Dept. Of We Knew It All Along: The Raygunners Stole the '80 Election

That darn Robert Parry! Him and his gol-dang ConsortiumNews blog. They are such a cards. Playful folks, alright...

Why, just Imagine, the cheek!

Here they go a'tellin' us that what everybody knew about the '80 campaign but that nobody--except us 'unserious' people--dared to talk about, which was that the Raygunauts--led by the CIA, in the person of GHWBush and Bill Casey--met secretly in Paris with the Iranians holding US Embassy hostages in Tehran, and made a deal to trade guns for hostages when they were in power, that prevented Jimmy Carter's so-called "October Surprise" from perhaps turning the tied in the election by negotiating the hostages' release in time for the Nov. 1980, vote.

Until today, alleging the 'truth' to such allegations was widely regarded as akin to proudly donning a tin-foil helmet and a hobby horse to take on the dragons under the bed: Foolish, outrageous, childish, paranoid. It's been almost universally thought to be expressly "UNAMERICAN" to even harbor such a suspicion. "Serious" sentiment held, and will likelky cleave to the myth that "Americans" would never descend to gangsterism and thuggery merely to win the presidency. That "beacon of liberty to the world," the United States of America would NEVER have dimmed that blazing light while such blatant fraud, and acts that were 'technically' treason were committed in the furtherance of political ends.

Turns out that that is EXACTLY, PRECISELY what occurred. The evidence was gathered, witnesses were interviewed, and the story was there, but it was never told until now. Maximum Props to Robert Parry and his crew. Reagan and Casey have actualized their incipient putrescence already, but Big Daddy Bush is still among us, and it would do the country good to see a treacherous oligarch strapped to a gurney, on his way to the "big Sleep."

Over at Mark Crispin Miller's blog, he's got a link to the Parry/Consortium story, or you can link through directly from this link.

Obama Plan Portends "Net Neuter-alization"

My buddy, Uncle Smokes, on FB today pointed to this BoingBoing item, in which one will discern the outlines of a system which would completely silence the most effectively democratizing parts of the Web and render the Netz a safe, corpoRat preserve.

Both of my readers will attest that Y'r Ob'd't S'v't has been predicting for close onto 10 years that the Owners--who had spent the previous 150 years, countless lives, and billions upon billions of dollars diligently consolidating their monopolistic command over ALL "means of production" and distribution of information--would eventually devise a way to commodify and take over the Web.

This effort to geld the Web is a long-term, multi-pronged effort, abetted by an 'officialdom' made extremely uneasy by citizens who have means and opportunity to reply to and interrogate their 'betters'--their congressional representatives, as well as to the Owners of the whole enterprise--in a quasi-public forum where the Owners-qua-'subjects' do NOT control either the conditions of participation or the vocabulary. "Pornography" was the first stalking horse for internet content regulation, and the allied concern for "The Children," were the first wave. The attack on net neutrality was one front of the battle to silence dissent and democracy in communications. "Copyright" is yet another. And still in the wings is the prospect of requiring "libel" bonds, or other restrictive regulations on netizens, to interfere in the free exchange of ideas.

The Oligarchs will never cease to quiet and/or coopt the Nets. They will no more quit trying to impose discipline on the Web than the Israelis will quit trying to expel the Palestinians. Guaranteed!

From the official position on the treaty, the Obamanauts apparently are fully supportive of it, and willing to concede EVERYTHING to the WIPO..

This is bad. Very, Very Bad.

Secret copyright treaty leaks. It's bad. Very bad.

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

* That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

* That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

* That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

* Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)

The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting the Pieces Together

Next: More on secret copyright treaty: your kids could go to jail for noncommercial music sharing

BoingBoing has been in the lead reporting this story. Here's a partial record of their previous entries:

Previously:
New ACTA copyright treaty dodges the UN, poor countries and ...
Obama's transparency commitment makes secret copyright treaty ...turns out to be codswallop. Gee. Nobody would ever have guessed
EFF sues Obama administration for promised access to secret ...
Petition to Obama government to disclose secret copyright treaty ...
Anti-counterfeiting treaty turns into maximum copyright free-for ...
Meet the former Time Warner exec the US govt has put in charge of ...

It's fascinating to watch, through the heds on the pieces, the decay of the Obama regime's attitude from "Yay, democracy" to "Fuck democracy" in just a few months, innit?

And what is more, nobody could ever have predicted it...Oh, wait...

How's All That "Hearts & Minds" Stuff Working, Fellas?

Via "The Beeb."

At least eight members of the Afghan security forces have been killed in a Nato air strike, the Afghan defence ministry says.

The incident occurred in north-western Badghis province on Friday, as Afghan and US forces searched for two missing American soldiers.

The patrol came under rebel attack and reportedly called for air support.
Nato has acknowledged the Afghan deaths and says it is investigating whether they were caused by the air strike.

The Afghan defence ministry said a base housing coalition troops and Afghan security forces was mistakenly hit.

'Important mission'

Ministry spokesman Gen Zaher Azimy said on Saturday: "Yesterday, in a Nato air strike, seven Afghan (soldiers and police) were martyred in Badghis province."
Later a spokesperson for the Nato force, US Navy Capt Jane Campbell, said: "We are saddened by the loss of life and injuries sustained during this very important mission."

Those killed include four Afghan soldiers and three policemen, and another person believed to have been an interpreter.

Five Americans and 18 Afghans were wounded in the incident.

It comes days after an Afghan policeman killed five British troops in Helmand province, who the soldiers had been training.

Aqua-calypse/Aqua-Collapse

(Below: A factory fishing vessel scours a remote Antarctic bay.)

Terri Gross' producers find her the most interesting, and occasionally terrifying guests. Earlier this week, she interviewed author/scientist Daniel Pauly, who had some really dreadful news about the consequences of over-fishing, and not mererly the fisheries we know are damaged. My pal Suzanne in Maine posted the link on her FB page (DOTOF™). An examplary quote?:

...Alaska pollock, as you may know, it's the biggest single species fisheries in the world, except for the Peruvian anchovy, of which more later. And Alaska pollock, the stock is declining now, rapidly. And there will be a problem with the large firms that produce this fish, to get white fish of - in sufficient amount or sufficient quality to maintain this consumption. Also, you must realize that only a few markets have this fish.

The U.S. imports 80 percent of the fish that is consumed in the U.S., so the European Union. In the European Union, the fish all - is all imported from elsewhere. An elsewhere is mainly Africa and the South Pacific and Antarctica. So, our local waters in Europe and in North America are not supplying the markets anymore.

This is a really depressing story, because it suggests that we humans have probably destroyed the existing ecosystem in the largest environmental organ on the planet. Add to that the fact that there is not a single fish in any stream, pond, or lake which does NOT contain toxic levels of heavy metals (mercury, etc), and you cannot dismiss the claim that it is due to our own hubris and ego that

WE ARE SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FUCKED!

"Finding My Religion"

(Click on Image to Enlarge--DOTOF™ to Susan Barber Gourd-Mill, on FB)


Taxonomically correct, and amusing, too.

Me? "Gottlos," naturally. I mean, at heart, I am simply "god-less." Unaffected by things "godly." Immune to "god's" love. Unimpressed by "miracles." Unbidden by unheard voices. Un-god-blighted -- except by the 'faith' of others in their imaginary beings...

I find the whole matter simply irrelevant. It is, as the goddies themselves aver so proudly, completely "immaterial." Is there such a word as "Untheist"?

Jesus! "Catholic pastors directed to distribute anti-health reform materials at Mass"

Hello, Bishop? You like that nice little tax break you get on ALLLLLL that church property? Wanna keep it? How many souls is it worth to ya, padre? Via The Colorado Independent:

This past weekend the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops instructed pastors at parishes across the country to distribute material urging Catholics to oppose the health reform bills making their way through Congress for allowing public funding of abortions. Priests were to insert the Bishops Conference pdf leaflets and letters into parish news bulletins, distribute them at church doors or place them in pews. They were also directed to read a statement at mass to reinforce the message.

The Conference of bishops reportedly sent the orders out last Thursday, the same day Speaker Nancy Pelosi presented the mammoth 2,000-page House reform bill to lawmakers and the public.

The material explains that the Catholic Church supports reform that will “protect the life and dignity of all people from the moment of conception until natural death.”

The insert contains phone numbers and web addresses at which constituents can contact their Representatives.

CNSNews reports that the Catholic Church has a “major stake” in the legislation:

A little over 100 million Americans are treated through Catholic hospitals and health centers. There are 624 Catholic hospitals in America. Also, 11 of the nation’s 40 largest health care systems are Catholic, such as Ascension Health, Catholic Health Initatives and Trinity Health.

As observers have pointed out, however, the bishops’ position seems to be oddly anti-government. The Church has never opposed any private health insurance policies that provide abortion benefits. It has never urged a boycott of particular insurance companies for offering abortion benefits. Aetna, Blue Cross, Cigna, United Healthcare– all the major private insurers provide for abortion services in their policies. All policy holders are paying into the provider network and subsidizing all its services.

The strong stance by the Bishops led one CNSNews commenter to ask why priests are being directed to mouth Republican Party talking points.

Republican politics comes to the pulpit of The Mass. How sweet. The Mass becomes politicized.

The leaflet:

Is repellant, but don't take my word for it. Follow the link.

How Goldman-Sachs Fraudsters Cheated Investors While Homeowners Go Broke...

Oh NOZE! Real journalists have started to investigate the banksters and their filthy dealings.

Blogger/Buddy Edger, at Antemedius, assembled and posted the follow rumination on the doings of the Gods of Finance. In this first video Greg Gordon of McClatchy News reports that Goldman knew that mortgages were not being properly reviewed...

Yet the motherfuckers bundled these mortgages, sold the bundles, and then bet against their solvency (there is NO SUCH THING aas "business ethics.").

(Below) Paul Jay interviews Gordon who explains that a five month McClatchy investigation has found that Goldman's failure to disclose those secret bets may have violated securities laws - that in 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers that it also was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.

In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers that it also was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting. Now, a five- month McClatchy investigation has found that Goldman's failure to disclose those secret bets may have violated securities laws.

I personally would not object if these greedy, money-grubbing fascist motherfuckers were hanged in gibbets from the street-lamps on Wall Street, til their bones fell into the gutter...

Obama Salts Ag Dept With Monsanto, ConAgra Frankenfoods Flunkies

“We’ll tell ConAgra that it’s not the Department of Agribusiness. It’s the Department of Agriculture. We’re going to put the people’s interests ahead of the special interests.” --Candidate Obama.

Did you really think so? After Tom Vilsack was named AgSec? Really?

Bwaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Over the last month, Obama nominated two more “BIG AGRA” power brokers–Roger Beachy and Islam Siddiqui–to key governement positions, putting agribusiness executives in charge of our country’s agricultural research and trade policy.

(Wanna bet this a tacit apology made "politically necessary" by the "Dal-Obama's" need to restore perfect balance, bipartisanship, and harmony, after the accidental affront and embarrassment caused to the BIG AGRA interests by rebuke implicit in Michele Obama's 'natural garden' planted on WhiteHouse grounds...This guy is so fucking gutless...)

Siddiqui was a paid flack, and front-man for the crop-poison lobby, the American Crop Protection Association, and a shill for GM/frankenfoods. And Beachy's the former head of the Donald Danforth Plant Research Center in St. Louis, MO, and a long-time flunky for Monsanto, Named to head NIFA, (National Institute of Food and Agriculture), Beachy controls where research funds are spent in the U.S. This is not good news for proponents of sustainable and organic agriculture.

For his part, Siddiqui, who last month was nominated to be the Chief Agricultural Negotiator at the Office of the US Trade Representative, has been a registered pesticide lobbyist and most recently the Vice President of Science and Regulatory Affairs at CropLife America. In a previous stint at the USDA, Siddiqui was responsible for trying to set the national organic standards to allow irradiation, sewage sludge and GMOs to be considered “organic.” Fortunately, over 230,000 outraged Americans rose up and stopped this.

Most recently, Siddiqui’s CropLife MidAmerica sent First Lady Michelle Obama a letter saying that her “organic” garden made the pesticide lobby group “shudder”. Who would have thought months later that President Obama would be trying to give a lobbyist like Siddiqui a job?

While Beachy is already at work at the USDA, Siddiqui must be confirmed by the Senate. We have until Nov. 4th, (when the Senate Finance committee will vote) to make a difference.

Tell the president to DUMP Monsanto’s men!

I'm sure he'll listen, aren't you?

DOTOF™: Mark Crispin Miller's News From Underground:

Grayson Tolls the Dead: 44 THOUSAND/Year

C&L collects Alan Grayson, reading from some of the stories of the neglected, who perished in consequence of NOT being able to acquire (affordable/available) health insurance, which have been left on his site, Names Of The Dead:

Every year, more than 44,000 Americans die simply because they have no health insurance. Add your story and watch Congressman Grayson read your stories on the House floor.

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:


I like the way this guy operates, turning the bullying tactics of the Pukes back on 'em. He does NOT gladly suffer fools, and his demeanor bespeaks the contempt with which he regards the "other side." I'd like to see him with a chainsaw...

RIP Gerald Bracey: Another Good Man Gone Down

Gerald Bracey, one of the foremost scholarly critics of the horrible hash made of USer education by the corpoRats and the edu-fascists, died last week, at age 69. Damn, damn, damn. I knew him. A good man, scholar, and advocate for democratic education. He's one of those whose voice will be sorely missed. From an obituary at schoolmatters blog, which was on USAToday, written by Greg Toppo:

(Bracey wrote) Setting the Record Straight: Responses to Misconceptions About Public Education in America, tackled 20 "myths" about U.S. public schools, giving advocates ammunition to rebut critics. For instance, one chapter begins, "What do I say when people say, 'Schools won't improve until they're taken over by private companies and run like businesses'?"

But it was likely Bracey's annual Rotten Apples in Education, an over-the-top mock awards newsletter, that made him the most fans and the most enemies.

It took no prisoners and pulled no punches. In 2006, after then-Education Secretary Margaret Spellings compared the No Child Left Behind education reform law to Ivory Soap, saying it was "99.9% pure — there's not much needed in the way of change," Bracey awarded Spellings "The 99 and 44/100ths Pure Crap Award."

While he held President George W. Bush and No Child Left Behind in especially low esteem, Bracey was bipartisan in his loathing, most recently calling out President Obama and his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, on what Bracey called "test abuse," quipping at one point, "These guys don't have a clue."

He took Obama to task earlier this year on the President's assertions that three-fourths of the fastest-growing occupations require more than a high school diploma.

Not really, Bracey said. Look it up.

Last August, when the topic on the EDDRA listserv turned to Obama's proposed education reforms, an angry Bracey wrote, "How long will it take for people to realize that the education 'reform' proposed by Obama-Duncan is no different from the Weapons of Mass Destruction from Bush (I say this as a depressed person who canvassed for Obama, campaigned for him, donated for him, and voted for him — with my entire family — in Virginia before moving to the blue-secure state of Washington.)"

"He wasn't afraid, but sometimes I know that got him into terrible trouble," Iris said. "He just wanted the truth to come out."

I Do NOT Understand Why Women Would Want To Join The US Military

I am a veteran of the USAF. I was in for four years. It was four years of institutionally rationalized coarseness--sexual, moral, and behavioral. When I was in, there were far fewer women enlisted than today. With increased numbers of female enlistees, there has grown up a much greater occasion for sexual abuse. Outnumbered, surrounded by a culture in which rape, in some contexts, is an acceptable form of aggression, and embedded in a culture of rigidly patriarchal hierarchy, the deck is stacked against them.

The stories of abuse are heart-breaking. Democracy Now yesterday did a deep analysis, with a French film-maker who has followed the cases of several such women for a documentary called "Rape In The Ranks: The Enemy Within."

As with suicides, the rate of sexual assaults within the US military now exceeds that of the general population. A Pentagon report earlier this year found one in three female service members are sexually assaulted at least once during their enlistment. Sixty-three percent of nearly 3,000 cases reported last year were rapes or aggravated assaults. Rape in the Ranks: The Enemy Within is a documentary that focuses on the cases of three female service members victimized by rape and other forms of sexual assault. We air excerpts of the film and speak to filmmaker Pascale Bourgaux.

Auto Workers "Question The Logic of Capitalism": The Real News Network

Everybody's Talking: Sen. Franken Schools A CorpoRat Shill

Takes the arrogant slag down a peg or two, though it didn't make him a new friend...

This was pretty much ubiquitous last week. See it again and enjoy...

A Righteous Rant By One Well-Informed, Pissed-Off Redneck With A Basebll Bat

This guy's got all the facts and figures DOWN!

DOTOF™ to Ed Encho/Station Charon.

Nation's Morons March On Washington...

State...


Above: A pack of certified imbeciles makes its feelings known three time zones from the nation's capital.
Courtesy or The Onion:

OLYMPIA, WA—With random cries of "Enough is enough," "Do something now," and "Huh?" thousands of the nation's biggest morons descended on Washington State this week, some 3,000 miles from their intended destination of the nation's capital.

The march, which had no discernable goal or message, and no official organizers, began at approximately 8:45 a.m. in front of what the morons called the National Mall, but was actually the courtyard outside the Olympia Public Library.

"More government accountability, and transparency, and accountability!" shouted grade-A moron Tammy Caldwell, 37, addressing no one in particular. "On behalf of me, and all the [morons] who came here today, listen up, greedy Washington fat cats: We're not going anywhere until each and every one of our voices is heard."

"To the Lincoln Memorial!" added Caldwell, pointing to a nearby monument dedicated to the memory of Washington State governor John Rankin Rogers.

Following a stop at what the morons believed to be Arlington National Cemetery, protestors reportedly marched east on State Avenue, south along Plum Street, paused bewilderedly when they failed to see the Reflecting Pool at the intersection of Union and Plum, and then found their way back to State to begin their march over again.

While authorities maintained that the gathering was largely peaceful and most of the fires were set purely by accident, demonstrators appeared visibly angry about a range of topics, including war, peace, food, music, money, baseball, cars, the people following them around as if this were some kind of rally, siblings, animals, plants, colors, and movies.

"Come on out of that precious little palace of yours, Mr. President. We're right here waiting," Pennsylvania resident Kip Callahan yelled toward the marble-columned State Insurance Building. "I didn't come all this way to be ignored. I got kids!"

"No Social Security for Medicare!" Michigan idiot Kevin Liston added. "Not in my backyard!"

Throughout the day, the number of protesters grew to include not just morons, but more than 6,000 nimrods, 3,500 dunderheads, and approximately 12,000 of the biggest fucking dipshits known to man.

In all, 75,000 of the simpletons turned out, though dozens were killed after walking out into traffic, and hundreds more were lost after wandering into nearby Trillium Park.

"I'm against things," longtime North Carolina resident Pam Beucher said. "I'm for things."

"America!" she added.

"I didn't know Washington, D.C. had Seattle in it," said Connecticut resident Kyle Hinton, an idiot. "Anyway, stop the war! No more hate! Swine flu! Iran! Pharmaceutical companies! Illegal immigrants! Never again!"

At press time the morons had been walking for 10 minutes into a concrete wall in Kennewick, WA, where they eventually stopped to pay their respects to those who lost their lives during the Vietnam War.

"This is—," NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams said Wednesday while broadcasting video footage of protesters shouting "four more years" at the base of Mount Rainier. "Actually, I don't know what this is."

Clearly moved by the marchers' plight, both houses of the United States Congress announced Wednesday they had begun work on a $3 trillion piece of legislation that would completely overhaul the nation's education system.

Spitzer Sez "Break The Fucking Banksters!"

Via:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Former governor of New York, and attorney general, Eliot Spitzer criticized the White House this morning for being "the only institution that doesn't get" the continuing danger of having massive banks that are 'too big to fail.'

Alan Greenspan is now saying break up the institutions... Volcker in his testimony a few weeks ago said we should not be insuring these big institutions to do proprietary trading. A bank has to be a bank... The White House seems to be the only institution that doesn't get this. You still have Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, and maybe Ben Bernanke out there saying let's keep the status quo.

Spitzer was joined on the panel by Rob Johnson, a former Soros fund manager as well as the former chief economist for the Senate Banking Committee during the Savings & Loan crisis. The panel discussion ranged from reforming the banks to public outrage that firms like Goldman Sachs are back to making enormous profits that are only possible because of earlier, large infusions of public money that staved off disaster.

Meanwhile:

Fed Chair Balks At Speed-Up Of Credit-Card Rules

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has told Congress that accelerating the effective date of credit card reform legislation would be good for consumers -- but that credit-card issuers need more time to adjust to the new rules.

Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee are pushing a bill to move up the effective date almost three months, to December 1. The law protects consumers from some of the worst credit card abuses, including sudden interest rate increases. While some of the provisions went into effect in August, others aren't scheduled to go live until February and August of next year.

"This bill is needed because too many credit card companies have been using the period since the bill's signing -- the period they pressed for, to prepare for the changes in their business -- in a way that betrays the confidence of their customers," Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney said in September. After President Barack Obama signed the law in May, some banks responded by raising interest rates and fees.

Bernanke, though, argued in a Tuesday letter to Rep. Spencer Bachus, the senior Republican on the committee, that while moving the effective date up to December "could benefit consumers by providing important protections earlier than scheduled (including protections against applying increased rates to existing credit card balances)," it could lead to problems for credit-card issuers. "Issuers must be afforded sufficient time for implementation to allow for an orderly transition and to avoid unintended consequences, compliance difficulties and potential liabilities."

Bernanke wrote that it would also force the Fed to implement the law "without providing the public with advance notice and the opportunity to comment," as the Fed wouldn't have time to solicit comments.

His protestations didn't impress reform advocates. "For 14 years these are the arguments that have been used to allow abuses of consumers to continue. I'm sorry, but how much more abuse can consumers take?" asked Center for Responsible Lending spokeswoman Kathleen Day. "We have to cut the banks' addiction to bad practices. It's too bad, but they should have thought about this beforehand."

"This is just another example of the Fed putting the interests of consumers behind those of the banks," Day said.

"Clean, Safe and High-Value" People Wanted

Michel Foucault would be proud of the following observation: "It’s common to have racism without “racists.”"

Indeed it is. Because, of course, 'racism' is not solely or even particularly about individual acts of bias, bigotry, or discrimination; it is about the SYSTEM of agreements, arrangements, policies and practices which permits, and approves--indeed, often, still, even encourages--the naturalization of those biases, bigotries, and discriminations. The recent 'debate' over reforming the health-insurance morass highlighted that aspect in ways that usually slip beneath the social radar.

And one arena in which those 'arrangements' are still strong is housing. On AlterNet, the other day, there was an excerpted chapter of a recent book by Rich Benjamin, "Searching for Whitopia": That same law which in it's majesty prohibits both the rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges "does not forbid segregated or discriminating neighborhoods. It simply forbids intentional discrimination."

In twenty-first-century America, how do so many Whitopias hatch and flourish?

A few white readers may protest that their neighborhood’s appeal has nothing to do with its racial composition. The homogeneity of where they live is “irrelevant” or “coincidental,” they say. But divorcing a Whitopia’s appeal from its predominantly white composition is like extracting the marshmallow from the s’more. Impossible. Each is fundamental to the other.

Whites may not move to a place simply because it teems with other white people. Rather, to many Americans, a place’s whiteness implies other qualities that are desirable. Americans associate a homogenous white neighborhood with higher property values, friendliness, orderliness, hospitability, cleanliness, safety, and comfort. These seemingly race-neutral qualities are subconsciously inseparable from race and class in many whites’ minds. Race is often used as a proxy for those neighborhood traits.

Through most of the twentieth century, racial discrimination was deliberate and intentional. Today, racial segregation and division often result from habits, policies, and institutions that are not explicitly designed to discriminate. Contrary to popular belief, discrimination or segregation do not require animus. They thrive even in the absence of prejudice or ill will.

It’s common to have racism without “racists.”

The law does not forbid segregated or discriminating neighborhoods. It simply forbids intentional discrimination. Successful plaintiffs in a discrimination lawsuit must prove that someone intended racial bias.

And the legal standard to establish proof of that intent is very high: The plaintiff must present a “smoking gun” and this particular gun is often impossible to furnish. The 1973 Supreme Court decision San Antonio v. Rodriguez held that a school funding system based on local property taxes that perpetuated egregious disparities in per-pupil spending between mostly white districts and mostly minority districts does not violate the Constitution, because the plaintiffs could not prove that the funding differences emerged from intentional racial discrimination. Another landmark Supreme Court decision, Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp (1977), reinforced this “intent doctrine”: The court ruled that a suburban village did not discriminate, because it did not intend to discriminate when it set-up zoning that disproportionately harmed racial minorities.

There is a terrible disconnect between our everyday experiences and the law: In day-to-day life, racial inequity continues without intent, yet courts require evidence of intent before the law can acknowledge or effectively confront discrimination. Regrettably, the absence of explicit intent has become a common crutch that justifies private decisions that wreak racial havoc upon minorities.

Not to know what has been transacted in the past is to be always a child, said Cicero.

Cicero considerably antedates Santayana.

This is the shiny, happy face of "red-lining."

Just Say "No!"

Going Green Means Having Fewer Kids

By Emily Badger, Miller-McCune.com. Posted October 19, 2009.

There are already just too many people on the planet. What are we supposed to do about it?

Andrew Revkin, an environmental reporter for The New York Times and author of the paper's Dot Earth blog, warns that the math is pretty depressing.

There are about 6.8 billion people on the planet today, a number projected to get to 9 billion by 2050. Americans, the world's greatest per-capita emitters of greenhouse gas emissions, produce about 20 tons of the stuff per person, per year. If we were to cut that in half, as emissions rose with the quality of life in much of the Third World, and everyone on the planet met around 10 tons per person, per year, simple multiplication says we'd collectively emit 90 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually come 2050.

That's three times the already problematic current number.

When we start to think about that number, 9 billion, a lot of "cheery suppositions" about what the world can do to curb climate change evaporate, Revkin said (via carbon footprint-minimizing Skype from his desk in New York). He spoke to an event in Washington discussing population trends and climate change, and the media that seldom correlate the two.

The interrelated topics aren't likely to get much talk when global leaders meet in Copenhagen in December for the next round of wrangling over a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. But at least the media could start highlighting the sensitive relationship, as was suggested at the talk hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center.

A couple of mental roadblocks emerge, central among them the sentiment that, well, there are just too many people on the planet, so what are we supposed to do about it? Any answer trips up against the politically touchy topic of family planning (a distinctly different concept, reproductive-health advocates stress, from "population control").

"The single most concrete, substantive thing a young American could do is not turning off the lights or driving a Prius," Revkin said. "It's having fewer kids."

I am proud to announce that I bucked the trend of my generation and refused to have children. So opposed to it was I that I "went to the Vet" in 1982 (though likely I was always shooting blanks, due to mumps as a teen).

Presidential Job Descriptions

What IS the President's job? There are a lot of mythical answers having to do with protecting the nation and upholding the Constitution, and stuff.

But it became evident to me that the ostensible job definition--described in the political mythologies of democracy and such--and the real job description were quite distinct. I figured it out concretely during the Bushevik regime. Bush's real job was to consolidate corpoRat power.

Obama's "Job" is to give "white" voters somebody to hate MORE than they were growing to detest the Bushevik GOP, and whom they could blame for the Bushevik clusterfux, while not relinquishing or diminishing corpoRat power.

I was reminded of the "job" of the President on another site earlier today, and I recalled that back when Bush was in office, I often disputed the claims by his critics that he was "incompetent." If, I thought, his "job" was properly understood, it could hardly be imagined that anyone had ever better succeeded. Because, properly understood, Bush's "job"--what he was installed to do--was always to undermine and diminish, to the greatest extent possible, any and all of the institutions and instruments by which the People--the citizens of the country, the "95%"--could resist the wholesale appropriation of the "civil" State by global corpoRat interests.

Obama's job is to make the People forget just how successful Bushevism was at its assigned job, and to displace onto a despised "minority" (either race or gender would have worked)--and onto the Dims, the "junior" party, party of the "minorities"--the responsibility for the rage of the people at the success of the Pukes.

I thought it was a genius move by the Owners to put a "novelty" candidate in the White House, one which--for too many reasons to now recount--could not do anything but FAIL to rectify even the least controversial of the Bushevik clusterfux: the economy, which Bush torpedoed in October, 08; the wars, including "Obama's War," Palestine, and soon Iran; the climate crisis; health-care; the growing class divide, etc.

Neither Hillary--had she been selected--nor Obama had ANY chance to solve ANY of those problems. They are, in effect, insoluble under the current, dominant political relations and arrangements, and the nearly complete CorpoRatization of our politics, the destruction and privatization of our commons.

It's working.

Either one would have served equally well to polarize 'popular opinion' (the inevitable consequence of the hypostatization of the Big Lie in the wonderfully hospitable environmrnt of the 24-hour news cycle). Political speech has become completely meaningless.

As anticipated, "White" people are finding and mining their inner racist. Obama is REALLY hated by the cracker nation (which contributed 46% of all the votes cast last year), far more I judge than Bush ever was detested and abhorred by the Left, even by 2007 or '08.

I am pretty sure Obama and the Dims will lose 'majority' power next year, and will lose the government again in 2012.

And the theo-fascist Right will reassume the reins, revoke anything Obama accomplishes, and drive us right off the cliff again.

Just the way "God" planned it...

Cool Water

At Alternet yestiddy, a very affecting musing on the state of H2O:

Considering that less than 1 percent of all the water on the planet is usable freshwater, we’re not nearly as careful as we should be with this precious resource. Here are some amazing facts to put things in perspective.

1. Set in the desert of Dubai, the Tiger Woods Golf Course uses 4 million gallons of water every day to maintain its lush appearance.

2. Since 1950, water usage in the United States has risen 127 percent (per capita).

3. Even though each person only requires 48 liters of water on a daily basis, individuals in the United States use an average of 500 liters, those in Canada an average of 300 liters and those in England an average of 200 liters.

4. Of all the water that enters each household, about 95% of it ends up down the drain.

5. With access to just 5 liters of water each day, more than a billion people in water poor regions around the globe survive on the same amount used to flush a toilet or take a 5-minute shower.

6. If you shorten your showers by just a single minute, you can save approximately 700 gallons of water in a month.

7. Letting the tap run when you brush your teeth wastes up to 4 gallons of water every time.

8. It takes an average of 300 gallons to water your lawn. During the summer, this can account for almost half of your water usage.

9. Every time you throw your clothes in the washer, you use about 50 gallons of water.

10. Another wasteful desert endeavor, the proposed Waveyards water park in Mesa, Arizona will require up to 100 million gallons of groundwater every year in an area that receives a mere 8 inches of rainfall in that time.

So, what can we do? Learn more about water conservation, and check out 100 ways you can conserve water.

I have a xeriscaped yard that needs little or no water in addition to what is naturally available here (not much). I have suspended using my evaporative cooler in the summer. I have long since learned to shut off the water when I brush my teeth. I no longer shower every day unless I have exerted myself sufficiently to break a sweat (I'd shower in pairs, if I had a pair). I don't flush every time, only when I poop. I only wash clothes when the washer is full, and the washer is super-efficient, using only about 15 gallons per load, And I don't wash my vehicles, ever...

My one excess: I have a fish-pond which I keep full.