Job Blows
The newest fashion in France is threatening to blow up your work place. It’s all the rage--or should I say outrage?
France, a very capitalist country no matter what our yahoos fantasize, is suffering from capitalism’s current crisis just like us. Layoffs and rollbacks are rampant. People are hurting--but not so much as here since unemployment payments are generous and no one loses health care or pensions when they get the boot.
Nevertheless, they’re pissed. But instead of getting boozed or beating the wife and kids, they wax militant and take it out on the people who are actually to blame, their patrons (bosses). In several factories and work sites around the country, workers have wired gas cylinders in place and vowed to set them off if their demands were not met. Here in the states, such militancy is unimaginable. But if it somehow occurred, it would be no big deal. The masked ninja cops would be sicced to destroy and devour the dissidents. The media would scream terror. Public opinion would cheer the cops.
Unlike the moderate Barack Obama, France’s conservative Nicholas Sarkozy doesn’t have the option of simply blowing away troublemakers. Sarkozy has to deal with not a dumb and docile but a sharp and refractory populace. A murderous government attack on the working class would bring millions of Frenchies, who have a gene that stores 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871 and 1968, into the streets. Or, at any rate, that's the French establishment's fear.
You know what happened? Capitalism, which is overwhelming even in France, wins--but not totally. The workers get the bum's rush. But they also get the equivalent of 40 grand each in added severance--and amnesty for their violent threat.
Yeah, we’re all capitalists now--though alternatives are beginning to bubble. But we poor Americans, largely thanks to our attitudes, live in a capitalist country where the workers fear the bosses. The French live in a capitalist nation where the bosses fear the workers.
Until we change our attitudes, we will remain the patsies of the planet.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Honduras Won't Go Away
Death Squad Democrats
I‘ve been promising to alarm you about the threat of European socializing, which has millions of people sitting in outdoor cafes and schmoozing with each other when they could be working three jobs and otherwise prowling the malls like we do. But I’ve been sidetracked yet again by the increasingly interesting news wafting up from central America, now by way of Clintonville.
The fascist coup in tiny Honduras at the end of June had all the teethmarks of the empire. It would have been the fifth time since 1907 that Washington felt itself obliged to rearrange the politics of that impoverished backwater. But, still harboring a vestige of Obamania, even this crusty old lefty thought maybe we should slip the new guy an inch of slack. So I ventured, improbably, that the coup might have been an insubordinate sally by the Honduran oligarchy or even an effort by some cabal among our spooks to set up or embarrass Obama. Surely, our new president, with all his fine talk at the Latin summit about a new day for democracy and respect for sovereignty, was too smart to pull a stunt that would mock his words and remind the 500 million souls to our south that the monster to the north was as nasty a neighbor as ever.
Naive, wasn’t I?
Latin Americanists of left and right are still stirring the ashes for clues to the coup’s creators. Meanwhile, the coup’s continuers have come out in public to advance the cause of democratic government by death squad. The NY Times tells us that Roberto Micheletti, the designated gorilla now in charge in Honduras, travels with an American advisor with Clinton ties who travels with an interpreter since he can’t deliver his advice in Spanish. The Times also reports that “every proposal that Micheletti’s group presents is written or approved by the American.”
If it’s still not quite clear, note that Lanny Davis, Bill Clinton’s personal and very plugged-in lawyer, has become chief Washington go-fer for the golpistas. As Doonesbury pointed out in his excellent coverage of Bizerkistan, you can’t be a bloodthirsty tyrant nowadays without a retinue of American lobbyists, flacks and coverts at your elbow.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration, unlike the whole rest of the world, has kept its ambassador in Tegucigalpa and is sidestepping laws that supposedly interdict intercourse with putchist regimes. No need to mention that the dad and lad coziness between the Pentagon and its murderous Honduran cadets continues as usual.
The estimable James Petras, who knows more about Latin America than anyone, sees the Honduran coup as an opening element by Obama to rollback the powerful anti-imperialist wave across the continent. But it’s a weak riposte and not likely to endure, he says. The Latinos have tasted real independence and are not about to surrender it because the White House is now home to a cool rather than clutzy imperialist. Anytime Obama uses the word democracia south of the Rio Grande, he’ll be subjecting himself to a big fat reir a carcajadas.
I‘ve been promising to alarm you about the threat of European socializing, which has millions of people sitting in outdoor cafes and schmoozing with each other when they could be working three jobs and otherwise prowling the malls like we do. But I’ve been sidetracked yet again by the increasingly interesting news wafting up from central America, now by way of Clintonville.
The fascist coup in tiny Honduras at the end of June had all the teethmarks of the empire. It would have been the fifth time since 1907 that Washington felt itself obliged to rearrange the politics of that impoverished backwater. But, still harboring a vestige of Obamania, even this crusty old lefty thought maybe we should slip the new guy an inch of slack. So I ventured, improbably, that the coup might have been an insubordinate sally by the Honduran oligarchy or even an effort by some cabal among our spooks to set up or embarrass Obama. Surely, our new president, with all his fine talk at the Latin summit about a new day for democracy and respect for sovereignty, was too smart to pull a stunt that would mock his words and remind the 500 million souls to our south that the monster to the north was as nasty a neighbor as ever.
Naive, wasn’t I?
Latin Americanists of left and right are still stirring the ashes for clues to the coup’s creators. Meanwhile, the coup’s continuers have come out in public to advance the cause of democratic government by death squad. The NY Times tells us that Roberto Micheletti, the designated gorilla now in charge in Honduras, travels with an American advisor with Clinton ties who travels with an interpreter since he can’t deliver his advice in Spanish. The Times also reports that “every proposal that Micheletti’s group presents is written or approved by the American.”
If it’s still not quite clear, note that Lanny Davis, Bill Clinton’s personal and very plugged-in lawyer, has become chief Washington go-fer for the golpistas. As Doonesbury pointed out in his excellent coverage of Bizerkistan, you can’t be a bloodthirsty tyrant nowadays without a retinue of American lobbyists, flacks and coverts at your elbow.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration, unlike the whole rest of the world, has kept its ambassador in Tegucigalpa and is sidestepping laws that supposedly interdict intercourse with putchist regimes. No need to mention that the dad and lad coziness between the Pentagon and its murderous Honduran cadets continues as usual.
The estimable James Petras, who knows more about Latin America than anyone, sees the Honduran coup as an opening element by Obama to rollback the powerful anti-imperialist wave across the continent. But it’s a weak riposte and not likely to endure, he says. The Latinos have tasted real independence and are not about to surrender it because the White House is now home to a cool rather than clutzy imperialist. Anytime Obama uses the word democracia south of the Rio Grande, he’ll be subjecting himself to a big fat reir a carcajadas.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Selective Outrage
Hypocrisy on Honduras
Back in May 2007, the Venezuelan government declined to renew the expiring broadcast license of television station RCTV for, among other breaches, taking a direct part in the failed 2002 coup to overthrow the elected government. The purpose of the coup was, as usual, to establish a fascist dictatorship, wipe out the left, restore the old oligarchy, call it democracy, and thus make kissyface with Washington.
The decision merely meant that RCTV would no longer be able to to use the public airwaves to diffuse its daily dump on the government. Its ever more colorful claims that President Chavez was a monstrous lunatic guilty of every imaginable crime and perversion known to man and God would remain available on RCTV’s cable and internet outlets.
That decision caused a great brouhaha in our media about the crushing of press freedom and growth of populist dictatorship in Venezuela. Nowhere was it mentioned that the Venezuela’s media was not only free but indulged by a government that let it get away with shit that would have landed the execs of ABC, CNN or NBC in the hoosegow had they, say, kept suggesting that the country’s leaders be tortured and killed in bizarre ways.
I imagine a lot of liberals felt righteous about standing up for press freedom in a supposedly repressed land. They certainly took up a lot of media space and time prating their pique.
Perhaps that incident exhausted their outrage.
On June 28, the Honduran military pulled off a successful coup, ousting the elected president at gunpoint and opening fire on those who took to the streets in defense of lawful, representative government. The golpistas didn’t bother waiting for tv station licenses to expire. They simply shut down the stations and newspapers that had supported legit authority. They also roughed up and expelled whatever foreign media they regarded as less then supportive of their thuggery. A particulary target was the crew of Telesur, a new Latin news network that has dared to compete with CNN in Latin America.
This morning I listened to an hour’s discussion of the Honduran crisis at On Point, an NPR gabfest hosted by one Tom Ashbrook, who filled in the yawning gaps in his of knowledge of the subject with lies.
There was lots of criticism of the imagined excesses that the overthrown president might have possibly committed had he been allowed to serve out his term. But there was no mention, let alone concern, at the media crackdown. So far as I know, only Journalists Without Borders, a Paris-based free press protagonist, has raised a stink about the erasure of press freedom in Honduras.
The stunning silence of supposed liberals on not only censorship but also on the brutal repression of democratic legitimists in Honduras reminds me of George Orwell’s quote about a similar outrage decades ago:
The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
Back in May 2007, the Venezuelan government declined to renew the expiring broadcast license of television station RCTV for, among other breaches, taking a direct part in the failed 2002 coup to overthrow the elected government. The purpose of the coup was, as usual, to establish a fascist dictatorship, wipe out the left, restore the old oligarchy, call it democracy, and thus make kissyface with Washington.
The decision merely meant that RCTV would no longer be able to to use the public airwaves to diffuse its daily dump on the government. Its ever more colorful claims that President Chavez was a monstrous lunatic guilty of every imaginable crime and perversion known to man and God would remain available on RCTV’s cable and internet outlets.
That decision caused a great brouhaha in our media about the crushing of press freedom and growth of populist dictatorship in Venezuela. Nowhere was it mentioned that the Venezuela’s media was not only free but indulged by a government that let it get away with shit that would have landed the execs of ABC, CNN or NBC in the hoosegow had they, say, kept suggesting that the country’s leaders be tortured and killed in bizarre ways.
I imagine a lot of liberals felt righteous about standing up for press freedom in a supposedly repressed land. They certainly took up a lot of media space and time prating their pique.
Perhaps that incident exhausted their outrage.
On June 28, the Honduran military pulled off a successful coup, ousting the elected president at gunpoint and opening fire on those who took to the streets in defense of lawful, representative government. The golpistas didn’t bother waiting for tv station licenses to expire. They simply shut down the stations and newspapers that had supported legit authority. They also roughed up and expelled whatever foreign media they regarded as less then supportive of their thuggery. A particulary target was the crew of Telesur, a new Latin news network that has dared to compete with CNN in Latin America.
This morning I listened to an hour’s discussion of the Honduran crisis at On Point, an NPR gabfest hosted by one Tom Ashbrook, who filled in the yawning gaps in his of knowledge of the subject with lies.
There was lots of criticism of the imagined excesses that the overthrown president might have possibly committed had he been allowed to serve out his term. But there was no mention, let alone concern, at the media crackdown. So far as I know, only Journalists Without Borders, a Paris-based free press protagonist, has raised a stink about the erasure of press freedom in Honduras.
The stunning silence of supposed liberals on not only censorship but also on the brutal repression of democratic legitimists in Honduras reminds me of George Orwell’s quote about a similar outrage decades ago:
The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Empire Entropy
How How How Honduras
Obama [meeting last wednesday with Chilean president Bachelet] did manage a chuckle at U.S. expense — over the old joke that there’s never been a coup in the United States because it has no American Embassy.
The Honduran military is a farm team of the Pentagon. Its ranks, from private to general, are trained, equipped and advised by Uncle Sam. In recent times, Washington has organized it into death squads to keep down the population of leftists in central America.
On Sunday, the Honduran army overthrew the country’s democratic government, sent the elected president packing in his pyjamas, and disappeared the foreign minister, among other outrages.
Sunday was supposed to be the day for a national referendum to create a new constitution emphasizing human and social rights. A few days earlier U.S, ambassador Hugo Llorens opined that "we can't have a constitution that allows the 'people' to elect members of the supreme court and allows the 'people' to be involved in government."
The coup was immediately condemned by the European Union, the UN and every other country in the western hemisphere. Yes, every other country but the United States. Here, the Obama administration merely noted its “concern” and advised “calm.”
Speaking from Costa Rica, where he had been dumped by the plotters, Manuel Zelaya, the legit president of Honduras, said he interpreted Washington’s weaseling as support for the coup.
Finding itself utterly isolated on the fascist flank of the diplomatic front, the Obama administration began urging negotiations, presumably between the plotters and their targets, and then let the word out that it, in fact, favored restoring Zelaya to office. By monday, Obama and Clinton were finally declaring the coup “illegal,” an obvious fact that the rest of the world had instantly grasped on news of the event.
The interesting questions are whether Washington was in on the coup, and if it wasn’t, why didn’t it have the juice to thwart it? Another even more interesting question is whether some cabal in the bowels of the national security apparat had pulled it off to set up or embarrass Obama in one way or another?
In any event, Honduras is a lose-lose for the empire. Either it underlines to the already alienated Latinos that we’re still up to our old tricks, or it advertises to the world that the Shock and Awe Imperium can no longer expect obedience from even its lowliest satraps.
Obama [meeting last wednesday with Chilean president Bachelet] did manage a chuckle at U.S. expense — over the old joke that there’s never been a coup in the United States because it has no American Embassy.
The Honduran military is a farm team of the Pentagon. Its ranks, from private to general, are trained, equipped and advised by Uncle Sam. In recent times, Washington has organized it into death squads to keep down the population of leftists in central America.
On Sunday, the Honduran army overthrew the country’s democratic government, sent the elected president packing in his pyjamas, and disappeared the foreign minister, among other outrages.
Sunday was supposed to be the day for a national referendum to create a new constitution emphasizing human and social rights. A few days earlier U.S, ambassador Hugo Llorens opined that "we can't have a constitution that allows the 'people' to elect members of the supreme court and allows the 'people' to be involved in government."
The coup was immediately condemned by the European Union, the UN and every other country in the western hemisphere. Yes, every other country but the United States. Here, the Obama administration merely noted its “concern” and advised “calm.”
Speaking from Costa Rica, where he had been dumped by the plotters, Manuel Zelaya, the legit president of Honduras, said he interpreted Washington’s weaseling as support for the coup.
Finding itself utterly isolated on the fascist flank of the diplomatic front, the Obama administration began urging negotiations, presumably between the plotters and their targets, and then let the word out that it, in fact, favored restoring Zelaya to office. By monday, Obama and Clinton were finally declaring the coup “illegal,” an obvious fact that the rest of the world had instantly grasped on news of the event.
The interesting questions are whether Washington was in on the coup, and if it wasn’t, why didn’t it have the juice to thwart it? Another even more interesting question is whether some cabal in the bowels of the national security apparat had pulled it off to set up or embarrass Obama in one way or another?
In any event, Honduras is a lose-lose for the empire. Either it underlines to the already alienated Latinos that we’re still up to our old tricks, or it advertises to the world that the Shock and Awe Imperium can no longer expect obedience from even its lowliest satraps.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Back in the USA
Carry On Blogage
I’ve been on the rove for the last couple of weeks assessing the growing threat to America from what we once revered as Christendom but now increasingly fear as Europe. My ominous forebodings will be offered in coming days. In the meanwhile, current events of various import have earned my two cents’ worth. Let’s start with the latest.
Never Too White or Too Young
The 19th century steel baron Andrew Carnegie is famous for being both brute and benefactor. He was ruthless at keeping his workers in penury but generous to education and culture with the millions that his meanness earned.
Carnegie believed that if he paid decent wages to ordinary Americans they would waste it on rum and ribaldry. Better, he thought, to build colleges and libraries for those open to knowledge.
The old Scotchman would not have been surprised by Michael Jackson, a working class kid from the steel town of Gary who, bubbling with talent and creativity, went wacky when he came into the big bucks.
Since his success at show biz was stupendous, Jackson's failure at life biz could be no less stunning. We provided an eager audience for both. We adored watching him in an arena or at an arraignment--or, even better, imagining his weird nursery games at the palace of puerility he built in the hills outside Santa Barbara.
Our rulers discovered long ago that an infantilized society is more easily fooled and ruled than an adult one. Jacko was the personification of this insight. He helped to turn growing up in America from an upper to a downer. He went from brown boy to golden youth to ghostly white to apparition. His life was all smart steps and wrong moves. We cry for him, like babies.
Watch Your Language
Though some of you may guffaw, I try to make this blog accurate and amusing as well as alliterative. In other words I use words carefully because I know what damage careless ones can do. Consider the sad case of Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina. People mistook him to say he was going on the Appalachian Trail when in fact he said he was going for Argentinian tail.* Though none of us are perfect, I make every effort to avoid such confusion.
(Credit to Stephanie Miller and the Mooks for that perfect line)
Persian Melee
Our ire over Iran, now overchadored by Sanford and Jacko, should be familiar to those knowledgeable of the M&M formula.
Rigged elections with riotous aftermaths repressed by reactionary regimes are standard practice from Fiji to Florida. We ordinary Americans are advised by our government and media to simply ignore the vast majority of these foreign franchise fracases.
However, there are some that take precedence among our pixels. They fall into two categories. There are election riots that break out in countries with U.S. military bases and McDonald’s outlets. These are the M&M nations that we favor. Demonstrators are portrayed as terrorist hooligan anarchist commies out to foment chaos.
Then there are those in countries that have opted to defend themselves with their own armies and feed themselves their own chopped meat specialties. When locals angrily take to the streets in these countries, we celebrate them as virtuous idealists striving for the freedoms that we Americans enjoy.
This inconsistency gives foreigners the idea that we’re more interested in spreading bases and burgers than in promoting democracy. I’m afraid they’re right. If the evil Iranians welcomed David Petraeus and Ronald McDonald to open for business in Teheran tomorrow, Ahmadinejad and the mullahs would soon be schmoozing on The View with Whoopi and Joy.
I’ve been on the rove for the last couple of weeks assessing the growing threat to America from what we once revered as Christendom but now increasingly fear as Europe. My ominous forebodings will be offered in coming days. In the meanwhile, current events of various import have earned my two cents’ worth. Let’s start with the latest.
Never Too White or Too Young
The 19th century steel baron Andrew Carnegie is famous for being both brute and benefactor. He was ruthless at keeping his workers in penury but generous to education and culture with the millions that his meanness earned.
Carnegie believed that if he paid decent wages to ordinary Americans they would waste it on rum and ribaldry. Better, he thought, to build colleges and libraries for those open to knowledge.
The old Scotchman would not have been surprised by Michael Jackson, a working class kid from the steel town of Gary who, bubbling with talent and creativity, went wacky when he came into the big bucks.
Since his success at show biz was stupendous, Jackson's failure at life biz could be no less stunning. We provided an eager audience for both. We adored watching him in an arena or at an arraignment--or, even better, imagining his weird nursery games at the palace of puerility he built in the hills outside Santa Barbara.
Our rulers discovered long ago that an infantilized society is more easily fooled and ruled than an adult one. Jacko was the personification of this insight. He helped to turn growing up in America from an upper to a downer. He went from brown boy to golden youth to ghostly white to apparition. His life was all smart steps and wrong moves. We cry for him, like babies.
Watch Your Language
Though some of you may guffaw, I try to make this blog accurate and amusing as well as alliterative. In other words I use words carefully because I know what damage careless ones can do. Consider the sad case of Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina. People mistook him to say he was going on the Appalachian Trail when in fact he said he was going for Argentinian tail.* Though none of us are perfect, I make every effort to avoid such confusion.
(Credit to Stephanie Miller and the Mooks for that perfect line)
Persian Melee
Our ire over Iran, now overchadored by Sanford and Jacko, should be familiar to those knowledgeable of the M&M formula.
Rigged elections with riotous aftermaths repressed by reactionary regimes are standard practice from Fiji to Florida. We ordinary Americans are advised by our government and media to simply ignore the vast majority of these foreign franchise fracases.
However, there are some that take precedence among our pixels. They fall into two categories. There are election riots that break out in countries with U.S. military bases and McDonald’s outlets. These are the M&M nations that we favor. Demonstrators are portrayed as terrorist hooligan anarchist commies out to foment chaos.
Then there are those in countries that have opted to defend themselves with their own armies and feed themselves their own chopped meat specialties. When locals angrily take to the streets in these countries, we celebrate them as virtuous idealists striving for the freedoms that we Americans enjoy.
This inconsistency gives foreigners the idea that we’re more interested in spreading bases and burgers than in promoting democracy. I’m afraid they’re right. If the evil Iranians welcomed David Petraeus and Ronald McDonald to open for business in Teheran tomorrow, Ahmadinejad and the mullahs would soon be schmoozing on The View with Whoopi and Joy.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Karman-Obama Exchange
We Talk to the Man in Charge
President Obama has been reaching out to Americans through frequent media interviews. The Karman Turn was lucky enough to secure one. What the president didn’t know was that I was wearing my Straight Specs, digital glasses from Costco that oblige everyone within a five foot radius to tell the truth. Here then is the interview.
PK: Hello, Mr. President, and thank you for visiting The Karman Turn.
BO: I do catch the reference, Pete, if I may call you that.
PK: Certainly, sir. Just don’t call me late for lunch.
BO: Lame ass line.
PK: Mr. President, Being of a certain age, I’d like to begin with health care.
BO: Feel free, old feller. Only don’t cough on me.
PK: You came to office in January with a once in a lifetime opportunity to launch us on the universal coverage that all other developed countries enjoy. The financial companies that dominate our health care were utterly discredited because their chicanery and incompetence caused the credit crisis and the worst recession since the Great Depression. Yet instead of brushing their insolvent carcasses aside, you not only revived them with unlimited amounts of government bailout money, but virtually reassured their continued control of health care. Why?
BO: A great question, Pete, not the sort I get from the media. I’m a man of my word. If you paid attention to the campaign, you’ll remember that I received more contributions from Wall Street than any candidate in history. I’m not about to betray big money by taking away one of their fattest cash cows.
PK: Fair enough. A while back, I wrote on this blog that whereas FDR sacrificed the banks to save the economy, you’re apparently sacrificing the economy to save the banks. How’s that coming along?
OB: I’m hopeful we can save both. But to give you a straight answer, bankers are a lot more powerful and vindictive than the ordinary people being hurt by this economy. Back in FDR’s day, there were massive popular movements of the dispossessed, jobless and poor. They made Roosevelt reform the economy. Today, ordinary folks are fat and dumb. They don’t pressure me to do anything because they’re clueless about everything. Ah, but the bankers, they know how to spank a guy.
PK: Can we go on to foreign policy?
BO: Sure. How you gonna keep ‘em down in the Rose Garden after they’ve seen Paree?”
PK: Virtually all other countries defend themselves at their borders. By contrast the U.S. requires 700 bases in 130 or so countries. We have combat commands covering the world and a military doctrine that proclaims “full spectrum dominance.” Is all this really necessary for our ‘national’ defense?
BO: That’s a good question, Pete, and another one I never get asked. The fact is that we’re not like other countries. We’re a global empire. Dominating the economies and politics of foreigners, policing and punishing them for disobedience--that’s what we do.
PK: But all empires inevitably overreach and fail. Ours is on the skids. We’re insolvent, in hock to our rivals, and our military is too corrupt to be competent. Isn’t it time we save blood and treasure and quit the empire business?
BO: I wish we could. But there’s too much invested in it. Whether we win or lose war X, the profits pile in. If I even slowed down the Pentagon’s gravy train, I’d be pushed under it.
PK: So we just keep picking fights with foreigners forever?
BO: As long as we can borrow the bucks to do so.
PK: Unlike your predecessor, you’re smart and curious. You know the world and its messes. You know the ways to make them right. Are you just gonna mark time pretending that business as usual is change?
BO: The job description for campaigning calls for change. That for being President of the United States calls for continuity. If you want a leader who actually changes things, go to Venezuela.
PK: Thank you, Mr. President
BO: And you’re sure no one’s going to notice this blog?
PK: It’s our secret, Mr. President.
(NOTE TO OUR READER: We'll be summering instead of satirizing
for the next couple of weeks. See you soon)
for the next couple of weeks. See you soon)
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Lout Sourcing Our Politics
The Cretin Constituency
Perversely attacking the virtues rather than the vulnerabilities of an opponent is considered to be a Karl Rove speciality. So if Karl was backing Jughead against Einstein, the latter would be mocked as a moron.
This rancid ruse worked wonderfully in depicting war hero John Kerry as a quivering clone of the cowardly lion. It’s being rolled out again to torpedo the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
The good judge topped her class at Princeton and Yale Law. No high court designee in the last century has served as much time on the bench. And no one has ever accused her of prejudice in her decisions or deportment. So naturally the Rovistas have indicted her for stupidity, inexperience and racism.
The success of this strategy is based on the existence of a cretin constituency in America. This consists of millions of people eager to entertain nonsense and stupid enough to take it seriously. It’s an audience that craves simple and malevolent accounts of events that can be easily blamed on pre-selected scapegoats.
The emphasis here is on ‘easily blamed.’ Given the paucity of thought in this cohort, they don't spew elaborate critiques or conspiracy theories about their targets. Single word pejoratives are about all they can manage. These are endlessly barked with all the logic and zeal of a dog chasing its tail. “Socialist.” “Communist.” “Terrorist.” “French.” Blah blah blah. Not one in a hundred in these choirs of calumny could give you anything approaching a dictionary definition of the words they’re shrieking.
So why then don’t they match their mouthings to their mentalities and simply insult people whose politics they don’t like with banal billingsgate like “jerks,” “a-holes,” or the ever popular “your mother!”
Because it’s about politics and they want to sound smart. If you call someone a socialist, it implies that you know what the word means. In other words, the right wing is intellectually pretentious. Not enough, of course, to crack a book, but at least enough to try to divert from the evidence of flatlining brain waves.
The world is a complex place full of simple people. We Americans are no dumber than most. What makes us unique is that we have reserved a large slice of our political discourse for free use by these head bangers, lip bubblers and noddies.
Whenever I happen to ingest the yahoospeak of Cheney, Limbaugh, Gingrich, Hannity, etc., what turns me off is not their lies or cruelty but their inanity. Just inhale the inimitable imbecility of the oft repeated assertion by GOP chairman Michael Steele that the government has never created a single job. Imagine hearing that while delivering the U.S. Mail, squatting in a bunker in Iraq, or chasing a nubile page around your congressional office?
Not only are we are bombarded by such dog do, but there’s no one apart from Bill Maher, John Stewart, Steven Colbert and a precious few others to mock the shit it is. Nothing demeans the deservedly dying news media as much as the license and sponsorship it has reserved for the lowest of the low and the basest of the base.
Of course, there's method behind this mindlessness. The dumb and docile are easy to bamboozle. We would have probably long since had a decent health scheme if the word "Canada" didn't connote communism among the clueless.
Excuse me now, I have to go back to watching an in-depth Judy Woodruff interview with Jughead on The News Hour.
Perversely attacking the virtues rather than the vulnerabilities of an opponent is considered to be a Karl Rove speciality. So if Karl was backing Jughead against Einstein, the latter would be mocked as a moron.
This rancid ruse worked wonderfully in depicting war hero John Kerry as a quivering clone of the cowardly lion. It’s being rolled out again to torpedo the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
The good judge topped her class at Princeton and Yale Law. No high court designee in the last century has served as much time on the bench. And no one has ever accused her of prejudice in her decisions or deportment. So naturally the Rovistas have indicted her for stupidity, inexperience and racism.
The success of this strategy is based on the existence of a cretin constituency in America. This consists of millions of people eager to entertain nonsense and stupid enough to take it seriously. It’s an audience that craves simple and malevolent accounts of events that can be easily blamed on pre-selected scapegoats.
The emphasis here is on ‘easily blamed.’ Given the paucity of thought in this cohort, they don't spew elaborate critiques or conspiracy theories about their targets. Single word pejoratives are about all they can manage. These are endlessly barked with all the logic and zeal of a dog chasing its tail. “Socialist.” “Communist.” “Terrorist.” “French.” Blah blah blah. Not one in a hundred in these choirs of calumny could give you anything approaching a dictionary definition of the words they’re shrieking.
So why then don’t they match their mouthings to their mentalities and simply insult people whose politics they don’t like with banal billingsgate like “jerks,” “a-holes,” or the ever popular “your mother!”
Because it’s about politics and they want to sound smart. If you call someone a socialist, it implies that you know what the word means. In other words, the right wing is intellectually pretentious. Not enough, of course, to crack a book, but at least enough to try to divert from the evidence of flatlining brain waves.
The world is a complex place full of simple people. We Americans are no dumber than most. What makes us unique is that we have reserved a large slice of our political discourse for free use by these head bangers, lip bubblers and noddies.
Whenever I happen to ingest the yahoospeak of Cheney, Limbaugh, Gingrich, Hannity, etc., what turns me off is not their lies or cruelty but their inanity. Just inhale the inimitable imbecility of the oft repeated assertion by GOP chairman Michael Steele that the government has never created a single job. Imagine hearing that while delivering the U.S. Mail, squatting in a bunker in Iraq, or chasing a nubile page around your congressional office?
Not only are we are bombarded by such dog do, but there’s no one apart from Bill Maher, John Stewart, Steven Colbert and a precious few others to mock the shit it is. Nothing demeans the deservedly dying news media as much as the license and sponsorship it has reserved for the lowest of the low and the basest of the base.
Of course, there's method behind this mindlessness. The dumb and docile are easy to bamboozle. We would have probably long since had a decent health scheme if the word "Canada" didn't connote communism among the clueless.
Excuse me now, I have to go back to watching an in-depth Judy Woodruff interview with Jughead on The News Hour.
Monday, May 25, 2009
It's a Fabulist Love Story
Mendacious Media Cuddles
With Deceitful Dick
It’s nasty work and no one has to do it, so let’s all drop trou and collectively moon the god awful pack of media satraps and stenos who have subjected us to the preposturies of Dick Cheney for the last few weeks.
At the least, his ample appearances give the lie to the old adage that you can’t bullshit a bullshitter. Indeed you can--and all the way down the garden path from Fox News to NPR and back again.
These Cheney deceitathons conjure up Baron Munchausen and Pinocchio doing the dozens on each other. Conventional wisdom characterizes them as attacks on Obama, a bid for yahoo leadership, an effort to regain/maintain control of national security policies, or defenses in anticipation of Cheney being indicted. Whatever, they amount to joint assaults on logic, reason and mental health by Cheney and his media castrati enablers.
The only thing interesting about these shows is how at variance they are with the zeitgeist. Cheney now rates with Darth Vader, Dracula and the devil himself in the almanac of evil. He’s on his way to replacing witches on Holloween costumes. Comic Wanda Sykes told the White House press dinner that she counseled her kids that if two cars pulled up to their school and Dick Cheney was in one, they should go instead with the scary-looking stranger. So the reporters and pundits who take him seriously are only advertising their remove from the rest of us.
Either they don’t know or they don’t care. The sacred duty of the American mainstream media is to give credibility to the incredible by repeating the lies of our rulers. They never stop assuring us that the emperor has all his clothes on even when he's nakedly screwing us.
If there are any among the the media who cling to a residual shred of reality, they could easily hold up a crucifix to Cheney and send him back to his crypt in the nether world simply by posing the following questions to him:
1. For those of us who believe that the Bush administration started on January 20 and not September 11, 2001, wouldn’t it be fair to apportion a good deal of blame for 9/11 on those who ignored 52 warnings and treated terrorism as a minor matter?
2. According to you, we have been winning the Iraq war for more than twice as long as it took to win the second world war. How many more years--or decades--do you expect the lethal victory parade to last?
3. If torture works, it’s reasonable to assume that one of your waterboardees would have given up Osama bin Laden by now. So where is he?
Any such questions would signify a return of journalism, which we as all know is currently undergoing rendition at an unknown location.
With Deceitful Dick
It’s nasty work and no one has to do it, so let’s all drop trou and collectively moon the god awful pack of media satraps and stenos who have subjected us to the preposturies of Dick Cheney for the last few weeks.
At the least, his ample appearances give the lie to the old adage that you can’t bullshit a bullshitter. Indeed you can--and all the way down the garden path from Fox News to NPR and back again.
These Cheney deceitathons conjure up Baron Munchausen and Pinocchio doing the dozens on each other. Conventional wisdom characterizes them as attacks on Obama, a bid for yahoo leadership, an effort to regain/maintain control of national security policies, or defenses in anticipation of Cheney being indicted. Whatever, they amount to joint assaults on logic, reason and mental health by Cheney and his media castrati enablers.
The only thing interesting about these shows is how at variance they are with the zeitgeist. Cheney now rates with Darth Vader, Dracula and the devil himself in the almanac of evil. He’s on his way to replacing witches on Holloween costumes. Comic Wanda Sykes told the White House press dinner that she counseled her kids that if two cars pulled up to their school and Dick Cheney was in one, they should go instead with the scary-looking stranger. So the reporters and pundits who take him seriously are only advertising their remove from the rest of us.
Either they don’t know or they don’t care. The sacred duty of the American mainstream media is to give credibility to the incredible by repeating the lies of our rulers. They never stop assuring us that the emperor has all his clothes on even when he's nakedly screwing us.
If there are any among the the media who cling to a residual shred of reality, they could easily hold up a crucifix to Cheney and send him back to his crypt in the nether world simply by posing the following questions to him:
1. For those of us who believe that the Bush administration started on January 20 and not September 11, 2001, wouldn’t it be fair to apportion a good deal of blame for 9/11 on those who ignored 52 warnings and treated terrorism as a minor matter?
2. According to you, we have been winning the Iraq war for more than twice as long as it took to win the second world war. How many more years--or decades--do you expect the lethal victory parade to last?
3. If torture works, it’s reasonable to assume that one of your waterboardees would have given up Osama bin Laden by now. So where is he?
Any such questions would signify a return of journalism, which we as all know is currently undergoing rendition at an unknown location.
Friday, May 22, 2009
We Weren't Alway Terrorized
You Choose: Cowardly or Gutless?
It’s amazing how far our leaders have slithered down the scale of human dignity since I was a little kid in World War II.
Our Astoria neighbor Sal Domenico came home from the service brimming with war stories--though not quite heroic tales of combat. He supervised the repair of army trucks in Texas. His workers were German and Italian prisoners. “Weren’t you scared of them, Sal,” I asked? “Nah,” he said, “they were regular guys. If one of them got out of line, I whacked him with a stilson wrench.”
Converted luxury liners ferried millions of our troops to battle in Europe. On the way back, they carried the losers in those battles--hundreds of thousands of German, Italian and Austrian POWs. When Rommel’s elite Afrika Corps surrendered en masse, its ranks were sent to sit out the war here in America. Another huge bunch came in after D Day. In all, we took in four hundred thousand prisoners--lots of them nasty and murderous Nazi fanatics--by V.E. Day.
High school gyms, fairgrounds and race tracks, including Santa Anita in LA, were turned into prison camps. Some POWs lived on farms, others in rooming houses. They worked in our factories and fields. They did KP for our troops. They fixed our trucks in Texas, occasionally smarting from one of Sal’s love taps. In a notorious incident in Mississippi, black American soldiers were obliged to leave a train to make way for white German POWs because of Jim Crow law.
In any event, we weren’t afraid of the Nazis; they were afraid of us.
How low we’ve sunk since then. Just about the whole U.S. Senate (90 to 6) voted against closing the Gitmo gulag because of their shamelessly slobbering fear of its couple of hundred tortured and broken survivors. They fretted that jihadist fanatics would outfox us, somehow slip out of our grasp and repeat 9/11 outrages from Fresno to Framingham. Apparently, that's how much they think of our antiterrorism efforts.
Pathetic!
(For a a full and fascinating history of the above check out Nazi Prisoners of War in America by Arnold Krammer)
It’s amazing how far our leaders have slithered down the scale of human dignity since I was a little kid in World War II.
Our Astoria neighbor Sal Domenico came home from the service brimming with war stories--though not quite heroic tales of combat. He supervised the repair of army trucks in Texas. His workers were German and Italian prisoners. “Weren’t you scared of them, Sal,” I asked? “Nah,” he said, “they were regular guys. If one of them got out of line, I whacked him with a stilson wrench.”
Converted luxury liners ferried millions of our troops to battle in Europe. On the way back, they carried the losers in those battles--hundreds of thousands of German, Italian and Austrian POWs. When Rommel’s elite Afrika Corps surrendered en masse, its ranks were sent to sit out the war here in America. Another huge bunch came in after D Day. In all, we took in four hundred thousand prisoners--lots of them nasty and murderous Nazi fanatics--by V.E. Day.
High school gyms, fairgrounds and race tracks, including Santa Anita in LA, were turned into prison camps. Some POWs lived on farms, others in rooming houses. They worked in our factories and fields. They did KP for our troops. They fixed our trucks in Texas, occasionally smarting from one of Sal’s love taps. In a notorious incident in Mississippi, black American soldiers were obliged to leave a train to make way for white German POWs because of Jim Crow law.
In any event, we weren’t afraid of the Nazis; they were afraid of us.
How low we’ve sunk since then. Just about the whole U.S. Senate (90 to 6) voted against closing the Gitmo gulag because of their shamelessly slobbering fear of its couple of hundred tortured and broken survivors. They fretted that jihadist fanatics would outfox us, somehow slip out of our grasp and repeat 9/11 outrages from Fresno to Framingham. Apparently, that's how much they think of our antiterrorism efforts.
Pathetic!
(For a a full and fascinating history of the above check out Nazi Prisoners of War in America by Arnold Krammer)
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
How We Got There
The Gitmo Gulag
There’s a high school not far from me in the old silverware city of Meriden, Connecticut, named for a powerful U.S. senator who is far more famous (infamous, really) in Cuba than in his home state. His name is Orville Platt and he served from 1879 to 1905. He was a classic reactionary, anti-labor and pro-imperialist. Cubans learn about him in school because he sponsored the Platt Amendment, which subjugated their country and robbed them of one of the best natural harbors in the Caribbean.
The 1901 Platt Amendment settled the Cuban part of the Spanish-American War in which we gobbled up Spain’s fading empire and added Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam to our rising one. For various economic reasons, we decided not to rule Cuba as a pure colony like the others. Rather, we granted the Cubans nominal independence. But Platt made certain that they had to get Washington’s okay for anything more important than street sweeping and dog catching.
Article VII of the amendment declared that “Cuba will sell or lease to the U.S. lands necessary for coaling or naval stations, and for no other purpose” The U.S. offered payment of $2,000 a year in gold. Outraged and humiliated, the Cuban congress repeatedly rejected what amounted to their serfage to a nation claiming to have liberated them. But their ballots were no match for the bullets of the U.S. occupation troops. They eventually gave in to an offer they couldn’t refuse.
In 1934, the liberal Franklin D. Roosevelt launched the Good Neighbor Policy. Henceforth we would at least pretend to treat the nations of Latin America as sovereign rather than subservient. FDR's gesture to Havana was to eliminate the provisions of Platt allowing the U.S. to interfere in Cuba’s internal affairs and to raise rent payments for Gitmo to $4,000 a year..
When he came to power in 1959, Fidel Castro quickly demanded the return of Guantanamo. The U.S. refused, citing the provision in the Platt Amendment that both parties must agree to any change in its status. In other words, Guantanamo was subject to U.S. writ regardless of the will and laws of its host country. What truer example of imperialist reality could you get?
Without the military strength to take back the base the same way the U.S. seized it, Castro settled for stopping Cubans from working there and refusing to cash the rent checks. The issue hung fire for the next half century.
In the meanwhile, the U.S. treated Platt as toilet paper. It blatantly violated the “no other purpose” provision. Gitmo was transformed into a combination naval base, air field, beach resort, shopping center, spy den and prison camp. It served as an HQ for Washington’s 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and a hangout for CIA types looking to kill Castro and overthrow the revolution. It housed thousands of Cuban refugees. And then, with the Iraq war, it become the world’s most notorious gulag. That word is defined by Amnesty International as a place where those who enter have no rights and can simply disappear.
The Bushies believed themselves clever for using Cuban territory to get away with violating U.S. laws to fight terrorism. But the world viewed it another way. They saw a ruthless empire using stolen territory to torture and kill those who resisted its domination. The few images released from Gitmo, mostly of broken creatures being dragged from cage to cage by hulking warders, only made things worse.
An image-conscious Obama administration came into office promising to “shut down” Guantanamo. It’s assumed this means closing the gulag and scattering its human dregs amongst our allies. Lately, Washington has been waffling on even this initiative.
As far as I know, no one of influence on this side of the Florida Straits has suggested that we really “shut down” Gitmo, lock, stock and barrel, and return it to its rightful owners. Those of you who recall the yahoo outrage at Jimmy Carter’s transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama (“We stole it fair and square,” they yelled) can anticipate ten times the accusations of treason should Obama even consider such a course.
So, if the Obamists do prove serious, Gitmo will at least stop being a symbol of nightmarish torture and revert to being example of daylight robbery.
There’s a high school not far from me in the old silverware city of Meriden, Connecticut, named for a powerful U.S. senator who is far more famous (infamous, really) in Cuba than in his home state. His name is Orville Platt and he served from 1879 to 1905. He was a classic reactionary, anti-labor and pro-imperialist. Cubans learn about him in school because he sponsored the Platt Amendment, which subjugated their country and robbed them of one of the best natural harbors in the Caribbean.
The 1901 Platt Amendment settled the Cuban part of the Spanish-American War in which we gobbled up Spain’s fading empire and added Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam to our rising one. For various economic reasons, we decided not to rule Cuba as a pure colony like the others. Rather, we granted the Cubans nominal independence. But Platt made certain that they had to get Washington’s okay for anything more important than street sweeping and dog catching.
Article VII of the amendment declared that “Cuba will sell or lease to the U.S. lands necessary for coaling or naval stations, and for no other purpose” The U.S. offered payment of $2,000 a year in gold. Outraged and humiliated, the Cuban congress repeatedly rejected what amounted to their serfage to a nation claiming to have liberated them. But their ballots were no match for the bullets of the U.S. occupation troops. They eventually gave in to an offer they couldn’t refuse.
In 1934, the liberal Franklin D. Roosevelt launched the Good Neighbor Policy. Henceforth we would at least pretend to treat the nations of Latin America as sovereign rather than subservient. FDR's gesture to Havana was to eliminate the provisions of Platt allowing the U.S. to interfere in Cuba’s internal affairs and to raise rent payments for Gitmo to $4,000 a year..
When he came to power in 1959, Fidel Castro quickly demanded the return of Guantanamo. The U.S. refused, citing the provision in the Platt Amendment that both parties must agree to any change in its status. In other words, Guantanamo was subject to U.S. writ regardless of the will and laws of its host country. What truer example of imperialist reality could you get?
Without the military strength to take back the base the same way the U.S. seized it, Castro settled for stopping Cubans from working there and refusing to cash the rent checks. The issue hung fire for the next half century.
In the meanwhile, the U.S. treated Platt as toilet paper. It blatantly violated the “no other purpose” provision. Gitmo was transformed into a combination naval base, air field, beach resort, shopping center, spy den and prison camp. It served as an HQ for Washington’s 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and a hangout for CIA types looking to kill Castro and overthrow the revolution. It housed thousands of Cuban refugees. And then, with the Iraq war, it become the world’s most notorious gulag. That word is defined by Amnesty International as a place where those who enter have no rights and can simply disappear.
The Bushies believed themselves clever for using Cuban territory to get away with violating U.S. laws to fight terrorism. But the world viewed it another way. They saw a ruthless empire using stolen territory to torture and kill those who resisted its domination. The few images released from Gitmo, mostly of broken creatures being dragged from cage to cage by hulking warders, only made things worse.
An image-conscious Obama administration came into office promising to “shut down” Guantanamo. It’s assumed this means closing the gulag and scattering its human dregs amongst our allies. Lately, Washington has been waffling on even this initiative.
As far as I know, no one of influence on this side of the Florida Straits has suggested that we really “shut down” Gitmo, lock, stock and barrel, and return it to its rightful owners. Those of you who recall the yahoo outrage at Jimmy Carter’s transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama (“We stole it fair and square,” they yelled) can anticipate ten times the accusations of treason should Obama even consider such a course.
So, if the Obamists do prove serious, Gitmo will at least stop being a symbol of nightmarish torture and revert to being example of daylight robbery.
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