Totalitarianism in America
November 26, 2011
As the Occupy Wall Street Protests continue – there appears to be a very disturbing federal effort to disrupt the protest. Naomi Woolf writes this is indicative of corruption at the highest levels – greedy members of Congress who pass laws that benefit their own back pockets. And the federal coordination of police action spraying pepper into the eyes of students and old people who are protesting against this corruption is the beginning of a class war – a civil war in America
America is proud to be called the land of the free, but there is nothing free about absolute Government control, there is no freedom if the majority are slaves of the few. The movement of American politics from idealism to idolatry is directly linked to the actions of Al Qaeda who’s act of war against America has created a monster that increasingly is a threat to itself and others. To carry a debt of 15 trillion dollars is to deny that wealth to others – American debt is so much larger than it should be and there is a good reason for this distortion – what is that money funding, exactly?
It is funding corruption that is rife through every seat of government. Every particle of pepper spray emitted from the can that cop held is a bolder smashing down the principles of liberty and freedom that America holds so dear. Like King Kong, it has been driven mad and is stomping on the ground without understanding the consequences of its actions. Unfortunately for us all, Obama is the only sane politician but that is because he is not a politician – he is just a mere voice in a forest of knives bleeding the beast of all its primal power.
America can not move away from this state of religious fury unless an event distracts them, it seems. 9/11 turned America from a greedy pig into a complex, wild boar out to eat itself.
American Default?
July 27, 2011
Legislation of a debt ceiling does not absolve the US from its obligations.
UPDATE: The 14th Amendment of the Constitution clearly states that Congress must not default on its obligations.
While the USA frantically tried to save the world with a nuclear arsenal they could never use and military overspending on wars that did no good, we see the East’s rise to financial domination by engaging huge numbers of lowly paid workers to export in a way that nobody was able to compete with. If you want something manufactured, get it done in China has been the wisdom of the past 60 years. Market forces!
The agenda of the lever pullers seems to be to froce the USA to default and evade repayment. By making it effectively illegal for the USA to meet its obligations, the USA will have to default. The net effect of the USA not borrowing any more is being described in philosophic terms – what would the result be?
I think the answer to that not yet knowable. But certainly creditor nations will invest elsewhere and perhaps it will be the final straw that breaks US economic hegemony. Time for a new deal?
If Obama was to be effective, he needed the Democratic support in his first two years. Sad that they fiddled while the midterm elections were lost. Back to American isolations, anyone?
The Republican End Game
July 25, 2011
The Republican “end game” would be everything owned by big corporations not necessarily aligned with nations as entities but freely enriching shareholders from anywhere avoiding tax as their earnings are processed where there are no taxes.
If these mega corporations are able to employ everyone for a pittance then we are buying into a return to slavery.
Is this essentially the same model that makes China appear successful? Enslavement of the majority for the benefit of the few. The problem with the Republican End Game is the loss of what America is – the most rewarding economy for invention. As these corporations become less answerable to Government, they become more able to break the covenant of fairness. The Murdoch empire is a case in point. A corporation which supported a culture of law breaking that believed it could do this with impunity, which it did for twenty years before a single case sharpened public revulsion with the practice. That is what democracy does, it pitches the majority against the business interest and belief of an individual who learns that the end justifies the means time and again.
Democracy allows for peaceful revolution. An absence of democratic principles as in the case of Libya demands more severe responses. The essential problem here is a duality where both sides are destructive to each other. A unified system that causes progress according to long term principles appears have delivered stable growth in China for the last 3 decades by enforcing cheap exports to the world while the West has been experimenting with Freedman’s economics, gambling as though it were an addict. When cronyism and corruption abide, and capital exists only for its own maintenance, there are economic distortions that will result in disasters.
The West can rescue itself by very progressive and specific Government spending on the correct programmes. Education for all, being the most important. Obama decided to invest in rescuing mortgages and jobs but with poor returns. The Republicans want to reduce taxes and spending and leave America a first world city state in a third world country.
See also: Huffington Post
Korean Intervention
June 29, 2011
Korea appears to be simmering and bristling with weapons and threat in the most sustained unresolved civil war that could it seems erupt into further provocations by the North and responses of increasing violence from the South. American forces intervened in this war in the early fifties and US bases have been operational since. It seems to be a war of one of the most technologically advanced societies against a lunging starving beast with big guns. To the mind of a North Korean, the weight of evil may appear to be from the South and their weapons. The intervention does not appear to have removed the threat but sustains its presence but suspending violence until the weapons are too horrible to contemplate. Maybe that is why military spending keeps racing ahead of society – it is only possible to render your enemy unable to attack you if you can punish them even more than they can punish you.
“We are now in the most dangerous moment in Korean history over the last 25 years,” said Andrei Lankov, a Russian professor at Seoul’s Kookmin University. “South Korea has already committed itself to a strong reaction to a future North Korean provocation so many times and so loudly that if they don’t do it they will lose elections and be shamed.
US Debt Tsunami
November 24, 2009
The US debt emergency is coming, and it is a man made Tsunami – after the erasure of an accumulation of massive fictional wealth – the complex debt structures borrowed with leverage against assumptions that have resulted in systemic deficiencies and bailouts – and may result in the collapse of one set of rules in favour of a new set.
OBAMA WINS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
October 9, 2009
President Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said.
“His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”
The Economic Recovery
July 31, 2009
Signs of an economic recovery are starting to appear. After recapitalising the financial system, President Obama kept the US economy liquid. This is may have averted more depressing news but as the bankers start to return funds they were lent by the tax payer the question arises, where to now for the US economy?
Real Progress
February 27, 2009
All this focus on the economy may mean we take our attention off the real issue. All the focus on sectional interests and pressure groups that drive the climate change agenda, instead of actual planning to change things that must change is distracting humanity from its mission, its meaning and its life.
Real progress follows talking about it, only if plans are made real without all the political watering down of meaning that occurs.
The Great Swindling
February 25, 2009
It just shows that trust in the power of the inheritance as a way to provide tribal continuity is a mirage. The way to provide for all people is to enable everyone to be able to pick themselves up regardless from what station they started…
Latest article on the inside Disturbing Trends – Predicting Future politics
Bailout is just the start
February 3, 2009
President Obama’s effort to raise funds to inject into the system will have a number of effects. One of them is not “problem solved”. Pretending that providing more capital to the people will somehow reactivate the flattened markets may have been generated by media expectations but it simply is not real.
It is aimed at saving a number of American families from going to the wall while the bankers sort out the stale paperwork. It also addresses the generalized shortage that prevents the middle class from spending, but the over charging by credit card companies combined with hyper aggressive status marketing has led the average consumer into a very expensive position.
More…
Letter to Obama
January 16, 2009
Letters from school children to Mr Obama published in the NY Times included this:
Dear President Obama,
I am small, quiet, smart. I love to swim and play basketball. My mom and dad are from the Dominican Republic. I am going to the Dominican Republic next year. I think you should try to change the world by building shelters for the people who live in the streets. It’s the beginning of January, and it’s cold. Good luck being the president.
— Pamela Mejia, age 11, Boston
Something tells me President Obama will read this letter. Something tells me it is a very good idea. People keep saying “clean up the streets”. This 11 year old smart girl is pointing out that the homeless are people.
The Past and the President
January 12, 2009
Barack Obama hints that he does not really care to upearth the Bush presidency. He is justified, his entire stance is that of a break with “The Past”.
There is nothing to learn from the Bush era.
Death by a thousand Debts
July 20, 2008
The United States of America is being swallowed by its own shallowness and greed. There is a wonderfully revealing article in the NY Times today with a revealing interactive graph of events during each decade. It is most remarkable that the savings rate which deteriorated badly in the Great Depression mirrors what is happening now, the collapse of savings. The difference is the debt levels then were conservative – the debt levels of the extreme 90s overboiled in the 2000s.
The Bush era has left a legacy that is far more damaging to the USA economy than it seems, all that debt has to be matched with savings, or you get a deficit, which is funds that the average US citizen owes to the oil producing OPEC countries. How exactly is the Government going to bail out the average citizen drowning in excess credit and crippling interest? By preventing millions of bankruptcies and foreclosures? Preventing banks from reselling properties at a huge discount? The bailouts of major mortage lenders proves this to be true. Bush has run the most socialist economy possible by making the middle class the needy class.
Where is the debt going to be absorbed? Deterioration in the value of the capital reserve? Does that means the grandchildren of the Bush years will be far less wealthy than those who benefitted from ridiculously biased tax breaks that has worsened the position of the average person to such a degree that they are now prisoners of credit card companies – owned by the intensely rich?
Seems like the most devastating blow delivered to everyday Americans is the mass transfer of effective wealth and ownership from American hands, from the Ma and Pa businessscape into the hands of corporatisation, increasingly foreign owned banks and retirement funds that seem more vulnerable by the minute.
Who’s fault? It seems that a country that eats its way to doom has a lack of direction in its culture as a major malady. Hip-hop had it’s social revolution, now with “Pimps and Bitches” being part of the mainstream conversation and “bling” having lost any bad ass connotation – that it was stolen – now it’s seen as a badge of billionary success – any excuse for radically masculine boys to wear diamonds.
Cultural decay – a kind of illiteracy – seems successful. All these make over reality wife swaps and inverted entertainments (Supernanny goes to visit you with her camera crew) are not really engaging people. They are just really cheap fomulae to execute, and like most cheap fodder, it bloats the mind with plenty of useless nonsense. That is cultural decay as it is consumable by anybody, and most do not want their entertinment to challenge them.
But challenging the mind is the entire point of entertainment. That is why the new generation of video games that are immersive, require you to think on your feet and enact a strategy. After fighting for months in some kind of imaginary desert scenario against “bad guys” – the futility and sheer quantity of death necessary – it becomes evident that war is an activity civilization should find absolutely abborhent; but, yet – at the onset of either Gulf war there was a palpable sense of “get on with it!”, and a sense of relief that the bombs had finally started to drop.
While America gets sucked into fruitless wars, Bush seems to have opened the floodgates for the Saudi establishment to buy more American capital with their oil wealth before the Green lobby replace a need for oil with a need for solar energy capture and wind farms rendering the end to this new age of slavery.
The American economy is huge and can still easily absorb this level of indebtedness – it’s the poverty created now that seems the real problem for far too many.
When did this start. Click on the heading of this article to view the NY Times interactive display (requires Adobe Flash Player). Hover over 1984. Observe the trend in savings. 1984 is the top of the mountain that has collapsed ever since. Savings is the degree of participation in ownership possible – the spoils of war. The USA may be able to walk in militarily but it may not be able to afford to “stay the course”, if it carries on with this trend. Even in the past four years savings as a fraction of debt is the worst its ever been, apart from the early 1930s when there were no savings, so America rebuilt by borrowing leading to gradual increase in capital, until 1984. What happened then? Oh yes, let’s see. Regan was elected.
World Depression
July 9, 2008
and how to avoid it
Is the world falling into some kind of recession? That is when growth starts to subside and things economically suck, but if one understands it right, then what it is seen as is the loss of confidence based on property ownership – a line of credit was generally loosened up for billions of home owners, a culture of being able to borrow against one’s mortgage increased leveraging and the profits were handsome so the banks continued to go further.
The tragedies that underlie sub-prime + the oil hunger – a direct consequence of the Iraq war + lack of real progress with the nuclear question = potential for another Depression. It is not just that bills will not get paid, it is that assets will lose their value, nobody will buy things and prices will start to fall. If that fall accelerates – the potential for severe economic storms becomes more likely.
The authority carried by Security Council decree against a country, especially one of its nuclear capable members, may help guide us from disaster. The only thing that makes “nuclear weapons” necessary is other nuclear weapons. What real point is there in having nuclear weapons? To conquer any chance of threat in case of unpredictable behaviour. After all humans have their finger on the button. The USSR had Breshnev. America has Bush. Both caused recession.
Both also fought with Afghanistan. Not that fighting Afghanistan has been the problem for America – but because they did not provide their full ferocity to win the war in Afghanistan with commitment, they still are at war with malign forces.
Sorry, Osama bin Laden, it is hard to admire a person who promotes the death of innocents. It was not bin Laden that alerted the world to George Bush’s America. Osama bin Laden is not doing the work of God. It is not definite that he is not working for his homeland.
Neither is the US military incursion into Iraq, although by doing that and by not wiping out the Taleban, and at the same time efforts to quell appear to be fanning the flames of nuclear trouble with Iran, well – one can only imagine the end game.
The Office of President is not being attacked by Congress because it is “at war”. That is all keeping Bush and Cheney in office till February 2009.
To bring charges against Bush or Cheney would require that they depart office or end the state of war, and a pardon from their successor, whomever wins is all it takes to bury this sad chapter.
But the extraction of trillions of dollars from the US economy by chiefly OPEC countries, well. How many trillions has Saudi directly cost the US?
I think that the high oil prices are a direct result of the US uncovering its own lack of ruthlessness in war allowing a relatively degraded enemy to survive. Now the Arab nations smell nuclear technology within reach, and the confidence they now have in bargaining power seems the new reality.
Is the international recession in fact a deliberate plot to vacuum wealth out of US hands and into the hands of Arabia? The underlying economic war is far more serious because of sub-prime and the loss of confidence and money from a system growing on increasingly thin vapour.
A belief that the source of economic difficulties are “asset related” but providing free housing to the poor has been found to be an unsustainable activity of the US Government – is another way to put it.
It appears to be the problem, but it is the oil shock that will change economies the world over. Unless Bush can win his wars real soon now, and instantly restore confidence in the unassailability of the USA, the rest of the world will not start trembling has they now have been given the lever it needs to even the economic stakes.
Perhaps the only way to stop the spread of the Taleban cult or the Al Qaeda insanity is for taxes to increase for the wealthy, the US to pay its debts and stop living so ridiculously beyond its means.
Senator Jesse Helms
July 4, 2008
Former Sen. Jesse Helms, who built a career along the fault lines of racial politics and battled liberals, Communists and the occasional fellow Republican during 30 conservative years in Congress, died on the Fourth of July.
He was 86.
Helms died at 1:15 a.m., said the Jesse Helms Center at Wingate University in North Carolina. The center’s president, John Dodd, said in a statement that funeral arrangements were pending.
Hilary vs John McCain
March 7, 2008
It seems to be that Hillary Clinton has a better chance against John McCain than Barak Obama as she is presents a less liberal target for him to hurl shame at, she voted for the same war he would fund, she would at least want to lower taxes, whereas Barak Obama may have to raise them. That is at least what Mr McCain will claim. So lets assume that Hillary is in the running. Who will she pick as a VP? Someone who inspires us of inherent value.
Pakistan
October 30, 2007
Suicide bombers have threatened the security of political leaders in Pakistan and one must consider that if such attempts were successful that there could be a revolution in Pakistan that would set the knife on edge in Washington. There may be enormous support for Former premier and Leader of the Opposition Benazir Bhutto who seeks reelection – but it appears that al Qaeda have other ideas. The center of al Qaeda and Taliban movements are now in Pakistan and it would be their goal to disrupt democracy and ferment fear with Islamic revolution as their goal. And what a prize Pakistan would be – teetering on the balance between a democratic nation with a large voice internationally and a third world country with a vast population under the bread line. The ability to afford to purchase food is a primary division of freedom between “the West” from people from third world countries.
The Taliban and al Qaeda do not belong in Government. USA centric strategy ignores the fact that it’s investment in Iraq is the wrong investment. If they were not so rushed about invading, if they had negotiated with the Saddam Government effectively or simply replaced Saddam with another regime that kept Iraq stable – the US economy would be stronger, and the less expensive military effort in Afghanistan that still has international support would be done and dusted by now. With out al Qaeda and the Taliban – the war would have been won two years ago and Iraq could have been negotiated with if the Shiite militia were not motivated to shoot at Sunni militants.
It is a waste of human resources to take down the Taliban in Afghanistan but so ineffectively that it takes root elsewhere. The real crime is not conducting war properly so that there is a winner and total defeat of the enemy. What other kind of war is there?
If the USA is going to conduct military adventures then it is indeed a waste of American resources to conduct wars according to the whim of a dyslexic president who is so convinced of his “faith” that he justifies every mistake by shaming anyone who says – hey – hold on a minute – this is not right.
GW Bush and his ineffective grasp on history has reduced the USA to potentially losing a war against an army run by old sick men in caves? Well that may be an overstatement today but unfortunately it may be closer to the truth today than before the Iraq invasion.
And now the Kurds and Turkey. Another larger can of worms has started to open.
The Agenda Setting Edge
September 25, 2007
On a MB (Message Board) on The Agonist – one of the best blogs in the business:
“I meant Trade Center Bombing 1993, first year of Clinton in office same as 2001 for Bush. I think Al Qaeda likes first term Presidents, a point of weakness before they get their bearings.”
Perhaps that is the pattern and why the USA developed a pattern of inevitability on election day every two cycles – GW Bush should not have won the last two elections on merit alone. Greeting a President with a potentially life changing act of terror gives Al Qaeda an agenda setting edge. How can the incumbent ignore the taint? It is this understanding of the political behaviour of their enemy – that is a concern as it has created a sense of preordained destiny in the political narrative of “America” (I think George Bush calls the U.S.A. “America” over and over and it leaks into the media, but Bush is the President of the U.S.A. – and referring to it as “America” is just winding Hugo Chavas up).
It is too late to save the Bush Administration from itself. “America” will suffer terribly as a result, and economically, if you read between the lines.
Corpse Bridges
August 4, 2007
The war on terror and the 77,000 unrepaired bridges across the USA are coming from the same basic problem. Infrastructure maintenance in the case of the bridges, and attention to detail with diplomacy both require strategic forward planning that was immature but advancing in the Clinton years and stopped without reason during the early Bush years.
In this article, Bush vetoes Democrat efforts to spend an additional $US631 million on road maintenance due to several hundred billion being spent on an expensive wasteful war in Iraq. It seems evident that maintenance has been inadequate and not budgetting for the maintenance of infrastructure could only be explained by considering this man genuinely belives the end is neigh – at least it appears to underlie and drive the blind directionless war logic. I think I compared Bush to Nero some years back. Bush is burning Iraq while fiddling the budget? I see a book called American Nero – the name is copyrighted right here.
It is not a good situation (unless you are a bridge builder or consultant engineer).
Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, said that domestic programmes, such as replacing ageing infrastructure, had been short-changed because of the billions being spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“Since 9/11 we have taken our eye off the ball,” he said.
The Democrats had proposed spending $631m (£309m) more on federal highway safety than Mr Bush budgeted for but he had threatened to veto the proposal.
William Wilkins, of Trip, a transport thinktank, estimated that $65bn would be needed to replace the ageing bridges.
The Energy of Progress
August 3, 2007
Al Gore may be right that ultimately it is up to every individual to believe that change is possible, in order that politically we choose leaders who advance progress in priority to growth. On the 07/07/2007 we all swung away from unrestrained capitalism as the only panacea necessary to allow us to thrive in harmony most successfully. It is really only the political consideration that matters, for, ultimately we may care how many plastic bags make poisonous pits out of landfills but that does not stop the factory down the road from making the local river murky and lifeless. It has only been political change that has allowed us to control our impact upon the environment. And for America this provides an alternative impetus for progress. What is progress? It is invention, finding a better way to do it. And these days cleaner and environmentally friendly is going to become something as important and enforceable as any other law. US Industry is growing at 1% per annum. It is already a substantial contributor to global warming because it requires so much energy. If we draw the energy from burning coal, as seems “politically realistic” it will be with advantages in air filtration and clean burning technologies that do not emit excessive CO2 or other gases that poison the environment. Understanding the problem is hard enough for the scientific community so one can not expect political change unless the addiction to growth is not curbed. Political change needs to encompass stronger motivations for choosing to advance the case for free power generation using large batteries of wind farms. Taking the energy from the air seems logical as a counter measure to climate change. Scientific analysis of this effect may well prove important if the religion of growth is continued. Our climate is like the Earth’s circulatory system. We got to learn to stop screwing with it to get our energy. Free passive energy can obtained with solar cells. If every rooftop in America was covered with power generating solar cells, power would be free. If the environmental cost was assessed and taxed to every business in the world, we could make progress to ensure our safety. It is political for the same reason that it would be very hard to stop someone competing in a race, for example, after they had prepared for it. You would have to have a very good reason. The most convincing commercial argument to prevent climate change is that there is rather a lot of money to be made.
The End Game
July 22, 2007
While George Bush is under general anesthetic – if Cheney had a medical emergency with one of his quadruple bypasses or Lipitor scheduling error, and Bush did not wake up for a while, we would have an America firmly out of the control of Republicans. Would that mean that any change of direction may occur – perhaps a rush to file papers for impeachment could be a good idea, and get in before the anesthetic wears off. It is what they would do.
Seriously, long shots like medical error on the President while Cheney is cleaning his rifle may change the nature of this crop of Democrats but if an election were to be held today how could a Republican win? The advance media for Hilary is replacing good press day for the President. She is seen as articulate where Bush is heard bumbling. Obama is seen as relevant, alive – where Cheney is only kept alive by modern medical miracles.
Bush is faced with the cost of his primary error. Invading Iraq when he did not absolutely have to, he lost the extraordinary morale high ground granted by the obscenity on the American psyche; and yet as Osama bin Laden is walking free, even if only in their thoughts, the bulk of their military muscle is being exposed to a civil war it started by undoing the chain letter of death threats that was Saddam’s rule.
What it such a good idea? Right-minded Americans find rationales to believe it is of course a good thing – but will American democracy sustain the attack long enough to do any good? These are just excuses to keep the war going indefinitely and are no longer ringing true to the electorate.
Bush will run out of time before ending this war. He will leave it to the next President to sort out, because his domestic agenda will take over. He will suddenly be having to make making handsome gestures to maintain his office.
There is no end game in the foreseeable future unless Mr Bush just cuts and runs from Iraq.
The Assault on Reason – Al Gore
May 23, 2007
The Assault on Reason – Al Gore – Book – Review – New York Times
Al Gore has published a book that agrees with pretty much everything written on this blog over the years. Basically it takes George W Bush’s presidency to pieces. It criticizes the inaction preceding 9/11, the fruitless war waged on Islam that wastes massive resources and for what?He criticizes the secret authorization of the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a court order on telephone calls and e-mail messages between the United States and other countries, and its suspension of the rights of due process for “enemy combatants”. He says these acts demonstrate “a disrespect for America’s Constitution that has now brought our republic to the brink of a dangerous breach in the fabric of democracy.”
This is not a polite criticism. No, like Disturbing Trends, Al Gore has taken a harsher approach to the actions of the man who stole his job.
