The Dope on Palin

I couldn't do anything as succinct and funny and, in a way, moving. Just click to play the video.

It Depends on What You Mean by "Socialism"

Just a guess.

No God No More

Trillions in personal wealth flushed down the toilet and this is all Ayn Rand acolyte Alan Greenspan can offer. And he was treated like a god at the Fed.

There are no gods and there are no devils. There are no pure ideologies that work. There ARE ideas that need consideration and discussion and analysis and testing, and usually a lot of work. Every time this country yields its own power and skepticism to some guru, it gets soundly fucked. We don't need pedestals and saints--we need citizens who think!

That's why I'm feeling so sour today. We're living in a nation of zombies.

Greenspan was a free market fanatic who was massively wrong. But he and all the people in all the circles he travels in (with wife Andrea Mitchell of NBC News) will still have their wealth, their shields and bodyguards from the rabble, and will suffer no consequences of their incompetence and/or theft.

As for the rest of us? Let 'em buy Sarah Palin's second-hand Nieman-Marcus rags.

October Surprise?

Hey, she's ambitious! And it sure doesn't look like Johnny is going to make it to the White House. She's fecund enough, we know that, and since she rejects science and is born again, well, it could be both an immaculate conception AND Obama's kid, because he's, you know, That One.

Red Baiting?

Did I just go back in time? Jesus H. Christ, the most right-wing, reactionary, free market crackpot party rams through partial nationalization of banks and their candidate for president, John McCain, is invoking the spectre of communism to attack Barack Obama?

“He wants to quote ‘spread the wealth around,’” McCain said in a campaign speech in Pennsylvania Tuesday. “He believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that grow our economy and create jobs and opportunities for all Americans. Sen. Obama is more interested in controlling who gets your piece of the pie than he is in growing the pie.”

And Sarah Palin keeps reading from the same cue cards:

At a rally Friday in West Chester, Ohio, where one banner in the crowd read, "Obama is a Socialist/Marxist," Palin said, "Joe suggested that that sounded a little bit like socialism. Whatever you call it, I call it bad medicine for an ailing economy, and it's what Barack Obama will do to those who want to create jobs, and we're willing to call Barack Obama on it."

What the frak? I mean, I get it. They lost ground when they tried to label him a terrorist, and a secret Muslim, and a guy with a weird name, and a guy named "Hussein," and a guy who happened to be half African-American, and a guy who was educated and "elite," and a guy who was "eloquent" and therefore suspicious, and so on, they lost polling points every time, and so they have to reach waaaaaaaay back to some retro Eisenhower era codeword that might just echo for the last few numbskulls who haven't realized what a washed-up douchebag weathervane McCain is and what an incurious, dumbass, fanatic Palin is.

Ooooooooh, there's a Commie under the bed!

Please. Just when you thought even the last Republican standing wouldn't say something so dumb, their fucking leaders are saying things this dumb. And with two weeks left, I can't wait to see what comes next.

My guess? A whispering campaign that Barack Obama is an alien. I mean, look at those ears! And he's so thin. Doesn't he remind you of Michael Rennie in The Day the Earth Stood Still?

Paulson Discovers Marx? Maybe, but America Is Still Getting Screwed

Before I rant, "Neu Entdecken" means "new discovery," which is why I had to use this recent photo from my Berlin trip to accompany commentary on Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's capitulation to partial nationalization of the banks. It's one of those sweet, sweet ironies that also has a terribly painful price for its enjoyment--all of us losing our financial asses. Paulson, a Wall Street insider who loved the totally anti-regulation atmosphere and absense of any enforcement of the few regulations that remained, had to face the obvious-to-some-of-us fact that capitalism cannot function without some protection from the natural greed that too often destroys the very thing that fed it. Here's what Paulson said, and it's kind of delicious. I just wish it wasn't costing me so goddamned much money. Fuck!

Today we are taking decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy. We regret having to take these actions. Today's actions are not what we ever wanted to do — but today's actions are what we must do to restore confidence to our financial system... We are acting with unprecedented speed taking unprecedented measures that we never thought would be necessary. But they are necessary to get our economy back on an even keel, and secure the confidence and future of our markets, our economy and the economic well-being of all Americans.

Yeah, they never thought it would be necessary because they're greedy, incompetent, unimaginative assholes, and, let's face it, Americans are not really very well educated in financial matters...or much of anything beyond what Rush Limbaugh or Wolf Blitzer tell them, depending on which no-nothing they happen to like. Looking at the New York Times' photo of Paulson, Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, and Timothy F. Geithner (a Fed board member) is really fun, because they look like a trio of schoolboys about to see the principal. But they're just smart enough to keep this deal flush with loopholes that will allow the further raping of the U.S. taxpayer and looting of the nation.

Here's the deal. The European central banks really forced the U.S. to do this by rapidly deploying capital and control over the financial sector in Europe. But the U.S. version is faulty for the following reasons, as reported by the New York Times:

Whereas some European plans barred banks from paying dividends on common stock until the government got its money back and demanded promises that the banks would keep loans flowing to businesses and individuals, Washington allowed the banks that it invests in to continue paying dividends on existing common and preferred shares.

In addition, while European banks are being required in some cases to put government representatives on their boards, the American government will not receive board seats or have voting power.

Got that? Paulson, et alia, are funneling money to the same fuckers who caused this mess, but without the necessary guarantees and controls that they won't fuck it up again, and even worse. So don't expect this to be any sort of turnaround. Paulson is giving away our money without demanding sufficient proportional control and, even more importantly, openness.

If I could, I'd like to have all my dough in cash and in denominations large enough that I could smuggle them across borders. Hmmm...I remember that in Ian Fleming's James Bond book Dr. No that the title character had secreted his wealth around in rare stamps. Probably not a bad idea. Alas, current laws prevent anyone but drug kingpins and greedheads from getting their hands on much cash anymore.

I could always exploit my amazing musical skills to earn a few Euros on the S-Bahn, I suppose. You can still get a doner kebab for 2.5 Euros in Berlin. And beer's cheap. I could stay drunk.

Not much else left these days. I will say this, however. No matter how poor I become, I'll never sink to drinking Bud Lite or Coors or any of that other swill. Pilsner Urquell, Baby, all the way to the poorhouse!

Like Piping Hydrogen to the Hindenburg

See, the economy and the money moguls' management of it--the alleged "free market"--are like the Hindenburg just as it docks in Lakehurst, New Jersey. And the hydrogen is the money you've invested. And what Congress is proposing to do by ramming this rescue, i.e. bailout bill through is to run a pipeline directly from your future earnings and your children's future earnings and their children's future earnings right into that flaming mass. Meanwhile, they're filling their own zeppelins with nonflammable helium so they can float away after the rest of us have plunged to earth.

And now we learn that this "urgent" bill that the Senate already passed and which the House may pass tomorrow is larded with $100 billion in pork projects. What I want to know is why can't the Congress pass a bill that deals ONLY with this alleged crisis in liquidity?

Secondly, I want to know why absolutely no lead story on this matter was available on the Google's main news page. You'd think that it would rank somewhat higher than Joe Biden's debate with a demonstrably airheaded governor of Alaska who thinks the earth is 6000 years old and that men road dinosaurs to their jobs on the rockpile.

I can guess the answer to the first one. The combination of stupidity and greed that collects in Washington and Wall Street is so resistant to common sense or shame that if you put a gold Krugerrand inside the spleen of his or her mother, any senator or stock broker would ask to borrow your Swiss army knife to cut it out of her and then wipe his hands on her shawl afterward.

The answer to the second makes me sound like a conspiracy nut, but it smells pretty goddamned funny.

Are they rioting in the streets at home yet? It sure seems like a logical result of this week's proceedings.

Instead of using taxpayer money to bail these bastards out, how about seizing the assets of all the failing banks and liquidating them to finance the bailout, along with the punitive taxation of all insane consumption like third and fourth and fifth homes, big yachts, $100,000+ automobiles, giant jewelry, etc. If it's a real crisis, then take from those who can most afford to sacrifice, not the ordinary schmuck who is two paychecks away from homelessness.

Until I see legislation like that, I don't think there's a true crisis, only the propaganda about one to loosen what little we have left from our weakening grip.

P.S. My favorite sign at the protests over the Wall Street bailout: "Jump you fuckers!"

Let the "Free Market" (stifled laughter) Sort It Out

I don't want to see taxpayer money used to save Wall Street. I want Wall Street's fucking CEOs, CFOs, COOs, and brokers who walked away with uncountable billions to kick the cash in to save their precious "free market" system that seems desperately to need a government titty to suck on. Bullshit. If the extreme free marketers (and I actually respect the ones in Congress who voted against the bailout, because at least they think that the system should live or die by its own logic) are true believers, then the market needs to sort itself out.

Of course, the myth is that there was ever an unfettered free market. Look, Congress sells the tax laws to firms and individuals who can afford to lobby them every year. Why is the tax code bigger than the Encyclopedia Brittanica? Because it contains exemptions and exceptions and loopholes up the wazoo and even exempts employees for the Internal Revenue Service for liability in its interpretation.

Let me put it to you this way--if you can't afford your own personal tax lawyer, you're getting fucked.

The system is a rigged game between government and corporate America (which are essentially indistinguishable these days--just ask where Henry Paulson comes from) and is played to extract as much wealth as possible from hardworking but naive people while avoiding revolution or even true reform. Thanks to a compliant (or perhaps complicit) media, we are kept distracted or lied to or prevented from discovering information that might create a balance of power, but which has concentrated power and wealth into fewer and fewer hands.

And the seams of this wicked operation are finally showing.

By the way, I and many others lost more than 7 percent of our worth yesterday. That hurts, believe me (I was hoping for a nice retirement someday), but if the system has to crumble a bit more before Americans start paying attention to the real problem, so be it.

Oh, by the way, isn't it interesting that while banks/investment firms (Glass-Steagle's repeal erased the distinction) get bailed out, if you are in danger of defaulting on your student loans or your mortgage, no such luck. And claiming that somehow this will benefit the average schmuck like me is a flat out lie. And as I said in an earlier post, when someone is pressing you on time in a deal, walk away and get more information. Never negotiate in haste. And I don't give a shit what even Barack Obama says about the urgency, never mind "Crash" McCain's idiotic rantings. This whole thing stinks.

Goodbye, Miss American Pie

What's going in is this--the Bush administration and Wall Street haven't yet totally looted the Treasury yet and time is running out. Keep in mind that the Treasury includes essentially all taxable assets and future income of all Americans for as long as we put up with this shit. And Congress is either so stupid or has its ass so thoroughly greased up and benumbed that it won't do one fucking thing to stop this insanity.

This is what revolutions are made from.

Meanwhile, the view from Germany is this:

In a speech before parliament on Thursday, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück said the effects of the financial markets crisis would be felt in economies and labor markets worldwide for years to come. "The world will never be the same as it was before the crisis," the Social Democrat said, adding," the US will lose its status as the superpower of the global financial system."

He blamed the current crisis partly on Wall Street's "blind drive for double-digit profits" and massive bonuses for executives and bankers.

In other words, however badly they are hurt by our incompetence and greed, they are not following us down the rat hole to socialization of financial idiocy.

Our country is being gang raped by capitalism and its Washington enablers. It's got to stop, and I'm afraid that the November election isn't going to change a god-damned thing.

There is hope, however, that some kind of awakening could be occurring. Seventy percent of Americans aren't buying the repeated mantra that "immediate action is essential to prevent a catastrophe." When a salesperson starts pushing you with time constraints, it's always time to walk away from the table. Don't support Henry Paulson's twaddle or his lackey Bush's repetition, or McCain or Obama's complicity. This is a robbery, pure and simple. Fuck Wall Street.

Olaf's solution: tax all income over $250,000 (and that's fucking generous) at 100%. Tax second homes at 200%. Tax third homes at 1000%. No, wait--confiscate them. Tax all pleasure boats over 22 feet long at 100%. Tax all cut diamonds valued over $10,000 at 100%. And so on.

You get the idea. Everyone is entitled to a livable income and personal property essential to a comfortable life within reasonable limits of the mean. But no one should be entitled to outrageous possession at the expense of so many without health care, without child care, without income security, without adequate housing. And NO ONE is entitled to incomes 500 times the wage of the lowest worker in their firm NO FUCKING ONE ON EARTH!

We're All Commies Now! (and I'm off to Berlin again)

So I'm going to my second home city over there on the Spree River. But first, a few words from our sponsor:

Oh, the irony! This administration, the most right-wing, reactionary, free market, laissez faire, crazy town incompetent nincompoops ever to populate our national stage, has now exercised an essentially Leninist takeover of AIG, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and has totally socialized the massive fuckups by their butt buddies over on Wall Street.

When times are good, "Oh!" they screech, "Get the government out of the markets!" And then, when the entire house of cards is about to collapse in the freefall of value and the crippling of these increasingly unregulated markets from functioning at all, "Oh!" they cry, "We must get the government to save the capitalist system!"

Capitalism with buffers of regulation to prevent greed from outstripping judgment can work. But when you let extremists have their way, the consequences are dire. I don't even know if we've dodged a bullet yet--there's a shitload of stuff that has yet to spin out before anyone can tell if we're headed for the Big D or just a severe shock. But if this doesn't put an end to lobbyists writing legislation while simultaneously owning the executive branch, then you'd better start building that bunker off the grid.

Do Americans have an attention span that can last until the election? If Bernanke and Paulson can dampen the earthquake for six more weeks, will we just vote the fuckers that enabled this diasater right back in again to continue looting the Treasury and destroying the lives of working people?

I'm going to see what the world looks like from another vantage point. If I can get WiFi at the apartment we're renting, I'll drop some lines.

Hang in there.

Repubs Adjourn...Now Go Away

Let's see how "relate-able" this pair really is. She--heiress to $100 million empire; he--dumped his first wife to marry her, and on government payroll his entire life. Yeah, just like us working stiffs. At least Barack and Michelle earned their own damn money.

Everyone Loves a Police State

I'd say this is about right. How does this differ from police state tactics? From the New York Times:

On the weekend before the Republican National Convention, law enforcement agencies detained dozens of people and issued a series of search warrants aimed at groups believed to be organizing demonstrations while delegates and Republican officials are in town.
...

The sheriff's department continued the sweeps on Saturday morning, executing warrants for three houses in Minneapolis and two in St. Paul, detaining more than 50 people and arresting 4.

A copy of a warrant at one house said the police were authorized to look for a laundry list of items, including fire bombs, Molotov cocktails, brake fluid, photographs and maps of St. Paul, paint, computers and camera equipment, and documents and other communications.

Brake fluid, camera equipment, documents? Yep, classic terrorist materials, and certainly grounds for a search warrant.

Now one group you might be able to dismiss as "fringe" since they were self-proclaimed anarchists and anti-authoritarians, although neither of those proclamations is illegal, but by attacking a fringe group and also some more mainstream protest movements, the message is sent: "Fear the state and fear the police. We are listening, we are watching, and we have the power." Read this Glenn Greenwald piece for a better commentary than any I could make.

Watch your ass. The Bush-Cheney-Republican wet dream is here now.

Score: Putin 3, Bush -7

While we diddled in Iraq, Vladimir Putin maneuvered Russia to a point where it loans us money, holds western Europe by the throat with natural gas and oil, and can challenge NATO by invading Georgia (although I hardly agree with the US media that Russia's the big bad bear in this war). After repeatedly failing to recognize Russia's growing influence and power--and remember, Secretary of State Condi Rice is alleged to be an expert in Russian affairs (I'm laughing out loud as I type this)--the US has been completely snookered by Putin. Need I remind you that Bush saw Putin's soul? Or that John McCain thought that that was a sound judgment? And now McCain is pounding his chest as if we have any leverage at all.

Putin, upon meeting Bush for the first time, realized that the chimp was a chump on an epic scale. And Condi Rice? She proved her incompetence as national security advisor before and after 9/11, so why shouldn't Putin have expected that her Russian "expertise" was equally bogus?

Now the only question is, can we make it five more months before total collapse?

Release

On the Tram

Sun Shines on the Charles Bridge

The Czech Connection

Rendition and Recreation

Off the Grid

What will happen to Olaf? Does anyone care? Will Sabine forget him like a bad case of athlete's foot, or will she pursue the question of what has become of the poor lad?

New postings will come by June 15, as I will off the grid for one week doing research in another venue.

If anyone is out there, stay tuned.

And Now a Word from Our Sponsor

Do you recognize the fellow the left and slightly behind Karl Rove doing his "MC Rove" bit at last year's Radio and Television Correspondents' Dinner? You should, because he is NBC's chief White House correspondent. Why care? Well, now that yet another White House insider has confirmed what we on the left have been screaming for seven fucking years, and in particular chiding (not scolding, only chiding) the press for "being too deferential to the White House," some "journalists" are offended.

ABC's Ann Compton was perplexed: "Is Scott suggesting the White House press corps can stop, or start wars?"

David Gregory, NBC News' chief White House correspondent, opined: "I think he's wrong." He added: "I think we pushed, I think we prodded. ...The right questions were asked."

I think it takes a lot of goddamn arrogance to party with Karl Rove like this and claim objectivity. The Fourth Estate, aka Mainstream Media, is on the inside of the power elite sphere, and they know fucking well who butters their bread. Oh sure, they pose a few show questions now and then, but ask them to leave the buffet in the press room long enough to perhaps investigate beneath the veneer of White House propaganda, and they claim it's not their job. Ann Compton engages in some really dopey rhetoric asking "Is Scott suggesting the White House press corps can stop, or start wars?" Of course the press cannot stop or start wars, BUT THEY CAN DO THEIR FUCKING JOB AND INFORM THE PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY SO THEY DON'T GET BAMBOOZLED AND SUCKED INTO IDIOTIC WARS AND SHITTY DOMESTIC POLICIES. If all they do is echo the news releases from the administration, what is their added value?

They make me sick. David Gregory, you should exile yourself to a cave for a while and reflect on the blood on your hands and those of your fellow bootlicking colleagues. Are those press dinners really worth the lives of Americans and Iraqis?

You're goddamned right I'm mad.