about back during the 2012 presidential campaign, the local Sensata plant that was bought out by Bain Capital so the operations could be stripped down and shipped out to China is now effectively closed for good.

Meanwhile, like a good number of my high school classmates I split town permanently after I finished college--starting out my career in Chicago before decamping to the Washington area the month before Bill Clinton won his first term. Thanks to the insane levels of federal deficit spending that has accompanied the global war on terror and the economic bailouts after the crash, the DC area these days has become the ultimate boomtown. Everywhere you look there are new McMansions, shopping centers and 20-story office towers going up.

I currently live just outside the capital beltway in Fairfax County, Virginia, and was amazed to see a new sign go up in my neighborhood the other day proudly announcing that one of the few remaining empty spaces around here is about to see the erection of some new homes "starting" at a mere $1.1 million. Mind you, if other recent residential construction around here is any guide these won't be gigantic mansions surrounded by high security walls but oversize, cheaply built, ugly ass faux mansions squeezed onto lots not much bigger than the foundations of the the houses themselves. Once completed they will most likely be occupied either by upper middle class liberal twits or Ayn Rand worshipping contractor assholes who think selling 100% of their vastly overpriced services to the federal government makes them great businesspeople.

Over the holidays, I reconnected by phone with two of my old high school buddies who still live back in Freeport whom I had not seen or spoken with in a very long time, and who did not know about my recent cancer battle until I mentioned it in a note I sent with my Christmas cards. Fortunately, both of them are doing all right health wise and economically. In fact one is an engineer, bizarrely one of about 40 who still work in the office area of that former Sensata plant. He had a front row seat during the 2012 protests over the closing and subsequent election-induced media circus--but it haunts him now to walk through the empty factory facility that used to employ around 400 people, including a few friends from our old high school days.

He also told me another economic anecdote that was quite telling. Growing up, we were neighbors who lived not far from Freeport's east side, which is the older part of town where people who were stung by the first round of globalization in the late 1970s and 1980s began to cluster. As things grew worse, the blight of drugs, petty crime and broken down looking homes spread slowly westward until it eventually enveloped our old neighborhood. The last time I visited back in 2006, the house I where I'd lived was up for sale as part of a HUD auction after the family who bought it from my father had apparently been foreclosed upon.

Anyway, a guy my friend knows bought a house on that same block about ten years ago for around $49,000--as a globalization loser Freeport never really got caught up much in the housing bubble. Yet--and get this--with the continued decline of the neighborhood he now desperately wants to move but can't because he's too far underwater. That's sad not only for what it says about the current state of home values in my hometown but for the homeowner's apparent inability to pay off a house mortgaged a decade ago for about the price of the countless Lexus SUVs I see driving around in my current neighborhood.

I read recently that Brooklyn is now ranked as the least affordable housing market in America. There have also been numerous stories recently about the insane prices that high rise luxury condominiums are going for in midtown Manhattan these days. It doesn't take a genius to figure out which two sectors (other than Silicon Valley) have done the best in Obama's "zombie economy"--finance and government contracting. Yet the average American citizen consumer idiot insanely still believes they'll strike it rich someday playing in the former's rigged markets and that it really matters which party's politicians' pockets are being lined by both.

Back in 1970 my hometown, sporting a brand spanking new tire plant that was only six years old where my father (who was a recruiter then) had to travel all over the midwest to find enough warm bodies willing to make big bucks at what were admittedly physically demanding jobs, was an offshoot from places like Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland of an American manufacturing economy that supported the most robust middle class the world has ever seen. Though the seeds of the destruction of that economic model ultimately lay within that same peaking of crude oil production, it was the parallel rise of the zombie economy (aided and abetted by fearfully ignorant voters who repeatedly elected the same assholes who sold them down the river) that accelerated its demise.

Happy New Year, everybody.

Ian Welsh: America’s Depraved Leadership Has Created a Depraved Population

Fellow blogger Ian Welsh, one of the few opinion writers I have a tremendous respect for, today offered an very grim assessment of the fact that a majority of American citizens consumers idiots now approve of torture:

Before Bush, most Americans were against torture. The endless drumbeat of propaganda and the need to justify what America does (America is good, therefore America does not do evil), has had its effect.

I will make an ethical judgment: people think torture is justified are bad people. Depraved people. A society where a majority thinks it is justified is a depraved culture. (And remember, 51% think it was justified, but 20% don’t have an opinion. Only about a third of Americans are opposed.)

While I totally agree with Ian that America has become a depraved culture, I'm going to offer a slightly different assessment of at least some of the people who approve of torture. After all, the title of his post is contradictory to his conclusion.

It is one thing to offer an answer to a drily worded public opinion survey from the comfort and safety of your own home. It would be another to still favor torture after say, being forced to watch a video of the tactics the CIA was using in action. My bet is that after watching such a video, the number who approve of torture would drop sharply and the dumbass "no opinion" responses would also break overwhelmingly negative.

My point is that the ones who would still approve of torture after seeing it practiced are the truly "bad people" as Ian described them. The remainder are the easily led sheep (I really HATE the term "sheeple") who easily submit to authority and allow themselves to be propagandized. In much the same way that the Nazis were unable to win majority support in Germany until after they were handed power by a cabal of cynical nationalist politicians and could effectively drown out any competing voices from the public sphere, not until America's conservative media organs relentlessly flogged the Jack Nicholson, "You can't HANDLE the truth!" message did torture become an "acceptable" American practice. America's depraved leadership did not really "create" a depraved population, it merely led that population where it wanted it to go.

So does that mean I'm letting those Americans off the hook who are so shallow that they don't really even grasp the evil they are supporting? Fuck no. The only "Good Germans" circa 1933-1945 are those "political undesirables" who ended up in the concentration camps alongside the Jews, gays and Gypsies, or the rare ones who risked the very same fate by trying to hide would-be Nazi victims.

A truly sickening aspect of these public opinion findings for me is that nearly six years after war criminals George W. Bush and Dick Cheney left office I find myself more ashamed and disgusted by my own country than ever. And not that chickenshit Obama was going to use the release of this report to launch an inquiry to hold those responsible for the torture accountable anyway, but now he has even more incentive to stick his thumb up his ass and do nothing.

One last point: if you look at the actual poll results, you'll notice that even a plurality of black Americans now support torture. Which means there had to be quite a few torture supporters out protesting police violence this weekend. That such protestors are unable to make the connection between American war crimes committed overseas and the crimes being perpetrated by the police against their own kind back here at home is yet another dismal example of how there is no hope for America anymore.


Bonus: "You don't like the sound of the truth...coming from my mouth"

The Cynical Politics Behind the Release of the CIA Torture Report

I want to begin this post by assuring my readers (both of you, hi!) that I am glad the CIA torture report, even in its heavily redacted form, was allowed to be released before the new Senate Republican majority hit town and sank the the whole thing to the deepest recesses of the Mariana Trench. ANY report being released that speaks at least some of the truth about what the CIA was up to doing during the Bush years is at least better than no report at all.

That said, the only really surprising thing about the report is that anyone was surprised by what it contained--namely details about what we already knew. The CIA tortured prisoners at so called "black" sites around the world? Check, we already knew that. Numerous other countries participated in torture and rendition? Check, we already knew that. Torture is ineffective as an intelligence gathering device and actually destroys a so-called democracy's credibility when it claims to be a bastion of human rights? Check, we already knew that. Obama isn't going to do jack shit to hold any of the torturers or those who gave the orders accountable? Check, check and fucking check already.

But rather than express my outrage over what the report says, as is being done in many other quarters, I'd like to instead focus on the individual who is most responsible for getting it out the door before it slammed shut: namely the senior U.S. Senator from California, and lame duck chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, Dianne Feinstein. Who is Dianne Feinstein anyway? Well, she is currently the oldest and one of the wealthiest members of the Senate with a net worth by some reports nearly in the nine figures. She is a Democrat and supposed "liberal" who voted for the Iraq War and the Patriot Act and also for the hideous FISA law removing judicial oversight of the executive programs that spy on U.S. citizens. Not only that, her husband is an investment banker who has made countless millions from defense war contracts.

In other words, she seems like just the kind of fake liberal sellout Democrat who might have chosen delay the report's issuance until Mitch McConnell's new Intelligence Chairman could bury it forever. So why did she do it? Was it the remorseful act by an aging old woman who as mortality approaches is feeling a pang of conscience after selling out every young Californian idealist who ever believed in her? Excuse me if I say, not bloody likely. Feinstein strikes me as another Madeline "half a million dead Iraqi children was worth it" Albright type of crusty old stain upon the human race--in other words not the kind who has any conscience at all.

Nope, my personal belief, having no direct knowledge of the situation, is that this was a way for a Democrat whose party just took a major electoral shellacking and is fast on its way to political irrelevancy to try once again to demonstrate to the idiots voters who support her party that there really is a difference between her tribe and the red one. We Democrats may be "Republican lite" on most issues, Feinstein is saying, but at least we are willing to issue a damning report that states what everybody already knew. And for that it's working beautifully. Right on cue, conservative "news" outlets like Fox and the Wall Street Journal immediately fell in line, blasting the report on a strictly partisan basis. Meanwhile, some of the right's more unhinged troglodytes started spewing the kind of fascist rhetoric guaranteed to get (male and female) liberals' panties into a bunch and frothing at the mouth to--make sure they vote Hillary in 2016. That'll learn 'em.

This whole spectacle is, of course, sound and fury signifying nothing, as here in America at least the report will be largely forgotten about by the general public before the new year even rings in. And if overseas outrage should generate another international terrorist attack or two, all the better to keep that War on Terror gravy train a-flowing for war profiteers like Ms. Feinsein's hubby.

As for the CIA itself, the report will change nothing. Obama had already curtailed the agency's worst GWOT abuses (well after the Inside-the-Beltway consensus had already decided torture was counterproductive), so the agency will claim that there is nothing that needs changing. The whole debacle will certainly be another major public relations black eye for Langley, but really, after decades of abuses and spectacular failures and fuck ups, could the image of America's top spy agency really get any worse?


Bonus: "I don't really give a good fuck what you know or don't know--but I'm gonna torture you anyway"

Bill Cosby: A Fitting "Hero" for 21st Century America

It's been a tough time recently for asshole moralizers of any race who like nothing more than to shake their collective finger at the black community and blame it for its own perceived failures rather than the institutionalized racism that, while it is not quite as omnipresent as in generations past, still remains very much a reality. A half-century after the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, shithead cops are gunning down 12-year-olds holding toy guns and choking to death street vendors while asshole prosecutors steer grand juries away from even indicting them. And if you're the kind of person who believes that Tamir Rice, Eric Garner or Michael Brown would have been killed had they been white, or that Garner and Brown's killers would have gotten away with killing them had they been white, then you are at best completely blinded to the kinds of injustice black Americans face on a routine basis.

Unless, of course, they manage to become rich celebrities. That's one thing that HAS changed for black Americans in the past 50 years. O.J. Simpson was the first black man to really benefit from the "celebritard effect," literally getting away with murder thanks to his trial turning into an out of control media circus and, not incidentally, the fact that the detective who found the key piece of evidence against him used the word "nigger" on the job like he was starring in a Tarrantino movie. At the time of O.J.'s acquittal, many white Americans were dismayed that so many blacks celebrated the verdict--much the same way I imagine the tables were turned here recently after the decision not to indict Darren Wilson. Personally, both results sickened me, but I'll admit to being pretty weird in that I happen to find the killing of innocent people repulsive no matter the race of the victim(s) and/or the perpetrator.

The recent events in Ferguson, Cleveland and New York City have unfolded coincident with appalling public spectacle and spectacular downfall of comedian, racial scold and apparent serial rapist Bill Cosby. Because a vast majority of Americans are apparently stupid enough to believe that the personality they see on teevee hawking Jello pops reflects the real character and personality of the individual doing the hawking, Bill Cosby's career was until very recently able to survive and prosper despite it being open secret for many years that he was in the habit of drugging and raping any young actress or model unlucky enough to come within 100 feet of him.

It particularly galls me to be writing such things about Cosby, who was a true childhood hero of mine. As a kid I had several of his old comedy albums, and listened to legendary routines like "The Chicken Heart" so many times that I was able to entertain other kids in the neighborhood (back in the bad old days before VHS or even Betamax players) by reciting them literally word for word. But given that my favorite athlete back then was Pete Rose, I guess I really shouldn't be at all surprised by this particular belated loss of childhood innocence.

Of course, like so many prominent Americans, Cosby wasn't immune from engaging in monumental hypocrisy and wagging his finger at the supposed failings of others of his own race. In his case, his target was black parents who were supposedly failing to teach their children proper standards of moral behavior. Until the rape scandal finally blew up in his face Cosby was still lecturing to black communities "about his frustrations with certain problems prevalent in underprivileged urban communities, such as illegal drugs; teenage pregnancy; Black Entertainment Television; high-school dropouts; anti-intellectualism; gangsta rap; vulgarity; thievery; offensive clothing; vanity; parental alienation; single-parenting; and failing to live up to the ideals of Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Jr., and African-Americans who preceded Generation X."

Which if you think about it makes Cosby almost the perfect embodiment of 21st century America, believing itself to be an exceptional "shining city on a hill" spreading "freedom" and "democracy" around the world when the reality has been one long unbroken string of war crimes, torture and massive human rights abuses. Just as American police officers routinely abuse and murder black Americans with impunity, our soldiers, bombers, drone pilots and intelligence operatives have been doing the same thing to brown people living in North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia who desire nothing more unreasonable than to live their lives completely free of American interference and exploitation. Collectively, Americans think of themselves as Cliff Huxtable, when in fact they are really Charlie Manson.

The good news in Bill Cosby's case is that even though he is unlikely to be sent to prison where he belongs at least he has lived long enough to finally have his many crimes exposed and to see his legacy as one of America's most beloved entertainers utterly destroyed before his very eyes. It will take quite a while longer, I'm afraid, for America as a nation to receive a similar comeuppance--when its economy finally crashes for good and drags its hideous, bloated military-industrial complex down with it. And like Bill Cosby, when it does finally happen, rather than facing up to their country's many crimes most Americans will instead be wearing a befuddled look of utter incomprehension as it all comes crashing down around them.


Bonus: In retrospect this may well be the most offensive joke any major comedian ever told

Soon it Might Not Just Be "Open Season" on Black Teenagers

The reaction in many quarters to the Michael Brown shooting and verdict have been quite interesting. It was disappointing for example to see that James Howard Kunstler, whose 2005 book The Long Emergency served as my wake up call for the issues of Peak Oil and resource depletion, has used his recent blog posts to expose himself as a typical old white latent racist of the "get those kids off my lawn" variety. Being Jewish, Kunstler is no doubt familiar with the old Holocaust anecdote that begins with "First they came for the Jews, but not being Jewish I did not speak up," and ends with the narrator himself being hauled away by the Gestapo with no one left to speak up for him. But Jim seems completely oblivious of the fact that by failing to speak up for the young black men being executed on the streets of America by unaccountable cops there may well come a day when it will be "open season" on radical authors who repeatedly agitate against the government and Wall Street--even if they happen to be grumpy old white men.

Surprisingly, one writer who has been pretty sensible about all this is Market Ticker's Karl Denninger, who pointed out how Darren Wilson was allowed to lie to the Grand Jury even as the local prosecutor deliberately steered that same jury to a no bill:

Nobody, with the exception of this site and, believe it or not, one particular thread on Daily Kos, have examined the actual issue -- the fact that the physical evidence did not support the police officer's narrative -- not originally, not as the case developed and not in the Grand Jury testimony.

Further, there is plenty of hard, documentary evidence of intentionally false instructions being given to the Grand Jury -- specifically, the standard for the use of deadly force by officers was presented to them as the pre-Supreme Court decision in 1985 (Tennessee .v. Garner) on shooting fleeing felons. The Grand Jury was instructed that this was permissible when in fact this has not been for 30 years. That's not an accident, it is intentional and willful misconduct on the part of the authorities. Were you or I to give an intentionally false presentation to a Grand Jury we'd find ourselves in prison and with good cause. The Prosecutor will not face that same punishment, yet it was a direct and proximate cause of the no-bill decision.

But now we have the NYC case in which there was a refusal to indict as well -- and this is even more outrageous as the conduct in question, a police choke-hold that was found by the medical examiner to be the cause of death as he ruled it a homicide is a banned practice in most police departments -- including in NYC.

What has been most revealing and particularly disheartening about these cases going all the way back to the Trayvon Martin travesty is the reflexive rallying of support for the shooters. It has been reported that over $500,000 has been raised for cold blooded killer Wilson (and yes, given that Wilson said in an interview he'd do it all over again the exact same way, I have no hesitation in labeling him a sociopath), and a similar online fundraising effort was undertaken on behalf of Zimmerman. Worse yet was the rash of police officers around the country publicly posting or proclaiming "I am Darren Wilson," which ought to make any conscientious citizen of any race, creed or color's blood run cold.

What you see here is an America that is rapidly regressing in area where true progress had ever so recently been made. After repeated public disclosures of police corruption and abuse that were published and broadcast starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a nationwide effort to clean up and improve the profession. College degrees became far more common for officers as Criminal Justice became a sought after university major. "Civilian oversight" became a common catch phrase that was begrudgingly welcomed by the leadership of departments that knew they needed to get rid of at least the worst of their bad apples and shore up their public image.

Unfortunately, the aftermath of 9/11 had the same kind of corrosive effect on law enforcement that is has had in so many other aspects of American life. The images of NYPD officers rushing into to the towers and losing their lives to save their fellow citizens turned them into heroes--in much the same way as were the soldiers and Marines going off to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq to "avenge" those who died in the towers. Unfortunately, the hero worship of police officers has persisted, making them virtually immune from criticism in many circles, particularly among those who believe "law and order" is far more important than numerous Constitutional amendments--save, of course, the 2nd.

Dovetailing the 9/11 hero halos placed upon the police, was the militarization of police forces as federal homeland security money was generously heaped upon departments so they could purchase the excess military grade hardware being churned out by American defense war contractors. Historically, one thing that has separated America from being like the tin pot dictatorships and banana republics around the world is that we don't send tanks and regular army units into the streets to restore order. But with our police now driving APVs, outfitted like the stormtroopers on the Death Star and carrying high power weaponry, the distinction is rapidly fading.

Though petty police corruption such as taking small bribes to ignore misdemeanors may not be as prevalent today as it was a couple of generations ago, with their repeated displays of wanton violence against citizens police departments are more out control today than they ever have been. Worse yet is when the asshole prosecutors, whose fucking JOB it is to protect the public from criminals, even and ESPECIALLY those criminals who wear the badge, through their actions sanction and condone executions of unarmed citizens, America steps that much closer to becoming a police state. Chickenshit Obama has the option of ordering the Department of Justice to conduct federal civil rights investigations in these cases, as Daddy Bush did after the initial Rodney King verdicts. His failure to do so is inexcusable, though at this point I am beginning to wonder if the U.S. has become so polarized that it might be impossible to get even a federal jury to convict a cop of murder these days.

I'd like to close this particularly grim post by saying that these events, and the public's reaction to them, should finally dispel any notion by liberals or progressives that the election of Barak Obama showed that America had finally moved past its long history of racism. The disgraceful overt cheering on of sociopathic murdering assholes George Zimmerman and Darren Wilson and the repellent attempts to smear the character of their innocent victims demonstrates that racial hatred is not only alive and well among a substantial portion of the population, but is deepening and hardening is ways that portend some potentially very scary future scenarios as America continues to slowly sink into the economic abyss.

Next time it might not be a black teenager impudently walking in the street instead of on the sidewalk who gets gunned down for defying authority, it might be a grouchy old Peak Oil writer who dares to tell the frothing supporters of Zimmerman and Wilson that soon they will no longer be able to exercise their "God given right" to hog the roadways in the Hummers and F-250s with the "Global Whining" stickers plastered prominently on the back bumper. No one will likely speak for you then, Jim, because by when your white skin is no longer sufficient to shield you it really will be too late.


Bonus: "Fucking with me, 'cause I'm a teenager, with a little bit of gold and a pager"

What do Jerry Brown and Samuel L. Jackson Have in Common?

"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

So says Aaron Eckhart as fictional District Attorney Harvey Dent in the movie The Dark Knight, not long before his kidnapping and horrible disfigurement by Heath Ledger's Joker turns him in exactly the way he predicted. In real life such transformations are far more subtle and usually take far longer to reach fruition. Two such contemporary figures who both happen to hail from the great and wacky state of California but who could not have more disparate backgrounds, beloved actor Samuel L. Jackson and current California Governor Jerry Brown, are living proof that for reputation's sake it is rarely a good idea to hang around too long in the public eye.

Let's start with Jackson, who American moviegoers love for his admittedly intense performances in such movies as Pulp Fiction and the remake of Shaft (can you dig it?). Few popcorn munchers are aware, however, that during his student days Jackson became so outraged by Martin Luther King's assassination that he joined the Black Power movement and in 1969 participated in holding members of the Morehouse College board of trustees hostage on the campus, demanding reform in the school's curriculum and governance. You can readily imagine Jackson going into that battle carrying a wallet with "Bad Motherfucker" etched in the leather. He was later convicted of a second degree felony for his actions, and clearly this was a young man willing to go to jail or even risk his life in order to fight systemic abuse and injustice directed toward black Americans.

Flash forward 45 years later, and the bad motherfucker has mellowed out a bit. In fact he's mellowed out so much that he has become unavoidable on commercial teevee as a pitchman for Capital One, hawking credit cards to already seriously over-indebted American citizens consumers idiots. Not only was Capital One bailed out by the taxpayers during the financial crash to the tune of over $3.5 billion, but the company's current credit card interest rate charged for purchases is 24.9% on money that the bank can, of course, borrow from the Federal Reserve for next to nothing.

It should go without saying that credit card debt most heavily burdens lower income Americans, who are disproportionally black and minority. But more surprisingly is that even middle class black families have come to lean heavily on high interest credit card debt, to the point where nearly four out of five such families are so indebted. Yet there is nary a negative word publicly uttered about Jackson's massive sellout of his previous principles despite the fact that his net worth is currently estimated at $170 million, and he hardly has any financially motivated reason to be out hawking debt to those, especially those of his own race who he once seemed to care about so passionately, who can ill afford it.

Next we have the example of Jerry Brown, who for much of his career campaigned vigorously against the corrupting influence of big money in politics. So how is all that going these days? Here's the Sacramento Bee with the scoop:

Brown began his political career in the 1970s as a radical governor who would take down political corruption and outsized donations from lobbyists. The Brown we see today courts millions in campaign contributions from big corporations and looks the other way when a key government official is caught red-handed trying to protect the company he is supposed to be investigating.

In the case of disgraced PUC President Michael Peevey, Brown has not demanded Peevey immediately resign from office, despite the recent unearthing of his blatantly improper and unethical intervention on behalf of PG&E. The PUC is supposed to hold PG&E accountable and protect the public in the aftermath of the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion. What we find instead are backroom deals, bribery, questionable rate hikes, and hand-picking judges who will be favorable to PG&E and the utility industry Peevey comes from.

---

Brown’s governance has failed to set a standard condemning influence peddling in Sacramento.

The changes in Brown’s campaign fundraising over the years are a signpost of the kind of leader he has become. Unlike his first gubernatorial campaign in 1974, during which he attempted to ban direct contributions from lobbyists, or his campaign for president in 1992, when he wanted candidates to cap donations at $100, Brown’s most recent campaigns have been marked by raising some of the largest sums in the country. The $25 million in the 2014 race came overwhelmingly from big corporations, labor unions, oil companies and wealthy individuals known for lobbying state government.

The means by which Brown secures such hefty contributions came under suspicion in January, when he asked the California Supreme Court to reverse lower court rulings blocking high-speed rail. Brown filed the appeal just three days after Tutor Perini Corp. – the contractor that won a $1 billion contract for the project despite having the lowest technical rating of those bidding – donated the maximum $27,200 it could to Brown’s campaign.

Is it any surprise that in September Brown vetoed an ethics bill (Senate Bill 1443) that would have required more campaign finance disclosure and reduced the value of gifts lobbyists can give state officials?

No it really isn't a surprise given that it has been quite awhile since anyone, even a politician of Jerry Brown's stature, could be elected to a major post like Gubbner of California WITHOUT pocketing vast sums of cash from such sources. At some point "Governor Moonbeam," who during his first stint as governor during the mid-1970s lived in a modest apartment instead of the governor's mansion and drove around in a Plymouth Satellite sedan instead of being chauffeured by limousine, recognized that he either needed to compromise his principles or give up politics, and we can see which route he chose.

I highlighted these two examples to demonstrate just how commonplace and mundane the selling out and/or corruption of American public figures has become these days. In fact, it has become so much so that those involved in it can no longer see that they are just as big a part of the problem as those they may choose to vilify, as shown by this amazingly clueless quote from Jackson about Supreme Court Justice Clarance Thomas:

He (Jackson) compared his Django Unchained character, a villainous house slave, to black conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, saying that "I have the same moral compass as Clarence Thomas does".

No, Samuel, sadly it is not just your "Uncle Tom" character who has the "moral compass" of Clarance Thomas, but YOU as well. You and Thomas are part of the same massive hypocrisy, and are both useful "tools of the man" as you and your brethren no doubt put it back in the 1960s. And along with your esteemed governor, Jerry Brown, you are hardly alone.


Bonus: "The path of the righteous man is beset on all side by the inequities of the selfish and the tyrannies of evil men"

They Hate You--They REALLY REALLY Hate You

The other day I was scanning online through some old year end "Best of" lists from some newspaper websites looking for books to add to my already substantial reading list. That's when I came upon a review of THIS TOWN -- Two Parties and a Funeral Plus Plenty of Valet Parking! in America’s Gilded Capital by Mark Leibovich, which was published last year to some excellent critical acclaim. I haven't yet read Leibovich's book, but some of the blurbs from the New York Times review of it were so interesting that I thought I would share them here:

Not to ruin it for you, but: if you already hate Washington, you’re going to hate it a whole lot more after reading Mark Leibovich’s takedown of the creatures who infest our nation’s capital and rule our destinies. And in case you are deluded enough as to think they care, you’ll learn that they already hate you. He quotes his former Washington Post colleague Henry ­Allen: ­“Washington feels like a conspiracy we’re all in together, and nobody else in America quite understands, even though they pay for it.”

It's a conspiracy, all right, if in fact only a loose one among a large group of sociopaths who hate each other almost as much as they hate you and me. The meat of the review, and thus the book, comes with the author's depictions of four major changes that have come to Washington in recent decades:

Lobbying. President Obama’s first year in office was the best year ever for the special interests industry, which earned $3.47 billion lobbying the federal government. Ka-ching — your change, sir. There’s a phrase in journalism-speak called “burying the lede,” which Leibo­vich appears to do by waiting until Page 330 to cite this arresting figure (previously reported by The Atlantic): in 1974, 3 percent of retiring members of Congress became lobbyists. “Now 50 percent of senators and 42 percent of congressmen do.” No one goes home anymore. Cincinnatus, call your office.

There are a number of sanctimonious standout “formers” in Leibovich’s Congressional hall of shame, but just to name a few exemplars who gleefully inhabit ethical no-worry zones and execute brisk 180-­degree switcheroos on any issue, including the Armenian genocide, so long as it pays: Dick Gephardt, Evan Bayh and Tim Pawlenty. (Christopher Dodd, late of Connecticut, is another beauty. Disclosure: he beat my uncle out of a Senate seat, but judge for yourself if he isn’t loathsome for other reasons.) My own modest proposal is that the media stop referring to these scoundrels as “strategic consultants” or their other camouflage titles and call them what they are: influence peddlers. I know — good luck with that.

The other major change took place pari passu with lobbying: the arrival of big money in Washington. “Over the last dozen years,” Leibovich writes, “corporate America (much of it Wall Street) has tripled the amount of money it has spent on lobbying and public affairs consulting in D.C.” Alongside this money comes the tsunami of dollars from presidential campaigns. He reports that during the 2012 contest, the so-called super PACs and megadonors pumped “upwards of $2 billion . . . into the empty-calorie economy of two men destroying each other.” He refers to a datum courtesy of The Huffington Post, which reported in the spring of 2012 that, so far, “the top 150 consulting companies had . . . grossed more than $465 million” during the campaign.

All of which has given rise to another unlovely development: political consultants and their concomitant celebrity. This breed has, Leibovich says, essentially replaced the old-style political bosses. One might ask: is it a bad thing that we now have the omnipresent James Carville and Mary Matalin and their ilk? Aren’t we better off for this “celebrity-industrial complex” instead of the smoke-filled rooms of yore? Over to you, but at least the boys in the smoke-filled rooms didn’t yap at us on TV on the Sabbath and endorse Maker’s Mark bourbon. (Honestly, James and Mary. They’re also doing the safety briefing voice-over for Independence Air. Is this a great country or what? Meanwhile, on “Good Morning America” tomorrow, George Stephanopoulos’s guests are. . . .)

Bringing us to the fourth change: Pandora’s (cable TV) box. The rise of cable television and the 24/7 news cycle, as well as Facebook, Twitter and the rest of social media, have provided all these people with heretofore unimaginable influence. “Suddenly,” Leibovich writes, “anyone without facial warts could call themselves a ‘strategist’ and get on TV. Or start an e-mail newsletter, Web site or, later, blog, Facebook page or Twitter following — in other words, become Famous for Washington.”

It has also enabled journalists to turn themselves into pundits, with all the glittery and greasy emoluments of that lower trade. “Punditry,” he writes, “has replaced reporting as journalism’s highest calling, accompanied by a mad dash of ‘self-branding,’ to borrow a term that had now fully infested the city: everyone now hellbent on branding themselves in the marketplace, like Cheetos (Russert was the local Coca-Cola). They gather, all the brands, at . . . self-­reverential festivals, like the April White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, whose buffet of ‘pre-parties’ and ‘after-parties’ now numbers more than two dozen — because a single banquet, it is clear, cannot properly celebrate the full achievements of the People Who Run Your Country.”

I spent most of my career prior to my recent retirement inside the Beltway, but I was as far away (metaphorically if not literally) from the glitz and glamour of "official" (read: "political") Washington as I'd been when I was still growing up in Illinois. You're either in what the late George Carlin described as "The Big Club" or you're not, and I most decidedly was not.

Nevertheless, what I've witnessed since arriving in the DC area a month before Bill Clinton won his first term in office is how the money pump, which has always propped up the world's largest "company town," has in the years since the start of the War on Terror and particularly since the insane federal borrowing and spending in the wake of the 2008 financial crash, almost literally paved the streets of the city and its immediate suburbs with gold. This incredible surge of wealth, most of it going to the lobbyists, lawyers and "Beltway Bandit" contractors, can be seen everywhere from the countless new suburban McMansions and upscale shopping malls to the many regentrified DC neighborhoods that have changed the demographic makeup of the so-called "Chocolate City" so dramatically that it no longer has a black majority population. Washington as a workplace is no longer a locale for citizens who really believe in public service (as I once did), but has instead become a gold rush city where the greedy and power hungry come to strike it rich.

And all of this, of course, is enabled by Americans who are either ignorant, stupid or willfully blind enough to believe it still matters what party label the sociopathic social climbers who come to Washington to make their fortune wear. The real truth is personified by former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who after his recent "stunning" primary defeat almost immediately signed on as a lobbyist making 26 times the average annual household income of his former Virginia district.

Of course, for all of their bluster and preening these people are still just puppets dancing on the ends of strings held by the billionaires who pay the bills. And the system that supports both them and their paymasters is getting more brittle and creakier by the year. Someday, the whole (ahem) house of cards is going to come crashing down, and those who have so come to disdain their fellow citizens are going to get a rude awakening in just what it means to be the objects of their collective hatred.


Bonus: "They still call it The White House, but that's a temporary condition"

Four More (Grueling) Years

As predicted here last Friday, it appears that Hurricane Sandy was the "black swan" event that stopped Mittmentum and caused the presidential election to revert back from a dead heat and the possibility of a long drawn out recount battle in one or more battleground states to a relatively easy Obama victory. Thus was the incumbent awarded a second term he most decidedly does NOT deserve. Despite its many discontents, in the end America voted for the status quo because the alternative was even more unthinkable. It ought to go without saying, but this is NOT how a representative democracy is supposed to work.

I could go on and on about how the country is now going to get four more years of the same old shit, but I'm tired of writing about all of that. Instead, I'll just highlight my greatest personal disappointment from this election. Stephenson County, Illinois, my home county and as I have written about numerous times on this blog the setting of Bain Capital's horrendous decision to close down the local Sensata plant and move all of the jobs to China, went comfortably for Romney despite having a front row seat to witness what his brand of vulture capitalism is all about. If seeing your friends, relatives and neighbors stripped of their jobs while enduring the additional humiliation of having to train their Chinese replacements isn't enough to wake people the fuck up, then there is no hope for this country.

On a personal note, I am taking another break from blogging. I'm burned out and just cannot keep writing about this stuff right now. Maybe I'll be back to comment on the impending "fiscal cliff" battle in Washington, though I'll note that just last week the craven Speaker of the House indicated that he's amenable to passing a so-called "bridge" bill during the congressional lame duck session that will push back the looming deadlines into next year. And thus does the can get kicked down the road yet again with no possibility of any real solutions being offered. Just like the last four grueling years.


Bonus: "It's the same old song and dance"

"Garbage In, Garbage Out"

I'm not voting today. Not exactly an earth shattering pronouncement given my stated views on this blog, I know. If you are thinking about voting today, please do me a favor and watch this first if you haven't seen it before. It was true when George said just over a decade ago, and it is even more true today.

Storm Warning

During the next 72 hours or so, the DC area is expected to get hit by Hurricane Sandy, a storm of unprecedented strength, fury and duration. As for me, I'm not terribly worried. I don't live near the coast, nor in any kind of a flood zone. I figure the worst that will happen is we lose power for a few days again, but that wouldn't be the first time that's happened even this year.

Because I don't expect it to affect me that much, my interest in this storm is more academic. I've been living in the national capital region for just over two decades now, which, of course, is also the home of most of the folks who have the power to actually do something to address the building crisis that is climate change. Amazingly, the DC-area has experienced more extreme weather events in the past three years than it did in my first 17 years of living here:

1). In February 2010, the area was hit by two massive Nor'easters in rapid succession which coupled with a third such storm the previous December to set a seasonal snowfall record. The three massive snow storms in just two months' time matched the total of three such storms to hit this area between 1993 and 2009.

2). In August 2011, Hurricane Irene struck the region before moving on to create catastrophic damage in Vermont and upstate New York.

3). In September 2011, Northern Virginia was hit with a record breaking one day rainstorm that caused a 1000-year flash flood in some areas.

4). In October 2011, almost exactly one year ago, the area was struck by the same massive Nor'easter that dumped over two feet of snow on portions of New England, though it was mostly rain here.

5). In March 2012, at the tail end of a record breaking warm winter, the DC area experienced the same freaky early summer type weather that blanketed much of the Midwest.

6). In June 2012, towards the end of one of the hottest Junes on record, the DC area was struck with a powerful derecho that knocked out power to over 3.7 million homes.

And yet climate change has been hardly mentioned at all during the presidential campaign and Congress will not even seriously consider any legislation that might be aimed at attempting to address it. If I were of a religious bent, I would almost be inclined to say that God is punishing the nation's capital for its sins of inaction. I know that may sound silly, but what the fuck, wingnut conservatives are always dragging His name into their political arguments so why can't I?

If nothing else, this storm is going to serve as a massive distraction from the horrible presidential election for a few days. Who said I don't know how to find silver linings?


Bonus: "Sandy, the angels have lost their desire for us...I spoke to 'em just last night and they said they won't set themselves on fire for us anymore"

Hideous Liberal "News" Outlet Snidely Dismisses the Results of Venezuela's Election

There is probably no website that better encapsulates the sheer venality and arrogance of America's supposedly "liberal" media establishment than the Atlantic Wire. Every day the Wire bombards its mostly liberal and progressive readership with the headlines its editors think are important, which could be anything from the civil war in Syria to economic collapse in Greece to the latest antics of Lindsey Lohan and Amanda Byrnes. Mixing real news with the utterly trivial as if each has equal importance is bad enough. But even worse is the site's routine asskissing of the rich and powerful and total conformity to the accepted conventional media "wisdom."

Case in point: yesterday the Wire ran the following headline in reporting the results of Venezuela's presidential election: "Of Course, Hugo Chavez Wins Another Term." Note the snide inference that the election results were not legitimate.

And yet, unlike the norm in most supposedly authoritarian countries, the election was actually pretty close:

In an election that was expected to deliver a record level of voter turnout on Sunday, the socialist leader garnered 54 percent of the vote, while his challenger centrist state governor Henrique Capriles got 45 percent.

Funny, but America has had presidential elections in which the final spread between the wo major party candidates was greater than 9%. So what was it that generated the insinuation that Hugo Chavez winning the race was a sham?

Fate was always on Chavez's side, though. Armed with Venezuela's war chest of oil money, he's spent the last few months launching massive giveaway programs that gave Chinese-made appliances to tens of thousands of poor Venezuelan families and promised the construction of 200,000 homes for the country's poor. "Since late last year, Chavez has been spending money like there's no tomorrow, and it's worked," one political analyst told The Los Angeles Times. "Most polls show his approval ratings are up 10 points since then." The government is on track to run a $60-billion deficit this year, by the way.

Gee, that horrible Chavez. What an inhuman monster he is for taking Venezuela's oil profits and instead of allowing a tiny group of politically connected corrupt billionaires to steal it all deciding to give it back to the people. And don't get me started about the absurdity of chastising Chavez for running a $60 billion budget defict when our own is around $1.4 trillion.

There are three things about the way the Wire reported this story that are notable. The first is the idea of a "liberal" news organ looking down its nose at a world leader who is not completely captured by the elite interests of his own country. Heaven forbid that the left wing party in Venezuela isn't beholden to the wealthy and the corporations the way the Democratic Party is in the U.S.--those silly third worlders and their quaint notions that having a real democracy means that the full political spectrum and not just the right of center should be represented.

The second thing that is notabale is that amazingly, only 5% less than a majority of Venezuelans actually voted against their nation's power structure. Compare that to the United States, where next month it is virtually guaranteed that at least 99% of the voters will cast their ballots for one of two oligarch-approved candidates whose positions are virtually identical on every issue of real importance. And yet the Wire has the audacity to insinuate that it is the Venezuelans who live in a sham democracy and not Americans.

And lastly there is the casual manner in which the Wire's headline reinforces the idea that America's reflexive anti-Chavez foreign policy makes any sense whatsoever and should be supported without question whatever your place may be on the political spectrum. It is one thing when some Fox News pundit rails against Chavez or cretinous teevee preacher Pat Robertson calls for his assassination, but it is another matter entirely when such propagandizing garbage is published in mainstream media outlets. What this tells you is that the establishment has decided that Chavez is an enemy of America (even though he continues to allow his county's oil to be sold to the U.S.) and dissenting voices which may question why there is so much demonization aimed at a leader who, whatever his faults, is far from being an evil dictator will simply not be tolerated. Certainly, by expressing such positions one is shutting themselves off from any hopes of ever advancing or having one's voice heard by more than a tiny minority of readers on the Internet.

Sadly, the American media has reached the point where it has no more credibility than did Pravda in the old Soviet Union. The difference is that I would bet that many of Russians KNEW that the information they were getting was pure bullshit, whereas you cannot say the same thing about the average American today.


Bonus: "The powers that be...They like a tough game...No rules"

The Crying Games

The crybaby brigade was out in full force late last week, making excuses for the presidential candidates while catering to the prejudices of America's two great (and hopelessly deluded) political tribes. It all started Wednesday night after Willard "unexpectedly" came out strong in his "debate" with President Hopey-Changey. Why oh why, many partisan Democrats were asking, didn't Obama come out swinging and put Governor 47%-er on the ropes early? This should have been like taking candy from a baby, but somehow Obama "blew it."

My favorite "explanation" for Obama's performance comes from George Jackoff Lakoff, author of The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic (just shoot me now), over at the Huffington Post:

You don't win a presidential debate by being a policy wonk. Obama violated all the basics of presidential debating. The best defense is a good offense. You have to set the terms of the debate and press those terms. Obama failed. Here are those basics:

State your moral values. Contrast them with your opponent's.

Project empathy and enthusiasm. Connect.

Communicate clearly and simply. Be authentic. Say just what you believe.

Project trust.

Present an authentic view of yourself that the public can identify with and be proud of.

Obama did none of this. Instead he talked about policy details.

He needed to come on strong from the first sentence.

Democracy is based on citizens caring about and taking responsibility for both themselves as for the well-being of all. Government is the instrument that citizens use to guarantee protection and empowerment for all. We all, together, provide what is needed for a decent life. Individual accomplishment rests on what other Americans have provided and keep providing.

Building the economy requires public investment -- in public infrastructure, education, research, and much more.

Success is much more than money. It is your contribution to America as a whole -- whether it is teaching, raising children, providing food, healing the sick, making useful products, guaranteeing our rights and our safety, or running businesses that make life better. America needs us all. And we all depend on each other. Personal responsibility is necessary.

Lakoff continues on in this vein for a couple more paragraphs, but this was about all I could stand.

Notice what is missing from Lakoff's analysis of what Obama did wrong? Not once does Jackoff...er, sorry, Lakoff say that Obama needed to CLEARLY ARTICULATE HOW HIS POSITIONS ARE DIFFERENT FROM ROMNEY. And why didn't he do that? Because THERE IS NO FUCKING DIFFERENCE, which leaves sellout hack mouthpieces like Lakoff struggling with all of their might to convince their dimwitted readers that there is in fact a difference but it just wasn't clearly articulated.

Obama fumbled the debate for a very basic reason: he ain't got SHIT to say. He has a lead and he's trying to run out the clock. After all, what's Romney going to do, point out how President Sellout has broken nearly every one of his 2008 campaign promises and for four years has been treating his liberal and progressive base like the whiny little bitches that they are? Of course fucking not.

On the flip side, there was the conservative freak out on Friday when, despite the monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Lying Statistic showing only 115,000 jobs being created in September, the unemployment rate "magically" dropped by .3% just in time for the home stretch in the campaign. It wasn't more than a few hours after the jobs report was released that the Fox News brigade, led by cretinous old former GE CEO Jack Welch, was out in full force trying convince their drooling troglodyte audience that it was some big conspiracy on the part of federal government drones to get Obama reelected.

So was the BLS report manipulated? Of COURSE it fucking was, just like every other monthly jobs report going back to three years ago when this "zombie recovery" started. But it isn't about trying to get Obama reelected, it's about trying to keep the fucking economy from resuming its collapse. Everything our fearless "leaders" have been doing since the fall or 2008, from the TARP law to QE3 has been a massive con job attempting to induce the average consumer idiot to keep spending. Jack Welch is smart enough to know that, which means he is either a liar or he's gone senile.

All in all, it was just another couple of excruciating days in Campaign Stupid. Thank your own personal deity that we only have about four more weeks of this bullshit to endure before it is mercifully all over.


Bonus: "I still cry...just like a baby"

Asshole Idiot Nation: Grocery Store Clerk Humiliates Food Stamp Recipient

You really have to hand it to asshole conservatives and the doctrinaire libertarians for how successful they have been in turning us plebes against one another so that we don't turn around and see that it's the face of the oligarchs that is connected to the big red, white a blue dick they are shoving up our asses on a daily basis. The brillance of their campaign to demonize poverty even as they strive hard to drive even more members of the former working and middle classes into poverty was on display again this week, as reported by Digital Journal:

Cindy Nerger of Warner Robins, Ga., who has been on a waiting list for kidney transplant for five years, was brought to tears at a supermarket last week when a clerk ridiculed her in the presence of other customers for using food stamps. Local TV station WMAZ, reported the incident after Nerger posted her story on the station's Facebook page.

She said she went shopping last week Tuesday at the Kroger off Watson Boulevard. When she got to the register, the clerk insisted wrongly that $10 worth of items were not covered. She said: "He told me I owed him 10 dollars and some change. I am not exactly sure what it was, but I told him, I said I am sorry sir, but there is nothing in my cart that is not covered by food stamps." According to Nerger, Kroger employees kept her on the line for half an hour.

A store manager finally intervened and told the clerk to give her the items. When she complained about the treatment she received, the the clerk said aloud: "Excuse me for working for a living and not relying on food stamps!" Nerger said at this point she was so embarrassed that she broke down in tears. She said: "I was upset, so, I was like, you know, I told you that it was covered under food stamps, you know, so, there was no need for all of this, you know, and he said, 'Well excuse me that I work for a living and don't rely on food stamps like you.'" She added: "I honestly was angry. I was angry at first, but it turned into tears because when I turned around and I saw the people there I was like, oh my goodness, and I just started crying."

According to The Huffington Post, Nerger, 28. said she and her husband were not proud to use food stamp debit card. She told The Huffington Post, "I felt shy when I used them and my husband does, too. I would try to hide the card." She said, "I didn't want to have to go there, you know, nobody wants to have to ask somebody for help, but it got to the point it was either ask for help or starve."

The Huffington Post reports Nerger said she started receiving food stamps (Supplemental Nutrition Assitance Program) after she fell ill in 2008 and became eligible for Medicare and Social Security Supplemental Income. While she is on waiting list for kidney transplant she cannot work because of daily 12-hr dialysis treatment. According to Nerger, her husband runs a carpentry business but does not make enough income to sustain the family without assistance.

No doubt that idiot grocery store clerk, who is probably living paycheck to paycheck himself, never gave a moment's thought that he could very easily find himself in Cindy Nerger's shoes at some point in the future. Funny that it is often those who are the closest to actually needing the social safety net who often times are the ones who scream the loudest about it.

I'd so like to take that asshole clerk for a visit to the corporate headquarters of Dyncorps International, or SAIC or General Dynamics so maybe he could get it through his thick fucking skull who the real welfare queens are. Those war contractor assholes and others of their ilk are sucking down many, many times more of his precious little tax dollars that all of the Cindy Nergers of the world combined. Or maybe a little tour of Wall Street and all of the giant financial firms that have been bailed out to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars and whose executives continue to rake in millions of dollars in bonuses while laughing their asses off that fucking morons like him continue to listen to fat fucking pig Rush Limbaugh and to vote for the politicians that enable them to rob him and tens of millions of others like him of their livelihoods, security and futures.

Oh, who am I fucking kidding. Like there is ANY chance that a closed-minded simpleton who lacks even one iota of basic human empathy would fucking understand any of it even if you rubbed his fucking face in it. In fact, you know what? Fuck that asshole. Fuck him and every ignorant fucking piece of shit like him. I have had it with all of them. If someone in this country has to find themselves starving and destitute because of the heartless policies he so foolishly supports, let it someday BE him. I just hope I can be there when it happens to sneer and tell him to get a fucking job.


Bonus: Sorry, I think I was actually channeling angry Bill for a moment there

Bill Maher: "Dipshit" Pot Calls the Kettle Black

I used to be a fan of comedian Bill Maher, but after many years of apparently having no one in his inner circle who dares tell him he is ever wrong about anything, the man who used to pride himself on being such a supposed deep thinker as a stand up comedian is now "jumping the shark" on a regular basis. For the first time in many a moon I caught the last 20 minutes of his weekly HBO show last Friday night, and I couldn't believe all the idiotic bullshit that was pouring out of his mouth.

It started with he and Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie basically saying that they agree with xenophobic conservatives that, compared to other religions, a majority of the world's Muslims are irrational hotheads without ever once acknowledging that many Muslims residing in the Middle East and South Asia who have been the victims of America's murderous imperialistic war polices might actually have legitimate grievances. Now I would expect Rushdie, who after all has been living under an Ayatollah-imposed death sentence for nearly a quarter of a century, to be a tad bitter towards Islam, but I was appalled when Maher nodded like a sock puppet while Rushdie asserted that half a century ago cities in the region like Tehran were "open, cosmopolitan cities," rather that the hotbeds of radicalism they are today.

Yes, Salmon, Tehran back then was indeed an absolute paradise of open-minded tolerance for you as a citizen of a brutal British Empire that was only just then deigning to grant the "ignorant savages" independence the world over. Unfortunately, and this might have escaped your notice up there in your fucking ivory tower where the air apparently gets a little thin and kills off the brain cells that enable critical thinking, the average Iranian during that period lived every day in fear of being abducted, tortured and disappeared by the U.S.-backed Shah's Gestapo-like SAVAK secret police force. Maybe, just maybe, it makes more sense to blame the U.S. for engineering the 1953 coup that overthrew the democratically elected Iranian government and set the conditions that ultimately led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution which brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power. To argue that Islam has become "radicalized" in the past 50 years, as Rushdie did with poodle Maher by his side, without once acknowledging the role of Western imperialism in stoking that radicalization puts Rushdie and Maher intellectually on par with the likes of Dick Cheney or Paul Wolfowitz.

A little bit later in the show, referring to Mutt Romney's little 47% problem, Maher lamented that it has gotten to the point where no one can get up on stage to address an audience anymore without someone making a recording of it and placing it on You Tube. Maher then bizarrely compared the crap Williard has been getting for his comments to the infamous Michael Richards and smarmy douchebag Daniel Tosh notorious comedy club meltdowns.

Apparently, in the increasingly addled mind of America's most lovable atheist, no one should be able to hold you accountable if you get up on stage as Richards did and repeatedly call a black audience member the n-word while advocating that he be lynched or, as Tosh did, tell a female audience member that she deserves to be gang raped for calling out to you that she doesn't think rape jokes are funny (oh, and not incidentally, Tosh's meltdown was NOT caught on video but merely blogged about by the victim of Tosh's vicious verbal assault). Obviously I'm a huge fan of risque humor myself, but heaven forbid that the world is no longer safe for blatantly racist and misogynist stand up comedians to keep earning a buck after exposing their ugly inner thoughts onstage. Bill Hicks was a master at verbally destroying hecklers--but he knew how to do it without resorting to such garbage. Oh, and he was, you know, actually funny.

But Maher reached a new low even for him during his "new rules" segment when he called undecided voters "dipshits" who should "stay home on election day." Here is The Raw Story with the details:

“If you’re one of the 5 percent of American voters who are still undecided on who to vote for, it’s okay to admit you just don’t really give a shit,” Maher began. “Seriously, if you still can’t figure out who you like more –Mitt Romney or Barrack Obama– stay home… because you probably couldn’t find your polling place anyway. I mean, what more information does someone need to make this choice? Obama has been President for nearly four years. And Mitt Romney has been running for President since 1971, when his space egg incubated and he burst out of an astronaut’s chest.”

But Maher’s criticism wasn’t merely for the “undecideds,” but for notion that mainstream media outlets give their opinions weight.

“Can we please stop treating them like they’re more noble and discerning than the rest of us? …[Undecided voters are] put on a pedestal by the media, as if they’re Hamlet in a think tank, searching out every last bit of information and high-minded arbiters pouring over policy positions and matching them against their own philosophies. Please! They mostly fall into a category political scientists call ‘low-information voters’ –otherwise known as ‘dipshits.’”

Yeah, Bill, you are such a superior thinker being a "high information" voter and all that you laughably believe that it will make ANY fucking difference whatsoever in the lives of the average American who wins the election in November. In fact, despite President Hopey-Changey having sold the liberal and progressive movement down the river on every singe issue of real importance since his inauguration you still inexplicably donated a cool $1 million of your own money to Obama's super PAC for his reelection campaign. And this happened AFTER you publicly proclaimed that you were "disappointed" in Obama last year for "giving away the store" as you so memorably put it your own self.

So tell me, Bill, because as someone who is a "high information NON-voter" I'd really like to know the answer to this question...who's the true dipshit, the low information voter who can't make up their mind, or the smug, self-satisfied talk show host who despite all of the evidence to the contrary is still desperately trying to convince his delusional liberal and progressive audience that it matters either way?


Bonus: Here is a video of the Rushdie/Maher conversation if you can stomach it. Pretty sad when a hack like Chris Matthews serves the voice of REASON in any political discussion.

We Were Fucked from the Moment We Elected the Movie Actor

Late last week I saw what I thought was a very funny political post on a libertarian, Ron Paul supporting “doomer” blog. The essence of the post was that Obama is a terrible president because he is unqualified for the job and as proof it served up examples of how he spends more time playing golf and on vacation than he does running the country. Part of the reason I found it so amusing was that liberals and progressives used to say almost the exact same things about Chimpy Bush when he was the prez-nit. But more importantly, I found it funny because as evidenced by the post itself and the reader comments, many of these “realist” libertarian types still seem to be suffering under the delusion that the president actually runs the country.

Let’s cut to the chase and state right upfront who Obama really is: a snake oil salesman. He’s a the Wizard of Oz, with an image-perfect little family right out of central casting from the old Cosby Show, hired by the billionaire scumbags who really run the country to make America’s unceasing addiction to big business, war and empire palatable to enough of the ignorant, stupid masses to prevent serious civil unrest from breaking out. The American Hologram, as our old friend the late author Joe Bageant described the American media, maintains an ironclad grip on the thoughts and opinions of a vast majority of the population—and Obama is the vital cog that maintains the illusion that an elected official is still in charge of the country.

It wasn’t always like this. Throughout history, Americans have often complained about the Tweedledee and Tweedledum nature of the two party system, in which the choices on election day often seem to be between the “lesser of two evils.” But believe it or not, there was a time when the president WAS an independent actor who could be a fearsome opponent to anyone, even a Wall Street titan, who opposed him. Teddy Roosevelt and his staid successor, William Howard Taft, energetically smashed the old monopolistic trusts, which was the first great blow the federal government ever struck on behalf of the common people in the age of the corporation. Teddy's cousin, FDR, was hated as “a traitor to his class” for enacting the New Deal, which was a main pillar that supported the creation of a robust middle class after World War Two. Flash forward another few decades, and whatever else you might want to say about them it would be very difficult to argue that there was little difference between George McGovern and Richard Nixon in 1972, or even Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Speaking of Reagan, as I’ve stated here before it was his election that was really the turning point that started America down this long road to perdition. President Bonzo had a unique ability to appeal to superficial patriotism and cultural divides to get working and middle class people to vote against their economic interests—in other words the former Hollywood actor was also a great SALESMAN. By all accounts, Reagan himself was disinterested in the mechanics of being president, and turned much of the detail work over to his subordinates. In that dynamic, we see the first emergence of the President as a cipher, the man whose most important job is to sell policies that were designed by his puppetmasters. Reagan’s massive electoral success despite his manifest unfitness for the presidency was all the proof the oligarchs needed that they could seize total control over the political process if they could find just the right “useful idiots.”

After Reagan, Daddy Bush and Bill Clinton may have been a bit more their own men than The Gipper, but by the time we reached the disastrous administration of George Bush the Lesser the process of making the president little more than a figurehead fronting for those who put him in office was almost complete. Obama just closed the loop by becoming the first Democratic president to be a total stooge of those who have anointed him as “the one.”

And that’s where we stand today. Six weeks before the election, it appears from how the majority of the fat cat contributors’ campaign contributions are now shifting away from Romney to Obama that the powers that be have decided that President Hopey-Changey is a more effective salesman for their agenda than the hopelessly inept Governor 47%-er could ever hope to be. Obama may not have been a Hollywood actor, but he learned how to say his lines and hit his marks a long time ago, and wouldn’t be where he is today if he hadn’t.


Bonus: In retrospect, we'd have been better off electing Reagan's male co-star.

The Billionaires Do Not Care About the Integrity of ANYTHING

Hoo-boy, did Americans wake up out of their usual slumber and get all hot and bothered this week. There was consternation and gnashing of teeth from coast to coast and even out into the various territories. For a moment there, it looked like public anger would boil over and infuriated citizens would pour out into the streets in mass protest. Howard Beale, where are you when we need you? We’re mad as hell, and we absolutely are not going to take this shit anymore.

So what was it that stirred the masses from their media-induced numbness and fueled their growing outrage? Was it the latest war atrocity against innocent civilians overseas committed by a declining empire fighting a desperate rearguard action against the unceasing march of history? Was it the latest federal government bailout of Wall Street banksters who then turn around and send middle class jobs to the country that the Pentagon war pigs tell us is supposedly the worst geopolitical threat we face in the world? Perhaps likely voters are finally waking up to the fact that the approaching presidential election is a sham and that there is virtually no difference between the two major party candidates on any issue of substance?

Don’t be silly, Natch. I’m talking about the horrifically blown call by replacement referees at the end of the nationally televised Monday Night Football game that gave the Seahawks an “undeserved” victory over the Packers.

That’s what it comes down to. That’s what it takes to get the idiots upset in this stupid country. You can bone them up the ass for more than 30 years, slowly stealing their prosperity, security and their children’s futures, but goddamnit don’t allow a meaningless game between two groups of steroid-fueled, overpaid millionaires to descend into a comical farce. That’s taking things a bit too far.

What’s most amusing to me about this latest tempest in a Hologram teapot is that there actually is a very good lesson to be learned from this debacle even if you are not a sports fan. In fact, let me briefly summarize the issue for those of you who do not spend your autumn Sunday afternoons glued to your television screens. The NFL is run by a group of 31 billionaire owners (and the Green Bay Packers, who are owned by the city of Green Bay) who just signed a $20 billion national television contract to broadcast their mediocre games into every household in the land. That big, fat wad of teevee cash virtually guarantees that the owners will make a profit every year no matter how well they manage (or mismanage) their teams.

Moreover, for the past 30 years NFL commissioners have been steadfastly pushing league player personnel rules in such a way to encourage “parity” (mediocrity), meaning that the talent level on each team now evens out enough so that there are no true dynasties anymore and most individual games are closely fought contests. This “balance” is supposed to generate even more fan excitement and interest (and, not incidentally get them spending even more of their hard earned money on NFL merchandise). Unfortunately, there is one little problem that comes with parity, and that is the nature of the game itself, in which subjective penalties called by the referees in a tight contest—pass interference, holding and personal fouls in particular—can swing the results of an individual game one way or another and one bad call can negate the strenuous efforts of the players on the field.

So here you have a league in which the quality of play has already been deliberately watered down, resulting in many close games in which the quality of the refereeing is already crucial to maintaining its integrity as an athletic competition, and what do those billionaire owners with the $20 billion television contract do? Try to save a few paltry million dollars by locking out the regular referees and bringing in a bunch of incompetent scabs to replace them. There just could not be any more fitting metaphor for what the oligarchs who really run this country have been doing to the workers for the past 30 years with the complicity of the bought-and-paid for politicians.

Those sportswriters and fans who are now shrieking about how the integrity of the NFL has been damaged by the use of replacement referees are pissing in the wind. Obviously, the billionaires who run the league could not give a shit about the game’s integrity just so long as they can keep reaping billions of dollars in profits from it. Winning is nice, but making money is all they really care about. If you were to hold a gun to the head of any NFL owner and force them to answer honestly whether they would rather have their team win five Super Bowl Championships or receive a sweetheart new stadium deal with plenty of luxury skyboxes from the taxpayers of his state, I guarantee you that every single one of them would take the stadium deal over the Lombardi Trophies. That’s what separates them from the idiot fans who root for each team: the fans genuinely care whether the team wins or not.

It’s the same thing across all aspects of American society. Yesterday, I posted again about Bain Capital closing the Sensata manufacturing plant in my hometown of Freeport, Illinois, and sending the jobs off to China. You would think that such a horrendous action would rip the heart out of anyone who really cares about this country and about the welfare of its citizens, but clearly the sociopathic assholes who run Bain Capital and the poodle politicians they keep in their back pocket—from Willard Romney to President Hopey-Changey—do not care about America any more than those NFL owners do about the supposed “integrity of the game.”

Always remember that when everything in a society becomes a commodity to be bought and sold without sentiment or feeling, that society eventually reaches the point where nothing is sacred or has value for its own sake. Those who would defend the “right” of the oligarchs to do as they please should always bear in mind that what separates us as American citizens in the early 21st century from the historical human norm when life for most people was truly “nasty, brutish and short” was that brief period after World War Two when America temporarily built a more equitable and just society that allowed most citizens and not just the oligarchs to enjoy the fruits of fossil fueled prosperity. The game has since changed, the age of abundance is coming to an end and all of that is now being ripped away. So you should ask yourself: is it more likely after the dust settles that I will be one of the tiny minority of global oligarchs who rule the planet with an iron fist, or instead will I be one of the vast majority of hopeless peons who are exploited to death so that their rulers may extract every last ounce of value from our resource depleted world?


Bonus: Classic George Carlin

Call Those Who Offshore American Jobs What They Are: Traitors

Poor old Willard. My hometown of Freeport, Illinois, just refuses to go away and leave Governor 47%-er alone as he continues his increasingly hopeless quest for the presidency. Yet another major story appeared this week about Bain Capital's decision to close down the local Sensata plant and ship the jobs off to China--all while forcing the plant's employees to train their Chinese replacements. But this time, the story featured a new twist:

Being told to train his replacement was humiliating and surreal, but Tom Gaulrapp said the worst part was when the plant’s US flag was taken down before the Chinese engineers arrived.

Gaulrapp decided it was time to take a stand against outsourcing and the man he blames for the loss of his job: Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney, who founded the private equity firm that owns the Freeport, Illinois auto parts plant.

Romney’s ties to Bain Capital have burdened the Republican nominee’s hopes of winning the November 6 election as Democrats unfavorably paint him as a corporate raider who pioneered the outsourcing of US jobs to countries with lower labor costs.

Romney denies the charge, but his claim to be a man who could revive the economy and boost the prospects of American workers rings hollow here.

Gaulrapp thinks it would only take a phone call from the candidate who’s vowed to create 12 million jobs in the United States to save the 170 jobs at Sensata Technologies that are about to leave this already economically depressed town of 26,000.

“What we’d like is a miracle,” Gaulrapp, who has worked at the plant for 33 years, said with a sigh that acknowledged how unlikely it is that his wish will be granted.

“We’d like Mitt Romney to come to Freeport, see what this is doing to this community, and contact his friends that run Bain Capital and say ‘this is absolutely the wrong thing to do’ and save our jobs.”

Fat chance of that happening. So what was the company's justification for stripping so many long term employees of their livelihoods?

Sensata, which is majority-owned by Bain Capital, purchased the automotive sensors unit from Honeywell for $140 million in cash in January 2011.

With annual revenues of $130 million and valuable patents, the unit was a good buy. But with 75 percent of the revenue generated in Asia, it made sense to ship production to Sensata’s facilities in China, the Netherlands-based company said.

“It’s better to be closer to one’s customers,” Sensata spokesman Jacob Sayer told AFP, citing transportation and other logistical advantages.

Sayer acknowledged that the decision to shift production to China is “an unfortunately event” for Freeport and said he understands why it could be “difficult” for the workers to train their replacements.

Goddamn, but the company spokesweasel is completely full of shit. Really? It's better to be "closer to your customers?" If that were really true, why does Walmart North America import all of the crap it sells from China? This isn't about location, it's about lowering labor costs, and the American workers cost too much. You're completely fucking them, so the LEAST you could do, asshole, is tell the fucking truth.

Oh, and what about that American flag bit anyway?

He has no idea why — or if — the US flag was removed before the Chinese engineers and technicians arrived.

“We didn’t request it. I can tell you that,” Sayer said, adding that the company has been leasing the facility from Honeywell and has no involvement in grounds maintenance.

Oh, right, it's just a fucking coincidence that the flag disappeared on the day the Chinese workers showed up. The fucking janitor must have been hungover that morning or something.

All right, folks, I am going to go ahead and put it bluntly. It's time to stop fucking around and call the people responsible for stripping away American factory jobs and sending them to the country that the war pigs at The Pentagon would call our worst potential enemy what they really are: traitors to America.

Now, my regular readers might scoff that I, who derides this country's elected "leaders" every chance I get, is writing a post appealing to patriotism. In clarification, I will say that it is not patriotism per say that I have a problem with, it is the way superficial appeals to patriotism are used to get average Americans to go along with being boned up the ass by sociopathic fuckheads like the ones who run Bain Capital. It is high time that patriotism instead be wielded as a weapon against these MBA assholes who have never worked a real job a day in their fucking lives.

That's not to say that I want to get all xenophobic and start blaming the Chinese. Fact is, I don''t blame them. They are merely taking what is being gladly given to them by greedy scumbags who are selling their country down the river in the interests of making a buck. If I were in their shoes I'd do the same damn thing. Sadly, the regular Chinese workers who get hired on at the Sensata plant once it is moved to their home country will likely get treated no better than their unfortunate counterparts at Foxconn. For that's where the world is headed: massive unemployment in the West, massive sweatshop production in the East and no one except a tiny elite enjoying any form of prosperity, security or leisure.

No, it isn't the Chinese who are the problem: it's the traitors. And by traitors I mean every fucking asshole (read: Willard Mitt Romney) who has ever been involved in offshoring American jobs as well as every fucking asshole (read: Bill Clinton, Barack Obama) who has ever been involved in pushing through the "free" trade agreements that allow American jobs to be offshored. It is only by thinking about them as they really are that we can stay focused on the fact that THEY are our real enemies and not our fellow workers who may be on strike trying desperately to hold onto to what they have. I have no hope that the average American will wake up to this basic realization before it is too late for all of us, but hey, somebody had to say it.


Bonus: "Deeds not words, you should have told the truth...you're a liar and a traitor and now we have the proof"