Thursday, May 29, 2008

George "aWol" Bush, Commander in Chimp: The Legacy

The scrupulous and percipient Bernard Chazelle, contributing on Jon Schwarz' lapidary TinyRevolutionDotCom already yesterday had caught this probably MOST revealing moment in Scott McClellan's obligatory, self-vindication cum payday-in-lieu-of-faculty-job that he's not getting, not even at Manhattan (and they have NO standards there). Chazelle:
In Iraq, McClellan added, Bush saw "his opportunity to create a legacy of greatness," something McClellan said Bush has said he believes is only available to wartime presidents.
That sure seems to me to suggest that Bush pushed the country into war in order to become that heroic, war-time leader, the "Commander-In-Chim...er, Chief. That treads right on the very brink of un-protected self-incrimination. At very least, a logically correct inference must be drawn that, hungering for that 'greatness' legacy, he did NOTHING to avoid war. That alone is a high crime and worthy of sanction.

Furthermore, and beyond that, the revelation does nothing at all to dispel (and could in fact exacerbate) the persistent rumors and suspicions of Bushevik complicity--tacit or overt--in the events that eternally and irreversibly re-shaped the whole idea and practice of popular sovereignty that September morning (which is, if memory serves, with wonderful aptness, the name of the first female douche advertised on teevee).

It wasn't in great shape before. It took a huge beating in the winter of '00/'01, and was still recuperating, slowly. People were beginning to laugh at the Bushies. But it's been mortally wounded and has lain, bleeding out on the pavement, for the most of the last seven years. I am not sure it is revivable. The ambulance is coming, apparently, but already the breathing is shallow and difficult.

And even if revival were possible, the damage done is for all practical purposes irreversible. Only once in 232 years has the Executive ceded back to the Legislature 'emergency powers' it claimed in the course of a 'national emergency.' That once was Washington. I see no Washingtons among the corporate pleasers clamoring for the mink-lined piss-pot in the West Wing. Further, I see no evidence at all among the tiny minds of the SCROTUS Inquisitors that they will undergo any Saulian/Pauline conversions on their roads to Donascus.

Howsoever much it is probable the Chimperor only hastened the inevitable ruination of the Murkin experiment, still in my youth--even then aware of the fragility of the structures and agreements that made our form of Government possible--I never expected to out-live it myself. And my great fear is that that has happened, is happening, right now. And the Busheviks are, in fact, responsible for this final, fatal deterioration.

The place in history to be occupied by the simpering, smirking, strutting, swaggering, smarmy little prick, "aWol" George, is secure: he will NEVER be forgotten, that much is certain.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Can You Say "Coup d'Etat"? "Koo Day Tah" Go On, You Say It


"Koo Day Tah." Now you try it! "Coup d'Etat"...See how easy? Koo-Day-Tah! It just rolls off the palate, innit?.

That's been the true 'mission: accomplished. The Busheviks, acting entirely predictably for authoritarians and nascent totalitarians, appropriated and embellished tragic events of 9/11/01 to enact the final pieces of the puzzle they were appointed to solve: to finally rid the hierarchs and oligarchs of that pesky local, civil/civilian, democratic legacy of the Nation, and to install a corporate/ militaristic regime appropriate for a global Empire.

The Pentagon--the iconic avatar of the Military/Industrial/Congressional Complex--has won. It's conquered the whole of the nation, with barely a shot fired--at least at home...

In the name of 'national security,' 'fighting/preventing terror,' and monitoring potential 'enemies,' every right, every act, every ceremony of 'democracy' has been corrupted by 'national security issues' and privatized for personal gain for the over-class. Even as Europe sheds the arcana of borders and passports as impediments to democratic diversity, the Busheviks have INCREASED the burdens of traveling internationally, even on our own continent. And that's really only the mst trivial example. The reality of the take-over is simply overwheming, and would be difficult to convey, even if the national press corps were NOT lap-dogs of the oppressors.

On Truth-Out, yesterday, Frida Berrigan outlined the metastacization of Pentagon-orrhea. And from here, despite Frida's desperate optimism, it doesn'ty look to me that it's EVER gonna go back.

The real genius of their operation, of course, was the development of the (hegemonic) Internets, into which ephemeral and monitorable bauds and pixels can be directed any and all potentially dangerous resistance to the hegemons, with the additional benefit of having a reliable track back to the malcontents, and a record of their apostasies...

Fuukin brilliant!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Could Any Candidate Dissolve The Department of Homeland Security?


If yes, name that candidate.

If not, why are you bothering?

Cuz we are so totally fucked, friends. Totally, irremediably, irredeemably fucked.

Cuz DHS really is the whole fuuking camel. It's not just the nose. And it's too late, already. All they lack is a reliable 'army of the Interior.' Mebbe that's Blackwater?

Monday, May 26, 2008

Is The "Blogosphere" Nothing More Than One More Hegemonic "Lacuna"?

Gramsci, that most (fatally) percipient early critic of the formation, structure and application of the theories of the modern hegemonic State, reasoned that hegemony would anticipate critics and therefore would also provide (supervised, controlled) space for criticism.

Cf: "Free Speech Zones."

Which speculation made me wonder (not for the first time) if the 'blogosphere,' especially, but pretty much the whole Internet-as-public-phenomenon thingee, is not a wonderfully Gramscian-hegemonic invention to authorize an outlet for more or less (and clearly atomized) "public dissent" which provides the appearance of actual accomplishment without there having to be any concomitant action.
As they say in that advert: "Brilliant!"

If I were an authoritarian cabal designing a social hierarchy, I'd want something like that in my operation. It's only when you don't know what your enemies are saying that those words become dangerous. (Wazzat Machiavelli say dat?)

This whole little slice of discourse underscores the adage: "Paranoids can have real enemies."

It's Not Supply & Demand, It's Speculation & Greed

I have long believed that folks who speculate in vital commodities such as food and fuel OUGHT to have more at risk than other people's money. When other people's lives and livelihoods hang in the balance, and the speculator bids up the price, just because they can, I think what they risk ought to be higher, including perhaps family members' members and/or lives.

Der Spiegel has lately paid a little attention to the matter:
The Role of Speculators in the Global Food Crisis

By Beat Balzli and Frank Hornig

Vast amounts of money are flooding the world's commodities markets, driving up prices of staple foods like wheat and rice. Biofuels and droughts can't fully explain the recent food crisis -- hedge funds and small investors bear some responsibility for global hunger.....

Not only is there talk that investors have profited from desperate hunger in Honduras, the Philippines and Bangladesh; critics also wonder if commodity speculators are making the crisis worse.

On Tuesday in Washington, DC, a regulatory body called the Commodity Futures Trading Commission held public hearings on this very question. Farmers and food producers argued that the market was "broken," suggesting that the steep rise in the price of staple crops was hurting everyone -- farmers as well as the people they feed. "The market is broken, it's out of whack," said Billy Dunavant, head of a cotton-producing firm in the United States, at the Tuesday hearing.

Regulators on the commission warned against government intervention, and no doubt fund managers like Anderson would, too. But the crisis keeps deteriorating. India and Vietnam have imposed export bans on ordinary rice. Indonesia is following suit. According to the United Nations, North Korea is on the brink of a humanitarian crisis. After unrest shook countries from Egypt and Uzbekistan to Bangladesh, thousands of South Africans took to the streets of Johannesburg last Thursday to protest high food prices. In Haiti, the prime minister was fired after riots over the price of rice.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

On Obama Blogs, and On Clinton Blogs, And On Media Blogs Generally


...Throughout 'em all, there obtains more or less the same tone: The "corporate Press"--The "Village Scribery"--has decided it's a far better, more hopeful, more promising, more AMERICAN story if the Dem nominee for President is the first black person offered that position by a Major Party than if it were the first female person.

You see, the country is hitting a bad patch and the corporate press is, first and foremost, a bunch of 'home-towners.' The 'home-town' of the pundit class is the mystical, mythical 'shining City on the Hill,' where they are all members, with cards and everything; they're very important people... So the 'home-towners' are plumping for the 'development' that best amplifies and mirrors their own extreme senses of self-importance. At least in the current contest, they've chosen sides with Obama.

Why? Better for the narrative, the exceptionalism thing, obviously... It's no fun being superior to a bunch of lightweights. Far better to be the superior members of a truly ex eptional culture... There's already BEEN women in executive positions in Britain & Germany--to say nothing of Israel & Chile. It's been DONE, for gawd's sake...This is MURKA!

See, nobody in "old" europe has ever installed a racial minority in its ruling sinecure. Was there ever a black Czar? A negro chinese emperor? a nubian greek god?

NO! No, there wasn't.

And with this bold move, the Propaganda State ensures at LEAST another 30 years of 'democracy' bragging rights, and the refurbishment of the myth of exceptionalism which has greased our paths clear to hell already..

And the punditocraps and the Village elders have decided that they shall be the ones who usher in this new wave of USer exceptionalism. As the ship-of-state settles ever lower into the stoprmy seas, they're determined that Obama's mocha countenance on the figurehead will be the last visible thing to sink beneath the waves...

Or so it might seem, sometimes, to one sufficiently skeptical...

And while we're at it: the Obama campaign should be wary of expecting this treatment continuing when the Corporate Press gets its chance to tongue-lave the stiff, riddled prostate of the country's first authentic "War Hero," "Bombin' Johnnie" McCain...

Life: A Short History

Mom Said I Could...

Thursday, May 22, 2008

House subpoenas Karl Rove

By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 6 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday subpoenaed former White House top political adviser Karl Rove to testify about whether the White House improperly meddled with the Justice Department.
Accusations of politics influencing decisions at the department led to last year's resignation of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The subpoena issued Thursday orders Rove to testify before the House panel on July 10. He is expected to face questions about the White House's role in firing nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 and the prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman of Alabama, a Democrat.

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers had negotiated with Rove's attorneys for more than a year over whether the former top aide to President Bush would testify voluntarily.

"It is unfortunate that Mr. Rove has failed to cooperate with our requests," Conyers, D-Mich., said in a statement. "Although he does not seem the least bit hesitant to discuss these very issues weekly on cable television and in the print news media, Mr. Rove and his attorney have apparently concluded that a public hearing room would not be appropriate."

"Unfortunately, I have no choice today but to compel his testimony on these very important matters," Conyers said.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Pool: When will the Pukes Start The "Obama = Affirmative Action Candidate" Meme?

For a tie-breaker, get the name of the GOPuke hack/shill who starts it correct, too. I say August 1 (beore the Dim Convention) and it's Rover (who STILL will not be identified as a McCain advisor) on Fauz News...

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Remind Me? "Fascism?" Izzatt When Private Interest Wields State Power? Something Like That? Part II

Mebbe ya might recall a post I put up about a month ago, on another site, warning about the intrusion of former Govt spies conducting 'intelligence' operations in the 'private' sector?

I caught a bit of "slime shit" for it, accused of being alarmist, at best. You could look it up, or not, depending.

But the story doesn't wanna go away, strangely. Terri Gross on her program yesterday interviewed a guy who's written a book on the subject.
It's become a $50 billion a year industry: Corporations like Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin, and IBM are being paid to do things the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Pentagon usually do, including analysis, covert operations, electronic surveillance and reconnaissance.

Investigative journalist Tim Shorrock details the outsourcing of U.S. intelligence in his new book, Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing.

Shorrock has covered the intersection of business and national security for over 25 years, writing for such publications as The Nation, Mother Jones and Salon.com, among others.


But you can ignore it. The finest minds thereabouts have spoken... Just more of my silly shit. Move along, folks. Nothing to see here!

But maybe, just maybe, one of the 'bright' folks can tell me how it's okay that private corporations are acting as official surrogate intelligence gatherers for the Feds, too? There's nothing to worry about, is there?

No, no! nothing happening here..just move along...

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

For The Sake Of The Country's Morale, aWol Is Making A Model Sacrifice

Today, in his friendly little chat with Politico bloggers and Yahoo News, for the first time, the Chimperor revealed a deeply felt, personal way in which he has tried to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families: He has given up





wait for it!






golf.

“I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

The man's a saint, I tell you, a fuuking SAINT. An' I'll throttle the first man what sayus differ'nt. We ALL know how much the Boy loves the golf: "Watch me hit this drive!" And to give up that source of comfort and consolation so as not to make a bad impression on the bereaved families? Why, it's down-right fuukin' SAINTLY! I mean, ain't he giving up the best part of the season? When I read about it, I was nearly moved to fuukin' TEARS! I damn near fuukin' WEPT!

There's that fuukin' NOBILTIY! God, what a man....

Monday, May 12, 2008

Bushist NCHEETOH** Alert: US Sponsoring Civil Wars In S. America

After more than a century of having its will scrupulously regarded by several generations of vicious, brutal dictatorships, which were propped up as economic bulwarks for USer economic interests and later as allies in the old Cold War, the influence of the USofA may be waning, as a new generation of leftist/nationalist leaders gains power all over Latin America. In consequence of that diminished influence, USer interests are encouraging oligarchic defections from States recently won in popular elections by 'leftist' leaders. An especial target of this strategy appears to be Oscar Moreno of Bolivia.
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(NCHEETO = A short-hand for the standard Bushevik response to a catastrophic fuck-up which also happens to fit perfectly with the greater CorpoRat program to destroy popular sovereignty in the USofA: "Nobody Could Have EVER Expected That Outcome Here ...": e.g., NCHEETOH Iraqi insurgency. NCHEETOH the levees would fail. NCHEETOH etc...)

Sunday, May 11, 2008

"Don't piss off Amerika, yo! or they'll 'liberate' yo' sorry ass"--The Movie

The Fire THIS Time
There is a certain kind of naivete that I shall never understand. It is that species of reflectivelessness that claims 'a movie" is only a movie.

The most recent manifestation of this willful ignorance (or stubborn stupidity, deep denial) occurred over at PoliticalFleshFeast, that virtual pit of no-holds-barred rhetorical red-ass, verbal viciousness and venal vapidity (in about equal measure). In the subject essay, a diarist reviews the new super-hero epic, Iron Man, through a lens informed by perspectives usually thought of as "Theory," where the interpreter problematizes those aspects of the performance which the performers take for granted. On this reading, the movie postulates yet another rationalization for the systematic killing and displacement of inconvenient peoples, and the imposition of kapitalistic 'democracy,' violently, in the name of "American virtue and values." In this context, a commentor remarked that the original author was "reading into" the film themes that were the mere inventions of the viewer.

Every time I hear this--and it seems to happen repeatedly--I just have to pause and wonder: What kind of ignorance does it require to make such an assertion, in a universe in which EVERY human thing is mediated through a lens of state propaganda?

There is no such thing as an unmediated public event. Fairleft (the diarist) is merely pointing out that, no matter the surface characteristics of the particular narrative, such as IronMan, it participates in other, pre-existing, formative--even determinative--narratives by which the Corporate State sets and controls its agenda. When I saw the trailer, and heard the story, the first thing I thought of was "El Cid," except Robert Downey doesn't have to ride a horse.

You don't hafta control what any particular people think if you're controlling what they're thinking about and the images or narrative structures by which they construct and address their shared reality.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Parsing Promises: Feckless Harry Reid, Ever Supine, Makes A "Promise"

Today the senior leader of the gutless, spineless, useless, worthless Democratic caucus in the US Senate took questions from a flock of folks who desperately wanted to hear the Majority Leader of the Senate say something, anything, onto which they might attach their tattered hopes about reining in the horrendous, criminal, perpetual abuses rained down upon the Congress, the People, and the Constitution by the vicious fascist pigs installed in the ShiteHouse these past 7 years and change.

This is the full ThinkProgress report on the procedings at the blog FireDogLake, one of those cool, careful A-List blogs on which I am not exactly banned, but am shunned and my posts are ALWAYS held for hours by the limp-dick mods over there (cuz, you know, sometimes I'm impolite.)
Reid promises Senate hearings on Pentagon propaganda program.»

During today’s Firedoglake Book Salon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) promised that the Senate would be holding hearings on the Pentagon’s propaganda program, which was first disclosed by the New York Times on April 20. Reid’s announcement is the first time the Senate leadership has indicated that it intends to hold hearings:
LISH: Senator, are you planning to hold hearings on the illegality of the Pentagon’s propaganda training program of retired military officers that was recently exposed by the New York Times and Glenn Greenwald?

REID: The answer is yes. I have personally spoken to Chairman Levin and he is tremendously concerned as I. And we are proceeding accordingly.
To which I replied:
You really gotta parse this kinda crap. Reid is a very careful pol, slicker'n snot on a brass door-knob, talking to an audience he knows basically WANTS to believe him, but whom he cannot tell the actual truth without incurring their enmity and obloquy. Plus he's being quoted. By everyone in the room. He's on a propaganda tight-rope, which he negotiates very skillfully, going so far as to convince fairly clever people that he promised something at which he merely alluded.

Notice he doesn't say he and levin are GONNA hold hearings.

He says they're 'very concerned' and agrees with the questioner that they PLAN to hold hearings. 'Proceeding accordingly" is utterly meaningless, a weasel-out that proves conclusively he didn't promise any fragging thing. "According to what?" According to Plan, of course. And the farking Plan is to let the clock run out...

Nothing is gonna happen. Get it? No promise. No investigation. No impeachment. No sending out the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate, with the Capitol Police, to snag Rove, Rice, and the rest.

Nagahapun. Nada. Jack. Diddley-squat.
It's a fuukin' election year. What ELSE was he gonna say. I just wish the hot-shot bloggers were a little more critical as interpreters of propaganda.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Izzis A Great Fuckin' Country, 'R Watt?

From Reuters, via TruthOut: US Military Court Rejects Canadian's Child Soldier Defense

Jane Sutton reports for Reuters: "A Canadian captured in Afghanistan at
age 15 can be tried for murder in the Guantanamo war crimes court, a
US military judge ruled in rejecting claims that he was a child soldier
who should be rehabilitated rather than prosecuted."

What I wanna know is who's gonna flip the swith, shoot the juice to this baby-child?

Killing (invading) USers = Murder
Killing (defending) Hajis = Liber-fucking-ATION, motherfucker...

Once again (still), I flinch away from being an "American." I was once proud to be an one. No longer, and never, I suspect, again...

Saturday, May 3, 2008

It's Not Just Your Car...It's Your F R E E D O M"

Hillary's incomprehensible, detestable sell-out on the gas tax holiday has just about done it for me. It is so damnably, transparently, irresponsible demagoguery...

Dean Baker over on theBeat The Press blog explains as clearly as anyone could without using the words "dumb-ass" or "fuck-wit" why the Clinton/McStain "Gas Tax Holiday" is too stupid an idea to be accidental.
Does CNN Work for Clinton or Do they Just Not Know Economics?

CNN told its audience that Clinton's elimination of the gas tax for the summer would save consumers $30. This is not true. Since the supply of gas is more or less fixed, refineries are likely to be running at capacity, the price is determined by demand. This means that if the government eliminates the tax, the price will stay the same. The only difference is that the $18.4 cent a gallon will go to the oil companies rather than the government.

That is why economists call Clinton's tax cut a gift to the oil industry; unfortunately CNN missed the story.
It's bad economics. Bad economics.And dishonest politics (yeah, duh!). This is of course pure demagogic grandstanding by Hillary. Baker's is only the rational reason it is demagogic pandering. A couple more occur to me: It won't pass the House, where Mme. Pelosi is unalterably opposed (and when it's a Dim program to which she is unalterably opposed, she's adamant); It wouldn't pass either House over a certain veto. It has at least one up-side, albeit mainly for the privatizers: by removing hiway maintenance resources, it raises the incentives for States to to sell hiways ("commons") to private interests (toll roads).

Plus it's bad environmentics. It encourages the fantasy that Murkins are entitled to drive! WE are behind the wheel, motherfucker! WE are steering the fucking car. WE are deciding where, when and how fast you get there. WE OWN THE RADIO, TOO, ASSHOLE!

I still don't like both HRC or BHO, for varieties of really good reasons. Right now I like Hillary less, for this egregiously irresponsible stunt, a sign that screams she's irresponsible on the climate issue if there is the slightest political advantage to be won or held. BHO's stated willingness to negotiate Social Security was a similar moment for me. The willingness to betray their fondest constituencies is just too compelling to ignore...

Neither one of 'em, of course, can actually end the ICORP in Iraq. That's a foregone conclusion. Certain geo-political conditions which are nowhere near being met must be. Mainly for the proximity to both China and Russia, the Anglo/USer military corporatist establishment would rather have their forward bases in Iran than in Iraq.

In the end (i.e., now), I am now more and more pretty much convinced that I have been pretty much right all along, and the oligarchs are letting the Dims play out their little plebian status drama between avatars of the two traditional well-springs of the Democratic party's populist pretensions: Blacks and women. Given the monopoly they exert on what people think about the candidates, the (State) media have all but assured that those two will will mutually destruct--and that their most passionate advocates will be ineradicably scarred by the battle--in the media circus orchestrated by Rupert Murdoch; and in November, the country will coronate Johnnie McCancer: a toxic amalgam of John Wayne and Ronald Raygun. McShame: The guy your celluloid heroes would be if they'd actually served in wars and, you know, actually killed people, indiscriminately, with an all-Murkin smile on their rictus lips.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Say you got a bird in a pinon tree

...And you subtract the tree......Waddayagot???








Wait for it....













A difference of a pinon...