FTSOA: Fuck Balzac

Recently I had a long, and not too acrimonious dispute on Facebook over some of the assumptions undergirding a Chris Hedges rant, here. In it Hedges thoughtfully invokes as analagous to our present predicament the calamities which befell the men of Melville's fate-smitten whaling vessel, the Pequod, when they failed to stop Ahab, by mutiny, and in fact permitted themselves to be bought off. Hedges sees our fate in the whale's innards, as (literary) precedent and analog for our own politically catastrophic times.

Hedges is right, of course: We're fucked. Duh

And probably the fact of the failure of the mutiny aboard the Pequod dooms the ship and crew to destruction.

Likewise, it is self-evidently necessary to change the system. Like them, Hedges sez: We're doomed.

What nobody, not Hedges, nor anybody else, has so far been able to show me is how to replace that whole system without destroying everything it supports...

I have a personal stake in the matter. I am elderly, now, growing weaker, more dependent upon a functioning pharmaceutical distribution network, for example. It's kinda a matter of life/death. I need the drugs if wanna outlive my meager resources...and I do.

So I believe it is impingent upon those whose solutions to our present vicissitudes include overturning the "system" to address whether or not they are willing to kill me in the process.

Where do I stand on the list of expendables. I'm not complaining. Just so I know where we stand.

And if not by catastrophic revolt, then how they plan to dispossess the wealthy of the riches and privileges they will almost certainly choose to die for rather than to relinquish.

I was informed that a variety of writers--Chomsky, Vedanta Shiva, Arundati Roy, among others--had written about it. I'm not unfamiliar with them. I cannot recall how they answered the question, if they did.

And if it involves "educating the people," and/or "changing the structures of society," and/or "instituting justice," then the details of "HOW" are MORE crucial, NOT trivial, NOT dismissible by a shruggingly saying "Go look it up, if you care so much."

Cuz if there's a plan, it's gonna hafta be clear and easy enough that even simple minds like my own can understand it.

FTSOA: Potpourri, 4/24/14

Woody assurez you: Here's a cast-iron, dead cert to win yer Xmas money.
Find a bookie. The deal is done. They wouldn't even BE hearing the case unless the fuckkkerz meant to overturn it.
The ONLY hope for the "Republic" is that, within the next 24 months, one or more of the following occurs:
1) Chief Roberts experiences another bout of that curious falling malaise, stumbles off a boat dock and is ground to chum by a passing speed-boat; and/or
2) Assoc. Scalia goes duck-hunting again with Dick Cheney and gets mortally shot in the face; and/or
3) Assoc. Thomas chokes on a pubic hair in a can of Coke.
The Opus Deist/GOPhux rule is SUPREME on the SCROTUS.
http://bit.ly/FalseStatements


How Woody Seezit:
Prez Lowbar was 'selected' to take the heat off the GOPhukkks, to give 'em time to clean up the brand, after the 8 disastrous years of Bushevism. In 2008, NO GOPhukkk was gonna convincingly 'win.' The well was poisoned. The Oligarchs needed somebody NEW to hate more than Bush. Who better then a 'black man?' (Well, a white woman, but that would wait for the NEXT (this) time, when the 'legacy' of the First Black President and the prospect of the First Female President will drive the electorate BACK to the GOPhukkks in droves)...
By the time the election in '16 rolls around, if everything goes to plan, Prez LowBar will be the most reviled, most castigated, most condemned man in Murka, and the Dims--as his Party--will suffer the same ignominy, in preparation for the Great Bush Restoration.



Ms. Warren's a nice lady and she's smart, so she has to know, down deep, that "Big Government" is not the source of society's toughest problems. It is the 'regulatory capture' of the entire edifice and structure of the national government by private, for-profit, corporat interests which is the SOURCE of all our problems: The ol' revolving door, whereby private industry seeds the bureaucracy with its own satraps and salary-men, through political appointments to key supervisory or regulatory positions, and then rewards them with key positions and bigger salaries when they return to advise their firms how to fuck the govt they spend the previous three or fours years learning. Nobody who was EVER an (e.g.) FCC commissioner died poor.

Affirmative Action Ruling Will Further Racial Inequality

Bruce Dixon: The Supreme Court decision furthers institutional advantages of whites under the guise of colorblindness -   April 24, 14
Woody reckonz: 
That's the point, innit? 
The Court is under no obligation to hear any or every case referred to it. The Court selects the cases, itself. This is an inevitably, and consciously political act, no matter how the participants want to try to portray it otherwise. Four Justices must vote to "grant cert"--short for 'certiorari'--to bring a case before the whole Court.
It would not be in the apparent or presumptive interest of the "Liberal" (choke) wing--the Kagan, Santa Sonja, Ginsberg, and Souter (sometimes)--to hear a challenge to a lower Court with which they agreed. So it is unlikely that they would grant cert to a caase that would overturn such a decision.
Therefore, it seems to me, it has to have been four of the five OpusDeist cabal--the Roberts majority, 5/9ths--which granted cert.
And if that is true, they granted cert only to overturn a lower Court decision with which they DISAGREED. I'd make book on the outcome of any SCROTE decision if I knew who voted for cert.

FTSOA: A Democratic "Manifesto?"

Today, on Facebook, somebody posted the following "Democratic Manifesto." Of course, I couldn't leave THAT alone:

We are not against capitalism. We are aqainst its abusive exploitation of workers.
We’re not against religion, we’re against its misuse as a political tool. We’re not against democracy, we’re against the manipulation of the democratic process by corporate forces.
We’re not against the American Dream, we’re against its unattainability by anyone but the outrageously wealthy.
We’re not against defending the nation, we’re against putting corporate interests above those of education, infrastructure, and the improvement of American Life.
We’re not against America, we’re against the abandonment of its values in the name of economic and political security.
We’re not against profits. we’re against profiting at the expense of, and detriment to, the health and well-being of American families
We’re not traitors. We’re not unpatriotic. We’re not elitist.
We are Democrats. This is our America, too.
by Max Jukes

Just a coupla things, here, Max:
1) Capitalism is, by nature and definition, "abusive." It is a system which requires inequality to function properly. See, eg, The Communist manifesto.
2) Religion is ALWAYS used as a political tool. Everywhere there is political strife in the world, there is a religious undercurrent stoking the blazes.
3) Political democracy is impossible, or worse, meaningless, in a totalitarian  economic/business climate. You cannot have political 'freedom" when oligarchs command your every move for half or more of your waking day.
4) No soldier, sailor, airman or marine has died protecting the nation since 1945, at least. The wars of our lives have all been fought to advance the interests of corpoRat hegemony.
5) Re: Profits. See #1, above.
6) Re: Values. Murka's "values" have always been honored more in the breach than in the maintenance --Liberty and justice for all? Really? Ask our non-White citizens about their experiences, and those of their ancestor.
Just sayin...

FTSOA: Won/Lost Record?

However, colon:
Liberals supported single payer health-care; and then the 'public option.'
Conservatives won.
Liberals supported extending unemployment benefits.
Conservatives won.
Liberals supported equal pay for equal work
Conservatives won.
Liberals supported closing Gitmo.
Conservatives won.
Liberals supported regulations on campaign spending.
Conservatives won.
Liberals supported immigration reform.
Conservatives won.
Liberals opposed reducing SNAP in the Farm Bill.
Conservatives won.
Liberals supported VW unionization in Tennessee.
Conservatives won.
Liberals opposed reducing EPA funding.
Conservatives won.
Liberals opposed gutting the Voting Rights Act.
Conservatives won.
Liberals opposed MORE restrictions on women's choice.
Conservatives won.
Liberals opposed privatizing public services, including schools.
Conservatives are winning.
Liberals oppose private prisons.
Conservatives won.
Liberals supported taxing the wealthy.
Conservatives win.
Liberals supported prosecuting banksters for the 2008 "crash."
Conservatives won.
Liberals oppose corporate personhood.
Conservatives won.
Liberals oppose GMO farming, oppose GMO labeling.
Conservatives won.
Shall I go on?

FTSOA: What ERA?

ERA: "Still not ratified."
That's an understatement!
Woody'z once again in the unfortunate position of appearing to rain on the parade.
Never to be ratified! is more like it.
The ERA which once passed BOTH houses cannot now be ratified because Congress put an expiration limit on it. Congress extended the ratification deadline to June 30, 1982, but that time has long since past.
The foremost opponent of the measure in public was/is SyPhyllis Schlafly. Through her efforts, only 35 States ratified, and several of them withdrew ratification, somehow. Don't ask: it was a Raygoon thang...
Now, to become law, it will have to go through the WHOLE ratification process again: 67 Senators and 293 Housemembers must vote, again, to approve it, and 38 States must ratify.
As things stand now, and for the foreseeable future, there aren't enough votes in EITHER House to get the fucking thing onto the docket, and out of committee...

FTSOA: No Novelties Next Time

Woody'z heard lots of rumbling about how the GOPhukkks chances in '14 and '16 are diminsihed by their record of arrant asswholery.
I think the "left" is delusional to think that Murka's lumpen-proles and yokels won't eagerly and vigorously support a "return to normalcy" after the ("failed") experiment with the sochulist/muslim/kenyan/anti-christ.
"Way trodd thet, an' see whar it got us?"
Prez Lowbar, by 2016, very likely will have become the most reviled man in Murka, just because it makes such good press. But it will also be central to the GOPhukkks 'electoral/propaganda" strategy. For the NEXT 20 years!
The same energy that elected PrezLowbar over Bombin' Johnny McCain--visceral disgust with his predecessor--will obtain in the selection of the NEXT guy, too.
Bush V. Clinton is just tooooo perfect an elaborate, oligarchic, practical joke on the country, the people, and the State. I do NOT think the Owners will be able to resist rubbing ALL our prolish, yokelish noses in THEIR shit...
Yer ol' perfesser is pretty sure that:
By the time Prez Lowbar's tenure is run, the temperature and temper of the "people" will be so "juiced" by all the coded insinuation and innuendo and racial propaganda, that the electorate will GLADLY, and HAPPILY, and JOYOUSLY install whatsoever conservative, Christian, right-wing Republican, straight, white American male that the Owners name.
It could be a Bush, or a Nixon; it wouldn't matter.
Just like Obama v. the Bushevik legacy, the good folks of Middull Murka will flock to the "other guy," "Not-Barry," in 2016, whosoever that may be, and whether or not he's a "real fascist."